“I can probably locate his children,” Mitch added. “If you think it’s important.”
“No, that’s fine. I don’t think it matters.”
On the surface, the Calhouns looked like any ordinary divorced-and-remarried couple. Middle-class, law-abiding, conservative lifestyle. With their twin BMWs, they obviously liked status symbols. So did a lot of people. The house value looked high to Cate, but it was in an area of similarly valued homes. The fact that it had dropped in value was probably more an indication of lower property values all over the country, not bad judgment on their part.
Nothing there to suggest Cheryl was desperate enough to concoct a push-auntie-down-the-stairs scheme.
However, there could be some under-the-radar problems. Troubles with Cheryl’s business. Scott’s earnings might also be dropping in an uncertain stock market. They could be in over their heads on the house even if not on a cliff brink of losing it. There was also Krystal’s close-to-vicious comment about Cheryl being so busy trying to hold on to her husband, and the possibility of his “roving eye.” Could Cheryl have figured a hefty inheritance would add some twinkle to her marriage?
Mitch didn’t bring up the subject of Kyle and the previous weekend, and before Cate could decide how to do so, he said he’d be out of town for a couple of days on business. End of conversation.
Cate stared at the silent phone in frustration. He’d done it again. He’d said he’d look up information about Cheryl and Scott, and he’d done it. The man who lived up to his word, even if he had to plow through ex-fiancés to do it. Commendable.
Cate touched her finger to her tongue and drew a five-pointed figure in the air. Give the man a gold star. Sure, give him two. She drew another star with her finger, then punched both with her fist.
Cate and Rebecca moved Uncle Joe from the hospital to a rehabilitation center. In his condition, he couldn’t literally drag his feet about going, but he certainly did so verbally. He wanted to come straight home. Cate spent the next day working on the case from the files, an old situation concerning a daughter adopted out at birth.
She went for a run that evening. Usually a run both invigorated and relaxed her, and this was a beautiful time of day. She slowed to a walk as she neared home. The setting sun turned clouds into streaks of pink and gold, and birds twittered in the trees. But she felt neither invigorated nor relaxed. Maybe she should take up bird watching. She apparently wasn’t going to need any time for male relationships. Then she was annoyed at herself for the grumpy attitude and took off at a hard run.
As she rounded the corner a block from the house, she almost ran over the older couple who lived two doors down from Uncle Joe and Rebecca. The Martins? Madsens? They walked hand-in-hand almost every evening. Cate skidded to a halt and apologized.
Mrs. Martin/Madsen waved off the apology. “I just wish we had the energy and ability to do what you do.”
“It’s a great evening to be out.”
“I’m glad we ran into you,” the woman added. “In fact, I was thinking perhaps I should call you. A man came to the house yesterday asking about you.”
Cate tried to squelch a mild flicker of alarm. “Asking where I live?”
“No, he knew where you live. He wanted to know about you. Something about a background check. How long you’d lived there and if we knew where you worked and what hours, and if you’d been in any trouble, what kind of people came to the house. What other people lived there, were there pets, or noisy parties, all kinds of nosy things. He even peeked in the trash barrel Rebecca had set out for the garbage truck.”
“Some man wanted to know all that about me?” And he checked the trash?
“We thought it probably had to do with a job you’d applied for,” her husband added.
Cate couldn’t remember applying for any job involving national security, corporate secrets, or government contracts. It seemed unlikely the people at Wily Coyote Pizza would care if she indulged in noisy parties at home. Or what was in her trash.
Yet simply because the man said a background check was what he was doing didn’t mean that was actually what he was doing. But, if he wasn’t running a background check for a job, what was he doing? And what did he intend to do with the information?
“We told him we didn’t really know much about you, but from what we’d seen you were a very well-behaved young woman of exemplary character. And that Joe and Rebecca are lovely people too.”
A nice report, even if it did make her sound like an elderly spinster. “Thank you.”
“He went to a couple of other houses.” The husband pointed across the street. “The Carmichaels over there, and the new people next door to them.”
“You didn’t ask for identification?”
The couple exchanged glances.
“We should have, shouldn’t we?” the woman said, her tone apologetic. “But he seemed so nice. Very polite. We wanted to help, you know? Rebecca said you’ve been looking for a job for quite a while.”
“What did he look like?”
“Six-foot-one or two,” the husband said, his tone going important. Witness stuff. He looked off into space, concentrating. “Lean build. Narrow face. Heavy eyebrows. Dark hair, good length, not straggling around his shoulders. Blue slacks, short-sleeved white shirt, gray tie with red stripes. He was quite tan, as if he’d been somewhere other than here for the winter.”
The wife looked at him with an expression somewhere between amazement and skepticism. “I didn’t see all that.”
He didn’t quite polish his fingernails on his shirt front with satisfaction, but he definitely looked pleased with himself.
“Anyone can have a tan these days,” his wife scoffed. “At any time of year. You go to one of those tanning booth things. Or buy that stuff in a bottle or spray can. It doesn’t mean you’ve been somewhere.”
“The tan looked real,” the husband insisted.
“Did you see a car?” Cate interrupted before this escalated into a full-scale Battle of the Tans. Even as the couple squabbled, she noted they were still holding hands.
“I didn’t see one,” the woman said.
“I did. It was parked down in the next block. A dark sedan.”
The husband obviously prided himself on his powers of observation. But “dark sedan” was about as helpful as “green grass.”
“He had a little notebook and wrote everything we told him down in it. A black notebook,” the woman said. Her glance at her husband said she may not have noticed the car, but she’d noticed that notebook. Had he?
The notebook thing made Cate remember that the police officer asking questions after Amelia’s death had used such a notebook. Could a plainclothes detective be investigating her in connection with Amelia’s death? A more ominous possibility loomed, someone with darker and more dangerous motives than the police. Radford Longstreet? He was tall and dark-haired. Coop? No, he was blond. Unless he had someone asking questions for him. Actually, anyone, male or female, could hire a snoop. Did someone think that because she’d found the body, she knew more about Amelia’s death than she actually did? Or that she’d acquired incriminating information since then? Did she know something that she didn’t even realize she knew?
“Did he ask about my daily schedule, when I come and go?” Was he trying to pinpoint her movements so he could ambush her?
Exchanged glances again.
“No, I don’t recall that,” the husband said.
Okay, don’t complicate this with wild speculation. It probably did have to do with a job she’d applied for at some time, maybe even weeks ago. Maybe that cashier job at the big warehouse store. Or the application with the vacuum cleaner manufacturer. Maybe they wanted to be sure their employees weren’t out to steal parts and construct dangerous new vacuum weapons.
She thanked the couple and headed on home. Her cell phone rang just before she reached the front door. She dropped to the steps to answer it. Willow. With a surprising announcement. Radford had called her lat
e the previous evening, the call apparently timed so it would come when he was sure Cheryl wasn’t at the house.
“He wants to talk to me,” Willow said. “He wanted to come over right then, but I wasn’t about to go for that, of course. But I did say I could meet him somewhere.”
“I can’t believe he wants to get together and reminisce about Amelia.”
“No. It’s something else.”
“Willow, why would you meet with him at all, anywhere, any time, for any reason? He may be a killer!”
Radford’s call to Willow struck her as worrisome for another reason. Someone was canvassing the neighborhood asking questions about her. Was there some connection?
“He says he has a business proposition for me.”
“What kind of legitimate business proposition could he have? I don’t like this. Just give him the brush-off.”
“He says he’ll pay me $250. And it’s nothing illegal or dangerous. So I said I wasn’t agreeing to anything, but I would talk to him. We’re supposed to meet in the food court at the mall tomorrow afternoon.”
“You said you had all that ‘big money’ coming from somewhere. Why bother with this?”
“A woman can always use an easy $250.”
Cate gave a snort of exasperation. “So why are you telling me? You’ve already made up your mind, haven’t you?”
“I was hoping you’d come with me.”
“No way.”
“Please, Cate? I’m uneasy about meeting him alone, even if it is a public place.”
“Then don’t.”
“Maybe it’s something about Amelia’s fall. Maybe he knows something. Doesn’t that interest you?”
Yes, Cate reluctantly admitted, that did interest her. “But why would he be willing to pay you money if he knows something? Maybe he’s more than sleazy. Maybe he’s a weirdo psychopath.”
“I know it sounds strange,” Willow said. “Maybe the strangeness of it is a reason you should come along.”
“Maybe he won’t talk if I’m there.”
“Then we’ll know he’s really up to something no good.”
Cate wavered between curiosity and thinking that meeting Radford was the worst idea ever, right up there with bungee jumping on a cord of dental floss. Also a certain concern that if she weren’t there to stop it, maybe Willow would get involved in something foolish and probably dangerous. “Okay, I’ll do it,” she finally said reluctantly.
“Food court at the mall, 11:30 tomorrow. Order something expensive. We’ll get him to pay for it.”
Cate parked at the mall at 11:25. She hadn’t had lunch. Inside, the food court was not busy at this hour on a weekday afternoon. Willow waved at her from a corner table. Before they had a chance to say more than hello, Radford bore down on them. His dark brows melded toward an ominous-looking unibrow when he saw Cate.
“I intended this to be a private meeting.”
Cate was undecided whether to leave politely or stubbornly glue her anatomy to the chair.
Willow gave him a winning smile. “You remember Cate, don’t you?”
“The woman who climbs trees.”
“Yes! It’s okay if she’s here. We share everything. She’s my twin sister. We didn’t know it until just recently, but isn’t it wonderful?”
Cate gaped in astonishment at this incredible story. Truth with Willow was indeed flexible. “Willow, I don’t think—”
“I know. We don’t usually tell people.” Willow patted Cate’s hand. “But I’m sure it’s okay if Radford knows. Radford can keep a confidence, can’t he?” She didn’t quite bat her eyes at Radford, but not far from it.
Radford didn’t look happy about the situation, but he didn’t stomp off. He glanced between them and apparently accepted the twins story. He scooted a chair back and sat down. “Yes, certainly, I can keep a confidence. And what we’re discussing here today is also completely confidential. Is that understood?” There came the unibrow again.
“Of course.” Willow leaned her elbows on the table, steepled her hands together, and gave him a primly expectant look.
Radford looked at Cate for confirmation of the confidentiality agreement, and she managed to echo Willow’s words. “Of course.”
“What I have in mind is this. Amelia and I were engaged. I gave her a ring. She wasn’t wearing it yet because she wanted to throw a big engagement party and show it off then.”
“She’d mentioned a party,” Willow offered encouragingly.
“But now that niece is refusing to give the ring back. And it’s mine. An engagement ring is a promise to marry, and there wasn’t any marriage. But she’s claiming there isn’t any ring, that I’m just making it all up. Maybe she’s told you all this?”
“Not really, no,” Willow murmured.
So true. The Calhouns hadn’t told Willow anything.
“Anyway, what I need is the receipt on the ring to prove it does exist. It must be somewhere in Amelia’s belongings.”
“Why would Amelia have a receipt for the ring?” Cate asked.
Radford threw her an annoyed glance, but he answered the question. “She wanted to add the ring to her insurance policy, and she needed the receipt to prove its value.”
How romantic! Demanding a receipt to prove the value of your engagement ring. If Amelia needed to know its value, why hadn’t she discreetly had it appraised?
As if he’d heard Cate’s mental question, Radford said, “I don’t know why she didn’t just have the ring appraised. She wanted the receipt, and I gave it to her. So what I want you to do”—he planted his arms on the table and leaned toward Willow—“is find the receipt for me. There’s $250 in it for you.”
“Cheryl and Scott have been all through Amelia’s office,” Willow said. She sounded disappointed in this as a business proposition. “If it were there, they’d surely have found it already.”
“Can’t you get a copy of the receipt from the store where you bought the ring?” Cate suggested.
His glance at Cate said, What business is this of yours? But he gritted his teeth and answered. “It was a private sale. The woman simply wrote out a receipt for me, and that’s what I gave Amelia.” He turned back to Willow. “Maybe you could get hold of the insurance company and see if she’d added it to the policy. Tell them you’re, oh, working on the estate or something. I’d do it, but I have no idea who her insurance was with.”
Willow shook her head. “I’m sure Cheryl took any insurance papers that were in Amelia’s files, so I don’t think there’s any chance—” She broke off, a thought just occurring. “But she kept cancelled checks in a box there in her office. At least until the bank stopped doing the cancelled check thing. Cheryl might not have bothered with cancelled checks. I might be able to look through them and find an insurance company name. And she’d probably have written the policy number on the check.”
“I’ll give you $100 right now to do that. And another $250 if you can get proof about the ring.”
Willow looked at Cate. Cate started to shrug, then asked a question instead. “Is the ring paid for?”
“Of course it’s paid for!” Radford snapped. He hesitated, his gaze studying Cate as if he were reevaluating her. “But I paid in cash, so I don’t have a check to prove that.”
Which might or might not be true, since flexibility with the truth seemed rampant as an infectious virus here. Radford pulled out his wallet, opened it, and fingered a hundred dollar bill as he looked at Willow.
She reached over and plucked the bill out of his fingers. “I’ll see what I can do.” She inspected the bill as if it might be phony, then stuffed it in her purse.
Radford stood up. “Call me when you find out anything.”
Willow’s gaze followed his tall figure as he walked out of the food court. “I thought he’d at least buy us lunch,” she grumbled.
“Why in the world did you tell him that crazy story about our being twins?”
Willow’s grin was mischievous. “I don’t know
. Sometimes I just get this crazy impulse to make things up. Maybe I’ll write books or movies someday. Besides, I always thought it would be fun to have a twin. Now I have one!”
“Don’t tell anyone else, okay?” Cate muttered.
At the outside doors, just as they parted to go to their cars, Willow said, “You want to come over and help me look for the receipt?”
No, she did not want to look for a receipt that might or might not exist. “I have to …” She juggled excuses. Wash my hair. Clean the lint out of my belly button. Weigh Octavia. “Go see Uncle Joe.”
“I didn’t mean now. Cheryl was there when I left. Come over late tonight.”
“I really don’t approve of this whole venture.”
“Okay, whatever. But will you come?” Willow asked, as if approval were irrelevant. “I’ll fix something to eat afterwards. We’ll make it a midnight party! How about tacos?”
Bribed by a taco. No. Although cheesecake might have done it. But Cate suddenly realized she had a very good reason of her own for peeking into Amelia’s files.
“Okay. I’ll be there about 10:00.”
Cate paused on the front steps and looked around cautiously when she left the house at 9:30 that night. She’d gone with Rebecca to see a grumpy Uncle Joe, and weary Rebecca was already in bed. Cate didn’t spot anyone waiting in ambush. But ambushers probably didn’t wear DayGlo vests with name tags. She ran for her car parked in the driveway and locked the doors the instant she was inside. She was equally cautious when she slipped out of the car at Amelia’s house. An ambusher could have followed her.
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