Murder Wears White

by Stephanie Blackmoore

  “My wedding rings were stolen.” Whitney bit her lip and shook away the memory. “My father gave me a band that belonged to my late mother, and I plan to use that as my wedding ring.”

  “A lovely gesture.” Mr. Fournier folded his hands together and leaned expectantly over the glass case. His old-fashioned pompadour quivered.

  “But the ring’s too big. Could you resize it? I’m getting married the first day of November.” Whitney produced the heavy, scrolled diamond and emerald band and laid it in Mr. Fournier’s outstretched palm.

  He raised the loupe from the chain around his neck and squinted at the ring, rubbing his mustache. Then he dropped the ring as if it had nipped him. The heavy piece spun in a dizzying circle on the counter, like an out-of-control top. Mr. Fournier clapped his hand on top of it with a loud slap and trembled. He picked up the ring with shaking hands and dropped it on the floor with a nervous bumble.

  Whitney gasped at how the ring was being manhandled.

  “I’m sorry. I just never expected to see this ring again.” Mr. Fournier retrieved the ring from the floor and carefully laid it on the counter. “I’m afraid I’ll have to turn this over to the police, Ms. . . .”

  “Ms. Scanlon, and I beg your pardon, but you will do no such thing!”

  Whitney reached across the counter for her ring, but Mr. Fournier was too quick. He snatched the glittering metal and stone and deposited it under the counter. His demeanor changed, and he snapped himself up into a straight line.

  “This ring was stolen in the nineteen nineties, and its owner has been missing it ever since. This is a very unusual piece of jewelry, I’d know it anywhere. We’ll let the police sort this out, Ms. Scanlon.” His dark eyes flashed with annoyance, and he eyed Whitney as if she were a criminal who had attempted to put one over on him. Helene, Becca, and Keith stopped their perusal of rings to watch Whitney with interest.

  Whitney stood with her hands on her hips, ready to do battle. “This ring was my mother’s. I don’t have much from her, and she’s gone.” Her lower lip quivered, but she steeled herself. “If it was my mother’s ring, it wasn’t stolen. Now hand it back.”

  The jeweler sneered and became even more righteous in his stance. “Scanlon, eh?” A look of recognition washed over his sharp features. “You must be Vanessa’s daughter.” He gathered himself to his full height and hissed out his opinion of her in a loud whisper. “I suspect, though it was never proven, that your mother was a highly skilled jewelry thief.” Mr. Fournier rocked back on his dress shoes and dared Whitney to refute him.

  Whitney’s face registered shock, then anger, and finally dismay. “My mother was manager of the housekeepers at the Senator Hotel. She was kind and truthful and honest. How dare you!” She gathered up her plum purse and backed out of the store.

  I turned to see her flee down the street, sobbing. I caught up with her after a minute and gave her a swift hug.

  “I need some time to process what that horrible man said. My father will be so upset he kept Mom’s ring. I’m just going to take a little walk and collect myself.”

  I left Whitney with a travel package of tissues and made my way back to the jewelry store, which Keith, Becca, and Helene had mercifully left.

  “That was uncalled for!” I stared down the jeweler with petulant eyes.

  “I should have said something about Vanessa Scanlon when she disappeared all of those years ago, but I couldn’t prove it. I didn’t feel right speaking ill of the dead, but now enough time has passed.” Mr. Fournier was agitated, haughty, and unapologetic.

  “What makes you think she was a jewelry thief?” This was the first mention I’d heard of such a possibility.

  “Vanessa bought many things from this store, and she had the money from her family to indulge in her jewelry collecting. But about a year before she disappeared, she started selling me things in addition to buying. She had some unusual and expensive pieces, and she was very evasive about where she had acquired them. This ring”—he brought the heavy band of winking diamonds and emeralds up from its hiding place below the counter, but held it just out of my reach—“is what convinced me. She tried to sell it to me, only a little before she disappeared. She didn’t think the price I offered was fair. She seemed a little desperate for money, quite frankly. I wouldn’t budge, and she left in a huff. A few days later a woman came in, distraught, and told me a ring matching this one’s description had been stolen and to be on the lookout for someone trying to fence it.”

  Vanessa Scanlon a jewel thief?

  “I knew I’d seen the ring before and realized Vanessa had brought it in. But by that time, she’d disappeared.”

  “Why didn’t you go to the police?”

  The jeweler shrugged. “They didn’t ask me, so why would I go to them? Besides, by then Vanessa was missing. It was presumed she’d run off. I’d bought several pieces of jewelry from her, and I was worried they had been stolen too.”

  This man was clearly more interested in self-preservation than justice or helping find a missing woman.

  “This ring matches the description of the ring that was stolen. I knew at once when its owner described it that it was the ring Vanessa tried to sell me. I’ll contact the police about it now.” He turned his back to me and picked up the phone.

  “Better late than never,” I muttered as I let the door to the store swing closed behind me.

  * * *

  Whitney and I drove to her father’s apartment in tense silence. I didn’t rehash the jeweler’s suspicions about her mother, and she didn’t bring it up. A tiny sob escaped her lips every few minutes, and I reached over and patted her hand.

  “Why would my mother have a stolen piece of jewelry? She loved collecting it, and she had a lot, if I’m remembering right. We used to play dress-up together. She inherited quite a bit from her mother. She never would have needed to steal something.”

  “Maybe he misremembered or misunderstood. The police will sort it out.” There were probably a lot of things Whitney didn’t know about her mother, despite sitting through Eugene’s trial. “And maybe it’s time you talked to your dad about this,” I gently prodded. “Especially the notes you’ve been getting.”

  Whitney drew in a rattled breath. “I don’t want to bother him, but I think you’re right.”

  We reached a high tower of an apartment building on the grounds of the Whispering Brook retirement and nursing home complex. I hadn’t been back here since I last visited Keith’s grandmother. She had been in the nursing-home portion of the large campus, but Whitney’s father was in the independent-living building. We entered a tasteful lobby done up in shades of olive and gray, designed to look like a swanky hotel. Seniors chatted in a great room off to the left, where a game of bingo was being held. Laughter poured out of a room labeled “Movie Theater,” and groups of residents gathered at the sliding glass doors with dogs on leashes, ready for a walk. It was a bustling place, more akin to a college rec center than what I’d envisioned for a retirement home.

  “Dad loves living here. He’s getting worse, though. It won’t be long before his nurse isn’t able to take care of him in his own apartment. He’s dreading moving to the nursing-home portion of the grounds.”

  We entered a sleek elevator, and at the last second, a man threw his hand between the closing doors to make them jump and slide open.

  “Sorry about that. Darn things will chomp your hands off if you’re not careful.” The man shuffled in and gave us both a warm smile, but he froze when he saw Whitney. “Ms. Scanlon, right?”

  Whitney stiffened next to me. She was wiping at her still-red eyes, probably trying to eradicate any puffiness before she saw her father.

  “Yes?” she said warily. She cocked her head and seemed to be trying to place the man.

  “Tell your dad Rusty says hello.”

  Rusty? Gears clicked in my head.

  Whitney relaxed, and we stepped off the elevator at the fifth floor. “I sure will.”

  I st
ayed with Whitney and Porter for a few minutes, and we chitchatted, carefully avoiding the subject of the stolen ring. I figured it was Whitney’s business to tell her father and maybe hear some things about her mother that she wouldn’t be comfortable with. I ducked out after a few minutes and made my way back to the busy lobby. The man who had spoken with us in the elevator was sitting on a comfy-looking chair, reading a dog-eared Agatha Christie mystery.

  I hesitated, then sat next to him. “Excuse me, are you the Rusty who was in charge of Vanessa Scanlon’s police investigation?” I recalled Truman and Garrett’s argument right after Lois had expired at the wedding tasting.

  The man put down his book and assessed me. “Yes, I am. Rusty Dalton, former chief of police. That’s how I knew Whitney. I thought she’d remember me, but I’m ill, and I’ve changed quite a bit since the trial.” The man did indeed look unwell, with sallow skin, clothes that hung awkwardly from his medium frame, and shaking hands.

  “It’s a case that won’t seem to go away,” I blurted out. “I’m planning Whitney’s wedding while she’s in town, and things keep popping up related to Eugene Newton and Vanessa Scanlon.”

  He put down his mystery and eagerly turned to face me. “Like what?”

  Oops.

  “It’s nothing. I shouldn’t be—”

  “Look, I don’t think we handled the case correctly.” Rusty shook his head and glanced at me. “If new things are coming to light, that’s a good thing.”

  “What are you saying?” I cocked my eyebrow and held my breath.

  Rusty tented his hands together, his fingers yellow and shaking. He sheepishly tucked his hands under his legs. “I’m not so sure, twenty years later, that we got the right guy.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Rusty and I moved to his apartment, where I settled on a comfortable plaid couch and he served chamomile tea and Chips Ahoy cookies. Pictures of grandchildren were scattered around the neat apartment, as well as regalia from his time as chief of police.

  “I almost died when my doctor told me I couldn’t have coffee anymore because of my heart.” He offered me a wry smile. “I’ve really come to enjoy herbal tea, but what I wouldn’t give for a cup of joe.” He picked up a pipe, and my eyes went wide with surprise. Most apartments like these wouldn’t allow smoking.

  “And this is a prop.” He turned the pipe in his hands. “Something to keep me busy. My physical therapist suggested I take up knitting, but can you picture me making a sweater?” He chuckled, a low rattle accompanying his laugh deep in his throat.

  I shivered, thinking of Mrs. McGavitt’s phantom knitting needles. But I’d rather watch the former police chief knit than hear it in my bedroom with the lights out.

  “If Eugene Newton isn’t the right guy, who is?” I set down my chocolate-chip cookie.

  Rusty’s eyes grew as sad and heavy as a basset hound’s. “If I knew, I’d share my thoughts with Truman Davies. I’m not too proud to admit we didn’t handle the investigation the way we should’ve. But the buck stopped with me. I was chief, and I personally took on the case, both when Vanessa first went missing and we weren’t sure if it was a case of her leaving her family and cutting town or a legitimate kidnapping, and when we found her body ten years later on Eugene’s property.” He moved the still-empty pipe to his mouth, and he chewed on the end like Maisie the Westie with an expensive shoe.

  I shook my head, confused. “If you don’t know who really killed Vanessa Scanlon, what makes you think you didn’t get the right guy?”

  Rusty put down his pipe and stared hard into my eyes for a brief second, flinched, and looked at his hands. “What the heck. I won’t be around on this earth much longer.” He rubbed his knee and closed his eyes. “I know because we planted some evidence to ensure Eugene’s conviction.”

  A pin dropping on the Berber carpet could have been heard. I stared at Rusty for a full minute.

  He lifted his head and defiantly stared back. “I wanted to bring the family some closure. It had been ten years since Vanessa disappeared, and then her body was found in the woods of her lover? The only way I can live with myself is knowing that, at the time, I truly believed Eugene was guilty.”

  I tried to keep my hands from shaking, but I did a poor job of it. I put my tea on the small tile-topped coffee table to keep from spilling it. “You need to tell someone this.”

  “I’ve tried.” The former chief shrugged. “I talked to the former and current prosecutor, and they think the other evidence was enough to convict Eugene. And it was, on its face. They’re too embarrassed to reopen the case.”

  “What evidence did you plant?” I asked as casually as I could manage. A man had been in prison for over a decade for something he might not have done.

  Rusty pondered my question for a moment. “I took a single item from the woods and put it in Eugene’s shed.”

  “The murder weapon?!”

  Rusty blushed and nodded, moving the pipe nervously from hand to hand. “I was certain Eugene was to blame, so I thought I’d help things along and make it a slam dunk. I responded to the call. I secured the scene.” His voice dropped to barely whisper level. “His neighbor’s new dog had wandered onto his property and dug up part of the body. The hammer was ten feet away, buried, and I was the one to find it. I waited until that evening and planted it in the shed. There were no prints on it, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t Eugene’s.”

  His audacity struck me dumb. I thought of Garrett and how he wished he could do the case all over again. He hadn’t known evidence was manipulated to ensure a conviction.

  “I wanted to bring the Scanlon family some peace,” Rusty whined, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees. “I was about to retire, and it was my last chance for closure.”

  “And why don’t you think it was Eugene? It still could have been his hammer.”

  Rusty flicked his eyes upward. “I just know in my gut that it’s not. He wouldn’t be dumb enough to leave the body in his woods. It was a setup.”

  “Then who do you think killed Vanessa Scanlon?”

  Rusty blew out an imaginary lungful of tobacco and stood on creaking and popping knees. “It could have been anyone. The pharmacist across the street from the Senator Hotel was infatuated with her. He wore a white coat to work. Her husband had recently found out about her affair. As had her sister-in-law, Lois, who argued with her about it a few days before she went missing.”

  “Lois isn’t around anymore. How convenient.” Could Lois have tried to blackmail her sister-in-law about her affair?

  Rusty slowly shook his head. “Lois’s death could be connected to Vanessa’s death, but I can’t figure it out. I didn’t have a bad feeling about Lois then, and I don’t now.” He waved away my suspicion with a weary hand. “I think it’s just a coincidence.”

  “What did they argue about?” My money was suddenly on Lois, despite Rusty’s feelings.

  Rusty shifted uneasily in his chair. “Lois denied arguing with Vanessa, and then when she couldn’t refute it, she said it was about Tupperware.” He barked out a phlegmy laugh. “I think they were arguing about her affair with Eugene.” A note of doubt swept across his face.

  Exactly. Lois could have tried to blackmail her sister-in-law to keep her affair quiet, then killed her.

  “But I believe Whitney. She was five when it happened, and her mother disappeared from the house. She was awoken from her nap and testified she heard arguing. And she saw someone leaving the house wearing white. Her mother had worn red that day and, indeed, was wearing a red dress when we found her body ten years later.”

  “So the pharmacist is a likely candidate.”

  “And Porter. He was a dentist before he retired and wore white as well. But they both had alibis. Lois did not—she could never remember what she’d been doing.”

  I told him about the incident at Fournier’s Jewelry Store. “Could her jewelry fencing have anything to do with her death?”

  A slow wave of recognition ro
lled over Rusty. “Jewelry thief, huh? That fits. It’s possible it could have led to her death. And it opens the door for more people with a reason to kill Vanessa Scanlon.”

  * * *

  “I knew it.” Garrett paced in a circle around his backyard. “That bastard!” He kicked a clump of brilliant red leaves he’d just raked into a tidy pile and sent them flying like an overturned apple cart.

  I didn’t point out that the former police chief moving some evidence did not mean that Garrett’s former client was automatically exonerated. Eugene could still be guilty, his conviction just assured that much more by moving the murder weapon from near the body to inside his shed. Still, it was a damning detail.

  “Why would he do it?” Garrett ran a hand through his near-black hair and picked up the rake, combing the leaves back into a neat pile.

  “He resurrected a ten-year-old cold case, determined to close it at all costs because he was retiring. He wanted to bring peace to the Scanlons. At the expense of Eugene’s life and freedom,” I added.

  I shared with him the other viable suspects that Rusty and I had brainstormed.

  “And that was my whole case.” Garrett ticked suspects off on his fingers one by one. “Porter, as the jealous husband. The pharmacist, as the lovesick stalker. Lois, the angry sister-in-law, who we now know liked to dabble in blackmail. The jury didn’t buy any of it, all because it was a slam dunk, what with the murder weapon magically finding its way into Eugene’s shed. Anyone could have killed Vanessa and left her in his woods.”

  “There is one wrinkle.” I told him about Vanessa’s short career as a jewelry thief.

  “Hmm. That complicates things.” He stopped pacing and sat on an old swing set, the seat too low for him. He dragged his leather shoes through the sand below and gave a few practice swings.

  “Vanessa didn’t lack money. Why would she want to steal, for kicks?”

  “Dad, you’re too big for that!”

  Summer bounded around to the backyard, still wearing her backpack from school.