* * *
Henry Wade and I talked several times in the next month, and we made arrangements for him to call back when I could assemble the interested-party group at my house for the denouement. Betty drove up for it, and that afternoon she and Vicki stood on the back porch smoking and talking. Carol and Marjo bustled around the kitchen, making coffee and slicing zucchini bread, defrosted from Marjo’s summer stash. Willard Franklin brought a buddy along, and they both sat stiffly on the couch, their long-sleeve plaid shirts buttoned tightly at the collar, chatting with Perry and Denise, while Liz, Emma, and Louie rifled through my music collection. Isabelle gave a dog bone to Patsy, and Pecos abandoned my side to beg one for himself. The only people we were missing were Nick and Nora Charles, and their dog Asta. I’d spent a while filling the group in with what I knew, so we were ready when the phone rang. We gathered around the speaker phone on the dining room table, and Henry Wade’s voice began.
“I know Lily’s given you most of the story, but I’ll try to tell you some more details. Phil Binder and Eddie Johnson are squealin’ in hopes of a plea deal, so we have it on good sources.
“Momo Morgan—Correda—owed Mondragón big on a busted drug deal in New Mexico, and to get his money’s worth, Mondragón decided to use him rather than kill him. He made Morgan disappear, and then the cleaned-up and coached Correda appeared, to help with the property sales and meth lab labor ‘procurement’. Couldn’t coach the stupid out of him, though, ‘cause Correda never could make the right decisions. Once Correda was up here working on his own, Mondragón found that out.
“Correda’s ineptitude allowed Shannon to stumble on the overseas accounts—the way Mondragón laundered the money from the drug operations—at Nueva; and through her research, she realized that something was wrong. She went to Andrea Brubaker, Andrea told Mondragón, and Mondragón ordered Correda to get rid of Shannon; and to make sure he found any copies she may have made of the account codes.
“After Phil Binder saw Lily talking with Correda for the second time, he questioned him about it. Correda had brushed off Lily’s first visit as from a dotty old church friend of Shannon’s aunt. But he acted squirrely about the second conversation, and that made Binder suspicious that Correda had slipped, and compromised the situation even more. He and Mondragón arranged the car accident; and planned for Correda to actually die in it. Mondragón thought he had. But Correda had found out about the plan beforehand, and protected his rear by telling Phil Binder that he had copies of the account codes, and that if anything happened to him, Binder would be exposed. So Correda and Binder faked it. I think Daryl Duncan, the one you called Nephew, was the body in the wreck. He was a low life even farther down the food chain than Eddie Johnson, and he was the one who had blown the chance to get the trunk, with the account codes, back without attention. I imagine they thought he was expendable. Couldn’t get an ID on the remains, and Duncan isn’t around anymore, so . . .
“Phillip Binder double crossed Mondragón by letting him think Correda was dead in the accident to give himself time to figure out how to deal with Correda on his own. He couldn’t look like he’d lost control of the situation. Stalling for time, he had Correda go into hiding at his dad’s hunting cabin in Wyoming.
“Correda snuck back to Denver—for a hooker—but Binder found out, and made him get out of sight again, this time at the mountain lab.” Isabelle and I started laughing, remembering the hooker’s name for Barry Correda. We’d have to share that with the group later. “Binder’s new plan was to bribe Eddie Johnson to do his dirty work for him, and take out Correda up there.”
“That Sunday, Mondragón got a call from Chloë Austin, squealing about Lily’s visit, and what she thought took place. Mondragón decided Lily knew too much, but he didn’t trust Binder to not bungle it, so he came up here to take care of things himself. I have to admit we had some lucky breaks in finding you before he could get that done.”
Louie Burzachiello broke in, and nudged her sister. “Yeah, Liz! Tell these guys how you figured everything out, how you—”
“No, really, I didn’t figure everything out,” said the modest Liz. “But, that day, when I heard Lily’s car come roaring down the road behind me, I knew something was up, something wasn’t right. ‘Cause Lily doesn’t drive like that—like a bat outta hell! So, you know? I knew. Plus I saw she wasn’t pulling Wanda, and she wouldn’t have left Wanda!” Liz Burzachiello gave me a smile. “Something was up. I got off the road so I wouldn’t be seen, and watched you guys drive by. Then I saw those guidos had Louie, too! Now I was pissed. I kept running down the road as fast as I could, and found a house, and a land line, thank our sweet Mother. Called 911.”
“That information saved us hours,” Henry Wade said on the speaker phone. “Liz remembered that Lily usually kept her cell phone in her car; we hoped she still had it, and she’d have a chance to turn it on, and activate the GPS.”
“Back to Chloë Austin,” Betty broke in. “What’s her role in all of this?”
“She’s tied up financially in several ventures with Andrea Brubaker, besides their connection at Stedmans. She placed the phone call to Mondragón on that Sunday so she’s accessory to attempted murder, for starters. Maybe a weapons violation, too. She was arrested at her office that week. Actually had to be taken out in handcuffs ‘cause she resisted arrest, so she’ll have that charge, too.”
I tried to be good, maybe tried to dredge up some compassion, but I couldn’t help but smile, and be delighted at that image of Chloë in chains. Betty nudged my arm, a slight grin on her face. “What about Andrea Brubaker?”
“Andrea Brubaker’s in world of trouble, no matter how loudly she proclaims her innocence,” Henry replied. “Mondragón so intertwined her business and foundation with everything—including murder—that she’s got a lot to answer for. Whatever her future problems are, she’s not going to get much sympathy in Santa Fe. She’s finding that if you can only buy loyalty, it vanishes as soon as the money is gone.
“And Cowboy Binder? He knew something was up, especially after Shannon died, but didn’t say anything. It shook him up, but he kept quiet. He’d seen Daryl Duncan hanging around Shannon and Barry before her death; and then he saw Duncan again hanging around the aunt, and it worried him. He’s the one who paid for the aunt’s trip—to keep her out of harm’s way, he said.
“Now he’s taken charge of Binder Enterprises again, trying to pick up the pieces. Guess he’s cut his son off, and the poor boy will be forced to use a public defender, because he has no funds for his defense. For anything, actually, since everything he had was tied up in Binder.
“But, you know, Lily, that talk you and Cowboy Binder had in the ambulance that night? Seems like he heard what you were talking about; something must have gotten through to him. He’s establishing a business scholarship at UNC in Shannon’s name to fund deserving young women’s education. It’s a little late, but I think he’s trying to make things right.”
We were all silent for a moment absorbing that positive information. I winked at Emma Johanssen, knowing she had news for us later.
“That leaves Mondragón. I’m emailing you a photo of him in a former life. It might surprise you.”
We all huddled around my laptop on the dining room table as I pulled up Henry’s email. “Ew! He looks like he just crawled out from under rock!” Denise exclaimed, voicing some of our silent thoughts as we looked at the mug shot. The suave, muscular Ernesto Mondragón formerly looked like a pale and flabby older man, with a thin stubble of grey hair, and protruding ears. He had a rodent’s face with small, stained teeth and an overbite, and a weak chin receding into a turkey-waddle neck. But the same flat black eyes and soulless smile were plastered on the unfamiliar face.
“The man has had plastic surgery to change his appearance,” Henry said in the understatement of the year. He gave a short bark of a laugh. “His real name is Stanley Grazmenski, born of immigrant Jewish parents, grew up in the streets of Newark. Always
wanted to be a tough guy, but never was. Small time all his life. Turned snitch on a convenience store robbery, and had to go into hiding, disappear. Reappeared in Miami, in this Mondragón incarnation, with a big dose of bad ass attitude; popped a guy just for laughing at him. He met up with the computer hacker—specializing in data and system interference—about three, four years ago, and his crimes started taking on a much more sinister nature. The feds have been just one step behind him. But we’ll find him,” he repeated.
But that afternoon, since it seemed no one had any more questions, Henry Wade rang off. The group broke up around the table, and milled around the kitchen, talking, eating zucchini bread, and refreshing their drinks. Betty and Vicki were finishing their cigarettes outside when Emma poked her head out the door, motioned for the smokers to come in, and then turned to the rest of us.
She cleared her throat, and Liz clinked a glass of water on the table in front of her. One by one we stopped jabbering and turned silent, and shy Emma Johanssen turned pink in embarrassment at the attention being paid to her. “Well, uh, you guys know, uh, that I’ve been pretty unhappy at work.” There were some hoots from her friends in affirmative answer to that. “And, uh, well … Lily, do you want to tell it? I mean, if it wasn’t for you—” Emma almost pleaded.
“No, Emma, it’s your story. You’ve done all the work to make it happen. You go, girl!” I gave her an encouraging smile.
Emma Johanssen took a deep breath, and twisted the knitted scarf at her neck. “Okay!” She nodded at us, real happiness beginning to show on her face. “I’ve quit my job at TDI!” There were more raucous hoots from her friends, and clapping, too. “And, I’ve been hired as interim director— ” More hoots and hollers. “For the Shannon Parkhurst Business Foundation at UNC.” Surprised silence, then cheering. Emma was surrounded by friends, wanting to give her hugs and congratulations, and to hear her story.
Cowboy Binder had mentioned to me in the ambulance his intention to create a scholarship in Shannon’s name, and I had referred to it shortly thereafter talking with Emma and Liz one day at my house. Something clicked for Emma. What inspired her was empowering others; helping people, not designing software tools. Helping others is what inspired Shannon, too, and Emma thought Cowboy’s idea could be bigger than one scholarship, maybe as a non-profit mentoring young women.
Drawing on her experience as a grant manager at TDI, she took her idea to a friend of mine who worked with foundations at Cowboy Binder’s alma mater, and together they presented the project to Cowboy. Emma was modest about her efforts to convince the man to be generous, but I knew she had worked extremely hard, and had done her homework. In the end, Cowboy Binder was so enthusiastic that he asked her to work for him, as interim director of the foundation she was helping him create. As soon as a board could vote, he wanted her as the full time executive director.
Emma gave me a hug. “You know, Lily, it was that one day we were in your studio, talking about stuff. On your desk was that Mary Oliver poem someone gave you. It just took my heart … it inspired me. It’s the poem that ends, ‘Tell me, what is it you plan to do/with your one wild and precious life?’ It made me think about Shannon, and it inspired me to do something.”
Everyone started chattering about how much they loved Mary Oliver poems, and poor Willard Franklin and his buddy couldn’t get out the door fast enough. Betty stayed the rest of the evening after the others had left, and the two of us sat up half the night talking, and eating pot roast and horseradish mayo sandwiches.
The next morning, after the requisite coffee for me, and diet Pepsi and a Pall Mall for Betty Huckleston, I leashed up the dogs, and the four of us headed out the door and through the back gate. Access to the river was open this time of year, with the tall buff grasses on the banks matted down from the first early snow a month before, and the bushes stripped of leaves and vines, showing the deep red branches of the dogwoods. On a narrow curve of water, Patsy and Pecos barked at a foursome of mallards until the ducks rose as a group and flew off, quacking their displeasure. Thin rims of ice at the shore line cracked as the dogs tried to give chase, and I whistled them back out of the shallows. Through the bare trees, lenticular clouds of winter slowly drifted like bulbous spaceships in the sapphire blue sky. Betty wanted to stay for a few days, and as we started planning the next feast we’d prepare together, I turned us home to a warm house.