Drawing Close: The Fourth Novel in the Rosemont Series (4 page)

Haynes shoulders sank. “So that’s the end of the
line?”

“No. That’s why I came in early today. I called
the tour company.”

“And?”

“They were reluctant to give me any information at
first—kept trying to sell me on one of their other tours. I made up a
story about being particularly interested in one type of bird that I knew, from
his blog, he was obsessed with. I insisted that there would be no point in my
going out with another guide.” Loretta beamed, pleased with her resourcefulness.

“Well done,” Haynes supplied, willing her to
continue.

“They finally told me that Spenser had fallen ill
and moved back to the States to be near his sister’s family. Apparently he and
his wife had no kids of their own. The last time anyone talked to Spenser, he
was in chemotherapy and holding his own. The prognosis wasn’t very good,
however.”

Haynes leaned forward, resting his elbows on the
table. “Did you find out where the sister lives?”

Loretta looked triumphant. “She lives in Richmond,
Indiana, and her married name is Gina Gallagher.”

Frank Haynes reached across the table to squeeze
her hand. “Perfect. Thank you so much for all of this. Good work,” he said,
releasing her hand. “Extraordinary.”

“Glad I could help. You’re pleased?”

“Very pleased,” he replied.

They finished the evening with small talk about
Loretta’s children and Frank’s plans to expand his restaurant empire.

“This was a real treat, Frank. Thank you very
much. And the wine was superb. You must not have liked it, though. You only had
one glass.”

“I’m driving, remember?” he replied as he signed
the credit card receipt, folded it carefully, and placed it in his wallet.

She nodded and pointed to the bottle. “In that
case, I’m afraid I’ve consumed the rest of it. Boy, it was smooth and went down
easy.” She attempted to stand but quickly sat back down.

Haynes looked at her questioningly.

“Oh my gosh, Frank. I think I’m tipsy. I’m
definitely a little unsteady on my feet.” She turned to him and tears rimmed
her eyes. “I’m so sorry. I know this is a business dinner. I never meant to do
this.”

Haynes moved quickly to her side. “Nonsense, my
dear. This was my fault. If I hadn’t been driving, I’d be in the same boat.
That wine is irresistible.” He pulled back her chair and extended his arm.

Loretta looped her arm through his and took a few
tentative steps, conscious of the other restaurant patrons’ eyes on them. “I
think I’ll need your arm around my waist, sir,” she said in a whisper.

Frank Haynes found he was delighted to oblige.

***

They stopped for coffee at the
drive-thru window of the first fast-food restaurant they passed on the way
home. Loretta was marginally steadier on her feet when they got out of his car
in the parking lot of her apartment complex. “Do we need to go get Nicole?” Haynes
asked.

Loretta shook her head. “She’s spending the night
at the sitter’s.”

“Let me help you get up the stairs and into your
apartment,” Haynes said.

Loretta steeled herself for what she assumed, from
experience, would come next. He’d get her inside, offer to help her make her
way to her bed, get her shoes off, and proceed from there. And, truth be told,
she didn’t think she was interested in fighting him off. She was surprised,
then, when he took her key, opened the door, and remained on the threshold as
she stepped across it. Loretta turned to face him.

“Will you be all right from here?” he asked.

Loretta tried to read his expression, but his face
was obscured by shadows. She nodded slowly. “Yes. I’ll be fine.”

“Good. And thank you for all of your help with
this, Loretta. You’ve been invaluable.”

“You’re welcome.”

He took a step back. “Don’t worry about being at
Haynes Enterprises bright and early tomorrow. You may need to get some extra
sleep,” he said, and she was certain she heard kindness in his voice. He turned
to go.

“Frank,” she said, grabbing his elbow and leaning
toward him, her breath warm and fragrant against his face. She paused, then
placed a gentle kiss on his cheek. “Thank you. For everything.” She stepped
back into her dark apartment and closed the door.

***

Frank Haynes pulled out of the
parking lot of Loretta Nash’s apartment and, instead of proceeding directly
home at this late hour, turned toward Rosemont and his familiar perch in the
berm of the road that ran below the grand home’s back lawn. The house was in
complete darkness, its residents—Maggie Martin and John
Allen—undoubtedly fast asleep.
Residents for now,
he thought.

He smiled and patted the breast pocket of his
jacket, where he’d secured Loretta’s notes about Roger Spenser. He knew what
his next move would be. He’d find Spenser and get him to confess to removing
the evidence that established Haynes’ ownership of a half-interest in Rosemont,
probably for a hefty sum that he received from Paul Martin. Enough to allow him
to retire at an early age and for him and his wife to live out the remainder of
their years indulging their passion for—what did Loretta say they called
it—birding? He’d have to think through how he was going to present this
to Spenser. If he was really a dying man, he would be immune to threats. He’d
appeal to the man’s better nature; maybe he’d be concerned about his immortal
soul.

Haynes stared at the dark edifice of Rosemont,
washed in moonlight. He brought his hand to his cheek and touched the spot
where the softness of Loretta’s kiss lingered. Happiness—an unfamiliar
feeling for Frank Haynes—surged through him. Whether the feeling arose at
the prospect of owning Rosemont or over the memory of her kiss, he couldn’t
say.

Chapter 7

“Alex? What’s up?” Maggie said,
pressing her phone tightly to her ear to compensate for the poor connection.
“Is everyone all right?”

“Yes, fine. Sorry if I alarmed you.”

“Two voice mails and four text messages in six
hours will do that.”

“I wanted to catch you before you left to come
home. You leave tomorrow, don’t you?”

“We catch the train to London first thing, and
we’ll be on a red-eye flight home.”

“How would you like to extend your honeymoon?”

Maggie snorted. “Nothing I’d like more. Cornwall
has been marvelous, and my new husband has been spoiling me rotten,” she said,
smiling at John. She angled the phone away from her mouth and said, “It’s Alex.
He wants to know if we’d like to stay here longer.” John gave two thumbs up.

“I didn’t say stay longer in Cornwall,” Alex said.
“I said extend your honeymoon. At least, that’s what we’d have the outside
world think.”

“You’ve got my attention,” Maggie replied. “What
would we be doing instead?”

“Going through four boxes of the documents that we
obtained from the banks in response to our subpoenas. We’ve segregated the most
critical documents, and you need to go through them with a fine-toothed comb,
using your expertise as a forensic accountant.”

“I see. I’m not so sure that’s necessary, Alex. I
can return to work on Monday as planned and still get through the documents in
the next several months.”

“That’s why we came up with this plan. We don’t
have several months to sit on our hands and wait, Maggie. And we don’t have the
money to hire anyone else.”

Alex cleared his throat and Maggie knew he was
just getting started. She leaned back into the chair in their hotel room and
eased her aching feet out of her shoes.

“Right now, no one knows what we’ve got in our
hands. We want to finish our investigation and take action as soon as we can.
We also don’t want anyone to get wind of the fact that we’re having a forensic
accountant review the documents, which won’t be a secret once you’re spotted
coming and going from the document room.”

Maggie laughed. “I’m not sure how you avoid that
unless you smuggle me into a secret location where you’ve secured the
documents.”

“That’s exactly what we have in mind,” Alex
replied and was certain he heard a sharp intake of breathe from the other end
of the phone. “We’ve got use of the basement storage room in my cousin’s dental
practice in Ferndale. He has a duplex and lives on one side and runs his office
out of the other. He takes the last two weeks of June off every year and shuts
down his entire practice. No one will be there. You and John can sleep in his
guest room, and you can go through the documents in the basement without
interruption. He’s just outside town, so no one will see you. And it won’t cost
the taxpayers a dime. It’s the perfect scenario.”

Maggie sighed heavily. Having an uninterrupted
block of time to cull through the documents would be ideal. Once she set foot
in Town Hall, she was sure she’d be swamped with her duties as mayor of
Westbury. She leaned forward, sitting on the edge of her chair. “I don’t think
it’s a very practical suggestion. John has to get back to his veterinary
practice. What would we say?”

“We’ve thought of that. If John is okay with it,
say that you’ve contacted John’s elderly second-cousins in London. They’ve
invited you to stay with them for a week so they can show you the sights, and
you’d both like to oblige. Everyone will think you’re gadding about London when
you’ll really be slaving away in a basement in Ferndale.”

“Seems pretty iffy. What if someone sees us arrive
at the airport?”

“Change your flight and come into Chicago. Forest
Smith can pick you up and drive you to my cousin’s house. When you’re done,
Forest can take you to the original airport and you can take the same shuttle
service home—just a week later.”

“You’ve thought this through very carefully,
haven’t you?”

“I have. It’s important, Maggie, and it’s our best
shot.” She heard the pleading in his voice.

“Let me discuss this with John, and I’ll call you
back within the hour.”

Chapter 8

Alex Scanlon and Forest Smith
approached the duplex on the outskirts of Ferndale from different directions
that Saturday night and arrived within five minutes of each other. They pulled
around the building and into the deserted parking lot of the dental practice.

Both men got quietly out of their cars and
approached the house. The back door opened before they could knock. John Allen
stepped to one side and motioned them in. “You weren’t followed?”

“I’m sure I wasn’t,” Alex said.

“I wasn’t either, Dr. Allen,” Forest said.

John nodded. “Good. And please, it’s John. Come on
through. Maggie’s still downstairs, finishing her report.”

John turned, leading them through the kitchen and
down a hallway to the basement door.

“How was your honeymoon?” Alex asked.

“The first part was glorious. Cornwall is almost
as charming and beautiful as my new wife. This last week, however, has been
rather odd. I’ve watched so many sports on TV that I’m sick of them.”

Alex stopped and caught John’s arm. “I’m sorry to
intrude like this. I—we,” he said, motioning to Forest, “thought this was
our best option. We’re at our wits’ end here, John. We’ve got to find some way
to get these guys who have stolen the pension funds and wrecked the retirements
of so many people. I know it must have been hard for you to get someone to
cover your veterinary practice for another week. We’re grateful to you.”

John shrugged dismissively. “The young vet that’s
been filling in for me hasn’t found a permanent position yet, so he was glad
for the extra work. To tell you the truth, I’ve been thinking of hiring someone
to help me. I can keep up if I work sixty hours a week, but I don’t want to do
that now that I’ve got someone to go home to. If I like how he’s handled things
while we’ve been gone, I may offer him a job. So this all worked out fine for
me, too.”

“I thought I heard voices,” Maggie said as she
came up the steps. The three men turned in her direction. “I’ve just finished.
Come on down.”

Maggie spent the next three and a half hours
taking Special Counsel Alex Scanlon and his co-counsel, Forest Smith, through
each document that established the paper trail that led to perpetrators William
Wheeler and Charles Delgado. Wheeler had been identified early in the process,
stripped of his position as mayor of Westbury, and thrown into jail. While in
jail, Wheeler had conveniently—too conveniently—committed suicide,
leaving his wife, Jackie, and teenaged son, David, destitute and heartbroken.

The fraud and embezzlement from the town’s general
fund and the town workers’ pension fund was a complex criminal enterprise. It
was unlikely to have been the effort of only one person. But they had been
unable to unearth evidence against anyone else. Until now.

Maggie pointed to a handful of papers. “Based upon
my examination, these are the only ones that haven’t been altered. They point
to Wheeler and Chuck Delgado. Nobody else.”

Alex riffled through the stack of papers. “It’s
weak, Maggie. Very weak.” He cradled his head in his hands. “We know Wheeler
had to have help, and we know Delgado isn’t smart enough to have come up with
this scheme on his own. It would be unethical to use any of the evidence that
we suspect has been altered—Delgado’s defense team would get it thrown
out in a heartbeat, anyway. Probably strip me of my license to practice law
along with it.”

Maggie turned to Forest Smith. “I agree with Alex,
ma’am. There’s not enough here to go forward.”

“Finding out who altered these documents would be
nigh unto impossible,” she said, resting her hand on another stack. “I’ve seen
this before in fraud cases I’ve worked on. Once you subpoena records from
outside the borders of the United States, like these records from offshore
banks in the Caribbean, your chances of success diminish precipitously.” She
leaned toward them. “What if we went forward anyway? What’s the worst that
could happen?”

“The case gets thrown out, and we’re the laughing
stock of the community,” Alex answered.

“Then we’re right back where we are now. No
difference. We’re already considered to be completely incompetent by most of
the constituents, thanks to the fine editorial work of the
Westbury Gazette
,”
Maggie said bitterly. “What could we accomplish if we arrest Chuck Delgado?”

“He’ll be off the streets for a while,” Forest
said.

“For a matter of hours,” Alex cut in. “He’ll make
whatever bail is set for him.”

“Would he offer to talk in exchange for a lighter
sentence?” Maggie asked.

“Not likely,” Alex scoffed. “Our evidence won’t
get us that far.”

“At the very least, it will make him furious.
Delgado is prone to doing stupid things even at the best of times. If we make
him mad enough, he might slip up and give us something to go on,” Maggie
suggested.

Alex cocked his head to one side, thinking, and
caught Forest’s eye. Forest nodded. “You might have something, there, Maggie,”
Alex said. “But we could be unleashing some new evil that we can’t control.
Remember the arson fires in my home and office and the suspicious car accident
that almost killed Marc and me?”

“Believe me, I haven’t forgotten. If we decide to
arrest Delgado, I’ll have Chief Thomas put round-the-clock security details on
both of you,” Maggie replied.

“You’ll need one, too, Maggie,” Alex said. “Don’t
look at me like that—you’re in as much danger as we are.”

Maggie shrugged. “If you really think so.”

Both men nodded their agreement.

It was close to one in the morning when Maggie led
Alex and Forest back upstairs.

“So we’re agreed,” Alex said as they headed to the
back door. “Some of the significant documents have been altered. Someone is
trying to cover something up. We’ve got just enough evidence in the unaltered
documents that Maggie’s set aside to arrest Delgado, without using any of the
tainted documents. We’ll arrest him and hope we get him stirred up enough to do
something stupid. Who knows—maybe he’ll even lead us to his cronies.”

“He mentioned Frank Haynes when I gave him the
copies of the documents that fingered him. That was when he thought I was in
his hip pocket,” Forest said.

“If Haynes got himself involved in this mess, he’s
not the kingpin we’re after. He’s a sharp businessman, always looking for an
easy way to make a buck, but I don’t think he’s got mob connections,” Alex
said. “Chuck Delgado, on the other hand, has been in bed with the mob since he
was old enough to walk. His brother, Ron, maintains a legitimate facade, but
I’d bet my paycheck that he’s dirty, too. Haynes isn’t our top target. We’re
after the mob bosses at the heart of this. That’s where I want Delgado to lead
us.”

Maggie nodded. “I agree. Let’s take our best shot
and put pressure on Delgado.”

Alex looked from Maggie to Forest and nodded.
“We’ll have Delgado arrested first thing Monday morning.” He smiled a mirthless
smile. “By the time you get to Town Hall, he should be in custody.”

Alex turned to Forest. “Delgado is going to assume
that you reneged on your promise to keep these documents hidden from me. The
first thing he’ll do is lash out at you.”

“I’m not worried …” Forest began.

Alex held up a hand to silence him. “I am. I’m
very worried. Keep your eyes open and don’t take any lonely drives in the
country.”

Smith remained silent. “We’re all in danger here,”
Maggie said quietly. “The fact that they haven’t succeeded in killing anyone,
yet, doesn’t mean that they won’t the next time they try.” She put her hand on
the doorknob. “We’ll be back in Westbury by midafternoon tomorrow.” She nodded
at Smith. “Forest is dropping us at the airport at noon, and we’ll be on the
next shuttle to Westbury. I’ll text you when we get home. I’ll be in my office
by eight on Monday morning. Time is on their side, not ours. They think this
will be a battle of attrition—that we’ll be gridlocked by mountains of
documents. We’re going to show them differently.”

Alex smiled. “Thanks, coach!”

“Be careful getting home tonight and from here on
out.” She opened the door and watched until their taillights disappeared around
the side of the house and out of sight.