by Cat Chandler
Ben’s face fell into sober lines. “There’re only two things Eddie loved. Good wine and stamps. And he enjoyed trying his hand at both, although he always said he could only afford one of those hobbies.”
Sam nodded his agreement. “And it wasn’t because he was some modern-day Scrooge, like Roberta is so fond of saying. Eddie was simply careful with his money. Especially if he had something big he wanted to do.”
“Or buy?” Nicki asked. At their blank looks, she tried for something more direct. “Such as a very expensive wine? Or stamp?”
“He depended on his wine club to keep him supplied in wine, and I very much doubt that he ever bought anything outside the usual offerings,” Sam said. “At least he never mentioned it to me.”
“He belonged to the club at Holland Winery,” Ben offered. His eyes suddenly widened. “Do you think this has something to do with Holland Winery? Their winemaker was murdered just last year. I believe he was poisoned?” He turned his whole body toward Sam. “Remember that distasteful little man we met once? With the French name and the very bad French accent?”
“Lanciere,” Matt supplied. “He went by George Lanciere.”
“Does this have anything to do with his murder? Maybe Eddie was sent one of those poisoned bottles of wine by mistake?” Ben’s hand flew to cover his mouth.
Nicki had to admit, the man certainly had a good imagination. “No. I’m sure Eddie’s murder had nothing to do with what happened at Holland Winery. So if Eddie didn’t spend his money on expensive wine, how about expensive stamps?”
Sam shrugged. “He never bought anything at an auction that a high-end collector would get excited about.”
“Or through a private sale as far as we know,” Ben added.
“Oh.” Nicki deflated. It seemed to be another dead end. “Roberta said he had a very valuable stamp, with an old airplane on it?”
“Trust Roberta not to get something so important to Eddie right.” Sam rolled his eyes. “That wasn’t a stamp. It was a sheet of stamps of an uninverted Jenny.”
“A sheet?” Nicki exchanged a triumphant look with Matt.
“If the plane was uninverted, that means it was flying right-side up?” Matt asked. “Why did that make this sheet so valuable?”
“Because there were only fifty sheets made by the US postal service,” Ben said.
“It was supposed to commemorate the mistake the post office made back near the end of World War I. It was a stamp issued to mark the start of airmail service in 1918. Back then they used a two-seat biplane that had the second seat removed to make room for the mail, and was nicknamed ‘the Jenny’. But when the stamp was issued, at least one sheet had the plane’s image mistakenly printed upside down.” Ben became more animated as he warmed up to the subject. “Naturally over the years those stamps have become quite valuable. So to spark a wider interest in stamps, the postal service decided to print over a million of those same inverted Jennys in 2013. But they also deliberately printed fifty sheets of stamps with the corrected version of the Jennys. Those sheets had the plane flying right-side up.”
Matt took his glasses off and wiped the lenses with the bottom of his shirt. “I get it. By only printing fifty sheets, they automatically created a rare stamp. Only this time it was an upright airplane instead of an upside down one.”
“That’s right,” Ben enthused. “They sent thirty of the sheets to the top-selling postal markets in the country, and randomly distributed the other twenty throughout the U.S.”
“And guess where one of those sheets ended up? And then who happened to hit the jackpot in stamp collecting by purchasing it at the one-man post office a block from the square?” Sam grinned. “Eddie goes into that little one-man place to buy just regular stamps, and old Grover, who’s still the postmaster there, pulled out this sheet and asks Eddie if he’d like the one that had just come in with an old airplane on it. Grover didn’t know why he’d only been sent one sheet, but he knew Eddie collected stamps and thought he might like to have it.”
Ben gave a long dramatic sigh. “Grover had no idea what that sheet was, or what it was worth. To him it was just another decorative stamp, like the ones he sold every Christmas.”
“But Eddie knew what they were?” Nicki waited for the two nods. “What did he do?”
“Of course he snatched them right up. And like any good collector, he ordered a special sleeve and a case, so they’d stay in absolutely perfect condition. Since he didn’t have a safe deposit box, he simply kept them well hidden, and he rarely showed them.” Sam looked over at Ben. “I think we’ve only seen them maybe once a year since he’d had them.”
“And he got them in 2013?” Nicki asked. When Ben gave a confirming nod, she wrinkled her nose, visualizing all the albums scattered across Eddie’s bed rather than simply thrown on the floor. Someone could easily have been looking for those stamps. And when they weren’t in any of the albums, ransacked the rest of the apartment searching for them. “Did he keep the sheet of stamps somewhere in his apartment?”
Sam laughed. “Oh heavens, no. He always said anyone could pop his lock with the edge of a credit card. He kept them here at the diner.”
Nicki’s heart sank. He might have kept them in a box in the freezer, but then he’d run the risk of any one of his employees stumbling across them. Which only left one place. “They were in his office safe, then?”
Both men held their hands up, palms facing outward. “No, no,” they chanted in unison.
“He would never do such an ordinary thing. He kept them in his wine cellar, of course,” Sam said.
Nicki’s eyebrows flew up several inches. “Wine cellar?” She took a quick look around. “Here?”
The collector shrugged. “Not many people knew about it, and he never told anyone where he kept the key. So if you want to see those stamps, you’ll have to break into his basement.” He paused and blinked several times. “Oh dear. Unless it’s already been broken into?”
“I don’t know,” Nicki said. “I had no idea there was a wine cellar here.”
“We can show you,” Ben offered. “We’ve been there several times. Whenever it was Eddie’s turn to host a meeting with the three of us, we’d always go have a glass of wine, burgers and fries in his wine cellar. He’d set up a card table and chairs in the center.” He tugged on the hem of his pullover sweater. “It was fun, sitting in that secret cellar, drinking wine and talking about stamps. I’m going to miss that.”
Sam put a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Me too.”
“How much is it worth?” Matt asked. “Do you know what that sheet of stamps is worth?”
“Well, let’s see. Not millions, if that’s what you’re thinking, or Eddie would have sold it long ago.” Sam’s forehead wrinkled. “I believe one sheet sold for fifty thousand dollars three or four years ago.”
“Fifty thousand…” Nicki trailed off as she looked at Matt.
Without breaking away from her gaze, Matt reached into his back pocket and pulled out his cell phone. “I’m calling Chief Turnlow.”
She nodded her agreement and looked back at the two men standing silently, shoulder-to-shoulder. “When the chief gets here, can you show us where this cellar is?”
“Of course.” Sam said.
“That’s good,” Matt hit the disconnect button and lowered his phone. “Because he’ll be here in ten minutes.”
Chapter Sixty-One
“Is this everybody?” Chief Turnlow slowly looked down the line of people in front of him. He was in his usual stance, with his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket. His expression was blank, giving no clue to what he was thinking.
When the two stamp collectors and the assistant manager shuffled their feet, Nicki had to work at stifling a smile. It seemed they weren’t used to what she privately called the chief’s “deadly detective stare”. He’d undoubtedly perfected it during his twenty years with the Los Angeles Police Department.
The chief looked over at Nicki. “I
saw the doctor pulling out of the parking lot. Is she headed home?”
“Yes,” Nicki glanced at the group around her. “And this seems to be everyone.”
The chief and former LAPD detective nodded and shifted his attention to Sam. “I understand you’re claiming that you’ve seen this expensive stamp that Eddie Parker owned?”
Sam nodded. “That’s right. Ben and I have both seen it. And it isn’t a stamp, Chief Turnlow. It’s a whole sheet of stamps. One hundred to be exact. And worth at least fifty thousand.”
“One hundred stamps worth fifty thousand dollars,” the chief repeated before he swung his gaze over to Jake. “Have you seen these stamps?”
“No, Sir.”
Nicki felt a pang of sympathy for the usually cheerful assistant manager. He looked terrified, as if he expected to be hauled off to jail at any moment.
“I haven’t seen them either,” Nicki spoke up, mostly to take the chief’s stare off of poor Jake.
“Me either,” Matt and Jenna said at the same time.
The chief gave all three of them an exasperated look. “I didn’t ask if you had.” He turned his attention back to Jake who was frozen in place. “I assume you knew your boss had a wine cellar in the basement?”
Jake gave a stiff nod, his eyes staring straight-ahead.
“But you didn’t mention it the other day when I was asking you about Eddie?”
“Why would I mention it?” Jake’s voice squeaked out the question. “Eddie was found in the freezer, not the basement.”
The chief showed no reaction to that statement but continued on in the same low authoritative voice. “How do you get into this wine cellar?”
Jake pointed at the double doors leading into the kitchen and back hallway. “Through the storage room. There’s a door at the far end.”
“And it’s always locked according to what Eddie said.” Sam looked to Ben who nodded his agreement.
“Who else knew about the cellar? Did Eddie usually talk about it?”
Sam shook his head. “I never heard him talk about it, so I have no idea if anyone else knew about it.”
“But all the staff at the diner knew about it, didn’t they?” Nicki asked, directing her question to Jake.
“Yes. But except for me, no one who works here has ever been in it,” Jake stated. “Not even Roberta. Eddie never trusted her enough to show it to her. He told me that.”
Nicki wouldn’t have argued with Eddie on that point. From her two encounters with Eddie’s girlfriend, she wouldn’t have trusted Roberta very far either.
“You don’t say.” Chief Turnlow frowned for a moment before his shoulders relaxed and so did his stance, making Nicki believe he’d decided the grilling was finished.
“Sam, Ben. Did either of you ever hear Eddie say that he’d hidden this sheet of stamps in the wine cellar?” the chief asked.
“No,” Sam admitted. “But that’s the only place we ever saw it, so I’ve always assumed he kept the sheet down there somewhere.”
“Has anyone else ever seen these stamps anywhere besides in the wine cellar?”
The two stamp collectors shook their head.
Jake did the same before adding, “I’ve never seen the stamps. Eddie described them to me once. Said there was an airplane on them. But I’ve never seen even one of them.”
Sam chuckled. “The sheet is still intact, Jake. If you’d seen one, you would have seen them all.”
“All right,” the chief interrupted. “I guess I’d better take a look.”
Not without me. Nicki fell in behind him.
“Chief, we might need to break the lock since no one knows where the key is.” She casually included the word “we”.
“We could take the door off its hinges,” Matt put in, following Nicki’s lead by also assuming there would be more than just the chief going along to search the cellar.
The chief sighed and ran a hand over the thinning hair on top of his head. “I could declare the basement as a crime scene, but it's pretty obvious Eddie was struck in his office and dragged into the freezer. I didn’t find any other blood trails when I did my walk-through of the place. And as far as the key goes…” He reached into his pocket and withdrew a clear plastic evidence bag. He walked over and held the bag out so Ben and Sam could see its contents. “Do any of these look like the key to the wine cellar?”
Ben shook his head. “It was a big heavy key. Very old-fashioned.”
Sam squinted at the bag. “I agree with Ben. None of those are the key to the basement door.”
The chief walked over and held the bag up in front of Jake, who agreed with what Sam and Ben had said. “Not the key, Chief Turnlow.”
“The deputy and I searched the office and didn’t find any keys, but it wouldn’t hurt to go through it again.” He glanced at Nicki. “Why don’t you come along and help, Sherlock.” He raised a hand to stop Matt when the editor stepped forward. “You stay here and make sure no one leaves.”
Not looking very happy, Matt reluctantly nodded
Nicki didn’t need a second invitation. She immediately headed toward the double doors and down the back hallway. Since the door to Eddie’s office was wide open, she gave the chief a questioning look and received his nod before proceeding into the room.
The chief stepped in beside her and slowly looked around. “He could have kept the key in his apartment, and the killer has already made a trip to the cellar.”
“If the killer had already found the key in the apartment, why search the office?” Nicki glanced over at the safe sitting in the corner. “Unless he thought there was a lot of money in the safe?”
“Then he’d be disappointed. The safe was empty.”
Startled, Nicki’s mouth dropped open. “There wasn’t anything at all in the safe?”
“Nope. The vic might have had that key on a separate ring, and the thief took it after he was surprised in the middle of a robbery.” The chief shrugged. “You can come up with a million theories on how the killer could have gotten his hands on it. But…” He looked around again.
“But?” Nicki prompted.
“He probably kept it here. If it was one of those large old-fashioned keys, he wasn’t likely to be lugging it around in his pocket all the time. And his wine and that pricey stamp were here, so why would he want to run back to his apartment to get the key whenever he wanted to get into that basement?” He glanced over at Nicki. “Unless you have another idea?”
She quickly shook her head. “No other ideas here, Chief.”
“Excuse me.” Jake stood in the doorway, his hands clasped in front of him.
“Your boyfriend said I should come right back.” Jake ducked his head and cast a sideways glance at the Chief of Police.
“And why did Nicki’s boyfriend say that?”
Nicki bristled at the laughter in the chief’s voice and sent him a glare. Everyone, even the assistant manager of Eddie’s Burger Diner, seemed determined to see Matt as her boyfriend.
“He said I should tell you what I heard.”
“Heard?” Nicki echoed. “Did you overhear Eddie say something about where the key is? Or about the stamp?”
“What did you hear, Jake?” the chief asked quietly.
“There was this one time when Eddie said he’d just realized it was our tenth anniversary of working together. And he wanted to celebrate with a glass of wine. So when the diner closed, we came back here.” Jake raised a hand and swept it in front of him. “He told me to wait in this hallway, and he went inside and closed the door. When he came out again, he had the key in his hand.”
Nicki frowned. “So he did keep the basement key in his office?”
“Yes,” Jake confirmed. “But the office door wasn’t closed all the way. I couldn’t see him, but I heard a drawer open.”
The chief glanced over at the desk. “He opened a desk drawer?”
“No, no. Not in the desk.” Eddie pointed toward the filing cabinet. “One of those. It clanged when he
shut it, like those do.”
Turning to the filing cabinet, Nicki stood in front of the tall five-drawer piece of furniture and looked it over. She tilted her head to one side as she studied it.
“Is that a fact?” The chief nodded at the assistant manager. “Thank you, Jake. You can go back to Nicki’s boyfriend. We’ll be out there in a few minutes.”
Once the short dark-haired man had disappeared back down the hallway, the chief walked over and stood next to Nicki. “Want to split it? You take one half of the drawers and I’ll take the other.”
Nicki didn’t answer but pulled open the top drawer, reached over to read the last file at the very back and then closed the drawer. The chief gave her a puzzled look.
“Not much of a search, Ms. Connors. Got one of those hunches of yours?”
Keeping her thoughts to herself, Nicki opened the second drawer and started to finger walk her way through the tops of the file folders. “Hansen’s Paper Products, Hickory Meats… Ah, here it is.” She pulled out a folder that was too heavy to be just holding papers. She grinned at the chief as she reached into the folder and pulled out a large old-fashioned key. “Eddie belonged to the wine club out at Holland Winery.”
The chief bowed his head. “Nice deduction there, Sherlock.” He held out his hand and Nicki dropped the key into it. “I’ll go give this a try if you want to bring along Sam and Ben. And your boyfriend of course.” He chuckled at Nicki’s annoyed frown. “And tell Jake and Jenna they can go on home. I’m betting the basement isn’t that big, so we’ll just bring along the two who have actually seen that stamp.”
Nicki quickly did as she was told and was back standing in front of the open door at the far end of the storeroom in no time at all. She peered down the wooden steps that looked as if they hadn’t been repainted in a decade or two.
A small lightbulb in the ceiling at the bottom of the stairs gave off a dim light that barely lit up the narrow passageway and a ring of cement at the bottom. She carefully set one foot on the top step, and when it didn’t give way, repeated the process for the next step, and then the next, until she finally reached the bottom. She looked around the small completely enclosed space, surrounded by floor-to-ceiling wine racks on three sides. In the center of the room was a sagging card table and four chairs. Matt stepped around her and stood for a moment studying the tall racks holding dozens of wine bottles.
