CHAPTER 20
LIQUIDATION
It seemed both Stan's and my murder cases were getting more complex and difficult each day. Stan confided in me that he was very concerned now that Steven had planned to escape. I wasn't feeling much better about Cheryl. Her convenient lapse of memory was a big problem, particularly as the DA gathered more and more damning evidence against her. In the movies the sage old detectives always said follow the money and the answer to the puzzle will be revealed. In this case I had good reason to follow the money since at least half of it belonged to my client. So, I decided it was time to do exactly that.
I contacted Paul Thayer and told him to locate Martin Windsor's parents or his siblings, if he had any. My thinking was to have one of them petition the court to be appointed guardian of his estate. Then together we could start tracking down the money and taking possession of it. Unfortunately, Paul called me back with the surprising news that he couldn't find any relatives at all in the United States. That bothered me considerably, but then I remembered he was an immigrant from Hungary so it was possible he was the first of his family to come to America. Before he hung up, Paul also told me about the car that had been staked out in front of our offices. It was owned by Globe Information Group, Inc., the parent corporation of the Globe Inquirer. No surprise there.
Next I contacted the Immigration and Naturalization Service to get a copy of Martin's file which would contain information about his family back home. Unfortunately this would take time, so I also decided to pay a visit to his company and see what I could find out there.
What I found at the headquarters of Village Drugstores, Inc. was even more disturbing. The offices were empty. It suddenly occurred to me that Windsor may have intentionally disappeared in order to avoid having his assets divided by the divorce court. That thought infuriated me. I couldn't let him get away with that.
With a little sweet charm and twenty bucks I convinced the building manager to let me into the empty suite to look around. The place was neat and tidy. I complimented the manager for what a good job they'd done cleaning the place. "Actually," he said, "this is the way they left it."
"Really? Did they give you notice that they were moving out?"
"No, actually they moved out in the night without us even being aware of it. I was quite surprised to find the office vacant, particularly since the rent was paid a month in advance. Often when a tenant gets a few months behind in the rent this kind of thing happens. But Village Drugs always paid the rent in advance and was never behind."
"Hmm. Was there anything unusual about them?" I asked.
"Well, they always paid in cash—thirty-three one hundred dollar bills every month. That’s rare."
"That is rare," I agreed. Martin Windsor was in direct violation of the temporary injunction that the court had issued. He'd been directed not to sell or encumber any community property pending division by the court. I normally would have contemplated filing a contempt motion, but since he was missing that would have been a useless exercise.
Totally frustrated, I visited one of the Village Drugstores to see if I could find out where they had moved their corporate headquarters. When I finally was able to talk to the manager, he hit me with another jolt.
"All the Village Drug Stores were sold to a competitor two weeks ago. We are now owned by VDS, Ltd."
All this was starting to annoy me. Martin Windsor appeared to be liquidating all his assets to thwart the divorce court's jurisdiction over the parties' community property. The manager gave me the name and address of VDS, Ltd.'s corporate counsel. I drove over to talk to them.
"Yes, it was rather sudden but the price was so good we could hardly pass it up."
"Didn't you know Mr. Windsor was in the middle of a divorce and enjoined from selling any of his property?"
"No. I'm sorry. He didn't tell us about that. If we'd have known about it, we obviously wouldn't have proceeded."
"Did Martin Windsor attend the closing?"
"No. The papers were sent by Federal Express to New York for his signature."
A ray of hope finally shone through and lifted my spirits. If Martin Windsor had signed papers just a few days earlier, that would be proof that he was alive and get Cheryl off the hook.
"Did you get the papers back?"
"Of course, we couldn't have closed the deal without them."
My heart leaped for joy. Finally, I'd gotten a break. "Can I see the closing papers?"
"Well, I don't know."
I glared at the attorney and said, "My client owned an undivided one-half interest in these drug stores. Now, you can either let me look at the documents or I'll get a court order directing you to do so."
The attorney shrugged and buzzed his secretary. "Betty, would you bring me the Village Drugs file?"
A moment later a secretary walked in with a thick file. After examining it the attorney pulled out a document and handed it to me. My pulse quickened as I flipped through the pages until I got to the signature page."Martin Windsor didn't sign this," I said.
The attorney took a deep breath. "Right. It was signed by the Vice President. Apparently Mr. Windsor was unavailable."
"Yeah. He was unavailable because he's been kidnapped."
"Well, I had no idea."
"Sure you didn't. Let me tell you something. In the next couple days I'll be filing a fraudulent conveyance suit to have this whole transaction set aside, so tell your client not to get too comfortable running the stores."
The attorney's eyes narrowed. He said, "Well, you've got to do what you've got to do, but we are bonafide purchasers and paid a lot of money for these stores. I can't really see any court setting the sale aside."
"It doesn't matter. The sale was in violation of a direct court order. It's void as a matter of law."
After storming out of the attorney's office I drove over to Martin's house to be sure it hadn't been disturbed. I had a sick feeling inside me that something would be awry there as well and I was right. A new owner had moved in!
Livid, I went back to the office to talk to Stan. I needed help and I needed it fast. What was going on? When I arrived at the office there was more bad news. Paul Thayer had called and left a message that the INS had no record of a Martin Windsor immigrating from Hungary! I rushed into Stan's office and told him what had happened.
"He must have been here illegally," Stan said. "Windsor probably isn't even his real name."
"So, what do I do now?" I asked.
"Didn't you say the FBI had been called in?"
"Yeah, that's what I was told."
"Well, let's find out who's in charge of the investigation and see if they'll talk to us. Cheryl has a right to know if they've made any progress. I'm surprised they haven't contacted her yet. How can you conduct a kidnapping investigation without questioning the victim's wife?"
"I'll call Perkins and see if he'll tell me who's in charge," I said.
"Good idea. Tell him Martin Windsor is obviously alive if he's liquidating his assets. That ought to shake him up a bit."
When I got back to my office there was a message from Detective Shaw saying he'd contacted the FBI about the similarities in Martin's and the Cocos Bay Manager's kidnappings. I dialed his number but he was out of the office. I wondered what he had found out. Had the Cocos Bay Resort been sold too? With any luck someone had seen Martin Windsor. He had to be alive. Then a sinking feeling came over me. How was I going to tell Cheryl Windsor that in the last few days millions of dollars in community assets had disappeared?