Dangerous Behavior

by Nancy Bush

  And Tutti had just handed over the key.

  Sam knew Joe’s office was on Eighth Street, and though he’d never been there before, he drove right up to it, seeing the sign for Joseph Ford Investments. He parked on the street and walked up a gravel path to the the small office, which had been converted and updated from one of the original cabins. Joe’s investment clientele were from all over, again according to their father, which may or may not be the truth. Sam knew very little about his brother’s business, by choice. The last time he’d seen Joe, when they’d run into each other visiting their father, there’d been some business talk between Joe and Donald. Donald didn’t see Joe as much as he did his younger son, mainly because Joe’s life was currently very busy whereas Sam was between jobs. There had also been that tension, though at the time Sam had put it down to the fact that Joe was closing his Seaside office and maybe business had dropped off some.

  “Why’re you moving to Salchuk?” Donald had complained. “If you’re moving, you should go back to Portland. That’s where the business is.”

  “Just seemed like the thing to do,” Joe had answered.

  Donald snorted. “You staying away from those Hapstells?”

  “You know I don’t like partners.”

  “Yeah, but they sure try to worm their way in, don’t they?”

  Joe hadn’t responded, but he’d glanced Sam’s way, as if thinking about what he might be overhearing.

  “Don’t mind me,” Sam had said, lifting his hands. He felt uncomfortable around Joe at the best of times, and if his brother didn’t want him overhearing, so be it. He’d left the room and let them keep talking.

  Now he wished he’d stayed. Maybe he would have learned something that could lead him to the right answers. It was disheartening how little he truly knew about his brother.

  He tried the handle. Locked. He cupped his hands to look inside and could see a desk and credenza in the main room. There was an old river rock fireplace gracing the wall opposite the desk, and some file drawers arranged in what used to be the nook. Sam walked around the building to the back entrance, finding it locked as well. No surprise. He looked inside and saw the remains of a kitchen with extra shelving for office supplies. He didn’t think he’d get lucky enough to find a window that didn’t close correctly, but he tried them all anyway, to no avail.

  He was just walking back to his pickup when a Salchuk patrol car cruised up to him, a newish, dark blue Ford Explorer similar to the one Joe owned, and double-parked next to Sam’s car. The officer left the engine running and climbed out, giving Sam a fake smile. “You looking for someone?” he asked in a genial tone, but Sam sensed he was being checked out very carefully.

  “This is my brother’s office.” He was fairly certain Officer Kent Bolles, as his tag read, already knew the male body found from the boat fire was Joe. Vandra had said he was keeping a lid on Joe’s identity, but word got out, especially in the law enforcement community.

  The officer was in his midthirties, fairly short, about five seven, with dark wiry hair, cold eyes, and a faint paunch around the middle. The smile dropped from his face at Sam’s words. “That right? Well, I’m real sorry about what happened. We all know Joe.”

  “His wife’s in the hospital. She asked me to check the house and Joe’s office.” The lies came easily.

  He nodded several times and pursed his lips. “Heard she was having some memory problems. She okay?”

  “Who’d you hear that from?”

  “Just heard it around.”

  Rodriguez, the guard, Sam guessed, who’d probably reported to Vandra. The fact that Vandra knew Jules was compromised and still pulled Rodriguez pissed Sam off all over again.

  “She’s being released tomorrow morning,” Sam said. “It’s going to take a while before I’d say she was okay.”

  Bolles nodded toward the office. “You have a key?”

  “Nope. It may have gone down with the ship, so to speak. Wasn’t on Joe’s body when he was . . . recovered. We’re hoping it, or a spare’s, at the house.”

  “Well, you know your brother moved down here earlier this year. I heard he closed his office in Seaside. That would make this his main office. Bound to be confidential files in there.”

  Sam realized he hadn’t seen a laptop or tablet or other electronic device. What did Joe do with his information?

  “Your brother handled a lot of money,” Bolles was saying. “Gonna panic a few people that he’s gone.”

  “Yes . . . I would imagine.”

  “We all trusted him, y’know?”

  “Joe was trustworthy,” Sam agreed.

  “You aren’t the first one come sneaking around today.”

  “I’m not? Who else?”

  “You know Phoenix Delacourt?” he asked with a sneer.

  The reporter. “I know of her.”

  “Thinks she’s some kind of investigator these days. She wanted in to your brother’s office, too, but I turned her right around.”

  Vandra had said she was hanging around the Sheriff’s Department. Sam had no interest in talking to a reporter about his brother, but she seemed pretty fast on the trigger about Joe.

  “Half the people around here invested with Joe,” Sam said, more to make conversation and ease back to his car than because he really wanted to keep talking to Bolles.

  “Half? You’re not giving your brother enough credit.”

  Sam regarded him carefully, sensing something underneath his words. “You invested with him?” he guessed.

  “I don’t have the kind of money some people do, but I put a nickel or two in with him.” The smile was back in place, just as phony as before.

  “Okay,” Sam said, for want of anything better to say.

  “I didn’t catch your name.”

  “Sam Ford.”

  “You have some ID I could look at?” he asked casually. “Can’t be too careful in times like these.”

  Sam reached for his wallet. He moved very slowly and deliberately, picking up vibes he couldn’t understand. When he showed his driver’s license to Bolles, the man scrutinized it carefully, a line drawing between his dark brows.

  “Bad business out there on the water,” he said, handing Sam’s license back to him and shooting a glance west. From Joe’s office you could see over the tops of the houses on the downward side all the way to the ocean. The sun had broken free of the obscuring clouds for a moment, lightening up a strip of water that almost glowed in the light.

  “I talked to Sheriff Vandra this morning,” Sam said, tucking his wallet into his back pocket. He decided to test the waters. “Forensic team’s going over the boat. No word yet on whether it was an accident or the fire was set intentionally.”

  “Set intentionally?” He shook his head and squinched up his face as if something smelled bad. He walked back toward his SUV with “Salchuk Police” swept across the side in large white script. “I’ll keep an eye on the place till you find that key. Don’t want anybody breaking in now, do we?”

  Sam climbed into his car and watched the policeman leave. “Couldn’t have that,” he agreed to himself.

  His stomach rumbled. Glancing at the clock on the dash, he saw it was after three. His crullers weren’t going to do it. Deciding to get something to eat, he drove down the main street to the Spindrift, a diner known for its huevos rancheros, though they were way past breakfast and lunch.

  The place was full of tchotchkes that had something to do with the beach, the walls lined with shelves above four-top tables with plastic tablecloths, each shelf crowded with dolphin, seagull, and whale figurines, salt and pepper shakers designed like starfish and crabs, small framed pictures of waves and sand and sky. He was shown to a table in the back and his waitress swept a salt and pepper combo of dancing mermaids off her serving tray, plopping them on his table along with a plastic-wrapped menu. “The huevos rancheros,” he said without opening it.

  “Too late for huevos. That’s the dinner menu.”

 
He looked it over, then glanced at the only other diners at this hour, an older couple who’d split a fairly large cheeseburger and fries.

  “How about that?” he said, pointing.

  “Something to drink?”

  “Water’s fine.”

  He handed her back the menu and thought about Joe, which made him think of Jules, and then back to Joe. He’d gotten his cheeseburger and was just finishing up, eyeing the rest of the French fries but remembering that Tutti had invited him over—bound to be more food there, and he wanted to meet the other “Fishers”—when a wiry woman with long gray hair pulled back in a clip at her nape breezed in and walked directly up to him. Her gaze was direct and she had a weather-beaten, no stranger to the elements look that suited her.

  “You looking for me?” he asked, wiping his hands on a napkin.

  “I am if you’re Sam Ford,” she said, pulling out a chair. “I saw you talking to Officer Bolles.” She stuck out her hand. “I’m—”

  “Phoenix Delacourt.” He shook her hand.

  “Ah . . . yes.” She offered a faint smile of acknowledgment. “I heard about your brother. I’m really sorry. I liked him.”

  “Sheriff Vandra was trying to keep Joe’s name out of the press, but it clearly hasn’t worked.”

  “It’ll be on the news tonight in any case. Nothing to do with me.” She held up her hands. “I’m coming at this from another place.”

  “What place is that?”

  She eyed him carefully. Her eyes were very close to the color of her hair, a dove gray. “I’ve been doing some research on Joseph Ford Investments, among others. There’re a lot of local people who have their life savings tied up with just a few financial companies up and down the coast. If one of them should go under, it could create a tidal that would drown people in debt. Good people.”

  “What’s this about?”

  “Do you know Dennis Mulhaney?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “Never heard his name?”

  “No. Why? Does he have something to do with Joe?”

  “He worked for your brother up until a few months ago. He wasn’t happy with the direction the business was going and he said so. Pretty loudly. To anyone who would listen, myself included. He threatened to make a claim to the SEC about illegal use of money, and then he quit.”

  Sam didn’t like talking to the reporter. Whatever else he felt about Joe, he believed he was a good businessman, an honest businessman, and that he wanted the best for people who invested with him, who trusted him with their savings. “Why are you telling me this?”

  “I’m still working on the story. Denny came to me all fired up. He wanted to take your brother down, but there are . . . indications . . . that it was mostly a grudge on Denny’s part. He’d made his own investments and they apparently went nowhere, but he blamed your brother.”

  Sam scooted back his chair, ready to get to his feet. “I don’t know anything about my brother’s business.”

  “He moved it here to Salchuk a few months ago, about the time Denny quit. You don’t have any idea why?”

  “I just told you, I don’t know.”

  “Denny kept in contact with me. He moved to Portland and took a big hit in pay taking a job as a bookkeeper in a small firm, but he still wanted to blow the whistle on the whole ‘financial corruption on the coast.’ His words, not mine.”

  “I don’t know him, but I know my brother,” Sam said, getting hot under the collar. “And it sounds like this Denny is blaming Joe for all of his own problems.”

  “That’s a real possibility,” she agreed. “But now, y’see, Denny’s disappeared. He’s been missing for about six weeks. Just didn’t show up for work one day and nobody’s seen him since.”

  Sam stood and dropped enough cash on the table to pay for his cheeseburger and leave a healthy tip, but Phoenix stayed seated at the table. “What are you getting at?”

  “Your brother just died in a boating accident and your sister-in-law’s in the hospital. Denny’s missing, and those are the three people who worked at Joseph Ford Investments.”

  “Jules worked there?”

  “Part-time, yes. I tried to see her yesterday, but there was a guard outside her door. Why is that? Is there a chance your brother’s death wasn’t an accident?”

  “All I know is my brother’s gone,” Sam said, turning away. If she wanted to stay, fine, but he had things to do.

  That got her to her feet. She had a suede, fringed bag of sorts that she slung over her shoulder. “Do you mind if I talk to you again later?” she asked, following him out.

  “You’re barking up the wrong tree. I might not know about my brother’s business, but I know his character.”

  “And his wife?”

  “What?”

  “You know her character, too?”

  “If you mean, could she have something to do with whatever financial conspiracy you’re spinning, no. She’s not made that way either.”

  Sam’s chest was tight. In high school, Brady Delacourt had been proud of his aunt, who’d left the coast to go make her way in Portland, or Seattle, or some other big city. It had been a disappointment to the whole Delacourt family when their shining star returned and took a position at the lowly North Coast Spirit, which was really little more than a pamphlet of local happenings despite Phoenix’s efforts to print more substantial stories.

  “Officer Bolles told me that you were at my brother’s office this morning, trying to get in,” he said as they headed outside.

  She lifted her face to the sunlight. “He’s right. I would have loved to have poked around in there.”

  “To find the information to prove my brother’s taking his investors,” Sam said coldly.

  “I’d like to prove against it.”

  “Sure. And you wouldn’t mind breaking in to an office to do it.”

  She ignored the jab. “I understand your sister-in-law has some memory issues.”

  He gave her a hard look. He was beginning to understand Sheriff Vandra’s aversion to the woman. She just kept lobbing the balls at him. “Where’d you hear that?”

  She just shrugged and smiled.

  He left her and fired up the truck, putting the phone on speaker and then placing another call to Vandra, only to be sent to voice mail once more. Frustrated, he phoned Detective Stone next, who answered but admitted the sheriff wasn’t around. “Not sure where he is right now,” Stone admitted. “Something I can help you with?”

  “I’m not comfortable with the guard being removed outside Jules . . . Julia Ford’s room. I don’t think Joe’s death was an accident.”

  Stone seemed to want to say a lot of things about that, but he chose discretion, which was too bad in Sam’s mind. “Sheriff’s still waiting on forensics.”

  “When that information comes back, I want to know it, too,” Sam said a bit belligerently.

  “I’ll tell Vandra.”

  Sam hung up in disgust. When you were inside the police community, you were privy to all kinds of information. When you were outside, you were on a need-to-know basis only.

  The problem was, he hardly knew which way to jump until he heard if the boat fire was arson. If that proved to be the case, he was launching his own investigation outside the Sheriff’s Department. He needed to know what had happened to Joe. If the fire was not arson, he still had questions. Why had Joe called him? What had he wanted to say? Was there a money problem as Phoenix Delacourt suspected?

  Sam shook his head, feeling like he was wading through a nightmare. Half the time he didn’t think about Joe’s death, focusing instead on what was going on in his brother’s life directly prior to it. The other half he felt knee-buckling grief and guilt. If only he’d had time to make amends, to become friends again with his only brother, to get past the fact that Joe had married Jules.

  But now all that was lost to him.

  He allowed himself a few moments of grief, aware that if he took the reins off his emotions that he could actua
lly break down. He thought of his brother’s smile, one that had become rarer over the years. When had that happened? When Joe broke away from the huge firm he’d worked with in Portland and gone into business for himself? Joe had initially been close with Jules’s father, but Peter St. James had taken his life somewhere in that first year of their marriage and left personal financial disaster in his wake, again, according to Sam’s father. And it was a kind of strange twist of fate, too, that when Peter St. James lost the imposing family home on the beach, the Montgomerys and Hapstells weren’t far behind. The three families with all the money moved out of their palatial houses within a few months of each other.

  Maybe they’d all lost money in the same way.

  Sam turned his truck toward Joe and Jules’s house, and about a mile from the turnoff, he got another call on his cell. He didn’t recognize the number. “Sam Ford,” he answered.

  A stuttered gasping reached his ears. “Who is this?” he asked.

  “It’s Georgie!” a young, female voice wailed. “Mom said you told her that Dad’s dead! What happened? Oh, my God, oh, my God!”

  The line went dead.

  * * *

  The café where they met was just outside Portland on the west side. It touted its homemade cinnamon rolls, which were small, dense, and tasteless. The result was, nobody of note patronized the place, and it was a perfect spot to rendezvous, whenever either one of them was ready to go back to the coast, away from their Portland killing grounds.

  By unspoken understanding they eschewed the rolls and drank coffee strong as iron, staring across at each other in the booth. He reached a hand toward her, but she ignored it and kept on cradling her coffee cup.

  “Bridget’s not happy with Tom,” she said, her eyes never leaving his as she sipped the hot drink.