In the Shadow of Death (15 page)

“We've had some unfortunate thefts. People here are very gullible,” she explained. “They'll let anyone in.”

As he turned to leave, he had another thought. “Do you have a phone number to call, you know, for emergencies?”

She ran her finger down the book again. “There's his home number in Williams Lake. Oh, just a minute.” She reached back to the shelves jammed full of buff files and selected one. “He gave us a local number as well, in case of emergency. Here it is.” She wrote the number on a slip of paper and handed it to him.

“You wouldn't by any chance have the person's name to go with the number?” he asked hopefully, as he tucked the paper into his wallet.

“I'm sorry, Mr. Southby. That's against our policy. I shouldn't have even given you the number, but since there are extenuating circumstances . . . ” She let the sentence die, and Nat hurried out in case she demanded the slip of paper back.

At his office, Nat sat looking at the paper.
I've seen that number before.
Reaching for the telephone, he began to dial. “Teasdale Agency.” There was no mistaking that voice.

“Teasdale Agency,” Catherine O'Neill repeated. Quietly replacing the receiver, he rose from his desk and opened his office door.

He found his Girl Friday thrusting papers into buff folders and happily singing an off-key version of Elvis'
Love Me Tender.

“Henny?”

She looked up from her work. “Ja, Mr. Nat.”

He sat on the corner of her desk. “You want to do some real detective work for a change?”

“Me? You want
me
to do detecting?” She grinned at him. “You must be yoking, eh?” Her Js still came out as Ys.

“No, Henny, my girl. I'm not
yoking
.” He pulled up a chair next to her. “Now listen carefully.” He outlined what he wanted her to do, then repeated it twice more to make sure she understood. “Okay,” he said at last. “You're ready. Dial the number.” Then he slipped into his own office and opened the door wide so that he could watch her. As soon as Henny reached the agency, she gave him the nod and he quietly picked up his own phone.

“Teasdale Agency. Can I help you?”

“Ja,” Henny answered. “This is nurse from Princess Margaret home.”

“You sure you have the right number?” Catherine O'Neill asked.

“Ja. Teasdale Agency. Your number is given for Mr. Guthrie. His mother live here. It say on card, call Mr. Teasdale for emergency.”

“An emergency! Oh, dear. I'll get him for you.” Nat could hear the receptionist talking to her boss. Then Teasdale came on the line.

“What's wrong with her this time?”

“Mrs. Guthrie she is in bad state. We can't reach her son.”

“He saw her last week, for Chrissake,” Teasdale answered. “And he's out of town.”

“Can you give us number to call?” Henny asked.

“I told you. He's out of town,” Teasdale said irritably. “Can't you people deal with it? Isn't that what you are paid for?”

“Can you pass message on?” Henny improvised. “She is very upset.”

“Oh, damn the woman. Look,” he said, “I don't know where he is. Call his home number.” He paused for a moment and then asked, “Are you her nurse?”

“Ja. Sometime.”

“What do you mean, sometime?”

“Sometime I'm her nurse,” Henny looked up at Nat in alarm. He quickly shook his head and made a cutting motion.

“Someone calling me. Got to go, sorry.” She replaced the receiver and leaned back in her chair, her face flushed. “I'm not used to telling lies, Mr. Nat.”

“In this business, Henny,” he replied sadly, “it is sometimes necessary.”

After Henny had left for the day, he went over the conversation between her and Teasdale again.
It doesn't sound as if he knows where Guthrie is. But he could be covering up for him.

There was only one other thing he had to do before leaving for the Cariboo, and that was talk to Guthrie's ex, which posed another problem.

“How can I help you, Mr. Southby?” Agnes Agnew gushed when she heard Nat's voice on the phone.

“Is your boss back?” he asked casually.

“He came in this morning but has left again. Have you found dear Mr. Guthrie yet?”

“No, but you could go a long way in helping me find him,” Nat said.

“Me! How?”

“I need to get in touch with his ex-wife, Debra.”

“I'm afraid I can't help you there,” she answered sadly. “I haven't seen her since the divorce.”

“But doesn't Guthrie's son work for Mr. Nordstrom?”

“Oh, yes. Such a nice young man. Takes after his father.”

“Then wouldn't you have his next of kin on his personnel files?”

“Oh, but those files are privileged, Mr. Southby.”

“But they might help to locate Douglas Guthrie.”

“Oh dear. I wish Mr. Nordstrom was here to advise.”

“I can assure you he would agree, Miss Agnew. After all, Guthrie's his friend, too.” He crossed his fingers. Five minutes later, he sat back in his chair, the information before him. Douglas Guthrie's first wife was now a Mrs. Eric Wright and lived in Seattle.

She answered on the third ring. After introducing himself, he asked if she knew that her ex was missing.

“Yes,” she answered. “Jamie called and told me.”

“He hasn't contacted you?”

“Why on earth would he?” she replied. “We'd gone our separate ways long before we finally split up.”

“You weren't keen on the Cariboo, I take it,” Nat persisted.

She laughed. “That's an understatement, Mr. Southby. I don't like horses, I don't like ranches and by the time I left Douglas, I didn't like him either.”

“Do you mind telling me why?”

She was quiet for a moment. “He was a good father to the kids. Christine adores him and blames me for the breakup, but he has quite a roving eye. Have you met Vivienne Harkness?”

“No, not yet.”

“Well, watch out. Femme fatale, or she thinks she is.” She chuckled in a very pleasing, husky voice. “Anyway, from what Christine's told me, he's dumped Vivienne and got himself a wife young enough to be his daughter.”

“Kate,” Nat answered. “She's the one who hired us to find him.”

“Jamie said she'd hired someone.” She paused for a moment. “Going back to your query, Mr. Southby, it wasn't just his women I objected to. It was that bloody gold mine. He left me on my own for weeks at a time, and the guys he was in partnership with . . . they were a pretty rough crowd. Gave me the creeps, if you really want to know.”

“I've heard about the mine,” Nat answered. “Wasn't there some kind of explosion?”

“Yes. Doug swore that he had nothing to do with it, but it still left a nasty feeling. If you get my meaning.” She didn't wait for an answer but went straight on. “Actually, George Fenwick was the nicest one in that bunch.”

“But according to Albert Nordstrom, Fenwick was a rough character and a heavy drinker,” Nat said in surprise.

“George liked his beer, it's true. But rough . . . no way.”

“I understand he and Chandler wanted to go on mining when Douglas closed shop?”

“Well, yes, of course, they needed to. They'd put everything they owned into that mining venture,” she answered. “Without it they were dead ducks. George used to talk to me quite a lot,” she explained.

“Then he got himself killed,” Nat said quietly.

“Yes,” Debra Wright answered. “George was killed, Chandler went to jail, and that just left the other four.” She paused. “And that's when I got out.”

“Did you know that Sarazine was killed in an accident last week?”

“No, I didn't.” She stopped abruptly. “Look Mr. Southby, I think I've said enough. My husband wants me to put all that stuff behind me.”

After replacing the phone, Nat drew his yellow pad toward him. He and Maggie had a lot to discuss when he saw her on Monday.

• • •

MAGGIE SPREAD THE SHEET
of paper out on the bed. It appeared to be the first page of a contract dated September 10, 1950, to buy
Friendly Freddie's Used Cars,
a dealership in North Vancouver. But it was the name of the law firm that jumped out at her.
Snodgrass, Crumbie and Spencer. Harry's firm!
Quickly, she read the rest of the page.
I need to go back and get the rest of those papers.
But the thought of returning to the old mine by herself made her flesh crawl.
I'll wait until Nat gets here. But . . .
A new thought came to her.
Harry can tell me about it! I'm sure he must remember!

She waited until that evening to call him.

“Margaret, thank God! You got my message, then?”

“Message, Harry? No.”

“I told that . . . that . . . Southby person that there was an emergency . . . ”

“Has something happened to one of the girls?” she asked in alarm.

“No. It's Mother. She's having an operation on her feet.”

“Oh, nothing serious. Well, that's a relief. Now Harry, the reason I'm calling . . . ”

“Nothing serious? I'm talking about my mother, Margaret!”

“You'll need to get a nurse to stay with her. Harry, do you remember having a client about nine years ago named Leonard Smith?”

“What are you talking about, Margaret?”

“You had a client named Leonard Smith,” she repeated slowly. “You negotiated the purchase of a car dealership for him.”

“You can't expect me to remember clients of nine years ago! And you should know better, Margaret. I can't divulge any information on clients, past or present. Especially if it's for that man
you
work for.” She heard him take a deep breath and waited for it. “And your attitude toward my poor suffering mother is . . . is absolutely uncalled for.”

“I'm sorry if she's in pain, Harry.” Maggie felt like a bit of a heel. “How's Emily?” But the phone had gone dead.

I guess I'll just have to wait until Nat gets here.
There was no way she was going to call him and broadcast everything she had learned about the mine, the money or Leonard Smith over the party line phone.

T
he train was three hours late, and by the time it had chugged into the station in the gathering darkness and disgorged its passengers, Maggie was sure that Nat had missed it, anyway. She was turning away, bitterly disappointed, when she heard his voice. “Maggie, Maggie!” Whirling around, she saw him jump from the train. “Fell asleep,” he explained, taking her in his arms and giving her a fierce hug. “God, it's good to see you.”

“I've so much to tell you,” she said, pointing to the Land Rover parked under the street lamp outside the station, “but you look so tired.”

“I'm just about all in,” he replied. “There was a huge rock slide just before Squamish. It's been one hell of a journey.” Automatically he opened the driver's door of the vehicle. “Do you want me to drive?” he asked.

“Typical man,” she laughed. “No. You can sit back and grit your teeth.” She waited until they were out of the town and heading toward the Horsefly Road before she began telling him about her visit to the mine, her descent to the underground cavern, finding the old cooler and the money.

“You went back up there on your own,” he said angrily, “after I told you not to?” He paused for breath. “Maggie, suppose you'd had an accident? Or someone took another shot at you? Did you think about that?”

“Calm down,” she answered, gripping the wheel. “I didn't have an accident, and I had to find out what was up there.” She felt in her jacket pocket and withdrew the folded paper she had taken from the briefcase. “Read this.”

He turned on the dashlight and leaned forward to read, then sat back thoughtfully. “Where have I heard that name before?”

“Think back nine years.”

“Jeez! Of course.” He gave a low whistle. “My God! The Leonard Smith abduction. Maggie, my girl, what have you stumbled onto?”

“When I noticed that Harry's law firm was acting for Smith, I called him . . . ”

“But he wouldn't enlighten you . . . ”

“That's right. Just went on and on about his mother and her poor feet.”

“Ah yes! The bunion file.” He paused, then continued carefully, “Harry called on me. Wanted your phone number.”

“You didn't give it to him? ” she asked in alarm.

“No. Told him you were working on a case. Can't say he was too happy with me. Now about Smith,” he continued, gripping the door handle as they rounded a bend. “Easy there, Maggie. As far as I can remember, Smith owned car dealerships, food marts and that sort of thing. I think he got his start buying up scrap metal before the war.”

“Then he was kidnapped,” Maggie said.

“Yes. From the parking garage in the basement of his office building. The ransom money—$750,000 I think—was paid, but he was never returned.” Carefully he refolded the paper. “I was on the force at the time, and there was one helluva stink because the abductors not only got the ransom money, but also disappeared without a trace.”

“And now I've come upon his briefcase in the old mine, and by the look of it, what's left of the ransom money.” She drove in silence for a few moments. “I wonder if his body is somewhere in that mine, too.”

“You didn't go looking for it, did you?” Nat asked in alarm.

“I'm not that brave,” Maggie said.

They were silent until Nat said, “We never even got a whiff of a lead. He just seemed to vanish into thin air.”

“Do you think Douglas Guthrie's disappearance has anything to do with the kidnapping?”

“Mmm. Nine years ago? That's just about the time his first wife was leaving him and they closed the mine at Shadow Lake.”