Hidden Justice

by J K Ellem

  "Aren't you going to get fully dressed?" Shaw asked as he pocketed the phone.

  Abby feigned a look of shock. "Don't you like what I'm wearing?" She did an effortless twirl in the middle of the kitchen. Shaw stood back and looked at her. She had retro-styled her hair in waves and curls reminiscent of the Hollywood actresses of the 1920s and 1930s. She wore a stunning Chanel vintage drop waist crochet dress in gold tone that featured spaghetti straps and a pleated skirt. The dress seemed to have been made just for her shape and was a little too sheer.

  "It will get cold," Shaw replied. Then he quickly added, "But you look incredible. Truly."

  Abby beamed. "So, why don't you accompany me?" Shaw had thought about it, not because he wanted to socialize, but because of the woman he had seen today at the bistro. Abby would be safe surrounded by her friends, and the property was just a short distance from her own house.

  "Just call me if you need me. And don’t walk home alone.”

  "I need you now," Abby replied. She held Shaw's gaze, her face expressionless. The offer unmistakable. "We have time."

  Shaw smiled, a little uncomfortable. It would have been easy, too easy. She was certainly different, stunning in an unusual way and it was tempting for him. But it wasn't his style.

  "Just take care tonight Abby, please."

  Abby stepped forward and reached up on her tippy toes and touched Shaw's face. "That's twice today you've said that,” she whispered, her eyes searching his, the subtle smell of her skin enveloping him, intoxicating. "What's wrong?" she asked.

  There was something wrong in this town, something or someone hiding in the periphery. For what reason? Shaw didn't know. But he was going to find out.

  "Nothing, everything is fine. I just want you to be safe."

  Abby smiled and gave Shaw a peck on the cheek, rubbed off her lipstick with her thumb, then gracefully withdrew. "Teddy wouldn't dare touch me in front of anyone tonight. As for what he did to my car, he should be more worried about me than me worried about him. Plus, I have my friends with me."

  “I don’t know if it was him who did it,” Shaw said, knowing full well it was more than likely Teddy Hanson was behind it.

  “I’ll deal with him when I’m ready to, on my terms.” Her phone pinged. "My ride is here."

  Shaw escorted her to the entry gate of the driveway where a car was parked waiting. She took one final look at Shaw and laughed. “Do wait up for me.”

  Watching her go, Shaw couldn't help think if he’d made the right decision.

  The road out of town was straight and a cool ocean breeze rolled in off the darkening water. The last rays of daylight were almost gone, leaving behind a fading horizon of burnt orange.

  Shaw drove past the library following the directions Annie Haywood had given him. Soon the street lights became less and the road dipped. He turned off the main road and followed a back road, a thin ribbon of asphalt which he guessed ran parallel to the beach. The back road was lined with scrub and the occasional mail box marking the entrance of a property that lay hidden beyond unruly hedgerows.

  The road ended at a thick wall of vegetation.

  This was the spot.

  There was a small dirt track off to the right that Shaw followed. It led towards the beach, down through a dark tunnel of thicket and gnarly bramble. The dirt track eventually opened on to a sandy path studded with beach grass that threaded its way amongst cold dark dunes.

  He could hear the sound of the waves crashing up ahead, the landscape around him a muted ghostly gray. Glimpses of the beach and cresting waves could be seen between the dunes on his right, a silent fork of lightning raked the night. A storm building far out at sea.

  The sandy path eventually delivered him to the front steps of a small cottage. A front porch light cast a yellow glow into the darkness and light seeped through windows with drawn curtains.

  The air was fragrant with the smell of the ocean, wood smoke and the distinct aroma of herbs and ripened tomatoes. Someone was cooking inside the cottage and instantly Shaw felt guilty. He should have brought something.

  The timber creaked as he climbed the steps to the porch, knocking on the screen door. Footsteps pattered on the other side, the sound of keys rattling and then locks turning.

  The door opened, light spilled out and the outline of a person appeared, lit from behind, their features obscured by the screen.

  "Welcome." Annie opened the screen door and stood aside.

  There was an awkward moment as they both stood in a narrow hallway; Annie with her hand resting on a hall stand that sat against the wall and Shaw looking around.

  Annie had her hair down, she wore an off the shoulder sweater, faded jeans and was barefoot. A red checked dishcloth was tucked into the front of her jeans. "You had no problems finding the place?" Annie asked. Her directions were deliberately scant, a test to see if he could navigate his way here in the dark.

  "No, your directions were very detailed," Shaw lied.

  Annie nodded. “Good. Come on through."

  Closing and locking the door she led the way past an open small living room where a fire was crackling in the fireplace and on into the kitchen. Pots were bubbling on the stove top, the air rich with the smell of Italian cooking. A glass of red wine sat on the bench top next to a cutting board, and a partially diced bunch of wild oregano with a large kitchen knife. The place was warm and cozy.

  "I don't have any beer."

  "Red wine is fine," Shaw said.

  Abby poured him a glass and resumed chopping the herbs, with skilled, deft strokes of the blade Shaw observed as he took a sip of the wine. It was earthy, smooth and velvety.

  "This is nice,” he commented looking around. "How long have you lived here?"

  Annie didn’t look up, her mind focused on cooking. "Just a few years." She placed pasta into boiling water, lifted the lid on a heavy pot and stirred something rich, thick and red inside, tasting it with a wooden spoon before adding the fresh chopped herbs and a pinch of salt.

  "Dinner won't be long," she said replacing the lid. "I hope you are hungry."

  "Annie, I feel bad, I should have brought something," Shaw confessed. "I didn't want you to go to any trouble, honestly."

  Annie waved him away with the dishcloth. "Nonsense. A girl's gotta eat," she replied. "I like cooking and I get tired of cooking for one then eating alone." She lowered the heat on the sauce and pasta to a simmer and returned to the bench where the knife lay. "It's nice to have someone to share a meal with." She picked up her glass and took a sip, watching Shaw intently over the rim of the glass. "Come on, I'll show you what I've found."

  20

  They moved into the living room with the fire crackling and hissing, and the herb-laced smell of the pasta sauce wafting through from the kitchen. Annie sat crossed legged on the rug, balancing her laptop on her knees, piles of paper strewn around her, the result of her in-depth research she had been doing in between making dinner, drinking wine and making sure her gun was loaded.

  Shaw sat behind her on an old fat couch, looking over her shoulder.

  Annie handed some pages back to Shaw as she read from the laptop screen in front of her. "Let's start with Edward Brenner." She had also downloaded more articles, newspaper clippings and other documents she had retrieved off public websites as well as from a number of state and national library archive databases she had access to. Her hands clicked, swiped and typed rapidly. She was building her own relational database, linking the articles, public and archived records and news reports into a graphical time line before and after Edward Brenner’s disappearance.

  For Brenner Industries, she had searched, and curated whatever company announcements, press releases, and newspaper articles she found. Since it was a privately held company, no specific earnings reports or financial information was publicly available, only speculation as to what the company and the family was worth.

  Shaw looked at just a portion of the paperwork Annie had printed off. "How did you learn
to do all this?" Shaw asked in amazement.

  Annie spoke without looking up from the screen. "I'm an accountant by trade. Analyzing information, doing research, looking for trends, separating fact from fiction are part of what I used to do."

  "What, like a CPA?"

  Annie nodded, then told Shaw how she used to work for a few large accounting firms in Boston before moving to New York. Her last job was working for a large family business based in Brooklyn. When Shaw asked for more details, she changed the subject. “Here, I found something interesting in an obscure on-line news website about Edward Brenner's death and the estate he left behind. It's a small home-grown news site that seems to do more investigative journalism and reporting, focusing on odd crime-related incidents."

  "But no crime has been committed," Shaw replied.

  "Well, his disappearance was picked up on their radar." Annie scrolled down the page. "Turns out that the family money is all locked up until Edward Brenner's body turns up, dead or alive."

  "That's nothing new. You have to wait seven years before someone is declared officially dead if they go missing,” Shaw said.

  Annie nodded. "It's called, ‘death in absentia.’ Seven years is the common law time limit that a family has to wait before they can access the estate."

  "That's a long time for Abby and her mother to wait." Shaw knew little about the laws of death in absentia other than it is only after the time period has elapsed that a court will declare the presumption of death if the person doesn't reappear. A death certificate is then issued by the court and the family members can finally access the assets and money. It can be a long drawn out process. Sometimes private detectives who specialize in finding missing persons are engaged by the family to try and locate them. There have also been cases where a court has declared a person dead, the money from the estate distributed to the beneficiaries only to have the person reappear again years later. Prior to his disappearance, Edward Brenner had granted Abby an allowance from her trust fund.

  "I agree, but according to the article, the laws in the State of New York are different. Here we have only a three year time limit."

  Shaw scanned the pages in his hand.

  "I've confirmed it," Annie said. "That means—"

  "When is the three year anniversary of his disappearance," Shaw interrupted, jumping ahead.

  "In two weeks." Annie let her answer hang for a while. For a few moments the only sound came from the crackling of the logs in the fireplace.

  "So they get the money, big deal." Shaw finally said.

  Annie turned around and looked at Shaw. "Or he shows up in two weeks’ time, just before the time limit expires."

  "What's the motive?" Shaw handed back the pages. "What possible motive would Edward Brenner have in faking his own death or hiding for three years only to suddenly return?"

  "I haven't figured that out yet." Annie called up another file and continued talking to the computer screen. "If someone wanted to gain from his death wouldn't they just kill him, make it look like an accident or suicide?”

  "Many insurance policies do not pay out on the grounds of suicide," Shaw said. "Once again Annie, who would profit or benefit from Edward Brenner’s death?"

  "The family for one."

  "Maybe that's too obvious. I'm sure the police have interviewed them all," Shaw added. "What about a crime of passion, maybe not motivated by money?"

  Edward Brenner was certainly not an ugly man, he'd kept his age well and had the roguish, no-nonsense look like Harrison Ford that women young and old found appealing.

  "What is it that they say?" Annie said, "seventy-percent of the time it's a friend or relative of the deceased who did it. Someone they knew, intimately."

  "But is he?" Shaw added. "Is Edward Brenner ‘deceased’ as you say?"

  "He could be. Either at the bottom of the ocean or in a shallow grave somewhere."

  Shaw laughed. "Maybe you've seen too many true crime shows."

  Annie had to admit, she was a huge fan of shows like 48 Hours. She found it fascinating at what lengths boyfriends, husbands, wives went to conceal a crime of passion, jealousy or financial gain. At times she would watch police interviews on the news where the crying, inconsolable husband or wife of the missing or dead person would be standing right next to the police officer during the public appeal. Annie would point at the friend or relative on the TV screen and say accusingly, "It's you, you bastard. You killed them. Where did you hide the body?" Weeks later she would see on the news the same family member, but now in handcuffs being taken into custody. “I told you so.”

  Annie went to the kitchen to stir the sauce and check on the pasta. She came back with a bottle of wine and refilled Shaw's glass. "Maybe he's still alive," she said looking down at Shaw, her knee touching his as she stood in front of him.

  "So, where is he then?" Shaw looked up and held her gaze. "And why would he be in hiding?"

  Annie shrugged, "A lot of people hide at some point in their lives."

  Shaw could sense the conversation was shifting. It was the way Annie spoke, the change in her posture, how the edges of her mouth had lost their smile. "That's because of fear," Shaw continued. "They're running from something or from someone. They don't want to be discovered."

  "Maybe Edward Brenner did something wrong." Annie sat back down on the rug, this time facing Shaw. "It would have to be something really bad for a man of his stature to just up and leave, to run and leave his family behind."

  Shaw agreed. "Like he was in real trouble, maybe financially. Maybe there's nothing in the estate after all. Maybe he lost all of his fortune on some bad investments or deals and couldn't face the shame of telling his wife and daughter."

  Annie leaned back on her elbows on the rug and looked up at Shaw, her legs parted slightly. "What would make you run and hide Ben?" she asked, a sly smile on her face. "What are you hiding from?"

  The conversation had definitely turned. "What makes you think I'm hiding from anything?"

  Annie looked into the fire for moment, the flames and heat dancing off her face. She turned back to Shaw. "Well, you stroll into town with nothing but a rucksack over one arm, but you don't look like a tourist."

  "What do I look like then?" Shaw wanted to know. Was Annie Haywood just curious or was she challenging him? It was usually him asking the questions, but it felt like Annie was subtly interrogating him. A breed of animal can recognize the scent of its own kind. A serial killer can spot the idiosyncrasies of another. A pedophile can spot another in a crowded playground, can pick them out amongst the plethora of background noise, shapes and parents.

  Annie straightened one leg so her bare toes touched Shaw's ankle as he sat on the couch. Her eyes narrowed. "I think you are a loner. I think you don't really like people, prefer your own company."

  "So, you're a psychologist now?"

  "I like to observe people," Annie replied. One toe angled inwards and began rubbing Shaw's ankle back and forth. "And I see a man who doesn't like to stay in one place for long, not a drifter, but an explorer, searching for something."

  "I thought you said I was hiding from something."

  "Maybe you are. You seem like the kind of person who looks over their shoulder a lot, just to see if anyone is following them."

  Shaw wondered if he and Annie Haywood were more alike than different. Shaw had never been big on self-analysis. Maybe Annie Haywood saw herself in Shaw. He'd been on the road for nearly a year now and didn't really know how to categorize himself. He enjoyed the nomadic lifestyle he had, not having to worry about anything. Having the freedom of getting up each morning and greeting the day with no expectations or plans at all. He hated the terms "drifter" or "vagrant” because they tended to be lazy people who had no goals or ambitions or had checked-out of society. That wasn't him. Love it or hate it, society in its many forms was here to stay. He still had goals and ambitions, they just had changed over the years. But he liked the term "explorer" that Annie had used.

  "G
o on." Shaw was curious now.

  Annie slid a little closer, the strokes of Shaw's ankle more pronounced. "You get bored easily but you're not chasing excitement all the time either. You're settled in yourself, you are comfortable with who you are but you're unsettled with the world. You seem jaded about something, maybe someone close to you let you down."

  Shaw smiled, "You should pitch a tent and get some tarot cards."

  Annie liked it when he smiled. She edged closer still, wriggled the sole of her bare foot under the cuff of Shaw's jeans, surprised but not ashamed of her new-found confidence. Her foot began working its way up his calf, pushing the fabric higher. Her foot was warm and soft, her toes spreading, gripping then rubbing his skin. Shaw shifted slightly on the couch, his arousal growing. He had no idea just how sensual the touch and feel of someone's bare toes on your skin could be.

  Annie smiled, enjoying watching Shaw squirm.

  "What about dinner?" Shaw asked, his arousal becoming obvious now, the tightness under his jeans almost unbearable. "Won't it burn? Be overcooked."

  "I've drained the pasta and turned off the sauce so it'll keep warm." Annie looked at Shaw's lap. Her lips parted and she let out a breath at what she saw. It wasn't a trick of the light or an odd fold in the fabric of his jeans.

  Maybe it was the red wine she had consumed. Maybe it was the heat of the fire. Maybe it was the fact that for over two years she had led a reclusive life in Erin's Bay, alone in her secluded cottage, without much company and certainly not the company of a man like him. In the first twelve months she didn't want to see anyone, interact with anyone, her libido all but non-existent, a symptom of the stress and anxiety. And she was happy with that fact. It didn't bother her. It's what she wanted, what she needed at that point in her life.

  But now maybe it was time to rekindle that part of her life that had been missing. She had rebuilt herself all except for that final piece. She wasn't looking for some deep and meaningful relationship. Just mutual, physical, stress-relieving sex. Two adults enjoying each other. No strings attached.