Uncovering Secrets: The Third Novel in the Rosemont Series (20 page)

“Oh,
come on, Nicole. You can do it. Just one more game?”

Susan
walked around the table and crouched down to where Nicole was sitting. “Do you
need a rest, sweetie? Do you want to stay with me and help with the prizes
while your sister goes with my nieces?” Susan turned to Marissa. “Would that be
all right with you? She’ll be safe with me, and I’ll be right here the whole
time.”

Marissa
looked at her sister. “Will you stay with the nice lady?” Nicole nodded almost
imperceptibly. Marissa needed no further confirmation. She planted a quick kiss
on her sister’s head and tore after Sophie and Sarah.

***

Frank Haynes pulled his Mercedes sedan into the familiar
berm of the road that ran below Rosemont. He rolled his windows down to let the
breeze blow through the car as he sat and spied on the sea of activity on the
back lawn. The jumbled voices of the crowd were pierced by an occasional cheer
and round of applause. He could almost make out the words that George Holmes
was delivering through that megaphone. Would he allow this carnival to continue
if he were the owner of Rosemont? He didn’t think so.

Haynes
checked his Rolex. Time to make his entrance.

Parking
by the front door, he looked up to examine the façade of Rosemont. All of this
should be his. He fought the bile rising in his throat and skirted the house to
enter the back lawn. He paused at the edge of the house and forced his features
into a pleasant expression.

Haynes
shook hands as he made his way to George Holmes, the carnival’s de facto master
of ceremonies. Holmes handed the megaphone to Haynes and said, “Try not to take
all the credit this year, will you, Frank?”

Haynes
glared at him as he grabbed the megaphone. “Citizens of Westbury,” Haynes
intoned, “we’ve had a beautiful day again at Rosemont, haven’t we? Have you all
had fun?” He was greeted with whistles and cheers in response. Haynes scanned
the crowd and stopped when he spied the reporter from the
Westbury Gazette
.

“Mayor
Martin,” he called. “Where are you, Maggie? Let’s get her up here to show our
appreciation, shall we?” An enthusiastic round of applause spread through the
crowd.

Joan
Torres went to the admission table where Maggie was tallying the gate receipts
with Tim Knudsen and snagged her by the arm. “You’re being summoned,” she
leaned in to whisper in Maggie’s ear. “Looks like he’s taking the high road
this year and giving you the recognition you deserve.”

“Don’t
believe it for a minute,” Maggie whispered back. “He’s up to something.” She
joined Frank Haynes as he yelled, “Another round of applause for our own Mayor
Maggie Martin,” and posed with her for the newspaper’s photographer.

Maggie
extricated herself as soon as the picture was taken and moved off to the side.

“I
now have the distinct pleasure of doing one of my favorite duties on behalf of
Haynes Enterprises,” he continued. “Giving things away! This year has been
another banner year for my company. To thank all of you for your support, we’re
giving away more prizes than ever.” He paused and motioned for applause. “We’ve
got a flat screen television, a tablet, an e-reader, and both a boy’s and a
girl’s bike.” He pointed to the table behind him where the prizes were displayed.

“Does
everyone have their raffle tickets out? Who wants to draw the winners for us?”
He scanned the crowd and his eyes fell on David Wheeler. “How about David
Wheeler, everyone? He was kind enough to come out today with his therapy dog,
Dodger. They’re right over there,” he said pointing to the boy who was now
trying to make himself invisible.

“Come
on, David,” John Allen called and escorted the boy to the fish bowl on the
prize table. He took Dodger from David and went to stand with Maggie.

“Haynes
knows how to work a crowd when he wants to, doesn’t he?” he said softly.

“That’s
an understatement. I can’t tell when he’s being genuine. I’m firmly convinced
he’s a snake—like when he called me up there for applause. He just wanted
our picture in the paper together. But then he’s nice to David, and I believe
he really means it.” She sighed. “You never know with Frank.”

They
turned back to the scene unfolding in front of them as David Wheeler drew the
winning tickets and Frank Haynes read the numbers. After all the winners had
been announced, the crowd began to disperse.

“Looks
like another successful fundraiser at Rosemont,” John said. “I’m going to help
the winners carry that television to their car.”

Maggie
nodded. She weaved through the crowd, searching for Frank Haynes, and found him
peering into the French doors to the library.

“Looking
for something, Frank?” she said as he started and turned to her with an
unsettling expression of longing.

He
cleared his throat. “I was remembering that time I rescued you from the attic.”
He turned to the door and pointed. “I was wondering if this was the door I
unlocked to get in.”

Maggie
frowned. “This door doesn’t have an exterior lock. You came in through the
kitchen door—on the other side of the house. Don’t you remember?”

“Now
that you mention it, yes.” He slapped his hand on his pants pocket and withdrew
the keys to his car. “I’d better be going. I have another engagement,” he lied.

Maggie
intended to mention the odd encounter to John but the scene slipped from her
mind as Rosemont was once more engrossed in the kind of controlled chaos that
marks a circus breaking camp. She and Tim Knudsen totaled the day’s donations
while the others restored order to the back lawn. It was suppertime when
everything was back in place, and Tim Knudsen announced that they’d almost
doubled the prior year’s take, raising twenty thousand dollars for the pension
fund.

Alex
Scanlon went into the kitchen and returned with three bottles of champagne and
a stack of plastic glasses. “I think we deserve to toast ourselves, don’t you?”

Mike
uncorked the bottles, and Marc and Susan passed the glasses to the assembled
workers. “To another successful Rosemont Easter carnival, to our beloved
Westbury and our esteemed Mayor Martin,” Alex declared. Maggie flushed as the
group raised their glasses to a chorus of “Here, here.”

It
wasn’t until she laid her exhausted head on her pillow at midnight that she
remembered the strange encounter with Frank Haynes. She’d tell John about it
the next day at brunch, she thought as sleep overtook her.

***

Easter was a lazy day at Rosemont. Maggie had invited
Alex and Marc, the Torreses, Judy Young, the Holmes, the Knudsens, and the
Vaughns to drop by in the afternoon. The picture-perfect weather of the preceding
week was replaced by a cold front bringing with it a misty drizzle. Even the
girls were still worn out from the day before and were content to lay on the
rug and listen to the adults chat while Marc played the piano in the
conservatory.

The
Torreses were the last to leave in the late afternoon. Amy declared that it was
time for them to pack up and get ready for their flight in the morning. Susan
offered to pick up a pizza from Tomascino’s for dinner. Alex and Marc followed
her to the door. “The next time we’ll see you, it’ll be at the wedding,” Alex
said. “You’d better bring that brother of mine with you. I know he’s studying
for his medical boards, but enough’s enough.”

Susan
smiled. “You can be sure of it. I called him last night to tell him how much
fun he missed. He really is sorry that he couldn’t make it.”

“I
know,” Alex replied. “Give him my best. Tell him I’m proud of him.”

Maggie
leaned into John. “There’s something I’ve been dying to tell you, but I can’t
for the life of me remember what it is.”

John
laughed. “These last few days would do that to anybody. You know where to find
me when you remember. I’m going to head home now. I’ve got an early surgery in
the morning.”

“Aren’t
you going to stay for dinner? Don’t you want to say goodbye to the kids?”

“I’ve
been eating all afternoon, if you hadn’t noticed, and I’ve already said
goodbye. You should have a few minutes alone with them.”

Maggie
reached up and kissed him firmly on the lips. “I’ll see you tomorrow night,
mister,” she said with a gleam in her eye.

Chapter 48

Alex Scanlon and the mayor were on their way. Forest
Smith opened another energy drink and returned to the “war room” where the boxes
of documents from the offshore banks lined the walls. The meeting with the
mayor was to take place in secret, and the paralegals working on the case were
exhausted and relieved when he told them that they could go home an hour ago.

Forest
peered into the hallway, then locked the door from the inside. It was time to
go through the culled documents he had stashed at the back of a box labeled
Completed/Nothing.

He
carefully loosened the tape holding the box shut and drew out a sheaf of
documents an inch thick. He brought them to the workstation at the end of the
room, switched on the desk lamp, and examined each document carefully.
Satisfied that he had everything he needed, he settled in to wait.

Forest
roused himself from his chair when he heard footsteps in the hallway. He
checked his watch. It was ten fifteen. Alex knocked softly and called his name.

Forest
opened the door, then locked it after Alex and the mayor entered the room. Alex
made the introduction.

“Alex’s
told me you’ve done an incredibly thorough job of dissecting these documents.
I’ve been involved in a number of large fraud cases in my former career as a
forensic accountant. Believe me, I know how tedious and taxing that task is.”

“Thank
you, Mayor Martin,” Forest replied.

“Call
me Maggie, please. Alex said you’ve got documents you want me to see?”

Forest
nodded. “Over here,” he said, leading her to the papers laid out for her
review.

“We
haven’t found much,” Alex interjected. “But what we have implicates Chuck
Delgado and, of course, William Wheeler.”

“That’s
not a surprise,” Maggie said. “We knew about Wheeler, and we all think Delgado
is a crook. But I would have expected others to be involved. What about Ron
Delgado? Or Frank Haynes?”

“Nothing.”
Alex shook his head. “That’s why we wanted you to look at what we’ve found. As
a forensic accountant, you may be able to see things we’ve overlooked.”

Maggie
shook her head. “I don’t know about that, but I’d like to see what you’ve got.”
She took a seat and pulled a stack of papers toward her.

An
hour and forty-five minutes later, she leaned back in her chair and summoned
the two men to look at a series of documents she had spread out before her.

“The
paper trails established by these documents don’t add up. The amounts on the
transfers don’t make sense. I’ll need more time to go through the rest of these
documents, and they’ll have to be examined under magnification, but I’m
convinced that some of these have been altered and redacted,” she said. “Others
have been created for the purpose of implicating Delgado. Only about a third of
them look legitimate.”

Alex
nodded slowly and raked his fingers through his hair. “That’s what we were
afraid of. Somebody wants us to nail Delgado. Wheeler’s dead. I want Chuck
Delgado, but I also want whoever is setting him up.” He turned to Maggie. “How
difficult will it be confirm your suspicions? Will you have to go through all
of this?” He swept his arm around the room.

Maggie
nodded. “I’m afraid so. You know how high the standard of proof is for criminal
convictions. It will take months of work. And that’s if I tackled the project
full time. Which I can’t do.”

Alex
cursed. “We can’t let them get away with this. We’ll just have to work harder.
The paralegals are really talented; maybe you can work with them—show
them what to look for? Supervise their efforts. They can go through all of this
again.”

“Or
maybe one of the bad guys will do something stupid and show their hand? Give us
the evidence we need,” Forest said.

Both
of them turned to him, and he laid out his plan.

***

Forest Smith shivered in his dark car while he waited
for Chuck Delgado to arrive for their rendezvous. He checked the clock on the
dashboard. Delgado was fifteen minutes late. Smith was about to start his
engine when he saw a set of headlights turn the corner and slowly approach.
Delgado parked and waddled to the passenger side of Smith’s car. He pressed the
unlock button, and Delgado slid into the seat beside him.

“Whatcha
got for me?” he asked.

“A
room full of evidence, all pointing to William Wheeler.”

“That’s
good. Just what we expected. Wheeler acted alone,” Delgado began.

Smith
raised his hand. “Save it,” he said. “That’s all there is now. We’ve been
through everything. I found evidence that implicated you.” He paused and turned
to Delgado, taking malicious pleasure in watching the color drain from
Delgado’s florid complexion.

Delgado
licked his lips, “Like what?”

“Papers
signed by you to open bank accounts. Wire transfer forms signed by you. There
isn’t much—just a handful of items—but enough to put you away.”

Delgado
took a well-used handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his forehead. “You find
anything on anybody else?” he asked.

“Nope.
Just William Wheeler and you.”

“Nothing
on Frank Haynes?”

“Nothing.”

Delgado
leaned back in his seat. “That bastard,” he mumbled. He turned to Forest Smith.
“You need to get anything with my name on it outta there, you understand? Do
that, and there’ll be a nice payday for you. Money or pills. You choose.”

“I
don’t want either one.” He reached into the backseat and picked up the plain
brown envelope containing the incriminating documents and handed it to Delgado.
“Here you are. They’re all there.”

Delgado
opened the envelope and began examining the contents. “Shit,” he said. “This is
my signature, but I don’t remember signing these. Somebody must have slipped
them in with something else I was signing.”

“Or
maybe you’re drunk so often that you don’t know what you’re signing,” Smith
said.

“What
the—who the hell do you think you are talking to me like that? You work
for us now, remember? I own you, you rat-bastard lawyer.”

“Not
anymore, you don’t. Our association is now done.”

“What’re
you talking about? We’re done when I say we’re done.”

“On
the contrary, Mr. Delgado. That envelope contains copies. The originals are in
my safe deposit box. And I’ve left letters detailing all of this if anything
happens to me.”

He
reached across Delgado and opened the passenger door.

“I
felt it prudent to insure my personal safety. If you make any further move to
contact me, I’ll make sure that evidence finds its way into Alex Scanlon’s
hands. And you’ll be spending a lot of time in William Wheeler’s old jail
cell.”

“You
think you’re so high and mighty, don’t you? We control all of the oxy in the
tri-state region. Where ya gonna go for your fix now? None of my boys will sell
to you.”

“I’m
doing quite well in my twelve-step program, thank you for asking. Now get the
hell out of my car,” he said, giving Delgado a shove.

Delgado
stumbled and sprawled on the frozen ground. Forest Smith turned on his engine
and spun away, pelting Delgado with a spray of gravel. He punched the familiar
number into his speed dial when he was a mile down the highway.

“Mission
accomplished. He bought it hook, line, and sinker.”

“Well
done,” Alex replied. “Do you think he’s worried?”

“Big
time. Now all we have to do is wait for him to do something stupid.”

“Watch
your back, okay? Don’t take any chances. Letting him think that incriminating
evidence will come out if something happens to you may not protect you. Don’t
forget, somebody out there wants Delgado to go down for this. They might be
more than happy to orchestrate your death so the evidence comes out.”

“Understood,”
Smith said, glancing nervously in his rearview mirror.