Candace McCauley, P.I Mysteries (5 Cozy Mystery Books Collection)

by Kira Reese

  Pierre Sarkis was born in France, though his origins were Greek. His parents inherited the original gallery in Corinth from their parents. When they relocated to Chartres, they brought with them many of the artifacts to open the Gallery of Corinth in Chartres. Pierre was an avid collector as well as expert archaeologist, and he knew his work well. He married Juliette Barbin three years ago. The reading gave excerpts of Juliette’s accomplishments. From all appearances they fit well together. A few photos were of them holding objects dug up that were made centuries earlier. Both had broad smiles on their faces. Her youthful expression appeared the same as she looked today. I heaved a long sigh. Some people held on to their youth longer than others.

  I returned to my interest at hand. I had yet to read about Jacques Lafonte and when he became Pierre’s right-hand man at the gallery. I took a second look at the words written about him. He came into the picture the same month Juliette and Pierre were married.

  “Interesting,” I said aloud.

  To me, it seemed obvious the two knew each other before Juliette’s marriage to Pierre Sarkis. I stared at the screen. Then I looked at the clock. It read 4 a.m. Too early to call Ben, I typed in Jacques Lafonte. He was a native born son of France; specifically, he was born in Paris. He and an Andre Barbin opened a small gallery in Paris once they completed college. He later sold the shop’s rights to Andre, and Jacques moved to Chartres to manage the Gallery of Corinth. I then looked up Andre Barbin, who proved to be the brother of Juliette Barbin-Sarkis.

  It may be too early to call the detective in America, but in France it was mid-morning. I dialed the Gallery of Corinth. The smooth voice of the French-speaking lady switched me to someone named Joachim, who spoke broken English. He told me Jacques Lafonte would not be in the gallery until the following week.

  “He is in Paris buying for the shop. May I be of assistance?” asked Joachim.

  I told him I had direct business with Jacques and asked him to leave a message for him to call me the next time he got in touch with the gallery. Word must have traveled fast if Jacques suddenly left Chartres for a few days. On the other hand, I admonished myself, he could be purchasing for the gallery. After all, Pierre could no longer do that.

  I twitched when I felt Nick’s hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were up this early,” I said.

  “I didn’t know you sneaked out of bed in the middle of the night. How long have you been in here?” asked Nick.

  I mumbled not that long and attempted a weak smile at him. “I’ll put some coffee on now that we are both up. What time is it?” I said. He pointed to the clock which read six thirty.

  Over coffee, I told Nick I was trying to locate Jacques Lafonte. “I think he knows Juliette was arrested in America. She probably called him for a good lawyer and/or bail money.” When Nick asked why I thought that, I explained my early morning phone call. “Last night we talked about how Juliette must have had help with the disposal of Pierre’s body. Something tells me Jacques Lafonte may have been her partner.”

  “I told you that you should let the law in France handle it from now on. By the way, when will you get Achilles back?”

  Until that moment, I had not thought recently of recovering the rare urn. The police surely had all the evidence they needed. I would ask Ben to make sure the ashes were removed before he returned the vessel to me. I did not want Pierre Sarkis resting on my antique table for the rest of my life.

  Chapter 15

  Restoration

  I waited until eight o’clock before I dialed Ben.

  “Has Juliette made bail yet?” I asked him.

  “No bail has been set yet. She goes before the judge in about an hour. We’ve had several calls from France throughout the night. Her lawyer is flying in and should be here any minute. When she was brought in, we advised her of her rights before she spilled her story to us. It is all on tape.”

  If anything, Detective Ben Johnson was thorough, but I doubted Juliette’s lawyer would be happy with her waiving her rights to have a lawyer present. I told Ben about my attempts at trying to figure out who helped Juliette in the murder of her husband.

  “I think the manager of the Gallery or Corinth, Jacques Lafonte, played a big part in it all.” I told the detective everything I learned, though nothing directly pointed to him as an accomplice. “He arrived at the gallery the same month Juliette and Pierre married. He co-owned a small gallery in Paris with her brother. I wonder if she and Jacques didn’t have a thing going long before she married Pierre.” Ben asked me to explain that part. “Michael Green commented he never felt Juliette and Pierre matched. Pierre was interested in the history of his discoveries, while Juliette collected solely for monetary reasons. Maybe she and Jacques had Pierre’s murder planned with the intent of both of them owning the gallery without Pierre’s interference.”

  The detective told me he was taking notes and would pass the information on to the police in Chartres. “They may take this as only assumptions, but if it were me, I would look into these possibilities.”

  “When will I get my pottery piece back?” I asked. “I want it back on my table but without the ashes, of course.”

  “I believe everything has been analyzed at this point. The cremains have been emptied and taken to the coroner’s office to hold until further notice. We have clear photos taken here at the precinct, as well as those you gave us from Albert Stevens, the appraiser.” He cleared his throat, and I waited while he sipped liquid of some kind. “I will clear it with the judge later today. I suppose if needed for any reason again, I will know where to find it.”

  “Let me know, and I’ll come down and get it. Thanks for getting to the bottom of all of this, Ben.”

  “I should thank you. If the ashes had not been discovered, no one would have known Pierre Sarkis was dead, much less murdered by his wife and an unknown person at this point.”

  “So you agree there were two people involved,” I stated with conviction.

  “I agree with you.”

  Later Nick mentioned whether or not the vessel belonged to me or to the Gallery of Corinth since it looked as if it had been stolen. I reminded him the person who initially owned it sold it to me fair and square. The valuable artifact was mine, rightfully so, I told him. He laughed and ruffled my shoulder-length hair.

  “That red hair is what gives you spunk,” he said.

  “It is auburn, Nick, not red. How many times do I have to remind you of that?”

  My affirmation was followed by another chuckle. Relief flooded over me with the way things were unfolding, but would not be complete until I saw Achilles back on the foyer table. When Ben contacted me that afternoon, clouds swirled angrily across the cobalt sky and turned more sinister. They would suddenly open up wide to release pounding rain. We agreed to meet right away at his office. Behind the closed door, he told me Juliette wanted to take back her admission of murder after her lawyer arrived.

  “I reminded her we had it on tape, and her voice was steady when she confessed. Also, I reminded her she was not coerced. We may have a battle over that, but we do have her confession. There is something else she said to the judge who gave her a chance to speak with her lawyer’s permission.”

  Thunder clapped loudly outside. Other than that, the room was silent for a split second.

  “Go on,” I prodded.

  “She implicated Jacques Lafonte as the murderer. She was an accomplice and swears he did the deed.” Ben leaned back. “It was his idea to put the ashes in the urn, according to Juliette. He told her to bring them back to America and get rid of them. She said she and Jacques had been lovers from the time he and her brother owned the small gallery in Paris. They agreed she should sway Pierre so that he would marry her. The marriage would seal her part ownership of the prestigious Gallery of Corinth. In time, they planned to buy out Pierre and become sole owners together. Apparently, that gallery is worth a lot in the world of art.”

  “Why didn’t they do that rather
than resort to murder?” I asked.

  “Pierre flatly refused to sell any part to Jacques. When he found out about his wife’s affair with his manager, he was more adamant than ever about not letting go of the gallery. In fact, he threatened Juliette with divorce. He told her he planned to fire Jacques right away. She promised the affair would end. She and Pierre both knew Jacques was invaluable to the gallery. He was good at his job. She convinced him to keep Jacques there.”

  “I suppose when their original plan fell through, they had only one option,” I said. “They had no intentions of ending the affair, and they wanted the gallery. I presume it will be up to the Chartres authorities to figure who did what.”

  “It will be up to them. They will have findings from my department in front of them to go on, if they choose to do so,” said Ben.

  I mentioned in passing that Pierre Sarkis could finally rest in proper fashion. He had made quite a journey to finally be discovered. The detective reached behind him and opened the sliding door to his credenza. The package was carefully wrapped. He handed it to me gingerly. I didn’t have to ask what he gave me. At last, Achilles was going back home where he belonged.

  ~ END ~

  THE MISSING TYCOON

  Chapter 1

  Unusual Client

  The day the beauty queen swept into my office, my assistant, Natalie, was thumbing through her latest romance novel. I heard the tearful voice of someone I did not recognize. When I stepped from my office I stared at the tall slender woman dressed to kill. She obviously was someone who did not live nearby. Her attire alone told me that. Slender fingers were manicured to the degree of perfection, and I knew right away they had never touched a drop of dishwater.

  “My father is missing,” she said. She fought tears that threatened to overflow and mar her delicately placed makeup that touched alabaster skin.

  Natalie looked at me and introduced me to the distraught woman.

  “This is Private Investigator Candace McCauley. She is the one you will want to tell your story to.”

  Recently, Natalie had taken over a couple of my cases, and so I had to hand it to her not to take the upper hand here. I wondered why this lady chose me versus someone well-known and highly successful. I ushered Angelina Grey Thomason into my office and closed the door.

  “Before we begin,” I said, “why did you choose me to find your father?”

  “I read about your investigation of a rare piece of Greek pottery and how you solved the mystery of it. Besides, I do not trust anyone in my circles to take this case seriously.” Her eyelids fluttered.

  I pushed down a rush of pride and tried to appear calm. I encouraged Angelina to tell me why she thought her father was missing. She dabbed her eyes with a soft linen hankie, and I wondered if she had experienced the feel of a tissue.

  “We talk just about every day. If we don’t speak, then we send a text. For the past two days he has not answered my calls or my texts. I know something has happened to him.”

  “Have you notified the police?” I asked.

  The woman who sat in front of me appeared to be in her early thirties. That was my guess, but in reality her flawless skin and lack of pending wrinkles made me think she was closer to my age of twenty-eight. Either way, thoughts flitted through my mind in regard to her close communication habits with her father. Did he still have his thumb on her? I mean, it’s all right to keep in contact with parents, but in my mind, I thought that was a little extreme for someone her age. I bit my tongue before I spurted out that it was possible he wanted relief from his daughter and had decided to go into hiding. I did not voice that thought. This client would not flinch at my rates. This forced me to choose my words.

  “I notified the police this morning, but they told me two days for an adult man to be missing did not warrant a search.” She looked directly at me. “I often experience premonitions. Not once have they led me in the wrong direction. I experienced a premonition the first night that something terrible had happened to him.”

  I asked for her father’s full name and photos. Thornton Grey was a well-known figure. His success in building and selling yachts to the rich and famous was plastered across Long Island Sound, and his reputation edged into New York City and beyond. A job like the one Angelina set before me meant I would enter circles unfamiliar to me. I never backed down to a challenge, but right now I doubted Thornton Grey met with foul play. He had the financial means to go wherever he wanted to.

  She pushed several photos of him toward me. One showed him standing on the pier with a large yacht at the edge of the water. The man was in his fifties, fit and tanned. A more formal photo highlighted a very handsome man. Several smaller photos slid my way.

  “I will have to look into his habits and people he associated with on a daily basis,” I said. “My initial investigation will tell me more about him. I will, on occasion, ask you for more detail. After this I will then delve deeper into it, if warranted.”

  My decisive voice told her there was no option for her to give input to my methods. I told her my hourly rate. She did not cringe.

  “At least you are taking me seriously,” she said.

  She opened her Gucci bag and pulled out a check already made out and signed. An initial amount clearly written in flowing handwriting hurled me mentally forward. My inclination was to take my left hand and place it over my right one to steady it when I looked at the amount.

  “If this does not cover your initial endeavor, please let me know and I will give you more. I want to pay whatever it takes to find out what happened to my father.”

  I stood and reached for her hand. I was careful. If my handshake proved too firm, I feared I would crush the bones in her delicate hand. Once the door closed behind her, Natalie looked at me with round eyes.

  “Do you know who she is?” she asked. Without waiting for an answer, she continued to tell me. “Her husband is the big Wall Street broker, Camden Thomason. What did she want?”

  I told Natalie only sketchy details of my visit with Angelina Grey Thomason. I cautioned her about confidentiality. That was something I did not worry about with Natalie but felt a reminder was relevant. We were silent until Natalie began typing into her computer. I knew she was doing some sort of search. When I asked her what she was looking for she told me she wanted to learn more about the woman who had just handed a case to us. I smiled and agreed that was a good beginning.

  ***

  Three days passed since Angelina swept into my office. So far, her father’s friends did not help much. All agreed they had not seen him in the last week or two, but that was not unusual, one said. He enjoyed getting away on his yacht. I went to the docks to have a look at his getaway cruiser. The Temptress swayed gently in the rippling waters. Astounded by its beauty, I wanted to board it to see how the rich and famous lived during their leisure time on waters. I stood there imagining such a life. My eyes drifted across the endless water. The deep blue met the cobalt sky on the horizon. Diamonds sparkled across the surface. If not for my sunglasses, I would have been blinded.

  I jolted back to reality in front of me. The massive cruiser meant Thornton Grey had not gone out to sea for his escape. Without good reason, there was no hope to search his boat. Detective Ben Johnson would wave me away with a request like that, anyway. I used my childhood neighbor on occasion in solving crimes, but right now there was no crime that I could see.

  Thornton Grey had other means of transporting to somewhere remote. Perhaps he hopped on a plane and took off. Still, I reminded myself, his life was about boats and the sea.

  ***

  “Natalie,” I said to my assistant. She answered the phone using a smooth and professional tone. “Call Angelina Thomason and ask for a good time to speak with her. I won’t need her to come in, but I figure someone of her stature would appreciate an appointment even for a phone call.”

  My assistant was someone not to be unappreciated. She possessed an air of professionalism necessary to my business. Her sho
rt black hair always coiffed, she knew how to apply just enough makeup to look as if she wore none. I envied her petite stature and olive skin.

  In the last year she had proven herself to be a valuable employee of mine. In fact, she was my only employee, and there had been times I handed over cases to her when several sat on my desk at one time. Her work was detailed, and all that was left for me to do was to culminate the process. I never forgot to give her credit for her part in cases to my clients. We had a very good working relationship.

  A few minutes later, Angelina’s voice floated over the wire. “Please, Miss McCauley, feel free to call me whenever you want to. Have you found my father?”

  Surely she did not expect me to solve the case in less than a week. “I have been down to the slip where he keeps his boat Temptress. It is still there. Perhaps he flew out to someplace?” There was a pause. I filled the space. “I have to look at all angles. Does he use the airlines rather than go by water when he wants to get away?”

  “He flies for business reasons only,” said Angelina. “If he wanted to get away, he would take his yacht.” Her tone changed slightly. “Besides, Miss McCauley, he would have told me if he meant to go somewhere remote. He always lets me know if he won’t have service someplace.”

  “Before we go any further,” I said, “please call me Candace. I feel use of my first name for my part is more comfortable. I hope you understand that I will ask questions of you only to clarify my search. I must know as much as I can about your father.”

  “I do understand,” said Angelina, “and please address me by Angelina. As I said, he separates means of travel from business and pleasure. If the Temptress is still docked, that means he did not leave Long Island Sound.” A soft gasp told me she was sure her father was in trouble.

  I obtained her father’s address. I planned to go inside at a later time, either with a warrant along with Ben Johnson, or with Thornton Grey’s daughter’s permission. Right now, he could be holed up in his basement with a bottle of tequila, and I would be accused of breaking and entering. The fact that Angelina was sure that foul play was involved remained remote at this point. We were talking about an adult male and a very successful one at that. Maybe his daughter thought he told her his every move, but he may think differently.