Consigned To Death Part 16

"My source says he-or she-doesn't know."

"Do you believe him-or her?"

He turned both hands up and gave me a "my guess is as good as yours" look, then smiled, and said, "I'll keep pushing."

I nodded. It was hard to imagine that calls from a candy store or his doctor were relevant. The former was probably a sales call, and the latter was most likely routine.

"Did Mr. Grant make any calls?" I asked, thinking that perhaps he'd initiated one or more of those calls.

"No one but you, Troudeaux, and his lawyer."

"Not even his daughter?"

"Nope. No other calls."

"Was he in frequent touch with his lawyer? Mr. Epps?"

"Doesn't look like it. There were a couple of calls, but earlier in the month. Nothing from, or to, Epps in the last week."

"How about Barney? When did Barney last call him, or vice versa?"

He smiled. "Are you ready? Troudeaux called Mr. Grant at seven-thirty-two the night before he died."

"The night before," I repeated. I turned toward the ocean, and watched as water rushed in, then slowly seeped away. "What does he say they talked about?"

"Changing an appointment."

"What appointment?"

"Did you know Mr. Grant kept a diary?"

"Yes. My appointment to see him the morning he was killed was in it."

"Right. Well, apparently, so was Barney Troudeaux's. Troudeaux had an appointment to see Mr. Grant the morning he died, too."

"That morning? You're kidding!"

"Yeah, at nine. Except that Barney said he called Mr. Grant and changed it."

"How do you know?"

"My source tells me that Barney said that Mr. Grant agreed to change the appointment to three that afternoon."

"Why the last-minute change?"

"A board meeting for the a.s.sociation Barney heads up."

"But he would have known about a board meeting sooner than the night before," I objected.

Wes shrugged. "Looks like he screwed up and double-booked himself."

"Were there any calls on the day Mr. Grant was killed?"

"Yeah. From you, his daughter, and his neighbor. That's it."

"But then how did Barney learn that Mr. Grant was killed?"

"I don't know. Does it matter?"

I shrugged. "I'm just wondering ... did he show up at the Grant house for his appointment that afternoon?"

Wes looked intrigued, wiped his chocolate-sticky fingers on his jeans, and wrote a note on the folded square of paper. "Good question," he said. "I'll check it out."

"What about fingerprints?" I asked.

"Apparently yours were everywhere. Barney's were around, too, but not as many as yours."

I smiled. "I'm more thorough."

"I'll keep that in mind when I'm ready to sell my family's treasures."

"Does your family have treasures?" I asked.

"h.e.l.l, no. I was joking."

"Too bad. I would have made you a good deal."

Wes shook his head, grinning a little. "There were other prints, too. Miscellaneous and explainable. Grant's wife, for instance, obviously from before she died, a house cleaner who came in periodically, and a delivery boy from a grocery store in town. There was one set of prints in the living room that is still unidentified."

"Can they tell anything about who left them?"

"No, not to quote them on. They're adult prints, but smallish, so based on the size, they may be from a woman." He shrugged. "But there are small men, too. And large men with small hands."

"Doesn't it seem incredible that no other prints were found? I mean, what about his daughter and granddaughter? Or other delivery people? Or friends?"

"I guess he lived a pretty quiet life."

I shook my head, wondering what prints they'd find in my house if they looked. I wasn't a bad housekeeper, but I wasn't a nut about it either. It made me wonder whether maybe one of my dad's prints was still somewhere, maybe on the side of a dining room chair, a remnant from one of the scores of times when he'd sat, idly tapping a beat, waiting for me to serve the meal.

"Anything else scheduled for that morning?" I asked, focusing on Wes, chasing away the memory. "Besides me?"

"Just Barney Troudeaux's nine o'clock appointment."

"I thought he changed it when he called the night before."

"That's what he says, but it was still in the diary."

"Maybe Mr. Grant hadn't gotten around to changing it before he died," I said, saddened at the thought.

I recalled the day that I'd made a mistake in my schedule, realizing it only after I'd left the Grant house. I hurried back and knocked on the door. When he answered, I apologized for my error, he a.s.sured me it wasn't a problem, and escorted me back to the kitchen. I could picture him sitting at his kitchen table, erasing the mistaken entry, turning pages to find the correct date, his callused index finger running down the center of the page until he located the time slot he wanted. He smiled then, and using a freshly sharpened pencil, he wrote my name.

"We'll never know, I guess," Wes said.

"Yeah. And probably, it doesn't matter. Because Barney was at the board meeting, right?"

"Right."

Bright sunshine unexpectedly illuminated the beach from a sudden break in the clouds. I heard the dog bark, and squinted into the sun in time to see him run a circle around his owner as they made their way up the dunes. I took another bite of doughnut. My coffee had cooled enough so it was comfortable to sip.

"How about Mr. Grant's background? Were you able to learn anything about him or his family?"

Wes nodded. "Yeah. Quite a story, actually. He was born in Kansas, the only son of successful ranchers. He came east to go to prep school, and never lived in the Midwest again."

"Was he in the war?"

"Yeah. He joined the army in 1942, and for a lot of the time, he was stationed in France. That's when he met his wife. According to all reports she was a piece of work. A tough old bird with a temper. She was maybe French, maybe Belgian, maybe who knows what."

"What do you mean, 'who knows what'?"

He shook his head, and gestured that he had no idea. "I know that her name was Yvette. Or at least that's what she called herself. I couldn't even find a record of her maiden name."

"How can that be? What does that mean?"

"Probably nothing. Maybe she was a Jew on the run. Maybe she was a n.a.z.i sympathizer. Who knows? Back then, there were lots of good reasons to change your name and reinvent yourself."

I thought about that for a long minute, watching as shards of sunlight dappled the sand and water. Gretchen had wanted to reinvent herself, a fresh start, she'd called it. I wondered if Gretchen was her real name, or if, like Yvette, she too had changed it. No matter. She was Gretchen to me, and I felt grateful that her desire for a fresh start had led her to my door.

After a sip of coffee, I asked, "What did Mr. Grant do after the war?"

"He settled in Rocky Point and started a painting contracting business."

"And?" I prompted.

"And he made a fortune. Everyone I checked with said he was a ruthless SOB, but likable. The kind of guy who could sell tulips to a Dutchman." He shrugged. "Apparently he was a good talker and a terrific negotiator. But you'd better be careful every step of the way because if there was anything he could exploit, he would."

"Why? What does that mean?"

"You know ... it means that he was a smooth operator, a guy who knew the angles and never missed an opportunity to make a profit. He built his business by winning federal contracts until it became the biggest company of its kind in New England, then sold out to a national firm. That was about fifteen years ago."

That sounded like both the Mr. Grant I'd met and the one I'd gotten to know after his death: charming and shrewd. "How big a fortune are we talking about?" I asked.

Wes glanced at the folded square of paper. "Somewhere around thirty million dollars, depending on who you ask."

"Wow."

"Yeah," he agreed. "Wow it is."

I remembered that Max had planned to ask Epps who would inherit Mr. Grant's estate, and wondered if he had done so. From my conversation with Mrs. Cabot yesterday, I a.s.sumed she inherited everything. It occurred to me that Wes might know.

"Does his daughter inherit everything?" I asked.

"Nope. Fifty-fifty split with the granddaughter. Nothing to anyone else."

"No siblings, uncles, cousins? No other family?"

"No. Mr. Grant had a sister who died in her teens back in Kansas. Mrs. Grant-who knows what family she might have had. According to my source, no one else has surfaced yet."

I nodded. That would account for Andi's impatience. Fifteen million dollars would buy a lot of independence. I wondered whether she cared that she had such a small family. As the only children of only children, apparently Andi and I shared a common legacy-small families that grow smaller with each generation.

"Anything else of note?" I asked.

"Something about the daughter's leaving after high school. Mrs. Cabot. She left to get married in ... let me see here ... 1964. It seems she and her father had an argument sometime during the summer after her high school graduation that was heard for miles around."

"What about?" I asked.

"No one remembers. But they sure remember the shouting. The fight started on the beach, and continued through the village. Dana marched into the house, packed two bags, and, with her mother pulling at her and begging her to stay, left."

I stared at Wes. Was it possible that a forty-year-old argument had anything to do with Mr. Grant's death? It was hard to believe that a long-ago altercation could be relevant today. Turning my attention to the sea, I looked at the whitecaps shimmering in the now-bright sun. I remembered Max asking Alverez why he was interrogating me about the jewelry in my safe. Alverez had said that until he knew what was going on, it was impossible to know what was a tangent and what was a clue. Dana's departure had been so remarkable, it was etched in the community's memory even after forty years. An event that memorable might, in fact, have repercussions that rippled through the generations.

"That kind of breach between parents and a child, it's sad, isn't it?" I asked.

"Yeah," Wes answered with a shrug, seeming not to care much one way or the other. "I guess. But I bet that her half of thirty million dollars will help heal a lot of wounds."

"Don't be cynical," I said. "It's sad, and that's that."

"Yes, ma'am."

"I gotta tell you, Wes, that my head is spinning a little from all this information. But I'm not sure whether any of it is relevant."

"Me either. I just provide the facts, ma'am. Just the facts."

"Good point."

"Plus which, there's more."

"What?"

The sun was warming the air, and Wes paused to unb.u.t.ton his jacket. I followed suit. He offered me some more coffee, and I accepted a little. He poured himself a full mug. "Stardust" resonated through the speakers.

"Want another doughnut?" he asked.

"No, thanks." Three-quarters of my first one rested on a nearby napkin. "So, what else?"

"Seems Mrs. Grant ran a tight ship. One of the things she did was keep a detailed record of purchases."

"What kind of purchases?"

"Everything. Appliances, antiques, dry cleaning. Even milk, bread, and gasoline. Everything."