“Did you get it away from him?” she asked the man who’d been holding Harold, totally ignoring me.
“No.” He hurried past me up the stairs.
Nate had Harold cuddled in his arms and held up a piece of blue sea glass. “Was this what you were after? Harold had it in his mouth.”
The man’s shoulders slumped. “It’s not a button,” he called back to Aunt Martha, who’d already rounded the bottom of the stairs.
She harrumphed. “And here I thought Harold had found a clue.”
“What’s going on?” I asked, although I had a pretty clear idea of what my Aunt Martha had been doing. “Who’s this?”
Her cheeks colored as her gaze lifted above my head to the man now standing a few stairs above me. “Winston. He’s a dear old friend.”
Dear? I glanced from one to the other, stifling the urge to ask why this was the first I’d heard of him. “Do you live on the island?” I asked instead.
“Yes, didn’t I tell you I’d planned to look him up?” Aunt Martha asked, closing the distance between them. “I called him after you and Nate went to Ashley’s, and he came straight to fetch me.”
Not surprising given the way he looked at Aunt Martha as she hugged his arm. I had the feeling they’d been more than friends. Grinning, I extended a hand. “Nice to meet you, Winston. It isn’t often that we get to meet one of Aunt Martha’s old friends.”
Winston’s eyes twinkled as he slipped his hand around her waist and gave me a solid handshake. “I’m surprised. I heard tell she had a man in every port.”
Plenty of acquaintances, that was for sure. And more than a few in high places. But no one she’d ever called dear.
Aunt Martha swatted him, her cheeks flaming. “Off with you.” Sobering, she returned her attention to Nate and Harold, then me. “I suppose it was silly to hope we might spot some telltale evidence the police missed.”
“I did find a few stray blue threads caught in the cedar handrail”—Winston pointed to what looked like a piece of fabric torn from a lightweight jacket caught on a splinter of wood—“but it looks as if he toppled down the steps, not over the rail, so they may not be connected.”
“There are traces of blood on the rocks at the bottom of the stairs,” Aunt Martha interjected. “And lots of footprints in the sand at the top. From the emergency personnel, I imagine.”
“When Harold scurried off with what looked like a button in his mouth,” Winston went on, “we thought Jack might’ve grabbed his attacker’s clothes and popped a button.”
“Alleged attacker,” I corrected out of habit.
Winston acknowledged the semantics with a nod, then pointed out the pros and cons of the three approaches the alleged attacker could have made.
“You sound as if you’ve worked in law enforcement,” I said.
“Been in real estate for the last fifteen years.” He glanced at Aunt Martha.
She collected Harold from Nate. “I guess we should leave the sleuthing to the younger folks.” They headed back up to the trail.
“What do you make of that?” I asked Nate.
“You know your aunt. She likes to be mysterious.”
Hmm, but I had to wonder what Winston had been into before real estate. We descended the steps and scouted the rocky area beneath. I forced myself to ignore the bloodstain because, despite months of training and more than a year on the job, it was still hard to forget that this was where a family friend had met his end.
“I don’t see any clues. How about you?” Nate asked.
Teetering around on the ocean-smoothed rocks, scrutinizing the ground, reminded me of the hours Ashley and I had spent combing for sea glass as kids. But never at this beach. Uncle Jack had said sea glass never seemed to wash up around here. “Oh! It’s a clue.”
“What’s a clue?”
“Can I see that piece of sea glass Harold found?”
Nate handed over the fingernail-sized chip of smoky blue glass.
I turned it over between my fingers, tracing my thumb over the rounded edges. “Whenever Ben used to complain about not being cute enough to get the girls to notice him or Ashley used to complain about being mediocre in everything she tried, Jack would show us a piece of sea glass. He would remind us how it had once been ugly and unwanted—useless—but in being pushed around by the waves and roughed up by the rocks and sand, it was transformed into a beautiful, sought-after treasure.”
“He sounds as if he was a pretty amazing uncle,” Nate said.
“He was. And I think this piece of sea glass could be a clue.”
“How so? Sea glass shows up in pretty random places along the beach.”
“But never on this beach.”
Nate scrutinized the ground. “You sure about that?”
“It’s what Uncle Jack once said. At the very least, it’d be rare. It’s far more likely this piece fell from the attacker’s pocket.”
Nate shook his head, not looking nearly as excited as he should. “Or from one of the emergency personnel’s. Or even Jack’s pocket. Maybe he picked up pieces he found to add to his niece’s collection. Or maybe he noticed the sun glint off this rare find and came down the stairs to investigate.”
“You think I’m creating a crime where there isn’t one.”
“No! Someone ran you and your father off the road. We know that for a fact.”
“And we can’t ignore that it may be connected to Jack’s death.”
“Exactly. So let’s question his partner.”
I gave Nate directions to Edgartown, where Jack and Frank had a small storefront on Winter Street. Nate snagged a curbside parking spot right in front. “It doesn’t look like he’s in.”
I squinted at the sign. “It says closed due to a death in the family. Maybe we can catch him at his house.” I plugged his name into the search app on my phone and came up with the address, then pinpointed the location using the map app. “You’re not going to believe this. He lives up the road from Menemsha Hills.”
Nate pulled back onto the street. “Do you want to call him first?”
“No. I’d rather not give him advance warning. I’m not buying the cops’ finding.” I caught Nate’s arm as he turned onto Church Street. “Stop.”
“What is it?”
“I thought I saw Carly.”
“The fiancée’s daughter?”
“Yeah. Talking to Gaudy Souvenir Guy.”
“Huh?”
I searched my memory for the name Aunt Martha had spied on the guy’s luggage tag. “Charles Anderson. I saw him at the Boston airport yesterday with a replica of a Maya god that he looked pretty edgy about being discovered with in his luggage.”
“Okay, but if he arrived in Boston at the same time as you, then you know he didn’t kill Jack.”
“Sure, but maybe that souvenir I saw was really a disguised artifact. Maybe he’s the smuggler Jack was on to.”
“What are you saying? You think Carly killed Jack because she’s souvenir guy’s girlfriend or something?”
“It’s possible.” I snapped a photo of the pair on my cell phone. “Okay, go, go, before they see us.”
Nate hit the gas, and I put in another call to Isaak.
“Tanner ran a background check on Anderson for me yesterday and nothing popped,” I explained to Nate as I waited for Isaak to pick up. “But maybe Anderson just hasn’t been caught yet.” I signaled Nate to hold his thought as Isaak came on the line. “Hey, could you run a background check on Carly Delmar for me?” I explained my suspicions about Anderson and her possible relationship to him.
“Sure, I’ll get back to you,” Isaak said and hung up.
As Nate and I headed back to Menemsha, he asked, “If Jack was about to add Carly—or at least her mother—to his will, you really think she’d pop him before the ink was dipped?”
“Jack was about to spill whatever he knew to the FBI. And he wasn’t scheduled to sign his new will until next week.”
Nate’s forehead scrunc
hed, as if he was trying to make sense of it. And couldn’t. “But Martha said Carly accused Ashley and Ben of killing Jack, right?”
“Yes.”
“Why would she do that? If the police weren’t calling Jack’s death a homicide, why risk sparking an investigation?”
I shrugged. “Criminals aren’t always the brightest bulbs in the box. Besides, she spouted the accusation the instant she jumped out of her car. A guilty conscience would make her assume the police found the death suspicious.”
“Hmm.”
“I’m not saying she did it. I just want to know what Gaudy Souvenir Guy does for a living and what their relationship is.” I thumbed a text message to Tanner, asking if his check on Anderson turned up an employment history. “Hey, the Lord must’ve nudged me to notice the guy for a reason, right? I don’t believe in coincidences.”
“But they do happen. Sometimes.”
“Turn here,” I said, spotting Frank’s road. “It’s that house on the left.” Frank was washing his car in a baggy sweat suit. His hair had grayed significantly since I’d last seen him, and he’d put on a few extra inches around the middle.
Nate parked in the driveway behind him.
I hopped out of the car, and three strides from coming nose to nose with the guy, I suddenly realized that I didn’t have a clue how to question him. “Uh, hi,” I stammered. Oh, really smooth.
He stopped chamoising his rear panel and squinted at me. His eyes were red, his face haggard. “May I help you?”
I introduced Nate and myself.
His expression turned sympathetic. “Yes, I remember you from the summer barbecues Jack used to throw.” His voice caught. “You and Ashley used to race around with those identical pigtails flopping behind you both. The two of you were inseparable. It’s been a long time.”
“Yes, it has,” I said softly.
Frank’s gaze dropped to the ground. “I can’t believe Jack’s gone.”
“Have the police talked to you?” I asked.
His attention snapped back to me. “Why would they?”
“The state police always investigate an unattended death,” Nate explained. “To help them rule out foul play, they’d want to know if you were aware of any enemies Jack may have had. Disgruntled clients perhaps.”
I found myself staring at Nate. He was amazingly familiar with the procedure for a civilian.
Frank nodded. “That makes sense. But that kind of talk must be killing Ashley and Ben. How are they holding up? I was going to head over there after I finished up here.”
“Ashley is as well as can be expected,” I said. “We’re still waiting for Ben to return from his trip.”
Frank clenched the rag he was holding, the color seeping from his fingers. “It’s high time that kid stopped gallivanting around and took some responsibility. Doesn’t he know his sister needs him?”
“I guess he’ll have no choice now,” Nate said. “I assume he and Ashley will inherit Jack’s share of your architect firm?”
“I’ll buy them out,” Frank muttered. “I’m sure they’d rather have the money.” He rubbed at an invisible spot on the trunk of his car, his trembling jaw betraying the emotional storm he was battling. “I can’t imagine foul play being involved. Jack didn’t have any enemies. Our clients all loved him.”
“A few weeks ago Jack mentioned to my dad you’d made an offer to buy out his share of the business,” I said offhandedly, watching his reaction carefully.
He didn’t appear fazed. “Yes, I wanted to give him more time to enjoy with his new wife.”
“Did you have partnership insurance?” Nate asked.
“Excuse me?”
“You know . . . life insurance on each other. So that the business wouldn’t be jeopardized if one of you had to buy out the partner’s share to settle the estate?”
“Oh, yes, we did.”
“So now you’ll own the whole business without being a cent out of pocket,” Nate mused.
Frank’s face reddened. “What are you implying?”
“Nothing at all,” I interjected, pretty sure Frank was three seconds away from kicking us off his property. I shot Nate a stop-goading-him look.
He just shrugged.
“Jack and I were friends,” Frank insisted. “Yes, it drove me crazy that he refused to get with the times and carry a cell phone and work on a computer, but”—he sent Nate a heated glare—“I didn’t want him dead.”
“Of course not,” I said with more conviction than I felt and mentally scrambled for another approach. “Um, the family needs information I suspect Jack would’ve recorded in his planner, but we haven’t been able to locate it at his house.”
My conscience twanged, even though I was sure the fabrication was true on some level. Eventually they’d need to know a lot of information that was probably in Jack’s date book. And Frank didn’t need to know why I wanted it. “Do you know if Jack kept it at the office?”
“Everything from the office is right here.” Frank popped his trunk hood and lifted out a cardboard box.
My heart did a lopsided somersault in my chest. On the one hand, if Frank had something to hide, he’d hesitate to hand over Jack’s stuff to perfect strangers, right?
On the other hand, his partner had been dead less than thirty-six hours, and he’d already cleaned out the man’s office?
That smacked of I-want-to-make-sure-no-one-finds-anything-incriminating.
The image of the perforations left behind by the page torn from Jack’s message book rose to mind, and I scanned Frank’s trunk for telltale signs of the same.
The trunk was immaculate. I mean, just-vacuumed immaculate. Of course, he was out here cleaning his car, but suddenly I had to wonder what had prompted the urge to do that.
I glanced inside the box. It contained framed photographs of Ben and Ashley and of Marianne, as well as a paperweight that looked as if it’d been made by a three-year-old, a pen set, miscellaneous sundries—I dug deeper through the box—and a planner!
“I was going to ask Carly to give the box to her mom, then figured it should go directly to Ashley since Marianne technically wasn’t next of kin yet.” Frank pushed the box into my hands. “Could you take it to her?”
“Don’t you want to see her?”
“Of course, but—”
“Don’t you need to go through Jack’s planner so you can be sure to follow up on client appointments he had scheduled?” Nate interjected.
I kicked his shin. Discreetly, of course. He was supposed to be helping me. And I wanted a look at that notebook!
“Already did. Thanks.”
Okay, that was helpful. Not that I’d think for a second Frank hadn’t combed every single page of the book before tossing it into the box. “How do you know Carly?” I asked before Nate could interrupt me again.
“She’s our receptionist.”
“Your receptionist? I didn’t know she worked for you and Jack. Was that how he met her mother? Carly introduced them?”
“That’s right.”
“Carly dating anyone?” Nate asked, as if he was interested.
The instant twinge in my stomach irritated me. Not that I thought Nate was actually interested. It had to be a ploy.
“I wouldn’t know,” Frank responded a tad warily.
Nate grinned as if that was the best news he’d heard in weeks. “What are her interests?”
“Interests?” Frank repeated, and I had to admit I was just as confused.
“You know, does she like to go for long walks on the beach? Collect sea glass? Meander antique shops?”
Ooh, clever man. Although did he really think Frank would buy that Nate was shopping for tips on how to win Carly while I was standing right beside him, from all appearances looking as if we were a couple?
“I couldn’t tell you,” Frank said. “I don’t see her outside the office.”
“Well, thank you very much for your help. We’ll see that Ashley gets this box.” I handed it to Nate
, then pasted an urgent uncomfortable look on my face and turned back to Frank. “Could I use your restroom before we go?”
“Sure, it’s inside the door on the right.”
“I’ll just be a minute,” I said to Nate, hoping he got the keep-him-occupied message scribbled between the lines. I scurried inside, ignoring my niggling conscience. Sure, this wasn’t a legal search. And if I found anything incriminating, I wouldn’t be able to use it, unless the evidence happened to be lying out in plain view somewhere between the front door and the restroom.
My breath caught the instant I stepped inside the front door. Frank was an antiquities collector. African masks dotted the walls. An ancient vase sat on an antique table in the front hall. A breathtaking mosaic was visible through the archway leading to the living room. I slipped into the restroom. A chipped, clay watering jug, the kind extracted from an Egyptian excavation I’d once studied, filled half the counter.
My pulse suddenly thrummed my ears like a tribal drumbeat. Ben had been in Egypt. But the 1951 Antiquities Law had declared all Egyptian antiquities the property of the state. Export without a permit was strictly forbidden, which begged the question—did Frank ask Ben to smuggle something out for him? Just how legit was Frank’s collection? I scrutinized the jug more closely, then the mask on the wall above it.
The mask could easily be a fake. Duplicating and aging ancient wooden objects was relatively easy. But Egyptian pieces were another ball game altogether.
Even cautious collectors could inadvertently acquire illegally obtained artifacts. One dealer had gone so far as to launder artifacts by placing them on consignment at Sotheby’s and then buying them back himself, to provide his pieces with a provenance that appeared legitimate.
Then again, Frank had clearly been building his collection over years. So . . . what might Ben have discovered about Frank that would prompt Jack to turn him in and risk untold damage to their company’s reputation?
I hurried out of the bathroom, my mind reeling, as Frank and Nate came in the front door.
“Wow,” I enthused. “You have an amazing antiquities collection.”
Over Maya Dead Body Page 6