The Glow of Death

by Jane K. Cleland

Another Photoshopped image, featuring the same hair, glasses, and eye color. This woman was built on a larger scale, though. Wide cheekbones. Brows set far apart. Rounded chin. Broader nose. Bushier brows, too.

  “This is so interesting, Ellis. Seeing different versions of the same thing makes it clearer what I know and what I don’t.” I tapped the paper. “This woman looks pleasant, friendly, you know, accessible. The fake Ava looked glamorous, but not particularly warm. More like Jean in style than this woman. But to answer your question, I’ve never seen her before.”

  Ellis looked at the photos, upside down to him. “What—specifically—makes you perceive one as friendly and the other as glamorous?”

  “Does that matter? Since I’m comparing apples to apples—my own perceptions—I’m not sure it does.”

  “I don’t know … but take a crack at answering.”

  “Jean has more delicate features.” I pointed to the photo array. “Who is she?”

  “The Towsons’ housekeeper, Tori Andrews.” He rubbed the side of his nose. “On paper, she meets the specs.” He took out the first sketch again, the one Bryan drew based on my recollections, and the photos of Jean, and lined up all three sheets in front of me. “What’s reassuring is that when we track down the real fake Ava, I think you’ll recognize her.”

  “Are you going to release my sketch to the media?”

  “Yes,” Ellis said, “with a caveat that the image is not exact. We’ve already drafted the news release.”

  “Can I have an advance copy?”

  Ellis tilted his head, considering. “You in touch with Wes much?”

  I met Ellis’s impenetrable gaze. “Some.”

  “I’ll e-mail the sketch to you. Along with the news release draft.”

  “Thanks.”

  I looked again at Bryan’s rendering of the fake Ava. The hair was right. The glasses were right. But the face was all wrong, and I couldn’t explain why. Frustration gnawed at my insides like hunger, then intensified into anger, expanding and darkening as it took hold until finally searing fury tore through my veins like fire blazing along a gasoline-soaked wick. I shoved the drawing aside.

  No one could play me for a sucker and expect me to sit still and take it. No one.

  CHAPTER NINE

  I parked near my company’s loading dock in the shade of an ancient chestnut tree. It was nine forty. I’d been with Ellis in the police station for nearly ninety minutes. As I trudged through the sultry air to the front door, I scanned my text messages and listened to my voice mails. Ty had left a voice mail that he’d made it to D.C. and would let me know where he was staying once he got situated. Wes left me two sigh-filled messages. His sighs were code, Wesian for his profound disappointment in me. He also sent a text, short and not so sweet: You promised.

  He was right.

  I stopped under the canopy of a weeping willow tree, a favorite hiding place, and called him back.

  “Wes,” I said when I had him on the line, “I got your messages.”

  “I can’t believe you didn’t call me yesterday,” he said, his voice rippling with righteous outrage.

  “I was busy,” I said. Wes was work.

  “Whatcha got?”

  “Nothing.”

  He sighed again. “Josie. What did you see?”

  “Blood. Too much blood.”

  “Did you take photos for me?”

  “God, Wes. Don’t be crass. I have to go. I’ll talk to you later.”

  I pushed the END CALL button, cutting off his sputtering protests.

  Inside my company, cheered by the familiar, merry tinkle of Gretchen’s wind chimes jangling as I opened the front door, I glanced around. Everyone was busy, a good thing.

  Cara was on the phone giving someone directions to the weekly tag sale. Her eyes were puffy and rimmed in red. Gretchen was also on the phone, asking Eric whether she should sign off on the asphalt company’s invoice—were the pothole repairs finished? Fred was reading from his monitor. So was Sasha. Hank meowed with superior disdain, demanding to know where I’d been.

  “Sorry, baby. I had to make a stop.” I squatted and drew my fingernails lightly along his spine, a move known to give him blissed-out jelly-legs. “Does that feel good, sweetie?”

  He mewed.

  “What a good boy.”

  I scooped him up and kissed the top of his silvery little head. He rested his cheek against my shoulder. His purring was world class.

  As soon as Cara was off the phone, I said, “I’m so sorry about Ava, Cara. Being in a book club … you really get to know people well.”

  “Thank you, Josie.” Her eyes watered, and she swallowed hard. “Everyone here has been wonderful. So kind.”

  Gretchen, still talking to Eric, stretched out her arm and patted Cara’s shoulder, her expressive eyes communicating empathy and concern.

  “If you feel up to it,” I said, settling into a nearby chair, “I’d love to hear about Ava. If you don’t want to talk about her, of course, I’ll understand.”

  “Thank you. It’s good to talk about her, to remember her many wonderful qualities.”

  “People live on in the stories we tell about them.”

  “Yes.” She gazed out the window for a moment, then turned back to me. “Ava cherished beauty. She never put a mere stick of butter on the table, for example. She created butter flowers and floated them in a low bowl of water with bay leaves, a kind of faux lily pond.” She sighed, remembering. “She was caring and generous and smart. I never heard her say a bad word about anyone.”

  “How long was Ava in the book club?”

  “About five years. I don’t remember exactly. She replaced Dottie after she moved to Hilton Head. Diane keeps the group small—there are only four of us. No one joins unless someone leaves. We’re only three, now.”

  Cara pulled a tissue from the box on her desk. She’d crocheted the tissue-box cover last winter. She patted her eyes.

  “If your book club is like mine,” I said, still nuzzling Hank, “you spend as much time talking about your own lives as you do about the book.”

  Cara half-smiled through her tears. “We’re the same.” She smiled, a tremulous one. “Each of us takes a turn hosting our quarterly meeting. Whoever is the host chooses the book and cooks a dinner based on the book’s setting. We focus on novels set in foreign locations.” Cara lovingly patted a hardback resting on her desk, The Lantern, by Deborah Lawrenson. “This is the book Ava picked for our next meeting. It’s set in Provence. She already told us her menu—salade Niçoise, bouillabaisse, and ratatouille.”

  “Oh, Cara. I’m so sorry.”

  She dabbed her eyes again. “It’s so awful.”

  “If you need some time off,” I said, “I hope you’ll take it.”

  “Thank you, Josie. When her funeral is scheduled, I’ll let you know.”

  “Of course. It’s so jarring. Someone you care about is here, and then they’re not.”

  “Exactly.”

  “You mentioned Diane. Who is she?”

  “Diane Hawkins. She’s a librarian. It’s her book club, actually. She’s run it for more than a dozen years. The other member is Olive Winslow, the principal of Rocky Point Elementary School. She’s the newbie. She’s only been a member for three years.”

  “I don’t think I know them.”

  “You know Diane from Rocky Point Community Theater. She’s a regular player there. She has a wonderful voice.”

  Recognition dawned. “Of course! She’s terrific. She played the mother in Gypsy, right? She can sure belt out a tune.”

  “That’s her. And Olive volunteers at Oceanside Music School, and she’s very involved in crew. She was all-state when she was in college, at Hitchens, and now she attends all the regattas.” Cara tried another smile, this one a bit less shaky. “We almost always go together. My grandson, Patrick, is on the team now.”

  The phone rang again, and Gretchen said, “I’ll take it.” She picked up the receiver.

&n
bsp; “Did Ava ever tell you about any problems she might have had?” I asked, lowering my voice. “Any issues? Marriage? Money? Health? Anything?”

  “I don’t feel comfortable talking about it.” Cara twisted her tissue into a screw, then smoothed it out. “We thought of our conversations as confidential.”

  “I understand. But it may well help catch her killer. How about her marriage? Anything there?”

  Cara kept her eyes on her frayed tissue and shook her head.

  “Really?”

  She raised her eyes. “Just normal griping. It was all in good fun.”

  “How can you be sure? A lot of truth is hidden in jokes.”

  “I know what you mean, but that’s not this. Let me give you an example: Ava laughed as she told us that she was tempted to hang a wooden plaque she found at a gift store over the kitchen sink. It read ‘No man was ever murdered while washing dishes.’ Do you see what I mean? It was cute. Not bitter or anything. I think she loved Edwin very much.”

  “I understand. That is cute.”

  “I thought so, too.”

  Hank hopped down, and I stood up.

  I knew Cara well enough to know that she always thought the best of people. It wasn’t that her head was in the sand; it was that she truly saw the glass as half full. It made her a joy to be around, but an unreliable character witness.

  CHAPTER TEN

  I went to the Seacoast Star’s Web site, hoping Wes had posted some news. With his web of sources, he might have learned anything, but there were no updates. I checked my e-mail. Ellis had sent Bryan’s sketch and the news release. I downloaded them, then drafted an e-mail to Wes with a note reading You’re getting these first. You’re welcome. I saved it, determined to get a little quid for my pro quo before sending it. I dialed his number.

  “Whatcha got?” Wes demanded, as brusque as usual.

  I never took his brusqueness personally because it wasn’t personal. It was just Wes.

  “We need to meet. I have news.”

  “Good. How’s an hour?”

  I glanced at my computer monitor to see the time. It read 10:50. “Let’s call it noon. At our dune?”

  “Perfect,” he said, and hung up without another word.

  I poked through the stacks of papers littering my desk. I needed to review Eric’s capital budget request for the fourth quarter. I had accounting reports to go over. I couldn’t focus on any of it. I was stewing and impatient. I went downstairs again.

  A pale pink foam egg carton containing a dozen multicolored glass marbles sat atop a pile of papers on Sasha’s desk.

  “What do you have here?” I asked.

  “Potential treasures,” Sasha said, her eyes alight.

  Sasha was normally shy and reserved, so any flicker of enthusiasm always got my heart pumping. I dragged a guest chair over to her desk.

  “Evidently, we won the O’Hara bid.”

  “We did indeed.”

  “Yay!” I said, clapping. It’s always harder to buy antiques than it is to sell them, so acquiring an entire houseful of antiques and collectibles was a cause for celebrating.

  “What you see here is one of Mr. O’Hara’s collections, as he stored them. Each of the marbles is more than an inch in diameter, with no pits, cracks, dings, or chips.”

  “The bigger the marble, the more valuable.”

  “Exactly. There are no pontil marks or signs of grinding, yet they’re smooth as satin, so the pontil marks must have been ground off. Melting wouldn’t do this fine a job. I’ve been working on identifying the designs. Then I’ll move on to authentication. Look at this one.” She pointed to a brick red matte marble with a thin band of white twirling on the diagonal, smiling as if she had a secret, a good one she couldn’t wait to share. “I think it’s a Banded Oxblood Swirl.” She tucked her fine brown hair behind her ear, her already expansive smile widening. “If so, we really have something. A sale of an undamaged example has never been recorded. Never ever.”

  “Never ever,” I repeated, awed. “Are they antiques?”

  We used a conservative definition of an antique—a hundred years. If an object wasn’t more than a hundred years old, it was, at Prescott’s, a collectible.

  “I think so. Mr. O’Hara had excellent taste.”

  “Did he keep records?”

  “Notes, but no records. He bought all of them at flea markets in the 1960s. He called this one a ‘red and white swirl.’ He paid a dollar for it in 1964.”

  “A dollar.”

  Sasha smiled. “It’s worth more now.”

  I laughed. “I should think so. Keep me posted.” I turned toward Fred, who was absorbed by whatever he was reading. “Hey, Fred—sorry to interrupt. What are you working on?”

  Fred stared at me for several seconds, coming back to the here and now from wherever he’d been. Fred always worked with laserlike focus.

  “A writing desk. Mrs. O’Hara got it from her aunt Louise, who got it from a man she didn’t marry.”

  “Come again?”

  “Aunt Louise was quite a gal. Ahead of her time. She was a big-cheese magazine editor in New York. She never married, but she always had a man in her life.” He swiveled his monitor so I could see the image. The desk was a beauty, a huge wooden globe.

  “It’s a globe,” I said, my excitement apparent.

  Fred grinned. “The gods are with us.”

  Prescott’s ran monthly themed auctions, and we were in the middle of gathering objects for a spring auction called “The World as Seen Through the Eyes of Explorers, Travelers, and Cartographers.”

  I moved my chair nearer his desk so I could get a closer look. Fred had uploaded a series of photographs, standard operating procedure for an object under review.

  Two quarter doors opened sideways, exposing a black leather writing surface and a series of handsome arched compartments and small drawers framed by miniature Doric columns.

  “This was a birthday gift from one of Aunt Louise’s fellas, but Mrs. O’Hara doesn’t remember his name, if she ever knew it, which she probably didn’t because Aunt Louise never brought men around.” Fred chuckled. “Mrs. O’Hara was a little upset that she had to tell me about Aunt Louise’s love life. Apparently, Aunt Louise scandalized the family while she was alive by having one affair after another from the day she graduated Vassar to the day she died—a span of more than sixty years—and here she is scandalizing them after she’s dead. I had to promise we wouldn’t publicize that she had serial relationships before she would reveal Aunt Louise’s past.”

  “I look forward to seeing which euphemisms you’ll come up with for the catalogue copy.”

  Fred pushed his glasses up. “Me, too.”

  I laughed. “Times sure have changed, haven’t they? When did Aunt Louise die?”

  “In 2008. She was eighty-two. She got the gift in the midfifties, as best as Mrs. O’Hara can place it.”

  “When she was roughly thirty. Any chance we can track down the gentleman who gave it to her?”

  “I was thinking it would take some knocking on doors to find someone who knew Aunt Louise. I can’t imagine many of her contemporaries are still alive, but there’s nothing to say she might not have been friends with a neighbor or co-worker or someone who was younger.”

  “If so, that person would be too young to have seen anything relevant to us, but he or she could have been told about the various love affairs.” I paused, thinking. “Aunt Louise didn’t keep a diary, I suppose?”

  “No. Mrs. O’Hara recalled that Aunt Louise always kept a datebook in her purse, but she doesn’t have them, and has no idea where they might be.”

  “Too bad. It’s worth a call to the magazine, though, and maybe a trip to New York.” I turned my attention back to Fred’s monitor. The desk was magnificent. “Mahogany and ebony?”

  “Maybe. I need to confirm it. There are lots of exotic woods that look similar. From comparable examples owned by museums, I think it’s English, circa 1800, which means it cou
ld have been made in a British colony.”

  “Like India or Jamaica, where the maker might have had easy access to exotic woods. Got it.” I leaned back. “Did I hear you say museums?” If a museum bought an object, it had value.

  He pushed up his glasses and smiled. “Three so far.”

  I turned back to his monitor, studying the image. Round pulls glimmered in the light.

  “Gilt-covered bronze?” I asked.

  “Looks that way,” Fred said.

  The globe sat on four ornately carved legs, which rested on griffin feet.

  “Any marks?” I asked. A maker’s signature or seal or a company’s name or logo can jump-start a hunt for ownership records.

  “Not so far.”

  “Condition?”

  “Pristine.”

  I smiled. “Where is it?”

  “Seventy-nine,” he replied, referring to a roped-off section of the warehouse.

  “What does your gut tell you?”

  “It’s good.”

  “I want to see it.”

  Fred stood and grinned. “I want to see it again.”

  Fifteen minutes later, I concurred with Fred’s preliminary assessment. From the peg-and-dowel craftsmanship to the expertly curved planks of wood, and from the gilt fleur-de-lis etched onto the leather writing surface to the fit and finish of the drawers, all signs pointed to the piece being genuine. I couldn’t wait to see what Fred would learn about the maker—and the man who gave it to Aunt Louise.

  “Let’s get an estimate of value first, then decide if it’s worth the investment to try to track the provenance.”

  “Josie!” Cara’s voice crackled over the PA system. “Pick up, please.”

  I reached for a wall phone.

  “Jean Cooper is here to see you. She’s hoping you can give her a few minutes.”

  I looked at the closest wall clock. I had half an hour before I needed to leave to meet Wes. I told Cara to bring her in.

  * * *

  Jean Cooper looked like what my father pictured when he described a woman as a lady. She walked with effortless grace. Her shoulder-length dark hair shone. Her makeup was expertly applied and subtle. She wore a peach and white floral print sleeveless belted dress and off-white open-toe pumps.