The Sayers Swindle (A Book Collector Mystery)

by Abbott, Victoria

As soon as I got around the corner, I whipped out the cell and called Uncle Lucky. I knew he wouldn’t be far.

  “Come and get me,” I chattered. “And your darling Walter. I’m on Jefferson Circle, just off Lincoln Way.” I didn’t mention that I was royally ticked off at Walter. After all, I was just about to make a mess of my uncle’s second favorite car. While I waited, I wiped off the burner phone and dropped it down the sewer. Just in case.

  Uncle Lucky raised an eyebrow when I clambered into the Navigator with Walter. The eyebrow rose higher when the additional muddy dog hopped in.

  “Long story,” I said. “Please get me somewhere warm and dry and away from this neighborhood full of mud, cops and crazy people.”

  At that moment I couldn’t have cared less about the Adams family or Vera’s stupid collection.

  Uncle Lucky turned on the heat, probably because he could hear my teeth chatter.

  When I warmed up marginally, I said, “So, about Uncle Kev. Just so you know, he bashed Tyler Dekker on the head with a shovel and then he took off. You have met Tyler Dekker and so you are aware that he is a police officer, even though he’s not in this jurisdiction and he was not only in plain clothes but also definitely disguised. So you may want to think about working up some kind of alibi for Kev. I don’t know what Dekker was doing there. He wandered off too, but not in the same direction that Kev did. I think he was okay. I hope so. It’s sure been a crazy night.”

  Lucky was quiet all the way to the Van Alst House.

  “I appreciate this,” I said in a gentle tone. Uncle Lucky has always been a rock for me. “I know I’ve been a real nuisance, and I am really sorry about your car. I can get it detailed for you.” Uncle Lucky raised a substantial ginger eyebrow and gave me a look to indicate what he thought of that idea.

  For the rest of the drive, even though the heat was on in the Navigator, I couldn’t shake the chill. Of course, none of the icy waves I felt were coming from my uncle. He was kind enough to keep both dogs with his usual lack of recrimination or any kind of comment.

  “You’re the best, Uncle Lucky. Just want you to know that.”

  He shrugged modestly. What a guy. I hated to push my luck, but I had no choice.

  “Do you think someone could drop the Saab off in the morning? I’m going to have to get back to the Sayers biz tomorrow and I’ll be stuck at home without wheels.”

  I did borrow Uncle Lucky’s phone to call Tyler Dekker. Long story how I knew his number. Mostly I wanted to know if he was alive and coherent.

  No answer.

  “Call me when you get this message. I’ll be home in fifteen minutes. Leave a message if I don’t pick up. I need to know that you’re all right. I have your dog, if it is your dog, and I’ll return whatever its name is tomorrow.”

  To be on the safe side, I texted him twice.

  Chapter Eight

  SOON I WAS scrambling up the back stairs of the Van Alst House to my cozy flowered garret and the old-fashioned claw-foot tub. I did not encounter Vera or, sadly, the ever-vigilant Signora Panetone with “tea.”

  I stripped off the second I was in the door. Even my underwear was oozing mud. I stuffed my filthy clothing into a plastic garbage bag. I wasn’t even certain any of it could be saved, but I sure didn’t want to spread the mud around my perfect little home. I put the sou’wester and the raincoat into a separate garbage bag. With luck we could salvage them in the shop shower at Michael Kelly’s Fine Antiques. I mopped up my dirty trail on the floor while I ran my second bath of the day. I felt thankful there was no shortage of hot water in the Van Alst House. This time, I didn’t linger in the tub. I toweled off then slipped into a pair of flannel pajamas that Tiff had given me for Christmas. They had Professor Frink from the Simpsons on them, Tiff’s little joke that I was a nerd at heart. I added thick gray woolen socks and climbed under the flowered comforter. I could have used Good Cat to snuggle up with, but for some reason there was not so much as a whisker to be seen.

  Figures.

  I was asleep in seconds. I think I heard myself snoring.

  The phone did not ring, which was good in one way and not so good in another.

  I made it through the night, but Tyler Dekker might not have. And of course, I’d misplaced Uncle flippin’ Kevin.

  • • •

  MY EYES POPPED open. Judging by the stinging light it was still before seven a.m. I had slept in fits, punctuated by stress dreams like this: Lord Peter Wimsey rising from his knee, saying, “I have changed my mind, dear Jordan. I prefer a woman with some modesty and humility.”

  Lance stood, arms crossed, watching this exchange, his head shaking in disapproval. ”To think I actually wanted to date you.” As he pouted attractively, a throng of blue-haired women with bifocals suddenly appeared and whisked him off into the ether.

  Then Officer Smiley and his soggy, shaggy dog sashayed past, both sneering. ”Tsk, tsk, Jordan.” Followed by a heavy thunk.

  Uncle Kevin stood triumphant over Officer Smiley, waving a bloody shovel and grinning like a homicidal idiot. On his shoulder a Siamese cat caressed his round face with a silky brown tail. ”Hey Jordie! Took care of this little problem for ya . . . but you should really think about putting some clothes on before you catch your death.”

  I would have screamed but there was mud in my mouth.

  For the next few minutes, I lay on my bed and gazed up at the cabbage rose wallpaper. The previous night had been pretty stressful, not only because of the events on Lincoln Way and the Adams debacle. I was no closer to the Sayers collection but much closer to the wrath of Vera Van Alst. I was a bit too groggy to get up, but I didn’t dare fall back to sleep and miss breakfast.

  I reached for my iPhone and called Uncle Mick. He was always up at five.

  “What time did Uncle Kev get home last night? Or this morning?”

  Uncle Mick sighed heavily. I thought of that as his Uncle Kev sigh. “Not home yet.”

  “What? Maybe he went up to his room and conked out and didn’t tell anyone.”

  “Lucky has already checked.”

  “He could have crashed in the shop.”

  “Crossed our minds too, but he’s not there either.”

  “This will sound nuts but it’s Uncle Kev, so possibly he slept outside in the backyard or in the shed.”

  “Even though it was pouring rain, we also scoured Lucky’s unit and mine, the rest of the property, the shed and the garages. All of them. And before you ask, Jordan, yes, we did look inside the cars. All of them including yours. Front seats, back seats and trunks where applicable. No sign of our Kevin.”

  “Well, that’s not good.”

  “No. It isn’t. I have to go now. Both dogs need to be fed.”

  I tried Tyler Dekker again. I left a message asking him to call me. Said I was worried about something. I didn’t give my name. He’d know who I was.

  Once again, I asked myself what Lord Peter Wimsey would do. Maybe he wasn’t the perfect sleuth to take cues from, as the disaster last night might suggest. But I was in the mood to speculate, especially as it would postpone actually getting up.

  I wondered how His Lordship would feel about this space. Would it remind him of the servants’ quarters in what he called the ancestral pile where he’d grown up as the son of the Duke of Devon? I always figured that his childhood home would be like Downton Abbey. But he’d never have said anything to remind me of the difference in status. As far as I could tell from my reading, Lord Peter Wimsey was always witty and agreeable, and occasionally silly. I hoped he wouldn’t mind that at any given time a cat might swish a tail in his face, even if he was relaxing on my little striped love seat in my tiny sitting area with the sloping walls. Where would I have stayed in the ancestral pile if I’d accompanied him to meet his mother, the dowager duchess? That was something I would just love. Along with meeting the delightful duchess—the amazingly named Honoria Lucasta, not that anyone ever called her that—I would get to really dress for dinner. Or would my backgr
ound and nationality have worked against me? It was bad enough that Harriet Vane was always elegant and cool. How could an ordinary girl from the former colonies compete? Never mind. I was taking my investigation cues from Wimsey, not Harriet. Wimsey was always audacious and unexpected. He also usually had someone to help out. Too bad Uncle Kev would never measure up to Bunter, Wimsey’s valet. Bunter never gave anyone grief. Ever. And that put an end to a perfectly good fantasy.

  It was time to face the world.

  • • •

  AFTER MY ROUGH night, I was even less thrilled than usual about the obligatory breakfast with Vera. For some reason, I was even a few minutes early. This should have earned me a gracious welcome, but Vera was no Dowager Duchess of Denver. That was not the role that she was going for.

  Not knowing about Uncle Kev and Tyler Dekker brought a bit of extra gloom to the conservatory. It had stopped raining at last, but the sky was dark and threatening.

  Today, the coffeepot was on the table, and I reached for it, the way a drowning woman reaches for a life preserver.

  I was surprised to catch a glimpse of a small TV that was blasting the morning news in the kitchen. For some reason I’d believed televisions had been banished from Van Alst House. Even from the conservatory, I could see that the signora had stopped with her platter in her hand and was staring at the screen. I even thought I caught a whiff of something burnt, although surely that wasn’t possible. Vera had her head in the Times and she waved away my attempts to say good morning. I think she was trying to dodge her breakfast. But it took more than a wall of newsprint to derail the signora. First she swooped by me and deposited a small mountain of pancakes on my plate. She pointed to the pitcher of syrup on the table and made a strategic approach to Vera.

  “Pancakes, Vera. You eat. Very good. Syrup too. Eat, eat!”

  The paper lowered somewhat. “What kind of pancakes are these, Fiammetta?”

  “Pancakes. Very good. Eat, Vera!” The signora plunked the platter of pancakes on the table next to Vera. Was she actually flustered? “Must eat.”

  Vera slammed the newspaper on the table, if newspaper can be said to slam. “What’s that green stuff in those so-called pancakes, Fiammetta?”

  From the sidelines, the pair of Siamese watched the back-and-forth with thinly veiled contempt. Cats are not interested in green stuff.

  I, on the other hand, watched, fascinated, my fork suspended. I admit I was curious about the green stuff. Green and breakfast never go well together in my book. I was with the cats on that one.

  “No green stuff. Good. Very good. You eat.”

  “Is that zucchini?”

  “No, no, no zucchini. Good pancakes. Wonderful pancakes!”

  Oh, zucchini. Well, that was all right then.

  “How many times do I have to tell you? I refuse to have zucchini sneaked into my food.”

  I popped the first tasty bite into my mouth as Vera and the signora bickered. I have learned to tune out the vigorous zucchini wars, and as mentioned previously, this day I wasn’t really at my best.

  From the kitchen I heard the foghorn voice of the morning news announcer. He trumpeted (if foghorns could trumpet) local events.

  There is shock across Williams County this morning as police have confirmed that the body of an unidentified white male was found in an upscale residential area of the town of Burton. This is the second suspicious death within the week. A still unidentified white male was found stabbed to death just last week. Anyone with any information about either case is urged to come forward or call the Williams County tip line.

  The sweat prickled at the roots of my hairline again. I shivered and my fork clattered on the plate. I got up from my chair and walked toward the kitchen, knees shaking. On the screen a body bag was being carried on a gurney, between two familiar houses on Lincoln Way, the Adams home and Harry Yerxa’s. I felt more than a little light-headed. Oh, Uncle Kevin.

  “What is going on?” I muttered under my breath. Could Kev have finished off Tyler? Kev was a lot of things, but he wasn’t violent, although his presence seemed to bring it out in others. Tyler Dekker had been there too. Was it possible he’d retaliated against Kev for bashing him on the head? That seemed equally unlikely. I found it hard to believe that a third person could have been wandering around the area though. Who? Lucky and I were safe. The dogs were safe. No one else had been around except the sharp-faced driver of the Impala, and he had shot out of there after I spoke to him. Had he dispatched a victim before he left? It seemed unlikely, as I had been mucking around in the backyard and might have seen or heard something.

  Who was in that body bag? Was that dead person Kevin? Or Tyler?

  I swallowed hard, but that did nothing to get rid of the lump in my throat.

  “Miss Bingham!”

  I snapped back to here and now.

  “Yes?”

  “What are you gawking at?”

  “The local TV news. There’s been a murder over in Burton.”

  “I didn’t hear the newscaster say a murder. I distinctly heard a body.”

  “A second body. They found another man last week.” My voice rose like an escaped balloon. I’d heard about that, but there had been no further speculation until now.

  Vera snapped, “Well, it’s nothing to do with us. Don’t let your imagination run riot. It must be those Irish genes, and after all, it’s not like you are Dorothy L. Sayers, and that reminds me, when are my books being returned? The clock is ticking.”

  The clock might have been ticking for my job, but time had stopped for somebody. I hoped not Kev or Tyler, but whoever, it made the missing books seem much less important.

  “I’m going back today. There was a lot of strange stuff happening on that street last night. Made it impossible to get in to see Randolph Adams. Don’t worry. It’s all under control.”

  Too bad that wasn’t true.

  • • •

  IF MY UNCLES had a clue I’d be knocking on a cop’s door, they never would have returned the Saab that morning. Good thing they headed back home to get the Navigator detailed. I had offered to take care of that for them. After all, it was my mud.

  “Lucky says you’ve been through enough. You leave all that to us, my girl. We’ll get a deal,” Mick insisted.

  Fifteen minutes later, I hammered on Officer Smiley’s door, on the eastern edge of Harrison Falls. Of course, there was no answer. I hammered and banged. Nothing. No one. Too bad. Very worrisome. I had taken the time to dress nicely too. My autumn-toned cotton gypsy peasant dress had a corset waist. I liked the look with my fitted denim jacket and my vintage deep-orange purse, just large enough to tote a fridge. Knee-high boots, matching cable-knit tights and huge hoop earrings completed my “boho radical” look. The outfit made me feel very Jane Fonda at a Black Panthers’ meeting.

  I really didn’t want Tyler having recurring nightmares about my creature-of-the-mud outfit last night. There was no car in the driveway of the tiny brick ranch house he was renting. Nothing on that property had changed since 1964, as far as I could tell. It was every contemporary decorator’s nightmare “BEFORE” picture. So of course, I loved it. There wasn’t so much as a twitch of the checkered café curtains in the kitchen. I walked around and managed to peer into the windows. No one in the living room. In the bedroom, the bed was made. Everything was very neat. No Officer Smiley marred the neatness. The little house was empty. Just to be sure, I knocked on every window as I peered in. No response. Even the bathroom door stood open. No Smiley there that I could see.

  The news announcer’s voice kept echoing in my head: body of an unidentified white male. It was enough to make my heart race. Was it possible? No information had been released about the body. Just an unidentified white male. I felt sick. I couldn’t imagine never seeing that chipped incisor again. It was what made Officer Smiley’s grins so contagious. Or so irritating, depending on the circumstances. Five minutes later I had concluded that there were no unlocked windows or doors in th
e house. No sound came from it.

  Across the street, a silver-haired woman somewhere on the high side of seventy was standing outside, inspecting her oak trees. Or at least pretending to. I knew she was watching me.

  I crossed the street and made myself smile.

  “Hello. I’m looking for my friend. I thought we were supposed to meet here this morning, but I seem to have missed him. Did you see him head out?”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Sorry?”

  “Your friend. What’s his name?”

  “Tyler. Tyler Dekker. Why do you ask?”

  “Just checking. For all I know you may be a burglar casing the joint.”

  I needed a bit of a chuckle. “I could be, but I’m not.”

  She put her hands on her hips and gave me a stern glance. “That’s what they do, you know. They ask the neighbors when they’ll be back and then they use that information to get in and clear everything out.”

  “Not my plan. For one thing, there’s very little to steal inside that house, and for a second, Tyler is a police officer, so that’s a terrible target for housebreakers. I think they mostly prefer things the easy way.”

  “Suppose you’re right.”

  “Can you tell me what time he left? It’s very important. Don’t give me his schedule or anything like that.”

  “I wouldn’t even if you did ask me.”

  We continued our verbal wrangling for several minutes, before she stalked back toward her house and out of my reach.

  You win some. You lose some. My uncles taught me that early. I wasn’t happy that I’d lost this one.

  • • •

  I HEADED FOR the Harrison Falls police station and smiled at the desk sergeant.

  “Dekker booked off sick,” he said, giving me a curious glance. “Can someone else help you?”

  “What? Oh no, it’s just a social call. I was in the area and thought I’d say hi. I’ll give him a call. Thank you.” I brought out my most innocent smile and flashed it. “Can you tell him Jordan says ‘hi’? Never mind. I’ll just text him.” I felt like a teenage girl talking to the mother of the guy I had a crush on.