Chapter 7 #2
She shrugged. “He always said people appreciated someone who wasn’t very emotional when it came to investing. That they liked a bit of a cold fish. I’m not so sure about that.”
“Is there anyone you can remember in particular who might have been angry with him?” I asked.
Ewan glanced at me, but he didn’t appear angry. She’d seemed to relax since I started asking questions.
She shook her head. “We had some unhappy clients when several of his investment choices dinnae pan out the way he had expected. We received some nasty calls. And I heard him talking to Mr. Burns about some threatening emails.”
Ewan motioned toward Henry, who held up the laptop.
“Was there anyone who might have been angry enough to cause him harm?” Henry asked. I was surprised he spoke up. When Ewan was around, Henry usually deferred to his boss. But it was a good question.
“I can make you a list,” she said.
A list? Oh. No. That meant more suspects.
While Henry boxed up the evidence from the office and took it back to the station, I followed Ewan out of the building.
“Can I come back with you to the victim’s home?”
“How did you know that is where I was going next?”
“You asked Henry for the warrant.”
“You are observant, Doc.” He smiled and, like always, my stomach did something twisty inside. His smile had that effect on me.
“I always feel like two sets of eyes are better than one. You had to rush off, so we didn’t finish looking at all the rooms. I’m available.”
“Henry will be meeting me there when he’s finished at the station.”
I sighed. “Please, don’t make me beg or force me to break into Mr. Jacks’s home later.”
He laughed. “You would, I’m sure.”
I shrugged. “You’ve met me.”
“Aye, I have.”
“Besides, you let me go before, what’s so different now?” I paused at his car.
“Fair point.” He waved me to follow him.
“Aren’t we going to his home?”
“It is only a few blocks away. If anything else needs to be boxed up, Henry will take care of it.”
“Right.” I felt dumb for forgetting.
Once we arrived, he pulled a small evidence packet from his pants pocket. There was a key ring inside. After trying a few, the last key finally worked.
“Hello, ACC,” a woman said before we could go inside.
His shoulders stiffened for a second before he turned and smiled at the woman. “Hello, Mrs. Culbert.”
She had gray hair that was cut short around her face. She wore a house dress with an apron over it and fuzzy house shoes. She was a patient of mine, but the one time she’d come in, she’d been in a church dress, hose, and black patent leather shoes.
I smiled at her, and she did the same back to me. “Doctor.”
“Good to see you, Mrs. Culbert. I hope you are feeling well.”
“I am. Thanks to you.”
“Was there something you needed?” Ewan asked gently. I could tell he didn’t want to chat; he was ready to just get inside.
“Nasty business,” she said as she waved a hand toward Mr. Jacks’s home.
“Aye,” he said. “Did you know him well?”
I was curious, since the police hadn’t shared any details, what she knew about her neighbor. And then I remembered this was Sea Isle. Word spread quickly here.
“Invited him over for a cuppa a few times, but he was always too busy. A hard worker that one.”
“Have you seen anyone coming or going besides Mr. Jacks?” I asked.
She shook her head. “No. I cannae say he had many visitors over the years. I am a part of the neighborhood watch so I keep an eye on things, you know.”
I bet she did. We’d been on the doorstep for less than a minute before she came out.
“He was quiet, except for the occasional train whistle,” she said. “I had a word with him about that a few years ago. I’d only heard it occasionally after that and never after eight PM or so.”
“So, no visitors?” Ewan repeated.
“Let me see. Maybe, his business partner on occasion but not in some time. I remember asking about him. He was a handsome one, and Mr. Jacks said he was his business partner.
“Then there was his assistant who would occasionally drop by with files. Though, why he couldn’t walk across the street himself, I’ve no idea.”
“When was the last time you saw one of them?” I asked.
“Thursday evening,” she said. “I remember because the assistant went inside. Usually, she’d hand him the files at the door. She went in though, on Thursday. She didn’t come back out for an hour or so.”
As I suspected, Mrs. Culbert kept a sharp eye on things. I wondered why the assistant had taken so long. Were they having some sort of affair?
In the interview, she didn’t seem as though she liked her boss much. Though she could have been trying to hide something. We’d need to question her again.
“Have you seen anyone suspicious hanging around here?”
She shook her head. “I would have reported them if I had. That’s my job.”
“Thank you for your diligence,” Ewan said. “We need to search his home.” With that he went inside.
“We appreciate your help,” I said. “I need to assist the ACC with his investigation.”
“He’s a handsome one,” she said. “Seems to have his eye on you. He watched you the whole time I spoke to him.”
I’m sure my cheeks turned bright pink. The heat on them burned. “I—uh—he’s a good officer,” I said, quickly stepping inside.
Why was it people tried to make more of my relationship with Ewan than was there?
Mara and Abigail were always giving me a hard time because Ewan seemed to find excuses to come over these days.
Sometimes, it was questions about a case, other times it was to discuss things about the town.
We were colleagues talking business and that was it.
Did he sometimes make me feel strange and warm? Yes. And did his compliments make me blush? Always. Did he stay after our chats and watch whatever mystery show I’d planned on watching? Every time. But that was just because we enjoyed the genre.
We’d always been awkward with one another, but over the past year a friendship of sorts had developed. I could admit that much. That, and we had an appreciation of each other’s talents. I’d learned a great deal from him about investigating cases.
And he’d reluctantly grown to trust my instincts when it came to the medical side of things.
If I were honest with myself, I might have even admitted I enjoyed his company as we sat at my kitchen table drinking coffee and going over cases. But that was the extent of it.
After my past experiences, trusting men was still a problem for me. My late husband hadn’t been a bad man, but he was duplicitous. And I’d been clueless to the very end.
I shook my head, as if wiping that cobweb of memory away. Inside, the air was a bit musty. To the left, in what might have been a parlor or dining room was a huge train set up. I couldn’t believe I’d missed that before.
The pocket doors must have been closed. I moved into the room.
Our little town of Sea Isle had been brought to life in miniature. Even my church home was represented. “Wow,” I said. “It is so life-like and so tiny at the same time.”
“Aye. He put some work into this,” Ewan said.
We walked around the table taking in the seaside shops and pubs, and then over the small hill in the middle was the part of the town that sat up in the mountains. The buildings and settings had been carefully crafted to match nearly exactly.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” I said. “Look at that, he’s already recreated the Storyteller’s Train.” The locomotive was parked at the station, and both were exact replicas.
“Mara said he was a part of the restoration work,” I said. “We should talk to the team of volunteers who were involved with the project. Maybe one of them saw something. Or, perhaps, he said something to them.”
“Aye,” Ewan said. “Henry spoke with them last night and earlier today.”
“What kinds of things did they say?”
He shrugged. “I only glanced over the report. Most of those interviewed said the victim was quite enthusiastic about working on the train, as in that was all he talked about. He had been excited about being a storyteller part-time. He took it all quite seriously.”
“Did any of them notice anything strange over the last week? I keep wondering if his lip balms had been treated, if perhaps he’d had milder reactions.”
“I promise you Henry was quite thorough, and the reports are in the files you have access to. But to answer your question, I don’t remember them saying anything like that. I only skimmed them a few hours ago. When Jacks wasn’t talking about trains, he kept himself to himself.”
“OK, good to know.” Still, I would take a look at it later. It never hurt to have another set of eyes.
“So, he kept to himself and was a train enthusiast. Since he’d been looking forward to it, it’s sad that he never had a chance to perform his stories.”
“Aye,” he said.
Set back from the main part of town was a small row of townhomes. I pointed to the one where he lived. “Is that a replica of him standing on his porch?”
“Could be,” he said as we both squinted at the figure.
“I don’t see anyone chasing him with knives or guns. That might have been helpful,” I said.
Ewan grunted, probably to hide his laugh. He’d grown to understand my odd sense of humor. I don’t know if he appreciated it, but he understood. It helped to make jokes during dark times. Otherwise, life would be unacceptably dreary and sad.
“I wonder if his heirs would be willing to donate this set up. It would be great to have it at the train station. There’s that corner over to the right that’s sort of empty.”
When I looked up at Ewan, he gave me a perplexed look.
“What?”
“Do I have something on my face again.” I did a cursory wipe around my mouth.
“No, you look perfect. I just thought that was a grand idea. I’ll speak to his sister and lawyer.”
Did he say I looked perfect? I nearly snorted. That absolutely was not true.
The other side of the stairs was a library and office. Many of the books had to do with the history of trains, and the others were accounting books.
Who knew there were so many books about numbers?