We arrived at Mallory Hardin’s house early in the afternoon. It was a rather large, 3 story house with a large fenced back yard, but a fairly small front yard that was well maintained. There was a large 3 car garage as well. This all seemed out of place considering Mallory told me she did not have much money. However, due to the death of her husband access to funds may be frozen at the moment.

Jennifer was pretending to be Sky again since Sky was not well enough yet to get involved in a case. We had driven up in a nice, large limousine with Kat, Amber, Dawn, Kari and Sapphire with us. Mallory answered the door and invited us in. The ‘us’ were Sky, Dawn, Kari and myself. Mallory introduced us to her children, Mandy (15), Madison (12), Mary (10), Marla (8) and Maggie (2 months).

Muffin, Bandit and Jewel came in with us as well. The kids were excited to see the cats and wanted to play with them. I said yes, but they had to stay inside with them. They just stayed in the living room with them while we adults sat at the dining room table enjoying tea and talking. I asked about the house and Mallory explained they had a large mortgage on the house but her husband, Chuck, wanted something large to impress prospective clients so it would look like he was doing very well in his business.

She did not really understand what the business was all about except it had to do with investments of some kind. She said the investments were not helping them at all, they could barely make it through the month on what he made. I asked for the name of his company and then sent it to Tracy. She is doing Annelie’s job right now while Annelie recovers from her surgery.

Mallory has been trying to get a copy of her husbands will but so far the lawyer has just been delaying things. I called Mr. M and told him, so he was going to get his lawyers on it right away. “My friend, Mr. M, has excellent lawyers all around the world,” I said, “he will get things moving on the will.” Good thing I brought Muffin along, she reminded me to put a scrambler on before we started talking.

Meanwhile, “Well, what are they talking about?” asked one man. “No idea,” answered another, “all I get is static, that bug is not working.” “Or they are blocking it somehow,” said the first man. Back to us. Mallory had asked about our scramblers so I told her they block any listening devices that may be around the room. She then pointed to one in a vase of flowers.

I smiled, “Want to have some fun Kari?” I asked. “Sure!” she said, and took the bug outside and blew into it with her whistle. “AAAAAAAA!!”, said the first man, “my ears!!” “Hmm, they found it I see,” said the second man. They were in the house across the street watching us. “What is on the third floor?” I asked. “That is Chuck’s office,” explained Mallory, “he wanted it to be large and impressive, again for his clients.”

“Yeah, most of them were women,” said Mandy, “young women, probably not much older than me.” “Oh, I am sure they were much older than you Mandy,” said Mallory smiling, “sometimes people just look young.” “All of them?” she asked. “Did he get any male clients?” Sky asked. “Usually two each year,” she replied. “Yeah, same two each time,” added Mandy, “they were older guys, maybe in their 40s.

One of them said to me, twice, that I looked old enough to help dad, but I do not know anything about investing.” “Yes, that was rather strange of him to say that,” agreed Mallory, “and I did not like the way he ran his hand through your hair.” “Yeah, I didn’t like it either,” said Mandy, “felt kinda creepy. But dad said to just forget about it, that the guy was really very nice. He loaned the money to dad to get his business started.”

“Yes, he did do that,” said Mallory, “and he was not even charging Chuck interest.” Then we heard a clunk from upstairs. The kids were still playing with the cats, so it was not them. “Anyone else in the house?” I asked. “Uh, no, no there isn’t,” said Mallory, who had suddenly become very nervous.

“Can we look in Chuck’s office now?” I asked. “Um, it is locked, and I have no key,” she said nervously, “only Chuck had a key and no keys were found on Chuck after the accident, which, which, seems odd. I mean, how could he drive without keys?” Just then the police drove up…

To Be Continued.

©2024 Steve McLeod.