Sleuthing at Sweet Springs (The Sleuth Sisters Mysteries Book 4) (17 page)

While Barb met with Mr. Wozniak, I called a couple of contacts who’d promised to do some digging for me. A friend at the county records office had researched the current ownership of the Clausen property. “It was purchased by a corporation called S&S Incorporated,” she reported, “but I couldn’t find a single human associated with it, just a law office out of Detroit.”

Sherry, who ran a local print shop, had a friend in Lansing knowledgeable enough to navigate the layers of government bureaucracy and locate paperwork making its way through the system. “A usage request has been made,” she reported. “The owner of a property on Sweet Springs asked for an assessment, and it’s scheduled for November 18
th
. The property owner is—some corporation.” As she paused to check her notes I supplied, “The S&S Corporation.”

“You’ve heard of them?”

“Not till a minute ago. Any people named on the application?”

After a few seconds she said, “Sydney Mellon is the contact person. Is that a name you recognize?”

“Nope.” I shuffled through my notes on the case, but I was pretty sure that name hadn’t come up.

“Then I guess what I found doesn’t help much.”

“We know there’s interest in the water at Sweet Springs.”

“I was out there once,” Sherry said. “It would be a shame to build a plant next to all that natural beauty.”

“I agree.” Knowing Sherry was an active member of the Allport grapevine I asked, “If I give you some names, will you tell me what comes to mind?”

“Sounds like a fun game.”

Unwilling to tip my hand too easily, I started with two Allport city councilmen. Sherry’s answers were predictable, and I tried the name of a man who considered himself an entrepreneur.

“Nobody likes George,” she said. “Avoid him like the plague.”

“How about Gail Sherman? She’s a realtor at—”

“I know of her,” Sherry interrupted. “They say she goes through men like the Kardashians go through eyeliner.”

“So who’s the current man?”

“Some tourist. That was last week, so it might be old news.”

Barb’s current location flitted through my mind. “How about Stan Wozniak? Did Gail ever date him?”

Sherry searched her memory, humming a little. “Can’t say yes for sure, but she’s definitely his type: big boobs, big eyes, limited comprehension of words of more than two syllables.”

“She’s dumb?”

“Not when it comes to making a buck, but she couldn’t tell the truth about a property if somebody tattooed it on her arm.”

“So, not crooked but definitely bent a little.”

“That’s about right. Come to think of it, Gail might be seeing Stan. Her car was at WOZ last week when I delivered stationery.”

“You’re sure it was her car?”

“She’s got one of those magnetic signs that says
So-Rite Realty
. If the Asian guy is in her past, she might go after Stan. She’d have to move fast, since he isn’t around much anymore.”

“The Asian guy?”

“The tourist. Can’t think of his name—”

Rick Chou
. Gail was dating—or had been dating—our client and Retta’s new friend. How much had they talked about water bottling, elderly aunts, and the Smart Detective Agency?

The door opened just then and Barb came in, along with windblown dirt and leaves. Eager to know what she’d found out, I thanked Sherry and told her I’d catch up with her soon.

I turned to Barb expectantly. “What’s with Mr. Wozniak?”

She frowned, making deep lines between her brows. “He wants us to check on Enright Landon, he says, but I’m wondering if he’s got ulterior motives.” She took out her phone. “I turned off the ringer during our meeting, and on the way home I saw I’d received this.” She held out her phone so I could read the message. Rory wanted her to call him at the police station as soon as possible.

“Sounds serious.”

Barb made the call. “Hi, Janet. It’s Barb Evans returning Chief Neuencamp’s call.”

She waited briefly then said, “Rory? What’s going on?” Her expression changed as she listened. Finally she said, “Thanks. I’ll be in touch.”

We both turned as the door opened and Retta came in. “I was right behind you. I thought we’d—” She stopped as the look on Barb’s face registered. “What’s wrong?”

“Gail Sherman’s body was found floating in Sweet Springs this morning. Sheriff Brill called Rory, and he let me know.”

***

News came in bits and pieces, some of it reliable, some typical of the small-town telegraph, overblown and edging on the ridiculous. Gail had been raped and strangled. Not true. She’d drowned saving a child but couldn’t save herself. Also fiction. A passing motorist had seen her fall into the lake from the main road but couldn’t get to her in time (geographically impossible).

I was reminded of when Dale got hurt. I’d learned afterwards that according to town gossip, I’d moved the fallen tree off him myself, powered by love and adrenalin, like the Cajun Queen who saved Big, Bad John in the song. Way wrong, though if I’d been there, I certainly would have tried.

The truth of Gail’s death, Rory reported half an hour later, was that Fred Marsh had been at his grandfather’s house and noticed something white floating near Clara’s dock. Since the night had been windy, he’d thought a tarp might have blown into the lake. On his way home he’d stopped to fish it out but instead discovered Gail’s body. “There’s a wound on her head,” Rory said over the speakerphone. “The coroner will have to determine if she was struck or hit her head when she fell into the water.”

“According to both Fred Marsh and Clara, Gail was afraid of the lake,” I told him. “She wouldn’t go near it.”

“I guess we’ll know more when the autopsy’s done.”

After ending that call Barb mused, “If Gail had a partner, as Faye suggested, he might have begun to see her as a liability.”

“Because we started looking into her activities?”

“Right.” Spinning slowly left and right in her chair, she laid out a possible scenario. “Let’s say Gail meets Mr. X, who’s smarter than she about business but unaware of Sweet Springs. When Gail mentions her aunt’s property, this person sees possibilities. Still, he knows local objections can delay projects like that and even derail them. Gail knows the Clausen place is for sale, and she says she can talk Aunt Clara into selling. He offers financial backing, and they form a partnership.”

“Right,” Retta said. “The corporation that bought the Clausen property is probably Gail and the partner, whoever he is.”

“Or she,” I put in.

Retta turned to me, one brow quirked. “It has to be one of two people, either Enright Landon or Stanley Wozniak. Enright has the technical know-how to deal with a water plant and Stanley has the business sense.”

“And the drive to make a big profit,” Barbara put in.

“Exactly.” Retta had a new idea. “Maybe the corporation is actually Gail plus Wozniak
and
Landon.”

“Which one of them murdered Gail?”

“We’re not sure anyone did, Retta.”

“Oh, come on, Barbara Ann. The woman was terrified of the lake. Why would she go down to the dock and just fall in?”

Barb shrugged. “There could be a dozen reasons. We need to deal in facts.”

“But we should think outside the box, too.”

“All right, let’s do that. Are there other reasons why someone would want Gail dead—assuming she was murdered?”

We all thought about that for a while. “It depends how far the scheme to get the properties went,” Retta finally said. “If Gail and her partners killed Caleb Marsh and burned the Warners’ house down, one of them might have wanted to get back at them.”

“But the Warners are in Detroit, and Fred Marsh isn’t the type to push a defenseless woman off a dock,” I argued.

“If Marsh learned Gail was partly to blame for his grandfather’s death, he might have confronted her at Clara’s.”

“Killing her could have been an accident.” Barb took off her glasses and polished the lenses with a wipe.

“Right. He chased her onto the dock. She fell, hit her head on a post, and died. He panicked and made up a story about finding her body.” Retta’s flair for the dramatic took it a step farther. “Or he killed her in a rage and threw her body in the water to make it look like she drowned.”

I shook my head. “You’re way outside the box now. How would Fred have found out Gail’s scheme? How would he know she’d be at Clara’s house? Why wouldn’t he call the police if he thought she was involved in criminal activity?”

Retta fell silent, chastened a little by common sense, and I tossed out my own theory. “What about Rick Chou as the silent partner? According to rumor, he and Gail had some sort of relationship. He’s got money, so he could provide the financing.”

“And he’s been keeping tabs on us by sticking close to Baby Sister.” Though Barb’s phrasing was more aggressive than I’d have chosen, I’d been thinking the same thing.

“Rick is no murderer.” Retta’s indignant expression contradicted her tone, which revealed she knew how weak her position was. “He doesn’t even live here full time.”

“That doesn’t preclude his scheming to make a pile of money when the opportunity arises. If he had a fling with Gail—”

“Gossips saying they were an item doesn’t make it true.”

Knowing gossip, Barb and I had to acknowledge her point. Still, Retta didn’t want to believe Chou might be different than she imagined him, which clouded her judgment.

“What’s the scenario?” Barb asked. “If Gail was murdered, which we don’t know yet, it would go like this: Gail is a minor crook. She meets a man—she’s always meeting a man—and they hatch a scheme. When she becomes a liability, he kills her.”

“If that’s true, the coroner will find evidence of murder and his plan will be ruined.”

“But if they don’t find anything, he’s good to go. If a crime is indicated at a future point, he can say he had no idea what Gail did to get the property. She’ll take the blame for anything the police
can
prove.”

“Not much chance of that,” Retta put in. “There’s no proof Mr. Marsh’s death wasn’t an accident. The Warners’ house burned due to arson, but there’s no evidence of who the arsonist was. Gail wasn’t even in Michigan then.” She began rearranging items on Barb’s desk, caught herself, and buried her hands in her lap. “With her dead, no one can tie Mr. X to the scheme.”

“Except that he’s the one who profits,” I argued.

“But we can’t prove he committed crimes to put himself in that position. Getting the bottling plant going might be a little more difficult to pull off without Gail to hide behind, but it can be done. We have no way to stop him.”

We argued, discussed, and puzzled over Gail’s silent partner for the next half hour but got nowhere. When Retta finally went home, I asked Barb, “Should we cancel the Canada trip?”

“I don’t see any reason to,” she replied. “Rory isn’t involved in the investigation of Gail’s death. Lars is coming in tonight, and there isn’t much we can do until the medical report is in, which will be Monday at the earliest.” She bit her lip. “Did you tell Retta about the plans for tomorrow?”

“She thinks we’re going to visit Clara.” At her look, I raised a palm. “You can spring the trip on her at your convenience. I’m not telling Retta she has to be up and dressed by five.”

Barb sighed, and I knew she was regretting the whole idea. “Okay. I just hope she reacts well when the guys show up at the railway station.”

On our dog-walking date, I had invited Diane Landon to go shopping with me on Friday. It’s more fun to shop with someone else, I think, though Barbara disagrees. She shops only when necessary, and then with deadly precision and no sense of adventure whatsoever. Faye buys her clothes at second-hand stores, claiming it’s ridiculous to pay full price. Though Diane was a lot younger than I and had less age-related flaws to hide, it would be nice to have a companion who appreciated good fabric and clever design.

We had a good time, talking about everything the way women do when they’re getting to know each other. She’d lived in a lot of places, since her dad worked on oil rigs. “Name a state with oil, and I’ve lived there,” she joked. She was very interested in what is was like to be a private detective, and though I explained it was nothing like the movies portray. I admitted we’d done well with the cases we’d had thus far.

“Now you’re looking into something about water bottling?”

I shrugged. “It’s one possibility in a case we took on.”

“Sweet Springs, right?” She flipped her hair over her shoulders. “I heard you telling En the other night.”

An image of Barbara Ann’s disapproving face came to mind, and I gave a no-answer answer. “As I said, just a possibility.”

“I see.” Fingering the weave of a sweater on the sale rack, she wrinkled her nose. “Our agent mentioned the place once.”

“Gail Sherman? What did she say about it?”

Her mouth twisted as she tried to remember. “Something personal. I think her grandmother or someone like that lived out there, but it wasn’t a good situation for her anymore.”

“Clara is Gail’s aunt. Was. You heard Gail is dead, right?”

“It was on the news. It’s terrible, an accident like that.”

I didn’t comment on that. “That’s all she said, that her aunt lived at Sweet Springs?”

She frowned again. “She said something about getting control of the property if the aunt was declared incompetent. She said she had some ideas about what to do with it.” Diane smiled ruefully. “That’s really all I remember.”

“Every little bit helps us,” I said encouragingly. “I don’t know what will happen to Clara’s property now that Gail’s dead, but it would be a shame if someone turned the area into a bottling plant. It’s really pretty out there.”

“Yes,” she agreed, “though that dirt road makes a mess of your car.”

I put the cropped pants I’d been looking at back on the table. The fabric was too stiff “Have you been out there?”

“No,” she said. “Gail said she had to take her car to the carwash after every trip out there.”

“When did you last speak to Gail?”

Diane considered. “Saturday, I think. She called to talk to Enright, who was home for once, and we chatted a little while I searched the house for him.” She chuckled. “He sets his phone down and walks away, so I’m always answering his calls.”

Saturday had been the day a strange man chased me off Clara’s property. I remembered seeing two cars drive by on Sweet Lane, too. Had Gail been out there with her partner? Had he been the one who’d threatened me with a hoe? Recalling his wiry build, I thought of the young man I’d seen outside Diane’s house a few nights later. It could have been the same man, I decided.

“What time do you go to bed at night?” Diane gave me a funny look and I groped for a reason for asking. “I don’t like calling people if they’re early-to-bed types.”

“Am I that easy to read?” She made a little duck-face. “I go to bed pretty early most nights. Usually around nine o’clock we head to our rooms, which are at separate ends of the house.” Smiling in embarrassment she explained, “En snores like a diesel, so I sleep alone. Once I turn my white noise on, I’m out for the night.”

Snoring does separate lots of couples, but separate rooms might mean Enright didn’t want his wife knowing what he was up to. Mr. X might have hired a minion to do his dirty work.

If that was so, his choice of a wife like Diane was more calculating than I’d thought. She wasn’t the type who’d question Enright or object when he worked all the time…and she wouldn’t notice if a strange young man hung around their home after midnight.