The Wolfe Widow (A Book Collector Mystery) (24 page)

Cherie.

Cherie had made quite a splash at Sullivan’s. And Detective Jones had been there too, fraternizing with the two murderous landscapers. Naturally, I couldn’t let anything slip about me being there spying on them. Somehow I knew that admission would blow up in my face and I might lose this new possible ally.

I shook my head. “No blondes at Van Alst House. Or here.”

I was thinking fast. Could Cherie really have been involved? Or was Detective Jones just pointing the finger to get attention away from Muriel and possibly himself?

Tricky situation.

I said, “It’s hard to believe all this stuff is happening in Harrison Falls.”

“And that’s not all,” he said.

“What?”

He leaned in, conspiratorially. “I hear there’s a big bust going on too.”

I stared at him, exhausted and slack-jawed. “I don’t understand.”

“There’s been a sweep and it looks like the feds have broken up a counterfeiting ring.”

Uh-oh. “You think that has something to do with the Rileys?”

“Like you said, there’s all this stuff happening in our little town.”

“Here? Counterfeiting seems a little sophisticated for Harrison Falls.” My Spidey Senses were doing backflips.
Please, not my uncles.

“Apparently here and Grandville and downstate.”

“Albany?”

“New York City.”

Counterfeit ring. Of course, my uncles would be all over that. Kellys love a crime with zero violence and a lot of sleight of hand. This must be why they’d been so elusive lately. I’d been thinking more along the line of a jewelry heist. But then there was all that equipment in the building across the way. Were Uncle Mick and Lucky caught up in this sweep?

My eye began to twitch. I wasn’t sure I could hide my anxiety, so I tried a diversion.

“You don’t think this has anything to do with Muriel and Vera, do you?”

“Oh no, just making conversation.”

At the sound of heavy footsteps from the shop, I whirled to face Uncle Mick. Safe and sound. Wild Irish hair standing on end. Yawning and stretching, he whipped off his jacket. As usual his shirt was unbuttoned just enough to show off the gold chain nestled in the ginger thatch on his chest. “What a night. Long drive back from Baltimore. Can’t wait to hit the hay. What are you doing up so early?” He glanced around, staring at Melski. Then turned to Kev and the signora. He frowned at the door to Lucky’s, where a cat protest could be heard. Finally back to Melski. “Perhaps I’m already asleep and this is a nightmare. Wake me when it’s over.”

I barely managed not to collapse with relief.

“Officer Melski, this is my uncle, Michael Kelly. This is Officer Melski, Uncle Mick. Officer Melski’s been a huge help. He kept me out of jail tonight.”

“Huh. You are the last person in the world who would ever get arrested, my girl.”

“That’s changed, apparently.”

Melski ruined the mood. “I suppose you can account for your whereabouts from two to three this morning, sir?”

Uncle Mick chuckled. “Sure can. Got pulled over in a roadblock on 81. Some FBI thing as far as I could tell. You guys keep records of that kind of thing, don’t you?”

Perhaps the stars were in alignment for the Kellys tonight.

Kev said, “We heard they were looking for a bunch of paperhangers.”

Mick chuckled. “Counterfeit—paperhangers? In Williams County? That’s shocking. What’s the world coming to?”

He was light and breezy, so I figured whatever he’d been up to, it wasn’t counterfeiting.

I had to ask, “And Uncle Lucky?”

“Still a happy honeymooner in the big smoke. Home again tomorrow, I think. Well, I’m off to bed.”

Only an innocent man could saunter up the stairs leaving us in the kitchen. Surely.

I stood up but felt my knees buckle. All that adrenaline.

Officer Melski said, “Maybe you should get some rest too. I have a feeling you won’t get much today. I’ll be outside if you need me.”

I barely made it up the stairs. Cobain and Walter came with me. Although I hoped Melski didn’t recognize Cobain, I was too tired to question why a patrol officer was free to spend his night keeping an eye on us.

Kevin checked that the signora had everything she needed in Lucky’s place and he crashed on the sofa there, giving Bad Cat an opportunity for a bit of fun, I figured.

Just before I went to sleep, I texted Cherie asking a very special favor. I needed a wireless webcam set up in Vera’s room, one at each entrance and one in the study if I was to keep an eye on whatever was going to happen in Van Alst House. I probably needed a spare too and a laptop. If anyone could make that happen, Cherie could. That is, if she got my text and if she really was one of the good guys.

At this point, I had very little to lose.

I
F THINGS HAD
been bad up until that point, at nine the next morning they got much worse. For the first time in my life, I was arrested.

This set up a wave of opposition from Uncle Mick and Uncle Kev, Signora Panetone, Walter and Cobain and, unless I was wrong—given how shocked I was—a cat or two in the distance. Everyone had been caught flatfooted competing to make breakfast in the small kitchen.

Everyone except me. I was caught flatfooted enjoying the results of competition between Uncle Mick and the signora. The only flatfoot in our group seemed to have gone home when his shift was over.

“I’ll get you a lawyer,” Uncle Mick said.

“Make sure it’s not Dwight Jenkins,” I muttered.

Uncle Mick shrugged. “Don’t worry. He’s useless.”

Detective Jones scowled at Uncle Mick. His expression radiated menace.

If I had an expression it would have radiated stunned, just plain stunned. The fact of the pot calling the kettle black just added to my stunnedness.

I was ushered from the house by Detective Jones after being given time to get dressed. What does one wear to the interrogation room? Something that would survive a spell in a cell? I wore black tights, black boots and a gray dress. I decided against jewelry and a scarf. They’d just take those from me.

I had no role models for this. Although some of my uncles were no strangers to jail, Mick and Lucky had never spent a minute behind bars, giving new meaning to “the luck of the Irish.” Kev was a different story, but who would ever use Kev as a role model for anything?

As Detective Jones put his hand on my head and I slumped into the back of a Harrison Falls Police Services patrol car, Uncle Mick called out, “Don’t say a word until the lawyer gets there. Not a word, my girl.”

After being fingerprinted, having my mug shot taken and being left to twitch in an interrogation room for at least an hour, I decided my model would be Archie. An innocent person might be puzzled, angry or panicked, but, of course, I was not an innocent person. Still, I did not intend to become a convicted person.

The interrogation room wouldn’t win any prizes for décor. It was Vera-sweater-beige with a single table and four hard plastic chairs. The lights were unpleasantly bright and humming, the worst that fluorescence has to offer. Naturally, the door was locked.

I sat there and tried to remember the details of Archie’s interrogations. I assumed a languid and relaxed position, not to give anyone on the other side a moment’s satisfaction. Of course, I was guilty of the burglary of Dwight Jenkins’s house and of orchestrating the theft of the will at Van Alst House. I doubted that they could prove it. Still, I worked on remembering my uncles’ many tips on convincing lies.

I did not trust this guy Jones. I wouldn’t put it past him to manufacture evidence to frame me. He had bad taste in drinking buddies and I bet his integrity was subpar.

After an eternity, he showed up, well groomed as always, with a young officer and a tape recorder. I looked bored. I declined his offer of a soft drink or some bottled water. Coffee too. Did he think I was a fool happy to hand over my DNA?

“Thanks. Still enjoying memories of breakfast.”

“It could be a long day.”

I shrugged. “Bring it.”

“Your choice.”

He made himself comfortable in the plastic chair next to the younger officer. The tape was already running.

“You know why you’re here?”

“I’ve been advised not to say anything without my lawyer.”

“Why would that be? An innocent person doesn’t need a lawyer.”

I resisted an urge to blow him a kiss. I think that was Archie’s influence. I managed a smile.

And so it went. Questions about where I was, who I was with, who I had contacted, what time this, what time that. All the answers were the same: not until my lawyer gets here.

“You sure you have a lawyer?” he said with a sneer after a lot of wasted questions. “Why would you need one?”

“I didn’t before this morning actually, but my uncle will contact a family friend.”

“Name?”

I figured the most innocuous question could blow up in my face. I could become rattled, and once rattled I would be a sitting duck for whatever shots Detective Jack Jones wanted to fire. “You’d have to call my uncle for that information.”

Uncle Mick was more than equal to anything Jones could dish out.

Archie would have dished back, never answering the question as asked, pushing and even taunting the cops as he went. There were plenty of entertaining examples of that. Inspector Cramer’s face always turned bright red. Of course, Archie was brave about being beaten up and I was pretty sure that I wouldn’t be, even if it led to a successful litigation. I kept it to smiling and hoped that Jones would be only manageably enraged. Unlike Cramer, his face never got the slightest bit red.

I thought the younger cop got a bit wide-eyed from time to time, but we all have to grow up sometime. After what felt like weeks but was probably only hours, an officer came to the door with my lawyer, a guy named Sammy Vincovic from Syracuse. I had heard my uncle speak of him in respectful tones. Unlike the dapper Detective Jack Jones, Vincovic looked like he’d slept in his suit. Regularly.

Jones would underestimate him.

I was allowed to consult privately with my lawyer. I hadn’t been sure if that was just on television. “When they question you, say nothing,” he advised.

“I haven’t been answering anything without you.”

“No comment. That’s what you say, if they pick you up again or question you about anything.”

“I have an alibi.” I filled him in on Officer Melski.

Vincovic shook his head. “Say nothing.”

“But—”

He shook his head sadly. “You want this to go well or badly?”

“Well, I am the one in the family who’s gone straight.”

“Then you want it to go well. There’s no way they can get a conviction and most likely no way that it will even come to trial. If it does, we can look forward to a case for malicious prosecution. Those are good.”

“They are?”

“Sure. Moneywise. Of course, you’d need to go to trial and to be acquitted and we’d need to prove that the cops deliberately messed up.”

“You could probably make that stick. Something bad is going on with my former employer, Vera Van Alst. Detective Jones is mixed up in it.” It took a while to explain. At the end, I think Vincovic got it. He smiled, maybe imagining the fun of a suit for malicious prosecution. I just wanted it all to end.

By the time I got bail, I was starting to unravel.

As I was on my way out of the station, Detective Jack Jones narrowed his eyes. “You’re not off the hook yet.”

“No comment,” I said.

Vincovic smiled like a proud daddy.

*   *   *

AT HOME EVERYONE
fussed over me, including two excited dogs. Somehow in the homecoming, I managed to get scratched by Bad Cat. I almost had to admire his initiative. Speaking of initiative, Vincovic was described in admiring terms as a “piranha.” When I voiced my worries about the cost of a piranha, Uncle Mick said, “A treat on me, my girl.”

The signora had won the battle for kitchen supremacy and was serving giant bowls of fresh pasta with a simple tomato sauce. I knew that meal was out of this world. My uncles were in for a treat of a different kind.

On the off chance someone had planted a listening device on us, I couldn’t reveal what I’d done or ask Uncle Mick about the equipment across the street and if he’d had a close call in the sweep on 81 last night.

“I ran into your old friend, Cheryl,” Kev said. “She said she has everything you need for your sound system if you’re still interested. All the components.”

As I didn’t have a friend called Cheryl and I wasn’t looking for a sound system, I assumed this was code for Cherie and the webcams and laptop being set up in Van Alst House. “Oh yeah. I’ll be glad to get that old turntable hooked up. That way I can play some of those vinyl classics in the shop, Uncle Mick.”

“You’re looking tired, Jordie,” Kev said. “Maybe you should have a rest.”

“I lost a night’s sleep and today was really rough. Detective Jones has a vendetta against me.”

“Vincovic will make mincemeat out of Jones, my girl. He’s obviously making it up as he goes along. Just another dirty cop trying to protect a murderer. Now why don’t you head on up and get some rest.”

Mick headed up the stairs, treading as girlishly, but audibly, as he could, while I sneaked out the back door with Kev to the second garage, the one the police almost certainly didn’t know about, to have a private chat.

“We made contact with Eddie,” Kev said.

“How?”

“Cherie got to him when she installed the surveillance equipment.”

“Great. By the way, how did she get access to the house?”

“Did something to mess up the cable connection, and then knocked on the door and told them it had happened while she was working in the area and she needed to make repairs.”

“They fell for it?”

He shrugged. “Told you Muriel’s a cable addict. She was flipping because she couldn’t watch her morning programs.”

“And they let her in?”

“Apparently the lawyer’s been back and a new will is all signed.”

“Oh no.”

“It’s okay. Cherie was asked to witness it. Don’t worry. She didn’t use her real name. I don’t think that will would be legal, do you?”

“That will be a cold comfort if something happens to Vera.”

Kev’s eyes widened.

“Things are really serious,” I said.

“But there’s good news too.”

“What is it?”

“Eddie’s been booted out.”

“That’s not good news. He was supposed to protect Vera.”

“He got agitated about the will and blew it. But he wants to talk to you. So Cherie brought him here. Wait until you hear this.”

“But the police are actively looking for this blond woman. They might figure out it’s her.”

“Give her some credit. She’s no dummy, Jordie.”

No dummy, but was she a good guy or a bad guy?

A soft knock on the door caused me to whirl. Eddie entered. If he was pale and insubstantial at the best of times, tonight he looked like a puff of smoke, ready to dissipate.

“You have to help her.”

“That’s the idea, Eddie,” I said. “Did Vera talk to you?”

“She wouldn’t. You’re right. She’s under Muriel’s thumb. This will says Muriel’s her sister and she gets everything.”

“Muriel
is
her sister, illegitimate, but a half sister anyway. Did you know about Muriel being Leonard Van Alst’s child?”

“You hear things.”

“And do you remember about Vera and Muriel’s relationship in high school?”

He slumped in a chair. “What’s to remember? They hated each other. Vera was embarrassed by her father’s affairs. She wasn’t really popular to begin with. Then when the factory closed, everyone hated the Van Alsts with a passion.”

They still do
, I thought. Jack Jones was one of them. Probably the Rileys too.

Eddie said, “Muriel was really nasty and she was big too. Vera had never even gone to public school. She had her head in her books and she kept to herself. She was different from everyone. Exotic.”

I didn’t add,
and a total snob
. From his expression and tone of voice, I figured this was the point where Eddie began his lifetime of unrequited love for Vera.

I patted his arm. “And?”

“She needed protection. I made sure I was between them all the time. Everyone knew that Muriel was a Van Alst b—well, you know.” He blushed.

“Did Vera know?”

“Aside from the gossip, Muriel made it clear to her.”

“That doesn’t explain the hold that Muriel has on her then. If Vera was aware of it and she knew everyone else was too, what else could it be?”

“Something big. I don’t know what. Muriel was really horrible, nasty. The kind of person who would need psychological work before she could become a decent person. I think Mr. Murphy took her aside and gave her grief for the way she was treating Vera. Not long after that, Muriel started to cozy up to Vera. She apologized and said she was wrong. She wanted to make amends and be a friend and she didn’t want anything from Vera. She knew she wasn’t a real Van Alst.”

“You heard all this?”

“I was right there.”

“Did Vera accept it?”

“After a while she came around. It would be easier to have Muriel as a friend than an enemy.”

“No doubt.”

“They started to spend time together and I got kind of left out. It was the end of the school year and I’d been hoping to take Vera to . . .”

Oh boy, that was heartbreaking. But we couldn’t go there. “And what happened between them?”

“I don’t know. They went to movies and walks and even to an art gallery somewhere in Syracuse one day. Muriel couldn’t go to Van Alst House because Vera’s mother was still alive. They went to restaurants. They were best friends.”

“For how long?” The time must have been right around when Pete Delaney was killed. Then school would have ended. Vera went off to college. Muriel’s mother died six months later and then Muriel left town. Until one week ago.