Baylin House (Cassandra Crowley Mystery)

by L. J. Parker

  As she hoped, the man only shook his head and leaned down to the packing box he was taping closed.

  “Well, I’m too glad to have a job to complain,” she said. “I’m from the accountant’s office and I’m supposed to copy some files before they get packed so we can finish Mr. Skolnik’s taxes.”

  The man didn’t even look up.

  She took a few steps into the office. “I’ll just work in here to make the copies and stay out of your way.” Then she went straight to the copy machine and hit the switch to start it warming up. While it hummed to life, she verified the file cabinet drawers weren’t locked. The men continued putting boxes together in the main room, talking between them.

  A quick glance through the open door from behind the desk showed bright sunlight, and a clear view across the parking lot to the door of Strickland & Yates. Good! If she kept an eye on it, she would have advance warning if someone comes to check on the moving crew.

  She pulled the file cabinet’s top drawer -- empty except a box of business cards and some office supplies.

  The bottom drawer, labeled S&Y, contained four years of file folders labeled by calendar quarter.

  Cassie pulled the most recent date, the 2006-Q3 folder, and glanced through the pages inside. Not much to see – four typed pages signed by Brent Mitchell, requests to verify addresses and employment history of friends and relatives scheduled to testify in court cases. Clipped behind each were copies of reports by Douglas Skolnik Private Investigator.

  That didn’t prove Skolnik went to the San Miguel neighborhood on S&Y’s request, but Cassie made copies of two of the packets to at least prove Skolnik worked for the law firm, and specifically at Brent Mitchell’s direction.

  Cassie sat down in the padded chair behind the desk, and glanced toward the doorway for any S&Y people in the parking lot -- there was no one.

  The desktop was bare except for a dead houseplant and a green desk mat bearing more stains than a mechanic’s shop rag. No family photos or anything indicating the man had a life outside this office. The wide center drawer held a handful of quarters along with the usual paperclips, pens, business cards, stray receipts, and a few lint covered pieces of hard candy even the ants probably wouldn’t eat.

  She glanced again toward the parking lot . . . feeling her stomach twist until she confirmed there was no foot traffic between the buildings. Deep breath.

  One by one she pulled all three drawers on the right hand pedestal, and thumbed through the contents. There were brochures for vacation spots, city maps that were familiar and a dozen more she’d never heard of, cash tickets for fast food and local convenience stores, and a couple pounds of business cards for contacts with addresses in every state of the USA.

  Cassie shook her head; Skolnik was too disorganized to run a decent business. Her frantic search for anything that could help Baylin House was turning into a waste of time.

  Then the bottom drawer on the left made the trip worthwhile. Cassie glanced quickly through file folders labeled Albany, Atchison, Baker, Carter, Cornwall – and so on, all the way to Sanchez, Thomason, Wilson, and Zanes. No folder for Zimmer; not that she actually thought there would be. But it helped confirm that Mitchell was the only connection between Skolnik and the stolen car.

  Behind the client folders was a stack of envelopes Cassie recognized; Bank of America on the return address, Douglas Skolnik Private Investigator LLC through the envelope window.

  She glanced toward the parking lot; the empty dolly stood in the doorway waiting for more boxes, still no pedestrians in the lot.

  She pulled out the top statement. It was postmarked July 6th.

  Skolnik’s business account carried an average balance close to six-thousand for the whole month, maintained with only three deposits, large ones. Most of the dozen or so deductions were small amounts, but two checks had cleared at $5,000 each.

  That was curious enough for Cassie to fish through the cancelled checks in the envelope. She found checks made out to three utility companies and two credit card companies, then a payroll check to Douglas Skolnik at net $3,400, a check to GM Finance, another payroll check to Skolnik, a gasoline credit card, and finally two $5,000 payroll checks that gave Cassie’s heart a squeeze – they were made out to Carl Fozzi!

  Nervous sweat trickled behind her ears and under her clothes while she fumbled the cancelled checks to Fozzi onto the copier glass. She turned and watched the parking lot while the machine groaned a pass of light and finally slid out a sheet of paper. Cripes, it was taking a long time . . . and she really, really wanted to get out of here now, before anyone else spotted her.

  With jerky movements she grabbed up the page, turned off the machine, replaced the checks in the envelope, and dropped it into the back of the drawer where she’d found it.

  She wished she had the nerve to look at more bank statements, but this would have to be enough. The last place Cassie wanted Fozzi to find her, was in Skolnik’s office.

  With the photocopies in hand and a forced smile that almost hurt, she waved to the man loading another box on the dolly, and slipped out the front door.

  The dashboard clock read 11:55 as she pulled into traffic on Mayfair headed north. Visiting the library would have to wait. Cassie was drenched with sweat that reeked from adrenaline and fear. She needed a large cup of something wet to drink, and then a shower and clean clothes.

  She didn’t call Rob again that day.

  She didn’t call him when she left the motel Saturday morning, either.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  After breakfast Saturday morning, Cassie went to a bookstore near the campus and picked up a South Texas map that included Victoria County.

  Then she stopped at Cordell Tire Co. on Bayside Boulevard to verify the condition of her tires, just to be safe.

  Three hours later she turned off a paved county road onto shell-gravel, and followed the gritty path nearly a quarter mile around a grove of trees with tall canopies and dried up Spanish moss waving in the breeze.

  At the final bend, she could see what looked like a restored homestead from an old Civil War movie. The House and barn were plank sided, silver with age and blackened in the grooves. Between the buildings was rich green grass shaded by three large trees.

  Sydney sat in an oversize wicker chair at the far end of a picnic table, propped in a valley of pillows. Her right leg, cast from thigh to heel, rested on a plastic patio chair. Her right arm, supported on yet another pillow, was wrapped in white gauze. She waved with her free arm and pointed to a wide rectangle of gravel next to a white Taurus, a dark green Chrysler sedan, and a mud spattered red pickup.

  Cassie parked and climbed out of the Santa Fe, and took a deep breath of fresh air mixed with something wonderful. Somebody was cooking outdoors, and it had a predictable effect on her stomach.

  “You didn’t have to do all this just to get out of meeting me at IHOP,” she teased as she came to the bench closest to Sydney, and sat down.

  Sydney shook her head. “I’m so sorry, Cassie, I should have called back and let you know I had to leave right away. I did try to call a couple days ago, but your number was out of service. I was afraid you went home to Las Vegas already.”

  “Not yet.”

  Cassie pulled another business card from her bag and wrote on the back. “I picked up a new cell phone to use here in Texas. This one is good for now.”

  Sydney read the hand-written number, and slid the card into her shirt pocket.

  A screen door near the back of the house squeaked open. Cassie watched a very thin older woman, wearing an apron over jeans and a faded yellow shirt, carefully navigate two steps down to ground level with an obviously heavy tray in her hands. She settled it on the table, and set out five pint-size canning jars filled with ice, and a two-gallon pitcher of sweet tea.

  Sydney introduced Cassie to her mother, Alice Waller.

  “That’s so sweet of you to drive all the way up here to visit Sydney,” Alice said in the voice Cas
sie recognized. “I hope you’re hungry, Sugar. We’ve got pork stew on the fire just about ready to pull off, and fresh bread in the oven.”

  “Yes ma’am, thank you,” Cassie answered with relief. The baking bread aroma wafting from Alice’s apron was heady enough to make Cassie want to chew on the apron strings.

  The screen squeaked again and a much younger woman came down the steps carrying another tray to the table.

  “Cassie, this is my daughter Alice Ann. We call her Annie.”

  The young-twenties girl and Cassie shook hands genially before she and her grandmother went back to the house for another load.

  A man in overalls and tee-shirt came from inside the barn and went straight to a pile of gray dirt near the back edge of the grass. At least Cassie had thought it was a pile of dirt. When he brushed it aside she realized it was a layer of ash.

  He shoved a 3-foot metal pipe into the space and wiggled it, and raised a cast iron pot from the coals. Then he brought it to an iron cradle at the other end of the picnic table.

  “Daddy, this is my friend Cassie from Las Vegas. Cassie, this is my dad, Shorty.”

  The two smiled and dipped heads. Shorty concentrated on straightening the pot in the cradle, and removed the heavy lid.

  “Glad to have you here, Girl,” he said with a big grin as he coaxed the lid into a rack on the side of the cradle. Then he sat down across from Cassie. Alice was already filling plates that Annie distributed around the table. Shorty reached over and opened a quilted fabric bag holding fist-size dinner rolls that smelled so good they made Cassie’s eyes water.

  They talked genially between bites throughout the meal, and Cassie enjoyed listening to their relaxed melodic drawl that didn’t have an ounce of phoniness. Mostly small talk about life on a ranch compared to life in the city, and life in Texas in general – Shorty and Ann were devoted Texans who couldn’t imagine living anywhere else on earth. They laughed often with great affection for each other, and could have made a great TV commercial for the state.

  When everyone was too full to eat another bite, Shorty headed back inside the barn and Alice began collecting leftovers to take into the house. Cassie insisted until Alice allowed her to carry one tray full of dishes up the steps for her. As instructed, Cassie left the tray on the inside counter and came right back out to sit with Sydney while Alice and Annie took the remaining items inside.

  “I hope I didn’t insult your mom, Sydney. I sure didn’t mean to.”

  “Don’t worry about it, that’s just old south. She doesn’t know you well enough yet, but next time she’ll just tell you to sit your butt down because she wouldn’t dream of letting anyone wash a dish in her kitchen. It’s too crowded in there anyway. That’s the only thing that would embarrass her.”

  Cassie shook her head with a relaxing deep breath. “I envy your childhood, Sydney.”

  “I can’t imagine that.”

  “Growing up here? Sure! My parents have a million-dollar house in Las Vegas, and it could never come close to feeling this full of love. And peaceful.”

  “Yeah, it is peaceful,” Sydney sighed heavily. “And bore-ing . . . I’m going to die of monotony up here if I don’t have something besides soap opera TV to think about. How much trouble are they giving you down there?”

  “You need to concentrate on healing--”

  “My body is healing. It’s my brain that needs more. Come on . . . tell me.” Sydney’s tone said she had expected something to go wrong when she was gone.

  “The 30-day extension was reversed,” Cassie admitted.

  Sydney opened her mouth to say something, but just then the screen door squeaked open and she quietly turned her head in that direction.

  Annie and Alice both came down the steps. “I want to be home before Brock gets there,” Annie told her mother.

  Alice explained to Cassie, “Her husband works on the offshore rig all week.” Then she gave her granddaughter a hug. “Mind what your grandpa said, Annie. Make sure you get a bag of ice on that food when you stop to get gas.”

  “Yes Ma’am, I’ll do that first thing.” She returned the hug to her grandmother, and then bent down and hugged her mother, too, but with less enthusiasm. “Let me know what you need me to bring back, Mama. I’ll see you in a few days.” Then she climbed into the white Taurus and drove away.

  When the car disappeared around the grove of trees, Alice said, “You girls have a nice visit out here in the fresh air now. I’m going to watch my soap opera before I worry about the dishes. Cassie you come holler through the door if you all need anything.”

  “Yes ma’am,” Cassie and Sydney called back in unison. Sydney smiled, watching her mother climb the steps and go inside.

  Then she turned back, and growled in a low voice, “Fozzi?”

  Cassie nodded. “Baylin House has been posted to vacate by the end of the month.”

  “That little shit. He wouldn’t get away with it if Andrew Porter was there.”

  “Where is Porter?”

  “On vacation. He was about to lose three weeks if he didn’t use them, and I think he’s taking a couple more so he and his wife can tour somewhere up in Canada while it’s warm season.”

  “And left Fozzi to run things?”

  “That wasn’t Andrew’s choice. Somebody owed somebody a favor and giving Fozzi a job was part of the deal.”

  “So now he’s an ego with a badge along with . . .” Cassie hesitated, deciding not to involve Sydney in what she found in Skolnik’s files.

  “Along with what?”

  Cassie forced a smile. “Along with trying to get hold of you about those docs you gave me. I understand the plumbing complaint is pure bull, and I can guess that’s Fozzi’s version of throwing his weight around. Is that what you wanted me to find?”

  Sydney shook her head and glanced at the house again, and kept her voice low. “You haven’t been here long enough to know the Cozier name on the Deed was a red flag.”

  Sydney pronounced the French name ‘Coz-ee-aay’. It tickled Cassie’s memory somewhere, but the only thing that came to mind was a news item about a lady celebrating her 100th birthday last week.

  “What about it?”

  “The family is part of Cordell Bay history. The original Cozier was actually a pirate who some believe was doing business in the bay during the Civil War.”

  “But how does that connect with Rosalie Baylin’s property?”

  “After four or five generations it’s a big family and a lot of them are still in one kind of business or another. I didn’t pay attention until Fozzi tried to block me from printing those docs. I had to key in the information from your Power of Attorney and your photo ID to take off the lock.”

  “And my ID had my Nevada address,” Cassie filled in.

  “Exactly. That’s why he followed me out to get a look at you.”

  “But what’s his connection with the pirate’s family?”

  “He’s married to a Thornton, and that’s a branch of the Cozier descendants. She’s also--”

  “Thornton . . . as in David Thornton CPA?” Cassie broke in.

  “That’s his father-in-law, yeah. The wife is a close cousin with the one who filed the first complaint last year.”

  “Linda Ramos?”

  “Linda ‘C’ Ramos -- as in Linda Cozier Ramos. She bought two adjoining lots behind your address a month before she filed that complaint, and I know of at least three more lots in that block that changed hands this summer. Probably more that I don’t know about.”

  “But isn’t that normal turnover in an old neighborhood?”

  “Not when some of the buyers are corporate straws. They’re all part of a single group buying up the whole block in small pieces.”

  Cassie didn’t have to ask why. It was to keep prices down. If the property owners saw a big corporation buying everything around them, they’d hold out for more money.

  “What do you think they want to build? It’s not much of a location.”

&n
bsp; “Apartments would be my guess. Three major complexes in town are licensed to companies with Cozier & Thornton somewhere in their names.”

  “Apartments . . ,” Cassie reflected out loud. “Is Bayside View one of theirs?”

  “The newest gem in the collection. Why?”

  Cassie shook her head. The more she heard, the more she wanted to avoid getting Sydney involved. “Let’s change the subject. Why did you have to leave early last Friday?”

  “That was the strangest thing. I got a call that Daddy was sick and I needed to come right away.”

  “Shorty was sick?”

  “No, he was fine. But the man on the phone said he was at the Auction Barn when Dad was put in the ambulance, and somebody told him to call me at the county office in Cordell Bay. I didn’t even get his name. All I could think of was getting up here to be with my mom because she’ll go out of her mind if anything ever happens to him.”

  Cassie didn’t doubt that. “Have you told anybody else about that phone call?”

  “Yes, I told the ambulance crew that brought me in, and a couple different people at the hospital. I was worried some other man had gotten sick and his family still didn’t know. But they all said nobody was brought from the Auction, so I guess it was a false alarm.”

  Cassie didn’t think so. “So you headed straight up here from work?”

  “Yes. I called Annie and told her I had to leave. Then I told my supervisor what happened, and I left right away. I didn’t even go home for a change of clothes. I was only five miles from Victoria city limits when the damned tire blew.”

  “You made it that far . . .”

  “Yes. And thank God for the car half a mile behind me, because it was dark by then and they noticed my headlights bouncing around off the road. Otherwise I might have been trapped in that pile of junk until daylight Saturday.”

  Cassie shuddered.

  Then Sydney told her, “It was really weird when it happened. I’ve had blow-outs before, but not like this.”

  “How do you mean?”