With a Kiss I Die

by J. A. Hennrikus

“Sure, I guess so. But shouldn’t we …”

  “What? We can’t do much to help Eric from down here, but there isn’t much we can do back in Boston either. Time to bring in the authorities.”

  I texted Eric one more time. I wanted to let him know that he should give Toni one of the USB drives. I told Emma what I was going to.

  “Of course, the chain of evidence may never hold up in court, but that’s a lawyer’s problem, not Toni’s.”

  “I don’t suppose we could hold off—”

  “Nope.” I took a sip of my soup. Still a little too hot, but delicious. “We need to keep her informed. Too much at stake,” I said.

  “Sully, what’s going on? Do you think the money has anything to do with Gus’s disappearance?”

  I stirred my soup around and took another spoonful. The temperature was perfect. For some folks, eating during times of stress is impossible. That’s never been a problem for me. In fact, during long investigations I’ve always gained weight.

  “Gus figured something out. That’s becoming clearer and clearer to me. We may not know exactly what he found out until we find him, but someone’s worried and has started deleting files. That’s always a sign you’re getting close. Hard to tell who’s deleting those files, but it sure seems like Jerry Cunningham has a lot going on. Let’s stop by your Cape house, take a look around. Maybe seeing the house that Jerry built will inspire us.”

  • Eighteen •

  Sully, what the hell’s going on?” Toni thundered before I even had a chance to say hello. I signaled to Emma that I was going to step outside and take the call. She nodded and went back to texting between bites of food.

  “Didn’t Eric call you?” I asked. I stepped into the small foyer in between the front door and the diner itself. It had probably been built to keep heat in during the winter and AC in during the summer. It wasn’t warm, but it did give me a sense of privacy. I leaned against the wall between both doors.

  “He called, he texted, he emailed. I’m on my way over to pick up a USB drive he told me you said I had to get from him. Of course, it won’t necessarily hold up—”

  “Toni, you can’t authenticate anything. I know that, you know that. What didn’t help making these verifiable is the fact that the files were disappearing like hot dogs at a baseball game while I was looking at Hal Maxwell’s file folder. What Eric’s going to give you are copies of files from both Gus’s computer and Hal’s computer. There are several files—Eric will give you a list—that should be exact duplicates but aren’t. Details are different.”

  “But we don’t know if they’re really from Gus, or Kate, or really from Hal Maxwell or Jerry Cunningham, do we?”

  “You can probably verify the Gus files by doing a trace on his computer and looking at his cache. I assume you have his computer?”

  “No comment.”

  “Which I assume means yes. He also was using cloud-based storage devices, but I’m sure you figured that out already. Ask Eric to show you the links he sent to make sure you have them. Anyway, Hal’s links get to the Cunningham files too. Who knows who has access? I don’t know who’s erasing them or who created them. But what I do know is that Eric did some comparisons and found discrepancies in a few of them. He also did some research and there’s escrow money missing. Something’s going on. You probably have a bigger picture of this whole thing than I do. All I know is that there’s a bunch of different parts of this that are starting to come together to form one puzzle.”

  “For you, maybe,” Toni said. “You were always better than I was at connecting dots that don’t seem to go together. It’s a real gift. Seems to be wasted in your new line of business.”

  I didn’t respond. Not being a cop was one of the great heartaches of my life, but I liked to think I’d moved on. Maybe not. Talking to Toni had a sweet sadness to it. I was glad that I was reconnecting with an old friend. But knowing she was on the case and I was just a bit player, if a player at all, made me miss my old life for the first time in a couple of years.

  “Sully, you still there? Sorry about the bitchy comment. I’m having trouble figuring out what’s part of this case and what isn’t. How far away are you? Maybe you can meet me at Eric’s place—”

  “I’m actually staying with Eric, but I’m down the Cape picking up some sailcloth. It’s a long story. I’m with Emma.”

  “Where on the Cape?” Toni asked. “Anywhere near the Cunningham community, what do they call it—”

  “Century Cape? Yes, pretty close. Emma has a house down here, you know. We were thinking we’d drive by.”

  “I didn’t know she had a house there. So did—or does—Martin Samuel, depending on which side you come down on in response to the ‘is he alive or dead’ question.”

  “What side do you come down?” I asked.

  “The dead side. Been doing a little research on that story. I’m not surprised they didn’t find the body, but I’ve never seen a living person able to leave absolutely no trace when they disappear. From what I can see, a lot of folks were looking for him. Including the authorities down there, the Coast Guard, and most recently, Babs Allyn.”

  “I heard Babs was looking for him from his daughter, Holly. Babs hired a PI. She went to meet him the afternoon before the party at the University club.”

  “I don’t suppose you talked to Babs after that meeting, did you?” Toni asked.

  “No, I didn’t. Didn’t even know where she’d gone until later. I wish I had talked to her.”

  “I wish you had too. The PI’s being closemouthed. I hope he doesn’t go off the grid, but I can’t stop him. I’m waiting for some search warrants to come through, but I’m having trouble with that too. Nobody has filed a missing person on Babs, even though nobody’s spoken to her.”

  “I was going to reach out to somebody up in Vermont, see if they could go by and see if she was there. Holly hasn’t sent me her address yet—”

  “I’m ahead of you on that one. No one is at their house up in Vermont.”

  We both let that sit for a minute. Where was Babs?

  “Do they have another house?” I asked, anticipating Toni’s answer before she gave it.

  “In the same neighborhood as Martin Samuel’s house. Hold on for a minute, Sully; I’m going to go outside to finish this call.” There was a pause, but Toni didn’t mute the phone. I heard John Engel bleating in the background but couldn’t hear what he said. A minute later, Toni was back on the phone.

  “Sorry about that. Folks are starting to gather around me. I can’t talk long—John’s going to find me eventually. I can’t get anyone to go down to the Cape to check on Hal’s house down there. Even though the last signal we have from Gus Knight’s phone shows that he was over the bridge, in the Bourne area. Even though—”

  “Gus was down the Cape?” I said as my throat got dry and my heart started to pound. Was Cape Cod the “CC” that Gus was referring to? Not the Cunningham Corporation?

  “As far as we can tell, the last signal from his phone was a text.”

  “Who did he text?”

  “He texted Babs Allyn. She didn’t respond.”

  I took a deep breath, held it for five seconds, and let it go slowly. “That means something, I’m sure of it. I don’t know what—”

  “Neither do I. But I do want to share one more piece of information with you, off the record. Martin Samuel had two insurance policies. One left everything to his daughter, Holly. Including the house down the Cape. The other was partner insurance for the business. That left everything to Hal Maxwell and the Cunninghams.”

  “The Cunninghams?” I asked.

  “Yup. Seems like the Cunninghams, and the Century Projects, are more than just clients. They’re business partners these days. Apparently some policies kick in on the anniversary of Martin’s disappearance because of some sort of abandonment clause for the business
. This leads me to the reason I wanted to get out of earshot. Houses down the Cape, Gus’s phone down the Cape, you’re down the Cape.”

  “A coincidence—”

  “I don’t care if it’s a coincidence or if you’re just further down some road that I don’t even see yet. As a citizen, you can go and look around, especially if Emma’s with you.”

  “Are you asking me to investigate?” I asked.

  “I’m asking you and Emma to look around since you’re down there. Would she be open to that?”

  “Someone stole a lot of money from her. I’m sure she’d be more than open to that.”

  “Just be careful. And keep me posted. Make sure your phone is charged. Don’t do anything stupid. Got that?”

  “Got that,” I said. She ended the call without saying goodbye.

  The real question was, got what?

  I told Emma what Toni had said.

  “Let’s go look around,” she said, eyes straight ahead.

  If I hadn’t known the area contained a Century Project, there was nothing that would have told me. We drove down a side road for a couple of miles, housing clusters on the left, a large privet hedge on the right. The hedge looked to be at least ten feet tall, perfectly groomed even in the dead of winter. There were some leaves missing, and I noticed that behind the hedges was a large fence. Enough for privacy, and probably to keep folks out. After a while, there was a break in the hedge, and a road led to a gatehouse. As Emma drove up, a guard came out.

  “Ms. Whitehall, ma’am, I’m surprised to see you. I mean, I didn’t expect—”

  “It’s nice to see you. It must be pretty quiet down here this time of year,” Emma said.

  “You’d be surprised,” the guard replied. He looked to be in his mid-fifties, with thinning gray hair on top of his head. Ex-cop or ex-military, I’d guess. He leaned down to look into the car and gave me a once-over. I had no doubt he’d be able to describe me accurately should the need arise. “Yes, ma’am, you’d be surprised. Lots of folks enjoy the quiet of the winter.”

  “Plus it’s so beautiful down here,” Emma said. “This is my friend Sully. I thought I’d show her the house. We were down in the neighborhood running an errand for her theater.”

  “I believe your house is closed up. Saw to it myself.”

  “We weren’t planning on staying, just taking a drive.” Emma said.

  “Well, the clubhouse is closed, it being off-season and all. But if you need to warm up or use the facilities, feel free to stop by the gatehouse on your way out.”

  “Thanks. We may take you up on that. Unless Jerry Cunningham is here?”

  “No, I haven’t seen him. Haven’t seen anyone, really. ’Course I was off most of the week, down in Florida visiting my ex-wife. Our kids were down there, staying with her for school vacation week.”

  “Lucky you,” Emma said. “I may need to go somewhere warm soon. But I’m stuck here. I mean, in Boston, for a few more weeks at least. I’ll check in on my way out.”

  “That would be much appreciated, thank you. And, Ms. Whitehall, my sincerest condolences on your troubles. Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.”

  “Thank you so much. I’ll do that.” Emma rolled up her window and the guard went back into the gatehouse, raising the gate to let her through. I gave him a small wave as we drove by, noticing the cozy glow coming from inside the gatehouse, which looked much more like a small cottage.

  “You didn’t remember his name, did you?” I asked.

  “Terry was always so much better at that than I was. Besides, he spent more time down here than I did. He was the South Shore guy. I’m a North Shore gal. We should have known the marriage would be troubled.”

  After we drove into the community, Emma drove straight ahead for quite a way. I noticed that to the right was the edge of what appeared to be a golf course. As we drove along the course, there was eventually a turn to the right, but Emma kept driving straight.

  “Basically, there’s a double loop going on here. The outer loop has the bigger houses and more commodities that folks are looking for, like the golf course. Half of the houses face the golf course; the other half of the loop faces the ocean. The center loop surrounds a man-made lake. The cheaper houses are not directly on the ocean, the lake, or the golf course. And cheaper, of course, is a relative term.”

  “How many houses in total?”

  “Sixty, I think. All different sizes. A couple of townhouses near the clubhouse at the golf course. Our house is, as I said, not one of the biggest. But we’re right on the lake. Upstairs, off the master bedroom, you can see the ocean in the distance. It’s what my mother would’ve called ‘a little piece of heaven.’ Or it was. I honestly don’t know if I can come back down here, given all that’s happened. Believe it or not, it would probably make me miss Terry.”

  “I believe you,” I said. “After my father died, I thought about keeping his house since it was closer to the ocean, closer to town. But I just couldn’t bear it. So I got my little gatehouse, settled in there.”

  “Any regrets?” Emma asked.

  “None. But I did wait a bit before I decided. I think you should do that too. Just some unsolicited advice.”

  As we drove, the houses were clustered together, but there was enough space between them for a bit of privacy. I looked out both sides of the car and could see that there were only three or four different types of houses but every house had its own unique personality, likely owner-driven. We pulled into a driveway of what Emma considered a “small” house. I did not. It was a lovely two-story Gambrel Cape. We were coming in the back, and I noted the dormers on the second floor with a deck in between them. That must be the master bedroom. There was a large, wrap-around deck all along the back of the house, which continued around the side. There were several levels to the deck, and I had no doubt there would be furniture and grills filling the space during the summer.

  “Nice deck,” I said.

  “It goes all along the front of the house too. Leads down to a small dock on the lake. We can walk around if you’d like—”

  “How about if you drive me around first, show me the Cunninghams’ house, let me get a lay of the land. If it’s still light by the time we’re done, we can take a walk. It looks like nobody’s been walking around here for a while.” I surveyed the ground, the mounds of frozen snow that showed no signs of footprints.

  “Sure, we can take a drive.”

  “Can you also show me Hal’s house?” I asked. “Maybe Babs is there.”

  “Hopefully she’s down here. I’ll also show you Martin’s house.”

  While Emma backed out into the quiet street, I pulled my notebook out of my bag and started taking some notes. I drew a rough sketch of the community and tried to mark out whose house was whose. “Let’s see if any of these houses look like they’ve had visitors.”

  “Hal’s house is right over here,” Emma said.

  I forced myself to exhale the breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.

  From the outside, Hal’s house looked as if there had been a bit of activity. We both got out of the car and stood in the half-shoveled driveway. It had been a cold and snowy winter, and the Cape had much more snow than Boston did, so there was a nice layer of ice over the snow that helped indicate what might have gone on. Though there were a few broken places on the snow that indicated a footprint, they led up to the front door, which had a huge mound of snow on the front stoop. Just to make sure, I stepped into the footprints and tried to open the screen door on the front of the house. It was blocked: frozen shut. I did a quick look around and didn’t see any other steps indicating someone had been there.

  “Emma, is there a back entrance?” I noted that there was a gate in the fence that surrounded the property. It too was mounded over with snow, and I couldn’t imagine how it could be opened.

 
; “There is a back way,” Emma said. We both climbed into her small car, which she’d left running to keep warm. “As you can see, Hal’s house backs up onto the golf course. We could try and get in from over there—”

  “Let’s go to the Cunninghams’ first,” I said. I looked around and dusted off my observational skills. “We’re playing beat the clock with the sun. I’d rather explore in daylight as much as possible.”

  We drove around the loop to the Cunninghams’ house. True, it wasn’t the largest in the community, but it certainly was the most ideally situated. It sat up a little bit on the crest of a hill. As you faced it, to the left there was the ocean. To the right there was the golf course clubhouse. Because of the location, there were no houses abutting either side. I assumed that there were also no houses behind the Cunninghams’, and I asked Emma about that.

  “No,” she said. “Nothing on the back side of the Cunningham house except the golf course. They do have a fence along the back, sort of an invisible netting situation that prevents stray golf balls from flying into the house or the yard as much as possible. Mimi got sick of fishing golf balls out of their pool.”

  “They have their own pool? Isn’t there one at the clubhouse?” I said.

  “Yes, a nice one. The Cunningham pool is more of a lap pool. Mimi and Jerry are both fanatics about exercise. See over there? They have a much bigger fence between them and the clubhouse proper.”

  “Does the clubhouse rock in the summer?”

  “I don’t know if ‘rock’ is the word, but there’s certainly a party atmosphere. Not just in the summer. The clubhouse opens the first week of April, closes the day after New Year’s. It’s a long season down here. As you can see, a few folks live here year-round. Most people do what we do, close it down for the dead of winter. The snow just makes it too hard to get down here a lot.”

  “Well, it doesn’t look like the Cunninghams have been here recently.” Again, we’d stopped the car and gotten out. The Cunninghams’ house had been shoveled out with a lot more care. But the heap of snow in front of the front door indicated that they hadn’t been down since the storm the previous weekend. I walked to the right of the driveway. Like at Hal’s house, there was a fence that surrounded the property, classy and understated but doing what it was intended to do and blocking the view of the back yard. This fence butted right up to the fence along the golf course.