NAILED (21 page)

“I hate seeing this side of humans. Family killing family.”

“Happens all the time,” I said. Was I becoming jaded? I hoped not. “Next, I have an assortment of women. Elizabeth Applegate because she found out Victor was cheating on her. Ditto for Mary McCarthy. And then Kate Cavanaugh because he was ruining her business. There’s also the school principal, Brian Jankowski. The man was in love with Jenna, felt certain Victor killed her, and grief may have gotten the better of him. He couldn’t stand to watch Victor get away with murder. I think that’s it.”

“All good suspects with all good reasons.”

“But? I hear a
but
in there, Marla?”

“There’s always the possibility that the murderer was someone he worked with, or someone on one of the construction crews just royally pissed off at him for not passing an inspection. But for the sake of your sanity,” Marla gave me a wink, “we’ll just stick with your list. You have viable suspects for Victor’s murder. Any one of these people could have literally nailed the man, but besides Gail Hachmeister, I don’t see one of these people good for the attack on Gary.”

I scrunched up my face and then banged my head on my desk. “So what now?”

“The way I see it, either Gail Hachmeister killed Victor and tried to do in her husband, too, or, sorry to say it, Alex, but you just may have a second potential killer out there.”

A flash of light lit up my office, followed by the loud crack of thunder. I love summer storms, and this one had already helped to lower the temperature considerably.

I had told Marla to go on home while I tried to finish up a few more things at my desk. But my mind was wandering. My talk with Marla had put a few things into perspective. One was that maybe none of the people currently residing on my suspects list would turn out to be the killer. That person may well be someone I hadn’t even thought of and might never find. Second, Mary, Brian, Maddi, and the rest of the people on my list were great candidates for Victor’s murder, but they had nothing to do with Gary Hachmeister.

I reached for my jar of M&M’s. Maybe chocolate would help me out of my dilemma. I popped a few in my mouth and savored them while I thought about Mrs. Hachmeister.

Did all of this mean that Gail was the killer? My first impression of her was that she seemed nice and was very poised and intelligent, but at the same time I thought it was creepy how she kept tabs on her husband. Sure, I could understand checking the guy out before you married him and put him in charge of your family business, but why keep it up, if in fact she had been, which I thought very likely. Maybe I should try to track down which charity event she had attended on Saturday night and find out if anyone saw her slip out at some point.

And what if the killer wasn’t Gail? What then? Was it possible that Victor’s murder and Gary’s attack
were
coincidental and had absolutely nothing to do with each other? I wondered what the police thought about that. Or, did Gary Hachmeister stage his own attack to cast suspicion off of himself and onto another? He said that the first blow was to his back. Why not his head and be done with it? Of course, it had been dark in the hallway, and there was a good chance the killer missed his or her mark. The second blow that Gary sustained did get him in the head and just about knocked him out, but neither strike had been life threatening, and I had no idea if the attacker would have finished him off if the person from the other office hadn’t stepped into the hallway at a most opportune moment.

I finished typing an email to a client and added a few attachments before hitting the
Send
button. Five seconds later, the power went out in my office. It wasn’t fully dark outside, but the cloud cover made it seem later than it was. One good thing about having a small office, and one in which I had worked for many years, was that I could pretty much get around in the dark with no problem. I made my way to the kitchen and rinsed out my teacup. I retraced my steps back to my office and started to gather up my things. No sense sitting around in the dark, waiting for the power to come back on. I just hoped it wasn’t out at my house, because I had plans to heat something up in the microwave for dinner.

I shoved a few papers I wanted to look over this evening into my bag, and then walked over to the window to close and lock it up for the night. I had just turned back to my desk when a flash of lightning lit up my little office like it was Yankee Stadium. I counted the seconds until the thunder struck. The storm was getting closer, but I could probably make it to my house before the rain hit hard. It would be nice to have one of Kate Cavanaugh’s lovely sunrooms to sit in and enjoy the storm, but I planned on waiting to see if she was carted off to jail for murder before I took my room addition plans any further.

I picked up my bag and draped it across my body and pushed my chair in. As I came around my desk another flash filled the room and illuminated Gail Hachmeister, who was standing just inside the doorframe.

“Holy hell! You scared the living daylights out of me. I didn’t hear you come in.” I stood there with my hand on my chest trying to catch my breath, and hoping my heart rate would return to something close to normal in the next couple of seconds.

“Oh, dear, I did knock several times, but with the storm approaching I guess you didn’t hear me.”

“No. No, I did not. How did you even know anyone was here with all the lights out?”

Gail ran a hand through her wind-blown hair and miraculously every strand fell back into place.

“I’ve been sitting in my car in front of your office for about fifteen minutes deciding whether or not to come in. I saw light when I arrived.”

I was suddenly aware of the fact that I was alone in my dark office with a person I had on my killer list. Luckily there was no nail gun in my office and no bat, but the woman was smart. Maybe she had a vial of something lethal in her purse that she planned on forcing me to drink after she made me write a suicide note. Hopefully my sister wouldn’t believe it and would mount her own investigation into my death.

I made a split-second decision not to offer Gail anything to drink, thus eliminating the possibility of the woman spiking my tea. But I couldn’t let all my manners fall to the wayside. I put a smile on my face and asked her to have a seat.

“If you don’t mind talking in the dark, I’ve got a few minutes. My husband and I have dinner plans tonight,” I said, letting Gail think I had someone waiting for me.

“No, that’s fine,” she said, as she came into the office and sat down in a chair across from me.

“So, what can I do for you?”

“Gary and I are coming up on our tenth anniversary,” she said without any preamble.

“Congratulations.”

“Yes, well, you see, before we got married we had a prenuptial agreement drawn up. If we divorce, Gary gets one million dollars for each full year we were married. If we divorce after we’ve been married for more than ten years, then he gets substantially more. The agreement states that if he cheats on me, he gets nothing. So far I’ve never caught him cheating. Unfortunately, the agreement made no such provision if he had sexual fantasies of other women and flirtations, and a good thing for him, because both of those things have plagued our marriage from the onset.”

“Why didn’t you just divorce him at the beginning? The most you would have had to pay out was a million dollars.”

“Yes, well, like I told you yesterday, I was brought up in a rather naïve way. I also do not like scandal, and I didn’t want to be forever known as the middle-aged rich woman who married a younger cad.” Gail inhaled a gulp of air and then let it out slowly. “And the truth is I did love Gary.”

“Did?” I asked.

“Yes, did. I’m afraid over the last year I’ve become rather, well, bored with him.”

“And you don’t mind a scandal now?”

Gail looked down at her manicure and then back at me with a resigned look on her face. “I’m older now. And wiser. We’ve been together a decent amount of time that I won’t look the naïve fool. I’ve had enough of Gary, and when I found out he was up to something with Victor, I thought it the perfect time to sort things out. Plus, I’m tired of being intimate with a man who’s thinking of other women when he’s with me. It’s degrading, and quite frankly, disgusting. And now with our ten-year anniversary approaching, there’s a lot at stake. My family’s company to be exact, and my father, God rest his soul, would turn over in his grave if he thought I lost the company to someone whom he never felt deserved me in the first place. As long as I have the plans in place to divorce before my tenth anniversary arrives, he’ll get nothing but nine million dollars.”

Nine million dollars didn’t sound like nothing to me, but Gail Hachmeister and I obviously traveled in different circles with different bank accounts.

“And how do I fit into all of this?” I asked. I like gossip as much as the next person, and gossip about a member of Connecticut’s higher society was certainly entertaining, but I didn’t see why Gail Hachmeister felt compelled to unburden on me.

“I came to you because you’re looking into Victor’s murder. I want to know if you find out anything about Gary. Basically, I want to know if you uncover proof of an affair. I am more than happy to pay you for your services.”

“Gail, you admitted to me that you’ve had your husband checked out. So I’m wondering why you don’t just hire a private investigator like you’ve obviously done in the past.”

Lightning flashed in the room casting a ghostly pallor on Gail’s skin.

“This calls for the utmost discretion. Why involve a third party when you are already on the case, so to speak?”

“Okay. I can understand that. If I hear anything, I’ll let you know if that’s what you really want, but the truth is, my main concern is looking into Victor’s murder and Jenna’s, and—”

“Jenna’s murder?”

“Yes, her family thinks that Victor pushed her off that cliff.”

In the dim light of my office I could see the white of Gail’s teeth when she smiled.

“Of course, he did. I should have known that. He was a disgusting little weasel. And a pervert. He obviously got what he had coming. My husband has shared with me some rather salacious stories from his and Victor’s past. Things they did in their youth. It was one of the things I found so fascinating and dangerous about Gary at the beginning, and now, well, it just seems so tawdry.” Gail stood up. “I’ve kept you long enough. Thank you for your time and please let me know if you find out anything.”

Gail walked out of my office, and a few seconds later I heard the front door open and close. I waited a few minutes before leaving, and as I walked to my car I mentally gave Gail Hachmeister the honor of occupying the top space on my list of suspects.

I was restless. My first thought was to head over to the gym and walk on the treadmill for an hour, but what fun would that be? It was still early enough that I knew John wouldn’t be home. I had some more questions for Maddi Wickersham so instead I headed over to her home hoping I wouldn’t be interrupting her dinner.

“Hey!” Maddi said when she opened the door. “Come in out of this rain. It feels so good out here, doesn’t it?”

I closed my umbrella and stepped into her entryway.

“You can leave it there. It’ll be fine.”

I put the umbrella in an antique umbrella stand to the left of the door and followed Maddi into the kitchen.

“It’s meatloaf Monday and the kids are eating in the den on TV trays. They love it.”

“How’s Moshi doing?” I asked.

“Good. Good, I think. We’re keeping her busy, but I still encourage her to talk to me and sometimes she just climbs on my lap and cries.” Maddi’s eyes misted. “It’s hard, you know? My sister should be here. So, can I offer you anything? My husband is away on a business trip and I was just about to make a plate for myself and watch the rain. Join me.”

I watched Maddi pile mashed potatoes on two plates and then add a generous slice of meatloaf to each. She also had green beans and carrots, and if I had made it myself, I would have done it exactly the same.

“This looks wonderful. Thank you.”

We took our plates over to the kitchen table. Maddi opened the small window set into the kitchen door, and a cool breeze enveloped us while we ate to the sound of a steady rain.

“The police came to talk to me about the diary and the money.”

“Sorry about that. I had to tell my husband. Mr. Big might very well have killed Victor.”

“Oh, it’s okay. Anything that gets me closer to finding out what happened to my sister is a good thing. So, do the police know who Mr. Big is?”

I put my fork down and wiped my chin. “Actually, I figured that all out with the help of my niece. At first I thought Mr. Big was Gary Hachmeister.”

Maddi scrunched up her face. “Why would you think that? Jenna thought he was a dirty old man.”

“Because he was in love with her. His secretary told me that Gary definitely had a crush on Jenna and the secretary, Suzette, felt he was probably in love with her, so I confronted him about it.”

“And what did he say?” Maddi asked. She seemed tense and I had a feeling all this talk of her sister was getting to her.

“He said that Jenna didn’t even know he was alive. It doesn’t mean that he didn’t kill Victor. There was definitely tension between the two men and some unsavory business dealings that could be the motive. Do you know Gary Hachmeister?” I asked. I wanted to see what Maddi’s thoughts were about the guy. If it turned out that the person who killed Victor also attacked Gary, and that person turned out to be Maddi, I needed to know why she would go after the builder, because so far I didn’t have a connection.

Maddi poured herself some more iced tea from a pitcher on the counter. “I saw him every now and then when Jenna and Victor had a party. He and Victor were two peas in a pod, but Gary was, well, kinder, I guess you could say. But I do know my sister wasn’t crazy about him. She said he had wandering eyes. Jenna told me she knew that when Victor and Gary were younger they got into some trouble, but Victor never shared all the details with her. Probably better that way. You said that you know who Mr. Big is.”