“Wait a minute,” Josie said. “You stole this? We can’t look at this, Amber. That’s not legal. Whatever’s on here—”
“Please,” Amber said. “Just look at it. It’s important.”
Mettner said, “Amber, why would you steal a flash drive from Connie Prather?”
She looked up at him, eyes wide. “No one believes that I’m on your side in this department. You all think I’m the Mayor’s puppet. Now she’s going to be in office even longer. I needed you all to trust me. Trust is earned, not given.”
Josie tried not to flinch at the words as she opened the PDF files on the drive and perused them. “These are files from the Prather Foundation,” she said. “Looks like scholarship applications.”
She skimmed through more documents. “There are some emails here as well. It looks like Marisol Dutton chose a student every four or five years to get a scholarship from the Foundation.”
Amber said, “Dutton Enterprises has been a huge donor to the Prather Foundation over the years.”
Gretchen said, “That’s not illegal. Neither is Marisol choosing the students. The Prather Foundation is private. They’re not bound by the rules non-profits are subject to.”
Josie scrolled through the applications more slowly. The names were familiar to her, but she couldn’t place them. “How did Marisol even find these students and vet them? I thought her only job was to look pretty and spend Kurt’s money.”
Josie came to the last application and read the name. A cold shock ran through her.
Gretchen said, “What is it, boss?”
“Alice Adams,” Josie said. “These applications—they’re all names we found on the driver’s licenses that Vera had been using.”
“Which means what?” Mettner said.
Josie scrolled through more documents. “The Foundation was able to send its checks directly to students or to their parents rather than to the school. Like Gretchen said, private foundation, private rules. Every four to five years, Marisol Dutton would choose a young woman to receive ongoing checks from the Foundation from their freshman year through their graduation. Connie approved these applications and the checks went out.”
“But not to the young women,” Gretchen said. “To Vera. Posing as these women.”
“Right,” Josie said. “Kurt Dutton wasn’t funding Vera all these years, Marisol was. She funneled it through Connie’s foundation.”
“Holy shit,” said Mettner. “But why?”
“I have an idea,” Josie said. “But we have to talk to Connie and Marisol. Unfortunately, because Amber stole these files, we can’t use them. We’ll need them to confess to some or all of this.”
Amber bit her bottom lip and said, “How will you do that?”
“I don’t know,” Josie said. “But I think we should start by talking with Connie.”
Forty-Eight
Josie and Gretchen stood on Connie Prather’s front stoop. They’d rung the doorbell several times and knocked but there was no answer. Gretchen said, “Maybe she’s walking her dog?”
“Let’s take a stroll,” Josie suggested.
They were halfway down the next block when they passed Calvin Plummer’s house. The attorney’s Lexus LX was parked in the driveway, as was Tammy’s Honda. As Josie passed, Tammy emerged from the house, headed toward her car. Josie waved at her. She waved back. “What are you doing here?”
“Looking for someone,” Josie told her. “Connie Prather? She’s got this little tiny dog. White fur. Looks like you could fit it in your purse.”
Tammy pointed down the street, in the direction Josie and Gretchen were headed. “She walked down toward the flood area about a half hour ago.”
“Is it still flooded?” Josie asked.
“Around the back of the development? Yeah. When you get to the end of this block, turn left. You’ll see a big, unfinished house. Behind that is where the moat got absorbed into the larger flood area. It’s still pretty bad back there. Just be careful. I don’t know what she’s doing down that way but a lot of people have been walking down there to look at the damage.”
Josie thanked her and she and Gretchen followed her directions until they came to the house, standing tall and majestic but covered in Tyvek wrap that whipped in the wind, making a loud fluttering sound like that of a hundred huge flying insects. There was no sign of Connie and her dog, so they picked their way around the side of the house through mud and dirt to the backyard.
The deck at the back of the house was unfinished. Beyond it was at least an acre of water-logged land on a downward slope, leading to a grove of trees. Josie couldn’t see much beyond the trees.
“You think she came back here?” Gretchen asked.
“I don’t know,” Josie said. “To walk her dog? Seems strange.” They walked deeper into the yard.
“Is that water?” Gretchen stopped and pointed. “On the other side of those trees?”
Josie studied the property line until she saw a few flashes of muddy water. “I think that’s the infamous moat.”
They took a few more steps toward the trees. “Look,” Gretchen said, pulling up short and barring Josie’s progress with an arm. Looking at her feet, Josie saw that the grass gave way to a large muddy patch filled with concrete chunks. A backward glance revealed that they were about halfway between the house and the line of trees. “There used to be a wall here,” Gretchen added. “This is where the yard ends.”
“The wall broke down,” Josie said. From where they stood, the neighboring houses were just visible. Each one had a solid barrier wall between their well-manicured lawns and the tree line which separated the properties from the moat.
Gretchen said, “What’s on the other side of the moat back here?”
“One of the still-active flood zones. One of the tributaries coming from the river runs through the neighborhood next to Quail Hollow on this side. When it flooded, it ran over into the moat, which made that flood. It’s all just one large flood zone now.”
“The barrier wall at the back of this house either wasn’t finished or it was too weak to withstand the moat overflowing, ’cause there’s nothing left of it,” Gretchen said. “There is no reason for Connie Prather or anyone else to be back here.”
“Something’s not right,” Josie said. “Do you hear that?”
They paused and listened. The wind rustled the leaves of the trees and voices floated up from the direction of the moat.
“Let’s go,” Josie said. “Be careful.”
As they began to negotiate the slippery, mud-covered field of uneven concrete pieces, Gretchen pointed to a series of footprints. Two sets, both mingled. “Step where they stepped. Maybe we won’t fall.”
Josie kept her arms outward for balance as she stepped from one block of misshapen stone to another. Gretchen put both hands on Josie’s shoulders for support and slowly followed. The voices grew louder. Finally, the stones gave way to mud, veined with tree roots. Josie saw the moat now, about thirty yards ahead, beyond the trees, its brackish water churning. Beyond it was just more water.