Grace to the Finish

by Julie Hyzy

  “Seems to me that if her mother was sending money regularly, Kayla’s the last person who’d want Virginia dead,” I said.

  Flynn practically hopped out of his seat. “That’s because you don’t know about the insurance policy.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Frances perk up. “How much?” she asked.

  “Ten million. Not kidding.” Flynn looked incredibly pleased with himself. “She took it out about four years ago. Daughter is the primary beneficiary.”

  “Ten million is a staggering sum,” I said. “And you’re saying Virginia opened it four years ago? At her age, premium payments had to be crazy expensive. How could she afford them?”

  “How indeed?” Rodriguez said.

  “Ten million smackeroos,” Flynn said. “And every penny goes to the daughter.” He grinned. “That kind of money makes ten grand a month look like chump change.”

  My head spun with questions. “You’re telling me that the daughter knew about this insurance policy?”

  “Unclear,” Rodriguez said. “That’s another thing we’re looking into.”

  “And how Virginia afforded all this,” I said. After our talk with Oscar, I had an intriguing theory rolling around in my brain. One I was eager to share. “A pricey policy, monthly stipends to her daughter, not to mention the cost of living here herself.”

  “We’re hoping her investment portfolio sheds some light,” Rodriguez said. “Who knows? Could be Virginia inherited a fortune when her husband died. Could be she only worked at the bank for something to do. All this may make perfect sense once we have all the facts.”

  I wrinkled my nose. Though Rodriguez was right and every bit of this could be easily explainable, it didn’t jibe with what Bruce and Scott had told me about the woman. But like they said, Virginia’s salary at the bank may not have been her sole source of income.

  “Does the name ‘Craig’ mean anything to either of you?” I asked.

  The detectives shook their heads. “Why? Should it?” Flynn asked.

  Rodriguez leaned forward. “This have anything to do with your conversation with the squatter?”

  “Oscar,” I said. “It does. Remember those credit cards that were found under Virginia’s body?”

  “Two of them,” Rodriguez said, holding up fingers. “Blanks.”

  “Right. What if I told you that I suspect Virginia and a mystery man named Craig were producing credit cards in the basement of the Granite Building?”

  Flynn jumped to his feet. “You are out of your mind, you know that?”

  I didn’t react.

  Rodriguez studied me, blinking slowly. “What makes you think that?”

  “According to Oscar, Virginia and this Craig person met at the building a couple of times a week.”

  “So, this is actually the squatter’s theory,” Flynn said as he paced. “Did you ever think that maybe he’s making stuff up to keep you from looking more closely at him?”

  I ignored his overreaction, returning my attention to Rodriguez. I’d already bounced the idea off Frances. From the sofa, she gave me a nod of support.

  Lowering my voice, I began again. “This isn’t Oscar’s theory; it’s mine. He talked about Craig demanding names from Virginia. Yelling at her because there weren’t enough names on her lists. Oscar also told us about the times he was stuck hiding until Craig left. Though he couldn’t see what the man was doing, he heard sounds.” I mimicked the noises Oscar had made for me.

  Flynn was red in the face. “That’s hardly proof,” he said.

  “I’m aware of that,” I snapped back. To Rodriguez, I said, “According to Oscar, Craig worked for hours after Virginia left, making these random noises. If you add the two credit card blanks we found to the fact that Virginia spent a lot more money than her salary should have allowed, plus the fact that she was providing lists of some sort to Craig, I couldn’t help but wonder if she and Craig were working together, producing bogus credit cards.”

  Rodriguez lifted his gaze to Flynn, who’d stopped pacing.

  “No,” the younger detective said, waving a finger. “Don’t even go there.”

  A ghost of a smile played on Rodriguez’s lips. “Why do you refuse a gift when it lands in your lap?” he asked.

  Flynn flung an arm out, pointing at me. “Dumb luck, that’s all it is. That’s what it always is with her.”

  “This may be just the break we’ve been looking for,” Rodriguez said before turning to me.

  I sat up straighter, blinking my surprise.

  “As you know,” he continued, “my partner and I were unable to take your call last night. What you’re unaware of is why. My friend here and I were taking a statement from a resident whose credit card account had been accessed fraudulently.”

  I said the first thing that popped into my head. “I thought you two were homicide detectives.”

  The older man’s face split into a wide grin. “You keep us plenty busy with that, Miz Wheaton, but every once in a while Flynn and I get called in to help some of our brother officers when they’re stretched thin.”

  Flynn threw up his hands in frustration and began pacing again.

  “There’s been a rash of credit card fraud reports and last night we stepped in to help ease the load.”

  “I hadn’t heard about this,” I said.

  “No reason you should.” Rodriguez shrugged. “Card numbers get stolen every day. As soon as fraud is detected, the credit company cancels the account and issues new cards. Because of that, victims figure that their job is done. Most of them don’t call the police. But lately, that’s changed. We’ve been getting more and more reports every day. The more information we get, the better chance we have of getting to the bottom of things.”

  “A friend of mine had her card number stolen a couple of weeks ago,” Frances said. “I told her to call the Emberstowne Police and she did. You can thank me for making your jobs easier.”

  Flynn rolled his eyes.

  “Interesting,” I said.

  Rodriguez leaned forward to rest a meaty forearm on my desk. “Interesting is right,” he said. “With what you’ve come up with, I think we need to start looking for Craig, whoever he is.”

  One thing bothered me. “Emberstowne is a good-sized municipality,” I said. “But I can’t imagine our population being large enough to support this level of criminal activity for very long without being detected.”

  “Me neither,” Rodriguez said as he got to his feet. “But just because we don’t know of any other fraud cases around the country doesn’t mean they don’t exist.” He gestured for Flynn to stop pacing and follow him. “My partner and I have some digging to do.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Will you let me know what you learn?”

  Flynn jerked a thumb to indicate Frances. “As long as you and Mouthy Mabel here keep it quiet.”

  Frances harrumphed.

  “Oh,” I said, suddenly remembering. “I asked Tooney to take a look at Virginia’s daughter, too.”

  Flynn made a motion as though shooing a fly. “Tell him he can back off. We’ve got this one. I don’t want him bumbling into our investigation and ruining everything.”

  “He’s just eager to help.” Turning to Frances, I said, “We’ll have to come up with some other lead for him to track down. There are so many questions this time; I don’t have a clue where to start.”

  “You got that right. No clue.” Flynn rolled his eyes again. “Good one.”

  Rodriguez reached into his pocket. “How about you have him interview this woman?” He handed me a business card.

  I recognized Cynthia Quinn’s name. “The building inspector?” I wiggled the card, realizing belatedly that it was a refrigerator magnet. “I thought you already interviewed her.”

  Flynn blew raspberries.

  Rodriguez sighed. “We m
et with her,” he began.

  “She’s a flake.” Flynn spread his arms wide. “No other way to describe her. A loose wing nut. A lunatic.”

  Rodriguez waved him down. “She’s not so bad as all that.” Turning his dark gaze to me, he added, “She is a little difficult to pin down. Perhaps Mr. Tooney will have better luck.” He shrugged. “Maybe you could join him when he talks with her?”

  I wondered what made this Cynthia Quinn such a challenge. “Sure,” I said.

  “I’ll call Tooney when we’re done here,” Frances said.

  “Thanks, Frances,” I said.

  The detectives were almost out the door when Flynn turned around.

  “I can’t believe you and your roommates plan to keep food on hand for this Oscar character,” he said. “You don’t want people like that hanging around. And not just because they stink. Living on the street changes people. They don’t think like you or me. Shift your attention from this guy for a minute and he’ll stab you in the back.”

  Frances clucked her approval. “First time I find myself agreeing with you,” she said, arms folded across her chest. To me: “You trust people too easily.”

  “Thank you both for your concern and criticism, but the boys and I are happy to provide Oscar with a little help.”

  At that moment, the phone rang and Frances trundled to her desk to get it. “Joe Bradley,” she said, her brows arching skyward as she picked it up and said hello.

  Rodriguez brightened. “Oh?”

  With a tight smile, I patted him on the shoulder. “Thanks for stopping by, Detectives. I’m sure we’ll be in touch.”

  Chapter 14

  The minute the door shut behind them, I pivoted and pointed toward my office. “I’ll take it in there.”

  Frances had put Joe’s call on hold. “There’s probably no chance of you letting me listen in, is there?”

  Despite the absurdity of the request, I laughed. “Not this time.” As I crossed the threshold into my office, I turned back. “And I’m closing the door.”

  She frowned. “Make sure you tell him you plan to visit Neal Davenport.”

  “Sure,” I said. “I’ll just pop that into the middle of our conversation. Great suggestion.”

  I heard her answer, “Suit yourself,” as I shut the door.

  I drew a breath, bounced my head from side to side, and worked up a smile as I clicked into the call. “Good morning, Joe. How are you? I take it you got my voicemail.”

  “I did,” he said.

  The line was quiet between us for a long three seconds.

  He cleared his throat. “You’re right. I was calling to give you an update on Virginia Frisbie’s autopsy. But it seems that Rodriguez beat me to it.”

  “He and Flynn have a new lead to follow,” I said. “They just left here, in fact. Not two minutes ago.”

  “That sounds promising.”

  I made a noncommittal noise. “It’s something.”

  We endured another couple of seconds of silence.

  “I was wondering,” he said, then coughed, “if you’d still be interested in meeting to discuss the case.”

  “I’m very interested in discussing the case,” I said. “Do you want to meet here at Marshfield? How does your schedule look for later today?”

  Just then my office door opened and Frances marched across the room. She slammed a screaming yellow sticky note on top of my desk, the message turned toward me for easier reading. It said: Meeting at 5:30 with Neal Davenport at bank tonight. Dinner afterward. Beneath that, underlined, she’d added. Tell the doctor you’re taken!

  She shot me a pointed look, turned on her heel, and marched back out, shutting the door crisply behind her.

  “I could come out there,” Joe said. “Or we could meet somewhere local if you prefer. Maybe for dinner.”

  I peeled up the sticky note and frowned at it. Frances had set up a meeting with Neal, exactly as I’d asked. Well, almost exactly.

  I fanned the note. “Is that a good idea?” I asked. “I mean, I wouldn’t want to take you away from anything more important.” Like your girlfriend?

  “I could say the same,” he said. “As much as I’d like the two of us to get together, I wouldn’t want to presume anything.”

  I shook my head and stuck the little note back down on my desk top. “I think you and I need to talk in person.”

  It sounded as though he blew out a breath. “I do, too.”

  “Then dinner may be our best opportunity.” We agreed to meet at six thirty. “Where?” I asked.

  He named a new restaurant I hadn’t yet had the chance to try. “See you there?”

  “Yes, absolutely.” We said our good-byes and hung up. My turn to blow out a breath. Yes, we were handling this like adults. If that “looker,” as Frances had termed her, was indeed Joe’s girlfriend, so be it. I preferred knowing the truth, whatever it might be.

  But even more, I looked forward to telling Frances to call Davenport back to let him know that I had other plans for dinner tonight.

  • • •

  “Yes, Detectives Rodriguez and Flynn came out to talk to me this afternoon,” Neal Davenport said as he ushered me into his office.

  I didn’t know what I’d been expecting, but I thought that a bank president would warrant something a little grander than this fifteen-by-fifteen space that looked as though it hadn’t seen a decorator since the mid-1970s.

  He gallantly waved me into one of the wood-framed chairs at his desk. The orange and mustard patterned seat showed very little wear. But, I reasoned, that’s to be expected with Naugahyde. I supposed the bank ought to be congratulated on its fiscal responsibility. Why bother replacing a perfectly sturdy, if less-than-fashionable, piece of furniture as long as it still served its purpose?

  “I know you’re eager to meet those who worked closely with Virginia,” he said smoothly as he sat across from me. “I’ve asked a couple of them to stop in and say hello while you’re here. But I thought it would be good for you and I to chat a bit first. I understand you have more questions for me.”

  So far, it seemed as though Frances had done her job to set exactly the right tone.

  “I do, thanks. I know Virginia handled the sale of the Granite Building to my partners, but what other areas of the bank did she oversee?”

  His eyes widened in a “too much to describe” way as he sat back. “It’s probably easier to tell you the areas she didn’t oversee. She’d been here for so long, she pretty much had a hand in everything. Actually, now that I think about it, there isn’t a single department Virginia didn’t work with at one point or another.”

  Here came the sticky part. “What about credit cards? Would she have had access to applications and approvals?”

  “We don’t issue credit cards locally. Applications are sent directly to our corporate headquarters for processing. We do offer debit cards to all our banking customers, though.”

  “Did Virginia handle the corporate credit card applications at all?”

  “Unlikely, unless she was handing an application to a customer. Most customers take the blank forms home and fill them out at their leisure and mail them in from there. We’d love to get people to turn them in on the spot, but that only happens from time to time.”

  I frowned.

  “What about a person named Craig?” I asked.

  Davenport began shaking his head almost immediately. “The detectives asked me about him, too. I had our HR department go back through their files to see if that name popped up.” He held his hands open. “No luck.”

  Reacting to the look on my face, perhaps, he added, “Sorry.”

  “Not your fault, of course,” I said. “It’s just that everything seems to hinge on finding this mysterious Craig. I’d hoped he was a coworker, but I suppose that would have been too easy.”


  Davenport sat up straight as a man stepped into the small office. “Here’s Louis,” he said, waving the fellow in. “He used to work with Virginia. I’ll step away while you talk with him.”

  I spent about fifteen minutes meeting and talking with several of Virginia’s former colleagues. They all expressed great regret at her untimely demise but none of them was able to shed any light on who Craig might be or what sort of lists Virginia may have possessed.

  Davenport returned as the last one departed. He’d clearly been busy with paperwork while he’d been away because he dropped a stack of legal-sized pages onto his desk blotter before he sat down.

  “There’s one other woman you may want to talk with. She’s been with the bank almost as long as Virginia had been. Patsy heads up our personal account customer service department.” He pushed his papers aside, turning them slightly, as he scribbled a note for himself. “She should be back in the office tomorrow. I’ll talk with her and ask her to give you a call.”

  “Thanks,” I said, scanning the legal-sized pages strewn across his desk. They’d been filled out with names and personal information, but that wasn’t what interested me. A flash of realization hit. “What is this?” I asked, pointing to the top document.

  “I’m sorry,” he said as he gathered the sheets back up. “My bad. I shouldn’t leave customer information out where it can be seen.”

  “No, that’s not what I’m asking,” I said as he shoved them out of sight. “Do you have a blank form like that one?”

  “Sure.” Clearly puzzled, he nonetheless opened a nearby drawer and sorted through the forms in it until he found what he wanted. A second later, he placed it in front of me. “But I can’t imagine your need for an auto loan, given your financial circumstances.”

  “That’s not why I want to see it.” I scanned the form, quickly finding the exact section I knew must be there. “Here, look.” I twisted the page to make it easier for us both to study it.

  He leaned forward, tilting his head sideways. “This is a standard loan application.”

  “Right.” I tapped the page for emphasis. “One that requires applicants to provide their credit information. Did Virginia have access to these? Completed forms, I mean.”