Blackberry Crumble (20 page)

“One day May came to the office, and she and I ended up arguing about something. Eventually everything that had been building up between us and our families came out, and Dad stepped in and then it was both of us against her. She didn’t stand a chance, but returned fire as long as she could before storming out of the office. Dad turned to me and told me to choose my destiny—a hotheaded girl who didn’t trust my decisions, or a stable future and the chance at a life I’d only ever dreamed of. He flat out told me I couldn’t have both anymore, that life has a way of forcing the issue. He said she was a liability for me and, therefore, for Kelly Fire Systems. If I chose May, I’d lose all the incentives Dad had offered me, and I’d be a twenty-five-year-old kid without a degree and without my father’s generosity.” Richard stopped and shook his head.

“You chose your father,” Sadie summed up.

“May wouldn’t talk to me after the fight, so I sent her an e-mail and told her that she was a liability to my future.” He lowered his voice. “I didn’t realize how much that must have hurt her until a couple of weeks later, but I never spoke to her again. She blocked my e-mail, she didn’t answer my calls, and a few months later, I heard she’d moved out of state. I haven’t seen her since.”

“How long after the breakup did you get married?” Sadie asked, making the point that he
had
moved on with his life.

Richard got the hint and wilted. “About eight months. Leslie was the daughter of one of Dad’s friends from the country club. She was an
asset
to me—that’s how Dad had said it, and it was hard not to see it that way. I was hurting over all that had happened with May and wanted to prove I didn’t need her, I guess. But Leslie and I weren’t a good match. She got the house and primary custody of our two boys in the divorce; I got alternating weekends and another reason to feel sorry for myself.”

“Do you blame your dad for all that?” Sadie asked.

“I blame myself, but I know I wouldn’t have done what I did without his encouragement. He and I had it out a few years ago, and he came right out and told me that he owned me—that I was bought and paid for and that I should be grateful he rescued me from a life I thought I wanted. I started to wonder what could have been if I’d been more of a man and less of a Daddy’s boy. I found May online—she was living in Ohio—and I wrote to her, but she never responded. After a few unanswered e-mails, I got the point and let it go.”

“And yet you still work for your father,” Sadie reminded him. “Despite all that.”

“Dad pays too well for me to quit. At the same time, he struggles to keep employees long-term because he’s just such a . . . jerk. He needs me to hold things together for him. When I read May’s name in Jim’s obituary, I started to ache all over again, started to wonder if there might be a second chance for us.”

“I’m guessing your father wouldn’t like that,” Sadie suggested.

Richard shrugged. “Would I be here, telling you all this, if I cared what my father thought anymore?”

“What about your job?” Sadie said. “You just told me you can’t make the kind of money you make with him somewhere else. You pay alimony and child support, right?”

“And, like I said, he needs me. I’m willing to risk it.”

Sadie couldn’t help but be a little suspicious. Several of the people she had trusted early on in other investigations had turned out to be far less trustworthy than they’d appeared. While the other situations Sadie had been involved in had given her confidence in a lot of areas, determining who was telling the truth and who wasn’t had not turned out to be one of her strengths. She mentally backed up, not wanting to get too emotionally involved in his story.

“So, May changes
all
of that?”

“Yes,” he said without a flinch or a pause or even a stutter. She waited for him to expound. He didn’t, and she chose to change the subject in order to keep him talking.

“You don’t seem to have a very high opinion of your father,” Sadie said.

Richard shook his head. “He’s a good businessman, and I admire what he’s accomplished, but that’s about the only credit I can give him. I grew up mostly with my mom—his second wife—which might be part of the reason I jumped so quickly when he offered me what sounded like a partnership. I’ve spent most of my life waiting to have a real dad, you know, until I finally gave up.”

“A few years ago, when you two had it out?”

“Yes. Our relationship wasn’t all that good before, and now we’re more like colleagues than blood relatives. I’m tired of trying to get something from him that he’s not prepared to give.”

“Love?”

“And respect, and appreciation. It’s all about the money to him; nothing else matters.”

“Would he kill for money?” Sadie asked. “Would that be enough motive to murder Jim Sanderson?”

She felt Richard tense before he seemed to force himself to relax. “It’s not really Dad’s style,” he said slowly.

Sadie leaned forward. “But you aren’t ruling it out?” She could hear the surprise in her voice. She hadn’t expected Richard to answer so easily.

“Dad prides himself in outsmarting, outworking, and outselling the competition—not in cheating. Killing Jim would be cheating.”

“He cheated Jim out of the C-Spec account.”

Richard shook his head. “He would consider that outsmarting Jim and shoring up his interests. Getting rid of the competition is a totally different game.”

“But he
does
want to buy S&S,” Sadie reminded him, pushing ahead even though she really wanted a break where she could process everything she had learned so far.

“Oh, don’t get me wrong, he’s opportunistic, but for all his faults, I have a hard time believing he’s a murderer.” He looked thoughtful before letting a long breath out through his nose. “May was devastated when we broke up. I’ve no doubt that her accusations against my father are tied up in what I did to her.”

Hadn’t May said the entire Kelly family couldn’t be trusted? Hadn’t Sadie suspected there was more to May’s nostalgia about Portland than she claimed? Could it be Richard? Could this all be some kind of hunt to find something to pin on the two men who together broke her heart and shattered her future?

“It’s been ten years,” Sadie said. “That’s a long time to carry a grudge.”

“It feels like yesterday for me. I can imagine it feels that way for her too, especially after losing her father. They had a very special bond, and he was the one person she thought would never abandon her.”

“Who else has abandoned her? I mean, other than you.”

Richard looked surprised at the question. “She didn’t tell you? I guess you don’t know May very well, do you?”

“I’d, uh, like to hear your side of it,” Sadie said with a sharp nod.

“Well, May’s family has one of the strongest histories of cancer I’ve ever heard of. In fact, they were part of a university study on genetics several years ago. May’s mother, Leena, was diagnosed with breast cancer the first time when she was thirty-five.”

“She died?” Sadie asked, glad to have that blank filled in, though the information was very sad.

“Not then,” Richard said with a shake of his head. “She made it eight years after the first diagnosis—during which time
her
mother, two aunts, an uncle, and an older brother all died of some form of cancer. Leena’s cancer came back with a vengeance when she was forty-three; she didn’t beat it a second time. May was a sophomore in high school when her mother died. It was devastating.”

Sadie could only imagine, and she felt the heaviness of May’s loss in her heart.

Richard continued. “May had two surviving aunts when her mother died, Carla and Marie, but Carla was dead within five years of Leena. By the time May was twenty-two, every close relative on her mother’s side, except Marie, had died of some type of cancer. To lose her father—who wasn’t on the cancer-gene side of the family—must be horrible for her. He was the one she thought would always be there.”

They both fell silent. It explained so much, including why May had gone to such pains to have Sadie help her, and why she didn’t want to make a big deal to Hugh and Jolene about what Sadie was really doing. Sadie took advantage of the silence to take a few more bites of her buttermilk bar and ponder on her role. She was May’s employee, hired to prove that Jim Sanderson’s death was not a result of natural causes. But maybe the real reason she was here—the ethereal and higher-plan reason—was simply to help May find some peace. With her father’s death, yes, but perhaps with Richard’s abandonment as well. May couldn’t be more than thirty-five years old; there was a lot of life left for her to live. Maybe Sadie could be part of that process. The more she let those thoughts pour into her head and heart, the more
right
they felt.

“Could you help me prove your father had nothing to do with Jim’s death?” Sadie asked after a little more thought.

“How?”

“I’m not really sure,” Sadie said, wishing she were. “I’m still trying to adjust to all this information myself. Jim died of a heart attack, but there are chemicals and medications that can induce a heart attack—including insulin.”

Richard considered that, the crease in his brow getting deeper. “Did the police find Jim’s death suspicious?”

Sadie shook her head and frowned. “No.”

“But May’s convinced,” he summed up, rubbing his chin with his thumb and forefinger. “If we could prove Dad had no opportunity, that might be a starting point.”

“Jim died on July sixteenth. Could you find out where your father was that day? What he was doing?”

Richard crossed his arms over his chest and nodded thoughtfully.

She held his eyes. He’d already given her an awful lot of information, and she was worried he had reached his limit.

“What color is May’s hair?” he asked abruptly.

“What color is her hair?”

Richard nodded. “She was a redhead in high school, then a brunette in college. She felt it made her look more mature. Not long before things came to an end for us, she became a blonde—I hated it. I’ve wondered a hundred times since then what color her hair is. Did she stay blonde just to spite me?”

Sadie’s insides melted, and she couldn’t help but wonder if Pete ever thought about her hair color. It was ten o’clock, Colorado time. He’d be getting ready for bed; probably reading the morning paper he never got to in the mornings.

“She’s a redhead,” Sadie said, keeping herself in the present. “She’s beautiful.”

Richard smiled and took the last bite of his donut, taking ten years off the lines around his eyes in the process. When he finished, he stood up, digging into his pocket for a couple of one-dollar bills to leave as a tip, although Sadie wasn’t sure a tip was required for a donut shop when they hadn’t even sat inside. She suspected someone would take the money off the table before an employee noticed it was there and save themselves from having to use the ATM, but she still gave Richard credit for making the effort.

They waited to talk until they were back on the sidewalk and heading for Sadie’s hotel. The streets were packed despite it being so late.

“Dad’s secretary keeps an online calendar for him, but he also has a planner he takes notes in,” Richard said.

They passed a man playing a saxophone, and Sadie threw a dollar into his open case. He stopped playing and wished her a great gift from the Universe of Love. It sounded good to Sadie.

She smiled at the musician before turning her attention back to Richard. “Do you have access to those things?”

Richard frowned and shook his head. “There’s no reason for me to,” he said, shoving his hands into his pockets. “But I think I can
find
the access.” He stepped to the left to let a couple holding hands pass between them. When they met back up on the sidewalk, he continued. “You’ve given me a lot of motivation. I help you clear my father, and you help me clear myself.”

Sadie was unable to deny the sincerity of his desire to talk to May. It was very touching, and she nodded. “I appreciate it.”

Richard looked down and said under his breath, “Not as much as I do.”

Chapter 25

Sadie took her time the next morning. She typed up all her notes, looking over all the information she’d collected, and wondered if she’d ever dare give them to May. It made her nervous to consider admitting to May that she’d talked to Richard, but hopefully things were coming together in a way that May would see all of this as a good thing.

Needing to relieve her anxiety, Sadie spent an hour walking the Portland streets even though most of the boutiques and shops weren’t open yet. Window-shopping was fun, though, and when she saw that Powell’s bookstore opened at nine o’clock, she ducked inside to see the landmark for herself. It was amazing, but equally overwhelming. Her head spinning by 9:30, she had to force herself to leave for fear that if she stayed much longer, she’d never find her way out again. It would take a three-day trip all by itself to see the whole store, though she did grab a romance novel on her way out so she could say she’d bought something.