SURVIVAL INSTINCT

CHAPTER: 19

Clara, Tim, Helen, and Parker had their heads together when Sarah walked into the office. James Parker was stone-faced, and Clara looked so much like a duck that Sarah slowed down, frowning. "What is wrong?" she asked them.

Tim straightened up. "Well, hello, Sarah. Late-night?" He smirked. Sarah muttered something but did not ask for clarification. Tim's choice of words was bound to be a lot more cutting than Ryan's. He added cheerfully. "Have you seen the Times newspaper today?" he asked Sarah.

The Times-Real Estate was a weekly paper on the real estate scenario, that came out every Thursday morning, just in time for the long weekend. This was the first printed issue after Diana's death. So it was not surprising that they had published something about her. What she had not clearly expected to see, was an eight-page layout with a headline that screamed: "DIANA WALTER, DID SHE FALTER?" The headline was written in bold writing. The accompanying photograph showed Diana at her worst. It seemed to be taken from below, so her double chin was clearly visible, and her huge calves seemed to be like huge logs of wood. Her mouth was half-open as if she was yelling at someone and she was gesturing with a finger. Luckily it was not the middle finger, but it still looked rude nonetheless.

"Ouch," Sarah said, averting her eyes. Tim giggled.

"This is terrible!" Clara was wringing her hands in anguish. Helen nodded fervently.

"What is the article about?" Sarah inquired.

It was Parker who answered, in a heavy voice. "Apparently someone has remembered that Diana was once investigated by the real estate commission. It was about fourteen or fifteen years ago."

"Fifteen," Clara said.

"Investigated for what?" Sarah wanted to know.

Parker hesitated. Sarah waited, and eventually, he felt compelled to explain it to her. "It had to do with a property that she owned downtown. It was actually an office building that she wanted to convert to apartments."

"And?"

Parker shrugged. Elegantly. Sarah turned to Clara. "You have worked for Diana for a very long time. Don't you know anything about it?"

Tim snickered and glanced at Clara. She pursed her lips, unwillingly. "I had not started working for her yet when this was going on," she said.

"So you don't know anything about it?" Sarah asked her.

Tim giggled at that. "Nothing more than what is in the paper," Clara said firmly. 

Sarah turned back to Parker. "Why are they bringing it up again? If it was fifteen years ago, it cannot have anything to do with what happened to her now. Isn't it?"

Parker's voice sounded as if the words were being dragged forcibly from him. "I guess they are implying that she might be engaged in something similar again. Some shady deal that could make someone want to kill her." 

Sarah hesitated. "Was she?"

"Well! I never..." Clara sniffed.

Parker raised his voice. "If she was, I had not heard about it."

Sarah nodded. She had not really expected him to know and not put a stop to it.  'Parker Real Estate Agency,' was James Parker's pride and joy. He had built it from scratch and now was a very well respected, profitable company that handled a lot of upscale clients and expensive properties. If someone was doing something that might damage the reputation of the company or Parker himself, she would then expect him to land on them like a ton of bricks.

"This is not going to hurt you or the company, is it?" Sarah asked Parker.

And by the extension the rest of us. Not that she personally was in a position to be hurt much. If the company went down the drains, Sarah would have to find another broker who would take her on, but that was as bad as it could get for her. But for Parker, it would be another story. He would have to go back to being a sales agent in someone else's brokerage firm, and if something like that happened, it was not exactly going to improve his chances of getting that coveted spot on the real estate commission, either.

Parker's face was sober. "We shall just have to hope that it does not hurt our company. It probably won't, but one just never knows."

Sarah looked around. "Would anyone mind if I read the article? I am sure someone will ask me about it sooner or later, and I may as well know what I am talking about."

Tim giggled. Clara sent her a look of loathing. "Help yourself, Sarah," Parker said. "We have got a stack of Times. No one's going to mind if you take one."

Clara looked like she minded, but she did not dare speak up. Sarah took a paper and stuck it in her bag before she went to her office cabin. She started her computer and while it booted up, she opened the Times and started reading about Diana.

'The real estate queen Diana Walter had started in real estate during a time when interest rates were 30% and suburbs were the happening places. The urban neighborhoods, so popular now were blighted areas where no one wanted to live. Diana had been ahead of her time in seeing the resurrection currently going on in the inner-city neighborhoods. Her entrance into the downtown arena had taken place too soon, was all. If she had waited for twelve or fifteen years, she could have made a killing. Investors were developing apartments all over downtown these days, and selling them for big bucks. In fact, they had been, until the bottom dropped out of the market the previous year, and everything slowed down.

At that rate, instead of paying off big-time and making everyone involved super-rich, Diana's plan to make the Olympia office building into upscale apartments had backfired. It had left her with a blemish on her record and had left her business partner-facing disgrace, bankruptcy, and a criminal investigation. 

Diana's partner was employed in some branch of banking or finance, the article said, and he had been channelizing other people's funds into Diana's project when he could not come up with the capital for the ever-increasing renovations out of his own pocket. The article also hinted darkly at something similar to insider trading. Diana had managed to bail out just before the whole economy came crashing down. Her partner however had not been as lucky. Left with the losses and legal trouble, he committed suicide rather than face the music.

His widow had brought a lawsuit against Diana, claiming individual-dealing and breach of Realtor's code of ethics, but nothing came out of it. All the current members of the real estate commission had declined the Times' invitation to comment; not surprisingly, as they had all come aboard long after the Olympia case had been forgotten. Although Gary Steven, the reporter for the Times, had tried to contact the widow, he had been unable to find her. Sarah was not sure whether that meant that she was dead herself by now, or had remarried or otherwise changed her name, or if she did not want anyone to find her.

The article seemed to be very long on speculation and suggestion, but short on facts. It did not even mention the name of the business partner, or of his widow. Though that would not be very difficult to find unless the woman had a good reason for not wanting to come out in the open of course. Like for instance, she had been at 102 South Massachusetts property on that fateful Saturday morning to cut Diana's throat?

Well. But one thing that Sarah knew very well was that finding Diana's killer was not her job. Detective Tanya Hudson got paid to do it, and she should just leave it to her.