Cassie connected with Daney Tanner via FaceTime on her iPad in her office. She’d closed her door so Isabel couldn’t overhear the conversation. Although at one time Cassie had disliked video calls or meetings, she’d grown to appreciate the value of being able to see the facial features and expressions of subjects even if by long distance.
Daney Tanner was tanned and willowy like her aunt and she was obviously quite upset. She was speaking to Cassie from Candyce Fly’s home. She had the same background on the call that Fly had used just days before.
“I was the one who found her,” Tanner said. “I texted her this morning to see if she wanted to go out for breakfast. She didn’t reply, so that was suspicious right there. Aunt Candy is never without her phone. Never. So I drove over and knocked on the door. No answer.
“I knew where she kept a spare key out front beneath a fake plastic rock, so I let myself in.”
Tanner paused and looked away from the camera for a moment. When she came back her eyes were filled with tears. “I found her lying on top of her bed with her golf clothes on. The empty pill bottle of Oxy was on her nightstand. It was obvious to me that she took her own life sometime yesterday. Probably in the afternoon. The EMTs said the same thing, I guess based on her body temperature and how stiff her body was.”
“I’m so sorry to hear that,” Cassie said. “I really am.”
“Yeah, she didn’t have a lot of close friends. Aunt Candy was kind of hard to get along with, I get it. I was one of the few relations she kept in touch with. We shared things, you know? This is really a gut punch because I always thought she was one of the toughest women I knew. But it just goes to show you that you can never really know what’s going on in another person’s head, even someone as strong as Aunt Candy.”
“Have the authorities been there?”
Tanner nodded. “It was a zoo here all morning. EMTs, cops, evidence techs. They were all here but there was really nothing they could do. The coroner has already ruled it a suicide, but that was obvious to me when I walked in. I guess it’s a preliminary ruling, but I have no doubt.”
“Did she leave a note?”
Cassie knew that the majority of suicide victims didn’t leave notes.
“No,” Tanner said. “I looked. I checked her home office and both her phone and her computer. I knew all her passwords were 1-2-3-4-5 because I’d suggested a long time ago that she change them. That’s when I saw you’d been sending her emails.”
“Had they been opened?” Cassie asked, speculating that it might have been the photos of Matthew Annan that had sent Fly over the edge.
“No,” Tanner said.
Cassie was both grateful and disappointed. It would have been helpful to confirm his identity, but she didn’t want the burden of causing a suicidal reaction.
“Are you aware of our professional relationship?” Cassie asked.
“Yes, she told me she hired another private investigator after the last one flew the coop. She said that she’d sent you a retainer.”
Cassie nodded. “I might have had a breakthrough on her case. The timing is awful.”
“It really is,” Tanner said. “I think she literally sent you her last dollars.”
“What do you mean?”
“Aunt Candy confided in me a few weeks ago, which was something she didn’t do very often. She said after that man stole all of her money that she was in really bad financial shape. The golf club suspended her membership for lack of payment, and I think she was fighting with the utility company to keep her electricity on. Aunt Candy was a very proud woman, and her status was very important to her. When her friends started finding out she was destitute it must have killed her.”
Realizing her choice of words, Tanner quickly said, “I didn’t mean it like that. But it’s true, you know? I think she got super depressed and she saw no way out. If I could find that stupid boyfriend of hers who took all of her money I think I’d kill him myself.”
“I didn’t realize what kind of situation she was in,” Cassie said.
Cassie flashed back to Fly’s emotional outburst during their initial call and now saw it as a possible revelation of her mental state at the time. Fly had let it break through, and Cassie hadn’t recognized it for what it might have portended.
“No, she probably kept up a good front for you,” Tanner said. “She didn’t want you to think that she was fragile and that you might not get paid. But I know she listed her house a few days ago. That’s how bad it was.”
Cassie’s feelings toward “Marc Daly” suddenly hardened. He’d not only bilked Candyce Fly out of her fortune but he’d pushed her toward death by her own hand.
“Did you ever meet Marc Daly?” Cassie asked.
“Once,” Tanner said. “At a dinner party at the Gasparilla Inn. I sat a long way from him on the other side of the table, and Aunt Candy didn’t really introduce us, which I thought was odd at the time. I figured later that he probably didn’t want to be introduced to her niece.”
“How did he act that night?”
“He was kind of evasive, I thought. He hovered around Aunt Candy like a kind of predator the whole night. I didn’t really trust him. But Aunt Candy was head over heels about him. I thought it was just embarrassing. Let’s just say I wasn’t shocked when I found out what he’d done to her.”
“Please take a look at the photos I sent your aunt,” Cassie said. “Please tell me if you recognize this man.”
Tanner made a face. “It feels really weird to be opening her private emails.”
“It might help give your aunt some justice. And since I sent the emails I give you permission to open them.”
Daney Tanner did. She said, “It could be him but I can’t say for sure. When I met him he was wearing a jacket and slacks and it was dark inside the dining room. This guy is outside and all buff, you know? It could be him but it’s also possible it’s a man who resembles Marc.”
“Thanks for your honesty.”
Tanner looked over her shoulder from the screen. She said, “I’m sorry but I should probably get going now. I’ve got to figure out how to organize a funeral. I’ve never done that, you know?”
“I understand,” Cassie said. Thinking: I’ve never worked for a dead client.
“I have a favor to ask,” Cassie said.
“What’s that?”
“Could you please download or print the photos I sent and show them around to Candyce’s friends at the funeral? People who might have seen her together with Marc Daly? Someone may recognize him. If they do, please have them get in touch with me.”
“Sure,” Tanner said, though with some hesitancy. “I can do that. But what are you saying? Are you saying you’re going to continue to try and find him even though we probably can’t pay you for your time?”
Cassie’s voice got louder. “That’s exactly what I’m saying. If nothing else, I want to take down this sleazeball on behalf of your aunt. Maybe I can recover some of her money, maybe I can’t. But this guy deserves what’s coming to him.”
“If only Aunt Candy could hear that,” Tanner said. “Maybe she would have made a different choice.”
Cassie winced. What Tanner had said about not really knowing someone—or what pain they were in—echoed in her ears.
After terminating the call, Cassie sat back in her chair and stared at the patterns in the ceiling tiles in her office. She retraced her steps and her theories. Was Annan “Marcus Daly”?
She had no idea.
Everything she’d done thus far in the case had been predicated on what J. D. Spengler had done before she was hired. That’s what took her to Butte and Anaconda, where she met Matthew Annan. Very little of her investigation had been based on primary sources thus far. She’d been following the route of a man who was now missing.
What if she’d been operating with blinders on? That perhaps Spengler had been on the wrong track and she’d been following it without doing her own wholly independent investigation?
As she retraced her steps she recalled how long her Jeep had been parked outside of the Justice Center in Anaconda. It had been parked there long enough and unattended, she thought, for a tracking device to be placed beneath it.
Which convinced her that Spengler had been on to something. She doubted that her simple presence in town would have generated such suspicion without Spengler laying the groundwork and stirring things up. Deputy Duplisea would not have been following her every move—and likely following her on the interstate—without Spengler asking questions that alarmed certain people.
So Spengler it was. She needed to dig deeper into his investigation that took place before she’d been hired by the late Candyce Fly.
It was 3:30 P.M. mountain time, which meant it was two hours later in Florida. It might be too late for someone to still be in the offices of J. D. Spengler’s agency in Tampa. Cassie dialed the number anyway and was surprised when it was answered after three rings.
“J. D. Spengler Security and Investigations. This is Ellie.”
Cassie sat up. She’d pulled up the agency website before dialing and could see a woman named Ellie Dana listed under staff as a “research assistant.”
“Is this Ellie Dana?” Cassie asked. Dana looked to be in her late twenties or early thirties and she was a stout brunette with a plain, open face.
“Yes. Who is this?”
“My name is Cassie Dewell of Dewell Investigations in Bozeman, Montana. Like your boss, I’ve been hired by a client to investigate a fraudulent scheme perpetrated by a man who goes by the name Marc Daly.”
Dana snorted and said, “No one here has heard from our boss in weeks. That’s the reason I answered your call instead of the receptionist. I thought this might be him because it came from Montana. And why didn’t the receptionist pick up? Because she quit five days ago when she didn’t get paid. Our business manager is threatening the same thing. The only reason I’m here is because I wanted to clean out all my private stuff from my office before our landlord locked us out of the building for skipping on rent.
“So, if you don’t mind, I want to finish up here and pick up my kids and look for another job,” Dana said.
“I really need your help,” Cassie said. “I just need a few minutes of your time. This might be our only opportunity to find out what happened to your boss.”
“He’s holed up in some cathouse, is my guess,” Dana said bitterly.
“That’s unlikely,” Cassie pleaded. “We really don’t have many of those here anymore. I think something criminal might have happened to him and I’d really like to find out what it was. It’s possible he’s still alive. If I can find him maybe he can come back to Tampa and right the ship.”
“It’s probably too late for that,” Dana said. But Cassie detected a slight thawing in her tone. Then: “What exactly are you asking me for?”
“My understanding is that Mr. Spengler had been all over the country before he found his way here. I don’t know where he was or what he was doing. If I can find out it may help me find him.”
“J.D. likes to travel, all right,” Dana said. “First class all the way. Except for cars. He likes really boring cars.”
“Let’s start there. Do you have his travel records?”
“I’m sure we do. But I have an ethical problem with sending you records on an ongoing case. If you’re a PI you should know that.”
“I understand,” Cassie said. “But this is an unusual situation. Your boss is missing and our mutual client is recently deceased. She committed suicide in Boca Grande. I’m sure those circumstances render the ethical concerns moot.”
“What? Suicide? That’s crazy,” Dana said. Then: “What’s the client’s name? I’ll see what we have.”
“Candyce Fly,” Cassie said. She spelled it out and she could hear Ellie Dana tapping on a keyboard.
“Yes, she was our client,” Dana said. “There are quite a few files on her in our database. I’m familiar with some of them because I researched some people for J.D. and forwarded the files to him.”
“What people?”
“People all over the country,” Dana said. “All women, as it turns out. J.D. would text me a name from the road and I’d access our databases and build a background history on them. Then I’d forward the files to J.D. I don’t know what he did with them or why he even asked. That isn’t part of my job.”
“How many women are we talking about?” Cassie asked.
“I don’t know. Four, maybe five.”
“Can you share their names with me?”
“Of course not,” Dana said with a chuckle.
“Is there a file with your boss’s travel records?”
“Yeah, that’s all here.”
Cassie tensed up. “I know this is a big ask and that you’re trying to get out of there right now, but could you please send the files to me? I swear I’ll keep them confidential and whatever I find I’ll share only with you.”
“Why? I don’t give a shit. I’m quitting.”
“Still, don’t you want to know what happened with your boss? Wouldn’t his wife?”
“They’ve been divorced for years. His ex moved to Miami and got remarried, I think. He does have a granddaughter, though.”
“Doesn’t she deserve to know what happened to her grandfather?” Cassie asked.
“I suppose so.”
“And wouldn’t the other people in the agency want to find out? And possibly even law enforcement if it turns out to be bad?”
There was a long pause. Cassie was afraid Dana might simply terminate the call. Ellie owed her nothing. And based on what she’d told Cassie, the agency could fold up at any minute and take the files and records with it.
“Do you swear this is all on the up-and-up?” Dana asked.
“I swear. You can look me up. I’ll give you the URL.”
“I’ve already looked you up while we’ve been talking,” Dana said. “I’m looking at your photo right now. It looks like you’ve got a small agency, but you seem legit.”
“I am and I’d be deeply grateful.”
Ellie Dana sighed. “Okay, give me your email address and step back. There’ll be a lot of stuff coming.”
Cassie glanced over at her monitor and saw attachment after attachment fill her email box. Each arrived with the distinctive chime of an incoming message.
“I’m forwarding it all,” Dana said. “Maybe you can make sense of it. I can’t take the time to vet what it all is.”
“Thank you.”
“Sure,” Dana said. Then: “Your website makes Montana look pretty cool. You wouldn’t happen to be looking for a researcher, would you?”
“Maybe,” Cassie said. “Please send along all your contact details.”
“I’d be worried about the snow,” Dana said. “It snows like three feet in Montana, doesn’t it? I don’t do cold very well.”
“It snows,” Cassie said.
“Let me think it over.”