by Lane Stone
“Don’t you want to answer that?” Lady Anthea asked.
I pressed the button on my steering wheel and answered. If I had it to do all over again, I would warn my passenger I was about to do that.
“I think your Chief Turner loves his technology too much!” she said.
Your?
“Too much?” he asked. He had heard her. “It’s the way we investigate crimes today.”
“Have you ever stopped to think that there are more effective methods to be utilized in a small village?” she demanded. “Sue has been ahead of you every step of the way in this investigation.”
“I agree,” he said.
“That’s because people know her and talk to her.”
“I said I agree with you.”
“Thanks,” I said. “An admission like that shouldn’t go unrewarded. Wouldn’t be right. Last night we found out that Ashley suspected Henry had a girlfriend here in Lewes. And by suspected, I mean she knew.”
The dead air told me he was considering this new information. “So she had a motive, but thanks to technology we already eliminated her from the suspect pool.” He exhaled and then went on. “I’ll check again on the time of death. Maybe if we used the earliest limit…” He trailed off.
“You’re going by where she was when you reached her. Have you tried cell tracing to see where her phone was that afternoon? Wait, come to think of it, that might not do any good,” I said.
He chuckled in what has been described in many a book as a mirthless laugh. “What do you know about cell tracing? Been on the internet?”
“First, everyone is on the internet. Next, in a book I read, Calling All Killers, the killer left her cell phone at home and went to kill her”—here I veered from the truth—“local police chief. Gruesome. Painful.”
“I called to tell you what I found out from the victim’s bank. He had made a large deposit last month. That’s all they would tell me, but from what you said his salary was, he didn’t make that much money working overtime or fudging his expenses.”
“Do you know where the money came from?” I asked.
“I have to get a warrant to get the source of the deposit and the amount,” Chief Turner said. Lady Anthea and I looked at each other and tilted our heads, looking as pure as possible for women our age. The good police chief was going to learn Henry had deposited fifty-thousand dollars into his checking account.
“I should have the information this afternoon or tomorrow at the latest.”
“Have you run the background check on Mary Jane Kerwin?” I asked.
“I’ve requested it, but it’s not back yet,” he said then he hung up, which was just as well. I didn’t want him hearing anything in my voice.
“If we told him about Mary Jane’s and Henry’s matching deposits, he wouldn’t be able to use the information in court,” I said to my partner.
Lady Anthea rubbed her forehead. “Please don’t tell me which book that was from. Not right now.”
I closed my lips, tight. It was obvious I had given her too many delectable titles to remember.
Traffic was heavy on Highway 1, but we were all able to drive at or above the fifty-mile-per-hour speed limit.
“Sue, let’s talk about what we’re hoping to find. I wrangled getting into Henry’s apartment out of Ashley because I wanted to see the painting he bought. Anything else we should look for?”
“I’d love to know where his extra money came from. She said the police had taken some things, but if there are any financial records lying around, I won’t turn my face from them,” I answered. “We saw Mary Jane Kerwin’s big checking account deposit was made three weeks ago. And Ashley said they bought a new car and paid off some bills at about the same time. Plus, the painting he bought. Let’s not forget that. Their simultaneous windfalls had to be from the same source.”
“I agree. Any alternative to that would be too much of a coincidence for belief,” Lady Anthea said. “We don’t know how far in debt the couple were, do we?”
“Nope. Why?” I asked.
Suddenly a Lewes police cruiser, no lights or siren but driving hell bent for leather, passed us. Too fast for us to see who was driving. We couldn’t help but look at it until it was out of sight.
“I was wondering if that amount of money would be enough to buy a car, along with a prized painting,” she said.
“We don’t know how much Henry paid for the painting. Listening to Peter Collins, it didn’t sound like he had paid him very much,” I said.
“Oh, he would have paid quite a bit for a nineteenth-century painting.”
“When we get Dana working on researching its provenance, we’ll know how much, right?” Something else was bothering me. “Why?”
“Why, what?” she asked.
“The funny thing is Henry didn’t seem like the kind of person to buy a work of art. And why would he buy a painting and keep it here? Wouldn’t he have taken it to his and Ashley’s home?”
“How do you know he didn’t?” she asked.
“Well, when Ashley was listing what they had done with the money, she didn’t mention buying art. I think she would have if she knew about the painting. Maybe he was going to surprise her with it.”
“Yes, maybe it was his intention to take it to New York. Ashley said he came home once a month, maybe he hadn’t been home since he made the purchase,” Lady Anthea said. She looked out at the scenery. “As for his reason for purchasing the painting, it could have been as an investment or aesthetics, you know their visual appeal. I saw how the two on the wall at the Best of the Past affected you.”
“I wanted to walk into them,” I admitted as I slowed for the light to turn off Route 1 onto Highway 16. “Do you think I felt that way because of how large they were?”
“I think it was more likely that while the focus was on the subject, the objects in the background were interesting also.” We were driving past farmland, and she waved her hand toward it in an attempt to illustrate her point.
“The way one color disappeared into another was intriguing. I wanted to keep looking at them,” I added. “Them,” I repeated.
We stopped at the red light at a small yellow building. It was an antiques store named: A Walk Through Time. I arranged my brainwaves, then I turned to Lady Anthea. “Peter Collins said Henry had bought a second painting.”
“But Mary Jane Kerwin disputed that.”
“She said he hadn’t paid for it. I got the impression that he intended to buy it. It sounds like he had the money for another expensive painting,” I said.
“Or he had the expectation of more money,” Lady Anthea added. “You’re saying whatever business dealings the two of them were engaged in was ongoing?”
“Yes, and his murder ended it,” I speculated as I turned right into the entrance of a subdivision of townhouses.
“Or maybe Mary Jane Kerwin will carry on without him,” Lady Anthea said. “Twice the money for her. So their business partnership makes her a prime suspect, correct?”
“At least a suspect.”
“I assumed it was a love match, with jealousy as a motive. She found out about Ashley, she killed him. But didn’t she have a monetary reason for wanting Henry alive if they were about to make more money?” Lady Anthea asked.
“Maybe she was afraid he would cut her out. But out of what? What were the two of them doing to get that much money?” I gave the steering wheel a whack with both palms.
The solitary street in the development was flanked by a row of townhouses on either side. Patches of grass made a valiant attempt at survival, but bare, gray ground covered most of what wasn’t paved.
“I wanted to tell Chief Turner about my suspicion that Mary Jane Kerwin and Henry knew each other before he moved here, but their deposits being made so soon after Henry’s arrival is my reason for thinking that, and we
can’t tell him how we know what’s on her bank statement. I guess we’ll have to figure that out on our own.”
“I thought we would be safe here,” Lady Anthea said. That’s when I realized this time it was she who had gotten quiet, dating from about the time we turned into Henry’s neighborhood, as I had rambled on. “Aren’t we in a different town?” she asked.
She was staring straight ahead, and not happy about what she saw. At the end of the street sat two police cars, grills facing. One was marked Lewes. The other was marked City of Milford. Chief Turner and a man I didn’t recognized stood talking and yucking it up. If the signage on the side of his car was to be believed, and I saw no reason not to, this was the Milford police chief. Ashley’s SUV was in the driveway, but I didn’t see her.
“All I have to remember is we don’t know about Ms. Kerwin’s deposit. Right?” Lady Anthea asked.
“Right. We never saw Mary Jane Kerwin’s bank statement,” I said, hardly moving my lips.
“And it’s not in my handbag.”
Chapter 20
“Sue Patrick, good morning.” Chief Turner’s tone wished me anything but a good morning. He turned to Lady Anthea, and she was the next recipient of what she might characterize as his cheeky attitude. This far into the week we were immune to it, but it seemed too much for the Milford police chief to handle and he stood down. He gave Chief Turner a nod and headed for the safety of his car.
“See you later, George.” Turner turned to me and sighed. “You two are here. I’m here. What a coincidence.”
I rolled my eyes to show him that I knew there was nothing coincidental about this meeting. He had been driving the police car that had blown by us. In my peripheral vision, I saw Lady Anthea watching the retreating back of the other police chief. She cocked her head to the right and left, like Abby does when she’s processing unfamiliar words.
“What did you say to annoy him?” I asked.
“He met me here as a professional courtesy. Since this isn’t my jurisdiction I called him before I drove over. Again, professional courtesy. You see, we, unlike you two, are professionals.”
“And courteous?” I said.
He chuckled. “When I want to be I…”
I didn’t wait for him to finish. “Why are you here? You already searched Henry’s home.”
“Why are you two here?” he asked.
“Just visiting Ashley.” I was a little embarrassed at how stupid that lie was, and my heart wasn’t into it.
“And what were you doing at that antiques store yesterday? I doubt you were shopping.”
“We could have been,” I said.
“You went there to talk to Mary Jane Kerwin. I won’t ask how you found out she was the girlfriend. I don’t want to know.” He turned to Lady Anthea. “See, I’m taking your advice and availing myself of what people confide in Sue.” Then he looked back at me. “Just tell me this. Did Mary Jane Kerwin know she wasn’t the only woman in Henry Cannon’s life?”
“She knew about Ashley,” I answered.
Lady Anthea added, “She said she ended it when she learned about Ashley, but I’m not sure she’s to be believed.”
“So both women could be on our suspect list,” he said.
“Our?” He had to have known I would jump on that.
“I misspoke. My suspect list.” In spite of himself, he almost laughed, then he looked out at the distance. “Since the victim had been drugged with sleeping pills, a smaller person could have overpowered him.” He looked back at me. “By the way, a quarter of the town takes those pills.”
I looked at the ground because I don’t trust myself to have a poker face, and I wasn’t about to lead him to Dayle Thomas, as ill as she was.
“I don’t mind admitting my money was on the veterinarian as the murderer, but I don’t have anything else incriminating Walton,” he said. He hesitated and gave me a closer inspection. “Sue, you got quiet all of a sudden. Wait, do you take sleeping pills?”
I jerked my head up. “Me? No! I work hard and I spend as much time as I can in the ocean.”
Chief Turner grinned and then retreated to his usual serious self. “We searched Dr. Walton’s house. We even took a canine unit—”
“A canine unit? And you didn’t freak?” I interrupted.
“Very funny. By the way, the handler said to tell you hi. We didn’t find the shirt or the knife on the premises. The vet seems to be the only person in town who doesn’t tell me you walk on water. I keep thinking there’s something I’m missing about that guy. If he dislikes you enough to want to run you off the road and down an embankment, you gotta figure he could be your employee’s murderer.”
His phone rang and he looked at the screen, and then quickly turned away from us and answered it. Lady Anthea and I took that opportunity to go inside Henry’s former home.
“Why were you looking at the Milford police chief like that?” I asked.
“When I was at university, we learned about a nineteenth-century artist who didn’t sign his paintings. His favorite subject was dogs. I couldn’t sleep last night after my brother called, and I stayed awake trying to remember the name.” She stopped and looked back at the street. “I think the first name was George, the same as that gentleman.”
“Pricey?” I asked.
“Extremely.”
The door was unlocked. In the living room Ashley was sitting on a black leather loveseat, with her elbows propped on her knees and her head buried in her hands.
“Ashley?” Lady Anthea called soothingly. We walked over, and Anthea sat beside her and rubbed her shoulders.
Ashley looked up. “I don’t know what to do with this all this stuff.” She swung her arm around to indicate the living room.
Honestly, there wasn’t that much. It was pretty sparsely furnished. “What do you want to do with it?” I asked. It’s always amazed me at how seldom people ask themselves that question. What do I really want right now?
Ashley looked down at the loveseat. “I don’t want to move this furniture back to Albany.”
“I can recommend a charity that will come pick it up,” I said.
She looked up at me. “Well, okay.”
Lady Anthea gave Ashley’s back a final pat and stood. “Just tell us which items you wish to donate.”
I opened a note app on my phone and typed in loveseat.
“Let’s walk around,” Lady Anthea said.
In my head, I heard a fiddle. The one my business partner was once again playing Ashley like. This was how we would search the apartment and find the painting. What would Lady Anthea say to keep her from including it with the items to go to charity when we came to it? I couldn’t wait to hear. Though Henry didn’t deserve to be murdered, he and Ashley certainly deserved each other. I was completely convinced of that. Neither was as smart as they thought.
Ashley led Lady Anthea in a slow walk around the perimeter of the room, as if we couldn’t see the whole space from the loveseat. I followed behind them making notes like an earnest girl reporter. R-u-u-u-ug, I typed and tried not to roll my eyes. The eat-in kitchen was furnished with a café table and two cheap-o chairs. A small metal desk sat in the corner, which had one file-size drawer and one junk drawer.
Suddenly Ashley turned around to me. “Why don’t you look for the information we talked about last night?” She emphasized last night, like it was a code.
I hesitated a beat because I had no idea what she was talking about until I recalled that we were supposed to be looking for something that would tell us who Henry was cheating on her with. I think she was trying to telegraph to me that I wasn’t 100 percent off her suspect list.
I nodded and sat at the desk. If you think looking at someone’s cheap-ass furniture is boring, try looking for information you already know. It seemed like I’d known who Henry’s local girlfriend was most of my life.
I reminded myself that I was really looking to see where Henry’s big bucks had come from, but it was hard not to shoot up off the chair and yell, “I found out it wasn’t me. Whew!” Or maybe, “Eureka! Mary Jane Kerwin!”
After ascertaining that Henry’s china was of the paper variety, and that his glassware could best be described as red Solo cups, Ashley invited Lady Anthea upstairs to the loft bedroom. “Yesterday I packed all his clothes in boxes, and I checked the pockets.” She looked over Lady Anthea’s shoulder at me. “For restaurant receipts,” she hissed. Then she turned on her heel to go upstairs.
I opened what turned out to be a junk drawer and started going through takeout menus. I needed to get myself really bored or I was going to start laughing.
Lady Anthea came back down in less than five minutes. “I suggested to her that some alone time might be what she needed.”
“You’re a real humanitarian, you know that? You found out what you wanted to know and then you couldn’t wait to get away from her, right?” I asked, under my breath.
She looked up at the loft to be sure we weren’t being watched, then nodded. “It’s not here.”
“What’s not?”
“I swear, Chief Turner, somebody ought to put a bell on you!” I said as loud as I dared. “None of your business.”
“Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?” he asked, though I doubted it was really a question.
Lady Anthea stepped forward and in a low voice said, “Why don’t the two of you go outside to discuss this?” She jerked her head to the floor above us where Ashley was rummaging.
“Ladies first,” he said and followed me to the front door.
We stood by his car and I told him a decent percent of what I knew: that Henry had purchased a painting from the Best of the Past and that he and Mary Jane Kerwin had told the owner, Peter Collins, that it was pretty much as valuable as a painting of Elvis on black velvet, when in fact it was worth tens of thousands of dollars and or pounds, I couldn’t remember which.