“AND YOU JUST made another date with him?” Lucille asked, her hands planted on her round hips as she scowled at me in the middle of the kitchen.
“It’s not a date. It’s just to let his daughter play with Fozzie.”
“He sounds like a guy who needs to get his girl her own dog, or Carmen had it right when she called me last night.” Lucille’s expression softened. “Ian Dearborn wants to get into your pants.”
Good grief. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Order up!” Duke barked.
“Hey, I won’t judge if you want to spread your wings.” Lucille nudged me with her elbow. “Or any other appendages.”
“That’s not gonna happen and I’ll thank you to not suggest otherwise. Besides, Steve and I are very happy.”
“Yeah, he looked real happy,” she said, squeaking away to pick up her order.
No, he didn’t. Steve had looked disappointed in me, and I didn’t blame him. I hadn’t been totally honest with him about why I had wanted to see Ian, and Steve knew it.
“What a mess,” I muttered, wishing I could have a do-over of this morning.
Aunt Alice glanced up from the flour she was measuring into a mixing bowl. “What’s the matter, honey? Are you and Steve having a problem?”
“It’s nothing.” I hoped.
“This nothing wouldn’t have something to do with what Carmen saw in the park, would it?”
“Criminy! Does everyone know about that?”
Alice’s cheeks flushed. “I’ll have you know that I told that busybody that she had it all wrong. Uh … she did have it all wrong, didn’t she?”
“Yes. It’s not at all the way it looked.”
She squinted at me over her trifocals. “Then you’re not seeing Ian Dearborn again.”
“I … um … not exactly,” I said, starting to sweat again.
“Girl, are you telling me that Lucille’s right? You’re going on another date with him?”
“Jeez Louise! It’s not a date!”
* * *
Four hours later, I said the same thing to my grandmother after she insisted that I come over for lunch.
“Darn that Carmen and her big mouth,” I groaned, burying my head in my hands at Gram’s kitchen table. “The only reason Ian asked me to go to the park was so that his daughter could see my dog.”
Gram joined me at the table with two tuna sandwiches. “Out of the blue he calls you because he wanted to meet Fozzie.”
“Not exactly.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
I stared down at the sandwich I had no appetite for. “He met Fozzie when I took him to get checked out at his clinic.”
“Then this actually was a date. Does Steve know?”
“No! I mean yes, he knows. But the only reason I wanted to see Ian was to find out what he knew about Ted’s death.”
Gram gaped at me. “What he knew? Are you saying that he was there on that trail to see—”
“No, but since he seems to be the one who got his mom to call it off with Mr. Skerrett, I thought I should talk to him.”
“Oh, my. History seems to be repeating itself.”
I pushed my plate away. “What do you mean by that?”
“Nothing much. That thing with Mitzi that I said I’d tell you about later?”
I nodded, watching Gram take a big bite of her sandwich.
“Of course, this is ancient history,” she said with her mouth full. “But I ran into Mitzi at the bank the day after she told Carmen that she was running off to Vegas with Ted to get a quickie divorce.”
Whoa. “I’m confused. I heard that Mitzi cleaned out her husband’s business account and then left town.”
“She did, but something happened that must have given Ted a change of heart because I saw with my own eyes that Mitzi didn’t get very far.”
“When you saw her at the bank.”
Gram looked down at her sandwich. “It was pitiful to see her weeping at the counter while she tried to return the money. I remember that I was about to leave but worried about her being able to drive, so I offered her a ride. That’s when she lost it.”
I hoped that meant that Mitzi opened up to her. “What happened?”
“We sat for a little while. She didn’t say much. Seems to me that she mainly just cried—”
“Over him.”
“Yep. I guess it was true love … on her part, anyway.”
“Did she know what changed his mind?” I asked.
“For one I think he sobered up, but I’m pretty sure that some family intervention was involved.”
“Ted’s sister, right?”
Gram blinked. “How could you possibly know that?”
I didn’t want to get into what I’d overheard. “Lucky guess. What else did Mitzi say?”
“She was crying so hard that it was difficult to understand what she was saying, but I was able to get the gist of it—that Brenda thought Mitzi wasn’t good enough for her brother.”
Interesting. And would certainly explain the war of words I’d witnessed in the parking lot.
“Maybe it was because we were at the bank, but I remember thinking that it had something to do with money.” Gram smiled across the table at me. “Or your granny’s old brain is playing tricks on her.”
“Your brain’s just fine.” Because Gram was right. When it came to Ted Skerrett, history had definitely been repeating itself.
* * *
After lunch, Patsy sent me north to Port Townsend to get a statement from one of the witnesses who would be testifying in a property dispute case on the docket for September.
Port Townsend was an artsy community with a vibrant downtown lined with eclectic shops and galleries. Just thirty-two miles away from Gram’s house, it served as the destination of convenience for Donna, Rox, and me when we wanted a girls’ night out.
I found Port Townsend to be an even more convenient destination today because Ivie Antique Gallery and Appraisals was located across the street from the commercial real estate agent I’d come to interview.
That real estate agent turned out to be the uncooperative witness I’d overheard one of the assistant prosecutors complain to Shondra about.
Since the guy had clearly skated on our afternoon appointment, leaving a surly receptionist to provide me a bogus excuse about a sudden emergency, it didn’t look like his level of cooperation was about to take a turn for the better.
Whatever.
I was happy to come back tomorrow. I just wouldn’t call first. Much like I hadn’t called the number on Lawrence Ivie’s business card prior to crossing the street and showing up on his doorstep. Sometimes there was no advantage in securing a block of someone’s time, especially when that someone wanted to see some collectables I didn’t own.
A buzzer sounded when I entered through the heavy door of the brown brick building that housed the Ivie antique store.
The musty-smelling interior resembled the dozen antique malls my grandmother had dragged me to when she was building her collection of blue Depression glass. Several well-lit display cases sparkled with vintage jewelry near the front windows to attract foot traffic, while shelves stocked with household items from bygone eras edged a path to what could double for a 1930s furniture store complete with an ornate canopy bed.
A smiling woman with a long silver braid stood behind a desk bookended by shelves of mismatched china. She took off her black-framed glasses. “May I help you?”
I waved at the heavy-set man walking in my direction in the same cheap suit that I’d seen him wearing yesterday. “There’s the person I’m here to see. Hello, Mr. Ivie.”
“Well, hello. This is an unexpected pleasure.” Mr. Ivie shifted his attention to the woman. “Grace, this is the young lady I told you about.”
She came around the desk and extended her hand. “Grace Ivie. Lawrence’s partner in crime.”
Only half his size and wearing several strands of glass beads over a flowing violet gauze dress, she looked more like an aging hippie than the woman I’d expect to hear introduce herself as his partner.
“Charmaine Digby. Nice to meet you.” I turned back to Mr. Ivie. “And I hope that I’m not here at an inconvenient time, but I need to speak with you for a few minutes.”
He furrowed his heavy brow. “You didn’t bring your collection here, did you? Because I’m afraid—”
“No, actually this is about another matter. Is there someplace we could talk?”
“Of course,” Mr. Ivie said, shooting Grace a wary sidelong glance. “We can speak in my office.”
After he led me past the canopy bed to a cramped back room, he offered me a seat in what appeared to be an orphaned dining room chair opposite his tidy desk.
He eased his girth onto a creaky desk chair and sharpened his gaze on me. “What’s this about?”
I flashed him my badge. “The deputy coroner in charge of the Ted Skerrett case asked me to get a statement from everyone who interacted with him on the day he died.”
I’d surely lose my badge if Shondra were around to hear those words come out of my mouth, but I had to say something that sounded convincing.
Tucking my badge away, I pulled my notebook from my tote. “I understand that you and another appraiser went to his house that Friday.”
Mr. Ivie did the furrowed-brow thing again, looking like a Cro-Magnon man on steroids as he folded his big mitts on the ink blotter in front of him. “Grace and I were contracted to do an appraisal of the estate—something we frequently do as a team when there’s a large collection.”
“And how did Mr. Skerrett seem to you?”
“Seem?”
“What was his mood?”
“It was the first time I’d met the man, so I would have had no frame of reference to know.”
“Uh-huh.” You know plenty.
“Did you encounter anyone else at the house when you were there?” I asked to find out how forthcoming he’d be regarding the exchange with Marc and Holly.
“Mr. Skerrett’s sister was there.” Lawrence Ivie’s gaze tightened, his nostrils twitching as if he were taking sudden offense at the musty odor permeating his office. “She seemed rather inclined to hover while we were in the house.”
“Anyone else that you spoke with?”
“I believe some other family members arrived just as we were leaving. Grace and I didn’t have any real interaction with them.”
Even if Holly hadn’t given me her account of how the scene played out when she and Marc got out of their car, I would have known Mr. Ivie was lying. Not only by his increased twitching, but by the way he was qualifying his answers. “Was that because of Mr. Skerrett’s actions or his sister’s?”
He cleared his throat as if to mentally reset himself. “Mr. Skerrett made it quite clear that we were not to discuss the matter of his estate with anyone else. Not that we would. We have a contractual obligation to respect our clients’ privacy.”
“I’m sure you do,” I said, jotting a note about the contract. When I looked up, I noticed that Mr. Ivie seemed to be shrinking in his oversize worsted wool.
“If Ms. Proctor has said otherwise …” He pressed his fleshy lips together as if his mouth needed a timeout. “I assure you that it’s not the case.”
I knew what he wanted to hear—an assurance from me about whatever dealings he now had with Brenda.
Mr. Ivie wasn’t going to get it that easily. “She does have some rather strong opinions regarding the estate.”
“Indeed,” he said, squeezing his hands together so tight his knuckles were white.
“I assume that Brenda Proctor is now your client?”
“Not as yet.”
That wasn’t the answer I had expected to hear. “I thought I understood you to say that you had a contract to appraise the estate.”
“We did, with Mr. Skerrett.”
“And that contract was …” I didn’t know enough about how contracts worked to ask a decent question.
“Fulfilled.”
“Your work was completed?”
“We had to do some research to complete our report, but we mailed it to Mr. Skerrett last Monday.”
“After his death, so he never found out the value of his estate.”
Pulling out a handkerchief, Mr. Ivie took a swipe at the beads of sweat peppering his upper lip. “Estimated value, but correct.”
Then why had Ted thrown himself between the appraisers and Holly like a human shield? “Mr. Skerrett must have suspected that there were some items of great value in the house. Otherwise, he probably wouldn’t have arranged for your services.”
“That’s typical in these situations.”
As in duh. “How much money are we talking?”
He straightened. “We are not talking about any matters specific to the appraisal.”
Dang. “But Ms. Proctor and you have been in some discussion about it.” I referred back to my notes. “Although you said she wasn’t your client yet.”
Mr. Ivie ran his handkerchief over his drippy brow. “We’re in negotiation.”
“Negotiation” isn’t the word I would have used to describe the exchange I heard yesterday afternoon. “I see. But since the appraisal has already been completed, what are you negotiating about?”
“That’s a private matter that has nothing to do with what happened to her brother,” he said, his volume increasing as he slapped his palms to the edge of his desk and pushed to his feet. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have work I need to get back to.”
“Of course. Just one more question. When I asked you about establishing a value for some Civil War items in my possession, you asked if I wanted to sell them.”
He stood by his door like an overdressed bouncer, itching to toss me from the room. “That’s what most of our clients want to do when they’re in actual possession of something they have little or no emotional attachment to.”
Okay, so I lied. It got me another step closer to understanding what was going on with Ted Skerrett that Friday, and I wasn’t about to offer any apologies for that.
I closed the distance between us to get a better view of his face. “So you find other collectors who would be interested in what your client has to sell?”
He tucked in his double chin as he scowled down at me. “We’re not matchmakers. There are regional estate sales if we decide to not sell on consignment.” He gave his head a little shake as if he’d just censored himself. “The venue depends on the value and rarity of the item.”
“I’m sure it does.”
Just as I was sure that was why Brenda wasn’t letting Holly in to remove any of those dolls. At least one of them had to be worth a small fortune.