We all gave that some thought.
“Maybe they were simply being careful,” I threw out as a possibility. “You were seen with Lizabeth earlier that evening. If Schenk was skulking around the hotel, he might have been aware of your heart-to-heart on the fire stairs. Maybe he or his accomplice was one flight up or down, listening, but couldn’t be sure what was said. He couldn’t be certain who else might know about Lizabeth’s intentions, so he decided to take on an ingenuous persona, showing up here and acting like the perfect honorable gentleman, delivering the letter and getting you to trust him. He could stay close to you, find out what you knew, even help you find the manuscript and then …”
Margo’s eyes were wide. “And then what, Kate?”
“And then eliminate the only witness to Lizabeth’s real intentions,” May said flatly. “Once he’d determined that no one else knew, I’d be the only remaining obstacle to his making millions.” She took in our shocked expressions. “After all, we don’t really know how Lizzie died, do we?”
Margo sat very still, clutching her aunt’s hand.
“Not to worry, dearie,” May said lightly. “Martin’s plan had a major flaw, and that is all of you, my dear friends. He must have been aghast when I asked Becky to make all those photocopies and passed them out to you right in front of him.” She giggled at the memory. “He can’t very well do away with all of us, now, can he?” We were pretty sure she was kidding.
By the time we’d polished off the Jim Beam, we had formulated a plan for the next day. Most importantly, May would not be alone at any time for the foreseeable future. With great reluctance and many protestations, she was persuaded to move into John and Margo’s guest room for a few days. “It’s either that, or I move in with you, Auntie May, and as fond as he is of you, my husband would not be happy about that,” Margo told her, so she finally agreed.
Next, we would enlist John Harkness to see what, if anything, he could find out about the true identity of Martin Schenk. We were distressed to discover that the only information we had among us to give John was a physical description and the make and model of the car he had been driving. Since that was almost certainly a rental, we were hoping whatever credentials the man had given to the rental company, if it could be located, would help us identify the man himself.
Finally, May would make an appointment with Robert Henley, Esq., of Lenox, Massachusetts, and she and Margo would go to see him on Tuesday, if possible. As much as I longed to be a part of that meeting, we did have businesses to run. Isabelle and Duane could hold the fort upstairs at Romantic Nights. Between us, Becky and I could probably just manage the Mack Realty phones, since Margo’s appointments would have to be canceled and rescheduled. Fortunately, our next stint at Vista View wasn’t until Wednesday, when Strutter would be back with us. Business was picking up, and life was becoming extremely complicated, so we would all simply have to do the best we could.
As I washed out our mugs and glasses, locked the doors and turned out the lights, I was almost glad Armando would be in Florida with his TeleCom colleagues for a few more days. For the most part, my husband had become accustomed to what he called the “curious misadventures” of Margo, Strutter and me—more so than I would have believed possible when we were first married, but it would distress him to think of me in the house alone under the circumstances. So far, my involvement in this bizarre situation had been minimal, but I had been quite visible with May at the Mysteries USA convention not once, but twice, and Schenk knew I had possession of Lizabeth’s letter, so it wasn’t beyond imagination to think I might be in jeopardy, however peripheral, if he and his accomplice (We were fairly certain by now that he must have one.) got frustrated or jittery.
Accordingly, I answered Armando’s evening check-in call in my most cheerful voice and filled him in on every irrelevant detail of my day I could think of, carefully omitting any mention of recent developments in the Lizabeth Mulgrew Affair, as I’d come to think of it. I felt a touch guilty as I prattled on about the weather, the newest leak in the Law Barn’s roof and Gracie’s latest antics, but I told myself it was in Armando’s best interest to keep him in the dark. If things had not been resolved by the time his plane touched down at Bradley International on Sunday afternoon, I would have to fess up, but until then, why make him worry?
“So that’s about it at this end, handsome,” I finished up. “Are things winding down with your meetings and so on? Are you going to get any more time on the golf course?”
“I do not believe so, Cara. We managed to fit in nine holes on Sunday, but I think the rest of my time here will be spent in front of a computer. Since the merger, there have been many software changes, and those of us from the Connecticut branch office are still attempting to get up to speed. Tomorrow we are facing instruction on the new payroll processing system, and the next day we must meet with the corporate counsel about changes in our standard contracts.” He sighed heavily. “So no more golf, I’m afraid.”
Yuck, it all sounded incredibly dreary. I scrambled to find something to cheer him up. “Still, they must have something pleasant planned for your last evening together, and it usually involves fantastic food and wine, am I right?” My Colombian spouse had a taste for the finer things in life, and he brightened almost audibly at this reminder.
“You are correct. There is a wine tasting at the Lakeridge Vineyard in mid-afternoon on Saturday and a banquet planned for us that evening back at the convention center. We are very much looking forward to it, providing we can keep our eyes open. Thank heaven the company is providing transportation to and from the vineyard.” He paused. “Cara, you are not usually especially interested in the corporate schedule. Is there something you are not telling me?”
Yikes, I had forgotten about his uncanny ability to read me and had gone overboard on the cheerful enthusiasm. “Just that Gracie and I miss you a lot,” I assured him, crossing my fingers behind my back. “It’s unusual for you to be away from us for nearly two weeks.”
He decided to take my word for it. “Yes, I miss my girls, too. What is the news from Emma in Oregon?”
I glommed onto the change of subject and gave him a two-minute update on my daughter, on whom he doted. Then I blew him a kiss, wished him a good night’s sleep and ended the call. As I replaced the wireless handset in its base in the living room, Gracie opened one eye where she lay curled in Armando’s side of our double recliner and assessed my next move. Would I sit down next to her and turn on the TV, or would I head for the bathtub and bed? I leaned over and scritched her orange head.
“No TV tonight, fur ball. I’ve had quite enough of this day, and tomorrow isn’t looking a whole lot better. Come on, let’s get ready for bed.”
Chapter Ten
It didn’t take long for Tuesday to go downhill. When I fed the water fowl at the pond, I was disappointed that there was still no sign of Fray; and at the marsh overpass, a flock of crows were preparing to crowd out the little songbirds. Figuring I might be able to divide and conquer, I split the seed in half and poured it out in two widely separated patches, but it didn’t work. The crows promptly descended on both offerings, so I gave up and decided to return at lunchtime or send Becky with more seed.
When I pulled into the small parking area in front of the Law Barn, I was surprised to find Isabelle, Duane and Becky standing close together in the open doorway. Duane was pointing at something on the door frame. “Whoever it was didn’t bother about being subtle,” he was saying as I joined them. We all peered at the splintered wood. “If I had to guess, he used a hammer or something else heavy to break the lock and a crowbar to pry open the door. He wasn’t worried about being either quiet or neat.” He glanced around at the neighboring structures, more than half of which were businesses. The Law Barn sat farther back on the street than did its neighbors, and it was somewhat obscured by low-hanging branches on the old trees in front of it. “I guess that puts the break-in well after all these places closed up for the night.”
My first illogical thought was to hope we wouldn’t have to call the Wethersfield police. Again. In the relatively few years my partners and I had leased space in Old Wethersfield, the town’s emergency personnel had already responded to far too many incidents involving us ranging from vandalism to a major fire. I could only imagine the eye rolls and guffaws that yet another call from us would prompt, not to mention the heat John Harkness would take about his wife’s crazy colleagues. I abandoned that hope reluctantly. A break-in was a break-in and would have to be reported.
My second most dreaded call would be to our long-suffering landlord, who also would be less than pleased with this latest development. I couldn’t help sighing as we all trudged into the lobby. The door swung to behind us, but the damage to the door and the splintered frame were evident.
“Do we know what was taken yet?” I asked, looking around uncertainly. The lobby, at least, seemed none the worse for wear. The drawers to Becky’s desk had been upended on the floor, but otherwise things seemed to be as usual. “Has anyone been downstairs yet?”
Isabelle found her voice. She looked tired and tense. “No, we concentrated on the Romantic Nights offices upstairs, since that’s where the intruder or intruders seem to have spent the most time. Things are pretty well trashed up there. The only good news is that May, Duane and I all use laptops and take them home every night, or they would probably have been vandalized, too.” She looked from the two young people, who were clearly shocked and dismayed, to me and fell silent. I knew she was wondering how much to say in front of them about the new developments with Martin Schenk.
I shook my head to clear it. “Well, it looks as if we have a long morning of clean-up here, and I’m sure the messages are piled up on the machine. Becky, why don’t you round those up while Duane makes us a pot of coffee? Isabelle and I will take a look downstairs and be back with you in a jiffy.”
Looking relieved to have something normal to do, the youngsters scurried to fulfill their assignments while Isabelle and I headed for Mack Realty. At the bottom of the stairs, I flipped the light switch and was relieved to see that our file cabinets, which were always kept locked when we weren’t in the office, remained unmolested. Our desk drawers had been tossed, but that was a minor inconvenience. I smiled to myself, thinking at least we had polished off the bourbon the previous evening, so the intruder didn’t get that.
“How much do the kids know about Martin Schenk’s apparent deception?” I asked Isabelle in a low voice.
She shrugged sadly. “Nothing from me. When May telephoned me last night, she asked me not to say anything until she had an opportunity to fill them in on her naïve foolishness, as she put it, and I think she and Margo left to see the attorney right from home this morning. I know she feels completely humiliated at having been taken in so completely, but I think she’s being too hard on herself. The man was entirely believable.” She glanced up the stairs and kept her voice down. “So you think this break-in was Schenk’s doing?”
“I don’t want to jump to conclusions, but it would be an incredible coincidence if we happened to have a random break-in at precisely the time we know Schenk is searching for the Trague manuscript, don’t you agree?”
“I certainly do. What puzzles me is why he thought it might be here? Wouldn’t he be doing the same thing May and Margo are doing, trying to get some information out of Trague’s lawyer?”
I shook my head. “Maybe he doesn’t know Henley was Trague’s lawyer as well as Lizabeth’s. Remember, we only know that because of the memorial notice Duane found on line, and he spent hours and hours looking before he found that. So looking for the manuscript here makes a certain amount of sense. Assuming he was doing the same thing in Lizabeth’s hotel room the morning she died, he would have been looking for a typed manuscript at that point, since Trague was known to crank his books out on an old typewriter. Once Schenk read the letter, though, and discovered that the manuscript is on a flash drive that Lizabeth concealed somewhere before she left home, he either had to find it himself or …”
“ … wait for May to find it and steal it from her,” Isabelle finished my thought, “and if he’s searching her offices, he must think she has it already.”
I sank down on the sofa. “But that doesn’t make sense. Schenk was planning to take May to Trague’s hometown library so they could find the flash drive together. He knew Duane was researching that, and he probably did some research of his own, too.” We looked at each other in alarm.
“Maybe he found that same announcement on the Mystery Writers of America website and took off to see Attorney Henley on his own yesterday. That’s why May couldn’t reach him,” Isabelle guessed. “He knew that was the only way anyone would ever find out where Trague had lived, and he wanted to beat May to it and get to the flash drive first.”
“Which still doesn’t explain why he was here last night, trashing her office,” I groaned. “This is all way too confusing. I got to my feet and crossed slowly to the desk. “Why don’t you try to get May or Margo on their cell phones and fill them in on what’s happened here, and I’ll deal with the police and the landlord,” I said as Becky came down the stairs, bearing a pile of message slips and a mug of coffee I hoped was for me. I smiled wanly at Isabelle as I accepted them. “Happy Tuesday to us all.”
By mid-afternoon the Law Barn had been restored to order pretty well. After a nice young officer from the Wethersfield P.D. had taken a report and departed, Becky and Duane cleaned up the lobby, then went upstairs to help Isabelle cope with that mess. I called our landlord, a local handyman and a locksmith, in that order, and repairs to the front door were well under way.
My dreaded call to the landlord had gone better than expected. He accepted the news of the break-in philosophically. His stoicism was no doubt strengthened when I told him we would bear the cost of the repairs, which meant he wouldn’t have to file an insurance claim and suffer the resulting premium consequences.
At two-thirty I shooed our young assistants out to get us all some lunch and asked them to try again to feed the little birds, providing the crows had moved on. They were quick to agree, and I gave Duane the key to my car so they could access the birdseed in the trunk. As soon as they pulled out of the lot, Isabelle and I put the phones on the answering machine and sat in the lobby to compare notes.
“Were you able to reach May and Margo?” was my first question.
“Yes, and they’re as confused as we are by this crazy situation. The problem seems to be that it’s all guesswork on our part. We don’t know Martin Schenk’s true identity or what he knows about W.Z.B. Trague, other than what Lizabeth stated in her letter to May. We don’t even know how he got the original letter. Was he the one knocking on her hotel room door at 5:30 a.m., or was it an accomplice—or was it someone else altogether? And did any of them have anything to do with Lizabeth’s death?”
I rubbed my aching temples. “The police found no evidence of foul play, and the hotel doctor signed a preliminary death certificate pending an autopsy,” I told Isabelle, repeating what Margo’s husband John had learned from his police connections. “May thought Schenk was hotel security and had brought her the letter personally out of an excess of chivalry. We know differently now, or at least we think we do; but until we know for certain who Schenk really is and what his motives are, we can’t apply any logic to what’s happened since last Friday. The Hartford police told John Harkness that the actual head of security at the Hilton called them soon after 6:30 a.m. on Friday. When they arrived on the scene, there was no letter and nothing at all suspicious. If only we had some way of knowing what really happened in that hotel room between 5:30 and 6:30 a.m.”
At that moment, the young people clattered through the newly repaired door, bearing bags of take-out from the Village Diner down the street. So intently were they murmuring to each other, they didn’t see Isabelle and me sitting in the reception area.
Duane grabbed Becky’s arm. “I know she’ll try to talk us out o
f it, but I’m sure it’s the only way to get the inside scoop,” he hissed at her. “Are you in?”
“You bet,” Becky agreed. She pulled up short when she caught sight of us, and Duane almost dropped the bag he was carrying. His grin, as he handed me my car keys, was distinctly guilty. “Thanks, Kate. The birds are all fed.”
I looked at him through narrowed eyes. Not for nothing, I had raised two teenagers of my own.
“Great, thanks. So what inside scoop are you two looking for, and which of the many women in this office will try to talk you out of it?” I gave Duane my best mom smile.
I’ll give the kid credit. He recovered quickly. “The scoop on who decided it would be fun to break into this place and toss our offices,” he answered smoothly. “We saw a couple of unfamiliar guys hanging around across the street when we pulled out. I think it would be a good idea if Becky and I checked with some of the other local business owners to see if they know who these guys are, maybe give them a heads up about what happened here last night so they’ll be on their guard. I wasn’t so sure you would be cool with that.”
Quickly, he moved toward the coffee room. “C’mon, Becky, let’s get some plates and stuff.” Becky threw us an apologetic look and scurried after him. Much banging of cupboard doors and clanking of silverware followed, interspersed with muffled directives (Duane) and pleas (Becky). Obviously, she knew the jig was up and was all for coming clean, but Duane wasn’t ready to admit defeat. I looked at Isabelle, slipped off my shoes, and jerked my head toward the coffee room. She got it and removed her shoes, as well. Almost silently, we glided across the lobby and positioned ourselves on either side of the entrance to the coffee room, arms folded across our chests. I arranged my face in what I hoped was a suitably stern expression and tried not to laugh as we eavesdropped.
Swan Song Page 9
