Chapter 11 #2
He shook his head. “No, I didn’t know. I was looking after the place for him.
He told me how he was making a lot of changes and would be gone for a while.
So I took a holiday, and, when I came back, I wasn’t sure what was going on.
Vehicles were everywhere, but I just stuck to my corner because he … didn’t like questions.”
She nodded. “That’s very true.” She pointed at the two men he still held the gun on.
“Could you please drop the gun?” As he stared at the men, she added, “One is my fiancé, and the other is his brother. Nick happens to be my lawyer too. We came here to deal with the massive property and furniture issues because Mathew is gone and has been for some time.”
He turned and eyed her suspiciously.
“I was his wife,” she added.
“You aren’t Robin.”
“No, I’m not Robin, and Robin is also dead.”
His eyebrows shot up. Then he asked hesitantly. “Did he kill her?”
“No,” she replied, “although I understand that they weren’t doing that well.”
“He used to yell at her a lot. A couple times he told her how he wished he’d never gotten rid of his wife.” Then he frowned and asked, “Was that you?”
“Yes, that was me,” she confirmed. “Yet it doesn’t matter what he might have wanted back then. He did get rid of me, and I have this thing about people who try to get rid of me. I tend to stay gone.”
He snorted at that and nodded. “Mathew was not a nice person.”
“He most certainly was not,” she agreed, with a nod. “Now, what were you supposed to do here?”
“I looked after the place when he was gone, and he was planning on doing a lot of traveling.”
“When did you get back?” she asked, leaving the men to just stand there. The stranger still had his gun out, but she was trying to calm him down.
“I was gone until today,” he shared. He sagged down onto the couch. “Now what will I do?” he cried out.
“Did he pay you?” Doreen asked.
“He paid me up until the end of this month because we set my services for one year, then would reassess,” he explained, frowning at her. “He just told me to wait for instructions.”
Doreen sighed. “At this point in time, I can tell you that he won’t be giving you any more instructions.”
“He had plans,” he repeated, staring at her as if she should know about them.
“And do you know what those plans were?” she asked.
“No,” he cried out, “I don’t. I wish I did though because he told me how it would make him money.”
“Everything Mathew did made him money,” she murmured, “but not necessarily in a manner that other people would have appreciated.” He frowned at that, and she nodded. “I’m sorry we surprised you. I sent these guys over here to see if the apartment was livable.”
“It’s very livable,” he declared, “and it’s mine.”
“It was yours,” she pointed out, “but, now that Mathew is gone, you don’t have an employer, and all of this is being sold.”
At that, tears began to well up in his eyes. “I have no place to go.”
“How did you meet Mathew?” she asked, as she walked closer. “And what is your name?”
“Butch Weldon.”
She kept an eye on the gun, and Mugs finally stepped forward, walked over to the man, then rubbed up against his leg.
Without a thought, he put the gun on the kitchen table, as both Mack and Nick heaved a sigh of relief.
Butch bent over and started cuddling Mugs. “He’s a lovely dog,” he noted finally.
“Yes, this is Mugs. He’s mine,” she noted.
“But there are pictures of him in the main house.”
“Yes, Mugs was here toward the end of my marriage to Mathew too.”
Butch nodded. “Mathew hated dogs.”
“That pretty much sounds like Mathew,” she muttered. “Mugs was looked after by the kitchen help and wasn’t allowed to do much doglike stuff.”
“I’m sure he’s much happier now. Dogs are … dogs, and they just need to be loved.”
“I won’t argue with that,” she said, with a smile. “I’m not sure what to do about you.”
He looked over at her and shrugged. “Me neither. Do you need a caretaker?”
“From what I understand, the property management company hired a caretaker,” she shared, looking at him.
His face fell.
“So, the question is, if you’re not that caretaker, where is the one who was hired?”
He shrugged.
“When were you hired for this job?”
“A year ago,” he repeated, “yet I needed to go home and see my family. My ma isn’t in very good shape.”
“Okay,” she muttered, frowning at that. “So you talked to Mathew about taking a break, going back home?”
“Yeah.”
Mack looked over at her, one eyebrow raised, and she shrugged. “It just doesn’t make any sense when Mathew’s been dead for quite a while now.”
“Are you thinking it wasn’t Mathew I spoke to?” Butch asked in astonishment.
“Did you see him in person?” Doreen asked.
“No, not with the phone call, but I was here at the house earlier, when we first made this arrangement.”
“How long ago?”
“Must have been a year ago because our original deal is up at the end of this month. The discussion was in his office, where he told me how he was making a bunch of changes. So, he would be gone for a while, but I could move in here to the apartment, and he would be in touch, but now you’re saying he’s dead?
” He turned a suspicious gaze to each of them.
“I don’t even know who you are and whether I can believe you. ”
“No, of course not,” she said. “Did you have anything to do with anybody else here?”
“No, I mean, I saw a few people around him back then. I guess he had a manservant, and I was going to contact him soon too.”
“That won’t do you any good either,” Mack interjected, with half a smile. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his badge. “He’s in prison for killing Mathew.”
Butch looked at Mack’s badge and sagged. “So, it’s really true then. … Mathew is really dead.”
“Yes, it’s really true. I’m sorry.”
“That’s the first time I’ve ever been hired for a job where the boss is dead.”
“You can stay here tonight,” she offered, “and then we’ll discuss things tomorrow. Did you have a conversation with anybody else?”
“Do you have a letter of employment?” Nick asked, cutting her off.
“Yeah, I do somewhere,” he muttered, pulling out his phone. “I’m not really good on my phone though.”
“Did you move in here?”
“No, not yet, I was going to spend the night, figure out what was going on here, and then go get my stuff,” he muttered.
“And where else do you live?”
At that, he realized he was being interrogated, and he glared around at all three of them. “That’s an awful lot of questions.”
“You’ve got to look at it from our point of view,” Mack said. “We don’t know you, don’t know anything about you, and yet you’re here in her house, having been hired by a man who’s been dead and gone for quite a while.”
“I told him that I couldn’t come right away, and he told me that was fine,” Butch shared, “and he gave me the key to this apartment. He told me to keep my eye on the homes and the property.”
When he held up the key, Doreen smiled. “I’ll take that now, thank you.”
He stared at the key, gave her a glare, but handed it over. “This isn’t exactly how I thought things would go,” he muttered.
“Of course not,” she said.
“Why don’t you keep the house?” he asked, almost pleading. “I can stay and look after it for you.”
“Somebody might be needed for looking after the house for a time,” she explained, “but my understanding from the other lawyer”—she turned to Nick—“was that somebody has already been hired.”
“Ha,” Butch snapped. “If he’s hired, he should be here, making sure the police don’t go where they don’t belong.”
Nick’s lips twitched at that. “I do have a call into the other lawyer,” he shared, “so we’ll see what he says.”
“And is there any chance that Mathew’s probate attorney or even the property management company hired Butch?” Doreen asked Nick.
Nick shrugged. “I have no idea what’s going on right now, but it’s not working hours, and, if you want to talk to either, it’ll probably cost you three hundred an hour if not double that.
” She stared at him. He nodded. “And, yes, the estate attorney will probably talk to me because it’s related to existing business between us, but I’m not entirely sure. ”
Doreen frowned. “The other problem is this still won’t be resolved tonight.”
“That’s true,” Nick confirmed.
She turned to Butch. “Have you ever been through the main house?”
“Only when I was here with Mathew many months ago,” he muttered.
“And how do you know Mathew?” Mack asked.
“We’re old friends,” Butch said, narrowing his gaze.
Doreen stiffened at that. Was Butch a criminal too, like Mathew?
Butch nodded at her reaction. “I know what you’ll say, that he didn’t have friends.”
She laughed. “No, he didn’t have many, that’s for sure, but he did have a few.”
“Yeah, and you’re looking at him. I know that, to Mathew, I was down on my luck, but we did go way back. To be honest, I did beg for a place to stay and enough money for a few meals,” he admitted.
She just nodded, not saying anything. She had more questions, but now wasn’t the time. “We’ll talk to you in the morning then.” Then she yawned once more.
And, with that said, the group backtracked out of the garage apartment. Outside the door, she stopped and stared back at the apartment. Mugs sniffed the door, his head down but no tail wag. He was not at all sure about the new arrival. Then again … neither was she.
Mack came up behind her and asked, “What are you thinking?”
She winced. “I don’t think he had a key to the main house, no matter what Daniel thinks. I think that’s smoke and mirrors.” She lowered her voice and said, “Yet I just … don’t know if I believe Butch.”
“Now you’re making my heart sing,” Mack stated, with a smile, “because I don’t believe anything he told us. I figure, with Butch lying to us, with Butch telling us he knows Mathew from way back, without giving us specifics, I bet Butch is a criminal.”
“In that case, is there a reason,” Nick asked, staring at the two of them, “that we’re not kicking him out then?”
Mack fielded that question. “Because, one, it’s nighttime. Two, we don’t know what he’s really after. And, three, we should give him enough rope to hang himself.”