Debbie fidgeted, and sighed. “They’d buy old, rundown foreclosures, too. Take pictures, doctor the pictures on the computer to make them look like a nice renovation, nice landscaping. Advertise them on the Web, for sale by owner. They’d double the price, again sell to some out-of-state buyer who didn’t have time to come out and look at the place, who wanted coastal real estate for investment. I know of one buyer, bought five houses. Erik’s agreement was, he’d rent the houses out for them until the market went up and they could make a profit, he’d keep ten percent of the rent, send the buyer the balance. That part was legitimate, and why not? He’d already made a hundred percent profit on the deal. It was easy to find tenants, people scrambling for low rent. They did all this under fictitious Realtor’s names, so if the buyer wanted to sell, or came out here and got a look at the house, he couldn’t track them down.”
“Did you plan to bring this to the attention of the police or the real estate board, either here or in Eugene?”
She looked down again. “I . . . Eventually, I meant to. I made the copies so I’d have some power over him. So he’d give me a decent support settlement and child support.” She looked up at him pleadingly. “If I went to the cops right away, I’d lose what power I had. I thought . . . I meant to wait until I could bargain for a cash settlement. Then give him the papers I had, and that Mama had, and promise to leave it alone. Maybe, then, I’d bring you copies. It . . . It was for the children,” she added lamely.
Max didn’t look like he was buying all this. Nor were Joe and Dulcie. What made her think Erik would believe her when she promised to back off? What made her think he wouldn’t get really angry and turn more violent? Joe guessed that now, with Hesmerra dead, and Sammie dead, Debbie was feeling a little less cocky in her expectations.
Or, he thought, was she only making up Erik’s scams? Maybe for some agenda of her own? Maybe setting him up for something he really hadn’t done? Joe had little doubt Erik Kraft had knocked her around, he could see the fading shadows of bruises on her face and neck—unless she was an artist with the makeup, he thought with interest. A little purple eye shadow, carefully applied? Yet it made perfect sense that Kraft, known for his ironfisted business ways, would be raking off all he could, and that he wouldn’t be soft with Debbie. If Kraft and Alain were into illegal deals, and he found out Debbie had proof, Joe didn’t doubt that he’d turn more violent, just as Debbie feared.
Max said, “Your mother was in on this? You knew about the papers she had?”
Debbie just looked at him.
“You knew your mother was cleaning the Kraft offices,” he said patiently. “That she took that job with the night crew of Barton’s Commercial Cleaning, in order to gather evidence.”
Reluctantly, Debbie nodded. “I knew.”
“Did you put her onto that company?”
Again, a nod.
From the shadows, Dulcie glanced up at Joe. Everything seemed to fit, just as Emmylou had said. Debbie and her mother working together to bring Eric down, Debbie in contact with Hesmerra all along, unknown to Billy. Was it possible that Hesmerra had, at some point, balked at any more spying? Decided to pull out? Maybe she wasn’t sure that Eric had killed Greta, after all? Maybe she’d wondered if Perry Fowler had? Maybe she’d grown to like Eric, didn’t want to think him guilty of murder or of the scams?
Or maybe Hesmerra grew afraid of him, became nervous that he might find out what she was up to? Maybe she decided to go to the cops with what proof she had, before Erik turned on her.
But going to the law would destroy Debbie’s power over Erik before she had a chance to extort money from him. Would that make her angry enough to stop Hesmerra? To kill her own mother? From the looks of the sales contracts and letters, the rake-off for this operation could have run into the nine figures, and people had killed for a lot less. In a way, that seemed a far stretch: No matter the bad blood between them, they were mother and daughter. Except, Joe thought, murder within a family wasn’t all that unusual, it was often the first place the police would look, in an investigation.
But what of Alain? Where was she now, having left town when her deals went awry? Where had she gone when she pulled out to save herself?
As for that, was Erik down in southern California straightening out the branch office as Fowler claimed? Or had he already flown off to the Bahamas on vacation? Or had Erik and Alain both skipped? The two lovers gone off together taking with them the money gleaned from their various scams?
If they had, did Perry Fowler know that? Had Fowler, all along, been in on their operations and lied to protect Erik? Or was he, as he appeared, aware only of Alain’s wrongdoing and ignorant of Erik’s own involvement?
It didn’t matter where Erik was the morning of the fire when Hesmerra died; what mattered was, where was he when someone poisoned her whiskey? As to that, where was he when Sammie was killed?
And wherever he was, Joe thought, smiling, did he know how vulnerable he had become? Did he know that, from the evidence laid out on Max’s desk right now, plus whatever else the detectives and the CSI team might find, there could soon be a warrant out for him, an order that could perceptibly change his opulent lifestyle?
Joe was sorry to have missed Max’s interview of Fowler; he hadn’t known about it until he glimpsed a notation among the papers on Max’s desk. He pictured the pale, wimpy Realtor slouched in the leather chair farthest from Max’s desk nervously answering the chief’s questions—nervous simply at having to deal with the police, or from more than that?
From what Joe could see of Max’s notes Fowler had known nothing about Erik’s scams. Possibly, Joe thought, Fowler had suspected what Erik was up to but hadn’t wanted to think badly of his partner? Hadn’t wanted to rock the boat, hadn’t wanted to confront Erik? Hadn’t really wanted to find out what was going on? Some people were like that, didn’t want to know all the facts, to see what was too awkward, too painful.
And how convenient that many of Erik’s scams had been made through bogus real estate firms and nonexisting escrow companies, venues that Erik had fabricated, and were not connected to Kraft Realty. Given that Fowler didn’t appear to have much backbone, he might latch onto that fact as exonerating the firm itself from any connection to Erik’s crimes, ignoring those that did involve their partnership. Foolish, Joe thought, and self-destructive. But hey, we’re dealing with humans, here. What’s a cat to expect?
30
Kit didn’t join the other cats high on the balcony of the Aronson Gallery as they looked down on the auction party nor, in the soft evening, did she slip in with Lucinda and Pedric when they entered among the jostling crowd; nor did Pan appear. Misto arrived in style riding from the Firettis’ van on John’s shoulder. But as John and Mary approached the front door, the old cat left them, leaping up into a tangle of jasmine vine that climbed the stucco wall. Clawing his way up to the high little window that opened above him, he could see Dulcie looking out. He disappeared inside, onto the gallery’s balcony, and there he sat with Dulcie looking down through the railing, watching the party crowd below. “Where’s Joe Grey?”