Sleuthing at Sweet Springs (The Sleuth Sisters Mysteries Book 4) (10 page)

At the Allport Public Safety Facility, I was led to a ten-by-ten office stacked with so many books, pamphlets, and papers about fire, fire prevention, and fire investigation that it seemed itself a fire hazard. Fire Marshal Ray Socolovitch, also deputy chief, was a fortyish man with a receding hairline and a Sam Elliot mustache. The fire crew, though hired and paid by the city, was contracted to cover the entire county. Since Ray was investigating the incident at Sweet Springs, Rory had asked him to tell me what he could about it.

“Place burned right to the ground,” he told me after the preliminaries had been completed. “An old lady on the other side of the lake called it in—”

“Clara Knight?”

He nodded. “That’s her. The smell of smoke woke her up, but by the time we got a crew out there, there wasn’t much to do but save the chimney.” He grinned at the old fire-fighters’ joke.

“And you suspect arson?”

“I can’t comment on that, since the case is ongoing.” He smiled to excuse the refusal.

I smiled too. “The fact that it’s ongoing over a month after it happened indicates you’re not comfortable calling it accidental.”

Socolovitch shrugged noncommittally, and I realized the interview could go no further if I asked direct questions. I decided to do some guessing instead, in hopes he’d give up some clues if I wandered onto the right track.

“Let me tell you about my case,” I began. “Mrs. Knight is now at the Meadows. Apparently she’s not mentally competent.”

He frowned. “Really? I didn’t get that impression.”

“Could you explain the impression you did get?”

“I remember thinking she was really with it for an old gal.” Socolovitch folded his arms across his wide chest. “When she smelled smoke, she went out to her dock with binoculars and located the fire. She called it in, giving specific directions about how the road circles the lake. She knew we’d see the fire from the main road and might not realize we had to go past her place to get to it.” As another memory rose, he chuckled. “At first light when we were cleaning up, she came putting across the lake in a Detroit Lions boat with coffee and fresh-made cookies.”

“That doesn’t sound like someone who’s slipping mentally.”

He adjusted some files on his desk. “Later I interviewed her about the fire, and again, she seemed sharp to me. The owners of the house had worked on it all weekend—this happened the Tuesday after Labor Day. Mrs. Knight went over to see what they’d got done before they headed back south. She said they were real proud of it and they’d never have burned it down.”

“But that’s where your investigation is leading?”

He cleared his throat. “Nadine and Earl Warner were back in Auburn Hills twenty hours before the house caught fire.”

“They might have left something on, like a space heater.”

Again he looked as if he’d like to say more. “We didn’t find that to be the case.”

I paused, trying to figure out what he couldn’t tell me. “You found clear indications of arson.” When he merely quirked an eyebrow I said, “But the fire was set after they left?”

Socolovitch sighed. “Let’s just say there are unanswered questions.”

He couldn’t share his theory of what the answers might be, so I shared my own unanswered questions. “Clara thinks her niece, who’s a real estate agent, wants her out of the way so she can sell her property.” Drawing a circle on his desk with my finger, I pointed as I explained. “One quarter of the Sweet Springs property has been on the market for some time. According to what we’re told, it sold quite recently. Another of the property owners died last week, so it’s possible that piece might go up for sale soon. Clara’s property makes a third section that could end up on the market. It seems odd to me that the fourth and final property has experienced a suspicious fire.”

Socolovitch was intrigued. “You think someone wants to own the whole lake?”

“We’re considering the possibility.”

“Why?”

I shrugged. “No clue.”

He rubbed at his neck. “That fits my case.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just that the Warners planned to retire up here. That house was their dream, so—”

“—They wouldn’t burn it down for the insurance.”

Rubbing at his jaw, he chuckled. “After ten years in this job I’d never say what someone might do, but it doesn’t feel like owner arson to me.” Unaware he’d passed the point of confidentiality he added, “It wasn’t an accident, though. Someone made sure there wouldn’t be anything left for us to save.”

I thought of the markers Retta had described and guessed they indicated points where fuel had been applied. “The arsonist didn’t try to hide that the place was burned on purpose.”

His curt nod indicated I was correct.

Having learned what he could legally tell me and a little more, I rose to go. “I appreciate the help. We’ll keep what you told us private, and we’d appreciate the same consideration.”

He rose to shake my hand. “From what Rory tells me, you won’t even tell him what we talked about.”

“It always pays to keep professional matters separate from personal.”

The look I got was quizzical, and I realized I sounded cold and a little pompous.
Oh, well
, I told myself as I left the building,
I might sound that way because it’s the way I am.

***

Back at the office, I went to my computer and started a search. We had the Warners’ first names and their city of residence, so without much trouble I found the specific address, along with a phone number. Setting my glasses down a little on my nose to help with focus, I entered the digits into my phone, listening for a little beep with each one to make sure I got it right. A woman answered.

“Is this Nadine Warner?”

“Yes.”

I explained who I was. “I’m a private detective working for Clara Knight. Do you know her?”

“Of course,” she replied. “Clara and George have lived on Sweet Springs since I knew the place existed.”

“Which is how long?”

She took a moment. “We’ve been married eleven years, and I started going up there with Earl a year or two before that. We drove up for the funeral when George died a few years back.”

“Have you noticed odd behavior from Clara lately?”

“What do you mean?”

When I explained that she was in a nursing home due to possible dementia, Mrs. Warner gasped. “That’s ridiculous! We invited Clara to our campfire Labor Day Weekend. She came over in her little boat with home-made chips and salsa, and we sat around until ten, telling stories and laughing.”

“You believed she was mentally competent at that point?”

“More than competent.” Nadine gave a little giggle. “I watch what I say around Clara, because she knows something about everything. I’m always afraid she’ll think I’m a dummy.”

“That’s very helpful.” It was and it wasn’t. It helped to know that two objective people thought Clara was sane, but it didn’t solve the question. Faye had admitted at breakfast that Clara mistook her for Gail when she stopped in the night before.

Had Clara’s doctors checked for physical causes of her spells of confusion? Brain tumors, chemical imbalances, even a urinary tract infection could have odd effects in older people.

Picking up a cow-shaped stress ball from my desk, I squeezed it a few times, trying to decide what to say next. Since Nadine didn’t sound like a criminal I said, “I’m sorry your house burned.”

“Thanks.” Her voice turned sad. “We put so much work into it, and now it’s gone.”

“Will you rebuild?”

“No money. We borrowed quite a bit to build the new place.”

“I’m sorry.” I avoided the insurance problem. No sense rubbing salt in the wound. “What will you do?”

“We might have to sell the property to pay off the loan. It’s that or pay for years on a dead horse.”

That rang an alarm bell. “Have you been contacted by a real estate agent, by chance?”

“Well, not formally, but the weekend after the fire, we drove north to see the damage. While we were up there we ran into someone Earl knows, and she said if we did consider selling, she hoped we’d let her represent us. At the time we said no, because we were sure we’d rebuild. We didn’t know then it was arson.” Her voice shook a little. “The insurance company can refuse to pay, even if they can’t prove we set fire to our own place.”

“The agent who wants to represent you, who is that?”

“I don’t remember her name.”

“Oh.” I set the stress ball down and watched it return to its original shape.

“I can ask Earl when he gets home. Or you could ask Clara. He told me she and the real estate agent are related somehow.”

Because it might pertain to our investigation, I told Faye about the fire marshal’s suspicions. I also reported my conversation with Nadine Warner and the fact she and her husband were forced to consider selling their lake property.

“I shouldn’t say a case of arson comes as a relief,” Faye said, typing information into our case files as she spoke, “but it makes Clara’s story more believable, which makes me feel better about us taking her case.”

I wasn’t aware an official decision had been made, but I figured we could do some further work for Mrs. Knight. “While you were gone yesterday, I went online and looked up Sweet Springs in the plat book.” I handed her a sheet with property owners’ names: Clara Knight, Mark Clausen, Nadine and Earl Warner, and Caleb Marsh. “That last one will change, of course.” Taking up a pen, I scratched its point on my notepad until I got ink then made a note to find out who Marsh’s heirs were.

As Faye considered the list, I summed up what we knew. “Absentee owner Mark Clausen has apparently sold his parcel, but no change has been made in the official records.”

“Knowing how overworked the county clerk’s staff is, that isn’t surprising,” Faye commented.

“Of course a deed doesn’t have to be recorded right away, or even recorded at all,” I said. “If Gail bought the land herself, she might keep it quiet to gain time to buy up the other parcels.”

“Things seem to be working out in her favor.”

“True. Mrs. Warner said the fire might force them to sell the property to pay off the loan they took out on the new house. And Caleb Marsh’s heirs might part with a small, cramped house at the end of a road going nowhere.” Looking at the map of the area hanging on our office wall, I touched the blue, almost perfect circle that was Sweet Springs. “If Gail becomes Clara’s guardian, she could control the whole lake within a few months.”

Faye frowned. “For properties that have been owned by the same families for more than a century, that’s odd.”

“The question becomes what does she have in mind? She’s no entrepreneur with deep pockets who might fund a resort. A hunting club is possible, I suppose, but we’ve already got several of those in the area, so I doubt that would be a money-maker.”

Faye’s eyes turned upward, the classic sign of memory retrieval. “Pansy suggested Gail might plan to sell the spring water.” She smiled. “She pictures Gail on her hands and knees, filling plastic bottles. I know it’s more complicated than that, but might Gail have something like that in mind?”

“I don’t know much about the subject, but let’s see what we can find out.” Turning to my computer, I typed in “bottling water” and after a few misfires, found a decent site and read a few lines. “Property owners have the right to what the state calls ‘reasonable use’ of water resting on their land. Several farmers have been sued by their neighbors for taking lake water to irrigate crops.” I was silent for a few seconds more as I read. “The ruling was that as long as it didn’t drastically lower lake or stream levels—and there are specifics about how much can be taken and how often—the landowner is entitled to fair use.”

Taking off my glasses, I rubbed my eyes, which stung most of the time in autumn from ragweed and mold. “I know spring water is considered ideal for bottling, but building a plant has to be pricey. Where would Gail get the money for that, even if she did own the whole lake?”

“Maybe she’s offered it to an established bottler,” Faye replied. “They’d either build a plant or pipe the water to where they want it.”

“That’s it. Gail’s putting a deal together to either sell or lease Sweet Springs water to someone with the financial resources to develop it. They probably plan to market it as a specialty water brand so they can charge more.”

That brought a question to Faye’s mind. “Where will Gail get the money to buy two more parcels of lake property?”

“Typically in this type of financial deal, Gail will get financing from a bank because she has a deal in place. The bottler has agreed in principle, believing she’ll soon own the property.” I rolled my eyes. “From what we know about Gail, I’d guess she assured everyone involved that the other landowners were eager to sell and emphasized the fact she’s already got half the lake under her control.”

“That explains why she kept her officemate out of the loop. Competition could have raised the price on the Clausen property.”

I nodded agreement. “She offered them low dollar and said it was the best they’d get.”

“They’re nowhere near Michigan, so how would they know the real estate market here is rebounding?” Faye’s mouth twisted. “If she gets the rights to Clara’s land, she’ll only have to pay market price for the other two.”

It wasn’t a bad plan, as long as Gail worked quickly, before anyone knew what she was up to. “Do you think Gail came up with this idea on her own?”

Faye frowned. “You’ve met her. What do you think?”

I shrugged. “She isn’t the brightest daffodil in the garden, and she’s got no background for it. The woman grew up in Allport and peddles real estate on a very small scale. She shaves off her eyebrows and draws them on with a pencil two shades too dark.”

“Which has nothing to do with being a criminal.”

“I’ll admit she radiates greed, but I can’t see her making a long-range plan to obtain a string of properties, lining up a deal on said properties, and making the legal arrangements to transfer them without letting anyone in town know what she’s up to.”

Before Faye could argue, I switched sides. “On the other hand, she’s been trading real estate for years. She might have picked up a thing or two and recognized a chance to make real money.” I huffed a sigh. “Then again, we might be going in the wrong direction entirely. We need several important pieces of information, like who bought the Clausen place. We just don’t know enough to decide if Gail’s a big crook or a little one.”

Rising from her chair with a grunt of effort, Faye said, “Let’s have lunch and let ideas percolate through our brains. We might come up with something brilliant.”

Pushing myself away from the computer, I followed her to the kitchen, rubbing a spot on my elbow that hurt whenever I spent too much time pecking away at a keyboard. The ulnar nerve was to blame—or maybe I was. I knew I should take frequent breaks but tended to get caught up in research and forget.

A few times each week, Faye cooked for me in an attempt to see that I got what she called “decent food.” Left to my own designs, I could eat twice a day, every day, in restaurants. I’d done that for most of the twenty-plus years I lived in Tacoma. Faye did her best to counteract that sacrilege with home-cooked meals, delicious but calorie-laden.

As we ate creamy potato soup (with bacon, of course) along with French bread Faye had made that morning somewhere between 5:00 and 7:00 a.m., we continued discussing the possibility that Gail wanted to own the whole of Sweet Springs. “Bottlers are always looking for suitable springs,” Faye said. “Several places in the state fought to keep plants out, but they lost or at best got a reduction in withdrawal amounts.”

“Homeowners don’t have the financial resources to fight corporations and win.” Taking my last spoonful of soup I mused, “I wonder what the first step would be in getting a corporation interested in a place like Sweet Springs.”

“Let’s find out.” Faye took my empty bowl and plate from in front of me, and I was left with two bites of bread in my hand. I finished it as we made our way to the front of the house again and sat down at our respective computers.

A half hour later we knew that in order to see if a bottling plant was feasible, a person or entity first had to get the water tested. If the quality was acceptable, the state would be asked to assess the site’s suitability for such an operation. Once a favorable result was obtained, the permission for water use was transferable, meaning the landowner could sell water to a bottler without further application to the state. The amount of water taken could not deplete the source, harm existing wildlife, or inconvenience other property owners on the shore.

“It would be an advantage to own all the land around the lake,” Faye said. “There’s nobody to object.”

“Gail has probably already tested the water’s purity, since that’s just a matter of taking a sample. I wonder if she applied for a water use permit.”

Faye leaned toward the computer, squinting a little. Rubbing at a smear on the screen, she brightened. “I don’t know about that, but here’s an email from my friend at the courthouse. Gail did apply to become her aunt’s guardian.”

“Will she be successful?”

“Clara’s doctor signed her into the Meadows for her safety. The staff will testify that her sanity comes and goes. How long will a judge consider the question of whether an octogenarian can return to her home on a lake miles from anyone?”

“Someone from the court has to interview Clara and ask if she wants a guardian.”

“Then we have to hope the interviewer shows up on one of her good days,” Faye said. “Anyone who saw her the way I did last time will conclude she’s unable to answer for herself.”

“Guardianship would allow Gail to sell or lease the property, as long as she’s acting in her aunt’s best interests.”

“She’ll say Clara needs money to pay for her care at the Meadows.”

“Which might be true.” Despite Faye’s concern for Clara, I wasn’t convinced we should take on this fight. “Do we want to interfere with a relative’s perfectly legal decision?”

“I wish we could speak to a doctor about her,” Faye mused. “When Harriet has a urinary tract infection, she gets really goofy. What if Clara’s problem is something simple like that?”

I gave her a look. “You don’t think people at a nursing facility would check for that sort of thing?”

“The staff at the Meadows is good, and Doctor Allen is competent, but the workers run from one patient to the next, resolving situations and preventing meltdowns. The doctor comes in once a week and sees dozens of patients in the few hours he’s there.”

I shuddered. “Imagine what that’s like: an endless line of people dealing with pain, confusion, and debilitating illness.”

Faye counted on her fingers. “So what does the court have? Gail says Clara’s losing her marbles. Medical people see her mental state waver from fine to pretty much out of it. They learn that Clara lives alone, far from a hospital and possible help.” Raising her palms, she asked, “Who’s going to ask for an in-depth study to find out the cause of her odd behavior? A relative might, but if Gail wants Clara to remain at the Meadows, she isn’t about to.”

Conceding the point I said, “I suppose it’s not good when the person who’s trying to get control of one’s land is the person who deals with her doctor.”

“Clara’s perfectly lucid at times,” Faye insisted. “There might be a physical cause for her spells of confusion that no one’s looking for because Gail keeps saying she’s loony. If they could find out the cause and clear it up, Clara might get out of there.”

“And go back to the springs to live on her own? Is that wise?”

She met my gaze. “It’s how I’d want it if I were in her shoes.”

Knowing Faye’s dread of being dependent on anyone, I changed the subject. “Clara’s problem aside, do we really think Gail is eliminating possible objections to her plan by buying up the other properties on the lake?”

“I certainly do. And things are falling into place for her.”

“What about the convenience of a fire on one property and a death at the other? Are you thinking Gail caused either or both of those things to happen?”

Faye hesitated. That was going farther than she wanted to—at least at this point in time.

“Yoo-hoo!” Retta stuck her head into my office. “What are you two looking so serious about?”

Faye explained our theory that Sweet Springs might be the target of water developers, ending with, “I wish we knew someone who could explain all this to us in layman’s terms.”

Retta had taken a hairbrush out of her purse and was repairing the wind damage the trip over had caused. I considered telling her how many skin cells she was scattering over my office, but it would have been a waste of breath. Instead I said, “We need to find out how easy it is to get permission to do large water withdrawals from a place like Sweet Springs.”

“I know someone you could ask, but you aren’t going to like it.” Retta’s hair, reddish-gold this week and now in proper order, bounced as she waggled her head at me.

“And whom do you know who’s a water expert?”

She snickered. “Whom, Barbara? Who even uses that word anymore? It’s almost as silly as your Oxford comma thing.”

I shot her a look, but she turned to Faye. “The other day Barbara and I were discussing the Oxford comma. She’s a fan; I’m not.”

“It provides clarity.” My lips felt stiff. “If you say, ‘I invited my parents—comma—Wonder Woman and Superman,’ it isn’t clear if the invitation included two people or four.”

“And who can’t figure out that Wonder Woman and Superman never had children together?” Retta shot back. “I stopped reading comics a while ago, but I’m pretty sure they didn’t have any children at all. The sentence is perfectly fine with one comma.”

Faye sighed. Though it was the first time she’d heard this particular argument, it wasn’t the first time she’d served as sister referee. “Retta, you said you know an expert on water rights?”