The Claudia Hershey Mysteries - Box Set: Three Claudia Hershey Mysteries

by Laura Belgrave

  “I never heard of such a thing,” Carella told Claudia. He’d waylaid her behind the station, where she was resentfully having a smoke beside the dumpster. “The will doesn’t name an individual. It leaves it open to whoever happens to be in Becker’s employ at the time of his death, which of course happens to be one Babs Kensington.” He flapped her smoke away with a sheaf of papers. “You should’ve quit when I did. That thing’s gonna kill you.”

  “Never mind,” said Claudia. “Whose idea was the codicil?” she asked.

  “You’ll love it. According to the attorney who tacked on the provision, a Frederick Montgomery in Flagg, it was Barbara’s idea, although Becker didn’t seem to object. This was within two months of their moving down here from Chicago.”

  “And Montgomery didn’t question it? Didn’t ask for clarification on the language, anything like that?”

  “Uh-uh. But get this: Montgomery only saw the Beckers twice. It was a walk-in job, and he admitted he didn’t ask a lot of questions. He said Mrs. Becker doubled his fee for him to draw up the papers and have everything done in no more than ten days. He got half up front, the other half before the ink was dry on the final papers. Everything was in cash.”

  Claudia took a drag. “The will’s not even probated yet, Emory. How’d you find Montgomery?”

  “Wish I could take credit, but it was Booey. Got to love that kid. He plowed through real estate records yesterday afternoon, and turned up a Chicago attorney’s name. I called the guy and although he had nothing to do with drawing up the will, he’s golfing buddies with the lawyer who did—”

  “Small club,” Claudia murmured.

  “You got that right, and we should be grateful. He gave me the name of the original estate lawyer, who told me he hadn’t been in touch with the Beckers since before they moved, but had recently gotten a phone call from—”

  “Your Mr. Montgomery.”

  “Yup. Mrs. Becker gave Montgomery the Chicago name so he could touch base and get the paperwork expedited.”

  “What’s your take on this Montgomery?”

  “Washed out. The guy looks to be about sixty, and like maybe a heavy drinker. Red face, tired eyes, veins popping out around his nose. I don’t know; maybe he was good once, but he’s definitely not at the top of his game now. He works solo in a beat-up office between one of those ‘instant’ loan companies and a mom-and-pop hardware store. It’s not the kind of place you’d expect the Beckers to even set foot in. I mean, this guy had an artificial plant on his desk that looked dead.”

  “And he showed you the codicil?”

  “Better than that. The guy was wonderfully free of ethics. Or maybe he just figured it would be less trouble to play nice with a cop in his face than to deal with Mrs. Becker later. I don’t know which, but he made a photo copy of the whole will, which as you can see is fatter than our phone book. Once you strip out the gobbledygook from all those pages, what it comes down to is the wife gets everything. Well, all except that hundred grand.”

  “Smarmy lawyer.”

  “He shrugged it off. ‘Gonna be probated soon enough,’ is what he said to me. And anyway, I told him it was just routine, me asking questions on an ‘accidental’ death. He never pushed a question back at me—not one. Maybe that’s why Mrs. Becker picked him.”

  Claudia kicked at a bottle cap on the ground, sent it skittering. It binged off the dumpster and rolled in a tight little circle before coming to a stop back at her shoe. “Montgomery say anything about Henry Becker?” she asked. “Anything about how he . . . appeared?”

  “Not really. Montgomery said Becker mostly sat there, quiet as a stone. Mrs. Becker did all the talking and when they followed up on signatures a week later, it was the same thing.”

  “I don’t suppose Kensington was conveniently with the Beckers when they visited Montgomery’s office.”

  “Now you’re pushing your luck.”

  “Yeah.” Claudia took a final drag on the cigarette, then crushed it with her shoe.

  “You just going to leave that there?”

  “Hey. Since when did you become so high and mighty?” Claudia said. She bent down to pluck the butt from the ground and tossed it in the dumpster.

  “Reformed smokers are the worst,” Carella replied. “It’s because we constantly want what we can’t have anymore.” He fanned himself with the will. “You want to read this over?”

  “Leave it on my desk. I’ll probably take it home tonight. I hate legalese.”

  “All right. I’ll see if I can catch up with Mitch, too. He’s got a good eye for this kind of thing.”

  Claudia nodded. Moody had dropped out of law school after three years, dismayed at the prospect of waiting years for legal machinery to right injustices. “Good idea, Emory.” They headed back to the building. “And look, nice work on this. We now know something that we didn’t before. I just wish we knew what it meant. Meanwhile, how about the train angle? Anything there?”

  “Don’t hold your breath. I’m still looking—correction, Booey and I are still looking—but if there’s a lunatic out there who had the hots for Becker’s trains, we haven’t found him yet and so far there’s nothing to suggest we will.”

  “About what I thought,” said Claudia. “But keep at it. You—”

  “—never know.”

  He feigned alarm at the look she gave him, then laughed and spun off in search of Moody, leaving her to sort things out.

  * * *

  The phone rang six times before someone picked up and a brisk voice said, “Good morning. Dr. Krestler’s office.”

  “Good morning,” said Claudia. “This is—”

  “Can you hold for a moment?”

  “I—”

  “Thanks.”

  Fuzzy music instantly replaced the voice and Claudia bristled. It didn’t matter whether you were ordering a pizza or checking on a car repair. Either you got slammed on hold before you had your name out or you got shuttled into a recorded “menu of choices” in lieu of a real person altogether. But this, a doctor’s office! What if she had an emergency? What if—

  “Good morning. Dr. Krestler’s office. Please—”

  “No, I won’t hold,” said Claudia. She barked her name and position, and told the voice what she wanted. A beat later, the voice muttered something indistinct, and put her on hold again. The wait was longer, but this time when the canned music cut off it was the doctor himself who answered. He identified himself in a tone only slightly less brusque than that of his receptionist.

  “Mrs. Becker told me you might be faxing paperwork on the death certificate over,” Krestler said. He paused. “I didn’t know Henry Becker all that well, but I was sorry to hear about his passing.”

  Krestler sounded more perfunctory than sorry to Claudia, but she supposed he was accustomed to having patients die on him. “Actually, there’s a hitch with the M.E.’s office,” she said smoothly. “They got my last name screwed up and then . . . well, I won’t take up your time with the annoying details. Point is, it’s already Friday and I just wanted to give you a courtesy call, let you know not to look for anything ’til maybe Monday.”

  “That wasn’t necessary, but thank you. I’ll have my—”

  “Funny that the Beckers didn’t locate a doctor closer to home,” she said. “I didn’t realize until I looked at the area code and called that you’re—what? Over in Palm Beach County?”

  “That’s right. North Palm Beach, actually.”

  “That’s quite a drive from Indian Run. Two hours or so. I’m surprised you didn’t refer her to someone closer.”

  “As a matter of fact, I’m sure I must have,” Krestler said defensively.

  Claudia heard him flipping through papers. Becker’s medical file, no doubt.

  “I’m not sure where she got my name—someone told her about me, I assume—but, yes, here it is—the first time she and her husband visited I specifically advised her that at some point Henry would need more regular care. I offered to g
ive her the names of specialists closer to her. We were supposed to discuss it on her next visit, but then I didn’t see her again, just her daughter.”

  “Her daughter?”

  “Yes, her . . . well, I presume it was her daughter. She looked like a younger version of Mrs. Becker and she called Mr. Becker “daddy.”

  Babs.

  “At any event,” Krestler continued, “I only saw Mr. Becker a few times. They broke several appointments, so let’s see . . . I actually only had Mr. Becker in here four times, to be exact.”

  “That’s all?”

  “All things considered, he was in remarkably good health. He had mild hypertension, but we were treating it with diet and exercise.” Defensive again. “Look, it’s up to the patients and their families to make and keep appointments, you know. This is a very busy practice and—”

  “When’s the last time you saw him?”

  “This is starting to sound like more than a courtesy call.”

  “Not at all,” Claudia said. “I just need to dot all the ‘i’s and cross all the ‘t’s, what with the distance involved and all.” She doodled on the margin of her notepad. “You wouldn’t believe the form I have to fill out. It’s new, the . . . IR 202-DX. You’ve—”

  “Look, what was the question?”

  “The last time you saw Mr. Becker.”

  “Right. Uh . . . May 28.”

  “So a little more than a month ago.”

  “Yes, and he was fine. No measurable changes. Anything else I can help you with?”

  “Can’t think of a thing,” Claudia said. She could think of a lot of things, but nothing that wouldn’t raise questions she wasn’t prepared to answer. “I appreciate your time, Dr. Krestler. If I have anything else, I’ll give a call. Otherwise, I’ll just get the papers over and we’ll be done.”

  She waited for him to say “fine” or “you have my number” or almost anything else that would signal the end of their conversation. When he didn’t, she realized he had already hung up. She closed her own connection then and set the phone back in its cradle. Yep. Just like calling in a pizza order, all right.

  Chapter 16

  Babs Kensington didn’t see them coming, and Claudia was sorely tempted to announce herself just for the entertaining reaction she was sure it would produce. But if there was anything to be learned, it would be learned by giving the woman a moment to camouflage what she was unknowingly revealing right now.

  Claudia put a hand on Booey’s arm and a finger at her lips. She tiptoed him backwards until dense shrubbery at the corner of the house concealed them both. It took effort not to laugh aloud at Booey’s face, which blazed with embarrassment—and probably something else—over the naked woman in the pool. The something else might have been the pony tailed man paired in the water with Kensington. He belonged to the Jag out front, and clearly had more than a neighborly concern over Mrs. Becker’s emotional well-being.

  Interesting.

  “Someone should’ve answered the phone or door,” Booey whispered. He seemed to be having trouble swallowing. “Think we should come back later?”

  Claudia shook her head. “Not a chance. We’re going to find out what they’ll say when they weren’t prepared to say anything at all.”

  The pool was connected to the house through French doors, and shimmered beneath an immense screened enclosure, one side of which was shaded by trees and included an elaborate garden with a discreet fountain. A cluster of small palms concealed a hot tub and shower on the other side, near the shallow end of the pool. Paradise.

  Booey pointed at the garden. “You can’t really see them from here, but that’s where Mr. Becker’s G-scale trains are,” he said wistfully. “I bet no one’s keeping any of it up now.”

  “Never mind about the trains,” Claudia said. “Come on. Let’s back up and make a noisier entrance.”

  They slipped quietly back to the driveway, where Claudia paused long enough to jot down the license number on the Jaguar, then turned around and retraced their steps to the pool at a leisurely pace. This time, though, Claudia called out “hellos” and “is anybody home?” in a voice loud enough to stop a pulse.

  Their timing couldn’t have been better. Kensington and Ponytail had enough time to fumble back into decency, but not enough to appear casual about it. Kensington sat dripping on the edge of the pool beside two hastily abandoned beer bottles, breathing hard and groping behind her neck at the ties for her bikini top. Claudia wondered why she bothered. The bikini had the size and substance of a paper towel. Ponytail wore khaki shorts that he’d forgotten to zip, and he was pushing a long brush against the inside rim of the pool. Neither of them was looking at the other. Claudia knew it would be the moment she would cherish most from the investigation.

  “Oh, good,” she called out cheerfully to Kensington. “I saw the car out front and figured someone must be home. Glad I caught you.” With Booey in her shadow she walked briskly toward the pool, not stopping until she loomed over the woman from a foot away.

  Kensington’s sunglasses were on the other side of the pool, nestled together with Ponytail’s like lovebirds. She shaded her eyes and looked up. She smiled tightly. “Another minute or two and you would’ve missed me. I just finished a workout and need to get dressed. I’m going out shortly.”

  “Well then, I’m really glad I caught you,” said Claudia. She knew she was enjoying herself way too much, but so what? There weren’t a lot of perks in a murder investigation. She turned her attention to the man. “You look familiar,” she said. “Didn’t I meet you with Mrs. Becker earlier?”

  He grunted and said, “Aaron.”

  “Oh, right, right,” she said, this time locking the name in her mind. “The neighbor’s son. I knew it began with an ‘A.’ Just couldn’t call it up.” She looked pointedly at the pool broom in his hand. “Mrs. Becker is lucky to have you. I’m not sure my neighbors would carry my trash can to the curb, never mind clean a pool.”

  He shrugged. “She’s going through a tough time.”

  “Aren’t we all,” Kensington said to Claudia’s legs. She edged away a little, looking for a comfort zone, and flashed a brilliant smile at Booey. “You must be the police chief’s nephew. Booley, right?”

  “Booey,” he mumbled. He cleared his throat, then jammed his hands in his pockets.

  “Booey! That’s it! Mrs. Becker told me all about you.” She winked at him. “You can call me Babs.”

  Booey stood frozen in place and nodded mutely. Aaron chuckled.

  “I hope you’ll tell me where you get your hair colored,” Kensington continued. “It’s so . . . theatrical!”

  Enough. Claudia didn’t want Kensington to get too comfortable, so she answered for him. “His hair is colored by God. We should all be so lucky.” She turned to Aaron and conversationally added, “Incidentally, your fly is open. Thought you’d like to know.”

  While he pawed at his zipper, she squatted beside Kensington. The woman’s breasts dramatically rose and fell with each breath she took. Claudia gazed at the flat water. “Bet you’ll be glad to get back to Chicago. When do you actually close on the house?”

  Kensington drew circles in the water with a foot. “Soon, I hope.”

  “I bet. This has to be hard, being down here with a tragedy and all, your boyfriend being up there.” She leaned close enough to see Kensington’s pores. “This guy—” she jerked her head in Aaron’s direction— “just between you and me, don’t you find him a little unsettling? He reminds me of that actor who played Lurch on that old TV show . . . what was the name of it?”

  “I don’t have to like him,” Kensington replied stiffly. “Mrs. Becker likes him. That’s all that counts.”

  “I’m sorry. I meant no offense,” Claudia said. “I’m sure he’s very nice.”

  “He seems to be, but I don’t know him well. I only just met him.”

  Liar, liar, pants on fire . . .

  “Ah. I thought you might’ve been introduced when you wer
e living with the Beckers.” Claudia shifted her weight. “Well, I—” Her cell phone chirped from inside her purse. The sound still startled her, but it had lost its punch. “Excuse me,” she said, rising smoothly. “I’ll be right back. Booey, keep Ms. Kensington company.”

  She rooted through her bag for the phone as she walked out of hearing distance. “Yes,” she snapped.

  “Hershey, it’s Suggs. Bad news. I just got a heads-up from the M.E.’s office. Mrs. Becker called this morning, raisin’ all kinds of stink ’cause the body hasn’t been released and no one will tell her anything. They put her off for now, and I dodged the next call she made, which was to me. But you can forget about stallin’ on this anymore. It’s getting’ too hot.”

  “Damn it,” Claudia said. She glanced over at Kensington. She’d climbed out of the pool and was slowly toweling off, making Booey’s life an exquisite hell. “All right. I’m at the Becker estate now. The vixen’s here, but it doesn’t look like Mrs. Becker is. I’ll have to leave a message for her to call me.”

  “She’s probably at the mayor’s office,” Suggs said glumly.

  Claudia rolled her eyes. “Look, do you have connections at the phone company? It’d be handy if we could get a handle on the calling activity at the Becker house.”

  “There’s official channels for that kinda thing, Hershey.”

  “Yeah. And official channels are slow. So do you have anybody or not?”

  Suggs grunted. “All right, all right. My sister-in-law Estelle works over there. I’ll see what I can do. How far back?”

  “Since the Beckers moved here.”

  “Figured that’s what you’d say. Anything else?”

  “I need a tag run.” She reeled off the plate number on the Jag.

  “All right. That it?”

  “That’s it.”

  Claudia heard Suggs swallow, once, twice. She caught the familiar sound of the bottle cap going back on the Maalox. She waited, resisting a comment.

  “How’s Booey doin’, anyway?” Suggs asked a moment later. “He still scratchin’ at those bites?”