“Ben, I don’t blame you. But let’s concentrate on finding this guy, on getting the jewelry back if we can. Does Rita have some kind of inventory?”
“She has a full inventory,” he said coldly. “She has a photograph of each piece, with written descriptions and appraisals. You know the gems were all paste? But the settings were antique, some very old, and they didn’t come cheap.”
“Are the photographs and inventory in the house where we can find them? If the department can get copies to identify-”
“Why would they be in the house? So they could be stolen, too? Or burned up? It’s all in the safe-deposit box.”
“Does anyone else have access?”
“Of course not.”
“And your insurance agents. Do they-”
“I’ll call our agents and give them your number. I’m not sure what Rita gave them.” He hung up. Charlie sat holding the phone, swallowing back her anger. Did he have to be so cross? Now, if the department arrested a suspect and the jewelry was on him, they’d have to wait nearly two weeks for a positive identification. She was fixing herself some breakfast when Ryan called back to say she’d gotten Ed Becker.
“Guess I woke him. He was pretty cranky. He said, ‘How many people did Mrs. Harper tell we’d be out of town?’ I told him that wasn’t very realistic, that everyone in the neighborhood knew they were gone. He accused your crew of loose tongues and carelessness with the keys, of possibly copying the keys. Complained because you hadn’t come by in the evenings to turn on the lights, which, I pointed out, you hadn’t arranged to do. I suggested several things they could have done, like automatic light controls. He said Frances wouldn’t do that, that she was afraid one would short out and cause a fire.”
“Well, that’s all four couples notified,” Charlie said noncommittally, “and only half of them critical. I’ll be so glad when I sell the business. Thanks for helping, and thanks for the moral support.”
“Gotta go,” Ryan said. “I need to check on two jobs in the village and be up at the remodel when the gravel and cement arrive, around ten. Clyde says-”
Her phone went dead. Charlie hung up and waited, supposing Ryan was out of range. She waited quite a while, but Ryan didn’t call back. When she dialed her she got an “out of service” message, so maybe she’d forgotten to charge her phone. That wouldn’t be the first time-though it was about the only inattention to detail that Charlie had ever noticed in her efficient friend.
Putting Max’s dishes in the dishwasher, she warmed up a slice of cold bacon and her scrambled eggs, and made some toast, preoccupied with the robberies. The whole scenario was strange, she couldn’t shake the thought that she was missing something, was overlooking some crucial element that should be perfectly obvious.
Setting her breakfast on the table, wanting to hurry and go feed the horses, she realized that part of her unease was the phone calls themselves. Neither she nor Ryan had talked with any of the four wives, they had spoken only with their husbands.
In all four instances, there were good explanations: Rita in the pool; Theresa asleep, and probably Frances Becker, too; and Eleen shopping, maybe for more paperweights. She was reaching in the drawer for a fork when she stopped. Stood looking down into the drawer, at the new rubberized fabric with which she’d recently lined it, but seeing Theresa Chapman’s kitchen drawers.
Leaving her breakfast to get cold, she picked up the phone to call Max.
The dispatcher said he was out, so she talked with Detective Garza. “ Dallas, Theresa Chapman had keys for maybe half a dozen neighbors, all those with pets. She sometimes took care of the animals if someone was delayed at work; and she would sometimes let a workman in. She kept them in the kitchen silverware drawer, underneath the wooden divider and the liner.”
“We’ll have a look,” Dallas said. “How many others, besides the neighbors themselves, knew that?”
“I don’t know. She told me she was very careful, didn’t let anyone see where she kept them. She let the workmen think she had a key just for the day. The keys weren’t marked, the names weren’t on them. They were all different colors.”
Hanging up, she warmed her plate in the microwave again, and returned to the table, opening the morning paper. She was just finishing breakfast when Dallas called back.
“Keys were here. I’ve printed them and will take them with me.” He laughed. “You want me to feed the cat? She’s playing up to me shamelessly. Those kittens are pretty cute.”
“Yes, feed her,” Charlie said, amused. “Cat food’s on the washer.” She guessed Joe and Dulcie and Kit were not only good at sleuthing, they were skilled, as well, at expanding the horizons of a dedicated dog person. Dallas had had pointers all his life, mostly German shorthairs. He was a bird hunter, a gun-dog man, and until recently he’d had no use at all for cats. She hung up, smiling at the change in him, wondering if he’d like to make a home for one of Mango’s little kittens.
RYAN AND SCOTTY stood looking at the broken window, at the hammer gleaming up at them among the fall of shattered glass. Scotty made no comment about the paw prints; she hoped he thought they belonged to some prowling neighborhood cat. “Someone was here,” she said. “Someone broke into the garage and threw your hammer out through the window.” She looked at him helplessly. “Just like the caller told me.”
Scotty shrugged and scratched his beard. “We won’t know for sure until we’ve dug out the concrete. You’re willing to take his word for it, whoever it was?”
“I don’t see that we have a choice. The department does have a report on a missing body. The lab has identified human blood, human hair, and human skin in the drag marks. And now someone says there’s a body buried here? You think we have a choice?”
“Come on, then. The cement’s setting up.”
As she turned away to the garage, Kit squirmed in her arms and jumped down. Ryan watched her trot away and leap into the bed of her pickup. The labor and expense of digging out the concrete and of a new pour lay totally on the word of one small cat who, by sensible standards, could not exist at all.
Well, hell, she thought, moving into the garage and taking up her shovel. She watched Scotty fetch a wheelbarrow and give Manuel and Fernando their orders. Manuel looked as if Scotty had gone mad, but obediently he fetched a heavy pick. Small Fernando of the scarred face didn’t move, stood frowning at Scotty.
Scott Flannery was a big man, broad shouldered, a bit wild looking with his thick red beard. But he was a quiet man, and patient-until his temper kicked in. Now when he grabbed a second pick, Manuel backed away.
Scotty tested the hardening concrete with the pick, and then lit into it, swinging so hard he sent damp, crumbling debris flying. He handed the pick to Manuel.
“Dig now! Dig here, dig now, or you’ll have no job to come back to and no pay.” He repeated his orders in fractured Spanish.
Soon the two men were digging out the setting ce ment. With Scotty and Ryan working beside them, it didn’t take long to clear away the carefully poured floor and rake the debris into a heap to be hauled away. Ryan couldn’t stop thinking how embarrassed she’d be if, after they moved the gravel and dug down into the earth, they found nothing. No grave, no body. It hurt her to see the men’s faces as their careful work was destroyed, as the nice smooth cement job was trashed into rubble.
She thought life might have been simpler if they’d quit work after the pour, paid the men, and sent them home for the rest of the day, and then she and Scotty had done the digging alone. She hoped to hell the missing corpse was down there so she wouldn’t come up a liar. She was dismayed that she could never tell Scotty the real source of her information, that she had to lie to her uncle. Scotty had helped Dallas and her dad raise her and her sisters after their mother died, they were family and they seldom kept secrets from one another.