by Jessica Beck
“None that are good enough for them,” my husband answered honestly.
That got a reaction he hadn’t expected when Sophia put down her wooden spoon and she and her sister approached Jake from either side and kissed his cheeks. I laughed when I saw him blush slightly.
“You two are making the poor man uncomfortable,” Angelica told her daughters.
“I don’t mind,” Jake said.
I had to laugh again. “I don’t either, but let’s not make a habit of it. I’d hate for him to get used to the kind of attention only you two can give him.”
Antonia smiled. “You have nothing to worry about with us. The man never takes his eyes off of you. You are lucky to have him.”
“I feel lucky,” I said.
“Besides, I’ve given up men,” Sophia said with a shrug. “I’m going to focus on my cooking instead.”
Angelica approached her youngest and put her arm around her. “You’ll find love again.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“A young man in town decided of his own accord not to see my darling little girl anymore. Can you imagine it?”
“What an idiot,” Jake blurted out without thinking.
Sophia grinned at him. “Jake, are you trying to get another kiss from me?”
“No, no thanks, not that it wouldn’t be appreciated. No. No. No thanks,” he stammered.
“Suzanne, he’s absolutely adorable, isn’t he?” Sophia asked me with a conspiratorial grin.
“There’s no doubt about it in my mind,” I replied.
“Enough teasing Jake, ladies. Let me get you two plates.” Angelica took two dinner plates and started to heap them up with food. I felt my mouth watering at the very sight of mine as she placed it in front of me, and I realized that Jake had been right. Nothing was worth delaying an experience like this for.
“This is amazing,” Jake said after swallowing another bite of his sampler platter. “I can’t imagine anything ever being any better.”
“Suzanne’s donuts are pretty magical, too,” Sophia said. “You don’t happen to have any with you, do you?”
I shook my head. “Sorry. I left the shop early, and chances are good that Emma took whatever was left for her class at college.”
“How’s she doing?” Sophia asked.
“Very nicely. She somehow manages to work with me, go to college, and date Barton, all at the same time,” I reported between bites.
“That makes me exhausted just thinking about it,” Angelica said with a sigh.
“You’re no slouch yourself,” I said. “You and your girls run this place brilliantly.”
“Honestly, it’s become second nature for us,” she said.
“How’s your love life?” I asked her. “Have you had any big dates lately?”
“Mom? You’re kidding, right? She’s married to this place these days,” Sophia said with a grin.
“As are you,” Angelica reminded her youngest daughter. “For now, it’s enough.”
“But not forever, right, Mom?” Maria asked. I’d been so focused on my meal that I hadn’t even seen her come in. The lasagna was the best it had ever been, but I was afraid to ask which DeAngelis had made it. I didn’t want Sophia to get cocky about it, or to feel bad if it had come from her mother’s hands. Either way, I could live off the stuff, breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
“Not forever,” Angelica said before brushing off any further comments or questions about her love life. “How is your meal?”
“These are without a doubt the best things I’ve ever eaten in my life,” Jake said. “Sorry,” he added as he turned to me.
“If you had said anything different, I would have thought you were either lying or completely crazy,” I answered with a smile. “I’m not sure I’m going to be able to do anything after this but take a nap.”
“I’m afraid that’s not in the cards today,” Jake said as he reluctantly pushed his empty plate away.
I knew in my heart that it was time to go, so I did the same thing myself. We couldn’t put it off any longer. It was time to leave the warm, familiar embrace of Napoli’s and go back out into the real world. At least we were doing it with high spirits, not to mention happy bellies. Angelica had refused payment for the meal, which I’d expected, and I was proud when Jake accepted her offer gracefully.
We got back into the truck and headed off on our quest to find the man who had shown so much interest in the flip property, and I found myself hoping that this case would be simple to solve, unlike the others I’d tackled in the past.
I had a feeling I was being more than a tad too optimistic, but there was only one way to find out, and that was to jump right in with both feet.
After riding in Jake’s truck for a few minutes to the location in town Angelica had given us, we found a luxury sedan parked in front of the office. The license plate on it read LIH III, so I had a hunch Lionel Henderson III was inside. Jake glanced into the front and back seats as we passed by the car.
“Are you looking for something in particular?” I asked him.
“Just checking things out,” Jake said. “It’s more force of habit than anything.”
“Are you armed, by any chance?” I asked him, though I hadn’t seen any sign of a weapon on him. My husband had made more than his share of enemies in his past career, and I knew that he often left the house with a weapon, just in case. It was a constant reminder of the life he’d led before he’d left the force and joined me in April Springs.
“I am,” he said as he gestured to his shoulder. “I hope you don’t mind.”
“Of course I don’t,” I answered. I had suspected as much, since Jake was wearing a light windbreaker even when he didn’t need one. After all, there was no need for him to advertise the fact that he was going around armed.
“Why do you ask?”
“I was just checking,” I said. The truth was that I had a feeling in my gut that things could go very wrong with this case very quickly, and it reassured me knowing that we weren’t completely defenseless.
Lionel Henderson looked surprised when he answered his door, and more than a bit unhappy to find me standing on his office’s doorstep with my husband.
Chapter 11
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING here? How did you even find me?” he asked as he reluctantly stepped aside and let us into his small office. I noticed that the ever-present token was still in his hand, though he’d stopped playing with it the moment he saw us.
“Union Square isn’t that large a town. You weren’t very hard to track down,” I said. “This is my husband, Jake Bishop, and one of my other partners.”
Jake offered his hand, and Henderson reluctantly took it, albeit briefly. “Ms. Hart, I’m afraid you’ve wasted a trip.”
“We ate at Napoli’s, so there’s no way this trip could ever be considered wasted,” I said. “Why do I get the sudden feeling that you are no longer interested in buying our flip house?”
“You’re more perceptive than I gave you credit for,” he said. “I’m afraid the deal is off.”
“Wow, that was fast. May I ask why you changed your mind so suddenly?”
“My backer decided to go with another property when I couldn’t reach an agreement with your group this morning,” he said. “I’m afraid in this game, sometimes timing is everything.”
“It wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact that someone broke into the house not long after you left the donut shop, would it?” Jake asked him pointedly.
Both Henderson and I were shocked by the abruptness of his question, for two very different reasons. The businessman looked surprised as to what Jake was implying, while I was trying to wrap my head around his sudden, and very direct, approach. That was more like Grace, which may have been a good thing. Sometimes I took my own sweet time getting to the heart of the matter, dipping a toe in around the edges, whereas they favored leaping in with both feet. Both approaches could be valid, so it was good that we complemented each other, in mor
e ways than one.
“What are you talking about?” Henderson asked a half beat too late to sound convincing, at least to me. “Someone broke into your house?”
“And took something they must have treasured very much to risk being caught taking it,” I said. Since Jake had already broken the ice, I decided that I wanted to get in on the fun as well. There was something exhilarating about throwing caution to the wind like that.
“I can’t imagine anything in that house being of value to anyone,” he said brusquely.
“Can’t you? Did you know about the counterfeiting ring that was going on there?” Jake asked him.
Wow, he was spilling things left and right! I wasn’t sure I would have risked Agent Blaze’s ire, but then again, Jake knew her much better than I did.
“Now you’re just talking nonsense,” Henderson said after a brief pause. Was he hiding his real reaction again, or was this just his habit of speaking? I didn’t know him well enough to say, even though this was the second conversation I’d had with the man since meeting him earlier that morning.
“It’s true enough,” I said. “Who exactly is this mystery backer you referred to earlier?”
That didn’t take a moment of thinking for him to answer. “I’m not at liberty to disclose that. Our business relationship is of a confidential nature. I’m sure you understand.” Jake was about to ask him a follow-up question when he glanced at the clock on the wall behind him. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to cut this short. I have an important meeting I must attend to.”
“Really? Where are you going? Maybe we can tag along,” I suggested with my brightest fake smile.
“Thank you for the offer, but no, that wouldn’t be at all appropriate. Now, if you’ll excuse me,” he said as he walked us to his door and opened it.
There wasn’t much opportunity to stay after he basically threw the two of us out. Oh, well. That was one of the hazards of investigating anything, I’d found. If you couldn’t take a few slammed doors in your face or heavily veiled threats, you shouldn’t start digging into other people’s lives.
Before we could leave though, he said, “Now that you mention it, I did see someone skulking around the building this morning when I came there looking for you.”
“Really? Was it someone you recognized?” Jake asked him, poised to leap on another possible angle for us to investigate.
“Yes, I knew exactly who it was. It was Maxine Halliday. Do you know her?”
“Not personally, but I know of her,” I admitted. “She runs her own realty company in town, right?”
“Yes, it’s called Ultra Elite Prime Properties Real Estate,” he said. “I thought it odd, and I called out to her, but instead of acknowledging me, she ducked behind the house and vanished into the woods. It was strange behavior, even for her.”
“Thanks, we’ll talk to her,” I said. “Did you happen to see anyone else?”
“No, she was the only one,” he said.
Feeling a strike of sudden inspiration, I asked him, “Do you happen to know a man named William Joseph Branch?”
“No, the name doesn’t sound familiar,” he answered promptly enough.
“They call him Slick Willie around town,” I added.
That was a direct hit. Henderson took more than a second before he answered. “I’ve heard the name, but we’ve never met. Now I really must insist that you go. I can’t afford to miss this meeting. Good day. Sorry we couldn’t do business.”
“I am, too,” Jake said. “If you change your mind, you know where to find us.”
After we backed out in the parking lot, I asked my husband, “Would you really sell the place right after buying it? You’re not losing your nerve, are you? If you are, I won’t judge you for it, I promise.”
“Of course not. It’s been too much fun so far,” Jake said with a smile. “I just wanted to keep an avenue of communication open with him. He’s lying to us about something,” my husband added as he looked back at the office.
“Do you have any idea what exactly that might be?” I asked, honestly curious if my husband’s reaction to Lionel Henderson was the same as mine had been.
“That’s the question, isn’t it? Suzanne, would you do me a favor?”
“You know that I’d do anything for you,” I said.
“Are you sure you don’t want to qualify that?” he asked me with a short grin.
“Positive. I would do anything and everything you asked of me, including helping you bury a body, if it came to that.”
“Did you have any body in particular in mind?” he asked.
“I don’t know, nor do I need to. Just tell me where to dig, hand me a shovel, and get out of my way.”
Jake took a moment to look at me deeply. “I’m not sure whether I should be worried or honored.”
“Can’t it be a little bit of both? What can I do?”
“Stand by that door and don’t let him out,” Jake said as he hurried toward his truck.
“Ever?” I asked.
“No, just until I check something,” Jake said.
“You’ve got it,” I answered and took up a position by the door, ready to stop Lionel Henderson with whatever means I had at my disposal.
If he came out of his office, I was going to be ready for him.
When Jake came back from the truck, he had a high-powered flashlight in one hand and a large black canvas bag in the other. I’d seen him check it occasionally, so I knew that it contained spray bottles full of strange concoctions, long swabs, evidence bags, and a host of other things that served as his portable crime lab. It didn’t surprise me at all that he was prepared to investigate just about anything, given his background. This may have been the first time he was going to be able to use it in one of our investigations, and I could swear that I caught him smiling as he pulled on a pair of latex gloves and squatted down by the door handle.
The smile turned abruptly to a frown, though. “I don’t believe this.”
“What’s going on?” I asked him. “Should I come over there and join you?”
“You might as well,” he said with disgust as he dabbed at a wet patch under the car door. “Smell this.”
“It’s bleach,” I said as I recoiled. “You could have warned me.” The strong acrid smell was unmistakable. I didn’t normally use it at the donut shop or at home if I could help it. It was just too powerful for my taste.
“Sorry.” Jake took off his glove and touched the surface of the car under the handle. “It’s here, too.”
“Why would he use bleach on his car? Especially one as nice as this?”
“Bleach is commonly used to destroy blood evidence, or at least make it tougher to work with. If he’d used oxidizing bleach, he wouldn’t have risked damaging his paint job, but I’m guessing that he didn’t know about that, so he used what he could find at the grocery store.”
“Do you think that was his blood at the house?” I asked him. I hadn’t seen a mark on him, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t have disguised a wound somehow.
“I don’t know, but I’m about to ask him,” Jake said.
Jake carried his bag and flashlight to the door, and then he used the butt of the light to knock heavily on it.
There was no response, so he knocked even harder, but Lionel Henderson III was clearly not in the mood to talk to us anymore.
“What about the important meeting he threw us out for so he could attend?” I asked Jake as we walked back to his truck.
“I’m guessing there never was a meeting in the first place,” he said with disgust.
After we both got back into the truck, I asked my husband, “What are we going to do, wait around here all afternoon for him to come out?”
“No, not when we’ve got another lead. Let’s assume for the moment that there’s an innocent explanation for everything we’ve seen and heard here. Where does that leave us? Maxine Halliday. Do you feel like tackling her?”
“Why not? Do you think we’ll hav
e any more luck with her than we did with good old Lionel?”
“I hope so, but at least she’ll have some motivation to speak with us,” Jake said.
“Why is that?”
“Haven’t you heard? We might be interested in selling the flip house,” Jake said with a grin. “At least that’s what we’re going to tell her.”
“Are you comfortable lying to her?” I asked my husband. I would have had little trouble doing it on my own, and I knew that Grace normally welcomed every opportunity to spin her own yarn, but my husband had an irritatingly strong sense of integrity that sometimes got in the way of uncovering the truth.
“I won’t be lying,” he said easily as he started the truck and started driving. “After all, we will be selling the place. It’s just a matter of the timing that I’m going to hedge.”
“And you can live with that?”
“If it helps us move our investigation forward, I can,” he said.
“Well, all right then. Let’s go see if Maxine is in her office.”
Chapter 12
THE DOOR TO THE REAL estate office was unlocked, so evidently we were in luck. A smart-looking woman in her midfifties was sitting behind a massive desk with the nameplate MAXINE HALLIDAY sitting front and center. The most noticeable thing about her was the large floppy hat she wore, pulled down on one side enough to nearly cover one eye. I wouldn’t have worn that hat under gunpoint, but she seemed comfortable enough with it, even if it did nearly obscure her vision out of one eye. Maxine was reading something fascinating on her laptop computer. Whether it was business or personal I couldn’t say, since the screen was turned away from us. As Jake and I walked in, she immediately shut her laptop with a slam, making me wonder what exactly she’d been reading about.
“Hello. Welcome to Ultra Elite Prime Properties Real Estate,” she said, offering Jake her hand. She shook mine as well, though not nearly as enthusiastically. Maxine must have been stunning as a young woman, but the years had not been kind to her. Too much sun and not enough care had taken their toll on her, though she was valiantly trying to disguise the fact with a rather liberal application of makeup. “I’m Maxine Halliday. And you are?”