Dead, Bath, and Beyond

by Lorraine Bartlett

  The possibility of a new solution hovered in the air, just out of her reach. She wanted with all her might to grab on to it, but it was still too insubstantial, still just a possibility.

  “I’ll be back,” she said vaguely, not even noticing that Sharon had already left her side minutes earlier. She hurried to her office, grabbed her purse and coat, and headed out. She needed time to think. But all too soon, she was heading for downtown Rochester.

  She parked her car in a nearby ramp garage and headed for the county office building. She mounted the steps and walked along a lengthy corridor until she came to one particular door. Ten minutes later, a voice called out, “Next!” Katie stepped forward.

  “Can I help you?” The middle-aged woman at the Monroe County Clerk’s Office looked at Katie expectantly. Her thick, long hair was so bright it was almost orange, and she wore glasses that looked permanently affixed to the end of her nose. Her name tag said BARBARA.

  “I’m looking for whatever public information is available on three companies, all of which were formed last October or November.” Just after she’d walked out of Kimper Insurance for what she’d assumed would be the last time.

  “Are these DBA companies?” Barbara asked. “Doing Business As?”

  “I have no idea, but that’s probably a good place to start.”

  Barbara nodded and pulled a computer keyboard toward her. “What are the names?”

  Katie recited them from memory. “Fairport Insurance, McKinlay Insurance, and Parma Insurance.”

  “And how do you spell McKinlay?” At Katie’s answer, Barbara’s fingers flew across the keyboard. “Like the town, then. Finding out if they’re DBAs won’t take . . . And here they are.” She tipped her head back to read the monitor through her glasses. “Well, kind of. All three were indeed created as DBAs, but the names are slightly different.”

  “How do you mean?” Katie asked.

  “Well, there’s a Fairport Assurance, a McKinlay Surety, and a Parma Assured Protection, all formed in early November of last year.”

  “That’s weird,” Katie murmured. “Do your records show who created the companies?”

  “It’s required by state statute.” She tapped at the keyboard again. “Here we go . . . That’s odd,” she said, frowning at the monitor. “All three were formed by the same person on the same exact date.”

  “What’s the name?” Katie asked with a dry mouth.

  Barbara pushed at her glasses again and said, “Joshua Kimper.”

  All the way back to McKinlay Mill, Katie’s thoughts were more on insurance than on her driving. Luckily, the roads weren’t overcrowded at that time of day, before post-work traffic would begin, and she made it back without incident.

  She parked her car in front of Artisans Alley, waving at Gilda, who was rearranging her basket store’s window display, but not slowing her pace a smidge, and rushed into the building and to the main sales floor.

  “Ray?” she called, hurrying to the back corner. “Ray, are you here?”

  But he wasn’t. She muttered a minor curse word, spun on her heel, and went back outside, heading across the Square to Wood U. The lights were on, but she didn’t see anyone inside, not even Warren Noth, who shouldn’t have been far, because his contractor’s pickup truck was sitting at the curb.

  She tried the front door, and it was unlocked. Poking her head inside, she called, “Ray? Are you in here?”

  From the back, she heard a rumble of male voices, and then Ray, Noth, and another man whom Katie was pretty sure she’d seen working on the Sassy Sally’s renovation walked into what was going to be the main retail space.

  “Hey, Katie,” Ray said, looking surprised and pleased. “What brings you over here? I’m not late on my rent, am I?”

  She rolled her eyes. He knew perfectly well that he’d paid for the full month. “No, I have a police question, if you have a minute.”

  “Sure.” He glanced at the other two men. “We’re done here, right?”

  Noth, who’d nodded a hello to Katie, said, “As long as Norm here remembers that he needs to put in two-twenty electrical back there and not one-ten, we’ll be all set.”

  “Two-twenty outlets on the back and east walls,” Norm said, not even looking at the clipboard in his hand, “one-ten outlets in strips above the wall bench, an outlet reel over the main bench, and three outlets on the west wall, one on the south, and enough florescent lighting that you could do brain surgery.”

  “Sounds about right,” Ray said. “Thanks, guys.” The two men headed out, and he turned to Katie. “What’s up? You look like you’re about to spill a huge secret. Don’t tell me you already bought my Christmas present, because you shouldn’t have.”

  Katie shook her head. “I didn’t,” she said. “Do you know what’s happened to Don? He was taken away in a police car this morning.”

  “Yeah, I figured you saw that.” Ray leaned against a structure of two-by-fours that were shaped into what would someday become a display counter. “I’m surprised you’re not over at Sassy Sally’s, holding his hand.”

  “He’s back home?” Katie was thrilled that Don was home and not in a jail cell, but she was also confused. “I thought—”

  “They questioned and released him. And before you ask,” he said, holding up a hand, “I have no idea if they’re going to arrest him. And I’m not going to waste Hamilton’s time by calling, because he won’t tell me. We’ll just have to wait and see.”

  “That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” Katie burst out. “I think I figured something out, maybe something really important.”

  “Oh?” The expression on Ray’s face clicked from interested bystander to active police officer. “If you have any information, you need to—”

  “I know, I know,” she said impatiently. “I’m not sure if it’s important or not. That’s why I wanted to talk to you.”

  “All right.” He put one arm across his future counter and suddenly started looking like the detective he’d been for so many years. “I’m listening. Talk away.”

  So Katie did. She told him what Erikka had said about the insurance companies. Told him about the boat that Del had never been able to purchase. Told him about the three companies that sounded like the names of insurance companies but probably weren’t. Told him that Josh had created all three on the very same day, a little less than a year ago.

  But when she finished, Ray was frowning. “I’m not sure where this gets us.”

  “Don’t you see?” Katie asked. “Josh was running some sort of boat insurance scam. I don’t know what, exactly, it was or how it worked, but why else would he set up three shell companies? And he did it after I left, because I’d been there long enough to know if something weird was going on. Erikka is smart, but she didn’t have any experience with insurance. He probably intentionally hired someone who’d never worked in the industry before. When he told her there wasn’t any money in maritime insurance, she had no reason not to believe him.”

  “And that’s not true?” Ray rubbed his chin.

  “Of course it’s not.” After she’d returned from Rochester, Katie had made a few phone calls to colleagues she’d once worked with in other agencies and confirmed. “Those policies are low risk, for the most part, but people with big boats tend to want to over-insure their property.”

  “So how does this tie into Kimper’s death?”

  Katie sighed. “I don’t know. But there must have been something illegal going on. Why would he lie to Erikka otherwise? And creating three new shell companies on the same day seems suspicious to me.”

  “There could be perfectly innocent reasons for all of that.”

  “Like what?” she challenged him. “I’ve tried to think of one and I can’t.”

  Ray stared at the ceiling, whistled tunelessly, then must have come to some sort of conclusion, because he nodd
ed and looked at her. “I think this is worth taking to Hamilton about. Hang on, hang on,” he said, seeing her excitement. “It’s late in the afternoon. There’s no point going over there now. Even if he’s still at his desk by the time we get there, he won’t give us his full attention.”

  “But this is about murder!”

  “And there isn’t any imminent murder going on right now, is there? Trust me, we’ll get more attention and focus out of him in the morning.”

  Though Katie reluctantly agreed, she also knew something else.

  Maybe Detective Hamilton could live without making progress on the case until the next day, but she wasn’t sure she could wait that long.

  Seventeen

  Katie looked around Sassy Sally’s beautiful new kitchen, placed her hands on her hips, and scowled. “Why are you such an idiot?”

  “I must have been born that way,” Don answered. He looked over his shoulder, then, turning back to her, he said in a low voice, “I don’t know where Nick is, but I don’t want him to overhear any of this.”

  Her eyes went wide with surprise. “He doesn’t know the police were questioning your—”

  “Shhh!” Don made frantic shushing motions with his hands. “This is all going to blow over. There’s no need for him to know anything about it until the whole situation is cleared up.”

  “And how are you going to do that, exactly?”

  He offered her a sheepish grin. “By doing what you said I should do to begin with. Go to the police and tell them that I left the party to commission a piece of art. Shaw Jennings will corroborate what I said, and there were a couple of people out at his studio working that night. That should be easy enough to give me a solid alibi.”

  “You’re such an idiot,” she repeated. “What are you going to say when the police ask you why you didn’t explain that at the beginning? They’re going to find that really strange, and I have to say I agree with them.”

  “Piece of cake,” Don said confidently. “All I have to do is tell them how much I love my husband and how much I want to do something wonderful for the birthday of such a handsome, loving, attractive man, and then I do this.” He lowered his head and looked up at Katie through his eyelashes, then batted his eyes.

  “That’s your argument? You’re going to play the gay card?” Katie flung her arms out wide in exasperation. “Are you kidding me? This is the twenty-first century.”

  Don shrugged. “Some people accept the LGBT community, sure. Maybe even most, depending on the accuracy of whatever poll is asking the questions. But do not doubt that there are people out there who hate the fact that gay and lesbian couples exist.”

  “A few people, maybe.”

  Don’s face had lost all trace of humor. “More than a few. It’s something we have to live with and accept.”

  Katie sighed. “I’m sure you’re right. It’s not as if discrimination against women is over, either.”

  “Right.” Don’s grin returned. “So we might as well use our disadvantage to our advantage whenever we can, right?” He batted his eyes again. “Love your haircut, by the way.”

  Ignoring the comment about her coiffure, she wasn’t sure he was right about using the disadvantage. It seemed more than a little manipulative and at least the slightest bit dishonest, but since she’d never had to walk in shoes the shape of his or Nick’s or Seth’s, who was she to judge?

  “Go home and stop worrying,” Don said. “Nick’s birthday is on Wednesday. This can all wait until after that.”

  Though Katie wasn’t so sure, she didn’t disagree with him, not out loud anyway. Partly because it wouldn’t have done any good, and partly because she’d just had a brilliant idea about how to learn what Josh had been up to.

  Once she’d learned that, then, and only then, would she stop worrying.

  All afternoon Katie had been thinking about what she planned to do. Now she had to find the courage to actually do it when what she’d prefer to do was curl up on the couch with Andy, the cats, a couple of thick slices of pizza, and a movie or two.

  Instead, fifteen minutes after she walked up the stairs to her apartment, she walked back down again, only now she had some food in her stomach and had changed clothes from the business casual she wore to work into dark jeans, a black turtleneck, and a hooded black fleece jacket.

  She felt a little silly dressing as if she was going to a burglary, but told herself it was all in her head, that no casual observer would think twice about her choice of clothing. Lots of people wore black. She’d even overheard a customer, who was looking at some of Gwen’s woven shawls, say that black was the new black. Whatever that meant.

  Outside, the sky was turning its own shade of non-trendy black. Katie drove north, peering up at the thick cloud cover that had rolled in and trying to remember what time the sun set. Was it really getting dark this fast, or was a storm coming in? In the gloomy half-light, it was hard to tell.

  A fat raindrop spattered the windshield. “Swell,” she said, then wondered if maybe this wasn’t a good thing for what she was intending to do. Not that it mattered. She was committed to this journey, for better or worse, and a little thing like rain wasn’t going to stop her.

  It didn’t take long for Thompson’s Landing to show up in her car’s headlights. Katie stared through the murk and found the driveway she wanted, the driveway she’d entered so many times during the summer to go sailing with Seth, and the same driveway she’d left after seeing Josh Kimper for the last time.

  Well, the last time she’d seen him alive, anyway. In her dreams she was still catching glimpses of a body floating in a bathtub. Sometimes it was Josh, sometimes it was a stranger, and one awful night, it had been her own body.

  “Get a grip,” she said out loud. If she was going to poke around the marina, trying to figure out the scam Josh had been working with boat insurance, she needed a clear head. This was no time to creep herself out.

  But as she parked in the far corner of the parking lot, she started to think that hanging around the mostly deserted marina was enough to put her in a creeped-out frame of mind all by itself.

  Most of the boat slips were empty. A few boats of various shapes and sizes were scattered about, gently bobbing up and down in the water. At least half of them, Katie saw, were sailboats. She shivered, finding it hard to believe that people would go out on any pleasure boat in temperatures less than sixty-five degrees, let alone a sailboat, when most of the time you had to be on deck.

  “It takes all kinds,” she murmured, quoting her aunt Lizzie, and headed in the direction of the boats.

  She’d only vaguely remembered the boat Josh had pointed out as his, but she had remembered it being a Carver, sleekly white and gorgeous. That afternoon, she’d refreshed her memory of the boat via the Internet and knew she’d recognize it if she saw it again.

  Since Josh had been a brand-new boat owner, she was willing to bet that he hadn’t had it pulled out of the water the day she’d run into him. New owners had a tendency to think the weather would stay warm in September for an extended boating season. They also tended to forget how early the sun went down, which made getting out on a weeknight difficult for people with day jobs, and the odds of decent weekend weather went down significantly with every passing week.

  Katie walked down the wooden docks, her soft-soled shoes almost silent, studying each of the boats still in the water and rejecting every one. She’d hoped that Marcie had asked the marina to take care of the boat’s winterizing, which meant that it would be one of the last ones out of the water. If the boat was still there, she should be able to sneak aboard. The police had undoubtedly gone over the whole thing, but they’d only been looking for evidence of murder, not evidence of insurance fraud.

  But when Katie reached the far end of the marina, she still hadn’t seen a single boat that looked anything like the Carver. While she’d hoped she’d find t
he boat in the water, she hadn’t really expected it. Which meant it was time for plan B.

  She turned and studied the half dozen large buildings that were scattered at the back of the marina’s property. Around each of the buildings were trailered boats, many covered in bright blue shrink-wrap, but many still without the protective winter plastic.

  Though Katie didn’t know if they were waiting to get wrapped or if they went without, she walked toward the boat storage yard, crossing her fingers that Josh’s boat wasn’t being stored inside, and that it didn’t have the shrink-wrap on. It would be hard to recognize the boat if it was covered in that thick blue plastic, and she wasn’t sure if she could bring herself to cut her way in, even if she did.

  The asphalt of the parking lot turned to gravel as she got closer to the boats, then to grass when she reached the multiple rows of shuttered craft. Behind the warehouses lay more boats than she’d ever seen in her life, all lined up nice and tidy and empty.

  “Swell,” she said to herself. This was going to take forever. She looked up at the sky. Now that her eyes had adjusted, it didn’t seem quite as dark as it had when she’d been driving. Plus, the storage yard had automatic lights that were starting to turn themselves on, creating shadows that stretched long across the grass. She should have enough light to at least identify Josh’s boat even if it took until midnight.

  Heading to the farthest corner, she walked up and down the rows of boats, methodically checking each one for size and shape. It didn’t take as long as she’d thought it might, but even still, all the light was gone from the sky when she reached the last line of boats.

  The temperature had dropped, too, and Katie shivered inside her fleece jacket, wishing she’d brought a hat, or at least gloves. She put her hands in her coat pockets and trudged along the boats, more than a little disappointed that she’d wasted the night on a fool’s errand.