by Dorien Grey
“But he just had to do his cat-and-mouse routine until I practically had to grovel for it. Finally, he agreed to a loan. The project was about halfway finished when Hurricane Alicia came along, and we lost everything.”
“The project wasn’t insured?” I couldn’t resist asking.
“I came on board after the project was already underway, and I found out only after the hurricane that he’d taken out a policy based on the original cost estimates. When I came in we nearly doubled the size of the project, but he never updated the policy.”
Uh-huh. I wondered how incredibly stupid one would have to be not to make sure a construction project was fully insured before even starting it.
He paused long enough to finish his drink and signal the waitress for another. He asked if I was ready, and I declined.
“So,” he continued, “that did it for me with partners. I decided it was time to get into something I really wanted to do, something I knew I’d be good at. So when I heard that Milt Thomas, a friend of the family, was retiring and wanted to sell his travel agency, I jumped at it. Thomas Tours is the biggest travel agency in the city, as you surely know…”
Uh, yes, I did, but appreciated the sideways compliment of my intelligence.
“…and he was willing to sell it to me for a song. So I went to Clarence, and he said no. No! Flat out, no argument, no reason. Just no!”
“You’ve had travel agency experience, then?” I asked.
“I’ve dealt with travel agencies all my life,” he said, which didn’t exactly answer my question. I was pretty sure that “dealing with” a travel agency, as in having them make arrangements for a trip, isn’t quite the same as knowing the travel agency business. I also assumed that may have been one reason for Clarence Bement’s refusal. I normally would have asked if he had approached a bank, but from what I’d heard of his past business history, I didn’t have to bother.
“I can imagine your grandfather’s refusal must have made you angry.”
He looked at me with a cocked eyebrow and a small smile.
“I’ve talked with my father,” he said. “I know what you’re getting at. And yes, I was angry. That old miser angered everyone he came in contact with. But no, I had nothing whatsoever to do with his long-overdue death. And now I don’t have to go crawling to him for money. I’ve got enough to last me, even though he did manage to squander most of it away, leaving us with practically nothing.”
I was curious as to his definition of “practically nothing” but didn’t say anything. Apparently, he was referring to what Mel had reported as his unhappiness with the size of the estate. I didn’t point out to him that, even if he hadn’t gotten a penny, the money was Clarence Bement’s to do with as he saw fit. Even “squandering” it, which I sincerely doubt he did.
Some people are just never satisfied.
The waitress came with his drink, and I waited until he paused to take a long swig before speaking.
“Were you aware your grandfather made a new will?”
“Yes, but since it was never filed it doesn’t matter.”
“You’re not curious about what might be in it?”
“Not in the least. Mel did his best to postpone the reading, but it didn’t work. He hates my side of the family, probably with some justification—I can’t stand them either—and would do anything to keep us from getting what’s rightfully ours. Well, he tried, and he failed.”
“Can you think of anyone who might have wanted Clarence dead badly enough to do something about it?”
“Well, if anybody did, I’ll drink to him—or her! Frankly, I wouldn’t put it past anyone on either side of the family, not even that kiss-ass Mel. He was as anxious to get at the money as any of us.
“Grandmother may live in Europe and plead poverty, but she still has a long reach. My charming aunt Gladys is a psycho, my father has been stewing with resentment and abandonment issues since before I was born. Hell hath no fury like Alan deprived of whatever it is he wants at the moment—he was a spoiled brat as a child and he still is. Stuart blames Gramps for depriving the world of his marvelous inventions.
“As for Mel and his dysfunctional sister, their little ‘gee-whiz-we’re-just-plain-folks’ routine has never fooled me for a minute. They’re as greedy as the rest of the family. I can’t help but think of them as Cesare and Lucretia Borgia. And we can’t overlook Uncle Gregory, who has had his hand in the till for years. Not to mention the lifetime of enemies dear Gramps accumulated.
“But to answer your question, no, offhand I can’t think of anyone in particular.”
“Do you know anything about Esmirelda Taft.”
He shook his head. “Did I not put her on the list? I must be slipping. I really don’t know all that much about her, but I’ve never trusted her. She never says anything, but you can be sure nothing escapes her. I was already out of the house when she worked for my parents, and the only times I’ve seen her since have been at McScrooge’s birthday get-togethers. She’s not what I’d call a party girl by a long shot.”
“Did you know her brother had been in jail for assault with a deadly weapon?”
“Nope. I didn’t know she had a brother. I never heard her say one word about her personal life. It never occurred to me she might have one.” He drained his drink and was in the process of signaling the waitress for another when he spotted someone coming in the door. “Ah,” he said. “My appointment has arrived, and I’m afraid I wouldn’t want to bore you with our business talk, so…”
“Of course,” I said. “Thanks for the drink and your time.”
“No problem,” he said as I got up and reached across the table to shake hands.
As I walked toward the door I passed the man Bement had spotted, who merely stared at me, expressionless, as he moved toward the table I’d just left.
*
On the drive home, I let my mind wander for the eighty-seventh time through the case thus far. Every time I did so, I asked myself what, exactly, did I have? The answer, as always, was “not much.”
That Clarence Bement was killed out of greed I had little doubt. But whose? Just because someone wanted a new car, or backing for some esoteric invention—an electric spoon, perhaps? Because he wouldn’t back yet another guaranteed-to-fail business? Because one of his heirs just got tired of waiting for him to die on his own? Because his housekeeper might have had her hand in the cookie jar?
Even under the best of circumstances, Clarence Bement’s days would have been limited. His prospective heirs had waited this long, they could have waited a few years more. But his finally saying “no” may have proved fatal.
Jonathan had been shot at before I’d ever heard anything about there possibly being a new will. I’d subsequently mentioned it to and asked about it of everyone I’d talked to, which might very well imply to the killer I had found out about it from Jonathan, which in turn implied he knew where it was. This should have put him in even greater jeopardy, yet there had been no other threatening incidents. Why?
Perhaps—or at least I hoped—because no signed copy of the new will had surfaced, the original will had been read, and there was no increased police activity indicating an expanded investigation into Bement’s death.
Of course, there was the chance that all three signed copies of the will had been found and destroyed, but my gut told me Bement’s copy was still out there.
I concluded that whoever had taken the shot at Jonathan decided he really didn’t know anything and had opted to back off rather than risk calling attention to Mel’s allegation Clarence had not committed suicide.
That being so, if Eli Prescott’s home was burglarized in an attempt to find the new will, why hadn’t Clarence’s? The answer to that one was fairly obvious—if the person responsible were one of his heirs, there wouldn’t be any need for a burglary when they had free access to the house and could look at their leisure.
Jeezus, why did life have to be so damned complicated?
The thre
e most obvious suspects were Alan, George, and Stuart Bement, with Bernard and/or Esmirelda Taft coming up on the outside. Though, looking back, my track record on my primary suspects ending up to be the murderer left a lot to be desired. And of course, I couldn’t rule out anyone. Hey, nobody’s perfect.
I also realized that, although—and probably because—Jonathan was himself a possible factor in this case, I’d avoided talking to him much about it. As a matter of fact, I’d never told him of my drive out to Woods Road, or my having talked to Marty, or the mysterious phone call he’d gotten while he was away. I’d been so concerned about shielding him from the case I hadn’t pushed him as hard as I might have for possible clues. After I’d first asked him if he might know of anyone with a reason to see Clarence Bement dead, or if Clarence might have said something to him that could indicate a motive, I’d more or less closed him out the loop.
He’d said he didn’t know anything and I hadn’t really pressed him on it. That he always avoided asking me for details on whatever case I was working on might be counterproductive in this one. I felt a bit guilty for not keeping him better informed on my progress—or more accurately, my lack of it—but it was just me doing my overly protective number, I knew. And so did he.
*
I got back home just at the end of Story Time and went into Joshua’s bedroom long enough to give him a forehead-kiss goodnight, then went into the living room to wait for Jonathan to finish reading the story. About five minutes later, he joined me on the couch, where I was looking through the latest National Lampoon.
“How was your meeting?” he asked, taking my hand.
“Not particularly informative. I must say, the Bements are a pretty weird family.”
He grinned. “Yeah, I got that idea. I don’t think he was very fond of any of them, except for Mel. You never did tell me what you thought of Mel, by the way.”
“Well, if I were single—” I began.
“Which you’re not,” he hastened to point out.
“Which I’m not,” I duly added, “I’d have to admit he isn’t exactly Quasimodo, so I can see he might have a certain appeal for some guys.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And he seems like a genuinely nice guy. I’ve only seen him that one time, and haven’t really talked to him about anything other than the case.”
“Uh-huh,” he repeated, and grinned as I squeezed his hand, hard. “Okay, so I thought he was hot, too.”
We sat without talking for a minute or two, until I said, “I know we talked about this not too long after Mr. Bement died, but have you thought of anything since that might be a clue as to who might have wanted him dead?”
Jonathan sighed and rested his head on the back of the sofa.
“I think about him a lot. I take the book he gave me back and forth to work and try to read it at lunch. It’s still kind of hard going, but I told him I’d read it and I will. I know he really loved it, because he said he planned to give it to Mel, and he marked his favorite pages.
“And I really have been trying to remember everything he said, but it isn’t easy. You never think you’re going to have to go back and try to remember every word of every conversation.”
“I understand, Babe, and I’m not trying to push you. It’s just that if he did say anything that might help me figure out what happened or why—”
“I really wish I could help,” he said. “But he never mentioned people’s names, and if he did, I wouldn’t have known who they were.”
“Did he seem any different at all in the couple of weeks before his death?”
“Well, yeah, after his lawyer friend was killed. He really felt bad about that.”
“Anything just before that happened?”
Jonathan sighed and looked off into space for a moment before saying, “Well, now that I think of it, I guess he was a little quieter than normal that whole week before his friend died. He’d spend a lot more time just sitting and reading his book while I worked.
“And then, when I first saw him after his friend died, he really looked sad. When I asked him if he was okay, he told me about the accident. He didn’t say much else at all that day. He just sat there with the book in his lap, and when I was ready to go, he gave it to me to read. So, even if I don’t understand a lot of it, I’ll read it all. Then I’ll give it to Mel. I think he might like to have it.”
Our conversation was interrupted by the ringing of the phone, and he hurried to answer it. We’d taken to putting a pillow over it at night so it wouldn’t wake Joshua, who had been having a spate of bad dreams since his return from Wisconsin.
He carried the phone into the kitchen and spoke softly, so I couldn’t hear what he was saying. When he came back into the room, he was smiling.
“It was Cory and Nick—well, Cory,” he said, “but they invited us to a potluck Sunday night. They’re having some deaf friends over, including Anna Bement, and wondered if we’d like to come. Joshua, too,” he added. “There’ll be a straight deaf couple there with their son, who’s Joshua’s age, so they can play. I told him I’d have to check with you but I was sure we would. I told him I’d call tomorrow to find out what we should bring.”
“Sounds like fun,” I said, thinking it would give me another chance to talk with Anna Bement. “Joshua doesn’t get a chance to play with many kids his age outside of Happy Day. Is the son deaf?”
“No, he’s hearing. Maybe he can teach Joshua some new signs, then Joshua can teach us.”
“Uh-huh,” I said.
*
I didn’t hear anything from Marty or the two detectives looking into Bement’s death until Wednesday, when Angell and Garland appeared at my office door unannounced. I’d never met either of them, but even without the intros, I knew who was who.
Garland, in his late fifties, had a face like an old saddle, and I made a note never to get on his bad side. Angell was aptly named. In the days when police entrapment of gays was standard operating procedure, I had no doubt but that Angell would have been assigned to the vice squad as bait. If the department ever decided to do a recruiting poster, he was a natural.
We exchanged greetings, and I offered them coffee, which they declined.
As soon as we’d sat down, Garland got right to the point.
“So what’s the story on Bement? That’s a pretty neat theory you came up with to account for the two shots. But theory isn’t fact until it’s proven. Exactly what else makes you think he didn’t kill himself?”
I filled them in on everything I knew, including Jonathan’s incident, the mysterious phone call, his being followed, the family dynamics of Bement’s clan, Esmirelda Taft and her brother, the nature of Eli Prescott’s death and the fact I’d asked Marty to check to see if there might have been anything suspicious involved, the issue of the missing will, the burglary of Prescott’s home during his funeral—everything.
They listened impassively. When I’d finished, Garland said, “Like I say, you’re pretty good at theories. But without hard facts to back them up…
“I suppose we can check into what Bernard Taft’s been up to since his release and talk to both him and his sister, but as for Bement’s relatives, it sounds like a lot hangs on Bement’s copy of the will turning up.”
“And we can check with Gresham to see if he found out anything about Prescott’s accident,” Angell added, “in case you’re right about the tie-in there.”
“As long as we’re at it,” Garland said, “I don’t suppose it would hurt to do a background check on the relatives. They struck me as being a bunch of winners when we first talked to them. We’ll take a closer look and see if we can turn up anything. But as Detective Gresham has undoubtedly told you, there’s only so much we can do without solid evidence of a crime.
“Oh, and we had those casings you left at the desk checked out. No identifiable prints. If you come up with any further information on the Woods Road incident, or if you can find any solid links between Woods Road, Bement, and Prescott, giv
e us a call.”
He pulled his card out of his shirt pocket and reached across the desk to hand it to me.
They left at around eleven thirty, leaving me to wonder if I’d been able to reverse their thinking on Clarence’s death.
*
Before I knew it, I was heading home on Friday night. The intervening days were hidden in a cloud of acrid smoke caused by the largely wasted spinning of my mental wheels.
*
Saturday turned out to be even more hectic than usual. We’d been awakened at three a.m. by Joshua climbing into bed with us after another bad dream. While Jonathan and I both prefer sleeping in the nude, ever since the return from Wisconsin we had taken to wearing shorts to bed for just such contingencies.
Joshua, of course, insisted on sleeping between us so we could each put an arm over him to protect him.
In addition to the usual chores, Jonathan had talked to Cory and volunteered to make one of his potluck specialties, one I was never quite sure whether it qualified as a dessert or a salad. Basically, it was a large flat of Jell-O into which he dropped half-dollar-sized balls of cream cheese with a walnut half in the center of each ball. Trust me, it tastes better than it sounds, and people always seem to like it.
It was fairly easy to make, but forming the cream cheese balls and putting the walnuts in the center took some time, and would take even longer this time, since Joshua would undoubtedly insist on helping—and doing frequent quality-control taste-testings of the walnuts.
During the week, I had taken the time to go to a small print shop near work and order some business cards for Jonathan, which I’d picked up on my way home Friday. I kept them under the front seat of my car. Since he had a couple of business appointments Saturday and wanted to take his truck, just before we left I went to get the cards.
He looked puzzled when I got in the truck and handed him the parcel, but as soon as he opened it, he was like Joshua with a new toy.