Mourning In Miniature (25 page)

My first, unspoken, response was what Ben himself had just said: “Yeah, right.”

“Is there anything to the rumor”—I made up one on the spot—“that your boss was involved in some kind of preferential treatment for certain contractors?”

“Who told you that?” Ben asked.

“It’s public knowledge that the awards for all the recent projects at the Duns Scotus, like remodeling and equipment upgrades, have gone to Mellace Construction here in Lincoln Point. It’s either a coincidence or something shady is going on.”

“Shady, I like that. But I wouldn’t know anything about it.”

Between the miserable weather and the barely abating fear I experienced from having Ben Dobson in my car, I was ready to give up. Maybe my recollection of the incident between David and Ben was exaggerated, made into something it wasn’t, out of a desire to lay blame for the murder on anyone but Rosie.

I took a breath, amazingly calm and sure I wasn’t in danger from Ben. Not at the moment anyway. “Can you tell me one thing? What were you doing in the woods just now?”

Ben got out of the car, closed the door, and leaned in. He gave me a wicked smile. “You’re too much of a lady for me to tell you.”

I couldn’t help smiling back, though I didn’t believe him for a minute.

 

 

I wasn’t ready to face Skip or Rosie. Thanks to very poor
decisions today, I was hot, bothered, and hungry. A quick side trip to Sadie’s would take only ten minutes if it wasn’t too crowded. I’d get a chocolate malt to go and imbibe while I drove to the police station. So far there was no California law against eating while driving.

My parking spot facing the woods was right behind Sadie’s. I got out of my car and left it unlocked, the windows down. There was nothing worth stealing and it would be much better than coming back to an even hotter car.

I wished I had time to get the car washed, inside and out, to erase the presence of Ben Dobson. Though I hadn’t been as afraid of him at the end of the exchange as at the abrupt beginning, I still had an uneasy feeling. Maddie would have called the whole meeting creepy.

With long legs and the image of a chocolate malt spurring me on, I reached Sadie’s in less than five minutes and joined a short line. I fished my wallet out of my purse, licked my dry lips, and waited, feeling guilty that I wasn’t already on my way down Springfield Boulevard toward Rosie.

My turn at last. “The usual, Gerry?” Colleen asked.

“Yes, but I’m on a very tight schedule today.”

Most days I enjoyed chatting with Colleen, Sadie’s lovely Irish daughter-in-law, especially about her graduate school classes in political science. Today, she caught on quickly to my pressing need and prepared my malt in record time. I couldn’t wait to take that first long sip of the thick chocolaty liquid.

“Hi, Mrs. Porter,” a girl’s voice said. “We just saw you. Where’s Maddie? Isn’t she out of class by now?” I turned around and nearly tripped over Taylor. I followed her pointing finger to a table in the back where Henry sat with a sundae in front of him. “Come back and eat with us.”

Not again. This would be my third strike today if this were a game with Henry Baker. I went back and forth about how I’d spend the next hour. Did Rosie really need me? She hadn’t called, so maybe everything had been resolved without me. Didn’t I deserve a little ice cream break with friends? But what if Rosie was in custody?

My better self won. “I’d love to,” I told Taylor. “But I really can’t right now. I have a very important errand to do.”

Taylor’s face fell. Her pout was a lot like Maddie’s—therefore, nearly irresistible. “Just till you finish your shake?”

I hoped she caught the sadness in my sigh. “There’s someone waiting for me. In fact that’s why I don’t have Maddie with me.” I laughed and gave her a playful poke in the shoulder. “Do you think Maddie would ever let me come here without her if I weren’t on my way to a very serious meeting?”

Her face brightened. She got it. “I guess not. Maybe we’ll see you later.”

“For sure,” I said.

I caught Henry’s eye and waved. He gave me a thin smile and waved back, then put his head down and turned his attention to a pile of whipped cream.

I left the shop, still without a sip of malt. I felt I owed Henry an explanation, though I wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t as if I’d broken a date. Maybe because I wished I’d get a chance to.

 

 

I recovered quickly from my stress over Henry, and by
the time I reached my car, half the shake was gone.

I placed the rest of my lunch in the cup holder, but only after one more long drag on the straw. I threw my purse on the passenger seat over my jacket and prepared to start the engine. After the fact, I noticed something under my jacket. The sound my purse made indicated it fell on something other than soft cloth. I looked over and saw a manila folder under the jacket, so flat it seemed empty. The folder certainly wasn’t mine. Had Ben left it? By mistake? On purpose? No, I was sure I would have seen it, one way or the other, if he’d had it. Besides, Ben and I had already shared so much (a big wink here), he wouldn’t have delivered this in secret.

I checked my rearview mirror and my backseat. I wanted no more surprises. I lifted my purse and jacket with care and stared at the folder. Maybe someone mistakenly dropped it in my car, thinking it was someone else’s vehicle.

The biggest question was, why was I being so skittish over a simple-looking item from an office supply store? I grabbed the folder and opened it. One sheet of paper lay there, faceup. A bank record of some sort.

I picked up the record, white with a pale blue grid marking rows and columns. It looked nothing like the statement I received monthly from my own bank. There was no name to indicate whose record I was looking at, but long rows of numbers across the top. An account number? A code for the originating bank? One thing was clear, even for someone as finance-challenged as I was, some very large deposits had been made to the account, sometimes only days apart.

Why me? I asked the universe in front of me. Apparently I’d been appointed to follow up on a potential financial motive for David Bridges’s death.

One good thing about this piece of evidence, if that’s what it was—as much as I’d snooped around and picked up things here and there in my questionably legal wanderings, there was no way Skip could blame me for this wrinkle.

I had neither broken nor entered into any establishment illegally, and I had an excellent alibi for when the folder was placed on the seat of my car.

The timing was perfect. I arrived at the police station
just as I was draining the last bit of chocolate shake from the cup. Since I was alone in my car, I indulged in a final, loud sip, the gurgling sound worthy of a junior high cafeteria.

The first person I saw in the sprawling, shabby waiting area was Larry Esterman, Rosie’s father. I sensed that I was about to take advantage of a distraught parent to try to continue my investigation. For his own daughter’s good, I reminded myself.

We greeted each other with the usual pleasantries of people who don’t see each other very often. I told him he looked good, and he did the same for me.

This seemed to be the week of reunions and the platitudes that came with them.

Larry got quickly to what was on both our minds. “I can’t get any information on when they’ll be done with Rosie,” he told me.

I thought it best to clear this up before I quizzed him on his Callahan and Savage dealings. I figured if I helped him with facts on how Rosie was doing, he’d be more receptive to my questions.

I checked out the officer on duty. What luck. Drew Blackstone had his head down, engrossed in paperwork, so we hadn’t noticed each other yet. Sign-in at the LPPD was required only if a person wanted to get past the desk to the interview rooms, offices, holding cells, and other “official places” beyond.

Drew, a former student, was next in line on my list of favorites to catch on duty when I needed a favor, after Lavana and all the other young women who were Skip’s groupies.

“Wait here,” I said to Larry and crossed the linoleum floor to the high front desk.

“Drew, nice to see you,” I said, with my best smile forward, reaching to shake the large man’s hand.

“Hey, Mrs. Porter. You, too.”

“I’ve been meaning to give you a recommendation for a book for little Davey. I know how he loves to read. If you have a pen and paper I’ll write it down for you.”

“Oh, terrific, Mrs. Porter. And he’s not so little anymore. He’s going on nine.”

“Almost as old as my granddaughter. As a matter of fact, it was Rosie Norman who put me onto this book because she knows I’m always on the lookout for good children’s literature.” I wrote the name and author of the book, addressing Drew at the same time. “I guess you know Mr. Esterman, Rosie’s father, over there waiting for his daughter.”

“Yeah, he’s been really patient, not like some other people nagging about how much longer, like, every ten minutes.”

I smiled. “He’s a nice man. Do you think you can reward his patience and check out what’s happening with Rosie? I know you’re swamped here, but—”

Drew waved his hand. “Aw, these forms can wait. Let me go back there for you.”

“Thanks, Drew.”

I gave Larry a thumbs-up as I walked back to my seat next to him.

“Quite impressive,” he said. “Now I know why Rosie called you first and me only second when you weren’t answering. Thank you so much. If you ever need a new refrigerator, just give a call.”

“Now that you mention it, Larry, I do need information on refrigerators.”

Larry sat up, interested, as most people were when you indicated an interest in their business or anything they’d invested a lot of time in. “Oh?”

“Henry Baker mentioned to me that you now work for Callahan and Savage.”

“Good old Henry. I don’t see much of him since he retired. How is he?”

I wished I knew. I gave Larry the short version of the friendship developing between Maddie and Taylor, and then moved on.

I dragged out a variation of the line I used with Barry. “I’ve been looking into a couple of things, and I heard something about questionable business dealings between David Bridges at the Duns Scotus and Mellace Construction. Is it true that they’re acing out your company, Callahan and Savage?”

Larry Esterman let out a small chuckle. “I guess my daughter was right. You are amazing, Geraldine. How in the world would you know that?”

“I . . . uh . . . I’m just really persistent, I suppose.”

“I should tell you, you’re not at the shallow end of the pool. You need to be careful.”

I was never very good at sports metaphors. In fact, this had not been a good week for figures of speech in general. “So it’s true?” was my careful response.

Larry bit his lip. I had a flash of memory of a younger Mr. Esterman next to my desk in my classroom at ALHS, his teenage daughter, Rosie, waiting in the hallway. Was I sure Rosie was working to her full potential? Could she do more to be sure she got into whatever college she wanted to? Was there a particular school I’d recommend for his motherless, talented child?

He sat next to me now, in a police waiting area, while his beloved Rosie was being interrogated by the police. It was his turn to answer some questions for me if he had any hope of helping his grown-up daughter. He seemed to realize this.

“I’m not as involved as I was when I had my own business, but I’ve been hearing rumblings about an internal investigation. You’re right—C and S is trying to find proof of unfair practices and bring a suit against Mellace and whoever is on the other end. You should know that it’s very, very hard to prove fraud. You need hard and fast testimonies, documents, an impeccable witness, or someone who’s willing to flip.”

I thought of the folder someone left on the seat of my car, the folder now thrust into my tote. “What kind of documents?”

“Bank records, internal memos, that kind of thing. But they play it close to the vest at Mellace. They have so many other businesses going all the way up past San Francisco to Marin County, and then down the other way to Monterey, that it’s easy for him to hide money.” Larry spread his hands, palms down. “I’m not saying that he does. I’m just glad I don’t have to worry about that part of it. That’s why I like semiretirement, strictly on a contract basis. I do my job when there is one and I don’t worry about the politics.”

Rosie was a lot like her father, with a mild temperament and a voice that exuded trustworthiness and honesty, though I sensed the older Esterman was a little more worldly-wise than his daughter. I wondered again how Rosie ever became obsessed with someone like David Bridges. He must have had some charm that I wasn’t privy to, to have captured her heart as well as Cheryl’s, though I didn’t have uncontestable evidence of the latter.