Read Online Back Story by Renee Pawlish - Free Book Online

his brother – my uncle.”
    “I couldn’t find anything about the company. Did your father and uncle keep it going after your grandfather died?”
    “For a few years.”
    “Was the company in financial trouble when your grandfather died?”
    “I think so. Money was pretty tight when I was a kid, and I don’t think my father walked away with anything from Powell Incorporated. He started his own construction company after Powell Incorporated was gone. He built it up into a multi-million dollar company and ran it until he sold it in the mid-’80s.”
    “Did your father and uncle sell Powell Incorporated?”
    “I don’t believe so. I think it was just…dissolved.”
    “How does such a successful corporation just dissolve instead of being sold or passed down through the family?”
    She shrugged. “I was just a child. I don’t know anything about the business dealings of the company.”
    “What about all the subsidiaries?”
    “I assure you I don’t know,” she said, a little testy.
    “The company wasn’t sold and your uncle got the money from the sale instead of your father?”
    “No. Neither one had any money once Powell Incorporated was dissolved. I don’t know why.”
    “You didn’t hear anything?”
    “No, nothing.” She fixed a hurt gaze on me. “That was a very difficult time. My grandfather died suddenly, and that was hard enough. My father and uncle didn’t talk about the business. I only know that things were tough for them.”
    “You said your grandfather died in a car crash?”
    “Yes.” Her brow wrinkled. “I always thought it was odd, too.”
    “What?”
    “The circumstances of his death. He’d gone to a big party, and I guess he drank too much. It was late at night. He was driving down a road east of Denver and he lost control of his car and went into a ditch. That was back in the day when cars didn’t have seatbelts. He was thrown from the car. I heard he died instantly.”
    “Was your grandfather normally a hard drinker?”
    “Not that I ever heard. But he was at some charity thing, so it makes sense that he might’ve been drinking a lot. No, the odd part is that the party was here in town, at the Halloway residence, but he crashed east of town, near a corn field.”
    “Why was he out there?”
    “Exactly.”
    “Oh,” I said. “He shouldn’t have been out there.”
    She nodded.
    “Did the police look into the crash?”
    She shrugged. “I would assume so, but his death was officially an accident. And that’s all I ever knew. I’m not saying he was murdered or anything like that, I just find it odd he was so far away from home the night he died.” She hesitated. “I always wondered if he was having an affair or something like that.”
    “It is a bit strange,” I said. I filed the information away. “Your grandfather was at the Halloways earlier in the evening?”
    “Yes. I understand the Halloways hosted a lot of charitable events back then, and so did my grandparents. I’m sure they rubbed elbows regularly. Why?”
    “I heard the name come up,” I said, “but in a different context.”
    “The Halloway name was big at that time. It still is.” She sighed, then glanced at an expensive gold watch on her wrist. “I’m afraid I need to be going. Is there anything else?”
    “Just one thing,” I said casually, channeling Peter Falk’s Columbo. “Ever hear of Irving Beauchamp or Sterling Vederman?”
    Her face was blank. “Should I?”
    “No, just curious.”
    “My grandfather knew them?”
    “In a roundabout way. Beauchamp owned National Insurance, and National insured some art that your grandfather reported stolen. Do you know anything about that?”
    She shook her head. “My grandfather had lots of art pieces at one time or another, but I had no idea any of it was valuable. Why?”
    “Mr. Beauchamp and Mr. Vederman thought maybe your grandfather had sold the pieces, then claimed they were stolen so he could get the insurance money. And they also