The Devil's Puzzle

by Clare O'Donohue

  “I’m surprised Glad’s father gave you a loan with no business experience, no money, and no idea that quilting would grow the way it has,” Jesse said.

  “He wasn’t that much of a pushover. I had to put the house up for collateral,” she said. “Now, who would like a piece of chocolate cream pie?”

  CHAPTER 20

  The air was still warm from the day as Jesse and I took Barney toward the river for his nightly walk. I took in a long, deep breath. I loved the coming of summer. The days were long, the wind soft, and there was color everywhere.

  “Have you been digging around the hole since we found the skeleton ?” Jesse asked.

  “Digging?”

  “Or maybe Barney?”

  “Why?”

  “I stopped by here earlier and I happened to notice a few odd things in the dirt,” he said. “An old key chain and a few coins. They weren’t there when we recovered the body, so I was wondering if you found them when you were searching the hole for evidence.”

  I smiled. “I haven’t been. Hadn’t thought about it, which in retrospect is a missed opportunity. I guess Barney could have been digging in there, but these days he mostly sits. Do you think they were from the skeleton?”

  “Maybe. The weird thing is the coins are Civil War era and the key chain is from a drugstore that went out of business in 1948.”

  “So the skeleton is a Civil War soldier who owned a drugstore in the forties?”

  “Who knows? I’m chasing my tail with this case. I feel like as soon as I sit down to really think it through, something pulls me away from it.”

  “I heard about the library and the book with the torn pages.”

  “The History of Archers Rest,” Jesse’s voice boomed in a mockserious tone.

  “Do you know what was torn out?”

  “Sort of. I spoke with Glad about it. First she spent twenty minutes telling me that her father was an amateur historian, just like she is. Then she told me she remembered what the pages said.”

  “She remembered? She doesn’t have any copies of the book?”

  “Not a one. But she did say the missing pages were about John Archer’s days before coming up here. According to Glad’s father, Archer was plagued by rumors of various kinds . . .”

  “Witchcraft.”

  “That, and apparently he killed a neighbor and buried him in the yard.”

  I slapped Jesse’s arm. “You’re kidding me? Just like our skeleton.” “Do you think you’ve solved the case?” He laughed. “I should go down to the graveyard and arrest John Archer. He does seem like quite a character.”

  “I think he was just the victim of a lot of stupid rumors,” I said.

  “If you ask me, that’s why he came up here. To get away from gossips and create a town where he was free to be himself. Too bad he died the first winter.”

  “Which is really the only fact we have about him,” he said. “And the funny thing is, Archer died in about 1661 and we know only a little less about him than we know about what happened in this garden in 1975.”

  I leaned into Jesse’s shoulder and kissed his neck. “So why didn’t you just ask Eleanor directly about Winston instead of all those questions about the quilt shop?” I asked.

  “I was wondering, I guess,” he said. “Don’t you think it’s odd that your grandmother came to live with Grace in 1965 with no money, debts from her late husband, and two children to raise, and ten years later she had enough money to buy a four-bedroom house on five acres of land?”

  “She probably saved money from her salary.”

  “How much could she have earned? She was living here—probably her food was paid for. When you have live-in help, usually the salary is really small, just spending money.”

  “You have a lot of experience with live-in help, do you?” I smiled playfully, but I wasn’t really feeling playful. I was getting the distinct impression that Jesse was suggesting Eleanor had done something wrong. As we passed the hole still left in the rose garden, I started to worry about what exactly he might be thinking she had done.

  I stopped him, grabbed his waist, and pulled him toward me. “You’re just wondering about Eleanor because the skeleton is Grace’s son.”

  “We don’t know that for sure.”

  “Are you looking into it?”

  He smiled at me. It was a warm, romantic, maybe slightly amused smile. “Yes, Nell, I am looking into it.”

  “What have you found out?”

  “Not that you’re interested in the case, right?”

  “If it has to do with Eleanor, I’m interested.”

  He nodded. “Winston Roemer was alive and well early in 1975, and nothing since. No use of his Social Security number. No loans. No bank accounts. No credit cards. No property bought or sold. No crimes committed by or against him. And there’s no death certificate that I can find. At this early stage of the investigation, it looks like a strong possibility that Winston may be our man.”

  “And what does that have to do with Eleanor having enough money to buy this house?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe nothing.”

  I hugged him closer and whispered in his ear. “She didn’t kill him.” He leaned his face against mine. “Of course she didn’t.”

  “So why don’t you go in and ask her about him right now?”

  “Because I need to know more about the case before I question any . . .” He stopped.

  “Suspects.” I finished the sentence.

  “Witnesses.”

  “That’s not what you were going to say.”

  “Nell, you said you were staying out of this. I can’t tell you that you have to.” He smiled. “I guess I could, but you wouldn’t listen anyway, Nancy Drew.”

  “Enough with the jokes—what are you leading up to?”

  “I’m just asking that you not talk to Eleanor about Winston being our victim just yet.”

  “Why not?”

  His jaw clenched. “Because I’m a good cop and you trust me to find the truth and you know I will include you in anything pertinent to the case.”

  “I like how you made that something I would not be able to argue with,” I said.

  “Good.”

  “So when can I talk to her about Winston being buried in her backyard?”

  “When we know it’s him—how about that?”

  I could tell that was all he was going to say on the matter. Jesse had a soft, kind voice when he and I were alone, but when he was on duty or when he was shutting me off from an investigation, as he was doing now, his voice was authoritative and deep. There was no room for disagreement at those times, unless I wanted to turn the discussion into an argument.

  “You know who you should be looking into?” I said. “That new intern, Molly O’Brien.”

  “She wasn’t even born when Winston disappeared. And she’s not from town. What reason would I have, exactly, for checking her background?”

  “I don’t know, but it’s just . . .” I hated when I couldn’t explain my hunches. “Glad doesn’t like her.”

  Jesse laughed. “Glad doesn’t like you. Or me. Or anyone as far as I can tell.”

  “Maybe. But there’s something.”

  “Okay, Nell.” Jesse leaned in. “But I still have to look into people who were actually alive at the time of Winston’s disappearance.”

  Just as he was about to kiss me, Barney came toward us, tired and wanting to go inside. Jesse gave me a peck on the cheek and said, “We’re on the same side.”

  I wanted to be reassured, but somehow I wasn’t.

  CHAPTER 21

  “I t was a nice dinner,” Eleanor said once the men had left.

  Oliver usually would have spent the night at the house, but he was making sketches for the painting that would be auctioned at the anniversary celebration, and he was aching to get to his studio to work on them. Jesse wanted to check in at the station before heading to his mother’s to pick up Allie. And I wanted to talk to Eleanor alone.

&
nbsp; “I always think of you as so strong and independent,” I said.

  “I would say thank you, but I have a feeling you don’t mean it as a compliment.”

  “I do, actually. I just forget that you must feel overwhelmed sometimes, the way I do.”

  “You never feel overwhelmed, Nell. You barge into every situation with all the optimism and curiosity of a puppy.”

  “Now that doesn’t sound like a compliment,” I said. “And I do feel overwhelmed sometimes, and scared.”

  “What’s this about?”

  “When you were talking at dinner about opening the shop, it got me to thinking. It must have been so hard for you, moving into a stranger’s house after having a house of your own.”

  She cocked an eyebrow. “I suppose.”

  “Did you know anyone in Archers Rest at the time?”

  “No. Your grandfather and I both grew up about an hour’s drive from here. But you know that, Nell.” She handed me a dirty plate. “Load the dishwasher, will you? I’m tired.”

  “Keep me company,” I said. “I’ll make you a cup of tea.”

  She sat at the kitchen table, and Barney immediately rested his head on her lap. “Did you and Jesse have a nice walk?” she asked.

  “We did.”

  “Did he ask you anything? Is that why you’re suddenly feeling so overwhelmed?”

  “We talked, but not about the future,” I said. “We talked about the past.”

  “No word at all on an engagement?”

  I thought about the plans Oliver and I had made for her garden and their lives. “I think that’s on hold for the moment,” I said.

  “Maybe on your birthday. That’s coming up July 3rd.”

  “Don’t get your hopes up, Grandma.”

  “I suppose he has a lot going on,” she said. “Still, he can’t wait his whole life for the right moment to propose. Someone once said to me that a woman can live her whole life without a man and be complete, but a man needs a woman. We women have our friends to share our feelings with, you see. But for many men, they only really open up in the company of the woman they love.”

  I put a mug in front of her and poured her tea. “Was the someone who told you that Grace?”

  “Not all my pearls of wisdom come from Grace, though that one happened to.”

  “And the house did, too,” I said. “Did you inherit it?”

  “No. I bought it.”

  “From her children?”

  “Yes.”

  “And neither one of them wanted to keep it?”

  “Why? Her son was in South America and her daughter was in California. I think they were pleased it was going to someone who was as close as family,” she said. “By then, I guess they thought of me that way. I certainly thought of Grace that way.”

  “And you were close to them? Her children, I mean?”

  She sighed. “I was close to the daughter. Winston, Grace’s son, was a difficult man to be close to.”

  “Have you kept in touch with them?”

  “Letters at Christmas.” She pointed to a drawer in the kitchen where she kept cards and letters too precious to throw out.

  “Both of them?”

  “What’s the sudden interest?”

  “Curious, I guess.”

  I knew I was getting very close to breaking my promise to Jesse, but I comforted myself with the fact that I’d actually only promised not to talk about Winston being the skeleton—I hadn’t said I wouldn’t talk about Winston at all.

  “Did they pay you well?” I asked. “Grace and her children?”

  “Why?”

  “You bought the house. It must have been pricey.”

  “Your grandfather sold life insurance, Nell. He would have been a poor salesman if he didn’t own some of it himself.” She was tired and growing impatient with me. “What’s the sudden interest in this house? Are you and Jesse hoping to move in here once you’re married?”

  “How did we get back to that?” I laughed. “He has his own house, Grandma.”

  “It’s a tiny little place. Not enough for three, or eventually maybe four or five of you.” She sat back in her chair and looked around the kitchen. “It wouldn’t be such a bad idea, really. I could clear out the sewing room. That’s really the master bedroom anyway. You and Jesse could take that, and Allie could take your room, and that still leaves another bedroom for a nursery down the line. And then when I go, you could take over the house.”

  “You’re not going anytime soon,” I said. “Unless you moved in with Oliver.”

  “I’m a little old for living in sin, Nell.”

  “You could marry him. Make an honest man out him.”

  She swallowed the last of her tea and got up from the chair. “And you accuse me of bringing up the same conversation again and again.” She turned to the dog. “Come on, Barney, we’ll go to sleep and let Nell clean up the kitchen.”

  Once I was alone, I grabbed the cards and letters from the kitchen drawer and began sorting through them. Most were from the past year. A few birthday cards, postcards from my parents who were still traveling the globe, a letter from Eleanor’s sister who lived in Philadelphia, and more than a dozen thank-you cards.

  Eleanor’s generosity and kindness, I was glad to see, had not been forgotten by the people of Archers Rest. She was thanked for the donations of money, time, and quilts to everything from an AIDS fundraiser to a children’s choir. Whatever may have happened years ago, however she got this house, it was obvious Eleanor had led a good life. Not that I was, even for a moment, suggesting, even to myself, that Eleanor had done anything wrong. I knew her too well to think something like that.

  At the bottom of the pile there were a few Christmas cards. Most were from friends in town, but one was from California. The return address said it was from Elizabeth Sullivan. The card was simple, just an illustration of a Christmas tree, and inside there was only a short message:

  Eleanor,

  Another year gone by. I miss them so much. And miss you, too. I’m glad to hear your children and grandchildren are well. My youngest grandchild is in college in Boston now. Time has flown, hasn’t it? Seems like yesterday we were all together with the future ahead of us. Have a wonderful Christmas in the old house.

  Love,

  Elizabeth

  There was no mention of Grace. No last name of Roemer. But it had to be Grace’s daughter. She’d moved to California. Eleanor had said they kept in touch through Christmas cards and this was the only one from someone I didn’t know. Maybe that was little to go on, but it was all I had. If it was Winston buried in the yard, then Elizabeth would be our best chance at a DNA match, and maybe an answer to why he had ended up there.

  CHAPTER 22

  “I need to do a search on a woman named Elizabeth Sullivan,” I told Natalie the next morning as we opened the shop. “I have her address, so it shouldn’t be hard to find her phone number.”

  “First I have to tell you about Winston,” she said. “I did a little digging after I got your text. Is he the skeleton?”

  “We’re not sure yet. What did you find out?”

  “He was the oldest child of Grace and William Roemer,” she said.

  “Born in New York. He went to Harvard for undergrad. Graduated in 1953. He studied ancient tribes there, and eventually got a doctorate in anthropology from Columbia University in 1958. He wrote three books, all out of print, having to do with ancient tribes in South America.”

  “Eleanor said something about his being in South America,” I told her. “That’s why he didn’t want the house.”

  “But maybe he did,” she said, smiling. “He had accepted a job teaching at Avalon University, to begin in the fall of 1975. They were just starting an anthropology department and he was going to chair it.”

  “That’s less than an hour from here,” I said. “Maybe we should go there and see if he’s still teaching there.”

  She shook her head. “Already called. I talked to the current c
hair of anthropology and he referred me to a retired professor who had started with the department in ’75. So I called him, and he said that Winston never started the job. According to this professor, Winston came in, made a big impression on everyone, donated some huge sum of money to the school, and practically insisted on chairing the department. Then, after the school set up the department, Winston decided to go back to South America instead.”

  “That’s a lot of information for one day. You’re getting good at this.”

  Her son, Jeremy, pulled at her jeans and Natalie struggled to lean down to pick him up, so I did it for her.

  “I’m too pregnant for bending,” she said, “but at least I can use the computer. And it’s amazing how much I could find out just looking at the newspaper archives from the Hudson Valley. I had no idea how prominent Grace’s family was in the area at the time. Everything they did was in an article somewhere.”

  Natalie touched her computer screen and brought up several newspaper articles with fuzzy black-and-white photos. The first one had a caption that identified Grace and her adult children, along with several other people, standing in front of the library.

  “That’s Winston?” I asked, pointing to the tall, stern-looking man with glasses who stood to Grace’s right. “He’d be good-looking if he smiled.”

  “Doesn’t seem the type to smile,” Natalie said. She pointed to the woman at the edge of the picture. “Guess who that is?”

  I looked closely. “Maggie. I guess that makes sense. She was the town librarian.” I looked closer. “Wow, she looks so pretty. Not that she isn’t pretty now.”

  “I agree on both counts. And notice, she’s looking right at Winston.”

  She was. But I couldn’t tell from the grainy image if she was smiling or scowling.

  Natalie pressed another key on her computer. “There’s even a photograph of Grace with Glad’s father and one in front of the movie theater.”