Dead for the Money (9 page)

William Dunbar’s fears had been correct. This officer believed Bud Dunbar was a murderer. However, Seamus sensed nervousness in the man’s mind. Those above him in rank were convinced the old man’s death had been an accident. He had come to the Dunbar home on a fishing expedition.

“Mr. Dunbar—”

The man who occupied the desk smiled slightly. “I was Bud when we were in school together, Frank.”

The man’s feet shifted. “Well, this is business, so I thought I’d keep things businesslike.”

“All right.” Bud laced his fingers atop the open album. “What can I do for you, Officer Reiner?”

“Um, it came to my attention—I mean, I heard some things—”

Bud’s chin lifted a little. “What things?”

Seamus felt Reiner’s defensiveness and caught a name,
Arnold
. “It wasn’t like anybody was tryin’ to do you dirt or anything. Word is you and your grandfather had some problems.”

“I spoke with the detective about that. It was nothing serious.”

“You wanted to sell the company, and he didn’t.”

“Something like that.” Dunbar’s gaze challenged Reiner to make more of it.

“I wondered—” Reiner shifted uncomfortably. It wasn’t as easy as he’d imagined, Seamus sensed, looking a man in the eye and accusing him of murdering a helpless relative. “Why did you want to sell?”

“I thought the business had gotten to be too much for Gramps and he’d do better without the worry of it.”

“Are things going downhill?”

Bud sighed softly but answered politely enough. “As you know, our company makes electrical parts. We have reached a time when those parts will soon become obsolete. I proposed that we get out of the business while we could still sell at a profit. There is a prospective buyer who will retool the whole complex and shift production to more modern manufacturing.”

“You couldn’t do that yourselves?”

“We could. But I had no interest, and Gramps—he was too old to start over.”

Seamus sensed Reiner’s doubt. “You didn’t want to manage the company anymore?”

“No.” It was a refusal to go into more detail.

Reiner’s thoughts centered mostly on disbelief that anyone would voluntarily give up a job with such prestige, not to mention the remuneration. “How, um, how serious did the arguments get?”

Passing a hand through his hair, Bud met Reiner’s gaze. “Not serious at all, Frank. I brought it up a couple of times, Gramps said he didn’t want to sell, and I dropped it.”

“And now that you have control?”

Dunbar’s eyes went a shade darker. “I will do what I think is best for everyone involved, as I did when Gramps was alive.” He rose from the chair. “Now unless there is something specific you need, I have a lot to take care of before the funeral.”

F
ROM
HER
HIDING
SPOT
under the stairs, Brodie heard it all. Reiner did not close the door, which made it easy. Other times, she’d had to creep up and put her ear to the door, and at those times she heard only bits and pieces. Now she heard everything and even saw the anger on Bud’s face when Reiner went too far with his insinuations.

She didn’t like Reiner, but then she didn’t like cops. She’d had dealings with a few over the years, and they had no sense of humor at all.

It had been a sheriff’s deputy, although not this one, who caught her on the night Arlis had thrown a Halloween fundraiser for UNICEF. It was in the B.S. days, Before Scarlet. Brodie had no objections to the fundraiser, but Arlis had been a pain, lecturing her on how eleven-year-old girls were ladies and should behave accordingly when guests were present. And she had arranged dumb activities like a hay ride and some really lame games. In Brodie’s mind, a Halloween party should include scary stuff, so she borrowed Arlis’ cloak, which had to be from 1965, and made up her face to look all bloody and beaten. When it was time for the guests to arrive, she’d made her way up the long drive and chosen a spot that was tree-lined and dark. When a car turned into the driveway, she staggered out in front of it, gasping and moaning. She only got to do it a few times before the cops arrived and spoiled everything.

Pushing aside her dislike of deputies, Brodie thought about what this one suspected. Bud wanted to sell the company. Buyers did not wait around forever; even she knew that. So if he’d wanted it badly enough, might Bud have done something terrible?

She hoped not. Gramps had loved Bud better than anyone else in the world. He had trusted him completely, and she had never seen evidence that those feelings were not mutual. So could Bud, a guy who had always been around, a guy she was sort of related to, be a murderer? It was a lot to think about. Brodie decided an informed decision required more information.

S
EAMUS
LEFT
WITH
R
EINER
, gathering a sense of local geography as they drove. The house—it probably deserved a more impressive word like
mansion
—sat back from the beach about fifty feet. Bluffs rose on either side, although the southern one was softer and lower than the one he’d come down earlier as Brodie’s unwitting guest. Around the house were several out-buildings: a large garage, some sheds, a barn, and a boathouse, all in the same Edwardian style as the house. Behind them, a stretch of flat land spread in both directions before turning to deep woods.

Reiner rolled the windows of his patrol car down for a few minutes, letting the heat dissipate in order to give the AC a chance. The smell of clover gave way to pine when they entered the cooler, darker section. They traveled for some time before the driveway rose sharply and ended, meeting the county road that paralleled the lakeshore. Reiner turned right, and they drove along the shoreline.

They traveled southward, passing several impressive homes, a golf course, and a yacht club. Finally they descended a winding, tree-lined street to the town of Frankfort, which lay between Lake Michigan and a much smaller lake, which he learned from a sign was called Betsie. The town was not large, and the marina dominated everything. There were boats everywhere. Sunlight sparkled off the clear water and off the metallic bits of every sort of watercraft. Expensive yachts dwarfed tiny one-person sailboats, and clunky rowboats shared space with sleek cruisers sporting massive double motors.

Seamus did not approve of any of them.

Reiner drove through Frankfort slowly, watching for signs of trouble. He cruised a few side streets, checked some motel parking lots for a car they’d been asked to locate that morning, and drove by some of the places the kids liked to hang, making his presence known and watching for infractions of the law, major or minor. Finding none, he took Highway 115, which inclined its way out of town. Seamus learned from his host’s thoughts that the sheriff’s department was headquartered in the nearby town of Beulah.

When they arrived there, it was almost four o’clock. The sheriff’s department was quiet, the few people around busy with their work. Reiner stuck his head into the sheriff’s office, which smelled of coffee left too long on the warmer. “Done for the day, boss. Pretty quiet out there.”

The sheriff looked up from the report he was reading. Leaning against the wall behind him was the cane he used since his knee replacement two months ago, which did not appear to be coming along well. Seamus heard Reiner’s thought:
Lose fifty pounds. That might take the pressure off.

“You went out to Dunbar’s?”

Reiner’s jaw tightened. “Yeah. Checked to see if they were doing okay.”

“And?”

He shrugged. “Seems like it. Funeral’s tomorrow.”

The sheriff regarded his deputy’s eager face. “Are you going? Getting out to the cemetery isn’t easy with that.” He waved resentfully at the cane.

“Sure, I can go.”

“They’re pretty important people in this county.”

They’re rich
, Reiner thought
. That isn’t the same as important.
He rubbed his nose with a knuckle. “You don’t think we should look at this some more? See if it was really an accident?”

The sheriff’s expression indicated that it wasn’t the first time the subject had come up. “Listen—”

“That doctor said a strong push could have unsteadied the old guy.”

“He also said Dunbar was in rough shape and probably lost his balance.”

“It’s convenient for Bud, having his grandfather die after they argued about the future of the business. Arnold says—”

“Arnold Wilk is an old woman, gossiping where he shouldn’t and trying to look like he’s sorry to have to say it.”

Reiner did not argue that point.

“Sergeant Schell thinks Bud came off as truthful. ‘Completely distraught,’ she said.”

“He could always do that.” Reiner sniffed disdainfully. “Wrap women right around his finger.”

H
IS
SHIFT
OVER
, Reiner switched to a Ford pickup and drove to a modular outside of town. The house was over-laden, at least in Seamus’ view, with items in a forest motif. On every surface and wall, bears, wolves, and moose cavorted. Candles, pine-scented of course, burned in several rooms. If this was cabin chic, he would pass.

Mrs. Reiner looked like a life-long dieter: too thin, unable to relax, and impatient with everything. As her family ate the meal she had prepared, she drank a glass of tea to which she had added cayenne pepper and some drops from a small brown bottle. Seamus heard a reference to a “cleanse” but did not want to know more than that.

Reiner spent the evening watching extreme boxing and wrestling with his two boys, who looked like miniatures of him. Later he made love to his wife, which Seamus always found uncomfortably voyeuristic. Unable to opt out of the process, he tried instead to concentrate on the case and what he knew thus far.

His time with Reiner had been informative, but he was finished with the young deputy. Having learned what the authorities knew, the basic facts, and having seen what Reiner suspected, mostly wishful thinking, he wanted to return to the Dunbar home, where there might be real answers to the questions Will Dunbar wanted answered.

Seamus was brought back to the moment by a cessation of bedroom activity. In minutes, maybe seconds, Reiner was asleep. Seamus called to Mildred.

“I’m here.” With no interference from their hosts’ conscious thoughts, Mildred’s voice was distinct.

“I would never have guessed how different it is,” she began. “How come we didn’t know our bodies were so darned heavy?”

“Nothing to compare it to.”

“And why does everything seem a little gray, like I’m wearing sunglasses?”

“The kid is sad. They don’t see it, but we get a sense of their mood from what we see through their eyes.”

“Isn’t it all really interesting? It’s fascinating. I never imagined how it would be.”

Seamus suppressed a sigh. “What have you found out?”

“Okay, Mr. All-Business. Just the facts.”

That would be nice
, he thought. He doubted she would stick to it for long.

“I met Arlis at dinner, and I can’t say I like her very much. She’s bossy and intrusive.”

Seamus thought that sounded a lot like someone else he knew, but he didn’t say it aloud. “Does that make her a possible murderer?”

“Probably not,” Mildred admitted. “But she and Brodie do not get along. Maybe she quarreled with her brother about it. Maybe he was about to kick her out of his home.”

“He would have told us.”

“I suppose. There might be something he didn’t know about, though, something she thought she would get if he were dead.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know yet.” Mildred seemed unwilling to let go of Arlis as a suspect. “She’s so sure she’s right about everything. At dinner, everyone had to listen while she prattled on about that son of hers, who’s helping at some disaster. To hear her tell it, he’s the national hero of wherever he is. Tibet, I think.”

“What do the others say?”

“They keep trying to change the subject, but everything out of her mouth starts with ‘Leland says’ or ‘My son thinks.’ He sounds like one of those fanatical types, you know, like smokers who quit and then try to make everyone else quit too. This guy is going to fix everything in the world to make up for the mistakes of his youth, and his mother is convinced that puts him in the same category as Mother Teresa.”

“Okay. So Arlis is a pain. That isn’t a crime. We haven’t got a reason for her to kill her brother, so we need to look at the rest of them. What else did you pick up?”

“Well, Brodie isn’t sure that Bud didn’t commit murder. I think it’s part of what is bothering her. I thought maybe I could—”

“Do nothing.” Seamus spoke louder than he intended, and Reiner stirred in his sleep. “We aren’t here to counsel anybody. We’re here to learn what we can about Dunbar’s death.”

“But she’s so pitiful, the poor little thing. She thinks she’s ugly, did you get that?”

“Mostly what I got was interference.”

“Yes. She tries not to think. And there’s that whole teen-aged angst ‘I hate myself’ thing. I think hers is worse than usual because she doesn’t feel like she belongs anywhere. Her grandfather was everything to her, and he’s gone. If she thought someone cared...”

“Someone will. But it can’t be you, get it?”

“I know. I don’t exist, not really. Isn’t it odd how everything smells funny?”

“I never noticed.”

“You’ve got to be kidding! Nothing smells like it’s supposed to.”

“I suppose different brains process things differently.”

“But isn’t that amazing?”

“Yeah. Listen, who are you going to jump to next? I’d say the tutor, because she knows the others on an adult level.”

“I can’t leave Brodie. She needs me.”

“Millie—”

“It’s Mildred, and I have to stay with the child. Even if I can’t really talk to her, I can do that thing that you told me about, the one-word suggestion. I’ll tell her she is okay.”

“She won’t believe you. She doesn’t want to.”

“I have to try.”