by Sarah Fox
I found myself enjoying the walk, even though I couldn’t completely erase the sense of urgency humming through my bloodstream. The beautiful weather and gorgeous surroundings tempted me to slow down and enjoy the moment, but I couldn’t keep my pace at anything less than a brisk walk. My curiosity was too strong of a driving force.
After a few minutes of following the trail, Brett slowed his pace. “We should be getting close to the back of Dean’s place.”
I couldn’t see any houses from our vantage point, but I knew they weren’t far off. Treading carefully, we veered off the path, heading in the direction of what we hoped would be Dean’s house. Fortunately, the underbrush wasn’t too thick. It impeded our progress here and there, and we took care not to crush any ferns or huckleberry bushes, but we were able to keep moving steadily.
We both tried to keep our footfalls quiet, but it was impossible to avoid stepping on some twigs and broken branches. A few cracked here and there under our feet, but not too loudly.
Soon, I caught a glimpse of a house through the trees.
I moved a few more steps forward and gently pushed aside a branch of an evergreen. The house up ahead was green with gray trim.
“We’re not quite there,” I told Brett.
We turned around and retraced our steps to the trail. It would be easier to walk on the path than to keep crashing through the underbrush, especially since we wanted to make a quiet approach to Dean’s property.
We knew from our drive down the street that the green and gray house stood two properties away from Dean’s. When we thought we’d finally gone far enough to align ourselves with his property, we left the path and trekked through the underbrush again.
This time, when the house came into view, I knew right away that it was Dean’s. I slowed my pace, taking extra care to move quietly as I drew closer to the tree line. Brett followed right on my heels.
I stopped once I was about fifteen feet from the edge of the woods. I stood behind the large trunk of a Douglas fir, using it to shield myself from sight, in case Dean happened to glance our way. Brett tucked himself in next to me, and we both peeked around the tree. Even though we weren’t right at the edge of the forest, we had a good view of Dean’s backyard.
The grass behind the house had been cut more recently than the front, and a fire pit sat right in the middle of the yard. A small fire crackled away within the circle of rocks. At first, I didn’t spot Dean, but then he came out of the house through the back door, carrying a cardboard box.
I sucked in a breath and ducked behind the tree, Brett doing the same. I leaned against the rough bark of the trunk, silently counting to ten before risking another peek out from behind the tree.
Dean set the cardboard box next to the fire and was grabbing handfuls of paper from the box and dropping them into the flames. The fire danced higher, greedily licking at the new fuel.
“That’s definitely not yard waste,” I whispered.
“Maybe he burns all his waste paper instead of shredding or recycling it,” Brett said, keeping his voice equally low.
“Maybe,” I said.
“You’re not convinced.”
I bit down on my lower lip, still watching Dean. “I’d like to be able to confirm if that’s what he’s doing.”
“If we get any closer, he’ll see us,” Brett cautioned.
“I know.”
We continued to watch Dean from our hiding spot as he thrust more papers into the flames. After dropping another small pile into the fire, he fished a cellphone out of his pocket and held it to his ear. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but after a few seconds, he turned away from the fire and walked toward the house at a casual pace.
Instead of going indoors as I expected, he headed around the side of the house, disappearing a few seconds later.
I eased out from behind the tree. “This is my chance.”
“Marley…”
I could tell Brett wasn’t keen on what I was about to do next.
“If you see him coming back, hoot like an owl,” I said.
“Marley, I don’t think—” he started to say.
I was already creeping through the undergrowth.
As soon as I broke free of the tree line, I sprinted across the yard to the fire pit. My heart pounded in my chest, more from the fear of getting caught than the brief spurt of exertion.
I stared into the flames, and my heart almost stopped. Amid typed letters and what looked like financial statements, were smaller, older sheets of paper with handwriting on them.
I recognized them as the letters written by the Jack of Diamonds.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Several of the pages had already ignited. I used the toe of my shoe to nudge the closest sheets out of the fire. Then I dropped to my knees and blew out the flames. The fire had already completely engulfed at least two pages of the letters, and they disintegrated into ashes before my eyes. I’d managed to save three sheets. I had no idea how many had already burned before I reached the fire pit.
I took a quick look into the cardboard box. It was full of papers of various sizes. When I rifled through the contents, I didn’t spot any more of the letters written by Jack O’Malley.
Every second was precious, so I quickly snapped photos of the pages I’d saved from the fire. As I took the last picture, Brett hooted like an owl. It was a decent impression, but I knew it was him.
I didn’t waste time thinking. I sprinted back into the woods, trying to be quiet once I was in the forest, but still moving quickly until I reached Brett. I ducked behind the tree and leaned against him, gasping for breath.
“That was close,” he whispered into my ear.
“The letters.” I mentally kicked myself. “I left them there.”
“The letters?” Brett asked with surprise. “Hold on.”
He was watching whatever was happening in Dean’s yard. I peeked around the trunk.
Dean stood a few feet away from the fire pit, facing his house. Brett’s uncle Ray, wearing his sheriff’s uniform, was striding across the lawn toward Dean, two deputies at his side. Ray held a folded paper in his hand.
“What’s going on?” I asked, still whispering.
We watched as Ray spoke to Dean, holding up the paper for him to see. Dean grabbed it from Ray’s hand. He appeared to be arguing with Ray.
Chloe’s boyfriend, Deputy Rutowski, broke away from them and approached the fire pit. As he drew closer, I saw that he had a camera in one hand. He checked out the box and then noticed the rescued letters at the edge of the pit. He crouched down to examine the scorched pages and took some photos of them.
“I think they’ve got a warrant to search Dean’s property,” Brett said.
I’d come to the same conclusion.
“What should we do?” I asked. “Should we let them know we’re here?”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Brett said. “I think we’d better get going.”
I had to agree. Kyle had already found the letters I’d saved. Announcing our presence wouldn’t help in any way. It might even get us charged with trespassing.
We moved as stealthily as possible back to the trail. No one yelled out for us to stop, so I figured our presence had gone unnoticed. Back on the path, Brett and I jogged out of the forest and down the street to his van.
“Do you think they’re searching Dean’s place because he’s a murder suspect?” I asked once we were driving away.
“Could be,” Brett said. “But who knows how many shady things that guy is mixed up in.”
“Good point. Other than the letters, it looked like he was burning financial statements. And I saw someone else’s name on one of them.”
Brett stopped the van before turning onto Wildwood Road. “Did you recognize the name?”
“The last name was Browning, but I did
n’t see the first. Do you know anyone by that name?”
“Sure, there’s a Browning family that lives on Orchard Lane.”
“The same street that Dolly and Winnifred live on.” I wondered if that had any significance. I didn’t see how it could.
“Were the letters the ones that went missing?” Brett asked. “The ones written by Jack O’Malley?”
“The very same.” I checked out the first of the photos I’d managed to take of the partly burnt letters. A hum of energy zipped through me. “I took pictures of the pieces I managed to save. And I swear this is the same letter Jane showed me at the museum.”
“So the letters really were stolen,” Brett concluded.
“And,” I added, “Ray may well have nabbed Jane’s killer.”
* * * *
When we’d returned home, and Bentley had been out for a walk, I studied the rest of the photos I’d taken of the singed letters. I was more certain than ever that the first photo depicted one of the pages Jane had held in her hands that day at the museum when she first discovered the letters. The other pages I’d managed to pull from the flames didn’t appear to be in chronological order. I wasn’t even sure if they were part of the same letter.
Some of the writing was illegible because parts of the page were burnt, and other parts were left charred and blackened with soot. The few lines I could read made me sit up straight on the couch.
“Holey buckets!”
“What is it?” Brett asked from the kitchen, where he was checking the curry we’d left simmering on the stove.
“This letter confirms what Winnifred suspected,” I said. “On this page, Jack says, ‘We’ll start a new life together, you, me, and our baby.’”
Brett grabbed two plates from one of the kitchen cupboards. “So Flora Penrose really was pregnant with the Jack of Diamond’s kid.”
I’d already filled Brett in on my visit with Winnifred and what we’d talked about.
“She must have been.”
The page I was examining wasn’t the first or last of any letter, so it didn’t have a date on it. Still, I figured there was a good chance it was written close in time to the 1907 letter that Jane and I had first looked at.
“I should call Winnifred and tell her what I found.” I was already scrolling through the contacts on my phone.
“But then you’d have to admit that you were on Dean’s property,” Brett pointed out. “If that gets back to Ray somehow, he won’t be happy.”
“True.”
I still wanted to tell Winnifred what I’d found. With this page as evidence, it was highly likely that her father was Jack O’Malley’s son. I knew she’d want to know about this letter, but I also knew that Brett was right. I wasn’t keen on having to explain my presence on Dean’s property to Ray. I couldn’t guarantee that one of these days, he wouldn’t lose his patience and charge me with trespassing or some other crime. He wouldn’t want to do that, but he might feel he had to. I didn’t want to put him or myself in that position.
“The information will come to light another way,” Brett said, as if he’d read my thoughts. He probably did know exactly what I was thinking. “I’m sure he’ll notify Winnifred about the letters since she’s currently in charge of the museum.”
“That’s true.” Realizing that made me feel a bit better about not running straight to Winnifred with the new information. “Maybe I should call Ray and see if he’s arrested Dean for Jane’s murder.”
“How about we hold off until morning?” Brett suggested. “You don’t want to tell him how you found out about the search warrant, do you?”
“No,” I conceded. I definitely didn’t.
By morning, the news that Dean’s place had been searched would probably be all over town. Then I might not have to ask Ray anything.
I wished that I could force time to move faster. Since I couldn’t, I did my best to forget about Dean and the letters until the next day.
* * * *
The small-town grapevine didn’t let me down. I didn’t even have to wait for the first customers of the day to arrive at the pancake house. When Leigh showed up shortly before opening, she had news to share.
“Have you heard that the police were at Dean Vaccarino’s place yesterday?” she asked me as she hung her purse in her locker.
“With a search warrant, right?” I said.
“That’s what I heard from my neighbor this morning. And he was arrested. Dean, not my neighbor.”
That was what I’d been waiting to hear.
“For murder?” I checked to be sure.
“I don’t know, actually,” Leigh said. “But I’m sure someone will know.”
She was right about that.
“My cousin Nell lives next door to Dean,” Ed informed me when he and Gary arrived for their favorite breakfast of blueberry pancakes, sausages, and bacon. “She overheard a lot of what was going on. She says the sheriff arrested Dean for possession of stolen property.”
“Not murder?” I asked with disappointment.
“Not that she heard.”
“But they could always add that charge later,” Gary pointed out. “If they have enough evidence. Do you think Dean’s the one who killed Jane Fassbender?”
“He’s a suspect, at the very least,” Ed said before I had a chance to respond. “Nell heard Dean saying that he didn’t steal anything from the museum and that he had nothing to do with the murder.”
“So they did question him about the missing letters,” I concluded.
“He was probably lying when he said he had nothing to do with the murder,” Gary said before digging into his breakfast.
“Most likely,” Ed agreed as he poured maple syrup over his stack of pancakes. “I wouldn’t believe anything that comes out of that guy’s mouth.”
“I certainly wouldn’t bet on him telling the truth,” I said.
I wondered if there was any evidence to tie Dean to the murder, since he apparently wasn’t ready to confess. Ray hadn’t arrested him for that crime yet, but that didn’t mean the sheriff’s department wasn’t building a case so they could.
I desperately hoped that was exactly what they were doing.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Since the news was all over town about Dean’s arrest and the search of his property, I decided to visit Winnifred on the way home to talk to her about the letters. I walked over to the museum first to see if she was there, but no one answered my knock on the front door. The same thing happened when I tried the back door.
I decided to try my luck at her house. Winnifred had pointed out her place on the night of Dolly’s attack. She lived in a cute white Victorian four houses away from her cousin’s. Like Dolly, she still lived in the house where she’d grown up.
When I turned onto her street, I noticed a red Ferrari parked at the curb, a few houses away from Winnifred’s. I figured it had to be Evangeline and Richard’s car. I didn’t think anyone else in Wildwood Cove drove a Ferrari.
Sure enough, the front door of a dark red Victorian with black trim opened, and Evangeline stepped out onto the porch in a tight, hot pink dress and stilettos.
“Hurry up, Richard,” she called over her shoulder before navigating the steps in her high heels.
A second or two later, Richard emerged from the house and locked up behind them. If they noticed me walking in their direction, they gave no sign of it. As I reached the pathway that led to Winnifred’s house, the Ferrari’s engine roared to life, and the car zoomed off down the street. It was already around the corner and out of sight by the time I reached the front door.
This time, when I knocked, I received a quick response.
“Marley, come on in,” Winnifred said in greeting when she opened the door.
“I saw Evangeline and Richard leaving the red house up the street,” I said as I stepp
ed into the foyer. “Is that their place?”
“It is,” Winnifred confirmed. “They only spend a few weeks a year in Wildwood Cove, but they like to keep a house here.”
Krista appeared behind her great-aunt’s shoulder. “I was about to come see you at the pancake house.”
“Have you heard about Dean Vaccarino?” I asked.
“That’s why I was coming to see you,” Krista said. “He stole the letters that my grandma donated to the museum.”
Winnifred invited me to take a seat in the living room. “Unfortunately, he was burning the letters along with a bunch of other papers when the sheriff and his deputies arrived on the scene.”
“But they saved some of the pages from the flames,” Krista added. “And several more were still among the papers that Dean hadn’t tossed in the fire yet.”
That was a relief. I hadn’t thoroughly searched through all the documents in the box. I hoped most of the letters were still there, rather than in the pile of ashes in the fire pit.
“Do you know how many pages were destroyed?” I asked.
Krista frowned. “No, but hopefully not too many.” Her face brightened. “But guess what?”
“Dean’s been charged with Jane’s murder?” I hoped that was the latest news.
“Not as far as we know,” Winnifred said. “But if he’s the one responsible, I hope Sheriff Georgeson throws the book at him.”
“I’m sure he will.” At least, I hoped he’d be able to find enough evidence to do so.
“The sheriff came by with photos of the letters they found at Dean’s house,” Krista said, getting back to her news. “He says we’ll get the letters back eventually, but he wanted someone to confirm whether they were the same ones that went missing from the museum.”
“He’d hoped I could do that for him,” Winnifred said. “But since I never had a chance to see the letters, I told him to get in touch with you or Krista.”
Her great-niece picked up the story. “Then I showed up as he was leaving, so he gave me the photos to look at. They were definitely the ones that my grandma donated. I didn’t read all of them before the box went to the museum, but I remembered a few lines from one of the letters.”
