Crime & Punctuation Page 7

  Hazlett had given Tiffany’s manuscript to her husband, and it made sense that he was her heir. A small sigh escaped me as I sat down in front of my laptop. Alan Van Heusen’s business card was on the table next to it. I ought to call the number printed on it and make arrangements to surrender the thumb drive. There was no need to examine it further.

  “This is just an electronic backup of Tiffany’s novel,” I said to the cat. “Onslow probably has the original on her computer, and I know Detective Hazlett gave him the printout.”

  Busy grooming herself, Calpurnia did not reply.

  I stopped dithering and inserted the thumb drive into the appropriate slot on my laptop. The menu came up without password protection—careless of Tiffany, but good for me. A quick glance showed me that, yes, her novel was there. So were numerous files that appeared to contain her research. I opened one at random and found the text of an article by a local historian, John Conway, titled “The Corpse in the Grey Suit.” It was immediately clear that this incident from 1937 was the inspiration for the first scene in Tiffany’s novel, right down to the body tied to the metal frame of a slot machine.

  Tiffany had changed the name of the victim, and I assumed she’d done the same for the gangsters who’d killed him. I promised myself I’d read more of her novel and find out. For the moment, though, I contented myself with skimming this account of the real crime.

  I was torn between revulsion and amusement as I read that the victim, Walter Sage, had worked as an enforcer for the Brownsville gang run by Abe “Kid Twist” Reles. Sage was killed because he’d been taking an unauthorized cut of the profits from running slot machines in various Sullivan County hotels. Reles sent Irving “Big Gangi” Cohen, Abraham “Pretty” Levine, and Harry Strauss (“Pittsburg Phil”) to deal with the problem, although it was actually a man from nearby Hurleyville, Jack Drucker, who didn’t appear to have a catchy nickname, who stabbed Sage to death with an ice pick.

  Shaking my head, I closed that file and opened the next. It was yet another account of a Murder Incorporated homicide, this one from 1939. This victim had also been found dumped in a lake. A third file detailed a case from 1936. The fourth file I looked at differed only in that it appeared to be notes from interviews Tiffany had conducted with an unidentified source rather than an online or newspaper article. One glance was enough to tell me that the story was similar to those I’d already skimmed. I closed the file without reading any more. I have a low tolerance for gratuitous violence.

  The remaining titles in the menu indicated that many of the files contained similar material, but one file name caught my eye. When I clicked on “blackmail.doc” the screen filled with a list of numbers and dates—the days and months, but not the years. For the fruits of an extortion racket, the sums listed seemed low, leading me to conclude they came from the 1930s. If one of the characters in Tiffany’s novel was a blackmailer, it only made sense that she’d draw up a fictional list of payments. Such details add verisimilitude to a story.

  After I exited that file, I took another look at chapter one. The first scene was as I’d remembered it—well-written but packed with gory details based on a true crime. I only glanced at that part of the text. I’d have skipped it entirely if I hadn’t wanted to refresh my memory about the names Tiffany had assigned to her characters. That established, I kept reading. Nearly an hour passed before I took a break.

  By that time I was badly in need of one. Sad to say, Tiffany Scott made a mistake all too common with first-time novelists. Writers attempting to sell a work of fiction are typically asked to submit a synopsis and the first three chapters of their books and hold back the rest of the manuscript until an editor or an agent requests the entire thing. With that in mind, Tiffany had rewritten, revised, and polished chapters one, two, and three until they were alarmingly close to being overwritten. In the fourth chapter and beyond, she was as meticulous as ever when it came to grammar, spelling, and formatting, but her prose abruptly lost its luster. The story, too, went flat. She seemed to have mislaid the thread of her plot. Characters who had shown promise became wooden. The dialogue was stiff as well. Worst of all were the information dumps. Every scene was littered with them, ruining the pacing and repeatedly jerking me out of the story.

  If I had been reading this manuscript while wearing my developmental editor hat, I’d have forced myself to continue and would have done my best to suggest ways to save the project. As things stood, I had no need to torture myself.

  “Well, Cal,” I said to Calpurnia, who had made herself comfortable atop the mail I’d left scattered across the tabletop, “the good news is that I don’t have to worry about letting her down gently.”

  I winced when I realized how callous that sounded. Cal didn’t care. She nuzzled my hand.

  Idly, I scratched her behind the ears, but my thoughts were still on the contents of Tiffany’s thumb drive. The real reason I’d given in to curiosity and taken a look at her files had as much to do with Van Heusen, Mike, and Ronnie as it did with Tiffany. They all seemed to think she’d left something with me, although none of them had been willing to specify just what that something was. Left to make my own assumptions, I’d come to the reasonable conclusion that one of Tiffany’s files must contain information relevant to the present-day controversy over Wonderful World. When I’d recalled the hostile factions gathered at Ronnie’s house after the funeral, it had seemed logical that the amusement park was at the heart of the matter.

  So what? I asked myself. The conflict between Tiffany’s grandmother and her husband was none of my business . . . unless it had led to her murder.

  I suppressed a groan when I realized that was what had truly been bothering me all along. Despite the assurances of the police, I continued to believe that there was something odd about Tiffany’s drowning. It didn’t matter to me that Detective Hazlett was satisfied that her death was an accident. I couldn’t forget that my business card appeared to have gone into the water with her. Did that mean she’d been murdered? Maybe not, but it certainly suggested that the case wasn’t as simple as Hazlett thought. It would be a slog to read the entire novel and the contents of each of the research files, but until I had gone over every single word, I would not be able to let go of my suspicion that the police had been too hasty to dismiss the possibility of foul play.

  As gingerly as if it were a poisonous spider, I removed the thumb drive from my laptop and stared at it. Had someone had a reason to silence Tiffany Scott? Was I holding proof of it in the palm of my hand?

  Get a grip, I ordered myself. You could be wrong. What do you know about solving crimes?

  Given how much material the thumb drive contained and how long Tiffany’s novel was, it would take me a good many hours to read everything. Even after taking all that trouble, the odds were against my finding anything useful. And yet, if there was even the slightest chance that her death had been a homicide, my conscience would not let me ignore this opportunity to discover the truth.

  The sound of heavy footsteps clumping down the stairs signaled that the workmen were finished for the day. It also reminded me that I was twenty-four hours closer to having to make a whopper of a final payment to the contractor in charge of the renovations. Going through the files on Tiffany’s thumb drive would have to wait. My first responsibility was to the clients who were still among the living—the ones who could continue to provide me with a steady income.

  “Back to work,” I said aloud.

  Any investigation into the death of Tiffany Scott would have to be conducted in my spare time.

  Chapter 11

  Once Tiffany’s thumb drive was out of sight and out of mind, I managed to edit two short stories and an article about the best way to encourage houseplants to grow. By the time I was finished and had fixed myself supper, I was too tired to do anything but go to bed. I slept soundly, and I felt well rested when the alarm went off the next morning, in spite of the fact that I’d set it for an hour earlier than I did when I was expect
ing workmen to arrive.

  Darlene had an eight o’clock appointment with her eye doctor. Since she had to have her eyes dilated and Frank, who would ordinarily have played chauffeur, was committed to a golf tournament at the local links, she’d asked me if I’d do the honors. I was happy to oblige. Darlene had done plenty of favors for me since I’d moved back to Lenape Hollow.

  She greeted me with a cheerful, “You’ll never guess what I heard last night!”

  “You’re right,” I said, stepping into her living room. “Why don’t you just tell me.” Despite her tone of voice, I could tell she wasn’t feeling her best. She was seated in her wheelchair.

  “Tiffany Scott made a will.”

  “I suppose that’s a little unusual for someone her age, but—”

  “She made it a week before she died, but that’s not the kicker. Wait for it—she left all her shares in Mongaup Valley Ventures to her grandmother!”

  I took a seat on the sofa. “Huh! Bad for Mongaup Valley Ventures. Good for the folks opposed to Wonderful World.”

  “Got it in one. Greg Onslow must be fit to be tied. I’m sure he expected to inherit everything.”

  Remembering the heated exchange I’d overheard at the cemetery, I had to agree. “I gather Tiffany was an heiress.”

  “She brought money to the marriage, that’s for sure.” Darlene shrugged. “We’re not talking billions, or even millions, but for this neck of the woods, she was rolling in it.”

  “Did Ronnie get everything,” I asked, “or just the shares?”

  “Just the shares. I think.” For some reason that brought a frown to Darlene’s face.

  “How do you know all this? I didn’t think you and Ronnie were that close.”

  “We’re not, but Frank played a round of golf with Mike yesterday afternoon, and Mike is the one who had charge of the will.”

  “I thought he was a divorce lawyer. And retired,” I added as an afterthought.

  “Yes, and yes, but he’s also an old family friend through Ronnie. He was close to her son and his wife and knew Tiffany from the time she was born. It’s not all that surprising that she’d have gone to him on a legal matter, especially if it was something she didn’t want one of her husband’s lawyers to get wind of.”

  The more I heard about Tiffany and Greg’s marriage, the more unstable it sounded. It occurred to me that if she hadn’t made that will, the grieving widower might have found his wife’s death very convenient, especially if she knew about illegal activities on his part. Was there something incendiary hidden on that thumb drive? Was that why everyone was so anxious to get their hands on it? I really needed to buckle down and read those files . . . but not this morning.

  “We’d better get a move on or you’ll be late for your appointment,” I told Darlene. “Will your scooter fit into the trunk of my car?”

  “It would, if I were planning to take it. Breakdown takes less than a minute. The seat comes off, the battery comes out, and the rest folds up for storage. It’s also surprisingly lightweight, but there isn’t much room to maneuver at Dr. Shapiro’s office, so I’m stuck using the wheelchair.”

  I got her settled in the passenger seat, collapsed the wheelchair, and stowed it in the backseat. As I made the turn from Darlene’s street and headed down a steep hill toward Main Street and the eye doctor’s office, I couldn’t help but notice that the trees, so colorful only a few days earlier, were rapidly shedding their leaves. We were coming up on one of the most dismal times of the year.

  It was when we were approaching the next intersection that Darlene picked up where she’d left off criticizing Greg Onslow. “The more I hear about that man’s business practices, the more it ticks me off.”

  I came to a complete stop even though there was no traffic and turned to look at my friend. She held herself rigid, more stressed than I’d ever seen her. I couldn’t tell if the root cause of her tension was something Onslow had done or if griping about him was just a handy valve to let off steam. Either way, her mood was infectious. I had to force myself to relax my death grip on the steering wheel.

  “I’ll bet he insisted everything Tiffany inherited be tied up in joint accounts. Or maybe he just conned her into investing it all in his company.”

  “That would explain why she owned shares.”

  Darlene made a strangled sound. “I wonder how much they’re really worth? I wouldn’t put it past that man to declare bankruptcy and hightail it out of here with his ill-gotten gains.”

  She continued grumbling in that vein until I pulled into the small parking lot in front of Dr. Shapiro’s practice. It was housed in a plain clapboard building, painted white. When we were kids it had been a furniture store. Big plate-glass windows gave me a clear view of the reception desk and waiting room.

  I glanced at Darlene as I turned off the engine and removed the key from the ignition. “You don’t like Greg Onslow much, do you?”

  She shrugged. “Nobody does. If he’s about to do a bunk, it won’t be the first time people who invested in his schemes have lost their shirts.”

  The slight tremor in Darlene’s voice tipped me off. “You and Frank?”

  “It was a couple of years ago. And it wasn’t all that much money, but it ticks me off that he took advantage of us.”

  “If he’s a cheat, how is he still in business?”

  “No proof. He claimed he took a loss, too.” She gave a dismissive little laugh. “You know the old saying—if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”

  “I don’t get it. If previous ventures were failures, why would anyone invest in a new one? How on earth did the Wonderful World project gain so much traction?”

  “You haven’t seen him in action. He’s a smooth talker.” Darlene reached for the door handle. From the look on her face, you’d have thought she was going to face a firing squad.

  I got out and retrieved the wheelchair. By the time Darlene was settled in it, she appeared to have beaten back her black mood. A wide smile brightened her face. To someone who didn’t know her as well as I do, it might even have passed for genuine.

  Chapter 12

  Darlene’s rapidly shifting moods left me feeling uncomfortable. I had the strongest sense that something other than Greg Onslow had upset her, but it wasn’t like her to hold back. If anything she had a tendency to overshare, which meant whatever was troubling her must be very serious indeed.

  Preoccupied with that disturbing thought, it took me longer than it should have to realize that I knew the optometrist’s receptionist. She’d changed more than a little since the days when we sat next to each other in homeroom.

  Throughout junior high and high school, the row of Gs had begun with Gertzman, Gildersleeve, and Gips, and ended with Sarah Goldman and me, Mikki Greenleigh. These days Sarah Goldman was Sarah Shapiro. Belatedly, I put two and two together.

  “You’re married to the eye doctor?”

  Unlike most of our classmates, Sarah had not put on weight as she aged, unless you count the heavy makeup designed to make her look ten years younger. Scrawny and silver-haired, she wore trim black pants and a high-necked tunic. Eyeglasses I felt sure were in the latest style and expensive as all get-out dangled from a gold chain around her neck. She didn’t appear to need them to see.

  In response to my surprised question, she gave the same throaty chuckle I’d heard so many times when we were young. “Better. I’m his mother. Park yourself over there,” she said to Darlene. “Benjamin will be with you in a minute.”

  As soon as Darlene and I were settled, I leaned close to whisper in her ear. “What’s the story with Sarah? She’s our age. Why is she still working?”

  “Why are you?” Darlene shot back. “She divorced her husband when she was in her thirties and came back to Lenape Hollow with her son. She raised him on her own, put him through school, and she’s never gotten out of the habit of looking after him. He’s good at what he does, but he doesn’t have the gumption to stand up to her.”

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p; I’d have liked to know more, but the office Sarah ran was extremely efficient. Dr. Shapiro’s assistant rolled Darlene away to have her eyes dilated, leaving me on my own with a limited selection of slightly dog-eared magazines. Back home in Maine, I’d have been able to find a recent copy of Down East to read, but here it was People, Readers’ Digest, or that day’s edition of the Middletown Times Herald Record, what passed for a local daily newspaper despite the fact that it was published in the next county. Aside from a piece on activities at the high school—a football game the next afternoon and a dance that night—Lenape Hollow didn’t rate a mention, nor did Tiffany, her husband, her grandmother, or Mongaup Valley Ventures.

  Darlene returned a few minutes later to wait with me while the eye drops took effect. “I hate this part,” she confided, “and sitting in a dimly lit examining room all by myself just makes it worse.”

  “You never did like sitting around with nothing to do.”

  I gave her a hard look, certain I’d been right to think that something was preying on her mind. I hoped it was as simple as having to leave her scooter behind. In comparison, the wheelchair was slow and clumsy to operate, and it had to be lowering to have to be pushed.

  “Cheer up,” I said. “You’ll be back home before you know it.”

  “This whole day is going to be a waste. I won’t even be able to read until my eyes are back to normal. And you know the worst part? I can’t stand to look at myself in a mirror once my pupils get big. That really freaks me out.”

  I could sympathize with her reaction, and with the whole not-good-at-doing-nothing situation, too. Furthermore, the more I thought about it, the more I could see how frustrating it must be to be dependent on other people so much of the time. Despite the fact that Darlene and I were friends, it must have galled her to have to recruit me as a driver. I was just glad she had. If she couldn’t focus well enough to read, it would be a very bad idea for her to get behind the wheel of a car.

  I was reading an article in a four-month-old People, and Darlene had fallen into a state of silent brooding when the outside door opened to admit a gust of autumn air and another patient. I looked up, glad of the distraction.