Saltwater in the Bluegrass (18 page)

It had not taken long
to explain to Texi my reason for being in Louisville. It had not taken long either for Texi to track down the information I had asked her for. She was at home in this little river town, and she knew it. She was home with her directions, her connections, her emotions, and her comfort zone.

Texi had turned into a top-notch assistant over the past few years. She had a sense about herself. She usually knew what I needed before I knew what I needed. I was thankful for having her with me. With her drive and zest for life, her appeal for the out of the ordinary, her management for the possible, and her realm of the impossible, I was finding her more of an asset every day. I was more then confident that she would be able to handle the assignment I had given her. If Uncle Buddy had been murdered in the car wreck, as I had concluded, then it was reasonable to think that Kristina had been followed to Pompano Beach. If so, it was probably by someone who lived in Louisville or worked for the Ingram family, the family she had married into. With this reasoning, it was apparent that Kristina was the one who was supposed to have been dead, not Uncle Buddy. She would become the first lead I had in the case. The first assignment I had was to tracking down the killer or killers. That much goes with the job.

Someone was trying to kill Kristina. She knew it, and I’m sure, by now, she knew that I knew it. I needed to find her, and I needed to find her fast.

Hiding looks easy enough. It sounds easy, but for amateurs, when it comes right down to it, hiding out is not all that it is cracked up to be. They don’t take it seriously enough.

People who are not used to hiding find the hardest part is covering their tracks and blending in, knowing what to say and do around the people who are helping them hide, and then keeping their mouths shut when the screws get turned up a notch or two.

Most people do not think before they open their mouths. It is an inherent trait. Most do not understand the repercussions of their actions.

Kristina was probably hanging out with friends somewhere in this town rather than hiding out, especially since the reading of the will would take place here within a couple of weeks, and she would want to be there. Money was now her primary goal. She had come too far to lose out on her rightful inheritance.

I had to flush her out. I had to see what she really did know about Uncle Buddy’s death before someone else found her first and squeezed the life out of her.

I needed to find out why someone was after her. If for some reason this ploy did not work, then I was going to walk right through the back door into the Ingrams’ life and shake a few eyebrows—stir the pot a little or stir the pot a lot, see what came to the top. I was confident that if it came to pushing the envelope, I would probably find myself walking straight into a well-built hornet’s nest. This I did not need.

For now, it was an hour past sunrise.

I decided to start my morning off by walking into the lobby of the local newspaper building. I understood from several talks with Kristina that the Ingram family owned the local newspaper. I would ask a few questions from the minimum wage girl at the front desk and see what I could find out.

While this was going on, Texi was on her way to Bowman Field, the smaller local airport built for corporate and recreational planes. In my quick evaluation, I figured if someone in the family had wanted Kristina dead, then either they were going to drive twelve hundred miles to perform the task, pay for a roundtrip plane ticket, or take their own jet. Rich folks, you have got to love ’em. This is where Texi would start.

The Ingram family
had three new corporate jets. They were all top of the line Citation CJ2s. They were faster and more maneuverable than any other plane on the market, the perfect jets for multi-millionaires on the go. Each jet could seat eight to sixteen people, depending on the seating configuration.

All three jets where kept in private hangars at Bowman Field Airport. Each plane had been fueled, serviced, and had been out on trips within the past few weeks.

The clearance and authorization forms for all three planes were logged. They were all inside the terminal dispatch office and showed that the trips had been issued and approved by Lamar and Katherine Ingram.

It did not take long, with Texi’s looks and charm, along with her top-notch set of phony FAA IDs and credentials, to get inside the terminal area manager’s office and take a look at the monthly reports. The manifests for each plane showed that they had all taken off and landed within the last thirty days.

Jet number one was
The Paper Boy
. It had flown out on Monday the 8th, in the early morning, to Brazil and had not returned. This was the plane that Lamar Ingram had flown out on. It was also the plane that would bring Lamar’s body home.

Jet number two was called the
Quarter Back
. It had flown to Cincinnati on the morning of Wednesday the 3rd, with no stops in between. Then it had returned to Louisville later that same night. The manifest showed two passengers had flown on this flight. Jet number three, known as
Queen Bee
, is the one I was most interested in. It had departed Louisville on Tuesday the 9th at seven thirty in the evening. It had flown to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. The returned flight was on Wednesday the 10th at four fifteen in the afternoon.

Two passengers had flown on this flight. The two passengers were Patrick Lane and Owen Hensley. In time, I would find out that these two men were part of Katherine Ingram’s ruffian squad. I was certain of that and I would prove it before I left Louisville. These had to have been the two men that pushed the Audi with Uncle Buddy into the canal. In time, they would pay along with whoever had sent them. Most likely it was Katherine Ingram. The
Queen Bee
was Katherine’s private coach. It was her baby. She would have had to have given authorization for the flight of the
Queen Bee
if and when the plane flew without her onboard. For now, I would hold the information and build on it. I was interested in the bigger picture. I was going to nail this lady, Katherine Ingram, and her two punks who killed Uncle Buddy to the wall.

It was still too early to tip my hat.

My trip over to the newspaper
had been as I expected, red taped from the get-go.

I walked into the front lobby of the Kentuckianna Tribune through the rotating glass doors. I acted like I belonged there; I gave my

“good mornings” to people I passed and smiled all the way up to the front desk. It is amazing how often you can get through a blocked passage by just being nice to people.

Some skinny girl with glasses, who looked fresh out of high school and was probably the daughter of someone upstairs, stood behind the desk. She had short brown hair, brown eyes, and a strange little mole on the right side of her neck. Even with that, she looked as if she ran the place. She had a phone, a computer, a sign-in list, a couple of pens in a glass, and a whole lot of attitude.

“Hi,” I said

“Good morning,” she replied.

“Yes, I am here to see Kristina Ingram.”

“Do you have an appointment?”

“Why, no, I do not.”

“Then you will have to make an appointment.”

“But, you see, I’m her cousin Jimmy Chase from out of town, and I just stopped by to—”

“Sir, if you do not have an appointment, then I cannot let you go up to her office.”

“And what floor would that be?” I thought if I was not going to get in and see Kristina, at least I might get some information without this girl realizing what she was saying.

“The sixteenth floor, sir.”

“I just got into town, and I’m in a big hurry to see her. See, it’s been years since we’ve seen each other, and I thought that I would drop in and take her out for lunch if she had the time.”

“That’s nice, sir, but you’ll have to make an appointment or I can’t let you upstairs.”

“Okay, so you won’t let me upstairs to see my long-lost cousin?”

“Not without an appointment, sir.”

“Can I at least put the gift I brought her in her car?” I just wanted to see if she was stupid or real stupid.

“I am sure her car is locked, sir.”

“By the way, what parking space is assigned to Kristy—I mean Kristina?” It was another shot in the dark. “I’ll check her car before I go upstairs, and if it’s unlocked, I’m going to put the present in it so I can surprise her later.”

Looking on her computer and pushing buttons instead of thinking, she said, “Space 121.”

This girl had already worn out her welcome. It was obvious that she was on her way to becoming a real old lady at a very early age.

“Okay, so how can I get an appointment with my cousin Kristy—I mean Kristina Ingram?”

“Here’s her number. Use one of those phones over by the marquee board and call upstairs to talk with her administrative assistant.”

“You mean her secretary, right?”

“Yes.”

“Great, thanks so much for all your help,” I replied in a wellmannered, up-yours kind of way. My first assignment was to see if Kristina was in the building. Now, at least I knew her parking space number. I called upstairs, and after a few rings had my closest encounter yet of finding her, but it was short lived and less than rectified.

Kristina’s administrative assistant answered the phone, and I proceeded to tell her what I had spent ten minutes trying to accomplish downstairs with the girl from the Academy of Professional Development and Chronic Pencil Pushing.

“Is Kristina in?”

“Just one minute, sir. May I ask who is calling?”

“Just tell her it is an old friend who hates the smell of stale beer, or better yet, tell her it is a family member who hates being walked out on without being told goodbye. She will know who it is.”

“I’m sorry, sir, she isn’t in at the moment. Would you like to leave a message?”

“Yes, tell Mrs. Ingram, that I look forward to our next meeting.”

I hung up the phone in the lobby and worked my way out of the rotating doors, back on the sidewalk, around the outside of the building, and within a couple of minutes of wandering around found my way over to the parking structure and spotted parking space number 121 on level B.

As I expected, the space was empty. In time, however, this information would come in handy.

I returned to my car and headed back down towards the river on River Road. Kristina had told me that Lamar played golf at the River Road Country Club, so I thought this would be a good place to take a look before I headed over to the restaurant. The car she had described was not in the parking lot so I left and headed for the restaurant. It was the same restaurant Kristina had told me about during our first conversation, where she had received the letter, where she often met with friends, and it was where I was going to meet Texi for lunch. Texi was now on her way to my second assignment, lunch. I had just reconfirmed my plans with her on my cell phone. It was where I would meet up with her and go over the information she had received at the Shell Aviation/Bowman Field Airport.

We pulled into the parking lot about the same time.
Buzz Parson’s was pretty much
what I expected. It was a river restaurant and bar that served good food and cold drinks. As the waiter explained, through the years it had been built, burned, rebuilt, closed, sold, bought, opened, closed, added on to, redecorated, reestablished, and reopened. Modern world features, animated conversations, with a series of complications and safety nets to go around.

It reminded me of a place back home, the Harbor Side Restaurant at Rock Point Bay, known simply as Joey’s Place. I never knew one day to the next if his restaurant would be open or not, but everyone who was anyone continued showing up.

The Harbor Side Restaurant, not far from the beach, had picnic tables available for those people who wanted to eat outside. It overlooked a group of sand dunes near Lighthouse Point. To close friends who showed up daily during happy hour for beer, platters of steamed shrimp, and fried conch, his acquaintances in the seafood supply business and those linked to the world of spirits and consumption was always highly appreciative.

From the outside, Buzz Parson’s supplied a lot of the same pleasantries as Joey’s Place back home. It would be a good place to hang out for a while and see if Kristina showed up, or at least to see if the friends she had told me about actually showed up.

The net was closing in on Kristina. She was not yet aware that I was in town looking for her or that I was one of the good guys who was going to save her skinny little rich neck. That is, if I got the chance.

Inside, I talked with several waitresses and a waiter while Texi worked her way over to the bar and talked with the two bartenders. Both were young and overly interested in talking with Texi. They were all too happy to talk about Kristina Ingram, her friends, and what they knew. Both men said they would turn us on to Kristina or her friends if they happened to walk in during lunch.

The angle of me being her cousin was going to work out just fine. As far as the employee’s were concerned, I was just trying to surprise my cousin at Derby time and needed her friends to help me pull it off. It was lunchtime. Lots of entertaining was going on down near the river. The place was packed, and it was my lucky day.

Within thirty minutes of ordering lunch, I had my first real break in the case. Lester Meredith, one of the two bartenders, walked over, placed drinks on the table, and said he had news. It was the news we had been waiting for, and he was overly interested in passing it along. Sally Cartwright, Kristina’s friend, had just walked in the bar. It was time to see how good a friend to Kristina she really was. Sally Cartwright was on top of the world. She walked in acting like she owned the place. It was obvious she had found a way to stay looking good and rich all in the same year.

First she had married a successful plastic surgeon, had her entire body upgraded, and then divorced him. Then she had married a wealthy bank president. Between lying in the sun on her boat, her tanning bed at home, and jet setting to the islands every quarter come dividend time, she felt right at home being Kristina’s friend. They each had fancy cars, big homes, big credit card accounts, and big—