by Fiona Grace
Lacey had heard of them—there was a whole black market of people who traded in stolen Nazi artwork, after all, despite how thoroughly illegal and reprehensible such an act was.
Obviously Nigel didn’t have much patience. Whatever urgency had led to him killing Iris then led to him breaking in to try and steal the painting back.
“Oh, Chester.” She looked at the dog. “Was it Nigel you bit that night? Did Nigel do it all?”
Chester seemed to be a good judge of character for the most part. But then, she always thought she was as well, and yet had she been duped by Nigel? Had they both been? Did it only take some homemade apple juice and doggy kibble to manipulate the pair of them?
Lacey felt awful. She desperately didn’t want Nigel to be the culprit.
She stared at her paper, at the words she’d drawn and connected with arrows, the ones she’d circled and underlined, pleading them to tell her something different. She urged her mind to fit the formula together in a different way, to do a 180-degree turn and counteract her theory.
That’s when her gaze fell to the word crowbar.
“The crowbar! That’s it! For Nigel to lock the painting away, he’d need the key. If he had the key, he wouldn’t need to use a crowbar to break into the clock!”
But almost as soon as she’d hit on the possible revelation, she shook her head as a counterpoint popped into her mind.
“Except we don’t know the crowbar was for the clock at all. The crowbar may just have been used to force open the back door. He may well have had the key in his pocket the whole time.”
So that didn’t exonerate Nigel at all.
She shook her head sadly, morosely, as it appeared to her that Nigel may well have been playing her all along. Hiding in plain sight. Letting her play detective to think she was an ally, all along using her.
But to truly be certain, Lacey had to put her theory to the test. And there was only one way to do that.
She was going to break open the clock.
*
It was midnight, but the clock in front of Lacey had stopped at four thirty. How many years had the grandfather clock not ticked for? How long had that ancient pendulum not swung?
Her hands tightened on the crowbar. The metal was heavy, weighty in her hands. Its destructive force was palpable. She heaved it over her head.
Then froze.
Lacey simply couldn’t do it. If her father could see her now, about to smash an antique clock! No, she couldn’t. It was unique. One of a kind. More valuable than its worth because of the intricacy and care that had gone into its construction.
Sighing, she crouched down so she was face to face with Chester—who’d been sitting patiently by her legs—and put his face in her hands.
“There has to be another way,” she said, ruffling his fur. “Well, I suppose there is one other option…If I put the grandfather clock up for auction, the killer will try to buy it, so as to get their hands on the painting inside.”
Chester barked, as if agreeing with her.
“But it’s not quite that easy,” Lacey told him. “Superintendent Turner made it perfectly clear if I held the auction, he’d take me to court.”
This time, Chester’s response was to growl.
Lacey gazed into his alert eyes and the dog quirked his head to the side, blinking attentively.
“You’re right,” Lacey said, suddenly, feeling a wave of determination ripple through her. “We can’t let that bully Superintendent Turner tell us what to do!” She ruffled Chester again. “We have to do it. We have to hold the auction, threat or not. Because if Nigel is the killer, he’ll have no choice but to come and bid on the clock. It’s a trap. One the killer will be forced to walk right into.”
Chester began to bark.
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
Ivan Parry placed his black marker down on Lacey’s kitchen table, beside the pile of handmade posters for her auction.
“That’s it,” he said. “I’m spent.”
Gina looked up from the handmade poster she was working on. She had pen marks on her face. “I’ve got five years on you and I’m still going strong. Come on, Parry, put your back into it!”
Tom wiggled his eyebrows at Ivan mischievously. “That sounds like a challenge.”
Ivan picked up the discarded pen. “Challenge accepted. A few more won’t hurt.”
Lacey looked over the lid of her laptop at the rag-tag team, a smile on her lips. “I really appreciate you guys doing this,” she said, with sincere gratitude.
“You and I both,” came Percy Johnson’s voice through the webcam.
They’d been organizing the auction all morning. Ivan had come over to Crag Cottage before breakfast to shave down a swollen door that wouldn’t shut properly, while Lacey had been right in the middle of an emergency morning call with Percy regarding arranging a snap auction. Ivan had been so intrigued by the sale of Iris Archer’s goods that he wanted to help right away.
Then Gina had popped over to see if Chester wanted to join her and Boudicca on a beach walk—the two dogs got along famously these days—and had immediately thrown herself into the fray. “Superintendent Turner forbade it?” she’d exclaimed, rubbing her hands together with glee. “Then I’m definitely on board!”
Then Tom had arrived at the cottage to see if Lacey wanted to share yesterday’s batch of unsold croissants with him before work, and had been surprised to discover a sort of grassroots town rebellion taking place in her kitchen. But he’d taken it all with good humor and joined in with the arrangements, sharing his pastries with the hungry troops.
Between the four of them, they’d arranged for an advertisement to appear on the council’s website and had created a bunch of posters to put up in the high street stores. The fliers had been inspired by the police notice that had been posted in every mailbox after the burglary. Lacey was particularly proud of herself for using it as creative inspiration. When life gives you lemons, as they say…
After an hour, Tom checked his watch. “We’d better go. If I’m not open by eight thirty, I’ll have a whole queue of hangry folk to deal with!”
Gina collected the stacks of fliers and rolled up posters. “I’ll do the first half of the high street.”
Ivan stood. “I’ll give you a lift to town. Get a head start.”
Gina nodded and she and Boudicca followed Ivan out the cottage.
Lacey looked over at Tom. “I guess I’m really doing this,” she said.
He gave her an encouraging smile. “Wilfordshire’s very own Nancy Drew. How do you feel?”
Lacey chewed her lip with trepidation. “Like I’m about to catch a killer.”
*
At the store, Lacey hung her poster in pride of place in the window. It was almost parallel to the one Tom had put up in his. They smiled at one another through the glass from their respective stores, and Lacey felt a tingle in her stomach.
But the smile was wiped off her face the moment she saw Superintendent Turner’s cruiser pull up outside of her store.
He was evidently furious. His face was red as he came marching toward the store. He shoved the door open so roughly the bell flew off its hinges and slammed into the ground, rousing Chester, who flew to Lacey’s side with a low growl, taking up a protective stance.
“I told you not to hold the auction,” Superintendent Turner barked. “That I’d get a court order to stop you if I had to.”
“Then get the order,” Lacey replied, coolly.
Superintendent Turner elbowed his way past her.
“Hey!” Lacey exclaimed as she staggered back, shocked by his roughness.
Chester snapped his jaws but Lacey hushed him. The last thing she needed was a dog bite to add to her woes.
The superintendent ripped the poster off the window.
“Hey!” Lacey exclaimed. “What are you doing?”
He scrunched it into a ball and threw it to the floor. “I’m just playing fetch with Fido,” he said with feigned innocence, point
ing at Chester.
Lacey folded her arms and shook her head. “What do you want? Don’t you have better things to do with your time then stop an innocent antiques valuer from holding an auction? Like, I don’t know, catching a killer?”
Superintendent Turner clearly had zero patience for Lacey’s sass today. He sneered nastily. “There you go again, telling me how to do my job. If you’re such a great detective, why don’t you catch the killer?”
“That’s exactly what I’m trying to do. I’m quite certain the killer will come to my auction. I’m trying to lure them in.”
“Ludicrous,” the officer scoffed.
Just then, Tom entered the store. He must’ve seen the altercation unfolding from the patisserie window and wasn’t impressed with the show.
“What’s gotten into you?” he said, marching up to the detective.
Karl Turner stared Tom down. “Fly-posting! Without a permit! From one end of the high street to the other. I could issue her a Fixed Penalty Notice for eighty pounds per poster, if I wanted.” He motioned as if to reach for his ticket book.
“Karl, that’s a load of bunk and we both know it,” Tom snapped. “Even if my mom wasn’t a lawyer, I’d know that a poster can be displayed in the window of private property without a license. This is hardly fly-posting! You have absolutely no right to come in here and tear her picture down.”
The detective held his ground for a moment, his cheeks puffed with air. But the red of fury that had colored them before started to fade. Slowly, he withdrew his hand from his pocket, where he’d been about to produce a ticket book, and seemed to come back to his senses.
But clearly needing to save face, he held a finger up at Lacey like she was a naughty school child. “I’m watching you,” he warned.
Then he marched away.
As soon as he was gone, Tom turned to Lacey with worried eyes. She’d never seen him look so serious, or tense.
“Are you okay?” he asked with tender concern.
“Just a little shaken,” she told him, as she scooped up the broken bell from the floor. “I’ve never seen Superintendent Turner behave like that. I’m used to him being like a Vulcan, so his temper took me by surprise.”
A flicker of a smile crossed Tom’s face in response to her Star Trek quip, but it faded quickly and his look of concern returned.
“Yes, well, he definitely stepped over the line if you ask me,” he said thinly. “But in my experience, Karl Turner is all talk and no trousers.”
Lacey raised her eyebrows, amused by the unfamiliar idiom. “He’s what now?”
“All talk and no trousers,” Tom repeated with the same level of seriousness.
Lacey started to giggle. “And what does that mean exactly?”
“Oh!” Tom said, chuckling as he finally realized. “You don’t say that over the pond, do you? It means he talks about doing things but never takes action. And I hear how silly it sounds now,” he confessed.
The tension was broken and the frown lines on his forehead smoothed out. Trust Tom to come over and not only diffuse the situation, but inject some much needed humor into it. He really had a knack for cheering Lacey up.
Lacey retrieved the screwed up ball of poster and unscrunched it. She began to smooth it out on the countertop.
“So you don’t think he’ll get a court order to block the auction?” she asked Tom.
“No. If Iris’s stuff had any evidential value, they would have seized it already. But I can call my mom and get some legal advice if you want extra reassurance. I didn’t make up that thing about her being a lawyer just to scare Superintendent Turner away.”
“Don’t you think it’s a bit early to meet the parents?” Lacey joked, already in a significantly lighter mood thanks to Tom.
“You’ll have to meet her soon enough,” Tom replied. “We are married after all.”
Lacey laughed. But her laugh was drowned out by the sound of banging coming from the wall she shared with the boutique next door.
“What the heck is that?” Tom asked.
Lacey rolled her eyes. It was one thing after another today! “Taryn. She’s been ‘renovating’ all week.” She used air quotes around the word. “I threatened her with a noise order for always playing music against our joined wall. Well, that did the trick. The music stopped. But almost immediately the hammering began.” She let out a wry laugh. “Conveniently, you can’t get a noise complaint against DIY.”
Tom tutted. “Wow, she really does play dirty. Have you said anything to her since?”
“Not this time. The handyman she has over there looks like he’s just come out of prison. I was hoping she’d eventually get a migraine and call it off, but she obviously has access to some hardcore painkillers.”
Tom took Lacey’s hand, interrupting her sarcastic commentary.
“Let me have a word with her,” he said.
Lacey looked down at her hand grasped in his. It felt so right, so comforting, Lacey didn’t want any reason to let it go.
She hesitated. “I really don’t think we should. I wasn’t joking when I said her handyman looks like an ex-con.”
Tom smirked. “Didn’t you just see me back there with the police officer? I can handle it.”
Despite her better judgment, Lacey found herself nodding. Tom gave her hand a little tug, and they crossed the store floor to the exit, Chester’s nails clicking on the floorboards as he followed behind them.
As he pulled open the door, Tom finally let go of Lacey’s hand.
Probably for the best, Lacey thought, despite her disappointment. Taryn might burst a blood vessel if she sees us hand in hand.
They headed inside the boutique. Sure enough, Taryn’s hired hand was aimlessly hammering nails into the adjoining wall between their two shops. There were about a hundred nails now marring the otherwise pristine white wall. Either Taryn was going to hang her stock of absurdly expensive, delicate, one-of-a-kind necklaces off of nails or she was going to hang up a hundred tiny works of art side by side. Or she was literally damaging her own wall just to piss Lacey off. Clearly, there was no low too low for Taryn to stoop.
The woman herself was standing at the counter, her head slumped in her hands. So the noise was getting to her, Lacey realized, but she was so petulant she’d keep it going anyway.
Chester began to emit a low growl, as he did whenever he saw the shrew of a woman. Taryn was like his very own Cruella de Vil.
At the sound, Taryn’s head snapped up, an angry scowl in her eyes. But when she noticed Tom was there, she straightened up like a dart and smoothed down her hair. Which she’d recently had cut, Lacey noted with a grimace, in the exact same style as hers…
“Tom Forrester,” Taryn said, smiling sweetly, ruffling her new short do in order to draw even more attention to it. “Pastry chef extraordinaire. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
She completely ignored Lacey. Clearly she was unworthy of a greeting in Taryn’s eyes.
The handyman stopped hammering and glared over his shoulder. His eyes flicked from Tom to Lacey with an expression that seemed to switch from hatred to jealousy in turn. Great, another local who had it in for her.
“Lace and I thought we’d come and see how the renovations were going,” Tom said innocently enough. “They seem to be taking quite a while.” He glanced over at the nail-pocked wall. “With not much improvement.”
The handyman’s glower deepened. The hammer in his hand suddenly looked like a weapon.
“You what?” he said gruffly.
Lacey shrank back. This was a bad idea. And now Tom was caught in the crossfire.
“It’s almost done,” Taryn said brightly, as if in an attempt to paper over the evident threatening atmosphere. “Isn’t it, Keith? One more day, you said?” The tone in her voice made it obvious this was all a ruse—that she’d hired the man to make a ton of noise and then leave once she was challenged over it.
Keith the handyman paused. He let the arm holding the hammer flop down to
his side. “Yeah. I’ll be done by the end of the day.”
“See,” Taryn said breezily, her fake friendly eyes fixed on Lacey. “It will be nice and quiet again soon. And I’m so sorry if it inconvenienced you. But that’s how it goes, doesn’t it? You renovate your store for a week and make a racket, then I renovate mine.” She let out a forced cackle, the one she did whenever she’d said something icy and was trying to play it off as banter between friends.
Lacey rolled her eyes, and then she and Tom headed back to her store.
Gina was there, in a brown knitted cardigan that perfectly complemented the Nordic Corner of the store. She had a tote bag slung over her shoulder, with last night’s handmade posters poking out the top. Boudicca was sniffing the place beside the till where Chester usually slept, wagging her tail with excitement at the scent of her best doggie friend.
Gina turned to the door as Lacey entered. When she noticed Tom at her side, her eyes sparked with mischief.
“Lacey!” she exclaimed in her usual ebullient way. “I’ve finished postering the first half of the high street. I wondered whether you’d like to do the next half? I could cover the store for an hour or so? I’m sure Chester would like his walkies.”
Chester’s tail began to wag at the mention of his favorite thing.
But Lacey shook her head. “You know that’s not a good idea. We chose you to do it because of your magic silver tongue and persuasive technique. I’m the town pariah. If people see it’s me delivering the posters, they’ll refuse to put them up outright.”
It was the same reason they’d omitted Lacey’s name from the poster, choosing instead to advertise the auction under Percy Johnson’s name, with the tagline Mayfair’s Finest Antiques Dealer Coming to Your Town!
“The least involvement that seems to be coming from me the better,” Lacey finished.
“Take Tom,” Gina said, completely unsubtly. “He has a lot of clout in the town, too. More than me, really, since he’s so handsome.”
