by Jessica Beck
“He’s Heather Morningstar’s fiancé,” I said.
Grace frowned. “Does he know what happened?”
“Knows it, forgives it, and has offered to support us financially to fix it.”
“He must be quite a guy,” she said as the car pulled away.
“He invited you, Jake, and me to the wedding.”
“What did you say?”
“I told him that if we were able to find the murderer in time, we’d be delighted.”
Grace grinned at me. “You and I might be happy to go, but I doubt that Jake will be all that pleased about the invitation.”
“Then you and I will go together.”
“In the meantime,” Grace said, “Shall we go to Ellen’s place and start digging?”
I glanced at my watch. “We’d better hustle. We’re on a tight schedule, remember?”
“Maybe I’d better drive,” she said.
“You’re on.”
As we neared Ellen’s place, I pointed to the side of the road and said, “There it is, remember? Pull in by the doghouse.”
Grace did as I instructed, and as we got out, I touched the roof of the doghouse with one hand. Whoever had spruced the canine domicile up should have used the paint on the house instead. The shutters were peeling, and the faded wooden siding was showing some serious signs of disrepair.
“Boy, she’s really not much for maintenance around here, is she?” Grace asked.
“The dog lives better than she does. Let’s go in and see what we can find.” I took the keys Ellen had given me and unlocked the three locks she had on her front door. “It appears that she spent her budget on security for this place.”
I opened the locks, one after the other, and the door swung open. I didn’t go in just yet, though. I stood there for a second, poised to slam it. “Here, Spike. Here, boy.”
There was no response inside.
“It appears to be safe,” I said as Grace and I walked in together.
“I know for one that I’m relieved. Let’s find Morgan’s room and start digging.”
It was the second door that we opened, and Grace and I both knew the moment we peeked inside that this was where Morgan had been staying since he’d been released from prison. The place was in perfect order, everything put away properly, and the bed made with military precision.
“Wow, he was extremely neat, wasn’t he?”
“I’ve heard that a lot of cons learn to be that way in prison and they are never able to break the habit once they are on the outside,” I said. “At least it will make it easier to search, especially since Ellen knows what we’re doing.”
“Do you want the dresser, the closet, or that bag over there?”
“I’ll take the dresser,” I said as I pulled out the first drawer. Inside it, everything was neatly folded and in its proper place. I felt a bit of a twinge pawing through the dead man’s things, no matter how badly he’d tried to treat my mother and me, but this search was vital to our investigation. “Remember, we’re looking for an orange key, and anything else that might help.”
“Do you have anything in particular in mind?”
“Evidence of who killed him would be nice, but if we can’t find that, how about the items he used to blackmail everybody?”
“I’ll give you a shout if I find anything,” Grace said.
The top drawer was devoid of any clues, and I closed it and went on to the next in line. At this rate, we’d be done before Ellen got off for lunch.
I was finished with the bottom drawer without finding so much as a receipt when I decided to check the dust rail underneath it. I knew from personal experience that sometimes things could fall back behind a drawer. Who knew? Maybe I’d get lucky.
I didn’t.
So far, my search had been a total waste of time.
I turned to Grace, who was just finishing up with the closet. “Did you find anything?” I asked her as I walked up to her.
“Not of consequence, and certainly no evidence, or any keys whatsoever.”
“I guess that just leaves his bag,” I said without too much conviction.
“You never know. He might have stuck something under his mattress. We might as well be thorough and check the bed while we’re here.”
“You take the bed, I’ll grab the bag,” I said as I looked at my watch. “We have about eight minutes, so we’d better get moving.”
“I’m on it,” Grace said as she started to tear up those beautifully crafted corners of the perfectly made bed.
While she did that, I started digging through the gym bag, hoping that something, anything, would turn up.
Thirty seconds later, I felt something in the lining, and after finding a hidden piece of Velcro sewn into the bag, I opened it and pulled out what we’d been looking for.
It was the orange key from the bus station!
Now we were getting somewhere.
“Grace, look what I found,” I said as I held the key out to her.
“That’s outstanding. I was just about to call for you. What do you think this means? I found it jammed behind the headboard.”
She held up a piece of paper and waved it in the air. I took it from her as I handed her the key. As I studied the paper, I saw that it was a bank deposit slip. It was made out to a bank in Union Square, and the amount of the deposit was nine thousand eight hundred dollars.
It appeared that someone had actually paid Morgan off.
Had it been someone on our suspect list, or someone else entirely?
Only time would tell. We’d have to follow that lead as well, but at the moment, we had a locker to check.
My joy was tempered, though, when I heard a voice coming from the doorway.
“What did you find?” Ellen asked as she came into view.
Grace looked at me for a split second, and I nodded. I’d agreed to tell her everything. There was no going back on my word now. “It’s the key to the bus station locker we’ve been looking all over for.”
Ellen bit her lower lip, and then she said, “Let’s go see what my brother was hiding, shall we?”
“We can take my Jeep,” I said, but Ellen shook her head.
“I’ll follow you in my car,” she said as she held out her hand for the locker key.
“If you don’t mind, we’ve been looking forward to opening it ourselves,” I said. “We’d be happy for you to come with us, but we’d like to be the ones who open it.”
After five seconds, Ellen answered, “Okay, I get that. I suppose you’ve earned at least that. Let me have my house keys back, and we’re good to go.”
As we drove to the station, Grace asked me, “Are we going to tell her about the deposit slip we found?”
“We’re not at all sure what it means, or if we can even figure out who caved in,” I said. “Why don’t we hang onto it and see what we find in the locker? If it’s holding what we think it is, then it’s going to provide answers to some questions we don’t even know enough to ask yet.”
“I’m fine with it if you are,” Grace said. “This isn’t going to be all that pleasant for her, is it?”
“Confirmation that her brother really was blackmailing people? I can’t see how it could be. She already knew that he was up to something, but this is going to be tough to take.”
We all got to the bus station, and Grace pulled into an open spot. I wasn’t all that surprised to see Ellen pull in right beside us. She’d been following close behind us during the entire drive over there. If we’d had any desire to get there early and sneak something out of the locker, she was going to make sure that didn’t happen.
The three of us all walked in together, and my hand was shaking a little as I inserted the key and opened the locker.
We all looked inside at the same time, none of us sure what we might find, but I doubted that any of us would have guessed what was there.
There was nothing in the locker, not even a layer of dust.
Whatever had been stored there b
efore was now gone.
And we’d just run into another dead end.
“Well, that’s that,” Ellen said. Was there a hint of relief in her voice as she said it? “It was worth a shot.”
“We’re not going to give up just because this lead didn’t work out,” I said. “Your brother had to have done something with those files.”
“You can keep looking all you want, but I’m finished,” Ellen said. “This is all just taking too much out of me.”
“What about those reports? Aren’t you responsible for them?”
Ellen shrugged. “I already told my boss what I did. He reprimanded me and put something in my Personnel file, so as far as I’m concerned, it’s over and done with. Good bye, ladies.”
The police officer got into her car and drove away, and I realized that we hadn’t mentioned the deposit slip we’d found. “Should we stop her and tell her about the slip?” I asked as I pulled it out of my pocket.
“Why would we? She just told us that she’s done with the investigation. I don’t feel as though we owe her anything at this point.”
“Then what do we do with this?”
“Do we know anybody at this bank?” I asked.
“I don’t know about you, but I don’t.”
“Then let’s give it to Chief Martin,” I said. “He’s the only person we know who can walk into that bank and demand to see the records for Morgan Briar’s account.”
“Do you think he’ll share what he finds out with us?” Grace asked.
“I hope so, but it doesn’t really matter. One way or the other, somebody needs to look into this.”
I called the chief of police, and I was a little surprised when I got him on the first try.
“Martin,” he said.
“Chief, Grace and I were just at Ellen Briar’s house, and we found something that you need to look into.”
“I searched that room myself,” the chief said unhappily. “Where did you find something? Hang on a second. How did you even get in there? Did you two actually break into a cop’s house? Even I can’t keep you out of jail if you did that.”
“Don’t be so quick to jump to conclusions,” I said. “She gave us her keys.”
That seemed to mollify him somewhat. “What did you find?”
“We found a deposit slip Morgan made out the day he was murdered,” I said.
“I confiscated his checkbook,” the chief said. “There was no record of a deposit that day.”
“He probably just hadn’t recorded it yet,” I said. “Grace found it tucked away under the bed. It was stuck in the back of the headboard.”
“And it just happened to fall back there?”
“From where she found it, it looked as though it was done on purpose,” I said. “There’s no way it could have just fallen back there by accident. Anybody could have missed it.”
“You didn’t. Where are you two now?” he asked.
“We’re at the bus station in Union Square,” I said.
“Planning on taking a trip, are you?” he asked with a hint of humor in his voice.
“No, it was just another lead that didn’t pan out.”
“Welcome to investigative work,” he said. “I’m ten minutes away. Wait for me right where you are. I mean it, Suzanne. Don’t go wandering off somewhere that I can’t find you.”
“We’ll be here,” I said.
Chief Martin was as good as his word, and we were both outside by the car waiting for him when he drove up and parked in the spot Ellen had so recently occupied.
“Let’s see it,” he said as he got out.
I held it back, though. “You should say please.”
“Do you really want to push me on this? Okay, please.”
“It’s our pleasure,” I said as I handed it over. “The bank’s right across the street, if you want to check on it right now.”
Chief Martin nodded, and then he started to cross the street.
Why was he the least bit surprised when Grace and I followed him?
The chief stopped dead in his tracks on the other side of the road. “Where do you two think that you are going?”
“Why, we just assumed that we’d go with you,” Grace said.
“That’s a dangerous assumption for you to make,” he said. “This is part of my official investigation. There is no way that I can let you both just tag along.”
“It was the ‘please’ crack I made, wasn’t it?” I asked.
The chief let the hint of a smile escape before he reined it back in. “Just go back to your car and wait for me.”
“And then you’ll tell us what you found?” I asked.
“I’ll think about it.”
We really had no choice.
Grace and I crossed the street again and waited for the chief to return.
Chapter 16
Chief Martin came out of the bank ten minutes later, and I had a hunch that the branch manager had turned down his request. I was certain that a badge got him into many places that Grace and I couldn’t reach, but I had a hunch they’d turned him down cold this time.
“They wouldn’t tell you anything, would they?” I asked.
“What makes you think that?”
“I don’t know. Am I right?”
“I got the information I was looking for, but I’m not at all sure that it’s going to add anything to the case.”
“How is that possible?” Grace asked. “What did they say?”
“The account was opened with cash,” the chief said. “It was indeed done on the day of the murder, and the entire balance of the account was for one hundred dollars above the nine thousand eight hundred dollars.”
“So then just one victim paid up,” I said.
“That appears to be the case,” the chief said. “We can’t trace the cash, and it was just under the federal reporting limit, so there’s nothing there, either. It’s a dead end.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” I spoke up. “If someone paid him, wouldn’t that take them off our suspect list?”
“Maybe, maybe not. The victim may have felt remorse for caving in and then decided to track him down to kill him.”
“He wouldn’t have had the money on him,” Grace said. “Morgan was many things, but he wasn’t stupid.”
“Then again, it might not have had anything to do with the money. Paying up meant giving up power, and somebody might not have been able to live with that.”
“So then we all keep digging,” I said.
“I can’t endorse or condone that behavior,” he said officiously, but then the police chief added almost under his breath, “Good luck.”
“Thanks,” I said just as softly.
After he was gone, Grace asked me, “Suzanne, is it my imagination, or is he softening up toward us?”
“I don’t think it’s in your head, though I have trouble believing it myself sometimes.”
“Could his change of heart have anything to do with his relationship with your mother?” Grace asked me.
“Maybe a little, but I think it’s more because he’s seen what we can do. Our willingness to share information with him hasn’t hurt, either.”
“Whatever his reasons are, I’m glad that he’s at least not trying to get us to quit anymore,” Grace said.
“That makes two of us. Now, we’ve just managed to eliminate two clues that we thought might break this case wide open.”
“Any thoughts about what we should do next?” she asked.
“I don’t know about you, but I’m starving. I say we grab a bite to eat and then we go from there.”
“Should we dare go back to Napoli’s this soon?” Grace asked with a smile.
“Ordinarily I would be all for it, but I don’t like eating there and not paying for my meal. It just goes against what I believe. There shouldn’t be any free lunches.”
“But sometimes you’ve been known to give donuts away,” she reminded me.
“That’s different,” I said. After a moment�
��s thought, I shrugged. “Okay, maybe it’s not all that different. I don’t know; I can’t explain it.”
“I’m not saying a word. Do you have any other ideas about where we can eat in Union Square besides Napoli’s?” Grace asked.
“There’s always Murphy’s Diner,” I said. I’d eaten there once when Napoli’s had been closed for a family vacation, but truthfully, I hadn’t been all that impressed with it.
“Didn’t the health inspector close that place down?” Grace asked.
“No, not that I know of. Do you want to take a chance on it?”
“Not particularly,” Grace said, “but I’m game if you are.”
It wasn’t an overwhelming endorsement, but it was the best that we could do on such short notice.
When we got there, there was a huge sign on the front door. It said,
“Closed For The Next Month While We Try To Make The Government Happy And Pass Their Stupid Inspection.”
“Well, that’s not good,” I said as Grace pulled her car back out onto the street. “It looks like we’re going to Napoli’s after all.”
As she started to drive, I noticed a beat-up old Ford truck again that I’d seen earlier. Was someone actually following us? “Grace, don’t look now, but it seems that we’ve got a tail.”
“Like in the movies?” she asked as she started to turn around.
I grabbed her shoulder. “I said don’t look. Besides, you should be keeping your eyes on the road.”
Of course she looked behind us, anyway. “You’re not going to have all of the fun. Hey, I know that guy.”
I tried to get another look behind us, but our attention must have warned him that we’d noticed him. The truck turned a hard left and disappeared from sight.
“Should I try to follow him?” Grace asked.
That’s when I realized who had been driving that truck. “There’s really no need to. It was Larry Landers.”
“What’s he doing following us around town?”
“I’m not sure, but I don’t believe that it’s a coincidence. Do you think it’s possible that he killed Morgan, and now he’s tailing us to get his hands on the blackmail evidence?”