Hiding Gladys (A Cleo Cooper Mystery) (13 page)

TWENTY-ONE

“It’s Friday night in
the big town,” said a chipper Nash Finley. “Let’s go to that new Greek restaurant. Eat lots of grape leaves and drink ouzo. I’ll grab a cab and pick you up. That way we don’t have to watch ourselves.”

“You’re going have to give a girl more than a few hours’ notice,” I said, working hard to keep a neutral tone in the face of his jocularity. I liked that he assumed I was in Raleigh, so I decided to coddle his misperception. Thank god for cell phones. “I’ve got lots of work to catch up on. Plus I told Henri I’d help her run a few errands.”

“Bummer,” said Nash. “I was hoping we could—”

“Gotta go, Nash! Henri’s trying to beep in. Call you later,” I interrupted, seeing Mule pulling on his work gloves in preparation for retrieving the casing from the core hole. I didn’t want Nash to hear him crank the massive diesel and give up that I was on-site, standing next to a drill rig.

Now I was even more in doubt about him. His call had brought about another realization. A bad one. A real bad one.

I walked back to where Wink had laid out the last box of core and started logging again. I needed to keep the flow of my suspicious thoughts running, so right away I said to Wink, “You know what you said about how treacherous Nash can be when it comes to taking credit for someone else’s work?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, normally I’m very careful not to ever say anything to anyone that would let them know where I am at any particular time on a job or what I’m doing. But, there was this one time—”

“Uh oh.” Wink grimaced.

“Yeah. And the worst part of that is,” I said, remembering my haste and excitement to see Nash the day he asked me to pick him up at the airport again, “it’s possible he tricked me into giving him … well, more information than I should have.”

“Like what?”

“Like I told him I was unable to see him on the weekend because I was going to the beach house to visit with Will while he was here.”

Wink folded his arms over his barrel chest, waiting for an explanation.

“Don’t you see?” I said. “It wouldn’t have been hard to find Bud’s house. Then all he had to do was watch it to see if I’d hidden Gladys there. Granted, I’m just speculating here. But if he is connected with Ivan Thorpe—and let’s say he told Ivan where I’d hidden Gladys—
then … ”

“Then Ivan sent Robert Earle there to bully her into signing a Power of Attorney.”

“Bingo. Only I showed up and screwed his plans.”

“Are you sure Nash is the only one who could have passed that information on to Ivan?”

I didn’t have to think about it. “Yep. He’s the only one. If he knows Ivan.”

“I’d say this proves he knows Ivan,” Wink said.

I was pacing as I talked. “Even if they are partners, Ivan has more to gain, especially now that he’s a member of the family.”

“By that you mean, if something happened to his mother-in-law.”

“Yes. And let’s not forget that Ivan is the one who smokes cigarillos.”

Wink gave me a questioning look.

“The day after I fell into the well and discovered Irene’s body, I found some cigarillo butts behind that old house in the hayfield. Let’s say someone was staking out that well, someone who smoked cigarillos. Doesn’t that suggest that he knew the body was down there? That therefore he’s the killer?”

This was all beginning to look pretty scary.

“At least we know Nash isn’t a killer,” I added.

“Yet,” Wink said.

“Huh?”

“Consider this, Cleo. If Nash and Ivan were to jump your claim, they’d have to succeed in court too. Like you said, that’s a crapshoot at best. If, however,
you’re
dead, there’s no court fight and they can worry later about reducing the number of people sharing the money in a less noticeable way.”

“Oh yeah. There’s that.” But I didn’t feel anywhere near as collected as I sounded.

“What you need to do, girl, is stay away from those two and keep Gladys hidden until you can wrap this up. We’re done here, so you’re almost home free.”

Yeah, exactly
, I thought.
Keep Gladys hidden. Now all I have to do is
find
Gladys.

Armed with the remainder of my test data and confident in the knowledge my cores were safe and on their way to a locked warehouse at Statewide Testing, I headed back to the Morning Glory.

On the way, I called Gladys’s sister in Florida to see if she’d heard from Gladys. She had not, and so she got upset. I did my best to reassure her that there was nothing to worry about.

Where the hell could Gladys be? She didn’t have a key to my house in Raleigh, but, nonetheless, I called my neighbor and asked if there had been any activity—perhaps a rental car in the drive, lights on at night, whatever. But she also said no.

I got another call. My banker.

“Hey, Lonnie.”

“Cleo, thought you might be interested in hearing a little story.”

“Okay,” I muttered. Lonnie was on my shit list, but it’s never advisable to alienate the man who’s about to lend you four million dollars.

“I was playing golf in a charity tournament in Charlotte yesterday. A friend of mine from a competitor bank was in my foursome. He told me he was working on an interesting small business loan of a type he’d never done before. It was a large term loan to a person wanting to open a quarry. Naturally, this piqued my interest, especially when my friend said his client would be quarrying a rare rock type. I asked what he meant by ‘rare.’ He said rare in regard to its geographical location, explaining that it was rare to find granite on the coastal plain of North Carolina.”

My stomach churned. I looked for a place to pull off the road as hurling up my lunch was fast becoming a possibility. I said, “Did you ask for an exact location?”

“Sure did. He said it was right between the towns of Stella and Silverdale.”

The satellite space between us hummed. I couldn’t speak.

“You there?”

“Yeah, Lonnie. I’m here. Just thinking.”

“Are you thinking that someone tapped into your deposit, maybe where it extended onto the neighboring property?”

“No, because that’s not possible. Anyway, I’ve already bought the options on all the surrounding property to cover right-of-way needs should they arise sometime in the future. Moreover, the granite dome I’m prospecting is totally confined within one parcel of property, the one on which I have an option.”

“Maybe there’s another granite dome down that way somewhere?”

“Not likely. In fact, that would be a million-to-one shot.”

“Soooo, what could be happening then?”

“Tell me something,” I said. “Did your friend say he’d seen the site plans and the testing data?”

“Don’t know about site plans, but he did have data and he even had a sample of the rock.”

I knew at that instant without a shadow of a doubt who’d snuck onto my site while the crew and I were at lunch, broken into the first box of core and stolen a hand sample. And, as for wondering if someone could have gotten a duplicate key to Wink’s truck and all the test data? The answer to that was yes as well.

Nash Finley might be a salesman now, but he’d worked with Wink before and knew where his crews always kept duplicate keys for his truck. He knew which hotels the drillers and foreman used when testing in this area. All he had to do was wait until Wink went to bed, take the data from the cab of his truck, copy it, return it by morning, and no one would be the wiser.

Wink was right. He was one slick, nasty, claim-jumping bastard.

“Lonnie,” I said reassuringly, “I know what’s going on and you’re not to worry about anything. This type of thing happens all the time. Just routine, really. I have everything under control and my presentation will be ready for Tuesday. I’ll bring it to you myself Monday so you’ll have extra time to look everything over.”

“You’re not worried?”

“No. But one more question. Do you remember the name on the option? Was it a company or an individual?”

“A company, but I don’t remember the name. Something with initials.”

“Uh-huh. And was it a Charlotte-based company?”

“Yeah.”

I swallowed hard. Nash was from Charlotte.

TWENTY-TWO

A long stretch of
desolate road cutting through a low marshy area presented itself just in time. I pulled over and jumped out, ran around the Jeep, and threw up.

Not only had I been duped like some amateur into giving up information I’d normally never dream of letting slip, I’d done it for sex. To satisfy my curiosity about sleeping with Nash, I’d nearly lost my life’s dream.

I heaved again at the realization that I’d … Hell, I couldn’t even bring myself to think the words. But I had to face the truth: I’d acted like a man. My face burned red with the shame of it.

What next? I straightened up and wiped my face with the tail of my T-shirt.

Wait a minute. The operative word here was
nearly
. I’d
nearly
lost my dream—but not yet. I could still fix all of this.

Never mind that Nash had copies of my data, a lousy hand sample, and a phony option. I had the original drill data and matching cores. I had bills, statements, and a proper option all signed, dated, and waiting to be filed in the courthouse, not to mention a business plan complete with startup costs compiled by the best accountants in the mining business.

But most important, I had Gladys. That is, I would after I found her. I stood in the late afternoon heat and looked up and down the lonely two-lane road. On either side Spring Peepers and various other toads called out to the setting sun as it poured liquid gold across the western horizon. From somewhere deep in the swampy woods a great horned owl hooted.

Gladys, where are you hiding now?

A chill raced over my body as I recalled something Wink had said. That Nash could avoid a protracted legal battle if I were suddenly out of the picture. I jumped in the Jeep and gunned it for the Morning Glory.

Tulip went straight to the bathroom to drink from the eternal spring and I started to close the door but met an obstacle.

“Hi Mom,” Will said, sweeping past me into the room. He sat his laptop on the desk in front of the window and pulled up a chair. “Yours is the first mining presentation I’ve done, so I want to run a few things by you. I think we may need to make some changes.”

Still holding the door open, I said. “Uh, okay. In any case, you’re a pleasant surprise. How did you get here?”

Will didn’t have time to answer, because just then, Bud sauntered in and gave me a peck on the lips. “Yuk. You smell like vomit.”

“Flattery’ll always work,” I said, closing the door. “And what may I ask are you doing here?”

“Just a friendly service call. Ex-husbands have responsibilities, you know.”

“Yeah, well, my account doesn’t need servicing,” I said, moving past him to the bathroom to brush my teeth.

“Actually, I’m here because I brought Will,” Bud said, following me. “He’s going to need more time with you than he thought, right Will?”

“Right, I hope that’s okay with you and since tomorrow’s Saturday, I was hoping you wouldn’t have to be at the site and we could get some work done here,” Will answered clacking away at his computer.

“Actually, I’m done out there and I’ve got the last of the drill data too, so that will work out very well.” Actually what I wanted to do was get out and find Gladys, but I had to face it: I had no idea where she was. I needed to put some serious thought into how to go about finding her.

“Glad that’s all settled,” Bud said, heading for the door. “I’ll go see to a room for Will.”

“I’ll take care of that,” I said.

“Okie dokie, then,” Bud said, then stopped in the doorway with an afterthought. “I’ve got to run back to Wrightsville and get that railing knocked out tomorrow, but I was thinking, why don’t I come back over tomorrow evening and we’ll all go to the Sanitary. We haven’t done that in a long time. I’ll take Will back with me when we’re done.”

The Sanitary, as the locals refer to it, is an old landmark seafood market and restaurant on the Morehead City waterfront. The prospect of dinner there and a quiet word with Bud gave me a sudden warm and fuzzy feeling. We’d had our problems, 90 percent of which were brought about by Bud’s constantly trying to protect me. Someone trying to protect me right now? Maybe not such a bad idea.

“Sounds like a plan,” I said.

Will and I worked well into the night putting the computer program together. While being both interesting and challenging, however, it renewed my conviction that I’d made a smart career choice when I steered away from anything requiring daily use of a monitor and keyboard.

Saturday morning we were back at it again. Gratefully, Tulip needed periodic walks that gave me time to clear my head and think about where Gladys might be.

Finally, all the hard work and noggin-scratching paid off. By the end of Saturday, the program looked like something from Madison Avenue. True to his nature, however, Will thought a few more tweaks were necessary; we were just going over them when Bud blew back in.

I glanced up at the clock. Crap! Time had gotten away from us. “Ready for dinner?” Bud asked, smiling, looking all tan and handsome.

“Count me out,” Will said. “Tulip and I are going to order in pizza and keep on working. Aren’t we, girl?” Tulip beat a wholehearted tattoo with her tail.

“Uh … ” I looked at Bud, disappointment starting to cloud his face. “Sure. Just give me thirty minutes.”

I’d decided in the shower not to let myself get hung up replaying the scene of Bud and the mystery babe. I needed to let him in on my Nash Finley suspicions—minus any mention of my lack of good judgment, of course.

Bud was waiting for me in the parking lot when I finished getting ready. “Nice,” he said with an appreciative sniff. “Big improvement over yesterday.” I looked at Bud’s even features. Picture a fifty-year-old version of the actor Edward Norton. Well, you get the idea. Not really handsome, but he had his charm.

“About yesterday,” I said. “I’m glad we’re going to be alone. We need to talk.”

Evans Street runs along the waterfront in Morehead and during the summer season, it’s always packed with visitors and locals alike. Bud managed to snag a parking spot in a lot across the street from the restaurant and by the time we were seated, I’d told him just about everything.

“Doesn’t surprise me one bit,” Bud said, watching a skipper nestle a sixty-foot sports fisherman into its slip with ease. “I’ve always known Finley was as crooked as that rattler he put in your car. I can’t imagine what you ever saw in him.”

“Bud, let’s not go there … ”

“Well, just remember, I thought from the get-go he might have had something to do with the snake incident.”

“Actually, I remember that you wondered about it, but then, after someone shot Tulip and I got pushed into a well with a dead body in it, you thought I was being melodramatic when I suggested someone was trying to scare me off. Right?”

“Well, yeah, okay. I just couldn’t believe anyone would go to such lengths to control the rights to a pile of rock. Which brings me to a question I’ve had ever since all these incidents started up. Just exactly how much money are we talking about if you pull this whole mess off?”

“After I pay Gladys a little over a million to exercise the option, there’s a term loan that amounts to another three million. Even considering operating expenses, taxes, insurance, etc., I’ll be pulling in an annual income of … well … it will be over a million, maybe more, depending on demand and the economy.”

A waitress showed up, sat glasses of iced water on the table, took our orders and hustled off. “That’ll be a nice little chunk of change for you,” Bud said nonchalantly.

Bud’s family’s business is a large multinational conglomerate and as CEO, he deals with million-dollar deals on a regular basis. I, on the other hand, have heretofore only
consulted
on multimillion-
dollar deals.

“Well, one man’s chunk of change is another’s pot of gold,” I said dryly.

“Wait, I’m not minimizing your achievement. Actually, I was going to say … ”

Bud was interrupted when a couple we knew from our married days stopped by our table. After the usual exchange of polite information—what our kids were doing, what their kids were doing, blah blah blah—they left and Bud said, “What I was trying to say was … ”

“Forget it,” I said, impatiently as the waitress returned with our drinks. “Anyway, the ‘chunk of change’ you referred to isn’t a done deal yet.”

“So what’s left to do?”

I blew out a frustrated sigh. “Besides keeping Gladys out of Nash and Ivan’s reach, not much but the presentation for Lonnie and the top brass from the bank. After I get their okay, I exercise the lease part of the option to test—Gladys needs to sign a few more documents concerning her royalty payments—then I file a memorandum of lease in the courthouse in Onslow County. It’s the keeping Gladys away from Nash and Ivan part that is worrying me. Why doesn’t she just call me? I don’t understand.” I sipped my wine quietly for a moment.

Bud read my thoughts, “You have to wonder. I mean, Robert Earle is dead, funeral arrangements have to be made. Why wouldn’t she be at home with her daughter, unless she feels she’ll still get pressure to kick you out of the equation by signing a Power of Attorney.”

We watched quietly as the waitress laid out our meal. I speared a tasty fried shrimp and strained to think of where Gladys could be.

“What about relatives she could stay with?” Bud asked.

“She doesn’t have many left.” I said. “I’ve checked with her sister in Florida and her cousin is dead—remember the well? I don’t know if there was anyone besides Irene … Hey, wait a minute!”

“What?”

“Just eat up. I think I might know where Gladys is hiding out.”