EIGHTEEN 

I was just finishing up my lunch at the counter in the Bonaparte House kitchen, after talking to the visiting nurse, who assured me she had things under control on Valentine Island, when my cell phone rang. I put down my Raphaela Ridgeway novel—regretfully, as the story was at a suspenseful point—and answered.

“Hey, Georgie,” Kim Galbraith said. “We’ve got ’em.”

I sat up straighter. “We do? What did you find?” Maybe Liza and Melanie, and eventually my daughter, would get their money after all.

“Those mutual funds? I did a random sampling and checked the actual fund prices for the dates on the ledger. Of course, there were fluctuations in the value, but over the course of the last twenty years, they’ve all shown a decent return.”

That dirty Jim MacNamara. “Do you think this is enough to take to the police?”

“I don’t know enough about criminal law to give you an answer. But it should be enough for an ethics complaint with the New York State bar, at least.”

“But Jim MacNamara is dead, so realistically what are they going to do?”

“My guess is that you’d need to hire a new lawyer, maybe file a civil lawsuit and let him or her subpoena all the documentation from Ben. Then you could decide together whether there was enough to file a criminal complaint. Although who you’d file it against, I don’t know, since the perpetrator is dead.”

Great. More lawyers. A formal complaint and discovery process would probably take months, maybe years. “Thanks, Kim. I’ll talk with Melanie and Liza and see what they want to do.”

“Anytime. I’ll write up a summary of what I found and e-mail it to you. Let me know what you all decide. If you want to share, that is.”

“After all your help, I’d say you deserve to know the outcome. Talk to you later.” I rang off.

Of course I planned to talk to Melanie and Liza. But I planned to talk to Ben MacNamara first. He was almost young enough to be my son and I had pretty good truth-detecting skills. I needed to find out if he’d known about this all along, and was just playing innocent about the locked filing cabinet.

Fifteen minutes later, I entered the law offices of MacNamara and MacNamara. Lydia was at her desk. She looked up in surprise when I came in. “Hi, Georgie,” she said. “The office is officially closed. Jim’s funeral was this morning.” I’d been so preoccupied the last few days, I hadn’t bothered to read the obituaries in the Blurb, or I would have known that myself.

“Sorry,” I said. “I was just hoping to have a quick word with Ben about my divorce. How it’s going.” Melanie and Liza had given me an authorization to look at the Bloodworth Trust file. It had said nothing about authorizing me to talk to the law firm about it. Lydia was an experienced gatekeeper. No way would she let me in if she knew I wanted to talk to Junior about the trust.

Lydia frowned, just a little. “He’s in there, but now’s maybe not the best time. Jennifer Murdoch came to the funeral and made a big scene in the Episcopal Church Fellowship Hall after the service. Can this wait?”

“I just need to know for my own peace of mind that Jim’s death isn’t going to slow the progress. I’m anxious to put my marriage behind me and move ahead.” I knew I was being insensitive, and that I was pressing some buttons for Lydia. Her own divorce had been bitter, from what I’d heard.

She looked at my face, then nodded. “I understand,” she said. “Let me see if he’ll talk to you. Wait here.” She rose from her desk, crossed the room, and opened a metal filing cabinet. After thumbing through the file tabs, she pulled one out and headed for the door to the interior office. She rapped softly on the surface, then opened the door. She disappeared inside.

While I waited, I looked around. Lydia’s desk was enviably neat. No stray sticky notes or loose pens. A file lay on the blotter. The tab read, “Tripler Enterprises.” The door to the office opened again, so I quickly glanced away, my gaze landing on an innocent coat hanging on the rack. I hoped I looked innocent too. It would be bad to be caught snooping in a law office, where confidentiality was king. Or queen.

“You can go on in,” Lydia said. “And cut him some slack. It’s been a tough day, and it’s going to get tougher. His mother’s in town. That’s why he’s hiding out here.”

“Thanks.” I made my way into the office and shut the door.

Ben was seated behind a broad mahogany desk. He looked up when I sat down in the visitor’s chair across from him.

“You want to know about your divorce?” he said, opening the file. “I’m sorry I haven’t really had a chance to get up to speed on all my father’s files. He was working on this one himself.”

“Yeah. When can I expect the decree?” He quickly reviewed the first few pages in the file. His hands shook slightly as he turned the pages. The guy was keyed up, though it was impossible to say why.

“It looks like we’re just waiting for the time to run out. We should be able to apply for the final dissolution within a couple of weeks.” I already knew this, but it was nice to hear it confirmed.

“Great. I hate to press you at a time like this, but I want to move forward as soon as possible.”

“Okay,” he said. “This will be one of the easier things I have to do now.” He closed the file, picked up a pen, and began tapping on the manila cover. Junior was definitely agitated.

“Oh,” I said casually. “While I’m here, thanks for that file on the Bloodworth Trust. My mother and Liza Grant appreciated it.”

The tapping got faster. “You’re welcome,” he said.

“There’s not as much money in there as we expected.” I tried to keep my voice neutral while I watched his reaction.

His jaw stiffened. Junior knew something, but how much? “Oh?” he said. “I’d never seen that file until a couple of days ago, so I have no idea how much is, or is supposed to be, in there. You’d have to talk to my father about that. And that’s not possible.” He rose. “If you don’t mind, my family is waiting for me.”

Dismissed. I also rose. “Of course. How rude of me to keep you, today of all days. My condolences to you and your mother.”

“Yeah, my mother needs condolences. Her alimony has just been cut off. Now she’s probably going to sue Dad’s estate. She’ll figure out some way to squeeze money out of the old man, even now he’s dead.”

He followed me into the front of the office and shrugged into the topcoat that had been hanging on the rack. I zipped up my coat and nodded to Lydia. Thanks, I mouthed. She nodded.

Junior and I left together, though we separated when we got outside. Once I was half a block away, I turned. He was headed in the direction of the Camelot. That was probably where his mother was staying, though I hadn’t seen her when I’d been there. Ben lived in a condo owned by his father down by the marina. Jim had lived in one of the smaller Victorians—which were still huge, by today’s standards—on Wellesley Island. Perhaps Junior hadn’t invited her to stay with him, or perhaps bachelor pad living didn’t suit her. The crime scene tape might still have been up at Jim’s house. I hadn’t been by, so I didn’t know.

The back vent of the dark wool topcoat Ben wore flapped open as he walked away. The sight jogged something in my memory. The cold wind blew it away. I couldn’t stand here all day staring after Ben. I turned back toward the Bonaparte House and started walking.

What was it Brenda had said about Jim? The day of the murder, she’d seen him walking down Theresa Street. Quite probably, he had taken the very same route I was taking now. She said he was wearing an overcoat and carrying a briefcase.

But when I found the body, there’d been no coat. No briefcase.

Which meant the killer must have taken those fairly bulky items when he left.

The Bonaparte House kitchen was warm and dry when I entered. The rest of the house, being two hundred years old, was drafty, but the kitchen was an addition and had some insulation. It was my favorite room anyway. I hung up my coat on a peg by the back door, then pressed a number into my cell.

“Brenda?” I said when she picked up. I wasn’t sure why I made it a question. Who else would answer her phone?

“Yo.”

“The day Jim MacNamara died, you saw him headed here, right?”

“Yup.” She was monosyllabic today, but her words got the job done.

“And he was wearing a topcoat and carrying a briefcase, right?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Where were you when you saw him?”

“Checking the trash can in front of the Chamber of Commerce. He went around back of your restaurant.”

“The police must have asked you this, but did you see anyone come out, either from the back parking lot, or maybe the side or front door?” I hadn’t thought to ask her that when we were talking just after the murder.

“Yup, the cops asked me that. I’d moved farther away, down by the jewelry shop. But I did see someone coming from that direction, maybe twenty minutes after I first saw the lawyer.”

The suspense was killing me. “Was it Russ?” I hated to ask, because at one time Brenda had had a bit of a crush on my former dishwasher.

“The cops asked me that too. Naw. It wasn’t him.” She paused dramatically. “It was the lawyer again, Jim MacNamara.”