The only problem was that talking to Catching might make Dad sadder, especially if she started going on about how I was wasting my “what’s next” by following him around. But if I didn’t find something to spark his interest in the world soon, I was worried he’d slide so far back into the mud that he’d never get out. It wasn’t a perfect plan, but it was the only one I had.
Dad’s phone rang, buzzing across the top of the table where he’d left it. I went over to check on the name of the caller.
Rachel Ali. Dad’s boss.
I dashed to the bed and bent down to shout in his ear. “Wake up!”
He jolted upright, blinking at me. “Whaaa…”
“Phone, Dad! It’s Rachel.”
Dad tried to get up and got tangled in the blanket. He shoved it aside and lurched to his feet, knocking his knee against the nightstand. Groaning, he hobbled across the room to grab the phone.
“Hello?”
Rachel started talking. After a moment, Dad responded. “Yeah, Jen left me a message about the money yesterday…No, haven’t checked in with the locals yet, wanted to get a feel for the place first…”
Rachel’s voice grew sharp. Dad looked sheepish.
“Well, I went and saw the home—what’s left of it, anyway—and I interviewed the witness…Yes, I can handle this!”
There was silence on the other end of the line, like Rachel wasn’t so sure. Then she spoke again. Dad’s eyes widened. “Not the fire? That’s confirmed?”
He went quiet, listening with absolute concentration. My hopes rose. Something was going on.
“I’ll get the address from the locals,” Dad said. “I’m on my way to the station now…Yep, I’ll keep you posted…Bye.”
“What’s happened?” I demanded as he hung up.
Dad rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. “Remember Martin Flint—well, the person who died, who’s probably Martin Flint? Whoever it was, they didn’t die in the fire. They were stabbed.”
“Stabbed?”
“With an unusual weapon too—some kind of blade with a slight curve to it. Only nothing like that was found at the scene, so it’s still out there somewhere.”
A murder. This was…well, not good, obviously, but I couldn’t help feeling guiltily relieved that there’d been a development in the case, even if it was something horrible.
“What’s the address you’re supposed to get?” I asked. “A lead on the killer?”
Dad shook his head. “No. The home address of Alexander Sholt.”
It took me a second to place the name. “The guy who donated the house and the money to start the home? The pale, skinny one from that photo?”
“That’s the one. He had a lot of involvement with the place, and it seems like something was going on there—although possibly not embezzlement.”
“Why not embezzlement?”
“Because it turns out that Nurse Flint and Director Cavanagh have both been making regular cash deposits into their bank accounts going back years. So it feels more like they were being paid off for something…or perhaps they were selling something.”
He was silent for a moment, then continued, “The home received medical supplies for the kids, so maybe they were selling prescription meds on the side? Was that why Catching was there, to buy? Except there haven’t been any reports of problems with drug trafficking in this area. Could they have kept it that quiet for all that time?”
He went silent again, staring into space with a slight frown between his eyes. This was his thinking face, and I was pleased to see it. But he couldn’t keep standing around here.
“We have to go, Dad. You told Rachel you were already on your way to the local station, remember? And you need to take a shower, because you’re all rumpled.” I pointed toward the bathroom. “Get moving!”
A hot shower and two cups of coffee later, we were driving through the town. He didn’t look too bad, considering.
I hadn’t told Dad that Catching could see me. I didn’t need to anymore. He was definitely going to talk to her again now that this was a confirmed homicide, though, and I realized I was hoping she wouldn’t tell him either. It wasn’t just because I didn’t want her hurting him. Since I’d died, my only link to the world of the living had been Dad. Now I had someone else, and deep where I buried the things I didn’t like to acknowledge, I had to admit that I liked having a connection that was mine alone. It was almost as if I had a friend.
Dad rolled the car to a halt outside the station. Unsurprisingly, it was a large weatherboard with a big veranda and a sign out front that said POLICE.
“Rachel was mad at you for not coming here yesterday, huh?”
“I should have,” Dad conceded. “But when I saw the town, and it reminded me so much of where I grew up…” He shrugged. “I just wanted to take a look at things on my own first. Small towns can be like lakes: quiet and still on the surface, but with lots going on beneath.”
“Like a secret international drugs conspiracy!”
Dad chuckled. “Drugs, maybe. International conspiracy—probably not.”
A laugh. I’d got him to laugh, and without it making him sad afterward, like it had yesterday. It was going to be a good day, I just knew it.
I hugged the sound of the laugh to myself all the way into the station and into the office of the man in charge.
The boss of the police here had mousy blond hair and hazel eyes, and didn’t seem very pleased to see Dad. He stood as Dad entered his office. “Detective Teller? I’m Derek Bell.”
Dad held out his hand, and Bell shook it reluctantly. Then Dad settled into the chair in front of the desk, casting a quick glance around as he did so. I did as well, but there wasn’t much to see: a big window that gave a view of sky and trees and crows, and a bookcase containing a bunch of files and a few photos. One of the photos showed Derek Bell as a teenager, standing with a tall man in a police uniform. His dad? Maybe policing ran in the family.
Dad opened his mouth to speak, but Bell got in first: “I hear you’ve been going around town asking questions.”
How did he know that? Had he been following us yesterday? I eyed him with suspicion. Maybe he was part of the conspiracy I was hoping existed.
Dad laughed. “Small-town grapevine working as well as ever, I see. I should have dropped by yesterday—sorry! Just trying to get a jump on the work.”
Bell’s mouth pressed into a thin line. “I don’t know how you do things in the city, but here it’s considered common courtesy to check in with us before you go conducting witness interviews and the like.”
There was a whining edge to his voice that made it hard to take him seriously. He sounded less like a stern police officer and more like a little kid complaining that his big brother had stolen his ice cream.
Dad sighed. “Look, when I get back home, my boss is going to ask, ‘Did you look at the crime scene?’ So I looked at the scene. Then she’s going to ask, ‘Did you talk to the witness?’ So I talked to the witness.”
He leaned forward and spoke in a low tone of voice, as if he was sharing a secret: “You don’t need me telling you how to do your job. I know how hard policing in a small town can be. Grew up in a place not much bigger than this myself. My dad was the local cop.”
Bell softened. “Really? Mine too.”
Dad made a show of surprise, but I knew he’d noticed the photo when he looked around the room. My father was the one who’d taught me how to scan a space for the details that told you things about the person who occupied it. Way to put the guy at ease, Dad.
Bell relaxed back into his chair. “I don’t suppose you got anything out of that witness? She didn’t have anything useful to say when she talked to my people, but I hear you were with her awhile.”
That treacherous nurse must have gossiped to Bell.
Dad just shrugged. �
��Kid didn’t have anything useful to say to me either, unless you count tales of the general unfairness of her existence. Teenagers!”
I bristled. Then I saw Bell’s shoulders sag in relief—he’d been more interested in the answer to that question than he’d let on. And Dad had…well, kind of lied to him, or at least diverted him away from Catching.
Derek Bell was a suspect.
I studied him with renewed interest, taking in the bags under his eyes and the way his nails were bitten down to the quick. Something was worrying this man.
“Look, I have to get an address,” Dad said. “For an Alexander Sholt.”
Bell stiffened. “Alex?”
“Friend of yours?” Dad asked. His tone was pleasant, but I wasn’t fooled. I could see how closely he was watching Derek Bell.
“We were at school together,” Bell replied. “But everyone around here knows the Sholt family. They donate a lot of funds to local causes. You want to speak to Alex about the home?”
Dad nodded. “We’ll need to dig deeper into the place now that it’s a homicide, and Sholt hasn’t been returning phone calls. You’ve been briefed on the autopsy results?”
“Got the call this morning.” Bell swallowed, looking queasy. “Last time there was a killing in this town, it was a bar fight gone wrong—nothing like this. Um, you surely don’t think Alex could be involved…”
“I’m just looking for a better sense of the home and the people who worked there. Seems like Alexander Sholt might be able to give me that.”
Did Bell seem relieved? It was hard to be sure with all his general twitchiness, but I thought so.
“I’ll get you his address,” he said. “But I don’t think you’ll have much luck. Alex lives here part of the time, but he also has a flat in the city, and I haven’t seen him around town lately.”
“His city address was checked this morning. His neighbor said she thought he was here.”
Bell blinked in surprise. “Did she? Well, perhaps he is. He does go back and forth.” He paused for a second, eyes narrowed in thought, and then said, “I tell you what, the Sholt house can be a bit hard to find; I’ll get my second-in-command to take you.”
“There’s really no need—”
“It’s no trouble.” He rose and strode to the door. “Back in a sec!”
As he left, I said to Dad, “Did you see how stressed out he is? I think he and Sholt are both dodgy and totally in league with each other. Bell probably covered up the others’ selling the drugs—that’s how they could have kept it quiet.”
Dad answered softly, “That’s possible. Although it seems like the Sholt family has enough money already, without needing to get tangled up in criminal activities.”
“Unless crime is where the Sholts got all their money in the first place! Either way, Bell is hiding something.”
“He’s nervy, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he knowingly covered something up.” Dad’s mouth tightened. “It seems to me he might be a little like my father—the kind of cop who thinks the rules don’t apply to everyone equally. He could’ve been too deferential to the Sholt family, given them special treatment…maybe let a few things slide about that home that he sees he should have looked into. If so, it’ll all come out now, and he knows it.”
Well, that was disappointing. I wanted Derek Bell to be a dastardly criminal mastermind, not a weaselly and incompetent official. Although I had to admit, “weaselly” and “incompetent” fit him better.
“If you don’t think Bell’s covering things up, why’d you steer him away from Catching?” I asked.
“Because I don’t know how deep Alexander Sholt’s involvement goes in whatever’s been happening, and I don’t trust Bell not to let something slip. And Catching…” Dad sighed. “I’m not sure if she saw anything that night. I’m not sure if she even remembers it. But if she does have something to say, it’s best she says it to me.”
There were footsteps outside and Bell returned, followed by a woman with short red hair, freckles, and a wide smile. Dad rose as they entered and reached across to shake the woman’s hand. “Michael Teller.”
“Allison Hartley. Call me Allie!”
“Allie will take you to the Sholt place,” Bell said. “I’d run you over myself, but I have my hands full, managing the search for Tom Cavanagh.”
“Any sign of him?” Dad asked.
“Nothing yet. But I’ll let you know if there are any developments.”
I followed behind Bell as he walked Dad and Allison-call-me-Allie back through the station and out the front door. Then I lingered as my father and Allie disappeared into the distance, curious to see what Bell would do when Dad’s back was turned. Stare balefully after Dad? Mutter to himself about his nefarious plans? Okay, that last one was unlikely, but I could hope.
Except Bell didn’t pay any attention to my father. Instead, he peered up and down the street, almost as if he expected to find someone watching him. The wind tossed a can along the pavement, making it clatter when it hit the ground. Bell jumped at the sound, clutching hold of the doorframe. He cast another anxious glance around, then scuttled back inside.
Huh.
Weaselly and incompetent, maybe.
But also afraid.
We motored through the streets in Allie’s car, with Dad up front and me perched in the middle of the back seat. Allie talked as she drove. She talked a lot, and in a tone of voice I could only have described as “sunshiny.” This woman was the most cheerful cop I’d ever met.
Finally Dad interrupted the steady flow of bright chatter to ask, “Did you grow up around here?”
“I’ve lived here all my life.”
“You must have been at school with Alexander Sholt and Derek Bell, then.”
Allie nodded. “I was, although they were a few years ahead of me. And Alex was at boarding school for a while. He came back to the local school when the money problems started.”
“I didn’t think the Sholt family had any money problems.”
“They don’t now. But back then, Oscar Sholt—Alex’s grandfather—frittered a lot of their fortune away.”
“Gambling?”
She laughed. “Nope. The apocalypse!”
Dad blinked. “What?”
“Oscar Sholt thought the end of the world was nigh. He spent thousands on the most ridiculous things—I heard he invested in a colony on the moon. Then he ended up shutting himself away in that old house—the one that became the kids’ home later—with a bunch of supplies, to wait out the destruction of civilization as we knew it.”
I leaned forward. “So Alexander Sholt did have a reason to be tempted to make some illegal cash—at least back while his family had money issues.”
Dad grunted in acknowledgment, then said to Allie, “How’d they get the money back?”
“Alex took over the family finances after his grandpa died and turned it all around. He made a lot of cash on the stock market.”
I snorted. “Or he made his money selling prescription meds. Or, I don’t know, getting involved in some other criminal activity.”
Dad shrugged his shoulders, which meant maybe.
Allie prattled on: “Alex has done a lot of good in this town—supports the football team, funded the new gym at the school. He’s done a lot for those children as well, through the home. He had a bit of a fight on his hands to get it set up too.”
Well, that was interesting. Dad thought so as well. “There was some controversy?”
“Some locals didn’t want troubled kids on their doorstep. Only some, mind you—plenty of the town wanted to be part of giving the kids a second chance! Bill Carter was going to teach them horseback riding, and Dolly Westerman—she’s a retired schoolteacher—offered to run classes for them, and…oh, there were lots of people. April Chang started a sign-up sheet for everyone who want
ed to help.”
She sighed. “Then old Sam Finch started a sign-up sheet for people who didn’t want the home here. It all got a bit tense. Someone even egged Sam’s pub, although there was never any proof that it was Dolly’s granddaughter, whatever he said— Anyway, sorry, that’s all ancient history now. The home went ahead, but none of us could volunteer there, of course.”
“Why not?” I demanded, just as Dad asked the same question.
“It wasn’t allowed. The government has very strict rules about how such places have to be run. No one who wasn’t directly employed there was allowed in. We didn’t even get to see the kids around town—they weren’t supposed to leave the home. Pity.”
I looked at Dad. “Are there rules like that?”
He gave a tiny shake of his head, and I grinned. “Ha! Sholt was trying to keep people away.”
Allie kept talking, oblivious to my input: “I know Alex would’ve liked to have the town involved, if he could have. He loves this place—it’s why he still lives here, even with all his money. I mean, if I had his kind of cash…” A rueful smile spread across her face. “Actually, you know, I don’t suppose I would leave now.”
“You would have before?” Dad asked.
“When I was a teenager, I couldn’t wait to get out! My best friend and I were going to become astronauts, because we figured outer space was the furthest away we could get from this place.”
“So why’d you stay?”
The cheerfulness suddenly vanished from Allie’s face.
“It was because of my friend Sarah. Sarah Blue. She disappeared.”
The Things She's Seen Page 5
