by Janet Bolin
“You’ve charged Cassie with Neil’s murder.” I didn’t bother to make it a question.
She held up a hand. “Not yet. We require better evidence against her before we can charge her.”
“Good. Just get the murderer, okay?”
“We will. Especially if you and your friends keep out of it.”
I carefully did not look at her. In the past, if I hadn’t interfered in investigations, a couple of people could have gone to jail for murders they didn’t commit, and the real culprits could have gone free. Vicki knew that, but if she preferred to pretend the police would have arrested the right people without my interference, I would let her.
We finished our apples, and Vicki said she had to head out toward Erie to talk to Clay.
“And Haylee?”
“I just came from there. You and she told me basically the same things.”
“We were all really tired last night when Cassie came here, so we may be unclear.”
“And you’d been drinking.”
“Not much.” Only champagne. The gala seemed like a distant memory, but a warming one.
We went up the hill and I let Vicki out my side gate.
Although I was worried about Cassie, and still believed she couldn’t have killed the father she’d been happy to locate, I couldn’t stop thinking about the evening ahead. I wasn’t certain, since I didn’t know Ben well, but he seemed like a great guy for Haylee. Someday, maybe, he would emerge from the depths of his grief, look around, and recognize that Haylee was a gem.
And maybe, if we took long enough looking at Ben’s photos, Clay would show up. I could hardly wait.
Fortunately, working with our students on yet more complex hardanger embroidery projects made the afternoon fly by. After Ashley and I closed the store, I took the animals out. The kittens had already become proficient at using my garden as a litter box and then trotting inside with their self-appointed surrogate mother.
After a short, much-needed catnap and some supper, I phoned Haylee and explained that I needed to drive to the lodge so that Clay could check the parking lot on his way home from Erie. “He’ll come in if he sees my car there.”
Haylee understood immediately. “Then we’ll need to take our time over those pictures.”
And maybe Ben would spend the entire evening with Haylee . . .
I ran to the beach and back with the dogs before I met Haylee at my car.
I drove the longer way, taking Beach Row. Yellow tape still surrounded the cottage Yolanda had rented, but no police vehicles were nearby. We went on, past the wharf and the marina and up the hill. I parked in the lodge’s lot.
“Hey, look!” Haylee yelped in glee. “Max’s BMW is nowhere to be seen! Maybe Mona scared Max away.”
Cheerfully, we hurried down the hill, underneath the porte cochere, and into the lobby.
Zara had not left.
Wearing a halter top and a tiny pair of shorts that showed off her long, tanned legs, she was talking to Ben, who was behind the black marble reception counter. He was handsome as ever in a white dress shirt but no jacket or tie. He gave us a smile that nearly blinded me.
Zara turned around and scowled for a second before she rearranged her face into an expression that was, I figured, supposed to be welcoming. “Hi, Cuz,” she trilled. “And Willow.” She leaned back with her elbows on the counter. Like she owned the place.
Like she owned Ben, too.
Ben called someone on the house phone, and a teenage boy in a suit ran into the lobby. Ben showed the boy a list of people he still expected that night, patted him on the shoulder, and told him he’d be fine on his own, especially with Zara there to help him.
Zara frowned.
Ben came out from behind the counter and shook Haylee’s and my hands. “Glad you two could make it. I’ve got everything I want you to see in my office.”
The dismissal might not have worked for Mona, but Zara got the hint.
Well, sort of. She bounded toward the stairs. “I’ll be in my room, Ben, if you need me.” So much for helping the kid with reception. Not that she should be expected to, but she’d obviously been content to hang around the desk as long as Ben was there.
Ben led us to a spacious office done in dark oak and touches of red that were a nod to Victorian styling. An ornate mahogany desk was positioned so that natural light from glass-paned French doors would come in over Ben’s shoulders. If he wanted to be cozy on winter nights, he could pull red velvet drapes over the doors and build a fire in the fireplace, which was centered in a wall of oak bookcases and cabinets. Two red-upholstered wing chairs faced a sturdy fumed oak table on the wall opposite the windows. Ordinarily, they probably flanked the side table, which was alone and isolated in front of the fireplace.
Only two chairs at the long work table? Uh-oh. Maybe it was a sign that Ben wasn’t going to stick around for the evening. Or that I should find a reason to leave—I should suddenly remember that I had pets, for instance?
Besides the rearranged chairs, the only things out of place in that tidy office were cardboard cartons with flaps turned back showing piles of black and white photographs.
I loved old pictures. All thoughts of departing fled my mind.
Before I could dig into the boxes of photos, though, I gave the oriental rug an appraising look. I wanted to kneel and stroke my fingers between the rich blue, dark red, black, and ivory fibers. From their sheen, I guessed they were silk.
Ben must have noticed my covetous glances. “This office is mostly the way Snoozy Gallagher left it. The rug and furniture needed cleaning, and I’ve sent the books and paintings to restorers.” He pointed at the bookshelf between the fireplace and the windows. “Want to see the safe that was robbed?”
40
HAYLEE NODDED AS IF THE BEAUTIFULLY restored room had stolen her powers of speech. I was breathless with admiration, both for the room and for Clay and Ben and their success in bringing it to this stunning glory.
Ben gave Haylee a wide smile, then locked the office door.
My face must have shown my surprise.
He explained, “I don’t want to reveal the lodge’s secrets to everyone in the world.”
Zara, for instance? Didn’t he trust her? Interesting . . .
He crossed to the bookcase next to the window, pressed something beside a book, and swung the bookcase open on its hinges.
The safe was at eye level and surprisingly small. A painting could have hidden it, but trick bookcases were definitely more fun. Had the room been originally like this, or had Snoozy Gallagher added the safe and bookcases in anticipation of a future heist? I imagined Snoozy in this office, decorated much as it was now. He’d have been planning his little escapade, smiling to himself, and dozing off.
The safe’s door wasn’t locked. Ben opened it. “Empty, I’m afraid. For some reason, no one seems to want to entrust me with their jewelry.” I detected a twinkle in his eyes.
Haylee smiled back at him. “That safe doesn’t exactly have a great reputation.”
I asked, “Weren’t Cassie’s belongings supposed to be in there?”
“Chief Smallwood picked them up,” Ben told us.
Peering into the safe’s shiny black interior, I hid a shiver. “I was one of the first to see the jewels after they were removed from this very spot and buried for thirty years.” My voice came out barely above a whisper.
“Clay told me about it,” Ben said. “That must have been something.” He placed his palm flat on the bare floor of the safe. “Can you imagine all those leather and velvet pouches in here?”
“And the ladies in their designer gowns parading down your staircase,” Haylee contributed.
“And the looks on their faces when they came to the office for their jewelry and found the safe door open and empty like this, and Snoozy nowhere in sight,” Ben added. “I hope you two aren’t afraid of ghosts.”
Haylee backed away from him. “Why? Have you sensed anything?”
H
e closed the safe. “No, but if they’d be anywhere in this lodge, they’d be in this room, don’t you think?”
“Was Snoozy killed in here?” I asked.
“The police say he wasn’t.” He glanced out his French windows at shadowed woods looming beyond lawns and flower gardens uphill from the lodge. “They’re sure he was killed out in the woods, close to where he was buried.”
“Does it bother you, owning property where someone was murdered?” Haylee asked.
“That was a long time ago. I knew this place came with a wealth of history when I bought it. Willow, though—” He gave me a sympathetic look. “You’ve had a much tougher time of it, from what I’ve heard.”
I helped him swing the bookcase over the safe. “I try not to let the actions of evil people spoil a place I love.”
He studied my face. “Would all the things that have happened in your yard make you consider moving?”
“Only if I felt threatened.”
“And do you?” he persisted.
Did I? Sometimes. I took a deep breath. “Not really, not when Haylee and her mothers live right across the street.”
He latched the bookcase. “That was one of the reasons we—my wife and I—chose this lodge. We’d heard about how, pardon the pun, close-knit Threadville was. Deirdre particularly wanted to live near such wonderful women.”
Haylee looked about to cry. “Did we ever meet her? Was she ever in our shops? I hope we were nice to her.”
“She was never here, but we read articles about Threadville and about the lodge, and we knew we had to see it all. Just reading about you—she was sure she’d like all of the Threadville store owners—and planning to live here gave her a lot of pleasure. But she . . . didn’t make it.” He spoke those last three words barely above a murmur, then turned abruptly, grabbed one of the cartons, picked it up as if it weighed nothing, set it on the oak table, and lifted out a handful of sepia-toned photos. “I thought we could start with this box. These photos look oldest.”
Haylee glanced at him from under her lashes. “Love to.” She pulled three pairs of simple white cotton gloves from the bright, striped canvas bag she’d made. “We can wear these to handle the photos.”
Ben stared at the gloves. “They look like they wandered in here from some of the old photos.”
Haylee laughed. “Archivists wear them. I brought you an extra large pair.”
“Okay.” Leaving the gloves behind, he went around to the other side of his desk, grabbed his antique leather desk chair by its wide back, and rolled it to the work table between the two wing chairs. “You two can have those chairs. This desk chair looks better than it feels.”
We sat down and put on the gloves. Haylee was the first to pick up a photo and study it. “Look at this gown,” she squealed.
Even in the old photo, the richness of the black satin, embroidered all over with faceted jet beads that Edna would have craved, gleamed. The woman in the picture sat staring sternly at the camera while her husband stood behind her with one hand on her shoulder. “Late 1890s?” I guessed, looking at the clothing and the consciously immobile expressions of the couple.
“I think so,” Haylee agreed. She turned toward Ben. “You’re probably interested in hanging other pictures, too, besides the ones showing off fashions. But you must have an entire costume history beginning in the 1890s!”
He rumbled a deep laugh. “And ending in the 1980s. Some of us notice faces more than outfits, so I also like these pictures. It’s too bad they used painted backdrops. I’d really like to find old photos of the lodge and of people participating in activities besides sitting still for the photographer.”
We sorted the photos into three piles, one for photos that were boring or blurred, one for photos we thought might suffice, and one for those that seemed perfect. Ben told us he didn’t intend to hang the originals. He planned to have the photos professionally cleaned, and then have many enlargements framed, more than he could hang at once, so he could change the displays frequently. He said he would store the originals in acid-free archive boxes.
We carefully went through loose photos, then eased old, leather-bound albums open and inserted bookmarks near the pictures we liked best. Many of those had captions, handwritten in white ink. Ben became excited about having the captions photographed, too, and framed with the photos.
Outside, twilight settled to dusk. Ben turned up the lights. We progressed from sit-still-for-a-whole-minute portraits to beach scenes from the early twentieth century. Women wore bathing dresses and men did not yet go topless. In wooly, vested bathing suits, they clowned around wooden rowboats that must have weighed a ton.
Realizing that we were selecting way too many photos as perfect, we tried to force ourselves to be more critical. It was difficult, though, especially when we got to the 1920s and the flappers.
Ben pointed to a photo of cars parked under the lodge’s porte cochere. “Flivvers,” he said. “What a wealth of antique cars.”
Dusk darkened to night beyond the French doors. We worked in warm camaraderie, nearly always agreeing about which photos would fascinate the lodge’s guests.
Ben took off his gloves. I was afraid he was going to send us away before Clay showed up, but he only said, “Time for a refreshment break.” He glanced at the office door. “I already locked that, didn’t I?”
41
BEN STRODE TO THE SIDE OF THE FIREplace that didn’t house the safe, fiddled with that bookcase, and swung it away from the wall.
By now, I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was.
Laughing at our expressions, he said in a scary voice, “Come with me.” He opened an almost full-sized door and turned on a light.
Curious, we crowded in after him. A dim passageway stretched in front of us.
“Clay discovered this.” Although he whispered, his voice was eerily loud, magnified by the passage’s bare wood floors and unpainted plaster walls. “We figure it was built during Prohibition. Liquor smuggled across the lake from Canada could have been stored here.”
“In this passage?” Haylee breathed.
Ben tossed us a mischievous grin. “Someday, when we’re sure it’s safe to enter, I’ll show you the hidden wine cellar. It’s in a basement underneath the wine cellar that everyone else knows about.” He walked on and opened a pair of double doors. “This is a normal closet, if closets in secret passageways can be considered normal, but the door leading to the stairway to the secret wine cellar is hidden inside it.” He pointed to the wall opposite the closet. “The banquet hall where we ate and danced last night is that way. And the kitchen is straight ahead.”
Aha. The promised refreshments.
Ben turned a corner, opened another door, and we emerged into a pantry. After he locked a narrow cabinet back into position, I would never have guessed that it hid a secret passage.
He pointed to a door showing the night through its rippled antique glass window. “I can go outside here and take a path through shrubbery that I’m deliberately keeping overgrown. In seconds, I can whip through the French doors in my office and be sitting at my desk. Like Snoozy, I can come and go and be in different places than my employees and guests expect me to be.” He opened his eyes wide in pretend amazement. “It gives me all sorts of opportunities for sneaking around.”
Haylee gave him a huge smile. They were definitely kindred spirits.
I wondered if the secret passage and the overgrown shrubbery had provided Snoozy’s murderer with similar—and deadly—opportunities for sneaking around.
Ben opened a normal, steel-clad door with a round porthole window near the top. As he had probably expected, no one was in the bright, state-of-the-art hotel kitchen. He went to a huge refrigerator and grasped the door’s handle.
“What does that lead to?” Haylee teased. “A hidden swimming pool?”
Ben laughed. “No, a bowling alley.”
Somewhat disappointingly, the opened door revealed only the interior of a refrigerator. Ben
brought out a tray of strawberries dipped in chocolate, first white chocolate, then dark, slanted to form a V neckline to make the strawberries appear to be wearing tiny tuxedos, complete with dark chocolate buttons and bow ties on the white chocolate shirts. He set the tray down. “Sorry to feed you leftovers from last night, but help yourselves. And what can I get you to drink? How about pineapple punch from last night? It’s nonalcoholic, but we can spike it.”
I waved my hands in front of my face. “I’m driving.”
Haylee found three glasses and set them on the counter. “And I’m sorting through photos.”
Ben poured us each a glass of punch, and encouraged us to eat as many strawberries as we wanted. In addition to being cute, the tuxedoed strawberries were yummy. We gorged ourselves and had second glasses of punch. After we tidied everything away, Haylee said we needed to wash our hands before we put on our cotton gloves to handle the photos.
Ben led us into the banquet hall. From there, we knew the way to the ladies’ room.
Haylee and I smiled at each other’s mirrored reflections. Haylee lifted up one hand and pinched the back of it with the other. “I’m not dreaming.”
“A gorgeous man, a secret passageway, and strawberries wearing tuxedos,” I said in mock wonder. “What more could you ask?”
“That’s easy,” she answered. “But first he has to notice me.”
“I think he has.”
“And notice me more than he notices Zara.”
“I think you’re fine on that score, too. He locked her out of his office.”
She pointed one finger in the air. “He locked everyone out of his office.”
“And us in.”
She gave a pretend little shudder. “It’s very gothic, isn’t it?”
“It’s whimsical and fun.” And Clay had been the one to find the passageway. Two lord-of-the-manor types. “If only they had smoldering eyes,” I wailed.
She tapped my arm. “Ha! Have you seen the way Clay looks at you?”
“Not recently.”
“Last night.”
“That wasn’t recent,” I moaned.
Laughing, she pushed the ladies’ room door open.