We’d found out that Max Wilder was a con man and was up to something. Since I’d inadvertently provided him with an ironclad alibi, obviously he couldn’t have set the fire that night, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t involved with the murderer.
Could somebody have discovered that we’d been checking up on Max? Michelle had only tracked it all down that morning, and surely that was too soon for anybody to have connected her with us. Even if Max had seen through my disguise at Dusty’s immediately, I didn’t think he’d had the opportunity to call and warn anybody about me. Besides, anybody he would have called would have then known I was with him, and not in the house.
I wasn’t ready to cross Max off of our list, but whatever the murderer was afraid of, it wasn’t what we’d found out about him.
Then I thought back to how we’d become suspicious of Max in the first place. I didn’t think Grace or Max had seen me the night I saw the two of them together, but what if one of them had? Max was in the clear, but Grace wasn’t.
Even though Grace wasn’t from Byerly, she could have heard enough about me and Richard to be worried that we might be taking an interest in her plots, especially since we’d had a chance to look at Marshall’s files. It was hard to imagine her getting her hands dirty with a Molotov cocktail, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t have done it. I’ve done plenty of things that people have trouble imagining.
There was no way to check Grace’s whereabouts right then, but I put that at the top of my mental list of things to do.
What else did we have? All I could think of were Marshall’s computer files. Sure, I’d looked at them before without finding anything, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t something there. I’m a computer geek, not a statistics geek. Maybe if I looked at them hard enough, I could figure it out.
My eyes must have gotten used to the dark because I was able to tiptoe into the bedroom and get my laptop and the stack of paper files without stubbing a toe. Then I went back to my spot on the stairs and booted up, glad that I’d recently recharged the battery. I had three to four hours of power—the battery would probably last longer than I would.
At it turned out, it was a close call. The first discovery came quickly because I knew more than I had when I looked at the files before. This time I knew Max Wilder was up to something. In a set of productivity graphs, Marshall had documented the mill’s equipment failures. The pattern of those failures correlated with a graph of sick time used, and that graph correlated neatly with the overtime hours listed in Max’s file. In other words, I had circumstantial evidence that while dear, sweet Max substituted for others, he had committed sabotage.
Oddly enough, Marshall had left himself a note attached to the graph of sick time used, wondering if the illnesses had led to the equipment failures, reasoning that sick workers might make mistakes that healthy ones wouldn’t. Was that camouflage in case somebody else saw the file, or did it mean that he hadn’t known what Max was up to? Could Grace have set it up without her husband knowing? If she did, wouldn’t that make her a better suspect for his murder?
I nearly shut down after finding that, but I wasn’t ready to quit. Though I’d found evidence that Max was a saboteur, it wasn’t anything I hadn’t already known, and it wasn’t enough to help me convince Burt Walters to get off his duff. There had to be something more.
In the short time that I’d spoken to Marshall, he’d been most enthusiastic when talking about graphs and statistics, and it was graphs that Grace had been trying to access when she ran into password problems. So I went through the graphs of Walters Mill data over and over again, trying to find anything that looked odd. I recalculated figures, switched to show numbers in different scales, converted bar charts to pie charts and back again, even changed the colors used. In short, I tried every trick to disguise statistics that I’d ever heard of.
Finally, after the warning light had begun blinking to tell me battery power was getting low, I found what I was looking for. Only then did I shut the computer down and crawl into bed beside Richard. Dawn was already starting to creep through the sky, so I didn’t have much time to sleep, but I knew that I’d need every bit I could get.
Chapter 34
I’d have thought my nose would be numb from smelling smoke all night, but somehow the smell of hot bacon, eggs, and biscuits roused me. Richard was still out cold, but I heard voices from downstairs. A stop in the bathroom reminded me that I hadn’t gotten all of “Lori’s” makeup and hair spray off the night before, so I gritted my teeth long enough to take a shower without the benefit of hot water. Then I dressed and went to see what was going on.
True to Aunt Daphine’s prediction, Aunt Nora had gotten up early to put together the breakfast she’d spread all over the kitchen counter. She, Aunt Daphine, and Aunt Maggie were lingering over coffee while Uncle Ruben, Augustus, and Willis conferred, apparently trying to decide what lumber they needed to make repairs.
“Good morning,” Aunt Daphine said. “Come get something to eat before it gets cold.”
“Are the eggs cold already?” Aunt Nora fussed. “I can run back home and fix a fresh batch, or I can—”
“I’m sure the eggs are fine,” I said quickly. “As hungry as I am, I could eat them if they were still in the shells.” I fixed myself a plate of eggs scrambled with cheddar cheese, grits, biscuits with strawberry preserves, and enough bacon to clog every artery in my body. Then I poured a glass of orange juice, so I could pretend I was eating healthy.
As I ate, I asked, “How does the mess look in the daylight?”
“Still soggy, and there’s soot that I’d swear wasn’t there last night,” Aunt Maggie said, “but it’s not so bad that we can’t fix it. If that crew over there can figure out what they’re doing, that is.” Though she’d raised her voice on the last part, the menfolk pretended that they hadn’t heard her.
“Is Richard handy with tools?” Aunt Daphine asked.
“He’s built sets,” I said, “but he’s not going to have time to help out today. We’ve got plans.” At least, I did. “Has Junior been by?”
“Just long enough to make sure we’re all right and grab a biscuit,” Aunt Daphine said. “She doesn’t know anything more about who did this, but she said she’s going to talk to the neighbors and see if she can find out anything.”
“That’s a waste of time,” Aunt Maggie said. “If anybody around here had seen anything, they’d have come forward by now.”
I nodded in agreement. “Is the phone working?”
“Not yet, but you can go to my house if you want to call somebody,” Aunt Daphine said.
“That would be great. I’ve got a bunch of calls to make.”
After that I concentrated on eating. Even though I could see that all three of the aunts were dying to know what I had in mind, somehow they resisted asking. I had to wonder what Aunt Maggie had told the others. I’d dared her to trust that Richard and I were doing the right thing, and clearly she was taking me at my word. I only hoped that my plan would work and that she’d be satisfied with the outcome.
I started to clean off my plate once I was finished eating, but Aunt Nora took it away from me to wash it herself and sent me upstairs to wake Richard. I knew he would have liked to sleep longer, but we had a lot to do, and I didn’t want to waste any time.
I had to to pry him out of the bed and shove him into the shower, but after a few minutes of chilly water running over him, Richard was awake enough for me to explain what I’d found in Marshall’s graphs and outline my plan.
Richard suggested a few enhancements, then went downstairs to eat breakfast while I made a list of things to do. Next I took Aunt Daphine aside to ask her assistance for that afternoon, and Richard enlisted Augustus and Willis to help out later that evening. All we had to do was tell them that we thought we could catch the person who’d set the home place on fire, and they were more than willing to do whatever we wanted.
I would rather have told everybody the whole story, but I couldn
’t think of a way to do so without bringing Burt Walters into the picture. Besides, I didn’t want to spend the time it would have taken to explain it all.
With the first pieces in place, we headed for Aunt Daphine’s house to make a slew of phone calls to put the other pieces together. It took longer than I’d expected to make the calls and run the necessary errands, but by the time the day shift at the mill ended, “Lori” was back on her barstool at Dusty’s.
The crowd was larger and more boisterous this time, probably because it was Friday night, but Max spotted me as soon as he came in and made his way to the stool I’d saved for him.
“I was hoping you’d be back,” he said.
“I owed you one after running out on you last night,” I said, and gestured for the bartender to bring him a beer.
“How’s your aunt?”
“Better. It turns out she didn’t break her hip after all. It’s only bruised, but her pain medicine makes her so sleepy she said I might as well go out because she was going to bed early.”
“There are worse places to spend Friday evening,” Max said with a leer.
“You are so bad,” I said.
We continued to flirt, saying nothing in particular. In fact, I don’t know that it’s possible to both flirt and say anything meaningful. After several beers for Max, and two slowly nursed ones for me, I finally brought up what I wanted to talk about.
“Max, there’s something I’d like to ask you.”
“Honey, no matter what the question is, the answer is yes.”
I giggled dutifully. “Seriously, did you mean it when you said you’d be done with this town soon?”
“I don’t have a specific timetable, but it sure looks that way. Why come?”
“It looks as if I’m going to be able to get my project going right much sooner than I thought. After I got my aunt back home from the emergency room last night, she started talking about how much she’d always liked me and how she really wanted to help me get ahead. She never had any kids of her own, and I’m the only one of her nieces and nephews who ever pays her any attention. My late uncle left her pretty well off, and she said she wants to put her money someplace where it could help me.”
“Good Lord, Lori, what kind of drugs did you pump into that old lady?”
I made a face. “It’s not like that, Max. She just wants to see me make good. The problem is, I know darned well that my cousins want to get their hands on her money, and if they get wind of what she’s aiming to do, they’ll try to talk her out of it. That means I’ve got to move quickly and get everything set up.”
“Can’t you just get her to write a check now?”
I shook my head. “She won’t just give it to me—she wants to invest it, keep it businesslike.”
“Which means that you have to set up a business toot sweet.”
“That’s right—I need a good pencil and oh, all the usual things.” Michelle had told me that a pencil was the front man for an operation, frequently a lawyer or at least somebody who could sound like a lawyer. “I was wondering if you’re going to be available soon enough for us to work together.”
“When would you need me?”
I pretended I was thinking. “We’ve got a family reunion in June, and it will have to be before then because I know she’ll spill the beans once she’s around everybody. I need a couple of weeks to make the arrangements, and of course, I’ll have to get some more people… Will you be free in three weeks?”
Max took a long drink of his beer. “I’d be real darned surprised if I wasn’t. What do you say we get down to brass tacks? Tell me exactly what you’ve got planned.”
I looked around nervously. “I don’t want to talk about it in here.”
“Then let’s go to my place.”
“Are you sure we’ll just be talking business?”
“Honey, like I told you last night, I always mix pleasure with my business.”
Over Max’s halfhearted objections, I paid for our beers to make sure he hadn’t noticed how little I’d been drinking. Then I let him talk me into riding with him. Though he was almost certainly over the legal limit, he acted sober enough, and I knew it wasn’t far to his house.
Max had rented the old Husey place, not too far from Walters Lake. It was isolated, but the triplets had speculated that he preferred it that way so none of his girlfriends would run into any of his other girlfriends. Knowing what I knew about him, I figured he had other reasons for wanting privacy.
Though the yard was haphazardly maintained, inside the place was immaculate. At first I was surprised Max was such a good housekeeper, but it made sense. If one of his girlfriends saw somebody else’s cigarettes in the ashtray or a glass smeared with the wrong shade of lipstick, it would be that much harder for him to hide his tracks.
The living room looked like it belonged to somebody who wasn’t planning to stay long. The couch, easy chair, and coffee table were nice enough, but showed none of Max’s personality, and the only decorating he’d done was to put up a couple of dime-store art prints.
“This is nice,” I said.
“It looks a whole lot nicer with you here,” he said as he stepped closer to me.
“Business first,” I said. “Otherwise, I won’t be able to keep the details straight.”
“I guess you’re right,” he said, “but I think better when I’ve got something to drink. You want a beer?”
“I think I need to visit the little girls’ room first.”
“First door on the left,” he said, heading for the kitchen.
I went into the bathroom and locked the door. Though I really did want to use the facilities, my real reason for going in there was to stall. So after I was done, I killed time by poking in the medicine chest, checking to see if there was anything hidden in the linen cabinet, and feeling around the back of the toilet to see if Max had taped anything interesting back there. A college friend once told me a toilet was a wonderful hiding place, especially if you didn’t clean it often, because nobody wants to look there. It was lucky for me that Max kept his clean, because I’d have been more annoyed at coming up empty if I’d gotten my hands dirty.
Maybe five minutes later, I heard enough noise that I figured it was safe to come out. When I got to the living room, Max was sitting on the side chair, looking both angry and nervous. Thaddeous, Augustus, and Richard were standing around him, staring at him ominously with their arms crossed for maximum effect. The room was small as it was—with the three of them surrounding Max, it was downright cramped.
“It’s about time y’all got here,” I said.
“You know them?” Max squeaked.
“Of course. I’m sure you recognize Thaddeous from the mill, and this is his brother Augustus and my husband Richard.”
“Your husband?”
“Don’t you remember meeting us?” I asked. “I’m hurt.”
He looked at me closely and thought for a minute. “Fleming. Laurie Anne and Richard Fleming.”
“Very good,” I said approvingly.
“The Holt sisters are your cousins.”
“Right again. And so are Thaddeous and Augustus.”
“What the hell’s going on here?”
“Like I said at Dusty’s, I wanted to talk to you in private.” Augustus had again watched Max and me from a safe distance at Dusty’s, while Richard and Thaddeous waited in the parking lot. Then they’d followed us to Max’s house. Though we didn’t think Max was the type to grab a hostage, they’d given me enough time to get out of harm’s way before knocking on the door and pushing their way inside.
I took a seat on the couch and smiled pleasantly at Max. We’d arranged for me to do most of the talking—Richard thought the men would be more threatening if they didn’t speak.
“What’s all this about?” Max said, trying to sound tough.
“It’s about industrial espionage and sabotage.”
Max was a pro, all right. He didn’t even blink. “What’s that supposed
to mean?”
I reached out, and Richard put a file folder into my hand so I could pull out a faxed photo to hold in front of Max. “Does this look familiar?”
“Should it?” he asked, still trying to bluff.
“Oh, yes. This is the real Max Wilder.” I’d had Michelle get back in touch with Wilder’s former employer and fax us a picture from his going-away party. “Not much of a resemblance, is there?”
“Okay, I used a phony name to get a job. I didn’t mean any harm by it—do you know how hard it is to get work when you’ve got a record?”
“Nice try, but that doesn’t explain how you know Grace Saunders.”
“Of course I know her—she’s been hanging around the mill all week.”
“I’ve got a witness who saw you two together, and overheard some of your plans.” Actually, I hadn’t heard a word, but if he could bluff, so could I. “And there’s the little fact that over seventy percent of the mill’s equipment failures in recent months took place either on your shift, or were discovered during the very next shift.” From the file folder, I pulled out a graph that showed it.
“Just a coincidence,” he said. “You can’t prove anything different.”
“Nope, I probably can’t.”
He looked surprised, and then suspicious.
“I don’t care about proving it. Quite honestly, Max or whatever your name is, I don’t care about you. All I care about is Grace Saunders.”
I could almost see the wheels moving in his head. “Are you saying that we can make a deal?” he said.
“That’s right. We’re perfectly willing to let you pack up and get out of here just as soon as you do two little jobs.” I reached into the folder again. “First, I want you to sign this.”
I handed him a piece of paper, and watched as he read it. It was a confession that detailed how he’d been hired by Marshall and Grace Saunders to get a job at Walters Mill under false pretenses in order to get inside information about the mill’s workings and to commit sabotage to bring the asking price down.
Toni L.P. Kelner - Laura Fleming 06 - Death of a Damn Yankee Page 20
