Murder Sends a Postcard (A Haunted Souvenir) (14 page)

ALL I WANTED TO DO WAS TAKE A LOOK.

I put my face to the glass next to the warning notice. I placed the flashlight lens close to the door, and slowly swung the beam over the kitchen.

The coffeemaker and toaster stood in the same place on the counter, and dishes were stacked neatly on the far side of the sink. Nothing appeared to be out of place.

I don’t know what I expected. Chaos, maybe. Dishes and silverware strewn around the kitchen, the toaster ripped from the outlet and smashed on the floor. A shattered coffeepot.

Something.

Some sign that this was anything other than what the police had concluded. Some piece or part that I could point to and say, “There’s your evidence.”

Buddy lingered at the edge of the excavation, obviously not wanting to get any closer to the spot where his sister had died.

Jake moved to the far side of the back wall, where he could use his flashlight to illuminate things from a different angle. I watched him slowly pass the beam over the same counters and cupboards I had just covered, but from several feet to the side.

I still didn’t see what I wanted.

As he passed the light over the butcher block on the island, I noticed a dark stain on one corner of the counter. With a sickening lurch, my stomach recognized what my brain had registered: this was the place where Bridget had hit her head.

I recoiled, stepping back from the window and dropping my flashlight.

I remembered what Buddy had said about getting cleaners in after the police released the scene. That corner of the counter was only part of what was in that house, and I didn’t want to see any more.

I battled with my stomach as I crawled after my flashlight. The last thing I wanted to do right now was lose my dinner all over the backyard.

I picked up the flashlight and aimed it toward the house next door, where the faint light still shone in the kitchen window.

“Let’s go,” I said. My voice sounded funny, pinched and tight, but at least I had regained control. For the moment.

I walked slowly across the shallow hole to where Buddy waited. Jake followed a couple steps behind me.

No one spoke as we retraced our steps to the front of the house and across the yards to Buddy’s front door.

We shuffled into the house and went directly to the kitchen. We retrieved our coffee cups and refreshed them from the pot. I shouldn’t drink coffee this late, but something told me I wouldn’t be sleeping much tonight anyway.

Buddy moved aimlessly around the room, fiddling with the papers. He picked up a stack of printouts, then set them back down on another stack without so much as a glance.

“What did Bridget say she wanted from me?” I asked Buddy, trying to get his focus back on our previous conversation. “You said she wanted to be sure she really understood the local community. What did she want to know?”

He moved another stack of papers, but didn’t respond. I silently repeated every word I’d learned from Bluebeard, angry with myself for letting him go over there with us. I’d been so carried away with my own concerns I hadn’t thought about how it might make Buddy feel.

“I’m sorry, Buddy,” I said, taking his arm and forcing him to stop and look at me. “I should never have suggested we go over there. You didn’t need to see any of that.”

He shook his head, gazing out the dark windows with a faraway look. “I didn’t really see anything.” He brushed my hand away. “I’m sad that she’s gone, and I really liked her, as much as I knew her. But she was just a friend, barely more than an acquaintance so far. And now she’ll never be anything more than that.” He stared into the dark, as though the answers he needed were hidden somewhere in the shadows. “That’s the real loss,” he said softly. “That I don’t miss her more. Everyone deserves to be mourned.”

He sighed deeply and squared his shoulders, bringing himself back from whatever dark place he had been.

He gestured to me and Jake to join him at the island counter, where he laid out several stacks of papers. “If you can help me through this,” he said, his voice firmer than I’d ever heard it, “maybe we can figure out what she found.
I
know she didn’t overdose, so what did
she
know that got her in trouble?”

“Aren’t those records confidential?” Jake asked. “Maybe we shouldn’t be looking at them.”

“They are,” Buddy conceded. “At least the customers’ financial records are. But so were the medical records. A lot of this is Bridget’s own assessments. Those are the bank’s property, and I think I can trust the two of you to be discreet.”

Discreet
didn’t begin to describe Jake Robinson. The man was a sphinx when it came to keeping secrets. He certainly kept plenty from me.

“Sounds like a good plan,” I said.

Buddy flipped through the pages of notes. He began sorting them into several stacks. He moved with efficiency, deciding at a glance which pile a particular piece belonged in and putting it there without hesitation.

Watching him work, he hardly seemed like the same tentative and confused man who had come through my door that morning. He was clearly in his element, examining the information in front of him, making judgments and acting on them. He really was a lot like the sister he barely knew.

It only took him a minute to collect the pages he wanted. Shoving the rest of the stacks to the far side of the counter, he spread the pages in front of us.

“She’s listed the primary players here.” He indicated a short list of names, most of them Andersons. “This sheet has the major investors in Bayvue, and this one”—he pointed at the longest list—“is a list of Back Bay employees.”

Bridget had printed each name in block letters, leaving several blank lines beneath each one. Some of them had additional information written beneath them in cramped but precise script. Others had only a printed word or two, and several were blank.

“Where do you want to start?” I asked.

Buddy scanned the lists. “Let’s wait on the employees,” he decided. “I’ll have access to personnel files and employment records to fill them in.” He pushed the employee list away and looked at the remaining two.

“Wait a minute.” Jake pulled the employee list back from where Buddy had put it and placed it next to the investors list. Several of the names were on both lists.

“That doesn’t seem right,” Jake said. “Should the employees of the bank be investing in a development they were financing?”

“It’s a small town,” I said, coming to the defense of my friends whose names showed up on both lists. “You get these kinds of overlaps all the time.”

“It still seems kind of sketchy to me,” Jake said. “If they’re involved in lending money to the development, they shouldn’t be investors, too.”

“Jake, these people are employees. Look.” I pointed to Barbara’s name. “She’s a teller. She makes change, takes deposits, and cashes checks. She isn’t involved in any loans.”

“No,” Buddy said slowly, pointing to a name on the list. “But he is.”

It was Francis Simon, the recently fired manager of the bank. And right below his name on the investor list was Melanie Randall, the chief loan officer.

“And so is she,” Jake said, pointing to her name. “She set up my line of credit when I opened Beach Books. She’s definitely involved in making loans.”

Buddy made a star next to the employee names on the investor list. There were several. “I’m sure Bridget already noticed the duplication,” he said. “I’ll have to find her notes on that.” He looked up at Jake. “Good catch, though. A lot will depend on how, and how much, these people invested. We’re not going to get too excited over a teller putting a few hundred dollars from her savings account into a multimillion-dollar construction project.”

He looked back at the two lists, lying side by side on the counter. “But if there’s someone with a sizable investment, or who went into unreasonable debt, that’s somebody we’ll look at a lot closer.”

He pushed the employee list back across the counter, starting a new pile. He took a blank sheet of paper, wrote a giant “1” on it, and put it on top.

“How about the Board of Directors?” Buddy asked, pulling that sheet over where we could all see it. “She started making notes on them. Maybe you can tell me if her impressions are correct.”

The names on the list were familiar. William and Felicia Anderson. His little sister, Pearl. Their parents, Willa and Richard. There were a couple other names that weren’t familiar, and Bridget had noted they were partners of a law firm in Pensacola. But five of the seven names were Andersons. A big enough majority to do as they pleased, with other people’s money.

OUTSIDE THE GLASS WALL OF THE KITCHEN, A DOG
barked, startling all of us.

I jostled my coffee cup and barely managed to grab it and prevent it from spilling all over the papers on the counter. I carried the foam cup to the sink and carefully poured the cold contents down the drain. I clearly didn’t need any more caffeine.

The dog continued barking. The sound was nearby, seeming to come from the darkened backyard.

Jake grabbed a flashlight and opened the French doors, playing the light across the bare dirt. His light caught the dog, a dark hound, standing next to a man sitting in the dirt.

The man on the ground shielded his eyes as the beam of light caught his face. He looked familiar as I moved closer to Jake, though I couldn’t see him clearly.

“Cut it out,” he whined. His words slurred, and I realized he was undoubtedly drunk.

I also recognized him as someone we had just been talking about: Andrew Marshall, the high-flying developer of Bayvue Estates. It looked like he’d been brought back down to Earth, and he’d made a hard landing.

“Andy?”

“Who’s asking?”

I suppose the question was meant to be challenging, but his drunken slur reduced it to a pathetic whine.

“It’s Glory, Andy. Glory Martine.”

“Little Glory? Is that really you? What’re you doin’ all the way out here?”

Andy was a few years older than me, closer to Linda’s age than mine. I suppose he did still think of me as a little girl, though I had passed that stage a long time ago.

“It’s me,” I answered. “Do you need a hand?”

“Naw.” He waved his hand in front of his face. “I can manage. Just get that light out of my eyes.”

Jake moved the beam aside, lighting up the dirt a few feet in front of Andy and his dog. In the shadow left behind, I saw Andy struggle to his feet and stagger toward the house, his hound dog sticking by his side.

Jake tensed, and I put my hand on his arm.

Andy stumbled over the concrete forms that defined the patio space, but he managed to stay upright. Judging by the miasma of unwashed clothes and spilled liquor that floated ahead of him, it was nothing short of a miracle.

He reached the back door, but didn’t seem capable of navigating the tall step up out of the excavation into the kitchen.

I struggled to reconcile the successful developer I knew with the man standing in front of me, swaying like he was on the deck of a ship. Andy Marshall took chances, but most of them paid off handsomely. He dressed well, visited his personal barber for a shave every day, indulged in the best food and drink, and collected rich man’s toys. The man I faced was an emaciated drunk who hadn’t had a shower or a shave in weeks.

I stepped down next to him. Jake and Buddy followed. I silently gave thanks for the evening breeze that allowed me to move slightly upwind of Andy. I tried not to think about what he would have smelled like in the confines of the kitchen. There wasn’t a floor plan open enough to make it bearable.

Behind me I heard Buddy gasp as the stench hit him. He quickly closed the door behind him, trying not to let the stink invade the house.

“Andy, what are
you
doing out here, just you and Bear?” I asked.

“Just takin’ a little stroll after dinner,” he answered, as though that explained everything. He’d lost the genteel accent and precise diction he used with his customers, reverting to the cracker drawl of his childhood.

“But your house is way the other side of town.” True, that meant it was only a few minutes’ drive from where we stood, but I prayed he hadn’t been driving in his condition.

“Not no more.”

“Sure it is. You and Jen have a gorgeous house. I was just there.”

That was an exaggeration. I’d been there six months earlier, for about five minutes. I’d let Felipe and Ernie talk me into contributing to some charity fund-raiser—I think it was for the “clean and sober” grad night—and we’d been invited to a cocktail party hosted by Jen Anderson, the committee chair.

One ginger ale and I’d been out the door. It was a beautiful house all right, but it wasn’t my kind of party. I’d promised myself the next time I’d just send a check.

“Oh, Jen and the girls are still there. She swears she’s gonna keep that house, though I don’t see how. The bank’s gonna take it, just like they took everything else I own.”

It obviously wasn’t the time to introduce Buddy. I glanced over and caught his eye, nodding slightly toward the darkened corner of the house. He caught my hint and faded back into the shadows, out of sight.

I reached for Jake’s arm and pulled him a little closer to me, trying to keep Andy focused on the two of us.

“Andy, have you met Jake Robinson? He bought Beach Books a couple years ago.” I held my breath and leaned in a little. “He’s from California, but he’s okay.”

I laughed and leaned back toward Jake, sucking in a breath of marginally cleaner air.

“Glad to meet ya,” Andy said, sticking out a grimy hand.

Jake didn’t flinch. He took Andy’s hand. “Same here,” he said. “Any friend of Glory’s, and all that.”

Andy cocked his head and looked at me. “She is a purty little thing, isn’t she? Always was.”

“Andy, if Jen’s still in the house, why are you out here? It’s a long way from home.”

“Not my home anymore,” he whined. “Threw me out. Called me everything but a gentleman and said to get out and stay out.”

He turned in an unsteady circle, his gaze taking in the entire development, hidden in the dark beyond the faint light spilling from the house. “This place took everything from me, Glory. Took my job, took my family, took every last cent I had in the world.

“All I got left’s the trailer. Hauled it out in the woods so the bank won’t find it.” His voice grew bitter and angry. “They’d take it, too, if they could find it, the bastards.”

His voice grew louder as he continued to rant about how the bank had taken everything. He cursed the Andersons and Francis Simon. He called Melanie Randall a couple names that even Bluebeard didn’t use.

Jake put his arm around me and whispered in my ear, “I’ll take care of this.”

I shook my head. “Let it go. He’s always been a bit of a hothead, but it never lasts long.”

I hoped I was right.

Andy’s tirade petered out into mutters and self-pity within a few minutes. Tears began to run down his face as he launched into a litany of excuses.

As hard as it was to watch him unravel, I could only imagine the pain he must feel.

“Can I give you a lift somewhere?” I asked as Andy sank into silence, an occasional sniffle the only sound he made.

He shook his head. “Me ’n’ Bear, we’re good. We got the trailer out there, out where nobody will find us. We’ll be just fine.” His eyes glowed with anger for an instant. “We know how to take care of things.”

The anger faded, and Andy gave a deep sigh. “C’mon, Bear,” he said. The hound, who had waited patiently through his master’s ranting, stood up and nudged Andy’s hand.

The two of them turned their backs on us and faded into the dark.

“Nice seeing you, Glory,” he called as he walked away. “You take care now, y’hear?”