Love Under Two Jessops (24 page)

He guessed he understood that. Of course none of them had been very happy about that decision. They’d all joked some about ways they could just
happen
to show up at the restaurant and get themselves invited to that meeting.

This would keep him and Andrew from pissing off their woman—since they had given her their word that they would let her deal with Melvin.

Now all he had to do was go find his brother and give him the “good” news.

* * * *

“I don’t know how much help I’m going to be,” Carrie said.

Chloe reached over and clasped her sister’s hand. One of the reasons she’d been uncomfortable about this upcoming meeting was because of Carrie. Her baby sister was finally healing after all these years, and Chloe didn’t want anything to interfere with that.

Once a big sister, always a big sister.

So far, it seemed that Carrie was fine. Her only issue—the only one she’d admit to—was not being able to remember all that much about life before the death of their parents.

“Of course we’re interested in whatever information you could give us—whatever memories you might have of your parents and their relationship with Ralph Baxter,” Melvin Richardson said. “But mostly we just wanted to let you know what we’re doing, and what we know so far.”

The man seemed to sense Emily Anne approaching with a tray, for he sat back, looking content, waiting.

The other investigator—Connor Talbot—appeared to be a man on the edge. Chloe considered herself fairly good, when it came to reading others. That skill had been honed over the last decade, working in the service industry. When your bread and butter came from how well you pleased your clients, you learned to really see them, see through whatever façade they presented.

Connor Talbot carried a lot of baggage.

“Here we are, folks—two specials, and two chicken Caesar salads.”

Something about Emily Anne seemed a bit off today. Her smile was always big and bright, but today it had a bit of a nervous quality to it.

Chloe knew she was right when the adept waitress’s hand seemed to tremble just a bit as she set the luncheon specials—burgers and fries—down in front of the men.

“Is there anything else I can get y’all?”

Mr. Talbot looked up at her, and for just a moment Chloe thought that edge of his smoothed out, just a little.

“No, thank you, ma’am. This looks real good.”

Emily Anne nodded and beat what looked like a hasty retreat back to the kitchen. The men both put their attention on their plates. Chloe flicked a glance at her sister, wondering if Carrie had noticed the uncharacteristic behavior of her coworker. Carrie’s small shrug echoed Chloe’s confusion.

It seemed as if the investigators were attuned to their moods, for they both looked up at the same time.

“Is everything all right?” Mr. Richardson asked.

“Everything’s fine,” Chloe said.

“Do you usually have lunch with witnesses in the course of your investigation?” Carrie asked.

“No.” Mr. Talbot’s answer sounded a little short. “At least I don’t, but then this is my first case in the private sector.” He looked over at Mr. Richardson.

“This situation is unique,” Mr. Richardson said. “Our client of record is the Lusty Town Trust. As CEO of that Trust, Kate Benedict is our boss. She wanted us to touch base with you and keep you both completely in the loop. This is
your
past we’re investigating.”

“It isn’t really,” Carrie said. “You’re investigating our parents’ past.”

“Point taken.”

Chloe had spent the afternoon the day before with her sister—whose men had finally told her about the investigation—talking about the days leading up to the tragedy. It was the first time they’d really talked about their parents, and while they’d both cried, Chloe sensed that the tears had been good tears.

Carrie seemed to understand intrinsically that their parents would want them to move on, make their own way in the world, and be happy.

“I can’t imagine what Mom and Dad would have said about my marrying two men,” Carrie had said then.

“I think in the end, they would only want you to be happy.” Chloe believed that with all her heart. She thought back to Christmas Eve, and listening as Kate told the story of her courtship by and marriage to her husbands.

She couldn’t imagine, not even for one minute, her mother behaving the way Kate Benedict’s mother had behaved, more concerned with flash than substance.

Chloe pulled her thoughts back to the moment, and began to eat her lunch. It didn’t take the two men long to clean their plates. Chloe figured they both must be single.
Likely eat most of their meals in restaurants.

She was only able to eat about a half of her salad. The food was good, but whenever Chloe was nervous or tense about something it seemed her stomach shrank. She didn’t know, really, why the concept of this investigation had her so tied in knots. She knew it was the right thing to do. She had no doubt her father, if he had lived, would have wanted to nail his partner’s ass to the wall. Even if the man couldn’t be arrested, justice would be served if she could stand toe-to-toe with him and tell him that she knew what he’d done.

Emily Anne came by and scooped the plates. She seemed a little more herself, though she didn’t kibbutz with her or Carrie the way she would have done if they were alone—or with their men.

“Do y’all fancy some dessert? Or coffee?”

“I’d love some pecan pie, if you have it.” Mr. Richardson’s smile appeared to make Emily Anne as nervous as Mr. Talbot’s did.

“We do have it.” She nodded and then turned her attention to Mr. Talbot. “And you, sir?”

“It’s Connor, ma’am. Yes, pecan pie sounds good. And coffee, please, if it’s fresh.”

Emily Anne nodded. Her cheeks turned a little pink, and her smile looked as tentative as Chloe had ever seen it. “It will be. It’ll just take me a moment.”

“Food and service are both excellent here,” Mr. Talbot said after Emily Anne escaped again.

“Kelsey’s a good cook.”

“So are you, baby sister.” Chloe was proud of her sister’s talents. She’d worked as an interior designer, and Chloe had absolutely loved her work. But Carrie hadn’t cared for the way some clients treated her, and she’d felt hemmed in, working for a large firm.

She said that being Kelsey’s sous chef suited her to a tee.

Carrie had ordered some lemon meringue pie. Chloe did kind of envy that her sister could eat anything and never have to worry about gaining an ounce. She contented herself with her cup of coffee, perfectly fresh and delicious and all the dessert Chloe needed. At least that was the story she told herself nine days out of ten.

Time to get my mind on the reason we’re all here
. “Do you have any progress to report?”

“Some,” Mr. Richardson said. “I’m not sure how much either of you know about the events that followed the death of your parents.”

“Jake kind of refreshed my memory,” Chloe said. “I asked him to share with us the information he had. Some I’d recalled, of course. Like the way ‘Uncle Ralph’ refused to take any calls from me.” That still burned her ass. He’d been her dad’s partner, a regular visitor to the house. He had been, in fact, her parents’ closest friend.

Melvin reached into his inside jacket pocket and pulled out his smartphone, and began to consult the notes he obviously kept there. “Well, he had apparently already run afoul of a notorious badass—a loan shark and racketeer by the name of Brody Carp. He was into Mr. Carp for a couple of hundred thousand dollars, a gambling debt.”

“I don’t think my dad knew about that,” Chloe said.

“We’re pretty certain he didn’t because the day your parents left for Tennessee, Baxter forged your father’s signature on a loan application for the business. The long and the short of it was, the loan app was immediately frozen upon the death of your father, and Baxter’s days were numbered. Until he convinced Carp that as executor of his partner’s estate, he was in the position to give himself one hell of a payday.”

“Which he apparently did,” Carrie said.

“Which he apparently did,” Mr. Richardson agreed. “We know that he recognized a public defender—an unfortunate man by the name of Neil Jackson—likely from one of the illegal gaming houses he would sometimes attend, as Mr. Jackson had a history of gambling, too. We know he requested that particular PD be assigned to your case, and because the court really didn’t care who the hell represented you, his request was granted.”

“Why do you call the bastard unfortunate?” Chloe asked. “As far as I know, he was in that scam up to his ass.”

“Well, yes and no. Not the sharpest tool in the shed, was poor Neil. He had a gambling problem, and apparently a drinking problem, too. In fact, he was on a long, slippery slope and nearly at the end of it.” Mr. Talbot sat back and looked over at Mr. Richardson, who nodded.

“Jackson disappeared without a trace at about the same time that Baxter did, but we’ve been able to uncover one fake identity Baxter had set up. We know where he was up until about six months after pulling off his scam. We know where the money was, too. And then—likely because Carp had discovered his phony name and his location, both he and the money—all five million of it—disappeared. That is our starting point.”

“Wait a minute.
All
five million?” Carrie looked over at Chloe. “I thought that Jackson was in on it.”

“He was. We think that for a time the two men stuck together. But not for long. We think Baxter killed Jackson so he could have all the money to himself—and of course to get rid of an eye witness.”

Chloe sat up, her gaze darting from one investigator to the other. “Murder doesn’t have a statute of limitations,” she said.

The men both looked pleased as hell that she picked up on that so fast. “That’s right. We find the bastard, we can probably nail him for Jackson’s murder.”

“What do these properties—these burn sites—all have in common?” Grant asked.

They were gathered in Captain Ferris’s office at the firehouse in Hamilton. They’d been going over what information he and his investigators had gathered, so far. Spread before them on the man’s desk was a map of Hamilton County, showing the locations and dates of the suspicious fires.

Artie shook his head. “Not a lot that we can tell. They’re all in Hamilton County. They’re all vacant pasturelands or farmlands. Beyond that, they seem to have nothing in common.”

“No connection in the ownership of them?” Andrew asked.

“No. The first one was part of a large operation—Mesquite Management—they have property all over Central Texas. They’re not even filing an insurance claim, just writing off the loss, of which, dollar wise, there isn’t much. The second and third properties were owned temporarily by two separate financial institutions, and both were for sale. This last one had been purchased about a year ago by Alan MacLean.”

“The Alan MacLean who’s head of MacLean Industries?” Grant knew the man, thanks to family connections. MacLean and the Benedicts had done business together in times past.

“That’s the one. The man is looking to have a little getaway place to go to on the weekends, sort of like President Bush has over there in Crawford.”

“I see what you mean when you said it appears as if that bastard’s marching toward Benedict County.” On the map, with the fire sites marked one through four, it did indeed seem that way.

“It’s been so damn dry with this latest drought that the accelerant he’s using—a combination of easy-to-obtain petroleum products—are sufficient to get the target burning, and burning hot.”

“If this were summer, we might catch a break in that his accelerant would partially evaporate before he could light it,” Andrew said.

“Tell me about it.” Artie ran a hand through his hair. “In each case it appears that he’s walked onto the property from the road, so he’s likely got a vehicle of some sort parked close by. But so far, the authorities have been unable to find anyone who remembers a car or truck parked in the areas in question at the times in question.”

“We’ll keep wracking our brains,” Andrew said. “Meanwhile, when the next fire call comes in, let us know.”

“So far, except for that first one y’all came out to, they’ve been relatively small and easy to contain.” Artie frowned. “My gut tells me, though, that it’s just a matter of time, before someone gets hurt—or until one of these fires gets out of control and there’s real loss of property.”

“That’s what I think, too,” Grant said. People didn’t set fires for no reason. There had to be a reason for these fires. They just hadn’t found it yet. “Even if you think it’s going to be a small fire, let us know, anyway. We won’t bring the entire team, but the two of us will come.”

“All right. Hell, I’ll even put y’all in charge of the damn thing. Maybe having the complete overview might help you see something we’re missing.”

“Don’t need to be in charge,” Grant said. “Just need to stop this son of a bitch.”

Artie gave them a copy of all the evidentiary notes on a jump drive to take back to Lusty with them.

As Grant drove toward home, he let his thoughts linger on what they knew so far. He figured that later, they’d spend some time going over the evidence, just the two of them. He had the feeling that the answer was probably pretty simple, and when they figured out
why
the fires were being set, they might then easily be able to know who, and have a better chance of stopping their arsonist.