Don't Take Any Wooden Nickels (14 page)

The Collins house wasn’t hard to find. As I suspected, the address was along the highway, belonging to one of the driveways that curved off out of sight into dense, tall pines. I hadn’t called ahead but instead decided simply to show up. It was often easier to get information when the people you were questioning were taken off guard.

I drove up the driveway and rounded a curve that revealed the house. It was a huge, stunning mansion I had viewed often from the river in my canoe, but I hadn’t seen it from this side before. Built probably in the ’50s but designed to look as if it had been here for generations, it featured massive antebellum columns flanking a gorgeous mahogany double front door. The driveway circled in front of the house, so I pulled to the side and stopped there.

Resisting the urge to clank one of the giant knockers on the door, I instead pressed the doorbell and then listened as it echoed inside. It took a few moments, but eventually the door was swung
open by a good-looking man about my age, wearing a navy sweater and dark gray slacks.

“Hi,” he said breathlessly. He was handsome in a rich sort of way, with excellent posture and perfect white teeth.

“Hi,” I replied. “Is this the Collins residence—”

“Yes, I’m Kirby Collins. Come in, hurry up.”

Startled, I stepped inside. He quickly pushed the door shut behind me.

“Follow me!” he said, and then he took off toward the left, disappearing through a doorway.

I paused, looking around at the massive entranceway. A marble staircase ascended in front of me, curving up past two stories of windows that looked out on a lovely courtyard. The place was striking, but my reception had been so odd, I wasn’t sure what to do next.

“This way,” the man called to me from the other room. “Come on in here.”

Feeling rather like Alice in the rabbit hole, I followed the sound of his voice through a living room and into a formal dining room. Both were decorated beautifully—though a bit ornately for my taste—with antique furniture, expensive fabrics, and a dining table that looked as if it seated at least 20. Sitting at one end of the dining table was an older woman, probably in her 80s, dressed in an elegant silk gown. She seemed to be having a tea party—though without the cups or the teapot. Delicately, she pantomimed pouring, adding sugar, and stirring in the thin air in front of her. I tried to catch her eye, but she was somewhere else, busily serving make-believe tea to nonexistent guests.

“We’re almost done,” Kirby Collins said, and he seemed to be talking both to me and to another gentleman who stood at the far end of the room, spread-eagle against the wall. In the man’s hands were two framed paintings, and he was holding a third painting against the wall by pressing against it with his face. Crouching on the floor next to him was a middle-aged woman, thick and sturdy
in a nurse’s white uniform, sweeping up what looked like broken glass.

“Okay, Bucky, a little to the left,” Kirby said, and the older gentleman holding the paintings groaned as he slid all three paintings and his entire body a few inches to the left.

“Can I help?” I asked.

“Sure, if you don’t mind.”

Stepping gingerly to avoid the glass, I crossed to the wall and took one of the paintings from the man’s hand. He used that free hand to grab the painting held in place by his face, exhaling gratefully.

“Super. Now put the middle one up about six inches,” Kirby said. “Now the two sides down another three inches. Great. Ma’am, bring yours up just an inch.”

We continued to do as he directed until, finally, he told us to freeze. Then he ran forward with a pencil, made some tiny marks on the wall above each of the pictures, and then said we could take them down.

“I think I’ve gotten all the big pieces,” the nurse said, dumping the contents of the dustpan into a wastebasket. “I’ll call Maria in to vacuum.”

“Fine,” said Kirby.

“And again,” the nurse said, “I’m so sorry. All I did was go to my room for just a few minutes—”

“It’s okay, Carol,” said Kirby. “It happens. She didn’t get hurt. That’s all that matters.”

Looking red-faced and exhausted, the nurse walked to the woman at the dining table and put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. The older man straightened his ruffled clothes, smoothed his hair, and then turned to me and nodded formally.

“I apologize for all of this confusion,” he said in a dignified voice. “I’m the Collins’ butler. May I help you?”

He was so dignified, I felt an urge to laugh. But he seemed sincere, so I only smiled.

“I’m Callie Webber. It’s nice to meet you.”

I held out a hand and he shook it, introducing himself as Reginald Buchman. Then he introduced the others, explaining that the lady making “tea” was Eleanor Collins, Kirby’s grandmother. The nurse was Carol Knight, Eleanor’s daytime attendant.

“I’m afraid we had a little incident here,” Mr. Buchman said softly. “Mrs. Collins thought it was time to redecorate the dining room, and she broke a picture.”

“Hey, it gives me a chance to rearrange things,” Kirby said cheerfully. “I never particularly liked the way we had those pictures anyway.”

As we talked, Eleanor seemed to shift gears. Suddenly, she stood and started walking out of the room.

“Are you finished with your tea party?” the nurse asked loudly.

“Oh, yes,” Eleanor replied as she shuffled away. “The cucumber sandwiches were especially nice.”

They left the room, and Mr. Buchman seemed to visibly relax.

“Again, I’m sorry for the confusion,” he said. “How can we help you today?”

I took a deep breath, wondering if this was a bad time or if things were always like this around here. I thought about offering to come back when it was a little more convenient, but then I remembered Shayna, cooling her heels with the police, and I decided to blunder on ahead.

“I’m with Advancing Attire, in Osprey Cove,” I said. “I needed to speak with someone regarding some clothes that were donated to our organization. I just have a few questions.”

“I’m the one you want,” Kirby said, slipping a nail through a picture hanger and tapping it into the wall. “Give me one minute.”

I waited as he hung the final picture, and I had to admit the arrangement was unusual but very nice. He obviously had a good eye—not to mention a great attitude and a very cooperative butler!

“Okay,” Kirby said, handing the hammer to Mr. Buchman and taking my elbow. “Now that that’s all done, let’s start over. I didn’t
mean to be rude. I was just afraid Bucky was going to pull a muscle or something.”

I smiled. Kirby Collins was charming and cute, with one definite dimple in his right cheek when he smiled.

“Come on into my office,” he said, leading me back to the entranceway and then through to the other side.

“Is your grandmother all right?”

“She suffers from dementia,” he said, shrugging. “We have these little adventures once in a while.”

We went from the stark but grand entrance hall into an equally grand but much more welcoming room. The walls were lined with books, and a grouping of plush chairs and couches was centered on a deep oriental carpet. There was a lovely fireplace along one wall, with a fire roaring inside, crackling and warm.

“You’ll have to excuse the mess,” Kirby said, pointing to an antique rolltop desk near the window. Papers were spread out across the desktop. “I was just doing some bookkeeping.”

“Not one of my favorite tasks,” I replied.

“Mine either,” he said. “The amount of paperwork that’s required simply to run a household always boggles my mind.”

“I can imagine,” I said, thinking that with a house this large, the bills would be never-ending.

“Excuse me,” Mr. Buchman interrupted from the doorway. “Now that I’ve finished my morning calisthenics, shall I bring some refreshment?”

“I could use a cup of coffee,” Kirby said. “How about you, Miss Webber? Coffee? Soda? Something a little stronger?”

“Tea would be nice,” I said, smiling. “No sugar. And, please, call me Callie.”

“If you call me Kirby,” he replied. “One coffee and one tea then, Bucky.”

The man gave a slight bow and left the room.

“He likes to gripe,” Kirby whispered, “but he knows it’s my antics that keep him young.”

I just smiled again, thinking the fellow was probably a little too old to be spread-eagle against a wall.

“Hey, you know, you sure look familiar to me,” Kirby said. “Have we met before?”

I studied his chiseled jaw, his broad shoulders. He wasn’t the type of man who usually caught my eye, but something about him was very engaging.
No,
I thought,
if we’d met, I certainly would’ve remembered it!

“I don’t think so.”

“It’s like I’ve seen you from a distance. That’s the image I keep getting anyway.”

“I’ve done some lecturing for Advancing Attire,” I said. “Maybe you were out in the audience.”

He shook his head.

“Nah, that was my mother’s thing, not mine.”

“No telling, then,” I said. “It could’ve been almost anywhere. This is such a small area, we’ve probably crossed paths in one way or another.”

“Maybe.”

“In any event,” I said, “I need to ask about some of the clothing that was donated to our organization by your mother. We—”

“No, wait,” he said. “It’s been such a crazy morning. I don’t want to talk business just yet. Let’s have a conversation, something light. We can get down to business when the drinks gets here.”

“Okay,” I replied warily. I was in no mood for idle chatter, but if it eventually got me the information I needed, I was willing to play along.

“So where do you live?” he asked amiably, settling into the sofa. “You said you’re from the area?”

We chatted for a while, and I eventually found myself relaxing a bit. Though small talk wasn’t usually my strong suit, I was enjoying my conversation with Kirby Collins. He knew the family that had originally owned my little cottage, and he shared some stories about the former caretaker and his penchant for collecting driftwood that resembled famous people.

“He had one piece,” Kirby said, “that I swear looked just like David Letterman. Believe it or not, he even got on Letterman’s show. It was great. I was just a kid then, but I thought that was so cool. I spent months trying to start my own collection, but the best I could do was a clam shell that vaguely resembled Angela Lansbury.”

I smiled, saying that
Murder, She Wrote
had been one of my favorite TV shows when I was growing up.

“Oh yeah? My mother loved that one, but I didn’t buy it. Too many deaths in one small, coastal town if you ask me. I mean, really, who gets murdered in a quiet, peaceful area like this one?”

He held up both hands, palms upward, oblivious to the irony of his words.

“Then again,” he continued, “there’s more than one kind of killing at the coast. Just last week I murdered a piece of high tech equipment, totally destroyed it.” He went on to tell a long, funny story about how he had gone out on a friend’s yacht eager to try out the guy’s expensive new fish finder. Unfortunately, Kirby said, he had put the wrong end of the device under the water and ended up shorting out its entire electrical system.

When he finished his tale, we shared a smile, our gaze holding just a bit too long.

Mr. Buchman showed up with our refreshments at that moment, and I sat back, wondering at what was going on here. Was Kirby flirting with me? More disturbing than that, was I flirting back? As the butler carefully set down the cups and a tray of small sandwiches, I used the moment to compose myself. This wasn’t me, not at all. Maybe I was just so tired from last night’s lack of sleep that I was punchy.

“So what kind of boat do you have anyway?” Kirby asked, a twinkle in his eye, as soon as Mr. Buchman had left the room. “I love getting out on the water.”

“Oh, just a canoe,” I replied, looking away, wondering whether he was being conversational or if this was a genuine hint for an
invitation. “But come on, a deal’s a deal. Let’s get down to business.”

Good as his word, Kirby listened attentively as I explained why I was there. His mother had donated a blazer, I said, and in an inner pocket was a small wooden nickel. I described it for him: the Indian head, the slogan, the website about buried treasure. He listened, nodding, but recognition did not seem to cross his features.

“I need to learn more about this nickel,” I said. “It’s kind of a long story, but it would be very helpful if you could tell me what it is or where it came from.”

“I don’t understand,” he said. “Why don’t you show me the nickel, and we can go from there.”

“Well, that’s the problem. I don’t have it.”

“You don’t have it?”

I exhaled slowly, wishing I could’ve found a way to avoid this part. Verlene would kill me if she knew I was here, bothering this man with the travails of one of our more indigent clientele.

“It sort of fell into the wrong hands,” I said. “Now a young woman is in jail, and I’m afraid it has something to do with this nickel.”

“You’ve lost me,” he said. “Did she steal it from you or something?”

“No, but her boyfriend took it and did something with it. Like I said, it’s a long story. Do you have any idea what it was, or why it was in your mother’s pocket? Did she collect wooden nickels? Did she use the Internet, or maybe have an interest in buried treasure?”

Kirby put down his coffee and then stood, the expression on his face suddenly far away. I remembered his mother had died recently, and I felt guilty for being here now, adding to his grief.

“No, no, and no,” he said thoughtfully. “I have a few wooden nickels I collected when I was a boy, but the collection wasn’t worth anything. I just thought they were neat.”

“Do you still have the collection? Could I see it?”

“Sure,” he said. “If I can find it.”

He excused himself and left the room. I finished my tea and headed over to the window. Kirby had alluded to doing household paperwork, and indeed the desk there was covered with spread sheets and bills and a large notebook-style checkbook. But also peeking out from under some of the papers was something that looked like a small circuit board and a tiny pair of needlenose pliers.