This is the fourth chapter of Realtor Revenge which is the sequel to Real Estate Games. If you are new to the series, I suggest you start with Part 1 of Real Estate Games.
***
Realtor Revenge
Chapter 4
Merryville Inn
Three out of the five city council members had obvious avenues for blackmail... damning events in their backgrounds they wouldn't want to become public knowledge. Casey Green enjoyed screwing underaged girls. Andrew Rowan paid to have his wife murdered. Carson Taylor's ex-wife ran a questionable dairy farm that milked women instead of cows. I planned to use each of these defects to my advantage in the near future. But two council members were apparently without sin.
Katherine Nunn, besides being the lone woman on the council, was also president of the Merryville PTA, chairwoman of the Girl Scout cookie committee and a regular volunteer at the local foodbank. Her husband was a very successful businessman, one of the few in town who wasn't affected by the car plant closing, so she was immune to financial bribery. Katherine was a fourth-generation resident of Merryville who seemed devoid of faults and enemies.
Peter Deacon was the other apparent saint on the counsel. When the forty-year-old banker wasn't handing out loans to local businesses, he was either coaching his son's soccer team or serving as an elder at Merryville Community Church. Peter's wife, a former beauty queen, served on several of the same charitable committees as Katherine Nunn. If anything, Peter was more of a serial do-gooder than Katherine.
Convincing Katherine and Deacon to help me dispose of Janis Moorehead seemed an impossibility, a challenge most folks would turn down. But most people aren't as motivated or as clever as C. Raven Hardwood. Everybody has a weakness and I knew exactly how to exploit theirs.
I paid cash for two adjoining rooms at the far end of the Merryville Inn, signing the register under the name J. Moorehead. With the willing assistance of Officer Flanagan, I hid our video cameras in room 219, the end room on the top floor, and set up the adjacent room, number 217, as our operations center.
I lured our targets to the hotel using a cell phone that couldn't be traced back to me -- what Flanagan called a "burner phone".
"
Mrs. Nunn
," my text read. "
I have information that is critical to the continued wellbeing of our city. You are the only member of the city council I trust. Meet me in room 219 of the Merryville Inn at 6:30 this evening and I will explain. Please come alone. What I have to say is for your ears only. Signed, Janis Moorehead, Southside Realty
."
Peter Deacon received a similar text asking him to arrive at the hotel a half hour later.
Katherine pulled her SUV into the hotel parking lot at 6:20; ten minutes early. She spent five minutes bent over her phone and then made her way up the rear stairs to the second floor.
I'd flipped the security latch around so the door to room 219 was slightly ajar. Katherine knocked and, when she didn't get a response, she cautiously walked into the room.
"Hello," she called into the vacant room. "Miss Moorehead? Are you here?"
I'd left two glasses of sedative laced wine on a table with a note that read: "I've popped down to the lobby to get some snacks. Help yourself to some wine if I'm not back when you get here."
It took Katherine a couple of minutes to find the note. And even when she did, she didn't immediately grab a glass.
"How long do we wait before we shoot her with the dart?" I whispered to Flanagan as we watched from the adjacent room.
"Let's give her ten minutes," he said. "Deacon's not supposed to arrive for another thirty minutes, but he might decide to get here early."
Katherine paced the small room for a couple of minutes... peering out the window and inspecting the bathroom. She looked at her phone -- either checking the time or considering calling somebody -- before eventually sitting in the lone chair which was strategically placed by the glasses of doctored wine. She checked her phone one last time and finally took the bait.
Always the consummate professional, I'd done my research and knew, not only what type of wine Katherine preferred -- Cabernet Sauvignon -- but also her favorite brand... a three-year-old vintage from an upstate winery. The half empty bottle stood between the two glasses with the label positioned so she couldn't miss seeing it.
Her first sip of wine seemed to soothe her anxiety. She was no longer nervously tapping her foot against the carpet and seemed content to study her phone while she waited for a woman who would never arrive. Katherine drank nearly half the glass before she dropped her wine glass onto the floor, slumped into her chair and started to gently snore.
Flanagan went through the interconnecting door first. He poked the sleeping woman in the arm a couple of times and, convinced she was out for a while, hoisted her up in his arms and carried her to the adjoining room... placing her face up on the bed.
While Flanagan was tending to Katherine, I scrubbed the carpet where the wine had spilled and, once most of the stain was gone, poured the second glass of wine-sedative mixture down the bathroom sink. Then I replaced the bottle of wine with a bottle of Bud Lite -- Deacon's favorite brew -- lay a note next to the beer and carried the half full bottle of Cab Sav into room 217, closing the door behind me.
Deacon got to room 219 at 7:05. He knocked and called out, just like Katherine did thirty minutes earlier, and then pushed the door open and entered. Unlike Katherine, he immediately spied his favorite adult beverage, read the note, and didn't hesitate to take a long pull from the bottle. Despite his reputation of near sainthood, patience was obviously not one of his prominent virtues.
"
at the room
," he texted to my burner phone, thinking he was communicating with Janis. "
where R U?
"
"
across the street to find suitable snacks
," I texted back. "
don't leave. back in a flash
."
