Dead in a Flash

by Brynn Bonner

  “Damon,” Senator Stan said with a sigh, “your eloquence is inspiring. As is your gung ho attitude.”

  Damon smiled and nodded.

  “That was sarcasm, son,” the senator barked. “Having to ward off claimants is the very thing we are trying to avoid.”

  “We’ll keep going if you want,” I said. “I’ve got my teeth into it now. But I felt I owed you an update.”

  “No,” Damon said. “You’re done. You’re fired, don’t you get it?”

  The senator held up a hand. “This is not your meeting, Damon, and not your call. You’re here as a courtesy.” Then he looked at me. “I don’t think I’m quite ready to ax you just yet,” he said. “I’d like you to stay on it for a while longer. Let’s say you give it another week. Is that agreeable with you, Lenora?”

  “If they’re willing,” she said with a sigh.

  “Damon?” the senator asked.

  “I don’t know why you’re asking me,” he said with a sulk. “It seems I don’t get a vote.”

  “No, you don’t,” the senator said, “not until you earn one. But it’s good form to give your support once a thing is decided. Let that be your lesson for the day.”

  * * *

  As I was leaving, I spotted Emma with her grandmother at one of the tables on the terrace. I went over to say hello.

  Emma surprised me by jumping up and wrapping me in a fierce hug. “I have to say good-bye,” she said. “Mom and I are leaving in the morning, I’ve got school on Monday. Will I see you anymore now that you’re done with Grandpa’s birthday stuff? I will, won’t I? You’ll still come visit?”

  “I hope so, Emma,” I said, laughing at her exuberance. “Maybe you’ll end up at one of the universities in this area, then we can see a lot of each other.” I returned her hug and whispered in her ear, “And stay out of thunderstorms.”

  “Did you have a nice chat with Luther?” Lily Rose asked.

  “I did,” I said. “He’s a really nice man.”

  “Helpful?” she asked, noting my evasiveness.

  I made a face. “Not so much.”

  “I’m gonna walk Sophreena to her car, okay, Grandma?” Emma said, grabbing my arm to move me along.

  “I guess I’m going,” I said, turning to wave good-bye to Lily Rose.

  “Okay,” Emma said when we’d gotten to the edge of the terrace. “Here’s the deal. I feel like I’m telling on Chelsea all the time now, but honestly, she’s ticked me off and I don’t even feel bad about it anymore. She asked me this morning if I’d been snooping around her room. That’s the way she said it, snooping. I mean, I don’t deny I’ve been guilty of like looking in people’s medicine cabinets at parties or maybe a quick glance into their closets, but I’m not a snooper. So I’m mad at her.”

  “Understandable,” I said, wondering where this was going.

  “Anyway, a little while ago I was helping Marc and Patricia with some campaign mailings in Dinah Leigh’s suite, and Dinah Leigh asked Chelsea to take some of her jewelry down and put it in the hotel safe since they’re staying on a while. I was kind of hoping to get a look at the jewelry. Dinah Leigh has such pretty stuff. So I went to Chelsea’s door to ask her if she’d show it to me. The door wasn’t closed all the way and I saw her put something inside the jewelry case and zip it up. It was that blue envelope I told you about, I’m sure of it. She said it was nothing when she set it aside that day, but if that’s true, why would she put it in the safe?”

  “I don’t know, Emma, but I’m sure Chelsea had her reasons,” I said. Though inside I was getting a little hacked off at Chelsea myself.

  * * *

  When Esme got home from the grocery store I was lying on the hardwood floor in the workroom memorizing the cracks in the ceiling. I think an occasional moan might have been emanating from deep within me.

  “What on earth are you doing?” Esme asked.

  “Trying to figure out why in God’s name we ever took on either of these jobs,” I said.

  Esme kicked off her heels and lowered herself to the floor beside me. “Does this help?” she asked, wiggling to get her shirttail untwisted.

  “Not very much,” I said, “but it helps a little if you whimper.”

  I told her about my day.

  “Okay, let me recap,” Esme said. “Your talk with Luther Hamilton only confirmed one thing for us—unfortunately, that was the fact that the officials in this case were dunderheads. And on the other case, Chelsea lied right to your face about that blue envelope, which means it was something she doesn’t want us to know about or get in our hot little hands.”

  “That about covers it,” I said.

  “So we’re continuing to pedal backwards,” Esme said. “On both jobs.”

  The front door opened and I started to get up, but Esme grabbed my arm. “That’s Denton, he’s come for supper.” She shouted for him to come to the workroom—right in my ear, thank you very much.

  Denny stopped in the doorway to survey the situation. “Lose something?” he asked.

  “Besides our minds, you mean?” I asked. “We’re pondering the universe and wondering why we can’t get a break on anything we’re working on.”

  “Okay,” Denny said, striding into the room and looking down at us. “I’m in. How does this work?”

  “It doesn’t,” Esme said.

  “Honest to Pete, I’m ready to try anything at this point,” he said, helping us to our feet.

  “No developments?” I asked.

  “A few nuggets here and there, but still no beacon shining down on the perpetrator.”

  “Anything on Chad Deese’s alibi?”

  “Yeah. You know that saying about what happens in fight club staying in fight club? Well, apparently Deese’s friends didn’t get the memo. He was with two guys and two young women at a gym over near Chapel Hill. They go there after-hours to do some kind of martial arts training, and Deese was there the night Lincoln died. Apparently this was recommended by his therapist to help with his anger management. The friends couldn’t wait to give their account of how Deese got his black eye. One of the women gave it to him.”

  “So he’s in the clear?” Esme asked, sounding disappointed.

  “Tentatively,” Denny said. “He was away from them for about an hour when he was supposedly in the weight room. We’ll look at security footage before we rule him out.”

  “Did J.D. call you?” I asked.

  “Yes, right after you left him. His phone’s been out of commission since the night Lincoln died. He gave it to me to see if our tech guys can do anything. He swears he’s got no idea why Lincoln was calling him unless it was to patch up the little fuss they had that afternoon. But he doesn’t think that was it ’cause they’d already smoked the peace pipe. Though he admits he was still a little vexed about it.”

  “And you think he was telling the truth?” Esme asked. “That he had no idea why Lincoln would have been calling him?”

  “Either he’s a good actor or he was really stumped,” Denny said. “And he handed over the phone without hesitation.”

  “Anything else?” Esme asked.

  “Well, I met the lovely Aunt Yvonne today,” Denny said. “Jennifer talked to her before, so the pleasure was all mine this time. She believes she’s solved the case for me and indicated I’m an idiot for not figuring it out already. She says she overheard Chelsea and Lincoln arguing that afternoon and she’s convinced Chelsea killed him later on that night, evidence being optional as far as she’s concerned.”

  “She’s accusing Chelsea?” I said. “Dinah Leigh wouldn’t like that.”

  “Aunt Yvonne is clearly not a fan of the assistant. She says Chelsea doesn’t know her place and that Dinah Leigh needs to get rid of her.”

  “Or maybe she’s trying to do it for her by accusing Chelsea of Lincoln’s murder,” Esme said.

  “How does one woman grow old as delightfully as Lily Rose and another turn into Aunt Yvonne?” I asked, not expecting an answer.

>   “Nothing about growing older,” Esme said. “Some people are just born sour.”

  “But I don’t think she was always that way,” I said, walking over to the table where we had the Nelson family artifacts assembled. I picked up a stack of photos, an amazingly thin stack compared to most families of this era, and dealt them out onto the cleared area of tabletop. “See here, in these old photos she’s smiling and looks like a happy-go-lucky girl. Look at these of her and Dinah Leigh’s mother from one of those old photo booths. Look how happy they both look. And here’s Yvonne in an evening gown. Prom maybe? She’s smiling and she looks adorable. And here—” I stopped abruptly as I noticed Esme’s expression.

  She was staring at the pictures and she had that look. “What is it?”

  She pinched her lips, giving Denny an almost apologetic look. Then I understood. While she’d told Denny about her gift, he’d not yet seen it in action. “His hand,” she said. “Remember I’ve been telling you I kept seeing a hand? In every one of these pictures, Herbert Nelson has his hand in his pocket, or hidden behind his leg.”

  “Is there anything unusual about this hand you see?” Denny asked, with no hint of skepticism in his voice. “A birthmark or a deformity?”

  “No,” Esme said, drawing out the word. “No, it’s a man’s hand, I know that, and it’s tanned and work hardened, but there’s nothing beyond that. It’s reaching for something . . .” She paused and I saw her eyes widen. “And then there’s just terrible pain.”

  “I think I might know what that’s about,” I said. “I asked Dinah Leigh about that new car after Patricia gave us those pictures the other day. I couldn’t figure out how they could afford it. Dinah Leigh says after he was laid off from the graphite plant he was hired on a temp crew to close the plant down. There was an accident when they were dismantling some of the machinery and he was hurt, his hand and arm were badly injured. There was a settlement and that’s how they got that new car,” I said, pointing to the photo of him with the 1949 Ford. “Dinah Leigh said he never thought the settlement was fair and he was very bitter about it. Maybe he still is.”

  “Well, I’d say that qualifies as unfinished business,” Esme said. She let out a sigh and looked up at Denton warily. He pulled her to him, kissing the top of her head. She swatted at his midsection. “You’re dead on your feet. Go have a quick nap on the couch while I get supper ready.”

  Jack ended up joining us for chicken fajitas that Esme had whipped up, and by unspoken agreement, we all honored her work by not talking business at the dinner table.

  “I talked to Coco this afternoon,” Jack said. “She and River are on their way back from that sustainability workshop. I’m issuing fair warning; she is on fire about this and will be preaching at you at every available opportunity. I already got an earful about how I can change my business practices to be more friendly to Mother Earth.”

  “Couldn’t hurt,” Denny said. “Right here at this table we’re soon to be four separate households—for now.” He slipped a sidelong glance at Esme, who refused to look at him. “That’s a pretty substantial footprint for this number of people.”

  “Oh, yeah, I agree,” Jack said. “I have no doubt I’ll learn a lot from her, but you know Coco. When she gets excited about something it’s like getting hit by a tornado.”

  “She and River make a good pair,” Esme said.

  “Matchmaking?” Denny asked.

  “Not I,” Esme said. “But if something were to develop, well, maybe they’d have one less household to impact the environment. And speaking of environmental issues . . .” She turned to me. “After I move out you’re going to need to remember to only run the dishwasher when it’s full, and always run it first thing in the morning—that’s when we get a break on our utility rate—and anyway, elsewise you won’t have enough hot water for your shower at night. And you need to put a timer in the bathroom to remind you to get out after a reasonable time. You stay in there way too long.”

  “I like long hot showers,” I said. “That’s where I do my best thinking. It’s a business expense. And I can offset it by only running the dishwasher once a week. I won’t be cooking that much.”

  “You have to eat, Sophreena,” Esme said.

  “I will,” I said with a grin. “All I have to do is step out on the patio and I can smell what you’re cooking for supper. I can be there in under two minutes.”

  “And she can call me and let me know what we’re having,” Denny said, pointing his knife at me.

  “Me, too,” Jack said. “Or maybe I should set up a website so you can post the menus.”

  Esme laughed. “Fine, my mama always said I was bad to feed strays when I was a girl. At least now I’ll have a bigger kitchen.”

  “In a color you love,” Denny said.

  * * *

  After Denny went back to work and Esme had shooed us out of the kitchen, Jack and I tried to watch a movie. But I couldn’t concentrate. Jack finally flicked off the set.

  “Let’s play Puzzle-Me-This,” he said, settling in on the far end of the couch, out of cuddling range.

  This was the term he’d come up with for the talking-aloud sessions we sometimes do in our group to try to figure out how things we’ve learned about our family histories might fit together. Sometimes the group-brain could unravel things the individual brain only managed to wind into tighter knots.

  I moved to sit cross-legged on the other end of the couch. “Okay, job number one, the Sawyer family fire. Everything we learn takes us further away from the proof they’re asking for. Now we’re working on borrowed time, and if Damon had his way, we’d be off the job already.”

  At Jack’s quizzical look I explained how he’d been included in the meeting this afternoon and why.

  “Well, Sophreena, I can’t say he’s wrong. I mean, it might be a pain to have to ward off people claiming to be John David Sawyer, but with DNA testing it’d only be a nuisance, not a real threat.”

  “True,” I said. “But that wasn’t the only reason they want this settled. You’ll recall what set the senator off in the first place was how their parents were portrayed in that article.”

  Jack frowned. “So essentially, they wanted you to show that without a doubt the baby died in that fire, while at the same time showing their parents were not crazy for refusing to accept that?”

  “That’s pretty much it,” I said. “And honestly, I can see both sides of things as equally plausible at this point. The baby couldn’t have survived that fire. He was just beginning to crawl and even if he managed to get out of the crib as the investigators claimed, he couldn’t have gotten out of the room because the doorway was blocked by fire. He must have perished, so why didn’t they find remains? That’s assuming the baby was in the room in the first place, and there are a whole bunch of little things that make the theory that he’d already been taken out of the house seem viable. And the lack of physical evidence coupled with the total botch-up of the case makes it even harder to nail anything down.”

  “So what’s the next step?”

  “That’s the thing—I have no idea. I feel like this one has us beat. I’ve interviewed the only other eyewitness we’re likely to find and that didn’t help. In fact he threw in a bit that’s got me even more conflicted.” I told him about Luther Hamilton seeing the woman cutting through the woods.

  “Yeah, but like he said, that wasn’t unusual back then. People walked. Now, if he’d seen her, say, carrying a screaming baby, then we might have something to talk about.”

  I sighed. “He barely saw her at all. And the sheriff didn’t even find it important enough to include in his reports.”

  “Maybe with good reason; maybe he discovered who it was and it had nothing to do with anything. Maybe it was Little Red Riding Hood cutting through the woods to her grandma’s house.”

  I laughed, despite my frustration. “Well, Esme and I will give it a couple more days and if we don’t find anything solid, we’ll withdraw. I feel bad about ta
king their money.”

  “And you’ll continue to work it on your own time because you hate brick walls.”

  “You know me well,” I said. “I probably will, but at least I won’t feel like I’m robbing the senator and Lenora in the meantime.”

  “No one’s ever going to accuse you of being a ruthless businesswoman,” Jack said.

  “I should hope not, and speaking of which, we come to troublesome job number two, Conrad Nelson’s family tree. Supposed to be an easy one. Tight deadline, but straightforward. Now the wedding date is coming up fast and we’ve gotten ourselves into a big mess.”

  I told him what I planned to do about the family tree and the report. “It’s kind of a bait and switch, but I don’t want to break the news before Conrad’s wedding, and I can’t verify what Yvonne told us anyway.” I told him Esme’s theory about Yvonne being Conrad’s biological mom and about the mystery of the blue envelope.

  “Let’s try out a scenario,” Jack said. “What if that blue envelope contained some kind of proof that Conrad was adopted? Let’s say, just for the sake of the game, that Herbert or Marie Nelson had an attack of conscience and wrote it all down and put it in the baby book, figuring that wouldn’t get thrown out.”

  “But why wouldn’t they just tell Conrad?” I asked.

  “I don’t know, maybe they couldn’t find the right time, or just didn’t want to admit they’d lied to him. Then jump forward. Chelsea’s doing the inventory for you and comes across whatever this proof is of Conrad’s birth status. She knows this will be upsetting to Dinah Leigh. She doesn’t know what to do. Who does she turn to? The man she loves, of course,” Jack said, reaching over to pinch my toe. “And from what you’ve told me about Lincoln, I gather he was a tell-the-truth-and-let-the-chips-fall kinda guy. He’d want her to lay it all out. She’d want to protect Dinah Leigh. So I’m with your theory. Sounds to me like that fits better than an argument over their engagement. I say you fake it. Hit Chelsea with it like you already know all about it and see how she reacts.”

  “I knew I kept you around for a reason,” I said, crawling over to give him a kiss. Then I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and tapped in Chelsea’s number. She wasn’t happy to hear from me, judging by the fact that I could almost see frost forming on the screen of my phone. And when I asked her to meet me at the coffee shop the next morning, she rattled off a list of reasons why she couldn’t.