Plymouth Undercover

by Pamela M. Kelley

  “That must have been hard,” Emma sympathized.

  “It was. But Nancy was a godsend. I think he resented that she was always here, always helping if I needed someone to watch the kids last minute. Stuff like that. We were super tight and I think maybe he felt like I replaced him with Nancy. That I didn’t need him.”

  “I’m guessing he didn’t want the divorce?” Emma asked.

  “No. I think he thought if it wasn’t for Nancy, maybe we would have gotten back together. He said that once. But that’s crazy. Nancy was just a great friend, always there for me. She made it easier to get through the divorce, both professionally as my lawyer and personally as a friend.

  He didn’t have that kind of support. So it’s all been harder for him and I think he resents me for that and I know he resented Nancy. But still, I don’t see him as someone that would ever go so far as to murder someone.”

  “Can you think of anyone else that might have had a motive?”

  “No. I can’t think of anyone. So, I guess I understand why they are at least considering Peter, if there are no other valid suspects. I hope they come up with one soon, though. I think this is taking a toll on him.”

  Sheila sounded convinced that Peter had nothing to do with Nancy’s murder. But now, after listening to how much he’d resented Nancy’s relationship with Sheila, Emma had to wonder. She’d share all of this with Mickey and her mother as they both met with Peter. As far as motives went, it was the strongest one she’d heard so far.

  She and Sheila stayed and chatted over a second drink, and then Sheila had to get home.

  “Peter had the kids tonight, but he’s bringing them by in the morning and I can’t risk a hangover.”

  “Two is usually my limit, too. I’m ready to call it a night.”

  They said their goodbyes to everyone and walked back to the office and their cars. Emma noticed that Sheila drove quite a nice car, a silver Mercedes. It looked like an older model though.

  “Oh, I have a doctor’s appointment in the morning on Monday, so I’ll probably be in around ten or ten thirty. I’ll see you then. Oh, and I have a pile of stuff for you to shred. It’s right on my desk if you want to start on that. Just use the shredder in my office,” Sheila said.

  “Sounds good. Have a good night.” Emma smiled to herself as she unlocked her car and slid into the seat. Hopefully Monday morning while Sheila was out, she’d have a chance to snoop a little in her office.

  Emma had a relaxing weekend. She hit the gym on Saturday and ran into Tess and they decided to get together on Sunday for a cookout on Emma’s deck. Emma picked up a box of Bubba burgers and a package of hot dogs and Tess brought over chips, potato salad and a bottle of Pinot Grigio.

  Oscar hung out with them at a distance and went scurrying off when Hayley got excited and ran over to pet him.

  “I didn’t realize you got a cat. Hayley loves animals. I think her excitement scares them a little though,” Tess said.

  “He’s a stray that kept coming around and then stayed. He’s very sweet, but maybe a little skittish around children, it seems.”

  Tess poured them each a glass of wine, while Emma put the burgers and dogs on the grill. Once everything was ready, they ate on the deck and caught up with each other.

  “How’s Brady? Has he been around much?” Tess asked.

  “He travels a lot, but we went for a bite last Friday, to Fisherman’s View in Sandwich. It was really good. Have you been there?”

  Tess nodded. “It’s great. One of my favorite places. Was that a date?”

  Emma laughed. “It was so not a date. Not at all. Just two neighbors sharing a meal. I think Brady could be a good friend. It’s nice having someone I know nearby.”

  “I’m pretty sure he’s single. Just saying.”

  “He is. We talked about that. I think we’re good the way things are. My brother doesn’t approve of him, anyway. Not that I agree with that.”

  “He doesn’t? Why not?”

  “I’m not really sure, but he said it’s something to do with the last girl he dated seriously, Caroline, someone. She was a friend of my brother’s and he didn’t like the way Brady ended things. But I told Matt that we only know Caroline’s side of the story.”

  “That’s true. I vaguely remember hearing about that. It was a while ago. I don’t remember the details. It will come to me though. Caroline goes to the gym too and is friendly with one of the other trainers, so we talked about it back then.”

  “So, what about you? Are you dating anyone?” Emma asked.

  Tess’s face lit up. “Actually, I am. We’ve gone out twice now. I met Brian at the gym—shocker, right? He’s also divorced and has a boy about Hayley’s age. So we have a lot in common. I think we both want to take it slow though.”

  “That’s great, and smart.”

  “Yeah, everyone seems great at first. You need to really get to know someone to see the real person. But, so far, I like what I’ve seen.”

  Emma told her about drinks Friday night with the law firm and about Justin’s new yacht.

  Tess laughed. “I’m so not surprised that he has a yacht. Or that he invited you onto it. Like I’ve said before, that is one man that really shouldn’t be married. He’s such a flirt.”

  “He is. It sounds like his firm is being investigated now too, for some kind of Ponzi scheme. Please keep that to yourself though.” It occurred to Emma after she said it that maybe that wasn’t for public knowledge yet.

  “No kidding? Well, that’s actually not that surprising. I mean, I know lawyers do well, but multi-million dollar yachts? And a collection of expensive luxury cars? That seems over-the-top for a Plymouth lawyer.”

  “He’s definitely larger-than-life,” Emma agreed.

  “How long are you temping there?”

  “I just went back for a few days last week and am finishing up on Monday.”

  “Well, I hope you find something you can use.”

  “Me too.”

  The office was quiet Monday morning when Emma arrived at a quarter to eight. The office didn’t officially open until nine for clients, but she knew a few people always came in early and she wanted to be one of them. The front reception desk area was empty and dark. Alyssa hadn’t arrived yet, but Emma knew she’d be in shortly.

  She went to her desk, which was just outside of Sheila’s office and then strolled into the kitchen and made herself a coffee. There were a few attorneys in and they all had their doors closed. No other support staff had yet arrived. Emma took her coffee back to her desk and picked up her cell phone. Her plan was to quickly try to find the Sinclair folder and snap some pics of the documents to look at later.

  The stack of manilla folders with papers to be shredded was right where Sheila said it would be. Emma stepped out of her office, took a look around to make sure no one was coming her way, then took a deep breath and opened Sheila’s file cabinet. It was neatly organized and alphabetized, and she quickly found the S section. But the Sinclair folder wasn’t there. She realized she was probably too late and Sheila had already removed the folder. That was disappointing. She slipped her phone into her pocket, opened the first folder and glanced at the papers quickly before feeding them ten at a time through the shredder.

  When she was half-way through the stack of folders, something caught her eye and she looked more closely. She recognized the name—Andrew Sinclair! That’s why the folder wasn’t in Sheila’s cabinet. Emma was supposed to shred it.

  She thought about what to do. Since the papers were going to be shredded anyway, maybe she could just tuck the Sinclair ones in her purse. But that didn’t feel right. And what if Sheila decided to look through the shredder material for some reason and didn’t see the Sinclair documents?

  So, she fished out her phone and peeked her head out of the office first to make sure no one was around. The coast was clear, so she quickly snapped pictures of all eight pages. She wasn’t sure exactly what they were. She didn’t have time to closely r
eview them until later. So as soon as she was done taking the pictures, she slipped her phone back in her pocket and finished shredding.

  As she went through the rest, she noticed quite a few of them had the same wording as the Sinclair documents—structured settlements. She snapped a few more pictures here and there, mostly the first and last pages that had signatures on them, which would indicate which attorneys worked on the cases. She finished about a half hour before Sheila was due to be in. She’d just sat back at her desk and before diving into the day’s typing was going to look through some of her images on her phone. But just as Emma reached for her phone, she heard someone coming down the hall and looked up.

  Sheila smiled. “I finished up sooner than expected. How’d the shredding go?”

  “It’s done. I was just about to dive into some typing.”

  “Great, thanks so much.”

  Emma didn’t have a chance to look at her phone until lunchtime. She left the office and walked over to Chipotle, ordered some loaded tofu tacos and sat on a stool facing a window. She took one bite of her taco, then pulled open her phone and started closely reviewing the documents she’d copied.

  Like the Sinclair documents, they were all structured settlements and all of them had three signatures on them—Justin, Sheila and Nancy. Emma wasn’t sure what that meant, but it looked to her as though Nancy may have been involved in Justin’s schemes. And maybe it was that involvement that got her killed?

  Chapter 18

  When Emma got into the office Tuesday morning, she sent the pictures from her phone to her computer and printed out the documents. She’d called her mother on the way home from the law office the night before and filled her in. They agreed to discuss with Mickey in the morning and figure out next steps.

  Emma studied the documents once they were printed out. She didn’t understand the intricacies of the investment vehicle, but she did find it interesting that Justin, Sheila and Nancy’s names and signatures were on all the documents. Maybe there was nothing wrong with what they were doing. Or maybe some of them didn’t realize it at first.

  The big question was what to do next. Technically, Emma shouldn’t even have access to this information. And they still were looking at other suspects, Owen and Peter.

  Mickey and Emma’s mother arrived at the same time. Once they had their coffee, everyone gathered around the coffee table where Emma had the documents spread out for review. She filled them in on what they were looking at.

  “So, I don’t know what it all means, if anything. But Justin, Sheila, and Nancy’s names are on those documents. They signed off on whatever these investment schemes are.”

  “Have the FBI determined that something shady is going on?” Mickey asked.

  Emma’s mother shook her head. “Rich said they have an investigation in process, no findings yet.”

  “Well, you won’t like my suggestion, but I think the best thing for us to do with this information is to just turn it over to Rich and let him follow up with the FBI. If they are already investigating—they might have it. Unless they haven’t turned it over to them yet. Given that Sheila had Emma shredding relevant documents, it makes you wonder.”

  “I’ll text him now,” Emma’s mother said.

  “Well, what can we do then?” Emma asked.

  “I was thinking about that. We haven’t talked to Owen’s neighbors yet. Maybe they noticed something. If we can rule him in or out, that will help narrow things some.”

  “And Peter? Should we talk to his neighbors too?” Emma asked.

  Mickey nodded. “Might as well. Now that this has all been in the paper. I like to hold off on involving neighbors until there’s more to go on. Don’t want to be creating suspicion unnecessarily.”

  “That makes sense. I wondered why we didn’t do this before,” Emma said.

  They all turned at the sound of a knock on the door. Emma’s mother jumped up and smiled when she saw who it was through the frosted glass window. She opened the door and Rich Gregory stepped in.

  “That was fast. I only texted you a few minutes ago.”

  “I was getting a coffee at Kiskadee when I saw your text and drove right over.”

  “Come on in and have a seat. We were just going over everything. I’ll let my daughter, Emma, tell you what she discovered.”

  Rich took a seat on the sofa next to Emma’s mother.

  “So, I sort of went undercover at the law firm where Nancy worked,” Emma began.

  Rich raised his eyebrows. “Undercover?”

  Emma smiled nervously. “I worked a temp job there, helping the office manager with secretarial projects. While I was shredding a pile of files yesterday, I noticed that one of them was Andrew Sinclair’s.”

  “Belinda Russell told me about the FBI investigation. I shared that with Emma and Mickey, so Emma recognized the name when she saw it.”

  “Okay. What did you do with it?” Rich asked.

  “Well, I debated taking the file. I mean, they were going to shred it, anyway. But then I got nervous and just snapped pictures of it instead.” She picked up the pages that she’d paper clipped together and handed them to Rich. “Here you go. I snapped some pics of a few other documents too that looked similar in scope—about the same structured settlements investments.”

  Rich glanced at the papers and flipped to the last page that had the signatures. “Can I take this?”

  “Of course. I wasn’t sure if it could be useful to you or not—considering how it was obtained.”

  Rich chuckled. “Right. I can’t use it directly—not yet. But I can give my contact at the FBI a heads up to look more closely in this direction. If they don’t have the same paper files, they can demand electronic ones.”

  “Thank you. We weren’t sure if there was much we could do with it, so Mickey suggested sharing it with you. Take the others as well.” Emma scooped up all the documents and handed them to Rich.

  “We were going to have a chat with Owen Sturgess’s neighbors today if we can, and also with Peter’s. Unless you’ve already done that and learned anything worthwhile?” Mickey asked.

  “Our guys talked to Peter’s neighbors yesterday, and he’s officially no longer a suspect. One of them saw him during the window of time he would have been killing Nancy. I’m not surprised. I never saw him as the killer,” Rich said.

  Mickey nodded. “Okay, we’ll just follow up with Owen’s neighbors then. You haven’t talked to them?”

  “We talked to one of them, but didn’t get anywhere. They said they couldn’t remember anything.”

  “All right. We’ll see what we come up with then. Maybe their memories will be better today.”

  Rich stood. “Good luck. Please keep me posted if you do learn anything.” He turned to Emma’s mother. “I have to head out. Are we still on for dinner on Thursday?”

  “Yes, that still works for me,” her mother said.

  Rich broke into a smile that lit up his whole face. “Great. I’ll talk to you in a few days then.”

  Emma’s mother walked Rich to the door and when she returned to the sofa she was wearing a goofy, silly smile. Her mother was totally smitten. It was cute to see.

  Mickey meanwhile had looked up the neighbors on either side of Owen and called them both. One didn’t pick up, so he left a message. The other, an older woman named Agatha Riddle, answered on the first ring and told them to stop by anytime.

  “All right. Are you ready to head out, Emma?”

  “I’m ready!”

  “Good luck, you two. I’m off to teach a yoga class, but I’ll be online later and checking messages. Keep me posted.”

  It was a beautiful day with no wind at all, so Mickey insisted on driving. Emma pulled her hair into a ponytail and hopped into the passenger side of Mickey’s convertible. Fifteen minutes later, they turned left onto Emerson Road in the Priscilla Beach neighborhood. They followed the road until it ended on Priscilla Beach Road which faced the ocean. Owen’s house was immediately to the righ
t, and they drove past it and parked in the driveway of his neighbor, Agatha Riddle.

  She heard them drive up and was standing in the doorway holding it open for them to come in.

  Once the polite introductions were made, Agatha led them into her sitting room, which faced the ocean, and on the side, looked out over Owen’s house.

  “Call me Aggie. Would either of you like a nice hot cup of tea?”

  “No, thank you,” Emma said automatically.

  But Mickey nodded. “Only if you’re having a cup. I don’t want to be any trouble.”

  Aggie smiled. “Oh, no trouble at all. I made a big pot of hot water. Are you sure you don’t want a cup, young lady?”

  “All right, I’ll join you. Thank you. Can I help?”

  “Why don’t you come with me, dear. You can help me carry it all.”

  Emma followed the older woman into her kitchen, which was quite modern and spotless. Sure enough, an electric tea kettle was full of steaming hot water, which Aggie poured into three delicate china teacups. She added the tea bags and put all the cups and saucers on a tray along with a jar of sugar packets and a tiny pitcher of milk. She handed Emma a big plate of chocolate chip cookies.

  “I just baked those yesterday. They’re still quite good, if I do say so myself.”

  Emma carried the cookies out to where Mickey was sitting and put them on the table in front of him. His eyes lit up when he saw them. Aggie followed with her tray and set everything on the table. Once they were all settled with cups of tea and a cookie in hand, Aggie smiled and invited them to ask their questions.

  “I don’t miss much in this neighborhood. This is my usual spot and sitting here I can see everything down on the beach as well as what my neighbors are up to. Usually it’s not very interesting, but you never do know.”

  Emma took a bite of her cookie. “Oh, these are delicious.”

  Aggie beamed. “Thank you, dear. I’d say it was a secret recipe, but I’d be lying. I just use the one on the chocolate chip bag—Toll House cookies. It’s the best.”