Antiques Swap (17 page)

I said, “Hi, everybody,” and waved, and everybody but Tiffany returned my greeting. She seemed unsteady, and a little bleary, as if her drinking today had begun long before the party.

Wes and I lounged in the sunken area on soft leather seating that rimmed the inner part of the square. A low table sat in the center with an assortment of liquor and wine bottles, glasses, and an ice bucket.

“Care for something?” Wes asked me.

“White wine would be nice.”

He poured pale liquid from a bottle into a wineglass and got himself a tumbler of whiskey.

“So,” I said, “I've been wondering . . . what's kept you and your fraternity brothers so tight, when usually school friendships are sort of, you know . . . temporary.”

He shrugged. “We just got along. And then I was in a position to help the guys out, really get them started on their individual paths.”

“They really owe you a lot.”

The boyish features broke out in a smile. “Ah, I owe them. Bank president for a best friend, how can a guy in business beat that? I was able to get Trav started in the real estate game, and that helps me land housing for new employees . . . especially important for executives. And Sean just needed a little start-up capital, and me guiding certain folks his way for investing. What wouldn't a guy do for his best friend?”

How many best friends did Wes have, anyway? I guess I knew the answer: three.

Wes excused himself to use “the little boys' room” and I was alone, but not for long. The well-stocked table near me was the watering hole where glasses were filled and refilled, and beefy Travis came over to refresh a tumbler with bourbon. He did that sitting next to me.

“So,” he said, a smile splitting his nicely rugged features, “you're thinking about joining our merry band.”

“Well, I haven't been officially invited. But it looks like a friendly bunch.”

“Oh, yeah, it is. Great people. You don't need to worry.”

“I don't?”

“No, nobody has to do anything they don't want to.”

“Not even play bridge?”

He laughed. “Not even play bridge.” Then he became more serious. “How's your mom doing?”

“Better. I think the police think that what happened to her had something to do with Vanessa's murder, and that Fowler woman's.”

He sighed. “Yeah, they questioned all of us. That ex-chief, and the current one, too. Wanted to know where we all were when Mrs. Fowler was killed.”

“Ah. Just like TV—everybody needs an alibi, huh?”

He raised and dropped his eyebrows, then sipped bourbon. “Apparently. No problem for me—I was at a real-estate closing with my attorney.”

“Hope Sean and Brent are in the clear. It's not like innocent people
know
they're going to need an alibi.”

“True that! No, Sean was home with Tiff by midafternoon.”

Had he been? Mother made no mention of seeing him there. Of course, Tiffany hadn't invited Mother in....

“And,” Travis was saying, “Brent was still at the bank. Works right up to six. That old notion of banker's hours doesn't hold anymore, at least not for him.” He sipped more bourbon, shook his head. “Murders. What kind of way is that to live?”

Then he and his drink were gone.

Wes, on his way back from the restroom, had fallen into conversation with the Megan/Emily/Sean group. Maybe a minute later, Sean peeled away and came down into my sunken world where I was apparently guarding the liquor.

“You look like a little girl lost,” he said, sitting too close for my liking as he poured himself more Scotch. “But don't worry.”

Nobody wanted me to worry tonight.

He was saying, “This is strictly a consenting-adults type association. And very discreet.”

“I suppose you all must be a little nervous,” I said, making a girlish face, “having the murder of Wes's wife looked into.”

He gave me a sharp, possibly alarmed look. “Why would we be?”

I shrugged. “Well, you know how small towns are. And you're all kind of royalty around here. People always like to take people like you down a notch.”

He shrugged. “I don't know if that's true anymore. Who really cares what other people do behind closed doors?”

“Conservative small-town people,” I said. “The kind who do business with banks and brokerages and real estate offices.”

“What are you getting at?”

“Nothing. Just making conversation. Anyway, Travis said you were all cleared by the police.”

Sean shrugged, swirled his drink. “Well, they talked to us. About where we were when that woman across from Wes got killed. And when your mother got mugged. How is she, by the way?”

“Getting there. No memory of how it happened, though.”

“Shame.”

I shifted in my seat. “So I suppose the police talked to you guys about the golf club.”

He frowned in confusion. “You mean the country club?”

“No. Not exactly. I mean the golf club Mother was hit with. A putter.”

Blood drained from his face. “Is
that
what she was hit with?”

“Yeah. I supposed the police would've talked to you about that, considering that you guys are all golfers. They have tests they can make. If there's blood on a putter, they'd find it.”

He shrugged noncommitally. “Well, I guess they would. If you'll excuse me, this isn't my choice of cocktail conversation.”

I gave him an embarrassed little grin. “Sorry. Won't happen again.”

He was barely gone when Brent showed up for more wine. He noticed my glass was half full and topped it up, gentleman that he was.

He put a hand on my shoulder. Normally, I'd have plucked it off. But I was undercover, and—even if I would never be under the covers—I left it there.

“You need a better escort than Wes,” the banker said. He was a hunk, all right, those chiseled features, that dark hair. I wondered if he touched it up.

“I do?”

“Guy brings a newcomer into the group and then abandons her to her own devices.”

“I'm not sure I have any.”

“Any what?”

“Devices.”

He smiled, sipped wine, and asked how my mother was. I said she was doing better.

“Listen,” I said, “I heard something interesting.”

“What about?”

“These murders. Isn't that what's on everybody's mind?”

“Well, not tonight!”

I scooched closer to him. “Come on. I just have one question.”

“We'll see if I have an answer.”

“You're a banker.”

“Well . . . yes. I kind of like to think that, in Serenity, I'm
the
banker.”

“You certainly are. My apologies. Anyway, that terrible Fowler woman . . . sorry to speak ill of the dead . . . but she tried to blackmail Wes. Did you know that?”

He nodded. “Sure. Wes told us. Horrible woman. Sorry she's dead, hate to see that kind of thing happen to anybody, but . . . horrible old gal.”

“No argument,” I said. “But I heard she deposited ten thousand dollars in cash at the bank. Your bank. That means, or at least it
could
mean, that somebody else
did
pay her off.”

He was frowning in thought. “You mean . . . whoever really killed Vanessa.”

“Right. So my question is, I know it's cash, but could that transaction be looked into?”

“Not really.”

“But if the police found a cash withdrawal at the bank in that amount, couldn't that point to the killer? Well, I guess they've already tried that.”

He stood and moved away from me, frowning. “Here comes Wes. Look, he's had a rough time of it. None of this murder talk, okay? Give the guy a break.”

Wes came down into my sunken lair and sat next to me. “Sorry. Didn't mean to leave you in the lurch or anything. But I'm kind of the host.”

“No problem.”

Now he was the one sitting close, and he slipped an arm around my shoulders. “Look. This is just a kind of . . . meet and greet. You're not getting yourself into anything.”

“I'm not?”

“No. We'd be . . . months away from that, if you're interested.”

“Okay . . .”

“You see, we need to get to know each other better, before anybody else gets into the act.”

Then he was nuzzling my neck.

Now
what the heck was I going to do? How do you tell a guy in a swingers' group—who knows that you know full well what kind of party it is—that you think he's being fresh?

And did anybody even
use
the word
fresh
that way, anymore?

Everybody else came down into the sunken area to join us. Maybe they all got thirsty at the same time. Maybe it was almost time to pick a cell phone out of the glass bowl....

Shortly after everybody had settled in, a knock came at the suite's door, a muffled female voice calling out, “Room service!”

Wes drew away from me. “Somebody order food?”

“Me,” Sean admitted, then nodded toward his tipsy wife. “Tiff needs something in her tummy besides booze.”

“Says you,” she said.

He got up and went to the door and opened it.

A tallish woman in a man's formal shirt with bow tie and black slacks wheeled in a food cart. She had long blond Veronica Lake–style peekaboo hair.

“Where would you like this, honey?”

“This way,” Sean said.

The woman followed him with the cart over to the edge of the sunken area.

“Please sign,” she said, handing him the bill and a pen.

Sean gave her back the bill and pen, and she looked past him at me, drew back the hair to reveal her features, and winked.
Peekaboo!

Mother!

“Where would you like the food?” Mother asked in a whispery seductive voice, fake hair back in place.

Sean descended the steps into the sunken area and gestured to the central table. “Here would be fine.”

Mother picked up the tray of hors d'ouevres, balanced it with one hand, following Sean, but missed the last step —she wasn't wearing her glasses—and fell, her wig coming off, the tray going up in the air, then down on Sean.

Sean, covered in shrimp sauce and guacamole, snarled, “
You!
”

His wife was laughing. She was very drunk.

Drunk enough to squeal, “You should have hit the witch
harder,
Sean!”

“Thank you, dear,” Mother said to Tiffany with a self-satisfied smile.

There was a mass effort to clean up the mess, but I took Mother by the arm and escorted her out, looking back at a stunned Wes to say, “I am
so
sorry about this! I need to get her home. . . .”

We moved fast and soon were on the elevator where I was so thrown by both Vivian Borne's disguised arrival and Mrs. Sean Hartman's incriminating blurt, that I didn't know whether to hug Mother or throttle her.

She had only one thing to say on the ride down: “And that, my dear, is why you need a plan!”

Finally I found a question to ask: “Was that pratfall on purpose? Or are you just blind?”

“A true artiste does not reveal her secrets.”

Then we were in the parking lot, but as I headed toward the Caddy, Mother yanked me toward another car—a Toyota with Tony sitting in the front seat.

He leaned out the window. “How did we do?” he asked.

“Home run, dear,” she said, and handed him her recorder pen. “Sean Hartman's wife has something very interesting to tell you.”

 

 

 

If someone else is looking at an item you want, good etiquette dictates that you wait until they have put it back down. Once, to get a potential buyer to set a Fire-King bowl back down, Mother kindly told him that his car was being towed, which it wasn't. And that's not good etiquette, it's good strategy.

Chapter Twelve

False Card

 

 

 

A
day had passed since Sean Hartman's arrest on suspicion of assault and battery.

Tiffany Hartman's blurted confession of her knowledge of her husband's actions—caught on Mother's spy pen—had allowed Tony to obtain a warrant to search the Hartman home and vehicles. Mother's wallet was found at the curb in a garbage can in front of the Hartman home, and in the trunk of Sean's BMW was a bag of golf clubs whose putter was confiscated for blood and hair analysis.

While awaiting the test results, Mother and I were back taking care of business at the shop, behind the counter going over an inventory spreadsheet.

I paused in the work. Some questions about last evening were finally making their way to the front of my brain.

“Mother—how did you know you could find me in that Executive Suite?”

Mother—now in a more age-appropriate chestnut wig reminiscent of no celebrity in particular, except perhaps Mr. Ed—replied, “Elementary, my dear Brandy . . . at least, it is when you have a snitch working at the hotel's front desk.”

“But however did you know Sean had called for room service?”

Mother shrugged regally. “Afraid I must plead sheer luck, dear. I found myself riding the elevator up with the young woman who was bringing the cart.” She chuckled. “You know, these college students are likely to do all kinds of things for a little extra mazuma.”

“You mean, like allow you to take her place—even switching clothes?”

“For fifty dollars, yes. . . . She and I were about the same size, which was more luck, and the wig was my own, of course.”

The little bell above the front door announced a uniformed Tony, coming in with a businesslike smile.

“How's everyone today?” he asked.

“Fine so far,” I replied. “Any word back on that hair and blood analysis?”

Sushi, who'd been asleep near our feet in her bed, uncurled herself and trotted around to greet her favorite man, pawing at his pants legs, eager for his attention. (We had that in common.)

“Not yet,” he said, leaning down to scratch Sushi's neck, “but we won't be needing it.”

“Why ever not?” Mother demanded.

He rose, shrugged. “Sean Hartman has confessed to assault and battery.”

“
I have been avenged!
” Mother said, smiling like a pirate holding up the head of a rival.

Tony exchanged smirks with me.

Mother was saying, “Fancy a cuppa, kind sir?”

She had gone zero-to-sixty into the fake Brit accent she affected when in the mood to impress. Or serve tea.

“Why not,” he said.

Mother went to the nearby cart where an antique silver tea set was in use. We'd given up on selling it—who wants to polish silver anymore?

“So,” I said, “are you saying the case is closed?”

“Just the attack on Vivian,” Tony said, pulling a stool up to the other side of the counter.

Mother came back to pour steaming tea into dainty china cups—nobody wants to wash china anymore, either—giving Tony his usual single sugar.

Tony stirred tea with a silver spoon. “Hartman denies having killed either Vanessa Sinclair or Gladys Fowler.”

Mother, Brit accent suddenly M.I.A., asked, “You've checked his whereabouts for both murders, of course?”

Tony nodded. “Yes, and both alibis seem to hold. He
was
playing golf at the time of the Sinclair killing, and was in conference with an investor when the Fowler woman was strangled.”

Mother's latest sip of tea might have been bitter, considering her expression. “How convenient for him, and how inconvenient for us.”

I asked, “What about Brent Morgan and Travis Thompson?”

“Their alibis for both murders check out, too.”

Frowning, Mother asked, “How about the little women?”

She meant the wives, not characters created by Louisa May Alcott.

Tony shrugged. “In the clear, I'm afraid. Starting to look like the Eight of Clubs is an eight-way dead end.”

“Eight-way something,” I muttered.

“So,” Tony continued wearily, “it looks like we're back at that square one you hear so much about.” He drained his cup, set it on the counter. “Thanks for the, uh, ‘cuppa,' Vivian.”

She beamed. “It's my pleasure, working with our once and future chief. And may I say, as to last night, I hope you've learned that cooperating with me in my investigative efforts is far preferable to opposing me at every turn.”

“That was a one-off, Vivian,” he said, staring her down. “And should we need to use that recording you made last night, keep in mind I knew nothing of that.”

“But, Tony dear, that's not—”

“I knew
nothing
of it. Right?”

She looked for a moment like he'd cold-cocked her. Then she smiled and nodded and gave him a thumb's up and winked and drew a thumb and forefinger across her lips, in the
zipped
gesture. I was grateful there were no semaphore flags around.

He closed his eyes, sighed, then summoned a smile for me. “Guess I'd better get back to it.”

“Dinner tonight?” I asked. “At the cabin, maybe?”

Tony was back living in his cabin in a beautiful woodsy area north on River Road.

Nodding, he said, “I'll buy the groceries and we'll do the cooking together.”

I smiled. “Sounds like my kind of aiding and abetting.”

He nodded and winked (but did not give me a thumbs up and
zipped
gesture) and went out.

After Tony left, I said, “I'm glad your attacker's behind bars. But otherwise, where the two murders are concerned? We really haven't accomplished much. I could even make a case that we were indirectly responsible for the ruination of a respectable man now charged with assault.”

Mother stiffened. “Don't be silly, dear—that ‘respectable man' could have killed me!”

I sighed, nodded. “Sorry. You're right. Nothing ‘respectable' about what he did. You came around asking questions and Sean panicked and . . . now you're wearing a hideous wig.”

“Yes, dear, I do think the Veronica Lake is much more flattering. But I got guacamole on it, I'm afraid.”

The bell tinkled again as the front door opened and Dumpster Dan trudged in, sporting the familiar wrinkled clothes and carrying the usual soiled canvas tote.

Mother assembled a smile. “Well, hello there, Daniel.”

The man shuffled over, but his eyes were bright.

“I have something
really
special today,” he said, reaching into the bag, then drawing out the item, placing it on the counter.

The heavy pewter beer stein with a woodland motif of grazing boars seemed at once a surprising example of something decent that Dan had come up with, and vaguely familiar . . .
where had I seen it?
Or anyway, one like it?

Then it came to me:
on the fireplace mantel in Wes Sinclair's man cave.

“Where did you get this?” I asked excitedly.

“In a Dumpster downtown.”

“Which
one?
”

“Why?” His eyes said he thought perhaps he'd done something wrong. “Does that matter?”

“This time it does.”

He swallowed thickly, and his eyes traveled to the ceiling for help. Finally he found the answer there. “Ah . . . behind the bank.”

My pointed interrogation suddenly rattled poor Dan, and Mother had come to attention, too, like Sushi at a hydrant.

“I . . . I didn't steal it,” he answered defensively. “Anything in a Dumpster is fair game! Taking trash is legal . . . it's not stealing.”

Mother—sensing that my keen interest in the beer stein had nothing to do with antiques—said soothingly, “
Of course
you didn't steal it, Dan. But we do like to know the provenance of anything we buy.”

“The providence of what?”

“Its
history,
dear.”

“Oh. Well, sure.” He took a breath and let it out. “I found the beer stein a little over a week ago, and kept it for myself. I mean, it
is
cool. But now my rent is due, and I need some money. And it looks valuable, so . . .”

I asked, “How much do you want for the beer stein?”

He swallowed again. “Is . . . twenty-five dollars too much?”

I would have paid a lot more for what was very likely the weapon that killed Vanessa Sinclair.

Dan was saying, “It was all dirty and crusty, so I cleaned it up. Not a single chip or dent! It's mint, ladies.”

So much for any forensic evidence.

I gave Dan fifty dollars from the till, and he went out, giddy with triumph and delight.

When the shop door closed behind him, Mother asked, “Dear, what made you pay twice what that little man asked . . . for a beer stein?”

“I've seen this thing before.”

“Would
I
have seen it?”

“Only in a photo.”

I moved down the counter to the computer, then opened the file containing the shots I'd taken of Wes's beer-sign collection the afternoon Vanessa was killed. Scrolling through, I found an angle that had captured the fireplace mantel with its proudly displayed array of beer steins. As Mother looked over my shoulder, I enlarged the photo, then isolated one in particular . . .

. . . the beer stein, which now sat on our counter.

“Great Caesar's Ghost,” Mother said, quoting Perry White. “We're out of the woods and back in the game!”

I raised a cautionary finger. “But we have to be sure it's the
same
beer stein.”

“As Dan pointed out, there are no chips or dents on this one. And the photo betrays none, either. Still, like any collectible, there
are
identical ones out there . . .”

“If it was used as the murder weapon,” I said, “and the killer disposed of it right
after
the murder, then . . .”

Mother snapped her fingers. “Then it will be absent in the crime scene photos!”

I nodded. “If it isn't in them, then that . . .” I pointed to our new acquisition. “. . . is the blunt instrument that killed Vanessa Sinclair.”

I called Tony on his cell, explained to him what we had, then e-mailed him the picture. With uncharacteristic urgency in his voice, he said he'd get right back to me.

Mother was practically doing a Riverdance jig (just imagine if she'd been Harold's partner at the swingers' affair). “You know what
this
means, don't you, dear?”

“What does it mean?”

“That Wes was the murderer all along!”

I held up a
not so fast
finger. “That beer stein could have been used to implicate him.”

“He
did
have alibis for both murders,” she granted. “He was at his office when the police came to tell him about Vanessa, and you were with him when Mrs. Fowler was found.” She frowned. “Who else
could
it be?”

“A stranger, maybe? Some drifter lowlife who took advantage of an open garage door?”

“Unsatisfactory,” Mother growled in her Nero Wolfe voice.

“Well,
somebody
who isn't on our suspect list.”

Mother sighed. “Too bad Dan didn't provide us with the second murder weapon—the blue silk scarf, or tie.”

I smirked at her. “Yes, darn thoughtless of him.” Then I frowned.

“. . . Dear? Something? You have a strange look on your face. Stranger than usual, I mean.”

“Mother, Wes was wearing a blue tie the day I went with him to see Mrs. Fowler. That is, he
had
one on . . . then didn't have it on.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Elaborate.”

“When I first saw him, he came out of his office wearing the tie. Then fifteen or twenty minutes later—after I'd waited in the outer area, as he supposedly made a business call—Wes came out
not
wearing the tie.”

She squinted at me, as if trying to get me in focus. “But he was there with you at his office!”

A hundred pinpricks prickled my skin. “No—he wasn't with me . . . he was in his office. Behind a closed door. Later, we went out a back way, using his private elevator.
That's
how he did it. He left, used his tie to strangle Mrs. Fowler, then returned to the office. He came out sweating, complaining about the air-conditioning!” My stomach churned, nauseated. “And all the while I was sitting there, drinking designer coffee.”

“Well, he did need an alibi, dear. And who better than you?”

My face burned with anger. “Mother, he manipulated me.
Used
me.”

She batted that away. “Yes, dear, that's how sociopaths operate. Let's not waste time there.” She touched her chin with a forefinger. “We must now assume Wes also murdered his wife.”

I was nodding. “Because Vanessa wanted a divorce and a hefty settlement. And, childless, she needed to get around the prenup . . . so she threatened to expose the Eight of Clubs.”

Mother was nodding, too. “His M.O. for the first murder was the same—go to the office, slip out the back, do his foul deed, return the same way to his closed-door office, where he'd be waiting for word from the police.”