Slippery Solicitors: A Piece of Cake Mystery (Piece of Cake Mysteries Book 4)

by A. R. Winters

  “So,” I said as I took a sip of my steaming-hot cappuccino, “what did you and Lana talk about when you came to meet her last time?”

  “My uncle was in a coma at that time,” said Teresa, “and I wanted to chat about his will with Lana. I’ve always been very close with my uncle, and he’d told me before he got sick that I’d be executor of his will, so I wanted to see what I needed to do when the time came.”

  “And while you were waiting to see Lana that day,” said Beth, “did you overhear her and Rita arguing?”

  Teresa laughed shortly. “Yes, they had a massive blowup.”

  “About what?”

  “Rita accused Lana of not following client procedures correctly. She said Lana was breaking the rules and that she’d get in trouble for it. Lana said that Rita was a stuck-up prissy, and then Rita said that Lana would be better off dead.”

  Beth and I looked at Teresa in shock. “Rita said that?”

  Teresa nodded. “Yeah, it was a pretty full-on catfight. I expected them to start pulling each other’s hair at any moment.”

  Beth and I exchanged a glance. If Rita had said that Lana was better off dead, even if it was in the middle of a heated argument, then she was a more serious suspect that we’d initially thought.

  I frowned, lost in my thoughts, and managed to murmur, “That’s terrible.”

  “I know,” said Teresa. “Two grown women, bickering like high schoolers. I mean, these women get paid good money to do an easy job, and they live in luxury. Not like the rest of the world. I mean, people are struggling out there, losing their jobs, dealing with real problems. I work for an employment agency, and I meet all kinds of people through my work. Real people, with real problems.”

  I nodded, wondering what to say. I was sure that lawyers were real people who had real problems, too—although they weren’t the same problems that unemployed people faced.

  “That sounds like an amazing job,” Beth said. “I’m sure you help out lots of people.”

  Teresa shook her head. “Not everyone. Some people just can’t seem to get work, no matter what.”

  “That’s terrible,” I murmured. “I’m sure you’ve seen a lot.”

  Teresa nodded. “I sure have. But I’ve never seen anything like this murder—imagine, her boyfriend coming over to her office and killing her.”

  “Oh, it’s not her boyfriend,” Beth said. “He’s the one who hired us.”

  Teresa’s eyebrows shot up. “Really? I thought… everyone was sure it was him.”

  I shook my head. “No. Nothing’s sure.”

  Beth said, “I wonder what Rita meant when she said that Lana wasn’t following client procedures. Did you hear anything else about what Lana might’ve been doing?”

  Teresa shook her head. “No. Just that she was breaking rules and would get in trouble for it.”

  “Maybe it was because she was meeting clients at home,” I said thoughtfully. “Maybe that was against the rules.”

  Teresa’s eyebrows shot up again. “Lana was meeting clients at home? Isn’t that really strange?”

  I shrugged. “These were wealthy people and some of them were eccentric. Liam said that Lana’s office didn’t care as long as she got the work done.”

  “Liam’s the boyfriend, right?” said Teresa.

  I nodded. “Yeah. He lived with Lana, so he knew about her work habits.”

  “Oh. I didn’t know Lana was living with someone.”

  I shrugged. “Yeah, they were kind of an on-off couple, but they’d been living together for a while. Liam said Lana’s office knew about the clients coming over.”

  Teresa nodded thoughtfully. “Well. If Lana’s office knew about it, then maybe it was okay. You guys don’t think Rita had anything to do with her death, do you?”

  “We don’t know yet,” I said honestly, leaving out the bit about the cops finding Rita’s fake nail in Lana’s office. “We’re looking into everything.”

  ***

  When our chat with Teresa was over, Beth and I headed home, and Beth replied to some emails from potential customers for her bakery. After some time spent playing with Pixie, we headed out again. We’d made an appointment to meet Felicity after work, and I wondered if Lana’s friend would help us learn anything new.

  Felicity was tall and slender and had blond hair that she wore in a French twist. She met us at the café below her office, and she looked very professional in her perfectly tailored light gray skirt suit.

  “Lana and I have been friends since law school,” said Felicity. “We visited Santa Verona together during one of our holidays, and we both decided to move here. We’ve stayed friends ever since.”

  “Would you say you were very close friends?” asked Beth.

  Felicity looked off into the distance and frowned. “We’d known each other for a very long time, and I guess we respected each other. We liked hanging out with each other, and we had quite a few things in common.”

  “I heard you were kind of competitive with her,” said Beth. “Apparently, the two of you didn’t always get along.”

  Felicity laughed. “You can be close friends with somebody and not always get along with them. Yes, Lana was kind of competitive in some ways, but I didn’t mind. Competition keeps you moving ahead, and trying harder. I like to think that we helped each other work harder and try to achieve more of our goals. I always admired that about Lana—she was always very ambitious, and very hard-working. I think she inspired me to work even harder, and try harder at my own career.”

  “So do you also practice family law?” I asked.

  “No,” said Felicity. “I work in corporate law.”

  “And did you know Liam?”

  Felicity nodded. “Yes, I never liked him.”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  Felicity shrugged. “He never treated Lana very well. They were always arguing and breaking up. But the breakups never stuck. I used to wish that Lana would just see the truth and leave him. But she never did.”

  “Why did you think Lana was meeting Liam on the day she died?”

  “I never said that. Who did you hear that from?” Felicity looked from me to Beth.

  I shook my head. “Perhaps some of the information got lost in translation. Did you think Lana was meeting anyone on Friday night?”

  “Yes,” said Felicity. “I’d asked Lana to come and have drinks with me that night. But she said she was meeting somebody. I assumed she meant Liam, but it could’ve been anyone.”

  Beth and I looked at each other and exchanged a glance. Felicity must’ve said this when she was chatting with the cops, and Liam must’ve been told a slightly convoluted version of her story.

  “So did you end up going for drinks without Lana?” I asked.

  Felicity nodded. “Yeah, some other girls and I went to the Donkey Bar and stayed there till late that night.”

  We talked to Felicity for a few more minutes, asking her about what kind of person Lana was, and if there could possibly be anyone else who might want to hurt her. Felicity didn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know—she told us that Lana frequently mentioned a coworker named Rita who was jealous of her and constantly trying to get her into trouble. Lana had also told Felicity about her assistant, Alice, who she said was incompetent and never seemed to care much about her work.

  When it became clear that Beth and I wouldn’t learn anything new, we thanked Felicity for her time and walked down a few blocks to a Thai restaurant we’d been meaning to try out.

  Over a meal of Pad Thai and Massaman curry, Beth and I discussed the case. So far, it seemed like we’d learned nothing much. There seemed to be a couple of people who didn’t like Lana very much, but nobody seemed to dislike her enough to want to kill her. Perhaps we’d missed something at the office, or perhaps Lana had some friends or enemies that we didn’t know about. We decided to head back to Lana’s office the next day.

  When I got home, Pixie was still up, and the light was blinking on my answeri
ng machine. As soon as I pressed play, a strange voice floated out, and I blinked in surprise before heading to Beth’s apartment and dragging her over to listen to the message.

  “You really shouldn’t be investigating this,” said the message. The voice was distorted, and it was impossible to tell if it was a woman or a man speaking. “Lana deserved to die. And if you ask too many questions, you might deserve to die, too.”

  Beth and I sat at the dining table for a while after that, sipping hot decaf and replaying the message a couple more times.

  Investigating murders means that every now and then a murderer threatens to kill me, figuring that if I’m out of the way, they’ll have less to worry about. I should have been used to this by now, but I wasn’t. The message made me nervous, and I wondered if whoever left it was serious. Someone had certainly been serious enough to kill Lana.

  “At least this means there’s something out there,” said Beth. “We’re not just chasing empty leads. Perhaps there are more clues out there, and we’ll find the real killer soon.”

  I nodded and tried to look on the bright side of the message. Beth was right. Perhaps we were close to finding something out.

  I couldn’t remember anything suspicious from today, or recall any conversation that pointed toward someone being the killer. But we must’ve discovered something that was making the killer nervous—perhaps we’d overlooked some very important clue.

  I glanced at the answering machine again and shuddered. Whoever had left us the message was probably quite serious. We needed to find out who had left it before they tried to kill us, just like they had killed Lana.

  Chapter 6

  I woke up early enough the next morning to be able to make it to my yoga class.

  I walked ten minutes down the road, arrived at the beach, and quickly found the spot where the beach yoga class was being held.

  I detest most forms of exercise, but I discovered yoga a few weeks ago, and I think it’s fun and relaxing. The yoga instructor, Carmelle, is a sweet, friendly lady, and it’s fun to do yoga and listen to the sound of waves crashing on the beach.

  Yoga class went by far too quickly, and afterward, the dozen or so of us who had come to class hung around and chatted with each other for a bit. The sun was up by now; the sky was still flecked with bits of pink, and it looked like it was going to be another beautiful sunny day in Santa Verona.

  I said goodbye to my yoga class and headed back down the road. I was halfway home when I thought I heard footsteps behind me. I stopped and turned around, but there was no one there.

  It must be nerves, I told myself, thinking of the creepy message we’d received the previous night.

  I took a few more steps forward, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being followed. I stopped and turned around again, but once more, there was nobody following me.

  There were rows of cars parked along the street, and I wondered if somebody might be hiding behind a car. I looked carefully, but I couldn’t see anyone. Or maybe whoever was following me had popped into a driveway and was hiding behind a fence.

  The hairs on the back of my neck were standing up, and I had a funny feeling in my stomach.

  It’s just nerves, I repeated to myself, but I didn’t quite believe it. I could almost sense somebody’s presence. Once again, I turned and walked toward my apartment.

  A minute later, I turned around again. I still couldn’t see anyone, but I could feel somebody’s presence.

  I turned and walked back to my apartment as quickly as I could. When I got to the building, I took the stairs two at a time, constantly checking over my shoulder. I felt safe only when I had locked the front door safely behind me.

  A few minutes later, Beth and I were having a healthy breakfast of scrambled eggs and bacon and coffee, and I told her about my experience.

  “It was probably just nerves,” I said, repeating out loud what I’d told myself during my stressful walk home.

  “Maybe it was,” said Beth. “Maybe your mind plays tricks on you after you do yoga.”

  “No, that’s not true. You should come and do yoga with me sometime. You’d really like it!”

  “I prefer going running.”

  “Anyway, maybe it was just my imagination. But it really did feel like someone was following me. I guess we’d better be a bit more careful now.”

  Beth nodded. “There’s no harm in being careful.”

  “And I guess we’d better hurry up and try to find out who killed Lana. It seems like they really mean business.”

  ***

  We arrived at Lana’s office just after nine and went straight to see Alice. However, Alice hadn’t come to work yet, so instead we went to see Rita.

  Rita smiled thinly when she saw the two of us. She was sipping from a large takeout cup of coffee and typing away on her computer.

  “Have you found out anything new?” Rita said.

  I wondered if Rita was the one who had left us the threatening message, and if she had followed me home from yoga class this morning. She didn’t seem like the sort, but I couldn’t rule anyone out at this stage.

  “Not really. We were hoping you might tell us if you’ve thought of anything else.”

  Rita shook her head no. “I never knew too much about Lana.”

  “Did you know her friend Felicity?”

  Rita nodded. “Sure. I’ve met her at a couple of legal association cocktail parties, and I’ve heard Lana talk about her. She would come over to the office every now and then to pick Lana up for a cocktail night or to go out to lunch with Lana. I never did like her very much.”

  “Why is that?” Beth said. “Was it just because she was Lana’s friend?”

  Rita frowned thoughtfully. “No, I don’t think so. I think it was because she and Lana were kind of similar in many ways. They were both very ruthless and competitive. I don’t think either of them had any ethics. They would do whatever it took to get ahead. And they were both superficial, constantly bragging about their new bags and jewelry. Felicity was annoying, but I guess I didn’t know her all that well.”

  “I keep hearing that Lana and Felicity were competitive,” I said. “But I’m sure competing with someone and constantly comparing yourself with them is no reason to kill them.”

  Rita shook her head. “I don’t think so either. Unless something else was going on that we don’t know about.”

  I nodded. Perhaps there was something else between Felicity and Lana. Perhaps Felicity was also sleeping with Liam, or perhaps there was some history between her and Lana that we didn’t know about.

  “I notice Alice isn’t at work yet,” said Beth.

  “That girl doesn’t seem to care much about her job,” said Rita. “As soon as I get things a bit more organized, I’m going to have to fire her and get a new assistant.”

  “Do you have to deal with all of Lana’s cases yourself?” I asked.

  Rita shook her head. “I got most of the cases; a few of the other lawyers got a few cases as well. In fact, I’m still working on Teresa’s case. Teresa’s uncle Tom was Lana’s client, but now that Tom’s passed away, Teresa is the executor of Tom’s will. Lana was so disorganized, I could hardly find most of the papers we need to go ahead. There were a bunch of files missing from her office, and I couldn’t find the hard copy of Tom’s will; but at least I found a scan.”

  “But I’m sure Lana also had physical files? Don’t lawyers have to sign things on actual paper?” said Beth.

  “Yes,” said Rita. “In fact, I’m going to have to look for the physical copy of the will now. I wish I knew how she organized her papers.”

  “Could the cops have taken the folder?”

  Rita shook her head. “No, we asked them specifically, but they don’t have Tom’s file. There are a few other files we couldn’t find, and the cops don’t have those ones, either. I can’t believe Lana managed to get any work done when she was so messy.”

  The three of us walked over to Lana’s office.


  “Would Alice know where the files are?” asked Beth.

  “Maybe,” Rita said. “But Alice doesn’t really pay much attention to her work. I’m not sure she would remember. Besides, Lana dealt with a lot of clients, so she’d have a lot of files lying around.”

  We all walked over to Lana’s filing cabinet, and Rita pulled out a key and unlocked it. She opened a drawer and began to rifle through the folders, looking at the tabs that were labeled with names.

  “I can’t find anything labeled ‘Hutchinson,’” said Rita. “She must’ve labeled it something else. But it’s not even under W for ‘wills.’”

  Rita opened the last drawer of the filing cabinet and found a big folder marked “sort me now.” When she opened the folder, she found all kinds of papers and receipts, but no copy of Tom’s will.

  Rita was about to close the drawer when I noticed another folder lying there, marked “Misc.”

  “What’s that?” I said. “That looks interesting.”

  “I’m sure it’s nothing,” Rita said. “Anyway, I’ve already wasted enough time looking for this Hutchinson file. Lana must’ve lost it somehow, and at least I’ve got the scanned copy to work off. I better get back to work.”

  “I’m sure it’ll only take a few seconds to look at that file,” I said. “It might be something important.”

  “I’m not sure that we should be going through the files unnecessarily,” Rita said.

  “Look, Rita,” I said, “this could be very important. If we don’t go through it now, I’m going to have to tell the cops that we discovered something interesting, and then they might want to take away the whole filing cabinet. Then you won’t even have the physical files to work with.”

  Rita gave me a dirty look, but I could see the wheels turning in her brain. I was likely to go ahead with my threat of telling the cops, and without this filing cabinet, Rita’s life would be made so much more difficult.

  “Okay,” she said. “We might as well have a quick look at it. But I don’t want to waste too much more of my time.”