Dead Men's Tales (Olivia Grant Mysteries Book 2) (14 page)

Since I hadn't needed to fix dinner, having eaten enough at the Hammonds', I returned to the office and worked some more on my notes. I'd had plenty of them before. At that point, I needed to add the conversation with Rose and Debra after Brad left us, plus my earlier talks with Powell and Novotny. I hadn't finished when Brad returned, however, so I left the reception desk and sat in one of his guest chairs to learn the latest from him.

"Did you tell Tom about the insurance policy?" I asked him.

"Yep, but he already knew about it. He said insurance policies are one of the first things they investigate in a murder case. He wouldn't tell me anything else about their progress. Since it's not his case, he's not up on everything anyway."

"Did he say they'll question Rose and Debra again?"

"No, but he did tell me one other very interesting thing. Someone broke into Carl Novotny's house last night."

My sharp intake of breath made a squeaky sound. "Again? First Tuesday night and then Wednesday? Did they take anything?"

"He won't know until they talk to Novotny, but the place looked a mess. Furniture overturned, drawers dumped, closets emptied."

"If Novotny wasn't there, how did the police find out?"

"Some neighbors heard a disturbance and called them."

"A disturbance? Then they were amateurs. Didn't you tell me professional thieves are so good nobody knows they're there?"

"Usually."

"Sounds as if they were looking for something."

"Yep. Maybe that briefcase."

"The briefcase? What makes you think anyone but Amanda has any interest in that? We looked inside. It held nothing but business papers."

"A hunch. Amanda offered me a lot of money to find it."

I scoffed. "The company could afford to pay you well."

"And Novotny gave a pretty lame excuse for why he didn't return it to Amanda on Monday morning."

"I thought his reason sounded plausible. Why is that suspicious?"

"I don't know. Like I said, it's just a hunch."

"Well,
my
hunch is that the briefcase isn't a bit important."

"Nevertheless, someone broke into his house for
something
."

"If that's what the burglar wanted, he didn't get it."

"How do you know?"

"Because I had the briefcase in my car until this afternoon. When I found Novotny lying on his living room floor Tuesday night, I completely forgot about it. I gave it to him at the Hammond house this afternoon after the funeral. Yours is back in its usual spot."

After he glanced toward its resting place next to his desk, I also filled him in on the rest of my conversation with Novotny. I eliminated mention of our upcoming date, however, and suggested he could read my notes for more details.

He opened the Hammond file folder on his desk and glanced at the printed sheets. "I don't see anything about that here."

"I haven't typed it up yet. I'll do it first thing tomorrow. It's past quitting time anyway." I made a hasty exit back to the other office and got ready to go home. Originally, working with Brad was necessary only about two days a week. Lately, I felt like the owner of a twenty-four-hour fast-food restaurant with no employees. I longed for a night of mindlessly watching the drapes fade. Hard work may reward you in the future, but being lazy rewards you at once.

Brad came out of his office and into mine before I could make my getaway. He held up my notes in his right hand, the folder in his other.

"Tell me more about Kevin McDonald. I think he's a possible suspect in the murder."

While Brad perched on the edge of the desk, I repeated my brief conversation with McDonald's secretary, stressing my ingenuity in getting her to reveal Harry had visited with him.

"But I didn't meet the man, so I can't make any judgments about him."

"She told you he's out of town, didn't she? What if that 'out of town' is here in San Francisco? What if he and Harry quarreled and McDonald followed him back here Saturday night and killed him?"

"That's exactly what I thought at first, but now I'm not so sure."

"Why not?"

"Suppose McDonald
was
in town Saturday? That doesn't make him guilty. We don't know what he looks like. Maybe he even came to the funeral." I frowned. "On the other hand, would a murderer attend the funeral of his victim?"

"Of course. Not to attend would look suspicious."

"They were business rivals. Perhaps no one would expect him to come."

Brad got to his feet and turned toward the window, shaking his head. "I wish I'd read these notes earlier. Then I could have looked for the guy." He put the papers back in the Hammond folder.

"I believe most people signed the guest book, so tomorrow I'll try to get hold of that," he said.

"Do the police know about McDonald?"

"Probably not. Like I said, Tom thinks they're not expanding the investigation until they check out everybody up here first."

"They'd better shake a leg."

"Shake a what?"

"Shake a leg. You know, hurry up." I paused and then enlightened him about my expression. "Our grandfather used to say that all the time. Anyway," I hurried on, "didn't they say that the first few days, even the first few
hours
, are critical in solving crimes?"

"Yeah, but I have no standing with the police force. I can't tell them to 'shake a leg.'" He glanced at his watch. "I thought you were going home."

I picked up my handbag. Then another thought came, and I voiced it out loud. "What did Hammond do after visiting McDonald? They met at five o'clock, but he could still have caught a late flight back to San Francisco. Instead, he waited until Saturday to come home. Where did he go Friday night, and why?"

Brad grinned. "I'm glad that finally occurred to you. You're catching on. When I talk to McDonald, I plan to ask him if he knows anything about Hammond's whereabouts that day. Your notes indicated McDonald's secretary said he'd be back in his office tomorrow. I'll call him then."

I said good night. He went back into his own office, and I headed for home. I, too, liked the idea of McDonald being our killer.

Then I thought about Novotny's house being ransacked and couldn't see McDonald doing that. True, I hadn't met the man, but I felt that the head of a large company wouldn't go around trashing people's homes. Not personally, anyway. Of course, he could have hired someone. On the other hand, I could imagine Powell doing that. Powell managed one of McDonald's stores, so perhaps they were in it together.

Still, I didn't like the idea of there being
another
person involved. This case already had too many suspects. Who did the police think broke into Novotny's house? He'd told me he wasn't staying there then, which explained why he didn't get himself bopped over the head again, and we didn't know what, if anything, had been stolen. I found it hard to believe the burglar wanted the contents of the briefcase. On the other hand, maybe the briefcase itself had a secret compartment. Brad and I hadn't looked for secret compartments or removable linings during the short time we examined it in the office.

I visualized that marvelous scene from the old James Bond movie,
From Russia with Love
, where Sean Connery lets the bad guy open his briefcase, knowing it would explode in his face. Still, if there
was
a secret to the briefcase, Brad and I didn't know about it. We had opened the case and didn't end up as human confetti sticking to the office ceiling.

I had no choice but to come to the conclusion that the incidents bore no relation to each other. The dots not only didn't meet, they didn't recognize each other. Someone wanted Harry dead for no other reason than to take over the company. That scenario made Ziegler or even the as-yet-to-be-interviewed McDonald look guilty, and I liked it. I smiled. Then I realized I had stopped at a light, and the man in the car on my left was smiling back at me. Whoops!

On Friday morning, I finished typing the notes of my interviews with Powell and Debra the day before, and Brad read them over. Then the phone rang, Amanda calling, asking for Brad.

After a short conversation in which he seemed to be doing more listening than talking, he came into the reception area and said he'd be having lunch with her.

"As if I couldn't have figured that out." I winked at him. "What other times do you wear a suit and tie?"

"This is strictly business."

"You aren't still working for her now that she's got Harry's briefcase back, are you?"

"She says that when Novotny returned the briefcase this morning, it had no videotape in it."

"Is she certain?" I remembered seeing a VCR cartridge in the briefcase when Brad opened it, but I was sure I put it back.

"She also says she asked Novotny about it, but he denies seeing a tape."

Carl denied it? Strange. Oh well, in a few hours I'd be seeing him and could ask him about the tape then. Yet, I didn't want to tell that to Brad, even though he seemed to be getting involved with a suspect just as I was.

Brad continued. "You said that, before you returned the briefcase to Novotny, it spent a lot of time in the trunk of your car. Could anyone have removed the tape from it there?"

"I don't see how." I remembered something else. "Didn't Amanda say it contained pictures of jewelry? That doesn't sound very important, and you said the police didn't want to see it."

Brad looked puzzled, then spoke softly, as if talking to himself. "Come to think of it, I don't believe I told Tom about the videotape, only the file folders."

"You saw the tape, didn't you?"

"Yes, but now that I remember, you had placed it on the desk behind the open lid, and I didn't see it when I spoke to him." He frowned. "When I find it, I'll check it out, and if there's anything suspicious on it, I'll turn it in."

After he left the office, I wondered if Amanda asked Brad to find the videotape just so she could spend more time with him. The whole idea of there being something suspicious about the thing made no sense to me.

I had my own lunch in the coffee shop downstairs and grinned when I saw Parry come in. She said she'd already had lunch but wanted to talk to me.

"I saw an item on television last night about that Novotny fellow who found Harry Hammond's body."

"Where did you see it? It wasn't on the nightly news I saw."

"Oh, that local news station just loves to report crimes in the suburbs." She grinned.

"So what did they say about Novotny?"

"That his house was broken into, and he was struck over the head and ended up in the hospital overnight."

"Anything else?" I thought they'd surely have mentioned my role in the caper, although nobody from any TV station had called me or taken my picture.

"No, that was all."

So, it seemed I wasn't even going to get my fifteen minutes of fame. I debated telling her I'd had dinner with the man and, in fact, was about to do so again but decided Brad might not want me to say that. If Carl turned out to have nothing to do with the murder and if Carl and I ended up with something going on between us and if I needed to brag about it, I might say something to Parry. But not now.

I returned to the office promptly at one. I went through the mail, throwing out the junk—ninety-five percent of our mail quota—caught up on filing, and watered the plants.

Next, Kevin McDonald telephoned. He said he was in town and if I was Harry Hammond's secretary, he was returning my call. Caught in my lie, I hesitated a moment, then asked him to come to our office where I'd explain everything. When I hung up the phone, I called Brad's cell phone, but he didn't answer. Next I called Amanda's office, hoping to learn where she and Brad had gone for lunch but no luck.

At three, Brad still hadn't returned, but McDonald showed up. He was a tall, dark-haired, slender man who appeared to be in his early forties. That surprised me because I expected him to be older. He and Harry Hammond had once been partners in the jewelry business, so I'd assumed they'd been about the same age. McDonald was also extremely polite and soft-spoken, not a bit like his local manager, James Powell. I thought him better looking than Powell too—refined instead of flashy.

"Ms. Grant?" He stood still while he looked me over.

I jumped to my feet. "Yes. Thank you so much for coming. Mr. Featherstone isn't in his office just now, but if you don't mind waiting…" I waved my hand in the direction of the open connecting door.

He didn't move. "Why did you direct me to Mr. Featherstone's office? I thought you were Mr. Hammond's secretary. Then, when I telephoned, I discovered you're not Hammond's secretary after all. In addition, the directory downstairs says Featherstone does private investigations. What's this all about?"

"I assure you, if you'll just have a seat inside, all will be explained."

His voice acquired a stronger edge. "I've cooperated all I'm going to by coming here, and I don't intend to do or say anything else until you tell me what's going on."

I gave him my most ingratiating smile. "Mr. McDonald, you have every right to be upset, and I'm sorry about my little deception. I had to use a…er…a shortcut. If I'd given you my real affiliation, you might have been confused and not returned my call. I wanted very much to talk to you. It's terribly important."

He didn't answer, just looked annoyed but no longer angry, and he waited for me to continue my explanation. I wasn't sure he even knew Harry had been murdered, so I told him.

"Yes, I heard about that. Terrible thing."

"You may not know that Hammond's daughter, Debra, hired Mr. Featherstone to learn who killed her father."

"That explains part of it. Debra told me she hired a detective."

I continued. "As a result of tracing Hammond's whereabouts prior to the murder, we found he'd visited you in your office the previous Friday afternoon. What did you discuss?"

"Why should I answer your questions? If I made a statement, it would be to the police, but they haven't asked for one."

I barely heard his response because what he'd said before finally made connections in my brain. Debra told him? I put the thought aside temporarily. "Please come inside."

Again he stood his ground, although less belligerently. I hoped to raise him to the "willing cooperation" level, so I kept my voice calm and soft, sort of the way I cajoled Brad and Samantha into tasting foods they swore looked "icky."

"You're quite right. I can't require you to. We just thought you'd rather answer a few little questions from us than have to talk to the police. So far, at least, I don't think they've made any inquiries in Los Angeles, so they don't even know about you. Hammond's
real
secretary didn't know about your appointment."

That seemed to mollify him, and after thinking a bit and fingering his tie, he followed me into Brad's office, and we sat in the two chairs in front of the desk. I smiled a lot. "Thank you so much. This won't take long."

I wished Brad would return. His long lunches with Amanda were beginning to annoy me, but since he wasn't handy, I realized I should be recording McDonald's answers.

"Excuse me." I got up and retrieved the recorder from the desk drawer. "I need to get an exact record of our conversation." I set the machine down on the desk in front of us and pushed the record button. "I assure you, no one else will ever hear it."

He shrugged. "I suppose you could record me surreptitiously anyway, so go ahead. I didn't kill Hammond, and I have nothing to hide. I was in Los Angeles at the time anyway."

"Thanks, this won't take a minute." I hurried on before he could object. "First of all, we understand that you and Harry Hammond once worked together as partners."

"That's true."

"We also heard that you had a falling out and became, er, enemies. I'm sure you can imagine that we found it strange for Hammond to suddenly visit with you in Los Angeles. Can you tell me why?"

"I phoned and asked him to."

Curiouser and curiouser. "Before or after he caught his flight to the city?"

"Before. I told him I wanted to discuss something of a very personal nature."

"Personal?"

"My relationship with his daughter."

So that's where
that
came in. I began to get the picture. James Powell didn't interest Debra, but Kevin McDonald did. "I see. So naturally she confided in you that she hired Brad, er, Mr. Featherstone."

"Yes. We're in touch. We're going to be married as soon as my divorce is final. In the meantime, we didn't want anyone to know, especially my ex-wife. She's demanding a horrific amount of alimony anyway, without adding jealousy compensation."

"Nevertheless, you wanted to tell Harry."

"Yes. Rumors were going around—I don't know how they got started—so I decided to come clean with him and ask him to keep it quiet."

"What about the problems you two had in the past? Didn't he object to your relationship with Debra?"

"At first, yes, but remember, our business breakup took place a long time ago. I was young and foolish and said some things I later regretted." He looked down at his hands for a moment. They were tan, as if he spent time outdoors or in a tanning salon. I voted for outdoors, probably tennis.

He looked up again. "The fact is, we both did very well after the split, so I had no reason for hard feelings. I discovered he felt the same way."

I wanted to play devil's advocate but knew I had to do it carefully. "I see. Good news, wasn't it? On the other hand, since Hammond isn't alive now, I'm just wondering if the police might find that difficult to verify."

"You mean they'd suspect me of killing him just because we had a falling out many years ago?"

"It's possible. You know, I'm sure, that sometimes they can be very, er, overzealous in their approach." I paused to give him time to remember any other too-hasty-police-officer situations he read about in the papers.

He leaned back in his chair. "I should think I'd need a better motive than that. Years have gone by since our split. Why would I wait until now to kill him?"

I shrugged to indicate my own bafflement at the ways of officialdom. "Well, just for the sake of argument, suppose they think that if Hammond could talk, he might deny that you and he came to a friendly conclusion, that instead he demanded you stop seeing his daughter."

"Debra's over the age of consent. Furthermore, let's be realistic. Fathers haven't had control over their children since the turn of the century—the nineteenth century."

"I know it sounds foolish," I continued, "but suppose, just suppose, he told her to stop seeing you or he'd cut her out of his will. So—I know this sounds ridiculous, but bear with me, the police
might
just leap to these conclusions—you followed him back here and killed him."

The look on McDonald's face said he found such a story preposterous. "Why on earth would I do that? I can support Debra in the style she's accustomed to, even if I have to give my ex-wife enough money for a villa in Spain."

Hands gesturing, he got up and paced the floor. "Furthermore, I'd never kill Hammond or anyone else." He stopped pacing and looked at me. "Do I look like a killer to you?"

"Of course not." He not only didn't look like a killer, but I could see why Debra would be attracted to him. If he were a few years older and not already spoken for, I'd consider making a play for him myself. That is, if Carl Novotny decided I was not his type. And, oh yes, provided he hadn't killed Harry.