I beamed at my uncles, who pretty much filled the room even before I got there. Not sure if I’ve ever mentioned it, but both my uncles are what you could call men of substance, although Uncle Lucky is a man of more substance.
Uncle Mick was resplendent, as usual, his shirt open to show his copious ginger hair and the gold chain that went so well with it. Naturally, he had on his “Kiss the Cook” apron with the downward arrow. He was busy serving up fried baloney and formerly frozen crinkle fries. Lunch as we know it at the Kelly homestead. Walter was thumping his curly tail. I interpreted that as pure happiness. Walter’s eyes bulged, and his back wriggled and writhed in excitement. I dropped the baggie of sautéed liver on the counter. It was labeled Cane, which I’d come to learn meant “dog” in Italian. Lucky opened up the bag and sniffed, his nose crinkled. I knew he did not deem this treat good enough for his new companion. Only the very best for Walter.
“I don’t suppose you know of any microwaves that have become available at good prices lately,” I said. “Karen could use one as the signora keeps sending her food.”
That translated as “I need a free microwave. Today.”
Mick glowered. “Not sure if all that foreign food is good for you, my girl.”
I suppressed a grin.
“You hungry?” he added, slapping a piece of sizzling and slightly singed baloney onto a plate next to a glob of green coleslaw with an unearthly glow. Next on were the previously frozen crinkle fries.
“Sorry, love to, but I’m in a real rush,” I lied. “If only I’d known you were serving lunch. So, a microwave? The smaller the better. Karen has such a tiny kitchen.”
“Check in the storage room. There’s a couple still in the box. From an estate sale. If you find one you like, take it. Anything for that lovely lady,” Uncle Mick said, with a glance at Uncle Lucky. “Tell her Walter’s doing well.”
Uncle Lucky has no hair except for his giant ginger eyebrows, and he never says much, but his expression told me that there might be what the Kellys call “issues” if Walter had to be returned. But I couldn’t worry about that. I knew that Lucky had developed a soft spot for Karen as well as Walter. That would work out well. I left them as Lucky was cutting up a round of baloney for Walter. He wasn’t sure about the chicken livers. It was a dog’s life for sure at chez Kelly.
Uncle Mick cleared his throat. “We have something to tell you.”
I smiled. “Tell away.”
“Your uncle Kevin’s going to be here for a while.”
I kept a straight face. “Really?”
“Really. A small disagreement about a large amount of money.”
“Oh.”
“Some fellas down in Albany with not much patience.”
“That would do it then.”
Lucky nodded grimly. Mick sighed. “He’ll need your bedroom and bathroom.”
“I’m glad we can accommodate him.”
“If you say so. Come on. Let’s take a peek at those microwaves.”
• • •
I WAS STILL chuckling to myself as I deposited a small, sleek stainless microwave onto the passenger seat of the Saab. The uncles were unique and I adored them. I remembered describing my home to my college roommate and BFF, Tiffany Tibeault. She found it hard to believe, especially the secret hiding places and unseen exits. Not everyone’s way to live, but it worked for us.
I suppose in a way I was responsible for the construction and décor of the converted apartments behind and above the delightfully jumbled shop where Uncle Mick supposedly made his living. Besides the uncles, the best part of this secret world in back of the antique shop was the collection of hiding places. My uncles have a unique form of claustrophobia, meaning they always need to know how to get away in case of visits from unfriendly agents of the law. I felt a little wave of nostalgia for the good old days when I would race through the place, taking shortcuts through the hidden staircases or pressing the lever to make the bookcase full of Danielle Steel and Sidney Sheldon novels open in the garage. Even as a preschooler, I’d been trained to use my own secret exits and to call my other uncles in case of anything that didn’t “end well.” The special phone is still in operation, and I know that number as well as I know my name.
Of course, I could never tell my school friends about this private world, and until I met Tiff in college, I’d never once mentioned the hidden spaces, exits and special numbers. I’d always enjoyed the secrets though.
It didn’t make up for not having a mother, but it was all fun, like living in a Nancy Drew book.
Now Uncle Kev was moving in. Uncle Mick and Uncle Lucky would be pushed to the limit and I would miss all the fun.
For a fleeting moment I felt homesick.
• • •
IT SHOULD HAVE been a cakewalk getting the information about Vera’s pilfered Dorothy L. Sayers pristine first editions. My friend, Karen Smith, the pleasant proprietor of the Cozy Corpse, had acquired and sold those copies in good faith, as I kept assuring Vera. Let’s just say the purveyor was paying the price for that and other crimes, including the near fatal blow to Karen. But Karen’s traumatic head injury had brought her business to a standstill. Not to be unkind, but her record keeping left a lot to be desired and there was no information on the person to whom she’d sold the Sayers firsts. Everything had been in Karen’s head, and Karen’s brain was still a bit scrambled.
She had a long way to go before she would be better. Still I figured that working with her and going over the thousands of scraps of information in her totally chaotic shop office and mildly chaotic apartment would pay off in a lead.
Karen was not in the shop when I drove over to the neighboring town of Grandville. The “CLOSED” sign hung in the door of the lovely old brick two-story building. Even the jaunty skeleton in the window looked forlorn. Five months after her attack, although she could struggle up and down the stairs, because of her brain injury Karen was still unable to run her business or even put in a shift. I made my way to the back of the building, swishing my vintage plaid Pendleton coat—a legacy of my mother’s closet—and rang the doorbell for Karen’s flat over the store.
I was psyched to get started. It was just a matter of time until we found a name and that name sparked a response. When that happened, I planned to continue to visit Karen. We’d bonded over our love of books and sugary baked goods in the months since we’d met under less-than-ideal circumstances.
“Come on up,” Karen called out. “It’s open.”
It would take a couple of trips to get everything upstairs to her apartment over the shop. As I lumbered along the driveway carrying the microwave, the pale and lumpy man who lived in the house on the right-hand side of the driveway turned and glared at me. What was that about? I ignored his glare and staggered up the stairs into Karen’s living room, which was jammed with stacks of books and knickknacks on every surface. Karen was lounging in an overstuffed armchair covered in faded brown corduroy. Her madly curling red hair had grown back a bit after her surgery. It was barely held under control by clips and bobby pins. Her smile was brighter than the reading lamp by her side. She was also a vulnerable woman alone in an apartment.
“Shouldn’t your door be locked?” I blurted out in a bossy moment.
Her eyebrows lifted in surprise. “Why?”
This was from a woman who’d recently been attacked and left for dead.
I said, “Well, because, as you know . . . things happen.”
She shrugged and then with another luminous smile said, “But as long as the door stays locked in the slammer, there’s no reason to believe bad things will keep happening. This is Grandville, Jordan. A safe little town.”
I loved Karen’s naïve and unspoiled outlook on life; even after having been beaten and left for dead, Karen was open and eternally optimistic. But the Kelly in me knew there was a dark side to every town.
Karen must have grown used to gifts from the signora and from my uncles. She didn’t even comment about the new
microwave.
I kept going into the dollhouse-sized galley kitchen and tried to negotiate a place for the microwave on the counter. There was only one cupboard, so the cooking pots and pans hung on hooks and the olive oil, vinegar, salt and pepper were lined up by the sink next to a crooked pile of cookbooks. The tea towels and Karen’s apron hung from the bar on the stove. Not an easy room to cook in at the best of times. I had no choice but to dislodge the vintage Moosewood Cookbook and a couple of others and stack them in the living room, on the floor. Lots of other book stacks were there to keep them company. Karen was using one stack as a side table. It was a decorating look that I quite liked.
As I headed downstairs again for the food, I said, “Grandville is a safe little town, I suppose. But you will remember that we had a murder and considerable mayhem in our midst only a few months ago.”
Perhaps if my uncles had more conventional employment, I’d worry less about doors and locks. And maybe if that neighbor hadn’t seemed so hostile.
In the middle of my trip, the lumpy man was joined by a scrawny, scowling woman. They seemed to be trying to give me the evil eye. What was this about?
“You tell her to keep that disgusting dog out of here,” the woman hollered.
Did they mean Walter? How could anyone not love Walter? And how could anyone not love Karen for that matter? You have to be very mean-spirited to deny a recovering woman a few visits from her much-loved dog.
I didn’t dignify their comment with an answer.
As I chugged up the stairs, Karen called out, “People can get past locks if they really want to.”
I couldn’t argue with that. I could get past locks myself. Hadn’t I received a set of lock-picking tools for my sixteenth birthday? One of my most prized possessions. I chose not to mention that to Karen, especially as I only used them for good. And not often, may I add in my defense.
“Did you know that the great Lord Peter Wimsey was skilled at picking locks?” I said.
She twinkled at me. “I had forgotten that and about a million other facts. I’m not surprised. The man had a lot going for him.”
“Tell me about it.” I sighed. “On paper he’s perfect.”
“But unavailable.”
I laughed. “Don’t make a girl weep.”
“Speaking of weeping, I finally remembered who acquired most of the stolen Sayers books.”
“That’s wonderful. Why would I weep? This is the best news I’ve had in months.”
“It might have been, but I didn’t write it down and now I can’t quite remember anymore.”
I tried to keep the disappointment out of my voice and struggled to find something positive to say.
“Easy come, easy go. And maybe easy come back again. If you remembered it once, then it’s stored in your brain somewhere and it’s bound to resurface.”
“I hope you’re right. I feel like a complete fool. You’ve been waiting on me and bringing me food and cleaning up my place for such a long time and I can’t even come up with one simple name.”
“Happy to do it, but I would feel much better if you’d keep the door locked. I have a key. I can get in if I need to. I don’t like the look of that couple next door. They’re very hostile.”
“Oh yes. I miss the Sweeneys. They were so sweet. But these new people! Walter got through the hedge the day they moved in. Lucky couldn’t squeeze through after him. I guess Walter left a little housewarming present.”
I hooted. Couldn’t stop myself.
She added, “I believe sandals were involved when the present was found.”
I was still smirking when I made the last trip to the car to pick up a small vintage chalkware bank in the shape of a pug, my gift for Karen to fill in for Walter. I know it was wrong of me to let those neighbors see my smirk. Even if they did start it. Surely they could see that Karen was in fragile shape, using a walker.
Once I finished lugging, I heated up Karen’s late “lunch” and puttered around the apartment while she ate. I made small talk about her book business as I tried to put things in order. I hadn’t known much about the rare book trade until I’d taken the job with Vera in the spring. I may have indicated otherwise in my interview, but let’s not dwell on that.
The signora would have been pleased with Karen’s appetite that day. As I whisked the dishes off to the kitchen, she said, “If that doesn’t fix my brain, I don’t know what could.”
I grinned. “On that optimistic note, would you like me to make you a cup of hot tea? It might cheer you up and make me forget how unavailable his lordship is.”
“Lovely. Use the Satin Shelley set. That rich orange color is a lovely pairing to this fall day.” Karen let out a sigh. “I wish I could be useful.”
I loved that about Karen too. She’d been through hell, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t take comfort in her beautiful collectables. It must have been so frustrating for her to struggle with her memory like this, but she kept cheerful and wanted to be useful. I tried for a light note. “Hey, I have an idea. Close your eyes and try to picture the person who bought those hot books.” I added, “Even though you didn’t know they were stolen property at the time.”
I came up with this approach after thumbing through my old Intro to Psychology textbook the day before. Although I’d discovered in college that I didn’t want to know what’s going on in other people’s minds—chances are it’s messy and ugly and none of my freaking business—Karen was a special exception. The chapter on hypnosis and repressed memory made me think we should try the DIY version. What could it hurt?
Karen leaned back and closed her eyes as instructed. “I know I didn’t find anything in my client files.” She gestured toward a chaotic pile of file folders and loose papers. I would have been surprised if she had found anything in that. “I’ll keep trying.”
“I don’t want my tombstone to read ‘killed by a woman in beige,’ meaning Vera,” I joked, turning back to the kitchen.
“Oh boy, I don’t want to be responsible for Vera’s crimes against you and fashion! Such a worry.” She chuckled and relaxed a bit. I got her breathing deeply and stayed quiet in the hope that the right memory would pop into her dented noggin.
“Feel no pressure.”
“If only it hadn’t been the Sayers collection,” Karen said. “Such elegant and witty books. So intricate.”
I stuck my head back into the living room. “I agree. They’re quite complex. You can’t just sit and read one in a couple of hours. They are layered and there’s a lot to be learned about the twenties and thirties in English society.”
“Not all of it good,” Karen said, a smile twitching her lips.
“Agreed. It’s pretty shocking how matter-of-factly she reflects the prejudices of the day.”
“I do like Wimsey and Harriet Vane though,” she said.
“Me too. I especially love how the police just let him handle corpses and investigate crime scenes and order constables about. He can walk into and out of people’s homes at will.”
“Pays to be an aristocrat.”
“No kidding. I wish I had a bit of that,” I said with a grin, before getting back to my tea making.
“You have more than a bit of it, Jordan.”
“Ah, but no, just a simple Irish family.” I left out “of crooks,” although I had a feeling it didn’t bother her much.
“You carry yourself with confidence. I am sure you could walk into and out of people’s homes at will. Who would question it?”
A few minutes later, I emerged from the tiny kitchen with a bone china pot full of Darjeeling tea, with milk and sugar in matching pieces and a plate of amaretti.
“Signora Panetone sent you a fresh batch of her special almond cookies,” I said. “She’s taken a shine to you. Make sure you eat them all or that could change and you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.”
Karen had cleared off the small octagonal table by the armchair and stacked those books on the floor. “I don’t deserve those c
ookies. I’m still drawing a blank.”
“Everyone always deserves cookies.” I settled things and poured the milk into delicate china cups in shades of orange and gold. Karen liked the milk in first. I’d learned to prefer it that way too.
I decided to help Karen’s memory as I added sugar and poured.
“Tall or short?” I said.
She blinked. “I don’t remember. They were sitting down.”
I passed her the teacup. “Man or woman?”
“They are almost always men, in my experience. I mean my customers who collect fine first editions.”
I did know that. “I guess Vera’s the exception.”
“She is unique. In many ways.”
“No arguments here.”
I said, “Hair or no hair?”
“Hair!” Her face lit up. “Lots of silver wavy hair.”
“Excellent. Man? Woman?”
Karen’s forehead crinkled. “Man. I suppose that’s a bit of a help. A man with a great head of hair.” She paused. “But also long hair, I think. I have a tiny memory of hair. Long hair.”
“A man with long hair? It’s not a good look for most people.”
“Not a man. A woman. The woman had beautiful long straight brown hair. A man and a woman.” Her brow furrowed as she struggled to clear her mind. “The man was with a woman. She was helping him, I think. I can see them.”
The Sayers Swindle (A Book Collector Mystery) Page 2