Chapter 13
Doreen stared at Mack in shock. She sat down hard at the table and said, “I don’t know who the murdered man is.”
“His name is James Farley. He was an insurance salesman.”
“Well, Mack, I’m not at all surprised an insurance salesman was murdered,” she murmured. “According to my almost ex, they are all scammers.”
“Well, you’re almost not married anymore,” he said shortly. “Make your own decisions.”
She narrowed her gaze at him. “Somebody murdered him. Why do you think I would know anything about him?”
“That’s why I’m here.” He proceeded to ask her questions, like; did she recognize the man’s name? Did she know the family? Had she any insurance? Could she have bought some from this Farley person? What about Nan? Did she have any insurance?
The answers were easy, as she didn’t know anything about the dead man or insurance. Neither did she know anything about Nan’s knowledge of the dead man’s family or if Nan had purchased insurance from him. “You’ll have to ask Nan.” When he was done, she crossed her arms and slumped in the chair. “You’ve told me who he is. I still don’t know him.”
“Have you seen any correspondence from Nan around the house with that man’s name on it?”
She shook her head. “I’ve been a little busy over the last twenty hours or so since I arrived here, so you need to direct those questions to Nan.”
He nodded and stood. “That’s where I’m heading next.”
He walked to the front door, she trailed behind. “Don’t upset Nan when you go there,” she said. “The last thing I want is for her to have a heart attack over this.”
“I won’t do anything to upset her if I don’t have to. However, we do have to find out who killed this man.”
And then he was gone.
There was no friendly belly rub for Mugs or a stroke behind the ears for Goliath. Not even an acknowledgment of Thaddeus. Businesslike and simple. A few questions and he was gone. But it left a chill.
She locked the front door behind him. She knew how this looked. Yet, that didn’t change the fact that neither she nor Nan had killed this man. Perhaps somebody had known the house was empty and thought nobody would notice, so they had deliberately placed the body here to implicate Nan or Doreen. Or as a temporary measure until they could move it again but… ewww. Not to mention that decking over the body looked pretty permanent.
Either way it sucked. Nan was a wonderful person, and she didn’t need this. And that meant somebody had to find the right answers. Not just the answers that would fit and make a case for the police. Because, if that case closed around Nan, then the conclusion was wrong. Somebody would have to set them straight. That somebody would have to be Doreen.
Nan had done a lot for Doreen over these last few rough months, and that was without taking into account all the times she’d been there for Doreen over the years. The least she could do was return the favor. She’d find out who killed that man. She rolled up her imaginary sleeves and stormed into the kitchen.
She snagged a cup of coffee and stepped onto the back veranda, considering what to do to clear Nan’s name. Her gaze studied the proximity of her house and yard to the neighbors’ yards, wondering if she should talk to the neighbors. Maybe they had seen something between the time Nan moved to Rosemoor and when Doreen arrived yesterday.
But the state of the backyard distracted the gardener in her. Nan’s back garden was fully fenced although those fences were badly in need of TLC, like the gardens themselves. Doreen had lots of TLC to give, but she wasn’t so sure about the fence repairs. Still, if a hammer and nail would do the job, she could work with that. Besides the physical work would help rid her of some of the building stress.
But solving the dead man’s mystery came before gardening. Her laptop was still packed away upstairs. She went inside, retrieved it, set it up on the kitchen table and searched for James Farley. Thank heavens the house had internet. Thanks Nan.
He’d lived and worked in Kelowna, in British Columbia, Canada. But he wasn’t from the Mission area of British Columbia. Not that that made him an outsider. Mission was just one of many communities that had pulled together and suddenly became a town as it grew. No way to keep the growing parts and pieces separate anymore, so they’d been incorporated into the city of Kelowna.
Farley was employed by an insurance company downtown. Maybe it was time to take Mugs for a walk along the boardwalk and check out where this guy had worked.
Had the insurance company called him in as a missing person? Or had he been one of those employees who traveled most the time and only checked in occasionally, and the company didn’t know when he was coming back? Didn’t they realize he was missing?
Unable to leave it alone, she quickly toasted herself a piece of bread to-go, then loaded Mugs into the car. She locked Thaddeus and Goliath in the house. With both cat and bird staring out the living room window at them, she got in the car and drove downtown.
A lot of the downtown parking you had to pay for, unless it was on a weekend. Today was Thursday. So she parked for free down by the beach, hooked Mugs on his leash and proceeded to walk toward the business district. Several blocks later and around a corner, she found the small insurance company. She glanced up at the second floor to see the company name written on the window. Lifelong Insurance, Inc.
“Yeah, it didn’t do him so well, did it?” she asked Mugs. “His lifelong ended up being a pretty darn lifeshort.”
As the words fell off her lips, the door opened and out stepped a balding redheaded mailman with more freckles than she’d ever seen. A big bag over his shoulder, mail in his hand, he smiled at her and moved out of her way. “Sorry,” he said cheerfully and, with a jaunty step, headed down the sidewalk.
She pulled open the door, and with Mugs at her heels, they climbed the stairs to the small office. Lifelong Insurance was on the right at the top of the stairs. No lights appeared to be on inside. She turned the handle and pushed, but the door was locked. No Closed sign was on the door though. She knocked several times, but there was no answer. Did James Farley own Lifelong Insurance? Was he the only employee?
With those thoughts running through her mind, she slowly made her way back downstairs, stopping at the first landing. And came face-to-face with Mack, who was on his way up.
She smiled. “Great minds think alike,” she said gaily.
“What are you doing here?” His tone was much less than happy.
She stuck out her chin. “I wanted to see if I could find some answers myself. I don’t want you thinking that Nan had anything to do with James’s murder. And I know I didn’t do it, so, therefore, somebody else did.”
“Oh, no you don’t. I don’t want you nosing around, asking any questions,” Mack stated in an unequivocal term. “You leave that to the police.”
She’d perfected a flat stare a long time ago. But it seemed to have no effect on him. She gave up and smiled sweetly instead. Nan had always said honey worked better than vinegar. “Obviously I don’t want to step on any of your toes. I just wanted to know where Farley worked.” She glanced over at the door above and behind her. “It’s his own business, is it not?”
Mack nodded. “Yes, he’s the owner and operator of Lifelong Insurance.”
“Right.” She was pleased to find that out on her own. She tossed him a bright smile. “Have fun.”
He probably had the right to go inside the office, even if locked and vacant. She watched as he carried on up the stairs, unlocked the door and entered Farley’s office. Unable to help herself, she tiptoed back upstairs and stood in the open doorway. And cried out.
Mack stood in the middle of the destroyed office and glared at her. “Don’t come in here.”
Immediately she shook her head. “I won’t. I promise I won’t. But look what they did.”
“They?” he asked, suspicion coloring in his tone.
She glared at him. “What? I didn’t do it.”
“Didn’t you? Funny how I just came in as you’re leaving.”
She pointed at the doorknob. “It was locked, remember?”
This time his smile was less than pleasant. “Easy to lock it if you had already unlocked it to get in.”
She glared at him. “I had nothing to do with this.”
“Good. Keep it that way.” He made a motion with his hand to shoo her out of the doorway. “I’ve a forensic team coming in here. Don’t touch anything, and stay out of the way.”
She backed away but went to touch the door.
“What did I just say?”
She pulled her hand against her chest. “I tried to open it earlier. So my prints will be on the doorknob. And I knocked, so my knuckle prints are on the glass,” she added in a rush.
He shook his head and glared. “Great. Now you mucked it up with your prints too.”
She winced. “I’m sorry. It just never occurred to me that trying to talk to someone at an insurance company would cause trouble.”
“That’s because you didn’t think. Everything regarding James Farley is now a police issue. Please go home. Let the police handle it before your prints are everywhere and cannot be ignored.”
She sniffed, turned on her heels and slowly walked back down the stairs. Trouble was, Mugs didn’t want to go. He stared at the top of the stairs, and short of dragging him all the way down, he wasn’t interested in leaving the office. Groaning, she stepped up a couple risers and said, “Mugs, what’s wrong with you?”
“What’s going on?” Mack asked from the doorway.
“I don’t know. I just asked him that,” she said in frustration, glaring at Mack. “He doesn’t want to leave.”
Mack walked over, and in a mood completely opposite to the cold, irate cop from seconds earlier, he bent and scratched Mugs behind the ear. Mugs wagged his tail, sniffing all over Mack’s shoes. While Mack was busy scratching the dog, she hadn’t been paying attention, so when Mugs tugged on his leash, it fell from her fingers and he darted right between Mack’s legs. Right inside the insurance office.
“Oh, no,” she cried out. “We have to get him.” She darted around Mack, dashing into the office.
Mack was on her heels.
Inside the office, she stopped and stared. There was no sign of the dog. She spun on her heels and cried out, “Where is he?” Turning back to the trashed floor, she called out, “Mugs! Mugs, come on, boy. Where are you?”
No answer came.
Mack searched the other rooms. She followed. There was a single small office, a bigger office and a private one that looked like another small office in the back. By the time they made their way to the bathroom and the storeroom, she found the office was larger than she’d initially thought, deeming it just one of those tiny seedy-looking single rooms with a bathroom. But it was set up to hold five to six staff offices.
Only there was still no sign of Mugs. “Where could he be?”
Behind her was a muffled bark. She spun around to see Mugs underneath a large boardroom table, but with all the chairs pulled up around it, she couldn’t see him there. She pulled out a couple chairs to find Mugs lying on his belly, panting. A mess of papers was on the floor in front of him. She grabbed his leash and tugged, but he wouldn’t move. He stretched his neck forward and barked at the papers.
“No, Mugs, you can’t have those papers. I know you love to rip apart paper, but you can’t have these papers.”
Instead of listening to her, he lunged for a big stack, growled and backed up under the table. Mack grabbed the leash and brought Mugs out from underneath. By then Mugs had a mouthful of paperwork.
She gently opened his jaw, telling him, “Who’s a good boy, Mugs? I promise I’ll find you a newspaper at home. You can rip that up.”
He gave her one of those hangdog looks, as if to say, “Sure you will.”
“Wait.” Mack dropped to his knees beside the dog. Using a pressure point in the back of the dog’s jaw, Mack forced Mugs’s mouth open. The stack of papers dropped. Mack snatched them up but not before she saw the top page.
“That’s got Nan’s name on it.”
“Yes, it does.” He patted Mugs. “Thanks, Mugs. This is a great lead.”