VEILED MIRROR (9 page)

The insurance agent appeared distinctly uncomfortable. “That’s outside the scope of my authority. But I assure you, whatever information we find that might pertain to a homicide, we’ll turn over to the sheriff.” He pulled out a card and handed it to Ellie. “If you need help filing the claim, please call my office.”

Jason walked Montgomery to the door.

“Is the sheriff really investigating this as a homicide?” the agent asked in a confidential tone.

“I don’t know.” It was the truth. He
didn’t
know what the sheriff was doing, but he intended to find out.

“It’s just that … well, the bereaved sometimes get fixated on some odd ideas …”

Jason didn’t like hearing his own thoughts spoken aloud, especially by this guy. Especially when he was beginning to wonder if he’d been wrong. He took a step closer to the shorter man. “Mrs. Pontifore has very good reasons to suspect murder. I would keep that in mind while you conduct your investigation.”

Montgomery met Jason’s narrowed gaze steadily. He didn’t intimidate easily; Jason had to give him that much.

“Don’t worry. I’ll be quite thorough.” He stuck out his hand and Jason shook it. The grip was firm and confident, if a bit damp.

Jason shut the door behind Montgomery and walked slowly back to the living room. The man seemed like a decent enough guy, but insurance agents didn’t handle claims of this size without learning how to put the interests of the company first. He didn’t doubt that if there was anything that could be interpreted as an indication of suicide, Montgomery would find it. Lucky for Ellie, she didn’t need the money, but she also didn’t need any additional grief.

He paused just inside the archway. Chill air swept over him as he entered the room, feeling much colder than when he’d left.
The air conditioning needs to be adjusted.

Ellie had her back to him as she stared into the beveled mirror hanging over the console table. He noted the slope of her shoulders under the baggy green tee-shirt, the shape of her rear in her jeans. The memory of following Beth down the hall to the library, watching the sway of her hips in her strapless velvet gown leapt to mind. Except for the short hair, he could almost imagine that he was looking at Beth, and he felt a tightening in his groin.

If that were Beth, he might walk up behind her, put his hands on her shoulders and pull her back to lean against him. If that were Beth, he could put his arms around her, and kiss her, and feel the silky texture of her satin skin beneath his hands. They could comfort each other.
If
that were Beth.

But it’s not Beth. It’s Ellie.

He clenched his jaw. What kind of a pervert was he? All he should feel for this woman was the protectiveness of a brother. She’d lost much more than he had, after all. All he could do now, all he
should
do now, was take care of Ellie the way Chris would want him to.

B
eth paced around the parlor, trying to settle her nerves after her interview with the insurance agent. She’d almost blown it a couple of times. She’d have to ask Ellie for more details about their finances and what she’d done on her honeymoon—besides Chris. Or maybe she could duck the question in the future with a tearful,
I’d rather not talk about it.

Her reflection caught her eye as she walked by the large beveled mirror and she checked her pace to peer into it.
God, I look tired.
Apparently having long conversations with Ellie while she slept wasn’t very restful.

The room grew suddenly cold. Beth’s vision blurred and she saw double. She blinked, trying to clear one of the images. She rubbed her eyes, but only one of the figures in the glass raised her arm. The other one was wearing a lavender satin gown.

Beth shivered in the sudden chill and whispered, “Ellie?”

“What have you found out?” Her sister asked in an urgent tone.

Beth looked around to see if anyone was near enough to hear, but they were alone. “What are you doing? Anyone could see you!”

“No. Just you. So, have you got the goods on Palmer, yet?”

Beth blinked again and moved aside, so their images didn’t overlap. “Be patient! It’s only been a few hours.”

“It’s been longer than that! Hasn’t it?”

“Why didn’t you tell me Chris took out a five million dollar life insurance policy? Beth asked in a sharp stage whisper.

“I didn’t know! And don’t try to change the subject. You’re letting Jase distract you, aren’t you?”

“I am
not
distracted! We’re working on it.”

At the living room
doorway, Jason paused, side-tracked from his guilty thoughts by Ellie’s urgent tone.
What’s this about?

Ellie leaned toward the big copper framed mirror as if listening, then her neck stiffened. “Don’t nag. I’ll figure this out, I just need a little time. I’ve had things to take care of.”

Ellie paused for a moment then continued in a calmer voice. “We found out it’s not Palmer. Jason checked him out …” She shook her head. “Palmer doesn’t have a motive.” She stopped again, her attitude again one of listening. “Well, who else could it be?”

“That’s a good question,” Jason said, walking into the room. She was probably just thinking out loud, but something about that one-sided conversation made the hair on his neck stand up.

Ellie startled and flushed a deep red. “I was just, uh, you know …”

“Talking to yourself? Don’t worry about it. I do it too, sometimes.”
Though I don’t usually complain to myself that I’m nagging.
He tried to push aside the thought that she might be flipping out from the grief, just like her father had.

Ellie cast a nervous glance at the mirror. “Yeah. Thanks for understanding. It helps a little to talk it out. It makes me feel a little like my sister is still here.” She hugged herself, as if chilled.Jason wanted to put his arm around her, but he couldn’t, not with the feelings he’d been having about her. “Yeah, I know. Sometimes I talk to Chris.”

“You do?”

Why had he said that? He tried to shrug off his embarrassment. If anyone would understand it would be Ellie. “Yeah. Usually I chew him out for … being gone.” He’d almost said,
for being careless
. But if it wasn’t an accident, if it was murder, then it wasn’t Chris’s fault, not even a little bit. Was that what was goading Ellie? Even if it was, that didn’t make her wrong about the possibility of murder.

“And what does
he
say?” Ellie’s voice was soft and tentative.

His heart ached. “It wasn’t his fault.” She had to be feeling the same things he was. And if he was angry that his best friend had left him, how much more abandoned must Ellie be feeling? “He didn’t want to leave you, Ellie. If he could, he’d still be here.”

Ellie searched his face for something. “I know.”

“You know, maybe it would be a good idea if you saw a grief counselor.”

Ell looked taken aback by his suggestion, then shook her head. “I don’t think so. It’s not like I haven’t been through this before.”

“Still …” She hadn’t lost two people at once before, and she had to be facing some major abandonment issues, but before he could figure out what to say she changed the subject.

“So, have you found anything in that laptop?”

“I haven’t made much progress there, but I did find some notes Chris made. They weren’t very clear, just the sort of thing you jot down as you go through your messages.”

“What did they say?”

Jason pulled a couple of folded sheets of yellow paper out of the back pocket of his jeans and handed them to her. “I was bringing these to you when Montgomery showed up.”

Ell took the papers carefully, and slowly unfolded them. He knew what she was seeing. The handwriting was precise but hurried, but she wasn’t seeing words on paper. What she was really looking at was a little reflection of Chris. She touched the surface of the page. This had to be hard for her. He watched her scan down the page and knew when she got to the first interesting notation.

Tom H. pissed. Carlton dangerous. My fault. $700K.

She looked up. “Seven hundred thousand dollars?”

Jason shrugged. “That’s what it says. Do you know anything about this ‘Tom H’?”

Ellie’s brow furrowed. “Anne’s husband?”

“Who’s Anne?”

“Anne and Tom Hendricks. You met them at the wedding.”

“Sorry, I don’t remember them.”

“They’re neighbors. She brought me a casserole a couple days ago.” She shook her head and tucked herself into the corner of the sofa with her feet beneath her. “I can’t see Tom as a murderer.”

She sits just like Beth used to
. Jason pushed the thought away.
Of course she does. They’re twins. They’re going to have some things in common. Stay focused.

“Honest people never want to see those around them as criminals,” Jason said, sitting down on the opposite end of the couch. “Usually they’re right. But not always.” He reached for the yellow sheets and she gave them back more easily than he expected. He didn’t want her to see the second note of interest. Not if she didn’t have to. “What about this Carlton character? Do you know who he is, or why Chris thought he was dangerous?”

Ellie shook her head and shrugged.

Jason took a deep breath. He supposed it wasn’t surprising that Chris and Ellie hadn’t spent a lot of time discussing business over the last year. They’d had a wedding to plan and a honeymoon to enjoy. But Ellie didn’t seem to know anything. “Did Chris have any business with Hendricks? Anything that might have a social security number on it? It’ll make doing a background check on him easier.”

Ellie looked embarrassed. “I’m sorry Jason. Jase. I don’t know. Chris and I were going to go over all that stuff when we got back from the honeymoon, but we never—”

“Don’t worry about it. We can work around it.” He paused for a moment. “I think we should go have a talk with Mr. Hendricks.”

“But won’t that tip our hand if he
is
the killer?”

“What could be more natural than a widow going over the books and asking a trusted neighbor about a phone call? He might not tell us the truth, but his reaction could tell us if he’s hiding something.”

Ellie brightened and stood. “We can do it when I take back their dish.”

“Where are you going?”

“To clean out that casserole.”

“There. That’s the place.”
Beth pointed to the right.

Patchy gravel crunched under the tires of the Taurus as Jason turned onto the Hendricks’ long drive. The car shimmied on the rutted surface. The road hadn’t been graded for some time.
We should have taken one of the ranch trucks.
Ellie would have known that. At least she’d gotten good directions from Maria.

“By the way, if you’d rather call me Jason, that’s okay.”

Beth felt herself flush. “No. I mean, I don’t have a preference. Jase is a good name. And that is what you said you’d rather be called. Or at least it’s what I used to call you. And I might as well call you that now. It’s just that—”

She stopped abruptly when Jason put his hand on her arm where it rested on the console between them. “Are you sure you want to do this? We can still turn around.”

His touch was warm and very gentle. An intense, feverish wish that he would touch more than just her arm washed over her and she suddenly felt too hot, despite the air conditioning blasting in her face.

She pulled her arm away. She shouldn’t be thinking things like that. He didn’t want her, at least not for anything besides sex. Although the sex had been great. She shook her head. What was the matter with her? Her sister had just died—although she had talked to Ellie more in the last two days than in the last six months.

“Sorry. I guess I am a little anxious. But I want to do this. I promised … myself that I’d find out what happened.”

He gave her a quick glance under a lifted brow. “Okay.” The house came into view and Jason slowed down even more. “Remember, we’re not going to say anything about the money unless he brings it up. We want to see what he has to say without leading him.”

“I know, I know. Jeeze! You’re as bad as … as bad as I am.” She had to smile.

Jason smiled back and Beth caught herself staring into his eyes a little too long. Embarrassed, she stepped out of the car and into the high desert heat. The rambling ranch house was nearly as big as Chris and Ellie’s but the paint on the porch was peeling and some shingles were loose. Either Hendricks wasn’t big on maintenance or money was tight.

Three barking dogs charged across the yard. One looked like he was mostly cattle dog. The second definitely had coyote in his family tree, and the third was a fat black mutt with a curly tail and a grey muzzle. They stopped about five feet from her and continued sounding the alarm.

Jason stepped in front of her. She smiled, touched by his effort to protect her even if she didn’t really need it.

“Don’t confront them. Don’t look them in the eye,” she murmured. “They’re just letting us know this is their territory.”

Jason nodded.

Anne looked out the side door. “Ellie!” She came out into the yard drying her hands on a dish towel and hollered at the dogs. “Jeb! George! Ronnie! That’s enough! These are friends.” Anne flipped the towel over her shoulder and hugged Beth. The dogs stopped barking and started sniffing and bumping their noses against them.

Beth pulled back first. “Anne, this is Jason, Chris’s friend.”

“I remember you from the wedding,” the older woman said, taking his hand in both of hers. “You were handsome as the devil in that tux.” She winked at him then sobered. “I’m real sorry about Chris and Beth. This is a sad business.”

“Yes ma’am, it is.” Jason patted Anne’s work reddened hands.

Beth reached back into the car. “We brought you your dish. Thanks so much for the casserole.”

“There was no rush on that! You didn’t have to bring it all the way out here.”

“Well, actually, we had something we wanted to ask Tom,” Beth said. “Is he around?”

“He’s out in the barn.” Anne gestured toward a somewhat dilapidated building and metal corral about fifty yards away. “I’ll walk you over there.”

The old dog followed them on stiff legs as Anne led them across the dusty yard. The other two curled up on the porch, out of the sun. “I imagine you’d like to see Polly, too.”

Beth smiled and nodded. “You bet.”
Oh crap. Who is Polly?
Ellie had never mentioned her.

As they neared, two of the horses in the enclosure reached their heads over the railing.

Maybe Polly is a horse. But which one?

Anne reached up and patted the bay on the neck. “Sorry Sandy. No treats today. Not unless Ellie brought some?”

The other horse was a gelding.
Probably not Polly
. He nudged Beth in the chest with his nose and she patted his jaw. “Sorry, boy. I came unprepared.”

Anne laughed. “They’re getting spoiled anyway. The grandkids, you know.”

An older man came out from inside the building. Beth was relieved that she recognized him. “Tom! How are you?”

There was a flash of something like anger across Tom’s face, and then he ordered his features into a smile. A smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Not bad, considering.”

What did that mean?
She hesitated then plunged ahead. “We came across something while going through Chris’s desk that I didn’t understand. Were you and he doing some business together?”

Tom’s eyes flicked to Anne for just a second before he answered, “No.”

“Do you know someone named Carlton?” Jason asked.

“No, I don’t know anyone by that name.”

Beth wondered if Tom seemed as stiff to Jason as he did to her.

“Only Carlton around here is that old mine,” Anne said, leaning against the fence. “Heard some consortium of investors bought it.”

Tom resettled his sweat stained hat. “Probably a bunch of dumb easterners.”

“Oh?” Jason propped a foot up on a rail. “Why dumb?”

“Not so dumb,” Anne said. “There’s still silver in that mine. Everyone knows that.”

Tom’s eyes flashed. “Yeah, but it’s what you don’t know that’ll bite you in the ass, especially when it comes to mining.”

“If there’s still silver in it, why did they stop digging?” Jason asked.

“Don’t know. I guess it got too expensive,” Anne said.

Beth nodded. “And now someone is going to open it back up?”

“May be.” Tom shrugged and crossed his arms.

Beth glanced at Jason, wondering if they had enough information, or if they should dig a little deeper.

Jason nodded, then said, “Listen, we’re keeping you from your work. We should probably go—”

“Oh no!” Anne said. “You can’t go without seeing Polly!”

Tom rolled his eyes, but a smile quirked the corners of his mouth. “Sure, come on. She’s just about the most useless piece of horseflesh on the face of this earth,” he said, as he led them into the building. “But she’ll be glad to see you.”

Polly
is
a horse
. Beth watched Tom carefully as they walked through the barn, hoping to get a clue from his body language about which one it was, but he didn’t stop at any of the stalls. Instead he went on back to his office and opened the door. A cool breath of air conditioning wafted out along with a soft whicker of greeting.