Antiques to Die For (28 page)

When Officer Brownley arrived about twenty minutes later, the first thing I noticed was her expression. She was visibly concerned.

“Did they catch up to the car?” I asked.

She shook her head. “They lost him.”

I nodded. “No surprise, I guess.”

“No. There are lots of turnoffs.” After a pause, she added, “You ready to fill me in?”

“Yeah. The bottom line is that I know who killed Rosalie—and I think I know how you can prove it.”

“I’m listening.”

“Give me a break, Charlie!” a man said, laughing as he sat at the next table.

“Never!” Charlie replied, joining in with a low rumbling “ha-ha-ha.”

“Not here,” I whispered.

“Where?” Officer Brownley asked.

“Heyer’s. Let’s go.”

“What’s at Heyer’s?”

“Proof.”

“You can ride with me,” she said, standing up, “and fill me in en route.”

I followed her outside, trying to think of how to explain, of what to say to clarify the morass of details and unrelated facts into a cohesive whole. As we approached her vehicle, I hesitated.

“I can drive myself,” I said.

“We could use the time to talk.”

I shook my head. “It’s too complicated. I’ll explain later—after we ask Gerry Fine a question.”

“What question?”

I shook my head again. “You’ll see. His answer will tell you most everything you need to know.”

She watched as I got situated behind the wheel, and I could tell from her expression that she was tempted to insist on answers, but had decided to let it ride. I smiled at her and nodded encouragingly. She didn’t smile back, but neither did she frown. She was withholding judgment, and I thought,
I won’t let you down.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

I

’m not walking in that door until you tell what you’ve got,” Officer Brownley said, pausing at Heyer’s entrance.

“Chief,” I said, lowering my voice as if someone might overhear us. “I’ve got Chief. And I’m pretty sure that I know where there’s evidence that will point to the killer.”

“Come on, Josie. Tell me what evidence.
Now.
”

I took a deep breath and started to fill her in. Before I got three sentences out, she stopped me and called for backup.

“You and I will go see Gerry,” she said, intense but not mad. “But after that, we wait for the backup. And you will do
exactly
as you’re told and
only
what you’re told. Got it?”

“Got it,” I concurred, grateful she was in charge.

“Josie!” Gerry called as we approached. “Come on in, doll. Officer, you too.”

We sat as instructed in chairs on the far side of his desk.

“So, what can I do ya for?” he asked.

“Well, I’ve got a kind of off-the-wall question.”

“My favorite kind. Let her rip.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong . . . do I remember you saying that Ned came from aristocracy?”

He roared with laughter, then slapped his desk. “Aristocracy?” he repeated as if the word was the punch line of a hysterically funny joke.

Officer Brownley and I waited for him to speak.

“Oh. God! Don’t look at me like that, you’ll set me off again. Every time I think of it, I can’t stop laughing. That was a joke, Josie. I josh him all the time about it. He’s got Injun in him, and he’s always bragging that he’s descended from an Indian chief. Indian chief, my ass. Ha! More like he’s descended from the guy who sold Manhattan for twenty-four bucks and a handful of beads.”

I nodded. “Thanks.” I stood up. “That’s it.”

“That’s all?” he asked, surprised.

“Yup. You know me. Get it done and I’m outta here.”

“You betcha, doll. You’re high class all the way.”

Officer Brownley and I returned to the front. Una looked at us curiously.

“How’s things?” she asked.

“Good, good. Listen, we’re waiting for some of Officer Brownley’s colleagues. We’ll be over there, okay?”

The phone rang, and she nodded as she picked up the receiver.

“What was that about? Aristocracy?” Officer Brownley demanded in a low voice as soon as we sat down in the far corner.

I took a deep breath and turned to her. “Ned is my secret admirer. I
know
it.”

“How?”

“It was the bell that got me thinking.”

“What bell?”

“That’s why I wanted you to come here,” I explained. “Ned has a cuckoo clock in his office.” I dialed my voice mail and handed her the phone. “Listen.”

“And from that you concluded Ned is the secret admirer?” she asked, handing me my phone, her tone indicating that she thought I was batty. “Don’t get me wrong. I hear the bell, too. But surely it’s not all that unusual. Lots of people have cuckoo clocks.”

“Not like this one they don’t.” I described the bear and how he strikes an old-fashioned triangle with a tiny metal rod.

“My idea is that you stand near his clock as it clangs and listen to the voice mail. You’ll hear what I’m talking about.”

“And this Ned guy is going to allow us to come in his office and stand by his clock?”

“I thought you could just do it as part of your investigation.”

“You thought wrong. You’d better have something else up your sleeve.”

“I do,” I said, swallowing dismay. “A couple of things. One is, I think he’s the man Rosalie called Chief.”

“How so?”

“Once I recognized the background noise as the clock, of course I thought of Ned because I’d just heard it in his office. It got me thinking about him. And I remembered two things—one, that Gerry had made that aristocracy crack, and two, that Ned had a bear tooth necklace hanging in his office suite.”

Officer Brownley frowned.

“You don’t know what that means, but I do, and I should have realized its significance sooner,” I confessed. “Back before guns, it was hard to kill a bear. Only the bravest warriors could do it. Ownership of the teeth proved the accomplishment. Think about it—are you going to put your hand anywhere near a bear’s mouth while it’s alive? I don’t think so.”

“So . . . ,” she said, her brow furrowed, “I don’t get it.”

“An Indian hunter who succeeded in killing the bear would typically string the teeth on a leather thong and present it to the leader of his tribe, the chief.” I shrugged. “Get it?
Chief!”

“Maybe he just bought that necklace.”

“Absolutely. It doesn’t matter whether it’s from his family or not, or even if it’s genuine or not. Just like it doesn’t matter if he
is,
in fact, descended from a chief or not. All that matters is that
he
considers himself connected to a chief. That’s why I wanted to ask Gerry that question in your presence, so you could hear the answer. Ned
says
he’s descended from a chief. From that fact alone, I think it’s reasonable to assume that he’d like to be called Chief as a pet name.” I shrugged. “I saw him the other day standing in a diner looking for all the world like Napoleon. He’s definitely the kind of man who’d like to be called Chief.”

“What else?” she asked, still dubious.

I leaned in toward her and spoke softly. “Last summer Ned and Rosalie were an item.”

“Why do you say that?”

“He and Paige knew each other.”

“And you know this . . . how?”

“She was with me today. They greeted one another.”

“So maybe they met at a Christmas party or something.”

“No. It was more than that. I didn’t think about it at the time, but it was a greeting of people who
knew
each other.”

“What else?”

“I showed Ned’s photo to the hostess at The Miller House.”

“Just now? You shouldn’t be interviewing witnesses!”

“I wouldn’t call it interviewing exactly. I’m helping!”

She didn’t argue the point, but from the look in her eye, I couldn’t delude myself that I’d convinced her.

“You brought me here to listen to Gerry’s answer to that question and to stand by Ned’s cuckoo clock. Do I have that right?”

I swallowed, aware of how lame it sounded. “Yes.”

“Is there anything else?”

“Yes. But I think you’re going to get mad at me.”

She half smiled. “Heck of a time to start worrying about that.”

I met her eyes and was reassured by their twinkle.

“I’m pretty sure that the murder weapon is in his office.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Another detail you decided to keep to yourself?”

“I just realized its significance today.”

“What is it?”

“Ned’s walking stick. It’s made of apple wood and it’s varnished, just like the splinters in Rosalie’s scalp.”

“How do you know about apple wood and varnish? That information hasn’t been released to the public.”

I stared at her, stricken. My foot was in my mouth. I couldn’t reveal my source, and I didn’t know what to say. Officer Brownley’s eyes stayed on my face and I felt myself begin to blush.
She’s going to think Ty told me,
I realized in a panic, and I couldn’t allow that. “A reporter told me in confidence. I don’t know who told him.”

“Who?”

“I can’t tell you.”

She took in a breath that went all the way to her kneecaps. “A leak in the department is serious, Josie.”

I didn’t reply. Anxiety was pulsating through my body and I felt sick.

“I need to make a call,” she said. “Wait here.”

She didn’t seem angry exactly, just shocked and surprised.

“You okay?” Una called.

“It’s been a long day.” I leaned back and closed my eyes to avoid having to field further questions. I wondered where Officer Brownley had gone.

Ten minutes later, she reappeared. “I called for an emergency search warrant, and the judge granted it,” she announced in an undertone. “It’ll be here soon. Until then the backup team is going to stay out of sight and you’re going to tell me everything you know. Don’t get me wrong, you’ve been helpful. But if evidence isn’t legally obtained . . . ,” she said, letting her voice trail off, “well, it’s worse than doing nothing at all.”

I nodded, dismayed that, unknowingly, I might have ruined the case. She turned to a new page in her notebook.

“What do you know about motive?” she asked.

“There’s a couple of things which, taken together, add up to what might be a powerful motive. Ned applied for Gerry’s job and didn’t get it. Plus, he was involved with Rosalie over the summer and lost her to Paul Greeley. That was bad—but then
they
broke up. He didn’t know that she left Paul
for
Gerry. He thought she was single again, and available. His arrogance isn’t an act, it’s entrenched.” I shrugged. “It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that he thought she broke up with Paul because she missed him.”

Officer Brownley looked unconvinced.

“I know it sounds a little over the top, but really, Ned might perceive a friendly chat as a come-hither invitation. I swear he’s a megalomaniac.”

“Have you observed that behavior yourself?”

“Absolutely. He’s so full of himself, it’s scary.”

“So then what did he do? Ask her out?”

“Maybe. My guess, though, is that he started the secret admirer thing as a cute joke, but before he could decide the time was right to come clean, he realized that she was involved with Gerry. Ned was in and out of Gerry’s office all the time, and, trust me, their affair was easy to spot. What started as a romantic ploy morphed into stalking.”

“Even so . . . ,” she said, shrugging. “It’s quite a leap from having a pass rebuffed to killing someone.”

“Maybe. But from his perspective, he’d lost both the girl
and
the job to Gerry.”

She wrote some notes. “Wouldn’t that make him mad at Gerry?”

“Sure, I guess. Judging by his relentless sniping, he is.”

Officer Brownley’s cell phone vibrated, and she answered it with a crisp “Brownley.” She listened for several seconds, then said, “Yeah . . . got it.” She turned to me. “The search warrant will be here in about fifteen minutes. When it arrives, you’re going to bring up the rear and let us serve the warrant. Okay?”

I nodded dutifully. “Sure.”

“The only reason you’re going to be there at all is that you know things we don’t, like the bear tooth necklace thing. You’re to answer questions if asked, identify objects as needed, and otherwise stay out of the way.” She looked at me and smiled again. “I don’t want you to get hurt and I don’t want something you do or say inadvertently to hurt the case.”

Before I could reply, her phone rang again. This call was even shorter.

“We got it,” she said to me, smiling broadly. “The copy of the journal.”

“Hot damn!” I said. “Fabulous! Where was it?”

“In Cooper’s storage unit. It was the only item in there, just the bound copy sitting on the floor. Pathetic, huh?”

How can a human being plot to steal a colleague’s work?
I wondered. “Completely pathetic,” I agreed.

“Back to Ned,” she asked softly. “What do you know about opportunity? How could Ned have arranged to get Rosalie out to the jetty?”

“I doubt it was prearranged. Gerry left The Miller House in his limo alone after having a drink with Rosalie. She went home. We know that because her car was there the next day, covered with snow. If anyone knows what happened to Rosalie after then, I haven’t heard it, but here’s a possibility. Ned could have followed her home and cornered her, begging for an opportunity to talk. I can imagine Rosalie thinking that since ignoring him hadn’t worked to get him to leave her alone, maybe talking to him would.” I shrugged. “At least it’s a possibility.”

She nodded and made a couple of notes.

“Here’s another thing to consider. Assuming that Edie’s lying about having been home all night, she no longer has any reason to keep up the front. Gerry isn’t in any danger of prosecution, so maybe she’ll come clean. I bet her car wasn’t in the driveway because she was, in fact, not home. I’m guessing she started out the night following Gerry, trying to catch him in the act of infidelity. Maybe she saw him escort Rosalie to her car and leave The Miller House in his limo alone and figured this would be a good time to talk to Rosalie, to have it out with her once and for all. I’ve thought all along that Edie must have known that Gerry’s been screwing around for years. My guess is that she’s been willing to put up with it because she didn’t want to lose her position in life as a CEO’s wife.” I shook my head and looked at Officer Brownley full on. “Do you see what I mean? It’s conceivable that Edie followed Rosalie hoping to have it out with her, but instead of orchestrating a confrontation, she witnessed a murder. If I’m right, I’ll bet Edie’s secretly glad that Rosalie is dead, and isn’t about to help you catch her killer.”

A self-important-looking man pushed into the reception area. Seeing us in the corner, he ignored Una and made a beeline in our direction. He was medium-sized and chunky, but nicely dressed. Officer Brownley stood up and greeted him as Harry.

“I’m due back in court,” the man said, “but I wanted to be certain you understood that the warrant covers Mr. Anderson’s office suite only. Don’t go rooting around the entire building.”

“Yes, sir,” she replied and accepted the blue-covered document he proffered.

He hurried off and Officer Brownley said, “Wait here.”

I watched her leave the building, then glanced at Una. Her interest was completely engaged. She looked at me, and asked, “What in the world’s going on?”

“I’ll fill you in after it’s over, okay?”

My phone rang. It was Ty.

“Hey, there,” he said. “I just spoke with Officer Brownley. You do what you’re told, okay?”

“I promise.”

“Call me later.”

My ribs hurt from my heart crashing into them and my feet felt leaden.
Later
, I told myself.
You can fall apart later. Once the killer is put away. For now, you need to stay strong
.