Stay Calm and Collie On

by Lane Stone

  The undercurrents in the room had undercurrents. I had no idea what was behind any of it, and I hoped my business partner did.

  “I might be interested in taking it off your hands,” Mary Jane said.

  Her boss didn’t seem to have a response to this relatively straight-forward remark.

  If Peter Collins played background music in his store, Elvis’s “A Little Less Conversation” would fit my mood. I’d had enough of their verbal duals so I put my hand on the arm of the one person in the vicinity I could trust not to take a bite out of it. “Lady Anthea, have you told Mr. Collins about your interview with the newspaper?” I turned and smiled at him, ready to bet good money I was better at the phony grin thing than he ever thought about being. “She told them about her grandmother being lady-in-waiting to the queen. Fascinating.”

  My partner moved around me and led him back to the main sales floor, then suddenly she stopped and came back. At some point she’d let her handbag slip to the floor, accidently on-purpose, I’d guess. “I almost forgot this,” she said with a little laugh. I knelt to get it for her and she leaned over me. “Use your phone to take a photograph of both of these,” she whispered.

  I watched Lady Athena and Peter Collins walk out and then turned back to look at the paintings again, the one that either had or had not been purchased by Henry Cannon and the similar one hanging next to it, letting their beauty refresh my eyes.

  Ms. Kerwin moved to stand next to me. We were closer than I cared for, what with her being one of our murder suspects. There seemed to be more adjustments needed because now her hand was under the lower corner of the frame of the first painting and she was fiddling around back there. There was probably some art world term for what she was doing, but since Lady Anthea was in the other room of the store, that technical point would have to be a mystery to me a little longer.

  “Someone has moved this painting,” she muttered. As soon as she finished whatever she was doing, she gave the painting one last appreciative look and moved back. The look on her face told me she was getting antsy and would soon make a break for open spaces.

  “You haven’t lived in Lewes long, have you?” I asked to stop her.

  “I lived here a few years back when I attended the School of Nursing at Beebe. I’m enjoying being back in Lewes,” she said. The last sentence was spoken without feeling, and I was betting added out of relief that I hadn’t asked about Henry. Yet.

  “You’re a nurse?”

  “Yes, an R.N. but I haven’t practiced in a year or so. Not that that has ever stopped anyone and everyone from hitting me up for free medical advice.”

  “I understand you and Henry Cannon were friends.”

  Her head jerked at the abrupt subject change. “I met him. He certainly didn’t deserve what happened to him.” Again, there was no emotion in her voice.

  “More than friends,” I continued.

  She turned to me with a shocked look on her face. “I don’t know where you got your information—”

  I interrupted her before she could insult my intelligence with the denial. “I know about your relationship.”

  Again, the look of shock, this time with a bit of hurt. Since I’m new at this detective stuff, I couldn’t tell if she expected me to fall for that, but she was a good actress, giving credit where credit’s due. But then, why hadn’t she used her stage skills to pretend to have a little emotion over Henry’s death?

  I almost added in a my-sympathy-during-this-difficult-time-for-you phrase, but I’d had enough playacting for one day. Besides, if she killed Henry, her life was going to get a lot more difficult.

  She squinted, looking me up and down, to telegraph her opinion of my khaki shorts, Buckingham polo shirt, and leather sandals. I longed to tell her my ego had been safe from people like her for years.

  “You don’t know anything,” she sneered.

  She was right that there was a lot I didn’t know. For example, I had no idea how Henry could have been attracted to two women as different as Ashley and her. Nor did I know what this woman could have seen in young, immature Henry. “I know the police chief’s phone number. When I give him your name, you’ll be a person of interest.”

  “What? I didn’t kill him!” Both her face and her voice had run the gamut of emotions. She’d betrayed anxiety, just short of fear. Maybe laced with a bit of threat.

  “I was here working Monday, almost all day. I usually just work afternoons but since Peter was away I came in early.”

  I looked down and shook my head. I was unwilling to take anything she said at face value. “When did you come back to Lewes?”

  “About six months ago. Why do you ask?”

  I thought back to what Ashley had said at the police station. Henry’s extra funds had come in very soon after he moved to Lewes, which was three months ago. “You knew Henry before he moved here, didn’t you?”

  “No, we met when I brought my dog to Buckingham’s.”

  “Henry wasn’t working for me when Whiskey came for puppy training.”

  “I don’t remember where we met.” She swung her hand out, like she was swatting an annoying fly. “Just some place in town.”

  “Let me ask you again, did you know Henry before he moved here?”

  Actually, I didn’t have all the information I needed to jump to that. I didn’t yet know if the deposit we’d seen on her bank statement coincided with his. The source of her healthy bank account could be commissions earned here at the Best of the Past or could have come from any number of ventures that had nothing to do with Henry. But how was Henry making money? He was smooth and good looking, but not nearly as smart as he thought he was. Mary Jane was shrewd. I could see her being the brains behind any operation the two of them might have been involved in. She must have needed him for something—that would explain what she was doing with a guy like Henry.

  She hesitated a beat. I’d hit a nerve.

  “Where did you meet him?”

  Mary Jane gave her head two quick shakes. “Look, I’ll admit we were seeing each other. People get together. Things happen.” There it was. She’d landed on manipulation. She’d decided to play this like we were BFFs and this was girl talk.

  I didn’t even try to stop the eye roll. “Oh, come on. Our society runs on euphemisms, I get that. You were dating him to use him.” It hadn’t escaped my notice that my question about when and where they’d met had gone unanswered. I didn’t repeat it because I didn’t expect the truth. Chief Turner would just have to do a background check.

  “I didn’t know he was engaged. I ended it when I found out.”

  Well, that was either true or it wasn’t, I thought.

  I heard the fawning voice of Peter Collins getting closer and turned to get his ETA. He was still in the larger room. Instead, I saw two men coming to see the row of paintings. They began ooh-ing and ah-ing. After giving me one last scowl, Mary Jane rearranged her expression and approached them. Then her overly made-up eyes landed on something or someone past them and she raised an eyebrow. Her lips pursed then formed a very different kind of smile. “Hello there,” she cooed.

  I turned to see it was Chief Turner who was the recipient of her efforts. If she was guilty, I would have thought someone in a police uniform would be about the last person she’d want to see sauntering in. He glanced at her and then continued walking back to me. She looked at him with narrowed eyes, then glared at me before moving on to her customers.

  I slipped my phone out of my pocket and snapped two photos of each of the pieces of artwork that Collins had described as “fine for a bachelor’s apartment” but had mesmerized Lady Anthea. I thought about their differing assessments and decided to put my money, assuming I had any after the gala, on Lady Anthea. I had no idea why she wanted photographs of the paintings, but I was sure she had her reasons.

  “Somehow I never thought you’d be
an art lover.” I was ready for the deep voice and this time it hadn’t made me jump.

  “I can’t talk,” I said. I didn’t want Peter Collins nor Mary Jane Kerwin, who was still answering questions from the two customers, to see me taking the photographs.

  He looked up and down the room. “Why not?”

  “I’m on a case,” I answered, just to make him mad.

  “You don’t have a case.” He glanced around again for any prying ears, then said in a low voice, “I need to ask you about something we found when we searched the victim’s residence.”

  I heard Mary Jane telling her customers about a drawing on the back wall that they simply must see. She pointed the way and the three walked past us, only when Mary Jane moved behind Chief Turner, she didn’t have quite enough room and had to press against his back.

  “Pardon me,” he said, moving closer to me.

  “I have information for you,” I said when they were out of earshot.

  “That’s the girlfriend, I take it?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  “Anything else I should know?” he whispered in my ear.

  I shrugged. By that I meant, you’ll have to wait until I can figure out how to tell you she came into a lot of money without admitting to stealing her mail.

  “Can you tell me the rest over dinner?” His words were clipped and he sounded unsure of his footing.

  “You don’t have a chance,” I said and walked around him.

  Chapter 17

  On the drive back to Buckingham’s, I told Lady Anthea what I’d learned. “I guess we wasted our time. She has an alibi. She was working when Henry was killed.”

  “That’s interesting,” Lady Anthea said.

  “Not really. Most people work,” I said.

  “I meant, Peter Collins was out of town on Monday, so how do we know she was at the gallery?”

  “I guess we could ask her for the names of any customers who saw her,” I said.

  “You mean, the police can ask her,” Lady Anthea corrected me.

  “That’s fine with me. We have a business to look after. I took the photographs like you asked. I thought the paintings were amazing, but you heard how Peter Collins described them. Why are you interested? Because they included dogs?”

  “Hardly. I suspect…”

  Before she could say more, my phone pinged to let me know a new text had come in. Since traffic was building on Savannah Road, I handed it to my passenger. “Would you read this?”

  “It’s from Shelby,” she said. “Oh, my!”

  “That doesn’t sound like Shelby.”

  “No, that was from me. Here’s what Shelby wrote: Come back. Now. Ashley is here. Mad. Yelling.”

  The posted speed limit along Savannah Road changes block by block, and police cruisers tucked away on side streets and beside buildings give the signs gravitas. You see enough drivers getting tickets and you realize these are more than mere suggestions for the motoring public. I wanted to floor the accelerator, but I knew better. Getting stopped would cost me more time than I would gain.

  “I need you to talk to Shelby and find out what’s happening. Tell her we’re on our way.”

  “I’ll call her. You get us back to Buckingham’s!”

  I looked over to see if she knew how to telephone someone back from a text, but she was already placing the call. She caught me looking.

  “I know how.” She held the phone to her ear. “Just because I live in a two-hundred-year-old house doesn’t mean I don’t have a smart phone. Shelby, it’s Anthea.” She told her we were nearby. Then she put Shelby on speaker phone.

  “It was her! It was her!” Ashley Trent shouted in the background.

  “We’re in your office with the door closed,” Shelby whispered.

  Both Lady Anthea and I exhaled in relief that whatever this was, it wasn’t playing out in the lobby in front of pet parents.

  “What was her?” I asked.

  “I can’t get her to tell me,” Shelby said.

  I turned into the Villages of Five Points and made the left into our parking lot. Lady Anthea was running in almost before the Jeep had come to a complete stop and I wasn’t far behind. Although it was almost five, the lobby was calm. Dana was handling the desk. She smiled sweetly at her customer, but when she caught my eye, I could tell her tranquility was for show. I was proud of her for being so professional, and at such a young age.

  Lady Anthea and I opened the door to my office and closed it behind us as quickly as we could. We had just entered the epicenter of the chaos.

  Ashley was pacing the five or six feet of open space in the compact room. Her eyes were flashing and her hands were balled into fists. Shelby was standing back behind the desk. She’d put Abby on the desk chair, out of harm’s way. Ashley turned when I walked in and inhaled a gulp of air. She paused at the top of the breath and prepared to unleash her anger.

  “Ashley?” I said, before she could speak. “What’s going on?” I was going for soothing, but I didn’t know how long I could keep that up. Temper tantrums were for children, not grownups.

  “It was you!” she yelled.

  “What was me?” Under the circumstances a reasonable query, I thought.

  “You were having an affair with my fiancé!” she yelled. “I knew something was going on down here, but he kept telling me I was crazy, that I was just being silly.”

  For a second I thought she was saying I’d had an affair with her fiancé. Dammit, that’s exactly what she’d said. I didn’t know where to start telling her how ludicrous that was, but I was getting close. Then I was diverted by my own thoughts. Had Chief Turner told her about Henry’s in-town girlfriend?

  Lady Anthea stepped in front of me. “How did you find out, my dear?”

  I wasn’t sure whose head jerked to Lady Anthea fastest, mine or Shelby’s. Had she lost her mind too?

  “The police let me in Henry’s apartment. They looked through everything. This afternoon they said I could start packing up. Date with boss, date with boss was all over a calendar he kept in one of his drawers,” she yelled.

  I closed my eyes, but for just a second because I was still in a room with a crazy person. So that’s what Chief Turner was talking about when he said he wanted to ask me about something they found during their search of Henry’s home. “But it wasn’t me,” I said and pinched the bridge of my nose. Just the thought of what my life had turned into this week made me wonder if I would ever be back on my surfboard again.

  Ashley looked at Lady Anthea. “She had to pay him to— to— to do whatever they did! Did you know that?”

  Lady Anthea’s tightlipped stare expressed the shock she’d suffered at what she’d let loose. On the other end of the spectrum, I was afraid Shelby was going to burst out laughing. She knows better than anyone what an unencumbered life I live. The idea that I would pay for sex was crazy.

  Lady Anthea moved closer to Ashley and stood in front of her to stop that irritating pacing. “Dear, how did you find out about that?” Granted, we learned something helpful the last time she asked that question, but I was feeling a bit picked on.

  “I found his checkbook and his pay stubs.” Here Ashley turned on me again. “You weren’t paying him very much, you know. I mean, for his salary.” The last word came out saal-ah-reeee.

  Of course, I knew how much we paid him. “I never claimed to pay him a fortune; that came from you,” I said.

  “Do you know what he wrote by the deposit for his bonus?”

  “No idea.”

  “Payment from boss. That’s what he wrote.”

  Lady Anthea took Ashley by her shoulders. “Ms. Trent, I think we might very well have a case of mistaken identity here. I don’t believe your fiancé was having an affair with Sue.”

  I mentally thanked her.

  Ashley hung her
head. I hoped when she raised it again, I would hear an apology. Instead, she said, “She was his boss! Who else could it be?”

  I was beginning to think we’d indulged this young woman long enough. I wanted to check the night shift in. I didn’t know how long Dana could work considering her mother’s fear for her safety. I caught Shelby looking at her watch. She probably wanted to get home to Jeffrey and her own dogs.

  “Think about it,” Shelby said, leaning over the back of my desk chair. Ashley turned to face her. “What would Henry want with her when he had an attractive, young wife-to-be like you?” She jerked a thumb in my general direction.

  Wait. That was my best friend sticking up for me?

  “Yeah,” Ashley said, after glancing over at me. “I guess you’re right.”

  “Of course, she is,” Lady Anthea cooed.

  What was this of course business?

  “Except I have further proof!” Ashley said, still in a huff. Here we go again.

  “What might that be?” I asked, letting the annoyance come through.

  “When Chief Turner called to tell me about Henry being dead, he thought I was his sister, not his fiancée. Why would Henry say that on his job application? He didn’t want you to know about me!”

  I threw up my hands. “Well, looks like you got me,” I said.

  Lady Anthea moved to stand in front of me, but not before giving me a reprimanding look.

  “Of course.” Lady Anthea paused to bestow upon Ashley a sympathetic smile. “There’s the possibility that date with boss, simply meant he had an appointment with Sue.” Her tone said, stand back I’m working here.

  “No!” Ashley was back to pacing. “He got home late almost every night. He was writing in code in case I saw it.”

  “Good luck, Ms. Trent. It’s too bad we can’t help you find the identity of the person.” Lady Anthea was slowly moving toward the door as she spoke. She was reaching for the knob when she turned her head and gave Ashley a what a shame look. I was beginning to get suspicious of my business partner’s sincerity. Like the lifeline she’d thrown Ashley was short by a few feet and that had been intentional.