Terminal 9 (25 page)

Dana chuckled. “What kind of wager?”

“Coffee for a week.”

“Make it a month.”

“Okay.”

“You're on,Mr. Negativity. I'll bet everything is in order.”

They pushed through the heavy glass doors and walked over to the only human in sight: a redhead wearing a colorful, gauzy tent dress. The woman looked ethnic and beautiful.

She stood when Mac approached. “I'm Ginger Stern, the branch manager. Are you from the district attorney's office?”

“Actually we are with the State Police. I'm Detective McAllister, and this is Detective Bennett.”

“Right.” The heavyset woman offered her hand to Mac, then to Dana. “Please have a seat. She motioned toward the two chairs in front of her desk.

Mac made no move to sit. He glanced at Dana, who was by now giving him a “ha-ha-I-win” look. “We were told the required subpoena was faxed over so we could view and seize the effects of the late Clayton Mullins.”

“Yes, I received the fax,” Ginger said. “I apologize for the legal loopholes, but it is bank policy to protect the privacy of our clients. Now, did you say
seize?
I was told you would only be reviewing the contents.”

“That may be the case, but we won't know until we take a look. Don't worry; I'll supply an itemized receipt for any items we remove from the box. The contents will eventually be turned over to Mr. Mullins's only living heir, a daughter who lives in Washington County.”

“That will be fine. I must admit I've never had this kind of request before. We don't get much excitement in the banking business.” Giving them an amicable smile, she led Dana and Mac through a locked door into a large security room. Pulling two keys from her pocket, Ginger unlocked the safe-deposit box gate door and pulled the large metal box from the sleeve. “Do you want a private viewing room?”

“No thanks,” Dana answered. “The table will be fine.”

Ginger placed the large metal box on the small table in the middle of the room and placed the keys back in her pocket. “I'll leave you two to your business. Just let me know when you're done or if you need anything.”

“Great, thank you so much.” As soon as the door closed, Dana punched the air with one fist then the other as she danced in a circle. “I won, I won! Coffee for a month. Does my heart good, Mac.”

“Humph, you don't have to be so happy about it.” Mac opened the steel lid to the safe-deposit box and pulled out the contents, the bulk of which were old black-and-white photographs and some letters.

“They must be of his wife and kids.” Dana flipped through the photos. “They were a pretty handsome couple in their day.”

Mac glanced at a wedding photo bearing the date 1943.

“Oh, I bet this was her wedding band.” Dana held up a slim gold band that was well worn on one side.

“Take a look at this,” Dana said, peering into a thick envelope bearing the logo and address for Addison Shaw, Attorney at Law. “Looks like a copy of Clay's will.”

“Is it an original or just a copy?”

She pulled out the document and flipped through the pages. “A copy. Look, there are no signatures on the lines at the end where he and Addison Shaw have spots to sign. It's not notarized either.”

“Read it over. Where does it have all his assets going? Does everything go to the kids like Shaw told us?”

“Yeah. Kelly and Jacob get most of it—well, now it's just Kelly.

Rita gets fifty thousand dollars.”

“That's not small change. People have killed for less.”

“Looks like Kelly inherits everything else. Didn't Shaw say something about a charity?” Dana frowned. “Oh, here it is. Five thousand dollars to his church.”

Dana pulled out a thick envelope with an insurance company logo on it. “Looks like his insurance contract.” Perusing it, Mac said, “Nothing surprising here. Kelly is the beneficiary.”

“Here's something else.” Mac drew papers out of a larger manila envelope. “Looks like a letter and some blueprints.”

Dana leaned in closer and read aloud.
“To whom it may concern.
Enclosed are plans for the new railroad museum and interpretive center.
I, Clay Mullins, require the terms be met prior to title and deed transfer
of my lands and holdings to the City of St. Helens, Terminal 9, and the
Columbia County Historical Society . . .”

“Terms, what terms?” Mac flipped to the next page.

“Mason was right. Looks like Clay had plans for all that railroad stuff of his,” Dana murmured. “What a shame. He died before he could build the museum, and now with his home gone and so much of his memorabilia lost it will probably never happen.”

“According to this document, Clay was planning to spend the bulk of his fortune.”

Dana scanned the two documents again. “If he had lived to implement this, Kelly and Jacob wouldn't have gotten squat.”

Mac whistled. “I think we just found a motive for murder.”

“What's the date of the papers where he talks about the museum?” Dana asked.

Mac shook his head. “No date. Looks like he might not have finished it.”

“Hmm.” Dana's eyes narrowed. “I wonder if Addison Shaw knows anything about this.”

“If he's responsible for the estate, how could he not know? Clay must have told him about these plans.”

“Maybe he did know,” Dana said. “That doesn't implicate him.”

“True. And if he knew, he's sure not about to tell us. We'll have to get a warrant to search his office for a revised will. In the meantime, we'd better document all this. Did you bring in an evidence form?”

“Got one right here.” Dana pulled the form from her leather binder and set about itemizing the list of documents and personal effects. Once they'd finished, Dana gave Ginger a copy of the evidence sheet, so she could make a duplicate copy.

“Did you find anything interesting?” Ginger asked. “I suppose it's none of my business, really. It's just that I'm going to miss the old guy. He'd come riding into town on that scooter of his about once a week, and almost always he'd stop by the bank to make a deposit or withdrawal or to check on his box.”

“That often?” Dana said.

“He was lonely, you know. Missed his wife something awful. At least now they're together in heaven. I think he used the box as an excuse to visit too.” She smiled. “Clay was quite a character, you know.”

“How so?” Mac asked.

“Oh, he was such a tease, kept asking me when we were going to run away together.” The woman's round shoulders rose and fell with a sigh. “Of course we never would, but it was fun making plans.” Her eyes filled with tears. “We're going to miss him.”

Mac nodded. “Thanks for all your help, Ms. Stern.”

“Oh, please. Call me Ginger.”

“Ginger.” Mac shook her hand. “We'll be in touch.”

“Oh, Detectives,” she called after them. “I meant to tell you something. I don't know if this has any bearing on your case, but— well, it's about Clay's son.”

Mac stopped in his tracks. “You have information about Jacob?”

“Well, like I said, it's probably nothing, but Jacob was in here the day after the accident wanting to get into his father's safe-deposit box. I told him there was no way we could do that unless he had paperwork giving him access—like a will or something. He wasn't too happy.”

“Did he say what he wanted or why?”

“I got the feeling he was looking for something. I heard him mumbling something about it maybe being at the house.”

“Anything else?” Dana asked.

“No, nothing. I'm sorry. He left and the next thing I heard, the house had burned down.” She frowned. “You don't suppose he started that fire, do you?”

“Hard to say, ma'am.” Mac didn't tell her that Jacob had been murdered or that it had been his body in the fire. While they'd given the media an ID, they hadn't released the specifics on his death. “But thanks for the information. We'll definitely get back to you.”

TWENTY-TWO

T
HE TWO DETECTIVES STARTED FOR THE D.A.'S OFFICE, and phoned Sergeant Evans to bring him up to speed on their recent developments.

“Interesting,” Frank said. “We may have enough to obtain a search warrant to go over Shaw's files and computers. I'll talk to Volk while you two hustle over and interview Rita Gonzales. Find out if Jacob had any contact with his father prior to their deaths. Meet me at the DA's office when you're done.”

“Will do.”

“We'll do what?” Dana asked.

“Meet Sarge at the D.A.'s office after we interview the housekeeper.”

“Why is he coming?” Dana asked. “We're handling things okay, aren't we?”

“You mean there's something you don't know?” Mac chuckled.

Dana frowned. “That's a backhanded compliment if I've ever heard one.”

“Sorry. I couldn't resist. Seems like you're always on top of things. Anyway, department policy requires that a supervisor be present when officers are serving a search warrant.”

“I knew that.” Her lower lip jutted out in a pout. “I just forgot.”

“Sarge will squeeze the warrant out of Volk—hopefully we have enough for one. In the meantime he wants us to talk to Rita Gonzales.”

RITA LIVED IN ANICELY KEPT OLDER HOME on the west side, settled among several acres of rolling hills. Dana had called en route, and Rita quickly answered the doorbell and invited them in. She'd obviously been crying and made no apologies. Speaking with an Hispanic accent, she began talking about her boss in glowing terms. “I cannot believe Mr. Mullins is dead. Such a good man. He always give me more than he owes. Tells me all housekeepers should get tips.” She smiled. “He was a generous man to everybody—to the paper boy and to the mail carrier.”

“Mrs. Gonzales, did you ever meet Clay's son?” Mac asked.

She frowned and shook her head. “No. Only the daughter. Kelly was so kind to him. Came once every week or two. She'd bring his medication and things he needed from Costco or some of the other big stores in town. No son. His son never came. Not while I was there.”

“You're sure?” Her answer fit with what Kelly had said.

“Oh, yes. There were pictures in his house of a young man, and when I first began working for him, I asked who it was. Mr. Mullins grew very sad and told me his son went away and never came back.”

“Did Clay ever talk to you about his will?” Mac met her gaze, and she looked away.

“No . . .” She slowly moved her head from side to side.

“You don't seem certain.”

“Mr. Mullins would say things sometimes.”

“Like what?”

“ ‘Someday, Rita,' he tell me, ‘someday this will be a museum. And all this land will be a park.' ”

“Did he mention how that would happen?”

“No. I didn't know how that would happen. Maybe you should talk to Mr. Shaw. He was Mr. Mullins's lawyer, and they talked sometimes.”

“Did you ever hear Clay tell Shaw about his plans?”

“No. Mr. Shaw never came when I was there.”

“When was the last time you were at the house?”

“Three days before Mr. Mullins died. I came in two times a week and sometimes a little more if he needed me there.”

“How was his health that day?”

“Good. He went over to the rail yard after I got there. He often did because he didn't like the noisy vacuum.”

“Mr. Mullins was a diabetic,” Mac said. “Did he have any problems with taking his insulin?”

“No problems. He took care of himself very well. Always, like clockwork, he check his blood sugar and take his medicine.”

“Did you know you were mentioned in Clay's will?”

She nodded. “He told me one time he was going to leave me some money, but I said no. I have enough. My husband and I both work. We do okay. See, we have this nice house.”

Mac nodded, affirming that it was indeed a lovely home. “Did your son know about the possibility of your getting an inheritance?”

“No.” She pinched her lips together. “I never told anyone. My son would not have hurt Mr. Mullins. He's a good boy. He just goes around with the wrong people sometimes.”

After a few more questions, Mac was pretty well in agreement with Philly and Russ that Rita had nothing to do with Clay's death or the burglary or fire. Still, he asked her to take a polygraph, to which she readily agreed. Mac didn't have the same assurance about her son, however, and planned to keep him on the list.

After the interview, they headed over to the D.A.'s office, where Darren Volk and Sergeant Evans were still discussing the warrant.

“I don't know that there are grounds for a search warrant,” Darren said. “I can't believe that Addison Shaw would be involved in anything underhanded. Addison was once a senior prosecutor in this office. I met him when I first started working here. Addison was my mentor.”

“I'm sorry, Darren,” Frank pressed, “but according to Shaw, Clay's kids are the primary beneficiaries of the estate. What Mac and Dana found in the safe-deposit box indicates that Clay wanted the bulk of his estate to be used in creating a railroad museum.”

“The housekeeper verified that,” Mac said. “Told us it was Clay's dream to see his place turned into a museum and a park.”

“Shaw may be out of the loop on that,” Frank said to Volk, “but you have to admit things are looking fishy. We also have opportunity and intent for a murder. Maybe one of Mullins's kids decided to murder their father before the new will could be implemented. We need to know if Shaw had any information at all about Clay's plans. And we need to know if Clay had another will. If he did, Shaw is likely to have a copy or at least some notes on it.”

“All right, I'll agree. Though I have to tell you, I have a lot of respect for Addison. I just can't believe he'd be involved in any of this.”