CHAPTER 10
“I
'm old,” my aunt said, her lips trembling in the soft light. “Somehow, somewhere, I became this.” She waved a free hand over her body. “When did I turn old?”
“You are not old.” I patted her hand, but she swatted me.
She took another sip. “I'm over seventy. In some cases, that's considered late admission to the nursing home set.”
“You are active. You still hold a job. You love entertaining and going out to the theater and dinner.” I rubbed my shoulder, which was throbbing from all the painting I'd done earlier. “I wish I could do as much as you can do in a day.”
My aunt sniffed. “You could, if you stopped reading so much.”
Great, now I was getting advice I didn't really want. “Look, you just need a project, something to get your mind off things. Are you and Josh still walking?”
“He says he's too tired from all of the excitement lately. I told him we were going Friday, no excuses.”
I hid my smile. That was my aunt. You got one, maybe two days for your pity party, then it was back to life as normal. The fact she wasn't letting Josh get away with anything was a good sign. “Well, you have extra responsibilities this week anyway since I'm on vacation.” I held my arms out like I was basking in the sun that had set a few minutes ago.
“Yet you still did the deposit. Late, but you went to the bank. I saw the receipt on the desk.” Aunt Jackie took a sip of her wine. “I don't know, maybe I should sign up for a class. Bakerstown College has one on investing that might be interesting. And that way, I would know when I was being bamboozled out of my money.”
“You were cheated. I don't think knowing more would have stopped that guy.” Or maybe it would have. For a long time, all my aunt had lived for was traveling. Now, without most of the nest egg my uncle had left, she was stuck back at a full-time job in a small town that only changed for the seasons and the tourists. “On the other hand, taking a class might be just the boost you need right now.”
“Of course, I'll be the oldest person there.” My aunt sighed. “Maybe I should reconsider this plan. It's making me feel ancient already.”
“You could totally hit on some hot forty-something who is looking for a cougar to complete his life,” I teased, curling my feet up under me on the swing and throwing my lap quilt over my legs. The ocean breeze was starting to cool the air now that the sun's heat had left. As we watched the moon rise over the trees in the back, I thought about businesses and relationships. “Hey, is there any way to see if a business is doing well? I mean, without getting into their books? If someone was considering buying our shop, where would they go to see if it was profitable?”
My aunt didn't answer for a bit. “Are you thinking about selling the coffee shop?”
“What?” I choked on the swallow of wine I'd just taken. “No. I love the shop. Why would I sell?”
“Then what are you talking about?” My aunt refilled her glass from the wine bottle I'd left out on the porch so we wouldn't have to keep going into the kitchen.
“You can't tell Greg,” I muttered, knowing I was wading into deep water.
Aunt Jackie groaned. “This is about Promote Your Event and Sandra's murder, right?”
“Maybe.” I sat up straighter. “I was just wondering if there was a way to see if the business was as stable as they made it seem. I mean, they totally screwed up the Mission Run event, at least in the eyes of their client. Maybe they weren't doing a great job on other accounts.”
My aunt considered the idea. “Well, I think they would have to file annual reports with the Bakerstown chamber. Kind of what we do for South Cove.”
“We file annual reports?” I'd run the business for five years before my aunt arrived and I hadn't filed a report during that entire time.
“Well, we do now. I had to catch up all the late reporting when I got here last year. You were lucky Amy was ignoring your lack of submitting. I swear, you don't know half of what you need to know as a business owner. I've made a desk manual for you in case something happens to me or I just take off for Fiji.”
“Don't talk like that.” I thought about the work my aunt had done with the business side of the shop. At first, all I wanted was for her to babysit the shop for a week or two and then leave. Now I couldn't imagine running Coffee, Books, and More without her or the newly acquired staff we'd taken on. “I admit, I probably let too many things slide before you joined the team.”
“Whatever, this isn't a dump-on-Jill session. I just said you didn't really understand the business side of things until I arrived. So, back to Promote Your Event. We could go to Bakerstown and see if they have filed their reports.” My aunt patted my leg. “It's my understanding their business liaison is a paper Nazi about annual filings. We should find something.”
“Would they put any problems they're having into a report?” I didn't want to drive to Bakerstown and find a crap load of nothing in the reports. “Isn't that just asking for trouble?”
“There will be clues. Like revenue for the reporting year versus estimated revenue for the upcoming year. You pay less in taxes if the revenue decreases and there's a valid reason. They may have been trying for a lower tax bracket.” My aunt stood and grabbed the wine bottle. “Let's go inside and make a list of what we need to check out. I don't have to be at the shop until five. We should be done sleuthing by noon, and then you can buy me lunch at that little tapas place that went in next to the mall.”
I followed my aunt into the house, calling Emma to come in, as well. Time to plan our attack. She'd already grabbed a new notebook from my office and was busy writing when I finally sat at the table, a plate of fruit in the middle and iced teas for both of us.
“So, we go to City Hall. Anywhere else?” I opened up my laptop in case we needed to do some virtual snooping.
Aunt Jackie tapped her pen. “What address do they list for the business? Their home, or do they actually have an office space?”
I searched the web to find the Promote Your Event website and came up with two. One in Bakerstown, and one in Orlando, Florida. I clicked on the link to the one in California. “Looks like they have a real office over near the courthouse.” I read off the street address and she wrote it in the book.
“Now Google the street address and let's see what type of office building this is,” Aunt Jackie directed.
When the picture of the building came up with a listing of several open luxury office opportunities, I frowned. “Most of the other clients are law firms or high-level accounting firms. How much work was Promote Your Event doing to afford digs like this?”
“The better question is, who were they doing it for?” My aunt wrote something down in her notebook. “This next search is going to take a while. I want you to look for any connections between Ashford and all the other companies in the building. So put Ashford, the plus sign, and then each of the other business names. One at a time.”
I glanced at the clock. It was almost ten. “Fine, but I'll let you know right now I'm probably running out of steam in the next hour or so. I painted today.”
“Poor baby.” My aunt pointed at the iced tea. “Switch that out for coffee if you need to. I want to make sure we're not missing the obvious when we make our plan of attack for tomorrow.”
I took a big sip of tea and grabbed my own notebook. My memory would be crap after a few of these searches, so I started writing down my search process, including the two Ashford links I'd found originally and the address search. No use starting at ground zero tomorrow just because I'd forgotten I'd already researched that idea.
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A rap sounded on my bedroom door the next morning. Groaning, I turned over and looked, bleary-eyed, at my alarm. Six-oh-five. I was going to kill my aunt. I'd set her up in the third bedroom, where I had a bed made up for visitors. When I finished the real guest room, I planned on turning that room into a home gym. Greg had drawn out the plans for the equipment three different times already. He was pumped about the idea. But for now, it was my only guest room.
Aunt Jackie and I had called it a night minutes before two and she'd said we'd sleep in. I guess six o'clock was her idea of a lazy morning in bed.
“What? Is the house burning down?” I croaked when the rapping came again.
The door creaked open. My aunt called Emma to her side and sent her downstairs with a snap of her fingers. “I've got banana-peanut-butter muffins coming out of the oven in ten minutes. You have that long to shower and get ready. We've got a plan to develop.”
Me and my big mouth. I had to get her involved in this investigation even though I'd promised myself I'd stay out of it. Greg was going to kill me. But what harm could we do in checking out Promote Your Event? It wasn't like the time we ran into the motorcycle gang at the storage center at the docks.
Maybe it's exactly like that.
I shushed the logical part of my brain and stumbled to the bathroom.
Fifteen minutes later, I was buttering my second muffin and had consumed two cups of coffee. Four hours of sleep wasn't enough for anyone, yet my aunt looked chipper and alert. I hated her right now.
“So, first we'll stop by my apartment so I can change into jeans and a dark shirt.” Aunt Jackie rattled off our schedule.
“We're not breaking in to the place. We're just looking for reports, right?” I glanced at the notebook I'd been working with last night. I'd gone through almost every renter in the business office building with no luck finding even a hint of a connection. I ripped off a page and put it on the center of the table. “We'll have to stop by these five places when we're there and see if there's some connection. They didn't have websites.”
My aunt glanced at the list. “We'll have to think up a cover story.” She stirred creamer into her coffee. “I know, we're thinking of hiring Promote Your Event for a media blitz and we're talking to people they've worked with. That should work, right?”
Honestly, that should be enough of a cover story to get us the reports we needed and explain why we were even in the building if anyone asked. “You're a genius.”
My aunt sipped her coffee. “You think you got your smarts from your father's side?”
I fed Emma my last bite of muffin then stretched as I stood to take my dishes to the sink. “I'm going to need a nap later.” I let Emma out the back door and filled up her water and food dishes. By the time I was finished, my aunt had her purse and stood at the front door.
“Let's go. By the time I've changed and we drive over, the records department at City Hall should be open. Then we'll go to the office building. Follow me in the Jeep. I'll leave my car at the apartment.” Then she disappeared into her sedan.
I watched as she turned onto the street and headed to town. Locking up the house, I muttered, “Abandon hope, all ye who enter here. Or follow their crazy aunts.”
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We were still ten minutes early when we pulled up in front of Bakerstown City Hall. I dialed Amy and waited for her answer.
“South Cove City Hall, how may I direct your call?” Amy's too-perky voice hurt my eardrum.
“Hey, it's me.” I glanced at my aunt, who was accessorizing her spy outfit with a black and white silk scarf tied around her neck. Yep, that would be inconspicuous. “What do you call the annual reports businesses file with South Cove?”
“Annual reports? I guess we call them 1062s because that's the form number.” Amy paused. “Don't worry about filing; your aunt has done all of yours since you opened the business. You're not due for a new one until January.”
“She told me.” I put the phone against my other ear. “Actually, we're looking for the name that Bakerstown would call the report. Are they still 1062s?”
Amy laughed. “Of course not. Each town sets up their own form numbering system, silly. Seriously, did you pay attention in civics class at all?”
“I don't need a lecture.” My head throbbed. “Do you know what they call them or not?”
My aunt pointed at the clock on the dash. Time for the office to open.
I held up one finger, motioning her to wait.
“Well, aren't you grumpy this morning? Of course I know what they are called. I've worked with their city planner for years trying to standardize the form. Bakerstown In-City Business Annual Report form. Boring bureaucratic form 101.”
“Thanks, Amy. I'll call you later if I'm available for lunch.”
My aunt raised her eyebrows. “You won't be back for lunch, you know that.”
“I will be if this turns out to be nothing but a dead end,” I muttered as I stepped out of the car. I waited for my aunt to meet me at the bottom of the stairs, then used the remote to lock the door. As the car beeped, we started up the marble steps to the front door, where a too-modern security system invited us to put our purses on the scanner along with any metal objects in our clothes.
“Pretty fancy system for a small county.” Aunt Jackie turned to the security guard. “Who paid for this?”
He shrugged. “Homeland, I guess. All I know is you need to walk through that scanner.”
She walked through, then glared at me. “Our tax dollars at work. No wonder our rates keep increasing. They have to scan every grannie who comes in to pay her water bill.”
I kept my head down and didn't meet her eyes. No way was I going to play into her conspiracy notions, especially when the security guards had real guns strapped on their belts along with handcuffs and what I assumed was a Taser. One jolt with that and my aunt's heart might just stop beating.