Toucan Keep a Secret

by Donna Andrews

  He stared gloomily into space for a few moments. Then he seemed to pull himself up.

  “I already told pretty much all of this to Chief Burke,” he said. “Is there some official reason why I’m telling you?”

  “Just me being nosy,” I said. “Officially, I’m supposed to be representing Trinity Episcopal. Extending our sincere apologies and asking what you want us to do with Jeff’s ashes.”

  “What I want you to do with them?” Donovan looked startled. “Can’t they just stay there?”

  “Of course they can,” I said. “If that’s what you want. Well, technically they’re not there right now—I think the police took them away for safekeeping. But as soon as we get the okay, from them, we can put him back in his niche.”

  “Good.” He looked down at the papers on his desk but I suspected he wasn’t thinking about the student paper that lay there, so copiously marked with red ink that it almost looked as if it were bleeding.

  I picked up my tote to leave. And then I set it down again. This might be my best chance to get information out of Donovan. Surely there was something else I could ask him to get him talking again.

  “Tell me,” I asked. “Was he well-off?”

  Chapter 25

  “Well-off? Jeff?” Donovan snorted, looked up, and frowned. “Why? Is there a cost to putting him back in his crevice? Some kind of restocking fee?”

  “Of course not,” I said. “And even if there were, under the circumstances, Trinity would take care of it. I should have preceded that question with ‘on a completely different subject’ or something.”

  “Then why the interest in his bank account?”

  “You wondered yourself if someone who thought he knew where the loot was hidden had come back.”

  “Which would have pretty stupid of them, because he didn’t know a thing.” Donovan was shaking his head firmly. “If he had, he probably could have made a deal with the prosecutor. Had the charges against him dropped in return for cooperating with their investigation.”

  “Makes sense,” I said. “But if he was well-off, someone might assume it was from the robbery rather than from earnings or inheritance. That could explain them coming after him.”

  “Okay, that I get,” Donovan said. “But he wasn’t well-off. He didn’t come from money, and you certainly don’t get rich on an adjunct’s salary. He was up to his ears in debt when he died. Fortunately, most of it was student loan debt, the kind that’s wiped out if you die before you’ve paid it off, so his poor mother didn’t get stuck with it. His department actually took up a collection to pay off most of the rest of it.”

  “Interesting.” And it really was, since, as I’d been reminded several times lately, niches at Trinity didn’t come cheap. I wondered if Donovan knew this.

  “How’d he end up buried at Trinity?” I asked.

  “That’s the church he went to,” Donovan said. “So the minister arranged it.”

  “Dr. Womble?”

  “That’s him.” Donovan smiled—a fairly common reaction for anyone who’d met Trinity’s former rector. “Funny old guy, but really nice. He took care of everything. I gather they have some kind of fund to take care of members of the congregation who die broke.”

  Quite possibly we did, but I didn’t think it covered buying them a niche at Trinity. I decided Donovan didn’t need to know that.

  “On another completely different topic,” I said. “I don’t suppose you kept in touch at all with Archie van der Lynden.”

  “We didn’t move in the same circles,” Donovan said. “Not before the robbery and certainly not after. Why?”

  “I need to find him,” I said. “For much the same reason I came to see you. His mother’s ashes were disturbed. I assume what he’d want is for Trinity to put her back in her niche, but so far I haven’t been able to reach him. The only contact I’ve got is a law firm, and so far they’re not being helpful. They haven’t even gotten back to the chief.”

  “Well, give it time,” Donovan said. “If I were a defense attorney representing scum like Archie, I’d make sure I knew exactly what he’d been up to before I got in touch with law enforcement. If I even talked to them at all. They’re not under any obligation to do so, you know.”

  “Yeah, but from what I’ve gathered, this isn’t a criminal defense firm,” I said. “It’s a fancy estate and trust outfit called Wellington Blodgett.”

  “Wellington Blodgett? They’re representing Archie? Sounds … implausible. His mother, maybe, back in the day before she lost all her dough, but Archie?”

  “Maybe he’s part of their pro bono clientele.”

  “Also implausible. A firm like that tends to encourage their attorneys to take on a less unsavory sort of pro bono client. Hang on—I have an idea.”

  He picked up his phone and dialed a number. Only four digits, so I assumed it was a college extension.

  “Jeannie? Can you work your magic on those files for me?… Long story, but I want to find out if we have any graduates working at a white-shoe firm in Richmond called Wellington Blodgett.… Yeah, preferably a reasonably senior one.… Sure thing.”

  He pressed the mute button and glanced up at me.

  “Jeannie’s the dean’s admin. She keeps a detailed record of where all the law school grads end up. Invaluable for fund-raising purposes. If we have a graduate at Wellington Blodgett, we might get some inside scoop about how they ended up representing Archie.”

  I nodded. He waited, staring tensely at the phone, for a few more moments. Then he jerked to attention, unmuted the phone, and picked up a pen.

  “I’m ready.… uh-huh … uh-huh.… Great! Thanks! I owe you one.”

  He hung up the phone and, with a flourish, handed me a piece of paper on which he’d written J. Elliott Vanderbilt, Coll. ’89, Law ’92.

  “I don’t even have to look him up,” he said. “Big man on campus back when we were undergrads. One of Archie’s frat brothers. Quite possibly the stupidest human being ever admitted to Caerphilly’s law school—certainly the stupidest in my class. And now a partner at Wellington Blodgett! Well, money can’t buy everything, but apparently it can buy a partnership at a ritzy law firm. I doubt if Archie’s a pro bono client. More likely Elliott’s private charity case. Maybe he does Archie a favor now and then, for old times’ sake. Rattles a saber. Talks his old buddy out of a jam. Of course, I’m not sure knowing this gets you one bit closer to talking to Archie.”

  “But you never know.” I tucked the paper into my notebook. “Thank you.”

  “Say, is it true that the police found Mrs. Van der Lynden’s jewels in the crypt?” Donovan asked. “That’s the rumor that’s been going around.”

  “Jewels, plural, no,” I said. “They found a ring with a red stone. No idea if it’s valuable, much less if it belonged to Mrs. Van der Lynden. Why?”

  “You’d think the police would have made that a priority.” Donovan shook his head as if sadly disappointed.

  “I’m sure finding out’s a priority,” I said. “Alas, bringing me up to speed on what they’ve learned isn’t. I’m sure they’ll make a public announcement when they’re ready.”

  “I bet it is Mrs. Van der Lynden’s,” he said. “Wish Jeff were here to see this. We used to wonder sometimes if the jewels would ever turn up.”

  “What did you and he think had happened?”

  “We never settled on one theory. Archie, his mother, one of the staff, one of the robbers. Who knows? All I know is that Jeff didn’t have them.”

  I nodded.

  “I’ll let you know when we’ve got Jeff safely stowed in his niche again,” I said as I stood up.

  “Appreciate it.”

  He picked up his red pen and focused on the student paper in front of him with a visible effort. I slipped away and closed the door behind me.

  On my way out of the building, I noticed that while I’d been inside the latest set of pranksters had renamed it the DENNY CRANE SCHOOL OF LAW.

  Back at my c
ar, I checked my phone before taking off. A text from Dad asked simply, “Ragnar?”

  “Not now,” I replied. “But soon.”

  Dad’s burglary reenactment plans could wait. I was going to see Dr. Womble. Dad would be miffed when he heard I’d gone to visit the retired rector without him, but putting the two of them in the same room would torpedo any chance of steering the conversation into useful channels.

  Before heading out, I took a few moments to rummage through the box of items for Dr. Womble. Apart from the letter from Archie, none of the other items seemed related to recent events or to the Van der Lynden robbery. But perhaps it would be a good idea to encourage Dr. Womble to root through the box while I was there, to see what random revelations its contents sparked. I closed up the box and set out for the Wombles’ retirement cottage.

  Although they referred to their retirement home as a cottage, it was actually a rambling old farmhouse tucked away in a wooded glade a few miles from town. They’d converted the former barn into a library, although that didn’t mean there weren’t plenty of books to fill shelves in every room in the house—including the tiny hall powder room.

  Mrs. Womble answered the door, releasing the unmistakable odor of freshly baked chocolate cookies into the wild.

  “Hello, Meg,” she said. “Glad to see you’re okay after last night’s excitement. Here to see Rufus, I assume—he’s back in the library. You can take him his tray.”

  She ushered me briskly down the hall and into a kitchen in which every horizontal surface was covered with racks of cooling cookies. She picked up a tray with a pitcher of lemonade, two glasses, and a plate of cookies.

  “Second breakfast?” I asked. Dr. Womble’s eating habits were modeled on those of the hobbits.

  “Goodness, he had that an hour ago. Elevenses. I suppose if you’re taking that box to Rufus I should bring the tray.”

  “The box isn’t heavy,” I said. “Just put the tray on top.”

  She did so, and let me out the back door before returning to her baking. Had she anticipated my arrival? Or had I fortuitously rung the doorbell just as she was about to deliver refreshments? Not for the first time I wondered how someone so efficient and down to earth had ended up married to Dr. Womble.

  I found Dr. Womble sprawled in one of the half-dozen disreputable but comfortable easy chairs drawn into a rough circle in the center of the barn floor, with several large stacks of books on the floor around him. He looked up and smiled with delight when he saw me.

  “Good afternoon, Meg!” he exclaimed. “Have you ever eaten breadfruit?”

  “Not that I can recall.” Not knowing whether this was a rhetorical question or an offer of hospitality, after setting my tray-laden box on the floor I glanced around. I saw no plates of anything that could possibly be breadfruit, though there was one containing a paring knife and some relatively fresh orange peels. There were a few empty plates, though. Perhaps Wyclif and Wilberforce, the household’s enormous gray tabbies, had eaten the breadfruit? They were lying in two of the armchairs, looking remarkably sleek and contented.

  “I wonder where one could find some,” Dr. Womble went on. “I really am quite curious to try it.”

  “I could ask around if you like.” I moved aside enough books to set the tray on the low table in front of Dr. Womble. In any other home I’d have thought of it as a coffee table, but here it was obviously more of a book, tea, and lemonade table. I poured us each a glass of the lemonade. Then I glanced around to see if I could figure out what had inspired Dr. Womble’s sudden interest in breadfruit.

  “That’s what the Bounty’s mission was all about, you know,” he was saying. “Bringing back several hundred little breadfruit trees from the South Pacific to the Caribbean.

  “That’s Bounty as in Mutiny on the…?” Light was beginning to dawn.

  “Yes. Such a tragic tale. Poor Captain Bligh. He wasn’t perfect, of course, but he wasn’t the villain he’s been painted. The real story was so much more nuanced.”

  As he talked, I studied the heaps of books around him. Books about Tahiti. Books about the West Indies. Books about Australia. Books about tropical plants, sailing ships, naval battles, Captain Cook’s voyages of discovery, the American Revolution, and the Napoleonic Wars. I wasn’t sure how the poetry of Wordsworth and the history of the Isle of Man fit into Bounty saga, but I had no doubt I’d soon find out if I didn’t figure out a way to steer the conversation in the direction I wanted.

  Inspiration struck when I spotted a copy of a familiar book: The Bounty: The True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty, by Caroline Alexander.

  “Oh my goodness!” I exclaimed. “You’re reading Alexander’s book about the Bounty! You must talk to Dad about it. He’s been urging me to read it for years, so he’d have someone to discuss it with.”

  “Why yes!” His face lit up. “Do you know what I find the most interesting aspect of the whole thing?”

  “Not another word!” I held up my hands as if stopping traffic. “No spoilers! Not till I’ve read it. And I’m going to take this as a sign that I should have done so long ago. I can drop by this evening and borrow Dad’s copy, and meanwhile I’ll see if I can get him out here so the two of you can have a discussion.”

  Dad might refuse to be diverted from his crime reenactment project, but if I could manage to rekindle his passion for rehashing the history of the Bounty, even if only for an afternoon, life would be much more peaceful for so many people around us.

  “In fact, I could go to get him now.” I took a large gulp of my lemonade and stood up.

  “No, no,” Dr. Womble said. “Do stay—you haven’t even had one of Emma’s cookies.”

  “That’s true.” I sat down again. “And I did come by for a reason. May I pick your brain about something?”

  He nodded. So I reached into the box, pulled out the letter from Archie, and handed it to him.

  Chapter 26

  He looked at the letter and sighed. A melancholy expression replaced his eager excitement.

  “Poor man,” he said.

  “Archie van der Lynden?”

  He nodded. He reached over to the plate containing the orange peels, snagged the paring knife, cleaned it off on his sweater, and used it to slice open the envelope.

  He pulled out a sheet of ruled paper that had obviously been torn from a spiral-bound notebook, all the messy little paper tags falling off it. He read it slowly, and then handed it to me.

  Archie’s handwriting was large and sprawling, and the lines slanted downward, ignoring the thin blue rules. The letter read:

  Dear Dr. Womble: Here at Inchness doing a little tune up, ha ha! The cigar thing fell thru, but I’ve got something better lined up for when I get out. If you want to make an investment, say the word, but if not, don’t worry, the new plan’s a sure thing and I hope to pay you back real soon. Yours, Archie.

  “Cigar thing?” I asked.

  “Some plan to take advantage of Cuba being open to tourism to import fine cigars more cheaply,” Dr. Womble said. “I don’t quite understand the details.”

  “I think that’s what you’d call smuggling,” I said. “I hope you didn’t invest in it.”

  “Oh, I never invest in any of Archie’s projects,” he said, displaying more common sense than I’d have expected. “I lend him money from time to time—at least we call it lending. I’m sure he really does intend to pay it back.”

  He sipped his lemonade and seemed lost in sad contemplation. I considered several subtle ways of asking my next question and finally decided just to blurt it out.

  “Do you have any idea where he is now?” I asked. “Because the chief wants to talk to him. As do I.”

  “Probably still at Inchness,” Dr. Womble said. “It’s a residential rehabilitation center for drug and alcohol dependency. He’s been a patient there on and off for years now, and for the last ten years they’ve let him work there as a custodian. Which works out splendidly, because they can keep an eye on him, and read
mit him as soon as he starts to relapse. But still—very sad. He showed such promise as a young man. Was it about Archie you came to see me?”

  “Partly,” I said. “I had a few other questions, too. In all your years at Trinity, you’ve seen a lot of things that could have a bearing on Mr. Hagley’s murder.”

  “Poor man.” Dr. Womble shook his head. “I’ll tell you anything I can. I can’t share anything that would be covered by pastoral confidentiality, of course.”

  “Of course,” I said. “Let’s start with this: why did you arrange for the John Doe who was found at Trinity to be buried in our columbarium?”

  I expected him be startled, but he only sighed. He took off his glasses and polished them on the bottom of his sweater, at approximately the same place where he’d cleaned off his paring knife. It didn’t exactly feel like a delaying tactic—more like something he needed to do to gather himself for the effort of explaining—as if he needed to see as clearly as possible in order to explain clearly. But since the part of his sweater he’d used had evidently received contributions from more than one past meal, his earnest polishing didn’t produce the results he expected.

  “I only seem to have made things worse.” He sighed, and gazed sadly at the glasses, as if deeply disappointed in them.

  Was he talking only about the glasses, or was he sidling obliquely toward some deeper revelation?

  “Let’s see what I can do with those.” I held out my hand for the glasses. “I fix up Dad’s all the time.”

  He surrendered them willingly enough, though with a slightly surprised look. I snagged an ice cube from my lemonade, warmed it in my hand to produce a few drops of water, and used a paper napkin from the table to give the glasses a thorough cleaning, lenses, frames, and all.