Summer People (3 page)

“Not very much. I met him up here when we were in high school. He was a friend of a friend—you know how that goes, especially when you’re in high school. He was a friend of Mel Wallace. I think they went to Cranbrook. Mel’s parents had a cottage in that area. He’d come by and visit Mel. Randy would also come to the parties Mel threw when his parents left him up here alone.” Marc paused and drank some coffee. “And during my first two years at Michigan, he was in a couple of my classes. He lived in one of those old fraternity houses on Washtenaw near Hill Street. I would run into him from time to time or see him walking up South University, usually with an attractive girl.” Marc paused.

“Anything else?”

“I ran into him again after I got back from the Navy. He was still living in the Detroit area. He had finished law school at Wayne or U of D and was working for a group of personal injury lawyers. He told me he was making a mint suing General Motors. He and Mel were still hanging out together. I think I saw him three or four times the summer I got back. A year or two later Mel told me Randy got in trouble with the Michigan Bar over some of his cases.”

“What did he do?”

“I can’t remember the details anymore. It had something to do with a scam his firm was running. They were working with a thoracic surgeon. They would find older or retired workers from the General Motors foundries in Pontiac, Flint, Saginaw, and wherever else GM had foundries. The doctor would check them over and do the necessary diagnostic work to show that they had lung damage caused by their years in the foundry. His firm would bring suit against GM in Wayne County and win every time, splitting with the plaintiffs.”

“So what was the scam?”

“I think they got sloppy. You might want to check on the details. But I think it was so easy that the doctor just started creating evidence without doing the tests, and Randy was going to court knowing that his cases were built on fabricated evidence. They finally got nailed for it. And there was a bit of humor in it.”

“What was that?”

“It all came out just after the Jaycees named him one of Michigan’s Outstanding Young Men.”

“Did he get disbarred?” asked Ray.

“That I don’t know. I know he left the state and moved to Chicago. I remember Mel telling me he bought a seat on the Mercantile Exchange and was making a killing in gold, or wheat, or pork bellies, or something. And I heard that he moved on to junk bonds. Mel said he had made big money for some rich clients and was getting rich himself by churning their accounts.’’

“What’s that?” asked Ray.

“That’s when you move your clients’ money from stock to stock. With each trade you pocket a hefty commission. You can get by with churning in an up market, especially if you do your homework. You can still make money for your client. But it’s not ethical, and you’re really cheating them.”

“Mr. Stockbroker, do I note some disapproval?” asked Ray in a teasing tone.

“Well, most of the people in the business are honest and work hard at serving their customers. Then there are people like Randy and that whole parcel of young kids with the high priced MBAs, the Harvard, Wharton, Stanford, Chicago group—those kids were making more in their second or third year of business than I was making after twenty years. They are so arrogant. They seem to think that they have a birthright to rape the system. It doesn’t bother them that they’re getting rich at someone else’s expense.’’

“Do I detect some anger?”

“Yes, I think he was one of them,” continued Marc. “I’ve seen a lot of them, and I think he was the type. I hate what they’re doing to the business.”

“Who would have wanted him dead?” asked Ray.

“Hard to tell. He might have fucked with the wrong person’s investments. Call Mel, he lives in Grosse Pointe, has his law office in the Ren Cen. I’m sure he can tell you more. He might be able to give you the names of some people who would know about Randy’s recent activities. Tell him you’re a friend of mine.” As he poured some more coffee he asked, “How’s your love life?”

“I’ve been spending a lot of time with a new woman friend, a recent divorcee. She’s our age, pleasant and interesting—got a condo on Lake Michigan. I’ve been staying with her part of the time.

“Living in sin during an election, how does that go down?”

“No problem, bunch of retired people, downstaters, in the condos who love having a police car in the parking lot. They’re all good Republicans. I make a special point of telling them I’ll personally check on their place when they’re away.” Ray finished his coffee, “Well, I better run and get cleaned up and shaved. The TV crew will want an interview live from the scene. Thanks for the coffee. Glad you’re back.”

“When are we going fly fishing?”

“I can probably get loose a couple of hours tomorrow afternoon. The Hexagena hatch should be starting any day now. I’ll bring the flies. I know you don’t have any.”

“When do I get to meet this new lady?”

“Soon. She’s in Seattle now, daughter just had a baby—soon as she gets back. Tell your dog I was here to see him.”

As Ray drove away Grendel wandered out onto the deck, slipped over the side, marked two corners, and climbed back up, wagging his tail and whining for breakfast.

Ray arranged to have Tawny Holden, the victim’s wife, brought back to the scene for questioning. Sue Lawrence was sent to pick her up from the summer home of Larry and Jean James.

Ray got to the cottage half an hour early. He walked out to the beach and next to the stake they had pushed into the sand earlier. He closed his eyes and tried to visualize how the scene would have appeared to the shooter. He could see the porch, bright against the darkness of the stormy night. He visualized the people he had questioned and placed them on the porch. He thought about how the scene would have appeared through a telescopic site. He centered the cross hairs on the victim, felt the rifle kick, and watched the pandemonium on the porch, watched the people run into the cottage, watched the cottage go dark.

Then Ray walked down the beach to the cottages a few hundred yards south of the victim’s. He thought about a car parked in the darkness. He walked along the two-track drives, sand surfaces washed clean and made smooth by the heavy rain. There were no tire tracks, just the impressions from another walker. Ray walked back along the road to the victim’s drive.

He was just about to enter the cottage when Sue came up the drive. He walked to the passenger door and opened it for Tawny Holden. As she emerged Ray was surprised by how tall she was; she had appeared so small and fragile when he had questioned her briefly the first time.

“I don’t want to go back in there,” Tawny said gesturing toward the cottage. “Can we talk at the beach?” They arranged themselves on three metal lawn chairs on the deck next to an old boathouse. Tawny took the chair in the center. Ray sat on one side and Sue on the other. Sue held a pad, preparing to take notes.

Ray asked, “When did you first meet Mr. Holden?” “It was last October. He was on the afternoon flight from O’Hare to LAX. I’m a flight attendant for United. The plane was almost empty. There were only five or six people in the first class section, and most of them slept all the way. He was in an aisle seat in the first row, and I ended up talking with him on and off during the flight. After, he came up to me in front of the terminal. I was waiting for the employees’ van. He asked if I wanted to have dinner. I got my car and came back and picked him up. We went to my place so I could change, then I took him to his hotel so he could check in. We went to a little restaurant on the beach, had a wonderful evening. He was a lot older than anyone I’d ever dated, but he was kind and gentle and funny. He was a nice change from the man I was seeing.” She paused and looked out at the lake. She pulled her feet onto the chair and wrapped her arms around her legs. She was wearing a loose fitting linen suit, the whiteness of the material accented her deep, reddish-brown tan. Her long blond hair, pulled tight with a ribbon at the back of her head, dropped below her shoulders. “Perhaps I was on the rebound,” she continued in an almost trance-like voice. “I’d been involved with a pilot. He was married. I was in love with him, but he wanted out. Randy came along when I needed someone.”

“How much time passed between the time you met him and the time you saw him again?”

She looked out at the water for a long moment, then said, “We were sort of a couple from that evening on. I had expected it to be only a weekend stand, but I started staying with him when I had a layover in Chicago.”

“How often was that?”

“At the time it was about two nights a week, but then I changed my schedule so I could spend long weekends with him. He had this wonderful apartment on Lake Shore Drive. After a couple of months he asked me to marry him. I wasn’t excited about getting married, but he was most insistent, so I said ‘yes.’ We got married in front of a judge at the Cook County Court House. After, we went on a honeymoon in Tahiti.”

“Did you know how he made his living?”

“I knew he was involved in stocks and bonds or some kind of investments but nothing more than that.”

“Did you know any of the people he worked with?”

“No. He did most of his work at home. He had a room filled with computers. But he seldom went to his office, and I never went with him.”

“Did you meetmany of your husband’s associates or friends?”

“He would introduce me to people that we ran into at restaurants. And he did take me to a few parties, but I don’t think I met anyone that he was close to.”

“Do you know much about his life before he met you?”

“No, we didn’t talk about the past.”

“So you really don’t know much about him.”

“Not much, there was no reason to drag out our previous lives for examination. That’s one of the things I really liked about Randy. He didn’t need to know about my past.”

“Is there something in your past that you wouldn’t have wanted him to know about?”

“No, nothing that I’m embarrassed about or regret, but I don’t think you understand my point. Most men want to know about your past. They want to know about your family, where you grew up, things like that. And they’re usually curious as hell about other men you’ve dated. Randy didn’t seem to need to know any of that stuff. He didn’t want my history. And I didn’t ask him about his life.”

“Do you know if this was his first marriage?”

“He told me that he had been married twice before, and he didn’t have any kids.”

“And you weren’t curious about the other two?”

“No, not really. After all, this is my third, and I’m a lot younger than he is, was…. I was delighted to find someone who didn’t seem interested in my past relationships. I’m a ‘today’ person, the past is past—you can’t do anything about it, you can’t change it.”

“How about his family, did you meet any of them?”

“His parents are both dead. He only has a sister, and she doesn’t talk to him. He told me it was because his parents left him this place. He said his parents knew his sister would never have the money to look after it properly, so they left it to him because they wanted it to stay in the family. Randy said that she would have sold it the instant she got it.”

“Have you met her?”

“No.”

“When did you come up here?”

“A week ago Wednesday. Randy wanted to show me the place, said he really loved it. I was ambivalent about coming here.”

“Why?”

“He was asking me to take part in his past. I didn’t want to do his history, but he was most insistent.”

“What did you do when you got here, who did you see?”

“Until yesterday we spent the time by ourselves. We went shopping and out to eat, but we didn’t get together with anyone. We were having a nice, relaxed time. I was starting to enjoy it here.” She reached back and put her hands around the large cord of blond hair, just where it emerged from the wide ribbon that held it together. She raised her hands over her head, lifting the hair. She dropped the hair back and stretched her arms out, slowly lowering them and wrapping them around her legs again. She pulled her arms tight. “But yesterday was awful.”

“Yes,” responded Ray, thinking that she was talking about the shooting.

“I was the odd one out. These people all go back a long way. They have this history together. I was the outsider. And I could tell the women resented me.”

“Resented?” asked Ray.

“I’m twenty years their junior. They both have daughters my age—something they established early in the evening.”

Ray thought she wasn’t going anywhere, and it was safe to pull the conversation back. “Did your husband ever tell you that he was in any kind of trouble or was afraid of anyone or anything?”

“Never. Everyone I met liked him. He had a real way with people. He was absolutely charming. He was good to me. He was considerate and generous. That’s more than you get out of most relationships, isn’t it, Sheriff?”

Sue looked up from her notepad. She gave Ray a long look.

“Do you know if your husband had a will?”

“We had one drawn up soon after we were married.”

“And you are the sole beneficiary?”

“Yes.”

“And you have seen the document?

Tawny looked irritated, “Yes, it’s a joint will.”

“Do you know the size of the estate?”

“No, I don’t have any idea. He lived well, but I doubt if he was rich. You can tell.”

“What do you mean?”

“I had the impression that he consumed what he made. I meet a lot of people. People with real wealth act differently. You can just tell. You’re probing about his money—are you trying to determine if his estate is large enough to temp….” She looked directly at Ray. “Am I a suspect?”

“We have to explore all possibilities.”

“Don’t waste your time on me. He made me feel good, and loved, and happy. You can’t buy that.”

“What will you do now?” Ray asked.

“I still have my job. And I have a little house just off the beach in Venice. There’s nothing here for me.” She looked out at the water, seemingly lost in her own thoughts and then looked over at Ray. “What about the body?”