by Eva Gates
“Same thing,” she said.
“It isn’t the same thing,” I said. “Not at all.”
Mom and I’d found Evangeline pacing up and down in the stark, uncomfortable waiting area at the Nags Head police station, her sharp heels beating a furious rhythm on the tiled floor. “This brings back pleasant memories,” Mom said as we went in. “Not.”
“I’m going to sue,” Evangeline said by way of greeting. “I’ll take them for everything they’re worth.”
“I’m sure threats will help,” I said.
“Why don’t you sit down, dear?” Mom guided the other woman to a hard plastic chair. “No point in getting upset.”
“You mean further upset,” Evangeline snapped. “Why shouldn’t I be upset? This is absolutely preposterous. My son is a lawyer, highly respected among his peers. His reputation is everything.” She dropped into the chair, and Mom and I took seats on either side of her. Amos wasn’t around, so I assumed he’d been allowed to be with Ricky in the role of attorney.
“Did they say why they were asking him to come with them?” I asked.
“Some silly little thing about needing to know his whereabouts last night after he left the restaurant. As if my son would creep about in the dark and bash his own father over the head.”
Mom and I exchanged glances over Evangeline’s well-coiffed head. Rich had been knifed, not hit on the head. Did Evangeline know that, and was she pretending not to? No reason for her to know, if the police hadn’t told her. She hadn’t been—gulp—at the scene, as we had been.
“We were in the bar,” she continued, “having a lovely little catch-up, and the police barged in like a bunch of storm troopers. It was most embarrassing.”
I doubted that. The storm-trooper bit. Not the Evangeline-being-embarrassed bit.
“Where’s Fluffy?” she asked.
“What?”
“What have you done with Fluffy? You didn’t leave her in your car, did you, Lucy? Not on a hot day like this.”
“She’s at my apartment. Comfortable and happy and well fed.” I didn’t add that Charles lurked malevolently outside the door, angry at not being allowed inside. I didn’t dare leave the two of them alone together.
“Did you get my feeding instructions? It’s important you follow them to the letter. She has a very delicate stomach.”
“She’s a dog, Evangeline!” Mom cried. “She’ll be fine for a few hours.”
Evangeline sniffed and decided—wisely—to change the subject. “Thank you, both of you, for coming down. I hope I haven’t disrupted your evening plans.”
“No plans,” Mom said. “Millar’s gone home. He caught an afternoon flight to Boston.”
“I was planning to go out for a drink after work with some of my library friends and James, that Englishman you met at the library yesterday morning?” I tried not to look as though I was overly interested in Evangeline’s reaction.
Something moved in her face. “There will be other times for drinks, I’m sure.”
“I guess, but I’m not sure how much longer James and Daisy will be here. Their work’s coming on well, so they tell me.”
“Isn’t that nice.” Evangeline checked her watch. “It’s nice that you associate with people from work. That young man who pretends to be an Englishman is rather odd, wouldn’t you say?”
Nice diversion. So nicely done, I was now positive she had an interest in James, someone she supposedly didn’t know. “Theodore Kowalski. He’s a bit odd, yes, but he’s a kind man and a good friend.”
“Is he the one with the rare-book business?” Mom asked.
“Yup. He donated a handsome first edition to the library restoration fund earlier in the year. It helped to push us over the top so the work could go ahead.”
“Did he?” Evangeline said. “I wouldn’t have thought he had that sort of funds.”
“He was very generous. Many of our patrons were.” I gave Mom a grin. “And anonymous donors too.”
“Good for them,” Evangeline said. “It’s important to support the arts, don’t you agree, Suzanne?”
“Universities are important also,” I said. “Do you have much contact with universities, Evangeline? Maybe some in England?”
My not-so-subtle attempt to interrogate Evangeline as to how she knew James came to naught when the door keeping us out of the main area of the police station opened. Ricky, still looking somewhat the worse for wear, walked between Detective Watson and Uncle Amos. Evangeline leapt to her feet with a cry and enveloped her son in a ferocious hug.
He pulled himself free. “Let’s get the heck out of here.”
“Keep me apprised of your whereabouts,” Watson said.
Ricky threw the detective a filthy look, grabbed his mother’s arm, and almost sprinted for the door.
Watson and Amos shook hands, and Watson went inside.
“What happened?” I asked. “Do they have anything on Ricky?”
“Later,” Uncle Amos said.
Outside, we huddled on the steps of the police station.
“I’ve changed my mind,” Evangeline said. “I’m going home. Tonight. You’re coming with me.”
“It’s okay, Mom,” Ricky said. “They can’t pin this on me. Bringing me down here was nothing but an intimidation tactic.”
“Don’t get too cocky, young man,” Amos said. “You’re not in the clear. I was happy to help tonight, but I suggest you find yourself a lawyer.”
“I am a lawyer.”
“You know what I mean,” Uncle Amos said. “If you like, I’ll ask my partner, Stephanie Stanton, to represent you. She’s done a lot of criminal defense work.”
“My son is not a killer!” Evangeline shrieked.
A middle-aged woman heading for the police station gave us a frightened glance and a wide berth.
“Keep your voice down,” Mom said. “No one is saying anything of the sort. Amos is being practical, that’s all. I suggest we continue this discussion in a more private location.”
“Good idea,” Ricky said. “I, for one, could use a drink.”
I glanced toward the town offices, which share the same property as the police station. Connor’s window faced in this direction, and I wondered if he’d left yet. On the way into town, I’d given him a call to tell him why my plans had changed, and he’d said he’d wait to hear from me. In case he was watching, I started to lift my hand to give a little wave toward his window. My hand dropped.
A man stood at the side of the town hall, in the long shadows cast by the building. He was looking our way, and he made no move to turn away when he saw that I’d noticed him. He didn’t react; he simply stood and stared at us.
“Check out the guy watching us,” I whispered to Uncle Amos. “To the right of the steps of town hall.”
“Gordon Frankland.”
“He was at Jake’s last night. He spoke to Ricky.”
“I remember.”
“He seems interested in us.”
“So he does, but don’t read anything into that, Lucy. The man makes a point of watching people, all the better for him to find some indiscretion he can use to sue them over.”
“Dad was going to look into what he was talking to Ricky about. Do you know if he did?”
“What are you two whispering about?” Evangeline said. “Is my son’s future not of interest to you?”
“Give it a rest, Mom,” Ricky said.
“Don’t you ‘Mom’ me!”
“Evangeline’s upset,” my mother said. “We’re all upset—except for you, Amos, who I don’t imagine have ever been upset in your life.”
Uncle Amos raised one bushy eyebrow.
“I suggest we discontinue discussing our business in front of the Nags Head police station,” Mom said. “Evangeline, I’m happy to stay in town with you as long as you need my support.”
Evangeline glanced at her son, intently studying the ground beneath his feet. “Richard?”
“I called my office earlier, and the
y said there’s nothing pressing I need to show up for this week. Imagine that, they can get along fine without me. We should stay, Mom. I’ve nothing to hide from the police. Hopefully we can take Dad home soon. Come on, let’s go back to the hotel.”
“I’ll be at Amos and Ellen’s,” Mom said. “Call me if you need anything.”
Ricky took his mother’s arm and led her away.
“What do you mean, they can get along without you?” I could hear Evangeline asking him as their voices faded. “Don’t they need your help sorting through your father’s business affairs?”
“Family conference?” I said, once Ricky and Evangeline were out of earshot.
“Yes,” Amos said.
“What does that mean?” Mom asked.
“It means we need to talk things over,” I replied.
* * *
Aunt Ellen put a jug of tea on the table and pulled out a chair. “This is becoming a habit. One I don’t care for.”
She meant sitting around the table on the deck next to the kitchen at their beach house, talking over a murder case and trying to figure out “whodunit.”
Ellen poured tea for herself and me. My mom and Stephanie had glasses of wine, and frosty mugs of beer sat in front of Connor and Amos. As we left the police station, Uncle Amos had called Steph and I’d called Connor to tell them what was going on.
“First things first,” I said. “Why did the police want to question Ricky further?”
“Sam’s been talking to employees at your father’s firm,” Amos said, “as well as your dad himself. It seems things with Rich were coming to a head. A substantial number of the junior partners wanted him gone, and your father was finding it harder and harder to argue against that. Rich would never have gone willingly.”
“No,” Mom said, “he wouldn’t. The firm was his life. It was all he had. I feared for a while Millar was going down the same path, but he seems to have recovered his senses recently.” She gave me a secret smile.
“Which is hardly a reason for Ricky to kill him,” I said. “I suspect, from what I’m hearing, the only reason Ricky has a job is because he’s Rich’s son.”
“Motive is a vastly overrated reason for killing. That’s the stuff of mystery novels, not real cases.” Stephanie looked up from the yellow legal pad in front of her on which she was jotting notes. She hadn’t been hired by Ricky yet, but Amos had suggested she join us in case things went further.
“What does that mean?” Mom asked.
“People kill for lots of reasons and sometimes for no reason at all. Sometimes for what they think are good reasons and everyone else considers meaningless. An old grudge, a supposed insult in response to a threat that exists only in their mind. Determining a motive helps, of course, but it’s often not a building block on which to build a prosecution.”
“Steph means, if Ricky was mad enough at his father, that might have led to an argument, and an argument led to the death,” Amos said.
“You’re not saying—” Mom began.
“I’m not saying anything,” Amos said. “Simply pointing it out. In this case, the timing doesn’t look good for Ricky. He left the restaurant at roughly quarter to nine, according to the bartender at Jake’s. He arrived at Skinny Jane’s about nine thirty. No one can be located who saw him in the interim.”
“He says he walked around looking for a bar,” I said.
“He stayed at Skinny Jane’s until closing time. He seems to have made himself unforgettable there. He bought expensive drinks for a couple of women, and when the boyfriend of one of them, who’s a regular at that bar, arrived and took exception to that, things escalated. Ricky was lucky he didn’t get a punch to the jaw; instead, he wisely withdrew from the field of battle. He took a table in the corner, and there he fell asleep. At closing time, when the bartender went to throw him out, he gave the guy a sob story about how he’d lost the only woman he ever loved …”
I assumed that was supposed to be a reference to me. I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, and my mother notably avoided my eyes. I had little doubt that if I did get back together with Ricky, he’d soon forget I was supposed to be “the only woman he ever loved.” Ricky had inherited his mother’s love of high drama.
“He went on and on about how no one appreciates him,” Uncle Amos continued. “Said he didn’t want to go back to his hotel because his mother would be on his case, and he offered the bartender a hundred dollars to let him sleep in his truck. Which he did. Ricky was asleep in the truck the next morning when the bartender got it to go to work. For another hundred bucks, the bartender dropped Ricky at the library.”
“Why would he want to go there?” Mom asked.
“To tell me his sob story,” I said. “I found him on the step when I opened up this morning. He was definitely in bad shape, and he looked like he’d spent the night in a stranger’s truck. I poured coffee down him, Ronald held his head under cold water, and then I called Sam Watson, knowing he’d want to talk to Ricky. He claimed not to have known his father died. Did Ricky find his jacket?”
“When the police tracked the bartender down,” Amos said, “he gave it to them. Ricky had left it in the truck. The wallet and phone were untouched.”
“Okay, so Ricky doesn’t have an alibi for the time of his father’s death. That doesn’t mean anything, does it?”
“No, but it would be nice if he had one.”
“Evangeline doesn’t have an alibi either,” I pointed out.
“You can be sure that hasn’t escaped Sam’s notice,” Steph said.
“Sam Watson plays his cards close to his chest,” I said. “With someone like Evangeline, he’s likely to give her plenty of rope in case she needs it to hang herself.”
“What does that mean?” Mom said.
“It means she has trouble controlling her reactions. He’ll be watching her.”
“You’re getting good at this, Lucy,” Steph said.
“Too good,” Connor said.
“Perish the thought,” I said.
My mother shuddered.
“Does anyone know why Rich was in Nags Head in the first place?” Connor said. “I’d think that would be important.”
“It is important. Vitally important,” Amos said. “He doesn’t appear to have told anyone he was coming, never mind why.”
“The police found a piece of paper on Rich,” I said. “When Watson saw it, he seemed to find it interesting. Do you know what it said?”
“No, I don’t.”
“What did Dad find out about Gordon Frankland and his relationship with Rich?”
“If I never hear that name again,” Connor said, “it will be too soon. Frankland filed suit against the town this afternoon in opposition to our plans to expand the fishing pier. As though we haven’t gone through extensive environmental consultations and worked hard to address community concerns and secure local approval. The guy doesn’t live anywhere near the pier, but he’s found some—”
“Maybe let Amos continue,” Steph suggested.
“Sorry,” Connor said. “I got carried away there. The guy gets under my skin.”
“Frankland’s been busy,” Amos said. “He filed suit against Richardson Lewiston yesterday for conflict of interest.”
“Yesterday?” I said. “Before or after Rich’s death?”
“Good question, Lucy,” my uncle said. “Before. Yesterday morning.”
“Seems a heck of a coincidence,” Mom said, “that he ran into us that very night.”
“It does, doesn’t it? Although that is entirely possible. I checked with Jake when I heard about the suit, and he tells me Gordon Frankland dines at his place regularly. Sometimes as often as two or three times a week. Always on his own. The man appears to have no friends.”
“Wonder why?” Connor muttered.
Amos chuckled. “It seems he favors Jake’s these days, as not many other places in town will serve him—he’s threatened to sue them all. Jake lives in fear that Frankland’s going to fi
nd something, anything, to take him to court over.”
“Can’t something be done about this constant stream of lawsuits?” my mom asked.
“Let’s get back to the point,” Connor said. “Why is he suing Richardson Lewiston?”
“He claims the firm was representing him while also advising the firm representing his opponents in a case he’s brought against a homeowner who wants to do some much-needed renovations to a historic house in Boston. Unfortunately for representatives of Nags Head and Boston, he has homes in both those places; thus he can act as a concerned citizen. I believe he’s not unknown in the courthouses of New York City either.”
“Is he wealthy?” Mom asked.
“Oh yes,” Amos said. “Exceedingly so. Rather than putting his money—all of which he inherited—to good use, or even to amusing himself, he uses it to mount court cases. Which, come to think of it, is how he amuses himself.”
“In case you think he’s being a good citizen, standing up for what he believes in,” Steph said, “don’t. He has no problem funding both sides of any situation. Before Connor’s time, he sued the town to stop them extending a building permit to a bird sanctuary, and when he won that one, he turned around and sued them for interfering in a member of the public’s right to use their land as they see fit. It’s all a game to him.”
A ping came from the kitchen, and Aunt Ellen stood up. “Dinner’s ready. Keep talking, but do it loudly, and I’ll bring the food out. We’re having lasagna, and it’s a good thing I made enough to freeze for a second meal so I can feed all you unexpected guests.”
My mom leapt to her feet. “I’ll give you a hand.”
“The salad’s made and in the fridge,” Aunt Ellen said. “It only needs to be dressed.”
“According to what Millar learned this morning,” Amos said, “Richardson Lewiston has been attempting to fire Frankland as a client for some time, as his legal actions are getting increasingly erratic, to put it mildly, but he’s not going willingly. He’s suing them for failure to do their fiduciary duty in taking his cases seriously. If he can pay them and pay court costs if he loses, which he usually does, he doesn’t see why they care if his cases are frivolous.”