A Deadly Row

by Casey Mayes

  “If that’s the case, you’re going to have to find it, not me. I’m lost as usual when it comes to your number discussion.”

  “That’s okay,” I said as I touched his hair lightly. “You’re good at other things.”

  “I just wish one of them was solving this case.”

  “Forget about the big picture and focus on the details,” I said. “Sometimes tackling a problem from a different direction is enough to show you the way. At least that’s how it works with my more complex puzzles sometimes.”

  “I don’t see how it can hurt,” he said.

  Zach pulled the coffee table over to the bank of windows, and he started laying out notes on it. There was barely room for me.

  “Sorry. Did you need some space, too?”

  “That’s okay. I’ve got the floor, if I need to spread out,” I said.

  “I can give up a little room.”

  “No, honestly, I’m just dandy right here.”

  I stood and decided that the small end table would give me enough space for my needs. As I started to put the lamp and the telephone on the floor, I saw that the message light was blinking.

  I picked it up and dialed zero. Zach didn’t even look up.

  “Hello, I have a message.”

  “I’ll connect you, Ms. Stone,” the operator said.

  I was expecting a computerized voice mail system, so I was surprised when Barton Lane picked up.

  “Good evening, Savannah. Thank you for returning my telephone call.”

  “Sorry it wasn’t sooner, but we just got back in.”

  “That’s fine. There isn’t a time constraint on our conversations.”

  It was odd in one way to have a multi-millionaire at my beck and call, but I didn’t have time to enjoy it. I had bigger things to deal with at the moment.

  “What can I do for you?”

  “I wanted to thank you again for helping me with Cindy’s things.”

  “No more thanks are necessary.” At that moment, something was clicking in my brain, something I’d seen in that puzzle.

  “Oh, my word; I just figured it out. I have to go,” I said, and before he even had a chance to say good-bye.

  “Who was that?” Zach asked.

  “Barton Lane,” I explained as I started looking through the copies Zach had made up for me.

  “You realize that you just hung up on a millionaire,” he said.

  “Zachary, would you please shut up for a second?”

  I found the sheet I wanted, and looked at the code on it.

  Only I’d remembered it wrong.

  I didn’t have anything after all.

  I let the copy slip out of my hands, and I stared numbly out the window.

  Behind me, I heard my husband say softly, “I’m sorry if I made you lose your train of thought, Savannah.”

  “It’s okay. I was wrong.”

  “Don’t let me off the hook that easily,” Zach said. “I know better than to interrupt you when you’re thinking.”

  “I just don’t get it,” I said. “I thought I had something there.”

  The phone started to ring, so I asked Zach, “Would you get that?”

  He did as I requested, but I zoned him out after that. I kept staring at the codes, trying to make some kind of sense out of them.

  I finally gave up, though. I knew I couldn’t force the solution, just as I couldn’t force one of my puzzles.

  “Who was that?” I asked as I finally met my husband’s gaze.

  “Barton Lane. He wanted to make sure you were all right.”

  “What did you tell him?” I felt bad about hanging up on the man, but when a thought comes unbidden, it’s best to grab it with both hands.

  “I didn’t have to say anything. He’s coming up, so make yourself presentable.”

  Oh, no. Now I’d angered our host. Was he going to evict us, even when we were on a tight deadline to solve his assistant’s murder?

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have been so rude to him,” I said. “Was he really upset?”

  “I’d be lying if I said he wasn’t,” Zach said.

  “If we get booted out tonight, we could always go to the Motel 6.”

  “Or we could share Davis’s couch. It’s not too bad.”

  “I get the pillow,” I said.

  “I’ll toss you for it.”

  There was a knock at the door, and I noticed that though Zach was more than a little distracted, he still asked, “Who is it?”

  There was a moment’s hesitation, and then we both heard a voice say, “It’s Barton Lane.”

  Zach looked at me for confirmation, and I nodded. It sounded like Barton, though I didn’t know his voice that well. That’s when it hit me. Regardless of how insane it must be, his voice was quite a bit like someone else I knew, someone I cared about a great deal.

  Zach must have noticed something in my expression, because he didn’t open the door. “Are you all right, Savannah?”

  “I think I’m losing my mind,” I admitted.

  “What is it?” There was real concern in his voice, and I loved him even more for it.

  “I’m about to do something stupid, and there’s a one percent chance I’m right, and a ninety-nine percent chance I’m about to make a complete fool out of myself.”

  “What does your gut tell you?”

  I thought about it a split second. “That I’m right.”

  “Then go for it, and let the consequences fall where they may.”

  “Excuse me, but may I come in?” Barton called out.

  That sealed it for me. How had I not heard it before? Could it be that over the telephone, and in person, his voice was somehow changed, but through a closed door, the nuance of it came out? It didn’t matter anymore.

  “Sorry, of course you can. Come on in,” I said as I opened the door.

  “Thank you.”

  After he was in the suite, and the door was closed behind him, I said, “I’ve got something of yours I need to return.”

  “You found the necklace after all?” he asked, his voice full of hope.

  “No, that still hasn’t turned up.”

  “Then what is it?”

  “Ten thousand dollars. My mother didn’t spend it, and I don’t think it’s right that I do, Uncle Jeffrey.”

  He frowned for a few moments, and then he said softly, “Pardon me? I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  I wasn’t about to let him get away with it, though. “I just spent a day with Uncle Thomas, and while there isn’t much family resemblance between the two of you, I can hear his voice when you speak. I’m willing to bet that Barton is my uncle’s middle name. Should I call Uncle Thomas and find out?”

  Barton Lane slumped down, and I knew I had him. “That won’t be necessary. It’s true. I’m your uncle.”

  I didn’t know what he was expecting, perhaps a tongue-lashing and a scolding, but he was clearly surprised when I wrapped him in my arms. “Why did you stay away so long?”

  “I had no choice,” he said. He finally managed to pull away from me, and I could see that his face was flushed. “You understand, don’t you?”

  “I don’t have a clue what’s going on,” I answered honestly.

  “No one told you? There weren’t horrible tales of J.B., the thief, when you were growing up?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “That ten thousand dollars I sent your mother was atonement for something I did many years ago. I left when I was eighteen, but I didn’t go empty-handed. Your grandfather didn’t believe in banks, and he didn’t believe in me when I asked him for a loan so I could make my way into the world. He refused me, so I took it anyway.” Barton’s face seemed to melt as he told his story, and I could swear I saw the man shrink before my eyes.

  “I was so ashamed of myself. I tried to pay him back five years later, but he tore up the check and returned it to me. He said as far as he and the rest of the family were concerned, I had died the day
I left them. It took forever for me to get the courage to write your mother, and when I never heard back from her, I assumed that no one had forgiven me.”

  “So you sought me out?” I asked, incredulous about the news.

  “Quite the opposite. I’ve stayed away from you, per your mother’s wishes. When I discovered you and your husband were coming to town to investigate my assistant’s murder, I couldn’t help myself. I offered you my finest suite in the hopes I could get to know you without the stigma of what I’d done to taint your impression of me.”

  “Like I said before, I never knew you took any money from my grandparents.”

  “Are you honestly saying that neither Thomas nor your mother told you?”

  “No. I’ve got a feeling if you tried again with Uncle Thomas, you just might be surprised. He’s softened quite a bit over the years.” I looked at Zach, who nodded his head. In some ways, he knew my uncle better than I did, and if there was a chance for forgiveness, he would most likely be the one to know it.

  “I hope with all my heart that it’s true, but being here with you right now is enough for me.”

  “Whatever sin you committed was never against me, so I’d have a hard time holding a grudge for it, wouldn’t I? We can try to get acquainted, but there’s something you have to do first, or I’m not interested in pursuing this.”

  “I can pay you any amount you name.” He reached into his jacket and pulled out an envelope. “In fact, I’ve calculated the amount I took, compounded the interest, and I’ve written you a check for the full amount. I did it just before I came upstairs.”

  “It’s about money, but that’s not what I want.”

  The envelope dipped slightly in his hand. “Then name your price, and I’ll gladly pay it.”

  I reached into my purse and got the receipt Garrett had given me when I’d deposited the money from my mother in the safe.

  “You can take this back. After all, it’s yours.”

  He looked at the receipt, and then his expression changed into pain. “Then you don’t forgive me?”

  “You don’t understand. It’s not my money. Even if it belonged to my grandparents, that doesn’t make it mine. Give it to Uncle Thomas, if you have to, but I don’t need it. We’re doing just fine.”

  Zach nodded his approval, and I felt even prouder that I’d chosen him.

  “I don’t know what to say,” he said.

  “Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll think of something.”

  Barton’s face brightened, and I knew I’d have a difficult time ever calling him Jeffrey, or even J.B. “May I keep calling you Barton?”

  “Savannah, you may call me whatever you wish,” he said with a smile. “Just as long as you call me.”

  “That’s a promise,” I said.

  Zach coughed, and then said, “You two have a lot to talk about, and none of it concerns me. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go into the bedroom so I can get back to work.”

  I remembered the codes I was supposed to be working on, too. “Barton, would it be all right if we postponed this reunion for a few days? We’re really pushed for time here.”

  “Of course you are,” he said. “We can get acquainted anytime.”

  He moved toward me, and after a moment’s hesitation, Barton hugged me.

  “Good night,” he said after quickly breaking it. “And thank you for giving me my life back.”

  “It looks like you’re doing okay without us,” I said.

  “That’s where you’re wrong. Without my family around me, all of this means nothing.”

  After he was gone, Zach looked at me and whistled. “Wow, and people think I’m the detective in the family.”

  “You would have figured it out, too, if you’d just spent the day with Uncle Thomas.”

  “You’re giving me way too much credit again. Savannah, remind me never to get into a detecting contest with you. I’ve got a bad feeling that I’d come in second place if I did.”

  “Let’s not worry about that right now. We have work to do.”

  “We sure do, but I don’t know how you’re going to be able to focus on it. After all, you just found out you’re rich.”

  “I’m not rich, my uncle is,” I said, the taste of the words feeling funny in my mouth.

  “True.”

  “And if I were, you would be, too.”

  “Not me. I just married money.”

  “And here I thought it was for love.”

  He kissed me, and then Zach said, “Love’s the cake, the rest is just icing, no matter how much of it there is.”

  “Let’s get to work. You’re making me hungry, talking about cake.”

  “We could always order room service,” Zach suggested.

  “That sounds like a great idea.”

  I picked up the phone, ordered for both of us, and then found my husband staring at me. “Don’t you think you should have asked me what I wanted before you called?”

  “I’m sorry,” I said as I picked the phone back up. “What did you want?”

  “Steak, garlic mashed potatoes, and creamed spinach.”

  “But that’s what I just ordered,” I said.

  “I know, but it feels good when you ask.”

  We both laughed, happy to have something to break the tension we were both feeling.

  As we waited for the food to arrive, I took the copies and laid them out in the sequence they’d arrived in so I could study them better as a whole, and not just parts.

  I wasn’t sure, but there was something there.

  I just wasn’t seeing it yet.

  “I GIVE UP,” I SAID AS I STARED AT THE COPIES FOR THE HUNdredth time after we’d had our dinner. Zach didn’t even hear me he was so intent studying the timeline he’d created. It was a work of art, the size of a regular sheet of paper, but with every suspect’s whereabouts drawn in a different colored pen, looping in and out, making contact, and then splitting off again.

  “What was that?”

  “Nothing,” I said. I had a puzzle to do for tomorrow, but I was tempted to have Derrick run one of my backups again, no matter how much grief he gave me about it. This was too important.

  Then again, maybe the distraction of creating a more complex puzzle was exactly what I needed.

  I started reviewing the types of puzzles I liked to create on my notepad, but before I could make up my mind, my telephone started ringing.

  Zach didn’t even look up as I answered.

  It was Lorna.

  “We’re still on for tomorrow, aren’t we?” she asked.

  “Yes, unless you want to cancel.”

  “I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” she said, and then she hung up.

  “Who was that?” Zach asked. So, it had caught his attention.

  “It was Lorna. She wanted to be sure I was still meeting her in the morning.”

  “She could have been calling for another reason,” Zach said.

  “What’s that?”

  “To see where we were.”

  “Why should she want to know that?”

  “She wouldn’t, unless she’s the killer.”

  “Come on, Zach. You can’t read too much into everything that happens to us.”

  He shrugged. “I’m not saying it’s true. I’m just saying it’s a possibility.”

  “Fine; whatever you say. Frankly, I’m too tired to argue.”

  I walked back to retrieve my pad when I glanced down at the copies on the floor. I glanced from my grid to the copies and back again, and then I looked at the last clue we’d gotten.

  Could it honestly be that easy, or was I letting my imagination get the better of me?

  There was only one way to find out.

  I studied the letters in the sequence they’d been received, and wrote the combinations below the square on the horizontal axis. And then I remembered the 4O I’d so casually dismissed. What if it wasn’t a zero, but a letter O instead? That would make it 4-O.

  I added it to the others,
and wrote A3, E5, E2, A4, E1, and 4O.

  So far, we’d received As, Es, and an O on the last one before the oblong circles.

  The first part of every sequence was a vowel.

  Five columns wide had to mean A, E, I, O, and U. I knew Y was sometimes a vowel, but there wasn’t room on my grid, and if I needed it later, it wouldn’t be too hard to add.

  What about the y-axis going up the rows? We had a 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. Each row had its own number.

  I wrote it in quickly, and then called Zach.

  “Come here. You need to see this.”

  “What is it, Savannah? I’m onto something here.”

  “If it weren’t important, I wouldn’t ask you to look,” I said.

  He came over to me, and I handed him my pad.

  He stared at the grid. “There are a lot of spaces we still don’t know about though. There’s no way we could be expected to solve this with the clues we’ve gotten so far.”

  “That’s why the killer sent us this last one,” I said. “He ran out of time, so this has to be the key.”

  Zach took it from me, studied it, and then said, “But the question is, what lock does this key fit into?”

  “I haven’t gotten that far yet,” I admitted. “Do you think I’ve lost my mind?”

  “Yes, but for completely different reasons. This could actually be it. Good work.”

  “I’m not there yet.”

  “You’ll get it,” he said.

  I laid the original clues out again, this time being careful to put them in the proper order. As I did, I stared at each note.

  3A, 5E, 2E, 4A, 1E, O4.

  After that, I decided to add the order they arrived in, and got something like this: 3A (1), 5E (2), 2E (3), 4A (4), 1E (5), 4O (6 or 1).

  Could the sequence of the notes represent the numbers that belonged in the corresponding squares?

  I laid out my grid, and started filling in numbers. When I finished, it looked rather stark.

  If I only knew what it meant. As a puzzle, it was nearly empty, and if it was one of mine, there was too much information that was still missing.

  I just hoped I didn’t run out of time before I unlocked the key.

  Chapter 19

  “HAVE YOU HAD ANY MORE BREAKTHROUGHS?” ZACH asked as he walked into the bedroom where I’d been working.