This Old Homicide (12 page)

Walking around the room, I checked the strength and condition of each post. I studied the horizontal beams overhead for signs of sagging or rotting. Damage to something down here could mean we’d have to jack up the entire house, and that was always a tricky move, even though we were experts at it.

I was surprised but happy when I didn’t find any water or termite damage and the posts looked and felt solid. But the brick walls around the foundation told another story. There was crumbling in spots, and in several places where I pushed my thumb against the mortar, it turned to powder.

I checked the next wall, cautiously pushing a few more random bricks to test the wall’s strength. I reached as high up on the wall as I could stretch, and also got down on my hands and knees to check near the base. Then I moved on to the third wall and did the same. It wasn’t the most scientific way to survey for possible damage, but it would give me a preliminary idea of the work necessary to bring the house up to a level that would fetch Jane the best price.

As I thumped my knuckles against a random brick, a big mama spider swung out at me. I screamed so loud I was afraid the neighbors might call the police.

“You just surprised me, that’s all,” I grumbled to the spider, who had already crawled back between the bricks.

I admit I wasn’t a big spider fan, especially when I came across a whole cluster of them scattering in angry confusion. At least, they looked angry to me. This was another little secret I preferred to keep to myself. If my crew ever found out about my spider phobia, they would tease me mercilessly. I would probably find plastic spiders in my sandwiches or my toolbox. I shivered involuntarily.

The fourth wall was under the stairs and not easy to access. But since the steps butted up against the main load-bearing wall of the house, I knew I had to check this one even more carefully than the others. I ducked my head to get under the stairwell, close enough to the wall to study each brick as the flashlight beam hit it. I pushed and scraped as I went, making sure the bricks were still holding up after about a hundred and fifty years. I worked my way down the wall, following the descent of the stairs and finally ending up on my knees in the corner beneath the lowest step I could fit under. Here the mortar wasn’t as solid and a few of the bricks moved easily when I prodded them.

It just figured that the most inaccessible area would need the most work.

Dismayed, I fiddled with one of the bricks until I’d worked it almost completely out of its space. I pulled the brick out and laid it on the floor next to me, then worked on the one above it. A third brick loosened from my pressure on the one next to it. They all came out after only a little prying.

There were a few reasons besides regular aging that might’ve caused the bricks to separate. I just hoped they weren’t suffering from water damage or an infestation of subterranean termites. I got down on my hands and knees and wiggled closer, directing the beam of the flashlight into the cubbyhole I’d made. But the space was too far out of my range of vision, so I knew I’d have to stick my hand inside the space to assess the thickness and integrity of the wall. The hole was too small for me to wear my work gloves, so I pulled one off, blanked out all thoughts of giant mother spiders, and thrust my hand in there. All I felt was something cold and metallic.

My first thought was that the original builder had used steel posts to bolster the brick foundation. But that didn’t make sense. Jesse’s house was only one story and didn’t need that much reinforcement. Besides, the metal I was touching wasn’t as strong as a steel post. I moved my hand and realized the metal was thin but solid. It was a box of some kind.

I pulled at the next brick over and managed to ease it away from the wall. Now I was able to grab what was in the cubbyhole and pull it out. I pushed myself off the concrete floor and sat against the wall with my flashlight trained on what I’d found.

It was a small metal box similar to a cookie tin, the kind sold at Christmas, with a decorative latch on the front and hinged on the back. The top was dented and didn’t open easily, but I finally managed to pry it loose. Inside was some crumpled old tissue paper.

I didn’t realize I was holding my breath until it whooshed out in disappointment.

“That’s it?” I muttered aloud. “A bunch of paper?”

Halfheartedly, I rooted through the paper until I heard a clink and felt something hard. My heart raced as I pulled a very old, very beautiful necklace from the paper it was wrapped in.

*   *   *

Upstairs at Jesse’s kitchen table, recently cleared of all the dishes and newspapers that had been there since Jesse died, I sat to examine more closely what I’d found downstairs.

I opened the box again, unsure if I’d dreamed it or not, but sure enough, the gold necklace was there. Holding it up, I watched it glow radiantly in the sunlight pouring through the window.

I stared at it in awe—and a touch of fear.

This was what Jesse had bragged about finding on his scuba diving trip two years ago. It was spectacular, at least a hundred and eighty years old if I just dated it from when the clipper ship sank in Lighthouse Bay in 1839. But it was probably much older. It looked as though it could’ve belonged to a Renaissance queen.

Cuckoo was wrong. It wasn’t garish at all. It was luminescent, as though lit from within. I allowed that it would be considered ornate by today’s standards, but it was beautiful, made of thick, hammered gold and encrusted with diamonds, rubies, and emeralds. Big ones. Each of the larger jewels was surrounded by dozens of tiny diamonds. I couldn’t count them all. On more careful study, I noticed that three large gems were missing from their settings. Had they fallen out or had someone removed them?

Despite the missing jewels, it was a gorgeous piece. There were three tiers, each hammered to a fine sheen and each inlaid with the three kinds of stones. The lowest tier curved to a point, and hanging from the point was a single, magnificent diamond in the shape of a teardrop.

The diamond would rest at the apex of a woman’s cleavage and a man wouldn’t be able to avert his gaze.

If it was real, that diamond alone had to be worth millions of dollars. And I had no reason to doubt that it was real.

I hefted the necklace in my hand and thought it might weigh close to a pound. I couldn’t believe that some woman had once actually worn it. A very wealthy woman, no doubt, with a strong neck. It made sense that it had belonged to a Spanish princess, because who else but royalty could afford a piece of jewelry so lavish back then?

And if something this extravagant had been found inside that sunken ship, wasn’t it possible that there was more treasure to be found out there?

I’d never learned to scuba dive and now I wondered if maybe I should’ve. For anyone who grew up in Lighthouse Cove, the sinking of the
Glorious Maiden
on a stormy night in 1839 was a familiar story. Maybe I should’ve shown more of an interest in exploring our famous underwater attraction.

I shook myself out of all that history to realize I’d been staring at the necklace for too long. What if someone broke into Jesse’s house at this very minute and found it in my hands? I could wind up as dead as Jesse.

“Yikes,” I muttered, and started to wrap it up, but then stopped. I pulled my phone out of my purse and took a few pictures of the necklace from different angles, just to have a record of it in case of… what? In case it was stolen? Ripped from my hands? I shivered again.

I quickly wrapped the priceless jewelry in the old tissue paper and put it back in its tin box. For a few seconds, I wondered where I could hide it without taking it back to the basement. Then I decided I wasn’t about to let it out of my sight for one millisecond. Shoving it into my bag, I grabbed my phone and called Jane.

*   *   *

“What’s the big hurry?” Jane asked when I answered the door at my house.

I grabbed her arm and pulled her inside, shoving the door closed behind her.

“What’s wrong with you?” she said. “You’ve gone crazy.”

“I have something to show you,” I said, leading the way to my dining room table. I nudged Jane into a chair and sat down next to her.

“Stop pushing me around,” she groused.

I laughed. “I hardly ever push you around, but you’ll be glad I did this time.” I placed the tin box on the table in front of her.

“What’s this?”

“Open it, for God’s sake.”

“All right, all right.” She had to fiddle with the latch to get it open and then waded through the mass of crumpled paper. “Oh, Shannon. It’s paper. How exciting! Thank you for calling me over.”

“Keep digging while I ignore your mockery.”

She found the heavy piece at the bottom and unwrapped it. The necklace fell into her hands. “Oh my God.”

I grinned. “I know.”

She stared at me with her mouth open. “You found it. Where? How?”

“In Jesse’s basement, under the stairs. It wasn’t easy. He hid it behind a couple of bricks in the wall.”

“Not exactly in plain sight,” she murmured as she studied the gorgeous piece.

“I wasn’t looking for it. I went over to do a quick inspection and found it completely by accident.”

She held the necklace up to the light and gazed at it in amazement. “That is a gigantic diamond. It sure looks real.”

“I think all the stones are real.”

“It’s fantastic.” We were silent for a moment while she continued to gaze at the treasure. She hesitated, then asked, “Do you think this explains why Jesse seemed to be getting more paranoid over the last year or so?”

“Could be,” I said. “I know I would be plenty paranoid if that thing were hidden in my house.”

“I just thought he was getting old,” Jane said. “I was worried that he might be…”

“Did you really think he was going senile?”

“I didn’t know,” she said, looking bummed. “He acted so weird sometimes.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, me, too.” She held up the necklace. “This is amazing. I’m so grateful you found it.”

“I’m just happy I found it before someone else did.”

She exhaled softly. “Someone else had to be looking for this. It wasn’t Jesse. He couldn’t have simply misplaced it.”

“I agree. It’s not like he slipped it inside some drawer and forgot about it. I had to crawl under the basement stairs, break loose some bricks, and pull it out of the wall.” Shaking my head in admiration, I thought of just how clever Jesse had been. “That took some planning and hard work.”

“I’ll say.”

“I had to get down on my hands and knees to feel around behind those bricks.”

“Ew, spiders,” Jane said, rubbing her arms.

I made a face. “Tell me about it.”

“It was worth it, though.” She cast another glance at the necklace. “This thing is magnificent. I guess I don’t blame him for being paranoid.”

“He may have been paranoid, but he wasn’t going senile. More likely, he was just scared to death that someone might find it and steal it.”

She stared at the necklace for another full minute, turning it this way and that, touching the jewels, rubbing her fingers over the hammered gold. “I can’t believe Cuckoo Clemens saw this two years ago and didn’t buy it.”

“Not enough cash, he said.”

“Oh, right.” Jane rolled her eyes. “He looks guiltier by the minute.”

“He seemed pretty desperate to buy it from you.”

“I don’t trust him at all,” Jane said, scowling. “I wonder if Jesse felt the same way.”

“I can’t imagine anyone trusting him.”

“I know, but his story was true. At least the part where Jesse showed him the necklace. I’m not sure I believe the part where Jesse wanted to sell it to him. He might’ve just wanted it appraised.”

“But why go to Cuckoo?” I wondered. “He could’ve gone to a reputable jeweler.”

“They’ve known each other forever. He probably figured it was easier to deal with Cuckoo than some stranger.”

“The devil you know,” I said.

“Exactly.”

Jane’s cell phone rang. She pulled it from her purse and checked the screen. “It’s Eric.”

“Put it on speakerphone,” I said.

She touched the speaker icon so I could hear the conversation. “Hello, Chief, how are you?”

“I’m well, Jane. Listen, I’ve got the autopsy results on your uncle and I have a few questions for you, if you have time to talk right now.”

“Oh. Sure.” She glanced at me, her eyes wide. “Go ahead.”

“Was your uncle having trouble sleeping lately?”

Jane frowned. “Not that I know of. He liked to fall asleep in front of the TV, but I think he slept soundly most nights. Why do you ask?”

“Because the coroner ruled his death accidental.”

Jane and I frowned at each other.

“Accidental?” she said. “What does that mean?”

“It means that according to the coroner, your uncle died of an accidental overdose of sleeping pills.”

Accidental overdose?

That was impossible! I grabbed a piece of paper and wrote “No way!”

Jane nodded her emphatic agreement and said to Eric, “I’m sorry, Eric, but I don’t believe it.”

“I’m afraid that’s his finding,” Eric said, his tone gentle.

“I mean, I really don’t believe it. You saw the condition of his house. Something happened there.”

“I appreciate your concern,” Eric said, “and I have some of my own as well. We haven’t closed the books on this yet. My crime scene team is still investigating a few angles and I promise we won’t stop until we’ve got conclusive evidence either way.”

“Thank you, Eric.” Jane swallowed hard. “Jesse wasn’t absentminded. He hated taking pills and he never would’ve taken too many.”

The chief thanked her for the information. Jane ended the call and looked at me. “I couldn’t tell him about the necklace. I’m just not ready to talk about it. Not until we figure out our next move.”

“I agree.” I might regret it later, but for now I was willing to go along with Jane’s wishes. “We’ve got to tell him soon, though. Otherwise he’ll close the case without knowing that someone had a really excellent motive for murder. And we won’t even mention what’ll happen if he finds out about the necklace on his own. We’ll be dead as doornails.”