Gone But Knot Forgotten (4 page)

I ran my fingers through my hair in exasperation. “Did the housekeeper have a key?”

“If she did, I assume she returned it when Harriet let her go.”

I struggled to hide the irritation in my voice. “For heaven's sake. Has anyone spoken to the woman?”

“I gave the police her contact information.”

I didn't like the casual way everyone wrote off Harriet's death. A very wealthy woman died from unknown causes and nobody seemed suspicious? Now some of her things seemed to be missing. My anger grew with my unease. What if something bad happened to my friend?

I understood from experience the people who knew the most were often those who worked behind the scenes. “Can you e-mail me the contact info for the housekeeper and the gardener?”

Deke sounded weary. “Sure, if it'll make you feel better.”

Obviously nobody else really cared about Harriet, or the fact her house may have been looted. I cared. I'd find out the circumstances surrounding my old friend's death.

“I spoke with only two people in Harriet's address book. Are there others who should be informed about the funeral on Monday?”

Abernathy yawned again. “I'll ask my assistant, Nina, to contact everyone connected to Harriet's finances and her philanthropy. Will that help?”

“Yes. Thanks for calling me back.”

I crawled into bed pissed, worried, and exhausted. I closed my eyes and dark thoughts, like hundreds of black flies, buzzed in my head.

C
HAPTER
6

Before Lucy and Birdie arrived Friday morning, I ran over to Larry the Locksmith and Bea's Bakery to pick up a chocolate
babka
for this morning and a raisin challah for Shabbat. They showed up at nine, just as the coffeepot stopped gurgling and blew out the last bit of steam.

Lucy wore her working clothes—jeans, with a crease pressed down the leg, and a dark blue cashmere cardigan over a blue and white gingham blouse. A red bandana covered her orange curls, and gold gypsy hoops hung from her ears. Under her arm she held a cardboard carton with an iPad and some electronic equipment.

I pointed to the box. “What did you bring?”

Lucy pulled out her tablet and waved it. “This has a bar-code generator app. You type in the name or data you want to use and a code is generated. Tap a button and the program sends the code wirelessly to this printer, which then spews out a label to stick on your item.”

The simplicity of the system impressed me. “How do I decipher the code?”

She picked up a small metal wand. “You use the handheld scanner to read the bar code. You can print out a hard copy of the master inventory with all the details.”

“I love technology. This'll save me a ton of work.”

Birdie always dressed for work in her blue denim overalls and white T-shirt. She cut the
babka
while I poured three cups of Italian roast. We settled in the living room and my friends listened intently as I brought them up to date on my conversation last night with Abernathy.

Birdie tugged on her braid. “Heavens, dear, do you think the maid came back after Harriet's death and poked around her things?”

I shrugged and swallowed a bite of heavenly pastry laced with ribbons of hard chocolate. “The intruder must have been someone with a key because Abernathy said the police forced their way in.”

Birdie sipped her coffee. “Are you sure there were no signs of a B and E?” My 75-year-old friend never missed an episode of
Law & Order
or
CSI
and spoke forensics as a second language.

“I didn't search very hard yesterday. Mainly I wanted to get a feel for the place. Today we'll go methodically through as many rooms as we can. We'll find out if any of the insured pieces are missing.”

Lucy grinned and rubbed her hands together. “Oh, this sounds like Nancy Drew. Did Harriet have an attic? A basement? Shall we take flashlights?”

A half hour later we hit the 405 south toward Brentwood. We pulled up into Harriet's driveway in Lucy's vintage black caddy with the shark fins. Malo jumped out of his maroon SUV and headed our way, wearing a black leather jacket and heavy motorcycle boots. This pumped-up Latino sported a long black ponytail and a series of short black vertical lines tattooed on his cheeks. Crusher told me Malo operated an earthmover by day. At night he played drums in a pickup band. They occasionally performed in a biker bar called Bubba's—also known by the regulars as Tits and Tequila.

He sized up the three of us, then grinned at me. “You Crusher's lady?”

Although it's perfectly fine for me to tell Lucy and Birdie everything, I hoped Crusher never revealed we once slept together or that he wanted to marry me. On the other hand, who knew what guys talked about? If I did, I might not have so many trust issues. Or maybe I'd have more.

I offered Malo a handshake. “I'm Martha, and these are my friends Lucy and Birdie. Thanks for agreeing to work on such short notice. I'm sorry you spent the cold night in your car.” I reached in my purse and handed him the duplicate key. “From now on, you can stay inside. Just pass this along when you go off shift.”

The noisy guttering of an engine announced the arrival of a motorcycle.

“Sounds like my replacement is here.”

Carl, the youngest member of the Eagles, parked his bike and removed a helmet from his sandy-colored hair. His black leather jacket had a purple “VE” on the back for Valley Eagles. Carl spotted Birdie and grinned. Without a word, he strode over to her, bent his six-foot frame, gently encircled her with his arms, and twirled her around as she whooped in delight.

Four months ago Carl helped clear my neighbor, Ed, from a murder charge. He met Birdie and immediately bonded with her because she reminded him of his grandmother. She, in turn, adored Carl and treated him as the child she'd never had.

Birdie patted the shoulder of his leathers with a blue-veined hand. “Put me down before I fall, dear.”

Carl set her down gently and kissed her forehead. Birdie put an arm around his waist.

I walked over to them. “Hey, Carl, are you going to work this security day shift? Don't you have a job?” Carl earned a degree from Caltech in computer science. He developed fraud detection and prevention software for the SEC. He also carried a gun.

“Crusher said you need help, so I volunteered. I can hook up my computer anywhere.” He stared at the ground. “So, you and Crusher. Are you two, you know, a thing now?”

Malo paid particular attention.

I crossed my arms. “I thought Crusher was dating one of the Kardashians.”

“Dude!” Malo howled with laughter and slapped his knee. “Crusher warned me you were tough.”

Before he left, Malo wanted to examine the house in the daylight, so I took them all on a quick tour to get the layout. In each room, the two men checked the windows and doors. Everything was locked tight.

The five of us ended up in Harriet's large closet. I pointed to the hole in the carpet and the stain on the floor. “This is where she died.”

Birdie turned green and walked out to the hallway.

Lucy followed her. “If it's all the same to you, Martha, let's start downstairs first. I don't think Birdie's ready for this room.”

Good thing I vacuumed up the flies
. “Of course. Let's go back downstairs.”

Two sets of biker boots clumped heavily down the stairs. One of them slowed down to help Birdie.

When we got to the foyer, Malo started to leave, then stopped. “What about the garage?”

I'd completely forgotten about the garage. “I've never actually been inside.”

We walked to the kitchen and found a door I'd overlooked the day before. Malo flipped the dead bolt and turned the knob. Overhead lights flickered on in the ceiling of a spacious and nearly empty three-car garage. White cupboards lined one wall and held household cleaning supplies, a floor scrubber, a carpet cleaner, a shovel, a ladder, and a child's fishing pole. A late-model black Lexus sat in the middle of the nearly empty space. No matter how much money she enjoyed, Harriet never would have owned a German car.

My own garage bulged with junk. Piles of dusty sacks and boxes of stuff accumulated over the last twenty years reached the rafters, along with old furniture, household detritus, and half-empty paint cans. Before she moved to Boston, my daughter, Quincy, claimed half the garage as her free storage facility.

“The garage door locks electronically,” said Carl. “Nobody can get in without a code.”

Birdie twisted the end of her white braid. “Well, now we can be certain of the POE.”

Lucy's head jerked up. “Huh? What's
POE
?”

Every eye focused on Birdie.

“Point of Entry, dear. The intruder must have used a key on the front door.”

Carl chuckled and Lucy rolled her eyes.

We decided to work our way from one end of the downstairs to the other starting in the library. Carl set up his laptop on the table, and Lucy plugged in her equipment. I reached into my purse and retrieved the insurance rider listing every piece we needed to locate and label.

I shook my head. “I don't know how a private person can collect books like the ones we're about to look for, but these are truly treasures.” I showed them the list.

Birdie gasped. “Are they real?”

I nodded. “I know, right? The insurance company says they're real.”

Lucy said, “We're not going to be putting sticky labels on those.”

We began to search the library shelves for the four-volume original edition of
Memoir, Correspondence & Miscellanies: From the Papers of Thomas Jefferson,
published in 1829; ten volumes of
The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States,
published 1850-1856; and
The Private Life of the Late Benjamin Franklin,
French edition published in 1791.

Since Lucy reached nearly six feet tall, she took the job of reading the top shelves. “Was Harriet interested in Early American history?”

To accommodate her arthritic knees, Birdie sat on a chair and inspected the lower shelves. “Well, I guess so. Consider the books we're hunting for. All authored by the Founding Fathers.”

I scanned titles on the middle shelves. “Harriet majored in history at Brown. She collected Early Americana in general—wooden toys, watches, Native American baskets.”

An hour later we had finished our search of the bookshelves and sat at one end of the library table while Carl worked quietly at the other.

My heart sank. “A fortune in first editions is missing.”

Carl glanced up from his computer. “What were those titles?” I showed him the list and he started typing. “Give me a minute.” He tapped at his computer and the three of us stared at him. He finally stopped. “Nothing with those titles has been submitted for authentication or sold in the last year through auction houses or any other legitimate venue.”

“So the perp must be hanging on to the goods unless he took them to a fence.” That was Birdie, bless her. “Shouldn't we call this in?”

Carl smiled and gazed down at his keyboard. “I'm going back to work.”

The loss of such important books felt devastating. “This is just the first place we've explored. There are many other rooms to go through. Harriet might've kept them somewhere else in the house, somewhere not out in the open.”

Lucy swept her hand toward the shelves. “So, what are you going to do with the rest of these? Your friend read everything from historical novels to books on spiritism. Looks like she was into the occult.”

I shook my head. “It doesn't sound like the practical and pragmatic Harriet I knew, but profound grief can do weird things to people.”

A metal clink and a
thwap
came from the foyer. Carl stood and motioned for us to be quiet. He took a gun out of his leather laptop carrier and walked through the living room, both hands on the weapon. He reached the foyer, relaxed, and tucked the gun into the front of his waistband.

Birdie whispered, “I sure hope he has the safety on.”

“It's just the mail. Came in through the slot on the front door.” He returned to the library and handed me a couple of invitations to open Visa accounts and a flyer for Pepe's Salvadorian restaurant on Wilshire Boulevard.

Lucy stood and moved along the wall, tapping with her knuckles. “Maybe there's a secret compartment in the library where she stashed the books.”

Is Lucy serious?
“I don't think so. Three of these are outside walls and the fourth shares a two-sided fireplace with the living room. Just where would such a compartment be?”

Lucy wouldn't give up. “It's true, the two outside walls with windows aren't thick enough. But the wall at the end, the one covered in bookshelves, could be hiding something.” She pushed on the shelves and knuckled the dark paneling from one end to the other. After five minutes of knocking high and low, she gave up and shook her hand. “Yeah, maybe you're right.”

Birdie sat at the desk and checked the drawers, gathering all the papers for me to sort through at home. Lucy and I went into the living room to examine and catalog the five framed paintings.

“Are these valuable?” Lucy asked.

“I think I read none of them are worth more than ten thousand.”

The paintings hung askew. I lifted the first painting; nothing hidden on the wall behind it. I reached to put the painting back and my finger caught on a sharp edge.

“Holy crap, Lucy. Take a look at this. The paper seal on the back is slit open on the bottom edge.”

Lucy helped me take down the rest of the art. “Someone tampered with all of them. What do you suppose was in there?”

I looked at my friend. At this point she knew almost as much as I did. “Obama's birth certificate?”