“See here’s the thing I don’t understand about that,” I told Bandowe. “Nate Turner had plenty of money, so why did he need your startup capital?”
“Well, he… uh…”
“Was his money tied up in a trust at the time?” Dorchester asked while the man was still stuttering out an answer.
“Not that I’m aware of, but I didn’t ask him,” Bandowe replied.
“That doesn’t make sense either,” I said, leaning forward so I could enjoy watching the man squirm. “I’ve read many articles about your ‘Christian family values’ and your stance on issues involving LGBTQ equality. You’re not an ally to the LGBTQ community, yet you finance and are part owner of a gay nightclub.”
“It was a good business deal,” he said defensively. “I kept my personal beliefs out of the business dealings.”
“I call bullshit,” Dorchester said.
“Believe what you want, but it’s true,” Bandowe replied.
If this guy was telling the truth, then he was a real jerk. He privately took money from the LGBTQ community while he worked against them publicly. It was my experience that the more a straight man railed against homosexuality, the higher the odds were that he too was gay. Sometimes I just had to throw out a random net and hope to catch a break.
“When did your sexual relationship with Nate Turner end?” I asked.
Bandowe’s body tightened and bowed like an invisible string was pulling on him. All color leached from his face until his skin took on an unhealthy pallor.
“Breathe, Mr. Bandowe, then answer my question. Honestly,” I added.
The man closed his eyes briefly and swallowed hard. “It didn’t end,” he said in a voice so soft I barely heard him. His eyes filled with tears and his body began to shake. “Nate and I have had a relationship on and off since high school. I could never give him what he wanted from me, and we would break up for a while, but we always found our way back to one another. He had his conquests when we were apart, and I tried to fill my loneliness by making myself into something that I wasn’t. I hadn’t realized how much he meant to me until he was gone. He’ll never know how much I loved him.” I felt sympathy for the man right then.
“What do you know about his brother?” Dorchester asked.
“Not much,” Bandowe said with a shrug. “He appeared in Nate’s life last summer and rocked his world. He started questioning everything he knew about his parents when he discovered that he had a twin brother.”
“Why didn’t you mention Nate having a brother to police during your first interview?” I asked.
“The cops asked me about our business dealings, not about anything personal. I would’ve told them about Jonathon had they asked, but they didn’t,” the man said. “I got the impression that the cops thought something illegal was going on inside the club and Nate died as a result. I don’t agree.”
“Can you tell me if Nate had any other business dealings besides the club?”
“The last time we were together he mentioned something about investing in a casino deal, but no specifics of with who, when, or where. His comment was so innocuous that it slipped my mind until you asked me that question,” Bandowe replied. I sat up straighter in my chair because that was the first time anyone mentioned the prospect of a casino. “Are there any other questions, Detectives? If not, I have another meeting to attend.”
I looked at Dorchester, who shook his head that he didn’t have any questions. “You’re free to go,” I told him. I slid him my business card and asked him to call me if he thought of anything else or if news of the casino reached his ears.
Dorchester and I met with the task force to discuss what we’d learned and I assigned duties for the next day before we headed back home.
“Casinos can be a cutthroat business,” he said once we were on the road. “Things got ugly in Carter County a short time back when there was a discussion of building a casino there.”
“I didn’t hear about that,” I told him. “When was this?”
“I’m going to say about four years ago, so probably before you moved here,” he replied.
“What happened?”
“Developers felt that Carter County was the perfect spot to build a casino due to the proximity to several highways and because it was about an hour away from three major cities—Dayton, Cincinnati, and Columbus. The religious groups didn’t agree and talked about how gambling destroyed families and brought in prostitution and other crimes to an area. The county commissioners didn’t approve the casino, so the developers collected enough signatures on the petition to get it on a statewide ballot.”
“The entire state got to decide if you guys got a casino built in your county?” I asked. “That sounds underhanded to me. ‘You don’t want us to build in your county so we’ll find another way’ probably wasn’t well received.”
“No, it wasn’t,” Dorchester replied. “It was a hotly contested issue, and the measure failed on election night.”
“You think it’s possible that talk has started back up?” I asked.
“Anything’s possible,” he replied.
