Holy Ghost (Virgil Flowers #11)(82)

“They sold the farm ten years ago,” Holland said. “They got a million two hundred and eighty thousand for it. Nice piece of property, I guess. A hundred and eighty acres, good land, but not enough to be really economically feasible. It was right at the time when the speculators were buying up farmland, so they did all right. Sara doesn’t think there was much if anything in the way of taxes, so after the real estate commission and some other deductions, she thinks they walked away with around a million-two.”

“Whoa! Did she know anything about the Florida house?” Jenkins asked.

“She didn’t know anything about that, but she took a peek at Margery’s local bank accounts, and there was a little more than six thousand in them.”

Virgil said to Jenkins, “Get on the phone, call Dave at the AG’s office, get a subpoena for her bank records. I’ll want to look at them this afternoon.”

“Can do,” Jenkins said, and he went out to the back alley to make the call.

While he was doing that, Virgil called the computer specialist at BCA headquarters, who said he was about to call him back. “I have an address for you, and I also found an old listing for the house. The former owner was asking $680,000 for it back when the real estate market was still falling apart, and Osborne did better than that. I called the listing dealer and asked what she thought it’d be worth now, and she said maybe a million. I had her look up her records on it, and she said Osborne’s end of the deal was handled by a local lawyer named John Ryan. I’ve got a number for him, if you want it.”



* * *



—

Virgil called Ryan, who not only remembered Osborne but said he was still her Florida attorney, although he hadn’t heard that she’d been killed.

“That’s awful—she was a nice lady. She was thinking about selling out here and moving back to Minnesota because of that miracle up there . . . She said it was a miracle, the Virgin Mary showing up at her church.”

“She hadn’t listed the house?”

“Not yet. Listen, I think you should talk to a banker down here. He’s at Lost Coast State Bank, name is Bob Morgan. Margery was planning to use some of the house sale money to set up a charitable trust for that church.”

Virgil thought, Uh-oh, and said, “Bob Morgan . . . You got a number?”



* * *



—

Morgan had gone to lunch, but Virgil wheedled the number of his personal cell phone from his secretary and caught him halfway through a bacon and sausage quiche.

“Margery has an investment account with us, not huge, but not insignificant, either. When she came down here, she spent half her money on her house, put the other half in the market, and lived on her Social Security. The stock market’s gone wild since then, and the housing market’s come back strong. I’d need a subpoena to give you the exact details of her accounts, but I can tell you that she was working on a plan that would move most of her appreciated assets to the church, which would mean that she could give them a bundle. Then she could sell her house and move back to Minnesota, where she could live free, and use the proceeds to get her through her old age, should she need nursing care later in life . . .”

There was more of that, but the bottom line, Virgil thought, was that if Margery did need late-life nursing care, there wouldn’t be much left for Barry.

“If I supposed, just as a . . . conjecture, that she put half of the farm money into her house and half into her investments, the investments would have appreciated at least as much as the house, wouldn’t they?” he asked Morgan.

Morgan said, “Speaking purely hypothetically, if someone had done that, actually, the investments would have outpaced the appreciation of her house.”

“Thank you.”

“Tell her son to get in touch—we have a lot to talk about,” Morgan said.

Jenkins had come back in, and said, “Dave’s gonna get the subpoena down to us . . . What’s the deal with Florida?”

“If I understood everything the banker guy was hinting at, Margery was probably worth two million bucks, maybe more, and was about to give a big chunk to the church. And if she had a difficult late life, Barry could have been left with almost nothing.”

“There you go,” Jenkins said. “Let’s jack him up.”

“I dunno,” Virgil said. “He still seems like a weak possibility.”

“Better than no possibility,” Jenkins said.

Virgil couldn’t argue with that, so they drove over to Osborne’s house. The rug-cleaning truck was gone, and there was no answer when Virgil knocked. “Call him,” Jenkins said.

“I’d rather jump him face-to-face,” Virgil said. “Why don’t we . . . Wait, here he comes.”

The Steam Punk van turned the corner, slowed when the driver saw Virgil, then pulled into the driveway. Osborne got out, carrying a grocery sack, and asked, “What’s up?”

“We need to talk,” Virgil said. “Can we go inside?”

“Sure. If it won’t take too long. I’ve got an appointment to make arrangements for Mom. I’ve got to buy a coffin. Can you believe that?” His voice pitched up; stress leading to a crying jag. “The medical examiner is done. God knows what they did to her. I don’t want to know . . .”