Justice in Mystic Grove

by S F Bose

  I smiled. “Sissy, if we find the woman, would you be willing to come in and identify her?”

  I saw surprise and fear flash over Sissy’s face. Then she stood straighter. “Yes… I’ll do it for Steve.”

  “Thank you,” I replied and turned off the voice recorder.

  “One more question, Sissy,” Sam said. “Does Tony have surveillance cameras on-site?”

  “No, he only uses an alarm service when we’re closed.”

  We thanked Sissy for her help. She hurried over to the older couple who looked ready to leave. When we slid out of the booth, Sam added two twenty dollar bills to the five dollar tip I’d left for Sissy.

  “She works hard,” he said.

  Sometimes I could just hug him.

  Chapter 16

  When we returned to the office, Neville had already left. Flip flew out of Sam’s office to greet us. He and Sam tussled on the floor, both of them grinning.

  When I went to my office to dump my coat and bag, I found a note from Neville. “Neville walked Flip twice,” I called out.

  “That’s good. I’m going to drop Flip off at the B&B for an overnight and playdate tomorrow,” he called back.

  “Aunt Grace will be happy,” I said.

  I turned on my laptop and connected to the network. Then I went through the process of transferring the audio files for our interviews with Aggie Beal, Tony, and Sissy to the shared server. I also summarized the information Newmont gave us and itemized the evidence we found in Meagher’s office. I left the summary on Neville’s desk.

  After that, I repurposed an empty copy paper box as an evidence box. I put one copy of the notebook, a copy of Meagher’s Will, and a copy of the photograph of Sharon Meagher and her two children into the box. I put the top back on the box and pushed it against the wall behind my desk.

  “I started an evidence box. I’ll keep it in my office,” I said, walking into Sam’s office.

  “Sounds good,” he replied looking up from his computer. “Do you think we’ll have enough work for Neville?”

  I slid into the nearest guest chair. “Yes, as we ramp up the interviews. Tomorrow will be the first day he’ll have three audio files to listen to and summarize. That should take longer than four hours,” I replied.

  “Good point. I don’t want him to get bored.” Sam said. He tossed his Irish cap on the desk and ran a hand through his hair. “Why don’t we go through the material we found in Braden?”

  “Conference room?” I suggested and he nodded.

  Fifteen minutes later, we sat at the conference room table with our laptops and the copies Sam had made for us.

  “Oh crap,” he said as he emptied a manila envelope with our copies. I reached across the table for a copy of Meagher’s notebook.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  He plucked a document from the pile and held up an envelope.

  “Is that Steven Meagher’s Will?”

  “Yeah, I took one of the originals by mistake,” Sam replied.

  I shrugged. “Newmont has the other original. We’ll return that one the next time we see him. Give it to me and I’ll put it in the evidence box for safekeeping.

  “Yeah. I can’t believe I did that though,” he muttered and slid the Will across to me. “Okay, let’s focus on the Rainy Day notebook.”

  “All right,” I agreed and looked at my copy of the notebook. I flipped through all the sheets. “Hey there are addresses on the last page.”

  Sam looked at the back page. Then he did a search for one of the addresses on his laptop. “ABC Storage. It’s a storage facility near Madison. And the second address is for Acme Storage Cubes, also near Madison.”

  “The keys that we found might fit storage lockers at those facilities,” I said.

  “Yeah. Wonder what he was storing. Let’s look at the other pages,” he replied.

  I focused on the most recent entries toward the back of the notebook.

  “Mar 2, 15 MB Lg B6205408020521 $100/m

  Feb 15, 15 CS Sc S3501209067502 $20/m

  Jan 4, 15 BM Th M3000607701254 $30/m

  Nov 29 14 GR Re R4007208484303 $80/m

  Sep 5, 14 DR Dc R3001608609705 $60/m”

  “We have a date, some other letters, a long code number, and then a monthly payment amount,” Sam said. “It looks like a payment ledger.”

  I stared at the page looking for any patterns. “The long code strings are all fourteen characters long.”

  Sam nodded. “Yeah, you’re right. The two letters after the date could be initials. They’re all capitalized.”

  “Could be,” I agreed. “Unless the next two lowercase letters are initials and the capitalized letters are something else.

  Sam groaned. We batted around possibilities for half an hour without any breakthroughs. I stared at the fourteen character code string and suddenly had an idea.

  I used my laptop to access one of our online subscription databases. I quickly keyed in one of the code strings and hit the ‘Enter’ key. Seconds later, I had the answer.

  “Got it! Look at the September 5th entry. ‘DR’ Is Dwight Reed. The long code number is his driver’s license number. He’s a paramedic so Meagher called him Dc. Doc, maybe? Reed must be paying Meagher sixty dollars a month.”

  Sam grinned. “Great job, Liz! What’s the name of the other paramedic?”

  “Carol Robinson.”

  We both scanned our copies for her initials but didn’t find them.

  “Rose O’Ryan?” I suggested.

  We scanned the copies again. “Bingo. I think this is her,” Sam said. “Look for November 15, 2013.”

  I flipped through the entries until I saw, “Nov 15 13 RO’R RE R400-7208-4843-03 $75/m” When I keyed the driver’s license number into the online database, Rose O’Ryan’s data displayed.

  “It’s her,” I said and turned the laptop so Sam could see the data.

  Sam smiled. “Let’s talk to Dwight Reed and Rose O’Ryan next. We’ll skip Carol Robinson for now. Let’s focus on the two people Meagher was blackmailing.”

  “I’ll set it up,” I replied. I flipped through the notebook copy in front of me. All of the people listed must have felt huge relief when they learned about Meagher’s death. Then I held up the stack of sheets and looked at Sam. “You realize that every person in here is a potential suspect?”

  He nodded. “Yeah, we do have a mother lode of suspects here,” he replied somberly. “That’s good news for Mac, I guess.”

  I looked at him in surprise. “Oh crap!”

  “What?” Sam asked.

  “We need to make sure Mac and Kerry aren’t anywhere in Meagher’s notebook.”

  His eyebrows shot up and he bent over his copy of the notebook. We both reviewed all the entries. We did find one entry for “MG” and two for “KG.” However, when I keyed the driver’s license numbers into the database, the results that displayed were for different people.

  “Thank God,” I muttered.

  “I’ll say,” Sam agreed. “Okay, that’s a wrap.” Sam stood and stretched.

  “I’ll set up our next interviews,” I replied.

  I returned to my office and tossed Meagher’s Will into the evidence box. Then I looked up telephone numbers for Dwight Reed and Rose O’Ryan.

  When I called Dwight Reed, he was initially suspicious. However, when I explained that he had witnessed an interaction Meagher had with someone else, he relaxed. He agreed to come to our office the next day at 10:00 a.m. I gave him the address and we hung up.

  Then I called Rose O’Ryan and after five rings, she answered the phone. She sounded like she had been sleeping. When she erupted into a fit of coughing, I apologized for calling when she was ill.

  “Don’t worry about it. How can I help you?” she replied.

  I explained I was working the Meagher murder investigation and wanted to ask her a few questions.

  “What put me on your radar?” she asked and coughed again.

  “Don’t wo
rry, you’re not a suspect,” I replied and laughed. “My client is a person of interest in the murder. We obviously think he didn’t do it. He mentioned seeing you talking to Meagher outside the Village Tavern one evening. I wanted to talk to you about Meagher and get your opinion on possible enemies he might have had.”

  There was a long pause. “I didn’t know him that well. Most of our interactions weren’t very positive,” Rose replied.

  “Could you please come to my office for a short chat? Anything I can learn about Meagher will help me in my investigation,” I said.

  Rose O’Ryan noisily exhaled and then coughed. Finally, she said, “Okay, but it has to be next week. I’m too sick to schedule anything this week.”

  “How’s Monday afternoon at 2:00 p.m. for you?” I asked.

  “I should be better by then. Give me your address and phone number,” Rose replied. I gave her directions and my cell phone number.

  “Thanks for helping, Mrs. O’Ryan,” I said and we hung up.

  I did a quick fist pump. For a second, I feared Rose O’Ryan was going to decline an interview.

  Sam came into my office and handed me a sheet of paper. Flip was hot on his heels.

  “Mitch sent us the short profile for Mac Goodman. He looks clean. No trouble with the police and no history of violence.”

  I looked at the profile. “How can someone with anger management issues not even have a speeding ticket?” I asked and Sam laughed.

  “How’d it go with Reed and O’Ryan?” he asked, reaching down to pet his dog.

  “I have Reed scheduled for 10:00 a.m. tomorrow and O’Ryan at 2:00 p.m. on Monday. She’s pretty sick with a cough, so that’s the soonest we can talk to her,” I replied.

  Sam nodded and sat in one of my visitor’s chairs. “Okay. What was your take away from Tony and Sissy?”

  I sat back and thought about those interviews. “Well one thing that struck me was how they both liked Meagher. That surprised me. It sounded like he connected with Tony and was nice to Sissy. That seemed odd after all the negative things I’ve heard about him.”

  “I agree. I wonder if the Tipsy Cow was one of the few places Meagher felt comfortable,” Sam replied.

  “Could be,” I agreed. “But the big news was the mystery woman. Sissy said it looked like she was following Meagher out of the parking lot. Could she be our murderer? Maybe she tailed him all the way to the cabin.”

  Sam folded his arms. “At 5’3” or 5’4”, she wouldn’t fit the coroner’s profile for the killer. And how would a woman that short have disarmed him?”

  “Maybe she had a gun?”

  “Then why didn’t she just shoot him?” Sam asked.

  “Good point. I don’t know. It was probably a coincidence she went in the same direction Meagher took,” I replied.

  He nodded. “We’ll run it by Newmont. The police interviewed Tony and I’m sure he mentioned the woman. But we’ll make sure it got back to Newmont.”

  “Okay,” I agreed.

  We chatted a little longer until Flip started to whine. “Well, I’m going to head out early and drop Flip off with Grace,” Sam said and stood.

  “I could take him later, if you like,” I offered.

  “Thanks, but I want to run around with him a little,” Sam replied. “I feel like I’m not giving him enough quality time.”

  I laughed. “Spoken like a true doggy daddy.”

  Sam smiled. “I sometimes think Flip is training me instead of the other way around.”

  We both looked at the beautiful Golden Irish dog. His head had been tracking back and forth between us as we spoke. Now he just looked at Sam.

  “Yeah, he understands everything we say,” I said.

  Sam nodded. “It’s spooky. Okay, we’re out of here.”

  “See you tomorrow,” I replied.

  “That you will. Night.”

  “Night Sam. Night Flip.” I heard a bark and was pretty sure it was the dog.

  Chapter 17

  When I walked in the office door the next day, Neville was hunched forward listening to an audio recording.

  “Morning, Neville. How’s it going?” I asked.

  He jumped and held a hand up. I watched as he stopped the audio and removed his earbuds.

  Then he leaned back in his chair and grinned. “Morning, Liz. I had the volume turned up.”

  “I didn’t mean to startle you,” I replied and smiled. “Any questions about the audio files or notes?”

  “No, I’m good so far. Is it okay if I put in some extra time to get all three files done today?”

  “That would really help. Just put all your hours in the online wage system,” I replied and smiled.

  Neville blinked and adjusted his glasses. Suddenly, he grinned. “You mean the online Excel spreadsheet? Will do.”

  I chuckled. “Great. Just holler if you have any questions.”

  Neville’s head bobbed up and down. “I will.”

  I brewed a cup of dark roast coffee and settled in to work. I was reviewing Dwight Reed’s profile when Sam walked through the office door.

  “Morning,” he said. “Sorry, I’m late. I slept right through my alarm.” He sat down across from me and sipped from a travel mug.

  “Morning. You look tired. Did you take Flip for a run last night?” I asked.

  “I did. I ran him along one of the paths into the forest at the B&B.”

  “Sounds like fun.”

  “Yeah it was, until something caught Flip’s attention and he ran away from me,” Sam said sadly. “That dog can really run.”

  Fear cut through me. “He was off leash? You lost Flip?” I hissed. Sam looked up in surprise and flinched at the expression on my face.

  “Only for a while. I found him… after an hour of running in the woods and calling him. Actually, he found me. He came trotting back up the path looking very satisfied. To make matters worse, on the run back my knee started acting up and I had to walk. We were both exhausted when we reached the B&B.”

  I exhaled and took some slow, deep breaths. “Thank goodness he came back. Sam, you need to get one of those GPS transmitter collars for Flip. Then you can track him with an app on your cell phone.”

  Sam’s eyebrows shot up. “They have those?”

  “Sure. You can check the local pet shops or look online. But in the woods Flip should be on a long leash. Dogs go nuts when they see a squirrel or other critters.”

  “I’ll check online today,” he agreed. “And roger on the leash.”

  “That explains where you were when I got home yesterday. I saw your Jeep in the guest parking lot but didn’t see you in the B&B.”

  “I was probably still in the forest. When we got back to the B&B, I dropped Flip off with Grace and hobbled home.”

  “Is your knee better today?”

  He nodded. “Yeah I iced it last night. It feels pretty good today.”

  The front door chime sounded and I checked my watch. “Dwight Reed’s right on time.”

  Neville stuck his head in the doorway. “Excuse me. There’s a Mr. Reed in front.”

  “Thanks Neville. We’ll be right there,” I replied. He waved and returned to the front of the office.

  “We really need to find a way to get that kid to forget about grad school and come to work for us full-time,” Sam said and stood.

  “Hush now,” I said in shock and Sam laughed.

  “You take the lead on this interview,” he said.

  “Okay, boss,” I replied and laughed when his jaw clenched.

  ***

  Dwight Reed sat across from us at the conference room table looking bored. He was a tall, muscular man in his late twenties. When we introduced ourselves in the reception area, his response had been icy. His blue-green eyes shifted slowly back and forth between Sam and me, evaluating us. However, the rest of his face was emotionless.

  I put my phone on the table with the voice recorder running. “May I call you Dwight?” I asked with a smile. When Reed nodded,
I said, “Thank you. And thank you for coming in today. We’ve been retained to investigate the murder of Steven Meagher. Did you know Mr. Meagher?”

  “Not really. He stopped me last year for a traffic violation and gave me a warning,” Dwight replied in a flat voice. “But I didn’t really know him.”

  “Okay. Our client told us he saw you and another paramedic outside the Village Tavern one evening. Meagher had approached Rose O’Ryan, the trustee, in the parking lot and they were arguing. Do you remember that night?”

  Dwight Reed seemed to relax. “Yeah, I do remember it. My partner and I were going to have a drink. That’s what you wanted to talk about?”

  I ignored his question. “Your partner is Carol Robinson?”

  “That’s right,” he replied.

  “Dwight, do you remember saying that evening, ‘His time is coming’ and ‘Someday Meagher would pick on the wrong person and would get crushed,’ or words to that effect?”

  Dwight nodded his head slowly. “I probably said something like that. Meagher had a bad reputation. I figured someday he’d try to push around the wrong person and would get hurt.”

  “Where did you hear about his reputation?” I asked.

  “After he stopped me last year, I asked around at the firehouse,” Dwight replied. “Those who knew him seemed to hate him. He was a bully and liked to throw his weight around. He had a bad temper too.”

  “I nodded. Okay. That same night, our client heard Rose O’Ryan shout, ‘Leave me alone! It’s over! You’re not getting anything more’ Do you have any idea what she meant?”

  Dwight shrugged. “No idea. You’d have to ask her.”

  “Dwight, can you tell us about the fight you had with Meagher in the Village Tavern parking lot about a month ago?” I asked.

  Dwight’s eyes locked with mine. He smiled faintly and shook his head. “You’ve got the wrong guy. I didn’t kill Steven Meagher.”

  “I understand. We’re just trying to get a feel for Meagher and what he was like. What did the two of you fight about?”

  Dwight inhaled and exhaled slowly. He’s trying to calm himself.

  “My wife and I were going to get something to eat at the Tavern. Meagher was leaving as we arrived. He’d clearly been drinking. When he saw me, he made a crack about the traffic stop. I hadn’t told Jill, my wife, about the stop and the warning. I didn’t want to worry her. I walked up to him and told him to shut up. He laughed and pushed me, so I shoved him back. Then he raised his fists and came at me. I sidestepped and stopped him with a gut punch. He fell to his knee. I told him to stay down but he struggled to his feet. He lunged at me but he was drunk and off-balance. I punched him in the jaw and he went down again. He was trying to stand up a third time when Deputy Newmont rolled up and told us to knock it off. He got Meagher to his feet and sent him on his way. My wife and I went in to eat dinner. That was it.”