Hide & Find (Mayfield Cozy Mystery Book 3) Page 2

  “I first met Skip when he purchased the Mayfield property,” she continued. “The sale was handled through First Pacific Bank, where I worked at the time. I had a couple chances to talk with him and admired what he was doing — providing a permanent home for the boys’ camp. Then last June, he came and found me at Columbia Trust Bank, asked me to do a favor for him.”

  Selma poked stuffing back inside a tear in the couch’s arm while she chewed her lip. “You should know that he paid me for the favor. I don’t think it was technically illegal, but the concept certainly would raise red flags with my employer.” She steadied her gaze on me, probably expecting a horrified response. “I needed the money,” she said simply, “to support Laney and Mindy. His timing — well, I couldn’t say no.”

  I just nodded. I already knew Skip routinely operated on the other side of the law. I also expected that, for all the help he gave to others, he also knew how to exploit them for his purposes. I was experiencing his dichotomy firsthand and dabbling on the shady side of the law myself.

  Who was I kidding? More than dabbling. And, like Selma, I knew plenty about needing money. “So Skip knew I would come to you?” I asked, just to make sure I’d heard correctly.

  Selma nodded. “He didn’t tell me your name, but he said his wife might come eventually, if there was any difficulty.”

  “Difficulty?” I snorted softly. That was a very mild term to describe my ordeal for the past month.

  Selma scooted off the couch and jammed her hands underneath it, her cheek pressed against the cushion. Her words came out muffled. “And he gave me this to keep for you.” She kept working, pulling at something that seemed to be wedged up among the springs and stuffing.

  Unfortunately, I know quite a bit about the interior of upholstered furniture from personal experience. I knelt beside her, prepared to lend assistance in the form of brute force.

  But Selma shook her head with a slight grunt. “Got it.” And she dropped a padded vinyl bag in my hands.

  I turned it over and traced a finger along the First Pacific Bank logo printed on the side. “What is it?”

  “Bank pouch. All the banks have them. They give them out to local businesses, especially the ones that take in a lot of cash. They’re used to make after-hours deposits.”

  “So it’s money?” I asked dumbly.

  “I don’t know.” Selma shrugged. “I didn’t look. It’s kind of lumpy,” she pointed out.

  It must have been torture for her, given custody of a secret and yet not sneaking a peek. I was pretty sure the package itself had been thoroughly examined, the way any curious kid would investigate a stumbled-upon stash of Christmas gifts — poked, prodded, shaken, sniffed. One simple zipper pull would reveal the contents.

  My stomach fought against that elevator-drop feeling. I took a deep breath and glanced at Selma. Her eyes mirrored back both excited tentativeness and eagerness. And then she giggled girlishly — the same way she had when greeting Mindy — and I knew I could trust her, that I had to trust her.

  CHAPTER 3

  I dumped the pouch’s contents on the carpet between us. There were a couple packets of bills — hundreds. An appropriate provision from the king of money laundering himself.

  Selma inhaled sharply, but it wasn’t the money I was interested in. A plastic promotional key fob printed with the name and phone number of a real estate agent was attached to a small brass key. And there was a bulging 6” by 9” mailing envelope. I pried open the metal prongs — a whole wad of papers inside. And a flash drive.

  Jackpot.

  I sat back on my haunches and tried to swallow. My throat felt like sandpaper, and my heartbeat drummed an underwater whooshing sound in my ears. I was desperate for information, and this just might be it.

  Selma laid a hand on my knee. “Are you okay?”

  I hooked the key ring and lifted it with a finger. “I’ll have to find this real estate agent.”

  “I’m not sure,” Selma murmured. “It doesn’t look like a house key to me.”

  I pitched an eyebrow her direction.

  “Too small. I think it’s a safe deposit box key.”

  I figured Selma would know. “How many banks are in town?” I asked.

  “Three, and their keys are identical. But since the pouch is from First Pacific, I’d start there.” Selma squinted at the key fob in my hand, then slipped it into her own hand and tipped it toward the blue glow from the television. “Number 127. See? Someone wrote the number here on the plastic.”

  “Can I access the box if I’m not the renter?” I asked.

  Selma frowned. “Your name will have to be on the signature card. Otherwise it takes a court order, even if you have one of the keys.”

  I exhaled hard, cheeks puffing. “Hopeless.”

  “Not necessarily,” Selma said. “The worst they can do is turn you away. Signature cards can be submitted through the mail if the renter can’t be there in person.”

  “I never signed—” but I cut off the rest of my sentence. Selma was studying me with hopeful eyes. And Skip wouldn’t leave me a key for no reason. I pushed one of the packets of hundreds toward her. “What Skip paid you earlier was a deposit. This is the balance.” I wanted to give her both of the packets, but knew even offering one would make her uncomfortable.

  “I couldn’t.” Selma shook her head so hard her hair swung in a circle against her chin.

  “For Mindy,” I pressed. “Is she in preschool? And did I detect artistic tendencies? She strikes me as a little girl who needs an unending supply of crayons and paper.”

  Selma half laughed and swiped at the tears that had quickly sprung into the corners of her eyes.

  “Should I pretend that I don’t know you,” I continued, “around town?”

  “That’s probably best. For a while anyway. Thank you,” Selma whispered.

  Riding high in the truck, rumbling down the county road toward home and still waiting for the heater to produce something other than an arctic blast, I kept patting the pouch on the seat beside me, kept unwrapping my mittened hand from the jerky steering wheel to make sure the pouch didn’t bounce to the floorboard. Precious cargo.

  By the time I came to a stop at the intersection nearest Mayfield, between the general store and post office-slash-service station that served as our last bastions of civilization, and under the influence of a generous, anticipatory spirit, I’d settled on a name for my new truck.

  Lentil. Brown and nondescript. Maybe a little crinkled. Full of starch and fiber and, hopefully, dependable regularity. I certainly needed something I could count on.

  As I approached Mayfield’s gated entrance, the deep, rattly growl of a huge engine and a single headlight blew past me going the opposite direction. Who was crazy enough to be riding a motorcycle in this frigid weather?

  Gus O’Malley, that’s who. Our postmaster and diehard Harley Davidson aficionado. But he’d never have made it over our gullied and cratered driveway on his precious two wheels. What was worth a bone-chilling, ankle-twisting hike on a dark night?

  Of course, there was the chance he hadn’t been at Mayfield at all — maybe just out joyriding. He wouldn’t have recognized me in my new truck. I hoped he had his XXXXL-sized leathers on.

  Lentil, for all her loose joints and sloppy transmission, handled the rough terrain with aplomb. Something clanked in back, and I made a mental note to check for a missing bumper or other extraneous part in the morning.

  The old mansion with slate roof and surrounded by a weedy expanse of former lawn which I couldn’t see in the dark still looked like home. Patches of yellow light shown from the kitchen windows.

  I pulled up next to Clarice’s Subaru station wagon and creaked open Lentil’s door. It took two slams to get the dome light inside to turn off. I patted the truck’s hood and scurried around to the cracked concrete patio that led to the kitchen door.

  The moment I stepped over the threshold, a voice squealed, “Nora, darling!” A blurry form wrapped
skinny arms around my neck, squeezing until I had no breath left.

  I awkwardly got hold of her hips and pushed her back for a little clearance. I was embarrassed to admit I was also simultaneously sniffing for the scent of alcohol on her breath. “Loretta.” My mother-in-law. I tried to smile, but it turned into a shudder. It was a safe guess that she’d been released from the luxury rehab facility in the Bay Area where Skip had tucked her away for the holidays.

  Over Loretta’s shoulder, I saw Clarice’s face puckered into her mightiest scowl, the one reserved for corrupt politicians and inept drivers.

  “Well,” I took another deep, restorative breath, “this is a surprise.”

  “I hitchhiked.” Loretta beamed.

  Clarice made a noise like she was being strangled.

  I wanted to ask if hitchhiking had been a prudent plan, but Loretta was standing in front of me in one piece, somewhat chapped and disheveled, but alive. She does not have a history of exemplary decision making.

  “Jorge, the semi driver, dropped me next to that — you know, those crossroads. Said he didn’t know where Mayfield was.” A look of blank confusion swept across Loretta’s face. “Then that nice big man on the motorcycle gave me a ride. Thought I was going to fall off the back a couple times, but he got me here.” She pushed her hands through her hair. “Why are you so far off the road? Isn’t it creepy?”

  To a woman who’d spent her entire adult life amid the sounds of traffic and sirens and the fetid air of jam-packed poverty-level housing projects, the silent expanse of lush forest in Washington state would seem foreign and even eerie.

  Emmie was sitting in a kitchen chair, a book propped against the edge of the table, but her golden brown eyes were fixed on me. Just what she didn’t need — more upheaval in her life. I was beginning to learn that I was her barometer — I’d noticed her noticing me, developing a habit of checking my reaction before settling into her own course of action. The magnitude of that responsibility froze me in my tracks sometimes.

  I skirted around Loretta and knelt beside Emmie. “Hey, kiddo,” I whispered. “How was your shopping trip with Clarice?”

  Emmie shrugged and cast a furtive glance at Loretta. She wouldn’t be speaking in front of the stranger. Smart girl.

  I couldn’t say much either. While Loretta and I had spoken on the phone a few times since Skip’s disappearance, we weren’t exactly friends. Acquaintances, really. And from the way Skip had handled his mother’s sobriety needs and the fact that she didn’t attend our wedding, I’d gathered he hadn’t meant for us to be bosom buddies. But without Skip, she was absolutely alone in the world. I had an obligation to her; I just wasn’t sure the extent of it.

  I tucked a loose strand of dark hair behind Emmie’s ear and rose. “How about dinner? I’m starved.”

  Clarice snorted like that was the stupidest idea she’d heard in a decade, but she whipped a steaming casserole out of the oven and found a salad in the fridge.

  We sat around the table, in a sort of ballet of synchronized chewing and polite passing of the salt and pepper shakers. Loretta chattered, oblivious and cheerful — details of her trip and the sketchy characters she’d met along the way — but maybe one in twenty of her words penetrated my consciousness.

  My mind was stuck on the First Pacific Bank pouch and its contents. I needed to discuss my scattered thoughts with someone rational and fairly objective, namely Clarice, and bring them into some semblance of order. Clarice was an excellent list-maker. Lists always make me feel better.

  Clarice recognized my preoccupation too. Our eyes met as she handed me a plate with a wedge of apple pie on it, and she squinted behind her burgundy-framed cat’s eye glasses with a slight nod. We needed to file status reports with each other after a busy day.

  Emmie was digging caramel pecan ice cream out of the tub to turn our pie into à la mode when something Loretta said clanged between my ears.

  I jerked. “What?”

  “I’m having my mail forwarded. And Janine — she’s my sponsor — gave me a list of AA groups in the area.”

  “And here I thought we were remote,” Clarice growled.

  “So you’re staying?” I gulped.

  “I can help. We’ll be a family,” Loretta said brightly. “Of course I want to be with my daughter-in-law and this sweet girl.” She gestured toward Emmie. “And—” As her sweeping hand swung toward Clarice, her voice faltered. “Well, yes. For a little while, anyway.”

  I scrunched my eyes closed. Loretta had nowhere else to go. She was putting a good face on it, but that’s what her sudden appearance meant. The money Skip had given her must have run out.

  When I opened my eyes, I found Loretta watching me, tense, with worry lines embedded around her mouth. I mustered a smile for her. “We have lots of bedrooms.”

  oOo

  Regardless of how tired I was, there was no chance I’d be falling asleep anytime soon, so I climbed into bed, bringing the bank pouch and my laptop under the covers with me.

  Clarice and I had held a hurried, whispered conference in the hall, and she’d shoved the newly-purchased selection of burner phones into my hands. I’d given her the brief version of meeting Selma, but realized we were both too wiped out to have our gray cells firing on all cylinders.

  Loretta knew her son was missing, probably kidnapped, but she didn’t know the extent of his alleged criminal activities or the fact that I’d pretty much been under constant FBI surveillance since my arrival at Mayfield. It felt weird to be discussing within sight of her closed bedroom door things that so intensely concerned her, and which I’d hoped she’d be able to remain unaware of.

  Clarice had wisely decided to situate Loretta at the end of the wing near us — the girls’ end, so that Dwayne, our resident old codger and former squatter and bootlegger, could have his male privacy at the other end. The mansion was acquiring a halfway house vibe, harkening back to its glory days as a poor farm.

  How much did I need to shield Loretta? Clearly, she was a resilient woman or she wouldn’t have made it this far — in life, or north along the I-5 freeway. I supposed I needed to add resourceful and creative to my list of adjectives for her. But was she emotionally strong? Trustworthy? Able to keep her mouth shut?

  I emptied the pouch for the second time that day and plugged the flash drive into my laptop. It held a linked set of spreadsheets. I clicked through the files and saw familiar names pop up on the lines — my Numeros.

  It was a summary of Skip’s accounting of his money laundering clients — who and how much — and a repeat of the information I’d found in the little notebook hidden in his luggage. Clarice and I had already assembled a spreadsheet nearly identical to this one in our attempt to figure out just what Skip had been involved in, and we’d assigned Numero Uno through Nueve designations because we didn’t know all the criminals’ identities at the time.

  I sighed and kept clicking. Nope. More detail, but very little in the way of truly new, helpful information. Rats. But it was a tidy bundle of admissible evidence that I was sure the FBI would love to get their hands on. I’d already given them Skip’s notebook, but I had no idea what they were doing with it.

  The papers in the mailing envelope were a different story. I spread them across my lap. Some of them were old, yellowed, and rippled from exposure to moisture — which had not occurred during Selma’s safekeeping, I was quite sure. They were printed with the logos and names of several respected museums and institutions, signed by curators or directors, those responsible for specialized collections, the keepers of culture.

  And the papers were about specific paintings, attestations to authenticity, forensic examinations, expert opinions and testimonials. I knew the painters’ names presented — Picasso, Matisse, Modigliani — in the way everyone knows them, just that they were famous men who led troubled but brilliant lives and whose artworks were now worth unfathomable amounts of money.

  Skip and I had been one of those dull couples who thought an afte
rnoon at a museum the epitome of a good time. Skip had made occasional contributions to support the local arts scene — he was on all their mailing lists. In fact, one of our first dates was to a fundraiser for the San Francisco Opera.

  But I didn’t know he had a particular interest in modern art. I had always been drawn to realism in the form of pastoral landscapes and dramatically lit chiaroscuro portraits. Distorted bodies and ideals rendered in stark geometric forms didn’t appeal to me. The words on the pages blurred together.

  My chin bobbed off my collarbone, and I grunted. I pried open my scratchy eyelids just long enough to stuff the papers back in the envelope.

  Tomorrow — I’d think about what modern art authentication had to do with money laundering and my husband’s kidnapping tomorrow.

  CHAPTER 4

  A night’s sleep had put Loretta in a more somber mood. She sedately helped herself to granola and yogurt and perched on the edge of a kitchen chair. But I was glad to see Clarice had mellowed somewhat in her opinion of Loretta’s long-term bunking with us — either that or the coffee hadn’t kicked in yet.

  I’d taken Dwayne’s breakfast tray to his room. His leg was healing nicely with a jagged scar but nary a sign of infection, thanks to Walt’s attention. Dwayne, on the other hand, was proving problematic. He clearly enjoyed being the center of attention, a radical departure from his decades as a hermit moonshiner. It was about time to pull the coddling rug out from under him and expect him to fend for himself. But then he winked at me with a roguish grin, and I couldn’t help chuckling.

  You know that so-called joke about no women being in heaven because there was silence for half an hour? Well, our little melancholy cluster managed to exceed that time limit. Emmie supplemented her breakfast with a notebook and pencil and was contentedly adding to her body of work. She’d taken to carrying them with her everywhere — some writing, but mostly drawing.

  Kind of like Skip and his little journal with notations about money laundering accounts — another shared trait. Emmie has the same butter-rum-colored eyes as Skip. Could be coincidence or it could be genetic. I really didn’t want to think about what dalliances Skip might have had before I knew him, as long as this particular little girl was safe. And as long as she was with me. A sense of possessiveness had grabbed hold of me so fiercely that I couldn’t stomach the idea of her being anywhere else but with me.