Chapter 12
“You already know a lot of it,” Lucy said, eyeing Robert. “Simon was working at this firm, Bernini Investment Brokers.”
Robert nodded and made a note.
“Simon was a really smart man,” Lucy went on.
“He went to work in their accounting department. Where other clerks just added up their figures without really thinking too much about things, noting down discrepancies, they never seemed as invested in the company as he was. He really was a believer.” She smiled wistfully at the memory.
“Anyway,” she continued. “Simon found something in the books that bothered him. He said it looked too precise to be a simple mistake. It looked too intentional, as though someone had done something and then tried their best to cover it up.”
“What kind of something?” Robert asked.
She frowned. “I’m not as good with numbers as he was … but … It was theft. Basically, that’s what it boiled down to in the end … theft on a large scale. When he started working out all the figures, we’re talking tens of thousands of dollars. It wasn’t pocket change.”
This perplexed Robert. “How come no one else noticed?”
“I can’t give you the specific financial parameters because that’s not my area of expertise, but Simon said they most likely weren’t looking.
He described the way the transactions had been hidden in the books as finding a loose thread on a sweater and pulling it to find that it unraveled half the garment. ”
“Good heavens!”
She nodded. “And he said it was hidden really well so that if you did notice, you would think it was a small mistake. That’s how he found it. He spotted a small mistake and followed it back and back and back in the ledgers, trying to find the start.”
“Did he find the start?”
Lucy shook her head. “I don’t think so, but that became a lot less important than other aspects of the whole situation. See, it doesn’t matter where it started. That money was long gone. The important thing was to find out where the money was being funneled to and follow it to the thief.”
“How close did you get? Did Simon work out who it was?” Robert asked.
“Yes, it was one of three of four people at the firm,” Lucy said.
She held up her hand and counted them off on her fingers.
“There was Claude Manning from the loans department. He was a small, weaselly man. Then there was Jude O’Conner, who ran the debt collection side, and Tyler Knots.
He worked as a clerk in the investments department and was a key supervisor working under a useless manager, Oswald Turner.
Simon had me look into Oswald, and I determined he didn’t have the brains or the backbone for something like this caper. ”
“So, when did you come into the picture?” he asked.
“Shortly after Simon found the discrepancy and tracked it back far in the books,” Lucy said.
“He told me about it and brought me into the investigation as a tea lady and office cleaner. It’s amazing how no one sees you when you’re part of the support staff.
People—sometimes even suspects!—would have confidential conversations in front of me all the time.
You could learn anything you liked about the clients, the owners …
all by listening while pouring coffee very slowly. ”
“What did you find? Was it something that led you to one suspect in particular?” Robert asked.
“What makes you think that I would be here, hiding out, if I had narrowed the suspect pool down? I would be in Boston, still waiting for an invitation to come and meet you in person,” Lucy said with a twinkle in her eye.
Robert chuckled. “Yes, you got me there ... I was going to ask you to come. You know that, right? I was just hoping to have this whole horrible El Aguila issue be a thing of the past before sending you an invitation. I wanted you to be safe.”
She smiled at him. “I know. But I’m glad I took the initiative and came anyway.”
“Me too,” he agreed.
They shared a moment of companionable silence, smiling at each other.
“So, who was your money on?” Robert asked, casting a glance down at his notebook.
Lucy sucked her bottom lip thoughtfully.
“It was tough. You see, Claude could easily manipulate the interest charged on loans. It was a place where Simon found many mistakes because not every clerk was good at working out percentages and adding the interest right. That was also where Simon found the first instance of the money showing up and disappearing,” she said.
“But then the same thing happened in the debt collection section and in the investments. It was always a similar amount that came in and went out without really touching the books properly.” She sighed.
“Like I said, I don’t understand all of the intricate financial details.
That was what Simon was good at. But we started investigating the three men ... ”
“And?”
“And Claude had expensive taste in everything,” Lucy said. “Food, wine, women … If it came with a hefty price tag, he was most likely interested in it. Jude had a love for the horses, and Tyler’s mother was very sick. She was in the hospital. All possible motives for financial theft.”
It wasn’t enough to go on. Not by a long shot.
Robert would need to know a lot more about these people before he could make any kind of guess as to who was responsible.
If his time in law enforcement had taught him anything, it was that tunnel vision was no good.
Maybe Lucy’s father and brothers had had some luck rooting out the culprit in the days since she left home.
“Okay, that’s good,” he said, looking at the notes he’d taken.
“Is it?” Lucy asked. “I don’t see how it helps at all. We’re no closer to finding out who murdered Simon and stole all of that money. Also, none of those men are here and so none of them could have had anything to do with my accidents.”
Taking a sip and finding that his mug was now empty, Robert put the mug back down.
He looked at Lucy and sighed. “I know, nothing makes sense, and nothing seems plausible, and maybe we’re barking up the wrong tree, but we have to look at all the possibilities.
After all, you haven’t been here long enough to make local enemies.
Anyway, if someone in Unity had a problem with you, they would just tell you what they thought of you.
No one would resort to tricks and elaborate schemes.
That’s now how we operate here. Now. May I walk you to work? ”
She agreed, and after Lucy thanked Mrs. Odenkirk for her kindness the night before, they set off for town.
When they reached the general store, Robert walked Lucy right up to the door. Pushing the door open so that the bell overhead jingled, he insisted on going with her all the way to the back.
The rolls of material had been loaded onto a table. Although it wasn’t as pretty an arrangement as the fabric on the wall, a person could look through them all the same.
Robert checked that there was nothing waiting to jump out at Lucy, attack her, or do anything else untoward.
“Okay,” he said, stepping close to her. “I think everything is safe … Let me just double-check.” He leaned down and gently kissed her. Her lips were soft and warm and he could’ve kissed her forever, but eventually he remembered where they were and drew back.
Lucy smiled up at him, starry-eyed. “You’re a sneaky one.”
“Only when it comes to kisses. For all the rest, I’m as straight as a ruler,” he said.
She laughed. “Go do something sheriffy for the rest of the day.”
“As you say, ma’am,” he teased.
She glowered playfully at him.
As he left, he met the town’s schoolteacher, Emily, coming into the store. She looked as though she had a million things on her mind as she hurried down the aisle to Lucy, barely sparing him a nod in greeting.
At the office, Robert found Jeff sitting at his desk. He looked up and smiled.
“It’s really quiet around here when the shipment goes out, don’t you think?” Jeff asked, stretching.
“Well, I have something for you to wrap your mind around while it’s idle,” Robert said, and he laid out the story that Lucy had told him.
Jeff listened with interest, not saying a word until Robert was done. Then he shifted and shook his head. “Okay, I give up. Who did it?”
“That’s just it,” Robert said. “I don’t know.”
Then he told Jeff about the two accidents that had befallen Lucy yesterday.
To Jeff’s credit, he didn’t just blurt out that he thought Robert was full of nonsense. Instead, he took a moment or two to think it all through.
“Okay,” Jeff said, speaking slowly and carefully. “I think it’s probably safe to say that there is no way to solve the theft in Boston while sitting here in Unity. Not without more information.”
Robert nodded. “Granted.”
“As for Lucy’s troubles …” Jeff said, stroking his chin. “So you think they’re related to the case she was working? That’s why you told me the two stories, right?”
Robert nodded again.
“I don’t see the connection,” Jeff said.
Robert knew it was a stretch, but he felt he could just about see it.
“You’re right it is a stretch … a big one.
Still, look at it like this. Lucy witnesses the murder of her friend Simon.
She’s seen with the body, and the police think she did it.
She needs to get out of there. She thinks she covered all her tracks, but she did head out here to me, a man she’d been corresponding with for months.
People could know about that connection.
So, let’s say, for argument’s sake, that the real killer, whoever he is, found out where Lucy was running.
What was to stop him from coming out here too? ”
“Why would he? If she was gone and the police were searching for her, then why would he bother?” Jeff asked, frowning.
“Because her family is still investigating,” Robert said. “They know she would never kill Simon. Not under any circumstances. They were best friends.”
“Okay, so …”
“So, Simon’s killer may feel he has to silence her, especially if she saw him commit the murder,” Robert said.
“Did she say she witnessed it?” Jeff asked.
Robert shook his head. “But it was traumatic, and she might not be remembering all the facts. If he knew that she saw him, it would explain why he would come out here or hire someone to come here and kill her.”
“But … she’s not dead … She’s alive and has only been scared so far,” Jeff pointed out.
Robert nodded. “Yes, that doesn’t fit.”
“Unless the killer is trying to make her death look like an accident,” Jeff said.
“That would explain the rack falling and the scorpions, although that doesn’t seem like an accident as much as a foolish mistake.
If he’d just put two or three scorpions in her bed, maybe that might’ve been believable.
Maybe a few insects somehow left their burrows and snuck into a hotel.
Into her bed. It’s just barely believable, but maybe.
Ten scorpions though? Implausible. More to the point, impossible. ”
Robert nodded, refusing to let himself think of what might have been if the scorpions, thankfully still sleepy from hibernation, had stung Lucy en masse.
“Well, it’s a theory,” Jeff said. “Any more evidence as to who the culprit might be?”
“None.”
“Great.” Jeff smiled. “It’s like all our cases. We have nothing to go on and have to still try and solve them. What fun.”
Usually Robert agreed. He enjoyed his work. But when Lucy’s safety was involved?—
Just then they heard shots ring through the air. It was an unmistakable sound that everyone in Unity knew all too well.
Robert was out of his seat in seconds. He grabbed his hat and gun belt as he headed for the door.
“I’ll bring the extra guns and ammunition,” Jeff said.
Robert didn’t stop to acknowledge him but ran full speed out of the door. As he reached the road, the warning bell, which sounded when there was trouble, began to ring out.
People came out of houses, offices, and stores and began to head to the wall.
“What’s going on?” Robert asked as he reached the guard tower.
“The attack is at the front!” Luke cried. “We’re all heading that way.”
Robert didn’t wait. He went down the ladder and took off running through the streets, heading across the creek to the mine.
Of course, things had been too quiet. Robert shouldn’t have allowed himself to become complacent. He should have known the wall would only keep the blasted bandits out for a while. It seemed that the town’s grace period had come to an abrupt end.
When he reached the guard tower, Robert climbed up it swiftly and was met by one of his men.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“Bandits,” George, always a man of few words, said simply. “They’re coming in force.”
Even without the help of a spyglass, Robert could see the men on horseback streaming between the low hills that marked the old entrance to the mine back when it was first established.
“Robert!”
Turning, he saw Lucy climbing up the last rung of the ladder onto the wall.
“Lucy, what are you doing here?”
She produced her gun. “I’m helping.”
“But this really isn’t safe,” he protested. He didn’t want her on the wall, where bullets flew and there was no way to say who would fall and who would stay standing.
“I know,” she said. “Stop worrying. You know I can shoot.”
“I do … but …” He didn’t know how to tell her that the prospect of losing her, made all the more real by her recent encounters with danger, made him want to wrap her up in wool and close her in a box somewhere to keep her safe, like a fragile glass ornament.
Not that Lucy would ever tolerate such an arrangement, he knew.
Nor would he want to break her beautiful spirit by trying to stifle it.
She stood up on tiptoe and kissed his cheek.
“Don’t get shot,” she said and moved off along the wall to join several other women who were also toting guns. They got into position, making a space for her, and she smiled at him.
Robert gritted his teeth and had to smile just a little bit in spite of the situation. The woman was more stubborn than anyone he knew.
Robert moved this way and that along the wall, calling out orders, watching as the defenders’ bullets mowed down the bandits.
Bullets flew, and the odd arrow came whistling over his head or stuck in the wooden rampart on the wall.
All around him, the air filled with the sounds of death and horror, pain and destruction.
He sent up a desperate prayer that their defenses would hold another day.
“Robert!” George called. “We have a problem.”
He was right beside the front gate. Robert moved to stand beside him, and they looked down. The bandits had something new in their arsenal. Something that Robert hadn’t considered.
“Is that a battering ram?” he asked, unable to believe his eyes.
The alarmed look on George’s usually stoic face confirmed it.
They were in real trouble now.