by Misty Simon
“And what am I supposed to use as a reason to go back and see her? I tried asking her name and she clammed up. She gave me Hammond’s name already. What makes you think she’ll share anything else?”
“Because you’re going to say you stole these back for her and see if she’ll trust you enough to tell you what they are and what they mean.”
As he thrust a stack of folders out at me, I kept my hands very firmly behind my back.
“Do you think Hammond killed both of the St. James brothers?” I asked.
“I don’t know, but I need to before anyone else does. I know this is a lot to ask, but I have to.”
He thrust the folders at me again and this time I took them.
“No, no, it’s fine.” I’d started browsing the folders and was shocked at some of the names I found in the files and not shocked at all at some of the others.
But if Marianne had killed Eli, then who had killed the brother? She had been in the hospital so she couldn’t have done both, unless she and her husband were a team of killers, which I’d come across last time I’d been embroiled in one of these things.
Believe me, I wasn’t ruling it out, but it didn’t feel right. Of course, it was very much a possibility, but I needed more time to think. First, I had to look through these files.
* * *
Gina came over with sticky buns and milkshakes. They were not going to do anything but make my hips bigger. But since I loved them, that was fine with me.
“So, what have we got?” she said as she curled up on the couch. Peanut rested her head on the couch at her knee and Mr. Fleefers curled right into her lap. I was abandoned at the kitchen table, so I decided to join them on the couch.
I brought the folder and a notepad with me. Balancing the paper on my knees, I flipped open the folder and stared at a page with a photo of a man who looked familiar. “This one is looking for his birth parents because he’s sick. He doesn’t want a relationship with them, just medical information, in case it can help with his treatment.”
“Aw, poor guy. Does it say anything about the birth parents being found?”
I searched through the stapled pages and came up with nothing except some chicken scrawl and some initials. Were they the mother’s? Someone else’s? A person of interest?
Come on! If Eli had thought these were secrets then why couldn’t he just have written the people’s names down, for crying out loud?
I turned the page to show Gina and she snorted. “Not going to be that easy, is it?”
“Of course not, Daphne. And I’ve decided I’m going to be Velma minus the glasses. Now, let’s dig in.” I handed her half the pages. We systematically went through the cases—some sad, some ridiculous, some smarmy—but none that clearly pointed to why Eli had been killed. Maybe the cheating wife could have been a victim for the hate mail Eli had received for not moving fast enough to prove she was stepping out, but I didn’t think the author of the letter would kill the guy who was keeping tabs on his wandering wife.
The wills and the way people wanted others to be proven unsavory to make themselves look better were a little hard to stomach with the lies Eli had put in the columns. He clearly stated he could make up and support these lies to tear the other person down. But no real names, just initials or first names like Jane and John. Was there a code book somewhere? What had Marianne been looking for in the files? And what had she hoped to do with them? Use them to take up where Eli had left off?
My mom’s cousin, Velma, was off shift but Matt had made sure that I could get in to talk with Marianne in thirty minutes. I shut my last file and looked at Gina. “Anything?”
“A couple of things that are interesting. I bet I could figure out who these people are if we know the geographical area. Was Eli only operating around here or on the internet, too?” Gina snapped her fingers. “You know what? Mama Shirley could probably glance at these and tell you who every person is. She is the main hub of gossip and has been around a long time. There doesn’t seem to be anyone she doesn’t know.”
“Brilliant! Take them to her while I go to the hospital. We’ll talk after we’ve both accomplished our missions.”
“Should we synchronize our watches?” She laughed and I threw a pillow at her. Peanut did not take kindly to that and barked at me with her teeth bared.
“Hey, sorry, okay, sorry.”
Gina put her hand on Peanut’s head and the barking stopped immediately. “You go do your thing, and I’ll do mine. 1800 hours and we’re back here.”
“Is that five or six at night?”
“Six, Tallie, and you’d better get the lingo if you want to be an international spy.”
I picked up another pillow to wing at her, but Peanut eyed me. I put it down so as not to rile her again.
“Fine, we’ll meet back here and compare notes. Do you need anything else?”
“Nope, just this and the notepad. Go find out what Ms. Wig knows and what she was planning to do with it.”
I saluted her, then walked out the door, leaving my animals behind.
I’d be back soon enough and then maybe we could finally get some answers. And not more questions.
Chapter Eighteen
“You need to be straight with me, Marianne. The cops want you, they want you bad, and they think you followed Eli to the inn and then killed him when he wouldn’t let you in on the action.” Not the truth, but she didn’t need to know that. Matt had asked me to gain her trust, but I was going a different route. I’d tried being nice to her and helping her. This time she was going to answer my questions. Honestly.
“I swear to you I didn’t hurt him, I barely knew him.”
“That’s not the truth. You did know him through your husband. And he is the one who took your income away and ran away with it to set up for himself, making far more than you and Mick had with those kickbacks. Tell me you didn’t start working with him in a wig to find out what he was doing and how to get a piece of it for yourself.”
She started crying, but I wasn’t buying it. Even if they were real tears I needed to know why she was crying. Was it because she’d killed someone? Because she’d gone much further than just keeping tabs on him and trying to get her husband’s business back?
“Yes, I wanted to know what he knew and I wanted to punish him for what he did to Mick, but I swear I didn’t kill him. I wouldn’t even know the first thing about killing someone.”
“Not in a moment of revenge, irritation? Maybe you went to the inn when he told you he had a meeting and decided that this was the perfect time to make him tell you things. Then, when he wouldn’t, you strangled him, or broke his neck.”
She choked. “No, no I would never do that. I swear to you.”
“Then where were you?”
“I was in the office. I can show you the calls I made. Yes, I was trying to use the files to make money for myself. I had started calling the people being investigated and telling them that Eli was looking into them and then offering my services to get him to stop.”
“And how were you planning on doing that?”
“I hadn’t thought that far yet, and no one took me up on the offer. But ultimately, I wanted to get those complaints from pissed-off people sent through the channels to make sure the right people saw them. I wanted Eli out of business, to make him pay with disgrace and financial ruin, not dead. Dead meant he’d never have to pay for his crimes.”
That made sense. Mick chose that moment to come into the room. He narrowed his eyes at me and headed for the door, probably to tell on me for being there, when Marianne stopped him.
“Honey, don’t. I told her my part in this. I don’t want to make it worse. Maybe she can help us figure out what happened. I know why Hammond hit me, because he wanted his file, but not the rest.”
“And what was in the file?” I asked.
“I really don’t know. I didn’t look in it.” Her eyes were downcast and I knew a liar when I saw one, but I wasn’t sure how much I could press. If
I could just get my hands on the file then I wouldn’t have to deal with her again for information.
Mick sat, holding his wife’s hand with his eyes still narrowed. “And what will you get in return for this?”
“Honestly, I’m happy to get the satisfaction of taking Hammond down a peg. I was tired of his high-handedness. And now he’s behind bars, but they’re not going to be able to keep him if I can’t find the file and if you won’t tell the police your part in this. I’m not going to press you for what was in his file because I need proof. Without the actual paperwork, I can’t go to the police. I need more than hearsay. But if I have the file and can solve these murders, then I not only get to see him behind bars, but I get to see him squirm for not having outsmarted a ‘troublesome amateur’ as he called me.”
“And we get closure.” Marianne squeezed her husband’s hand and he grunted.
“Fine, but Marianne does not get in trouble for any of this,” Mick said
“I can’t make that promise,” I told him. “She did steal the folders out of Eli’s office and stuck them in her basket. I don’t know what she’ll get for that. But I’m sure it will go a whole lot better, faster, if I can bring in the killer and keep the spotlight off her.”
He didn’t grunt again but his face became thoughtful.
“And do you think my chances of actually getting to do home inspections around here will go up? I hardly ever got calls out here because Eli badmouthed me to everyone before and after he became a code enforcer.”
I had no idea, but I felt that it wasn’t necessary to tell him that. “I’m sure they will. Especially now that his brother is also dead, I think those complaints are going to go through and the public will find out how many people he screwed, both as a home inspector and more recently as a code enforcer looking to be bribed. Maybe you can clean up by doing honest and truthful assessments.” Though I wasn’t sure about that either since he had worked with Eli before. Did they have the same kind of character? Had Eli once been good at his job then got greedy and took his show on the road? “So, tell me what happened to your partnership.”
* * *
A measly fifteen minutes later I got kicked out of the room so that Marianne could take a shower. I needed more time but the nurse who came in was having none of it. I had more questions, the biggest one being what had Hammond done to have a file? There wasn’t much I could do if Marianne wouldn’t tell me or would continue to lie about knowing what was in the folder. Maybe I would have to come back and get some more answers once I could figure out how to get her to tell me the truth.
In the meantime, Mick walked me to the elevator. “You talk to that Burton guy and tell him to keep Marianne out of this and we’ll give him a statement.”
Was he implying that he wouldn’t make a statement if Marianne got in trouble? I didn’t think it worked that way. Fortunately, it wasn’t my business. “I’ll do my best. Go take care of your wife. I’ll do my part to see this through.”
Taking the elevator to the bottom floor, I used the time to contemplate how everything would come together. Hammond was on the hook for several things but still not Eli’s murder. Or at least that’s what I thought. So, I had pieces and parts of the story but not the whole. What was I missing?
So many avenues and no map. I was going to have to draw one, and I knew just who to handle the marker. I dialed her number as I walked to my car.
“Daphne, meet me at the apartment. We have a murder board to draw.”
I was halfway to my car when Marianne’s number popped up on my phone.
“I’ll get right back to you, Gina.” I hit the call receive button. “What’s up, Marianne? I thought you were in the shower.”
“I told them to wait while I made this call. There are things I didn’t tell you. It was definitely Hammond who hit me, and it’s because he wanted his file.”
“You told me that.”
“But I didn’t tell you what was in it.”
“I noticed that, but I was going to ask when I came back. So hit me with it.” I hesitated with my hand on the door of the Lexus.
“Hammond isn’t just shady, he is downright evil. He and Eli were in league together. Hammond had come into the office a couple of times, and during the last visit they were screaming at each other. The walls muffled the words but I do remember that Eli was supposed to pay him for the information. Eli had been unhappy with the information he’d gotten about some kid, so he refused and Hammond went ballistic. Eli calmed him down somehow. I saw the file, Tallie, he’s got sidelines on drugs in Chambersburg, looking the other way and has lied to get criminals off because they pay him.”
“And no one has turned him in?”
“No one but Eli had proof. That’s what kept Hammond in check. That’s why Hammond wanted the death to be a heart attack because he didn’t want anyone to look into it.”
Now we were getting somewhere.
* * *
I had note cards and markers and string. I had seen this in a few movies. I’d put everyone on the board and use string to connect them. Maybe I had been watching too much TV, but I was not getting a hobby to replace that, either.
We had Marianne and Mick; Grady, the guy whose wife had died in the elevator accident; the brother; and a number of homeowners. But I didn’t have all of them, so they were more of a cluster than individuals. After forty-five minutes I saw no way to loop the string except that the brother would have been involved in every single one of the houses with the taxes raised or lowered depending on the amount of grease given. The chicken scrawl on the kid’s file had only revealed he was looking for medical information because he was sick. If there had been blackmail, I had a feeling that had all been on Eli’s part. But I still couldn’t get anything more than the initials of the person.
“Crap.” I paced away from the refrigerator where I had used magnets to keep everything together.
“Now, don’t go getting pissy, but you didn’t put Rhoda and Arthur up there,” Gina said.
I whipped around and glared at her. “Rhoda did not kill that man, why would she? And Arthur has a hard time getting out of bed by himself. He gets around fine in the wheelchair, but Eli was not short and there’s no way Arthur could have taken him down, broken his neck, then placed him neatly on the bed. I just don’t believe it.” But I knew that my justifications were weak.
“Mama Shirley said that a few years after Arthur and Rhonda married, she went away for a year, and when she came back she was sad. Mama heard through the grapevine that it was an affair that bore a child. Initials are ‘R.M. ’—Rhoda Monroe.”
A child? “Adoption?”
“According to the tales, yes. She gave the baby up because it wasn’t Arthur’s.”
“And they still stayed married? They never had any children of their own.”
“Arthur was willing to raise the boy, but Rhoda didn’t think she’d be able to look at him every day and not think about her mistakes.”
That was a different Rhoda than I knew. But, really, how well did I know her? She was a friend of the family. Someone who baked wonderful bread, which meant I didn’t really know anything about her inside landscape.
“So, what do I do? Go talk to her to see if Eli was blackmailing her and came to get money? She killed him because the inn was reopening and she wanted to make sure it was pristine?”
It sounded far-fetched. The problem was Matt had called and there was absolutely no way Hammond could have killed Eli. His time was accounted for in the police station logbook, and Suzy had grudgingly vouched for him. I’d heard it was quite the scathing, nasty vouching, but a vouching nonetheless.
I didn’t feel much better about Rhoda as a suspect when Gina shrugged her shoulders.
“You’re the one who does the deducing in this whole thing,” she said. “I just bring you the facts and flip my hair while looking cute.”
“Where’s your Fred tonight?”
“He has a meeting with a new client and then we’re goin
g to hang out. But he told me to do whatever I needed to do.”
Of course he had, because my mother had probably driven into his head that he wasn’t going to be able to keep someone as awesome as Gina if he reverted to a Neanderthal.
“Okay, so should I talk to her now?” I looked out the window where Peanut was resting her head on the ledge. Mr. Fleefers had taken up residence on her back. Despite speaking with Mick and Marianne earlier, neither had mentioned the dog. Maybe they were having a hard time dealing with the mess they’d created. Maybe they didn’t want to think about her until they could get her back. What did I know?
I did know that I wasn’t sure if I wanted to give her up just yet. There was enough time to worry about that when Marianne was released from the hospital.
“I think tomorrow is soon enough, and now, with the new murder you might want to lay low for the night. Talk to Max, see what he’s doing, maybe have a little sexy talk and then go to bed. You’ll figure it out tomorrow and I’ll be right there with you.”
“You’re going to go with me? I’m not sure that’s a good idea since I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“I don’t want you to get hurt, either, and we’re better as a team. I can sit in the living room, or even the car, while you talk if you want, but I’m not letting you go out there by yourself. And that’s final. We should go in the morning since people will be checking in that afternoon. I don’t know if they’ll have a hostess to check in with, but that’s not our problem.”
And she latched onto my elbow in case I had any doubts that she was serious. So, we’d do this in the morning. Together, apparently.
* * *
I headed to bed with my mind full of how I was going to deal with Rhoda tomorrow. I did not want to confront her. I didn’t want it to be her. But I had to face the fact that it could be, and if it was I’d have to turn her in. My stomach clenched at the possibility, but I’d do it. I’d have to.