by Tabitha Tate
“Here you go, Jean was a close friend to Mary-Ellen and she lives a few houses from your mother’s cottage, number nine Pondicherry Road.”
“Thanks, Hannah.”
Hannah looked down at a message scribbled on a Post-it note next to the phone. “I almost forgot…a Mr. Dunne called yesterday, he was looking for Mary-Ellen. He seemed very concerned when I told him about her death, asked if he could speak to a family member or the executor of her estate. I told him you would give him a call today.”
“What was he calling about?” asked Beth.
“He didn’t say, but it sounded quite important.”
Beth didn’t have time to talk to Mr. Dunne. “I will get back to him later in the week.”
~
Beth knocked on the door of number nine Pondicherry Road a little after one in the afternoon. The cottage looked very much like her mother’s, except it was painted white and the garden was not as well kept. The old fisherman’s cottages were quite sought after in the area and there was a long list of buyers waiting to make an offer whenever one came on the market. Beth cringed at the thought of Bernard inheriting her mother’s cottage.
Jean Fisher was a slim woman in her mid-fifties with dark auburn hair cut short, black square-framed glasses and a sharp beaked nose. Beth recalled seeing her sitting two rows behind her at the memorial service. She was dressed smartly in black dress pants and a black fitted pinstriped shirt with a white collar and cuffs. She looked like an accountant from a large corporate accounting firm in the city.
Beth held out a hand. “Afternoon, I am Elizabeth Andrews, Mary-Ellen’s daughter. I do recall seeing you at the memorial but we were never introduced.”
Jean Fisher squeezed her hand softly and welcomed her in. They sat down in the small formal lounge area at the front of the cottage.
‘What can I do for you, Elizabeth?” asked Jean.
“Well I am currently busy looking into my mother’s affairs…” Beth didn’t want to alarm the woman with talk of murder. “I understand that you were taking care of the books for the flower shop.”
Jean shook her head. “I did her books for three years and then suddenly, a couple of years back, she asked me to hand everything over to her. I didn’t mind, I just figured that she had decided to take on that responsibility for herself. I assumed that she was using an auditor to check everything with Jack’s assistance.”
Beth was disappointed. She had hoped to learn more from Jean but it was obvious that she knew nothing about the current financial affairs of Scent with Love.
“Thank you for your time, Jean. I must get going.” Beth got into her car and drove back into town. Beth decided to spend the rest of the afternoon looking into Jack Reynolds. She needed to find out if he was blackmailing her mother. She also needed to find out if he knew more about her mother’s financial affairs than he was letting on.
~
Beth parked in a diagonal parking spot right outside Jack’s offices, a modern white five-story office block, the tallest building in town. She walked up the stairs, taking them two at a time. Jack’s offices were on the fifth floor with a panoramic ocean view. Olivia was not at her desk. Probably sneaking around with Bernard.
Beth took a seat on the black leather sofa in the corner. The reception area was enclosed in thick laminated glass, giving a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view of the ocean. Beth could see the harbor; there were a number of boats on the water and Beth wondered if any of them were filled with drugs. She had almost forgotten that Sheriff Hunter was going to be conducting a sting operation at the harbor that evening. She wondered if Piper Pots was a dirty cop. She sure hoped not otherwise Sheriff Hunter would be in grave danger. If Piper was the one blackmailing her mother, then who knows what else she was capable of—perhaps she had fallen for the gang leader. Beth chided herself. Stop letting your imagination run wild!
The sound of raised voices coming from the conference room startled Beth. She got up and peered down the hall. She couldn’t see Olivia and she wondered if Jack was in his office. She tiptoed down the hall to knock on his door but was distracted by the conversation in the conference room.
“….Pots, I’m telling you, Jack…the woman has no idea…we need to act fast.” Beth was listening so intently that she almost had a heart attack when the door was suddenly flung open and a woman stormed out into the hall, almost knocking her off her feet. Beth gasped.
“Sorry…I…um…” The woman stormed out of the office and slammed the door without even looking back to see if she was alright.
Pots! That name just keeps popping up all over the place. What did she mean by ‘the woman has no idea’? What if it means that something is going to happen tonight when Sheriff Hunter conducts his sting operation? What if Piper Pots and the sheriff are in danger?
Jack hurried out of the conference room. His eyes bulged from their sockets when he saw her standing at the door of his office.
“Beth…I wasn’t expecting you today.” Jack walked in though a large modern glass door, obviously upset, and called for Olivia, who came running in from the copy room.
“Yes, Mr. Reynolds.”
“Why is there no one at the front desk? We can’t have clients walking around all over the place. Please get Ms. Andrews some tea.”
Olivia hurried off to the kitchen and Beth sat down on Jack’s chesterfield sofa. “I didn’t mean to get Olivia into trouble. I just wanted to knock on your door and see if you were in,” said Beth.
“I am just having a rough day, that’s all. You are my second unannounced visitor and I have a lot of work to get through. Mrs. Blackwood barged in here a little earlier and now I am running late for some important meetings. Olivia will need to get her act together or I may have to look for someone else,” huffed Jack, clearly feeling a little hot under the collar.
Beth was startled by the mention of the name Blackwood; it seemed familiar but she couldn’t place it.
“Mrs. Blackwood?” she replied, raising her eyebrow questioningly.
“Yes, she stays out on Lavender Hill, one of my biggest clients…old money,” he replied and scowled at Olivia who had just entered the room with a tray of tea.
“Aah, that’s why the name sounds so familiar—Hannah, my assistant, has done two large flower deliveries there in the last few days.”
Jack looked at her impatiently, obviously not in the mood for small talk. “How can I help you, Beth?”
“Oh, yes, the reason I came by was I have been wondering about my mother’s will. You mentioned that she updated it a month before her death, is that correct?”
Jack tapped his fingers impatiently on the table. “Yes, that is correct.”
“Did you draft the updated document or did she have an updated document delivered to your office?”
“What is this about, Ms. Andrews?” asked Jack. His face was starting to turn a violent shade of purple.
“I just find it odd, that’s all—she updates her will and not even a month later she turns up dead. That just seems a little strange to me. I also do not understand why she would have left the cottage to Bernard, who had been cheating on her. There are also a number of conflicting bits of information regarding the financial affairs at Scent with Love. I know that these are all tough questions but do you know anything about this?”
Jack nearly gagged on his tea. “Ms. Andrews, I am not quite sure what you are trying to imply but I will have you know that I conduct my business with the utmost professionalism. Your mother came in here a month ago and dictated a new will. I followed the same procedure I use for all my clients. I recorded the session and got Olivia to draft the updated document afterwards and sent it to Mary-Ellen for approval. I filed the signed copy with your mother’s signature in her file. With regard to the finances at Scent with Love, your mother is probably the only one who knew anything about that. The business started going south after she took over the bookkeeping.”
Beth looked at Jack excitedly. “Do you have a copy of the
recording you made when Mom dictated her new will?”
“Unfortunately not,” replied Jack. “It was stolen in a robbery two weeks ago.”
Well this is most interesting, thought Beth. It appears as if Olivia had ample opportunity to forge Mom’s will. She could easily have changed it so that Bernard, her lover, got the cottage after Mom’s death. She must have convinced Bernard to coerce Mom into signing without properly checking it or knowing what it was she was signing. I’ll bet that’s exactly what happened and then she stole the original recording to cover her tracks. The cottage is worth a fair sum of money…I am sure people have murdered for a lot less.
Beth sipped her tea and smiled at Jack politely. “With regard to that financial ledger you gave me, where did you get it? I have heard from a number of reliable sources that my mother was planning to expand the business. Why would she be planning to open a second store if the business was in such a dire financial position?”
Jack’s dark eyes flashed with anger. “Look here, I do not appreciate what you are trying to insinuate,” he stammered and Beth noticed him looking at the top drawer of his desk nervously.
“Are there any more ledgers or financial records that I should know about?”
Jack was in a corner. “There is a document that your mother filed with me a couple of months ago. She said she had made some large investments and that they had grown significantly in value over the last two years. She gave me the following document as a record of the investments. Now you must understand that I was not trying to mislead you. I took out the document the day before our first meeting to go over it so that I could explain it all to you. The problem is that when I looked at the papers in the envelope she had given me they were all blank. I just assumed that she had given me the wrong documents by mistake.” Jack handed her a large brown envelope with two blank pages. Beth had no idea what to make of it.
Beth was certain that she had outstayed her welcome but she decided to push her luck just a little further. “One last thing…are you aware of any new property developments that are planned for the main road in town?”
“No, I am not. Why would you ask that?” Jack didn’t even blink. If he was aware of anything he was pretty good at hiding it.
Beth decided to play open cards with him. “Someone was trying to blackmail Mom—they were trying to force her to sell the shop. I thought that perhaps it was someone who was interested in developing the property.” Jack definitely flinched at the word blackmail but he did not appear to know anything about a property development.
“Now I am sorry, but I have another appointment to get to,” said Jack as he showed her out and hurried back to his office. When Beth left the office she noticed Olivia standing, listening in the hallway.
Beth got in her car and headed back to the flower shop with the document her mother had given Jack tucked safely in her handbag. Beth had looked at it twice and it was blank, just like Jack had said.
What if Jack was lying? What if he had replaced the original documents with blank papers? What if it was Olivia? Surely she would have had access to the documents Jack kept in his top drawer.
As she was driving Beth started to think about the conversation she had overheard between Mrs. Blackwood and Jack. Beth was certain she had heard her mention Piper Pots.
Chapter 8
When Beth got back to the shop, Hannah had just gotten back from doing the delivery rounds. Hannah was quite flustered after having an altercation with Mrs. Blackwood, who was unhappy about the fact that her flower arrangements were not delivered in the usual pretty blue-and-white porcelain vases. She had thrown the white ceramic vase at Hannah and demanded that she bring a replacement in one of the blue-and-white porcelain vases. It was four-thirty and Beth needed to make some calls; she didn’t have time to discuss Mrs. Blackwood’s mood swings. She told Hannah to leave early.
After Hannah had left, Beth made some calls. She called the lead reporter at the Bartholomew Bay Tribune. Rebecca Redham politely answered all Beth’s questions about new developments in the Bay area. Rebecca was not aware of any planned developments in town; the only development that had been approved was a block of holiday apartments close to the harbor.
After talking to Rebecca, Beth searched the Internet to see if she could find any news articles about new developments in Bartholomew Bay but she only found a large article about the holiday apartments Rebecca had mentioned. It appeared to her as if Chase’s theory about Jack blackmailing her mother so that he could buy the shop and get the land was a bust.
By the time she was finished making calls, it was time to close the shop. Beth fetched the remaining buckets of flowers on the sidewalk and cashed up the register. Beth’s stomach was a ball of nerves and she couldn’t shake the feeling that Piper Pots and the sheriff were in danger. She took out her purse and searched for Chase’s card, picked up her cell phone and punched in his number. She waited impatiently as his phone rang a few times before going to voicemail.
“Hi, you have reached Chase Crawford. Please leave your name and number and I will get back to you.”
Beth was so nervous she almost felt a pang of relief at the sound of his deep husky voice on the other end of the line.
Beth hung up the phone in frustration and went to search by the telephone for the number of the police department. She found a list of emergency numbers pasted up on the side of the telephone cabinet next to the phone. The number for the Bartholomew Bay Police Department was at the top of the list. She picked up the phone and dialed the number.
A shrill female voice answered. “Hello, Bartholomew Bay Police Department, please state your emergency.” Beth gulped down the panic in her throat.
“Can I speak to Sheriff Hunter please?”
The female voice sounded annoyed. “Is this an emergency?”
“I need to speak to Sheriff Hunter urgently regarding his sting operation at the harbor this evening,” replied Beth.
“I’m afraid he is not in at the moment. I am not sure what you mean by sting operation; he left early today to make preparations for an important dinner function this evening.”
“Could you call the sheriff on his cell phone and ask him to call me back please. It’s Beth Andrews from the Scent with Love flower shop.”
“I’ll give him your message,” the woman replied but Beth got the feeling that she hadn’t taken her seriously at all.
Beth put down the phone and looked down at the desk. There was another Post-it note with a message for her: Mr. Dunne called again, please call him back.
Beth stuck the Post-it in her purse and promised herself that she would phone Mr. Dunne in the morning. Beth closed up the shop and drove back to the guesthouse.
~
When Beth got to the cottage she took a shower and made herself a bowl of grilled chicken salad. She still could not shake the feeling that the sheriff and Piper were in danger. She had no idea what time the drug boat would be coming in but she figured it would be after seven because that was when the last of the fishing boats usually came in.
Beth called Chase again but he still wasn’t answering his phone so she left him a message.
“Hi, Chase, now I know you are not going to like this but… I overheard a conversation between Jack and Mrs. Blackwood today that has led me to believe that the sheriff and Piper are in danger. I tried calling the sheriff to let him know but the woman who took my call didn’t take me seriously so I am going to the harbor to try and warn him. Call me when you get this. Bye.”
Beth got dressed in black jeans, a long-sleeved black polo neck and a black woolen hat. She put on a pair of comfortable sneakers in case she needed to make a quick getaway on foot. She had a small pistol Andrew had bought her to use for protection when he was away on business. Beth had never used it and she was hoping she would not be needing it tonight but she tucked it into her sock anyway. Just in case. Beth filled a thermos with warm coffee, got into her car and drove out to the marina.
Beth drove past t
he marina located next to the Fisherman’s Wharf hotel and restaurant building and drove on towards the industrial part of the harbor with large rusty warehouse buildings and the working dry dock. There were hundreds of shipping containers stacked in rows, one on top of the other. The dark silhouette of the shipping cranes stood idle with no one on the evening shift to operate them. This looks like the perfect place for a sting operation, thought Beth, just like in the movies.
She parked her car in an alleyway between two large warehouse buildings, turned off the lights and poured herself a cup of hot coffee from the thermos flask. The industrial part of the harbor was quiet, which was a stark contrast to the busy waterfront marina next to the hotel which was lined with sail boats, yachts, rusty fishing boats and restaurant patrons enjoying an after-dinner stroll through the marina.
By ten p.m. Beth was getting impatient—there was no sign of a drug boat and the five cups of coffee she had drunk meant that she was desperate to find a bathroom. Beth scanned the dock for any sign of activity but it was just as quiet as it had been for the last three and a half hours. Beth couldn’t hold on any longer so she got out of the car and went in search of a toilet.
The first two doors Beth tried were locked. The pressure on her bladder was growing more intense by the minute and she was convinced that there would be a toilet inside one of the warehouse buildings. She was in a hurry to get back to her car, in case she missed the drug boat. Shit, she thought, I need to make this quick. She tried a third door at the back of the building; it was also locked. Beth was frustrated. She looked at the rickety wooden door, which appeared to have grown soft, and decided to give it a kick. Her foot landed on the door with a large thud. Her leg hurt but she did notice the door had moved an inch. She had to give it two more kicks before the door burst open. Beth was impressed with herself. Wow, who says stuff like this only happens in the movies?
