Never Con a Corgi (3 page)

"You mean the deal where he needed to buy your aunt's land, or the church's, in order to connect his other properties with the road?" Maura questioned, clearly remembering at least some of the conversation they had enjoyed so casually over pierogie casserole last night. Leigh had given her guests a quick overview of the situation after she had excused herself to take Cara's anxious call about the church meeting. But she hadn't told them everything. When you had a family like hers and you were friends with two married detectives—both of whom had a thing about not showing favoritism in official matters—you learned certain editing skills.

"Either both of those properties, or the land where the animal shelter is, or maybe both the church and Bess's neighbor Clem's place," Leigh explained. "It's a little complicated, but Lyle had several options. Two months ago, when he hired us to do the investment piece, he wasn't even worried about the access. I had no idea Aunt Bess's place was even involved until Cara showed me the mockups for the brochures."

Leigh's cousin Cara, a graphic designer of some repute, had for years now been doing high-profile jobs for Hook, the ad agency Leigh had helped to create. Cara didn't ordinarily work on brochures, and she hadn't been working on Lyle's. The woman was just plain nosy.

"When I saw the architect's drawings, I almost lost my lunch," Leigh continued. "These things never turn out as grandiose as the original plans, of course, but Lyle wanted more than just a fancy entryway with brick gateposts and a waterfall. He had a whole neighborhood shopping square laid out, with a coffee shop, boutiques, even a grocery market! In order to do even half of that, he'd have to buy
all
the land on that side of the road. It was awkward, under the circumstances, but Cara and I decided to warn him, right up front, that we didn't think our Aunt Bess would ever sell. Lyle just blew us off, saying that everyone had their price, and that he had surveyed those houses already and he was sure none of them were worth anything."

The detective issued a low, growling sound. "So," she asked gruffly. "What did you two do then?"

Leigh widened her eyes innocently. "
Do?
What do you mean?"

Maura growled again.

"We didn't do anything!" Leigh protested. "Aunt Bess already knew about it; she had ignored umpteen letters and phone calls already. Like we suspected, she had no intention of selling to the man at any price, and furthermore, she planned to see to it that the church didn't either. She's been dead set against development on Nicholson all along, and now those acres around her are about all that's left of the original woods. You know how Bess is...once she takes up a cause and digs her heels in—"

Maura raised a hand. "I'm familiar with the family trait, Koslow. Believe me. Now, proceed. What exactly led up to Lyle's outburst yesterday?"

Leigh took a breath. Now her own forehead was sweating. "Lyle paid for his brochures, and that was that. I didn't see him again until about two weeks ago, when Gil sent him to me for PR advice."

"Whoa, wait a minute!" Maura exclaimed. "Gil as in Gil March, Cara's husband, the county's highest-priced business consultant? Do
not
tell me he's involved in this, too!"

Leigh nibbled on a fingernail. Or at least, she started to. But her fingers smelled like corgi slobber. She put her hands at her sides instead, bracing herself.

"Would nearly getting in a fist fight with Lyle behind the church last night qualify as 'involved?'"

Maura's face turned an unpleasant purplish shade.

"I'll take that as a yes," Leigh said carefully. "But you'll be delighted to hear that I wasn't present for that particular event. All I know about their argument is what Cara told me over the phone, that—"

Maura raised another hand. Speaking calmly appeared to be an effort for her. "Don't tell me what Cara said. I'll deal with the two of them personally. Just tell me what happened when you saw Lyle two weeks ago. He hired you to do what?"

Leigh chose her words with care. The more she thought about it, the more she realized just how deeply her family
was
entangled with the affairs of one Brandon Lyle.

And not in a good way, either.

"Gil's known him a long time," she began. "They've done business before. But you'd have to ask Gil about that. All I know is that Brandon wanted Gil to help him save this housing development, and Gil—despite the obvious risks to family harmony—was trying to do his best. He sent Brandon to Hook because he thought we could put our best PR person on it—have them try to persuade the church, and maybe this guy Clem, to sell. I think Brandon had given up on Aunt Bess by that point, as well as the woman who leases land to the animal shelter, Anna Krull. If Brandon had her on board he could get his access road, at least, but she's even more of a tree-hugger than Aunt Bess is, and just as obstinate."

Leigh stopped and took a breath. Maura tapped her pen aggressively on her notepad, waiting for Leigh to go on.

"I don't want to see those hills leveled to make way for yet another crop of mushroom mansions any more than my Aunt Bess does," Leigh continued, wondering if the stab of guilt she felt at having worked with a scumbag like Lyle in the first place was showing. "But business is business. We do have a really good PR person, Geralyn Toms, so I put her on it. Who was I to say the development was a lost cause? As long as Lyle wasn't lying to people, I figured the other landholders had a right to make up their own minds. Geralyn is honest; she doesn't mislead people. But she is skilled at maintaining goodwill in tense situations."

"So what happened?" Maura prompted. The detective was still a little too purple for Leigh's tastes, but at least steam wasn't coming out of her ears.

"Geralyn set up an open meeting at the church for last night. She was also supposed to be meeting privately with Clem, Bess, and Anna—but that end of things wasn't going well. Anna and Bess politely refused her, and Clem wouldn't meet with her at all. Yesterday Geralyn told me that she'd finally caught up with him that morning—and he'd threatened her with a shotgun."

Maura turned her head to the side and muttered a string of words Leigh didn't often hear anymore, seeing as how Maura generally managed to control her mouth around the children.

Yet another benefit of being a parent.

"Geralyn was still willing to do the church meeting," Leigh continued, "but she refused to deal with Clem again. Lyle was furious. Started yelling, blaming Geralyn, calling her incompetent, among other things. He went totally off the rails. Sweet, mild-mannered Geralyn finally told the—"

"Watch it, Koslow," Maura warned again.

"Right. What I mean to say is, Geralyn told the fine, upstanding gentleman exactly what location he could place his job into and at what velocity he could place it there—"

"Yeah, I got it," Maura interrupted again. "Keep going."

"There's not much else to say," Leigh finished. "When she walked out, Lyle asked me if I could run the meeting myself, and I refused. I told him I wasn't trained as a negotiator, and that—despite what he seemed to think—I had no personal clout with the Church of the Horizon. He got furious all over again, cursed at me, cursed at everyone else in the office, and told us we were all incompetent and he would never do business with any of us ever again. I told him to leave or I would call security, and he cursed a little more, and then he left. That was about three o'clock in the afternoon, and that was the last I heard from him."

The detective did some more cursing of her own. "So you didn't go to the church meeting?"

"You know I didn't!"

"Well, where were—"

Leigh's raised eyebrows stopped her.

"Oh, right!" Maura exclaimed, her pained face erupting, albeit briefly, into a genuine smile. "You were with me and Gerry!"

Leigh smiled back. "A county detective and a city police lieutenant. Best alibi ever, eh?"

Maura snapped her notebook shut and slid off the picnic table. "The situation's bad enough, Koslow," she commented wryly. "But I suppose it could be worse. At least we won't have to scrounge up bail money this time."

Maura's mouth twisted suddenly into a frown, and Leigh could sense her next, unspoken thought.
At least not for you.

"Look, Leigh," Maura continued soberly. "The department's been cracking down on personal involvement in cases lately—we've had some problems. With my being friends with the person who found the body, as well as knowing Gil and Cara and your Aunt—there's no doubt I'll be off this case by tomorrow. But I can at least get it started right. I'm going to pull in our best guy, pronto, and as soon as I do, he and I will question Gil and Cara, and Bess. And until we get there, I don't want you telling any of them jack. Do you understand me?
Not.
One.
Word."

Leigh offered her best, most sincere salute. This was one promise she would have no trouble keeping. The list of things she would rather do than tell either Gil March or his doting wife that the man he'd publicly brawled with had been murdered later the same night was very long indeed.

That was, if Lyle
had
been murdered. Leigh was pretty sure she had seen at least one dark spot on his suit jacket, but she hadn't looked all that closely.

"Maura?" she asked, daring to be hopeful. "We wouldn't be having this conversation if you thought Lyle died of natural causes, obviously, but... is there any chance it was suicide?"

The detective offered a stern look. For a moment she seemed disinclined to answer. "I'll say this, Koslow," she said finally. "I've seen people find all kinds of creative ways to kill themselves. But I've never seen any man shoot himself in the back."

Chapter 4

Leigh sat in her car in the animal shelter parking lot, staring at her phone. She had deleted three unfinished text messages to her husband already. She started a fourth, which made no mention of corpses, but simply asked him if he could come home for lunch.

She deleted that, too. Warren had appointments downtown all day long. She could wait until dinner.

She looked toward the shelter, where her children were still happily walking, petting, feeding, and scooping. Maura's interrogation hadn't lasted nearly as long as Leigh thought it would; the kids' volunteer shift didn't end for another hour.

She nibbled on a fingernail—which smelled liked vanilla now, thanks to the soap in the church bathroom—and wondered what on earth she would tell the children. Even if the family did have detective friends, murder was hardly an ordinary topic for dinner conversation. How could she explain in a non-frightening way that not only had their mother stumbled upon a corpse in the middle of their favorite woods, but that their uncle was almost certainly going to be—

Leigh's phone buzzed in her hand. She looked down, hoping to see Warren's name, but seeing instead a call from Aunt Bess.

Her heart skipped a beat. The woman couldn't know already, could she? Unless Shannon or Michelle had called her...

"Hi, Aunt Bess," Leigh said tentatively, bracing for a maelstrom of rapid-fire questions. Her mother's older sister, always the dark sheep of the family, was the nosiest of the bunch. She was also impossible to say no to, reckless as a teenager, spirited as a polo pony, prone to involvement in every kind of natural and human disaster... and tremendous fun to be around.

"Hey there, kiddo!" Bess chirped merrily. "Listen, I was wondering, are your offspring working up at the shelter this morning? If so, why don't you swing by here after you pick them up? I've got the coolest new toy; I can't wait to show you all!"

Leigh let out her breath in a rush. Bess didn't know a thing.
Yet
. But she could at any moment, which meant the sooner Leigh accepted her invitation, the better. And
without
the kids. "A toy for whom?" she questioned.

"For me, of course!" Bess said with a chuckle. "Can you come?"

Leigh glanced at the time. At least seeing her Aunt Bess would give her something to do while she waited—besides worry about the coming nightmare for her normally straight-arrow cousin-in-law.

"I'll be right there," she agreed.

***

Leigh tried not to rubberneck as she passed the church, but it was difficult, seeing as how the parking lot was now packed with official-looking vehicles, and every other car on the road was stopping to look as well. If the Ivey sisters were still living in the house across the street they would be plastered to their picture window like flies; but according to Bess, the two were now wreaking equivalent havoc at a nearby assisted living facility, where they spent most of each day sitting comfortably in the lobby making mental notes of the comings and goings of the other residents and their visitors—much to the chagrin of at least one wandering husband.

Leigh drove on, then turned onto the unmarked private drive to Bess's house. In contrast to her mood, the road was peacefully picturesque as it meandered through mature oak and maple trees along the now-trickling creek. In the woods opposite the creek stood the trim, modest cottage which Anna Krull had built and moved into some twenty years before, when her family's ancient farmhouse at the end of the road had literally begun to crumple over her head. Anna, being no fool, had placed her own new drive on the near side of the spring flood zone, an option unfortunately unavailable to Aunt Bess and the road's other residents.

Another house soon loomed up on the right, this one considerably larger and more grandiose than Anna's. Leigh knew that until quite recently it had been owned by a family named Morrison, whom Bess now spoke of only as "those traitors," lumping them in with every other neighbor who'd taken Brandon Lyle's money and skedaddled. Leigh suspected that the Morrisons, like herself, probably preferred to live someplace where the only access road was neither riddled with manatee-sized potholes nor, at times, completely underwater. But there was no point in arguing such trivialities with her Aunt Bess, whose only response to the road's gradually deteriorating condition had been to purchase a Jeep with bigger wheels.