Page 24 of A Jingle of Justice
A clerk with café au lait skin, hazel eyes, and a welcoming smile greeted me in the recorder’s office. Her badge readSantos.
Fiona danced along the front of the clerk’s desk. The woman didn’t seem to detect her.
“May I help you?” she asked.
I explained my quest and asked if she could provide me access to the property records.
“With the Assessor’s Parcel Number anyone can obtain the earliest document we have on file.”
“Assessor’s parcel number?” I repeated. “I don’t have one.”
“It would be on your tax bill.”
“I don’t pay the tax bill. Our landlord Logan Langford does.”
“What’s the address?”
“We don’t have addresses in Carmel.” All mail was distributed via the main post office. I gave her the name of the Cypress and Ivy Courtyard and the cross streets.
In a minute, she came up with the APN and jotted it down. “To delve further, you can use the public access computers. There you may explore ownership history. You’ll want to perform a grantor/grantee search.”
A half hour later, I had the information I needed. Ferguson Moss was wrong. The Tillbury family had indeed built the courtyard. Dexter Tillbury’s father had been the initial owner, and he’d bequeathed it to his son Dexter. The errant son Daniel was not mentioned. When Dexter died in 1940, the property transferred to his daughter, Thessalonia. She willed the property to her daughter Tillie York in 1970. Tillie married and years later sold the property to Logan Langford in 1990.
“Uh-oh. You’ve got that look on your face.” Fiona furrowed her brow to mimic me. “Where are we going?”
“Back to Miss Santos. Something about Dexter’s death is sticking in my craw. Lissa Reade said Dexter’s brother killed him, misguidedly believing their father would include him in his will. What if one of Daniel Tillbury’s descendants believed he or she should be the rightful owner of the property? What if that person discovered Tianna was intent on finding the treasure and followed her to steal the fortune?”
Fiona said, “Could Ferguson Moss be a relative? He sure seemed eager to beat her to the prize.”
“Interesting theory,” I said as his wordsget there firstcycled through my mind. Had he followed Shara, thinking she was the rightful heir to the property, only to learn Tianna believed she was? Did he then trail her?
We returned to the front desk, and I asked Santos if she or someone in the building could help me. I didn’t think sayingus,meaning me and Fiona,would be a wise decision.
Santos’s eyes brightened. “You’ve come to the right spot. I am a devoted historian. My family goes back eight generations, in both Monterey and Carmel. I’ve memorized everything there is to know about missions, land development, and more. What do you want to learn?”
I filled her in about Tianna’s murder. She paled.
“Tianna shared how her great-great-grandfather inherited the property in its entirety,” I went on, “and I confirmed her account. His name is the original name of record. Upon his death, the property transferred to his daughter, and she bequeathed it to her child. Many years later it was sold to the current owner.”
“The Tillbury debacle. Ah, yes.” Santos shook her head. “It made the front page news in Monterey. My abuela was a front page junkie. She clipped and saved every major story for fifty years. She wasn’t a packrat, but she was determined to know what was going on in the world. The Tillbury story had a central place on her bulletin board.” She laughed. “Her innate curiosity was to be expected. She was a librarian.”
“Can you tell me more?”
“Not much.” She wagged her head. “The murderer Daniel Tillbury went to jail and perished. His wife succumbed to a heart attack. They had a daughter. Reenie was her name, short for Doreen. She moved away when she was seventeen.” She flicked the air with her fingers.
As I left the building, I felt eyes on me and shuddered.
“What’s wrong?” Fiona asked.
I explained and turned in a circle to scope out the area, but I didn’t see anyone overtly watching me. There was a man in jogging clothes to my left scrolling through something on hisphone, and a woman pushing a baby carriage to my right. In her dark scarf and sunglasses, she reminded me of Audrey Hepburn in the movieCharade.Was there even a baby in the carriage? I mused.
All of a sudden an infant cried, and I laughed to myself.Don’t get paranoid, Courtney.
“Ahem, Courtney,” Fiona said. “How can we find out if Ferguson Moss is related to Tianna?”
“A DNA test, but I doubt he’ll submit to one.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
