After I’d devoured two mushrooms and half a glass of wine, I decided to get back to business. “So you said Jenny came to see you before she died?”
“Right. She had some concerns about Horace and she nosed around in his stuff until she ran across a letter I’d written him about some money we inherited after Dad died. My address was still the same so she was able to find me right away. She had begun to realize there was a lot she didn’t know about him, so she came up here to get some information.”
“What kind of concerns did she have?”
Harry shrugged in a what-can-you-expect sort of way. “No big surprise. She had inherited some money from her grandfather that she had in an account of her own, and Horace had forged her name and withdrawn most of it. When she found out and confronted him, he blew up—denied that he’d done it, accused her of being crazy, told her if she didn’t trust him, he didn’t want to have anything to do with her. I guess that was kind of the last straw for her, given some other stuff he’d done—like lying to her, writing bad checks on their joint account, and running up huge credit card debts that he couldn’t or wouldn’t pay.”
“What did you tell her?”
“Pretty much what I’ve told you today. It was mostly a surprise to her, although she had once found some papers with Amber’s name and asked Horace about her. He got mad, refused to answer any questions, told her to stay out of his business. She had clearly begun to suspect that Horace had lied to her about himself, but she didn’t have any facts to back up her doubts.” Harry made a sour face. I wouldn’t have told her all this if she hadn’t asked, but she did, and I didn’t want to see her end up like Amber.”
“But she did end up like Amber,” I said. “Well, not exactly the same, but they both died young.” The parallels were hitting me smack in the face by then. So I took the risk and asked the nasty question. “Are you saying that you think Erik is responsible for both of their deaths?”
Harry flinched, but only slightly. “In different ways, yes. As far as Amber goes, he just set the wheels in motion. But with Jenny, I’d say there’s a strong possibility that Horace made sure that inhaler wasn’t available. She knew too much about him, and she was tired of putting up with his shit.”
Clearly Harry had given Jenny’s death some serious thought. Why hadn’t he gone to the police with his suspicions? It was sticky, but I had to ask. “If you think that, why didn’t you report it to the police when Jenny died?”
He stared down at the table for a moment and shook his head. “No point. No one will ever prove it. Horace is too slick.”
I decided to go for the gold. “What about Sharon’s husband, Adam? Do you think Horace killed him too?”
Harry shrugged. “He could have if he wanted the guy dead. You said it was a few months ago?”
“April.”
“I know he needed money then, because he came up here to try to convince me to invest in his latest project. A bunch of nutritional products. What a laugh! Horace knows about as much about nutrition as a pig knows about philosophy.”
“So I’m guessing you passed on the investment opportunity?”
“As usual. But come to think of it, it was April when he was here. We were having a big celebration for our fifth anniversary of the restaurant. I’m not sure why, but I sent him an invitation. Every now and then, my brain goes soft or something, and I start thinking of Horace as the cute little brother l loved years ago. Anyway, he showed up, and then we couldn’t get rid of him. Loretta’s never liked him, wasn’t happy having him at the house. But he didn’t want to leave without getting me to invest in his business.”
“Do you know the exact dates of when he was here?”
“Well, the celebration was on the anniversary of our opening, April 17th. That was a Thursday. Horace actually showed up before it started—surprised the hell out of me. I never thought he’d come. He even brought a gift. Now that’s so like him. When he was a kid, he’d often give me something when he wanted something. Of course what he wanted was always much bigger than what he gave. But he’s smart that way—knows how to soften people up.”
I surreptitiously glanced at my watch. It was after 5:00. I didn’t want to be rude, but I needed to get out of there, and I needed to find out exactly when Erik was in Minneapolis last April. Just as I was about to interrupt Harry by repeating my question, the hostess came over with a complicated question about some reservations for that evening.
Harry excused himself, got up and walked over to the hostess desk with her. They examined the reservation book, discussing the problem at length. Harry came back over to the table, but didn’t sit down. “I have to get back to work now to get ready for the dinner crowd. Feel free to sit there and finish the wine if you want.”
“Thanks, but I have to get to the airport. But it would help a lot if I knew exactly when Erik was here in April.”
“Okay, let’s see. I know he stayed a week, because Loretta kept telling me that seven days was as long as she’d put up with having him. And I finally had to kick him out after a week. He blew up, swore at me, accused me of being a selfish egotistical asshole who wouldn’t even help his own brother when he was down.” Harry laughed. “More like he was describing himself. I was glad to see the back of him. Anyway, the day I threw him out was a Wednesday. I remember because I come in early on Wednesdays to do inventory, just like I did today. So if he’d been here a week by Wednesday, he must have come on the 16th and left the 23rd.”
“Thanks, Harry, for taking time and telling me all this. And thanks for the wine and mushrooms—delish! If I ever get back here, I’ll be sure to come for a whole meal.” I grabbed my purse and slid out of the booth.
“I’d just as soon you don’t mention this trip to Horace,” Harry said, following along behind me toward the front door. “He wouldn’t like me telling you about his past, and I don’t need any more of his retaliation.”
“Sure, no problem. And thanks again.”
In the taxi on the way to the airport, I thought about the gifts Erik had given Nathan. Did that mean he wanted something from Sharon? And if so, what? And come to think of it, he’d given me a gift as well. Interesting.
I felt sad for Jenny. I could understand how she could have been easily seduced by Erik’s looks, charm, and persistence. He wanted her, he got her, and then he tossed her away—apparently without even minor pangs of conscience.
Now Erik was a prime candidate on my list of suspects for pushing Adam over the edge. Elisa had said she remembered that Adam died on April 15, because she was taking her taxes to the post office when she heard. If Erik followed Adam to the Grand Canyon and pushed him off the edge, he could have easily made it to Minneapolis by the next day, and used the visiting-his-brother story as a cover if he needed to explain why he was out of town.
On my return flight to Denver I mulled over the list of people who might have had reasons to get rid of Adam and who could have been at the Grand Canyon on April 15. I didn’t know of a specific reason why Erik would want to kill Adam, but with all I’d just found out about him, I figured there were plenty of possibilities. Maybe Adam had found out some of Erik’s secrets, like his real identity and his shady business dealings. Maybe Erik had said something that led Adam to suspect Jenny’s death wasn’t an accident. If Adam had confronted Erik with any of this, he was doomed for sure. And Erik could have surprised him on that trail that day.
Then there was Joel. He seemed like a nice enough guy to me, but my radar wasn’t working that well lately, so I couldn’t trust my gut. Joel was jealous of Adam raising Nathan, and he wanted Sharon back. In April he was living in Flagstaff about 80 miles from the Grand Canyon, and he’d been a guide for whitewater rafting trips down the Colorado River in the canyon.
And Sharon’s father, Donald Waycroft was in Las Vegas, which is farther—nearly 300 miles from the canyon’s South Rim—but doable, especially for a clever, disciplined fellow like him. It was no secret he didn’t like Adam, but it was a stretch
to see that as a reason to murder his daughter’s husband.
To me, Dr. Ahmed seemed to have the most likely motive. If Adam was onto his fraudulent business, he would have surely wanted him gone. I had no way of knowing where he’d been on April 15. Could have been at the canyon. Or, he might well have connections with hit men who could have handled it for him. But how to get the police to look into this possibility when they were so convinced Adam’s death was an accident?
Less likely, but still possible was Narmada, who hated Adam, even though hate is a toxic emotion that surely had a negative effect on her energy connections. She’d called Adam an asshole and said he spread lies about her all over town. And what had she been doing with Adam’s computer? Of course I had no idea where she’d been on April 15th and no obvious way to find out. Maybe I could come up with some acceptable reason to ask her some questions about her schedule last spring.
Leaving aside my grim musings, my flight was uneventful. But the Colorado weather on arrival matched my ominous mood. By the time I got to my car the entire Denver-Boulder area was under a severe thunderstorm warning, with a possibility of hail and strong winds. I made it almost to Boulder before the storm hit—sheets of driving rain mixed with hail battering my car. I could barely see, but couldn’t stop in the traffic, so I gritted my teeth and kept going. No good options in these severe storms.
In town, traffic was slow as cars forged through the deep water. At Arapahoe and 28th, a long line was stopped at the light. I didn’t want to sit in the swirling stream. So I stayed back—then gunned the motor and charged through when the line started to move again ahead.
I was exhausted by the time I pulled into my driveway at about
9:30 p.m. To top it off, I got soaked running just the few feet from my car into the house. In the kitchen, the ceiling was leaking, so I had to mop the floor. By the time I had stripped off my wet clothes, put on a robe and fixed myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, it was almost 11:00.
I sat at my kitchen table in a daze contemplating the power a hailstorm unleashes. It’s too much, too fast, too forceful—can do a lot of damage in a short time. Hmmm…nature could be a lot like Erik—pleasant, seductive, then suddenly violent, stopping for nothing until it’s ready to stop.
“Yo, Cleo. You’re full on this case. But if it gets wild, you need to kick out so you don’t get sucked into the falls.”
“Tyler!” He was perched on my kitchen counter. “Did Erik take Jenny’s inhaler out when they went camping so she would die if she had an asthma attack?”
“Chill, Cleo. Stay in the zone. It’s about Sharon, not Jenny. Erik thinks he’s all that, but he’s a chickenhead.” “So I’m supposed to just let Erik get away with killing his wife and running who knows how many scams?”
“Watch where you are. When a wave crashes over your head, it can seem like you’re in deep water, but it may be only two feet.”
“Whatever, Tyler. I’m too tired to make sense of this. Either tell me something straight or go.”
And he went. I dragged myself off to bed and slept until my alarm jolted me awake at 7:00 a.m.
Chapter 33
As soon as I was awake enough to think, it hit me that Sharon and Nathan were camping with Erik. His camping record wasn’t so good, and with all I’d heard from Harry, I was terrified for them. But I didn’t know exactly where they were or how to find them. Rocky Mountain National Park is huge, with five large campgrounds, some many miles away from others. Cell phones rarely work there, and there are no land phones other than at the ranger stations.
I had just jumped into the shower when I realized Sharon might have told Joel what campground they were going to. I hustled myself out and ran dripping wet to the bedroom to grab my cell where Joel’s number was programmed in from the time he’d left me a message after the horrible newspaper story. He answered on the first ring, but he didn’t know any more than I did. He did want to know why I wanted to find Sharon.
“I forgot to ask her when she’s coming back, and I need to know when we can meet tomorrow,” I said in an admittedly feeble attempt to explain.
“So you were going to drive an hour up to Rocky Mountain National Park and look for them at a campground just to find out when they were coming home?” Joel asked incredulously. “Come on, Cleo. What’s up?”
I didn’t want to tell him about Harry, but I knew I had to say something convincing enough to get him off the phone so I could try something else. “Okay, here’s the thing. My boyfriend’s a detective with the Longmont Police. He did some checking and found out a few things about Erik that got me a little worried about Sharon and Nathan being out there alone with him.”
“Like what?” Joel sounded so upset I began to regret calling him.
“Look Joel, I just want to find them. You don’t know any more about where they are than I do, so just forget about it—okay?”
“No way! I’m going up there right now to find them. Do you want to come or not?”
I felt like I had unleashed a tornado. “Wait a minute, Joel. Let’s see if we can find out where they are first. Sharon told me Erik had reserved a camping space, so someone must have a record of it. I need to get to my office, because I have clients I really can’t cancel. Can you meet me there in twenty minutes and we’ll decide what to do?”
After a little more convincing, he agreed. With the bad publicity I’d had lately, I didn’t dare cancel any more clients. I didn’t have anyone scheduled until 11:00 and I hoped we could somehow get this handled by then.
By the time Joel got to my office at 8:00, I was livid. I had called the National Park Service number for Rocky Mountain National Park, but the man who answered said he couldn’t give out any information about camp reservations or campers—that there was a pay phone campers could use to contact me. I struggled to stay calm while I explained that these campers didn’t know they needed to contact me. He repeated his script about being unable to give out information, this time calling me “ma’am” in an exasperated tone. I tried every way I could think of to convince him this was an emergency that warranted suspending the rules, but bureaucracy won out.
“Good grief!” I screamed when Joel walked in. “Those idiots at Rocky Mountain National Park care more about preserving privacy than they do about human life.”
“Cleo, think about it,” Joel said. “For all they know, you could be trying to find someone to hurt them. They can’t be giving out names.”
“You’re probably right. It’s just so frustrating! I can’t see how we can find them without some information.”
“Didn’t you say your boyfriend is a police detective? Why don’t you call him? He could find something out.”
There was no way I wanted to call Pablo about Erik, after having been so snippy with him on the phone when he told me Erik might be trouble. Plus, Pablo didn’t know about my little Minneapolis jaunt yesterday, and I preferred to keep it that way. “Finding people isn’t exactly his thing,” I said, “unless they’re selling drugs.”
Joel grabbed my shoulders gently but firmly. “Cleo, if you think Sharon and Nathan could be in danger, you have to do whatever you can.”
“You’re right. I’ll call him.” But I got voice mail at Pablo’s office and on his cell. I left messages for him to call me right away.
“I don’t know what else we can do,” I said to Joel. He looked dejected. “If you want to go search for them, go ahead. But I have to stay here and meet my clients. I’d cancel them if I thought we had half a chance of finding Sharon and Nathan, but I can’t see how driving up to Estes and cruising around the park is going to help.”
Joel said he had the time, so why not give it a try. Right after he left, Pablo called.
“I decided you were right about Erik—or Horace, whatever you want to call him,” I said, “and now I’m worried about Sharon and Nathan because they’re camping with him. The park service won’t give me any information about where they are and I have no way to reach them. Could you
find them and get them away from him, maybe arrest him?” I heard myself getting shrill.
“Whoa, Cleo. What brought on this sudden concern? Less than two days ago, you were accusing me of being jealous and snooping into this guy’s business, and now you want him arrested?”
“I talked to his brother. He told me a lot of shocking details, but I promised I wouldn’t tell Erik that he’s told me. So if I tell you what he said, you can’t tell where you got the information.”
“Never mind, Cleo. We can’t arrest someone because of what his brother said anyway. But I will see if I can locate them and find out whether they’re okay. If we don’t find them today, I won’t be able to do much, though. Don’t forget I’m leaving tonight for that artists’ conference in Oregon. I’ll be back Sunday afternoon. You can reach me on my cell, but if you need some quick help in the next few days, you’ll need to call 911.”
As soon as he said it, I remembered how much he was looking forward to this conference on marketing for art show artists—hoping to get some new ideas on selling his work, and also to enjoy a gorgeous Oregon resort. It’s not easy for him to get time off for an artist thing, and I didn’t want to bog him down with my problems, so I told him not to worry. I promised if we didn’t find Sharon and Nathan by this evening, I’d call the sheriff or police.
I went back to my work, met with several clients and returned some calls, but I had a hard time concentrating. I kept imagining grisly scenarios in which Sharon and Nathan were victims of a horrible accident. My stomach twisted and lurched as energy surged through my body in nauseating jolts. As I debated taking a break and going to the gym to work out as a way to burn off some of the tension, my phone rang. I jumped and grabbed it on the first ring. It was Sharon.
“Sharon! Are you and Nathan okay?”
“We’re fine. A little tired, but we had a great trip.”
“I’m so relieved to hear from you.”
“Why, is something wrong?”
Too Near the Edge Page 19
