Mint Condition Murder

by Ellery Adams

  Clara regarded her for a very long moment. “I suppose this is as good a time as any.” She took a deep breath and said, “Your father is here. Or, I should say, he’s on his way.” Molly stared at her. “He’s driving up from New York today. He asked me to talk to you about meeting him. I know you’re surprised.”

  Molly couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Surprised? I’m shocked. Nathan McDaniel walked out on both of us when I was eight days old. Why is he calling you now? How did he even know where to find you?”

  “Your father and I have stayed in touch. Not often, just a few times a year.”

  “Stayed in touch?” Molly’s cheeks were flaming. “I thought you had nothing to do with him.”

  “I don’t, not really.” Clara sounded calm, and it was irritating Molly. How could she be calm? “It was part of our divorce settlement. I agreed to send him photographs and updates about you, which meant we occasionally had to communicate.”

  Molly rubbed her forehead. A headache had suddenly taken up residency in her frontal lobes. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not a child anymore, and didn’t the agreement end when I turned eighteen?”

  “Yes, but he continued to be involved.”

  Molly was confused. “What do you mean, involved?” It suddenly dawned on her. “Oh, my God. When was the last time you sent him photographs and updates about me?”

  “A month ago. Tyler’s birthday party.”

  Molly’s jaw dropped. “So, you’re saying you’ve been in touch with my father, sending him updates and photographs about me my entire life?” She was trying hard to stay calm. It wasn’t easy. “And now you’re sending him information about Tyler?”

  “Molly, please don’t be mad at me. I know it’s a shock, but—”

  She cut her off. “It’s one thing to do it to me. But Tyler? Sending a perfect stranger information about him? It’s beyond the pale. You should have told me. He’s my son. You also should have told me what you were doing years ago. All that time, I thought my father didn’t even think about me.”

  “I tried to talk to you about it, but whenever I mentioned his name, you would say you didn’t want to know anything about him. I respected your wishes.”

  “I was a kid!” Molly felt like her head was going to explode. “And in case you haven’t noticed, I haven’t been a child in a really long time.” She was shouting, and lowered her voice. “I feel violated, knowing this man has seen photos of me, and Matt, and Tyler. How could you?”

  Clara bit her lower lip, and tears filled her eyes. This was something Molly had rarely seen. Her mother was an unmovable rock, always in control of her emotions. The only time she had seen her cry was at her wedding, but those were tears of joy.

  “The truth is, Molly, your father didn’t want anything to do with either of us. But he did want to make sure you were all right and had everything you needed. He paid alimony and child support on time, he contributed to your college education, and your trust fund.”

  Molly stared at her wide-eyed. “What I needed was a father, not an ATM. What I wanted was a birthday card, or a phone call, or an in-person visit once in a while. And you and Grandma told me you paid for college, and created the trust fund. Now you’re saying Grandma was in on it, too? You both lied to me.”

  “Your father didn’t want you to know.”

  “You didn’t want me to know him, did you? After I turned eighteen, you could have told me about this. What were you afraid of, that I’d try to track him down, and introduce myself?”

  Clara opened her purse and took out a tissue. She wiped her eyes. “You’re right. I didn’t want you to know him, because I was afraid he would reject you to your face, and hurt you even more. Happy now? That’s the truth. Keeping him at arm’s length, which was his decision, seemed like the best course of action at the time. I’m sorry if you don’t think it was, but I have always had your best interests in mind.”

  Molly blew out her breath. “Oh, Ma.” She leaned over and hugged her. “I know you did. I’m sorry for lashing out.” Clara started to cry, and Molly rubbed her back. “It’s okay, really. I’m not mad. I’m just surprised, that’s all.” Clara sat back, and Molly took the tissue from her hand and wiped under her eyes. “You have mascara smudges.”

  Clara sighed deeply. “Nathan asked me to relay a message to you. He would like to meet, to try to reconcile, but it’s entirely up to you. You tell me, and I’ll let him know. You don’t even have to talk to him.”

  Molly’s headache was pounding. She rubbed her temples. “Tell him no, I don’t want to meet him.”

  “He was married in January,” Clara said. “Her name is Pamela Lyman. They met at his restaurant in New York.”

  “He has a restaurant?”

  “The Bronze Chicken. Your father is a chef, and a very successful one at that. But that’s beside the point. Pamela is from Vermont, and she has a home here. This is the first time he’s visiting.”

  “Great. That means he’ll be coming here in the future.” Molly shook her head. “Oh, what do I care? I don’t want to meet him, and even if I ran smack into him on the street, I wouldn’t recognize him.”

  “From what he told me, I believe Pamela may have been encouraging him to reach out to you.”

  “So what? I don’t know her either, and don’t give a flying fig what she wants. Besides, if that is true, then it sounds like he only wants to meet me under pressure from her, which makes the whole thing even more hideous.” She paused. “When did he tell you he was coming here?”

  “Two days ago.”

  Molly stared. “You’ve known for two days.”

  “I didn’t know how to break it to you. When you invited me to come along with you today, I thought this would be the perfect time. We would be together in the car, and we could talk about it. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it.”

  “Well, now you have, and you can relay my message.”

  Clara reached over and took her hand. “May I suggest that you take some time to think it over. Talk to Matt. Get his opinion.”

  Molly was about to say no thanks, but she knew her emotions were off the chart, and big decisions shouldn’t be made in such a heightened state. “All right,” she said. “I’ll think about it and talk to Matt.”

  “Good girl.”

  Molly scooted over, and they huddled together on the bench. They could hear muffled voices inside the house, and she wondered how long they would have to wait for Lombardi. As it turned out, it was more than an hour before he stuck his head outside the door and said, “The coroner is about to leave. I just wanted to warn you.”

  Molly appreciated the warning. The gurney passed them with Charlotte’s body, and they watched the van drive away. Lombardi’s team was still inside the house, and she hoped they weren’t going to have to wait for them to leave before he let them go. They could be there for hours, and it was almost lunchtime. He returned ten minutes later, holding the door open for them.

  “Can you both come inside?” he asked. “I want to show you something.”

  Chapter 3

  They walked down the hall, past the room where Molly had found Charlotte’s body, now taped off with yellow crime scene tape, and entered a small kitchen. The appliances looked fairly new, but the yellow Formica countertops and dark wood cabinets looked like throwbacks from the 1980s, as did a small round table with four ladderback chairs, which was smack in the middle of the white and black linoleum-tiled floor.

  “So, here’s where I’m at,” he said. “Forensics is upstairs, going through Charlotte’s things. It appears she’s been living here. Her clothes are in the closets, but there’s nothing personal, no books or framed photographs. The furniture is old, too. I ran a quick background check. She owns a condominium in Boston, which is currently on the market. The photos on the realtor’s website show it furnished, so I’m assuming the furnishings upstairs might have already been here when she moved in. I’ve bagged up everything in her office, but there wasn’t much the
re, mostly packing supplies, and nothing in her desk. There was a cashbox, however, with ten thousand dollars in it. The cash register has about fifty bucks and some change.”

  “So it wasn’t a robbery,” Molly said.

  “Probably not. Forensics will examine the murder weapon, which appears to be the urn you found, and of course we’ll be going through her phone and laptop. What I’d like you to do is have a look at her desk. It’s in her office, over here.”

  Charlotte had been using a room off the kitchen for her office. It was very small and cramped, and had no windows, and Molly thought it must have been the pantry. With barely enough room for a metal file cabinet and an antique mahogany desk, the three of them standing together made for a tight fit.

  Molly thought the desk was beautiful. Three lower drawers, an upper hinged desktop, which was closed, and a bookcase with glass doors. The shelves were empty.

  “Like I said, I’ve gone through the desk, and there isn’t anything in it. I thought that was odd.”

  “Maybe not too odd,” Molly said. “She hasn’t been living here very long. The shop only opened six weeks ago.”

  Clara added, “Perhaps she intended to sell the desk.”

  “Then why not put it out on the floor?”

  Molly said, “I think you’re making too much of it. It’s her office, yes, and she has a desk in it, but a modern business depends on a computer, not paper and pen.”

  “Right, of course.”

  He was staring at the desk, and Molly knew he was hoping for something more.

  “Let me take a look at it.” She unlatched the hinged door. It lowered and revealed six small nooks built along two narrow shelves. There were four small drawers beneath the shelves with brass pulls. She opened all of the upper drawers and the three lower ones. She opened the glass doors of the bookcase, even though anyone could see there was nothing there. “You’re right,” she told him. “The desk is empty.”

  Clara said, “It’s a gorgeous piece. Queen Anne style, early eighteenth century.”

  Molly added, for Lombardi’s benefit, “These kinds of desks were called a secretary bookcase, or secrétaire. You can tell it was built by a master craftsman by the intricately carved wooden inlays.”

  He gave a little shrug. He didn’t know anything about antique furniture, which is why he relied on Molly. “What about a hidden drawer of some kind?” He really was determined to find something. “You’ve found hiding places in antique furniture before. Do you think we could have missed something?”

  “Yes, of course,” she said. “In those days, wealthy people would have desks custom-made with secret drawers to store important papers, or money.” She took a step back and studied the symmetry of the piece. “Ma, take a look at the center divider between the nooks. Does it remind you of anything?”

  Clara nodded. “Yes, yes, it does. The desk Lex sold at his auction house, the one with the rosewood inlays. It had a secret compartment behind the center divider. Check to see if this one has it, too.”

  Molly pushed on the wooden divider. It popped open so fast, she jumped back a little in surprise. She laughed. “Okay, Lombardi, you were right. There was a hiding place.” She pulled the divider all the way out, and leaned over to take a look inside the space it revealed. “Oh. It looks like a tin box is in there.” She rubbed her hands together, feeling like she was on a treasure hunt. She hoped it was something interesting. But before she could reach for the box, Lombardi grabbed her arm.

  “Hold on. I’ll do it.” He took a pair of disposable gloves from his jacket pocket and slipped them on. Molly and Clara got out of his way. He pulled out the tin box and carried it into the kitchen. Placing it on the table, he said, “It feels heavy. There’s something in there. Before I open it, what can you tell me about it?”

  Clara said, “It’s a 1920s Peter Rabbit tin candy box. You can see the lithograph of Peter Rabbit with Teddie and Betty on parade.” She pointed to the faded lithograph. “I guarantee you’ll find the rest of Peter’s friends on the bottom. But don’t keep us in suspense, open it.”

  He carefully removed the lid, and they stared down at the contents.

  A small burlap bag tied with string, and a gun.

  Molly’s eyes widened. “Charlotte had a gun. She must have been worried about her safety.”

  “If she was, she picked a strange place to store it,” he said. Without touching the gun, he leaned over to get a closer look. “I’ve seen a weapon like this before. My grandfather had one. It’s a Beretta model, popular before and during World War Two.” He lifted out the burlap bag and untied the string. Shaking the bag over his gloved hand, five small coins fell out.

  Clara said, “I can see a date on one of the coins, 1862. Can you turn the others over?” He did. “They’re all dated 1862. Molly, they’re from the Civil War era. Give Lex a call. He’s an expert on Civil War memorabilia. Maybe he can tell us something about these coins.”

  Lex Lewis was married to Molly’s best friend, Kitty. They owned Lewis Antiques Sales in North Carolina, which specialized in auctions. Molly put the call on Facetime to show him the coins.

  “We found the tin box behind the middle divider, like that desk you sold years ago.”

  “The rosewood desk,” he said. “Gorgeous piece.”

  Molly moved her phone slowly over the coins. “Tell me if I’m going too fast.”

  “Stop there,” he said. “Turn the smallest coin over.” Lombardi flipped the coin as Molly hovered her phone over it. “And show me the other ones again, both front and back.” She moved her phone again, as Lombardi turned them.

  “I can’t say for certain if they’re authentic, not without seeing them in person,” Lex said. “But if they’re fakes, they’re really good ones. And if they’re real, it’s an amazing discovery. What you’ve got are four original half dollars, and a one-cent piece. In today’s market, I could auction the four half dollars for five thousand dollars each.”

  Molly felt her eyebrows shoot up. “Each?”

  “Yes, but they’re nothing compared to the smallest coin. The copper-nickel cent piece, and again, this is if it’s original, could be sold at auction for fifty thousand dollars.” For a moment, no one spoke. They were all stunned. “An original copper-nickel is very rare,” Lex said. “I never thought I’d ever see one in person, or even over the phone.” Molly did a quick calculation in her head. All totaled, the five coins were worth approximately seventy thousand dollars. “A coin collector with the means to buy the whole set would love to have them for their collection, but the high price for these would be prohibitive for most of the collectors I know.”

  Lombardi asked, “What do you mean when you say they’re original?”

  “It’s a term used for silver and gold coins issued for circulation in the United States between 1792 through 1964. Think of it like antique furniture. If a piece is near original condition, and unaltered, it’s much more desirable for collectors, which increases the price. These coins appear to be in pristine condition, which leads me to conclude they hadn’t been in circulation very long, if at all. Do you know where Charlotte got them?”

  “No, not yet,” Molly said.

  “Give me a call when you find out. I’d love to know.”

  “Say hello to Kitty for me. Tell her I’ll call her soon.”

  Molly ended the call, and Lombardi returned the coins carefully to the bag. “I’ll have these logged into evidence. I hope we can find Charlotte’s fingerprints on them, and the gun. I’d like to establish the tin and its contents actually belonged to her. Since the candy tin is from the 1920s and the gun dates to the Second World War, it’s possible someone else could have hidden the tin and she never knew it was there.”

  Molly said, “I think that’s highly unlikely. Charlotte was an antiques dealer, and owning a desk like this, I can’t believe she wouldn’t have gone over it the minute she found it. Did the coroner say when she died?”

  “Yeah, sometime between seven and nine o’c
lock this morning.”

  Molly didn’t like the sound of that. They’d barely missed the killer. “When Lex told us how much the coins are worth, I immediately thought that whoever might have killed her was looking for them, but you said there’s money in the cashbox and the register. So, if someone was after the coins, and didn’t get them, would they leave empty-handed?”

  He looked at Molly. “Are you still going to write an article about Charlotte?”

  Molly knew what he was asking. Since Charlotte was dead, he wanted to know if she planned on investigating her death. Before she could answer, Clara said, “I think Molly should take a pass on this one. She has other things to take care of.”

  “No, I don’t,” Molly said. “I want to finish what I’ve started, even though the circumstances have changed.”

  “But you haven’t started anything yet, and you have that other matter, you know, the one you need to talk over with Matt.”

  Lombardi looked confused. “Will someone please tell me what you’re not telling me?”

  Molly sighed. “My father is coming to Vermont, today, from New York.”

  “Whoa. The father you’ve never met?”

  “Well, technically I did meet him, but only for eight days, which I have no memory of.”

  “Yeah, but . . . really? Why now?”

  “I suppose because he got married and is feeling domesticated. He wants to meet me, but he’s leaving it up to me to decide.”

  “Wow. You really do have a big decision to make.”

  “Yes, but it doesn’t mean I can’t walk and chew gum at the same time.” Molly was looking at her mother. “I’m going to write an article about Charlotte, and I’m going to look into her death. It’s my job.” She turned back to Lombardi. “Have you contacted her business partner, Rene Flores, to tell her what’s happened?”

  “I called, but she didn’t answer. I’ve left a message, told her it was urgent I speak to her.”

  “I’d like to talk to her, too,” Molly said. “I’ll wait, of course, until you’ve informed her of Charlotte’s death and had a chance to question her, but can you let me know when you’ve done that?”