Breaking Ground (32 page)

“You must have taken a shine to this place,” Luke said when they reached him. “Hiking again?”

“Yes,” Julie lied before Rich could respond. “It's such a nice walk, we thought we'd do it again this week.”

“Ought to wear hiking boots,” Luke said as he looked down at their sneakers.

“They're in the car,” Rich quickly responded as he pointed to Julie's Jetta. “We thought we'd start at this end today. We were just going to get booted up to go.”

“Don't let me keep you,” Luke said, and turned his back to them while he aimed the camera to take another picture.

“Using them for promotional materials?” Rich asked.

“For the damned planning board! Excuse my language, but I'm sick and tired of it. The planning board is objecting to this sign,
saying it doesn't fit the town ordinance. So I've got to go to a hearing and prove it does. Thought I'd take lots of pictures with me, show them exactly what it is. Lazy fools never came out to look at it themselves, just claimed they had an ‘objection' and that I have to prove the sign's okay. Bureaucrats!”

“I heard that from someone else,” Julie responded. “Nickie Bennett—she runs that ski shop? She's having trouble, too.”

Julie's hope that Luke would take her statement about Nickie as a sign of sympathy and support for his own battle seemed to be achieved. He actually smiled at her when he said, “That so? Guess they're not picking on me, then. Still, it's a pain in the you-knowwhat.”

“I can't imagine how you handle all the details of this project, Luke,” she continued. “Everything's so complicated, and you have to be on top of it all.”

“That's true.” He finished taking photos and was tucking the camera back into its bag. “You can't take anything for granted.”

“I gather even the land itself was quite a complicated proposition,” Julie said.

“Land always is.”

“Didn't your family actually own this area once?” Julie decided that with Luke, subtlety wasn't going to get the job done.

“That's right. If my dad hadn't sold it back to Dan, Frank and I wouldn't have had to pay a king's ransom to Mary Ellen.”

“I'm sure Frank wasn't any happier about that than you were.”

“Frank? He didn't know anything about all this in the beginning. Why would he? He's not from here. He just figured Birch Brook was a great site for a development. Which is true.”

“So Frank didn't know your family had owned this?”

“Not at first. Didn't seem worth telling him about until I did some checking myself. That's why I was looking in those papers at the historical society.”

“After Mary Ellen died?”

“That's right. You know when I was in there. We've been through this.”

“I hope you found what you needed.”

“Can't say I've found what I
needed
, but I may have. Probably too late anyway now—except for the principle of the thing.”

“So Frank didn't know about the ownership questions until you told him you were looking at the Swanson papers?”

“That's what I said.” Luke stared at Julie.

“Right. Sorry, but like I said before, I'm new to all this and just trying to figure out the local scene.”

“Well, it's nothing for you to be concerned about, I'm sure. Anyway, you folks probably want to get started on your hike, and I'm done here and have to get home. Have a nice time.”

Luke walked to the other side of his truck, placed the camera bag on the seat, and came back around to the driver's door and got in. He nodded but didn't speak as he put the truck in gear and drove off. “Want to get those hiking boots now?” Rich asked as they watched Luke drive off. A siren could be heard in the distance.

“That was fast thinking.”

“Well, you told Mike we were hiking, didn't you? Now
that
was pretty fast, too.”

Julie laughed. “I don't think Luke suspected anything,” she added.

“He was too pissed about the sign. You sure grilled him—find out what you wanted?”

“I'm still trying to figure it out.”

“You think he's involved?”

“I'm not sure. There's a lot of money at stake here, for Luke as well as Frank. But I just can't believe he'd leave the shovel in the backhoe when he had plenty of time—alone—to get rid of it.
And I don't see him as the breaking-and-entering type. He's too straightforward; I think he'd just plain come out and ask me for the copy of that letter. But—”

“Here we go again,” Rich said before Julie could finish. The siren grew louder. “Bet there's never been so many cop cars on this road before,” he continued as the blue State Police cruiser, its blue lights pulsing, came into view.

It pulled up beside them and a young man emerged, holding his trooper hat in his hand. He put it on before speaking. “Dr. Williamson? Mr. O'Brian? I'm Trooper Stearns. Chief Barlow asked me to take over here till the lab crew comes. He asked me to thank you for all your help. He said he'd get in touch with you later today to take your statements about what you found. Said you were hiking.”

“Yes,” Rich said.

“Is the backhoe up there?” the policeman asked. Rich said it was, and Julie told him Barlow had driven his cruiser up the rough path earlier. “Guess I can do it, then,” the policeman said. “Thanks again for your help,” he added as he got back in the cruiser.

They watched him negotiate the route up to the construction site. “It's after three,” Rich said. “Have we missed lunch?”

At home they assembled lunch from leftovers. After they had eaten, Julie cleared the table and Rich settled down with his student papers again. Julie sat at the folding table in front of the puzzle. Instead of working on it she was jotting on a notepad, and she kept rising to walk around the kitchen. After her third circuit, Rich said, “You're not getting very far on your puzzle.”

“Just thinking. Sorry. I must be bothering you. I should leave you alone. I can go to the office.”

Before he could respond, the phone rang. Rich listened as Julie spoke to Mike. As had happened earlier in the day when Mike had called to tell her about his interview with Frank, Julie became more subdued as the conversation continued. At the end she said, “Now's fine. See you.”

“No developments?” Rich asked as Julie paced around the kitchen after hanging up.

“Mike said he'd explain. He's coming over to take our statements now. I assumed that was okay with you?”

“What—interrupt my paper reading again!” Julie laughed and punched him lightly on the arm. “So he didn't say anything about Elizabeth?”

“Only that he'd finished questioning her and she's gone back to New Hampshire. We'll find out more when he gets here.”

“Does that affect whatever you've been thinking about?”

“As a matter of fact,” she said, “I really wasn't thinking about Elizabeth Myerson. I was thinking about what Luke said this afternoon.”

Rich placed the paper he was reading facedown on the pile. “Something tells me this is going to be more interesting than this paper. Tell all.”

“I'm still thinking. I just haven't untangled this yet! Let's see what Mike says first. Here he is.”

She opened the kitchen door for the policeman. He accepted her offer of coffee.

“I'd better take your statements first,” he said. “Then I'll explain.”

Julie and Rich repeated their story about finding the shovel, and Mike took notes on his pad. “I guess that's it,” he said when they finished. “I'll get these typed up and you can sign them when it's convenient.” He closed the leather notebook.

“So?” Julie prompted.

“Not much to tell,” Mike began, and then summarized his interview with Elizabeth Myerson.

“So you believe her?” Julie asked when he finished.

“Not sure. But I am sure that I had no grounds to hold her. The crime scene crew can't get up till tomorrow morning, and unless we get her prints on the shovel or something else to tie her to it, well—”

“But you believed what she said about being at Birch Brook?” Julie interrupted.

“Again, not sure—but it's plausible. She's in the real estate business, and if she says she wanted to look the place over, how can I refute that? As to running away like that, well, I can't prove she didn't get an important phone call, like she said she did.”

“You can check her cell-phone records, can't you?”

“Yes, and I will. But right now I don't have any reason to hold her. Any chance you heard her phone ring, Rich?”

“No, the windows were up, and I couldn't even see who was driving. So she could have gotten a call right at that moment. It's possible.”

“That just seems too convenient to me,” Julie said. “She drives up here from New Hampshire to look at Birch Brook—which she
could have done lots of other times. Then she gets a call on her cell phone just at the very minute Rich comes out of the woods toward her, and she just has to roar off to go home—without looking the place over. Come on, Mike.”

“I know, I know,” the policeman said. “It's pretty thin, but I have absolutely no reason at this stage to doubt her. I guess mortgage brokers have to be on call all the time, like cops, and if she says she had a call about a major problem with a closing and had to leave right away to sort it out, well, that's her story. So thanks for the coffee, and the statements. I'm going to go relieve Stearns out at Birch Brook.”

“Do you have to stay there all night?” Julie asked.

“Not if I can finally get ahold of my new officer. Anyway, I'll be in touch.”

“Julie,” Rich said as Mike stood to leave, “aren't you going to tell us what you're thinking?”

Mike stopped to look at Rich, then turned to Julie.

“But you need to get to Birch Brook,” she began, “and I haven't got this clear in my mind yet.”

“Maybe talking it out will help,” the chief said as he settled back into the chair.

Julie began after she poured more coffee for all of them. She stood by the sink while the two men remained at the table.

“There's something new, something I just found out this afternoon.” She explained about meeting Luke at the Birch Brook site.

“The planning folks are nuts,” Mike said. “I understand why Luke's mad about that.”

“Whatever. Let me just tell you what Luke said: that Frank didn't know about the shady aspects of the ownership of Birch Brook until Luke started looking for letters in the historical society and told Frank why.”

She paused for dramatic effect, but the two men just looked at her, waiting for more. Finally Rich said, “I sense you'd like a drum roll here, Julie, but I still don't get it.”

“Think about it, Rich. You were there when I asked him.”

“I was there, but I obviously wasn't applying your puzzle-solving skills to what Dyer said. You're going to have to spell it out—for me, at least. Maybe Mike understands.”

“I feel like I arrived in the middle of a movie,” the policeman said. “Put me down with Rich as one of the dumb kids at the back of the class.”

“Okay, two things: One, it was Luke who put Frank on to the fact that the ownership of Birch Brook was clouded and maybe subject to dispute; two, that happened
after
Mary Ellen was killed.” Julie smiled brightly and looked at Rich and Mike hopefully. “You see it now?” she asked to break their silence.

“I think I'm beginning to,” Mike said. “But I'm not sure where it leads.”

“Give it a try,” Rich said. “Anything you say will be illuminating to me.”

“I think what Julie is pointing at is that Mary Ellen's murder isn't connected to the letters that show Birch Brook might not belong to the Swanson family. Because—”

“Right!” Julie shouted before Mike could continue. “Look at the dates.” She grabbed her pad and made a list:

July 3: Mary Ellen murdered, 2 days ahead of date to back out of deal

July 5: I found out Luke Dyer was reading Swanson papers

July 11: I found Dan Swanson's letter

July 12: break-in at my house; copy stolen; found that original also missing

“You see the problem, don't you?” she asked, looking first at Mike and then at Rich. Neither spoke. “Okay, the first dates have to do with the land sale—but it was another week before the whole business of Dan Swanson's letter came up. I was confusing them, but they're separate. I was thinking the two things were directly connected, and that Luke had to be involved because he stood to gain by disputing Mary Ellen's ownership of the land. But Dalton Scott pointed out that Luke had every reason to make the letter public, not to hide it. It's only Frank who gained by suppressing the information in the letter—and in the Oakes diary, I think, though I'm still not sure what it proves.”

“But Mary Ellen's murder?” Rich interjected.

“I think she was killed to stop her from exercising the option to back out. Look at the dates, Rich! If she had lived till July fifth she could have stopped the whole thing, which would have left both Frank and Luke in a pickle because they had borrowed so much—or at least Frank had.”

“So both Frank and Luke gained by her dying on the third,” Rich said.

“True. And that's part of what confused me: they had a common interest in her dying before the fifth, but if Luke had been involved in that—alone or with Frank—he wouldn't have continued digging in the Swanson papers. He wouldn't do anything to draw attention to himself or the land. Whatever he might have gained financially from bringing the ownership into dispute would have been lost by focusing interest on the sale, because that would have revealed the motive for Mary Ellen to be killed
when
she was. So that's where Luke's interests diverged from Frank's.”