Dying to Get Even

by Judy Fitzwater

  "This from a woman who couldn’t make her court payment?"

  "Next week. I’ll take you out next week."

  "Look. I don’t want you getting your hopes up over some leap of logic."

  Leap of logic? It was the easiest, most logical solution, considering the facts at hand. An employee would know about a deceased graduate and have the ability to send out a transcript without arousing suspicion. She had to be right. But she’d never find out standing in the hallway.

  "Let me go in with you," Sam insisted.

  "I can scream really loud, and I will if I need you. Now, stay here." She pecked him on the cheek. "Be back in a sec."

  Then she took a deep breath and pulled open the glass door to the office.

  Three desks were visible. The one on the left was occupied by a pleasant, middle-aged woman with short, white hair. At the one on the right sat an attractive African-American woman.

  And right in the middle, her desk pulled forward enough to make it evident that she was the receptionist, sat an unassuming, slimly built young woman with shoulder length, reddish brown hair. She looked up with large gray eyes as Jennifer approached.

  No femme fatale here. But then the girl smiled, a beautiful, engaging smile. Add some more mascara to those long lashes, eyeliner, a little shadow to highlight those enormous lids, a darker shade of lipstick, blush, green contact lenses, hair dye, a wonder bra. Okay, so she was talking major makeover, but it almost seemed possible.

  "May I help you?" she asked with what appeared to be genuine curiosity. That was a gift. Making it seem as if she’d never asked that question before, as if she was actually interested in what had brought Jennifer Marsh to Emory’s alumni office that afternoon.

  Jennifer cleared her throat. "I’m trying to locate an old high school chum." Good going, Jen. Wow the girl with your hip lingo.

  "Well, let’s see what I can do to help you." She turned to her computer keyboard. "Name?"

  "Brewster. Natalie."

  The girl’s fingers froze above the keys. She turned back and stared into Jennifer’s eyes, the smile deserting her pale features.

  Good. They understood one another.

  "Maybe you’d like to get some coffee? Got a minute?" Jennifer asked.

  The woman glanced over her shoulder to one of the women behind her. "I’ve got something I’ve got to take care of. I’ll be back as soon as I can."

  The woman didn’t wait for a reply. She took her purse out of the drawer and stood up. She was close to Jennifer’s height, just as Sam had said. Then she brushed past and, almost before Jennifer realized what was happening, was out the door.

  Jennifer took off after her only to run smack into Sam who was standing with an arm around "Natalie" as if they were old friends, only this old friend had a good grip on the woman’s upper arm.

  Sam was smiling, but his words were less than friendly. "I’ll be more than happy to call the police if that’s what you want."

  The woman shook her head. She looked dazed and confused, not at all the confident con artist that Jennifer had expected.

  "Ready for that coffee?" Jennifer asked.

  Chapter 30

  "It’s not that I wanted to steal someone’s identity," the woman explained between sips of strong, black coffee. "It’s more that I didn’t want to be, couldn’t be me, you know? Besides, Natalie wasn’t using her name anymore, and it seemed a pity for her degree to go to waste."

  She threw Jennifer a look as if what she was saying should somehow make sense.

  "What’s wrong with being you?" Sam asked from across the booth of the diner where he sat next to Jennifer.

  The woman shrugged and stared into her coffee. "Nothing." She sat up straighter, and Jennifer guessed she’d been asking herself the same question for a long time.

  It was a good question. This gal might be less striking than her version of Natalie Brewster, but she had an awful lot going for her—looks, personality, and vulnerability. Jennifer was having a hard time not liking her.

  She had fully intended to despise "Natalie Brewster" once she’d found her. Somewhere in the deep, dark recesses of her soul, she’d even hoped "Natalie" was Edgar’s murderer. Of course, if she were honest, she’d have to admit her motives had something more to do with Sam’s reaction to "Natalie" than they did with her possible guilt. Honesty, at least to oneself, was sometimes overrated.

  "Look, I know who he is," the woman said, motioning towards Sam, "but who are you, some undercover cop, P.I., or what?"

  That anyone would even consider for a moment that she could be a cop or a private eye was a stretch, but she kind of liked it. Maybe she had more presence than she thought.

  It was her turn to sit up a little straighter. "I’m a friend of Emma Walker."

  The woman allowed a half smile. "Yeah, Emma’s all right."

  "She didn’t kill Edgar Walker," Jennifer assured her.

  "I never thought she did. Is that why you’re asking me all these questions? You want to pin Edgar’s murder on me?"

  "All we want are some answers to a few questions. You want to start with your name?" Jennifer asked. "We can easily find out on our own."

  The woman took another long drink of coffee. She looked at them through half-lidded eyes and then spoke. "I suppose you could at that. I’m Allison Ornsby."

  "Ornsby?" Sam repeated. Jennifer kicked him under the table. Better not to seem too surprised.

  "Thelma’s daughter and Walter Ornsby’s niece," Jennifer stated as if she already knew it as fact.

  The woman nodded.

  "Edgar Walker was your father," she added, praying she wasn’t about to make a major fool of herself.

  The woman cocked her head at Jennifer and then nodded.

  All of a sudden, Walter Ornsby’s interest in Edgar’s affairs made sense. Edgar must have kept him on to see that Thelma and Allison were taken care of. That, or Walter had insisted—

  "I don’t want to talk to the press." The woman motioned toward Sam, who was gaping at her while he rubbed the ankle Jennifer had caught, a little harder than she’d intended, with her heel.

  "Just ignore him," Jennifer assured her. "He prints anything we say here, and I’ll personally break both his legs."

  "One down, one to go," Sam said with a sideways glance at Jennifer.

  Then suddenly he seemed all business, his professional demeanor back in place, the pain in his ankle, if indeed there was pain, apparently forgotten. "Why did you do it?" he asked, leaning forward.

  "I don’t know what it is you think I did."

  "We’re not accusing you of anything," Jennifer assured her. "Sam already checked the bank records. We know you didn’t take any funds."

  "You thought I—" Allison had a half-amused, half-disbelieving look on her face. "Oh, God, you’re serious."

  "Of course not," Jennifer covered fast, as if people swiped identities for the most innocuous of reasons.

  Tears gathered in the corners of Allison’s eyes. "Edgar didn’t know who I was. I didn’t get a chance to tell him before..." Her voice choked. "Mom died two years ago. I thought it was time I got to know my father."

  "Why didn’t you just—" Jennifer began.

  "He knew where I was. He could have come to me anytime," she snapped.

  Careless. Wasn’t that how Emma had described Edgar?

  "Did Emma know about you?" Jennifer asked.

  Allison shook her head. "At least I don’t think so."

  "Lisa?" Sam asked.

  Again she shook her head.

  "You weren’t mentioned in Edgar’s will," Jennifer said.

  "Uncle Walter had set up a generous trust fund for me when I was born. My father paid into it. That was to be my inheritance. I guess he didn’t want to leave any surprises when he was gone."

  "But why take on the Natalie Brewster identity?" Sam asked.

  "She had the credentials I needed. Uncle Walter mentioned something in passing about how successful the restaurants had become. New
ones had been built all over the area, so I started studying the Grill. Business was really good, and I thought, why not take it national?"

  "Then the idea for the franchise came from you?" Jennifer asked.

  "Sure. I approached Edgar with it. The Down Home Grill is a sure bet. I’ve been taking courses for my MBA at night so I ought to know. But it’s going to take a good while before I finish, with my working full-time."

  "So you opted for an instant degree," Jennifer said.

  "Only to work with my father. I’d already been working on a thesis about franchising, and I studied like crazy, so I’d know what I was talking about."

  "I can testify to that," Sam agreed.

  "I could have made it work, too," Allison added.

  "And then?" Jennifer asked.

  "And then I’d tell him who I was."

  Ah, the fairy tale. She would prove herself worthy of her father’s love and admiration, cast off her cloak of deceit, and he would embrace her into his loving family. There was a reason fairy tales were classed as fantasy.

  "You got your Uncle Walter to make the introductions," Jennifer added.

  Allison nodded. "At first he thought it was a really bad idea, but he couldn’t say no to me. He never could."

  "Did you see him a lot while you were growing up?" Sam asked.

  "Mom had been married and divorced before she met my father. She wasn’t young when I was born, almost forty. She never married again. Uncle Walter kind of watched over us."

  "But how could your birth get past Emma? The affair between your mom and dad was on the cover of the Atlanta Eye.”

  Allison looked startled. "It was?"

  Oops. Major faux pas. They were there to get information, not give it.

  "Thirty years ago, hardly a paragraph." Jennifer didn’t add that the pictures that went with that paragraph were six inches high.

  "I was born in Marietta, and I grew up there," Allison explained. "I didn’t move to Atlanta until after Mom died."

  "What about that elaborate ruse with the apartment?" Sam asked.

  "I had to have an address and a place to work out of in Brewster’s name. I raided some of my trust fund, although, as it turned out, I really didn’t need to. Edgar was paying me a really good salary. But I kept my regular job, taking off time here and there when I needed to. I let my classes go for a while and did most of my work on the franchise at night. Look, I’m telling you all this stuff, and I don’t even know why you’re asking."

  The woman was right, assuming what she was saying was the truth. "We’re trying to find out who killed Edgar."

  Allison stared at her coffee.

  "Don’t you care?" Jennifer felt a tug on her sleeve. She shouldn’t have said it, but she couldn’t take it back now. The best she could do was apologize. "I’m sorry."

  The young woman looked up. "No, you’re right. I don’t really care. The way I look at it, it must have been something he did that caused it. He was good at that."

  "What?"

  "Letting people down."

  She stood up and walked out.

  "What do you make of that?" Sam asked.

  Jennifer shook her head. "It’s hard for me to believe someone that cynical could still believe in fairy tales."

  Chapter 31

  Some people, like Allison Ornsby, made it through life without any family to speak of, and others seemed to have more than they could use.

  Jennifer tapped the invitation against her cheek and then looked at it for the third time. It had come in the morning’s mail.

  You are cordially invited to the Mayfield Family Reunion to be held this Saturday at Lake Lorraine. Follow the signs. A covered dish lunch will be served at 1:00 p.m. Bring your favorites, your bathing suit, and don’t forget your lawn chairs. Boat rides and skiing will be available, weather permitting.

  At the bottom was scribbled a handwritten note:

  Thought you might like to attend just in case you are kin. Maybe you can find someone who knows more about your great grandmother. Look forward to seeing you. Melissa Bordeaux.

  How sweet. And how convenient. Maybe things were looking up after all. If she could manage to stay out of Lisa’s way, she just might learn something. Somebody somewhere had to know about Lisa’s intentions to kill Edgar. Who better to confide in than a member of the family?

  She poured herself another cup of coffee and filled Muffy’s bowl with water. Muffy looked at it and stuck her nose in the air. She obviously expected more from Jennifer, but she wasn’t going to get it right now. Jennifer didn’t have time.

  Back at the keyboard, Maxie was plunging forward with her case.

  "Miss Marsh, it’s Suzy." Her voice over the phone was so muffled Jennifer could barely make out what she was saying. "I came in early because Louise was out again, and I got a chance to slip in the office when nobody much was around, and I think maybe I found something."

  "Breathe," Jennifer reminded her.

  A noisy rasp came over the line.

  "Sorry. I get excited like that sometimes."

  "Now what is it you think you’ve found?"

  "I’ve always been really good at math, so I don’t think it’s me," she whispered.

  "What’s not you?"

  "The books. Something’s not quite right. It looks like ten percent is missing off the gross receipts."

  "Are you sure?"

  "Yeah."

  "How far back?"

  "As far back as I could check, at least a couple years."

  "Someone was skimming?"

  "No, I don’t think so. It’s not like it was stolen. It’s plainly marked, it’s just I can’t figure out who—oh, man! I’ve got to go. I think Lisa’s—"

  The phone went dead.

  "Suzy?" Jennifer asked the dial tone.

  Ten percent of the gross receipts was going where? Edgar was generous enough with his salaries, and Emma was raking in her share. Lisa benefited from Edgar’s cut, both now and before. Roy was certainly well taken care of, even if he did hold the key to the restaurant’s success. So who was getting the other ten percent?

  Maybe Suzy was mistaken. She could have gotten things mixed up.

  Jennifer dropped the receiver in its cradle and turned off the computer. She had something else she had to do right then—buy the ingredients for a dish to take to tomorrow’s family reunion.

  She never should have opened the door when Sam came knocking late last night, but she had. A knock on the door was like a ringing phone. She had to answer it. Sam just might have unearthed the crucial piece of information that would break Edgar’s murder investigation wide open.

  Not hardly. He’d only been checking on her.

  When he saw the two gallons of potato salad she was making, he knew something was up, and it wasn’t a luncheon she was catering with Dee Dee. And so here he was, in her car, her so-called date for somebody else’s family reunion. She wondered if Suzy would say that made Sam and her pre-engaged.

  She wound her Beetle over the dirt road that twisted down through thick foliage toward the lake. What had she been thinking? She had to be out of her mind to show up at Lisa’s family reunion. Then again, it was almost worth it to see Sam in those shorts of his. He had cute knees. And he hadn’t been much trouble, at least so far. He’d been napping for fifteen of the twenty-five minutes it took them to drive out to the lake. He never seemed to get any sleep—except when he was with her.

  The cardboard signs printed with Magic Marker and staked at each turn made it clear she was heading in the right direction, but something in her gut told her there was trouble ahead. If this had been a horror movie, the black marker would have dripped into blood, warning, TURN BACK.

  Sam stirred. "We there yet?"

  "Time to get your shoes on."

  "What? My shoes are on."

  "Trip talk from when I was a kid. It means we’re almost there."

  The next curve brought them within sight of the water and a mass of cars nestled in a small clear
ing. She spotted Roy’s Bronco. He and Suzy must be here. And then she saw Lisa’s Jag. A little farther down the way was a car the same make and model as Leigh Ann’s. For a moment, it made her heart jump. Then she laughed. No way would Leigh Ann show up here.

  Jennifer pulled forward and then backed up next to a sedan that was parked alongside the road. There wasn’t really enough space, but she wedged in her Beetle so most of it was out of the road. It was well positioned should she need a quick getaway. She wasn’t about to take the chance of someone blocking her in.

  Sam yawned loudly and rubbed his face. His dark hair was mussed, and he looked cuter than he had any right to look. Once any unattached Mayfield women realized he wasn’t family, he’d be like prime rib at a Kroger super sale. At least they would keep him occupied while she tried to get the information she needed.

  It was a really hot day, and the bathing suit she had on under her shift was already sticking to her. Not that she would get in the water, even if she’d been there to enjoy the lake. She couldn’t swim. Swimming took a leap of faith she’d never quite been able to accomplish.

  She tossed him a tube of sunscreen. "Lather up."

  "I don’t intend—"

  "And I don’t intend to spend the evening slathering you with aloe."

  "Is that what you’ll do if I don’t—”

  "Put it on," she ordered with as much finality as she could muster. She stared at him until he opened the tube. Then she pulled a huge pair of black sunglasses from the glove compartment and shoved them on her face.

  "Going incognito?" he asked.

  She squirmed. "The sun bothers my eyes."

  "Right."

  Actually, she hoped that if she could avoid Lisa’s seeing her head-on, she might get through most of the reunion unnoticed. Although Lisa did seem to have some kind of uncanny radar where she was concerned.

  She popped the trunk, and Sam went around to the front of the car and retrieved two big Tupperware containers.

  "So what’s our cover?" he asked, shutting the trunk lid with his elbow. "What am I to you?"