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CHAPTER 58

Cedar Creek, Nevada Friday, August 2, 2024

ERIC WALKED INTO HIS OFFICE AND POINTED TO THE CHAIR IN FRONT of his desk. “Sit and talk,” he said to the aging PI.

Marvin Mann was well known in Harrison County. Over the years his PIs had caught cheating spouses, uncovered siblings hiding inheritance money from each other, found employees stealing from their bosses, and everything in between. One of Marvin’s investigators had even assisted Nevada law enforcement in solving a Las Vegas murder a few years back. As far as private investigators went, Marvin Mann was as legit as they came. So when the man mentioned his father, Eric was more than curious.

Eric spun his finger in the air as he took a seat behind his desk. “It’s early on a Friday morning and my plate is full. Start talking.”

“I’ll get right to the point. Back in ’95, right before your dad died, he and I were working a case together.”

“You and my dad?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Were working on a case together?”

“Yes, sir.”

Eric looked up and did some quick math. “Your PI firm hasn’t been around long enough for you to be doing PI work for my father in ’95.”

“It wasn’t PI work. And you’re right, I didn’t even have my agency at the time. Back then I was a legal investigator for Margolis and Margolis. My boss was Baker Jauncey.”

Eric sat up straight, as if his spine had turned to ice. “The guy who was killed in the hit-and-run.”

“That’s him,” Marvin said. “Only it wasn’t a hit-and-run.”

Eric stood up and closed his office door before returning to sit on the edge of his desk in front of Marvin.

“How do you know that, Marv?”

“Your dad told me.”

“Why was my dad talking to you about Baker Jauncey?”

“I told you. Baker was my boss. And, the night before Baker died, he told me about some shady things going on inside the Margolis law firm.”

“What sort of shady things?”

“Financial fraud, embezzlement, misappropriation of funds, to name a few. Baker took some internal documents from the firm that he thought proved the fraud. He gave them to me for safekeeping. Then he asked me to look into the fraud to see if I could figure out who was behind it, and to do it very quietly. The next day he was dead.”

Eric cocked his head. “What’s it got to do with my dad?”

“I was spooked after Baker was killed, and I suspected that the hit-and-run was no accident. I went to your father to tell him my suspicions. But like stink on shit, your pop was already all over it. He told me Baker was killed by blunt force trauma to the back of the head. And it wasn’t Annabelle Margolis’s car that did the damage, but rather a baseball bat.”

A lump formed in Eric’s throat, and he took a deep breath to contain his emotions. After hearing Dr. Cutty’s interpretation of Baker Jauncey’s autopsy, Eric had assumed that his father knew the truth for the simple reason that he hadn’t arrested Annabelle Margolis. To hear Marvin Mann confirm this fact filled him with pride that transported him back to the nine-year-old boy who looked up to his dad.

“The autopsy from the Harrison County Coroner’s Office states that Baker died from being struck by a car,” Eric said. “How did my dad figure it out?”

“Your dad told me that the Harrison County Coroner’s Office repossessed the body, or whatever it’s called when one morgue snatches a body from another. But before Harrison County took the body, the medical examiner down in Reno had a look. That first autopsy report was never formally registered. Instead, the Harrison County coroner determined Baker’s head injury was the result of being hit by a car. And we all know who owns the Harrison County Coroner’s Office.”

“The Margolis family.”

“Bingo. With what your dad learned from that original, unofficial autopsy, coupled with the documents Baker had given me, your dad and I knew Baker’s death was a direct result of what he had discovered inside the Margolis law firm. And we both knew that Baker had not only been killed because of what he’d stumbled over at Margolis and Margolis, but that the killer was very likely someone at the firm.”

Eric stood and paced his office.

“What did my dad do about it?”

“Your dad decided to go toe-to-toe with the Margolises. He went about it quietly and kept his investigation under wraps. No one knew that Baker had taken the documents from the firm, so your dad and I stashed the files in a safe deposit box until we could figure out what it all meant. Last I heard, your dad was going to ask an accountant friend to look at the documents to see if he could make sense out of them.”

“Who?”

Marvin shook his head and shrugged. “No idea. The last time I spoke with your dad was that day at the bank when we stashed the documents. About a week later, Preston Margolis and his family disappeared, and that story occupied the town’s attention for the next several weeks. Hell, the whole country dropped everything to pay attention. Shortly after the family disappeared, your dad died when he drove his cruiser into Cedar Creek. Supposedly out of his mind on heroin. But I’ve always known your dad’s death was no accident, and was definitely not an overdose.”

Eric threw up his hands. “Christ, Marv! How come you’ve never mentioned this to anyone before now?”

“Put yourself in my shoes, brother! Baker gave me the files and was killed the next day. I gave those files to your dad, and he was dead a week later. I had a wife and three young kids at the time, and I knew two things. One, that no person on earth knew that I had any idea about fraud at Margolis and Margolis. And two, that if the people who killed Baker and your father knew I had seen the documents, I was a dead man. And that’s if I was lucky enough for those bastards to come after me alone, and not my family.”

Eric nodded and took a deep breath. “So why now?”

“Why?” Marvin shrugged. “My conscience, for one. It’s been eating at me for nearly thirty years. And then there’s this girl who just showed up—baby Charlotte. I know that whatever happened to her and her parents can’t be a coincidence. It has to be connected to your dad and Baker, and whatever got them killed. I just need you to promise me you won’t let them go after my family.”

“I don’t even know who ‘they’ are, Marv.”

“Maybe you will if you take a look at the documents I gave your dad.”

Marvin reached into his pants pocket and removed the key he’d retrieved from his desk drawer the night before.

“This is the key to the safe deposit box your dad and I opened all those years ago.”

“Where?” Eric asked, walking over to Marvin and taking the key. “Where’s the safe deposit box?”

“Reno,” Marvin said. “The box hasn’t been opened for nearly thirty years.”