Page 43 of Coveted Justice

Reed and Gavin stood as well, the older man walking them to the front door.

“It was nice to have some company today,” he said. “It’s a little sad to talk about Marty, but in a way it kind of helped, too. Go get his killer and put them behind bars.”

That was exactly what Reed intended to do. Whether it was Abby or someone else. They’d get to the truth no matter what.

Tanner and Logan had stopped at the cafe to grab something to eat when a call came in from Jared Monroe. He was the point person when it came to doing deep background research on a subject. They needed to know a hell of a lot more about Marty’s personal and financial life.

The cafe wasn’t busy, but Tanner didn’t want to have an open conversation about Marty and Abby where anyone could overhear them.

“I’ll order for us,” Logan said. “If I were you, I’d take that call outside.”

“Good idea. Thanks.”

Tanner exited the restaurant and stepped into the alley on the side of the building where no one could accidentally hear what they were saying.

“I didn’t expect to hear from you so soon,” Tanner said. “What did you find out?”

“I’m still working on a few things, but I wanted to let you know what I’d found as soon as possible. It might change what questions you want to ask. No need to take notes. I’ll shoot these over to you when we’re done with our call.”

“That’s great. I’m listening.”

“First of all, I checked into Marty’s finances. He paid his bills on time and didn’t spend excessively for someone who had millions. Abby was a different story, however. She liked to shop and she did it often. The bills for clothes, hair, and spa treatments were substantial. If Marty objected, I can’t see it though. It looks like he gave her a budget and she spent up to that amount every single month.”

Abby hadn’t lived the high life when she’d been married to him. He hadn’t made the kind of money that stretched to spa treatments when they had two kids at home.

“So no money problems?”

“Depends on your definition of money problems,” Jared replied. “Marty had a short-term cash flow issue. The development project he was working on was more expensive than originally estimated. He recently sold some stocks and bonds to cover it, but he had plenty of assets left. As I said, it was really a short-term issue and not a reflection of his finances in general. I didn’t see any change in his spending habits because of it.”

“He was getting sued by his neighbors and from what they told me they had a good case. Could he have been concerned about that hit to his finances?”

“He had an attorney on retainer and I don’t see him setting any money aside for any judgment that might come down. If he was worried, I didn’t see it. Doesn’t mean that he wasn’t, of course. I can only tell so much from bank accounts and credit card transactions. Speaking of bank accounts, it looks like Marty was socking away some money into an account in the Cayman Islands. He also signed over two vehicles into his son’s name, and a house in Aspen to his daughter.”

“The Caymans? That’s suspicious behavior.”

“It kind of looks like he might be hiding assets. Not from a lawsuit, I doubt any judgment that would come down would be a substantial amount that Marty couldn’t handle. There was property damage, but he wasn’t going to have to buy his neighbors a whole new house. No, this looks like either tax evasion or a husband hiding assets from his wife right before a divorce.”

“He didn’t need to. They had a prenup agreement.”

“Maybe he wasn’t sure it would hold up in court. Either way, it looks a bit funny to me. I don’t have his state of mind, of course, so I can’t tell you his actual intentions. I can only conjecture and my suspicious nature probably makes it more pessimistic than it really is. He could have simply wanted to give his kids a present.”

“Anything else?”

There was a laugh on the other end of the line.

“Are you kidding? I definitely have more. I was combing through their credit card transactions and I found a large monthly fee that I couldn’t readily identify. It was classified as professional fees but when I looked up the organization, I found out it was a swingers club.”

“A swingers club?” Tanner echoed, his brain wrapping around that new, and frankly disturbing, information. “You mean like…wife swapping?”

“Exactly. This club is huge, by the way. It’s nationwide and has tens of thousands of members who meet regularly to…you know…swing. I dug way back and Marty was a member even when he was married to first wife. His dues went up about the time he and Abby married so I assume she joined as well.”

“That might explain what the neighbors told us.”

“What did the neighbors say?”

“Marty and Abby had wild parties all the time. People drunk and naked.”

“Damn, that sounds…shit, I don’t even know how that sounds. Crazy, I guess. I thought Marty was a nice guy and all, but I wouldn’t have wanted to see him naked.”

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