“I assume you know the Historical Society sits on seven acres,” he said. “There are gardens, a pond, and a thatched-roof children’s cottage.”
“Children’s cottage?” Ellen said.
I explained, “The wealthy farmer who built the two-hundred-year-old stone house that the Historical Society now occupies also built this pretty little play house for his kids. Well, it’s not that little. A single room, maybe twenty by twenty feet. The inside is like a miniature nineteenth-century home, furnished with child-size furniture and toys. It’s some distance from the main building.”
“It sounds delightful,” Ellen said. “I’d love to explore it.”
“Unfortunately,” I said, “it’s not open to the public. They keep it locked. There are lots of windows, though, so you can view the interior. I like to imagine the children and their nanny spending hours playing in there.”
“Carter never suspected I was following him,” Burke said, “first by car, then on foot. There was a half moon, which provided just enough light for me to see him remove something from the trunk of his car and make his way across the property to the cottage. He let himself in, though I haven’t a clue where he got the key.”
“Peaches had all the Historical Society keys,” Martin said, “from when her mom was the president. It’s how she and Carter got into the building the night he killed her.”
“Ah,” Burke said, “mystery solved. Once he was inside, I approached the cottage and peeked through a window. He was using one of those lantern-type flashlights that illuminates the entire room.”
Martin snorted. “Amateur.”
“Did you get a good look at the object he took out of his trunk?” I asked. “Did it look like a woman’s handbag? Beige, with the Gucci logo all over it?”
“No, it was a white plastic grocery sack,” he said. “I couldn’t see what was in it, though it stands to reason it’s connected to the murder. Otherwise, why go to such lengths to conceal it?”
“What did he do with the sack?” I asked.
“First he reached up inside the fireplace chimney,” Burke said, “and pulled a black backpack out of it.”
“Out of the chimney?” Ellen said.
“Not a bad hiding spot,” Martin said.
“I agree,” Burke said. “The cottage is kept locked, and that fireplace probably hasn’t been used in well over a century, so there’s little chance of the backpack being discovered. Carter put the grocery bag inside it and replaced it in the chimney.”
“We have no way of knowing whether the backpack is still there,” Martin said. “He might have moved it before he was arrested.”
“I can’t call in this tip,” Burke said, “even using someone else’s voice. The detectives are on to that. And I have no desire to field inconvenient questions on the subject of stalking. But, Jane, you could tell your pal Howie about an anonymous tip you received.”
“Why did you wait so long to bring this up?” I asked.
“Because I assumed the police would have checked the cottage already, that Carter would have told them about it. Have you heard of evidence being retrieved from there?” he asked. When I shook my head, he said, “Nor have I, and I’m beginning to think that whatever is in that chimney, it’s going to remain up there until that backpack rots and its contents drop into the fireplace.”
A FEW MINUTES LATER, we paid for our food—Cheyenne tried to charge me for both the pizza and the tofu slop, though I’d been served neither—and said our goodbyes, with promises to get together soon. It was after nine p.m. and fully dark.
Martin had driven us there in his 1966 candy-apple-red Mustang convertible. A sexy ride for a sexy man. I produced my phone while he was still pulling out of his parking spot on the street, and started to call Howie.
He reached over and snatched the phone out of my hand.
“Why’d you do that?” I demanded.
“You don’t have to call him right away. An hour won’t make any difference.”
“Wait a minute.” It dawned on me that he wasn’t driving toward my house. He was driving toward—
“No, Padre.” I tried without success to retrieve my phone, prompting him to slide it into the back pocket of his jeans, with a silky little smile. What would he do if I actually thrust my hand in there and felt around for it?
Probably drive off the road, so not a good idea.
“We are not going to that cottage. We don’t even have a key—” I broke off with a snort. “Look who I’m talking to.” As if Martin McAuliffe needed a key to open any locked door.
“You worry too much,” he said.
“This is a police matter. It’s not something for us to mess around with.”
“I like messing around.” The padre’s expression said he wasn’t talking about police matters.
“Stop that,” I said.
“Stop what?” All innocence.
“You know very well what. Come on, Padre. Burke only told us about this because he trusted us to bring it straight to Howie.”
“Yeah,” he said, “as an ‘anonymous tip.’ As if an experienced detective like Howie Werker isn’t going to immediately connect the dots to Peaches’s presumptive stalker.”
“He can connect the dots any way he wants,” I said. “I don’t have to verify his conclusions.”
“You know Howie,” he said. “He’s by the book. No way is he going to tell us what’s in that backpack. Aren’t you even a little bit curious?”
I was rabidly curious, but I was also a responsible citizen. Most of the time. “I know we’re both thinking the same thing.”
“The blackmail money,” he said.
I sighed in defeat. “One little peek, Padre. If there’s even anything in that chimney. Carter might have cleaned it out. Then we put it back, get the heck out of there, and call Howie.”
MARTIN SLID THE little lock-pick set back into his pocket and flicked on his tiny flashlight as we stepped over the threshold of the children’s cottage. The closed-up space exuded a stale perfume, an amalgam of old wood, dust, and a hint of mildew. The ceiling was beamed, the multipaned windows flanked by floral drapes. An oval braided rug covered much of the plank flooring.
Martin’s flashlight beam swept the room, revealing a pint-size table and chairs, doll bed, Windsor chair, and rocking horse. The table was set for a little girl’s tea party. Stuffed animals and books occupied the window seat tucked into a bay window. An antique clock and assorted toys and figurines crowded the wooden fireplace mantel. Several unburnt logs perched on the fireplace grate, awaiting a match. I suspected these particular logs had been waiting for that match for decades.
Six weeks earlier we’d found ourselves in a similar situation, furtively scoping out an unfamiliar, sealed-up room in the dark. I’d take this children’s cottage over that gross attic any day. The absence of a leathery human corpse tied to a chair was icing on the cake.
Martin didn’t waste any time. He knelt on the stone hearth, leaned over the logs, and aimed his light up the chimney.
“Do you see anything?” I asked.
“I think so, but I can’t be sure. I’m at a bad angle. Here.” He handed me the flashlight, then grabbed both ends of the metal grate and lifted it, logs and all, setting it out of the way.
He scooted into the fireplace and reached up into the chimney. After a bit of groping, he gave a couple of sharp tugs. A backpack fell onto his lap in a puff of black soot.
“Wow,” I said.
“Wow,” he said.
I lifted the bag and set it on the rug as the padre extricated himself from the fireplace. “You do the honors,” I said.
He unzipped the backpack and shone the flashlight into it. Inside were several white grocery bags. He retrieved the top one and upended it over the rug. Green folding money rained down, a deluge of twenties, fifties, and C-notes.
“It’s nice to be right once in a while.” I pulled out the other three bags. Each seemed to hold about the same amount of cash.
>
“I’m guessing this all adds up to a hundred sixty-four grand,” Martin said.
“Unless he held on to some of it.” I sat back on my heels and admired the bounty as the flashlight beam danced over it. I’d never seen so much cash in one place.
“Wouldn’t it be nice...” he said.
“Don’t even think it.” I started shoveling the bills back into the grocery sack.
“I wasn’t,” he said. “I wouldn’t. I’m just saying it’s a nice haul. A simple observation.”
I preferred to believe that if I weren’t with him, Martin would be content to make the “simple observation” and return the cash to its hidey-hole. It irked me that I couldn’t be one hundred percent certain of that, given that I knew little of his background, and what I did know was less than reassuring.
We got the money packed up. The padre scooted back into the fireplace and prepared to shove the backpack into place. He hesitated, squinting up into the chimney.
“What?” I said.
“I could be wrong, but... Give me the flashlight.” He aimed the beam, squinted some more, then reached up so far his shoulder disappeared. He grimaced. “I can’t...”
“Is there something else up there?” I asked.
“Yeah, but it’s too high up.” He gave up for the moment and shone the light around the immediate vicinity. “No poker?”
“How about this?” A rustic hearth broom leaned against the mantel, one of those old-timey handmade ones that nowadays are mostly for show.
“That’s probably what he used to shove the thing up there. Hold the light for me.” He poked the wooden broom handle into the chimney, peering upward, while I aimed the flashlight as best I could. “I don’t want to push it farther up. If I can just...”
He worked at it for several minutes, repositioning himself a couple of times. “Okay, I think I can reach it now.” Up went the arm again, high, higher... Just when I thought he was going to crawl right up the chimney, he cried, “Got it!”
He yanked hard, two, three, four times. Finally the stubborn thing tumbled into the fireplace. It turned out to be a zippered tote bag. Its coating of inky soot failed to conceal the distinctive Gucci pattern.
I dragged it onto the hearth. It was significantly heavier than the backpack. “Think this could be more cash?”
“Only if he was skimming off the top every time he collected the blackmail money,” Martin said. “For twenty-four years.”
“He wouldn’t have dared,” I said. “Something tells me Peaches would have noticed if so much as a nickel went missing.”
“Good point. So...” He gestured to the bag. “I believe it’s your turn.”
I pulled the zipper and aimed the flashlight into the bag. And saw what appeared to be a bundle of rags. “Here goes.” I reached inside and retrieved a small object swaddled in a kitchen towel. I unwrapped it and sat looking at a cheap plastic snow globe bearing the label Atlanta, the Big Peach! I shook the water-filled globe and watched pink glitter fly around the tiny peach tree glued to the base.
“Okay...” Martin’s tone told me he was beginning to doubt Carter’s sanity.
“This is one of them! One of Peaches’s peaches!” I’d told him about the collection I’d expended so much effort trying to locate.
“Seriously? This little, um...?”
“‘Worthless piece of junk’ is the term you’re groping for,” I said. “Most of them are a lot nicer. Not to mention more valuable.”
Martin helped me unwrap the collection. Some of the pieces were swathed in kitchen towels, some in washcloths, and some in layers of paper towel.
“Check out this little thing,” he said, holding the netsuke between thumb and forefinger and examining it with the flashlight. “It’s so intricate.”
Seeing the jade carving in person, the exquisitely rendered grasshopper perched on a peach, I finally comprehended how it could fetch upwards of seven thousand dollars.
I peeled back a wad of paper towels to reveal a wooden box in the shape of a peach.
“Whoa, is that blood?” He pointed out dark stains on the paper towels.
“Carter bashed in the locked glass door of Peaches’s china cabinet to get to these,” I said. “I guess it didn’t want to give up the goods.”
“Well, if there’s any doubt who swiped them,” he said, “the cops could always run the DNA.”
“More DNA,” I said. “Carter will be thrilled.”
We counted fifty-two peach figurines, crafted of every possible material, including stone, wood, brass, ceramic, melamine, silver, crystal, porcelain, papier-mâché, and several others I failed to identify.
“Let’s get this stuff back up there.” The padre wrapped a peach-shaped glass Christmas tree ornament in a washcloth.
Within minutes we had the peaches rewrapped and zipped into their tote. Martin laboriously forced the bag back up the chimney, with the assistance of the broom handle. He shoved the money bag after it, then replaced the logs in the fireplace. Standing, he slapped his palms against his soot-stained jeans.
“All that’s left for you to do now,” he said, “is to call Howie and report your ‘anonymous tip.’”
“Let’s get well away from here first.” I pointed the flashlight at him. “What are you doing?”
Martin was positioning something on the fireplace mantel, carefully placing it between a segmented wooden doll and a cast-iron fire wagon, complete with a pair of horses and a little driver in a helmet.
“No!” I said. “Padre, no! You have to put that back.”
The peach-tree snow globe looked glaringly out of place among the antique playthings clustered on the mantel.
“I’m not hauling that bag back down the chimney.” He stood back to admire his handiwork. “That’s a job for Crystal Harbor’s finest.”
“You can’t leave that thing here,” I said. “They’ll know we got to the peaches first. It’ll compromise the, whaddayacallit, chain of evidence.”
“First of all, do you really think the cops care about the peaches? And trust me, no one’s going to notice this little thing.” He shook the snow globe, set it back down, and watched the glitter settle.
“You’re insane.” I tossed my hand at it. “How could anyone fail to notice that flashy trinket among all these dull antiques? It’s like a slot machine in church. It screams at you.”
“Have I ever told you you worry too much?”
“But—”
“No one staring through these windows will even know what they’re looking at,” he said, “except for you and me. It’ll be something special just for us.”
“People come in here to dust and whatever,” I said.
“Yeah, and they’ll see what they expect to see. And if someone does notice it, they’ll think someone else higher up the food chain put it there, and they won’t dare to question it.”
“What about Evie?” I said. “She knows every peach in that collection. She’ll notice it’s missing.”
“You just called it a worthless piece of junk,” he said. “She’ll assume her dad hung on to it.”
The little growly noise I made sounded an awful lot like Sexy Beast. As much as I hated to admit it, he was probably right.
The padre turned me to face him. He commandeered the flashlight, switched it off, and pocketed it. “Don’t look at the snow globe, Jane. It’ll only upset you.” Moonlight spilled through the windows, silvering the Lilliputian furnishings and turning Martin’s face into a mysterious, shadowed landscape.
I couldn’t help but notice we were standing very close. As in, his arms were around me, and my front was touching his front. That kind of close.
“I won’t,” I breathed. “I won’t look at it.” I closed my eyes, to demonstrate how good I was at not looking.
I felt his breath first, the lovely, warm sweetness of it. Then his lips touched my lips, so gently at first I couldn’t be sure. Then I was sure and it was a good thing he was holding me up, because my choice was
simple. I could either stand on my own or I could lose myself to the sheer dizzying perfection of that kiss.
And I mean, a girl has to have her priorities.
Preview of Snatched
Praise for romantic suspense by Pamela Burford:
“Wonderfully sexy and exciting!”
— New York Times best-selling author Anne Stuart
“Everything from dangerous passions to deadly chills. Take heart, romantic suspense fans, Pamela Burford has arrived.”
— New York Times best-selling author Maggie Shayne
“Gifted author Pamela Burford delivers a sexy, tension-packed sizzler with a tough, strong hero guaranteed to make our hearts throb!”
— RT Book Reviews
“Pamela Burford is one of the best writers of romantic suspense!”
— Harriet Klausner for Painted Rock Reviews
“You will love every minute of this chilling story of a fear-love relationship that walks the finest edge of danger.”
— Affaire de Coeur
“A great romance and a terrific thriller!”
— Literary Times
“I couldn't tear myself away until I'd read the last page. The writing is fast-paced and provocative as this highly talented author once again provides a stunning story.”
— Old Book Barn Gazette
A humorous romantic suspense novel that’s fresh, quirky, and surprising! Find out why Snatched has been described as “Janet Evanovich meets the Coen Brothers.”
Is an uncomplicated divorce and a fresh start at forty too much to ask? Apparently it is for Lucy Narby, whose life goes from blah to bizarro when competing kidnappers lock horns in her kitchen. And really, does the victor have to be that hot? If this is the Stockholm syndrome, it sure didn’t take her long to catch it!
Lucy’s kidnapper calls himself Will but looks suspiciously like ’80s child TV star Ricky Baines, whose acting career was cut short when he himself was snatched and held for ransom 25 years ago in a notorious cold case that remains unsolved. Will’s gang includes an aging French bombshell, an outlandish Irish giant with a mysterious past and a thing for Will’s sister, and long-lost Cousin Hal—a charming fellow who neglects to mention that he happens to be the twisted sociopath who kidnapped Will when he was still America’s favorite little star. Hal spent the past quarter century in the slammer for an unrelated murder, and now he’s out and determined to locate the $2 million ransom Will’s family paid. Someone else dug up the cash while Hal was behind bars, and that sort of thing tends to make twisted sociopaths a tad grouchy.
Preserving Peaches Page 28