Gina Cresse - Devonie Lace 04 - A Deadly Change of Power

by Gina Cresse

  “No. Just the names of the patent holders and the cities where they live.”

  I reached over and stroked the puppy’s ears. “He’s really tired. You must be too. Why don’t you go to bed? Tomorrow you can call your insurance company and get that whole process started.”

  Ronnie forced a smile and lifted the huge puppy, handing him to me. “Good idea. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  I took the puppy out for one more potty check, then powered up the PC in my office. I logged into the Internet and searched for telephone numbers or addresses to go with the names on the patents from Ronnie’s file. Out of six names, the only two I could find phone numbers for were both on the East Coast. It was too late to try to call them. I decided to wait till morning.

  Of the other four names, two were in Southern California, not too far away. One was in Riverside and the other in Burbank. I couldn’t get an address for the Burbank name, but I was able to find an address for the Riverside name. The remaining two were in Nevada and Texas.

  The next morning, I got up early to see Craig off to work. Ronnie was still asleep. I took the cordless phone to the kitchen table and unfolded the paper I’d written the phone numbers on the night before. The first name on the list was Casper Harris. I dialed the number, rehearsing what I was going to say when he answered. That never happened. I got a recording informing me the number had been disconnected. I tried again, just in case I’d dialed wrong. Same recording. I made a note next to his name.

  I dialed the second number and a woman answered on the third ring. “Hello?” she blurted into the phone, sounding out of breath.

  “Hello. Is Ozie Dartmond in?” I asked.

  “Mr. Dartmond? Oh, no,” she replied, with a heavy Latino accent.

  “Can you tell me when he might be home so I can call back?”

  “He no coming home. He gone almost a year,” she explained, in broken English.

  I tapped my pencil on the table. “Gone? Has he moved?”

  “Yes. He gone. Missis Dartmond throw him out,” she said, sounding almost anxious to tell all the sordid details.

  “I see. Do you have a number where I can reach him?”

  “No. No number. He live somewhere in the Bahamas, I think. He sends child support and alimony check to Missis Dartmond, but they no speak. He not tell her how to find him. She happy as long as she gets money.”

  “Bahamas? Are you sure?”

  “I pretty sure. Yes.”

  “I see. Well, thank you anyway,” I said before I hung up the phone.

  Bahamas. Isn’t that where really rich people move to avoid paying income taxes? I wondered if one of Ozie’s inventions had paid off and put him in a new tax bracket.

  The next name on the list was Clyde Waterman, who lived somewhere in Burbank. I had no address or phone number for him. I called the power company and waited for an answer.

  “Hello. My name is Marcia Swenson. I’m the new bookkeeper for Clyde Waterman. He hasn’t received his bill this month and I wanted to verify that you’ve sent it,” I said.

  The woman on the other end coughed into the receiver and cleared her throat. “What’s the name again?”

  “Marcia Swen—“

  “Not your name, honey. The customer’s name. Your name doesn’t mean anything.”

  “Right. Clyde Waterman. He lives in Burbank.”

  I could hear her fingernails tapping computer keys. “You don’t have his account number handy, do you?” she asked.

  “No,” I said.

  “Of course you don’t. Let’s see. Yes, we mailed that out on the fifteenth. He should have it by now.”

  “Hmm. Well, he doesn’t. Can you verify the address for me?”

  “Sure, honey. What address do you have?” she asked. I could see this wasn’t going to be easy.

  I shuffled some papers on the table. “Let’s see. He wrote it down for me, somewhere. Ah, here it is, I think. Five twenty-six Elm Street,” I said. Every town has an Elm Street, doesn’t it?

  She chuckled. “Well, honey, that’s not the address we have for Mr. Waterman. If he’s expecting to get mail there, it’s no wonder he hasn’t received his bill.”

  “Can you tell me what address you did send it to?”

  She ignored my question. “In fact, not only did we send the bill out, but it’s already been paid. Are you sure you’re his bookkeeper?”

  I cringed. “We must have had a miscommunication,” I said, trying to think of some other way to get his address.

  “In fact, as I read further, the bill was paid by Mr. Waterman’s estate. It was the final payment on his account. Service has been stopped. It appears Mr. Waterman is deceased. So, how exactly did you communicate with him? A séance?”

  “Deceased? When?” I asked.

  “Honey, you better call someone else to get information. I got calls backed up ten deep. Every one of them waiting to chew me up one side and down the other because their electric bills have doubled, as if it were all my fault.”

  I hung up the phone. Deceased. I wondered what the cause of death was.

  The next name on my list was Harvey Brewster. I had his address in Riverside but no telephone number. He was unlisted.

  Ronnie shuffled into the kitchen, rubbing her puffy eyes and yawning. It didn’t appear that she’d slept well.

  “Good morning. Breakfast?” I asked.

  “Oh, don’t go to any trouble for me. I can just grab a piece of toast or something.”

  “It’s no trouble. I scrambled some eggs for Craig. There’s still some in the pan. Toast takes a second. Juice is in the fridge.”

  “Sounds great. Thanks,” she said.

  While Ronnie ate her eggs, I sat across the table from her. “After you talk to your insurance company, you feel like taking a drive with me? To Riverside?”

  “Riverside? What’s there?” she asked.

  “Harvey Brewster. He filed a patent for—“

  “I know the name. Why go see him?”

  “Just talk to him. See if anyone has tried to buy his patent.”

  Ronnie nodded. “Okay.”

  I poured myself a glass of grapefruit juice. “Clyde Waterman is dead,” I said.

  “What? The fuel-cell guy? When?”

  “Not long ago. They just stopped his electric service this month.”

  “How’d he die?” she asked, sounding afraid of the answer.

  “I don’t know. I thought we could stop at the library first and go through the obituaries.”

  “You’ve been busy this morning. Anything else I should know about my peers?”

  “Ozie Dartmond is living high-off-the-hog somewhere in the Bahamas. Casper Harris’s phone has been disconnected.”

  Ronnie frowned. “And the others?”

  “I haven’t gotten that far yet.” I handed her the cordless phone. “You can use this to call your insurance company. Let me know when you’re ready to go.”

  Clyde Waterman died after being struck by a hit-and-run driver. He was crossing the street in front of his house to collect his mail. It was nine in the morning. Visibility was good. There were no witnesses. There were no suspects. It happened only six weeks ago. Waterman lived alone and left behind no family. Ronnie chewed her bottom lip as she read the newspaper account. I gathered up my purse and stood. “Come on. Let’s go,” I said.

  Ronnie navigated while I drove to Riverside. At her insistence, we took her car. She read the map and directed me around the streets in Riverside until we reached the street I’d written down. “What house number are we looking for?” I asked.

  “Two forty-nine.”

  I checked the numbers on my side. They were even. “Okay, it’ll be on your side.”

  We drove the entire block, but couldn’t find the number. We found two forty-three and two fifty-five, but no two forty-nine. “I must have written it down wrong, or it was listed wrong. Let’s stop and ask,” I said, pulling to the curb in front of two forty-three.

  We walked
to the front door and rang the bell. An old woman answered. I guessed her to be in her mid to late eighties. Her white hair was pulled back in a tight bun. She wore a brightly colored polka-dot-print dress that covered her legs to just below the knee. A pair of knee-high support hose were rolled down to her puffy ankles. I smiled at the blue Eeyore slippers she wore. “Hi. We’re looking for this address,” I said, showing her the slip of paper with Harvey Brewster’s name and address. “We can’t seem to find it. Do you happen to know where two forty-nine is?”

  She studied the piece of paper. “Two forty-nine? That’s Harvey’s address.”

  I smiled. At least she knew him. Finally, we were getting somewhere.

  “Yes. Is it close?” I asked.

  “It’s next door,” she said.

  “Next door? So he lives at two fifty-five?”

  “No. Two forty-nine,” she insisted.

  “But there is no two forty-nine,” I said.

  “Not any more. Burned to the ground, must be two years ago, I’d say.”

  I thought Ronnie was going to faint. I caught her arm and held her steady.

  “Oh dear. Is she okay?” the old woman asked.

  “She’ll be fine. She’s just a little—surprised. Do you know where Mr. Brewster lives now?” I asked.

  “Oh, he doesn’t. He was in the house when it went up. Bad gas leak or something. Blew to smithereens in the middle of the night. Poor man never knew what hit him.”

  Chapter Six

  Gladys Dixon had lived at two forty-three Magnolia Street for the past fifty years. She invited us into her little house and offered Ronnie a chair to sit in before she fell down. I sat on the flower-print sofa and glanced around the tiny living room.

  “Did you know Harvey well?” I asked.

  Gladys picked a piece of lint from the arm of the over-stuffed chair she sat in. “Oh, probably as well as anyone could ever know Harvey. He was sort of a loner.”

  “Really? How long were you neighbors?” I asked.

  Gladys pursed her lips and stared at the ceiling, calculating what appeared to be infinity in her head. “Let’s see. He moved in next door right after Shelly was born. Shelly’s my granddaughter. She just had her thirtieth birthday last week.”

  “Thirty years. That’s a long time. Was he married?” I asked.

  “Harvey? No. Never seemed interested in anything like that. Just wanted to tinker with all his little inventions. You knew he was an inventor?”

  “Yes. Did he ever show them to you?”

  “Oh, sure. He was as proud of those as a man would be about his own children. He’d come over sometimes late in the evening, banging on my door. ‘Gladys!’ he’d holler. ‘Come see what I’ve made!’ he’d yell through the window, excited as a kid with a new toy.”

  Ronnie smiled, apparently able to identify with Harvey’s excitement. “Do you remember him showing you an engine he designed?” Ronnie asked.

  “The steam engine?” Gladys prompted.

  “That’s the one,” Ronnie said.

  “Oh, sure. He said it was his greatest invention so far. It was going to change the world.”

  I noticed a collection of photos on the wall behind Gladys. One caught my attention. It was of a younger Gladys sitting in the passenger seat of a bright orange dune buggy with the words, Brewster’s Steamer painted on the side. The man in the driver’s seat had a smile spread across his face so wide I could barely see his ears for his cheeks. “Is that Harvey?” I asked, pointing toward the picture. Gladys turned in her chair to see.

  “That’s him. What fun we had. He’d drive me down to the grocery store whenever I needed something. Nice fellow, he was. They took my driver’s license away a few years back, when I couldn’t pass the test anymore. That’s Brewster’s Steamer we’re in, there. I think that picture was taken before he added the heating gizmo.”

  “Heating gizmo?” I asked.

  “Yeah. He had some big fancy name for it. I could never remember. All I know is it could get really hot—hot enough to make steam, and it could do it without kerosene, like his first engine needed.”

  “Really?” Ronnie said. I could hear the anticipation in her voice as she formed her next question. “What kind of fuel did it use?”

  “According to Harvey, it didn’t use any fuel. All that technical mumbo-jumbo talk went right over my head. He tried to explain it to me fifty times or more, but I told him it was no use. All I cared about was that it got me to the store and back so I could make banana bread with walnuts and raisins. That man did love my banana bread.”

  Ronnie and I exchanged glances. Another engine that was apparently free to run, and the inventor killed in a freak explosion. We thanked Gladys for the information and left her to finish whatever chores we’d interrupted.

  “Do you know how much horsepower can be generated from steam?” she asked, testing my knowledge.

  “No, but I bet you’re going to tell me,” I replied. I started the car and pulled away from the curb.

  “A lot,” she said.

  “A lot? That’s your answer?”

  “You know how much a train weighs?” she continued.

  “Let me guess. A lot?”

  “Yes. A lot. And for years, steam was how we powered those old locomotives. Unbelievable horsepower. And to be able to generate the kind of heat you need to create steam without using fuel is an enormous breakthrough. If Harvey had what Gladys is describing—”

  “Then it probably wasn’t an accident that his house blew up,” I said.

  Ronnie sunk down in her seat. She chewed on her thumbnail as she stared out the window.

  “I think we should talk to Jake Monroe,” I said.

  Ronnie looked at me, surprised. “Jake? Believe me, he’s not involved with any of this.”

  I wondered how she could be so sure. “It just seems strange that he’d encourage you to file your patent, after what you told us about him.”

  I sat across from Ronnie at our kitchen table as she dialed Jake Monroe’s number in Detroit. “He might be back by now. His message the other night said he’d be out of town for a few days,” she said as she waited for someone to answer the phone. I wanted to be on another extension so I could listen to the entire conversation, but I settled for just the one side I’d be able to hear from Ronnie.

  “Jake Monroe, please,” she requested.

  I watched her impatiently tap her fingers on the table. When she stopped tapping, I knew he’d picked up the phone. “Jake, it’s Ronnie.” There was a brief pause. “I know. No. I didn’t go to Cabo.” Another pause. “I’m fine—no, I’m not fine. Someone tried to kill me. They blew up my house.”

  I could hear Jake Monroe’s voice over the phone. “What?” He sounded extremely alarmed.

  “I said someone tried to kill me. I’m pretty sure it has something to do with my engine.” Ronnie listened to him for nearly a full minute. “There are others—two that I know of so far—who’ve been killed after they filed for patents on their engines.”

  Ronnie listened again, then rolled her eyes. “I’m not imagining it, Jake. These guys came up with ideas that were way ahead of their time. Now they’re dead. I’m afraid I’m going to be next.” Her hand began shaking. The tone of voice she used with Jake led me to wonder if they were more than just business acquaintances. I detected the subtle combination of irritation and affection.

  “I want to know why you told me to file the patent. Do you have any plans to use the engine?” Ronnie asked.

  “Then why?” she demanded.

  “No, I’m not blaming you, but—

  “I’m staying with friends.

  “At this point, I don’t trust anyone.

  “No, I haven’t forgotten the last time.

  Ronnie’s voice turned to a whisper. She turned around in her chair to try to make the conversation private. “I can’t discuss that with you right now.”

  She cleared her throat and turned to face me again. “Do you have any idea who
might be behind this?” she asked, bringing the conversation back to center.

  “No. I didn’t think so. Well, thanks for all your help, Jake,” she delivered with a sarcasm I hadn’t heard from her before. She hung up the phone.

  I flashed her a sympathetic look. “No help?” I said.

  “I don’t understand that man,” she said, frustration ringing in her voice. “He’ll sit in a meeting with his team of engineers and pass on every proposal that shows any promise of hitting one out of the park in favor of the ones that merely meet some insignificant government requirement. Then he’ll turn around and curse the oil companies for holding the world hostage by demanding ransom at the fuel pump.”

  “It sounds like he’s torn—fighting some war waged in his own conscience,” I said.

  I slid Ronnie’s folder across the table toward me and flipped it open. I spread the six patents out in front of me. Harvey Brewster and Clyde Waterman were dead. Ozie Dartmond was living it up in the Bahamas. Casper Harris was a big question mark. His phone had been disconnected.

  “We need to find out what’s going on with these other two guys—Gus Tiller and Bo Rawlings. I couldn’t find anything on them on the Internet,” I said. I noticed a name and address at the top of Gus Tiller’s patent paperwork. “Who’s this?” I asked.

  She looked at the name. “That would be the patent attorney who did the actual filing.”

  The address was in Boulder, Colorado. A patent attorney was also listed on Bo Rawlings paperwork. I called information and got both phone numbers in less than a minute.

  Bo Rawlings’ attorney was not very helpful. “Client confidentiality” was his favorite phrase. He would not give me an address or phone number for Bo. I gave him my name and number and asked if he would relay it to Bo and have him contact me. The matter was urgent, I told him. He did allow one interesting piece of information to slip when he told me that Bo and his family lived outside the continental United States in a time zone that made it difficult to contact him at the moment. I assumed that meant Alaska or Hawaii, or maybe even Puerto Rico.