Toucan Keep a Secret

by Donna Andrews

  “Not the hysterical type at all.” The chief sounded as if he approved.

  “Judge Jane might have a little send-off for Lacey, but both of them were pretty calm about the whole thing.”

  “Although Her Honor does seem fired up to get me the information I need to examine the possible ties between Lacey’s ex-husband and the jewel thieves,” the chief said, with a smile. “I’m not at all sure how relevant it will be. Yes, Lacey was obsessed with the idea that the jewelry allegedly stolen from Mrs. Van der Lynden was actually hidden somewhere on the estate. Kept going out there with her metal detector, trying to find it. By that time Mrs. Winkleson had bought the place, and she didn’t take too kindly to trespassing treasure hunters, so we were constantly having to send officers out there to chase Lacey off. I went to talk to her a time or two myself. Impressive lady, really. Imagine Judge Jane, only six feet tall and thin as a rail. She’d be out there in a flowered dress, hiking boots, and a safari hat, methodically running her metal detector over the ground in the fields or the woods. Rain or shine, heat wave or blizzard. Made no difference to her. It got to the point that Mrs. Winkleson’s butler would just call and say ‘she’s here again,’ and we’d send a deputy out to chase her home.”

  “Hard to see what that could have to do with a murder over a decade later.”

  “Very hard. But at this point, anything related to the jewel robbery is potentially interesting and useful. Because with all due deference to Mr. Sedlak, I think this murder will turn out to have a lot more to do with the jewel robbery than with Episcopal Church politics.”

  I nodded.

  “Any idea when you’re going to see Dr. Womble?” I asked.

  The chief sighed and closed his eyes briefly.

  “Sorry,” I said. “It’s just that I’m impatient to get all my next-of-kin notifying done, and he’s the closest thing we have to a next of kin on the John Doe.”

  “That could change,” the chief said. “And possibly a great deal more quickly than I’d have anticipated. Apparently shortly before my predecessor retired, he started a campaign to solve all the department’s cold cases. He sent off several tissue samples for DNA analysis—including samples from the John Doe. So instead of having to wait weeks or even months to get the DNA results back, all we have to do is submit the results that were already in the case file to CODIS, which Horace is going to do as soon as he gets back to the office tonight.”

  “That’s great,” I said. “But why wasn’t it done a long time ago?”

  “Probably because the first DNA report they got back and submitted to CODIS implicated Mayor Pruitt’s brother-in-law in a 1991 murder case,” the chief said. “Orders went down that the department had better things to do than waste their time on cold cases and they should get rid of all those useless DNA reports.”

  “That sounds like Pruitt-style justice,” I said. “How did you figure it out?”

  “Apparently the as-yet unidentified officer who was working the cold cases balked at destroying evidence. So he filed all of it in the John Doe case file—not just the John Doe DNA report, but three other inconvenient DNA reports, and the memo from the mayor ordering him to get rid of the DNA reports.”

  “So we might find out who the John Doe really is,” I said.

  “We might indeed,” the chief said. “Of course, now there are several other cases I need to examine, to see if the suppression of evidence resulted in any more guilty Pruitts getting away scot-free with crimes.”

  “Or any innocent people being sent to prison in their place,” I added.

  “Precisely.” The chief looked grim. “So, as you can see, today was perhaps the worst possible day to have to waste time on Mr. Sedlak’s blitherings.”

  “I can understand that,” I said. “I’ll try not to nag you about the next of kin. And while we’re on the subject, I realize that right now the crypt is a crime scene and you don’t have a crystal ball to tell me when you’re going to release it, and it’s not as if we have anything scheduled there—at least not until we get to the point of interring Mr. Hagley. But just to make my next conversation with Robyn easier, let’s pretend I asked you how soon we get our crypt back.”

  “Okay,” he said. “And you can also pretend that I said I’m doing my best to finish with it. I’d be tempted to say sometime tomorrow, but I’d hate to get her hopes up and then disappoint her. Looks as if your grandmother has been coaching the boys in their batting again.”

  I could take a hint. Time to drop the subject—not that I minded his choice of a new subject. My grandmother Cordelia had played a few seasons with the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League in her youth, and she was the Eagles’ not-so-secret weapon in their quest to win the league championship again.

  “She’s down this weekend especially for the baseball,” I said. “Minerva and I have already arranged for the Four Horsemen to have a sleepover Saturday night so Cordelia can work with them.”

  “Good. Ah, there’s your father.”

  Dad, who had been setting up comfortable canvas chairs for Mother and my grandmother Cordelia, beamed and waved when he saw us.

  “I expect he’ll be over here in a minute to tell me about the autopsy,” the chief remarked.

  “You don’t sound very excited.”

  “If your dad had found anything exciting, he’d have called me earlier. Quite possibly before he’d completely finished the autopsy, in case I wanted to see his interesting findings for myself. No, I’m not expecting anything but a confirmation that Mr. Hagley’s death resulted from being hit over the head with that crowbar.”

  I could see his point.

  “Chief!” Dad exclaimed as he bounced over to us. “You’ll have my report by morning, but I can give you the highlights now. I found Mr. Hagley to be in perfect health—”

  “With the tiny exception of that whole being dead thing,” I said.

  “Precisely.” Dad nodded. “I’ve ordered the routine toxicology tests, but I doubt if they’ll show anything odd.”

  “So he died from being hit over the head with the crowbar by person or persons unknown,” the chief said, to head off any possibility that Dad would explain Mr. Hagley’s demise in dense, polysyllabic medical terms. “And if not for our killer, he might have been with us for a good long while to come. Which makes no difference in the eyes of the law, of course, but it still feels more heinous. Excuse me, but I should take this.”

  He pulled his cell phone, which had indeed buzzed discreetly while he was speaking, and stepped few paces away.

  I resisted the urge to sidle a little closer, and wondered how hard it was to learn lip reading. It would be such a useful skill sometimes.

  Chapter 17

  To my surprise, Dad wasn’t trying to eavesdrop on the chief’s phone call. He stood quietly, his fingers twined in the chain-link fence, his eyes following Josh and Jamie as they practiced. But I could tell his mind was elsewhere.

  “Poor Junius,” Dad said. Then he frowned. “Did people really call him Junius?”

  “I didn’t,” I said. “I called him Mr. Hagley.”

  “But what did his friends call him?”

  “I think most people called him Mr. Hagley.”

  “What would be the nickname for Junius be? June? Junie? Juno?”

  I refrained from saying that none of them sounded very likely. Dad’s expression showed that he’d already figured that out.

  “What did your mother call him?” Dad asked finally.

  “I don’t think she considered herself his friend.”

  “But surely she must have…”

  “Pretended to be his friend? Mother?”

  “Good point.”

  “I think she called him Mr. Hagley, too,” I said, after pondering for a few moments. “Sometimes ‘my dear man,’ when she was really annoyed with him.”

  Dad sighed and seemed to abandon his quest to humanize Mr. Hagley.

  “Well, that’s beside the point,” he said. “I need yo
u to go out with me to the Van der Lynden’s mansion.”

  “It isn’t the Van der Lyndens’ mansion anymore,” I pointed out. “It belongs to Ragnar now.”

  “And you and he are such good friends.” Dad beamed at me. “You can help me talk him into it.”

  “Talk him into what?” Ragnar was a friend, yes. And increasingly becoming a good friend, which was strange, since about the only thing we had in common was a love of wrought iron. But it was hard not to like Ragnar.

  “A reenactment of the crime!” Dad exclaimed.

  “You mean the jewel robbery? But that was thirty years ago!”

  “Yes, that’s going to make it a challenge,” Dad said. “But I think it will be worth it if we can shed some light on the location of the jewels.”

  “Everything will have changed,” I said. “And what’s the point? What could you possibly accomplish by doing that?”

  “Everything hasn’t changed,” Dad protested. “Not the floor plan, for example.”

  “We don’t know that.” I noticed he was ignoring my question about the point of the reenactment. “I don’t think Ragnar has made any sweeping architectural changes, but who knows what Mrs. Winkleson did to the place while she owned it.”

  “We can at least try,” Dad said. “Fred Singer is searching through his archives for any photos that might help us out—he’s already given me a guest list; here, I made you a copy. I need your help figuring out how to cast all the participants.”

  He handed me a sheet of paper that contained a long list of names. The cream of Caerphilly society circa 1987, presumably. Almost no one I knew, though a few of the last names were familiar.

  “And I have a copy of the floor plan that appeared in the paper,” Dad was saying. “Ms. Ellie at the library is ferreting around in her historical files. So all we have to do is talk Ragnar into letting us do it.”

  Knowing Ragnar, I didn’t think much persuasion would be needed. In fact, the reenactment sounded like the sort of lunatic project he’d enjoy just as much as Dad would.

  “You never answered my other question—what do you hope to accomplish with your reenactment?”

  “We might be able to find out what really happened thirty years ago,” he said. “And locate the rest of the jewels. We have a real unsolved mystery right here on our doorstep—we have to do something.”

  I was working on finding a tactful yet firm way to convey how silly I thought this idea was when it occurred to me that if Dad was busy reenacting the thirty-year-old jewel robbery he’d be much less likely to interfere with the chief’s present-day murder investigation. Maybe the reenactment would serve some useful purpose after all, even if not the one Dad intended.

  “So you want me to go out there with you to talk Ragnar into doing this?” I asked.

  “And then we can start planning all of it!” Dad threw his arms out in an expansive gesture. “We could go right now.”

  “And miss your grandsons’ game?”

  “After the game, then. Ragnar’s a night owl—he won’t mind.”

  “After the game, I’m going over to help Mother with a project for Robyn, and by the time we finish with that it could be bedtime,” I said.

  “But—”

  “I’ll check with Ragnar tonight,” I said. “And see what time will work for him.”

  “Let’s try for tomorrow morning.”

  “Late morning, maybe. He’s a night owl, remember? And besides, it will take Fred and Ms. Ellie a little time to dig up those photos. If Ragnar’s at all reluctant, I bet the photos will convince him. And you might want to check the county archives. If Mrs. Winkleson or Ragnar were doing any remodeling, they’d have to file building permits, wouldn’t they? With architectural drawings. That could be useful.”

  “An excellent idea!” Dad beamed at me. “See, I knew you were the right person to ask about this. So sometime tomorrow—for sure?”

  “If it’s okay with Ragnar. I’ll talk to him. And we might need to postpone if I haven’t finished all the other things Mother has me doing for Robyn.”

  Actually, Mother hadn’t delegated anything to me lately, but I was sure she’d be happy to if I decided I wanted a good excuse to weasel out of helping Dad with his reenactment project. But Dad looked so disappointed that I relented a little.

  “I’ll go and see if I can clear it with Mother—the fact that I might need to postpone a few of her projects,” I said.

  “Excellent!” His face brightened.

  “You stay here and watch the practice,” I said. Dad nodded and stayed intertwined with the fence. I strolled over to where Mother and Cordelia were sitting.

  “Good news,” Mother said as soon as I was in earshot. “I have a very nice green glass biscuit jar on its way. Horace was so helpful about getting me close-ups of the glass bits without anything … unsuitable in the frame.”

  I made a mental note to apologize to Horace for any stress I’d caused him by sending Mother his way.

  “I found it online, at an antique store’s website—in mint condition,” she continued. “I’m having it shipped directly to dear Maudie at the funeral home.”

  I wondered if the “dear Maudie” bit meant the funeral home owner had done Mother some service lately, or only that Mother was planning to ask her for a favor and was mentally buttering her up beforehand.

  “Awesome,” I said. “Any chance you could do a couple more things?”

  Mother cocked her head like a bird, to indicate that she was listening with eager anticipation.

  “First, can you come over with me to Robyn’s for a couple of hours after the game?” I asked. “I talked her into starting to declutter her house. I figure I can do the hands-on sorting and organizing while you keep her spirits up and reassure her that it’s already looking better.”

  “Of course, dear. Long overdue.”

  “I can help for a few hours if you like,” my grandmother Cordelia said. “I’m no slouch at organizing.”

  “Excellent.” I felt relieved. With Mother and Cordelia involved—two of the most organized people I knew—Robyn’s clutter didn’t stand a chance. “Second, can you convince Dad that I’m doing several million things for you, and can’t quite spend the whole day on his latest pet project?” I explained about Dad’s reenactment plan.

  “Life’s never dull with James around,” Cordelia said.

  “Of course, dear,” Mother said.

  “Third and last request—can you help me find a Dame?” Seeing that Mother looked puzzled, I handed her the list and elaborated. “Fred Singer gave Dad the guest list from Mrs. Van der Lynden’s party—which was actually organized by the Dames of Caerphilly. My social circles don’t usually intersect with the Dames. Can you help me figure out which of the guests are still alive? And also, since my impression is that the Dames membership list consisted mainly of Pruitts and their toadies, whether any of the surviving guests might be willing to talk to someone who’s a member of the new regime?”

  “Of course, dear,” Mother purred. She took out her elegant reading glasses to study the list.

  “And this is going to help you with your mission of contacting the next of kin … how?” Cordelia had a twinkle in her eye. “Because of course I know you wouldn’t be trying to horn in on Chief Burke’s investigation.”

  “It won’t help a bit with contacting the next of kin,” I said. “But it will help me keep Dad from driving the chief crazy. If I give him a real, live party guest to play with, I bet he can spend hours interrogating him or her about things like what was on the menu and what the weather was like. Keep him out of the chief’s hair.”

  “Yes, your father can be very … enthusiastic when he’s interested in something, can’t he?”

  Cordelia merely rolled her eyes.

  Mother sighed and held up the copy of the party guest list. “Time has not been kind to Mrs. Van der Lynden’s friends.”

  “You don’t recognize any of the names?”

  “I recognize all th
e names, dear,” Mother said. “From my work on the town history project. But only two of them are still alive, and I’m not very optimistic about getting either of them to talk to your father. One is Mrs. Belinda Pruitt—and you know how the Pruitts feel about anyone who’s friendly with the Shiffley clan.”

  “She’s a dead end, then,” I said. “And the other?”

  “Poor dear Mr. Jackson at the nursing home.”

  “The one who’s still fighting the Civil War?”

  “Actually, these days he’s under the illusion that he was wounded at the Battle of Chancellorsville and is recuperating in a Confederate field hospital,” Mother said. “I rather doubt he’d be interested in returning to the 1980s.”

  “Let’s not tell Dad yet,” I said. “He’ll be happier if he thinks we’re still combing the town for party guests.”

  “Of course.” Mother tucked the list back in her purse. “By the way, dear, I was thinking of something. In dear Dr. Womble’s day, we had people called Key Holders. It was an official volunteer post. Perhaps it’s time to bring that back.”

  “What did they do?” I asked.

  “More or less what you and the other volunteers have been doing since Robyn’s been out,” Mother said. “Making sure everything is shipshape and locked up at the end of the day. Because while Dr. Womble is a lovely person, very erudite and wonderfully spiritual, the mundane, practical aspects of running a church were simply beyond him.”

  “I can see that.” Dr. Womble was famous throughout the diocese for having broken both legs by falling down the stairs while walking around with his nose in a book. Nobody in the parish was surprised, actually, but the bishop, hearing about it, had noticed that Dr. Womble was overdue for retirement. Probably a good thing the bishop had made himself scarce in Caerphilly for the next year or so, until the Trinity congregation had figured out that Robyn was a wholly worthy successor, and that Dr. Womble was, to his surprise, enjoying retirement.

  “And the duties of the Key Holders were rather more onerous in those days, because one of the main responsibilities was to make sure Dr. Womble hadn’t wandered off to some out-of-the-way part of the building and picked up a book,” Mother went on. “Because, of course, given his wonderful powers of concentration, once he’d lost himself in a book you couldn’t expect him to answer you.”