At a quarter to noon, while downing a container of Greek yogurt and a glass of water, I touched base with my aunt. I asked her if she’d heard anything from the Placer County Sheriff’s forensic people about the ballistic match to my grandfather’s gun. She hadn’t. She would reach out to them after we ended the call. Then I asked her to do me a favor. Go to my cabin and inspect the four paintings done by my grandmother that were hanging on the walls. I couldn’t imagine my mother or grandmother having affixed a treasure to any of them, but it was worth a look. Maybe, as Brandt had suggested, one of my grandparents had a safe-deposit box that I wasn’t aware of and the number was written on a piece of paper taped to a piece of art. But if Brandt had stolen into my parents’ house on previous occasions, wouldn’t he have already checked that? Maybe not. Maybe he’d recently come up with the notion.
I noticed a text message from Detective Sergeant Quincy. Call me re: Brandt. Pulse elevated, I stabbed in the precinct number and was transferred to the detective.
“Menlo Park Police Department has located Brandt and has booked him on kidnapping charges,” he said. “You’re safe.”
For now, but I breathed easier. “Thank you. By the way, is Commander Joad still active? I’d like to follow up with him about Mr. Brandt’s alibi in my parents’ case.”
“Evers didn’t tell you? The commander is in a retirement facility, suffering from early-onset Alzheimer’s. Happened about three years ago. His memory isn’t reliable.”
Had Brandt been aware of the commander’s condition when he’d given me his alternate alibi last night? Had he known Joad wouldn’t have been able to refute it?
“About Detective Sergeant Evers,” I started. “Have you heard—”
“That he passed? Yes. It’s all over the precinct. His are big shoes to fill.”
I murmured that I was sorry and ended the call.
After lunch, I contacted Tammie and Ulyssa Thaller. Not only did I want to inspect the backside of the painting of Rosie and me, but I was ready to tag everything in the storage unit and divest of what I didn’t want. Tammie had offered to help. So had Ulyssa. I hoped doing something mindless yet orderly would help me sort through my thoughts.
Was I ruling out suspects too soon? Was I too trusting when I should be delving deeper? Was Antoine’s new man act purely that—an act? Kurt Brandt’s claim to be looking for a treasure had certainly made him look guilty. And he’d held a gun to my head. Would he hurt me—kill me—if I didn’t come up with the goods? And what about William Fisher? I needed to meet him in person. Just because he’d forbid me to come near him didn’t mean I had to obey. I texted Max and asked for help locating him.
She responded: You’re pretty bossy today.
I laughed and replied: Taking my cues from you.
• • •
An hour later, I opened the storage unit with the key I’d received the other day and pushed up the corrugated metal door. I switched on the light and stared, hands on hips, at the task ahead.
Tammie, who stood with Ulyssa behind me, said, “I know it looks daunting, but you can do it. We . . . can do it.” Cold breath billowed from her mouth.
Ulyssa agreed. I’d told her she didn’t need to join us—it was last-minute, after all—but she’d insisted. She handed me the checklist. “Ready when you are.”
Tammie had dressed casually for the occasion in stretch jeans, turtleneck, and pullover. In contrast, Ulyssa, in a blue suit, overcoat, and stiletto boots, looked as though she had come from a meeting with a powerful client.
“You can sit in that chair, if you want,” I said to Ulyssa, indicating one from the dining room set. “Take a load off.”
She took me up on the offer.
Prior to coming to the facility, I’d stopped by the office supply store and had purchased four rolls of stick-on tags: one each of red, blue, green, and yellow. I would put red on the things I wanted to keep, blue for items I thought Rosie might want, green on items to be sold, and yellow for all the things that should go to charities.
“First things first,” I said and crossed to the painting of Rosie and me. I examined the back. It had been professionally mounted. The hanging wire was medium-grade. The edges of the framing paper were sealed and plastic buttons attached to each corner. There was nothing else. No code or key taped to the paper. No handwritten notations. Nothing. It was a dead end.
“What are you looking for?” Tammie asked.
“A man—Brandt, I told you about him—thought my grandfather might have had a safe-deposit box and might have taped its whereabouts to another of my grandmother’s pieces of art. The man said my grandfather told him there was something of value in it.” I heaved a sigh. “It was wishful thinking.”
Tammie rested a hand on my shoulder. “We’ve gone through nearly everything. There’s nothing of real value here. Everything remaining is purely sentimental.”
“You’re right. Moving on.” I clapped my hands.
For an hour, I rummaged through the items, checking each on the list, with Tammie and Ulyssa weighing in occasionally. The living room furniture: sell. The bedroom furniture: sell. The dining set—my insides lurched as I pictured the photograph of my parents lying dead on the floor beside it—sell.
In the end, for myself I’d tagged the standing Tiffany lamp from my mother’s office, the mementoes from the hutch, two of my mother’s scarves—she’d had a penchant for colorful chiffon scarves—and a few needlepoint pillows. For Rosie, I’d set aside all items pertaining to her, like medals and ribbons, plus a blanket Blue Sky had woven, and my mother’s vanity. As a little girl, Rosie had loved sitting at the vanity and donning makeup and jewelry.
When I’d reviewed every item on the first two pages, I flipped to the third page and paused, my breath snagging in my chest. Bittersweet memories of my mother in the master bedroom, showing off an arty new necklace or ring to my father, washed over me.
“Are you okay?” Tammie asked.
“Remember Mom’s teensy silver jewelry boxes?” I formed little Os with my fingers. “We sold them in the first go-around.”
Tammie smiled sadly. “They weren’t even big enough for a pair of earrings.”
“Exactly.”
“And remember that horrible cachepot?” I asked.
“Ugh.” Tammie laughed. “You sold that, too.”
“Hey, you don’t recall seeing the silver walking elephant that the world-traveling client gave Mom, do you?” I motioned. “In the boxes?”
“It’s not on the list.”
Ulyssa said, “My assistant didn’t find a photograph of that, by the way.”
Tammie said, “Rosie might have—” She bit her lip. “I’m sorry. I blurted that out.”
“You’re probably right,” I acknowledged. “Over the years, my sister certainly took more than her due.”
My gaze landed on another line item. “Hold on.”
“What’s wrong?” Ulyssa asked.
“This says ninety-nine silver dollars.” I showed her the page.
“That’s what we sold.” Her lips turned up at the corners. “It always made me think of that old song, ‘99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall.’”
“Grandpa Gray had collected one hundred.”
“Add the one in the puzzle box,” Tammie said. “That makes one hundred.”
“Not including that one.”
A recollection of my grandfather and me counting the silver dollars in the living room of their house—when they had owned it, not my parents—coursed through me. He had been teaching me to sort by year. We were sitting on the carpet and he was making me turn each coin heads-up so I could see the date—1970 before 1971; 1960 after 1950. When Grandma Patrice found us, she got so angry with him. She snatched a silver dollar from the carpet and shook it in front of his face. Grandpa Gray had cowered. I stiffened as my grandmother’s words rang out in my mind: What are you doing, you fool? This is our insurance policy, she’d shouted and then pocketed the coin and stormed out of the room.
Was the coin the insurance policy my mother had been talking about when she’d hustled us out of the living room the day my father and Grandpa Gray had argued? Was a silver dollar the it my mother had sworn the killer would never get? Was the coin the treasure Kurt Brandt was seeking?
“Aspen, sweetheart,” Tammie said. “Yoo-hoo.”
I lifted my chin. Tammie and Ulyssa were staring at me, waiting. I explained my theory and went silent again, digging through my memories, trying to dredge up where my grandmother—or my mother—might have hidden the coin. Had my grandfather gotten his hands on it when my grandmother hadn’t been looking? Had he squandered it at a poker game?
Gazing at the sea of boxes and furniture, I said, “Maybe we missed it.”
For two solid hours, the three of us searched for the coin, browsing under, behind, and in everything.
We came up empty.