A Gala Event (15 page)

“Let me ask you one more thing, Aaron: did your grandmother like your father?”

Aaron stared at her for a moment, then laughed. “To quote Gramma, my father was a pompous ass. He was condescending to her, and she hated having to depend on him for anything—although she had money of her own and contributed to the family budget. As far as I know, she paid him for her room and food, like she was a boarder. And Mom didn't complain; she took his side. So no, Gramma didn't much like dear old Dad. Why are you asking?”

Meg chose her words carefully. “The only reason I can see for your grandmother to collect these documents and hide them off the property is because there was something fishy about them. You said your father did something in finance, right?” Aaron nodded. “But these look to me like documents from a private investment scheme. Which could have been perfectly legal, and he might have suffered some reverses in his primary job and needed some additional income. Or it could have been, well, something less than legal. Your father might have been running some sort of scam or Ponzi scheme. You probably missed the whole Bernie Madoff scandal, which was a very large and successful fraud, so it's been known to happen. Let's say that your grandmother knew or guessed that something was not right, so she hid the documents from him—kind of her ace in the hole, if he got too difficult. Maybe she wanted to protect your mother. Does that make sense to you? Anybody?”

“How does that connect with the fire?” Seth asked.

“I don't know . . . yet. If he'd been found out, would your father have committed suicide, Aaron? And taken his wife and his mother-in-law and possibly you with him?”

Aaron shook his head. “Nah. Dad thought he was invincible—and smarter than everybody else. He probably would've found a way to get out as much money as possible and then settled on a Caribbean island somewhere.”

“Then we need to take a close look at these documents. I can do some of it—I used to be a financial analyst—but I didn't specialize in corporate accounting.”

“Mom can help,” Seth said. “She knows bookkeeping. Although she probably doesn't see this many zeroes very often.”

“Then we can work together for a first pass. Aaron, this may be nothing, so don't get too excited.”

“That's okay, Meg—I know you're trying. But I think you're right. As far as I know, Gramma had all her marbles right up to the end, so if she took these and had me help her hide them, then she had a reason.”

Meg wasn't sure whether she wanted to find something or not.

They left the boxes at the Historical Society and headed for home. Meg and Seth dropped Aaron off at the Gardner property, then proceeded to Meg's house. Aaron hadn't said a word along the way, beyond “Thanks.”

At Meg's house there were lights on in the kitchen and in Bree's room. Seth turned off the engine and they sat in the relative darkness. “Well,” Meg said, and stopped, unsure of what she wanted to say.

“I agree,” Seth said. “That was . . . interesting. Not what any of us expected. But what the heck do we do with the information?”

Meg shrugged. “I'm not sure. Maybe the grandmother was falling into dementia, no matter how much Aaron protests, and she collected random stacks of paper and believed they were important and squirreled them away. Aaron wasn't in any shape to judge. Or maybe she was bang on and she was somehow trying to protect her daughter from her sleazy
husband. If he
was
sleazy. We don't know that yet, and won't until we see what those ledgers mean. What I still don't see is how any of this connects with the fire.”

“Well, suicide is still on the table, if dear old Dad was a swindler and couldn't stand the shame of being revealed. Or it could be murder, planned or accidental. Maybe the fire was meant as a warning, but it got out of hand.”

“Seth, do we have to go there? Why can't it simply be a single tragic event, unrelated to anything else?” Meg asked.

“It may yet be. I'm afraid we aren't giving Aaron much closure. Although you'll notice he was right, that there was something odd going on, and his grandmother seemed to know it. Too bad she didn't leave a file explaining what she thought she knew.”

“Nothing from Art yet?” Meg asked.

“Not that I know about. Of course, he may have a few other things to do in his job, apart from tracking down dead files for us.”

“I know that; you don't have to be sarcastic. Seth, what do you think of Aaron, now that you've spent some time with him?”

Seth considered. “I think he was a smart kid who got into trouble, but lots of kids do that and survive. I think he got sandbagged by the fire and the deaths, so he never had the chance to come out the other side and become an adult. He seems to be intelligent; maybe he could have made something of himself, given the chance.”

“But if he didn't start the fire, someone took that chance away from him. That's almost criminal itself, that he should have been deprived of a rewarding, meaningful life, however he would have chosen to define that.”

“I can't argue with that.”

“So what do we do now?” Meg demanded.

“For the moment, we get some sleep. Tomorrow or whenever, you and Mom go through the financial records. I'll check in with Art about the rest of the documents. And we hope that something jumps out at us.”

“I hate to bring this up, but do you think there's any risk involved, to anyone? I mean, if—still an ‘if'—Aaron didn't do it, the person who did is still out there and has believed he got away with it for twenty-five years. What would he do now? Go after Aaron? Or us, who seem to be snooping around?”

“Why do you assume it's a ‘he'?”

“Okay, he or she. It wouldn't take much strength to start a fire. It would take some planning, which of course women excel at.”

“Of course,” Seth said with a smile. “As for what you really asked, I don't know. It's possible. On the other hand, if this person has felt safe for this long, he—or she—probably doesn't think there's any threat now. And there may not be: most of the players are long gone, and who knows where Kenneth Eastman's original records are, if they survived at all? Or maybe there's a statute of limitations on fraud and it's all moot. Who's going to remember enough to change the script now?”

“Will you tell me when you think we've invested enough energy in this, so we can stop?” Meg unbuckled her seat belt and turned to face Seth. “Do you think I'm doing this just as a pretense, so I don't have to think about the wedding?”

It was hard to read his expression in the dark. “I don't know. Are you?”

“I don't think so. But I seem to be obsessing about the wrong things. Or maybe after such a crazy busy season, with not enough pickers, I don't know how to slow down, so I'm creating my own tempests in teapots.”

“I don't think so, Meg. Aaron deserves a fair chance, and
I'm not sure he got one. But we don't have to make it a crusade. We need to strike a balance.”

“Agreed. Can we go in now? I'm getting cold.”

*   *   *

The next morning
Art called while they were still eating breakfast. Seth answered, but what Meg could hear of his conversation was not very helpful. “Uh-huh. Yeah. When? All right. What do we need to do?” When he finally hung up, he sat down at the table again and resumed eating.

Meg swatted his arm. “What did he say?”

“He's got the police report in hand, but it's pitifully thin. He can get hold of the court proceedings, which weren't included, but not before this afternoon. The state fire marshal's report is included in both.”

“Did he read the report?” Meg asked.

“If he did, he didn't comment on it. I'd tread lightly here, Meg. I won't say he was close to Chief Burchard, but he is loyal to him—they're both cops. So don't go charging in and telling the world that Burchard handled it wrong.”

“But what if he was covering something up? Even if it was only that he was incompetent or sloppy, but he realized he might have messed up?”

“You're going to have to prove it to Art. And also keep in mind that forensics have changed in the past twenty-five years. There are a lot more tests they would run today that they simply didn't have back then. Burchard had to make a judgment call, based on what he had to work with at the time.”

“I get it, Seth. I'm not clueless. So when can we look at the files?”

“You are an impatient woman—except when it comes to weddings, I guess. He said he'd drop off what he found after
work today. Maybe he'll have the court documents by then, or at least a computer link we can use.”

“Great. Are you going to talk to your mother about reviewing Kenneth Eastman's documents, or should I?”

“Why don't you? I don't know what her schedule is like these days, so you two can work something out between you. You have any idea what you're looking for?”

“Something that smells wrong. No, don't laugh, Seth. Of course, what I'd really like is an official prospectus for whatever dear old Dad was flogging. If it's a publicly held fund, it should be available, or at least archived somewhere. If it's not, our only hope would be to find someone who invested with him, assuming they received all the paperwork and kept it. And if we find a copy, then we compare it with the documents from the boxes. It would be nice to have his own bank records, but I think that's too much to hope for. Anyway, if there's more money coming in than is going out to the shareholders, there may be a problem. Ditto if there's no money and he's making payouts from the new investments.”

“I see what you're trying to do, but what's the point? Even if Dad was cooking the books, he hadn't been found out, as far as we know.”

“But he could have been teetering on the brink, which is what pushed him to act,” Meg protested.

“Maybe. But he still ended up dead, so he didn't benefit in the long run. You could check out his will, to see how he handled his estate, but I don't know if there would be a final tabulation. And if he'd run through all the money he'd taken in, or he kept it in some secret account, his death would have ended things.”

“Interesting point, though. I wonder what it would take to get a look at the state of his bank accounts when he died. Did he leave everything to his wife, who was also dead? Or
to his children, simply divided among them? Could Aaron legally inherit, since he was convicted of killing them? Assuming, of course, there was any money at all.”

“Meg, I don't have answers to any of these questions. You'll have to do your own digging. Have you thought about tiles?”

It took Meg a moment to follow his leap of logic. “For the bathroom, you mean? I was wondering if you meant Kenneth Eastman was playing some kind of game, like a shell game, or maybe dominoes—that uses tiles, right?”

“Bathroom, ma'am?” Seth said, nudging her back to the question.

“Right. Where do you want me to look?”

“We've seen the big-box stores. Check online and see if there are some smaller specialty shops. They might be more expensive, but they might have more interesting stuff, and it won't be that big a space if you fall in love with purple granite or something.”

“I do not think I could face purple in the morning. What's the most flattering?”

“There's a reason why so many bathrooms are pink, Meg. Makes people look better when they see themselves in the mirror.”

“Oh. How about peach? Or cream?”

“Just go look, will you? Bring back samples and you can see how they look in the space.”

“Got it. You on a job today?”

“A couple, but they're wrapping up. Say hi to Mom when you call her.”

Whistling, Seth deposited his dishes in the sink, grabbed a jacket, called to Max, who came eagerly, and headed out the door.

It was still early enough to call Lydia, in case she was working today. She was lucky to have some flexibility in her
work hours, but like Seth's, the larger company she worked for had busy and less-busy seasons, and this was probably one of the busy ones. She hit Lydia's speed dial.

Lydia answered quickly. “Hi, Meg—I was just on my way out the door. What's up?”

“I'll be quick. Art's got Aaron's records, and he's going to drop them off after work today. But I wanted to ask if we could go over Kenneth Eastman's financial records at the Historical Society and see what we can figure out. Is there a good time for you?”

“Do we have to do it at the Historical Society or will Gail give you custody of the papers?”

“I don't know, but I can ask. Why?”

“It would be easier if everything was in one place, so we could cross-check things if we need to. I could come by for supper and we could at least get a sense of what's what. If Gail doesn't mind. Were you going to include Aaron?”

“I don't think so. For one thing, I don't think he knows much about finance or his father's activities. For another, I'd like us to be as objective as possible. And it would save time if we didn't have to explain ourselves along the way.”

“Makes sense,” Lydia agreed. “So I'll come by about six, all right?”

“Sounds good to me. See you later!” Meg ended the call.

Bree came down the stairs. “Wow, you two were up early. Anything I need to know about?”

“Seth's got some projects he wants to finish up so he can start the bathrooms here. I guess he wants to finish them before the wedding. I know that sounds crazy, but he thinks he can do it. Listen, Bree, there's something we really haven't talked about yet.”

“Right, like where I'm going to live,” Bree said bluntly, as she popped toast into the toaster.

“Exactly,” Meg said, relieved that she didn't have to dance around the subject. “You know that the room and board are part of your salary, don't you?”

“Yeah, I do. And I know how much we're bringing in here, and what you can afford to pay me. And we'll need another picker next year—maybe Hector will come back.”

“I was wondering if you and Michael had any plans for moving in together.”

Bree laughed shortly. “We're fine the way we are. I mean, he's a good guy, but we aren't that tight. And he's got roommates, so his rent's really low, even for Amherst. And no, I don't want to move in with a bunch of guys, particularly those—they're real slobs.”

“Would you be comfortable staying on here after Seth and I are married?”

“Heck, I might as well be: he's always here anyway. What, you want to throw me out?”

“No, nothing like that. In fact, this new bathroom will make things better for everyone, I hope. But there are other options to explore.”

Bree buttered her toast and sat down at the table. “Like what?”

“Well, there's Seth's house,” Meg began.

“That's vacant again?” Bree asked.

“Yup, it is. So it's available, if you want it.”

Bree looked uncharacteristically uncertain. “Thanks for the offer, but it seems kind of big for just me. And I don't much like having roommates—I like my privacy. You got any better ideas?”

“Maybe Lydia would like company? Look, Bree, I'm just throwing out ideas here. In a perfect world, where would you choose to live?”

“You asking if I like my job? I do, although I can't
promise it'll be forever. But I've still got a lot to teach you.” Bree grinned at her.