Temptation ripples through me. I look past him, catch a glimpse of Margaret gathering the carafe and mugs from the coffee station in the hall and shake my head. “Rain check?”
“Bet on it.” He sets the box on my desk, the laptop on the floor, and sinks into the visitor chair across from me.
“How was Cleveland?” I ask.
“Productive,” he tells me. “Division of Police and BCI went through the house where Schwartz lived with Matson. We went over everything with a fine-tooth comb. Dusted for prints. We took her laptop to the lab. Email. Hard drive. Techs are looking at her browsing history.”
“Anything interesting?” I ask.
“A couple of things stand out. According to one of her friends I talked to, Rachael was regularly intimate with two men, in addition to Moskowski.”
I sit up straighter. “Did you—”
“Both have alibis for the night of the murder, but we’re taking a good hard look at both of them in case this was a murder-for-hire or jealous-lover kind of thing.”
Not for the first time, I’m reminded that Rachael Schwartz lived her life full bore. She was impulsive with a predilection for risky behavior and damn anyone who didn’t like it.
Bending, he pulls a couple of items from the box. “You have chain of custody on this.” He tosses a brown envelope on my desk. “Old photos.”
I open it. The photos inside are faded and stained. Poor quality. There are four of a spotted horse that means nothing. I shuffle through, come to the last photo. It’s a picture of Rachael Schwartz and Loretta Bontrager when they were barely into their teens. Loretta has a kind, ordinary face mottled with freckles, and the guileless eyes of a child. Rachael was a lovely girl with a not-quite-innocent smile and eyes that, even then, were a little too direct.
He places a manila folder on my desk and slides it over to me. “This is one of the more interesting finds.”
I replace the photos, open the folder, and find myself looking at copies of Schwartz’s banking and financial statements. Checking account. Savings. A small investment account.
“Not much in the way of savings,” I murmur as I skim. “Investment account is almost dry.”
“According to her accountant, The Keyhole didn’t always turn a profit. Some weeks she barely made payroll.”
“She was living above her means.”
Leaning forward, he reaches out and flips the page. “Checking account has been in the red several times in the last couple of years. Look at the balance now.”
My eyes widen. “Almost twenty thousand dollars.” I look at Tomasetti. “Any idea where the money came from?”
He runs his finger down the page and taps on a figure highlighted in yellow. I slide my reading glasses onto my nose. Sure enough, there was a deposit made two months ago in the amount of fourteen thousand dollars.
I look at Tomasetti. “That’s a lot of money. Royalty payment?”
“Cash,” he tells me.
“That’s odd.”
“It’s been my experience that when people deal in cash like that, they usually have something to hide or else they don’t want it traced.”
“Is there any way we can figure out who it came from?” I ask.
“I’m working on getting landline records,” he says. “Might take a day or two.”
“Cell phone?” I ask.
“We went through the one found on scene,” he tells me. “We identified every number, but they gave us nothing. According to the friend I talked to, Rachael had two cell phones. Only one has been accounted for.”
I think of the cell phone found at the scene. I remember thinking there should have been at least one call to someone in Painters Mill. For the first time, that there wasn’t such a call makes sense.
“She didn’t drive down to Painters Mill to ogle the Amish,” I tell him. “No one I’ve talked to knew she was here or even knew she was coming.”
“Someone did,” he says. “We both know this wasn’t random.”
My mind spins through possibilities. “Her killer knew about the second cell phone and took it.”
“Because they’d been communicating with it.”
“Burner?” I ask.
“Why would she do that?”
“Maybe she was into something she shouldn’t have been into?”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know.” I rap my palm against the desktop.
He leans back in the chair and contemplates me. “Rachael wasn’t the only one living above her means.”
“Andy Matson?”
“Worth checking. At the very least, rattle her cage a little.”
I smile. “Not bad for a BCI guy.”
“Every now and then I get it right.”
Rolling my eyes, I get to my feet. “I’ll drive.”
* * *
In light of her friend’s unsolved murder, Andy Matson had wanted to stay in Painters Mill for a few days rather than make the drive back and forth to Cleveland, if only to “make sure these small-town Barney Fifes do their jobs.” It’s nothing I haven’t heard before; I don’t take offense. With the B and Bs booked—and the Willowdell Motel hitting a little too close to home—she’s staying at Hotel Millersburg, which is half a block from the Holmes County Courthouse. She agrees to meet Tomasetti and me at a nearby coffee shop.
We find her in a booth at the rear, staring at her phone, a frothy latte and half-eaten croissant in front of her. She looks up as we approach.
“Any news?” she asks, giving us only part of her attention.
“We’re following up on a few things,” I say vaguely as Tomasetti and I slide into the booth opposite her.
“Like what?” she asks. “Do you have a suspect?”
I let her fidget and stew, the questions hang, while we order coffee.
When our server hustles away, I turn my attention to her. “What do you know about Rachael’s finances?”
“Finances?” she echoes stupidly.
“You know,” Tomasetti says. “Money. Accounts. Savings. Checking. Investments.”
She blinks, looks from Tomasetti to me, as if suddenly she’s not quite in such a hurry to talk.
I say her name firmly. “If you’re as smart as I think you are, you’ll answer the question in the next two seconds and you’ll tell the truth.”
Andy looks down at the cup and plate in front of her as if she’s lost her appetite for both. “Why are you asking me about her finances?” she asks.
“Because we want an answer,” I say evenly.
She sighs. “I guess you’ve realized there was something going on with her.”
I say nothing. Tomasetti follows suit.
She squirms beneath our stares. “Look, the only thing I know for certain about Rachael’s money situation is that she spent it like it was frickin’ going out of style. I mean, she had expensive taste. In clothes. Liked to travel. She loved fancy restaurants. Nice hotels.” Her brows knit. “What’s odd about that is that she didn’t make as much money as she spent. I mean, The Keyhole was doing okay, but there were weeks when we barely broke even. Sure, she had royalties from the book, but they were dwindling because it had been out for a couple years. She wasn’t exactly rolling in the dough.”
“And yet she shopped at Saks,” Tomasetti says dryly. “She bought expensive art. Spent two weeks in Hawaii last year. Stuff like that.”
“Did you ever ask her about it?” I ask.
“Once or twice. You know, just sort of kidding around.” She shrugs. “She’d say it was from a bonus. Or for some catering gig that never seemed to materialize. Mostly, she just changed the subject or laughed it off.”
Beside me, Tomasetti makes a sound of annoyance. “You can cut the bullshit. We have her financial records. We can get yours, too, if you prefer to do things that way.”
Giving him a withering look, she picks up her cup, sets it down without drinking.
“Look,” she says, “I loved Rachael. She was fun and alive and … she
was one of the most amazing people I’ve ever met. She just had this way about her. This … persuasive energy that won you over. And you guys are sitting there judging her and doing the whole assassination-of-character thing, treating her as if she was some common criminal.”
She’s getting herself worked up, so I give her a moment, keep my voice level. “We’re not judging her,” I say gently. “We’re trying to find the person who murdered her.”
“She wasn’t perfect,” she snaps. “Rachael was … Rachael. I loved her anyway. I accepted her. Flaws. All of it. But…” She struggles to find the right words. “I’m not badmouthing her, but … I think you both know by now that she wasn’t always a good person.”
“How so?” I ask.
“When she wanted something, she went for it.”
Tomasetti rolls his eyes. “What the hell does that even mean?”
She looks around, as if to make sure no one is close enough to hear what she’s about to say, and lowers her voice. “Look, I don’t know this for a fact, but it crossed my mind that Rachael might be blackmailing someone.”
“Who?” I ask.
“No clue.”
Groaning, Tomasetti leans against his chair back. “Right.”
“Why did you think that?” I ask.
“The money for one thing. She was always throwing it around. And she was secretive about where it came from.” She lowers her voice to a whisper. “A couple weeks ago, I walked in, late, and she was on the phone, arguing with someone. I mean, they were really going at it. I heard her threaten them.”
“Any idea who?” I press.
“I asked, but she just laughed and said it was this bartender she’d had to fire, and he was trying to get his job back.” She shakes her head. “Poor guy was in love with her, but she just … laughed.” Her brows draw together. “I remember looking at her and thinking: She’s lying.”
“What’s his name?” Tomasetti asks.
“Joey Knowles.”
He writes down the name.
“Was the caller male or female?” I ask.
“Not sure.” She gives a sheepish smile. “Rach was pretty much an equal-opportunity asshole.”
“In what way did she threaten the person she was talking to?” I ask.
“I only caught the tail end of the conversation. She said something like—and I’m paraphrasing—‘play your cards right and no one will ever know.’”
“Why didn’t you mention this sooner?” I ask.
She looks away. “Because I don’t want people thinking she was a bad person who deserved what she got. She didn’t.”
Tomasetti isn’t buying it. “How much did she give you?” he asks.
She opens her mouth. Closes it. Blinks a dozen times. All of it accompanied by a deep flush that spreads down her throat like a sunburn. “She didn’t—”
“How much?” he snaps.
“She … gave me the down payment for my car,” she tells him. “The Audi.”
“Nice of her,” he says. “Did you ask her where the money came from?”
“No.” She looks down at the coffee and shakes her head. “You know, the whole look-a-gift-horse-in-the-mouth thing, I guess.”
“What else haven’t you told us?” he asks.
She hits him with a contemptuous glare and pushes the plate away. For a moment, I think she’s going to get up and leave. Instead, she looks from Tomasetti to me and heaves a sigh. “In case you haven’t figured it out yet, I’m no angel either.”
“We kind of got that,” Tomasetti mutters.
“If there’s something else we need to know,” I say, “now is a good time to tell us.”
“God.” Andy looks down at the plate in front of her. For the span of a full minute, she says nothing. Then she sighs, curses. “I took two thousand dollars, okay? For God’s sake, I found it in her office. I was … pissed. I mean, she owed me. I mean, for the book. Right? So I took it. And then I felt like shit. That’s why I was trying to reach her. I mean, the day she died.”
“You stole two thousand dollars from her?” Tomasetti asks.
“I guess I did,” she says. “I mean, I would have paid it back, but…” She ends the sentence with a shrug. “All of this happened.”
“How did you know she’d driven down to Painters Mill?” I ask.
“She left a note.”
“Do you still have it?” I ask.
“Um. Gosh, I don’t know. Maybe.” She lifts the leather bag off the back of her chair, digs around inside. “It was just a scribbled few words. Kind of vague and snarky.”
She pulls out a wadded piece of paper, smooths it out. A smile tugs at her mouth as she sets it on the tabletop and slides it over to me.
Off to PM to TCB. Dinner tomorrow @ Lola’s. Booze on me!
“What’s TCB?” I ask.
“Take care of business.”
“Any idea what she meant by that?”
She lifts her shoulder, lets it drop. “Just that she had something to do there.”
“What did you do with the two grand?” Tomasetti asks.
Her eyes skitter right. It’s a subtle reaction, but enough for me to know she’s thinking about lying. Instead of answering, she sets her elbows on the tabletop and rests her forehead in her hands. “I know how this is going to sound. I know what you’re going to think.”
“Just answer the damn question,” he growls.
“I blew it, okay? Bought a few things.” She raises her head, looks from Tomasetti to me. “Look, it’s not like I didn’t have a good reason to take it. Rachael owed me.”
“She owed you money?” Tomasetti asks. “You mean for the book?”
“Last year, when Rachael was buying the house, she was short. My mom had just passed away and left me a little money.” She shrugs. “I knew Rachael was good for it, so I let her borrow six grand.”
“Do you have anything in writing?” I ask.
“We’re not exactly write-it-down kind of people.”
“When was she supposed to pay you back?” I ask.
“Months ago, but—” Her brows furrow. “Last time I asked her about it, she said she was going to pay me back soon. That she was about to come into some cash.”
“How long ago was that?” I ask.
“Two weeks maybe?”
“Do you know the source of the money she was about to come into?”
“She led me to believe it had something do with the book.” She looks down at the tabletop and shakes her head. “I’m not a thief. I was tired of being put off, so I took it and I went fucking shopping.”
Her voice cracks with the last word and she takes a moment to compose herself. “When I calmed down, I felt awful. I spent the rest of the day trying to run her down. But when I couldn’t get her on the cell, I got worried. Rachael always answers her cell. She’s like … addicted to it.” She looks at Tomasetti. “Then I get you on the other end and it freaked me out. I checked motels in Painters Mill. When I got there, I found all those cop cars and I just knew…”
Lowering her face into her hands, she bursts into tears.
Tomasetti looks at me and frowns.
I pass her a fresh paper napkin. “Andy, do you know who she was meeting with?”
“No clue.”
“Did Rachael’s parents know she was coming?” I pose the question even though, according to Rhoda and Dan Schwartz, they had no idea their daughter was in town.
“I don’t know.” She blots at her eyes, careful not to smear her makeup. “Look, I’ve got nothing against the Amish. To each their own, you know? But Rachael’s parents treated her like shit. Rachael tried to stay in touch with them. She missed them, wanted them in her life. All they ever did was judge her. Put her down. They disapproved of everything she did. Rachael was never good enough.”
I nod, thinking about my own family and the dynamics of familial relationships. “Did Rachael stay in touch with anyone else in Painters Mill?”
“She had a friend.” A wrinkle fo
rms between her brows. “Amish.”
“Male or female?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “All I remember is that Rachael had a couple of intense conversations with this so-called friend of hers and they weren’t very Amish-sounding. Conversations that upset her even more than all that judgment shit coming down from her holier-than-thou parents.”
CHAPTER 20
The Amish have a saying about deception. It goes something like: Dich kann gukka an en mann kischt avvah du kann net sayna sei hatz. You can look at a man’s face, but you can’t see his heart.
“What do you think?” I ask.
Tomasetti and I are sitting in the Explorer, parked outside the coffeehouse where we met with Andy Matson.
“I think if she’s a liar, she’s pretty good at it.” He shrugs. “I don’t believe she beat Rachael Schwartz to death. If she was involved, she hired someone. If she did, there will be a money trail.”
I nod in agreement. “We need to look at the blackmail angle.”
He grimaces. “If Rachael Schwartz knew something about someone, I don’t think she’d hesitate to use it to her advantage.”
“Matson may be trying to shift our interest to someone else.” Even as I toss out the theory, it doesn’t ring true.
His cell chirps. He pulls it from his pocket and checks the display, takes a minute to scroll. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he says.
“If it’s not good news, I don’t want to hear it.”
He grins. “I just got the PDF of Schwartz’s credit card activity in the thirty days before she was killed. Get this: The final transaction was at a bar in Wooster the evening before she was murdered. At seven twenty-nine P.M.”
“The Pub?” I say.
He arches a brow.
“The scribbled address on the note,” I remind him. “I drove up there last night. No one remembered seeing her.” I think about that a moment. “How much was the charge?”
“Thirty-nine dollars and change.”
Something in my chest quickens. I see the same rise of interest in Tomasetti’s eyes. “It’s a burger-and-fries kind of bar,” I tell him. “Not the kind of place where dinner costs more than fifteen bucks, even if you have a beer.”
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