Laura Bishop Cozy Mystery Boxed Set: Books 1-3

by Grace Topping

  Oh no, another one of Nita’s ideas. Her ideas once nearly put us in jail.

  I couldn’t believe this. Now we were delving into two murders. It was difficult enough trying to make sense of one, but two separate murders with no obvious connection were enough to make me reach into the cupboard for the bottle of Harvey’s—and it was only breakfast time. How did I get myself pulled into these things?

  Chapter 31

  Make sure every area of the house is spotless. Cleaning things like the top of the hot water heater shows buyers that the house has been well-maintained.

  While Nita and I worked that morning, I was able to get our minds off murders, wills, and huge inheritances. Hours flew by, and we made good progress.

  Nita snapped her laptop closed and stretched. “We now have an updated web page and a new Facebook page. But we have to keep posting to make them worthwhile.”

  “Nita, you are a jewel—in more ways than one. I hope Guido appreciates how wonderful you are.”

  She smiled. “Thankfully he does. And if he forgets, I don’t hesitate to remind him.”

  “Next we have to work on updating our inventory system. At the rate we’re accumulating things, if we don’t work on it, the system will be woefully out of date.”

  “Yeah, but first we have to think of a way to find out who else might have been named in Doris Becker’s will.” She picked up her things and walked to the door.

  “That may be a challenge,” I said.

  “No, it won’t.” Nita gave me an amused and calculated look. “I’ve worked out a plan. Meet me at my house tonight at nine and wear something old. Oh, and bring your vacuum cleaner.”

  Just before nine that evening, I pulled up in front of Nita’s house. She stood by the curb, wearing a baggy pair of jeans and a brown plaid shirt that hung almost to her knees, probably borrowed from Guido. In one hand she held a bucket with a mop inside it—the long mop handle resting on her shoulder.

  What in the world did she have in mind? Her crazy ideas had gotten us into trouble in the past, and I feared this was going to be another one of those occasions.

  “Did you bring the vacuum cleaner?” she asked.

  “It’s in the back. Nita, what is this all about?” I opened the back of my car and she deposited the bucket and mop.

  “We’re going to get into Ted’s office and search for that will.”

  “What? Nita are you crazy?” Nita’s cousin Ted Wojdakowski was handling Doris Becker’s estate.

  Nita got in the front seat. “I didn’t want to say anything earlier and give you time to think about it. Ted isn’t going to tell us anything, so that’s the only way we can find the information we need. We aren’t going to take anything. We are merely going to look and then leave. And we won’t disclose what we’ve learned unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

  I stood on the curb, not knowing whether to run away and leave her sitting in my car or go along with another one of her hair-brained ideas.

  Nita waved at me. “Come on, get in the car.”

  “And end up sharing a cell with Monica when we’re arrested for breaking and entering?” Of all the people in the second grade I could’ve made friends with, I picked the certifiably insane one. It was all Sister Madeleine’s fault—both for encouraging my friendship with Nita and for putting a guilt trip on me to help Monica.

  Nita held up a set of keys. “Who said anything about breaking and entering? We’ll go in looking like cleaning personnel, search, and get out of there. Easy.”

  “Where’d you get those?” I asked, eyeing the keys.

  Nita put them back in her pocket. “Let’s just say it’s good to have sympathetic relatives.”

  I got in my dented Corolla that had once belonged to my mother and started the motor. I still missed the Volvo I’d sold to help finance my staging business. What a stupid thought to come to mind—missing a luxury car when I wasn’t going to need one in prison.

  “You know where Ted’s office is?” Nita asked. “It’s in the professional building just down the street from the police station.”

  “That’ll make it convenient for the police to nab us in the middle of our search. Did you think to inquire if there are any alarms we need to turn off once we’re inside?” What was I talking about? Could I possibly be agreeing to this caper?

  “Alarm? Are you kidding? This is Louiston, not Manhattan. Pull into the parking lot in the back, and we’ll go in through the rear entrance.”

  As cleaner number one, I unloaded my vacuum cleaner, all the time wondering what the sentence was for unlawful entry.

  “Just act like a cleaning crew member who is going in for a scheduled cleaning,” Nita said.

  “And just how am I supposed to act, never having been the member of a cleaning crew?”

  “I don’t know. Try to look like you should be here and like you’ve had a hard day.”

  “The hard day part won’t be difficult.” The vacuum cleaner weighed a ton and I decided it would be easier if I wheeled it across the lot instead of carrying it.

  The rear parking lot was empty. “It looks like everyone’s gone. That’s good. With any luck, no one will be coming back this late at night.” Nita retrieved her bucket and mop and followed behind me.

  I looked up at the two-story building. “Some lights are still on.”

  “Those are the lights in the corridors.”

  When we reached the door, Nita inserted the largest of the keys into the lock. I kept hoping it wouldn’t work, but she turned it with little effort. I looked up to check for surveillance cameras that could be pointed at us. I then realized that wasn’t a smart thing to do. If there were cameras, they now had a clear view of my face.

  Nita held the door open while I dragged my vacuum inside, wishing mine was a lighter one. The only vacuum I had was my mother’s old Kirby, which was all metal and heavy. When the door closed behind us, all I could think of was the clang a jail cell makes as it closes behind a prisoner.

  When we arrived at Ted’s office, Nita again easily unlocked the door. I held my breath waiting as the seconds clicked away for an alarm to go off. When one didn’t, I released my breath, suddenly feeling faint. Nita had gotten us into some strange escapades, but this one had to be the worst.

  Nita switched lights on in the outer office.

  It was the first time I’d been in Ted’s office, and I wasn’t impressed. It was as basic as Sam Spade’s office looked in the movie version of the Dashiell Hammett’s Maltese Falcon. I put down my vacuum and eyed with distaste the thick border of dust around the edge of the carpet. “Whatever cleaning company Ted is using, they aren’t doing a good job. Look at how dusty the furniture is. Perhaps we should give it a cleaning, and if anyone finds us here, we could say we were doing it as a surprise for your cousin.”

  “This isn’t the time to be evaluating the place.” Nita grabbed a rag from the bucket she had left by the door and tossed it at me. “Here, you start dusting, and if anyone comes in unexpectedly, they’ll catch you in the act of cleaning, and we can then bluff our way out. I’ll search. Fortunately, Ted doesn’t have a huge practice, so it shouldn’t take long.”

  Not ready to leave the searching to Nita, I went over to the secretary’s desk looking for a folder marked “Becker.” As I searched, I brushed away the crumbs that had accumulated on the desktop. Whoever the secretary was, she ate at her desk. And from the looks of it, she did that a lot. As I worked, I forced myself to resist the urge to straighten things a bit. My desk was covered with papers, but it never looked as bad as this.

  Just then, I heard the sound of the nearby elevator doors open. My heart started to beat wildly. “Nita, I think someone’s coming.”

  She stopped what she was doing, gently pushed closed the file drawer she had been going through, and grabbed another cloth. For all her bravado, she looked as nervous as I fe
lt. To think we were going through all this for Monica, who had been hateful to us all our lives. Sister Madeleine would tell us that we were building up treasure in our treasure chest in heaven for helping others. Of course, I don’t know what she would say about our illegal search of Ted’s office.

  A few long minutes later when the elevator sounded again, I let out a sigh of relief. “It could have been a night watchman making rounds.”

  Nita switched off the lights in Ted’s office. “I don’t know what to say. I couldn’t find a folder of any kind for Doris Becker. Did you find anything?”

  I shook my head. “Maybe he has a vault somewhere else in the building where he stores documents. If that’s the case, we’ll never be able to get to them.” I drew the line at safe cracking.

  The window in the outer office looked out over the rear parking lot. We heard what sounded like a small panel truck pulling into the lot. My mouth went dry.

  Nita turned off the overhead light and peered between the Venetian blind panels. “A panel truck just parked. Oh my gosh. It’s another cleaning service. Let’s get out of here.”

  I switched off the one remaining light, and we grabbed our equipment, heading for the door. Nita locked it behind us, and we rushed to the stairs to avoid passing anyone coming up in the elevator.

  After lugging the heavy Kirby down to the ground floor, my arms ached, and I resolved to get a cleaning service so I’d never have to handle a vacuum again. Well, maybe someday when I could afford it.

  We waited in the stairwell on the ground floor until we heard the whoosh of the elevator going up. We then raced down the hall to the rear entrance. When we reached the door, we forced ourselves to slow down and not look suspicious as we left the building and casually walked across the parking lot—or as casually as I could with the heavy Kirby in my arms.

  Once we loaded our equipment into my car and got in, every part of my body began to shake so much I wasn’t sure I’d be able to drive home. “I don’t care what they say about orange being the new black. I just wouldn’t look good in it.”

  “You worry too much,” Nita said, but I noticed that she looked a bit flushed.

  “I’ll remind you of that when Bruiser Betty pins you against a cell wall.”

  “No folders. You know what that means, don’t you?”

  I moaned. “We have to ask Ted about the will.”

  Chapter 32

  Store away bills, private papers, and valuables before potential buyers start touring your house.

  The next morning, after our fruitless search of Ted’s office, Nita and I stood in front of his office building again.

  I checked my watch for the third time. We were early for office hours, but if we could catch Ted before his clients started to arrive, we might be able to get into see him and, with any luck, get the information we needed. “I have a feeling this is going to be a waste of time, just like last night. Ted probably won’t tell us a thing about what’s in the will.”

  “It’s not like it’s a state secret.” Nita chewed on her thumbnail, something she only did if she was nervous or embarrassed. “If somebody else had a copy, they could tell us, without breaking client confidentiality. Unfortunately, Ted had always been close-mouthed, even when we were kids. Must come from the Polish side of his family.”

  “Who else could have a copy? Maybe Ian? If so, it might have been among the things he left at the B&B.”

  “Unfortunately, his things are no longer there. Neil said Detective Spangler sent him out there to get Ian’s belongings. Maybe you could ask Detective Spangler if he found a copy of the will.”

  I grimaced. “We can forget that. Even if he did, could you in your wildest dreams imagine Detective Spangler letting me read it?”

  “Maybe, if you two got along better.” Nita shook her head as though it was a mystery to her why I didn’t get along with Detective Spangler.

  It wasn’t a mystery to me, especially after I couldn’t convince him Tyrone was incapable of murdering someone. I kept thinking of all those days Tyrone spent in jail.

  “I don’t think Ted is going to tell us anything. And your stupid idea of us getting into his office last night had to have been your worst idea yet.”

  “Well, you went along with it. If we’d found the information we needed, you would now be thinking it was a terrific idea.” Nita began chewing on her other thumbnail. She must be feeling more nervous than she was letting on.

  “I went along with your idea only because we were desperate,” I admitted. “Now we still have to convince Ted to share the information with us.”

  Nita pondered that for a few seconds. “That may be difficult. Even as kids he wasn’t good at sharing.”

  I threw up my hands, wanting to give this up as a lost cause.

  “Okay, let’s go.” Nita started toward the front entrance of the building. “We’ll just have to brazen it out with Ted and see what he’ll tell us. Too bad I don’t have some family history to blackmail him with. He was always so proper.”

  Reaching the second floor, we turned the corner only to find Ted standing at the door of his office. He must have come in from a back entrance. With his key in hand, he was ready to unlock the door.

  “You guys are up early. What brings you here?” Ted unlocked the door and switched on the lights. “My secretary hasn’t even arrived yet.” He looked around him, as though noticing something was different but unable to put his finger on what. Probably the fact that his secretary’s desk was no longer covered in food remains.

  Nita didn’t waste any time. “We wanted to see you before you got busy. Do you have a second?”

  Ted eyed us suspiciously. “Why do I think this is going to give me heartburn, even before my first cup of coffee?”

  We followed him into his office, which looked all too familiar. I spotted a rag we had dropped there the night before and used my foot to push it under a chair. Could the police find fingerprints on cloth?

  “Sorry to bother you, Ted, but we are looking for some information. You’ve heard about Damian Reynolds’s murder? Nita and I want to help Monica Heller, who’s accused of his murder.”

  A pained look crossed his face. “Yeah. Heard you guys caught her in the act. Sure am glad I’m not representing her.” Ted put his briefcase on his desk, switched on his desk lamp, and sat down. We took the two seats in front of him.

  I sat forward in my chair and was sorry I did when it emitted a loud squeak. “We didn’t see Monica stab him. We only saw her with a knife in her hands. But that’s beside the point. To help her, we need to see if there’s a connection between Damian Reynolds’s murder and Ian Becker’s murder.”

  Ted put his head back, stared at the ceiling, and then sighed. The sigh of someone who wanted to tell us we were crazy but too polite to do so.

  “Why do you two keep getting involved in things like this? There is no connection.”

  Nita huffed. “Maybe there is but no one has made that connection yet.”

  I hoped if I could get his attention focused on me, he would forget the antagonism he and Nita had built up as cousins. “According to his phone records, Ian called you when he got into town. Can you tell us what he had to say?”

  “Yes, he did. But we only talked long enough to set up an appointment for him to come in. But he never came.”

  I sensed Ted was going to be out of patience with us soon. “Let’s make it simple. All we want to do is find out who else was named in Doris Becker’s will and if someone could have benefitted from Ian’s death. Then we can follow the trail to see if there could be a link between the two murders.”

  “A will names the beneficiaries. But it depends on how a will is written as to who would get his portion if he died—his heirs, if any—or if his share is to be divided among any other heirs named in the will. And that’s all I’m going to say.” His face reddened when he realized wha
t he had just insinuated. So there had been more heirs named. But that still didn’t help us know who they were.

  Nita went in firing both guns. “Come on, Ted. You always had a thing about Monica. Don’t you want to see her proved innocent?”

  “I didn’t—”

  “You did.” Nita looked smug. She’d found something to use. “When we were in school and you drove me anywhere, how was it we always passed Monica’s house on the way?”

  I almost felt sorry for him. Having Nita as a cousin couldn’t be easy. “Ted, you’ve got to help us so we can help Monica.”

  Ted reached for his briefcase, opened it, and pulled out a folder. “I’d like to help you out, Laura.” Ted tapped on the folder. “But what’s in Doris Becker’s will is confidential.”

  So that’s where the will had been. He had taken it home the night before. No wonder Nita and I couldn’t find it.

  I tried to hide my frustration. “Yes, but your client is dead. And her nephew, Ian Becker, is dead. The information will eventually be made available to the public when probate is filed. Couldn’t you just speed up the process so we can see who the beneficiaries are now?”

  “Think of Monica sitting in jail—wearing orange and not looking her gorgeous self.” Nita was digging deep.

  We heard a door close outside Ted’s office.

  “Excuse me for a minute. I need to see if that’s my first appointment.” With that he got up and left the room, closing the door behind him.

  Nita jumped up and reached across the desk for the folder.

  “Nita! You can’t do that.”

  “Watch me.” With that, she opened the folder and flipped through the pages, paused, and then just as quickly returned the folder.

  She’d barely sat down again when the door opened. For a second I was certain my heart had stopped beating, and I wasn’t sure it would start again.

  “Okay, guys, I’ve got a client waiting, so I need for you to leave. Sorry I couldn’t help you.”