by R A Wallace
Tia returned after Archie left. “What do you think?”
“I wonder who she was corresponding with?” Megan turned the envelope over and realized it was blank. Looking at the other letters, she saw that they were the same.
“The author of the letter never refers to themselves by name,” Tia pointed out. “Not in the ones I read, anyway.”
“I noticed that. Whoever wrote them was pretty irate about something though.”
Megan checked the time and realized that she should be leaving. Dan would be home from work soon and would want to know where dinner was. She stood to leave. She’d have to pick up on her puzzle tomorrow. For now, she needed to get home. In the back of her mind, she wondered who she should speak with on the following day when she began looking for more puzzle pieces.
Tia stood as well. “You might want to check with the twins. I know they were at the estate sale also. Maybe they saw something.”
Chapter Nineteen
The lunch crowd at the Jammin’T was typical for a Wednesday. Cy Douglass saw Casey sitting in his regular spot at the counter. He took the seat next to him and motioned to Tyler across the busy diner that he would take the same thing Casey had ordered. He waited for Casey to make some comment about it, but the young veterinarian remained mute as he stared at his coffee cup.
“What, no comment on my lunch choice today?” Cy asked.
Casey was startled out of his reverie. “What’s that?”
Cy made a noise of disgust. “Son, you’re as bad as I was, moping around after a woman. You would think you would have learned something watching me do it for decades.”
Casey waited until Tyler filled Cy’s coffee mug and took off to wait on more customers.
Casey frowned. He had often wondered why Cy hadn’t been more proactive about all that. The woman Cy loved had lived in the same town and Cy had stayed away from her because of some old argument that neither one could even remember having. Cy hadn’t made his move until they were both in their fifties. Was he really behaving just as badly now with Marcy?
“You were worse,” Casey said stubbornly.
Cy grunted. He didn’t think so. “At least I finally married her.”
“I’m staying in the same house with her,” Casey defended himself.
Cy grunted again. “Any word on the break-ins?”
“No, but at least there haven’t been any more attempts.”
Cy rubbed at his chin. “Maybe whoever it was knows the jewels were found.”
Casey hoped the same thing. That way, they wouldn’t need to break into the farm.
“Of course, if there’s no danger, you wouldn’t need to stay there anymore,” Cy pointed out.
There was that. Still, he wanted Ethan safe. That was the important part.
“She’s scared for her son. I shouldn’t take advantage of that,” Casey said, more to himself.
“All parents are worried about their children. Sharing the worry with someone else makes it easier,” Cy argued. “Especially someone who loves you.”
He had a point. Casey looked up as Tyler approached with their food.
“Did you know the security guard that was killed?” Tyler asked Cy as he put a plate of food in front of him.
“Only by sight really. He used to be a police officer in town before he retired.” Cy rubbed his hands together as he examined his lunch. Casey picked out a good one today.
Tyler grabbed a fresh pot of coffee and carried it over to another table. He flipped the cups over and filled them both.
“You ready to order yet?” Tyler asked the couple seated there.
Emmet looked across the table at his daughter with his eyebrows raised. She was staring into space.
“You’d better give us a minute or two,” Emmet said to Tyler.
Emmet studied his daughter as he sipped his coffee. She looked a little pale.
“Are you okay?”
Jennifer looked at him in confusion. “I’m sorry?”
“I said, are you alright? You seem pretty preoccupied with something. Is it work?”
Jennifer noticed that there was hot coffee in front of her. She wondered how it had gotten there.
“Has anyone been by to take our order yet?” she asked.
Emmet shook his head. “Now I know something is wrong. I had a whole conversation with Tyler not two minutes ago. You ignored him.”
“Sorry. It’s just… I don’t know.” Jennifer picked up a menu. “What are you having?”
“The special.”
Jennifer quit pretending to read the menu and dropped it. “I’ll have that too.”
“Is this about the death over at the estate?” Emmet asked.
“What’s that?”
Emmet frowned at her.
“Oh, the security guard. No. That was horrible though, wasn’t it? Did you know him?” Jennifer picked up the coffee cup.
“A little. He was about five years older than I am, maybe a little more. I understand Megan is looking into it.”
“Yeah, she spoke to me too,” Jennifer said vaguely and set the coffee cup back down without drinking.
Emmet watched Jennifer as her thoughts seemed to turn inward again. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“The security guard?” The confusion on her face was evident again.
Emmet smiled. “Whatever it is that’s bothering you.”
Jennifer looked up as Tyler approached again. They both placed their order. She waited until Tyler left again.
“How did you know mom was the one?” Jennifer asked.
“Now there’s a question.” Emmet took a deep breath as he considered an answer that might help. He came up with nothing. “I don’t know. She just was. I never really questioned it, it just felt right somehow. She made me whole. I guess it helped that we liked similar things. We were a team, in the good times and the bad times.”
Jennifer’s eyes dropped to the coffee cup in front of her. She wrapped both hands around it.
“I thought you and Jim had that kind of relationship.”
Jennifer shrugged. She had too, until recently. “I guess we were both wrong about that.”
“What? Why would you say that?” Had he really been wrong about Jim?
She focused on the coffee cup in front of her again. “It’s just, he’s been really secretive lately. I don’t know what’s going on with him.”
Emmet couldn’t help the smile that nearly split his face behind his full mustache. He felt himself relax. “I wouldn’t worry about it. Probably just something temporary at work.” He took a drink to cover his smile.
“Yeah. Maybe.”
“No maybe about it. Everything will be fine. You’ll see.” Emmet worried briefly that his words didn’t seem to console her. He hoped the problem would be resolved soon. Maybe he should speak to Jim about it. He looked back at his daughter. No. This was between the two of them. He should stay out of it. For the most part.
Jennifer tried to shake herself from her mood. “What did you end up getting anyway?”
This time, Emmet was confused. “What’s that?”
“At the estate sale. You went, didn’t you?” Jennifer asked as she watched Tyler approach with a tray of food.
“Oh. I ended up not seeing what I wanted.” Emmet frowned under his mustache. It still annoyed him that he missed getting what he’d wanted.
Tyler placed their meals in front of them and turned to go back to the kitchen. He nearly dropped his empty serving tray when he saw the young woman with reddish blonde hair in front of him.
“Becca, hey. Are you here for lunch?” Tyler ignored the person across the room trying to get his attention.
Becca flashed a large smile. “I can’t stay long. I need to get to the library.”
Tyler pointed to an empty chair at the far end of the counter. “Why don’t you sit over there. I can talk to you whenever I have to go behind the counter.”
Becca nodded her understanding before moving toward the chair.<
br />
Tyler went over to the person who had waved to him. Once he’d taken care of their check, he went behind the counter to get Becca’s order.
“I’m almost finished with that book I checked out,” Tyler said after posting her order with Holly in the kitchen. “There was an interesting section on a state park near here.”
“Did you have any questions about it?” Becca asked.
“Yeah, would you go there with me sometime?” Tyler watched a slight pink tinge color her cheeks.
“Sure. I could do that,” Becca said.
Tyler waited until he walked away from her to wait on more customers before he grinned.
Chapter Twenty
She spent the next morning at home not trusting her stomach to go along with her wish to speak with more people. Once lunchtime had passed, however, Megan was feeling more like herself and was eager to pick up where she had left off the previous day. In addition to making plans for the guests who had booked all four rooms for the upcoming weekend, the forced downtime had given her a chance to read through the letters that Tia had found tucked inside books with a more critical eye. There was an odd use of a word in one of them and she wondered what the significance, if any, might be. She decided to touch base with Erica and Jerry before she met with anyone else.
As promised when she’d texted her friend earlier in the morning, she found Erica and Jerry at the police station. Martha was in her customary place at the reception desk. She wore tiny reading glasses perched on the tip of her nose as she read something on her computer screen. When Megan approached the desk, Martha tilted her head down to look at her over her glasses.
“Megan, what brings you in?” Martha removed her glasses and frowned at them.
“I’m here to see Erica and Jerry,” Megan explained. “Are those new?”
“Yes. I’m having trouble reading on my computer. I thought they might help but, so far, they seem to be causing more problems than they solve. I’ve spent my whole morning taking them off or putting them back on.” Martha held them up for Megan to see and pointed at the top of the frames. “I’m either trying to look above them or down through them. I think I’m going to give myself whiplash jerking my head up and down.”
“Have you tried adjusting the font on your computer screen so you can read the text more easily? You might be able to avoid wearing glasses.”
Martha looked hopeful. “How do I do that?”
Megan explained how to adjust the settings. Jerry appeared just as she finished. She left a happy Martha at the receptionist desk and followed Jerry back to their main office area. She had never cared for being in the police station. She supposed that was by design. No one should really want to be there. She often wondered how the employees withstood the drab interior.
The walls of the hallway they walked through were painted white many years ago. The paint had since dulled with age. There were no signs of color or decorations of any kind. The only things hanging on the walls were bulletin boards with official postings and mug shots of the most popular sought-after guests by law enforcement agencies across the world. She could hear activity inside rooms that they passed as they continued down the hall. Finally, she saw Erica at her desk. She was finishing a phone call as Megan approached.
“What have you got?” Erica stood from her desk chair.
Megan pulled the letters from her purse and handed them to Erica. She explained where Tia had found them.
Erica glanced down at the first letter. “Do the letters name any names?”
“Not that I could find and the envelopes they were in are blank. I’m guessing they were switched out so no one would ever be able to figure out who sent them if they came across them.”
“You think these are talking about the jewels you found?” Jerry asked.
Megan made a face indicating it was possible. “There are some veiled threats in the letters. Whoever wrote them must have felt they didn’t get their share of whatever money or goods or whatever they felt was owed to them.”
“You’re sure the letters were written to Mrs. Henderson and not Mr. Henderson?” Erica looked up from the letters in her hand. “According to Mrs. Henderson’s children, she never left the house. Hard to believe she could get involved in something from there. It was Mr. Henderson that traveled for work sometimes.”
Megan took out the photos that Leah and Daryl had found and explained where she’d gotten them. “I took pictures of these with my phone so you can have them if you need them.”
Jerry took the photos and Erica leaned over his shoulder as he flipped through them.
“Is that Mrs. Henderson?” Erica asked.
“I assumed it was when I first saw the photos, but I asked Linda to check the newspaper archives they have in the library. She found an old wedding photo from the local paper back then. It’s definitely her.”
Jerry laid the photos down on a desk in a row so he could look at them all. “Do you know where these were taken?”
Megan explained what Linda and Becca had told her.
“Europe?” Erica looked over at Jerry. “Why would her children have made it a point to tell us she never left the house if she was wandering all over Europe?”
Jerry pointed at one of the photos. “She looks pretty young here. Maybe it was before she had children?”
“That’s what I thought too,” Megan said.
Erica set the letters down next to the photos. “So, Mrs. Henderson traveled fairly extensively in her youth. She comes home, gets married to someone she met over there and has kids, but refuses to leave the house once she gets here.”
“Once she’s back here, she starts getting threatening letters from someone saying they want their share of the goods or the money or whatever it is they want,” Jerry added.
“But then the letters stop and she either didn’t get anymore after around twenty years ago, or she didn’t keep them,” Megan pointed out.
Jerry rubbed his chin. “My guess is that she didn’t get anymore. She seemed to have kept the others. Doesn’t make sense that she would stop saving them.”
“Maybe whoever was sending them died?” Erica suggested. “Still doesn’t explain where the diamond and the other jewels came from though.”
“Maybe one of her European stops?” Jerry asked.
“Where diamonds and other jewels were routinely stolen from Europe back in the day?” Erica asked cynically.
“Actually, according to Linda and Becca, there are some famous movies and books about that kind of thing happening,” Megan said.
“And, who knows what else they may have picked up when they were there.” Jerry reached for a letter and began reading. “Maybe they didn’t only collect diamonds?”
Megan looked at the clock on the wall. “I’ll leave these with you. Let me know if they help.” Megan told them she could find her own way out.
Jerry went back over to the murder board. “Do you think any of this has anything to do with the arguments overheard with Jimmy Garcia during the estate sale?”
Erica crossed the room to stand next to him. “You’re thinking someone recently picked up where the original letter sender stopped?”
“Maybe someone else learned about the jewels somehow?” Jerry tossed out.
“Or the original letter writer suddenly picked up where they left off twenty years ago? If they really did stop? Several people say they heard Jimmy having an argument with someone.” Erica pointed at one of the notes on the board. “This person claims they heard someone arguing somewhere near the library, but they didn’t see who it was because they were out in the hall at the time.”
Jerry pointed at another note. “That person heard someone arguing with Jimmy on the second floor, but they aren’t certain what the guy looked like.”
“At least everyone who claims to have heard altercations with Jimmy say it was with a male.”
“Yeah, that narrows it down to only half the population of the world,” Jerry said dryly.
Erica
sighed. “The descriptions that we do have are conflicting, but they’re a starting point.”
Jerry turned to Erica. “Maybe we should talk to Jimmy’s son again?”
“You want to give him the descriptions we have gotten?” Erica guessed. “See if he knows who it might be?”
“It’s worth a shot.”
***
It was warm inside Tea & Thyme. Both twins were in the front of the shop when Megan entered. She could see into the new addition that allowed a sitting area for customers to enjoy beverages and light refreshments. There were several people sitting in there. Megan remembered the box of tea with samples of multiple flavors that she had bought the last time she was here. She went over to the shelving unit that had the display and got another box before approaching the front counter.
“Megan, you’re looking well,” Janice said.
“Maybe the tea helped,” Jill said.
Megan smiled. “I think you might be right.”
“How are you doing with your puzzle?” Janice asked.
“You are working on a puzzle, aren’t you?” Jill added. “We were sure you must be. Weren’t we?”
“Yes, we’ve been talking about what we might have seen when we were at the estate sale,” Janice agreed.
“We aren’t sure it was much this time,” Jill said with a frown.
“We do like helping you find puzzle pieces,” Janice said.
Megan waited for them to take a breath. “Did you see the security guard when you were there?”
Both women nodded.
“We saw him have an argument with someone, didn’t we?” Jill asked her twin.
“We did. We were sure that would be a puzzle piece,” Janice said with certainty.
“Did you see who he argued with?” Megan asked.
The twins shared a look then shook their heads.
“How about what the argument was about?” Megan asked.
The twins frowned.
“Maybe it isn’t a puzzle piece,” Jill said to her sister.
Janice brightened. “We did see Miles Craney when we were there. Have you spoken to him yet?”
It took Megan a moment to put a face to the name. “The jeweler?”