A Familiar Tail (30 page)

“Laurie should talk to a lawyer about the insurance money,” I said. “There must be something that can be done.”

“Maybe.” Martine tapped her pen on the edge of her desk and stared at her piles of papers and folders. I watched the calculations running back and forth behind her eyes. “I'll talk to Gravesend, see if we can work something out.” I must have been looking at her funny. “What? Colin's one of mine. I do not leave my people out in the cold.” I wasn't surprised. Martine might not have had kids of her own, but that didn't stop her from being one of the biggest mother hens out there. But there was something I had to say. Not that I wanted to.

“Martine, what if it turns out Brad Thompson's death really was a suicide? Or even just an accident while he was drunk? What if . . .” I stopped and started again. “Pete Simmons said he thought maybe Brad had found out something he couldn't live with anymore.”

Martine picked up her phone. “Then, the family's really gonna need that lawyer.” Her hand hovered over the buttons. “If there is anything, and I mean
anything
, you can do about this, Anna Britton, you do it fast.”

I nodded and I got out of there, making a beeline through the kitchen. All I could think about was getting to my Jeep and getting home. Martine was right. I had to figure this out and figure it out fast.

Because what this little interview had done was raised another real, terrible, possibility. There was somebody, besides Frank, besides the Maitlands, who was visibly upset
with both Dorothy and Brad; upset enough and protective enough to act in anger.

And who had all but told us he might have been in the vicinity the night Dorothy died.

Colin Thompson.

40

EXACTLY HOW I
would figure out the truth surrounding Dorothy's and Brad's deaths when all my sleuthing and magicking had failed so far was a mystery. It remained a mystery all the way out the door and across the parking lot, and during all the swearing and muttering while I dug down into the very bottom of my purse trying to find my keys.

When I finally looked up, it was to see a man's hand pressed against the Wrangler's door. Young Sean McNally had walked right up next to me and I hadn't even noticed.

“You,” he said. “Are in no shape to be driving.”

“Your bartender sense tingling?” I muttered.

He folded his arms and leaned one hip against the car door, all casual-like. “That, and I saw you walking across the dining room, but I don't think you saw me. Or the dining room.”

“I wasn't drinking.” He wasn't moving, I noticed.

“I didn't say you were, but you're scared and you're angry about whatever the heck it was you and Chef heard from
Colin.” He held out his hand. “And that's no way to be behind the wheel. So, I'm driving you home.”

“No. Thanks. I'm fine. Really.”

Somehow, this cogent argument entirely failed to convince him to step away from my car.

“You're not fine,” he said. “There's been a death and it's close enough to you that you were interrogating the dead man's really unhappy kid with his boss. If you don't want me driving you, fine. Take a cab. Come back for the car tomorrow when you've had a chance to cool down.”

I fixed my best glare on him. I'm not in Martine's league, but I do okay. “You better not be accusing me of being hysterical.”

“I'm accusing you of being a feeling human being. Which is it going to be? Me or the taxi?”

“You won't make it back before you open for dinner and you'll get in trouble with Martine.”

“For getting one of her best friends home okay? I don't think so.”

He wasn't moving, and apparently neither was I until I gave in. “All right, all right,” I muttered. “Can you drive a stick?”

Sean grinned. “Watch me.”

I climbed into the passenger seat, folded my arms and in general attempted to silently signal my disagreement with his utterly unreasonable assessment of my mental state and driving capacity. Unfortunately, Sean turned out to be not only a first-rate bartender, but very good at ignoring grumpy people. He adjusted the seat, turned the key, smoothly shifted into reverse and eased the car onto Bow Street.

It was not a long drive. I spent most of it staring stubbornly out the window. Sean didn't seem to mind. I might not feel like admitting it, but he was a comfortable person to be around. He didn't push to know what Martine and I had been talking about, or how I liked Portsmouth or what I thought about Brad's death. After all those days of doing
nothing but wonder and worry, it felt terrific to be with someone and just relax, even if it was only for about fifteen minutes.

Sean pulled into the driveway and shut the engine off.

“Thanks,” I said as he handed me back the key. “For everything.”

“Anytime,” he answered. He also peered through the window at the cottage. “I'm glad somebody's living here,” he said. “A house like this should be lived in.”

“Did you know her?” I asked.

He laughed. “Everybody knew Dorothy. She was more Dad's friend than mine, but we both did some odd jobs for her sometimes, when Frank was busy or out of town. Or she knew Dad needed some extra. Bartending's not the steadiest job in the world.” I smiled. That sounded like her. “So, he'd do roof repairs, tree trimming, things like that. I helped her set up her Wi-Fi and UrCloud accounts.”

“Really?” I laid my hand on my purse, right over the wand.
Tell me more, Sean. Please. If you want to,
I added silently.

My fingers tingled. Sean wasn't looking at me. He was still looking up at the house.

“It was kind of weird, you know? Setting up high tech in the witch's cottage. Man, she loved to play the part.” He chuckled. “You should have seen her at Halloween. She'd be out in the yard with a cauldron, broom, pointy hat, the whole thing. And man, that laugh and the whole ‘I'll get you, my pretty, and your little dog too!'” He hooked his fingers and clawed the air. “It was great.”

“Yeah, I'd heard about that, and . . .”

And I stopped. And I backtracked. “Accounts?” I said.

“Sorry?”

I stared at Sean. “You said you helped Dorothy set up online accounts. Plural. Did she have more than one?”

“Yeah, she had a couple. She said she wanted an extra
for privacy and emergencies.” He frowned. “Made some joke about Frank's naked baby pictures . . .”

My heart was pounding. My thumbs were pricking. “What was the name? On the other account?”

Sean was frowning. “I'm not sure . . .”

But I was. “It was Dorothy Gale, wasn't it?”

“Yeah,” he admitted slowly. “But don't ask me the password, because I don't . . .”

“I gotta go.” I scrambled out of the Jeep while trying to dig in my purse for my keys. It was not graceful. “I . . . erm . . . you okay to get back?”

“No problem,” he said easily. “Are you okay to stay here?”

“I'll let you know.” Before he could ask any more questions, I sprinted into the house.

Alistair was already there, sitting on the desk next to my laptop. “Meow!” he announced, like he was saying
Finally!

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” I muttered as I flipped the lid open and opened up a new search. “I'm slow. But I'm here now.” I paused for a second. “Should I get the others over here?” I asked the cat. He turned around three times and sat down with his tail around his paws. “Right,” I said. “Time for that after we know if we've found anything.”

I clicked keys and called up the UrCloud homepage. “Question,” I said to Alistair. “How could Dorothy keep a secret online account off her credit card bills? Answer: She used a free service and a fake name.” Alistair blinked and rubbed his face against the corner of the laptop. “It's easy to set up a secondary e-mail address,” I told him. “You don't need ID. You just need a friendly tech-savvy bartender who'll play along and show you the basics.”

I clicked on the user ID box and typed:
dorothygale
.

“Now. There's a password box.” I pointed for Alistair's benefit. “You do not tell anyone your password, because you are security conscious. But you also know somebody might need to find it one day. So you hide it in your house, but you
hide it in plain sight on your favorite piece of memorabilia from your favorite movie.”

And I typed:
margarethamilton
.

And I hit Enter. Seconds ticked past. Then the screen flashed
INVALID PASSWORD
.

Alistair growled impatiently. I tried to keep breathing.

“Right, right. Because for a secure password, you need numbers or symbols.”

I typed:
margarethamilton1939
.

Seconds crawled by. I gripped the edge of the desk until my fingers hurt. Alistair came over and head butted my shoulder. I ignored him.

“Come on,” I said to the computer, and then in case it didn't get the hint, I added, “Come on, come
on
.”

The computer beeped. The screen flickered. I felt my nails bend as I clutched the edge of the desk and leaned forward.

A list of file names scrolled up the screen, including one that read MA P
ROPERTY
.

I clicked on that one.

Dorothy had been busy. Page after page of documents flickered past on the screen: mortgages, leases, purchase agreements.

The copies. We'd all been so sure they must be on paper, tucked away in the house somewhere. Why? Because Dorothy was an old woman. Because she still kept a checkbook and paper bills and wrote everything down in notebooks. So everybody, me included, had just assumed that these records would still be hard copies too. So we'd all focused on searching the house and ignored cyberspace.

She'd outfoxed us all. Again.

I clicked through the documents, scanning them as quickly as I could, until I found a page with a signature on it. There it was, cramped and pointy, and it read:
Elizabeth Maitland
.

“Ellis was telling the truth.” I slumped backward.
Elizabeth Maitland had been into some kind of shady real estate dealings.

“It doesn't make sense,” I said out loud. “It's . . . it's undignified. It'd disgrace the family. It . . .” I stopped. “The family,” I repeated.

Alistair jumped off the desk and shoved his face in my purse, nosing around. “What? Did I leave a sandwich in there?”

Alistair's meow was muffled. I thought about pulling him away. On second thought, I pulled my purse away instead and upended it on the desk. Alistair jumped up and, in the way of all cats, immediately sat on the one piece of paper.

Realization crept into my mind, slowly. I moved the cat onto my lap and picked up the paper. It was that letter inviting me to tea I'd received from Elizabeth Maitland. I hadn't even realized it was still in my purse.

“You're not serious,” I said to Alistair.

“Meow,” he answered me, and I knew what he was thinking, because I was thinking it too.

I held the paper up next to the screen and stared. I looked at the elaborate
E
on the invitation, and the much simpler one on the document on the screen.

“It's not the same,” I told the cat. “Somebody's forged her signature.” I stopped. “Ellis forged her signature.”

Alistair jumped into my lap and rubbed his head against my shoulder.

“I should call Kenisha,” I said as I automatically petted his back. “Right now. That's what I should do first.”

But I couldn't help thinking about Elizabeth Maitland in
her lovely, empty house on the hill. I thought about family ties and traditions that could tie a person up like iron chains. I thought about kindness, and I thought about what you send out into the world coming back in so many different ways. I thought about how despite everything, Julia, whom I liked and trusted, defended this woman from the accusations that came at her from all kinds of directions.

I dialed the phone and waited while it rang.

“Maitland residence,” answered Marisol.

“Marisol, I need to speak with Mrs. Maitland. It's urgent.”

“One moment, please.”

I heard Marisol put the phone down. Alistair curled around my ankles, trying to reassure me while I waited, yet again. It was a good try, but I was past being reassured. I stared out the window at the summer twilight. I didn't want to be right. I really didn't. I understood now why Frank and Julia had been so reluctant to go digging into this mystery. It was nothing at all like you saw on TV. It was just sad and a little scary.

“Hello?”

I swallowed my doubts. I had come too far. Like it or not, I had to finish this. “Mrs. Maitland? This is Annabelle Britton.”

“Is there something I can do for you, Miss Britton?”

“Mrs. Maitland, I have some . . . difficult news.”

“Which is?”

“Somebody's been trying to frame you, Mrs. Maitland.”

She paused. I pressed my palm against the desk and forced myself to wait. “Frame me?” she repeated finally.

I nodded, even though I knew she couldn't see me. “For real estate fraud.”

There was no answer except the sound of harsh breathing. When she spoke again, her voice was tight. “Are you certain?”

“Fairly certain.”

“Was it Dorothy?”

I swallowed. Of course. She still had that letter, the one Ellis said he'd gotten from Laurie and that was supposed to have been written by Dorothy.

“I don't know. It . . .” How did I say this? I closed my eyes. There was no good way. “It might be Ellis.”

“I see.” The two words were stone-cold.