Secrets of Harmony Grove

by Mindy Starns Clark

  “That’s true.”

  The computer was ready, so I went online, attached the B and B’s financial records to an e-mail, and sent it off to Heath for his perusal.

  “First things first,” he continued. “Do you know if Floyd kept good insurance on the inn, just in case? There could be ramifications.”

  “I hadn’t even thought of that. I actually have no idea. I’ll look around as soon as we hang up.”

  Heath waited until the file came through but then he had to go, so I promised I would keep him up to date with things via text, and he said he’d call on his very next break. “I love you,” he added before hanging up.

  Slightly overwhelmed by a wave of emotion and needing an immediate distraction, I went to the files and began looking for some perfectly labeled, color-coded folder for insurance. There wasn’t one, at least not that I could find, so I returned to the computer and tried to take a look there. Though I doubted it, perhaps Floyd had ordered the policy online.

  I was feeling antsy, wishing Mike would get here and tell me if they indeed had made any progress last night, as Heath had said. With one eye on the window and the long driveway out front, I continued to click around on Floyd’s computer. Unable to locate any files on his hard drive regarding insurance, I went into his web browser, hoping to find some activity that involved insurance companies there.

  Scanning the brief history, I wasn’t surprised to see that the cache had never been emptied. The man used his computer so little that, even after two years, there wasn’t much there. Movie times. Weather. TV schedules. Mapquest. Google Earth. Baby names. Phone lookups.

  Wait a minute, baby names? I looked closer at the history to see that the site had been accessed often. Did Floyd have a baby, or maybe a pregnant girlfriend? Scanning the dates, I could see that he had been looking at baby names about once a month for two years. How strange, especially given that he had no children of his own, at least not as far as I knew. Clicking on the site itself, the link brought me to the results of his most recent name search: Nadeem, Vortimer, Anselmo. Those were unusual names, for sure, and I clicked on each one in turn to learn that the first was Arabic, the next Arthurian, whatever that was, and the third was Spanish.

  Had Floyd been helping people of various ethnicities name their babies? Was he writing a novel and trying to come up with character names? Maybe he just liked learning about name origins the same way some people studied etymology. All I could hope was that Floyd wasn’t doing nefarious deeds, such as baby selling or illegal adoption, and using this site to name real stolen babies. Surely that wasn’t it.

  Though I didn’t plan on sharing this odd finding with Mike just yet, I would certainly tell Liz about it and see if it raised red flags for her or if she could come up with a reasonable explanation.

  Running through the browser history one last time, I noticed the addresses for some sites that had been visited early on, when the computer was new. I had made those searches myself, and they were for several different online hotel and bed-and-breakfast customer review sites. I had written up and posted the listings, but I had never thought to go back and see how our ensuing customers had rated us.

  Going to each of those sites now, I located the listings for Harmony Grove Bed & Breakfast, but I didn’t see any reviews of the place at all. I tried even more sites, but no matter where I looked, I couldn’t find one single opinion or customer review for my inn, not even on Trip Advisor, which seemed to have every other bed-and-breakfast in the world picked apart by virtually everyone who had ever stayed there.

  In a sense, this lack of feedback was even stranger than Floyd’s monthly obsession with baby names. Everybody had an opinion these days. Even the nightly news solicited opinions. We lived in a world where people weighed in on everything, everywhere—especially online in matters of travel.

  So why wasn’t anyone reviewing Harmony Grove Bed & Breakfast?

  Feeling strangely unsettled, I kept looking but couldn’t find a single review. Beyond that, I realized that the inn offered no online booking capability, and it had never even been listed anywhere other than those first few original postings I had done. Even if Floyd wasn’t computer savvy, his job as manager included getting the word out about the inn. Instead of providing me with answers, my research had created new questions. Who were the inn’s guests? Where were they coming from? And why didn’t they review the place once they had been here?

  Again, I feared that these were answers I could only get from Floyd himself. Glancing at the clock, I wondered if he was still out of his head or if he might now be awake and coherent and able to explain things to me. I tried calling the hospital where I assumed he had been taken, but they didn’t show him as currently registered, and I didn’t feel like calling other hospitals in the region to track him down. Hanging up the phone, I sat back in the chair, closed my eyes, and thought back to when I had first hired Floyd.

  Our interview had been recommended and facilitated by Troy, who had met Floyd Underhill through his work with one of the big hotels in downtown Philly. In their dealings since then, Troy said, he had come to respect everything about the way Floyd did business. Originally from Camden, Floyd might seem a bit rough around the edges sometimes, but he had been working in Philly’s hospitality industry for years and knew how to run a place like this better than anyone.

  During our interview Floyd seemed nice enough, but he wasn’t exactly the wonder boy Troy had described. More than anything he seemed tired to me, and I had a feeling he wanted this job primarily so that he could leave the city and its frenetic pace and settle down out here in the country in a cushy job he could perform without much effort. Still, when it came down to numbers, Floyd talked a good game, explaining that he had so many contacts in the industry that he could begin filling the inn immediately, showing a profit by the end of the first quarter. I wasn’t sure how atypical those claims were until I interviewed two other highly qualified candidates and listened to each of them go on and on about building a customer base and generating word of mouth, etc., saying that they couldn’t promise a full house for the first year, possibly two. Needless to say, I hired Floyd.

  Until yesterday, that had seemed to be one of the smartest decisions of my life.

  As an advertising specialist, I had always planned to throw my full energies into promoting this place once we were open, spreading the news via marketing, public relations, advertising, and other avenues. But as it turned out, Floyd was as good as his word and had begun raking in the dough almost right away. Every time I called from the city to see how things were going, he told me the B and B was booked solid, the customers were delighted, the gifts were selling like hotcakes, and all was well. Much to my relief, this place was so full, so fast that I never had to spend any time or money on promotions for it. After having focused on the renovation for so long, my work at Biddle & Sons was beginning to suffer, so as soon as I was sure Harmony Grove Bed & Breakfast was in good hands and would continue to thrive without any help from me, I put it on the back burner and focused on my job in the city.

  The first year this place was open, I had come back and stayed several times just to check on things, see how Floyd was doing, and visit with family in the area. My last such visit had been in December for a lovely, relaxing post-Christmas vacation. Now here it was the following October, and I couldn’t believe that since that holiday visit ten months ago I hadn’t returned even once.

  Obviously, my absence had been a huge mistake. Why had I trusted Floyd so implicitly? Why hadn’t I smelled a rat? My parents couldn’t understand how a brand-new bed-and-breakfast in an area filled with many others just as nice or even nicer could generate such an instant and thriving customer base. I should have questioned that as well.

  Back then I figured it was about location, location, location. This was a fantastic place for an inn, right in the heart of Amish country, on beautiful grounds with a pool, next to a grove and a covered bridge, and surrounded by Amish farms. I had told m
y parents that Floyd knew what he was doing and that he was probably having the guests funneled here through a specific travel agent or Realtor. Again, I should have asked for more specifics from Floyd himself.

  In light of what Troy had said on the phone yesterday, I saw now that other things about this place didn’t quite add up, either. When my parents had paid a surprise visit here last spring, the bed-and-breakfast had been devoid of other guests and generally untended. The breakfast Floyd prepared for them—breakfast being a key element to any B and B’s success—had been skimpy and bland and left a lot to be desired.

  Where were last night’s guests, for that matter, and why didn’t any of their phone numbers work?

  These questions and more were rolling around in my head when my cell phone rang.

  It was Liz.

  Before I launched into an explanation of what had happened since last we spoke, I let her update me on what she had managed to accomplish thus far on her end. The news wasn’t great, but it wasn’t surprising either—not yet, anyway. She said the attorney general’s office confirmed that I was a “person of interest” in an ongoing investigation, but they were not willing to divulge further details at this time.

  “I made it very clear that if they want to talk to you, they have to go through me,” she said. “So if anything happens at all, do not say a word to anyone. Just tell them, ‘Speak to my lawyer.’ That’s your mantra, Sienna: Speak to my lawyer. Okay?”

  Knowing she was going to kill me when she learned of the hours I had spent in the company of the police last night, I mumbled an assent and listened as she continued.

  “I also spoke to the Bobbsey Twins at Buzz, and they are standing firm on their ‘wait and see’ position. Until this matter is resolved, it definitely looks as though you’re not going to have an income. Right now, there isn’t anything else I can do to force the issue. At least they’re aware that I have an eye on them and that I’m watching out for your interests.”

  “I wish I could afford to walk away from Buzz completely.”

  She was quiet for a moment, probably deciding whether to chide me yet again about the car and condo or not.

  “I understand how you feel,” she said finally. “But what’s done is done. Let’s just let things play out for now. We don’t really have much choice otherwise. At least I get the feeling that something big is going to happen soon.”

  “Maybe it already has,” I replied. Taking a deep breath, I launched into my tale, probably giving it far too quickly but afraid that if I even paused for a moment she might start yelling at me. When I was finished, the line was silent as Liz processed all she had learned. When she spoke, the gentleness in her voice surprised me.

  “Oh, hon, I’m so sorry. Are you okay? Any anxiety attacks?”

  Leave it to Liz to be sweet just when she had the right to be mean. I told her about the one in the middle of the night, of how I had handled it, of the way I was feeling this morning. She seemed more concerned for my emotional well-being than anything else, and I was so touched that, again, my eyes filled with tears. It wasn’t even 10:00 a.m. and already this was turning out to be a very weepy day.

  As we talked, Liz helped me feel better about things, reassuring me that I had handled the police’s questions correctly. She would have liked to have been here last night, she said, but given that they hadn’t charged me with a crime—and didn’t seem to suspect me of anything at all—she said it had been okay to answer their questions without her. She also reinforced my decision not to divulge the facts about my suspension or the government’s investigation.

  By the time we hung up, I felt relieved and energized, eager to find some answers to the puzzles surrounding me. I decided to start with the small stack of reservation cards, call my upcoming guests to cancel their reservations, and while I had them on the phone ask how they heard of Harmony Grove Bed & Breakfast in the first place. Perhaps they could fill in some of the blanks Floyd wasn’t here to fill in for them. My plan was to start calling the phone numbers listed on the cards.

  Except that none of those numbers worked.

  Some people were scheduled to stay more than one night, so for the four rooms over the next five days there were nine different people with reservations.

  And not one of them had a working phone number?

  I went online to search for names, numbers, and addresses. Not only could I not find any of these numbers, I couldn’t find these addresses, either. Trying to pull up records using just name, city, and state, my search was fruitless for card after card. Feeling very uneasy, I typed in the last one, a couple listed as “Mr. and Mrs. Anselmo Rodriguez.”

  Anselmo?

  That was one of the baby names. I again went into the browser history, looking at prior baby name searches and finding several other matches there. Last month’s baby name search had given the names Mackenzie, Paige, Sara, and Zoe. One of the reservation cards was for “Sara Mackenzie”; another was for “Zoe Paige.”

  As fast as my fingers could fly across the keyboard, I scanned all of the history in more detail, realizing that the phone numbers on the reservation cards had come from failed reverse phone lookups. The addresses that had been searched out via Mapquest and Google Earth matched the address on some of these cards. In every case, they were addresses that didn’t quite exist: empty lots or incorrect house numbers. In most cases these were merely a few digits beyond the highest-numbered houses on the streets, so that where an address on a card might be written as “542 Oak Street,” the satellite image on the screen would show that the last two houses on Oak were numbers 539 and 540.

  Sitting back in my chair, heart in my throat, I realized that Floyd hadn’t been naming babies at all.

  He had been creating fictitious guests.

  SIXTEEN

  To me, the obvious question now was whether there had been no guests at all (with these names merely for show) or if there had been guests, but they had stayed here under falsified records (because they wanted to hide their identities). I had no idea which of the two it was.

  What about credit card records? Names had to be correct for those. Was that what this was about? Identity theft, stolen credit cards? Could that be the subject of the government’s investigation?

  Tearing the file drawers apart in search of credit card receipts, I could find none. The office had a small safe mounted inside a lower cabinet, so I went to that now, thinking about the combination. When we first installed it, my father had set the numbers himself, using my mother’s birth date. I was afraid Floyd might have changed that in the past two years, but once I was able to stop my fingers from shaking long enough to rotate the dial correctly, I found that it still worked. The lock clicked free, and when I swung open the door I could see that the contents included a few hundred dollars in cash and the small, handheld credit card imprinting machine I had received when setting up our merchant account.

  Pulling out the machine, I studied it closely. It looked brand new, as if it had never been used. I thought about the paper imprinting slips that had come with the machine. From what I could recall, there had been several boxes of those. Going to the cabinet of office supplies, I looked around and finally found slips on the top shelf—several boxes’ worth—each one still taped shut and coated with dust.

  Trying a different approach, I went back to the computer and opened up the spreadsheet, scanning the in-and-out flow of the money that came through Harmony Grove Bed & Breakfast. From what I could see, nearly every transaction had been in cash. I got these statements every month. Why had I never noticed that before?

  Closing my eyes and pinching the bridge of my nose, I tried to think. Who in this day and age used cash for anything? Even fast-food drive-throughs took credit and debit cards. Yet here, quilts were selling for more than a thousand dollars, paid in cash. Stays at the B and B totaling hundreds of dollars a pop, paid in cash. Opening my eyes, I continued to study the data in front of me. I realized that not only had our customers paid us with ca
sh, but much of the outgo from this place had been handled in cash as well. The largest expenditures were to the Amish families who provided the items for the gift shop: Five thousand dollars for quilts and other cloth goods just last month. Two thousand dollars for wooden toys the month before that.

  Studying the spreadsheet, it looked as though our quarterly tax payments had been paid by check, as had the utilities and other miscellaneous bills. But it was as if almost everything else had been paid for with cash, from the office supplies to the groceries to the housekeeping services and more. It simply didn’t add up. I knew Floyd was a technophobe and liked to do things the old-fashioned way, but this was ridiculous. What about our tax returns? Did he have receipts to match all of these expenditures?

  The first year, I had gone through the tax return Floyd had prepared before he sent it in. It had looked great, so this year, when I was busy with other things, I hadn’t even bothered checking it. Wondering if the government’s investigation had to do with the IRS, I dug through more drawers until I found two big, fat expanding folders labeled “Taxes,” one for each year. Twisting open their metal clasps, I looked inside at the many slips of paper there. At least there were tons of receipts included—Office Outlet, Jonah and Liesl Coblentz, SuperBrand Foods, and more—clipped together by month. Each one I pulled out to check showed the form of payment listed as cash. I would have to go through these receipts carefully later, perhaps with the help of an accountant, but from what I could see things seemed to be in order.

  Putting the folders aside for now, I once again tried to think the situation through.

  Floyd was a cash-based guy. I could at least understand that somewhat. But how could all of these customers also be cash based? No one was cash based these days. Even when I had cash on me, I still used my credit and debit cards whenever possible, just to earn the free points the cards gave me. I wasn’t unique in that, not at all.