Fatal Debt Read online

  My stomach did an oh-no lurch.

  “Kirk Redmond?” I asked.

  “It looks as if he might not be the solid-gold businessman he portrays himself to be,” Nick said.

  I gulped. “What’s going on?”

  “I’ll let you know when I find out.”

  I started to tell Nick that I’d phoned Redmond about the painting job at Mr. Sullivan’s house, but decided not to. I could always back out of the painting deal if Nick’s investigation turned up something.

  * * *

  When I got to the Indian casino and found the ladies playing slots, they were all in high spirits.

  “I told you!” Dora declared. “I told you my mojo was working today!”

  “Yeah, it was working, all right,” Helen said.

  “Worked good for me, too,” Ruby said. “I stood right beside her.”

  “How did you do?” I asked.

  “Seven hundred dollars,” Dora announced.

  My mouth dropped open. Wow, that woman had serious mojo, all right.

  “You know what we need?” Ruby said. “We need a trip to Vegas.”

  “Yeah, let’s go to Vegas,” Helen agreed.

  “Let’s do it!” Leona said.

  “And Dana can drive us!” Dora said.

  The conversation took off from there, totally out of control as the women made plans for the big trip. I never committed to anything but they didn’t seem to notice.

  I pulled away from Leona’s house thinking that I should go by Janet Teague’s place, as Manny had instructed, but I just wasn’t up to it tonight.

  I glanced in the rearview mirror at the ladies standing on the front lawn still talking about the Vegas trip that I’d somehow gotten involved in.

  I hoped this was my only act of generosity that blew up in my face.

  Chapter 18

  Thursday morning I awoke without the jubilant feeling that particular day of the week usually brought. I got out of bed and Seven Eleven went down the hallway with me, both of us stretching and yawning.

  She came fully awake at the sound of the canned cat food being opened, and I came awake at the smell. I put it in her dish, freshened her water, and poured myself some orange juice.

  All sorts of thoughts had run through my head since I’d had dinner with Nick last night. A lot of them were about Nick, of course, but most involved the other things that had gone on yesterday.

  Such as spotting Belinda Griffin in the Indian casino. What was that all about? Maybe she’d just needed a break, as Leona Wiley and the other ladies had who’d endured a family crisis. But the look on Belinda’s face when she’d seen me gave me an odd feeling.

  And, of course, my upcoming trip to Vegas was in my thoughts. In my zeal to help out Mrs. Sullivan’s family I’d somehow gotten hooked into a trip to Sin City with the ladies in the Caddie. I’m still not sure exactly how my act of kindness had gone so wrong.

  Also, Kirk Redmond hadn’t called me back yet about painting Mr. Sullivan’s house, and I’d expected that he would. Even if he’d called my dad, I’d have heard about it. But after what Nick had said about Redmond being a questionable businessman—and possibly a murder suspect—maybe it was for the best.

  Another of my great intentions shot down.

  I wondered if I should tell Nick about my attempt to contact Redmond, but didn’t see what good it would do. Failure to return a phone call wasn’t a crime, though when I took over the world I’d strongly consider enacting just such a law.

  As I got dressed for work, I decided that my day needed a lift. The new thigh-high boots I’d bought for my pirate costume came to mind. I went into my second bedroom and eyed the box. The temptation to wear them to work today nearly overcame me. The look on Inez’s face when she saw me walk into the office in those things would carry me through the day easily.

  I resisted with some effort and turned to leave when the yellow legal tablet beside the computer caught my eye.

  I’d used the circles on the pad to try and figure out how everyone was connected to Mr. Sullivan, sort of like a connect-the-dots game. So far, I’d come up with nothing but theories that hadn’t panned out. My “dots” hadn’t taken me very far.

  I turned the tablet sideways. Maybe I needed to look at the murder from a different angle. Maybe Mr. Sullivan wasn’t the central figure, even though he was the victim.

  Turning to a fresh page, I drew a big circle and put Leonard’s name in it. Was he the center of this whole thing?

  I made more circles, connecting Leonard to Mr. Sullivan. In that circle I noted Leonard’s argument—the possible motive—and his disappearance. Belinda Griffin connected with Leonard, thanks to their chats at the casino.

  And what about the guy who’d accosted me at the post office and at Club Vibe? Nothing connected him to Leonard, yet I couldn’t help but write in a question mark to represent him. I did the same with Jarrod Parker because he’d acted so weird lately, and left those two circles floating, not connected to anything.

  I stared at the legal pad. The new configuration of circles didn’t spark my imagination.

  Then just for the heck of it, I started a new page, this time putting Kirk Redmond’s name in the center circle. Aside from his connection to the Sullivan home and Nick’s vague comment, I was unable to draw more circles. Another dead end.

  Annoyed with the whole thing—and myself—I dropped the legal pad beside the computer, finished getting dressed, and left. As I headed for work I cranked up the CD trying to chase away a little nagging thought that had taken root in my mind.

  Mr. Sullivan’s murder, Leonard’s disappearance, Belinda’s house burning down. A lot of bad things had been falling down around me. How long before something bad landed on me?

  * * *

  One nice thing about having a job was that if the rest of your life was a mess, being at work was a good place to get your mind off your problems. That’s because there’s a whole other set of problems waiting for you there.

  The routine of the office felt comfortable when I walked in. For better or worse, these were the people I spent most of my time with. I took a deep breath, settled into my desk, and decided that no matter what, today I would have a good day.

  My resolve was tested almost immediate after Manny arrived. He called me to his desk.

  “What’s up on the Parker repo?” he asked, gesturing to his computer screen. “I told the DM the account would be cleared by the end of the week. That’s tomorrow.”

  “It will be,” I assured him.

  Really, I didn’t know that for sure. But I had a strong feeling that Jarrod could get the money to pay off the account and pick up his car, and I couldn’t imagine him facing the weekend without his hot Mustang convertible to drive around in.

  “What about Janet Teague?” Manny asked, flipping to another screen. “Did you make contact? Find out what she intends to do about her house?”

  Manny had given me this account to work and I hadn’t done much of anything about it, which was bad, of course. This was no way to keep my job, so I was forced to tell a lie.

  “I went by her place last night and sat there for over an hour. She never showed,” I said. “I’ll go out again today.”

  Manny clicked the mouse to pull up another account on his computer. I figured this was the perfect time to distract him.

  “I saw Belinda Griffin yesterday playing slots at the Indian casino,” I said.

  Manny just shook his head. He’d been in this business a long time, much longer than me. After a while, I guess nothing was surprising.

  “That whole deal is weird,” I said. “Their beautiful home, all the work they’d put into the backyard. Then Belinda acts like it’s nothing when it burns down.”

  Manny just shrugged.

  “I understand the fire is being investigated as arson,” I said.

  “Great,” he grumbled.

  I went back to my desk and got to work. I barely noticed when Manny left the office. Carmen brough
t me a sandwich when she came back from lunch.

  “Dana,” Inez said, taking off her glasses as she walked to my desk. “Did Manny authorize your in-place, overtime lunch before he left?”

  “Yes,” I lied.

  Inez folded her arms. “Now, Dana, I showed you Corporate’s memo on overtime. Do I need to staple it to your desk?”

  I was ready to staple it to Inez’s forehead when Carmen interrupted.

  “Sean Griffin is here,” she said in a low voice. News that the Griffins’ house had burned down had already made the rounds in the office.

  “Manny should talk to Mr. Griffin,” Inez said. “But since he’s not here, I’ll handle it myself.”

  “I’ve got it,” I said, and pushed past her.

  Carmen gave me the Griffin account summary she’d printed and I went into the interview room where Sean Griffin waited. I introduced myself and sat down across the table from him.

  I’d never seen him before. His file indicated he was in his early thirties, and he looked it. Attractive, but not handsome. Dark hair, medium height. He had on a faded T-shirt, denim jeans and jacket.

  Sean didn’t seem to match Belinda. She looked sleek and fashionable. Sean looked as if he worked hard for a living at his factory job.

  He looked uncomfortable in the office. Uncomfortable in his skin. Maybe even uncomfortable in his life—most of which was attributable to the fact that his house and everything he owned had gone up in flames a few days ago.

  I wasn’t sure why he was here so I kept my mouth shut and waited him out. It took him a few minutes to get started because I don’t think he knew why he was here, either. Finally, he pulled a handful of envelopes out of his jacket pocket.

  “The post office has been holding our mail since the house … went,” Sean said. “I picked these up this morning.”

  He placed the envelopes on the table. I saw return addresses from several credit card and utility companies.

  “I’ve never heard of some of these places. The balances are in the thousands, and the payments are all past due.” Sean dragged his palm over his forehead. “I don’t understand.”

  I didn’t need to look inside the envelopes to know Sean was right. I’d seen the past due balances on their credit report when I’d gone out to their house.

  He gazed across the table at me. “How can this be possible?”

  Lucky me, I had to deliver yet another piece of unwelcome news to a man already drowning in it.

  “Your account with us is behind, too,” I said. “Four months behind.”

  Sean rocked back in his chair. “I didn’t want to take out a second mortgage on the house. I didn’t want all that work done in the backyard. I told Belinda it wasn’t a good idea, but she insisted.”

  “Sorry, but we’ve started foreclosure proceedings,” I said, feeling like a complete jerk.

  Sean squeezed his eyes shut for a few seconds, then shook his head.

  “But why did this happen? How did it happen? I make plenty of money. I give my paycheck to Belinda every week to take care of this stuff. Why is this happening?”

  I was getting a sick feeling in my stomach because I thought I knew the answers to Sean’s questions.

  I thought Sean knew, too.

  “Belinda wasn’t paying the bills, was she?” I asked quietly.

  I guess hearing it spoken aloud was too much for Sean. He cursed softly and slumped down in his chair.

  “She was supposed to take care of all this,” he said. “I went to the bank before I came here. We had a good chunk of savings—but not anymore. It’s gone. Why would she do this? Where did all the money go?”

  “Have you talked with her about it?” I asked.

  Sean shook his head. “I don’t know where she is.”

  “Aren’t you staying with friends?” I asked. “That’s what Belinda told us when she called my boss about the fire.”

  His gaze came up sharply. “She’s with a friend? Here in town?”

  An icky knot jerked in my stomach. I couldn’t think of anything to say but Sean didn’t give me a chance anyway.

  “We had a fight last week,” he said. “She told me to leave. I’ve been staying with a buddy of mine from work. And now she’s staying with her friend?”

  From the look on Sean’s face, I knew he suspected—or knew—that Belinda’s friend was really a boyfriend.

  He gathered the envelopes from the desk and stuffed them into his pocket again.

  “I’m really sorry about all these problems,” I said, though my words seemed woefully lacking. What do you say to a man who’s lost everything he has in the world?

  “The foreclosure will be on hold until the insurance claim is settled,” I said, hoping it would be at least a tiny piece of good news.

  “I’m getting my daughters back,” he said, with a determination that surprised me. “She’s not taking my girls, on top of everything else.”

  Sean left the office. I sat there for a while feeling bad for him, thinking how my own problems seemed small.

  Sean had put his time, money, and emotions into building a life. He had a good job, a nice home, a wife and two little girls.

  But that was last week. This week, everything was different.

  I wondered how Belinda, who supposedly loved Sean, could have done such a selfish thing. She’d taken his hard-earned money that was meant for their family and spent it on something else. She’d ruined their credit. She’d let their home go to foreclosure. She’d kicked Sean out and left with his kids. And all along, she’d had a boyfriend.

  A little chill swept over me. If Belinda was capable of all that, what else might she do?

  Chapter 19

  Friday. My favorite day of the week.

  Usually.

  The problem with this particular Friday was that it wouldn’t mark the end of my week. Corporate insisted the Mid-America offices remain open one Saturday out of the month, and tomorrow was it. Though working would cut into my time to prepare for Felderman’s Halloween party on Saturday night, I was still glad I had a job.

  I settled into my desk vowing to have a good day. Fridays should always be good days.

  That’s one of the things I’m definitely doing when I take over the world.

  Things went well for a few hours until Carmen appeared in front of my desk wearing a frown.

  Not a good sign.

  “Jarrod Parker is here,” she said.

  I’d been on the telephone and hadn’t seen him come into the office.

  This could go either way, I decided, as I pulled up his account on my computer and printed the summary. Either he’d pay what he owed, or he’d ruin my day.

  Somehow, I already knew the answer.

  Jarrod proved to be full of surprises, though, when I sat down across the table from him in the interview room and he pulled out a wad of bills.

  “I’m paying off my account,” he said, and smiled as if this would impress me. “Does that make you happy, Dana?”

  “Hang on a minute,” I said.

  I went to the front counter and asked Carmen to come into the office with me. Not that I needed backup. Carmen was responsible for all the monetary transactions in our office so she had to be present whenever any money—especially a large amount of cash—was involved.

  Jarrod counted out the money required to payoff his account—a little over seven grand, which he had down to the penny—then Carmen re-counted it with him watching. I counted along, too. I didn’t want him coming back later claiming we’d short-changed him, or something.

  Carmen, cash in hand, and I went back to the front counter where she posted the money to Jarrod’s account leaving a zero-balance, and printed a receipt.

  Mid-America had a limit on the amount of cash allowed in the office at any given time. In case of a robbery—not a farfetched scenario in the Murder Capital of America—Corporate wanted the bad guys to get away with the least amount of money possible. I couldn’t disagree with their thinking. Mid-America
was self-insured. If we suffered a loss, we ate it.

  This chunk of cash that Jarrod had presented us with put the office way over our exposure limit. Carmen gave me Jarrod’s receipt and started balancing her cash drawer. She’d be off to the bank to make the deposit within minutes.

  I pulled his file from the cabinet and completed the paperwork to close out his account and release the lien on his Mustang. I called Quality Recovery and told the receptionist the auto had been redeemed and we were returning it to the customer. She promised to get it to our office pronto.

  They were good about delivering a vehicle to our office right away. They understood that the relationship with our customer had completely broken down at that point, and it was awkward to have them sitting around our office for a long time.

  I went back into the interview room and presented Jarrod with his paperwork.

  “Your car will be delivered in a few minutes,” I told him. “You can go grab a coffee at the café around the corner.”

  “I’ll wait here,” he said.

  Just my luck.

  Jarrod could wait if he wanted to, but I was under no obligation to entertain him while he did. I left him alone in the interview room.

  Inez loomed over the front counter when I walked out. Carmen was having trouble balancing her cash drawer, probably because of a posting error she’d made earlier in the day. It required her to go through each transaction to locate her mistake, then correct it. It was time-consuming and tedious work. Inez was asking her questions—her version of helping—which only distracted Carmen and prolonged the process.

  I went back to my desk and accessed Jarrod’s account on my computer, and took a minute to savor the zero in the balance column. He was a first-class jerk, but he wasn’t my problem anymore.

  I walked over to Manny’s desk and gave him the news.

  “Good job, Dana, good job,” he said. “I’ll let the DM know. He’ll be glad that account is off our books, and we’re not saddled with an auto we’ll have to sell.”

  When I turned back to my desk I noticed Jade standing in the doorway of the interview room. Her hair whipped around as if she were standing in a wind tunnel, so I knew she was talking to Jarrod.