Nicole shook Stan’s meaty hand. “Any idea how this happened?”
Stan darted a glance toward Rich and then returned his gaze to Nicole. Was there some kind of cop/fire official secret communication going on?
“I have a right to know,” Nicole pressed. “My grandmother is incapacitated, and I’m handling her affairs.”
“It’s okay.” Rich nodded toward Stan.
Nicole suppressed a spike of resentment at the need for a third-party go-between in order to gain a little cooperation.
“Honestly?” Stan glanced at the charred remains. “It’s too soon to be sure about the cause of the blaze. I’d rule out a gas leak. The explosion would have been much more powerful, and there is no telltale odor.”
Rich nodded. “From what I observed when we stood at the door, the blaze started in the back room. That’s where I saw the flicker of flames.”
“Good to know.” Stan took his cap off and wiped his brow with the back of his arm. “Assuming that’s our point of origin, I’ll start sifting through the debris at the back of the store.” He sent a sympathetic smile toward Nicole. “Chances are we’ll discover a wiring malfunction. In these old properties it’s the most common cause of fire.”
“Thank you,” Nicole said. “I’d appreciate being informed as soon as you know anything.”
“I’ll give a full report to Rich when I have it. He’ll pass the info along to you and the insurance company.” Stan touched the bill of his cap and walked away.
Nicole’s stomach roiled. She wanted answers, and she wanted them now. But she didn’t want them filtered through the police. Sure, she trusted Rich, but if something criminal was uncovered, his professional duty might constrain him from telling her the whole story.
“Do you want to go to the courthouse with me?”
“What?” The meaning of Rich’s words didn’t register. “The courthouse? I— Oh, you mean to check and see when the Elling land sales occurred?”
He awarded her a half smile. “You did want to look into that angle, didn’t you? It’s public record, so we might as well do it together, rather than putting the office staff to the trouble twice.”
Nicole spurted a laugh. “By all means. I like a public servant who’s concerned about saving taxpayer time and money. Then I do actually need to get back home and hunt up that insurance information.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He led the way toward his vehicle. “You’ll have to buy me a chauffeur’s chapeau one of these days.”
She chuckled. “I’ve about forgotten what it’s like to drive my own car. I’d intended to return to my grandmother’s bedside today, but as long as she’s stable, I’d better stick around here and handle matters.”
They climbed into the SUV, and Rich sent her a grave look. “I’m so sorry you’re having to deal with all of this unpleasantness.”
“It’s hardly your fault.”
“But it’s on my watch, and I’ll follow the evidence and turn over every rock until the truth comes out.”
Nicole’s heart squeezed. “I would expect no less. That baby deserves justice. So does my grandmother. Neither you nor I had anything to do with what happened back then. All we can do is make sure the right things are done in the here and now.” Her throat thickened, but she forced out the words. “Whatever the cost.”
“You’re a brave woman.”
Rich’s admiring look warmed Nicole’s insides. He was wrong though. She wasn’t brave. She was petrified and feeling very alone.
“Glen was a lucky man,” he added.
Tears pulsed behind Nicole’s eyes. “Thanks.” She blinked rapidly and pressed her fingertips against her cheekbones. Rich seemed not to notice her near breakdown, and she mentally thanked him for that kindness also.
A half hour later, they trod down the courthouse steps with copies of all the land transactions done by the Ellings in the past sixty years. Sure enough, a spate of sales took place at the time of the kidnapping.
“Unfortunately,” Rich said as they got on the road, “the sales were to a variety of local people, not one person or entity.”
“Which reduces the probability that the kidnapper’s true motive was to get the Elling land and collect the ransom to reimburse themselves at the same time.”
Rich grinned at her. “You don’t like it when I say so, but you think like a cop.”
When he smiled at her that way, Nicole couldn’t muster a spark of resentment for the comparison. The guy was seriously too cute for his own good—er, her own good. She stared out her passenger-side window. They had entered her neighborhood. The Keller home lay ahead, outwardly the same as the one she’d known all her life, but changed forever inside of Nicole because of all that had happened in the last few days.
Rich pulled up outside the house.
Nicole put her hand on the door latch, but didn’t get out. “There’s one other theory that gets shot in the foot.”
Rich made a humming noise. He knew, but she had to say it—get it out in the open, rather than leaving the knowledge hang like a guillotine blade over their heads.
“If the Ellings paid the ransom, there goes the notion that they staged the kidnapping to cover for someone among them who shook that poor infant. That puts us right back looking for a person or persons with greed as a motive.” She clamped her lips shut.
Grandma was well fixed. All their property was paid for. Nicole had always assumed their financial well-being was because Grandpa Frank had such a good job as a bank president. What if she looked back in their financial records and discovered that the payoffs occurred around the time of the kidnapping?
Her heart bumped to a halt then leaped into overdrive. Rich had taken the financial records from the shop. What would they reveal?
Now what lit a fire under Nicole? Rich frowned as she hustled, stiff-legged, up her front walk, digging in her purse for her keys. At the door she turned and waved, her smile a bitter grimace, not a fond farewell. He shouldn’t have made that remark about her thinking like a cop.
Sighing, Rich pulled away from the Keller residence and headed back downtown toward the restaurant. As his grandfather used to say, his stomach was beginning to think his throat had been cut. He walked into the café, and conversation dimmed then died, but not before he caught the Keller name on people’s lips. Several patrons called greetings, and he responded in kind. Everyone knew better than to ask him about the case, but that didn’t keep the hungry speculation from their eyes.
Conversation resumed as he took a seat at the counter. Sure enough, the hot topics were last night’s fire and the discovery of the baby’s remains in the Kellers’ backyard. Public sentiment seemed split between support for the Kellers on the basis of character versus suspicion based on circumstances. Personally, he had to go with the character folks on this one. For now. Mainly because he was coming to know firsthand what an awesome granddaughter the Kellers had participated in raising. Like that was objective criteria? Rich shook his head at himself. Well, in a sense it was, if he subtracted the romantic interest.
“What can I getcha today?” The waitress stopped in front of him, pad ready.
“Hey, Marty,” Rich greeted her. The plump, gray-haired woman, part owner of the place, had been a fixture for as long as Rich had lived in Ellington. He ordered a Reuben sandwich with a side of potato salad and a cup of coffee.
Marty didn’t bother to write on her pad. “The chief wants the usual,” she hollered to the cook who stood peering over a high window shelf.
“Yo!” the guy responded with a thumbs-up.
Marty turned toward Rich. “One of these days you’re gonna surprise me, but not today.” She grinned and headed for the coffee station.
Terry plopped down on the swivel seat next to Rich just as Marty set his cup of coffee in front of him.
Rich took a sip without looking at his deputy. “What do we know about our most likely sports-car driver?” He kept his voice low.
“Tough break there. For us. Our fa
vorite D.U.I. was M.I.A. yesterday. Didn’t get home until late last night. He took Mommy Dearest shopping out of town.”
“Shopping.” Rich snorted. “What else is new?”
Of course, tracking down the unknown driver of an unseen sports car might be a waste of time if Stan concluded the fire started from natural causes. Rich’s cell began to play, and he answered.
“You might want to get over here, pronto,” Stan said. “I’ve got something to show you.”
Rich’s pulse leaped. “I’ll be right there.” He flipped his cell phone shut.
Terry eyed him with raised brows. “Need me for something?”
“Enjoy your lunch.” He rose as his meal arrived. “Throw this in a to-go box for me, will you, Marty?”
The waitress rolled her eyes. “Like I said. One of these days you’re going to surprise me.”
A minute later, Rich tossed his lunch box into the passenger seat and drove up to the next block. He pulled into the alley behind the burned-out shop, where Stan stood waiting for him. Rich climbed out of his vehicle. As he approached, Stan held up a large baggie with some curved and soot-stained glass shards inside.
“And this means what?” Rich planted his hands on his hips.
“Molotov cocktail. Crude business with some gasoline and a lit rag stuffed inside a glass bottle. Whoever did this didn’t care about making it look like an accident. They chucked it through a back window. Wouldn’t have taken too long in this tinderbox to get a nice blaze going.” He jerked his chin at the remains of the shop. “Then when you opened the door and gave the beast more oxygen—whoom!”
Rich accepted the evidence bag. “I’ll have Derek process this for prints. He can scan any results and e-mail them to the forensics tech for evaluation.”
“Sounds like a plan.” The fire investigator rubbed the back of his neck. “I hate to see things like this.”
“You and me both.”
Someone had deliberately blown up Jan Keller’s shop and nearly killed him and Nicole in the process. The timing of the incident—after business hours—indicated that property damage, not homicide, was the intention, but that didn’t douse the burning anger in Rich’s gut.
On the drive to the office, Rich replayed snippets of conversations he’d overheard at the restaurant. Had he caught echoes of fury in any particular voice? Nothing jumped out at him. Then again, too much jumped out at him. Judgmental words had been spoken by lots of different voices. Just as he’d feared. The location of the baby’s bones invited confident, though unsupported, conclusions.
Surprising how high feeling still ran about that long-ago kidnapping. Had mob mentality spread enough to spur malicious action out of some misguided soul? He’d think less of this town if it had. Disturbing enough that some were siding against the Kellers so quickly when Jan lay hovering between death and life, and her store had been destroyed. But then, the younger generation didn’t know Jan well, or Frank at all. And the older generation suffered from the lingering effects of Elling dominance. He’d hate it if the evidence proved the gossips right.
Rich left the glass shards with Derek and wolfed down his cold lunch. He fielded a call from a reporter wanting a statement about the rose garden baby case and the shop fire, but all he gave was a no comment on ongoing cases. Then Terry came in from rounds, and Rich assigned him to cart the boxes of financial records from the sewing shop over to an impartial accountant in a neighboring town for evaluation.
After Terry left, grumbling about getting stuck with the dumb gopher jobs, Rich drove up to the Elling place. He no longer needed DNA from the baby’s parents in order to confirm the child’s identity, but he did still want to interview Fern. Surely she’d be available this time of day. He rang the bell and waited. A barefoot, rumple-haired Mason opened the door.
“All hail the chief.” He sneered. “What do you want this time? Grandpa’s not here and neither is my mom, and I didn’t do anything, as I’m sure Deputy Dog has told you by now.”
Rich reined in his temper. This kid was just fishing for a reaction. “I’m not here to see any of those people…or you. I’d like to speak to your grandmother.”
Mason snickered and ran his fingers through his bed-head. “She’s out cold. Took something for one of her migraines. Who knows when she’ll grace us with her presence again. Could be suppertime, but probably not. I expect Madame will be served in her room.”
At least Rich didn’t have to feel like he was the only recipient of this punk’s disrespect. Everyone was a candidate.
“So you and your grandmother and Hannah are the only ones home right now?”
“That’d be the size of it. If you want to talk to Hannah, she’s in the garden. Probably sleeping on a bench. She doesn’t do much actual gardening anymore.”
Was that a hint of fondness in the young man’s tone? Could be Hannah, in her vague way, had been the only one to show Mason much kindness when he was growing up.
“No, I don’t need to speak to Hannah again. Thanks, anyway. I’ll—”
“I know. You’ll be back.” The young man smirked.
“Tell your grandmother to call me.”
Rich returned to his SUV. He looked up as he climbed into the vehicle, and that same curtain he’d noticed last time he was here twitched back into place. Rich’s hands clenched around the steering wheel. Either Mason had lied to him about where everyone was and what they were doing, or else Fern or Hannah had awakened from their naps in time to spy out the window.
The Elling family had closed ranks on him. They were hiding something, but Rich didn’t have a shred of hard evidence to wangle a search warrant, even from a sympathetic judge. As he drove away, Rich scowled into his rearview mirror at the brick mansion. Whether the Ellings wanted to believe it or not, he was going to uncover the secrets that mausoleum guarded.
Only one problem. How?
TEN
Nicole nibbled at a tuna sandwich without tasting it. The security company was booked solid and couldn’t get to her job for a few days. Rich would have a fit…if she told him. Otherwise, except for a couple of interruptions from reporters calling for interviews that she declined, she’d spent the afternoon hunting for the elusive insurance policy to no avail. Surely, Grandma had insured the shop.
While Nicole looked, she’d put things in order from the police search, but had hardly made a dent. Amazing how easy it was to make a mess compared to the time it took to clean it up. Mostly, she’d concentrated on her grandmother’s bedroom as the likely place to yield important papers. No insurance policy had come to light or anything to do with the baby buried in the backyard, but in the closet Nicole had found a wealth of photos from her dad’s and her childhoods, plus a box of awards and school papers of her father’s. Nicole discovered things she’d never known about her dad.
The sentimental journey had absorbed more hours than she should have allowed, but the distraction had been welcome. She would never have guessed her dad took dance lessons as a small boy or that he had a lead part in a play in junior high. An artsy streak wasn’t what she associated with her manly-man father. The image was sort of jarring, like Clint Eastwood singing in the movie Paint Your Wagon. Come to think of it, that had been one of her dad’s favorite old flicks. Now she knew why.
A knock sounded on the back door, and Nicole jerked. She laid the remnants of her sandwich on a plate and went to peer out the curtain over the door’s window. Rich stood on the porch, gazing around as if searching for threats. She opened the door, and he stepped into the kitchen. His grim expression didn’t convey comfort.
Nicole tensed. “Bad news?”
“Stan says the fire was arson.”
A forlorn cry escaped her throat. “Who would want to burn the shop? Why? It can’t be to destroy evidence. The place had already been searched.”
“So had this house when someone attacked your grandmother.”
Rich’s bald statement sent a pang through Nicole. Maybe the motive was sheer malice. Who could po
ssibly hate the Kellers so much? She couldn’t recall her grandparents having a single enemy, unless she counted her grandmother’s antipathy toward Hannah. Was the feeling mutual? Hannah had shown herself plenty spry when she did that pirouette in her bedroom. Still, Nicole couldn’t picture the plump, elderly woman tearing down those attic steps like the attacker had done or roaring around in a sports car setting fires. Of course, Nicole hadn’t been able to picture her dad as a dancer or an actor, either, yet he’d been both.
“How did it happen?” Nicole steeled herself to absorb another vile report.
Rich described a crude Molotov cocktail flung through a back window.
“So anyone could have started the fire,” Nicole said.
“That’s about the size of it.” Rich’s gaze reflected the sad anger in Nicole’s heart.
“Any leads on the driver of the sports car that the witness heard?”
Somber amusement flickered in Rich’s eyes. “You know I can’t tell you that.”
“Of course not.” Nicole sniffed. “But I take it you don’t.”
Rich didn’t correct her. Nicole turned away. When was the horror going to end? “Thanks for letting me know about the fire inspector’s verdict. I haven’t found the insurance policy yet, but I’m really tired, so—”
“I need to warn you about something else.”
Nicole whirled toward him. He’d stepped so close she had to crank her head back to look into his eyes. His gaze held sorrow and sympathy. She held herself rigid to keep from yielding to his warmth and stepping into arms that would hold her tight if she issued the invitation.
“Some loudmouth folks around town are jumping to conclusions about your grandparents and the Elling kidnapping.”
Nicole stared off in the direction of the cookie jar in the shape of a goose on Grandma Jan’s counter. “We sort of expected that, didn’t we?”
“Yeah, but I didn’t want you to be blindsided when you go out into the community.”
Jill Elizabeth Nelson Page 10
