“Because he was already dead by then,” Riley said soberly.
“Do you have a theory—about the motive?”
She looked away. “I think it must have had something to do with money. And maybe Belle Isle Enterprises.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Don’t you ever read mysteries? There are three basic motives to kill somebody—sex, money, or revenge. Money’s the most obvious—considering the fact that the bank was foreclosing on our house. And I know Wendell was really worried about the business. He had a lot riding on the north end development. He’d quit talking about it to me, though, because he knew I was totally opposed to what he was planning. Especially the hotel at Pirate’s Point.”
Riley’s smile was tight. “Although I’m not ruling out sex or revenge either.”
He gave her a quizzical look. “If you were opposed to the development, why didn’t you fight him on it?”
“It’s not that easy. My dad made Wendell president of Belle Isle Enterprises, and gave him voting control of the family corporation. My mother and brother were on his side, so I was outvoted. And anyway, I guess I was preoccupied with Maggy’s diabetes diagnosis. That was a pretty scary time for me.”
“How’s Maggy doing, by the way?”
“She’s not currently speaking to me, because I put her under house arrest after you brought her home yesterday. And she really, really doesn’t like you either. Other than that, I guess she’s your typical twelve-year-old pain in the butt.”
“Am I getting too personal if I ask if you think Wendell was cheating?”
“I did wonder if there was somebody else, but he always denied it. We’d been basically living apart for about six months, but we’d been having problems for a while. We did the counseling thing, but it didn’t take.”
“So that brings you back to where you started,” Nate said.
Just then the two-way radio he had clipped to the waist of his jeans squawked.
“Captain? Need you up here in the wheelhouse,” a scratchy voice said.
Nate winced. “I still can’t get used to being called captain. Better go.”
He touched Riley’s shoulder. “Hope things get worked out with the sheriff today. And if you need anything—well, give me a holler. I promise not to be sympathetic.”
* * *
The early-morning rush at Onnalee’s Café had subsided. Riley spotted the sheriff sitting at a two-top toward the back of the room. He was studying the laminated plastic menu, but looked up as she approached.
A waitress with a coffeepot appeared—the same thin, harried-looking woman who’d been working at Onnalee’s for as long as Riley could remember.
Riley took her seat and ordered her usual: cheesy scrambled eggs, sausage patty, rye toast.
The sheriff sipped his coffee and extracted a notepad from the pocket of his windbreaker.
“Thanks for meeting me here,” Riley told him, pouring creamer into her mug. “Do you have any news for me?”
“Nothing really. The coroner went over his notes with me yesterday. Like we thought, cause of death was blunt force trauma to the back of the skull,” he said.
“Was it … quick?” Riley felt bile rising in her throat. An unbidden image of Wendell, bleeding, in agony, alone on a cold, damp seawall flashed in her mind.
“Yes,” the sheriff said. “He was dead before he hit the water. You sure you want to hear all this?”
“I don’t want to, but I need to. For my daughter.”
“Okay, well, as best we can tell, time of death was around midnight, Thursday. There was some minor bruising to his forehead, probably from where he hit the ground after the blow to his head.
“He’d had a couple of drinks an hour or so before he was attacked,” the sheriff went on. “Was that usual for your husband?”
“Yes. He usually drank scotch, although he liked red wine, too. He’d have wine with dinner, then a scotch or two during the evening,” Riley said.
“We found no unusual drugs in his bloodstream—I take it he was on medication for high blood pressure?”
“Was he? I didn’t know that.” She felt ashamed that her husband had an ailment she wasn’t even aware of.
The sheriff looked surprised. “When was the last time you saw your husband, Mrs. Griggs?”
“I’m not sure,” she admitted. “Maybe two, two and a half weeks ago? He texted and said he was coming by.”
“How did he act? Was he upset? Did he mention any particular problems?”
“He was in a rush. Maggy was at a friend’s house, and I wanted him to stay until she got home, but he wouldn’t. He claimed he had an out-of-town meeting and a plane to catch. I was annoyed because it had been two weeks since he’d seen his daughter.”
“You didn’t believe him? Any particular reason?”
“Not really. It was just that he’d made and broken so many promises, to both of us. To tell you the truth, I’d stopped trusting him. Which is a terrible thing to say.”
“But true?”
“Yes.”
“Other than rushed, how did he seem?”
Riley tried to think back to that night.
* * *
She’d gotten his text around 6:30 p.m.
You home? Gotta check mail and pick up clothes.
She’d texted right back. I’m here, but Maggy’s at Devin’s house.
Be right there.
He’d left the Jeep’s motor running in the driveway, and brushed right past her when she met him in the hall, going directly to the basket on the pine console where she kept all the mail.
She was shocked by Wendell’s appearance. He’d obviously lost some weight. His hair was long and unkempt-looking. In fact, his whole appearance was unkempt. He wore faded navy workout pants and a pale blue sweater that hung off his shoulders.
“Hi to you, too,” Riley said. “Obviously your wife and daughter are not what you dropped by to check on. Want to clue me in about what you’re looking for?”
Wendell scooped up the mail in the basket and began riffling through it, tossing aside the bills, junk mail, and catalogues.
He didn’t even look up. “You gonna start that again? I don’t have time for this crap, Riley. I was supposed to get a document at the office, but it hasn’t come, so I thought maybe it had gotten sent here by mistake.”
He tossed the mail back in the basket. “Shit. You’re sure this is all the mail?”
“Yes, that’s all of it. What kind of document are you looking for?”
“Never mind. It’s not here.”
“Something about your north-end deal?”
His shoulders sagged. “You should be happy. It looks like you might just get your way.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Riley demanded.
“What it sounds like. Where’s Maggy?”
“Didn’t you get my text? She’s at Devin’s house working on a school project. In case you’re interested, she misses you. A lot.”
“I miss her, too,” Wendell said with a sigh.
“She should be home in half an hour. Will you at least stay and have dinner with her?”
Wendell shook his head. “Can’t.” Without another word, he headed upstairs. She followed him, standing in the doorway of his closet as he tossed clothes into a gym bag. Shorts, T-shirts, a summer-weight linen blazer, and at the last minute, a pair of brown loafers.
“We really need to talk, Wendell. I can’t keep living like this. Either you’re a husband and father—or we’re done.”
“Are you talking about a divorce? For God’s sake, that’s the last thing I want. Can’t you understand—everything I’m doing is for us—for our family. I know I haven’t been an ideal husband or father lately—but it’s because of the deal, that’s all.”
“That’s the problem. And it’s not just lately. Don’t you see? It’s always the next deal, the next hot prospect. There’s no end to it. The deal is your god, your family. And in the meantime, Magg
y and I are an afterthought.”
He whirled around and grasped her arm. “I’ll change. I swear it. Just give me some time. This is the deal that will let us live as a family again, without all the pressures of finding the next deal. After this, we’re set. Please?” His eyes were pleading.
Riley sighed. “I don’t know. It feels like I’ve heard this before.…”
An all-too-familiar bugle call emitted from his pants pocket. Wendell plucked his cell phone from his pocket and read the incoming text. “Shit.” He picked up the gym bag. “I gotta go. Call me if that envelope comes, okay?”
“That’s it? You’re blowing me off, again?”
He was already halfway down the stairs. “I’ll call you later. Tell Maggy I love her.”
She ran down after him. “The hell I will. If you leave now, you can stay gone.”
He didn’t even turn around. “Fuck you,” he called over his shoulder.
“No, fuck you!” Riley screamed as the front door slammed in her face.
* * *
The waitress was back, sliding plates in front of them: sausage, eggs, and toast for Riley, a thick stack of pancakes swimming in butter and syrup for the sheriff. The sweet smell of maple syrup wafted across the table and made her feel queasy.
He attacked the food, slicing the stack into quarters, then eighths, stabbing it with his fork and shoveling it into his mouth. She swallowed hard and looked away. After a moment of chewing, he took a gulp of coffee and gave her a quizzical look.
“Something wrong with your eggs?”
“No. My appetite … comes and goes these days.”
“We were talking about this deal?”
“Right. I assumed Wendell was referring to the north end development. There was a lot riding on it, and it had a lot of moving parts. The marina, condos, a retail strip, and a big hotel. He’d been working on it for a couple of years.”
“I’ve heard about the hotel and all. Kinda controversial over there on Belle Isle, isn’t it?”
“Yes. That end of the island around Pirate’s Point has been largely undeveloped. Part of the project was to go on a parcel of land my grandfather had established as a wildlife sanctuary. Wendell intended to dredge for a new marina and pave roads to allow for vehicle traffic.”
“Cars on Belle Isle?” he said, in mock horror.
“A lot of people were opposed to that. Including me,” Riley added.
He chewed and dabbed at a spot of syrup on his chin. “Besides you, was anybody so opposed to it they might want to kill your husband?”
The question took her by surprise.
“I hadn’t thought about that. The thing is, most people weren’t aware of the full scope of the plan. Since Belle Isle Enterprises owned such a large percentage of the island, Wendell just assumed he’d have carte blanche to do whatever he wanted.”
“Your husband knew you were against this plan?”
“Yes.”
“Belle Isle Enterprises, that’s a family business, correct? How did the rest of your family feel about the plan?”
“My mother was totally in favor. My brother, Billy, I don’t think he’d really given it a lot of thought. Everybody had pretty much gotten used to Wendell running the show.”
“And who runs it now that he’s gone?”
“I don’t know,” Riley said slowly. “Wendell always liked to run a one-man band. He’d hire consultants and marketing and sales folks, but everything else—the big-picture stuff, it was all Wendell.”
“Okay, back to that night. How did it end?”
“Not well,” Riley said. “He got a text and literally dashed out of the house. I told him if he left—without even seeing his daughter, not to bother coming back.”
“And what was his response?”
Her voice was barely above a whisper. “He told me to go fuck myself.”
“Did he call later, apologize? Did you discuss what the document was that he was looking for?”
Riley stared down at the tepid eggs. “Now that I think of it, we didn’t talk again. He e-mailed and texted, pretty much acting like nothing happened, but I texted back, telling him I wanted a divorce. After some back-and-forth and foot-dragging on his part, he finally agreed to meet us at the ferry on Friday and, after that, once we were at the house, on the island, we’d break the news to our daughter that we were divorcing.”
The sheriff set his fork down on his now empty plate and took a small spiral-bound notebook from his jacket pocket. He made notes, and Riley sipped her cooling coffee.
He looked up from the notebook.
“Any idea who the text was from?”
“No,” Riley said simply. “I’m guessing it wasn’t good news. He cursed, put his phone away, and left.”
“And that’s the last time you saw him?” the sheriff persisted.
“No,” Riley said. “The last time I saw Wendell was in the morgue at the county hospital.”
23
There were more questions from the sheriff, but Riley had few answers. No, she didn’t know where Wendell had been staying during their estrangement; no, she didn’t have his cell phone; and no, she didn’t know the status of her finances. As soon as she left Onnalee’s, promising to contact him if she thought of anything new, she decided to bite the bullet and get her own answers.
Now, she stood in the Baldwin County Clerk’s office, staring down at the civil proceedings docket book. The fluorescent lights buzzed and flickered overhead, and the air conditioner hummed. The room was quiet, except for the clicking of the nearest clerk’s computer keyboard, and the dry rasp of paper pages being turned.
She’d been in lots of courthouses, back in her early reporting days, but those had been in big cities like Raleigh, Charlotte, or Asheville. There, even fifteen years ago, records were computerized.
But Baldwin was the smallest county on the North Carolina coast. Its courthouse was a modest two-story affair of beige brick with a tiny copper-roofed cupola and a weather-beaten granite foundation. There was a Confederate memorial statue in front and overgrown azalea bushes flanking the front entrance.
The clerk’s office reminded Riley of something from an old black-and-white movie. A battered wooden counter separated the public from the clerks. The floors were wooden, and the room smelled vaguely of tobacco, although a NO SMOKING sign was prominently displayed on the front counter. Rows of leather-bound docket books lined sagging wooden shelves.
She’d been standing there, motionless, for a good thirty minutes. She leafed forward and backward in the docket book, looking for some addendum, some additional document that would assure her that the foreclosure notice was just a clerical error, the result of sloppy bookkeeping, or a monumental practical joke.
But there it was, in black and white.
NOTICE OF FORECLOSURE OF 555 SAND DOLLAR LANE.
There was a lot of legalese she didn’t really understand, but the net effect, it was clear, was that the owner of the listed property, Wendell Griggs, was in default to Coastal Carolina Bank on the mortgage to the tune of two million dollars and that the home was in foreclosure.
The clerk, a gray-haired woman with cat-eye glasses and a friendly smile looked up and gave her a questioning glance. “Find what you need?”
“I found the document, yes.” Riley tapped a finger on the page of the docket book. “This whole thing is screwy. This says the owner of the foreclosed property was properly notified of the foreclosure. But I’m one of the owners, and I never received any notification.”
“I only see one name on this notice. Would that be your husband?”
“Yes,” Riley said. “But the house has always been titled in both our names.”
“Not anymore, apparently,” the clerk pointed out. She looked down at the notice, then up at Riley. “The property is located over there on Belle Isle?”
“That’s right.”
“Is that your primary legal residence?”
“Um, no. We live full-time in Raleigh. The Sa
nd Dollar house is our vacation home.”
“But y’all do get mail delivered over there on Belle Isle, right?”
“Yes, we get mail at our post office box.”
“Then that’s your answer. This is the address in the records, which means it was the address in the bank’s records, and that’s where it would have been sent.”
“There’s something else,” Riley said. “This says the lender is Coastal Carolina Bank. But I never heard of them. And, anyway, our mortgage was paid off two years ago.”
“Maybe your husband took out another mortgage and he just forgot to tell you about it,” the clerk suggested.
Riley’s eyes widened at that notion. But why would Wendell need to borrow more money on a house that they owned free and clear? So much more money. Two million?
“This can’t be right,” Riley insisted. “It just can’t.”
“I wish I could help you more,” the woman said, shrugging. She went back to her desk, but before she sat down, she was back at the counter, looking again at the open docket book.
“Well, here’s a problem right here,” she said.
“What’s that?”
“Coastal Carolina Bank? They’re the one that foreclosed on you? I’m pretty sure that’s the bank here in town that just got taken over.”
Riley leaned over the counter to make sure she’d heard correctly. “Did you say it was taken over? By who?”
The clerk took a half-step backward, a subtle signal that Riley had violated her personal space.
“I don’t bank there, so I don’t really know, but I know the talk around town was that the bank was in some kind of trouble, so some other company came in and took ’em over.”
“What exactly does that mean?”
The clerk shook her head sadly. “If you read this carefully, you’ll see that there’s gonna be an auction. A week from Friday at ten o’clock in the morning at the Seafarer Motel, in the banquet room.”
“You’re telling me … my house is going to be auctioned off?” Riley clutched the countertop with both hands. “In a motel banquet room?”
“I guess if you got a problem with that, you best get a lawyer.”
Riley felt her shoulders sagging. “Can I have copies made of these documents?”
The Weekenders Page 16
