by Dale Mayer
Her ex-husband’s accountants had these massive ledgers and online Excel documents and various income statements. In fact, there was no end to that kind of stuff. She saw them often in her ex’s hands. But, of course, she’d been deemed as not brainiac enough to understand anything, so not only was paperwork left around because she couldn’t possibly understand it but she wasn’t given any to read or to try to understand, much less asked for her advice. And she admitted she didn’t have any accounting training or business acumen; yet now she was finding out how she was very good at some things—like solving cold cases.
Chapter 13
Friday Late Morning …
Forcibly pushing aside the reminder of her ex-husband—or he would be legally her ex-husband, just not soon enough though—Doreen stacked up the financial papers until she had a big thick good inch-and-a-half stack and slowly read through them. Some were advertisements Frank had created to bring in business; others were entrance sheets for competitions. Some were bills of sale, and others were design sketches. She went through them slowly, one by one, but didn’t find anything terribly useful. With the original bag in the garbage now because of the icky stuff on the outside, she grabbed a large binder clip, put it around the loose papers, and then sat back down with the ledgers.
As she picked up the first one, only the starting three pages were full of entries. “Not much of a business then, was it?” she said to herself.
But, of course, she had that second ledger book too. Maybe he’d gone through dozens of ledgers, but just these remained. She pulled that one out and checked, and, sure enough, it was full. But that was deceptive, as this ledger was obviously missing pages, like half of them; the other half had been ripped out—as evidenced by the short torn edges still within the binding. She sat with that second one, went through it line by line, finding dates, some names, and corresponding numbers.
Fascinated, she read through as she got to hammer handles, ax handles, digging forks, pitchforks, and … ice picks.
She studied the ice pick entries for a long moment, then hopped up, grabbed her metal tags, and came back outside with them. As she compared the numbers on the two little metal pieces she had with those listed in the ledger, she didn’t find a match. So she went farther into the ledger, looking for more entries of ice picks. There weren’t any in that ledger, but, in the other ledger, she saw the first page listed one. She checked it and found it was exactly the same number as on one of her tags. Excitement rippled through her as she realized she’d found it.
The price seemed astronomical to her, especially considering this was made and paid for some twenty years ago. The ledger confirmed seventy-four dollars for the handle of an ice pick. She shook her head at that. Maybe other merchandise had been involved with the ice pick that she didn’t know about.
The name beside it was indecipherable. She frowned as she tapped the sheet. “I can barely read that.” With her pen, she made a faint little notation so she could find it again because so many one-line entries were on the page. Still, that was only one of her metal tags identified. What was the other one from? She really needed to know that. She went down the number column and checked for her second tag ID number against everything in that ledger but couldn’t find it.
Groaning, she headed back to the other ledger, the deceptively “full” one and started on the last page. She went back through every one of the numbered entries, checking for the right number. She found her match around the middle of the book, and the notation was “ice pick.” She stared at it, frowning. How had she missed it in the first place? Ice pick had been handwritten at a tilted angle, and her gaze had flicked right over it.
So her tags belonged to two ice picks. She went back, took another look, and realized they were one matched set by reading the small footnote, designating one of two and then later two of two.
So, was this then his ledger of products he made, or was it sales, she wondered. Why would there be one entry in one ledger and one in the other? Or maybe he made one first and would get to the other one later but just hadn’t made it that far. And the two notations were months apart, but twenty years ago, matching the dates on the tags for each tool. She liked that idea of entering each handle as he finished it, particularly if he wasn’t the fastest worker.
However, looking closer at these two messy handwritten entries, she found a line was drawn to the margins, from those original creation dates, updating them both to August three, some eighteen years ago. And the seller’s name was written in different-colored ink from the ink of the original entries.
Makes sense. Frank created these twenty years ago for himself to enter into a contest, probably leaving the customer name blank in the ledgers. Then Frank won his award nineteen years ago, per that online article, but sold the award-winning set it seems some eighteen years ago.
She studied the name on the second entry and presumed it was the same name as on the other ledger. So both pieces went to the same guy. She took several photographs of the ledger entries, wondering how she could decipher the handwriting or the name. Nan might know. It wasn’t late but maybe an inconvenient time for Nan. Doreen picked up her phone and called her grandmother anyway.
“Hello,” Nan cried gaily. “I just won at lawn bowling.”
Doreen laughed. “Did you win fair and square, or did you cheat?”
Nan laughed. “I didn’t win at the game itself,” she said, “but I did win in the betting pools.”
“Ah, well, that makes more sense,” Doreen said with a smile.
“Are you coming down?” Nan asked. “I made zucchini bread this morning. I was just thinking now would be a perfect time to slice some.”
“That sounds divine,” Doreen said warmly. “I was looking at my fridge, figuring out what I would make for dinner.”
“If you come and have enough zucchini bread, you won’t have to eat dinner.”
“That makes logical sense to me too,” Doreen said, laughing. She turned to the animals and said, “I’ll come down right now then.”
“Perfect. I’ll put on the tea and warm up the bread, so don’t delay because I’m hungry. Watching that bowling match wore me out.”
“Like I said, I’m on the way.” Doreen ended the call. She called the animals to her. Once they realized they were going out in the backyard, they raced off ahead of her. So she picked up her pace and raced across the yard, heading toward the creek. She loved hitting the creek on a daily basis because the water always changed—the levels rose and fell, according to the whims of Mother Nature. Logically she knew it had to do with the snowfall melting up in the mountains and how fast it trickled down, plus the surrounding weather had an impact too. She’d learned a ton about water levels since she’d arrived here. Even the cold cases themselves had demanded she research and learn about these local weather events. It truly was a fascinating field.
The water still looked to be at a reasonable level—not scary high. She wondered if the fact they were in more of a drought season would have an effect on how high it rose. It hadn’t been much of a winter either. So the snowpack, although sitting at about 80 percent of normal, wasn’t racing down toward her. Still no water came out of her sump-pump hoses either, which she’d take as a great sign.
Skipping along with the ledgers under her arm and the animals beside her, Doreen nearly ran down toward Nan’s place, needing an outlet for all her pent-up energy. It made no sense because truly she’d been gardening today, and then had gone out for the drive. Now she was onto a whole new mystery, and she had to admit that was the best part of the day. Of course this was more of a curiosity, not a murder mystery. At least not yet.
Laughing at herself and her animals, she came tearing around the corner of the last residential privacy fence, almost hitting a small vehicle trying to park for a walk on the river.
She called out, “Sorry,” as she waved and dashed past, heading toward Rosemoor Manor. The thought of fresh zucchini bread spurred her on like nothing else. She’d had a s
andwich, but it wasn’t as good as homemade fresh bread. As she got to the stepping stones, she saw the gardener. He glared at her.
She called out, “Hi there, Fred. How’s Frank doing?”
The glare on his face turned to puzzlement. She gave him a friendly wave and dashed across the flagstones before he had a chance to remember she was the one who insisted on visiting Nan with her animals and had to cut through the grass to do that.
Once she was on the little patio, she felt like she was in Nan’s corner of the world, and Nan would tolerate no one hurting her family—feathered, furred, or otherwise. At her arrival, Nan came out with a plate of freshly sliced zucchini bread that Doreen could see was still warm. She hugged her grandmother and exclaimed, “I could smell it around the corner.”
Nan beamed. “I’m so glad to hear that because I still have more zucchini. I’m hoping you’ll take a bunch of this home. I did promise you a full loaf. And I made three.”
“I can’t imagine I wouldn’t want to.” Doreen’s mouth watered as she gazed on the thick slabs in front of her, while Nan darted inside.
“And here’s the tea,” Nan said, as she came out a second time with the pot in her hand. She also had something in her other hand. As Doreen watched, Nan gave each of the three animals a little treat.
Doreen chuckled. “You are spoiling them. You know that?”
“Better to spoil them while they’re still around,” Nan said, “because you can’t change things that have already happened, and one day these three pets of yours will all disappear, just like I will.”
For whatever reason, the way she worded it struck a harsh chord in Doreen. She stared at Nan. “Please don’t let that be anytime soon,” she cried out. “I’m not ready for that.”
Nan looked at her with understanding. “Bless you, dear. I’m not planning on it,” she said, “but you know we keep losing residents here. For example, Ruby—who I just had tea with yesterday—she woke up dead this morning.”
“Woke up dead?” Doreen asked delicately.
“It’s what I call it, as in, she went to bed, happy as a lark last night, and never woke up this morning.”
“It’s not a bad way to state it,” Doreen said. “It just sounded odd.”
“At my age, I get to be odd,” Nan said, chuckling, “because either it’s that or I might as well be dead. If we follow all the conformity, we’d be doing nothing but giving in to everybody else’s expectations. Don’t ever do that—be you. Find the inner you that’s special and just let that part of you shine.”
Doreen grinned. “I do love to hear you talk like that,” she said.
“Well then, you’re the only one,” Nan said as she settled into her chair. She lifted her plate and reached for a big slab of zucchini bread. “Now, I’ll enjoy this. That lawn bowling today took a lot out of me.”
“How many times have you played?”
“Oh, dozens,” she said with an airy wave of her hand. “Yesterday Ruby did too. Well, Ruby’ll be pushing up grass in a few days.”
Doreen didn’t know what to say. Nan was definitely in an odd mood, but then losing a friend, just one of many in a place like this, was a good enough reason. Doreen stayed quiet, offering as much silent support as she could as she tucked into the zucchini bread. At her first bite, she moaned. “Did you melt butter over this as soon as it came out?”
“Of course I did and again when reheating it,” Nan said with a snicker. “No need to save on the fat with you, girl. Slice it when it comes out, butter it, and then the butter just melts right into it.” She nudged the honey pot toward Doreen. “If you haven’t tried it with honey, you should.”
“But it’s great this way,” Doreen argued.
“Sure it is,” Nan said. “It’s also great with honey.”
“Maybe on a second piece,” Doreen said. She lifted her tea, took a sip, and smiled.
Nan gave her a few moments, but it was obvious she was curious about the bag at Doreen’s side. “What are those?”
Doreen smiled. “I just wondered if you were any good at reading bad handwriting.”
“Of course I am.” Nan sat up straight. “I have a knack for reading bad handwriting.”
“These are handwritten names.” She finished her piece of zucchini bread, moved her plate off to the side, and brought out the two ledgers. She flipped through the pages to the first entry she wanted Nan to see and then held it up and tapped the line she was looking at. “Do you know that name?”
Nan reached for the book, looked at it, and frowned. “Oh my, that’s not so easy, is it?”
“No,” Doreen said with a laugh. “I struggled with it myself. I think this is the same name,” she said, pulling out the other book and flipping to the right page. There was a slight difference in the penmanship.
Nan looked at it and nodded. “Well, that makes it easier.”
“It does?”
“Yes. That’s Ed. Ed Burns,” she said.
“You know Ed Burns? Millicent mentioned something about him earlier.”
Nan held on to the ledgers, like she had no intention of handing them back. “Maybe,” she said, her eyes twinkling. “What’s this all about?”
“Thaddeus here,” Doreen began, pointing at the bird, and then Thaddeus squawked and ruffled his feathers at hearing his name, “found these little silver plates I showed you earlier, and he wanted to go back to that location. So we did,” Doreen said. “And I found the tool that went with one of the tags. The ice pick—for ice fishing—was almost completely buried in the dirt and rocks and sand, plus completely tangled up in the ivy, but we found it.”
“And you traced them back to the store where these ledgers were?” Nan asked in astonishment.
Doreen nodded. “I did.” And then she told the story of the knife-sharpening place.
“Fifty dollars to sharpen the kitchen knives?” Nan said, as she swiveled her head to look in the direction where her small kitchen was. “That seems like not a bad deal, doesn’t it?”
At that, Doreen had to laugh. Trust Nan to go off on a tangent when they were really talking about the ownership of these tools. “Exactly,” she said. “I just haven’t decided if that’s what I’ll do yet.”
“What you mean is, you haven’t decided if you should spend the fifty dollars yet,” Nan said as she looked at Doreen. “And I understand where you’re coming from. But there’s nothing quite so frustrating as having dull knives in the kitchen.”
“Well, we can get yours done,” Doreen said. “I’m happy to drive you down there.”
“Let me think about it,” Nan said. She tapped the ledger. “Well, Ed Burns was an interesting character.”
“Was?”
“Oh my, yes, he’s been gone, maybe ten years by now.”
Doreen’s shoulders sagged. She realized that, after all her work to find the owner of the ice pick, she’d ended up with somebody who wasn’t even living now. “Okay,” she said encouragingly. “What can you tell me about him?”
“He was a great proponent of the local arts,” Nan said. “When he passed away, his son inherited everything. And my, that was a stink.”
“Why is that?”
“Because he had two daughters as well. But Ed himself left everything to his son.”
“Why would he do that?” Doreen asked, affronted for the girls’ sakes.
“That’s the problem. You see? Nobody really understood anything about it, and the girls didn’t appear to have a leg to stand on legally, so the brother ended up with everything.”
“Including these tools. I wonder …”
“Maybe,” Nan said. “The thing is, I can see Ed buying these tools and putting them on the wall somewhere. How they got from the wall to that Greenway path, I have no idea.”
“Interesting, isn’t it?”
“How close to a fence was it?”
“Right over the edge,” Doreen said, “as if somebody stood on the side and dropped it over the fence, right out in the public area.
”
“But how many people walk there, really?” Nan asked, raising her eyebrows. “When you think about it, someone may have tried to throw them over the fence, thinking they were getting rid of them.”
“Possibly, but I only found one,” Doreen said. “That’s half the mystery. I’ve got both of the metal pieces that go on them, and the numbers match the ledgers and designated both as ice picks. Just no sign of the other ice pick.”
“Interesting,” Nan said with a smile, closing the ledgers and handing them back. “I’m sure you will get to the bottom of this mystery in no time.”
“Maybe,” Doreen said. “At least Mack should be happier with me.”
“Don’t you worry about Mack. As soon as you discuss it with him, he’ll get hooked on it too.”
Doreen smiled because she knew Mack already was. Speaking of which, she needed to contact him and see if he’d found anything in his files.
She was about to say goodbye to Nan when she put another big slab of zucchini bread on top of Doreen’s plate. “Oh, Nan,” Doreen said. She really wanted it. “But …”
“Have this one with honey,” Nan said. “You’ll be glad you did.”
“Okay,” Doreen said, giving in way too easily. She slathered on honey and cut it into four pieces, then took a bite. “Wow,” she said. She picked up the honey jar, but she found no label on it.
“Oh, that’s from a friend of mine,” Nan said. “They have their own bees and harvest their own honey locally.”
“Wow,” Doreen said, “it’s delicious.”
“Take it home with you,” Nan said. “I have another jar in the pantry.” She hopped up, walked into the kitchen, and returned with a jar that had a fancy little label on the top. “Take that one home. I have this one here.”
Delighted to follow those instructions, Doreen put the lid on the jar, wiped the outside free of any stickiness, and put it in her pocket. Just then, Nan came back out with almost a full loaf of zucchini bread wrapped in tinfoil and placed it beside Doreen. “Like I said, you won’t have to make dinner now.”
