Price No Object Ch. 03

I said "What I find 'interesting', Mr. Davalos, is that your law firm guaranteed the mortgage of Jeff Cawthorne's Palmyra County home. Furthermore, your firm does the contract work for Aronis Software Solutions... who hired Mr. Cawthorne as a consultant, only to end the contract early, four months later. And you're a lobbyist for BigCommo... the company for whom your daughter, son-in-law, and Cawthorne all worked for, and all left."

"So what?" said Masterson. "None of that is illegal, at all."

"Mr. Davalos," I said, "we know that you were very angry when Dwayne Matheson left BigCommo. Why were you so angry?"

"Again," said Masterson, "there is nothing illegal about that."

I said "It can be introduced at your arraignment as well as your trial, Mr. Davalos... to show that you are a hothead, and that your anger against the son was taken out by an assault and battery on his father. But what I really want to know, Mr. Davalos... is why weren't you at least that angry when your daughter quit BigCommo?"

"I was glad when she quit." said Davalos, staring daggers at me. "She didn't need to be working. A woman's place is in the home."

"Ahhh." I said, as Masterson whispered furiously into Davalos's ear, probably trying to get Davalos to not speak at all. "So the woman's place is in the home... just like a woman should be married off to someone her father chooses?"

"My client never said that about marrying off his daughter, and you're twisting what he did say." Masterson said accusingly.

"But I'm sensing a pattern." I said. "I'm sensing a pattern. And I'm seeing another pattern... association with Jeff Cawthorne, who happens to be your daughter and son-in-law's business partner. And a positive association at that... I'd be willing to bet you were a big reason why Cawthorne got that Aronis contract to begin with. Am I right?"

"Yeah, maybe I put in a good word for him." Davalos admitted. "So what?"

"And you guaranteed the mortgage for his Palmyra County home." I said. "Very, very generous, wouldn't you say?"

"Nothing illegal about that." said Masterson.

"Unless it's a motive... for murder." I said.

"Are you outta your tree?" Matheson practically yelled. "What am I saying? Of course you are. But you fell from the top branch this time, and right on your head."

"Mr. Davalos," I said, "let's get serious, here... real serious. The pattern I'm sensing... is that you bitterly hated your son-in-law Dwayne, and you were hoping and maybe scheming to get him out of the way so that your daughter could marry Cawthorne. And so you financially helped Cawthorne so that he could support your daughter. So... what lengths would you go to in order to eliminate Dwayne as your daughter's husband, eh?"

I could see in Davalos's eyes that I was right, and that my remarks were hitting home. He said "I hated that little shit, but I didn't do anything to him. If I'd wanted him dead, he would've been dead years ago------" At that point, Nathan Masterson grabbed his shoulder and began haranguing him to be quiet.

"Let me say this." Davalos ordered. He then turned to me and said "I did not try to have my daughter's husband murdered. I had my reasons for wanting him to stay alive. And it was her that ended up being murdered."

"And here we go again." I said. "How do you know she was murdered?"

"I guess I don't factually know." said Davalos. "But isn't it obviously a murder-suicide? Didn't he kill her and then himself?"

"The evidence so far does not support that theory." I said.

"Then who did kill them?" Davalos asked, and I noted that Masterson was allowing this conversation to continue.

"That is what I'm investigating now... what really happened." I said. "And there's another thing I don't understand. Make me understand why you were rabid with anger when Dwayne quit BigCommo, and you were demanding he go back to work there."

"I was hoping that if he did go back, my daughter would divorce him." Davalos said.

"How would you know there would be issues like that if Dwayne did go back?" I asked.

"Jeff Cawthorne told me." Davalos said. "He knew my daughter and that pipsqueak husband of hers were arguing over it. And we agreed that if we could get the little shit to go back to BigCommo, she might leave him and turn to Jeff."

"Good answer." I said. "It's actually plausible. But Julie never turned to Jeff in those months Dwayne was working his ass off at BigCommo... in fact, she finally got her husband to quit and leave BigCommo... which made you angry. I dunno, the circle just doesn't quite complete itself, there."

"That's one reason I didn't have that little shit killed." Davalos said. "They wanted him back, and if it meant my daughter would divorce him, so much the better------"

"I think my client has said more than enough." announced Nathan Masterson, his words conveying as much warning to his client as to me. "If you want more, Bar Code, you need to offer my client a good deal in exchange for his truthful answers and testimony. Like dropping all these specious little charges."

"Not gonna happen." I said. "And remember, Mr. Matheson has filed his own charges, and those aren't going away. And, of course, we have to verify what you've said with Jeff Cawthorne. If they don't match, then someone is lying to Police, and I have a very strong suspicion of who is doing the lying. Okay, Parker, let's go."

We got up and exited I-2. In the anteroom, I said "Parker, wait here and watch until they stop talking. Make sure Masterson doesn't (air quotes) 'accidentally' leave anything behind. Once he's gone, have Davalos taken to an isolation holding cell, then come get me. I will still be here, no matter how long it takes..."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

7:30pm, Tuesday, January 5th. Jerome Davis came to my office and said "The Midtown PD, specifically Nell Bell and Steve Ruger, just brought Alvin Tate in. Do we run him through Booking?"

"Not yet." I said. "Put him in I-1, then escort Nell Bell and Steve Ruger to my office. Jerome did so, and I invited him to stay as I talked to our MPD friends.

We went into my office, where the MPD Detectives were waiting. After the exchange of greetings, Nell Bell said "Steve is going back tonight, but I'm staying up here. I'd appreciate it if I can sit in on what y'all are doing."

"By all means." I said. "We're glad to have you. You'll have to get up to speed as we go along, though. I'm going to go in and talk to Mr. Tate. I understand he's called an attorney?"

"Yes sir." said Jerome Davis. "Mr. Dennison, who is on retainer for the Union representing State Department of Labor employees."

"He's a 'good guy', relatively speaking." I said. "So let's not go out of our way to offend him. Okay, let's go."

I led the way to I-A, where Mr. Dennison, a lanky, middle-aged black man, was sitting with a white man in his upper-30s to lower-40s, medium height, and just beginning to put on some weight.

"Mr. Tate, I am Commander Troy of the TCPD, and this is Lieutenant Jerome Davis. Detective Bell of the Midtown PD is sitting in as a courtesy. I am going to read you your rights." I did so from the card, and Mr. Tate said he understood the rights.

"Mr. Tate," I said, "your neighbors Dwayne and Julie Matheson were found dead yesterday morning. We have talked to your wife Alicia, and we have some clarifying questions we need you to answer."

"Go ahead." said Alvin Tate.

"How well did you know your neighbors, the Mathesons?" I asked.

"Not very well." said Alvin. "I'd spoken to them a few times. My wife Alicia knew Julie Matheson much better than I did."

"Did you ever hear them arguing about anything?" I asked.

"Just once." said Tate. "Last Spring. It was like 11:00pm, and they were on their back deck. She started getting loud about how late he'd gotten home, and how he needed to cut back his hours. Then it became an argument over him quitting that job. They went back inside after about five minutes. I think they had more arguments, and then that Summer they seemed to have reconciled. My wife said Julie told her he'd quit his job."

"Did you know Jeff Cawthorne?" I asked.

"I know that he was their co-worker." Alvin said. "I'm pretty sure he was living in their apartment above their garage, though he was only there at times. I never talked with him other than a 'hello' if I saw him."

"Your wife knew Mr. Cawthorne, also?" I asked.

"Oh yes." said Tate. "He was very friendly with my wife. Very friendly with Julie Matheson, also. He was that kind of guy, a 'ladies man', a charmer."

"Do you have a good marriage, Mr. Tate? How are things with your wife?"

"Why are you asking that?" interjected Mr. Dennison.

"Just background information, to clarify things for myself." I replied. "Mr. Tate?"

"Our marriage is good." said Alvin Tate. "She works a lot of late hours this time of year, and I have to go to Midtown every once in a while, but for the most part we're nine-to-fivers and spend our off-time together."

I opened the file folder I had brought in. "Let's just get to the nitty-gritty of it, Mr. Tate. These are bank statements of your joint account with Alicia, obtained after acquiring a warrant. They show some regular payments of $250 a month. Your wife showed a surprising inability to explain them, thus necessitating us asking you. What were those payments, Mr. Tate?"

Mr. Tate sighed and exhaled. "They're not illegal." he said.

"Good." I said. "Then you'll have no trouble enlightening us as to who paid them to you, and what they are for."

Tate said "First of all, my wife didn't know who was making those payments to me, nor why. I told her I was getting them, and told her not to ask why. For plausible deniability."

"Which did not do her very much good." I said. "But that's water under the bridge. So, who was making those payments?"

"A guy named John Proctor." said Alvin Tate. "He's an attorney, but I'm not sure who he works for."

"MegaTech Industries." I said, knowing that I still had Proctor's card from my interview with MegaTech CEO Eliot Sanders. (Author's note: 'Homewrecker', Ch. 02.)

"What were the payments for?" I asked.

Alvin Tate inhaled, then exhaled and said "I was being paid to keep tabs on the Mathesons. Proctor contacted me last Spring, and said all I had to do for $250 a month was to make some emails on a burner iPhone, and report what was going on next door. And that's why I didn't tell Alicia what they were about; she and Julie were friends, and if she knew that I was telling Proctor everything she told me that Julie had told her, then Alicia would've stopped telling me anything."

"So why did you do it in the first place?" I asked.

"Hey, it was easy money." said Tate. "I just email and say 'Here's what's going on with the neighbors.' and I get $250 a month. I didn't see any harm in it."

"And for that matter," I asked, "did they ever tell you why they wanted you to spy on the Mathesons?"

"Proctor said something about them being considered for a big consulting job." said Tate. "He said there was a lot of security interests in the job, and they had to know who they were dealing with beyond just the normal checks."

I nodded. "And what did you tell them?" I asked.

"Them?" said Mr. Dennison, finally catching on to the form of my previous couple of sentences.

"Oh yes." I said. "Proctor wasn't acting alone. He works for MegaTech Industries, directly for their CEO, if memory serves me correctly."

Alvin Tate said "He was the only person I ever talked to, though I can't say who else might've been receiving the emails I sent."

"What information did you send them?" I asked, getting us back on track.

"I told them about the arguments, about them seeming to make up." said Tate. "I told them about the Mathesons going into business for themselves and with Cawthorne... and I told them that the Mathesons had an open marriage, and that Julie Matheson and Jeff Cawthorne were in a sexual relationship. Alicia told me Julie told her that."

"Mr. Tate," I said, "are you sure your wife didn't know what you were doing? Let me put it this way, sir. She's in some trouble for misleading the Police in our initial investigation. She was the one in a position to get more information than you were. It would make sense if she was getting information out of Julie Matheson... and Jeff Cawthorne... to give to you to send to them."

"I swear to God." said Alvin Tate. "She did not know what I was doing. She did not know that everything she was telling me was going straight to email."

I was peering at Tate, looking him squarely in the eye. He was looking back at me. It was at times like these I had to make a decision on whether or not he was telling the truth, and what action to take. I could hit him with the tape of his wife being fucked from behind by Jeff Cawthorne, and possibly destroy their marriage in doing so. I could arrest him right now, and put a lot more pressure on both of them to get more out of them. But would it do any good? Could it be that both the Tates were telling the truth?

I made the decision, going down a path I was confident I was correct about. "Mr. Tate," I said, "what else did they promise you, in exchange for your information?"

Tate almost wilted. He finally said: "I... I'm a mid-level manager in the State Department of Labor, and I have good chances of going a lot higher and then starting a political career. But I'm a Democrat, so I knew I'd have to bide my time while Jared was Governor. I can't tell you how much I despise that man."

Tate: "Anyway, Proctor told me that if I took the money and kept tabs on the Mathesons, my career would advance much more quickly, and I would have opportunities that wouldn't otherwise come to me. And I didn't know exactly who he was working for, but I knew that he wasn't just blowing smoke up my... well, you know. I knew he could make good on that promise."

"But Sharon Marshall won the Governorship, so that's set you back, hasn't it?" I asked.

Tate looked at me, and said "Oh, no sir. Not at all. Everyone knew she would win against that Alzheimers-addled buffoon Hoyt Stenson. And even before Ms. Marshall won the Election in November, Proctor was telling me that I'd still have opportunities, especially after Ms. Marshall was gone as Governor, and that that very likely would happen in less than four years."

"How so?" I asked, peering hard at him. "Are there threats to the Governor I need to know about?"

"Not that I know of." said Tate. "And I have nothing against Governor Marshall. I don't despise her like I despise that son of a bitch Jared. If I had to guess, I'd say they're going to try to impeach and remove her the same way they almost got that bastard Jared."

"That's just a guess, an opinion." said Mr. Dennison. "So don't go trying to accuse him of lying to Police."

"No worries." I said. "Lieutenant, do you have any questions for Mr. Tate?"

"Yes sir." said Jerome. He took the photo of the Tates checking into the University Hotel and put it on the table in front of Tate and Mr. Dennison. "Mr. Tate, you and your wife checked into University Hotel late Monday night, is that not right?"

"That's right." said Alvin Tate.

Jerome said "We understand that you and the other State employees at the conferences in Midtown were supposed to stay there overnight in the hotel rooms provided for you. Is that correct?"

Tate: "We weren't under a curfew or absolutely required to stay there. They provided rooms because we were having evening meetings, then everyone would go to the hotel bar and (air quotes) 'bond' as a team with pleasant conversation. But after our meetings were over on Monday night, I left and came back home because I thought my wife needed me after the deaths of our neighbors."

"That's understandable." said Jerome. "But what I really don't get is why you both checked into University Hotel instead of coming home."

Tate said "I called my wife on the way up, and she said she'd made a reservation to check into the hotel rather than go home, because she was concerned for our safety, what with our neighbors being dead and possibly murdered. So when I got here, I picked her up and we checked into the hotel."

Jerome: "You didn't question why your wife chose to spend a hundred bucks on a hotel room when your home was just up the road?"

Tate: "When she explained her reasons, I agreed with them. And the room was reserved and paid for. So no, I didn't question it at all. And by the way, are you guys going to release my wife tonight?"

"I'll let you know within an hour." I replied. "Detective Bell, do you have any questions for Mr. Tate?"

"No sir." said Nell Bell...

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

As we came into the anteroom, Cpt. Claire Michaels was there, having watched through the one-way glass.

"Well done, Lieutenant Davis." I made sure to say in front of her. "I'd almost forgotten about the hotel check-in." And I was 'not displeased' that Claire made no reaction to that.

"Thank you, sir." Jerome replied. "Are we releasing Alicia Tate?"

"Let's go to my office." I said. We all went to my office, and I had Nell Bell sit in the near-side 'hot chair' and Jerome in the far-side 'hot chair'. Claire Michaels sat on the sofa behind them.

"What do y'all think?" I asked. "Let the Tates go to their house, tell them to stay at their house, and put an ankle monitor on Alicia so she doesn't try to run before her arraignment tomorrow?"

"You don't just want to drop the charges against her?" Claire asked. "Unless you think she's a suspect in Julie Matheson's murder, I'm not sure what else you're trying to get from her. Between her and her husband's stories, which generally match, we've got about as much as we're going to get from them."

"I agree, and dropping the charges is what I'm considering right now." I replied. "But I still have some nagging doubts, especially about her."

"Sir," said Jerome Davis, "I would add to what Captain Michaels said by saying that it's pretty thin case of Alicia lying to us. She definitely didn't tell us everything, and she did mislead us, but it's going to be a semantics issue on whether she actually lied to us."

"True. Good point." I said. After a moment's consideration, I gave my instructions:

"Jerome, go have our guys put an ankle monitor on Alicia, and then take her to the waiting room where her husband and Dennison are. Tell Dennison we're releasing her into his custody, and that it's his responsibility to get her to her arraignment tomorrow. And tell both the Tates to stay at their house tonight, and definitely to not leave the County under any circumstances. Go do that now." Jerome moved out smartly.

"So where are you staying tonight, Nell?" I asked. "I can't offer you room in The Cabin."

"University Hotel." Nell said.

"She can stay with me." said Claire Michaels. "If you don't mind a lot of unpacked boxes all over the place. I just moved in."

"I appreciate it," said Nell Bell, "but I've already made the reservation, so the money's spent."

"Okay." I said. "Claire, why don't you check with Parker and see if Nathan Masterson left. Then check with Intel, and after that you can head home. I won't be too far behind. I just need a few minutes with Nell first."

"Yes sir." Claire said, getting up. "Detective Bell, I can wait and give you a ride to the Hotel, if you like."

"That'd be great, ma'am." said Nell. Claire bade me goodnight and I returned the salutation, and she exited the office.

I peered at Nell, who became uncomfortable like a watched dog. She finally said "Sir?"

"Why are you here, Ms. Bell?" I asked. She did not pretend to not understand.

"Not much gets past you, sir." she said. After a pause, in which my eyes did not waver from hers, she said "As you know, sir, in addition to everything else, the Midtown Police has the added fun of getting to watch the politicians in our State, especially when they're in Midtown."