Framed by a Forgery

by Fiona Grace

  She turned on her heel, ushering Chester to follow her. But as she marched for the exit, she heard Carol call out from behind: “What makes you so sure the murderer was at your auction in the first place?”

  Lacey paused and turned. “Excuse me?”

  “That’s why you’re here, really, isn’t it?” Carol said. “Doing that whole Miss Marple thing you love so much.”

  Lacey put her hands on her hips. “I don’t love anything about this,” she retorted. “I’m investigating because people think I’m implicated. They think I knowingly sold a fake. That I’m a fraud. Or worse, that I might even be a murderer. I can’t just stand by idly and do nothing.”

  Carol shrugged a single shoulder. She clearly couldn’t care less about Lacey or the damage to her reputation. To her, this was all just another interesting bit of drama.

  “Well, I was simply saying it would be rather brazen if the killer attended the auction,” Carol said. “I imagine they’d not want to risk showing their face like that.”

  Lacey was about to explain that the killer had to have been in attendance to even know about Ronan’s windfall, when she suddenly stopped and pondered her words.

  “You know what…” she murmured, her mind turning it over. “I think you’re right!”

  In pursuing the money as a motive theory, all their discussions over who killed Ronan had relied on someone witnessing his windfall. But the auction attendees weren’t the only ones who knew about his win, were they? Ronan had family. Surely they knew what was happening at the auction? Surely there was someone close to him he’d confided in? Who was waiting on the results of the auction?

  “Perhaps the murderer wasn’t present after all…” Lacey finished.

  And with that thought, Lacey hurried away. Because she’d just stumbled upon a whole new line of inquiry to pursue.

  *

  Lacey hurried up the High Street cobbles, with Chester jogging alongside her. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought of this yet—she’d been too distracted by her assumptions about Lord Fairfax and Hounslow, and after they’d been cleared, she’d immediately become attached to the theory that the culprit had had to attend the auction. But it was much more likely that the killer was someone unknown to her, someone close to Ronan, someone set to profit from his death. Which made the most likely suspects his immediate family—his wife, his children, and anyone else who may be a benefactor of his will. Indeed, whoever had killed Ronan had waited less than a day after the sale went through to dispatch of him. Lacey shuddered at the cold callousness of it.

  She reached the store and hurried inside. Gina and Frank looked up from their activities.

  “How did it go at the Lodge?” Gina asked.

  “Learn anything new?” Frank added.

  “I think so,” Lacey replied, as she hurried to the counter. “I don’t think the killer attended the auction.”

  Gina and Frank exchanged a puzzled look.

  “But only people who came to the auction knew that Ronan was wealthy,” Gina contested. “Who else could it have been?”

  Lacey raised her eyebrows. “Someone he’d confided in. Who knew that he was about to make loads of money. Someone who was waiting for the sale to go through before they struck, knowing the money would reach them once his will was finalized.”

  “A family member?” Frank exclaimed. He looked horrified by the thought. “How awful!”

  “It’s just a theory,” Lacey assured him. “I need to test it first.”

  But it was a good theory, and one she’d not yet pursued.

  She moved to head for the back office, but Gina halted her. “Lacey, did you get a chance to look at the arches yet?”

  “The what?” Lacey asked, over her shoulder, feeling harried.

  “The arches,” Gina replied. “For the wedding. Did you look?”

  “I’m a bit tied up right now!” Lacey replied. She motioned again to leave, only this time Frank stopped her.

  “Shall I put on the kettle? Make some tea?” he asked.

  “I’m fine, Dad,” Lacey said, as politely as she could.

  She really wished these two would buzz off. She needed a bit of quiet to get her thoughts together!

  Finally, she made it to the office and slunk down into her computer chair. She turned on the computer and went online, typing Ronan Pike into the search bar. The first site she pulled up was an obituary, written by Callum Pike.

  “His brother?” Lacey wondered aloud.

  That was unusual. Usually it was the wife or kids who sent in obituaries.

  She quickly read the obituary and discovered that Ronan did not have a wife or kids. He was unmarried. His brother was his only living relative.

  “The only person set to inherit his wealth,” Lacey said with a small gasp.

  Could this be her perp? Had Ronan told his brother about the auction? About the money he was set to inherit from it?

  But no… Lacey shook her head as she recalled what Ronan had told her about the letter’s origins. It had been among his late father’s things that he’d inherited after his death. So, presumably, Callum Pike was set to profit from its sale too, right?

  “Unless he got greedy,” Lacey mused aloud.

  As much as she hated to go to such dark places, the sad reality was that people were capable of such things. Perhaps sharing their father’s estate was too much for Callum? They certainly wouldn’t be the first siblings in the world to do foolish, competitive things. Just look at Lord Fairfax!

  Lacey went back to her keyboard, typing instead this time Callum Pike. It didn’t take long to find a full address for him, and Lacey pinpointed him to a spot just on the outskirts of Wilfordshire. Of course, Lacey wasn’t supposed to leave town, on orders of the cops, but since the house was technically touching the border, could that really be counted as leaving town?

  It didn’t matter. It was a risk she’d have to take.

  Lacey decided to chance it.

  She stood up and headed back into the main shop.

  “Chester,” she called to her pooch. “We’ve got another lead.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Lacey pulled up to the curb and peered out her windshield. Callum’s house was modest looking, one of those post-war brick houses that characterized English towns. Flat fronted, with square, white-framed windows and a little porch over the doorway to shield from the rain.

  “What do you think, Chester?” she asked her canine companion in the passenger seat. “Does this look like the house of a killer?”

  Chester barked.

  Lacey grabbed the decoy bouquet she’d purchased on the way—a prop for her cover story—then she and Chester got out of the car and went up the garden path to the front door. Lacey knocked, then stepped back to wait.

  The door was answered by a man in his thirties. He had the same small stature as Ronan—below average height, naturally narrow build—but with none of the nerdy lecturer vibes of his deceased brother. In fact, it looked as if he’d gone the other way entirely, bulking up in order to make up in muscles what he lacked in frame. His slender hips gave him a bit of an Action Man figure, all bulk above the waist.

  “Who are you?” he asked, suspiciously, eyeing Lacey.

  “I’m a friend of your brother’s,” Lacey said. She held up the bouquet. “I came to pay my respects.”

  “Oh,” the man said. “I guess you’d better come in.” He opened the door to allow her entrance.

  A ripple of nerves went through Lacey as she stepped over the threshold into the man’s home, and followed him along the corridor into a modestly sized front room. It was furnished with the typical coffee table and couch suite facing the TV in the alcove, the alcove on the other side of the chimney breast containing a bookshelf. There was nothing remarkable or flashy about the room or its furnishings, and nothing particularly striking save for the numerous bouquets of flowers dotted about the place in various stages of wilting. There were also several ‘with sympathy’ cards on the bo
okshelves, sideboard, and mantel. Lacey’s immediate assessment was that Callum was not a wealthy man. Which could mean nothing, but certainly fit in with the theory he was after Ronan for his inheritance.

  Callum stood with his hands in the pockets of his jeans, watching as Lacey laid her flowers onto the table with the others.

  “I knew Ronan through antiquing,” she explained, since Callum had said nothing.

  “Oh yeah?” Callum replied.

  He sounded disinterested, Lacey noted.

  “Yes, he approached me to help sell your father’s estate,” she said.

  At that, Callum’s eye twitched. “Oh. You’re her.”

  Lacey wasn’t sure what to make of him, just yet. He wasn’t giving a lot away. “Her?” she prompted.

  “The auctioneer,” Callum stated. “The one who sold the fake letter for Ronan.”

  Lacey’s eyebrows inched upward. If Callum was the killer, he was being rather forthcoming. “You were aware the letter was a fake?”

  “I suspected it was,” he replied. “Told Ronan as such. Now every Tom, Dick, and Harry who calls up to send their respects asks about it. Everyone wants to know if I knew it was a fake.”

  “What made you suspect it was a fake?” she asked. “Ronan told me it was amongst your father’s possessions.”

  He scoffed. “Yeah, well, we inherited a lot of stuff from our father. All of it turned out to be worthless crap.”

  “But you are descendants of Charles Dickens’ assistant?” Lacey pressed. “Which would’ve given the letter a sense of legitimacy.”

  “I never believed the whole Charles Dickens’ assistant story,” Ronan said.

  Lacey frowned, perplexed. This was not what she’d been expecting at all. “I’m sorry, I don’t think I understand. Are you saying your father made the story up?”

  Callum sighed wearily. “My dad was a Del Boy. Do you use that term in America?”

  Lacey shook her head. Callum continued. “It means someone who’s a chancer. A grifter. Someone who’s always scheming up ways to make a quick buck. If Dad tried to sell that letter at any point, I reckon he quickly ran across problems of people asking about its legitimacy, so came up with some explanation.”

  Lacey frowned. “You really think your father made it up? Isn’t that bit of an obtuse lie?”

  Callum simply shrugged. “That was what he was like. If you make your lies too outlandish, then people start not to believe you. But if they’re just about believable you can get away with it.”

  “So you think your father knew the letter was a forgery all along?” Lacey continued.

  “Of course,” Callum said, as if there were no doubt. “I told Ronan, as well. I told him that nothing in Dad’s pile of crap would actually be worth anything, but he always wanted to see the good in our father. He was the favorite for that.”

  A sad smile twitched up the corners of Callum’s lips. He averted his gaze from Lacey, looking morosely out into the near distance. He sounded bitter, and Lacey got the distinct impression there was a whole load of family drama she was on the edge of dredging up.

  “Were you aware that Ronan had the letter appraised first? By a well-revered auction house? They deemed it to be genuine. It was that good, it even fooled the experts. So you can see why Ronan was convinced.”

  “I didn’t know that,” Callum replied, his voice low and heavy. “Ronan and I didn’t speak often. In fact, before we had to start sorting through our dad’s stuff, we probably hadn’t spoken for a year or something like that.”

  “You weren’t close,” Lacey clarified.

  “No,” Callum confirmed. “But it wouldn’t surprise me if he got some dodgy guy to fake a certificate. He was a chip off the old block, my brother. Him and Dad were as thick as thieves. And now I’m left with all of it. Dad’s stuff. Ronan’s stuff. It’s like their last laugh.”

  Lacey thought of her own sister, miles away in New York City. Naomi hadn’t spoken to her since the night of the surprise telephone call in the laundry room with their long-lost father. She hoped they could patch things up. She’d hate for her and Naomi to become like Ronan and his brother, divided over their father.

  “So,” Lacey said. “You’re left with everything, right? Ronan had no other next of kin, from what I heard. No wife, no kids.”

  “Nope,” Callum said. “Just me. Last man standing.”

  Lacey paused. Callum knew he was going to inherit everything after Ronan’s death, including the money from the letter. If Lord Fairfax hadn’t stuck his nose in and gotten it privately looked at, would anyone have been any the wiser? Would Callum have simply walked away with two million pounds? Was this whole narrative a lie? A convenient twisting of reality to make Callum seem like the good guy?

  “You must’ve been thrilled when you found out about the sale,” Lacey probed. “Or at least in the few hours before it was proved to be a fake.”

  “I didn’t know about the sale,” Callum said. “Ronan didn’t tell me he was auctioning it.”

  “He didn’t?” Lacey asked, surprised. “It was pretty big news. You’re saying he didn’t share the good news with you?”

  It seemed very odd to Lacey. Odd… and convenient.

  Callum laughed sadly. “I already told you. We weren’t close. Ronan was just like my dad. He would never have even told me.”

  “How can you be so sure?” Lacey queried. She thought of Lord Fairfax and his rivalry with his twin. “Not even to gloat?”

  “Not if by gloating he risked having to share,” Callum replied. “In fact, I found this among his stuff.”

  He went over to the mantel and fetched a plane ticket, handing it to Lacey.

  She scanned the ticket, which had Ronan’s name printed at the top.

  “This is one-way,” she said, surprised. “To the Cayman Islands?”

  Callum nodded sadly.

  Lacey saw the scheduled date of the flight. The day after the auction. Of course Ronan had never gotten to take the flight, because he’d been killed, but it was due to take off from nearby Exeter airport. That explained why Ronan had stayed in Wilfordshire that fateful night. Perhaps it even explained why he’d seemed so nervous and shifty during their conversations, so eager to get the auction over with quickly. He wanted it done and dusted before his brother even had the chance to realize what was going on.

  “He was going to fly off into the sunset with his money before I’d even realized he’d made it,” Callum said aloud, confirming Lacey’s own thoughts.

  Lacey was stunned. This was proof to her, evidence that Callum’s story was the truth. He wasn’t a jealous man who’d killed his brother for the inheritance money. He was the wronged party. A man at odds with his own father and brother who were happy to scheme, lie, and cheat their way through life.

  She handed him back the ticket. “I’m so sorry,” she said.

  Callum nodded slowly. “Thank you. And I’m sorry you got pulled into this whole thing. It’s always the good people who get hurt by schemers. “

  Lacey felt bad now for having intruded on his moment of conflicted grief. But at least she had her answer now. Callum was not the killer. And she was at another dead end.

  “I’d better go,” she said, gesturing to Chester to leave.

  Callum showed her to the door, and Lacey exited out into the cool evening.

  Her mind went a mile a minute as she walked back down the garden path, the questions that had been swimming in her mind when she arrived now answered in such an unexpected way. What should she do now? She’d reached yet another dead end.

  As Lacey closed the garden gate behind her, she paused. Her car, parked against the sidewalk where she’d left it, was now not the only vehicle on the street. Someone else had parked behind her. A black Mercedes.

  “Uh-oh,” Lacey said to Chester, swiveling on her heel to make an about-face.

  But her realization came too late and she bumped straight into the tall, broad figure of Superintendent Turner.

 
“Lacey?” he said with a mean glower. “Fancy finding you here.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  Lacey looked up at Superintendent Turner and gulped. She knew she wasn’t supposed to leave Wilfordshire, yet here she was, right on the outskirts, standing just outside the house of a murder victim’s only living relative. Talk about looking suspicious.

  She gulped. “Hello, Karl,” she said. “Isn’t it a lovely evening? Chester and I were just on a stroll.”

  Superintendent Turner regarded her with a stony expression. “Strange place to walk your dog,” he said, thinly, folding his arms. “Lacey, what are you doing here?”

  Lacey sighed and dropped the act. There was no point lying to Superintendent Karl Turner. It would only land her in more hot water.

  “Same as you, I suspect,” Lacey replied. “Speaking to Ronan Pike’s next of kin. The man set to inherit his entire wealth. Or lack of wealth, as it turns out.”

  Superintendent Turner glowered. “That’s not your job.”

  “No,” Lacey replied. “And yet, here I am, beating you to it yet again.”

  Just then, Lacey saw a shadowy figure emerging from the passenger side of the Merc. Detective Beth Lewis. She drew up to Superintendent Turner’s side and exchanged a silent greeting with Lacey.

  Superintendent Turner looked across at her. “Lewis, take Miss Doyle to the station, please. Charge her for interfering in police business.”

  “What?” Lacey cried.

  Detective Lewis’s eyebrows shot straight up. “Sarge?”

  “Get her out of here,” Karl Turner snapped. “I’ve had enough of her meddling.”

  “But the witness…”

  “I can interview him on my own.”

  “But the car!” Beth protested again.

  “Commandeer that one,” Superintendent Turner said, pointing at Lacey’s Volvo parked half-up on the sidewalk.

  And with that, Superintendent Turner marched away, over to Callum’s house, leaving Lacey and Detective Lewis alone.