Sleuthing at Sweet Springs (The Sleuth Sisters Mysteries Book 4)

by Maggie Pill

  “But the Warners are in Detroit, and Fred Marsh isn’t the type to push a defenseless woman off a dock,” I argued.

  “If Marsh learned Gail was partly to blame for his grandfather’s death, he might have confronted her at Clara’s.”

  “Killing her could have been an accident.” Barb took off her glasses and polished the lenses with a wipe.

  “Right. He chased her onto the dock. She fell, hit her head on a post, and died. He panicked and made up a story about finding her body.” Retta’s flair for the dramatic took it a step farther. “Or he killed her in a rage and threw her body in the water to make it look like she drowned.”

  I shook my head. “You’re way outside the box now. How would Fred have found out Gail’s scheme? How would he know she’d be at Clara’s house? Why wouldn’t he call the police if he thought she was involved in criminal activity?”

  Retta fell silent, chastened a little by common sense, and I tossed out my own theory. “What about Rick Chou as the silent partner? According to rumor, he and Gail had some sort of relationship. He’s got money, so he could provide the financing.”

  “And he’s been keeping tabs on us by sticking close to Baby Sister.” Though Barb’s phrasing was more aggressive than I’d have chosen, I’d been thinking the same thing.

  “Rick is no murderer.” Retta’s indignant expression contradicted her tone, which revealed she knew how weak her position was. “He doesn’t even live here full time.”

  “That doesn’t preclude his scheming to make a pile of money when the opportunity arises. If he had a fling with Gail—”

  “Gossips saying they were an item doesn’t make it true.”

  Knowing gossip, Barb and I had to acknowledge her point. Still, Retta didn’t want to believe Chou might be different than she imagined him, which clouded her judgment.

  “What’s the scenario?” Barb asked. “If Gail was murdered, which we don’t know yet, it would go like this: Gail is a minor crook. She meets a man—she’s always meeting a man—and they hatch a scheme. When she becomes a liability, he kills her.”

  “If that’s true, the coroner will find evidence of murder and his plan will be ruined.”

  “But if they don’t find anything, he’s good to go. If a crime is indicated at a future point, he can say he had no idea what Gail did to get the property. She’ll take the blame for anything the police can prove.”

  “Not much chance of that,” Retta put in. “There’s no proof Mr. Marsh’s death wasn’t an accident. The Warners’ house burned due to arson, but there’s no evidence of who the arsonist was. Gail wasn’t even in Michigan then.” She began rearranging items on Barb’s desk, caught herself, and buried her hands in her lap. “With her dead, no one can tie Mr. X to the scheme.”

  “Except that he’s the one who profits,” I argued.

  “But we can’t prove he committed crimes to put himself in that position. Getting the bottling plant going might be a little more difficult to pull off without Gail to hide behind, but it can be done. We have no way to stop him.”

  We argued, discussed, and puzzled over Gail’s silent partner for the next half hour but got nowhere. When Retta finally went home, I asked Barb, “Should we cancel the Canada trip?”

  “I don’t see any reason to,” she replied. “Rory isn’t involved in the investigation of Gail’s death. Lars is coming in tonight, and there isn’t much we can do until the medical report is in, which will be Monday at the earliest.” She bit her lip. “Did you tell Retta about the plans for tomorrow?”

  “She thinks we’re going to visit Clara.” At her look, I raised a palm. “You can spring the trip on her at your convenience. I’m not telling Retta she has to be up and dressed by five.”

  Barb sighed, and I knew she was regretting the whole idea. “Okay. I just hope she reacts well when the guys show up at the railway station.”

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Retta

  On our dog-walking date, I had invited Diane Landon to go shopping with me on Friday. It’s more fun to shop with someone else, I think, though Barbara disagrees. She shops only when necessary, and then with deadly precision and no sense of adventure whatsoever. Faye buys her clothes at second-hand stores, claiming it’s ridiculous to pay full price. Though Diane was a lot younger than I and had less age-related flaws to hide, it would be nice to have a companion who appreciated good fabric and clever design.

  We had a good time, talking about everything the way women do when they’re getting to know each other. She’d lived in a lot of places, since her dad worked on oil rigs. “Name a state with oil, and I’ve lived there,” she joked. She was very interested in what is was like to be a private detective, and though I explained it was nothing like the movies portray. I admitted we’d done well with the cases we’d had thus far.

  “Now you’re looking into something about water bottling?”

  I shrugged. “It’s one possibility in a case we took on.”

  “Sweet Springs, right?” She flipped her hair over her shoulders. “I heard you telling En the other night.”

  An image of Barbara Ann’s disapproving face came to mind, and I gave a no-answer answer. “As I said, just a possibility.”

  “I see.” Fingering the weave of a sweater on the sale rack, she wrinkled her nose. “Our agent mentioned the place once.”

  “Gail Sherman? What did she say about it?”

  Her mouth twisted as she tried to remember. “Something personal. I think her grandmother or someone like that lived out there, but it wasn’t a good situation for her anymore.”

  “Clara is Gail’s aunt. Was. You heard Gail is dead, right?”

  “It was on the news. It’s terrible, an accident like that.”

  I didn’t comment on that. “That’s all she said, that her aunt lived at Sweet Springs?”

  She frowned again. “She said something about getting control of the property if the aunt was declared incompetent. She said she had some ideas about what to do with it.” Diane smiled ruefully. “That’s really all I remember.”

  “Every little bit helps us,” I said encouragingly. “I don’t know what will happen to Clara’s property now that Gail’s dead, but it would be a shame if someone turned the area into a bottling plant. It’s really pretty out there.”

  “Yes,” she agreed, “though that dirt road makes a mess of your car.”

  I put the cropped pants I’d been looking at back on the table. The fabric was too stiff “Have you been out there?”

  “No,” she said. “Gail said she had to take her car to the carwash after every trip out there.”

  “When did you last speak to Gail?”

  Diane considered. “Saturday, I think. She called to talk to Enright, who was home for once, and we chatted a little while I searched the house for him.” She chuckled. “He sets his phone down and walks away, so I’m always answering his calls.”

  Saturday had been the day a strange man chased me off Clara’s property. I remembered seeing two cars drive by on Sweet Lane, too. Had Gail been out there with her partner? Had he been the one who’d threatened me with a hoe? Recalling his wiry build, I thought of the young man I’d seen outside Diane’s house a few nights later. It could have been the same man, I decided.

  “What time do you go to bed at night?” Diane gave me a funny look and I groped for a reason for asking. “I don’t like calling people if they’re early-to-bed types.”

  “Am I that easy to read?” She made a little duck-face. “I go to bed pretty early most nights. Usually around nine o’clock we head to our rooms, which are at separate ends of the house.” Smiling in embarrassment she explained, “En snores like a diesel, so I sleep alone. Once I turn my white noise on, I’m out for the night.”

  Snoring does separate lots of couples, but separate rooms might mean Enright didn’t want his wife knowing what he was up to. Mr. X might have hired a minion to do his dirty work.

  If that was so, his choice of a wife like Diane was
more calculating than I’d thought. She wasn’t the type who’d question Enright or object when he worked all the time…and she wouldn’t notice if a strange young man hung around their home after midnight.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Barb

  Since Lars’ arrival was a surprise for Retta, and since Retta has radar that picks up almost everything that goes on in Allport, we’d decided Lars would stay at Rory’s cabin Friday night. From what Rory told me, it sounded like they’d planned Lars’ one-night stay like ten-year-olds in a backyard tent. In order to get the place ready, Rory and I drove out on Friday afternoon with enough supplies to get the Donner party out of trouble.

  The roads became smaller and narrower as we headed for Rory’s little piece of heaven, but at least we didn’t have to travel by snowmobile, as we had the first time I visited. The drive was pleasant, evoking the sense we’d left the world behind. Modern structures gradually disappeared, and we saw only a few hunting camps, most of them deserted. The trees were bright with color, and because the road wasn’t plowed in winter, they grew closer to the road, creating the illusion of traveling through a worm-hole to another dimension. I turned my cell phone off, since there was no reliable signal anyway. Rory and I were truly by ourselves.

  Those who know me well might have been surprised to learn I spent time in a primitive cabin where meals were made over an open fire and an outhouse took the place of a real bathroom. It sometimes surprised me too, but I’d come to enjoy the quiet, the complete darkness at night, and the visits from deer, raccoons and other animals that regarded us gravely when we turned a light on them and then went back to what they were doing. At night the coyotes howled, far away and mournful, and I learned to sleep through the sound as I had learned to sleep through sirens in my years in the city.

  The cabin sat along a river, below the road as it passed along a ridge. There was no place for a driveway, so we parked in the trees and made our way down a steep incline to reach the front door. We each took a load of groceries, but Rory said he’d fetch the rest after he got a fire going. My job would be to organize what we’d brought.

  Entering brought the scent of wood smoke to my nose, and beyond that, dust. The structure was one room, no more than thirty by thirty, but it was tightly-built and had everything Rory wanted in a getaway. A fieldstone fireplace took up the center of one wall, and a wood box beside it held the makings of a fire.

  Rory planned to cook what he called “linner,” a meal halfway between lunch and dinner, for the two of us. “Once the fire takes hold,” he said as he wadded paper for tinder, “we’ll go for a walk while the place warms up. By the time we get back the heat will be just right for cooking pork steaks.”

  On the wall opposite the fireplace was a pump, which Rory had put into working order. Clean, in fact, very good water was available with a little effort on the handle. In the back corner was a bed with an iron frame and a comfortable mattress. It had replaced a fold-down wooden bunk on the other end of the comfort scale.

  The center of the room held a small dining table with four chairs, an addition I was particularly proud of. Driving past the Salvation Army Red Store one day last summer, I’d seen it sitting outside and stopped. It was the right size, the chairs matched—though their seats were tattered—and the price wasn’t bad. I’d bought the set, asked Faye to recover the seats, and presented it to Rory as a birthday gift.

  The rest of the cabin’s wall space was taken up with shelving, mostly cupboards. I sometimes chuckled at the things Rory had hauled out to the cabin “in case,” things like extra socks and empty plastic bowls. If I hadn’t known better, I might have imagined we were hundreds of miles from civilization.

  The cabin’s interior was colder than the air outside, which had dropped into the twenties, so the fire would be welcome. Rory set the crumpled newspaper in place and stacked kindling atop it, thin, dry wood that would burn easily. Using a grill lighter, he set the pile on fire. When the kindling started to crackle and turn black, he put two small logs on top. Soon the pungent odor of fresh smoke overlaid the stale smell of older fires.

  Watching him work pleased me, bringing back memories of my father lighting our old wood-burning stove to provide extra warmth on the coldest nights of winter.

  As the fire strengthened, Rory went to the truck for the rest of his purchases and I turned to stowing the supplies. Aside from the things kept in coolers outside the cabin, food items were stored in a metal cabinet with a strong latch, to keep out the critters. Rory was careful to see that no food was left out, no crumbs scattered around. “One or two little guests will get in no matter what we do,” he acknowledged, “but if they find something to eat, they invite all their friends and family to join them.”

  In late spring, Rory and I had installed a new window to replace the one broken in a struggle with men who’d meant to kill us. Rory and Lars had done more work recently, so I was treated to a tour of the renovations. New to me was a quaint apparatus in the corner next to the fireplace, framed with two by fours. On an overhead shelf sat a large, collapsible plastic bag with a hose and shower head attached. Rory explained we could heat water, transfer it to the bag, and enjoy warm showers. Peering through a plastic curtain hung across the space, I saw a drain in the floor.

  “Primitive, but it works.”

  “Well done, Ranger Neuencamp. I can’t wait to try it.”

  “Lars helped with the base, which weighs a ton. And he rigged the curtain for privacy.”

  Once we’d stored the provisions, we went for a walk along the river, which wasn’t much of a river at this point. Still, the stream made a happy little sound as it hurried along its way. On the shady side, ice had begun to build at the turns, so thin it was merely a glaze hanging above the water.

  We let the quiet settle on our heads like a comforting blanket. Rory claimed his blood pressure dropped twenty points each time he came here, and I believed him.

  There was no path along the stream, and after a half mile or so, the way got difficult. We had to step over twisted branches and skirt swampy spots, and our hiking boots made sucking sounds as the half-frozen, half viscous muck worked to pull them off our feet. Finally, thick undergrowth forced us to turn around and head back the way we’d come. “It’s time to make linner anyway,” Rory said. “We’ve got just enough time to dine before we have to get back to town and meet Lars at the airport.”

  As Rory prepared our meal in a skillet over the fire, we turned to talk of the day’s events. Gail Sherman’s autopsy wasn’t complete, but preliminary reports indicated her head wound contained wood splinters. “The doc says she might have hit the one of the pilings on Clara’s dock.”

  “Which means—?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe she was in a hurry and caught the heel of her shoe, which was too high for walking around on a dock safely. She fell, striking her head as she stumbled into the water.”

  “And if she didn’t stumble?”

  He knew where I was going. “Then someone pushed her.”

  “Is it similar to what happened to Caleb Marsh?”

  He nodded. “Both deaths are conceivably accidents, but my guess is they’re a little too convenient for you.”

  “Don’t you agree?”

  “I do. It’s just that it’s going to be hard to prove.” He turned the meat with a fork the length of a yardstick. “If Marsh was murdered, Gail is your number one suspect.”

  “She wanted his property. She went right to the heirs and offered to buy it.”

  Using his shirt-tail as a pot-holder, Rory removed the skillet from the fire. “Well, she’s dead now. If Marsh was pushed, Gail probably did the pushing.”

  “I don’t know about that.” I readied the plates, one in each hand, and Rory speared the meat onto them then took up a can of beans he’d set at the side of the fire to warm. He poured a serving onto each plate, and we retreated to the table to eat our meal. “I met Gail Sherman, and while I would never say who could or could not be a murde
rer, I doubt she cold-bloodedly pushed an old man she’d known all her life to his death. She struck me as the kind of person who might advocate bombing unknown people in a foreign country with some vague idea that they’re her enemies. That doesn’t mean she could look someone in the eye and murder him.”

  “Just about anyone can kill in a fit of anger,” Rory argued. “If the old guy refused her offer once too often, or if he ordered her off his land, she might have lost it.”

  “True. But the fact that Gail is now dead, also pushed, indicates there’s another person involved, someone who stayed out of the spotlight while Gail did her part.”

  “Buying the properties.”

  “Right.”

  “But she hadn’t finished.”

  “No.” I took a drink of the icy water Rory had provided from the hand pump. “What if Gail didn’t know there’d be murder and arson involved? What if she thought they were going to quietly buy up the land over the next year or two by negotiating with Marsh and the Warners?”

  “You think she was greedy but not necessarily homicidal.”

  “Right. I can see her justifying what she did to Clara, telling herself it was necessary.” Taking a bite of perfectly done meat, I chewed before going on. “Gail might have believed the fire was an accident, but when the old man died so conveniently, she’d have to have been suspicious. She calls her partner and says, ‘We need to talk.’ He arranges to meet her at Clara’s house and kills her when she refuses to be part of the scheme anymore.”

  Rory sighed. “You make a good case, but again, the only provable case is against Gail, who’s dead.”

  “Once we find out who the partner is, we can set about proving it.”

  We’d finished our meal, and I cleaned up while Rory banked the fire. Since he hadn’t volunteered the information, I brought up the anonymous calls and emails. A shadow crossed his eyes, and I saw that what had been a joke was now something else. “She’s accused me of sexual harassment.”