Magnolia Moonlight

by Mary Ellis

  “What is this?” Michael unwrapped his curiously.

  “A bacon, egg, and pancake sandwich, perfect for on-the-go lifestyles.”

  “Is this an ethnic concoction?” He sniffed and took a small bite.

  “I have no idea. Eat or don’t eat, but tell me what you found out.”

  While Beth enjoyed her breakfast, Michael explained in great detail what she already knew. “We already talked about insurance,” she said. “Why would Mrs. Dean want it to look like a suicide if she had a large policy? And the fact she signed her husband’s name to pay bills means nothing.”

  “That’s forgery and potential fraud, which isn’t nothing.”

  “Do you have any idea how many wives sign their husband’s name in this country? We’d have to build a lot more prisons. Don’t call the FBI unless you saw a forged signature on a bank transfer to a Cayman Island account.” Beth tipped up her travel mug for a mouthful of coffee.

  “Roger that, but wire transfers wouldn’t be in a checkbook register. I need access to the church’s hard drive.” Michael pulled out a piece of bacon and ate it separately.

  “All in good time. At least you ingratiated yourself to Mrs. Purdy. That woman doesn’t usually cotton to outsiders.” Beth finished her sandwich and scrambled to her feet.

  “So where to today, partner?” Carefully rewrapping his pancakes, Michael tucked them in his briefcase.

  “That’s what we need to discuss. When I ask the chief for copies of the police report and Pastor Dean’s autopsy, I’d like to be alone.”

  Michael shook his head like a stubborn mule. “No way. Nate told you to train me while he’s gone.”

  “Try to be mature about this, Mikey. I will train you, but just not today.” Beth walked down the steps toward her car.

  Michael shuffled his feet behind her. “Might I know the reason for my exclusion and what I should do in the meantime?”

  Turning to face him, Beth peered into his soft brown eyes. “Do you know that I used to work for the Natchez PD? There were some hard feelings when I left. This will be my first conversation with the boss since my resignation.”

  “Ah. I understand. Sorry if I pushed too far.”

  “No problem. You can’t be expected to read my mind.” Beth opened her trunk to lock up her firearm.

  His face brightened with a smile. “Why don’t we spit on our palms, shake hands, and call it even?”

  She slammed the trunk and stepped back. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Yes, Elizabeth, I’m kidding. I’ll look into Calvary Baptist Church in case any financial dealings made the papers. Then I’ll check the backgrounds of Alice and Paul Dean and this Ralph Buckley. When you’re done at the station, how about if I buy us lunch…or dinner?”

  “After that gourmet meal? You better hope Mom doesn’t find out you stuck it in your briefcase.”

  “If I can sweet-talk Mrs. Purdy, I can handle your mother. Tell her thank you, by the way.”

  “I bet you can. We’ll talk later.” With a wave, Beth drove off and laughed halfway to her destination. Who would have guessed Michael was the type to handle Rita Kirby? He just earned one point on the tally board. But as the one-story brick building loomed into view, Beth forgot about tally boards and eccentric mothers. She thought solely about Christopher McNeil, a man who had wormed his way into her heart and ruined her life.

  She should have made an appointment instead of marching in and demanding to see such an important man. Unfortunately, preplanning had never been her strong suit. Inside the outer lobby, she picked up the wall phone and waited for the dispatcher. “Good morning,” she greeted. “I’m Elizabeth Kirby. May I see Chief McNeil for a few minutes?”

  “Who?” came the standard reply as the woman searched for her pen.

  “Elizabeth Kirby.” She omitted saying she was a former employee so she wouldn’t be frisked or scanned for explosives.

  “Do you have an appointment, Miss Kirby?” The dispatcher asked politely, despite already knowing the answer.

  “No. I just arrived in town, but this shouldn’t take long.” Beth drew a breath and held it.

  “Let me check if Chief McNeil is in the building.” It was the standard reply so that undesirables could be avoided.

  While Beth waited, the heavy steel door swung open and the shift sergeant appeared in the doorway. The man wasn’t one of her loyal fans. “You carrying a firearm, Miss Kirby?”

  “I certainly am not.”

  “Wait here,” he barked, and the door swung shut.

  During the several-minute interim, Beth pictured Chris as balding, fifty pounds heavier, and twenty years older. When the sergeant reappeared, she was led down the hallowed hallway into an office that once held great significance for her. When she stepped across the threshold, her heart seized in her chest.

  “Buzz if you need backup, Chief,” said the sergeant, closing the door behind her.

  Chris hadn’t grown paunchy, or bald, or dissipated during the last twelve months. If anything, the additional gray at his temples made him look more distinguished. How unfair was that?

  He rose to his feet and extended his hand. “Beth, what an unexpected pleasure! Have you moved back to Natchez?”

  Beth shook hands clumsily. “No, I’m just here temporarily for a case.” Like a bashful schoolgirl, she shifted her weight between her hips.

  “Please make yourself comfortable.” He pointed at a chair and sat down.

  “I hope I’m not interrupting.” Beth perched on the edge of her seat as though prepared for quick flight.

  “Not at all. How have you been?” He offered the same snake-charmer smile that made her hear wedding bells.

  Remembering how easily she’d fallen for him, Beth stiffened her spine. “I’m fine, but this isn’t a social call. I’ve been hired by Mrs. Paul Dean to investigate the pastor’s death.”

  He looked flummoxed. “I’m not sure what there is to investigate. All indications pointed to suicide, as tragic as that is for the Dean family.”

  “Did your officers scratch beneath the surface or just go by their gut instincts?”

  Chris’s pleasant demeanor slipped a notch. “My detectives did their job, Beth. I personally reviewed the evidence connected to his death. Paul was my pastor as well as my friend.”

  Beth felt her face grow warm. “Sorry. That was about the rudest thing I could possibly say.” She focused on the wall clock, trying to regain her composure.

  “You’re forgiven. I’m sure approaching me on behalf of Mrs. Dean wasn’t easy for you. Tell me what you need.”

  Somehow his attitude struck her as condescension. “A copy of the police report, along with the coroner’s autopsy report. Mrs. Dean believes her husband was a victim of foul play. Certain details of the reverend’s death don’t fit his character.” Foul play. Did I really use that term with my old boss?

  He folded his hands over his flat belly. “Such as?”

  “Such as the perfectly tied hangman’s noose around his neck. How would a minister know how to tie one of those?”

  He nodded in agreement. “That also struck Detective Lejeune as odd. Apparently, instructions on constructing one are online, and the detective found the website in Paul’s browser history.”

  Beth felt her shirt sticking to her back. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “I assure you, I’m not. What else troubles Mrs. Dean?”

  “Her husband was wearing his best suit of clothes. Wouldn’t he have saved that to be buried in?”

  He leaned back in his chair. “Frankly, if I’d reached so low a point that I wanted to end my life, I wouldn’t care what outfit I wore.”

  She swallowed hard to erase the mental image. “Mrs. Dean also thought the wording on the suicide note didn’t reflect her husband’s speech patterns.”

  Chris focused his gaze on her as he drew a manila folder from his drawer. His piercing gray eyes were the ones she’d seen in her dreams for months. “I still have Paul’
s file handy. That’s how hard it is for me to let this go.” He shuffled through until he found a piece of notebook paper. “Shall I read this aloud or would you like to see it?”

  “Could I see it, please?” Beth’s stomach clenched with apprehension as she read the short note. “I’m so sorry, Allie. This sure is a coward’s way out. I hope you and Katie will forgive me. But I can no longer forgive myself. If God’s merciful, I’ll see you again someday.” Mutely, she laid the note on his desk.

  “The wording sounds normal to me. What did Mrs. Dean object to—sure instead of surely, or maybe the contraction of God with the word is?”

  Beth shrugged. “I don’t know, but I had to follow up with you.”

  “I’ll have copies made of the autopsy, the police report, and the note, but regrettably Detective Lejeune found strong motivation for Paul’s suicide.” Chris slicked a hand through his wavy hair. “Close to five hundred thousand dollars appears to be missing from one of the church’s accounts. According to Ralph Buckley, Paul had taken control of the building fund. Because the money wouldn’t be needed for another year, it was to have been prudently invested. If the reverend suffered serious stock market losses, he might have been unable to face the congregation.”

  “That’s a whole lot of assumption, Chris.”

  His crow’s feet deepened with his smile. “It certainly is, but right now I have nothing else to offer you.”

  His choice of words took her back twelve months when she’d wanted everything he couldn’t offer. Beth scrambled to her feet. “I appreciate your making time for me. I’ll wait for those copies in the outer office.”

  “It was good seeing you, Beth. If anything changes on my end, I’ll let you know. And I’d appreciate the same courtesy from Price Investigations.” He tapped the papers into a pile. “How do you like being a PI? I heard Nate Price is a stand-up kind of guy.”

  Once again his casual nonchalance annoyed her. Does he expect me to discuss my new boss like we’re old friends? Or that we can just pick up where we left off? “Things at work are hunky-dory, Chris. Life sure has a way of marching on.”

  And though she was shaking on the inside, she left his office without a backward glance.

  TWELVE

  Michael could have kicked himself the moment Beth drove away. Why had he badgered her about her appointment? Nate had mentioned that she’d worked for the police department. She wouldn’t have left a regular paycheck with great benefits to work for a new PI firm unless there had been trouble. If this was a personal hot button, he wouldn’t make any friends being nosy. And with Nate out of town, he needed someone to teach him the ropes.

  Back in his apartment, Michael settled into what he did best—ferreting out information on the Internet. Almost everyone had something to hide…a risqué photo taken during college, a bankruptcy due to a spendthrift spouse, a reckless driving conviction. But try as he might, he found nothing sketchy about either the reverend or Mrs. Dean. Not from their college days or spring break vacations or anywhere they lived prior to their current residence.

  Paul Dean graduated from seminary in the top five percent of his class and had been halfway to his doctorate in divinity when he accepted his first position as pastor. During summers he volunteered at soup kitchens, literacy programs for new immigrants, and built new homes with Habitat for Humanity. He had paid back his student loans and regularly donated more than ten percent to his church.

  Alice Dean wasn’t a stellar student in high school, but she had been the homecoming queen. In college her academics weren’t much better, but she had joined a sorority and earned a bachelor’s degree within the normal time frame. Her parents had plenty of money, with a second home in Orange Beach, Alabama, along with a condo in Vail. No surprise there. The Deans’ move to unpretentious Natchez must have been disappointing for a bona fide debutante who had skied during Christmas vacations in her youth. Yet on the plus side, the former Alice Parker had zero scrapes with the law, owed not a dime for her four years at Auburn, and participated in several mission trips to Haiti with her church. Most likely that’s where she’d met and fallen in love with Paul Dean.

  Michael couldn’t find any information about her trust fund, but her credit rating was top-notch. Nothing in their backgrounds suggested the Deans were anything but the perfect American couple. Likewise, Calvary Baptist Church wasn’t running a crooked bingo parlor in the basement or selling counterfeit CDs of Christian pop music. Michael padded into the kitchen for a Coke before beginning his background check on Ralph Buckley, whose absence following the funeral placed him high on the suspicion meter. But before he could pop the top, his cell phone rang. Caller “Unknown” killed his hopes of it being his partner.

  “Hello, Mr. Preston?” asked a cheery voice. “Natalie Purdy from Calvary Baptist. How are you, dear?”

  “I’m well, thank you. How about you on this fine day?” Michael trotted out his seldom-used small talk skills.

  “I’m fine. Just a bit wilted from this heat. I remembered that you wanted to look into our church financial records on behalf of Alice.”

  Michael nearly choked on his mouthful of soda. “Yes, I do. Did Mr. Buckley return from his trip?”

  “No, and I’m peeved he still hasn’t called here. So I checked a few places in his desk, and sure enough, I found his password to the Excel files. Typical man…he left the password in plain sight in a little notebook in his bottom drawer. If you’re not busy, you could swing by and check those accounts.”

  “That’s very nice of you,” he said, smiling at the notion that a closed bottom drawer could be considered “plain sight.” “I will be there in ten minutes.”

  Michael stopped at a bakery for a key lime pie and arrived in fifteen. He almost purchased pecan but remembered his mother’s complaints about fat grams in nuts. Anything made with limes must be low cal. “I brought you a little something for break time,” he said, stepping into the church office.

  “Oh, my word. Key lime—my favorite.” Mrs. Purdy read the label on the string-tied box. “I knew you were a nice man the moment we met. Too bad my daughters are both married, or I would fix you up. Let me put this in the refrigerator.” Carrying his gift into the small kitchen, she called over her shoulder. “I stuck the password on the monitor with a Post-it. Why don’t you get started? If you don’t mind being here alone, I need to make a quick trip to the post office.”

  Mind? It was a forensic accountant’s dream to be alone with data with a flash drive in his pocket. “Not at all. Take whatever time you need.” But before she could leave with her armload of letters, Michael’s conscience kicked in. “Do you think Mr. Buckley would mind if I backed up the information onto a memory stick? I promise it will be kept confidential.” “Backed up” sounded much better than “pirated” or “stole.”

  Mrs. Purdy took little time to decide. “You go right ahead, young man. If money is missing from one of the accounts, Ralph had no business picking now to take his vacation. Someone needs to track down those funds so poor Paul doesn’t look like a crook. Our pastor wouldn’t steal a pen from the bank, let alone money from the school fund.” She bustled out the door.

  At the computer, Michael cracked his knuckles like a concert pianist before a tricky concerto. Yet his scan of the operations account yielded nothing. All maintenance expenses seemed normal, and regardless which Dean actually wrote the check, the reverend had entered the debit into the correct column. At first glance, the mission fund also appeared legitimate, although he wouldn’t know for sure until he verified that those missionaries actually worked in the field. Michael copied the data onto his flash drive and turned his attention to the third account for the new school. It proved to be the mother lode of investment activity.

  Since the account’s inception four years ago, money had been accumulating at an amazing rate. Unless this was the largest Episcopal or Catholic parish in New York City, Michael couldn’t imagine donations this generous in a town like Natchez. As he reviewed the month
-by-month balance sheet, he realized growth had come not from the collection plate, but from risky investments in junk bonds, short-term commodity futures, and nondiversified sector mutual funds. Such investments were for the rich or those who were savvy in the stock and bond markets.

  Considering his education and a life devoted to spiritual pursuits, Paul Dean was neither. And nothing in his wife’s background would have provided the know-how. Michael finished copying the rest of the files just as Mrs. Purdy returned from her errands.

  “How are you doing?” she asked. “Ready for a cup of tea and a slice of that pie with me?”

  Slipping the stick into his pocket, he closed the open files on the church’s computer. “I would love to, ma’am, but another appointment demands my attention.” He offered a sincere smile. “Perhaps another time?”

  “I’ll hold you to that, young man. See you in church on Sunday.”

  The appointment demanding Michael’s attention was with his laptop in the comfort of his own apartment. He couldn’t check Buckley’s background without leaving a search trail on the church’s system. He found out that the current finance director of Calvary Baptist had held the position for four years. Before that, Buckley had worked at an insurance agency specializing in high-commission policies for those who were practically uninsurable. Those firms preyed on people desperate for insurance due to serious preexisting conditions. Prior to that, Buckley worked as an investment broker that hawked penny stocks to those seeking quick returns, and as a telemarketer for a get-rich-quick set of DVDs, a company later dissolved by a watchdog agency. Although Buckley had never been charged with any crime, his background certainly prepared him to spin the church’s basket of straw into a pile of gold. Did success also make him greedy?

  Michael printed copies for the case file and leaned back with a satisfied sigh. He had done well yesterday and today on his own—a fact even Beth couldn’t refute. But he wasn’t about to repeat past mistakes. Working twelve- and thirteen-hour days might have provided advancement and generous raises at his prior job, but it had allowed little time for extracurricular activities.