“I don’t remember . . .” she said. “I can’t . . .”
I patted her hands, which felt like ice. “I know. It’s okay. Sometimes we’re not supposed to remember the really awful stuff.”
“Daddy—we lived in a little white house with big trees in the front yard. I remember the first grade and I walked to school with my friend Marcie from next door.”
Obviously, this was several years after the fire, but I let her go on. She needed to work through the process.
“Mama wasn’t there. I don’t remember her. We didn’t have her picture.”
How terrible, to lose your mother and all traces of her in one fateful moment. At least I’d always had my home, an attic full of memories about my parents after their plane crash. I tried to rub some warmth into Amanda’s hands but they stubbornly remained cold.
Eventually, her zombie-like stare came back into focus and she gave my hand a squeeze.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t know why I zoned out like that. I didn’t remember her before, why would I remember her now?” She gave a tiny smile. “You can’t miss what you never had, right?”
To some extent. But Amanda’d had her mother for three years, three very important years developmentally. I couldn’t put myself in her place, exactly, but I knew what she was saying. I backed into one of the other chairs and watched her as she began to run her hands along a paper napkin that must have been left from her lunch. The flat edge of her thumbnail creased the fold into a sharp edge.
“The fire,” she said. “There was a gas leak?”
“That’s what the news story reported at the time.”
“And was my father suspected of setting that one, too?” Her hands became more agitated, grabbing the napkin and ripping little notches in it.
“We don’t know. We haven’t found anything to suggest that.”
She bunched the napkin into a wad and squeezed hard. “Because he didn’t do it, you know. He didn’t.” She stood up and threw the balled paper toward a trash basket in the corner. “My father was a kind and loving man and he didn’t cause any fires. I know what people are thinking, that he did it once and then he did it again.”
“Amanda, no one even knows about this. No one thinks that.”
She whirled on me. “Oh, people in this town most certainly do. They all think he set the gas and drove away. That damned Sheriff Michaela thinks he did it to get rid of Earleen. Not that he shouldn’t have, the witch. But he didn’t.”
“Does the sheriff know about the other fire, when you were little?”
She stopped her pacing. “I don’t know. She’s never told me.”
Obviously. “She probably doesn’t know then.” I said. “And I’m not going to be the one to bring it up. She’s had four years to do her background work on this. She can learn it for herself.”
Why I said that, I don’t know. Obstruction of justice is not to be taken lightly and I didn’t know why I should withhold the information from the law. But, then again, why should I be the one to bring it out? I bit my lip and quashed the thought.
Amanda relaxed visibly. “The two fires can’t be related, can they?”
The hope in her voice was so poignant that I couldn’t throw a dash of reality at her.
“We’re checking a little farther back,” I said. “Quietly. No one here is going to learn about our findings.”
That seemed to satisfy her and she picked up her iced tea glass again. “I don’t even want Jake to know,” she said. “It’s bad enough that Dad died before they got their product to market. The financial strain has been unbelievable. I hated the fact that the suspicion went toward Dad in the beginning and I really don’t want the speculation to start up again.”
I nodded.
“You going to be okay?” I asked.
When she assured me that she would, I said goodbye and headed back down toward town. Suddenly the rest of the weekend loomed ahead emptily. I toyed with the idea of driving back to Albuquerque but Ron had already made it clear that we wouldn’t learn anything new from the insurance company until Monday. And with Drake away, the house would be too big and too empty.
I cruised the main drag. The two RV parks looked full, and traffic was triple the usual, a lot of it small boats on trailers. A man was washing the windows of a gift shop and another place was getting a fresh coat of paint. I realized that the summer season would soon be upon us and this little town, so dependent on tourism and the allure of the lake, wanted to put on its best face. At the tiny bookshop on the corner, I stopped and browsed, having finished the Slater mystery and wanting to find something equally good to occupy my mind. I came away with two paperbacks and a small box of chocolates.
Back in the cabin, I snuggled into the comfy easy chair in the corner after brewing a cup of tea with my travel coil. The chocolates somehow dwindled and I got up once, just to switch on a light. David Simmons, insurance claims, and ten million cash fell away into obscurity as I lost myself on the moors of England.
Chapter 18
Sometime around one in the morning I finished the first book and turned out the lights. It was nearly noon when I opened my eyes, realizing that I’d not been awakened by a wet nose on my arm nor, unfortunately, by a warm body beside me. I stretched and missed each of them briefly, wondering what Drake was doing right now. Although my habit at home is to get up and start the day early, I felt no compunction toward that today. The covers were warm and I was perfectly happy to stay there.
Eventually, though, life intruded. I heard car doors slamming outside as a few other guests packed up and got ready for the Sunday drive back to wherever home might be. I finally got up, showered, and dressed in loose sweats and a T-shirt. The second paperback called out to me but I knew it would be very easy to simply plop back in that chair and do nothing for another whole day. I picked up my key and walked to Jo’s.
The place was filled with cheerful customers, enjoying their weekend breakfasts and lunches out, and I ordered and ate quickly to make room for other newcomers. Before settling in to read, I decided I really should get some exercise so I left Jo’s and headed toward the lake. A walk along the shore, fresh air in my face, would do me good.
I set a brisk pace and put in a couple of miles before the altitude began to make me puff a bit. Slowing as I neared the marina on my way back, I saw Earleen Simmons talking to a man beside a white pickup truck. Their voices carried on the clear air, rising and dropping so that the words didn’t come through clearly. But the tone did. I caught a couple of expletives, then the man got into the truck, slammed the door and spun out in a cloud of dust.
Earleen stood with her fists on her hips and watched him go. When she whirled toward her own car, she caught sight of me watching her.
“What?” she demanded.
I shrugged. “Nothing. Nothing at all. Just wondered if you were in trouble there.”
“Well, I’m not. I’m just goddamn peachy.”
I stepped a little closer. “You don’t sound peachy, Earleen. Want to tell me about it?”
“No.” She reached for her door latch and paused. “What are you still doing hanging around here? Is Amanda wasting money again, having you poke around into things that aren’t your business? Wish I still had that kind of cash.”
I almost blabbed that Amanda didn’t really have money to spare, but held myself back.
“That damned girl and her father. Never saw people who could run through money the way they did.” Coming on the heels of her recent trip to Vegas, I found this laughable, and it must have showed on my face.
“Hey, don’t you dare give me that,” she said, leaving the car and advancing on me, index finger extended. “I had a fine life before I met David Simmons. Now what have I got? Diddly-nothing.”
“Sorry, I didn’t realize that.”
“Yeah, well. There’s lots you don’t realize,” she mocked. “I did good for myself, back in California. I met David I lived in a nice house, had a car that beat this
piece of shit all to hell, and a great job. We move out here, he’s all into this invention, and my money’s all used up before I know it.”
The anger welled into tears of frustration and she turned to face away from me and brush at them.
“Earleen, I’m sorry. I thought David made a fortune in the Dyna-Gen merger.”
“Oh, he did. Then he decides to follow precious little Amanda out here to the sticks and foolish me, I come with him. At least I had a beautiful home here.” She sniffed loudly. “And now I don’t even have that.”
She stomped back to her car, then wheeled on me again. “And for your information, that guy—” she waved vaguely in the direction the white pickup had gone—“that guy is somebody who cares. He’s helping me start a new business.”
The lie was so blatant I didn’t bother to respond.
“You got a mortgage on the land. Why didn’t you consider selling the land and building yourself a nice little place somewhere else?”
She looked at me like I’d come from another planet. “You wouldn’t understand.”
Oh, I thought I did. I watched her start the car and drive away. Frank Quinn seemed to be the number one reason. Why women hook up with losers like that, then feel that they have no options—it’s beyond me. I felt no sympathy for someone who squandered away borrowed money in Vegas, then complained about having nothing. Earleen had plenty of options but she’d closed herself off to most of them.
I traced my way from the marina to the highway and fast-walked along it until it became Main Street. Back in my cabin I drank two full glasses of water and was about to succumb to the allure of my book when I noticed a message light blinking on the phone.
Ron’s voice came through, telling me he was putting in a few hours at the office and had some new information. On a Sunday?
Once again I wondered why he hadn’t simply called my cell phone, then I realized I hadn’t taken it with me. Sure enough, he’d left a nearly identical narration there. I dialed the office and waited four long rings before a strange female voice answered, “RJP Investigations.”
“Who is this?” I demanded.
“Victoria Baker. Who’s calling please?”
Victoria. The voice was pleasant and businesslike but the fact that she was in my offices, answering my phones, irked.
“This is Charlie Parker, one of the owners of the office you’re standing in. Please put Ron on the phone.”
“Oh, Charlie. It’s wonderful to talk with you,” she said. “Ron’s told me so much about you.”
That irked even more, since he told me nearly nothing about her.
“I’m really looking forward to meeting you when you get back to town,” she said.
I bit back the irritation and made my voice neutral. “Ron left a message for me, some new information on our current case?”
“Oh, yes. One moment.” She put me on hold.
“What is she doing answering our business lines?” I demanded when Ron picked up.
“Charlie, don’t go there.” His voice came through low and firm, partially muted as if he were cupping his hand around the mouthpiece. “I was on the other line and asked her to answer. I knew you’d be calling.”
I wanted to snap out some retort about it being unprofessional to have a girlfriend answering the phone, but I bit it back. She’d handled it very professionally and anyone but myself would have assumed her to be our regular receptionist. I took a deep breath and resolved to drop it.
“Okay. You said you have some new information?”
“Just an interesting tidbit. I’ll know more tomorrow when I reach the insurance company from the first Simmons fire. Just thought you’d be interested to know a little background on Samantha Simmons. Samantha Bradley Simmons.”
Nothing clicked.
“Bradley. Of Bradley Electronics. Founder of the chain store of everything electronic, the chain that’s now got a branch in every American city and a good number of them in Europe, too.”
“The Big Brad chain?”
“Exactly. Big Brad Bradley was Samantha’s grandfather. Back in the fifties he latched onto the potential of television and started a store that sold only TV sets. Carried a few radios as a sideline, and eventually branched into stereo equipment. By the sixties he had forty stores across the country, and was probably adding computers around the time Samantha was born, well before anyone else in the country thought the new gadget would ever take off.”
“And David, knowing the Bradley reputation, latched onto the prestige of the family name?”
“And the money. When Samantha turned twenty-one she inherited a big chunk of cash and a twenty percent interest in the company. David married her three months after her twenty-first birthday.”
“And stayed in favor with Big Brad?”
“Samantha’s grandfather died around that time—heart attack. He was a guy who loved his big steak dinner and whiskey. Her father, Brad Junior—no one ever had the nerve to call him Little Brad—was running things by then. Other siblings and their offspring also served on the Board of Directors, and it was a tightly held family business.”
“Did Samantha participate? Draw a salary, that sort of thing?”
“She apparently got her stock dividends, but she’d moved off with David to pursue his career. She had Amanda and became a full-time mom during those years.”
“Then she died in the house fire.”
“Yes. David kept Amanda to himself, out in California. The rest of the family in Illinois didn’t have contact with her. When Samantha died, her stock reverted back to the core family and the shares were divided among her cousins. David got none of it. He raised a stink for awhile but wasn’t able to break the ironclad rules of inheritance that the Bradley clan lives by.”
“You mentioned a chunk of cash that Samantha received on her twenty-first birthday.”
“A million dollars. Yeah, well it didn’t last long. Being young and frivolous, Samantha and David went through it pretty quickly. Bought a big house, two fancy cars and a boat. It’s the same house that she died in a few years later, and they’d had it under-insured, so David came away without a whole lot to show for his years on the fringes of the Bradley family.”
“That must have made him bitter,” I said.
“Might have. He seemed, though, to settle into a simpler lifestyle, raising his daughter and working hard.”
I mulled it over after we hung up. Seemed way more than coincidence that a man would marry twice, lose two homes to gas leaks, and come out with several fat bank accounts that no one knew about. I just couldn’t see how either Samantha’s money or Earleen’s humble assets translated into the staggering amounts in those accounts now. He’d never had access to more than a million dollars at once, and it was pretty obvious where that had gone.
Amanda had never mentioned the Bradleys nor did it seem she had inherited any of their money. She and Jake wouldn’t be in their current financial pickle if that were the case. Unless she had her mother’s lack of judgment and had allowed Jake to use up her money on his invention. I pondered that while I paced the cabin.
Settling down with my book and spending Sunday lazily doing nothing sounded like a good plan but I couldn’t seem to focus. David Simmons, the more I knew about him, the more of a puzzle he became. Money seemed to be an obsession with him, but to talk to Amanda, she only remembered the fun times they shared and the fact that he’d been a good father. He’d accumulated a fortune but kept it secret. He’d set up false identities but used them only in limited ways. His entire life seemed full of lies and deceptions. I wondered how much Amanda knew about the Bradleys.
I dialed her number but got no answer. Undoubtedly, if Jake were out in his lab he didn’t interrupt work for the telephone. If Amanda wasn’t home, she was probably somewhere in town, and that was easy enough to find out.
Basic detective work 101 includes lots of surveillance and routine legwork. I started my Jeep and began at the east end of town. Beyond the Horse
shoe Motel stood a couple of others and a drive-in taco place. I cruised them and didn’t spot the Zellinger vehicle. Along Main Street, I scanned the smattering of cars around the church, the few businesses that were open, and the park. Jo’s Café and the ice cream parlor held, by far, the largest number of patrons but I didn’t spot the gray Mazda at either of them. By the time I got to the west end of town, noting that the post office parking lot was empty and the gas station next to it had just one car with Colorado plates, I decided I must have missed her. I pulled over to the shoulder to figure out my next move, and the Mazda buzzed past me, coming from the direction of the marina.
I pulled in behind Amanda and followed her to the bookstore.
“Finished those other two books already?” The owner greeted me with his usual friendly smile.
“Uh, almost.” I glanced around and saw Amanda at the magazine rack.
“Hi.” Now that I had her within reach, I became a little uncertain about how to start the conversation. The guy behind the counter clearly had nothing else to do but eavesdrop on our conversation and I wasn’t about to give him fodder for the latest bit of juicy town gossip. I browsed the history section until Amanda made her choices and chatted with the man at the counter. When she walked out the door, I quickly caught up.
“Amanda. Got a minute?”
She smiled. “I figured it wasn’t mere coincidence that you happened into the bookstore at the same moment I did. What’s up?”
We moved into the shade of a huge elm tree, appearing to the rest of the world like two women chatting about their newest recipes.
“Did you ever know any of your mother’s people?” I asked. “The Bradleys?”
She shook her head. “I haven’t even heard that name in years. I suppose somewhere in the past my dad must have mentioned them. I know the name, that’s about all.”
“It never came out that they’re the Bradleys of the Big Brad electronics chain?”
Obsessions Can Be Murder: The Tenth Charlie Parker Mystery Page 13