The Mourning Mail (final release candidate #7)

Chapter 16

My friend and once-fellow reporter at the Union-Tribune, Doug Stein, called in the middle of the afternoon to get in touch. He was bored and irritated by the atmosphere around his office. We usually spoke every few weeks, but we'd both been busy and hadn't talked for a while.

Doug wasn't someone who rants, but he was upset.

"So, I'm writing this story, and I've got our Congressman dead to rights on a political corruption story, funny money in the election coffers, insider trading around bills he was working on—you know the drill."

"Patterson, right?" I guessed. "That guy's some kind of mutant snail; he can't go anywhere without leaving a trail of sleaze behind him."

"You got it," Doug replied. "So, one conduit he uses for information and to push his influence around is a married lawyer's wife sleeping with Patterson. The lawyer in question is a partner in McQuade and Morrison, one of the paper's advertisers."

"Oh, crap, I've seen this movie before...," I said, grimacing.

"I make the deadline," Doug said, his voice growing more agitated. "But before it goes to press, that idiot Dark cut any reference to the lawyer or his wife out of the piece to protect them. He watered down the whole damned story to ensure that advertising revenue stayed right where it was. I'm so mad I could spit nails."

"I'm sorry, Doug," I said, scrambling for something to say. "It's just not right. But I don't know what you can do. I should have some answer or suggestion for you, but I couldn't come up with any for myself when it happened to me."

"I know," Doug said. "I just wanted to share what is going on with someone who would understand how I'm feeling right now. That somebody gets it helps more than you know. I should have quit when you did, but it's not an option with my oldest at Stanford."

"Just between you and me," I said, "I was sweating bullets after I quit—there are a lot of quality stories out there, but few organizations will foot the bill. If Dad hadn't had my back, I don't know what I'd be doing now."

"Okay, my whining session is over," Doug said, his voice brightening, "for this day, anyway. So, what have you been doing? We both went radio silent and with you, that usually means you're on to something."

Unlike Marci, with whom I often had to parse my words because she was a law enforcement officer, I could trust Doug with anything. Since Dad had passed, I didn't have anyone else I could share all the gory details with and get good advice in return.

So, I let loose with what I had on Brian and the Seavers, albeit the abbreviated version out of respect for Doug's time. That took me to my conversation earlier today with Marci.

"Because I'd held out on her," I told Doug, "Marci didn't know how right she was that there was a story here, one much bigger than she might have guessed. Not only were things pointing to the murder of Theresa Seaver and moving her body, but Brian's letters tied it all together."

"You should have told her about the letters," Doug said, chiding me for knowing better.

"I know, Doug," I said, pleading my case, "but I didn't realize what I might have until she told me about the graffiti on the wall way into our conversation. And I don't have any confirmation yet on the rest of what Brian wrote, just conjecture."

"I get it. But let's see if I was paying attention," Doug said. "We'll assume Theresa is dead. You know who Brian was, and you have an idea of the neighborhood where he was living because of the reference to Rocco's. In case you didn't know, that's where Frankie Ventana's crew hangs out.

"So, there are two threats we know about to Brian, and both tie back to James Seaver – the thugs in Brian's neighborhood asking a lot of questions, and this 'Rickie' that Brian wants to go after and set up for Theresa Seaver's murder."

"That sums up pretty well what I know so far," I said. "I have Rickie's name to go on, Brian's threatened violence against him, and only three days elapsed between Brian's threat and his body being dumped. I'm inclined to chase that lead first."

"Makes sense," Doug agreed. "If that doesn't work out for you, maybe Marci can hook you up with a CI that frequents Rocco's. Cold-calling the cannoli crowd wouldn't be productive and might not be safe. They're not going to talk to you, but they'd probably be happy to tell someone they trust what they know about foreign goons on their turf. If the CI route isn't productive, I might know a couple of people in that area who would whisper in your ear - for a price."

"One of those options should get me a lot closer to who did both murders," I said, as I paused a moment to think.

"You know, I'm not convinced of James Seaver's presumed motive that he would have killed Theresa to get at the inheritance from her father. The erstwhile doctor is a cagey con artist and master manipulator. He would surely know that the authorities would heavily scrutinize her account activity as soon as Theresa went missing. That would include her past, present, and future financial behaviors and the lack of transactions in those accounts."

"And Theresa not making timely court appearances would only delay the litigation tying up the estate," Doug said. He picked up from where I left off, just as he did when we worked on stories together. "His claim that she was be-bopping around the world logging flight miles on a fake ID doesn't seem reasonable. Not easy, given how much countries have strengthened already-strict international security protocols. It will only worsen in the face of terrorism, wars, and pandemics. And then there's the immigration resentment in some countries."

"If he killed this woman," I added, "and any doubts I had are shrinking with every passing hour, there had to be another angle he was working. You'd think it would be better for him to have the body turn up sooner rather than later. Did he seriously intend to twiddle his thumbs for seven or more years before having her legally declared dead?"

"A con artist like Seaver," Doug said, "would have gotten life insurance for a spouse he intended to kill. It'd have an obscenely inflated payout based on the value of the inheritance she was about to receive. It makes no sense he'd want to wait to get his hands on that."

"I'm curious about something else," I continued. "Two different husbands in consecutive marriages have now made the 'my wife ran off to Europe' allegation after incidents of marital strife. The first was truthful, and the second most likely not. It would be fair to ask if the two men cooperated for the second instance."

"Now that idea raises a few questions," Doug said, leaning into this. "Was Theresa's taste in men consistent, meaning Darrell Woodson was also a sleaze? Could Woodson have fed James Seaver the idea of re-purposing what Theresa had done to Woodson? Did the doctor then use the suggestion as cover to exact Woodson's revenge against Theresa while satisfying the doctor's desire to kill her?"

"Yes, it might be a stretch," I said as I thought about the situation. "James Seaver could have leveraged a story he'd heard from someone else without consulting the ex—but it is possible the two colluded."

"Where do you want to go next with this?" Doug said.

"I need to talk to Darrell Woodson, the ex-husband. I'll approach him seeking additional information and background on the divorce and the property fraud," I said. "If he proves cooperative and amenable to a broader conversation, I'll ask him more."

"I gotta hand it to you, Debra Ann - that's quite a story!" Doug exclaimed as we ended the call, his approval apparent in his voice.

"Adamned shame you can't tell it to anyone just yet...."