The Easter Egg Murder (20 page)

50

Harrie didn’t dare look at Ginger. She controlled her tension by focusing on her breathing.
She hoped her excitement wasn’t apparent to Elizabeth.

“What ever became of that envelope?”

Elizabeth gave her a long, appraising look. “Your new administrative assistant is Caroline Johnson, I understand.” Elizabeth picked up the box and took it back to the cabinet.

Harrie looked quickly to Ginger while Elizabeth’s back was turned. Ginger nodded and took the question.

“Yes, she just started with us last week. We feel so fortunate to have her. I understand she worked for your husband many years.”

Elizabeth smiled as she resumed her seat. “Yes, and Jacob depended on her all those years. She was an exceptional assistant.” Elizabeth hesitated. “Has she said much about her time at the firm?”

Harrie swallowed hard. She caught herself before she made yet another futile attempt to evade the underlying question, and decided to just get it out in the open.

“Caroline is helping us get to the bottom of the attack on Senator Lawrence. We believe it’s connected to the book he’s writing about Chipper Finn’s murder. Naturally, since Caroline worked at the Snow firm, she’s tried to answer whatever questions she could.”

Elizabeth nodded. “I had hoped she would. She occupied a unique position during a time when Jacob was incapacitated, and she handled it honorably and with discretion.”

Harrie relaxed. “Caroline asked us to convey her best wishes to you, and tell you she hopes you’re doing well. She speaks highly of you, too.”

Ginger said, “Caroline told us about the episode on the day of Jacob’s funeral when someone broke into his office and removed items from his desk. She was especially concerned about the envelope you just mentioned. Do you have any idea who was responsible?”

“Oh God
yes. My ever-loving brother-in-law, Daniel, arranged to have Jacob’s papers removed from his desk and file cabinets.”

Elizabeth slipped into a delightful impersonation of the pompous Daniel. “I wanted to spare you, my dear, from the emotional wrench of dealing with Jacob’s papers.”

Her expression turned grim. “The only person that man ever tried to spare was himself. He didn’t fool me for a minute. But as it turned out, he didn’t get what he wanted.”

“What do you mean?” Harrie looked puzzled.

Elizabeth smiled genuinely now. “Well, this is the good part. Caroline removed a number of items from Jacob’s desk right after his stroke. She held on to some of them, but she replaced the envelope addressed to Philip. She contacted me the next day and explained about putting the envelope back, and that she’d hung on to the other papers. I thanked her and told her she did exactly the right thing.

“On the day of Jacob’s funeral, Daniel took the opportunity to clean out everything in Jacob’s desk. I’ll admit I had expected as much.” Elizabeth chuckled softly. “It probably took him months to go through the massive amount of paperwork, and it was all for nothing.”

Harrie said, “I would have thought the envelope contained all the damning evidence about Daniel’s activities. Wouldn’t that have been the most important item?”

“I imagine he would have thought so, if he’d known for sure it existed. But fortunately he never got his hands on it.”

“Wait, I’m confused. I thought Caroline put the envelope back in Jacob’s desk and left it there.”

Elizabeth nodded. “Yes, she did, and I’ll get back to that. You see, Daniel, or his nephew, Jonathan
. . . I was never sure which . . . was looking for something specific they expected to find in Jacob’s desk and didn’t, something they decided Caroline must have. They knew Jacob had some sort of records that would embarrass Daniel, and that’s what they hoped to find.”

Harrie shook her head. “That’s when they ransacked Caroline’s house. She told us all about that. Are you saying they actually did get some of the records she held on to?”

Elizabeth wagged her finger and shook her head. “No, no. I said this was the good part, and it is. Caroline discovered the break-in almost as soon as it happened, and called me. She said the envelope was gone, and I told her not to worry, that I’d take care of it. Then she rushed back to her house to see if the other items were safe, and thankfully they were, even though her house had been torn apart in the search.”

Harrie interrupted, “But what about the envelope? We thought Daniel or Jonathan got the envelope.”

“A young man came to see me about two weeks before Jacob died. He used to work at the firm, and came by to pay his respects. We chatted for a long time about a variety of things. He told me he had become a licensed private investigator, and that’s when I got the idea.”

“What idea was that, Mrs. Snow?” Ginger leaned forward in her chair.

“Why, my idea about how to spoil Daniel’s fun.” Elizabeth’s smile lit up her face.

Harrie groaned. “This young man. His name wouldn’t be Nick Constantine, would it?”

Elizabeth looked surprised. “Why yes. Do you know him?”

“You could say that,” Harrie sighed. “So what did he do for you?”

“I gave him the key to the office and asked that he retrieve the envelope from Jacob’s desk and bring it back to me. He did, and I put it in our safe, here at the house.”

“Mrs. Snow,” Ginger began. Her phone chose that moment to start chirping. “Uh, oh.” She turned to Harrie. “It’s Dad. I’ve got to take this.” She excused herself and stepped into the hall to speak to her father.

Harrie persisted. “You didn’t tell Caroline you got it back?”

Elizabeth sighed. “No, I didn’t. I intended to, but
. . . ” she broke off and cleared her throat. “There was so much going on. Jacob was not doing well, our daughters had just arrived to see him again before . . .” She swallowed with difficulty. “I’m afraid I wasn’t at my best just then. I fully intended to tell Caroline the day of the funeral, but when she called, Daniel was lurking close by, and I didn’t want to explain right then.”

Harrie’s own throat felt tight. “Please. You needn’t explain. I understand completely.” She
steered the conversation away from the sadness. “What happened to the envelope? Do you still have it?”

“
No. I’d made up my mind to give it to Philip as soon as I could.”

“And when was that?”

“I believe it was about a month after Jacob died.”

Ginger returned and gave Harrie a let’s-wrap-this-up look and said, “Mrs
. Snow, thank you for your time.”

When they were in the car, Harrie said,
“You’ve got that look on your face. What’s up?”

Ginger grinned as she backed out of Elizabeth’s driveway. “My dad managed to get over to the PI office a lot sooner than he thought he would. He got that report Nick filed on Wednesday. He’s going to meet us at our office so we can all look at it.”

They were excited as they drove to the end of the block. They saw a city vehicle putting up orange barrels, blocking the street where they were supposed to turn. “Here we go,” Ginger said. “The orange barrel brigade is at it again. Now what?”

“Turn in this driveway and go back the other direction. We can get on Indian School Road from there.”

Ginger maneuvered the little VW expertly in a perfect turn around and headed back down the street. As they approached Elizabeth Snow’s house, Harrie let out a little “Oh, no!”

Ginger slammed on the brake. “What!”

“Keep going, keep going.”

“What’s the matter with you?” Ginger demanded.

“Look in Elizabeth’s driveway,” Harrie said, pointing to a little red sports car, where a tall, dark-haired familiar figure had just emerged.

“What’s he doing there?” Ginger said.

“Exactly my question,” Harrie said. “Maybe I should call him and ask.”

51

Tuesday Afternoon, April 18, 2000

By the time Harrie and Ginger got back to their office, Don O’Leary had arrived. He and Caroline chatted like old friends, and when he saw Ginger, he beamed and pointed to a sheaf of papers in his hand.

“Success!” He grinned with such boyish enthusiasm, Harrie and Ginger both laughed and gave him the “thumbs-up” sign. Although they were eager to get into the report, O’Leary had phoned in an order for pizza
, and the conference became an impromptu picnic area.

Ginger insisted Caroline join them. “You should be in on this. After all, you’ve known about this situation longer than anybody here.”

Caroline seemed pleased to be included. Ginger said since her dad was responsible for securing the report, he should have the honor of reading it to the rest of them. O’Leary wiped pizza sauce from his fingers and picked up the report.

“There’s a lot of dull, procedural stuff here at the beginning,” he said, as he scanned down through the first page.

He read silently for a minute or so before Ginger cleared her throat, with just a touch of reprimand. “I thought you were going to read it to the rest of us, Dad.”

“Oh, yeah, sorry. I don’t know if any of this is going to help you though. Have y
ou ever heard of someone named Becky Martinez?”

Harrie and Ginger looked at each other with glee. Ginger said, “As a matter of fact, we heard her name just the other day. She was Chipper Finn’s best friend, the one who took the baby and disappeared right before Chipper was murdered. What does it say about her?”

“Well,” O’Leary continued, “Nick located her. That’s one of the first assignments Philip gave him. He found her, and it says here he went to Philip’s house on Wednesday and spoke with him about it. Nick gave Becky’s address to Philip and agreed to go see her the next day, which would have been last Thursday.” O’Leary stopped reading and looked up at the faces of his attentive audience. “He dictated this report that evening, and his last comment here says he’d file another report on Thursday after he spoke with the Martinez woman.”

O’Leary dropped the report on the table, his previous excitement gone. “I’m sorry, girls. I guess that’s not much help.”

Ginger walked around the table to hug her father. “No, Dad. That’s not true. It really is a big help. Don’t you see? We’ll just go back over to Philip’s and look around the library. I’m sure he must have jotted down the address somewhere. Harrie and I will go find it this afternoon, and then we’ll go see Becky Martinez ourselves.”

“I don’t think that’s the best idea you’ve had, ladies.” The baritone voice of DJ Scott came from the doorway behind them.

Harrie almost squealed, but stifled it into a soft little “oops.”

The entire group burst into laughter and looked at the now red-in-the-face Harrie.

When the laughter had diminished to weak giggles, and Harrie had regained her dignity, she said, “Why are you always sneaking up on people? Or is it just me you like to annoy?”

DJ grinned. “I’ve always pictured my
self in the role of The Shadow.”

Caroline chimed in, “I can testify to that. One week he would be The Shadow, the next it was Batman or Superman. My son, the
superhero.”

“Seriously,” DJ said,
“You can’t be rummaging around Philip’s house. It’s a crime scene.” He turned to O’Leary. “Could I see that report, Sir?”

O’Leary looked at his daughter questioningly. Ginger said, “Dad, I don’t think you’ve met DJ Scott. DJ,
this is my dad, Don O’Leary. DJ is Caroline’s son, Dad, and he’s also an FBI agent who was investigating Nick.”

O’Leary said, “Well, in that case, maybe you can glean more from this than I did. I’ll admit I don’t have any experience in the sleuthing business. But I’m a dynamite hardware sto
re owner,” he finished proudly.

Ginger g
roaned. “Really bad pun, Dad.” Her father grinned impishly and handed the report to DJ.

As he read, a smile appeared on his face. “Well, well, what do we have here?”
He held out the page to Harrie and Ginger.

Harrie’s eyes widen. “Do you think th
at’s Becky Martinez’s address?”

DJ nodded. “
Definitely.”

Harrie’s excitement bubbled. “Great! We don’t have to go to Philip’s. We can just go to this address and see Becky Martinez ourselves.”

“Now hold on—” DJ began.

“Hold on yourself!” Harrie shot back. “If I’m not mistaken, you took yourself off this case, am I right?”

“Yes, I voluntarily—”

“And not only that,” she continued with a full head of steam, “you’re supposed to be taking a few days vacation. Isn’t that right?”

“Yes, I am, but—”

“So why are you telling me that Ginger and I can’t go pay a visit to
the long-lost Becky Martinez?”

“Because, damn it
, I don’t want anything to happen to you, that’s why!”

F
or that moment, the other people in the room didn’t exist. Harrie stood practically toe-to-toe with DJ, her head tilted back at a ridiculous angle to look up at him. Her breathing became heavy, and heat rose to her face.

DJ’s face relaxed into a smile.
“Somebody has to see that you behave yourself, and I think I’m just the one who can do that.” His grin was big, warm and thoroughly intoxicating.

“Earth to Harrie,” Ginger said, barely able to conceal the glee in her voice. “Could the rest of us participate in this little discussion?”