Antiques to Die For

by Jane K. Cleland

  “Can I ask you something else?”

  “What?”

  I turned up my collar, trying to block the wind that stabbed at my skin and caused my eyes to water. “Should I have told you about Rosalie and Gerry?”

  “Yes. Absolutely.” He watched me for a moment. “Is there anything else you know or think you know that you haven’t told?”

  I shook my head, suddenly weary. “No. You’ve got it all, now.”

  He smiled again, and suddenly I felt less cold, less anxious, and less guilty about revealing Rosalie’s secrets. Basking in the warmth of Ty’s love, I felt safe.

  As I backed out of my parking space, ready to head back to Heyer’s to collect the hardware I’d left strewn about when Gerry and I had rushed out, a patrol car turned into the lot. Griff was behind the wheel, and as he drove by, I saw that Paul Greeley and Cooper Bennington were sitting in the rear. Griff must have left for Hitchens as soon as he escorted Gerry into the interrogation room, I thought. I didn’t envy Paul and Cooper the conversations that awaited them.

  I wondered what they knew—and what they’d reveal. Then I gasped.

  All at once, I remembered that Rosalie kept a diary. We’d shared a laugh about our different perspectives on the subject.

  “I can’t believe you don’t keep a diary!” she’d said earnestly a few months ago. The subject arose because she’d apologized for being late for a lunch date—she’d been writing in her diary and had lost track of time.

  “I never have. Even as a little girl, I never wanted to.”

  “You should try it again,” she’d insisted. “Journaling is one of the most important forms of self-expression. And often they’re of enormous historical value. Just think if Samuel Pepys hadn’t kept his diary.”

  I acknowledged that the seventeenth-century journal kept by the “everyman,” Samuel Pepys, was of immeasurable value to historians. The government official’s journal recounted, in thrilling detail, the events of his time—the grisly plague, the Great Fire of London, even England’s naval war with the Netherlands, among innumerable other personal and societal happenings.

  “But I’m not doing it!” I added with a grin. “I don’t like to write, my life isn’t that interesting, and I’m way too private to boot.”

  She’d laughed at that, and exclaimed that we’d just discovered a major difference between us. “It’s the exception that proves the rule.”

  “What’s the rule that it’s the exception to?” I asked.

  “Great minds think alike, of course,” she said gaily.

  “The truth is that fools rarely differ,” I retorted.

  She’d laughed again and I’d joined in, and now, driving down the interstate, I pulled to a stop in the breakdown lane and punched the button activating the car’s blinkers. My friend is gone, I thought, shaken by the memory. And little Paige is all alone.

  I called Ty and told him about the diary.

  “What does it look like?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. But she carried it with her all the time in her tote bag. She said she never knew when she might have a minute to write.”

  He thanked me, and told me how to reach Paige.

  After a moment spent gathering my thoughts, I dialed the number. A machine picked up. I left a message, hung up, and stared unseeing into space, upset and worried about I wasn’t sure what. Finally, my melancholy passed enough for me to drive on, and as I edged into traffic, I wondered if Rosalie’s diary would offer any clues as to the cause and manner of her death.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  W

  es Smith, the irritatingly persistent reporter who wrote for the Portsmouth-based Seacoast Star, called as I was merging into the traffic heading north on I-95.

  “Josie,” he said in a tone of intrigue, “you’re in the middle of another murder investigation, huh?”

  “Hello to you, too, Wes.”

  “My contact tells me you were just interrogated by the police about Rosalie Chaffee’s murder,” he said provocatively, ignoring my dig.

  “Jeez, Wes,” I said, glancing at the dashboard clock, “I only left the station ten minutes ago.”

  “Thanks,” he replied, somehow, through the magic of Wes-think, translating my complaint about police department leaks into a compliment about his investigative skill. “So what do you know?”

  I shook my head, resigned to the impossibility of keeping my participation secret. Lots of people knew I’d been at the Rocky Point police station, from police personnel to Una, the Heyer’s receptionist who’d watched, big-eyed, as Gerry and I had quick-stepped out of the building. And once Wes got a whiff of my involvement, an innocently phrased question or two would be all that was required to fill in the blanks. I wondered what else he’d learned.

  “First of all, I was interviewed, not interrogated. Second of all, how do you know she was murdered?”

  “Confidential source,” he said importantly.

  “Give me a break, Wes.”

  “Seriously, it’s true.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked. “She was murdered?”

  “Why? Did you hear otherwise?” he retorted, eager for news.

  “Last I heard, the medical examiner’s report wasn’t completed.”

  “True,” Wes acknowledged, “but you know how that goes. The report may not be finished, but they know enough to be able to say that Rosalie was hit over the head and drowned.”

  I gulped air. “I’m sorry to hear that.” I took another deep breath. “Did you know her, Wes?”

  “No. You?”

  I considered hanging up. It was beginning again. Wes was somehow drawing more information out of me than I wanted to be giving. That I was on-site when Rosalie’s boss, Gerry, needed a ride to Rocky Point was pure coincidence, but I could hear Wes now: It’s Josie’s third murder, he’d tell his editor, salivating at the thought of another hot story. His last front-page feature, “Anatomy of a Homicide Investigation,” made it clear that I wasn’t a murderer, gee, thanks, but seeing my name prominently displayed as someone involved in a murder investigation was an experience I wanted to avoid repeating. Still, I mused, Wes is very connected and a reliable source of information. And, I acknowledged to myself, I was curious.

  “Her boss bought some antiques from me,” I explained, “and I’ve been installing them. She was writing a book for him.”

  “What was she like?” Wes asked, jumping in.

  “Nice. She was a great girl. This is all off-the-record, right, Wes?”

  “Why?” he whined. “This is just background info.”

  I cast my eyes heavenward. Wes was so predictable. “Off-the-record or nothing.”

  He sighed deeply, signaling acquiescence. “Okay, okay. I won’t quote you.”

  “Even if you verify what I say independently?”

  “Same as always,” he agreed, implying he was being patient in the face of my unreasonableness. “With outside verification, I can use any facts I learn from you, but I still won’t name you as a source.”

  “Okay, then.”

  “So, what was she like?” he repeated.

  I told him what I knew, but not what I speculated, and Wes seemed disappointed that I had no gossip to share. He ended our conversation with a brisk “Talk soon.”

  Talk soon, I repeated silently, sick at the thought.

  During the months I’d been a reluctant whistle-blower and witness in the price-fixing scandal that rocked the antiques auction world in New York, I’d been rubbed raw, first by my boss’s betrayal, then by my colleagues’ spite and the media’s relentless hounding. It was awful. And then it got worse—my dad died. His death sent me reeling, and after breaking up with my boyfriend, I left New York to start a business in New Hampshire. My dad once told me, If you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on. And if you can’t hang on, move on. I moved on.

  Much to my surprise, I loved New Hampshire. I found it filled with people who value independence and freethinking. The countrys
ide is lush and varied, and the environment is just right to foster my company’s growth. I loved Ty Alverez, too, and I was keeping my fingers crossed that our fun and tender relationship was for real. What I didn’t need was another murder investigation sucking me into its vortex.

  Una, sitting behind the reception desk at Heyer’s, tried hard not to sneer as she told me who was waiting in Gerry’s office—his wife, Edie. Una’s lank hair hung to her shoulders. She wore it parted in the middle, straight and flat against her head. She looked tired most of the time, no surprise since she worked full time and was rearing three kids on her own. I had no idea how old she was. Younger than me, I guessed.

  “What’s Edie doing here?” I asked, not quite whispering.

  “Maybe she needs a new credit card.”

  I didn’t smile because the jab was dead-on. Edie wanted to be “one of the girls,” and it didn’t seem to register that a wife of a CEO who appropriated her husband’s car and driver for midday trips to Boston’s tony Newbury Street probably didn’t have a lot in common with the company’s receptionist, who was up to her ears in debt and trying to juggle the bills so she could buy her twelve-year-old the new sneakers he swore he couldn’t live without, and still eat.

  I recalled the scornful look on Una’s face last Christmas when she told me about the crystal vase that Edie had given her as a Christmas gift. “Just what I need,” she said, “an etched glass vase. That’ll really help put food on the table.”

  Edie Fine was a tall woman, almost as tall as her husband, and professionally thin, like a model or a dancer. Her dark hair was cut in a dramatic wedge. She was, it seemed, a fan of cosmetic surgery. Her breasts were high on her chest, perfectly ball-shaped, and large; her face was tautly wrinkle free; and her lips were pout enhanced. She was dressed in the height of fashion, and she wore lots of diamonds all the time.

  “Where’s Gerry? Do you know?” Edie asked as soon as I stepped into his suite’s outer office where Tricia sat quietly, typing.

  It was my day for being asked questions I didn’t want to answer.

  “Have you heard about Rosalie?” I countered.

  Edie was breathing hard, and if I was able to read faces at all, she was mad as hell. “Yes, I heard about it just now on the news. It’s why I came. Where is he?”

  “I don’t know for sure. He was at the Rocky Point police station last I saw.”

  She didn’t reply. Her eyes were locked on mine, assessing I don’t know what. She turned and walked into Gerry’s office, pausing at the double-wide window that overlooked the pond. I followed her gaze. The pond was frozen and covered with a dusting of snow. Brittle-looking grasses swayed in the breeze. I could almost hear the wheels in her mind turning.

  “The reporter on the radio said that Rosalie’s death might be murder,” she said with her back to me. “Is that true, do you think?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t think the police are done with their tests.”

  “May I ask you something?” she asked.

  She turned to face me, a cheerless smile softening her features. She knows, I thought. She knows about the affair.

  “Sure,” I replied, only because I couldn’t think of a polite way to say no, dreading her question, wondering what Tricia must think witnessing such a scene.

  Edie’s chest began to heave and her lips thinned. “What do you know about their relationship?”

  “Nothing,” I said, backing away, wishing I had the courage to run. “I don’t know anything. If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to get my tools and stuff.”

  She lost it. One moment she was in control, and the next her face was contorted. “The son of a bitch!”

  Without another word, she spun toward Gerry’s desk, grabbed a crystal-framed photograph showing the two of them on a yacht, and hurled it across the room, shattering the frame and denting the wall. She was panting. Shards of glass formed a chaotic pattern on the thick gray carpet.

  I whipped around and nearly ran into Ned, the CFO, as he entered Tricia’s anteroom. Tricia didn’t even look up. She had the gift of working through pandemonium.

  “What did I miss?” Ned asked, looking amused, nodding toward Gerry’s inner office. “Hello, Tricia. Any blood drawn?”

  Neither Tricia nor I replied. I don’t know what was in her mind, but from my perspective, I just couldn’t bear the thought of enduring Ned’s sarcasm. Instead, I moved toward where my tools lay in erratic happenstance. My hands were shaking.

  “Are you all right?” he asked me in a kinder tone.

  “Yes,” I said softly. I could hear Edie on the phone, but not her words, and I was relieved that she wouldn’t be able to overhear us discussing her. “It’s Edie. She’s kind of upset.”

  His sneer reappeared. “Ah!” he said knowingly, raising his brows. “The cat was away and the mouse played—and now he’s been caught.”

  Tricia was back at work, pretending he wasn’t there. I took her lead and ignored him, and continued gathering items and placing them in my toolbox, uncomfortable in his presence. Ned was like a gnat buzzing near your face, irritating and unstoppable. Rosalie had once remarked that Ned was an effective CFO for the same reason that he was a hateful person—he seemed to delight in ferreting out flaws.

  “The grapevine says that you took Gerry to identify Rosalie’s corpse,” he said. “I gather that it was, in fact, Rosalie?”

  “Yes,” I answered.

  “And?”

  “And what?”

  “And what did you learn about her death?” he asked.

  I shrugged again. “I don’t know anything except that she’s dead.”

  “I thought you were dating the police chief.”

  “He doesn’t talk to me about his work,” I said, affronted that anyone would think he might.

  He glanced at Tricia, then winked at me, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Got it. You can fill me in later.”

  “I have nothing to say,” I insisted.

  “It’s okay, Josie,” he said, crossing to the door, ready to leave. “I won’t tell if you don’t.”

  I gazed after him for a moment, then stole a peek at Tricia, still apparently ignoring everything around her. I hoped Ned didn’t think I’d just made some sort of pact with him. I exhaled loudly, wanting to be away from all of the emotion. Within seconds, I heard a decisive click as Edie hung up the phone. A moment later, she strode out of Gerry’s office and, without looking in our direction or uttering a word, left.

  Still trembling from the afterclap of Edie’s volcanic eruption and Ned’s malicious implications, I asked Tricia if she was okay.

  “Certainly,” she said, without missing a keystroke. “When I’m at work, I never pay attention to anything but the job.”

  I nodded, then looked down. My toolbox showed an empty compartment. My screwdriver was missing.

  “I think I left something in Gerry’s office,” I said, stepped inside, and glanced around.

  The scratched and pockmarked photograph lay abandoned amidst fragments of glass, another victim of infidelity. Shaking my head, dismayed to have witnessed Edie’s emotional outburst, I saw something in the corner, a book, a slim, tan leather volume, upside down, spine up.

  I took a step toward it and looked over my shoulder again. I heard nothing and took another step. A red ribbon, the kind that marked a reader’s or writer’s place, curled toward the wall. I knelt beside the book and picked it up. It was Rosalie’s diary. I fanned the pages, seeking out her last entry. Rosalie had written it just before she met me for lunch.

  Should I read it? I asked myself. Diaries, I knew, were considered by their writers to be sacrosanct. Surely Rosalie wouldn’t want other people knowing her most intimate thoughts. But it was too late for that. As evidenced by Edie’s shattering rage, Rosalie’s privacy had already been breached. I knew what Ty would say. He’d tell me that it was police business and to leave it alone. I smiled as I realized how Wes would view the opportunity—he’d expect me to photocopy
it for him.

  I turned to the door and held my breath to listen closely. I heard the soft hum of electricity and nothing else. I couldn’t resist. Feeling a bit like a voyeur, I began to read.

  “I’m looking forward to lunch with Josie. She’s a keeper!” Rosalie had written. I teared up and looked away to stop from crying, then, after I’d regained control, read on. “Chief is irritating me in ways I never thought possible. Doesn’t everyone know that perseverance can easily become stalking? Hello! I can’t make Chief stop. I’ve tried logic, begging, everything! It’s frightening and disturbing. Gerry is nothing but kind and giving. Sigh. Sigh. Sigh. I’m like a silly schoolgirl and I want to twirl and shout with glee and share my love. What to do, what to do?”

  Is she saying that Gerry is Chief and a stalker—that he has a Jekyll-and-Hyde sort of split personality? I asked myself, disbelieving. Or that someone else she called Chief is stalking her?

  I shook my head, confused. I had no way to know.

  I took a deep breath and glanced again toward the anteroom. I flipped through the pages, stopping here and there to read. Nothing stood out as hot news—certainly there was no hint of the secret Rosalie had confided to me during her last lunch. In the last two months, mostly she wrote about Gerry. It was hard for me to believe, but Rosalie seemed to have adored him.

  The phone rang, and I dropped the diary, startled. I heard Tricia tell someone named Erin that she’d be right down.

  “Josie?” she called. “I’ve got to go to the service center. I won’t be long.”

  I scooped up the book and held it behind my back. “Okay!” I replied, poking my head out into the anteroom in time to see her step into the corridor.

  “Where are you going, Trish?” Gerry asked from the corridor, out of sight.

  “There’s some question about binding your board report,” Tricia told him.

  Gerry was back! I dashed across the room and placed the book as I’d found it, stretching out the red ribbon against the baseboard. Within seconds, I was back in the anteroom, kneeling by my toolbox, hidden by Tricia’s desk. I closed my eyes, waiting for my tumultuous pulse to quiet, thinking that if I stayed out of sight until Gerry was ensconced in his own office, I might get away without speaking to him.