Suddenly I heard the unmistakable sound of a person running, the swish of clothing and the thunder of footsteps. Again it was on the other side of the garage from me and I slid across the driveway and stuck my foot out ever so slightly, hoping it wasn't Drake.
Something caught and we both went down. The other person appeared to be a male, not terribly tall, stocky even. He tucked and rolled as he hit the pavement and before I knew it he was gone, his sneakers pounding a beat on the sidewalk as he ran opposite the direction Drake and I had come. He was headed for town. It was still early enough so there would be roaming groups of shoppers and diners, and maybe he thought he could blend in.
I thought about all of this in a flash as I picked myself up and checked for blood and bruises.
It was then that Drake came jogging up to me, "You okay? Where did he go?"
"I tripped him but he tucked and rolled, like he knew what he was doing, and headed into town."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, I'm sure. I just saw him and that cat."
"That cat nearly clawed my eyes out, maybe you should have tripped it."
"Awww, poor thing, it was just scared. So was I."
"Well, it's not over yet, I called for some cruisers to come by. We aren't really safe until we know there isn't anyone else here. But I don't think there is.
"Why would anyone have broken into Luke's house?" I asked, knowing the answer.
"Because there's still something to hide, and maybe we really do have the wrong guy," Drake said grimly, as sirens wailed in the distance.
Chapter 12
"Still something to hide?" I asked. I knew he had the wrong guy but I wasn't going to smirk. Much.
"Yeah, or something they think they can find."
"You're talking in riddles."
"No, I'm operating on facts, that's my job."
"And do you have new facts?"
He looked at me like I was daft, but if this is what it took to get him to tell me what was going on, I'd live with it. For the moment anyway.
"I do. The victim's house was broken into...here come with me," he said leading me into the backyard.
The screen door hung open, swinging crazily on the one remaining hinge. Someone had blown through that like their hair was on fire. Score one for the attack cat. I hoped she, he?, whatever, would be okay. Since there wasn't anyone to care for it, maybe it would just park itself under a porch in town and someone else would take it in.
We walked up the steps and ducking past the lopsided screen door, he pushed the wooden door open for me using his elbow covered with his shirt. There, scattered on the kitchen floor, creating a shifting white path to the dining room were what appeared to be thousands of pages of records. Bank records. It looked like a snow topped mountain. He held his arm up so that I wouldn't go any further. "Stop here, I'm going to have to get someone to go through these files for me, but first we need photos of the scene."
"What do you think happened?"
"I think that cat scared the daylights out of whoever was ransacking the place. I'm not sure if anyone was taking care of her, but if not, then she was probably hungry and scared. Hangry, you know? When this character came through, whoever he was, he must have startled her, or tripped on her, something. Anyway it looks like whatever she did to him caused him to bolt, leaving all this stuff behind.
I looked around at the mess and squinted, trying to see something, anything, on any of the papers.
"What do you think he was up to?"
"He who? You mean Luke?"
I nodded.
"I'm going to go out on a limb and say he thought there was something afoot and that he brought bank records home to try to figure it out."
"He's not...I mean he wasn't supposed to do that, right?"
"Well, I don't work at the bank, obviously, but I'm going to say no, he was not. But he probably didn't think anyone would ever know."
"He must've thought it was important to risk having these papers here," I said gesturing at the mess.
While we had been talking, the police backup arrived and the two officers began working to secure the scene. I went out back and sat on the picnic table with my feet resting on the matching bench. I ran my hand over the table absentmindedly, and shivered a little in the cool night air. I thought about what had gone down in the house that night, what a weird turn of events. Poor Luke, I mean he was kind of a jerk but he didn't deserve to die. And what was he up to? It seemed obvious, to me anyway, that Harold wasn't the bad guy here and I hoped he’d be able to get out of jail soon.
I leaned back and looked up at the dark sky,
When the police were done taking pictures and whatever else they had to do they left, and Drake stood in the doorway looking defeated.
"I'll help."
"No, I can't let you do that."
"Sure you can, you're not going to ask me to walk back to my car by myself are you?"
He sighed and crossed his arms over his chest, "No, no I'm not".
"Well then as long as we're both going to be here, let's go inside and collect up the papers. We can file and sort them, what can it hurt? You'll be there with me the whole time. It's not like I'm going to abscond with them, or take pictures with my phone."
Drake sighed and shook his head at me, "Fine, come inside, let's do this," he said as he held out his hand.
I looked down at it, "What?"
"Your phone. Just so you won't be tempted."
We stacked and sorted papers for what seemed like hours.
After doing a lot of comparing and contrasting we had it nailed down to three major categories.
The first was the missing files regarding the land that the Nailing It! production was trying to do the work on.
The second category was a series of files related to the long, long, list of smallish accounts the production company was using for the buying of supplies. Everything from make-up to hardware, groceries for the cast and crew, paint, wall paper, carpeting, floor tiles. If you could think of anything that would be used to build a house, it was on one of these lists somewhere. And if you could think of anything to eat, they had probably bought that once too, not to mention enough coffee and tea to start their own caffeine distribution center. There was a huge list of small accounts, with a several people who had signing authority. There was a Mike Prey who had purchased a lot of the production nuts and bolts, that might have been the guy who was related to the owner of the show, that camera man? Then there was a Lori Loomis who seemed to have purchased all of the make-up, and then several names of people who bought food.
The last category was a little hard to figure out, he seemed to be tracking deposits, and from the looks of things there had been a fair amount of churn there. Money being moved from one category to another, like from the food budget to the hardware budget and then being dispersed in small amounts for simple things like light switches and cabinet knobs. Which you'd think they'd buy in bulk, but maybe not?
It was very late, or early depending on how you sliced it, when we had everything stacked and collated.
"What do you think?" I asked Drake.
"Well, we haven't checked into it enough to know what it might mean, but Luke was tracking their accounts. Could he have suspected some sort of money laundering happening? That was the rumor. The show would be a great venue for it, lots of money in, a lot of accounts to churn it through then it comes out the other side clean. When they're done they have a property to sell for more than it cost to secure it, plus the added upsell of it being on TV."
"Which would lead us back to someone on the show being responsible for his death, right?"
"Us? Would lead us back?"
"You, I meant it would lead you, and the police department, back to someone on the show."
"That's better," he smiled and gently tucked a strand of my hair behind my ear. Then leaning down he touched his lips to my forehead. "Thanks, I appreciate your help. I don't have to remind you that this is confidential, right?"<
br />
"No."
"No?"
"No, you don't have to remind me," I said as I smiled up into his eyes. He made my head spin. Or maybe it was the crushing exhaustion in the wake of the adrenalin.
He turned and escorted me out the door, a hand gently on my back as we headed back to the restaurant. It was closed, of course, and the only cars in the lot were his and mine.
Walking me to my car, he held his hand out for the keys, and unlocked the door for me. We both glanced at the back seat, but there was no one lurking there, and I slid in behind the wheel.
"Lock your doors, text me when you get home."
"Yes, dad."
"Don't yes dad me, it's been a weird night, and if that guy knew it was you, maybe he'd want to check on you to make sure you didn't know it was him."
"Right, I know. Hey, thanks for an interesting evening."
"I'd say any time, but I'd rather we had a quieter one next time."
"Next time?" I asked, as I felt the butterflies in my stomach come to life.
"Yeah, why not, let's have a real date, sometime soon, okay?"
He had said the 'd' word. Date. I felt like I was a teenager all over again and he was the handsomest boy in the school. Which he had been, but he hadn't said the 'd' word then. I would have said yes, but just then his cell phone rang. Holding up one finger to hush me, he answered it.
"Yeah, yeah, I'll be right there," he said to whoever was on the other line. He turned to me, "That was the station, we have a report of shots fired at the house where Bruce and the designers are staying. Go right home, I'll call you later."
Holy moly, what a night, I hoped everyone was ok.
Drake knocked on the window of my car as I cranked the engine of the old Volvo, "Oh, and Ivy?"
"Yes?"
"Don't tell anyone about the bank records, got that? Not one word!"
Chapter 13
"Bank records!" chirped Gigi, her eyes wide.
"Shhhhh, it's a secret. I'm not supposed to tell anyone, use your inside voice," I hissed looking around the coffee shop. I hadn't wanted to talk at the store, because we were sitting ducks there, but if she kept it up, everyone here would know too. I looked around the little shop and to be fair, no one was paying any attention to us at all. I just didn't want it getting back to Drake that I'd spilled the beans less than twelve hours after the break-in.
"I'm not just anyone," Gigi winked at me.
"Right, that's what I figured, but keep your voice down. You'll hear it soon enough from someone else anyway, this is a small town. It's a rule, everyone knows everything within thirty-six hours," I said rolling my eyes. "Sometimes they know it’s wrong but that doesn't stop them. Anyway the house was full of papers, it looked like a snowstorm of bank records. Then when we sorted..."
"Hold up," she flashed her hand at me like she was stopping traffic, "he let you help sort them?"
"Yeah, he wanted them out of there and otherwise he'd have had to wait and hope no one came back for anything, or have someone watch the house so..."
"Wow, it is serious!"
"Shut up, by then it was a crime scene, and it didn't feel very date-y anymore, if you know what I mean."
"But he did ask you out again?"
"Well, sort of, we have a date to make a date. But that was before the report of shots fired..."
"Shots fired?!"
"Please keep your voice down, and maybe let me finish a sentence?"
"Right, sorry, go on."
"Where was I?"
"Um...bank records I think? Oh, no shots fired."
"Right, well he texted me later, turns out that was nothing to worry about. Or, well no one got hurt, they don't really know what it was about, but he didn't find anything. Anyway, so the bank records were all about the production of Nailing It!. There is a whole lot of money in and out. Seems to me like your friend Luke thought maybe it wasn't all on the up and up."
"Man, I just wish he'd told someone something so we knew what was going on."
"I know, right?" I said, thoughtfully tapping my pencil on the legal pad. "So here's the thing, it couldn't have been any of the people who ate at the restaurant with us," I said. "They were all still there when we left, so they couldn't have broken into the house."
"You're right," Gigi looked dejected as she put her head on her upturned palm.
Luann came into the coffee shop just then and waved. She placed her order and came to sit with us.
"Good morning, that sheriff of yours sure is cute," she smiled at me.
"He's a detective, and he's not exactly mine, but thanks. I think?"
"He could be yours if you wanted him, trust an old woman."
"Oh good grief Luann, you're not old, you're like a fine wine," Gigi said.
"Well, a fine wine is old. And so am I, but I like it," she said absentmindedly patting her silver hair that was up in a very elegant chignon today. "Be right back," she said, and got up to get her tea. She always drank tea.
She sat back down stirring her drink, and said, "Well it wasn't even half a day and turns out I'm giving massages to members of the crew already."
"What? Really? That seems soon to me."
She turned to me, "Well, kind of, but they don't have much to do. That nice young camera man, Mike came in first thing this morning. He was all sorts of knotted up. Did you know his father is the producer? Runs the show. Who'd have guessed?"
"So why is he a camera man?"
"Oh, it's complicated I guess," she smiled and sipped her tea. "Then Dana came in, she's in charge of their meals, poor thing! She's another tense one. She says feeding them is extra challenging because there's no work happening and all they want to do is eat! Says it's costing her a fortune."
"Huh," Gigi said, "anyone else from the show turn up?"
"They will later, I have appointments with Bruce, the two designers, and oh, I don't know who all," she said waving her hand. "Of course it's all free, so they're only getting half an hour of my time. I wouldn't normally talk of course, but you were there when I made the suggestion, I thought you'd like to know they followed up."
"So what did Mike and Dana have to say for themselves?"
"Oh, not much. Seems like since they found all that paperwork they can get back to work. You do know about that don't you?"
I nodded yes, wondering how exactly she knew. This must be a land speed record for gossip moving around Hydrangea Bay. And who released them to go to work? I made a mental note to call Drake and nose around about that.
"Well, since the paperwork got rounded up, seems they can go back to work on the property, and he has high hopes they'll have a shell up in no time flat. Seems like they'll have to work double time, but I think those shows like that kind of thing. Makes for edge of your seat television, don'tcha know?"
"Yes!" Gigi said, "I love those shows, Jenn and I watch them all the time. She'll be so excited to hear they're back up and running."
Interesting, but not exactly enlightening.
"So what are you ladies up to?" Luann asked.
"To be honest," I said, "we're just noodling with the idea of who killed Luke. It seems pretty clear the police don't have their man."
"Oh fun!" Luann clapped her hands. "I'll help!"
"Right, well, we've ruled out Bruce, and the two designers, it wasn't Harold, we're hoping he's released today. It could be someone from town, I guess. I mean, he didn't have all that many friends."
"Well who else is on the production crew?" Luann asked.
"We're not sure exactly, we’ve see them a lot but don't really know their names."
"Does Jenn?"
"Does she what? Know their names? Maybe...maybe their first names, and she would know what they do."
"Well, I have a list, Bruce faxed it to me this morning before he sent those two over for their massage. So if we get her to look at a picture of everyone, and I have the list of names, maybe we can go to the Google and see what we can find out about all of them?"
&
nbsp; "Go to the Google?" I said to Luann, "I like the way you think!"
Chapter 14
And that's exactly what we did. Turns out Jenn had a bunch of pictures on her phone, and we sat with her and Luann the next day and matched names and faces to last names, and got nearly everyone. Once we did that we had an almost complete listing of everyone that was working for Nailing It! on site.
When we went 'to the Google', as Luann said, we were able to round up a list of potential rule breakers but no one stood out as having a murder conviction. We hadn't been expecting anyone would, but still it would have been so much easier if one of them did.
Still, there was some petty theft, shoplifting, lots of parking tickets, a couple of guys who seemed to have some domestic incidents. I put a star next to their names as people who had been violent in the past, but this wasn't exactly a jealousy thing. This was preservation, killing the banker then trying to grab the banking records to keep the show together. This was someone who needed the job, not someone who was jealous. Which put to bed all my theories about Bruce and the designers and jealousy. It wasn't a jealousy thing. It was a job thing.
So, who would think killing the banker would preserve their jay-oh-bee?
Another morning, another run. Officer coach wasn't here today, so it was up to me to drag myself out of bed and hit the pavement before it got too warm and muggy. I did it too. Will wonders never cease?
The shell driveway crunched under my sneakers in a satisfying way. For some reason I had awakened feeling stressed. Lately it was either the investigation or the looming triathlon that had me worked up. My running was going well, I wasn't fast but I didn't think I'd be the last person to finish either. That was my goal, not to be dead last.
The fundraising was going well, our team total was respectable, mostly due to donations from people who came to my book store. The store was doing well too, in spite of the fact that I felt as though I'd been neglecting it. Once someone was in jail and the triathlon was over, I'd go bury myself in books again. They had always been my solace, my stress reliever, my escape. Maybe that was my problem, too much reality, not enough escape.
Snakes & Snails and Deadly Cattails Page 6
