After school on Wednesday, Mollie, Sherman, and Jaime drove to San Jose. Meredith had gotten the current address of Martin Longherin’s widow from a file in her father’s study.
Johnny and Roberta were both at work. Roberta was keeping her job at Whistler until the International Face Show, so she could get free passes for everybody and also keep an eye on DeDario.
“There it is.” Jaime pointed. “Fair Oaks Retirement Village.”
“Where are the oaks?” Sherman asked. “They should have called it the Fairway Retirement Village.” There was a golf course right in the middle of all the small identical houses.
They found house number 243, parked, and walked up to the front door. An elderly woman was kneeling to plant bulbs in the flower garden on the side of the house.
“Are you Emily Longherin?” Mollie asked.
She stood up and brushed the dirt off her hands. “Yes, I am. Can I help you?”
“I hope so,” Mollie said. “My name’s Mollie Fox, and these are my friends Jaime Santos and Sherman Hermanson. We’ve come down from Bayside because we wanted to ask you some questions about Dayton Hughes.”
Emily lifted off her sunglasses and peered at them. “You certainly don’t look old enough to be from the police department.” She walked over to them.
“We’re not,” Jaime said. “We’re friends of Meredith Hughes. She’s in trouble, and we’re trying to help her.”
“I heard she was involved with drugs,” Emily said. “I didn’t believe it. Such a sweet girl.”
“Will you help us?” Mollie asked.
“Come on in, and I’ll fix us some lemonade,” Emily said. She opened the door, and they followed her into a brightly decorated living room.
“This is a nice house,” Sherman commented.
“It’s nice, but it’s small,” Emily said, stepping into the kitchen to pour their drinks. “My husband and I had a much larger house, but I sold it when he passed away.”
“Meredith just told us what happened to him,” Mollie said.
“Is that why you’re here?” Emily handed each of them a glass. “Go ahead, sit down.”
Mollie sat on the couch and propped a pillow behind her back. “Sort of,” she said. “We’re trying to investigate Dayton Hughes a little, so his relationship to your husband came up. Meredith thought you could tell us some more about her uncle.”
“Do you suspect him of something?”
“We’re not sure, yet. Have you ever had bad dealings with him?” Jaime asked.
“Well.” Emily sipped her lemonade. “I must say that I was not happy with the final outcome of things at the firm. When Dayton took over the senior partnership, after Martin died, he had to buy out my part of it. He did, but he only paid me what it was worth at the time—without projecting how much more it would have been worth in the future. Now I believe it makes almost five times as much as it did back then.”
“And you don’t have any legal recourse to fight that?” Sherman asked.
“I could take him to court, I suppose, but who wants to take a lawyer like Dayton Hughes to court? I’d probably end up with less than I have now,” Emily said. “He’s very slippery, that fellow. One more thing, Martin had paid for life insurance through the firm. Well, it turned out that the money from that insurance went directly into the firm. He hadn’t set it up like that, but somewhere along the way Dayton must have changed it.”
“Wouldn’t the insurance company need your husband’s signature?” asked Mollie.
“Dayton could have easily slipped the form in with a folder of things for Martin to sign. I’m positive he tricked him. Thank goodness we’d also bought another life-insurance policy Dayton didn’t know about, which came directly to me.” Emily smiled at them. “Yes, I guess I do have a few things against Dayton Hughes. I’ve tried to put them out of my mind, though. It just makes me furious to think about it.”
“Sounds like he didn’t treat your husband very well,” Jaime said.
“That’s true enough,” Emily said.
“Do you happen to know if they were getting along, shortly before your husband’s death?” Mollie asked.
“No, they weren’t,” Emily replied. “In fact, Martin was quite upset about the way Dayton had handled a few cases. He told me he didn’t think Dayton had the kind of morals he wanted in a partner. I think they even had an argument right before Martin’s death.”
“Really?” Mollie asked. “Do you remember what about?”
“Martin told Dayton that if he didn’t clean up his act, he was going to let him go. Dayton was only a probationary partner at the time, you know.”
“No kidding,” Jaime said, looking at Mollie. “There’s motive.”
“And then some,” Sherman added.
“What are you talking about?” asked Emily.
“We think Dayton may have had something to do with your husband’s death,” Mollie said.
“As in, he might have murdered him,” Sherman said. “Sorry to be so blunt.”
“What makes you say that?” Emily wondered. “After all this time? The police concluded that it was an accident.”
“Your husband did drown, that’s true. But we think Dayton might have pushed him into the bay,” Mollie said.
Emily was silent.
“I’m sorry. We didn’t mean to upset you,” Mollie said.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if Dayton was responsible,” Emily spoke up. “Without Martin’s death, he never would have gotten as far as he has today. Can you imagine, that scoundrel as governor? I’d rather have Attila the Hun running California.”
“I’d rather have Attila in front of me than a rudder in back of me,” Sherman said.