Frozen in Cherry Hills

by Paige Sleuth

  “I’m sorry,” Kat said.

  Ginger started powdering her nose. “Honestly, him finally passing on was the best thing that could have happened. It was torture watching him suffer. Barry couldn’t stand it either. He did everything he could to avoid seeing Dad toward the end.”

  Kat could commiserate. She didn’t think she would handle that type of situation very well either. It made her admire Ginger’s chosen career all the more.

  Ginger snapped her compact shut and stuffed it back in her purse. “After Dad passed I think Barry started feeling guilty about not being there very much. He told Mama that since I was the one who had cared for Dad, I should be the one to get what he and Mama left behind. Mama resisted for a long time. She didn’t want Barry to think changing her will meant she valued him less, even though he was the one encouraging her to do so.”

  “But she finally agreed,” Kat said.

  “She had it done last week, as sort of her sixtieth birthday present to us, I guess.” Tears filled Ginger’s eyes again. “Just in the nick of time.”

  Kat’s heart grew heavy. She didn’t say anything as Ginger started sobbing again, her grief washing away the makeup she had only just reapplied.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Kat was grateful when five o’clock finally rolled around. Although it had been a bit of a thrill to be looking at code again, she was ready to go home and crash. Her brain had been on overload all day, Sadie’s murder vying with Kat’s new job for attention.

  Kat rested her head against the back of the elevator as it descended. When the doors opened to let her out on the first floor, Allen Bolt was emerging from the hallway.

  “Looks like we’re on the same schedule today,” he said, halting beside her.

  Kat adjusted her purse strap. “I guess so.”

  “I don’t know about you, but this time of year I always feel like I’m going home in the middle of the night. What happened to our long summer days?”

  Kat glanced outside. “At least it’s not snowing.”

  Allen smiled. “Ah, you’re an optimist.”

  Kat regarded him. So far she had asked both Bob Bellerose and Ginger about the phone call Sadie had made to Bob yesterday, but she had yet to ask Allen. Given that they worked next door to each other and Sadie had made that phone call during business hours, it was conceivable she might have mentioned what it was about to Allen.

  It wouldn’t hurt to ask, anyway.

  “Allen,” she said, “did Sadie say anything to you yesterday about something being on her mind?”

  “Something on her mind?” he said.

  “I don’t have any specifics, but she called Bob Bellerose less than an hour before she died. Apparently she had something important to tell him, but she didn’t want to do it over the phone.”

  Allen rubbed his chin. “Now that you mention it, she did make a comment to me.”

  Kat’s pulse quickened. “What did she say?”

  “She—” Allen abruptly stopped talking. His eyes darted around before he tipped his head toward Kat and lowered his voice. “I would prefer if we don’t talk about it out here. Do you mind if we discuss this in my office?”

  “Not at all.” There was no way she was leaving before she heard what he had to say.

  She followed him down the hallway. As exhausted as she had been a minute ago, now her brain was buzzing. What did Allen have to tell her?

  She supposed she would find out soon enough.

  Kat waited as patiently as she could while Allen sifted through his key ring. When he finally located the right key and unlocked the door, it was all she could do not to plow over him in her haste to get inside so she could hear what he had to say.

  In terms of layout and furnishings, his office was an exact replica of Sadie’s. He locked up behind them and headed for the inner office. “Come on in,” he said.

  Kat followed him inside and sat down, setting her purse in her lap. Allen’s office was a mess. Folders were spread all over the desk and on top of the long file cabinet lining the wall. Haphazardly stacked legal pads practically obscured the desk blotter. And in the center of it all sat a computer monitor lined with at least a dozen sticky notes.

  Allen closed the door and shrugged out of his coat. “Please forgive the disarray. I wasn’t expecting anyone else to be in here until tomorrow afternoon.”

  “No problem. So, about Sadie.”

  Allen paused from hanging his coat on a wall hook. “You don’t beat around the bush, do you?”

  “My curiosity is getting the better of me,” Kat admitted.

  “I understand.” He hung up his coat and eased into the leather chair behind the desk. “Before I say anything, I must be clear that whatever I tell you stays between us.”

  “But if it could help identify who killed Sadie—”

  “Then I suppose I have an obligation to go to the police,” Allen said, finishing her thought. “But for our purposes, I must ask you to be discreet. Although she didn’t tell me this while I was acting as her lawyer, Sadie was nonetheless a client. That means I am bound by certain expectations of confidentiality.”

  “Oh,” Kat said, seeing his dilemma. “In that case, I’ll be sure not to say anything.”

  Allen smiled and started straightening some folders. “I’m glad we understand each other.”

  Kat scooted her chair forward. “So, what is it that Sadie told you?”

  Allen folded his arms on the desk. “You know Hank Bellerose is sick, correct?”

  “If that’s Bob’s father, then yes. I heard he has cancer.”

  “He does.” Allen looked past her shoulder, a grave expression on his face.

  Kat glanced behind her, but other than a few diplomas on the walls and a window that overlooked the parking lot, there wasn’t much there.

  “Sadie came to me with a problem about her daughter,” Allen finally continued.

  “Ginger?”

  He nodded. “She works at the hospital. Sadie had some . . . concerns about what she was doing there.”

  “What was Ginger doing?”

  “I didn’t really understand the specifics. I’m not a medical professional.”

  “Neither was Sadie,” Kat pointed out.

  “No, but she had a better grasp of hospital procedure than I do. That was something she must have picked up from Ginger.”

  “Okay,” Kat said, anxious to hear where he was going with this.

  “Sadie said Ginger was . . .”

  “She was . . . ?” Kat prompted.

  Allen sighed. “She was taking items from the hospital that should have been going to her patients.”

  “Items? You mean medications?”

  “Yes. And I gather some of these medications were slated to be received by Hank Bellerose.”

  Kat recalled Ginger’s emotional breakdown in Sadie’s office. At the time she had assumed Ginger was grieving, but what if her reaction had really been borne out of guilt? Ginger had to realize if knowledge of what she was doing got out she could not only lose her job but be prosecuted. What if she’d chosen to kill her own mother rather than risk Sadie exposing her secret?

  The possibility gave Kat chills.

  “How did Sadie find out what Ginger was up to?” Kat asked.

  “She didn’t share that with me.”

  “Did you tell the police all this?”

  Allen shook his head. “The whole conversation slipped my mind until you asked about it just now.”

  “You have to tell them,” Kat said, sticking her hand in her purse. “Let me call Andrew—I mean, Detective Milhone.”

  Allen’s eyes widened. “Now? It’s after five. He must be off duty.”

  “Trust me, he’ll want to hear this.”

  Kat found her cell phone. But before she had time to hit the speed dial for Andrew, Allen sprang out of his chair and swiped the phone from her hands. His abrupt motion not only sent the phone tumbling to the floor, but several folders slid off the desk as well, papers sc
attering everywhere.

  Kat jumped up from her seat, knocking her purse over in the process. “What are you doing?”

  “My apologies,” Allen said, sinking back into his chair. “You just took me by surprise, is all.”

  “I took you by surprise?” she said, placing one hand over her racing heart. “I think you’ve got that backward.”

  “Kat, I’m going to level with you.” Allen set his palms flat on the desk. “I’m not ready to talk to the police yet.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t want to betray Sadie’s confidence. Talking to you after you agreed to keep this conversation a secret is one thing. But once the authorities are involved, word will get around. People will start to believe I’m the type of lawyer who doesn’t think twice about breaking client confidentiality.”

  “But if what Sadie told you could help nab her killer, I’m sure she’d want you to share it,” Kat argued. “Don’t you have a moral obligation to say something?”

  “I have a moral obligation to keep my clients’ business between us.”

  “Sadie is dead. She’s way beyond caring about her secrets getting out.”

  He stared at her for a long moment, then nodded. “Perhaps you’re right. I’ll contact the authorities tomorrow, after I’ve worked out how to tell them without violating attorney-client privilege.”

  Kat didn’t figure there was much use arguing. She could tell from the tilt of Allen’s chin that he wasn’t going to budge.

  But she could be as stubborn as anyone else. “You’ll call Detective Milhone first thing in the morning?” she said, unwilling to leave until he promised.

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll give you his number.”

  She scanned the mess on the floor in search of her cell phone, finally spotting it poking out from under one side of Allen’s desk. As she knelt down to retrieve it, her eyes landed on a check lying atop a pile of disturbed papers. The check was for the amount of two thousand dollars, written out to Allen Bolt. But what really caught her attention was the account associated with the payment: Bellerose Trust.

  The hairs on the back of Kat’s neck prickled. She thought again of Sadie’s phone call to Bob Bellerose. The check was dated yesterday. Assuming it had been written out in the morning, Sadie could have noticed it while wandering over to chat with her neighbor. Could this be what she had wanted to talk to Bob about? But why would Sadie feel the need to report to Bob how much Allen charged his clients?

  Unless this money wasn’t compensation for Allen’s services, Kat considered. Was this check actually proof that he was stealing from the Bellerose Trust? And had Sadie somehow figured out what he was doing?

  Given that she had ended up murdered, that was a very real possibility. She could have been killed to make sure she never had the opportunity to tell Bob Bellerose what his father’s estate planning lawyer was up to.

  The room seemed to tilt as the check blurred in front her. Kat squeezed her cell phone like a lifeline, struggling to understand the implications of what she was looking at.

  “Find your phone?”

  Allen’s voice nearly caused Kat to bang her head into the underside of the desk. She scrambled upright.

  “Got it,” she said, holding up the phone as if to prove she hadn’t been lingering on the floor for another reason.

  Allen relaxed into his chair. “Good.”

  Kat stared down at the desk, unwilling to look Allen in the eyes in case he could see her suspicions. Her heart was pounding so hard she could feel it in her temples. She needed to get out of there.

  She drew in a breath. “Well, I should get going.”

  “You haven’t given me that detective’s number yet,” Allen reminded her.

  “Oh, right.”

  Kat lifted her phone closer to her face, but her fingers were trembling so badly she dropped it again.

  A hand wrapped itself around her bicep, causing her to yelp. Allen had circled around the desk and grabbed her.

  “You looked a little unsteady there,” he said.

  She fought against him.

  Allen let go and held his palms in the air. “Hey, calm down.”

  “Don’t touch me,” she said.

  “What’s your problem?” he snapped. “I was helping you.”

  He started to reach for her phone, but his arm froze in midair. Kat could tell the exact moment he spotted the check. His face reddened, and when his head jerked back up his nostrils were flared.

  His reaction all but solidified her suspicions.

  Kat backed away from him. “You killed her,” she said, the words tumbling past her lips before she even knew she was going to say them.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Time seemed to stop as Allen stared at her. Kat couldn’t breathe. All she could do was wait to hear what he would say.

  After what felt like an eternity, Allen’s shoulders slumped. “I had to,” he said, three simple words that were as good as a confession.

  Kat ran her tongue around her parched mouth. “So all that stuff about Ginger . . .”

  “It was a lie,” Allen said. “I made that up to throw you off my trail. But now that you’ve seen the check, there’s no point in pretending.” He gestured toward the chair Kat had vacated. “Sit down, and I’ll tell you everything.”

  Kat didn’t move. The last thing she wanted to do was sit down. She felt like a trapped animal inside this office. Sitting would only increase her sense of being caged.

  What she really wanted to do was make a run for it. But what were the odds she would be able to escape? Allen was bigger and stronger than she was. He could tackle her easily. And it was now after regular business hours. She could see through the window that only a few cars were left in the parking lot. With Allen occupying a corner office, the chances of someone hearing a cry for help were slim to none.

  “Sit,” Allen said again.

  This time Kat obeyed, realizing she didn’t have much choice. Besides, as terrified as she was, a part of her wanted to hear what he had to say.

  Something on the floor caught her eye as she settled into the chair. Her breath hitched, but she quickly composed herself, hopefully before Allen noticed.

  “Okay,” she said, wrenching her gaze back to his. “I’m sitting, Mr. Bolt. Or do you prefer Allen?”

  He eyed her funny. “Allen’s fine.”

  He lowered himself into his own chair, a fact that eased some of Kat’s discomfort. At least now he would have to stand up first if he decided to grab her again.

  “Sadie stopped by yesterday,” Allen began.

  “You mean she stopped by here, your office?” Kat interjected.

  His eyes narrowed. “Where else would I be talking about?”

  Kat shrugged. “This is a large building, what with DataRightly taking up the whole second floor.”

  “Why would we meet at DataRightly?”

  “You tell me.”

  He stared at her for a moment, then dismissed her with a scoff. “Anyway, as I was saying, I’d recently helped Sadie revise her will, and she wanted to make sure she’d done everything she needed to. While she was here, she happened to see something she shouldn’t have.” He eyed Kat. “The same thing you saw.”

  Kat couldn’t stop her eyes from drifting toward the check on the floor.

  Allen reached down and picked it up. “Several of my clients named me as co-executor on the trusts I set up for them.”

  “At your urging?” Kat asked.

  He lifted a shoulder, which Kat took as a yes.

  “That must make it easy to withdraw money from their accounts whenever you need a little extra cash,” Kat said. “And I take it Bob Bellerose’s father is one of the clients you’re stealing from.”

  “Hank Bellerose is an ideal target. His health has degenerated a lot since he came to me to get his financial affairs in order. He isn’t in any position to notice his money disappearing.”

  Kat’s heart clenched. How sad that someone would
view a sick, elderly man’s imminent death as an invitation to take advantage of him.

  “Sadie saw this sitting on my desk when she was over here yesterday,” Allen said, rippling the check in the air. “I hadn’t thought to hide it. I wasn’t expecting anybody. She had popped over between clients.”

  “What did she say when she saw it?” Kat asked.

  “Nothing. She merely started asking all these questions about trusts, things like how much I charge in maintenance fees and what the going rate is to set one up.”

  Kat could picture the scene, Allen blithely explaining his standard rates all the while Sadie grew increasingly suspicious as she attempted to fit what he was saying in with the two-thousand-dollar payment she’d spotted.

  “At one point during our conversation I caught her staring at this,” Allen continued, laying the check on his desk. “That’s when her motive for asking all those questions hit me. She was fishing for an explanation as to why I was paying myself so much from the Bellerose trust.”

  “Except you had no explanation,” Kat said.

  “I tried to backtrack, to explain that at times I have to charge extra for certain services, but I could tell she wasn’t buying it.”

  Kat swallowed. “So you killed her.”

  “I couldn’t let her talk to the Belleroses. I knew she had a connection to them, through her daughter’s employment at the hospital. All she would have to do is mention what she’d seen and they would start nosing around. They might even bring in the authorities. And once that happened, I would be toast. The truth would come out and my business would be destroyed.”

  Kat folded her arms across her chest. “As it should be.”

  Allen ignored the chastisement. “She left my office before I could stop her. But, lo and behold, about a minute later I saw her outside, talking on her cell phone.”

  Kat’s gaze shifted to the window. From his corner office Allen had a clear view of the area near where Sadie had died. All he would have to do was look up from his desk.

  “She must have left that voicemail for Bob Bellerose right after she talked to you,” Kat guessed.