Toucan Keep a Secret

by Donna Andrews

  “The Hagleys’ son will be coming up from Richmond this afternoon,” the chief said. “I assumed you would be okay with me giving him your contact information as the person representing Trinity on this issue.”

  I nodded.

  “The best information I’ve been able to find about Archie van der Lynden’s whereabouts is that he’s reputed to be at a residential substance abuse treatment facility.”

  “There can’t be that many of those around,” I said.

  “You’d be surprised,” he said. “And also, under HIPAA regulations, no reputable facility would even be allowed to tell me whether or not Mr. Van der Lynden was a patient there,” he said. “Finding Archie could take a while, and if he was locked up somewhere detoxing he’s not going to be our prime suspect. I still haven’t heard back from the Blair woman in Middleburg, or the Van der Lyndens’ law firm. Vern Shiffley comes on duty at noon, and I’m going to task him with figuring out who we should talk to about Lacey Shiffley.”

  “And I expect there’s nothing you can do about the John Doe,” I said.

  “Actually, there might be.” The chief looked pleased—almost smug. “Horace dug into the archives and found the file on him—the file and the evidence. They actually took tissue samples, so Horace can get John Doe’s DNA analyzed.”

  “They couldn’t have done that in 1994?”

  “In theory they could have, but it would have taken forever and cost the moon, and they wouldn’t have had anything to compare his DNA with when they got it. CODIS was just getting started up around that time. They kept his body around for almost a year before they accepted Dr. Womble’s offer to bury him at Trinity. But someone back then had his head on straight, so before they released the body, they took the kind of tissue samples they’d need to do a DNA analysis, in case it ever proved useful.”

  “And now it will!”

  “It might.” His face fell a little. “We could come up blank. After all, most of the DNA in CODIS has been collected since it was established. It’s not like our John Doe was out there leaving his DNA at crime scenes for the last twenty-four years.”

  “But it’s always possible,” I said. “Or you could find a relative.”

  “A relative’s more likely, so that’s what we’re hoping for,” he said. “Well, I’d better be off. Mrs. Washington is expecting me. Oh, and since you’ll have some time before you’re able to talk to her, any chance you could arrange to get me the contents of those files we looked at last night?”

  “Actually, Mother’s already working on that. She’ll drop them off later, or more likely arrange to have someone do it.”

  “Thank you.”

  He headed for his car. I didn’t figure there was much more to be learned at the police station, so I did the same.

  I decided to drop by my office at the town hall. Luckily, things had been slow lately in my theoretically part-time job as special assistant to Mayor Randall Shiffley. I suspected Randall, knowing how worried we were about Robyn and how much work her absence was causing, had done his best to keep it that way. But still, there were a couple of things I needed to do. And if Randall was around, all the better. The chief might be relying on Deputy Vern Shiffley for information about Lacey Shiffley. No reason I couldn’t pick Randall’s brains.

  I was in luck. He was in his office with his feet up on the venerable oak table that served as his desk, frowning over some sheets of paper that I recognized as budget reports.

  “Just the person I wanted to see.” He tossed the papers back into his in-box. “The chief gave me the bare bones of what happened at Trinity last night. I want details!”

  I gave him chapter and verse of what I’d seen, telling it all in order with one exception—I held back the names of the people whose ashes had been disturbed. And I topped off my story with what I’d learned from Mother about Mr. Hagley’s motivation for wanting to reclaim his wife’s ashes.

  “Poor old Junius,” he said. “And yes, I expect he was hurting for money. The town treasurer gave me a list of the citizens who weren’t current with their property taxes, and he was on it.”

  “I wish we’d known he was in such dire need,” I said. “We could have done something to help.” Although no sooner had the words left my mouth than I found myself wondering if perhaps Robyn had known. Had known and had tried to reach out to help Mr. Hagley. Would he react to an offer of help from her with gratitude? Or would he resent what he might see as interference, reject her help, and lash out at her in anger?

  I could ask Robyn. Better yet, Mother.

  “So as soon as the chief gives the go-ahead, I’m going to start contacting the next of kin of the people whose ashes have been disturbed,” I said. “As soon as he figures out where to find them all.”

  “So who are we talking about, apart from Dolores Hagley—and does he need any help?” Which was exactly what I’d expected Randall to say.

  “He might with one—Lacey Shiffley.”

  “Lacey Shiffley!” His eyebrows rose in surprise. “Now there’s a name I haven’t heard recently.”

  “Probably not since 2006, when she died and ended up buried at Trinity instead of in the First Presbyterian graveyard.”

  “Lacey was always a bit of a rebel,” Randall said. “A black sheep, to hear some of the old-timers talk.”

  “Just for turning Episcopalian? Where’s your spirit of ecumenism?”

  “That was one of the saner things she did,” Randall said. “No, the reason she was on the outs with most of the family was that she eloped with a guy from Clay County. A Whicker, of all people.” The Whickers, along with the Dingles, the Plunkets, and the Peebleses, made up more than half of the names in the Clay County phone directory. There was no love lost between the residents of the two counties. “And while I’m willing to concede that through some fluke of genetics even the Whicker family tree produces a few bright, hardworking, honest, likable saplings from time to time, Anse Whicker doesn’t seem to have been one of them.”

  “How bad was he?”

  “All I know is the family gossip, and who knows how much that could have gotten exaggerated over the years?” Randall said. “But you could ask Aunt Jane. She and Lacey were first cousins, and almost as close as sisters growing up. I’m pretty sure Lacey kept in touch with Aunt Jane long after she turned a cold shoulder on the rest of us.”

  “I’ll do that.” I liked Judge Jane Shiffley, and the idea of talking to her appealed to me. “Would she also be the one to ask who Lacey’s next of kin would be?”

  “Definitely,” he said. “For all I know, she might be Lacey’s next of kin. Lacey was an only, and her parents would be long gone. She eventually divorced that no-count husband of hers, and I never heard that they had any kids.”

  “Is Judge Jane due in court today?” I asked.

  “Probably,” he said. “But not till ten or eleven.”

  “And it’s only nine.” I found myself thinking, not for the first time, that the school system was not kind to night owl parents.

  “Which means you have time to tell me what other next of kins you’re looking for,” Randall suggested.

  “The chief’s going over to talk to Mrs. Washington, widow of James Washington. Middle name something with an A.”

  “I knew Jim,” Randall said. “My dad took him on as night watchman for the construction yard after the Van der Lyndens fired him. They were tight with the Pruitts, the Van der Lyndens, and did their best to make sure no one would hire Jim, so Dad took him on just to spite the lot of them.”

  “Maybe the killer’s choice of niches wasn’t entirely random,” I said.

  “Maybe not,” Randall agreed. “Because Jim Washington lost his job over the Van der Lynden jewel robbery.”

  “Why?”

  “The way he told it, he was a scapegoat. He was on security duty that night, which meant he sat in the gatehouse and checked to make sure the people who pulled up were on the guest list before he let them in. And there was never anythin
g to suggest the robbers came in the front gate—not with a couple miles of perfectly ordinary farm fencing around most of the estate.”

  “Still—James Washington was the Van der Lyndens’ security guard at the time of the robbery.”

  “Security guard? He was their handyman and gopher. Firing him was just pure meanness. Who else?”

  “Mrs. Van der Lynden herself,” I went on. “And I’m beginning to appreciate the irony of her ending up buried in the same crypt as her ex-handyman.”

  Randall snorted with laughter.

  “P. Jefferson Blair, who died in 2000.”

  “Not from around here,” Randall said. “And I don’t mean that in any negative sense—only that I’ve never heard the name.”

  “And a John Doe from 1995,” I said. “So also presumably not from around here, or somebody would have identified him.”

  “Can’t help with him, either, then,” Randall said. “But Aunt Jane will fill you in on Lacey. So at least I’ve been of some use.”

  “Definitely,” I said. “So unless there’s anything here for me to worry about, I’m going to go have a talk with Judge Jane’s bailiff.”

  “I have a better idea,” he said. “Let me talk to him. Cal’s dating one of my cousins. I could drop by and make sure he knows about some upcoming family event and mention, casual-like, that you’re probably going to need to talk to Aunt Jane about Lacey. Cal’s such an efficient son of a gun—I bet he’ll just arrange it at her earliest convenience. And if you get there before the chief has a chance to talk to her … well, not your fault if Her Honor summons you.”

  “I’m not actually trying to sneak around behind the chief’s back,” I said.

  “But the sooner you talk to the next of kins, the better for Robyn’s stress level. Or should that be nexts of kin?”

  “Relatives will do,” I said. “And thanks. I’m going to drop by the Clarion and see what Fred Singer knows.”

  “Good plan,” he said. “And that’s only two blocks away, so you can dash back if Cal tells me Aunt Jane’s available.”

  Randall and I rode down in the elevator to the ground floor. He ambled down the corridor that led to Judge Jane’s courtroom. I strolled down the long marble front steps of the courthouse and made my way around the town square until I reached the well-preserved Victorian-era building that housed our local paper.

  I paused for a moment outside the entrance. Would the chief consider this sticking my nose into his case?

  Not if I made it clear to Fred that I was mainly looking for information that would help me locate the various relatives Robyn had asked me to contact. Or at least convinced him to say that if the chief ever asked.

  Chapter 10

  When I stepped through the front door of the Clarion’s office, an old-fashioned bell tinkled to announce my arrival. The front room was small and divided in two by a counter to separate the public from the newspaper staffers—a holdover, I suspected, from the old days when the locals dropped by regularly to place classifieds, hand over announcements, and complain in person about the editorials or the delivery boys. Now all that was usually done by email, making the counter a pleasant anachronism.

  Fred Singer, the owner and editor, popped out of the door behind the counter.

  “Meg! Just the person I wanted to see! I want an exclusive interview on what happened last night at Trinity!”

  “We can make a deal, then,” I said. “I want to pick your brains about the late Mrs. Van der Lynden.”

  “Come into my lair, then,” Fred said.

  He led me through the newsroom—a room about the size of my dining room, containing three desks with computers on them, and more paper than I’d have thought it was possible to fit into such a relatively small space. Books, magazines, old newspapers, file folders, and stacks and stacks of loose papers weighted down the desks, filled every corner, and left only narrow paths between them. As we made our way back to Fred’s tiny office, I could hear the rustling of papers as I brushed by them. Fred’s office was much the same. The main path through the paper led to his chair—an old-fashioned wooden banker’s chair on rollers, though the walls of paper around it left no room for rolling—with a branch trail to an old-fashioned wooden straight chair for his guest.

  He must have guessed the direction of my thoughts from the expression on my face.

  “I’m still waiting for that paperless office everyone keeps talking about,” he said. “Every time I think about getting rid of some of this junk, one of the computers dies, taking several million words with it, and suddenly I’m glad I printed out most of it. Which is why I’m going to take notes about what happened to you last night on this stylishly retro yellow legal pad.”

  I knew a cue when I heard one, so I gave him my account of last night—leaving out anything I wasn’t keen on having appear in the Clarion, and again saving the names of the people who’d occupied the opened niches for last.

  “So I gather that’s why you’re suddenly so interested in Mrs. Van der Lynden?”

  “Because she was one of the people whose niche was pried open last night.”

  “By Junius Hagley?”

  “Or by whoever killed him. You’d have to ask the chief—that part was still up in the air last I heard. Anyway, last night when I went home, I did a search on Mrs. Van der Lynden’s name, and the first thing that came up was your article on the New Year’s Eve jewel robbery at her house.”

  “People love those little bits of local history.” He preened—no doubt at the thought that his article was the first one in my search.

  “I figured you could give me the real scoop,” I said. “All the dirt you left out so you didn’t get sued.”

  “Ha!” He slapped his knee as if pleased that I’d caught him sanitizing the town history. “Yes, the Van der Lyndens were litigious in their time. Might still be if there are any of them left. I can understand why my predecessor didn’t print quite all the details he knew. For that matter, I’ll have to be pretty careful myself when I write about the Van der Lyndens’ connection to Mr. Hagley’s murder. There’s a difference between knowing what happened and being able to prove it. Frankly, I’m hoping the chief can dig up a few more hard facts I can use. And if you come across anything I can use—”

  “I’ll keep the Clarion in mind. So spill.”

  He leaned back in his old-fashioned chair, batting absentmindedly at some of the sheets of paper that brushed his head, and folded his hands.

  “The Van der Lyndens. They moved here in 1970 or so. Bought the old Wentworth place and doubled its size. Made a big splash in local society.”

  “Even though they weren’t from around here?” I asked.

  “Folks’ll overlook that if you’ve got enough money. The husband—Archibald Senior—died in the mid-eighties and there was just Mrs. Van der Lynden and Archie Junior, who was drinking and partying his way through college.”

  “At Caerphilly?”

  “After he got kicked out of UVA and University of Richmond. And quite possibly other schools that we never heard about. The old lady gave Caerphilly a honking big donation, and maybe the college thought with her right in town to keep an eye on him he’d behave a little better.”

  “And did he?”

  Fred shrugged.

  “If he didn’t, they kept it pretty quiet. Made it to his junior year without getting sent home in disgrace. So anyway, the Dames of Caerphilly were having their annual New Year’s shindig. This was back when they were still big.”

  I nodded. I could tell from his expression that he hadn’t been any fonder of the Dames than I’d been.

  “Mrs. Van der Lynden agreed to host the party. But unbeknownst to the Dames, she also planned to host a jewel robbery.”

  “Wait—she was behind the jewel robbery?”

  “I can’t prove it, but that’s always been the conventional wisdom. Her money was running out. Not sure if she mismanaged it or if Archie Senior hadn’t been the financial wizard everyone thought he wa
s, but she was up against it. Me, I’d have suggested she find a millionaire to buy the estate, move someplace that was merely huge, and she could probably have hung on to the baubles. But she didn’t think that way. She wanted to have her jewels and her palace and the money, too. So—they never proved this, mind you; a lot of conflicting testimony, but here’s what I think happened—she decided to pull an insurance fraud. Told Archie Junior to arrange a fake robbery. You ask me that was her first mistake—relying on him for anything.”

  “Why did she need to involve him?” I asked. “She could hide the jewels, break a window, and call the cops.”

  “I think she had a premonition that the insurance company would be suspicious,” Fred said. “So her plan was a little more convoluted. At the beginning of the party, she took a couple of the Dames upstairs with her—to help her pick out which jewels to wear.”

  “Thus establishing that the jewels were present and accounted for at the beginning of the party.”

  “Exactly. Then just before midnight, when everyone was gathering around the TV set to watch the ball descend in Times Square—”

  “You’d think rich people could find some more exciting way to mark the occasion,” I commented.

  “Her plan called for a trio of supposed jewel thieves to come running down the main stairway, carrying the jewelry in the pink embroidered satin pillowcases from her bed, and waving guns to make sure no one got the idea to play hero. Instead, five assorted thieves began sniping at each other in the upper hallway and then came downstairs to conduct a pitched gun battle in the main hall. Panic ensued.”

  “I’m not surprised,” I said. “Where did the surplus thieves come from?”

  “From what Archie Junior said, he’d made a few overtures to the only actual crook he knew—his drug dealer—and figured out that any professionals he hired would want a big chunk of the loot. So he decided it would be a lot easier to recruit a few of his fraternity brothers to play the role of the jewel thieves. He only managed to get two takers, but he figured that would be enough. Unfortunately, the drug dealer decided to field his own team in the race to snag the jewels, and the real bandits arrived on the scene just as the two college students—whom some of the contemporary accounts referred to as the “gentleman bandits”—had finished loading all the jewel boxes into the pillowcases. The real bandits snatched the pillowcases, the gentleman bandits tried to recover them, and gunfire broke out.”