Blood Rubies Page 7

A man far down the beach tossed a stick for his dog, a little mutt. The dog ran like his life depended on retrieving it. Once he did, he half carried, half dragged it back and was rewarded with a big, ruffling pat. He darted a few steps away, then scurried back, challenging his owner to do it again, do it again, do it again. The man did, and again the little fellow took off like a bullet.

  I turned toward Wes. “How about talking to Heather’s family? Maybe the breach occurred when Ana was younger. That wouldn’t be unusual, would it? To have a fight with your dad when you’re a teenager? If so, someone in Heather’s family might be aware of it. The two families have been friends for years.”

  “You rock, Josie!” Wes made a note.

  The little dog barked, and Wes and I both looked up. The dog was playing tug-of-war, unwilling to relinquish his stick. His tail was wagging wildly. His owner was laughing, having a blast.

  “Who else?” he asked.

  “Jason’s best friend, Chuck, and his wife, Sara. I saw them for even less time than everyone else. You know, Wes, it’s possible that Jason’s murderer is someone we know nothing about. A disgruntled investor, for instance, who followed Jason here, hot for revenge. Jason enters an isolated cottage. The killer follows. They argue. They tussle. Jason ends up dead.” I paused, thinking. “Jason wasn’t a money manager or financial adviser. He gave advice, but while he marketed his information to individual investors, he was not pro-consumer—that’s a potentially deadly mix. Plus, who knows how much he inflated his success? Maybe he was all hot air and no money. Can you check out his net worth?”

  Wes scribbled in his notebook. “Sure. The police are following up on one more lead—the Blue Dolphin pastry chef. A guy named Maurice who has it in for Ana.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Why are you surprised?”

  “It seems like a stretch. Just because a man is jealous of Ana and temperamental … why would he kill Jason?”

  “According to my police source, Maurice has made threats openly, things like if Ana thinks she can breeze into Rocky Point and take over his business, she’d better watch her back.”

  “Wow. That’s not good. Or smart. But what does that have to do with Jason?”

  “The police think maybe he went to her house to confront her or something and ran into Jason instead.”

  “Do we know if he has an alibi?”

  “Not yet. I’m checking alibis for everyone.” He paused for a moment. “How about opportunity? Who had access to Ana’s house key?”

  “Everyone. Anyone. Ana was quick to tell people where she hid it.”

  “So Jason uses Ana’s spare key, replacing it after he opens the door. When the killer shows up, either Jason lets him in or the killer gets the key from the rock.” Wes’s eyes opened wide. “If that’s what happened, the murderer put the key back after killing Jason. What kind of person would have the wherewithal to do that?”

  “Someone who’s good in a crunch. Someone who thinks straight in a crisis.”

  “Then that’s the kind of person we’re looking for.” He glanced at his notes. “So that takes care of opportunity. We know means. That leaves motive.”

  “Wait a sec. Back to means. Jason was a big guy. Either the killer is bigger than he was, or he was caught unawares, or he was struck by something first, then pounded against the stones, or he fell, like Ana assumed, then was pounded against the stones.”

  “Good point,” Wes said. “What else?”

  “Nothing.”

  “What about motive?”

  “Revenge, lust, greed, right? The big three.”

  Wes flipped his notebook closed and gave me a fierce look. “Get me photos.”

  “If I can,” I said, starting down the dune, “I will.” When I reached the bottom, I scraped clumps of sand off the soles of my boots, shielded my eyes from the sun with the flat of my hand, and looked up at him. “You look fab, Wes. For real. It’s great news about you and Maggie.”

  He smiled like he meant it. “Thanks.”

  Ellis texted as I was driving to work. I pulled off to the side of the road to read it. “Call. Urgent.” I punched in the numbers for his cell phone.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked when I had him.

  “Nothing, why?”

  I exhaled.

  “Call me crazy, but when a police chief tells me to contact him immediately, I get, you know, a little anxious.”

  “Sounds like a guilty conscience to me. Are you withholding information relevant to the investigation?”

  “No! And I don’t have a guilty conscience.”

  “Good. Can I drop off the material the techs recovered at the crime scene? They’re done—they found nothing useful. The only pieces big enough to take fingerprints don’t have any. There’s nothing significant forensically, except that they know the debris landed on Jason, not under him. You’re our last hope.”

  “Is that why you texted?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “I’ll be at your office in half an hour.”

  I felt a familiar rush of excitement. Starting an appraisal, even of broken pieces, represented the beginning of what might turn into an epic quest. “Hot diggity!”

  “Hot diggity?”

  “Don’t you know that term? It’s an official phrase in the antiques business. It means yippee.”

  He chuckled. “I’ll see you in a few, Josie.”

  I pushed the END CALL button. “Hot diggity,” I said aloud.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Cara was on the phone giving someone directions to the tag sale. Gretchen was on the phone with Rocky Point Interiors getting a quote on new carpet for the front office. Eric and Sasha were discussing a furniture pickup she’d scheduled for that afternoon. Fred was reading something on his monitor. Another busy day at Prescott’s.

  “Everyone?” I said.

  They all looked up, even Cara and Gretchen.

  “When you’re off the phone,” I mouthed.

  While we waited for their calls to end, everyone’s eyes were on my face.

  “I don’t know if any of you have heard the news about Jason … I’m certain Wes has already posted updates. If not, I’m afraid I’m the bearer of bad news.” Cara frowned. Sasha began twirling her hair. Fred pushed up his glasses and cocked his head. Gretchen leaned forward, her eyes reflecting her concern. Eric pressed his lips together. “Ana’s friend Jason is dead, and it looks like murder, but it’s too soon to know anything definitive.” Gretchen’s hand flew to cover her mouth. Cara gasped. “It happened at Ana’s house. There’s nothing else I can tell you at this point.” I took in air. “We’ve been asked to help the police with an antiques-related aspect of the investigation.” I looked at Sasha, then Fred. “What are your schedules like today? I may need help re-creating an object from broken pieces.”

  “I’m open all day,” Fred said, his tone subdued.

  “I have a call with the director of the Vienna Snow Globe Museum at noon,” Sasha said, her anxiety apparent. “Other than that, I can help. Or I could reschedule the call if you wanted me to.”

  “We’ll see. The analysis may take all of us working together. The object is in so many minuscule pieces, it’s unrecognizable.”

  Fred leaned back, intrigued. “Minuscule—all of it?”

  “Some bits are microscopic.”

  “That’s a challenge, all right.”

  “How is Ana holding up?” Cara asked kindly. “And her friend, Heather, wasn’t it?”

  “Ana was pretty shaken up, but her dad is in town, and he seems to be a real support for her. I haven’t seen Heather since it happened, but you can imagine how she must be feeling.” I paused. “Each of us has to process something like this in his or her own way. Take as much time as you need—I mean it. Take the rest of the day off if you want.” I scanned their attentive faces. “You know me, so you know that in times of strife, work is my salvation. Just because that’s how I cope, though, doesn’t mean it sho
uld be your strategy. Do what’s best for you.”

  “I’ll stay,” Fred said.

  “Me, too,” Sasha added.

  “I have a pick-up,” Eric said, “and two deliveries. I’m fine to go.”

  “I’m going to call Jack,” Gretchen said. “If he can get off work for lunch … I think I’d like to be with him for a while.”

  “Good idea,” I told her.

  “I’d rather be here,” Cara said, “with all of you, than home alone.”

  “All right, then.” I turned to Sasha. “It’s moot now, of course, but what did Ana think of those chess sets?”

  As always, the moment the conversation turned to antiques or art, even in an atmosphere of uncertainty and fear, Sasha blossomed.

  “She liked them, but said even the lowest price was more than she wanted to spend.”

  “As expected,” I said. “What are you working on, Fred?”

  He grinned and leaned to the side, placing his left elbow on his armrest and propping his chin on the back of his hand. He looked like he was posing for a high-end art photo.

  Much to my enduring surprise, despite being, from all appearances, a quintessential New Yorker, Fred was happy in smaller, quieter Rocky Point. Nine years after moving to New Hampshire, he still wore the Italian suits and skinny ties in a place where most men wore flannel shirts and jeans, and he still visited New York City once a month or so, but Rocky Point was, to him, home. Me, too, I thought.

  “You remember that mahogany side table we bought last week from Mrs. Malier,” he said.

  “Sure.”

  Did I ever. A woman walked in with two boxes of run-of-the-mill kitchenware and a 28" × 33" × 17" table, an odd size. She was downsizing, she explained, moving into a condo. She didn’t know anything about the table’s history, just that it came from her deceased husband’s family, and, she confided, she’d never liked it. No one in the family did. She’d asked her husband’s cousins if they wanted it; everyone declined. She didn’t want it appraised even after I told her its low height suggested it came from an era where people were shorter, the nineteenth century, maybe even earlier. She just wanted it gone. It happened that way sometimes, when people were out of patience or energy or the objects brought back bad memories. We bought the lot for two hundred dollars.

  “From your expression,” I added, “I’m going to be happy.”

  “Maybe even ecstatic. It’s an eighteenth-century game table. I’m not surprised she didn’t know it—it’s about as clever a design as I’ve ever seen. A leaf slides out revealing a chessboard, ebony inlaid with two tropical hardwoods, bloodwood and yellowheart. Using an ingenious double-jointed hinging system, obviously handcrafted, the leaf flips over onto the tabletop.”

  “How would anyone have got their hands on exotic hardwoods back then?”

  “Booty from the rum trade?”

  “Maybe.” I crossed my fingers in front of my face. “Condition?”

  Fred’s grin broadened. “Pristine.”

  My eyes lit up. “Marks?”

  He pushed up his black square-framed hipster glasses. “Are you braced?”

  I grasped the rounded rim on his desk. “I’m ready.”

  His smile grew, and when he paused, heightening the drama, I felt my pulse quicken.

  “WH. In script.”

  My mouth opened, then closed. I took in a deep breath. “Oh, my.”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  We’d recently researched that mark when we found it on a mahogany chest of drawers. In fact, we decided to organize an auction around that one piece. At first, we assumed that the WH identified the maker. We were wrong. Those ornately carved initials identified the man who commissioned the pieces, not the firm that made them or the craftsman who worked on them. They referred to Whitmell Hill, a wealthy North Carolinian who, in the late 1700s, ordered dozens of magnificently designed and expertly crafted pieces of furniture from the master house builder, William Seay of Roxobel, North Carolina. His work was coveted by collectors, and now we had two of his pieces for our upcoming auction, Southern Life.

  “So we’re looking at high four figures?” I asked.

  “More. I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s elegantly designed and perfectly constructed of rare-to-the-max wood. I’ll be recommending an estimate in at least the thirteen- to fifteen-thousand-dollar range. I’m still researching rarity. I want to know how many game tables Seay made. If it’s as rare as I suspect it may be, my recommendation will go up.”

  Rarity was one of the most important factors determining an antique’s value—how many of an object were created in the first place. The fewer game tables Seay made, the more each one would be worth. Fabergé, for instance, only made one of each egg.

  “Well done, Fred. I’m impressed. Seriously impressed.”

  “You’re the one who did the heavy lifting identifying the mark in the first place.”

  “We’re a good team.”

  I smiled, thinking how amazing it was that with all our different personalities, education levels, and interests, we fit together so well. Eric and Sasha had been born and reared in Rocky Point; the rest of us came from other worlds. Only Sasha, Fred, and I had any college. I had a bachelor’s degree. Fred had earned his master’s. Sasha held a PhD.

  In recent years, Eric had become a tournament poker player, earning, he confided, a few extra thousand dollars a year. Gretchen lived for celebrity gossip. Sasha attended scholarly lectures on an eclectic array of topics. Fred haunted museums. I snorkeled. What we shared was commitment to Prescott’s and mutual respect.

  Lucky me, I thought.

  “All right, then,” I said. “I’m going to prep for my three-D jigsaw puzzle. Cara, when Chief Hunter arrives, let me know. I’ll be at a workstation.”

  As I headed for the warehouse door, I glanced out the window and was surprised to see Heather. She was in the woods, poking her head out, looking around. She pushed aside a low-hanging branch and stepped onto the asphalt parking lot. She must have come from the Congregational church a quarter mile away, I thought. She looked around as if she were lost. She was wearing a black leather bomber jacket zipped to the neck and skinny dark blue jeans tucked into black leather midcalf tie-up boots.

  “I’ll be back in a sec,” I told Cara.

  I stepped into the blinding sun and took half a dozen steps toward Heather, blinking until my eyes adjusted.

  “Heather?”

  “Josie.” She looked up at the PRESCOTT’S ANTIQUES AND AUCTIONS sign mounted on the roof, then looked back at me. “This is your place.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m trespassing.”

  “You’re welcome. I’ve been hoping I could see you to tell you how sorry I am for your loss.”

  “Thank you.” She paused, her eyes still on my sign. “That’s what I’m supposed to say, right?” She looked at me. “Thanks.”

  “I don’t know that there’s a ‘supposed to’ here. You can say whatever you want.”

  “Sorry.” She pressed her index fingers against her eyebrows for a moment. “I’m not myself.”

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  “Have any whiskey?”

  “Sure.”

  Heather followed me inside. She didn’t say anything to anyone. Maybe she didn’t notice them. I led the way across to the warehouse door. Cara stood up, smiling, ready to offer tea or coffee. I shook my head a little, and she sat down. I could tell Heather wasn’t in the mood to meet new people.

  I paused with my hand on the knob to tell Cara I’d be upstairs, adding, “Send up a setup for some drinks, okay? I’ll take lemonade. Add a nibble if we have anything.”

  “Right away,” Cara said, standing again.

  Heather and I crossed the concrete span, our heels clicking a tippita-tappita beat. We climbed the spiral staircase that led to my private office. Heather paused three steps in.

  “Nice office.”

  “Thanks.”

  She pointed to the di
splay case holding my rooster collection. “You collect roosters. How come?”

  “I don’t know. Why does anyone collect anything?”

  “To show off.”

  I opened my mouth to protest, then closed it again. Anything I said would come off as defensive. Plus, I bet she was talking about Jason, not me.

  Heather walked to one of the yellow Queen Anne wing chairs, then changed her mind and crossed to the love seat. She perched on the edge, loosened the laces on her boots, kicked them off, then sat back, crossing her legs Indian-style.

  “I hope it’s okay to take my boots off,” she said after the fact.

  “Sure.”

  Cara appeared, tray in hand. It held four cut-crystal glasses—two highballs, two rocks—a crystal and sterling silver bucket of ice with matching sterling silver tongs, individually wrapped cheese wedges, a bowl of crackers, another filled with Cara’s homemade chocolate chip cookies, a little plate of preportioned clusters of champagne grapes, a small cut-crystal pitcher of lemonade, and four crisp white linen cocktail napkins. She slid the tray onto the butler’s table.

  “Thanks, Cara.”

  She smiled and left.

  Heather reached for a cookie. “Do you have any single malt?”

  I pulled a bottle of Macallan from the cabinet next to my rooster collection. My dad had always kept a bottle for his friend Buddy. This one, still a third full, had been his. Now both men were dead, and the bottle was mine. “How do you take it?”

  “A little water, no ice.”

  I poured two inches of the honey brown whiskey into a rocks glass and placed it on a napkin in front of her. “Sparkling or still?”

  “Still.”

  I took a small bottle from the minifridge beside my desk and gave it to her. I poured myself a lemonade over ice.

  “Not a drinking girl?” she asked, raising her glass.

  “Work awaits, so as much as I’d love to, I need to stick to lemonade. I’m with you in spirit, though.”

  She downed the whiskey in one gulp, winced a little, and shook her head, clearing it, or wanting it to clear.

  “More?” I asked.

  “Please.”

  I poured another two inches, then placed the bottle on the side table nearest her. “Help yourself.”