“Keep the house for a few months.” Ricki exchanged a “Wonder why?” look with Clay before refocusing her attention on the woman in the expensive pantsuit sitting passively on a mossy log in the middle of the forest. “You don’t know what that business was, do you?”
Barbara shook her head, then pulled at the knot under her chin holding the scarf down tight. “No. I have no idea. I think it was a personal debt of some sort. He didn’t seem overly concerned about it, just said he needed to take care of it.”
“How about friends?” Ricki asked. “Did he ever mention any friends, or anyone at all?”
“He didn’t like his supervisor very much,” Barbara stated. “Called him Mr. SS.” She smiled. “For Mr. Starched Shirt. Benny gave everyone a nickname. I was always LH to him.” She sighed and looked at the toes of her shoes. “Little Helper. That’s what he called me. He was always asking me to check on things for him, or do small favors.”
“Like getting his tux pressed?” Ricki asked.
“Yes. Exactly.” She looked up again and her eyes grew damp. “I was always happy to help him. I loved Benny so much. I got that tux pressed, but he never showed up for my wedding. Father was so angry.”
Ricki couldn’t blame the man, but still, it was a line to tug on. “Did your father make any business trips before your wedding? Was he out of town that last night you talked to your brother?”
“No,” Barbara said. “He was home. I asked him if he wanted to speak with Benny and he said no, since Benny would be home in a few days.” She sighed. “Poor Father. He was so angry with Benny for the two years he was in the park service and not home learning to run the family business. And then he was furious when Benny didn’t make it home in time for the wedding. But over the years, he came to believe something had happened to Benny. I was the one who suggested hiring a private investigator to find him. But that wasn’t for at least five years. Until then, Father wouldn’t hear of it.”
“You were married by then,” Ricki pointed out. “Why didn’t you hire one yourself?”
She pursed her lips and looked off into the distance. “My husband didn’t want to spend the money. He said Benny would show up when he wanted to.”
Sounds like your husband knew your brother better than you did, Ricki thought. “Okay. Then about the friends. Did your brother mention anyone he knew, or hung out with? Maybe another ranger?”
Barbara’s troubled gaze returned to Ricki. “He might have mentioned more, but I only remember two. Catman and someone he called the OG.”
“Catman?” Clay frowned. “Did the guy own a lot of cats?”
She choked out a short laugh. “I doubt it. Benny was highly allergic. He wouldn’t have spent any time around someone who was covered in cat hair. And he mentioned this Catman several times, so I think they were friends.”
“What about the OG?” Ricki asked. “Male or female?”
“Male, I think.” She hesitated, then nodded. “Yes. Male. Benny liked women. A bit too much, as father was always telling him. And he never had a good thing to say about this OG person. He usually just said that he’d seen the OG, or run into the OG, but he always had this kind of annoyance in his voice. He talked about him like he was a kind of pest or was bothering him somehow.” She sighed. “Benny never thought any woman was bothering him. He liked to take them for rides in that sports car of his.”
“What kind of sports car was it?” Clay asked.
“Oh, that Aston Martin that was all the rage because of some movie.”
“James Bond?” Clay supplied.
She nodded. “That sounds right.” She suddenly frowned and looked around is if searching for something. “Wasn’t it up here too? Where is it?”
“We didn’t find a sports car,” Ricki said. “What color was it, and you wouldn’t happen to have the license plate number?”
She gave Ricki a sour look. “No. Of course not. Who has their brother’s license plate number? It was new. He bought it just before he came out here. He said he wanted to drive it across the country. But I do remember that it was a beautiful white, with silver trim. Very eye-catching.” Her shoulders drooped. “Is there anything else?”
“Just a few more things and then we can get you back to the hotel so you can rest,” Ricki assured her. “You said you called your brother’s supervisor?”
Her chin came up as she gave a loud sniff. “A Mr. Abbott. Very rude man. It was no wonder Benny didn’t like him.”
Thinking the feeling was probably mutual, Ricki smiled her encouragement. “Yes. Easy to understand that. But this Supervisor Abbott? He told you that your brother had resigned?” She waited for Barbara’s nod. “And he also told you that your brother had left town?”
“Yes, he did.” Barbara’s back was once more rigid, and anger flashed in her gaze. “He lied to me. He specifically told me that Benny had left town.” She gestured toward the lighthouse. “This is hardly leaving town.”
“No, it’s not,” Ricki agreed, fervently hoping Barbara would stay focused for a little while longer. “And as far as you know, your brother wasn’t intending to leave town that weekend?”
“He said he was going to keep the house for a few more months,” Barbara raced on, growing more agitated with every word. “He said he had more business to take care of.” She slashed a hand through the air. “He wouldn’t have sneaked out of town the way that Mr. Abbott was implying. Benny never would have done that.” She turned her angry gaze on Ricki. “And where are his things? Especially that car? Did it just disappear into thin air?”
“No,” Ricki said evenly. “It wouldn’t have done that.”
“What about his other things? His clothes, his personal possessions? Whatever happened to them?” she demanded.
“I don’t know,” Ricki said, keeping her answers short and simple. If the woman needed to let off some steam, that was fine with her.
“Maybe whoever his landlord was still has them?” Clay suggested. He leaned over and tapped the note in Ricki’s hand. “We might be able to track them down now that we know where he lived.”
Barbara stood up and huffed out a breath, rounding on Clay. “The landlord? From fifty years ago? The one who probably stole Benny’s watch? Where’s the watch our grandfather gave him? It had diamonds encrusted around the dial, and a solid gold band. He never took it off, but you’ve never mentioned it being found with the body. So where is Benny’s watch?”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Ricki walked into headquarters, intending to wait for Clay in his office. He’d dropped her off before taking Barbara Metler back to the St. Armand. The wooden structure that looked like a modern-day log cabin, with a wide porch flanked by two long wings, was set off perfectly by the surrounding trees, towering silently in the background. She would be glad to get away from the restrained sorrow that had clung to the Metler woman like an invisible cloak. The deep despair for the loss of her brother was made all the more painful by how hard she worked to hide it.
Shaking her head, Ricki walked up the steps. From what she had heard about Benjamin Graham, he hadn’t done much to earn his sister’s obvious devotion. Other than being born first.
“Hey there, Agent James. I wasn’t sure we would be seeing you again today.” Ray leaned to the side and looked around her. “Is the chief with you?” He held up a small stack of square notes. “I have some messages here for him. Mostly from council members about the meeting tonight.”
Ricki smiled at the elderly man and leaned against the edge of the counter that also served as his desk. “He’ll be along pretty soon. I’m going to wait for him in his office. Want me to take those along and put them on his desk?”
Ray handed them over with a broad smile. “That would be fine. Have either of you had lunch? I could order a pizza from Quick Pie.”
It was tempting, but Ricki shook her head. Pizza and a fried PB&J had been the mainstays of her diet for the last week, and her stash of rice cakes to balance out all the junk food was still in
her jeep—or what was left of it—and she hadn’t had a chance to replenish it yet. But even rice cakes wouldn’t do her any good at this point. What she really needed was some lean meat and a few vegetables.
“I’ll pass on the pizza, Ray. But be sure to ask the chief when he comes in.” She glanced at her watch to confirm it was well past lunchtime. “He’ll be hungry.” She pushed open the gate separating the lobby from the back hallway. “I’m surprised to see you here. I thought you’d be spending time with John.”
Ray’s features sagged as he let out a huge sigh. “My nephew had to go back to Seattle. Some kind of tangle in the office, and he had to be there in order to get it unsnarled.” He sighed again. “I’m not sure when he’ll be back.”
“Why don’t you take a few days and go see him?” Ricki suggested.
“I don’t like the city,” Ray stated. “People act crazy when you put that many of them together.”
She laughed. “People act crazy no matter where you put them.” She stepped through the gate and walked down the hall, lifting the phone messages up high when Ray shouted a reminder after her to put them on the chief’s desk.
As soon as she reached the office, she pulled out her phone and checked for messages of her own. There was one from Hamilton, reminding her to call him with a report about her interview with Barbara Metler, and another from Dan. She held her phone to her ear and listened to the ranger’s voice confirm that the dental records were a match. The skeleton belonged to Benjamin Graham.
Moving over to the notes function on her phone, she tapped out all the information Barbara had given her, then began scrolling through her emails. After discarding a third of them, she gave a quick response to the rest. When she came to the one from Dan saying he’d get started searching for a daily assignment log from 1971 first thing in the morning, she pursed her lips, thinking it over. Making up her mind, she sent him a reply stating to save that for later and to start tracking down who owned the house that Benjamin Graham had leased.
Something Barbara had said stuck out. What had happened to her brother’s possessions? Ricki leaned forward in the folding chair in front of Clay’s desk and followed the thought. What would a landlord do with a tenant’s things when he hadn’t paid the rent for a month or two? After keying in an additional note to Dan, she finished off her emails before returning to her case notes.
Twenty minutes later Clay walked in and went straight to his desk. Tossing his hat to one side, he leaned back as far as his chair would allow and closed his eyes. “I told Ray to get the pizza, I’m starving.”
“Yeah. I figured. I left your messages on the desk.”
“Did you read them?” Clay asked.
“No. There might be some official business in there.”
Clay opened one eye and looked over at her. “Like what? The Rinkmens having another one of their weekly fights?” When Ricki grinned, he smiled and reached for the small stack, quickly thumbing through it. “Got one from TK.” He pulled it out, read it, and then handed it to Ricki. “He says the dental records match your victim, so he’s been positively identified as Benjamin Graham.”
Ricki held up her phone. “I got the same message from Dan.”
The chief nodded and leaned back in his chair again. “He’s your vic, so you can give Barbara Metler the news. I doubt if it’s going to break her up more than it already has.”
“He doesn’t deserve that devotion,” Ricki said quietly.
Rolling his shoulders back, Clay stifled a yawn. “Who doesn’t?”
“Benjamin Graham,” Ricki said. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the picture of him standing in front of his house in Port Angeles. “I’d bet he wasn’t much of a ranger.”
“No argument there,” Clay said.
Ricki frowned. “And even less of a brother.” At his questioning look, she shrugged. “It sounded to me like all he ever did was call his sister with a list of things he wanted her to do. She’s in the middle of planning a wedding and he wants her to get his tux cleaned, and I’ll bet she kept a whole list of busywork crap that he constantly demanded. There was a reason he called her his little helper.” She curled her lip up. “It sounded more like little servant.” She tucked a stray piece of dark hair back behind her ear. “If I had known what a schmuck this guy was, I would have told Hamilton to give the whole case to you.”
Clay yawned again and then grinned. “Naw. You wouldn’t have done that. You like chasing bad guys too much.”
“I like closing cases,” Ricki corrected. “I told Dan to follow up on that address in Port Angeles, and to check the city and county records, if necessary, for any eviction notices on the property. If Graham didn’t pay his rent, then the landlord might have filed an eviction to get him out.”
“Wouldn’t surprise me. On the way back to the hotel, I asked Barbara about the last trip Hardy made out here, and the report he made about it. She said she didn’t know where she’d put it, but that there wasn’t anything in it worth keeping. He’d come to the Bay to check up on the land. She seemed to think he’d run out of ideas on where to look for her brother. So he comes back to get a look at the land and ends up in the same place as Benjamin Graham?”
Ricki nodded. “Yeah. What are the odds?”
“Not good,” Clay agreed. “I’d say the PI found something he didn’t come across on his previous trips. Something he apparently didn’t have time to share with his client.”
“Or maybe it was in that previous report and she just didn’t pick up on it,” Ricki said.
“Which is why I asked Demi Lansanger to look for it.” His mouth tightened at the corners and a pained expression settled on his handsome features. “Which I’ve paid for by having her call me every day with her progress. Or lack of it.”
Doing her best to look as innocent as a new day, Ricki barely managed to hold back a grin. “Is that so? Well, anything in the name of duty.”
“Funny, James,” he muttered. “Hasn’t the government got something else for you to do? I have to get ready for the council meeting tonight.”
Still keeping her grin at bay, Ricki nodded and got to her feet. “Sure. I need to stop in at the Sunny Side Up and confirm with Anchorman that he can still make it to the VFW tonight.”
“Okay. That sounds good. You do that,” Clay said as he turned to his computer.
He was already tapping away at the keys before she reached the doorway. Leaving him to it, Ricki headed down the hall. Ray wasn’t at his post up front, so she made it out of the building without having to make any polite small talk. She reached the end of the porch just as the delivery boy from Quick Pie pulled up.
Thinking she probably owed Clay something for putting him squarely into the target zone of Demi Lansanger, even if he didn’t know it, she stopped long enough to give the kid who went to the same high school as her son, a twenty-dollar bill to cover the pizza and a generous tip, telling him to be sure to get the food directly to the chief so it wouldn’t be waylaid by any park rangers hanging around. That would ensure it would be gone before Clay could nab a slice for himself.
Fifteen minutes later she turned onto the main street of Brewer and drove past the small waterfront that had a decent crowd strolling along its length. That meant the lunchtime business had probably been pretty good. Smiling at the thought, Ricki pulled the truck into the narrow alley and maneuvered it into the small space behind the Sunny Side Up. Since the truck had reliable locks on the doors, and an alarm as well, she pulled her gun out of her shoulder holster and slipped it into the glove compartment. She didn’t like carrying a weapon into the diner, and with Clay’s truck, she didn’t have to.
Exiting the vehicle, she gave it a thankful pat on the hood before walking up the back steps and into the kitchen. There was a lone burger sizzling on the grill, and Anchorman was watching it from a chair pulled up next to the prep table. He held a steaming mug of coffee and was reading the local paper that came out once a week.
“Keeping up with
the local gossip?”
He looked up, then carefully folded the paper in half and set it on the table. “Well, look what the wind blew in. Is it raining out there yet?”
Ricki shook her head. “Not yet, but it won’t be long from the feel of it.”
“Too bad. Weather’s been fairly decent lately.”
She looked around at the tidy kitchen. “I guess the lunch rush has come and gone?”
Anchorman stood up and walked over to the double stoves, where he picked up a large spatula and flipped over the burger. “We did pretty good for it being midweek. I think all the tourists will start pouring in this weekend if the weather holds up.” He glanced over at her. “Sam’s set to come in for the dinner shift if you still want to head over to the VFW. I just have to give him a call.”
Ricki shrugged out of her windbreaker and hung it on a peg next to the back door. “Then you’d better call him. I’m on a short clock to get this case wrapped up.”
“I’ll do that while you go check on things out front.”
She turned and frowned at him. “Why do I need to check out front? I thought you said we weren’t busy?” She gave a pointed look at the almost-empty grill. “Doesn’t look like we’re busy, and I have some paperwork that I need to get done.”
“Well, there’s checking, and then there’s checking.”
Now, what was that supposed to mean? Scowling at her cook’s cryptic answer, she didn’t bother arguing with him, but walked across the kitchen and pushed through the double doors leading into the front dining room.
Half a dozen customers were scattered among the tables and booths. A few of them looked over at her and waved. She waved back, then spotted Marcie at the far end of the counter. The waitress was standing with one shoulder forward and a hand on her broad hip in what Ricki knew was her full-on flirt mode. Curious who Marcie had her eye on, Ricki smiled as she took a step forward and then stopped cold in her tracks.
One Last Scream (Special Agent Ricki James Book 2) Page 19