False Cast: a small town murder mystery (Frank Bennett Adirondack Mountain Mystery Series Book 5)

by S. W. Hubbard

  “Anita quit this morning. And no, I didn’t tell that government bureaucrat. I never bought into being part of the social welfare system’s Big Brother team.”

  Gage had claimed Anita’s predecessor quit, and that hadn’t been true. “Why would she quit? She’ll never find another job like this in Trout Run.”

  Gage shrugged. “These coders are all the same. No loyalty. She seems to think she’s found something better in Glens Falls.”

  “Glens Falls! That’s too far away to commute.”

  “Who said anything about commuting? She and the kid are moving there.”

  Gage’s bombshell drove out any interest Frank had in uncovering the exact nature of Bridge to the Future Applications.

  He called Trudy, but rolled to her voicemail. So Frank went straight to Anita’s apartment. Olivia would be at school. At least, he hoped so.

  Anita answered his loud hammering. After a moment, she stepped aside to let him enter. Three large cardboard boxes stood in the middle of the living room.

  Neither of them spoke.

  After what seemed an eternity, Anita lifted her chin and said, “I hear you’ve been talking to one of the other girls from Break Out Coding.”

  The surprises kept coming. “You know the girl who worked for Gage before you? You were in jail with her?”

  “Tanya never did time. Pretty young girl like her they sent to rehab and a diversion program. She learned coding same as me, and she went to the same follow-up group. You know, to keep us on the straight and narrow.”

  Was Anita on the straight and narrow, or was she blowing out of town just in time to save her skin? Had Tanya been feeding him a line about being forced to quit? They’d both learned to code alongside a bunch of other criminals. How had they put their talents to use? Frank swallowed his rising excitement. Wouldn’t that be convenient? Arrest Anita for fraud and Olivia would go back to Edwin and Lucy and all would be right in his world.

  “Tanya has a drug problem?”

  “Used to be addicted to pills. Now it’s vegetables. Addicts have to stay addicted to something.”

  For sure, Anita had a keen eye for other people’s frailties. “Your friend claims Gage fired her for asking too many questions about the business. Gage says she quit, and you quit too. Your decision seems a little…impulsive.”

  Anita dropped a stack of books into a box. “Gage thought me and Tanya were both too stupid to understand what we were working on. It didn’t take me more than a week to figure out what I was coding didn’t have nuthin’ to do with a hiking app. But what did I care what Gage was really doing to make money as long as I was getting paid to do work I liked? After all, Breakout Coding placed us in that job, so Gage had to be legit. I figured maybe Gage needed a cover story to keep his idea secret until he was ready to launch. He didn’t want anybody to steal it—developers are like that. I figured I wouldn’t make the same mistake as Tanya and get myself fired for asking questions. I put my head down and stuck to coding, but I kept my eye peeled for a better job.”

  “And did you figure out what he’s really doing?”

  Anita grimaced, revealing her prison-issued dental work. “I didn’t study computer science at MIT, remember. But I did find a better job, now that I have some experience.”

  Was Anita simply trying to improve her circumstances? Only one way to find out. “Let me give you a hint, Anita. Is Gage running an Internet scam? Something to do with sucking people in over their heads selling VitaVine supplements?”

  Anita stepped back from him, stumbling over her packing boxes. Clumsy or scared? Frank remembered what Olivia had asked. “Will my mom go back to jail?” At the time, he thought the child had been concerned about the effect of her running away. Maybe Olivia knew more than he imagined.

  Anita quickly regained her composure. “Look, Break Out Coding placed me in that job,” she repeated. “If you got a problem with what Gage is doing with his business, you should take it to them. I didn’t think the Trout Run PD had an Internet fraud squad.” Again, that unpleasant grin.

  Something clicked in Frank’s brain. Something was suddenly making him think about the clerk he’d paid to inform on Wade Cochran. About the useless description the clerk had offered of Wade’s visitor: not fat, not thin; not tall not short; light brown hair; and one last useless detail that Frank had nearly forgotten.

  A weird smile.

  “You’re right, Anita. I’m not really qualified to investigate computer fraud. I am, however, very interested in solving another crime: how Nancy Tomlinson helped Ronnie Gatrell escape from jail.”

  Anita shrugged. “Can’t help you with that.”

  “Ah, but you can. See, you don’t just code for Gage. Sometimes you run errands for him, like you did at the re-enactment.”

  Anita narrowed her eyes. “So? That’s not illegal.”

  “I have a witness who saw you hand an envelope over to Wade Cochran, a payment for his part in the escape.”

  Anita met his gaze and didn’t blink. “If you say so. I drove clear over to Newcomb for Gage, but I didn’t know what was in the envelope or why I was delivering it.”

  Not rattled. Either she honestly knew nothing about Gage’s business, or she had nerves of steel—Frank wasn’t sure which. He changed course. “Does Trudy know you’re moving to Glens Falls? You’re not allowed to move Olivia without her permission.”

  “I’ve talked to her about making a fresh start away from Trout Run. There’s too much baggage here, for me and Olivia both.”

  Baggage. Is that what Edwin and Lucy were?

  “I put in a call to Trudy,” Frank warned as he headed to the door. “I don’t want you leaving until I hear back from her.”

  Anita gestured to the mostly empty boxes. “Olivia and I still have a lot of packing to do.”

  Frank descended the stairs from the second floor apartment. Despite the early infusion of information, the morning hadn’t developed the way he’d hoped. A school bus rumbled by and stopped at the corner. A pack of kids got off, but Olivia wasn’t among them.

  Above his head, a window opened. He looked up to see Anita leaning out.

  “Why is the bus so early?” she asked.

  “Early dismissal today,” Frank answered. “Something to do with testing.”

  He kept walking toward the office.

  Behind him, the kids laughed and shouted. He heard footsteps running and a hand grabbed his arm.

  Frank spun around. Anita’s eyes were wild with fear.

  “Olivia got off the bus at the covered bridge. She thought I’d be working with Gage. She doesn’t know I quit.”

  Frank didn’t understand the problem. A simple mix-up. Anita could drive over to get Olivia, or the kid could walk home. It wasn’t far.

  Anita clutched both Frank’s arms and gave him a shake. “Olivia knows about the VitaVine. I’m afraid of what she might say. I’m afraid of him. Come with me to get her.”

  Chapter 48

  Anita’s car was parked at the curb, so Frank drove it to Gage’s office while Anita texted Olivia.

  “She’s not answering.” Anita’s voice shook.

  “Was Gage angry when you quit?” Frank asked.

  “I know stuff about him. He knows stuff about me. We called it a draw.”

  Mutually assured destruction. But somehow Olivia tipped the balance.

  Frank hoped Anita was simply over-reacting, that they’d soon see Olivia’s long-legged figure loping up the hill from the bridge. “What makes you think Gage won’t just send her home?”

  “He asked me a million questions about her this morning. About what she knew from the time she spent with RJ.”

  What did she know? Frank had intended to talk to Olivia again, but in the commotion surrounding Ronnie’s plunge into the water and Earl’s miraculous recovery, he had never done it. He focused on Anita. “What has Olivia told you about RJ and Ronnie?”

  “She doesn’t like to talk about it. But Gage thinks she knows stuff, think th
at I told her stuff, too. I convinced him she was clueless. I told him if anything happened to Olivia, you’d never rest until you figured out who did it. I convinced him it was best to let the two of us leave town and forget we ever knew Gage Shelby.”

  “But Olivia…”

  Anita turned to him. “If Gage starts asking her the questions he asked me, she’ll never be able to lie her way out. He has too much at stake. He’ll kill her.”

  The bend in the road to the bridge made it possible to park Anita’s car out of sight of Gage’s house. Gage’s SUV was in the driveway, so at least he hadn’t taken Olivia anywhere. Anita jumped out of the car, but Frank blocked her from running toward the office.

  “Does Gage have a gun in the office?”

  “I’ve never seen one in the office, but he has hunting rifles in the house.”

  “Is there an internal door that connects the office to the house, or just the external door?”

  “Internal too. It leads from the back wall of the office into a bedroom on the second floor. But he keeps it locked. Probably worried that I’ll sneak into his house and rob him.”

  Frank peered up at the office windows, but the bright sunlight made it impossible to see if Gage and Olivia were in there. He held out his hand for Anita’s phone and programmed his own number into her speed dial. “Go up the office stairs and listen. If you hear Gage talking, you press the button to call me. Don’t say anything. Don’t go in unless you have to. I’m going to go in through the house.”

  Unlike most Adirondackers, Gage actually kept his doors locked. But with a quiet tap, Frank was able to crack one pane of a window, break out the pieces, and let himself into the house. As soon as he got inside, he felt his phone vibrate.

  Anita.

  Gage must be in the office.

  Frank slipped upstairs and quickly found the bedroom closest to the office loft. The wooden floors in the old house creaked as he crossed the room to the wall with two doors.

  One had an old dull brass doorknob and the other a shiny deadbolt lock.

  Frank held his breath and listened in front of the locked door.

  “Mom! What’s going on?”

  Frank winced. Anita had obviously made noise climbing the steps. Either that, or she hadn’t been able to restrain herself from entering because of something Gage had said.

  “Be quiet, Olivia. I’ll handle this.”

  Frank drew his gun and waited. He would have to shoot the lock out if he needed to enter. He wanted a sense of where each of them stood in the room. Most of all, he wanted to know if Gage was armed. Would Anita be shrewd enough to give him a hint?

  Or was Anita entirely wrong? Would Gage send mother and daughter on their way?

  “Olivia and I were having a nice little chat,” Gage said. “She was telling me about RJ and his dad.”

  “I was not!” Olivia’s voice sounded the faintest, as if she might be near the window. Anita should still be near the external door. That meant Gage was closest to Frank. Good. Stay that way.

  “Well, you were about to tell me, when your mother so rudely interrupted us.”

  “Like I said this morning, she doesn’t know anything. C’mon, Olivia—let’s get out of here.”

  Olivia emitted a sharp cry.

  “Put that thing away, Gage,” Anita said.

  Frank’s hand tightened on his gun. Two questions answered.

  “Now, tell me where RJ is hiding.” Gage’s voice. Calm, determined.

  “I don’t know. But even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you.” Olivia’s voice. One hundred percent bratty pre-teen. Did she have to provoke him?

  Olivia kept talking. “You’re the one who convinced RJ’s dad to kill that fisherman. Now his dad can never come home.”

  What? Ronnie had killed Cottlemeir? At Gage’s command?

  “You little brat!” Footsteps and Anita’s sharp, “No!”

  “What are you going to do—blast your office full of holes and carry our bodies out in broad daylight?”

  Jesus—nothing like a twelve-year-old for bravado.

  Frank shot off the lock.

  Chapter 49

  The weekend passed in a blur.

  Gage’s arrest. Anita’s interrogation. RJ’s return.

  Through it all, Frank remembered one promise he’d made. “Your mom won’t go back to jail.”

  Before Anita spoke to the state police, he made sure she had a lawyer.

  A good one, not the public defender.

  Now, on Sunday night, he collapsed onto his sofa. Penny handed him a tumbler of scotch.

  “I know you’re exhausted. Just answer this: is Anita in trouble?”

  “No. She didn’t commit any crimes. She didn’t even witness any crimes. She just knew a lot from keeping her eyes and ears open. And she didn’t obstruct an investigation because no one ever asked her any questions until after Gage was arrested. She’s back home right now with Olivia.”

  “Why didn’t she just come and tell you what she knew?”

  Because she’s Anita. Because she’s been an outcast all her life. “At first, she didn’t want to lose the job. Later, she worried she’d be implicated somehow.”

  “But Gage is in jail, I hope?”

  “Yeah, the bail hearing didn’t go his way. Judges don’t like people who threaten witnesses. Especially twelve-year-old witnesses.”

  “And RJ?”

  Frank took a hefty slug of the scotch. “Turned up on his mother’s doorstep yesterday. Twenty pounds lighter and two toes black with frostbite. I think he gave up looking for his dad when they started to rot.”

  “Eeeew! But how did he last as long as he did?”

  “He and Ronnie had supply caches hidden all over the backcountry. Just a big game to Ronnie, but poor RJ took it seriously. The kid’s going to need years on a shrink’s couch.”

  “And what about VitaVine and Mr. Cottlemeir?”

  Frank rattled the ice cubes in his empty glass. “I thought you were only asking me one question.”

  “Well, you’ve come this far. Why not finish? I’ll get you another drink.”

  Frank accepted the drink and pulled Penny into an embrace. This was the saddest part of a sad and sordid tale. “Only Gage, Ronnie, and Joe know all the details. But this is what we’ve pieced together from information Anita and Olivia provided. Joe met Ronnie, probably when he was up here on a previous fishing trip. Joe must’ve told Ronnie about needing money for the sick grandson, and Ronnie convinced Joe that selling VitaVine was the answer to all his problems. And then Joe got sucked into Gage’s scam and lost even more money.”

  “Back up. Did Ronnie know Gage was a scammer? Or was Ronnie a victim too?”

  “Ronnie started out as a victim, but soon Gage brought him into the scam. Those two had a lot in common. They both were trying and failing to living up to their fathers’ successes.”

  “I think it goes even deeper than that,” Penny said. “They both like being puppet masters, controlling people, the way Ronnie did with that crazy game. And the way Gage likes directing those videos—making everyone play a part.”

  “Except Ronnie wasn’t pulling strings when he took the kids hostage. He really did flip out. And Gage was nervous that Ronnie would start talking in jail and give away the VitaVine scam. So he arranged the escape through Nancy Tomlinson.”

  “Another one of his VitaVine victims.”

  “Once Ronnie was out of jail, he became even more of a loose cannon. Ronnie really did care about saving his land more than anything. He needed money to pay off the bank, but now he wasn’t able to recruit more people into VitaVine. So Gage came up with a way for Ronnie to get part of Joe Cottlemeir’s life insurance money.”

  Penny lifted her head from Frank’s shoulder. “How?”

  “Ronnie would kill Joe so the accidental death clause would kick in.” Frank knocked back the last of the scotch. “Joe would have the money to save his family. Ronnie would have the money to pay off the bank.”

  �
��Wait…you’re saying Joe was a willing victim?”

  “Yep. Joe must’ve known his time was coming that weekend; that’s why he left the letter for his wife. Ronnie sneaked up and dropped him with one shot.”

  Penny shuddered. “But Meyerson said Joe wasn’t shot with the gun Ronnie stole.”

  “He wasn’t. Gage provided a different gun. And RJ brought him boots that fit better than the ones Ronnie stole. Anita thinks the gun could be one from Gage’s house. We can only hope that cocky bastard has tripped himself up.”

  “How were they going to distribute the money?”

  “The executor of Joe’s estate was some lawyer his wife had never heard of. Young guy.”

  “Let me guess—he knows Gage Shelby.”

  Frank heaved himself off the sofa. Two quick glasses of scotch made the room tilt a bit. “Your buddy Gage was at the center of everything.”

  Penny collected the glass and fluffed the sofa cushions. “You never did like Gage. And you always thought Ronnie was dangerous. I feel like a fool for being so trusting.”

  Frank switched off the lamp, throwing his cozy living room into the shadows. “Believe me, there’s a downside to being suspicious. Look what it’s cost me with Edwin.”

  Chapter 50

  Since the completion of the kitchen remodeling project, Penny had remained true to her vow to never use the microwave again. Delighted with her new appliances, she had become a born-again Julia Child, Googling recipes for oven-roasted pork and sautéed chicken. Unfortunately, her procurement abilities hadn’t kept up with her new cooking skills, and she had once again sent Frank on a suicide mission to The Store to find urgently required ingredients.

  He was digging through cans of mushrooms trying to find one that hadn’t expired during the Bush administration when a familiar face appeared on the other side of the aisle.

  Frank rubbed his dusty hands on his pants. “Hi, Pam. How’re you doing?” She looked better than the last time he’d seen her, right after RJ had two toes amputated. Her eyes were brighter, her face less haggard.