Deadly Appraisal (27 page)

CHAPTER FIFTY

M

ax called me at home on Monday morning to tell me that Dora had been arrested for Maisy’s murder and that therefore it would be appropriate for me to allow the police to search my house. I agreed.

“Your volunteering will look good,” he said, “and it may help them build their case.”

“In what way?” I asked.

“Detective Rowcliff told me that the reason he asked to search your house in the first place was that he received an anonymous tip. The person who called said you’re the murderer and that they’d find proof in the form of cyanide if they looked.”

“Oh my God!” I whispered, remembering that I’d left Dora alone in the kitchen while I retrieved my purse from the stairs, when she’d stopped by to show off the donation she’d received at her breakfast meeting.
Was that a fake, too,
I wondered,
like so much of Dora’s story?
I felt myself becoming throw-things-against-the-wall angry. I just couldn’t believe it. “Dora planted cyanide in my house to frame me?” I asked, incredulous.

“Yeah,” Max said.

He told me whoever placed the anonymous call disguised his or her voice and that the police considered it a dead end. It could have been a woman trying to sound like a man—or vice versa.

“Well,” I said, swallowing ire. “If there’s cyanide here, I sure hope they find it.”

I got myself settled on the window seat in my kitchen, opening the shades to enjoy the morning sun. With Dora under arrest, I could once again sit by a window with the curtains open.

“Detective Rowcliff made another request.”

“What now?” I asked, immediately wary.

“Dora has asked to see you, and Rowcliff would like you to meet with her.”

“What?” I said, shocked. “Why would she want to see me?”

“I have no idea. But the conversation will be taped, so whatever admissions she might make may be very useful to the police. How’s this afternoon?”

“Okay,” I agreed, still uneasy, and added, “Have they searched Dora’s place yet?”

“I assume so. Why?”

“I want my tureen. The real one.”

“I’ll ask,” Max said.

“Can I call Chi and cancel security? What do you think?”

“Good point. Now that an arrest has been made, I guess that’s it.”

“Kind of anticlimactic, you know?” I commented.

“But a relief.”

“Yeah.”

As I hung up the phone, I noticed that my hands were shaking.

Gretchen was already deep in the tag-sale financial reconciliation when I arrived at work just after nine.

“You’re here bright and early,” I said.

“That’s me—an eager beaver!” she responded with a small laugh.

I smiled. “Thank you for helping Eric with the job description, by the way. He told me that you called in on your day off with something for the list. That’s way above and beyond the call of duty.”

With streaks of sunlight glinting on her copper-colored hair, she looked magnificent, like the subject of a classic portrait.
Rembrandt,
I thought,
or Vermeer might have used her as a model in a painting depicting contentment.

She laughed. “He hates thinking about himself, so I have to help him,” she explained. “I don’t know why, but I was eating breakfast and I suddenly remembered that he oversees the guys who clean the gutters twice a year.” She rolled her eyes. “And I couldn’t risk forgetting
that
important task, could I?”

I laughed a little. “Would you call Eddie for me and tell him that the payment he got is correct after all?”

“Oh, was there a problem?” Gretchen asked, confused.

“No, everything’s fine. Just give him the message, okay? Tell him that I was wrong and his invoice was correct.”

“Okay.” She made a note.

“And call Chi for me, will you, and thank him for me. I already called and left him a message, but please do it again—and tell him where to send his invoice.”

“Got it. Anything else?”

Before I could reply, Britt Epps set the chimes jingling as he came into the office.

“Hello, my dears,” he said. “I was driving by and thought I’d stop in to check on the pledges. I was so shocked to hear the news of Dora’s arrest.”

“Oh, me too!” Gretchen said.

I listened while they exchanged astonished views, until they ran out of revelations to share. I noted that Britt never actually mentioned the pledges again.
That gave him an excuse to stop by,
I thought,
but what he really came for was the scandal chat.

“Have you heard about Larry Willis?” Britt asked.

“No,” I said. “I don’t recognize the name.”

Gretchen shook her head.

“He’s the managing director at Arthur’s,” Britt said, lowering his voice reverentially as he named one of the most prestigious engineering consulting firms in town. “He’s been promoted, and he’s moving to London. I was thinking that he might be planning on selling some things.” He winked at me. “Couldn’t do you any harm to call him and ask.”

“Thank you, Britt,” I said.
He’s just a tittle-tattle,
I thought.
Nothing less. Nothing more. Just as my ex-boss, Trevor Woodleigh, is just an opportunist bent on rehabilitating his image, not a murderer out for vengeance. Just as Eric is a devoted son, not a thief, and Eddie left New Hampshire for a fresh start, not an escape. Sometimes,
I told myself, comforted at the thought,
my perceptions are on the mark.

After a while, I excused myself and left Gretchen to deal with him. The last thing I heard was her asking, her voice hushed, “Do you know any details about the sale of the Winton Farm to developers? I heard that old Mrs. Winton is having a hissy fit about it.”

“We need help,” a striking assistant district attorney named Celeste McGowan said to me and Max that day just after noon. She wore a kelly green suit and spike heels, and looked like she hadn’t taken a wooden nickel in a year or two. “The case is weak.”

“How can it be weak?” I asked, astounded.

She looked straight at me for a moment. “There are many ways to interpret facts. For instance, Dora Reynolds doesn’t deny that she had access to cyanide—in fact, she’s acknowledged being in the workshop with the purse she carried at the Gala. She’s very believable when she explains that the cyanide must have fallen in accidentally.”

“That’s absurd,” Max objected.

“I agree. But you haven’t heard her. She’s a very persuasive talker. Plus, she’s lovely. She’ll make a fragile-looking and credible witness. I’m telling you: We need help.”

Max nodded and stroked his nose. “It seems Dora did, in fact, have access to Josie’s kitchen.”

“Oh?” ADA McGowan replied. “Do tell.”

Glancing at Max for an okay to explain, and getting it, I recounted my memory.

“We gotta look,” Rowcliff insisted.

“Josie has agreed to let you search her house.”

“Thanks,” ADA McGowan said, “maybe we’ll find something useful.”

“How about other people at the Gala?” Max asked. “Did anyone see her slip the poison into Maisy’s glass?”

“No one we can find so far. It was an audacious act and she got lucky.”

“It’s hard to believe. What do people say?” Max asked.

“Detective?” McGowan said, turning to Rowcliff.

He gave a tap-tap of his pencil before speaking. “Greg Davis, who was at Josie’s table, was talking to the couple next to him about Barbados. They liked it; he didn’t. The woman on the far side of Josie—Lori, her name is—she and three others were talking about having trouble finding reliable baby-sitters.” He shook his head, looking disgusted. “And it was more of the same at Maisy’s table. Her husband, Walter, was talking about baseball with the guy next to him. The couple sitting to Maisy’s right were speculating about the auction bids with a woman named Pam. You get the picture. No one saw anything we can use.”

Max nodded. “Do you know why Dora wants to talk to Josie?”

“No,” Rowcliff said, and both Max and I turned to ADA McGowan. She made a
beats me
gesture.

“One thing before we proceed,” Max said.

“What’s that?” McGowan asked.

“Did you find the stolen tureen?”

She nodded and looked at Detective Rowcliff.

Rowcliff said, “We found it in the rental car—the one she hired after she allegedly hit a deer in Hank’s Mitsubishi. The car she was driving when we picked her up.”

“Okay, then,” Max said. “I presume we’ll get it back in due course.”

“Certainly. We have it properly vouchered,” McGowan said.

“Where is the Mitsubishi, by the way?” Max asked.

“Some junkyard in East Boston, probably,” Rowcliff said.

As we were walking to the visitor’s room, where I was scheduled to meet with Dora, I whispered, “Won’t that help their case? That Dora was fleeing with the tureen in her possession?”

“Probably not. She could deny knowing it was there and blame it on Hank. He had access to the car—and he’s the one who bought the reproduction tureen that was left in its place.”

“There’s one other thing you need to know,” McGowan said.

“What’s that?” I asked warily.

“Up until three years ago, Dora Reynolds was known as Alice Reddy.”

The change in identity Wes discovered.
I schooled my features to look confused and interested. “What?” I asked.

“Are you saying that Dora Reynolds is really Alice Reddy?” Max asked.

“Probably Alice Reddy is an alias, too,” Rowcliff said.

Max shook his head. My mind was reeling.

“We’re just beginning to piece it together now,” Rowcliff continued. “She’s under indictment in Oregon.”

“For what?” I asked.

“Some kind of pyramid scheme—selling stock options to little old ladies.”

“Dora?”
I said. It seemed inconceivable.

“Yeah. She paid off past obligations with new sales revenue. The postal authorities initiated the investigation.”

“Is that why she changed her name?” I asked.

“Probably,” McGowan said. “And we found evidence indicating that Maisy was doing a little investigating on her own. Her Internet history showed her on Web sites featuring Alice Reddy on lists of most-wanted criminals.”

“Which explains the blackmail,” I commented.

“But no proof,” McGowan pointed out.

“Didn’t you find a record of money changing hands?” I asked, knowing the answer.

“Yes, but not directly. It was a joint account—she’ll argue that Hank is the one who moved the money to Belize.”

“And from there?” Max asked. “Where did it go after Belize?”

McGowan shrugged. “Who knows?”

“What does Hank say?” I asked.

“He’s in shock, poor guy. Pretty much, he doesn’t know which end is up.”

He trusted her,
I thought,
and now he’ll never trust that way again.

I shook my head, told them I was ready to proceed, and opened the door.

Dora entered from the far corner with a glittering smile, as if she were greeting a favorite guest at an important dinner party, not seeing an acquaintance for unknown reasons while under indictment for murder.

“Josie,” she said, sitting on the other side of the divided area. “Thank you for coming.”

“How are you, Dora?” I asked. I wondered where the microphones were hidden. I spotted nothing, and could only trust that they could hear us clearly.

“I’ve been better,” she said, laughing a bit.

“You asked that I come to see you,” I ventured.

She nodded. “The hardest part of being here is the limited access to information.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Have you heard anything that might explain this terrible mistake?” she asked earnestly.

“Mistake?”

“Yes, of course. You don’t think I killed Maisy, do you?” She looked stunned. “Or that I tried to kill you? And stole the tureen? You couldn’t!”

I didn’t know what to say. “The evidence,” I said finally.

She waved it away. “It’s all a misunderstanding. And that means the real murderer is still out there—I assure you.”

I understood what ADA McGowan meant. For whatever reason, I very much wanted to believe Dora, and even though I knew she was flat-out lying, I was ready and willing to hear her out.

“I have no information,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t believe me,” she said, looking me square in the eye. “But you’ll see—sooner or later, they’ll find the
real
killer.”

She’s setting me up at the same time as she’s preparing her defense. That’s why she snuck cyanide into my house. I bet they’ll find it. She did it just in case she was arrested. She’s giving her lawyer an alternative theory of the crime—me.

“What about the stolen tureen?” I asked. “It was in your car.”

Tears glistened on her beautiful eyelashes. “Hank,” she said sadly. “I had no idea he needed money so badly. If only he’d confided in me.”

McGowan is right: They’re in trouble. If I were on the jury, I’d definitely have reasonable doubt.

“And Alice Reddy?” I asked.

“Identity theft,” she said, sounding pensive. “That’s all I can think of. I’d never even heard that name until yesterday. You’ve got to believe me.”

I almost did. “Is there anything I can do for you?” I asked.

“Help me learn the truth.
Please.
”

I found myself falling under her spell, and I stood up quickly, suddenly desperate to get away. “I can’t help you. I’ve got to go. You take care, Dora.”

Once we were outside, I turned to Max and said, “Max, can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Is Dora insane?”

“Nope. As near as I can tell, she’s major-league clever. And you never know—she may just pull it off. I don’t envy McGowan one bit.” We walked a little farther. “I have a question for you,” he said. “Do you have any idea how Maisy discovered that Dora used to be called Alice?”

“No. I wondered about that, too.”

Max shrugged. “Since Maisy’s dead and Dora’s not talking, I guess we’ll never know.”

Recalling how I’d nearly stumbled when Rowcliff had asked me what I knew about blackmailing, I said, “It’s nearly impossible to maintain a lie indefinitely, so if Dora tripped up and Maisy noticed, that might have been the beginning of the end. Maisy grabbed the end of a thread and Dora’s story started unraveling.”