by Rebecca York
Hempstead laughed, then cut to the chase. “Did you call to hash over old battle scars? Or do we have some present business?”
“I don’t know. I’m calling to lay out a situation, see what you think.”
“I’m at your service.”
“Since you seem to have a handle on everything that goes on in town, you probably know Lee Tillman has Randolph Security on retainer. Tillman called me this morning at the crack of dawn. He was upset and insisted that he needed to see me right away. He said he’d leave the front door unlocked. I went in, but the house was empty. He’d told me he was leaving on a trip, and there was a notation on his calendar to that effect. There was no real sign of foul play, but the expensive oriental rug in his office was missing. I couldn’t help thinking that it would make a wonderful wrapper for a body.”
“You think something’s happened to him? That he didn’t just leave town on his own?”
“I’m going to talk to his girlfriend, Dana Eustice. See if she knows where he went.”
“Did Tillman tell you what he wanted when he called?”
“He wasn’t willing to discuss it over the phone. But I got the feeling he thought he was in danger.”
“From anything he said?” Hempstead probed.
“Nothing concrete. Just what I picked up from the tone of his voice.”
Alex pictured the chief rubbing his finger against his lips as he mulled that over for several seconds. “Yeah, I know what you mean. Still, that’s not much to go on. And it’s too soon to file a missing person’s report. What do you want from me?”
“I just want you to be aware of the situation in case you hear anything.”
“If I do, I’ll put you in the loop.” The chief hesitated for a moment, then cleared his throat. “Do you want me to have a talk with Ms. Eustice and see what she knows?”
Alex was glad Hempstead couldn’t see the look of surprise on his face. “Wouldn’t that be unusual at this stage?”
The man on the other end of the line laughed. “Son, this is a small town, not the big city. I recall that Ms. Eustice stops in at the Decoy on Thursdays for lunch with some of the people in her theater group. They’re discussing what production to put on next.”
“Something where she’s the star,” Alex murmured, remembering that Dana Eustice liked to be the center of attention. Since Lee Tillman was one of the main backers of the theater company, his girlfriend was likely to get what she wanted.
“I can pick up a sandwich there and ask how Lee’s doing,” the chief was saying.
“I appreciate that.”
“I’ll let you know how it goes.”
Alex hung up feeling that Chief Hempstead was willing to go the extra mile for him—an odd sensation given their previous history.
For several moments, he sat staring into space. Then he rolled toward his desk and booted up his computer. First he searched Motor Vehicles for the license number from this morning. But he didn’t have enough letters and numbers to net him anything.
With a sigh, he connected to the very comprehensive and very expensive information service that Randolph Security used and typed in Sara Delaney’s name.
Someone had tried to run her down that morning. He was sure of it. Of course, he’d never thought that a hit-and-run was the best way to get rid of an enemy. It had the advantage of looking like an accident, but it was pretty uncertain. After all, you might not kill the victim and then you’d be left with unfinished business.
The thought sent a trickle of cold through him. He hadn’t been kidding Sara. She was in some kind of trouble, whether she knew it or not, and maybe he could find out what it was.
The first thing he discovered was that the E was for Ellen. In less than an hour he discovered that Sara Ellen Delaney had been born in St. Stephens twenty-eight years ago. Her parents were Reid and Brenda Delaney, who had started buying savings bonds for their daughter the year she was born, and had obtained a social security number for her at the same time. Brenda Delaney had died a couple of years ago of a heart attack at age sixty. Reid, aged sixty-five, still lived in the house where Sara had grown up. Although Reid had worked as a machinist at White and Sandler Tools, a local manufacturing plant, he and his wife had managed to send their daughter to the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, without taking out any loans for tuition.
Sara had majored in accounting, and her grades had been mostly As and Bs, with a C in biology. She’d gotten three campus traffic tickets, which she’d paid promptly. She’d begun preparing tax returns to earn money before she graduated, and she’d passed the CPA exam on her first try. One of her earliest clients had been Lee Tillman, who’d hired her in her junior year.
Indeed, Sara appeared to be doing awfully well for someone still in her late-twenties. She had made a down payment on her house and was paying off the mortgage at seven percent—a very favorable interest rate. She ran her accounting business from an office on the second floor of her home. She had no dependents, but she gave her father two hundred dollars a month.
Her car was paid for, and unlike many women, she took it in for regular maintenance. Currently she had a clean driving record, except for a citation, issued by one of Hempstead’s deputies, for failing to brake at a stop sign at the end of her street. Her two credit card balances ran between five hundred and a thousand a month each, which she paid off before accruing interest. Finally, she seemed to be in good health, and the only prescription medication she’d taken in the past five years was Keflex, when she’d had a case of bronchitis in February.
Alex leaned back in his desk chair and clasped his hands behind his head. Every time he did a Strategic Stats search, he got a little paranoid, thinking about somebody doing the same thing on him. It was downright frightening how much he had learned about Ms. Sara Ellen Delaney without her knowledge, and he couldn’t help feeling a little twinge of conscience. Assuming, of course, that she was innocent of any wrongdoing.
She’d seemed innocent enough when he’d sat across from her in the coffee shop this morning. Well, perhaps she’d been a little wary. But he could account for that by his own behavior. He’d been evasive when she’d asked him questions, and she’d bristled.
But her innocence and her reaction to his nonanswers could both be calculated to create an effect. Looks could be deceiving. He’d once been fooled by a seventy-year-old grandmother who’d seemed nice as pie. Then he’d discovered she’d poisoned three husbands to get their insurance money.
He hadn’t been turned on by the grandmother, of course. Unfortunately, despite his wish for personal detachment, he had been turned on by Sara Delaney. This morning she’d brought out his protective instincts, as well.
He didn’t trust either response, nor did he trust his judgment when it came to women. He’d thought Cindy loved him, and he’d been dead wrong.
And he was damned if he was going to repeat the mistake by letting Sara Delaney take him in. It didn’t matter what had happened eleven years ago between himself and Ms. Delaney. That had no relevance today.
So until evidence to the contrary, he was going to assume that she was up to no good, even though he’d discovered nothing overtly criminal. There still was the question of how she’d gotten so successful so quickly.
Leaning forward again, he clicked the mouse. A couple of seconds later, the printer started spitting out the details of Ms. Delaney’s life. Old habits died hard, he thought as he got out a file folder and shoved the papers inside. Some people would have been content with the information tucked away on a hard drive. He liked a real folder with sheets of paper he could read in bed if he felt like it.
After tossing the file onto his desk, he got up and stretched, then made another pot of coffee and poured himself a mug.
Sipping from it, he came back to the computer to run another background check. He typed in the name of the man who had called him this morning sounding frightened—then hadn’t shown up for their appointment. At first, he found no surprises. Lee Till
man owned The Refuge free and clear. He also owned his Lexus and his Jag. His credit card bills were much steeper than Ms. Delaney’s, yet he always paid them at the end of the period. He belonged to the Optimists, the Jaycees, the First Methodist Church and the Society of Wine Connoisseurs. He had several pending parking tickets, and several points on his license—enough that if he got another moving violation, he was in danger of having his license suspended. His birthday was May 9, 1947, and he’d been born in New York City.
However, no record existed that stated where Lee had gone to school, nor did it seem he’d ever visited a doctor or dentist. There was no information on his parents or any other relatives. He had never held a job. He had no previous addresses, nor had he paid a utility, tax or telephone bill before moving to St. Stephens, Maryland. His driver’s license had been issued twenty-seven years ago and so had his social security card—unusual in a day and age when every bank account required a social security number for tax purposes.
Alex tried every database in the system but they all drew the same blank. Rocking back in his chair, he rubbed his eyes, wondering if anybody else ever had tried to dig up information on Lee Tillman before. If they had, he was certain they would have discovered what he was discovering: For all intents and purposes, the man had sprung into existence twenty-seven years ago, when he’d appeared in St. Stephens, Maryland, bought his estate and deposited large sums of money at several local banks.
From the shadows of the computer screen, Lee seemed to give him a sardonic wink. Alex’s expression was stony as he stared back. He’d started this investigation because he’d felt both a personal and a professional obligation to Lee. Now that he knew the man had gone to a great deal of trouble to bury almost half the years of his life, he felt suckered. What the hell was Lee trying to hide—that he’d beamed down to earth from the Starship Enterprise?
Alex felt the hair on the back of his neck tingle as an only slightly less preposterous hypothesis struck him. The Master of the Refuge might have sprung to life from the shadows of some previous existence and now had vanished back into those shadows. What if he wasn’t dead at all? What if he’d simply arranged to disappear from St. Stephens as efficiently and as mysteriously as he had appeared all those years ago?
Chapter Four
Propping an elbow on the desk and his chin on his hand, Alex stared at the monitor as his mind played with the bizarre theory. What if Lee had been laying the groundwork for this all month, ever since he’d asked Randolph Security to investigate his associates. He’d let Alex Shane poke around in his private life. Then he’d awakened him with an urgent early-morning phone call.
He’d known Alex would come running, and find the house empty and the rug missing.
Eyes narrowed, Alex considered the idea. If you were going to fake a murder, wouldn’t you leave more evidence around? Signs of a struggle…blood? Well, maybe not—if you wanted things to be ambiguous.
He shook his head. The whole scenario was a huge stretch. But it wasn’t impossible. He’d always known that Lee Tillman was tricky and devious. He hadn’t known just how far the man was capable of going—until he’d started digging into his past.
So was Sara Delaney part of the plot? Had Lee arranged for her to be in the house because he knew that Alex would probably be there? Or had someone else come in and killed Lee Tillman, or kidnapped him? Or maybe this wasn’t about murder. Maybe it was about blackmail. Because if Alex had dug into Lee’s background, maybe someone else had done the same thing, and threatened to reveal that Lee had a false identity unless the man came across with a huge sum. Unwilling to pay the tariff, Lee had chosen to disappear as effectively as he’d appeared.
With a sigh, Alex dug the phone book out of the desk drawer and started calling companies that cleaned oriental rugs. Posing as a befuddled home owner who couldn’t remember where he’d sent his precious oriental, Alex asked if each establishment had picked up a rug from Lee Tillman. Nobody had. Which didn’t prove anything. For all Alex knew, Lee could have taken the rug with him in the car and dropped it off on the Western Shore on his way north.
There wasn’t much more Alex was going to find out sitting home. So he left the house again and headed toward a ramshackle collection of homes strung out along Crisfield Creek. He’d been here before, long ago. Now he felt his chest tighten as he climbed out of the car and walked down toward the water where a man in a torn T-shirt and faded jeans was leaning into the open hood of an old Ford.
“Lewis Farmer?”
The man straightened and stared at him, his eyes widening as he realized who it was. More than once, he and Alex had beaten the crap out of each other. Alex had been the leader of his pack. Lewis had wanted to prove he was just as tough.
“Alex Shane,” he said, his voice milder than Alex might have expected. Reaching for a rag that lay on one fender of the car, he wiped his grimy hands. “What brings you down to the St. Stephens slums?”
“I wouldn’t call it the slums.”
“Yeah, well, we can skip the niceties. What do you want?”
“I’m looking for Lee Tillman.”
“He doesn’t apprise me of his social plans.”
“You work for him. When’s the last time you saw him?”
“Last week.” Farmer’s gaze turned inward. “Tuesday, I guess. He wanted me to haul some more rocks down to the riverbank.”
“And you took care of that?”
“Yeah. I took care of it. He pays good.”
“And you don’t know where he might be now.”
“Said he was going on vacation. Said he wanted the shoreline reinforced so the house wouldn’t wash away while he was gone.”
Alex nodded. That sounded like Lee, all right. Pulling out a business card, he extended it to Farmer.
The other man took it in his grimy hand. “Fancy! What’s Randolph Security?”
“It’s a combination security company and detective agency,” he answered, thinking that it was also a whole lot more. But he didn’t need to spell out the particulars. “Give a call if you see Lee. I’m paying cash for information.”
“You don’t have to bribe me, Alex.”
“I’d appreciate the help.”
Farmer gave him a smile that didn’t meet his eyes. “Sure thing.”
Alex turned and left, almost positive that Lewis Farmer wasn’t going to give him any information—even if he had it.
Alex pondered Farmer’s involvement. Had someone paid him to help get rid of Lee? Or did he have a motive for doing it on his own?
Back in his car, Alex headed for the business district of St. Stephens. His first stop was the real estate office of Emmett Bandy.
It was ironic, he thought, that residents from across the bay were scarfing up property on the shore when many of the people who had lived here for years couldn’t afford to keep their homes. With the closing down of some local businesses and the dying off of the seafood industry, properties that had once been owned by honest working people were being torn down and replaced by expensive residences.
Emmett Bandy was part of the process. His business was good, but he’d made the mistake of believing his own publicity. He’d seen a speculative opportunity in the housing market and had borrowed fifty thousand dollars for a down payment from Lee Tillman. Then the heirs of the man who had sold him the property had disputed the sale, and Emmett had been left in the lurch. Lee hadn’t let their friendship stop him from demanding repayment and there had been harsh words exchanged.
Alex had planned to spend twenty minutes in the real estate office, looking at pictures of selected properties, pretending that he wanted to change his status from renter to home owner before bringing up the subject of Lee Tillman. But it took only five seconds to ascertain that Emmett wasn’t in a position to have murdered Tillman and disposed of the body. His arm was in a sling—broken and dislocated from a fall down some unstable steps at a property he’d been showing a few days earlier. So unless he’d had help, he wasn’t the on
e who had frightened Lee so badly that morning.
Alex’s next stop was the drugstore at the corner of Main and Duke Streets. The establishment was a holdover from the days when there had been fewer shops in town, many doing double or triple duty. So in addition to the pharmacy in the back and the variety of dry goods stocked in front, there was also a coffee shop where many of the locals hung out. Outsiders were barely tolerated at the scarred Formica-topped tables.
But many of the regulars remembered Alex from his younger days. So while he drank another cup of coffee, he shot the breeze with retired watermen and housewives who had known his mother. They had varying disparaging comments to make about Lee Tillman—comments that would have been imprudent on the part of a murderer. Although they might have been designed to throw up a smoke screen, Alex conceded. And he got little dividend from the conversation.
Pete Williams, who was retired from the fire department, made a point of mentioning that Alex’s only sibling, Billy, had gotten into some trouble last night at the Cat Walk, a local bar where he and his lowlife friends hung out.
Unlike Alex, Billy hadn’t escaped their shared past. He’d progressed from juvenile crime to adult offenses, which had led to several short stretches in the county jail and then the federal penitentiary at Jessup. Now he was out of the joint and back in town, where he apparently couldn’t stay out of trouble, although Alex only knew about his brother’s problems secondhand, since they hadn’t spoken in years.
He could have sought Billy out, he supposed. But he knew from past experience that would only have led to a confrontation. The kid would never put it in these terms, but Alex knew Billy was resentful that his brother had escaped their heritage. Alex had figured out during the year after high school that there was no future for him on the shore and he’d turned his life around. Billy had stayed and dug himself into a hole that was too big to climb out of.
Alex hung out at the coffee shop for over an hour, turning the talk back to that eccentric Lee Tillman, hearing various comments about the man. But Alex was pretty sure he wasn’t talking to anyone who’d done the man in that morning.