Antiques to Die For (15 page)

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

P

aige was sitting in the kitchen listening to her iPod when I stumbled in around six the next morning to make coffee. Her hands were folded in her lap, and her eyes were focused in the far distance, over the meadow, past the thick knot of maples and pine trees, toward Ty’s sprawling contemporary. She said hello, her mind a million miles away.

“Want some OJ?” I asked.

“Thanks.”

I poured the juice and told her I’d make breakfast after I started coffee. I kept half an eye on her as I scooped coffee grounds into the maker. The phone rang, and, startled, I spilled coffee grounds onto the counter.

“Damn,” I said, and grabbed the phone. “Hello?”

“It’s me,” Ty said.

“Hey.” I tucked the phone under my chin to free my hands and finish preparing the coffee. “You’re calling early.”

“It’s Saturday. You start early.”

“ ’Tis true,” I replied.

“You got a sec?” he asked.

“Not really,” I replied, glancing at the wall clock. “I’m making breakfast for Paige and me. Then we gotta go.”

He cleared his throat. “Actually I’m calling you in my role as police chief.”

My heart skipped a beat as I flipped the toggle to start the coffee. “I’m all ears,” I said, trying for a light tone.

I snuck a peek at Paige. She was sitting with her back to me, staring through the window. I followed her gaze and saw acres of pristine white snow, then forest. The sky was brilliant blue with fluffy clouds. I edged into the hallway.

“We’re following up every lead.” He cleared his throat. “I’m telling you because it’s police policy to keep victims apprised of our progress.”

“Thank you.”

“So I wanted to let you know that there are no fingerprints on the greeting card or envelope.”

I heard a whoosh and looked toward the coffeemaker. Brown liquid dripped into the pot.

“No surprise,” I said, disappointed nonetheless.

“No. But we think there’s probably a connection to Rosalie’s secret admirer.”

“How come?” I asked, and closed my eyes, braced for bad news.

“One of the shops that delivered the flowers is a hole-in-the-wall, cash-only, short-memory sort of place. The others are fully automated. Which means they can tell us how they got the orders. All of the orders came by phone. In every case, the caller used disposable cell phones. They’re untraceable.”

“With a two-oh-seven area code?”

“Yeah. Actually, one number was the same as the one used to call you last night.”

I felt disassociated, as if I were listening to a discourse on investigative techniques. The information was too frightening to process. “Jeez.”

“Yeah,” Ty agreed.

“You said they can’t be traced, right?”

“Right. If they’re on, we can locate them. We keep trying, with no luck. By now they’re probably in a landfill somewhere, you know?”

“Wow.” A new, terrifying thought occurred to me. “What about if someone calls one of the stores to place an order?” I glanced at Paige, still sitting in unquiet repose. “To me, I mean?”

“They call us. We’ve issued an alert.”

“What if he calls a new place—one he hasn’t used before?”

“It’s a general alert. They’ll call us, too.” His tone softened. “By the way, I assure you that I won’t be sending you any flowers in the near future.”

“Shame on you.”

“I’ll hand deliver them. But I’m being serious here, Josie,” he added. “In case some slip through and you think they’re from me—they’re not.”

“Got it.”

“Tell your staff, okay?”

“Tell them what?”

“If a flower delivery arrives, confirm where the flowers are being sent from. That’s all. No one on your staff should make an issue of anything—they shouldn’t try to delay the delivery guy or imply there’s a problem. Just confirm where they’re from and call Officer Brownley.”

“Okay,” I said, my heart fluttering. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“If the orders were placed by phone, how did he pay for them?”

“Or she. We’re dealing with a husky-voiced individual. The flowers were purchased using prepaid credit cards.”

“What are they?”

“They’re mostly used by people who are trying to establish credit or have bad credit. They’re cash and carry, which means they can’t be traced.”

“Wow,” I said, trying for a light tone, “who knew? But you’d still have the person’s name, right?”

“The name he—or she—used was Pat Smith. Even if it’s the secret admirer’s real name, which I doubt, there’s no clue as to whether it’s a man or a woman. I’ve checked—there are more than six thousand Pat Smiths in the country. And there’s no indication that Rosalie ever knew anyone by that name.”

I felt dazed. “This is pretty scary.”

“I want to stress that we know what we’re doing and we’re damn good at it.”

“Okay, then.”

“There’s more. My new job. They’ve asked me to come to a meeting in D.C. on Monday.”

I sat down on a bench I’d placed near the front door. “And?” I asked.

“I said okay.”

“Really,” I said because I couldn’t think of anything else to say. “How long will you be gone?”

“A few days, I guess. But they asked us to block out the entire week, so who knows.”

“Do you know what you’re meeting about?”

“Canadian border stuff.”

It’s such an important job,
I thought. I stood up and made my way back into the kitchen. Paige looked up and I raised a finger signaling that I’d only be a minute more.

“You know I wouldn’t go if I thought you were in danger,” he said.

“I hope you’re right,” I said, forcing myself to sound chipper. A thought came to me about the nature of hope.
We believe what we want to believe,
my father told me.
And usually, we want to believe there’s hope.
“You know that famous saying about hope?”

“Which one?”

“ ‘Hope springs eternal in the human breast.’ ”

“Alexander Pope, right?”

“Right. You get my point?”

“No. Or rather, yes, of course I do. But you meant it flippantly, as if your safety was based on hope and a prayer, not reasoned thinking and good police work.”

“How about this one: ‘A hope beyond the shadow of a dream’?”

“That’s good, but even less true. Who wrote that?”

“Keats.”

“We’re taking good care of you, Josie. Claire Brownley is a damn good cop.”

I believed him, though I didn’t know why. I felt the tautness in my shoulders loosen and the sharp pain in my chest ease, just a bit. “Okay, then. I’ll trust in police smarts, not mere hope.”

“Do you love me?” Ty asked.

“Yes, I do.”

“I love you, too.”

We hung up and I stood for a moment, clutching the phone to my chest. I was reassured, but just a little. It felt as if I were adrift in the ocean in a small boat during a raging thunderstorm, threatened by roiling waves and lightning strikes. Everything was out of my control, from Ty’s new work schedule to Paige’s sadness to my secret admirer’s intentions.

It was irrational, I knew, but as I stared into the shadows, I felt my nemesis was drawing closer.

“Can I ask you a question?” I asked Paige as we finished scrambled eggs and toast.

“What?” Paige asked.

“You know the photograph of you guys eating ice cream?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Who were you looking at? The photographer?”

“Yes.”

“Who was it?”

“Paul. Paul Greeley.”

I nodded. “Thanks. So . . . we’ll go in about a half hour, okay?”

“If it’s all right, I just want to stay here,” she said quietly.

I insisted, telling her that she could sit in my office and read or listen to music to her heart’s content, but I wasn’t comfortable leaving her alone in my house. “I have errands today, but there’s always someone around at Prescott’s. We send out for pizza on Saturdays, so you’ll have people to eat with.”

“All right,” she said unenthusiastically.

Thinking of the desolate days and nights following my father’s death when I was inconsolable and unable to be around people, I added, “I understand your wanting to be alone. But it’s important that you don’t become isolated. You need to be around people, and to let those of us who care about you do things to help you.”

She nodded and didn’t say another word the whole way to Prescott’s.

Gretchen was already at her computer when we arrived. “Paige is going to spend today with us,” I said.

“Super!” Gretchen said warmly, and handed me a pink message sheet.

Mr. Bolton had called to report that the police found no inventory or address book on Rosalie’s home or work computers, that the police had her address book—an actual book—and would let me know if the names led to anything related to my appraisal. I shrugged philosophically. It would have been helpful to have the inventory, but we’d do fine without it.

I got a stoic Paige settled upstairs on the love seat. I noted that she was reading Agatha Christie’s
And Then There Were None.
Downstairs again, I communicated Ty’s instructions about calling the police if flowers were delivered. Gretchen listened, concerned.

“Are you in danger?” she asked.

“No,” I assured her with more confidence than I felt. “It’s just a precaution. Fill in Sasha and Fred, all right, in case you’re not in the office when they’re delivered—
if
they’re delivered.”

“Okay,” she said, and copied Officer Brownley’s phone number on Post-it Notes that she pressed onto everyone’s computer monitor.

“Thanks,” I said, and headed over to the tag-sale room where Eric was stretched out under a table.

“Hey, Eric,” I said. “What are you up to?”

“Loose screw,” he replied, his voice muffled.

A moment later, he pushed himself out from under and slipped the screwdriver into his tool belt as he stood up. “The table was kind of wobbly. It’s okay now.”

“Excellent! How’s Cara doing?” I asked, nodding toward the new white-haired temp.

“Good. She’s a quick learner.”

“I’ve got my fingers crossed.” I scanned the room. It looked ready for our nine o’clock opening. “Well done, Eric.”

He shook his head, embarrassed in the face of praise.

Upstairs again, I glanced at Paige, sitting with her legs tucked under her, reading, and turned my attention to Lesha’s letter. It sounded credible, but then I looked at it from a technical perspective.

The font was Courier, typical for typewriters of the 1950s, but then I spotted an oddity—the letters were in perfect alignment.
It was printed on a computer,
I realized. Every letter was equally dark and dense.

No way could a typewriter have produced such perfect text. I remembered using my mother’s old Smith Corona. No matter how hard I punched the
M
key, the impression was never as dark as the other letters and the
S
tilted to the left.

I was about to call down to see if Sasha was in yet when I saw another flaw and gaped.
How could I have missed it?
I asked myself.
There were no zip codes in 1959!
I shook my head, shocked at the author’s chutzpah.

To confirm my memory, I Googled “zip code” and “history.” I was right, zip codes started in 1963, four years after the letter had allegedly been written. I shook my head and thought the situation through.

Just because the letter is a phony doesn’t mean the palette is a phony, too,
I realized. It could be that when Sasha asked if there was any documentation about the palette, Lesha thought she’d give the appraisal a helping hand by creating the letter. It wasn’t unheard-of for heirs to try to goose an object’s value by falsifying documents.

Yet, having met Lesha, it was hard to believe that she’d written such an articulate and plausible letter. Which made me wonder more about Evan. I called down to the office. Gretchen answered merrily.

“Is Sasha there?” I asked.

“Taking off her coat as we speak,” she said.

“Would you ask her to come up?”

I swiveled toward my window while I waited. Glittering sunlight lit up the bare maple.

“Hi,” Sasha said as she stepped inside my office.

Anxiety was evident in the way she spoke that one word, a not unexpected reaction to an unanticipated summons from me. Insecurity always led her to assume the worst. I introduced her to Paige, then handed her the letter.

“It’s a phony,” I told her, and explained why.

“I could kick myself! I can’t believe I missed it!” she exclaimed, aghast at her oversight.

“I know. I had the same reaction.”

“At least we discovered it before the appraisal. It could have been worse.”

“What now?”

Sasha shook her head, still focused on the letter. “I’d say we’re back to the beginning. For all we know, Evan wrote the letter and when Lesha presented it she sincerely believed it was genuine.”

“Do you think so?” I asked her.

“I don’t know.”

“I don’t know either. But it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that Lesha knew it was fake when she gave it to you.”

“The whole situation is shocking, really,” she said, dismayed.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “You had Fred confirming the addresses in Lesha’s letter, right? You should pull him off that job.”

“I will. I’m so sorry,” Sasha repeated, twisting her hair.

I shrugged. “We all missed it, Sasha. It’s why it’s good we have lots of eyes looking at things. Fill Fred in, okay?”

She nodded.

“We still have to research Whistler’s work habits because the palette could be genuine even if the letter isn’t. If you’re having trouble tracking information down, I can probably find someone who can help us.”

“Okay. I’ll let you know.”

I asked her to get Fred started on Rosalie’s papers. “I need him to look for any reference to anything of value, any place other than her known locations where she might be storing objects or additional papers—anything that might help identify assets.”

She nodded.

“Tell him to keep the papers in order in case someone else wants to look at them, okay? Also, please coordinate with Fred to cover the instant appraisal booth. I’ll try and do at least an hour or two, but realistically, I don’t know how much I’ll be able to pitch in today.”