“I’m terribly sorry we kept you waiting, Jeffrey,” Ruth Ann said. “It takes longer and longer for us to get everything packed and squared away.”
“No need to apologize. I was only concerned that you’d run into problems.”
Asia scooted around in the chair, obviously trying to find a comfortable position, and said, “No problems that a new odometer on an old body wouldn’t fix.”
Ruth Ann peered into the display case. “My, what a pretty thing.” She turned to Jeff. “I don’t understand why we were asked to be here, though. We don’t really buy much porcelain.”
Lily said, “Ruth Ann, speak for yourself. I told the gentleman who owns it that I might want a crack at it. You never know. It might go for a real bargain.”
“But Lily,” Ruth Ann said, looking closer at the tea set, “I don’t see a single lily of the valley on it.”
“Are you sure?” She leaned forward. “Isn’t the young lady in the little boat holding a bouquet?” She didn’t wait for a response before adding, “Well, we rushed around to get here early. We might as well stay.”
“I suppose you’re right.” Asia checked her watch, then looked at Jeff. “What do you say we get on with it and boil this lobster?”
“You’re right, Asia. Let’s turn up the heat.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
“After visiting with Mr. Pettigrew this morning,” Jeff began, “I learned that several of you are interested in purchasing the cabaret set. We could think of only one way to accomplish what needed to be accomplished where this set is concerned. That is why all of you were urged to attend this early auction.
“As some of you know, the set has a fascinating history—a history which, already full of dark turns, has taken on something new over the last few days. Its history now includes murder.” Jeff glanced quickly from face to face. No one’s expression gave away anything that might tell him what he was looking for. He continued.
“I’ve been working closely with Michigan authorities to establish a common link between the two men who died here this weekend.”
“Why are you bringing up that horrible subject?” asked Jennifer. “Can’t we just put that behind us and get on with the bidding?”
“I agree,” said Lily. “Asia already told you we don’t have much time. And I’m sure everyone here is in the same boat, so to speak.” She swiveled and smiled at everyone, obviously pleased with her play on words.
Murmurs of agreement rose from the group.
“I’m in the same boat, as you so cleverly put it. If you’ll just bear with me, this should only take a few minutes.”
“Well,” said Asia, “that depends on how tightly the purse strings are drawn, don’t you think?”
This brought a smattering of laughter, which Jeff suspected was as much a result of nerves as it was humor.
“Point taken, Asia.”
Trudy half raised a hand. “But, Mr. Tal—”
“Trudy.” It had come out more sharply than he intended. More softly, he said, “Bear with me, all right?” He had no doubt the girl was about to inquire how on earth he thought he could run the auction and bid for the tea set at the same time. She had a lot to learn about trust.
“The common link,” he continued, “happens to be this very tea set.”
More murmurs came from the group.
“It began when Frank Hamilton decided to blackmail Edward Davenport.”
As the group reacted with varying degrees of surprise and dismay, Jeff studied each closely. Both Trudy and Ingrid bowed their heads slightly. Jeff figured Trudy’s reaction was due to shame over her brother’s ruthlessness, while Ingrid’s was from sadness over the loss of a father she’d only recently come to know. The rest of the group remained stone faced.
“Hamilton had uncovered a document proving that—” He paused, not wanting to reveal everything about Davenport—”proving something that gave him leverage over the auctioneer.”
Jeff indicated the old man seated near the case. “While I was visiting with the set’s owner, Curtis Pettigrew, he said something that reminded me of a fact I’d almost forgotten. It has to do with the provenance of this set.”
The door at the end of the room opened with a click.
Everyone turned to see a female in a dark blue police uniform enter the room and walk quickly toward them.
Lily turned back to Jeff. “I really don’t see why we need to hear all this gibberish.”
Jeff didn’t respond. Lieutenant Littlefield handed him a small envelope, then stood beside him and waited. He opened it, pulled out a slip of paper with a small plastic evidence bag attached. Inside the bag, taped to a strip of pink litmus paper, was a tiny, clear sliver. Plastic, or maybe glass.
He remembered the note he’d seen earlier, the one written by the medical examiner. Crystal ball.
“Get on with the auction, why don’t you?” Lily’s voice held an edge.
Asia checked her watch again. “Calm down, Lily. We’ve still got time.”
“There isn’t going to be an auction.” Jeff waited.
Ben and Jennifer Hurst turned confused looks on each other. Then everyone started talking at once, protesting. Jeff shouted above them. “There isn’t going to be an auction, because the set has already been sold.”
“What? That can’t be true. There has to be an auction.” Lily grabbed her cane, her left hand wrapped around the collar and her right hand gripping the head just above the eagle’s talons. As she hoisted herself from the chair, she let out a tiny yelp and let go with her right hand. She spread the hand, palm up, and investigated. She looked at Jeff.
He moved closer. There wasn’t much blood on her hand, just a spot. “May I see your cane, Lily?” Jeff extended a hand.
She withdrew. “I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself, young man.”.
“You’ve been taking care of yourself all your life, haven’t you, Lily? Or, should I call you Margaret now? Now that I know you are Margaret.”
“What? I don’t know what you’re talking about. My name is Lily Chastain.”
“You felt like you had no choice. Am I right?”
“Mr. Talbot?” Ruth Ann said. “Have you taken leave of your senses? Her name is Lily Chastain. Why, Asia and I have known her since before you were born.”
Jeff ignored her. “You knew Frank Hamilton, didn’t you?”
“Why are you asking me these things?”
“You hired Hamilton, thinking that if he did the bidding for you, it would prevent any suspicion being directed toward you.”
“Suspicion?” She laughed nervously. “Many people retain anonymity when purchasing rare antiques. If anyone should know that, you should.” She stared at the clear baggie he was holding.
“Yes, I do. I also know that Hiram Odom—”
“Don’t you dare mention that name to me.” She raised her cane as if she were going to strike Jeff. “You don’t know anything.” The woman spat the words at him. She pulled the cane to her, gripped it tightly in both hands. “He was an evil, vindictive man. He ruined my life. He took the only thing that mattered to me, and do you know why? For her.”
“Lily!” Asia shouted. “Honey, it’s not worth it.”
“Shut up, Asia. You’re always goin’ on about what was done to your people. You never stop to think about how good you’ve had it. You haven’t had to lift a finger your entire life. You got everything handed to you.” She turned back to Jeff. “Did it matter to him that I was the one who loved him? That I was the one who took care of him after my mother died? I was the one who was supposed to get married. Not Blanche. But because she was the oldest, my father made me step aside. Well, my sister may have gotten George Appleby, but she’s not going to get the tea set, too!”
She brought the cane over her head in an arc and struck the top of the display case. The tempered glass fractured into a mosaic of pebble-size discs. The case rattled and shuddered, and the discs hung together precariously above the porcelain.
>
Jeff moved in to stop her. Lieutenant Littlefield was already moving. Detective Brookner came from behind the Oriental screen.
Lily swung the cane again. Littlefield grabbed for it, but before she could get her hand around it, its collar popped off. The crystal sphere, still gripped by the ornamental claw, flew backward. The group of seated spectators scrambled for cover. A glass vial tumbled from the cane’s handle, shattered against one of the chairs, and sent glass in every direction. A rolled piece of paper fell to the floor.
Brookner and Littlefield restrained Lily while Jeff picked up the scroll and shook shards of glass from its layers. He unfurled it, read it quickly, and handed it to Ingrid. “Is this your father’s handwriting?”
Ingrid looked at the paper, then nodded. Trembling, she read what her father had written the day before. It took her a few moments to find her voice. Finally, she said, “I really didn’t care what others thought. He should have believed me.”
“Some parents do things in the name of love, others under the pressure of propriety. Do they use good judgment?” Jeff glanced at Lily. “Not always.”
After several moments, Brookner walked over with the pieces from the cane.
“Take a look at this.” He pointed to a spot where a small sliver of glass was missing. “I have no doubt that the glass taken from Hamilton’s skull will fit right here.”
Jeff took the handle and rotated the ball inside the talons. “It must’ve turned when she stood. That’s how she cut her palm on it.” When he started to give the ball back to Brookner, it picked up the light and winked.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Brookner said. “I reckon that’s what you saw Friday night.”
“Probably so.”
“You were right, Talbot. She just told me that she’d prearranged for Hamilton to get the tea set for her. Apparently, he had something on Davenport, told Chastain or Odom, or whoever the hell she is, that he would use it as leverage to rig the auction. Anyway, she’s the one you saw in the garden. During her meeting with Hamilton, she let it slip that she was going to destroy the tea set. He reneged and they got into an argument. He stormed off, and she followed him.”
“This was inside the cane.” Ingrid showed the paper to Brookner.
“So there was a suicide note.” Brookner read it, then grunted. “No wonder the old gal took it. This outlines her plan, Hamilton’s involvement, and the part your father was to play.”
“Apparently,” Jeff said, “Lily Chastain didn’t count on Hamilton’s appreciation for antiques. I’d seen him before with treasures; he displayed a certain reverence for them. Too bad he wasn’t the same way with people.”
“Did she say how she got in the room?” Ingrid asked.
“The maid who found Davenport had left the door open when she ran for help. Mrs. Chastain saw her, and then it was a matter of right place, right time. She went in and saw the note, knew it would link her to Hamilton. So she grabbed it and got out of there before anyone arrived.”
“Where did the lug wrench come in?”
“Closest thing to a coincidence we’re gonna get, Talbot,” said the detective. “She found it on the ground, courtesy of your careless yard hand, and tossed it into the water to throw off the investigation. Of course, latent prints would’ve been nonexistent because of the water.”
“They probably would’ve been anyway, detective. Lily Chastain is a proper Southern woman. She was wearing gloves that night.”
Everyone looked toward the now silent Lily, who was slumped in a chair between Ruth Ann and Asia. Both women were talking to her in reassuring tones.
Trudy began crying softly. Jennifer put her arm around the girl’s shoulders and held her.
Jeff returned to the podium. “May I have your attention, please? In order to uncover the truth, I asked the authorities to stage this early auction. The cabaret set has not been sold. It will be included in the auction beginning at ten o’clock, as originally planned.”
Jeff went over to where Mr. Pettigrew was carefully removing the cabaret set from the damaged display case. Miraculously, the fragmented glass had not given way. It could, though, at any time. Piece by piece, the old man packed the set into the fitted Moroccan case that Napoleon had instructed be made from the finest leather and the best silk and the purest gold for the woman he loved.
“Josephine had it pretty good, didn’t she?” Curtis Pettigrew said when he had finished.
“Yes, she did.” Jeff added, “And I’m sure she told you that before you left on Friday.”
The old man started to protest, then the sentiment sank in. He looked at Jeff and smiled.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
The plane taxied across the tarmac for what seemed like miles, then stopped as the pilot announced that they were eighth in line for takeoff.
Trudy broke a stick of gum out of its foil and popped it into her mouth. She gripped Jeff’s arm tightly. Instinctively, his muscle tightened. She gasped. “I’m sorry, I thought I had the armrest. Are you okay?”
He chuckled, then assured her he was fine.
She began rubbing her arms, although she wore a heavy pink sweater over a matching turtleneck and a blue corduroy jumper.
“I can get a blanket for you, if you’re cold.”
“That’s okay. I’m just nervous.”
He had arranged to change seats to sit beside Trudy on the flight from Chicago to Seattle so that he could help her in case she needed anything. Also, he figured Trudy would eventually want to talk about what had happened. He wanted to be available when she did.
He was painfully aware of the vacant seat by the window to her right, where her brother should have been. Jeff felt a strange emptiness and realized that in the days and months to come, he would notice the absence of the young man at estate sales and antique shows.
The engines vibrated as the jet roared down the runway, picking up speed. The bird felt heavy when it lifted and put him in mind of a hawk that held too much dead weight in its talons but knew that if it let go, it might perish. The image of talons made him think of the murder weapon, and he wondered absently what would happen to it.
They climbed for several minutes before the plane leveled off and the roar changed octaves, moving to a higher pitch and quieting to something one might manage to talk over.
“How did you figure out it was Lily Chastain?”
He’d been right about her need for answers. He’d been watching her when she asked the question. She chewed vigorously on the gum, an odd counterpoint to the question concerning her brother’s killer.
“When the man who owned the set, Mr. Pettigrew, started talking about old man Odom and his girls, I thought he meant Blanche and her mother. Then I started remembering some of the things Blanche told me the first time she told her story. She had a little sister. After that first time, Blanche never again mentioned her sister or her father or the fact that she’d never heard from her sister after that.
“When I called everyone this morning about the tea party, I put in a call to Blanche, too. That’s when she told me her sister’s name. Brookner was able to roust a clerk in Louisiana who blew the dust off a sixty-year-old record book and found where Margaret Odom had changed her name to Lily Oliver. She married Wiley Chastain a couple of months after that, adding just enough twists in the trail to slow down anyone who might be looking for her. The sad thing is, nobody was looking.
“Staging an auction was the only way I could think of to flush her out. It was a gamble.”
“What will happen to her?” Trudy asked.
“Most likely, she didn’t intend to kill your brother. Still, she’s responsible for her actions. They’ll charge her with involuntary manslaughter. I suppose the rest will depend on the judge and jury. Asia and Ruth Ann both said they’d do what they could to help her.”
A shiver went over Trudy. “Sometimes, we see people like that at the shop. They become so obsessed with owning a certain item they nearly go insane.”
“H
elps you keep your priorities straight, doesn’t it?”
Trudy agreed, then fell silent. After a while, she leaned her head against Jeff’s shoulder and drifted off to sleep like a child.
She had more inner strength than she knew, Jeff decided, and she had Blanche on her side. She’d be fine.
When they stepped into the terminal at Sea-Tac, Jeff spied Greer waiting in his usual spot at the end of the walkway. He turned to Trudy. “Can we give you a lift?”
“I wouldn’t want to be a bother.”
“No bother at all.”
Greer took Jeff’s case. “Baggage claim, sir?”
Jeff laughed. “Have you ever known me to return without extra luggage?”
“No, sir.”
As Trudy climbed into the woodie, she said, “Mr. Talbot, about your offer for Frank’s funeral—”
“Trudy, that’s been settled. I want to help.”
Trudy rode without speaking, except to provide directions to her apartment. When Greer pulled the car up to the curb in front of the building, Jeff remembered what Jennifer had said about the renovated quarters where she’d met Trudy. From the looks of this building, Trudy’s life hadn’t changed significantly since then. Jeff told Greer to stay with the car, and he carried Trudy’s luggage upstairs.
They stepped inside, and Trudy flipped the light switch. Jeff stopped in midstride. There were birdcages everywhere he looked: little ones grouped on tables and lined along shelves; large ones hanging from the ceiling; wooden ones, brass ones, wicker, of every architectural style imaginable. He recognized the Taj Mahal, Saint Basil’s Cathedral, and Buckingham Palace. There were mansions too: Italianate villas, Georgian colonials, Gothic rectories, and every one built by hand. The place resembled a fabulous aviary, except for the complete absence of birds.
“Frank started this collection for me,” Trudy said. “I wonder if he was aware of the symbolism to our relationship.”
“Hard to say. He was a man of contradictions.”
There was a brief silence. Then, without a word, Trudy moved from cage to cage and opened the delicate doors.
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