Chapter 23
TWENTY-THREE
Cindy Moore knocked on the door for Heather Wainscott.
She lived in a beautiful rowhouse with her husband, Merv.
As she stood on the front step, Cindy appreciated the vivid blue sky.
Not a cloud in sight, and the temperature was warm with little to no humidity.
The summer day was about as perfect as it could get.
Footsteps padded toward the door, and it cracked open soon after. A man stood there, deep smile lines around his eyes and mouth. His eyes were a pale crystalline blue and sparkled.
“Mr. Wainscott?” she said, taking a guess.
“That’s me, and you are, sweetheart?”
“Officer Moore. I’m looking to speak with your wife, Heather, if she’s home.”
“She is. Can I say what this is regarding?” He puffed out his chest and squared his shoulders, putting on the show of formality, but it was betrayed by the mischievous glint in his eyes.
“It’s regarding her time working with Hanson Property Development.”
“Who-ee.” Merv let out a whistle. “That was many, many moons ago. Back before our babies. We met there.” He grinned at her, but impatience was seeding in her gut.
“Your wife, sir, if you could please get her for me?” she prompted.
“Sure, all right then.” He stepped back and waved an arm, inviting her inside. “Come on, now. There’s no sense cooling the outside.”
Cindy took him up on the offer, though she didn’t see it as a hard choice to make.
There was no point wasting energy. People needed to be more conscious of making wise choices that would leave the world a better place for the next generation.
That happened one small and seemingly insignificant decision at a time.
“Darling?” Merv called out after latching the front door behind them.
“Merv, what—” A beautiful older woman, with a short bob of gray hair, stepped toward the entry. “You’re the police.”
Cindy smiled. “I am, ma’am. Officer Moore. Cindy.” She felt the desire to share her given name with the woman. “And you are Heather Wainscott?” It wasn’t really a question, though she framed it as one. She looked just like her driver’s license photo.
“That’s me. Are the boys okay?” Heather turned to her husband, who gestured toward Cindy.
From the couple’s background, the boys were in their forties, but Cindy understood the woman’s concern. “As far as I know, your boys are just fine. I’m here about another matter. An urgent one, actually.”
Wrinkles furrowed in the woman’s forehead. “All right, what is it?”
“She told me it had something to do with when you worked for Hanson Property Development,” Merv said, speaking up. “I told her we met during that time.”
Heather shot a look at her husband that had his mouth clamping shut. “Information which you could have volunteered a moment ago instead of acting like you were in the dark.”
“I was just letting the young woman do her job.”
These two reminded Cindy of her grandparents. They were married for forty-some years and bickered like siblings. “Is there someplace we could sit down?”
“This way. But wipe the bottom of your shoes, please.” Heather left the entry, proceeding down the hallway.
Cindy wiped her shoes and followed. She caught up with Heather in a nicely appointed room full of antique furniture. Cindy had always favored character over bland conformity. “You have a beautiful home.”
“Thank you.” Heather sat on a wingback chair, and Merv started to sit beside her.
“If you wish, Mr. Wainscott, you can get back to whatever you were doing when I arrived,” Cindy said. “I just need to speak with your wife.”
Heather giggled. “Whatever he was doing. That’s a funny one, dear. All he does is putter around since he retired.”
“It’s not puttering.” Merv puffed out his chest.
“What do you call a new hobby every week? First, it was carpentry, then making specialty lamps. These days he’s trying his hand at pottery.”
“It’s called expanding myself, Heather.”
Exactly like Grams and Pops… Her grandfather had his various hobbies he tinkered with that drove her grandmother crazy. “Excuse me, but if we could discuss what I came here for…”
“Merv, leave us,” Heather told her husband, and he complied. “Sorry about that old buffoon. What is it you want to know about the days I worked for Hanson?”
“You worked on the top floor with three other secretaries. One of them was Susan Crawford. Do you remember her?”
“Susan? Oh, heavens, yes, I do. We were great pals the whole time she worked there, even for a while after. We’d fallen out of touch, though, in the years before her… Well, I still attended her funeral. Such a tragic situation that was, leaving her young son behind.”
Cindy pulled out her notepad and pen, thrilled this woman’s mind seemed so clear. “It was indeed. Then you were friends when Susan became pregnant?”
“We were.”
Cindy noted the change in Heather’s demeanor. How it had transitioned from open to shut. “Did she ever say who the father was?” While Cindy had that answer, she wanted to pry what she could from Heather and, ideally, gain more clarity on how the relationship had started between Susan and Timothy.
Heather shook her head. “She told me she didn’t know.”
A small note in her voice gave the woman away. “You didn’t believe her, though, did you?”
“Not really.”
Cindy could push Heather harder to try to squeeze out what information she was holding back.
But there was something to be said for a less aggressive approach, or the scoot around.
A label her training officer assigned to slowing down the questioning with an eye on the long-term.
She’d switch tacks for now and circle back.
“Did she become pregnant before she left Hanson?”
“I’m not exactly sure, but she changed. She became quiet and withdrawn.”
Cindy wrote that down. Sometimes detours paid off, and it was curious where this one would take her. “Which wasn’t like her?”
“Not at all. She usually had a bubbly personality, an extrovert, making friends with everyone.”
“What changed?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Any idea why she quit her job?”
“She told me she wanted a change, but again, I sensed there was more.” Heather’s gaze drifted to the other side of the room, leaving Cindy’s eyes.
“Such as…?” Cindy held her pen poised over the page to record the woman’s response.
Heather took a staggered breath. “I don’t like to speak ill of the dead. But maybe she did get pregnant before leaving. She was showing within a few months after she quit.”
Cindy’s best friend welcomed her first child last year, keeping her apprised every step along the way.
She started showing around four months. The timeline with Susan was easy to calculate.
She wrote, Likely pregnant when she quit!
in her notepad. “Going back to the father, do you think he was someone from work? Someone she might have wanted to get away from?” Again, she was digging to see if she could pry any more out of Heather to get a deeper sense of Timothy Hanson and the relationship between him and Susan Crawford.
“I suppose it’s possible.”
“Any guess as to who? Do you remember anyone who showed a special interest in her?”
Heather picked at the hem of her shirt.
“Mrs. Wainscott?” Cindy prompted.
“I can’t think of a beau, but she directly reported and worked for Timothy Hanson. I’m sure you’ve heard of him.”
Cindy nodded. “Do you think it’s possible that Susan and Timothy had an affair?” Had Susan felt pressured because Timothy was her boss? Or did she have genuine feelings for him?
Heather met her eyes and shook her head. “Susan wasn’t the type to sleep with a married man.”
“You seem confident about that, but sometimes people do things out of character.”
“Not Susan. She was devoted to her faith and regularly attended church.” Heather licked her lips. “Why are you here anyhow? Asking these questions about Susan when she died so very long ago.”
Cindy set her pen on her notebook, cradling it on her lap. “There’s an active situation that has a connection to the company.”
“The company or Timothy Hanson? Because if you came here asking about the man, I’d have a lot more to say.”
How unexpected… “And what would that be?” Cindy readied her pen to scribble down notes, finding this switch refreshing. Most of the time when Timothy’s name was mentioned, people clammed up.
“Well, Timothy and his father didn’t live up to the image they projected.
The whole thing about upholding family values was nothing but a lie.
I can’t speak for Timothy’s son, but I highly doubt he’s much better.
Ask my opinion, and no family should have that sort of money.
It messes with a person’s head, makes them think they can do whatever they like, hurt whoever they like. ” Heather clenched her jaw.
Tingles laced through Cindy’s arms and legs. “Did Timothy Hanson hurt someone you know about?”
“The secretary he had before Susan. Now, he’d have denied it with his dying breath, but something happened between them.” Heather laid a hand over her heart.
“That something being…?” Cindy was getting the distinct impression that Timothy used his authority to pressure his female employees into sleeping with him.
“Listen, I can’t be certain, but Timothy was a womanizer. He was always patting her on the ass and telling her she looked pretty.”
“What happened to her?”
“She quit too.”
Cindy scribbled all this down. Just how many women had Timothy Hanson sexually harassed? And just how far did he take things? Did he stop at touching and verbal harassment or take it further? “You make it sound like her leaving came rather suddenly.”
“It did.”
“Do you remember this woman’s name?”
“Rhonda Stein.”
Cindy scribbled the name on the page.
“I’ll never forget her,” Heather went on. “Some people just stick with you. When she started at Hanson, she was upbeat, but the longer she worked there, she lost that light bit by bit.”
Just like Susan Crawford… That could have been a coincidence, but one other thing Cindy’s training officer beat into her was never to accept that was the case.
He’d say, Dig until you are sure. Cindy intended to do just that, but she got all she was going to from Heather.
She closed her notepad and stuck the pen through the loop.
“Thank you for your time, Mrs. Wainscott.”
“I hope I helped you.”
“I believe you really have.” Cindy dipped her head and let herself out of the house.