Dagger in Dahlias

by Dale Mayer

  With that thought, she took a chair beside Goliath and opened her laptop. The name on the bottom of the letter was Penny Jordan. She typed in Penny Jordan in Kelowna, and several articles about a church’s Christmas bazaars came up. Penny was apparently some major volunteer. But the dates of those articles were from at least eight years ago. Doreen continued to read through articles that mentioned the Jordan family name, but they were few and far between.

  Doreen groaned, closed the laptop, got up, and made her tea as she thought about that tidbit of information. “The only way to learn more is to contact her directly and ask. The letter did have a phone number. But nothing else.” Hmm. “So are we doing this?” she asked her trio.

  They all stared back at her.

  Then Thaddeus bobbed his head; Mugs, probably because of Thaddeus’s head-bobbing, woofed. Goliath swung a paw and smacked Mugs on the head.

  She’d take all that as a joint yes.

  “Okay, good enough,” she said. “We’ll give Penny a call and see what it’s all about. But no guarantees. Just because we’ve had a run of good luck doesn’t mean this case will end the same way,” she warned.

  Chapter 3

  Wednesday Noon …

  “Hi. This is Doreen,” she started the phone conversation, a notepad and pen in front of her. The animals relaxed, surrounding her. “I’m looking for Penny Jordan.”

  “This is Penny,” a woman said. “Doreen? Doreen. Oh, my goodness. You’re the bone lady.”

  “Well, that’s what some people call me,” she said. “I certainly appear to have made the reputation for myself since I arrived.”

  “Everybody also knows you as Nan’s granddaughter,” Penny said with a chuckle. “Not sure what you prefer.”

  “How about just Doreen?” Doreen said with a smile. “Although my grandmother is definitely a sweetheart and has a reputation all her own.”

  “That she does,” Penny said smoothly. “You got my letter then?”

  “Yes. Yes, I did. But you didn’t give me a lot of information. So your brother-in-law went missing?”

  “Yes, my husband’s younger brother. He was twenty-one at the time. The thing is, the police thought he chose to leave without telling us. Heading west, doing what all young men do. I will admit, you know, that he had some bad friends who were into drugs, but I think it involved the lighter stuff, like marijuana,” Penny said anxiously. “I don’t want you to get the idea Johnny was some cokehead and became homeless.”

  “Which happens,” Doreen said quietly.

  “I know,” Penny said. “And honestly, for years, my husband drove around this and neighboring towns, looking to see if Johnny was just sitting on the streets, homeless, but we never heard any more from him.”

  “Is your husband okay with you contacting me?”

  There was silence over the phone, and then Penny said sadly, “He died of a heart attack last year, and his dying wish was that I find answers before I passed away too. I keep his urn on the mantel as a reminder of his last wish.”

  “I’m sorry,” Doreen said, wincing. “How old did you say his brother was when he went missing?”

  “Twenty-one,” she repeated. “We have accepted the fact he’s probably dead because he and his brother were very, very close, and no way he wouldn’t have called him all this time. So I have absolutely no doubt something bad happened to him. But it would be nice to have a body that I could bury and to have a memorial for my husband’s sake. It mattered to him.”

  Doreen nodded, even though Penny couldn’t see her doing that. “Your brother-in-law’s name was Johnny?”

  “Yes. There were just the two brothers, Johnny and George Jordan,” she said. “Johnny went missing twenty-nine years ago, about the same time frame you’ve been dealing with. That’s why I contacted you.”

  “Interesting,” Doreen said, considering the time lines of the other cold cases she had helped solve. “Are you thinking this had anything to do with the other missing person cases from back then?”

  “No, no, no, no,” Penny said. “I don’t think so at all. I think Johnny got in with a bad crowd, and a lot of those people have since passed. So it’s a really onerous job I’ve asked you to look into, but, for my husband’s sake and for the sake of closure, it would be lovely to get to the bottom of this.”

  “And what’s this about a dagger?” Doreen laid down her pen and picked up her tea, taking a sip.

  Penny sighed. “The last time we saw Johnny, he was sitting on an alcove bench in the backyard. I was looking out the window, talking to my husband, and we were laughing and smiling at Johnny. He had a beer in his hand and a big grin. He lifted it up, as in a cheer, took a big swig. I went to the kitchen to clean it up a bit before I made dinner. My husband went back to the home office. We never saw Johnny again. We searched. The police came. They searched. About ten years later we decided to move that bench because, every time we saw it, it caused us pain. So we moved it to a far corner of the yard. I decided to plant dahlias where the bench had been, to change the atmosphere of the spot.”

  “Right,” Doreen said. “Well, dahlias are beautiful, and they would certainly give you a lovely memorial for him.”

  “Exactly,” Penny said. “We brought up this dagger when we dug up that area. The ground there wasn’t very good, having been under the bench the whole time. We added soil, enriched slightly with some of the topsoil we brought in to top-dress the front yard.”

  “Okay, so the dagger wasn’t in the dahlia tubers,” Doreen said, switching her cell phone from one ear to the other. “It was buried in the dahlia bed or what became a dahlia bed afterward. Is that correct?”

  “Yes, and, up until then, it was nothing but an empty space under the bench because obviously nothing would grow there.”

  “No, it’s hard to grow anything without sunshine. I bet you had plenty of moss though.”

  “Oh, yes.” Penny laughed. “The moss really liked that corner.”

  “So what did you do with the dagger?”

  “I called the police and told them. They were sympathetic but said, chances were, nothing would come of it. But I couldn’t let it go. I bagged up the dagger and took it to them. I asked them if they could test it, and they said the budget was so tight that they were only testing items with a viable chance for finding DNA. Of course, a knife found many years after my brother-in-law went missing, with no blood evidence to say it was from the scene of the crime, made no sense to them.”

  “Ah,” Doreen said. “That is the exact issue right there. It made no sense because absolutely no forensic evidence was found at the spot where he went missing. So you haven’t had the knife tested, correct?”

  “No, and I have it still, sitting here.”

  Doreen added that tidbit to her notepad. “Had you ever seen that dagger before?”

  “That’s one of the funny things. It’s Johnny’s,” Penny said. “That’s another reason the police weren’t too bothered because I told them how Johnny used to sit on that bench and have a beer, and he would flip it back and forth between his hands, like a lot of young men did back then. It was just this cool movement they were trying to do, and, at times, he would stab it into the ground, almost like he was playing darts, but with imaginary targets on the lawn.”

  “So the police assumed Johnny had stabbed it into the ground beside him one time when he was having a couple beers and forgot about it. Then, over time, it just worked itself into the ground. Or somebody unknowingly stepped on it, didn’t recognize it, leaves piled in, the mulch, etc.” She made another notation regarding this.

  “It’s of zero help, but, at the same time, it’s a connection I can’t mentally let go of.”

  “I don’t mind taking a look at the dagger, unless you have photos of it.”

  “If you would take the dagger, I would be very happy,” Penny said. “I know it probably has absolutely nothing to do with the case, but, every time I see it, it sends chills down my back.”

  “Okay, will d
o,” Doreen said. “Where do you live?”

  “I’m about a mile away from you. Up the creek.”

  “That’s not a lot of help though,” Doreen said with a laugh. “I haven’t had a chance to explore much around town.”

  “Look. I’m planning to go shopping later,” Penny said. “Do you want me to stop by and drop it off?”

  “That would lovely,” Doreen said. “If you wouldn’t mind. And drop off any information you have—any police reports you might have a copy of, any interviews, anybody who was a witness. Just anything you have would be helpful.”

  “I have a folder of information we’ve collected over the years, but it’s mighty thin.”

  “That’s fine,” Doreen said. “It’ll help me get my mind wrapped around what happened.”

  “I’ll make a copy for myself and bring you the originals. How about in a couple hours or so, about three o’clock? Is that okay?”

  Doreen checked her watch. “About three o’clock then. That’s fine.” She hung up the phone and stared at the animals, though not really seeing them. Her mind was locked on a twenty-one-year-old, strong, young, healthy male going missing from one moment to the next.

  “How awful, Mugs. You see a family member sitting on a bench outside in your backyard, and then you never see him again.”

  She was glad the young man, Johnny, had lifted his beer in a half salute of “Hey, it’s a good moment” because at least it was a good memory of the last time Penny and her husband had communicated with Johnny. So many people had a fight before going off to work and getting killed in a car accident. The survivor’s last memory for the loved one was of the fight. Not the way anybody wanted to be remembered.

  Pondering, she went around the house, dusting off the furniture Scott would be collecting shortly. She was so afraid something would happen to these pieces. She’d joked about protecting it all with Bubble Wrap, but, then again, she was half serious. She just needed nothing to happen to these pricey antiques over the next few days.

  She went upstairs to her bedroom, reminded of the ton of clothing she still had to go through. Plus that her bed would be moved next week. She hadn’t asked Scott about the mattress. Maybe the mattress could stay, and she could sleep on it on the floor. That would be an easy solution as to where she would sleep tonight. Maybe not as regal an answer to her dilemma but definitely a workable one.

  She had Scott’s contact information and texted him as to the mattresses. His response came back quickly. As they were newer mattresses, they were hers. So that was good, but there wasn’t much room to put the mattresses on the floor beside the big four-poster bed frame. There could be though, if she managed to clean out that corner. If she rearranged some things in here and then moved a lot of stuff into the spare bedroom, she could make it work. Or she could move into the spare bedroom until the bed was gone; then she could decide what to do with the mattress and box spring.

  On that note, she walked into the spare room for a look. Mugs followed walking around the room, sniffing the old floor. The room had just a single bed but an old one that squeaked like crazy, even more noisily than the big bed in the master bedroom. She knew trying to sleep on this spare room bed would drive her nuts. Every time one of the animals rolled or shifted she’d wake up too. So what was the answer? She had to clear a spot on the floor in her bedroom. Before bedtime tonight.

  She stepped back into her bedroom. Doreen had a lot of Nan’s clothing due at Wendy’s shop. With that thought in mind, Doreen bagged up the stacks designated for Wendy’s consignment store and took them downstairs to the entry hallway. The next time Doreen went to town, she could drop them off and see what Wendy would like to keep.

  Doreen had decided to keep an awful lot of Nan’s clothing. She picked up an armful of those, still on their hangers, and walked them into the spare room, hanging them in that closet. At least it helped her to separate the old from the new, the keep from the don’t keep, what she’d sorted from what she hadn’t.

  It took several trips to hang up all the clothes to keep. But it felt like a bit of space had opened up in her bedroom. Considering the bed frame wouldn’t be taken for a few days, she figured there was really no point in taking the mattresses off right now. Yet part of her said she should tear it all apart and inspect the pieces before she lost the opportunity. What if something else had been hidden in the bed? Besides, she also needed to change the bedding.

  Except … all the animals had given up on her, passing out on the bedding. And yes, they’d twisted and woven into weird contortions around the mess of stuff they’d placed on the bed earlier. Gently rousing them one at a time, she stripped off the duvet, tossed it to the side, and then went after the sheets. A big thick mattress cover was under the sheets as well. She took that off to be washed too, something she hadn’t done since she had moved in. And she could see that the mattress, although older, was still in excellent shape. It had a big cushion top with no rips or stains or tears. All of which was good.

  She went to the other side of the bed, lifted up the mattress awkwardly. She stood on the box spring so she could scoot the mattress completely off the box spring, ensuring nothing was underneath it.

  Then she lifted the box spring from the big wooden bed frame and checked underneath it. Satisfied no envelopes were taped underneath and no hauls of cash were otherwise stuffed under the bed, she stepped inside the bed frame and slid the box spring over the side of the bed onto the floor. Now she was really making a mess.

  It was her first chance to take a look at the four-poster bed without the mattresses. It was amazing. Absolutely amazing. The box spring was at an awkward angle, leaning against one of the four-poster corners, teetering, but it gave her a chance to check with her hands under the bed frame itself, all around the sides, though she couldn’t see the back of the headboard.

  She’d torn everything apart, so she might as well keep going. And she still had that accordion file to go through. She winced. Scott had specifically asked her to do that, and she’d promised she’d get to it. And here she was, off in a whole different direction.

  She’d go through that paperwork as soon as she could because it might make a huge difference in terms of the value of the pieces. She slid her hands under and around the bed frame, checking, but absolutely nothing was here. The newel posts didn’t even come off the four posts.

  She slid the whole bed toward her enough so she could see nothing was behind the headboard either. “Good enough,” she said. She pushed the four-poster toward the door, and the box spring collapsed onto the floor. She looked at it, frowned, and then shrugged. “Well, you were ending up there anyway,” she said. “So, what the hell. Might as well stay there.”

  She quickly rearranged this corner of the room and, with a little effort, moved the big heavy mattress and box spring into place beside the big bed frame.

  Mugs immediately jumped inside the slats of the big bed and barked, sniffing, his nose going steadily underneath. When he wouldn’t stop, Doreen looked at him. “Seriously, Mugs?”

  He barked again, his nose touching the center slat. She hadn’t checked under all the slats, so she reached down to do so now. As she got to the slat where Mugs was, she could feel something taped to the underside. Excited, she didn’t want to just rip it off—she didn’t dare rip up whatever was here. Someone had to have a reason for doing this, but how could she lift up the massive bed frame?

  When her doorbell rang, she groaned and said, “Well, this will have to wait a moment, Mugs.”

  Only Mugs was already downstairs barking himself hoarse.

  Chapter 4

  Wednesday Afternoon …

  Doreen ran down the stairs lightly, making her way past all the bags of clothing. She pulled open the door to see a lovely older woman standing outside, nervously holding a big brown 9”x12” envelope in her hand. Mugs dashed out and circled around their visitor. At least he was quiet now.

  The woman looked up at her and smiled. “It is you! You’ve been a
ll over the media.” She smiled down at Mugs. “And of course, your trio of animals.”

  At that Mugs barked once as if to say, ‘of course.’

  Doreen just rolled her eyes. “And you must be Penny. Come on inside. Let’s see what you’ve got.” As the woman stepped in, Doreen said, “Sorry. Please excuse the mess. I’m sorting through all of Nan’s stuff and getting a lot of this cleaned out.”

  “I wouldn’t doubt it,” Penny said. “Nan has always been a collector of antiques. My husband was too.”

  That stopped Doreen right in the middle of the living room. “Really?”

  Penny nodded. “He and Nan had all kinds of discussions. He loved this set, but Nan would never sell it. She said it was her retirement fund.”

  “And now that she’s retired,” Doreen said, “she doesn’t need it.”

  “That’s the best thing ever,” Penny said with a smile, making a Vanna White arm sweep to the room. “Think about it. Nan doesn’t need the money she set aside. I think that’s a success in itself.”

  Doreen laughed. “May I see your file?”

  “Oh. I’m sorry.” Penny handed over the envelope. “The knife is in there too. And I did keep a digital copy of everything. I should have done that a long time ago. Then I could have just emailed them to you.”

  “If you could do that too, that would be great,” Doreen said, “because I might do more searching that way.”

  “Sure. It’s already digital anyway. Need your email address,” she said, “and I can send it to you when I get home.”

  Doreen gave her the email address. “Now you understand that … I can’t guarantee this will go anywhere, right?”

  “I know,” Penny said, inputting Doreen’s contact info into her phone. “I feel almost guilty asking you. It’s just the police don’t have anything to go on. Nobody I’ve talked to over the years has any idea what happened to Johnny. It’s so very frustrating. I guess I’m hoping another pair of eyes will turn up something different.” She grinned at Doreen. “You do appear to have a very different pair of eyes.”