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“Hale, yes.”
“Funny,” she said, then decided to place the call after first speaking with Lang about the knife. She slipped her hand inside her bag, pulled out the plastic square, and laid it on her desk.
Lang’s brows lifted as he registered the knife inside.
“It’s from Catherine Rutledge,” Savvy said. “She wants it tested for DNA evidence.”
“Why?” he asked carefully.
“She said it has to do with her sister, Mary. She believes Mary used it to commit suicide, or at least that’s what she wanted me to think.”
“I thought Mary fell or something. I think that’s what it said in A Short History of the Colony.”
“I’ve got to read that thing, no doubt about it. Apparently, Catherine told different stories about how Mary died. She said she fell to her death or she died from complications of a miscarriage, but now, by her own admission, those are lies. Mary had been living on Echo Island until fairly recently, I guess. Catherine says I’ll likely find Mary’s DNA on the knife.”
“Echo Island?”
“I know. But there was supposed to be an old harridan living there. That’s one of the rumors, anyway.”
Lang slowly pulled the plastic bag nearer to get a closer look at the knife inside. “Catherine isn’t the type to let out her secrets. Ever. What the hell is she doing?”
“Trying to skirt a full-on homicide investigation and still get some answers from the knife. She asked for a private DNA test and said she wanted to be billed for it, but I’m thinking I’d like to press this myself. Something weird there.”
“You’re gonna go ahead and process the knife as if it’s evidence in a homicide.”
“I’m not going to tell Catherine that just yet. I’ll wait for the results. But I’m not putting it through as any private request. I want the results back as soon as I can get ’em.”
“That woman . . .” Lang shook his head.
“I know. Oh, and I said you might ask for an exhumation of Mary’s body.”
“Is that what I want to do?”
“Catherine says Mary’s dead and the knife had something to do with it. Maybe Gilmore should take a look at her body.”
“Maybe,” he said glumly.
“What?” Savvy asked.
“You’re going to ride off into the sunset, have a baby, and leave me dealing with Catherine and the Colony again.”
“I’m coming back. Jesus, Lang. How many times do I have to say it?”
“Lots more.”
“I’m coming back,” she said again. Then she punched in the digits to Hale St. Cloud’s cell phone.
CHAPTER 6
The Seaside office of Bancroft Development was on the top floor of a two-story commercial office building overlooking the Necanicum River. The company used to sprawl throughout the entire building, but with a sluggish economy and the lawsuit looming over Bancroft Bluff, Hale had rented out the lower floor and had condensed the office staff and assigned it to the top floor. Their Portland office, on the other hand, was expanding, as not only did they have the Lake Chinook development, but there were also several apartment projects around Portland nearing completion. With the current sizzling rental market, those buildings already had several offers from would-be investors to buy them outright before they were even finished. And an investment group with a solid reputation had already put in an offer for a high-rise on the east side that was barely in the planning phase. Business, as they say, was booming.
But not at the coast. At least not for Bancroft Development. Currently, they had only three projects under construction, two small commercial buildings and one residential house right on the Promenade, where they were in the process of demolishing the existing house and starting from the bottom up. Of the two commercial buildings, one was a four-unit office condo complex north of the city, near the town of Gearhart; the other was an apartment building with six units, three upper and three lower, tucked along the Necanicum to the south of their offices. To date, they’d poured the foundation for the office complex, and the apartments were being framed. None of the coast projects were even close to completion, and with their limited staff, Hale was wearing a lot of hats these days. He could trust the people in Portland to apprise him of what was going on, but the Seaside projects required daily supervision.
He checked the time on his desk clock. Nine forty-five a.m. Declan hadn’t come into the office yet, but as he’d aged, his time of arrival had grown later and later. Sometimes he didn’t get in till noon, but since he was more of a figurehead now than ever before, it really mattered only to Declan whether he even showed or not.
Glancing out the window at the now driving rain, he strode out of his office and grabbed his jacket from the wooden tree in the entryway. As he passed by the open door to Sylvie Strahan’s office, she glanced up and said in a stage whisper, “Ella’s going to give you hell again.”
Ella Blessert was their receptionist and bookkeeper. She’d been an assistant bookkeeper before the economic downturn, but after their full-time bookkeeper, Nadine, made the move to Portland with Clark Russo, Ella had taken over all the office bookkeeping duties. She had also, unfortunately, adopted a proprietary attitude about Hale and his well-being, and she was constantly mother henning him. For someone in her midtwenties, Ella was a fussbudget like he’d never seen. Hale wondered if he could sneak out without her seeing him. He didn’t really want to be reminded that he never dressed for the weather, or anything else.
