by Bobbi Holmes
Shirley frowned a moment and then said, “Late thirties.’
“You see, the man in this drawing—the man who was seen looking into someone’s window—is just twenty. I saw his driver’s license, and I’ve no reason to doubt he is who he says he is. So you see, he can’t be your brother.” Picking up the photograph from his desk, he stood up and handed it back to her.
“I don’t understand…” she said numbly, standing up briefly to take back the photograph. Sitting down in the chair, she stared at her brother’s picture.
“I’m really sorry it isn’t your brother. You see, the man in the drawing was a visitor in town and thought the house was empty, and he was a little overcurious and peeked inside. When he saw his picture in the paper, he came forward immediately—contacted me personally at my house. It was all a misunderstanding.”
Twenty-Nine
“Antoine Paul’s sister is here? In Frederickport?” Danielle asked excitedly after MacDonald told her who had stopped in his office less than an hour earlier. Danielle had dropped by to see if Baron Huxley had come in to ask about the man in Saturday’s newspaper. She was curious to find out what the chief intended to tell him.
Leaning back in his office chair, he frowned at Danielle. “Why do you sound so excited?”
“I intended to look her up when I went to Hillary’s funeral in Vancouver.”
“I thought they were having her services in New York now.”
Sitting down, Danielle tossed her purse to the floor. “Exactly. I was thinking I was going to have to drive into Vancouver just to see her, and now I won’t have to. Do you know where she’s staying?”
“She mentioned she got a room at the Seahorse Motel, but I imagine she’s checked out already. Anyway, you don’t want to bother the woman. I felt so sorry for her clinging to hope that her brother is still alive.”
“We already agreed I should talk to her,” Danielle insisted.
“You didn’t see her.”
“I’ll be sensitive. I promise.”
Picking up the pen from his desk, he absently fidgeted with it. “I’ve already convinced her the man in the newspaper isn’t her brother.”
“What did you say to convince her of that?”
MacDonald went on to tell Danielle the falsehood he had fed Shirley Paul.
When he was done explaining, Danielle leaned back in the chair and crossed her legs. “Not a bad story, but what if she mentions it to someone?”
“What do you mean?”
“Isn’t Joe the one who took the call at Heather’s? Isn’t this technically his case? How will you explain what you told her?”
MacDonald smiled. “Brian was in my office when Ms. Paul showed up, wanting to talk to someone about the picture in the paper, insisting the man was her brother. I already knew what I intended to tell Huxley, so I decided to stick to the same story. Basically, I lied to Brian. It’s the same story I’ll tell Joe.”
“What do you mean you lied to Brian?”
“Before I talked to Paul’s sister, I told Brian some guy stopped by my house on Saturday, he had found out where I lived, and I was out in the front yard. He confessed he was the one in the paper; I figured it was all just a mistake and let him go. He was a tourist, of course.”
“Umm…isn’t someone going to wonder why you didn’t do something more…I don’t know…official…like take the guy’s name for some report?”
“Well, I did write it all up—but damn, something happened to the papers. And I can’t seem to remember the man’s name—it might have been John. I’m fairly confident the citizen who made the initial report—Heather—is not going to push it.”
Danielle chuckled. “Who woulda thunk it? Police Chief MacDonald making up stories.”
“Until I met you, I never had to.”
Danielle pulled her car into the parking lot of the Seahorse Motel and turned off the ignition. Instead of getting out of the vehicle, she sat in the driver’s seat, hands still on the steering wheel, and looked up at the motel.
Before leaving Chief MacDonald’s office, they had argued about the wisdom of her still seeking an interview with Shirley Paul. Danielle wanted to get more information on Antoine, and she couldn’t imagine a better source than his sister. But the chief was right, it wasn’t fair to give the woman false hope. Whatever Antoine’s sins might have been, they weren’t his sister’s fault. At least, that was what Danielle assumed.
Sitting in the parking lot, Danielle racked her brain to come up with a plausible story to give the woman.
“Oh, come on, Danielle, if the chief was able to come up with a cockamamie story, surely you can come up with something.”
Still running possible storylines through her head, Danielle noticed a young woman matching the description MacDonald had given her of Shirley Paul. The woman stepped out of a room on the first floor, a suitcase in her hand.
“Oh crap. She’s going to get away!” Hastily, Danielle snatched her keys out of the ignition and grabbed her purse off the passenger seat. After getting from her car, she hurried toward the woman, who appeared to be headed for the front office, Danielle assumed, to check out.
“Excuse me, are you Shirley Paul?”
Upon hearing her name, the woman stopped abruptly and faced Danielle.
“Do I know you?” she asked when Danielle reached her.
“Hello. My name is Danielle Boatman; I live in Frederickport. I own Marlow House Bed and Breakfast.”
The woman frowned. “I don’t understand? Do you hang out at motels, trying to drum up business for your bed and breakfast? If so, I’m going home, so you’re wasting your time.”
Danielle smiled. “No. I wanted to know if I could talk to you about your brother—Antoine.”
Shirley tossed her suitcase on the unmade bed of her motel room and then went to open the blinds on the sliding door to let in the sunshine. Danielle, who had followed her into the room, closed the door and then took a seat on one of the two chairs.
A moment later, Shirley sat down and looked at Danielle. “What do you know about my brother? How did you know I was here?”
Taking a deep breath, Danielle prayed she could pull off the elaborate tale. According to Walt, there were times she lied brilliantly—yet other times she was transparent.
“I saw the drawing in Saturday’s paper.” It wasn’t a lie; she had seen the drawing in the paper. “I thought it looked like your brother.”
“You knew my brother?”
Danielle shook her head. “No. But a friend of mine knew who he was. She showed me a picture of him—from an article after he went missing.” That was only half a lie. She considered Hillary her friend, and Hillary had known Antoine, at least his spirit. As for the photograph from an old newspaper article, she had also seen that, yet Hillary hadn’t shown her.
“I don’t understand. They told me that drawing wasn’t my brother. Are you saying it is—was he in Frederickport?”
“No. It wasn’t him. Like you, I thought it was. When I went down to the police station, they told me who it really was—but they mentioned I wasn’t the first one to think it was Antoine Paul. They said his sister had come in—that you had come in—asking about the picture. We both thought the same thing. But it wasn’t him.”
“Did someone at the police station tell you where I was staying?” She sounded upset.
“Oh no!” Danielle lied. “But I’m in the hospitality business, so I figured the Seahorse Motel was probably where you’d be if you were staying in town. In fact, this is where I stayed when I first arrived in Frederickport.” Most of that statement was true. She and Lily had stayed at the Seahorse Motel when she had first moved to town.
“How did you know it was me?”
“I didn’t. But when I pulled up into the parking lot and saw a young woman around the right age of Antoine’s sister, I figured I’d give it a shot.” That was totally true.
Shirley quietly studied Danielle a moment. Danielle assumed the woman was tryin
g to decide if she should believe her or kick her out of the motel room.
“What do you know about my brother?”
“I know he’s missing. That he’s been missing for about eleven years.”
“Why are you interested in him? You said you never knew him.”
“Do you know who Hillary Hemingway was?” Danielle asked.
“Certainly, she was one of my favorite authors. Didn’t she just pass away?”
Danielle nodded. “Hillary had been staying at my bed and breakfast for the last month. Over a week ago, she had a heart attack in her sleep, and we found her the next morning.”
“She died at your bed and breakfast?”
“Yes.”
“What does she have to do with my brother?”
“Hillary was working on a story about a real-life unsolved crime about a woman who was murdered in Portland around the time your brother went missing. The night before they found her body, she was seen with a man who matched your brother’s description.”
“What does my brother have to do with this murdered woman?”
Now comes the tall, tall tale. Hope I can pull it off. “When researching the story, Hillary came across a picture of a man who went missing around the same time as the murder. That man was your brother. She thought he looked like the man the police were looking for. The man who had been seen with the woman hours before she was found dead. When Hillary was telling me about the story she was researching, she showed me your brother’s picture. So when I saw that drawing in the paper the other day, I thought the same thing as you did.”
“If Hillary’s dead—why are you looking for Antoine?”
“I suppose I was curious. And a part of me wanted to help solve Hillary’s mystery.”
Shirley stood up, walked to the sliding glass door, and looked out. “Who was the woman my brother was seen with? The one who was murdered?”
“Her name was Melissa Huxley.”
After a moment of silence, Shirley turned from the window and faced Danielle. “I’ve never heard of her before.”
“She was murdered in Portland about eleven years ago.”
“Sorry, the name’s not familiar.” Shirley walked back to her chair and sat down.
“Would you tell me about your brother?”
Shirley smiled wistfully. “He was a good brother. He always took care of me, especially after our mom died. Our father took off not long after I was born. I never knew him. But mom was always there. At least she was until she got sick. I was in high school at the time. When she died, I moved in with Antoine. He was eight years older than me. I lived with him until I went off to college.”
“How old were you when he went missing?”
“I’d just turned twenty. We normally talked at least once a week. But after a few weeks when he didn’t call and he didn’t answer his phone, I realized something was wrong.”
“What did you think happened?”
“I knew he had started seeing someone. Someone new. But he wouldn’t introduce me to her, said it was too soon, that it was complicated. Finally, he admitted he was seeing a married woman.”
“You didn’t know who she was?”
“No. But he told me if he disappeared suddenly, not to be worried. He said they might have to run away together, that was the only way they could safely be together. He told me once he got settled, he would contact me.”
“If you thought he’d run away with his girlfriend—that he had gone into hiding—why did you report him missing?”
Nervously fidgeting with her hands, Shirley looked down. “I really didn’t know what else to do. Part of me didn’t believe he’d really just take off like that. And I had this gut feeling something was wrong. After all, everything was still in his apartment. I thought, if he was going to run off, why not take his things with him? It didn’t make sense.”
“Then what happened?”
“I waited. Months went by. Then years. I’m still friends with my brother’s old high school girlfriend. She never believed he would just take off without letting me know where he was. She’s the one who saw the picture in the paper.”
“Your brother was a writer?”
“Yes. He was a freelance writer. He did investigative reporting about politics and stuff. Although, I think he always wanted to be a mystery writer.”
“Was your brother ever—violent? Did he have a temper?”
“Antoine?” Shirley frowned. “He had a temper, but he was never physical or violent. I mean…well, he could get sarcastic and maybe a little verbally insulting when he’d get mad. But he never threw stuff. Nothing like that.”
“He never hit you?”
“Hit me?” Shirley stared at Danielle. “No…do you think this woman who was murdered was the woman he was seeing?”
“I think it might be. They were seen coming out of a restaurant together—arguing.”
Shirley shook her head. “If you think my brother murdered this woman and then ran off, you’re wrong. Antoine would never do something like that.”
It hadn’t taken long for Baron Huxley to find out where Shirley Paul was staying. After returning from Lucy’s Diner the night before, he started calling all the local motels, asking the same question. “Hello, I’m just checking on my sister, Shirley Paul. She’s supposed to have arrived there from Vancouver this evening, and I wanted to make sure she arrived safely.”
It was his second call—to the Seahorse Motel—that gave him the answer he wanted. When they asked him if he wanted them to put the call through to her room, he simply said, “No, I don’t want to disturb her if she’s already gone to bed. I know it’s late and she needs her rest. I just wanted to make sure she arrived safely.”
He had been in his car all night, keeping an eye on the motel—waiting. When Antoine Paul arrived at his sister’s motel room, Baron would do what needed to be done. When Antoine didn’t arrive that night, Baron was certain he would show up the next day. But it wasn’t Antoine Paul who showed up at his sister’s motel room—it was Danielle Boatman.
Thirty
After Susan Mitchell finished her shift at the bank on Monday, she stopped at the Frederickport Police Department. Officer Brian Henderson had asked her to stop in; they needed to ask her some questions about her former boss. She had to admit, she was curious to see what they intended to ask her.
“Thank you for coming,” Brian told Susan when he led her to the interrogation room. “I thought you might be more comfortable if we talked here rather than at the bank.”
“It is sort of a fishbowl down there.” After draping her purse’s strap over the back of a chair, she sat down.
Brian took a seat across from her at the table, a pad of paper and pen sitting before him.
“What did you want to ask me?”
“I understand the week Steve died, you worked every day at the bank?”
“Yes. Like always. Five days a week. I don’t do Saturdays anymore.”
“How long have you worked at the bank?” he asked.
“Gee…five years, I guess.” She shrugged.
“So Steve was the manager when you started working there.”
“Yes.”
“Do you know if Steve had any food allergies?”
“You mean like his allergy to shellfish?”
“So you knew about that?”
“Sure. Anyway, it was just in the paper. I imagine the whole town knows.”
“Did you know about it before you read it in the paper?”
“Sure. Everyone at the bank knew.” She shifted in her chair to get more comfortable. “Sometimes we’d make jokes about it.”
“How so?”
Leaning over the table, she placed her hands on the tabletop. “Well, it doesn’t seem so funny now. Especially considering what happened to him. According to the paper, he had some allergic reaction and fell off the pier, hit his head.”
“What kind of jokes?”
“It was nothing. You know how it is. Even if you l
ike your boss, sometimes you get mad at him. If he called someone in his office to jump all over them, sometimes the person would later make a joke about bringing crab cakes to the next employee potluck. It was sorta a standard joke. No one was serious.”
“Did Steve know about the…joke?”
Susan shook her head. “No, I don’t think so.”
“Do you know of anyone at the bank who had an issue with him?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Did you ever have a problem with him?”
Susan glanced down at her hands and then looked back up at Brian. “Does it really matter? I mean, Steve’s dead now. And it’s not like I fed him shellfish or anything.”
“Did you have a problem with him at one time?”
“Sort of, but that was a long time ago.”
“What kind of problem?”
Susan considered the question for a minute before letting out a deep sigh. “I really don’t want his wife to know. I really like her.”
“Did you have a relationship with Steve Klein?”
Susan gasped, “Oh, gawd no!”
“Then what was it?”
“Well, when I first went to work there, he sort of…well…I think he hit on me.”
“You think?”
“Yeah. I guess he did. I told him I wanted to keep our relationship professional and if he ever made another advance, I’d go over his head and talk to his boss. After that, he left me alone. I never had a problem with him again.”
“Do you know if he was seeing anyone else at the bank?”
She shook her head. “No. I don’t think so.”
“Do you know of anyone who had a problem with Steve?”
“Aside from the normal employee-management conflicts, not really.” She paused a moment and then said, “Although, the day before he died, he got into a bad argument with that friend of his. I was sort of surprised.”
“Which friend was that?”
“Mr. Huxley. He would come into the bank about once a month. He’d go into Steve’s office with him; they’d close the door and talk for about an hour. I don’t know if it was business or personal.”