Nell agreed to meet them at her home in Maple Knolls at nine the next morning.
Rex had copied Marla on the brief summary of the day’s findings he sent to Goodhue the night before. “You didn’t mention much about Chloe Reardon,” she said while he drove.
“I stuck with the facts, which were few. But it was enough to show the chief we were making progress. No need to get him speculating too.”
“Thanks for reminding him, again, that we need the toxicology results in order to shape our questions.”
“Given the way he checks in with us so frequently, I have no doubt he’s doing the same with the lab,” he replied. “Which is understandable, given how he’s put his reputation on the line bringing two lay consultants on board.”
“Sorry you didn’t get to taste the apple pie last night because Kitty left it with Hub Sherman. I really wanted to check out how much flakier it was after using your ideas with the crust.”
“We could always make another?” he said.
“You’re teasing, right?” she replied.
“Mostly, although it was kinda fun putting something together from scratch again. We were a pretty good team.”
“As long as I agreed with all your suggestions,” she kidded back.
“Are you ready to talk about Kitty’s comment that I should’ve been part of your attempt at a video?” he asked.
“No. She knew very well that I didn’t want to discuss my disastrous attempt at a video with you and yet let it slip out. Her way of making me tell you about it. I hate when she does that to me.”
“She thought she was helping, but if you really don’t want to talk about it, I’ll leave it alone. For now. Maybe once we’ve solved this case you’ll be more amenable to talking about it.”
“Thanks. We’re almost at Nell’s anyhow. Not enough time for a personal discussion,” she replied.
They pulled up to the address Nell had given them. “Let’s hope we make good progress with today’s interviews.”
Nell offered them coffee as soon as they arrived, which they declined but insisted she have. She showed them to her sun porch, where they each took a seat at a round table.
Appearing to be in her late thirties, Nell had attempted to pull her ash-blond hair into a loose ponytail, half of which was already escaping. She wore denim blue jeans and a long-sleeved, cotton plaid shirt with a dark stain on the front. Even though she knew they were coming, she didn’t look like she was ready for visitors. What struck Marla the most about the woman’s appearance was her pallor.
“If you weren’t ready for us just yet, Ms. Hampton, we can come back a little later,” Marla said, even though she was anxious to hear what Nell had to say about her former boss.
Nell swept away the offer. “No, you were right on time. I apologize for my appearance. My wife, Katharine, passed away six weeks ago after a long-term illness. We both knew this time would come and prepared for it, at least financially. But the emotional toll is so much more difficult than I ever imagined. I just can’t seem to get myself together these days.”
Of course. Liz had said something about the wife’s passing, but with everything else she was learning about the people associated with Eloise Wallace, that information had gone to the back of her mind. It shouldn’t have. Of all people, she should know how crippling the death of a loved one could be. “I’ve been there myself, Ms. Hampton. Years ago, but those feelings never go away altogether. They just get easier to live with.”
“Thanks. Please call me Nell, if that’s allowed.”
“We’ll stick with Ms. Hampton,” Rex told her.
“Oh, sure.” She relaxed her shoulders. “How can I help you?”
“Could you tell us why you were fired?” Marla asked, moving immediately to the key question.
Nell’s eyes fluttered slightly, but she didn’t protest. “I was fired over a disagreement I had with the owner over how money was being spent. I was the accountant for over ten years. I was hired by the previous owner, Grace Adamson, before Eloise even came on the scene. Grace and I had a good working relationship. We saw eye to eye about Essy’s fiscal policy and actions. When Eloise became her partner, things began to change. I had a fiduciary responsibility to assure Essy’s finances were handled correctly and expeditiously. That meant I sometimes had to say no. Certain items or actions either could not be afforded at that time or company funds couldn’t be used for certain expenditures.”
“How did Grace react when you had to say no?” Marla asked.
“Grace usually stepped in and found a compromise Eloise and I could agree to. But once Grace sold Essy to Eloise and Eloise was completely in charge, that changed. As long as she wasn’t completely outside the law in her handling of finances, she thought she could get away with her decisions. You’ve probably already heard from others that she was ambitious and had big dreams for taking Essy to the next level.
“In the past few months, she talked of growing the company away from local business and focused more on the national scene. She’d even begun to talk about foreign business. I continued to protest several of her decisions, especially several expenditures she made while I was away on personal leave. She’d shifted some of my duties to Chloe Reardon, even though Chloe has no accounting background, saying someone had to keep up the financial part of Essy in my absence. I’d anticipated the day when I’d have to be gone and made arrangements for an accounting temp to handle those transactions that couldn’t wait for my return. Eloise had the nerve to accuse me of spending more money than necessary when the tasks could be absorbed by current staff.”
“What happened during the time you were on leave?” Rex asked.
“I could tell my days at Essy were numbered. Truthfully, my performance suffered the last few months, and a lot of that was due to my emotional state. But she didn’t make it easy for me, either. I sensed but couldn’t prove that she was deliberately setting me up to either resign in frustration or so she could fire me.
“The final straw was the apartment she purchased during my leave. Purchased, not leased. Even though I didn’t agree it was a smart business move, had she leased it, we could’ve gotten out of it in time if it didn’t work out. But a purchase would take considerable time, if ever, to show return on the investment. I probably went too far when I confronted her, accusing her of bad business practice that would ruin Essy. She fired me on the spot.”
“Given that, why did you continue to play on the pickleball team?” Rex asked.
“Grace came to see me while I was still on leave and begged me to come back to the team so there’d be someone there she could get along with. I turned her down at first. It was only on the advice of my grief counselor that I reconsidered,” Nell replied. “I never did understand Eloise’s strong attachment to the sport. None of our players were all that good. We lost a lot of matches. And I don’t think anyone other than Eloise wanted to be there. But for reasons that escape me, everyone stayed on.”
“Tell us about the confrontation you had with her last Saturday before the games started,” Marla said.
“You heard about that. I guess I started it. I’d run into Chloe at the grocery store the day before. If you’ve talked to her already, you probably know that she comes across as rather naive. Whether that’s for real, I’m not sure. She was so excited she couldn’t resist telling me about her new lodging and the great deal Eloise had offered her. I asked her several questions to clarify that I’d heard her correctly, that she wasn’t having to pay for it. I kept my concerns to myself, but by the next day, I was seething at what I considered such a waste of money, and it all came to the forefront when Eloise walked on the court. I knew the timing and place were inappropriate for such a confrontation, but it all just spilled out.”
“How did she react?” Marla asked.
“At first she was taken aback. She wasn’t used to direct accusations. People tended to kowtow to her or complain about her behind her back. But it didn’t take her long to regain stride. She told me her business was no longer any concern of mine and to keep out of it. She even accused me of having lost my sense of propriety in the wake of Katharine’s death. And then she sort of settled down, like there was no issue at all. I was just acting crazy.”
“But still, you stayed. You didn’t walk off the court then and there?” Rex asked.
“Right. When I think back on my actions now, I can’t believe I just took it. But that was the effect she had on people.”
“Did you speak to her further the rest of the match?” Rex asked.
“Not outright, although I may have called out encouragement to her and Brecken while they were playing.”
“How about any time after that?”
“No. I knew I’d said more than I should have already. She wasn’t going to change her mind about the apartment.”
They asked the same questions about the dead woman’s water bottles. Nell hadn’t noticed anyone near the bag and hadn’t realized her former boss brought two bottles.
“Is there anything else you can tell us that might help our investigation?” Marla asked as they were winding down.
“You mean who do I think killed her? The woman certainly stepped on a lot of toes, but I can’t think of anyone who would have been so offended by her actions they would murder her.” She brought a hand to her chest. “Look at me. She fired me at a time when I was not emotionally equipped to deal with the loss of my job. But kill her over it? No. There’s still enough of my mental and emotional maturity left to deal with my situation without getting violent. And if I wasn’t ready to do it, I can’t imagine anyone else could either.”
Rex rubbed his chin. “Are you sure you’re not covering for someone else?”
“I’m not. I deal with numbers, cold, hard facts. If one of the people I know killed Eloise, they’ll have to face the consequences. I’ll understand why they might have been driven to do it, but I can’t condone violence.”
Although it appeared they’d come to the end of the interview, Marla wasn’t quite ready for it. “Tell us what you know about her ex-husband as well as Grace Adamson, Tanner Oliver or Chloe Reardon.” She caught sight of Rex’s brow raising briefly.
“I can give you a thumbnail description of each of them, but I just told you, I don’t think any of them is capable of murder.”
“It would help us get to know those individuals better,” Rex said.
“Okay, but as you’ve probably already discovered, I’m not much of a people person. I don’t read others well.”
“Do your best,” Rex said.
She released a long breath. “I guess I know Grace best. She’s creative; that’s the only reason Essy has done as well as it has. She’s honest and hard-working. But business was not her strong suit. That’s why Eloise was able to come in and grab such a strong hold of Essy to the point of buying out Grace four years ago. Although Grace got the money, selling her baby hurt her spirit. She hasn’t been able to put something new together since. PR is what she knows, and she signed a two-year noncompete clause when she sold to Eloise.”
This was the first they’d heard of the noncompete clause. It could be a strong motivation for murder.
“I don’t know whether Tanner worshiped Eloise or is just ambitious. Whichever, he has been willing to do almost anything to please her, short of anything unethical.”
“How do you know he wouldn’t do anything unethical?” Rex asked.
“Because he’d sometimes complain to me about assignments she’d given him, not sure whether he could go through with them.”
“Could you give us an example?” Marla asked.
“He confided in me. I don’t feel comfortable giving you specifics. But occasionally she’d ask him to lie to a client. Usually those were white lies about her availability or some minor action. We talked about how he could meet her expectations and not outright lie. He also was concerned about Chloe’s growing importance to Eloise. He thought she was playing Eloise. I tried to tell him Eloise wasn’t the kind of person who could be played.”
“Thank you for sharing that,” Marla said. “It gives us a better picture of their relationship.”
“I don’t know Chloe that well. She has always been friendly to me but friendly in a patronizing way. You know, saying nice things you’re not sure she means?”
Marla and Rex nodded as encouragement for her to continue.
“She seemed to just show up one day. After that, she was everywhere. Or so it seemed. Whenever Eloise had some minor question about the budget, she’d send Chloe to see me. If Eloise couldn’t make it to a staff meeting, she’d have Chloe step in for her. Not as an equal, of course, but as her representative. Everything Chloe said appeared to be what Eloise had told her to say.
“I knew Brecken in the days when he and Eloise were married and I saw him at social gatherings. More recently, we’ve played on the pickleball team but not as partners. I don’t know why he participated, because Eloise was always telling him what he’d done wrong.”
She stopped and looked at them expectantly.
“Thank you. We appreciate your insights,” Marla said. “Would you go back to Essy now that she’s gone?” she asked as an afterthought.
“I don’t know. I was only let go recently, so I haven’t been looking. I’ve used this time away from the company to heal. Not from being fired but to get through my grief.”
“Do you have any idea who will take over?” Rex asked. “As the accountant, you might’ve seen various documents or plans outlining what would happen in the event of the owner’s death.”
“At one time, while she was still married, she named her husband to succeed her if anything were to happen to her. It was for a loan document, where she had to provide proof that Essy wouldn’t suffer in the event of her death. She named him because he was the obvious party, but she joked about doing it. She never took the possibility of her death seriously.”
“Why do you think that was?” Marla asked.
Nell took a moment to consider. “Good question. Somewhere along the way Eloise reinvented herself to someone who didn’t need anyone else to do her bidding. She wasn’t like that when she first joined the company. Maybe after she lost two babies she hardened her heart. I’m not a psychiatrist, so I can only speculate about what happened to her. Whatever it was, she didn’t think about planning for the future, other than expanding the business sooner than it was probably ready.”
“It would seem like someone who was so into herself like you’ve described Eloise would make a lot of enemies,” Marla said.
“Enemies?” Nell replied. “More like victims. But that doesn’t mean any of them killed her.”
“Are you afraid of repercussions if you name someone?” Rex asked.
“Not at all. Like I’ve told you, I deal in numbers and facts. If something or someone seemed out of kilter to me, I’d say so.”
There didn’t seem to be much more to say at this point. Marla had run out of ways to challenge Nell’s stance.
Rex gave Nell his card, and they left.
Marla was stumped. Was the woman trying to mislead them, or did she really believe none of her cohorts was guilty? She couldn’t wait to process this interview with Rex.