by L. J. Parker
Was she kidding?
“Isn’t there someone else who could just give me a copy of the Financial Statements for the last Quarter?” Cassie protested. “I’m prepared to pay the overdue—”
“Yes, but you’d have to see Ms. Margaret Goodman to get approval for that.”
***
Cassie phoned Margaret’s number as soon as she got to the car, not surprised when the Latino woman told her Mrs. Frank was not available. No doubt Thornton had already warned her. But Cassie wasn’t giving up that easy.
She put the car in gear to leave, and discovered the only safe ‘EXIT’ from the lot was a driveway onto a different street. She drove out headed north, hoping she could get back to Mayfair this way without getting lost.
After three long blocks she finally reached a cross street that went all the way through. She was near the end of that block when she spotted a sign outside a small bungalow: ‘Doug Skolnik Private Investigation’.
Really?
She turned into the driveway beside the bungalow and found herself in the parking area behind the Strickland & Yates building; three-stories of black marble and black glass, with giant gold letters near the top.
Cassie’s eyes widened. The jailhouse-law-firm shared its parking lot with the dead PI? How convenient was that!
She found a parking space and went inside the black marble building. “Hello,” she said to the silver-haired receptionist. “I understand Private Investigator Doug Skolnik works for your firm. Could I speak with someone who can give me a reference for him?”
The woman hardly looked at Cassie before she pressed a button on the phone console, and then typed something on the computer keyboard. She never did speak to anyone, but her fingers flew rhythmically more than once before an unusually tall, young man came from an inside office and approached Cassie.
“Hello,” he said, smiling affably. “My name is Brent Mitchell. I’m the liaison with all of our outside contractors. May I have your name?”
Cassie straightened her posture to her full 5’11” height, still craning her neck to make eye contact with this kid. Cripes, he must be seven feet tall.
“Cassandra Crowley,” she told him, and noted the receptionist’s fingers flying again with just the right number of keystrokes to have logged in that information. “I’m looking for reference details on the work Doug Skolnik was doing for your office. Can you help me with that?”
While she waited for a response, she glanced around the room for chairs where they could sit, or a box she could stand on. Craning her neck to maintain contact was uncomfortable. The realization wasn’t lost on her for friends who’d had to crane up the same way for years to talk to her.
“Probably not. Are you a reporter?”
“No, actually, I was hired to complete Rosalie Baylin’s autobiography and Mr. Skolnik is --”
Brent made a face like he’d just found egg shell in his omelet. He smiled quickly at the receptionist, and guided Cassie to a settee on the far side of the outer office.
She kept her voice low. “Can you confirm that Mr. Skolnik was on assignment for Strickland and Yates when he died?”
Brent’s face maintained total professionalism. He tilted his head for a beat, “Mr. Skolnik’s client list includes more than a dozen firms throughout the state. I’m sure he was working for several of us at any given time.”
Cassie acknowledged with a nod. “Then is the name Fred Zimmer familiar to you?” She expected another throw-off about Skolnik’s other clients.
But she heard the kid suck air at hearing the name. And it wasn’t the kind from just hearing it in the news. He KNEW that name!
His expression stayed chiseled as he leaned forward, “Ms. Crowley, what point are you trying to make here?”
“I’m curious about the connection between Skolnik working for you, and a two-hundred-grand lien filed by your firm yesterday against the Baylin House property.”
The stone face cracked, just barely, but enough. Cassie stood and left the Strickland & Yates building before he could say anything else.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Driving out of the side street, Cassie continued north on Mayfair until she reached the computer store. Thirty minutes later she parked far enough up the driveway at Baylin House to unload the heavy printer close to the front door.
“Just leave it in the box for now,” she told Bea, setting it out-of-the-way in the corner. “When I come back tomorrow I’ll hook it up and print pages for Rosalie to red-line.”
Then she used the Baylin House phone to try the mystery number written by Lena at the County Clerk’s Office. The phone picked up on the third ring.
A woman’s voice, raspy like a heavy smoker, said, “Hello?”
“I’m sorry to bother you, but someone at the county asked me to call this number,” Cassie explained.
“Are you the lady from Las Vegas that knows Sydney?”
“Yes . . . is this Sydney’s number?”
“This is her daughter’s house.”
“You’re Sydney’s daughter? I’m Cassandra Cr--”
“No, no, Sugar, I’m not Annie, I’m a friend of the family they called to watch Annie’s boy while she goes up to visit her mama. I guess you heard Sydney’s in the hospital up in Victoria, but she’s getting better. They might let her out later today or tomorrow.”
“In the hospital? What happened?”
“Oh I guess you didn’t hear, then. Well, Sydney had an accident out on the highway between here and Victoria. Totaled the car, Annie said. Sydney was pretty bad for a while, so I brought Lena’s kids over here where I could take care of all of them until Annie comes back. You want the phone number up there where you can talk to her? I can give you the number at the Waller house . . . that’s Sydney’s folks . . . and like I said, she’s supposed to come out of the hospital maybe today or tomorrow.”
“Yes, please. Thank you.”
Cassie wrote the number in the steno book, partly horrified that Sydney had gone through such an ordeal, and partly relieved to confirm she hadn’t been in an explosion like the one in Cassie’s apartment.
Next she dialed Rob’s number, and stayed calm enough to tell him she was going to the motel for the rest of the day.
“Cassie, I wish . . .”
“Me too,” she whispered, and hung up before he could say anything else. She was still angry that he didn’t tell her about Brady’s arrest, and she didn’t trust herself getting into an argument with him about it.
That evening she used her cell phone to call the Waller residence in Victoria. Sydney’s mother answered the phone.
“I know she’ll be excited to see you, Cassie,” Mrs. Waller cooed. “The doc said he’ll let us bring her home tomorrow, so you just come on up Saturday or whenever you can. And have those tires checked before you leave. Lordy, we don’t want anyone else scraped off that damned highway.”
“Yes, Ma’am, I will. Is that what caused Sydney’s accident? A bad tire?”
“They said she had a blowout, yes. Her tires weren’t bad, but her Daddy says if you don’t make sure they all have the proper air pressure that’s one of the things that can happen on hot pavement.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Friday morning Cassie left her message on Rob’s voicemail at 7:20, and arrived at Baylin House ten minutes before eight o’clock.
She gasped when the door opened. Bea’s round face was dark like someone suffering high blood pressure about to stroke. “There won’t be any work today,” Bea wheezed, “but you might as well come and sit down a minute. We need to talk.”
Cassie stepped into the foyer and closed the door, remembering how shocked she was when Rosalie showed her the birth certificate. She dreaded how much that whole scene might have affected Rosalie after Cassie left.
“Is Rosalie worse today?”
“She was okay when she got up,” Bea answered as she led the way across the living room. “But she needed another infusion to get her calmed down after
Miss Dorothy left.”
“Dorothy was here this morning?”
“Only for a few minutes, but it was enough.”
In the kitchen, Cassie pulled Harvey’s chair out a few inches and sat. Bea filled a glass with sweet tea from the refrigerator, and set it in front of Cassie before she eased into her own chair.
Then she handed Cassie a folded sheet of orange paper from her pocket.
Cassie read the official notice from the Cordell County Health Department. It was a boilerplate of legalese, filled-in blanks for address and particulars, basically stating that ‘Required Improvements’ had not been made and the business license was revoked effective July 1st. Baylin House was ordered to close and vacate the property no later than July 31st. It was signed by the scribble Cassie recognized now was Inspector Fozzi.
“I don’t understand,” she stammered. “Where did this come from?”
“Miss Dorothy found it taped to the front door when she got here this morning.”
“This morning?” Without Sydney here to fight for it, Fozzi must have reversed the 30-Day Extension she issued. Damn him!
Cassie read it again. The notice gave them six days . . . then what? Would the Health Department padlock the doors with Rosalie sick in her bed? Would they come with bulldozers and knock the place down?
“Dorothy showed this to Rosalie?”
Bea nodded.
Cassie wanted to scream. She ground her teeth, holding it in until she could speak calmly. “I have some errands to run, and then I’ll work at home. Please let Rosalie know we can still make our deadline and that I’m trying to find a way around this thing. And call my cell number if anything else changes.”
Bea promised she would.
***
Cassie left Baylin House and drove straight to the Zimmer address on Tenderfoot Lane. It was barely nine o’clock; she hoped not too early to ring someone’s doorbell.
She smelled bacon and chocolate before she even reached the door. “Mrs. Zimmer?” she called through the dense screen. The inside door had to be open for the cooking smells to be that strong and for Cassie to hear the slow rhythmic thump of the oxygen generator. Somewhere inside a TV blared one of the daytime game shows.
“Mrs. Zimmer, it’s Cassie Crowley . . .”
“I see you,” the woman said, scraping footsteps toward the door. “You’re that writer who wants to talk about Fred in your book.”
“Yes, ma’am. I had another appointment on this side of town that cancelled at the last minute, so I took a chance it would be okay to stop over and see you?”
The floor creaked. The simple lock on the handle clicked. Then the screen door edged a couple inches toward Cassie.
“You gotta step aside so I can open this thing or it’ll knock you on your ass.”
Cassie moved a wide pace to the left, and waited until the metal door had swung past her. “Thank you, Mrs. Zimmer. I don’t mean to disturb--”
“Call me Delona, Mrs. Zimmer makes me feel old.”
“Yes ma’am, thank you. Delona.” Cassie walked through the opening into a traditional parlor much like Noreen Crowley’s living room in California; dark furniture, a few old photos, threadbare rug over an oak floor.
“Come in here,” Delona commanded, giving a tug on the long plastic hose connecting her to the oxygen machine. She led the way into a large kitchen covered in checkerboard squares of turquoise and white tile, outfitted more like a restaurant than a home. Cassie counted six burners on the massive stove, and four oven doors in the wall. The chocolate and bacon smells were strong enough in here to make Cassie’s jaws ache.
“Sit! You drink coffee?”
“Yes, ma’am, black, no sugar.” Cassie eased onto one of the stools that banked a wide tile-topped counter.
“Good girl.”
Delona brought two mugs freshly filled, and sat on a stool opposite Cassie.
Then for more than an hour Cassie listened quietly while the woman reminisced about her husband and his Navy career, and raising a son and daughter right here in Cordell Bay. It sounded right out of a storybook.
Or a daytime TV drama.
“Do your son and daughter still live here in Cordell Bay?”
“No, my daughter is married to an oil company engineer and they live all over the country. She stays in touch by phone mostly.” As she spoke, Delona slipped off the stool and opened one of the oven doors. She slid out two pans of chocolate cupcakes and placed them on a rack at the other end of the long counter. Cassie wouldn’t have thought the chocolate-and-bacon aroma could get any stronger, but it did, enough to make her eyes water.
“And your son?”
Delona opened the refrigerator and took out two more pans of cupcakes, and placed them on the counter near the others. “Our son died in ’90, wrecked his car on the way to a NASCAR meet.”
“Oh . . . I’m so sorry.” Cassie was sorry she asked.
“No need to be,” Delona told her with a wave of a hand. “That was sixteen years ago. Fred’s first heart attack was the day of the funeral; you might want to know that for your book.”
Cassie nodded, and quickly blotted her eyes with the tail of her shirt while Delona was busy with the cupcakes. Four dozen was a lot of cupcakes for someone who lived alone, didn’t drive, and whose only daughter lived out of state. Surely she could spare one for Cassie?
“Are you active in charity work here in Cordell Bay?”
“Not me,” Delona assured with a grunt. “Fred did some, after the Navy docs released him. He went to work at the high school as an administrator, and then assigned himself to help coach the basketball team in his spare time.”
“Basketball . . . here in Cordell Bay?”
“Yeah, he loved it,” Delona confirmed. “Working with the boys was good for him. They loved him, too. After the second heart attack he couldn’t drive, but they sent high school kids over to pick him up and take him to practice so he wouldn’t feel left out.”
Cassie felt her adrenaline spike “Do you remember any of their names?”
“Who . . . the basketball kids? No, I was busy in my own business.” Delona waved a hand toward the stove area. “Catered office lunches, mostly, but a few parties for people over in Golf Estates too.” She crooked her thumb toward the cupcakes. “I still do a job now and then. You want a party catered, just call me and we’ll talk about it.”
Cassie swallowed her disappointment. “What years would that have been?”
“The whole time after we moved here. I’m pretty well known by the downtown office crowd.”
“I mean what years did Mr. Zimmer coach basketball?”
“Well, Fred’s been gone since the summer of ‘96, so it was most of the school year before that. Why?”
Cassie shrugged. “I was just thinking of people who would know Mr. Zimmer’s car was sitting in the garage and that you weren’t using it.”
Delona waved a hand again to push that idea away. “Wasn’t any of the kids. The man who stole the car was old. He told one of the neighbors he was buying the car from me and--”
“One of the neighbors spoke to the car thief?”
“Yeah, Marcia Pike on the other side of the alley.” Delona gave a sarcastic cackle. “She’s the neighborhood busybody. She about peed her pants telling that good looking detective about it.”
Cassie could imagine what detective she meant. “Did you hear what Mrs. Pike told him?”
“Claimed she saw the guy working in the garage on Saturday after July Fourth. Asked him what he was doing, and he told her he was buying the car and needed to make sure it would run.”
Cassie nodded, and finished her cup of coffee before she asked, “Have any of the basketball kids stayed in touch with you?”
“No reason they should. Why do you care so much about what those kids do?”
“It’s possible the basketball team could be where Mr. Zimmer connected with somebody from Baylin House. It gives me another lead to track down.”
De
lona bobbed her head thoughtfully a couple times. “You might check the library downtown. They should have old high school annuals in the reference room. The basketball players will be listed there.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Cassie drove away from Delona Zimmer’s house with every intention of going straight to the library to look for a photo of Brent Mitchell with Coach Zimmer. The kid had to be the connection between Zimmer’s car and Skolnik. And it wasn’t hard to draw loops connecting him to Skolnik’s murder, and Brady Irwin’s arrest, and now the lien against Baylin House.
There were holes in her logic – beginning with what could the kid gain in that scenario that justified a man’s death. The two-hundred-grand lien wasn’t worth it. Neither was the Baylin House property. But she could worry about that after she proves the connection between Brent Mitchell and Fred Zimmer’s stolen car.
Driving south on Mayfair, she slowed for the signal at Hefner Lane, and glanced down the street toward the parking lot separating the Strickland & Yates black marble building from Skolnik’s little bungalow office.
A giant Bayside Movers truck sat outside the bungalow’s rear door. The front door stood wide open. Cassie turned and parked across the street, and for a few moments just watched shadows moving around inside.
It was too hard to tell what was going on. She left her car and went in through the front door, smiling at the two workers dressed in jeans and Bayside Movers uniform shirts.
“Hi,” she said, “I thought Mr. Mitchell might still be here?” She glanced around looking for him, and confirmed the bungalow’s layout. Two doors near the end of a short hall stood closed. The nearest door was open to a bedroom office holding a school teacher style desk and chair, and a 2-drawer file cabinet with a photocopy machine sitting on top.
The older worker shook his head. “He’s gone downtown, said he wouldn’t be back until after lunch.”
Cassie groaned for effect. “Oh, rats, I wanted to go over the notes he asked for before I start on the rest of the files. Did he show you which ones to give to me?”
