The Traveler: Book 5, The Eddie McCloskey Paranormal Mystery Series (The Unearthed) (12 page)

Rariville Home Health and Visiting Nurse Agency was ten minutes away, closer to the heart of the town. It sat in a modest building in a shopping center. The signage looked new and the parking lot had been recently repaved.

Christie and Eddie got out. 2:15PM now, and the day was back to being a cold one. Eddie led the way and opened the door for Christie. There was a flyer on the door for the St. Patrick’s Day Fair.

“Looks like a big event,” Eddie said.

Christie nodded. “The whole town comes out. The mayor permits open containers on Main Street. It goes all day.”

They stepped into the quiet office. A receptionist that looked fortyish took off her half-eyes and stopped typing to look up at them.

“Can I help you?”

Christie badged her. “I’m Detective Christie with the Rariville PD. We’d like to speak with Mr. Engel.”

The receptionist did her best not to act surprised. “He’s a little behind schedule today and still on a conference call right now, if you don’t mind waiting.”

“Did his last meeting go long?” Christie asked.

She asked the question perfectly, as if just making conversation with the receptionist. Christie continued to impress him.

The receptionist’s mouth opened but no words came out for a moment. She was trying to walk a fine line between cooperating with the police and not sharing too much about her boss. Eddie didn’t blame her. After all, the guy wrote her checks.

Finally, she said, “He was a little late this morning but I don’t know why.”

“How long will he be?” Christie said.

“This call should be over by 2:30.”

“We’ll wait then.”

Christie and Eddie remained standing. Eddie surveyed the office and was surprised at how small the waiting room was. Then he remembered. The patients didn’t come
here
. The nurses went out to them. There wasn’t a need for a big waiting area, or a big office for that matter.

He peered past the receptionist’s desk and saw one short hallway with a few doors along it. Probably a bathroom and a couple offices. He figured Engel’s was all the way in the back.

The receptionist asked if they wanted coffee. They both did. She had one of those machines that used K-cups. In a minute, they both had coffees that were pretty good.

The receptionist went back to typing. Eddie figured she was banging out an email to her boss, alerting him to the police presence in the outer office area.

Christie sipped her coffee and turned so she was facing away from the receptionist. “Let me open, then you come in when I signal.”

“Roger that.”

Christie kept her voice low. “The genie is out of the bottle. The media has reported on the ghost sightings. They know you’re here. If King was able to figure it out, there’s no point in being coy.”

“Agreed.”

“There’s no sensitivity around Tiffany Engel’s disappearance either. So you ask him what you have to.”

“I was going to anyway.”

She rolled her eyes. “Of course you were.”

The receptionist stood at her desk. “Mr. Engel’s call has concluded. You can go back now. His door is last on the right.”

***

Christie was surprised at how messy Engel’s office was. It was a borderline disaster. There were stacks of paper everywhere, reams and reams of what looked like old medical records. His desk was covered in about six inches of documents too. It looked like he was preparing for an audit.

“Max Engel.” He leaned over his desk to shake their hands. “Please have a seat.”

Christie introduced them but didn’t explain why they were there right away. She wanted to gauge Engel while he was still in the dark, then study his reaction when she revealed the purpose for their visit. It was a simple trick, one of the first things she’d learned as a young cop, but it worked. The simplest tricks usually did.

Engel didn’t appear nervous when she emphasized she was a detective and following a lead. He seemed more preoccupied. Maybe it had to do with the mess in his office.

Christie couldn’t age non-Asians that well. Once a Caucasian man hit thirty-five, he looked pretty much the same till he hit about fifty. If Engel had been Asian, though, she would have been able to guess his age within a year.

Engel wore a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved polo shirt. His loafers were on the carpet next to his desk.

“Forgive the mess,” he said. “I missed a few days last week and I’m working hard to get everything in order.”

“Vacation?” Christie said.

“Yeah…not planned. Just spur of the moment. I decided to go to the Jersey shore.”

Christie thought it was awfully cold in March to attempt the Jersey shore.

“I see. What are you getting in order, if you don’t mind my asking?” Christie beamed a girl-from-next-door smile.

Engel smiled right back at her. But the smile accentuated the bags under his eyes. The man wasn’t sleeping. Christie wondered why. The obvious answer was it had to do with his missing wife. From what she’d remembered, Tiffany Engel had left him. Max could very well have still loved her.

“If you can promise to keep it confidential.”

“We will,” Christie said.

“My wife ran this business the last few years…until she disappeared, that is. After she was gone, I had to assume control once more. I’m now trying to figure out how she managed everything and kept the books. At the same time, I’m trying to sell the agency.”

“Why?” Christie said as innocently as possible.

“I wanted to get out years ago. That was one of the reasons my wife ended up running it.”

She waited for him to mention their estrangement. But he didn’t.

Engel said, “And that hasn’t changed. I still want out. I’m ready to move on and try something new. When we started this place, we spent the first few years just trying to keep the lights on. It was tough. But we stuck with it and grew our patient base by delivering quality care. Now it’s grown into something more like a corporation requiring extra infrastructure. The money is good, really good, but I preferred the place when it was smaller, back in the days when we didn’t need a lawyer on retainer. I’d like to start over and grow a company again.”

Christie nodded. “So you’re trying to sell it?”

“Yes. We have a few interested parties, most of them larger home health agencies with a reach across the state.”

“What do you plan on doing after you sell?”

Engel grew thoughtful. “I’ll figure it out when I get there. Until then I’ve got a million other things to figure out first.”

Christie nodded and lost her smile. Back to business. Engel folded his hands.

She said, “I’m sorry to do this, but I have to ask you some questions about your wife.”

“It’s no problem,” he said, wearily.

“Have you seen her recently?” Christie asked.

Engel’s eyes dropped. He looked down at his hands. She knew he was about to reveal something he considered important.

“I haven’t seen her, no.”

People more often than not told you what you needed to know. You just had to listen. “But you’ve heard from her.”

Engel nodded and looked up. “She called me.”

“Why?” Christie said.

Engel threw his head back and looked at the ceiling. “She’s my wife. Even if we were estranged.”

“Why did she call?”

Engel’s shoulders slumped. “She wanted to know if the police were still looking for her.”

“And you told her what?”

“The truth. That nobody had been by in awhile.”

“What else did you discuss?”

Engel’s face twitched, like it was hurting him to talk about this. “She couldn’t stay on long. I asked her where she was and what she was doing, but she wouldn’t share anything with me.”

“Because you were estranged?” Christie said.

Engel shook his head. “No. We will always love each other, no matter what. She didn’t tell me because that way I didn’t know anything.”

“Mr. Engel, do you really expect me to believe that?”

“It’s the truth.”

Christie questioned Engel for another five minutes about the phone call, trying to pull more details out of him. But there was nothing more to the call. Tiffany Engel had called to check on the investigation into her alleged fraud and her current whereabouts. Engel had told her about himself and what he was up to, but she hadn’t revealed anything.

Christie said, “You know why we were talking to her before she disappeared.”

Engel nodded.

“What did you think?”

“I don’t believe she was committing insurance fraud. No way.”

Which explains why she ran
, Christie thought. “You were part-owner too. Shouldn’t you
know
she wasn’t?”

Engel smiled sadly. “I let her run this place during that time period. But that being said, I checked our books and questioned the staff and am certain nothing of the sort happened.”

She said, “How can you be sure?”

“I’ve known her most of her life. And that wasn’t her.”

Christie caught Eddie looking down, like he was checking something in his pocket. She knew what he was doing but didn’t want Engel asking any questions.

Christie said, “Didn’t your wife commit credit card fraud, though?”

Engel sighed. He’d answered this question many times before. “That was over twenty years ago and she didn’t know what she was doing. It was her boss. She had no idea. She was just a kid following orders.”

Christie gave him the cop stare. She’d learned it from watching a lot of the guys. Sometimes all you had to do was look at a person and it was enough.

Engel frowned. “She didn’t commit fraud.”

Christie said nothing. If Tiffany was still alive, that ruled her out as the ghost obviously. Christie decided to backtrack and get more details around the call. She was looking for context. If Engel couldn’t provide it, that meant he was probably lying.

Christie said, “Where did she call you?”

“She wouldn’t tell me where she was.”

Christie shook her head. “I’m asking where
you
were.”

“Oh.” Engel looked left and right. “Was I here? Or at home, maybe? I honestly don’t remember.”

Christie leaned forward. “When exactly did she call you?”

“This had to be a month ago.”

“If she’s innocent, why did she run?”

“She wanted a clean start.”

Christie frowned like she was confused. “You expect us to believe she walked away from all the money you’ve got in this business?”

“Your people were relentless. She just wanted to get away.”

“She could have easily cleared her name,” Christie said. “If she was innocent.”

“She
is
innocent.”

Christie went quiet and gave Eddie a quick glance, giving him an opening.

Eddie said, “How are you going to get her money to her, when you sell this place?”

“She hasn’t asked for any.”

“Really?”

Engel nodded.

Christie stood. “Mr. Engel, are you lying to us? Because the investigation of this agency’s billing practices can be easily reopened. I doubt your potential buyers would want to hear that.”

“No! She’s innocent! I’m not lying to you.”

Eddie went on. “Are you sure it was your wife calling?”

Engel looked from Christie to Eddie and back again. The shift from Christie to Eddie asking questions had thrown him off, almost like he couldn’t tell who was in charge between the pair of them.

“Yes, I’m sure.”

Eddie took out the K2 meter and held it up. “Do you know what this is?”

Engel’s eyes were bouncing back and forth from her to Eddie. “I’ve never seen anything like that.”

“It’s a K2 meter. Do you know what it measures?”

“I just said I’ve never seen it before.”

“Ghosts,” Eddie said.

Christie’s eyes zeroed in on Engel’s face. She’d trained in reading micro expressions as part of her continuing education. His eyebrows went up, which suggested he was lying, but his eyes also went up and to his left, which meant he was remembering something. On the whole, the two gestures cancelled each other out and didn’t tell her anything.

“You brought that K meter in here to measure ghosts?” Engel shifted his eyes from Eddie to Christie.

Eddie held it out so Engel could see. “This light keeps blinking. You know what that means?”

Engel shook his head no. The man was suddenly jittery.

Eddie said, “It means there’s an entity in this building.”

“An entity?”

Eddie nodded. “Know any ghosts?”

Engel shook his head. Then it must have dawned on him. “Wait, is this about the sightings?”

Christie said, “How’d you know about the sightings?”