Murder on the Candlelight Tour (10 page)

"Would you like a cup of coffee?"

"Yes. I . . . Ashley. . . ."

I don't know who moved first but I was in his arms, wrapped up tight, held like he'd never let me go. I knew I missed him, but not until that moment did I realize how much. I showed him how glad I was to see him.

When we came up for air, he said, "Ashley, I can't stand it when there's trouble between us."

"Neither can I." But remembering I had a duty to save Binkie, I took a step back. "Why are you gunning for Binkie?"

"I'm not gunning for him, Ashley." With one step, he closed the distance I'd put between us. Lifting his hand to my face, he brushed droopy curls off my forehead. "You look pretty without makeup. We need to talk. I have to work this case, but I don't want to lose you over it."

"Oh? And what about Lisa Hamilton? Hasn't she already replaced me?" I hadn't planned to blurt out such an accusation.

His eyes met mine. "Replaced you? Is that what you think?" He reached for me again. "No one can replace you, Ashley. Lisa? Well, that's just work stuff. She's new here and I have to show her around, show her the ropes."

A mental picture of her dangling at the end of one of those ropes was very satisfying.

He continued, "Besides, you and I . . . we . . ."

"We don't have an exclusive relationship," I finished for him.

He kissed the tip of my nose. "Do you want one?"

The question surprised me. "I . . . I don't know." I pulled away and paced, using my hands to help me talk. "Nick, when you're working a case, you become another person, someone I don't know. You treat me like a stranger. You're suspicious of everything I say and do."

He grabbed my shoulders, anchoring me. "Stand still and I'll try to explain. When I'm working the job I've got to remain objective. I can't allow my judgment to be clouded by people close to me. And you, you're so important to me, Ashley, I'm afraid I'll lose all sense of objectivity. So, well, I'm afraid I go too far, push you away."

His hands slid down my arms. Through the thin fabric of my robe, I felt their heat. My skin tingled. This was hopeless. I wanted to throw my arms around him, bury my face in his neck. Be kissed again. Tell him everything was all right. That anything he did was okay with me.

Instead I gently removed his hands. "Come on back to the kitchen. I'll fix us some coffee."

I brewed a gourmet decaf, one of my few accomplishments in the culinary department. Within seconds, the scent of Chocolate Cherry Kiss filled the room, the suggestive name of the flavor not eluding me. Nick slipped off his jacket, hung it over the back of a chair and sat down. He looked like he hadn't slept in days. While the coffee dripped, I massaged his shoulders. They were stiff and the muscles were in knots. I worked the tension loose.

"What am I going to do with you?" I wondered out loud.

"What do you want to do?"

"You wouldn't consider resigning from the force, would you?" I asked, holding my breath.

"I can't do that. Anymore than you could give up your restoration work."

"We only have problems when you're working a homicide case that somehow involves me," I ventured.

"Uhmmm, that feels good." He grabbed my hand. "I don't want you anywhere near my cases, Ashley. They're dangerous. There are psychopaths out there who will stop at nothing. I have to keep you safe, separate from that world. But, yes, the rest of the time we get along like . . ." he pulled me into his lap, ". . . like this."

"Yes, we do," I murmured, surrendering to the pleasure of having my neck nuzzled. "Famously," I added, remembering the fun times we'd shared. His shoulder holster nudged me back to reality. "Coffee's ready," I announced, jumping clear of temptation's reach.

Over coffee, with the table separating me from his lap, from his arms, from his lips, he explained, "Ashley, I have to follow a case where the evidence leads. And in this case, all the evidence points to Professor Higgins. He has motive, opportunity, and means. Sure I know he's a nice old guy, well-regarded in the community, but we've got a smoking gun -- the murder weapon with his prints, and only his prints, on it."

I drew back. "Well, doesn't that tell you something? My prints should be on that poker too! The real murderer wiped the poker or wore gloves."

He grimaced and arched an eyebrow, a sure sign we were headed for a fight. "Or, Ashley, you polished the brass handle when you were cleaning up for the house tour."

That gave me something to think about. It was true, I had polished some brass items the week before the tour. And I hadn't built a fire so the poker hadn't been used. "Even if I did polish it, and I honestly can't remember, I would have returned it to the hearth so my fingerprints should be on it. Binkie said he tripped over it and picked it up. And I believe him." I slammed my coffee mug down. "Nick, Binkie is not a killer!"

He sighed. "Guess I'd better be going. I don't want to fight with you. I thought we could work this out."

"Are you looking at any other suspects?" I asked.

"Of course I am. What kind of detective do you think I am? I'm looking at everyone. We've got a team tracing everyone who bought tour tickets by credit card, and many people did. We're questioning all of them. Most of them have returned to their home towns, so we're interviewing over the telephone."

"And? Did anyone see anything?"

"So far there are no witnesses to the murder."

"Well, at least that's in Binkie's favor. What about Earl Flynn? Did you interrogate him?"

"Interview, Ashley. We don't interrogate, we interview."

"Interview. Interrogate. What's the difference? Sounds like something your little PR girlfriend made up. Did you talk to Earl Flynn?"

Nick pushed back his chair, grabbed his jacket. "Thanks for the coffee. Yes, I talked to Flynn. He was nowhere near your house at the time of the murder."

"Does he have a witness?"

"A couple of hundred."

"All he needs is one, Nick. Does he have one witness who will swear he was somewhere else?"

"He was way over on Chestnut Street, Ashley. People saw him."

I slumped in my chair, defeated. "Are they sure it was eight o'clock when they saw him?"

"There was a lot going on that night. The streets were crowded with people. The houses were filled with tourists coming and going. No, no one can say with certainty that Flynn was on Chestnut Street at eight o'clock. What's Flynn's motive? He doesn't have one. He doesn't even know Sheldon Mackie."

"How can you be sure of that? Earl Flynn grew up here. He told Melanie he knew Daddy. Maybe he knew Sheldon too."

"Well, he told us he didn't. And I have no reason to think he's lying. There's nothing to connect him to Mackie. So drop it, Ashley, and let me do my job."

I wanted to show him MaeMae's diary, to prove to him that someone else had a strong motive for murder. But then I'd have to explain how I got it. Still, I needed to implicate her. "You know MaeMae stands to gain from Sheldon's death. I thought the spouse was always the most obvious suspect. You need to look at her closely, Nick."

I could see he was losing patience. "The spouse is not the most obvious suspect when another suspect has threatened the victim, and when that suspect is found standing over the deceased with the murder weapon in his hand!"

"Okay, let's call a truce. Don't leave mad, please. I want to ask you about something else. What do you know about the Atlantic Coast Line payroll robbery?"

14

Nick warmed to the subject of the payroll robbery. In fact, he became so effusive in his recitation of Wilmington's most famous robbery, he forgot to ask me why I was interested.

"July 1, 1960," he said almost reverently. "My dad was a rookie cop back then."

Nick's father had been the chief of Wilmington P.D. for over a decade before his illness and subsequent death.

He continued, "I grew up hearing stories about 'Black Thursday,' December 15, 1955, the day the Atlantic Coast Line announced it was moving its headquarters from Wilmington to Jacksonville. The Coast Line was the largest employer in the area with 13,000 employees. Even though the move wouldn't take place for years, the town was devastated. Not everyone was offered relocation, and many didn't want to move to Florida."

"How much money did the robbers steal?" I asked.

"The total week's payroll amounted to $800,000 dollars, with a half million in cash."

"Cash! Five hundred thousand dollars in cash. Why cash?"

"The Brotherhood of Railroad Workers required the company to pay union members in cash. Not unusual for the fifties. Members of management, who weren't part of the union, got their salaries by check. Every Thursday night, an armored car delivered bags of cash to the railroad's payroll office. Clerks worked through the night, counting the money, depositing the correct amount of cash into each employee's pay envelope. There were three clerks and one armed guard. The office was locked. Plus railroad security officers patrolled the rail yard and the administration complex during the night."

Hanging on his every word, I refilled his coffee mug. He picked it up absently, then set it down to say, "That's why my dad and everyone at the P.D. thought the robbers had help from inside. On July 5, four days after the robbery, the railroad began moving families from Wilmington to the new headquarters in Jacksonville. They moved 950 families in one month. The president's office was the last to go. My dad's theory was that the inside man could have been someone who then left for Jacksonville, putting himself outside our jurisdiction. Or he could have been one of the hundreds who weren't offered relocation, somebody left behind. Maybe he left town right away, on the pretext of looking for a job elsewhere."

"How did they pull it off?" I asked, wiggling forward to the edge of my seat.

"They knew when the security patrol made its rounds, and they timed the robbery between rounds. That left only one guard to disarm. It was July and hot; the office wasn't air conditioned. The clerks weren't supposed to open windows but they did anyway. The robbers skulked around outside, waited for their chance, then shot the guard through an open window. Didn't kill him though so the charge was never murder."

"How did they get inside? Through a window?"

"No. The windows were protected with iron bars. They shot out the lock on the door. The shot was heard by a security officer in the rail yard but by the time he got to the payroll office, the robbers and the bags of cash were gone."

"Did the police think the security officer might have been the inside-man?"

Nick shot me a look of renewed respect. "I remember asking my dad that same question. Yes, they suspected him. But there wasn't any evidence, nothing to link him to the robbery."

I nodded. "Did they shoot the clerks too?"

"No. The clerks weren't armed so they didn't pose a threat. They were too startled or too scared to push the alarm button until the robbers fled. Guess it just happened too fast. The guys knocked them to the floor, grabbed the bags, and were gone in less than a minute. The clerks reported there were three of them and they wore ski masks."

He chuckled. "Ski masks and shorts. They weren't able to give descriptions except to say the men had young, white legs."

He continued, "They must have had a car nearby, possibly with a getaway driver, but not necessarily, and there wasn't a trace of them when the railroad security officers arrived. The police were summoned, but there wasn't a clue. After shooting off the lock, one of them shoved the door in with his shoulder. So they didn't leave fingerprints. They didn't drop anything, or leave anything behind. They vanished without a trace."

"I remember my dad talking about it but I never heard the details before."

Nick reached for the coffee mug. His color was high, his eyes bright. He was as intense as a bloodhound on the trail of an escaped convict. It was clear he admired his quarry. "It was a daring job, that's for sure. And they pulled it off without a hitch. That's why the investigators felt sure it was an inside job."

"And the money was never recovered?"

"Not a cent. The payroll was insured so the railroad didn't stand to lose any money. Guess that's why they didn't press too hard. Besides they were in the middle of the big move. The insurance company wrote it off decades ago. To this day, we don't know who those guys were and what they did with the money."

We were both thoughtful for a moment, mulling over the facts of the case.

"Why are you interested?" he asked, suspicious again.

"Oh, someone mentioned it recently." I couldn't tell him that Binkie had accused Sheldon of being one of the robbers.

Nick got a dreamy look on his face. "What I wouldn't give to crack that case!"

15

On Saturday morning I drove home from Wilmington Architectural Salvage with antique door knobs rattling around in a box in the back of my van. The Historic Wilmington Foundation runs the salvage shop on Brunswick Street where donated building materials are sold, thus providing funds for the non-profit association and at the same time recycling old materials that would otherwise end up as landfill. Historic preservation is the ultimate recycling effort. My finds this morning were doorknobs made of glass, brass, and porcelain, some of which I planned to use in my house, the rest I would save for future clients' homes.