Chapter 18

CHAPTER 18

T HEY WALKED FOUR BLOCKS TO a seafood restaurant, which prominently displayed most of its elaborate offerings in the front window. Devine was hungry, and Odom looked ready to eat a car. Saxby had walked listlessly along, looking at the pavement while smoking a cigarette.

They ordered, and while they waited, Devine told Odom about Rollins, what he had approached Devine about, and then his being found dead at the Sand Bar.

“Had either of your parents ever mentioned Rollins?” he asked.

“No,” said a visibly shaken Odom.

He noted this and said, “I wish I didn’t have to talk to you about things like this, Betsy, but you need to know what’s going on.”

“But we’re not going to let anyone hurt you,” chimed in Saxby.

Devine glanced at her for a moment before continuing, “Rollins knew something about your uncle, Betsy. Something that he wanted to sell me.”

“For how much?” asked Odom.

“A hundred thousand dollars.”

Saxby exclaimed, “Damn, it must have been something really bad, then.”

“Or it could be crap,” countered Odom.

“It could be,” said Devine. “But he had to know that if it turned out to be made up, he would be in trouble. It could be that he had something of value. And if so, I doubt it would just be in his head. There had to be some hard evidence backing up what he was going to tell me. And I believe he would have put that in a very safe place.”

“But you have no clue where it might be?” asked Saxby.

“No.” Devine eyed Odom. “If it’s really bad, would you still want to go live with your uncle?”

“Depends on what you call ‘really bad,’” she shot back.

Again, Devine was struck by how mature she was. At least in some respects. Then he thought of the book she had been reading and making notes in: Think and Grow Rich .

Devine had been raised in upper-middle-class comfort in Connecticut, provided by his father’s thriving dental practice. He had never been hungry or homeless or anything approaching what Betsy Odom had endured. So he could well understand the lure of being adopted by a rich relative, no matter his morals.

Saxby said, “What will you do to find out what he knew?”

“I don’t have a lot of leads.”

She said, “Well, on another front, we heard from Glass’s lawyers. A hearing on his emergency guardianship petition has been scheduled for Thursday.”

Devine glanced at Odom to see her reaction to this.

The girl was as stone-faced as the first time Devine had met her.

“And if his guardianship is approved, then she goes to live with him where?” he asked.

“He has to remain in Seattle for the RICO case, so he can’t fly off to Europe or Asia with her, if that’s what you mean.”

Devine noted that Odom looked alarmed that this had even been a possibility.

Saxby continued, “But I suppose he could send Betsy to one of his properties. There’s no restriction on her travel, obviously. But he has to have the emergency guardianship granted first, and I can tell you that DOJ will fight that strenuously.”

Their food came, and while they ate, Devine said, “Betsy, you mentioned your mom talked to you about her brother. What did she say about him?”

Odom kept eating her fried shrimp, dipping them liberally into the cocktail sauce.

“You can’t remember anything?” said Saxby.

Odom swallowed and took a moment to wipe her mouth. “Look, she said he was rich, okay? And that he’d been in the Army. And that he had protected her growing up. I guess my grandfather was not a nice guy, or something like that.”

“Did she know about any of her brother’s businesses?” asked Saxby.

“You mean did she know if he was a crook? I don’t think so. At least she never said that to me.”

“I’m working with a Detective Braddock on Rollins’s murder, but I also need to check out where your parents died,” said Devine. “I know this is really painful, but anything you can tell me about that day would be helpful. If they weren’t drug users, then they died another way.” He added, “I want to find out the truth, like you asked me to do.”

“Why am I just now hearing about her asking you to do that?” groused Saxby. “And don’t say it slipped your mind again. That won’t cut it, Devine.”

He didn’t answer her, but kept his focus on Odom. Devine had a feeling this might be a pivotal moment.

Odom swallowed a mouthful of rice, put down her fork, and played with a piece of parsley on her plate.

He said, “The town of Ricketts is in Asotin County, nearly a five-hour drive away from where you all lived. So around a ten-hour round trip for you and your parents. Why were you even there that day? Did your parents know somebody from there, Betsy?”

She stopped playing with the parsley. “They didn’t tell me. We just went.”

“What did you do while you were there?” asked Devine.

“We had some lunch. A place in the little downtown area.”

“Do you remember the name?” asked Devine.

“No. It was just a crummy place.”

Saxby said, “But do you remember anything about it? The interior? Uniforms the staff wore?”

She thought for a moment. “The waitress had on a black skirt and a white shirt.”

“Pretty standard. What else?”

“There was a bar.” She squinted. “And a jukebox.”

Saxby said, “Do you remember if your meal had a particular name? Or did the food have a theme to it?”

Odom brightened. “Yeah, the menus.”

“What about them?”

“They were shaped like a hat. A cowboy hat.”

Devine glanced at Saxby. “Okay, that should be enough. So your parents never told you why they were there?”

“No. We just had lunch. Then they met some guys later while I was in the car.”

Devine stiffened. “Some guys? Where did they meet them?”

“We got in the car and drove out of town a bit. My dad pulled off. There was another car parked there. Two guys got out and so did my parents. They told me to wait in the car.”

“And they talked?” interjected Saxby.

“Right. For a few minutes.”

“Did they just talk or did they do anything else?” asked Devine.

“One of the guys gave my dad something.”

Both Devine and Saxby perked up. “What?” asked Devine.

“It was a duffel bag.”

“How big?”

“About the same size as the one you just brought me with my stuff.”

“Then what happened?”

“My dad set it down, opened it, and looked inside. Then he closed it and the guys left and my parents got back in the car and we drove off.”

“Did they show you what was in it?”

“No, my dad put it in the trunk before he got back in the car.”

“And they didn’t tell you anything about the meeting? Or what was in the duffel?”

“No. I was sleepy after lunch and I was sort of dozing off when they got back in the car.”

“And how much later did they start to get sick?”

“It was only a couple of minutes. Dad suddenly pulled off the road. He was having trouble breathing. I… I didn’t notice right away because I guess I had started to doze off again. I asked him what was wrong and then I saw that my mom was looking bad, too. And then they… they both weren’t breathing.” She looked away. “I called nine-one-one and they came and… that’s all I know.”

“What happened to the duffel?” asked Saxby.

“I don’t know. I guess it might still be in the car.”

“Which is still in Ricketts?”

“The cops drove me to the police station. I don’t know what happened to our car.”

“Did the two guys look like any of the men with your uncle at the Four Seasons?”

“No, nothing like them.”

“Did you tell the police or the FBI about your parents’ meeting the men and them receiving the duffel?”

Odom glanced at Saxby. “No, they never asked.”

Devine shot Saxby a look. “Okay, Betsy, thanks. This has been a big help.”

“Why does DHS care about this?” asked Saxby irritably. “Is it even their jurisdiction?”

“Everything on American soil is their jurisdiction.” Devine had no idea if that was true, but he had no interest in getting into a pissing contest with the Bureau right now, either.

“So what’s your next move?” asked Saxby.

“I’m going to have to travel to Ricketts, where I’ve been told the police chief is his own little dictator.”

“Exactly where is it located?” asked Saxby.

“Southeast corner of the state. Pretty remote.”

“Like where we lived,” said Odom. “Not many people around.”

“Did your parents work?” asked Devine.

“Dad did off and on. There are some farms out there and Dad said they grow a lot of hay, stuff like that. It goes out of the country for, like, racehorses—least that’s what he said. Then sometimes he’d work construction, or do some landscaping stuff. There was like a community college not too far away, where he’d go to work sometimes. Dad liked to be outdoors. My mom homeschooled me like I said, and took care of the house and all. But she would work down at the local grocery store, stocking shelves and stuff, in her spare time.”

“I know it’s pretty remote. But did you have any neighbors? Any friends?”

“The closest home was miles away. And there was nobody around there my age. So I just had my parents. And Nate and Kor when they would visit.”

Saxby glanced at Devine. “You better be careful when you visit Ricketts; some local cops see feds as the enemy.”

Maybe we are , thought Devine. He was also wondering why the FBI hadn’t questioned Odom about her parents’ deaths, or about any strange events on their final day of life. Did they know something Devine didn’t?

After they’d finished eating and left, the older woman who had been seated a half dozen tables away and listening to something with her AirPods in watched them go, while fingering a gaudy broach pinned to her blouse.

Pru Jackson had just learned an awful lot. She was still going to kill Devine, but it had gotten a bit more complicated.