“You mean, Grandpa would never get the money,” Isobel said.
Elliot wheeled back around to me. “Maybe some other lowlife heard about the theft and decided to take advantage of the situation. Maybe they found out how much your boyfriend cares about the dog, but they don’t know how to contact him, so they left this note here. Why don’t you tell him what happened? Tell him if he doesn’t hand over the coins, the dog will die.”
“Daddy!” Isobel looked shocked.
“I need that dog back,” Elliot said desperately. He let out a long shuddery sigh. “My father already thinks I hate the animal. He thinks I want to get rid of it. He’s been mad at me for years. Sometimes I think he’s been mad at me my whole life. I came here to help him out, and the first thing that happens is that his coin collection gets stolen. And then, because I tried to protect it by getting it insured, the insurance company gets suspicious. Now his dog has vanished while it was in my care.”
He seemed genuinely upset. That was enough to convince me that I was finally on the right track.
“At first I thought you were the one who got someone to threaten me,” I said.
“Threaten you?” Elliot said, stunned. “What are you talking about?”
“Someone hurt Robyn,” Isobel said.
I told Elliot what had happened.
“The man wanted me to tell Nick to hand over the coins. He said if he didn’t, someone would get hurt. He shoved me around to show he was serious. My arm got broken.”
“Good Lord,” Elliot said. “And you thought I was responsible for that?”
“Well, if I’d reported the attack, the police would have told the insurance company, and they would have believed the coins had been stolen. And that Nick did it.”
“My dad would never do anything like that,” Isobel said.
“I was attacked two blocks from here, right after I left this house on Friday,” I said, focusing on Elliot. “Whoever attacked me knew exactly where to find me. How could he have known that? He wanted me to give a message to Nick. How did he even know that I knew Nick?”
Elliot stared mutely at me.
“But you did know,” I said. “Connor found out. And Isobel knew that I used to go out with Nick. So someone in this house must have attacked me or arranged for me to be attacked. I thought it could only be you.”
“Why me?” Elliot said.
“Because I thought you staged the robbery and hid the coins.”
“That’s ridiculous—he’s my father!”
“First,” I said, “because you were the one who pushed your father to insure his coins as soon as you found out how valuable they were.”
“That was my wife’s idea, not mine,” Elliot said in a small, strangled voice.
“Second, if the insurance company had paid the claim, you could have given the money to your father and then sold the coins that you had stashed. Third, you need the money. Your business is in trouble.” Elliot turned red in the face. He was probably wondering how I knew that, but he didn’t say I was wrong. “You don’t even let your wife have a credit card. Fourth, you’ve asked your father for money before, but he’s always turned you down. You even sent your wife to ask on your behalf, but he turned her down too.”
“I did no such thing.”
“She was here last fall,” I said. “If you don’t believe me, ask her.”
Elliot turned to Claudia with what looked like a mixture of fury and disbelief. “Is this true? Did you come here and ask Dad for money?”
“Elliot, it’s not what you think,” Claudia said meekly.
He shook his head in disgust.
“Fifth,” I continued, “your wife knew about Nick’s past and should have told you. But you acted as if she hadn’t.”
Elliot’s eyes focused hard on his wife.
“You knew about this boy too?” he said.
Claudia didn’t answer.
“Sixth, you had Nick checked out. You knew where he was staying. And the day the coins were stolen, you left for a meeting but then told your family that the meeting was really for the following week—which means that you have no alibi for that afternoon.”
“That afternoon?” I could tell Elliot was baffled. “But the coins weren’t stolen until that night. We were all—”
I didn’t let him finish. “And, finally, you’ve been making it sound as if your father can’t manage his own affairs. If you could get yourself made his guardian, you would control his finances. You could bail out your business.”
“I would never...,” Elliot said. “I love my father. I want things to be right between us.” He turned to his wife. “Why didn’t you tell me you came here to ask him for money?”
She said nothing. I guess I couldn’t blame her.
“Then I found out that your wife was the last person to see the coins before they were stolen,” I said. I turned to face Claudia. “All of you said you were out of the house that afternoon. When you came back home before dinner, you went upstairs to change. You and your husband are using the back bedroom where Mr. Schuster kept his coin collection. You told the police that you were the only one who went into that room before leaving for dinner and that the coins were there before you left.” I’d seen that in the police report that I’d found in Mr. Schuster’s den. “You said you saw them when you were changing, but when Connor and Isobel went up there after you got back from the restaurant, they were gone.”
“That’s right,” Claudia said.
“Is it?” I said.
“What are you talking about?” Elliot said. “You doubt my wife?”
I turned back to him. “You were supposed to meet your family at the restaurant, weren’t you?”
“Yes, but I don’t see—”
“But when you realized you’d mixed up the meeting date, you came back to the house. I bet your wife was surprised.”
Elliot glanced at her.
“Did you go upstairs at all?”
“I wanted to take a quick shower,” Elliot said. “But Claudia said there was no time.”
“She didn’t want you to go upstairs,” I said. “I think she was afraid that if you did, you’d have seen that the coins were already gone.”
“That’s ridiculous!” Claudia said.
Elliot stared at her.
“Nick didn’t take those coins,” I said. “I know that for a fact. That means someone must have planted a few coins in his backpack and left that crowbar in the building where he was staying. But the only time Nick was away from his backpack was for a short time that afternoon—the same as every afternoon. So whoever planted those coins on Nick must have done it that afternoon, not that evening. Where were you that afternoon, Mrs. Schuster?”
“I was at the hospital with Isobel.”
I glanced at Isobel. An expression of horror was creeping onto her face.
“Not... the whole time, Mom,” Isobel said in a small voice. “You left me at the hospital at noon. You didn’t come back until a little after three, remember? You said you were going to replace the glass you broke that morning.”
“What glass?” Elliot said.
“I dropped one of your father’s glasses. I wanted to replace it.”
“You told Isobel that you went to every department store in town, but you couldn’t find one that matched,” I said.
“That’s right,” Claudia said.
“You didn’t buy anything at those stores, did you?” I said.
“As I said, I couldn’t find what I was looking for.”
“But since you didn’t find a matching glass, there’s no record to show that you were actually in any of those stores.”
“Are you calling me a liar?” Claudia said, bristling.
“When you were here in the fall, Orion was still sleeping in the basement. But by the time you came back with the rest of the family, Mr. Schuster had moved him to the back bedroom, where he kept the coins. But you had no way of knowing that. One of the first things you did when you came here tha
t first night was to go up to the room. You didn’t even hesitate when you heard him barking.”
“Elliot’s father said he was well-behaved. He said I shouldn’t be afraid of him.”
“You wanted to check on the coins. Were you making sure they were still there? But you startled Orion and he reacted. So you saw to it that he was locked in the basement.”
“My mom was scared, that’s all,” Isobel said. “She didn’t want to hurt Orion. Right, Mom?”
I could imagine how Isobel was feeling. If someone had been saying the kinds of things about my mother that I was saying about hers, I’d have reacted the same way. But I wanted to clear this up—and clear Nick—once and for all.
“Having Orion in the basement was a big help to you,” I said to Claudia. “If he’d stayed in that room, it would have been a lot harder for you to get to the coins. As soon as you heard that Mr. Schuster was sick, you offered to come here by yourself to look after him.” Isobel had told me that. “That would have made things even easier. You could have staged a robbery much more easily, without so many people around. When your husband insisted on coming with you, you had to get creative.”
She looked at Elliot. “This is crazy,” she said.
“You knew where Nick was staying,” I continued. “You have no alibi for that afternoon. As for what happened to me, you got a phone call just before I left here on Friday. Did you tell someone that I was leaving the house?”
Elliot shook his head slowly. “Claudia, what’s going on?”
“Elliot, you have to believe me. I have no idea where those coins are.”
“Who is Mr. Jones?” I said. “Is he the one who attacked me?”
“Claudia?” Elliot said, his tone a warning.
“Oh, Elliot.” Claudia’s voice was full of anguish.
Elliot’s shoulders slumped. “Tell me you haven’t been gambling again.”
Isobel was as confused as I was. “What are you talking about, Dad?”
“Mom has a gambling problem,” Connor said with a distinct lack of sympathy. “Why do you think Dad took away her credit card? Why do you think he made us all come here? He was afraid if he left her alone, she’d gamble the house away.”
“Claudia, please tell me you had nothing to do with what happened to Robyn or to those coins,” Elliot said.
Claudia started to sob. “Elliot, I’m so sorry.”
“Oh my God,” Elliot said.
Isobel stared at her mother. I thought she was going to start crying too.
“He said if I didn’t pay what I owed, someone would get hurt. He knew all about the kids—their names, where they go to school, everything. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“Tell me where those coins are this instant,” Elliot said. “I am not going to disappoint my father again. It was bad enough when I had to miss my mother’s funeral to drag you out of that casino. When I almost lost everything trying to cover your debts. You promised me.”
Claudia wept quietly. “I don’t have the coins, Elliot. I swear I don’t. Robyn’s right. I took them. I took them that afternoon and I hid them. But they were insured. It wasn’t like your father was going to lose everything. He would have been compensated.”
Connor snorted in derision. “Grandpa doesn’t have those coins for what they’re worth,” he said. “He has them because he loves them. Some of them are impossible to replace. You can’t just go to a store and buy more.”
“Where are they, Claudia?” Elliot said.
“That boy has them. Nick. That’s what the police said. He broke into the house and stole them. The police arrested him, Elliot.”
“Mom, I don’t understand,” Isobel said.
“Neither do I,” Elliot said coldly.
“I hid the coins,” Claudia said again. “I took the screen off the kitchen window—it was falling off anyway—and left the window open a little so the police would think the thief came in that way.” That explained what my dad had told me. I guessed that she didn’t know the window didn’t open wide enough to let anyone slip through. “Then you said that the side door had been forced open. But I didn’t do that. I didn’t touch the door. So when you told us to search the house for anything else missing, I checked to make sure the coins were where I’d hidden them.
“But they were gone,” Claudia continued. “You said Nick must have broken into the house and taken them. One of the neighbors said they had seen him lurking around earlier that day. That’s what must have happened! Because I don’t know where they are!”
“Is that what you told Mr. Jones?” I said. “It would explain why the place where Nick was staying was broken into. Someone was looking for the coins. And that day at the mall, someone pushed Nick to scare him into handing them over. That’s how your father fell down the escalator—because Nick was shoved into him. I think the man who pushed Nick had been watching his aunt’s house. Then, when Nick didn’t hand over the coins, I was attacked.”
“And now my father’s dog has been kidnapped.”
“Elliot, I’m so sorry,” Claudia whimpered. “But I don’t know where those coins are. I swear I don’t.”
And Mr. Jones had lost his patience. He wanted the money Claudia owed him, and he had done his best to get it. But where were the coins now?
At first I had been confused by what Earl said he’d seen. But after everything I had just heard, it was starting to make sense. I turned to Connor.
“You don’t have an alibi for that afternoon, either, do you?” I said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“C
onnor?” Elliot said. “You think Connor knows where the coins are?”
“I was at the library,” Connor said defiantly.
“Reference library,” I said. “Hundreds of people go in and out all day, and no one can take out any books, so you probably thought that nobody’d be able to check if you were really there. But they have security cameras. The police could check if someone asked them to.”
Connor tried to look like he didn’t care, but I saw a hint of worry in his eyes.
“I know you heard your dad say where Nick was staying. I also know you went there the day before the robbery. Someone saw you, Connor. Someone can identify you.” Well, they could identify his jacket. “What were you doing?”
“Nothing.”
“Connor?” his father said sternly.
“I wanted to see where he lived, okay?” Connor said angrily. “I wanted to see why Grandpa thought he was such a big deal.”
“You went back again the day of the robbery and planted the crowbar and coins, didn’t you?”
“Connor was going to inherit those coins,” Elliot said. “What reason could he have for stealing them?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “But the coins the police found in Nick’s backpack were the least valuable in the whole collection. You and your wife don’t know much about coins. But you know, don’t you, Connor? You were careful to use the coins that didn’t matter to frame Nick, the ones that weren’t worth much.”
“This is ridiculous,” Elliot said.
“Did you do it because you were jealous of Nick?” I continued. “Your grandfather had been spending a lot of time with him. He was teaching him all about coins. He was even planning to leave him part of the collection. I bet you weren’t happy when you heard that, were you, Connor?”
“The guy’s a loser,” Connor said. “He did time. Isn’t that what you said, Dad?”
Elliot frowned. “Connor, you didn’t actually—”
“Someone had to protect Grandpa’s collection,” Connor said.
“Protect it from who?” Elliot said.
“From Mom. I saw the look on her face when she realized how much the coins were worth. She started nagging you about whether they were insured. Don’t look at me like that, Dad. She just admitted what she did.”
“We’re not talking about your mother now, Connor,” Elliot said.
“I heard her talking to that guy, Jones, about
how much she owed him. She told him about Grandpa’s collection.” He looked contemptuously at his mother. “That’s all you care about, isn’t it? To you, the coins are just a way to pay off your debt. You don’t understand—neither of you do. They’re not just money, they’re history. That’s what Grandpa always said. They’re pocket-sized pieces of history. But the only thing the two of you cared about was how much they were worth.”
“Did you take those coins, Connor?”
“You’re not listening,” Connor said. “Mom took them. But I knew she was up to something. I pretended I was going to the library and waited until she left the house with Isobel. Then I snuck back inside. I saw her, Dad. I saw her take them, where she hid them. When she left again, I took them and put them someplace safe.”
There was something I didn’t understand: “Why pry open the side door? Your mom already fixed it so that it’d look like the thief came in through the kitchen window.”
Connor looked at me as if I were an idiot. “If I just moved them, she might figure out that it was me. But if it looked like someone really had broken in, she’d blame someone else.”
I turned to Claudia again. “And that’s what you told Mr. Jones, right? That’s why Beej’s house was broken into. That’s why Nick and I were attacked. You really thought Nick had those coins, and you needed them.”
“You lied to me,” Elliot said. “You stole from my father. And now some thug has my father’s dog.” He turned to Connor. “This ends here, do you understand? Give me the coins.”
“What are you going to do with them?” Connor said. “Give them to her”—he looked disdainfully at his mother—“so she can give them to Mr. Jones? So you can get that stupid dog?”
“Connor!” Isobel said, snapping out of the daze she had been in. “Grandpa loves Orion.”
“And as long as he’s alive, those coins are his, not yours,” Elliot said. “Connor, if you don’t hand over those coins this minute, if anything happens to that dog, I’ll call the police myself. And I’ll tell your grandfather exactly what you did.”
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