Death at the Door (23 page)

“Bea, there must be several dark-colored SUVs up here with gold lettering, but I'm sure it will help the detectives narrow it down.” Juanita poured herself another glass of ice tea.

Lark and the sheriff quickly finished their cake and thanked Bea and Juanita profusely for their information. After a quick discussion in front of Bea's house Lark and the sheriff went their separate ways. Skewski went to the police station to put his officers to work on finding out how many makes and models of SUVs were manufactured with gold lettering. Lark went back to the White Gull Inn.

June 3—White Gull Inn, Fish Creek, Wisconsin

Lark heard conversation as he approached Lacey's cottage. He knocked on the screen door and let himself in. Lacey waved at him and went back to her phone conversation. She read numbers from her credit card, wrote down a number in her new notebook, and hung up.

“I've been busy since you left.” She flew past him and got a diet Coke out of the refrigerator. “Russ and I have to be at the Green Bay airport at seven-thirty in the morning.”

“Does Joel know about this?” Lark asked.

“I just got off the phone with him.” Lacey opened the closet between the living room and bedroom and dragged out a suitcase.

“Let me help you with that,” Lark said as he took it away from her. “Where do you want this?”

She patted his arm. “Thanks. Just put it on the bed.” She went into the bathroom and he heard her packing toiletries.

He slung the suitcase down on the bed and zipped it open.

She came out of the bathroom with a cosmetics bag and dropped it in the suitcase.

Lark watched her survey the contents of her closet. “Does Gene know you're flying tomorrow?”

“He was the first person I called.” Lacey glanced over her shoulder at Lark. “He's fine with it. The main thing is to not wear myself out. I'm supposed to get plenty of rest. He called Joel and released me for work and travel, so that's all taken care of.”

She pulled a pink spaghetti-strap sundress out of her closet and held it up to herself in front of the mirror.

Lark gulped when he saw how low the front and the back were cut. “This is pathetic. I'm going to New Orleans in June with one sundress and a bunch of Wisconsin clothes.”

“You'll be so busy working that you probably won't have any free time to wear that sundress. Besides, you'll probably want to take your suits. You look so professional in them.” Lark willed her to put the sundress back in the closet.

She hung it in the garment section of the suitcase and went back to the closet and grabbed a pair of jeans and khakis. She pulled out two blouses and her navy jacket. They all went into the suitcase. She went to the dresser and grabbed two pairs of shorts and some T-shirts. She pulled open another drawer and pulled out a short, lacy, pink nightgown. On top of that went a pink, strapless bra with matching panties and a nude lace bra and panties. She bagged up her tennis shoes and a pair of cream-colored, high-heeled sandals before she packed them.

She tapped her lip with her finger as she surveyed her closet. “I'll wear my flats tomorrow, so I should be set.”

“I've forgotten how much women pack, even for an overnight trip,” Lark said as Lacey led the way out of the bedroom.

“A girl's got to be prepared. I never know what I'll get into. The investigation with you in Big Oak last winter is a prime example of that. I've got to get in bed so I don't wear myself out.”

Lark was out the door ten minutes later.

Lacey set her alarm and crawled into bed. She turned out the light and curled up under the covers. She was asleep five minutes after her head hit the pillow. She was headache- and drug-free for the first time since her attack on Friday evening.

Lark couldn't get the color pink out of his head. He drove to Ephraim thinking about Lacey's pink sundress, pink nightgown, and pink underwear—dammit
lingerie.
He went to bed angry with himself for not warning her about Russ. He told himself that she wasn't born yesterday and she'd figure him out. Or she wouldn't and he'd just have to deal with Russell.

June 4—Chicago, Illinois

Larsen's funeral was nothing outstanding as funerals go. His ex-wife and two children were there. From the way his ex cried, Joel decided that her feelings for Paul weren't completely resolved.

Joel met with her after the funeral and gave her copies of the letters from Minevra's safety-deposit box. Once she understood what was in them, she agreed to let Rose have a copy of them. She told Joel that Paul had never mentioned that he might be related to Rose or Daisy. She was sure that if he'd known, he would never have dated Daisy.

She had met with Rose the night before to tell her she did not want to sell the gatehouse. She had decided to keep it so Paul's children would have a link to where their father grew up. She was unopposed to the Gradoutes' turning their house into a bed-and-breakfast.

Joel met with Rose after the service and gave her copies of the letters. She called him on his cell phone before he left Chicago and asked to meet with him. She gave him instructions to just what he had expected: a large, old Victorian home in the Oak Park section of Chicago. She answered the door and showed him into a sitting room just inside the front door.

She offered Joel a cup of tea. When he declined, she poured a cup for herself. “I read these letters and I just cannot believe they're true.”

“What don't you believe?” Joel asked, watching her sip her tea.

“I cannot believe my grandfather would do something like this.”

“So you don't think the letters are real?”

Rose pulled one leg up underneath herself. “The letters are in my grandfather's handwriting. We have letters he wrote to my grandmother Hyacinth and the handwriting is the same.” She frowned at Joel. “He even used some of the same phrases in her letters.”

“What don't you believe?”

“I can't believe he didn't tell us.” Her face looked like a thundercloud. “Daisy and Paul dated for a while. What if they had gotten married and had children? Think what a disaster that would have been. I never heard a word about Minevra having a baby out of wedlock from my mother or my grandmother. You'd think they would have said something. And the part of Minevra's letter about the carnival glass. I thought she always knew where the glass was. She was just too vindictive to tell us.”

“It sounds like your grandfather didn't want her to reveal it.”

“That doesn't make any sense. The attic has been completely emptied in anticipation of starting construction for the bed-and-breakfast.” Rose refilled her teacup. “We didn't find any traces of an old barrel or any carnival glass.”

“Mrs. Gradoute, I don't mean to be rude, but what does this have to do with the robberies or Paul Larsen's death?”

“I don't know, but it seems like such a coincidence that this is all coming out after eighty years right at the time that Paul is killed and Daisy is injured. This all seems like it goes together, but I can't make sense of it. Can you?”

“If I could, I would have already closed this case.”

She sat her teacup down on the coffee table. “Who has had access to these letters?”

Joel ticked the names off on his fingers. “Sheriff Skewski found them in Minevra's bank box and read some of them. So have the three of us working on Paul's murder, Paul's ex-wife, and Ann Ranson. Including you, that's seven people.”

Rose took a deep breath and began rubbing her forehead. “Why did Ann Ranson read them?”

“My partner, Lacey Smith, was assaulted and Ann helped her do a summary of the letters. Ann's a very trustworthy person. I don't think you have to worry about her discussing your business with anyone.”

Rose shook her head. “I'm sure everyone involved is trustworthy, but with seven people knowing about this it's bound to get out.”

Joel looked at his watch and was surprised to see that it was one-thirty. He stood up. “Mrs. Gradoute, I don't know what else I can do for you. I'll ask everyone involved to keep your confidence. That's the best I can do. I'm sorry to leave you like this, but I have to drive back to Door County and get to work. Let me know if there is anything I can do for you.”

Rose saw him to the door and he was on his way back to Door County. As he drove, he wondered about the kind of woman who cared more about her reputation being harmed by something that happened decades years ago than about the death of a lifelong friend and the near death of her sister.

June 4—Ephraim, Wisconsin

Lark had gotten up in a foul mood. The weather did nothing to improve it. The sun was nowhere in sight and the sky was covered in low-hanging clouds that looked like gray cotton candy. The rain came down in a nonstop drizzle.

He spent the morning organizing his notes from the interviews he and Lacey had done on Sunday. He was pleased that there was some progress on the burglaries since there wasn't any on the Larsen murder case. Rassmussen and his wife had not returned home, and Joel and Skewski had decided to put out an APB to find him for more questioning. Attempts to find out more about Rassmussen had been fruitless. He had closed his accounting office when he retired and they had not been able to locate anyone who had worked for him. They had located a brother in Chicago, who had not seen Bazil or his wife in the last five years. The Rassmussens did not have any children, so that avenue was closed. Other than one arrest for assault resulting from a domestic dispute with his wife, Rassmussen had a clean record.

Once Lark's notes were organized, he drove to the sheriff's office in Sturgeon Bay and dropped off his last tapes so they could be transcribed. While he was there, he picked up an envelope of newly typed reports. Skewski invited him for lunch, but he declined knowing he was unfit company for himself, let alone someone else.

As he drove back to Ephraim, he thought about how nice it would be to sit down and work in his office in Big Oak. He was supposed to be back on the job that morning, but, at Joel's request, the Big Oak County commissioners had given him permission to stay in Door County and work the case for another week. He now wished he hadn't agreed to do it.

By the time he pulled into the Edgewater parking lot the rain had tapered off to a mist and his mood had improved. He walked up the stairs contemplating what he would do for lunch. He frowned when he saw the note on his door. He sighed and opened it wondering what someone needed him to do this time.

It was from Ann. She wanted him to stop by so she could pick his brain about Minevra's letters. She was offering a Wilson's Ice Cream Parlor sandwich of his choice as payment for his services. He walked to her suite and knocked.

She answered the door wearing a pair of sweats. Cherry-red reading glasses were perched on the end of her nose. Her hair was frizzed out around her head as if she hadn't combed it when she got out of bed. A mechanical pencil protruded from her hair just over her left ear. “Well, it's about damn time you got here. I'm about to go crazy.” She pointed her finger at him. “If you know what's good for you, you won't saw a word about my glasses or my hair.”

“Glad to see you too, Ann.”

She looked up at him, startled by his tone. Her face burst into a smile. “I'm sorry if I was rude to you. John went back to work on the Gradoute House this morning and I haven't been able to muster up the energy to get dressed yet. I guess I'm really going to relax this week after taking my first week of vacation to wind down. I thought I'd stay in until it quit raining and go over the information in Minevra's letters. I can't figure out this missing barrel of carnival glass.” She sat down at the bar and Lark sat on the barstool across from her. The countertop was a sea of papers. Copies of the letters from Joshua and Minevra mingled with handwritten pages ripped out of a yellow legal pad.

Lark picked up a chart she had drawn. “What's this?”

“It's a family tree, a pedigree chart. I had to draw one to keep all the women with the flower names straight. Just let me go through this and see if it makes any sense to you.”

“Be my guest.”

“Minevra writes in one of her letters that when she was a little girl, she saw her uncle and Thomas Lee shoving a barrel of glass up to the attic. She also writes that she never saw the men again so it must have been when Thomas Lee drowned.”

Lark nodded.

“That means the barrel was up in the attic in 1919.”

“Right.”

“Minevra and Joshua discussed the barrel in their letters between 1938 and 1941.”

“Right.”

“Rose Gradoute told us that her grandmother and great-grandmother nearly went crazy looking for the glass and they knew that Minevra saw it being taken to the attic. They must have been looking in the attic but they never found it.”

Lark nodded.

“So where the hell was it?” Ann slammed her hands down on the bar. “Everyone keeps saying it's been eighty years and it's probably long gone. I don't get it. If it was put up there when Thomas Lee was alive, then where was it after he died when the flower girls were going crazy looking for it? Minevra saw it go up there. Joshua talked about it in his letters twenty years later, and no one claims to have gotten it down from the attic. Where the hell is it?”

Lark leaned back in his chair. “That's a very good question.” He pointed his finger at her. “When we were interviewing Minevra, just before she got confused and we got thrown out, she said something about the glass. Let me see if that transcript is in the pile of stuff I picked up at the sheriff's office this morning.”

He went to his suite and came back with a large manila envelope. He pulled out a set of typed reports and leafed through them. “Here's her transcript.” He ran his finger down the pages. “Got it. She said, ‘All but a few pieces should still be there unless someone took them.' That's how she responded when I asked her if she knew who had removed the glass from the attic.”

Ann stared down at the pile of papers scattered all over the bar. “John has the attic down to the studs.”

“Could they have hauled the glass to the second floor instead of the attic?” Lark asked. “Minevra was only four years old. Maybe she misunderstood what they were doing.”

“I've wondered that too, but John's been all over the second floor and he says there's no place to secretly hide a barrel of glass. If he says it, I believe it. But I would think you could find a lot of places to hide stuff from two rich women who didn't do their own housework in a twenty-bedroom house.”

“Twenty bedrooms?” Lark's jaw fell open. “That place has twenty bedrooms? No wonder they want to turn it into a B-and-B. Two people in a twenty-bedroom house.” He shook his head. “Who could afford the heat? If they've got twenty bedrooms, I don't give a shit what happened to their glass.” He stood up. “Let's go eat.”

“I care what happened to the glass,” Ann said as they walked down the stairs.

“Why?”

“Because I want to see what was so special that her brother would make it just for her and hide it to keep it a surprise. I want to solve the mystery.”

“Good God,” Lark said, “I'm going to lunch with Nancy Drew.”