by Gin Jones
“It might say something about why he was killed too.” Emily flipped through the pages. “If only you could decode it.”
“I may be able to,” Mabel said. “I plan to try anyway. I used to be pretty good at cryptograms when I was a kid, before I got into coding. It’s probably a fairly simple letter transposition code, nothing fancy. Graham was a lawyer, not some tech guru or international spy.”
Emily handed the book back. “See? This is just what I’ve been telling you. You don’t have to leave West Slocum to have interesting work to do.”
“Having enough work is never a problem,” Mabel said. “In fact, my boss is pressuring me to take on a project for him before I move back to Maine.”
“I hope you’ll keep an open mind about it. You can work from here as easily as from your home in Maine.”
“It’s not that,” Mabel said. “It’s that I don’t belong here. I’m not a farmer.”
Emily gave an irritated sigh. “You can learn. I wasn’t a farmer before I moved here.”
“But you wanted to be one. I don’t. I just want to be sure my aunt’s legacy is protected.”
“The only way you can be sure that happens is if you stick around and supervise.”
“I’ll think about it,” Mabel said.
“That’s all I ask.” Emily pushed back her empty bowl. “Now I need you to tell me what you think of the cheesecake bars. You’re the only person I know who will tell me the truth, even if they’re terrible.”
* * * *
The cheesecake bars were not terrible, of course, and in fact were amazingly good, so Mabel was spared having to hurt her friend’s feelings. Emily left a few minutes after hearing the verdict, explaining that she expected a call from her too-long-absent husband soon, and wanted to be home for it.
After washing the dishes, Mabel meant to go upstairs and tackle the clutter in her aunt’s bedroom, but she caught sight of Graham’s journal on the table and couldn’t resist taking a quick peek at the first few pages to see if there was an obvious pattern to the encryption.
After an hour, Pixie appeared to demand a patting. Mabel set aside the journal, accepting that the code was more complicated than she’d expected. She was confident she could break it with enough time and a few tricks she’d learned over the years, but she was a bit rusty with this kind of puzzle, and she had more time-sensitive work to do first.
Mabel cuddled Pixie until the cat had had enough and then headed up to pack up the clutter in her aunt’s room. By midnight, all of her aunt’s clothes, shoes, and decorative items were in boxes in the hallway for donation to a local charity, along with two bags of trash. Mabel gave both Pixie and the newly named Billie Jean a snack before treating herself to one of the cheesecake bars Emily had left in the fridge, and then took Graham’s journal with her to bed for another stab at decoding it. She tended to think best late at night, when it was quiet and there were no distractions.
By two in the morning, Mabel had to concede that either her brain had gotten out of the habit of late-night work or Graham had used a tougher code than a non-techie would be expected to use. Before abandoning the project, she’d sent out a call for help to some of her online friends with more decryption experience than she had. They were located all over the world, following wildly differing schedules, so it might take a day or two to get all the responses. Just in case there were any quick replies, she turned her phone off so pings wouldn’t keep her up or wake her overnight. She couldn’t afford to miss a night’s sleep, not with a pregnant cat to care for, several hundred rhubarb seedlings to water and feed the next day, and murder suspects to identify.
She woke the next morning to find that Graham’s neighbor, Lena Shaw, had texted to say she couldn’t find a phone number for the brother-in-law, Rob Robinson, but had remembered that he worked for MassAssurance Company. Mabel also had some messages from her friends with what she assumed would be advice to crack Graham’s encryption, but that could wait until after she talked to Robinson about who the likely heirs were, and, if possible, why he’d been so angry with Graham recently. She would have preferred to text or email Robinson, but she’d already had enough investigative experience to know that in-person interviews of suspects were much more effective than written ones. Real life didn’t have an edit button for when self-incriminating information was inadvertently revealed.
A search of the town directory established that Rob Robinson no longer lived in West Slocum, but he couldn’t have gone far if he still worked for MassAssurance. Their website showed the business in a tiny industrial park in an adjoining town, right on the border with West Slocum. She tried calling ahead to make an appointment, but the voicemail system was so slow, with so many levels, none of which were relevant to what Mabel was interested in, that she decided she could drive out there faster than she could get through all the phone options.
MassAssurance filled an entire, single-story, box-like building in the twelve-site industrial park, which she found surprising, since the website had described it as a niche insurance company covering certain business risks she’d never heard of before, so she’d assumed it couldn’t possibly employ more than a handful of people. The parking lot must have held closer to two hundred cars than the single digits she’d expected.
Robinson didn’t make her wait, but invited her into his spacious office as soon as his assistant buzzed him. He was a tall man with dark, thick curly hair that was cropped short, as if to deny anything about himself that might be seen as unruly. His suit was conservative and dark, with a traditional, boring red-and-navy striped tie, but when he sat, Mabel caught a glimpse of hand-knit socks with bright-yellow, orange, and purple stripes that didn’t match either his tie or his overall image. Had all of his usual dull socks been in the laundry, leaving him with no other choices, or were the wild stripes a hint that he wasn’t entirely what he seemed?
Once seated behind the antique, carved table that served as his desk, Robinson asked, “So what can we do for you today, Ms. Skinner? We can offer customized coverage for most business risks.”
“I don’t need insurance.” Mabel wanted to ask about his socks, but she settled for saying, “I’m here about your brother-in-law, Graham.”
Robinson leaned back in his leather executive chair with a sigh. “What’s he done now?”
She didn’t know how to answer. Maybe Lena had been telling the truth about being unable to contact Robinson. Mabel had assumed the police had found him, with or without Lena’s help, and had already talked to him about the murder. Even if the police hadn’t contacted him, he ought to have heard about his brother-in-law’s death. It had been too big a story for the local paper to worry about whether next of kin had been notified before running it on the first page, complete with the identity of the victim. She’d checked the newspaper’s website this morning, just in case the police had made any obvious headway in their investigation, but they hadn’t. And now it appeared that she’d figured out who Graham’s next of kin was before they had. That didn’t bode well for a successful investigation, one that would clear her of any suspicion.
“It must be bad,” Robinson said, “if you need to figure out how to break the news. I’m not bailing him out again. I told him just last week that I was done paying for his mistakes.”
“He doesn’t need bailing out.” Mabel perched on the edge of one of the three leather chairs across the desk from him. “I’m sorry to be the one to tell you, but I thought the police would have contacted you already. Graham is dead.”
“What kind of sick joke is this?” He got to his feet and glared down at her. “Who are you anyway?”
“I’m an innocent bystander. I just found Graham in his greenhouse on Monday. Dead.” To forestall the assumption that it was natural causes, she added, “Stabbed in the back.”
Robinson shook his head emphatically. “That’s not possible. There must be some mistake.”
“I’m afraid not.”
He collapsed back into his chair. “But why would anyone kill him?”
“That’s what the police want to know,” Mabel said, as if she herself didn’t also want to know the answer. “I barely met him before he died. I only stopped by his greenhouse to discuss our mutual interest in compost.”
Robinson looked down at his hands for a long moment before speaking in a thoughtful tone. “I suppose it must have been one of his low-life clients who killed him then. He always managed to represent the very worst people. It was like there was a grapevine among the local criminals, or some sort of business listing that said, ‘if you get caught doing something really stupid, and you earn just a little too much to qualify for a public defender, but not enough for a really good lawyer, then call Graham.’ He also represented slumlords and some questionable small businesses. Hardly ever someone normal.”
“Why would his clients want him dead if he was popular with them?” Mabel asked.
“You mean besides the fact that everyone hates lawyers?” Robinson said with the hint of a smile. “I don’t know. And I suppose most of the clients did like him or they’d have taken their business elsewhere. Some of them probably did fire him, but Graham never discussed his work with me. I did hear about one unhappy client, not from Graham, but from the news. It was a guy named Sam Trent, who blamed Graham for his marriage failing. With difficult divorces, there’s usually plenty of blame to go around before the lawyer gets involved, but Trent claimed that Graham revealed some confidential information during divorce negotiations that caused the wife to back out of reconciliation attempts.”
The librarian, Josefina, had mentioned Sam Trent as a possible suspect too. Mabel decided she should add the name to a note-keeping app on her phone as soon as she left, but for now, she needed to keep the conversation casual. The last thing she needed right now was for Robinson to tell the detectives that she’d been interrogating him. Surely they’d get around to contacting him eventually.
“That sounds like good information to share with the police,” Mabel said. “I’m just here to talk to you about the rhubarb plants.”
“I wish I’d never heard of rhubarb,” Robinson said irritably. “My sister would have been appalled to know that her casual interest in it had led her husband onto a self-destructive path. At first, it was just a way for Graham to spend his weekends, to distract himself from his loneliness. He would talk about his plants the way some people talk about players on sport teams, with all their game statistics and how likely the players were to perform well in the future. I even encouraged him in his hobby originally. It helped him to get through the grief of losing my sister. But then it turned into an unhealthy obsession. He was putting in hours and hours of work with the plants and his records every day, not just on weekends. Cut back his legal practice to have more time for his so-called breeding program.”
“He did some really good work, from what I saw in the greenhouse,” Mabel said. “There’s even another breeder who might be interested in taking over his breeding efforts, and I’d like to buy some of the plants if you’re interested in selling.”
“Me?” Robinson frowned. “Oh, you think I’m Graham’s heir?”
“You’re the only person he had any connection with, from what I’ve heard.”
“That much is true, but I’m not his heir. I may be the estate’s executor unless he changed it recently. He didn’t have any remaining family, and sad to say, I’m about the only person he ever talked to outside of his work in the last few years.”
“So you are the most likely heir.”
“The only thing I’m inheriting, if anything, is a hassle. Graham didn’t own anything of value. The law practice itself is worthless, he didn’t own the building it was in, and he didn’t have any savings. He didn’t even own his home. My sister insisted on putting that part of the real estate into a trust before she died, so Graham could live there as long as he wanted, but when he was gone, it would go to my kids. It used to belong to our grandparents, so she wanted to keep it in the family. At least, that’s what she told me. In retrospect, I wonder if she knew he was going to fall apart after she died, and she did it to make sure he’d have a place to live during his lifetime. He couldn’t sell it or even mortgage it as long as it was in trust.”
“Do you know where the will is?” Mabel asked.
“In his office safe, if he bothered to keep it,” Robinson said. “Sort of like the cobbler’s kids having no shoes, he was the kind of lawyer who didn’t follow his own advice. He had a will before my sister died, because she insisted on it. She even gave me a copy of it, since I was nominated as the executor for both estates. The terms were pretty basic. When one of them died, all the assets went to the other person, but when they’d both died, everything went to my kids. I wouldn’t be surprised if Graham never got around to changing the old will after she died. It doesn’t matter to me if he did, since there’s really nothing to inherit. He put everything he had—time and money—into his plants.”
Robinson didn’t sound like he’d hated Graham, just felt sorry for him. Unless he was lying about not knowing Graham was dead, and had prepared a story about Graham not having any assets other than what was tied up in the trust. Graham had been a lawyer, after all, and that was generally a lucrative career. He obviously hadn’t been spending any money on his house, so perhaps he’d accumulated a good bit of savings. Money was a common motive for murder, but killing so one’s kids would inherit sooner than they would otherwise seemed less likely than killing to get one’s own hands on the assets. Besides, Robinson seemed to be doing well enough for himself, judging by his executive role in the company he worked for and his luxurious office.
“Those plants are worth at least a little something,” Mabel said. “Assuming you’re the administrator of the estate, would you consider selling them to me? I can’t pay a lot for them, but I was hoping you’d give me a discount in return for my taking care of them until the estate is ready to sell them.”
“I’d just as soon see them burned to ashes because of what they did to Graham,” Robinson said fiercely.
“That would be a waste,” she said. “I spoke to another breeder, and she was impressed by what he’d created.”
“I know,” Robinson said more calmly. “It’s just such a shock. I need time to absorb it all.”
“I understand,” Mabel said. “I don’t need an answer right away. I just wanted to let you know I was interested in some of the plants, and that you didn’t have to worry about them dying in the meantime.”
“Thanks,” he said. “Poor Graham. He just never got over my sister’s death. I hope he’s at peace now.”
He wouldn’t be though. Not until his killer was brought to justice.
Chapter 12
Mabel’s phone rang while she was on her way to her car. Hoping it was finally Jeff Wright returning her calls, she checked the screen. It wasn’t her attorney, but her boss, Phil Reed. “Listen, Mabel, I really need you for this project. I’ll even give you a raise.”
“I can’t do any work for you right now,” Mabel said. “I might be able to come back part-time ahead of schedule, but not for at least another month.”
“By then, I might be out of business,” Phil said. “Or I’ll have hired someone else, and I won’t need you any longer.”
“You promised to keep my job open for six months.”
“I didn’t know this project was going to come along,” Phil said, demonstrating the persistence that made him an outstanding salesman, but not necessarily a great boss. “I really need you, and I need this contract. It’s not just your job on the line. It’s everyone who works here who will be unemployed when I go bankrupt.”
“You can’t pin that on me,” Mabel said. “If I could help, I would, but right now I have to make sure the farm is in the best possible condition to be sold. And that means planting n
ext year’s garlic crop before the end of this month. I’m going to be out straight dealing with that.”
“So maybe you’d be able to do some work in November?”
“Maybe,” she conceded. It all depended on whether she’d been arrested for Graham’s murder in the meantime. If so, she might be unable to work for months. Years if she were convicted of the murder. But she couldn’t tell Phil that, or he’d make good on his threat to hire someone to replace her. “I’ll let you know.”
“When?”
“As soon as I can.” Mabel disconnected the call so Phil had to accept her answer without further arguing. He wasn’t the type who’d call her back just to have the last word, but she’d only bought herself a day or two before Phil tried again. By then, she needed to have a better idea of when she could return to work. And that meant being confident that Graham’s murder would be solved quickly.
She wasn’t at all confident about that though. If the police hadn’t even found Graham’s brother-in-law yet, perhaps because they were satisfied with the one suspect they already had, it could be months before they found the real culprit. As long as Mabel didn’t need to pack up the farmhouse for an imminent sale, the best use of her time would be to come up with some leads the police could follow to catch the real killer.
Mabel had already talked to three people with motives—the neighbor, the rival breeder, and the brother-in-law—but she didn’t have any evidence that might convince the police to take them seriously as suspects. The only other possibility she knew of was Sam Trent, the unhappy client Robinson had mentioned.
Still in her car, Mabel searched the internet for information about Trent. There wasn’t much on him, just a LinkedIn account that showed a history of working in sales for about twenty years, plus the legal notice that had been published when his wife filed for divorce a year ago.