Chapter 11
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While the trio ate the roast chicken dinner they’d ordered in, Doreen said, “So that Give it to me note must be related to Pete Singer, the dead person in the greenhouse, because he definitely paid a price,” she muttered.
“So, we need to figure out why someone thinks he’s Mathew.
If Singer was the caretaker, gardener—even a thief for all we know—he paid a price that was most likely intended for Mathew. ”
“And that’s all possible,” Mack noted, “but we don’t know that for sure.” He shared a bite of chicken with Mugs. Then Goliath appeared, wanting some for himself. Mack accommodated him as well.
“No, we don’t, yet it makes sense.”
He smiled. “Everything in your world makes sense.”
“No, none of this does,” she stated, as she stared at him.
“Look at this house with all the absolutely incredible treasures and huge sums of cash Mathew had stashed inside. Yet,” she began, “it’s entirely possible Mathew took something outright, even swindled or blackmailed people out of their money.
So it’s really not out of the realm of possibility that somebody wants something from him, thinks something is owed to them. ”
Nick shrugged. “Of course there is the reverse situation to consider too. With insanely rich people, they get sued all the time, usually in civil courts, by people hoping to get paid something because of the nuisance value alone, with no criminal action involved.”
“Outside of cash, what could they want though? And who could it be?” Mack asked them.
“Your guess is as good as mine at this point, and I have no idea,” Doreen replied.
“Still, we don’t know enough. That’s for sure,” Mack pointed out. “So, we’ll be a little bit handicapped for a while.”
“We always are, it seems,” she muttered. She munched her way through the big green salad that had come with the roast chicken and added, “Did anybody set up a list of things we still need to sort out?”
“I did,” Nick confirmed, as he brought out a small notebook and put it on the table beside him.
“I’ve contacted Mathew’s probate lawyer about the safe deposit boxes.
He says he didn’t know anything about them, so I must contact the banks where Mathew has accounts.
I do have a death certificate and everything else that’s needed to prove Doreen is Mathew’s sole heir.
So we’ll have to visit Mathew’s local banks, change over the bank accounts into Doreen’s name, then ask about any safe deposit boxes and see what’s in there,” he shared, lifting his gaze to look at her.
She nodded.
“Unless you already know what it is.”
“No, I sure don’t,” she replied, but then she frowned.
“Mathew did say it was worth more than money though.” When both men stared at her, she shrugged.
“I don’t know what that means, and, for all I know, it’s changed from the time that we had spoken about it.
I do remember signing a bunch of papers.
So, for all I know, they’re in my name too.
Thus you might want to bring that up with Mathew’s probate attorney too. ”
“And that will be a whole different search, so do I have your permission to go on the hunt for it?” Nick asked her.
She nodded. “Of course.”
He smiled. “Most people wouldn’t be so agreeable.”
“Presumably I’ll be the one who has to look inside these boxes,” she pointed out.
“So it’s not as if I won’t see it with my own eyes.
I highly suspect that the poor dead man, if he wasn’t supposed to be here, could have been coming in to steal from the property and got caught.
As you’ve seen, an awful lot is here to steal. ”
Mack interjected, “And, if that’s the case, we also don’t know what he may have already taken.”
Doreen sighed. “That’s the problem with Mathew. He always assumed everybody was out to steal from him, so he was very cautious in his dealings, always assuming the worst in people.”
Mack nodded, looking over at his brother. “We also have to assume that—because of the way Mathew functioned—there is likely more than one safe deposit box.”
“There should be financial records for the annual fees,” Nick pointed out. “I’m not sure why his probate lawyer didn’t see that.”
Doreen snorted. “Again, that’s Mathew, keeping secrets. For all I know, he’s got that information in his office. We just haven’t had a chance to get through that room yet.”
Mack nodded. “Good point, so, if you don’t mind, I will do that this evening.
” She looked over at him, and he nodded.
“You’re exhausted, and you need to get some rest,” he explained.
“We have to take care of so many things, what with these duffel bags of money still here, so we’ll need to hide those and the cash bonds and the stock certificates, just in case there’s trouble tonight. ”
“Trouble … tonight?” she repeated, her gaze turning owlish on him.
He nodded. “Remember the threatening note that just came to the door?”
“Right,” she grumbled, with a sigh, “but trouble wouldn’t be much fun.”
“No, it wouldn’t, but …” He looked over at his brother.
Nick nodded. “We have to presume that we’ll have some visitors.”
“Oh no, no, no, no, no,” she wailed. “I am so tired, and so are the animals.”
He laughed. “And we get that. As long as a lot of people are working here, we have less to worry about.”
“I think a second team is taking over,” she muttered. “Scott mentioned something about bringing in more people because there was just so much to do, and he wanted everything out within a week.”
“A week?” Mack asked.
“I have to confess I had a similar reaction, and he just laughed. He initially thought four or five days would be enough, but to do that meant they must bring in another crew. So, I more or less just told him to do it. I mean, I don’t know what I’m supposed to say, but we’re down here already, and an awful lot of furniture needs to disappear. ”
“Not only has the bedroom furniture got to go,” Mack noted, “but this whole first floor must be emptied too, plus whatever’s left in the basement.”
“I know. When it starts to leave fairly quickly, then it will look as if we’re getting somewhere—at least on the second floor. However, when we consider the first floor and the basement too, then it just seems to be a massive amount still to go.”
He smiled. “I am not worried about it. We’ll stay here and get this done. Afterward it will seem like no time.”
“I’m glad you have that level of confidence,” she quipped, yawning. She grumbled, “I might just need a nap.”
“You do that,” he urged her. “Go pick out a place where you want to lie down. I did bring in the sleeping bags.”
She groaned. “Oh no. … It’s another sign of how tired and stressed I am. I’m so sorry.”
Both men frowned at her. Mack asked, “What are you talking about?”
“The other quarters. … I’ll use the term servants’ quarters, but obviously the people who worked here weren’t servants.”
Mack and Nick stopped what they were doing and gave her puzzled looks.
She added, “A fully furnished apartment is over the main garage.” The men were speechless, and she nodded. “I was too tired to remember. So I sent you to get all that camping equipment, but really we could just crash over there.”
“We haven’t even been in there,” Mack stated, sitting back and staring at her.
“I know, and for that I apologize.”
“Stop apologizing,” he said. “What is it that you think will be there?”
She shrugged. “All I can tell you is that housing is there.”
Mack and Nick looked at each other, and she yawned again.
“Okay,” Mack replied. “Why don’t you crash on the couch, and we’ll take a look over the garage and figure out what we need to do from here.”
“Good enough,” she whispered, yawning yet again.
They got up, and she made her way to the couch, Mugs following her. As soon as she dropped onto the couch, they took off in the direction of the garage. A few minutes later she heard a meow, and Goliath, obviously having enough of all the strangers, hopped up on top of her.
Tears came to her eyes as she cuddled him. “We should have left you guys at home,” she whispered. “I just couldn’t imagine not having you here with me for this.”
Goliath head-butted her, and instead of falling asleep, she spent the next twenty minutes cuddling him. When the men didn’t return, she sat up slowly, picked up her phone, and texted Mack. But there was no answer.
Groaning, she made her way fully vertical and looked down at the animals. “Now we’ll have a problem,” she muttered. “Let’s go find Mack.”
With the animals in tow, and Thaddeus tucked into her neck grumbling softly, she headed to the servants’ quarters.
It was a phrase her husband had used all the years she had been with him.
It was hardly appropriate, since the residents of those quarters weren’t servants.
However, from Mathew’s point of view, they may as well have been.
As she got closer to the garage apartment, she heard raised voices. She froze. Somebody was yelling, and it wasn’t Mack or Scott or Nick. She tiptoed closer, wondering who was there, and she saw a stranger waving a gun at the two brothers.
Mack took one look at her and shook his head slightly. She frowned, not sure what that meant, but it seemed as if she was not supposed to get involved. Yet how was she supposed to not get involved when somebody was literally waving a gun at them?
Finally the man with the gun slowed down his yelling and glared at Mack. “What are you doing here? This is my home.”
Mack looked over at Nick, and then Doreen stepped up. “Actually it’s my home.” When the stranger turned to her in shock, she nodded. “I inherited it from Mathew.”
His shoulders sagged. “He’s dead?”
“Yes, he’s dead,” she stated, with a small smile. “You didn’t know?”