A Lethal Time (A Samantha Jamison Mystery Volume 4) (6 page)

Chapter 20

Making Sense & Sensing Trouble

Over breakfast the next morning, I shared what Jackson said the night before. He’d been guarded after telling us he was originally from Boston. I speculated that I felt there might be a connection between Robinson’s family and him.

“The only catch is why would he possibly be interested in getting his hands on a property that Robinson’s family sold if he was connected to them? Why not hang onto it in the first place?”

“Maybe,” said Clay, “There are two separate motives going on here.”

“Like what?” Betty asked.

“Could be that he has no attachment to the Robinson family and it’s all a coincidence, the Boston angle, and…”

Martha jumped in. “He already knows the advantage in owning Robinson’s property and is pursuing it on his own.”

“Or,” Crystal added, “he is related to the relatives and knows something they don’t and is freelancing.”

“Why would he do that?” Betty asked.

“There has to be a money angle,” I said. “Always is.”

“Do you think Jackson could have been doing odd jobs for Robinson while he was alive, without letting on to Sarah while he was still working for her?” Hazel asked.

Martha eyed Hazel, surprised. “That was insightful.”

Betty added. “He might have seen or heard something while he was there. With it being sold from under him and currently being boarded up, he finally had the opportunity to do something covertly, but our arrival put a stop to his plans, especially now that Samantha is involved.”

I nodded with that possibility taking shape. “…And he didn’t expect Sarah to come running to me about her woods being stolen, which complicated things further and gave me a good reason to take a closer look at the neighborhood and Robinson’s house.”

“Which,” Clay added, “only goes to show you that on the other hand, all of us might be way off base on the whole thing in stringing together something that never was.”

“Yeah,” said Martha, “but it sounded real interesting when we all thought it up, didn’t it?”

I sat up. “Wait a minute!”

“What?” Clay asked.

“Sally mentioned the other night on the phone that her neighbors,
the
Smiths, were originally from Boston, too.”

Martha smiled. “Now that’s real convenient, isn’t it?”

I shook my head, changing my mind at the absurdity of the connections. “…No, that’s ridiculous! I think Clay might be right. We’re all making too much about a simple answer from a guy we’ve just met. We have turned into such a suspicious group. We might be overplaying this.”

Crystal hit the table. “But what if we’re not?”

Yes, there was always that.

Chapter 21

M Marks Their Spot

Clay drove to Boston in the old truck to see what he could drum up about Robinson’s relatives. Martha, Hazel and Betty were busy researching anything they could about Robinson and his background, which included the library. Crystal was looking at it from the real estate angle and headed off to the town hall to research public records.

Me? I decided to ask the other neighbors on the other side of Robinson’s property, which was across from Jackson’s property. I heard a well-off husband and wife lived there, who had done extensive renovations on an old New England clapboard home they intended for their retirement. They came from,
you guessed it, Boston,
and had been making improvements for a few years.

Sally, who made a point of knowing all her neighbors, asked them if they could help her out by giving me some information regarding the area and anything else they might know about the old Robinson property, rumors included.

I looked around after Crystal dropped me off from her Harley at the Fielding’s raked, gravel drive. They had a spectacular view, looking across the road past Jackson’s fields to the mountain ranges in the far distance. A new large picture window in the front of their house faced that view directly. I could see why they chose that parcel in the first place. Between the secluded dirt road, the views, and the surrounding woods, they had made a good investment.

I heard a door squeak open and turned. There stood a gray-haired gentleman, I guessed in his early sixties, casually dressed in jeans and polo shirt, smiling at me. Right behind him was a woman around the same age as him, wearing jeans and a sweater, and whose gray hair was held back with a clip.

“Hi,” I greeted, as I approached their side door entrance.

The man extended his hand, giving me a mischievous, broad grin. “Why you’re prettier than I expected. You must be Samantha Jamison.”

Smooth
. I liked him instantly and smiled right back.

“Yes, and you both must be Mr. and Mrs. Fielding.”

The fragile-looking woman reached out a petite hand and shook mine firmly and escorted me inside. “Please call me Millicent, and this is my husband, Major.”

I tried not to chuckle at how amusing his name sounded as I followed them inside. Major. How some of these people were ever given such strange monikers was a mystery. But then who was I to speak with the name, Sam?

Once we were all seated and tea served, I got right to exactly what I was interested in without giving anything away. “I’m sure you both are aware about what happened at Robinson’s house the other day with that raccoon.”

“Oh my, yes!” Millicent exclaimed. “How dreadful!”

Major agreed, patting his wife’s hand. “Why, that could have happened to
us
if it weren’t for Millicent’s insistence on keeping the doors firmly closed and all possible entry into the house carefully repaired and sealed.”

Millicent sipped her tea. “I heard that raccoon snuck in through some loose boards near the basement entrance.”

I knew in a small town of under three thousand residents word would spread swiftly.

“I heard that, too,” I said. Sally had passed on the information earlier that morning when she had called Crystal. Clay and I must have missed those loose boards because of all the overgrowth and weeds.

“Did you know Robinson before he went to the home?”

Major nodded, then said, “He kept mostly to himself, but once in a while when we were out walking, he would stop and talk if he was outside when we passed by his house. He was pleasant enough, I guess.”

Millicent agreed. “But he got strange toward the end.”

“What do you mean, strange?”

Mrs. Fielding lowered her voice, as though someone might overhear her. “He started to mumble odd things like, ‘Who would believe me now?’ ‘Why should I trust him?’ ‘What if they found out?’ I found it extremely unsettling.”

Major laughed. “My wife sometimes sees intrigue where there is none. She has probably read too many whodunits.”

Millicent gave him a sharp look. “I know what I heard.”

I looked at Major. “Did you hear him say such things?”

He shrugged. “Sure, but they were probably nothing more than the ramblings of a man who was ill.”

His wife shook her head. “Maybe, but after that he was gone and placed in a home.”

“…Because,” added Major, “he fell after slipping on his stairs and lay there for two days. A nursing home was then suggested by his relatives for his own safety.”

I didn’t like the sound of that, too convenient.

Was he pushed?

Chapter 22

Driving The Point Home

The three
ladies
were bickering as usual when they walked in the door. I sharpened my refereeing skills and greeted them. “Well, I see you’re in high spirits.”

Martha’s eyes narrowed. “I know that was meant as a joke, but after being stuck in a small library with these two for a couple of hours, while I picked the brain of that old librarian, you’d be testy, too.”

I looked over at the sweet, harmless pair. “Why?”

“Every time I gained traction with that librarian, Miss ‘But-In’ and Miss ‘Are-You-Sure?’ managed to deep-six me by wasting time with their interruptions.”

I had difficulty following. “What’s all this about?”

Hazel stepped in front of Martha. “This chatty, elderly lady was subbing for the regular librarian, who’s out sick.”

“And,” added Betty, “was a wealth of information.”

“Sam, ignore Martha,” said Hazel. “She always gets so peevish. Info gathering takes finesse. You can’t rush it.”

Martha said, “I had that woman in the palm of my hand, telling us about what had happened a few years ago.”

Talk about getting to the point.
“And the tale was...?”

“Well, her cousin was driving his pickup by Robinson’s and a lumber truck that was pulling out in the opposite direction almost hit him. He ended up in a ditch. Well, Robinson rushes from his house with chains and
his
own truck to help tow her cousin out, saying, ‘He should have been more careful pulling out like that.’ But then Miss ‘But-In’ stops the whole shebang, so Miss ‘Are-You-Sure?’ can ask nonsensical questions and the library phone rang.”

I laughed. “And the moment was gone, right?”

“Like a punctured balloon.”

“Yes, but we still learned a lot,” said an indignant Betty.

Martha whirled on her. “We might have learned more.”

“What was so important about the episode?” I asked.

Hazel smiled smugly. “Because the truck that almost hit her cousin’s truck was pulling out from Robinson’s house.”

Martha gave a frustrated laugh. “Once that phone rang, someone came in with their three kids and that was that.”

I needed a conversational map.
“I still don’t get it.”

“It’s another aspect we never considered before, Sam.”

“What didn’t we consider?” I asked, impatiently.

“Paying more attention to all the players, including the dead one. That truck was pulling
away
from
Robinson’s
.”

“So, what’s the big deal? He might have been asking for directions from Robinson. Why would you get so worked up about a lumber truck on a dirt back road anyway?”

Hazel winked. “The librarian’s cousin saw something.”

Martha chuckled. “I guess that wad of cash the trucker handed Robinson from his driver’s window was his way of thanking him for directions on how to get to Interstate 93.”

Chapter 23

Another Strange Coincidence?

Not much later, Crystal rushed in and slapped her keys on the counter. By then we were sipping our customary p.m. glass of wine, while discussing what was going on. Obviously, Crystal had a lot to say, because she went right for her usual 1664 chilled bottle of beer with a lime twist shoved in the bottleneck for panache and just stood there.

The three of us sat staring wondering what would spill from her lips, and by the look on her face, plenty. After a long pull on her bottle of beer, she slowly set it down, smiling, stringing out the anticipation to the hilt.

“After checking the town records and calling Sally, all I found out was there used to be a one hundred-and-fifty-foot antenna sitting at the top of the drive just before you make a right toward Sally’s four-car garage. Tom had been trying for a few years to get the damn thing out. That small patch of ground the antenna stood on was leased from the former owner of this property for some major cash over the years.”

“Whatever for?” Martha asked.

“A dispatch communication tower for a construction company,” said Crystal, “so they could speak with their drivers about deliveries in New Hampshire and Vermont. In these mountains, they couldn’t coordinate distribution.”

“So, how is that relevant?” Betty asked.

“That’s the point. It’s not anymore. With improved cell phone coverage and satellites, the tower became
irrelevant
. So, Sally, being the ever-clever cousin I know, engaged a lawyer to negotiate the legalities to have the unsightly tower dismantled to enhance the value of her property.”

“Well, I don’t see one there now,” said Martha, “so I guess she was successful.”

“She was,” said Crystal, “but something else came on the radar screen after all that property research was done.”

“What?” Hazel asked.

“Sally and Tom were informed by their lawyer there might be a problem about one of the several old wells on their land even though it was within their property lines.”

“So, what was the hitch?” I asked.

“There was a never-used artesian well on the southern portion of their property with shared water rights that went back over a hundred years that no one was aware of.”

My mind was connecting the dots. “So, Sally and Tom didn’t have full water rights to that particular hand-dug well, even though it is within their property line and hadn’t been used in ages or ever shared, correct?”

“Correct.”

“Well, who did she speak to for settling water rights that are well over a hundred years old?” asked Martha.

“She couldn’t,” said Crystal.

“And why not?” I asked.

“The woman in question was no longer around.”

“So?” asked Betty. “Why can’t Sally write her and buy the woman out? Can’t she at least try to contact her?”

I interrupted. “Wait!
Was
meant something else, right?”

“Yes. She’s dead,” said Crystal. “A few years ago she was murdered inside her house in a home invasion, but no one was ever caught. It was a real mystery then, still is.”

Like I’ve said to my editor, you can’t make this stuff up. No one would believe you, but it happens in real life and makes great storytelling, except for the unfortunate person involved. Now Sally and Tom had to deal with all the complex legal issues in trying to get it all resolved.

Nobody said anything for a minute or two. Then as a reflex we all reached for our glasses of wine and took a long sip. Crystal grabbed her bottle of beer, doing the same.

“…Wow,” said Betty.

“How do you negotiate with a dead woman?” I asked.

“You’d need a Ouija board,” countered Martha.

“What will Sally and Tom do now?” Hazel asked.

“Deal with the woman’s descendants.” Betty replied.

“I don’t think so,” said Crystal.

“And why not?” I asked.

“There was a male descendent, but after a year, they’ve had no luck tracking him down, so it looks like the court will rule in Sally and Tom’s favor for the water rights.”

“I guess that’s great news for Sally and Tom. At least for that end of their property, but I don’t know about the other end though, you know, the Robinson end of it.”

A lot of strange things were going on, don’t you think?