Chapter 11
“Dolly was murdered,” I said flatly. I had feared it all along, but the police explanation had been so much more palatable.
“I’m sorry, Florrie.”
“How did she die?”
“The medical examiner was suspicious because she was in pretty good health and there was no sign of a heart condition.” The muscles in his jaw tensed, as though he was saying something unpalatable. “She was poisoned by ethylene glycol.”
“Antifreeze?” I didn’t want to be melodramatic but antifreeze poisoning sounded like a terrible way to die. I swallowed hard imagining it. “Is that as awful as it sounds?”
Eric squeezed my hand. “They tell me it tastes sweet.”
I noticed that he skipped how sick she must have felt before she died. Poor Dolly! I must have swayed a little bit because Eric reached for my hand.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“It’s just so horrible. Was there any liquid?” I asked. “When I found her, there wasn’t a glass or anything on the carpet.” I searched my memory. “But there were glasses outside with a bottle of champagne. Three champagne glasses. I thought maybe she intended to celebrate her good fortune with Veronica and me.”
“I don’t remember any liquids inside, but I can check the photos. No one removed anything from the scene—unless you did before we got there.”
“No, of course not. Everything was exactly as we found it. Believe me, the last thing we were concerned about was cleaning up. Veronica and I thought she was still alive.”
“That happens a lot. The body can twitch and make little sounds that lead people to think the person isn’t dead yet.”
“I wish we had gotten there sooner. I don’t know what happened but maybe if we had arrived sooner . . .”
Eric winced. “You can’t go there, Florrie. You didn’t do anything wrong. You had no way of knowing that something was going awry at Dolly’s house. Not to mention that you and Veronica might be dead right now, too, if you had timed it differently.”
I shivered at the thought.
“Did anyone find the rare coloring book?” he asked.
“No. I’m going over to Dolly’s house tomorrow morning to go through her books. I’m hoping I might find it there. Will they test that tiny bit of paper? I think they’ll be able to tell approximately how old it is by examining the fiber content.”
He nodded. “It won’t be my case, of course, because I’m not in homicide, but I’ll pass that along.”
I sagged at the thought of dealing with homicide again. They were completely unreasonable when I encountered them before.
“Do you know anyone who would have wanted that book enough to kill Dolly for it?” he asked.
“No!” The word popped out of my mouth. I didn’t want to think I knew anyone who would be so cruel. But only a moment later I had to reconsider. “Maybe. I’m surprised by the number of people who are interested in it. Dolly bought it at the Dumont yard sale. Lucianne Dumont came by the store and asked for Dolly’s address. She claimed that it had been sold by mistake. And there’s an antiques dealer named Frederic van den Teuvel who is dying to get his hands on it. Now maybe the police will believe that the intruders at the bookstore were searching for it.”
Eric took a deep breath. “Are you certain Dolly had it? She didn’t give it to someone for safekeeping or sell it?”
“When she left Color Me Read, she and Zsazsa went to a tea room to celebrate. I have no idea what she did between then and the time Veronica and I found her. Dolly seemed very protective of it, but that doesn’t mean she didn’t hand it over to someone she trusted. I’m almost positive that the scrap of paper in her hand was from the coloring book, though. If that’s true, then someone must have taken it from her. On the other hand, it would have been easy for a cop to overlook those pages as just an old book.”
“Are you saying that we cops are not sophisticated?” he teased.
I laughed. “It would be very easy to mistake as worthless.”
Before Eric left, I remembered the flowers. “You must think I’m horrible. With all that’s been going on I forgot to thank you for the flowers. They’re beautiful!”
Eric stiffened. I’d never seen him look quite like that before.
“I didn’t send you flowers. Of course”—he looked down at his shoes before meeting my gaze—“now I wish I had.” Before my eyes, he turned into a sheepish schoolboy. “Who sent them?”
I couldn’t tell if he was serious or teasing me. I went with teasing. “Very funny.”
“I’m not joking. Maybe it was a customer? Did you go above and beyond to get someone a special book that’s hard to find?”
“Not recently.” I grinned at him. “Are you pulling my leg?”
“No. I truly wish I had thought to send you flowers. Now I’m a little worried. Sounds like you have an admirer.”
Eric left soon thereafter, still teasing me about the flowers. The sad thing was that I truly couldn’t imagine who had sent them.
Later on, when I was snuggled up in bed with Peaches it dawned on me that they might be from Norman.
* * *
In the morning, I pulled on cropped jeans and a sleeveless cotton top. Pawing through Dolly’s books would probably be a dusty undertaking.
Peaches snarfed her meal of chicken stew while I sipped my tea and ate a fried egg and avocado toast. When I was ready to leave, Peaches sat by the door, as though she wanted to go to the bookstore with me again.
I scooped her up. “Not today, sweetie. But maybe I’ll take you to work tomorrow.”
When I set her on the floor, she scampered over to the French doors and watched the birds in the garden, which made me feel better. I locked the door behind me, but before I made it down the driveway, Mr. DuBois swung open the back door of the mansion. “Florrie! Florrie!” A wisp of newspaper fluttered in his hand as he lurched toward me on crutches. He handed it to me. “I fear this has something to do with Maxwell’s mysterious hours. I found it in his dustbin.”
Search of Morrissey Site
A collection of newspaper clippings about the 1970s disappearance of two local children has turned up in a search of Ayres Morrissey’s home in Maryland, prompting the father of one of the girls to request a more thorough search of the site. The papers were discovered pursuant to a search warrant issued after Morrissey’s arrest on charges of surveillance with prurient intent.
The articles chronicle the investigation of the disappearance of Caroline Maxwell, heiress to the Maxwell fortune, and Bonnie Beaulaurier. The girls vanished from the birthday party of a friend in Washington, DC, and have never been found.
At the time of the party, Morrissey worked on a construction crew in the neighborhood. Beaulaurier’s father has requested a search of the grounds of the Morrissey home by cadaver dogs as well as ground-penetrating radar. Authorities say an excavation is likely in the event that the dogs or the radar indicate the presence of human remains.
I heard my sharp intake of breath. “They might have located his daughter! The professor must be beside himself. I wouldn’t know whether to be relieved that she may have been found or sad to know she was probably dead.”
“Not so fast. Stories like Caroline’s are perennial fodder for newspapers. I fear we are all mesmerized by unsolved mysteries. Maxwell saved the first few articles about possible leads, but there came a day when he threw them all out. I suspect he couldn’t take it anymore. Each time hope springs anew, only to be dashed again in the end. Now he tosses them, and I retrieve them from the dustbin and add them to a bundle in my closet.”
“It must be cruelest kind of misery for the professor and Jacquie. No wonder he’s acting out of sorts.”
I thanked Mr. DuBois and headed for Dolly’s house, wondering if finding Caroline’s bones would be a blessing or torment for her parents.
Tall trees provided some shade from the sun as I strolled along the sidewalks admiring the beautiful homes. It was so quiet that I could hear birds singing.
I walked up the steps to Dolly’s house and knocked on the front door while opening it. Everything looked exactly the same. I half expected Dolly to answer the door to her apartment when I rapped on it.
Maisie swung the door open. “Hi. Thanks for coming.”
I stepped inside. Dolly’s organized clutter had devolved into a wild mess. “What happened?”
“You sound like the police. They were here late last night.” She wiped her eyes. “Apparently Mom was murdered. I don’t know why that should come as a surprise to me. Mom was obnoxiously pushy. There’s no telling who she aggravated.”
“I’m so sorry, Maisie.”
“The police were pretty miffed when they saw what I had done here. What did they expect? That I would sit around doing nothing? If they were on the ball, they would have known sooner that she had been murdered. They asked me a million questions, like they think I killed her! I have an alibi, though. I was way down in South Carolina at the time. I’ll admit, there were times when she did things that, well, that ruined my life.”
Maisie shuddered. “I can still hear her saying, ‘Honey, this is for your own good.’ But it never was. At this point, all I want is to get rid of her junk, get out of here, and never come back. But first, I have to go through everything. You knew my mom. She was likely to hide something of value. I have a limited amount of time off from work, so I have get it done.”
“What do you do?” I asked.
“I’m a buyer for an upscale women’s clothing chain based in Charleston, South Carolina. You’d think they would give you weeks to take care of everything when a parent passes away. Instead, they call me every five minutes with questions. Anyway, I thought I’d better have a look around before I turn everything over to a stranger to sell.”
Her cheeks flushed in embarrassment. “I didn’t mean you, of course!”
I believed her. The books hadn’t been touched. “Have you found The Florist yet?”
“Olivia and Priss were telling me more about it last night. I’m sick that I don’t know what Mom did with it.” She glanced around. “That’s part of the reason I’m tearing her house apart. It has to be here somewhere, doesn’t it?”
I wondered how much she had been told about her mother’s death. Should I mention that it might have been stolen?
A knock on the door cut my thoughts short.
When she opened the door, a woman’s voice sang, “Maisie!”
As far as I could tell, she was a childhood friend who had learned of Dolly’s demise. Leaving them to catch up, I set to work, neatly separating contemporary books from those that might have greater value.
It wasn’t as though I was eavesdropping. After all, I happened to be in the room where they were speaking.
“Mother was always such a pack rat,” said Maisie. “I never gave any thought to the fact that getting rid of all her junk would fall to me. You can’t even imagine what a pain this is. I don’t want anything of hers.”
“I know how you feel,” said her friend. “I’m not into clutter. But my sister collects Hummel figurines. Looks like your mom had quite a few.”
“Help yourself!”
“I wouldn’t be so quick to give them away, Maisie,” said the friend. “They’re very collectible. Have you hired someone to clean out the house?”
“Not yet.”
“I’ll send Percy McAllister by.”
I turned to look at them, wondering if I should say something. Dolly would come back to haunt the house if she knew that Percy was selling her things.
“You remember him, don’t you?” asked the friend. “Percy went to high school with us.”
When Maisie didn’t respond, the friend said, “How could you forget him? Percy is the one who set off firecrackers in the school library.”
I shuddered at the thought. That probably resulted in a terrible fire.
Nevertheless, the two of them laughed at the memory.
“I do remember him. I had no idea that Percy still lived around here,” said Maisie. “I haven’t had any breakfast. How about we grab a bite and catch up?”
“Absolutely!” In a low tone that I could hear perfectly well, her friend asked, “Can you trust her here alone?”
My back was to them, and I was kneeling on the floor. I smiled.
“Oh sure. There’s nothing here of any real value anyway.”
Nothing but The Florist, I thought.
Maisie walked over to me. “I picked up some boxes yesterday. Maybe you could put the books in them so they can be removed? There are more books in the studio on the third floor.” She handed me a key. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”
The two of them gabbed nonstop as they walked out the door. I was glad that Maisie had made contact with an old friend, but I felt worse than ever for Dolly.
The second the door closed, I got to my feet and examined the rug where Dolly had lain. I sighed. In my mind’s eye, I could see her there. The rug bore a faint buff color where it should have been white, but the stain could have been there for years. I touched it. It wasn’t damp. That was probably just as well for Maisie. Would she have felt differently if she had seen her mom outstretched on the rug? Would she have been more sentimental about her mother’s passing?
Maisie seemed to swing back and forth. I had seen her tears, but she had tried to sound nonchalant in front of her friend. Maybe her mother’s death was harder on her than she had expected.
I walked over to the door and snapped the deadbolt so no one would walk in and surprise me. I returned to the spot where Dolly had fallen, dropped to my knees, and peered under the sofa and chairs.
My hopes shattered. There was nothing under the furniture. Not even dust. I crawled around the room anyway, checking under everything. No luck. If the police had found The Florist, surely they would have mentioned it to Maisie.
A movement in the corner of my eye caught my attention. I turned to find a little gray mouse staring at me, as appalled to see me as I was to see him. We watched each other warily for a few seconds, neither of us moving. The mouse gave in first and scurried off into another room.
Dusting off my jeans, I stood up and gazed around. Where would I have hidden a priceless book?
Unfortunately, sometimes the best hiding place was right out in the open among other similar objects. No one would have noticed the plain leather which surrounded the pages if it stood between other books. I returned to work.
An hour later, I had found a very early copy of Winnie-the-Pooh but didn’t know the original copyright date off the top of my head. I set it aside with a few other older books. The boxes were filling rapidly with mysteries, romances, and popular fiction. Dolly had loved to read.
After two hours, I paused and stepped out in the backyard for some fresh air. It had turned into a hot, humid summer day. The champagne glasses still stood next to the lantern where they had been the night Dolly died. The bottle of champagne had disappeared, though.
Dolly had collected cute yard art that was no doubt an embarrassment to Maisie, but the gnomes, goat, dachshund, and mule made of wire and tin made me laugh and reminded me of Dolly and her sense of humor.
I returned to the house, took the key Maisie had handed me, and left Dolly’s apartment. I climbed one flight of stairs. Olivia and Priss had decorated their front door with a wreath covered with artificial flowers that were azure as the summer sky and the rich yellow of butter. A little bench next to their door sported a needlepointed pillow in matching colors.
I continued up the stairs to the top floor. It wasn’t spooky, but lacked the warmth of Olivia and Priss’s door. I slid the key into the lock. When I turned it, a bolt groaned as though it didn’t get much use.
The hinges squealed when I swung the door open. The attic was dark as an underground basement.