Page 18 of I Do, or Dye Trying
“Stick? As in I flew over on a broomstick?” he asked.
“Hey, that’s funny, but I was referring to the one you’ve had lodged in your ass every time I’ve been around you. Just relax, and everything will be just fine,” I assured him.
“Yeah, okay,” he agreed. “I can do that.”
“Good man,” I said before I snatched the pastry bag from his hand as a test. He laughed instead of bitched, so I thought we made a big leap in progress right off the bat. “First, we need to comprise a list of people who knew, or suspected, what Broadman was up to, but I’m willing to bet that it’s a short list and they might all be dead already.”
“That’s a cheerful thought,” Adrian said. “Let’s put the events in chronological order and see if the motive stands out.”
I went to the whiteboard and started writing down the events as they occurred—starting with the threatening emails Nate received.
“The only common denominator is Robertson’s land,” Whitworth said in between sucking the glaze off the tips of his fingers. “He’s a proud fifth generation farmer and Robertson’s land getting turned over to the consortium might’ve put him over the edge.”
“Why would he agree to represent Robertson the first time around then?” I asked Whitworth.
Whitworth knocked the crumbs off his tie before he responded. “He probably knew there was no way in hell the elected commissioners at that time would approve the construction of the casino. He lucked out that the statewide vote was against the measure and wasn’t willing to take the risk a second time. My guess is that Spizer mentioned it to Nate after what’s his nuts from McCarren decided not to pursue it.”
“Michael Larkin,” Dorchester said, supplying the name of the guy at McCarren who’d resumed the casino talk. “He did say that he talked it over with Rick Spizer. Let’s say Rick brought it up to Nate after Robertson ignored the letter from McCarren we found in the safe deposit box, then what?”
“Spizer contacted his old buddy Rylan Broadman who just happened to represent Robertson. I bet they hadn’t seen each other in years before they negotiated that land deal together,” Adrian suggested.
“I agree,” I told the group. “Spizer phoned Broadman and asked him to intervene on Nate’s behalf with Robertson about selling the land. I bet Spizer even offered to sweeten the deal somehow so that Broadman could get a kickback for helping close the deal. Broadman probably went along with it so that he could keep an eye on the situation. Maybe he told Spizer that Robertson wasn’t interested and thought that would be the end of it.”
“Nate probably didn’t want to let the idea go once it took root. He saw the potential for income and wanted to take a crack at talking to Robertson, possibly through Broadman at first,” Dorchester supplied.
“Now we need to figure out how Owen Smithson got pulled into this. We know that his dad used to play baseball with Spizer and Broadman when they were kids,” Adrian said.
“I bet the kid had some legal trouble,” Whitworth suggested. “The parents called one of these attorneys, who in turn put Owen’s computer skills to work for them. Broadman eliminated him when he became a liability.”
“Damn, that’s cold,” I said. “Then again, what do we expect from someone who kills in cold blood?”
“So, he threatened Nate, but not with anything specific that we could trace back to him. Broadman thought that Nate would put two and two together and back away from the casino deal. The threats escalated when Nate went to the police, but we don’t know how because Nate didn’t specify in the email to me. How did he know that Nate went to the police?” I asked the team.
“They could’ve bugged his phones or maybe they attached a tracking virus to the first email Owen sent Nate, allowing them to monitor his electronic activity,” Dorchester said.Or someone inside the CPD alerted Broadman.I hated that the thought even popped in my brain, but I couldn’t help myself.
“Maybe that virus was the reason why Nate’s email to you got flagged by the BPD servers and not keywords in the content,” Whitworth added.
“Good point,” Adrian told him, earning surprised stares from all of us. “What? He brought us pastries.”
“Continuing with that theory,” Dorchester said, pulling us back on track, “Broadman arranged to meet with Nate then ambushed him? That was awfully late at night for a meeting.”
“Maybe the meeting took place at a decent time but the popup snowstorm that came through delayed him heading back to Cincinnati until later,” Adrian suggested. “We always assumed Nate was coming to town because of where his car went into the ditch and struck a tree. From that vantage point, it looked like he was coming into the county, not exiting. The snow storm could’ve covered the tracks on the road that showed he lost control and ended in the ditch on the opposite side of the road.”
“Then he killed Owen to make sure the kid didn’t talk to the police once Nate’s death was made public,” I said. “Why kill Robertson though?”
“Robertson must’ve found out about it somehow, and Broadman silenced him too. Or he was on a damn killing spree and decided why not? That was one way to make sure the land didn’t get sold,” Whitworth said.
“Spizer either knew it was going on and kept quiet because he was scared or he started to figure things out and Broadman killed him,” Dorchester added.
I stood back from the board where I’d been writing notes and thought that the theory was pretty damn plausible. “Now we just have to prove it,” I said. I looked up as Sergeant O’Malley walked in with several carryout bags from the diner. “But not until after lunch,” I told the team. After all, a man needed to have his priorities set.
The captain treated us to the diner’s best dishes for our first day as a newly formed task force. After our trip to Carb City, we comprised a list of witnesses that we wanted to interview then divided them up. It was hard for me to choose which man should ride shotgun with me when it came time to track down our witnesses. Adrian was my original partner and my best friend, but Dorchester was my partner onthatparticular case, and it felt wrong not having him with me. So, I made the decision that made the most sense to me.
“Adrian, you’re going to team up with Dorchester and Whitworth is riding with me,” I announced.
“I am?” Whitworth asked.
“He is?” Dorchester and Adrian questioned at the same time. They both sounded perturbed, which was what I had hoped to avoid in the first place.