“I hope you were serious with that offer to help her,” Rex said as they walked to his car. “She went from deflated, having to admit to her baser reasons for sticking with the team, to excited at the prospect of returning to her dream.”
“I was serious, not that I could do much to help her with the LA market right now, but I’d like to see what she can do.”
“Does that mean you’re ready to dismiss her as the killer?” he asked.
“I’m about ninety-five percent there. There’s always a slight chance we missed something that would have revealed her as our culprit, but I’m reasonably confident she’s in the clear. Do you agree?”
“I wasn’t tracking with her revised reason for sticking with the team,” he replied, “until she made that statement about putting up with someone who injured you in the past. She had me pegged as far as my working for Goodhue is concerned.”
“Except Goodhue never injured you. In fact, you told me the man saved your life when you were both on the St. Paul police force. That’s why you agreed to help on the Elliot case, because you felt you owed him.”
“Something I shared with you in confidence.”
“A confidence I will continue to respect,” she said.
“I agree with you about Liz not being our killer. For now, we set her aside and focus on the other five.” He paused while they climbed into his car. “How would you like a Diet Coke before we tackle Chloe again?”
“Great idea! I could use an afternoon pick-me-up. But what about you? Since when are you into soft drinks?”
“I’ve been known to imbibe a few, although I prefer the lemony-lime variety.”
A few minutes later, they sat sipping their beverages at the outdoor eating area of the mom-and-pop café they visited. They didn’t discuss the case.
“Are you ready to talk about your attempt to produce a video yet?” Rex asked out of the blue.
He hadn’t forgotten, yet he’d gone along with her request not to discuss it earlier. “It’s amazing how you can file information away but never lose it.”
“It’s a talent,” he replied.
She chuckled. “Talent. Interesting choice of words. Maybe I don’t have whatever talent is needed for making a video, because my first attempt didn’t go well. I wasn’t prepared for that. It was a shock that my already damaged ego didn’t need.”
“What happened?”
“I was supposed to be describing how to bake an apple pie, Kitty’s brainchild. I’d only been considering the idea of videocasting, but Kitty leapt on it as her way of getting me to help her relearn the process to impress Hub. I’d already baked a pie the day before, so the process was in my head. But once the camera was rolling, the words stuck in my head. Maybe it was too soon, since I’m still not clear what my concept should be, what message I want to get across. Can we table this discussion for now?” she asked, suddenly uncomfortable telling him any more about this issue.
“Sure. Maybe once we’re further along with this case or afterwards. Or not. I wasn’t prying. Just trying to understand what happened.”
She nodded. “I get that. Sorry, Rex. Producing my own video should’ve been right down my alley, and it wasn’t. I need to work past my embarrassment. Especially around you.”
“Me?”
“Let’s not get into that right now, okay?”
“Fine with me.” He took her empty can and disposed of it along with his.
“Ready for the Chloe Reardon show?” he asked after he’d started the SUV.
“As ready as we can be with that young woman. At least we have more background with which to question her this time.”
“I thought you might be back,” Chloe said when they showed up at her door. “You knew before I did that Eloise had named me her beneficiary. Her only beneficiary. And you wanted to see if I’d known about her decision already.”
“Actually, we felt that information should come to you from Mrs. Wallace’s attorney. To make it official,” Rex said. “Since you brought it up, did you know?”
“Not for sure. Eloise had hinted around about naming me more than once, but I didn’t think she was serious.”
“Why was that?” Marla asked.
“Eloise was like that. Saying things to see how you’d react, not necessarily meaning them. I learned that lesson early in my internship when she suggested I could raise my grade by working on weekends. So I did, but my grade didn’t change. When I asked her about it, she acted like it had never happened or that I had misunderstood.”
“Does that describe the rest of your work relationship with her?” Marla continued.
“Unfortunately, yes. Don’t get me wrong. I liked her as a boss. She had me performing tasks it would have taken years to be assigned elsewhere. I just couldn’t trust her.”
“Now that you do know, what do you intend to do about your role in Essy?” Rex asked.
She leaned forward conspiratorially. “Just between us, I don’t have the slightest idea. Like I said, I didn’t believe her when she hinted around that someday the business would be all mine. And even if I had, who knew she’d be dead so soon?”
“You seem to have a different opinion of your former boss today than when we spoke yesterday,” Marla said. “Is that because in the meantime you’ve learned she did follow through and name you beneficiary?”
“Perhaps. Maybe I was still in shock at her death, especially then, learning she’d been murdered.”
“That’s one of the reasons why we’re back today, now that you’ve had a little more time to get used to the idea of her death,” Rex said. “And we’ve learned some more about the deceased and those closest to her we’d like to ask you about.”
She smoothed her knit top and returned an expectant smile. “Okay. What do you want to know?”
Rex started. “Did you and Mrs. Wallace ever discuss your role at Essy?”
“I’m not sure I understand your question. If you mean did we go over my job tasks, yes. Those kept changing the longer I was there. She gave me more responsibilities as she got more familiar with my performance.”
“That’s part of what I meant, but I was also getting at her expectations for you at Essy. Since she named you her beneficiary, that would suggest she saw you relieving her of more and more of her job duties. Like becoming her protégé?”
“Oh, that kind of thing,” she replied. “Yes. I learned long ago that she didn’t trust many people, in particular Nell and Tanner. She never said as much, but I suspected she liked to ‘play’ with both of them by pitting me against them. I knew that put me into a less than amicable relationship with them, but I chose to go along with her desires. Call me ambitious. I don’t mind. Ever since my mother’s death, it’s been just me. I have to take care of myself.”
“It didn’t bother you that Tanner and Nell didn’t like you?” Marla asked, putting it to her directly.
“Of course it bothered me. I’m not unfeeling. But it was more important to get ahead in my job.”
“What about more recently? Are you aware what she had in mind for you in your new
role as hostess in this apartment?”
Chloe pulled in her lips and gazed about the room. “Yes. She never put it in so many words, but it was clear she planned to trade on my youth and looks for business. But I knew what she intended. Be friendly with clients. Even have sex with them if necessary.”
Marla hadn’t been expecting her to admit as much. She must have realized they were on to her. “And you were ready to proceed with it?”
“No. I didn’t know how I’d avoid following through when the time came. But the draw of this apartment had been too much to reject. I said yes thinking I’d figure out some way to get past the messy part down the road.”
“Looks like that ‘messy part’ has already been avoided,” Rex observed.
Her back went up immediately. “If you’re saying that’s because I killed her rather than go through with it, you’re wrong. I didn’t. The thought never even occurred to me.”
“Maybe not directly, but what about your role in agitating Nell enough for her to challenge Eloise on the court last Saturday?”
“I wasn’t there on Saturday. How could you say I agitated Nell?”
“Because you made a point of running into her at her grocery store the day before to brag about your new digs,” Marla said, taking over for Rex.
Chloe’s eyes went wide. “You know about that? What did Nell tell you?”
“She said that you came up to her all excited at your good fortune.”
Chloe nodded. “Okay, yes, that’s how it happened. But that wasn’t agitating her.”
“Really?” Marla said. “How was it you chose to go to a grocery store in Maple Knolls so far away from your new apartment?”
“I, uh, was in the area.”
“The day before you knew Nell would see Eloise at the pickleball match.”
“Pure coincidence.”
“And all the sudden you just showed up next to her?”
“Again, pure coincidence.”
Apparently Chloe was willing to admit to being ambitious and knowingly accepting her hostess role at the apartment, but she wouldn’t acknowledge trying to play Nell. How much would she tell them about Brecken?
“Let’s move on to another question,” Marla said. “We understand Eloise’s ex-husband dropped by the office every so often, even after their divorce. What can you tell us about those visits?”
“Not much. If I recall, they were divorced something like six years ago. That was long before I even interned there.”
“We realize that, but we’ve learned he continued to show up even since you’ve been there. Did you talk to him at those times?”
She shrugged. “I guess so. He’d come in and pour himself a cup of coffee and then make his way around the place chatting with whoever was there. That was usually me, Tanner and Nell until she was fired. Sometimes he’d check in on Eloise, if she was there. I don’t know what more I can tell you.”
“What did you discuss when he talked to you?” Marla asked.
“I don’t recall offhand. Nothing important enough to stick in my mind.”
“Take a moment to reflect.”
Chloe drew in a breath, eyes closed. “Almost without fail he’d ask how I liked it there and was Eloise treating me okay.”
“How did you reply?” Marla asked.
“I always told him things were fine and that I enjoyed working for Eloise, even if one or the other wasn’t the case that particular day. I got the feeling he was trolling for information he could use against her, and I didn’t want to help him do that.”
“What else did you talk about?” Rex asked.
“Is this really important?”
“Please, Chloe, just continue answering the question,” Marla said, attempting to adopt Rex’s firm, no-nonsense tone.
“All right, all right. Sometimes he’d ask how I was getting along with Tanner and Nell. Again, I always kept my responses upbeat and generic. A few times he asked if Eloise was using me to bug the other two. I played dumb on those, although once he’d planted that idea with me, I paid more attention to what Eloise asked me to do as far as they were concerned.
“Sometimes he got a little more personal. Never anything to creep me out. He was never that way. More like an interested uncle who cared about my welfare.”
“What kinds of personal questions did he ask?” Rex asked.
She thought a bit. “How I liked college. That was during my internship. Early on, he inquired about my parents. I told him that my mother had passed during my first year of college and that I never knew my father. My mother raised me by herself.”
“Did he ask any follow-up questions about your mother?” Marla asked.
“Talk about getting personal. I don’t know that I should have to answer these questions. Maybe I should ask an attorney to advise me.”
“That’s within your rights, but we are going somewhere with these questions,” Rex replied, still in official mode. “We just have a few more.”
“Okay, but if I start to feel even creepier answering, I will call someone. Anyway, yes, he expressed his sympathy when he learned my mother had died, although thinking back on it now, he didn’t seem particularly surprised. Maybe Eloise told him. Then he wanted to be sure I’d been able to get through school without racking up a lot of debt. I told him that my mother had provided for that, although I suspected there was some relative who provided for her when she was alive because every so often she’d take me out to dinner or we’d have steak instead of hamburgers and salads. When I’d ask about our good fortune, she’d shrug it off.”
“Anything else?” Marla asked.
“I’d say that was plenty. Wait, there was one other thing. It just came up recently, like within the last two weeks. I was so pumped about getting the new apartment, I shared my good news with him when he popped in. He congratulated me at first, but then his attitude changed when I told him it was rent-free and all I had to do was act as hostess on occasion. He kept pushing to know exactly what my being hostess required. Like I told you, I knew what was going on and planned to get myself out of it somehow down the line, but I played innocent with him. And the more I acted like it was no big deal, the more agitated he got.”
“Agitated, in what way?” Rex asked, leaning forward the slightest bit. Chloe probably didn’t notice, but Marla did.
“Perhaps that was too strong a description. He didn’t warn me off or try to make me see what was actually happening, but he wasn’t happy. He pursed his lips and fisted his hands. Shortly after that, he went to see Eloise, but not before he told me to be careful about whatever Eloise asked me to do. I knew what he was saying, but I didn’t tell him that. As it turned out, Eloise wasn’t in the office at the time, so he stormed off.”
She’d just given them some dynamite info. Did she realize what she’d told them?
“What did you make of his actions that day?” Marla asked.
“I had about twelve projects I was trying to finish, so his comments didn’t faze me much at the time. But later that night, and especially when I was moving my belongings into the apartment, it struck me how deeply personal he’d gotten. Especially for someone I only knew on a casual basis. Where did he get off disapproving of my life choices?”
“Did you tell him that the next time you saw him?” Rex asked.
“No. I saw him coming and found an excuse to get out of there. At the time, I just acted. But looking back on it now, I can tell my psyche was telling me his interest was inappropriate. Not as a dirty old man but as someone who was taking much too much interest in my personal decisions.”
“Anything else you’d like to add?” Marla asked.
Chloe answered immediately without taking time to think about her response. “I’m in my twenties, so I’m supposedly an adult, but I’ve been without my mother for five years. Although I’ve been okay financially, it hasn’t been easy. My mom was my rock, my conscience. Perhaps there were times when I let Eloise play that role, times when I let her encourage my ambition and baser instincts. I’m not really like that, but I’m not naive, either. I’m just trying to get ahead.”
“Bottom-line that for us,” Marla told her.
“As much as it may appear that I’ve benefited from Eloise’s death, I didn’t kill her.”
“Thanks for your time,” Rex said, leaving her last comment alone.
Marla couldn’t wait before they got away from Chloe and could discuss this last interview, but it was Rex who spoke first once they were back in the SUV. “That was a different Chloe Reardon than the one we met yesterday. She didn’t come across so young and naive. But more to the point, she seemed aware of the way she was viewed by the others and didn’t apologize for her actions.”
“I agree. That actually made her more understandable to me. More human although not necessarily more likeable. But she wasn’t going for that. She was going for real, and that we got.”
“Let’s move on to her visits from Brecken. What did you get from that?”
She had to chuckle. “You want me to go first? Okay, I’m ready. We’ve wondered about those visits. He could’ve simply been returning to the familiar despite his relationship with his ex-wife. I get the feeling that even though he’s been expanding his business, it may not have been achieving the highs he would’ve liked, and dropping by the office as frequently as he appears to have done was just to make himself feel better. But we can’t discount his interest in Chloe. She was aware of it herself, but she didn’t think it was the dirty-old-man kind. We need to take her opinion seriously. But if not of the creepy variety, then what was he after?”
“That’s the question of the day. From what I heard Chloe saying, his questions and comments sounded more like a concerned father. It makes me wish we’d taken my daughter, Cathie, with us. She’s an expert on father-daughter relations. She could’ve told us if Chloe was right to question Brecken’s attention or overreactive.”
“What about your opinion, Rex?” she asked. “You’re a father. Would you have asked questions like that of a young woman you only knew slightly?”
“Maybe as an interviewer but not as an acquaintance.”
“So, why? Is he a bit ‘off’ in that department, or did he have a reason?” she asked.
“What do you think?” he asked her.
“If I was acting as Letitia Carruthers, I’d suspect a twist. Something that was there all along, just not very pronounced.”
He stopped the vehicle and pulled over to the curb so he could swivel around to face her. “Okay, let’s say you are Letitia Carruthers. What’s the twist?”
She cradled her head against the cushioned seat back and forced herself to run everything she knew and had heard about Brecken through her brain at hyper speed and then asked herself to take the leap they suggested. It hit her in a flash. Was this a brainstorm?
“Step on the gas. We’ve got to get to Goodhue fast before I forget my last thought.”