A Motor for Murder (Veronica Margreve Mysteries Book 1) (12 page)

22

Since the day before, I had realized that the story about the start-up funding that I got from Caitlin conflicted with what I saw in the start-up’s records. Did George cut off their funding, or not? And if so, when? How would I know? Anyone I could ask with knowledge of the matter would be potentially prejudiced (Roger, Rita, Caitlin); and John would likely refuse to tell me. I would need to try to get to George’s checkbook at the house and look at the record of the checks there. As Paul had said, and as I saw in Ba-Ele Tech Inc’s statements, George wrote out his checks by hand.

Another depressing thought was that my prime suspects at this point were Rita and Roger, Rita’s brother. I was turning the facts over in my mind, and had to admit Roger had a very strong motive: continued funding for his start-up; potentially free access to about half of George’s money if Rita was convicted of the murder – however treacherous that was to think about; and even anger or revenge at his brother in law for cheating! Plus, his opportunity was as good as anyone’s.

Being gone and unreachable for three days already was not in his favor. I didn’t know whether Rita had notified the police or a private investigator that her brother took off. My guess was no, as he would have been immediately named a “person of interest” in the case and been the subject of a wide search.

I thought back to Roger’s note that Rita showed me. As far as I recalled, there was not a date on it. So, if pressed to admit Roger’s disappearance, Rita could say she only found it today.

Besides him, my other viable suspect was Rita herself. She had plenty of motives: the money, the affair (either anger, or revenge, or just a plot to get more of the marital assets for herself).

I didn’t want to believe either of these scenarios, but nothing else was coming to mind. Wayne had a alibi. I couldn’t imagine Paul as the killer – and financially, it would be easier for Paul if George were alive. Caitlin didn’t have a motive and didn’t seem to benefit at all from George's death – she was another one that would have preferred George alive.

Someone like Stan would make the perfect suspect, I thought. He had opportunity. His motive was somewhat vague and weak, but there seemed to be something unsavory lurking in his dealings. I did like him for the role. But that didn’t mean that he had done it.

I needed to talk to Rita. Even though I wasn’t yet sure what I would say to her.

When I got to Rita’s house that evening, I saw a late-model silver Jaguar parked out front. Not Roger’s car. There was a visitor at the house.

I rang the door bell, and Rita let me in.

“Hey, I’m just finishing something up. Come on in.”

John was in the downstairs living room, wearing another expensive suit. He half-rose from the sofa when we came in. There were several stacks and folders of stapled papers spread out on the coffee table between them, and he had a marker in his hands and the look of someone trying to bend spoons with his mind and cursing the stupidity of metal. She looked like she hadn’t slept much, and like her mind was somewhere else.

“Hi! I am sorry to interrupt.”

“Oh hello. We are discussing property stuff.” John gave a little laugh, like he was embarrassed about such trivialities.

“Of course. Please don’t mind me. I'll sit out on the patio and read my Kindle while you talk.” I wanted to be roughly within earshot and know what topic was they were discussing that seemed to have put both of them in a bad mood, but didn’t want to seem like I was eavesdropping.

John shifted in his seat and shot Rita a look. “We will try to wrap this up as soon as we can, so that we don’t keep you waiting. We just need a bit of privacy to finish it up.”

“We're talking about the details of the estate.” Rita said, as if to apologize.

“Oh, I’ll go hang out with Roger then. Is he here?” I wanted to check whether he was still missing, in a way that wouldn't give away that I knew that he had disappeared.

Rita replied: “No, he’s out. Do you want a drink or a snack? Some grapes, chocolate, mineral water?” I refused. My heart was pounding in anticipation of the talk I was going to have with her later.

“You can go into the home theater and watch something, if you want. I’ll talk to you after we are done with this. Shouldn’t be long.”

Feeling simultaneously lost, depressed and agitated, and still trying to arrange things in my mind (and disappointed at not getting to know what John and Rita were talking about), I turned left and went down the hallway to the home theater.

It occurred to me that it seemed I was the only other person in the house besides the two occupied in their conversation (it was confirmed that Roger was out, and I didn’t see any other cars outside, besides John's Jaguar). This might be a chance to look around, maybe find something that I missed earlier.

Heading upstairs to George's office, in my head I went over what I knew of George’s recurring expenses, especially personal ones. Admittedly, I didn’t know much about them. I recalled that George regularly – monthly – wrote out checks to Paul (and previously, Roger). But what if Paul’s payoffs were for blackmail? Was there any way I could prove or disprove this idea?

And would Paul kill George, if he was a blackmailer? It didn’t quite fit.

He said he had to practically beg George for the check. That would take more than a couple of minutes, and would definitely make the conversation heated.  Paul said he did get the check finally. Did he really? And if so, was it for the entire amount he was looking for, including the next month's “installment”? And was there any way for me to tell the difference? And did the police know about the “extra”? In George’s office, I could go look for his check book. I remembered the numbers George told me: $80K, 20 years. Assuming an interest rate of 6% on graduate and professional programs, it would come out to (I pulled out my phone, did a web search for an amortizing calculator, and typed in the numbers) $583.

Finding a cancelled check of George’s for that amount, or double that amount, addressed to Paul, would confirm at least part of his story.

I went upstairs, taking care not to make noise. I could have asked Rita to let me take a look around the office – but I wanted to ruffle through the stuff in peace, without even her knowing that I was there and what I was looking for. I had to admit to myself that I no longer trusted her. And I still wasn’t sure how to talk to her about my suspicions.

The office door was closed. As I had my hand on the door handle and was about to enter, I stopped, because I realized that Stan could not have killed George. I remembered sitting on the couch in the upstairs living room, sipping my wine, and someone opening the door and saying “Oh sorry, wrong room.” Thinking back, I was sure it was Stan. Back then I assumed he was looking for the bathroom – but just as likely was that he was looking for George’s office (being lost in the big new house with many rooms, in spite of the introductory house tour upon arrival at the party). That was before I had talked to Paul, and therefore before Paul had talked to George. If Paul talked to George in the office that night, Stan couldn’t have been the killer. Unless... he came back upstairs?

But what if… Paul found George already dead? But he said he had cashed the check written by George. And police seemingly confirmed it. Well, how about: Paul had a check that George had written on a different day (and given or mailed to him), on which he’d changed the date? That would still allow Stan to be the killer.

Or, for that matter, have Paul be the killer himself. Maybe George was being very stubborn, as Paul said, and the desperate for money man pushed him, and wrote out the check to himself, and walked out of the office quietly?

I needed to see George’s checkbook to try to figure this out. I pressed the door handle of the office door down and walked into the room.

I saw the office camera was still off. I walked behind the desk. The drawers were locked. I was prepared, and got out my set of lock-picks again. This took less than two minutes. I was definitely getting better at this whole “unlawful entry” business.

I carefully flipped through the drawers. Among folders filled with papers, I found the leather-bound checkbook with copies of some recent checks. Yes, here was the amount written to Paul at the party – $1250, about double the normal amount written out in the previous months. It was a bit higher than my calculations came out to, but my estimate was close enough. I looked closely at that check, and at some of the previous ones – the handwriting was very similar. Flipping through the check book, I saw that all the checks were written by the same person. And in any case – the police would be scrutinizing the checks that George wrote over his last days, and would have detected the forgery, and arrested Paul by now if they’d found it. So, George did write that check. And Stan therefore didn’t kill George.

That confirmed part of Paul's story – that he asked for, and got, double the money the night of the party. It still didn’t follow that he had no motive to kill George. I wanted to check around for any sort of agreement between George and Paul, to show what the payments were for.

In the bottom drawer there was a set of thick folders. I took it out and started leafing through.

I found an agreement between Paul and George, likely a copy of the one that Paul said he showed to the police, (vaguely worded as to why exactly George was paying out Paul and Claire money, but seemingly legal enough), printed out, dated about 10 months earlier and signed by both. That seemed to confirm Paul’s story. I wasn’t sure whether the agreement was binding on any heirs of George's – I was guessing not, as Teresa had said that it depended on the language in the paper itself, and I couldn’t pick out any references to any heirs. And so Paul likely was telling the truth when he said that he and Claire were better off if George had lived.

I closed that folder and put it aside, and then open the next one.

These were some print-outs of what looked like internet ads (Craigslist, eBay) for vintage RollsRoyces. They were collected over about a year, and were from different states – I saw Tennessee, California, Louisiana, Pennsylvania. Circled in red on each were prices. I sat down thinking. The RollsRoyce was the car that Wayne Kempler had at that show, the one that didn’t win. Was George Ellis thinking of buying it? That was possible. Suppose George had asked Wayne to come up, and wanted to offer to buy the car from him? And as George was very drunk and somewhat disorderly, and Wayne, still angry over the disqualification at the car show, spurned what he thought was George's insufficiently serious offer, and was insulted and enraged by his behavior? Would Wayne kill him in that flash of emotion?

I thought about it, tried to imagine it happening. My heart was beating fast in my chest. I was almost convinced – and then I remembered that Wayne had an alibi courtesy of one of the waiters from the catering company.

I moved on to the next folder.

These were the incorporation documents for Roger’s start-up. Roger had likely been upset about being cut off from the funding, if that even happened – he was certainly passionate about what he was working on. But I did not see much emotion from him over George's death. However – I remembered the dates on the papers Caitlin showed me in the office – that was over 2 months ago. If he were mad enough to kill George, why wait several months? And why do it at a party?

I pulled up the photos I took with my phone of the book-keeping paperwork at Ba-Ele Tech Inc’s office and zoomed in. Something connected in my brain, and my heart started jumping again. Per the office paperwork, the last check was cashed at the beginning of the month, 2 weeks ago. But Caitlin had told me the new funding was cut off 2 months ago. I picked up George's checkbook again, and flipped through it till I saw the remaining duplicate check. Here it was – comparing it with the others, I saw the difference in how the “a”s were written, and the loop over the “d”s. It was similar enough to not make you look twice if you didn't suspect a forgery – but the fake was detectable if you already had that suspicion in your mind.

If George had discovered the forgery when he was writing out the check to Paul at the party, and started an argument with Roger about it...

I could hear the blood pounding in my ears. Things were not looking good for Roger – this was yet another possible motive for him; and proof of his dishonest dealings, at the very least.

By now, I was shaking with the knowledge that I knew who the murderer was and that I had the documents in my possession to expose him. I wanted to go through all the papers related to Ba-Ele Tech Inc to see whether there was any more evidence.

I read through the paperwork in front of me, drawn up by John Sargent’s firm, and realized that Ba-Ele Tech was set up so that George was the founder and owner of it. Roger was the CTO, as I knew. I came across a non-compete agreement and an ownership agreement for an invention, complete with several pages of techno-jargon describing the invention. From skimming the pages, it looked like this was what Roger was working on. From the terms, it meant that the new breakthrough idea that Roger was talking about would be George’s property.