Flash Flood (26 page)

He walked her to the car and held her, kissed her. She whispered, “I can't say the things to you that I want to say. Not now, not yet.”

“I know.”

“It's like too much has happened. Eric, Billy Roland….”

“It'll take time.”

She nodded. “You understand my wanting to get away?”

“Yes.”

“I can't forgive Eric. I'm working on it, but I'm still angry about so much. I don't want that anger to get in the way of our…future.”

He had thought she was going to say something else. But it was too soon to add the “love” word. They both knew that.

“Time. Just give it time,” he said instead.

“He caused Billy Roland's death.”

“In the name of survival. Eric's own. We probably can't say what we'd do in the same position.”

She smiled. “I like your sense of fairness.”

“Anything else on that list?” He was teasing, wanted to keep her smiling. And then he kissed her, opened the car door, and stood back. Before temptation made him do anything else.

“I think this is the time I ask you to drop me a postcard now and then.”

“I've heard phone calls get through.”

He watched until the Benz turned onto the county road and was out of sight, and fought the tremendous sense of loss that washed over him, threatened to engulf him. For Elaine? No. He believed that they would have a chance to put something together someday. But for Billy Roland, there were no chances left to exonerate—no chances left to prove that Dan hadn't sold him out.

***

Monday morning came too soon. Elaine was already on her way to Albuquerque to catch the flight to New York. He had picked up Simon from Elaine's back yard and taken him to Carolyn's. Good old Sis offered to puppy-sit. It would cost him. But he didn't know in what way yet. He was still more or less headquartered at the Double Horseshoe. He'd work out there during the day, but couldn't bring himself to spend the night. Too many memories, too fresh. He needed to finish up and turn over copies of the paperwork, the inventory with a history of losses to the University, and make sure there wouldn't be any pending claims for United L & C. Hank was helping; it would go quickly.

Roger and crew barely waited for the funeral to end before combing the ranch. And that meant every foot of it. He was even sending out riders to check stock tanks. It would be useless. Dan could tell him that, and had, but it fell on deaf ears. Finding a trace of crack in the clinic after the fire made him crazed.

Yet, in front of Dan on the desk in his office at Roswell's branch of United Life and Casualty was proof. Big-time proof that Eric Linden hadn't fabricated his story about meeting with a lawyer seven years ago. A lawyer who supposedly promised him a new life. Someone signing his name Jonathan James Reynolds but whose signature matched, even to Dan's untrained eye, the squiggles and backward slant of one Juan Jose Rodriguez.

He had made copies of all three samples, then cut out the signatures so that he could align them, paste them on a three by five card and study them: the fax from Chicago containing J.J.'s signature on the deposition; the traced copy from the contract offered to Eric; and last the signature of the lawyer in Dallas. The one that didn't match. The true signature of Jonathan James Reynolds.

Now what? For starters he needed to get an expert to agree with his suspicions, testify, if need be in court, that the two top signatures were done by the same individual. He called Eastern New Mexico University and found out they offered an Associate of Arts in Criminal Law. Yes, the professor in charge of the department also did work for a crime lab out of Albuquerque and one of his specialties was signature verification. Dan made an appointment to see him at two.

Dan thought that all small college towns had a charm that emanated from old cut stone facades on buildings with fake turrets. But that's where it stopped. The turn of the century architecture also seemed like “much ado about nothing,” a strange posturing that made ponderous buildings sit in the center of vacant fields until decades later civilization reached that edge of town. By then, ugly flat-roofed, fifties-style, cement block barracks cluttered the once austere grounds that properly showed off the original three- or four-story edifices. A good example was Beeman Hall.

Dan parked as close as he could to the back of the building in a space marked visitor, locked the car, walked down a ramp to the basement, pushed open a windowless steel door, and promptly sneezed about a half dozen times. Musty. Unopened windows, and a below ground dampness that added up to mold—about a century of it, Dan thought. He hoped he wouldn't be there too long.

Professor Lang was in the first office on the right, next to the elevators. A small man, wisps of graying hair combed over a very bald crown, sat on a stool in front of a drafting table.

“Come in. Let me finish up here, only take a minute.”

Dan found a chair that wasn't covered with papers and sat. The office was tiny but efficient. Outside light was blocked by blackened windows but various lamps were clamped to the edges of the desk and drafting table. A workroom, not just an office, Dan decided. Professor Lang was busy with a magnifying glass that hung from a cord around his neck. He leaned close to a document tacked to the board. As Dan watched, he pulled a larger magnifying glass with self-contained light swinging across the table from where it was fastened to the opposite corner.

“Yes. Much more like it.” Seeming satisfied, he switched off the lamp and turned to Dan. “Dan Mahoney, I presume. A signature verification, isn't it?”

Dan handed him the three by five card, and Professor Lang held it out at arm's length, studied it, then tacked it to the drafting table. He turned on a bank of overhead lights by pressing a button on a side panel of assorted knobs and switches anchored to the table and hunched forward using the glass around his neck to inspect each letter of each signature. Sometimes he stopped to make a note of something on a yellow tablet to his right.

“Uh huh. Interesting.”

“Problem?” Dan wasn't certain he was supposed to comment but thought he'd try it.

“Open Os.”

“Is that bad?”

“Your guy here isn't very self-confident. Probably wasn't breast fed.” Professor Lang paused to enjoy his own humor. “And here? See this?” He motioned Dan to bend over the table. “These little loops, here and here, definite indications of insecurity.”

Dan wasn't necessarily interested in a personality profile. But he supposed graphoanalysis was a natural offshoot of working with handwriting. And, it wasn't like he didn't believe in it. Next the professor measured the letters, then width and height of the entire signature.

“Don't like to say this but your guy here isn't too nice.”

“What do you mean?”

“Probably wouldn't bat an eye at a little blackmail.”

“That sounds about right.”

“Unlike the real Mr. Reynolds. Bottom signature is from an entirely different type of person. Boy next door, upstanding citizen.”

“So you're saying that the same man signed the top two?” Dan wanted to keep him on track. This was the only thing Dan had come to find out.

“Absolutely.”

“Certain enough to say so in court?”

“No problem. Must have thought he'd never get caught, had some assurance of it, because this is sloppy work.”

On the way back to Roswell, Dan contemplated his next move. A couple things came to mind. Talk to Judge Cyrus and Phillip to get a little background on J.J., maybe even fill them in on what he'd found out so far, what he suspected happened. The drawback would be spilling the beans about Eric. And he wasn't quite ready to do that. Not just yet.

That left one thing—probably what appealed to him most in the first place—he knew before the outskirts of town that he would confront J.J. himself. Screw tipping his hand to others. He wanted to see the reaction on J.J.'s face. Wanted to be there when a ghost from the past came back to haunt.

***

J.J.'s office was at one end of a strip shopping center on the west side of Roswell. A Furr's Super Market, Sherwin-Williams paint store, Goodwill center, the Praying Hands Bookstore, Walgreen's drug store, and Juan Jose Rodriguez, Attorney at Law, in that order, lined up to face the parking lot. Which in this case was more than two acres of asphalt.

Dan pulled in beside a red Ferrari. Somehow he knew he wouldn't have to ask who it belonged to. Was this a big horse-powered clue right under his nose? Took some bucks to own one.

The receptionist took his name and buzzed an office in the back, presumably J.J.'s. She had indicated that he was in.

“May I tell him what this is concerning?”

“Estate of Billy Roland Eklund.”

That wasn't exactly a lie, Dan told himself, but it would have been more honest to say the reputation of Billy Roland Eklund.

“He'll be with you in a minute. You know, it's so much easier for all of us, and you can save yourself some time by calling ahead. Counselor Rodriguez works mainly from appointments.”

Just a teeny bit of a snotty overtone, Dan thought as he watched the young Hispanic woman turn back to her keyboard. An attitude probably works with the locals. A buzzer sounded from an adjoining room and the young woman rose, pulled down her mini skirt, and teetered on four-inch spikes toward a hallway.

The rear view wasn't bad. The woman had a fantastic body once you got your attention away from the hair falling almost to her waist, permed into long ringlets and ink black, bangs another six inches above her forehead. Dan chose a chair by the window and picked up a magazine.

The office was tastefully done. A couple original bronzes accented by pedestals obviously built for them. Oils, three end-of-the-trail roundup-type scenes. Dan wasn't familiar with the artist. But they were good, collector quality originals. The furniture was wood and leather, ivory leather with matching ottomans, the coffee table a tree trunk holding a kidney shaped piece of beveled glass. Not cheap. Not one thing. Not even the receptionist, probably.

“Counselor Rodriguez will see you now.”

“Mr. Mahoney, isn't it?” J.J. stood in the hall doorway.

Dan wondered why the formalities. J.J. knew perfectly well who he was. The snottiness of the receptionist seemed mirrored in the boss. “Is this something we can handle here? I'm very busy right at the moment.”

“Probably not. I think you'll want a little privacy for our discussion.” That caught his interest.

“Very well. Hold my calls.” J.J. turned on his heel and headed down the hall.

A conference room and small library on the west faced two offices across the hall; J.J.'s office was at the back, expansive, containing more pricey oils and sculpture and leather sofas.

J.J. waved at a chair across from his desk and Dan sat down. He thought J.J. looked thin and drawn.

“May I offer my condolences. I believe you had a close working relationship with Mr. Eklund?” Dan began.

“It's been a terrible shock. But he was infirm. The headaches…. Is there something I can help you with?” There was an edge to J.J.'s voice.

“You can explain this. An expert will testify that the top two were done by the same man.” Dan placed the three by five card carefully in front of J.J., and standing over him saw clearly what happened next. Before he could check the gesture, Juan Jose Rodriguez had started to cross himself.

“I don't understand.”

“I think you do. But let me refresh your memory. About seven years ago, a lawyer matching your description met with Eric Linden in a jail in El Paso. The promise of two million dollars for taking a fall was guaranteed by the document that this signature was lifted from.”

J.J. didn't say anything, just absently ran his finger over the copies of the signatures. But sweat, just a fine misting of perspiration formed on his forehead at the hairline.

“You think this is my signature?” He pointed to the top Jonathan James Reynolds.

“I know you posed as this Mr. Reynolds.”

J.J. was now chewing on his bottom lip, trying to think fast, come up with some plan, Dan thought.

“How do you know this?”

“Eyewitness.”

More chewing on the lip. “So, why would I do it? Pretend to be someone else? Another lawyer, didn't you say?”

He's checking on what I know, Dan decided. “Because it was safer. You probably knew then that Mr. Linden would never confront you, would somehow be ‘taken care of' when he got out. So, the monthly calls, verifications as to how the two million was doing, would never be questioned.” Dan leaned both hands on the desk. “Eric Linden was never going to know that the two million wasn't there—hadn't ever been there in Midland Savings and Loan, because he was going to have a little accident before he got to town. Luckily for you guys, a flash flood took care of things.”

This last was said just inches from J.J.'s face and the lawyer nervously looked up, briefly made eye contact, then pushed back from the desk and stood.

“Get out.”

“Why? I don't think we're finished here, do you?” Dan sat back down. This seemed to make J.J. more nervous, one to threaten but not follow through, Dan hoped as he saw him open a desk drawer, then close it. Had Dan thought he might have a gun?

Probably, or he wouldn't have his tucked in his belt, hidden by his jacket.

“Firearms aren't the answer.” Dan pulled out his revolver and placed it on the desk in front of him. He saw J.J.'s eyes dart from the gun to the drawer that he'd just closed.

“I wouldn't even think it, if I were you.”

Suddenly, as if all the starch had been removed from his body, J.J. slumped back down in his desk chair, his head in his hands. His breathing seemed labored but Dan let him take his time, collect himself. He wasn't in a hurry.

“I was working for Mr. Eklund. I had no idea that the money wouldn't be waiting.” He said it so low that Dan asked him to repeat himself.