“Long time no see,” Mitch said, giving Sean a hearty slap on the back.
Mitch was ex-NYPD and had retired and come up here when he’d been clipped by a speeding car while he was giving someone a ticket on the East River Drive. They’d never caught the person who’d nailed him, but Mitch said it was just as well. He’d needed a change of scene, anyway.
“I understand you’ve been keeping busy these days,” Mitch said, winking at him, as he walked Sean to his office. He slapped Sean on the back again.
“I’m doing okay,” Sean said, pretty sure that Mitch was referring to Michelle, but hoping that he wasn’t.
Mitch winked again. “Don’t be modest. I’ve seen her. Not bad. Not bad at all.”
“I don’t know,” Sean confessed.
Mitch stopped walking and gave him an incredulous look. “What’s not to know?” he demanded.
“I’m beginning to have second thoughts,” Sean confessed.
“Why?” Mitch asked.
“It’s the whole marriage thing,” Sean allowed.
“She wants to?”
“Absolutely. I had a good thing going with Rose, but I’m not sure I want to do it again.”
“But you haven’t told her that?”
Sean shook his head, then moved out of the way as a shopper went by him with her cart.
“And you think she’ll book if you do?”
“Well, she’s pretty determined to get what she wants.”
Mitch nodded and started walking again. “Aren’t they all, though? What does she want with you, anyway?”
“Damned if I know,” Sean said, keeping up with him.
Mitch automatically reached over and straightened a bunch of bananas as he and Sean passed by the display. “I tell you what,” he said. “If things don’t work out, you can always pass her on to me.”
Sean grinned. “I’m sure Peggy would be so pleased,” he said. Peggy was Mitch’s wife, and she ran him and the household.
Mitch laughed. “I don’t think I can do two woman anymore, anyway. I don’t think I have the energy.”
“Sad, isn’t it?” Sean said as he followed Mitch into his office.
The place was a cubbyhole with enough space for two chairs, a small desk, and a file cabinet. Four ghosts and one witch, remnants of Halloween, had been shoved behind the file cabinet. There were papers stacked everywhere.
“You should get some shelving in here,” Sean commented as he moved a pile of papers off of the chair by Mitch’s desk and put them on the floor. “Neaten stuff up a tad. I don’t see how you find anything in here.”
“Neither do I,” Mitch said, lowering himself into his chair. “But somehow it works. So what is this about?” he asked as Sean sat down.
“It’s probably a fool’s errand,” Sean replied, and he explained about Darius, Darius’s note, and the coleslaw, the bread, and the pears Bernie had found in Darius’s living room.
“You can’t be serious,” Mitch said.
“I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t,” Sean told him.
“Do you know how many people go through this shop each day?” Mitch asked.
“A lot,” Sean said.
“And how many employees we have? We’re open from seven in the morning till nine at night. Who’s going to remember something like that?” Mitch snorted. “Please.”
“I know,” Sean said. “I’m just trying to dot the i’s and cross the t’s for my girls.”
“How are they doing?” Mitch asked. “I keep meaning to go over there, but with the hours I put in here, well . . .” He turned his palms up.
“I’m sure they’d love to see you when you have a moment,” Sean replied.
Mitch leaned forward. “So you think this Darius was really killed?”
Sean consulted the ceiling for a moment before he answered. “Probably not. But”—he brought his thumb and his forefinger together till they were about an inch apart—“there is a small possibility. The note bothers me. I can’t find a reasonable explanation for it.”
“I’ll ask around,” Mitch promised.
“That would be great,” Sean said.
“Just don’t expect anything.”
“Believe me, I’m not,” Sean said. “This is harder.”
Mitch cocked his head.
“The girls, solving this kind of thing,” Sean explained. “They can’t rely on a badge to get answers. They have to be cleverer than we were.”
Mitch laughed. “This is true. You like that your daughters are involved in this kind of thing?” he asked, suddenly turning serious. “I know I wouldn’t be happy if Erin was.”
Sean consulted the ceiling again while he thought about his answer. Mitch waited, the sounds of the store drifting into the office.
Finally, Sean said, “I’m proud of them.”
“But,” Mitch replied, prodding.
“I do worry.” Sean frowned. “I can’t tell them what to do, though.”
Mitch laughed. His daughter was the same age as Bernie. “Tell me about it. Not that Erin’s shy about sharing what she thinks I should be doing.”
Sean chuckled. “Ain’t that the truth?”
“I’ll tell you one thing, though,” Mitch said, changing subjects after another minute had passed.
Sean waited.
Mitch picked up a pen and tapped it on the desk. “Moran is probably pretty happy.”
“Really?” Sean leaned forward, interested. “I would have thought the opposite. This can’t be good for rentals.”
“No, it isn’t,” Mitch agreed, putting the pen down. “But sometimes vengeance trumps money.”
“You’re saying William Moran had a reason to kill Witherspoon?”
“No. I’m saying he most likely wasn’t shedding any tears about his death.”
Sean leaned back in his chair, waiting for Mitch to continue, but his friend didn’t say anything.
“Are you going to tell me or not?” Sean asked after a minute had gone by, unable to control his curiosity any longer.
“Guess,” Mitch said, a big grin on his face, having won phase one of this particular game.
“Don’t be a jerk,” Sean told him. “I’m not in the mood.”
“You’re getting grumpy in your old age,” Mitch observed.
“I always have been grumpy,” Sean reminded him. “Now give.”
Mitch bounced up and down in his chair like a five-year-old needing to pee. “One guess.”
“Fine,” Sean grumbled. “Some sort of business deal gone bad.”
Mitch’s face fell. “How did you know?”
Now it was Sean’s turn to smile. “I didn’t. But it was either that or some sort of sex thing gone south. So are you going to tell me or not?”
“Not,” Mitch said. “Just kidding.” He took a sip from the bottle of water on his desk. “You’re going to like this,” he promised as he put the bottle down.
Chapter 17
Sean’s eyes got wider as he listened to what his friend had to say. “Wow,” he said when Mitch was through. “How’d you hear about that?”
“Come. I’ll show you.” Mitch got out of his chair and beckoned for Sean to follow him. They stepped out of Mitch’s office and walked over to the checkout lines. “You see that girl over there?” Mitch pointed to the girl standing behind the cash register in the second line. She was tall and thin, with blond hair in a bun, big hoop earrings, and bright blue eye shadow that made her eyes look small and hard. “She told me.”
“How did she know?”
Mitch’s grin was so wide, it threatened to split his face. “She’s the daughter of Moran’s son’s ex.”
Sean took a minute to process that. “Okay,” he said. “Go on.”
“Well, evidently, Moran’s son Gus invested in some scheme that Darius Witherspoon was running—something about finding the original ark.”
“Gee, I thought they did that in Raiders of the Lost Ark.”
“And gave him hundreds of thousands of dol
lars.”
“So I guess he’s pretty rich?”
“Not anymore, he’s not, if he ever was. In fact, he’s fallen behind in his child support payments—I hear he’s about to file for bankruptcy—which is why Serena, who, by the way, is anything but, is working here.”
“And she told you this?” Sean asked.
Mitch shook his head. “I overheard it. She was telling one of the other cashiers. She and her mom had to move from their fancy house out in Hayden to one of those apartment complexes by the train station.”
“That would be quite a comedown,” Sean observed.
“I’ll say,” Mitch agreed. “I lived in one when I first came up here with Peggy. I was afraid the roaches were going to eat us alive.”
Sean thought for a moment. “Okay. Then if what you’re telling me is true, why did Moran sell to Witherspoon? I certainly wouldn’t have if I was him.”
“I don’t think he knew,” Mitch said. “Evidently, he outsources that side of the business. Lots of people do these days. And the same could be said for Witherspoon. I’m sure he wouldn’t have bought a place from the dad of one of the people he screwed if he knew. Or maybe he would. Maybe he was that kind of guy, the kind of guy who likes trouble.”
“I know a lot of those,” Sean commented.
“My stock in trade,” Mitch said.
“So where does this son live?” Sean asked.
Mitch rubbed his hands together. “That’s when it gets even better. In the Berkshire Arms.”
“Interesting,” Sean said.
Mitch nodded. “Isn’t it, though?”
“Think Serena will talk to me?”
“You can try, but I doubt it.”
“I think I’d like to give it a shot, anyway,” Sean said.
Five minutes later, Mitch brought Serena into his office, introduced her to Sean, and stepped out and closed the door, leaving the girl alone with his old friend.
“That’s a nice name,” Sean began, but he could have forgotten about the pleasantries, because Serena gave him the stink eye.
“You a cop?” she asked.
“Why do you say that?” Sean asked.
Serena rolled her eyes and sighed a sigh that suggested the question was too obvious to answer. She did, anyway. “Duh. Because you look like one,” she told him as she curled a tendril of hair around her finger.
You never lose the look, Sean reflected as he told her that he was. A slight lie. He had been one. He’d been the chief of police. Once. After all, what was a little misinformation among friends? Well, he could be arrested for impersonating an officer. There was that. Which would not be good. A major understatement, because he’d never live it down. On the other hand, if he’d told her that he wasn’t, he knew she would have turned around and walked out the door.
He watched Serena wiggle around, looking everywhere but at him. Obviously, she was guilty of something.
“Have a seat,” he said, gesturing to one.
Serena shook her head. “I’ll stand. If it’s about those packs of gum and the Snapples,” she began, “I was going to—”
Sean held up his hand before Serena could go on. “I don’t care about that.” He saw Serena’s body collapse in relief.
“Then what?” she asked, getting her defiance back. “Because I don’t know anything about Richie, either.”
“It’s not about Richie,” Sean told her as he wondered what Richie had done. Probably stealing stuff or selling dope out in the alley or both. He made a mental note to tell Mitch about him.
Serena put her hands on her hips. “Then what?” she demanded. “I’ve got to get back to work.”
“Actually,” he said, “I want to talk to you about your dad.”
Serena bristled. “That loser!” she exclaimed. “I hope you arrest him!”
Sean smiled at her. “I don’t know if I can do that, but I do have a few questions I was hoping you could answer for me.”
“What do you want to know?” Serena replied, taking the seat Sean had offered her before and leaning forward, anxious to cooperate. “He deserves whatever he gets. You know, my mom didn’t know what he was doing.” She bit her lip. Her voice rose an octave, quivering in indignation. “He used her money, too. All her money. Our money. He didn’t even ask her. He just gave it all to this stupid company.”
“Do you know the name?” Sean asked.
“Treasure Hunters, LLC. Or something like that. Isn’t there a law about doing what he did?”
And Serena went on talking, the words spilling out in a torrent. Sean just sat down in Mitch’s chair, folded his arms across his chest, leaned back, and listened. Three-quarters of an hour later, when Serena had finished and gone back to work, Sean pulled out his cell and called Bernie.
“You know what that LLC means, don’t you?” he asked Bernie after he’d told her what he’d found out.
“It means Darius wasn’t personally liable for any of the debts his business incurred,” Bernie replied.
“Makes for bad blood,” Sean remarked before he hung up.
Chapter 18
Indeed it does, Bernie thought as she put her cell down on her desk. She clasped her hands above her head and stretched, trying to work out a kink in her back. Then she stretched again and typed in “Treasure Hunters, LLC” on her laptop. A moment later the screen was filled with articles about the company, none of them complimentary.
According to what she was reading, Darius had led three archeological expeditions: one to find the precursor to Noah’s Ark, the second to find a sunken Spanish galleon filled with golden coins that went down off the coast of Florida, and the third to locate the lost treasure of the Knights Templars.
Evidently, all three expeditions had failed miserably, and all of them had been the object of numerous lawsuits against Darius Witherspoon, charging him with everything from incompetence to outright fraud. None of the lawsuits had had a happy outcome for the plaintiffs, the judge ruling in all three cases that treasure hunting was an inherently risky business. No kidding, Bernie thought as she poked around some more. She found a Web site on the expedition to find the Spanish galleon.
It certainly looked legitimate, she thought as she scanned it, but then she started reading the comments. They were scathing. Comments like Witherspoon should be shot. The putz didn’t even show up, left us stranded abounded. She scrolled down, and near the end she came across a comment from Gus Moran. Yup. Just like her dad had said. Not that she had ever doubted him.
Now the son was living in the Berkshire Arms, as had Darius. Of course, Gus Moran had moved in considerably earlier. Mitch was probably right. Darius must not have known. Bernie was willing to bet it had come as an unwelcomed surprise when he found out. And why had William Moran sold to Darius Witherspoon in the first place?
Her dad said that Moran hadn’t known. That a separate part of the company handled the mechanics of that aspect of the business. Bernie could see that. After all, more and more companies outsourced stuff. But what if that wasn’t true? What if Moran had sold to Darius Witherspoon because he wanted to set him up? Was this a case of a father and son bonding over a murder?
She added them to her list of possible suspects. After all, even if William and Gus Moran hadn’t been invited to the party, that didn’t mean they weren’t there. The father worked there, and the son lived there. Given that it was a masked costume party, it had been impossible to tell who was who. And afterward, given the commotion, it would have been equally easy to slip away. She certainly wouldn’t have noticed anything, and neither would Libby.
Bernie reached for her coffee, took a sip, and made a face. She was trying out a new blend she was contemplating using in the store—a South American blend she’d gotten from Joe’s Beans—but it was too acidic. She stirred in another lump of sugar and took a bite of her sandwich—grilled cheddar cheese, candied bacon, and avocado—and thought some more. So where had Gus Moran been at the time of Darius’s party?
For that matter,
where had William Moran been? She could ask him and his son, but she was certain neither one of them would tell her. Why should they? It was not as if she had the power to compel them to. But it might be fun to try.
She swallowed and took another bite of her sandwich, savoring the crunch of the bread and the bacon against the smoothness of the avocado and the cheese. She could see where the son would be angry enough to try to kill Darius, but would the father? Well, if he was a certain kind of man, he might, she thought, thinking of the men who attacked the refs at their sons’ Little League games when they thought the call was bad.
Bernie flicked a bread crumb off of her pleated plaid skirt and thought about how she was going to go about getting the information she needed. Maybe it would pay to talk to Gus’s ex first, before she talked to Gus. After all, the more information one had, the better the questions one was able to ask. She ate the rest of her sandwich, wiped her hands on a napkin, logged out of her laptop, went out of the office, and told Libby what she’d found out.
Libby looked up from the piecrusts she was rolling out and listened as Bernie spoke, nodding once in a while to show she was paying attention. But her mind was half on what Bernie was telling her and half on the pies. She had to make four apple for Mrs. Watson, six apple and cranberry for the monthly meeting of the Longely Book Club at the Longely Library, and three raspberry for a meeting of the Committee to Restore Longely’s Original Train Station.
A couple of minutes later, Bernie went out front to straighten out a credit card snafu—the new machine they’d gotten really sucked—and Libby started thinking about what Bernie had told her. Then, after a few minutes, her mind drifted back to Halloween Eve. To the crows and the woman she could have sworn she’d seen on the roof of the Berkshire Arms.
Libby knew that Bernie had seen her too, even though her sister hadn’t wanted to admit it. She had thought she was imagining things. So had Libby at the time. Now she wasn’t so sure. She’d thought she had seen a ghost, but now she wondered if what she had seen was a real person. If, in fact, she’d seen Darius Witherspoon’s murderer.
A Catered Costume Party Page 8