Brash Endeavor, A Stan Turner Mystery Vol 3

Chapter 14

  AMARILLO

  My flight arrived in Amarillo at 10:47 a.m. I rented a car and then went straight to a motel to get set up for my investigation. Before leaving I had contacted the Texas Facilities Commission to find out what nursing homes were owned by Taylor Brown. As it turned out, he owned four out of the seven nursing homes in the city. Timber Bluff Nursing Home was the biggest of the four. It seemed logical that I should check that one out first.

  Before I ever came to Amarillo I knew it would be very difficult to find out if Melba Thorn was a patient. I struggled for some time for a ploy that would gain me access to each nursing home's census information. Of course I could pretend to be some government official doing an audit or investigation of some kind but that would be illegal and I didn't want to end up in jail or disbarred. I could go in as a computer repairman and gain access to their computer. I had taken computer courses in college and could probably pull off that ruse, but that was bordering on being illegal also and consequently I wasn't comfortable with that approach. Finally, I decided the only way to legally and ethically gain the information I needed was from employees of the nursing homes. Obviously current employees would not be very cooperative, so I focused on former employees.

  I called the personnel office of the Timber Bluffs Nursing Home first.

  "Personnel," A female voice said.

  "Yes, hi. Listen, I was visiting my aunt last week in Timber Bluffs and I met one of your employees. After we got to talking it turned out we went to the same high school ten years ago. We were going to exchange telephone numbers and try to get together, but when I came in today to visit my aunt she told me he had quit. I'm really embarrassed but I've forgotten his name and I wonder if you might know who I was talking about."

  "Let me see. Ronald Richardson quit last week and Harold Rogers was . . . well . . . let go, shall we say. If you could give me a description I could probably tell you which one it was."

  "Oh gee, you probably know them much better than me, why don't you describe them and then I should be able to figure out which one it was," I said.

  "Well Harold Rogers is about twenty-five, tall with long blond hair. Ronald Richardson is about 45, overweight and has real short hair," she said.

  "It must be Rogers; Richardson is too old. You wouldn't happen to have a phone number would you?"

  "We're not allowed to give out phone numbers of our employees," she said.

  "But he's no longer an employee."

  "Huh. . . . I guess you're right, . . . okay I'll give it to you."

  I wrote down the number on an envelope and then said, "Thanks for your help."

  "No problem, hope you find him."

  It seemed to me since Rogers had been let go he might be inclined to help me. I thought it best to just be straight with him and hope for the best so I placed the call.

  "I don't work at Timber Bluffs anymore."

  "I know, that's why I'm calling you. If the person we're looking for is at Timber Bluffs, then she's there against her will and the management of the nursing home is not going to cooperate with us in finding her."

  "Why would they be holding her against her will?"

  "Well, it’s a long story, but the bottom line is: She controls a big corporation and with her dead, or perceived to be dead, the kidnappers have control of the company."

  "I see, that's pretty bizarre," Roger said.

  "I know, but it may well be the case."

  "What makes you think I will help you?"

  "You don't work there anymore, so you have nothing to lose by helping us, right?"

  "True."

  "And, I imagine you're not too fond of Timber Bluffs since you were just fired, correct?"

  "How did you find that out?" he said.

  "Oh, I've got my sources," I replied.

  "Well, you're right. They have treated me like crap. Okay, so, how can I help you?"

  "We're looking for a woman named Melba Thorn. She probably was not registered by that name. She should be about sixty-two years old, dark brown hair, five foot four, tall and about a hundred and forty pounds."

  "That doesn't help a lot, that describes a number of our patients," Rogers said.

  "She would have been brought in about a year ago by one of the owners of the nursing home, Taylor Brown."

  "I know Taylor. He comes around once in a while, but I've never seen him check in a patient."

  "Have you ever heard any patient claim they were Melba Thorn."

  "No, there's one who thinks he's General Patton and another one who’s convinced he's Martin Luther King, but nobody has ever said they were Melba Thorn."

  "Well okay. Do you think there is any chance Melba Thorn could be at Timber Bluffs?"

  "I seriously doubt it. I knew most of the patients and their families and no one fitting the description of Melba Thorn was ever there."

  "Well, thanks for your help."

  In the next two days I was able to check out two more of the nursing homes, but also came up empty handed. This left me with just one nursing home to go. My approach at getting information had worked on three out of the four nursing homes in Amarillo, however, one of them hadn't had any employee turnover in several months, so I had to come up with another angle. It was a small nursing home so I figured if I could get inside and look around I could see if Melba was there. When I was at the library in Dallas I had made a copy of Melba's photograph from the newspaper article published after her accident, so I felt I would be able to recognize her if I saw her.

  In order to get in and to be able look around without arousing suspicion, I found an old man about seventy years old who was rummaging through a dumpster looking for aluminum cans. I paid him twenty dollars to pretend to be my grandfather. When we arrived at the home I told them we were looking for a nursing home for grandfather and wondered if we could look around their facility. They not only let us look around but insisted on giving us a grand tour and introduced us to most of the staff. During our visit I saw most of the patients and was able to quiz some of the nurses about Melba Thorn. Unfortunately, it didn't appear Mrs. Thorn had ever been a patient there.

  Having come up empty handed there wasn't much more to do in Amarillo, except to check out the Panhandle Building. Once I saw the building I could reassure the investors back in Dallas that everything was okay. I hadn't told Kurt I was coming to Amarillo because I didn't want him to think I didn't trust him. When I got back to Dallas I would just tell him I was in town and was just curious, so I went to see it. It was Wednesday afternoon. I thought I would check out of the motel, stop by the Panhandle Building and then be on my way to Colorado Springs. I decided to drive since air service to Colorado Springs was not that great and I had managed to get a good price on my rent car by taking it for the full week.

  It was not hard to find the Panhandle Building since it was one of the largest in downtown Amarillo. I parked across the street and gazed at the building. It was a magnificent structure built in 1922 when Amarillo was establishing itself as the hub of the cattle, oil and gas and grain industries for the region. I had never paid much attention to old buildings before, but working on this deal made me appreciate for the first time why the government had provided such nice tax incentives to rehabilitate them. If we were to learn from history and grow as a nation, we needed something to remind us of our heritage and these magnificent structures from bygone days sure did an excellent job of that.

  I crossed the street and entered the Panhandle Building. The lobby had already been rehabilitated and was quite beautiful. It had a high ceiling, marble floors, brass elevator, exotic plants, a fountain and an extraordinary mural depicting the many different industries that made Amarillo such a great city. It was very impressive and I was feeling very much relieved that the investor's concerns about the deal apparently were unfounded. I was so impressed, in fact, that I almost left the building right then. However, after giving it some thought, I decided I had better check out th
e entire edifice because I was sure to be thoroughly interrogated when I returned.

  I wandered over to the elevators and pushed the up button. After a moment the door opened and an elevator operator smiled at me and said, "Going up?"

  "Yes, thank you."

  "What floor?" He asked.

  "How about three," I replied.

  "I'm sorry, sir, but that floor is closed to the public."

  "Oh, okay then, take me to the next floor that's opened."

  "There are only two floors that have tenants, sir."

  "What? That's impossible, there are supposed to be seven fully completed floors," I said.

  "Well, I'm sorry sir, but I can only take you to six or eleven. I don't have access to any of the other floors."

  "Take me to six then," I replied.

  The operator closed the door and the screen behind it and pulled a lever which caused the elevator to move up slowly. A sick feeling came over me. When we got to the sixth floor I got out and started walking around. The decor on this floor was no less elegant than in the lobby and had exceeded my expectations. Now, however, I had to verify what the operator had told me, for if only two floors were finished out, then Kurt had grossly misrepresented the scope of the project and there wouldn't be enough money available to complete the project according to the plans and specifications.

  I walked down the hall to the stairs and climbed up to the seventh floor. It appeared not only to be vacant but someone had pretty much demolished the interior. I climbed up the stairs and inspected each floor and found them all to be pretty much identical. With the exception of the eleventh and sixth floors as well as the lobby, the building was totally empty and it would take considerably more money than had been budgeted to complete this project. To make matters worse the rent rolls submitted to the investors were obviously fake and there wouldn't be enough rent to cover the debt services to Worldwide Savings and Loan.

  What puzzled me was how Worldwide could have inspected the building and not discovered the deception. I started to panic as I realized that Worldwide and the investors might think I was a party to Kurt's fraud. Questions flooded my mind. Why would Kurt do this? He had everything going for him, why risk it all for a cheap scam? What was I going to do when I got to Dallas? Should I confront Kurt or keep my mouth shut and pretend I didn't know anything was wrong? These and countless other questions kept running through my mind but I had no answers.