Corpse in the Carnations

by Dale Mayer

  “Your house,” Nan said comfortably. “I do love those antiques,” she said. “But, after a while, they wear on you.”

  “Sorry?” Doreen asked in confusion. Sometimes she wondered if Nan deliberately changed conversations on her to confuse her. “Regardless. I understand that you’ve had them for a long time.” She spoke cautiously. “So I wondered if you would have a problem if I got rid of a few of them.”

  “Don’t worry about those pieces. I figured you’d want to redecorate,” Nan said. “An old woman’s old house full of old furnishings is hardly appropriate for a young vibrant woman, like you.”

  “But they are worth a lot of money,” Doreen argued. She didn’t want there to be any misunderstandings. “And that is your money. Those are your antiques, and I don’t want to take that money away from you.”

  Nan looked at her. “They won’t be worth that much money.” She settled back comfortably.

  “They are worth a lot of money,” Doreen corrected. “Why didn’t you sell them?”

  “Oh, because they brought me good memories. And, when you get to be my age, and you don’t need the money, memories that make you smile are worth everything.”

  Doreen could see that, but, for her, it was an astronomical amount of money. She still worried that Nan didn’t realize just how much money was involved. “Did Fen ever tell you how much all that stuff was worth?”

  “Well, I paid a pretty penny for some of it,” Nan admitted. “And it’s probably aged nicely with time.”

  “He wanted me to ask you if you have some kind of written history—receipts—on the pieces. He said it would increase their value.”

  Nan tapped her fingers on the bistro table. “I had a large folder with all that stuff. Or maybe several folders.” She pursed her lips. “I can’t remember where that went. Give me time to think about it, and I might remember.”

  “And …” Doreen said. “I’m still really worried that, if I sell some of those pieces, you’ll be upset afterward.”

  Nan looked at her in surprise and chuckled. “I get that you’re really worried about me, sweetie, and I appreciate that. There’s nothing more valuable in my old age than to know you care about what happens to me.”

  “But, Nan, some of those pieces are worth big money,” she said.

  Nan leaned forward and asked, “How much?”

  “Ten, twenty, thirty, forty thousand dollars,” Doreen whispered in a very low voice. “It could add up to a ton of money.”

  Nan looked at her for a long moment and then said, “So, if you put all that money in the bank, you could earn interest off it—enough so you could live off it, couldn’t you?”

  Doreen stared at Nan, tears slowly filling her eyes.

  Nan reached over, covered her hand, and said, “We have a shared goal, my dear. And that’s to make sure you’re well taken care of. If those old pieces of mine can bring you a pretty penny, then you do your utmost to get the most for them that you can. Do you hear me?” She waved her teaspoon. “Don’t you let anybody steal that stuff from you.”

  “Fen Gunderson went over the pieces in the living room this morning,” Doreen said. “He’s supposed to get me in contact with an appraiser.”

  Nan chuckled. “Wait until he sees the basement then.”

  Doreen’s heart almost stopped. She leaned forward and whispered hoarsely, “Are you saying more antiques are down there?”

  Nan looked at her and then laughed. “Oh my, you haven’t been down there yet, have you?”

  Doreen stared at her. “Honestly, I didn’t remember there was a basement.”

  “Yeah, the door is behind all the furniture in the living room,” she said. “That’s why you haven’t found it.” She chuckled. “You know something? You might get enough money out of that old house of mine to set up a nice little trust fund, and you won’t need a full-time day job. You could do what you want to do. Set yourself up a little garden design business. Or sit in the backyard and have a cup of tea and do nothing.”

  “I’d rather be an amateur sleuth,” Doreen said with a wicked grin at her grandmother.

  At that, Nan went off again in laughter. When she finally calmed down, she leaned forward. “What body did you find this time?”

  Knowing she had to give her something after the conversation they’d just had, Doreen said, “You can’t tell anybody and no betting pools. Promise?”

  Nan frowned, warring with that. Finally she nodded. “But only because you insist. I promise.”

  Doreen told her about the woman she had found in front of the Family Planning Center. “Her name, according to Mack, is Celeste Bingham. I met her earlier that day too, making finding her that much worse.”

  Nan gasped, her hand going to her chest. “Seriously?”

  Doreen nodded. “I was looking at beds of carnations, thinking about the city asking for bids, and found three in town to look at. That center was the last one I went to.” She frowned and thought about it. “I think I was supposed to submit that last night.” She reached up and rubbed her lip. “Darn. I missed the deadline.” She looked at Nan. “I was on the fence about whether to submit a bid. I don’t do this on purpose, you know?”

  Nan smiled this time, and compassion was in her voice. “I’m sorry, sweetie. Finding her would have really hurt, especially if you’d just seen her earlier. Not to mention throwing you off the rest of your day.”

  Doreen nodded absentmindedly.

  Nan leaned forward. “Where exactly did you meet her?”

  And she realized that she hadn’t told Nan about seeing Celeste at the garden center. “I never really met her,” she quickly backtracked. “Sorry I didn’t realize what you were asking.” She glanced at her watch. “I’ve got to go back now.”

  Nan hopped up. “Just a minute.” She walked into the kitchen and came back out with another half sandwich and piece of carrot cake. “I had saved this last night for my dinner, but I was more tired than hungry,” she said. “You have it for your dinner tonight. I’ll feel bad if it goes to waste.”

  And how sad that just the sight of that sandwich set her stomach growling. She smiled at Nan, bent to kiss her cheek gently. “You take care tonight.”

  “You take care every night,” Nan said. “Get an appraiser in, and then we’ll talk. I might know a few tricks to get the best price.” Grateful for that much, Doreen smiled and gave a finger wave. Nan gave Mugs a big cuddle and then Goliath, who was sprawled out on the floor. Thaddeus had been suspiciously quiet the whole time. Nan walked over. “What’s the matter with Thaddeus?”

  “I’m not sure,” Doreen said. “He found something by the creek,” she said. “In fact, all of them were curious about this thing in the backyard. So I dug it out of the lawn because he wouldn’t leave it alone. It was a license plate. And ever since then, he’s been like this. Just really tired, not eating. Although he was eating earlier but not a ton.” She studied him. “He’s looking better now though.”

  “He gets like this when he’s depressed,” Nan said. “A license plate?” She frowned, shaking her head. “That creek picks up and drags down the most incredible things.”

  “I was thinking the same thing,” she said. “I gave it to Mack when he stopped by.”

  “When was this?”

  “Yesterday. Time to go.” She scooped up Thaddeus. She stopped at the edge of the patio and peered around the corner to see if the gardener was near, then, calling Goliath to her—who wandered at a slowed pace, enough to drive anybody crazy—she raced across the grass until she was safely on the other side with Mugs.

  Goliath, on the other hand, took a few steps and lay down in the middle of the grass.

  Dennis came running toward Goliath.

  Nan looked over and said, “Go on, Goliath. Go on.”

  But Goliath lay in the grass, watching the gardener come toward him, his tail twitching ever-so-slightly, like he was either pissed or waiting for somebody to attack.

  “Goliath! Goliath!” Doreen said, crou
ching on the ground.

  Even Mugs started to bark.

  Dennis raised his shovel like a baseball bat, as if to swing at the cat, but Nan’s voice rang out, “If you touch one hair on that animal,” she roared, “I will make sure you never have a job in this town again.”

  He froze then turned and glared at her. “No walking on the grass.”

  “It’s a cat,” Nan said, her hands on her hips—the first full outrage Doreen had ever seen from her grandmother.

  Of course that side of her grandmother would appear when defending an animal or a child. That was Nan through and through.

  Dennis backed off.

  Goliath stared at him disdainfully. When the gardener was far enough away, Goliath got up and sauntered away ever-so-slowly, as if to say, Ha, ha, ha, as he crossed the grass to join Doreen and Mugs. When Goliath neared the basset hound, the cat smacked Mugs across the face, then ran as fast as he could, heading home.

  Nan laughed. “Oh, my goodness,” she said. “You and Mugs have enlivened things so very much,” she called out with a wave. “Thank you for coming for a visit.”

  Doreen nodded, shot the gardener a fulminating look, turned her back on him, and stalked away. In her own way she was just as infuriatingly arrogant as the cat. At least she hoped so. But, to be honest, Goliath pulled it off ten times better than she did.

  They walked beside the creek back home. Doreen carried the sandwich and carrot cake. She was mindful of all the things that could happen between now and getting those antique pieces sold. At the moment she wanted every expensive piece in the house gone. And that was pretty ridiculous, considering that she used to live in a houseful of incredibly expensive furniture too. At the time though, she hadn’t realized, A, how much it was worth, and, B, how that money could have been better spent on other things.

  But to know that kind of money was in Nan’s house now terrified Doreen. What if the furniture went missing or was seriously damaged, like by a flood or rainwater coming through the roof?

  As soon as she got home, she took pictures of everything, documenting the contents. She hadn’t even insured the home and its contents. Maybe Nan already took care of that. That was something she needed to check on right now. Hopefully a policy was already in place. Otherwise … how was Doreen supposed to pay for it?

  She took photos all throughout the place, covering all the different antique pieces she’d heard about this morning.

  Out of the eleven pieces in the living room, seven were extremely valuable, two more so. And she was totally okay to have the light-pine hutch be her only piece of furniture. Particularly if everything else would add up to an amount of money that would give her a monthly stipend.

  She couldn’t think of a better dream for herself right now. The payout didn’t have to be very much, just enough to cover her monthly bills and so she had money to buy food with. If so, she would be ecstatic.

  Finally she finished the picture-taking downstairs and then thought she’d photograph the upstairs too. She walked into the spare room, took pictures of the bed and the dresser. Then she headed over to the master bedroom.

  She’d been sleeping in a massive four-poster bed without a thought. It was the same ornate pattern the couch was. Frowning, she took several photos of it and then of the small matching night tables. It had a makeup mirror and a low counter with drawers up and down both sides. It was kind of cute but not her style.

  With those pictures taken, she couldn’t forget Nan’s comment about the basement. But, if she couldn’t get into the basement, nobody else could either.

  In the kitchen she took more photos but didn’t think anything here could possibly be of value. But the dining room was a different story with its large table and eight big matching chairs. It was a nice set, and she highly suspected it was worth a lot of money. Also the matching double hutches.

  With all those pictures on her phone, she transferred them to her laptop. As she did so, she thought about Fen Gunderson and, using Google, searched his name. According to the articles she scanned, he was well known in the antiques world, so apparently had a lot of connections. He’d been busy with his antiques store until a terrible tragedy had stuck his family.

  As she read farther, her heart started to pound. “Maybe this is the cold case that Mack won’t tell me about.” One of Fen’s grandkids had gone missing, decades ago. The little boy was coming home from school but never made it.

  She sat back and wondered. Then decided there was only one way to find out. She picked up the phone and called Mack. When his growling voice answered, she asked, “Does the cold case you’re talking about concern Fen Gunderson’s grandson?” A shock of surprise could be heard on the other end.

  “Who told you about that?”

  “He was here today,” she said. “I asked him about some of the furniture in Nan’s house.”

  “About time you got rid of some of that junk,” he said cheerfully. “It’s really overwhelmingly stuffed in there.”

  “Yeah, and now I’m wondering about hiring a security guard,” she said. “Apparently some of these pieces are worth money. Like serious money.”

  “Really?” His voice rose at the end. “Oh, shit. Nobody had better find out. You don’t even have a decent lock on the door.”

  “I know,” she said. “Fen’s supposed to call me this afternoon—actually he was supposed to phone earlier,” she said. “But I went to Nan’s to talk to her about selling the antiques.”

  “Of course you did,” he said affectionately. “And I’m sure she was more than happy for you to do that.”

  “How did you know she wouldn’t want the money herself?”

  “I didn’t know about that particularly,” he said. “But, if she gave you the house, and she included the contents of the house, plus she left you to care for Thaddeus and Goliath, I presumed she was more than happy to see you get some money out of the furniture.”

  “Besides the furniture is pretty ugly,” Doreen said.

  “Glad you said that,” he said. “Antiques are definitely not my style.”

  “Anyway, Fen Gunderson is supposed to put me in touch with an appraiser and potentially an auction house that could handle the sales.”

  “Wow,” he said. “That’s terrific!”

  “I know,” she said. “I admit I’m feeling pretty anxious about the whole thing.”

  “I can see why. If you’re afraid of somebody breaking in, you can always prop a chair under the front and back doors.”

  “She said something else that kind of blew me away.”

  “What?”

  She said, “A lot more antiques are in the basement.”

  After another moment of silence he laughed. “That is one sly Nan,” he said. “You better get that appraiser in there fast.”

  “Not only an appraiser,” she said, “but I have to find a way to move this furniture out of here to an auction house, if that’s what I end up doing.”

  “True enough,” he said. “True enough.”

  “So you didn’t answer my question,” she said. “Is the cold case you mentioned about Fen Gunderson’s grandson?”

  “Maybe.”

  “No maybe about it. Why won’t you tell me?”

  “You’ll probably dredge it out of the archives anyway,” he said. “So, yes, Fen Gunderson’s grandson disappeared on the way home from school. He was the third young boy to go missing within a period of eight months, but he didn’t fit the same profile as the other two. They were part of the foster care system, and both were quite a bit older.”

  “And nobody ever saw him again?”

  “He was supposedly seen getting into the truck of a local handyman, Henry Huberts.”

  She remembered another case with a murdered handyman and groaned. “And nobody tracked him down? Nobody could find him?”

  “We did get the license plate number, but we never found either of them again.” Only with this bit, his voice deepened and a long silence stretched out between them … but
with a sense of expectation on his part.

  Her heart sank as her mind connected the pieces. “Uh-oh.”

  “Yep,” he said. “Uh-oh is right. So you know I have another question for you.”

  “You mean, I have one for you,” she said. “It’s the same license plate I just pulled out of the creek, isn’t it?”

  “It is,” he said. “Now you answer my question. What the hell do you know about this case?”

  Chapter 12

  Friday mid-afternoon…

  After giving Mack some answers, not really having anything much to offer, she hung up the phone. She’d finally convinced him that she knew absolutely nothing about the case, but she would look into it.

  “Don’t bother,” he’d warned her. “Enough is going on in your life. You focus on those antiques.”

  “I’d love to,” she said, “but it’ll hardly be a fast answer.”

  “Maybe it is,” he’d said. “If Fen Gunderson didn’t contact you yet, and he said he would, then you should contact him.”

  “I’ll have to check,” she said. “He might have left me a message.”

  “Find out,” he said. “And by the way my work schedule has been changed. I have Sunday and Monday off next week. We’re short staffed this week so I offered to work tomorrow. So I can’t help you on Saturday.”

  “Okay. When do you want me to work at your mom’s house?” She couldn’t understand where the week had gone.

  “If Sunday works for you,” he said, “then I can pay you on Monday when I come over for your first cooking lesson.”

  “Oh, that sounds even better,” she said brightly. “I’ll be sure to stop by Sunday.”

  He hung up the phone.

  Sitting in place for a long moment, she then couldn’t resist. She grabbed her laptop to research the case of Fen Gunderson’s missing grandson. The information was sparse, though many of the newspapers tried to blow it up, making a tiny bit of information into something more newsworthy.

  She went through as many articles as she could find, wondering if she should try the library archives again. It was about the only way to go back that far to see if anything helpful could be found in the old articles. Mack wouldn’t give her a copy of the case file, and that was too damn bad. She didn’t want to ask Fen, hurting the old man by bringing up bad memories. It may have been a long time ago, but some pain just never went away.