Chapter 20

B ack in the office, Kate headed for her desk and plunked down just as Rodney came up to her.

"You're back already?" he asked.

"Yeah," she said, with business on her mind. "Had to go talk to Daisy in person. This whole nightmare has been pretty tough on her."

"Daisy who?" he asked.

"Mahoney. Surviving owner of the accounting company that was at the Paragon building and that did work for the Feldspar family."

"Ah, okay, and what did Daisy have to say?"

"Lots, and yet nothing concrete," Kate muttered, shuffling through the papers on her desk. "I'll have to go ruffle some more feathers."

"Oh, but that's the best part of the job," he declared, with a goofy smile.

"It would be if I knew exactly who and what," she shared. Finally she grabbed a physical file while double-checking the current file she had up on her computer because something was rattling around in her mind. "Now I get to go talk to some people about the Feldspar murders."

He bolted to his feet. "Can I come?"

She glared at him, as he was all excited.

Rodney added, "You probably shouldn't be alone, you know? I should probably tell Colby that you're heading into dangerous territory and shouldn't be without backup."

She spun ever-so-slowly in her chair, her glare ready to drown him. Then she spotted the impudent grin on his face, and she sighed. "I was going to make a couple phone calls first and see what pops up."

"In what way?"

She went over the information she had just found out.

"So, hang on a second. This guy Shawn gets hired at this now-defunct accounting firm, and it was the Feldspar family from the Feldspar house that made his job happen, and now Shawn was on the streets and what?… He has PTSD? How did that happen?"

"He did a tour in the military, then came back after some pretty-ugly experiences and wasn't the same anymore. He apparently couldn't continue with the work he had done before the military at the accounting firm, but he hung around all the time. Eventually he got a little bit better and could do a little more but not enough for a full-time job, but they paid him anyway for his part-time work."

"Is there anything wrong about that?"

"No," she said, with a wave of her hand, "but it does explain why he was attached to the building, even though the company he worked for has been gone for over a decade. I don't know what sent him out onto the streets, but at least we've got a connection between him, the Paragon building, and the Feldspar family and their property."

"Sure," Rodney replied, "but it's pretty thin."

"Hey, I don't care because I found another connection to Feldspar, one that's pretty upsetting for Daisy."

"Oh, what's that?"

Then she explained about Daisy's husband, Jet Mahoney, the accountant, his dual life, and his second wife, who was the niece of the Feldspars, although she wasn't at their home during the notorious murders.

Rodney sat back and shook his head. "Wow."

"So now we have Jet Mahoney, a long-time friend to the Feldspars—but the Feldspars were not acquainted with his wife—and Jet is all concerned and upset over the murders ten years ago, helping out the Feldspar kids with a chunk of money from Jet and Daisy's joint savings account. Then, as time goes by and unbeknownst to Daisy, Jet hooks up with the Feldspar niece, Rosemary, telling her that he divorced his wife, and they end up married, having twins. Years pass, and then Jet dies. The second wife reads in the paper how he's been buried and is survived by his wife, Daisy . The niece phones Daisy, asking if she was really Jet's wife. Meanwhile the niece contacts a lawyer about Jet's estate after his funeral, and the lawyer thought everything had been settled, and Jet's wife was to receive everything. The niece pops up and declares, " That's me ." Then he tells her that Daisy was his legal wife, so Rosemary, this second wife of Jet's, had no standing. You can imagine how things went from there."

Rodney shook his head. "Jesus, people complicate their lives so much."

"Yeah, you're not kidding." Kate shook her head. "Of course, for Daisy, the only way she even found out about Jet's second family was that phone call after her husband's death. Otherwise she still may not have known."

"Which means that was a betrayal from the grave."

"Daisy could have gone happily on her way without ever finding out about that, but, of course, Rosemary Feldspar Mahoney had something to say."

"Yeah. Her husband's dead, and now look. "

"Exactly." Kate slowly rolled her neck to release the tension there.

Rodney asked, "So what will you do now?"

"There is no shortage of confusion over the Feldspar murders. I thought everybody had been killed, three generations' worth ," she noted, pulling up her file again. "But according to Daisy, and granted, she wasn't sure, but she thought a teenage daughter had survived, and a teenage son had survived too."

"I thought everybody got killed too," Rodney stated, frowning in her direction.

"The witness accounts in the file state that the daughter went missing and that the aunt was shot. According to Daisy, however, the daughter survived but has some major brain damage, in a coma even. And the daughter's aunt, the father's sister, has been missing since all the murders, with her body not found. She is presumed dead. So the witness statements contradict Daisy's recollection. Which means that now I have to track down the survivors and figure out what's what."

"Was the aunt living there or visiting the Feldspar home at the time of the murders?"

"I heard she lived nearby but was always at the Feldspar house. Regardless, per Daisy, the aunt appears to remain missing," Kate explained, rolling her eyes. "Apparently some of these files may be more confusing than the actual murders."

"Of course. It's possible the details may have been a little more confusing because people intentionally confused them," Rodney stated, nodding at her.

Kate shrugged. "Witnesses can be unreliable, as we all know. Still, a female was injured, resulting in a brain injury. Per Daisy, it was the daughter, but Daisy did admit to being a little hazy on the details."

"And yet that's not in the file?"

"No, it's not, which leaves me to wonder why the hell not and how someone could have gotten the details so wrong."

Rodney raised his eyebrows. "I wonder if she's been stowed away in one of those places, like the case we had with the private mental hospital, where people were keeping brain-damaged family members under wraps."

"It's possible." Kate shook her head. "But, if it's true, I'll find her. What the file does give me, right here, if it works, is a phone number for the supposed sister." As she looked at it, she frowned. "Hang on a minute. This looks familiar. I had this phone number, supposedly for the son, and yet it's the same number Daisy gave me for Rosemary, the Feldspar niece, the second wife to Jet Mahoney."

Rodney frowned at her. "What?"

"Yeah, Jet's wife number two," she repeated. "The number is here on my phone but—" She held up the piece of paper that she had printed off with the phone number printed on the back. "Reese found this number and who it belonged to. It's the same one."

Just then Reese walked into the office and looked around. "Oh, there you are. I've been trying to catch up with you."

"Yeah, did you find anything on that phone number?"

"I did. Why?"

"You go first."

"It's registered to a Doug Feldspar."

At that, Kate nodded. "So, is he the surviving son?" At Reese's nod, Kate continued. "My next question is, why did Doug Feldspar allow Rosemary, the second wife, to use his phone to contact Daisy, the first wife?"

Reese frowned. "Now, that's an interesting twist."

"And yet they're family. Doug and Rosemary both being Feldspars," Rodney pointed out, "so maybe her phone's broken or she can't afford to pay for it or something. So, it makes sense that she would use his phone. They're both Feldspars, after all. He might have just lent it to her for the moment."

"Maybe," Resse agreed, "and also, if you think about it, he might have lent it to her so Rosemary wouldn't have to deal with Daisy calling them back because any calls would have gone to Doug, and he would have made sure that that would have been the end of it."

"Let's find out, shall we?" Kate asked, with half a smile. She picked up her phone and quickly dialed the number.

*

Simon walked up the entranceway into his apartment building, and stopped to visit with Harry the doorman for a few minutes. Harry was a good guy, and Simon thoroughly enjoyed his company.

"So, what's this I hear about you buying another building?" Harry asked, staring at him in astonishment. "Man, you already seem to be worked off your feet as it is."

Simon laughed at that. "You do have a point there, yet that's how this business works. You've got to keep moving forward. Otherwise, you get stuck behind."

At that, Harry shook his head. "Seems to me that sometimes you need to just take a break and not get so involved, take a load off."

"Maybe," he admitted, "and you do have a point. On the other hand, this is a building that's been on my wish list for a long time." When Harry studied him with a curious expression, Simon added, "It's the Paragon, downtown." It took a moment for the name of the building to settle into Harry's memory banks, and Simon could tell when he realized which building it was because his eyes lit up.

"Oh, man," Harry exclaimed, "that is one hell of a building."

"Right?" Simon said, with a grin. "Now you know why I'm excited and why I can't pass up this one."

Harry nodded. "Absolutely. That's quite a coup if you can get it," he replied enthusiastically, "but, man, she's an old one."

"She's old, and she's got a lot of rough history."

He nodded at that. "All kinds of people used to work in that place, not that I remember any of them now, but my father used somebody down there to do his bookkeeping. Yet he always thought something was really dodgy about him, and he didn't go back after the first time."

Simon laughed at that. "Yeah, I'm not at all surprised."

"So, do you do a full history on a building when you buy it?"

"I try to dig up some history," he replied, with a wave of his hand. "I can't do a full history just because it goes on forever. I continue to collect information because I think it's important, even after the purchase. Like a family genealogy, except for a building."

"Oh, it's absolutely important," Harry agreed. "It's pretty cool that you're doing that."

"Maybe," Simon hedged. "I haven't got it yet, still looking at it, still tossing it back and forth. And a homeless guy was found dead there recently, so that screws things up a little bit."

"Should make it easier for you to buy it though, right? A building like that needs some love, and not many people are willing to go that far."

He smiled at Harry and nodded. "Exactly. That's how I feel, but not everybody else does."

" Nah , they're just stuck on the bottom line," Harry stated, "and that's really not who you are."

"No, it sure isn't. I'm glad to see you picked up on that already."

Harry laughed. "As the doorman, I get to know people pretty well, you know? When you work in this place, it's hard not to. There are people who'll wait for you to open the door, and there are people who'll open the door for you, and there are people who'll make snide comments as they walk in. Anything from my weight, to my uniform, to the building," he shared, with a laugh.

"I guess that's about right."

"And then there are people who will see you're having a bad day and will stop by to make it better," he said, beaming at some internal thought. "I got your number," Harry added, bumping a fist with Simon's. "And that building? It's had some good times. It's had some bad times, but, if you can make it all good again, I'm right there with you."

"That's my plan, or at least that's my hope," Simon clarified, still with a smile. "I'm definitely not to that point though, and it could take more money than I'm really expecting it to, so there are all kinds of considerations."

"That may well be true," Harry stated, "but I don't think any of that will hold you back."

"I had my engineer over there today, taking a look," Simon shared, "and he'll send me a report on it. "

"Doesn't he have to do a whole pile of tests?"

"He does. This is just a preliminary summary of what problems he can pinpoint at the outset. If I decide to go ahead with it, then there'll be more tests needed before I can do anything, and, of course, that starts the whole city permit process."

"Oh, boy," Harry muttered. "Anything to do with the city gives me the heebie-jeebies."

Simon laughed at that phrase. "Yeah, but more than that, right now we have to deal with the murders."

"Murders? As in more than one? That some serious stuff, huh ?"

"Oddly enough, a homeless guy was murdered. I had first met him in the Paragon property, when I took a look at it, but he wasn't murdered there.… Well, he might have been murdered there. We don't know yet. They haven't got the forensics back apparently, but he was dumped at the Feldspar house."

At that, Harry looked at him as if electrified. "The Feldspar house? You're kidding me. You probably don't know this, but my wife is one of those crime show fanatics, and, if I even mentioned the word Feldspar , she would be all over you for information. I won't tell her a thing," he vowed, with a laugh, "not without getting my ass kicked."

"Kate's right in the middle of it all."

Harry chuckled. "She'll get it all sorted out then."

"Oh, absolutely. And she's all about ethics, being the one who solves these cases," he stated proudly. "But now she's also got a connection with one of her recent murders to the Feldspar house, and that's opened a whole can of worms for her."

"Yeah, that mass murder of the Feldspars long ago was quite the thing," Harry noted. "I think the daughter who survived is in a home not all that far from here. She's got one of those high-end places that looks out over the harbor," he said, turning to look out the window. "I can't remember which place it is though."

"Do you know what happened to her or why she's there?"

"Yeah, my cousin works at the home, so I can find out for you." He pulled out his phone, without Simon even asking him to, and quickly dialed. As they spoke, Simon listened to Harry's side of the conversation.

"Hey, Reenie. Do you know anything about the lady from the Feldspar house? I think you mentioned the daughter was somewhere close by.… Yes, she is there, isn't she?… I was just talking to one of my tenants here. He's looking at buying a building that's somehow connected to this mess.… No, no, I'll tell him."

Harry ended the call and grinned at Simon. "I was right. She's just a few blocks from here, in one of those high-rise specialized care homes."

"Considering what happened to her, that makes sense."

"It does." Harry nodded. "That was quite the mess. People have talked about those murders forever… and they still are," he added. "I mean, you think about the family members getting murdered like that, and all hell breaks loose, and people are panicking. Then it becomes something much bigger than you thought."

Simon nodded. "If you hear anything, let me know. It's a fascinating topic, but the case is Kate's," he said, with a warning. "So no asking her for information or even bringing it up because that'll just get me in hot water."

Harry laughed at that. "I won't make that mistake. However, if she's on it, it may well get solved this time."

And with that vote of confidence Simon headed up to his apartment, hoping that Kate would make it over tonight.