Murder With Puffins(57)

"Makes you wonder how he could afford to live like this," Michael said, looking around. "Imagine how much this house must have cost."

"We don't have to imagine," I said. "We've got the files right here."

From the house construction files, we deduced that Resnick had gotten along about as well with his architect and his general contractor as he had with the rest of humanity. He had withheld some of the money he owed them until they fixed various minute flaws. Strangely enough, though, considering the local uproar about the house, we found almost no paperwork on approval for the construction--just a standard building permit for "renovations" signed by Mrs. M. A. Benton, Mayor.

"Renovations?" Michael exclaimed. "Who did he think he was kidding? He definitely got special treatment. Wonder if he had some kind of hold over the mayor?"

"Pay dirt!" I shouted, holding up a stack of files. "Here's the stuff on the resort project"

I'd found a file marked "Coastal Properties, Ltd" and another marked "New England Development Associates." Both full of correspondence that would no doubt fascinate a corporate lawyer but which only reminded me how little sleep I'd gotten the night before. A third file was more interesting; it contained a map of the island, with all the property boundaries marked and a number assigned to each plot Parts of the map were colored in solid blue, parts in blue and white stripes, and a few in pink. Behind that was a list of numbers from the map, with people's names written beside them.

"What's this supposed to be?" Michael said, studying the map.

"If I'm reading this list correctly, the blue is property he owned. See, here's where we are now, in blue. The gift shop by the dock, that's in blue, too. And the blue and white stripes are places where he'd negotiated some kind of option to buy."

"And the pink?"

"I'm guessing mere are places he'd tried and been turned down flat Yes, mere's Jeb Barnes's store in pink. Remember what Jeb said? That Resnick had tried to buy the general store and Jeb told him to take a hike?"

"Yes, but isn't that your aunt Phoebe's cottage there?"

"You're right," I said, frowning.

"I think she'd have mentioned it if he'd tried to buy the place."

"Maybe it just means places he expected to have problems buying," I suggested.

"That sounds logical," Michael said. "He colored your aunt Phoebe's lot a particularly intense pink, compared with some of the others."

We went on through the rest of the files, which were all marked with the names of local citizens. Some of them-- Mamie Benton's, for example--contained bills of sale. Apparently, Mamie had once owned the building in which her gift shop was located, but now she rented it from Resnick. Other files--including Frank Dickerman's file--contained long documents in legalese. Options to buy, as far as I could tell.

But he had a file on everyone on the island, not just the property owners. And along with the contracts or details of any negotiations he'd been conducting, all the files contained notes--sometimes pages and pages of notes--about the owners, including any dirt Resnick had dug up about their personal and financial peccadilloes.

"Michael, the man was a monster," I said after browsing in a few files. "He was blackmailing people into selling him their property."

"Well, he's a dead monster now, and these files could very well contain the motive for his murder," Michael said. "We have to turn these over to the proper authorities."

"You mean to Mayor Benton, who, according to her file, had to sell her building to him to pay off her gambling debts and then rubber-stamped the building permit for this house to keep him quiet? Or Constable Barnes, who hadn't yet agreed to sell the store, but might have changed his mind if Resnick had threatened to tell his wife about that fling he had with Candi, the hairdresser over in Port Clyde?"

"I see your point," Michael said. "The mainland authorities. Well, this is interesting."

"Whose file are you reading?"

"The Dickermans'. One of those blue-striped pieces is their house, and it was about to go solid blue."

"Why?" I asked. "The power company isn't making a profit?"

"The power company's doing fine, but they're probably going to lose that, too. Mr. Dickerman senior borrowed money from Resnick to bail two of his sons out of jail on charges of grand theft auto. And assault. Our charming friend Fred and a brother named Will, whom we probably won't be meeting, because he skipped out on his bail, bringing the whole family economy crashing down in ruins. Resnick threatened to foreclose on the loan in a few weeks."