The Gift of the Magpie

by Donna Andrews

  “And the Farmers and Mechanics Bank wasn’t allowed to reopen.” Judge Jane’s voice was solemn. “But the First National Bank of Caerphilly—the Pruitts’ bank—was.” I suspected from her tone that she considered this a miscarriage of justice.

  “I was only ten when it happened, but I vividly remember overhearing Mama and Daddy arguing more than once over how the Pruitts managed that,” Mrs. Diamandis said. “Daddy always said the Pruitts must have bribed someone, and Mama would say don’t be a fool—the Pruitts didn’t have two dimes to rub together, same as everybody else, so it had to have been blackmail.”

  “Knowing the Pruitts, I’d have sided with your mama,” Judge Jane said. “Even so, the bank failure wasn’t really the Pruitts’ fault—or the Dunlops’. Several thousand banks were victims of the same economic disaster. They had to reform the banking system to fix it.”

  “Which wasn’t much comfort to the people who lost their money,” Mrs. Diamandis said. “No insurance on bank accounts in those days—the FDIC was one of the things they invented to fix the system—so if you had money in the Dunlops’ bank, you just plain lost it.”

  “Or the Pruitts’ bank,” Judge Jane put in.

  “Yes.” Mrs. Diamandis shook her head. “Terrible times. My family wasn’t hit as hard as some, because Daddy had seen the problem coming. Started putting his paycheck under the mattress instead of in the bank, and taking out any money he did have in the bank—but gradually, so the bank manager wouldn’t give him a hard time. He always said that if the banks had lasted six more months he wouldn’t have lost a penny.”

  “Your daddy was a smart man,” Judge Jane said. “Some people lost everything. Their houses. Their farms. Their businesses.”

  “And they blamed the local bankers,” Mrs. Diamandis said. “The Dunlops and the Pruitts.”

  “So if Mr. Dunlop’s family was still hated as much as the Pruitts, I’d see where you’re coming from,” I said. “Definitely a possible motive for murder. But even though I’m not from around here, I’ve been here a good while now, and I’ve never heard anything about the Dunlops, much less people hating them.”

  “Because unlike the Pruitts, no one helped them put their bank back on its feet,” Judge Jane said. “And they didn’t go on to lord it over the rest of the town for seventy or eighty more years. The Dunlops just faded away into—well, genteel poverty would be an exaggeration. They weren’t in any danger of starving. But they kept themselves to themselves. Mr. Dunlop’s daddy was almost as much of a hermit as he was.”

  “And I suppose eventually any resentment against the Dunlops died off with the people who’d lost their money,” I said.

  Judge Jane snorted.

  “If you think that made any difference, you’re forgetting how people around here think,” she said. “I know people who could tell you to the penny how much their great-granddaddies lost when the banks failed. But there weren’t really a lot of Dunlops around to hate, I guess, so people just focused on the Pruitts. And the Pruitts’ bank was bigger anyway.”

  “It’s not just that,” Mrs. Diamandis said. “The Pruitts never even tried to make things right. Aristede Dunlop—Aristede Senior, Harvey’s granddaddy—tried. He kept a copy of the bank’s records, and once things started getting better and he was earning some money over and above what he needed to feed his family and keep a roof over their heads, he started paying people back. With interest.”

  “I never knew that,” Judge Jane said.

  “He never made a big fuss about it,” Mrs. Diamandis said. “I wouldn’t have known myself if one of my close friends hadn’t been the last survivor of one of the families that got repaid. And there was never much talk—I expect people were a little embarrassed when they figured out he was trying to do the right thing after they’d bad-mouthed him for so long. And then a few people were still angry, and said they could have used the money back in the Depression times, but what good was it now when times were good again, and even with the interest the money wasn’t worth as much. There were even a few people who said Aristede could have started paying them back faster if he’d tightened his belt more—and believe me, that was just pure meanness. The Dunlops were not living high on the hog.”

  “Doesn’t sound as if people were all that grateful,” I said.

  “No, but his trying to pay back kind of took the wind out of their sails,” Mrs. Diamandis said. “Made them look a little whiny if they bad-mouthed the Dunlops too hard. So they focused on hating the Pruitts and just kind of forgot the Dunlops even existed.”

  “But you think there could be someone out there who still hates them enough to kill Mr. Dunlop?” I asked.

  “Who knows?” She shrugged. “Maybe some family nursed the grudge instead of letting it fade.”

  “Or maybe someone just recently found out his family had a reason to hate the Dunlops,” Judge Jane suggested. “Someone digging into the past and getting all bent out of shape about something that’s been over and done with so long no one else remembers it. Puts me in mind of that time when my cousin Morford got all gung-ho about genealogy and started trying to map out his family tree. Suddenly noticed that little two-year discrepancy between when his grandfather was born and when his great-grandparents later got married.”

  “Found out they were human and jumped the gun before the honeymoon, did he?” Mrs. Diamandis chuckled.

  “No, he found out his biological great-granddaddy was a no-account sneak thief who got himself shot while trying to rob the local ABC store.” Judge Jane grinned and shook her head. “Which wouldn’t have hit him quite so hard if he hadn’t also found out that Sheriff Wilmer Shiffley, who he’d been brought up to think was his great-granddaddy, was the one who did the shooting.”

  Mrs. Diamandis burst out laughing, and I had to chuckle myself.

  “Went through an identity crisis, did he?” I asked.

  “Lord, yes.” Judge Jane nodded. “Everyone pointed out that his great-gran waited a decent time before she remarried, and since she was also a Shiffley, it wasn’t as if we weren’t still kin. But he took it hard. Anyway, that makes me wonder: what if someone started digging into their own family history, found out just how much their family suffered from the failure of the Dunlops’ bank, and did him in out of revenge?”

  I thought about it for a moment.

  “Makes about as much sense as any of the other reasons I can think of for killing him,” I said.

  “What other reasons?” Mrs. Diamandis asked. “I don’t get out much these days, remember, so I don’t know much about it.”

  “For one thing, that someone just got so fed up with his hoarding that they lost their temper and brained him,” I said. “One of the neighbors who had to look at it, or maybe his family, who saw it getting worse every day and knew they’d have to be the ones to deal with it eventually. And with all due respect to your theory about his family history coming back to bite him, that sounds the most logical to me.”

  Mrs. Diamandis nodded.

  “And I bet people will wonder if someone killed him so they could get their hands on something he has hidden in his house,” I said. “But I can’t imagine anyone who’s actually been inside thinking that. So far I haven’t seen a single thing I would pay a quarter for at a yard sale.”

  “I hear some of it’s nice stuff,” Judge Jane said. “Just not the sort of thing young people like you want nowadays. Antiques just don’t sell well anymore, or so they say.”

  “Good point,” I said. “I’ll wait till Mother weighs in on what it’s all worth.”

  “You never know,” Mrs. Diamandis said. “There were rumors, back in the day, that the Dunlops had hidden all the money from their bank in the house. Of course it was mostly kids saying that—kids who heard their parents griping that the Dunlops had stolen everybody’s money and thought that meant they had literally taken all the bills and coins out of the bank. And that was over eighty years ago.”

  “Rumor and gossip have a long half-life,” J
udge Jane said.

  “What did they do for a living?” I asked. “Aristede Senior and Junior. And for that matter, Harvey.”

  “Aristede Senior took to farming,” Mrs. Diamandis said. “On rented land. He never was much good at it, from what I heard, but he worked hard and they got by.”

  “But Junior looked down his nose at farming,” Judge Jane said. “He took up being a traveling salesman. And I don’t know that Harvey’s ever done much of anything, so I figure Junior must have left him enough to live on.”

  “That would make sense.” Mrs. Diamandis nodded thoughtfully. “Once Aristede Senior died, the whole repayment thing stopped cold, so I heard. I always did think Junior was a lot more interested in making money than his father ever was. And he was a right old skinflint, so unless he figured out a way to take it with him—and if anyone could, it’d be him—he probably did leave Harvey something.”

  “You know, I bet I could find out the answers to all of these questions,” I said. “I doubt if Harvey ever threw away a piece of paper in his life. The answers are all going to be right there in the house—or in the boxes we moved to the furniture store. I took a look at some of the stuff as it was going into the boxes. Harvey’s got bank statements and canceled checks going back decades.”

  “But talk about looking for a needle in a haystack,” Judge Jane said, shaking her head.

  “It could be a needle we need to find,” I said. More properly, a needle the chief might need to find in order to solve Harvey’s murder.

  Though probably not something he could spare anyone to do.

  “If you’re thinking of sifting through all those boxes of paper, I’d wait at least a day or two,” Judge Jane said. “With luck, Henry Burke will find out who did poor Harvey in without you having to wade through all that.”

  “Here’s hoping,” I said. “I should head out.”

  “More projects to supervise, I assume,” Judge Jane said.

  I nodded.

  More projects to supervise, yes. And I really ought to focus on that, I reminded myself, as I made my way down the hallway toward the front door.

  What I really wanted to do was drop by the police station. The chief probably already knew the various things I’d learned about Harvey’s family history. And I had no idea if any of them was the least bit relevant to his murder.

  But what if some of them were? And what if the chief hadn’t yet learned about them?

  I pushed open Trinity’s glossy red front door and stepped outside. Then I stopped while I was still under the small overhang that sheltered a part of the front step. It was pouring again. Puddles were forming in the parking lot, highlighting every low spot that could use a little supplemental dirt and gravel. I decided to wait under the overhang for a few minutes. Surely the rain couldn’t keep on like this indefinitely.

  Maybe all the snow lovers did have a point. A few inches of snow would be a lot prettier. And a lot less depressing. As long as it was inches, not feet.

  And I suddenly remembered something and swore under my breath.

  “Meg? Something wrong?”

  Chapter 20

  I started, and turned to find Clarence Rutledge had opened the door behind me and was peering out. He stepped out and crowded in to stand beside me under the tiny overhang.

  “Nothing’s wrong,” I said. “At least I hope not. It suddenly occurred to me to wonder what this rain is doing to Harvey Dunlop’s house.”

  “Good grief—you’re right.” Clarence glanced up at the sky. “That roof of his. More tarp than shingle. The last time I helped him add a new tarp I tried to talk him into getting it fixed, but he didn’t think they could do it without coming inside. Said he wanted to get all his stuff organized and then he’d get some estimates on the roof. Typical. He was putting his whole life on hold till he got himself organized, but he never got off the starting block.” He shook his head. “I was so pleased to hear he’d let the Helping Hands in.”

  “You knew him, then?”

  “Not very well.” He folded his arms and leaned against the church door—evidently he was also going to wait for the rain to ease. “But maybe better than most anyone else in town, come to think of it. He made donations to the shelter. Not very big, but probably more than he could easily afford. I visited him sometimes. Brought around puppies and kittens for him to play with. He loved that. His father never let him have a pet when he was a kid, even though he loved animals. I kept hoping he’d give in and adopt one. And he wanted to—I could tell. He just kept saying it wasn’t safe to have a pet yet, he’d get one when he finished organizing his house. And see how that ended up.” He looked gloomy for a few seconds. “He did have a feral cat he’s been feeding the last week or two. Beautiful little gray thing—female, we think, and possibly still young enough to be socialized if we get her soon. So I was going to sneak around with a humane trap this week.”

  “Sneak around?”

  “Well, if I waited for Harvey to give me permission, the poor thing would be way past socializing. I mean, look at the roof.” He brooded for a few moments. “And yeah, the roof’s not bothering him anymore, but still, someone should check to make sure there are no new leaks.”

  “Because if there are, the rain could be dripping into his house.”

  “Pouring even,” Clarence agreed.

  “And it wouldn’t ruin useless stuff like pink china elephants or homicidal spittoons, but it could wreak havoc on all the paper that’s still left in his office.”

  “You think he’s got something valuable in his papers?” Clarence didn’t look as if he bought the notion.

  “No idea,” I said. “But unless the chief’s already got the case figured out and the culprit in handcuffs, he might need to know more about Harvey to solve the case. And those papers might be the only way to do that.”

  “Makes sense.”

  “And even if the chief doesn’t need all that paper, eventually it will belong to his family,” I said. “And I wouldn’t put it past Morris Haverhill to pitch a fit if any of their property is damaged. Even if it’s only a bunch of canceled checks from the fifties and several hundred old Radio-Shack sales flyers. And even if it’s Harvey’s roof, not anything we did, that causes the damage.”

  “Would this Morris Haverhill be a tall, cadaver-thin character with bad posture and a whiny voice?” Clarence asked.

  “Sounds like him.”

  “Met him once,” Clarence said. “At least if grabbing someone by the scruff of the neck and hustling him out the door with orders to get out and stay out counts as meeting someone. Made Harvey’s day when I did that, poor soul. He was scared of the dude.”

  “Of his cousin Morris?”

  “Sure looked that way.”

  “Did you ever meet his girlfriend?” I asked. “Or hear anything about her?”

  “Girlfriend? Harvey?”

  “Online girlfriend,” I said. “Woman named Tabitha Fillmore. Claims she met him through a forum for hoarders and was coming to see him in person and help him through the decluttering ordeal.”

  “He never mentioned her,” Clarence said. “And I think he would have if he’d met someone. If he was excited about something—or upset—he’d talk about it. I remember him telling me one time about some online group he’d checked out, but I didn’t get the impression he was that into it. More like reading their stories made him feel he wasn’t that bad off.”

  “He seemed like a nice guy,” I said.

  “He was.” Clarence shook his head sadly. “Needed to get out more, you know? Spend more time with people. I kept telling him to go out and look for a job, but he preferred working from home.”

  “Working from home?” This was a new idea. “What did he do?”

  “Data entry. Companies would send him stacks of paper forms and stuff, and he’d type it all in.”

  “A perfect job for an agoraphobe,” I said.

  Clarence nodded.

  “You should talk to the chief,” I said. “Sounds
as if you knew Harvey better than most people in town.”

  “That’d be sad, but you could be right,” he said. “I’ll go over as soon as we finish with the dog glamour shots. Let the chief know while you’re there.”

  “While I’m there?”

  “You mean you’re not headed over to the station to talk to the chief about Harvey’s roof and the need to save his papers?” He grinned.

  “You’re right,” I said.

  “While you’re at it, let him know I’m going to drop by with the cat trap. I’d put it in one of the neighbor’s yards, but I don’t trust them. I can’t prove it, but I think one of them put out poisoned food at least once.”

  Yet another reason to dislike Harvey’s neighbors.

  Just then I heard a static-filled squawk and heard, very faintly, the chief’s voice. It appeared to be coming from Clarence’s pocket. He pulled out a police radio, and we both listened as the chief asked Debbie Ann to send the locksmith back to Harvey’s house.

  “Since when are you carrying that around?” I asked as Clarence stashed the radio back in his pocket.

  “I’m a special deputy at the moment,” Clarence said. “I figure the chief mainly wants me to show up and look menacing if they have any more unruly drunks who need to be intimidated. I think it’s letting up a little. Think I’ll make a run for it. Bring over the next batch of dogs.”

  I wasn’t sure he was right about the rain. More like wishful thinking. But he was right—I needed to talk to the chief about Harvey’s papers.

  So after making a mad dash through the rain, I left Trinity and headed toward the police station.

  The parking lot was mostly empty. I didn’t spot any out-of-town license plates, which was probably a good thing, since if I had seen any they’d probably have belonged to reporters. Chief Burke hated having reporters trying to horn in on his investigations. For that matter, the whole town would be happier if press coverage of Harvey’s demise was limited to the weekly Caerphilly Clarion. Christmas in Caerphilly was in full swing, and we didn’t want anything to derail an annual event that had such enormous financial benefits for the local merchants and bed-and-breakfast owners. Randall, in his role as mayor, was already plenty worried about keeping up the town’s quaint and cozy quotient in the absence of snow.