Chapter 9
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Doreen’s eyebrows shot up at their reaction. Mugs noticed a change in the mood and sat down at her feet.
Nick, in a very odd tone, repeated, “Safe deposit boxes?”
She frowned at him. “Yeah. I thought … everybody had those. Don’t you?”
“Do you have one in Kelowna?”
“No, I don’t have anything there.”
“Right, so did you have one here?”
“He did. I don’t know that I did.” She shook her head at that. “I don’t think I did, but he might have used my name for one or two of them.” The men visibly swallowed. She stared at them and asked, “Is that a big deal?”
“We need to get the location of all of them, change the name on any we keep to yours and yours alone,” Nick began, “preferably before anybody else finds out.”
She nodded. “So, is that something you can handle, or do we need to contact Mathew’s probate attorney?”
“I will contact the estate attorney right now because there should be a record of those safe deposit boxes.” He handed the paperwork to Mack. “You keep track of these, please. You may want to move those duffel bags under your bed too.”
“Under my bed that I’m not supposed to sleep in, per Scott? Under my bed that will soon be dismantled and hauled off today?” Mack reminded Nick.
“Right,” Nick grumbled. “Forget I said that. Or maybe you should sleep on that money, under your sleeping bag, until we get it to some bank and it’s properly deposited in Doreen’s name alone.”
Mack stared at the big master bedroom. “By the time the movers start taking apart all the bedroom furniture, it’ll be that much harder to keep anything hidden.”
Doreen suggested, “We need to check this room now for any hidden drawers. It’s the only one we haven’t gone through.”
“You’ve been through all the others?” Mack asked them.
“Yes, the others are done.” She turned around to look at the master suite. “We really need to do this one because they may load up all this furniture today. Scott seemed to think this bedroom suite was very valuable.”
Mack nodded. “The more furniture they take, the less we are left to deal with.”
“But we need to figure out if any more stuff is hidden in here, waiting to be found.”
“Was he really that paranoid?” Mack asked, shaking his head.
“Yes,” she declared, as she slowly studied the bedroom. “You would think that he would have had a safe in here,” she muttered.
“Why?” Mack asked, stepping up beside her.
“Because he didn’t like the idea of ever getting pinned in one place.”
“So, you’re thinking that, if he couldn’t have reached the other safes in the other bedroom or in the office, then having a safe in the master makes sense?”
“Something like that.” She nodded. “I know it makes him seem paranoid.”
He snorted. “Definitely. Doesn’t all this money make you a little paranoid too?”
She turned to him and declared, “Not my money.”
“It is now,” he instantly corrected her.
She thought about it and nodded. “Good thing we’ve got people who can help us deal with it.”
“Right.”
“And I will feel better when the cash is in the bank and in my name.” She asked him, “Did you get receipts for all the cars?”
He nodded. “Yes. Plus, I’ve got photographs of them, and we did an itemized list while we were there. They will go through them all and pack up everything.”
“Okay, good,” she muttered. “It’ll be one heck of a haul.”
“It really is. They were pretty excited about one of the motorcycles and definitely a couple of the cars.”
“Good to know,” she muttered, with a shrug.
“You really don’t care, do you?”
“I don’t really care about any of it,” she declared, “and I know that’s foolish, … but it’s just stuff to me. And right about now, I’m also worried about Thaddeus.” She walked over to the hat rack in an alcove where she had left him perched and caught sight of him still sleeping.
Thaddeus opened an eye, yawned, stepped out onto her shoulder, and curled up against her. “Thaddeus is here,” he murmured. “Thaddeus is here.”
“I know, buddy. You just want to go home, don’t you?”
He nuzzled up tightly against her neck, and she cuddled him for a few moments.
She turned to spy on Mugs, as he jumped up onto the bed, joining Goliath, the Maine coon already fully stretched out there.
She had to chuckle. “Scott would not like to see the animals on the bed. After all, he didn’t want us on the beds.
” Then she sighed as she looked over at Mack.
“We really do need to check each piece for hiding places.”
He nodded. “Just point me in the right direction and tell me what to do. I will be the muscle.”
And, with that, she got Mugs and Goliath off the bed and very quickly tore off the linens and checked under the mattress and even under the box springs.
Just as they were done, Scott walked in, talking animatedly on the phone. “Oh, there you are,” he said to them, ending his phone call. He stopped to admire the bed. “This is such a beautiful piece.” His hand brushed over the huge bedpost. “Ooh, they have finials atop,” he cried out.
She gasped, pointing, and Mack just groaned. “Mathew always talked about them.” She went to the newel post nearest her and stood on the mattress to twist off the top. “Yep,” she exclaimed, as she reached in a hand and grinned. “This part is fun.” And, with that, she handed a wad of cash to Mack.
He looked at it, just shook his head, and waited while she checked the other posts.
Scott was laughing. “This is incredibly rare—to get these pieces, I mean. And the movers are fast approaching the master. Also, how about the beds you’re using, or not using actually? What will you do about that?” He hesitated, but she got the gist of it. “I mean, I know you’ll still be here.”
“Right.” She laughed. “We’ll be fine with sleeping bags, and now it seems to be necessary.”
“I’m all for it,” Mack declared. “Those beds should go while the movers are here and are set up for the transport, rather than us dealing with it later. So, if we need sleeping bags, that’s what we will do.
” He turned to Doreen. “Point me to the storage room, and I’ll see if I can find three of them.
” She gave him directions on how to get there, and his phone rang as he took off.
Meanwhile, she went over the rest of the furniture in the master bedroom, along with Scott.
As soon as they got through it all, he said, “Okay, I think the search for hidden places is all done here, as far as the master bedroom furniture is concerned.”
“As far as the second floor is concerned too,” she muttered. “Could anything else be here in the bed?” He frowned at her, and she shrugged. “I didn’t want to torment Mack by asking when he was here.”
“Understood,” Scott replied, with a smile. “I do know that this bed usually has drawers along the sides. They are usually set back some, so that you can stand near the bed, like when making it or just getting in bed at night, and your feet won’t touch anything.”
He went along one side, checked, then back along the other side. “Just like this,” he noted, and, sure enough, out popped some drawers.
“Thankfully these are empty,” she muttered. Yet Doreen was amazed. “I slept in this room for a very long time, never knowing what was hidden in this bedroom set.”
“Mathew seemed to be the kind of man who kept secrets.”
“He was all about secrets,” she confirmed, “and he was all about control.”
“I’m sorry, Doreen,” he murmured. “It sounds as if you didn’t have an easy life here.”
“A gilded cage is what I call it,” she shared with a smile, as she looked at him.
Scott nodded. “Maybe, at one time, but now the cage is yours, and the door is wide open. It’s pretty amazing what you’ve got going on here.”
“All I need now,” she pointed out, with a smile, “is to get this sorted and out of here as fast as I can. Since I want to sell the properties eventually, beginning with this one, I want it done as soon as possible, since quite a bit of upkeep is involved.”
“I hadn’t considered that angle,” Scott replied, “but it makes perfect sense.” As she watched, he walked around and checked out a few more things. “I still need to go through all his personal clothing as well.” He looked at her. “Did he dress well?”
“Very.”
“There’s a huge market for that too, depending on the quality of the clothes.”
“I know for a fact that he didn’t think twice about spending forty thousand on a suit.”
He nodded. “Let me take a look.” He entered the walk-in closet, muttering to himself as he had a first look. When he rejoined her, he shared, “I’ll need another expert for this.”
“Go for it,” she said. “Everything here needs to go … and fast.”
“Got it.” He smiled. “I suspect that we’ll deal with a good share of this, the dress clothes at the very least. I do know someone who would probably want to sell it, if you’re okay with that.”
“If it’s aboveboard and a reputable seller, then, by all means, connect us up.”
With that, he laughed and clarified, “We only deal with reputable.”
“No offense intended, but Mathew did not.”
“Point taken.” And, with that, he headed into the hallway to make more calls.
When he came back, he told her, “My first contact is overseas, so I called somebody else, who is in Vancouver. He’ll be here tonight.”
“Oh wow,” she noted.
He looked at her anxiously. “Unless I’m going too fast? I know this is a lot for you.”
“No,” she replied, “no such thing as too fast in this instance.”
“That’s what I thought, and, considering you’ve already got a police presence and an issue along that line, I’m sure the sooner, the better.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “The sooner, the better.”