Murder by Artifact (Five Star Mystery Series) (23 page)

When she finished writing her note, she glanced up. The way her green eyes filled with tears as she jumped to her feet told Tony that Patti’s father was not an unfamiliar visitor, and she knew Patti had died.

“Mr. Cochran. I’m so sorry about Patti.” She trotted around her desk and threw her arms around the man. “We were all so concerned.”

Tony felt a twinge of disappointment. He had hoped to break the news himself and see how her coworkers responded. He cleared his throat twice before he was able to gain her attention. She finally released the stranglehold she had on Sonny’s neck.

“How did you find out?” asked Tony.

“I called Mr. Cochran last night. Patti hasn’t been to work for several days.” The receptionist looked from man to man to man. “Is it supposed to be a secret?”

“Not if you already know about it.” Wade gave the girl a faint grin and was rewarded with a glowing one in return. “And your name is?”

“Hi, I’m Ann. Ann Bancroft, you know, like the actress.” She rolled her shoulders forward and the blouse slipped a little lower in the front.

Tony thought she looked at Wade with the same expression of avid anticipation displayed by his golden retriever when she looked at a tennis ball. Daisy would start salivating the moment she spotted a ball and after chasing it for a while, would hide it under a bed. It made Tony wonder if his deputy was about to be attacked on the receptionist’s desk or carried off to some dark corner.

Sonny’s shoulders sagged. He glanced toward the outside door and then met Tony’s eyes. “If you don’t mind, Sheriff, I believe I’ll take a cab and go back to the house and stay there until I can catch Muffin. When I get her, I’ll rent a car to drive back home. I thought I could help, but I can’t, I just can’t stay.” His voice cracked. “I need to leave now.”

Seeing the glint of tears, Tony nodded. As soon as the older man left the office, the receptionist led the way, hips swaying in an exaggerated manner, down the hall to Patti’s desk. There was little to see. It looked like a cross between a cubicle and a real office. It had walls and a door but little space inside. Two bucket chairs faced the functional faux-wood desk. A coat tree stood in one corner and a large fake plant filled another.

“Mr. Lyle, he’s the owner, removed the office papers when she didn’t come into work and didn’t call. We were all worried.” Ann rested her hands on the desktop and gave Wade a brave-but-sad smile. A tear, maybe real, sparkled on her cheek. “She’s been depressed a lot lately, you know, what with her husband dying and then with breaking up with her boyfriend. Mr. Lyle went out to her house to make sure she wasn’t, you know, wasn’t . . .”

“Yes, I do know,” said Tony.

“Does he have a key to her house?” Wade asked.

Ann’s mouth fell open and a scarlet blush climbed her freckled chest, moved up the sides of her neck and over her cheeks to her scalp. “Heavens, no!”

Tony smiled, watching her flustered response that seemed at odds with her lascivious smiles at Wade. In a blushing competition, she could out redden his aunt Martha. Maybe she was what his mother would call “forward.” In any event, he thought this girl couldn’t lie about the time of day. “Then how did he know she wasn’t inside?”

For a moment Ann seemed totally bewildered. Then she gave a soft laugh and her eyes flooded with relief. “For a moment there, you had me wondering, too. He said that he looked through the windows in the garage door and her car was gone.”

Tony’s amusement ended as quickly as it arrived. At least her coworkers were concerned enough to find out the car was gone and the house was apparently empty.

The receptionist’s eyes kept flickering past Tony and lingering on Wade. She studied his hands and her warm smile returned. Tony guessed it was the lack of a wedding ring that fueled her happy expression. “Take all the time you need. Don’t forget, my name’s Ann. I’d be happy to help you.” Moving toward her desk, she left the door ajar.

Tony closed it.

It would probably take the pair of them about three seconds to check out Patti’s office. It had as much personality as her house.

They gleaned nothing from their cursory examination of the office. Tony decided to send Wade out to the receptionist’s desk while he made sure they hadn’t missed anything. He wasn’t above using Wade’s movie-star looks to get information. “I believe if you happen to wander over near Ann’s desk and give her your second-best smile, she’ll tell you everything she knows about Patti—in private, of course.”

“Of course.” Wade flashed Tony a knowing grin. “Little details like who the boyfriend might be, or at least who fathered her baby.”

“And any recent discussions about family members.” Tony slapped him on the shoulder. “Especially chats including information about her half sister. Maybe she’ll even know why Patti might want to drive up to Silersville to visit an unfinished museum after work had shut down for the day.”

Wade ran a hand over his close-cropped black hair. “And you think I can accomplish that with only my second-best smile?”

Tony nodded. “Save your best one for your sweetheart.” He didn’t know who Wade was dating, he only guessed she supplied the recent addition of a small gold cross and medallion with some saint’s face on it he’d seen dangling from a chain around Wade’s neck. One thing was certain. Wade wasn’t dating anyone in Park County. Ruth Ann would have learned about it the morning after their first date and posted the news on the bulletin board.

Wade didn’t deny Tony’s assumption. He didn’t even try to pretend his looks didn’t open doors or open the mouths of female witnesses. “Ann did look pretty desperate.” A twinkle flashed in the deep blue, almost black, eyes. “Do I get hazardous duty pay?”

“Sure thing.” Tony would give Wade anything he wanted if he could learn anything that shed some light on the case. “Next time Blossom bakes a pie for me, you get half.”

Wade rolled his shoulders and flexed the muscles in his arms. “It’s a deal.”

Tony sat in Patti’s chair and dug through her desk drawers. They were disappointing at best. There were no magazines, menus, scraps of paper with phone numbers. Not even an emergency chocolate stash. Did the woman have no interests, no life outside of watching her sister? So far, he hadn’t found anything more personal than a few makeup items and a business card for the cat’s veterinarian. He found no letters, no photographs, no souvenirs of any kind. His own desk drawers held the clutter of life, always needing to be cleaned out and sorted through. At least he had a life. He wasn’t sure Patti’d had one.

What a waste.

He wondered briefly if Sonny had managed to catch the cat yet. The poor thing had to be hungry and anxious. Would it be welcomed into the Cochran house? Tony doubted it. Mrs. Sonny didn’t strike Tony as the kind of woman who would welcome any further reminder of her husband’s infidelities.

Tony sat in Patti’s desk chair and stared at the polished surface as he waited for Wade’s return. What had he expected to learn here?

Fifteen minutes passed. No Wade.

Finally, a half hour after he’d gone out to question Ann, Wade sauntered into the office and placed a paper bag on the desk. The fingers of his left hand pressed it against the glass surface. “I deserve a reward for hazardous duty. I want the whole pie.”

“What did you have to do?” Tony tilted his head, trying to peek into the sack. He knew Wade hadn’t done anything improper or immoral. His fingers itched to pull open the bag. He didn’t. Wade had earned the right to tease him.

“I gave Ann my very best smile.” A hint of mischief passed over Wade’s face. “At least twice. Then I listened to her talk. And listened, and listened.” He rolled his eyes. “She sure can talk.”

“What do you have there?” Tony could feel his pulse race. If the expression on Wade’s face could be trusted at all, he would gladly kiss the pie good-bye and much more.

“My new best friend Ann said she pulled this out of Patti’s trash over a month ago. It seems Patti didn’t mourn her late husband too long before she developed the boyfriend.”

“No pie for no news.” Tony narrowed his eyes. “Her pregnancy pretty much established that, wouldn’t you say?”

“True.” Wade waved aside Tony’s statement. His eyes sparkled with excitement. “What we didn’t know is the boyfriend dumped her before she miscarried. He didn’t want any baby. He packed up and left town, claiming it probably wasn’t even his.”

“Was it?”

“Almost certainly. Ann claims that Patti only went out with the one guy. It was a grief/rebound relationship and it sounds like Ann and Patti were confidantes. Ann says the boyfriend dumped Patti over lunch on his way out of town. Patti ran into the office, crying and tossed his picture, frame and all, into the trash. After she left, Ann retrieved it and put it in the paper bag and stored it in her desk.”

“Why?” Tony felt a surge of satisfaction and anticipation. He didn’t need ESP. Wade’s body language told him this would blow the case wide open.

“Ann said it was in case Patti changed her mind about him.” A somber expression darkened Wade’s face. “Before Ann could ask much, Patti miscarried.”

“Oh, wow,” said Tony.

“Exactly.” Wade lifted his fingers from the bag. “Ann wanted to wait and see. If the boyfriend came back, she could return the picture to her friend, and if not, it was still a nice frame and she could always use it. At home.”

“I presume said picture and frame are in there.” Tony pointed to the bag.

“I haven’t peeked.” Without another word, Wade tipped the contents onto the desktop. A picture frame, made of cherry wood and constructed with simple clean lines, slid onto the desk.

The photograph inside the frame took their breath away. Smiling up at them from the desk was Patti and her boyfriend. A five-by-seven color picture captured not only Patti’s radiant expression but also the face of the man standing with her. Tony recognized the smiling man whose arms were wrapped around her waist. Behind them was a sign welcoming visitors to Chickamauga Civil War Battlefield.

“Well, now, I’d say that changes everything we know about this case, wouldn’t you?” said Tony.

Wade grinned as if he held the winning lottery ticket.

Tony suspected the expression on Wade’s face wasn’t because he had earned an apple pie baked by an expert. His bigger prize was the knowledge that he had cracked their investigation wide open, with a pair of smiles.

Of course, he did have to use his very best smiles.

NIGHT ON THE MOUNTAIN

Construction A.

Place a 3 3/4′′ square of Light #2 right side up on a flat surface. Arrange 4 of the Half Square triangles created in Clue #2 around it, placing a raw edge of the light triangle against the center square. Place a medium #2 square in each of the 4 corners. You should have a four-pointed star. It does not matter if the star turns right or left but be sure the star has four points before you sew the block together using 1/4′′ seam. Look at it carefully—if any two points form a straight line, it’s wrong.

Make six.

Construction B.

Place a 3 3/4′′ square of Light #1, right side up on a flat surface. Arrange 4 of the squares with a light triangle corner constructed in Clue #2 around it, placing the raw edges of the light triangle against the center square. As above, place a Medium #2 square in each corner. Again, make sure your star has four points before sewing the block together.

Make six.

Theo stood with Jane and Martha at the museum site, a fine trickle of sweat tracing a line from the back of her neck to her waist. She stared at the cordoned trailer/office and wondered what the ladies hoped to accomplish today.

Work on their new museum stopped the day Patti’s body was found and restarted after several days. Gus and crew stayed as far from the trailer/crime scene as they could. The framework for the reconstructed barn was finally complete and the men toiled, nailing the original boards onto the new skeleton. It required several pairs of hands to set each one properly. The trailer remained unusable, crime scene tape and seals keeping it off limits. The last time they’d asked him, Tony’d said he didn’t know when they could get inside.

Until he made an arrest and Archie Campbell, the county prosecutor, and whoever the defense attorney would be, had a chance to go through all the evidence, the place would remain locked.

Determined to continue their project and unable to get into the trailer/office until some unknown date, the older women were forced to work from an even more makeshift office—the back seat of Martha’s car. A friend offered them the use of her RV. Unfortunately, they wouldn’t get it until the next day.

The car windows were rolled down and the doors were open, but conditions remained miserable. A pair of folding chairs and a card table served as their new reception area. Luckily, a large oak tree supplied much-appreciated shade. Unluckily, it appeared that the card table had been bombed by birds.

“You two want to explain why you’re sitting out here supervising Gus, who’s supervising the construction?” Theo dabbed at the back of her neck with a sodden tissue. “It doesn’t make any sense and it’s ghastly hot.”

Busy spraying the bird residue with some cleaning product that relied on bleach as the main ingredient, Martha snorted. “That’s what I think, too. But no, my partner in this enterprise,” she said, pausing and glaring at her sister. “She seems to think if we are not out here to guard the donations, no one else will contribute.”

“I just feel so responsible for what happened to the murder quilt. Those bloodstains are never going to come out.” Jane opened a faded patio-type umbrella and tried to jam the base into the ground.