Antiques to Die For

by Jane K. Cleland

  Losing a parent when you’re between ten and twenty is the worst thing that can happen to a child, my father told me the day of my mother’s funeral. At that age, you’re old enough to understand the magnitude of your loss but too young to handle it well. Be gentle with yourself, kiddo. You’re in for some tough times. I’d wept at his words, raging against the fates, bitter and unforgiving, cursing God and the doctors and cancer. I carried the scars of that loss with me still.

  “I can’t really talk.”

  “Me, either. Let’s meet. When?”

  I looked at the time display on my computer monitor. It was almost nine. “An hour?” I asked, thinking that would give me time to check out the tag sale before I met him.

  “An hour’s good. Where?”

  “How’s the Portsmouth Diner?” I asked.

  “Done. See ya,” he said, and hung up.

  My adrenaline began to flow. Wes didn’t make idle boasts. If he said he had news, he did. I could hear it in his voice. Something in his tone conveyed that he didn’t just have information, he had answers.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  N

  ot wanting to leave Paige alone in my office, I brought her downstairs and asked Gretchen, “Where are you with the mailing?”

  “About halfway through stuffing the envelopes.”

  Every six weeks or so we sent a promotional mailing to everyone in our customer database. Our next special was for Valentine’s Day: On the Saturday before Valentine’s Day, everything at the tag sale that was heart shaped or red would be 10 percent off.

  “Can I draft you to help Gretchen?” I asked Paige.

  “Sure.”

  “Great! Pull up a chair.”

  Once Paige was settled in and working, folding flyers in thirds, text side out, and inserting them so that the colorful graphic was visible as soon as the envelope was opened, I headed to the tag-sale shack.

  “Do you know how to ice-skate?” I heard Gretchen ask as I was leaving.

  “Yeah. I love it. How come?”

  “Donna Marie Braun—did you see her in that movie, After the Springtime? Oh, my God, isn’t she gorgeous? Anyway, she was in Aspen over Christmas skating, and her skates were pink with white polka dots! Isn’t that just adorable?”

  As I passed out of earshot, I smiled. Gretchen’s comforting chatter reassured me that I was leaving Paige in good hands.

  I entered the tag-sale room and glanced around.

  Inventory was strong. One new acquisition was sure to go fast, a collection of bronze animal bookends. They were only about twenty years old, and as such, they weren’t antiques, but they were fun, attractive, and at only fifteen dollars a pair, they were priced to move.

  I pulled into the Portsmouth Diner’s parking lot just before ten and was settled in a booth near the back when Wes came in.

  “You first,” Wes said as soon as he slid into the banquette.

  “Hi, Wes. How are you?”

  “Good, good. Whatcha got?”

  “I’m fine, thanks.”

  “Ha-ha. So?” he asked, wiggling his fingers to speed me up.

  I sighed. Wes was, as my mother always said about people who didn’t adhere to the standards of common civility, “something like something I don’t know.”

  “Can you find out for me if and how someone died?” I asked.

  “Sure. Who died and why do you want to know how?”

  “It’s in connection—” I broke off as the waitress arrived.

  I ordered coffee and a fruit salad, and shook my head as Wes ordered a double side order of bacon and a Coke.

  “What kind of breakfast is that?”

  “What do you mean?” Wes asked, surprised.

  “Bacon and Coke?”

  He shrugged. “I like bacon and Coke.”

  “God, Wes.”

  “Forget what I eat. Tell me about the dead guy,” he said.

  I sighed. “As part of an appraisal I’m working on, I’ve run into . . . well, a situation. . . . I’m following a ‘something’s fishy’ hunch.” I described the circumstances, including the fake letter. “I also need to know whether Evan left a will, and if so, whether Lesha’s the beneficiary of the palette.”

  “Got it,” he said, taking notes on a sheet of paper. “Can you e-mail me a copy of the letter?”

  “Why?”

  “For the article. My editor loves exhibits.”

  “What are you talking about, Wes?”

  “I need the letter for the article,” he said in a tone indicating he thought I was pretty slow on the uptake. “This is bonzo stuff . . . a young man dead in the prime of life . . . his greedy girlfriend . . . a bogus letter . . . a fortune at stake. . . . I’m telling ya, my editor will love it. Have you decided when you’re going to call the cops? I’ll want to have a photographer there for the takedown.”

  “Bonzo?”

  “I don’t know where it comes from. Maybe I made it up. Bonzo . . . it means great.”

  I shut my eyes and took a deep breath. Wes sounded depress-ingly eager to be in for the kill. “First, you tell me about Evan,” I said sternly, opening my eyes. “Then we decide whether to involve the police.”

  “Josie!” he griped. “Time is of the essence. I’m up against a deadline.”

  “Forget it, Wes.”

  The waitress brought my coffee and his Coke.

  “I’ll talk to my editor about delaying,” he said, “but I don’t know. He’s pretty much a hard-ass.”

  “This isn’t a negotiation, Wes. Jeez. You print a word, even an implication, about this, and you’ll never see that letter. Never, ever.”

  “And if I hold off?” he asked, looking absurdly young and hopeful as he sipped his Coke.

  “Maybe.”

  He made a face and lost the attitude. “Why wouldn’t you report it to the police?”

  I explained that a falsified letter didn’t prove either that the object was counterfeit or that Lesha was the perpetrator of the hoax. “It could have been her boyfriend, or someone else who wrote it.”

  “How do you decide if you should report it?”

  I shrugged. “Learning about Evan’s death—or whether he’s alive—will help.”

  He eyed me with a speculative gleam. “You decide to bring in the cops, I’m your first phone call, right?”

  “Yes, that’s fair. I can do that.”

  He double-knuckle-tapped the table, satisfied. “Great. Why don’t you e-mail me the letter now so I’m ready? Just for my records.”

  Give Wes an inch, I thought, he’ll try for a mile. I shook my head. “No,” I said. “What’s your news?”

  He sighed, acquiescing, Wes-style. “I checked everyone’s alibi the night Rosalie died.”

  “And?”

  “Unclear. Gerry Fine was at a business dinner followed by a business after-dinner drink.”

  “Has it been confirmed?”

  “So it seems. I mean, the police have Gerry’s charge receipt for dinner and they have a cash receipt for the lounge.” Wes scanned his notes. “He ate with a vendor from Indianapolis named Petrie who says he went back to his hotel right after dinner.”

  “So who did Gerry have the drink with?”

  Wes grinned. “Apparently, when the police asked that question, Gerry winked and said he can’t remember the guy’s name.”

  Rosalie, I thought. “Which restaurant did he go to?”

  “The Miller House.”

  “Nice place,” I said.

  The Miller House was an elegant, tasteful, and expensive restaurant located in a renovated eighteenth-century Colonial. Ty had taken me there to celebrate our first anniversary.

  “Where was Edie?”

  “Home the whole night, alone.”

  I shook my head. “Something’s rotten in Denmark.”

  “Why do you say that?” Wes asked.

  “Edie would have joined the business dinner.”

  Wes shrugged. “She and Gerry both say that he often has busines
s dinners without her.”

  I nodded. “That sounds pretty solid.”

  “They’re married.”

  I nodded, his point taken. Not only could Edie not testify against Gerry but I could easily envision her lying to protect him—or, I corrected myself, her way of life. “So . . . what do you think?”

  Wes nodded. “The police aren’t buying it a hundred percent either. I mean it might be true, but it can’t be verified. She joined him for some dinners, but not all. There’s more—are you ready for a shockeroonie?”

  “I’m braced,” I replied, amused.

  “It seems that someone tried to call her later and she didn’t pick up. She told the police that she heard the phone ring, but didn’t feel like talking to anyone, so she let the machine answer it.”

  “That could be.”

  “It’s possible,” Wes agreed, shrugging. “Probably not, though.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “The limo driver who brought Gerry home reported that Edie’s car wasn’t in the driveway where she always left it.”

  “Really? What did she say to that?”

  Wes grinned. “That her car was in the garage.”

  I shrugged. “So?”

  “So the driver said she doesn’t use the garage. She likes going in through the front door, not the kitchen entrance.”

  I smiled. That sounded like the sort of thing Edie would do. She’d want her jazzy BMW on display for the neighbors to envy, and for sure she’d think that people like her only used the front door.

  “What did she say to that?”

  “It’s hard to believe, but from what I hear, she looked down her nose at the police officer and asked if he was accusing someone of her background of lying.”

  I laughed. “I can see her saying it as clear as day,” I replied, enjoying Wes’s amazement.

  “Is she really like that?”

  “Yes.”

  Wes shook his head derisively. “Anyway, Paul Greeley was at a lecture at Harvard,” he said.

  “Proven?”

  “Nope. He had an e-mail exchange with the organizer and clearly stated that he planned to attend, but it was open to the public and more than a hundred people were there.”

  The waitress slid a plate heaped with bacon in front of Wes and a parfait glass full of fruit in front of me. “Want more coffee, dear?”

  “Yes, please.” To Wes, I asked, “How do you follow up with something like that?”

  “The police up here ask the police down there to see if they can find someone who saw him, but you know how that goes,” Wes said, crunching bacon.

  “No. How?”

  He shrugged. “Unless he stood out for some reason, like he got into a hot discussion with the speaker or something, it’s more than likely no one would notice him. People were focused on the podium, not one guy out of a hundred.”

  “I don’t know. He’s pretty noticeable.”

  “In what way?”

  I smiled, remembering a word my friend Katie had once used to crush me at Boggle. “He’s haptic.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Touchable. I think it’s a science word that implies the person has a predilection for the sense of touch, but I was using it in a, shall I say, nonscientific way. Let me put it this way—he’s sizzling.”

  “Yeah, whatever. No one notices anyone no matter what unless there’s some drama.”

  “Come on, Wes, that’s silly. Lots of people notice things! Especially good-looking people of the opposite sex.”

  “I’ll prove it to you. Shut your eyes.”

  I did as he said. “Now what?” I asked.

  “Describe someone you noticed here in the restaurant.”

  I thought about it, and was taken aback at how little I recalled. “There’s a woman in a pretty striped sweater sitting at the counter.”

  “What does she look like?”

  “She’s got brown hair, I think.” I opened my eyes. “Wow, I see what you mean. I noticed the sweater, not the woman. And not much else.” I surveyed the diner. There were maybe twenty people scattered at tables, booths, and the counter, and I hadn’t registered anyone in particular.

  Then I saw Ned Anderson standing at the counter waiting for a take-out order. I almost didn’t recognize him. Instead of a business suit, he was wearing his traditional leather duster over a Western-style shirt and Levi’s topped by a wide-brimmed hat. His brown alligator cowboy boots sported half-inch heels. He leaned on his walking stick with his chin up and his chest out as if he were a king surveying his loyal subjects, not a customer in a diner watching a short-order cook flip pancakes. His royal demeanor reminded me of a painting I’d seen years ago in London’s National Gallery of Napoleon leaning against his scepter, his pride and entitlement evident in the tilt of his head and cast of his eyes. From the profile, Ned seemed to have no chin at all, and his Adam’s apple looked twice as big as from the front.

  As if he could feel my eyes on him, he turned and looked at me. He smiled, pocketed his change, picked up his to-go bag, and said something to the cashier. I looked away.

  “What are you looking at?” Wes asked.

  “Ned Anderson.”

  Wes’s eyes fired up. “Where is he?”

  “By the cash register.”

  “Introduce me, okay?” he asked with a reporter’s zeal.

  Before I could reply, the waitress came and handed me a note. “That fellow asked that I give you this,” she said, nodding in Ned’s direction.

  “Thanks.”

  I accepted a folded piece of cheap notepad paper, opened it, and read: Didn’t want to interrupt. Got a sec to talk? Ned

  To Wes, I said, “I’ll be right back.”

  “What’s up?” he asked, his news antenna activated and on full alert.

  I shrugged. “I have no idea.”

  I slid out of the booth and joined Ned where he was waiting by the entryway.

  “Josie!” Ned said as I approached. “Fancy meeting you here.”

  “Hi, Ned.”

  “I was just thinking of you.”

  “Why’s that?” I asked, not really wanting to know.

  “Today’s your tag-sale day, right?”

  “Every Saturday, yes.”

  “I was thinking I might stop by and take a look. Do you have any Western art?”

  I thought about that. “There may be some art prints, I’m not sure. Maybe a couple of pieces of Indian jewelry—silver and turquoise, Hopi, I think.”

  “How can you run a business without knowing your inventory?” he asked, pretending to be shocked.

  “I’m pleased to report that we turn our inventory pretty darn quickly.”

  “All the more reason to know it. I bet your employees are robbing you blind.”

  What a misanthrope! I thought spitefully. “Thanks for the tip,” I said, wishing he hadn’t asked to talk to me.

  “Busy with the new appraisal assignment?”

  “A little,” I said, purposefully vague.

  “And talking to a reporter? Aren’t you a busy bee.”

  “Do you know Wes?” I asked.

  “Only by his writing and photograph.” He leaned forward and whispered, “Are you giving him a scoop?”

  I stepped back. “Hardly.”

  “Are you going to be at your tag sale today?”

  “In and out.”

  “Maybe I’ll stop by.”

  “You’ll have to let me know if you find anything. ’Bye,” I said, turned, and returned to the booth quickly, wanting to get away before he could make another nasty remark.

  As I slipped into the booth, Wes commented, “So that’s Ned Anderson. How come you didn’t bring him over?” He sounded hurt.

  “Give me a break, Wes.”

  Wes and I watched Ned pick his way through the icy parking lot to his midnight blue Volvo.

  “So, where were we?” I asked. “I remember—you’d just finished proving to me that trying to prove that Paul Gr
eeley was at that Harvard lecture would be an exercise in futility.”

  “Right, right,” he said. “They’ll try and nail it down, but . . .” He flipped a hand.

  “What about Cooper?”

  “At Hitchens, working.”

  “Anyone see him?”

  “Only early on. No one saw him—or his car—after eight.”

  “So let me get this straight—of Gerry, Edie, Paul, and Cooper, only Gerry’s alibi has been verified.”

  “I don’t know about verified. Seconded is more like it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The restaurant and lounge were busy. Yes, Gerry was there for dinner with the vendor guy. His charge receipt gives the timing and his driver confirms that he took him from work directly to the restaurant and directly home afterwards with no stops in either direction. Yes, the bartender and waitress noticed him in the lounge later. But he paid cash for the drinks and no one remembers seeing him leave, and his driver says he doesn’t remember exactly when he drove him home, so the timing is up in the air.” He shrugged. “Maybe it’s true. But as alibis go, none of them are worth much.”

  I looked out of the plate-glass window into the far distance, trying to make sense of Wes’s information. I’d expected to leave with answers, and instead I had more questions. The waitress refilled my coffee cup without asking.

  “If you were me, what would you do at this point?” Wes asked.

  “I’m still curious about how Rosalie’s tote bag ended up at Heyer’s.”

  “According to my source, the police don’t know. They tested the bag and everything in it for fingerprints, and found only Rosalie’s. Except for the diary—that had Edie’s prints on it, too—and yours.”

  I nodded and looked down, ashamed.

  “What did she write about?” Wes asked, never one to miss an opportunity.

  I shook my head.

  “Josie!”

  “Forget it, Wes. What about the tote bag itself? Were there any prints on it?”

  Wes sighed loudly, disappointed. “Only smudges. What else do you want to know?”

  Consider the basics, I reminded myself. What did I actually know about Rosalie? She was, by my observation and by all accounts, a good sister, a fun friend, and a hard worker. And she clearly enjoyed men.