Real Estate and Murder (A Port Grace Cozy Mystery Book 1) (2 page)

G
eorgia put
the phone back in her purse right as the elevator dinged.

“What’s going on? Who are you? Why are there cop cars outside?” said the curvy redhead who came out of the elevator.

“I’m Georgia Mason. I’m—”

“Oh yeah. You’re Bill’s girl. Bruce mentioned you’d be coming. What’s going on?”

“I don’t really know how to tell you this,” said Georgia, looking around for Chief Harris, “but Mr. Fowler is dead.”

The redhead took a step back and put a hand to her chest. Then her whole face twisted in anguish and she let out a wail so loud and terrible it made Georgia jump. Georgia stared, struck dumb, as the woman sank to her knees and wailed into her hands.

“Oh, Bruce, no!”

Chief Harris came flying out into the hallway. After a quick, questioning look at Georgia, who shrugged her shoulders, Cooper bent down next to the woman.

“Ma’am, I’m very sorry for your loss,” he said gently. “Are you Mrs. Fowler? I didn’t expect you to get here so fast.”

“I’m not his
wife
!” said the woman, glaring at Cooper as though the notion was an insult. “I’m his secretary!”

Georgia and Cooper exchanged a suspicious look.

“Oh, well,” said Cooper, clearing his throat, “were you here last night?”

“Yes, but Mr. Fowler stayed late again,” the woman said through her sobs.

“What’s your name?”

“Cynthia Myers.”

“Miss Myers, I know this is a shock. Please take a seat.”

Cooper helped Cynthia into a chair, looking a little overwhelmed by her continuous wails.

“Miss Myers,” he began cautiously, “you may have been one of the last people to see Mr. Fowler alive. Once you’re feeling a little better, would you mind answering some questions?”

“Not at all,” said Cynthia from behind her hands.

The elevator dinged again. A man and woman got out, looking just as confused as Cynthia had. Cooper walked down the hall to speak with them, but Georgia stayed with Cynthia. Something about the secretary’s dramatic reaction was gnawing at her. She sat in the chair next to Cynthia’s and put a gentle hand on her shoulder. At her touch, Cynthia’s wails quieted. She sniffled into her hands for a moment and then looked up at Georgia with watery eyes.

“You cared very much for Bruce?” said Georgia.

“Yes. I mean, I saw him every day. It’s sort of hard not to care, you know? Especially about somebody as charming and funny as Bruce.” Cynthia’s smile at fond memories of Bruce shattered into sobs again.

Georgia scolded herself for being so quick to jump to conclusions. Of course Cynthia would be upset by the death of a man she had worked with every day. Georgia herself was not prone to such dramatic outbursts of pain and shock, but plenty of people were, and Cynthia seemed to be one of them. It was just that, with so many complaints about Bruce from females, Georgia hadn’t quite believed her father when he had said many women found Bruce charming. But Cynthia proved Bill right.

Georgia glanced over at the elevator. The two agents who’d just arrived were shaking their heads at everything Cooper said, and Cooper wasn’t completely hiding his disappointment.

“Thank you for sitting with me,” said Cynthia, pulling back Georgia’s attention.

“Of course.”

The elevator opened for a third time to reveal a slim blonde in a jade green blazer, a matching pencil skirt, and a white blouse.

Georgia watched Cooper say something to the two agents he was speaking with, and the man and woman both passed the blonde on their way into the elevator. Cooper was letting them go, so they must not have known anything useful.

Georgia frowned. She would have liked to have talked to them, at least introduced herself. She had told the cop so. She wasn’t going to let him send another of her staff members away, so she told Cynthia she would be back.

“Oh my God!” the blonde was saying as Georgia approached. “Mr. Fowler is dead?”

Tears glittered in her eyes, but she did not burst into hysterics as Cynthia had.

“He was murdered actually,” said Cooper.

The woman put a hand over her mouth. “Murder?”

“Yes, so I’m very sorry, but I’m going to have to ask you some questions.”

The woman dropped her hand, cleared her throat, and straightened her blazer. “Of course. I understand.”

Georgia decided she liked the woman. She was tough, and she looked put together. When Georgia reached Chief Harris’s side, the woman blinked at her for a second and then held out her hand.

“You’re Georgia Mason, aren’t you?”

“Yes. I don’t know if you were told, but I came to help out the branch. I never anticipated this. I’m sorry we had to meet this way.”

“Yes. I recognized you from your picture in our brochure. Mr. Fowler told us you would be coming. I, well, I researched you a bit,” the woman said with an embarrassed smile. “I’m officially a big fan of what you’ve done for the business. My name is Delia Schultz.”

“You flatter me,” said Georgia. “Very nice to meet you.”

“So you’re a big deal, huh?” said Cooper, looking both bemused at her intrusion and impressed by what he had heard.

“Something like that,” said Georgia with a smirk.

“Miss Schultz,” said Cooper, pulling his eyes from Georgia with effort, “when did you last see Mr. Fowler?”

“Last night, just a little before eight.”

Georgia sensed Cooper’s excitement and saw the twitch of his jaw as he tried to contain it.

“I stayed a little late because, as Miss Mason knows, things have been a little tough around here, and I have bills to pay. I needed Mr. Fowler’s advice about a property, so I stopped by his office to see if he was still there. After we talked, I decided to go home. As I was leaving his office, his secretary asked if he needed anything else. He didn’t, so we walked out together. That’s her over there actually.”

“Yes. That’s about as much as I’ve gotten from her,” said Cooper, looking to where Delia pointed. “She’s a little distraught.”

“I’d never really talked to her until last night,” said Delia, “but she seems a bit of a drama queen.”

“What did you talk about?”

“Well, it wasn’t just the two of us. See, when we got outside, Mrs. Fowler was waiting in a car. It was sort of weird, but she rolled down the window and called us over, and I mean, you can’t really blow off the boss’s wife.” Georgia and Cooper returned Delia’s sly smile. “She asked Cynthia if Mr. Fowler would be out soon. Apparently she’d been waiting over an hour to go to dinner with him and he wasn’t answering his phone. Cynthia said he was still working, and that seemed to really make Mrs. Fowler angry, but then she got this strange, wild look on her face, and out of nowhere she asked Cynthia and I to join her for drinks. She said something like, ‘Let him wait around on me for a change. When he’s ready to go, I won’t be here. Let’s go have some fun.’ It seemed rude to decline, and she had that crazy look in her eye. I didn’t really know either of them, but we had a pretty decent time. Girls’ night.”

“Did you see or hear anything out of the ordinary before you left the office? Had Mr. Fowler had any recent arguments with anyone?”

“No arguments, but now that you mention it, I remember when we came out of the elevator, we heard a thudding noise from the stairwell. It made us jump, but I didn’t think much of it. It’s an old building. It makes lots of noises. You could ask the janitor if he heard something. We passed him on our way to the elevator, but he looked like he was packing up for the night.”

“Thank you, Miss Schultz. You’ve been very helpful. Here’s my card. Call if you think of anything else. You’re free to go.”

Delia took the card and looked to Georgia. “I’ll see you bright and early tomorrow morning?”

“I’ll be here, but I understand if you and the other staff would like a day off.”

“Mr. Fowler loved this company. The best thing we can do in his memory is get things turned around as soon as possible.”

Georgia gave Delia an appreciative nod and a smile.

“Our coroner tells me liver temp suggests Mr. Fowler died right around eight p.m.,” said Cooper once the elevator closed on Delia. “I’ll need Cynthia to verify the story. If it’s true, they may have just missed the killer. If their stories don’t match up, one of them could be the killer.”

“I hope not,” said Georgia with a grimace. “They both seem nice, and I can’t afford to lose more staff.”

“Something about the secretary is rubbing me the wrong way,” said Cooper.

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” said Georgia hesitantly.

But after talking to Cynthia and getting her story through the tears and sniffles, it matched Delia’s down to the noise in the stairwell and Victoria Fowler’s odd behavior.

“Now I’m back to square one,” said Cooper, rubbing at his jaw, looking distressed. “Everyone I’ve talked to has an alibi, and all I’ve got to go on is a thudding noise. Maybe the janitor will give me something, but somehow I doubt it.”

“I made a call to my P.I. friend. He’s coming into town tomorrow,” said Georgia, prepared for a negative reaction from the chief.

“Really? That could be helpful,” he said, surprising Georgia. “I…well, in case you hadn’t noticed…I’m sort of rusty when it comes to homicide. Help is much appreciated.”

“You’re a humble man, Chief Harris. I like that. My friend and I will keep an eye on the staff, see if we can get anything else out of them in a more casual setting.”

“I’d appreciate that, Miss Mason. And you can call me Cooper.”

R
yan arrived
around noon the following day. Georgia was deep in financial reports and property information. She had made an office for herself out of a small, unused room on the ground floor, since Bruce’s office was a crime scene. Cynthia sat in a chair next to a little table with a phone, doing her best to perform her secretarial duties for Georgia, but every time the phone rang with someone asking for Bruce, she had to hand the phone to Georgia in between renewed tears.

When Ryan knocked and opened the door, Georgia hardly registered his presence for a moment. She did a double take, and the burly, dirty-blond man in a brown trench coat and fedora opened his arms for a hug.

“Hiya, doll. You called for sexy private I? I’m here to deliver.”

Georgia laughed and got up to embrace him.

“So, if I know you, you want to get straight down to business,” said Ryan after a casual exchange about his flight and how he’d been doing. “Give me the scoop.”

Ryan sat in Georgia’s chair while she told him everything she knew. She began to feel a familiar buzz, talking to her old college friend. Her mother had been a puzzle solver, and she’d passed the trait on to Georgia. Georgia loved a good challenge in the work field, and she loved a good mystery in her books, movies, and television. Being friends with Ryan had allowed her to solve a few mysteries in real life, too.

“Ask Chief Harris for copies of Bruce’s finances and phone records,” said Ryan when she was done. “Sounds like he’d just about give you anything if you ask nice. I’m curious about the wife, and I think you’re right to suspect the secretary of something, but right now, let’s find that janitor. You think he’s here now?”

T
he janitor’s
name was Doug Cranston, and Georgia and Ryan found him in a storage room on the ground floor, eating his lunch atop a file cabinet.

“Yeah, I remember seeing them walking toward the elevator together around the time I was getting ready to leave,” said Doug when Georgia gave him descriptions of Cynthia and Delia. “That redhead is always leaving gum stuck to the inside of her office trashcan. Drives me batty.”

“So, you were the last one in the building with Mr. Fowler?” said Ryan.

Doug’s brow furrowed. “Hey, don’t be getting any ideas,” he said, taking one hand away from his sub sandwich to point a finger at Ryan. “I barely knew the man. I didn’t want him dead. I just wanted to get home from this crappy job.”

“No one said you wanted him dead,” said Ryan, fixing Doug with an intimidating look that suggested Doug had just given something away.

Georgia saw Doug’s anger closing up his face, making his posture closed and defensive as he put down the sandwich and crossed his arms.

“Mr. Cranston,” said Georgia, putting herself slightly in front of Ryan, “we’re only asking you these questions because we need your help. You were the last person in the building before the killer struck. Miss Myers and Miss Schultz say they heard a noise in the stairwell on the ground floor as they were leaving. We were wondering if you heard or saw anything on this floor.”

Doug sat a little straighter and picked his sandwich back up.

“No, I never saw anything. I was putting my cleaning things up in that tiny little janitor’s closet. Whoever did it would have had to walk right by me. There’s only the one hallway up there. They would have had to wait for me to leave, or killed me, too.” Doug set his sandwich down at the thought. “As for hearing anything, I listen to music through my earbuds when I work.”

“So you left shortly after the two women?” said Ryan.

“Yeah, only about five, ten minutes later.”

“Did you see them getting into a car with another woman when you came out?”

“No. The only cars in the parking lot when I left were mine and Mr. Fowler’s.”

After they’d left Doug to enjoy the rest of his lunch break, Georgia said, “Do you believe him?”

“He didn’t show any of the typical signs of lying,” said Ryan. “Didn’t seem nervous. He did get defensive real fast when I pointed out he was the last one here. I think, for now, everyone we’ve talked to needs to be kept in mind, but I wouldn’t put him high on the list.”

“The only person we haven’t talked to is Bruce’s wife,” said Georgia. “I think I’ll give her a call and see if she’ll have us over.”

“I’ll go grab us some lunch,” said Ryan. “You have a preference?”

“Yeah. The Rainbow Fish is the best seafood in town, and it’s just down the street. You can’t come to a seaside town and not try the seafood.”

“Seafood it is then.”

Ryan set off for his car, and Georgia pushed open her office door.

“Cynthia, can you get Mrs. Fowler on the phone for me?”

“Why do you want to talk to her?” said Cynthia, her nose wrinkled. “She doesn’t know anything about real estate. She doesn’t care about this business. She just cares that it pays for her jewelry.”

“Nevertheless,” said Georgia, her voice stern, “I’d like to speak with her. Get her on the phone, please.”

Cynthia scowled the whole time she dialed.

“
N
ice house
,” said Georgia as she and Ryan walked around the fountain in the middle of the drive. “The beach is within walking distance.”

“Well, if you manage a real estate business, I guess it would be kind of embarrassing to have a crummy house,” said Ryan with a chuckle.

Georgia shook her head at him, smiling, and said, “Take off that coat, Ryan. You look like an idiot. It’s eighty degrees out here.”

“Great style comes at a price, doll face.”

Georgia snorted and rang the doorbell. A stunning brunette with sharp features and sweet blue eyes opened the door in a yellow sundress.

“Mrs. Fowler?” said Georgia, a little taken aback at how young the woman looked. She could be no older than early thirties. When her father had said Victoria was younger, Georgia had pictured a woman more her own age, although she herself was often mistaken for thirty-five. Perhaps Mrs. Fowler had a youthful face, too.

“Yes. You must be Miss Mason,” said Victoria, her voice soft as bunny fur.

“You can call me Georgia.” She held out a hand that Victoria shook weakly.

“Is this the private investigator you hired to help with my husband’s case?”

“Yes. This is Ryan Yates. He normally works in New York, so he’s had lots of experience.”

“Please come in,” said Victoria with a closed-lip smile.

She ushered them into a TV room with a giant flat screen inside a dark wood armoire, a large L-shaped sofa, and an easy chair.

“Would you like to sit in here or on the patio? It’s shaded.”

“I think my friend here might roast if we sit outside,” said Georgia. “Making him take off that trench coat is like making him cut off a limb.”

Ryan wrinkled his brow at Georgia and shook off the coat to reveal a white button-down.

“The patio sounds grand,” he said.

“It’s a miracle!” said Georgia.

“Okay, well, follow me,” said Victoria, looking a little perplexed.

The patio had an awning to shade the palm-tree woven patio furniture. Georgia leaned back in one of the chairs and enjoyed the slight breeze on her neck.

“It’s very kind of you, hiring a New York private investigator for my husband,” said Victoria, folding her hands primly over her crossed legs.

“Your husband was a good friend of my father’s. It’s the least I could do.”

“These local cops are flailing about like buffoons,” said Victoria. “That Chief Harris kept asking me the same thing over and over, just in different ways.”

“What was that?” said Ryan.

“About why I asked those two girls to have drinks with me, Cynthia and Delia. I told him over and over that I was fed up. Bruce was married to his work as much as to me. I can’t tell you how many times he cancelled our plans to stay late at the office. When he stood me up again that night and wouldn’t answer his phone, I’d had it. I saw those two girls and I said to myself, ‘Teach him a lesson, Victoria. Have some fun without him. Make him wonder where you are and what you’re doing. Then maybe he’ll pay attention again.’ I knew Cynthia casually from stopping by the Bruce’s office, so I asked them to go out for drinks with me.”

“So, Bruce had changed since you first got married? He’d started neglecting you a little bit?” said Ryan, his lips pulled down in a pitying look.

“I know it’s because he’d been having problems at work,” said Victoria, getting teary, her soft voice shaking. “I get it. It was just hard. He used to be so attentive. He used to compliment me all the time—call me beautiful, tell me what a wonderful cook I was, tell me he couldn’t live without me. That started to change after Bill Mason put him in charge about a year and a half ago. It was like he didn’t have time for me anymore. It was those pushy clients, always stressing him out. I missed him, and now I’ll just have to go on missing him forever.”

She let out a sob and covered her face. Ryan pulled out a hanky and offered it to her.

“Thank you. You’re very kind,” she said, dabbing at her watery eyes and leaving spots of mascara on the hanky. “I’m sorry.”

“No need to apologize,” said Georgia, with a sad but encouraging smile. “We’re sorry to have to bring it all up.”

“It’s okay. I want to help.”

“Mrs. Fowler, what did you mean by pushy clients?” said Ryan.

“Someone was always giving him trouble,” said Victoria with a scowl. “One of the more recent ones was a woman named Hilary something. Oh Bruce raved about her. He hardly even touched the dinner I made that night. If only I could’ve gotten my hands on her. He was grouchy the whole time he was working with her. Then she had the audacity to call up our house and yell at the both of us over the phone.”

“What was she so angry about?”

“Oh, she blamed Bruce because she lost a deal on a house. It was her own darn fault! She wouldn’t listen to Bruce. She wanted to play hardball with the seller. Bruce told her you had to be charming and negotiate terms. Bruce knew how to talk.” Victoria sighed dreamily. “He swept me off my feet the first day I met him. That Hilary woman wouldn’t listen. Before Bruce could find some even ground about how they were going to handle the deal, the house sold to someone else. Bruce was furious. He wouldn’t answer her calls at the office, so she called here. Yelled right in my ear when I answered, saying he’d sabotaged her deal. She’s a vile woman. No wonder she’s single. Acting like a man is no way to win one.” She gazed off into memory again. “Bruce always said he was smitten by my feminine charm. Oh, how I miss him.”

She put the hanky to her eyes again and let out a little whimper.

“Thank you, Mrs. Fowler,” said Ryan, standing up. “We’ll look into this Hilary woman. We’ll find who did this.”

C
hief Harris’s
office was a cramped room in the back of a cramped precinct. His metal desk wobbled when he leaned on it, and the hard chairs hurt Georgia’s lower back. Still, she was intrigued by all the trinkets, pictures, and memorabilia Cooper had managed to pack into his tiny office. Just by looking around, she deduced he loved football, old action movies, and crime novels.

“I’m happy to let you look over the phone and financial records, Mr. Yates,” said Cooper, “but I’m not sure you’ll find anything. I’ve checked every number the wife called in the past two months and found nothing. And Mr. Fowler had more of a shopping problem than her. He was the one draining the financials—his own and the real estate business’s. Of course, she may have killed him for that.”

“But she has an alibi,” said Georgia.

“Yes,” said Cooper, putting an elbow on his desk and propping up his head with a sour look, “but I thought perhaps she had hired someone. Her spontaneous request for drinks with the other two women seems strange to me, like she was trying to create an alibi for herself. But I’ve found no evidence of her contacting a hit man.”

“What about the secretary’s personal phone records?” said Ryan. “She make any late-night calls to Mr. Fowler?”

“An affair?” said Cooper. “I had suspected that too, but again, no phone call evidence.”

“They did see each other almost every day. Phone calls wouldn’t be necessary,” said Georgia. “But my dad seemed sure Bruce had changed his ways, and Victoria didn’t hint at any suspicions. She seemed to have only fond memories of her husband.”

“You’d be surprised how easily grief and devotion can be faked during a thirty-minute interview,” said Ryan.

“The client who called Bruce’s home, the one I told you about on the phone,” said Georgia to Cooper, “I found her in our records. Her name is Hilary Frankenburg. She filed numerous furious complaints with the company and left a nasty review on the website. She seems to have a temper.”

“I’ll have my boys look into her,” said Cooper. “Thanks for the lead.”

“The way I see it, we have three real suspects,” said Ryan. “The wife is number one; her alibi doesn’t matter. The spouse did it nine times out of ten, and she acted strange that night. Second, this Hilary Frankenburg and her nasty temper. Third, the secretary, just because something about her reaction was strange. She has an alibi and we have no evidence of an affair, but it’s good to have at least three suspects. Georgia and I can do some research on all of them, too.”

“Excellent. I will share any new leads with you both as well,” said Cooper.

“Sounds good,” said Georgia, “but one more thing. If you interview Hilary Frankenburg, I want to be there.”