Chapter 15
When Josie got home from Lorna’s, Eb was seated in his armchair, doing one of his crosswords, Jethro at his side and quiet for once. Good. Eb had been spending too much time in his workshop. Although what was the difference, really? Tinkering with his thingamajig sculptures or tinkering with a crossword. It wasn’t like she could tell him to go outside and play.
“Did you eat dinner?”
“Leftovers. You’re late,” he said, not looking up. He penciled in something.
“I called and left you a message. If you’re not going to check the answering machine, we’re going to have to talk about getting you a cell phone.” She shrugged out of her jacket and hung it on a peg next to the front door.
“Talk all you want. Lived my whole life without one. Ain’t getting one now.” Jethro gave a little whine, as if to underscore Eb’s words.
“We’ll see. You’ve got a birthday coming up next month, don’t you? A cell phone would make an excellent gift.” Josie had no intention of getting Eb a phone, which would likely end up at the bottom of his personally stocked trout pond once the ice completely melted. But she enjoyed their repartee as much as her great-uncle did.
Eb finally looked up, glaring. “Cake. Since you can’t bake one, you can buy me one. That’s it.” He went back to his puzzle.
Josie looked at the clock. She probably could finish washing and shaping the rest of the doilies she’d brought home. Or it could wait till morning after she took care of the chickens. She’d have to clear space somewhere and lay out towels, which seemed like too much work right now. In fact, everything seemed like too much work right now. Fatigue had settled in, almost without her knowing it. An early night was just what she needed.
“G’nite, Eb.” Coco appeared at her side, ready to take up her nighttime sentry position sleeping on Josie’s legs.
Eb grunted.
* * *
The next morning Josie started laundry, accomplished her henhouse chores, and washed out the doilies, all before eight o’clock. The small, Formica-topped table in the kitchen, emptied of its covering of newspapers and boxes of old dishes, turned out to be the perfect spot to lay out the lace on a couple of mismatched bath towels. They’d still be damp by the time she got home, and she could give them a quick set with a hot iron then.
She opened both kitchen windows a crack for cross ventilation—it promised to be a warm spring day—and made a mental note to ask Eb if the china and glassware had belonged to Cora or to some earlier generation of Lloyd women. She was pretty sure Eb had brought these things out, for whatever reason, after Cora died. The kitchen had almost certainly been Cora’s domain in the few months she’d lived here, and it seemed unlikely she’d have allowed that kind of mess. There were still plenty of rooms in this house that Josie had never explored, although Coco probably had. Someday, when Josie had some free time—and there wasn’t a lot of that these days—she’d take a better look around. Maybe even start helping Eb clear the upstairs—although “help” was probably a relative term. She might end up doing the bulk of the work herself. Her great-uncle had lived this way for so long, there was a good chance he might not see any need to change things.
The old pipes gave their characteristic shudder before spraying out water from the kitchen faucet as she washed her hands. A few minutes later she’d spread some peanut butter on an English muffin and headed out the door with breakfast in hand. She left another muffin in the toaster for Eb, alongside a banana and a pot of coffee—she’d finally mastered the mysteries of the percolator, though she still wished for one of those one-cup-ata-time machines like she had at the shop. Maybe that’s what Eb would get for his birthday, though it seemed a bit self-serving.
After delivering the eggs, she pulled up in front of Miss Marple Knits, but left the engine running. Sharla, she texted. Have you checked contract between producer and Lyndon and Taylor? Possible motive? As tired as she’d been last night, scenarios had played in her head until sleep finally came.
Arrest already made, girl. But I’ll look.
Josie was going to look too. Because the more she thought about it, the more she wondered if Harry really was guilty. Maybe. He had a motive. But so did that producer. Would he go as far as murder to hype his new show?
And Lyndon’s self-absorbed niece. Maybe Taylor didn’t want to share the spotlight with her uncle. Maybe she wanted her inheritance now, and the show all to herself, without having to wait an inconveniently long time for Lyndon’s natural death.
Josie replaced her phone in her pocket and pulled out her key ring, then exited the car. The crime-scene tape was down at the antique store, and she had every right, as landlady, to enter the property. So why did she feel as if she were trespassing?
The store was dark, with a smell of old wood overlaid with a faint mustiness. It was probably impossible to get that completely out of upholstery and books. Shivers ran up her arms as she entered. Not that she minded saving some heating costs by having the temperature set low, but she could see her breath. That couldn’t be good for antiques.
The thermostat was located on the wall behind the counter, near where Lyndon had died. Back here the scent was of disinfectant, probably from the work of the cleaning crew. There was a noticeably lighter spot on the wood floor where someone had scrubbed it, erasing all traces of Lyndon’s body. Josie steeled herself and stepped over the spot. She had to believe Lyndon was in a better place.
There was a cold draft back here, far colder than it should have been. Not being the superstitious type, she was pretty sure it wasn’t Lyndon’s ghost, and when she looked for the most likely cause, she found it. The back door was ajar. The lock appeared to be damaged, a piece of what might have been a wire coat hanger sticking out of the keyhole.
“Dammit.” Josie texted Sharla again, then looked around. She had the same thought she’d had before: It was impossible to tell if anything had been taken, or even disturbed. The boxes had never been fully unpacked, the furniture never fully unwrapped and arranged. And Josie couldn’t possibly remember everything she’d seen the last time she was here.
The obvious suspect was Taylor. She’d demanded entry to the shop yesterday, but hadn’t gotten her own way. Had she broken in and found what she was looking for, the partnership agreement with Harry? Had it ever been here in the first place?
While Josie waited for Sharla, who’d promised she was en route, she poked around. If there was a partnership agreement here, it could be anywhere.
Of course, there might not even be a paper copy, which would explain, at least partially, why Taylor hadn’t found it at Lyndon’s apartment. The agreement might just be in a digital file, in which case it would be on Lyndon’s computer. Something to ask Sharla about when she got here, although if a computer had been here at the shop, or back at the Gray Lady, the police presumably already had it.
Josie scanned the store, thinking logically. If she had important papers, she’d keep them here in the back, not in a drawer of one of the antique dressers. There was no filing cabinet, no desk. She tapped a finger on her lower lip. The other option would have been upstairs, where Lyndon’s unmoved-into living quarters were. But since she needed to wait for Sharla, she decided to stay where she was.
The counter in this shop was similar to the one next door at Miss Marple Knits. The wood was dark, with deep grooves and scratches here and there attesting to the fact that it had been well used over the years, though not anytime recently. Josie had no idea what this shop had been before it had been abandoned. Evelyn or Helen would know. Not that it probably mattered, but now she was curious.
Under the counter, facing the back wall, were some low shelves set alongside a metal safe painted in 1960s utilitarian green. The safe had not been here when she and her friends had cleaned the store in preparation for Lyndon’s arrival, so he must have installed it sometime during the moving-in process. She reached out and tried the handle. It scraped, but only moved a fraction of an inch. Then she jiggled the handle until she heard it engage. The door opened.
Was this how successful safecrackers felt? But she couldn’t give herself too much credit. The safe wasn’t locked, just had a sticky door. Josie bent down, a little thrill of anticipation running through her. When her eyes adjusted to the relative gloom, she realized, with disappointment, that the safe was empty.
Which only made sense. What had she been thinking? That a safe that had been installed in a building where a murder had taken place would not have been opened and investigated by the police? The shelves next to the safe were empty too. She straightened up. This was a waste of time, and if there was any evidence here of who’d broken in, she’d probably destroyed it. She sat down on a wooden chair to wait for Sharla.
A box of books sat to her left. The top was open, so she looked in. An old Life magazine stared back up at her. Or rather, the Max-Factored eyes of Elizabeth Taylor did. She pulled out the magazine and angled it so the light struck it. Yup. Those eyes were violet, or at least they were in this photo. She set the magazine back down into the box on top of a hardbound book. Collingswood Academy was embossed on the front.
Why did this look familiar? Right—there’d been a similar one in Dougie’s office. She hadn’t looked closely enough to remember what year Dougie’s yearbook dated from. This one had a shield with Founded 1878 under the name, so Collingswood had a long history, and there were probably a fair number of these books out there somewhere. Josie replaced the book when she heard the front door open.
“Josie?” Sharla called.
“Behind the counter,” Josie answered, rising from her seat to greet the cop.
“You want to show me the back door?” Sharla crossed the floor of the shop quickly. “Just a formality. I’ve been here before, unfortunately. You okay?”
“I’m fine. This way.”
When they reached the door, Sharla pulled out her flashlight, which she shined in a narrow arc around the door frame and the handle. She snapped on a pair of latex gloves, then swung the door the rest of the way open to examine it. “The lock’s been jimmied,” Sharla declared.
“I figured as much.” Josie pointed to the wire. “Is it hard to pick a lock?”
Sharla took hold of the wire in the keyhole and gave a gentle pull. She placed the wire into a plastic evidence bag and sealed it, then filled out some information on the outside of the bag. “I doubt we’ll get any usable prints from this. And to answer your question, it’s not as easy as it looks on television, that’s for sure. This isn’t the best tool for the job, either. But this is an old lock—which you might want to consider having replaced with something more modern. With Google access and some persistence, it could be done. Obviously. I don’t see any actual damage to the lock.”
A memory struck Josie. When the murder had happened in her shop a few weeks ago, someone had had a key. As far as she knew, the only people who had keys to this shop were Lyndon and herself. At least, she’d only been given two sets of keys when Eb signed the building over to her. But Diantha’s son Trey had owned this building before Eb bought it. What if there was another set of keys out there?
Lyndon had had a key since he signed the lease. Josie had overnight mailed it to him herself. He could have made any number of copies and given them to anyone he wanted. Harry. His niece, Taylor. “Sharla?”
“Yes?” Sharla shined the flashlight on the floor in front of the door, presumably looking for more evidence.
“Could that piece of wire just be for show? To throw us off the scent?”
Sharla turned to her. “You mean, could this have been staged? I suppose it’s possible. But why?”
“What if . . .” Josie took a moment to organize her thoughts. “What if someone had a key, but wanted to make this look like a random break-in? So we wouldn’t suspect him. Or her?”
Sharla dropped her gaze to the evidence bag, then looked at Josie. “That’s not a bad theory. Why would someone want to get into this shop? The site’s already been investigated, and we have a suspect in custody.”
“I can only think of two reasons,” Josie said. “One, some random burglar realized that the police were done with their investigation and decided to break in and see if he could make off with some antiques. Though how we’d know if anything is missing, I have no idea. The place is full.”
“Or two,” Sharla continued, “someone connected with the murder—not Harry Oglethorpe, obviously—was looking for something, but didn’t want anyone to know about it.” Sharla set down the evidence bag and pulled out a small spiral-bound notebook and a pen and made a few notes.
“Which brings us back to the reason I texted you earlier. Taylor Philbin stopped by the yarn shop yesterday, demanding to be let into this building. She said she was looking for a copy of Lyndon’s partnership agreement with Harry.”
Sharla looked thoughtful. “I’m thinking a visit to Taylor might be in order.”
Josie thought so too.