by Lila K Bell
“I see,” he said, and clicked open a calendar on his computer screen. “He has an availability next Thursday at three o’clock if that suits you.”
“Not until next week?” I asked, genuinely horrified. I hadn’t counted on that. “This will really only take a quick minute. It’s just a few questions.”
“I’m sorry,” the receptionist said. “He’s very busy right now and doesn’t do walk-in appointments. If you’re interested in booking time with him, I can put you on a cancellation list in case something comes up.”
“I—”
I didn’t know what to say. What reason could I give for pushing the issue now when I wasn’t actually trying to do business with the man?
Before I had to come up with something clever, the door opened and another man stepped into the room. He was well over six feet tall, broad-shouldered, silver-haired, and handsome enough to have stepped out of a magazine. A pair of frameless glasses showed off the clearness of a pair of blue eyes that didn’t twinkle or offer any warmth, nor did they appear overly hard. They were calculating, focused.
“Daniel, if you wouldn’t mind updating Mr. Wentworth’s file for me. I’m going to start to work on the next batch. And then see if you can move up my four o’clock appointment. I’d like to get out of here early if I can.”
If this man killed Barnaby Coleman, his mood swings had to be legendary. For the life of me, I couldn’t see him losing his temper enough to grab a pair of scissors from the counter and murder someone. Not in a rage, anyway. And the alternative was enough to cool my blood.
My tongue grew thick in my mouth, and my palms got clammy. I drew in a breath and forced myself to smile. I was no stranger to covering my discomfort. It was a skill that came from years of banquets and garden parties and living with my mother.
“Mr. Fraser?” I asked, adopting a tone that asked for attention while at the same time apologizing for disturbing him.
He turned toward me and set his file folders down on Daniel’s desk. “Yes?”
I allowed my smile to widen. “It’s so nice to meet you. I was hoping to speak with you about a financial matter, but it doesn’t sound like I’ll be able to make it in until next week?”
Daniel’s glower bored through my peripheral vision, but I kept my gaze on Fraser.
“It’s only a few questions,” I said. “I don’t suppose you have a quick minute?”
Fraser glanced at his watch. “I think I can spare a bit of time now. Why don’t you come on through?”
I thanked him profusely and cast Daniel a bright smile as I passed through the reception area into Fraser’s office.
The clean grey decor continued the same in here, with a few more pictures on the walls, obviously from exotic vacations, though I didn’t notice any family photographs. A large filing cabinet sat against the wall closest to the sliding door that led to the balcony, but most of the room was taken up by the wide desk.
I took the chair on the outside of it, while Fraser smoothed his jacket before settling into the large leather chair closest to the windows.
“How can I help you today, Ms…”
“Gates,” I said. “Fiona Gates.”
I didn’t see any point in lying about who I was. I didn’t think he was the sort of person to spread names around. He could be a murderer, but he was a professional, too.
Besides, my parents made it on the local society pages often enough that all he’d need to do was open a paper to figure out who I really was. Lying was only worth it when you could reasonably get away with it.
“I confess, I’m not here to speak with you about money,” I said. “At least, not my money.”
Fraser’s eyes narrowed. “Oh?”
“I have a vested interest in Barnaby Coleman’s estate.” I crossed one leg over the other and folded my hands in my lap. This man was intimidating, but I was my mother’s daughter. If there was one skill she had drilled into me, it was how to act as though I was entitled to whatever I wanted, whether it was a new car or information that most certainly didn’t belong to me. Since Fraser didn’t seem like the gossipy sort, I met his gaze and held it, asserting my stubbornness. “I believe you have a claim on some of it?”
“I don’t see how that’s any of your business, Ms. Gates,” he said. The words came out matter-of-factly, without any kind of rudeness or impatience. I wondered if I’d caught his interest.
“You know he’s been murdered?” I said.
“I read about it in the news.”
“How much do you stand to lose by his death?”
“That information is between Mr. Coleman and myself. My discretion didn’t end when he did. Where does your interest lie?”
I smiled. “Call it professional curiosity.”
“What sort of profession do you follow, Ms. Gates?”
“On the surface, one would say I didn’t,” I said, knowing full well that he would ask around and find out the truth pretty easily. And then I took a risk and said, “But in the right circles, I’m known for a particular set of skills. As are you, I imagine.” Wink wink, I was saying. From one less-than-upright-citizen to another. “So you could answer my questions and satisfy my curiosity, unless you prefer to answer to the police when they make the same connection about Barnaby’s death as I have.”
Fraser chuckled, a rich sound that took me by surprise. He leaned forward over his desk and crossed his hands on the blotter. “I have no issue speaking with the police. If they come to me with a warrant, I will be happy to show them all documentation regarding my dealings with Mr. Coleman. I’ve done nothing wrong.”
“I wonder if that’s true,” I said. It was a bluff, but I thought it worth the test. He was holding up well. Either he was actually telling the truth, or he should be auditioning for Shakespeare in the Park next summer. But there was still something about him I didn’t trust.
“Tell me, Ms. Gates, how would it benefit me to kill the man who owes me money? It will be difficult to claim my debt now that he’s dead.”
I had thought of that before coming here, running a dozen scenarios through my head to test if my theory made sense. Most of them didn’t play out, and, now that I’d met him, even more fizzled into the unlikely, but a few still held strong. “Perhaps it was an accident. Even the best laid plans go awry.”
“Like your plan in coming here,” Fraser said. “I don’t know what information you hoped to gain from me, but I assure you, you won’t find it.” He rose to his feet and extended his hand. “I wish you a good day, Ms. Gates.”
I hesitated a moment, my mind scrambling to find some way of stretching our meeting long enough to get something useful out of him, but in the end, I came up blank.
Defeated but not discouraged, I stood up and accepted his hand. I was both relieved and surprised to find my fingers steady and dry. “I thank you for your time,” I said, and left.
***
By the time the sun had set, I was sitting in Bessie’s driver’s seat staring down the street at the Coleman house. I hadn’t been able to get my thoughts away from the murder since I’d left Fraser’s office, and I knew I had to do something to move things forward.
If Coleman was in debt to Fraser, there had to be paperwork that proved it somewhere in his house. I was certain the police would have found it by now, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t worth making another pass to see if there was anything they might have overlooked. I remembered the letter that had been sitting on Coleman’s desk when I’d come through the office, that red THIEF screaming from the page. Hopefully, there would be proof elsewhere that Fraser had something to do with Coleman’s death. A marker of some kind, something the police might have missed.
It was worth a try.
I got out of the car and slipped down the street, once more using the tree to get into Barnaby’s backyard. There was no police tape back here, though I’d noticed it around the front of the house. I hoped they’d left the alarm off as well.
I pushed the office window ope
n and, with a breath of relief when everything remained silent, climbed inside. The house was dark and there was a lingering smell of blood in the air. I guessed no one had come in yet to clean up the mess Barnaby had left behind.
I pulled out my penlight as I moved to the desk and kept my steps slow to avoid any creaking floorboards. I passed my light over the surface. A few papers remained, but mostly just the Sunday crosswords that Barnaby had obviously collected but never got around to completing, though I spotted a few simple attempts on some of them. I went around to the front and pulled open the drawers. Everything but the newspapers had been cleared out.
I’d missed my chance.
The light of the office flicked on and I froze. Apparently, I’d missed a lot more than that.
Slowly, I looked up and once more found myself facing the barrel of a gun.
“Fiona? Again? Seriously?” Sam demanded. He holstered his weapon with a sound of disgust and crossed his arms. “What are you doing here now?”
“I thought I dropped something the other day,” I said. “An earring Mother gave me. You know what she’d be like if she found it missing, so I didn’t want to make a big deal about it.”
“In the office? You told me you didn’t make it past the kitchen.”
Oops.
“All right, so I admit my curiosity got the better of me and I made a little detour.” I attempted an innocent smile. “Having been the one to find Barnaby’s body, I guess I feel a kind of…personal interest in knowing more about why someone killed him. So when I realized my earring was missing…” I tugged on my earlobe. “I don’t suppose you’ve found it?”
“No, I haven’t, “ Sam said. “You could have called me, Fi. This is trespassing.”
“You won’t tell on me, will you?” I asked, giving him a smile.
Although I was proud of my quick thinking, I was also kicking myself for not taking precautions. I’d grown so used to slipping into houses for criminal reasons, it hadn’t even occurred to me that I might be caught doing something as innocent as pawing through a dead man’s desk.
Sam groaned and stepped into the room. “You’re going to get me fired.”
“I promise, I won’t,” I said. “You’ll never find me in this house again.”
There would be no point in coming back. There was nothing for me to find.
His gaze slipped to the window. “How did you even get in?”
“Front door. I checked to see if anyone was there, but maybe you’d walked around the side of the house?”
It was a chance, but I guessed I hit the mark when he didn’t shout at me and call me a liar, so I hoped I’d landed on something plausible. The last thing I wanted was Sam remembering how much I enjoyed climbing trees. He was a quick thinker, and it wouldn’t be so much of a leap from “Fiona climbs through back windows” to “Maybe Fiona’s been behind the two million-plus dollars in book thefts over the years.”
“You haven’t come by the station yet,” he said, a touch of frustration creeping around the edges of his words.
Crap. “I completely forgot, Sam. I’m sorry.” I actually meant it, too. It was in my best interests to keep up appearances of being the unlucky but responsible witness. “I’ll be there first thing tomorrow, I promise.”
“Mmhmm,” he said, and I had a sneaking suspicion he didn’t quite believe me. “You’d better. This is twice you’ve promised me now.”
“Double promise,” I said. I leaned my butt against the edge of the desk. “So? Have you had any luck yet?”
Sam joined me, his arms still crossed. “You know I can’t talk about it.”
“I understand,” I said. And I did. He was bound by his profession to keep his lips sealed and not share anything he knew. Unfortunately for him, I’d known him since he was three and knew his weaknesses. “Still, it must be frustrating not to be making much progress.”
“How do you know we’re not?” he asked.
“Because you wouldn’t still be here watching the house if you were. I know how good you are at this job, Sam. If there was anything to chase down, you’d be chasing, not guarding.”
“I’ll have you know we have a good many leads, thank you very much. I was just tasked to watch the house tonight to prevent anything else from being stolen.”
Ding.
“Something was stolen?” I asked. Then I waved my hands. “Never mind, don’t answer that. It’s none of my business. So you must be pretty proud of yourself, being trusted with a job like this.”
“As a matter of fact, I am, Fi. This is the kind of case I need to get myself noticed.”
“A straight-up puzzle,” I agreed. “I’m sure his debts will be a good clue.” He shot me a look, and I shrugged. “My parents are hooked to the gossip mill’s teat, what can I say? But you must have all the proof of who he owed the money to and how much.”
By the way Sam shuffled his feet, I knew I had him nailed. It was a move he made when he was embarrassed and didn’t want to admit it. He’d said nothing, but he may as well have shouted it out that the police didn’t have the papers regarding Coleman’s debt with Fraser.
My thoughts turned to the other masked man in the house. Maybe those documents meant enough to him to grab them on his way out…
“I spoke with Jeremy this morning,” I said. “Offered my condolences.”
Sam nodded. “He’s pretty upset about things.”
“He mentioned something about Barnaby’s friend? A man named Roger?”
“Nothing there. He was out on his boat when Barnaby was killed.” Sam’s eyes widened. “Dammit, Fiona. You know I’m not supposed to talk about it.”
I nudged his shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. Who am I going to tell? My parents? Trust me, they’re far more interested in Coleman’s debts than some guy on a boat.”
Sam grumbled and circled his fingers around my arm, leading me out of the office and toward the front door. “Come on, get out of here before I clap you in irons and throw you into a pit. At least there you won’t get into any more trouble.”
He let me go and I blew him a kiss as I stepped onto the front step. “You’ll let me know if you find my earring, won’t you?”
“Sure,” he said, “and don’t forget about that statement.”
“Of course, officer,” I said. “I’ll be there first thing tomorrow.”
He rolled his eyes and closed the door, locking me out.
My walk down the street was what I could only describe as jaunty. The police didn’t have information about Coleman’s debt, and Coleman’s friend had an alibi.
Progress might be slow, but I was still getting somewhere.
8
I wasn’t put off by my unexpected run-in with Sam last night. On the contrary, I was proud of myself for learning what I could from him. I did, however, take my mistake to heart. I was out of my wheelhouse here. Beyond my training. If I really wanted to get to the bottom of this murder, I would need to go about it more carefully than I had been up until now.
Lessons learned and all that. I’ve always been big on self-teaching, and in my opinion there was no better way to go about it than being in the field — the good old hand-on experience.
Which was why I didn’t waste any time the next morning before heading out to the Historical Society headquarters to speak with Susan Featherby.
The Society was based out of the local history museum, which was pretty fitting. Susan was manager of the information centre there, although by the way she treated guests — and often the curator — she believed she was meant for much more. Which was probably why she’d fought so hard to gain the presidency of the Society. At least there she could show off her local knowledge and play a part in keeping it relevant to the younger generations.
If younger generations were interested in banquets and discussions in the museum’s lecture hall about the evolution of Brookside’s tourist industry over the decades.
Because I sure as heck wasn’t.
But for the sake o
f today, I swallowed my anticipatory yawns and sought Susan out.
As far as museums go, the Brookside History Museum was pretty adorable. It was located in an old stone building that used to be a mill. Or maybe a bank? Either way, it was old and stone and smelled musty with age, even though it couldn’t be more than fifty years old. The floors were a smooth cream-and-white marble, and the café in the front left corner always smelled of fresh cookies whenever I walked by.
The displays themselves were simple, but unique, showing the evolution of clothing styles and architecture since the town was first founded in 1813. Impressive dioramas of the town were kept in glass display cases, showing the changing demographics and shops from the earliest days until they were last updated in the sixties. I guessed the creator of the dioramas had passed around that time, and the museum hadn’t found anyone to replace him yet.
There were displays of our local flora and fauna, and even a few areas where fossils and artifacts had been dug up along the lake, including some beautiful pieces of jewelery studded with amethyst. Safe from me, of course. It wasn’t like they’d dug up any first edition books over the years.
It wasn’t the type of museum that would keep the kids engaged for hours at a stretch, but as a chronicle of our little slice of the world, it was a needed addition to the town.
Susan was busy arranging the pamphlets and brochures when I came in, her blonde hair swirled up into a French twist, her glasses draped around her neck on a cord of clear beads.
“Good morning, Mrs. Featherby,” I said, greeting her with my best sing-song voice. Before you ask: yes, I make myself queasy sometimes.
She jumped away from her task, startled, and turned toward me with her hand pressed to her chest. “Fiona, my goodness. I wasn’t expecting anyone this early in the morning. How are you, my dear?”
“I’m doing very well, thank you. Can I help you with those brochures?” I’d spotted the stack on her desk and figured it was as good a way as any to lead her into conversation.