Rocky Road (15 page)
“So no one is verifying that the money raised by the boutique goes toward research?” Caro summarized.
“Nope. It doesn’t mean that the boutique isn’t making the donations, but it’s a really strange way for them to organize it, and the fact that Anita Hendricks has been involved in this type of industry for so long makes this even stranger—she knows how to set up and run a nonprofit, so why didn’t she do that with the boutique?” Sadie leaned forward and with her pen tapped the screen of her laptop, right where it said that the boutique was a nonprofit.
“But ... if they say they’re a nonprofit and they’re not, that’s fraud,” Caro said. “Wouldn’t the IRS have figured this out? Or the police?”
“If there were an investigation going on with that, why would Officer Nielson be closing the case?”
“Good point.”
Sadie waved Caro out of the chair, explaining she needed to look up something else on the computer. Caro complied, taking Sadie’s place standing behind the chair while Sadie Googled watch groups who reported on charity organizations. Once she found a credible watch-group website, she did a search for the Red Rock Cancer Foundation and found good ratings.
“The boutique wouldn’t be there, though, would it?” Caro pointed out when Sadie typed the name of the boutique into the search bar. “It’s not a charity organization.”
“True.” Sadie did a few more searches, but she couldn’t find anything that showed these watch groups had any idea what the boutique was doing. Maybe because the boutique was in such a small area, it had flown under the radar, or perhaps it was new enough that people weren’t aware of the discrepancy. Everyone Sadie had talked to in southern Utah seemed to take the foundation and, by default, the boutique at their word.
At the bottom of the screen, Sadie found a “contact us” link. She clicked on it and was taken to a comment form she didn’t hesitate to fill with the basics of what she’d just discovered, requesting they contact her for additional details. The chance that they would contact her tonight was zero. The chance that they would contact her tomorrow wasn’t much better, and the fact that the boutique wasn’t a charity organization might put her concerns outside of their sphere altogether—but who else could she talk to?
Officer Nielson came to mind, and she bit her lip while she considered it, argued with herself about it, and eventually decided she had to share what she knew. Feeling territorial in regard to things she learned wasn’t a new feeling, but she had to consciously remind herself that this case was different from any other case she’d worked before. She was working with the police this time, and she’d given her word to turn over anything she discovered to them. Even if it were difficult to do.
“Caro, could you get my phone out of my purse? I’d better tell Officer Nielson about this.”
Caro crossed to the bed and retrieved Sadie’s phone for her. Sadie wanted to call Officer Nielson before she talked herself out of it. He didn’t answer, so she left a brief message about what they’d uncovered and asked him to call her for more details. She also told him it could wait for the next morning.
She and Caro spent another half hour digging into anything they could think of for dirt on the boutique, but all they found were glowing reviews from customers and several comments about how good it felt to shop for a cause. There wasn’t a single complaint registered with the Better Business Bureau.
Sadie did find a series of articles focused on fraudulent cancer foundations. She was shocked to learn that in the past year over 1,400 foundations in the United States were supposedly raising money for cancer. Of those 1,400, it was estimated that well over 1,200 were donating less than sixty percent of their profits. Some were completely fraudulent in their claims and admitted to donating only manpower for events rather than actual money.
From what Sadie read, she could see that there were millions of dollars unaccounted for in the breast cancer fund-raising market. Instead of raising money for research, most “Pink” merchandise didn’t raise a penny for anyone other than the business owner who cashed in on the altruistic appeal of their products. Sadie would never look at the pink coffee mugs and chef’s knives sold every October the same way again. Was there an arm of the government that oversaw the 1,200 companies that weren’t getting good ratings? Would watch groups come to a small town in the Utah desert to sniff out possible misrepresentations?
It was Sadie’s throbbing head that finally sent her to bed. She and Caro both felt encouraged but exhausted. Sadie took two more Tylenol and tried to find a position for her head on the pillow that didn’t make the pain worse. She wished Pete were available to talk to—she could use his expertise. And his advice.
Soon they had turned off the lights, and the hum of the air conditioning unit provided the backdrop of what Sadie hoped would be a good night’s sleep. “If we’re right,” she said, “and there was some shady stuff going on with the foundation, Dr. Hendricks had a reason to leave town.”
“I thought about that,” Caro said. “But it’s Anita who owns the boutique.”
“He’s on the paperwork, too, and he has a medical license to lose.”
“A medical license he gave up if, in fact, he disappeared to escape what they’d done.”
“Good point,” Sadie said. “Running would save him the public embarrassment, though. People go to great lengths to preserve their reputations.”
After a stretch of silence, Caro spoke again. “I was thinking about that phone call from the motel to Lori.”
“Yeah?” Sadie asked, pushing aside the other thoughts so she could be on the same page Caro was.
“It seems like most of the people who could have upset her that much were at the service—like in-laws or old friends or someone like that. But I didn’t pick up any specific tension between her and anyone there.”
“Except Anita,” Sadie said.
“Right, but I can’t imagine that Anita called her from Pine Valley the morning of the memorial service.”
Another good point. “True.”
“And Lori kept checking her phone, which I thought might have meant she was waiting for the attorney to call her back. But then I wondered if it could be something else. Or someone else.”
“Like who?” Sadie said, but an itch of an idea had started tickling her chest.
“Well, if I had to disappear for some reason, the people it would be the very hardest for me not to have contact with would be my kids.”
“Right,” Sadie agreed as the itch got stronger.
“But if my kids were young, whoever was taking care of them would be the next hardest person to cut ties with.”
Sadie considered that, really considered it, and finally scratched that growing itch. “You think Dr. Hendricks may have called Lori from this motel?”
“I know it’s a long shot, and I’m probably just really tired, but it did cross my mind. And now that we’ve determined a couple of possible reasons for him to leave, it feels more possible. A call from him would certainly send Lori into a tailspin, don’t you think? And if he were asking for help to come out of hiding, wouldn’t contacting an attorney be a reasonable thing to ask her to help him with?”
Sadie picked up the train of thought. “And the mother of your children would want to go about things in a way that had the least impact on the children. What I mean is, Lori wouldn’t go to the newspapers. She’d want to protect her kids.” Sadie’s battered mind was racing. “An attorney could help with that, especially if Dr. Hendricks were to think he’s coming back to criminal charges.”
“In fact, he might want an attorney with him when he turned himself in.”
“Except that Kyle Edger is a contract and patent attorney, not criminal.”
“Maybe he’s a friend of Dr. H and could give him a recommendation,” Caro suggested.
“You’re very good at this, you know,” Sadie said into the dark.
“Well, thank you,” Caro answered, obviously pleased by the compliment. “I guess we’ll find out tomorrow if any of these ideas turn out to be worth anything.”
The next morning, Sadie woke up with Caro’s theory thick in her brain. Her head still hurt, but not nearly the way it had the night before. The swelling had gone down, but the bruising was worse. Thankfully, between Caro and herself they were able to cover it enough that she didn’t think anyone else would notice it. Their work here felt more important than ever, which is why Sadie frowned when Officer Nielson hadn’t called them back before they shut the door to their room behind them. It was after eight o’clock in the morning and Sadie hoped to have heard from him by now.
“The gal we want to talk to is Candace,” Caro said as they headed toward the lobby. The smell of waffles made Sadie’s stomach growl. She hadn’t had dinner the night before, and she couldn’t remember when she had last skipped a meal because there were too many other thoughts distracting her from the need for sustenance. They turned the corner into the lobby and approached the front desk, where a woman was plinking away at a computer keyboard. She looked up when they approached and smiled.
“Good morning,” the woman said in precisely the way Sadie would expect a morning desk clerk at a hotel to respond to a guest.
“Good morning,” Sadie and Caro said in unison. They looked at each other and Sadie ducked her chin, turning the interview over to Caro. After all, Caro was the one who’d initially called Pine Valley.
“Hi,” Caro said, glancing down at the gold name tag on the woman’s shirt. “You’re Candace?”
“Yes, ma’am. May I help you?”
“Well, I think so,” Caro said. “Someone called a friend of mine from the front desk phone yesterday, and I’m trying to figure out who that someone was. Were you working yesterday morning?”
The openness of the woman’s expression closed in a flash, and Sadie tensed slightly in response. “I will not give out information about our guests.”
“Oh,” Caro said, blinking in surprise. “I’m not going to get you in trouble or anything. I just really need to know who made that call.”
“Joanna called me after you talked to her yesterday, and I reminded her of our policy not to talk about our guests. Is there something else I can help you with?”
“Oh, um ...” Caro swallowed.
“So it was a guest?” Sadie cut in. “Whoever used the phone was staying here?”
Candace paused long enough to give Sadie confidence to move forward. “I understand why you would want to protect the identity of someone staying at the motel, but if he weren’t staying at the motel ...” She’d slipped in the “he,” hoping Candace would confirm that detail, but Candace was more closed than ever.
“Can I help you with anything else? I am not at liberty to talk about the phone call yesterday.”
Sadie put a bit more clip into her voice to better match Candace’s tone. “I appreciate your determination to protect their privacy, but this is really important and I promise we’re not trying to get anyone in trouble—them or you.”
The woman regarded her for a few seconds, and Sadie’s hopes began to build until the woman spoke again and dashed those hopes on the rocks. “You can leave a message for him, and then he can contact you if he wants to.”
Him? Sadie felt a tingle go all the way to her toes, and she noticed Caro straighten as she, too, picked up the detail. Did the fact that this woman would take a message mean he came in regularly? “Do you know when he’ll be in next?” Sadie asked casually, not wanting to betray how much this woman had said without meaning to.
“You can leave a message for him,” the woman said, this time with feigned sweetness that wasn’t all that sweet.
“This is kind of urgent,” Sadie said. She had to shake off some of her seeming neutrality so she’d have a solid motivation to continue her questions. She decided to proceed the way she would if she had some kind of proof that the “him” they were talking about was in fact Dr. Hendricks. It was a heady thought. “I think he’s in trouble and I’m trying to help him. Will he be coming in today?”
Candace wasn’t thawed. “I said you can leave him a message. That’s all I can do to help you.”
Sadie considered grabbing the woman by the collar to prove how serious she was, but that only worked in the movies. Not that Sadie had actually tried it herself. Instead, she nodded and asked to borrow a paper and pen, which the woman handed her. She wrote a quick note explaining she would like to talk to him and wrote down her number. She knew that this option was not likely to succeed if this man were trying to be stealthy about something.
Sadie thanked Candace, and she and Caro went to the breakfast area, where they sat across from one another at one of the three small Formica-topped tables.
“If he’s been hiding for months, won’t the note just make him run?” Caro asked.
The thought had crossed Sadie’s mind, but she’d dismissed it in favor of the possibility that he might call her. Hearing Caro verbalize the potential failure of this plan, however, made it seem much more likely that he wouldn’t call. But Sadie couldn’t ask for the note back. “I don’t know,” Sadie said with a shake of her head. “But even without the note, this Candace woman would certainly tell him we were looking for him, which would chase him away as well as the note would. I wonder why she’s so protective of him.”
Caro shrugged, and a moment later, her phone rang. She fished it out of her purse, then said “Tess” before lifting it to her ear. She stood and headed toward the front doors.
Sadie’s stomach growled, and she decided now was as good a time as ever to make herself some waffles. Maybe food would help her figure out what to do next. Other than sitting here in the lobby all day hoping this mysterious caller would return, she couldn’t think of any other options.
There was still a minute and a half left on the timer for her rotating waffle machine when a young couple came into the lobby. They set about getting cereal and fruit, making eyes at each other and stealing kisses every chance they got. By the time the cooker announced the waffle was done, Sadie had pegged the couple as newlyweds. Sadie’s own engagement ring caught her eye and she felt her cheeks heat up. Zing.
While she put butter into each perfect square of her waffle, the young woman came up beside her to spread peanut butter on the toast that had just popped up from the toaster.
“Hi,” Sadie said.
“Hi,” the young woman said back.
“Beautiful day, isn’t it?”
“Sure is,” the girl said, smiling even wider as she looked out the window at the bright summer morning. The valley was a beautiful sight, full of sunshine, surrounded by pine-tree-covered hills, and with a calm serenity that made you want to hike or fish or simply lie in the middle of a meadow and soak it all in.
“I guess every morning is beautiful around here, though,” Sadie continued.
“Probably,” the young woman said. She began to turn away but then seemed to realize that Sadie wasn’t finished talking.
“Were you here yesterday?” Sadie asked, trying to ease into this but not feeling particularly smooth.
“Yep, been here since Tuesday.” She leaned in a bit conspiratorially. “We got married on Monday—this is our honeymoon.” Her cheeks reddened, and Sadie offered her sincere congratulations. The new groom came up behind his new wife and snaked an arm around her waist. Sadie felt sure if she hadn’t been here he’d have nuzzled the girl’s neck. As it was, Sadie was glad he restrained himself. Otherwise she’d have been blushing, too.
“Did you happen to see that guy who came in yesterday morning—I think he used the phone or something?” She reached for the syrup but poured it very slowly. She was so hungry at this point it felt as though her stomach were eating itself, but it would just have to wait.
“The kind of scruffy one?”
The girl’s easy answer startled Sadie, and she dripped some syrup on the counter. Sadie looked up at her. “Yeah, do you know who he was?”
“Why would we know that?” the groom answered for her, but his tone was kind.
“Um, I don’t know, I just wondered about him. Do you remember what time you saw him?”
“You must have seen him, too, right?” the groom asked rather than answering her question.
“Well, I thought so, but I couldn’t remember what time it was.” Not that she could think of why the time would be important.
“Is the time important?” the groom echoed her internal question. He regarded her a bit closer. “I don’t remember seeing you here.”
“Uh ...”
Caro pushed through the front doors, giving Sadie an excuse to make her escape. She smiled genuinely at the young couple. “Congratulations on your wedding. Have a great day.”
They both watched her more than she was entirely comfortable with, but she pretended not to notice as she took her plate back to the table. She wasn’t having a great morning so far.
“That looks good,” Caro said, nodding toward Sadie’s waffle. “I’m going to get one and then I’ll give you Tess’s update.”
Sadie nodded and used the time it took Caro to fix her plate—only half a waffle—to try to renew her confidence while she filled her belly. The waffle was okay, but it was obviously from a mix and was too sweet—more like cake. She missed her own buttermilk waffle recipe and wondered wistfully how long it would be until her life got back to normal enough that she’d be cooking her own favorites again.
“How are things going with Tess?” she asked when Caro sat down.
Caro smiled, genuinely excited to impart the news. “She talked to both of Dr. Hendricks’s parents at the luncheon and got an extensive interview with Dr. Waters’s medical assistant last night, too.”
Sadie was glad to hear one of them was having success. “Has she discovered anything significant from these interviews?”
“Yeah. Dr. H called his mother a few days before he disappeared and left a voice mail telling her that he loved her.”
“And that was unusual?”
“I get the impression that there had been a lot of strain between him and his parents. It seems like it was improving in the last few years, but the fact that his mom was so touched by the message seems to mean that it didn’t happen on a regular basis, right?”
“Or that she focused on it because it was the last communication she’d had with him,” Sadie pointed out.
“I guess that’s true,” Caro said, though she didn’t seem to like Sadie’s answer. “I saw you talking to that couple—did they know anything?”
Sadie imparted what she’d learned without telling Caro how she’d bungled the conversation. Caro listened with wide eyes, and then she leaned forward. “It has to be him, right? It’s got to be Dr. H.”
“We don’t know enough to be even close to certain of that,” Sadie said. “All we really know is a scruffy man was here, and Candace let a man use the phone. We don’t even know that it’s the same man.”
“But it seems like it is,” Caro pointed out.
“That’s not enough,” Sadie said.
Voices caught their attention and they looked toward the front desk. A young woman with a lip ring and jet-black hair that hung in her face was talking to Candace about needing to order more glass cleaner. Sadie noted the spray bottle in the girl’s hand and the rag sticking out of the back pocket of the girl’s impossibly tight jeans. “I like the kind that foams up on the glass, not just the blue-colored ammonia.”
“I’ll put it on the list,” Candace said, not sounding particularly friendly. Maybe she wasn’t very nice to anyone.
“Thanks,” the Goth girl said before turning and heading back toward the hallway of guest rooms. Before she disappeared around the corner, Sadie noticed that her charcoal-colored T-shirt had the lodge’s logo on the back. Sadie turned to look at Caro. “Housekeeping?” Sadie suggested. Caro nodded.
“We might have another shot,” Sadie responded. She glanced at Candace to make sure she wasn’t somehow overhearing their conversation. If she were, she might put a stop to any attempts they made to have a conversation with Goth Girl. But she was bent over some paperwork.
Sadie gave Caro a quick nod and took one last bite of her waffle before standing up. She kept her gait unhurried and her expression a picture of innocent intention as they followed Goth Girl. She and Caro took turns casting quick looks at Candace. When she turned toward the back office, they smiled at each other and picked up their pace, slowing once they cleared the corner of the hallway.
A housekeeping cart stood against the wall about halfway down the hallway, across from an open doorway into one of the guest rooms. They approached slowly, then stopped when Goth Girl came out of the room. She had headphones in her ears and bobbed her head along to the music.
“Hi,” Sadie said when they were within a few feet of the girl. Caro was half a step behind her. The young housekeeper looked up at them and plucked the earphone out of one ear.
“Hi, can I help you with somethin’?” the girl asked.
“I hope so,” Sadie said, willing Candace to stay at her desk and hoping that the third time would be the charm in her approaches for the day. She didn’t know of any other way to address this than straight on, even though that hadn’t worked yet. She took a breath and laid it out there. “Yesterday a man made a call from the lobby phone and I’m trying to find him.”
The girl scrunched up her nose. “I’m just housekeeping, so I don’t deal with the guests much.”