The Complete H-Series of The Eulalie Park Mysteries

by Fiona Snyckers

  Eulalie didn’t hesitate. “Definitely.”

  This was something she could safely promise. It was a standard policy of the police department.

  “It was Natalie who approached me. She told me about Waylon Construction being in trouble and about their personal problems too. She didn’t mention that she was the one who had caused their financial insecurity, but I knew it was true. She always was a spendthrift.”

  “Did Howard know about it?”

  “Oh, yes. As you said, he was the one who was due to meet with the guy from New York. The one who didn’t know about it was his brother, Herbert. Howard was hoping to talk Herbert around after he had secured the contract for Waylon Construction. It wouldn’t have been too difficult. Herbert is an upright kind of guy, but his first loyalty is to the company. He wouldn’t have wanted to see it go under, and that’s exactly what was going to happen thanks to the lawsuit and the drop in client confidence. Herbert wouldn’t have liked it, but he would have done what it took to save the company.”

  “So, your role was to persuade Parks and Forestry to back an amendment to the legislation that declared the deep forest a protected heritage site?”

  “That’s right. I was supposed to push the line that it was outdated legislation that was holding the island back – stopping us from reaching our full potential and leading to job losses. That bit about the starving kids I added myself.” He sounded proud of it.

  “Where did your brother-in-law go when he disappeared? And does Natalie really not know where he is?”

  “Natalie really doesn’t know where he is, and she’s mad as hell about it. She couldn’t be faking that. I’d know if she was. Howard had better stay where he is, because Natalie is going to cut him with a rusty knife if he shows his face around here again.”

  “Where did he go and why did he run?” asked Eulalie. “If you can answer those questions, you will be doing a lot to help the police investigation.”

  “I haven’t a clue where he is, but I think he ran when the guy from New York didn’t show up for the appointment. He had been counting on the Megamoxy deal to rehabilitate him financially. When that looked as though it fell through, I think he panicked and ran. He didn’t see another way out of the mess.”

  “And you have no idea where he might have gone?”

  “You’re asking the wrong person. If anyone knows where he is, it’s Herbert. Those two are practically joined at the hip. When I said Herbert’s first loyalty was to the company, I should actually have said that it was to his brother first and the company second.”

  “I was there when Natalie came into his office and demanded to know where Howard was. She threw a bunch of keys at him and cut his face open and he still didn’t tell. It seemed as though he really didn’t know.”

  Dominic shrugged. “They’re close. That’s all I’m saying.”

  “What about a man calling himself Lord Peter Pringle? Do you know anything about him?”

  “Never heard of him, but that title sounds fake. Prince William Island is full of phonies, especially in high season.”

  Chapter 21

  Chief Macgregor phoned as Eulalie was leaving the governor’s office.

  “Dr. Autry’s autopsy report just landed on my desk,” he said. “The man was in his mid-forties and in good health. He died about two weeks ago, judging by how the fluids in his body have settled.”

  “Cause of death?”

  “Suffocation. He had mud in his lungs. It seems as though he tried to hold his breath for as long as possible, but when he released it, he aspirated mud.”

  Eulalie shivered. “Not a pleasant way to die.”

  “He seems to have struggled against the mud. There are signs that he thrashed around with his limbs.”

  “That only makes it worse. You sink faster that way. It’s better to keep still, but of course people panic. It’s only natural.”

  “Dr. Autry says there are no signs that he was attacked or overpowered in any way before he sank into the mud. That doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, of course, just that there are no signs of it.”

  “You’d have to see the riverbed to realize how easy it is to step into one of those patches of quicksand. The only surprise is that he managed to do as much digging as he did before one of the soft patches got him. There’s a reason the villagers give that area a wide berth, Chief. It’s a dangerous place.”

  “He had no identification on him,” said Chief Macgregor. “We have no way of knowing who he was. We’re starting the process of identification – submitting his fingerprints and dental records to international data bases, getting his face out into the media, that kind of thing.”

  “Perhaps I can save you some time. There was a Russian man present at one of the preliminary meetings between Megamoxy and Sawyer Blakely. He was a potential investor and an acquaintance of Blakely’s. There was some discussion about the possible presence of mammoth tusks in an old riverbed in the forest. They discussed using the money from the sale of the ivory as another income stream to finance the theme-park. When Sawyer Blakely saw the digging that had been going on in the riverbed, just before he died, he immediately thought of the Russian man.”

  There was quite a long silence as Chief Macgregor processed this.

  “I’m tempted to ask how you know what Sawyer Blakely was thinking just before he died, but I don’t think I’d like the answer.”

  “You wouldn’t,” Eulalie agreed.

  “I’m also tempted to ask whether the fact that you know what was going through Blakely’s mind at the moment of his death means that you also know who killed him.”

  “Don’t.”

  “I believe you would turn over any relevant information in this murder investigation as soon as you were sure of your facts.”

  Now it was Eulalie’s turn for silence. If they had been face-to-face she would have told him more, but they were speaking on a police department phone line.

  Were calls in and out of the department recorded?

  She thought there was at least a fifty per cent chance that they were. While she trusted Chief Macgregor, she didn’t trust his channels of communication.

  “You’re right, Chief. The moment I have any evidence at all as to who killed Sawyer Blakely, I will turn it over to you.”

  Dreams were not evidence – not by any definition of the word.

  “Right,” said Chief Macgregor. His voice contained a world of understanding. “You’ve given me a good lead. I should have the dead man’s identity within a few hours. In the meantime, can you come in to the department?”

  “Now?” she said. “I was on my way to Waylon Construction.”

  “Now would be best. We’ve booked a Skype call with Lady Mary Coke in Leicester, England. She has agreed to give us some time in the next half hour. She was reluctant. I got the impression that if I tried to change the time, she would cancel. I find her difficult to deal with. She reminds me of a certain type of person I was at boarding school with. I struggled to read people like that then, and apparently, I’m no better at it now.”

  “The English aristocrat.”

  “That’s right. They hide their feelings behind a set of social conventions. I’m convinced we’ll get more out of her if you do the interview than if I do.”

  Eulalie found she was rather keen to speak to someone who might be able to tell her more about the man calling himself Lord Peter Pringle.

  “I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

  The young woman sitting in an office on the other side of the world was attractive in a very English way. Naturally slim and bony, she might become horsey as she aged, but for now the softness of youth concealed the prominence of her upper jaw and gave her a dewy appearance.

  She was working in public relations at a blue-chip company – a very acceptable job for a woman of her station and private income. Her voice was loud and confident, and she had a habit of talking over people.

  “Thank you for agreeing to talk to us, Lady Mary,”
said Eulalie. Her manner was polite but not deferential. A woman like this would eat deference for breakfast.

  “I thought I’d be speaking to the delicious Scotsman,” she brayed. “How disappointing.”

  “Chief Macgregor is right here, but I’ll be the one conducting the interview.”

  Chief Macgregor moved into Lady Mary’s line of sight.

  “Oh, there he is! Excellent.”

  “We want to ask if you have ever come across a man by the name…”

  “What’s that accent?” Lady Mary cut across Eulalie’s question. “Is it French? It sounds a bit French, but also a bit American.”

  “It’s the island accent, Lady Mary. Most Prince William Islanders sound like this. I’m actually calling because…”

  “It’s pretty,” she interrupted. “Is English your first language?”

  “It’s my third language. Most islanders have English or French as their first language.”

  “Well, it sounds as though it’s your first language. I wish I could speak more languages. I have a little schoolgirl French, but that’s all.”

  Eulalie took a breath. She needed to take control of this interview.

  “Lady Mary,” she said forcefully. “Do you know a man by the name of Lord Peter Pringle?”

  “Never heard of him. Should I? What a peculiar name anyway. Not the Peter so much as the Pringle. Mind you, a lot of our old families married Americans in the twenties and thirties. For the money, you know. That introduced some rather strange names.”

  Eulalie found a picture she had taken of Pringle on her phone on the night of Fleur’s roofie-ing. She held it up to the camera.

  “What about this man, Lady Mary? Have you ever seen him before?”

  She barely glanced at the phone. “Never seen him before in my…”

  Then she looked again, and her face grew still.

  “Are you okay, Lady Mary? You don’t look well.”

  The woman clutched the desk in front of her to steady herself.

  “Just… give me a minute. I’m sorry. It was just the shock. Seeing him again after all this time.”

  Eulalie gave her a moment to compose herself.

  “You recognize this man, but you knew him by some other name, perhaps? Not Lord Peter Pringle?”

  “That isn’t Lord Peter whatever. That is Sir Richard Trevisian who stole fifty thousand pounds from me. He was my… we were engaged. We were going to get married last spring.”

  “How did you meet him?”

  “He was staying at the same hotel in London as I was. I was there for a conference. The company was putting us up at a Businessman’s Lodge. You know the style of thing. One tiny shower stall and not enough room to swing a cat. So, Daddy said I should stay at the Four Seasons instead and enjoy a little comfort. I went down to reception to complain that my television was fuzzy, and Richard and I got to the desk at the same time. He immediately stood back with that charming smile of his and invited me to go first. After that, we had a drink in the lobby and things progressed from there.”

  “Did you ever meet his family or friends, or anyone who had known him for a long time?”

  “His family lived in Hong Kong – part of the diplomatic service. They were going to come out for the wedding. As for friends, there were a couple, but they were people he had met through business not old school friends or anything like that.”

  “What line of work was he in?”

  “He was growing his family’s money by investing it in various ventures. He had been incredibly successful. Where families like ours were selling their old houses to the National Trust and moving into two-bedroom flats in London, Richard was making a killing.”

  “Did he offer to let you in on one of his investments?”

  “You’re telling me he’s done this before.” Lady Mary’s voice was bitter. “I suppose that makes sense. Yes, he got me to the point where I was begging to be included in one of his schemes. I actually had to persuade him to take my money and invest it. I was such a fool.”

  “He disappeared?”

  “Like a will o’ the wisp. I could never trace his friends or family after that. He vanished, and my money vanished with him.”

  “Lady Mary, I’m wondering if you ever noticed anything off about him? His accent, his general knowledge, his manners? Did they never strike you as a little… not quite right?”

  “Oh yes, but that came from having been brought up in the colonies. People who are educated abroad often sound a little peculiar – even if they come from the best families.”

  “You’ve probably realized by now that Sir Richard Trevisian was an alias, just as Lord Peter Pringle is too. Did he ever give you details about his background that might have been authentic? Anything that could help us find out who he really is?”

  Lady Mary thought for a moment. She seemed to have thrown off her initial shakiness and to be excited at the prospect of helping to catch the man who had swindled her.

  “You know what?” she said. “I got the impression that the men he introduced me to as his friends really were his friends. There was a rapport between them – a closeness. I don’t know how to describe it, but it struck me as genuine.”

  “Can you remember their names?”

  “The one was an American – a typical New Yorker. I believe his name was Sawyer. Sawyer something. The other was Russian. Richard and Sawyer referred to him as JD – the initials, you know. I think I heard his full name once, but it was Russian and difficult to pronounce so I called him JD too.”

  Eulalie was aware of Chief Macgregor tapping and swiping at his iPad as Lady Mary spoke. He slid it across to Eulalie and she glanced at the screen.

  It was a split-screen image of Sawyer Blakely taken from his Linked In profile. Alongside it was an artist’s impression of what the man from the riverbed would have looked like in life with his eyes open. She held them up to the camera.

  “Do you recognize either of these men?”

  Lady Mary looked startled. “Yes. That one on the left is Sawyer, definitely. The one on the right is quite a good sketch of JD, except his jaw is not as square as that.”

  Eulalie saw Chief Macgregor making a note of this.

  “Where are they?” asked Lady Mary. “What happened to them?”

  “Sawyer Blakely is dead, and a man who matches this sketch is dead too, although his identity hasn’t been confirmed yet.”

  There was a shocked silence. “And Richard? Is he… is he dead too?”

  “No, I saw him yesterday. He is still conning women into giving him money to invest on their behalf, but he’s fine.”

  “What has he got mixed up in if both his friends are dead?”

  “Did he ever mention a company by the name of Megamoxy?”

  “Of course. That was the company that made him so much money. It’s a Texas-based organization that builds theme-parks all over the world. Richard had made a fortune investing in their various enterprises. He was trying for a spot on the board. He knew that American companies like to be able to put a title on the letterhead. He said they were keen to have him. That was part of what convinced me to give him my money to invest.”

  “Did he promise to invest it in Megamoxy?”

  “No, he said there weren’t any opportunities there at the moment, but he promised to invest my money in a diverse portfolio of similar fast-growing businesses. There was nothing fake about Megamoxy. It was a company I could Google to see how well they were doing.”

  “Did he mention any other names while you were together? People, companies, places – anything that could help us find out who he really is?”

  “Not that I can think of, but I always thought that the Hong Kong thing was probably true. Or at least that he’d lived there for a while. We were in a Chinese restaurant once and he spoke Cantonese to the waiter. They carried on a whole conversation in that language. He wasn’t faking that.”

  Eulalie thought that was about as much as she was going to get from this inte
rview.

  “Thanks for your time, Lady Mary. If we manage to get him in custody, you’ll have a claim against him. Your money is probably long gone, but you never know. He might still have it stashed somewhere.”

  Lady Mary said that she would like just five minutes alone with Sir Richard Trevisian to make him sorry he was ever born. Then she waggled her fingers in farewell at Chief Macgregor and closed the connection.

  Eulalie and Chief Macgregor looked at each other.

  “Interesting that he kept her away from Megamoxy,” he commented. “It suggests that he knew he was going to disappear and didn’t want Lady Mary turning up on their doorstep demanding money.”

  “And now he’s actively encouraging Fleur to invest in Megamoxy. I wonder what’s changed.”

  “Perhaps he really intends to invest the money for her instead of just running off with it.”

  “Or maybe he intends to put the money into Megamoxy without ever paying Fleur back. I think that’s the most likely scenario.”

  “Agreed,” said Chief Macgregor.

  “You can use the Hong Kong connection to investigate Pringle. And the initials JD to identify the riverbed man.”

  “We’ll get onto that. What are you going to do now?”

  “I’m on my way to Waylon Construction. The Waylon brothers were the only serious bidders to undertake the job of building Megamoxy’s theme-park. Now one of them has gone missing. His brother-in-law in the Parks and Forestry office suggested to me that if anyone knows where he is, it’s the remaining brother, Herbert. I’m going to see if I can get him to talk.”

  Chief Macgregor walked across to the window and stared out at the little slice of City Hall that was visible from his office. “Do you ever feel as though Prince William Island is under attack?”

  “You mean lately? I feel like that all the time. But I also feel as though the island is fighting back.”

  “Well, the riverbed swallowed the man who wanted to plunder its treasures. And someone killed Sawyer Blakely.” His eyes rested on Eulalie’s face. When she said nothing, he nodded. “You’re right – the island is fighting back.”