Shallow Grave

by Karen Harper

  “Like illegal animals?”

  “Exotics? Maybe. It seems to me Stan Helter must be nervous about protecting its privacy to offer such a good price for the small acreage of BAA land. Maybe he’s really afraid that people so close would spot something illegal. Right now, I’m clutching at straws, but I’m going to keep my eyes open for any sign of illegal immigrants he might have working there. It’s more common around here than we think. The place seems to have a lot of perks to bring in the German visitors Grant mentioned today, and the desert sheikh guy earlier. So you just be careful with Gracie, and I’ll watch myself with Stan. And let’s keep our eyes and ears wide open at the memorial service.”

  “I was thinking, as nice as this new wooden wall is,” she told him, gesturing with her free hand, “the one at the BAA, the bars of the tiger cage too, didn’t keep danger out.”

  “Claire, it’s going to take a tall ladder or a ghost to get over or through that fence.”

  “I know, I know. But I had a dream about a ghost cat—like the one we saw down the street—getting in the house.”

  He turned to her, frowning. “Then you’d better get your narcolepsy meds recalibrated. We’re going to be careful, and we’re safe here now. Gated and locked fence, locks on doors and windows, state-of-the art security system, and Bronco, if we need him. So stop worrying.”

  Yet his tone of voice and his frown showed he was worried too.

  * * *

  The memorial service for Ben Hoffman was held in the small chapel of the First Baptist Church in North Naples. It was a good thing, Nick thought, that the place had a big parking lot, once he saw the cars parked there. Maybe Ann and Brit should have asked for the large auditorium on the site. As they went inside, he hoped the numerous guests really knew the Hoffmans. At least the ushers had kept the media out of the building, though they’d seen vans with their satellite dishes in the parking lot and reporters with mics practically accosting people—which they’d managed to avoid by hurrying inside.

  “Obviously, it will be a closed casket when they bring it in,” Claire whispered as they slid into a padded pew about halfway back. Bronco sat on one side next to Nick, and Darcy was next to Claire as if they were guarding them. Heck was hanging around outside; Gina was tending her Alzheimer’s patient at home; and Nita was staying with Lexi.

  Nick nodded and said quietly, leaning closer, “That was the medical examiner I spoke to in the hall. I knew him from his testimony on one of my cases. He says Ben’s death is going to remain ruled accidental. They got enough tox tests back to tell that there was no alcohol, drugs or poisons involved.”

  “Poisons? But—”

  “Shh. They have to check everything. He admits the skull fracture could indicate that Ben fell and hit his head on the concrete—or not.”

  “A blow to the head before he fell?”

  “As I said, or not.”

  “Well, at least no one’s claiming suicide like they did with your father. Granted, there’s no weapon. Look, there’s Stan Helter, sitting way up in front.”

  “Yeah, with Grant.”

  “So that’s your friend and contact.”

  With a nod, Nick glanced around at people who were seated or coming in. Jackson came in with a younger African-American woman, probably one of his daughters. Nick had learned the BAA’s manager was a widower with two daughters and some grandkids. Brit had said he was content to live on the grounds in an apartment attached to their storage building, now that his wife was gone. Nick bet his grandkids loved to visit Grandpa. Nick had also learned that Jackson had been questioned by the police the day Ben died and had taken it hard since he’d known the man for years. Ann and Brit thought a lot of Jackson, relied on him. Perhaps he’d be a good person to talk to, though he hadn’t been at the BAA when Ben died, having gone out to run an errand.

  They all stood as the casket, covered by an American flag, was rolled in by pallbearers while Lane and Brit followed with Ann between them. Lane’s wife and two children, Nick assumed, walked at the end of the procession. Sandra Hoffman was beautiful, nicely dressed and made up. She nodded and smiled to people she evidently knew. The boy looked to be about twelve and the girl a little younger, both serious as could be, maybe even a bit embarrassed. They all sat in front where Jace was already waiting for them, so they must consider him to be a part of the family.

  Lane immediately rose again, holding his violin. Standing at the head of the wooden coffin beside a vase with a spray of tropical flowers, he lifted the instrument to his throat with a flourish and began to play.

  Nick glanced down at his memorial program, which had a photo of Ben at the gate of the BAA, then saw the listing of musical pieces under it. Funeral March by Chopin was the first solo, which they were listening to now. A German Requiem by Brahms would be next, and at the end, Handel’s Dead March.

  So was Lane giving a miniconcert here? It seemed the focus was on him, not his father.

  The pastor preached a sermon that fit the occasion, about Daniel in the lion’s den. “There are some things worth going into a dark den for, a terrifying cage, in this life,” he was saying. “In the Old Testament, Daniel went in because he believed in the true God despite living in a pagan land. Daniel believed, despite enemies accusing him of breaking their laws, that he could do good. For a reason known only to God, Ben Hoffman went into a tiger cage. He believed in the beauty of wildlife and wanted to share God’s creation with others, despite those who disagreed the Backwoods Animal Adventure could do any good. Ben is now on a much bigger adventure than he could ever have had here in an earthly paradise...”

  Nick was impressed with the message, yet his mind wandered. Why had Grant shrugged more than once at Stan, who was whispering to him? Why did Brit have her arm around Jace’s shoulders instead of the other way around? Darn, but Claire’s continued reading of body language was rubbing off on him. He was anxious to ask what she thought of all this.

  And poor Ann Hoffman looked absolutely wilted; yet when they filed out by rows after the service to greet the family, she motioned to him and Claire and stepped out of the reception line. She led them into the shadowy alcove by the double doors to the sanctuary.

  “I found something,” she said, tears in her eyes. “I don’t want Lane or even Brittany to know yet—maybe ever—but I have to tell someone.”

  “Some sort of evidence?” Nick asked. “Something that sheds light on Ben’s state of mind?”

  “Exactly. But first, are you going to help us if we need it?”

  “If it’s in my capacity as a legal counselor, yes, both of us will help the BAA and you as well, though if it comes to some sort of legal action, I may assist one of my partners. Is there a legal problem?”

  She bit her lip and shook her head. She suddenly looked more scared than sad. Her red lipstick had run into the cracks around her mouth, and she blinked back tears.

  “I can’t believe it, of course,” she said. “Ben must have been more depressed than I thought—angry, even bitter. I got out his family Bible, thinking Brittany or Lane could do a reading from it today—something uplifting. I love the Psalms, ‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death...’” Her voice caught.

  She darted a look between his and Claire’s shoulders where they hemmed her in as if they were protecting her. And maybe they were.

  “It isn’t something that implicates anyone, is it?” he asked.

  She looked even more frightened. Claire reached out to steady her, a hand on the older woman’s shoulder.

  “It’s—it’s almost a suicide note,” she whispered, “though one not meant to be found. I hid it, but I want you to see it. It scares me to death—to death.”

  Nick fought to keep calm, to nod in understanding. But he felt the way Claire sometimes described her narcoleptic nightmares, like walking through a thick fog where hands reached out to grab you, and a
huge hole opened up and the black, deep earth swallowed you, and—

  For one dreadful moment, he saw again the gun near his father’s hand and all the splattered blood and the back of his head gone, and he was young again and—screaming, “Dad! Dad! Dad!”

  He felt Claire grip his arm as if she were holding him up too, pulling him back. This woman needed help like his mother had, and he’d tried so hard to fill his father’s shoes.

  Claire said, “Ann, if you want to keep that private right now, do you want to bring the document to us, or shall we come to you? You don’t have it with you, do you?”

  Nick felt the earth settle under his feet again. The reason he’d dedicated himself to his private South Shores endeavors flooded back, his crusade to help others who lost a loved one under strange circumstances.

  “No, I—I hid it. Only one other person knows where it is—Jackson.”

  Nick said, “We completely understand if you don’t want to bring it into a law office. As Claire said, we can come to you, unless—”

  “Would you mind coming to the BAA tomorrow?” she asked, looking up at him and dabbing under her eyes with a wadded tissue. “Brittany has a morning meeting in town, but I’ll be there. We very much—in Ben’s honor—want to keep things going, despite some financial woes.”

  “I understand. About ten o’clock then? Claire will come too.”

  She nodded. “I’ll be waiting. I thank you both for—”

  “Mother, there you are!” Lane interrupted and almost shouldered Nick aside with his black leather violin case. “For heaven’s sake, people are looking for you. I was about to send Sandra into the restroom. You certainly don’t need an attorney for any reason—does she?” he asked Nick. “Especially not a criminal attorney.”

  “A lawyer might help, depending on the complications of the will,” Nick said.

  “Ah, yes, the will. Everything to the two women in his life who went along with his ‘Daniel in the lion’s den’ experience of building up the BAA. If we need counsel, we’ll find it. Mother, come on. The car is waiting to take us to the private graveside service,” he said and took her elbow to guide her—to practically pull her away.

  “I’d like to break that expensive violin over his head,” Nick muttered as Lane led his mother to the exit.

  “He’s so deeply hurt and angry. I guess I can see why. He’s kind of odd man out in the family, and that must hurt.”

  “I’m trusting you to read between the lines of whatever document Ann is going to show us. Oh, I see Jace must be going to the cemetery with Brit,” he said, watching Lane and Ann join Brit and Jace as they headed for the outside door. After filing through the family reception line, most guests had left the building.

  “Even if Ben was depressed,” Claire said, taking Nick’s arm as they moved toward the door, “that doesn’t mean he went into that cage deliberately. As I’ve said before, there are a lot easier ways he could have taken his own life if that was his intent.”

  “Yeah, but to a guy who loved animals—”

  “No, he would have seen that Tiberia might be blamed then, and that it would cause a lot of problems for Ann, Brit and the BAA. They could lose the tiger, the entire place, so he would not have killed himself that way.”

  “With a son like Lane, maybe he was tempted—just kidding. But people considering suicide often have that one tenuous, black moment when they can do it, and if it passes, they won’t. I realize we have to be careful not to let the fact Lane’s a jerk color our suspicions, though it wouldn’t be the first time a bitter family member set up someone’s death when he himself had a perfect alibi. But who then? Who hit that big man on the head and put him in the tiger’s cage and then just disappeared into thin air?”

  13

  “We’re getting to be the BAA’s biggest attendees,” Nick told Claire as they got out of their car in the familiar parking lot the next morning.

  “And not for the right reasons,” she said, taking his arm as they walked toward the entry gate. “Poor Ann and Brit, not only to lose their loved one that way, but the BAA is a dream deferred if not threatened. I hope we can help them, even if Ben left a suicide note.”

  “Ironic. I asked Grant Manfort about my mother not getting my dad’s death insurance settlement because there was a clause in there about it being negated if the cause of death was suicide. Of course, it wasn’t,” he said, his voice hardening, “but it took me years to prove it. Ann and Brit are already worried about this little place not having enough funding to keep it going. In honor of their father and husband, they would do about anything to keep it from being eaten up by Stan Helter’s ranch. In short, I hope that is not a suicide note.”

  “You’re not thinking that Ben might have taken out that big insurance policy that Jace overheard about from Lane to save this place? Okay, I mean, Ben tried to make it look like a natural death—albeit by tiger—so Brit and Ann would get a lot of money, not to mention publicity, for the place.”

  “You ought to write fiction, sweetheart. Let’s not jump ahead but see what the document actually shows. And,” he said, as they let themselves through the gate that Ann had phoned to say she’d leave unlocked for them, “if I get the chance, I want to question Jackson. He evidently knew Ben well, and it’s obvious Ann trusts him since she left the letter with him for safekeeping.”

  “I hope the handwriting can be substantiated as Ben’s and be dated as fairly recent. If we can borrow it from her, I can put my forensic document examiner skills to work. I haven’t needed any of that since our first case in St. Augustine.”

  “There would be no reason for Ann to forge it. Especially if it does hint at suicide or even depression, she and this place could have a lot to lose.”

  As they closed the gate behind them, they passed exhibits and glanced into cages and through fences. The place suddenly seemed like a modern, miniature Eden to Claire. The sound of muted, distant splashing water lured her. Tabebuia trees were just starting to break into golden bloom. Tropical foliage trained over a trellis dripped bloodred hibiscus. Birds chattered. Adam and Eve must be somewhere in here, but where was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? They needed answers and now.

  She jumped when they passed a cage where a rainbow-hued parrot screeched, “Who—are—you?” as if he were the area watchman.

  “There’s that little mulefoot pig Duncan liked over there,” she said, pointing as they headed for the administration trailer. “He seems like an imaginary or prehistoric animal, several of them put together.”

  “That pig’s a strange little dude, but so’s Duncan. Maybe that was part of the attraction for him.”

  She jumped again when a deep human voice called out from the Flamingo Isle area, which was surrounded on three sides by a shallow moat: “Heard you were coming!”

  It seemed Jackson had been hiding in the foliage. He suddenly appeared, walking toward them through the moat that served as a pond where six long-legged, pink birds waded and preened. Several eyed him warily, but they were obviously used to his presence.

  Nick told him, “Brit said you are a Jackson of all trades around here. I see what she means.”

  Jackson let himself out through the chain-link gate and came around to walk with them. He was wet to his knees and left a trail of footprints. “The flamingos, they’re my favorite,” he told them, his voice and face so serious. “Beautiful, almost heavenly, but need lots of earthly tending—make me feel needed. Feed them only the best, fresh veggies, some shrimp, not that chemical additive canthaxanthin that big zoos use now to keep them pink.”

  “You’ve got them in a beautiful setting,” Nick told him.

  “You know, that little hidden isle there in the middle’s the highest place on this property. It’s an old Calusa Indian mound, I bet, though some call it a hammock hill like out in the Glades.” He shrugged and shook his head, maybe at some distant
memory. “Meanwhile,” he said, clearing his throat, “gotta do my best to pick up more duties around here with Ben gone.” He kept shaking his head slowly as if in disbelief. “Huge loss to this place. Can’t believe it happened.”

  “As much as he knew this place and the animals, do you think it really was an accident?” Claire asked.

  Nick cleared his throat, an obvious hint not to pursue things right now. He had just said he wanted to talk to Jackson, so maybe he thought she was overstepping, but weren’t they a team?

  Jackson shrugged. “Can’t believe no one saw it, ’less he planned it that way. It’s not like him, even if he was down in the dumps lately, and I don’t mean this place is a dump. Looking good compared to when we opened up. Anyway, so you want to see Ann first, or I can get you that letter she asked me to keep.”

  “How about Claire can go in to see how Ann’s doing, and I’ll go with you to get the letter. It’s on the grounds, right?”

  “In the storage shed. Sure, come along if’n you want to see my best hiding place right smack-dab in the mess of birdseed and paint cans.”

  Claire headed toward the trailer while the men veered off toward a small concrete block building set back in a corner of the fence. She saw a wooden building was attached to it, probably where Jackson lived now. She thought the storage building looked large and sturdy, not like what Jackson had called a shed. A wheelbarrow loaded with big bags of feed and a golf cart were parked outside.

  She was a little annoyed at Nick taking Jackson off like that. It made her all the more anxious to question Gracie Cobham on her own, and didn’t Nick realize she wouldn’t be afraid to psych out Stan Helter? Nick seemed to be keeping her from observing him, even from being introduced to him. If the owner of the Trophy Ranch was that dangerous, Nick really should be looking at him—suicide note or not—as someone who had harmed Ben. But then, maybe that’s exactly what he planned to do tomorrow.

  * * *