Lethal Treasure: A Josie Prescott Antiques Mystery (Josie Prescott Antiques Mysteries)

by Jane K. Cleland

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “How are you doing?” I asked Scott.

  He looked at me over his shoulder. “I’ve been better. You?”

  “Same.”

  He nodded, then turned back to watch the snow. “Now, that’s a storm.”

  I joined him at the window. Windswept drifts made it hard to tell for sure, but it looked as if four or five inches had already accumulated. The dark-colored cars parked along the side appeared veiled in white; the white ones were nearly invisible.

  “It sure is,” I agreed.

  “What’s the forecast?” he asked. “Do you know?”

  “Unpredictable. The weatherman says it depends on upper-level winds or something. From an old-timer in the know, I hear two feet.”

  “Two feet—that’s no joke. I can’t remember if I’ve ever been in a storm that dropped two feet of snow.”

  “Where are you from?”

  “New York—the city. We get plenty of snow, but if anything like this happened … I don’t know … maybe I was out of town.”

  “I lived in New York for a few years. It’s the buildings, I think, and the subway. Most of the time, they keep the sidewalks and roads warm enough to limit accumulation.”

  “Plus, in Rocky Point, we’re more than three hundred miles farther north.”

  “That, too,” I agreed. The wind shifted and flakes spun sideways, peppering the window. “Driving isn’t going to be any fun tonight.”

  “Thanks for the warning.” He flexed his back muscles. “So much for a quiet country weekend.” He shook his head. “How long have you been up here?”

  “Nine years, going on ten.”

  “Quite a difference from New York.”

  “Yeah. I love it here.” I smiled a little. “But I love the city, too. Chocolate and vanilla, both good.”

  “Leigh Ann’s the same. She loves both places.” He looked around, then turned back to the window. “They’ve been talking to her a long time now. Do you know what about?”

  “I was with her for a while, then they wanted to ask her questions privately. Personal stuff, I gather.”

  He nodded. “They asked me plenty of personal questions, and I never even met the guy.”

  “Were you able to tell them anything helpful?”

  “Who knows? Mostly I said ‘I don’t know.’ I don’t know who wanted to kill him. I don’t know if they were having money problems. I don’t know if their marriage was on the rocks.”

  “Really?” I asked. “I thought you and Leigh Ann were close. I would have expected her to have confided in you.”

  His eyes remained on the blowing snow. “Sure, we talk. But you know how that goes. You only know what someone chooses to tell you, right? It can feel like they’re confiding in you until you figure out they’re toeing the party line, not telling you how they really feel.” He shrugged. “Case in point: I just told you that Leigh Ann loves it here. Maybe she does. Or maybe she just wants me to think she loves it here. Pride, you know?”

  “Sounds like you guys have some history.”

  He turned toward me and grinned, a frisky one. “You might say that. We were married for ten years.”

  “What?” I gawked, then laughed, enjoying a rare moment of genuine surprise. I expected to hear a tale of star-crossed lovers, not that they’d been married. “Well, you just proved your point, didn’t you. You never can tell. I had no idea Leigh Ann was married before. When did you guys divorce?”

  “About three years ago.” He turned back to the window. “I was the stupid one—I fell for a leggy blonde named Natasha, just like in the movies. Whoever said, ‘There’s no fool like an old fool,’ had me in mind, except I wasn’t all that old. Thirty-two at the time, to be exact.”

  “John Heywood. My dad changed it a bit. ‘There’s no fool like an old fool except a young one.’”

  “That’s funny. And true. Who’s John Heywood?”

  “A sixteenth-century playwright who married well. He was employed through four royal courts, which is quite an accomplishment in any circumstances, and downright extraordinary when you think that he was a devout and vocal Catholic and one of the four monarchs he served under was King Henry VIII. I’ve always wondered why King Henry didn’t have him beheaded.”

  “Maybe he liked his plays and didn’t care about his religious beliefs.”

  “Probably. Did you marry her? The leggy blonde named Natasha?”

  “Of course. Didn’t I mention I was a fool? The marriage lasted about twenty minutes. Fifteen, really, but we were stuck in traffic leaving the chapel, so I call it twenty.”

  I laughed. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to laugh at you.”

  “Feel free. I’m laughing at myself.”

  “At least you realized you’d made a mistake and fixed it.”

  “You’re kind to say so, but you’re off the mark. My foolishness ran far deeper than you know … I lied to Leigh Ann for two years.” His left hand formed a fist and he softly pounded the window frame. “I was embarrassed to admit what a screwup I’d been, so I told her everything was hunky-dory. Let’s repeat that quote again, this time in unison—I’ll take the role of the fatally flawed hero if you play the Greek chorus. ‘There’s no fool…’” He shrugged.

  “So then, after you found the courage to tell her the truth, you discovered she’d married Henri.”

  “God loves irony.”

  “And she may be lying to you about how happy she was,” I said, thinking aloud. “How did you come to be up here?”

  “Leigh Ann thought we could be friends. She told me that I’d like Henri and that he’d like me.” He paused for a moment, and his expression shifted from self-deprecating to reflective. “It’s sort of like wiggling a loose tooth with your tongue. You know it’s going to hurt like hell, but you do it anyway.”

  “You still love her.”

  “When I married Natasha I thought I was in love with her, that Leigh Ann and I had grown apart … you know, that it was over. I was wrong. Turns out, I just succumbed to momentary lust while in the throes of temporary insanity. Not to sound like a dude out of a romance novel or anything, but my heart belongs to Leigh Ann, always did.”

  We stood side by side for a few minutes, neither of us talking, both of us watching the snow and thinking private thoughts. I liked Scott. He was funny and outgoing and open. He also had one heck of a motive for murder.

  “Did the police check your alibi?” I asked.

  “Yeah. I have none. I got up here early and drove around. The police asked me to try to re-create my route. I asked if they were kidding me. I wouldn’t know one town’s Ocean Avenue from another town’s Ocean Street. They all look exactly the same. Nice cottages on the left. Snow-covered dunes on the right. All I could tell them was that I stayed on the road closest to the ocean except when I saw a sign for some town’s village green or business section, then I drove inland until I found it. Once there, I took streets whichever way my mood took me, checking out the central areas, then heading back to the coast, meandering north. A perfect nonalibi. How about you? Did they ask you?”

  “No … but I’m due for one more go-around as soon as they’re done with Leigh Ann. If they ask, though, I’m covered. I was at work with lots of people around.”

  “Go ahead, rub it in.”

  I smiled at him. “You sure have a good attitude about it.”

  “What’s a man to do? It is what it is, right? I didn’t kill Henri, if that’s your next question.”

  “Sorry … I didn’t mean to be inquisitive.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I don’t blame you. I’ve got motive up the kazoo. From what I hear, the murder weapon is a pipelike thing. They found metal flakes embedded in Henri’s scalp.”

  “Oh, my God!” I said, closing my eyes for a moment. “I hadn’t heard.”

  “Yeah … it’s bad. It’s also easily available. If you’re going to be cold-blooded about it, stop at any hardware store and pick up a length of metal piping. If th
e murder wasn’t premeditated, you can assume the killer found something in the storage room. Maybe a screw-in wrought-iron table leg, something like that, or a cane. The problem they have with me is opportunity. It’s true I don’t have an alibi, but that doesn’t figure into the equation. I had no idea Henri was at Crawford’s.”

  “Maybe Leigh Ann told you,” I said.

  “So now we’re in it together?”

  “I’m just following your logic. Plus, it doesn’t have to be a conspiracy. She could have mentioned it in passing.”

  He turned to face me, all trace of joking gone. His brown eyes looked straight into mine. “I didn’t kill him. I wouldn’t kill him. I had no need to kill him. I’m a believer in divorce.”

  “What if he refused?” I asked.

  “You can’t refuse. Them days is gone forever. No one has to stay married.”

  “Did Leigh Ann want a divorce?”

  “I never got the chance to ask her.”

  A marked patrol car pulled into the lot and parked near the entrance. An officer I didn’t recognize stepped out and hurried toward the door.

  “What do you do?” I asked. “If I may ask.”

  He smiled. “You know everything else about me—why not that, too? I’m a landlord. I own apartment buildings. And you’re an antiques dealer.”

  “Sort of,” I said. “We run monthly high-end antiques auctions and a weekly tag sale of vintage collectibles. We also appraise antiques for clients who don’t plan on selling.”

  “Like for insurance purposes?”

  “Exactly. Or estate planning. Or because they’re considering a purchase and want an objective assessment of value. Or they want to know how much Granddaddy’s humidor is worth in today’s market, even though they have no intention of selling it. Etcetera. Etcetera.”

  “Sounds fascinating, actually.”

  I smiled. “It is. I’m very fortunate.”

  “Excuse me,” Ellis said from the corridor.

  Scott and I both turned.

  “With Henri’s keys missing, Leigh Ann’s decided that it makes sense to change all the locks,” he said, speaking to Scott. “At her request, I’ve called a locksmith. He’s going to meet her at the shop at six thirty.” Ellis looked at his watch. “Half an hour from now. Officer Meade is going to escort you to both places, the store and her house, just to be certain everything is all right.” He glanced out the window. “You okay driving in snow?”

  “I’ll be fine,” Scott said. “How’s Leigh Ann?”

  Ellis didn’t answer right away, and when he did, his tone was so measured I wondered what he wasn’t saying. “About how you’d expect. She’ll be out in a minute. She’s on the phone talking brand choices with the locksmith.”

  Scott nodded, retrieved his coat from where he’d tossed it on the bench, and said, “Is there anything you can tell me? Do you have any leads?”

  “We’re looking at a lot of issues from a lot of angles,” Ellis said, revealing nothing.

  “You don’t think it was a thief, do you?”

  “We haven’t ruled anything out.”

  “Scott,” Leigh Ann said, entering the reception area ahead of Officer Meade.

  Leigh Ann clutched her coat to her chest like armor. She looked better, exhausted, but more controlled, less befuddled. Scott stepped forward and took her coat, holding it for her to put on. She wrapped her scarf around her neck and dug a wool hat out of her pocket.

  “I’m so sorry,” I told her again.

  She nodded. “Mama always said to look for the sun behind the clouds, which on a day like today is not the easiest thing to do. Still and all, today could have been worse, believe it or not. Henri could have been killed on a day when Scott wasn’t here to help me cope.” She smiled at him, barely. “Thank God for Scott.”

  He touched her shoulder and said, “Let’s go.”

  “Thank you to you, too,” she said as she headed out.

  “Of course. Anything I can do, I’m glad to.”

  “I’m going to see you home,” Ellis said to me once they were gone.

  “That’s very sweet, Ellis,” I said, getting into my coat, “but not the least bit necessary.”

  “It’s on my way. Zoë asked me to ask you whether you’re sure you don’t want to bunk with us tonight.”

  I smiled. “Thanks, but no thanks. I’m so looking forward to a hot bath in my own bathtub and cooking in my own kitchen. I’ll be fine. You know I’m not nervous alone. Plus, Ty may make it back. I haven’t heard from him yet.”

  “I doubt it. They’ve closed sections of 95. The plows can’t keep up.”

  “Darn!” I smiled. “Still … my bath is calling me.”

  “Will you park down the hill?” he asked, referring to the Meyer’s farm stand lot. Al and Dawn Meyer were nice enough to make it available to local folks on nights like this, when driving up Ellison Road might be treacherous.

  “That’s my plan.”

  “I’ll drive you home from there. My SUV can take that hill with no problem.”

  I grinned. “Now that’s an offer I’ll accept. It’s funny how long a quarter-mile hike feels like a mile in weather like this.”

  As I drove through wind-whipped snow, I wondered if Ellis would soon be asking me whether I had an alibi. I couldn’t see why he’d think I was involved, but Scott’s prosaic analysis of the murderer’s ways and means had spooked me a little. It was all fine and dandy to be matter-of-fact about issues, but not when the issue at hand was murder. I began to suspect that there was more to Scott’s seemingly casual conversation than I’d first thought. It was almost as if he were laying the groundwork for reasonable doubt.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  I foraged for ingredients and, using one of my mom’s favorite recipes, made a hearty beef stew.

  While it simmered, I took my bath, lying neck deep in the lilac-scented water until it cooled, then showered off the bubbles under a steamy hot spray. Afterward, wrapped in my fuzzy warm pink robe and matching slippers, I lit two tall white tapers I kept at the ready in my mother’s sterling silver candleholders and sat at the round table in my kitchen to eat. As I dipped pieces of buttery garlic bread into the gravy to sop up all the yummy bits, I watched the storm raging outside my safe haven. There’s no place like home, I thought.

  I got into bed around eleven and called Ty.

  “I’m glad I came home,” I said. “I wish you were here.”

  “Me, too. I’ll be on the road the first minute I can.”

  “I’ll make you a wonderful breakfast.”

  “What if I don’t get home until lunch?”

  “You’ll have breakfast for lunch,” I said.

  “Good.” He paused for a moment. “Are you okay, Josie?”

  I thought for a moment, uncertain how I was feeling besides relieved to be in my own bed, to be home, and safe, and warm. “More or less,” I said. “You know.”

  “Yeah. Will you be able to sleep?”

  “Probably not.”

  “I hope you can.”

  “I love you, Ty.”

  “I love you, too, Josie.”

  * * *

  I read for more than an hour, waiting for sleep to come, then gave up, turning out the light, telling myself that I would rest my eyes, that’s all, just rest my eyes. As I was crossing from that dreamy spot between weary consciousness into the cocoon of sleep, the familiar snick of a door latch catching catapulted me awake. In a spasm of panic, I shot up like a jack-in-the-box. The wind-up alarm clock with the eerie green luminescent numbers, a relic from my childhood that I kept on my bedside table, read 1:18.

  I waited, listening to silence, certain I’d heard a door close, the back one, I thought. Perhaps Ty had decided to come home after all. As the seconds ticked by and I heard no other sounds, doubt crept in, and I began to second-guess myself. I could have been in the grip of a nightmare so vivid, so lifelike, it felt real. That’s it, I thought, preparing to lie back down. Much ado about nothing.
>
  If it was Ty, he’d be upstairs by now.

  I caught myself twisting the duvet into a tight little screw and stopped, sitting instead in frozen silence. I was breathing hard, and my heart was pounding against my ribs so hard it hurt.

  A quiet shush of hushed footsteps dragged me fully awake.

  It was real and it wasn’t Ty.

  Don’t jump to conclusions, I warned myself. If Ty had driven home through a blizzard in the middle of the night, he might be so tired, he’d drag his feet. Except Ty and I had spoken at eleven. Ty had been in his hotel in Berlin, three hours north. Even if he’d left right after we spoke, he couldn’t be home yet.

  Someone, not Ty, was downstairs.

  I flung the covers aside and rolled to the far side of the bed, dropping to the ground as quietly as I could, crouching on the thick Oriental rug. I held my breath to listen. Nothing. I stretched out flat, my right cheek pressed against the rug so I could see under the bed into the hall. The night was cloudless, and my blinds and drapes were drawn. No drop of moonlight counteracted the near-black darkness. The only light came from the residual glow from the neon green numbers of my old clock. I couldn’t see anything more than wiggly green shapes.

  Perhaps Ty decided to surprise me, I thought, hope spiking as denial set in. Who else could it be? Who’d break into my house in the middle of a blizzard, risking being caught outside in killing cold? Ty’s vehicle was designed for rough travel, and I’d probably miscalculated the time.

  Ty never parked at Meyer’s farm stand. His SUV could get through quagmirelike mud and over stones and jutting tree roots. Knee-deep snow, even thigh-deep snow, was nothing—it wouldn’t even slow him down. He must have set out despite the storm, navigating south on secondary roads. I crawled to the window, lifted the drape, and eased the blind aside expecting, praying, that Ty’s vehicle would be in the driveway. The darkness was so dense, I could barely make out the snow hitting the window right in front of me. I pressed my forehead against the frost-laden glass and cupped my eyes. The glass was as cold as the martini glasses I kept in the freezer, and my forehead instantly went numb and I pulled my head back a little. I used the heel of my hand to clear the condensation, and for a second, not more, I was able to discern the shape of the driveway, the empty driveway.