Chapter Thirty-Two
Nothing. Sarah tried all the tag words she could think of: “animal trust,” “cat trust,” “wills and animals,” and “animal trustees,” but every article or statutory reference she found didn’t vary from what Harlan told her. Maybe the paper updates were stacked in his office, but whether by computer or some seminar, he was, it seemed, sadly current on animal trust rules in Alabama.
With a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, Sarah thought about what else she could do until Harlan got back from court. Filing? Typing? Harlan might want—make that need—both things done, but neither was good for her to do now. Between her worries about Emily and RahRah, she was sure she’d screw up anything she touched. At least, without Harlan being there to overhear her avoiding work, she could call and check on Grace.
As she punched in the hospital’s phone number, she realized she didn’t have to look it up. She still had it memorized from dialing it daily when Mother Blair was hospitalized for her final stay. How such a warm and good woman had raised a jerk like Bill was hard to fathom. It was also puzzling that she’d named Bill as RahRah’s trustee. She knew how allergic he was to cats. Given how close Mother Blair and she were and Mother Blair knew how much Sarah cared for RahRah, Sarah was surprised she hadn’t named her as RahRah’s caretaker.
“Wheaton General Hospital. May I direct your call?”
“Patient information, please.”
“One moment.” There was a click and a few bars of generic music before a voice came on behind a second click. “Patient information. May I help you?”
“Would you please connect me with Grace . . .” She paused, uncertain of Grace’s last name. She remembered Grace telling it to her. “It’s on the tip of my tongue,” she said to the voice asking if she had a last name. She mentally ran through her previous meetings with Grace.
“I’m sorry, I need a name please.”
“It’s . . . um . . .” The image of their introduction came back to her. “It’s Winston.”
“I’m sorry. We don’t have a patient admitted by that name.”
“She came in through emergency earlier today.”
Again, there was a pause on the other end of the line. “No, we don’t have anyone admitted or in emergency at present by that name.”
“Does that mean she checked out?”
“I’m sorry, but I’m not allowed to give out that information. May I help you with anything else?”
“No, thank you.” Sarah hung up. Apparently, Grace was okay or she would have been admitted. Sarah felt relieved. Now she could concentrate on worrying about her sister and finding something to do during the rest of the time she waited for Harlan.
Looking around, she decided the mail seemed like a good thing to tackle. It would take a lot to mess that up. Chanting “Mail is Mindless” to herself, she turned her attention to the unopened mail from the past two days. At least getting rid of the overflowing mail bin on the floor next to her desk would make Harlan think she’d worked during his absence.
As she emptied each envelope, she put its contents in one of three places. The advertisements and junk mail she dropped directly into the circular file. Any correspondence Harlan needed to read went into a second pile of letters she would put in his “in” basket. Sarah stuffed anything that needed filing, like copies of court orders and pleadings, into a folder she kept hidden in her desk drawer to be worked on at a future time.
Once she’d distributed the mail, except two checks, she went back into Harlan’s office and pulled the firm’s ledger from a wood-grained filing cabinet. She took the ledger back to her desk and on separate lines entered the numbers of the respective checks, their amounts, what case they referenced, and who had made the payment. After updating the ledger, she filled out a bank slip to deposit the two checks.
She knew the firm’s balance was in the black, but she couldn’t help but notice that these two checks, the only two received this week for work completed, weren’t enough to cover her weekly salary. Seeing such a low cash flow, she could understand why, with all the pro bono time Harlan had put in helping Emily and Sarah this week, he was concerned about having some billable hours, too.
Sarah checked her watch. Four thirty. If this was a normal day, she would only be scheduled to work another half hour. If the call Harlan was waiting for was a business call, it should come by five, too. Hopefully, Harlan would get back soon. If he didn’t, she was torn between leaving on time to search for Marcus or going straight home because RahRah was alone and it might be their last evening together. Then again, Harlan had specifically asked her to wait for him. She opted to give Harlan an extra thirty minutes beyond her normal quitting time before she powered down her computer.
The reception desk computer screen had just gone black when she heard Harlan’s private entrance being unlocked. She rose to check if it was Harlan.
“I’m glad you’re still here,” he called from his office. She heard him drop his coat and briefcase on his desk. “I was afraid I’d missed you.”
“What?” she began, but words deserted her when Emily walked out of Harlan’s office.
Without waiting, Sarah ran to hug her. Emily hugged back, holding on tightly.
“Are you okay?” Sarah held her twin at arm’s length. Emily looked tired, but there was something else, too. For a moment, Sarah couldn’t pinpoint the difference. Then she realized the furrows in Emily’s brow were relaxed. Emily was smiling—something Sarah had rarely seen her do since coming back from San Francisco.
“More than okay. Harlan got Judge Larsen to hold a special hearing and let me out.”
“Temporarily, on bail,” Harlan hastened to add as he watched their reunion from the safety of his doorway.
“A bail hearing on a Saturday? Who put up the collateral for Emily?”
Harlan blushed. “It wasn’t a big deal. I ran into Judge Larsen when I went for coffee this morning. Because he’s going out of town next week and our other judicial post is vacant, Judge Larsen agreed it wasn’t fair to make Emily sit and wait for a bail hearing until he got back. Neither Peter nor the city prosecutor raised any objections with what Judge Larsen wanted to do, but the case hasn’t gone away. Emily still isn’t a free woman.”
“We’ll simply have to work harder to find the real killer.” Sarah gave her sister’s shoulders another squeeze.
“Or at least some grounds for me to use to create reasonable doubt.” Harlan motioned them into his office. He sat down in his leather wingchair and indicated they should take seats on the matching brown couch.
As Emily settled herself onto the couch, Harlan made a show of leaning back and resting his booted feet on the coffee table. Sarah was so busy trying to decide whether his feet would touch the floor if he sat all the way back, she almost missed his drawling cowboy imitation. “Time to ’fess up, Emily.”
Emily and Sarah looked at each other.
“Sarah, I’m sorry. I know I should have told you earlier about Marcus and Bill and what’s been happening at Southwind, but I didn’t want to complicate things any more than they were.”
“I’m confused. How can things be more complicated than they now are?”
Harlan snorted but Sarah ignored him. She kept her eyes glued on her sister’s face.
Emily returned her gaze. Emily held her head high, with her chin jutting out. “I came back from San Francisco because Marcus and I were seeing each other exclusively.”
“What is this, high school? You couldn’t tell me you’re going steady?” Sarah stood.
“We didn’t want to hide it, but it was a business decision.”
“I don’t understand.” Sarah walked to the front window and stared outside.
Emily came up behind her. She placed her hand on Sarah’s shoulder, but Sarah shook free.
Now she fully understood why Emily had stopped sharing food and thoughts with her. “You didn’t trust me enough to tell me you were dating?”
“It wasn’t like that. It wasn’t a matter of trust. It was business.”
“Business? Do you think I’m an idiot?”
“No. I was the fool. Because of Southwind’s precarious financial situation, I was afraid for us to admit we were a couple.”
“I don’t understand.” At the sound of Harlan clearing his throat, Sarah jumped on him. “Harlan, did you know? Is that why you didn’t want me to talk to Marcus this afternoon?”
Harlan held up both hands in mock defense of himself. “I didn’t know before this afternoon. In fact, with Emily refusing to help me with her case, I probably never would have considered the possibility of them having a relationship but for your hunch she was shielding someone. Because of another matter, Judge Larsen delayed Emily’s hearing by thirty minutes and I ran with what you suggested to bang some sense into her head. I called her out on keeping secrets and making matters worse by trying to shield everyone and ending up protecting no one.”
Emily again reached for Sarah.
This time, Sarah didn’t resist.
“Honest, Sarah, I was only doing what I thought was best. In San Francisco, our boss had an unwritten rule against staff members dating.” She made quotation marks with her fingers. “He believed ‘Kitchen romances create undue tension and feelings of jealousy.’ Once I got back here and found out Bill was involved in keeping Southwind afloat, I was scared. Knowing Bill, if he was mad at anything I said during your divorce, he wouldn’t care how much money he lost or who he hurt to get even with me or as a way of still getting to you.”
Sarah nodded in agreement.
Emily picked up the thread of her story. “Marcus and I were trying to get Southwind turned around enough that Marcus would be able to buy back his restaurant when Bill decided that in addition to our limited catering business, we needed to handle food services for Civic Center events.”
“And you didn’t say no?”
“They couldn’t,” Harlan said. “Think about it. Bill controlled them.”
Emily clenched her fists in the same way Sarah remembered seeing Marcus do at the nurse’s station. “If Marcus didn’t go along with Bill’s business plan, Bill threatened to pull his financing and shut Southwind down. He’d bought out the other investors, so there was no one else Marcus could enlist to his side.”
“In true Bill fashion, he had you over a barrel.”
“Yes. We didn’t have a choice but to take on the Civic Center gig after Bill signed the contracts over Marcus’s objections. By that time, Bill had made him add Jane and Richard as line cooks . . .”
“Jane, I understand, but Richard?”
Emily nodded. “When Richard was getting his act together, he did odd jobs for Bill around his office and the Civic Center. After he started the culinary program at the community college, he asked Bill for an internship. The school is picky. It doesn’t want to place students at restaurants staffed only with students. Because Grace was already scheduled by the junior college to do a work-study program, Richard was going to have to wait until next term. Bill wasn’t happy with that. Instead, he insisted Marcus put him on the payroll.”
“Got it.”
“Even if I wasn’t afraid of what Bill might do, keeping our relationship a secret made sense. There wasn’t extra money to pay another supervisor, and Marcus didn’t trust Jane or any of the others to take charge. Instead, he was doing everything.”
“And probably nothing well,” Harlan observed.
“Right. So, we decided he’d handle cooking for the restaurant and all of the catering while I managed the daily restaurant operations and Civic Center activities.”
“I understand that arrangement,” Sarah said. “But I still don’t understand why you kept your relationship a secret.”
“If anyone knew we were dating, they might have thought I hadn’t earned my position because of my cooking and kitchen management skills. We didn’t need any extra tension in the kitchen while Marcus resolved the control issue with Bill.”
“But even with Bill dead, you’ve never gone public as a couple.”
“Because there’s no longer anything to go public with.”
“Huh?”
“We’re just good friends. Between the hours we’ve been working and my commuting to live with Mom and that lack of privacy, plus the financial stresses of Southwind and all the garbage with Jane, I realized being business partners fit us better than a romantic relationship.”
“Did Marcus agree?”
“He protested, but then things got crazy with Bill and Jane.”
“Wait a minute,” Sarah interrupted. “What exactly has been going on between Marcus and Jane? They’ve seemed awfully cozy since Bill died.”
“It’s purely business.”
“Monkey business?”
“No. When Bill was dating Jane, he apparently promised her she’d be top dog. Consequently, she tolerated and played up to Marcus because of Bill and his business arrangement, but she resented taking orders from me. With Bill gone, she’s gunning for my job again.”
“Or,” Harlan said, “for the entire business. By Bill’s will, it looks like she is Marcus’s partner, even if she isn’t acting like it. Considering everything, I might be able to suggest to Peter Jane had a financial reason to kill Bill, but it doesn’t solve the problem of your prints on the fork and knife.”
Sarah tried to digest everything while watching Emily shrug and stay silent. It still didn’t make sense. “Emily, Jane said Bill was going to fire you. What was that all about?”
“I told you. Jane and Richard were the ones who caught me searching the office for an extra set of books or something that truly affected the financials.”
A movement from Harlan caught Sarah’s eye. She glanced over and saw he was again raising his pencil. “You’re not the bookkeeper. What made you suddenly look at the books?”
“It was a gut feeling.”
Harlan and Sarah exchanged glances.
Cowboy Harlan put his boots back on the floor and resumed the role of Harlan the lawyer. “There is one thing I still don’t understand. Emily, why refuse to see Sarah or help me with your case?”
Emily didn’t answer.
“You were afraid Marcus killed Bill to protect you,” Sarah said.
Emily nodded affirmatively and stared at the floor. “That’s why I needed you to stay at the Civic Center. I was hoping you’d find something to force Peter to consider someone other than Marcus or I could be the murderer.”