Death Takes Priority (18 page)

“Hacking phones and e-mails is a national pastime, and not just in this country. There was a big case recently, I forget where exactly, where a reporter was accused of eavesdropping on the phones of sports stars, politicians, celebrities, to get scoops.”

“Not too many celebrities in North Ashcot,” I said.

“Except for us,” Sunni said, primping her hair and smiling, reminding me how much I liked our chief of police and looked forward to a deepening friendship.

“You said it.” I took a satisfying bite of corn chip before I shared a sudden brainstorm. “On TV, the drug dealers are always using burner phones to do business, so their calls can't be traced. When they're through with the number, they click on something and the burner number goes out of service. I think it even wipes out all the numbers called.”

“You think Derek might be dealing drugs on special telephone lines instead of buying dozens of burner phones every month? Why?”

I shrugged, hoping Sunni didn't think I had intimate knowledge of drug dealing. “Because it's less expensive?” I suggested.

“If that's what's happening, that would make the people listed on the e-mail about ‘new opportunities'”—here Sunni drew quotation marks in the air—“potential users? Other dealers? What?”

“Prospective new users or something similarly unsavory would make sense in the case of the South Ashcot librarian, Margaret Phillips. Wanda said she claimed to want nothing to do with Derek. She'd be likely to squash any suspicious invitation immediately, if she's like the librarians I know.”

“You mean smart,” Sunni said. “It wouldn't hurt to talk to her; I'll take a little trip to see our neighbors to the south.”

I nodded. “Our ‘new users' hypothesis doesn't make sense for Barry Chase. If he's Derek's own lawyer, why would Wendell need to be involved at all? Derek and Barry could deal directly.”

“In more ways than one. I see what you mean. And who knows about Tim Cousins and Quinn? Maybe they're already in the business.” When I didn't respond, Sunni moved on. “What else could it be, besides a drug business?”

I ran all my favorite TV crime dramas through my head. What were other popular themes and motives for crime? “Blackmail,” I blurted out.

Sunni tapped her smartphone, the updated version of chewing on a pencil while deep in thought. “Blackmail which way? Say, Derek is looking for people to blackmail.
He wants a special line—one that's rigged, or can be tapped, whatever—to blackmail people, and Barry, Margaret, et cetera, are potential victims.”

One of us had to say it. “Quinn obviously fits the bill here,” I said.

“Aha,” Sunni said, as if she hadn't thought of it herself. “So, Derek finds out that Scott James has something to hide. He uses his lawyer to get Scott/Quinn Martindale out of custody so he's free to be blackmailed. Or he's already being blackmailed, and Derek doesn't want him spilling the beans.”

“But the lawyer is also on this list. Does Derek have something on him, too?” I asked, rethinking my whole blackmail theory.

“I don't know, but let's put a star by that possibility, even though we're getting away from the telephone lines. You don't need a telephone line to blackmail someone. It almost makes you long for the good old days. Remember the phreakers?”

“Sure,” I said. “They'd game the telephone system for perks like free long distance and conference calls. It was like do-it-yourself wiretapping with a little homemade device.”

“And the crime was ‘theft of service,'” Sunni said, adding the technical, legal name.

“It's overwhelming. There are so many ways scammers can use the telephone to cheat people or steal from them. They offer travel packages, loans, warranties, free trial offers, investment opportunities. They make pleas for relocation assistance, charitable donations.”

“They even claim to be local police or federal agents,” Sunni said. “There was a case right here in town not long
ago where a woman got a call saying her unpaid parking fines or traffic tickets would be forgiven if she'd send x amount of money to some address.”

“Wouldn't she know if she had an unpaid ticket?”

“Sure, and this one did. The scammers call around until they get a hit. They know that
someone
will be ripe for the offer.”

“Scary.”

“We tell people over and over to hang up and call the FTC if anything questionable is offered or solicited over the phone. I don't know the data, but I'm willing to bet that only a small percent actually report that kind of crime.”

“Do we think Derek and Wendell were involved in anything like these scams?”

Sunni shook her head. “Not really. Not classy enough for Derek, for one thing.”

I supposed she was right.

We sat back again, seeming to have wrung our brains dry with guesses and second guesses.

“Thanks for letting me brainstorm with you,” I said. “Not that I had much to add, but I feel like I'm helping.”

She gave me a squinty-eyed look. “Just for this one case.”

“Of course.”

“Don't act all naïve. I want to protect you, Cassie. Did you ever read what's on the side of our cruisers?”

“Protect and Serve.”

“Right. North Ashcot hasn't lost a postmaster yet, and I don't want it to happen on my watch.”

I couldn't object to that.

T
he rain had stopped by the time Sunni left, before nine o'clock. The trees on my street had settled down after hours of fighting the wind. I thanked my guest again for the sweets and for protecting and serving and we parted on good terms. We planned to go separately to Wendell's service in the morning and perhaps have lunch together afterward.

I'd started to clean up from our meal and snacks when I heard a knock on the front door. I peeked through the front windows and Tim Cousins waved at me, defeating the purpose of what had come to serve as my security system. Some day soon, I'd have to have a peephole installed. Or even a camera. I was sure Aunt Tess never needed one, or expected to need one. What was happening to North Ashcot? I hated to think my coming back had anything to do with the ill winds.

“I thought she'd never leave,” Tim said, scraping his
heavy work shoes on my welcome mat. “The chief,” he added, as if I didn't know who he meant.

Why did it always feel like an ambush when Tim came around, at my job, at the market, at my home? I certainly didn't entertain romantic notions toward him. The age difference was too great, for one thing, and his behavior reflected that. I doubted he viewed me that way, either, but at times I felt I was fending off a high school sophomore who had a crush on me.

“Don't you ever call first, like a normal person?” I asked with a forced grin.

He gave me a coy look. “Would you be happy to hear from me? Would you invite me over? Would you let me cook dinner for you?”

Uh-oh.
Did Tim know that Quinn had cooked for me, or was that his throwaway line? Either way, though I still considered him a possible envoy from Derek, I was no longer annoyed. I laughed and moved aside to let him in. “Probably not.”

He took the chair recently vacated by Sunni. “Looks like some good snacks here,” he said, reaching for a pretzel. “Do you mind?” With Tim's drawl slipping in, the request came out as one word. “D'yamahn?”

My better self said I should warn him that the pretzels were not fit for company, being well past their expiration date. My better self lost out. “Go right ahead,” I said.

“Do you think I could get a drink? Water would be fine.”

“Only if you tell me why you're really here.”

“A guy can't make a neighborly call? I got a delivery of insulation for my basement today. Thought you might be interested in knowing about it.”

As if I believed the purpose of his visit was to update me on his construction supplies. “Sure,” I said, determined to find out what his relationship was to Derek's scheme, if there was a scheme. This morning, we'd both skirted around the topic. I'd give it fifteen minutes tonight, I decided; then if I hadn't made progress, I'd usher him out.

I was about to fill a glass from the system on the door of my fridge when I thought I should be more hospitable. I stuck my head around the corner and asked, “Ice or no ice?”

To my surprise, Tim wasn't at his place on the chair, but standing up, the seat cushion in his hand. He seemed to be digging for something where he'd been sitting.

“Something wrong?”

His face turned red. “Uh, no. I was just adjusting the seat. No ice, thanks.” He shivered. “It's cold enough tonight, right?”

Strange. But I filled his glass and delivered it, and thought of a way to confront him more directly than I had this morning, and without implicating Wanda.

I remembered a conversation between Ben and me, and chided myself for not recalling it when Sunni was here. With all our tossing out of theories, I'd neglected to share a real, live story about an extra telephone line that had been installed in someone's home, an incident that had caused Wendell some distress. Might as well bring it up now.

“I've been meaning to ask you something, Tim. I heard about a situation, where Wendell Graham had trouble at work and you came to his rescue. It involved a complaint about a telephone bill, I think? A charge for a line that wasn't ordered? Sound familiar?”

“Hmm, I remember something like that. It was a while ago, though, and I don't recall the details.”

“A customer didn't know that an extra phone line into his house had been connected. Does that ring a bell?”

Tim laughed and slapped his thigh. “‘Phone line.' ‘Ring a bell.' Cool.”

“Tim,” I growled, giving him a look, one that might have worked between a teacher and a student who was misbehaving.

“Okay, no, it doesn't ring a bell.”

He had ten more minutes. “So, you never straightened out an issue like that for Wendell and one of his customers?”

He shifted in his chair. “You know, there was something. I think I brought my dad in on it, since he used to work for the phone company back in Texas. That must be it.”

“Must be,” I echoed. “You didn't have anything to do with it?”

“Nope.”

“Okay. There's one other thing I've been wanting to ask you about, something we touched on this morning. There's an e-mail floating around—”

“In the cloud, right?” Tim said, beginning to fidget.

I was undeterred. “Derek sent it to Wendell. Your name was listed, along with others, as someone who was a ‘new opportunity.'” I mimicked Sunni and drew quotes in the air around the phrase. “Does
that
sound familiar?”

Tim squirmed in earnest now, unnerved at the inquisition, I imagined, making me glad I'd undertaken it.

“I dunno,” he said.

“This morning you referred to a deal Derek approached you with, something to do with the phone company.”

“I did?” he said. “I probably should apologize if I rambled this morning. I was distracted by this load of insulation.
I thought they cheated me on the shipment, you know, and I was about to lose a lot of money if I couldn't prove it. You wouldn't believe the ways you can get cheated in the construction business.”

I took a long breath. “In your rambling, you said you were hesitant about accepting an opportunity from Derek. I think your own words were that you wanted to avoid getting snared into one of Derek's schemes.”

“Honestly? I must have had too much coffee.” He ran his hands over his head. “Or not enough.” Another forced laugh, and an expression that said he was ready to leap from the chair if I didn't quit.

“You asked if I'd been approached, in fact. I can't believe you don't remember, Tim. What schemes does Derek have? Is he holding something over you?”

He stood, bumping into the coffee table in his eagerness to leave. “Time I took off,” he said. “Thanks for the snack.”

“I'm glad you dropped by,” I said, almost meaning it.

On one hand I was back to square one; on the other, I had confirmation that Derek Hathaway was a schemer who'd gone from the bullied high school boy to someone powerful enough to scare a construction worker.

*   *   *

Back in my rocker, with Tim gone, I tried again to relax. I'd never seen a man act as guilty as Tim had, though guilty of what I didn't know. A telephone scam? Murder? Both? What if Tim was Derek's hit man, and was facing an unhappy end of his own if he implicated Derek? Were there more such jobs lined up for the man in Albany? I gasped at
the idea. It hadn't occurred to me until now that the list of people in the e-mail could be a hit list. That would make Wendell the hit man. And Quinn one of the victims.

I needed a spreadsheet to keep everyone straight. If only I hadn't nearly flunked that course in Software Refresher for Postmasters.

It didn't help my state that I was facing the chair Tim had sat in, the same chair that I'd thought was out of place a couple of days ago.

Why was Tim really fussing with the seat? What if he'd planted a bug and came back tonight to collect it? I shook my head, hoping to clear it. All this talk of wiretapping, hacking, phreaking, and various other refinements of scamming—I was seeing spies and fraudulent activity everywhere.

Tim might have been innocently looking for his keys or pocketknife. No, he would have said so, I told myself. Maybe he's low on cash and was searching for loose change, his or mine.

I went to the chair and lifted the cushion; there were not too many adjustments that could be made to the seat of an easy chair. It was old, granted, probably dating back to Aunt Tess's early years in this house, but it wasn't threadbare. The stuffing seemed even, not lumpy. I inspected the seat and both sides of the cushion, not sure what I expected to find. I found nothing.

I moved on to motive. Why would Tim bug my living room? To get the same kind of information that he'd been asking me for since the very beginning, since an unnamed body was found in the woods?

I had a flash of insight into Sunni's life. Was this what it
was like for her, or even for Ross? Always questioning, doubting, inspecting, thinking the worst of everyone, of the simplest acts? I hoped not.

I could at least put an end to investigating for the night.

I turned to my sounding board, Linda Daniels in Boston. She always knew how to set me back on track and, as long as she didn't stray into the forbidden territory of coaxing me back to within shouting distance of Fenway Park, had good advice. The big question was whether Linda would be home on a Friday night waiting for a call from her wayward buddy.

I sent Linda a quick text.

Home 4 Skyping?

And received a reply right away.

Sadly, yes.

I figured we broke even. She was home: that was good for me, if too bad for her. A few minutes later we were connected. Linda sat across from her computer on a rich black couch. She wore her oldest sweats, which I remembered from our running days, when the royal blue top and bottom were brand-new. They were now too faded to be identified by the French designer whose name they bore, good only for Skyping with a best friend.

“I see you're not expecting company,” I said.

“I was. But let's not go there right now. Too depressing.” She held a candy bar up to the camera.

“Candy at night. It must be bad. Sorry.”

“Let's hear about your day.”

I told Linda about Quinn's sudden, unannounced (to me) absence. “I could use some candy,” I added.

“He might be going home to straighten out that thing with his mother.”

“You mean how she's in jail, waiting for her murder trial?”

“Okay, calling it a thing might be little bit of an understatement, but what if he decided to testify? It's the right thing to do and he'd have to accept the consequences. Wouldn't that be an indication of his character?”

“Not if he did it. Killed his stepfather.”

Linda gasped. No wonder. I surprised even myself. I'd never voiced that suspicion before, and I hadn't considered it since the beginning of this drama, prior to coming to know Quinn and welcoming him into my home. All of four days ago, I realized.

“You said he'd been almost forty miles away, coaching a ball game in the suburbs with a million kids and their parents present.”

“I'm flailing here. That was Derek's alibi for Wendell's murder.”

“Yes, you are. Would you rather talk about the ins and outs of the new family medical policy we've had endless meetings about, writing and rewriting section fourteen-point-three, slash Roman numeral two?”

“You bet.”

“I see you mounted the print I sent. It looks very nice in your bedroom.”

“Yes, you know that's one of my favorites.”

Before either of us could get sentimental about the
famous Childe Hassam scene, I switched to Linda's sorry state of dating. I learned why was she was home on a Friday night, free to talk to a girlfriend. In short, “Paul, the new guy, was a bust.”

We signed off, as usual, with a wave and a virtual hug.

*   *   *

I sat up in bed and propped the novel I was reading on an extra pillow on my lap. I had a hard time concentrating, and faced the reality that I couldn't stop my speeding mind. I replayed the day, ending with my unsolicited visit with Tim.

I looked over my notes. Sunni and I had gone over the Derek-to-Wendell e-mail more times than I could count, discussing all four of the people—Barry Chase, Margaret Phillips, Tim Cousins, Quinn Martindale—and came up with nothing that excited either one of us as a real lead. I couldn't shake the feeling that we were neglecting something, but a nagging feeling was no more of a clue or a lead than we already had.

Now and then my mind wandered back to the lately flown-away Quinn Martindale. I tried to figure which was worse in terms of being dumped—a four-year relationship that ended with texts, or one that had great promise, but had barely started?

I wondered if Sunni knew more than she'd let on about Quinn's trip or his reasoning or his future plans. In any case, I wasn't surprised that she didn't share the details.

It was less stressful to return to my pondering of the murder case. Maybe there was more to the misuse of telephone lines than we'd thought. I went to my trusty search engine—after resolving to stop taking my laptop to bed
with me, and breaking my ten-minutes-ago vow to stop investigating—to see what other kinds of criminal activity could involve phone lines. I scrolled through little-known (to me) offenses, such as “cramming,” the addition of hidden or unordered charges to a subscriber's telephone bill; which was different from “slamming,” a fraudulent charge having to do with competition among Internet service providers. Another sneaky, illegal activity involved billing for a call as soon as the telephone began ringing, even if the call went unanswered.

Nothing clicked as the breakthrough we needed.

It was almost tomorrow, the weekend, and all I had to look forward to was a funeral service.