FORGET ME NOT (Mark Kane Mysteries Book One) (16 page)

Simon leaned back in his chair and reached
over for the decanter. He poured a large drink and then gulped it
back in one go and made a slight grimace, as if he was drinking an
unpleasant-tasting medicine.

“You know, when Gloria died I thought all our
troubles were over; and now
this
. That probably sounds
callous to you, but Gloria had no quality of life, and she was only
going to get worse. I’m sure her death was the proverbial merciful
release. She’s at peace now. As Greg says, she’s with her feathered
friends, free as the breeze.”

The guests had left by the time we got back
to the drawing room. I’d told Simon that I had a few questions for
Sally, so the three of us walked back to the patio and sat around
one end of the table. Simon was a little under six feet and dark
haired, but Sally was tiny and blonde. I doubt she was much more
than five feet tall. Lucy would have called them ‘the long and the
short of it’, I thought.

“I’m sorry for your situation, Sally,” I
said. “I can only promise that I’ll do my best to get this sorted
out as soon as I can. There’s something I want to ask you though.
Greg says that Gloria asked you to deal with some matters which
involved Gloria’s email account and she gave you the password. As
part of my investigation into Susan Granger I’d like to have access
to that account. Susan claimed there was email correspondence
between them and it might shed light on some things which I don’t
yet know about. Greg has no objection to me accessing the account,
so I’d be grateful for your assistance.”

“Yes, of course. The password is ‘simpau’,
the first three letters of her son’s names, so not easy to forget,
especially as I’m married to one of them.” She laughed and
playfully slapped Simon on the butt. His lack of reaction suggested
that this was not an uncommon manifestation of her affection.

“When you looked at her email account do you
remember seeing any correspondence between Gloria and Susan?”

“I don’t know. It wouldn’t have meant
anything to me. In any case I wouldn’t have read Gloria’s private
emails. She only wanted me to deal with some recurring
subscriptions and things like that.”

“And do I take it that neither of you knew
anything about Susan before Gloria’s death?”

She looked at Simon, who shook his head.

“No, the first we learned of it was when the
will was released. Greg knew of course, but he didn’t ever say
anything to me. Or to you, did he Simon?”

“No, nothing at all. I was rather angry with
him at first. Not because of the will but because I suppose I felt
slighted. It kind of shocked me to find out that Gloria had kept
this from us. I was stupid to blame Greg; I’m sure he was only
doing what Gloria wanted. And I guess that Gloria had her reasons.
Paul and I were adopted, as you know. Perhaps she felt we would
feel less important to her or something. We shall never really
know, I suppose.”

Now I’d got them both together I decided to
briefly explain the ramifications of what Simon had referred to as
‘the Susan factor’.

“I know that you both want any issues about
the will resolved as soon as possible. To be frank, unless I can
recover sufficient DNA for a comparison with Susan then I doubt I
can take the matter much further. Susan’s background is such that
it’s virtually impossible to check and I don’t even have copies of
the adoption documents. I’m not quite finished with this aspect
because I’ve yet to examine the computer that Gloria used. There
could be important documents that she may have saved there.
Assuming though that I draw a blank on all this there is still the
issue of Gloria’s competence. She made the will after she had
started exhibiting signs of dementia, although before she became
severely affected. I’ll need to discuss her medical records with
her doctor to see if he can offer an opinion as to her mental state
at that time. If it was found that she was not mentally competent
at the time she signed the will then I need to check with her
lawyer to see if he’s aware of any earlier will. If there isn’t one
then she would be treated as having died intestate and the estate
will be distributed according to the rules of intestacy. In that
case Susan would not qualify as a member of the family for the
purpose of inheritance, but the distribution of the estate would
likely be very protracted.”

Saunders’ description of ‘a nightmare’ came
uninvited into my head.

“I’ll let you know if there’s anything else I
need from you. I’m trying to fix a meeting with Paul, but he’s
proving a bit elusive at the moment. I’ll keep you all in touch
with any developments there may be. In the meantime please rest
assured that I’m moving on this as quickly as I can.”

We waved our good-byes as I reversed out of
the driveway and headed home. Armed with the email password I
called Lucy and asked her to get to work on the emails. It didn’t
matter whether she did it home or in the office. It probably
wouldn’t be a very lengthy task. Either way, I asked her to print
out all the emails rather than only the ones that she considered
useful.

“Needs a proper sleuth to look at them,” I
said. She hung up. I could almost see her eyes rolling.

Having been relatively frugal with my
drinking earlier I rewarded myself with a slug of whiskey when I
got home and pondered the day’s work. There was no doubt that Simon
had a motive for wanting to expedite his mother’s death. I hadn’t
asked him how often he visited Gloria in her last few weeks, but I
could get that information from Greg or from the nurses. I
understood they were agency nurses and I would have to get their
details from Greg in any event.

Simon had seemed very frank with me, but I
wondered whether he would have been so forthcoming if he had known
that I was aware of the real cause of Gloria’s death. It seemed
entirely possible to me that Simon had wanted to speed up his
mother’s death due to his financial predicament, especially as he
could salve his conscience by the belief that he was being
merciful. It was a complicated crossroads between criminality and
morality. As for euthanasia I wasn’t sure which side of the fence I
was on. In some places in the United States it was legal in certain
circumstances, although only with the acquiescence of the victim;
but what about a person who was unable to consent because of
physical or mental impairment?

Assuming Simon had both the motive and the
opportunity it put him slightly higher up the murder suspect league
table than Susan, or at least equal top with her. The missing link
with Susan at the moment was motive. If Susan didn’t know about the
will then she had to motive to kill, because unless she had been
specifically included as a beneficiary she would not have a claim
to any part of the estate because of her adoption. I was hoping
that something in the emails might shed some light on this.

I could just as well have started through the
emails myself. I had Gloria’s user-name from Greg and the password
from Sally; and I had a computer. I even had the know-how to the
limited extent necessary. But I decided that since I’d delegated
the job to Lucy I may as well have another shot of Jack Daniels, so
that’s what I did. I was in the kitchen looking through the window
into the back yard when I caught sight of Skipper’s grave. I took
my drink and walked down the grass idly looking for stones that I
might have missed at the weekend and feeling more than faintly
ridiculous. I sat down beside Skipper’s grave with my drink.

Lucy turned up at six. “Did you print the
emails?” I said.

“No.”

“Don’t tell me you were too busy.”

“There weren’t any.”

“So they must have been deleted; perhaps
saved before being deleted. So I’ll need to get hold of Greg’s
computer, or perhaps I can ask him if you can spend an hour or two
in his house if you promise not to steal the silver.”

“I can’t do that.”

“What, promise not to steal the silver?”

Lucy sighed impatiently. “I can’t retrieve
the missing emails myself.”

Lucy was in my kitchen making some herbal
tea. It was hers, not mine. She hadn’t brought it with her so she
must have stored it in my food cabinet. I hoped that wasn’t a thing
that was going to escalate – her encroaching on my space. Maybe I’d
put a couple of my beers in her fridge and see what her reaction
was.

“I thought you said if I had the computer you
could retrieve the deleted or saved emails.”

“You need to listen more carefully. I said it
may be possible to retrieve them, I didn’t say I would do it.”

“Why, because I haven’t given you a raise
yet?”

“Because we need a special computer program
which we don’t have. At least I don’t have it and I’m pretty damn
sure you don’t. What we need is an expert to copy Greg’s hard drive
and then print out all the hidden stuff. Well, anything that’s been
deleted but not overwritten. And if she saved the emails they’ll be
on her computer’s hard drive.”

I was beginning to experience déjà vu from
last night.

“How long would an expert need to make the
copy?”

“I’m not sure. A couple of hours or so, I
guess. But if the emails have been deleted it’s very likely that
they were saved on the computer first. I checked the options box in
Gloria’s email account. The emails were not set to be deleted
automatically, and there are lots of other emails, both sent and
received, that haven’t been deleted so Gloria must have deleted
them deliberately. But those emails would be important to her,
wouldn’t they, given the circumstances?”

“I imagine so.”

“Well, probably before Gloria deleted the
emails she saved them somewhere on the computer. So if we can get a
copy of the hard drive I can look through all the places where she
is likely to have put them. The problem is that there are thousands
of places she could have stored them, not all of them obvious
− but
if I can’t locate them then the
expert should be able to help.”

I couldn’t remember seeing Lucy so pleased
with herself for a long time. It made me feel like reaching for the
Tyelenol. I had to admit she had a point though.

“But I had another thought too,” Lucy said.
“We’re assuming that the emails were deleted by Gloria, but suppose
there was something in the emails that Susan wanted to destroy
after Gloria became sick? Have you checked to see whether Susan
might have had access to the computer when she went to see
Gloria?”

“No, I haven’t checked that because Susan
wouldn’t have had Gloria’s password. Or if Susan somehow did have
Gloria’s password she wouldn’t have needed the actual computer. She
could have accessed the emails from the comfort of her own home,”
or the discomfort of her own home, I thought, “so that idea doesn’t
even get off the starting blocks.”

Lucy was a little crestfallen. I decided to
cheer her up by rubbing salt into the wound.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “It takes years to
develop the kind of incisive, analytical brain that a detective
needs.” I gave a kindly smile to soften the blow; the sort you
might give to a child who has made a silly mistake. She decided on
a swift change of subject to mask her embarrassment, or perhaps to
stop herself from hitting me.

“Let’s get some dinner, I’m famished. My
treat tonight,” she said.

Lucy’s treat was Burger King. She munched
happily on her burger while I sipped something which I was told was
coffee but didn’t taste much like it.

“I just can’t understand why Gloria would
delete emails that she either received from or sent to Susan, can
you?” Lucy said.

“No I can’t. But what’s more to the point
right now is why you brought me here. I’ve got a perfectly decent
barbecue at home and you know I don’t eat fast food. It’s some kind
of punishment I presume.”

Lucy looked at me with a wide grin and
sparkling eyes.

“Sometimes you have to suffer for your art,”
she said.

“You should’ve seen the lunch I had today. It
was like a gourmet restaurant at Simon’s place,” I said, licking my
lips theatrically.

She stuffed the remainder of the bun in her
mouth and let the sauce trickle down her chin on purpose.

“Yummy,” she said as she wiped her mouth and
chin with a napkin, drained what was left of her coke and slapped
her stomach with both hands.

“Anyway,” I said, “Gloria might not have
deleted the emails. She may have archived them.” I sat back in my
chair and stared at her challengingly.

“I’m impressed,” she said. “Have you been
reading that book ‘Computers for Dummies’ that I gave you for your
birthday?”

“I know a great deal more about computers
than you think I do,” I said, lobbing the ball high over the
net.

“Well, you couldn’t possibly know less than I
think you do,” Lucy said, slamming the ball to the baseline, and
out of my reach.

“Enough of this badinage,” I said. “There’s
serious work afoot.”

“Okay, I won. Now, to recap,” she said. “The
best thing is to ask Greg if we can have the hard drive of his
computer copied by an expert. Any geek from a computer shop will
probably know how to do it. They take an image or something, I’m
not sure of the technical details. Anyway, we can then ask the
expert to extract the deleted files on the computer and print them
out for us. If we can’t find Gloria’s saved files then he can help
with that too”

I was a bit disconcerted by the repeated use
of the words ‘we’ and ‘us’ which was infusing Lucy’s conversation
lately, but I let it pass in the interests of getting somewhere
with all this.

“Not all the deleted files will be able to be
recovered because some of them may be overwritten,” she said, “but
at least we can give it a shot, see if anything useful comes
out.”