by Sara Rosett
Poppy shook her hair back from her face and said in a firm voice, “At any rate, I would not put something like this,” she gestured to the painting, “past her. I couldn’t prove she took those things from the house, but we haven’t had any problems since she left.”
“But why would she impersonate you, if the painting isn’t that valuable?” Donnelly asked as Flint came down the stairs and rejoined us.
“I don’t know. Knowing Justine, she probably bought into one of Father’s crazy theories about the Foley Cache.”
“Euros, you mean?” Donnelly asked.
“No. Cache with a ‘ch’—you know, treasure.” She rolled her eyes as she said the last word.
“Oh.” Donnelly went to make a note then pulled his pencil back. “Could you clarify?” Donnelly asked doubtfully.
Poppy tossed her head and scooted to the edge of the seat. “It is nothing important. There’s an old family story, or legend I guess, that my grandfather entertained us with when we were kids. Supposedly, one of our ancestors went on a Grand Tour and returned with the Foley Cache, but instead of spending it or displaying it, it was hidden. It’s been lost ever since.”
“A treasure?” Zoe asked.
“Yes, it’s absurd, I know, but when you’re eight…you tend to believe that it’s possible that a chest of gold doubloons is hidden in the attic. Or you want to believe the stories, no matter how ridiculous. Some people, like Justine and my brother, Robert,” she rolled her eyes, “refuse to understand that it’s just a story, a fairy tale.”
“But why steal a painting? It has nothing to do with a treasure…does it?” Zoe asked. She’d looked at the painting through the magnifying glass and hadn’t seen anything special, but perhaps it was like those hidden pictures within a picture. You didn’t see it unless you knew exactly what you were looking for.
“No, of course it doesn’t have anything to do with a treasure.” Poppy closed her eyes for a moment and shook her head. “At the end, my father had a lot of time on his hands. He couldn’t get around very well, and he took to reading about our family history. He went on and on about the painting. I didn’t pay much attention. ‘The painting is key.’ He kept repeating it, but at that point, he wasn’t all there, mentally, so of course, I discounted it. He was rather fixated on it, so I’m sure Justine heard him. She must have believed him. For some reason she thought this painting was valuable.” She pronounced the last word sarcastically and stood abruptly. “I’m sorry to have taken so much of your time, Officer Donnelly.” She turned to Zoe. “And I’m sorry I accused you of being a thief. This is a family matter, and I hope we can put it all behind us.” She waved her hand toward the door, indicating it was time for Zoe to make her exit.
“But it’s not quite all in the family,” Zoe said. “This Justine person did involve Harrington, and we haven’t sorted that out yet.”
“Oh, I don’t think there’s much to sort out. Justine saw an opportunity to make a ‘quick buck,’ as you say in the States. She came here in order to retrieve the painting—she’s visited with me over a holiday once.”
“So you think she broke the window?” We all startled a little and turned toward Flint, who hadn’t spoken the whole time.
“Yes, obviously,” Poppy said.
“But if she worked at your family’s estate,” Zoe said, “would it be possible that she could get the key to this house and make a copy? She had a key when I met with her.”
“How many keys are there to Staircase House, Ms. Foley?” Donnelly asked.
“Several.” Poppy flashed Zoe a look of dislike. “But what you describe wouldn’t be possible. I’m sure you don’t understand how houses like these are managed. The housekeeper at Frampton is in charge of the keys for that house. She doesn’t have the keys to Staircase House.”
“But you have a copy, right? Probably on your key chain.” Poppy’s frown deepened, and Zoe knew her words had hit home. “So why couldn’t Justine have slipped the key off your key ring, have a copy made, then returned the key without you knowing during one of your visits to see your father? Or, couldn’t she have done that with someone else who might have a key, like your mother? Or,” Zoe’s voice became excited as another thought struck her, “even your father. Surely he had a key to Staircase House. As Justine nursed him, she would have been in and out of his rooms constantly and probably alone there at times, too. What would stop her from taking his keys and making a copy, if she thought there was something valuable here?”
“No, that’s impossible,” Poppy said, but her tone was less forceful than it had been earlier.
“It fits with the repaired window upstairs.” Zoe said. “Someone must have broken in before she arrived—that’s why she called Harrington. The painting was already gone when she got here.”
Poppy watched Zoe for a moment with a sulky expression, then said, “Fine. Maybe that’s what happened. I don’t know. Justine is exactly the manipulative type of person who would contact Harrington, pretending to be me, and recruit him to find the painting. She did meet him once when she came home with me during half-term. He was visiting my parents at the time. I’m sure she would have invented some excuse not to meet him face-to-face if he’d come in person. She would have suddenly become sick or something and sent him everything he needed by messenger or online. Anyway, it was a stroke of good luck for her that he had to send you.”
Officer Donnelly asked, “And the window repair?”
“Justine probably had it fixed so it wouldn’t be noticeable.” Poppy said, grudgingly. “I don’t like to think that she was able to get her hands on a set of keys, but I suppose it is possible. If she did accomplish that and arrived to find the window broken, she would have to get it repaired. Our cleaner, Mrs. Reid, comes once a week and she would have called me immediately if she found a window broken. Justine probably hoped that Mrs. Reid wouldn’t notice the missing painting. It’s not as if it is displayed in a prominent place. And I wasn’t planning to come up here until next week, but I had a sudden opening in my schedule and decided to come earlier. It might have been a week or more before we realized it was gone.” Poppy’s voice changed, becoming brisk. “But this is pointless speculation, Officer. Yes, Justine obviously found a way in, but,” Poppy sent a veneer of a smile in Zoe’s direction, “thanks to Mrs. Andrews, we have it back. All’s well that ends well. Thank you for coming out. I’m sorry to have taken your time.” Poppy had begun walking toward the door as she spoke the last few words and since Donnelly was in her path, he fell back so that she didn’t plow into him. After a second’s hesitation, he moved toward the door as well, the quiet shadow of Flint following him.
“Thank you for returning the painting, Mrs. Andrews,” Poppy said, “but now that everything is settled, I have things to do and must ask you to leave.”
“But why was the painting stolen in the first place, and who took it before Justine could?”
“I have no idea, and I don’t care,” Poppy said. “I’m satisfied with the outcome. Now if you’ll excuse me…” She gestured to the circular staircase.
Zoe slipped her messenger bag over her shoulder. If she refused to leave, Poppy would probably have the police escort her out. Zoe trouped down the spiral stairs behind the officers with Poppy on her heels. At the door, Poppy thanked the officers again and then said, “There’s no need to do any further investigation, and I’m not interested in pressing charges, at the moment.” She set a warning glance toward Zoe with her last words and closed the door.
Zoe spun toward Donnelly. “Is that it? Case closed?”
Zoe didn’t like it. There were too many unanswered questions for her taste, not to mention the fact that as things stood now, the accusation of theft had been leveled at her and the record hadn’t been set straight. If there was one thing Zoe was incredibly leery of, it was unanswered accusations. Those had come back to bite her in the past, and she wasn’t about to let it happen again. And this time it wasn’t just about her, either. She worked for Har
rington. Any smear of her name also reflected on him and his new company as well.
“A report will be filed,” Donnelly said, “and we will be on the lookout for,” he consulted his notes, “Justine Price.” Flint must have turned down her radio when they were in the house because now a crackling of static mixed with words spoken too quickly for Zoe to understand poured out of one of the gadgets that made up her gear. She unclipped the receiver and spoke into it as Donnelly said to Zoe, “We have your hotel information. We’ll be in touch, if we need you again.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Zoe muttered as they strode away, their radio sputtering.
“You’d think a woman with the name ‘Poppy’ would have a chipper, sunny sort of personality, wouldn’t you?” Zoe flopped back on the pillow and closed her eyes. Tense and worried, the bright colors of her hotel room only aggravated her more. “She was about the least sunny person I’ve ever met.”
“The important thing is that she didn’t push the police to do anything. It’s good she dropped it.” Jack had been concerned when she told him what had happened. Despite being worried, Zoe had been glad to have Jack to talk with. It was wonderful to have someone who truly cared about what happened to her and worried about her if something went wrong. She had soaked up his concern, assured him she was fine and that he didn’t need to get on the first flight to Edinburgh. But now that they’d established that she was okay and moved on to dissecting what actually happened, his reasonable tone was beginning to irritate her.
“But don’t you see,” Zoe said, “leaving those accusations hanging isn’t a good thing. Surely, you understand that?”
“Of course, I do, and we’ll deal with that. You’ve told Harrington, right?”
“Yes, I left him a message with all the details.”
“Good. So when is your return flight? I get home tomorrow morning, so I can pick you up anytime.”
Zoe’s ticket was an open return because they hadn’t been sure how many days it would take to find the painting. She sat up. “I can’t leave now. I have to figure out why Justine hired us and make sure this ‘you’re a thief, oh wait—no you’re not’ is taken care of.”
“You can do all that from here.”
“I can get a lot more done here in Edinburgh. I need to go back and talk to Nancy. Despite what the police said, I don’t think they’re going to follow up very extensively about the painting. You know how it is with art crime—it always gets shuffled to the bottom of the stack. And this isn’t even an important or valuable painting, so there’s also that component. Why steal it in the first place?”
“Zoe…” Jack’s gusty sigh came over the line. “You should come home. I’m telling you, those are things we can sort out from here. You have the opportunity to leave Scotland now, no questions asked. You should do it.”
Jack’s experiences had made him a bit touchy, especially about freedom of movement.
A sharp knock cut off Zoe’s reply. “Hold on a minute. That’s probably the maid. She was down the hall when I came in.”
Zoe opened the door, but it wasn’t the maid. A police officer—not Donnelly—stood there. This guy was younger and had dark hair and a thick five o’clock shadow, which along with his baggy eyes and tired face, made him look like he’d been up all night. “Zoe Andrews?”
“Yes,” Zoe said cautiously, her heart thumping. Suddenly despite all she’d said to Jack just moments before she wished she were on a flight this second, jetting home.
“If you could come with me, the inspector has some questions he’d like to ask you.”
8
THE OFFICER AT HER HOTEL door had said the interview was, “just normal inquiries,” but being escorted to the police station in a police car didn’t feel normal at all to Zoe. The officer driving the car either didn’t know why the police wanted to talk to her or had been told not to tell her anything. Either way, she got zero information out of him. She leaned back against the seat of the police car and tried to think of another question that would get some details out of the officer.
Her phone rang. It was Jack, of course. He had heard the exchange with the police officer at her hotel door—she’d had her cell phone in her hand at the time.
“I have no idea what’s going on,” she said, aware that the officer in the driver’s seat was listening to every word.
“I’m checking flights.” Jack’s clipped words and sharp focus told Zoe how worried he was. Unlike Zoe, who became more spontaneous and instinctive under stress, Jack had the opposite reaction. He went straight to logical planning and calculating odds and outcomes.
“But, Jack, the convention. It doesn’t end until tomorrow.”
“They wouldn’t bring you in unless it was crucial to an investigation. That’s manpower deployed to locate you. Police forces don’t do that on a whim…or even usually for not-so-valuable stolen paintings.”
Zoe couldn’t argue with that assessment. When they arrived at the police station, she was escorted to a little room with walls the color of wilted celery, but they hadn’t taken her cell phone from her, which she thought was a good sign. The cell phone signal wasn’t good inside the building, but she sent another text to Jack to let him know she was okay. The little bar that indicated the message was in the process of being sent labored its way across the screen before the phone finally emitted a chime indicating the message had been delivered. At least that would keep Jack up-to-date on what was going on.
The only furnishings in the room were a narrow table of chipped Formica and two folding chairs with plastic seats and backs. The greenish-gray walls were bare except for a square of dark glass on the wall opposite Zoe’s chair. Zoe shifted her chair so that she was turned slightly away from the glass. She had that creepy tingling sensation at the back of her neck, indicating that someone was watching her, but she wondered if it was just her imagination.
The door opened, and a man with thinning gray hair and a ruddy, lined face stepped inside and shut the door behind him with precise, efficient movements. He pulled out the chair opposite Zoe and placed a folder on the table between them.
“I’m Inspector Homes.” He opened the folder and spoke as he scanned the paper inside the file. “Homes, not Holmes. I do not have the letter l in my name. No, that is not a joke. Yes, it is my real name.” His gaze moved down the paper as he spoke, his voice robotic as if he’d repeated it many times. Then he looked up and studied Zoe. “Now, with that out of the way, tell me about Justine Price.”
“Oh, this is related to her,” Zoe said. “I tried to tell the first officer, but he wasn’t interested. Officer Donnelly said he would file a report. He has all the details.”
“Officer Donnelly?”
“Yes, he came to Staircase House today and took the information about the break-in and theft.”
“Break-in? Theft?”
Zoe’s heart, which had ballooned with the hope that this was a routine follow-up inquiry, contracted. “This isn’t about the stolen painting, is it?”
Inspector Homes hitched his chair back an inch and folded one leg over the other. “Why don’t you tell me about the painting…the stolen painting, and I’ll see if it fits.” He’d been holding a silver pen in one hand, but he tossed it on the folder and crossed his arms.
“I work for Harrington Throckmorton. I’m a consultant for his firm, Throckmorton Enquiries.” Zoe figured throwing out Harrington’s name was the best place to begin. She went through everything that had happened since her arrival in Edinburgh.
Homes listened without moving until she finished. “Do you have a business card?” he asked.
Of all the possible questions he could have asked, that one was the last one she expected, but she reached for her messenger bag. “Yes.” She extracted one of the thick rectangles with her name and handed it to him.
“This is only your information, not Harrington Throckmorton’s.”
“Yes,” she said. “I’m a consultant. Here, I’ll write down his number for
you.” She used his silver pen to print Harrington’s number on the card. “That’s his cell phone.”
He glanced at it then placed it in the file. “So you met with Justine Price—who you said introduced herself as Poppy Foley—yesterday?”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t see her, that is, the woman you now know as Justine, today?”
“No.”
“You’re sure of that?” He said it mildly, but his gaze darted all over Zoe’s face as if he was mentally filing away every flicker of her eyelid or twitch of her mouth.
“I’m sure. I haven’t seen her today.”
“But you did phone her,” he said, and it sounded like an accusation. “Why?”
“To let her know I had the painting,” Zoe said, repeating what she’d said earlier.
“Did she return your call?”
“No.” Zoe’s heartbeat began to thump heavily. “Inspector…Homes,” she said, stumbling a bit over his name in her nervousness, “phoning someone isn’t a crime. Can you tell me what’s going on? Obviously, something has happened that has to do with Justine. What is it?”
“In a moment. To clarify, you phoned her, she didn’t call you back, but you went to Staircase House anyway.”
“Yes. I was excited to return the painting. I wanted to complete my job. I figured I might catch her at home.”