“I won’t keep you any longer than I have to.”
“What’s this about?”
“Your husband, ma’am.”
“I don’t have a husband, Detective. I have an ex-husband.”
“My mistake, ma’am. I apologize. I visited your ex-husband yesterday. He seemed quite worried.”
“I’m not surprised. Prison would make anyone worry.”
“You’re right about that, ma’am. Any idea what he’d be worried about, not counting the whole getting-raped-in-theshower thing, because I don’t think that’s what was keeping him up at night.”
“I don’t know and I don’t care. What’s this got to do with me?”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out, Mrs. Rice. I can’t share with you all the details of our investigation at this time, but it appears that Mr. Rice may be under pressure to authorize the sale of certain of his assets against his will.”
She shook her head. “Against his will?”
“What I mean, ma’am, is that he may be the victim of extortion, someone trying to take advantage of his incarceration, figuring he’s in no position to do anything about it. We’ve learned that you’re also the owner of those assets, so you can understand why I need to talk with you about all of this, even if you are in a hurry. I could have you come down to headquarters and talk there. We’d have plenty of time and no one would bother us. Or we could try and wrap this up now.”
Rice let out a sigh. “Thomas doesn’t have any assets. I got everything in the divorce.”
“Actually, ma’am, that’s only partly correct. I checked the court file on your divorce and it turns out that Mr. Rice gets half the proceeds from the sale of your house and he has to sign off on the sale price. We understand that you’ve agreed to sell the house at a price that’s well below market value, which means that Mr. Rice comes out the loser. If someone is using threats to make Mr. Rice sell cheap, that’s against the law. Both of you would be victims of extortion.”
She tossed her head back, laughing with disgust. “That little shit. He wouldn’t know the truth if it bit him in the ass.”
“And would you, Mrs. Rice?”
“Would I what?”
“Know the truth if it bit you in the ass.”
“Look, Detective. Thomas agreed to give me everything in the divorce. I thought it was because he felt so guilty, but that’s an emotion Thomas is not familiar with. He told me he made a deal that would help him get started when he got out of prison. All I had to do was sell the house and his car at the right price to the right person.”
“And you went along?”
“And I went along. He said that if I didn’t, he would fight over everything. I went along because I wanted to cut my ties with him as quickly as possible.”
“When did he tell you about this deal?”
“Right after he agreed to plead guilty,” she said. “He said we’d have to wait six months after he went to jail so my name would be the only one on the papers and the sales wouldn’t attract any attention.”
“Did he tell you how much to sell the car and house for?”
“He said the buyer would name the price.”
I waited a beat before asking the money question, afraid of being right. “Did he tell you who the buyer would be?”
“Not at first. He said he’d let me know when he knew. He called me a few weeks ago and asked me to come for a visit. It was the first time I’d been in a prison. It was awful. I almost felt bad that I had turned him in, but he was the one who cheated on me. So I went to see him and he said someone named Colby Hudson was the buyer. I sold him the car a couple of weeks ago and we closed on the house the other night.”
Rice’s eyes widened as she said his name, her hand suddenly covering her mouth. “Oh my God, I am such an idiot! He’s an FBI agent. I saw that on the forms he filled out. Was I wrong to sell the car and the house to an FBI agent? Did Thomas get me into another one of his messes?”
I sidestepped her question. “I can’t answer that, ma’am. Have you talked to Mr. Rice since then?”
“No.”
“Had you ever met Agent Hudson before? Maybe while your husband’s case was going on?”
“No. I mean there were a lot of agents at our house when they arrested Thomas, but I only met two of them-a man and woman. I’m sorry, but I don’t remember their names. Am I in trouble?”
Her concern may have been sincere. It may not have occurred to Rice that her husband was dragging her into yet another scheme until a police detective showed up and started asking her questions. Or, it could all be an act. She seemed too calculating a woman not to have questioned giving a sweetheart deal to an FBI agent so her ex-husband could get a fresh start when he got out of prison. I ignored her question again, sticking to my own.
“When you went to visit your husband, what was his mood like? Was he glad to see you? Was he worried or afraid?”
“He was pathetic. He whined how sorry he was and how much he missed me. All the usual crap. If he was scared, he didn’t show it. But then, Thomas was the best salesman I ever saw in my life.”
I studied Rice, not saying anything, waiting for her to volunteer something. She tugged at her top again and then checked her watch.
“Can I go now, Detective? I really am in a hurry.”
Chapter Thirty-seven
I moved my car to the curb, watching her drive away, wondering if I would know the truth if it bit me in the ass. Colby’s story that Jill Rice had called our office looking for a buyer didn’t stand up against her version. That didn’t make Colby the liar but it did mean one of them wasn’t telling the truth. Thomas Rice had offered his alternate reality, that his wife had gotten everything in the divorce and that what she did with the property was up to her. He was careful enough to tell a story that was at least technically true even if it wasn’t the whole story.
I called Grisnik to see what he’d found out about who had visited Thomas Rice and who Rice had talked to on the phone.
“His ex-wife came to see him a few weeks ago. Only time she shows up on the visitor logs,” Grisnik said.
“That fits with what she told me. Score one for her in the truth sweepstakes.”
“Rice have any other visitors?”
“He is one unpopular guy. His lawyer came to see him once right after he started serving his sentence. No one after that until his wife.”
“What about phone calls? Did Rice call anyone after we left?”
“One call to a cell phone.”
“Whose was it?”
“Phone belonged to an eighty-five-year-old man lives in an Alzheimer’s unit.”
“Why would Rice call him?”
“He didn’t. Phone was stolen. We don’t have any idea who Rice called.”
“Let’s go back and ask him,” I said.
“Too late. He hanged himself in the prison laundry. Happened last night. I just heard about it an hour ago.”
“Shit. I just talked to his ex-wife. She didn’t say anything about it. She must not have gotten word yet.”
“She’s the ex-wife, not the wife, which takes her off the next-of-kin list.”
“Someone should let her know before she reads about it in the paper.”
“You want to volunteer,” Grisnik said, “be my guest. Telling the family, even the exes, is the worst part of this job. You can have it.”
I hung up and shook. It was a mild ripple, a reminder of the condition my condition was in. I wondered if the news of Rice’s death had triggered the tremor, a reaction to guilt over the possibility that my visit had literally scared him to death. If that was the case, I must not have felt too guilty since the tremors were short-lived. I didn’t feel responsible for Rice’s death. On that, I agreed with his wife. Rice had chosen his road. I was doing my job.