Real Estate and Murder (A Port Grace Cozy Mystery Book 1) (4 page)

“
M
iss Mason
,” said Cynthia, “Chief Harris is on the line for you.”

Georgia had a pounding headache and was glad for the excuse to look away from her computer screen. Georgia picked up the phone on her desk so that Cynthia could keep answering calls on the phone on her little table.

“Hello, Chief,” said Georgia. “When exactly is the yellow tape going to come off that office? I’m practically working in a broom cupboard.”

Cynthia’s phone rang at that same moment, proving Georgia’s point. Georgia raised her voice a little to try and drown out Cynthia’s conversation. Sadly, Cynthia did the same.

“We should have everything documented, collected, and cleared up by the end of tomorrow,” said Cooper.

“Great! So to what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Nothing good, I’m afraid,” said Cooper. But to Georgia he sounded rather chipper. “Nothing found at the crime scene implicates Hilary Frankenburg, and even though we can’t confirm her alibi, we can’t disprove it either.”

“So, we’re still moving nowhere fast?”

“Exactly. But I think we have some good hunches. I just need a new pair of eyes to come down here and look at all this crime scene evidence. I’ve been over it so many times, it’s all running together. Can I persuade you to volunteer for the position?”

“Well…I’m pretty busy. Don’t you have a squad of detectives at your disposal?” said Georgia, hating to turn down the chance at an exciting distraction but feeling guilty about abandoning her workload.

“I suppose,” said Cooper, markedly less chipper, “but they are all working other cases, too, and none of them have talked directly to the suspects. I’m also convinced you should have been a cop.”

One side of Georgia’s mouth curled up in a smile. “Oh, all right, if you’re desperate.”

“Terribly. To make up for pulling you from your work, I’ll order takeout.”

“Deal,” said Georgia, putting her thumb nail between her smiling teeth, a pleasant feeling she thought she might never feel again threatening to blossom in her chest.

When Georgia arrived in Cooper’s office, the Chinese takeout was already unpacked and set out on his cluttered desk.

“Grab what you like, and I’ll eat the rest,” said Cooper, fanning his arms to better display the feast.

Georgia grabbed the Kung Pao and a container of fried rice and, after removing a cluster of papers from the seat, settled into an uncomfortable chair.

“You really should get organized,” she said, putting the papers in a neat pile on the desk. “No wonder you can’t sort through all this.”

“It’s organized chaos. I’ve seen everything there is to see; I just can’t find anything that helps us find the killer.”

“No fingerprints at the scene?”

“Tons. That’s the problem,” said Cooper. He paused to eat half an egg roll in one bite. “Everybody went to see the boss man about something at one point or another. The outer and inner offices have the fingerprints of just about everybody who works there somewhere or another, including yours. Cynthia’s are in a lot more places, but that’s to be expected. You know whose fingerprints I didn’t find at the scene?”

“Hilary’s?”

“Exactly. I don’t know what to do anymore. Every other viable suspect has an alibi. I’ve also had one of my people go through Bruce’s recent emails, but unless he’s got an account we don’t know about, he’s only using it to send business emails and notes to his wife.”

“Maybe we should look deeper into Bruce’s work,” said Georgia. “Maybe he ticked off somebody more dangerous than Hilary Frankenburg.

“Sounds like a great idea.”

“I’ll go get my laptop out of my car. It’s connected to the company’s file system.”

When Georgia returned with the laptop, Cooper pulled her a chair up next to his behind the desk. Georgia entered the database with a few quick strokes and set to work searching everything she could find about every property, client interaction, and complaint connected to Bruce.

“Geez, I type with two fingers,” said Cooper.

“Really?” said Georgia, whipping her head to look at him in disbelief as she chuckled. “My dad does that.”

“Yeah, well, I know how to work the computer; it’s just that it and I don’t get along.”

Georgia laughed and said, “If you saw Ryan with a computer, you’d think he was a wizard.”Cooper gave a stiff smile and chewed a bite of his takeout slowly, building up courage as he watched her turn back to the screen.

“So, you and he are pretty close?”

“Who? Me and Ryan?”

“Yeah.”

Georgia kept her eyes locked on the screen, typing in more keywords than necessary and rereading the same sentence to keep herself looking busy. She could sense where this was going.

“We’ve known each other since college. He’s one of my best friends.”

“Just friends?”

Georgia fought hard to hold back an annoyed sigh. She hated this dance. It made her uncomfortable. Why couldn’t he just come out and ask it? Why couldn’t he say why he even cared in the first place?

“Yes.”

“All right,” said Cooper, his eyes bright with a suppressed smile. “Just checking so I could set the local gossipers straight.”

“What? What gossip?” said Georgia, even more annoyed now.

“Oh, just the typical small-town nosiness. Some people saw you both at The Fisherman’s Barrel last night, and some people thought he was your husband, and then somebody else said they heard you got divorced, and so now they assume he’s your new boyfriend. Then, of course, somebody else said they heard he was helping with the murder investigation, so people come to me asking who he is and what your relationship is. Like I said, typical stuff.”

“Yeah. Typical,” said Georgia with a grimace. Suddenly she missed New York.

They searched Georgia’s files late into the night and made a list of anybody who’d made a complaint against Bruce or whom Bruce had beat in a business deal. It was a pretty large list, and Cooper said he’d get his people on it, though he didn’t seem too confident. Most people on the list had never had contact with Bruce more than the once, and none of the complaints were written in overly-heated language.

When Ryan called Georgia and Cooper to a meeting in Mason Real Estate’s conference room a day later, he didn’t have anything groundbreaking either.

“I’ve exhausted just about all of my research abilities, and I’ve come up with next to nothing on all three of our suspects,” he said. “Victoria Fowler used to be Victoria Wheelan. She was born in a lower middle class family and was working as a receptionist at a doctor’s office when she met Bruce, who is about thirty years her senior. She has no criminal record, and I could find no evidence of her contacting a hit man or buying a gun herself.”

“Neither could my people,” said Cooper.

“Her social media pages are full of statuses about her wonderful husband and all the lovely things she gets to do now that she’s upper class,” said Ryan. “No hint that she suspected an affair.”

“Wow. I hadn’t even thought to check social media,” said Cooper.

“You should start. It’s great for detective work.

“Anyways, Hilary Frankenburg is definitely a lady with a temper. She has an arrest from her early twenties because she threw a rock through a window at a protest in college.

“Yeah. She got community service,” said Cooper.

“Right. Her social media also suggests she has a road rage problem. She had a lot about her problems with Bruce on her social media sites at the time the deal was going down. Before that, there were a lot of pictures and happy statuses about the new house she was going to be getting. However, she hasn’t mentioned anything about Bruce or the house for months. She seems to have cooled down. Or, she could have channeled the rage into figuring out how to kill him, but I haven’t found anything tying her directly to the murder.”

“What about Cynthia?” said Georgia.

“She’s a bit of a character. Her social media is covered with a mix of kitten and puppy videos, quips about the benefits of wine, and tons of stuff about relationships. She definitely has some daddy issues, if you’ll excuse the term. Her favorite actors are Sean Connery and Robert DeNiro, and she has tons of statuses and pictures about them and how she’d love to sleep with them.

“I was intrigued by her taste in men, so I went farther back in her posts to see if I could find old boyfriends. Just over a year ago, she was exchanging messages with an older man who was recently divorced. At first it was all kisses and rainbows, but I found some posts between them that got pretty nasty. He broke it off, and she went ballistic. He was threatening to take out a restraining order. If she and Bruce were having an affair and he broke it off…. But none of that matters if we can’t prove an affair, and I can’t yet.”

“How are the names on our list coming along?” Georgia asked Cooper.

“Nothing so far.”

Georgia sighed and rubbed her temples.

Her stress only grew over the next few days. She’d sent ads out all over the internet and papers saying the Port Grace branch of Mason Real Estate was in search of new management, and the volume of resumes she’d received was overwhelming. The fact that she was looking for Bruce’s replacement in the very office Bruce had died in wasn’t helping her nerves either, though she appreciated the space. She was just thinking that perhaps she should send some resumes to one of her trusted colleagues from New York to help her narrow down the selection when Cynthia’s voice came through the speaker on her desk phone.

“Miss Schultz would like a word with you, Miss Mason. Shall I send her in?”

Georgia pressed the intercom button and said, “Yes, please.”

“Sorry to bother you,” said Delia as she entered.

She wore another stylish blazer and pencil skirt ensemble, a folder in her hand, and Georgia was struck again by the confidence and presence she exuded.

“No trouble. I could use a distraction. What can I do for you?”

“Well, now that Mr. Fowler is gone, I presume you’re looking for a new manager, correct?” she said with a perfect smile. She spoke with no hesitation, casually taking a seat in one of the two leather chairs opposite Georgia.

“Um, yes,” said Georgia, a little stunned.

Delia’s smile never wavered as she put the folder on the desk.

“Here’s a copy of my resume and portfolio. I know I don’t have any real experience in management, but I understand this business. I love this business. I can help you turn things around here.”

Georgia slowly pulled the folder toward herself. She hadn’t been considering any of the current agents to fill the position. None of them had managerial experience, and they either didn’t have a stellar track record or, like Delia, they hadn’t been in the business very long.

“I wasn’t planning on promoting from within,” said Georgia, “but you’ve impressed me so far. I’ll take a look.”

Delia’s smile grew even bigger.

“Oh thank you so much,” she said, rising gracefully and extending a hand.

“You’re welcome,” said Georgia, shaking Delia’s hand.

When Delia left, Georgia sat and stared at a picture on the wall, thinking hard. Something about the exchange with Delia wasn’t sitting right. She was reaching for the phone to call Chief Harris when Cynthia’s voice blared out of the speaker again, making her jump.

“Miss Mason, your father is on line one.”

“Thank you, Cynthia.”

Georgia pressed line one and picked up the receiver. She’d barely said hello before Bill hollered, “Georgia! The cat is on the roof! She’s meowing. I think she’s stuck. What should I do? She could get hurt!”

Georgia plopped her forehead on the desk for a moment before putting the phone back to her ear and saying, “I’ll be right there.”

W
hen Mittens was safely
on the ground eating the can of tuna Georgia had used to lure her down and Bill was finished ranting about how he was too old for this kind of stress, Georgia got Ryan and Cooper on a three-way call.

“I think we should look into Delia Schultz,” she told them, shutting her father’s bedroom door for some peace and quiet.

“Isn’t she the agent who went out with Victoria and Cynthia?” said Cooper.

“Yeah.”

“So you want to check out another suspect with a clear-cut alibi?” said Cooper.

“Why?” said Ryan.

“She came into my office today to apply for Bruce’s job,” said Georgia, speaking quickly so neither of them would interrupt her. “It’s way above her experience level, but that’s not what struck me. She was so casual with the way she talked about Bruce, almost callous. She said, ‘Now that Bruce is gone, you’ll be looking for a new manager.’ She said ‘gone’ so casually, like he got fired or quit or something. And the way she said ‘now’ sounded like it was something she’d been expecting. I don’t know; I just got a weird feeling.”

“You think she could have killed him to get his job?” said Ryan.

“Maybe.”

“Seems a little misguided if she isn’t the automatic next choice for the job,” said Ryan, “but I’ve seen stranger motives.”

“Have you both forgotten about the alibi?” said Cooper. “We need suspects who don’t have one if we want to get anywhere.”

“Alibis can be faked or bought,” said Ryan. “You could be onto something, Georgia. I’ll look into it.”

“I’ll keep looking into the list we made, Georgia,” said Cooper.

“Thank you both.”

Ryan said, “Anything for you, doll,” just as Cooper said, “Anytime, Georgia.”

Georgia went back downstairs to find Bill in his lounging chair with Mittens curled up on his stomach. Georgia stifled a giggle with her hand. Bill looked her way and contorted his face into his best Godfather imitation.

He stroked Mitten’s back as he said, “You come to me in your time of need.”

Georgia laughed and said, “That’s pretty good, but I actually came to you in your time of need, remember? Keep Mittens inside until I get back, okay?”

“Got it. See you later, hon.”

On the way back to the office, Georgia decided to try to figure out once and for all if Cynthia had been having an affair with Bruce, but she would have to be careful. If she wasn’t subtle, Cynthia might get suspicious and clam up.

“Everything all right with your dad?” Cynthia asked when Georgia returned. “He sounded pretty riled up.”

“Yeah, well, he’s babysitting my cat, and she’s a bit of a handful.”

“Oh, I see,” said Cynthia with a giggle.

“I think he’s actually grown to like Mittens, though,” said Georgia, choosing her words carefully. “He won’t admit it, but I think he’s been lonely. Now, with one of his oldest friends not only dead, but murdered, I think he appreciates the companionship, you know?”

“Yeah,” said Cynthia with a sad smile. She sighed and said, “Poor Bruce.”

“You must have known him pretty well,” said Georgia. “I noticed you call him by his first name.”

A blush rose high and fierce on Cynthia’s pale, lightly freckled face. “Yes, well, people think of a secretary just as an aid, but it’s a much closer relationship than that. I fielded all his calls. I knew who he enjoyed talking to and who he didn’t. I knew how he liked his coffee and his favorite places to get lunch. When he was upset, I was the closest person to vent to. A certain bond of trust can’t help but form when two people are with each other eight hours a day, five days a week.”

“Of course,” said Georgia softly, not wanting to break Cynthia out of the almost trance-like reverie she’d fallen into.

“My and Bruce’s and bond was special,” said Cynthia dreamily.

“How so?” said Georgia, her tone a little too eager.

Cynthia snapped her head toward Georgia and blushed again.

“Oh, I mean, not in any specific way,” she said, fiddling with the pens and pencils in a cute pink mug on her desk. “I guess I just mean we were more like friends than just boss and secretary, you know?”

“Sure,” said Georgia, hiding her disappointment with a soft smile.

Georgia went to the coffee maker sitting on a small end table next to the outer office’s waiting area and fixed herself a cup, regrouping and letting Cynthia relax.

“I suppose his poor wife is in more pain than anyone else,” said Georgia after taking a sip of her coffee.

“Oh yes. I’m sure precious Victoria is all torn up,” said Cynthia, a sneer twisting her pretty face as she banged on her computer keys.

Then her eyes flicked up to Georgia and the sneer vanished.

“You didn’t like his wife?” said Georgia, feigning casual surprise. “I thought you had a pretty good time with her when she invited you out the other night.”

Cynthia made a slightly exasperated noise and said, “She just wasn’t right for him. She was always calling the office to nag him about silly stuff and beg him to come home. She was so needy. Bruce was a businessman. He loved his work. She didn’t understand that. She drove him crazy. She didn’t complain about the money he made, though—always coming in here with her designer handbags and diamond jewelry flashing all over the place.”

“Even when the company started having money problems?”

“Bruce didn’t want anyone to know about the money problems. He was going to fix it all, so why bother?” said Cynthia, fixing Georgia with a lofty look that dared her to say otherwise. “He didn’t tell her about the problems, I don’t think. He knew she would freak out. He told me, though. Like I said, he confided in me. He trusted me. We were very close. She didn’t deserve him. I—”

Cynthia blushed again and looked down at her desk.

“I don’t want to talk about him anymore,” she said, the hint of a sob in her voice. “It hurts too much.”

“I understand. I didn’t mean to upset you,” said Georgia. “How about you go home a little early today? I can handle the phone calls for the next few hours.”

Cynthia brightened right up. “Thanks! You’re sure?”

“Go on home. You deserve a break.”

As soon as Cynthia was gone, Georgia called Ryan.

“I just talked with Cynthia, and I’m even more convinced she and Bruce were having an affair,” she told him. “But she still seems smitten. I’m not sure he broke it off with her or that she would want to kill him. She doesn’t like Victoria at all, and she seems to think Victoria liked Bruce’s money more than Bruce.”

“You starting to lean toward the wife?” said Ryan.

“Yeah, but there’s still the alibi problem with her, too,” said Georgia, rubbing at a headache. “I’m really starting to question the whole alibi. It seems so weird. I don’t see why Cynthia would accept drinks with Victoria, unless she had ulterior motives. But who’s lying, and why? And how do we prove it?”

“Delia and Cynthia are definitely lying about something,” said Ryan.

“What do you mean?”

“I looked into Delia like I said I would,” said Ryan. “Delia’s Facebook profile says she went to the same high school as Cynthia. They are also listed as Facebook friends. Not that big of a deal. Doesn’t necessarily mean they knew each other. Plenty of people’s so-called friends on Facebook are barely acquaintances.”

“But?”

“But I kept digging. I found a copy of Cynthia’s resume and cover letter that she sent to get the secretary job in Bruce’s emails, and she used Delia as a personal reference to help her get the gig.”

“So they were both lying about hardly knowing each other?” said Georgia, her head spinning.

“Yep, and that’s not all. A Google search of Delia’s name gave me a review she posted for a hotel a few towns over. The review talks about what a great time she and her boyfriend had there.”

“So she has a boyfriend. So what?”

“The boyfriend is a mystery man. Her Facebook relationship status is listed as ‘It’s complicated,’ and her few posts about him are cryptic. Whenever she posted any little blip suggesting his existence, her friends had a commenting frenzy, but she never answered any of their questions.”

“Weird.”

“Yeah,” said Ryan. “I’m not sure how it ties in just yet, if it does at all, but it’s definitely worth a second look, especially since she’s angling for Bruce’s job. Maybe she got her mystery boyfriend to get him out of the way.”

“And just a second ago, I was sure it was Victoria,” said Georgia. “My head hurts.”

“We should do something fun tonight—relieve some stress.”

“Want to come over to my dad’s for pizza, beer, and a movie?”

“You are a classy lady, Miss Mason,” said Ryan. “Sounds like a blast. You sure Bill is down?”

“Positive. Maybe we’ll watch the
Godfather
. He’ll like that.”

Bill was in fact thrilled to hear that Ryan would be coming over.

“That kid makes me laugh,” he said.

“He’ll be here in half an hour. I should probably go ahead and order the pizza,” she said, pulling off her heels and wishing she’d stopped by her house to change into something more comfortable.

It was too late now. She needed some time to talk with her father before Ryan arrived.

“What do you want on it?” she said.

“Oh, I’ll eat anything; you know that. Just get what you and Ryan like.”

When the pizza was ordered, Georgia sat down on the living room couch and looked at her father sitting in his easy chair, Mittens curled up on his belly.

“Dad, how well do you know Delia Schultz?”

“The young blond agent at the office?”

“Yeah.”

“Why? Is this about the investigation?”

“Yes,” said Georgia, deciding it was best not to expound.

“I hired her. She was there about a year before I retired, but I don’t know much about her except that she’s got real talent and she’s very driven. Don’t know much about her personally.”

“So you don’t know if she was seeing anyone?”

“A boyfriend? Haven’t got a clue. Why is that important?”

“It may not be,” said Georgia with a sigh. Then, on a hunch, she said hesitantly, “What did Bruce think of her?”

“Oh, he was real fond of her,” said Bill with a small chuckle, looking down at Mittens as he petted her. “I think she may have been changing his opinions about women in the work force. Plus, ole Bruce always did appreciate a beautiful woman. He was always saying she had the hair of an angel and legs that wouldn’t quit.”

“He had a thing for her? Was it mutual?”

Bill gave Georgia a hard look. “Now, Georgia, you’ve got to quit that,” he said. “That was just Bruce. He was a flirt. It was his nature. It doesn’t mean he acted on every little attraction he had. He loved his wife! Told me so all the time. Quit going down that road.”

Georgia bit her tongue and said, “All right, Dad. Sorry I asked.” But under her breath she said, “The clues keep taking me down that road.”