5 Big Bunny Bump Off (10 page)

“May
be Doug Barton really did do it,” I said.

“Maybe. He sure seems to be the suspect
who makes the most sense.”

“As long as we
’re checking alibis, we should probably have a chat with Frank Valdez and Ernie Young. Both of them had reason to want Blakely out of the way, and while neither seems like a killer to me, it wouldn’t hurt to have conversations with them.”

“Okay, so we’ll track everyone down tomorrow and see where we stand,” Zak agreed.

“Did you learn
anything
from Alice?” I asked. “You did, after all, take her to lunch and turn on the charm. It seems like she could have told you something worthwhile.”

“She didn’t spill any bank secrets intentionally
, but when I brought up Doug and the reason for his dismissal, she got very uncomfortable.”

“
You think she knows why Blakely canned him?”

“I think she might
, but she isn’t saying.”

“That’s frustrating.”

“Actually, that’s commendable. I certainly wouldn’t want anyone working for me who was likely to blab about my business affairs, even if I were dead.”

“Yeah
, I guess you’re right. I don’t suppose we can get in to talk to Doug?”

“Doubtful.”

“I wonder if he spoke to anyone before he was arrested.”

“His wife
?”

“Who skipped town,” I reminded him.
“Although it’s possible she discussed things with her best friend before she left.”

“And you know this friend?”

“I do. Her name is Nora Long. She adopted a sheltie from me last summer. I suppose I could drop in and see how things are going tomorrow.”

“I guess it couldn’t hurt
.” Zak nodded. “You up for a movie?”

“Nothing sad.”

“Maybe an action flick?”

“Something with Dirk Pendleton
Senior,” I suggested. “I think we have several choices in your film library, if you want to go to your house.”

“Seems like someone is crushing on Dirk Pendleton,” Zak teased.

“I’m not crushing on anyone,” I defended myself. (Okay, I might have been crushing on Dirk Junior just a tiny bit.)

“Not anyone?”

“Okay, maybe I’m crushing on you. But only if you stop teasing me.”

“Okay
.” Zak pulled me into his arms and kissed me, making me forget all about the movie. “No more teasing.”

“Well
, a little teasing might not be bad,” I said before I deepened the kiss.

After Jeremy and I got the coyote pups checked in and settled
, I decided to follow up with Nora Long, who worked for a local realty company. I didn’t know her well, but in a small town like Ashton Falls, everyone knows everyone else to a certain degree. I decided to just pop in rather than call ahead for an appointment. She was the best friend of Doug’s wife, Cleo, and I wasn’t certain she’d be amenable to answering my questions. Perhaps if I caught her off guard, she wouldn’t have time to think of an excuse not to see me.

“Zoe,” Nora
said as I walked through the front door of the office. Luckily, she appeared to be alone. “I was wondering when you’d wander in.”

So much for a surprise attack.

“I imagine you’re here to grill me about Doug Barton.” Nora was a meticulously groomed woman who I guessed to be around forty. She was a go-getter who was well respected in the community, known for her tenacity as well as her sharp mind.

“I’m not sure that
grill
is the right word, but yes,” I admitted to the stylishly dressed woman, “I did hope to have a few minutes of your time.”

“Have a seat.” She mot
ioned to a pair of chairs on the other side of her desk.

“How did you know I’d be by?”
I asked.

“From what I gather
, you’ve been talking to everyone even remotely related to Porter Blakely’s murder. I figured you’d get around to me eventually. I’d like to specify up front that, while I’m not against telling you what I know, I’ll only give you information I believe will help with the investigation. I’m not here to slur Cleo or reveal secrets I don’t believe she’d want me to share.”

“Fair enough. I’m primarily interested in why Blakely fired Doug.”

Nora leaned back in her chair and began tapping one of her perfectly manicured nails on the desk. I figured she was running through a script in her mind, trying to decide what to share and what to keep to herself. “Doug first started working for Blakely a few months before the twins were born,” she began. “I remember how thrilled he was to get the job; the family had been struggling financially, and the realization that they were having two babies was creating quite a bit of stress for both Doug and Cleo. Things seemed okay at first. Doug appeared to be doing well in his job and he received several promotions coupled with large raises within the first year. The family was able to buy a home and upgrade their vehicles. Everything seemed perfect until Cleo began getting backlash in town regarding some of Doug’s business activities.”

“Backlash?”

“What it boils down to is that after Doug took the job, Blakely began grooming him to take on more responsibility. Doug was ambitious and drank up the praise and money. Before long, he was doing most, if not all, of Blakely’s dirty work.”

“Dirty work?”

“Evicting tenants, raising rents, calling in loans, serving foreclosure notices, that type of thing. Most things were probably based on legitimate business decisions, but it seemed that Doug took a certain amount of glee in doing his job. He made a fair number of enemies, and it got to the point where poor, sweet Cleo couldn’t so much as go to the grocery store without running into someone Doug had unhappy business dealings with.”

“I can see how that would be really hard.
It would be like being married to Scrooge.”

“
Exactly. Cleo begged Doug to quit. She wanted to move to a new town where they wouldn’t be known and start over fresh, but Doug was having none of it. He insisted that the only way to provide for his family in the manner they deserved was to jump through Blakely’s hoops.”

“So why did Blakely fire him?”

“Doug was dispatched to a house to evict a family. The man insisted he’d made all his payments in a timely manner and had canceled checks to prove it. The family had been customers of the bank for quite some time and had never fallen behind on their mortgage, so the situation seemed odd to Doug. So odd, in fact, that he took it upon himself to do a little investigation to see if a mistake had been made. He found that while the payments had indeed been received by the bank, they’d been routed to the wrong account. He went to the boss to try to rectify the situation, but Blakely told him that the house had already been foreclosed on and it was much too late to stop the transfer of property because he’d already sold it to another party. It turns out the investor he’d sold the family’s home to needed the land to build a parking lot for a project. The developer paid Blakely a lot of money for what amounted to a run-down little house.”

I frowned. “I don’t get it. If the man had been making his payments and there had been a clerical error
, wouldn’t the bank owe the man the money he had paid in?”

“
Blakely told Doug that he would order an audit and make certain the man was paid everything that was due to him.”

“But it was too late to save the house,” I realized.

“Exactly. The property had been sold and the house was demolished while the audit was being conducted. Blakely ended up offering the man full market value plus twenty percent for the house that had been wrongly foreclosed upon.”

“I guess that seems fair.”

“Not at all. Remember that a commercial project was riding on this man’s shabby little house. Without the parking area, the development couldn’t happen. The developer had tried to buy the house from the man, but he’d refused to sell. Blakely saw an opportunity when he realized he held the note on the house, and that it carried one of his due-on-demand clauses, which allowed him to foreclose quickly if even a single payment was missed. The homeowner got fair market value plus some, but Blakely made ten times as much when he sold the house.”

“So how did this lead to Doug being fired?”

“Blakely fired him for snooping around in files he wasn’t authorized to access. Doug threatened to leak the fact that the entire fiasco had been fraud rather than an unfortunate clerical error, and Blakely threatened to ruin him.”

“Could he do that?”

Nora shrugged. “Perhaps. Blakely was a snake, but he was a shrewd businessman who spared no expense when it came to his legal counsel. I’m sure both Doug and the homeowner would have gotten a court settlement if they’d pursued legal action, but Blakely had the resources to outlast either of the men in a lawsuit.”

“
Do you mind telling me why Cleo left?”

“
She wanted to be done with the whole thing and get on with their lives, but Doug wanted revenge. He refused to leave town until he got his revenge, so Cleo took the kids and left without him.”

“It really does sound like Doug might have done this,” I
said.

“Ye
s,” Nora agreed. “I think he did.”

“Tell me again why you’re investigating Blakely’s murder,” Jeremy asked later that afternoon, as we both stood at the front counter of the Zoo sorting the paperwork from the morning’s adoptions.

“Honestly,” I looked at him
helplessly, “I have no idea. I’m not personally involved in any way, like I’ve been in the past. I really should just let it go.”

“So why don’t you?
”

“Maybe I will,” I stated with certainty.
I hadn’t felt committed to this particular investigation from the get-go. I wasn’t sure why I continued to pursue it, other than to satisfy my natural curiosity. “I’m almost positive Doug is guilty of killing Blakely and he’s already being held. The only other leads we have are lame. Tracking down alibis when I already know the person is innocent is a waste of time.”

“Who
do you have left on your list?”

“
I’m supposed to talk to Nick Benson and Phyllis King, and Zak’s going to have conversations with Carson Worthington and Dirk Pendleton.”

“
The
Dirk Pendleton?”

“Dirk Pendleton Junior,” I clarified.

“Why in the world would he kill Blakely?”

I explained that they were neighbors and that Blakely had bilked Dirk
, along with a handful of other locals, out of a good amount of money. And I told him about the list Zak had gotten from Blakely’s daughter and the suspects who remained.

“You
’re seriously going to ask Nick Benson and Phyllis King for their alibis?”

“No,” I admitted. “I guess not.”

“Although . . .” Jeremy began, and then stopped.

“Although what?”

“I probably shouldn’t say.”

“Probably shouldn’t say what
?”

“I went bowling last night with the single parents group
, and some of the folks from the senior center were there, including Phyllis. We got to talking, and she asked about Gina and Morgan. I told her about the baby shower you threw for me and mentioned that I really needed to look for a bigger place, and she told me that she has a two-bedroom town house she keeps as an investment that’s coming available for rent.”

“So? What does that have to do with Blakely’s murder?”

“Probably nothing, but Phyllis did mention that the previous renters left because she’d been planning to put the place on the market. And that she was beginning to reconsider, since she’d recently come into some money, making the sale unnecessary. She said she’d prefer to keep it if she could find a responsible tenant.”

I frowned. “Which doesn’t jive with her losing a bunch of money in
one of Blakely’s schemes.”

“Exactly.”

“Maybe I
should
have a chat with her.”

“Please don’t mention that I said anything,” Jeremy
said. “Her town house seems perfect for Morgan and me, and she’s willing to let me rent it at a huge discount if I let her babysit sometimes.”

I smiled. Phyllis really was a sweetheart. “Don’t worry
, I won’t say anything about our conversation. Chances are Phyllis simply has other investments, and one of them paid off.”

“Probably. Phyllis seems like a smart woman. She not only congratulated Ellie on her new enterprise when she saw her but gave her some really good insight on marketing and tracking customer preferences as well.”

“I’m sure Ellie appreciated that. It seems like Ellie’s Beach Hut is doing well, but I know she’s concerned about what will happen after the novelty wears off.”

“Are you kidding
? With her location, the place will be packed all summer, though come winter, things might get tight. She made the interior really welcoming, but it’s pretty small. She’ll need to figure out a way to do some sort of takeout service if she wants to maintain a steady volume.”

“Ellie knows the restaurant business
; she’ll figure things out,” I stated with confidence.

“
I’m sure she will. Speaking of Ellie, I’ve been meaning to ask how she’s doing,” Jeremy added.

“What do you mean
? You just said you saw her last night.”

“
I did, but she took off in the middle of the game. She seemed upset about something. I know the two of you are best friends, so I figured . . .”

“I haven’t talked to her today,” I
said.

“Maybe it was nothing.”

“Yeah, maybe. Still, I think I might stop by the pier on my way home.”

“You can go
now if you want. I can finish this paperwork and lock up.”

“Thanks
.” I hugged Jeremy. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

By the time I got to Ellie’s place, the afternoon crowd was beginning to clear out. I helped her clear tables as the few remaining patrons finished the last of their meals. It was a beautiful day, with temperatures reaching into the midsixties, and every one of the late-afternoon customers were sitting on the deck outside. I really love spring in Ashton Falls. The snow is melting and the lake and rivers are full. Waterfalls seem to spout up in all sorts of wonderful locations as seasonal creeks are filled with the runoff from high atop the mountain. Perhaps my favorite part of spring, however, are the daffodils that peek from beneath the snow, bringing color to the landscape. For me, the bright yellow flowers pushing their way to the surface through the last of the winter snow serves as a reminder of the wonder of nature and the rebirth of a new day.

“Something smells good in here
.” I took an appreciative sniff as I entered the Beach Hut.

“Probably the buffa
lo chicken I made for the Crock-Pot sandwich special of the day.”

“It looks like they were a hit,” I commented
, based on the number of takeout containers in the garbage.

“They were. I think today was one of my best day
s, second only to the green chili shredded pork I did last week, although part of the business I enjoyed today could be due to the weather. Most of the snow has melted, and the beach was packed all day. I’m thinking of adding a couple more staff. If today is any indication of things to come, I’m not sure Kelly and I can handle the spring and summer crowd on our own. I’ll need to talk to Mom, but I hope to have a minimum of three people on shift each day we’re open during the summer. I’ll need one to man the indoor counter, one to man the outdoor BBQ, and someone to clear tables.”