“I guess I’m giving it to the museum. But it is going to be awkward.”
Marie looked at Walt. “Like I said, I didn’t know about those payments—or that the Seahorse Motel was located on land that belonged to you. Heavens, I had no idea that Packard belonged to you. My father had already passed away before I even knew Ben had it.”
“I wonder…” Danielle frowned.
When she didn’t finish her sentence, Walt asked, “You wonder what?”
“Maybe Pastor Chad coming over here to pick up the portraits was all a ruse.” She looked at Walt. “Remember how Sadie caught Millie snooping through your closet? The closet where we had put the apple boxes. Maybe they intended to take those boxes all along.”
Thirty-Two
“It’s uncanny,” Joan Watts told the others. “It does look just like Walt!” She stood in the museum with her husband and the Garcias, staring at the reproductions of Walt’s portraits.
“Technically it is Walt,” Lindy reminded them with a laugh. “No wonder Amy freaked out. It’s really trippy.”
“Danielle said something about one of their great-grandparents being double cousins of twins. Which probably accounts for the eerie resemblance,” Joan noted. “Like I said before, it’s all genetics.”
“But how many generations ago was that?” Raul Garcia asked.
In the museum gift shop Millie and Sam waited anxiously for Ben’s arrival while the four bed-and-breakfast guests wandered through the museum displays without a docent guide.
“Why did you let them in?” Sam hissed under his breath.
“They were here when I arrived this morning. I couldn’t very well turn them away; after all, the museum hours are posted on the door!”
“So? You could have made up some excuse about the museum opening later today. A broken pipe or something.”
“Right,” Millie scoffed. “I told you they’re Danielle’s guests, and they came expressly to see her portraits. I couldn’t just turn them away. And a broken pipe? I don’t think so. What a silly excuse.”
“They’d better not stay long,” Sam grumbled.
“Ben isn’t even here yet. We can’t do anything until he arrives. He’s got the key,” Millie reminded him.
A few minutes later the front door to the museum opened. Pastor Chad walked in.
“Is Ben here yet? I didn’t see his car out front,” Chad asked as he walked into the museum store.
“No. But he called me this morning, and he’s back in town. He said he would get here as soon as possible,” Millie told him.
Chad nodded at Millie and then said a belated hello to Sam.
“We have visitors,” Sam told Chad, gesturing toward the entry hall leading to the exhibit areas.
“I heard them when I walked in. So how are we going to do this?” Chad asked.
“Over the weekend I put together some photos and old news clippings that we can put in the boxes,” Millie explained. “I was careful to pick things we have doubles of, so it won’t be a problem if Danielle decides to keep it all.”
“I don’t know why we have to wait for Ben,” Sam snapped.
“Because he took the key,” Millie reminded. “I’m going to check on them.”
A few minutes later Chad and Sam were alone in the museum gift shop while Millie went to check on Danielle’s guests.
Chad watched Sam, who anxiously paced the floor space of the small gift shop.
“Sam, we need to talk,” Chad said.
Sam stopped pacing and looked at the pastor. “What about?”
Before Chad could tell him, the door to the museum opened and Ben Smith walked in.
“It’s about time!” Sam cried, stomping from the gift store to meet Ben.
They spent the next fifteen minutes waiting for the Garcias and Wattses to finish going through the exhibits. During this time Sam asked Chad what he had wanted to talk to him about. The pastor just shrugged and said never mind while glancing over to Ben, who stood within earshot.
Minutes after Marlow House’s guests said goodbye and left, Millie slapped a sign on the front of the museum that said, “Sorry, we had to step out. Will return in 30 minutes.” She then locked the door.
“I thought Herman would be here,” Ben asked as they started toward the back of the museum to the office and storage room.
“I spoke to him this morning. He said he didn’t see any reason to come, that he’d just be in the way,” Millie said.
“Herman doesn’t even care anymore. Figures he doesn’t have anything to lose,” Sam grumbled.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about all this.” Chad said as he followed the others through the museum toward the back office. “Maybe we should just give the boxes back to Danielle without switching them out.”
Sam stopped abruptly and stared at Chad. “Are you insane? We agreed years ago this was the best way.”
Chad shrugged. “Is all this really worth it because we don’t want to be embarrassed?”
“Embarrassed? You tell that to Ruby!” Sam snapped. “She’ll be more than embarrassed.”
“Sam, what can they really do now? It’s been years. Maybe we’ve all just been overreacting,” Chad said. “This has gotten out of control.”
“Let’s just do this, Chad. And then we put it all behind us,” Millie said.
Reluctantly Chad followed them into the office. The table in the center of the room was already empty. Millie had cleared it off during the weekend. Sitting on the floor by the table were several large boxes containing the items Millie had compiled over the weekend.
Ben glanced down at the boxes after Millie explained what they held. “I appreciate you doing that, Millie. I was going to do that this morning when I got here. This will save us time.”
“You should’ve let us take care of this over the weekend,” Sam snapped. “I don’t know why you had to be here.”
“I just felt I needed to be. After this last fiasco, I want to make sure everything is destroyed,” Ben said.
“What are we going to do, have a bonfire?” Sam snarked.
“I think we need to get the boxes first,” Millie said impatiently.
Ben dug one hand into his pants pocket and pulled out a key ring. The others followed him to the storage room and watched as he unlocked the cabinet. Chad, Sam and Ben each grabbed one of the apple boxes and then carried them back to the office, where they set the boxes on the table.
“How are we going to do this?” Sam asked.
“Why don’t we each go through one box. It will be faster that way. I don’t like leaving the museum locked up, especially with our cars out front. I don’t want someone to start pounding on the front door,” Ben said.
“I think we should try to replace the items in your box with similar items from the boxes I put together on the floor. If your box has mostly photographs, put photographs in it,” Millie suggested. “I’m sure Danielle has already taken a quick look in the boxes, and when she gets them back, we certainly don’t want her wondering if they were tampered with.”
“Where are we going to put the stuff we take out?” Sam asked.
“How about a trash bag?” Ben suggested.
“That should work.” Millie walked to one of the cabinets and pulled out a box of large black trash bags. She removed three bags and then handed one to each of the men.
“Don’t just dump everything in your bag,” Ben said. “It’s possible Steve added something to those boxes that we don’t want thrown away.”
“Good idea,” Millie said.
The men opened their boxes, and a moment later they were all quietly standing around the table, silently sorting through their apple box, setting whatever they found on the table instead of shoving it into a trash bag.
After a moment Sam said, “There’s nothing in here. At least nothing that we need to destroy. Just a bunch of old photographs of people I’ve never seen before.”
Chad began to laugh. “I don’t believe this! Nothing in here but old benign newspaper ar
ticles. No reason to throw any of this out. Does this mean Steve burned the papers and simply kept the apple boxes?”
“Sure looks that way.” Millie laughed.
Ben was the only one not laughing. Still sorting through his box, he quietly returned the items and then stepped over to Sam and grabbed some of the photographs in the box Sam had been sorting through. After looking at them, he tossed the photos back inside the box.
Millie frowned at Ben. “Why aren’t you smiling? This is actually a good thing.”
“Because Steve didn’t keep the apple boxes for storage,” Ben said.
“They look like the same apple boxes to me, and this stuff is obviously not what we were worried about,” Millie said.
“For one thing, where’s the article Beverly told Chad about?” Ben asked. “The wedding announcement. I know it was in the papers we gave Steve to destroy. Beverly mentioned the article to Chad.”
“Steve must have kept it for some reason. It’s in here somewhere. We’ve just overlooked it.” Millie started rummaging through the open apple boxes.
Ben shook his head. “No. Those photos in the box Sam looked through, those are the same photos I gave Danielle. The ones from Marlow House that Renton had no business giving us.”
Sam looked back in the box. “Are you sure?”
Ben nodded. “And the papers in my box—they’re receipts from Marlow House—recent receipts.”
Sam glared at Ben. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying Danielle already emptied those boxes Beverly gave her, and she’s the one who refilled these. Not Steve.”
“Crap! Does that mean she’s already gone through them?” Sam asked.
Ben shrugged. “Either that or she just put them somewhere to go through later. She said she was going to be busy with her guests this weekend.”
“That’s who was just here,” Millie said. “Those four people who left right after you got here. They’re staying at Marlow House. They said they’re checking out this afternoon.”
“So maybe Danielle hasn’t had the time to really look at what was in those papers?” Ben suggested.
Before anyone could respond, Sam ran out of the office.
“Sam, wait!” Chad called out. When Sam didn’t wait, Chad sprinted after him, through the museum, out the door and to Sam’s truck.
“Sam, please!” Chad shouted, slightly out of breath, as he reached Sam’s vehicle.
“I need to talk to Ruby.” Sam hurriedly unlocked the truck door.
“This has to stop before someone gets hurt,” Chad begged.
“Ruby could lose everything; don’t preach to me, Pastor.”
“I know you didn’t mean to do it.”
“I don’t have time for this,” Sam said as he got into his truck and slammed the door behind him.
The next moment Sam put his key into the ignition and turned on the engine. Chad stepped back from the truck and watched helplessly as Sam sped away.
Thirty-Three
Police Chief MacDonald leaned over his desk and hung up his phone. Danielle had called him fifteen minutes earlier. Those pesky apple boxes kept offering up more and more juicy details about Frederickport’s founding fathers. Leaning back in his office chair while absently tapping the end of his pen against the desktop, MacDonald thought about all that Danielle had just told him. The secrets the apple boxes held might be embarrassing to some, yet MacDonald was not necessarily surprised by their revelations, not after he considered everything. Fact was, most families had unpleasant truths lurking on their family trees. It was one reason he always found the hobby of genealogy a dicey pursuit, since people searching for heroes among their ancestors might as easily find a serial killer—or a member of the KKK.
He suspected the museum might have in fact intentionally taken the apple boxes with hopes of removing any incriminating documents before Danielle could look through them. If that was true, he was sorely disappointed in Pastor Chad, whom he had always held in high esteem. Chad was a man of God. However, he was also a man, and as MacDonald had learned in church—back when he attended regularly—men sinned.
While the coincidence of Beverly’s attack falling just hours after Brian had mentioned the apple boxes to the museum’s board of directors nagged at MacDonald, in his gut he felt it was just that: a coincidence. He couldn’t imagine any of the people whom Brian had mentioned being at the museum that afternoon would have attacked Beverly just to get to what was in those boxes.
Believing it was nothing more than a coincidence didn’t prevent MacDonald from reconsidering all possibilities. It was true, someone had ransacked Beverly’s garage. Was the person looking for something? The apple boxes? And when they weren’t found, had Beverly walked in and he or she panicked? MacDonald considered all the suspects.
It couldn’t be Herman Shafer, MacDonald thought. While he could imagine old Herman giving someone a whack with that cane of his, there was no way he had the strength to drag Beverly into the house. The same was true for Millie. She was certainly not strong enough—nor was Ben. That left Chad and Sam. Of course, perhaps it wasn’t just one person.
MacDonald’s train of thought was broken when a knock came at his office doorway. He looked up and, to his surprise, found Pastor Chad standing there.
“They told me I could come on back. Do you have a minute?” Chad asked hesitantly.
MacDonald stood a moment and pointed to one of the chairs facing his desk. Before sitting down, the men exchanged a perfunctory handshake in greeting.
“I came to confess,” Chad said as he took a seat.
“I thought you were the one to take confessions, not me,” MacDonald said.
“I’m not Catholic,” was Chad’s humorless reply.
“What’s this about?” the chief asked.
“I’m afraid I’ve done something I’m ashamed of.” Chad shifted nervously in his chair.
“Go on.” The chief leaned forward.
“Beverly Klein found some old apple boxes in her garage that Steve had put there. Brian mentioned finding them when he came into the museum on Wednesday.”
Silently the chief nodded.
“The boxes had some old news clippings, photographs and other documents that we had all agreed to get rid of back before we ever opened the museum.”
“When you say we, who are you talking about?” the chief asked.
“The board of directors of the Historical Society back then.” Chad looked down at his hands. They fidgeted nervously on his lap.
“Go on,” the chief urged.
“Steve was supposed to destroy the boxes. Which he obviously didn’t. When we found out Danielle had them, I took them when I picked up the portraits from the museum. Our intent was to empty the boxes and refill them with—well, with material a little less embarrassing to all of us.”
“I assume you still have Danielle’s boxes?” the chief asked.
Chad nodded. “We opened them this morning and realized that she must have refilled them after Beverly gave them to her. She’s supposed to pick them up tomorrow.”
“I’m not really sure how this is a matter for the police. I’ll admit, I’m surprised at your part in this.” MacDonald leaned back in his chair. “This is probably something you need to discuss with Danielle.”
Chad looked up from his fidgeting hands. His gaze met the chief’s. “I fear that Sam may have been the one who hit Beverly.”
“I assume it has something to do with those boxes you took?”
Chad nodded. “The land the motel is on was purchased from the Marlow estate for just one dollar. We’re pretty sure the transaction was illegal. Ruby is afraid if Danielle finds out, she might take her to court and get the land back. After all, she’s the legal heir of the estate, and she has the money to fight Ruby. You know how Ruby is.”
“Yes, I do. But why would Sam risk going to prison for Ruby?”
Chad shook his head. “I don’t for a minute believe Sam intended to hurt Beverly. I think he
broke into her garage that night with the intention of taking the apple boxes, and she walked in on him and he panicked.”
“Is that what he told you?”
“No. We’ve never discussed it.”
“Is that what the others think—Ben, Millie, Herman?”
Chad shrugged. “I don’t know what they think. We never discussed it. But when I heard someone had ransacked Beverly’s garage—I knew it had to have been one of us. I knew it wasn’t me. And there was no way Millie, Ben or Herman would have the strength to drag Beverly into the closet. It had to be Sam.”
“I assume Ruby knows about those boxes reemerging?” the chief asked.
“We practically begged Sam not to tell Ruby. You know how she can be. But I’m fairly certain he told her, considering how he kept saying he couldn’t keep something like that from her.”
“Breaking into Beverly’s garage is one thing, but hitting her and then leaving her locked in that closet could have killed her. She was lucky Brian showed up when he did.”
“I don’t believe he ever intended to hurt Beverly. But if he did tell Ruby like I suspect, well, you know how she can be—relentless.”
“And volatile. That woman can be a little scary,” the chief said. “I’ve seen her practically bring a couple of my officers to tears. But that doesn’t begin to excuse what Sam did.”
“Maybe I’m wrong and it’s all a coincidence. But if I’m not, then I’m worried about Danielle. Sam tore out of the museum after we realized she’d removed the items from the boxes.”
“When was this?”
“A few minutes before I got here. After Sam tore out of the parking lot, I didn’t even go back in the museum. I just got in my car and drove here.”
“Did Sam give you any idea where he was going?”
“He said he was going to tell Ruby. But I’m afraid he might go over to Marlow House after he talks to Ruby. I don’t want anyone else hurt.”
The chief asked Chad to wait in his office. He left for a few minutes, and when he returned, he asked, “I’d like to know why, Chad. Why did you want those boxes destroyed?” The chief sat back down behind his desk and waited for the pastor’s answer.
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