Jane Cleland - Consigned to Death

“What kind of business calls?”

Wes reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a single sheet of lined paper, folded into a small square. Consulting it, he said, “His doctor’s office. And Taffy Pull, a candy store on the beach.” He refolded the paper and placed it on his lap.

“Nothing there seems to stand out, does it?”

He shrugged. “Not to me. The police are checking them out.”

“Do you know what they’ve learned?”

Wes pursed his lips. “No.”

“Your source won’t tell you?”

“My source says he-or she-doesn’t know.”

“Do you believe him-or her?”

He turned both hands up and gave me a “my guess is as good as yours” look, then smiled, and said, “I’ll keep pushing.”

I nodded. It was hard to imagine that calls from a candy store or his doctor were relevant. The former was probably a sales call, and the latter was most likely routine.

“Did Mr. Grant make any calls?” I asked, thinking that perhaps he’d initiated one or more of those calls.

“No one but you, Troudeaux, and his lawyer.”

“Not even his daughter?”

“Nope. No other calls.”

“Was he in frequent touch with his lawyer? Mr. Epps?”

“Doesn’t look like it. There were a couple of calls, but earlier in the month. Nothing from, or to, Epps in the last week.”

“How about Barney? When did Barney last call him, or vice versa?”

He smiled. “Are you ready? Troudeaux called Mr. Grant at seven-thirty-two the night before he died.”

“The night before,” I repeated. I turned toward the ocean, and watched as water rushed in, then slowly seeped away. “What does he say they talked about?”

“Changing an appointment.”

“What appointment?”

“Did you know Mr. Grant kept a diary?”

“Yes. My appointment to see him the morning he was killed was in it.”

“Right. Well, apparently, so was Barney Troudeaux’s. Troudeaux had an appointment to see Mr. Grant the morning he died, too.”

“That morning? You’re kidding!”

“Yeah, at nine. Except that Barney said he called Mr. Grant and changed it.”

“How do you know?”

“My source tells me that Barney said that Mr. Grant agreed to change the appointment to three that afternoon.”

“Why the last-minute change?”

“A board meeting for the association Barney heads up.”

“But he would have known about a board meeting sooner than the night before,” I objected.

Wes shrugged. “Looks like he screwed up and double-booked himself.”

“Were there any calls on the day Mr. Grant was killed?”

“Yeah. From you, his daughter, and his neighbor. That’s it.”

“But then how did Barney learn that Mr. Grant was killed?”

“I don’t know. Does it matter?”

I shrugged. “I’m just wondering… did he show up at the Grant house for his appointment that afternoon?”

Wes looked intrigued, wiped his chocolate-sticky fingers on his jeans, and wrote a note on the folded square of paper. “Good question,” he said. “I’ll check it out.”

“What about fingerprints?” I asked.

“Apparently yours were everywhere. Barney’s were around, too, but not as many as yours.”

I smiled. “I’m more thorough.”

“I’ll keep that in mind when I’m ready to sell my family’s treasures.”

“Does your family have treasures?” I asked.

“Hell, no. I was joking.”

“Too bad. I would have made you a good deal.”

Wes shook his head, grinning a little. “There were other prints, too. Miscellaneous and explainable. Grant’s wife, for instance, obviously from before she died, a house cleaner who came in periodically, and a delivery boy from a grocery store in town. There was one set of prints in the living room that is still unidentified.”

“Can they tell anything about who left them?”

“No, not to quote them on. They’re adult prints, but smallish, so based on the size, they may be from a woman.” He shrugged. “But there are small men, too. And large men with small hands.”

“Doesn’t it seem incredible that no other prints were found? I mean, what about his daughter and granddaughter? Or other delivery people? Or friends?”

“I guess he lived a pretty quiet life.”

I shook my head, wondering what prints they’d find in my house if they looked. I wasn’t a bad housekeeper, but I wasn’t a nut about it either. It made me wonder whether maybe one of my dad’s prints was still somewhere, maybe on the side of a dining room chair, a remnant from one of the scores of times when he’d sat, idly tapping a beat, waiting for me to serve the meal.

“Anything else scheduled for that morning?” I asked, focusing on Wes, chasing away the memory. “Besides me?”

“Just Barney Troudeaux’s nine o’clock appointment.”

“I thought he changed it when he called the night before.”

“That’s what he says, but it was still in the diary.”

“Maybe Mr. Grant hadn’t gotten around to changing it before he died,” I said, saddened at the thought.

I recalled the day that I’d made a mistake in my schedule, realizing it only after I’d left the Grant house. I hurried back and knocked on the door. When he answered, I apologized for my error, he assured me it wasn’t a problem, and escorted me back to the kitchen. I could picture him sitting at his kitchen table, erasing the mistaken entry, turning pages to find the correct date, his callused index finger running down the center of the page until he located the time slot he wanted. He smiled then, and using a freshly sharpened pencil, he wrote my name.

“We’ll never know, I guess,” Wes said.

“Yeah. And probably, it doesn’t matter. Because Barney was at the board meeting, right?”

“Right.”

Bright sunshine unexpectedly illuminated the beach from a sudden break in the clouds. I heard the dog bark, and squinted into the sun in time to see him run a circle around his owner as they made their way up the dunes. I took another bite of doughnut. My coffee had cooled enough so it was comfortable to sip.

“How about Mr. Grant’s background? Were you able to learn anything about him or his family?”

Wes nodded. “Yeah. Quite a story, actually. He was born in Kansas, the only son of successful ranchers. He came east to go to prep school, and never lived in the Midwest again.”

“Was he in the war?”

“Yeah. He joined the army in 1942, and for a lot of the time, he was stationed in France. That’s when he met his wife. According to all reports she was a piece of work. A tough old bird with a temper. She was maybe French, maybe Belgian, maybe who knows what.”

“What do you mean, ‘who knows what’?”

He shook his head, and gestured that he had no idea. “I know that her name was Yvette. Or at least that’s what she called herself. I couldn’t even find a record of her maiden name.”

“How can that be? What does that mean?”

“Probably nothing. Maybe she was a Jew on the run. Maybe she was a Nazi sympathizer. Who knows? Back then, there were lots of good reasons to change your name and reinvent yourself.”

I thought about that for a long minute, watching as shards of sunlight dappled the sand and water. Gretchen had wanted to reinvent herself, a fresh start, she’d called it. I wondered if Gretchen was her real name, or if, like Yvette, she too had changed it. No matter. She was Gretchen to me, and I felt grateful that her desire for a fresh start had led her to my door.

After a sip of coffee, I asked, “What did Mr. Grant do after the war?”

“He settled in Rocky Point and started a painting contracting business.”

“And?” I prompted.

“And he made a fortune. Everyone I checked with said he was a ruthless SOB, but likable. The kind of guy who could sell tulips to a Dutchman.” He shrugged. “Apparently he was a good talker and a terrific negotiator. But you’d better be careful every step of the way because if there was anything he could exploit, he would.”