Lost Identity

by Leona Karr

  “Curtis, please.” His angry words were like stinging pellets.

  “And why did you run away from the party like that? You were among friends. All those people came to wish you well. Dammit, somebody has to look after you.”

  “You’re absolutely right,” Andrew agreed as he came through the hall doorway.

  Curtis swung around like an angry bull seeing red. “And what in the hell are you doing here? I should think you’d be ashamed to show your face after what’s happened.”

  “Curtis, stop it!” Trish ordered angrily. “Andrew is here because I asked him to help me go through my computer files so I can understand what is going on in the company.”

  Curtis looked absolutely dumbfounded. “Why would you ask a questionable stranger to do that instead of me?”

  “I think the answer is obvious,” Andrew answered for Trish. “Someone outside the company might be in a better position to evaluate any pertinent information impersonally.”

  “What kind of information?” Curtis snapped.

  “I guess we won’t know until we find it.”

  “And what do you plan to do with this so-called pertinent information?” Curtis asked as his jaw tightened.

  Trish answered, “Turn it over to the police, of course.”

  At that moment, the doorbell rang again, and as if entering on cue, they heard O’Donnel’s voice as Sasha let him in.

  Andrew moved quickly over to Trish’s side. He slipped his hand in hers and could feel a cold prickling on her skin as the detective walked in.

  O’Donnel’s hazel eyes swept the room, and his broad face hinted at unexpected satisfaction. “Well, isn’t this nice? The hospital told me you’d been released, Ms. Radcliffe, but I hadn’t expected to be lucky enough to find two gentlemen keeping you company. I hope you don’t mind but I’ve invited Mrs. Darlene Reynolds, and her stepson, Gary, to join us for a friendly little chat.”

  There was nothing friendly in his direct manner, and his attempt at polite amenities only made his unspoken intent more threatening.

  “Well, then, why don’t we all sit down and make ourselves comfortable,” Trish said in a strained voice that didn’t even sound like her own. She didn’t know what was coming, but one thing was certain, she could feel the quagmire of suspicion thickening all around her.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Trish felt like a specimen mounted on a skewer as everyone sat in her living room and stared at her. Curtis’s expression was glowering, Darlene’s disdainful, Gary’s disgusted, and O’Donnel’s accusing. Only Andrew’s tender look was one of support and reassurance.

  “What is this all about, Lieutenant?” Curtis demanded in his usual take-charge manner. “This is a real imposition on Patricia to have everyone in her home like this.” His tone indicated that everyone should clear out except himself.

  “Well, now, we could have this little chat down at the station instead if everyone would rather do that,” O’Donnel replied curtly.

  “No,” Darlene said forcefully. “Why don’t you shut up, Curtis. I’m fed up with you trying to run things. Go ahead, Lieutenant, I’d like to see them all squirm.”

  Gary gave a short laugh. “Careful, Mama dearest, I have a feeling there’s enough garbage to go around.”

  “You’re a great one to talk. Dealing and wheeling with every bookie in town. No wonder Perry cut you off. He should have done it years ago.”

  “You were the one who was getting the boot—”

  Curtis broke in. “Can’t you two keep your mouths shut for two minutes?”

  Their angry voices vibrated like a raucous cacophony in Trish’s head. It was all she could do not to put her hands over her ears and shout as loudly as the rest of them. O’Donnel had settled back in his chair, willingly letting all of them go at each other.

  “Can’t we get on with it, Lieutenant?” Andrew broke into the verbal fray, and sent a look around the room that finally silenced everyone.

  “Yes, Lieutenant,” Curtis said as if he were chairman of the board, giving the officer permission to address the group. “I’m sure everyone is a little on edge, anxious to know what’s on your mind.”

  O’Donnel shoved his glasses back on his broad nose and glanced at a small notebook in his hand. “Well, now, I have a couple of things here that might interest you folks. We found the marina where Perry Reynolds just bought his new white cruiser a day before the storm.” He peered at Darlene. “I guess he didn’t tell you he’d been to Anchor Marina in New Jersey to buy a boat.”

  “Perry never told me anything,” she retorted with an indignant fling of her blond hair. “All he cared about was business and holding on to his money.”

  “That’s for sure,” Gary grumbled, for once agreeing with his stepmother.

  “Speaking of money,” O’Donnel said as if the thought had just occurred to him. “It seems that the people we’ve had looking into the books at Atlantis Enterprises have come up with some interesting inconsistencies.”

  Andrew stiffened. He’d only spent a few minutes pulling up accounting sheets, but even a quick look at them had raised some questions. He saw Trish’s face blanch to a chalky white as if somewhere in the dark labyrinth of her mind, the detective’s words touched a memory. He reached over and took her hand, but she didn’t respond to his squeeze.

  “Inconsistencies?” Curtis echoed, but there was more of an edge of irritation than surprise in his voice.

  “I don’t see what that has to do with me,” Darlene snapped. “I’ve never had anything to do with the business.”

  “Except spend the money that Dad made off of it,” Gary countered. “And your endless demands for more.”

  “You’re one to talk, Gary, you pitiful leech.”

  Trish leaned forward in her chair. “Would you two stop it!” Glaring at her, the two of them fell into a belligerent silence.

  Trish took several quick breaths to still the racing of her heart as distorted images lying just beyond recall threatened to bubble to the surface of her mind.

  O’Donnel kept his eyes on her. “Is there something you wanted to say, Ms. Radcliffe?”

  She stared back at him for a long moment, and then shook her head. “No, please go on.”

  “Were you aware, Ms. Radcliffe, that there had been some skimming of investor funds? Close to a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in the last year alone.”

  She didn’t know how to answer, but Curtis saved her the trouble.

  “You knew, Patricia,” Curtis said sharply, “I told you a month ago weeks ago that I suspected Perry was milking some of our big accounts, but you wouldn’t listen.”

  “That’s because she was in on it!” Darlene snapped. “The two of them were going to take off and leave me penniless.”

  O’Donnel frowned. “And what did Ms. Radcliffe say when you told her your suspicions, Curtis?”

  “She became angry and said that she didn’t believe it. I insisted and she said she’d look into it.” He glanced at Trish. “She had just broken our engagement and I decided to let the matter drop. After all, Perry was her partner and she was the one with the most to lose if the company went under.”

  The one with the most to lose. The words vibrated in Trish’s head like a deadly knell.

  From the ashen look on her face Andrew knew what she was thinking. Now the police had a motive for the killing, and Trish’s purse on the boat had established the opportunity. All that remained was for the law to come up with a gun to prove the means.

  “Have you any idea where the money might be, Lieutenant?” Andrew asked, trying to give Trish a chance to recover from this latest blow. “You know the old saying—follow the money to find the culprit.”

  O’Donnel nodded. “We’re looking into pseudobank accounts, but, of course, the guilty one might have stashed the ill-gotten gains away in a dozen different ways.”

  “But if Perry had that much money hidden somewhere, no telling who might have gone after it,” Andrew insisted.

/>   “I know what you’re doing!” Gary said angrily, his fist clenched as if ready to physically fly into Andrew. “Just because I’m the one on the ropes with debts doesn’t mean I wanted my old man dead.”

  “Of course you did, Gary,” snapped Darlene. “You couldn’t wait for him to be declared dead so you could get the insurance. And once you have it, you’ll gamble it away as fast as you can.”

  “You’re a great one to talk. Bill collectors all over the place—”

  Trish got abruptly to her feet. “I’ve had enough of this, Lieutenant. I don’t know whether Curtis told me anything about his suspicions. Whether you want to believe it or not, I don’t remember any of this. When I do, believe me, you’ll be the first to know!” She turned and walked out of the room. O’Donnel watched her go with a resigned expression on his round face.

  Obviously things hadn’t gone as well as the detective had hoped, thought Andrew. He wasn’t surprised when O’Donnel stood up and gave a curt nod to everyone as he let himself out of the apartment.

  Andrew had had enough of all of them, and he knew that if Curtis had said one more thing to him, he would have landed a punch on his supercilious jaw. Thinking that Trish had probably fled to her bedroom, he was surprised when he looked in the open door and saw that the room was empty. The door to the library was open but she wasn’t there, either.

  “She’s in the sitting room,” Sasha told him in the quiet voice of a conspirator when he passed her in the hall. “Is everybody gone?” the housekeeper asked anxiously in a manner that told Andrew she’d been listening to the whole fracas. He nodded, and she turned around and headed back to the kitchen.

  Trish was standing in front of a window, darkened by drizzly shadows of the impending rainstorm. She looked so vulnerable, so alone that his heart caught with a tenderness that nearly overwhelmed him. She didn’t turn around when he joined her at the window, and something about her remoteness kept him from putting his arm around her.

  They simply stood there in silence for several minutes. Then she said in a dry voice, “That was fun, wasn’t it?”

  Her attempt at levity surprised him, but he answered in the same light tone, “A three-ring circus.”

  “Send in the clowns. There ought to be clowns,” she recited in a soft whisper. Then her voice choked. “Don’t bother, they’re here.”

  Turning away from the window, she sat down stiffly on the couch, and stared at the floor.

  As he eased down beside her, he asked quietly, “You okay?”

  “I feel as if I’m dangerously close to falling off an edge that I can’t even see.”

  He put his arm around her then. “I won’t let you fall off.”

  She sighed and leaned back in the curve of his arm. A deep emotional fatigue overtook her. She was too tired to think. Too emotionally drained to feel anything. She jumped when the telephone sitting on a nearby table gave a jangled ring.

  “You want me to get it?” Andrew asked.

  She shook her head. A moment later, Sasha came to the door of the sitting room, and apologized for interrupting.

  “It’s Ms. Janelle,” the housekeeper said. “She’d like to speak with you, Ms. Patricia.”

  Trish nodded, and took the small phone that Andrew handed her. “Yes, Janelle.”

  “Are you all right?” she asked anxiously. “Curtis just called the office. He’s fit to be tied. He told me that O’Donnel put all of you through the third degree. I’m so sorry, Trish. Do you need me to come and be with you?”

  “No, Andrew’s here.”

  “Oh, will he be staying? I mean, I can come back over and stay the night if you’re going to be alone.”

  Trish hesitated. All the anger she’d felt toward Andrew for not telling her about the suicide note had dissipated, and now she was embarrassed about the accusations she had thrown at him. The only time she felt her life was in any kind of balance was when she was with him. Suddenly the warm memory of their night together overshadowed everything else.

  “I won’t be alone.” Her voice was almost a purr.

  “No wonder Curtis was snarling. He said you had Andrew there looking at the computer files.” Then she paused. “I want you to know that I’m not so sure Curtis’s hands are clean. There have been times when I wondered if he wasn’t too willing to service some of our big accounts. I mean, nobody looks for extra work unless there’s a payoff.”

  Trish stiffened. “Curtis insisted that he told me that he suspected Perry of skimming off some of the accounts.”

  “The best defense is an offense, haven’t you heard that? Well, anyway, don’t rely on what Curtis says about anything. It’s obvious he’s being eaten up by a green monster at the moment. I’m glad you’ve got Andrew to be your protective knight.”

  “So am I. I think we’re going back to the cottage for the night,” she said impulsively.

  Janelle chuckled, “Why am I not surprised?”

  After Trish hung up the phone, she turned to Andrew. “Curtis called the office an told Janelle what O’Donnel had to say about the accounts. She’s thinking that it might not be Perry whose been doing the skimming, but Curtis.”

  “That wouldn’t surprise me,” Andrew said, knowing full well that he was far from being unbiased in his opinion.

  “I’m sorry I blew my lid this morning,” Trish apologized. “You did what you thought best. Will you forgive me?”

  “Always, and forever. What do you say we head for the cottage before the weather gets any worse?” An ocean breeze blowing through open doors and windows had cleared the house from any gas odor.

  “All right. Do you know where this Anchor Marina is?”

  “It’s on the coast, a few miles after you cross the state line into New Jersey. Why? Does the name seem familiar?”

  “No, but I’d like to stop there on our way to the cottage. If I was on Perry’s new boat, we must have left from that marina. Maybe I’ll remember something if I see it again.”

  THE DRIZZLING RAIN HAD thickened as they left the city. Dark clouds scudded across an overcast sky, and the car radio warned of an approaching storm whipping up the coast from Florida.

  “Maybe we should put off going to the marina until tomorrow,” Andrew suggested, glancing at her intense expression. Obviously, she was forcing herself to take this step even as she instinctively recoiled from it. He respected her strength of will, but he was worried that she might fall apart on him under the tremendous strain.

  “No, let’s do it today.”

  Leaving the turnpike, they drove a few miles on a side road to Anchor Marina, which was located on a small inlet with easy Atlantic access. Boats of all sizes filled the docks, and as Andrew pulled into the parking lot, Trish searched for some flickering of recognition that she’d been here before.

  She studied the line of buildings edging the wharf. O’Donnel said that the white cruiser was new. Had she come here with Perry to see his new boat? Why would they have gone out in weather like this?

  Andrew watched a deep frown settle on her forehead. Her hands were clasped so tightly that her fingernails must be biting into her flesh. He waited until she shook her head and gave him a hopeless look. “I don’t remember ever being here.”

  “Okay, maybe we should find someone who can answer some questions.”

  “You can bet the police have already done that.”

  “Undoubtedly, but something may make more sense to you than anyone else.”

  “All right,” she agreed, but her tone was less than hopeful as they got out of the car and headed toward a boathouse located at the entrance to the marina. The entered the small building that smelled of wet hemp and fishing gear.

  A short little man with weathered skin, sandy hair and a cocky tilt to his baseball cap nodded his head in answer to Andrew’s question.

  “Yep, I was working that day. I told the police everything I know—which is nothing.” He squinted at them. “It ain’t my job to try and keep some fool from taking his boat out when
there’s a storm warning posted.”

  Trish tried to keep her voice even. “Do you remember ever seeing me before?”

  “Nope. Just like I told the cops when they showed me your picture. I don’t keep track of the comings and goings of anybody. Sure, I recognized Mr. Reynolds’s picture, but I didn’t pay no attention to him that day. Beats me if he was alone when the boat went out.”

  “And you didn’t report the cruiser missing when it didn’t come back?” Andrew asked.

  “Hell’s bells, how’d I know he didn’t decide to put in somewhere else, or take a run down the coast? Ain’t my business to keep track of these would-be Sunday sailors.”

  Trish turned away without saying anything more, and walked over to the large window overlooking the marina. Storm clouds hung low and a mist floated over the water, creating a water-colored scene of rocking tethered boats. Winds whipped rain against the windowpane and made a high-pitched sound in the rafters. Vague images flashed in her mind’s eye but were gone too quickly for her to grasp them. She just might be imagining them, and she shivered as a sudden chill went bone deep.

  Andrew saw her trembling, and moved quickly to her side. Had she remembered something? His sudden hope was short-lived.

  She turned to him with glazed eyes. “I sense that there’s something bubbling close to the surface, but I can’t draw it out. Maybe it’s just wishful thinking. If I’ve been here before, I don’t remember it.”

  “That’s all right, sweetheart,” he assured her, smiling to hide his own disappointment. “It was worth a try. Come on, we’d better get out of here before the storm hits.”

  As they hurried back to the car, a sudden spear of lightning cut across the sky, followed by vibrating thunder. Andrew kept the windshield wipers going madly as they drove along the beach road. The ocean was a churning mass of angry waves slashing the coastline with a pounding roar.

  Andrew kept glancing at Trish. She sat stiffly in her seat, her color a pasty white and the muscles in her face rigid with tension.