Murder, She Edited

by Kaitlyn Dunnett

  From its derelict appearance, I didn’t expect much of the barn. I couldn’t think of any reason why someone would hide a diary there. If it turned out to be as unsafe up close as it appeared from a distance, I didn’t intend to do more than poke my head inside.

  The barn door resisted my first effort to push it open, then abruptly yielded and slid along its track with a horrendous screech. I was drenched in perspiration by the time I shoved it as far as it would go. Only then did I notice a smaller door a little farther along the same wall. Gaining access that way would have been far easier and much quieter . . . except for the fact that it was secured with a large padlock.

  Weird, I thought. Why not lock both doors?

  No, that was the wrong question. The right one was: Why lock the barn at all?

  I had my answer as soon as I switched on the large utility flashlight I’d brought with me and took a look around the interior. Despite outward appearances, the Swarthout barn was not in any danger of collapse. The walls and roof had been reinforced, and much more recently than the 1950s, too.

  At one time, the barn had contained stalls for livestock. In their place, someone had installed a half dozen prefabricated self-storage units of the sort people rent to stash their excess belongings. On Storage Wars, they sometimes contain unexpected treasures. In more than one mystery novel, they’ve been a great place to hide the body.

  I approached the nearest unit with extreme caution. It had a latch, but no padlock. Drawing in a deep breath, I swung open the door and exhaled in relief when it turned out to be empty.

  They were all empty. One by one, I inspected the interiors, shining my flashlight into every corner. By the time I came to the last one, I was both disappointed and puzzled. All the units were remarkably free of dust, but the beam of my flashlight had revealed numerous scratches and scuff marks on the flooring. Until quite recently, all six units had been in use.

  Had Tessa had them installed and rented them out for storage? Somehow, I doubted it. Given the remote location of the property, and the fact that no one had lived in the house for more than sixty years, it seemed more likely that a person or persons unknown had made use of the barn without permission.

  I was still standing in front of the sixth storage unit when Ellen returned from reconnoitering by the pond. She gave a low whistle, obviously reaching the same conclusion I had. The shift from Luke’s girlfriend to cop took about a second and a half.

  “It might be a good idea to get a drug-sniffing dog out here,” she said.

  I stepped back from the unit and closed the door. “It couldn’t hurt.”

  “I thought you said Tessa hired a security company to look after the property.”

  “That’s what the lawyer told me. Don’t worry. They’ll be hearing from me just as soon as the dog does its thing.” And as soon as I could pry the firm’s name out of Featherstone, De Vane, Doherty, Sanchez, and Schiller.

  It’s good to have contacts in law enforcement. After Ellen made her call, it didn’t take long for a team from the sheriff’s department to show up. While they went over every inch of the barn, Luke and I stayed out of the way by belatedly conducting our search of the garage and the apartment above.

  The latter had been fully furnished when it was closed up. Everything was covered with a thick layer of dust and there were cobwebs galore. I was filthy within minutes.

  I avoided the overstuffed sofa and chairs, since it was obvious mice had been living in the upholstery. I suspected a few rodents might still be nesting there. I expected more of the same when I entered the bedroom and discovered a hole in the ceiling above the bed. I stepped closer and peered up into it and was only moderately alarmed to encounter a pair of beady eyes staring back at me from the darkness.

  Then I took a closer look and screamed bloody murder. It wasn’t a mouse. It was a snake. When it moved, I froze, watching helplessly as it emerged from its nest and slowly dropped down onto the yellowed bedspread. The thing was a good three feet in length. Tan stripes stood out among black-bordered reddish-brown patches. On a cat, the coloring would be pretty. On a reptile, not so much.

  Luke ran in from the other room. Ellen and a sheriff’s deputy arrived a moment later. By that time, the snake had slithered off the bed and across the carpet and taken refuge in the storage space under the eaves.

  “If the diaries are in there,” I said in a faint voice, “they can stay there.”

  “I’ll look,” Ellen offered. “That’s a milk snake. They’re harmless.”

  I retreated into the other room, so shaken that I was grateful to have Luke offer me his arm. I was also flushed with embarrassment. I’m not ordinarily such a wuss, but that had been a big snake. There wasn’t enough money in the world to persuade me to voluntarily go within ten feet of any reptile. There are way too many varieties of snake that aren’t harmless.

  When Ellen joined us in the living room, she was empty-handed. “Nothing,” she said, “and there was no sign of drugs in the barn. We were just coming to tell you that when we heard you shriek.”

  “That’s good, right?” Luke asked. “If there’s no evidence of illegal drugs, then Mikki doesn’t have to worry about drug smugglers turning up in her backyard.”

  “It is good,” I agreed, “but it begs the question. If not drugs, then what was stored in those units? And why?”

  Chapter Twenty

  There were no messages from the law firm waiting on my answering machine when I got home from the farm. I stewed about the situation for a good part of the night. In the morning, I thought about phoning Featherstone, De Vane, Doherty, Sanchez, and Schiller again but I couldn’t see much point in it. Why bother when I’d only end up with a long wait on hold followed by the news—big surprise!—that Mr. Featherstone was not available? I decided it would be quicker and more efficient to drive to Monticello and beard the lion in his den. If I showed up in person, someone would have to talk to me.

  The trip gave me time to build up a good head of steam. I stormed into the suite of offices determined to get answers. Ignoring the pleasant-voiced receptionist who’d kept putting me off when I phoned, I headed straight down the hall that led to the domain of Tessa Swarthout’s legal eagle. A secretary I dimly remembered from my last visit looked up in alarm when I placed both hands flat on the surface of her desk and locked eyes with her.

  “I’m here to speak with Leland Featherstone and I do not intend to leave until I have done so.”

  “Oh, ma’am, I don’t know. Mr. Featherstone has a very busy schedule today.”

  I hid my sense of triumph. Her stammered response confirmed that he was in the office. He wasn’t going to elude me now!

  “Tell him Ms. Lincoln is here and has urgent business to discuss about the Swarthout estate.”

  Ordinarily, I don’t like to badger people, but I was fed up with the runaround I’d been getting. I leveled my best former teacher’s glare at the young woman and waited for her to cave.

  She burst into tears.

  The commotion brought reinforcements, including one burly gentleman I suspected was a security guard rather than an attorney. Before he could accost me, Jason Coleman emerged from a side corridor.

  “I’ll handle this, Mindy,” he told Featherstone’s secretary.

  Taking a firm grip on my elbow, he propelled me back the way he’d come. I went with him without a fuss and took the client chair he offered in the closet-size cubbyhole that was his private office, but as soon as he seated himself on the other side of the desk, I leaned forward and jabbed an accusing finger in his direction.

  “You promised to get back to me, Mr. Coleman. The information I asked for is even more crucial today than it was before.” In succinct sentences, I described the storage units I’d found in the barn. I was about to tell him about the drug-sniffing dog when he interrupted to sputter an apology.

  “I have the information you asked for right here,” he added. “I was going to call you later today.”

  “All
right. Who has been handling security for the Swarthout farm?”

  He fumbled among the papers littering the top of his desk, finally pulling out a legal pad with scribbles all over it. “The company is called Sure Thing Security. Their office is right here in Monticello.”

  Convenient, I thought, and asked for the street address. Since in-person visits seemed to be effective, I’d make that my next stop.

  “And the company that cleans the house?” I asked after I jotted down the pertinent details about Sure Thing in a small notebook of my own.

  “Monticello Maids.” He rattled off their address and I added it to the bottom of the same page.

  “Are they also the ones who take care of the grounds?”

  This time his response was a blank stare.

  “I realize no one’s hayed the fields or cleared out underbrush, but Mr. Featherstone told me Tessa paid someone to mow the front lawn. I suppose she wanted to make it look as if the place was inhabited. An overgrown yard would have been a dead giveaway that the house was empty.”

  “I haven’t found any records of a landscaping firm,” Coleman said. “Perhaps a neighbor cut the grass.”

  “For fifty years?” I didn’t bother to mention that there were no near neighbors. “Check your files again, please. A lawn service wouldn’t have had access to the house, but if they had someone on the property on a regular basis, I want to talk to them.”

  “I’ll see what I can find,” Coleman promised.

  I foresaw more nagging in my future, but for the moment I focused on the information he’d already given me. “Were these same two firms on the job from the beginning?”

  My question brought another bewildered look to his long, thin face. “The beginning?”

  “I was given to understand that it was shortly after Tessa Swarthout abandoned her property that she hired people to maintain it. Have the same two companies had the contract since the nineteen fifties?”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t have that information.”

  “Why am I not surprised?” I muttered. “All right. See if you can find out and I’ll do the same. In the meantime, I have one more question. I’d like to know who inherits the Swarthout farm if I fail to meet the conditions Tessa set up in her will.”

  “I’m afraid I’m not at liberty—”

  “—to say,” I finished for him. “The thing is, Mr. Coleman, I haven’t been able to find those diaries I’m supposed to edit and publish. Given the lax security at the farm, I can’t help but wonder if someone else, perhaps someone who would benefit by my failure, might have waltzed in and taken them, perhaps with the goal of preventing me from inheriting.”

  “I think that highly unlikely, Ms. Lincoln.”

  “Oh? Why is that?”

  My question started him sputtering again, but the gist of his answer was clear. Why would anyone want that old farmhouse and the land?

  He had a point. I wasn’t certain why I wanted it myself. I certainly didn’t plan to keep it.

  When Coleman continued to insist that he couldn’t tell me the name of Tessa’s residuary legatee, I let the matter drop. I had other fish to fry.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  I took Jason Coleman with me to Sure Thing Security. After all, I wasn’t yet the official owner of Tessa’s farm. I assumed I’d need his authority to back me up when I asked my questions. Following a considerable wait on uncomfortable chairs in an airless waiting room, we were ushered into the manager’s office.

  First impressions are often wrong, but not in this case. I had Martin Meyerson pegged as a fussy little man from the get-go. Not Hercule-Poirot fussy, or fussy like that paranoid detective Tony Shalhoub played on TV, but pain-in-the-ass-with-no-redeeming-characteristics fussy.

  “We’re here representing Featherstone, De Vane, Doherty, Sanchez, and Schiller,” Coleman said, presenting his business card. “We have questions about one of your accounts, the Swarthout farm in Swan’s Crossing.” He didn’t bother to introduce me or clarify my reason for being there.

  If Meyerson noticed the oversight, he didn’t remark upon it. He was too busy staring at the pasteboard rectangle he’d just been handed. His lips flattened into a thin, hard line, making me wonder about his previous dealings with the firm’s attorneys.

  “The owner is a client,” Coleman added.

  “That doesn’t entitle you to access confidential information.”

  “It does when we’re the ones paying your bill. We are executors of the estate of Tessa Swarthout.”

  Meyerson’s attempt to thrust out a nearly nonexistent chin only succeeded in emphasizing the scrawniness of his neck. “I am not familiar with that name.”

  What he was really saying was that he couldn’t recall which property Coleman meant. Fortunately, we’d brought the paperwork with us. The receipts included an account number.

  His memory jogged, Meyerson found the records we wanted on his computer, but his frown deepened as he skimmed the details. “This is one of our oldest contracts,” he said in a prissy, disapproving voice.

  I perked up at that news. If this firm had been in charge of security at the farm since the beginning, that would make my search for information much simpler.

  “What, exactly,” I asked, “were you contracted to do?”

  He looked down his nose at me, a prim expression on his face. “Regular security checks. Nothing out of the ordinary.”

  “Could you be a bit more specific?”

  “May I ask why you want to know? We’ve had this account for decades and never received a single complaint.”

  “That’s because no one was living there to notice there was something to complain about. A barn on the property was recently renovated without the owner’s knowledge or permission. How is it possible your company missed that much activity?”

  He glanced at the screen. “We were hired to monitor the house. There’s nothing in here that says we were to keep an eye on any other buildings.”

  The smug way he answered my question made me want to smack him.

  “I’d have thought your people, being security experts and all, might have noticed that something a little out of the ordinary was going on.”

  “Not necessarily.” There was that prissiness again.

  I scowled at him. “Just what does a ‘regular security check’ involve?”

  He didn’t like my tone of voice any better than I liked his. With a mulish expression on his face, he clammed up. I poked Jason Coleman in the ribs, a gentle reminder that he was supposed to be there to back me up.

  Coleman cleared his throat. “We’re the ones paying your bills. We have a right to that information.”

  Meyerson glared at him. “It means that one of my operatives drives out there once a month.”

  “Once a month?”

  “And there is a camera installed under the eaves of the barn. It’s aimed at the house.”

  I didn’t remember noticing one, but I hadn’t been looking. “How often do you check to see if it’s recorded anything?”

  He tapped a few keys. “According to this, it runs on a loop.”

  “That’s not what I asked you.”

  For the first time, he appeared to be slightly embarrassed. “It has not been serviced recently, but there didn’t seem to be any reason to—”

  I was on my feet before he could finish. “This is inexcusable!”

  Sputtering indignantly, he threw himself into the face-off. “You get what you pay for. This contract was negotiated in the nineteen fifties at a fixed rate. These days, what we’re being paid doesn’t even cover the cost of gas to drive out there. You can’t expect—”

  “I expect professionalism.”

  “If you aren’t satisfied with our services, feel free to terminate the contract.”

  I glanced at Coleman. “Am I within my rights to fire him?”

  “Well, er, I—”

  “Yes or no?” The situation wasn’t Coleman’s fault, but I’d run out of patience. Neither Meye
rson’s equipment nor his services were worth keeping.

  The lawyer stood. He looked ill at ease and awkward, but he’d heard for himself how inefficient Sure Thing Security was. “Perhaps it would be best to end our association.”

  “If you insist.” Meyerson might look disgruntled, but there was a definite note of relief in his voice. He was delighted to be getting rid of an unprofitable account. “I’ll send someone out this afternoon to remove the camera.”

  “I want to see what’s been recorded most recently. Can you access the camera from here?”

  “It’s . . . not one of our newer models.”

  “Videotape?”

  He nodded.

  “That won’t be a problem. My husband and I had a video camera twenty or so years ago. A mini-cassette had to be snapped into a larger frame before we could view what we’d recorded on our VHS player. I still have all that equipment.” It was packed away in boxes in my attic storage room. Unlike most people who’d upgraded to newer devices, I hadn’t discarded my collection of movies on videotape, or the VHS player, when I switched to buying DVDs.

  Once I made arrangements to meet Meyerson’s technician at the farm and get the recording from him, Coleman and I left Sure Thing Security. Even the sultry summer air felt fresh after being cooped up in that office. I drew in a deep lung full. Although I hadn’t learned as much as I’d hoped, I felt much more upbeat than I had when I left the house that morning.

  It took me a few moments to notice that Jason Coleman didn’t share my optimism. In fact, he looked downright worried.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Are you sure that was a wise move? The Swarthout farm is quite remote.”

  “If I decide I need security, I’ll call the firm that installed the alarm system in my house in Lenape Hollow. It isn’t as if Sure Thing was actually doing anything to protect the place. If it wasn’t for regular visits from Monticello Maids, there would probably be squatters living in the house and marijuana growing in the fields.”