Murder in Mystic Grove

by S F Bose

  I laughed. “Thanks.” Then I decided to share. “By the way, I had the weirdest feeling that someone was watching us at the motel last week.”

  Sam frowned and leaned forward, elbows on his desk. “Did you see anyone?”

  I shook my head. “No, it was just a feeling. I sometimes get...hunches. When I saw the Texans, I thought they were the ones watching us. But I felt it before they showed up and until we left the area.”

  “Okay,” Sam said and pinned me with his dark eyes. “When you get hunches like that in the future, let me know. I’ll do the same. Our gut instincts can save us from a world of hurt.”

  “Will do,” I agreed.

  “You still think that not identifying Finnegan for Fletcher was okay?”

  “I do. Damian’s got the evidence he wanted.”

  Sam nodded. “Good. I wanted to check in on that after you had more time to think about it.

  I was about to reply when there was a crashing sound from the outer office and a man’s voice shouted, “Nolan! Where the hell are you?”

  Chapter 6

  Sam rotated his chair to face the door, but remained seated. “In here,” Sam shouted back. He sounded calm and almost amused.

  I jumped up and stood by the wall of built-in bookshelves to my right. I faced the office door and reached under my sweater, where I rested my hand on the grip of my Glock. Given Sam’s earlier advice, I didn’t pull it out of the holster.

  Finnegan Daley stormed into the room like a tornado. He was dressed casually in a blue parka, turtleneck sweater, jeans, and boots. I thought he was even cuter close-up. His curly, copper red hair, red beard, and red mustache reminded me of fire and were in stark contrast to his pale skin. Since his hands were out in the open and I didn’t see any weapons, I took my hand off my gun. With my eight inch height advantage, I knew I could take him down, if I had to.

  “You idiot!” he shouted at Sam. “Why didn’t you tell me you were following me?” Finnegan didn’t see me until he got to the edge of Sam’s desk. Then he wheeled to his right. He stopped for a second and his blue eyes narrowed to a squint.

  “Good grief, woman, your hair is as white as my granny’s,” he said, in a melodic Irish brogue. Then his eyes widened. “Wait a minute. You’re the one who took the photos of Sherrie and me! You work for him?” he asked, jerking a thumb at Sam.

  His eyes were such a deep blue that I missed a few beats as I stared at him. Then I recovered. “Yes, I do,” I replied calmly, not reacting to the comment about my hair.

  “What a sad way to make a living,” he said with a frown and turned back to Sam. I shrugged and folded my arms.

  “Have a seat, Finn, and we’ll talk,” said Sam.

  “I’ll stand. Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked again.

  I glanced at Sam. Some color had come into his face, but his voice was steady.

  “We weren’t following you. We were following Sherrie Fletcher. I didn’t know it was you with Sherrie, until I saw the photos.”

  “And why didn’t you call me then?” Finnegan asked, with a bit less anger in his voice.

  Sam sat back in his chair, his elbows on the armrests and his hands folded. He looked up at Finn.

  “It was difficult, Finn, but I was working for a client. My main responsibility, in this instance, was to him. However, I didn’t include your name or any identifiable photos in the report. That was the best I could do,”

  Running a hand through his hair, Finn groaned loudly and stared first at the floor and then at Sam.

  “Damn,” he said softly and fell into the chair I had abandoned. I pulled the second guest chair back by the bookshelves and sat down. I angled the chair so I was looking at Finn’s profile. He glanced at me and back to Sam.

  “Can we have a private moment?” he asked Sam.

  Sam shook his head. “No. This is Liz Bean and she’s my associate. You can speak freely in front of her.”

  Finn darted a glare at me and I smiled. He turned back to Sam.

  “Sam, your report is just going to make things much worse for Sherrie,” Finn said quietly.

  Sam sat forward in his chair and put his arms on his desk. “Finn, Damian Fletcher already suspected his wife was seeing someone. That’s why he hired us.”

  “It’s worse now. Damian confronted Sherrie and tried to get my name from her. She refused to tell him. So then he grabbed her phone and looked at the call history.”

  “He found your calls to each other?” I asked. Finn swiveled to look at me.

  “No, he didn’t. Sherrie and I use prepaid cellphones. We’re not idiots. That’s the only phone she uses for our calls and she hides it well. Fletcher was looking at her regular phone. Finally, he said if she didn’t break it off with me, he’d find out who I was and would get rid of me.”

  “Get rid of you how?” asked Sam.

  “That’s what Sherrie asked. He wouldn’t tell her. Use your imagination. Anything painful will do.”

  “That doesn’t sound like Damian at all,” I said.

  “You know him?” Finn asked me.

  “I knew him when I was younger. I also have friends in Mystic Grove who have known him for decades. They describe him as friendly, warm, and good humored.”

  Finn shook his head and looked at Sam as he spoke. “I believe it. He’s putting one over on them. Fletcher is a chameleon. He’s developed a public persona that allows him to blend in at work and at social gatherings. The real Fletcher is a frustrated man filled with anger. In private, he has a bad temper and has emotionally abused Sherrie.”

  “Why doesn’t she just leave?” Sam asked.

  “Fear, mostly.”

  “She’s afraid he’ll physically hurt her?” I asked.

  “She’s afraid his anger could escalate. Damian has told her many times he went through one divorce and won’t do it again. Now you’ve given him proof of infidelity which provides him with leverage,” Finn said. His entire body sagged in the chair. “He wants to scare her into staying married. He said he’d send the photos to her family, which would kill her.”

  Sam’s look hardened. “Let’s be fair, Finn. We didn’t cause the infidelity.”

  Finn’s head came up. There was a long silence as the two men stared at each other.

  I cleared my throat. “How long have you and Sherrie been together?”

  “Ten months,” Finn said softly, looking down again.

  “How often do you see each other?” I asked.

  “We usually meet on Mondays and Tuesdays. Damian normally travels out of town on business on those days. He always lets Sherrie know ahead of time.”

  “You always meet at the same motel?” asked Sam.

  “Sometimes at the Bumblebee motel. Sometimes a hotel in Madison.”

  Sam sat back in his chair. “Finn, I have to ask this. Is there any chance Sherrie has fabricated any of this information about Damian?”

  Finn’s head snapped up. “Sherrie doesn’t lie. I heard him more than once yelling at her on the phone and using profanity. Sherrie held the phone away from her ear and I could hear him clear as crystal. She hasn’t lied about him.”

  “Has he ever hit her?” I asked.

  “No. She’s never said that. Look, I know this all sounds sordid. Being with someone else’s wife, meeting at motels, and all. It didn’t begin that way. It started out as a friendship. We met at a community action meeting at St Joe’s and hit it off. Then we started having coffee and dinner after meetings. We talked about everything and it was ... easy. We just fell in love over time.”

  “You’re not afraid of Damian?” asked Sam.

  “I can take care of myself. You didn’t rat me out in your report. And thanks to your crappy pictures, he doesn’t know what I look like. The person I worry about is Sherrie,” Finn said. He pushed back his chair and stood up. Sam stood too and I followed suit.

  “What are you going to do?” I asked.

  “Free Sherrie from the bastard,” Finn said, rubbing his hands toge
ther.

  Sam frowned. “Don’t do anything stupid, Finn. Please.”

  “I have a plan and it’s legal. Don’t worry.”

  There was a short silence. “Look, I shouldn’t tell you this, but you need to know Sherrie’s car is bugged,” Sam said, glancing at me.

  “Bugged? You bugged her car?” Finn asked, his voice rising.

  “We didn’t bug it,” Sam said quietly.

  “Fletcher?” Finn asked, hissing the name. Sam nodded.

  I said, “Finn, it would be smart if you and Sherrie cooled it for a while. If Damian follows Sherrie to your car, all he needs is your license plate number to get your name and address.”

  Finnegan shot a look at me and shook his head. “Sherrie and I almost always take separate cabs to wherever we’re meeting. This last meeting was a fluke. She got lazy and decided to drive her car all the way to the motel.”

  “So you both drive to Mystic Grove and get cabs there?” asked Sam.

  “Right. We’re not stupid people. We’re very careful.”

  “You take cabs to Madison and back?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Finn replied sharply.

  “Well, let Sherrie know about the bug,” Sam suggested.

  “I will. Thanks for the information,” Finn replied.

  Sam cleared his throat. “I’m sorry it went down like this, man.”

  “Me too, Nolan,” Finn said. He glanced at me, his eyes darting up to my hair.

  “Unnatural,” he said, shaking his head. “I’ll see myself out.” Finn left quietly, like a storm that had blown itself out.

  Chapter 7

  After Finn left, Sam and I looked at each other and sat down again.

  “What do you think about Finn’s story?” Sam asked.

  I leaned back in my chair and stretched my legs out in front of me. “Hard to say. Sherrie could be lying about Damian for some reason. On the other hand, Finn could be lying on his own to make Damian look bad. He is sleeping with Damian’s wife. I just don’t know what the real story is,” I repeated. “But Finn is angry enough to go after Damian and that worries me.”

  Sam frowned. “I could come up with at least three different scenarios, none of them ending well.”

  Then I remembered my conversation with Abbie. “One thing Finn said did ring true, though. You can’t repeat this, because I don’t want it to get back to my source.”

  Sam’s eyebrows shot up. “You have sources?”

  “I do,” I said, reaching for my coffee cup.

  “Good,” he said with a smile and almost looked proud.

  I smiled back. “Anyway, my source told me that Damian’s first wife, Corrine, wanted the divorce, not the other way around. She evidently had the goods on him for something bad and got a big settlement and divorce. Damian’s father helped to negotiate it. Damian and Corrine both signed a non-disclosure agreement. The part that rings true is Damian telling Sherrie that he wouldn’t go through another divorce.”

  Sam stared at me with his head slightly tilted to the right. “That’s interesting. I was thinking the divorce was a mid-life crisis thing with him. So Damian paid through the nose during his first divorce and now he refuses to go through another one.”

  I nodded. “He hired us to get proof of Sherrie’s infidelity. He must have planned all along to use the information about the affair to keep Sherrie in the marriage, not to divorce her.”

  Sam nodded and fiddled with his pen. “It does fit.”

  I thought about something else Finn had said. “The thing I don’t like is Damian pressuring Sherrie for Finn’s name,” I said, more to myself than to Sam.

  “Do you think he might rough Finn up?”

  I considered it. “I doubt it, Sam. I haven’t seen him in years. The Damian Fletcher that my source described sounded like a nice, normal guy. Besides, Damian knows we made the connection between Finn and Sherrie. If anything happened to Finn, Damian would be the prime suspect.”

  “That’s true,” Sam said, brightening. “I just wish Finn wasn’t in the middle of this mess.” I looked sharply at Sam but he was checking his cellphone. Finn helped to create this mess, I thought.

  Chapter 8

  The visit by Finnegan had given us a lot to consider, but we had other things to do. Sam worked in his office and I spent the rest of the morning doing some background checks, using a variety of public and proprietary online databases. We had contracts with companies in Mystic Grove and Madison to perform these checks for new employees. It wasn’t my favorite part of the job, but as Sam said, it helped to pay the bills.

  At 11:30, Sam stopped by my office. He’d changed from the sweater to a black suit jacket, white shirt, and red tie.

  “Hey Mr. Preppy,” I said with a smile. “I never saw you in a suit before.”

  Sam smiled and zipped up his parka. “Protective coloring. I’m off to have lunch with Lee Steinberg and see if he’ll add us to his list of preferred investigators. Lawyers won’t talk to you if you’re not wearing a suit and tie.”

  “No Irish cap?” I asked, looking at his black hair.

  He made a face. “I thought it would ruin the look. What do you think?”

  I tilted my head and looked him over. “Well, I like the hat, but you do look very professional the way you are.”

  “That’s what I was going for,” he said with a smile and wink.

  I laughed. “Okay, good luck,” Then as he turned away I said, “Try to eat something normal.”

  Sam laughed and waved. After he left, I went to the small kitchenette across the hall and next to the conference room. Sam had invested in a single serve beverage maker. You popped a small sealed cup of coffee, tea, or hot chocolate into holder, pressed a button and you had a hot drink in seconds. While Sam loved the green tea, I was addicted to the caramel cappuccino coffee. I made a cup in my black cat mug and sipped it as I walked back to my office.

  I was working at my desk when the phone rang. I looked at the console and saw the button for Sam’s line blinking. When we were both out of the office, a call went to voicemail and we got a cellphone alert. However, when we were in the office, the phones were set up so we could answer each other’s line and take a message.

  I punched the blinking button, picked up the receiver, and said “Nolan Private Investigations. Sam Nolan’s phone. May I help you?”

  There was a pause on the line and then a man asked in a pleasant voice, “Is Sam Nolan there?”

  “No, sir, he’s out at a meeting. May I take a message?” I asked, pulling a notepad toward me.

  “This is Damian Fletcher. I wanted to talk to Mr. Nolan about his recent work for me,” the man said.

  “Damian! This is Liz Bean. I don’t know if you remember me, but your parents are friends of my family,” I said. There was dead silence at the other end of the line.

  “Addie Bean’s granddaughter?” he finally asked.

  “Yes. How are you?” I asked.

  “You work for Mr. Nolan?” There was something in his voice. Caution?

  “I do. I’m a PI Intern,” I said. Damian exhaled into the phone.

  “So you know about my…situation?”

  “I do, yes. I’m very sorry,” I replied.

  “This is a very confidential matter to me.” He almost sounded angry.

  “I understand. We keep everything confidential. Please don’t worry about that. You wanted to speak to Sam?”

  “Yes, I do.” He sounded calmer.

  “He’s out of the office but will be back this afternoon. Can I have him call you?”

  “Yes, as soon as he returns. He can call my cellphone. Tell him I need to know the name of the man in the photographs. I also need better photographs. The ones he gave me are almost useless.”

  I knew that both requests would be impossible. “Okay, I’ll have him call you,” I said in my professional voice.

  “Thank you,” Damian said. There was another pause and his voice softened. “I’m sorry to be so impolite, Liz. This entir
e experience has totally stressed me out.”

  “I understand,” I replied and meant it.

  “You know, some of my best memories are of visiting the B&B when I was a child. Your grandmother was very kind to me.”

  “Thank you. Your parents were very kind to her when my grandfather died,” I replied. “We’ll never forget that.”

  He exhaled into the phone again. “Feels like a lifetime ago, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes, it really does,” I agreed. “Things were much more simple back then.”

  “They were. Well, please tell Mr. Nolan I need a name and better photos. In addition, this must all remain confidential. Goodbye, Liz.”

  “I will,” I replied. “Goodbye.” I was going to ask him to give my regards to his family, when I heard the click in my ear.

  I stared at the phone. Damian blew hot and cold so quickly, my head was spinning. One minute he sounded angry and the next minute he sounded friendly. I wondered what Damian Fletcher was really like.

  Our two families had a friendship that went back decades. My Grandpa Pete died unexpectedly in a car crash five years before I was born. Martin and Cecille Fletcher, Damian’s parents, provided my grandmother with comfort, food, and companionship. My mom and dad eventually moved back from Chicago to Mystic Grove to live with Addie and help her. They had just two kids then, Brian and Becky, who were toddlers. Martin and Cecille continued to visit Addie and became friends with my parents.

  When I was two, Addie decided to start a Bed and Breakfast to bring in more money. Grandpa had been the last Bean to farm the land that had been in our family since 1839. Dad was a lawyer who didn’t like gardening, much less farming. Uncle Rob and Aunt Grace were also not interested in farming. Consequently, Addie expanded the lease agreements she had with other farmers, who worked portions of our land and shared the profits with her. However, that brought in less income than when Grandpa was doing a lot of the farming on his own.

  The idea for the B&B came from Aunt Grace, Addie’s youngest child. After graduating from college down south, she and her husband managed a bed and breakfast in Charleston, South Carolina, owned by another family. Grace helped Grandma Addie and my parents plan their own B&B. Martin and Cecille Fletcher offered ideas, support, and contacts. They also recommended the B&B to their friends and relatives, some of whom became repeat customers.