CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Jake shot another disgusted look at Melinda Williams’s files. If there was anything here worthy of murder, he sure as hell didn’t see it. He’d shuffled, reshuffled, and read property titles and possible timetables until his eyes crossed. Every location seemed viable for a building large enough to hold at least two courthouses.
He lifted his head and sniffed. What was that scent? Had he worked the clock around again? Surely it couldn’t be time for more—doughnuts?
A rumble of appreciation went up from the second shift, newly gathered in the squad room.
Jake shoved his chair back and opened his office door.
The delectable aroma washed over him again, twice as sweet and far more savory. Fresh doughnuts in every flavor, from sugar to cinnamon through chocolate and blueberry. Half the cops in the station were gathered around the coffee station at the far end to stuff samples down their throats, while more streamed through the doors faster than any fire alarm’s summons.
Where had the goodies come from? All of the local doughnut shops cut back their baking after lunch, and nobody in the office made anything like this.
Jake took a step closer. He should eat something before he hit his e-mail. After that, he’d figure out where next to focus the Williams investigation.
Astrid backed out of the crowd, empty tray in hand.
“You’re very welcome,” she assured two chocolate-daubed detectives. “Try the cinnamon; it’s my mother’s recipe.”
She turned and her eyes met Jake’s. She wore a casual black jacket, black jeans, and a soft blue sweater, making her look far more like a young Belhaven detective than the rigidly correct FBI employee he’d worked with—or a heartbroken widow.
He flushed, suddenly horribly aware of how clumsily he’d left her last night.
“Hello, Astrid.” He gave her a tentative smile and drifted closer. What did a guy say on occasions like this? He hadn’t even had a steady girlfriend in high school. “Thanks for all the doughnuts.”
“You’re welcome. I was feeling a little restless”—ouch!—“so I thought I’d work it out in the kitchen. Glad the guys let me in; I don’t know what I would have done with so many pastries, otherwise.”
“Cops can always eat doughnuts,” Jake assured her truthfully. “But yours smell far better than most.”
“Flatterer!” She laughed, the sound far more musical than any noise pumped through the lobbies, and Jake chuckled with her.
Why the hell had he spent last night away from her? One of his team could have gone through the GSA files, while he comforted her. Then he could have woken up with her and laughed with her about some stupid new jokes on the Argos boards before going in to the station.
It sounded like a life, unlike the cold coffee and stale sandwich drying in his office.
Dammit, he needed to keep her around.
“How’s the investigation coming?” she asked, her green eyes sparkling.
“Not much new. Why don’t you grab some coffee and come see?”
Astrid hesitated and cast a glance back at the cops chatting around the trays of delicacies.
A dark-haired civilian woman came up behind her. She looked slightly older than Astrid and was also anointed with a visitor’s badge. “Go on, girl. I’ll make sure the crumbs hit the trash can, then visit my pal Danica. We need to talk about the Enfield House team in the Tidewater 5K.”
“Thank you, Elswyth.”
Jake nodded his thanks, too, but was met by a fierce glare. He stiffened before he remembered when he’d met its likeness before—the overprotective parent of a high school date.
He inclined his head to the other woman in silent acknowledgment that he’d behave like a gentleman. He hoped there were etiquette books somewhere to help him.
Elswyth’s mouth twitched, but she nodded regally.
Astrid returned, balancing two cups of coffee and a small plate of doughnuts.
“What did you find out?” She offered him the sweets.
He rolled his eyes in appreciation and reminded himself not to mumble.
“Thought those would get me past your guard dogs, if you’d set any,” she murmured sotto voce.
He spluttered.
“GSA lawyers gave all properties’ titles a clean bill of health,” he said rapidly, after he’d recovered. “Some properties had environmental problems but the three finalists had none.”
“Zero?”
“Not at this early stage of assessment. Two were historic properties that have been cultivated under traditional agriculture methods and the third is an abandoned nineteenth-century warehouse. They’ll undergo a full test later, of course, if selected.”
“No scam there.”
“Not that I can see.” He shuffled his notes again. Each finalist’s photo, complete with summarized description, was spread before him like a deck of cards.
“Anything on her fiancé?” Astrid tucked her legs under her.
“He’s withdrawn very large sums from his bank but they’ve all been linked to the wedding.”
“Ring, house, honeymoon.” She ticked items off on her fingers. “Dress, flowers, reception. Perhaps a wedding planner?”
“How did you know he paid for so much?” Jake snatched a list out of his drawer and double-checked. “You missed something, though—her new car.”
“Minivan?”
“Yes, with more horsepower than sense.” He dropped the list back into its file and propped his feet up on the drawer. “So far every number on his phone bill has checked out, too.”
“Which leads you back to her job.”
“Yeah, and another big, fat dead end. Either that—”
“Or believe some random whacko kidnapped her on the Beltway so he could murder her in a distant stretch of river.”
“Stranger things have happened.”
“Yeah.” Her voice said she didn’t believe it either.
“We can do something else,” she commented a moment later.
“Like what?”
“Any of these places make your gut twitch more than another?”
He glanced sideways at her, startled by her casual reference to his cop’s intuition. Then he tapped the Northern Neck property.
“This one.”
“Why?” Astrid put her feet down and scooted forward to look at it.
“It’s too good to be true. Two hundred and fifty acres of undeveloped waterfront property within an hour of Washington just doesn’t exist anymore, even when the only likely buyer is Uncle Sam.”
“Anything wrong with the owner?”
“No, it’s a bank—but that’s true of several other candidates.”
She steepled her fingers over the photo and hummed, her eyes half closed.
“Who owned it before the bank?” she asked dreamily.
“A trust. Astrid, why would a corporation commit murder?”
“Are either the bank or the trust here in Virginia?”
“The trustee is in Belhaven.”
Her eyelids lifted and sparks danced around her head.
Holy shit. Why wasn’t he scared of all that magick or her?
“Why don’t we go talk to him?” she asked.
His gut surged happily into place, like a well-fed child.
“Sure thing.” He wondered whether his Sig would be any use there, if affairs went south.
Astrid measured the trustee’s office against the address Jake had given her. It occupied a small, nineteenth-century, brick row house amid dozens of larger, more prosperous legal establishments. Its battered masonry needed attention, just like the uneven walkway and overgrown azalea bushes.
But the brass placard bore a simple, uncompromising notation, which was undoubtedly designed to make up for any other lack: Carter & Carter, Attorneys at Law, est. 1816.
“Can you sense any evil?” Jake asked.
Astrid refocused her eyes to look beyond the current space and time. Something shimmered and was gone in an instant.
“No, just selfishness.”
“Not surprising from an old law firm that specializes in estate law.”
“But . . .” She headed for the door at a faster pace.
Jake caught her wrist and pulled her slightly behind him on the threshold. She cast an irritated glance at him, then scanned the door for magickal traps. Nothing.
He was inside before she could sound the all-clear.
“Hello, ma’am.” He smiled charmingly at the middle-aged lady sitting behind a reproduction Victorian desk. An astoundingly uncomfortable, badly faked antique sofa and chair offered seating for guests. “Is Mr. Carter in?”
“Yes, he is.” Ruth Clay, according to her cheap brass nameplate, changed from bored housewife flipping through diet recipes to eyelash-batting flirt, under his Virginia drawl’s spell. “He’s been in his office since lunch, working on his correspondence. I’m sure he could use a break by now.”
She gave her hips an extra swing when she rose.
“Who should I say is calling?”
“Jake Hammond of the Belhaven PD.” He slipped his card onto her desk, as if selling mailboxes.
“Police?” She eyed the bit of white dubiously.
“We just have a few questions about the Enfield Trust,” Astrid put in and eased magick into her voice, smoother than chocolate. “Nothing serious.”
“Oh.” The secretary picked up Jake’s card. “Well, I suppose you have every right to ask for Mr. Carter’s time.”
And he had every right to deny it, although the threadbare upholstery and carpet said he could use more visitors.
Ruth swayed off toward the front office, whose occupant might have heard every word they’d uttered. On the other hand, the building was very solid, even if its scent was wrong.
Jake nudged Astrid and nodded toward the wall behind the secretary’s desk. Here the faded floral wallpaper was hidden by a row of steel safes, in the room’s only show of modernity. Several of the drawers hung open and folders were stacked on the handy, temporary shelves, ready for filing.
Astrid made a clutching motion and he grinned ruefully. As if they’d ever have time to go through those papers.
The secretary screamed, high and wild. “Oh, Mr. Carter!”
Jake spun on his heel and raced to the office, Astrid only a pace behind him.
This office was beautifully and accurately furnished, in a baronial style suitable for a nineteenth-century president. Heavy floral velvet drapes covered the window and a rich Turkish carpet deadened any footsteps.
In the center, beside the massive mahogany desk, Ruth Clay waved her hands in the air and opened her mouth to scream again.
Before her, a white-haired gentleman gazed at the new arrivals with the blank expression of someone completely dead. His head was pillowed on his desk’s leather blotter and his empty hands hung at his sides.
The foul scent of recent death explained the all-too-familiar stench creeping through the anteroom.
There was no taint of violence here, except for the thin trickle of blood from his upper ear.
Astrid cast her sight back through time.
“Miss Clay!” Jake’s voice could have brought a regiment to attention.
She squeaked in a gulp of air but stared at him.
“Did you touch anything in here?”
“Oh no, never.” She shook her head violently and knotted her fingers together. “I watch CSI all the time.”
“Well, that’s something to be said for TV,” Jake murmured. He continued in a louder voice, “Come back here to me.”
She looked at the corpse, grimaced, and waved her hands. Then she tiptoed toward the door, moving faster and faster the farther she got from the lifeless stare.
“I need a drink,” she muttered.
Astrid caught her arm. “Not yet, honey.”
“Just a few questions, Miss Clay,” Jake added, in between jabbering code into his phone. He jerked his head toward the other office and Astrid guided the shivering woman in there.
Some basic magick produced a cup of coffee from the office supplies. The secretary drank it, without asking its source.
Jake came in a few minutes later and shut the door on the outer room, its air already sharp with police radios and technical jargon from cops flooding in.
“Can you talk to me now, Miss Clay?” Jake asked gently. “The faster we can take your statement, the sooner we can catch the killer.”
“Oh, I know that.” She nodded vehemently and emerged a little bit from her cocoon of layered sweaters. “I watch NCIS, too. I know how you guys work and I’m happy to help.”
Jake managed to smile. Astrid kept a straight face.
“You said you saw him at lunch. Did he have any appointments after that?”
“No, but there was the bike messenger.”
“Bike messenger?”
“He showed up about half an hour before you did. Such a fine figure of a man, too. He works out more than most of them do.”
“Why do you say that?” Astrid asked, struck by Ruth’s wistful tone.
“Most cyclists focus on their legs, not their shoulders. Every part of this fellow’s body was impressive.”
“Did you notice his face?”
She hesitated but finally shrugged. “Thirty-ish, maybe? He was only here for a minute or two. The kind of hard, dark features that can be swarthy or tanned.”
“Would you be willing to work with a police artist?”
“I’ll try, but I really only looked at him from the neck down.”
“We’re grateful for whatever you can do. I’m sure Mr. Carter’s family—”
“He didn’t have any unless you count the latest ex-wife. He called her the Bitch.”
Jake glanced at Astrid and she shrugged. She hadn’t sensed anything about this investigation that suggested a woman at the center.
“Oh, Mrs. Carter wouldn’t have bothered to kill him.” Ruth had caught their glance, of course. “She already took all his money after she caught him cheating.”
“Really?”
“Oh yes. Every secretary on this street knows all the gossip.”
A young man peeked in the door.
“Miss Clay, may I ask you to tell Detective Nagorski everything you just told me?”
“Sure. You probably want to look around the office.”
“You got me there, Miss Clay.”
“The bike messenger didn’t touch anything in the anteroom—I like to call it my office—and he wore gloves.”
“Not mittens?” Astrid asked sharply.
“I wondered about that, too. But it is the end of winter, so I thought maybe he wanted to stay warm.”
She looked back and forth between them.
“Now I guess we know what he was really after, huh? No fingerprints.”
Safely back in the anteroom, Jake drummed his fingers on his leg.
“I hope to God she’s wrong,” he muttered.
“Five will get you ten, she’s right,” Astrid countered promptly.
“Jake, what’s going on here?” Danica looked in from the door. Elswyth, Astrid’s friend, looked over her shoulder. “We came to see Mr. Carter about the mortgage.”
What the fuck?
“Come over here and talk to me.” He pulled them over by the hideous sofa and chair, where no sane person would ever linger. A young man of Astrid’s apparent age, pretty-faced, expensively dressed, and hard-eyed as a top-flight bodyguard, drifted behind them, keeping himself well away from any cop.
“Come on, give. What’s up with the mortgage?”
“You know what’s going on. I’ve been telling you for years and you’ve donated to the cause.” Danica sank down onto the sofa. “We came to pay off the mortgage on Enfield House.”
“The entire property will belong to the battered women and their innocent children, forever,” Elswyth said firmly.
“Oh shit,” said Astrid. She whirled and went for the safes, like a foxhound who’d finally caught the scent.
“Carter was the trustee, not the owner. But you paid him money.” Murder usually came down to money or sex. Jake needed to understand who held the purse strings in this one.
“All of Enfield House plantation was put in trust for Civil War widows immediately after the War,” Danica said patiently.
Jake nodded, generations of Virginia ancestors immediately telling him that the War meant the War of Northern Aggression, or what Northerners called the Civil War.
“Carter and Carter, Attorneys at Law, became the trustees at that time,” Elswyth added.
Astrid returned and started flipping through a single file. Jake decided he was better off not asking how she’d extracted it from a supposedly closed crime scene.
“When the last Civil War widow died, Enfield House was turned into a shelter for battered women and their families. The board of directors felt this was the most appropriate use, since the original will specified that it serve ‘war widows and hard-pressed daughters of Virginia and their families.’ ”
Elswyth looked triumphant, as if she’d been personally responsible for persuading a recalcitrant group of men.
“But there’s never enough money.” Danica scrunched up her face in regret. “The buildings took a lot of damage from Hurricane Isabel a few years ago, and a mortgage was the only way to fix things up. We’ve been working hard to pay it off ever since.”
“You thought you had.”
“We have the receipts from Carter! He was responsible for taking the money to the bank.”
“He kept it for himself.” Astrid’s voice cut through the room’s chatter like a knife.
“He wouldn’t!” Tears welled up in Danica’s eyes. “He was the most marvelous man. He said the sweetest things about the babies.”
“There’s no receipt from the bank—and here’s the foreclosure notice, dated last year.”
“Foreclosure?” Multiple voices united in outrage.
Elswyth and Danica snatched the file first, as was their right. Jake read it over their shoulders.
“Wouldn’t somebody local have seen the foreclosure notice?” the young man asked in a very Northern accent.
“Not if it appeared in the Washington Post,” Jake replied. “It has enough advertising to drown the Titanic.”
“Especially if you’re talking about foreclosures in today’s economy,” Elswyth put in bitterly. “The sale could be held on the courthouse steps here in Belhaven, where the trustee resides, too. Not down near Enfield House, where folks would find out.”
“Bastards,” the young man hissed.
Jake’s finger stabbed hard onto a single piece of paper.
“Judicial foreclosure—so what?” Danica said bitterly and dug deeper into her enormous purse. “The bank owns Enfield House now. They bought it for the appraised value.”
“Which was probably higher than anything a local developer would pay.”
“A rigged auction?” Jake reconsidered the paperwork, in light of the young man’s very cynical expertise.
“Maybe, but probably not. Can’t easily build houses on land bordered by a military base and a nature preserve, without any good access.”
“Even so, judicial foreclosures aren’t common in the Old Dominion.” Jake traced the same clause over again. “You know, Judge Byrd must have been in a real pisser when he wrote this judgment.”
Astrid leaned on his shoulder to read it.
“Right of redemption?” she queried. “What’s that?”
“The homeowner—in this case, Enfield House Trust—can redeem the mortgage from whoever bought it.” Jake tried to remember what the real estate law guy had said during his fraud class. Judicial foreclosures moved fast enough that this one had slipped past the board’s annual meeting.
“In other words, if we show up with enough money, we can get the shelter back. But it’s the full mortgage plus a penalty.” The young man’s tone was savage.
“We don’t have that much cash!” Danica’s eyes were enormous and damp above her tissue.
“You will—I’ll give it to you,” Elswyth said flatly. “How long do we have?”
“Tomorrow.” Astrid looked around at them. “The right of redemption closes tomorrow.”
Crap.
“The banks have already closed, so we can’t get a cashiers’ check now. It’ll have to wait until tomorrow.” Elswyth gathered her purse onto her lap. “We’ll manage.”
“If you’re sure.” Danica tried an unsteady smile.
“Once it’s ours, we can put in real air conditioning, instead of those window units,” Elswyth said encouragingly.
“And clean up the cemetery, where your husband’s mother lies.” Danica patted Elswyth’s hand. Her grin gained some true wattage. “I got it.”
“The new owners will need to evict their tenants, in order to take possession,” the young man commented. “They’ll want to do so before tomorrow.”
“In case there’s any question about who the actual owner is—the one with the papers or the one in possession.” An all too familiar chill ran down Jake’s spine.
“The bank’s CEO planned to sell Enfield House to Melinda Williams, the GSA staffer who was murdered,” Jake said flatly. “His name is all over her project portfolio.”
“Crap, everything that made the land worthless to a regular developer makes it priceless to the government,” the Bostonian breathed. “They’d never worry about nosy neighbors, not with the Army on one side and bald eagles on the other!”
“Bet he planned to make a hefty profit on it, too,” Astrid snarled.
“The Williams killing was a professional hit.” Danica stared around the room at the others, twisting her hands together over her purse. “Anybody who would hire a man to slice a girl’s throat then toss her in the river—what wouldn’t he stop at?”
What indeed?
Astrid closed the file folder with a thud, as if she wished she could finish the banker as easily.
“They’re wicked men, who won’t stop at violence. We’ve got to get the babies out of there.” Danica shot up off the sofa, as if launched by NASA.
“Somebody has to stay at Enfield House until clear title is established.” Elswyth tugged on her arm.
“I’ll go,” Astrid said calmly, her gaze distant.
“We’ll go,” Jake countered. Like hell would he let her take that on by herself.
“No way!”
“Nathan—Elswyth and Danica need somebody to drive them to the bank and the courthouse. The bad guys will probably try to stop them and there’s nobody else to help.” Astrid’s voice was loaded with undercurrents Jake could only guess at.
Nathan pounded his fists together, then nodded. “Okay, I’ll do it.”
“Jake, will you lend him your car? Please?”
Loan his Mercedes to a strange dude? But Astrid wouldn’t ask unless she thought it was vital. It still felt like giving up half of himself.
“Sure thing, honey.” He tossed the keys over.
“Thanks, darling.”
He gave her a twisted grin.
“Give us a call the minute you get the mortgage, okay?”
“Roger that,” said Nathan.
“Good luck,” said Elswyth.
Astrid’s hand simply clenched tighter on Jake’s arm.