By the time Bree returned to the retail area, she was still puzzling over what Bill Jr. claimed not to have known and kicking herself for not installing cameras in the garage bays. Not that James would have been able to use the information, but still…
“Cat, I heard you did a good job of smoothing over a potentially bad situation.” Graham nodded to her from his place behind the counter. “Good call on taking the customers to the car staging area.”
“That’s not what Gordon said,” she mumbled.
Graham waved her concern away. “You did the right thing. Jack believes if you take care of the customers first, the rest will follow.”
“I guess.” She found a seat on a stool next to him. “You’re not usually in this part of the buildings.”
“Margie needed a break. Besides, Michael had to cut out early for an extra credit class activity and Samuel—” He stopped, sending quick glance her way before resuming. “Samuel had to leave early today. Which means, unless I can borrow Magnus and Juan, the heavy loading will have to wait until tomorrow.”
“What heavy loading?”
“The wedding supplies.”
“Parties galore and so much more!” Scarlett’s declaration drew their attention away.
“Scarlett, my girl,” Graham said, gathering a stack of colored index cards and opening a plastic container of treats, “let’s practice. Show Cat what you can do.”
He held up an orange card and a treat. “Happy…”
“Happy Halloween,” said Scarlett, preening as he praised her efforts.
Next Graham held up a red card and a treat. Without prompting Scarlett declared, “Merry Christmas.”
“That was one of the first phrases she learned when Jack’s father started teaching her. I came up with the idea of adding the colored cards as prompts much later. She’s getting good at it.”
“Merry Christmas. Happy Halloween.”
“I didn’t know birds could see in color.”
Graham nodded. “They can. More colors that we can see, according to what I’ve read.”
“Grape?” asked Scarlett.
“Here you go, girl.” Graham stroked her breast feathers and fed her a grape. “Let’s show Cat some more.” He held out a blue card.
“Happy Hannukah.” The difference between Hannukah and Halloween was slight, but the bird seemed to understand, even if her articulation required human interpretation.
A yellow card prompted “Happy New Year.”
Graham fanned all of the cards together and held them up. “This one is new,” he said, winking to Bree. “Let’s see if she remembers it.”
“Happy—” he prompted.
“Happy holidays,” replied Scarlett. “Happy holidays. Happy holidays.”
“Good girl.” Graham fed her another tidbit.
“That is amazing. How long did it take to teach her?”
Graham shrugged. “With Scarlett, I swear it depends on her mood. I worked with her for several months to teach her this series of greetings. On the other hand, she’ll pick up things out of the blue with no prompting. Like mimicking the microwave when it dings.”
Bree remembered the parrot mimicking Billy, singing an off-key ditty in his voice. She doubted Billy had spent time, effort, or treats to teach Scarlett those words.
Graham tore a piece of plastic wrap from a roll and wound it tightly around the container before fitting on the lid. Scarlett followed his movements. “Green money,” she declared.
“Where she picked that up, I’ll never know,” Graham said, shaking his head. “Listen, now that you’re here, I’m going to round up Magnus and Juan to help me load the delivery truck. Those tables and tents are at least a two-person job.
"You be sure to take your own break as soon as Margie gets back. You’ve been running yourself ragged since this morning. Don’t think that I didn’t notice you skipped your breaks and your lunch time.”
“It’s okay, Graham, I don’t need—”
“You deserve your break time. And you do need it. With Mrs. T and Jack gone for the day, I’m the senior member of the staff and I say you need to take your breaks.”
“Yes, sir,” Bree said with a mock salute.
“If you run into anything you can’t handle, here’s my cell number.” He removed Scarlett from her perch and guided her back into her cage then left.
Bree pocketed Graham’s number, thinking about what she’d learned of him in the past days. His natural leadership inspired confidence. No wonder he’d taken Samuel—and probably countless others—under his wing.
His patience with the bird spoke of one who took a long view of things. Long enough to plot the perfect murder? The question nagged at her, but the very circumstances surrounding Billy’s murder seemed at odds with the type of meticulous planning a man like Graham would employ. If Graham murdered someone, Bree doubted the body would be easily or quickly found.
“Grape?” Scarlett’s query pulled Bree out of her musings.
“No more,” she said, picking up the cards Graham had left. She held one, then another, listening to Scarlett’s replies. She put the cards down and picked up a bit of stray plastic wrap to throw away.
“Clean money?” asked Scarlett.
Bree froze. She turned to the bird and waved the plastic wrap at her. “Clean money, clean money,” repeated Scarlett.
Clean money. Not green money, as they’d all thought. In her mind’s eye, Bree pictured Billy sitting in the kitchen, Scarlett nearby for company as he wrapped stacks of money in the plastic wrap that seemed to be everywhere at the emporium.
“Clean money,” he chanted in her imagination. “Clean money.” Whether it fell under the legal definition of money laundering or not, Billy had clearly known he was involved in something illegal.
Questions nagged her. How exactly had Billy gotten into helping the terrorist cell gather and move money from hand to hand? Had his involvement included more than cash? According to Jack Trayder, the vehicle rental business had opened about eighteen months ago. Bree did a swift mental calculation.
The rental busines and money laundering started sometime—likely six to twelve months—after Matthew’s original cover had been blown. If the North Sea oil platform explosion had rattled the cell, it might well have decided to revise its methods of moving money. How many other small companies had been ensnared in the process?
“Hey, girl, don’t look so distressed.” Margie burst into the room. Her good humor temporarily restored. She gave Bree a thumbs up then headed to Scarlett’s cage. The bird immediately mimed coughing.
“Yeah, yeah,” Margie complained. “I smoke. Get over it.” She turned back to Bree. “Parrots are sensitive to scents. I tried vaping for a while to see if I could get my high another way, but…” She shrugged. “That didn’t work for me. Liquid smoke is a vile chemical concoction. Give me the real thing any day. Listen, girl, you take a late lunch and take the bird with you. I’ll air myself out before you both get back.”
Bree placed Scarlett’s cage on a table in the empty lunchroom and sat next to her. “Scarlett, my friend, I’d love to talk to you, but you might say enough to burn me.”
“Smoke,” said Scarlett as she mimicked a cough again.
“You definitely know more than you should.” Bree laughed and focused on her lunch, occasionally prompting Scarlett to say her outrageous phrases associated with the Trader Jack’s commercials.
“You’ve reached a new social low if you’re relying on that bird for company.” Magnus entered the kitchen, filled his coffee cup, and sat at the table with Bree and Scarlett. “Late lunch?”
“It’s been busy today.” Bree resisted the urge to scoot her chair back as Magnus invaded her space.
“I wanted to talk to you,” he said, his voice low and soothing as he glanced at Scarlett. “About what you saw in the garage earlier.”
“I didn’t see anything.”
“I’m not blind, girl.” He smiled and she relaxed a bit. “Bill and his dad had—as you probably noticed—a contentious relationship. Mostly he deals with it. But Billy’s death… Let’s just say Bill isn’t his normal self, right now.”
Bree chewed her lip, affecting the wide-eyed look of someone not used to dealing with death. “I’d be worse if my mom died. And we argue all the time.”
“Exactly.”
“But I, um… I don’t throw stuff,” she added, covertly observing Magnus’s reaction to her statement.
He scratched at the soul patch on his chin and leaned back in the chair. “Bill’s story isn’t mine to tell,” he said at last. “The only thing I can say is that people express anger in different ways. Swearing, throwing things, crying—they’re all coping mechanisms. When Bill’s angry, sometimes you have to snap him out of it before he’ll listen to sense. That’s all you saw me do. I wasn’t threatening him. He wasn’t—intentionally anyway—threatening anyone else. Understand?”
She searched his face, trying to determine what he wasn’t sharing with her.
Magnus sighed, the sound coming from deep within. “What I’m saying is that you don’t have to be afraid of me. I get it. I’m a big guy with a loud voice. And I know you saw me pick Bill up off his feet. But I wasn’t trying to hurt him. I wouldn’t do that.”
“You mean you wouldn’t kill him? Or his dad?”
Magnus went ashen beneath his sun weathered skin and his eyes widened in surprise. “Cat,” he said softly, “I didn’t murder anyone. I’m so sorry if you thought that I—”
Bree laid a hand on his arm as he started to back away from her. “It isn’t that, Magnus. I’m not afraid of you. The cops… I mean, they must think someone…” She raised her eyebrows and waited.
He nodded. “Yes. They think someone had it in for Billy. But I was at my dojo teaching a self-defense class the night he died.” He gave her a long, assessing look. “It's the kind of thing a young woman like you should know. You’re welcome to join the classes. I’ll waive the fees.”
What was it about the men in her life assuming she couldn’t take care of herself? “First, Juan teaching me to care for my car and now you offering to teach me self-defense, I must look like a baby to you both.”
“You look like a young woman who’s smart enough to know she doesn’t know everything. And also smart enough to learn the skills to be safe and successful.” He rose and fished a card from his pocket. “Here. You’re always welcome.”
When he left the room, Bree checked out his card. Magnus A. Swenson, Sensei. Information on the dojo and the class schedule appeared on the back side. She’d confirm with James that his alibi held when she met up with him in the evening.
She replayed the interactions between Magnus and Bill Jr. in her mind, searching for inconsistencies between what she’d observed and what Magnus had told her. And while his explanation of today’s confrontation might be taken at face value, it didn’t explain the seething antagonism she’d witnessed the morning after Billy’s murder.
“He may not be everything he seems, Scarlett.”
“Jack of all trades?” The bird’s question did nothing to ease Bree’s mind.