Gracie Greene Mystery Box Set

by Jack Parker

  The kitchen timer dinged, putting an end to their theorizing. Clarissa made a determined effort to keep dinner conversation light; much as she would like to know what had happened she wasn't sure it was good for Gracie to dwell on it.

  CHAPTER 16

  Friday morning Ken was sitting at his desk thinking about the Greene case. The officer who'd canvassed the Oak Place Apartments hadn't found anyone who could place Candy Wilson in the complex on Tuesday afternoon, much less her father. That didn't mean they weren't there, but it still sounded highly suspicious.

  The phone rang. Ken answered, hoping it was good news. Right now he'd take any good news on this case. It was Mr. Michaels, the victim's lawyer.

  "Thanks for returning my call," Ken told him. "Was Mr. Charles Greene indeed your client?"

  "Yes, sir, he was," Stan Michaels said. "I was quite distressed to read of his apparent murder in the newspaper. I tried to call his widow, but haven't been able to reach her. I'd strongly prefer to speak to her first you understand, but I'm happy to help the police in any way I can."

  Ken though some ugly things about lawyers in general but only said, "I need to know if Mr. Greene had a valid will and if so, who inherited and how much?"

  "Indeed he did," Stan told him. "He also had a pre-nuptial agreement with his new wife."

  "OK, I need to know the gist of that as well," Ken said.

  "Very well then, I'll begin with the pre-nuptial," Stan said officiously. "In the event of a divorce Jennifer Greene would have received nothing until they had been married a full year. Um, yes, I see that they have celebrated their first wedding anniversary so in that case she would have received $50,000. There is an escalation clause, she would receive $50,000 for every year of marriage up to and including the fifth year, which of course would be a maximum of $250,000."

  "No extra after that?" Ken asked.

  "None. I spoke with Mr. Greene about that, I don't think he expected her to stay that long." Stan began to sound more human. "You have met Mrs. Greene, Lieutenant?"

  "Yes, and I understand what you're saying," Ken told him. "Everyone seems to think the marriage wouldn't last very long. Makes me wonder why they bothered. So she had no financial incentive to stay with the guy for more than five years. That would seem to give her reason not to kill him after only one year. What's she get in the will?"

  "Mrs. Greene will receive $250,000," Stan said.

  "Nothing else?"

  "Oh well, of course her personal property. Jewelry, car, any investments made in her name. That sort of thing," Stan told him.

  "What about the house?" Ken asked.

  "Mr. Greene stipulated that the house is to be sold and the profits divided equally among his three children. The children will also get equal shares of the remainder of the estate," Stan said.

  "Anyone else get anything?"

  "There is a clause addressing his sister, a Ms. Jeanine Thompson – she is to receive one dollar."

  "A whole buck?" Ken laughed. "She's not going to be happy. Nothing to the ex-wife I presume?"

  "The ex-wife is named as executrix, and may act as fiduciary guardian for any minor children, but does not inherit in her own right," Stan said. "Mr. Greene insisted I add the clause regarding his sister. I told him that she wouldn't be able to contest the will simply because she was not named as a beneficiary, but he seemed to think it would be better to leave her a token nonetheless. I'm quite sure he felt it would be an insult"

  "From what I've heard about this guy, I'd believe it," Ken told him. "Anything else I should know?"

  "That's the gist of it, Lieutenant. I will continue trying to contact Mrs. Greene; I must know when the funeral will be held so that I can set up an official reading. Is there anything else I can do for you, sir?" Stan asked.

  "Nope, that's what I needed to know. Thanks for your time, Mr. Michaels."

  Ken hung up and thought about what he'd learned. The sister's gonna be pissed about this! Maybe I should've warned Michaels to remove any heavy objects from the room before he gives her the info. I can just see her beaning him with a paperweight for going along with the dollar thing. But Greene didn't lie to her, she was in his will. He just hadn't told her the amount of her inheritance; it still gave her a very good motive.

  The widow had a very good motive, as well. 50K if she divorced him – and a quarter mil if she killed him. After living with him for a year she could've decided she couldn't take another four. The fact was that she hadn't pulled the trigger for the fatal shot; but she could've hired someone. Maybe some other poor schmuck who didn't know about her girlfriend.

  Ken got up and refilled his coffee cup, then went upstairs to see the accounting expert. He didn't learn anything very helpful. The widow had nothing in her own name, had apparently been completely financially dependent on her husband. Her girlfriend was barely getting by paycheck to paycheck working at a call center.

  The ex-wife was comfortably well off. As her boyfriend had said, she could live on her investments if she'd wanted to. Smart of her to work and let the money grow, though. The boyfriend seemed to be doing fairly well himself; good-paying job, a sizable portfolio of his own. Didn't mean either of them didn't want more.

  The best friend, Conover, seemed to be making ends meet on his professorial salary, even with paying child support for two kids. But kids were expensive, as Ken well knew; could Conover have needed money for some crisis with his kids and asked for a loan? Would Greene have turned down his best friend? He'd refused to loan his sister money, but having met her Ken could understand that. There'd be no way to prove that, though.

  And speaking of kids, the boyfriend's daughter (and would-be alibi) was about a hair away from being evicted from her apartment. Seems she hadn't paid the rent in two months, and was habitually late on utilities and car loan. Too much partying Ken guessed, but he couldn't see how that was relevant.

  The sister was in worse shape, if that was possible. She was chronically late on the rent, had re-financed her car last year to extend the time and decrease the monthly payments and still didn't make them on time. The electric had been cut off twice in the last six months, and she was making interest payments to three payday loan companies. She had no credit-card debt because she had no credit cards; likely no bank would give her one.

  Which all meant that the wife and sister and the ex-wi - hell, Candy - all needed money. Money was a great motive, but it wasn't the only one.

  Ken went back to his desk and added the reports to his growing collection. He felt like there was something he'd intended to check on this morning, and leafed through the pages to jog his memory. Oh, yeah – the neighbor's complaints.

  A little computer research showed George Thompson had filed numerous complaints over the last three years. Most of them apparently pertained to Greene's parties – noise and cars illegally parked, especially in front of Thompson's driveway.

  There was one, however, that was interesting. Last year Thompson had claimed he'd heard gunshots in Greene's backyard. An officer was dispatched but found nothing, and no one answered the door at Greene's home. Thompson said he'd seen the boys (would that be Justin and his friend Zack?) shooting at the squirrels scampering through the big oak tree behind the pool house. The weapon had appeared to be a pistol, though Thompson admitted he hadn't been able to see it well through the fence. On a whim Ken sent an officer to see if he could recover any bullets.

  There was one more thing Ken could check. He went to the department's garage where both Jaguars had been towed. The boss's car, which had been at the scene of the actual murder, hadn't apparently held any clues. They'd gotten a juicy thumbprint from the outside left door handle, but it was Greene's.

  That would tend to show that he'd gotten out of the car and shut the door himself, rather than the murderer opening it and dragging him bodily out. The question was, why had he exited the car? Greene hardly seemed the kind of man who'd get out to help someone, say with a flat.

  There had been nothing a
pparently wrong with the car such that he might need to get out and take a look, either. Tires were all good and it had started right up when the lab boys had turned the key. And you'd think he'd have just driven off if someone jumped out of the bushes pointing a gun at him. He'd been lured out, though Ken didn't know how.

  Greene's own Jag had given up more information, but it didn't seem to help. The scratch along the passenger side had been made by something small and probably metallic, but that left a pretty wide-open field of possibilities. Someone could have deliberately scratched it; there were losers who just couldn't stand for someone else to have anything nice and had to ruin it on general principle. Or at some point during the morning Greene could've been driving and seen the assailant, maybe trying to shoot him again. Under those circumstances he might have swerved to avoid the shot and inadvertently scraped the side of the car against something. He might not have even realized it at the time, with more important things on his mind.

  The two rounds had both been fired from behind the car. One had missed and buried itself in the trunk. The other had shattered the back window, passed through the headrest, and ended up in the dash. The angle indicated they'd been fired from a standing position by someone approximately six feet tall. It could also have been someone crouched down in a pick-up bed maybe, but a shot from a car seat would've been too low. That didn't help much.

  The dark spot on the seat that Ken had noticed in the parking garage had been coffee, and the lab boys had found a couple of crumbs as well. The coffee was dry and since they hadn't found the car until the next morning there was no way to tell how long it might have been there. The stain pattern showed that no one could've been sitting in the seat at the time because it covered too much area. Anyone sitting there would've gotten a hot seat! Perhaps Greene had stopped for breakfast and set the bag of coffee and pastry on the seat beside him and the coffee had spilled.

  They'd managed to pull a few decent prints from the car, all of which belonged to Greene. There was no trace of blood, not even a tiny drop. Nothing was obviously missing from the car, though that didn't mean nothing had been taken. The windows were rolled up and the car had been locked, even though the back glass was shattered. They'd found nothing that might have been thrown through the window so the shot must've been what broke it.

  The cars hadn't helped, and Ken had another case he needed to put some time in on. Sometimes if you let things sit for awhile you'd think of something. He fervently hoped so, as he hadn't seemed to be getting anywhere on this case so far.

  "Hello, I'd like to, um, speak to Clarissa Stewart please," Jennifer said.

  "Speaking," Clarissa said in the perfect secretary's tone, smooth and cool.

  "Oh, hi Clarissa. This is Jennifer. I thought you'd like to know, I mean Charles' lawyer called this morning. He said he can't, you know, read the will until after the funeral," she said.

  "Yes," Clarissa said, voice still neutral. She wondered where this was going.

  "So I, like, called Officer Freeman and asked when we could get poor Charles' body to the funeral home. He said I'd have to call the coroner's office, and oh, Clarissa! I just can't take all this! I don't know why he can't, I mean, isn't Officer Freeman supposed to help?"

  "Lieutenant Freeman's job is to solve the murder," Clarissa replied, with a definite emphasis on the man's title. "Did you call the coroner?"

  "No, I've never done this before, I don't know what to do," Jennifer wailed.

  Clarissa sighed, audibly. "Well, I've never done this before, either!"

  "Clarissa, please. I mean, I know it's tacky, but I'd really appreciate it if you'd take care of the arrangements. You knew him better than I did. We never, like, talked about that kind of thing."

  Wonder of wonders, Jennifer was worried about being tacky! Clarissa massaged her forehead, she didn't need this. The funeral should be Jennifer's responsibility. But maybe it would be better this way; Jennifer's idea of decorum was highly questionable. It would be better for the children to have a nice, sedate funeral, it would be hard enough for them even then.

  "I'll do what I can, Jennifer. But as his former wife I have no legal standing, you will have to speak to the funeral director yourself. I'm sure there will be papers you'll have to sign." Clarissa sighed again. "Do this for your children," she told herself. "I'll go with you, if you'd like."

  "Thank you, Clarissa," Jennifer said – and sounded sincere. "I mean that. I know you never liked me, but you've always treated me OK. I know you'll do a better job, and you just let me know what you want me to do."

  Clarissa wasn't sure exactly how to respond to that. Was Jennifer really that stupid? "Jennifer, I – it's not that I don't like you, I just feel sorry for you is all." She laughed a little nervously. "I suppose every first wife thinks any other woman is crazy to want her ex husband. I'm no different. Charles wasn't an easy man to live with; I don't mean to be offensive but you're young, it must be harder for you to cope with his peccadilloes."

  "Thanks, I think," said Jennifer, who had no idea what 'peccadilloes' meant. "But you don't have to be sorry for me, I've been handling men for a long time. I knew what I was getting into, and he wasn't so bad. At least he didn't try to run my life, I could do what I wanted during the day."

  Clarissa decided she wanted to stay away from that remark! "I'll call the coroner and let you know what I find out. As distasteful as this is, we need to get it taken care of. I quite understand that you want to get the estate cleared up, and I know it'll make Jeanine happy as well. I'll call you when I know more."

  School was out for the weekend and Gracie stood at her locker gathering up the books she'd need for homework. Cheryl walked by, her arms full of books too.

  "Hey, Gracie!" Cheryl said cheerfully. "Wanna go hang out at the mall for awhile? It's Friday, we're entitled to a little relaxation; we can do homework later."

  "Hi, Cheryl. I'd love to, but I gotta do something first."

  Shawna joined the group, asking, "What's more important than shopping?"

  "Mom wants me to go talk to Justin," Gracie told them. "I had a message from her and when I called back she says my Dad's funeral will be on Wednesday. She wanted me to be sure my brother knew, except he hasn't been in school the last couple days. I didn't want to tell her that, so I just said I'd take care of it."

  "He probably knows your step-mother doesn't care what he does, so he's been playing hooky. I haven't seen Zack, either," Shawna said.

  "Oh, Gracie," Cheryl said. "I'm so sorry. I can't imagine how horrible it must be for you. Your father's funeral!"

  "Funerals are a bummer," Shawna said. "I went to my Great-Aunt Thelma's, everyone was crying and carrying on something awful. But I did get to hear some good stories afterward – who knew the parents actually did fun stuff when they were kids?"

  "So what are you gonna do?" Cheryl asked. "Do you know where your brother hangs out?

  "I thought I'd go to Dad's house, see if he's there. Maybe wait awhile and see if he shows up," Gracie answered.

  "Hey! We could go swimming while we wait," Shawna declared.

  The girls all went to their respective homes to drop off books and grab swim-suits. Gracie suggested Shawna pick her and Cheryl up so they wouldn't add extra hydrocarbons to the air, and also because she didn't feel like riding her bike. She was trying to act cheerful, but this funeral thing had gotten her down.

  Jennifer was home when they got there, and even came out to chat for a few minutes. Mostly she seemed to be feeling sorry for herself about having to deal with the funeral. It turned out that the coroner's office had been waiting to hear from her so they could release the body. Rather surprisingly she was full of praise for Clarissa's help.

  "It must be pretty terrible for you, Jennifer," Cheryl said. "All the awful things that happened, and the police still don't seem to know much."

  "Yeah," Shawna added. "How absolutely spooky to find out someone shot at him right there in that room!" She pointed towards the sliding doors to t
he den.

  "You can't imagine how scared I've been," Jennifer said. "I can hardly sleep. I hate being here alone, and I'm never sure if Justin's home or not. Not that I think he'd be any help, I mean, he'd probably run away if someone broke in." She looked at Gracie and suddenly realized she'd just dissed the girl's brother. "Sorry, Gracie," she added.

  "That's cool, Jennifer," Gracie told her. "You're right. He'd probably be stoned and worried about his own skin. No need to apologize, I know what Justin's like."

  One of those uncomfortable silences descended on the group. They all looked at each other, then looked away when eye contact had been made. Everyone was thinking the same thing, but no one wanted to say it out loud. There was really no need for Jennifer to stay in the house alone.

  Finally Gracie decided there was no point in pretending any longer. "Why don't you get Cindy to stay here with you?"

  Jennifer looked suddenly hopeful. "You guys wouldn't mind?"

  "Why would anyone care?" Shawna asked. "She's your friend, and you need her right now."

  "Jennifer, Cindy's more than a friend, isn't she?" Gracie asked quietly.

  Jennifer didn't even look shocked, just kind of blank. "You mean you, like, know?"

  All three younger girls nodded their heads.

  "And you don't care?" Jennifer continued.

  "Jennifer, let's be open about this." Gracie suddenly felt she was acting like her mother. Mom always seems to know when it was time to be honest; she just hoped she could say it as nicely as Mom would.

  "We all know Dad liked pretty young girls, and you certainly qualify. We know he had money and was willing to spend it on you. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that you liked that idea. You could see Cindy during the daytime, and in a few years you could leave him and get enough money so the two of you could live together. I don't think this was exactly how you'd planned things, but now you've got that chance. If you love each other, that's the important thing."

  "Then you don't think I killed him?" Jennifer asked.

  "No, I don't," said Gracie, hoping it was true. She was still unsure if Cindy might've been involved.