Chapter 12
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Doreen went to bed in the same guest bedroom she’d been using, but tonight inside a sleeping bag instead of on a proper bed.
Her four-legged animals didn’t seem to care, and Thaddeus was using whatever high spot he chose as his new temporary roost. Before long she fell into an uneasy sleep, her animals wrapped around her.
When she woke up in the middle of the night, she found Mack checking on her.
He brought along his sleeping bag and put it down beside her. Wrapping her up in his arms, he whispered, “Just rest. You’re fine.”
With a sigh, she closed her eyes and crashed again.
When she woke in the morning, she was alone but smiled at Mack’s empty sleeping bag still beside her.
She expected her animals were with him too.
So she got up, took a shower, and then got dressed.
By the time she made it into the kitchen, still yawning, she found Nick and her animals. Scott was already here as well.
He grinned at her as if a kid in a candy shop.
She smiled back at him, shaking her head. “It’s nice to know that you’re doing well.”
“Are you kidding me?” he practically squealed, rubbing his hands together. “This is a wonderful treasure trove.”
She nodded. “You can thank Mathew for that. None of this had anything to do with me.”
“Ah, but it’s because of you that I’m here,” he noted, still beaming. “So I need to thank you.”
“Consider me thanked,” she replied, now laughing. She motioned at the coffeepot. “I sure hope some is left for me.”
“If not,” Nick interjected, “it’s pretty easy to put another pot on.”
“I know,” she scoffed, “but I have to admit I’m feeling pretty groggy.”
“That’s understandable. Did you get some sleep at least?”
“I did, fitful at first, but better after Mack joined me,” she muttered. “Where is he?”
Nick shrugged. “I think he went looking for our supposed caretaker.”
She frowned and suggested, “Maybe we should go look too.”
Scott raised one eyebrow and asked, “Is there a reason?”
Mugs barked from the doorway, heading toward the garage apartment, and she nodded.
“Yeah, there absolutely is a reason.” She groaned, snatched up her coffee cup, carrying it with her, and followed Mugs to where she assumed Mack was.
She knocked on the door to the garage apartment but no answer came.
So, she opened it and stepped inside, seeing no one.
She frowned, made her way to the bedroom, then gasped.
Nick stepped up beside her and groaned. “Are you kidding me?” he muttered.
Butch Weldon was on the bed, staring up at the ceiling, apparently dead.
Doreen wondered if that was his real name.
She also wondered what his real job was here.
And how he met Mathew. Butch had never answered that question last night.
She figured they would discuss it today. Not now though. She sighed.
Mugs started sniffing around, as if looking for clues.
She groaned. “Buddy, I don’t know what’s going on here, but we need to find Mack.”
Mack spoke from the doorway and announced, “I’m right here, and I’ve already called the cops. I went looking to see how somebody got in or out.”
She turned to him. “It wasn’t me.”
“I know,” he said, then chuckled. “However, I’m assuming from this”—he motioned toward the dead man in the bed—“that somebody came in and took care of loose ends.”
She grimaced. “I didn’t look, but do you want to tell me how he was killed?”
“Gunshot,” he replied, “small caliber, straight to the heart.”
“While he was sleeping?”
“I would suspect so.”
“So, he had a partner,” she whispered, “obviously disgruntled.”
Mack corrected her, “And again we don’t know that there is a partner.”
She nodded while staring around at the room. “Mathew’s legacy still lives on, doesn’t it?”
“Apparently,” Mack muttered, “and Daniel is coming back.”
She nodded. “He’ll love this. He’ll blame me for this death too.”
“Yet we didn’t do anything, and we will stand firm on that. Plus, GSR tests would prove us out.”
“Still,” she noted, “that doesn’t mean certain people won’t see how they can mold the evidence to fit.”
At her side, Nick just grinned at his brother. “Interesting that you two ever got together at all.”
“Right,” he muttered. “It’s almost as if … she doesn’t trust me.”
“I trust you just fine,” she declared, turning to him.
“I’m just a whole lot less trusting of everybody else in law enforcement.
Yet I believe you. I believe the captain, I even believe Darren and Chester and Arnold,” she stated, “but I also know that it’s not quite so cut-and-dried with other people. ”
“Nope, that’s true,” Mack conceded. “And this has become one of the craziest cases ever. I did leave a hair in place on the front door to this garage apartment, so, if the connection was severed, we would know.”
She nodded. “And, of course, it was.”
“Yes,” he stated, “it was.”
“So, Butch left the apartment in the middle of the night? To do what? Or Butch didn’t lock the inside of the door, just allowing his killer to waltz inside and end his life?
” she asked, staring at Mack steadily. “Or Butch did lock the door, but the killer had a key to the apartment. So Butch shared his key? Or some other former employee of Mathew still had a key to this apartment? We need that list of Mathew’s former employees. How come we don’t have that yet?”
Mack looked at her and sighed. “I keep forgetting how quickly that mind of yours works.”
“It’s the only thing that makes sense.”
Nick piped up, “Obviously Daniel isn’t cooperating, so I’ll remind the probate attorney, who should have that info.”
She snorted. “And Daniel will now pin this second murder on us. He’ll think it’s one of us because, in his mind, who else could it be? From his perspective, who else would have had access? Plus, he doesn’t have to look any further for suspects.”
“It could be any number of people,” Nick pointed out.
“And considering the amount of, … I’ll call it treasure,” he pointed out, for want of a better word, “a lot of people could be enticed, a lot of bad people mostly. Maybe somebody looking for something of theirs, expecting to get payback for something, or just someone checking out an unoccupied house.”
Mack shook his head. “It’s not that hard to get inside this garage apartment. That is a very simple door lock system,” he noted, “which surprises me, with your ex being as paranoid as he was.”
“True,” Doreen conceded, “yet each exterior door has its own key. Plus, the house was better secured than this apartment. However, that’s a good point too,” she noted, frowning. “I suspect somebody must have a duplicate key to that garage apartment, and it isn’t that hard to get keys made, is it?”
“No, it sure isn’t. Particularly if you live on the edge of the law, there’s always somebody who would make keys.”
“Right,” she replied, “so it’s all a little dodgy, but we just need to find out who might have a key. Again we need that former employee list because the key to the garage apartment doesn’t get anyone inside this mansion.”
At that, Nick stared at her and clarified, “That won’t be just …
finding somebody. It could be any employee, temp or full-time.
You even mentioned, Doreen, how Mathew’s bodyguards and whatnot used the garage apartment as well.
So we need a list of security people, armed guards, who probably won’t be on the standard employee list. This would entail a legal agreement to hire these people from a bonded company that specializes in that.
” He turned to Doreen. “You really don’t think Robin gave out keys to the house to anybody, right?
Doreen sighed. “I really don’t think so. She obviously had no friends. She ran with the likes of Mathew, so surely she was wise not to share the keys to this house with anyone. She surely didn’t have any family either. After all, she left her estate to me. To me of all people.”
Nick gave her a one-arm shrug. “Probably restitution or guilt or both. However, I agree with you. Doesn’t sound as if Robin would be handing out keys like candy.”
“Right. Many people could have had keys to this place, but Mathew was diligent about changing locks with each employee dismissal. So, since Mugs hasn’t barked once during the nighttime, I maintain that nobody has been inside, at least since we got here.
… I presume now,” she added, turning to Mack, “that we’re not buying Butch’s story at all. ”
“No, I would think not,” he agreed, with a nod. “In fact, he may have been the one to leave us that strange note taped to the front door. Did he think we would just hand something over? Regardless I didn’t think Butch was hired as a caretaker either. So where’s the real caretaker?”
“That’s another really good question,” Doreen declared, as she turned to Nick.
“You really need to visit Mathew’s probate attorney—or the property management company itself—to get more info, more details about Butch, if he was really hired by Mathew to begin with or by Mathew’s agents, including asking again for Mathew’s roster of former employees.
If you have to stand over the estate attorney, watching him printing out a copy, then do that. Don’t come home empty-handed.”
“I was thinking about all that too,” Nick shared. “I’ll make an appointment to see the probate attorney this morning, then I can go from there. Seems it’s needed because we have a lot of missing details, including the contact information for this caretaker.”
She turned to him and asked, “Is there any chance Mathew’s probate lawyer is involved in all this?”
Nick winced. “I know that your opinion of lawyers is right up there with cops, but—”
“No, probably worse,” she interrupted, cutting him off. As he stared at her, she snorted. “I’m kidding.”
“No, you’re not,” he acknowledged. “However, not all lawyers are like Robin.”
“No, of course not,” she declared in a deadpan tone. “They’re worse.”