by Traci DePree
“This just gets more and more interesting, doesn’t it?” Phillip said.
“I don’t know if that’s the word I’d use,” Kate said. “It’s been trying too.”
She told him of the trouble with the church board.
Phillip looked bothered. “Are you worried?”
Kate shook her head. “We’re trusting God to work things out,” she said. “In the meantime, Paul’s going to see if he can talk to Eli this morning.”
PAUL HAD AGREED to join Phillip and Kate to help them prepare for the grand opening as soon as he was free, around one o’clock that afternoon. When he arrived shortly after their lunch break, it was with a sad expression.
“He wasn’t willing to even talk to me,” he told Kate.
“I hate this,” she said.
“There’s nothing we can do about it,” Paul said, “except explain the situation to the board and pray.” Kate could see the disappointment on his face.
“Okay,” she said as she reached up to kiss him on the cheek. “We’ll agree together that God will work all this out.”
They worked late into the night, getting ready for the opening. The two men hoisted furniture here and there, while Kate finished painting the small bathroom and arranging decor, checking to make sure every item had a price, and if not, verifying its value from an assortment of guidebooks and Internet sites. By the time everything was set in place and ready, it was midnight. Kate was exhausted, too tired to drive herself home. So she climbed into her husband’s pickup and left the Honda till morning.
THE DOORS OF THE ANTIQUES SHOP opened promptly at nine o’clock the next morning, but there was no rush of shoppers. Two women from out of town stopped in at around ten, but by eleven o’clock, business was back to nothing. Livvy and Danny Jenner stopped in briefly as did Sam Gorman from the Mercantile, but they all had to get back to work and didn’t linger.
Kate glanced at the front door, worried that Phillip’s fears had become reality. There were shoppers on the streets, but none came inside. Kate moved to the front window to watch them. One woman glanced at her, then turned to talk to her friends as they moved away.
By five o’clock, Phillip was ready to throw in the towel. Paul had come by when he’d finished his duties at the church and now stood behind the counter with Phillip.
“We had one customer all afternoon! And this is our grand opening!” he moaned as he closed out the till. “All our hard work, and for what?”
“It’s a new business in a small town,” Paul reminded him. “It takes time to get established and for people to remember that you’re here.”
“There’s a banner across the front of the building. How much more of a reminder do people need?”
Kate pursed her lips, wishing there was something she could say to assure him that everything would be all right. But she had no such assurances.
Chapter Eighteen
The Closed sign hung at a crooked angle when Kate and Phillip gathered at the front door Friday morning to open up shop for the store’s second day of business. Phillip straightened the sign as he flipped it to Open. Then he tilted his head. Kate noticed this before she saw the reason behind it. She lifted her gaze to take in the front room.
At first she was shocked at the sight that met her eyes, then utter despair came over her. They rushed inside, mouths open in disbelief.
Displays were overturned, drawers and baskets emptied of their contents, and broken glass littered the floor. Every padded seat was slashed, the stuffing pulled out, even on the oldest of the antiques. It looked like a war zone. And the fact that the store had been vandalized in plain view of the street through the large plate-glass windows meant that whoever had done it had been beyond brazen. Just like the person who’d stolen the mannequin. Could Eli have done this? The thought crossed her mind. She shook her head, disbelieving that the young man could have anything to do with such destruction. Plus the slashed seats seemed to point to another motive...
Phillip groaned and sank to his knees. Kate was right beside him, comforting him, a hand on his shoulder.
“Who would’ve done this?” he said as he shook his head.
“I’ll call Sheriff Roberts.” Kate pulled her cell phone from her handbag. She told the dispatcher what had happened, then assured him they’d be waiting for the sheriff to arrive.
“Why wreck the place?” Phillip was saying. “I don’t understand it...”
“They were looking for something,” Kate said as much to herself as to Phillip. She moved around the room. Every drawer had been pulled out, every basket and bowl upset.
Because of the mess left behind, there was no way to tell just by a cursory glance if anything was missing. That would take a full inventory to assess.
Soon, flashing lights from outside sent strobes across the store’s walls.
Deputy Spencer and Sheriff Roberts were at the door. Kate let them in while Phillip moved to the cash register that had been untouched. He pulled out a wooden stool from behind the checkout to sit on.
“Oh man,” the deputy said in disbelief. “You just opened your doors yesterday!”
The sheriff lifted his hat and scratched his head as his gaze traveled across the store. He glanced at Kate, then said, “Seems like this might be connected to the attempted break-in last weekend.” He turned to Phillip, a look of compassion in his eyes. “I’m so sorry this happened, Mr. Loving,” he said as he pulled a notebook from his vest pocket. “You’ll need to tell us what you know.”
“I don’t know what to tell you,” Phillip laughed, though there was no humor in his tone. He looked at Kate, shaking his head. “We locked up last night after work and came in this morning to this.” His gesture took in the whole room.
“Can you think of anyone who might have something against you?”
Phillip paused to consider the question. “The only person I can think of who would remotely fit that description is Eli Weston.”
“Eli?” Kate said, surprised that his statement repeated her earlier thought.
Phillip turned to her. “Think about it, Kate. He’s making things hard at the church for you and Paul. He obviously feels threatened by my store opening. And he’s been telling folks around town that I stole his mannequin. Is this really that big a stretch?”
PHILLIP AND KATE CLEANED UP the store and salvaged as many of the antiques as they could. As they inventoried what remained over the next few days, it quickly became apparent that nothing had been stolen. Insurance would cover most of what was damaged.
As Kate thought about it on Monday, Phillip’s theory about Eli just didn’t add up. Eli had a deep appreciation of antiques. She recalled his hesitance to allow the ballistics expert to drill into the mannequin. There was simply no way she could see him damaging the goods as this vandal had.
Finally she could stand it no longer. She needed to talk to Eli, so she stopped in at Weston’s Antiques. But the sign on the front door read Closed.
She pulled out her cell phone and dialed his number. There was no answer at home, which was his apartment above the store. So Kate tried his cell.
“Eli, it’s Kate,” she began when he answered.
There was a long hesitation on his end.
“Is everything okay?” she asked. “I saw that the store was closed today.”
Eli murmured something that Kate couldn’t decipher. Then he said, “I took a job at the lumberyard.”
“You what?” Kate couldn’t believe it. “So you closed the antique store?”
“It’s still open a few days a week, but I need to make money somehow.” The bite in his tone pierced Kate’s heart.
“I...I didn’t know you were having financial difficulties,” Kate said. “Do you think it has to do with Phillip opening up shop in town?” Although that didn’t exactly make sense to Kate, considering Phillip’s store had been open all of one day.
“I don’t know what it has to do with, Kate. Business has been declining for a while.”
&nbs
p; Kate paused, wanting to talk about what was going on at the church, why fewer and fewer people were attending, and his part in that. “We’d like to have you come back to Faith Briar, Eli,” she began. “You’re a valuable member—”
“Listen,” he interrupted. “I need to get back to work.”
He hung up, and Kate felt the lead weight in her stomach plunge to her feet. He might not be their vandal, but he clearly wasn’t behaving like the friend she and Paul had come to know and love.
IRONICALLY, AS NEWS of the vandalism spread through Copper Mill, business at the new antiques store improved. Phillip could barely keep up with the flow of customers, much less the demands of purchasing new inventory and bookkeeping. Kate had offered to come in more to help out, even putting her research into the mannequin on hold. She simply didn’t have the time for sleuthing right now.
But soon enough, Phillip hired Pete MacKenzie’s wife, Ellie, to work at the store. Pete was pastor of the Presbyterian Church in town, so Kate knew Ellie from various ecumenical functions. She was a nervous little woman who reminded Kate vaguely of a hummingbird—she flitted from one topic to the next and seemed to lose track of conversations within moments of starting them. But she had a genuine interest in helping people, so Kate felt confident that she’d be a good addition to the store.
“Did you see the article in the paper?” Ellie said to Kate on the following Thursday, as if just remembering that she’d meant to tell Kate about it. Ellie bustled to the counter and returned with the slim newsprint in hand and pointed to the front-page story.
There was a photo of Loving’s Antiques in full color and the headline: NEW STORE VANDALIZED ON DAY ONE.
Kate glanced at Phillip, who seemed none too pleased at the publicity. Then she read the full article as Ellie read silently over her shoulder.
Police reported late last week that Loving’s Antiques was the victim of vandalism on the very day it opened for business. Phillip Loving, owner of the store, was just arriving to open up when the widespread destruction was discovered.
“Furniture was cut open, overturned, and destroyed. I couldn’t believe my eyes,” said Mr. Loving. “We’d been open one day, and then everything we’d worked so hard for was destroyed in a single night.”
Kate lifted her head. “When did you talk to Jennifer?” she asked Phillip.
“She called the night after the break-in,” he said, picking up a coffee cup from the counter by the cash register and meandering to the back of the store.
Kate puzzled at his nonchalance, then returned to the article. Ellie moved on to dusting the tables near the front of the store.
According to police, the act was one of senseless destruction, as nothing was stolen from the store despite a day’s worth of sales in the safe.
“We believe that whoever did this was also connected to an attempted break-in at the same store a week before as well as last month’s theft at Weston’s Antiques,” Sheriff Alan Roberts said, referring to the stolen mannequin that had previously been found with a load of cash hidden inside. That money, Roberts confirmed, has been returned to a bank in Pine Ridge and has been linked to a bank robbery there in the 1930s.
The prime suspect in that robbery was none other than famed gangster Jack Leonetti, and evidence seems to point to Horace Hanlon’s involvement in that crime as well.
If anyone has any information regarding the theft at Weston’s Antiques or the vandalism at Loving’s, you are asked to notify authorities.
Anger flared through Kate at the accusations as she wondered if Jennifer McCarthy had done a bit of her own research at the historical society. She pursed her lips together and laid the paper back on the counter, feeling the stress of what the negative publicity could mean for her husband’s career.
If anyone in town had doubted that Horace Hanlon was a criminal, they certainly didn’t now.
Chapter Nineteen
Deputy Spencer stopped in at Phillip’s store shortly after noon on Friday, hat in hand and an eager expression on his freckled face.
“We have information on your vandal,” he said to Phillip, who turned to Kate.
“Let’s go to my office,” Phillip suggested, worry etched into the lines of his forehead.
The deputy nodded, and Phillip motioned to Ellie to keep an eye on the store, then led the way to the back room. Phillip took the chair behind the desk and picked up a pencil that he fidgeted with nervously while Kate and Skip sat across from him.
The red-haired officer reached into his pants pocket and pulled out the silver-plated lighter encased in a plastic baggie. “Do you remember this, Kate?” Despite the young deputy’s obvious desire to seem professional, Kate noticed the earnest glint in his eyes.
“Of course,” she said. “I found it after the first attempted break-in here.”
He tucked the lighter back into his pocket. “Well, it’s our link to unlocking this thing,” he said in his deep voice. “It has the same fingerprints as those we took off of your slashed furniture and the front doorknob,” the deputy said. “And the prints were found at Eli’s, too, on the day of the theft there.”
“Whose prints are they?” Phillip asked.
Skip scratched his head. “Well, it looks like whoever it is hasn’t been arrested before ’cause his prints aren’t on file. But we do know they’re the same prints. It’s just a matter of finding the guy.”
“So,” Kate said, her mind gathering the information together, “this means that whoever stole the mannequin was the same person who broke in here. Eli and Phillip are both cleared.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Skip said.
Kate let out a breath of relief, then just as quickly, her mind flew to the man who had tried to break in the back door. “W.M.,” she began. “Any leads on who that could be?”
“We’ve been asking around town but no one has seen the man fitting the description you gave us. At least not yet, though combined with this it does narrow things down for us.”
AFTER KATE HAD FINISHED UP helping out for the day at the store, she headed home to start supper.
Her mind drifted to her investigation into the mannequin’s roots. She traced the clues, from Horace Hanlon’s journal to Lucas Wilcox’s assertion that Jack Leonetti knew the author of his biography before the bank robbery to the initials on the lighter she’d found on the sidewalk.
W.M. If only she’d seen the thief’s car the day he’d broken the window at the store, something that would help her figure out who he was.
She called Livvy and asked if the second book penned by Simmonds had arrived yet. Livvy said the book was still checked out and could be another two or more weeks before arriving.
Kate turned her car onto Smoky Mountain Road and wended her way past the towering trees. The shade was a relief from the heat of the day. She decided she could use a glass of iced tea when she got home. She thought of the tea she’d had when she visited Lucas Wilcox. What a wonderful, kind man he was, though she’d seen the loneliness that he lived with too. She reminded herself that she’d wanted to sign him up for the Faith Freezer Program. But something pulled her up short, something Lucas said that day that she hadn’t fully picked up on at the time.
The day she’d gone to see him, he’d mentioned having two visitors that week. Yet he’d said that was rare, that the other visitor, a stranger from the sound of it, was looking for a woman. Was it possible the man with the limp had been his visitor? It was a long shot, but Kate decided to give the elderly man a call.
Lucas’ warbly voice answered on the eighth ring, and Kate introduced herself.
“I remember who you are,” he said.
“I’m wondering if you remember something else,” Kate began. “The day I came to visit, you mentioned someone else coming by that week, looking for a woman. Do you remember that?”
“Of course I do,” he said. “I had no idea who the guy was. Wanted to know if some woman had come snooping around asking questions. ’Course I told him no.”
Kate’s pulse quickened, and she tightened the grip on her cell phone. The man had been asking about her! Had he seen her at the historical society researching the case? How else would he have known to talk to Lucas?
“He didn’t tell you his name? Where he was from?”
“No, ma’am. He was only here for a few minutes.”
“What did he look like?”
“Oh,” Lucas paused, “let’s see. He was a shorter fellow. Balding. Probably in his early fifties, maybe older...”
“Did he have a limp?”
“Why, yes...how did you know that?”
Chapter Twenty
That evening, Paul came home from a board meeting shaking his head.
“The board is split,” he told Kate. “Sam and Danny told the rest that this was setting a bad precedent—that every member who doesn’t like something I do can pull the church apart—but the others are taking it under advisement. They want to wait and see if I’m still the right pastor for Faith Briar.”
“But Phillip has been cleared of any wrongdoing,” she said, surprised that this hadn’t settled the matter.
“That might be so. But since Eli hasn’t changed his stance about leaving the church, and attendance is still so low...” He shrugged, a look of defeat in his eyes. “And it seems there are some new rumors floating around out there.”
“What kind of rumors?”
Paul chuckled. “Some are saying that Grandpa Horace donated illegal money to the church.”
“Are you kidding me?” Kate had seen rumors spread out of control in the small town before, but this seemed unbelievable.
Paul sighed and raked a hand through his hair. “I told the board that it just wasn’t true. Sure, my family visited Faith Briar back in those days. But we lived an hour away...It’s completely illogical.”
“So what can we do about it?” Kate asked, feeling a surge of outrage at the board’s rush to judgment and the hurt it was causing her husband.