A Killer Collection

by J. B. Stanley

  "I'm sorry," she said a few minutes later as she poured Emmanuel a strong cup of tea. "Drink this, it will help calm you down. Do you think you can you tell me what happened?"

  Emmanuel took a deep sip and looked at her as tears ran down his cheeks. "I don't know. I just... found her. Someone shot her. I was outside and I didn’t hear anything." He shook his head. "I loved her, but they will think I did it. I am the gardener! A foreigner! They will think it was me, that I—"

  "No one is going to assume you shot Mrs. Staunton," Molly cut him off before he became hysterical. "Do you own a gun?"

  "No," Emmanuel replied tonelessly.

  "Well, that's a good start in proving your innocence. Were there any guns in the house?"

  "Mr. Staunton owned some old shotguns. All his stuff is gone now though."

  "And there won’t be any gunshot residue on your hands either. Did you see anyone around the house this morning?" Molly asked. "Any cars come down the driveway?"

  Emmanuel tried to concentrate. "I was working by the tennis court most of day. I can't see much from back there and I was using the hedge trimmers. They are very loud.

  All I know is Bunny was expecting someone to pick up, uh, el conejo."

  Molly didn't recognize the Spanish word. "The what?"

  "The rabbit." He gestured at the pottery figure standing on the kitchen counter.

  "I came to collect it." Molly sighed. "No other cars?"

  Emmanuel buried his face in his hands. Molly thought he would begin crying again, but he suddenly looked up at her with dry, bright eyes. "I did see one! I don't know cars, but it was white."

  "And big, more like a van instead of a car?"

  "Si, yes, higher than a car." He raised his hand up.

  At that moment, the police burst into the front hall. An officer strode into the kitchen and asked to be shown the body. Remarkably calm, Molly directed Emmanuel to stay put and led the police As she explained her presence to the officer in charge, a Mr. Bennett, Emmanuel was led through "I tell you!" he moaned. "I loved her! I did not kill her!"

  "Will you need an interpreter?" the second one asked unkindly. Emmanuel ignored him.

  Bennett quickly intervened, warning his men to keep their mouths shut before turning curious eyes to Molly. "I thought you were just picking up a piece of pottery. You sound like you might have an idea who the killer is."

  Molly thought about the threatening voice mail and shivered. Then she grew angry. How dare someone try to scare her? She would make them sorry. If the called was the murderer, Molly would help put the villain behind bars.

  She returned Bennett's gaze and surprised him by saying, "Not just an idea. I absolutely know who the killer is."

  ~~~~~

  In what seemed like a hour later, Bennett ordered a junior office to pick up the person Molly identified as suspect. He then warned the other cop to meet him back at the station. He told Molly she would have to come to the station as well to fill out a report.

  Holding Emmanuel with gentle firmness by the arm, Bennett gave orders to the forensic unit and to the coroner before escorting Molly and Emmanuel to his car.

  "Bennett!" an officer called after him. "Let me swab those two for residue."

  "Me, too?" Molly asked.

  "We have to check for gun powder. It just rules you out as suspects," Bennett replied and nodded at the officer. "Go ahead, Frank."

  Both Molly and Emmanuel's hands were swabbed. Frank shook his head and turned away to help his crew unload equipment.

  "No traces on either of you," Bennett explained, holding open the car door.

  At the small police station, Molly was given a tepid cup of coffee and some stale cheese crackers while she went through her statement. There were only two interview rooms as most of the building was comprised of offices and holding cells so Molly and Emmanuel were seated at tables next to one another. Bennett sat across from Molly and asked questions as another officer took notes on a pad.

  She calmly explained her reasons for being at the Staunton resident as well as how she knew the identity of the killer. The only thing about the experience that unnerved her was the presence of the tape recorder on the table.

  "Just try to ignore it," Bennett suggested, watching Molly stare at the spinning disks inside the recorder.

  As she was in the middle of describing the voice mail message she had received, an officer led a petite woman clad in a black pantsuit into the station. When the woman's angry gaze fell upon Molly, she lurched free of the man's grip, grabbed a stapler off the nearest desk, and ran straight for her.

  "You fat, nosy bitch! I'll kill you too!" Susan Black screamed.

  Bennett leapt up and intercepted Susan’s raised hand in a quick, fluid motion. Susan fumed and struggled beneath his iron grasp, her eyes never leaving Molly's face. Her hatred twisted her features into an ugly mask.

  "It was MY money! MINE! I deserved it for sleeping with that disgusting bastard! For keeping his stupid secrets! I deserved it ALL! And you, you interfering little BITCH...!" Susan was dragged away; spitting and yelling every obscenity Molly had ever heard until the doors leading to the cells clanked behind her.

  Bennett sank back into his chair, took a sip of coffee, and grimaced.

  "Absolute swill. Please continue with your statement, Miss Appleby. I plan to our real suspect calm down a moment before I ask for her side of the story." He smirked. "Though that might take quite a while."

  ~~~~~

  By dinnertime, Molly was luxuriating in the scalding water of Clara's hot tub with a large mojito near at hand.

  Clara hovered nearby, uncharacteristically ruffled by her daughter's depiction of the day's events.

  Finally, Molly scolded Clara until she settled into a nearby lounge chair, making room for her favorite cat, a twenty-two-pound apricot-colored tabby named Tiny Purr. Clara began sipping rapidly from a crystal tumbler filled with Crown Royal and water.

  "Doesn't look like you've got much water in there, Ma," Molly teased.

  "Hah! You're lucky there's even any ice in here. I don't know how you can settle for a tutti-frutti drink at a time like this. Poor Bunny! And my poor baby! You must be fit to be tied!"

  "You know sugar makes everything all right for me. I'm tired, but at least this mystery is almost solved," Molly said as she sank deeper into the warm water.

  "Oh, there can't be anymore surprises left. Susan killed them both. She must have! She was at the kiln opening and she hated both the Stauntons," Clara said with finality.

  "We'll see what Officer Bennett comes up with. Now ... look in that box." Molly pointed to a side table. "That's the piece of pottery I went to pick up."

  Molly watched as her mother lifted the rabbit from the box. Her own feelings of discovery were mirrored on her mother's face as her jaw slacked with shock.

  "Kiln #43! I can't believe it!"

  "Isn't he beautiful?" Molly said proudly.

  "He is. He's wonderful." Her mother looked at her. "So there was a surviving kiln load. But what happened to the rest of the pieces?"

  "I don't know. I need to find out more about Jack Graham."

  Clara held the rabbit up triumphantly, her worries vanishing like the ice in her drink. "Well, you'll have the chance next weekend."

  "How?"

  Clara produced a postcard, which she had been using as a bookmark and smiled widely. "Jack Graham is having his first kiln opening in two years. It's a small, private affair for a select group of friends and collectors."

  "How did you get your hands on an invitation?" Molly asked.

  "Donald, of course."

  "That man is a wonder," Molly said.

  The two women sat in silence, admiring the pottery rabbit that basked in the glow of the waning summer sun.

  Once her cocktail was finished, Molly dried off and picked up the clay piece, gazing at it with maternal tenderness. Crickets sang and a few fireflies began to burn in the purpling sky.

  "Only one question remains. I
f that kiln wasn't supposed to exist, how did George Bradley get a hold of you?"

  ~~~~~~~~~~

  Chapter 15

  Cliff. It's rain, dead leaves, dust, all my dead ancestors. Stones

  Do tell, Miss Marple. Was Susan Black really wearing gold lame shoes when she was arrested? I have a bet with Francis over this fashion detail." Clayton leaned a hip clad in suede jeans on Molly's desk.

  She tried to remember. "Yes, I think she was."

  "Lord have mercy! Who does she think she is, Faith Hill? Now I owe Francis a dinner at Cafe Luna. Damn. Oops, time to dash." Clayton jumped up and scurried away as Matt came out of his office carrying a huge bouquet of wildflowers.

  "These are for you." He smiled and laid them on her desk. "The hero of the hour. Or... er... heroine of the hour. Feel up to going to lunch?"

  "Absolutely. Thank you." Molly's stomach rumbled in anticipation. "Let's go," she laughed.

  Later, seated at a cozy table at a small, Italian eatery, Molly told Matt all about her visit to Bunny's.

  "How did you know the killer was Susan Black?" Matt asked as they buttered slices of warm, crusty bread.

  "I saw her car at the auction. A white Mercedes SUV. I wondered where she had gotten the money for that car, the pottery, and her clothes. She has no regular job that I know of. I guess George-Bradley had treated her quite well when they were together and she didn't want to stop living the good life."

  "But didn't you say they’d been broken up for awhile?" Matt asked, twirling spaghetti in meat sauce around on his fork.

  "Yeah, but there was that thing Bunny whispered in Susan's ear about the car ride in the backwoods. I guess I'll never know everything Bunny said or what was in that letter, but it was enough to get her killed."

  "And seeing her…body didn't bother you?"

  Molly cut one of her herbed meatballs in two and sent sauce flying onto the white tablecloth. "Oh, dear." She colored. "Sorry, I've never been good at eating Italian without getting sauce somewhere it doesn’t belong. Did seeing Bunny bother me? No, it didn't. She didn't seem like a real person anymore, you know? She was more like a wax figure from Madame Tussauds."

  "That's the way it was in med school too. I was pretty nervous about my first anatomy class, but it wasn't that bad. The cadavers weren't like real people anymore. They were more like CPR dummies. At least it helped to think of them that way. If I’d thought of someone as having once been a parent or a brother or sister, I wouldn’t have learned a thing."

  Molly studied him. "Can I ask you why you didn't finish?"

  Matt peered at her defensively, and then his face instantly softened. "Sure you can. It's just painful to talk about. In the summer before my last year, my parents were killed in a car accident." He paused and took a deep drink of Chianti. "I had to take care of all the arrangements—it was just my younger brother and me—and by the time the estate was straightened out, school had started and I wasn't ready to go back. I felt too broken to go back."

  "Of course you did. I'm so sorry, Matt." Molly covered his hand with hers.

  "I might enroll again someday. I still want to be a doctor," Matt said as he squeezed her hand in return, "but I can't see leaving work now. Not when I have such good company right across the hall."

  ~~~~~

  "Are you going to quit? Swanson barked at Molly after she returned to her desk following her lunch with Matt.

  "Why?" she asked, horrified that her piece on Sam Chance might have been poorly written.

  "Because you seem more involved with hard-boiled crime stories these days than reporting on antiques and collectibles. I want a piece that finishes this pottery series off with a bang."

  Molly squirmed as Swanson's foul breath hit her in the face. "I have found one more potter I'd like to interview."

  "And perhaps you'd like to tell me about this mystery man."

  "His name is Jack Graham. He's another Seagrove potter, but Sam Chance said he doesn't do interviews anymore."

  "Any reason?" Swanson's curiosity was aroused.

  Molly repeated Sam's words and how he’d grown uncomfortable and had refused to give out any information about Graham aside from warning her to stay away. Swanson's eyes lit up at the thought of a dramatic secret adding more spice to the paper. The recent edition, replete with details on George-Bradley's death and Hillary Keane's arrest had created record highs in circulation.

  "You get that interview with Graham. I don't care how you get it, just see that you do." Swanson broke off to cough up something liquid into his yellowed handkerchief.

  "I’m on it," Molly said, backing away from the desk in disgust. "I'll try to get something lined up with him this weekend."

  But before the weekend's kiln opening, she needed to discover more about this potter whose only surviving piece from an entire kiln had been a small, unglazed rabbit.

  ~~~~~

  The next day, Molly headed for the library at Duke University, an old, gray stone building with Tudor-style windows and a sprawling layout of endless rooms. Filled with students poring over books or conducting group study sessions in low whispers, the atmosphere was both quiet and lively.

  As posters of Lincoln, Harriet Tubman, and the Wright Brothers cast knowing but affable glances down upon her, she began searching through databases for newspaper articles on Jack Graham.

  Scanning through the summary lines on the computer screen Molly noted that most of these were articles about the uniqueness of Graham’s work or short pieces detailing his kiln openings. His name popped up in several other searches relating to the Seagrove area and its potters, but nothing appeared about his personal life.

  Molly read everything available to her, printing out a few of the articles reviewing Graham's work in order to improve her own knowledge of the talented craftsman. Nothing indicated the Graham had faced any "trouble," but then again, none of the articles mentioned anything personal about Graham except for his age and the family's history of pottery making. Stumped, Molly approached the reference desk to seek help.

  A tall, pale-faced male librarian with a white button-down shirt and frayed brown pants greeted her kindly. His round, thick glasses enlarged his greenish eyes and enunciated his hooked nose, giving the impression of a friendly turtle. There was nothing slow about his fingers, however, and when Molly explained what she was looking for, his hands flew like startled finches over the keys.

  "Jack Graham," he said, lips crinkling in concentration, "a Seagrove potter, if I'm not mistaken."

  "Yes."

  "Known for his perfect form and the brilliant hues of his glazes," he continued.

  "That’s right." Molly was impressed.

  "The Archives Database will provide birth information, so you'll know his age and place of birth, but that's not much." His fingers continued to peck at the keyboard. "Let's see what the local press has to say."

  Results danced over the screen in black and blue lines of text. The librarian did not seem pleased. He sighed heavily, stroking the gray stubble peppering his chin.

  "Once again, progress is halted due to lack of funding."

  "What happened?" Molly asked, disappointed. Mr. Turtle seemed as capable as a magician waving his wand over a black hat. She had expected those nimble fingers to pull out the white rabbit of news articles on the life of Jack Graham.

  "The microfiche of the Asheboro papers, which would have covered all events occurring in Seagrove, have not been downloaded into the database yet. Their branch needs to link with our database, but they only have one or two computers. The state has made huge cuts from library budgets everywhere. The smaller libraries are really suffering." He shrugged. "Remember this during the next election year."

  "So if they can't afford to have the database, are all the area newspaper articles on microfiche?"

  "Probably, yes. I'm afraid you'll have to go to the main branch in Asheboro and look at films the old-fashioned way."

  Molly thanked Mr. Turtle for his help, returned to her car, a
nd headed for the interstate. She'd have a quick lunch before driving an hour and a half to Asheboro once again. She pulled off I-85 at a cafeteria and selected an array of homemade foods for lunch including macaroni and cheese, black- eyed peas, and bread pudding with vanilla custard sauce for dessert.

  The librarian at the local branch was an older woman with curly, paper-white hair. It was so thin that her pink scalp winked out in places like bare patches in the lawn. Her eyes were sharp blue and sparkled with vivacity. She patted Molly on the hand after listening to her request and handed her several old index boxes.

  "These are the newspaper films we've got on file. You just figure out what issue you want and bring the card up here. I'll get the films and set you up on the reader."

  "Thank you." Molly made herself comfortable in an oversized pink chair by the window and began flipping through the cards. Each card contained a summary of the important articles of the week, sorted by subject. She began flipping through the "Arts" sections, musing over the difference between Duke's database and this library's boxes of yellow aged index cards.

  As the afternoon wore on, Molly found several references to Jack Graham's work. She had a small stack of cards laid aside with short articles covering his kiln openings. As the librarian leaned over her to line up the rolls of microfiche, Molly caught a sweet, familiar whiff of vanilla. Molly always burned vanilla candles in her house, and her favorite coffee flavor was French vanilla.

  "Anything wrong, dear?" the librarian's mellifluous voice inquired.

  "Not at all," she assured the librarian. "By the way, you smell lovely."

  The librarian beamed and walked off, leaving Molly to scroll through pages of film, printing out any articles where Jack Graham's name appeared. She then collected her pile of printouts and returned to her soft chair to read, hoping at least to learn which buyers were present at each sale. Would any of these short pieces hold clues about Graham's personal life?