Breaking Ground (23 page)

“You need to wait for the crime guys, and I'm not making any guarantees about when they'll arrive. Any chance you could find another spot for tonight?”

“I'm sure Dalton would rent me a room at the Black Crow Inn.”

“Good idea. Let me know later where you'll be in case I need to reach you.”

Later, sitting in her office in bright sunshine with the world awaking around her, Julie realized she needed to call Rich. So why was she dreading it? She did want to hear his voice, but he'd want a full description of what had happened. She didn't want to relive it and was afraid she'd get upset if she did. That would frighten
Rich, frighten him enough that he would propose she leave Ryland at once to join him in Orono, or his coming immediately to Ryland. In a way, she would have welcomed either suggestion, but she also knew she wouldn't accept either.

“You can't stay there, Julie!” Rich practically yelled when she finished her brief description of the break in. “This is getting serious.”

“I know, I know. I was thinking of calling Dalton to see if I can stay at his inn tonight.”

“Call him right away.”

“I will, but it's only for tonight, Rich, just till I get the lock fixed.”

“No, you have to live somewhere else until this is settled.”

“Settled?”

“The break-in, at least, maybe the murder, too. You're right in someone's cross-hairs. If I could just figure out a way to cover things here, I'd …”

“Don't. You don't need to trail all over the state to take care of me. You have a job in Orono. I live here.”

Rich was silent for several seconds, and Julie was about to repeat her point when he said, “Okay, but call Dalton right away.”

“I will.”

“How do you feel?”

“I'm fine now, really. It was scary, but Mike got there so fast.”

“But having someone in your house, Julie, that's …”

“A violation,” she completed his sentence. “Funny, I've heard people say that's how they feel when they've been robbed—
violated
. I guess I didn't really understand it, but it's right; I feel dirty and used, knowing someone was in my kitchen, looking through my folder, standing at the counter the way you and I do.

“Still,” she continued, “I don't feel as if I'm in, how did you say it? Someone's crosshairs? I think whoever broke in was looking for
the copy of the letter, and when he found it he was probably happy to get out without having to confront me.

“I wish I could get there. I'll see if I can get someone to cover my class and maybe I can—”

“No! What if something like this had happened when I lived in Delaware? You couldn't have come down. Just because we're in the same state doesn't mean you have to come be my protector. I'm going to call Dalton, and I'm sure that will work for tonight, and then we'll see. Maybe everything will be cleared up by tomorrow.”

“You believe that?”

“Not necessarily, but I also don't
not
believe it. We'll just have to see. So I'll call Dalton right now.”

“Okay, but call me back. And keep calling—if I'm in class, leave messages. Just stay in touch. Then we'll figure out something.”

“I will, I promise! Okay?”

“Okay. I guess that's all we can do for now—if you're going to be so stubborn. But be careful. I love you, Julie.”

“Love you, too. Bye!” She hung up before Rich could say anything else. She heard Mike in the outer office and she wanted to find out what he had heard from Tabby.

The police chief was talking to Mrs. Detweiller. Tabby was nowhere to be seen.

“I gave Tabby a lift,” Mike said to Julie. “She went upstairs. You got a minute?” Julie gestured to her office and shut the door after she followed him in. Then she remembered she hadn't even spoken to her secretary. She apologized to Mike and went back to the outer office. “Didn't mean to be rude, Mrs. Detweiller. I know the chief needs to talk to me. How are you this morning?”

“Fine, Dr. Williamson.”

“Great. If Rich calls, you can put him right through.”

Mrs. Detweiller paused and then nodded in the patronizing way she used with her employer, her nod implying that if that's
really
what Dr. Williamson wanted, it wasn't up to her to disagree. No matter how wrong Dr. Williamson might be.

“Pretty interesting conversation,” Mike began when Julie rejoined him in her office.

“I wish I could have been there.”

“I'm sure you do, but I'm only updating you because of your break-in. First,” he said as he opened his leather folder and looked at his notes, “Tabby confirms that Luke Dyer was in the library Wednesday—yesterday. She told him about the new Swanson papers. Said he seemed excited and spent an hour or more looking through the boxes. Can't say what he actually saw, or didn't see.”

“Or whether he took one,” Julie interrupted.

“Right. I didn't exactly ask her that, but I sort of worked around the point enough to get that sense.”

“But then Luke wasn't likely to say, ‘Oh thank you, Miss Preston, this is exactly what I was looking for; I'll just take it home with me.'”

“Well, no, of course not.”

“But it's missing. We know that.”

“Right again. Now do you want me to continue, or have you heard enough?”

Mike's tone got Julie's attention. “Sorry. I'll be quiet.”

His I'll-believe-that-when-I-see-it laugh eased the brief moment of tension between them. “Okay, then about Frank Nilsson.” Mike consulted his notebook again. “Seems Frank also paid a visit to the library yesterday, earlier than Luke, before lunch. Said he wanted to talk to Tabby about how the historical society preserves papers because his wife was thinking of donating some things from her family.”

“That's right. The Nilssons mentioned that to me.”

“So anyway,” Mike resumed after clearing his throat, “Frank asked some questions about how papers are handled now and how that will change when the new center is built. Tabby said she showed him the vault to assure him that anything his wife planned to give would be well protected even before the new storage area is ready.”

“Of course the humidity will be controlled in the new area,” Julie couldn't help interjecting.

“Tabby told him that. Anyway, Nilsson looked around the vault, and Tabby pointed out the Swanson papers and told him they had just been given by Steven and explained about how they would be cataloged.”

“Did he want to see them?”

“Why am I not surprised you asked? It really is a shame you couldn't conduct the interview with Tabby yourself.”

“I'm sorry! I
promise
I'll shut up so you can finish.”

“To answer your question, yes, he did look at them. Tabby said she thought it was okay for him to go through a couple of the boxes so he'd have an idea of the kind of papers the society
collects. He brought two boxes out to the table and Tabby said he spent twenty or thirty minutes looking through them. Then he returned them to the vault and told Tabby he was happy with how things are done here and would talk to his wife again about getting the Oakes family papers. And that's it.”

“So I can ask a question now?”

“Just for a change?”

Julie laughed and continued: “Tabby of course can't be sure Frank didn't take the letter?”

“Again, I didn't ask her quite that bluntly, but I satisfied myself that she wasn't aware that he did.”

“Of course not,” Julie said. “So what do you think?”

“That both Dyer and Nilsson had the opportunity yesterday to take the letter.”

“Exactly. But there's another point, isn't there? Did either one know I made a copy?”

“Ah, I figured you'd get to that. Yes, she did mention the copy to both of them. I had to be real careful in asking her that, but I played dumb about your having the copy—in fact, I didn't mention the break-in either. Figured that's best. Anyway, apparently they both asked about copies—Dyer because he wanted to make some himself, Nilsson in his general way of asking about how papers are treated—you know, something like, ‘And could we make copies of my wife's papers once we gave them?' So she told both of them that she'd just recently copied one of the letters in the new Swanson materials.”

“For me?”

“Yes.”

“Did she tell them which one?”

“What she said was that it was a 1997 letter. I gather she was trying to assure them that it wasn't old, fragile, whatever.”

“There you are.”

“Where?”

“With proof that both Luke and Frank could have seen the letter from Dan Swanson, could have taken the letter, and could have known I had a copy. Giving the date, 1997, would have been enough to identify the letter, don't you think?”

“Yes.”

They were silent. Mike glanced at the page in front of him and then closed the leather notebook. Julie looked out the window toward the Common. She was the first to speak.

“But wait a second, Mike. If Frank came in before Luke and took the letter, then Luke couldn't have seen it.”

“That's true.” The policeman flipped back through his notes. “Here. Tabby said Luke seemed excited about the new stuff and looked through it. I guess that doesn't prove anything; he could have been excited about that particular letter, or just about more Swanson stuff.”

“So either one could have taken it.”

“I guess we're back to that.”

“So what's next?”

“Think I better have a talk with Frank and Luke.”

“To check their alibis for last night?”

“Police business, Julie.” He stood and left.

Although she really wanted to tell Dalton everything—about the break-in, about Mike's interview with Tabby Preston, about her suspicions of Nilsson and Dyer—she didn't want to do it on the phone. She wanted to sit down with him at the inn and have a long talk and use Dalton's intelligence and knowledge of the people to figure out what was happening. But first she had to arrange to stay at his inn. Telling him there was a long story behind the short story, she merely said she wanted to stay at the Black Crow for the night.

“Not a problem,” Dalton told her. “We're empty. The holiday weekend was wild, but I don't have a single booking for tonight, so please, be our guest, on the house. If you paid, I'd have to treat you like a guest. Nickie will be here, so let's all have dinner. Seven okay for you?”

So that was done. Julie phoned Rich to tell him where she'd be, and then called and left a message for Mike to let him know, too. She'd have to stop by Harding House to get some things for the night, and then she'd have to arrange for someone to come change the lock, assuming the State Police crime scene crew had finished. Which, she decided, was worth checking on right now. She walked the few minutes to the house.

A white van with large black lettering announcing itself as the
MOBILE CRIME UNIT
was parked in front of the house. A young woman and an older man, both dressed in civilian clothes, were working on the door. She identified herself and talked with them long enough to be sure it was going to be appropriate to have a locksmith come that afternoon. “We're out of here in fifteen minutes,” the man told her. “So go ahead and get someone. And get
a dead bolt. Every door should have one. Wouldn't have had this problem if you'd had a dead bolt.”

Julie decided the presence of the two officers made this a good time to pack a bag. They were gathering up their equipment when she returned to the kitchen with it.

“You could call Holdsworth's—you know, the hardware store here in Ryland. They do locks,” the woman said.

When she got to the office and made the call to Holdsworth's, the young man who answered said he'd send someone out by two that afternoon. There were lots of advantages to a small town, Julie told herself after she finished the order by stipulating a dead bolt.

“Always the best idea, ma'am,” he said. “It's the kitchen door of Worth Harding's place?”

“Right.” She was about to give the address when she realized that if he knew the house as Worth's he certainly knew where it was.

“We'll take care of it. Will someone be there?”

“I can be.”

“Don't have to. We can lock up and you can swing by the store to pick up the key.”

Another advantage of Ryland, Julie told herself, feeling good about it and realizing how she was settling in.

“Dr. Williamson,” Mrs. Detweiller said from the open door. “Mrs. Nilsson's on the line.”

Mrs
. Nilsson, Julie repeated to herself; not Frank but his wife. What could Patty want? Her husband was much in Julie's mind, but she doubted the wife was calling to talk about his possible guilt in either murder or breaking in to Julie's house.

“Hello, Mrs. Nilsson. I was happy to meet you Monday, despite the circumstances.”

“That's certainly true, and please call me Patty. Everyone does,” she added pleasantly. “You probably wonder why I'm calling out of
the blue like this, but the other day Frank mentioned those family papers of mine—the Oakes papers?”

“Oh, yes, I remember very well.”

“Well, I think our conversation shamed Frank into bringing them home—and shamed me into finally taking a look at them. That's why I'm calling, but if this is a bad time I can call later.”

“Not at all. I'm very interested in your family's papers,” Julie replied.

“Anyway, talking to you the other day finally got us going, and Frank got the papers out of the storage unit. I've been going through them, and I thought that if you'd really like them for the Ryland Historical Society, I could arrange to bring them in. The trouble is there's lots of junk—well, it seems like junk to me, and I'm not sure what to do. I don't want to load you up with old newspapers and things you probably have already.”