Body in the Antique Trunk-A Lady Locksmith Mystery

by Curry, Edna

  Chance nodded and poured himself another cup of water while I talked to a lady who was panicking about being locked out of her car and needing to get to the Twin Cities to her work. I promised to rescue her immediately and she calmed a bit.

  I hung up and said, “I have an emergency lockout. Are we about done here?”

  He nodded. “I just need to have you to sign a formal statement. Can I stop by tonight and we’ll write it up?”

  “Sure. How about I’ll fix dinner around seven?”

  Chance grinned. “Great. See you later.”

  My curiosity was still high. I knew Chance wouldn’t tell me much, but I asked anyway. “Is the dead guy anyone we know?”

  “I don’t think so. The body’s awfully bloated; it’s hard to tell. We’ll see if we can find out who he is from his prints.”

  I nodded and watched him leave. With a grimace, I headed off to do the lockout in Landers. I made short work of the locked car and sent the happy lady on her way to the Twin Cities, then drove on to my next job.

  ***

  Before I got down the road a few miles, my cell rang. I pulled over to answer it and the screen read Darcy, my best friend whom I’ve known forever. Now, she’s a bossy red-head, an RN who works the night shift at the local hospital in Canton. She should have been asleep, not calling me. “Hello, Darcy. What are you doing up?”

  “Hello, yourself. The real question is, what trouble have you gotten into this time?”

  I groaned at her reference to my proximity to the last murdered person in our area. It had been my bad luck to be behind the Lilliput Bar at the wrong time that night, making Sheriff Ben list me as a suspect. “Trouble? What makes you think I’ve gotten into trouble?”

  “Lila just called me and said you found a dead body.”

  I groaned. “I forgot your sister works for the M. E. I might have known she’d call you and start the local grapevine running.”

  “Right. You’re sure you’re not going to be involved this time?”

  “Definitely not. The guy was dead long before I found him.”

  “Thank goodness for that. So spill all the details, girl.”

  “I was just changing locks for a realtor on a vacant house and garage in Middleton. When I went to do the garage, I smelled a corpse, and called the cops. That’s all. I didn’t do anything wrong, so I’m not in trouble. I was just at the wrong place. Again.”

  “What did your boyfriend say to that?”

  “Chance is not my boyfriend,” I objected. Though I was beginning to think of him that way, and really, we’re getting fairly close. Still, I didn’t want her saying that, for fear it wouldn’t last. “We’ve just dated a few times.”

  “Ha. I’ve seen the way you two look at each other. Like a dieting woman spying a big juicy piece of chocolate cake.”

  “I do not.” Well, maybe I did look at Chance that way, but I wasn’t about to admit it, not even to Darcy.

  “Have you had lunch yet?”

  “No.” I glanced at my watch and groaned to see it was almost noon. The next job was going to take a couple of hours. I’d better eat first. Besides, Darcy wasn’t going to give up without hearing every detail. “I’m on the road to Landers for my next job. Where do you want to meet?”

  “How about the Flame in Landers?”

  “Okay. See you in a few minutes.”

  ***

  The Flame was a two story, corner building with a restaurant downstairs and apartments above it. There were only a dozen booths in the coffee shop section of the restaurant. The kitchen and bathrooms were in the center, then at the other end was a large dining room crowded with tables. Large windows faced the highway. The coffee shop overlooked the corner stoplight where two highways met and also the entrance to the Interstate Park. A long counter with stools circled the booths in the coffee shop. Almost every spot was taken and the noise level was high.

  I moved on to the dining room at the other end of the building, which was much quieter.

  Darcy was already there when I walked in, seated at a table in the almost empty dining room near the front window, sipping one of the two glasses of iced water in front of her. She waved to me and a waitress followed me with a pot of coffee. She filled our cups, plopped the pot down, and stood waiting, her order pad and pen at the ready.

  “I’ll have a hamburger and fries. Damn the cholesterol,” I said with a grimace. “I need comfort food.”

  “Me, too,” Darcy agreed.

  High calorie food such as hamburgers and fries were no problem for her. Her job kept her running and she stayed model-slim. The waitress grinned and hurried off to place our orders.

  “So, give me all the details.”

  I shrugged and downed some coffee to wet my dry throat, gasping and sucking air in and blowing it back out when I burned my mouth. “Oh, that’s hot! There’s not much more to tell. As soon as I knew there was a corpse, I called the cops and just sat in my van and let them take over.”

  Darcy flipped back her long red hair and eyed me with her bright, blue eyes. “What did Chance say when he came? They did call him, didn’t they?”

  I nodded, playing with my coffee. I needed my caffeine, I couldn’t wait for it to cool so I spooned an ice cube from my water glass into it and stirred to melt the ice. “Yeah, I don’t think the sheriff has anyone else qualified.”

  “So was Chance mad that you were involved in another of his cases?”

  I frowned at her. “Darcy, how can you say that? I told you, I only reported it. I’m not ‘involved’ as you call it.” I wasn’t admitting it to Darcy, but damn it, Chance had treated me differently than usual and I didn’t like it, even though I knew he was just doing his job.

  “Yeah, but…” Darcy said.

  I pushed my doubts aside and insisted, “No, ‘but.’ I reported smelling a decaying body. Period. I answered their questions on what I was doing there. I’m done. Let’s not talk about bad smells or I won’t be able to eat.” I shuddered and sipped more coffee. The ice had cooled it enough, so I gulped more down. Was I only kidding myself? No, Chance had said he was coming for supper. That was encouraging, wasn’t it? If he’d been really mad, he wouldn’t want to share a meal with me and make conversation over it, would he? No, he’d have insisted I come to his office to sign the report.

  The waitress appeared with our food and we dug in. But as I bit into my hamburger, I remembered that beautiful china cabinet, so out of place in that garbage house. And my stomach tightened at the thought that I’d better mention that to Chance. Of course, I’m sure he’d already noticed it stuck out like a sore thumb. But he didn’t know I’d seen that piece before. I swallowed and gulped some water. Damn. Maybe I wasn’t done with this. Maybe I knew more than I thought about this case.

  Chapter 2

  I finished my day’s work and when I arrived home, I couldn’t help thinking about that cabinet. I went to my office files and looked for my copy of the invoice I’d given the couple. After a few minutes, I found it and laid it out on my desk. Maybe I was wrong and the cabinet wasn’t important, but it wouldn’t hurt to mention it to Chance.

  I made a batch of spaghetti that was just ready to serve when Chance drove in.

  Nervously, I met him at the door. When he smiled, I relaxed and went into his arms for a kiss and a hug. It had been a bad day for both of us and I welcomed his comforting arms around me. He kissed me again, ruffling my short, curly hair with one hand.

  “Ah, I see I’m not too late for supper,” he said, releasing me. “It smells delicious. Mm, garlic bread? I’m starved. I hope you made plenty.”

  “Don’t I always?” I asked over my shoulder. We went back to the kitchen. I finished setting the table, then began dishing up the spaghetti and pulling the garlic bread from the oven where I’d had it warming.

  He dropped the clipboard he carried onto a kitchen chair, shucked his coat and draped it over the back of the chair. As he headed down the hall to the bathroom, he called, “I’ll just wa
sh up and be right back.”

  I smiled at the comfortable way he made himself at home. We’ve only been dating a short time, but have gotten close. Chance is too darned handsome for his own good. But he’s unassuming and a really nice guy.

  He came back and took a seat across from me, smiled and helped himself to a generous portion of the spaghetti. I passed him the plate of garlic bread, fresh from the oven.

  He took two slices and dug into the food. “You’re a sweetheart to feed me like this, Cassie. I missed lunch.”

  “No time?” I frowned at him. “Chance, you need to take care of yourself. You should always take time to eat.”

  He grimaced. “Oh, I had time. Just couldn’t stomach it after being in that garage for a while, gathering evidence and taking pictures. The smell got to me.”

  “Got it.” I shuddered, remembering, I’d said the same thing to Darcy at lunch. Now I repeated what I’d told her, “Let’s talk about something other than bad smells while we’re eating.”

  “Sure.” He grinned at me. “Later is fine. But I have more questions. That’s why I stopped by, remember?”

  “You didn’t just want to see me?” I teased.

  “I’ll show you later,” he promised with a smile. “So, did you have a busy day?”

  “Just okay. I met Darcy for lunch, which was nice. Her idea. She’d already heard through the grapevine.”

  “Yeah, I know. News really travels fast in this town.”

  “No more than any other,” I said, defending my neighbors. “Be glad crime is so rare here that they still consider it important news.”

  “You’re right. I wouldn’t want it to be just another daily event.”

  “Me, neither.” I got up and refilled our coffee cups. “Want more spaghetti?”

  “Nope. It was good, but I’m stuffed. Thanks.”

  I put a plate of oatmeal raisin cookies on the table and sat opposite him. “So, you said you have more questions for your formal report?”

  “Yes.” He scarfed down a cookie and sipped his coffee. Picking up the clipboard, he pulled a pen from his pocket and began filling out the form on it as he talked. We went over the basics of who, what, when and why of the day’s event, retracing what I’d told him earlier at the house.

  “When you were in the house, did you notice anything odd?” he asked.

  “You mean, besides the mess they left behind? Dirty dishes, rotting food, strewn clothes, old mail and so on?”

  He nodded, watching my face. “Besides all that.”

  “I got the impression they left in a hurry.”

  “I’d leave in a hurry, too, if I’d killed someone.”

  I played with my cup, staring down into it to avoid looking at Chance. “Do you really think they had anything to do with it? I mean, that person had to have been dead a while to smell so bad. If they’d killed the person, wouldn’t they have left right away? I know if it’d been me, I wouldn’t have kept on living there.” I shuddered, glanced up to meet his gaze and saw that he was nodding in agreement with me. “Assuming that’s what happened, of course.”

  Chance twirled his pen, thinking. “I still have to check out exactly when they moved there and when they left. And, yeah, that was my thought, as well. Why stick around if they knew about it? So, maybe they just noticed the smell, too? But the trunk hadn’t been dug out of the rest of the junk in that garage, so how would they know what the smell was?”

  “True. Not everyone would recognize the odor of a dead body.” I nodded in agreement.

  “How did you know what that smell was, anyway?”

  I grimaced. “I told you, I smelled it before, when I was a teen. You don’t forget something like that.”

  His dark brows dipped. “What happened back then?”

  “I was on a church camping trip. A group of us were canoeing on the Mississippi River and found a body caught on a tree. No cell phones back then, so we canoed back to camp and phoned for the sheriff. We heard later that the guy had drowned in a fishing accident weeks earlier. Apparently the body had sunk in deep cold water, then later rose again.” I shuddered, thinking about it.

  “Sorry to bring up bad memories.”

  “That’s okay. I don’t envy Doctor Lans the job of doing that autopsy, though.” I shuddered.

  “Right,” Chance said.

  “You still haven’t told me who the man was or how he died. I mean, I know he couldn’t have died in there of natural causes.”

  “We don’t know who he is, yet. A young guy, maybe thirty or so. We got some prints, so hope to ID him from either those or his DNA. The sheriff is checking his databases to see if we can find a match in missing persons. As for how he died, there were two obvious bullet wounds to his chest.”

  “I see. Did you find the people who’d moved out?” I finished the last of my coffee.

  He shook his head. “We got their names from the realty company, but haven’t found them yet. Apparently, they didn’t leave any forwarding address with anyone.”

  “That’s odd. I wonder who or what they were running from. I’ve heard of people moving out in the middle of the night before.”

  “Yeah. Makes me suspicious they know something about the dead man and are hiding. I mean, most people want their mail forwarded, don’t you think?”

  I shrugged. “I would. But if they were trying to skip out on bills, etc., I suppose they wouldn’t. Were they behind in paying their rent?”

  “Yeah, they were. So, we took fingerprints from the house, and DNA from hair left in the bathroom, to see if we can connect them to the dead person.”

  I frowned at him. “How could you do that?”

  “Familial DNA. If they’re related, their DNA would be similar, you know.”

  “I see.” I hesitated and chewed my lip, wondering if my idea was even relevant. “This might mean nothing.” Chance stilled and eyed me suspiciously. He knew me too darned well.

  “Spit it out. Let me decide if it’s important or not.”

  “Did you notice that nice antique china cabinet in the house?”

  “Yeah, I noticed it had the criss-crossed leaded glass on the top part, like an expensive one my grandmother had. Why?”

  I nodded. “It was an expensive cabinet all right. Didn’t that seem totally out of place with the rest of their thrift shop stuff?”

  “I suppose,” Chance said with a shrug. “Maybe they inherited it or something.”

  I finished off the cookie I was eating and sipped more coffee. “Then why leave it behind? They could have sold it for a good price. Besides, I recognized that piece, Chance.”

  His gaze snapped up to me. “You did?”

  “Yes. About a year ago a couple hired me to make a key for it. I couldn’t make a round antique key like that, but I found one that fit it in my collection of antique keys.”

  His face lit up, then he frowned. “How do you know it’s the same cabinet? And not just another one like it?”

  I shook my head. “It’s the same one. I remember it had a broken, diamond-shaped pane in the leaded glass section on top in the same place.”

  “Do you remember who had the cabinet then?”

  “I figured you’d ask that, so I looked up the invoice.” I went to my office and retrieved it from my desk. I came back to the kitchen and handed him the invoice.

  “Good,” Chance said with a smile, copying the address into his notebook. “They live just a few miles from here. Maybe this will lead somewhere.”

  “Or maybe not,” I said. “They were an elderly couple, as I recall. They may have just sold the china cabinet to these people.” I signed his completed report and then began clearing the table. I put the leftover spaghetti in a container and stowed it in the refrigerator.

  “They may be related to the skipped renters and know where they are,” Chance said. He helped me put our dishes in the dishwasher.

  I eyed him hopefully, “Want a glass of wine? I have a couple of movies we haven’t seen yet.”

&n
bsp; Chance shook his head. “I think I’d better check out this lead on the cabinet. Want to go with me? Let’s see if we can talk to them.”

  “Won’t the sheriff object to me going with you?” I asked over my shoulder as I wiped the table. “You know how Ben is.”

  Chance shrugged. “In this case, I think you may be able to help. They should remember you, so might be more likely to talk.”

  “Okay.” I slipped on my coat and we strolled out to his car. The sun had set and clouds had moved in. The air was chilly and felt heavy and damp. “It smells like rain.”

  “Sure does.” As he drove, raindrops began splashing on our windshield. He switched on the wipers. We turned into a new development and he peered at the homes lining the road. “It’s number 601. It should be one of these, don’t you think?”

  “Yes, I think it’s that one,” I said, pointing to a split-level home on my right. It looked like the one I’d been to before, but I go to so many places, I couldn’t be sure. I rolled down the window, picked up his Maglite and shone it on the house number beside the door. “Yes, that’s it.”

  “There’s a light on; looks like someone is home,” he said, pulling into the driveway.

  We got out and went to the door. I rang the bell and in a few minutes, a white haired lady in a flowered cotton housedress peered out at us through the glass in the door, then a younger woman wearing jeans and a red blouse appeared and opened it. “Yes?”

  “Hi. Remember me? I’m Cassie Jennings, the locksmith. I made a key for Mrs. Anderson’s china cabinet last spring.”

  “Did you? Well, what of it? We didn’t call anyone today.”

  “Could we just come in and talk for a minute?”

  The young woman frowned. “I don’t know. My mother isn’t well. She was just getting ready for bed.”

  “It’ll only take a few minutes, ma’am,” Chance added, moving closer to the door. He showed her his badge. “I’m Detective Martin with the Sheriff’s Department. I have a few questions regarding that china cabinet.”

  The woman blushed, eying Chance’s badge. “You’re a policeman?” Then she glanced at her mother and shrugged. “Oh, all right. Come in.”