Olive and Let Die (21 page)

“Mmmmm.” My eyes closed. Not that I'd ever had a professional massage so I didn't really have anything to compare it to, but I wondered if it could be any better than this. Jack bent down, moved my hair aside, and brushed his lips against the nape of my neck. I gave a delicious shiver.

“As much as I'd like to continue this, we should probably get to work.”

Work? What work? Oh, right. The artifacts. Duty called. “Let's get it done,” I said.

Once the leftover pizza was stored in the fridge and the plates and utensils were thrown away, I wiped down the table with a spritz of cleaner and a paper towel, then ran the towel over the counters as well. Jack poured me another glass of wine and set the box of paperwork on a spare chair.

“So this was the only thing the intruder disturbed? It doesn't make sense. Why would somebody go to the risk of breaking in for this?” I took a sip of my wine and set the cup on the table, as far from the paperwork Jack was pulling out of the box as possible. I could just see myself spilling liquid all over and ruining everything.

“I know,” Jack said, stacking loose papers in a pile. “I can't imagine what could be in here that anyone would want. Arrowheads turn up all over the North Country, all the time.”

“So what's the system here?” The papers all seemed to have a numbered label affixed to the back. The file folders had similar labels. There were photos too.

“I'm pretty sure all we have to do is check the numbers and refile everything into the corresponding folder. It shouldn't be more complicated than that.”

“Sounds easy, and mindless enough after a long day.” I rolled my head around my neck, luxuriating in the feel of the loose, warm, pain-free muscles.

“I'm sorry. If you want to just go lie down, I'll do this.”

Tempting as that was, I shook my head. “No, I want to help.” I grabbed a handful of loose papers and began to stack them into number order. They seemed to be detailed notes about what Monty had found, where he'd found it, and when. And there were several photographs associated with each file. In each case the artifact had been photographed, as had
been the hole or surface where the item was found, as well as the surrounding countryside. The number labels that had accompanied each of the actual artifacts we'd boxed up would presumably match these file numbers. The work was not difficult, and it didn't take long to put everything back into its proper file.

I reached for another stack. “So when does your sister expect these?”

“I need to drive them to her in Albany tomorrow.” He hesitated. “We haven't seen each other in a while and she's leaving for Arizona on Sunday. I was thinking about taking her out to dinner and staying over, then driving her to the airport and coming back Sunday morning. But I don't want to leave you alone.”

My Jack-induced warm-fuzzy feeling intensified. As much as I wanted to beg him to stay, I wasn't ready to put myself out there and ask for what I needed. I'd been a caretaker, the fixer, the smoother-overer, for too long. Maybe, just maybe, an ability to depend on someone else would come in time.

“No, no. I'll be fine.” Sort. File. Sort.

He raised an eyebrow at me.

“No, really. I won't be alone at all tomorrow. I'll go visit Melanie at the hospital, then there'll be lots of people in and out of the Bonaparte House all day till we open for dinner.” I smiled. “And Melanie's got a police guard, and Chief Moriarty and his wife have a dinner reservation. I'll be fine. Really, I want you to go.”

A shadow passed over his face, and I reached for his hand. “That's not what I meant, silly. Go have fun with your sister.”

He relaxed. “Okay, then. If you promise me you won't try to investigate anything by yourself.”

Me? Investigate? I wouldn't call what I did investigating. More like stumbling onto the truth. “Okay.”

I hoped that was a promise I'd be able to keep.

It didn't take long to get through the pile. I put the folders back into numerical order, then began to reinsert them into the file box.

“That's odd. There's a file missing.” Folders were marked 55 and 57. No 56.

Jack frowned. “We didn't misfile it, did we? Monty was so meticulous.” He fanned his thumb slowly through the files from front to back.

“Did it fall down to the bottom of the box under the rest of the files?”

He pushed the files against the back wall and slid a hand underneath. “Nothing.”

“Is that what your intruder came for? Maybe he got it.”

Jack nodded. “The last folder is labeled
Index.
” He withdrew it and spread the pages on the table in front of us. “Here it is: fifty-six. Bartlett Farm, September 1966
.
”

The blood drained from my face. “My maiden name was Bartlett,” I whispered. “And it's Melanie's birth name and it would have been her parents' name as well.”

Jack's lips were set in a thin line.

“Doreen's farm,” I said simply. “Jack, where are the artifacts? Did you check those?”

He rose. “I looked at them quickly, but I didn't open the boxes. Come on. They're in the bedroom.”

Under other circumstances I would have been delighted to follow Jack to the bedroom, any bedroom. But right now my brain was working overtime and it had nothing to do with love. How did a Native American artifact figure into this increasingly complicated scenario?

Jack dropped to his knees and lifted the simple beige bed skirt. “Reach in that night table drawer, will you? There's a flashlight.”

I found it and handed it to him. He switched it on. “I'm going to have to ask the cleaning lady to do a better job. There's dust.”

I leaned down for a look. “Those boxes have been moved,” I said. “See the trail that was left amid the dust bunnies?”

“You're right.” He pulled the six boxes out and began to open them until he found the one containing the artifacts numbered in the fifties. The lid flew off with a flourish and landed on the floor.

“Damn!” he said. “Fifty-six is gone.”

TWENTY-ONE

Jack replaced the boxes under the bed and stood up. He offered me a hand and pulled me to my feet.

“Let's go look at that index again,” I said. “Did it say what the item was?”

Jack stood behind me and read over my shoulder. “Arrowhead. Onondaga chert. Early Woodland Meadowood Phase circa 1,000 B.C.,” he said.

“That doesn't tell us much.” I frowned. “A three-thousand-year-old arrowhead?”

“No idea. What would somebody want with it?”

“Clearly it was specifically targeted. It couldn't be random.” I tapped my finger on the paper. “I don't suppose Monty kept photocopies anywhere?”

Jack laughed. “Pretty sure he didn't, but we could ask Gladys when she gets back. This paperwork goes back to
the days of mimeographs and ditto machines. And Monty's been dead for twenty years.”

“I'm not sure it would tell us anything anyway. If you look at the contents of the rest of these files, it's pretty simple. Photographs and a write-up of the procedure used to uncover the item.” A yawn escaped my lips. I was suddenly dead tired.

“Come on,” Jack said. “Let's get you to bed.” He rose.

I looked at him quizzically, not sure where this was going. In theory I would have loved to sleep with Jack. Had thought about it often. In reality, I was a bit reticent to take our relationship to the next level. And it probably had something to do with the fact that historically I had
Titanic
-like taste in men. Disasters. It was difficult to trust myself to know how I really felt, let alone trust someone else.

He brushed his lips across mine. “Don't worry. I'll behave like a gentleman and sleep on the couch.”

I leaned in closer. “I'm more worried about myself not acting like a lady.”

He laughed and took my chin in his hands, lifting it up so I could see his forget-me-not-colored eyes. “When the time comes, it's going to be spectacular. I promise.”

“Do you always keep your promises?”

“I do my best. If I ever don't, you'll know there's a very good reason.”

That was all I could ask for.

*   *   *

I woke the
next morning in Jack's arms, wearing one of his T-shirts, with my head nestled on his shoulder.
I could get used to this
. He pulled me in closer and I caught a faint
whiff of yesterday's aftershave. Nothing had happened. And yet something had. My defense shields had dropped a little.

“Mmmm,” he said. “This is nice.”

“Yes, it is.” I took a deep breath and blew it out. The clock said six thirty—later than I usually slept until the restaurant closed for the season. I sat up and a shiver went through me.

“Come on, get dressed. Let's go out for breakfast at the Family Diner. I feel like pancakes with real maple syrup and some of those homemade sausages they make. We've both got busy days lined up.”

I grabbed my clothes and went into the bathroom to change. I ran a finger through my hair and inspected my teeth. After pizza last night, my breath could not be fresh.

“There's an extra toothbrush in the medicine cabinet,” Jack called.

A couple of decades of living with Spiro Nikolopatos had made me suspicious. Why would Jack keep an extra toothbrush? Did he have a girlfriend? Did he do one-night stands with women he picked up at Fat Max's? I reviewed what I'd seen in his nightstand when I looked for the flashlight last night. Nope, there'd been no condoms. Not that that meant anything. He could have kept them somewhere else. I brushed my teeth.

“Uh, should I just throw away this toothbrush?” My voice was tentative and I hated the wussy sound of it.

“Why? I bought it for you. Just put it in the holder. It'll be fine right there next to mine until the next time you need it.”

I relaxed. Right. Next time. He'd bought it for me.

When I reentered the bedroom, Jack was dressed in a
navy polo shirt and khaki shorts that showed off his long, tanned legs. He threw on a fleece jacket. “Ready to go?”

My jacket was where I'd left it on the hook by the front door. “Do you think we should take Monty's collection with us? What if someone tries to break in again?”

“We could, but it wouldn't be safer in my soft-top Jeep. There's no point even locking it, you know. Anybody who wants to get in will just slit the fabric top. No, I think whoever our intruder was, he got what he came for.” He held the door open for me and I brushed past him out onto the stairs.

“You're probably right.”

The ten-minute drive to the Family Diner, a little greasy spoon in the next village over, was uneventful. The Jeep was loud and it made conversation difficult without yelling. I reviewed what I knew, but I couldn't make sense of any of it. When I got back to the Bonaparte House, I would try again.

We sat down in the same booth we'd sat in the first time we'd been here. Jack's idea. I was glad I was wearing jeans because the vinyl seats here were always sticky with duct tape repairs. But the table was clean. Patty came out from behind the counter, her pink and white uniform hugging her voluptuous curves. Her face broke into a broad smile as she set a plastic-coated menu in front of Jack and dropped one in front of me without acknowledging my lowly existence.

“Hello, handsome,” she said. “Did you come back to take me away from all this?” She waved her long metallic burgundy nails around the diner.

“You can do better than me,” Jack said with a laugh.

“I haven't yet. Coffee?” She filled our cups, then left and
came back with glasses of ice water. “Do you know what you want?”

We gave our orders: pancakes and sausage for Jack, Mexican omelet for me. Neither one of us was a sparkling conversationalist this morning, and though we hadn't come right out and said it, we each knew it wouldn't be a good idea to talk about anything that was going on. As it was, I heard people at the counter discussing the murders. Not that you could blame them. Other than arrests for public drunkenness and bar fights, we didn't get a lot of excitement in Bonaparte Bay or out here in this little village either.

The omelet should have been delicious—three fluffy eggs, fresh salsa, a fat gooey layer of local cheddar cheese, and the best part, I didn't have to cook it or clean up after it. But the thoughts running round and round my head overrode my taste buds.

“Don't worry, Georgie.” Jack forked up a pile of pancake soaked in maple syrup. “I'll stay. Trish will just have to wait for this stuff.”

I shook my head. “No, go do what you have to do. Nothing's likely to change between now and tomorrow when you get back.”

“Promise me you won't be alone.” His eyes held mine.

Truth was, I had a plan. And it involved me going somewhere . . . by myself. “I'll be fine.”

“Promise me,” he repeated.

I squirmed, then relented. “Okay, I promise.”

“Good. Now eat something. I'd like to get on the road as soon as I drop you off.”

Within a few minutes, Jack had cleared his plate and even
tried some of my mostly uneaten breakfast, which made me feel a little less guilty about leaving so much food on the plate. He paid the bill and walked me out to the Jeep.

He dropped me at the kitchen door of the Bonaparte House. Dolly's enormous Crown Vic was in the lot, taking up its usual space and a half next to Sophie's white Lincoln and my little blue Honda. Sophie and Marina were due back from their trip tomorrow, so it was just Dolly and me in the kitchen today and that suited me fine.

“I'll be back tomorrow by early afternoon,” Jack said. “If you can get away, we'll go talk to Gladys and see if she's got any idea what's so important about that arrowhead.”

I nodded. “I'm going to call to check on Melanie. If she's awake, I'll go see her. Otherwise I've got plenty of work to do here, and Dolly's around to keep me company.”

Jack pulled me close and gave me a soft kiss. “Be careful.”

“Keep kissing me like that, and I'll forget what ‘careful' means.”

He grinned. “See you tomorrow.”

“Bye.”

Country music was turned up loud in the kitchen, a song about pickup trucks and freedom sung by a guy with an overdone twang and a gravelly baritone. Dolly was at her usual station, behind the prep counter.

“Mornin', boss,” she said, her face lighting up with a smile. Her hair was teased up higher than usual today, so I wondered if she'd just had it done. “I got started early. I see you did too.” She waggled a sharply plucked eyebrow at me.

Let her think what she wanted. As soon as Sophie came
back, I was going to tell her about Jack and get our relationship out in the open. Chances were she already knew, but I'd feel better if she heard it directly from me.

“I'll be right back,” I said, heading for my office.

Dolly waved me off with her chef's knife. “Go on. Things are under control.”

I sat down behind my big desk, the one that had once belonged to Sophie's husband, Spiro's father, Basil. I dialed the hospital. The nurse on duty said that Melanie had had a good night and was doing well. She was heavily sedated and probably wouldn't wake up until this afternoon. A little stab of guilt pricked my gut. I was relieved I wouldn't have to go see her until later. Was that wrong of me? Probably.

Thoughts continued to swirl. There was some kind of connection between all the events going on here. Something I was missing. And it must have to do with that arrowhead. But what?

Gladys was out of town until tomorrow, on the same seniors' bus trip to Niagara Falls and the casino as Sophie and Marina it turned out. So she'd be no help.

Melanie was hospitalized and unconscious.

Caitlyn knew something, but she wasn't telling.

My fingers drummed on the surface of the desk. There was one place where answers might be found. I knew what I had to do.

Back in the kitchen, I grabbed a clean apron from the stack on the shelves back near the walk-in cooler, put it on, and tied the ends around my waist. After washing my hands, I snapped on disposable gloves and got to work.

Dolly had already started on the salad. We could probably
expect to sell a hundred dinners or so this late in the season, so the prep didn't take long.

We worked together companionably for a few minutes, each of us knowing the rhythm without the need for chitchat after so many years. Finally, I wiped my hands on my apron.

“Dolly, what do you have planned for the afternoon?”

She paused. “Well, I was going to go home, maybe turn on the wrestling match and clean the fish tank. Why?”

“How'd you like to make some extra money for your trip to Branson?”

“You're playing my song, boss.”

An hour later we had passed Rainbow Acres and pulled into the driveway of Doreen's house. Before we got out of the car, I scanned the house and countryside. This place was so far out in the sticks someone would have to have a vehicle to get here, and there was none visible. Unless someone walked down the dirt road or across the fields from the Acres. Hank had seemed pretty keen on buying this farm for his yoga retreat. He'd been involved in some shady business before. But would he kill just to annex this property? Didn't seem likely, yet the possibility was there.

“So this is where you got shot at, huh?”

She didn't have to remind me. I felt bad about possibly putting Dolly into harm's way. But I'd promised Jack I wouldn't go anywhere alone. And Dolly, well, she was as savvy as they came. She could take care of herself. She could probably take care of me too. And I had to get into this house.

“Ready? Let's go.”

We exited the car and made it to the front porch. I put the key, the one I'd taken from Melanie's purse before we left the
Bonaparte House, into the lock and gave it a twist. The door swung open. The house was silent as I cautiously stepped inside the door. We went to the kitchen. The back door was still locked. So it seemed probable that we were alone. An intruder—or killer—would hardly lock himself inside a house.