Fred Forchelli - Chapter 9

Chapter 9 – The People

Fred wanted to find all that he could about the six men on his list. He decided to start at the end of the list with someone he knew and work backward.

Mayor Robert McNaught was the latest of a long line of men from that family who had served in various offices. His father had been a long-time county commissioner and his grandfather had been a Justice of the Peace as well as served in the county office as zoning officer, county treasurer and perhaps other positions over the years. If Robert had a flaw, it was that he was always trying to be better than his ancestors. He was now in his second term as mayor.

It appeared that in his desire to be re-elected, he had accepted significant funds from a few individuals and felt that he owed them a favor in return. Since he had considerable influence on the city council, he had proposed some tax exemptions that appeared to benefit those donors. Fred did not feel that this was among the list of offenses that his client was concerned about. The fact that it had already been exposed in the newspaper meant that the city solicitor knew about it and would take appropriate action.

Robert was married to Jane McGonigle. She was very much into the social scene and participated (and frequently ran) a number of local charities. There was nothing of concern there.

 

Next on Fred’s list was George Jenson. Since he was not only a significant donor to the mayor’s re-election campaign and had been awarded the Futurist Award by the Chamber of Commerce he almost certainly was somehow involved in this case. He had a degree from a well-known university and had lived in the city since his graduation. He was employed as the Chief Diversity Officer for one of the local colleges. While that was impressive for someone not yet 30 years old, it didn’t explain where the funds came from for his donation to the mayor. Fred felt that perhaps he had come from a monied family.

He checked George’s LinkedIn profile but that did not tell Fred anything he didn’t already know. He next checked an online copy of the yearbook from George’s alma mater. That yielded the name of the city where he had graduated from high school. But, more significantly, the yearbook had a picture of George – and it matched one of the individuals that appeared in the grainy picture that Fred had studied earlier. Putting the pictures side-by-side, it was pretty clear that they were of the same person – or that George had a doppelganger.

Suppressing his excitement, Fred began doing some targeted Google searches for the city where George had come from. He found him listed as the grandson in an obituary – and of course it also gave the names of George’s parents. It appeared that George’s mother, Jane, had died a few years ago. Further checking revealed that George’s father, Michael, was employed as a high school math teacher. But those facts did not account for the wealth that George appeared to have. Leaving that as an open question for now, Fred moved on to Jeremy Spencer.

 

Jeremy’s obituary was, of course, a good source of information. He was unmarried and seemed to be focused primarily on running the venture capital company which he had founded. But there was not a lot of information in the obituary about what the company was invested in. Fred knew that many such venture capital firms requested having a hand in running the companies they invested in – in return for supplying the necessary funds. He turned to a number of internet sites and federal 990 filings. Like other such firms, the picture was a pretty complicated one. But buried in one such filing a name jumped out at him – the company that owned that drilling/fracking operation that was the subject of one of his “hints”. It appeared that Jeremy’s venture capital firm was the primary investor and that they owned a considerable share of that company.

Checking further, Fred located the information he had been searching for earlier – the date that the company was established. While the two men from Eastern Europe had been good at finding sources to drill/frack, they did not have the business acumen to run the company once it became a production operation. Jeremy had supplied the funds, helped select others with the ability to successfully run it, and essentially forced the two men out. In return, Jeremy became the primary shareholder and had profited greatly.

This also gave Fred the information he needed about the two Eastern European men – Vladlen Dazdraperma and Vsevolod Mstislav. He took them off the list of individuals to check out further.

The link between Jeremy and the drilling/fracking operation established, the next thing to establish is who inherited Jeremy’s estate – since he was unmarried. Fred looked for further clues in the lengthy obituary. There in one of the concluding paragraphs Fred found it. First there was a mention of Jeremy having been preceded in death during the past year by his sister Jane. Then it mentioned that he was leaving his estate to his nephew, George. Having just done some research on those names, Fred turned back to his now trusty subscription to Newspapers.com and quickly found the obituary of Jane [Spencer] Jenson! This was the source of George’s wealth!

 

Fred’s mind was racing! In just a few hours’ time, he had connected nearly all the hints into a cohesive story. He looked at his watch – it read 2:20 pm. Now he was shocked as well. He’s gotten so involved in his investigations that the hours had flown by. Feeling the need for a mental break as well as some refreshment, he decided to take a trip to one of his favorite fast-food restaurants. He’d earned it.

 

About an hour later, Fred returned to his office. He still had one more person to investigate and one more of the “hints” to connect to the others. He pulled out the copy of the police report and his notes on it. With his growing familiarity with using the power of the Internet and searches, he began typing.

The name Barnard Olshevski was uncommon enough that it was relatively easy to find further information about him. He was not a local resident but lived a few hundred miles away in another city. It also appeared that he had a long rap sheet as his name showed up in arrest notices on several occasions. His nickname was not the expected “Barney”, but “Bro” – using his initials to identify himself. His wife, Elizabeth, appeared to hold down a legitimate job as an English professor at the local university. But “Bro” seemed to be in trouble with the law on a frequent basis.

As Fred started noting all the instances where Barnard/Bro had been arrested and what charges had been filed, he came across a wanted poster from earlier in his “career”. Looking at the typical frontal and side views of this life-long criminal, Fred realized that he recognized him. Once again pulling out the grainy picture from the manila folder, Fred held up the picture next to his computer screen. There were some differences – for example the wanted poster showed a man with black hair and the “hint” picture showed someone with graying temples who was several years older – but otherwise it was obviously the same person. Fred might not have connected the pictures if he just had the frontal view on the wanted poster, but the sideview had Barnard in essentially the same pose. But why would Barnard and George be photographed together?

 

Acting somewhat on intuition, Fred opened up Google Maps and keyed in the location where Barnard had been encountered by the policeman. It showed an upper-class neighborhood with tree-lined streets and large houses. Fred then opened another window and looked up the address of the late Jeremy Spencer. Returning to Google Maps, there it was! When Barnard had parked his car and drawn the attention of the neighbor who called the police, he was right around the corner from the home of Jeremy Spencer – and on the night before Jeremy had been found dead.

In addition, Barnard had a bottle of some sort of heart medication on the seat next to him – and Jeremy had died due to cardiac issues. The newspaper articles following Jeremy’s death had mentioned questions about the cause. Fred opened up the ones that he had saved on his computer earlier in the week. While he was not a physician, it seemed that there was certainly a possibility that an overdose of some heart medications can cause cardiac stoppage and death. The newspaper articles did not go into a lot of detail. But Fred was now in possession of information that could reopen any prior medical investigation!

 

It was starting to get late. Fred needed to get some rest while he thought through all that he had discovered today. He also needed some supper – but a light one as his lunch had been so late. And he could do with a good night’s sleep as well. He refiled everything in the manila folder, turned off and packed up his laptop, turned off his now trusty fan, then turned off the light, closed and locked the office door, and headed for home with his head still spinning.

 

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