Corpse in a Crate Read online

  No wonder he’d seemed unsympathetic and dismissive.

  Nate let out a shuddering sigh, turning away from us in favor of walking to the window. Late afternoon sunlight cast a warm glow over him, but it didn’t do anything to improve the ragged state he was in. “Ever since that night, I’ve done everything I can think of to make up for the accident. Trust me, I don’t fool myself into thinking that contributing to charity and working with kids in situations similar to the one I was in back then will bring back the girl I killed.”

  I could barely breathe. I couldn’t believe he was coming out and talking about this in front of us. Two of us were strangers.

  Nate snickered. “You know, for the first time in thirteen years, I drank last night. I hadn’t touched a drop since that night. Not until last night. I don’t even keep alcohol in the house, not here or in any of the places I’ve ever lived. Not even in college, which you can imagine wasn’t exactly easy. It was everywhere, after all. I was always the designated driver, the one who looked after my friends to make sure they didn’t get into the sort of trouble I had.” He ran his hands through his hair again. “I feel like hell,” he chuckled. “Hangovers are a lot worse as a thirty-year-old, especially when you haven’t been through one in a long time.”

  “Do you think the police will treat you badly because of what happened?” Raina whispered. “Do you think maybe you’re not getting a fair deal from them?”

  He shook his head, turning back to us. “No, honestly. Wallace is a real pain, but in the end I’m not afraid for myself. Truly, I’m not. Whoever that poor person was in the trunk, I don’t know anything about them. I made a terrible, horrific mistake when I was seventeen years old. That’s the only such mistake I ever made, I can promise you that. I think Wallace was just putting the screws to me yesterday to make himself feel a little better. He’s wanted to for a long time, I’m sure.”

  Raina looked relieved, and I felt slightly better, but Joe didn’t seem to agree with us. Did he know something we didn’t know? Was he still holding out on me?

  “What about your family?” Joe asked, taking a total left turn out of nowhere. “From what I understand, there’s a lot of animosity between the different branches of your family tree.”

  Nate laughed, and for the first time, he sounded like he had when we met him at the farmhouse. “That’s probably the most generous way to describe it,” he allowed, chuckling. He sat down again, and this time he didn’t look quite so hopeless.

  Maybe Joe had managed to take his mind off the money that was slipping through his fingers with every passing minute he spent not working on the renovations.

  “It’s a complicated situation,” Nate explained. “My great-grandfather was married twice, you see. His first wife bore him eight children before she died in childbirth with the ninth. He married again when he was sixty. His oldest child at that time was in his mid-thirties, so it was considered sort of scandalous I guess. He already had plenty of heirs, sons to take over the family business. But he wanted another wife, somebody to run the household and that sort of thing. The second wife, my great-grandmother, was only twenty-two when they got married. She bore him another five children. By the time my grandfather was born, the youngest child in the family, his oldest brother was turning forty-two. That’s why there’s such a huge generational gap. That’s why my cousin Kevin is twice my age.”

  He shrugged, looking around. “Messy. Maybe that’s part of it, the fact that there are so many different generations in the same family. There’s very little for any of us to agree on, coming from different eras the way we do. Kevin was a member of the Me Generation, swinging his briefcase as he walked the streets of Manhattan’s financial district back when he had offices up there. He looked up to Gordon Gekko as a sort of god. And I was just being born.” He sat back in the chair, staring out the window like he was looking at something far away. “I’m the only child, and he’s the only living member of my branch of the tree in the area. Some of them live overseas, some of them are on the West Coast doing their own thing. We’re the only two who stayed around here, kept it local. That’s why we’re the ones who are always butting heads.”

  “The uncle who left you the farmhouse. He was childless, wasn’t he?” Joe asked.

  I wished I was taking notes. He’d clearly done his homework.

  Nate nodded. “And he very deliberately left a great many of my cousins and other relatives out of his will. The word most often used to describe him was cantankerous. But he always got along with my father, probably the only relative he did get along with. He saw him as a baby brother and mentored him in a way. He looked favorably upon me, I guess, because I was his favorite brother’s son.”

  “Which strikes me as odd,” Joe mused. “Since it was George Patterson who raised Kevin as though he was his own son. Isn’t that so?”

  Nate whistled through his teeth. “You’ve done your homework, Detective.”

  Great minds thought alike.

  “It’s what I do,” Joe shrugged.

  “You’re right. I always wondered if that’s why they didn’t get along, because they were so alike. Kevin has always been difficult, argumentative, marching to the beat of his own drummer. He likes things a certain way, and good luck if you make a mistake. Those of us who’ve ever cared to theorize on him agree it probably had something to do with his parents’ death. He was young. It was a shock for him.”

  “How did they die?” I couldn’t help but ask. Maybe it was morbid, but I couldn’t control my curiosity.

  “Aunt Winnie died when Kevin was a toddler. A fall, or so they said. She liked her drink—no judgment here—and fell down the stairs. It’s always been quietly assumed that she was drunk at the time. For Uncle Matthew, it was a boating accident. Kevin was maybe ten years old then, and the two of them went out on the sailboat. They got caught in a storm, and Matthew went over. The Coast Guard found Kevin two days later, drifting, in shock.”

  Two days spent on a drifting boat with nobody to help. I thought about that little boy and how terrified he must’ve been, then thought about the man I’d met. It was easier to see how he might’ve developed strict habits and a prickly way about him. He’d been through something excruciating.

  “I would imagine since Uncle George raised him, Kevin assumed he would get full ownership of the property. The land and the house. And I guess, I don’t know. I understand to a degree. But the man has three homes, and doesn’t need another. Neither do I, mind you, but at least I intended to make something of it. And it’s not as if I didn’t pay a pretty penny to settle things up with my cousin, believe me. I came nowhere near stealing anything. His lawyers saw to that.”

  It occurred to me then that Nate was probably in worse financial trouble than I had considered. Granted, all he had to do was sell off a few of the lovely pieces of furniture in that one single room alone, and he might have made more money than I would make all year.

  But that wouldn’t be enough, would it? The property taxes on this piece of land alone must’ve been astronomical. The driveway was a mile long, at least, and I doubted the property ended at the back door of the house.

  And he now had a farm on top of it.

  “We’ve taken enough of your time.” Joe surprised me with the abruptness of that statement, along with how abruptly he stood. “Emma ought to be resting in bed with a couple of aspirin and a good book.”

  If I hadn’t stiffened to the point of practically ossifying, I would’ve jumped to my feet and given him an earful. “Silly me. I didn’t realize I brought my father along on this trip,” I simpered with a sweet smile.

  Nate laughed, then at least had the decency to look embarrassed. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be laughing. But you have no idea how nice it is to sit and talk with people and hear them joking. I’ve been in my own head ever since yesterday, and it isn’t exactly a fun place to be right now.”

  Nate walked us to the door, and we were almost outside before Joe had one final thought. He tur
ned to Nate, frowning. “Give it to me straight. How long do you think you have before you’re in the red on this project? Is there a feasible amount of time in which you might be able to make up for your losses?”

  Nate grimaced, but at least appeared to take the question seriously. “I would say maybe another three or four days, tops. After that, I’m not sure I’ll be able to make up for the loss. Not if I want to open before July Fourth.”

  That didn’t give us much time. Three or four days.

  “Don’t even think it,” Joe warned as he walked me to Raina’s car, his hand around my bicep.

  “Do you have to hold my arm quite so tight?” I asked.

  “Maybe I’m afraid you’ll run off on me if I don’t,” he snickered.

  “Is that what you’re warning me not to think about? Running away from you? Because believe me, I don’t think I could run anywhere.”

  We stopped at the car while Raina lingered behind us with Nate, and Joe shook his head. “No. What I’m telling you is, don’t even think you’re going to be the one to solve this little mystery. The police will clear the scene another day or two, and things will go on the way they’re supposed to.”

  “Do you really believe that? Honestly. If I were another cop, and not somebody who you seem to take joy from bossing around, would you say the same thing to them? Would you assure them that the house and the farm would be cleared within a couple of days?”

  When he looked away, I knew the answer. He didn’t need to say it out loud.

  Then something occurred to me, something I hadn’t thought before. I knew better than to say it to him, because he would shoot me down and tell me to mind my own business.

  If the body hadn’t decomposed in the attic, where had it come from? Had it been buried somewhere on the property and moved there?

  If so, why?

  And if so, was that the only body that had been buried on the farm?

  Maybe Uncle George was a man with secrets.

  Chapter Twelve

  “Let’s see. Chocolate brownie sundae with vanilla ice cream. Key lime pie. Peanut butter pie. Apple tart.”

  Raina looked up at me from the room service menu. “Anything sound good to you?”

  “Um, all of it. Sorry. I didn’t realize I had to make a choice.”

  She snickered, putting the menu aside. “I should’ve known. Maybe we shouldn’t bother ordering dinner at all. Maybe we should just stick to desserts.”

  “I would be just fine with that.” I sighed, folding my hands in my lap. “I’m sorry. I’m ruining your night. We should be going out and having fun, not sitting here in the room because I fell into a hole today.”

  “A hole you would never have fallen into if I didn’t drag you into this business with Nate.” She stretched out on her queen-size bed, separated from mine by a sleek nightstand, and sighed. “I know Joe doesn’t want us getting involved in this. But I feel like there has to be something to be done. Some way to, I don’t know, expedite things or something.”

  “I know. I completely hear you. But even I’m starting to think there’s nothing we can do, and you know me. I’m always the first person to demand we at least try. But I’m feeling so low, so hopeless about this.”

  I snickered. “Neither of us is very good company right now, are we? I could eat an entire cheesecake by myself, I’m so depressed.”

  Raina burst out laughing. “Okay, okay. I’ll call downstairs for it. Only desserts. What the heck? Let’s go all out.”

  While she made the call, I ventured off the bed. The aspirin we’d picked up at a corner store not far away from the hotel had helped considerably, and I was able to walk around the room without shuffling or groaning or otherwise sounding like I was in my death throes.

  It was a busy night out there, with plenty of people entering and exiting the brewery across the street. There was a restaurant at the corner, two doors down from there, and several cute little shops. A cute little art gallery, a wine bar, several couples sitting at tables set up outside and sipping their Chablis.

  I wanted to be down there with them. Maybe I could have been if I’d been a little more careful.

  The sight of a familiar ball cap caught my eye. Kevin. I didn’t say anything to Raina, who was still on the phone with room service anyway—it sounded like they didn’t believe she only wanted desserts—but chose instead to watch silently as he worked his way down the sidewalk.

  He looked like he had slept in his khaki pants and a plaid button-down left open over a white undershirt. As ever, he carried a newspaper under one arm. Like it was a weapon, a shield he could put up in front of himself if anybody came too close. I remembered the little boy who had drifted all alone for days, probably wondering what would happen to him without his father. Wondering if he would ever be able to get home or if he would die, too.

  It was easier to look at him with compassion when I thought about it that way. He wasn’t just a strange, prickly man who clearly didn’t care much for the tourists all around him. He was a man who’d been hurt deeply when he was a child, and whose father figure had left him with practically nothing to show for the years they’d spent together.

  Well, not nothing. Acres upon acres of farmland could hardly be considered nothing. I didn’t even want to imagine how much money so much land could go for if Kevin chose to sell. I wondered how much Nate had ended up paying for the right to take over Kevin’s claim.

  “Maybe it was a symbolic thing,” I mused aloud once Raina was off the phone. Kevin had finished elbowing his way through one group of people after another and was already crossing to the next block. Even if she joined me at the window, she wouldn’t see him. Where did he live that it was so easy for him to walk around town like that? His house had to be nearby.

  “A symbolic thing? What are you talking about?”

  “The land. The land Uncle George left Kevin. It was all Kevin had from the man who raised him from the time he was ten years old. No wonder he wanted so badly to hold onto it.” I looked over my shoulder to see what she thought, and wasn’t surprised to find her frowning and chewing her lip.

  “Yeah, now that you put it that way, I sort of feel bad for him. But that’s still no excuse to walk around acting like an idiot in public.”

  “I completely agree with you on that. Don’t forget, I’m the one he got snippy with last night.” I turned back to the window, gazing down at a bunch of people enjoying their vacation time. Or maybe they were just having a fun little Saturday night. Either way, they were unaware of Nate’s troubles.

  And they certainly didn’t know anything about the poor person whose body was found in the attic.

  “I wonder who it could’ve been. In the attic, in that trunk.” I turned to Raina. “Do you know of any strange cases in that family? Missing people, that sort of thing?”

  “Jeez, I don’t know. Not that I can remember.” She drew her knees to her chest, resting her chin on top. “You’re not saying you think it was somebody in the family, are you?”

  “I guess I don’t know what I’m saying.” I rested against the wall between the window and the dresser, barely keeping myself from sliding down until I was on the floor. I was so tired, so sore. Only the thought of having to get up kept me on my feet.

  “I mean, is it possible?” Raina shrugged. “I guess so. After all, there are so many members of the family. Nate’s great-grandfather had thirteen kids, and they all had kids of their own. I guess with that many people floating around, somebody can fall through the cracks.”

  “But they’re very wealthy people,” I pointed out. “The wealthy don’t fall through the cracks, do they? Besides, it doesn’t have to be somebody in the family. It could’ve been any random person. A worker, maybe, somebody from the house or the farm. Or it could’ve been some stranger who decided to bury a body on a property where nobody lived. They’d assume the body would be safe there.”

  “That’s true. We’re looking for a needle in a haystack.”

  “No
,” I corrected her, feeling more than a little sour. “The police are looking for that needle, not us. If Joe reminds me one more time that I have nothing to do with the case…” I growled, baring my teeth.

  “You like him. Admit it.”

  “Will not.”

  “But you do. And he likes you, too.”

  I burst out laughing. “Not really.”

  “Grow up,” she groaned, throwing a pillow my way. I chucked it back as hard as I could—all things considered, it wasn’t very hard. It landed on the bed before even making it to Raina.

  “I miss Lola,” I sighed. “She doesn’t tell me to grow up. She just eats my sandals.”

  “We’ll head back tomorrow morning,” Raina promised, crossing her heart.

  “Wait. What?” I sat at the foot of the bed. “You think I’m gonna go home now?”

  “You have to. You have your dog and your life. I have my life, too, and it can’t sit and wait forever for me to get back to it. I’m supposed to be flying out to LA on Wednesday for a job. My heart won’t be in it, that’s for sure.”

  “What about Nate?” I asked. Since when was I the one so concerned about him? Shouldn’t it have been the other way around?

  “The police will free up the house for the renovations to go forward. I mean, what else can we do? Even I know when it’s time to stand back and let other people handle things.” She leaned forward. “Emma. I don’t think there’s anything we can do. Nate didn’t do anything wrong, and the police know that. They’ll clear the house for use soon.”

  “Do you actually believe that?”

  She sighed, looking down at the bedspread with its tiny flowers. “I have to believe it, or else I’ll cry my eyes out until I can’t cry anymore.”

  “He’ll bounce back from this,” I assured her with as much certainty as I could manage.

  Good thing our cart full of desserts showed up just then, or else we might’ve been crying on each other’s shoulders in another second or two.