“Yeah, I had something to show you,” Cassidy said. “I didn’t want to take a picture and text it. Didn’t want you to think I’d just printed it out myself. Wanted you to see the actual paper.” She reached into her red purse. It looked like she was reaching through Paul to get it. Let’s leave it at that.
“What did you find?” I asked.
“Here.” She extended her hand over the seat back. In it was a page of high-quality letterhead from KBJ and Associates.
“Is this Keith’s company?” I asked Cassidy.
“Yeah.”
I turned on the light on my side of the truck and saw Josh wince a little. He doesn’t like driving with the light on and thinks he’ll be pulled over by the police. I told him I’d be very quick.
The letter was formally written and precise, and in no uncertain terms it informed the recipient, Erica Baker of Filcher, Baker, and Klein, the law firm handling Cassidy’s defense, to seek out and retain one Richard J. Harrison on behalf of the writer and at the writer’s expense. It was suggested that if any criminal cases were brought against a member of Keith Johnson’s nuclear or extended family, Richard should be pressed into service.
It was signed by Keith Barent Johnson.
“Keith wrote to the law firm in Woodbridge and ordered them to get Richard on a retainer?” I said to no one in particular.
Paul’s sputter would have been heard a mile away if it could have been heard. I shook a little on hearing it, and Josh looked at me, concerned. I turned off the overhead light on my side.
“Yeah,” Cassidy said.
“Let me see,” Paul said at the same time. I had an impulse to hand him the letter but then realized I couldn’t possibly do that. I handed it back, open, to Cassidy and expected him to catch as much as he could.
“And it’s dated the day that he died,” Cassidy added.
I had to ask. “Keith or Richard?” And it occurred to me that together they could have played for the Rolling Stones.
“Keith of course. He was already drowned a long time when Mr. Harrison got bopped.”
“So on the day he was murdered, Keith Johnson wrote a letter to his law firm in Woodbridge suggesting they retain a criminal defense attorney who normally worked in New York and didn’t specify what he might be needed to do.” That was Paul. He was processing. Otherwise, he’d never speak of his older brother as “a criminal defense attorney who normally worked in New York.”
“Why would he do that?” I wondered out loud.
“I’m no professional,” my husband said, “but it sounds to me like Keith Johnson knew he was going to be murdered.”
Chapter 17
Adrian Van Doren Johnson was waiting in the doorway of her Rumson home (which Cassidy had referred to as “the beach house,” pointing out it was not the primary residence of the family, which was in Upper Saddle River) when we drove up because Cassidy had texted her to let her know we’d be on our way. It made perfect sense for her to be there after midnight because she was concerned about her daughter, who was coming home from the emergency room after being run off the road by a mysterious black SUV.
What didn’t make sense was that Adrian was wearing a business suit and three-inch stiletto heels and was in full makeup. Cassidy had told me in the truck that she thought she’d awoken her mother with the text.
“Cassidy.” We had gotten out of the truck and helped Cassidy out of the back seat, which took a little doing. Cracked ribs are not fun. Adrian looked at her daughter and took a deep breath. “What did you do to yourself?”
“I didn’t do anything to myself,” her daughter protested. “Someone did this to me!” She slowly walked toward her mother, who stood on the bottom step of the stone stairs to the front entrance. “This is not my doing, Mom!”
“Of course not.” Adrian wasn’t going to have a “scene” in front of her home this late at night despite the fact that the nearest neighbor had to be a quarter mile away. In New Jersey, that’s the Grand Canyon. “Why don’t you introduce me to your friends?”
While I didn’t dislike Cassidy for any particular reason, I thought her considering Josh and me friends might be something of a stretch. Cassidy didn’t blink an eye and introduced us, leaving out Paul because as far as she and her mother were concerned, he didn’t exist.
When she mentioned to her mother that I was a private investigator, I thought Adrian’s eyes might have doubled in size. “Really!” she said. I chose to take that as a sign of respect and admiration.
“I have been looking into the death of Richard Harrison,” I told her. “I met Cassidy a few days ago on the Rutgers campus to discuss it.” I saw no reason to inflate how well I knew Cassidy.
Adrian’s eyes were no longer so wide. Maybe respect and admiration had been going too far. “Really,” she said again with no inflection this time. I guessed she hadn’t known about the meeting with Cassidy in New Brunswick. And she did not seem to approve quite so much.
“Yeah,” Cassidy said. “It really wasn’t a big deal, Mom.” Thanks for the ego boost, Cassidy.
“And what did you tell Ms. Kerby?” Adrian asked. Her tone was pure Rumson or even Upper West Side, but her accent was all Newark or Paterson.
“She told me—” I began.
Adrian held up an index finger to stop me. “I want to hear it from Cassidy.”
“I told her I didn’t know anything about what happened to Richard because I wasn’t there,” Cassidy said. Her tone was angry teenager tinged with just a little bit of fear. “And I told her I didn’t kill Keith.”
That was apparently what Adrian had been waiting for, as she cocked an eyebrow and this time addressed her question directly to me. “Are you investigating my husband’s murder as well?”
“I don’t have a client on whose behalf I am investigating that murder,” I said. It was a lie, but technically I’d almost never had an actual client to do anything. I mean, go try to get a dead person to pay up on an invoice.
“That’s very artful, but it doesn’t answer my question,” Adrian said.
“The two murders seem to be connected, certainly,” I told her at Paul’s suggestion. “There’s bound to be some overlap.”
“So you are investigating my husband’s death.”
“Where there is some connection, I suppose I am.” I felt Josh pull a little bit closer to me in the dark. It wasn’t that Adrian posed a real physical danger, but her attitude was definitely unfriendly, and Josh doesn’t like that when it’s pointed at me.
Adrian did her best to lighten her tone. She moved it from demanding matriarch to grieving widow with a hint of confidante just lingering around the edges. “I really wish you wouldn’t,” she said.
“It’s not my primary focus,” I told her. “But if I were to find something that might help clear your daughter, wouldn’t you want me to bring it to light?”
Cassidy shook her head slightly. I didn’t know what that meant, but she was looking at me and not at her mother.
“I do not believe you will,” Adrian said.
“You don’t believe I’ll let people know if I find something?” I wasn’t following her logic. How could she have made an erroneous judgment like that about me in the three minutes we’d known each other?
“Hardly,” Adrian answered. “I believe you would publicize any discovery you might make. What I meant was I do not believe you will find anything that will help exonerate my daughter.”
That took a second. “You don’t?” It was the best I could do.
“No. I believe Cassidy did murder her stepfather,” Adrian said. “I think she drowned him and should go to prison for the rest of her life.”
Cassidy, clearly unable to run, put down her head and shuffled into the house. I think she might have been crying. Nobody, not even Paul, said a word as she left.
#
My guests had only two days left in the guesthouse, and we like to ramp up the spook shows a little bit toward the end of a tour, building to a crescendo a
t the final one the night before they leave (I give Paul and Maxie the morning off when the guests are packing). So we started with a little Flying Teenager as Maxie picked up Melissa at the top of the main stairs and “flew” her down into the library, where the show was taking place. Then Liss went straight to the front door, got in her BFF Wendy’s mom’s car, and left for school.
After that, there was invisible guitarist (Paul plays a tiny bit), the changeable hat (which flies from the head of one guest to another), and the interchangeable art (pictures on the wall fly across the room and hang themselves in different spots, something Maxie likes to do because she disagrees with my choices in decor).
The guests seemed quite pleased with the spectacle, although Abby Lesniak kept looking at me, then at Greg Lewis, then back at me with a significant amount of eye contact. I guessed there was no time left to procrastinate, although I would certainly have appreciated some. I told myself I’d say something to Mr. Lewis as he left the library.
We went out on a high note as Maxie wrapped a feather boa I’d found in a local consignment shop around the shoulders of Eduardo DiSica, who went with the joke and played it for all he was worth, strutting through the room and touching others with the end of the fashion accessory. He got quite the round of applause.
I moved toward Mr. Lewis as the crowd started to dissipate, but he was a spry one for a guy with walking problems and seemed to have a mission on his mind. He was out the door while I was still accepting praise for the quality of the experience. I walked out into the hallway and did not see Mr. Lewis anywhere nearby.
Abby Lesniak wasn’t there to give me a disappointed frown, but I could picture it.
There was no time to consider that, however, because Paul had already turned the page and was back into investigatory mode. The truth is that Paul, once given a case, never leaves investigatory mode and simply waits through anything else he needs to do in the course of a day.
“I think it’s time for a talk with Keith Johnson’s children,” he began as I made my way to the kitchen for some badly needed iced coffee. “Even though they have alibis that hold up for the night Richard died, there is no reason to think they had no involvement in their father’s murder.”
“Give me a minute, Paul,” I pleaded. I’d already had some caffeine, but we’d done the show especially early because the guests wanted to be outdoors and Liss had to get to school. It was, in my opinion, cruel and unusual punishment to expect me to think this early after I’d been out investigating past midnight the evening before. “My brain isn’t awake yet.”
As I pushed the door open, Richard was already in the kitchen, looking at me disapprovingly, which I was starting to believe was his default expression. “Cassidy was attacked last night. I warned you that would happen, and it will happen again. What are you intending to do about it?”
The Harrison boys were starting to double-team me and that was more than I felt like handling at the moment. “Fellas,” I said, “before you start to get on my case about everything you think I’ve done wrong or everything you think I should be doing that I’m not, let me remind you that I am your only liaison to the living population of the planet and I’m the only one in the house who can drive a car. So tread lightly.”
I walked to the coffeemaker and saw it was empty. It was that kind of morning. I had put out the urn for the guests, though, so I grabbed a mug from the cabinet and walked back out of the kitchen into the den where the coffee cart was sitting.
Richard sputtered as I walked but kept his thoughts to himself for once. Paul, who has known me for years, could read my mood and understand I was serious. His voice took on a conciliatory tone.
“My apologies, Alison. You know how I am about a case.”
“Yes, I do. But you know how I am about a case, and it’s going to take me a couple of minutes and a decent amount of caffeine to get us on the same page, okay?”
“Certainly,” Paul said. “Take all the time you need. How about now?” That is Paul’s idea of a joke.
“That’s good, Paul. I’m going to write that one down.” And now I have. I am a woman of my word.
But the coffee urn was empty. The decaf one, which usually sells out in minutes, had all you wanted, but this crowd was a little more energetic than most I get, and the little lift hadn’t bothered them a bit. I could put the urn back in the kitchen now that the guests were going outside. It bothered me that I had no coffee for me, though. I looked at Paul.
“I’m calling Keith Johnson’s daughter, and she can get in touch with his son,” I said. “But wherever we meet, there had better be a Dunkin’ Donuts on the way.”
Chapter 18
“Cassidy killed my father.” Erika Johnson was a petite brunette in her early to midtwenties who had probably been born a cheerleader. No. She’d been born head cheerleader. And I was trying with all my might not to hold any of that against her. “There’s no other explanation for it.”
We were sitting outside on the sidewalk in front of a café called What Now? (question mark included) in Red Bank, a town that is nearly as cute as it thinks it is. The thing about sidewalk cafés is that they seem like a good idea, but you end up looking at cars driving by on a street that’s way too close to where you’re eating and drinking. Erika and her brother, Braden, who was wearing a T-shirt and jeans and looked like he’d be more comfortable in a business suit, had picked the venue after I’d called her and she’d called him.
Thank goodness there had been six Dunkin’ Donuts outlets on the way here and I’d only stopped at two.
“Why do you say that?” I asked. “From what I can tell from the physical evidence that’s been brought up at the trial, it would have been very difficult for Cassidy to drown your father in the bathtub. He was much larger and stronger than she is.”
Braden’s blue eyes were not as cold as one would expect. “What was also brought up at the trial was that my father’s blood alcohol level was well above the legal limit, so it’s possible he was very groggy or even unconscious when he was put under water.”
Richard, perched over my left shoulder, snorted. “How’d she get him into the tub to begin with?” he said, seemingly to himself.
“Please.” Paul, perched over my right shoulder so Richard could play the little devil to his little angel, held up a hand. “Let’s help Alison conduct the interview. Alison, ask how they think Cassidy managed to get—” He stopped when he saw Richard’s imperious glare.
“Wouldn’t she have had to pick him up to get him into the tub?” I asked. I didn’t care about Richard’s imperious glare.
Erika shrugged. “I wasn’t there. Maybe she threatened him with a gun.”
Okay, so Cassidy brought a gun that no one had found and that there were no records of her owning and then, intending to kill her stepfather, had used it only to get him into a bathtub full of water to drown him. Then, instead of running out the back door to cover her tracks, she stayed in the room, called the police, and waited until they showed up to tell her story. Sure. That made sense.
“Do you wear denim a lot?” I asked Erika. Might as well start in on the denim fibers found in the bathwater.
She looked like I’d asked whether she once owned a wildebeest. “What?”
“There are some denim fibers that figure in the case,” I said, saying more than we actually knew to be true. “Is that something you wear often?”
“I don’t have to sit here and take this,” Erika said, although she made no effort to stand up or not take it.
I decided to change topics. “Why would Cassidy want to kill your father?” I asked both the young people in front of me. “What would she gain from his death?”
“Satisfaction,” Erika said without a hint of emotion. “She hated Dad.”
Braden, appointing himself the family spokesperson and the voice of reason, held up both hands, palms out. “Cass and Dad had some disagreements. She thought he had swooped in on her mom after her actual dad died. I’m not sure what sh
e thought he was using her for, but it wasn’t to get her money. Dad had all the cash in that marriage.”
So why not push the point and get to the heart of the matter? “There were large sums of money being moved out of your father’s personal accounts and into Cassidy’s,” I said. “Both of you had to know about that at some point, didn’t you?”
There was the pretense of a stunned silence between them. “You think we killed our father?” Braden asked.
I didn’t even have to listen to Paul’s feed; I had heard this enough times before. “I don’t think anything yet,” I said. “I don’t have enough facts to form an opinion. What I’m asking is whether you were aware of what was going on with the money in your father’s accounts.”
“Very good, Alison,” Paul said. He’d raised me so well.
“You sound like you think we killed him,” Erika sniffed.
“I’m sorry if that’s what you hear, but I really don’t have any idea just yet.”
Braden clearly decided to take the lead over his sister. “Well I for one didn’t know anything about all that stuff until I heard it in the courtroom,” he said. “It never occurred to me that my father’s money was being funneled off to Cass. I’ve never touched a dime of his money; it sits in a trust somewhere accruing interest.” He even managed not to look askance at his sister as he said, “I have an income.”
“You have a job?” I asked. Richard was already nodding. He’d done his research for Cassidy’s trial.
“I work for a financial firm on Wall Street,” he said. Braden didn’t realize that my ex-husband (the Swine) had worked for a financial firm on Wall Street, so that probably didn’t have the same high-impact effect it might have on a recent college graduate after three cosmos. He paused a moment and added, “I don’t need the money from my father.”
“So what are you doing here on a weekday morning?” I asked.
“I’m still on call as a witness at Cass’s trial,” he said. “I have a leave of absence until that’s over.”
The Hostess With the Ghostess Page 14
