The Nightingale Before Christmas (26 page)

She sat down in what I suspected was her customary end of the sofa, surrounded by her TV remote, a half-completed crossword puzzle, and a tote bag full of knitting. I took the chair at right angles to it.

“Quite a lot of excitement thanks to you folks,” she remarked.

“Not the sort of excitement you want,” I said. “I'm sure it's quite upsetting for everyone, having a murder in the neighborhood.”

“Well, it's not as if he lived here, and from what I hear, he was a wrong 'un. Not that that's any excuse for killing another human being, but in this life we reap what we sow, don't we?”

I could get to like Emily.

“Chief Burke was over here yesterday, asking me if I'd seen or heard anything that night,” she went on. “But I go to bed early, and I take out my hearing aids, so I was of no use to him.”

“I was actually trying to find out some information about the Green family,” I said. “It only just occurred to me that some of the people who come to see the house might want to know about the family that used to live there, and so far I haven't found anyone who knew them.”

“I knew them,” she said. “Not well, but probably as well as anyone who's still living here. They moved in—let's see. Twenty years ago this summer. Bob and Carol Green. In their thirties—seemed like a nice couple. They had a little boy when they moved in, and the little girl was born shortly afterward.”

“What were the children's names?” I asked. Not that the children's names seemed at all relevant, but I needed to keep up the pretense of working up a short history of the house.

“The boy was Zachary,” she said. “Nice when old-fashioned names come back in style, isn't it? And the girl was Jessica.”

“Jessica? You're sure?” I had to struggle to conceal my excitement at this bit of information.

“Quite sure,” she said. “I always liked the name. On account of Jessica Tandy. You remember her.”

“The original Blanche Dubois in
A Streetcar Named Desire,
” I said. “Of course.”

“Very good, dear,” she said. “Most people only remember her as the old crone in
Driving Miss Daisy
.”

“My husband's in the drama department at the college,” I said.

“That explains it. Yes, the little Green girl was Jessica. Popular name—we had two or three other Jessicas about the same age. And at least one boy named Jesse. But I could keep Jessica Green straight because she was a redhead, and half the time her mother dressed her in bright green, to match her eyes.”

I couldn't wait to tell Chief Burke that I'd probably identified the fugitive Jessica.

“When did they move away?” I asked.

“Six years ago—it'll be seven in March,” she said. “And they didn't just move away—there was quite a to-do! Bob Green did something in the stock market, and they always seemed quite well off. I half expected them to move into one of those starter castles over on the other side of town—you know the ones I mean?”

I nodded.

“They had three or four cars, and a boat, and they were always giving elegant, catered parties.” Emily went on. “They kept horses in the field behind the house. They even broke ground for a pool in the backyard. But then something happened, and the pool stayed a hole in the ground, and the horses left, and the fancy cars were replaced with more practical ones, and the caterers stopped coming. One day they were gone. I heard the bank foreclosed on the house. And I got the feeling a lot of people in the neighborhood weren't too happy with Mr. Green. People who'd invested with him.”

“I guess the bank had the half-finished pool filled in,” I said.

“I expect the insurance company insisted,” Emily said. “And the stable was practically falling down, too, so they tore that down as well. Frankly, a lot of us in the neighborhood were glad to see your lot show up. We were starting to worry that the bank would just wait till the house fell apart so they could tear it down and sell the land for condos.”

“So there's no one here who really resents the designers, then?” I asked.

“A few people aren't keen on all the traffic that's going to happen when the house opens,” she said. “But even they know that's short term, and if fixing up the house and having people tromp through helps sell it, all the better. It's bad for the neighborhood, having an abandoned house. An open invitation to squatters, or mischievous teens. Ask Chief Burke—we have a recurring problem with break-ins over there.”

“Recently?”

“Not since your people came,” she said. “But four or five times this fall.”

“That matches what I've heard,” I said. “Emily—do know know anything about all the secret compartments in the house?”

“Secret compartments?” She tilted her head as if not sure if I was serious.

“Randall Shiffley calls them hidey-holes. Secret compartments built into the walls or the floor. A lot of them. A couple of dozen, all through the house. He found them when they were repairing the house.”

“I never heard about any secret compartments,” she said. “Of course, I didn't get invited over there much. I was never what you'd call socially prominent, and they were trying to be. But I think I'd have heard if anyone in the neighborhood had seen secret compartments. Maybe that's what happened to all the money people are supposed to have lost with him.”

“I thought he lost it in the market,” I said.

“Maybe he only told his investors that,” she said. “Maybe instead of investing their money he converted it into Krugerrands, and hid them in the secret compartments until he was ready to run away.”

“Kruggerrands?”

“You know, those South African gold coins—very popular with these shady criminal types, I hear, if they're planning to make a fast exit. Or diamonds. Although you'd think if they had any diamonds they'd have managed to finish the pool.”

“I'll share that theory with Chief Burke, if you like.” I probably would. It wasn't any crazier than some of the theories I'd come up with.

“Well, I should let you go,” she said, glancing at the clock. And then at her TV remote, so I deduced that something she wanted to watch was about to start.

“Thanks for the information,” I said. “We'll have to figure out how much to say about the Greens in our tours.”

“Probably as little as possible,” Emily said. “People like that always come out of the woodwork and threaten to sue if you say the least thing against them.”

“If you're interested in seeing what the designers have done to the house, drop by,” I said. “I'll leave a ticket for you.”

“Thank you, dear.” Emily's eyes gleamed with real enthusiasm. “I do love house and garden tours—nothing more fun than peeking in on how other people live.”

She ushered me out and waved a cheerful good-bye from the doorway.

I headed back to the house with an interesting new theory. And I knew the minute I walked back into the house, I'd get caught up in the madness. So I stopped by my car, leaned against the bumper, and called the chief.

“Something wrong?” he asked.

“Something right, I hope,” I said. “I have an idea who Jessica, the fake reporter, really is.”

“I'm listening.”

And listening rather irritably, by the sound of it.

“You know the people who used to own the house before the bank foreclosed on it? The Greens?”

A small pause.

“I know
of
them,” he said. “I never met them, and I understand they're no longer living in town. Haven't been here for six years. Do you think they had something to do with the murder?”

“I talked to a little old lady across the street. Emily Warren.”

“The one-woman neighborhood watch,” he said. “I know Mrs. Warren.”

“She didn't know the Greens that well,” I said. “But did remember that they had a daughter born shortly after they moved in. A redheaded daughter named Jessica. She remembered the name particularly because of Jessica Tandy.”

“Jessica Tan—oh.
Driving Miss Daisy
. One of Morgan Freeman's finer roles. The fact that that he didn't win an Academy Award for that role—but I digress. So you think the Jessica who pretended to be a student reporter was Jessica Green?”

“It makes sense,” I said. “And I remember something—Jessica was very upset when she saw what Vermillion was doing. I thought she was creeped out by all the Goth stuff, but maybe that wasn't it. She talked about it being a perfectly nice bedroom and Vermillion was turning it into something out of the Addams Family. What if she was upset because Vermillion had done such a drastic remodel to her childhood bedroom?”

“I don't think you need to have grown up in the house to find Miss Vermillion's décor peculiar,” the chief said. “But go on.”

“And she was there at the house when Violet lost her key again—Violet was always losing keys. What if Violet didn't lose her key that day? If Jessica picked it up, she'd have a perfect way to get back into the house that night. And she was also there when we were all dragging stuff out of Sarah's room. She helped. She could have picked up the hidden gun.”

The chief said nothing for rather a long time. I was sure he was about to weigh in and demolish my suspicions with some bit of evidence he hadn't shared with the public. Or announce that one of the Grangers had already confessed.

“I was already eager to talk to the missing Jessica,” he said. “She has just risen to the top of my priority list. I'm going to see what's taking that sketch artist so long. I'll call you as soon as he gets here.”

“I'm going to have Randall arrange to have the house rekeyed,” I said. “The designers have been strewing keys around like confetti for weeks now. I'll feel a lot better if we know that Jessica can't just waltz in with her own key.”

“Good thinking,” he said. “And read the riot act to everyone in the house about locking up.”

“Will do.”

Randall was still in the living room with Mother, helping Tomás and Mateo with something.

“Mother, I hate to interrupt, but we have an urgent project. Randall, the chief thinks it's a good idea for us to rekey all the locks here, in case whoever killed Clay has a key to the house.”

“Does he have some reason for thinking that's likely?” Randall asked.

“Yes,” I said. “Long story. I'll fill you in later. Just get those locks rekeyed as soon as you can.”

“I'm on it.”

I went back to the hall and looked for Ivy. She wasn't downstairs in the foyer. Or in the upstairs hall. I was opening the broom closet and peeking in, to see if she might be hiding there. No. Maybe in the basement—

“Meg?”

I started, and turned to find Ivy behind me.

“Do you need something?”

“Yes,” I said. “You.”

She looked startled.

“Look, I know you're very busy,” I said. “I hate to interrupt your work, but could you do a quick sketch for me? It's really important.”

“Of course,” she said. “What do you want me to draw?”

“Remember Jessica, the young woman who was hanging around the house two days ago?”

“Interviewing us for the student paper,” she said. “Yes.”

“Could you do a good likeness of her?”

She nodded, and gestured for me to stand back so she could get into the closet. She took out a sketch pad, and a bunch of pencils, and went over to sit down on the hall stairs. She looked up at the ceiling, then closed her eyes and appeared to go inward for a few moments. Then she opened her eyes and began sketching.

I remembered Clay's sketchbook, still hidden in my tote. Should I take that to the chief as well? But getting a sketch of Jessica into the chief's hands seemed more important. When I delivered that, I'd mention the sketchbook.

“She was strange,” Ivy said, absently, without looking up from her sketchbook.

“Strange how?”

“She kept going around tapping on the walls. She smeared some of the paint on my crèche mural. I don't like people touching my paintings.”

More fodder for my theories. I watched over Ivy's shoulder as she sketched in the shape of a young woman's face. At first it didn't look much like anyone. Then it started to look a little like Jessica, and then a little more, and eventually, after she'd added more details and tweaked others, a startling likeness emerged.

“That's it,” I said.

“Just let me add a little color,” she said, picking up her colored pencils. A few strokes with the red, orange, and brown pencils and Jessica's copper-red hair shone out. A touch of green to the eyes and a few strokes of flesh color to the face and it was done.

“Perfect,” I said. “May I give it to the chief?”

“I'd be delighted if you did,” she said.

And then, as if she'd used up her day's portion of human interaction, she smiled and fled upstairs.

I pulled out my phone, took a picture of her drawing, and e-mailed it to the chief. And then I called him.

“The sketch artist can't be here till tomorrow,” he said. “I know it's irritating—”

“Call him off,” I said. “And check your e-mail. I had Ivy do a sketch.”

“Ivy?”

“One of the designers. The one doing all the paintings in the foyer and the upstairs hall.”

“Hold on.”

I heard random noises for a while. And then—

“This is Jessica?”

“Exactly,” I said. “And the original sketch is even better.”

“Can you bring that in?” he asked. “It could be a while before I can get anyone over there. Meanwhile, I'll get this photo out to my officers as a preliminary. We'll save the region-wide alert for the real thing.”

“On my way.”

 

Chapter 22

I was putting on my coat when I heard a crash, followed by a wail of distress.