eighteen

Francine clutched the bookcase to steady herself as she got up from the one-knee stance. “Just gathering some materials for the retrospective Charlotte and I are making for Camille’s funeral. Eric asked us to do it. We were going to come by tomorrow, but since we had Joy with us this evening, we decided to come tonight. We didn’t know you’d be here questioning Eric.”

Jud worked his jaw. He always does that when he’s suspicious, Francine thought.

“I wasn’t questioning him as much as we were just talking. We were high school friends, remember?” He righted himself and walked into the room. “Can I see what you’ve got?” His casual shoes made a very soft sound that reminded Francine of her cat padding across the floor. No wonder he’d been able to sneak up on her.

“Sure.” She backed up a few steps to the file cabinet and handed him the folder, now thicker because of the Leadership notebook. He began to flip through it.

Charlotte clomped into the room, her orthopedic shoes making a clacking sound on the floor. “I don’t see how you could object to her taking what she’s collected,” Charlotte said. “I’m sure you’ve been through here and taken out everything that’s useful to your investigation.”

Francine was grateful she’d been watching and had come to help, but given that Charlotte chafed on most people, especially the police, she wasn’t sure how much help she might be.

Jud glanced through the items she’d collected. “I understand you were at the Legion tonight,” he said. “What were you doing there? Investigating?”

“We were playing bingo,” Charlotte answered. “You are so suspicious.”

“And you are so transparent,” he answered. “You don’t usually go to bingo. Not all together.”

“How would you know?” Charlotte asked.

“Maybe we have a secret Sixty List item that involves bingo,” Joy said.

They were saved by Eric, Joy, Mary Ruth, and Toby all coming into the room.

“Eric,” Charlotte said, “please tell Jud that you have asked us to put something together about your aunt for the funeral.”

Eric nodded. “It’s true.”

Francine worked the pretense. “We stopped by to get some photos and source material tonight since we had Joy with us. Do you mind if we take those, Eric?” She pointed to the folder Jud now held open. She appealed to Eric in the hopes Jud would be more amenable that way.

“It’s okay with me if it’s okay with Jud,” Eric said.

Francine tried not to look like she was holding her breath, even though she was.

“C’mon, Jud,” Charlotte said. “Your men have already looked through here. And you’ll know where to find them if you need them.”

Jud seemed to make a decision, but hesitantly. “Go ahead.”

They beat a hasty retreat, gathered their coats, and left.

 

They all went back to Charlotte’s house. They looked through the photos, but it was close to ten o’clock and they weren’t coming up with anything but more questions, especially the photos taken in a graveyard. There seemed to be a significant number of them. Eventually they called it a night.

Francine returned home and went upstairs to the bedroom. Jonathan was still up. She expected that he’d heard about the incident at the bingo and maybe the confrontation with Jud. She thought maybe he’d give her grief. Instead he spread a computer printout on the comforter and pointed to it like he expected Francine to applaud him.

She examined what he’d brought. It looked like a Quicken summary of someone’s financial situation. “What is that, and where did you get it?”

“Camille’s records for last year. She gave them to the firm to use for taxes.”

Francine felt her heart beat a little faster. She bent over the first page as though it were a clue-laden document. “Isn’t it illegal for you to have it?”

“No. Camille gave it to us. I was pretty sure my partner was her tax accountant. Turns out I was right. We gave a copy of this to the police. Since we still need it to finish our task of preparing her taxes, it’s okay.”

“So this is all in the name of helping your partner out.”

“In a manner of speaking. And helping us out.”

“Us?”

He gave her a look that said not to ask too many questions.

Francine lifted the page she was looking at. She had hoped something would jump out at her. “It’s a lot of data,” she said.

“It’s an itemized list of every transaction from her bank accounts. The one you’re looking at is her business account for Jacqueline Consulting.”

Knowing what it was allowed her to make some sense of the entries. She scanned the list for names she recognized. There were monthly payments to all the expected entities, like the gas company, electric company, cable company. “She must be using a home office deduction.”

“My understanding is that she did much of her work at home, even for the cable company.”

Francine hadn’t known that. She wondered if Charlotte did. Living next door, she would have observed that Camille stayed home much of the time. She gathered up the next few sheets, trying to keep them in order. “Her income varies a lot from month to month.”

“That’s to be expected. She was dependent on when projects came in and how big they were, not to mention when clients paid.”

“You know all about getting clients to pay.”

“Oh, yes.” Jonathan said it with the weight of truth. “Even the best clients have to be reminded from time to time about payments due.”

Francine remembered the early years in their marriage when Jonathan was just getting his company started. Her steady income as a nurse had been critical to their financial stability. Now, decades later, his firm was established and had operating capital. He drew a regular paycheck. The company absorbed the month-to-month variability.

After letting her flip back and forth among the printed sheets, Jonathan got close so he could look over her shoulder. “Here,” he said, pointing. “Do you see that she had some steady clients as well?”

Francine didn’t recognize the company names but she did recognize the monthly numbers. “Jonathan, those are the same figures I saw in folders at Camille’s house before Jud took them. I don’t know how they link to who paid them, but she had these same amounts listed for Tricky Dicky and Vince.”

“Which ones?”

She pointed to the $916.67 figures. “I remember them because they weren’t rounded up.” She looked into his face and could see his puzzlement.

“In what context did you see them?” he asked.

“Dick’s amount was listed under Lizton State Bank. Vince’s was listed at Old National. She had a file on Janet Tarpen, too, but all I could see in that file were records about some potential land deal at the Ronald Reagan Parkway interchange at I-74.”

“Janet’s had no numbers or bank accounts referenced?”

She shook her head. “Janet’s file was more like a report or a memo. The files for Vince and Dick were slim, and the only records inside had those numbers.”

“Let me see if I can trace those companies tomorrow.”

She studied him. “Why are you doing this?”

“The sooner someone solves this, the better I’ll feel.”

Francine inferred that he was worried about her. There had been some close calls in the past year.

She sat on the edge of the bed. “What consulting work did she do for Dick and Vince? Would the firm have any idea? It surprises me that they would trust business to her, as much animosity as there was between them.”

“There isn’t a business these days that doesn’t gain an advantage by having the latest and greatest tech tools for their industry. And they knew her. Better the enemy you know?”

“I suppose they could have been frenemies,” Francine said. “But Camille certainly upset their lives with her coup of the Council.”

“She did,” he said. “The question is why she died. Was it the coup—the takeover of the Council by her and Janet and Fuzzy—or was it something else?”

The house phone rang. Francine and Jonathan had an extension in their bedroom. Jonathan was closest, so he walked over and glanced at it to see who was calling. “Charlotte.”

“This late?”

He shrugged.

“Well, as Mary Ruth said to me, ‘she has the scent of a killer in her nostrils.’ I’m sure that’s what’s keeping her going.”

“You should probably answer it.”

“What took you so long?” Charlotte could sound really snippy when she wanted to.

Francine glanced at the clock on the nightstand, its digital numbers glowing green. “It’s close to eleven o’clock. Jonathan and I are getting ready for bed.”

Charlotte continued as though Francine hadn’t said anything at all. “You should know I found out that Tricky Dicky is representing Fuzzy in a real estate transaction.”

“Selling farmland for some kind of commercial development?”

“Exactly. It’s in the area where the new I-74 interchange just got developed.”

“At the Ronald Reagan Parkway?” The location made Francine do a mental double-take. Camille had a file on Janet Tarpen that also related to that interchange. She knew Fuzzy had some land in that area. Fuzzy’s ex-wife had managed to get hold of the old Carter homestead as a result of the divorce settlement, something everyone knew always rankled Fuzzy. Her property was one of the things blocking full development of the site. It was adjacent to Fuzzy’s farmland at the north end, and she refused to sell. It couldn’t stop Fuzzy from selling what he had, though. But what was Dick doing representing Fuzzy?

“Yes, at the Ronald Reagan. How many new interchanges with I-74 are there in the Brownsburg area?”

“But how is any of that related to Camille’s death?”

“I don’t know that it is. But Toby told Mary Ruth who told me that Eric had lunch with Dick at Bob Evans a couple of days before the benefit.”

Francine paused to digest that. “When did Mary Ruth tell you that?”

“A little while ago. I’ve been on the phone with her too.”

Francine was more than a little annoyed that Mary Ruth had somehow forgot to mention it. But maybe she hadn’t regarded it as important.

“Even if they did, how is that related to Camille’s death?”

“Don’t know. But we’re going to get the chance to ask Tricky Dicky tomorrow morning. I’m arranging for us to see the land.”

“We’re not developers.”

“Oh, forgot to mention—he’s also selling a five-acre parcel across the street. It butts up against the old farmstead his ex-wife Cass owns. That’s what we’re going to see.”

Francine was certain she wasn’t going to be the one misleading Dick. “I didn’t know you were interested in acquiring land for a new home.”

“Ever since you began building a vacation home on those three hundred acres you inherited in Parke County, I’ve been insanely jealous. Haven’t you noticed?”

“You’ve been hiding it well,” Francine said drily.

“Look, just get some sleep and get over here tomorrow. We’ve got lots to do, what with figuring out where this graveyard is Camille had lots of photos of.”

“You think you can figure out which cemetery it is?”

“You’ll have to come over to see.”