Never Tease a Siamese: A Leigh Koslow Mystery (23 page)

"Actually, we started off living in the basement," Nancy answered pleasantly. "I suppose at that point it was prestigious to have one’s staff live in. But—" she halted for a moment. When she continued, her tone was stiff. "I suppose I already told you about our problems with Mrs. Linney. The woman did not take kindly to living under the same roof as black people. So my mother and I moved into the garage apartment of one of Mrs. Murchison’s friends, and my mother worked there part-time as well."

Leigh remained silent, in hopes that Nancy would keep talking. The business manager wasn’t ordinarily the chatty type, but she truly seemed to enjoy reminiscing about her mother—at least when she wasn’t remembering Peggy Linney. "I used to go to the mansion every day after school," Nancy continued, her tone sentimental again. "Mrs. Murchison was quite tolerant about letting me run around the place. I wasn’t the best mannered thing, despite my mother’s efforts."

Leigh had to smile. It was difficult to imagine smart, even-tempered Nancy as a hellion grade-schooler, but one never knew. An amusing thought crossed her mind. "Did you and Dean ever play together?"

The business manager’s face flooded instantly with embarrassment. "I suppose we did."

Leigh laughed. It wasn’t something she would relish admitting either. "So, you snooped around the house together, did you?" she asked with a grin.

Nancy hid a smile. "I plead the fifth."

Leigh pulled the key from her pocket and held it out on a palm. The other woman looked at her strangely and shrugged. "What’s that?"

"I was hoping you might know," Leigh said earnestly. "Nikki Loomis doesn’t recognize it. She denies knowing all the mansion’s contents, and I believe her. But no self-respecting
child
could possibly resist peeking into drawers and cubby holes, and this looks pretty old. It’s a key, and it used to be on some sort of woven chain—"

"An oriental pattern," Nancy said wistfully, her eyes widening. "Oh, my God. I do recognize it."

Chapter 18

"Is this what Number One Son swallowed?" Nancy asked incredulously, taking the key in her hand for a closer look.

Leigh nodded eagerly. She had always suspected that the overachieving business
manager was not fully plugged into the clinic grapevine. For one thing, she kept her nose down and her mind on her job; for another, most of the staff openly resented her status with the proprietor.

"I knew that Dr. Koslow did surgery on the cat," she continued. "But I never heard what he found."

Leigh quickly explained the link to the break-in, and Nancy’s eyes sparked with understanding. "All your father told me was that he dropped the charges against Ricky Rhodis because Dean had tricked the boy into thinking he was saving the cat somehow."

She leaned back in her chair and clutched the key tightly in a hand. "But he really wanted
this.
Didn’t he?"

Leigh nodded again. "What is it?"

Nancy’s brown eyes held a glint of mischief, giving a glimpse of the child she had been not all that long ago. "It’s the key to what Dean always called his mother’s 'treasure box.’ It didn’t have any treasure really, it was just a curiosity. A pretty metal box, about so big," she gestured to form an object a little bigger than a shoebox. "It was hand-painted with scenes of green hills and rivers and people fishing—Dean used to say it was Chinese."

She smiled ruefully at the ancient memory. "Which, if you know Dean, will not surprise you, because he always knew
everything
. I was like a little-sister substitute—more accurately, a warm body to impress his great wisdom upon." She laughed a little. "As my mother used to say, 'have mercy.'"

Leigh grinned. "What did Mrs. Murchison keep in the box?"

Nancy’s eyes narrowed in concentration. "Not much, as I recall. There were papers in the bottom, but that was boring to us, of course. She had black and white photographs of some cats: not Siamese, pets from her childhood, I think. No jewelry or anything like that. I’m sure the only reason Dean found it so fascinating was that Mrs. Murchison always kept it locked with a key." She opened her hand and gazed at her palm. "This key. And the really intriguing thing was—she hid both the key and the box in different places."

Leigh’s eyebrows rose with interest. "Where?"

"The key was in one of her jewelry boxes. Dean had watched her enough to know what it was, and he used to sneak it out now and then and open the box just for fun. He would take me along and we would pretend we were on some grand, top-secret expedition. We always hoped that maybe next time, there
would
be real treasure."

"And the box," Leigh coaxed, trying not to sound too eager, "where did she keep that?"

"On the bottom shelf of the linen closet, off the second floor hallway. It was under some sheets or blankets that weren’t used very much." Nancy looked suddenly apologetic. "Oh, but that was ages ago. She could keep it anywhere, now."

She held the key out and Leigh pocketed it again, thinking hard. So far, every word Nancy was saying only confirmed her previous theory. If Dean and Rochelle had expected that Mrs. Murchison would not return from New York, they would have had no need to fuss with retrieving the key. They could simply acquire the box’s contents by lifting it from the mansion and smashing it with a sledge hammer. Clearly, it was Mrs. Murchison’s wrath they had feared when hiring Ricky Rhodis. They wanted to check out the contents of the box without Mrs. Murchison ever finding out.

And Leigh was pretty sure she knew why.

"Nancy," she said quickly, fearing that the clinic’s afternoon clientele would show up at any moment. "I don’t know how much of this you’re aware of, but…" She offered a brief summary of the events before the plane crash, including the facts that Mrs. Murchison had recently changed her will and that she and Dean—according to Nikki—had had some sort of row immediately before the New York trip.

  "So tell me," Leigh asked anxiously. "What would you guess that Dean was looking for?"

Nancy shrugged, but it was a purposeful gesture. "I can’t tell you exactly what kind of papers used to be in the box, if that’s what you’re asking. Much less what she might keep in it now. But from what you’ve told me, I would guess the same thing you already think. That Dean wanted a peek at her new will."

Leigh smiled broadly and rose. "Thanks, Nancy."

"No! Wait," the other woman said earnestly, rising also. The anxiety that had faded from her voice as she talked about her childhood was now back in full force. "I’m not sure why you think this is related to the threats. I mean—you don’t suspect Dean of those, do you?"

She looked genuinely concerned, and Leigh paused. "You don’t?" she asked carefully.

Nancy shook her head. "No." She glanced around the clinic furtively for a moment, then stepped closer. "Not that I want to be known around here for defending Dean Murchison—but, Leigh, I did know him very well once. And I know that he’s not a cruel person." She paused a moment as if considering whether to say more. Finally, she exhaled sadly. "He used to cry every time one of the cats killed a sparrow. He gave them all funerals in the back yard."

She paused once again, fidgeting with the pen over her ear. "I’m not saying the man’s a saint," she continued finally, her voice low. "But if the police are thinking for one moment that he would kill his own mother—they’re just plain wrong."

Leigh’s eyes met Nancy’s levelly. She was pleased that her own gut instincts about Dean seemed to be on target. But there was more to the story. "What about Rochelle?" she asked quietly.

The business manager shook her head. "I don’t know anything about her. But I refuse to believe Dean would ever involve himself in anything—. Well,
violent
."

Leigh regarded her closely. "Did you tell the police that?"

Nancy immediately turned away and returned to her desk chair. "I know this may not make sense to you," she said finally, her voice resolute. "But unless absolutely necessary, I would rather the police didn’t know anything about my history with Dean."

"But why not?" Leigh protested, following her. "It could help them rule him out as a suspect, so they could concentrate on finding the real killer—or extortionist—or both."

Nancy’s gaze fixed on the blank computer monitor in front of her. "I’m hoping Dean will be cleared on his own," she answered. "But if I say anything to the police—" she broke off. "Well, it might not be smart, that’s all."

Leigh thought she was beginning to understand. She pulled over the second desk stool and sat, putting herself and the other woman back at eye level. "You think the threats are directed at you, don’t you? You think someone suspects you know something because of your history, and that if you cooperate with the police at all, they’ll think you squealed. You’re afraid that someone here at the clinic may get hurt because of you."

Nancy’s dark eyes bored into Leigh’s. "But I
don’t
know anything," she said vehemently, her voice gradually rising. "I don’t know who Mrs. Murchison’s other child is—if there even is one; I don’t know who’s making the threats; and I don’t know who could have killed her." Looking suddenly embarrassed, she turned away again. "I’m sorry, but I
don’t
," she finished softly.

The clinic door opened wide, and three small children filed in noisily, followed by their harried-looking mother and a boisterous chocolate Labrador retriever. Nancy jumped at the interruption, then shuffled some items on the desktop to regroup. "Hello, Mrs. Castellani. Just have a seat. Dr. Koslow will be right with you."

Leigh rose again and slipped quietly out of the reception area before she could be re-recruited. She had officially exceeded her quota of toenail clippings for the day.

And the key in her pocket might as well have been a hot coal.

***

"Going somewhere? Besides Hook, I mean." Warren leaned casually against the side of her Cavalier, his fingers drumming on the hood.

"Well, hello," she answered, trying hard not to appear disconcerted. He looked darned appealing standing there with his tie loosened and his sunglasses on. Very unpolitical. But she couldn’t afford to be distracted.

Or waylaid. "What are you doing here? I thought you were busy at lunch."

"I changed my plans," he said, straightening. "Mo called me this morning and filled me in on the latest. She said you might still be here. How about a grilled cheese sandwich?"

Leigh’s eyebrows rose. It was that mind-reading thing again. But this time it went both ways. "Maura told you not to let me out of your sight, didn’t she?"

He opened the door of the Cavalier with his spare key, slid behind the wheel, and opened the passenger door for her. "Actually, her exact words were a bit stronger. Something about leg irons."

Leigh got in the car. She
was
starving. But there was no time for grilled cheese. Mrs. Murchison’s "treasure box" might contain a copy of the will—but it also might contain something else of interest. Something Dean and Rochelle would not even have been looking for.

"How about Wendys?" she suggested innocently. "I’m kind of in a rush. Work’s piling up."

"Fine," he said agreeably, steering the Cavalier out into the street. "Then afterwards I’ll drop you off at Hook. I can come back for you around five-thirty."

She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him impishly. "You
know
that won’t work."

He grinned, but kept his eyes on the road. "And
you
know you’re not going back to the Murchison house alone."

***

Leigh stamped her foot impatiently on the mansion’s front walk. "Nikki will talk to us," she assured herself more than her husband. "I’m sure she will."

It was several moments before the security guard returned from inside the bizarre maze of shrubs. "Yeah, okay," he announced blandly, gesturing them past. "Ring the bell."

"I guess it was a good idea to hire a guard," Leigh admitted as they proceeded. "There have probably been some reporters here, not to mention general busybodies."

Warren, who was not at all pleased to be back at the scene of the crime, didn’t answer. He just followed her up the walk with his standard "you owe me for this" look, which Leigh took quite in stride. He was the one person she didn’t particularly mind being in debt to.

"I’m just going to see if she’ll show me what’s in the box," Leigh stated again. "Maura would want to know if Dean had access to a copy of his mother’s will before the plane crash, right? And we need to know if he and Rochelle had time on Friday to sneak a peek before Number One Son ate the key. If not, I think the evidence really points against them—at least for the threats. Just let me do the talking, okay?"

He looked at her sternly. "My orders from Maura are to keep you from saying
anything
to Nikki Loomis about your theory that she’s the real heir."

"I won’t!" she protested, and a guilty feeling immediately began brewing up in her chest. She didn’t make a habit of lying to her husband, and try as she might to justify the claim as a white lie, she knew full well that it was patently untrue. "Unless absolutely necessary," she amended.