Murder, She Edited

by Kaitlyn Dunnett

“I haven’t been relieved.”

  “Then call Brightwell and find out what’s going on. Maybe he’s already arrested Jason Coleman.”

  “I do need to make a couple of phone calls.” She glared at me. “Just don’t take off while my back is turned.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

  I didn’t hesitate, however, to eavesdrop, positioning myself in front of the door to the utility room after she sought privacy in the adjacent dinette. To my surprise, it wasn’t Detective Brightwell she contacted first.

  “She was here again, Luke,” Ellen said into her cell.

  “Despite her promise.”

  Does she mean Bella? I turned up the volume on my hearing aids and tilted my head to better hear Ellen’s side of the conversation.

  After a long pause, during which I presume Luke was speaking, she said, “Okay.” Then she disconnected, leaving me in the dark as to what they were up to.

  I was about to demand answers when I realized she was making a second call. This one was to the good detective. Listening in gained me nothing. He did most of the talking.

  As soon as Ellen ended the call, she sought me out. “Good news, Mikki. Brightwell says you no longer need a bodyguard. He’s going to meet with Jason Coleman this afternoon and he’ll come talk to you again afterward.”

  Within an hour, Ellen had packed her overnight bag and left for home. I waved her off with a smile and a deep sense of relief. Her departure meant I was at liberty to proceed with a little plan of my own.

  Chapter Forty-one

  I was too impatient to wait for Brightwell to come to me. I’d done nothing but wait for something to happen for days. I changed into slightly more respectable clothing and drove to Monticello.

  My timing was impeccable. I’d no sooner parked in the lot next to the redbrick law office than I spotted the good detective walking briskly toward the entrance. A uniformed officer accompanied him, suggesting that he might be planning to arrest Jason Coleman on the spot. One could only hope.

  I got out of my car and followed them inside. I was in time to hear the receptionist tell Brightwell that Mr. Coleman was expecting him and point the way to Coleman’s office. When Charlaine glanced my way, I put my finger to my lips to warn her not to call attention to me. Then I trotted after the two officers.

  Jason Coleman’s secretary had been absent from his outer office on my previous visit. Now a nicely dressed, middle-aged woman stood guard over her boss’s inner sanctum. I couldn’t see her face clearly with Brightwell and the deputy standing in front of her desk, but she must have caught sight of me the moment I appeared in the doorway.

  “You can go right on in, Detective Brightwell,” she said, before turning her attention to me to ask, “How can I help you, ma’am?”

  I winced.

  Brightwell glared. “Ms. Lincoln. Why am I not surprised?”

  “Good afternoon, Detective Brightwell. I thought I—”

  “You thought wrong. Wait here.” With that, he stalked into Coleman’s office, closing the door behind him.

  That he also left the deputy behind puzzled me, but I knew better than to think a uniformed officer would answer my questions. I shifted my focus to the secretary. According to the nameplate on her desk, she was Laura Koenig.

  I pasted a pleasant smile on my face and planted myself in front of her. “Ms. Koenig, I’m Michelle Lincoln. I wonder if—”

  “I know who you are, Ms. Lincoln.” She sounded resigned.

  Caught off guard, I blinked at her in stupefaction for a moment before her identity belatedly registered. “Koenig?” I asked. “I could have sworn you introduced yourself to me as Laura Roth.”

  “Roth is my maiden name.”

  “Ah.” Then a second penny dropped. I remembered my impression that someone had ducked out of sight just as I looked up from my book. “Were you the one watching me when I was here the other day?”

  She sighed. “I didn’t want to take the chance that you’d mention my ill-advised visit to the Swarthout farm. It could have cost me my job.”

  My eyebrows shot up. “I don’t see why it would. You were concerned about your parents’ reputations. That was a perfectly legitimate reason to be interested in what I might find there.”

  “My employers don’t know who my parents were and I’d like to keep it that way.”

  I glanced around. Brightwell was still closeted with Coleman. The deputy had taken up a post by the door to the hall, effectively blocking anyone else from entering . . . or from overhearing my conversation with Laura Roth Koenig.

  “I won’t rat you out, but I’m curious to know how you ended up here, of all places, and how you found out that there were diaries hidden in the farmhouse.”

  Her eyes widened. “You found them?”

  “I found the ones Tessa wanted published, but they were written by Tessa’s mother, decades before Rosanna Swarthout was murdered.”

  Her carefully made-up face fell. “Damn.”

  I felt sorry for her. Darlene had found no further mention of the Roths in her research and Estelle’s journal hadn’t even mentioned the tenants in the apartment above the garage. Charles and Nina Roth might have been questioned about the crime, but I had difficulty believing they were ever serious suspects. I couldn’t understand why they’d let the investigation cast such a pall over the rest of their lives and allowed it to blight their daughter’s, too.

  Laura was the picture of dejection as she sat at her desk. She’d wanted so badly to find solid evidence that would exonerate her parents. I sympathized. If I’d had proof of my theory about Estelle’s role in her stepmother’s death, I’d have shared it with her, but I didn’t. Instead I asked how she’d discovered the conditions in Tessa’s will. My best guess was that, as a secretary at the law firm, she’d been the one to type it up.

  I was wrong.

  “It was by accident,” she said. “I saw a note Mr. Coleman had written to himself. Please don’t tell him. He’ll be furious if he thinks I was snooping. I wasn’t. Truly.”

  “Relax. I don’t want to get you into any trouble.” I frowned. “I thought it was Leland Featherstone who was Tessa’s attorney.”

  “Mr. Coleman handled Ms. Swarthout’s legal affairs for the last couple of years, but when she decided to make a new will, Mr. Featherstone dealt with her himself.”

  Something in her tone of voice tipped me off. “You don’t care much for Jason Coleman, do you?”

  “It’s not my place to approve or disapprove.”

  Letting that slide for the moment, I leaned closer, resting my palms on her desk and speaking in a low voice. Even so, I had a feeling the deputy was listening to every word and no doubt committing them to memory.

  “Did you apply for a job here so you could find out more about the Swarthouts? I know Mr. Featherstone’s father was the family lawyer at the time of the murder.”

  Color blossomed on her cheeks. “That was the idea in the beginning, but it turned out there was nothing to find. There are no old records relating to the Swarthout family. They must have been lost or discarded when Conrad Featherstone retired.”

  “Yet you stayed on.”

  She gave a wry little laugh. “Why not? The pay is good and I am trained as a legal secretary. I’d had a couple of other jobs before I heard about the opening here.”

  “Have you always worked for Jason Coleman?”

  “Not at first. I started out as secretary to Mr. De Vane, but when Mr. Coleman joined the firm, I was assigned to him.” She hesitated. “Mr. Featherstone thought it would be a good idea for him to have the assistance of someone with my experience.”

  I moved a little closer, resting one hip on the side of her desk and putting my right hand on her shoulder. “What makes you so uncomfortable about him, Laura? What’s he done?”

  “I . . . I think he takes advantage of some of his elderly clients.” Alarm flashed in her eyes. “I shouldn’t have said that. It’s not my place.”

  Now we’r
e getting somewhere!

  “Did he take advantage of Tessa Swarthout?”

  “I don’t know, but I can tell you that he searched the Swarthout farmhouse before Mr. Featherstone took you out there.”

  “The house? How do you know?” I’d been told that he’d walked through the fields and down to the pond, but no one had told me he’d gone inside.

  “Mr. Coleman makes to-do lists. That was the note I saw. By accident, I swear.”

  “Go on.”

  “It had several items on it. The first was walk property lines.”

  I nodded. “Mr. Featherstone told him to do that.”

  “Number two and three were search house for Tessa Swarthout’s diaries and destroy diaries. As soon as I realized there were diaries, all I could think was that they might contain something that would clear my parents’ names.”

  “He didn’t find them.” It was not a question.

  She shook her head. “He came back from his visit to the farm in a foul temper. The door to his office was closed, but I could hear him pacing and muttering to himself. It was after he left for the day that I picked up a crumpled piece of paper I found on the floor and read the four items on his list.”

  “Four? What was the last one?”

  “Clear out barn.”

  Chapter Forty-two

  When I burst into Jason Coleman’s office, dragging Laura after me, the lawyer was seated at his desk, fingers steepled and a smug smile on his face. Detective Brightwell sat in the client chair, apparently content to listen. They both looked up in annoyance at the intrusion.

  Coleman’s gaze went first to me, then to the deputy in uniform who’d followed us in. He dismissed his secretary’s presence. I presume he thought she was trying to stop me from interrupting. He started to stand, but before he was fully upright or had a chance to order me to leave, Brightwell spoke up.

  “Let her in, Davis. And you stay, too.”

  “Yes sir,” the deputy said.

  Coleman subsided. “Have a seat, Ms. Lincoln.” He made a vague gesture toward the remaining client chair. “You may go, Laura.”

  “I don’t think so. Ms. Koenig has pertinent information to share.”

  If I’d been in Coleman’s shoes, I’d have been worried. He put up a brave front, but his voice wasn’t entirely steady. “What’s going on here?”

  I sat down facing the lawyer, but I addressed the detective. “Did you ask him where he was on Friday night between midnight and two in the morning?”

  “Mr. Coleman tells me he was asleep. At home. In his own bed. Alone.”

  Coleman’s laugh sounded forced. “Where else would I be at that time of night?”

  “Leaving fingerprints all over my house in Swan’s Crossing?” I suggested.

  Out of the corner of my eye I caught Brightwell’s wince, but he didn’t intervene. I wished I knew how much he’d told Coleman, but it was too late to backtrack.

  “Are you talking about the Swarthout farm?” Coleman sputtered. “Of course my fingerprints are there. I was in that house on several occasions, on business for Mr. Featherstone.”

  “According to him, he asked you to walk around the perimeter of the property. He didn’t tell you to go inside the house.”

  “I wanted to be thorough. See here—what’s this all about? If you’re accusing me of something, spit it out.”

  “Laura,” I said. “Please tell the detective what was in the note you found.”

  “I really don’t think—”

  Laura interrupted her boss to rattle off the four items on his to-do list.

  “Interesting,” Brightwell commented.

  “I did nothing illegal.” Coleman’s long, narrow face was flushed and the gray eyes I’d once characterized as mild were hard and cold as chips of ice.

  “Maybe not illegal, but definitely unethical,” I said. “You wanted to find the diaries before I did to make sure I wouldn’t inherit. Why?”

  A voice spoke from the doorway before Coleman could come up with an answer. “Under the terms of Tessa Swarthout’s will, Jason Coleman inherits her estate if you fail to comply with her conditions.”

  Leland Featherstone braced one hand on the doorframe, looking like a man who’d just received a bad shock. However much he’d overheard had obviously come as a revelation. He wasn’t just upset. He was angry.

  I wasn’t too steady myself. The announcement that Coleman was Tessa’s residuary heir left me reeling. I glared at him. “Is that the reason you wanted me dead? So you’d be sure to end up owning the Swarthout farm?” I had to clasp my hands tightly together in my lap to stop them from trembling.

  Brightwell stood. “Jason Coleman, I’m arresting you on suspicion of arson and attempted murder.” While Featherstone, Laura, and I stood by, he read the lawyer his rights and turned him over to the deputy to be transported to the county jail.

  “This is preposterous,” Coleman blustered as he was led away. “You have no case.”

  “Take my advice,” Featherstone said. “Don’t say another word without your lawyer present. I’ll send Doherty. He’s had the most experience with criminal trials.”

  To my surprise, Brightwell did not immediately follow his prisoner. “I’d like a word with you, sir,” he said to Leland Featherstone.

  The senior partner had recovered his aplomb. His bushy white eyebrows drew together in a thunderous expression. He sent the detective a long, considering look that suggested this wasn’t the first time they’d encountered each other in an adversarial situation.

  “Why don’t we move this discussion to the conference room?” he suggested. “I’m sure the ladies will be more comfortable there.”

  “That’s not necessary, sir. You and I can discuss this one-on-one.”

  “The ladies,” I interrupted, “have a vested interest in what you two have to say.” I certainly did, and from the worried expression on Laura’s face, she was still afraid she was in danger of losing her job. I meant to make sure that didn’t happen.

  Chapter Forty-three

  The conference room was a large, brightly lit space furnished with an oval table and comfortably padded chairs. We’d barely seated ourselves before Featherstone’s secretary appeared to distribute coffee and pastries.

  Brightwell waited until she left to address the senior partner. “You already know, as legal representative of the Swarthout estate, on Friday night, someone burned down the barn at the Swarthout farm and tried to set fire to the house. Ms. Lincoln was staying there at the time and was fortunate not to have been trapped inside. Two of the men involved in the arson have been caught and questioned. Acting on orders from a third individual, they had been using that barn to store stolen goods.”

  He stopped speaking when the lawyer gave a start of surprise.

  “Coleman never told you about the storage units, did he?” I asked.

  “Explain!”

  Featherstone snapped out the order and I obeyed, sketching out the highlights of my discovery, the search by drug-sniffing dogs, and my subsequent decision, with Coleman’s agreement, to fire Sure Thing Security.

  “I knew none of this.” Featherstone’s voice wasn’t quite steady. He sent me an apologetic look before addressing Detective Brightwell. “I gather you were about to tell me that the third arsonist was Jason Coleman?”

  “It appears he was at the farm that night and that he was the one who ordered the house to be torched when he realized that Ms. Lincoln might have recognized him. We found his fingerprints at the scene.”

  “Where?” I interrupted.

  “On the stairwell door leading to the second floor,” Brightwell said.

  “Then I’m surprised you hadn’t already arrested him before I burst in on you.”

  “I was about to,” Brightwell said in a mild voice. He turned back to Leland Featherstone. “Were you aware that Mr. Coleman has a gambling problem?”

  Sorrow warred with anger on Featherstone’s deeply lined face. “I knew he got into a little t
rouble in college, but his grandfather was an honorable man. I hoped Jason would take after him.”

  “You authorized him to deal with important clients.” Brightwell gave him a name that was unfamiliar to me but clearly struck a nerve with the lawyer.

  The color of Featherstone’s skin went from pasty white to gray in a heartbeat. Shoulders that were already stooped with age sagged alarmingly. Just as I was about to ask if he was okay, he rallied. “What did he do?”

  “About a year after Mr. Coleman started working here, a very valuable diamond necklace went missing from her home. The thief was never caught and the necklace was never recovered. Our best guess is that it was broken up and the stones sold separately.”

  “If you’re suggesting—”

  “We can’t prove he stole it, but it was shortly after that when Coleman had dealings with two men who’d earlier been defended by another lawyer from this firm. That, we can prove. We’re still looking into credit card and phone records but the paper trail is pretty clear. I wouldn’t be surprised if we eventually get a confession from one, if not both, of the arsonists. Criminals tend to become very cooperative once they realize that telling us everything they know will lead to a lighter sentence.”

  “What does the barn on the Swarthout farm have to do with this?” Featherstone asked.

  “We’re fairly certain Coleman is the one who repaired it and installed storage units where the horse stalls used to be. It looks as if his success in stealing the necklace inspired him to continue to use that same method to finance his gambling habit. He appears to have arranged a series of burglaries. Your firm represents a good many wealthy clients and has social contacts with others. Stolen items were stored in the barn until the heat died down enough for them to be safely fenced.”

  Featherstone looked shell-shocked. After a long silence, he cleared his throat and began to speak in a low, rigidly controlled voice.

  “The Swarthouts were longtime clients. My father was Tessa’s father’s lawyer. Back then, young Coleman’s grandfather was a partner in this firm. That’s why he was hired and why he seemed a logical choice to take over Tessa’s business affairs.” He studiously avoided looking at me. “She didn’t have any relatives left to inherit. When she insisted on naming her lawyer as her residuary heir, I assumed it was simply because she’d taken a liking to him. I never suspected that he might have used undue influence, and I swear I never told him he was a beneficiary in her will. That provision wouldn’t have gone into effect unless Ms. Lincoln failed to find the diaries.” He sighed heavily. “He did know the conditions she set for her to inherit. I don’t suppose it would have been difficult for him to get a look at the will itself.”