Unraveled (29 page)

Eustace’s smile vanished quickly. “What?” he asked with a startled expression.

“A search of the court records and title records revealed that the property Fred Turner was selling had been owned for over a hundred years by members of the same family. Their last name was McAllister. And Claire McAllister of Texas was the last owner before Turner. I wondered if that was your mother.”

Eustace glanced from Burt to Kelly again. Kelly thought she spotted apprehension before his gaze darted away. “Why, yes . . . yes, she was. Why do you ask?”

Burt leaned back in his chair, assuming what Kelly recognized as his relaxed pose, arms crossed over his chest. “I was wondering why you’d never mentioned it. I mean, you interviewed Fred Turner. In fact, you are putting him in your book. It seemed strange that you never mentioned that Turner bought that property from your mother.”

Eustace averted his gaze this time, looking into the café instead. “It didn’t seem relevant. The sale had happened over a year ago. I was there to interview a successful investor, not hash over past history.”

“I see. Well, it made me curious when Kelly told me about the connection. Especially after hearing what else she learned. You want to tell him, Kelly?”

Eustace turned his wide-eyed stare to Kelly. This time Kelly glimpsed panic in his eyes, and her heart squeezed. She’d grown fond of Eustace as had everyone.
Damn
. She hated to have to do this. She took a deep drink of coffee first.

“No one but the police know that I was with Jennifer when we walked into Turner’s cabin that Saturday morning and found him dead. . . .”

“Ohhhh . . . I’m so sorry, my dear. . . .” Eustace said softly, looking genuinely contrite.

Kelly took another drink of caffeine to bolster her courage. She hated doing this. “Well, I noticed an unusual gun beside Turner’s hand so I took a photo with my cell phone camera. I showed the photo to Burt, and he said the gun looked like a vintage weapon, perhaps from World War Two.”

She spotted a flash of recognition go off in Eustace’s eyes and she continued. “The pistol intrigued me, so I checked a gun show and found the names of dealers who carried vintage weapons. I sent them the photo, and a dealer in San Antonio, Texas, called me. He said an elderly woman had brought in a gun like that, a German Mauser, several years ago. She didn’t want to sell it, but he wrote down her name and address in Texas. It was Claire McAllister, 3340 Galveston Lane, Dallas, Texas.” Kelly paused, watching Eustace’s reaction.

Eustace’s eyes went huge, and he stared at Kelly for several seconds. Then, he stared down at his hands, which were folded on the table. He said nothing so Kelly continued.

“Naturally, that made me very curious since I’d learned the previous landowner had the same name. So, I located the phone number for Claire McAllister’s address in Dallas and called. I spoke with her daughter, Patricia Turnbull, and she told me her mother had died. Mrs. Turnbull also said she no longer had the Mauser pistol. Her brother had taken it.” She paused and watched Burt wave away Julie, who was approaching with her ever-present coffeepot.

“Do you have another brother, Eustace?” Burt asked in a quiet voice.

Eustace shook his head without looking up. He kept staring at his hands. “No, no, I don’t.”

“Could you show me the pistol, Eustace? Do you have it back at your hotel room?” Burt continued.

Again, Eustace shook his head without looking up. “No, no, I don’t.”

Kelly felt an intense desire to cut this painful interrogation short. She leaned over the table, getting her head close to Eustace’s, then whispered. “It was you who set up the Saturday morning appointment with Fred Turner in the Canyon, wasn’t it? You posed as Birmingham, a British man, to disguise your identity from Turner’s assistant, didn’t you?”

Eustace kept his head bowed, his hands clenched now, knuckles bled white. “Yes, yes, it was me,” he said in a tight whisper. “I knew I had to disguise my voice because I’d already spoken with Turner’s assistant, Anita. It was the only way I knew to get Turner somewhere alone, where he could pay for what he did to our family. My mother died of a broken heart because of him.”

Kelly and Burt exchanged glances. Then, Burt leaned forward over the table again. “Why don’t you start at the beginning of this story, Eustace,” Burt suggested in a gentle tone.

Slowly Eustace raised his head, and Kelly saw the panic was gone from his eyes. It was replaced by a steady determined gaze. “As you wish. This horrible tragedy began over a year ago, when I was hospitalized with a severe hip fracture,” he said in a firm voice. “It took over six months to heal and I was in extensive rehabilitation therapy for another six months afterward. Consequently, my sister Patricia had to handle all of my mother’s financial affairs. My mother’s advanced age of ninety-seven required her to have constant care, especially after she slipped and broke her arm. My sister had to place Mother in a nursing home near Dallas where they are frightfully expensive. Consequently, my mother’s savings and small investments were gone through quickly. My sister was at her wit’s end. I had just undergone surgery and was barely conscious because of the pain.” Eustace’s face tightened with the memory.

“Patricia didn’t know what to do to pay my mother’s bills, and I was unable to counsel her. She was alone, as well, because her husband, Bill, had died two years before. So she did the only thing she could think of. She tried to take out a loan and use the Colorado property as collateral. Her plan was to repay the loan after I was totally recuperated. Unfortunately, in this terrible economic environment, she could not find any reputable bank to lend her the money. Finally, in desperation, Patricia sought out private lenders in Colorado and hoped they’d be interested.” Eustace shook his head. “And that viper Fred Turner offered to lend Patricia the money. She was so distracted and overwhelmed by all the bills by that time, Patricia did not go over the loan documents carefully. Turner had craftily inserted a clause demanding a balloon payment at the end of the year. He had not included interest in the previous payments and put everything due in that last huge payment.” His hands clasped tightly again.

“Of course, my sister was unable to come up with that larger amount of money when it was due. That was when Fred Turner exercised his rights under the loan document to seize the canyon property as collateral for the remainder of the loan. Of course, my sister protested, but to no avail. Turner promptly paid her a check for the amount of loan payments made. And our land was lost. Stolen by that thief, Turner.”

Eustace took a deep breath. “Of course, I was horrified when I learned what my sister had done. And when I was finally released from rehabilitative therapy, I went to see my mother, who was no longer in the nursing home. She was in a hospital. Dying of a broken heart. The doctors said her heart was simply giving out, but I knew better. It was broken. Like every McAllister before her, my mother had been entrusted with the family land where our great-great-grandfather had homesteaded. And it was gone.”

Kelly couldn’t stop herself. She had to ask. Eustace’s story was heartbreaking to hear. “Did you contact Fred Turner? Did you offer to buy the land back?”

Eustace’s face hardened. “Indeed, I did. I offered to pay him the assessed market value for the property. He had gotten the land significantly under value. But that was his plan all along, I’m certain of it. Now, that I’ve researched his track record, I can tell that Turner planned to cheat my family out of our land and then sell it at a significant profit to himself.”

“I’m so sorry, Eustace,” Kelly said softly, wanting to offer some consolation, but she didn’t have the words. There were no words to make Eustace feel better. Loss of a loved one and loss of his family’s land. A double loss.

This conversation was not going as Kelly thought it would. Eustace appeared more desperate than cold-blooded.

“Is that when you decided to come to Colorado?” Burt asked, his calm, reasoned tone reminded Kelly that the man across from them had indeed been victimized, but he also killed a man.

“After Mother’s funeral. That was when I decided to come to Colorado,” Eustace said, voice quieter now. “I was already starting to write this book, and that provided me the perfect opportunity to spend time with Fred Turner.”

When he didn’t continue right away, Burt ventured, “And seek your revenge for what Turner did to your family.”

Eustace looked at Burt, then Kelly with a calm blue-eyed gaze. “Revenge? Oh, no. My mother had made me promise on her deathbed that I would not let Fred Turner get away with stealing our land. I swore to her that Turner would never enjoy the profits from that swindled land. After Mother’s funeral, I decided to take a page from one of my books.
Cowboys and Heroes of the Old West
. I decided to administer some frontier justice.”

Kelly sat, riveted by Eustace’s calm reasoning of his decision to commit murder. He was a compelling storyteller, for sure. Kelly was almost sucked into his tale. Almost.

“Is that why you used your mother’s gun?” she asked.

“Precisely. It was fitting that the gun my mother had always had for her protection should be used to eliminate Turner.”

“And there was no way to trace it,” Burt offered.

“Correct,” Eustace said, as if he were confirming a date in history.

Kelly and Burt both sat quietly for several seconds. Then Burt pushed back from the table. “Eustace, you need to tell this story to the county police who are investigating Turner’s death. Detective Ed Peterson is in charge. I’ll take you down to the department and stay with you, if you’d like.”

Eustace released a huge breath, and his shoulders, which had been hunched, relaxed. He slouched over the table and seemed smaller to Kelly. Air leaking from a balloon.

“Yes . . . I suppose I must. May I take my briefcase, please? I don’t want to let the computer out of my sight. My entire manuscript is there.”

Amazingly, Eustace looked more concerned about losing his manuscript than potentially losing his freedom. “I’ll put it in Mimi’s office, Eustace,” Kelly offered. “We’ll take care of it.” Remembering something else, she asked, “Do you have an attorney you’d like to call? If not, I know of a very fine young attorney here in town, Marty Harrington.”

Eustace gave Kelly a little smile. “Why, thank you, Kelly. I would appreciate it. I suppose I do need legal counsel.”

“I can recommend Marty as well,” Burt said as he rose from his chair. “Would you like to call him now? That way, he can meet us at the department.”

“Yes, I suppose I should.” Eustace said, voice even quieter.

Kelly dug out her cell phone and ran through the directory until she found Marty’s number. “Here, Eustace, use my phone. There’s his number.”

Eustace accepted the offered phone, then looked back at Kelly. “Could you do me one more favor, Kelly? Could you speak with Lizzie and explain why I’m not waiting for her at the table.”

Kelly’s heart squeezed. “Eustace, I . . . I don’t think I can. . . .” she whispered. “It’s going to break her heart. I can’t do it.”

Eustace’s eyes saddened. “I understand.”

“I’ll speak with Lizzie when I come back, Eustace,” Burt said gently. “Meanwhile, I’ll have Mimi give her a plausible reason why you’re not here. Then I’ll explain it to her the best I can. But Lizzie will want to hear from you. You know that, don’t you?”

Eustace glanced away. “Ah, yes . . . I know. Lizzie is the one part of this drama I hadn’t counted on. I hadn’t planned on losing my heart when I came here. Life has a way of playing tricks on us, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, it does, Eustace. Yes, it does,” Burt said sadly.

Twenty

Curt
leaned back in his kitchen chair and sipped his coffee, while Jayleen hunched over the circular oak table, turning a coffee mug in her hands. Neither said a word, and Kelly didn’t, either. There wasn’t much to say.

“Lord have mercy, that is one sorry tale,” Jayleen said at last. “I cannot believe kindly old Eustace could do such a thing.”

“All of us are capable of murder, Jayleen, if we’ve got enough reason,” Curt said somberly. His face seemed to have more creases visible than Kelly was used to seeing. Sadness, most probably. “And Eustace had more reason than most, I admit. That doesn’t excuse what he did, but I can sure understand why he did it.”

“Frontier justice,” Jayleen said as she wagged her head. “Whoooeeee . . . little old Eustace. It’s still hard to picture.”

“I know, Jayleen. I was stunned when I found those connections,” Kelly said, holding the mug closer to her chest, warming herself with it.

Jayleen quirked a smile at her. “Looks like your sleuthing paid off again, Kelly. We’ve gotta start calling you Sherlock from now on.”

Kelly held up her hand. “That’s okay. Burt’s been calling me that for quite a while now. And if it’s all the same to you folks, I’d really appreciate your not giving me any credit for solving this murder. Let Detective Peterson and the county cops take all the credit, please.”

“Why’s that, Kelly?” Curt asked. “You should be proud you found the truth that everyone else missed. I know you. That took a lot of digging and searching to find the answers.”

Her fatherly mentor and business advisor’s words of praise felt good, bringing the warmth of appreciation inside. “I
am
glad I found the truth, Curt. But I don’t want Lizzie to find out the prominent role I played in Eustace’s undoing, so to speak.”

“Well, I understand that,” Curt said, nodding. “I surely am sorry that Lizzie had to fall head over heels for Eustace. It’s such a shame.”

“I know, and I feel guilty, somehow. I feel like I’m the one who split them up and broke Lizzie’s heart. They were already a couple. Eustace was planning to move here, I heard him say so.”

“Kelly, that’s crazy talk. You didn’t break Lizzie’s heart. Eustace did. Sweet little Lizzie fell for that old charmer.” Jayleen took a sip of coffee. “How’s Lizzie doing, by the way? Have you talked with her?”

Kelly shook her head. “I haven’t. Eustace asked me to before Burt took him off to the police department, but I told him I couldn’t do it. I didn’t want to be the one to tell her. Burt did, bless his heart.”