“I feel the need to get away from all this so we can clear our heads,” Rex said. “Where do you want to go?”
“Can we skip your condo or Kitty’s this time and go somewhere else?” Marla asked. “I don’t have a specific location in mind, but I’d like to get out of the vehicle and walk around a bit. No heavy hiking but a chance to get some fresh air. By water, if possible.”
“Then let’s head to Riley Lake. It’s between here and Maple Knolls and should be fairly unoccupied this time of day.”
“Great plan. Can we stop somewhere and grab sandwiches or something first? I didn’t have much for breakfast because I was so intent on our upcoming interviews.”
“I’m with you there. A bowl of cereal only lasts so long in my stomach,” he said.
Twenty minutes later, they sat at a picnic table not far from the lake eating grilled chicken wraps they picked up on the way.
“I’ve never been to this lake before,” Marla said after she’d swallowed her first bite. “In fact, I didn’t even know it was here.”
“It’s one of the area’s secrets. I’ve brought my grandkids here on occasion, although of course, they prefer the swimming area on the other side.”
“I’m more used to swimming pools in California. But as a child, our parents took Kitty and me to one of two resorts where we’d spend a week every summer,” Marla told him, remembering times she’d forgotten.”
“Is that where you learned how to water ski?”
“Oh, right, I mentioned before how I was able to get out of the water and then frightened myself with the speed.”
“Do you still swim?”
“I have a pool at my house in California that’s pretty much de rigueur out there. When we were shooting, I’d put in a few laps most days to wind down, unless we shot too late. But I haven’t been in the water much since being let go.”
“Maybe you should try it again at the Rambling Meadows pool?” he suggested. “It’s indoors, which is de rigueur in Minnesota.” He smiled.
“That sounds like a great idea if this case goes another day. Being here will help me unwind for now.”
“I might even join you. It’s been a few weeks since I hit the water.”
They finished their wraps and disposed of their garbage in a nearby trash receptacle. “I’m ready to discuss our morning,” she said.
“Let’s walk and talk,” Rex said. “Start with Tanner.”
“No love lost there between him and Chloe. Or …”
“Does Tanner protest too much?” he asked.
“That thought hadn’t occurred to me until just now. I haven’t even been convinced he’s heterosexual. But if he is, I guess it’s an angle we should consider. But if that’s the case, why would he be doing his best now to implicate her or at least to portray her as a schemer?”
“That touchy-feely stuff is your area, Marla.”
She pulled up, kicked at a tuft of grass while her brain worked through the labyrinth of that possibility. “If he’s got a thing for her and yet he’s been putting her down to us at every corner, that suggests a thwarted lover seeking revenge.”
He stopped beside her. “We need to find out if he ever came on to her and she turned him down. File that one away as a question for Chloe.”
They were making their way along a footpath that in twenty feet turned and ran parallel to the lake. The early fall wind danced with her hair, lifting it and flinging strands every which way. The sun glowed a brilliant yellow and warmed her face.
The lake was a bit choppy due to the breeze, the color a slate blue. It called to her. Not hypnotically like it wanted her to walk right in, but invitingly, just urging her closer. It seemed to whisper that it had the answers she was seeking, if only she paid attention. She pressed on, intent on getting closer.
“But even if Tanner was magnifying Chloe’s faults to get back at her, that doesn’t mitigate what we learned from Nell,” she said more to herself than to Rex.
“There is that. I didn’t get the impression she was out to get her younger co-worker. She only saw that run-in at the grocery store as planned after our questions took her to that conclusion.” He paused and sniffed. “Smell that? Fall is coming soon. My favorite season. Do the leaves even turn in California?”
“Depends on the tree and your location,” she replied. “If you’re up in the higher altitudes, it’s almost like being here in Minnesota. Almost but not quite.” Fall. The typical beginning of a new season on the major TV networks. Once again, she wouldn’t be part of it. The pain was still there, but a day like this and sharing this investigation with Rex helped.
“Back to Chloe and her co-workers.” A new thought hit, although it had been right there under the surface all along. “Actually, Tanner is her only co-worker now that Eloise is dead. And Chloe is the designated beneficiary. No more Eloise with the business sense, Nell as the financial gatekeeper, and the creativity of Grace is long gone.” She turned to Rex. “Surely that young woman doesn’t think she can run the whole show?”
“It’s possible, but I don’t see her as the one coming up with the idea. That would’ve been Eloise, except she got the short straw in the proposition.”
“Do you suppose that was the idea, only it backfired on Eloise?”
“Then who? Is there someone off the page we don’t know about?” Marla asked.
“It’s possible. Something to keep in mind, but it doesn’t ring true for me.”
Marla thought back over everything else they’d learned that morning. “If there is another puppet master, Grace would be the most likely candidate, except she appears to have had little contact with Chloe. She was no longer there when Chloe first showed up. Without coming right out and saying it, Nell resented what she considered Chloe’s interference with her responsibilities.”
“Which leaves Brecken,” Rex said. “It might explain his still popping by even after Grace was gone.”
“Perhaps, but why? Surely he doesn’t have some master plan to take over Essy? Unless he was doing it for Grace?” She waved it off. “No, no. That’s too Machiavellian for a guy who so far has come across as pretty simple.”
“I think this break is over,” she said, pivoting. “Time to talk to Chloe again.”
“What about Liz Parsons?” he asked. “I didn’t think we’d dismissed her as a suspect just yet.”
“Well, no, but we weren’t able to come up with a very good motive for her.”
“All the more reason to keep talking to her,” he said.
She cocked a brow in his direction. “What aren’t you telling me, Rex? What do you know about Liz Parsons?”
“Just a need to be thorough and interview her a second time like the others. I’m not convinced she stayed in touch with Eloise because she wanted her help launching her fashion business.”
Though she had a great time arguing with Rex, he knew his stuff. She’d learned not to doubt him. “Okay. Who knows? Maybe she has some insights about Chloe.”
They were no sooner in the SUV when their phones buzzed. Goodhue texted them that he was forwarding the financial info on their six suspects plus Eloise Wallace. He told them he’d meet them at five at Rex’s condo to get an update. It wasn’t a suggestion.
“Looks like we’ve got our work cut out for us for the rest of the afternoon,” Rex said. “Not only do we have to meet with Liz and Chloe, we also have to absorb what’s in these reports and do whatever follow-up they may suggest.”
They stayed there at the lake reading. Eloise had a couple million in her personal account. She’d paid Grace five million for Essy four years ago. She appeared to be living on her lottery winnings since buying the firm, not paying herself a salary but reinvesting her share of the profits back into the company. As Nell had complained, she’d paid $1.5 million for the new apartment.
Nell received a fifty-thousand-dollar payout even though she was fired. She was still paying down the mortgage on the home she and her late wife owned. Katharine Riley’s life insurance was still in probate. Once it passed, Nell would receive two hundred thousand.
Grace owned her house outright. She’d been living on part of the money she received from the sale of Essy but still had over four million in the bank.
Brecken’s personal bank account was a little over five thousand. Six months ago, he’d received one hundred thousand dollars from Eloise, which he’d quickly placed in his company account. Other than the specifics, they knew most of this. What they didn’t know was that beginning eight years ago, he paid a thousand dollars every three months into an account named Carmen. Those payments lasted about three years. There was no explanation of what Carmen was or why the payments stopped.
Liz’s financial history matched what they’d learned earlier about her various employers including her time in the Netherlands. About eleven and a half years ago, she received a life insurance check for a million dollars. Not too long after that she sold the house in Georgia for another million. She bought her condo for six hundred thirty thousand. Over the next few years, she’d laid out close to seventy-five thousand renovating the condo and another fifty thousand on a new car. Another hundred thousand had been laid out in incidental expenses. She’d invested about a hundred thousand setting up her business as a financial consultant, leaving well over a million dollars in her account.
“Maybe it was a good idea to check in with Liz next,” Marla said. “I’d like to hear why she thought she needed Eloise’s money to finance her fashion business. Her report doesn’t show any of her own investment in that plan.”
Tanner appeared to be living hand-to-mouth. His salary, currently ninety-three thousand, barely covered food, rent, car payments and incidentals. His bank account showed a little over twelve hundred dollars.
For only being a year out of college, Chloe’s financial situation was more stable than Tanner’s even though she was making only sixty thousand in salary. Her college expenses had been paid off by an inheritance from her mother, who died during Chloe’s first year of college. To get the full story, they would need the mother’s financial picture. A single mother, she’d been a paralegal until a few months before her illness. Chloe had around ten thousand dollars in her bank account.
“Chloe appears to have benefited from the death of, first, her mother and now, from what we learned from Boris Doppler, from Eloise’s death,” Marla observed. “Her financials don’t tell us much.”
“Let’s track down Liz first and then Chloe,” Rex said. “Then double back to my place to meet with Goodhue.”