by Emyl Jenkins
"Aha." I couldn't help but smile to myself.
"The clincher, though, came when Ed was talking to Jane Finn," Peter continued. "She never did admit knowing Sloggins, but as they got deeper into the conversation she not only seemed to get nervous and uncomfortable, she began fiddling, messing, with a bracelet. Once she realized what she was doing, Ed said, she immediately tucked it under her sleeve. Pavich is sharp. Notices every little thing."
"Aha," I said again, even more emphatically this time.
"Could it possibly have been a ruby and diamond bracelet?" I asked. The description of the Cartier bracelet on the Hanesworths' inventory of stolen goods came to me.
"I asked Ed what kind of bracelet it was. He's unsure. Jane Finn was across the room. But he did say that it looked like diamonds. Maybe set in platinum."
"Platinum. White gold. Rubies. Diamonds. Whatever, any of the above is suspicious for someone living on sitters' fees, though I imagine sometimes she makes more than I do."
"That's what I thought. About owning things like Pavich described ... Not that she makes more money than you do," Peter clarified himself.
I let the comment pass. "So what did Pavich do next?"
"Well, he told me that his first thought was to be in touch with you."
"Me?"
"Ed said he wants to talk to you about the fine antiques he saw in Jane Finn's house."
"But there are other appraisers in town."
Peter lowered his eyes.
"Peter ... You didn't."
"Not exactly. It just happened." Peter looked sheepish. "Just shush for a minute and I'll tell you what happened. It's all very logical."
He took a deep breath. "When Ed Pavich got hack to the station from Jane Finn's house and started thinking things through, he remembered my call telling him about the pin."
Peter held out one hand and said, "Bracelet." Then, extending his other hand, he said, "Pin. Naturally Ed connected the two. That's when he called me back. During our conversation I told him what you'd told me ... about how the pin had shown up on a list of items missing from the Charlottesville area ... and, well ... here we are." Peter grinned at me.
I frowned. "Why didn't you tell me all this when we talked on the phone?"
Peter looked at me as if I had been out to lunch. "I couldn't have. I didn't know it. You and I talked late Friday, remember?"
How could I have forgotten?
"Ed only called me yesterday," Peter said.
"Oh" I realized I was unconsciously counting the days off on my fingers. "Friday, Saturday, Sunday. So much has happened ... so much out of the ordinary ... in such a short time ... just lost track of time." Plus I haven't had a decent night's sleep since Wednesday, I wanted to say.
"Even if I had known all this, I wouldn't have told you. Why distract you from your fun in New York?" Peter smiled.
"And after hearing about all the other problems with, what's his name-Sol?-I'm glad I didn't have the option of telling you what was going on down here. You do need to call Ed first thing in the morning, though," he said. "I told him it would he Tuesday, but I'm sure he'll be happy to hear from you on Monday."
I rose and began gathering up our empty teacups to have something to do. I've never found it easy to sit still for long, and when I'm worried sitting still is totally out of the question.
"Well," I said, "I still don't see the tie-in. Sarah Rose Wilkins didn't live in a house, so the roofing scam can't apply to her. She was very healthy up until the end. She didn't have sitters, so that eliminates Jane Finn. I'm in a fog."
Peter rose and took the teacups from my hands.
"Tell you what, Sterling. Let's don't worry about how Sarah Rose ties into all of this for now. We can think about it, but ultimately that's for Ed and the police to figure out. I say it's time for that glass of wine and I'll take you out to dinner. How's that?"
It was music to my ears.
"On one condition," he added, tossing his comment over his shoulder on his way back to my kitchen. "We can talk about something besides the urn and the pin and the bracelet."
"I'll try," I said halfheartedly, for once thinking less about Peter than the problem at hand.
"How about Art Deco figurines?" I called after him.
Chapter 18
Dear Antiques Expert: I was appalled to read where a portion of an antique iron fence around a cemetery plot and two carved sculptures from the graves were recently stolen. Why would anyone do such a thing?
Money. Decorative antiques suitable for a garden or solarium are bringing top dollar these days. Such items found in cemeteries, especially small, unattended cemeteries, as many old ones tend to be, can be easily stolen and sold before they are missed. To illustrate how highly desirable 18th- and 19th-century garden accessories have become, a specialty shop recently featured an iron garden bench for $7,500 and a pair of iron planters for $15,000. Exceptional garden statues are often sold in the $20,000-25,000 range.
EARLY MONDAY MORNING my phone rang. Howard Creighton was the last person I was expecting to hear from, but there he was on the other end of the line.
"Sterling, Martha wants to talk to you," he said.
My heart almost broke when I heard him say to his wife, "Go ahead, dear."
"Hello. We want you to come see ... " Mrs. Creighton's thin voice trailed off. "What is it we want?" she asked her husband, but spoke into the phone's mouthpiece.
Before he could answer, she said to me, clear as a bell, "And bring back that casserole dish I sent to Sarah Rose Wilkins's house."
The phone went dead.
While looking up the Creighton's phone number, my own phone rang again.
"Sterling. This is Howard Creighton. I'm sorry," he said. "I tried." His voice broke.
"I understand."
"Do you think you could come over this morning?"
I had a million other things planned. Peter had told me to call Lieutenant Pavich. I had planned to call Roy. I needed to call Sol. I wanted to call Matt Yardley. I needed to figure out what was going on.
"I'll be there as soon as I can," I said.
JUST LIKE CRAIG EMERSON, whom the roofing guys had scammed, and the Hanesworths, whom I had never met but who were very much on my mind after my meeting with Matt Yardley, Mr. and Mrs. Creighton still lived in their own home. It was a wonderful, untouched 1870s brick row house in Stuart's Ridge, the nineteenth-century neighborhood overlooking the river and the railroad tracks in the oldest section of Leemont. The Creightons had moved there in the 1950s when Howard Creighton's mother became ill. Some of Leemont's oldest and finest families were still living in Stuart's Ridge back then, but all that was beginning to change. One by one, as the last member of those families died, their houses became vacant. The pattern was always the same. Some younger branch of the family was going to move in but didn't. Invariably those younger folks chose to live in an expensive house in Arbor Hills or to buy farther out in one of the newer suburbs or to leave Leemont altogether.
Soon a house would need painting and the slate roof relining. Then a wisteria hush, bamboo tree, or Virginia creeper grew out of control and began to cover the front porch and start its climb up to the second-story windows. Eventually, the heirs would put the abandoned and dilapidated property up for sale. When no one would buy it for a single dwelling (the house next door in the same condition, as the one across the street), some absentee landlord stepped in, paid the back taxes, bought the house for a song, and turned the once-stately residence into a multifamily, low-rent property.
If they were shrewd, the new owners applied for one of those housing assistance deals where they would be paid four or five hundred dollars by the state to rent the property for seventy or eighty dollars to some down-and-out or down-on-theirluck family. Talk about an easy way to double-dip while lining your pockets at the expense of the poor and taxpayers. My blood boiled every time I thought about it.
The Creightons had been one of the few families who had bucked the trend, who ha
d actually stayed while everyone else was moving out. But then Howard Creighton's grandfather had built the house and I guessed that Howard and Martha had always done exactly what was expected of them, even as young newlyweds.
When the quickly deteriorating Stuart's Ridge neighborhood reached the point of being unsafe, people gossiped about how foolish the Creightons were to maintain property that no one else would have, even if it were handed to them on a gold platter. Never would anyone have imagined that the Creightons would have the last laugh. For as things always went, the Ridge, as it was now called, had once again become the place to live in Leemont-right up there with Arbor Hills-and the grown children and grandchildren of those people who had hot-tailed it to the suburbs were now paying four hundred thousand, six hundred thousand, and more to reclaim the heritage their parents had thrown away for a song.
Turning off River Road, I drove up the hill to the Ridge. The street was dotted with landscaping, plumbing, and electrician trucks parked in front of the proud old houses. Iron posts holding up signs advertising painting companies cluttered the narrow front yards of probably two or three houses per block.
For a fleeting moment it was as if I had stepped back to the plantation days of the Old South. Oh, twenty-first-century workers chatted on cell phones and used the latest chemicals and technology to get rid of the termites and installed the latest high-speed Internet wiring for the Ridge's newly renovated residences, but these workers were just as necessary to the region's economy as were the slaves who kept up the grand houses of that long-ago time. It was the rich landowners or, these days property owners, who kept Leemont's economy buzzing along.
As Howard Creighton had asked me to do, I pulled into the alleyway behind the Creightons' home and parked in their guest spot. The gate to their walled garden was open. I thought about going to the hack door to steal a close-up look at the charming nineteenth-century marble water nymph frolicking among the manicured English ivy, but I decided against it.
Instead, I walked down the brick footpath bordered by yellow and purple pansies to the front doorway and about the largest magnolia tree I'd ever seen. I had to duck beneath its limbs to step onto the Creightons' front porch. The boughs, brightly gleaming in the morning sun, hung heavy with dark brown cones dripping with the few deep red seeds the cardinals and blue jays had yet to eat. In almost no time, fragrant white blossoms would grace its waxy green foliage, but right now, as a stiff, late January wind blew past me, May seemed light-years away.
Howard Creighton answered my ring. Peeping around from behind him was Martha, as always neatly groomed, today in a wool coatdress, her hair held in place by a pale gray hairnet like my grandmother used to wear. She pulled at Howard's sleeve.
"Did she bring hack my silver casserole dish, Howard? I don't know how I can fix Christmas dinner without it. I never should have let that woman take it to Sarah Rose. And then Sarah Rose had to die. Oh, I'll never get it back. And with all the Christmas shopping to do. What shall I do? What shall I do?" Martha Creighton hung her head in despair. "What shall I do?" she said again.
Howard stood silently by, letting Martha have her say, never taking his ever patient eyes off her. Only when her quivering voice trailed off to a low hum did he turn to welcome me. Hidden from her sight, his look was one of pleading-not for pity but for compassion.
"I know this is an inconvenience, Sterling, but I thought maybe it would help Martha if you came to make an appraisal. I knew you'd understand."
He needed to say no more. The Creightons and my mother had been friends through the museum and other cultural organizations years earlier.
"That's all Martha's talked about for days now. The appraisal. But since this morning she seems to have forgotten about that. Now all she can talk about is her silver dish." Howard Creighton shook his head in despair.
"Martha," he said kindly, turning hack toward her, "why don't you go to the library? It's almost time for your show to start. You know, I Love Lucy. I'll be there in just a minute. You get settled." Taking her elbow, he gently pointed her in the right direction.
Martha turned and made her way down the hall.
"I'll be happy to do whatever you want done, Mr. Creighton," I said. "Leave. Stay. You tell me."
"I don't know, myself," he said, barely holding hack his own emotion and frustration. "Well ... you're here. Why don't you just wander around?" He shook his head in bewilderment. "Do whatever you usually do. The money's not a problem. Maybe Martha will leave you alone. The children say we need to have an appraisal made anyway. Just ... just do ... whatever. I'll be in the library with Martha."
"Yes sir. I understand. I know what to do. But may I ask you something?"
"Of course."
"This silver casserole dish that Mrs. Creighton keeps talking about?"
"Oh, it's nothing. Just one of those silver-plated things that looks nice on the table. Martha used to he so meticulous about appearances. I try to keep things nice these days."
"And you do!" I said, acknowledging the immaculate house with a sweeping gesture. "But tell me, when did Mrs. Creighton send the casserole to Mrs. Wilkins's house? Mrs. Creighton said something about a woman. You didn't take it?"
"No. We sent it. It was ... Now let me think. Sarah Rose went to the hospital. No, Sarah Rose was taken ill, that was it. Then she went to the hospital, but she was doing well. Wilma Baker called us. Wilma and Sarah Rose and Martha and I used to play bridge together after Sarah Rose's husband died, you know. Wilma said Sarah Rose was coming home that next day or was it the day after? We were so glad. It was my idea that we send something over to the house. Now just how was that?"
He paused, furrowed his brow, then blurted out, "Oh yes! I know. Mrs. Finn, that nice lady who sometimes sits with Martha was here. I had a Rotary meeting at lunch that day. That's why she was here. Afterward, I picked up a casserole from Phil's Deli-their good Turkey Tetrazzini." Howard Creighton smiled contentedly, clearly pleased with himself that he could recall so many details in light of his wife's dementia. I let him talk.
"I remember, because I got some for our supper, too. I was going to let Mrs. Finn take the casserole to Sarah Rose on her way home. But when Martha saw the Styrofoam box, she insisted that we take it out and put it in the casserole dish. I should have had Phil's deliver it," he said ever so remorsefully. "That was my mistake."
My ears had perked up much earlier, but I waited for him to finish his say. I had learned from my experience with Mother not to rush the elderly.
"Mrs. Finn? Is that Jane Finn?"
"Oh yes." He brightened. "That's her name ... Jane. Jane Finn. You know her? A nice lady. Old, but not as old as we are. Maybe late sixties. She gets around real well. I told her that she should sit with Sarah Rose Wilkins when she came home from the hospital. I told her Sarah Rose would need someone in the house. Yes, Jane Finn is a real capable woman. A quiet sort, but capable. She and Martha made the casserole look real pretty in the silver dish. It kept Martha busy for a long time." He smiled sweetly. "It was late in the day so I gave her the key we keep to Sarah Rose's apartment."
"The key? To Mrs. Wilkins's apartment?"
"Why, we've had a key to Sarah Rose's apartment ever since nice Bob Wilkins died," Howard Creighton said as naturally as if he were saying it's getting close to lunchtime. "First to their house. They lived right around the corner when Bob was living. And then, when he died and Sarah Rose moved, she gave us the key to her apartment."
"Did Mrs. Finn bring the key back?"
"Of course. The next time she sat with Martha. A week or two later, I'd say. Hung it on the key holder by the back door. It was after Sarah Rose died. I know that because two days after we sent the food, Sarah Rose died. I had told Jane Finn to put it in the cold part of the refrigerator. Oh, that poor dear, her death was so sudden. And she had just gotten home. Sarah Rose went home from the hospital too early, you know. We hadn't thought she was going home until the next week. So sad the way she died. Those doctors should have
kept her in the hospital. Made her stay. Just because they couldn't find anything wrong with her." He shook his head in disgust. "Those doctors.
"Then again, Sarah Rose was a strong-willed woman," he said sprightly. "I heard that she insisted on going home. Sounds like something she'd do. Yes, Mrs. Finn brought the key back, but there was no rush. But," Howard Creighton heaved a heavy, regretful sigh, "in all the sudden sadness, I completely forgot about the silver dish ... Martha calls it a silver casserole dish." He smiled tenderly, as if remembering an earlier time in his life.
"When we heard that Sarah Rose had died, we were still glad we had sent the food because Sarah Rose's niece came to take care of things. I hope she enjoyed it. I wanted to get over to see her, but Martha didn't do well when I told her the news of Sarah Rose's death. Sometimes it's better for other people not to see Martha when she's not herself."
"I'm sure her niece understood," I said to comfort him.
"I don't think I'd ever have remembered the silver dish if Martha hadn't gotten it on her mind of late." Howard Creighton nodded his head up and down, over and over, then swayed, bracing himself against the chair he'd been leaning against. "That's the way it is, you know. They get one thing on their minds and can't let it go."
"Come, Mr. Creighton, you've been standing for a long time," I said. I had been so eager to gather all the details and information I could that I hadn't realized how taxing this was on him. Poor man, he probably hadn't had that long a conversation with anyone in ... who knew how long.
"Yes," he agreed. "I need to check on Martha, too. Well, you do what you need to do, Sterling."
"I'm just going to make a quick swing through the house and see what's what," I said with false cheerfulness. "I'll find you if I need you."