by Jessica Beck
“I’m just wondering if there was something in those ledgers that he didn’t want you two to find.”
Jeffrey frowned. “Curtis trusted him with his life.”
“Let’s just hope that it wasn’t misplaced trust,” I said as Humphries paused in front of a door down the hallway from where Moose and I had stayed last night.
“Go on, open it,” Charlotte snapped at him.
The butler paused long enough for Jeffrey to nod his approval before he opened the door. Smart man. He knew who was really in charge.
The room was a mess, with pillows and blankets strewn across the floor. The mattress was askew, and I noticed a few drops of blood near the bathroom from where I was standing outside. “Nobody needs to go in there,” I snapped.
“Why on earth not?” Charlotte asked. “He might be hurt.”
I turned to Humphries. “Did you search the room? What about the bathroom?”
The butler looked unhappy about the scrutiny. “I never dreamed that it wouldn’t be acceptable. As I said, he’s not here. I checked the restroom myself.”
“That settles it,” I said. “Lock the door right now.”
“I’d do it if I were you,” Jeffrey said, and the butler closed the door and locked it.
“That’s not fair,” Tristan said. “I didn’t get a good look.”
“Sorry, but until the police arrive, no one is going in there,” I answered.
“Is that really necessary?” Charlotte asked in that tone of disdain she’d clearly mastered so well over the years.
“It is,” I replied. “Would you like us to call the sheriff for you, Jeffrey, or would you rather handle it yourself?”
“Call him,” he said. After another glance at his watch, he said, “I’m sorry, but I have to get something in my stomach before Renee gets here.”
“Finally, someone is talking sense,” Sarah said. “I’ll join you.”
“Anyone else?” Jeffrey asked.
“Why not?” Tristan asked. “The excitement’s over for now.”
Humphries started to trail Charlotte when Jeffrey stopped him. “If you don’t mind, will you keep guard over this door until the police arrive? No one is to get in, and I mean no one. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir, of course,” he said as he pivoted and placed himself squarely in front of the missing business manager’s room.
“Was that really necessary?” Charlotte asked him as we all walked back down the stairs.
“If I’m going to make a mistake, I’d rather err on the side of caution,” he said.
“I myself think that it’s a great idea,” Moose said loudly. “I would have done the same thing myself.”
“If you were in charge, you mean,” Charlotte said.
“Ma’am, no disrespect intended, but I’ve rarely waited for someone else’s permission in my life. Besides, it’s usually better to ask for forgiveness after I’ve done whatever I intended to do in the first place.”
“What an interesting life your wife must lead,” Charlotte said.
“We still manage to have our moments,” Moose said with that dashing grin of his, but I knew that he was wasting the wattage. Charlotte appeared to be one of those rare ladies who was immune to my grandfather’s charm.
“What should we do now?” I asked Moose softly as we both lagged behind the crowd.
“I think breakfast is an excellent idea for all of us,” he said.
“So that we can keep our eyes on everyone else?” I asked him.
“Well, I suppose there’s that, but to be honest with you, I’m starving. I’ve got a hunch that I’ll think a lot better on a full stomach.”
“And if you don’t, at least you get to eat, right?” I asked with a smile.
“That’s my girl,” he answered as he took out his phone. “I’m guessing that yours is still charging. Am I right?”
“It’s in my room, yes,” I said. “Would you like me to talk to Sheriff Croft?”
“No, I can handle it,” he said. My grandfather started to dial, and then he suddenly handed the phone to me.
As I took it, I said, “I thought you were going to do it.”
“I want to keep an eye on that crew,” he said as he hurried past me.
I faded back, finished dialing the sheriff’s number, and then I waited for him to pick up.
Chapter 16
“Croft here,” the sheriff said promptly.
“Sheriff, this is Victoria Nelson.”
“Victoria, how’s your stay at the Pickle Palace going?” he asked.
“Greg told me you came by last night. We’ve got a problem out here, Sheriff.”
“What happened?”
“Curtis’s business manager, a man named Christopher Crane, vanished this morning.”
“Take it easy,” he said. “Vanished is a pretty strong word. Give me some details.”
“When he didn’t come down for breakfast, Curtis’s sister sent the butler off looking for him. He came back a few minutes later and told us that Crane was gone. When we went to his room, it was pretty clear that there had been a struggle, and we found a few drops of blood on the floor of the bathroom.”
“Okay, now you’ve got my attention. How contaminated is the scene?”
“What do you mean?”
He sighed, letting a hint of his exasperation come out. “Did you all traipse through the room? Is there any chance that I’ll get any evidence?”
“The butler was the only one who went in,” I said. “I made sure that everyone else stayed out, and I have him guarding the door until you get here.”
“I suppose that’s more than I should expect,” he said.
If it was praise, it was slight indeed. “Will you come out and investigate?”
“You know, there might be a perfectly reasonable explanation for this,” the sheriff said. “He might be a uneasy sleeper, or maybe he just left in a hurry. It doesn’t necessarily mean that he was abducted.”
“What about the blood, then?”
“How much are we talking about here? A little, or a lot?”
“There were at least a few drops that I could see from the hallway,” I said.
“He could have cut himself shaving, or maybe he nicked a finger on something sharp. It might not be as ominous as you’re making it out to be.”
I felt deflated by his suppositions. “Does that mean that you’re not even coming out to see for yourself?”
“No, I’ll be there in twenty minutes,” the sheriff said. “Truth be told, I was heading out your way anyway. Most of my suspects are gathered there, and I was just looking for an excuse to speak with them. Have you done any snooping yourself yet?”
“A little,” I admitted. I didn’t really want to get into too many details. “Since you discovered that Curtis was murdered, I figured that you’d come out here yesterday.”
“I was starting to, and then I got a few phone calls from some folks higher up the food chain than I am. Curtis Trane was a very important man, and I was told to handle things as delicately as possible. That included giving the family a little time alone with their grief. I didn’t like it, but there was nothing I could do about it. Besides, I knew that you were already there.”
“Is that an endorsement for what Moose and I do?” I asked. If it was, it was a first. Mostly the sheriff left us alone when we were investigating, and that’s the way that we liked it.
“Hardly. I just figured that you could do some of the groundwork. If you and your grandfather butted into their lives last night, I had a feeling that they’d be glad to see me today.”
“I don’t even know how to answer that,” I said.
“Then don’t. See you soon.”
After he hung up, I handed the phone back to Moose, since he’d come back during our conversation.
“What did he say?” my grandfather asked.
“He’s on his way. Is there any chance that you’d be willing to postpone breakfast a little longer?”
Moose frowned. “I’m not all that thrilled about it, but if you’ve got a good reason, I suppose that I can go along with it.”
“We need to examine what we found in Curtis’s room right now. When Sheriff Croft gets here, I want to be able to turn it all over directly to him.”
“Wow, are we really cooperating that much these days?” Moose asked me with wonder.
“I figure that it’s the least we can do if we want to keep hanging around here without him breathing down our necks. What do you say?”
“Lead on,” he said.
We got back to my room, and I was pleased to see that it hadn’t been searched since we were gone, at least not to the point that I could tell that it had happened. “Now, where’s our stash?” I asked Moose once the door was closed behind us.
My grandfather walked to the big comfy chair and lifted up the seat. “I stuffed it all under here.”
“Wouldn’t someone look there?” I asked as we retrieved everything.
“Look around, Victoria. Where else could I have put it all? I have a feeling that if I’d jammed it under the bed, the maid might find it, let alone anyone digging into our investigation.” He looked at the stash, and then my grandfather grinned at me. “Besides, it appears that everything is still here.”
“Then let’s spread it all out on the bed and see what we can discover.”
Moose did as I asked, and soon enough I was looking down at the checkbook ledger, the old letters, the diary, and the four notebooks filled with odd expressions he’d found.
“Where do you want to start?” Moose asked me.
“I’d like to look at the checks he wrote lately,” I said as I reached for the ledger.
“Good. I’ll take the diary.”
“Are you looking for something scandalous?” I asked my grandfather.
“I’m looking for a motive for murder,” he replied, and I felt contrite for a moment until he added, “If I happen to find something juicy, it will just be a bonus.”
I flipped through the ledger, and I saw that Sarah had just gotten a check for twenty thousand dollars after all, but there were no entries for Tristan. Could that have been a motive for murder? We’d have to ask them both about that. That wasn’t all, though. The day before he’d died, Curtis had written Crane a check for twenty-five thousand dollars. That was odd enough, but the line explaining it was even more striking.
It said, “Final Payment.”
What on earth was that supposed to mean?
I would love to ask Crane about it, but first we had to find him.
When I looked up, I saw that Moose was staring at me. “What’s wrong?” I asked.
“I’ve seen that expression on your face before, Victoria. You found something, didn’t you?”
“Two things, actually.” I showed him the entries, and the lack of one for Tristan. “What do you think about that?”
“I believe that things have just gotten more complicated. Good work holding onto the ledger.”
“Thanks. Have you had any luck?”
“It’s just a food journal,” Moose said with clear disappointment. “The man wrote down every meal that he ate in the last two years. Maybe he did it even longer, but that’s as far as this journal goes.” My grandfather flung it down on the bed. “What a waste of time.”
As it landed, I saw something flutter out and fall to the floor. After I bent down to pick it up, I saw that it was a receipt from a restaurant in Molly’s Corners named Joshua’s, and from the size of the amount, at least two people had to have eaten there, given Curtis’s near lack of appetite as of late. The most telling part of all was the date.
It was for the evening before he was murdered.
Had he dined with his killer the night before he’d died? Had something been said during that meal that had ultimately triggered his death? We were generating more questions than answers as we worked, and I couldn’t help wondering if something we’d found so far would ultimately lead us to the murderer. If it did, it seemed as though it wasn’t going to be a straight path, but then again, it never was.
I showed the receipt to my grandfather. “Did he eat with his killer the night before he died?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I’m going to call Deb and find out, though.”
“Who’s Deb?” I asked.
“Deb Pence has owned Joshua’s for years. We’re old friends.”
I’d known a great many of the people my grandfather was friends with, but this name was new to me. “Would Martha approve of you contacting her?” I asked him pointedly.
“Relax,” Moose said. “That’s how I met Deb. She and your grandmother were friends first.”
“Good. I just don’t want to dig up another Judge Dixon.”
Moose got a little flustered whenever I mentioned Holly Dixon’s name. The judge and my grandmother didn’t get along, all because of a past that Holly and Moose may or may not have shared. It was all long ago, but that didn’t mean a thing to Martha. She was the sweetest woman on earth, but she was most definitely not a fan of the judge. “Victoria, you’re skating on thin ice.”
“That’s okay, I’m a born risk-taker, remember? I favor my paternal grandfather in that respect, or so I’ve been told. You can’t fault me for a trait that you passed on to me yourself, Moose.”
He wanted to say something biting, but in the end, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. “Let’s move on, shall we? I don’t know how much longer we have before Sheriff Croft gets here. I’ll call Deb a little bit later when we’ve got more time.”
I reached for the letters we’d pulled out of Curtis’s room, but Moose got to them before I could. “How about splitting them with me?” I asked.
“You can look at the notebooks,” he answered with a grin. “After all, you got the checkbook ledger.”
“True,” I said as I reached for one of the notebooks. As I flipped through the pages, I saw a long list of platitudes and wondered just how much time Curtis had spent thinking them up and dutifully recording them. Every entry was dated, so I searched the books until I found one that was only partially full. Flipping directly to the last few entries, I found a few interesting little tidbits recorded during the last few days of Curtis’s life.
The worst enemies are the ones disguised as friends.
Blood may be thicker than water, but a close knife can cut the deepest.
Trust has to be earned, not inherited.
Family is a matter of the heart, not the head.
And finally,
It is better to die alone than live with betrayal.
They weren’t happy thoughts by any means, but I hoped that we could at least give Curtis what peace we could by solving his murder. He’d died without being able to trust those closest to him if his final thoughts were any indication, but he’d put his faith in my grandfather and me, and we weren’t about to let him down.
Not if it took everything that we had.
“These are all ancient,” Moose said as he put the letters back on the bed. “Evidently he dated a girl named Teresa from West Virginia when he was in college, and their breakup was a bad one. He tried to apologize and win her back, but she sent every letter he wrote to her back to him.” Moose showed me one of the envelopes, and I saw the date was from far in the past.
“How sad,” I said as I reached for one of the letters.
“Take my advice and don’t read them,” Moose said, his voice choking a little as he spoke. “They’re pretty tough to take. Curtis really put his heart out there.”
“I can’t believe that he kept them all of these years,” I said.
“It’s funny what latches onto your heart. I wonder if Teresa knows that Curtis is dead? Should we track her down and tell her?”
“It’s a sweet thought, but from what you said, it’s pretty clear that Curtis has already been dead to her for a long time.”
“How about you?” Moose asked as he brushed at the corner of his eye. “Did you find anything?”
Moose whistled softly, and then he said, “Man, talk about sad. He didn’t trust anyone in the end, did he?”
“That’s not true. He gave Jeffrey power over his estate, and he asked us to solve his murder. I’m going to take some comfort in the fact that at least there were three people he could turn to before he died.”
“And we’re making one of them a suspect,” Moose said.
“We don’t have any choice,” I said.
“I know, but I don’t have to like it.” My grandfather looked down at the bed and asked, “Are we finished here?”
“With the time we’ve got left, I think we’ve done all that we can do.”
“Then let’s get this all ready to hand over to Sheriff Croft,” Moose said as he gathered everything up into a neat little pile. “I keep wondering something, Victoria.”
“What’s that?”
“We got a few leads here, but I can’t figure out why the killer would risk being discovered to retrieve any of it, can you?”
“I don’t know. It does implicate a few of our suspects,” I said.
“Maybe so, but there’s no real proof in any of it, is there?”
“Perhaps the killer didn’t know that. We might not have hit a home run, but I’m still glad I hid everything before I went to sleep last night.”
“So am I,” Moose said. “Hey, you never told me what you found in that secret passageway. Did you have any luck?”
“As a matter of fact I did,” I said. I was about to tell him what I’d overheard when there was a knock at my door.
“Victoria, are you in there?”
It was a familiar voice, and one that I’d been expecting.
“Come in,” I said, and the sheriff opened the door and stepped inside.
Chapter 17
“I can’t believe you two,” Sheriff Croft said in exasperation after Moose and I brought him up to date on what we’d found, and what we’d uncovered during our conversations with our suspects. I left out what I’d heard eavesdropping on Tristan and Sarah in the secret passageway, since I hadn’t even shared that with my grandfather yet. “Why don’t I go ahead and deputize you both and just get it over with?”