Consigned to Death

by Jane K. Cleland

  I opened my eyes and took a deep breath. Alverez’s face revealed nothing. His eyes stayed steady on mine.

  Max cleared his throat and leaned toward me. “Are you okay?” he asked.

  I smiled as best I could, took a deep breath, and said, “You bet.” To Alverez, I added, “Sorry. I just couldn’t believe my ears.”

  “Is that a yes? Have you been fingerprinted in the past?” Alverez asked.

  “What a question!” I replied, feigning indignation.

  “No offense intended. There are lots of reasons people get fingerprinted. Security clearance, that sort of thing.”

  Appearing slightly mollified, I shrugged. “Yeah,” I admitted. “I was fingerprinted once. For a job.”

  “Then you’ll be familiar with the procedure,” he said.

  “You want to take my fingerprints?” I asked.

  “Yeah, we need to.”

  “Why?” Max interjected.

  “Because Josie was in the house looking at the contents carefully, touching everything, and we need to know which prints are hers.”

  “We’ll consider it.”

  “Come on, Max,” Alverez said. “Don’t drag it out. You know I can get a court order.”

  Max looked at him for a moment, leaned over to me, and whispered, “Did you touch anything we don’t want them to know about?”

  “No,” I answered softly, shaking my head in disbelief. “Max, I didn’t do anything wrong!”

  He patted my arm again. “She’ll be glad to let you take fingerprints.”

  “Let’s get it over with,” Alverez said, standing up.

  “Then can I go?” I asked.

  “Yeah, but we should plan on talking some more tomorrow.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Tomorrow I’ll know more about what’s going on. Will you be around?”

  “Yeah, I’ll be working. I have an auction preview on Friday and our regular tag sale’s on Saturday.” I stood up and stretched.

  “How about we touch base around noon?” he asked Max.

  “Sure,” he said.

  “What will happen then?” I asked, anxious for more information, dreading his answer all the same.

  Alverez led the way to the main room as I spoke.

  “By then I’ll know if I need to ask you some more questions,” he said.

  Cathy was filling a coffee mug with water from a standing dispenser as we passed through the main room to a smaller area on the right. I watched her drink a little and return to her desk, ignoring us, as Alverez methodically took my fingerprints. Max stood nearby, watching the process, solemn and silent.

  After I’d cleaned up, Alverez led us to the exit. He opened the front door and the rush of fresh chilly air felt good. I looked at him.

  “Here,” he said to us. “Take my card. If you think of anything, call me.”

  I slipped the card in my purse. Max put out his hand. “I’ll take one, too,” he said to Alverez. Turning to me, he added, “If you think of anything, don’t call him. Call me.”

  Heading back to Portsmouth because I had nowhere else to go, I gave myself a mental shake. I felt lonely and afraid, and that would never do. Get over it, I told myself, and decided to go get a martini and drink to Mr. Grant, a decent man who’d died too soon. I called Gretchen and told her where I was going and why.

  “Don’t worry,” she said, “Eric, Sasha, and I have everything under control.”

  “Thanks, Gretchen. But there’s so much to do.”

  “Sasha’s finished cataloguing the Wilson goods. She’s in the office doing some research.”

  I could picture Sasha twirling her hair, biting her lip, concentrating as she read something on the computer. She’d earned a Ph.D. in art history, and research was her favorite part of the job.

  “I might come back to work, I’m not sure.”

  “No need,” she said, her instinct as a caretaker overtaking her business sense.

  As I headed back to town I again began to cry. At first I thought I was crying about Mr. Grant, but then I realized his death was only a small part of it. Of course I was sorry that such a kind man had died, but after all, I hadn’t really known him, so my grief was about something else-probably, my father.

  Even though nearly four years had passed since my father’s death, I still felt raw. I missed him every day. He’d been my best friend and only family. I was thirteen when my mother died of cancer, but that loss had been nothing like as hard as the sudden loss of my father. When my mother died, I’d been able to say good-bye.

  I rolled down the window and the rush of bitter air helped chase away the blues. I smiled, remembering the exhilaration I’d felt when I landed the Frisco job right out of college, a dream come true. I told my father that as excited as I was, I hated the thought of leaving him behind in Boston, and joked that he ought to move to New York, too.

  “Ah, Josie,” he said, “why would you even think about that? You’re moving to New York, not Mars.”

  And so I went. Luckily, since my new career required that I navigate the complex and unfamiliar terrain of the antique business, he came to visit often, offering wisdom and support. In fact, for the next decade, he came almost monthly. We were a team, my dad and I.

  Until his death left a black hole in my heart and a vacuum in my life. Even Rick, the man I was dating at the time, couldn’t help fill the void, and our relationship had faded to nothing within weeks of my father’s death.

  I shook my head, recognizing how far I’d come. I could barely even remember what Rick looked like. And mostly, I could think of my father without tears. To a greater extent than I realized, it seemed, I’d moved on, yet that accomplishment was tinged with regret. Every step that brought me closer to ending mourning seemed to take me further away from my father.

  “Oh, Dad,” I whispered aloud, holding tightly to the steering wheel. “Goddamn it. Talk to me. Tell me what to do.”

  And after a moment or two, I concluded that my tears weren’t shed for either Mr. Grant or my father. I was crying for myself because I felt scared and powerless, like a wood chip floating down a river, pummeled by rocks and a current that couldn’t be controlled.

  I was sitting at the Blue Dolphin bar trying to decide if I wanted to nibble or eat. Jimmy, the bartender, a chubby-cheeked, freckle-faced redhead, had offered another bowl of mixed nuts, but I was thinking that I wanted something more substantial. I took a bitter-sharp sip of my martini. I liked the way it felt to hold and drink out of a martini glass.

  “I’ll take the shrimp cocktail,” I said. “Thanks, Jimmy.”

  An old George Benson tune was playing softly. Three groups of people were concentrated near the bow windows that overlooked the Piscataqua River and Portsmouth Harbor. Their conversations were indistinct. The candles positioned along the bar turned my glass into a prism. I half watched as colors shifted when I moved the glass, but mostly I thought about the murder.

  “Are you Josie Prescott?” someone asked, breaking into my reverie.

  I turned on my barstool. A short, pudgy young man, who looked barely old enough to vote, stood beside me.

  “Yes,” I answered. “I’m Josie.”

  “Wes Smith,” he said, offering his hand.

  I shook it, feeling puzzled.

  “From the Seacoast Star,” he said. He fished a card out of his pocket and handed it to me.

  “Really?” I asked, looking at it. According to the card, he was a reporter.

  “Why are you surprised?” he asked.

  “I’ve never actually spoken to a reporter before.”

  “May I join you?”

  I shrugged. “Sure,” I said.

  “Thanks,” he said, smiling, and sat on the stool next to mine.

  “How ya doing, Wes?” Jimmy asked as he approached. “What can I get ya?”

  “Bring me a cup of coffee, okay?”

  “You got it.”

  “Quite a situation-the Grant murder, I mean,” Wes remarked.
>
  “Yeah,” I said.

  “So I have a couple of questions for you.”

  “For me?”

  “Yeah. Since you’re involved.”

  “What? I’m not involved.” The fear that had been dulled by martinis returned.

  “That’s not what I hear,” he said.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Weren’t you interrogated for hours at the Rocky Point police station?”

  “I wouldn’t call it interrogated. I’d call it interviewed. But that’s neither here nor there. How do you know anything about it? How do you know me?”

  “Confidential sources,” he said as if he enjoyed saying the phrase. “And I looked you up on your company’s Web site. The photo of you is a good likeness. You were easy to spot.”

  “How did you know to find me here?”

  “I spoke to someone at your office and she told me you’d be here.”

  That would be Gretchen. I wondered how I felt about her telling an unknown man that he could find me in a bar in the middle of the afternoon, and I decided I didn’t care. I smiled a little. I could hear my mother warning me how a girl gets a reputation. Maybe true, I said to myself, but I guessed it was a rep I didn’t mind getting. A long-ago memory came to me from a college spring break vacation to Mardi Gras. My at-the-time boyfriend bought me a T-shirt that read Good Girls Go to Heaven. Bad Girls Go to New Orleans. I’d worn it so often I’d nearly worn it out.

  “Why did you want to find me?” I asked, bringing myself back to the here and now as Jimmy delivered the shrimp. I squeezed a lemon wedge elegantly covered with cheesecloth and dipped a shrimp into the spicy cocktail sauce. It was good.

  He looked around. No one sat on either side of us. Still, he lowered his voice.

  “What did Chief Alverez ask you about?” he asked.

  “I don’t think I should answer that.”

  “How come?”

  I smirked at him, a give-me-a-break look.

  “Seriously,” he prodded.

  As I took another shrimp, I said, “I don’t know much about police work, but I know enough to know that Chief Alverez wouldn’t want me to discuss specifics about an ongoing investigation with a reporter.”

  “Our paper is going to print a story including the fact that you were interrogated for hours today, and may be a suspect in the murder. Don’t you want the article to include your point of view?”

  “You’re going to write that I’m a suspect?”

  “That you may be a suspect.”

  “That’s irresponsible and outrageous! I’m not a suspect.”

  “How do you know?”

  I stared at him, speechless. I reached for my glass and finished the last of my second martini. Martinis tasted better, I’d discovered over the years, the more you drink them. I didn’t answer. Instead, I ate a shrimp slowly, thinking about what I should do or say.

  “Why do you think I’m a suspect?” I asked, relieved that I sounded calm and in control.

  “Answer a question with a question, huh?” Wes said with a smile. “Okay. I’ll play. Apparently you were the first person questioned. You were interviewed,” he said, stressing the word “interviewed” as if to mock my earlier usage, “in an interrogation room, and you were there for more than two hours.” He shrugged. “If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck…”

  As I listened, I realized he was right and that I was in deeper trouble than I’d realized.

  I didn’t say another word to Wes, not even that I wouldn’t comment. Instead I stood up and signaled Jimmy that I wanted my check. While I waited, I ate another shrimp. Wes said something, but I wasn’t listening. When the check arrived, I paid it, and without a backwards glance, I left.

  In my car, I turned on my cell phone to call Max. Rooting through my purse to find my address book, I came across Chief Alverez’s card. I perched it on my thigh, found the address book, and called Max’s office. A cheerful voice told me that he wasn’t there. I tried his home number, but got a machine and hung up before the beep. His cell phone went to voice mail and I left a message. I looked at Alverez’s card. It listed his cell phone number, and on impulse, I dialed it.

  He answered on the second ring with a curt, “Alverez.”

  “It’s Josie Prescott.”

  “Well, hello,” he said.

  His tone had changed. I thought I heard warmth instead of curtness, and I felt some relief. Maybe my instincts weren’t out of whack. Maybe it would be safe to talk openly to him.

  “I have a question.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Wes Smith from the Star tried to interview me.”

  “He did, did he? What did you tell him?”

  “Nothing. But he said that the newspaper is going to print a story tomorrow referring to me as maybe a suspect. That’s my question. Am I?”

  I could hear him breathing. “Where are you?” he asked.

  I remembered Wes remarking that I was answering a question with a question. I’d done it to avoid answering the one he’d asked. I shivered, fear chilling me.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “This sounds like a situation we should talk about.”

  “I have a call in to Max,” I responded.

  “Makes sense,” he answered, and I felt a wave of terror wash over me. Now I knew: I was, in fact, a suspect. I heard the click of call waiting, told Alverez I had to go, and switched over to the other call. It was Max. I told him about Wes and Alverez.

  “Where are you?” Max asked.

  “In my car. In Portsmouth.”

  “Stay there. I’ll call you right back.”

  I waited and watched the world go by. I saw a couple walk by arm in arm, shoulders touching, laughing. Two women stopped for a moment, deep in conversation, then continued down the street. A man walking a boxer struggled to control the dog’s impatience to run ahead. An old woman with a limp made slow progress along Ceres Street. The phone rang.

  “It’s me, Josie,” Max said. “First, don’t call Alverez. Call me. Agreed?”

  “Okay,” I said, feeling like a fool.

  “Second, Alverez was very professional. He refused to call you a suspect, which is good news, but in reality, it doesn’t much matter because even if you’re not a suspect per se, you’re certainly a person of interest. I made an appointment for us to meet with him at noon tomorrow. I’ll pick you up at your office at eleven-thirty and we can talk en route.”

  I agreed to the plan, went home, got the Bombay Sapphire out of the freezer, and made myself another martini.

  Cathy looked up when we entered promptly at noon the next day, but didn’t speak. Chief Alverez was standing at a file cabinet near the back, and when he saw us, he closed the drawer.

  “How you doing?” he asked me, after greeting Max.

  He led us into the same room we’d been in yesterday, and I selected the same chair.

  Alverez turned to Max, and said, “We have some new information.”

  “What’s that?” Max asked.

  “Fingerprints.”

  Max and I waited for Alverez to explain. Still speaking to Max, he added, “As we expected, Josie’s fingerprints were everywhere. We learned she’s pretty darn thorough. We found her prints under furniture, on the back of picture frames, and inside drawers.”

  “Makes sense,” Max commented. “She’s a professional appraiser.”

  “Yeah,” Alverez agreed. “But we also found her prints someplace they shouldn’t be.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Max asked. “Where’s that?”

  “On the knife that was used to kill Nathaniel Grant.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Max gripped my shoulder. “Josie,” he said, keeping his eyes on Alverez, “don’t say a word.”

  “But I can explain,” I protested.

  “Say nothing.”

  He looked determined and grim, and I shivered. I nodded slightly, signaling that I’d do as he asked.

  Max squeezed my shoulder ag
ain. I couldn’t tell whether he was offering support or thanking me for doing as he instructed. He turned back toward Alverez, picked up his pen, and queried, “Fingerprints on the knife?” His voice was calm, his tone pleasant.

  I kept my eyes lowered and sat, silent and still.

  “Yeah,” Alverez said, nodding. “That’s right.”

  “Where?”

  “On the handle.”

  “Distinct? Complete?”

  Alverez glanced at his notes. “According to the tech guys, there wasn’t enough ridge detail for an ID from most of the prints. But there was one clear index print from Josie’s right hand. A sixteen-point match.”

  “What does that mean?” I asked.

  “It means your print is on the knife. For sure.”

  Max patted my arm to calm me. “It sounds as if the knife had been wiped, but not thoroughly.”

  “Apparently,” Alverez agreed.

  “Okay, then. Would you excuse us for a minute? I want to talk to my client privately.”

  “Sure,” Alverez said. His chair made a loud scraping noise as he pushed back. The door closed behind him with the same disconcerting click I’d heard yesterday. Max cleared his throat and flipped to a fresh page on his yellow-lined pad.

  “Okay, Josie,” Max said, his pen at the ready. “Explain why your fingerprints are on the knife.”

  I looked down at my lap, unable to think in sentences. Now that I had permission to speak, all that came to mind were words of outraged protest. I wanted to shout and rail and pound the table.

  “Now, Josie. We don’t have a lot of time.”

  His admonition helped me focus. “Do I need to whisper?” I asked, remembering Max’s instruction that I was to whisper when I wanted to talk to him privately.

  “No,” he said. “When we’re alone like this, you’re free to talk naturally.”

  “Okay.” I paused to think. “It was Thursday of last week,” I said, “the second time I was there. We’d settled on our next appointment and I was saying good-bye when Mr. Grant asked me to have some tea.” I shrugged and flipped a hand. “So I did. We went into the kitchen. I thought it was very sweet of him. I cut the cake.” I shuddered. “That must have been the knife that was used to… that must have been the knife.”