by Kathi Daley
“I’m glad you made it,” I whispered. I hoped he’d stick around after. I really needed a distraction from my thoughts, and if there was one thing Colt was, it was distracting.
“I try to make it to all the Parker family events.”
“Oh, look. They’re filing onto the stage,” Lacy whispered.
I returned my attention to the front of the room. The play, in a word, was adorable. Yes, many of the kids forgot the words to the song, and one little boy with curly brown hair and huge brown eyes began skipping around the stage in the middle of a short skit about trees, but the children were precious and I enjoyed every minute of it.
“Did you see that one little girl in the front row who was waving her arms, shaking her hips, and stomping her foot through the entire song about the sunshine?” Georgia said when the group gathered to chat after the play had come to an end. “She was so darn cute. The other kids were mostly standing still, but she was shaking things up with those long dark ringlets and those big brown eyes.”
“Her name is Mandy,” Lacy answered. “She is a real firecracker. Her father was never in the picture and her mother died about a year ago, so she lives with her grandmother.”
“Oh no. That’s so sad. Does she have siblings?” I asked.
Lacy shook her head. “No siblings. When she first came to Holiday Bay, she was pretty withdrawn, but then a stray cat wandered onto her grandmother’s porch and into Mandy’s heart, and having that cat to love and play with seems to have made all the difference.”
“Animals can provide the best therapy there is,” I said. “As crazy as this is going to sound, I really think that Rufus has made all the difference in my own life. He has helped me to grieve and he has helped me to move on.” I paused. “Well, at least I feel like I’ve moved on most of the time. I’m not sure I’ll ever do it completely.”
“I totally understand,” Georgia said. “I would never have gotten through my husband’s death and losing my home if I hadn’t had Ramos to comfort me. There were times I wasn’t sure how I would get through another day, and then Ramos would put his huge furry head in my lap and somehow knew that things would be okay.”
Lacy glanced at Lonnie. “When I first started dating Lonnie, I wasn’t sure I was an animal person, but then I met Sadie and now I can’t imagine life without her. She really does know if I am stressed or overwhelmed. She knows when I am having a bad day and she is always there to offer comfort when I need it the most. Plus, she is so good with the kids.”
Sadie was Lonnie’s frequent sidekick. The border collie came to work with him on most days. She was such a sweet thing. Perfect for a family with six children.
I turned to Colt. “Seems like you are the odd man out, without a furry companion.”
“Maybe once I have a yard I will remedy that situation.”
“How is the house purchase going?”
“I think it is going to work out. I agreed to take it as is, and Doug Palmer agreed to pass his savings from not having to list it on to me. I think the deal we struck will work out great for both of us.” Colt looked at Lonnie. “Do you have some guys who can see to the teardown of the kitchen and the flooring once the purchase is finalized?”
“I always have laborers who are looking for hours. Just let me know.”
Lacy looked toward the now-empty stage. “I should head back and pick up the girls. I’m sure they are ready to go by now. Remember, dinner at our place, on Saturday of next week. I want to hear all about your trip.”
I agreed that we’d be there. Lonnie took the four children he’d been left with to the car and Georgia spotted Nikki and headed in her direction, so I was left alone with Colt.
“I’m glad the house is going to work out. It seems like a great place. Well, it will be, once you tackle the odor.”
“It’s been cleared of garbage and smells much better already. Which is a good thing, because I need to take another good look around.”
“Did you receive the results of the autopsy for Mr. Palmer?” I asked.
Colt nodded. “I did. And you were right. There was something fishy going on. The autopsy showed that there were significant amounts of ethylene glycol in Mr. Palmer’s system.”
“Ethylene glycol?”
“A toxic chemical most commonly found in antifreeze.”
“So someone had been poisoning his food?”
Colt nodded. “It would seem to be the case. It is possible the toxin was ingested in some sort of a suicide attempt, but more likely it was added to his food or drink without his knowledge. The symptoms of ethylene glycol poisoning are similar to those Palmer told his son he’d been experiencing: headache, fatigue, nausea, and vomiting. If he was poisoned slowly, over several days or even several weeks, it would explain his weight loss too.”
“So it had to be someone from the food service. Right?”
“That was my first theory, but I spoke to Dotty, the woman who runs the service, and she swears she knows nothing about tainted food. I also spoke to Charlie and Ernie, the two men who traded off delivering food to Palmer, and neither seem to me to be the type to slowly murder anyone. I really think that something else must have been going on.”
“Like what?” I asked.
Colt frowned. “I’m not sure yet, but Dotty was a cook for the Army and spent quite a bit of time overseas. She is a very nice woman who really seems to care about the seniors and shut-ins she established her service to feed after she retired. She assured me that all the meals are prepared in the kitchen she runs, and that it would be difficult for anyone to add anything to the food that moves through it without her knowing about it.”
“Difficult, but not impossible?” I said.
Colt nodded. “I’m going to do full background searches on Dotty and her volunteers, but I don’t think we’ll find a killer among them.”
“What did Dotty say about the fact that Mr. Palmer had been ill and not eating most of the food that was delivered to his place?”
“Both Charlie and Ernie had mentioned to her that Palmer wasn’t eating his meals during the week or so before his death, and she spoke to Mr. Palmer herself. He assured her that he had the flu and was well on his way to recovery. It did seem as if some of the food delivered each day had been eaten, so it wasn’t as if he wasn’t eating anything at all.”
“It sounds like this could get complicated. Is there anything I can do to help?”
Colt shook his head. “Not really. At least not at this point. After I received the autopsy results, I took another look around the house to see if I could find any evidence of antifreeze. I didn’t. And I spoke to the neighbors, though no one seemed to know anything. The one across the street had been burglarized in the past, so he installed a camera that points toward the end of his driveway and the street. His camera happens to capture Mr. Palmer’s driveway as well as the sidewalk in front of his home and most of his yard right up to his front porch. I looked at the tapes, and the only individuals taped entering the Palmer home via the sidewalk or driveway were the two food delivery drivers.”
“So maybe someone who knew about the camera and how to avoid it snuck into the house and poisoned Mr. Palmer.”
“Perhaps. I also pulled phone and bank records in an attempt to establish a motive, but nothing leaped out at me. In fact, other than a handful of calls from telemarketers, Palmer didn’t get a single call on his landline in over a month. The last call he had received on it that seemed like a legit number and not a telemarketer was from an attorney out of Hartford, Connecticut.”
I tapped a nail against my glass. “A call from an attorney seems like it might be a decent lead. Did you call the attorney?”
“I did. He told me that Palmer called him about updating his will. He refused to share the details, but he confirmed that it had been executed.”
“You know,” I said, “if Palmer did update his will, it stands to reason that the attorney sent him a copy of the revised document. Have you looked for it among his perso
nal documents?”
“Not specifically, but you make a good point. I should see if I can find a copy, and it wouldn’t hurt to go through all his mail while I’m at it.” Colt looked at his watch. “I think I’ll head over as soon as we finish here. Do you want to come along?”
I glanced at Georgia, who was chatting with Nikki. “I would like to go with you, but I’ll need to check with Georgia; we came together.”
“If you want to leave her the car, I can drive you home when we are done,” Colt offered. “I need to talk to you about something else anyway.”
I nodded. “Okay. Just give me a minute.”
Once we were underway, I turned to Colt. “You said you had something other than Palmer’s murder to discuss?”
Colt nodded. “After we spoke the other day, I did some additional digging on Frank Ribaldie. It seems that he is being investigated for some sort of unspecified wrongdoing by internal affairs in his precinct. I was unable to obtain any specific information relating to the investigation, which seems to be a new development, but I did find out he is not the only detective being investigated.”
“Who else is being investigated?” I asked.
“A man named Gray Denver and another named Logan Field. There is also one other detective whose conduct and case files are being scrutinized.”
“Ben,” I said.
Colt looked surprised. “You knew?”
I shook my head. “I had no idea. But Logan was Ben’s partner. If he is being investigated, it makes sense that they might be looking at Ben as well.” I narrowed my gaze. “What does that mean? Does it mean that they think Ben was a dirty cop?”
“I have no idea why these four men are being investigated or how serious it is. The whole thing may never go anywhere, and I suppose it is possible that IA may not even contact you. I will suggest that you not have any further contact with Frank Ribaldie at this point. Actually, you’d be best served to avoid contact with anyone from your husband’s life as a cop.”
“Yeah, okay. I’ll keep that in mind. But surely they can’t drag me in to whatever is going on.”
Colt shook his head. “Probably not, but if it is determined that Ben was doing something illegal, it might mess with his pension, which I assume you are receiving.”
I nodded. “Yes, I am.”
“I don’t want you to worry too much at this point. Internal Affairs exists to look into allegations of wrongdoing, but not everything they look in to leads to anything. In fact, most cops are eventually cleared of whatever they were suspected of. Just because they are looking into something does not mean there is anything to find.”
“Yeah, I know.” I nibbled on my bottom lip. “But sometimes there is.”
“Sometimes. But you wouldn’t know anything about this if I hadn’t taken a look into Ribaldie. No one else has asked you to get involved in any way, so I am going to suggest that you don’t. I’m not sure I should have brought it up to you at all until I knew more.”
“I’m glad you did. If something does come up, I won’t be blindsided.”
“I guess that much is true. I’ll let you know if I find out anything else.”
The sun had set by the time we arrived at the house. Colt had a key, and the electricity was still on, so it was an easy task to let ourselves in to take a look around. As Colt had said, the place did smell better, although it still wasn’t somewhere I would want to spend a lot of time. The most logical place to look for the updated will was the office, so that was where Colt and I headed.
“There is a pile of paperwork on the desk,” Colt said. “I’ve been meaning to gather it up and send it to Palmer’s son but haven’t gotten around to it yet.” Colt picked up a stack of envelopes, looked at each one, and then tossed them into piles as he went.
“Here it is,” Colt said. He held up the envelope, which had not yet been opened.
“Are you going to open it?” I asked.
Colt didn’t respond right away.
I could sense that he was hesitant to open the document, so I took the envelope from him and opened it myself. There was no way anyone would ever know that Palmer hadn’t opened it himself before he died. Once the envelope was open, I pulled out the will. It contained a list of Palmer’s possessions and the intended recipient for each item should something happened to him. “This doesn’t mean much unless we have the original will to compare it to.”
“Maybe it is in one of the file cabinets,” Colt suggested. He began opening drawers. “Are there people’s names listed on the document other than the son?”
I looked at it. “There is a trunk mentioned. It looks like the trunk and its contents were left to someone named Grange Highlander. There is also a safety-deposit box. The contents of that box were to go to a Natalie Norris.” I flipped to the next page. “And there is a bank account whose contents go to a Willard Tisdale. Other than that, it looks as if everything went to Doug Palmer.”
Colt paused and looked at me. “I guess it will be up to the attorney to notify the beneficiaries of Palmer’s death, now that I notified him of his death.” Colt pulled a folder out of the file drawer and opened it. He looked inside, thumbed through, and pulled out a document. “This is an older version of the will.” He began to read. “It looks like almost everything goes to Doug in this one as well. The bank account went to Willard Tisdale on both documents, but the trunk, going to Grange Highlander, and the safety-deposit box, going to Natalie Norris, wasn’t included in the original will.”
I leaned a hip on the desk. “A trunk and a safety-deposit box recently added to a will seems like a clue to me.”
Colt nodded. “I agree. I’ll see if I can track down the beneficiaries. Maybe Doug knows about the trunk and the box and can fill me in with minimal effort on my part.”
“Do you want to try to canvass the neighborhood again?” I asked. “I know no one claimed to have seen anything before, but maybe now…”
“No. It’s getting late. I’m going to take the mail with me to see if there are any other clues to be found.”
“The trunk listed in the will—have you noticed a trunk that might be the one mentioned on the list in the house or garage?”
Colt frowned. “No. Although I haven’t really looked. Let’s do a sweep of the place before we leave. I’m guessing the trunk is filled with keepsakes or other sentimental items that Palmer wanted this Grange Highlander to have and most likely won’t provide a clue to his death, but it won’t hurt to confirm that.”
A search of both the first and second story of the house didn’t net us a trunk, nor did a thorough search of the garage. It was as we were getting ready to leave that Colt had the idea of looking in the crawlspace above the second story, which Palmer’s son had referred to as an unfinished attic. The space was dusty and dripping with cobwebs, so I let Colt precede me into it. I couldn’t see what Colt was looking at in the dark space but he mentioned that he had found the trunk and would take a look so I waited where I was. It wasn’t until he opened the lid and gasped that I suspected that the trunk held something a lot more important than photos or mementos of shared experiences.
“What is it?” I asked, still unable to see into the small dark space.
“It’s not a what but a who.”
Chapter 6
After all the rain, waking to a beautiful sunny sky on the morning we left for Nantucket seemed like a real blessing. I’d spent most of the previous day trying to figure out the mystery of the skeleton in the trunk. Palmer’s son claimed not to know where his father had gotten it. The Medical Examiner was able to verify that the bones belonged to a male who had been about six feet tall. He was also able to determine that the bones were at least twenty years old, possibly older. This, along with the fact that the bones were the only things in the trunk and the flesh and hair had been decayed, at least eliminated the possibility that they were from the victim of a recent murder. As for who Grange Highlander was and why Palmer wanted him to have the trunk—and, presumably, the sk
eleton inside it—was as much a mystery as who the skeleton belonged to and why it had ended up in the trunk in the crawlspace in the first place. Colt had determined that Palmer’s attorney didn’t have an address for Highlander on file. Colt and I had spent the previous day discussing possibilities but hadn’t made much progress. I was, of course, interested in the details and asked Colt to call me if he had any news while I was away. The truth of the matter was, as interesting as a secret compartment in a two-hundred-year-old mantel might be, the skeleton in the trunk was even more alluring.
In addition to finding the trunk, Colt was able to determine that the bank account on Palmer’s list, although technically owned by him, had been opened by his sister to benefit his nephew, Willard. The sister had become ill while her son was still a minor, so she’d left her life savings to her brother, who was to use the money to help support the nephew. Colt’s digging had revealed that the account was set up so Palmer controlled it until his death, at which time any cash that remained would go to the nephew, free and clear. Colt didn’t necessarily believe this to be a motive for murder, but he was planning to find out how much money was in the account when the bank opened this morning.
And then there was the mysterious safety-deposit box that had been left to Natalie Norris. Palmer’s lawyer claimed not to have her contact information either.
As for canvassing the neighborhood, Colt’s efforts didn’t turn up much that he didn’t already know. As before, the neighbors insisted that other than the folks who brought Palmer’s meals from the food service, he rarely had visitors. I asked Colt if the food that had been left on the kitchen counter had been tested for antifreeze or a similar toxin, and he’d responded that he had had it tested and it had come back clean. To me, that meant that someone other than the food service volunteers had most likely provided the tainted food or drink that had killed the old man.
