by Loretta Ross
Death laughed at that, a warm, genuine laugh. “Well, I suppose—” he said.
“But I still don’t understand why you think you’re gonna find your jewels at the Campbell house.”
“That’s because you didn’t ask me who the killer is.”
“Someone I know?” she asked, dismayed.
“Probably someone you’ve heard of, at least. Does the name Declan Fairchild ring any bells?”
“Declan? Mrs. Fairchild’s nephew? By marriage. He’s in prison. For … extortion?”
“Embezzlement,” Death corrected gently.
“Right. Embezzlement. Originally, she was leaving the house and everything to him. There are some second cousins and such, but he was her only close relative. But after he went to prison, she disinherited him and left everything to the Historical Society instead. He challenged the will in court, but he lost. That’s why it’s taken so long for the Society to get to the point of dealing with the house and getting it ready to open as a museum. They couldn’t do anything until the lawsuit was settled.”
“Yeah, I know. And there’s more. That dead guy you found yesterday morning?”
“Yeah?”
“His name was Theodore ‘Flow’ Whitaker. He was a fence and a money launderer. And he was Declan Fairchild’s cellmate in prison.”
“So you think Declan hid the jewels at the old Campbell place, figuring on getting them whenever he got out of prison, because he thought that, even if his aunt died, she’d leave the property to him?”
“Right. Only she didn’t leave the property to him, and when he challenged her will in court he lost. So, instead of taking the chance on someone finding his retirement fund, which, incidentally, could put him on death row, he sent his little friend in to get it.”
“Only his friend was a moron and wound up dead.”
“Yeah, I’m all broken up about it myself.”
Wren took the last few dishes from the box on the table and had to move the empty box to make room for them. Customers were starting to congregate, picking over the merchandise. She tossed the empty box under the table with the others and tugged on Death’s arm to pull him back away from the crowd.
“I don’t want to rain on your parade,” she said, when they were standing under a tree in relative privacy, “but has it occurred to you that the dead guy might have been looking for my jewels instead of yours? Declan could have told him the legend while they were in prison together. He wouldn’t be the first person to think he could find them where everyone else had failed. Heck, right after Mrs. Fairchild died, treasure hunters sneaking in during the night practically dug up the whole yard!”
“We’ve already established that the Civil War jewels wouldn’t have been buried.”
“I never said they were smart treasure hunters,” she protested, and he rewarded her with another of his gorgeous smiles.
“It hadn’t occurred to me because before this morning I didn’t know the other lost jewels had ever existed. Now, I suppose it’s possible. But that old house is the only lead I have on my case. And, there is one more little thing, the thing that pointed me at the Campbell house even before Flow Whitaker went and broke his neck there.”
“Oh?”
Death crooked a finger at her and Wren followed him to a gray Jeep Grand Cherokee that was parked at the curb. A sign on the door advertised “D. Bogart, Private Investigation and Surety Recovery.”
He opened the rear, passenger-side door and took a blue cardboard folder from a net compartment on the back of the passenger seat. He opened it, extracted two sheets of paper and offered them to Wren. One was a large-scale, detailed, full-color photograph of a diamond and emerald pendant on a heavy gold chain. The other was—
“Mrs. Fairchild’s obituary?”
He indicated the picture at the top of the obituary. It showed a smiling elderly lady with short, curly white hair, wearing a scoop-necked sweater and an elaborate pendant on a heavy chain. “What do you think? Is that the same necklace?”
Wren studied the two pictures. “Maybe. It’s hard to tell, with the obituary picture in black-and-white. The picture quality isn’t the greatest, either. This is one of the pieces from the courier robbery?”
“Yeah. Now, I’m not an expert, but I’ve studied them through a magnifying glass and they sure look the same to me. Oh, here.” He reached back into the net pocket and offered her a large magnifying glass.
“Nice. Do you have a deerstalker hat in there too?”
“Cute.”
She grinned at him, then turned to study the two pictures again through the lens. “Well, the central stone is cut the same, and they’re both on the same kind of chain. A fold of her blouse is obscuring part of the setting, though, so it’s impossible to really compare them. And, in black and white, you can’t even tell for sure if they’re the same kind of stones. If we could find the original of this picture, it’d probably be in color. Probably be larger and sharper, too.”
“And that’s probably somewhere in the house, you think?”
“Maybe.” Wren narrowed her eyes and thought for a minute. “Or, it might be somewhere in mine.”
“Yours?”
“Yeah. See, when Declan contested the will, the court issued subpoenas for a lot of Mrs. Fairchild’s records and personal papers. After it was over, they returned them to the Historical Society and the Historical Society gave them to me. There’s stuff in there that might come in handy when authenticating the antiques and artwork and so forth.”
“Great! So, can we go look?”
Wren glanced back over her shoulder and shook her head regretfully. “Not until I get done for the day. Five maybe?”
“Really?” Death glanced around. “This is gonna last all day?”
“Well, we’ll be done here about 11:30 … 12? But then we have another auction across town this afternoon. I’ll probably take some of the grandsons and leave to start setting that up about ten.”
“Hey, that’s cool. I’m not trying to hassle you or anything. I’m just really grateful that you’re willing to help me.”
“I’m glad to do it. To be honest, I’ve been dying for my chance to search for the historic jewels anyway. Another set of missing jewels just makes it that much more exciting. And it’ll be nice to have company while we’re at it. So, why don’t you come over about six?” She pulled a business card from her pocket, turned it over and scribbled her name, address and phone number on the back. “I’ll fix some supper and we can spend the evening going through boxes. It’ll be just like a children’s mystery novel.”
“Sounds good, Nancy Drew. So, um, I should probably let you get back to work now. And thanks again.”
“No problem. See you at six, then?”
“I’ll be there with my Joe Hardy hat on.”
Wren went back to the auction, still being set up in the yard behind her, as Death got in his Jeep. Once she was safely hidden in the gathering crowd, she turned to watch him drive away. Then she returned to the task at hand, but with a spring in her step and a feeling like butterflies in her chest.
It’s not a date! she admonished herself, but she smiled the rest of the day anyway.
four
It’s not a date, Death reminded himself. He paused at the last stop sign before turning onto Wren’s street and glanced dubiously at the small bouquet in his passenger seat.
Madeline had had very definite ideas about flowers, and he wasn’t really sure if her standards were hers alone or if they were shared by women everywhere. If they were, he was screwed. Madeline had expected roses, a dozen long-stemmed preferred, though half of that was acceptable if they were arranged in a lead crystal vase with greenery and baby’s breath. The roses should be pink or red, and the florist’s name on the box or gift card was as important as the type of flower.
Death tried to imagine, just for a second, how she would have reacted to a fistful of irises, plucked from a muddy ditch and wrapped in newspaper. He also worried a little about w
hether he might be insulting Wren by giving her something Madeline would have considered so far beneath her. His current finances, though, didn’t run to long-stemmed roses, and he really wanted to give Wren flowers. His mother hadn’t raised him to take advantage of a woman’s kindness and not at least try to repay it.
He sighed, scrubbed a hand down the side of his face and made the final turn onto a narrow, treelined street in a residential neighborhood at the edge of town. He pulled into the driveway behind her truck and took a minute to study his surroundings. After all these months, he still had a tendency toward hyper-vigilance. A car backfiring could send him diving for cover. But he wasn’t suffering from PTSD. He told himself that on a daily basis.
Wren Morgan lived in a one-story white house with a deep, shadowed front porch, its roof supported on big, square pillars, with a rickety white picket fence around the front yard. A big red oak shaded the front. The largest branch sported a tire swing and a rut worn through the patchy grass showed it was well-used.
Death grabbed his flowers and swung down out of the Jeep. He entered the yard through a gap in the side fence and a three-legged hound dog pulled itself up and limped over to meet him.
Death stopped to rub her head and speak to her before he climbed the broad stone stair to the porch. A scruffy yellow tomcat lay like a sphinx on the left-hand plinth at the top of the stair rail. One ear was torn from fighting, a scratch ran across his nose between his eyes and his fur stood in odd spikes, a testament to old injuries long healed. Death paused beside him and the cat narrowed his eyes belligerently but suffered his ears to be scratched. Death laughed.
“You remind me of Chief McKee,” he said.
“Who’s Chief McKee?” Wren asked from the doorway. She wore an apron over her jeans and there was a smudge of flour across her nose.
“A retired Chief Petty Officer I met at the VA in Arlington. He was a Vietnam vet. A double-amputee—he lost both legs just above the knee. He had crippling arthritis, he was hard of hearing and blind in one eye. When I met him, he’d gone in to have his hand X-rayed. He punched out a twenty three-year-old college wrestler who insulted his granddaughter.”
Wren laughed, a musical sound, warm with affection. “Yes, that sounds like Thomas all right.”
“Thomas? Really? Not Mortimer or Methuselah or Puggsly?”
“I didn’t name him,” she defended herself. “The people down the street got him when he was a cute little kitten. When he got big and cantankerous, they pitched him out to fend for himself.”
Death grimaced. “Gotta love people like that. What about—?” he tipped his head toward the dog.
“That’s Lucy. She was like that when I found her. The vet thinks she got caught in a trap and chewed off her leg to escape.”
“I see. I think you take in strays, Miss Morgan.”
“There’s a lot to be said for strays,” she answered, and held the screen door open for him.
Death paused to wipe his feet on the mat before edging past her into a shadowy living room, already lit with the soft glow of lamps in the early evening. This wasn’t a house you’d see in any magazine. Faded throw rugs were scattered across the hardwood floor. The furniture was mismatched, slightly shabby but comfortable-looking. Barn wood shelving lined the walls, holding an apparently random collection of books and DVDs and an eclectic assortment of knickknacks.
“I, um, I brought you some flowers.” Nervously, Death offered up the bouquet.
Wren’s face lit up and her voice, when she spoke, was filled with warmth. “Irises! My favorite! They’re beautiful! Thank you!”
He shrugged nervously, ready to apologize that they were nothing fancier, but she lifted them to her face to breathe in the scent, closing her eyes and tipping her head with delight. The purple flowers and her red hair shouldn’t have gone together in the slightest, but there in the soft golden glow of the lamplight, somehow they did.
She closed the door behind him and turned to lead the way deeper into the house. “Come on into the kitchen. Dinner’s almost ready. I stopped by between auctions and put a roast in the slow cooker. There’s biscuits in the oven and I was just making a salad.” With her hands full of flowers, she tossed her head at a high shelf over the sink that held about a dozen old odd jars and bottles. “Can you reach me down that milk bottle?”
Death fetched her the bottle and she arranged the irises with a careless flair. Cooking filled the kitchen, the richness of the roast beef and the heady smell of biscuits baking. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
“Um, yeah. Can you set the roast on the table? The stoneware insert just lifts out of the slow cooker. There’s hot pads in that drawer there.”
He did as she asked, setting the hot bowl on a wrought iron trivet, as she pulled the biscuits from the oven and dumped them into a napkin-lined basket. The table was already set with a selection of mismatched, colored glass dishes. The atmosphere was warm and homey and for a moment he was transported back to his mother’s kitchen—tussling with Randy while Gram and Gramp and Nonna Rogers laughed at them. Dad cuffing them on the backs of their heads and telling them to use their big-boy manners.
Death swallowed hard around the lump in his throat and surreptitiously wiped his eyes.
Wren tossed the salad one last time and set it on the table and Death held her chair for her before he seated himself. He tucked his napkin into his lap.
“This is really nice,” he said. “You didn’t have to go to all this trouble.”
“It was no trouble.”
They were busy for a moment passing plates back and forth, serving themselves, buttering biscuits.
“You know, I haven’t had a home-cooked meal since before I went overseas.”
Wren cocked an eyebrow at him. “She didn’t cook for you?”
He followed her gaze to his own left hand. The tan burned into his skin by the hot Afghanistan sun was beginning to fade, but it was still dark enough for the white circle around his ring finger to stand out in stark relief.
“You don’t want to hear my sob story.”
“You’ve obviously heard mine.”
“Touché.” He took a minute to eat another biscuit, thinking it out.
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”
Death shook his head a bit and waved his hand dismissively. “It’s okay. It’s just not a very interesting story. Not nearly as entertaining as finding out your fiancé’s gay.”
Wren frowned at him. “I’m glad everyone thinks that’s entertaining. Personally, I found it more humiliating than anything.”
He had the grace to look abashed. “I’m sorry,” he said gently, reaching across the table to touch her hand. “You’re right, and I shouldn’t make fun of you. God knows, I’ve seen my share of humiliation, too.” He pulled his hands back, scrubbed his palms against his jeans. “Madeline and I were married right out of high school. I guess she was expecting life to be all rainbows and sunshine. Heck, maybe we both were. It didn’t work out that way. And, to be fair, it’s never easy, being a Marine spouse. She left me while I was in Afghanistan. Cleaned out our bank account and was gone.”
“I’m sorry. That sucks.”
“Yeah, and that wasn’t the half of it. After I was discharged, she came back broke and pregnant and wanted me to take care of her.”
“What’d you do?”
“I took care of her, until her baby was born. But I didn’t take her back.” Death pulled together the tattered fragments of his dignity and looked Wren in the eye. “I was a Marine. The motto’s ‘Semper Fi’, not ‘Semper Doormat’.”
“Good for you!”
Death gave her a small but genuine smile. “You asked if I had issues, those would be my issues.”
“Everyone has issues,” Wren said. “That doesn’t mean … I don’t know.” She tapered off, not sure if she dared say what she was thinking, but Death gave her a wistful smile and she suspected he knew what she’d left unsaid.
The
y topped off dinner with apple pie and ice cream, then Death helped her put away leftovers and stack their dishes in the sink. When they were ready to start going through Mrs. Fairchild’s papers, Wren took an old soda bottle from the windowsill, half filled it with water and put a single iris into it to take with them into the living room.
She set the iris in the middle of the coffee table and nodded toward a closed door to one side. “There are five and a half file boxes full of papers,” she said. “I’ve got them stacked in the corner of the bedroom.”
Death gave her a wicked grin. “Are you trying to lure me into your bedroom?”
Wren blushed and scowled at him. “Do you want to see the files?”
“Of course. And your bedroom.” He pushed the door open and went in, looking around curiously. Like the rest of the house, the bedroom was furnished with scarred, mismatched furniture. A sturdy wooden four-poster bed held a handmade quilt in primary colors. A huge, oval mirror topped a massive dresser and Death counted five lamps, each with a fancy shade and some sort of floral motif. The overall effect was one of character and comfort.
The file boxes were stacked in a corner off to his left. Beside them, there was a pile of plastic grocery sacks filled with old clothes. Death noticed a familiar-looking scrap of cloth and, in spite of himself, reached into one of the bags to pull out a ratty pair of men’s underwear.
Wren laughed. “Scary what people will sell in a yard sale, isn’t it?”
“Not as scary as the fact that you bought it.”
“I didn’t buy it!”
“You stole it?”
She snatched the garment from him and smacked him with it before cramming it back into the bag. “Okay, so I guess I did buy it, but not specifically.” She caught the question in his eyes and explained. “On Saturdays, sometimes, I go around the yard sales when they’re closing. People don’t like to take things back in the house and put them away again, so a lot of times they’ll let you have whatever’s left for next to nothing. I wash them and mend them and then give them to the thrift shops.”
“That’s very public spirited of you.”