Part 9 (1/2)
”But there was nothing current you were working on?”
He didn't answer, taking another drink of coffee instead. Finally, Harry said, ”Savannah, I know what you're going through. Folks have been looking at me oddly since they heard what happened to Joanne. You must not have been the only one she told yesterday that she'd seen me. It's only natural to want to find out what happened to her, but you need to be careful. Not everyone is as forgiving as I am about poking and prodding into people's business.”
I started to say something when he hoisted his cup one last time, and then abruptly stood. ”Thanks for the coffee.”
All I could do was call out, ”Anytime,” before he got into his battered old truck and drove away.
That was one of the oddest conversations I'd ever had with anybody in Parson's Valley.
But I was sure there were more like it to come.
AS I FINISHED MY COFFEE, I KEPT WONDERING ABOUT Harry's reactions to my questions. He'd deflected or flat-out refused to answer some of them, and didn't give me any specific details at all, when I thought about it. He was hiding something; I grew surer of that by the minute.
But what?
Harry might not have told me what I wanted to know, but I knew one place where I could get the facts, and not someone else's shading of them. I walked to the courthouse and took the steps down into the bas.e.m.e.nt where the Register of Deeds was located. I'd been there before, doing my own t.i.tle search on the cottage we'd bought. It wasn't to confirm that the property was for sale; our real estate lawyer took care of that. I had been more interested in who had owned it before us, and I'd spent a day there going through the records, tracing the land's owners.h.i.+p all the way back before the country had even been born. It shouldn't be that hard to track Harry Pike's purchases and sales, and see if he and Joanne had anything pending.
When I got there, I was amazed by the change in the place. Gone were the thick green and gray ledgers that had recorded every transaction for generations. In their place was a series of computer terminals, all with colorful screens.
”h.e.l.lo,” I said as I walked inside.
A young woman with auburn hair and striking blue eyes greeted me. ”Good morning. My name is Tina. Is there anything I can help you with today?”
”When did you change all of the records over to computers?” I asked.
”We've been tackling it gradually since the start of last year. It's slow progress, but it's going to make life so much easier for everyone once we're finished.”
”Where does your progress stand now?” I asked, not sure that this particular application of technology was a good one.
”We've got the last eleven years on electronic file,” Tina said proudly.
That would most likely be enough for me. ”Thanks.”
”I'll be glad to help you with your search. I know it can seem a little intimidating at first.”
I didn't want anyone looking over my shoulder as I worked, or to even know what I was doing. I had learned early on that living in a small town came with its own set of caveats, just as large cities like Charlotte had, though they were mostly different from each other.
I approached a far terminal with its display swiveled away from the counter, and studied the system. There wasn't anything romantic about searching these records, at least not compared to reading through spidery writing when I had traced our property's past owners, but it was a great deal quicker; I had to acknowledge that. I typed in Harry Pike's name and was amazed by the number of transactions he'd made over the past eleven years. I'd always thought he was a simple nurseryman, growing trees, shrubs, perennials, and annuals for sale, but I was beginning to discover that he was some kind of land baron as well. With his beat-up old pickup truck and his common clothes, it was tough to tell that his net worth was most likely one of the highest in town. There was a synopsis of his transactions that might come in handy, so I hit the print b.u.t.ton on the computer. Nothing happened, so I hit it again.
Still nothing.
Tina walked over to me, and I reached out and hit the power b.u.t.ton on the display. I wasn't sure if she was connected to the computer in any way, but I didn't want to take any chances.
”Did you want both copies?” she asked as she neared me.
”Pardon me?”
Tina smiled. ”We have to charge five cents a copy, so when you print a doc.u.ment, it comes to our desk. I held up the printing cycle to be sure you wanted duplicate copies.”
”Can you see what I'm printing?”
She nodded. ”We can, but we don't look at what you're printing, just the number of doc.u.ments, and their reference numbers.”
”I just want one,” I said. ”Thanks for asking.”
She smiled. ”It will be waiting for you up front.”
As Tina walked away, I had even less faith in the system than I had before. It had been foolish to turn my monitor off. If anything, it just gave Tina more reason to snoop. Whether she'd been trained not to notice what I'd been doing or not, I still didn't like it. Someone looking over my shoulder electronically was somehow worse than if I'd been able to feel her breath on my neck.
I couldn't stop my hunt, though.
The next search was for Joanne Clayton's name. Joanne had only three transactions in the past eleven years. She'd bought her home, and she'd sold a little piece of land out in the middle of nowhere, but the third parcel was the one that interested me. The owners listed were Joanne Clayton and Harry Pike, and they'd bought a parcel of land in the heart of Parson's Valley for nearly half a million dollars. There was no record of a sale after that on the property, which meant that the two of them had owned it together on the day Joanne had died.
I hit the print b.u.t.ton again, and then kept exiting screens until I was back at the starting position.
Sliding a dime across the counter to Tina, I waited for my copies. She collected them, and then took my money from me. ”Would you like a receipt for that?”
”No, I'm good,” I said.
”Come back anytime,” she said.
”Absolutely,” I replied, though I couldn't imagine the circ.u.mstances that would bring me back. I'd found what I'd been looking for.
The only problem was that I had no idea what it meant.
AS I LEFT THE COURTHOUSE, MY PHONE STARTED QUACKING at me, a signal that my husband was on the line. He'd objected to my ringtone from the beginning, but I loved it, and while I had reservations about it from time to time when it announced itself at the most inappropriate moments, I wasn't about to change it. Whenever Zach took himself too seriously, I reminded him of it, and most of the time, it brought him straight back to reality.
”Hi there,” I said. ”I was just about to call you.”
”Did you find something?” he asked. I could tell from the tone in his voice that he was in no mood to joke around.
”Zach, something's wrong. What happened?”
”We got the toxicology report,” he said. ”It was a natural poison, just as the medical examiner suspected. There was an air of almonds around Joanne when they processed the body.”
”What was it specifically? It sounds like cyanide poisoning to me. Can you tell me anything else?”
He lowered his voice. ”I'm not really supposed to, but I need your help, so I don't have much choice.”
”I'll do whatever I can,” I said. ”You know that.”
He lowered his voice, and then said, ”I need you to go to Asheville to the Botanical Gardens and ask your friend there about plants that have cyanogenic glycosides.”
”That's what killed her?” I asked, suddenly chilled by the poisonous agent having an identifiable name.
”Yes, but the lab's list of plants in nature that possess them is too long to narrow down, at least with my limited resources. We need to know what's found locally that contains them. Can you do that for me?”
”I'll get right on it,” I said. ”Do they have any idea exactly when she was poisoned? It might help knowing that when I talk to Jay.”
”The report said that most likely it wasn't before eleven in the morning, and not after two that afternoon, but that leaves a pretty big window of opportunity for someone to slip something in her drink.”