“You asked for my take on Brecken Wallace,” Rex said once they were seated at a cozy booth near the back of a small café in West St. Paul. “I’ve got mixed feelings that need time to coalesce. I don’t get how he could remain such an active part of his ex’s life when he made no bones about not liking her. I’m divorced, and I still get along with my ex, but that doesn’t mean I stay involved in her life.”
“There’s nothing mixed about that,” she said.
“There’s more. It’s one thing that she still had some kind of hold over him this long after their divorce, but I didn’t hear anything that suggested a strong motive for getting rid of her.”
“You don’t think he’s a strong suspect?” she asked.
“Hard to say at this point. But there’s a lot more to that guy than we got today. We have more digging to do.” He took a sip from his coffee cup. The man liked his black. “Your turn. Do you agree with my initial assessment?”
“I agree about needing to know more about him to explain why he was still involved in her life. It seemed strange to me that he’d be the one making all the arrangements for her funeral or whatever they decide to do. Surely there was someone in her company, like her assistant, Tanner, who would’ve been in a better position to make those kinds of decisions. Maybe we can learn more about that by talking to her lawyer.”
“Good thought. Let’s talk to him next.”
Boris Doppler was part of a three-person practice located in a multiplex office building in Eagan. “I debated whether to make the Maple Knolls Police Department aware I am Eloise Wallace’s attorney or wait until her death was determined to be murder,” he told them as soon as they were seated in his office. “My current heavy caseload won out.” He folded his hands and reclined in his leather armchair. “But you’re here now, and I’ll be happy to share what I can with you.”
“We want to know about her will,” Rex began. “Who inherits the business and her estate?”
“The will still has to be probated, but I can share the main details with you. Until she bought out Springboard Concepts from her then partner, Grace Adamson, Grace was to receive half the proceeds. Her husband, Brecken, was to receive the other half. Once Eloise owned the entire company, Grace was removed as a beneficiary. Her husband became the sole beneficiary, even after the divorce. He was removed from that position about two years ago when she named a Chloe Reardon as her sole beneficiary.”
A new name that hadn’t surfaced until now. “Chloe Reardon?” Marla asked. “Who is she?”
“I can’t help you there,” Doppler replied, “although I have a local address for the woman. I’ll be informing her and having her sign the necessary papers once the will has cleared probate.”
“Didn’t you ask Mrs. Wallace why the change and who this woman was when she made the change?” Rex asked.
“Yes, of course I did. All Eloise would say was that she was a friend of the family.”
“Did she ever discuss a succession plan for the business in case something happened to her?” Marla asked.
“Succession plan?” Doppler replied, surprised by the question. “Eloise thought she was going to live forever. She only has a will because I insisted, if she wanted me to continue representing her.”
“But surely she made some arrangement for the business to carry on if she was no longer able to be in charge?” Marla continued.
“Perhaps her assistant can answer that one, although I wouldn’t be surprised if she left them high and dry.”
Rex wasn’t ready to give up just yet. “Did she leave the name of her next of kin?”
Doppler shook his head. “Her ex already called me about that because the funeral home had contacted him about her arrangements. I’ll tell you what I told him, which is, no, she had me remove his name when they divorced, but she never provided another.”
“Is that typical?” Marla asked, remembering how she’d updated her own “next of kin” data years before, after Carson died, when she placed Kitty’s name there instead.
“Typical? No, but not unheard of. Keep in mind, a lot of folks don’t even have a will. It’s not like I didn’t try to get her to give me a name or two, but she kept dodging the issue.”
There didn’t appear to be any more information they could glean from the man, so they thanked him and left.
“I’m liking that woman less and less,” Marla said.
“Because she thought she was eternal?” Rex asked. “That was probably part of her drive as a businesswoman. She certainly wasn’t much of a planner.”
“Our visit with Doppler did net us another name. Chloe Reardon.”
“I take it she wasn’t there at the game or you would’ve mentioned her.”
“She might’ve been sitting on the sidelines away from my water station. There were a few people there, but no one else approached me.”
“Want to talk to her next?” Rex asked.
“How about meeting with the assistant first?” she replied. “I’d like to get the skinny on Chloe from someone else first before meeting her.”
Rex called the number Tanner had given the first officer on the scene and discovered the young man was at home in St. Paul. He lived in a garage apartment in the older part of the town.
“Essy is closed indefinitely until it’s determined who’ll take charge from here on,” he told them after they took seats in his tiny living room.
“Who will do that?” Rex asked.
“I don’t know. If Nell was still there, she might know. Have you talked to her yet?”
“We’ll be getting to her soon.” Rex wasn’t keen on revealing information about their investigation unless it worked to their benefit, but this time he apparently made an exception.
“Maybe Grace will come back, although she no longer owns Essy,” Tanner said.
Was Tanner deliberately attempting to draw attention away from himself, despite his supposedly welcoming demeanor? “How about we talk about you right now and your relationship to the victim,” Marla said. Out of the side of her eye, she caught a fleeting smile coming from Rex.
“Oh, sure. What do you want to know?” Tanner replied, settling back in his chair, even crossing his ankles.
“Tell us about last Saturday at the pickleball game,” Rex said.
“Actually, it was a match. Three. Each game is played to eleven points. Two games of three win the match.”
“Thank you. You were seen observing an argument between Mrs. Wallace and Nell Hampton and then talking to Mrs. Wallace yourself after Nell left the court. Tell us what that was all about,” Rex said.
Tanner rubbed one pants leg with his hand. “That was nothing.”
“What kind of nothing?” Rex pressed.
Tanner now stared at his hands rather than look either Rex or Marla in the eye. “Nell was the Essy accountant until a few weeks ago. She and Eloise had been arguing about the company’s finances long before Eloise fired her. Neither would tell me about the final straw, but my guess is that it concerned use of Essy funds to underwrite an apartment for the use of staff.”
“An apartment? What kind of use?” Rex asked.
“Eloise wasn’t one for sharing details like that with me. What I learned about the situation came from some of the papers involved and calls she received from a rental agent in town.”
And from whatever he could pick up from his eavesdropping, Marla suspected.
“Was the apartment for Mrs. Wallace?” she asked.
Tanner shook his head. “I don’t think so, unless she was planning to sell her house and move closer to town.”
“Then who was it for?” Marla pursued.
Their host pursed his lips as if debating how much to say and how much he could keep to himself. “The purchase agreement named Eloise as the owner.”
His hesitation was telling. He knew who was to live there, and he didn’t want to tell them.
Rex went into official mode. “We’ll be going through all Mrs. Wallace’s papers, both personal and professional. We’ll find out eventually. You could save this investigation precious time by telling us now. You do want to find her killer, don’t you?”
Tanner was quick to reply. “Of course! I, uh, just don’t want to confuse things by telling you what I suspect versus whatever the real facts are.”
“That’s very laudable, Mr. Oliver,” Rex replied. “But that’s our job, to sift through speculation and fact. Who was the apartment for?”
“Speculation, good word,” Tanner said, shifting position. “As long as we call it that. Chloe. I think it was for Chloe Reardon.”
Though the name had come up already in this investigation, Marla let him think this was a new name to them. “Who is she?”
Tanner grunted. “Eloise introduced her as ‘a friend of the family’ when she first came on board as an intern. She immediately assigned Chloe some of my work. Not anything big or important. Not then, anyhow. Later on, when she was hired full-time, I never saw an official employment application nor a job description for her. She was just there, taking on whatever tasks came her way with a smile. Always smiling.” He looked at them directly. “No one smiles all the time.”
They appeared to have opened a wound. This was unexpected but something they should follow up on. “What are you telling us?” she asked. “That you don’t like her? That you don’t trust her?” Or maybe he was jealous of this newcomer.
“I was never Eloise’s partner or confidante. But we got along pretty well. I got her. I accepted her autocratic ways once I learned how to work around them. But that changed once Chloe was on the scene. Eloise turned over more and more of my responsibilities to her without replacing them with even more important duties for me.”
“Were you jealous of her?” Rex asked, coming right out with the question.
“Suspicious. I watched her ‘working’ Eloise. She rarely came right out and asked for anything. No, I’d respect someone who acknowledged what she wanted and worked to get it. But Chloe isn’t straightforward like that. She hints around about things, plants ideas with others and then acts surprised when they follow through. She’s … devious. There, I said it.”
Time to go for the kill. “It’s interesting, Tanner, because some of those we’ve talked to have said or inferred the same about you and your rise in the company,” Marla said. It was only a half-truth based more on what Liz and Brecken hadn’t said about him than their outright observations.
Tanner leaned forward. “If you’re trying to bait me, it won’t work. I know full well how I’m viewed by others. There are times when I don’t like myself very much either. But I made a choice when I first started working for Eloise. I could either be liked by others or get ahead by doing anything Eloise wanted. But I’ve been honest about my career-climbing ambitions. Chloe is different. She’s a manipulator.”
“Some might characterize your boss that way,” Marla pointed out.
He shook his head vigorously. “No, that wasn’t the case, at least during the time I’ve known her. Manipulators work behind the scenes to get what they want. Eloise was out there with her demands. She was strong-willed, combative and relentless in getting them.”
The next few questions were a repeat of what they’d asked Brecken about seeing anything out of the ordinary concerning Eloise’s water bottle.
“Did you go through her equipment bag?” Tanner asked as his response. “If you had, you’d have noticed that she carried a second water bottle. Even though she was the one who insisted the team have a water person, she preferred to supply all of her own water”
Marla resisted the urge to check out Rex’s reaction to that new item. Who had missed that one?
They got the name of the brand, and then Rex asked the final question. “Who do you think killed your boss?”
Tanner considered. “You’ve probably run into more than one person with a strong motive for getting rid of Eloise, and you’ll probably find more. But who’d take the risk? The benefit of removing her from the scene isn’t as strong as the payback. I don’t know who would take that risk.”
Very telling statement, unless Tanner was deliberately trying to mislead them. Marla’s assessment of the man had changed during this interview. How remained to be seen.