“Maybe.” With this crowd, I wasn’t about to take anything for granted.
“It’s time for him to go outside and ... you know, visit a few bushes? He’s been in here a couple hours and that always makes me nervous. I mean, if he has an accident, he’s going to flood the place.”
Judging by Boris’s languid demeanor, the only way he was going to pee soon was in his sleep. He was a grown dog, with a bladder that could probably wait more than an hour or two. Carrie looked genuinely worried, however.
She was a cat person, I reminded myself. She didn’t know the drill.
“Won’t Brian walk him?” I asked.
“Sure, when he thinks of it. But once he gets locked in with Aubrey and Tim like that, he might not surface for hours. And in the meantime ...”
My guess was that Carrie was too intimidated by Boris’s size even to consider walking him herself. There was probably no point in mentioning that most Saint Bernards are placid, gentle dogs with impeccable temperaments. Carrie didn’t look likely to be convinced.
“Where’s his leash?” I asked.
“Right here.” Her worried look vanished, replaced by a smile and a rush of words. “Brian hangs it by the door. Boris doesn’t like the elevator, but you can take the stairs. You don’t have to go far or anything. Brian usually just walks him around the edge of the parking lot.”
I took the six-foot leather leash and hooked it to Boris’s collar. “Come on, boy,” I said. “Want to go out?”
That phrase sends Faith running to the door. Boris managed, with effort, to lift his head. I clucked encouragingly and gave him a nudge. Boris groaned.
After a moment, he shifted his weight and heaved himself to his feet. We lumbered to the office door. Carrie held it open for us.
“Be right back,” I said.
Once outside, the Saint Bernard knew what was expected of him. He strolled over to the nearest tree and lifted his leg obligingly.
“Good boy,” I said. Boris wagged his tail, and went to sniff another spot.
We’d completed a walk around the perimeter of the lot and were heading back inside when the door to the building flew open and Tim came running out. Seeing me and Boris together, he slid to a stop.
“I was hoping to catch you. I didn’t realize you’d been given dog duty.”
“Carrie asked. I think she was afraid to do it herself.”
Tim reached down to stroke Boris’s broad head. “I’m glad you were willing to help. Because that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. There’s something important I have to do. And I need your help, too.”
Twenty-four
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
Unfortunately, Boris chose that moment of inattention on my part to notice that there were chipmunks running beneath the foliage that formed the border of the parking lot. He plunged toward the bushes, and I found myself flying after him, courtesy of the leather lead that connected us.
“Give me a minute,” I said to Tim, as the dog stuck his head into the hedge and woofed loudly. I glanced up at the office windows, hoping the noise wouldn’t draw anyone’s attention. Obviously Tim had wanted privacy for what he had to say. “Boris is finished out here. Let me just take him back upstairs and then we can talk.”
“Sure. I’ll be waiting.”
Nothing illustrates the term deadweight like a Saint Bernard who doesn’t want his walk to end and has to be cajoled up a steep flight of steps. By the time I got back to the parking lot, I was hot and out of breath.
Tim was leaning against my Volvo, talking on a small cell phone. As I approached, he ended the call and slipped the phone onto a clip hooked to his belt.
“Do you mind if we get in the car?” he asked. “I’d just as soon everyone not know ...”
“That you’re talking to me?”
“What we’re up to,” Tim finished, as I unlocked the doors and he slid into the Volvo’s hot interior.
“We’re not up to anything yet,” I pointed out, though I certainly wasn’t ruling out the possibility. I climbed in beside him. “Why don’t you tell me what this is all about?”
“I need you to go with me to North Salem. To Sheila’s house. There’s something there I have to pick up.”
“What do you need me for?”
“Directions, company.” Tim managed a lopsided smile. “Moral support?”
“Sounds interesting. What are we picking up?”
“It’s kind of complicated. Why don’t I explain while you drive?”
I had to admit he’d piqued my curiosity. I turned the key in the ignition, opened the windows, and put the car in reverse. Still, there were a few details that needed attending to.
“How are we going to get into Sheila’s house?” I asked.
“Do you have a key?”
“No, but I called the caretaker and told him that the office needed some files Sheila had been keeping at home. I offered him twenty-five dollars, and he agreed to meet us there.”
I looked both ways and pulled out of the parking lot. “Is that true?”
“Possibly. I have no idea whether Sheila took stuff home from work or not. Anyway, it’s not what we’re looking for.”
“Which is?”
“A set of photographs and negatives.”
“That belong to Sheila?”
“They were in her possession.”
“So I gather,” I said dryly. “What are these photos of, exactly, and how did Sheila come to have them?”
“That’s the part that gets complicated.” Tim glanced out the window as I turned up onto the highway. “You know where you’re going, right?”
“Right. You’ve never been to Sheila’s house?”
“No. Why would I have gone up there?”
“No reason,” I said casually. “But the fact that you don’t even know where she lives makes me curious as to how you would know that there’s a handyman who has a key. Much less how to contact him.”
Tim looked a little sheepish. He cleared his throat and stared out the window for a minute. If he didn’t answer soon, I was turning off at the next exit and driving straight back to the office.
“I guess I might have found that information in Brian’s office,” he said finally.
“I take it Brian wasn’t there at the time?”
“Not exactly.”
“So you searched Brian’s office. What were you looking for, the photographs and negatives?”
“You’re a pretty good detective.”
“And you’re pretty lousy at explaining what’s going on.” I eased the car over to the shoulder of the road. “Before we go any farther, why don’t you tell me what you’re up to.”
Tim turned in his seat to face me. “Okay, here it is. I think I told you before that Carrie kind of has a crush on Brian. She thinks he’s like the big, important boss-man and she’s always working really hard to get his attention.
“He doesn’t even seem to notice her much, at least not in the way she wants him to. But the guy who did notice her was this photographer named Marlon. He does some work for the magazine.”
“Marlon Dickie,” I said. “I’ve met him.”
Tim nodded. “Then you probably know ... I guess a girl might find him attractive in a slick sort of way. And he can be pretty persuasive, too. Anyway, he got this idea ...”
He paused and swallowed heavily. His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat. “He told Carrie that she’d make a great model. He wanted her to pose for what he called artistic shots. He said he could make her look really beautiful, and that she could give the pictures to Brian and he would realize how grown-up she was.”
Uh-oh.
“By artistic, do you mean nude?”
Tim’s chagrined expression confirmed my guess. “You have to understand—Carrie never would have come up with something like that on her own. It was all Marlon’s doing. He talked her into it.”
“But Carrie’s just a kid,” I sputtered. So much for thinking I’d found
a photographer for my wedding.
“She’s twenty. But she looks younger, and she’s still pretty naive. I think that’s why Marlon got such a kick out of the whole thing. I guess Carrie wouldn’t take all her clothes off, but she did let him take some pictures topless.”
“Then what happened?” I flipped on my signal, checked the lane, and pulled back out into traffic.
“Marlon showed the pictures to Brian.”
“And what did he think of them?”
“According to Carrie, he was really shocked. She’d only done it because she thought it would please him, and it didn’t please him at all.”
Score one for Brian’s side, I thought. At least the man had some ethics.
“He demanded that Marlon give him all the photographs he’d taken, and every negative, too.”
“Did Marlon do that?”
“I think so. At least he said he did. Once Brian had the package, he told Marlon that the magazine wouldn’t be needing his services any longer.”
Good for him, I thought. “How does Sheila fit into all this?”
“Brian told her about the pictures, and she got really mad.”
“At Marlon?”
“At Marlon, at Brian, pretty much at men in general. Believe me, it was something to hear. She took the photographs and negatives away from Brian. I’m not sure what she intended to do with them, but she died before she had a chance to do anything.”
I thought about that, turning the information over.in my mind and seeing if I could piece it into the puzzle. It didn’t seem to want to fit.
“The first time I came to the magazine, Carrie told me that Marlon had been calling Sheila a lot over the last few weeks. Was that what those calls were about?”
“Probably. Marlon has a pretty high opinion of his touch with the ladies, if you know what I mean. I guess he figured he had a better chance of getting Sheila to forgive him. Then she could talk Brian into rehiring him. Of course that never happened. Sheila wouldn’t give him the time of day.”
Chalk one up for her, too, I thought reluctantly.
“Did the whole office know about this?” I asked.
“Not at first, but eventually, yeah. It’s just not that big a place, and you tend to hear things. I really felt bad for Carrie. It’s not like any of this is her fault.”
Debatable, I thought, but I didn’t interrupt.
“She was really broken up about the whole thing. Marlon had convinced her that this would be an adult thing to do. She thought Brian would be really impressed. Then she saw his reaction and began to feel like she’d done something really cheap and stupid. And it’s not like Brian went out of his way to make her feel any better either. So I figured it was up to me to help her.”
I detected more than a note of jealousy in Tim’s tone. Carrie had a crush on Brian; it looked like Tim was interested in Carrie. And now he’d fashioned himself as her white knight, riding to her rescue.
“What makes you think the pictures are at Sheila’s house?” I asked.
“They have to be somewhere and they weren’t in her office. I looked there first, before her stuff was all boxed up and shipped home. Then I checked Brian’s office for good measure. He never bothers to lock his door, even when he’s out of town. I know Sheila had the pictures, so I figure they’ve got to be at her house.”
It sounded like a reasonable assumption to me.
When we arrived, Chuck’s pickup truck was parked beside Sheila’s garage. He was waiting in the shade on the porch. He stared speculatively at the Volvo and at us as we pulled up. Even considering the twenty-five dollars Tim had used as an incentive, Chuck didn’t look very happy to see us.
He introduced himself to Tim and nodded at me when I reminded him that we’d met before. Chuck didn’t hand over the key, but rather used it to unlock the front door himself. Then he quickly pocketed both the key and the money Tim passed to him.
“How long you think you’re going to be?” he asked. “I’ll have to lock up again when you leave.”
Tim and I looked at each other. “Maybe an hour?” I said. “It could be less. It depends how long it takes us to find what we’re looking for.”
“That’s another thing. Seeing as this is my house, I’m thinking I ought to have a look at anything you remove from it.”
Beside me, Tim paled slightly. Before he could protest, I spoke up. “You may be the owner of the house, but you’re not the current occupant and you have no right to the contents. They belong to Sheila’s heirs, not to you.”
Chuck scowled. “Don’t forget, it was a furnished rental.”
“Don’t worry, we won’t be removing any furniture. You’re welcome to stick around and watch, if you like.” I pushed past him and went inside, taking Tim with me.
“Thanks,” Tim said. “I should have realized he was bluffing. Or maybe angling for more money.”
“Don’t mention it.”
Chuck sat back down on the porch. Obviously he was planning to keep tabs on what we were up to. Fine by me, as long as he stayed out of our way.
“Where should we start?” asked Tim.
I looked around the small house. Much of the ground floor was visible from where we stood just inside the front door. “I’ve never been upstairs. I wonder if there’s another bedroom up there, maybe one that Sheila turned into an office.”
Together, Tim and I trooped up the narrow stairway. The second floor of the house contained only a small amount of finished space that looked as though it had been reclaimed from the attic. A tiny bedroom was paired with an even smaller bath. The ceilings of both rooms sloped with the roofline.
My guess had been right, though. Sheila had done her best to convert the dark, cramped space into a home office. A twin bed and nightstand had been pushed to one side. An old pine desk and dresser set were angled next to each other, near the only window.
A laptop computer sat closed on the desk, next to the only lamp in the room. The dresser top held a fax machine and telephone. A waist-high file cabinet completed the furnishings.
There were some papers in a neat pile on the desk, and a few more in the in tray of the fax, but the three desk drawers were empty, as was the wastebasket. Clearly Sheila had done most of her work in her office at the magazine.
“Why don’t you get started looking around downstairs?” I said to Tim. “We don’t want to keep Chuck waiting any longer than we have to.”
“Got it.” He spun on his heel and clattered down the steps.
It only took a few minutes to rifle through the file cabinet. I found plenty of papers, but no photographs, and no negatives. A minuscule closet was also empty. I got down on my knees and looked under the bed, then went through the drawers of the pine dresser that matched the desk. Still nothing.
I gave the bathroom a glance, then went downstairs. Tim was in the kitchen. He turned around hopefully as I approached. “Anything?”
“Not yet. Where else have you looked?”
“Just the living room so far. Nothing there either.” He gestured toward the refrigerator. “Somebody ought to do something about that. There’s a ton of food in there that’s going bad.”
“Why don’t you see if you can find some garbage bags? You can clean it out and we’ll toss it when we leave. Meanwhile, I’ll check the other rooms.”
The sideboard was the only enclosed piece of furniture in the dining room, and I didn’t see anything inside that looked like a package of photographs. That left only one place to look. I dragged my feet toward Sheila’s bedroom. Nothing had changed since Sam and I had been there the weekend before. The bed was still rumpled; filmy curtains still framed a charming view.
A light coating of dust now covered the night table where the picture of the newly engaged Sam and Sheila had sat. Ignoring the lump that seemed to be expanding in my throat, I yanked open the drawer underneath and hit pay dirt. Two books, a magazine, and a bulky manila envelope filled the space.
I pulled the envelope out, twisted its
clasp open, and spilled the contents onto the bed. Black-and-white photographs, eight-by-ten glossies, poured out. In the top photo, Carrie was clothed and smiling.
Maybe it was a trick of the lighting, or maybe Marlon really was as talented as I’d believed that day in his studio. In the picture the unexceptional child who sat behind the Woof! desk looked beautiful, almost radiant. Too bad the photographer didn’t have some moral fiber to go along with his skill.
Quickly I flipped through the rest of the package, confirming that these were the shots Tim had been looking for. The negatives were there, too. I gathered everything up and shoved it back inside the envelope.
“Tim?” I called, walking out of the bedroom.
“Out here.”
The front door was still standing open. Tim and Chuck were in the yard. Each was carrying a large black-plastic trash bag, and they were heading for Chuck’s pickup.
“I found those files you needed.”
“Great.” Tim flashed me a grin over his shoulder. “Be with you in a sec.” He reached the truck and hoisted his bag up onto the bed. “Chuck offered to dump this for us.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“No problem.” Chuck threw his bag up after Tim’s. “No way I want all that stuff going bad in there and stinking up the place.”
“That’s right. You mentioned you were going to be looking for another tenant soon.”
“Yeah.” Chuck swiped his cap off his head and wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. “I’d like to get someone in here by next month. Worst case, the month after. I ought to be thinking about running an ad.”
“You don’t have to do that,” said Tim. “I heard Brian talking about the house. He said he’s going to take over the lease.”
Chuck and I both stared at him.
“Whatever for?” I asked, surprised.
“Who’s Brian?” said Chuck.
“Sheila’s business partner,” I told him. “Brian Endicott. He lives in Purchase. I can’t imagine why he’d want to rent another place up here.”
“Don’t ask me.” Tim shrugged. “I only know what I heard. He said Sheila wasn’t sure when she took the place whether she was going to stay on the East Coast long-term or not. Brian thought it was a pretty good deal, so he cosigned the lease with her.”
Unleashed (A Melanie Travis Mystery) Page 19
