Poisoned Ground (14 page)

Chapter Twenty-five

Rachel’s nausea had faded overnight, but the sight of Lawrence Archer in her clinic threatened to bring it on again. The casual way the Packard Resorts official leaned on the reception desk irritated her. Smug, condescending, insensitive, mercenary—she could exhaust her supply of negatives without fully expressing her dislike for this man.

If she had a choice, she would duck into the back hallway and avoid him, but she had a patient to check out, and that required delivering the chart to the front desk so Shannon could give the kitten’s owner a bill and take her payment.

When Rachel approached, Archer’s smile widened, the perfect complement to his impeccably creased gray slacks, his blue silk open-necked shirt, and a light suede jacket that looked soft as butter. Not her type—he was no more than a high-end huckster who thought everybody was for sale because he was—but plenty of women would let his good looks and surface charm sway their decisions.

“Hello there,” he said. “I’ve been going around to all the businesses in town to introduce myself, and I wanted to stop by and say hello to you and your staff.”

“We’re all busy. I’m afraid I can’t interrupt everybody’s work to introduce you.” Rachel handed Shannon the chart with the current day’s charge sheet clipped to it. She smiled at the client, a middle-aged woman named Eileen Pearce, and said, “Pepper’s a beautiful kitten. I’m going to enjoy watching her grow up. Thank you for giving her a good home.”

Archer leaned down to peer into the small carrier Mrs. Pearce held. He wiggled a finger through the metal grill door and cooed, “You’re a cute little thing, aren’t you?”

The gray tabby kitten let out a bloodcurdling screech and raked her claws down his finger.

“Ow!” Archer jerked his hand away. “Damn it! Shit!” Blood dripped from his finger.

Rachel bit her lip to keep from laughing.

“I’m sorry she scratched you,” Mrs. Pearce said, “but you should have more sense than to stick your finger in an animal’s face when she doesn’t know you. She was already upset about being at the vet’s. And I don’t appreciate your language, by the way.”

Archer forced a smile as he pulled a pristine white handkerchief from his pants pocket and wrapped it around the finger. “You’re absolutely right. I just couldn’t resist her, she’s so cute. I apologize for swearing.”

“I’ll clean that and put a bandage on it,” Rachel told him. She glanced past Archer, through the clinic’s glass door. No wonder he was wandering around town instead of staying put in his office across the street. A couple dozen protesters carrying signs milled around outside the store front Packard Resorts had leased. Although Joanna wasn’t visible at the moment, Rachel knew she was somewhere in that crowd. Joanna had organized the protest and tried to talk Rachel into joining it.

“Oh, it’s just a little scratch, it’s fine,” Archer said. “I don’t want to put you to any trouble.”

“Come with me.” Rachel motioned for him to follow and didn’t wait for a response. She led him down the hall to an empty exam room.

Rachel pulled disposable gloves from a box on the counter and stretched them on. Standing across the exam table from her and looking sheepish, Archer presented the finger for inspection. When she wiped it with alcohol, he reacted to the sting with a gasp. “I’ll admit I’ve always been a coward about anything medical.”

Rachel stripped the wrapper off an adhesive bandage. “Yeah, well, you really should be more careful around strange animals.”

“Right. Lesson learned.”

She wrapped the bandage around his finger and tossed the bloodied alcohol wipe into the hazmat trashcan. “All set. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to work.”

“Could I have just a minute of your time? I won’t take long.”

“All right, but just a minute. I have patients waiting. What is it?”

“In the short time I’ve been here,” Archer said, “I’ve come to realize that you’re one of the opinion makers in Mason County. Someone other people listen to.”

Again Rachel had to clamp down on the urge to laugh. “Oh, really? I can’t say I’ve ever seen myself that way.”

Archer smiled. “You’re too modest. You’re one of the county’s most prominent citizens.”

Where did he come up with this stuff? Rachel might be married to Tom, but if she lived here until she was a hundred years old, the natives would always consider her an outsider. “What do you want from me, Mr. Archer?”

“Call me Larry, please. And I hope I can call you Rachel?”

“I need to get back to work, Mr. Archer.”

He put on a wounded expression that lacked any trace of sincerity. “Work is what I’m here to talk to you about. I’d like to hire you.”

“What?”

“Our resort will allow people to bring their pets with them. I’d like to put you on retainer as our official veterinarian, so our guests will know they always have access to the best of care for their pets while they’re here, away from home. We’ll feature you in our brochure.”

Was he for real? “Aren’t you getting a little ahead of yourself? You don’t even know for sure that you can build a resort here.”

“We always think positively. We believe it will all work out in the end. So, can we count on you to look after our guests’ pets? I can draw up a contract and offer you an advance on the retainer.”

“You want to give me money now, before you’ve even bought the land?”

“Some of our employees will be coming here during the development stage, and they might want to bring their families with them, including their pets.”

“Well, if that happens, and they need a vet, all they have to do is call here and make an appointment, like everybody else. I don’t want Packard’s money.”

He looked at her for a long moment, a half-smile on his face, his gaze speculative. “You’re a very direct person, Dr. Goddard.”

“I try to be. I don’t see much point in anything else.”

“Then I’ll be direct, too. We
are
going to build this resort. I’d like to have you on our side.” He paused. “And I’m not sure you realize the consequences of opposing us.”

Rachel stared at him. His tone of voice hadn’t changed. His smarmy little smile hadn’t faltered. He didn’t have an evil maniacal gleam in his eyes. But his message came across clearly. He was threatening her.

“Exactly what consequences are you talking about?”

He sighed and shook his head. “Gosh, I hate to be spreading tales, but—”

“Go right ahead. I promise I won’t think less of you.” As if it were possible to think any less of him than she already did.

“Well…” He screwed up his face as if it pained him to say what he was about to tell her. “The powers-that-be around here aren’t too happy about your opposition to this project.”

Was that all? She was relieved, but at the same time she wondered why she’d expected him to say anything she didn’t already know. “I’m sure they aren’t. But I have a right to my opinion.”

Archer nodded with fake solemnity. “Of course. It’s just a question of how much you’re willing to sacrifice for the sake of your opinion. How much you’re willing to hurt the most important person in your life.”

“I beg your pardon?” She felt the heat of outrage flooding her face, and she hated knowing he could see her fury.

He raised his hands as if trying to calm her. “I overheard something on Saturday, after the meeting, that worried me, and I wanted to be sure you’re aware of it. Maybe your husband’s told you all about it, and I’m totally out of line for bringing it up, but I had to make sure.”

She had no idea what he was talking about. But she’d be damned if she would admit that to him.

When she didn’t respond, Archer leaned against the exam table, hands in his pants pockets, looking as if they were engaged in a friendly exchange. “You know, we’ve been in situations like this quite a few times, when a community’s divided over the whole question of development. We’ve always found a way around the opposition. If we weren’t able to reach an agreement with property owners, the local elected officials have been willing to help bring it about.”

“They can’t force people to sell private property.”

“Oh, you’d be surprised what can be done. Rezoning, increases in property tax rates—and most property owners have no idea how much latitude the courts have given to local government to exercise public domain, if the commercial development is vital for the community’s economic survival. Wouldn’t you say Mason County’s economy is on its last legs? In desperate need of a boost?”

Archer’s words chilled Rachel. Was it possible? Could the county take Joanna’s land away from her if she refused to sell? She wondered if Tom knew such a thing could happen. “Is that what you overheard on Saturday? The county commissioners plotting to steal people’s land and give it to Packard?”

He waved away her question. “No, no. It was something that affects you much more personally. I just thought you should be aware of it, for your sake and your husband’s.”

“Then why don’t you just tell me so I can get back to work.” Rachel glanced at her watch, trying to mask her growing anxiety with a show of irritation.

“All right then.” He gave her an apologetic little smile. “The local officials have informed your husband in no uncertain terms that if he doesn’t control you—I believe that was the expression that was used—if you continue to publicly oppose the development, your husband will suffer the consequences. There are ways, it seems, that an elected sheriff can be removed from office.”

Rachel’s first impulse was to dismiss this as nonsense. The voters had elected Tom sheriff. The commissioners couldn’t take the job away from him. Or could they? She had been a Mason County resident long enough to know that almost anything, from the absurd to the outrageous to the downright illegal, was possible in this insular little mountain community.

If the commissioners had threatened Tom with the loss of his job—threatened him because of her—why had he kept it from her?

That was between her and Tom. Right now the only thing she wanted was to get Archer and his smarmy grin out of her sight. She yanked open the door. “You’ve delivered your message, loud and clear. Goodbye, Mr. Archer.”

***

“Finally.” Tom tossed a handful of business envelopes onto the conference room table. Dennis had been waiting for him to return from the courthouse next door. They’d found only old photographs of Tavia’s children in the fireproof box, which was just as well because the prosecutor wasn’t happy they’d removed the box from the house and opened it without getting a warrant to make sure all the technicalities were covered. He had ordered Tom to get warrants to open Tavia’s safe deposit box and to authorize further searches of the house. “I had to wait for court to recess before I could get the judge’s signature.”

“Probably not worth the trouble.” Dennis took a seat at the table. “If she didn’t have her kids’ contact information in her address book, and we didn’t find anything in the lock box, how likely is it we’ll find it in her safe deposit box?”

“I still want to see what she considered worth keeping locked up. There’s not much of it, just these envelopes and this.” Tom pulled a small plastic bag containing a blue velvet ring box from his jacket pocket and dropped it on the table. “Have you heard anything from Brandon?”

“Yeah, he called a few minutes ago. The pro-development people have started showing up and it’s getting noisy, so I sent over a couple more men.”

Tom removed his jacket and tossed it over the back of a chair. Taking a seat across from Dennis, he reached for the first envelope on the small stack. “All we need is a brawl in the middle of Main Street. But I’d rather have them fighting in public than shooting each other.”

“It doesn’t seem to be an either-or question. They’re doing both. We’ve got two killers out there.”

Tom didn’t answer. He was afraid Dennis was right, and he felt a mounting frustration with their lack of progress in the investigation. Using a finger, he broke the seal on the envelope.

Dennis picked up the bag containing the ring box. “Her wedding ring?”

“Yeah. I doubt she’s worn it since her husband died.”

“You know, I can understand her, and her kids too, being glad to get rid of the son of a bitch, but I don’t understand her kids breaking their ties with their mother. What did she do to deserve that?”

“She reminds them of what their lives were like growing up. And my guess is that they put a lot of blame on her for not getting them away from their father. It’s not fair, but that’s the way people think.” Inside the envelope, Tom found a sheet with Tavia’s bank account and credit card numbers and a list of three investment accounts. He set that aside and opened a business envelope with a local law firm’s return address in the upper left corner. “Here’s her will, or a copy of it.”

“She’s probably left everything to them. It’ll be up to her executor to track them down and find out what they want to do with the property.”

“I don’t think there’s much doubt about what they’ll want to do.” Tom scanned the first page of the document and raised his eyebrows in surprise. “This will is less than a month old.”

“Hunh. Do you think she updated it because she believed she’d be coming into some money from the sale to Packard?”

“Could be,” Tom murmured, reading on. Writing a will seemed like a grisly thing to do in the midst of life. He didn’t have one himself, although he knew it would be sensible to draw one up now that he and Rachel were married.

“What does it say about her sons and daughters?” Dennis asked.

Tom looked up. “This specifically cuts out her children. She spells it out—they don’t get anything.”

“Well, I guess the hard feelings went both ways.”

Tom’s eyes landed on a name in the document. “Damn him.”

“What? Who?”

“Jake Hollinger is her sole beneficiary, and he’s also the executor.”

Dennis shrugged. “Make sense, doesn’t it? Weren’t they planning to get married?”

“I don’t know if marriage was part of the deal. They were planning to live together somewhere else—if they sold to Packard. Everything depended on that. Well, if the deal goes through, Jake Hollinger’s going to be twice as rich. He must know about this will, but when I told him I needed to reach her children because they’d have to handle the estate, he didn’t say a damned word about it.”