Killer Keepsakes

by Jane K. Cleland

  “I am sorry,” he said. “As soon as I saw the headline, I knew you’d hate it. The one I submitted read ‘Murder in North Mill Pond Condo: Apartment Owner Missing.’ ”

  “That’s better writing,” I said, accepting the coffee, a little touched that he’d bought it for me—and that he’d remembered how I took it.

  “Thanks. So . . . about Gretchen. I’ve got a real shockeroonie. It’s about her background.” He lowered his voice. “Her Social Security number.”

  “What about it?”

  “It’s only seven years old,” he revealed.

  “So what?” I asked.

  “It was issued seven years ago,” he stressed. “Don’t you see what that means? What happened seven years ago that made her get a new Social Security number?”

  “I don’t know. Seven years ago, she would have been twenty-two.”

  “Why does someone get a new Social Security number at age twenty-two?”

  I paused, considering his question. “Maybe the social security card isn’t new, per se. If she never had one before, she’d have to get one when she started working. Isn’t it possible that she didn’t apply for a job until she was twenty-two? Maybe she went to college and didn’t work until after she graduated.”

  “You don’t know if she went to college?” he asked, sounding surprised.

  “No.”

  He shook his head, his eyes fiery alive. “She’d have a Social Security number whether she had a job or not. Everyone does . . . just like you have to file tax forms whether you owe money or not. You need it for health insurance, too, right?”

  I nodded. “I guess, but isn’t it possible that she lost her original card and just signed up for a new one? That must happen all the time,” I remarked.

  “This one wasn’t issued as a replacement—it’s new. Why?”

  I looked into his eyes, trying to understand why he seemed so excited. Is he saying she’s engaged in some sort of scam? I asked myself, shocked that he could even think such a thing about Gretchen. Don’t waste time on pointless indignation, I warned myself. Think objectively. How could it work?

  Wes watched me think, his expressive eyes alerting me that he thought he had the answer.

  How could I use a new Social Security card to get money? Credit card fraud, I thought all at once. With a fake Social Security number, I could build a new credit history, get lots of credit lines and personal loans—and use it all. I’d run up huge tabs, then ditch the identity, running out on the bills.

  Although my idea fit the facts, I just didn’t believe it. Gretchen’s not a crook.

  “Have you checked her finances?” I asked, knowing that if he’d done so, a fraud like the one I’d imagined might have surfaced.

  “Always. It’s mind-blowing how often money—or the lack of it—figures into crimes. In this case, there’s nothing there. She pays her bills on time, has no debt except for her mortgage, and has decent savings.”

  “Any unusual purchasing patterns?” I asked, enormously relieved to hear that my instinct about Gretchen was right on.

  “You’re thinking credit card fraud, am I right?” Wes asked.

  I shrugged, unwilling to acknowledge that I’d had such a thought.

  “ ’Cause there’s no sign of it. No unsecured loans, no credit lines, no multiple credit cards with huge amounts of cash available. Nada. Plus, she doesn’t charge a lot—a few dinners out a month, some clothes, gas, groceries—and she pays in full every month.”

  I nodded, not surprised. “What do you think it means?” I asked, not wanting to hear his thoughts but wanting to know.

  “She’s on the run,” he said. “I figure she jumped bail. I’m checking with bounty hunters now.”

  “That’s crazy!” I protested, shaking my head. “Gretchen is no criminal.”

  “Maybe you just don’t know her as well as you think you do.”

  I stared at him, stunned. No way! I thought, reacting emotionally, then felt vindicated as I realized that his miserable speculation couldn’t be true—objectively. “It’s not possible, Wes. My insurance company conducts background checks on all employees. If Gretchen had a criminal record, she wouldn’t have passed.”

  “There’s got to be a catch,” he said, sounding displeased that she might have a stellar record after all.

  “Oh, my God!” I exclaimed, suddenly realizing the flaw in my reasoning. My heart plummeted. “She passed with her new number. The insurance company wasn’t checking how long the Social Security number had been in force, just that there were no wants or warrants associated with it.”

  “Got ya!” Wes responded, energized again. “If she’s on the run, no way would she have been okayed under her original Social Security number. Which is why she had to get a new one.”

  I stared out over the ocean and considered Wes’s idea on its merits. Gray-white clouds streaked from west to east, propelled by a fast-moving wind. To the south, clouds were static and thickening.

  Could Gretchen really have a criminal past? I wondered. Then I remembered one additional fact, and the depression that had begun to weigh on me began to lift. I looked up and met his eyes.

  “They do a fingerprint check, too,” I told him. “If her prints were on file, they would have found the record. A new Social Security number wouldn’t have protected her.”

  Wes looked disappointed, which was logical, since I knew he’d much rather discover dirt about people than learn they were clean. It wasn’t that he was mean-spirited. Wes was a diligent reporter seeking the truth. To him, dirt was a means to an end: Dirt often led to secrets, and secrets often led to news.

  “So why is she on the lam?” he asked.

  “We don’t know that she is.”

  “Give me another reason to explain her getting a new Social Security number.”

  “I don’t know,” I said, then had a startling thought. I looked at him, stricken.

  “What is it?” he asked, his eyes boring into mine.

  “Witness protection,” I whispered.

  He leaned back, bracing himself on the palms of his hands, and gave a low whistle. “You know, you may have hit on something.”

  “How can we find out?”

  He shook his head. “No contact of mine would even discuss it.” He paused. “If I can find her picture in some news report describing a past crime in which she was a key witness . . .” he mused, his voice trailing off.

  “You won’t find anything,” I stated, discouraged and upset. “How can you possibly survey all the newspapers in the country for a photo of a person whose name you don’t know?”

  “Maybe I can; maybe I can’t. For sure I won’t find it if I don’t even try.”

  My worry-meter ratcheted up. If Gretchen was in witness protection, it was because she’d seen something or she knew something that put her at immediate and grave risk. What had she seen? A mob hit? A corrupt government official moving beyond white-collar crime into some deadly enterprise? A terrorist making a bomb? Had she run back to the U.S. Marshals? Or had she just run?

  “According to my police source, eight calls came into Prescott’s and three to Gretchen’s apartment from disposable cell phones,” Wes said, and I turned in his direction.

  “So they can’t be traced,” I said.

  “Right. There’s more. Gretchen’s apartment was wiped clean—except for one fingerprint.”

  “Wiped clean?” I repeated, forcing myself to put aside my apprehension and listen to Wes’s words. “So what? Maybe Gretchen’s a good housekeeper.”

  “That’s not what I’m talking about. Somebody wiped surfaces people naturally touch—doorknobs, light switches, that sort of thing—but not all of them. There are fingerprints, yours and Meryl’s, and presumably Gretchen’s, on her bedroom closet door pull, as you’d expect, but not on the front door’s inside knob. They’re on the bedroom light switch but not the living room or kitchen switches. See what I mean?”

  I gaped.

  “Guess where the pri
nt is?” Wes asked, his eyes shining with intelligence.

  I shook my head.

  “On a carton of milk in the refrigerator.”

  I continued to stare at him for a long moment, trying to take in the significance of his revelation. “Gretchen left milk in the fridge for two weeks?”

  “Nope! There’s only one store nearby that carries that brand—a con ve nience store. From the codes, they can tell that this carton was part of a lot delivered Wednesday morning—the day of the murder. Which means that someone bought the milk that very day.”

  “Can they identify the buyer?”

  “No. The clerks say they’re so busy they don’t remember anyone, and there’s no security camera.”

  I nodded. “And the fingerprint doesn’t match anyone in the system, am I right?”

  “Right. So . . . my source tells me you have information about a friend who was going over to Gretchen’s place to water plants. It’s possible that she picked up the milk en route.”

  Who’s Wes’s source? I wondered for the thousandth time. At first, I’d been shocked at Wes’s ability to learn almost anything about almost anyone from his mysterious “sources.” Then I realized that, almost by definition, experts in every field have access to an array of sources within their universe. I could pick up the phone, for instance, and reach the most influential and knowledgeable leaders in most aspects of art and antiques from Elizabethan decorative arts to Native American textiles to pre-Columbian pottery and everything in between. Wes’s universe included police and accountants and bounty hunters—and me.

  “It would be a friendly gesture to bring in milk for a friend returning home after a two-week vacation.” I thought for a moment. “Maybe Gretchen stopped at a grocery store on her way back to her apartment after picking up her car. Is the print on the milk carton the same as the one on the closet door or bedroom light switch—presumably Gretchen’s?”

  “The police are checking with your insurance company to get a sample of Gretchen’s prints, but it doesn’t seem likely that it’s hers. It’s a different print—and it’s the only one in the whole place that’s different.”

  I nodded.

  “But you just raised a good point. How did she get home from Logan? Do you know?”

  “Yes—she took the bus to Portsmouth Circle, and her friend Lina drove her to get her car.”

  “She picked up her car? Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked, sounding a little hurt.

  “I assumed you knew.”

  “I didn’t. Fill me in.”

  I repeated what Fern Adams, Gretchen’s neighbor, had told the police in my hearing about Gretchen’s car and described my morning visit to the Heron dealer. Wes took a single sheet of lined paper from an inside pocket and wrote as I spoke.

  When he finished, I asked, “Why do you think it’s taking so long to ID the victim?”

  “According to my source, the victim’s fingers are scarred, and while that doesn’t change his prints, it makes ID’ing him tougher.”

  “What do scars have to do with anything?” I asked, confused. “Wouldn’t a scar show up when they print someone?”

  Wes shook his head. “Sure, but if you’re constantly getting scars, the prints won’t match. I mean, they will, but it’s a tougher job to match them because some of the injuries are older and healed, but others are new. Based on the condition of his fingers, they’ve concluded that he works with his hands. So maybe they can trace him through his occupation.”

  “Oh, I see. Like if he’s a carpenter, they could survey general contractors to see if anyone knows him.”

  “Exactly.”

  “What about his DNA?”

  “The FBI databank is as close as we come to a national registry, but not all criminals’ DNA is sent in. Unless the crime involved is a federal offense, every state follows its own rules about both the collection of data—DNA and fingerprints—and its submission to the FBI. Some states require DNA samples from all people convicted of a felony, but others require it only if the felony conviction results in jail time. If the guy gets probation—guess what? In that state, no DNA is collected.” Wes shook his head. “According to the FBI and the state of Tennessee, neither the victim’s prints nor his DNA is in the system, and Sal Briscoe, the guy from Tennessee who owns the Chevy parked outside of Gretchen’s place, has no criminal record under that name. Of course, that may be a red herring, since they don’t know if the victim is Sal Briscoe. Maybe he’s just some schlub who stole Sal Briscoe’s car, you know? Or maybe his presence in Gretchen’s apartment is completely unrelated to Sal’s car. The police have asked a judge to impound it so they can investigate.”

  I’d wondered about that possibility, I recalled. Surely the car would provide meaningful information to help find Gretchen.

  “Since neither the victim’s prints nor his DNA is in the FBI’s databank,” Wes added, ticking off points on his fingers as he made them, “they know he’s never been convicted of a federal crime or a felony in a state that submits fingerprints and/or DNA samples, that he’s never applied for a federal job or a license that requires fingerprinting, and that he wasn’t in the military.”

  “All negatives,” I remarked, thinking that in some way, police investigatory procedures mimicked the process of appraising antiques. In both circumstances, when you got rid of all the false leads and dead ends, you either knew the truth or you knew you’d probably never discover it.

  “Goes with the territory,” he said, flipping his hands palms up. “Anything else you can tell me?”

  “Nothing,” I said. “I wish I had news to share.”

  He nodded. “Talk soon,” he said and slid down the dune.

  After Wes left, I sat for a while longer. That Gretchen was in the witness protection program was possible, I supposed, but it seemed so darned implausible. Still, I was aware of a niggling fear that something larger and more dangerous than I could even imagine was happening just out of my range of vision.

  There was too much I didn’t know. For instance, if Gretchen was in the witness protection program—why? What unseen and unknown factors were at work? Had someone she’d testified against hunted her down? Had the killer found her there with the man and shot him, on purpose or by mistake? Or had the murderer brought him there to die—perhaps as a warning to Gretchen?

  “Gretchen is no criminal,” I whispered aloud, but even as I spoke the words, I knew that my avowal expressed more prayer than conviction. Someone, I thought, must have answers. Then I thought again of Lina.

  As I began the drive back to my office, I realized that I didn’t even know her last name. Deciding not to waste another minute, I pulled off to the side of the road next to a tangle of spiky grasses and called the Bow Street Emporium.

  “Lina,” I said, when I reached her, “this is Josie Prescott. I was thinking—may I buy you a drink or a cup of coffee after work?”

  There was a pause, and I wondered what she was debating.

  “Sure,” she said. “I get off at six today.”

  _____

  As soon as I walked into Prescott’s, Cara asked about my meeting with Wes.

  I chose my words carefully, wanting to tell the truth while protecting Gretchen’s privacy. “Wes did a background check and reported what I already knew from our insurance company’s security review—Gretchen has no criminal record.” I flipped up my hand. “Much ado about nothing. Where’s Fred?”

  “In the tag sale room,” Cara said. “He wanted to look at some of the half-dolls to make sure they shouldn’t be saved for the auction.”

  “Good deal. I’ll be in the ware house. Eric needs some high-end items.”

  I didn’t want to break up a collection just to seed the tag sale, which eliminated snow globes, American Arts and Crafts pottery, tinplate toys, beaded silk dresses, Mission furniture, writing implements, and eighteenth-century fine bindings.

  Nothing grabbed me except two stoppered perfume bottles, a Bischoff yellow and a Viking purple, both f
rom about 1960. The three-tiered, rounded Bischoff was worth somewhere around three hundred dollars; the bell-shaped one from Viking, formerly known as the New Martinsville Glass Company, would sell at auction for about six hundred dollars. If I priced them 20 percent lower than their auction estimates, they’d be real finds for a collector or a fan. They’d be perfect, except they were too fragile and rare to be good candidates for the tag sale.

  I stepped into the walk-in vault to scan the shelves where miscellaneous valuable objects were stored.

  Almost immediately, my eye lit on two high-quality, expertly framed bird prints from John James Audubon’s Birds of America, a whooping crane and a rose-breasted grosbeak. We’d been hopeful they were originals, which is why they were in the safe, but they weren’t. They were first-rate copies, though; the color reproduction was extraordinarily detailed and exact, and their condition was excellent.

  I nodded and reached for them. At auction, I knew each would sell for about four hundred dollars. I’d have Eric price them at $319 each. With any luck, the buyers wouldn’t be able to stop talking about the great finds they discovered at Prescott’s tag sale.

  As I was swinging the door closed, I saw a small padded envelope that I’d never noticed before. There was only one word on it, written in block letters: GRETCHEN. The envelope rested on its side between a Plexiglas display case housing some fine jewelry that was scheduled to be appraised by a visiting gemologist and a box of ephemera that had come from the estate of a former Miss Vermont who went on to place third in the Miss America pageant.

  Gretchen must have put it in here before she went on vacation, I thought. How could I have missed it? Since she’s been gone, I’ve popped in and out a gazillion times. Apparently I’d been so preoccupied I hadn’t noticed.

  I reached for it, then stopped. I knew better. I backed out and spun the wheel to lock the safe, carried the bird prints into the front office, and called Detective Brownley on her cell phone.

  “I found something,” I told her. “An envelope with Gretchen’s name on it, in our safe.”

  “Don’t touch it. I’m on my way.”