"It's Dewberry," I said. "Cynthia Dewberry."
"Miss Dewberry, I don't know how to tell you this, but I'm afraid something's happened to Pat."
This was the first person I'd encountered who'd called Blaine by any kind of nickname.
"I hope he's all right," I said, trying to keep from telegraphing my foreknowledge.
"I'm afraid that he's gone."
I said, "Where did he go? Surely Patrick wouldn't just leave. He has so many ties to the community."
Rand shook his head. "No, that's not it. I'm sorry, but I'll have to be blunt. Someone murdered him."
"What?" I asked. "I can't believe it."
He nodded slightly. "Apparently, it was a random act of violence," he said.
I wasn't quite sure how he classified a bullet wound as random.
"This is horrid," I said.
"I hope we can still do business," Rand said, looking intently at Grace.
"I'm not sure now," she said. "How well did you know Mr. Blaine?"
"We were drinking buddies," he said, before realizing how that made him sound. "Not that we were alcoholics, but every Friday night, we'd meet for a beer and spend a little time together."
"So, you never did business with him at the bank?" Grace asked.
He shrugged. "There were a few occasions when we worked together on different projects."
"Anything lately?" I asked.
"You two seem to be more interested in Pat than in doing business with me," Rand said suspiciously.
I didn't know how to respond, but Grace obviously had been waiting for the question. "Mr. Rand, you've just lost your single reference. How else can I determine if you are suitable to handle my funds if I don't determine the true relationship you had with Mr. Blaine. Surely you can see that it's a reasonable line of inquiry."
"I see your point," he said. "Pat and I were friends
who happened to do business together occasionally. That's about all I can tell you."
"And he never showed you any favorable treatment in his capacity at the bank?" I asked.
Rand stood upright. "Sure he did. Half the business that's done in this town is handled on the golf course. But we never did anything wrong."
"I've heard enough," Grace said.
"So, what kind of numbers are we talking about here? If you'd rather talk about it over dinner, I'm sure we could work something out. Just the two of us," he said, ignoring me completely.
"I'm afraid I never go anywhere without my assistant," Grace said.
As she started to get up, he said, "Listen, I didn't mean anything by it. If you don't want to have dinner, how about a drink at my place? I mix a mean martini."
"Cynthia, we're leaving," Grace said with the perfect amount of frost in her voice.
"At least let me give you my card." There was a puzzled look on his face. No doubt he was wondering how things had gone so badly so fast.
I stared at the offering a second, then took it and shoved it into my purse. The poor man was trying to follow us out into the street, and it was a relief to get into the car and drive away.
Grace and I waited until we turned the corner, and then burst out laughing. "Did you see his tongue hanging out? It was all he could do not to make a move right there in front of me," I said.
Grace shook her head. "Don't kid yourself. I could have looked like Eleanor Roosevelt and he would
have acted the same way. The temptation of money was all it took to get his motor racing. Interesting stuff, wasn't it? Did you get the feeling he was a bit too defensive when he talked about doing business with Patrick Blaine?"
"He did protest just a little too much," I said. "But does that make him a killer?"
"No, but it doesn't take him off our list, either. There's something about that man that I don't like."
"Just one thing?" I asked.
"Well, at least one. Now to the construction company."
As we drove, Grace said, "Don't look now, but I think we're being followed."
Of course I turned around and looked, just in time to see a patrol car duck between two buildings. "Is it the chief?"
"I couldn't tell, but it's pretty clear that someone on the force is keeping watch on us."
"Lovely. So, what should we do?"
She bit her lip, then said, "I'm not sure."
I thought about it a few seconds, then said, "There's really only one thing we can do, isn't there? We keep digging into this until somebody stops us. I won't be intimidated by a police escort."
"Neither will I, then," she said.
As we neared the construction company, I turned around and looked, then said, "It looks they finally gave up."
Grace said, "Good, they were making me nervous." She parked in the building's lot, then said, "Now, should we stick to the same story, or come up with something new? I've got it. Why don't I play a
wealthy debutante with money to burn on a new house, and you're there to push the wheelbarrow full of cash around."
"No, I think we should stick to our original idea. We're two executive assistants to a multimillionaire interested in building a custom house."
Grace glanced over at me. "Why? Don't you think I could pull off being a debutante?"
"Please, you should have won an Oscar for that performance at the investment office. I just have a feeling the construction company is going to be a little harder to fool, and if we keep it as vague as possible, we might have a better chance of learning something."
Grace nodded her agreement, and we walked into Allied Construction together.
The receptionist in front was as frosty as ever. "I'm sorry, but without an appointment, no one sees Mr. Klein," she told us after we requested a meeting.
I turned to Grace. "Our employer will not be pleased. He wants an estimate to the closest hundred thousand by 5 P.M."
She said, "He asked for three quotes, and we've already gotten two. Let's just average them and tell him Allied bid three million four, and be done with it. You know he never accepts the middle bid on any project. The low bid is a hundred thousand below that, so there's no danger in him choosing it, either."
I could see the secretary had been in a whispered conversation on the phone as we'd batted numbers around, and after a few moments, she hung up.
I signaled to Grace, and we were starting to leave
when the secretary called out, "Ladies, could you hold on one moment please? Mr. Klein just had a cancellation, and I'm sure he'd be happy to speak with you."
I looked at Grace, then glanced at my watch. "Do we have time for this? You know how impatient
he
can be."
"Yes, but
he
also demands accuracy."
"I'm just not certain this establishment meets his basic requirements," I said.
The door to the back offices opened, and a man walked out to greet us. He was tall, and at one time in his life, he must have been fit, but he was carrying around an extra fifty pounds he didn't need. He looked familiar, no doubt from visiting me at Donut Hearts. He didn't get that girth eating oatmeal and bran for breakfast in the mornings.
"I'm Lincoln Klein," he said as he offered his hand. "Won't you come back to my office, ladies?"
We looked at each other, then reluctantly accepted. As we walked through the doors into the inner sanctum, I noticed a scale model propped against the wall for some kind of development. Someone had smashed a few of the houses, and it was clearly waiting for the trash.
Mr. Klein kept walking, but I held my ground. "What happened here? Did this model fall off the table?"
He shook his head. "No, it was a project we had to drop suddenly. Our investors backed out at the last second." Realizing how that must sound, he quickly added, "It happens in this business. People's dreams exceed their bank accounts."
Grace said, "I can assure you, our employer's well is quite deep."
That certainly got his attention. "Who exactly do you work for, if you don't mind me asking?"
I said, "Our employer wishes to remain anonymous while gathering preliminary information. It keeps things on an even keel that way, and stops bids from being overly inflated once his name is attached to the project."
As Klein led us into his office, I looked around. The place was huge, and it needed to be. There were mounted trophies on the walls of boars and bears and deer, and I wondered if he'd ever seen an animal he didn't shoot. The place gave me the creeps from the moment we walked in, and it was all I could do not to run right back out again screaming.
He said, "I understand his desire for anonymity completely. I hope you convey to him that I'm extremely discreet." Klein rubbed his hands together, then said, "I don't see any plans with you, so I'm not sure how I can give you a fair bid."
That rascal had us. I could see Grace start to panic, her careful mask beginning to slip, when I said, "Mr. Klein, for the purposes of this discussion, let's assume something quite like Miranda Gentry's home, doubled. We are looking for a general estimate, just to see how serious the builders we are interviewing are about winning the bid."
He tented his fingers behind his desk, a monstrous mahogany slab, and pretended to consider it. "Without being too specific, I believe I could build something like it for three million two."
What a surprise, his secretary had fed him the exact number he had to beat to secure the job.
I nodded. "That would be acceptable."
"Nothing's certain, though," Grace said.
Now it was time for me to move in for the information that had brought us here. "Our employer was a little concerned about something else."
"Ask me anything. I'm sure I'll have an answer to it," he said.
I was sure he would. "He understands you've been doing business with Patrick Blaine recently."
Klein looked surprised to hear the news, but managed to keep it to himself. "We were discussing some possibilities, but nothing came of it."
"So, you deny you were working together?" I made it sound like we had prior information, and if you counted Blaine's secretary Vicki's declarations, I suppose we did.
"No, I thought you meant future projects. We've done business in the past. What does this have to do with the bid?"
"Our employer is thorough," Grace said. "He likes to know who he's doing business with."
"Then he should come by and meet with me himself. I'll be able to allay any fears or misgivings he might have."
I didn't doubt that. This man was slick enough to sell saltwater to a mermaid. "Perhaps he'll do that after we've submitted the bids."
I stood, and Grace followed my lead.
Klein wasn't about to give up that easily, though. As he followed us out, he said, "Do you have a card?"
"They tend to say too much, don't they? Don't worry. We'll be in touch," I said.
We were back in the car heading toward Donut Hearts when I realized where I'd seen him before. "That was the man I saw with Deb Jenkins last night," I said.
"The mistress? Was he her dinner companion?"
"I think so. I just saw him for a second, and I have to admit, I was so taken by her transformation that I barely looked at him, but yeah, I'm pretty sure it was the same man."
"What was Blaine's mistress doing going out with one of his business partners?"
I bit my lower lip, then said, "They looked pretty cozy together, so I doubt they just started dating after the murder."
"Jealousy is a motive for murder as much as greed."
I nodded. "That's the problem. We have two different motives going here, with too many suspects. Instead of narrowing the field, we seem to be adding to it."
Grace frowned. "I hate to say this, but if it's too much, we could always let Jake handle it."
"I'm in too deep now, wouldn't you say?"
"I don't know," Grace replied. "I'm just starting to get a little worried about the whole thing."
"So am I," I admitted.
My phone rang at that moment. I said, "Hello?"
"Suzanne? It's George. I just learned something that might be valuable information, and I wanted you to have it as soon as possible."
"What is it?"
"It's about Patrick Blaine's insurance. I started
wondering about Rita's claims, so I called in a few favors to see whose name is really on that policy."
"It's Deb Jenkins, isn't it?"
"No, that's why I thought you should know. No matter what she might have told you, it appears that Rita Blaine is going to inherit everything after all."
"So she lied to us," I said, thinking about the ramifications.
"I don't see why. It's really not all that much a motive for murder, is it?"
I stared at the phone a second before replying. "George, I don't know what kind of circles you're running around in, but a million dollars is enough of a motive for just about anybody I know."
He paused, then asked, "Suzanne, who told you the policy was worth a million dollars?"
"Rita did," I admitted.
"I wonder if she was lying about that, too, or if she didn't know."
"Know what?"
"The main insurance policy had lapsed, and Blaine didn't renew it. That left what he got from the bank, a little over fourteen thousand dollars. Hardly enough to kill him for, wouldn't you say?"
I thought about that for a few moments, then asked, "What if Rita didn't know the main policy had lapsed?"
"Then she was in for a rather unpleasant surprise if she killed him for fourteen grand. These days, that's probably just enough to bury him, and the poor grieving ex-wife gets nothing."
"That's a reason to stay drunk, isn't it?" I asked. "Thanks for the information."