by Aysia Amery
“It’s NOT me!” She was getting quite distraught now. “It was Lance!”
My lower jaw dropped an inch. Could this get any more surprising? This whole case was starting to go back and forth like a ping-pong ball.
I glanced at Pako. As always, he had his poker face on. Nothing ever seemed to surprise him.
“How do you know it’s Lance?” I asked.
“I caught the discrepancy about a year ago. I almost missed it because he was writing up purchase orders that correlated to the invoices. He wrote them up under Tony’s name though, not his own. When something didn’t look right about one of them, I asked Tony about it. It’s then that we knew somebody was messing with the funds. Tony hired a private detective to track down the source. The PI was good at what he did and traced it back to Lance.
“I was shocked when Tony told me to let it go. I thought he would disown his son. But in the end, for all his faults, he did feel bad about not being a better dad to Lance. He figured this was Lance’s way of getting from him what he couldn’t get in other ways.
“He told me it’s only money and it’s not enough to do any damage to the business. Lance would eventually get the farm anyway. If he confronted Lance about it, it would only drift him further away, might even cause him to leave the farm. Tony didn’t want that to happen.”
Tony had a heart after all.
“We still can’t just take your word for it, Ms. Ryker.”
“What can I do to prove it?” Her eyes pleaded with Pako. At this point, she’d probably agree to a polygraph.
“There’s one way to find out your innocence, Helen.” I looked her straight in the eyes.
“I’ll do it. What?”
“Now, this might only clear you of the embezzling, but not necessarily from any foul play, should that be the case with Tony’s death,” I said.
Helen gasped.
“Oh my god, you think somebody killed Tony?”
“We still don’t know all the specifics, Ms. Ryker, so we’re just checking all the angles.”
“I didn’t kill Tony. I loved him!” Her tongue must have wagged on its own volition because the look on her face conveyed she’d just said a no-no. “I mean...”
“We know about your affair with Mr. Min, ma’am.”
Seems she had no clue that any of the Mins or even Ken knew about it.
Before she could respond to Pako, I said, “We need to have access to your computer and your cell phone.”
She looked over at Pako.
“We only need to see if you’ve logged into a particular website. Or called them,” he assured her.
“What website?”
“It’s a virtual mailbox site,” I answered.
“Oh, the one the PI said that Lance used,” she said.
“That’s the one.” I shot her a closed-lip smile.
“You won’t need to go digging through all my files, will you?”
Did she have something else to hide?
“No, ma’am, we just need to see your bookmarks or if your browser’s auto-filler shows that you’ve accessed the site.”
Granted she accepted cookies to remember her login info. Most people do, so she probably did.
After fifteen minutes or so fiddling around in her computer and cell phone, it turned out Helen was clean. There was no activity to that site that we could find.
So, as far as the embezzling goes, it wasn’t her. It was probably Lance, as she had said.
Now, who carved up the pufferfish?
:: Chapter 16 ::
This time Pako didn’t make an appointment with the Mins; we just showed up. We saw Ken on the way up to the house.
“Hey, lady with the ono mango cake, you brought any more today?” he asked when spotting us walking toward him.
“Sorry, no I didn’t.” My eyes conveyed my apologies along with a sheepish smile. “Ken, this is Detective Anzo. He needs to ask you a few questions.”
Ken eyed him with a furrowed brow. Then his attention came back to me. “Is this about what I told you the last time?”
“Not exactly. There will be different questions this time.”
“Do we need to sit down for this?” This time he wasn’t messing with the manure. He’d been clipping leaves off a bush as tall as he was.
I looked at Pako to answer. “No, we’ll be brief. This shouldn’t take too long,” he said to Ken.
That is if Ken didn’t prove to be the killer. We’d see how he answered the questions.
“Ms. Ryker told us that you picked up the stripebelly pufferfish from her a few days before Tony Min had his attack. Is that correct?”
“Yeah. Lance asked me to pick it up from her.”
“What did you do with it afterward?”
“I gave it to Lance.”
“Do you know what he did with it?”
He shrugged. “Hell if I know.”
“So you don’t know if he put it back into his father’s aquarium tank?”
“Nope. He didn’t tell me what he was gonna do with it, and I didn’t ask ‘em. And I sure as hell didn’t follow him around to find out.”
“Did Helen give you something the day Tony died?” I asked.
His forehead creased as he searched his thoughts. “Oh yeah. She gave me banana bread. Wasn’t as ono as your cake though,” he said with a grin. “She gave one to Lance too.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“When he and Elaine were leaving, I talked to ‘em for a little bit, and he had one in his hand.”
Now this was interesting. Did Lance think his mother bought the banana bread? Or did he know Helen brought it, yet made it seem as though she had carried the pufferfish bits within the gift bag? If the latter was the case, he was definitely trying to frame her.
“Thank you for your cooperation, Mr. Abano.” Pako gave a single nod of his head.
“Yeah, sure, no problem.”
Then Ken’s eyes met mine. “Anytime you wanna come by with your ono desserts, I’ll be here,” he said.
I let out a chuckle. “You bet, Ken.” Guess I had a new fan for my goodies. “Take care,” I told him.
“You too.”
Looks like Ken’s story coincided with Helen’s. Now we needed to hear what Lance had to say.
I had expected the snipping of shears to permeate my ears as soon as we left, but when it didn’t, I turned my head around to gaze back at Ken. He was still staring after us. I resumed my sights forward and continued my pace toward the house.
“I think it’s Lance,” I told Pako.
“It’s sure looking like it at this point,” he replied.
Hmm. Could there be any other twists to this circus of events? Things sure weren’t what they seemed several times over. The pieces were coming together though.
This might be the day we solve this. All will depend on how Lance answers. If he says to us that he gave the pufferfish to Nolan, I was going to spit. What were the chances of that poor fish trading so many hands?
It ain’t over until the fat Menehune sings though, so we shall see.
When we got to the doorstep, Elaine let us in.
“Seems you can’t get enough of us,” she joked.
“We talked to Helen,” I informed her.
“What did she say?” Her tone turned serious.
“Is your son home?” Pako asked, looking past her, scoping the area.
“Yes, but I’m not sure where he is at the moment.” She resembled a mother afraid the doctor was about to tell her that something was wrong with her baby. “Is there something wrong?”
There you go.
“Can you please locate him? It’s important that we talk to him.” Pako was strictly business. Right now, his task wasn’t to comfort Elaine’s worries.
“I’ll call him on his cell phone,” she offered.
“That would be good,” Pako said.
“While I do that, please go ahead and seat yourselves in the dining room.”
When Ela
ine left to make her call, Pako and I did as she requested. We took the same seats we did the last time.
After about two minutes, Elaine joined us. “He says he’ll be right in.”
Well, at least he didn’t skip town, as they say in the movies.
“Is my son in trouble? What did Helen say?”
“We just need to ask him a few more questions to clarify some things.” Pako wasn’t going to let on that Lance might very well be in deep kaka.
Elaine wrung her hands as they rested on the table. When she realized my eyes were focused on her agitation, she quickly pulled them back under the table, out of my view.
I heard the front door open and close. Then footsteps headed our way.
Lance glanced at Pako, then at me. He wore a frown that made it apparent—he wasn’t looking forward to this meeting.
“My mom said you needed to talk to me again,” he said as he took his seat at the head of the table. Guess that was his new place setting now that Tony was gone. However, when Nolan was here, he took that seat. Interesting. Anyway, I wasn’t about to spend any time contemplating that occurrence. That wasn’t important.
“We had our talk with Ms. Ryker, and she said Mr. Abano picked up the pufferfish and returned it to you.” Pako jumped right in with the main question. “We confirmed with Mr. Abano that she is correct. He said he passed the fish on to you.”
“You know what? My mom doesn’t need to be here. I can see she’s distraught. Maybe it’s best you just talk with me alone.”
“I want to listen in on this. If it concerns you, I want to know.” Mom wasn’t leaving.
“Mom, please. I’ll tell you all about it when they leave.”
We might be leaving with you in handcuffs, buddy.
“I’m not leaving, Lance.” Mom stood her ground.
The son sighed. He lost that battle.
“So, what happened to the pufferfish?” Pako asked, to bring the attention back to the murder weapon.
“The fish died before I could put it back into the tank.”
How convenient.
“Why didn’t you tell us that before?”
“I didn’t think you meant that pufferfish. It had died, so I thought there was another one. Helen must’ve schemed this out well. She probably got my dad to give her the pufferfish, then returned it to make one of us look guilty in case this was investigated. That pufferfish was a ruse. She must’ve bought another one, the one that killed my dad.”
This guy’s either a fast thinker or he planned this out knowing exactly what to say.
Wait a minute. Something didn’t jibe here.
“How come you didn’t mention that the stripebelly pufferfish died when we were here the last time? You gave the impression that you didn’t know anything about why that pufferfish disappeared.” That was me. My Sherlock clicked in.
“I–I–I didn’t want my uncle to know that the fish had died.”
Huh? I doubt Nolan would’ve cared that much about the fish. He’d given it to Tony, so why would he be attached to it? Anyway, Lance’s stutter could mean he was starting to sweat.
“So you tried to implicate Ms. Ryker to save your uncle from hurt feelings?” Good one, Pako.
“She killed my dad! I know she did! She’s the only one who had a lot to lose. My dad wasn’t going to divorce my mom, so she got revenge!” I wanted to turn down the volume on his voice.
“What about the gift bag she brought in? Did you ask Helen what was in it? My son could be right about her buying another pufferfish,” Elaine said.
“Ms. Ryker said that she brought banana bread in that bag. She left one on the kitchen counter. The other one she gave to Mr. Abano. She thought your husband had eaten the one left in the kitchen.”
The blood seemed to have drained from Elaine’s face. I knew it must’ve hit her at that moment that her son took the banana bread. She had to have seen him carrying it, like Ken did.
“Ken said that Lance had the other tin of banana bread in his hand when you both left the house.” I looked at Lance this time.
“I didn’t know that Helen brought that. I thought my mom got it. Maybe she had more than just the banana bread in the bag. She still could’ve had the pufferfish in there too.” Lance was just full of the right answers to cover his butt.
Let’s see what he says about the embezzling.
“What did she say about the fraudulent account and the missing funds?” Elaine asked, shuffling in her seat. Was she nervous? She should be. Sonny boy might not be the angel she thought he was.
“She said your husband had hired a private detective and they traced it back to your son.”
As Elaine covered her hand over her mouth, tears pooled her eyes.
“Mom, Helen’s lying. She’s the one embezzling. She had access to the books, and only when Dad died did you catch it. If you didn’t have it audited, she could’ve gotten away with it for who knows how long. She killed Dad. I know she did!” Lance was like a boy about to be caught drowning the cat and pinning it on the neighbor kid.
“We need to have access to your computer and cell phone,” Pako told the son.
“Why?”
“We’ll know if you’re innocent once we see what’s on your devices.”
“Helen’s the guilty one. Go check hers first,” he said.
“Hers were clean,” I chimed in.
Lance looked like a man trapped in a cave with a grizzly bear blocking the exit. “You’re gonna need a warrant. I ain’t letting you access anything without one.”
I was afraid of that. We wouldn’t be able to do anything if he insisted. Pako would have to get that warrant.
“I did it.”
The voice was so soft I almost didn’t hear it. It sounded drained of energy—of someone who’d given up all hope on life.
“What are you saying, Mom?!” Lance faced his mother with a wide-eyed stare. He hadn’t expected that from her.
The tears rolled down Elaine’s cheeks. At that moment, her face looked like it had aged twenty years.
“I DID IT!” she screamed. Her once ashen complexion was now flushed.
“She doesn’t know what she’s saying. You’ve made her confess to something she didn’t do!” Lance stood up so abruptly that his chair toppled behind him. His fingers raked his hair.
Elaine sniffled and wiped her nose with her hand. I reached into my purse, took out a tissue and passed it to her. Those seem to come in handy, not only for my allergy, but when I’m on these interviews with suspects. I’ve passed quite a few tissues out in my time.
“Mom, stop it. Please.” Lance squatted to plead with her face to face. “You’re not thinking straight.”
“I did it.” Her tone was soft, like the first time she’d said those words. Elaine’s hands went up to cover her face—they muffled her sobs.
“Why?!” Lance yelled. “I could’ve wiped all traces of the logins by the time they’d get a warrant. Now you’ve made me have to confess because I can’t have you taking the blame. I couldn’t live with myself if you went to jail because of me.”
Well, at least Lance had a conscience. He would’ve been worse than Tony had he let his mom take the rap.
“Okay, so you got me on embezzlement. But that doesn’t implicate me for murder,” he said to Pako.
“Well, according to your mom, she did it.” Mr. Detective was going to play his card. “We would’ve tracked your account anyway, so the embezzlement wasn’t an issue.”
“She wasn’t confessing to murder. She was covering my butt for the embezzlement. I didn’t kill my dad.”
“I killed him.” Elaine sounded in a trance, as though someone else pulled her strings. I hope something didn’t snap upstairs. The trauma of finding out your child did some pretty bad things could make anybody go a little looney.
Lance let out a cuss word. Yup, that one.
“What are you saying?! Stop talking crazy!” He shook his mother by the shoulders. Her head bobbed as if it were on a sp
ring.
Elaine continued to sob. There must’ve been a puddle on her lap by now.
He swore again. “Okay, I did it. I killed my dad. He was a bastard and I got rid of him.”
The mother sobbed even louder now.
Lance threw his back against the wall and let his body slide until he sat with his knees up against his chest. He bowed his head and held it with his hands like a man with a migraine.
After a moment, his head lifted and he looked at his mom. “Why couldn’t you keep quiet? They didn’t have anything. They had no proof.”
Maybe there wasn’t any proof with the pufferfish, yet, but we had him on embezzlement. Eventually we might’ve found a way to get him on the murder.
“Please don’t take my son. He’s just trying to protect me. He didn’t do it. I did it.”
Looks as though both weren’t giving up on saving the other. Now, I’m pretty sure Lance was guilty on the embezzlement charge, but who really killed Tony?
Good thing Nolan wasn’t here; otherwise, we’d be playing Russian Roulette with all three of them. Seems they had a disposition for taking the blame for the other. A lot of self-sacrificing going on.
Okay, who the heck was telling the truth here?
:: Chapter 17 ::
This whole thing felt like sitting in a whirlpool, swirling around and around. I was dizzy to the brink of it giving me a headache. Neither relented their stance. Either of them could’ve done it. So which one was it?
My bet’s on the son. The wife seemed like a Goody Two-Shoes. I couldn’t see her killing someone, not even in self-defense.
But I have been wrong before, I admit.
As I glanced back and forth between the two prime suspects, thinking we were at an impasse unless somebody rescinded their confession, a thought hit me.
“I need to talk to you for a minute,” I told Pako, tilting my head to motion, ‘out of their ear waves.’
“We’ll be right back,” he told them.
When we left the dining room and were out of earshot, I said, “We need to make them believe that both of them are going to serve time for murder unless they tell the truth, and that there’s no sense this happening to the innocent one. I’m hoping Elaine is innocent. If she is, we have to get her to realize that it would be better for her to be able to visit her son while in prison than to not see him for a very long time. Also, what would that do to Nolan to have both of them incarcerated? She would be a better support to her son if she could visit him once in a while. She can’t do him any good if she’s in prison herself.”