"Why do you say that?"
Molly told him about the photographs. "It was like she was creating a dream world. She had all these smiling pictures of her and George-Bradley, like they were the perfect couple. Poor thing. Her biggest fault was that she didn't like his stuff. She probably never thought her indifference to his collection would eventually doom their relationship."
"I do feel sorry for her. Still, she seems to have woken up from her dream world if she's selling all of his belongings this quickly. Seems to have recovered pretty fast, if you ask me."
Molly swallowed a delicious bite of spring roll. "Just in his part of the house. I bet, that when she redecorates, she puts up more pictures and creates a kind of mausoleum to their marriage."
"People will do anything to get over losing someone..." Matt murmured, turning his face away.
Molly saw that he had suddenly withdrawn but couldn't figure out what she had said to drive him away. She tried to draw him back by wondering aloud. "But that still leaves the questions of the overdose and his missing pottery?"
"The pottery could be anywhere, and who knows what was going on in his mind the morning he took those shots," Matt said flatly.
"You should have seen how he kept the pottery. It was perfectly arranged, labeled, and routinely dusted. It's missing. I feel it. Do you think George-Bradley's mistress, Susan, snuck into their house? There's something fishy about the double insulin injection theory, too. I saw something in George-Bradley's face, Matt. He was surprised in the end. Shocked. You can't easily shock a man like that," she stated animatedly. "There's been foul play, I know it in my gut, and I'm going to try to find out what happened."
"How?" he asked, looking at her curiously.
"I don't know, but I'm supposed to be doing these articles, so I have an excuse to interview people in his circle. I'm going to call some of the suspects from the kiln opening, like Susan Black. It seems that many people hated George-
Bradley and it just so happens Swanson has me meeting with my first source of inside information tomorrow, twelve o'clock sharp. That's when I will be interviewing a rival collector, a man named Hillary Keane. George-Bradley cut him in line and insulted him. He ought to have a great deal to say," Molly stated resolutely.
Matt smiled at her stubbornness and laid a tentative hand on her arm. "Just be careful. Curiosity can get you into trouble, especially if you happen to be right and this man’s death was no accident."
Puzzled by Matt's abrupt swing in mood, Molly was nonetheless delighted by his tender smile and the feel of his hand on her arm. She felt like it was burning heat right into her.
~~~~~
Molly loved her days off. On Sundays she’d often hang out with Clara or Kitty. Tuesday was the day to spend all morning in pajamas with coffee and a good book. Her two cats, Merlin and Griffin, would curl up on the sofa with her as she lounged about, reading and watching the Weather Channel.
This Tuesday could not follow the usual pattern. She had her interview with Hillary Keane at noon and needed to fight off her lethargy with a shower and strong coffee.
Her cats eyed her with disappointment as she came downstairs dressed for the day.
"Sorry, guys." She gave them each a pile of treats. "Mom's got to work today."
Because Molly’s mind was filled with possible interview questions, the ride to Asheboro felt shorter than usual. Molly consulted the directions Swanson had written in his illegible scrawl and turned off a back road just south of Greensboro. Winding through the countryside, she felt her spirits lift. She was excited about comparing Hillary Keane's collection with George-Bradley's. And she couldn’t stop thinking about the spark she’d felt when Matt had touched her arm. She turned up the oldies station and sang along with Elvis to "Viva Las Vegas."
A few miles north of Asheboro, she turned onto a smaller street lined with single-story brick homes and two-story bungalows from the 1960s. The lots were large and covered by massive trees and rolling lawns, but the houses were rather dingy and not as well kept as Molly had expected. Disappointed, she searched for house numbers, knowing that a ranch-style house could only hold so much pottery.
The last residence on the street belonged to Hillary Keane and Molly's hopes were restored. A large white colonial, the house looked down on the street from its green crest and yawned widely with a columned mouth. Surrounded by trimmed rhododendron and azalea bushes, the house looked quite comfortable perched above the other homes in the neighborhood. As Molly pulled up the driveway, she admired the large bed of rose bushes to the left and a neat, brick walkway lined with an explosion of impatiens leading up to the front door.
The driveway led her to the back of the house, where a wide, low porch extended out onto the lawn. Molly parked in front of the garage, surprised that it was big enough to hold three cars. She wondered what Keane did for a living in order to afford multiple cars in addition to a large pottery collection.
Walking around to the front door, she noticed that the grass was not as neat as the garden beds. Despite the lack of rain, it had grown tall and was long overdue for a trim. Molly rang the doorbell and waited, going over her mental checklist of necessary supplies: mini-recorder, pad of paper with questions, pen, and camera. When no one came to the door and Molly didn’t hear the sounds of footsteps from within the house, she rang again. She could hear the loud chimes echo inside, but no one responded to the bell.
She decided to try the back door. No answer. She checked her watch. It was exactly noon. Maybe Swanson had set the appointment for a different day. He had made scheduling errors before.
Stepping up onto the porch, Molly noticed a pair of parched ferns and a strewn pile of local newspapers around the welcome mat. She picked one up. It was the Washington Post. Hillary had left five days worth of papers scattered about. Molly frowned. She hated things to be untidy.
Opening the screen door, she knocked on the wood interior door, growing irritated over having given up her day off for no reason. As she stepped back from the door in surrender, a scrap of paper fluttered out from its place between the two doors. She picked it up and read:
Sunday
Hey Buddy,
Where are you? We had a tee time for this morning.
Did you forget? Stopped by here to pick you up, but no one was home. I called you on your cell, at home, and at work, but no dice. I don’t know what’s going on, but let's reschedule for next weekend. Give me a call.
—Gil
Molly stuck the note underneath the grip of the doorknocker, and then peered in one of the porch windows. She could see into the kitchen, where three of the Meaders roosters stood guard from their prominent place on top of the cabinets, but nothing struck her as odd. A mug sat out on the counter next to some brown bananas. Turning back to the drive, she looked again at the papers and the unkempt lawn.
Molly walked over to the garage and tried the door. It was locked. Peering in through the square windows of the garage doors, she could see that only one of the garage bays was occupied. A small, inexpensive pickup truck sat next to an empty bay, while the third was taken up by a large worktable surrounded by tools. Molly assumed Hillary Keane kept his other car in the second bay, so nothing looked out of place in the garage. Except for the rows of cardboard boxes carefully arranged on shelves lining the entire back wall. Whatever was in those boxes took up a great deal of space.
Molly moved over to the far bay, hoping to get a better view of the back wall from a different angle. From this vantage point, she could see that several of the shelves were empty, but there were rectangular-shaped clean spaces in the dust, indicating that boxes had once been stored there. The box closest to her had obviously been looked at recently, because the newspaper had not been completely replaced. No longer obscured by the classified section, the necks of two large pottery jugs jutted out from their nest. The rows and rows of packed boxes all contained pottery!
But why would Hillary Keane keep all his pottery out here, out of sight? Pottery
collectors loved to touch and see their objects of desire. How had Keane planned to show her his collection if it was all buried out here in the garage?
She walked back toward her car and dialed the office. Swanson's secretary informed her that he was home with a cold and gave her his home number. She knew that there was a good chance her "sick" boss would be out fishing, but he answered his phone with an angry grunt.
"Carl? It's Molly."
"This better be good," he grumbled. "I've got a nasty cold, you know."
"Sorry to hear that. I'm at Hillary Keane's house, for our appointment, but he's not here."
"And what would you like me to do about that?" Swanson demanded.
"I'm just checking to make sure this is the correct day," Molly said carefully.
"Of course it is!" he barked. "I talked to him on Thursday, the day before the Burle kiln opening. He said he was thrilled to be able to show off his collection. Really wanted to help spread the word about the local potters. Seemed like a decent guy."
"Well, maybe he had to leave town. What should I do now?"
Swanson sighed, "I'll call my friend and see if he knows what happened to Keane."
"His name wouldn't be Gil, would it?" Molly asked.
"No, it's Bryant. Why?"
"Keane was supposed to play golf with Gil on Sunday. There's a note here from him. Apparently, Keane missed his tee time."
Uninterested, Swanson replied, "Ah, that's where I'm going right now. I need something to get my mind off of this cold."
Molly hung up and returned to her sweltering car. As she reversed down the driveway, the house seemed to be watching her through the streaked sunlight. It seemed especially silent on its lonely hill. Molly suddenly remembered how George-Bradley had cut in front of Keane at C. C.'s kiln opening. The look of outrage in Keane's eyes was unforgettable. Had George-Bradley stepped on Keane's toes more than once? Molly had a strong feeling that something was wrong in Hillary Keane's life, and it wasn't more serious than a head cold.
One thing she felt with conviction. Whatever had caused Hillary Keane's absence was linked to those boxes of pottery.
~~~~~
On the ride home, Molly called her mother to see if she wanted to go out for dinner. Clara was settled in a lounge chair reading. She sat up lazily and reached for the phone; only her interest in hearing about Hillary Keane's collection could tear her away from the mystery she was reading.
"How's Lord Menes doing?" Molly asked after the novel's hunky Egyptian hero. She had already plowed through the series of five books.
"Handsome as ever. Every other paragraph is about his tan, muscular torso. I can't stand it."
"What will you do once you're finished?"
Her mother sighed longingly. "I'll just have to reread all the Horatio Hornblower books to keep me satisfied. How was your interview?"
"Didn't happen."
"What do you mean?"
Molly told her mother about her visit to Hillary Keane's. Clara listened, frowning in thought.
"The pottery was packed in cardboard boxes?" Clara asked, completely perplexed. "What's the point of having such beautiful and interesting pieces of art hidden from view?"
"Maybe Keane just liked to hoard stuff. My boss said he sounded like a nice enough guy when they talked on the phone," Molly said.
"It's the South. Everyone sounds kind and cordial on the phone. Doesn't mean they can't snap at you like a rabid dog if duly provoked."
'True, but I may never find out. Carl is trying to locate Keane and will call me back tonight."
"What are we doing for dinner?" Molly heard the sound of fabric stretching and imagined Clara leaning all the way back on her lounge chair, her long legs crossed as she set her novel aside. "It's too hot to cook. Let's go to Panchos."
Molly laughed. "Excellent idea. I could use a margarita. After all, this was my day off."
~~~~~
Panchos was one of the few restaurants in Hillsborough. It had had a slow start, opening its doors in a town where people had been eating grits and barbeque all their lives. But it hadn't taken long for the delicious and inexpensive Mexican food to seduce the taste buds of even the least risk taking eaters around.
Molly and Clara ordered jumbo margaritas on the rocks and dug into the warm tortilla chips and spicy salsa.
"Time to talk about serious matters," Molly began, swallowing a sip of her frozen delight. "There is something rotten in the state of North Carolina."
"Such as?"
Molly pushed the basket of chips toward her mother. "George-Bradley's death, for starters. Bunny was adamant that she gave him his daily insulin shot. On top of that, there's the missing pottery."
"Lex is going back over to the Staunton place tomorrow. He'll ask the cleaning lady if she knows anything and one mystery will be solved. As for the insulin issue, what are you suggesting?"
"What if someone gave George-Bradley more insulin? Someone who knew he had diabetes and knew his habits well enough to know that he'd already had one shot."
"You're still fixated on the possibility of murder?" Clara asked loudly.
At that awkward moment, the waitress arrived to take their orders. Clara chose a vegetarian plate with two bean burritos and a cheese enchilada. Molly skipped the beans and opted for three cheese enchiladas.
"I need my calcium," she told the waitress sheepishly. Turning back to her mother, she answered, "Yes, I do believe George-Bradley was murdered."
"Who are your suspects?"
As a plate of sizzling fajitas passed them by, Molly suggested that either Bunny or Susan could be the killer.
"I don't know," Clara pondered. "Susan wasn’t exactly chasing after him at the kiln opening. I don't even think she'd want him back as a boyfriend. What reason would she have to kill him? I think Bunny had more motive."
Molly rubbed salt from the rim of her glass. "But what about all of those pictures Bunny had of them together? They were so nostalgic. And a little sad. She could have still loved her husband."
"Those photos don't mean anything," Clara said dismissively. "They were probably put out just for show. Bunny wouldn't let it seem like she and George-Bradley were anything but happy. I doubt her closest friends knew if there was anything wrong in that marriage. Bunny cares about appearances."
"She didn’t bother concealing how she felt when we were there."
"That's because we don't count as people who matter. We're the help."
"So what about Hillary Keane's anger at the kiln opening? Keane knew George-Bradley, I could tell by the look he gave our victim. And what about Keane blowing off both my interview and his golf buddy? The man is gone, I tell you."
"He had to leave town. He'll turn up. Look, as much as I love a good mystery, I don't think there is one here."
As the waitress arrived with scalding plates of food, Molly's phone chirped from within her purse. She quickly grabbed it and made for the door. It was a pet peeve of hers that people had loud phone conversations in restaurants, and she vowed never to be so impolite.
"Hello?"
Her boss coughed in her ear. "Seems that Keane really has disappeared. He hasn't been to work for the last couple of days and my friend hasn't heard a word from him either. Says the two of them are pretty close, too. He's actually going to call the police. In the meantime, why don't you interview that potter who used to visit your school? You told me about him last year."
"Sam Chance? I would love to see him again." Molly was thrilled. Swanson was lining up another person who had been to the kiln opening. However, she thought of one drawback. "Just so you know, Sam produces mostly functional pottery. Nothing fancy."
"That's fine. We want to represent a varied mix of potters. It's not like people don't collect dishes..."
"True. I'm also hoping to arrange an interview with Susan Black, another collector. I left a message on her answering machine, but haven't heard anything yet... Listen, is Keane married?" Molly asked.
"Nope, he's a ba
chelor, unlike me. And my wife is calling me for supper."
"Wait!" Molly caught him. "Just tell me one more thing. What is Keane's profession?"
"He's a pharmacist."
Molly snapped her cell phone closed and rejoined her mother.
"Let’s examine one of the suspects on my list," she told Clara proudly.
"OK. According to you, we have Bunny the jealous wife, Susan the vengeful mistress, and now ...?
"Hillary Keane."
"What did your boss say?" Clara asked.
"Keane has officially gone missing. Hasn't been home, hasn't been to work, and no one seems to know where he is. The police are being called in to investigate."
"And why does that make him a suspect?"
"Because of his job. He's a pharmacist!" Molly exclaimed.
Clara sat back in her chair and sipped her drink thoughtfully. Then her eyes widened. "He's got access to insulin."
"Exactly. And maybe he gave himself access to some of
George-Bradley's pottery. That could explain the where in our 'where has the pottery gone?' question."
"All right, for argument’s sake let’s assume Keane wanted to knock off George-Bradley and take some pieces, how would he give him the extra insulin? I saw him at the kiln opening, but only for a moment."
"I don't know. I'd have to ask Matt for some ideas."
Clara's glass stopped in midair on the way to her mouth. "Matt?"
"Oh, he works with me at the paper." Molly tried to keep from blushing, but Clara sensed there was more to be discovered about this coworker.
"Why would your coworker know about diabetes?" she asked.
"He went to med school for three years. He knows quite a bit," Molly defended Matt, and then quickly changed the subject. "Back to Keane."
Clara put up her hand to stop her daughter from continuing. "If Keane had stolen pottery he could never put the pieces on display."
Molly jerked her fork in the air. "Thus the boxes in the garage!"
A Killer Collection Page 8