Money To Burn (8 page)

“Tom was engaged to Lydia Talbot,” he explained. “The lucky bastard.”

Yeah, real lucky. Not everyone gets to die as the fiancée of a millionairess.

“They must have kept it pretty quiet,” I said, not adding that Lydia had said it was pretty much a state secret. I was surprised that Cosgrove even knew.

“They did keep it quiet,” he said. “On account of her old man. But I knew both of them pretty well, so I figured it out and asked Tom about her one day. He admitted they’d been seeing each other, then said they were engaged. I was surprised. Lydia is not exactly the marrying type.”

The way he said her name got me to thinking. Specifically, it got me to thinking that maybe Franklin Cosgrove had liked Lydia Talbot even more than he’d liked Thomas Nash.

“You know Lydia Talbot?” I asked.

“Sure.” His eyes slid away from mine. “We sort of grew up together. Our parents belonged to the same clubs. I know her family. She’s younger than me, of course. We never dated or anything, if that’s what you’re after.”

It wasn’t what I was after, because I had already figured out that he was one of the handsome fortune seekers Lydia had complained about. I was ashamed of myself for ever having thought Franklin Cosgrove was cute. He was undeniably attractive, but he was definitely one of those guys who’s always wondering what’s in it for him. He probably palmed the five-dollar bills out of the collection plate at church on Sundays.

“You’re young to be heading up a company,” I said. “Must be nice to have it made before you’re forty.”

His laugh sounded practiced. “I wish. We were doing okay, but Tom’s death is a major setback. I’m selling out and moving on. I’ve got an investment banker working on it now. There’s no growth left without Tom and his new ideas.”

“Going back to the corporate grind?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I have a standing offer from T&T to come back on board in marketing any time I want. For a lot of money. Easy money. It’s tempting when you consider my option is either starting over with a new company or putting back together the pieces of this one.”

“Yes,” I said. “But then you’d be working for Donald Teasdale.”

“So you’ve met him.” His smile was fleeting. “Actually, I wouldn’t be working for Donald Teasdale. He would be working for me.”

That was interesting. “No love lost between the two of you?”

“It’s tough to lose what you’ve never found.”

“They could use some help in marketing at T&T,” I admitted. “I was just over there. Their advertising ideas were terrible. Not a single phallic symbol in the bunch. I hear you’re the marketing whiz behind King Buffalo.”

“That’s me.”

“I also hear that you were locked in a disagreement with Nash about how to divide the royalties for the new curing process.”

He tilted back in his chair. “Hold on,” he said. “Stop right there.” He laughed uneasily and straightened his collar while I watched in careful silence. When I didn’t respond, he explained in a rush, which of course made him sound guilty though it didn’t prove that he actually was. “We were in negotiations for dividing the royalties and close to agreement,” he said. “He was always going to get the majority share in any royalties, as well as he should. The agreement was almost completed. Now none of us are getting anything because he was too paranoid to keep backup research files or notes. Everything went up in smoke. It’s gone. I lost a lot of money when he died, in case you’re fishing for a motive.”

I was fishing—and Cosgrove looked like a pretty good worm. “What if I told you that Donald Teasdale heard that the two of you were really going at it about the royalties?”

“I’d tell you that it was all wishful thinking on Teasdale’s part. Donald is still pissed we left and set up shop together, and even more pissed that Talbot would take me back in a heartbeat. As his boss.”

I hated to admit it, but I believed Cosgrove. If it’s a choice between believing a short scumbag or a tall, handsome one—frankly, I take the low road and choose the high way.

“Who do you think might have had a motive for killing Nash?” I asked.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Cosgrove said. “Whoever ishd. “Whowas harassing him. Someone who wants King Buffalo to fail.”

“But who do you think that was?” I asked. I was starting to get annoyed at this by-now standard response. “And why weren’t they harassing you?”

“That’s easy,” he answered. “They couldn’t find me. I’m on the road ninety percent of the time, meeting with suppliers and distributors. Hammering out ad campaigns. Kissing ass in Washington. That sort of thing. To tell you the truth, I never even witnessed any of the incidents. I just heard about them. The night Tom died, I was in Atlanta on my way to Mobile. I didn’t even know about it until the next afternoon when I tried to call in. But if I had to guess, I’d say that it was some competitor.”

“What about a possible personal motive?” I asked. “Just in case.”

He thought about it for a moment. “Maybe a woman that Tom had inadvertently pissed off?” he suggested. “I mean, come on, duct-taped rabbits? That sounds like a female to me.”

“Why’s that?” I asked. “Men blow living things apart, but women duct tape them?”

He looked uncomfortable, having gotten it through his handsome skull that I was offended. “I just meant that there seemed to be a lot of personal anger in the incidents. At least the way Tom described them. Like a lovers’ quarrel gone bad.”

Why did I have a feeling he was an expert on lovers’ quarrels?

“You sound almost like you aren’t sure they really happened,” I said, reading the skepticism in his voice.

“Oh, they happened all right,” Cosgrove assured me. “Some of the phone calls were so scary that I lost two good secretaries over them. And a third after the fire. She refused to start work. I had to hire someone else.”

“Which reminds me,” I said. “Weren’t all the harassing calls from a man?”

“Yes,” he admitted. “But they could have been made by a woman with one of those distorter things. Anyone can change their voice these days.”

I hated to admit it, but he was right. I’d have to ask Bobby D. about those gizmos and see if they were readily available in the Triangle.

“Got any spurned woman candidates in mind?” I asked.

“Well…” his voice trailed off as he looked out a window. “Is that your Porsche?” he asked suddenly, staring dfony, starown at my lousy parking job. “I thought I saw you getting out of it earlier.”

“Yup,” I said. “That’s mine.”

“Wanna sell it? I’d give you a good price.”

“No way.”

He sighed. “Seems a shame to waste a classic car like that on a woman.”

“True,” I agreed. “But I really need it. So I can run over men with style.”

He blinked at me without comment, then stared back out the window again. Several blocks west, the Durham Bulls stadium was bustling with an afternoon home game. I’d have killed for a seat along the first base line and a cold beer.

“Well?” I prompted him. “Was Tom having problems with anyone? Male or female, if you don’t mind. I can’t say I share your hormone-based theory.”

He thought about it, casting his scheming mind over an entire Rolodex, no doubt, before coming up with someone he could tar with his brush of suspicion. What a worm. Ever notice how you can’t help but hate a tattletale, even when you’re glad to be hearing what they’re tattling?

“Tom had a big problem with a farmer out near Lake Gaston,” Cosgrove finally offered. “The guy was using unapproved chemicals on his crop, or something like that. Tom got pissed. He’d contracted with some farmers to follow his guidelines exactly, but said this guy could compromise his pilot program. So Tom fired the guy from the project. I think it was some old geezer who lost a lot of money because of it. He might have been mad enough to kill.” He stood up and started for a file cabinet, then

stopped. “Shit. I forgot. The files are all gone. What was his name?”

He picked up the phone and dialed an outside number. “Roberta?” he said in a voice so fakely cheerful that I knew at once that Roberta hated his guts and had told him so. “It’s me and I’m not calling to talk you back into working here. I found an excellent replacement.”

Whoa. There was a hell of a lot of subtext in that one word “replacement.” If he’d slapped Roberta across the face, it might have been kinder. I knew then that Cosgrove was one of those guys who thinks that screwing his secretary is a well-deserved job perk for a successful man, ranking right up there with a company car and a private bathroom.

“I need to know who that farmer was that Tom had a problem with. Cops want to know,” Cosgrove was saying, proving he’d just as soon lie as blink. “I think he was from over by norom oveLake Gaston. Remember? It happened last spring. Just after our Bahamas trip, if that helps you remember.” His laugh made me want to turn my head away, but it worked on the woman on the other end. Cosgrove was silent for a moment, listening, then thanked her, made some meaningless promise to call back soon and hung up.

“The name is Hale,” he told me. “Sanford Hale. Like I said, he lives in some small town near Lake Gaston. I’d talk to him if I were you.” He held up a finger to forestall any more questions and picked up the phone. Punching an intercom number, he went into his oily act again. Only this time he managed to convince his current secretary to pick up his dry cleaning after work and find a nice gift for his mother in time for her weekend birthday. “Take an extra fifteen minutes for lunch tomorrow,” he magnanimously offered. “Get her something personal.”

Watching him in action for twenty minutes had convinced me that Franklin Cosgrove was a sleazeball. Still, that might turn out to be in my favor. Under the theory that it takes one to know one, he might be the perfect guy to help identify suspects. If he was telling the truth about being out of town the night Nash died, he was off the hook. Unless he’d hired someone, of course, but his explanation of the money that Nash’s death was costing him rang true. Besides, Maynard Pope said it had been an amateur and I believed him.

“Did you have key man insurance?” I asked him casually, having seen Double Indemnity only the week before.

“Of course.” He stared at me, affronted. “Why?”

“How much?” I countered.

“Two million.” He looked uncomfortable.

I thought about it. That was two million more reasons than anyone else I could think of had to kill Nash.

“That’s nothing,” he protested against my silence. “Every penny of it will have to be used to whip the company into good enough shape to sell it. And we owe a lot of people money, believe me, we were in the building-up phase. No bank is going to lend to us now that Tom is dead. I’m not seeing any of that two million. I need it for cash flow. I’ll be lucky to walk away from here with the shirt on my back.”

Soon he’d be on his knees, sobbing about a vow of poverty. His hypocrisy was choking the oxygen out of the air so I decided to pull the plug on his performance. “Who irons that shirt for you?” I asked suddenly. “They’re good.”

“A friend does,” he said, but his eyes flickered to the open door. Creep. He was paying her a crummy salary and making her work around the clock, all for the privilege of serving him.

“What about Randolph Talbot?” I asked. “irt” I askThink he might have had something to do with your partner’s death?”

“God, no!” he exploded, looking nervously around the room as if listening devices were planted everywhere. “And I’d advise you not to go around saying that, if I were you.”

I found his reaction odd. Why the sudden fear?

“Talbot is that powerful?” I asked.

“Too powerful to care about Tom,” Cosgrove insisted. “Even if he was going to marry his daughter. Besides, Randolph Talbot liked Tom. Always did. He was happy they were getting married.”

“What?” I asked, confused. Lydia told me her father had been furious.

“Sure. Tom talked to him on the phone about it just a week before he died. I heard them. He was assuring the old guy that his intentions were honorable, that kind of crap. He wanted to go over and talk to the old man in person. It made me sick to see him groveling like that over a woman, but it kind of amused me at the same time. Tom Nash, oblivious to the female species, gaga over some girl.”

Yeah. But that “some girl” was some girl, I wanted to say. I found Cosgrove’s seeming detachment just a little too studied and I was also confused by his contention that Nash and Randolph Talbot had been on speaking terms. If they were, Lydia sure as hell had never known. I’d need to find out more.

I didn’t think I’d get anything else useful out of Cosgrove. I could practically hear the wheels turning in his mind as he sat behind that desk. Everything from here on out was likely to be too self-serving to be useful. I thanked him for his time and stood to go.

“How about dinner?” he asked. “They make a great Cosmopolitan at Papa’s.”

“No thanks,” I told him. “I’m trying to quit.” I was sticking to my guns about red hair, I decided. Especially when it covered a devious mind like his.

He didn’t look too disappointed. He was a serial charmer and had asked out of habit, not desire. Screw him. Or, more to the point, don’t.

I took a look at Cosgrove’s new secretary on the way out. She was plain and plump, with pale stringy hair and a wrinkled blouse that gaped open at the bustline. Guess she’d been too busy ironing his shirts to give her own a glance. She gave me a quick look, toting up whether or not I was competition, then avoided my eyes. I felt bad about it. Her boss had started using her in less than two weeks and I knew she had a lot of heartache ahead of her if she was naive enough to think that Franklin Cosgrove gave a shit about her.