Blackberry Crumble

by Josi S. Kilpack

  Karri put the hot pan of what looked like multigrain rolls into a rolling cooling rack. Sadie could see the tips of sunflower seeds poking out of the rounded domes as well as a smattering of oats along the surface. “Jim gave me a great price on a fire system in exchange for two lunches a week for a year, and he’s never stopped coming in, even when he had to pay. He’s been very good for business too, bringing in friends and associates on a regular basis.”

  “I was here with his daughter the other day,” Sadie said.

  “Jolene?” Karri said with an excited smile.

  “No, May. She lives in Ohio.”

  “I haven’t met her,” Karri said. “But Jolene used to come in a few times a month with her dad. How’s she doing?”

  “She says she’s doing well,” Sadie said, and though she doubted that was true, she didn’t want to spread gossip.

  “Good,” Karri said, removing her oven mitts. She moved toward a big plastic tub of what looked like butter and picked up a scoop that sat next to it. There was already a cookie sheet full of little paper cups set out; Karri started putting a scoop of butter into each cup. Sadie was itching to offer her help, but didn’t want to come across as too forward. Instead she continued talking, “I had the salmon and mushroom pasta. It was wonderful.”

  Karri’s smile stretched even bigger. “That’s one of my favorites, but I have to admit it was inspired by nothing other than tuna casserole.”

  “Well, it was nothing like any tuna casserole I’ve ever had,” Sadie said. “It was delicious. And the blackberry crumble—well, it made this whole trip worthwhile.”

  “That recipe belonged to my grandmother,” Karri said, “so I can’t take all the credit, but I’m glad you enjoyed both of them. I try to mix up the more creative fare with some basic home-cooked goodness so as to not pigeonhole myself in any one type of cuisine. Anyway, what did you want to ask about Jim?”

  Oh, right—Jim. Sadie opened her purse and removed the photo she had used to identify Keith Kelly a couple of days earlier. “Do you by chance remember Jim having lunch with this man?” She held the picture out to Karri, who furrowed her brow as she paused in her butter-scooping task to give it a quick look. She frowned slightly. “I don’t spend much time at the tables,” Karri said. “I could ask my wait staff when they come in, but that’s not for another hour.”

  Sadie tried to hide her disappointment.

  “What’s so important about this guy?” Karri asked. “Like I said, Jim brought people here all the time.”

  “Oh, it’s probably a long shot,” Sadie said, tucking the photo back into her purse. “But he was Jim’s former business partner who, according to Jim’s family, hadn’t had contact with Jim for years. However, I recently learned he’d had lunch here with Jim a couple of weeks before Jim died.”

  Karri paused, and then leaned forward slightly. “Two weeks before?”

  Sadie noticed the slightest narrowing of Karri’s eyes.

  “Can I see that photo again?”

  Sadie quickly complied, and this time Karri stared at it for several seconds. “I do know that guy, then,” she said, not sounding pleased. She handed the photo back to Sadie. “He came in with Jim and ordered the soup of the day, but he sent it back twice because he said it was cold. I made a point to take it out to him personally the second time, to make sure he was happy, and he was really rather rude about the whole thing. He’s much better looking in that photo.”

  Sadie was encouraged. “Yes, that sounds just like Keith Kelly. You don’t remember anything else about their meal, do you? Any idea what they were talking about?”

  “Jim wasn’t happy,” Karri said. “I can tell you that much. At first I thought he was just embarrassed by his friend sending the soup back, but then I realized there was something else going on. The tension between the two of them was intense, and he had a bunch of papers on the table. I was worried that this guy—Keith, right?—I thought he was an attorney or something and that Jim was having some trouble.”

  “Why did you think that?”

  “There was a profit and loss statement on the table. I didn’t recognize anything else, but I’d never known Jim to eat with someone he didn’t like, and it was a pretty serious topic, whatever it was they were talking about.”

  Sadie opened her mouth to ask another question when she suddenly put two and two together. She’d assumed that Keith had been the one to instigate the lunch, but they’d eaten at Karri’s, Jim’s favorite restaurant. Duh! The lunch hadn’t been Keith’s idea at all.

  “One other thing,” Karri said, drawing Sadie’s attention again as she continued scooping butter. “The soup wasn’t cold. He was posturing.”

  “Posturing?”

  “Making a statement,” Karri explained. “Kind of like when a skinny girl orders a salad on a date, I know it’s early in a relationship. When a couple shares a dessert, there’s no doubt that they are comfortable with one another. And when someone makes a big deal about paying for dinner with a hundred-dollar bill, it’s to show off.”

  Sadie understood. “And when a man sends hot soup back to the kitchen twice, he’s dominating the situation.”

  Karri pointed her butter scoop at Sadie. “Exactly. This Keith guy finally agreed to tolerate the soup, and I left them to their business. I never saw the man again. Jim and I never talked about it.”

  “Hello?”

  They both looked toward the sound of a man’s voice, then Karri wiped her hands on her apron. “The linen delivery. Can I help you with anything else?”

  “No,” Sadie said, fumbling in her purse for the mini-notebook she always kept there. “But thank you for your time; this helps me a great deal. If you remember anything else, could you give me a call? I’ll write my cell phone number down and just leave it here on the counter.” She was already scribbling down the digits.

  “You bet, and I hope you’ll come back and eat with us again while you’re in town.”

  Sadie smiled. “I don’t even need the invitation, thank you.”

  Once back in her car, Sadie turned her key in the ignition in order to get the AC going and jotted down some notes on what she’d learned from Karri. After she’d gotten all the words out of her head, she read them over again, absorbing her discovery. Jim had issued the invitation for Keith to join him at his favorite lunch spot, which suggested that Jim had issued some kind of proposal to Keith Kelly; something May insisted never would have happened. Sadie had to repeat it a couple of times to really let it settle. This changed things—a lot of things.

  She called Richard. It went to his voice mail, and Sadie reluctantly left him a message about what she’d learned. At the tail end of her recap, she had an idea and hurried to invite him to lunch at Karri’s that afternoon. She didn’t set a time, just asked him to call her as soon as possible. Just before she said good-bye, her phone vibrated slightly, indicating that she’d received a text message. She hung up her phone and then toggled to her inbox.

  I’m ready when you are! Give me a call, and you’ll be on your way to the financial independence you’ve always dreamed of. G.T.

  It took her a moment to realize G.T. must mean Gary Tracey. She wasn’t looking forward to meeting with him, but with such limited options, she knew she had to take advantage of any opportunity. Plus, if Gary had returned her call, it meant that he must not be aware of the falling out she’d had with May. Without debating too much, she called him back.

  “Hello,” she said into the phone. “This is Sadie Hoffmiller; I just got your—”

  “Sadie, Sadie, lucky lady, I’m so glad to hear from you.” He didn’t give her a chance to respond. “After I got your message, I was able to reschedule some things this morning so that you and I could have a chance to talk about the glorious potential you have through some financial restructuring. I made you a priority and am at your service.”

  Sadie clenched her teeth but pulled all her determination together so as to assume the role she now needed to play—interes
ted investor. “Well, that’s wonderful,” she said, hoping she sounded sincere.

  “I’m glad it will work for you,” he said. “What time would you like me to come to the house?”

  The house? Oh, he meant Jim’s house, where he assumed she was today, helping May pack up the house. “Actually, could I come to you?”

  “To me?” Gary asked, a little too surprised.

  “Yes, do you have an office or something?” She tried to think of a reasonable excuse for why she didn’t want to meet at Jim’s, but nothing came to mind, and she didn’t want to stumble over an improvised reason so she bit her tongue and kept her mouth shut, not an easy thing for her to do.

  “Well, sure,” Gary said. “I just, well, I don’t usually meet with clients there.”

  Him not wanting to meet at his office made Sadie even more determined to do just that. “It’s just that Jim’s house isn’t my home, and with everything May has going on, I’d rather not infringe on her with my personal business.”

  “May won’t mind at all,” Gary said. “And we won’t disturb her one way or another, so if it’s all the same—”

  “It’s not all the same to me,” Sadie cut in, then took a breath to calm herself and slow down her words. “I would not feel comfortable meeting at the house, but I’m eager to discuss this with you at your office.” She tried not to feel bad about being a bully. “I’m afraid I must insist.”

  “Um, well, of course,” Gary said with forced solicitousness. “Whatever you’re most comfortable with.”

  “Wonderful,” Sadie said. “Give me your address, and I’ll be right there.”

  He proceeded to give her the address, and she punched it into Dora. His office was about fourteen miles away, which would, hopefully, give her plenty of time to determine how she wanted to handle this. She wished she’d done the same background work on Gary that she’d done for Keith, but last night had not turned out as she’d expected. She hated that she was going to the meeting unprepared and wondered if she should stop at a coffee shop with free Wi-Fi and see what she could find online. A quick glance at the dashboard clock rendered that option a moot point—she didn’t have even five extra minutes.

  Could she ask Jane to help? Should she? Part of her really wanted to—it would give Jane a chance to prove herself and help Sadie out of a bind. Unfortunately, she wasn’t ready to trust anything of any real significance to Jane.

  As Sadie slowed down for a red light, she had another thought. Her brother, Jack, worked for a real estate company. He was an accountant, but their office was across the street from a title company they worked with quite often. Title companies, she’d learned from her book on how to be an investigator, had access to all kinds of personal information—far more than Sadie could get on her own. She bit her lip, but could feel the excitement building. It was a long shot, but no longer than meeting with Gary in hopes of solving a murder. It was all about baby steps.

  Chapter 40

  After she pulled up to the office building, which was a square, brick building with water stains coming down from the rather ragged rain gutters, she dialed Jack’s cell phone number, frowning when it went to voice mail.

  She left the message that she was in somewhat desperate need of some background information on a forty-something-year-old man name Gary Tracey, married to Jolene Tracey and living in Hillsboro, Oregon.

  “I know this is last minute, but it might be a matter of life and death. Please call me back ASAP! That’s Gary Tracey. T-R-A-C-E-Y. Thanks, Jack.” She hung up and hoped he would sense her urgency.

  She got out of her car and cast her eyes up to the sky. What had been a partly cloudy morning was turning into an overcast afternoon. She would welcome a rainstorm—who knew when she’d get back to the Pacific Northwest and its famous rain—but she would prefer to enjoy the rain when she could be indoors. For now, the overcast skies seemed to simply trap the humidity, and she felt her skin tingle in anticipation of a full-body sweat.

  The glass door creaked when she pulled it open, and the breeze caught the door, requiring her to wrestle it closed, which only made her sweating situation worse. Inside, she surveyed the interior. The tiles along the edge of the foyer, away from the traffic area, were three shades lighter than the middle sections. Some plastic plants had been added several years earlier, perhaps to provide a cozier look, but had apparently been forgotten about, since they were bent and dusty.

  There was a plaque on the wall with the names of the building’s occupants spelled out with little pushpin letters, though a few letters had fallen to the bottom of the glass case. On the top floor, there was an adult probation office—Adult P obation, according to the directory—and an empty office currently F r Lease. On the main floor, there was a medical billing office and a suite titled Tip-Top Transport. No King Me or Tracey Enterprises or Tracey Investments anywhere. Had she come to the wrong place?

  “Mrs. Hoffmiller.”

  She looked up to see Gary coming toward her with a wide smile on his face. She had to give him credit for acting as though he was in class-A office space any businessman would be proud of. He reached out his hand and she put out her own, which he covered with both of his as though they were lifelong friends. “I’m so glad you could make it,” he said warmly. “Right this way.”

  She followed him down a short hallway, separated from the other hallway by a set of restrooms, and through a door with vinyl lettering that read Tip-Top Transport. The office was quite bare, with an economical desk and chair, a whiteboard on the wall behind the desk, and a single filing cabinet in the corner. There were two chairs opposite the desk.

  As Sadie sat in one of them, she noticed the dry coffee pot on the filing cabinet and the overall lack of . . . anything. She wondered if there was a box full of the typical office clutter behind the single door to the right of the desk. Either Gary rarely came here or he had cleared out the office before she arrived. When she finally met Gary’s eyes, she realized he’d been watching her inspect the office. She smiled brightly to ease his concerns, but he burst in with an excuse before she could assure him she was fine.

  “My top priority in everything I do,” he began, “is to put everything I can back into my customer’s best interest.” He spread his arms wide and leaned back in his chair. “I could spend thousands of dollars on artwork and executive furnishings, but to what end?” He leaned forward. “I have no need for pretense; the fact is, I’m blue-collar, just like you.”

  Sadie fought back explaining to him that she had her master’s degree in elementary education and that blue-collar people didn’t make a living taking other people’s money, but she understood he was trying to butter her up, so she didn’t argue the point.

  “I’m not out to make false promises or tell you that I can make you a millionaire; that’s not my job. My job is to give you the financial security you need in order to ensure your very best possible future without risking what you already have. Therefore, trying to seduce you into trusting me by dazzling you with excess is completely counterproductive to who I am.” He placed a hand on his chest. “I am who I am, and my life is dedicated to making other people’s dreams come true.”

  He finished and grinned again.

  “Well, thank you,” Sadie said, feeling almost dirty to even pretend to believe him. “Tip-Top Transport—is that the car dealership you mentioned yesterday?”

  “No point in owning two offices when one can do the job for both.”

  Sadie wondered if there even was a dealership or if this was all there was to Tip-Top Transport. “Makes sense,” she said.

  “I knew you were my kind of girl when I met you yesterday—a real salt of the earth woman.”

  Sadie nodded, her annoyance at his empty flattery making it harder to keep the smile on her face. She could feel it becoming more plastic by the minute. Her phone rang, and she apologized while she dug for her purse. It was Jack. “Sorry,” she said. “I really need to take this.”

  “Go ahead,” Gary sa
id solicitously.

  “Thanks,” she said, then took a deep breath and stood up. She walked to the end of the office and kept her voice low. “Hi.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” she said lightly. “You got my message?” Maybe she should go into the hallway in order to have some privacy, but a quick glance at Gary showed he was busy with his iPhone and not paying her any attention.

  “You said it was a matter of life and death. Are you okay?”

  It took a moment for Sadie to figure out why Jack was so anxious; then she realized he thought she meant her life or death. “Oh, I’m fine, it’s not like that.” Gary may not be paying her much attention, but she still needed to be careful. “If you could take care of that, I would be forever in your debt.”