The Corpse With the Golden Nose (25 page)

My fingers trembled as I opened the end of the package that had already been split apart. Inside the outer box was a fat roll of bubble-wrap, which, uncurled, revealed a green velvet pouch. I could feel the snuff box inside, but I hardly dared open it. Finally, I took the little treasure out of its soft envelope. It sat easily in the palm of my hand and was exquisitely plain, except for the signature which had been, so the story goes,, burned into the wood with a hot iron nail.
James Sandy.

I opened the lid, which moved easily and showed a hinge and a liner without a single dent or abrasion. It was as close to perfect as a used item could be. I peered into the packaging again, and found a cardboard and plastic wallet. Inside, protected against the elements, was a letter written in spidery copperplate that was difficult to read in the dimness of the apple store. I could at least tell that the signature, James Sandy, was the same as on the snuff box.
Wow! Grail indeed!

I wondered how much Annette had paid to be the proud owner of a box she'd dreamed about, and I read through the copy of the paperwork that bore the logo of the courier company that had delivered it. Then it dawned on me—someone must have signed for this package.
The courier wouldn't have just left something this valuable on the doorstep.
The date of delivery was two days after Annette had died. The signature on the paperwork was Annette's.
Annette's!
Exactly the same as I'd seen on the suicide note.
Exactly the same
as on her will.
And exactly the same
as the facsimile of Annette's signature that Ellen had shown me on the artwork for the wine label.

How could Annette have signed for a package two days after she was dead?

This is important! I'll talk to Bud about it.

I looked at my watch. Six o'clock. I couldn't dawdle! I picked up the snuff box and put it back into all of its packaging, shoved it and the signed receipt into my purse—
just as well it's as big as it is!
—turned out the light as I went, then pulled open the big wooden door. The metal-barred gate had swung shut, so I pushed it outwards. It wasn't budging. I pushed again. I turned the light nearest the door back on again, and tried to peer out, but I could only fit my nose between the metal bars. I rattled the gate. Nothing.
How on earth has it got stuck?

“Hello?” I shouted. “Anybody there?”
Don't be stupid, Cait! Of course there's no one there!

I rooted around in my purse for my cell phone.
I'll call Bud. He'll come and help me.
My cell phone wasn't to be found. I dumped the entire contents of my purse onto the floor of the apple store and spread everything out. It wasn't there.

You stupid woman! It's still in that little white purse you took to lunch!

Damn and blast!
What am I going to do now? I've got to get out of here.

“Hello—can anybody hear me?” I shouted as loudly as I could. My voice rang around the canyon, and echoed back to me. It was a very lonely sound.

MY STOMACH TIGHTENED, MY BREATHING
became shallow and rapid.
Don't panic, Cait.
Calm down!

I shouted louder. “Helloooooo! Anyone there?” Once again my voice echoed back at me.

“
I'm
here,” came a small voice. I jumped.

“Hello—who is it? I'm in here—in the apple store!” I shouted.

“Yes, I know,” said Colin MacMillan calmly, and quite close by. “You've been in there for some time. How did you get in?” he asked as he appeared from the deepening shadows beyond the gate. It seemed to be a very odd question, under the circumstances.

I was a bit nonplussed, but I regained my focus quickly. “Colin. Hello. What are
you
doing here?”

“I was just hanging out, down below, and I heard you shouting,” he replied innocently.

I could tell he was lying. “No you weren't. You've been following me, haven't you? That's why you seem to be everywhere
I
am. Colin, it's not
healthy
, you know . . .” I stopped myself. It didn't matter how unhealthy his obsession with me might be, the important thing was that he was there, and he could help.

“
Look, Colin
,”—I adopted my “firm but fair professor” voice—“this gate has somehow shut itself and I can't open it. Can you open it for me from there? It's very important that I get out of here.”

“It's locked,” he said. “There's a padlock locked onto a bolt. I'd need a key.”

Of course!
“That's okay—I've got the key here,” I said, plucking it from the pile on the floor. I pushed the shaft through the iron bars, but the round knob on the end of the key, which I'd thought charming, if not quirky, now made the object too wide to fit between them.
Damn and blast!

“It won't fit,” Colin observed.

“
No kidding!
”

“What shall we do now?” he asked. “I don't think there's much chance of me being able to break it off with a rock or anything. I'm not really that strong. Wiry, you know, but not strong.” He sounded deflated. “If I were The Doctor on
Doctor Who
I could use my sonic screwdriver,” he said, smiling hopefully.

“Well, you're
not
The Doctor, and neither of us
has
a sonic screwdriver, because they
don't exist
!” I shouted back. “Fantasy is all well and good, in its place, but sometimes you just have to face up to reality and deal with it, Colin. The reality is that I need to be somewhere that isn't here.
Now!
”

I wasn't as angry with Colin as I was with myself, but that wasn't what he was getting out of this conversation, and he didn't deserve it. I took a deep breath.

“Colin, I'm sorry. I'm
not
mad at
you
, I'm mad at
me
. Just give me a minute to think.” I did.
Well, I took ten seconds because I'm bright and I can think very quickly.
“Have you got a cell phone with you?”

“Of course,” he replied, sounding hurt, “but there's no signal here.”

“Let me see,” I said, then added hastily, “I'm sure you're right . . .”

He was. No reception. So no phone call to Bud.

“Would you be able to run up to Anen House and get Bud?” I asked. I knew he'd be there, and probably still be asleep.

“Sure, but how will
he
open the lock?” he asked plaintively. I thought it might hurt the boy even more if I pointed out that Bud had a good deal more strength than he, and might well be able to smash the lock, so I didn't say it. “He's quite old. Like my Dad, or older even,” Colin added, rather unkindly, just as I was having charitable thoughts about
him
.

“That's a little unfair, don't you think? Older can mean wiser, and
can
mean more able, not less able. I think
I'm
getting better the older I get. There's a psychological proposition that many . . . 
of we marketers
 . . . agree upon that . . .” I stopped, hoping I hadn't blown my cover story.

“You don't have to
lie
, I looked you up,” sighed Colin. “You know, you can't
really
pretend to be someone else and hope to get away with it when you use your real name and you're all over the internet,
Doctor
Morgan.” He shook his head.

It was my turn to sigh. “Okay. Busted. It was my way of trying to get people to open up about Annette's death without knowing they were talking to a criminal psychologist. I'm sorry, I apologize for lying. Now, can we
please
get me out of here?”

“Sure,” he replied. “How?”

I thought about it again. “Colin, can you take a photo of the lock out there with your phone?”

“Sure,” he sulked. The flash snapped in the gathering gloom.

“Okay, now hand it through to me.” He passed the phone through the bars, and I could see the whole lock and bolt arrangement. It was exactly as I remembered it. “Great photo. If you take that up to Bud, he'll see that there are screws in the wooden panel that's holding the bolt. If he can bring a flat-head screwdriver, and maybe some of that stuff that helps with releasing rusty screws, we could be in business. We won't open the lock, we'll just remove the whole panel. It's not a
sonic
screwdriver, but it was you who gave me the idea, Colin,” I added, hoping it would cheer him up.

He brightened a little. “Okay. How about I just ask the Corrigans if they have a spare key?”

I laughed. “Yes, you're quite right, Colin. But I'm pretty sure they don't have one. In the key cupboard there were ten hooks in two rows, four had bunches of keys on them, no one key of which was big enough for this padlock, and on two of the other hooks were this key and one other, single key, that was much smaller. Of course, they might have one elsewhere, so, why not ask—let's adopt a belt
and
braces approach, and do both, okay?”

“Eidetic memory, eh?” asked Colin.

I sighed and nodded.

Colin shrugged. “Several of The Doctor's incarnations have worn both a belt and braces, thereby ensuring a reduced risk of losing their trousers.” He giggled. I hoped his levity meant that I'd regained some favor in his eyes.

“Colin—
go
, please! It's important. Quick as you can, right?”

“Sure thing,” he said, and off he went.
Ten minutes up, ten minutes waking Bud and finding the bits and pieces, quicker if there's a spare key, and ten minutes back down.
I looked at my watch and then switched on all the bulbs. I decided I'd do something useful with the next half hour—root around in Annette's belongings and hope to find something, anything, that would help me understand what was going on.

It was clear that
someone
had locked me into the apple store, probably when I was floating away on a cloud of Beethoveny loveliness.

Who even knew I was there? Only Lauren Corrigan, and she couldn't have killed Annette because she was in Ireland at the time. I guessed she might have mentioned it to her husband, who was also not in the frame for the same reason as his wife, so what on earth was going on? Maybe the lurking Colin had seen something. I'd have to ask him when he returned.
If
he returned.

I spotted a plastic storage bin marked
ANNETTE—BOOKS #1
.
That might be interesting.
To get to it I could see I'd have to move two from above it, both of which were marked
ANNETTE—KITCHEN CUPBOARD #2
. I reached up and shifted the top one.
Whoa—heavy!
Plopping it onto the floor, the lid loosened and I could see that the contents were spices, herbs, packets of seasonings, and a slew of tetra packs of apple juice.
Why would Ellen keep all that?

I pulled out a couple of the little packages of juice and stuck into one tiny straw that I'd peeled off its side. I sucked. It was pleasantly cool. The taste of apples revitalized my awareness of the smell of the place. It was very pleasant.

Back to business!

What about
Colin
?
He
obviously knew I was in the store. He'd been following me everywhere. He knew who I was,
and
that I was looking into Annette's death.
He
could have locked me in. He'd admitted seeing Annette on the day of her death. And no one else had verified his story, so he could have been making up the whole thing. Only
Colin
had suggested that Annette had been having an argument with someone.
Only
Colin
had mentioned the snuff box. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more the pieces fell into place. Colin liked Annette—he “hung out” with her. Bonnie had said Colin always used to appear around the Mt Dewdney winery during Annette's time there. Clearly, Colin had been following Annette the same way he was following me about the place. He'd probably been even more obsessed with her. Annette had given him gifts, he'd been a visitor at her house . . . on and on—so many links between a fragile, sensitive, unloved teen and an older woman who might not have known that he was infatuated with her.

I pushed a rickety chair against the wall, to give it a bit of help with holding my weight. If I sat down and used my skills, I could do this. I could join the dots.

I took a deep breath, and began.

I hummed, closed my eyes, and took myself to the place where I can allow thoughts to free-form. I began to undertake the “wakeful dreaming” that I'd mentioned to Lizzie Jackson. All I had to do was
think
of each person in turn, and allow them to gather about themselves those things which were “theirs,” without my overlaying any sort of judgment upon the process.

Annette's face, the face I only know from a photograph, comes to me first: she's holding a tiny little wooden box in one hand, and a giant garbage bag in the other. She's laughing. She's dressed in rags. Now she's running toward the truck in which she died and floating into the cab.

Ellen? Ellen's scowling, she's crying, she's trying to stuff something large into a storage box, but it won't fit. What is it, Ellen? Ah, it's Annette. Of course. Annette won't fit into the box because it's too full of empty bottles of wine, snuff boxes, wine labels, and a giant scroll, which is obviously Annette's will. Pages and pages of notes about “suspects” are floating in the air around her, fluttering at her feet.

Raj Pinder floats toward me next: he's holding a giant wine bottle and crying. “It's perfect,” he says, then he's fighting off Suzie Soul, who's just appeared as a snake with a cat's face (oh dear, that says more about me than her!). She's coiling herself around Raj's legs. He can't escape. She eats him.

Sammy Soul appears with a giant reefer between his lips, puffing away and chewing marijuana leaves at the same time. Serendipity is shouting at him—“Don't eat the leaves!” She's dressed like a picture-book angel, wings and all, and she's flying up to the sky with her father running along the ground trying to catch her. She's scattering a trail of what I know are snail eggs, but they look like tiny little snails, each with Raj Pinder's face.