Board Stiff (An Elliott Lisbon Mystery) (4 page)

FOUR

“Holy crap, Jane killed Leo.”

“I knew she’d kill someone eventually.”

“Surprised it took her this long.”

I turned to Tod and opened my notebook with my left hand, the right still attached to the ice pack on my face. “We should adjourn. And quickly,” I said, nodding toward the board members chatting around the room. “We’ll pick a new date when Jane’s free.”

“Like in fifteen to life,” Tod said and plopped into Jane’s seat at the head of the table.

I moved the ice pack from my lip to my forehead and closed my eyes.

“I’m thinking it’ll be the electric chair,” Carla added. “The jury’s gonna hate Jane. Probably hand down their verdict while the D.A.’s still delivering his closing argument.”

“Stop,” I said. “Let’s just adjourn the meeting and get everyone out of here.”

“Sorry, but that’s just not going to happen,” Tod said. “You can’t buy gossip this good.”

“I better get more croissants,” Carla said and left the parlor carrying an empty silver platter.

I glanced across the room. Members bustled over to the buffet to refill their breakfast plates and coffee. Some took off their suit jackets and cardigan sweaters. One gal flipped off her shoes and tucked her legs up under her.

Tod was right. It would take something bigger than me to shut this sucker down.

“Fine, Tod. But not all day, okay? Try to wrap by lunch,” I said and pushed my hair back. “How’s my face?”

“Not horrible, and no blood. You’ve certainly looked worse.”

Good enough for me. I grabbed my notebook, dropped my make-shift ice pack on the buffet, and left the parlor. I closed the doors behind me with a sigh.

In the foyer, Ransom stood talking to the two uniforms. His hands were in his pockets and he smiled at me. Mr. Casual. Mr. No Worries.

He worried me.

“So what’s going on?” I asked when I reached him.

“How’s your face?”

Preston Wilde stuck his head out from the library. “Lieutenant Ransom? My client and I need more time. We’ll meet you at the station this afternoon.”

“That’s not the way it works,” Ransom replied.

“We would appreciate the courtesy, Lieutenant,” Preston said. His voice became friendly, a tax man used to dealing with the uncooperative nature of bureaucrats. One surly detective was probably no more than a 1040EZ form he could fill out with a crayon.

“Fine. One hour. But if she doesn’t show, I will find her, handcuff her, and parade her down Main Street straight to a jail cell.” Ransom nodded to the two uniforms, and they left through the front door.

Ransom put his hand on my arm. “May I have a minute?”

“Only if you plan on answering my questions this time.”

He leaned in. “Only if you plan on making them personal.”

His hand lingered on my arm as Carla walked up with the platter full of fresh croissants. The warm buttery aroma preceded her by a good ten feet. “Croissant, Lieutenant? Hot from the oven.”

He smiled, but declined.

“Elli, I hate to interrupt, but Mr. Ballantyne is on line two.” She looked up at Ransom. “Lieutenant, you don’t need to rush off, I’m sure she’ll only be a minute. You wait right here and I’ll bring out some fresh coffee.” Carla walked away before he could answer.

“I need to take this,” I said to Ransom. “And you do not need to wait.”

He sat down in one of the wing back chairs and grinned. “I don’t mind.”

Of course not.

I passed the parlor on my way to my office. The members were still sequestered behind the double doors. Popping champagne bottles, no doubt, celebrating board life without Jane Hatting.

Sinking into my desk chair, I wondered how to break it to Mr. Ballantyne about Jane. He was going to be crushed. He personally chose Jane as chair; every year he renewed her seat. No votes, only his appointment.

I picked up the handset. “Mr. Ballantyne, how are you?”

“Elliott! Hello! Hello! How wonderful to hear your voice,” Mr. Ballantyne shouted into the phone. He sounded as if he was using a battery-operated hand-crank telephone circa 1897. “We’ve just finished a late dinner. The food, Elli! So rich, you would adore it. And the tigers in Ranthambore. We took the train from Mumbai. It’s magnificent here!”

Ah. Safari in India. I pictured the Ballantynes with matching leather rucksacks and pith helmets on their heads, trekking across the savannas, aiding small villages and tiny children. I missed the Ballantynes. They’d been gone nearly a month this time.

“About Jane,” Mr. Ballantyne continued. “I’m going to need your help sorting things out with the police.”

“How can you possibly know about Jane? I heard not ten minutes ago.”

“The chief phoned me this morning, and I’ve just hung up with Jane. She assures me she has nothing to do with Leo’s murder, nothing at all, Elli, and I believe her. I need you on this one; I’m counting on your expertise. You’ve helped many a donor out of a pickle before, you can do it again!”

“But Mr. Ballantyne, this is a murder. I’m afraid I don’t have much expertise with those.” As I protested, my mind raced. I grabbed my notebook and started listing questions from yesterday’s excursion to Leo’s house: Why the mess? Where was Bebe? 

“You can do it, my girl! Clear your plate. This is your top priority, your top priority, Elli. We owe Leo and we owe our Jane. I know you won’t disappoint me!”

I scribbled as we spoke: Police suspect Jane. Why? “I suppose I could poke around a bit. I don’t have any other inquiries at the moment.” How much harder could this be? A stolen golf cart, a missing brooch, a man shoved into a clock…My heart sank a bit as I thought of Leo. He definitely deserved better. 

“Oh, yes, just one more inquiry. Zibby Archibald has a small peccadillo. It’s a petite problem, really, but it’s upsetting her deeply. She’s Vivi’s cousin, adores her like a baby with a kitten. After you patch up Zibby, keep your full attention on Jane. We’re off to bed, my dear. Tomorrow the Keladevi Sanctuary.”

“Goodnight, Mr. Ballantyne,” I said, but he was already gone.

“I hope you weren’t talking about poking around my investigation,” Ransom said from the doorway.

I slapped my notebook closed. “What happened to waiting out front?”

“I’m not the type of man who waits.” He slipped into the chair facing my desk. He crossed his legs, resting an ankle on his knee.

I tucked my notebook in a bottom drawer, then sat straight behind the roses on my desk. A lovely barrier between me and the pushy Nick Ransom. I squirted some hand-sanitizer into my palm and rubbed my hands together while I contemplated my options. Throw him out or hear him out? Or both? Hear him out,
and then
throw him out.

“That’s quite an industrial-sized bottle you have there.” He nodded at the big plastic pump filled with green gel. “Is that in case the plague descends?”

“You’re a funny man, Lieutenant. But what can I do for you?”

He moved the flowers to the credenza in the corner. “First, you can stop calling me Lieutenant. It’s Nick. I like it when you call me Nick.”

“What’s with the hot and cold? Saturday night you were all smiles,”–and hands, I thought to myself—“but Sunday you were downright dictatorial.”

“Sunday you were a suspect.”

“But not anymore?”

“Your alibi checks.”

I felt my jaw start to clench. “I didn’t give you one to check.”

“Hotshot investigator, remember? I’m that good.”

I played with the clicker on my pen, studying Ransom while he studied me. Click-click, click-click. He was strong and smart. But then, so was I. He probably had lots of experience investigating murders and shooting guns. I worked with charities and rode a three-wheel bike. Damn. I needed his cooperation more than he needed mine. 

“So, Ransom, this is your meeting,” I said. “What’s on your mind?”

“Tell me about your Ballantyne Foundation.”

“How about we talk outside?” I rose from my desk, carefully avoiding brushing against him as I walked past. “By the way, the flower vase you moved? The gardener delivered it this morning. He has a nasty cold. Going on two weeks. It’s not the plague, of course, but no way I’d touch it.”

I thought I heard the distinctive sound of a small pump behind me.

On the back terrace, a sparkling lap pool stretched twenty-five yards across a fieldstone patio. I walked down the steps to a large sitting area where a cluster of chairs faced the pool and the back lawn. “The Ballantynes have over seventy-five acres. There’s croquet, tennis, a formal English garden, and the largest vegetable garden on the island. Carla grows the most flavorful bell peppers. So crunchy, you can eat them like apples.”

“Where did all the money come from?”

“Mr. Edward Ballantyne, the first, earned his money the old-fashioned way. He inherited it. And he liked to spend it,” I said as I offered Ransom a seat across from me.

The late spring temperature was already over eighty degrees and it wasn’t quite noon. I cranked open a large market umbrella to shade us from the sun. “When Mr. Ballantyne died suddenly in 1959, his only heir, the Mr. Ballantyne of today, took the Foundation reins without restrictions. At twenty-two, just out of college and on the eve of the civil rights movement, the young Mr. Ballantyne made sweeping changes. Especially when he learned the depth of the family fortune. Billions.”

“Did you say billions, with a B?”

“Yep. He married his sweetheart, Vivienne White, three years later. Together they directed the Foundation to reach out to numerous charitable organizations—educational, environmental, social—and have been giving away money ever since.”

Ransom leaned forward. “And the board? How does that work?”

“Members arrange fundraisers and community outreach programs. They review grant packets, sometimes over a hundred applications at any given time. They nominate top picks at general meetings. The packets are handed off to Tod and me for processing.”

“Was Hirschorn favoring a particular grant?”

“Not that I know of. This morning’s meeting was the first of the season.”

“Would someone kill for his vote?”

“Unlikely. A single vote won’t do much good, and honestly, Leo didn’t have much favor with the rest of the board. It’s a very involved process. After Tod and I finish our research, we present the applications to Mr. Ballantyne’s private committee, they make the final decision.”

“And how do you jump from doling out funds to investigating murder?”

“I don’t investigate murders. Just the occasional mishap.” 

I waved my arms toward the back lawn. The thick green grass hosted an orchard of crape myrtles, blooming magnolias, and massive oaks with Spanish moss hanging from them like tinsel on a Christmas tree.

“See that swing?” I said, pointing to an old wood-board swing tied to a thick branch swaying lazily in the breeze. “All my best childhood memories are from right there. Sometimes I think Mr. Ballantyne hung it just for me. I’d swing while my parents attended the Big House parties…the few times they brought me, anyway.”

I glanced back at Ransom and caught him staring at me.

“It’s peaceful,” he said softly.

“Yes, well, island life is slow. Afternoons spent on the golf course or sipping lemonade by the pool. Our citizens stay out of trouble. For the most part. And when they don’t, I step in and fix it.”

He leaned back in his chair and laughed. “I see. So you’re a fixer. Like the Wolf.”

“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying. Don’t let my southern hospitality fool you. I’m a character right out of
Pulp Fiction
, the one you turn to when you need to clean up a dead body.”

“Don’t overreact. It’s just that a mishap isn’t the same as a murder. You simply can’t handle something this big.”

“You don’t know what I can handle.”

“I was in your evidence collection class. You grabbed my pants and slid to the floor in a dead faint during a crime scene slideshow. It’s how we met, remember?”

My palms started to hurt. I’d squeezed my fist so tight, my fingernails nearly drew blood. I slowly released them. “Things have changed. I’ve changed.”

“Elliott, you have a nine gallon barrel of hand-sanitizer on your desk. You aren’t ready to get this dirty.”

“I guess we’ll see,” I said and stood. “Now, if you’ve finished mocking me, I’d like to get back to work.”

He slowly picked up his jacket. “I’m not mocking you, Elliott. I’m serious. This investigation doesn’t concern you.”

“Have you not been listening? Of course it concerns me. You are questioning one board member about the murder of another. This isn’t a job, Ransom, it’s my life. The Ballantynes treat me like a daughter; they’re my only family. They were there for me when my parents died. You left. They were all I had. I won’t let you shred their reputation while you witch hunt my board. Besides, your chief called my chief last night.” I stabbed his chest with my finger. Twice. “I’m in this.”

Ransom stepped forward, his jaw tight. “What did you say?”

“Mr. Ballantyne asked me to find out who killed Leo Hirschorn and I’m going to.” So maybe not exactly what Mr. Ballantyne asked, I thought, but close enough. The extra investigation hours could go toward my PI license, and that also helped the Ballantyne. “I don’t answer to you. We’ve always had the cooperation of the Sea Pine Police, and based on my phone call, this won’t be any different.”

“It will be on my terms,” he said, an edge in his voice.

“If you’d like to think that, have at it. Now, when I said afternoons spent by the pool, I didn’t mean me. I have a job.” I walked along the path by the garden toward the front. “I really liked Lieutenant Sully,” I muttered.

“Maybe you’ll like me, too,” he said over my shoulder. “Just stay out of my way and we’ll be fine.”

“You do the same, Lieutenant.”

I left him in the parking lot and stalked up the front steps, irritated he called me out on my forensic fainting. I may be squeamish, but it’s not as if I was performing Leo’s autopsy. I just needed to find his killer before Ransom arrested Jane and ruined my life. I’m going to need real help, I thought as I marched back to my office. So I’m going to do what any self-respecting woman would do in this situation. I’m going to beg Sully to come back.