Dolled Up for Murder (28 page)

“Sasha, this is terrific news! Fabulous! But why didn't Mr. Streinfeld respond last year when you put out the call?”

“He just acquired his doll a month ago from an estate sale.”

I nodded. Timing wasn't all, but it was a lot. “What do we know about Thomas Whitley?”

“He owned a fine cabinetry shop in London. He died in 1680.”

“Wow.”

She grinned. “Yeah.”

“Do we know that he made any dolls besides Mr. Streinfeld's?”

“Yes. He kept detailed work records. Mr. Streinfeld has put me in touch with a university professor who wrote his thesis on seventeenth-century entrepreneurs. He has copies of all Thomas Whitley's work records. From those documents, we know he carved a dozen dolls. Alice's doll, if we can verify its authenticity, will be the third extant example. So when I say I'm a little excited, I mean it!”

“Well done, Sasha.”

Fred walked in, setting the chimes jingling. “What's well done?” he asked.

Sasha recapped her research coup, and I added, “I'm glad you're here. I was just about to suggest we try calling Eric.”

Cara dialed, and when Eric was on the speaker, she said, “I have gingersnaps for you, Eric.”

“Great! I'm still hungry all the time. I'll be in tomorrow.”

“What?” I couldn't believe what I was hearing. “No way!”

“The doctor said I was fine. All my tests so far are good. I'd have come in today, but I need to go back this afternoon for a final all-clear checkup.”

I squelched the anxiety-fueled protest I was about to utter. Eric was a grown man and needed to be guided by his own judgment, not my fretfulness.

“Well, you know best. If you change your mind, just give us a call.”

I listened to my staff's enthusiastic questioning about his condition and was reassured by Eric's commonsense replies. He'd slept a lot and eaten a lot and was eager to get back to it. He had lots of questions, too, about the status of the tag sale setup, and whether Gretchen had scheduled the gutter cleaning, and how the new bushes he'd planted were coming along.

“How's Hank?” Eric asked.

I smiled at the thought of dog-loving Eric asking about Hank.

“He misses you,” Gretchen said.

*   *   *

Ellis called just after eleven.

“I spoke to Jamie Farmington. They can see us at one if that works for you. I can pick you up.”

“The time is good, but let me meet you there. I have errands afterward.”

“Okay. Can you stop by here en route? Like maybe at noon? I'd like to talk to you.”

“Am I in trouble?” I asked.

“No. Why would you ask that?”

“A visceral reaction to a police chief saying he wants to talk to me.”

“I want to consult you,” he said. “I need your brains and antiques expertise.”

“Oh … in that case, sure.”

*   *   *

I parked in the police station lot about quarter to twelve, crossed Ocean Avenue, and climbed a high dune. Looking out over the ocean, I saw dots of white froth whipping across the midnight blue water. The sky to the northeast was gray and seemed to be darkening in front of my eyes. A storm was brewing.

I hadn't finished saying hello to Cathy when Ellis poked his head out of his office and smiled.

“Come on in.” He stood until I took a seat at the guest table, then sat across from me. “We've got a bite. A numismatist in Portsmouth named Vaughn Jones called, responding to the alert your friend in New York posted. A man with blond hair wearing a cowboy hat and sunglasses just tried to sell him some Union currency. Our Union currency, it looks like. Jones asked to keep the money so he could research it, but the seller said no, he was leaving town for his home in California and wanted to make the sale right away. Jones passed, and the customer left.”

“That's terrific news, Ellis. A real lead.”

“How so?”

I felt my brow furrow and thought it through. “Oh, I get you … not so terrific a lead after all. He was in and out of there in a minute and a half, and in all likelihood he didn't touch anything, so there aren't any fingerprints and he didn't leave any DNA behind. Got it. Did he give a name?”

“Mitchell Davidson. Do you recognize it?”

“No. Should I?”

“No. What else do you want to know?”

“That's a funny question to ask me. Usually you avoid answering my questions.”

“No, I don't,” Ellis said. “I avoid revealing confidential information. This isn't confidential. I've already released it to the media. I'm hoping the public can help us identify this man. We did the same thing with Eric's kidnapper.”

“Have you got any good leads on either so far?”

“No. Ask me questions.”

“Does the dealer have any security cameras?” I asked.

“No. He works out of his house, which is in a mostly residential neighborhood. The closest camera is located at a bank down the street. They have outside cameras for their ATM.”

“Did he call or just show up?”

“He called. From a disposable cell phone, not a number we've seen before. Then he knocked. I thought maybe he pushed the doorbell and we could capture a print, but no such luck.”

“Anything odd in his speech? An accent or anything?”

“No.”

“Did he say how he found Jones?”

“Yes, through an online search.”

“So you can expect him to try other dealers who advertise there, too,” I said.

“Detective Brownley is on the phone now, calling them all—all we found by Googling relevant keywords.”

“What about industry associations? There's probably an online directory.”

His reached to his desk for a pad of paper and took a pen from an inside pocket. “Good idea,” he said. “What else?”

“Does Ian Landers have an alibi?”

He cocked his head. “What's your thinking?”

“Nothing, not really. Just that he's involved—or he's involving himself for some reason.”

“True. So are Lenny and Randall.”

“Also true.”

“Who else are you wondering about?” he asked.

“No one.”

“Why did Mitchell Davidson pick Jones, do you think?” Ellis asked. “Proximity?”

“Are there other numismatists close by?”

“No.”

“Then I guess so. Still, it doesn't seem very smart to me. If I were him, I wouldn't try a dealer anywhere from Boston to Portland. There's been way too much publicity about the kidnapping and too much speculation about the dolls and whether they contain contraband for comfort. To say nothing of Barry's BOLO about the counterfeit bills, which, while he might not know about it, he should expect.” I shrugged. “Plus, locally, Eric's kidnapping and the money hidden in the dolls … well, it's all most people are talking about. Like that print.” I pointed to Norman Rockwell's
The Gossip.
“If it were me, I'd stay way clear of the seacoast. I'd go to New York.”

“Maybe he can't leave Rocky Point. Any ideas why not?”

“Maybe he's a caregiver who can't leave the person he's taking care of. Or he's a professional whose absence would occasion remark. A doctor just can't cancel appointments on the fly, for instance, without everyone in his office talking about it.”

“Perhaps. What else?”

“I can't think of anything else,” I said, thinking that in all probability Mitchell Davidson was an invented name, just like George Shankle, and this lead, which had seemed so promising when Ellis first told me about it, was just another dead end.

*   *   *

As soon as we were seated in Selma Farmington's Victorian-influenced living room, Ellis turned to me.

“Please tell Lorna and Jamie everything we know,” he said.

I recounted Barry's assessment, adding that I'd seen the watermark that indicated modern paper.

As soon as I uttered the word “counterfeit,” Lorna began to cry, and she didn't stop the whole time we were there.

“I wish I had better news to report,” I said.

Jamie was made of sterner stuff. She heard me out in silence, but her expression made it clear she wasn't staying quiet because she had nothing to say. By the time I was done, her lips had thinned to one invisible line and her eyes had narrowed to slits.

“We gave you currency that had been in our family for a hundred and fifty years,” she said

“I'm afraid not,” I said.

She turned to Ellis. “I want to call my lawyer.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Driving from the Farmingtons' to Max's office, on streets that followed three-hundred-year-old cart tracks, passing row houses built just after the Revolutionary War, and hardwood forests far older than that, I thought of how confusing and frightening things must seem to Jamie and Lorna. Tradition and stability were gone. Their mom had just died, they had the depressing and onerous job of cleaning out a fourteen-room house where their family had lived for generations, and they'd just learned that someone had stolen more than half a million dollars' worth of rare currency.

I parked in the small lot in back of the old mansion that housed Max's firm, along with an architectural firm and an insurance agency. Every time I entered Max's private office I felt a jolt of delightful surprise. Although not much older than me, in appearance and demeanor, Max was old-world courtly, yet when it came to furnishings, his taste was completely contemporary, an inexplicable contradiction. His desk was a slab of black granite perched on stainless steel legs. Black solid surface and stainless steel bookcases lined one wall. The guest chairs were black leather and slouchy. The carpet was a red and gray block print. The art was abstract, mostly oils, all black and white geometric shapes slashed with red or purple or gold.

“First things first,” Max said, handing me two copies of the one-page letter of agreement from the federal government retaining my company to appraise Alice Michaels's household goods. After I signed with a pen from the silver holder on Max's desk, he handed me an envelope containing a set of keys and a letter authorizing me and my staff to enter Alice's house and remove anything we choose.

“Is there an alarm?” I asked.

“No.”

“Really? That's odd.”

“Lots of houses don't have alarms,” he said. “Rocky Point isn't exactly crime central.”

“True … and I bet she doesn't have a lot of antiques around.”

“Except her dolls.”

“Which don't figure on most thieves' top ten lists,” I said, nodding. I slipped the envelope into my tote bag. “We'll get started right away. There's something else, Max. I think I'm about to be sued.” I described the situation with the counterfeit currency and Jamie's reaction.

“If and when,” Max said, “I'll take care of it.”

“I don't think they're malicious. I think they're overwhelmed and confused.”

“I'll be certain to point that out to their lawyer.”

I smiled as I thanked him, relieved, as always, that Max was on my side.

*   *   *

I decided to treat myself to a late lunch at Ellie's, a long, narrow restaurant on the village green. Ellie makes crepes far better than anything I can make at home. Her chicken with asparagus in Mornay sauce is my favorite. As I walked across the green I called Wes.

“You know about Mitchell Davidson, right?” I asked. “How he tried to sell some Union currency to a dealer named Vaughn Jones?”

“Yeah. It was on the police scanner. Whatcha got?”

“I saw you take off after Ian this morning. Where did he go?”

“I lost him,” Wes said, chagrined. “We all did. You should have seen him. He pulled stunts straight out of a James Bond movie, spinning sideways down an alley I didn't even know existed … pulling a whoopee in the middle of the street. Jeesh!”

“‘Pulling a whoopee' means what, exactly?” I asked.

“You know, a U-turn, but faster.”

“So he was determined to lose you.”

“Not just me. All of us. He definitely didn't want any company. Why are you asking?”

“We need to know if Ian, Lenny, and Randall have alibis for the visit to Mr. Jones's house. I'm betting one of them is Mitchell Davidson.”

“How come?”

“Because there's no one else.”

*   *   *

When I got back to my office, I asked Fred if he could be ready to leave in ten minutes, and he said sure. He also told me, with a gleam in his eye, that Sasha had news.

I hurried to join her in the warehouse. “So?” I asked.

She smiled, a big one. “Look at this.” She handed me a loupe and pointed to the wooden doll's inner left ankle.

“Well, well,” I said. Without strong light and magnification, the maker's mark was impossible to see. With them, it was impossible to miss. It was as if Thomas Whitley had been a humble man, a simple carpenter who didn't want to put himself forward by highlighting his accomplishment.

“I should have noticed it without prompting,” Sasha said. Her tone conveyed her embarrassment.

“I'm amazed you found it even with prompting.”

“It's a lesson to examine every inch of everything.”

“Maybe. Or it's a lesson that we're only human and we're going to miss things sometimes.”

“Thank you, Josie.”

I smiled and tilted my head at the doll. “So we have a genuine Queen Anne doll dating from the mid-1600s.” I noticed Alice's jewelry box at the back of the table. “When did this reappear?”

“With the dolls,” she said. “When Mr. Almonte took the dolls, he took it, too. When the dolls came back, it returned as well. I've roped off a section for Alice's goods; I figure you and Fred will be bringing some objects back here. Anyway, I took it out so everything would be together.” She picked up the doll. “I can't wait to hear Mr. Streinfeld's thoughts about valuation.”