Don't Take Any Wooden Nickels (29 page)

“No way,” Kirby replied. “You said it yourself. They have machine guns.”

“Yeah, I know. You’re right.”

I continued to pace, thinking I would have to go with my original plan of surveillance from a distance. Now that I’d had an intruder, however, before I could start watching them, I would first have to make sure that they weren’t watching me.

“Hey, whatcha doing tonight?” I asked.

“Well, I came over here to see if you wanted to go to dinner.”

“Forget dinner,” I said. “Let’s synchronize our watches. We’ve got more important things going on.”

Before I could explain further, the phone rang. It was Verlene, and she was angry.

“Thanks a lot, Callie!” she cried. “Maureen Burnham is threatening to withdraw her entire offer.”

“What?”

“I did what you said. I called and asked her about the donors and the donor broker. She started yelling at me, saying that their donors always remained anonymous, and that if I thought she was going to give me the name of her donor broker, I must be crazy. It was a very upsetting phone call, to say the least.”

I waited a beat. We had obviously struck a nerve.

“Okay, Verlene,” I said calmly. “Don’t be angry. This is actually an important development in this case.”

“It is? How?”

“I don’t have time to go into it now, but I’ve got to tell you that I have a few concerns about CNA. There’s something fishy there. This woman’s response to your questions only confirms that for me.”

“Oh, no,” she moaned. “I
knew
this was too good to be true. Now what are we going to do? We need that money if we’re going to expand!”

I told her not to get ahead of herself here. There was still a chance that things would check out okay in the end, but I had more investigating to do first.

“I just can’t tell you how badly I want this to work out,” she said. “Besides the bigger space, I was hoping to use their services for the accounting and the taxes and the purchasing and the—”

“Verlene,” I said, interrupting her. “I know you’re overloaded there with work and could use the help. But you said it yourself, we’ve got to be prudent. Let’s not make a bad decision in haste just because of our immediate need. Okay?”

“Okay,” she said, sighing loudly.

Once I had placated her somewhat, I got her off of the phone, and then I asked Kirby if he would mind waiting just a bit longer while I called my investigator friend in Akron, Gordo Koski.

“Sure,” Kirby said. “Do whatever you need to do. I’m just enjoying watching you work.”

I felt a blush creep across my face as I averted my gaze and dialed.

“Hey, gorgeous!” Gordo said loudly when he answered the phone. He wasn’t hard of hearing, but he always spoke at top volume over the phone.

“Hi, Gordo,” I said. “You gather any information for me yet about CNA?”

“Yeah, I’m done, but I haven’t learned much, I’m afraid. They got a big building, one hundred and twenty-three employees, five divisions, nine board members. Good reputation, far as I can tell.”

“Tell me about the board. I understand there are some big names on there. Are they primarily figureheads?”

“Well,” he said, “you’d probably have to sit in on a board meeting to answer that question. But judging by their credentials alone, it looks like a pretty impressive group.”

“How about the top executives of the company?”

“They check out. I did like you said, made a drive-by of all of their houses. By and large, the places were fairly modest. Nobody seems to be living high on the hog.”

“By any chance,” I said, “did you check out a woman named Maureen Burnham?”

“Maureen Burnham?”

I could hear the shuffling of papers.

“No, you said do the upper echelon. According to the employee roster I got, she’s a little way down on the totem pole. She’s not even a vice president. Just a division head.”

“Do you mind looking into her?” I asked. “Her name keeps popping up, and I’m a little concerned.”

“Sure, kid. What am I looking for?”

I leaned forward on one elbow and closed my eyes.

“I don’t know. I’d love to have an idea of her work history, maybe her qualifications for the job she’s in now.”

“Go on.”

Gordo was quiet at the other end of the line, and I smiled, picturing him with his flame of red hair and a stubby little pencil tucked behind his ear. An old PI buddy of my mentor Eli, Gordo had known me for ages, probably for as long as I had been a detective. Though he knew I didn’t do regular detective work anymore, last year he had called and asked if I could help him out with a child support case since the man in question had moved to Baltimore. I hadn’t minded. If fact, it was kind of fun to get back into the old investigating mode again.

The subject of the investigation was a fellow who hadn’t paid child support in more than two years, claiming that he didn’t have the funds. He had no inkling that I was following him, and on the second day of my surveillance I had been able to get some lovely photos of him out on the water in his new Cobalt 360 luxury sport cruiser. At a price tag of well over $200,000, I knew his kids wouldn’t be neglected any longer.

Needless to say, now it was Gordo’s chance to return the favor.

Of course, if I were doing an investigation on behalf of the J.O.S.H.U.A. Foundation, I would be flying to Cleveland to handle
all of this legwork myself. But considering the situation, and my limited time and resources, I thought that using Gordo was a good solution.

“Here’s the deal,” I said. “This woman is the head of her division, and one of her responsibilities is to arrange fund-raising for smaller charities. To tell you the truth, I’m a bit leery of her methods. In one instance, she paid out about twenty-five thousand dollars in order to raise a net of
three
thousand dollars. That’s just not right.”

I went on to explain the woman used “donor brokers,” but she was very tight-lipped about the identity of both the donors and the brokers.

“Ah ha,” Gordo said when I finished. “So what you’d really like are some names.”

I grinned.

“Do what you can,” I said. “But, yeah, if you could get me some inside scoop there, I would really appreciate it.”

“I’ll give it my best shot.”

We talked a few more minutes, and I gave him all of the information I could think of that might help him out. When I hung up the phone, of course Kirby was dying to learn what I was talking about as well. I gave him the quick version.

“But enough of that,” I said finally, ready to change gears back to Shayna and her problems. I flashed Kirby my most persuasive smile. “How’d you like to do a little detecting of your own?”

Thirty-Two

By 7:30 I was pulling into the parking lot of the Kawshek General Store. My hope was that Dewey and Murdock were hard at work inside, maybe mending another net, and that they would
be in the mood to talk. I wanted to ask about Manno Island, and I wanted to find out more about the Japanese brothers, Kenji and Shin Tanigawa.

“I’m here,” I said softly into my cell phone, “just pulling into the parking lot now.”

“Okay,” Kirby replied, talking from the cell phone in his car. “You should see him any minute. Probably coming around the curve right about now.”

I twisted my rearview mirror so that I could look up the way I had just come without appearing to be watching. Sure enough, after a moment a gold Pontiac minivan rounded the curve and then slowly drove on past the parking lot. Two beats later, I could see Kirby’s car also coming around the curve.

“Howdy,” I said into the phone.

“Hello,” he replied, though when he drove past me, we didn’t acknowledge each other with a look or a wave. “Okay,” he said. “He’s pulled to a stop on a side street. Should I park, too? I can stick with him on foot.”

“No,” I replied. “I just wanted to know if I was being followed. Now I know. You got the plate number, right?”

“Right, but don’t you think you’re in danger?”

“Not here,” I said. “Too public.”

“Okay,” Kirby said. “Well, I’ve driven past him now, but I’ll double back so I can watch the watcher. I don’t think he’s spotted me.”

“I’m going inside,” I said. “I’ll call you back when I’m done.”

I hung up the phone, slid it into the pocket of my red-plaid coat, got out of the car, and headed to the door. The bell jangled as I stepped inside, and I realized immediately that no one was there except Stinky. He was on a low stool in front of a shelf of canned goods, marking the cans with an old-fashioned ink-stamping pricer.

“Excuse me,” I said, watching him work, wondering if he even knew that scanners and bar codes had been invented. “I’m looking for Dewey and Murdock.”

“Not here,” he said.

“Have you seen them this evening?”

“Yep, a while ago.”

“Do you know where they are now?”

Stinky paused in his stamping to look at me over his shoulder. He seemed to size me up before finally returning to his stamping. He said they were over at the community church, as far as he knew, printing up the bulletins for Sunday’s service.

“Where’s that?” I asked.

“Go out the back door and walk up the pier ’bout two blocks. Big white community chapel. Can’t miss it.”

“Super. Thanks.”

I did as he instructed, walking out of the store’s back door and onto the dock area. There were quite a few people sitting around or milling about the boats in the marina. Music blared from the bar next door, and people came and went from there noisily.

Pulling out my cell phone, I called Kirby and told him what I was doing.

“I’m about a block and a half over,” he said softly. “I can see him, and he’s just sitting there, watching your car. I think you’re okay.”

I turned and walked away from the din. Though the sun had already set, a number of streetlights illuminated the whole place, so at least it seemed safe and exposed, not dark and hidden. I was glad. I was feeling a little spooked despite Kirby’s protective presence.

“I’m going to hang up now,” I said, “but call me if he gets out of his car.”

“Will do.”

Slipping the phone back into the pocket of my coat, I ignored the chill and headed up the pier away from the store and the bar in the direction Stinky had indicated. I could see the white building with a cross in front at the end of the next block, and it looked as though my walk would be lighted all the way.

As I went I thought about the church and its place in this fishing community. I wondered how many members it had and if they always made a practice of caring for newcomers as thoroughly as they had embraced Shayna.
God’s love in action,
my old pastor used to call it. Some churches were so intent on saving souls they ignored anything that came
after
the moment of decision. Conversely, this church had really followed up with Shayna, helping her get her life together, showing her a way out of her destructive cycle. I thought that any group with that kind of compassion and dedication had to be on the right track.

The place wasn’t locked, and I could hear talking from inside the building as soon as I opened the door. Following the voices, I found Dewey and Murdock at the far end of what looked like a fellowship hall, sitting in a small alcove next to a copy machine. The machine was printing bulletins, and the two men were sitting side by side at a table, folding the bulletins in half and putting them into a small pile between them.

“Evening, gentlemen,” I said. “Remember me?”

“Well, if it isn’t our friendly neighbor!” Dewey cried, looking up. “Candy, right?”

“Collie,” corrected Murdock. “Like the dog.”

“It’s Callie,” I replied. “Callie Webber. Do you guys have a minute? I need to talk to you.”

“Well, sure,” Murdock said, starting to rise.

“Don’t get up,” I told him. I grabbed a folding chair from the fellowship hall and set it next to the copy machine. As I sat, the machine finished its run, so I took the stack of bulletins from the tray and joined the two men in their folding.

“Do you get a lot of people here on Sundays?” I asked, surprised at the size of the pile.

“This time of year, ’bout two hundred,” Murdock said.

“Two hundred? From Kawshek?”

“From all over. This is a watermen’s church, which is why it’s near the marina. We serve a couple of other fishing villages that
don’t have a church of their own. They come over here for our services.”

“That’s great.”

“Yeah, well, we don’t kid ourselves,” Murdock said, shaking his head sadly. “A lot of ’em are just coming to socialize. I’d say half the folks who are in here on Sunday morning will be back in the bar by Saturday night.”

“So what can we do for you?” Dewey asked. “You looking for a church for yourself? We’d be right glad to have you here, you know.”

“Thank you, no. I already have a church,” I said. “I’m here on a different matter.”

I folded a bulletin in half and then ran my thumb down the crease, smoothing it out.

“I wasn’t completely honest with you fellows the other day,” I said. “I am a neighbor, and I am a friend of Shayna’s. But I’m also a private investigator—”