“I guess to Gus’s far more cynical mind, the Cunninghams were running a slow con. Gus was doing his best to untangle the Whitehall company from them, and to make sure that when and if the Cunningham Corporation went down, the Whitehall reputation didn’t suffer. Well, didn’t suffer any more than it already has. After last Christmas, the old family name is a bit tarnished.”
“Can you forward me these reports you’ve been reading?” I asked.
“Once we stop. Five miles to the bridge. Whoosh. That always makes me so happy, seeing that sign. We’re heading down to one of my favorite places on earth. Or it was. Terry and I were happiest here, away from my family and the business. But I think I may want to sell the house, my secret hideaway.”
“Secret? What do you mean by that?”
“It’s a tight-knit community. You have to sign guests in; you can’t rent out your house. When Terry and I were down here, I was almost convinced we could be happy. Eric knows how I feel about this place, and how I feel about the Cunninghams. He told me Gus has been working on building this case against them for a while.”
“When did he loop Eric in?”
“The last week or so. Gus wanted to be sure, I guess. But apparently the feds have caught on to the scam somehow. A friend of Eric’s tipped him off to this last night. That’s why Eric sent me the reports, to get me up to speed so we could legally get ahead of it.” Emma’s eyes were focused on the road, which was just as well. I would have hated for her to see the irritation on my face.
“Anything else you haven’t told me?” I asked.
“No, that’s it,” she said, looking over at me. A tear rolled down her face. “I’m sorry. I should have woken you up last night, but I wanted to go through the reports on my own. Process them.”
“Eric isn’t trying to handle this himself, is he? The legal stuff, I mean.”
“No, that’s why he called his friend to get some recommendations on forensic accountants. His friend is also a lawyer. Eric’s immersing himself in the numbers, and in the files we shared with him. He’s going to meet with his friend tomorrow, in case we need legal advice and we don’t find Gus in time to get him up to speed.”
The silence hung.
“Like I said, as soon as we stop, I’ll forward you the reports,” Emma said. “Can you read while you’re riding in the car?”
“Yes. One of the side effects of being a cop for so long.”
“Then you’ll know what I know. We’ll go get this sailcloth, then we’ll get some fresh air and a nice lunch. After that we’ll head back, meet with Eric, go to our meeting with Jerry, get in touch with your friend Toni, and get back to work looking for Gus.”
“Full day,” I said.
Turns out, enough fabric to cover a set is a lot of fabric. A lot. The two guys who were loading the sailcloth laughed really hard when they saw the Mini-Cooper.
“Do you have another car coming?” they asked.
“Nope, just the one. Don’t worry, it will fit,” Emma said.
She climbed into the back of the car to move some things around, lower seats, and perform other magic acts. The guys brought out bolts and bolts of fabric, but they all fit. It was like a clown car for sailcloth.
“And this is all fire retardant?” I asked. I was used to some of the rules around fabric when it’s used onstage, and I’d learned it’s better to be safe than sorry.
“Ay yup. Here’s the certificate in case anyone has any questions.”
I looked inside the envelope the man handed me and pulled out the legal certification about the fabric itself. “Terrific, thanks. You need me to sign anything?” I asked.
“Yes, if you can just initial this sheet here, that we gave you all the fabric, that would be great,” he said. “What are you going to do with it?”
“I’m not exactly sure, but I think your cloth is going to save the set of Romeo and Juliet.”
“My wife loves that play,” he said. “She drags me to every production of it she hears about.”
“Well, tell you what. Give me your name, and you can bring your wife to see it at Bay Rep.”
“She’d love that. Much appreciated. Ed, Ed Shea,” he said, shaking my hand.
“Sully Sullivan. Great to meet you.”
“Sully?”
“Born Edwina,” I said. “My father gave me the nickname. Ed, I hate to be a pain, but could I get a copy of the receipt I just signed?” I had no idea what Babs or Holly required for paperwork but I wanted to make sure everything was all set. Given all that was going on, the last thing they needed was to have to track down a receipt.
“Sure, come on in.”
I followed Ed into the shop. He walked over to a copier and turned it on. I lagged behind to take a look at the room. The open space was both a workroom and a showroom. Pictures of beautiful boats were everywhere. Samples of wood and sailcloth were displayed on one wall. A big book of paint colors was strewn across one of the desks. There was no pretension in this room, but there was a lot of quality. Quality that likely cost a lot of money, but I admired that the room said much more about quality than show. I walked over to one of the walls and looked at a series of photos of beautiful sailboats racing in the harbor.
“You in the market?” Ed asked.
“In the market?”
“For a boat,” he said. “I’ve been watching you look around, take it in. Even caught you running your hand along that twenty-seven footer out in the yard.”
“It reminded me of a boat my dad had when I was growing up. We used to have wonderful adventures on that boat. I miss it. I miss him.”
Ed nodded. “No boat of your own?” he asked gently.
“Not yet. I live up in Trevorton, and occasionally I’ll lease a boat and take her out for sail. But I haven’t taken the plunge myself. It’s a big step. You need to have time to take care of her.”
“I wish more folks thought like you,” he said. “Nothing sadder than to see a boat somebody bought as a trophy sitting out in its mooring, never used. A lot of that going on these days.” Ed was a true New Englander. Part cranky Yankee, part old salt, part big softy.
As I was leaving the office, I happened to look to the wall on the right. There was an architectural drawing of a dock with several boats tied up to it, and a small open bar that went over the edge of the water.
“Where’s that?” I asked.
“I should take it down. That, friend, was a pipe dream of mine I honestly thought I would see become a reality. An old man’s foolishness. What made me think a big operation like the Century Project would be interested in my idea? Just wish they hadn’t dragged so many people into the whole thing.”
“The Century Project? Jerry and Mimi Cunningham’s project?”
“The same. ’Course, I don’t want to speak ill of the dead, but they sure had us going for a while. Promised they’d fund my bar, expand the boatyard, and support a couple of other projects. Gave us enough money to get started, but checks started to bounce. We had to stop work two weeks ago. They’re not in any rush to come down here. And now with everything that’s happened back in Boston—you hear about that?”
“I’ve heard about it, yes,” I said.
“Like I said, I’m not wanting to speak ill of the dead, but Jerry Cunningham sure won’t get a lot of sympathy down here. Broke a lot of folks’ hearts, he did. Including mine.”
• Seventeen •
Ed and I talked for a few more minutes, and I asked him for his card. While he was getting it, I took a picture of the architectural drawing. Was this another piece of the puzzle? I went back to the car, and Emma was already in it. All the fabric fit, though she couldn’t see out the back window.
“You’re not going to believe this,” she said.
“What?” I didn’t even want to guess.
“Jerry Cunningham sent Eric and me an em
ail. He needs to reschedule our meeting. He’s delaying his departure, and he said he’d be in touch on Monday.”
“Whose idea was it to close the escrow?” I asked. “That’s what this meeting was about, right?”
“Gus’s idea. In fact, he was very insistent. I probably wouldn’t have forced the question right away, but Gus thought it was prudent.”
“Do you think Gus might’ve been testing the Cunninghams? Trying to see if they could come up with the cash?”
“Escrow isn’t supposed to be touched. If the cash isn’t there, that’s a real problem. I wish Gus had talked to me more, told me what had him so worried.”
I told Emma about my conversation with Ed and the unfinished Century Projects around town. “Ed made it sound like the money had just started drying up. He said he was having a tough time getting a straight answer out of the Cunninghams, but they promised that the next time they were down, they’d stop by for a conversation.”
“Did Ed believe them?” Emma asked.
“I think he wanted to,” I said. “But he reminded me of my dad when he was trying to think the best of somebody but knew better in his heart.”
Emma put her cell phone on a cradle on the dashboard and made sure it was connected to the system in the car.
“Call Eric,” she said to the phone.
“Home or mobile?” an automated woman’s voice asked.
“Mobile.” While the phone call was connected, Emma pulled out of the boatyard. Instead of going left, back to the highway toward Boston, she took a right. After a couple of rings, Eric picked up the phone.
“Eric, Sully and I are in the car. We just picked up the sailcloth. Sully had an interesting conversation with someone at the boatyard. Remember that dock-and-bar project?”
“Hello to you too, Emma. Hi, Sully. Yes, I remember that project. It was an exciting way to bring a little bit more business into the harbor—”
“Well, apparently it’s not going to happen. Money is gone. Sully thinks money is why Jerry canceled our meeting this afternoon. Do me a favor? Can you check on the escrow account? See how much money is in the account? Also, could you send Sully the reports you sent me?”
“It’s going to take me a minute, but sure. All of the money was in the account earlier in the week. Gus checked.”
“I’m sure its fine,” Emma said. “Call us back. We’re going to take a ride.”
My phone buzzed. I looked down. A text from Toni.
What do you know about Martin Samuel?
She was asking me? Or was she looking for help connecting some dots. I wrote back in a series of texts.
Disappeared a year ago. Cunninghams on the boat with him.
Daughter Holly works at Bay Rep, with Babs Allyn, wife of Hal Maxwell.
Babs went to Vermont but no one’s heard from her. She and Hal were on the boat too.
Holly thinks Martin is still alive. Babs is trying to find out what happened to him. The anniversary of his disappearance seems to be triggering them both.
I waited for a second, and then the text response came back. Did Babs seem concerned the last time you saw her?
I wished Toni were on the phone so I could trade information. But she wasn’t, and I didn’t want to play games with her. She needed information.
When I saw her at the theater, she was fine. Heading out to a meeting. That evening at the reception, she was a wreck. Something must have happened in between.
You have any ideas? Toni texted.
Maybe easier if we talk? I wrote. The story about Babs hiring a PI hadn’t been confirmed, and couldn’t be explained in a text.
In the car with John. Think of anything else, ANYTHING ELSE, text me.
“Sully, you okay?” Emma asked.
“I’m fine,” I said. “Toni was texting. I think she’s trying to fill in some of the details that they may have skipped.”
“You mean she’s catching up with us?” Emma said, smiling at me.
“She’d lose her mind to hear you say that, but yes. She’s catching up with us.”
“What did she—” Emma’s phone started to ring. She hit a button on her steering wheel and said, “Hello Eric.”
“The escrow account is empty.”
Emma pulled over to the side of the road and hit the steering wheel hard. “Who—”
“The bank is scurrying to figure it out. They were only five of us with access to that account. Me. You. The Cunninghams.”
“And Gus,” Emma whispered.
“And Gus,” Eric said. “Needless to say, I’m looking into this.”
“Eric,” I said. “I’m going to text you Toni’s cell phone number. Don’t wait too long before you update her. All of this is leading somewhere, but I have no idea where.”
Emma pulled into a little sandwich shop, not the quaint seaside restaurant she’d planned on but a misplaced diner that look like it had seen better days. There was only one other car in the parking lot. It didn’t seem Emma’s style, but I understood her compulsion to find a place to sit and absorb.
The escrow money was gone. For me it was more of a fact, another fact to add to the unknown sordid and random lists running through my head. But for Emma? For Emma and Eric and the entire Whitehall family? Escrow was money. Real money. I didn’t know much about the family finances, hadn’t been brought into that loop. I doubted I would understand much of it anyway. I knew enough to know that they’d had some liquidity issues ever since December. Was the escrow account going to help them fill some gaps? Help them bridge some more months of expenses while they tried to right the ship?
We walked into the diner and paused. “Sit wherever,” a voice called out from the back. There was an open pass-through and a woman working the grill. “I’ll be right out.”
Emma walked to the right, to the middle booth. The Formica table was worn in parts, and the metal strapping around the edges was bent in more than one place. But the table was clean and the seat cushions on the benches were covered in bright fabrics. I looked around. The diner was likely a tourist trap in the summer, but it had its own charm. All the decorations were whales. Paintings, signs, cross-stitch samplers, place mats. Whales.
“I was just about to give up and close for the day, glad to see somebody come by. Winter’s so quiet, I work half-days. I’ve got a cobbler that’s aching to be eaten.” An older woman with Edna embroidered on her bowling shirt came over and wiped the immaculate table top. “Hope you’re hungry. You want menus? Little limited this time of year. Specialty of the house is grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup—”
“That sounds perfect,” Emma said. “Maybe with a cup of coffee? And a glass of water? I promise I’ll save room for the cobbler too.”
“I’ll take the same,” I said. The waitress brought over our coffee and water and set them down in front of us. She reached back behind the counter and got a bowl of creamers and some sugar.
I took a sip of the coffee. It was strong and delicious. Food-wise, the day was looking up. “What time do you close?” I’d thought about getting our food to go, but all of a sudden the thought of sitting here drinking coffee for a little bit felt like a good idea.
“No worries,” she said. “I got plenty to do. You folks enjoy your meal. Let me go get the sandwiches on the grill. You’ll like it; the special blend of the cheese is my own. And the bread’s homemade. So’s the soup, of course.”
As the waitress left, Emma pulled out her phone and started flipping through screens. “Will you do me a favor? Do you have access to those files Hal sent me the link for?”
I took out my phone. “Yes.”
“Good. I’m going to pull up Gus’s files—” Emma tapped on her phone for a few seconds. “Eric said he’s going to send me some examples of discrepancies, screenshots of the accounts. I just can’t believe … I mean, come on. You know how much pro
perty the Cunninghams have built down here? How much they’re still building? How can they … ”
“Okay, I’ve got the files open,” I said. “Give me an example.”
Emma read out the name of a file in Gus’s folder. I sorted Hal’s files by name, and looked. The example she’d given me wasn’t there. I ran a search, went up a couple of levels, and searched there.
“I can’t find it,” I said. “Tell me another one.”
Emma did, and I couldn’t find it in Hal’s folder. She texted Eric, and he sent her some more file names. The same thing happened. I looked at the number of files in Hal’s folder, blinked, and refreshed it again. The number was decreasing by the second.
“Someone’s deleting files,” I said to Emma. I wiped my hands and started to text. I tried to call Eric, but his phone went to voicemail. I texted him, telling him to back up everything one more time, on a USB drive if possible. I also told him to disconnect his computer from the Internet.
The waitress brought over sandwiches and soup and refilled our coffee cups. “Careful,” she said. “This is hot. Don’t burn your mouth; you want to save your taste buds for dessert.” She went back to the kitchen.
I was relieved when Eric texted back that had already made copies on two separate USB drives, and he would disconnect from the Internet as well. I texted that I’d call him in a few minutes.
The bowls of soup were generous. The bread had the misshapen look of an Italian peasant loaf. I could see melted cheese poking up through a couple of holes on the bread. It was toasted a perfect dark golden brown and I could tell just by looking at it that butter was a major ingredient of the sandwich. I pulled off a corner and blew on it gently. I popped it into my mouth and had to roll it around my tongue so it wouldn’t burn. The risk was worth it. It was delicious.
“So, here’s what I think,” I said, purposely keeping my voice calm. “You need to eat your sandwich. I’m serious. I want to take a drive over and see these houses that the Cunninghams built, and then we can head back to Boston. You up to that?” I said.
With a Kiss I Die Page 21