Scam Chowder (5 page)

“I got the feeling she expected me to say that. She wasn't following Irene's lead about the food poisoning like you thought. And she wasn't doing a puff piece on me like I hoped.” He straightened his bifocals. “What was the point of her interview?”

“Airtime. The local TV station would have no interest in a man who doesn't live around here dying in the hospital. Junie May needed a local angle. You were it—the food columnist and lifelong resident who served the dead man his last meal. That's enough to get her a spot on tonight's news. But what about tomorrow's news? She plants a seed—the police at the hospital—and hints at foul play in the man's death.”

Granddad's mouth turned down at the corners. “She wouldn't make that up.”

“I agree. The police went there, but we don't know why. Maybe an ambulance brought a road accident victim to the hospital and the police needed a statement.”

“I hope you're right.” Granddad took longer than usual to hoist himself out of the easy chair. “I'm going to the Village.”

“To tell Ned about Scott?”

“To talk to Lillian. I can't face Ned yet. If Thomasina's there, I'll give her my sympathies. I sure hope she doesn't blame me for what happened.”

Val walked with him to the front door. “Be careful driving. That interview was enough to shake anybody up.”

“You had a clever way to cut it short.” He held up his car key fob. “I'll be back before dinnertime.”

And Val better have something ready for him to heat up in case she and Gunnar went out to dinner after their boat ride. On second thought, this wasn't the right night to leave Granddad alone. She'd just invite Gunnar for dinner.

The table in the hallway held the day's mail, most of it junk addressed to Granddad. Packets with discount coupons, sweepstake offers, come-ons for pills to restore youthful vigor. She had junk mail too, but targeted toward a younger demographic. Granddad had a few real letters. Though she'd set up automatic deductions for his electric and telephone bills, he banked the old-fashioned way. His bank still sent account statements by snail mail. He'd already opened an envelope from the bank, but the monthly bill for his newspaper subscription and a letter from a car dealer remained sealed.

Val glanced at the bank letter he'd left open on the table. The word
overdraft
popped out. Maybe Granddad's buddy wasn't the only one with financial woes.

Chapter 5

Val eyed the letter on the hall table from Granddad's bank. Until moving in with him, she'd played by the rules. She wouldn't have even considered reading someone else's mail. His more flexible ethics must have infected her, though, because she came up with justifications for reading his letter. She might have jumped to the wrong conclusion from reading just a single word. Maybe the bank had sent the letter to notify customers of a change in its overdraft policy. Reading the letter might ease her concerns about his finances.

She picked it up and felt a flutter of anxiety in her stomach. She read the letter. Yes, Granddad's account was overdrawn. He'd told her he kept a sizable cushion in his checking account. Gone now. What had become of it? The flutter inside Val turned into a knot. Ned might not have been the only one to invest money with a scammer. Granddad would be reluctant to tell her if he too had been taken in.

Should she share the bank news with her mother? Not yet. Her mother might overreact. No reason to start a family ruckus about an overdraft. A mistake by Granddad or even a computer glitch might explain the shortfall in his account. And a rapid response from Mom wouldn't make much difference in the final outcome.

Val went into the kitchen. Cooking something sweet would calm her. She set the ingredients for chocolate chunk cookies on the counter. Creaming butter and sugar usually put her into a trance powerful enough to take her mind off any troubles, at least temporarily. Not today. As she stirred in the chocolate chunks, one problem after another intruded on her thoughts. Gunnar's glamorous ex-fiancée arriving to claim him back. A man getting sick and dying after eating in this house. A possible police inquiry into that man's death.

She dropped the dough by spoonfuls onto the cookie sheet. She'd take some cookies to Gunnar later at his B & B. Did his former fiancée bake cookies? She couldn't possibly consume them and keep that svelte figure . . . unless she was one of those women who ate with abandon and didn't gain weight. If so, Val would envy the woman's metabolism more than her height or hair.

 

 

Val paddled vigorously to work off the cookies she'd eaten. Gunnar, the stronger paddler, sat behind her in the canoe's stern. He saw only her back, as she'd seen his ex-fiancée's back this morning, but what a different view. Instead of black spandex, Val wore khaki Bermuda shorts and a white tank top. Instead of upswept intricate braids of hair, she had whorls and spirals pointing in different directions.

Sitting tandem wasn't conducive to conversation. Gunnar talked about his plans to study acting, now that he'd quit his job in favor of part-time self-employment. As they paddled between the river's tree-lined banks, his voice washed over her like a melody, smooth and seductive, with a depth that suggested something dark. He'd never make a handsome leading man, but he could play the tragic hero.

Just short of the bay's open water, Gunnar laid his paddle in the canoe with a thump. “Forget paddling. Let's drift for a few minutes.”

She took her paddle out of the water and turned around in her seat to face him. Her pulse kicked up at his smile. Over the last few weeks, she'd forgotten how that smile affected her.

Had his ex tracked him down? Val didn't want to bring up the subject, but maybe he would if she coaxed a bit. “How was your day? Any surprises?” Not exactly a subtle question.

“No surprises. I spent most of the day with the real estate agent. I asked to see small houses where I could have room for an office and living space.”

“You'd know how to deduct a home office.” With his accounting background and his former job with the IRS, he probably knew the tax code inside out. “Did you see anything you liked?”

He looked past her toward the wide expanse of the bay. “She showed me two places for sale that would work well, a small bungalow and a Cape Cod on side streets. But a rental would make more sense for me.”

A change of plans? “Because you're not sure you'll stay in Bayport?”

“For the first time in my life, I don't have a safe job tying me down. I can open an accounting practice anywhere. Is this the right place to live if I also want to take up acting?”

“I asked you that question last month.” He'd responded then with a firm
yes.
Where had that firmness gone? Maybe the slinky blonde had given him a reason to return to Washington. “You already miss life in the big city?”

“The pace here suits me better. I don't know whether anything else will pan out for me here. The business venture, the acting, and the”—he leaned forward and locked eyes with her—“the friendship.”

That depended on how committed he was to just a friendship. Did he now want more than that? Did she? “You can't know how anything will work out unless you give it a try.”

He put his paddle in the water. “Trying means renting, not buying a house.”

She couldn't fault his commitment phobia when she suffered from it herself. “Six months ago, when I walked out on my life in New York and came here, I wouldn't have bought a place either. Fortunately, my grandfather had room for me.”

“How's he doing?”

“He's fine physically, but otherwise iffy. It's a long story. I can turn around in my seat and go back to paddling, or I can tell you the story.”

“Clever ploy to get out of paddling. Okay, you talk while I power us back to the B & B.”

She told him what happened at the chowder dinner, leaving out her role in preparing the food. He assumed, like everyone else except Irene, that the newspaper's recipe columnist could actually cook. While she talked about the allegations of food poisoning, Gunnar paddled rhythmically and listened without comment.

His paddle slowed when she mentioned the financial scam. “What's this con man's name? I'll try to do some research on him.”

“Scott Freaze.” Val spelled the name.

“Great-Aunt Gretchen nearly fell for a scam like that. Luckily, she asked my advice before she handed over any money.”

Back in June, when Val questioned Gunnar's honesty, she'd doubted the existence of that aunt and the inheritance he'd received from her. “Your aunt went to the right person for advice. My grandfather advised his friend Ned to invest with the scammer, and may have even invested money himself.”

“People who target the elderly are bottom-feeding lowlifes, almost as bad as child abusers.” Gunnar wielded the paddle with a vigor that splashed up water. “Older people are easy marks for cons. They grew up when crime was rare. They respect authority, trust people, and want to please them. All those good qualities make them vulnerable.”

“If all fraud victims respect authority, trust others, and try to please, I can rest easy.” Val stretched out her legs. “Granddad doesn't have any of those traits.”

Gunnar grinned. “You're hard on him. Those aren't the only traits of con victims. They also like to feel special and score a bargain.”

“
Now
you've described Granddad. He always wants something for nothing. But I'd be surprised if he fell for a too-good-to-be-true scheme.”

“Maybe he didn't. Safe investments these days don't pay as well as they used to. Your grandfather and his friend probably remember making ten percent on CDs. If the con man promised a return like that, they'd have less reason to suspect fraud.”

Val hoped Gunnar's knowledge of financial scams encompassed how to recover from them. “How can a victim of investment fraud get the money back?”

“It's hard to prove financial fraud because it can look like bad investment advice. You can't put someone in jail or demand restitution for that.”

“Even if it happens over and over?”

“A pattern of rip-offs would strengthen the case, but older people make bad witnesses because of their poor memory for details. Most of them don't even tell anyone they've lost money. They're ashamed or afraid their children will take over the purse strings.”

Maybe Granddad had said his friend made a bad investment to avoid admitting he'd done it himself. Val made a mental note to talk to Ned. “You're not cheering me up, Gunnar.”

“Would a dinner at the Tuscan Eaterie cheer you up?”

Val had gone there when the restaurant first opened and had left unimpressed, but maybe by now the chef had gotten his act together. She'd like to give it another try. “Yes, it would cheer me up, but I'd rather not leave Granddad by himself tonight. He's had a rough day.” Gunnar's B & B came into view, a two-and-a-half-story Colonial with wings, one of the larger riverfront dwellings. “Why don't you eat with us? Nothing fancy.”

He fingered his cargo shorts. “Does that mean I won't have to change clothes?”

“If you change into a tux, we'll do a
Downton Abbey
dinner. Otherwise, shorts and a T-shirt are fine.”

He maneuvered the canoe toward the shore and climbed out where the water was only knee high. “Stay in your seat. I'll tug the canoe onto land.”

Once she climbed from the canoe, they turned it upside down, next to the kayaks.

She pointed toward the top floor of the B & B. “You must have a good view if you're in the room with dormer windows.”

“My window is on the front, facing the parking area. The view's not bad as long as I don't look down. Above the trees, I can see the turret on your grandfather's house.”

As they walked from the B & B to the house, Val talked about her mother's concern that Granddad had fallen for a gold digger. “The woman he's seeing, Lillian Hinker, is younger than he is, good-looking, and in great shape.”

“Your mother's afraid of a sweetheart scam. A lot of old, and not so old, people fall for that one.”

She winced. “You missed your cue. You were supposed to tell me not to worry about Lillian.”

“For years I tracked down the proceeds from criminal activities. You expect me to restore your faith in human nature?” He squeezed her arm. “I'll try. Women are usually the targets in sweetheart scams, not the culprits. Scams are the exception, not the rule. Widows and widowers often find mates who make them happy. How's that for upbeat?”

“I'm hungry for good news. I'll take whatever crumbs I can get.”

“Who else was at the dinner besides Lillian, Scott, and your grandfather?”

“In order, from oldest to youngest. Scott's mother, Thomasina Weal, from the retirement village. A local woman, Irene Pritchard. Omar, a mystery man Lillian added to the guest list just before the dinner.” Val ticked the guests on her fingers. “Junie May Jussup, a reporter for the Salisbury television station.”

“The name sounds familiar. I must have seen her on the TV. Thin, late thirties, straight dark hair?”

“That's Junie May.” Val peered down the street as they rounded the corner. Granddad's car wasn't parked in front of the house. “My grandfather's not back yet. When he comes home, don't say anything about the scammer or Lillian or my concerns about his money. Let's just keep it light.”

“I'll check his video collection for a frothy film we can all watch.”

“He's mostly into Hitchcock and film noir. You'd think, with all the femme fatales he's seen on the screen, he would have his guard up.”

“Few men can resist an ego-stroking beauty.”

The voice of experience? Val heard his rueful tone and saw the grim set of his mouth, maybe because she wanted to hear and see them.

They went inside the house and browsed for movies. Granddad's collection, the stock from the video store he used to run, filled half the shelves flanking the fireplace in the sitting room.

The hall phone rang. Val hurried to answer it and glanced at the caller ID. The Bayport Police. Her heart leapt into her throat. She had visions of Granddad in a smashed-up car.

“Hello, this is Val Deniston.”

“Val, it's Chief Yardley. How're you doing?”

She relaxed. Earl Yardley wouldn't make small talk if anything had happened to her grandfather, his childhood mentor. “I'm fine, and how are—”

“Your granddaddy there?”

The abrupt change in tone startled Val. The chief usually got what he wanted by letting a conversation develop rather than forcing it. “He should be home soon. Can I give him a message?”

Silence on the line. “Yeah, maybe it's better if you tell him. It'll be less of a shock.”

Val's muscles tensed. “Tell him what?”

“One of his dinner guests, Scott Freaze, died.”

“Granddad knows that.”

“The death looked suspicious to the doctor at the hospital. There'll be an autopsy to determine the cause.”

Val suppressed a groan. “What does the doctor suspect?”

“Something toxic.”