“Todd called Russ, brought him down to the Virgin Islands, wined and dined him on his new yacht, Bluebeard, and at Caneel.” Marilyn stops. “Todd had a local man working for him named Oscar Cobb.”
Irene’s breath catches. Oscar Cobb! Oscar Cobb worked for Todd Croft?
“I know of him,” Irene says. “He was Rosie’s former boyfriend.”
“Well.” Marilyn shakes her head. “Is it okay if I continue candidly?”
Irene nods. It can’t be worse than what she read in Rosie’s diaries. She hopes.
“When Todd and Stephen brought Russ down to the Virgin Islands, they didn’t mention any of their sensitive clients. They let Russ believe that Ascension’s dealings were on the up-and-up—which they were, for the most part—and that Russ’s job would be to capitalize on his natural charm as a salesman and his trustworthy persona as a midwestern husband, father, and citizen. Ascension’s clients were investing tens and sometimes hundreds of millions of dollars. They wanted a friendly face who would answer when they called, who would lose to them at golf, who would make them feel safe and comforted.”
“Yes,” Irene says. “This is exactly the way Russ explained the job to me.”
“They planned to ease into the black money so gradually that Russ would become acclimated to it bit by bit.” Marilyn shakes her head. “Like the old frog-in-a-pot-of-water myth where supposedly if you raise the temperature a few degrees at a time, the frog won’t realize it’s boiling.”
Irene understands the simile—it’s apt—but she hates thinking about Russ that way.
“The marijuana farmer was already on the books, and next might be someone who moved cocaine, heroin, oxycodone. So…on that first trip down here, they set Russ up.”
“Set him up?”
“Oscar Cobb was in the restaurant at Caneel on their first night. He’d told Todd that his former girlfriend, Rosie Small, would be working as a cocktail waitress. He also told Todd that Rosie was single, vulnerable, and extremely beautiful. Oscar staged a situation where he followed Rosie out to her car and harassed her, allowing Russ to step in and save the day.”
Irene gasps. “You mean the part…I’m sorry, I read about this in Rosie’s diaries…Russ put Oscar in some kind of headlock. That was staged?”
“Yes,” Marilyn says. “Rosie left the restaurant, Oscar followed, and he knew Russ would be heading back to his room along the same path. He let Russ get the better of him. If you knew Oscar, you’d understand that a headlock from someone like Russ wasn’t going to stop him. Once Oscar told Todd that he’d been successful, Todd and Stephen took Bluebeard over to the BVIs, leaving Russ alone for the weekend. That was all by design.”
Russ had been set up. Irene felt almost embarrassed for him.
“But Rosie had no idea?”
“None.”
“Russ still could have acted like an upstanding and faithful husband,” Irene says. “But he didn’t.”
“That’s right,” Marilyn says. “Todd and Stephen saw Rosie in Russ’s hotel room and they knew he could be blackmailed. He certainly wouldn’t want the news getting back to you in Iowa City. And then Rosie reached out to Russ using Todd’s e-mail, and Todd suspected she was pregnant. Todd flew down to confirm this and saw with his own eyes that it was true. He told Russ, and Russ confirmed with Rosie that it was his baby. She said she didn’t want to see him again and he honored that, but he started sending money.”
Marilyn leans forward; her pretty nails gently scratch at the knees of her khaki capris. “Does this come as a surprise?”
“I’m aware he sent her money.”
Marilyn purses her lips, sighs, shakes her head. “Because both Todd and Stephen knew about Rosie and the baby, there was nothing they couldn’t ask Russ to do. They put all of the ‘sensitive’ business deals under Russ’s supervision, in a whole separate subdivision of the company. They made it seem like this offshoot was independent of Ascension. Russ’s name alone was on the paperwork as the principal for all of the money laundering, all of the tax fraud, even things that weren’t so bad, like hiding money for a European soccer star who owed alimony. He couldn’t object, and Todd paid Russ handsomely to keep him happy. You had plenty of money at home? For the renovation of the Victorian?”
“Yes,” Irene whispers.
“In 2014, Rosie’s mother died, and Russ and Rosie reunited. Because there had been no oversight on any of the company’s deals, Russ grew bolder. He wanted property down here, a villa. He couldn’t very well keep bringing Rosie to Caneel; someone would find out about them. Through a tip from Oscar Cobb, Todd approached a failing real estate concern, Welcome to Paradise, owned by Douglas and Paulette Vickers. They’d bought a hundred and forty acres in Little Cinnamon with the intention of developing the hillside, but they ran out of money. They were about to lose the whole thing to the bank when Todd paid a visit.” Marilyn shakes her head. “You want to talk about two people who are completely under my husband’s sway? It’s the Vickerses. Todd saved them from ruin just after their son was
