Silence of the Lamb's Wool (A Yarn Retreat Mystery) (21 page)

It’s amazing what having a gun pointed in your general direction will do. The fiancé, the bride-to-be, the manager of Vista Del Mar, and the fiancé’s daughter all stood like statues. I have to admit, I did the same. Dane looked over the crowd, and after a moment shook his head with disbelief before holstering his weapon. His gaze had stopped on me.

“Do you want to tell me what’s going on?” he said.

“Why don’t you ask him,” I said, pointing a finger accusingly at Burton Fiore. “He came here looking to find what Nicole Welton was using to blackmail him with and that’s why he killed her.”

“Killed her?” Burton Fiore said in shock. “Are you crazy?” It was like he suddenly saw Cora. “What are
you
doing here?” he demanded. I guess for the moment the role of swooning fiancé was over.

“I saw you rushing off somewhere and I wanted to see what you were up to.” Cora glanced around at the rest of us. “I’m not as foolish as you all think. Or as helpless. I commandeered the Vista Del Mar van.” Her eyes stopped on Ronny Fiore. “Missy, what are you doing here?”

Ronny hemmed and hawed. “I don’t understand. I thought I was the only one paying Nicole.” Her father snapped at her not to say anything more.

Kevin St. John seemed to be trying to recede into the shadows, but we all turned toward him. He appeared a little less the lord of the manor. “I wouldn’t call what I was doing blackmail. I’d just been giving Nicole a few bucks to help her out since her business seemed to be struggling.” I don’t think anybody bought his story.

“Did anyone actually break in here?” Dane said, looking around the group.

“They all did,” I said. “I’m the only one with a key and permission to be in here. But it’s not about robbing this place. I think one of them killed Nicole.”

They all started talking at once, insisting they had nothing to do with her death. Dane put his hands up to stop them. Then he turned to me. There was no flirting. He was all business, or almost. “Okay, Casey, how about you tell me the whole story.”

“Yeah, why don’t you. I heard you found some things that Nicole had. Let’s see what you’ve got,” Burton Fiore said. I realized that he was being cagey, not giving away the reason for the blackmail, no doubt hoping that I had nothing concrete and it would all go away.

I saw his face drop as I pulled the big envelope out of my bag. I’d done some checking earlier and then made a pit stop on my way to pick up some items from the box of moldy stuff sitting in my converted garage. I emptied the contents on a beautifully refinished table. The envelope with the baby photo floated down, but the locket and the hairbrush landed with a clunk. The key made a ping.

“But I thought . . .” Burton caught himself and stopped talking.

“You thought it was the hair jewelry pieces Nicole had in the glass case,” I said, finishing what I was pretty sure he had started to say. “So that’s why you took them.”

His eyes flashed with anger. “Don’t be absurd.”

I ignored his comment. “The only piece that meant anything wasn’t even there.”

“Mother’s locket,” Cora said, reaching for the brown heart pendant. She retracted her hand as she got a whiff of the moldy smell. “That explains it. Nicole asked me about mourning jewelry and asked if I’d ever seen a locket with woven hair on the outside. I said my mother had had one. She never mentioned that she had it.”

Dane looked over the items and then back to me. There was a little sparkle in his dark eyes. “I can’t wait to hear what you have to say.”

I had their attention and I felt like I was in an Agatha Christie mystery during the big reveal. And maybe I was a little caught up with my own cleverness.

I took a moment to explain how I had found the box of moldy clothes and remembered something Nicole had said about hiding things where no one would look. I glanced around at the assembled group. “The box was here up until a day ago. So, whoever broke in here before must have gone right past it.” Judging from the scowl on Burton Fiore’s face, I was guessing it was he. “Now then, I might as well cut to the chase and explain what it all means.” I waited a beat to begin as I organized my thoughts.

“First, I should explain that Nicole bought a dresser at a garage sale, which I now realize was from the former Delacorte family home.” There was no need to mention that Sammy’s comment about his living arrangements had made me put it together. I remembered that Will had said the garage sale was to clear out a storage area so that it could be made into a studio apartment. And then Sammy had talked about the B and B where he was living doing exactly that. There was a plaque in front of the B and B that said it had been the home of Antonia and Rudolph Delacorte until Antonia’s death.

“I think Nicole bought it with the idea of refinishing it and putting it in her shop. Just like she bought the old locket at the same sale, planning to fix it up and add it to her collection of hair jewelry.” I’d made a call to the B and B owner and they had verified that along with the dresser, the locket had been part of the odds and ends in the sale. “Nicole might have had it in mind to refurbish the textiles when she emptied the dresser, but I think her plans changed after she realized the real meaning of what she found.”

I held up the silver hairbrush. Before I could speak, Cora called out, “That looks like Edmund’s.” She seemed to choke a little on her words and then explained they’d all had hairbrushes just like it, even mentioning that she still had hers. I nodded and turned it over to display the
ED
engraved in the filigree decoration on the back. Cora reached out to touch it, then seemed a little disconcerted by the handful of hair still clinging to the bristles.

I looked down at the longish dark hairs with the hint of white on the end stuck in the brush. “I think those hairs were the point, but I’ll get to that later.” I set the brush down and held up the locket and flipped it open. They all leaned forward to get a better view of the tiny black-and-white photograph of a baby.

“That’s my brother, Edmund,” Cora said. “Mother was so distraught when he died she had the locket made from his hair and the baby photo inserted.”

I held up the envelope and photo that had been inside and again Cora spoke. “Is that Edmund?” She seemed puzzled, pointing out that the two baby faces seemed almost identical. She shook her head as a realization came to her. “Of course not. That must be of James, Edmund’s son.” She lowered her head as she explained that Edmund’s only child had died in an accident with his mother barely a year after her brother had died. “Where did that photo come from?”

I repeated the story about the dresser and now added that Madeleine had confirmed it had been her brother’s and that it must have been left at the family home after he died.

“But you’re missing what I didn’t see at first, either. I think it is Edmund’s child, but not James.” I pointed to the baby’s shirt. “The color is distorted, but I’d bet anything it’s pink. But the sure giveaway that it’s a girl is the bow in her hair.” I held out the photo and pointed to the tiny hair ornament. I said a silent thank-you to the woman talking about the baby blanket and the infant I’d seen in the restroom. If it hadn’t been for them, I never would have realized that the baby in the picture was a girl, although I’d heard that Edmund had a son.

Cora’s eyes were as big as saucers. “She looks just like my brother did as a baby.”

I nodded as the meaning began to sink in. “So it seems your brother had another child. A secret child,” I said. I showed off the back of the envelope that had
Our Baby
written in blue fountain pen. I heard Kevin swallow so hard he almost choked. “And from what I have heard, your brother was very specific in his will that Vista Del Mar was to go to his children.”

The real impact hit Cora. “So then this baby would inherit Vista Del Mar and be entitled to Edmund’s portion of the family’s estate? Who is she?”

Instead of answering her question, I picked up the small key. “If you notice, it has a number on it. I don’t know how Nicole figured it out. Maybe when she was ripping out the pages of those old ledgers to put in the fireplace, she realized they were sign-in sheets for the safety-deposit boxes. Then when she found the number on the key, put it together with the signatures.” I turned to Cora. “The key goes to your brother’s safety-deposit box.”

Everyone glanced back toward the vault and I explained the locks were all removed and the boxes empty. “Your brother came in the bank every Friday and went into his safety-deposit box. A little while later, someone else came into the bank and accessed the same box.”

“It sounds like a money drop for a payoff, probably to the mother to keep her quiet,” Dane said. I was surprised at his comment and realized he was listening intently.

“That’s a crude way to put it. I’m sure Edmund could have been leaving money for the mother or the child’s caretaker. He was a wonderful person and responsible,” Cora said. “It was a different time . . .” Her voice trailed off.

“And he wanted to run for governor,” I said, repeating what Tag had told me. “Even now a love child can capsize a political career. But that’s all old news and not what this is about. It’s just about Vista Del Mar and who it really belongs to, isn’t it?” I glared at Burton, Ronny and Kevin.

“This is all conjecture,” Burton Fiore said impatiently.

“Not really,” Dane said, nodding in recognition. He pointed to the hairbrush sitting on the table. “Casey, are you going to explain or should I?”

“I can do it,” I said, trying to find a way to explain it so it wasn’t complicated. I mentioned that Nicole was interested in the origins of things and had a bunch of books on the history of textiles and fibers. “Hair was just another fiber to her. When she was doing her research it probably came up that you can extract DNA from hair. Well, not really the hair. You need to have the root.” I picked up the brush and pointed out the tiny white bulb on the end of a strand of hair. “And if there was any doubt that the hairs in the brush were Edmund’s, the strands could be matched with those in the locket, which was known to have been made from his hair. And with his DNA, you can do a paternity test.”

Kevin St. John finally spoke up from the back. “You’re forgetting one thing. You need to know the baby’s identity to get a DNA sample to do a paternity test. Unless you have something with the baby’s name on it, there’s no way to know who that baby was or what became of her.”

Ronny broke free of the group and grabbed one of the ledgers. “It’s empty.” She went through the rest and saw they were all the same. “They’re all empty.”

Cora seemed a little confused. “What exactly is the point of all of this?”

“Nicole had figured out a way to increase her income through blackmailing assorted people by dangling the idea that she had proof that Edmund had another child who could inherit Vista Del Mar,” I said.

Then Cora got it. “But Vista Del Mar has been ours for years. You mean someone could show up and claim it as theirs?”

“The secret baby is probably in her fifties now and she probably has no idea who she really is,” I said.

Cora seemed emphatic. “You need to understand why Vista Del Mar meant so much to Edmund. He was ashamed of what our family’s sardine cannery did to the bay. Ashamed that our fleet of boats had fished until the sardines were gone. It was his way of paying back. It wasn’t so much about making money as preserving the historic buildings from the old camp and saving the natural quality of the land. My sister and I know how he felt about it and we want to keep it as Edmund would have wanted it. Who knows what some new person might do to it.”

She surveyed the group and shook her head in dismay. “I’m sorry, but all this is taking a while to sink in. Let me understand this. You were paying Nicole to keep quiet about all this so Vista Del Mar wouldn’t change ownership.” She focused on Burton. “Now I get it. Of course you wouldn’t want someone else to step up and claim Vista Del Mar.” She smiled sweetly. “I’ve seen you looking around the grounds as if you were making plans and I’ve heard your suggestions. But, Burton dear, did you really think I was going to hand over the running of it to you and your daughter?” They both did a great act of looking shocked.

“I loved all the attention you both gave me, but I wasn’t born yesterday.” She looked at Burton’s stunned expression. “My goodness, you did more than make up plans in your head, didn’t you? I hope you didn’t lay out too much of your money.” She turned to Ronny. “And, dear, you better not quit that job of yours, because we have a manager and that isn’t going to change.”

Kevin St. John was her next target. Before she could speak, he started to talk.

“I didn’t want anything to change for you or for me,” he said. “But this seems to be a big fuss about nothing. There is nothing with the identity of the mother. There’s no way to know who that baby was or what became of her,” he repeated, trying to reassure Cora.

“Except for this.” I put down all the other props and picked up a folded sheet from the ledger, and I heard a gasp go through the crowd.

“Then you do know the mother’s name?” Dane said.

I unfolded the sheet and they all saw part of it was missing. “Not exactly. But I can tell you her name starts with an
M
. Someone came in here and shredded what was left in the ledgers.” I looked from face to face to see if any of them flinched. Either they were great actors or none of them had.