Vintage Love (263 page)
“What about Kent?”
“He’s not dead,” Alan said grimly. “But he’s not around here either. He’s shut up his office and just vanished into thin air.”
“Oh, no!” she exclaimed. “Someone must know where he is!”
Alan shook his head. “According to the Trust Company, he is supposed to get in touch with them. But he hasn’t.”
“What does it mean?”
“Another dead end, I’m afraid,” he said with a sigh.
“Not after all that searching,” she said disconsolately. “I can’t believe it.”
He smiled and patted her shoulder. “You made a good try.”
“What next?”
He studied the list. “I’ll check with a few of the other North End law firms,” he said. “It’s possible I may get a lead on this slippery old Samuel Kent from them.”
Judith forced herself to settle down to the routine typing of replies to some of the more urgent mail. But she was depressed and unable to concentrate properly. Alan kept on the phone, but she knew that he wasn’t having any luck. Soon it was close to five o’clock and closing time. She was about to put away her typewriter when she heard the office door open, and when she looked up she saw it was Brandon Fraser.
The stern, gaunt face regarded her with uncertainty. Then, in a voice mild for him, he said, “Good afternoon, Miss Barnes. Is my son busy?”
She smiled for him. “He’s been making a few phone calls.” As she rose to tell Alan his father was there, the young lawyer came out to join them.
“Hello, Dad,” he said. “What is it?”
Brandon Fraser cleared his throat. “I just received a call from the manager of the New England Trust Company. He tells me you are looking for a veteran member of the local bar, Samuel Kent.”
“That’s right,” Alan said. “He’s important to me because he’s been involved in the purchase of a number of properties that will have to be taken over by the bridge authority if the North End spur goes through. And he seems to have disappeared.”
“I think I may be able to help you,” Brandon Fraser said in the same careful tone. “When he left, he turned a few of his clients over to me. He wrote me about one of them yesterday. And he gave me his address. He’s living in a hotel in a small Florida town.”
Judith and Alan exchanged delighted glances. And the young lawyer told his father, “I need that address!”
Brandon Fraser carefully drew out a wallet from his inside jacket and then, with equal caution, took a folded slip of paper from the wallet and passed it to Alan. “There it is,” he said, returning the wallet to his pocket.
“Delroy Point,” Alan said, reading the address.
“I believe it’s about thirty miles from Miami,” his father said. “You could take a plane directly to Miami and then hire a car and drive to his hotel.”
Alan looked up from the slip of paper with a smile. “Thanks for the help, Dad,” he said.
Brandon Fraser nodded stiffly and then gave her a meaningful glance before he said in a quiet voice, “That’s all right, Alan. I’m afraid it’s somewhat overdue.” And without waiting for them to make any reply, he turned and went out.
“Well!” Alan exclaimed.
“You’ll be needing a witness,” Judith told him with a smile. “Do I or do I not get a trip to Florida?”
“You do!” Alan said with enthusiasm. “We can drive to Boston and catch one of the midnight flights. By tomorrow morning we should be in Delroy Point asking Samuel Kent a few interesting questions.”
Of course Judith was not able to explain to her mother. A befuddled Millicent helped her pack without really fully understanding what was happening. “What does it all mean? Just tell me why you must rush off this way!”
Judith was glad to be able to give up a hopeless task when Alan came for her in his car. After that events were a blur of wild motion. They’d no sooner driven to Boston than they were aboard a sleek jet bound for Miami. After catching a few hours sleep on the flight, they were in the modern airport to greet the dawn. They had a hasty breakfast at the airport, and then Alan hired a black convertible for the drive to Delroy Point. As the sun rose, they felt the full blaze of it. It was unpleasantly hot on this June day in Florida. At last they reached the small town. It was a shabby little place off the main tourist route, and the hotel was four stories high with an unhealthy yellow stucco finish. It too had seen better days.
There was air conditioning in the tiny lobby, along with a crabbed desk clerk behind the counter. Alan inquired for Samuel Kent, and the sour man back of the desk put a phone call through to his room. Then he turned to notify Alan the old man would be right down.
Judith set in one of the dilapidated leather chairs, her nerves on edge. Alan stood by her, his eyes on the gate of the ancient elevator, obviously just as shaken as she was. They had worked so long and come so far. In a short time they would know whether the result would be success or failure.
The elevator door creaked open and revealed a dumpy oldster in a white linen suit and a floppy Panama hat. He was leaning heavily on a knobby brown cane, and as he emerged from the elevator with a crab-like walk, his long, blotched face with its flabby jowls worked nervously. His lip quivered as he came to a stop and stared at them. Even from six feet away, Judith could sense the fear in him.
“You want to talk to me?” He had a crafty face, and his rheumy blue eyes were shifty under heavy brows.
“Yes,” Alan said, stepping forward. “I’m from Port Winter. You and my father are friends. My name is Alan Fraser.”
The old man looked slightly relieved. “You’re Brandon Fraser’s boy! Yes, I know him. We are old friends.”
“That is why I am here,” Alan said. “You can help me.”
The old man shook his head. “No! I have nothing to do with business these days! I’m retired! My memory is very poor! I’m not able to practice law.”
Alan gave Judith a knowing glance before he asked the old man, “Would you rather talk to the police?”
“Police!” the oldster said querulously. “I have nothing to say to the police! I know my rights.”
“It might be worth your while to cooperate,” Alan went on. “We’re not after the money given you by the Northeast Realty group. I don’t consider it was enough, anyway. We’re only after information.”
Samuel Kent stared at him with dark suspicion. “Why should I tell you anything?” And glaring at Judith: “Who’s she?”
“My secretary,” Alan said. “We mean you no harm. In fact, we think you were given a bad deal. And we want to protect your name in the community.”
“I always had a good reputation,” the old man in the soiled linen suit sputtered indignantly. “Ask your Paw!”
“He spoke highly of you,” Alan went on in his most placating way. “And he said I could depend on you to help.”
“He did, did he?” the old man snorted. And then, as if wanting to satisfy his curiosity, he said, “I can’t stand here any longer. I’m old and tired. If you want to talk, you can come out to the verandah.”
They were seated in three wicker chairs grouped together on the hot verandah. It was now afternoon, and Judith thought she would melt in the heat. Alan was feeling it, too. His shirt was open at the neck, and he fanned himself with a large envelope as he went on trying to convince Samuel Kent to cooperate.
Only the old man seemed to enjoy the deathly heat and thrive on it. He became as alert as a lively old lizard basking in the sun of a favorite desert rock. His rheumy eyes fixed on Alan grimly.
“I don’t have to talk,” he kept repeating. “They cheated me in the first place after I did all the dirty work. And now you want to double-cross me again.”
“Look,” Alan said, “as a lawyer, you know you have nothing to fear. You haven’t done anything dishonest, nothing you need be afraid of the law for. But the man, or men, you acted for intend to put your work to dishonest use and make an enormous profit — a profit you won’t share!”
“I know that.” Samuel Kent swung a thin hand at an annoying fly as he replied peevishly.
“You can get even in only one way,” Alan said. “Let me have the name or names, and I’ll promise you they won’t get away with the swindle they’ve planned.”
Samuel Kent shook his head. “Not interested!”
So it went. He vanished in the evening and refused to come downstairs. They took rooms in a motel a block away that wasn’t quite so depressing and suffered through a humid night to pick up the quest on the following day.
To Judith’s surprise, the old man came down to join them on the verandah instead of trying to avoid them. And it was only later when he began to ply her eagerly with questions that she realized why. He was lonesome, thirsty for news of his home town where he’d lived so long. She gladly supplied the information, and his mood improved.
Alan was quick to point out another advantage to Samuel Kent. “If this was settled, you could return to Port Winter whenever you liked and no questions asked.”
Perhaps this was what won the old man over to their side: the prospect of being able to go back home. But he still took another full day to make up his mind to talk. He began to give them information they needed in the middle of a third blazing hot afternoon.
“All right,” he said. “I’ll tell you. They’ve got a full legal transfer to themselves when the time comes. And the Senator has a share in the company, but he’s small fry.”
Alan frowned. “Lafferty isn’t the main one behind it?”
“No,” the old man said. “There’s someone else bigger than he.”
“Who?” Alan asked.
The old man settled back in his chair and started to chuckle. “Well, what do you know about that? He’s coming down the street this very minute!”
Judith and Alan looked at each other, certain that they had pushed the old man too far and he had collapsed under the heat and strain. And then she glanced over Alan’s shoulder and realized that Samuel Kent had merely voiced the simple truth.
In a taut voice, she told Alan, “Look behind you!”
He did. And there was Councilman Fred Harvey in shirt sleeves with his coat over his arm and wearing a straw hat. He walked slowly up to them, the alert eyes behind the horn-rimmed glasses beaming as usual. The smile on his perspiring face was broad. He addressed himself to the old man first.
“I suppose you told them,” he said.
Samuel Kent was still cackling in his high-pitched fashion. He pointed a bony finger at Harvey. “No,” he said. “You told them when you walked up here!”
Harvey didn’t lose his smile. He turned to Judith. “You were right,” he said. “I should have started traveling by plane long ago. It took me too many hours to get here by train. I might have known you’d have it all settled.”
Alan said, “I hope you and the Senator are prepared for some important headlines. And you’d better figure out what you’re going to do with all the slum property you bought yourself. You’re not likely to sell it for a spur to the bridge when this scandal breaks.”
Fred Harvey shrugged. “I’m not afraid of headlines. I’m used to being called a crook. And real estate is always a good investment no matter what.” He gave Judith a pleasant nod of farewell. “Right now I’m starting to live dangerously, Judith. I’m driving back to Miami and taking a plane from there home!”
They watched him walk back to his car. Samuel Kent cleared his throat and said, “Well, you’ve got to hand it to him. He’s a cool one!”
Judith laughed. “And I don’t think you could say that about anyone else in town when you consider this heat!”
Things worked out about as Alan had predicted. When S.C. North was presented with the evidence that a double-dealing Senator Lafferty, along with Councilman Fred Harvey, had tried to make a huge personal profit on the North End spur of the bridge, the financier quickly lost interest in pushing the spur through. He allowed the scandal to be exposed in his newspapers, with his own share of the scheme to halt the bridge construction discreetly omitted.
Miles Estey came to an agreement with Alan that gave his union workers excellent protection. Perhaps this was one of the contributing factors that led to the giant structure being completed on schedule.
And on the gala occasion of the bridge’s opening, Miles Estey returned to Port Winter to take part in the ceremonies. He stood with Judith and Alan on its wide sidewalk, shortly after the ribbon-cutting ceremony. His red hair rippled in the breeze as they watched the initial traffic cross to the East End of town.
Miles said, “Well, your project is finished, Alan. What next?”
Alan’s arm was around Judith. A smile crossed his sensitive face. “There’s always a new one. Judith and I are getting married next week.”
The tall, red-haired man sighed. “I knew it would happen,” he said. “How about calling on the union for a best man?”
Judith laughed. “We intended asking you today.”
Miles looked delighted. “I’d say that calls for a kiss for the bride.”
Alan tightened his hold on her. “Let me look after that.” And as Miles looked on with a chuckle, he did.
This edition published by
Crimson Romance
an imprint of F+W Media, Inc.
10151 Carver Road, Suite 200
Blue Ash, Ohio 45242
Copyright © 1968 by Arcadia House
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.
ISBN 10: 1-4405-7511-8
ISBN 13: 978-1-4405-7511-2
eISBN 10: 1-4405-7512-6
eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-7512-9
Cover art © istock.com/Geber86
