Authors: Jean Lorrah
But how could Brandy dismiss that scene from her memory? Half an hour later Carrie confirmed that the Perkins family was, indeed, the one she had been working with. “Oh, God, why did I let her go home?"
“You couldn't stop her,” Brandy reminded her. “Listen, you want to get together tonight? Talking might help."
“It probably would,” said Carrie, “but I've got to work. Two visits out in the county and then a rape counseling group.” Brandy could hear unshed tears in her friend's voice. “I have to keep my cool and get through it. I'll call you later in the week, okay?"
As she hung up, the dispatcher called, “Hey, Mather—visitor!” Brandy found Dan Martin in the waiting area, hat in hand. She had forgotten their appointment.
“They told me you were out on a call earlier,” he said. “Half an hour ago they said you were wrapping it up, so I took the chance and came back. You look exhausted."
“Rough case,” Brandy agreed. “Murder/suicide."
He nodded. “If you don't want to work tonight, I certainly understand. Let me take you to dinner."
“I'm not hungry,” Brandy said truthfully, even though it was 6:11. “This was an appetite destroyer. If you really don't mind, I'd rather work on the Land case than go home and think about what happened today."
The mysterious case of Everett Land was a pleasure because of what it did not include: violence toward women or children, grieving friends and relatives, or anything related to the never-ending, time-consuming, and ineffectual war against drugs.
The letters in Greek had come back from Dan's friend at Columbia, along with a message: “The longest document, not included here, is in an ancient dialect I'm still trying to identify. It's a manuscript Dr. Land must have been studying. I'll send you the translation as soon as I work it out.” The letters that had been translated concerned plans for a trip to Greece the following summer.
Dan Martin knew tricks with a computer that Brandy had never seen before. Soon they had Everett Land's Kentucky Teacher's Retirement records, his insurance records, and his tax returns since he had moved to Kentucky.
The returns provided their first clue: even the first year he worked at JPSU, Land had considerable interest from savings. They followed the money to bank records, where there was no surprise that he had bought CD's when interest rates were high—everyone who had $500 to spare had done so. What was amazing was that in the early 1980's Everett Land had had over fifty thousand dollars. During the years of high interest, he doubled it.
But where had he gotten the original money?
All the computer could tell them was that $53,726.64 had been transferred to the Murphy Savings Bank—a small fortune in 1984. His checking account told them he had spent some of his nest egg on a new car, and later on the down payment for a house, but he had also socked away a good quarter of his paycheck every month.
“Not a risk-taker,” said Brandy. “No stocks, not even bonds. I wonder why he didn't have an IRA—or a tax-sheltered annuity? Most university faculty do."
“I'm afraid it's too late to ask him,” said Dan.
“Can you trace that money back any further?” Brandy asked. “This is a weird financial picture—as if he wanted that money easily accessible, if, say, he had to cut and run. I wonder if he got it legally?"
Dan traced another bank transfer, this time from the bank where Land had kept his savings during graduate school in California. But the mysterious lump sum had come there as over $36,000 from yet another bank, and increased during its stay. There were weekly small deposits, probably from a part-time job, but the withdrawals outran them, and he used some of the interest from his CD's.
“Shall we try to access his grad school records?” Dan asked.
“Later,” Brandy replied. “First let's follow the money to the end of that trail."
Her instinct was right: Land's nest egg had not come to Berkeley from Chapel Hill, home of his supposed alma mater, the University of North Carolina. The money had been transferred from Oxford, Mississippi. The Oxford account had been opened with $27,800.00. No transfer from another bank. And during the four years when it should have been depleted steadily, if Land had been a full-time college student in another state, the money had grown to the amount transferred to Berkeley.
Brandy was ready to quit when the numbers began to blur before her eyes. Then she had a hunch. “Just two more items. Land's tax returns for the years this account was open in Oxford, and his records from Chapel Hill."
The university's records showed Land as a full-time student—but the IRS showed him working as a realtor in Oxford, Mississippi! “He went home on weekends and vacations and sold houses?” Dan suggested.
“And made enough in his spare time to sock away nine thousand dollars in four years? Dan, we're onto something here. Get his undergraduate records."
Land had been a B to B- student for two years, then an A student when he hit his stride in his junior and senior years. “So he was there,” said Dan.
“Was he?” asked Brandy. “Call up his other university records. The financial stuff. Did he have a scholarship, a student loan? What about housing?"
And there they drew a blank. Except for four years of courses and grades, there was no evidence that Everett Land had ever attended Chapel Hill.
“What would he have needed to get into graduate school?” Brandy asked.
“His transcript, the GRE, some letters of recommendation,” Dan replied. “I suppose the letters could be faked, but there's always the chance that someone at Berkeley knows the person whose name you've forged."
“Well, we can check those records tomorrow if Berkeley still has them. IRS computer records go back a few more years. Let's see what Land did before he became a real estate agent and forger of college records."
There they encountered a blank wall: Everett Land filed his very first tax return the year he went to work in Oxford. The same year he was supposedly a freshman at Chapel Hill. “So he was older than he claimed,” said Brandy. “No kid straight out of high school would get that real estate job."
“Brandy, we don't know the whole story,” said Dan. “He could have had family connections—"
“He had that lump sum of money. Maybe he stole it."
“More probably it was an inheritance."
“But he faked his undergraduate records—yet he obviously knew what he was doing at Berkeley, or he wouldn't have gotten his doctorate. He had to have a bachelor's degree from somewhere. We're looking at an identity change, Dan. Who was this person before he was Everett C. Land?"
Chapter Three—Bonnie and Clyde
Brandy eventually found herself unable to follow what was happening on the computer. It was 10:08pm, and she had to be up early.
“I'll take you home,” said Dan.
Her car—
Church would pick her up in the morning if she called at breakfast time. “Thanks,” she said wearily.
Dan put on his hat. Not a cap advertising some team or local business, but a narrow-brimmed summer cotton hat. It gave him a sophisticated look at odds with the atmosphere of Murphy, Kentucky. You could always tell the university faculty, no matter how many years they lived here.
“You know,” Dan said as they went out to his car, “when I said I wanted to see you again, I didn't mean just to help with computer stuff. How about dinner tomorrow night?"
“I'd like that,” said Brandy, “but I'm a police officer. If I get caught up in a case like today—"
“I understand,” he told her.” I'll call first."
As before, he walked her to her door, and kissed her. There was that same wonderful excitement she had felt the first time. “Thanks for your help,” she said, reluctant to part even though she had no energy even to talk, let alone do anything more strenuous.
What would it be like to sleep in his strong arms?
“I'm glad to help,” Dan said. “Let me know what else you find out about Rett. And I didn't mean I wouldn't help with more computer searches. It is fascinating."
“Okay,” she replied, lingering in his embrace.
His warm chuckle vibrated in his chest. “Go to bed, Brandy. Tomorrow night we'll try a more conventional date.” He brushed her lips again, then turned her to the door.
Her answering machine was blinking. Carrie had left a message; “If it's before eleven pm, call me when you get home.” As it was only 10:23, she dialed Carrie's number.
“You gonna be able to sleep?” Carrie asked.
It took Brandy a moment to remember. Then she said, “Yeah, I'm okay. I've been working on another case."
“You mean you were at work all this time?” Carrie asked. “Honey, you'll burn yourself out. Do you want to talk about the Perkins case?"
Another time, Brandy would have confessed to her best friend how she had frozen on the scene—but that was after the shooting, when the horrified helplessness descended.
Moments when people, especially children, lay suddenly, unexpectedly dead, brought back that day when she was ten years old and had seen her brother lying still and pale in the street, blood running from beneath him like red paint.
“I—handled it,” Brandy said, realizing the last thing she wanted was to relive the scene she had managed to forget for a few hours.
“They were my clients,” said Carrie. “I've been rereading my notes, wondering if there was something I could have done to prevent what happened today."
For once it was Carrie who needed to talk. “Listen—why don't you grab what you need for tomorrow and come over here for the night? You can give me a lift to the station in the morning. I left my car there."
Both women were tired, and both had to be alert in the morning, so Brandy didn't suggest the few beers they might have drowned their sorrows in on another night.
She let Carrie talk. She had been sent twice in the past three months to check on the welfare of the Perkins children.
“I could see fear in their eyes,” she told Brandy, “but until Matt Perkins broke the girl's wrist, they made excuses. Lily had a black eye one time, and the night she got up the courage to leave him she told me Matt raped her every time he got angry. God, why won't these women press charges?"
“Because they think they need a man to take care of them, even a vicious brute of a man. They don't think they can make it on their own."
Brandy had seen it as often as Carrie had. Even when the wives pressed charges, they were dropped before the husband came to trial.
Carrie sighed. “It's enough to make me appreciate George. He cheated on me, but at least he never abused me."
“Not physically,” said Brandy. She knew how badly Carrie's ex-husband had hurt her friend.
“Yeah.” Carrie raised her cup of herb tea in a toast. “Here's to taking care of ourselves!"
“With a little help from our friends,” Brandy amended.
Carrie took a sip of the steaming brew. “You know,” she said, “I expected to find you more upset than I am. Usually senseless deaths hit you especially hard."
“I had a little help from another friend,” Brandy confessed.
“Church?"
“A new friend. Dan Martin."
“So that's working out,” said Carrie. “Is he nice?"
“Very. He came down to the station to help me on the computer. He didn't know he was helping me get over the Perkins fiasco."
“Oh. Another business relationship. Maybe that's all women should try to have with men."
“We're going out to dinner tomorrow,” said Brandy. “I'm not sure why. We don't have much in common."
“But you like him,” said Carrie.
“Yes, I like him. He's smart, and so polite he's almost old-fashioned."
“Older?” Carrie asked.
“Mid-thirties. You realize it won't be that long before you and I reach thirty?"
“I already feel as old as the hills,” said Carrie. “Do you think this could be the one?"
“Carrie, I hardly know him!” Brandy protested. “Besides, it's always the same: at first they're intrigued that I'm a cop. Then they find out about the long hours, eventually somebody takes a shot at me, and pretty soon here comes the ultimatum: the man or the badge."
Carrie studied her friend. “You're a strange one, Brandy Mather. With that badge you accepted responsibility for the whole populace of Murphy—but when it comes to the commitment everybody else takes so casually, all you can do is put obstacles in its path."
* * * *
The next morning, Brandy told Church what she and Dan Martin had turned up. “Professor Land apparently faked his way into graduate school, taking on a whole new identity. I want to find out who he was before that."
“That money,” said Church. “Almost thirty thousand—a lot back then. You think he's connected to a robbery, sneaked off with the loot and let accomplices go to jail?"
“Or embezzled from wherever he worked before becoming Everett Land. Maybe it was ransom money, or a payoff. He could be the brains behind some big heist. This guy spoke seven languages, Church. It could be an international thing. Maybe he had the brains to plan it, but then couldn't take a life of crime. So he skipped out, changed his name, and ended up here in the middle of nowhere."
“You think somebody connected with that money finally caught up with him?"
“Could be. Could be anything. I love this case, Church. The more complicated it gets, the better!"
But Police Chief Harvey Benton didn't love the case. When Brandy made her report, including requests for help from the Oxford, Mississippi, police department, he told her, “This case is closed, Detective Mather. Closed. The man died of natural causes. Now get your butt out of here and do some real police work!"
Stunned, Brandy returned to her desk. Everyone in the department received such a dressing down occasionally—but only when they had failed badly, as with the Perkins situation yesterday. She had never before been scolded like a naughty child for going beyond the call of duty.
The only neglected item on her desk was the Perkins paperwork. She toyed with the idea of ignoring it and going back into the computer as Dan had shown her, looking for criminal evidence on Everett Land. Maybe later.
“10-17 at the Bank of Murphy!” That was the silent alarm, indicating a robbery in progress.