by Amy Isaman
“Other than it’s going slowly, no, I can’t tell you anything. How was the service?”
“It was nice. Kat talked and that broke everyone up. There weren’t many people in there. Kinda sad.”
“Did you know many of them?” he asked.
“Not really, besides my family, and I met my mom’s high school boyfriend. A man named Roberto. He’s over there with her now.” Mike glanced their way but immediately turned back to me. “I’d be surprised if I knew or even recognized that many people. I haven’t lived here in years.”
“You never know. Whoever killed Frank might have been there,” Mike answered.
“Honestly, I probably wouldn’t recognize them if they were.”
We watched some more people filter out of the chapel’s front door.
“So, that’s really a thing? That people really do attend the funeral of someone they killed? It’s not just something on TV shows?”
“Well, it’s a thing that most people are killed by people they know, so yeah, it’s not out of the question that they would attend the services.”
“Huh. I guess that makes sense. But that feels so wrong.”
“So, you didn’t recognize Roberto?” Mike turned, his blue eyes boring into me.
“Roberto? The gentleman with my mom?”
“Yes, that Roberto.”
“Oh, well yes. But I didn’t realize I recognized him until my mother introduced us.”
“So, why didn’t you tell me that when I first asked.”
“Because I thought you were asking if I recognized the murderer. And there’s no way he could run like the person who stabbed Frank. Look at him. Roberto’s in his seventies with a solid build. And he’s pretty short, like maybe 5’6”. I feel like the runner was taller and thinner. My mom and he apparently dated in high school, and they haven’t seen each other since graduation. It’s so weird to see my mother flirt.”
We both glanced over at the older pair. My mom was seated in the passenger seat, the door open, and Roberto stood next to her chatting. They were totally engrossed in one another.
“I think, honestly, you could arrest me, and she wouldn’t even notice.”
Mike laughed. “Why would I arrest you?”
I glared at him. “Really? That was a hypothetical? To answer your original question, I recognized Roberto because I met him at his pawn shop in Boise. Carly has a few coins from Frank, and I told her I’d help her figure out what they’re worth. So, I did.”
“What are they worth?”
“You’ll have to ask Roberto. He gave me a price range from two thousand to fifty thousand, but it depended on the condition which he couldn’t tell from the photo I had. He wouldn’t commit to a valuation which is pretty common in the antiquities industry. Until the sale is on the table and he inspected all of the coins in person and not from a photograph, I wouldn’t expect a straight answer.”
“So, Frank has more coins? That Carly found?”
I nodded. And then added, “Well, yeah. Frank and Del found that original stash, remember? But if you think Carly did this, she didn’t. There’s no way. First, she’s truly grieving. Having lost a husband, I know real grieving when I see it. Have you looked at her? She’s not heavy but she’s not exactly got a runner’s physique. The person who was hiding in that foyer while I helped Frank ran fast. They wore running shoes. I’ve only seen Carly wearing those rubber croc shoes. And she’s devastated.”
“You’d be surprised at how fast she could probably run if she wanted to, and as you’ve noted, repeatedly, you didn’t get a great look at them.”
“Look, Mike, I know you’re trying here, but I’ve lost a husband. I know that agony. There’s no way in hell I would have ever brought it on myself. Carly didn’t either. She’s a grieving woman, not a guilty one. There’s a difference.”
“How can you be so sure?”
I shrugged. “Call it woman’s intuition. She would never do that to Kat. She’s said over and over what a good father Frank was. He was a shitty husband, but a good father.”
He scoffed. “Unfortunately, ‘women’s intuition’ won’t hold up in court. And as much as I’d like to just trust you, it’s not in my job description.”
“It should be,” I snapped back. “This world would probably be a hell of a lot more peaceful and in a better spot if men trusted their gut or even other people a little bit more.”
Mike laughed. “You’re probably right.”
“Excuse me. I’ve got to get my mother fed and to the doctor.”
“Let me know if you think of anything else,” he said.
I headed toward my mother, thoroughly annoyed with him. Trusting my gut was a new modus operandi for me. I ignored it for years, and it had lost me my husband. Any decent detective in any movie or show I ever watched relied on their gut instincts to solve crimes.
But here I was, stuck in Idaho, with a guy who only wanted facts.
♦♦♦
The waitress set a cup of soup and homemade cornbread down in front of me. The soup of the day at Sammie’s Diner was a mushroom bisque which sounded good, but it was like Campbell’s soup that hadn’t been mixed with any milk. Big chunks of onion and mushroom poked out of the gelatinous goop like the gold coins that were jutting up through the grass seed in mom’s shed.
I glanced longingly at Mom’s grilled cheese on white bread and fries. Why on earth had I thought mushroom soup would be healthier than her selection? It clearly wasn’t.
Roberto dove into his steak sandwich, which also looked tastier than my lunch.
“How long have you had your shop?” I decided to start with an easy question.
We chitchatted for a bit, mom asking questions too, before I went for it. “Frank came in quite a bit, I guess. For you to come up to his funeral I mean. You two must have worked together a lot.”
My mom gave me her warning glare. It was a look I knew well since I’d been getting it my entire life. Rather than counting, like most moms, this look signaled stop right there, young lady. The next step was a pinch on the back of the arm, on that tender skin, which she couldn’t do here, but she did the next thing, and pressed her foot onto my toe.
“He came in a few times,” Roberto answered evasively.
“Oh, did you know him outside of the shop, then?” I continued. My mom’s foot hit my shin, and I smiled sweetly at her.
Roberto shrugged. “Not really.”
Okay, this was weird. “Um, okay. So, why did you attend his services if you didn’t know him?”
“I wanted to speak to his wife about what she’s possibly inherited. I’m not sure if she knows. But then I saw Phyllis and forgot all about that plan.” He grinned at my mom who responded like she was sixteen by blushing and I swear, batting her eyelashes at him.
Okay, I had to get this conversation back out of the flirting zone. Immediately.
“Oh, so Frank had more coins? He told you that?” I leaned in and gave Roberto my focused attention.
“I have no idea what Frank has, but I do know that he brought them in on a fairly regular basis. Maybe they’re all sold or maybe he’s got them stashed somewhere.”
“He does,” my mom agreed. And she launched into the story of my finding Frank. Now it was my turn to tap her foot. When it was clear that she was going to tell Roberto the clue with the iris, I pressed my foot harder on her toe. She merely smiled sweetly at me and kept talking.
“And now, my little Miss Nancy Drew is determined to figure out what the cryptic clue means, find the gold, identify the murderer, and make us all millionaires who can live out the rest of our lives in ease.”
“Sounds like a perfect plan,” Roberto said, laughing heartily.
Done. I was done. I was trying to help them, to figure out how to cash in this gold so we could get Anne out of a terrible abusive marriage. If that happened, my mom wouldn’t have to worry about her anymore. Anne and Madi would be safe. Carly would be able to grieve without worrying about her health insuran
ce. And I could go back to my life knowing that I’d taken care of my family. I needed to do this. For me as much as for them. I was just trying to help.
And they were, mocking me.
I had no idea if I believed Roberto about why he was at the funeral. I studied him again. Could he have been the runner? He knew Frank had more gold, and he wanted to talk to Carly about it. He looked fairly fit. Maybe it was him?
I pasted a smile on my face, took a bite of the driest cornbread I ever put in my mouth, and sat through their teasing.
After lunch, my mom started in as soon as I pulled out of the parking lot. “Tricia Warren Seaver, don’t you ever embarrass me like that again.”
“Excuse me?” I gripped the steering wheel tighter. She thought she was the one who’d been embarrassed? “You actually called me Nancy Drew, to get a laugh at my expense?” I glared at her. “And, I might add we just came from the funeral of the victim. This isn’t a joke, mom!”
“I realize it isn’t a joke. And I apologize for teasing you. I forgot how sensitive you are. You’re right. That wasn’t nice, but—”
“Wait, it’s not an apology if you tell me I’m upset because I’m overly sensitive.”
She ignored me. “Well, I haven’t seen Roberto in decades, and you go, quizzing him about these damn coins. Didn’t you see him shut down, get all nervous and regret going to lunch with us until I lightened things up? That’s all I was trying to do. And maybe I did it the wrong way. Or is it upsetting to you that I might like to see another man after all these years?”
“What are you talking about? Haven’t I encouraged you to start dating?”
My mom shook her head. “But when it happens, you try to ruin it. Just because you’ve been trying with those dating apps but haven’t had any luck, doesn’t mean you have to destroy my own potential happiness.” Mom crossed her arms and glared out the window.
And with that, the universe decided to continue getting the best of me, as my phone pinged with an incoming dating app notification.
Dammit.
Chapter 18
PEACEMAKER.
It was a term I learned during my two years of therapy after Bret died. I thought I’d gotten over swallowing my words, letting people talk to me like crap in the name of “peace.” And I had, until I got home and back into all the shitty dynamics of my family. My sister’s drama, my mom’s protecting her and lashing out.
It hadn’t happened in years, decades even, but I felt exactly like I did when I was about to graduate high school and I wanted to get the hell out of this small town and never return. Now that I’d left my own children and fledgling business hundreds of miles away, I was still the one at fault, still in charge of calming everyone down and making it right, even when they resented me for it. If I didn’t do it or at least try, they did everything to pull me back into the role I was supposed to play. The overly sensitive peacemaker.
Apparently, Anne’s life was a shit show because I abandoned her. But now that I was back, she was pissed off about that, too, and wanted me to leave.
I sat on the back deck trying to calm myself down after our lunch disaster.
The sun warmed my skin, and I tried to shut off my brain and stop the internal fight I was having with myself.
Leave or stay?
My mom still needed care. Anne made it clear that she needed to work and couldn’t do it, but that she also felt I was the most unreliable care giver ever. And, honestly, I couldn’t disagree with her there, considering mom’s fall. She also seemed to blame the current state of her marriage on me, which was ridiculous. That relationship was a wreck long before I ever got here, but apparently it was easier to blame me rather than Brian for his total lack of emotional stability.
I must have dozed off somewhere between debating if I was a bad sister or daughter or mother because the next thing I knew, my phone rang. The sound jarred me awake and I lurched, grabbing at my phone and causing a massive twinge in my neck.
“Hey,” I answered, wiping my eyes, trying to wake up and turn my head.
“Are you sleeping?” my daughter asked. “In the middle of the day?”
“I’m sitting outside. I must have dozed off. It’s been a long day already. What’s up?”
“Um, well, I just wanted to give you an update. We’ve got almost no foot traffic into the store since that stupid scaffolding went up. I talked to the landlord, and he was sympathetic but said there’s nothing he can do since the city is requiring the work. And he reminded me again, that it was in our lease.” Laurel spoke slowly, like she was trying to hold back her anger.
“He’s not willing to give us a cut on the rent even though sales are down? Is that what you wanted when you spoke with him?”
“Yeah, that’s what I was hoping for. But it’s not going to happen.” She sighed, deeply, and sounded a bit like my mom.
I got up and paced around the deck, stretching my neck which thankfully stopped aching.
“Do we have enough in the account to cover the rent? And what about online sales? How are those going?” I asked.
“We are a few hundred short on the rent, and online sales are non-existent because you never sent me any of the information I need.”
“What? Yes, I did. I spent a whole afternoon last week writing up descriptions of all the pieces, just like you asked.”
“Well, did you send them to me? Or are they still on your computer? I never got them.”
“Oh crap. Did I not send them?”
“No, mom. You didn’t. I can’t do this alone. When are you coming home?”
“Not soon enough,” I mumbled into the phone.
“No seriously, when? I need you here, like, yesterday.”
I leaned on the deck rail and stared across the yard at the shed which held hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars’ worth of gold. We needed a few hundred dollars. That was it. But even thinking that, of cashing in a coin for myself, made my entire chest and throat tighten up, like I was stealing. But from who? Who the hell hid the cache in my mother’s shed? And as a finder, was it now mine and my moms?
“Mom, are you there?” Laurel asked.
“Yeah, I’m here. I’m sorry. I was just thinking. We have a week to make the rent money?”
“Yeah. Send me those descriptions, and I’ll do what I can with them,” Laurel said.
“I will. And I’ll reach out to some collectors. We’ll get something sold.” I hung up and headed toward my room as I tried to think of people to reach out to. We had some gorgeous pieces in the shop. It was just a matter of finding the right owners for them. That was my job, and I hadn’t been doing it.
At all.
And now, we needed cash. I did have it in my retirement account but that was the last thing I wanted to do.
I could cash in a single coin, but that thought made my stomach turn. Unless of course, whoever hid the gold also killed Frank in which case, I had no problem with it. I could ethically steal from a murderer. Unless they figured that out and came after me. But the options of who might have killed him didn’t make me feel any better. The only people with access to my mother’s shed were Brian and Logan. Logan helped my mom with her mowing since he was young, and Brian helped too. Nobody would question his going out there. And he was evil enough to steal the gold and keep it from his own family.
My sister and niece also had access to the shed. I figured I could easily scratch Madi off the list. She was sixteen now which made her twelve when the gold vanished. She’d been with my mom watching their dancing show when Frank died. She’d been there before I left for dinner and still there when I returned. It hadn’t been her. My sister had been there too.
And there I was, again sucked right back into figuring out what to do with the gold and how it might point to Frank’s murderer.
Maybe they had nothing to do with each other.
But maybe they did.
Ugh.
I headed back into the house, grabbed my laptop and set up at the k
itchen table to work.
Three hours later, I sent Laurel all the captions that she needed for our social media campaign, and I’d almost sold a Louis XV walnut commode with a gorgeous walnut top to a designer that I’d worked with several times. She’d make her decision by the end of the week and let me know. I’d given her a deal but that would tide us over for a bit. At least until I got back to the city.
The break from the drama with my family felt good. Though, every time I looked up from my computer, I could see the shed in the backyard. It both taunted me and motivated me to make the sales calls I needed to.
My mom woke in a much better mood and spent the rest of the afternoon watching her shows and giggling while she texted Roberto.
“Tricia?” she said as I finally shut my laptop and leaned back, ready for a break.
“Yeah? Are you ready to eat?” I asked. “I’m starving.” I thought back to my congealed soup and three bites of cornbread I’d eaten for lunch. No wonder my stomach was growling.
“Oh, I don’t need anything. I just wanted to tell you that Roberto is taking me to dinner, so you’ll be on your own this evening.”
“Nice.” I grinned. “He didn’t go back to Boise, then?”
“No, apparently he kept his parents’ home up here. He’s got it rented, but he’s been doing some work on it. I can’t imagine that we haven’t run into each other at all ever since your dad passed.” She reached for her walker, and I hurried over to help.
“No, let me do this.” She waved me away with her good hand. “I need to be able to do this on my own.” She grasped the walker and tried to pull herself up, but her chair was too soft to get any leverage. And she didn’t have the strength yet in her legs to pull up with just one hand.
“Mom, let me help.”
She harrumphed but let me help her get up off the chair and settled behind her walker.
“I’m ready for this to be over,” she mumbled as she slowly made her way down the hall.
“Do you need help getting ready?” I asked her retreating back.