Lindsay's car was parked in my driveway. As I approached, she jumped out and came across the grass to meet me on the sidewalk. "Where have you been? I've been sort of trying to call you forever."
"I turned my phone off so I wouldn't be interrupted." And so I wouldn't have my phone confiscated, as the signs throughout the police station had threatened to do. "Did you find out anything more about the lawsuit between Tremain and Stefan Anderson?"
"A little," Lindsay said as I was unlocking the doors and letting us inside the house. "I've got the Better Business Bureau complaints against Tremain. Stefan's attorney sent them to me."
I tossed my messenger bag on the sofa and continued on into the kitchen. "Before I forget, there's going to be a fax for me at your office from the prosecutor's office tonight. It's information on Tremain's special clients. It's possible he sold them fake antiques, which would make them potential suspects in his murder. See if you can organize them into a single alphabetical list, with their names and contact information, and then e-mail it to me."
"Sure," Lindsay said. "I'll get on it first thing tomorrow morning."
"There won't be any problem with your going into the office during your hiatus?"
"I can handle it."
"Without getting into more trouble with Veronica?"
Lindsay straightened her shoulders. "If I do, it'll be worth it."
It might, at that, if Lindsay learned from the experience and approached all her assignments with this much determination. "So, tell me the condensed version of what's in the BBB files."
"There are more complaints than you'd expect on a business that's only two years old, and none of them sounded like the usual buyer's remorse. The customers were all pretty clear that they were willing to spend big bucks on a real antique, but what they got wasn't what they'd paid for."
Lindsay settled into one of the seats at the peninsula that divided the kitchen from the living room. Neither of us had time for a nice leisurely dinner at a restaurant, so I rummaged through the pantry for something edible among the paper towels and cleaning supplies that I'd stocked up on during a friend's visit when she could drive me to a warehouse store. All I came up with was a can of tuna. Still, if I added it to the remnants of the other night's salad from the Smugglers' Tavern—I was convinced that the owner, Hope Foster, had been topping off the leftovers with an extra serving or three when she packed them up for me, as if I needed additional reminders of why I'd been eating there so often—there ought to be enough for the two of us for dinner.
While I worked on our meal, I mulled over what Lindsay had told me. A high incidence of complaints against Tremain suggested something was rotten at Monograms, but it wasn't enough to prove fraud. "Anything else I should know?"
"There might be one interesting thing," Lindsay said. "I didn't think of it before, but you asked me to see what I could find out about Alyse. She's pretty well known in silver-collecting circles. She was a collector before she became a dealer. If you look at the BBB complaints against Monograms, they're all about the quilts, never the silver."
I finished tossing the two salads and pushed one across the peninsula to Lindsay. "No complaints against Alyse at all?"
"Not in what Stefan's attorney gave me, and he'd requested production of all the complaints against the shop, not just against Tremain individually. I wondered about it too, so I checked the BBB's records. The total number of complaints on record matches how many I got from Stefan's attorney."
"Good work." I grabbed silverware and a bottle of salad dressing and placed them in the center of the peninsula before taking a seat across from Lindsay. "It pretty much kills one theory I had—that the reason Tremain had put up all the seed money for the shop was that Alyse provided all the know-how for scamming customers. She could have been selling fake antique silver all along and taught Tremain how to do something similar with quilts."
"It's still sort of possible," Lindsay said. "She could just be a better con artist than he was."
"Or better at silencing her critics." Except Tremain should have been able to put considerable pressure on anyone complaining about him. Tremain had powerful friends, according to Wolfe. They might well have prevented the prosecutor's office from taking a closer look at Tremain before he was killed. Those same powerful friends were probably doing everything they could to cover up his crimes now to avoid being associated with them. They might have even hired the thug who'd threatened me if they thought pressuring the prosecutor's office wouldn't be enough to protect Tremain's reputation.
If Tremain's friends were that determined, it was somewhat surprising there were any complaints at all against Monograms. "Tell me more about the BBB complaints. Were there any dollar amounts mentioned for the claimed losses?"
"They were sort of small," Lindsay said. "I don't remember the exact numbers, but there was only one large one, and it was enough that I was sort of surprised the prosecutor didn't investigate it."
"What do we know about that one?"
"Kind of a lot," Lindsay said. "It's the only complaint where the person was willing to go public. I have her name and address if you want to talk to her. Matt's already interviewed her for a story he's working on, and he could probably tell you more."
"I'll call him in the morning. Do you have time to set up an appointment with that victim for me? And text me her name when you get a chance?"
"Sure." Lindsay took out her smartphone and held it up to her face to key in a quick note to herself. "Anything else?"
"Not that I can think of. Unless you want to write my quilt show speech for me."
"No, thanks." Lindsay tucked her phone away and resumed eating.
"Have you thought any more about how you're going to convince Veronica that you're serious about your job?"
"I sort of thought you were going to do that for me," Lindsay said. "When I prove I can do my work perfectly."
"You'll need to do some of the convincing too. You do like your work, don't you?"
Lindsay shrugged. "It's way better than the food service I did before. The hours were terrible, and my schedule got in the way of bell ringing, especially on the weekends. I can practice with handbells anytime, even late at night, but most of the big bell events are on weekends."
Maybe lack of sleep explained her mistakes. "How late do you stay up practicing?"
"It depends. This week I've had lots of time to practice during the day, so I've been going to bed early."
"Maybe you're just tired at the office. Could that be affecting your job performance?"
I reached for Lindsay's empty plate, but she brushed me away. "I've got it." She collected both plates and carried them over to the sink, where she set them down with a frustrated thunk. "I'm not tired. I'm just stupid. I make more mistakes than anyone else on the planet."
"You're not stupid." I turned on my stool to face her.
Lindsay leaned against the edge of the sink. "I know. But sometimes everyone treats me like I am. Even you do."
"Me?"
"You keep telling me nothing's wrong with you, but I know there is." She pointed at my blouse. "Why are there bubbles on your shirt? I saw them when you reached for my plate."
I glanced down, and sure enough, there were dried traces of soap bubbles. I must have splashed myself while I'd been preparing the soapy glove missiles. "It's a long story."
"Give me the condensed version."
"I was trying to prevent a mugging."
"You washed a mugger's mouth out with soap?" Lindsay blinked at me but took it completely in stride. She'd heard even stranger things while she worked for me. In fact, her ability to cope with anything I threw at her was one of the reasons why I thought she would make such an excellent paralegal if she ever put her mind to it.
"He wasn't actually a mugger. I just thought he was before he gave me a lecture about meddling with the murder investigation."
"I knew something was wrong," Lindsay said. "But I still don't understand about the soap."
"There are never any convenient weapons in a public restroom. It's too bad too. A Taser dispenser would get a lot more use than the tampon machine."
"You could have called the cops and waited for them." Lindsay's smile faded. "You did have your cell phone with you, right?"
Her anxiety was causing the fear I'd locked away to peer out of its little mental box. I didn't have time to deal with the stress right now. I kept my tone light and said, "It all worked out fine, and I went to the police station afterwards."
"What happened to the mugger?"
"He disappeared before I could threaten him with soap and water," I said lightly. Lindsay didn't need to know just how scared I'd been or that I was on the verge of passing out again. In her own way, she was as much of a worrier as I was. "Some guys will do anything to avoid a bath."
"It's not funny," Lindsay said. "You could have passed out again, and then what would have happened?"
"Forget about the mugger. Wolfe tells me your grandmother's friend has a criminal record."
"It's not as bad as it sounds."
"So you knew?" Exasperated, I asked, "Why didn't you tell me about it?"
"I'm sort of not supposed to know," Lindsay said. "I heard Grandma talking to my mother about it though. It happened before they met. Emma's husband died and left her in pretty desperate financial shape. She was going to lose her home, and there wasn't enough money for anything, and she was overwhelmed. It was stupid, and she knows it, but she stole some cigarettes when she couldn't afford to buy them."
That didn't sound so bad, but I wasn't sure I had the whole story. "Wolfe said there was an assault charge too."
"It was just a charge, not a conviction," Lindsay said heatedly. "Emma sort of bumped into someone when she was running away from the store's security guard. The assault charge was dismissed when she pled guilty to the shoplifting charge. She paid everyone back and did some community service, and she even gave up smoking. She's not some horrible, vicious criminal. She would never hurt anyone on purpose."
"Anything else I should know about Emma? Or your grandmother?"
Lindsay shook her head. "There's no way they'd have done anything to hurt Tremain."
"Except picket his store and threaten to hire a hit man."
"That was a joke," Lindsay said. "You know that."
"I do." But juries didn't always see the humor in death threats. "I'm not the one who matters here."
"Is the prosecutor really going to charge Grandma and Emma with murder?"
"As far as I can tell, he doesn't have any real evidence against them, but a prosecutor can always find something if he looks hard enough."
"What are we going to do about it?"
I was supposed to be avoiding this kind of stress, but I would worry even more if I sat back and let Wolfe bully Dee and Emma into paying for a crime they hadn't committed. "We're going to find out who really killed Tremain."