thirty-one

Neil Betts called Ms. Washburn not long after we arrived back at the Questions Answered office. I had not been able to exercise yet this morning and was trying to make up for the lost time when I heard her say, “Hello, Mr. Betts.”

Ms. Washburn conducted the conversation while I completed my thirteen trips around the office, and I was able only to hear the occasional question as I passed her. But she was certainly capable of handling the situation and I waited until I had purchased a bottle of spring water and was seated in my office chair before asking about her progress.

“Betts said he couldn’t confirm much about Brett Fontaine, whom he doesn’t remember all that well and wasn’t on the class Facebook page,” she answered, referring to notes she had typed into a file on her computer. “But he remembers Debbie Sampras and has kept in pretty close touch with her all these years.”

“We are going to see Ms. Sampras later today.”

“Three o’clock.” Ms. Washburn confirmed the time I had already committed to memory.

“What does Mr. Betts have to say about her?” I took a small sip of the water. It is better after exercising not to take large amounts of liquid even if one’s natural inclination is to do so.

“He says Debbie was the class gossip and she liked to stir the pot,” Ms. Washburn said.

“I am not familiar with that expression.” It is comforting that I don’t have to hide my ignorance of some idioms from Ms. Washburn.

Ms. Washburn chewed on the end of a pen, so I averted my gaze. “It means she likes to be the center of attention by creating situations that might be dramatic.”

“Like a playwright?”

“No. Like a meddler.”

That I understood. “Very well, then. So was Mr. Betts suggesting that information we get from Debbie Sampras might not be reliable?”

“I think he was suggesting we might want to confirm anything she says with another credible source, as the journalists say.” Ms. Washburn put down the pen, which I heard her rest on the surface of her desk. I looked in her direction. “I’m saying that just because Debbie tells us Tony Deane must be the killer is no reason to start fitting him for a prison jumpsuit.”

Before I could mention that prison attire is not tailored for each inmate the bells over our entry door sounded and I looked up, as did Ms. Washburn. Virginia Fontaine was walking into the Questions Answered office.

She approached my desk, bypassing Ms. Washburn’s, with a purposeful gait. As I stood to greet our client she held up a hand defensively, palm out. “Don’t start, Mr. Hoenig,” she said. “I’m here to withdraw my offer. I don’t want you to look into Brett’s murder anymore.”

I began to wonder if my initial analysis of the situation had been in error; perhaps Anthony Deane was calling Virginia Fontaine after Ms. Washburn and I had left his office. Was everything Deane had told us untrue? Could he possibly have been involved romantically with Virginia and not a man named Gary?

“What has led you to that decision?” I asked. “When a client decides to end our agreement it makes sense for us to understand if what we have been doing is somehow unsatisfactory. That way we can avoid making the same mistake again.”

I gestured toward the client chair in front of my desk as Ms. Washburn walked over to join the consultation, but Virginia shook her head and remained standing. “I don’t think I’m the main suspect anymore and I think we can leave it to the police,” she said. “I just don’t see the need for a separate agency to be looking into this matter.”

Her choice of words was odd, which indicated she might have rehearsed the speech ahead of time. I have done the same thing when confronted with a pending situation I found uncomfortable. I find most pending situations uncomfortable. Virginia calling her husband’s death this matter was especially jarring, although I could not immediately analyze its relevance.

“I can understand your decision, but we have made considerable progress and expect to have an answer to your question within twenty-four hours,” I said.

“Twenty-four—” Ms. Washburn began. Apparently my suggestion had come as a surprise to her, which was understandable.

“It doesn’t matter,” Virginia said. “I don’t want you to go forward. I’ll pay your fee.” She reached into her purse and pulled out a wallet. She searched for a specific credit card.

I did not bother to inform her, as we had specifically stated in our client intake form, that Questions Answered does not accept credit cards. We are simply not equipped to do so. “That will not be necessary,” I told Virginia. “If we do not answer your question, we do not require payment.”

Ms. Washburn must surely have expected that response from me, given that it has always been my policy. If the client no long wants the question answered, we will cease work on the research and there will be no charge because there has been no answer provided. Ms. Washburn has argued that our work is valuable and that we should bill by the hour as attorneys do, but I am still the proprietor and my initial decision has not been overturned. Still, now Ms. Washburn gasped a little as if what I’d said had been a surprise.

Virginia stopped reaching for her credit card. “Really?” she asked.

“That is our policy. I would advise against this, but the decision is yours.”

She did not stop to rethink her statement. “Fine, then. You’ll stop trying to find out who killed Brett.”

“If that is what you have concluded,” I answered.

“Samuel,” Ms. Washburn said quietly. I looked at her but did not respond. There was nothing else to do.

“That’s what I’ve concluded,” Virginia said.

“You realize we will report any findings we’ve made to Detective Monroe,” Ms. Washburn said. “And we’ll have to tell him you asked us not to solve your husband’s murder. That might make you seem like a more logical suspect.”

Virginia glanced at her and shrugged. “I’ll take my chances,” she said. She turned and walked out of the Questions Answered office while Ms. Washburn, mouth slightly open, watched her go.

Once Virginia had gotten into her car and driven out of the parking lot of the strip mall where our office is located, Ms. Washburn rolled her desk chair closer to my desk and looked at me. “So what do we do now?” she asked.

I looked up from my screen, which displayed a listing of people who had died in Leonia, New Jersey, in April of 1884. “I don’t understand,” I said. “We have been asked to stop researching Ms. Fontaine’s question. So we will stop researching that question and go back to the questions we were trying to answer before she hired us. You’ve done this before.”

“Yeah, but this is a murder and her firing us came out of nowhere. Aren’t you curious about why she did that?” Ms. Washburn was looking at me intently, trying to convince me of something.

“The subject matter of the question has no bearing on our policy, Ms. Washburn. The client is no longer employing us. We have no reason to continue working on her behalf.”

There was a promising listing on my screen, a woman named Nathana Brookins who had been only thirty-four years old at her death. No cause was listed in the perfunctory obituary I had found. I wasn’t sure it was the one I was seeking, but Nathana certainly had all the necessary qualifications so far.

“Doesn’t it seem to you that she might have fired us because we were getting too close to finding the killer?” Ms. Washburn asked. “That maybe she was the murderer after all?”

“That is not our concern.” Nathana Brookins had been the wife of Richard T. Brookins for eleven years before her death. She had two children, a son named Richard Jr. and a daughter named Elizabeth.

“Samuel, there are times I don’t get you at all. I understand how you’re thinking, but I can’t fathom that you don’t care.”

I turned my attention back to Ms. Washburn and tried to consider, as Dr. Mancuso has urged, how she might be feeling. But the issue was so clear in my mind that her suggestion seemed irrational. “Ms. Fontaine has, as you said, fired us. Who would we be working for if we decided to continue with our research?”

Ms. Washburn crossed her arms. “For Brett Fontaine,” she said.

“I doubt he will be available to pay our bill.” Richard Brookins Jr. had married a woman named Samantha Taylor in 1902. They’d had no children. But Elizabeth Brookins, who married Francis Bensonhoff in 1905, had a son named Arthur.

“Is that what this is about?” Ms. Washburn asked. “The money? Isn’t the question itself the reason you get involved? I’ve seen you turn down a hundred questions because you didn’t find them interesting and those people would have paid us. What is it about this question that makes you so quick to quit?”

Tracing the lineage of Nathana Brookins was going to have to wait. I looked at Ms. Washburn. “This isn’t simply about money. It’s about the order of things. This is a business. If we start researching questions simply because we want to know the answers, we should do so during our free time, not while we are working here.”

Ms. Washburn’s eyes narrowed. “Really. What are you working on right now?”

I brought up the email client on my screen. “I am reading through my emails,” I said. I don’t know why I did that, except that Ms. Washburn was about to find a hypocrisy I was perpetrating and I did not want to diminish myself in her eyes. That must have been the motivation.

It didn’t matter because that is the moment my cellular phone rang.

I did not find it unusual that the call was coming on my personal phone and not the landline we have at the Questions Answered office. That was particularly predictable when I saw the caller was Reuben Hoenig. I debated answering but could not summon an appropriate reason to ignore the call.

“Hello?” I do not know why the greeting on a telephone is always presented as if it were a question, but that seems to be the norm.

“Sorry to bother you,” Reuben responded. “But I think I’ve been taken hostage.”