The Antique House Murders

by Leslie Nagel

  Virgil said something in Spanish, and Miranda reached into the wide, deep pocket of her apron. She lifted out a brass ring about three inches across, from which eight ornate keys dangled. “As far as she knows, the keys have been on their hook since she put them back two days ago.”

  “Interesting approach to security you folks have here,” Paul muttered, and Virgil had the good grace to look embarrassed. “I’m calling the lab.”

  Marc took a quick look through the archway. “Brass hook on the wall in full view. Anyone could lift those keys.” He turned to Virgil. “Do you have security cameras covering the public areas?”

  “No cameras, but the front desk is manned at all times.” Everyone turned to gaze toward the main entrance. Just inside the door a tiny recessed reception area with a glass-topped desk stood, dark and empty. “Well,” Virgil amended with fresh chagrin, “it’s manned from eight to five.”

  Paul shook his head in disgust as he ended his call. “A miracle all these antiques haven’t walked right out the front door.”

  “We know this golf club was switched sometime in the last forty-eight hours,” Marc said with a glance at Miranda. “Mr. Ames, I’m going to need a list of members, particularly those who used the dining room or other facilities since then.”

  “It wouldn’t have to be a member,” Virgil said defensively. “The clubhouse isn’t locked during business hours.”

  “Still, we can’t be talking about just anyone off the street,” Marc countered. “It had to be someone who knew this case was here, and where the keys were kept.”

  Not Benjy, Charley realized with a start. There was no way either he or Millie could afford to belong to a country club. An idea began to surface, and she thanked the instinct that had kept her from blurting out Benjy’s name the moment Marc walked in the door.

  Besides, once she started telling what she knew, she’d have to explain how she’d figured it out. And that meant confessing to her morning adventures. After she’d called Marc, she’d begged Sean not to say anything until she did. He’d agreed readily enough; better to wait before she dropped her bomb. If she timed it right, maybe Marc wouldn’t arrest her for breaking and entering.

  “I’m going to need that list, Mr. Ames.” As the manager turned to go, Marc added, “As well as a list of all your staff.”

  Virgil’s lips pressed into a thin line. “I’ll print it all for you now.” He turned on his heel and stalked off.

  “You say this thing was used to kill a man?” Davey looked ill. “Why leave it here?”

  “Good question.” Marc stared into the display case. “We know Prescott’s killer carries the murder weapon away when he flees the scene. If this club is that weapon, why doesn’t the killer get rid of it? Why hang on to it for nearly four days, then plant it where it will certainly be found?”

  Charley said carefully, “Because whoever put this club here is preserving evidence. What do you want to bet the lab finds plenty of nice, clean fingerprints on this thing?”

  Marc’s eyes met hers. “The killer didn’t plant the club.” It wasn’t a question, and Charley recognized with a thrill that their minds were, as ever, perfectly attuned. “He’s not working alone.”

  “Or he’s confessed what he did to someone else,” she suggested.

  “Or the someone else found out what he did,” Marc proposed, “and is using the club to reveal the killer.”

  “Reveal the killer,” Charley amended, “without revealing his own involvement with the killer.”

  Marc nodded. “It makes sense, but it doesn’t get us any closer to a suspect.”

  Charley took a deep breath. Time to face the music. “Marc, I think—”

  Before she could continue, Marc turned abruptly to the two remaining employees. “Davey and Miranda, thank you for your help. We may have more questions, but for now you’re free to go.”

  He waited until they were out of earshot before rounding on Charley. “What happened to your arm? And your ankle?” he demanded. “And what the hell are you doing here?”

  Before she could reply, Sean responded with his usual breezy charm.

  “Just a minor disagreement with the front bumper of my car. Totally my fault. She wouldn’t go to the hospital, and we didn’t want to worry Mr. Carpenter. She was pretty shaken up, so I brought her here. Don’t worry, I checked her out top to bottom, and I’m pretty sure it’s just a sprain.” He spoke in what he no doubt meant to be a reassuring voice, but Charley saw Marc’s jaw clench. Sean blithely continued, “That imported gravel’s a death trap when it’s wet. Unfortunately, when our girl slipped she reinjured her shoulder. She should probably have that looked at.”

  “Reinjured?” Marc said sharply, and Charley groaned inwardly. Here we go. “When, exactly, did you injure your shoulder? And what imported gravel is he talking about?”

  “At Mulbridge House,” Sean went on, oblivious to Charley’s furious glare. He’d promised not to say anything to Marc, damn him. If she hadn’t been balancing on one foot, she’d have kicked him in the shin. “This morning. That is, reinjury was this morning. Original injury was yesterday during her first run-in with Wycoff the Wacko. You need to round up that hombre, old buddy; he’s one menacing son of a bitch. I mean, who follows a person into an abandoned house, scares them witless, then chases them into the woods? Although if Charley’s right about him, that’s not the half of it…” He trailed off, having apparently tuned in at last to the undercurrent of tension that had grown exponentially during his narrative. Charley stood, groping for the right thing to say, as Marc took a step back.

  “You went to Mulbridge House. This morning.” She saw realization hit home. “Why?”

  She took a deep breath. “I wanted to look for Augusta’s missing will. I heard that an architectural salvage team was going to start demolition early this morning, so I thought—”

  He held up a hand. “When did you hear that?”

  Silence. Then, “Yesterday afternoon.”

  As they stood staring at each other, two young men with csu stenciled on their black windbreakers entered the lobby, one toting a large field kit. Paul directed them to the trophy case and began issuing instructions. Virgil Ames returned and handed him a slim stack of printouts.

  “Yesterday afternoon,” Marc repeated at last. “Is that when you concocted your plan to illegally enter Mulbridge House?” Charley started to answer, but he interrupted. “Yesterday afternoon, before I called and reneged on dinner. That’s why you refused to meet last night. You didn’t want me to see your shoulder. Plus, you’d already conceived this little outing. I imagine you needed time to…prepare.”

  Marc kept his voice pitched low, but it was obvious he controlled it only with effort. Sean still stood with his arm around Charley, watching their exchange with growing alarm. “Take,” Marc said without averting his eyes from Charley, “your fucking hands off her.”

  Sean instantly released her and took a large step back, palms out.

  This was a disaster. “I didn’t think there was any harm,” Charley began, trying to mitigate the damage. “The house is empty, and I thought if I could just—”

  “No harm?” Marc’s voice rose on the last word, and the crime scene techs glanced up in surprise. “Breaking and entering? That’s okay with you? Suddenly the end justifies the means?” He took a step forward, and she shrank back. “Tell me again, Charley, about how you ‘got a glimpse’ of Benjamin Wycoff yesterday. When you injured your shoulder the first time. And this time around, do me the courtesy,” he ground out that last word, “of telling me the truth.”

  “It was no big deal,” she said with a bit more force, lifting her chin. “He…roughed me up a little.”

  “He attacked you? And you didn’t call the police?” Mark asked in disbelief. “You didn’t call me?”

  “I can take care of myself. You’ve got enough to worry about.”

  “So you lied,” Marc said flatly. “To me. Twice.”

  “You’re missing t
he point,” Charley insisted, her own temper beginning to flare. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you everything, but—”

  “You two kids clearly have a lot to talk about,” Sean began, “so I’ll just be—”

  “And what, exactly, is the point?” Marc rolled over Sean as if he hadn’t spoken, his gaze remaining locked with Charley’s. “I’m dying to hear.”

  “Benjy is the point,” she snapped, abandoning caution. “I’m pretty sure he killed Calvin.”

  Both detectives looked astonished. “That’s quite an accusation, young lady,” Paul said after a moment. “Where’s your proof? Aside from the fact he assaulted you,” he added reproachfully, “and you didn’t call us for help.”

  “I didn’t think that proved anything.” She spoke quickly now, determined to convince Marc that she was right, that what she’d learned outweighed the manner in which she’d learned it. “He’s Millie’s nephew, he’s violent, and he fits the description of the man you’re looking for. I did prove that much this morning.” She mimed pointing something at Marc’s face, then angled up a couple of inches more. “He’s at least six foot six. And yes, he’s left-handed.”

  “You’re jumping to a ridiculous conclusion,” Marc said angrily. Then he stopped, his innate cop’s curiosity seeming to get the better of him. “What happened this morning?”

  “He had me cornered, so I shot him in the face with a can of soda.” Marc stared at her, his mouth opening and closing several times, apparently at a loss for a response to this statement. Paul stifled a snicker before reassembling a poker face. “I told you I can take care of myself,” she said with asperity. “But that’s only part of my proof. Sean and I figured out that Benjy Wycoff is—”

  Marc’s cellphone emitted six loud beeps in rapid succession. An instant later, Paul’s phone did the same.

  “What was that?” Sean demanded as Charley gasped in shock.

  With a final, piercing stare that punched straight into the pit of her stomach, Marc spun and headed for the door at a run, Paul at his side, as both their cells emitted a second set of six beeps.

  “Come on!” Charley scooped up her coat. “We’ll have to hurry; I don’t have the address.”

  “Now where are we going?” Sean grabbed his coat and followed her out the door.

  “We’re going wherever they’re going.” Charley hobbled down the steps as fast as she could and climbed into Sean’s Honda as first Marc’s and then Paul’s sedans roared down the driveway. “Six beeps is the Safety Department emergency signal. Specifically, an officer-involved shooting.”

  Chapter 18

  Sean did his best to keep the detectives’ vehicles in sight, but as they approached the intersection of Magnolia and Hathaway, their progress was halted by a police barricade. Charley could see both sedans continuing down the block toward a cluster of flashing red and blue lights. That’s where she needed to be.

  “Come on,” she said as she scrambled out of the car. Sean threw the Honda into Park and hurried after her. She marched straight up to Dave Hobbs, grateful the officer manning the barricade knew her. “We’re with Marc and Paul,” she said firmly, and without waiting for his reply, she stepped around the barricade and headed down Magnolia.

  Sean muttered, “Okay, I’m both impressed and terrified. Are we going to get arrested for this?”

  Charley didn’t answer as she beheld the alarming spectacle of an Oakwood squad car with two shattered windows and a couple of bullet holes in the left rear quarter panel. With a shock, she recognized where they were.

  “That’s Millie’s house!” she exclaimed. “I was just here yesterday! Why are her front windows broken? What happened here?”

  With rising dread, she glanced around wildly for Marc, but he and Paul had disappeared. On a nearby lawn Dwight Zehring weathered a verbal assault from a jostling crowd of reporters. The chief stood ramrod-straight, his feet planted, hands clasped behind his back while he scowled fiercely into a forest of microphones. Camera-ready faces with perfect hair and glossy lips shouted questions Charley doubted he had any intention of answering.

  She gave that group a wide, wide berth as she and Sean wove through a phalanx of squad cars with light bars flashing blue and red, cut through an unfenced backyard, then hurried up an alley populated by police of both the Oakwood and Kettering varieties. The adjacent suburbs shared resources whenever something major was going down. A shooting certainly qualified, Charley reflected grimly.

  She caught a glimpse of Paul standing just inside the open door of an empty garage near the far end of the alley. She knew Marc would send her packing the instant he saw her, but she just had to know who, if anyone, had been shot. Charley had friends in the department, women and men who risked their lives every day. Signaling Sean to follow and keep quiet, she stepped carefully to the side, where a window partially obscured by a faded curtain permitted a view of the garage’s interior.

  Lieutenant Barbara Prince was seated at a card table with an open laptop computer. Her short, iron gray hair stood out in irregular spiky clumps, a sure sign she’d been tugging at it in anger or frustration. Before her stood Mitch Cooper, tall and slim and blessedly unhurt, his posture in his uncharacteristically crumpled uniform blues nearly as rigid as the chief’s. He was in the process of laying his sidearm and badge on the table. Marc and Paul were observing the scene impassively as Vanessa St. James sat hunched on one of two folding chairs against the garage wall, watching with obvious distress.

  “Officer Cooper,” Prince said, and Charley could hear her easily, “you are relieved. You are suspended with pay, pending formal review by Internal Affairs. Your union rep will contact you with the date and time of your interview.”

  “Yes, sir, Lieutenant.” As Vanessa let out a small gasp, Mitch’s hands clenched into fists, but he kept his eyes fixed on a point above his lieutenant’s head.

  Prince said, “It’s standard procedure, Ms. St. James, whenever an officer discharges his weapon in the line of duty.”

  At Marc’s murmur of assent, Mitch turned and flushed scarlet. “Detectives! He got away, he was right in front of me, but I—”

  “Get a grip, son,” Paul commanded. “You’re all right? Nobody’s injured?”

  “The department is down one squad car,” Prince said tightly, “but so far, that’s today’s only casualty.” Charley sagged with relief as Prince stood and started packing up her computer. “We’ve issued a statewide APB on the suspect. You’ll have my full report, including statements from these two, by lunchtime. However, as this…incident was of his making, I’ll let Officer Cooper give you the highlights. A brief verbal report, then you’re on suspension. Understood?”

  “Yes, sir, Lieutenant.”

  Prince regarded him a moment, something in her stern expression softening very slightly. “All right, then. Ms. St. James, I’ll take you home.”

  Vanessa shot to her feet, her large brown eyes fixed on Mitch. “Oh! Can’t Mitch—Officer Cooper take me?”

  “In what?” Prince asked, and Mitch winced. “My officer needs to report to his supervising detective. Since he’s on suspension, perhaps he’ll have time to…hang out later.” Mitch looked like he wished the floor would open up and swallow him whole. Prince shouldered her computer satchel and gestured toward the open garage door. “After you, Ms. St. James. Detectives.”

  As they left, Paul sagged into a folding chair. “Jesus H. Christ.”

  “Report,” Marc demanded, “and you can start with how staking out Corey Reynolds’s house turned into the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral.”

  Marc sat in Prince’s chair, but Mitch began pacing the width of the garage. He looked wiped out, Charley noted, eyes red-rimmed and deeply shadowed, his usual baby-smooth cheeks sporting a decent sprinkling of stubble. Despite his fatigue, frustrated energy was pumping off him in waves.

  “The shooter was about to let himself into the house with a key,” Mitch announced abruptly, still pacing. “That’s when I realized how tall he was, a
nd that he was left-handed. So when he just appeared from that backyard without warning, and since we know Reynolds is involved in criminal activity, I decided to—”

  Marc sat up. “Reynolds is left-handed? And how tall, exactly?”

  “What? No. No, sir.” Mitch stopped in front of Marc. “Not Reynolds. Benjamin Wycoff.” Charley stifled a gasp as Sean gripped her shoulder.

  “Benjamin Wycoff,” Marc repeated in an odd voice. “Wycoff shot at you. Not Corey Reynolds.”

  Charley leaned against the window frame as the full import of this statement hit her like a freight train. My fault. Mitch could’ve been killed because I didn’t tell Marc the truth about Benjy.

  “Well, yeah.” Mitch looked from one detective to the other in confusion. “Didn’t anybody tell you what happened?”

  “All Dispatch told us was that we had an officer-involved shooting and Zehring wanted our asses down here, double time,” Paul growled. “We weren’t even sure who the officer was until we got here, or whether anyone had been hit, for chrissakes.”

  “How about you take it from the top?” Marc suggested. “And have a seat. You’re giving me a stiff neck.”

  “Yes, sir.” Mitch pulled over the chair Vanessa had vacated. He drew a breath and released it slowly. “Okay. From the top. When it became clear we weren’t getting anything from questioning those Purple Tang kids, Chief Zehring ordered eyes on the Reynolds residence. I volunteered, along with Kyle Cutter. I had the final shift, six to eight a.m. About seven o’clock I observed—” He stopped, blushing lightly. “Well, just before that, Van—Miss St. James showed up. She was out running.”