The Secret Keeper (26 page)

I found it hard to imagine that Gregory Fowler would go around bilking major clients. Richard’s side of the family was dysfunctional enough for both sides. And I wondered, even if they looked at the books under a microscope, how they might feel qualified to spot any discrepancies if there were any. They could probably insist on a second independent audit, but I had no idea what might be involved there.

I had little doubt that, no matter how much money Clarence Bement might have left, they would insist there had to be more. I could see the storm clouds brewing on the horizon, and I didn’t envy Gregory Fowler.

Well, the financial squabbling was none of my business. Time to get back on track.

“Do you have any specific evidence for such an accusation? Has Gregory been buying yachts or mansions or living extravagantly enough to cause suspicion?”

He took another swig of his drink. “No, he’s way too smart for that. But he’s doing it, mark my words. He’s got it stashed somewhere, I know that.”

“But, again, you have no real evidence.”

“I don’t need any. He’s a thief.”

Well, that settled it, then. The old “don’t bother me with facts, my mind’s made up” theorem. 

I glanced at my watch. “Ah!” I said. “I’ve got to get going! Are you sure you won’t let me get the drinks?”

He shook his head. “On me.”

“Well, thanks,” I said, finishing my drink. I got up and extended my hand. “I appreciate the information.” 

“Any time.” As I started to leave, he said, “Oh, one more thing.”

I turned back to him. “Yes?”

“Why did the police come around wanting to inspect my car?”

I shook my head. “Beats me,” I said. And then I left.

Was it possible, I wondered while driving home, that Gregory Fowler had been dipping into Clarence Bement’s piggy bank? I suppose he could, if he were able to get around a yearly independent audit, but why would he? Not everybody’s a crook. Gregory was a CPA, had a clean bill of health from the police, ran his own company, and apparently had been doing well for himself all these years. His wife and children had just come into a hefty fortune. It didn’t make much sense for him to tap the till.

*

I was fixing a second pot of coffee Thursday morning at the office when I remembered something Jonathan had said some time ago—that Clarence had a yard service come in on Fridays. Could a couple of them have been pressed into service as witnesses to the signing of the will? It wasn’t as if it required any special training—just verifying that you’d watched the process.

While I hated to bother Jonathan at work, and didn’t know if he was working in the nursery’s yard or out with a crew on a job, I called Evergreen. I was told he was in but working in the back of the lot. Rather than have someone go out and get him, I just left a message asking him to call me as soon as he could.

Ten minutes later, he called back.

“What’s up?”

“Sorry to bother you at work, Babe, but I was wondering. You said Mr. Bement had a yard service come in every Friday afternoon. Was it a lawn maintenance company or just a bunch of guys?”

He was silent a moment, then said, “I’m not sure. It was just three guys in a green pickup with a patched-up rear taillight. There was a name on the truck, but I don’t remember what it was. I think they work for several people in the area. I know I passed them other days when I was going to Mr. Bement’s. I’m really sorry I can’t remember the name.”

“No problem,” I said. “I can take a drive over to Briarwood and see if I might spot them.”

“Good luck,” he said. He didn’t ask why I was looking for them, but that was typical of him. He knew I had a reason and didn’t feel he needed to know what it was.

I waited until around noon, figuring it would be a good time to catch them if they were in the area.

*

I’d driven up and down several streets surrounding Clarence Bement’s home before spotting a green pickup loaded with lawn equipment parked in the driveway of a Mount Vernon look-alike. Two men were working in front, and I heard the sound of a lawnmower coming from somewhere just out of sight around the building.

Noting the truck had a cracked taillight held in place with what looked like duct tape, I pulled up behind it, got out, and approached the workers.

“Is one of you the boss?” I asked. They looked at one another, then one pointed to the left side of the house. 

“Jim. He’s mowing in the back.”

I thanked them and headed in the direction of the sound of the mower.

Seeing me, the guy behind the mower—Jim, my incisive detective’s mind told me—continued his swath until it brought him closer to me. He turned off the mower and said, “Can I help you?”

A decent-looking guy in his early thirties, he was wearing a tight white tee shirt with prominent sweat stains under the armpits. The day was unseasonably warm for late fall, and being in the sun for a couple hours must have been downright hot, but there must have been some unwritten rule that frowned on anyone’s working shirtless in such a wealthy neighborhood. A bad rule, I thought, since Jim definitely had a body built for being shirtless.

“You work for Clarence Bement, right?”

“Yeah. Every Friday. Why?”

“Did you know he’d died?”

He shook his head. “No, but I was wondering why we hadn’t seen him out in his back yard. Sorry about that. He seemed like a nice old man. Nobody’s told us to stop going, but if he’s dead, I wonder who’ll be paying the bill.”

“I’m sure that won’t be a problem,” I said. “You just send a bill to Mr. Bement?”

“We invoice every month—I sent him a bill last week. You sure there won’t be a problem in our getting paid?”

I shook my head. “No, I’m sure there won’t be. I was curious as to whether he may have asked you to witness a document? Say around the seventeenth of the month?”

He looked at me rather suspiciously. “Why are you asking?”

“I’m a private investigator doing some work for one of Mr. Bement’s relatives, and I was led to believe you might have been asked to serve as a witness to a signing.”

“Yeah. Me and Chuck. There was a lawyer there, and he gave us each twenty bucks.”

“And you saw Mr. Bement sign it?”

“Yeah. He signed it, then we signed it.”

A wave of relief swept over me. “That’s great,” I said. “Thanks. That’s all I needed to know.”

He shrugged. “No problem.”

I turned back toward my car and heard the lawnmower sputter back to life.

As I passed the pickup, I saw “J.G. Lawn Care” on the door. I made a mental note of it and the phone number.

One of the other two men looked up as I got into my car, and I gave him a wave, then took a notepad out of my glove compartment and wrote down the name and phone number. Tearing the sheet off the pad, I put it in my shirt pocket then turned on the ignition and left.

*

l didn’t hear from Mel until Friday morning at around ten.

“Hi, Dick. I just got back into town. What have you found out?”

I told him of tracking down the witnesses to the will.

“While I don’t know if it will do any good, you might contact the lawyer—Weaver—to see what he has to say. I don’t know if just having someone verify that they witnessed the signing would be enough to negate the original will and put the new one into effect, but you can’t lose anything by asking.”

“I’ll call him as soon as I hang up with you. Thanks, Dick! Now all we have to do is find out who killed Grandpa B.”

“And Eli Prescott,” I amended. “And we still have to find the will. Even with sworn witnesses, you might have trouble having it supersede the original. But if it is, by chance, still out there somewhere, we’ll find it.” I waited a second, then said, “You know, I still can’t understand why Richard’s boys are so thoroughly convinced your dad was ripping your grandfather off. Do you have any idea where they might have gotten the idea, other than thinking the estate should have been larger than it was? Is there anything—anything at all you can think of—that might have led them to think that way?”

“Well, it wasn’t quite as large as I’d thought, either, but how would I know? Grandpa B had been retired for a lot of years, and with everyone constantly having their hand out, wanting more, it’s not surprising.

“My dad is as honest as the day is long, and if it was anybody else making such rotten statements, I’d be really pissed. But considering the source, I’d almost expect it.” Suddenly, he paused. Quite a long pause, then, “There’s no way they could have found out about Monrovia, and even if they did, Dad didn’t know anything about it.”

“Monrovia?” 

“Yeah. When I was a kid my folks took me and Pat on a wild animal safari, and I’ve been fascinated with Africa ever since. Mom and Dad have been there several times, and about a month before Grandpa B died, I had a chance to juggle my schedule in order to go.

“I told you Grandpa B supported a lot of overseas charities, and one of them was a wildlife refuge in Liberia. I told him Liberia was one of my stops, and he asked if I’d be willing to visit the refuge. I told him sure.

“But when I got to Monrovia and went to their headquarters to get directions, I found it was just an empty office on some dirty side street. There
was
no refuge. Obviously, it was a scam, and someone was just ripping off supporters. The minute I got back to the States I told both my dad and Grandpa B, and Dad cut off all funding immediately. I wouldn’t be surprised if Esmirelda overheard us and reported it to Uncle Richard. I’m sure that’s the kind of thing he and the boys would love to sink their teeth into.”

“Well, as you say, I don’t think they really need proof of anything—suspicions are enough.”

“So, I’d better call Mr. Weaver right now. I’ll let you know what happens.”

“Do that, please,” I said.

“Maybe we can get together for a drink sometime,” he said. “You, and Jonathan, of course.”

“We’d like that,” I said, and meant it.
Really
meant it.

Down, boy!

*

Half an hour later, Mel called back. 

“He said it might be possible to recognize the new will,” he said, “but that it would be a long, drawn-out procedure. Richard and the boys are between a rock and a hard place. They can’t get a penny until it’s all resolved, yet I really think they believe the new will will cut them out entirely. 

“And a court battle could drag on for years. Still, I talked with Mom, as co-executor of the original will, and she said we should go ahead. Mr. Weaver says we’ll need affidavits from the witnesses to start. And he’ll need the names and addresses—do you have them?”

“I have the phone number, and if they need me to, I can do the calling to get the exact information they need.”

“Great. Why don’t you give me what you have, and I’ll see how he wants to handle it.”

I got out the piece of paper on which I’d written the information from the side of the truck and gave it to him.

“I’m curious,” I said. “Has anyone actually read the new will, other than Weaver and whoever it was who stole Eli Prescott’s signed copies?”

“No. Mr. Weaver says he hasn’t read it himself. He says even though both Eli Prescott and Grandpa B are dead, it still falls under lawyer-client confidentiality, and he can’t let anyone see it until it’s read.”

“Understood,” I said. “Although, of course, whoever stole the signed copies Eli Prescott had in his possession knows very well what’s in it.”

We talked for a few more minutes, then hung up.

As I was getting ready to leave the office, I got a call from Detective Angell—I did love that name.

“News on the Prescott incident,” he said.

“You found the car that forced him off the road?

“We think so. You were right about its being a black Mercedes. We found it in Clarence Bement’s garage. They’re doing the paint match now, but I’m pretty sure it will prove to be the one. We questioned the housekeeper, but she claims to have no knowledge of it, and says Bement often loaned it to his family.”

“Yeah, but how would they have gotten the key? And I don’t think anything goes on around that house she isn’t aware of. I’ll bet you she knows exactly who took the car, and when.”

“She said the key was kept in the garage, where anyone in the family could get to it. We asked her about the Sunday of Prescott’s ‘accident,’ and she says she goes to seven a.m. mass every Sunday, so if somebody took it while she was at church, she wouldn’t have known.”

“Good story, but I don’t know if I buy it. She uses the Mercedes to go shopping and to run errands. I wouldn’t be the least surprised if she also took it to church. Which means if someone else drove it that Sunday, she’d probably have had to know about it in advance. Getting her to admit it is the problem.”

“Well, if the paint matches, we’ll have another talk with her. No point in doing it until we’re absolutely sure.”

“Understood.” 

We hung up shortly thereafter, and I was left just about where I’d been before the call came in.

*

Police lieutenant Mark Richman, with whom I’d worked on a number of cases, had a gay teenage son, Craig, whose services as a babysitter we used whenever we had the opportunity to go somewhere without Joshua. We were lucky in that not only was Craig a great kid but that Joshua looked on him as an older brother and a pal, and Craig, who had a slightly younger brother at home, was terrific with the boy.