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the police, some stuff Savannah said and educated guesses. I
know Laredo got some damning information from Hank s
266 Elaine Viets
home computer the night he d abandoned her to talk on his
cell phone.
Served him right, Margery said. I hate people who ig-
nore you to yak on their cell phones. So she put it all on that
red disk and tried to blackmail him?
Yep. Hank offered Laredo twenty thousand dollars for
the disk, then doubled his offer. I think the cops found some
uncashed checks in her name. But Laredo didn t want
money. She wanted Hank to marry her. Savannah told me
that. The confirmation was in the Girdner Surveys files.
Where? Peggy finally popped the cashew in her mouth.
A disappointed Pete bit his asparagus.
Laredo told the survey taker that she lived at Hank s
house. I saw that information in the Girdner files. Laredo
wanted to be Hank s wife and have the big house and a place
in Lauderdale society. I think that s why she was at his house
the night she died: Laredo threatened to go public with the
information if he didn t set a wedding date.
Hank was not going to marry her. Laredo was definitely
going to talk. It would have brought down the whole money-
laundering operation. That s when Mindy strangled Laredo.
With the same scarf that caught on fire? Margery liked
the gruesome details.
I don t know, Helen said.
How d they get rid of the body so quick? Margery said.
The cops think Hank and Mindy carried the body to
Laredo s car, which was parked in Hank s garage, and put it
in the trunk. Mindy removed the drink glasses and other
signs of Laredo. Hank stuck a murder mystery in the VCR.
He was congratulating himself when he noticed one red
heel and her purse by the couch. He tossed them in the guest-
room closet as the police rang the doorbell.
And where was Mindy? Peggy listened spellbound, yet
another cashew in her hand. Pete moved stealthily toward it.
She drove the car with Laredo s body in it to the drive-
way next door. Then she went for a walk until the police left.
When the cops were gone, Hank and Mindy dumped the car
DYING TO CALL YOU 267
in the canal. They had some trouble with it. We d had a lot of
rain that week, and the car sank into the mud and tore up
Hank s backyard when the wheels spun.
His lawn service told the police he wanted them to re-
place the damaged grass. They have the order. Hank called
them the day after Laredo was strangled. Hank still owes
them money, so they ll be happy to testify against him.
How come no one saw the car go into the canal?
Margery said. It s bigger than a bread box and bright yel-
low.
Hank s next-door neighbor wasn t home. The other
neighbor was almost deaf. The house across the canal was
shuttered and the snowbird owner wasn t in Florida until Jan-
uary.
And what about Mindy s car? There s no parking on
those private streets. Peggy s cashew was suspended in
midair. Pete leaned forward, watching it.
On Las Olas, where she d been drinking before she
showed up at Hank s house. Mindy took a cab over to Hank s
because she was afraid of a DWI. The police found the cab
records. Hank drove Mindy to her car afterward. Pushing a
car into a canal must be a sobering experience. She drove
home but a parking ticket placed her on Las Olas that
evening.
Ow! Peggy said, as Pete grabbed her cashew and ate it.
The newspapers reported that sixteen people died in the
fire at the Mowbry mansion. Uncounted careers went up in
smoke that night. Two city council members and a state sen-
ator announced that they wanted to spend more time with
their families. They would not be running for reelection.
There were twelve early retirements in corporate Lauderdale.
The assistant United States attorney general in the South-
ern District of Florida refused to prosecute Hank Asporth for
the murder of Mindy Mowbry. But the prosecutor did want
him for killing a witness and Laredo s murder carried a
death sentence. Hank sang to save his skin. He got life with-
268 Elaine Viets
out possibility of parole, but he won t be sunning himself in
some federal country club.
Thanks to Hank s testimony, Dr. Melton Mowbry and his
partner, Dr. Damian Putnam, along with his funeral director
wife, Patricia Wellneck, and the boiler-room bosses Vito,
Penelope and Carlo Xavier Cavarelli, were indicted by a fed-
eral grand jury for Medicare fraud, money laundering and
conspiracy to commit wire fraud. All those coast-to-coast
calls were interstate wire communications. They were each
sentenced to twenty years.
The burned-out Mowbry mansion was leveled and the
property sold to pay Dr. Mowbry s legal bills. A sixty-
something Dallas car dealer bought the land. He plans to
build a newer, bigger mansion on the site. It will have three
swimming pools, including one with a swim-up bar for his
twenty-year-old trophy wife.
But that was in the future . . .
I start my new job on Monday, Helen said.
Isn t it a little soon to go back to work? The boiler room
has only been closed three days. Margery was in her yard,
whacking off dead palm fronds with a long-handled cutter.
Whack! Chop! Thud!
A branch hit the sidewalk, and Helen backed away.
What are you getting yourself into this time? Margery
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