“He must have been shocked to hear from her,” I said.
“He was. But also—according to what Anabelle told me—really happy about it too. Nick was thrilled to find out that he had a nephew. He said that he was going to break the news to Claire, and then he wanted to make plans for all of them to get together.”
I exhaled slowly. Hearing about their missed opportunity felt like a punch in the gut. “What a shame that Nick never got to go through with his plan.”
“I know, right? Anabelle was heartbroken. She heard about his death on the news. What a way to find out. She’d finally managed to reconnect with her long-lost family and next thing she knew Nick was dead. It really put her into a tailspin.”
“But she still has Claire,” I said. “Claire is Anabelle’s family too. And now that Nick is gone—”
“You don’t get it,” said Taran. “That’s precisely the problem. Anabelle doesn’t want to have anything to do with Claire.”
“Why on earth not?”
“She’s gotten this stupid idea in her head that she’s bad luck. Nick helped her and now he’s dead. She told me she couldn’t stand it if something happened to Claire too. Anabelle thinks the best thing she could do for her little sister would be to disappear again.”
Chapter 21
“That’s crazy!” I said.
“I know.” Taran frowned. “But Anabelle made me promise that I wouldn’t tell Claire about her. She intends to stay as far away from her little sister as possible.”
“But Anabelle wasn’t responsible for Nick’s death.” I peered at Taran across the table. “Was she?”
“Of course not! But you told me the police are looking for her. So they must think she’s a suspect.”
“No,” I said. “They just want to talk to her, because they know she was in touch Nick right before he died.”
“If the police want to talk to Anabelle,” said Taran, “they’re going to have to find her themselves. I wouldn’t wish that guy—what’s his name, O’Malley?—on my worst enemy.”
“So you’ve already met the detective?”
“Oh yeah.” Taran lifted his near-empty mug and drained the dregs. “We had a long chat. Diana sicced him on me. She told him that I had a motive for wanting Nick dead and he agreed. It was just lucky for me that I had an ironclad alibi.”
Taran reached across the table and slid the bowl of peanuts over in front of himself. There were as many empty shells as peanuts left in the bowl now. Idly he sifted through the remains.
“Look,” he said. “Here’s where I’m coming from. Anabelle never talks about her family but I know she still misses them. And with Zane out of the picture, she and Alexander are all alone. I promised Anabelle that I wouldn’t contact Claire myself. But I didn’t say anything about encouraging someone else to get them together.”
“That’s the message you spoke about earlier?”
“Could be.” Taran held up his hands palms facing outward, and gazed at me innocently. “It didn’t come from me. I just happen to think that somebody . . . you know, some friend . . . might want to do something to help.”
I nodded.
“And one more thing.”
Holy moley, there was more? I signaled to the waitress and beckoned her over. Taran’s tab was definitely on me.
He waited until I had completed the arrangements and then said, “You know how I told you that Diana sent O’Malley after me? I’m thinking she did that to draw the detective’s attention away from herself.”
“How come?” I asked.
“I’ll let her tell you that.”
Taran stood up and headed for the door. I wasn’t ready for our interview to end, but apparently Taran had decided that it was over. I grabbed my purse and hurried after him.
He opened the door and held it for me. We stepped out onto the sidewalk together.
“Ask Diana what she did when she found out that Nick was more involved with one of his clients than he’d let on,” he said.
“Which client?” I called after him as he began to walk away. I had a pretty good guess but I wanted to hear him say the name.
Taran didn’t oblige me. He just shrugged and kept on walking.
On the way home, I stopped at Post Pizza and picked up dinner. I figure that if you choose wisely, pizza gives you a shot at all the important food groups. So by the time I’d added a mixed salad and poured the kids a couple glasses of milk, I was feeling positively virtuous about the meal.
After dinner, Bob called to let me know that he and I had an appointment the following afternoon.
“Nice of you to check my schedule first,” I said. “Where are we going?”
“New Canaan,” Bob replied. “And hey, we’re all busy. I figured you could find a way to fit this in, especially since you’ve left me to do all the detective work by myself.”
For a moment, I was utterly stumped. I’d had so much on my mind lately, I had no idea what Bob was talking about. Then the light bulb went on.
“Oh,” I said. “The diamond ring.”
“Of course, the diamond ring. What else would I be calling about?”
“Don’t ask.”
“If you say so.”
My ex-husband lives by the credo Don’t borrow trouble. If I could only figure out a way to adopt the same attitude, it would simply my life enormously.
“You remember the Morrises, right?” he asked.
“Sure. But you said Emily Morris told you the ring wasn’t hers.”
“It’s not. But today I found out that having seen it, she got interested in its provenance too. She went looking through their old records and made a few calls. Eventually she found her way to a couple in New Canaan named Jim and Susan Bell.”
“And they fit into the story how?”
“The Morrises bought this house from an elderly couple who had lived here since the middle of the last century. Both of them have since passed on. Susan Bell is their granddaughter.”
“It sounds like Emily Morris was the one doing all the detective work,” I mentioned.
“Some of it, sure.” Bob adopted a wounded tone. “But I followed up and convinced the Bells to meet with us.”
“Well done,” I told him.
Just like my Poodles, my ex responds well to positive reinforcement. I let him preen for a few minutes, then suggested that he pick me up after lunch on Sunday so that we could ride to New Canaan together. After we hung up it occurred to me to wonder whether Bob had taken my advice and stashed the ring at a bank—and if he’d done so, whether it had occurred to him that he wouldn’t be able to retrieve the ring in the morning.
Not my problem, I thought. As it turned out, I needn’t have worried. When Bob showed up, he had the ring with him.
Sam had taken the kids to a matinee so when Bob’s dark green Explorer pulled in the driveway the following afternoon, I tucked Augie into his crate, gave the rest of the Poodles a good-bye pat, and ran outside to meet him. As I climbed into the SUV and got settled in the front seat beside him, Bob reached into his pocket, withdrew the small, velvet jewelry pouch, and tossed it onto my lap.
“Hold on to that, would you?”
“I’d be happy to.”
I unknotted the drawstring and tipped the ring out of the bag into the palm of my hand. The diamonds sparkled and glinted in the sun as I rolled the piece from side to side. Unable to resist, I slid the ring on my little finger, then held up my hand to admire the look.
“If we don’t find a home for this,” I teased, “I could be convinced to take it off your hands.”
“You’d have to get in line,” Bob muttered. Head swiveled around to look behind us, he backed out of the driveway and onto the road.
“Behind whom?”
Bob waited until he’d straightened out before replying. “Remember that ghost problem I thought I was having?”
I nodded but didn’t say a thing. My expression must have revealed what I was thinking, however, because Bob glanced my way and
said, “Yeah, I know. You thought it was dumb.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to. Even I knew that the idea was a little out there.”
“A little?” I laughed.
“Okay, maybe way out. But I got this notion in my head that when I opened up the walls of the house, I was somehow reawakening its past. And yes, I know that sounds a little crazy in the light of day. But in my defense, I was trying to come up with an explanation for the noises I’d been hearing. And now I have. I’m pretty sure that it was James.”
“James . . . ?” I said, then stopped. If you discarded the ghost theory—which I most emphatically did—I supposed that Bob’s covetous next-door neighbor had to be the next most likely culprit. Except for one thing. Bob had started hearing noises before he found the diamond ring. “You’d better start at the beginning,” I said.
“You know how close together the houses are in that neighborhood?”
“Of course.” I nodded. I’d lived there too.
“Well, the other day James made some offhand comment about things that go bump in the night. I asked him what he meant and it turns out that a couple of times when I’d been working kind of late, he and Amber could hear me banging around when they were trying to sleep.”
“If it bothered them, why didn’t he call and tell you to stop?”
Bob shrugged. “I guess he didn’t think that would be a neighborly thing to do.”
“But thumping around outside your house would?” I asked incredulously.
“Don’t ask me to justify it. I can’t even begin to make sense of how James’s mind works. He still keeps coming over and wanting to help me knock stuff down. He actually seems to believe that we’re going to find more hidden jewels.”
“And how exactly would that help him?” I asked.
“Finders keepers?”
“Possession is nine tenths of the law,” I countered. “I hope you’re keeping your doors locked now.”
“Believe me, I am. This whole situation has me kind of creeped out. I used to think it was a good thing to be a trusting person. But not anymore. I’m thinking about changing the locks, too.”
“You should,” I agreed.
“When I do, I’ll make sure that you and Davey get a new set of keys.”
“Thanks. I’d appreciate that.”
“And speaking of James,” Bob said as he flipped on his blinker and turned the SUV up the ramp onto the parkway. “Here’s something else. I told him he needs to go out and find himself a job. Any job. Even if it’s not the kind of thing he did before. When I said that, he acted really oddly. Kind of furtive, I guess, but also excited at the same time. He told me he’s already working on something, that there’s the prospect of a big opportunity coming up.”
“Oh really?” I swiveled in the seat to face my ex. “Let me guess. Is this the same get-rich-quick scheme that he wanted you to invest in before?”
“Apparently so. James offered me the chance again to join him and get in on the ground floor.”
“What a great guy,” I said with a laugh. “The ground floor of what? Did you manage to find out what his plan is this time?”
“Not exactly,” Bob admitted. “But trust me, James isn’t nearly as subtle as he thinks he is. A couple of times recently he’s sounded me out to see how I feel about the new medical marijuana laws. He’s never come right out and said it but I’m guessing that his big opportunity has to do with growing pot.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I wish I was. Somehow that doesn’t sound like the kind of career move that’s going to get James out of my hair.”
“It doesn’t sound like any career move at all to me,” I said flatly. “The medical marijuana field is highly regulated. I’m pretty sure that Connecticut has all sorts of strict requirements and qualifications for growers. It’s not just some cash crop that you can cultivate in a bin in your basement.”
“I don’t think James has a clue about all that.”
“Well, he’d better get one fast. Otherwise what he’s planning is illegal. You might try passing that news along.”
“No way. I’m steering clear of the whole mess.” Bob shook his head firmly as we exited the parkway at South Avenue and headed toward downtown New Canaan. “Whatever kind of idiocy James hopes to get himself involved in, I don’t want any part of it. As far as I know, things are still in the planning stages. With luck, he’ll come to his senses before it goes any further.”
“I certainly hope so,” I said. If not, one of us might need to go have a chat with Detective O’Malley about the neighbor’s budding business.
Bob turned down a side street and slowed the car so that we could read the identifying numbers on the mailboxes. On either side of the road were beautifully maintained, classic, older homes on side-by-side half-acre lots. In New Canaan, this was considered a starter neighborhood.
The Bells’ house was at the end of the road. A low fence circled the backyard, which contained a swing set and an elaborate bird feeder hanging from a large maple tree. Idly I wondered if the Bells had a dog. That’s just the way my mind works.
Susan Bell answered the door with a baby on her hip and a smile on her face. Her husband, Jim, was right behind her. Clearly they’d been anticipating our arrival.
“I can’t wait to see Grandma’s ring,” Susan said as Bob and I walked inside. Then she stopped and laughed. “I’m sorry. That was horribly rude of me. I guess we should start with introductions.”
So we did. Jim was tall and spare, with a direct gaze and a firm handshake. He worked in a corporate office in downtown Stamford. The baby’s name was Franny and she was the Bells’ first child. She gurgled and squealed, and when she made a grab for my hair, I laughed with her. Susan was in her early thirties, with sleek brown hair and a spray of freckles across her nose. She was, she confided, newly pregnant with their second child.
“You’re lucky to be having two so close together,” I said. Bob and I followed the couple into a living room that was bright with color, and appeared to have been decorated with a baby’s needs in mind.
“How old are yours?” Susan got Franny settled in a baby bouncy seat, then sat down in a chair beside it.
“I have two boys,” I told her. “Davey’s eleven and Kevin is two. Bob is Davey’s father. We’re divorced.”
“Oh.” Susan sounded surprised. “I hadn’t realized that. But you still live in the same house?”
“No, we don’t.” Once again, I was reminded that our living arrangements were more tangled than most. “Bob is the one who currently lives in the home that once belonged to your grandmother. He and I bought the house together when we got married twelve years ago. Since the divorce, one or the other of us has always lived there. But not both at the same time.”
That was a highly simplified version of the moves that had taken place over the years, but hopefully I’d conveyed enough information to make sense. Susan nodded, and Bob picked up the story.
“When I moved back in, I started doing some updating,” he said. “That’s when I discovered the ring. Before we show it to you, could you tell me why you think it belonged to your grandmother, and how it ended up where I found it?”
“You’re right to be cautious,” said Jim. “I’ve never seen the ring myself but I’ve heard family stories about it. I understand that it’s a valuable piece.”
Susan leaned forward in her seat. She was almost bouncing with eagerness. “The ring’s history in my family goes back four generations. My great-grandmother Ethel was a war bride. She met my great-grandfather in England during World War I. After the war she immigrated to the United States to be with him. That ring was purchased to mark the occasion of her arrival.”
“The jeweler told me that the ring’s design was Art Deco,” Bob said. “That fits with the time period.”
“I’ve been told that Ethel never removed the ring from her finger,” Susan continued. “When she died, she left it to her oldest
daughter, my grandmother, with the stipulation that it would always remain in the family, passed down in each succeeding generation to the eldest daughter.”
“What a great story,” I said. “I can see why you’d be anxious to get the ring back. Do you know how your grandmother lost it?”
“No, I don’t. I was a very young child at the time. All I know is that Grandma was devastated when she discovered it was gone. She thought it must have slipped off her finger while she was doing housework. I remember hearing her say that she had looked everywhere for it, but none of us ever saw the ring again.”
“It was upstairs, in the bathroom,” I told her. “Bob was breaking down a wall when he came across it in the rubble.”
Susan sighed happily. “Grandma would have been thrilled to know that it’s finally been found. My mother too. She lives in Florida now. When she called to say that she’d heard from Emily Morris, she told me that when I was a toddler I used to take Grandma’s ring, put it on, and dance around the room.”
“It’s the kind of ring that inspires dancing,” I said with a smile.
“We have a picture,” Jim said, rising from his seat. “Let me get it for you.”
He left the room and returned a minute later with a black-and-white photograph in a scrolled silver frame. He handed the picture to Bob and I leaned over to have a look too. The image was of a woman seated on a sofa, holding a small child on her lap. Judging by their dress and hairstyles, I guessed the photograph had been taken in the 1950s.
Susan reached across the space between us and pointed. “The little girl is my mother. Look where her mother’s hand curls around her waist to hold her steady. You can see the ring there.”
Bob lifted the picture up to take a closer look. We both squinted at it. Susan Bell’s grandmother did indeed appear to be wearing a ring on her finger. Whether or not it was the same ring as the one Bob had found in his bathroom, I couldn’t begin to fathom.
“That picture is just for context,” Jim said quickly. “Once we knew you were coming, I took the photograph out of the frame and scanned it. Then I enlarged the area in question. You can see the ring much more clearly here.”
Death of a Dog Whisperer (9780758284570) Page 20
