Bucket List: Maple Syrup Mysteries

by Emily James

Anderson sighed. “That’s another reason I need to hire an extra lawyer.”

  My rescuer soul wanted to rush in to fill that need, but I caught the words in time. Even if I accepted his partnership offer, I wouldn’t be working cases on guilty clients. He’d still need at least one other lawyer in the firm.

  “I can work it into my schedule to join you,” Anderson said, “but we’re on our own for research this week. Hal’s on vacation.”

  Talk about inconvenient timing.

  I thanked Anderson and told him I’d text him with a couple potential appointment times.

  By the time we disconnected, I was back at Sugarwood.

  The note tacked to my door told me Mandy had taken my dogs for a walk. I appreciated her thoughtfulness to leave the note. After the events of a few months ago, I’d been extra nervous if I came home and found them gone. Thankfully, Mandy had loaded the app onto my phone that let me track Velma through the GPS in her collar. I clicked over to the app, and it showed Velma out in the sugar bush, exactly where she should be if Mandy had them out for a walk.

  I didn’t think I’d made anyone involved in the current case nervous enough to mess with my dogs, but I also didn’t know for sure. If Clement hadn’t killed Gordon, then the real killer could be almost anyone. For all I knew, Darlene had a lover and they’d killed Gordon together.

  The thought that perhaps Gordon’s brother and Darlene were having an affair flitted across my mind. Gordon could have found out and threatened to tell Clement. That would be another plausible reason for why Darlene hadn’t wanted to tell me that Gordon and his brother weren’t speaking.

  It’s also completely unfounded, my dad’s voice chimed in my head.

  Unfounded for now, I thought back.

  Though an affair with Gordon’s brother didn’t match up at all for why the brothers stopped speaking after their mom died. I probably was on the wrong track with that idea.

  I flipped open my laptop and ran an internet search for Gordon and Leonard Albright. Darlene hadn’t told me their mother’s name, but looking for both the brothers together should give me something.

  The top result was an obituary for a Maryanne Albright. Gordon and Leonard were listed among the family she left behind. It looked like they’d been her only children and her husband predeceased her. Leonard was married and had given his mother two grandchildren. Maryanne had been another casualty of cancer. It seemed like no one was untouched by it anymore. Even if they hadn’t had it themselves, they had a friend or family member who had.

  An obituary wasn’t going to tell me why the woman’s children weren’t speaking anymore. I went back to the results page.

  I flipped through the next three pages of results. None of them were pertinent. The only other one that even referenced the right Gordon Albright was a newspaper article about the opening of a new exhibit at the museum.

  The picture that went along with it showed Gordon, Clement, and Darlene out front of the museum. Darlene held up an ax, and Clement and Gordon each held the end of one of those long dual-man saws. Since Gordon hadn’t been killed with either an ax or a saw, that article wasn’t helpful either.

  I read it over quickly anyway. It did add a little background I hadn’t known about Clement. It turned out he’d gone to university on a full-ride football scholarship. He’d had a few NFL teams interested in him when he graduated, but he turned down a career in sports and instead worked at various large museums across the country until five years ago.

  His dad passed away and left him the chainsaw and logging museum, which at the time was nothing more than an extension built on their house. Clement and Darlene, apparently with the help of Gordon, built the museum up into one of the premier logging museums in the country.

  I hadn’t realized there were other chainsaw and logging museums in the country.

  Unless Clement killed Gordon with premeditation because Gordon was stealing and selling their museum pieces, the article wasn’t that helpful either. I wrote the idea down just in case the prosecution tried to use it. I’d make sure with Darlene and Clement that nothing had gone missing.

  I rubbed at my eyes with the heels of my hands to help them refocus. Another cup of coffee would taste amazing right about now, but I’d discovered that I slept better if I avoided coffee after three in the afternoon. Considering one of my biggest challenges was convincing my mind to shut down enough at night to allow me to sleep, I didn’t want to mess with what seemed to be working. And I hated decaf. It tasted like chemicals.

  I chugged a glass of water instead and returned to my computer.

  Unfortunately, I wasn’t used to handling the background checks involved in an investigation myself. My parents had investigators who did this, and I’d worked with Hal or the police here in Fair Haven. I wasn’t sure of all the avenues to chase to see what dark secrets the brothers might have been hiding.

  The only other thing I could think of was to run a credit check on both of them and to put their names into the online legal records search. I logged into the system and entered Gordon’s name.

  It popped up immediately. A civil suit involving Gordon Albright and Leonard Albright. Leonard had alleged that Gordon misused his power of attorney for property to take their mother’s money and use it for himself, draining all her accounts so that nothing remained of the estate upon her death.

  My mouth went dry in a way that water wouldn’t help. Maybe my longshot wasn’t such a longshot after all. Depending on how much money Leonard thought he should have inherited from their mother upon her death, that could be a motive to not only stop speaking to his brother, but kill him as well.

  “What did you tell him about why we wanted to meet with him?” Anderson asked from the passenger seat of my car a few days later as we drove to our appointment with Leonard Albright.

  “The truth, of course.”

  The look Anderson gave me said are you sure you’re really your father’s daughter? “You told him we were coming because we want to know if he’s the one who really killed his brother.”

  “I told him we believe Clement is innocent, and we want to talk to him about whether there’s anyone else who might have wanted to hurt Gordon.”

  Anderson smirked at me and shook his head. “I’m not sure I’d call that truth. I’ve looked at the evidence. You’re the only one who thinks there’s a chance Clement Dodd didn’t kill Gordon Albright.”

  It wasn’t so much that I thought Clement was innocent as I’d seen cases that looked airtight burst a leak when you stomped on them hard enough. But I wasn’t interested in arguing that point right now. “Why did you come with me then if you don’t think there’s a chance Clement’s innocent? My dad would say it’s a waste of company resources.”

  “Aren’t you the one who once told me your dad’s not always right?” He shrugged. “It’s what partners do. If you think this is important to your case, I’ll back you on it. Worse case, the brothers’ broken relationship helps us establish reasonable doubt.”

  His words created a warm little buzz in the part of my brain where my confidence liked to hide. His I’ve-got-your-back attitude was why I was even considering joining his firm as a partner. He knew I’d be chasing what looked like rabbit trails to defend innocent clients, and he was okay with it.

  When we’d first started talking about it, I’d asked him why. He’d said it was because he wanted his firm to find its own niche. He didn’t want to be just another lawyer trying to topple Edward Dawes from his throne.

  Anderson had gone quiet in the passenger’s seat, reading over the printout of the law suit I’d found. “You did see that Leonard dropped the suit, didn’t you?”

  I nodded. “Dropping the suit actually raised more questions for me. He wouldn’t have filed a suit against his brother if he hadn’t been convinced of his wrongdoing. If he’d been merely suspicious, he likely would have spoken to him and worked it out instead. So why suddenly drop the case?”

  Anderson folded the paper and sli
d it into his suit pocket, probably in case we needed to pull it out to show to Leonard. “Fair enough.”

  The Albrights didn’t live in Fair Haven like Gordon had. Instead, they were in another little town, closer to Grand Rapids. The distance actually worked in our favor assuming Leonard was guilty. He wouldn’t have been able to get to Gordon’s home in Fair Haven, kill him, plant the body, clean up, and drive all the way back home without some sort of a trail. Someone must have noticed his absence, though his wife and children probably wouldn’t be willing to testify against him. Or his receipts might show a purchase along the way.

  The Albrights’ lived in a middle class-looking cul-de-sac near the middle of town. Once I’d found the law suit, I’d continued to dig into Leonard. He was a licensed counselor and had a successful practice.

  Which was a bad thing for us. He’d be trained in picking up on subtle cues in tone and body language. Anderson and I would both need to be careful not to give anything away.

  We’d also dressed like we were going to court. The first impression would matter.

  The woman who opened the door had sandy-blonde shoulder length hair and a smattering of freckles across her nose. The fact that I could see them spoke volumes about her. Most women tried to cover up any seeming imperfection with make-up. It made me like her that she was comfortable in her own skin.

  We introduced ourselves, and she took us into the kitchen. An interesting choice since the natural place to meet would have been the living room.

  She motioned toward the table. “I’d normally invite you into the living room where it’s more comfortable, but our daughter has friends over and they’re watching a movie.”

  A shiver ran over my neck and back. She couldn’t have known what I was thinking, so we were either a bit alike in our thinking or she was also good at reading people. I hoped it wasn’t the latter. It was bad enough that her husband’s profession gave him an advantage.

  As she was setting mugs of coffee in front of us, the kitchen door swung open. The man who entered looked nothing like Gordon Alright, and for a second, I thought I’d called the wrong Leonard Albright. Where Gordon had dressed the part for someone working at a chainsaw and logging museum in his jeans and plaids—at least from all the pictures I’d seen—Leonard had the trendy look of someone who spent too much time keeping up on the latest fashions for a man. Or for a woman for that matter.

  He offered me his hand. It was softer than mine. “I’m glad you felt comfortable calling us. It was a shock when the police told us they’d arrested Clement. He and Gordon have been friends for years, and Gordon worked for Clement’s father before that. I’d much rather it turned out someone else was behind this.”

  His tone was too smooth for my taste. It gave me the same feeling as drinking a medicine that left a slick coating on my throat.

  Mrs. Albright laid a plate of store-bought chocolate chip cookies in the center of the table and nudged it toward us. “We talked about it after you called, though, and we couldn’t come up with anyone who might have wanted to hurt Gordon. He was liked by everyone who knew him.”

  Crap. I’d worried that with such a long break between when I called and when we’d been able to meet it would give them too much time to come up with their story if they had something to hide. Though perhaps the fact that she’d admitted to them talking about it indicated innocence. I wasn’t getting a clear enough read on either of them to tell. They both seemed unnaturally calm.

  That alone made me think they had something to hide. Talking to lawyers in a criminal case made normal people nervous.

  And if they wanted to get away with something, claiming they didn’t know of anyone else who would have wanted to hurt Gordon would be a smart move. The police were convinced Clement did it. Why muddy the waters and risk them taking a closer look?

  I could feel Anderson waiting for me. This was my case. I needed to lead.

  But I needed to be careful about how I broached the law suit since I didn’t want my suspicions to be obvious, and I didn’t want them to kick us out.

  I placed a cookie on the napkin in front of me as a way to add a casualness to my next words. “It’s hard sometimes to think of who might want to hurt a loved one because we never would. But we found something.”

  I held out my hand toward Anderson. He pulled the paper from his pocket and laid it out on the table in front of them, close enough that they could read it.

  I touched the nearest edge with my fingertips. “If he stole money from your mother, it’s possible he also stole money from other people.”

  Leonard continued to stare down at the paper as if he were reading it carefully. The long hair at the front of his hair cut drooped onto his forehead and he brushed it back. I’d never been a fan of that style. It always reminded me of a man using a comb over to hide his balding spot.

  Leonard met my gaze, and his expression didn’t even flicker. He was too well trained. He’d spent too many years hearing shocking things from clients while having to maintain a straight face. Nothing I could say was going to rattle him. The best I could hope for would be to find an inconsistency somewhere and push at it.

  “Gordon wouldn’t have stolen money from anyone,” Leonard said.

  It was an interesting way of phrasing it. The law suit said he believed his brother embezzled from their mother, but he hadn’t said anyone else. He’d said anyone, which technically included their mother. I couldn’t reconcile the two, but I knew he was hiding something the same way I knew from a seemingly-innocent tickle in the back of my throat when I was coming down with a cold.

  I made sure to give him my best paragon-of-innocence look. “He stole from your mother.”

  The implication was clear enough that I let it hang. It was a technique used by counselors as well as lawyers so I knew Leonard would recognize it for what it was. He’d also have to respond to it though. If he didn’t, it’d point a spotlight at that area of questioning just as much as when I avoided leading statements in my therapy sessions.

  “Gordon took money from our mother, but not because he’s a thief.”

  Everything this man said was so carefully phrased it made me want to scream.

  Mrs. Albright crossed her arms on the table in front of her, creating a bit of a blockade between us. Interesting. Maybe I was aiming my questions at the wrong person. She’d learned from years spent married to a counselor, but she likely didn’t have the same professional training he did. I might be able to crack her if I couldn’t crack him.

  I shifted slightly so that my next statement could appear to be directed at either of them.

  “He took something that didn’t belong to him. That’s what it means to be a thief.”

  I looked at her as I finished.

  Her chair creaked slightly underneath her as if she’d wrapped her feet around the legs. “I don’t understand why Gordon’s on trial here. Nothing he did should matter now.”

  This had to be one of the most confusing interviews I’d ever done. Now I couldn’t be sure whether they were trying to hide something that would implicate them in Gordon’s death or whether they were trying to hide Gordon’s sins. Many people did think that when a person died all their flaws and failings should be erased from memory.

  As a criminal lawyer, that was the opposite of what I needed to do. The roots for motive came both from the guilty party and from what the victim might have done while alive.

  The tricky part of that when speaking to the victim’s family was that you couldn’t make it seem like you were blaming the victim at all. Not only would it make them defensive, but it would compound their grief.

  “Gordon’s not on trial. In fact, the Dodds had nothing but praise for him. Which is what makes this so confusing. If the police are right, we have to believe that Clement Dodd killed his best friend for no reason. I want to be sure that there wasn’t some other reason Gordon was killed.”

  I made sure to avoid saying someone else who might have killed him.

&nb
sp; Her head twitched in the direction of Leonard as if she wanted to look at him but caught herself. “Gordon was a good man.”

  Another sidestep. We might as well be dancing.

  I slid the paper on the table closer to her. “You two felt wronged enough about the situation with your mother-in-law to bring this suit against him. It speaks to Gordon perhaps being involved in other things as well. That doesn’t mean he wasn’t a good man. It doesn’t mean he deserved to die. All we’re trying to do is figure out why he died.”

  Leonard planted a hand on the paper and drew it back toward him. “I brought this suit over a misunderstanding. Nothing more. It had nothing to do with Gordon’s death.”

  His soft spot is his wife, the little voice in my head whispered.

  I filed the knowledge away for future reference. “If you could explain it to me, that would really help. Right now, I’m wondering if Gordon stole from the museum and Clement found out.”

  Anderson sat like a rock beside me, quietly dunking a cookie in his coffee and acting as if I hadn’t just pulled that out of thin air.

  “Why did you drop the suit against your brother, Mr. Albright?” I infused enough of a lawyer’s tone into my voice that I hoped he’d feel compelled to give me a clear answer this time.

  He folded his hands over top of the paper. “I found out why he took the money.”

  It was the first non-equivocal statement he’d made since we walked in.

  “And why did he take the money?” Anderson asked.

  I held back a smile. That couldn’t have been more perfectly played if we’d planned it. Had I asked the question, it could have started to feel too much like an attack. With Anderson switching it up, it should feel more like a conversation.

  “Drugs,” Leonard said.

  The table rocked, and Mrs. Albright cringed as if she’d hit her knee on the underside.

  Leonard took a cookie from the plate in the center of the table as if nothing had happened. If banging her knee hadn’t been a reaction to what he just said, I would have expected him to ask if she were okay. By pretending like nothing had happened, he gave himself away.