From the Queen (2 page)

Rain swept at an oblique angle beneath the protective ceiling, spattering the boardwalk. Annie passed three closed shops, their owners choosing the February doldrums to close down and sip Margaritas in the Bahamas. A small light gleamed in the window of Ellen's Keepsakes. The display behind the plate glass was eclectic, eccentric: a rusted waffle iron that was new in the 1930s, a plaid raincoat with a sagging hem draped over a wicker chair, a battered small leather trunk with scuffed sides, a stack of Willow pattern plates, postcards with one-cent stamps, rhinestone-studded black satin heels, an accordion missing several keys, a cane fashioned from driftwood, a handpainted plaster statuette of the Virgin Mary.

Annie pushed open the door. Ellen's shop was partway up the boardwalk in a much smaller space than Death on Demand. A narrow passageway between Ellen's Keepsakes and a men's clothing store, Dandy Jim's, led to the alley that ran behind the stores.

Annie was already calculating whether it would be quicker when she left the shop to dart down the passageway and slosh through the alley, which always puddled in heavy rains, to reach the parking lot or to retrace her steps on the protected boardwalk. Her car was actually nearer the end of the alley than the end of the boardwalk, but she would avoid a drenching on the boardwalk.

She stepped inside, felt colder than on the boardwalk. “Ellen?”

Small tables jammed the shop, leaving a narrow passage to a counter. She passed tables overflowing with what Ellen fondly called collectibles. Annie recognized them for what they were, small, worn remnants of nameless lives. Jumbled willy nilly on every surface were costume jewelry, old clothing, picture frames, dishes, cooking utensils, assorted art ranging from a unicorn fashioned out of gum wrappers to a tray-sized mosaic of the leaning tower of Pisa, vinyl records, WWII dog tags, yellowed post cards with three-cent stamps, a stack of blue enamel basins, a washboard, feathered hats, even an assortment of swizzle sticks.

A thin gauzy curtain separated the shop from the storeroom. The cloth parted and Ellen hurried to a counter with some prized collectibles at one end and a rectangular gray metal cash box and ledger at the other. Ellen didn't have a cash register or a reader for credit cards. She wrote down each sale in the ledger, provided a handwritten receipt to the purchaser.

In the center of the counter lay a pink quilted rectangle. The initials M and K were on the top.

Ellen saw her glance. She sounded a little defensive. “I put the book back in its quilted cover. It's still in the plastic wrap you gave me, but I thought it was nice to keep it in her cover. I think Millicent must have made the cover. Her name was Millicent Kennedy.”

Ellen's face was open and vulnerable as she continued to prattle. Passing thoughts popped out without thought or planning. She put the book in its quilted wrap and recalled dim memories of a long-ago meeting with the woman who skillfully created safe harbor for her most valued possession. “I was just a little kid … Mum took me with her … a tea shop … we met Millicent …” She smiled, her voice soft. “… Mum was so pleased …” Then the smile fled. She gently touched the M. “Don't you suppose,” she searched for words, “she probably knew the book could bring some money but she kept it because the Queen gave it to her?” Pink tinged her cheeks. “I don't know why the Queen would but maybe it was a memento when Millicent was going to leave to marry an American. Anyway, I know I'm guessing, but the Queen gave her the book and Millicent never parted with it, not even when she was old and poor and had only a little box full of belongings. Just think, the Queen held that book in her hands.”

There was awe in Ellen's high voice.

Annie understood that breathless awe. It was the same feeling she had when she looked at old black-and-white photographs. A young woman in a long-sleeved blouse and long skirt stood on a bluff, face shaded as she gazed out to sea. Perhaps she'd been seventeen or eighteen, the photo made in 1914. That moment in time was forever captured. That moment had been real. She had lived and breathed and cared and now she had long been dust. But for that moment she was here again.

The book held that same magic, a book touched by the Queen, a book touched by a writer with auburn hair and blue eyes who in 1925 was still in love with Archie and whose amazing life had yet to unfold.

Ellen's brows drew down. She asked, the words uneven, “Do you think she minds if I sell it?”

Annie felt an odd shiver. It was as if another woman stood near, worn and stooped but clinging to remembered glory.

The money from the book would transform Ellen's life, push away fears of poverty, save her eyesight, give her freedom to be generous to her niece. But Ellen worried that a long-ago war bride might grieve if her greatest treasure were auctioned off to the highest bidder.

Annie searched for words. “I don't know what heaven is like. No one knows. But,” she traced her index finger on the knitted M, “she's there now. I believe she's caught up in magnificence and there's no malice or uncharitableness. She will be happy for you.”

Ellen's faded blue eyes looked misty. “Thank you, Annie.” She cleared her throat. “You are terribly kind to help me.”

Annie held out the folder. “It was fun for me to gather this up.”

Ellen took the folder, held it against her chest. Her gentle face glowed with happiness.

What a difference a day made, although it was still February chilly. Annie was grateful for a thick navy turtleneck, gray wool slacks, and a quilted jacket, but she stopped at the marina to admire a newly arrived white yacht gleaming in the sunlight. She shaded her eyes as she read the name on the hull:
Hot Mama
. She wondered if the yacht belonged to a wealthy woman on the prowl or signified a male owner's fondest dream. Or best memory.

She was still smiling as she turned on the main lights in Death on Demand and greeted Agatha. “I'm sorry I'm late, sweetie. The breakfast chef is in California.” Annie hurried down the central aisle. When Agatha was contentedly munching, Annie turned on the coffee maker. Today she really must unpack that latest shipment …

“Annie.” The high shrill cry pierced the amiable early morning quiet. Rapid footsteps clattered. Ellen Gallagher, tears streaming down her face, mouth working, stumbled toward her. “Somebody took my book. I came to the shop this morning and when I went inside, the cover was lying on my counter and it was empty. I've looked everywhere but my book is gone. It's gone, gone, gone …”

Officer Hyla Harrison, crisp in her khaki uniform and a belted jacket that read POLICE on the back, stood on the boardwalk and studied the window in the narrow passageway to the alley. The frame was warped, the sash pushed up. She knelt, poked her head inside, then withdrew from the opening and stood. She looked at Ellen Gallagher. “There's no evidence of forced entry but it appears someone pushed aside a table to be able to climb inside. Is this window kept locked?”

Ellen Gallagher shivered in a thin cotton blouse and black wool skirt. She swallowed convulsively. “It wouldn't lock. I couldn't make it lock.”

Annie stared at the partially open window. It couldn't have been easier. Last night when the marina and shops were deserted, someone slipped along the boardwalk. “Hyla, how about the surveillance cameras?”

Hyla's cool green eyes scanned the passageway. She jerked a thumb. “The way they're mounted, at either end, it isn't likely they show this window. I'll see what they show. And I'll check for fingerprints, but perps who plan a crime don't usually leave any.”

Annie doubted the thief was barehanded. It had been a good night for gloves. She was quite sure gloved hands patiently jerked and pushed and pulled until the old window was raised high enough to permit entry.

“For now,” Hyla's voice was as expressionless as always, “let's go inside and Ms. Gallagher can tell me about the missing property.”

It was cold inside the shop, but the window wouldn't be pulled down until Hyla dusted for fingerprints that weren't there. The three of them stood at the counter. As Ellen, wretched and drained, spoke in a dull monotone, Annie looked around the shop. She spotted a tartan plaid shawl in a pile of clothing. She hurried to the stack, picked up the shawl, shook it, then returned and draped the thick wool around Ellen's slumped shoulders.

Hyla listened, making an occasional note as Ellen described the letter from the nursing home and her mum's old friend and how she'd send the money though it was such a lot and when the box came how she'd thought perhaps, Agatha Christie and all, that the book might be worth a little money, and taken it to Annie.

Annie remembered too well. Ellen's blue eyes had been young and excited and now they were stricken and defeated.

Hyla looked at the counter. “So the book was in the pink quilted thing when you left last night. Where did you put it?”

Ellen, moving woodenly, stepped behind the counter, pointed below the rim. “I put it right down there on the shelf. That's where I put my ledger and cashbox every night.”

Hyla's thin face remained expressionless.

Annie guessed at her swift thoughts, a book worth anywhere from a hundred to a hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars left on a shelf in a shop with no burglar alarm, no surveillance cameras, no security. Sure, the department patrolled during the night, showing up at unexpected times, flashing Maglites here and there. Petty crime was not much of a problem on a sea island accessible only by ferry. Crime happened, the occasional burglary in rural areas, stolen hubcaps and cell phones when the island teemed with vacationers in the summer, but burglaries on the boardwalk shops were rare.

Hyla tapped her pen on her notebook. “Who knew the book was here?”

Ellen lifted a shaky hand, pressed thin fingers against one cheek. She slid a hesitant, shamefaced look at Annie.

Annie wasn't surprised. Ellen prattled. Ellen was open and guileless and yesterday afternoon no one could have helped observing that she was hugely excited. “Who did you tell?”

Ellen's thin shoulders hunched. “I didn't think it was wrong. I guess,” the admission came in a doleful voice, “I didn't think at all. I was here and I was so pleased. I sat right down to write Ginny and when Mrs. Benson came in, why the first thing I knew, I was telling her all about it. Well, not everything. I didn't tell her that I talked to Annie. I mean, I wasn't going to tell anyone how
much
money. I didn't tell any of them …”

Hyla interrupted. “Let's take it from the first. You told some visitors to the shop about the book. Their names?”

Ellen clutched the edges of the shawl, pulled it tighter around her shoulders. “Nancy Benson came in about two-thirty. She was looking …”

Again Hyla interrupted, though her voice was gentle. “Let me get the names first.”

Ellen's faded blue eyes stared at Hyla. “Nancy Benson. Professor Pickett. Walt Wisdom.”

Annie knew all three, though not well. They were familiar island names: Nancy Benson, a new arrival on the island who worked at Morris Pharmacy, an enigmatic woman with an oval Mona Lisa face and a disconcerting stare when waiting on customers; debonair Walt Wisdom, a divorced, middleaged raconteur with a taste for young women; and Calvin Pickett, a retired history professor always eager to share his knowledge (the first and second drafts of the Declaration of Independence were written on hemp paper, John Adams was the first president to live in the White House, German U-boats sank 24 ships in Florida waters during WWII, etc.).

“Did you mention the book to anyone else yesterday afternoon or evening?”

Ellen shook her head.

“In regard to the three persons with whom you spoke …”

Ellen's eyelashes fluttered rapidly. She looked surprised, a little shocked, excited. “Do you think one of them came back last night and took my book?”

Hyla was careful in her answer. “There are several possibilities. A random thief entered the shop and went to the counter, possibly looking for small change. It may be common knowledge that you do not use a cash register, which would be locked and difficult to open. Are you missing any money?”

Ellen lifted up the cash box, opened it. Her lips moving, she rapidly counted a small number of bills. “Everything's here.”

Hyla nodded. “An intruder might assume anything below the counter to be of value and therefore might have looked at the book and decided to take it. Or it is possible that one of the persons who came to the shop yesterday afternoon realized its value and returned last night.”

Ellen gazed at Hyla in awe. “Why, then, you can get the book back, can't you? Oh, that's wonderful. How long do you think it will take?”

Hyla's usually unreadable face revealed surprise, dismay, consternation, pity. She started to speak, stopped, took a breath. “I'm afraid it won't be easy to prove what happened to the book.”

Ellen looked eager, fluttered a hand. “But now that we know it has to be one of them— and I think you are so marvelous to have figured that out—why then, can't you get a search warrant and look at their houses and everything? They'll have put the book in a safe place so it won't be damaged and you can tell them—whichever one it is—that you know one of them has it and so it would just be easiest and the nice thing to do to give it back to me.”

“Ma'am, the fact that three people came to the shop yesterday and are aware of the book doesn't give us the grounds to seek a search warrant. In fact,” Hyla sounded dubious, “there's no reasonable basis to interview those people, much less accuse them of grand theft. Moreover,” Hyla held up a hand with fingers curled to the palm. As she spoke, she raised one finger after another, “there's no physical evidence of a burglary, only you and Mrs. Darling …”

Annie would have smiled at Hyla's formality but didn't because her use of Annie's married name was simply Officer Hyla Harrison's observance of protocol.