Murder in Miniature (19 page)

I turned off Springfield, onto Gettysburg, working out a reasonable scenario. The gem had been in my tote; I needed to know its route, from the beginning.

I thought I remembered correctly that if a will is contested, it has to be filed with the court, and becomes a matter of public record. I made a note to check that out. It wasn’t pleasant to be hoping for dissent in a family, but my newest theory depended on it.

I needed someone to talk to, but I knew Beverly was at a meeting of police volunteers. Nothing to do but work it out on my own. I spoke my thoughts half out loud, as if Ken were present to bounce things off. I’d done that less and less lately, which I wondered about. I wasn’t sure I wanted him to slip away like that.

For now, I addressed my visor, which had a photo of Ken clipped to it.

Suppose Jack gave the stone secretly to Dudley Crane to fence, to avoid dealing with Gail’s challenge. Dudley came up with some designs, which he doodled on a pad for Jack. The whole show of bad blood between the men was just that, a show. They might even be on the same side of the growth issue, but that wasn’t what mattered to them anyway. Probably neither candidate cared what happened to Lincoln Point. The voters were being misled and riled up (how aggravating, Ken) while Jack and Dudley were coconspirators in a fifty-thousand-dollar fraud. Twice that amount, if Jack’s insurance paid for the allegedly stolen gem.

The stone, then, would have an interesting history. It would have been reported stolen (by Jack) when it wasn’t, and not reported stolen (by Dudley) when it was.

I sensed another tip on its way to my nephew.

But first, I had to talk to Jason, who might have been the one to (truly) steal the stone from Crane’s Jewelers, where it shouldn’t have been.

I turned down my street at about six thirty. The meeting
at city hall was at eight, giving me plenty of time to prepare dinner for one. Most of the time I didn’t mind being alone. I was free to cook what and when I wanted; there was no one to challenge my choices, whether of leisure activities, spending habits, or décor, no one to explain myself to. “Sweet,” Skip called it, referring to his own single life.

But right after sharing my space with someone as wonderful to be with as my granddaughter, I missed the company. I was tempted to call LA, but I knew I should leave my son and his family to reconnect after nearly a month.

Since I’d be leaving soon again for city hall, I parked on the street in front of my driveway. It had been a long day, beginning with leaving Maddie off at the airport. I had acquired what seemed a massive amount of information, which sent several murder scenarios running through my head. I looked forward to a break, with fresh iced tea, leftover mac and cheese in Maddie’s honor, and maybe a short session with my Bronx apartment.

I wanted to look through my fabric scraps for something that would be reminiscent of the white piqué curtains I’d put up over the sink in the life-size apartment. One of my favorite memories was of the window that wasn’t there. Ken had painted (poorly) a beach scene on the wall over the sink, and I’d hung the curtains, creating the illusion of a window that overlooked the ocean. The perspective was perfect, but Ken was not as good an artist as he was an architect, and the pea-soup color waves brought a smile every time I thought of them.

My smile dissipated quickly as I exited my car and walked toward my door. Not another trauma—so soon after my windshield incident? There, on my lovely, newly repainted blue front door was a note.

I approached slowly, as if the note might leap out at me at any moment, and knock my body down, the way it had already knocked my head around. I could tell before I detached it that the note was on different paper from the earlier one, and not folded. That was it—it was innocuous, from a neighbor (“borrowed your lawn mower,” it might say, as June had written once) or from a delivery person. Whatever my intellect devised, the pounding of my heart said my nervous system thought otherwise.

I snatched the note from the door, summoning a spirit of annoyance, pretending to myself that I cared more about a smudge the masking tape might leave on the paint than about the contents of the page.

BACK OFF
, I read. The same message, seemingly printed by a different hand, as if someone wanted me to know that
everyone
wanted me to back off.

I’d come straight home from Jack Wilson’s campaign headquarters, so I ruled out that group. I thought of them only because I’d so recently upset Gail and Jack with my curiosity and intrusive comments.

I had my key ready, then thought about calling the police before entering my house. Too paranoid? Before I could make up my mind, a dark-clothed figure came into view from the side bushes. The figure brushed past me, missing me by only a few inches, and ran down the driveway to a bicycle that had been lying on June’s lawn.

I was stunned, but not so much that I couldn’t study the retreating figure. A short, chunky person, wearing a hooded sweatshirt. In this heat? He had clearly dressed for the occasion.

I caught a glimpse also of a backpack, limiting the number of possibilities to every single kid in Lincoln Point between the ages of six and eighteen. This backpack had a distinct design—different shades of green and black patches. A camouflage pattern. Most likely a fairly common design, but the one I was most familiar with belonged to Jason Reed. And Jason was short, and had a bike like the one I’d just seen.

I felt better knowing (at least, in my mind) who had been threatening me. I saw it for the childish attempt it was, to keep me out of his business. Strangely, instead of being angry, I felt more and more sorry for Jason.

Still, when I entered the house, I made the room search that had become too regular a procedure for my taste. I carried my portable phone as I checked nooks and crannies, and punched in Linda’s number when I saw that all was well inside.

“Is Jason there?” I asked. No “hello, Linda.” Sympathy and compassion notwithstanding, I was out of patience with the Reeds.

“Did you talk to Skip? Did you find out who killed Dudley?” she asked. No “hello” from her, either.

“I talked to Skip. Now, can you please just tell me if Jason is there?”

“He’s not. He’s out on his bike.”

I didn’t know whether to be glad or not, or even whether I should care. “I’d like you both to come by when he gets home.”

“I don’t know when to expect him.”

“He’s on his way,” I said.

The mac-and-cheese casserole was way past its time; I
could tell by how far back in the refrigerator it had landed. Peanut butter and black currant jelly on the last of my homemade bread would have to do. I held my gourmet sandwich in one hand and sorted through odd scraps of fabric with the other. A calming and productive activity. I found a patch of oilcloth that would go nicely in my next picnic scene, and a fun animal print I could offer to Betty for the room box she’d created for her newest grandchild.

By the time the doorbell rang, I’d almost forgotten the stress of the day. I looked through the peephole to see Linda, with Jason, who hadn’t bothered to change his sweatshirt. Dumb? Cocky? Or both?

We settled in the atrium with cold drinks. I’d sent Maddie off with every remaining cookie, so my cupboard was bare of sweets.

“Sorry I don’t have much to offer,” I said, mostly to Jason. Ken would have chuckled as I apologized to the kid who was badgering me, trying to ruin my peace of mind.

Linda waved her hand. “We’re fine.”

Jason kept his chin on his chest, his usual posture.

I was conscious of the time—I wanted to get to the ballot meeting by eight—but I didn’t want to rush headlong into all my theories and accusations. I started with a question.

“How did your desk get into Dudley Crane’s hand?” I asked Linda.

“You don’t beat around the bush, do you?”

You don’t know the half of it,
I thought.

“Well? I don’t have a lot of time, Linda. And we have a lot to talk about.”

“I know. I told the police all this already on Wednesday. And you said you didn’t want to talk to me until Maddie left, so—”

This was Linda, assigning blame. “The Governor Winthrop desk, Linda?” I paused after each word, for clarity, and to make a point, I hoped.

“I took the desk home with me. I wanted to show it to Jason, to let him know I found it.”

“Why not show him the gem itself, instead of planting the gem in my bag?”

Linda shrugged. Her eyes darted toward her son. Jason had plunked himself on a chair under the jade tree, making him seem all the more shadowy and brooding. He sipped from a soft-drink can.

“She thought I’d take it back from her,” Jason said. “She doesn’t trust me.” His voice was still high, as a child’s.

“No, no, it wasn’t that,” his mother said.

But we all knew it was exactly that. I also understood that Linda had lost many men in her life, one way or another, and she couldn’t risk alienating Jason. At fifteen, he was of the age when many kids left home—homes a lot more stable than the Reeds’.

“When was the last time you saw your desk?”

“Monday, after the fair. It was on my workbench in the garage,” Linda said, looking at Jason.

“She thinks I did something with it.”

“Did you?” I asked.

“No, it wasn’t me.”

“Jason, isn’t about time you told us the truth? Nothing can be worse for you than getting into all these lies, to your mother, to the police.” I thought of using the “oh, what a tangled web” quote, but figured it would be lost on Jason and Linda both.

Finally, Jason poured it out. “It was Just Eddie,” he said. “He started, like, following me around at school. Told me he had some things lined up that I could help him with, and make some money on the side. I said no at first, but he kept at me, and he was all friendly and made it sound like he really cared about me.”

Linda sipped her tea, calmer than I would be if my son were telling a story like this. Not the first time she was hearing it, I guessed.

“So, it was Just Eddie who took your mom’s desk from the garage?”

“I guess so.”

Not too convincing, but I pressed forward.

“And this was after you and Just Eddie robbed Crane’s Jewelers a week ago Tuesday?”

Jason shook his head and opened his mouth, as if to correct me, then pressed his lips together, the way his adoptive mother did when she was stressed (a case for nurture, not nature?) and nodded. “Yeah.”

“And one of the things you took in that robbery was that sapphire?”

“Yeah.”

So far, so good. If true, this fit with my idea that Jack Wilson had given it in secret to Crane, to fence, but it was stolen for real before he could do anything with it.

“How did you end up with the gem instead of Just Eddie?” I asked.

“I…uh…it’s complicated.”

“And you’re sure Just Eddie took the desk from the garage, after your mom removed the sapphire?”

“Yeah, Just Eddie,” Jason said.

Why did I feel Jason had slipped from the truth again? I wished I could accept what he said at face value—it would be so handy to think that Just Eddie killed Tippi over some issue with Jason, and then murdered Crane, framing Linda. I had a clear picture of Just Eddie wanting Jason back, and therefore getting rid of both mothers, in a way. I was sure that, given more time, I could smooth out the details, such as, what about Chuck? Maybe Just Eddie figured (as I did) that Chuck wouldn’t care one way or the other where Jason ended up.

I wanted to press Jason, still feeling he was holding back something important, but Linda could wait no longer for her own agenda.

“Did you talk to Skip?” Linda asked. “What do the police know? Do they have any other evidence against me? Besides the desk?”

“Should they?”

“No, but people plant things.”

Like you planted the sapphire on me, I wanted to say.

“Here’s the bad news, Linda. My nephew is not about to tell me privileged information. But I have some ideas that I’ve come up with on my own.”

“Such as?”

I looked at Jason. As aggravated as I was with the family, I had no desire to traumatize a young boy, delinquent or not.

“He knows,” Linda said.

I raised my eyebrows. “He knows…?”

“He knows Tippi Wyatt is his mother.” Linda’s head fell to her chest. Now the two of them looked as much like natural mother and son as I’d ever seen.

“Have you agreed to DNA testing?”

“There’s no need to. I knew as soon as I heard the woman came from Brooklyn by way of Winona.”

“But you weren’t going to say anything?” Until I butted in, I meant.

I wondered how hard the police had come down on her. This gave Linda an excellent motive to kill Tippi. Jason’s birth mother might have wanted him back. But she was being framed for Crane’s murder, not Tippi’s, and I was once again traveling in dizzying circles.

One thing at a time. “The adoption wasn’t exactly aboveboard, was it?” I asked Linda.

Linda shook her head, her eyes sad and watery. “I was old, Gerry. In my forties. And Chuck wasn’t that enthusiastic, as you know. He—”

“Don’t say that about my father,” Jason said, in an angry voice. “My father loves me.”

“Of course he does, Jason, now that he knows you.” Linda turned to me to explain, as if Jason could take only so much reasoning. “He just wasn’t willing to go through a big ordeal to get a child through the regular channels, so I did the best I could to make a family.”

“I know you did, Linda,” I said, and meant it.

I looked at Jason, who was sobbing quietly. I had never seen him look so vulnerable, not even as a toddler. He seemed to have been born with a chip on his shoulder that grew to mammoth proportions in the dozen years that I’d known him.

“I’m sorry I almost knocked you over, Mrs. Porter.” I could barely understand him, but I knew his apology was genuine. “I was afraid you’d find out I wasn’t legal, and I didn’t want to be taken away from my parents.”

My heart went out to him. In the last analysis, Jason was not a hardened criminal. He was a kid who couldn’t catch a break, one I’d known since he was a toddler. I thought again how lucky Maddie was, to have two birth parents who loved each other and who doted on her on a daily basis. To say nothing of her northern California fans.

“You didn’t hurt me, Jason. And I would never want to hurt you or take you away from your parents.”

“I just wanted to, like, scare you off.”

“And you thought that sending me two notes would do it?”

“Not two,” Jason said, seeming surprised. “I just put that one on your door.”

“You didn’t put one under my windshield wiper earlier today?”