Mr. Write (Sweetwater)

by O'Neill, Lisa Clark

  Carlton smiled. “I have no idea where you get your ideas. Must be that imaginative bent you inherited from your mother.”

  “Don’t go there.”

  “Yet you come here and accuse me of… what?” He waved the newspaper around. “Burning down one of the most historic – and sadly ill-constructed – buildings in Sweetwater? To what end? So that I could donate a new structure that was more to my taste? I have my own library right here. And there are many other ways to shelter one’s income from taxation.”

  “There aren’t too many ways to get a view like this,” Tucker nodded toward the river, the pink expanse of sky “when most of the riverfront property is already occupied. Particularly when it’s occupied by a public building that’s made the National Register of Historic Places.”

  Carlton sat the clipping on the table, smoothed it out on the glass. “If that was the case, then why haven’t I done anything to take advantage of that view, now that I own the property?”

  That was the part Tucker hadn’t been able to figure out. “You tell me.”

  “I’ll tell you this.” Carlton sipped his brandy. “I had nothing to do with the unfortunate breakin at the Boundary Street property, or the injury to the… actor with whom you’re living.”

  “His name is Mason.”

  Carlton made a dismissive gesture.

  “Aren’t you going to ask me if anything was taken?”

  “Why should I? And if you’re expecting me to furnish replacements, I’m afraid you’ve wasted your time.”

  “That’s okay, because the only thing that seems to be missing is something that can’t be replaced anyway. A note. From my father.”

  Carlton’s gaze remained steady, but the hand holding the snifter trembled. “Oh?”

  “Yeah.” Scenting blood, Tucker pulled out one of the other chairs and sat, uninvited. “A while back, I got this bank statement of my mother’s. Local bank, saying that the fee for her safety deposit box had come due. Now me – because I was the executor of her estate and was privy to her financial situation – I’m thinking: what box? What could she possibly have kept there? And in one of those accidents of serendipity, it just so happened that I’d stumbled on a key ring in the attic a week or two before. So I go to this bank – it’s a really nice bank, a lot friendlier than that icebox of yours here in town. Imagine my surprise when the box turned out to hold newspaper clippings about an old arson, and the dedication of a new town library in my grandmother’s name. Interesting, don’t you think, that you named that library for her, and I grew up – to your disappointment – to write books?”

  When Carlton said nothing, Tucker pressed on.

  “The other curious item in that safety deposit box of my mother’s was a note written to her from my dad. It seems he was on his way to confront someone over something that had caused him distress, something that made him feel guilty. That someone he was confronting – he didn’t name any names – but that someone was a person who apparently wielded a lot of power. A man with a chief in his pocket, I believe Dad said. I’m wondering – and here I’m hoping you might be able to clear this up for me – what it was you said to my father, your son – that made him so angry, so upset, that he drove way too fast for the conditions in his hurry to get home, to get away. Because that was his intention, you know. At least that’s what he said in the note. That if the confrontation didn’t go well, he would pack up the family and get the hell out of here. To New York. To the city I grew up in anyway, without him.”

  The color that had suffused Carlton’s lined face drained away to nothing. And Tucker felt a tiny stir of alarm, because it was like looking at a corpse.

  “Grandpa?”

  Carlton stared blindly at the river. “No one was supposed to be hurt.”

  The words were so weak, so thready, that Tucker wasn’t sure he’d heard them correctly. “You mean my father? Or the man who died in the fire?”

  “They lived so… embarrassingly. First in that ridiculous studio apartment. Over someone’s garage, for God’s sake. I tried to get him to come here, set up a proper nursery. But he said they wanted their own space. Boundary Street, it was the most suitable rental I had at the time. But he needed a… a real place. Something significant. Something befitting the way he’d been brought up. He was my only child, my heir. Bad enough that he’d conceived a child out of wedlock, then was foolish enough to run off and bind himself to the girl legally. But he had to stop living like some… bohemian. Selling rickety little wooden chests at the farmer’s market. It was humiliating.”

  Tucker absorbed each of those separate shocks. Then sat them aside as something to be dealt with later. “So let me get this straight. You had the library burned down… because you wanted to build another estate on the land. Something significant for my parents to live in.”

  “I…” the color rushed back into his face as Carlton seemed to regain his senses. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  Oh yes he did. Tucker leaned forward, hands dangling between his knees. “We were talking about the fact that you conspired to commit arson. About the fact that your own son died, because he was so distraught about you committing a heinous crime just so that you could plug him into some big house with a nice view of the river – and I’ve got that right, don’t I? Tell me, did you at least wait until the man who died in that fire was buried before you informed my father about your big plans? And how long did it take Dad to put things together?”

  “I want you to leave.”

  “I don’t doubt that for a minute. Must be tough to have your complicity exposed to the light. Because you worked hard to keep it buried, huh? Paying off officials, donating fancy new public buildings to make the investigation go away. The thing I don’t get, though, is why – after such a fiasco – you fell back on the same game plan again. Burning down a medical facility just to give your construction company a boost.”

  The snifter hit the table so hard that the delicate stem snapped. “Is that what that little Hawbaker whelp told you?”

  “Which whelp would you be referring to? The one whose development project you helped drive into the ground? Or maybe the acting Chief of Police?”

  Carlton snorted. “Harbin must have been delirious when he made that appointment. As for the other fool, he hardly needs any assistance driving anything into the ground, considering he spends most of his time lying around on it in a drunken stupor.”

  “You put Jonas Linville in my place.”

  Steadier now, Carlton dabbed a linen napkin at the brandy which had splashed onto his neat broadcloth shirt. Behind him, lights flickered on along the garden path, chasing away the shadows of the gathering twilight.

  “I bought their land. If the rental company placed them in the Boundary Street property afterward, that has nothing to do with me.”

  “You own the rental company.”

  “So I do.”

  “I thought maybe you’d arranged that as an incentive to get them to sell. But now I wonder if there wasn’t more to it. Were they working for you, just like their dad? Causing problems for Coastal Construction?”

  A muscle ticked in his jaw. “As I said, you’ve quite an imagination.”

  “Yes, I do. Which is why it isn’t hard for me to imagine you putting someone up to breaking into my house. I think my mother must have told you she had something implicating you in that fire. It’s the only reason I can think that you stayed away all those years. The thing I can’t figure is how you knew I’d been in her safety deposit box, how you knew I’d brought the contents home. Unless you’ve had me under some sort of surveillance.”

  “I never realized you were so paranoid.” But behind his icy eyes, something flickered. Guilt? Tucker wondered. Or was it fear? “And anyway, you said yourself that there was no name mentioned, no crime detailed in this note. That’s hardly a smoking gun, or worth the bother of breaking and entering.”

  “Was it worth Mason spending the night in the hospital with a den
t in his head?”

  “I’m sure you’d have to ask whoever might be responsible.”

  “You can bet I will. And you can bet, if I find out that you somehow abetted that person, that I will find a way to take you down.”

  “Threats, Tucker?”

  “Just telling you how it is.”

  “You know, you may want to consider – based on recent events I’ve noted in the police blotter – that your trouble is simply an unfortunate byproduct of the company you’ve chosen to keep. I’m sure you’re familiar with the saying about dogs and fleas.”

  It took Tucker a moment to catch the drift. “You’re saying that someone broke into my house… because I’m involved with Sarah.”

  “Is that her name?”

  The disdain in Carlton’s voice crawled right up Tucker’s back. “That’s right. Sarah, with an H. You should learn to spell it right so that you can note it in the family bible.”

  Gray eyes clashed with gray. “You’re a fool. Just like your father.”

  “Thank you. I can’t tell you how that warms my heart.” Tucker pushed to his feet, until he was towering over his grandfather. “And by the way, donating a couple buildings here and there doesn’t make up for what you did. A man died. Your son died. And you screwed the Hawbakers over. That’s three families I know of whose lives you’ve ruined.”

  “They ruined themselves.”

  It amazed him that he could still feel the sting of disappointment. “You keep telling yourself that. It might be cold, but I guess it’s better than no comfort at all.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  SARAH left Tucker sleeping, having discovered it was easier to avoid significant delays if she did the morning routine at her place. Tucker’s argument for water conservation aside, the joint shower wasn’t quite as beneficial to her schedule as it was to the environment.

  Resisting the urge to press her lips to the truly spectacular shoulder rising above the tangled sheet, she settled for a stray lascivious thought about whipping up another batch of frosting.

  As had become her habit over the past week, she peeked in on Mason before she left.

  Sarah cracked the door, and the air slapped at her with icy fingers. The a/c unit seemed to growl, probably annoyed at having to work so hard.

  He looked well enough, sprawled across the bed, in the plaid pajamas she suspected he’d begun wearing for her benefit. Either that or he was trying to avoid frostbite.

  Anyway, his color was all the way back, and the glaze of pain came over his eyes less and less often. In fact, she’d caught him, Tucker, Noah and Branson Hawbaker – who apparently, judging by his sheepish smile, had defected to the pro-Mason camp – on the back porch last night, playing cards and swilling beer out of the bottle.

  It was not, she was fairly sure, on Mason’s list of approved activities.

  The way Mason had slid the bottle beneath the table, smiled at her sweet as a baby lying innocent in his crib, suggested he was well on the way to full recovery.

  He had a follow-up appointment with his doctor that afternoon. If she cleared him, he’d be on a flight bound for New York tomorrow.

  Sarah wasn’t sure how she felt about that. She knew he had a contract, a career. A life that was as far removed from Sweetwater as the moon.

  But darn if she wasn’t going to miss him. It gave her a pang of divided loyalty. Not that Allie was petty enough to begrudge Sarah her concern on Mason’s behalf. She was genuinely relieved that he was going to be okay. But since Mason’s departure was imminent, and he and Allie still hadn’t patched things up, Sarah guessed she was bound for disappointment there.

  Pulling his door shut to keep the permafrost from melting, Sarah continued outside.

  And was startled by the figure rocking in the chair on her front porch.

  “Mornin’,” Will called easily.

  “Yeah, hi.” Sarah decided it would only make it more ridiculous if she attempted to smooth down her bedhead. So she imagined herself well dressed and coiffed instead of looking like a slug in one of Tucker’s old T-shirts. “You’re out and about awfully early.”

  “Crime never sleeps.”

  “I thought it never paid.”

  “It never pays because it hasn’t slept, and sleep-deprived people tend toward inept, clumsy or stupid.” He hefted his steaming mug. “That’s why, on the eighth day, God invented coffee. To give cops an edge.”

  “Let me write that down.”

  “When you make it up into T-shirts, I’ll take twenty percent royalties. Aw hell, what are friends for? Let’s make it fifteen.”

  A bird, tucked into the sweet-smelling boughs of Tucker’s magnolia, welcomed the morning with song.

  Abandoning the pretense of dignity, Sarah sat right down on the floor. “Not that I’m not thrilled to see you before I’ve brushed my teeth or my hair, but what are you doing here?”

  “Had my early morning date with Josie so that she could grill me on why I haven’t arrested that no-good Jonas Linville, what happened to the rest of the applesauce cake that she’d promised to save for Branson, and when am I going to find a nice girl to settle down with and stop messing with wild women.”

  “You’ve been messing with wild women?’ Sarah grinned, rested her back against the railing. “Do tell.”

  “Not in this lifetime. Though I will confess to eating the applesauce cake.”

  “There’s breaking news.”

  “Which brings us around to Jonas Linville.”

  “Will.” Sarah sighed even as lingering embarrassment flushed her cheeks. “I hope you don’t think that I think you haven’t done your job. I know you haven’t had a lot to go on. But you found his… lair next door. You stepped up patrols. And things have been quiet around here for nearly two weeks.”

  “If you can call breaking and entering and assault quiet.”

  “Well, of course not. But that was something to do with Tucker, with what he told you about his grandfather. It’s totally separate.” Her stomach jittered. “Isn’t it?”

  Will rubbed his eyes, and it was only then Sarah realized how tired he was. All jokes aside, she figured the caffeine was propping him up like a crutch. “I’ve got nothing other than some old hearsay, a couple coincidences and theories, a concussed Englishman, a shoeprint and the claim of a stolen note that amounts to more hearsay. Most of the original evidence on the library fire appears to have been lost when we had that flooding back in ninety-eight. The arson investigator retired to Arizona and doesn’t seem to want to be reached. The man your father tagged as Pettigrew’s torch for the office complex is dead. Austin Linville isn’t talking, if he even knows anything worth talking about, and his brother’s ghosted. At this point, I couldn’t pin a ball of lint on Tucker’s grandfather.”

  “Did you talk to Chief Harbin?”

  “You mean the man who may or may not be in Pettigrew’s pocket?”

  “I’m sorry.” Sarah winced. “I know this is difficult for you.”

  “I respect Harbin. Or I did. He does the job, isn’t an asshole to work for, doesn’t run roughshod over the populace in the name of the public good. He’s got pictures of his grandkid on his coffee mug, for chrissakes. But I checked his financials, as quietly as I could. If there were payoffs, I couldn’t find them. Doesn’t mean they didn’t happen. Just means he was clever enough – or someone was – to hide them.”

  “You should be talking about this with Tucker.”

  “I will. I wanted to talk to you first.”

  “Okay.” This time her empty stomach twisted like a wet rag.

  Will sipped his coffee, and watched the bird that had been in Tucker’s tree dart like a yellow bullet into Sarah’s garden. “You’ve done a nice job here,” he commented as the goldfinch ruffled his feathers in the little copper bath she’d added over the past weekend. “You’ve a real hand for… tending things, I guess you’d call it.”

  “Will. I’m a big girl. You don’t have to ease me into whatever it is you c
ame to say.”

  “All right. The thumbprint didn’t amount to anything usable, but the impression of the shoeprint we took from beneath Tucker’s office window is the same size – not the same tread, mind you, as one appears to be a sneaker and one some type of work boot – but they’re the same size as the prints we found inside the empty apartment next door.”

  “Lots of men wear the same shoe size.”

  “They surely do. What’s significant about these prints is the wear pattern. I won’t bore you with all the details, but this pattern indicates that the man – and judging by the weight, the size, the style, I feel confident in saying it’s a man. Anyway, this man appears to walk with a limp.”

  “Jonas.” The rag twisted again. “He has to be limping still, from where Austin shot him. You think Jonas broke into Tucker’s? That he took that note? That he hurt Mason? Why? How would he even know? You think he works for Carlton, just like his father? That Carlton put him up to –”

  “Hold your horses.” Will held up his free hand, then used it to pat Sarah’s knee. “I don’t have the whys at the moment. And I’m working on the how, although I have a hard time imagining Carlton Pettigrew being fool enough to hire a man who’s already suspected of making a repeated nuisance of himself to pull off a b and e. But that remains to be seen. What I do have is a lot of circumstantial evidence – and your word that it was him on that phone call, which is what led us to that empty apartment – that suggests Linville is indeed that nuisance.”

  “My word?” Heat crawled up her cheeks. “You think I’m mistaken? Or what, that I’m making it up?”

  “Did you take a hair-trigger pill this morning? Christ, Sarah. All I’m saying is that what evidence I have implicating Linville, any defense attorney with two working brain cells would be able to rip to pieces in court. If I can get a look at his shoes, we might have something solid. But that’s not the reason I’m sitting on your porch looking at your unbrushed teeth and messy hair shy of seven o’clock in the morning.”