by Sofie Ryan
“What do you think?” she asked, her mouth pulled to one side. “Is the hat too much?”
I studied the figure, my arms folded over my chest. “I don’t think so,” I said. “I think it makes her look very worldly.”
Rose rolled her eyes at my pun and swatted me with the back of her hand as I started for the door to the workroom. I stopped to look at the bookshelf where she’d arranged the grade school readers along with a pair of Rock ’Em, Sock ’Em Robots, an Etch A Sketch and some other toys from the seventies that had been in a box in our under-the-stairs storage space. I turned to look back at her. “Looks good,” I said, gesturing at the shelves.
“Thank you,” she said, brushing off her hands. “Avery went and got the toys for me.”
“I’ll thank her, too,” I said.
Mac and Mr. P. had their heads bent together over something in the middle of the workbench. Avery was sitting on a stool at the far end, rubbing the handle of a silver milk jug with a soft cloth. When she saw me coming she set the jug in front of her, held up her hands like a spokesmodel showing off the newest car model. “Ta-da!” she said.
The old silver had polished up even better than I’d hoped. “Nice work, Avery,” I said with a smile.
She grinned back at me and pushed the stack of bracelets she was wearing back up her left arm. “It’s kind of pretty. I thought maybe we could set the long table with that yellow-flowered china and put the tea stuff in the middle with maybe some plants?”
“I like that idea,” I said.
“So, can I do it?” she asked. She made a motion as though she was going to flip her hair over her shoulder and then remembered that she couldn’t.
Avery had cut her hair to chin length a couple of weeks before and dyed a wide strip in the front cranberry red. Both the color and the style suited her. Liz had grumbled that now they couldn’t go anywhere that boys weren’t looking at Avery.
“I look right back at them,” Liz had said. “So they get the message, look but don’t touch!”
We’d been having dinner at Charlotte’s and Avery had looked up from her mashed potatoes and waved her fork in Liz’s direction. “Yeah. I might as well become a nun.” She’d frowned. “Do you have to be Catholic to be a nun?”
“You can date when you’re forty,” Liz had retorted.
Avery had regarded her grandmother thoughtfully across the table. “Do you know how old you’ll be then, Nonna?” she’d asked.
“I’m perfectly capable of doing the math, thank you very much,” Liz had replied tartly.
Rose had opened her mouth to say something and Liz had fixed her with a baleful look. “Say one word, Rose Jackson, that has anything to do with my age and you’ll be wearing that dish of potatoes for a hat.”
Straight-faced, gray eyes twinkling, Rose had held up her right index finger and written the number one hundred followed by two plus signs in the air. Charlotte had wisely leaned over and whisked the potatoes to the other end of the table.
I looked at Avery now, her enthusiasm for decorating a table in the shop evident on her face. “Yes, you can do it.”
She clapped her hands gleefully together like a little kid. “Thanks, Sarah,” she said.
“Thanks for getting that box of toys out for Rose,” I said.
“No problem,” she said.
I moved over to Mac and Alfred. They were studying the top section of what looked to me to be a wooden clock case. “Let me see what I can do,” I heard the older man say. He looked up at me and smiled.
Mac turned around. “What’s up?” he asked.
Before I could answer, the bell rang at the back door. I held up a finger. “Hang on,” I said.
Teresa Reynard was at the door. “Hello, Sarah,” she said. “It’s after one thirty.”
“Yes, it is,” I said. By my guess it was less than five minutes after. “Please come in.”
She stepped into the back entry. Her thick mass of curly hair was loose as it usually was. She was wearing work boots and her hands were jammed in the pockets of her brown canvas jacket.
“You said in your text that you wanted to talk to me about Edison Hall.” Teresa was a very literal-minded person, far more so than Paul Duvall.
I gave her a small smile. “Yes. My friends are trying to find out what happened to the man whose body was found at the house.”
“I didn’t kill him,” she said flatly.
“I didn’t think you did,” I said. I led her into the workroom.
“Hello, Teresa,” Mac said. His eyes met mine. “I’ll get Rose,” he added softly as he passed behind me.
“Teresa, this is my friend Alfred Peterson. He’s a private investigator.”
Mr. P. smiled. “Hello, Teresa,” he said.
“Hello,” she said. “Sarah said you wanted to ask me some questions about the man who died at Mr. Hall’s house.”
“Yes, I would,” Mr. P. said. He gestured at a stool. “Would you like to sit down?”
Teresa shook her head. “No, thank you.” She studied him for a moment. “Are you a real private investigator?” she asked.
The question didn’t faze Mr. P. “Yes, I am,” he said, nodding. He pulled out his wallet and took out some kind of ID I didn’t even know he had. He held it out to Teresa, who studied it carefully and then nodded before handing it back.
Rose came in from the shop. “Hello, Teresa,” she said.
Teresa frowned slightly. “Are you an investigator, too?” she asked.
“I’m learning,” Rose said.
“You’re an apprentice?”
Rose nodded. “Yes.”
The answer seemed to satisfy Teresa. “What did you want to know?” she asked. She hadn’t moved. She was still standing, feet slightly apart, hands in her pockets.
“You know who Ronan Quinn was?” Mr. P. asked.
“Yes.”
Alfred waited for a moment and then seemed to realize Teresa wasn’t going to say anything else.
“You know someone killed him,” Rose said.
Teresa’s expression didn’t change. “I’ve heard people talking. I think it’s probably true.” She looked at me. “I already told Sarah I didn’t kill him.”
“My dear, when were you last at Edison Hall’s house?” Mr. P. asked.
“Tuesday, last week.”
“Why?” Rose asked. She smiled at Teresa.
If Teresa was unsettled at all by the questions, it didn’t show. “I was there to get what belonged to me.”
Rose and Mr. P. exchanged a look. “And what was that?” he asked.
“A metal moose.”
“You mean a toy?” Rose asked, frowning.
“No,” Teresa said. “A metal moose.” She pulled her hands out of her pockets and held them about three feet apart.
Mr. P. smiled as he seemed to figure out what she was talking about. “Like the old sign markers along the trail to Moose Lake?” he asked.
“Not like one of them. It is one of them.”
“If it was yours, why was it at Edison Hall’s house?” I asked.
Teresa shifted and looked at me. “Because he cheated me.”
“Cheated you how?” Rose said.
“He was at a flea market, selling some gas station signs.” She shook her head. “Nobody wants those anymore. I heard him tell someone that he had other signs in his garage, so I asked if I could see them.”
“He said yes?” I asked.
Teresa nodded. “I picked out six signs that I wanted to buy. We settled on a price. I wrote it all down. People aren’t always honest.” She looked at me. “I don’t mean you, Sarah.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“How did Edison cheat you?” Mr. P. asked.
“I didn’t have enough money on me,” Teresa said. “I had to go to the ba
nk. When I got back, he had the signs wrapped in an old blanket.” She pressed her lips together. “I counted to make sure all the signs were there, but I should have looked at each one.”
“Bait and switch,” Rose said softly.
“He replaced the moose with something else,” I said.
“A sign for the Moose River Lodge,” Teresa said. “He’d shown it to me. I didn’t want it, but he said it was the one I picked. He lied.”
“So you were trying to find it,” Mr. P. said. He gave Teresa a sympathetic smile.
“It was mine,” she said. “I paid for it. I tried to find it before, but I couldn’t.” She looked at me again. “I knew you would be starting to work at the house and I didn’t have any way to prove to you that the sign belonged to me.”
“Your word is enough for me,” I said.
“The sign belongs to me,” Teresa said. “I paid for it.” She pulled a folded piece of paper out of her left pocket and held it out to me. I took it from her.
It was the handwritten receipt she’d created. The signs and the prices she had offered were listed in Teresa’s square, block printing. Her signature was at the bottom. What I took to be Edison Hall’s signature was underneath.
I offered the piece of paper to Rose, who looked it over, frowning, and then gave it back to Teresa.
“I believe you,” I said again. “I’ll talk to Stella. If we find the sign I’ll make sure you get it.”
“Thank you,” she said.
“When you got to Edison’s house that morning, what did you do?” Mr. P. asked.
“I parked my van at the corner,” she said. “And then I walked back to the house.” Her eyes weren’t quite focused on Alfred. It was almost as though she was running down a list of what she’d done in her head. And for all I knew, maybe she was.
“I wanted to look in the garage,” she continued. “There was an old folding door leaning against the side window and I couldn’t see anything, so I went around to the back.”
“You didn’t see the moose sign,” Rose said.
Teresa shook her head. “No. It was too dark inside the garage. And it didn’t look like the signs were in there anymore.”
“Did you get inside the garage?” Mr. P. asked.
“No,” Teresa said.
Another look passed between Mr. P. and Rose. “Why not?” he asked.
“Because Mr. Quinn showed up.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “It was maybe quarter to six in the morning and Ronan Quinn was at Edison Hall’s house? You’re certain?”
Teresa blinked at me. “Yes,” she said.
“What was he doing?” Rose asked.
Teresa shrugged. “Waiting, I think.”
“Waiting for what?’ I asked.
“I don’t know,” she said.
Luckily Mr. P. was better at phrasing questions than I was. “Why did you think he was waiting?” he asked.
“Because he parked his car in the driveway, got his briefcase out of the backseat, and then he went around to the back of the house. He stood by the door and looked at his watch.”
“Did you see anyone with Mr. Quinn?” Rose asked.
“No,” Teresa said. “I went back to my van.”
Rose sighed softly and I touched her shoulder. “Did you see anyone on your way to the van?”
Teresa nodded. “I passed a man walking up the sidewalk.”
“Was he old or young?” Mr. P. said.
She thought for a moment. “Younger than you are but older than Sarah.”
That was a pretty big age spread, but all Mr. P. did was nod. “Did you see his face?”
“For a moment as he walked past me,” Teresa said. Her eyes darted from side to side as though she was trying to pull something out of her memory.
Mr. P. looked from Rose to me and gave his head an almost imperceptible shake. I took it to mean he wanted us to stay out of the conversation for now.
“What color hair did the man have?” he asked Teresa. At the same time I saw him reach behind himself with one hand and give Avery’s arm a squeeze. She’d been so quiet I forgot that she was still polishing the tea service. She raised her head, looked around and then pulled her earbuds out of her ears.
I had no idea what Alfred was up to, but apparently Avery did. She sat still as a statue for a minute or so, then reached for a pad of paper Mac kept on the bench and pulled a pencil stub out of her pocket. Without saying a word, she bent her head over the paper. It seemed obvious that she was drawing something, but I didn’t know what and with Avery’s body hunched over the pad, I couldn’t tell. Was she trying to draw the man Mr. P. was slowly getting Teresa to describe? If that was what he was up to, it was way too much of a stretch.
I was wrong, of course.
Teresa finished describing the man and Avery looked up from the paper maybe thirty seconds later. She slipped off her stool, walked over to Teresa and held out her work. “Is this the man you saw?” she asked.
“Yes,” Teresa said, looking from Avery to Mr. P. “That’s him.”
Avery turned the notepad around so we could all see it. My first thought was, why hadn’t I known that Avery could draw so well? My second was that the face she’d sketched looked very familiar.
“Rose, why do I know that face?” I asked, scanning my own memory trying to pull out a context for the familiarity.
Mr. P. was also looking at Rose. “It is, isn’t it, Rosie?” he asked.
She nodded. “Yes, I think so.”
Frowning, Avery tipped her head to one side and studied her own work. After a moment her frown turned into a grin. “Holy crap,” she said. “It’s that guy that keeps hitting on Nonna, isn’t it?”
“What guy that keeps hitting on Liz?” I asked, totally confused.
“Channing Caulfield,” Rose said. “The former manager of the North Harbor Trust Company.”
Chapter 7
Mr. P. took his cell phone out of his pocket. After a moment he nodded at the screen and held out the phone to me so I could see the photo he’d found. “That’s Channing Caulfield,” he said.
Rose leaned over for a look and nodded.
The photo was of a man in his late sixties or early seventies. It looked like the kind of picture businesses take of their senior staff—a head-and-shoulders shot of a smiling man posed in front of a blue-gray background. The resemblance between the photo and Avery’s drawing was strong.
I took the phone from Mr. P. and showed the picture to Teresa. “That’s him,” she said.
“After you got in your van, what did you do?” Rose asked. Elvis had wandered in. He jumped onto the bench and walked down to us, stopping next to Teresa.
“I went home,” she said, reaching out to pet the cat.
Mr. P. put a hand on Rose’s arm. “Which way did you go?”
“I went back down Beech Hill Road. It’s faster.” Elvis was purring, looking at Teresa with a blissful expression on his face as she stroked his fur.
“Where was the man going?” Mr. P. asked.
Teresa gave another shrug. “He wasn’t going anywhere,” she said. “He was standing behind that big maple tree next to the curb, looking at old man Hall’s house.”
Teresa couldn’t really tell us much more. I walked her to the door and thanked her for stopping in. I told her again that I’d do everything I could to get the sign Edison had cheated her out of.
Avery had gone back to polishing the silver teapot. I smiled at her and held out my hand. We fist-bumped and she smiled back at me. “I didn’t know you could draw like that,” I said.
“I haven’t had any lessons or anything like that,” she said. Her eyes darted over to Elvis for a moment. Rose was talking to him and he seemed to be listening intently to every word. “I have some I did of Elvis if you’d like to see them sometime.”
“I’ll bring them tomorrow.”
As if he’d somehow known we were talking about him, the cat came walking down the workbench. He nudged Avery’s arm with his head and meowed softly.
Rose joined us. She put an arm around Avery’s shoulders. “That was a marvelous drawing. Thank you,” she said.
The teen’s cheeks flushed with color. “It was easy,” she said. “Teresa was really good at remembering details.”
“And you were really good at turning it into a drawing,” Rose countered. “We wouldn’t have figured out who it was without you.”
“Mrrr,” Elvis said.
Rose nodded at the cat. “Everyone agrees.” She looked at Avery. “I think you deserve a treat for all your hard work. There are cookies in the staff room.”
“Merow!” Elvis said with great enthusiasm. He jumped down to the floor and started for the door.
Rose smiled. “You can get Elvis a treat, too.”
“There’s a bag of those fish crackers he likes in the cupboard over the refrigerator,” I said.
Avery slid off her stool and started after the cat. “Okay,” she said over her shoulder.
Mr. P. was just ending a conversation on his cell phone. “She’s on her way,” he said to Rose.
“Who’s on her way?” I asked.
“Elizabeth,” he said.
I remembered what Avery had said about the retired bank manager. “You’re going to get her to talk to Channing Caulfield,” I said.
Alfred nodded. “One needs to use all the tools in one’s toolbox,” he said sweetly.
I shook my head and smiled at him. “Of course.”
Rose leaned against me as the three of us walked toward the sunporch. “Teresa didn’t have anything to do with what happened to that man,” she said.
I squeezed her arm. “I know.”
She looked up at me and smiled back. “You saw Elvis.”