He nodded over the top of his coffee cup. “Based on when the organization was formed and when she went to work for them I don’t see how she couldn’t.”
“The McAllisters have a lot of money.”
“Old money,” Elliot said. “There’s a difference, you know, between old money and nouveau riche.”
“Old money brings tradition, prestige, influence, connections,” I said.
He nodded, taking another sip of his coffee. “Exactly.”
I remembered the story Maggie had told me about Dani’s brother. “Dominic McAllister is a developer. I’m not trying to imply developers don’t care about the environment.”
“McAllister doesn’t,” Elliot said flatly.
“I’ll take your word on that,” I said. I took a sip of my own coffee. “So if environmental concerns aren’t at the top of Dominic McAllister’s priorities, why did the family secretly fund an organization that seems to be at cross-purposes to their day-to-day business?”
“Not the family. Matilda McAllister.”
Hercules wandered in from the living room, glanced at us as he passed the table and went to sit in front of the door to the porch. I got up and opened it for him, grateful that he hadn’t just walked through the way he often did.
“Dani’s grandmother,” I said as I retook my seat.
“She controls the family trust and has money of her own,” Elliot said. “Dani has always had her grandmother’s favor and ear.”
I sighed. “Which also means access to her money.”
“Something some other family members haven’t been happy about.”
I stretched one arm up over my head. “So are you suggesting someone in her family killed her over that?” I sounded skeptical because I was.
“Rumor has it that Matilda has the ear of the governor, not to mention several other powerful people in the State House.”
I tried to follow the logic through. “So if Dani could find any reason to stop the project at Long Lake, no matter how flimsy, between pressure exerted by the coalition and her grandmother’s influence the project would have been scuttled.”
It gave Ernie Kingsley even more of a motive. I thought about my deal with Simon. I was going to hold him to his promise to set up a meeting with the developer. As far as I was concerned I definitely still wanted it.
“Kingsley-Pearson is leveraged to the hilt. If this project folds the company will go under.” Elliot’s face hardened.
“You think someone from the company could be involved,” I said.
“I think neither one of us wants my son to be accused of something he didn’t do.” He had a great poker face. I wouldn’t want to play cards with the man.
“That’s true,” I said.
“You doubt my intentions.”
I shook my head. “No, I don’t. I believe that you care about Marcus and you want to help him. But as my friend Burtis says, I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck. You didn’t just come out here to share information. You could have done that over the phone. So tell me what else you want.”
He leaned back in his chair and crossed one leg over the other. “I want you to give this information to my son’s lawyer. If I give it to Marcus I’m not sure he’ll even look at it. “
“I can do that,” I said. I picked up the papers and put them back in the envelope.
“You and Burtis are friends,” Elliot said. “How did that happen?”
“He saved my life. He and Marcus. And my cats like his turkey jerky.”
“Next time you see him tell him I said hello.”
I nodded. “I will. And just so you know, he still lives in the same place.”
He smiled but didn’t say anything.
After Elliot left I went out to the porch and sat down next to Hercules, who was looking out the window. “Interesting man,” I said.
He wrinkled his nose at me almost as though he was agreeing.
I looked at my watch. I’d been mulling over Roma’s advice to learn more about Dani. I’d told Marcus I wanted to talk to both John and Travis. “Maybe now is a good time,” I said to Hercules.
He jumped down and headed for the kitchen door, meowing at me without even looking back.
I’d made oatmeal chocolate chip cookies after I’d gotten home from Maggie’s. Now I put a dozen in a bag to take to Travis. Hercules was sitting by my shoes.
“Want to come with me?” I asked.
“Meow,” he said, eyeing the bag with the cookies, whiskers twitching.
“No, these are for Travis,” I said. “Do you still want to come?”
I couldn’t help grinning as he cocked his head to one side, seemingly considering the question. “Mrrr,” he said after a moment of thought.
I gestured at the door. “Let’s go.”
We drove out to the Bluebird Motel first, Hercules on the passenger seat beside me, looking through the windshield and making little noises from time to time as though he were giving directions.
Even though Ruby wanted to sell the piece of land her grandfather, Idris, had left to her, she’d given John and Travis permission to access it, so if Travis wasn’t at the Bluebird I’d head for Wisteria Hill.
“I don’t want that development to be built if it’s not the right thing for the town and the land,” Ruby had told me when I’d said I thought it was good of her to let John and Travis on the property. “I’d rather hang on to the land.” She’d grinned at me. “Maybe I’ll build a tree fort and go live out there.”
I was hoping it was early enough that Travis would still be at the motel, and when I pulled off the highway I saw his rental car still in the lot.
“I won’t be very long,” I said to Hercules.
He looked pointedly from me to my cross-body bag. How did he know I had a tiny container of fish-shaped crackers in there? A friend of Roma’s owned a small cat food company and Owen and Hercules had been taste testers—happily—several times for his new products.
“Stay in the truck and I’ll give them to you when I come back.” I patted the bag.
He sighed and laid down on the seat, putting his head on a small paperback book on the history of Minnesota that Abigail had gotten for me for a quarter at a flea market.
I picked up the bag of cookies and got out of the truck. I knocked on the door of Travis’s motel room, expecting him to ask who it was. Instead, after a moment, he opened the door. His hair was disheveled. There were dark circles under his eyes and a couple of days of stubble on his cheeks. Everything about him, even the way he was standing, was so profoundly sad I knew I couldn’t ask him any questions about Dani. I knew it would be wrong to take advantage of his grief like that.
“Hi, Travis,” I said. “I just came to see how you were, if you need anything.” I suddenly felt a little silly standing there with the bag of cookies. I held them out to him. “I, uh, made these for you.”
He didn’t take the bag. “Did you come to plead Marcus’s case?” he asked in a voice edged with snark. “Are you going to tell me we should grieve together?”
I shook my head slowly. My heart ached for him, my chest actually hurting. “No,” I said. “I just came to see if I could do anything for you. Not make you feel worse. I’m sorry.” I turned to go.
“Have the police figured out who killed her?” Travis said.
I turned back around to face him. “Not yet.”
He closed his eyes briefly. “She came here because he was here. She wanted to talk to him.”
Dani knew Marcus was in Mayville Heights? “How do you know?”
He swallowed and his face tightened. “I went looking for her, after the restaurant that morning. She was on her phone talking to someone. I heard her tell whomever she was talking to that now she’d have the chance to talk to him. Then she said, ‘No more secrets.’” He pulled a hand across the stubble on his chin. “She wouldn’t talk to me. She wouldn’t tell me what the hell she was talking about. She wouldn’t let me apologize.”
The bit of conversation Travis had overheard didn’t prove anything. I sighed. “I’m sorry.” The words seemed inadequate but I didn’t know what else to say.