Chapter 34
In the same way that perfect was the enemy of good, perfect was also the enemy of a closed case.
When to stop an investigation? The defense attorney would always like more video of a plaintiff faking an injury.
A jilted lover always requested more evidence to use in a divorce.
An insurance company always craved more ammo to use in a hearing, which a private investigator could provide.
But at what cost? Someone had to pay for my coffee.
I had two cases that could be considered closed, and should be considered closed because I was working for free.
Ronnie had asked for a report on Emile Chambers’s estate and surviving family, and I’d provided it.
Mrs. Armstrong had wanted to determine if Dr. Buchanan was unfaithful, and I’d more or less proven he wasn’t.
Neither client felt good about it. Nor did I.
In the case of Piper and Theo and Sophia, I had one more thread I could pull on. So I did.
I left Kix with his grandfather and his grandfather’s live-in mayoral girlfriend for the weekend and I drove Ronnie to a rented beach house in Stone Harbor, New Jersey.
Stone Harbor was a resort town crammed with luxury houses near the southern tip of Seven Mile Island.
This late in November, it was off-season and I got the house for peanuts.
We took her Mercedes so I wouldn’t need to recharge the Tesla’s battery every few miles, and she napped and browsed on her phone during the seven-hour trip, and we arrived at midnight, on Friday.
I carried the luggage and she barely reached the bedroom before falling asleep.
The next morning she brought me coffee and bacon in bed, and suggested the next two hours would be best spent without clothes, reading and talking and being in love and sighing dreamily, and I wisely took her advice.
Just how a languid, leisurely, wanton Saturday should be spent, followed by a walk on the shore.
Beaches feel lonely when it’s cold. The ocean is too icy to enjoy, and the breeze makes the loveliness of nature remote and hard. Beautiful but sad, like missing someone you loved.
Walking hand in hand with Ronnie, though, made the sadness not only bearable but a bittersweet pleasure, like I assumed growing old would be—yes something golden had faded and the loss hurt but life was still good, even more so with someone to walk with.
Memories of summer heat weren’t enough to warm us, but they were enough to fill us, to make us smile and lean against the other.
Nothing like a forlorn shore to make one philosophical.
That afternoon, I left her in a warm coffee shop and took my bag of tools to a house on 106th Street.
A beach house once owned by Duane Chambers and his wife Emile, now the inherited property of Piper and Theo.
He’d told me about it the night I surprised him near his scooter.
It was more of a luxury cottage, two streets from the shore.
After Theo’s admission that they kept Duane’s beach house for vacations, it hadn’t taken me long to track it down.
Curious, I researched the approximate value on Zillow—four million for the cottage.
Wow. Only fourteen hundred square feet, three beds, two baths.
Location, location, location. If Piper and Theo ran too low on funds, they could always sell it.
The modest place next door was worth seven million.
A house for sale across the street was listed for eleven, and it was no bigger than Chez August in Grandin, Roanoke.
I walked around back with a set of lock picks but found the door unlatched.
Of course it wasn’t locked—Theo and Piper had the common sense of teenagers failing English class.
Inside, the air tasted stale. The living area had a faded polyester couch and old lamps and the walls were faux-wood beadboard, and it gave the impression of a house that hadn’t been updated since the 1970s.
Two upstairs bedrooms were reached via a balcony landing.
The ceiling’s rafters were exposed, two fans dangling at the ends of long extensions, both fans turning lazily on low.
The kitchen was part of the greater living area, a formica island dividing the space.
The place was messy, like it didn’t occur to Piper or Theo to clean up before leaving.
Laundry in the corner, Mountain Dew bottles and Burger King wrappers scattered on the counters, unopened mail bundled near the trash.
I checked the date on the mail—six months old, and mostly addressed to Duane Constanza.
Constanza, not Chambers. Chambers was an assumed identity, though it appeared Emile had legally changed her last name to Chambers after the wedding, but maybe not, it was hard to tell what was fraudulent and what wasn’t. What a mess.
No photos on the walls. None, not of any Chambers or Constanza or Cardot.
No personal touches. Emile hadn’t been the homemaker type and Piper wouldn’t know what the word meant and Theo ate acorns.
I hunted through the bedrooms and found a total absence of important records or files.
I flipped through the mail and spotted an invoice from Lombard Realty Management.
Lombard was sending them quarterly invoices for mowing the lawn and paying the water and electric bills, etc.
On the itemized list of expenses, there was a hefty late fee.
The envelope was addressed to Duane, unaware the guy was dead and that someone else had been paying.
I flipped through more mail and found a bill from the government—Piper and Theo were behind on their property taxes.
It cost a lot of money to be rich, and Piper and Theo had no income. Soon they’d be house-poor and would have to sell the cottage if any hiccup occurred with Duane’s life insurance payment. They bet everything on that policy instead of pursuing careers.
I lowered into the dusty reading chair and rested my chin in my hands, elbows propped on knees.
This sucked, everything felt blah. Duane and Emile had been mildly wealthy but not wise about it, and after their death the wealth had ruined Piper and Theo, even less wise about it, houses slowly deteriorating, and maybe Sophia too.
Being broke was hard, but so was unearned affluence.
I couldn’t put my finger on what I’d been hoping to find here, something that would help the family, help Ronnie, help Sophia, I don’t know, but it wasn’t here, and blah. I felt rotten and itchy.
I left through the rear door, latching it.
I’d come all this way, might as well harass the neighbors and learn a lot more nothing. The house across the street looked like someone lived there permanently, instead of being a rental, so I knocked on the door. No one answered. I knocked more and waited more, before moving to the next house.
Before I reached the porch, a woman came out of the screen door and said, “I hoped you wouldn’t come to my door.”
“I get that a lot,” I said.
She was maybe sixty-five, small, thin and slow moving, shortish gray hair, and she smelled like money. Barefoot. She wore an orange collared shirt under a wool sweater.
“I saw you go into the Chambers’s house. I thought about calling the police but you didn’t take anything and now you’re knocking on the neighbors’ doors, like you’re not ashamed,” she said.
“The Chambers’s house?” I said.
“That’s still how I think of it."
“It’s still in Duane’s name. But someone else occupies it now. Do you know them?”
She nodded. “I do. But I don’t know you.”
“Caution is good.”
“I learned that the hard way. What do you want with the house?”
I smiled. “I don’t know you either. Just two people not sure if they can trust the other.”
She smiled too. Hers was sad. “A stalemate. You look like you belong in Duane’s world. I’m holding pepper spray in my hand.”
“I noticed that. You’ll never need to use it on me.
” I extended something of an olive branch.
“I’ll go first. I disliked Duane and Emile as much as I’ve ever disliked anyone.
I’m not part of the world they lived in, though they tried.
I’m investigating Theo and Piper Cardot.
You see them here occasionally, I assume. ”
“Occasionally. Are you with the police? FBI?”
“No,” I said. “Private cop. Here with concerns.”
“I’ve had those for ages. May I see your identification?”
I handed her my work wallet with my badge and private license. The official-looking shield was only for show, it carried no real clout, but it put people at ease.
“You have kind eyes,” she said.
“The rest of me is kind too.”
She handed the wallet back. “Come inside?”
Her home was a proper beach house. Sea-foam colored walls and framed black-and-white photos of children and grandchildren, and painted art with slogans like, Life’s Too Short Not To Hunt For Seashells, and My Sandals Are My Dress Shoes.
“Would you like tea, Mr. August?”
“No thank you.”
“Please sit with me.”
I did.
Manners maketh woman.
“I’m Cindy. I’ve lived here for twenty years, my husband and I. Before Duane bought the house across the street. I knew Duane was trouble the instant I laid eyes on him. Unfortunately my husband took to him right away. Never the brightest man, the Lord bless his soul.”
“Your husband’s dead? Is that related to Duane?”
“No.” She shook her head. Her little seashell earrings wobbled. “My husband wasn’t bright but he was successful. Made a fortune in sales being friendly. An honest fortune. He died three years after Duane and his wife vanished.”
“You knew them well?”