Treasured Legacies (A Mary O'Reilly Paranormal Mystery) (17 page)

Mary held the take-out bag from Union Dairy in her hand and
hurried down the street. What was she thinking not driving her car?
 
She was incredibly grateful to the waitress
who saw them go outside and put their orders in to-go bags.
 
Mary brought the bag up to her nose and
sniffed. That young woman deserved a medal.

She turned the corner onto Main Street and rolled her eyes.
Just as she had suspected, there was a line outside her door.
 
Linda, Quinn, Rosie and Stanley were all
waiting for her.

She hurried forward, her key in hand and smiled. “Hi, sorry
I’m late,” she said.

“You didn’t even get time to eat?” Stanley asked.

“No, we kind of got involved,” Mary replied, opening the
door and holding it for everyone. “So, I took mine with me.”

“Well, sit down and eat,” Stanley growled. “A woman in your
condition needs to eat.”

“Mary, are you…?” Linda asked with a smile.

“Yeah, she’s pregnant, but no one’s supposed to know,”
Stanley interrupted.

Mary chuckled. “Yes, Linda, I’m pregnant,” she said. “But
it’s early still, so we were keeping it quiet for a little while longer.”

“Yeah, like I said, no one’s supposed to know,” Stanley
said. “So, who told you anyway?”

Rolling her eyes, Rosie patted Stanley’s arm. “Don’t worry,
dear, I’ll tell you later.”

Leaning forward, Linda gave Mary a hug. “Well, congratulations,”
she said. “And don’t worry, I won’t tell a soul. In the meantime, here are the
minutes you needed.”

“Thank you,” Mary said, taking the envelope and placing it
on her desk. “You really didn’t need to wait.”

“Well, I wanted you to know that someone else also requested
copies of those minutes,” she said.

“Who?”
Mary asked.

“Josh Johnson,” she replied. “It was so strange that out of
the blue he would ask for copies too, that I thought you might want to know.”

“Thank you,” Mary said. “That is very interesting.”

“Okay, I’ve got to run,” Linda said. “Good luck with the
rest of your afternoon.”

Once Linda left, Stanley leaned against the wall and folded
his arms. “Well, I guess that’s that,” he said. “Josh must’ve killed his dad.”

“Well, before you jump to any conclusions, you might want to
see this,” Quinn said, holding out an envelope for Mary.

She pulled out the contents and scanned them. “But this
can’t be right,” she said.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Quinn said.

“You mean you found out that Sawyer Gartner’s property was
the missing link?” Rosie asked, holding out a manila folder.

“Is this the paperwork for the sale to Maughold?” Mary
asked.

Rosie shook her head. “No, actually, this is the paperwork
from the purchase of his property from Maughold after the project fell
through.”

Mary sat down at her desk. “What?”

“He bought back his property two months after the project
was cancelled,” Rosie said. “He used a different trust account, so it would
have been hard to trace.”

Mary flipped through the paperwork Quinn had just handed her
and found the sale contract. “Okay, here’s the addendum,” she said. “In the
case the project wasn’t realized, he had the right to buy back his property at
current land values.”

“Did he sell the property at current land values?” Rosie
asked.

“No, he sold each acre for $25
,000
,”
Mary said.

“That’s more like residential acreage, not farm land,” Rosie
said. “And he only paid $2,500 to buy it back.”

“Why would anyone agree to those
kind
of terms?” Mary wondered aloud.

“Well,
iffen
you thought you had a
done deal,” Stanley said. “Or you were partnering with someone to make some
extra money.”

There was complete silence in the room for a few moments;
everyone just stared at each other, contemplating the enormity of Stanley’s
words.
 
Suddenly, the office door burst
open and Josh Johnson strode inside shaking an envelope in Mary’s face.

“This will prove Abe had nothing to do with my father’s
death,” he shouted.

“Well, this certainly is a day for envelopes, isn’t it,” Rosie
said calmly. “I’m so glad I thought to be unique and bring my damning
information in a manila folder.”

Josh froze and looked around the room at the rest of the
group gathered there. “I, um, I apologize,” he stammered, until he saw Quinn
standing in the corner of the room.
“You!
I might have
known that you would be involved in a plot to hurt my family again.”

Mary took a quick longing look at her already cold lunch and
sighed.
 
Then she noticed that Dale
Johnson had appeared in the middle of the room and seemed to be enjoying the
ruckus. Sending a disapproving glance in Dale’s direction, she finally stood
up. “Actually, Josh, Quinn has been helping me get to the bottom of your
father’s murder,” she said, raising her voice above the din.
“At
your father’s request.”

Once again, a fragile silence fell upon the office.

“Come again?” Josh asked.

“Your father is my client,” Mary said. “He asked me to get
to the bottom of his murder.”

“What are you, a psychic sleuth?” he scoffed.

“Well, Mary, that has a nice ring to it,” Rosie commented.
“You might consider changing your title.”

“
Naw
, it would be too hard for
people with lisps,” Stanley replied.

“What the hell?” Josh cried. “Are you people never serious?”

“We’re serious,” Mary replied.
“Dead
serious.”
 
But then, she couldn’t
help herself, she giggled. “I’m sorry, that sounded so lame.”

Josh threw the envelope on the floor and was going to storm
out when Dale said, “He never did have a sense of humor.”

“Your dad says you never did have a sense of humor,” Mary
called, stopping Josh cold.

“I remember the time I played an April
Fool’s
joke on him,” Dale continued. “Rushed into his bedroom with a broom and told
him to stay in his bed.
 
I’d take care of
the raccoon.”

“Remember the April Fool’s joke with the raccoon?” Mary
asked.

Josh turned around and stared, opened mouthed, at her.

“He nearly
peed
the bed,” Dale
said, chuckling. “Didn’t think it was funny at all when I called out April
Fool’s
.”

“Your dad remembers you not thinking it was very funny,” she
added.

“It wasn’t funny,” he replied. “Not as funny as the time we
replaced his sugar bowl with salt.”

Gliding over to his son, Dale started to laugh. “It was a
good joke,” he admitted. “And I was a spoil sport.
 
Made those poor boys muck out the dairy barn
for two weeks.”

“Your dad said he was a spoil sport and he made you and Abe
muck out the dairy barn for two weeks,” Mary said with a smile. “He did admit
it was a good joke.”

Josh grinned.
 
“The
screwed up look on his face when he gulped down coffee with three salts was
worth the time in the barn,” he laughed. “Abe and I laughed about his face for
months.”

Then he froze and looked at Mary. “How did you know that?”
he asked.

Mary shrugged. “Your dad is here,” she said.
“In my office.
He just told me.”

Quinn looked around the room with panic in his eyes and
Rosie took him by the arm. “I’ll explain it all to you,” she whispered.
“While Mary deals with Josh, okay?”

Meeting Josh’s eyes, Mary could see both the doubt and the
hope in them. “Ask me a question,” she said, inwardly feeling a sense of déjà-vu.
“And I’ll ask him.”

“Tell him not to ask me any question about those magazines I
found in the corncrib,” Dale grumbled. “I
ain’t
about
to talk about those with ladies in the room.”

Mary chuckled.

“What?” Josh demanded.

Taking a deep breath, Mary repeated Dale’s words.

“I wasn’t going to ask you about those,” he shouted to the
room. “I’m not sixteen anymore.”

Then he
froze,
eyes wide with shock
and looked at Mary. “He really is here, isn’t he?”

Mary nodded. “Yes, he can’t move on until we figure out what
happened to him.”

“He’s been here, stuck here, since he died?” he asked.

“Yes, he has.”

“Jessie used to say she could see him sometimes,” he
whispered, awe in his voice. “We used to tell her she was nuts.”

“Jessie’s not nuts,” Quinn inserted. “She’s just more
sensitive than the rest of you.”

Josh walked over and sat down on a chair near the desk. “He
was murdered.”

“Yes, he was. And I think we are close to figuring out who
was behind it,” Mary said, sitting on the edge of the desk in front of Josh.
“So what did you find in the county board minutes?”

“I found…wait!
 
How
did you know…?”

“Because I got my own copy from Linda this morning,” she
said, holding up her envelope. “I just haven’t had the chance to read it
yet.”
 
She looked around her office.
“It’s been a little crazy here.”

“Okay. Well, during all of the meetings prior to the sale of
our land, Sawyer was talking up the project,” he said. “Saying how the
ecological impact reports looked good and how this farm would be a showcase
farm and we’d even get international visitors to Freeport because of it.”

“So, Sawyer was all for it,” Quinn said. “That’s not a
surprise, considering how much money he made from the deal.”

“That’s just the thing,” Josh continued. “After the sale of
our property, when the committee was going to actually vote, Sawyer does a
one-eighty.
 
He totally blasts the
project, tells the board the impact studies were wrong, that the watershed
impact would not only pollute the neighboring farms, but could threaten the
city’s water supply.”

“Yeah, and in those days, whichever way Sawyer Gartner voted
on the County Board, the majority followed suit,” Stanley added.

“That’s exactly what they did,” Josh said. “They voted it
down.”

Mary picked up the pile of papers on her desk and flipped to
the last one she’d been looking at. “The sale of the Gartner property was on
May 25
^th
,” she said. “Josh, do you remember the date for the sale of
yours?”

“The same day,” he said.
“The 25
^th
.”

“So, Sawyer’s deal was probably contingent on the sale of
your land,” Mary said.

“That’s a pretty good motive for murder,” Stanley added.

Mary nodded. “Yeah, but the tricky part is proving it,” she
said, still flipping through the paperwork.
 
Suddenly she smiled. “Well, it looks like we got a break on our side.
Josh, why don’t you give Jessie a call and have
her
come over too?”

 
“So why don’t you
want your husband to know about this?” Jessie asked as they entered the
Lincoln-Douglas building later that evening.

“Plausible deniability,” Mary said, as they walked into the
elevator together. “He’s not responsible for his wife breaking and entering.”

Jessie pressed the button for the second floor. “But I work
here,” she said.

“And if you had asked to see Sawyer Gartner’s files from
fifteen years ago?” Mary asked.

“They would have told me he is not my client and the
information is confidential,” she replied with a sigh.

“Yep, breaking and entering,” Mary repeated. “It’s not only
a building, it’s a file cabinet.”

“Okay,” Jessie agreed. “But if we told your husband, he
could have kept the cops away.”

“The cops won’t come down here if we’re breaking into a file
cabinet,” Mary reasoned. “But if a co-worker shows up, well, then, that’s
another story.”

Jessie’s hand shook as she tried to put her key into the
office lock. “You’re not making this any easier,” she said.

“How many times have you had to come back here to work on a
file?” she asked.

“A few times,” Jessie admitted.

“And has anyone questioned you before?”

“No,” she said, with a slow calming exhale. “No, you’re
right. We’ll be fine.”

She slipped the key into the lock with calm assurance,
twisted it and pushed the door open. “Stand here while I disable the security
system,” she said, moving over to the receptionist’s desk and leaning over the
side.

Mary heard a few electronic beeps and then Jessie stood up.
“We’re good,” she said. “All disarmed.”

“You have a security system at a CPA’s office?”
Mary asked, a little surprised.

Jessie shrugged. “Well, all of the information here is
confidential and someone could go to town with identity theft if they got into
the files of our clients.”

“So, what’s next?”

“Well, let’s go to my office and see what we can find on our
system,” Jessie suggested. “Generally we don’t keep files on the system that
are older than five years, but we might get lucky.”

Ten minutes later, Jessie flopped back against her chair and
shook her head. “We did not get lucky,” she said. “The Gartner’s have been with
the firm for over twenty-five years and their accounts are handled by the
senior partners.”

“So, what does that mean?” Mary asked.

“Well, I was able to hack into their current files,” Jessie
admitted.

“Good for you!” Mary replied.

Jessie looked at her and shook her head. “I’m supposed to be
an honest accountant,” she said.

“Okay,” Mary said, chewing her lower lip for a moment.
“How about…excellent use of incorporating technical skills in a
difficult situation?”

Grinning, Jessie nodded. “Much better,” she said. “But the
bottom line is we don’t have the information we need.
 
All of Gartner’s online information is only a
couple of years old.
 
The older stuff
will be kept in the vault in the senior partner section and only they have the
combination to it.”

“The senior partner section is the hallway I was looking
into when I first met you, right?” Mary asked.

“Yes, that’s right.”

Mary stood up. “Well, come on, I have an old friend who
might be able to return a favor.”

“What?” Jessie asked, following Mary out of her office and
down the hall. “What are you talking about?”

Mary stopped in the reception area and faced Jessie.
 
“So, Josh mentioned to me that you used to
think you saw your dad around the house sometimes, after he died,” Mary said.
“Is that right?”

“Yes,” Jessie said, shrugging it off. “I would catch
glimpses of him all around the house. But I guess it was just wishful
thinking.”

“No, you saw him,” Mary replied.

She watched one expression after another flit over Jessie’s
face: hope, doubt, consideration and finally a little bit of healthy fear. “Do
you think you see ghosts?” she asked, slowly stepping away from Mary.

Biting back a grin, Mary stepped away from Jessie. “Does
this make you feel safer?” she asked. “If you’d like I can climb over the receptionist
desk and we can yell at each other.”

Jessie stopped moving. “Sorry,” she said. “You just kind of
freaked me out.”

“Yeah, people get freaked out when I talk about things like
ghosts and spirits,” Mary said. “But not because they don’t believe in them.
It’s usually because they sort of do believe in them, but are afraid to admit
it.”

“It’s kind of hard to prove,” Jessie said. “Especially when
all you see is a quick glance or you just hear his laughter over your
shoulder.” Her eyes filled with tears. “Or you think he just told you he was
proud of you.
 
People think you’re kind
of nuts.”

“I bet it felt good, though,” Mary replied.
“Hearing him say that.”

Jessie wiped her tears away and nodded. “Yeah, it did.”

“Okay, well, since your dad is busy tonight…,” Mary began.

“What? Busy?”

“Yeah, he’s over at Sawyer Gartner’s house practicing his
haunting skills,” Mary said with a grin. “Anyway, since he’s not going to show
up and help me convince you, like he helped me with Josh earlier this
afternoon, I’m going to have to call on someone else to help.”

“Someone else?”

“Yes,” Mary said with a quick smile. “So, tell me the name
of the past senior partner who was a little man, who wore a dark suit and
tended to forget where he placed his pencil.”

“Mr. Carpenter?” Jessie asked. “He died about two years ago.
He was the kindest man in the world, but he was always…”

“Sticking his pencil behind his ear and forgetting where he
put it?” Mary finished.

“Yes,” Jessie
said,
a question in
her voice. “How did you know?”

“When I was here the other day, he was in the senior partner
hall searching for his pencil,” she replied. “I pointed it out to him just as
you showed up.”

Jessie’s eyes widened. “When you were tucking your hair
behind you
ear
?” she asked.

Mary nodded.

“That’s exactly what I would do when we were in meetings
together,” Jessie laughed. “His eyes would open wide, he
reach
up and then he’d wink.”

“Exactly,” Mary said. “And since he owes both of us, I’m
sure he’s going to let us into the vault.”

“But he’s dead,” Jessie repeated.

Mary started down the darkened hallway and then turned back
to Jessie. “That’s even better, because then he won’t leave any fingerprints.”