Scheduled to Die

By Don Bissett

Human greed keeps Nathan Parker employed investigating fraud. And greed has drawn him back to his native Ohio to settle a seemingly simple life insurance claim involving the death of a billionaire in the prosperous town of Woodview. But he soon learns there is nothing simple about this case.

Saddled with an incompetent partner and a boss who wants to be rid of him, he wades through a maze of uncooperative and shadowy witnesses. Chasing down leads that extend from the lowest rank of society to the highest echelon, Nathan finds that his investigation simply reveals more levels of complicity.

The number of people he can trust steadily declines. Further confounding the situation, an anonymous tipster haunts him with a clue that doesn’t seem to help in the least. Keeping Nathan firmly grounded is a budding relationship with a blond-haired woman. Yet even she has troubles of her own, dragging him into confrontation with a man who has a history of violence.

His investigation reveals a complex conspiracy that goes much deeper than insurance fraud. After peeling back its last layer, Nathan is sickened by the foul rot underlying the quaint community. Revealing his findings leads to a chaotic climax that provides plot twists to the very last chapter.

(Book 3 in the Nathan Hale Parker series)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Don Bissett
• Release date: Dec 11, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301951000

Don Bissett

About the author: Don Bissett is originally from New England, growing up in Massachusetts and Connecticut. He attended the University of Connecticut and Michigan State University, obtaining degrees in chemistry. During his career as a scientist in industry, he published extensively in technical journals and textbooks. That experience nurtured a passion for writing. In addition to writing novels, he uses his science experience in consulting with industry. His hobbies include travel, hiking, and fossil collecting. The author currently resides in Michigan.Death Comes in the Morning is the author’s first novel. His second and third novels in the Nathan Hale Parker series (Dying at a Premium; Scheduled to Die) have since been published. And now his fourth, fifth, and sixth books (which form a trilogy with the same main character) are completed and available: Running Nameless, Running with Intent, and Running to Cover. Each of the three books in the Running trilogy has its own independent plot, along with a compelling story line that progresses across the entire trilogy.Contact the author: [e-mail]

Book preview

Prologue

He had just taken a bite of his sandwich when the blast of hot gas erupted from behind, driving his head and chest against the tabletop and engulfing him in flames.

Seconds before this life-ending moment, he had been discussing retirement plans across this same table with his best friend. After decades of dedicated work, and with a level of financial success that he never imagined possible, the time had come to call it quits. He was ready for that new phase of his life.

Now, none of that mattered. He would never get to retire, never do all the travel on his bucket list, travel that had been postponed so many times because work always came first. He would never get to refocus his attention on his two children. And spend more time with his lovely new young wife. So many missed opportunities.

But he didn’t realize any of this in that last moment of life. He didn’t even feel the heat of the blast, the outward rush of fiery air that flattened his head against the tabletop, the flames that consumed his body. For him, life simply ended while having a quiet lunch with a friend.

Chapter 1

Mr. Parker, said the host of this Friday evening program. Welcome to our show. Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to be with us. Then she turned toward the camera. "I’m Lucinda Furren, and this is The Rest of the News."

Lucinda Furren. More than attractive. Pretty, with long honey-colored hair parted down the middle, the shiny strands with their wavy ends flowing loosely over her shoulders. High cheekbones, smooth skin, just a light touch of natural make-up. She exuded charm. At the moment, she beamed a broad smile in my direction, and her eyes sparkled in the bright lights. The sight put me at ease.

Yet she also had a reputation as an aggressive interviewer, one who often grilled her guests for the dirty details. Lucinda would probe and prod, digging for an angle to turn stories into sensationalism. That was why I didn’t want to be here, under the glare of the lights and cameras.

I told my boss, we shouldn’t be doing this. But he assured me that this would be an easy gig, simply a scripted tell-me-about-it interview. It represented a rare opportunity for good publicity for Nation’s Best Insurance, my employer in Montana. The prospect of having one of their fraud investigators on TV, to offset the bad press that often falls on the insurance industry, was simply too tempting to let slip away. Therefore, my management insisted that I accept the invitation to this event.

So here I sat in a live on-air discussion in front of a studio audience in New York City, instead of just doing my investigative work. I was eager to get on to my next assignment, which my boss mentioned in passing had something to do with a gas explosion at a restaurant. But this appearance on TV had been deemed more important, so here I sat. At the moment, I had no clue just how accurate I’d been in saying this was a bad idea.

Lucinda continued. Mr. Parker. You’ve had some very traumatic experiences. It must have been horrible when those two people died during your trip to San Francisco.

Yes, that was bad. The investigation took a dangerous turn.

She smiled understandingly. In spite of my nervousness and the bad memories connected to the deaths of those two people, I started to relax, to feel comfortable. I waited patiently for the next scripted question.

Lucinda smiled again and spoke calmly. Why did you kill those people in San Francisco?

What? I must have misunderstood. That wasn’t in the script.

A murmur of alarm arose from the studio audience. I saw them lean sideways toward each other to whisper their shock and awe. That was why people wanted to be in the audience. They wanted to be shocked. They wanted to be awed. So now they stared at me, waiting for my defensive response. All the cameras swiveled to focus on me. My nerves twitched. The bright lights overhead seemed even harsher than before.

On the trip she referred to, I had uncovered a conspiracy and probably saved a lot of lives. In spite of that, she just accused me of killing two people. Certainly two people died in the mess in San Francisco, but I didn’t kill them. Yes, I was there. Yes, I created the situation. But the bad guys killed each other in the melee. I didn’t pull the triggers that ended their lives.

The brutal heat from the intense overhead lights burned through me. The room temperature seemed to be rising. I felt feverish and could sense perspiration popping out of every pore. And my tie felt like a noose around my neck. Now I wasn’t at ease, not in the least.

Lucinda Furren prompted me with a tilt of her head. The smile vanished. She had finished with her brief period of politeness. Her voice now took on a cold hard edge. I had dreaded this moment, and here it was.

What about San Francisco, Mr. Parker?

I took a deep breath to compose myself, and answered calmly. Yes, two people died. But as you know, I didn’t kill anyone in San Francisco.

A loud thump split the air as she pounded the coffee table between us with an open palm. But you did in Montana! she protested. You killed several people up there! A glint of devilish pleasure appeared in her eyes. She saw me squirming, and she clearly enjoyed it. I had been put on the spot with nowhere to hide.

A young reporter, she clearly wanted to establish a reputation that would propel her to the upper ranks in her field. She would probably do that, regardless of who got hurt along the way. Lucinda Furren. Lucy Furren to her close colleagues and friends. The rest of the world just called her Lucifer.

Lucifer clearly had some agenda other than tell me about it. For me, this interview turned sourer than my worst fears. Yes, I had killed people in Montana, but it was clearly self-defense. She knew that. Yet now she used the situation, and she used me, to make some sensational headline, though I still didn’t know what her particular angle might be. My company anticipated good press from this. In the interest of self-preservation, I had to regain some measure of control of the direction of this interview.

I chose to shoot back with a defensive response. Are you familiar with the phrase justifiable homicide? As soon as the words tumbled from my mouth, I knew that tactic wouldn’t work.

She gestured toward me and raised her voice in indignation. So you’re in favor of vigilante justice? Taking the law into your own hands? And there it was, vigilante justice, the hidden agenda for today’s show.

Lucifer paused for only a second before pressing deeper into my discomfort zone. At one time you were a cop. What happened to your moral compass?

Moral compass? Really?

I didn’t know how to handle this situation. I had no experience at this. Anything I could think to say likely would tighten the noose around my neck and draw me deeper into her trap.

Lucifer curtly prompted me. Mr. Parker?

Packer! I blurted out.

A moment of confusion clouded her face. No, I said Parker.

Packer! I repeated confidently.

I had remembered something from the media training hammered into me earlier in the week. That training embedded into my brain a morsel of information that might disentangle me from her line of questioning: when the going gets tough, choose to answer a different question, or change the subject entirely. So I did. I suspected that my use of that morsel of information wasn’t quite what the media trainer had in mind. But it seemed like a tactic worth trying.

Lucifer squinted her eyes and tilted her head slightly. She looked at me like I’d lost my mind. For a moment, she was speechless. My incomprehensible comment seemed to fall out of her comfort zone.

Packers, I said. How about those Green Bay Packers? Super Bowl champs two years ago. Didn’t they have a great season? A smattering of laughter and applause arose from the studio audience. One guy, who wore a Packers’ jersey, stood up. He raised his arms over his head, as if to signal a touchdown.

Lucifer lowered her chin and glared at me from under her scrunched brow. The sparkle in her eyes was replaced by a dark penetrating stare. She hated losing the rapt attention of her audience. Especially because of a nobody like me. Her next words were filled with venom. You’re avoiding my question about the people you killed in Montana. So you must have something to hide. An evil smile creased her face. This is your chance to clear your conscience. Speak out against vigilante justice.

The Packers had another great season. Too bad they missed making the Super Bowl last year. Another hushed smattering of applause arose from the audience.

Lucifer hissed with her acid tongue. Focus on the topic, Mr. Parker.

Patriot!

She shook her head briefly, as if that would clarify my response. What?

The New England Patriots. That’s the team I picked from the American Conference. New England still has a strong team. Hoots and applause erupted from another section in the back of the room. One of the cameramen behind Lucifer flashed me a thumbs-up sign. Yeah, too bad they lost the big game.

Lucinda, I probably didn’t tell you that my full name is Nathan Hale Parker. Nathan Hale was a patriot in the Revolutionary War. My mom was a Revolutionary War fanatic. So I had to go with the Patriots. That was followed by another brief round of applause from the back of the room.

Lucifer glared at me. Her face tightened. Then she fiercely turned back to the camera, forced a smile onto her face, and spoke through clenched teeth. It’s time for a word from our sponsor. We’ll be right back.

Within seconds, someone in the film crew spoke. And we’re clear.

Lucifer jumped from her seat, turned her back to the audience, and urgently spoke to someone in her entourage. Get him out of my sight! Then she stormed off the stage.

A surge of relief washed over me. It was over, at least for now. Even though I’d scored some points with the audience and one cameraman, I didn’t feel like a winner. I had angered Lucifer. Not a good outcome. She would grind away at me and at my employer, looking for weaknesses to exploit for headlines. Tonight marked the start of a crusade against me and against Nation’s Best Insurance, so I knew there would be hell to pay back at the home office in Montana.

But for now, I was free. And there was a positive outcome from this. My company would never again ask me to do public speaking. I could easily live with that.

I left the stage. The handlers from my employer approached. They were sent to keep me in line. Having failed, they too would face a reprimand from the bosses back home.

I didn’t want to talk to my handlers, didn’t want to talk to anyone. Before they could intercept me, I exited through a side door. A long walk into the evening darkness would let me clear my head and maybe help me forget all about this debacle with Lucinda Furren. Then I could focus on that investigation into a gas explosion at a restaurant in Ohio.

Yet, in a few days I’d look back on this evening as a mere bump in the road compared to the turmoil that would soon engulf me.

Chapter 2

On Monday morning, back at the headquarters of Nation’s Best Insurance in Helena, Montana, my managers cornered me in a conference room. They had the whole weekend to plan how to grill me. So I sat in a room surrounded by suits, all of them glaring at me, spewing verbal insults at me, telling me, You’re a screw up, Parker. Even my immediate boss, Steven Donner, joined in the roast. Thanks for the support, guys, I thought sarcastically. But I kept silent, letting their words hit me, and then bracing for the next barrage.

Reminding them that I said it was a bad idea to do the interview with Lucifer had no effect on their mood. And they didn’t appreciate my attempts at humor with the Packer and Patriot defensive tactic to Lucifer’s sneak attack. I had been given the responsibility to represent the company. I had failed. The fact that Lucifer set a trap for me seemed irrelevant to them. They could only see the negative impact from the live TV program. It would continue to embarrass the company as the video of that interview replayed on countless web sites on the Internet.

Even when that video eventually faded away, fear would still fill the air in these headquarters. The managers warily anticipated what other new tactics Lucifer might take to kick Nation’s Best while it was down. But before the brainstorming of such scenarios began, they dismissed me from the room. They didn’t want to hear anything further from me, the screw-up fraud investigator.

I went to my office. With their lack of support for me, anger flooded my brain. Yet another emotion also emerged: relief. They were done scolding me. My standing in the company would surely suffer. But I would recover, eventually, maybe.

My phone rang. I checked the digital display. The number was for the desk phone of Steven Donner, my boss. Our building here in Helena wasn’t large. His office lay only a few steps away, just two doors down the hall. Yet he chose to call me. This was his way of indicating that he didn’t want to see me in person.

He had been doing that a lot lately. I was deep in his doghouse, a situation that started with the mess in San Francisco last year. In that investigation, I had stepped far outside the normal bounds. People died. Even though they were bad people, unpleasant publicity followed. Also lost my company laptop computer and company cell phone out there, courtesy of the FBI. And now the Lucy interview. Yes, I was very deep in his doghouse.

I picked up the receiver on my phone. Before I could even say anything, he plowed into the business on his mind.

Nathan. We received a claim on a life insurance policy. A client of ours died on Wednesday in Cincinnati. As I mentioned last week, it appears to be an accident, a gas explosion. But I want you to investigate this to determine if we should be paying the beneficiary.

Since he didn’t even give me a chance to say hello before dictating my next assignment, I kept quiet. Let him carry the conversation.

I know what you’re thinking. Why send you all the way to Cincinnati when we have an office right there? Well, it’s simple. The payout on this life insurance policy is large. We need an independent eye to look at it. So when you get there, hook up with Reggie Fullborn. He already started looking into this. He’ll bring you up to speed.

Great, I thought. Reginald Fullborn. I knew Reggie all too well. His name suited his personality. He was born full of himself. He was about my age and number of years on the job, yet had little real investigative experience. That was because he behaved as if all the answers had already been revealed to him. In truth, he was simply too work-averse to actually do the job. So Reggie had never expended the effort necessary to actually gain meaningful experience.

I had to admit, though, that he had mastered corporate politics. That mastery hid the facts that he was a slacker at work and that the work he did was sloppy. His mastery seemed to afford him a way to grab credit and get away with it, often after doing absolutely nothing on a case.

Independent eye? Bullshit. Deep down, they didn’t trust Reggie to do his job. But they didn’t have the balls to say that to anyone, certainly not to me, and never to Reggie. It seemed the guy was bullet proof, avoiding loss of his job even in an era of continual downsizing. I could only figure that he had some dirty inside information on someone important in the company, and that protected him.

Reggie. The mere sound of his name infuriated me. Yet I had to stop obsessing about it, though that seemed like an impossible task. For the moment, I tried my best to purge him from my mind.

So they would send me to Cincinnati because they knew that I would be thorough. In spite of their negative opinion of me at the moment, I figured that my skills put me in the top tier of investigators in this company, even though none in management would ever admit it.

Steven continued. This case looks simple, so you and Reggie can probably wrap it up in a day or two. Since you grew up in Cincinnati, why not take some time off while you’re there? Take the whole week. Visit old friends.

I still kept quiet. He continued his monologue.

I already sent some background information to your email. I’m sending the rest right now. Reggie will give you everything else. Get on the next plane out. And send me daily updates while you’re there. Have a good week. He hung up.

Well, that was a first. A phone conversation in which I didn’t say a single word.

Independent eye? Not only did they mistrust Reggie to do his job, Steven wanted me gone. He probably wanted me gone permanently, but for now he would settle for a week. So that’s what I’d do. Today was Monday. I would take the whole week.

I made plane, hotel, and rental car reservations. Then I sent an email message to Reggie, asking him to forward everything he had on the case and letting him know where I’d be staying. I looked quickly at the email message from Steven. That prompted me to send another message to Reggie, asking him to set up meetings with the widow of the deceased client and his two adult children for first thing tomorrow morning. It was still early enough in the day that he should be able to take that simple step. Having finished those tasks, I grabbed my laptop and left the building.

There was no need to go home to pack a bag. I kept a small one in the trunk of my car, ready to go. That was for two reasons. For one, it allowed me to leave on these far-flung business trips without having to go back to my place to pack. The other reason, the bigger reason, was that I lived in a dump. Anything of value left there unattended was subject to being stolen by my less-than-honest neighbors. And that is also why my car was a piece of crap. Anything better would be stripped in the parking lot.

That dump of an apartment and the junky car were all that I could get with my bad credit rating. Nearly three years ago, I had abandoned my house with its under-water mortgage. And I had not improved my credit status with the other troubles that I had brought on myself, like that mess in Willow Run, Montana and then the mess in San Francisco last year. Life has a way of keeping you down once you’ve fallen. And I certainly didn’t help the situation with my habit of reckless behavior.

But I shook all that off. I was leaving this Lucifer uproar at corporate headquarters and heading back to my childhood home. While I had no relatives left there, it was familiar territory. It could be a good change of environment. I sent an email to an old friend, letting him know that my travels were bringing me his way. At least I hoped he still considered us to be friends.

Chapter 3

Before leaving Montana, I downloaded all the information on the case from my email into files on my laptop computer. My plan was to begin working the case on the flight to Cincinnati. But some plans are just not meant to be.

Since I had to make plane reservations at the last minute, not only did I pay a small fortune for a ticket, but also the only available seat was in the middle. I wedged my six-foot two-inch frame between two very large people, whose generous girths bulged over the armrests, compressing me from both sides. With the narrow space between rows, my knees were pressed against the back of the seat in front of me. And I sat in front of a young child. The kid spent the entire flight kicking the back of my seat.

Sorry, the mother said. Timmy, stop kicking the man’s seat. Those words were repeated countless times during the flight. Sorry. Timmy, stop…. Sorry. Timmy, stop…. If only I was allowed to carry a gun onto a plane.

A great sense of relief flooded over me when the ding from the intercom indicated we had parked at the gate of the Cincinnati airport. I could finally escape from the cramped space. I grabbed my bag and bolted for the rental car counter. While walking through the concourse, I checked my phone messages and email on my cell. Nothing from Reggie. A call to his phone went right to voicemail. Rather than leave a message, I chose instead to text him, asking about the time and place of the meetings with the widow and the adult children.

By the time I’d finished, the rental car counter came into view. I was soon on the highway in an economy sedan. The international airport that serves Cincinnati is actually in Kentucky, a few miles south of the border. So the trip was not very far. From the airport, I drove east on Interstate Route 275 and then north on I-75 toward the city, which came into view on the long downhill drop toward the Ohio River. Clearly visible from the highway were the new sports facilities: Great American Ball Park, home of the Cincinnati Reds, and Paul Brown Stadium, home of the Cincinnati Bengals. Both bumped up against the river. Maybe I’d take in a Reds game while here. I hadn’t been to one in many years. It could be a good way to reconnect with my Ohio roots.

Beyond them lay downtown Cincinnati. It is a compact city, with most of the high-rise buildings clustered within a few blocks, sandwiched between I-75 on the west and I-71 on the east. To me, a landmark building is the forty-nine-floor Carew Tower. It’s a hotel. The building dates back to 1930 and is a National Historic Landmark. Also striking are the Twin Towers of Procter & Gamble’s corporate headquarters. And I saw for the first time the new tiara-topped Great American Tower that was completed in 2010. At its completion, it became the tallest building in Cincinnati. As I recall, its primary tenants were to be employees of a financial company.

Except for Great American Tower, I had seen all this many times before when I lived in the area. That was not so long ago, just a couple of years. But it seemed like I had been gone much longer. I had mixed emotions about returning since there were both good and bad memories. The good memories ended when I was downsized out of the Cincinnati Police Department. For now, I pushed all the negative emotion aside. I had come all the way from Montana to do a job, and I would focus my energies on that.

From I-75, I turned west, toward a community named Woodview, the town where my company’s client had resided and died. While I had grown up in the Cincinnati area, I never visited Woodview, so knew almost nothing about it. But the Internet had provided a rich source of information.

It was a small community. A century ago, it had been largely agricultural. As Cincinnati grew and became more crowded, Woodview served as a spacious haven for the wealthy, who could afford to buy large tracts of land for their private enjoyment. Years later, as automobiles became more common, the town was transformed into a bedroom community for middle class workers who also wanted to escape the big city.

In more recent times, Woodview had become a green space that still attracted people. It has good schools, tree-lined streets, concerts on the village square in the summer, an active arts program, and a large forested city park with a lake. Serious crime was nearly non-existent. The town remained a highly desirable place to live and raise a family. It was the kind of place that I might have gravitated toward to put down permanent roots. But now Montana had become my home, and I had no intention of leaving it.

As I drove west along the Ohio River on Route 50 toward Woodview, the sky darkened as the sun settled behind the hills. It was too late now to start interviewing people associated with our deceased client. Besides, I had a more important destination: Skyline Chili. It’s a Cincinnati thing. A Greek immigrant founded the first restaurant in 1949. The name came from the skyline view that the owner had from the window of that restaurant. It was a successful business and became a chain, with stores scattered all over the tri-state region: Southwest Ohio, Northern Kentucky, and Southeast Indiana.

For those who grew up in the Cincinnati area, or even for those who moved there later in life and stayed long enough, Skyline Chili became comfort food. I hadn’t been in the area for over two years, so I craved a fix. Since the chain has restaurants all over the area, there was no need to use the rental car’s GPS to find one. As expected, it was not long before one appeared along my route. Inside the restaurant, I ordered a 4-way bean: spaghetti, chili, shredded cheddar cheese, and kidney beans. Every order comes with oyster crackers. I dove in. When finished, I pushed back my plate and sighed contentedly. Now I felt like Cincinnati was my home once again.

I continued the drive toward my lodging. There were no motels in Woodview. The town lay away from the main thoroughfares, so the amount of traffic probably was not sufficient to support a motel business. Instead, I chose to stay at one of the small bed and breakfast establishments in town. Mine had the name Green House Bed and Breakfast, an old two-story stone and brick building. It had a green metal roof. The yard burst with a profusion of greenery and flowers. The porch that ran across the front and one side of the building held a selection of rocking chairs. Baskets billowing with flowers hung above the porch railing. The building’s name certainly suited its appearance.

I didn’t know one architectural style from another, but the building clearly pre-dated everything else visible along the street. It could be as old, or older, than the city itself, which was founded in 1786, according to the Welcome to the City of Woodview sign I passed on my drive in. Regardless of age, the building was very well maintained judging from the outside appearance and from what I saw when entering through the front door. This seemed like a much better choice than a typical cookie-cutter motel.

Inside, I noted a small counter with an opened guest registration book sitting on top. To the right, a middle-aged stocky woman tidied a sitting area that contained a coffee table and a cluster of overstuffed chairs. She greeted me pleasantly.

Welcome to the Green House. I’m Agnes. You must be Mister Parker.

Yes. Nice to meet you, Agnes.

We’ve been expecting you. How was your flight from Montana?

The usual. But that doesn’t matter now. I found a Skyline Chili restaurant on the drive in, so the bad flight is forgotten.

Don’t tell me you came all the way from Montana to eat that pig swill?

I happen to like that pig swill, I said defensively.

I don’t know how anyone can eat that stuff, she continued. It’s awful.

Her obsession with insulting my comfort food annoyed me. Rather than keep up the banter, I switched topics.

Agnes. Is my room ready?

Of course it is, honey, she said with a hint of annoyance. I said we were expecting you.

I had seen better manners from bored Wal-Mart greeters. Perhaps she needed a refresher course.

Here’s the key to your room. Top of the stairs on the left. Breakfast at six thirty. And here’s an envelope that was left for you earlier.

I peered at the envelope. It was from Reggie Fullborn. I was about to thank Agnes, but she had already left the room. Welcome to Woodview.

Climbing the stairs, I found that my room was situated in the back of the building, overlooking a yard. Peering through the single window in the room to the scene below, I saw a courtyard and garden. A very peaceful view.

I turned my attention to the envelope in my hand. It was heavy. Reggie Fullborn had outdone himself. Was he trying to impress me? Maybe Reggie had changed his ways, becoming a contributing team player to bolster his résumé. Tearing the seal along the top, I opened the envelope and shook it to dump the contents on the bed. Out plopped a DVD and a CD, each in a thick plastic protective case. This was promising. There could be a lot of information on these two disks.

After slipping the DVD into my laptop computer, I let it play. It contained a copy of a single local TV news report about the death of Nation’s Best client, Karl Reinhardt. Mr. Reinhardt had died in an explosion at a restaurant. A female reporter stood in front of the restaurant, facing the camera, talking and gesturing at the array of emergency vehicles behind her. Police cars, an ambulance, two fire trucks, and City of Woodview vehicles.

The flames at the restaurant had been extinguished, though the building still smoldered, wisps of gray smoke drifting upward. While the story was informative, it contained very few useful details since it was the first news report immediately after the blast. At that point, no one had much solid information to offer. So the reporter kept repeating herself just to fill the airtime that the TV station apparently expected her to fill.

I next loaded the CD. All it contained were copies of two short local newspaper reports about Mr. Reinhardt’s death. Both lacked details since they published soon after the explosion at the restaurant, well before any details would be available.

Returning to the envelope, I found it also contained a manila folder that was wedged inside. I tugged it out and flipped it open. It contained a single sheet of paper with a brief hand-written note from Reggie. There was nothing about an arranged meeting with the widow or the children. Just the words, Call me if you need anything. Reggie. The note provided no phone number.

Reggie had not changed. He was playing politics again. I could guess the scenario. Before my arrival, he had not done anything on the case. Hearing that the home office sent me to assist, he did the simplest thing possible in an attempt to impress me. Yet what he gave me were copies of items I could find on the Internet in seconds on my own, with absolutely no involvement from him. And then Reggie hand-delivered it to my lodging in an attempt to claim that he was fully engaged with me in the investigation.

But I was already prepared to go it alone on this case. And even though the note did not contain a phone number, it was no mystery to me. His number was already stored in my cell phone’s memory. And while I had to connect with him since it was expected of me, involving him was not necessary to move this investigation forward.

Quickly tossing thoughts of Reggie out of my mind, I stomped down the stairs to find Agnes. I asked how I might contact Breanna Reinhardt, the widow, since Reggie had not done that. She told me to ask Clair Hodges in the morning. She owned the building and would join the guests for breakfast. Then I went back to my room and dove into the files that Steven Donner had sent to me before I left Montana.

Chapter 4

I started reading about the dead man. This was the tedious part of every investigation, digging into the history and details of the deceased person. For me, it was best done in isolation, away from distractions, so I could identify who I needed to interview and the direction the investigation should go. The real action would start tomorrow when I headed out into the community of Woodview to find all the people who would provide me with the information I needed to settle this claim.

Karl Reinhardt was a life-long resident of Woodview. He had been a hugely successful banker and financial advisor. He started his own small bank nearly 40 years ago in Cincinnati. Over the years, it expanded throughout the Cincinnati area, and later throughout Ohio and neighboring states. His net worth was estimated to be in the high nine figures. Not quite a billionaire, but probably within sight of that lofty plateau.

The Great Recession, in particular the toxic home mortgages, took a big bite out of his holdings, just as it had done to so many others. It was interesting how the financial industry had latched onto the phrase toxic mortgages, making it seem that the banks were victims of these bad investments. In truth, they and the government had created the environment that allowed the toxicity problem to bloom.

Yet, in the end, that didn’t matter. The federal government bailout of banks and financial institutions essentially rewarded their bad behavior, giving them the resources to recover. When it was over, Karl and his kind ended up richer than before the recession began. That’s the way it is. The rich get richer, and the rest of us pay the tab.

Even though Karl was well into his seventies, he was still active in the day-to-day operations of the business. Earlier on the day that he died, he had been at one of his bank buildings for a regularly scheduled monthly meeting. The meeting ended sometime after 2 PM. Then Mr. Reinhardt and an associate went to a gyro shop in a nearby strip mall for a late lunch. They arrived there close to 2:30 PM. At 2:45 PM, a natural gas explosion ripped through the building. Karl Reinhardt died. His associate, Mark Fritzman, was seriously injured, but miraculously survived. He was still in the hospital. No other customers were in the shop at the time.

The gyro shop owner and his son, who were both