Dolled Up for Murder

by Jane K. Cleland

  “Absolutely. Paper’s perishable. Even though it’s archival, we have tests available to date it. We can get to within a year or so, but no closer. As to the ink, we can date that, too. Barry’s shipping the currency back to us today. We’ll get started as soon as it gets here. Barry’s also sending out a BOLO to alert dealers so any sightings come to you.”

  “Thank you,” he said.

  He stood up and placed Barry’s report on his desk, tucking it into a corner of his blotter. I joined him as he walked to the door.

  “Good,” he said, pausing with his hand on the knob. “Except before you do anything, check with me. I’ll talk to the county attorney and get his read on the situation. We might need to call the Feds in on this one. Counterfeiting money is definitely not a local crime. We’ll need to inform the owners, too. One more thing. We found the kidnapper’s car, and the dolls are inside the trunk. I’ll need to notify the owners that damage to their property occurred.”

  “The owners? What kind of damage?”

  “The Chatty Cathys were smashed, Josie.”

  “Ouch,” I said.

  “Yeah, but only them.”

  “He knew where to search,” I said, “and how much money he was looking for. Once he found it, he stopped.”

  “That’s a reasonable theory. When we catch him, we’ll ask.”

  “When he jacked the van and there weren’t any Chatty Cathys there, he thought maybe the money had been moved, so he looked in all of the dolls.”

  “That’s what I think, too,” Ellis said.

  I nodded. “Can I get my dolls back?”

  “Yes. As soon as the lab is done with them, which shouldn’t take all that long.”

  I stood in the lobby for a moment watching him stride down the corridor, then waved good-bye to Cathy and pushed open the heavy wooden door. The sky was a delicate shade of pale blue. The tall grasses that edged the dunes swayed in a gentle breeze. One of God’s days, my mother would have said. I walked to my car and sat with the windows down, listening to the waves roll into shore, thinking about Civil War currency and printing craftsmanship and dolls. Alice had been murdered, but I didn’t know why. Except for the timing, I had no reason to think her death was in any way related to the dolls. It seemed obvious that Eric had been kidnapped to get the dolls, but the kidnapper was really after the money, not the dolls, so someone must have known that the dolls contained rare currency. Who? After a while, having had no new thoughts and having reached no conclusions, I decided to take a brief detour. I wanted to hear the attorney general’s press conference and witness Lenny and Randall being marched up the courthouse steps.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  I parked on Thistle Lane, a short, narrow road off Main Street, across from a bookstore named Briscoe’s and about two blocks from the Rocky Point Courthouse. I walked across the green, pausing for a few seconds to watch an orange monarch butterfly flit from one lilac blossom to another, its wings fluttering.

  As the courthouse came into view, I saw that I was not the first person to arrive, or even the tenth. A small crowd had congregated near a makeshift podium that had been positioned at the top of the steps in front of the main entry doors.

  The setting was certain to communicate the kind of gravitas the attorney general hoped to convey. The courthouse, half a block wide and made of local granite, with a gold cupola and fluted columns, was a relic from a different era. An owl, an ancient symbol of wisdom, perched on the roof, encouraging all who entered to bring their individual best in the common pursuit of justice.

  Wes, I noted, was already in position, standing directly in front of the podium, with his feet spread wide apart, guarding real estate. Two young men and a young woman were fussing with the microphone hook-up, saying, “Test. Test. Test,” over and over again, but the mic wasn’t on. I counted eight other reporters standing near Wes and three cameramen, their video units resting by their feet. As I mounted the forty-five steps, four flights of stairs, two satellite vans pulled up, followed by Bertie.

  “Hey, Wes,” I said as I approached.

  He turned and chuckled. “I thought it wouldn’t be long before you showed up. I knew you’d want to be in on the action.”

  “May I share your space?”

  He glanced over his shoulders, eyeing his competition, and lowered his voice. “Guarantee me an exclusive about the story you told me today.”

  Wes, I thought, was as relentless and irresistible as a hurricane. “Deal.” I paused, then added, “Which doesn’t mean you can publish it now.”

  “I know, I know.” He stepped to the left to make room for me. “This is Mickey.” He nodded toward one of the cameramen. Mickey, older than Wes by a generation, was short and thin, with arms as muscular as Popeye’s. “He’s shooting footage for our Web site.”

  Mickey and I exchanged hellos; then I turned around to scan the crowd. No one seemed to be paying any attention to me, a good thing, until Pennington Moreau arrived and zeroed in on me like a cat spotting a bowl of cream. He stepped out of a blue van with his station’s call letters stenciled on the side, followed by a cameraman. He smiled at me, tossed a comment over his shoulder to his colleague, then took the steps two at a time heading straight toward me. Bertie, following his gaze, spotted me, too, and I knew I was done for.

  “Your competition is about to try to wrest me away from you.”

  Wes spun and eyed them. “Don’t let them,” he said.

  “I won’t.”

  “Josie,” Penn said when he was half a dozen steps away, his voice a soothing mix of graciousness and sympathy. “We keep meeting under such difficult circumstances. I heard the good news about your employee.”

  I smiled. “Good news doesn’t even begin to describe it. It’s spectacular news!”

  “How about a quick on-air comment to that effect?”

  I felt Wes, facing the other way, bristle.

  “Do you know Wes Smith?” I asked.

  He said he didn’t, and the two men shook hands.

  “I’m not doing any on-air anything, Penn.”

  “It would be good exposure for you, Josie. My segment is seen from Cape Cod to Bar Harbor.”

  I shook my head and looked away. “No, thanks,” I said.

  “Josie!” Bertie called. “What an experience for you. Tell me, woman to woman, were you terrified?”

  You’re not a woman, I thought. You’re a she-devil. I pretended I hadn’t heard her.

  Bertie kept chattering at me, closing in as if she could force me to talk to her if she intruded far enough into my space. I planted my feet on the granite step and continued to ignore her.

  A dozen or more reporters arrived and began their climbs. I recognized several of them, then noticed that several nonreporters were in attendance, too. Some people seemed merely curious, like me; others had a vested interest in the situation, like Ian Landers.

  Ian stood off to the left, parallel to the podium, leaning against a column. His fiery bright blue eyes and cocky grin made me suspect he had a plan, and whatever it was, it would be ugly. He looked threatening, like a pit bull showing teeth. I wanted to call Wes’s attention to him, but I didn’t want Penn, or any of the other reporters, to think I was cozying up to Wes or excluding them. I dug my phone out of my bag and texted Wes. LOOK @ IAN.

  I pretended not to notice as Wes pulled his vibrating phone from his pocket and read my message. I turned my back to the podium, watching as the crowd swelled.

  Wes texted back, NASTY.

  HAWK?

  NO.

  I suggested, TIGER?

  YES. ABOUT TO POUNCE. LOL.

  I nodded. Wes was right. Ian had homed in on game and wasn’t going to let it escape. Penn jostled his way into a prime spot a little to the left of where Wes and I stood, out of earshot, so I risked whispering a comment to Wes.

  “Ian looks positively gleeful.”

  “In spades,” Wes said. He turned to Mickey, standing on my other side, and whispered, “Do you see t
hat guy? I don’t want to point. Tall and big, leaning against the column?”

  “Yup.”

  “Make sure you include him in the shot. He’s up to something.”

  Mickey nodded, picked up his gear, and headed to the left and down a few steps. From that angle he’d have both the podium and Ian in view.

  “Do you know when the attorney general is supposed to start?” I asked a woman I didn’t know standing to my right.

  “Any minute, from what I hear.”

  One of the men who’d been fiddling with the microphones tapped it. It was live. “Test, test, test,” he said, and his voice carried up and over us, probably reaching all the way to the green. He nodded over his shoulder, and New Hampshire’s attorney general, Frank Harson, strode forward. He was about forty pounds overweight, but tall enough so he didn’t look fat. He had thick dark hair and wore glasses. At a guess, he was around fifty. Another man, leaner and younger, walked beside him.

  Reporters surged closer, and he paused, letting them get their cameras in place.

  “Thank you for coming,” he said. “I’m Frank Harson, New Hampshire attorney general. I’ll make a brief statement, then federal prosecutor Christopher Almonte, standing here beside me, and I will answer your questions. Earlier this morning we issued arrest warrants for Lenny Einsohn and Randall Michaels. The charges include racketeering, securities fraud, investment adviser fraud, mail fraud, wire fraud, money laundering, and perjury, among others. A complete list has been prepared and is being distributed now.” He pointed at the two young men I’d seen working on the sound system. They were making their way down the steps passing out sheets of paper. Ian smiled as he took one. His smile broadened as he read it.

  Frank Harson looked into a cable news station’s camera for three seconds, his expression earnest and grave. He shifted his gaze without changing his expression to a network camera. One by one, he stared into all the cameras. Even though I knew it was staged to provide each news station with its own content, it didn’t feel cynical or manipulative. From everything I’d heard and observed, and confirmed by what Ellis had just told me, Frank Harson was a straight shooter. He was outraged that criminals would victimize citizens while he was the attorney general, and he wanted everyone to know it. I glanced at Ian. He stood with his arms crossed, grinning, enjoying the show.

  “Here they are!” someone behind me called.

  I swiveled to face the street. Ellis and Griff led Lenny up the steps. Detective Brownley and Officer Meade did the same with Randall. The police officials’ expressions were consciously unconscious. Lenny’s face was ashen, his eyes wide with shock and disbelief. He looked as if he might faint. Randall looked smaller than he had in my office, maybe because he walked with his rounded shoulders hunched forward and his head bowed. He seemed stunned and mortified and frightened. I glanced at Lenny in time to see Griff’s grip on his elbow tighten, not in punishment or fear that he would flee, but in support. Lenny, it seemed, was close to collapse. Randall moved slowly, but he was able to climb the stairs under his own power. Out of the corner of my eye I saw that Ian had started down the steps, his expression menacing.

  “Where’s the money?” Ian shouted. “Huh, Lenny? Where’d you stash it? Do you know, Randall? Be smart, guys. Trade up and get yourself a plea deal.”

  Neither man replied. Neither man reacted, which seemed to heighten Ian’s fury.

  “You think you can blow me off?” he asked, his hands forming fists. He was closing in on Lenny. “Is that what you think? You’re wrong. Dead wrong.”

  Ellis’s arm shot out, palm up, like a traffic cop signaling a car to stop. “That’s close enough,” he said, his words carrying on the soft spring breeze.

  “You’re going to tell,” Ian said, continuing to close in, ignoring Ellis. “It’s just a matter of time. Tell now. Make some news.”

  Ellis said something to Griff, then dropped Lenny’s arm and stepped in front of Ian, blocking him. Ian stopped short, but from his raised chin and hard-eyed glare, I could tell he wasn’t the least bit intimidated. Griff hustled Lenny up the remaining stairs toward the massive iron doors. Just before the two men disappeared from view, Ian leaned around Ellis to shout out his parting shot.

  “Alice kept a diary. Did you know that, loser? She kept a journal of all the details of her life. The cops are going to find it, Lenny. Then your goose will be cooked good. Make a deal now, while there’s still a chance. Once they find the diary, they won’t need you anymore. You too, Randall. The first one of you to talk wins. Be the first, Randall.”

  Reporters fired questions at Ian. “What diary?” and “How do you know about a diary?” and “Why hasn’t a diary been found up until now?” and then the overlapping shouts made it impossible to distinguish one question from another. Ian didn’t reply to any of them.

  Randall cast his eyes around looking for someone, Darleen perhaps, and when he didn’t see her, his expression changed from fearful to dejected. He scanned the steps one more time, then looked at me—his eyes aimed at my cheeks.

  “Where’s Darleen?” he mouthed.

  I shrugged and shook my head and turned my hands palms up.

  “Why is he looking at you like that?” Wes whispered. “Why did he ask you where his wife is?”

  “I have no idea, Wes. I agreed to appraise Alice’s dolls for them, to give them a benchmark in case the collection is confiscated to repay her victims, that’s all.”

  “Out of everyone here, it’s you he reached out to.”

  “Maybe it’s because I’m the only civilian here he knows, the only one who isn’t out for blood.”

  Ian watched the two men with predatory eyes until they disappeared inside. Ellis said something to Ian I couldn’t hear. He shook his head, angry and impatient. Ellis said something else, and again Ian shook his head, then turned and ran down the steps. Ellis watched him until he hit the sidewalk, then continued up the steps.

  “If I could have your attention,” Harson said into the microphone.

  One reporter, a blond woman wearing more makeup than I used in a year, started after Ian, but at Harson’s next words, she stopped to listen, then, with one last glance at the fast-receding quarry, resumed her place close to the podium.

  “Let me be clear,” Harson said. “We have not offered either man a plea deal, and we don’t expect to offer any. Mr. Almonte and I are confident that our cases are strong. In addition, we are actively pursuing several lines of investigation to locate the missing funds. Various governmental agencies are cooperating in this endeavor. We’ll take your questions now.”

  “What do you know about Alice Michaels’s diary?” Wes shouted.

  “Earlier this morning, we received a court order authorizing us to freeze Ms. Michaels’s assets, including all of her personal possessions,” Harson replied, “pending authorization to seize them. If there’s a diary, we’ll find it.”

  “Will you pick up Ian Landers for questioning about it?” another reporter called out.

  “We’ll do everything appropriate in our vigorous pursuit of justice for the victims and to protect the interests of the citizens of the state of New Hampshire.”

  “What’s the role of the federal government in the investigation?” a TV reporter I recognized from a Boston station asked.

  Harson stepped aside so Christopher Almonte could answer. “Once Mr. Harson learned that money and mail had been moved across state lines, that changed the nature of the crime. He correctly called us in. The legal principle is simple: You cannot use the United States banking system or the United States Post Office for illegal activities.”

  I didn’t hear the next question. I was wrestling with a dilemma. Not a dilemma, an unpleasant reality. If I knew Darleen, the minute she heard that a court order freezing Alice’s assets had been issued, she’d run, not walk, to my company demanding Alice’s dolls back. Given her propensity for running roughshod over anyone who disagreed with her, I could only imagine the snit fit she might throw.
>
  I sidestepped past the reporters and trotted down the steps. I needed to contact my staff before she got her teeth into them.

  * * *

  “Yes,” Cara said, and from that one word, I could tell she was upset. “Darleen Michaels called about half an hour ago. She’s canceled the appraisal and is coming to pick everything up. Sasha is packing the dolls now.”

  “Tell Sasha to put everything in the safe. Don’t give Darleen anything. If she arrives before me, tell her I’ll explain why we can’t turn the dolls over to her when I get there.”

  “Okay,” Cara said, her anxiety at having to endure Darleen’s fury apparent.

  “I’ll be there in about ten minutes.”

  Back at my car, I slipped in my earpiece and called Max Bixby, my lawyer. Max was a rock and an ally. Over the years he’d been an unflappable source of strength and a bottomless fount of knowledge.

  “Josie!” he said when his assistant put me through. “What’s up with my favorite antiques expert?”

  “I’m in a quandry.” I explained how I’d just heard the attorney general say they’d received a court order freezing Alice Michaels’s assets and personal possessions. “I’m in possession of some of them, and I just found out that the woman who brought them in for appraisal, Alice’s daughter-in-law, called and told us to pack everything up. She wants them back, probably so she can hide them from the Feds. What do I do? I’m in a heck of a position, Max.”

  “Not really. It’s simple. You call the attorney general’s office to report you have some objects relevant to their court order. They’ll take it from there.”

  “Clients will never trust me again.”

  “You have a lot of clients trying to hide things from the law, do you?”

  “Good point,” I said.

  “Do you want me to call the AG on your behalf?”

  “Yes, please. Tell them to send someone right away. I don’t want Darleen to have any reason to harass us. Once it’s a fait accompli, there’ll be no point in her raging around my office.”