A Fatal Collection

by Mary Ellen Hughes

  Callie tried to rush past him, but he grabbed her arm. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he snapped. “Just tell me where it is and everything will be okay.” His clutch on her arm was vise-like.

  “Where is what?” Callie asked, struggling against his grasp and still grappling with the shock of his being there.

  “The music box! Don’t be stupid. Where is it?”

  “It’s not here.”

  He threw her to the wall, and Callie’s head cracked hard against it. Any hope that this was some kind of awful mistake instantly fled. The room spun for a moment, and she thought she was passing out. But he caught her before she fell and held her. Jonathan wanted information, and her only hope was to keep that information from him as long as possible until she could escape.

  “Where?” he demanded.

  She managed to look anywhere but at the blanket chest. “I … it’s back in the shop. I wanted it where Tabitha could watch over it.”

  Jonathan stared at her for a long time, deciding if he could believe her. Callie hoped she looked frightened enough to blurt out the truth. The frightened part wasn’t hard—she was truly terrified. But she was also stalling. Any time she gained, though, would run out when he didn’t find the music box in the shop. What would she do then?

  After a full minute, Jonathan nodded. “Show me,” he said, his voice low and menacing. He pulled her to the door, his left hand gripping her upper right arm, the flashlight in his other hand. “Don’t try anything dumb. I have a gun. Be good and you’ll live.”

  Callie doubted that, but the longer she could drag things out, the better chance she might have. She moved forward awkwardly, angled sideways by his grip on her, and they inched their way together down the hallway and the stairs.

  “I’ll need my keys,” she said. “They’re in the table by the front door.”

  He pushed her forward, keeping the beam of his flashlight aimed at the floor as they wove around other furniture toward the end table. Callie reached for the drawer pull with her right hand, Jonathan still gripping her arm tightly but leaning with her, and she shuffled through the drawer even though her fingers had instantly landed on the keys. Her goal was to distract Jonathan from noticing her left hand, which covered the cell phone lying dark and hidden in the shadows on the table top. She noisily pulled out the keys while slipping the phone into her robe pocket.

  “How did you get in here?” she asked as further diversion.

  “Your lock is easy to pick.”

  “Is that how you got into the shop? That night you killed Aunt Mel?”

  “Never mind,” Jonathan said gruffly and yanked her toward the front door. “Open it,” he ordered as he turned off his flashlight.

  She did, and they faced the blackness of the yard until gradually shrubs and the back of her shop grew visible in the pale moonlight. He began walking her across the yard, warning closely against her ear, “Don’t even think of yelling for help. No one will hear, but even if they did, you’d only be bringing them to their death. I won’t hesitate to shoot.”

  “Why?” Callie asked. “Why would you kill for a music box?” She stumbled on one of the raised bricks of the walk and Jonathan wrenched her upright.

  “Just unlock the door.”

  Callie took her time fingering through several keys on the ring to find the shop key, listening, as she did, for any sounds of life—of help—nearby. But could she actually call for that help after Jonathan’s promise to shoot? She knew she couldn’t, so her only hope was that someone might have seen or heard them from a window. But what was the likelihood, at that hour?

  She felt for the keyhole with her left hand and slid the key inside. The lock turned and she opened the door. Inside, with the door closed behind them, Jonathan turned his flashlight back on but once again kept it aimed at the floor.

  “Where is it?” he demanded.

  “First, I need to understand,” Callie said. “Why is my grandfather’s music box so important that you would kill for it? You did kill Aunt Mel, didn’t you?”

  “It was her own fault.”

  “How can you say that!”

  “She surprised me that night, but she didn’t know who it was since I had a hood and scarf covering my face. I would only have stunned her enough to get away. But stupidly she fought and pulled down the scarf.”

  And so you killed her, Callie silently finished for him. As you’ll kill me once you get what you want. Though gulping back fury at his cold-blooded statement, she needed to keep him talking. “And the music box? Why do you want it so badly?”

  To her shock, Jonathan started chuckling. “You fools, all of you, having that magnificent piece for so long and never understanding what it was. Whose it was.”

  “Tell me.”

  “It was Sophie’s.” He fairly breathed the name.

  “Sophie?”

  “Duchess of Hohenburg,” he clarified impatiently. “Married to Archduke Franz Ferdinand. You know who that is, don’t you?”

  Callie scoured her memory for the name, glad at least to be getting some kind of explanation. If she didn’t come up with the right answer, though, what then? But her years-ago World History exams rushed back to her and she remembered. “He was assassinated, right? It started World War I.”

  Jonathan nodded. “Some years before they were killed, he gave her that music box. Sophie wrote about it in her diary. She treasured it, as I do, for its music and because he gave it to her.”

  How did Grandpa Reed acquire it? Callie wondered. She could only hope to have the chance to find out. One very important thing she did discover as Jonathan spoke was that he wasn’t actually carrying a gun as he’d claimed. The only pocket in his dark clothing that held anything significant bulged in a flat, rectangular shape. She guessed it might be his lock-picking tools. It was definitely not a gun.

  That, while being a relief, didn’t totally put her out of danger. Jonathan had killed Aunt Mel with a blow to her head, and he still had his heavy flashlight in hand.

  “Enough of this,” he said, turning Callie roughly toward the shop area. “Where did you put it?”

  Callie started to walk blindly, not knowing what to do next, when her cell phone suddenly rang. It startled them both but Callie recovered first, which gave her an instant to pull the phone from her pocket and press answer. “Help! Call 911!” she screamed, then spun out of Jonathan’s loosened grip and ran for the back door.

  She only managed a few feet before Jonathan’s flashlight crashed against her skull. Callie staggered, but Jonathan’s aim had been slightly off, only grazing her, since unlike her aunt she’d been prepared to duck. Before he could strike again, she rushed forward, making it to the door and slamming it open. She made it out but then felt him grab her hair, yanking it hard. Callie cried out, falling back, and feared the worst until she heard a new voice order, “Stop right there.”

  They both froze for a moment until Jonathan pushed Callie hard toward the voice. She stumbled against the man she now recognized as Brian. He caught her as Jonathan ran toward the path.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yes! But he’s getting away!”

  “No he isn’t,” a gruff voice near Aunt Mel’s tall fence said. Callie heard a cry and a heavy thump.

  She picked up the flashlight Jonathan had dropped and aimed it toward the fence. Karl Eggers stood, scowling, with one heavy-booted foot pinning Jonathan to the ground.

  “Where did you two come from?” Callie asked, astonished. But with blood running down her head and sirens sounding in the distance, she had to wait a while for her answer.

  Thirty

  Callie looked up from her hospital bed at the three faces gathered around and was touched by the concern she saw. Her head was bandaged and it ached, this time not from her flu virus but from the crack Jonathan had given it. She’d also been hooked up to an IV “f
or dehydration,” she’d been told.

  “Don’t look so worried,” she pleaded. “I’ll be fine. They’re just keeping me a few hours for observation, then I’ll go home.”

  “Where you should still take it very easy,” Delia said.

  “And you three should get some sleep,” Callie said. “But first I need some answers. How did you two,” she asked, glancing from Brian to Karl, “manage to show up just when I needed you?”

  The two men looked at each other, then over to Delia, who squirmed.

  “I called them,” she said.

  “But how—?”

  “I’m not really sure.” Gathering her thoughts, Delia sank onto a chair. “All I know is that I woke up suddenly in the dark with a strong feeling that something was very wrong. At first I thought it was something to do with my house, and I got up and checked around. But everything seemed fine. That awful feeling, though, wouldn’t go away. So I stepped outside.”

  “And saw Jonathan’s flashlight in my cottage?”

  “No, I didn’t see any light. But I heard your voices, yours and Jonathan’s, though I didn’t recognize his.”

  That must have been when we were crossing the yard or at the back of the shop, Callie thought. But they’d kept their voices so low, Jonathan warning that he’d had a gun. How could Delia have heard? Did the still summer air carry voices that well?

  “I was sure something bad was happening,” Delia continued. “I worried that the police couldn’t come quickly enough, so I called Karl, then Brian.”

  “Then you called my cell phone?” Callie asked, thinking of the ring that had startled both her and Jonathan and given her the chance to run.

  ‘Your cell phone?” Delia asked. “No, I called the police next.”

  “But—” Callie began, but Karl interrupted.

  “I’m normally a very sound sleeper,” he said. “My wife used to—” He stopped to cough. “That is, I have to set two alarm clocks to wake myself in the morning. But Delia’s rings got through to me somehow.”

  “And to me,” Brian said. “Luckily, we both got there in time.”

  “And I’m very grateful to all of you,” Callie said. “Jonathan would have killed me, just as he killed Aunt Mel.”

  “Over a music box?” Brian asked.

  “It’s a very special one, in a way none of us realized but Jonathan did. Valuable.”

  “Still … ”

  “I can only guess that he had an obsession that went way beyond a collector’s passion,” Callie explained. “I think Elvin may have picked up on that a little when he was in Jonathan’s house. How is Elvin? Do you know?”

  “Much improved,” Brian said. “They’ve said the brain swelling has gone way down.”

  “I’m so glad!” Callie mulled a few moments. “Now that I think about it, I wonder if Jonathan had something to do with Elvin’s accident? When he told me he’d hired Elvin, he said that he wanted to get to know him. Once he realized that Elvin sometimes hung around Aunt Mel’s cottage, maybe he feared Elvin saw him the night of the murder. Perhaps he goaded Elvin into taking Duane’s ATV.”

  “Let’s hope Elvin will be able to tell us something about that once he’s recovered,” Brian said. “One thing I do know—Jonathan didn’t spend all the time at the hospital that he claimed he did, watching over Elvin.”

  “No?”

  “The staff said they never saw him after Sunday morning, when he told us to go home and said he would stay. All those updates he had on Elvin probably came from simply calling in.”

  “If Jonathan had any concern at all,” Delia said, “it must have been about what Elvin might say when he woke up. He could have intended to show up then and convince Elvin about what he did or didn’t remember.”

  Callie shook her head. “He managed to convince me that he was being so kind and thoughtful.”

  “Jonathan fooled us all,” Delia said. “So don’t be too hard on yourself.”

  But I invited him to dinner, Callie wanted to say. He sat at my table, and I cooked for the man who killed my aunt. She shook her head again and then winced at the pain, her hand shooting up to the bandaged spot.

  “We should let you rest now,” Delia said, getting up.

  “Give me a call when they’re ready to release you.” Brian reached down to squeeze her hand.

  “Thank you,” Callie said, smiling. “I will.”

  The three left and Callie closed her eyes, ready to let whatever pain meds they’d given her get to work. She was surprised in a moment to hear a soft tap at her door and see Karl’s head poke back in.

  “I have something more to say. May I come in?”

  “Of course.”

  He walked to the end of her bed, looking highly uneasy, and Callie thought if he’d had a hat in his hands, he’d be twisting and fingering it. She started to brace herself for whatever was coming.

  After a few throat-clearings and a hand run through his hair, Karl finally said, “I need to apologize.”

  “Oh!”

  “I had no idea what happened to your aunt. I believed she’d simply fallen. I was angry and thinking only of my nephew, who needed work. I was hard on you. I’m sorry.”

  Callie was astonished enough to be at a loss for words for several moments. Then she smiled. “Thank you, Mr. Eggers.”

  “Karl.”

  “Karl. What you did for me tonight makes up for a lot, believe me.”

  He nodded, saying nothing.

  “I learned only recently that you’d lost your wife,” Callie said. “I’m sorry for that.”

  He cleared his throat some more. “I miss her,” he said. “She was good for me. Kept me in order.” His lips twitched upward. “More than just waking me up in the morning.”

  Callie smiled at that.

  “I did come to Mel’s funeral,” he added. “But I came in after everyone was there and stayed in the back. Funerals are hard for me.”

  “I can understand,” Callie said. “I’m sure Mel knew and appreciated it.”

  “Well,” he said, “I just wanted to say that. I’ll go now. I hope you’ll feel better.”

  “Thank you, Mr.—Karl. Thank you very much. You get some rest, too.”

  Callie watched him leave, carefully closing the door behind him, and stared at the door for several minutes. She reached for a tissue to swipe at her eyes, then switched off her light, thinking this was surely a day of surprises.

  Some a lot better than others.

  Thirty-One

  Callie returned to House of Melody after several days of rest, still a bit shaky but eager to be out of her cottage and back in the world. She’d been fussed over by Delia, for which she was very grateful, but she was doubly grateful to learn that she hadn’t, in fact, suffered a concussion from Jonathan’s flashlight. Her flu virus, in addition, seemed to be a less virulent strain than Brian’s had been, so she didn’t need to further impose on Tabitha, who’d been generously putting in extra hours at the shop. Callie raised her shade, opened her shop door, and took a deep breath of fresh air, thinking, among many other things, how great it was to be alive.

  Brian was outside his café, lowering the awning, and he noticed her and waved heartily. She waved back and would have trotted over to chat except that she saw customers heading his way, probably wanting their morning coffee. Brian had brought her home from the hospital, and they’d had a good long talk along the way. She’d begun thinking that maybe she was ready to start dating again. Once everything settled down, if he asked her out she would very likely accept.

  Settled down. It was a questionable concept after what had happened. There was so much to still grapple with. Elvin had come out of his coma and told his story about the night of his crash. Apparently, as Callie had suspected, Jonathan had told Elvin to take Duane’s ATV that night, claiming Duane had bought it from hi
m but never paid. He’d convinced Elvin not only that the ATV was legally his but that Duane had swindled many of Elvin’s friends as well, and that this would be the start of setting things right for them, too.

  The only thing Elvin couldn’t quite wrap his head around was why, if Brian had been swindled by Duane, Brian hadn’t asked directly for his help in retrieving his property—possibly the “why” Elvin had asked aloud when Callie had run into him that afternoon in front of Stitches Thru Time. He would have done anything for Brian after Brian’s steady kindness to him. Jonathan had probably picked up on that and used it to manipulate Elvin.

  Elvin also said that Jonathan had asked him several times about the night Mel died. Elvin had been confused by the questions and in the end simply confirmed everything Jonathan already suspected—in other words, that he’d witnessed enough to put Jonathan in jail. That had nearly led to Elvin’s death.

  Callie had had time to think a lot about that night, too, and decided that Aunt Mel had seen or heard something coming from House of Melody that had concerned her enough to check out, but not enough to call the police. A fatal mistake, as was her not following up on the suspicions she must have had when she’d started, but never finished, the email to Callie about something worrying her. Callie would never know exactly what that was, but she could guess that it was something to do with Jonathan. Looking back, she realized that the music box had played several times when Jonathan was present. But she’d been distracted by other things happening at the same time, which had caused her to misinterpret the warnings—if, in fact, they had been warnings.

  One of the less shocking but still disturbing things that had occurred during Callie’s convalescence was the blow-up between Laurie Hart and Duane Fletcher. When confronted by Laurie after she’d pried incriminating information from one of the leaders of the picketing group, Duane admitted having been behind both the sidewalk disruption and the protest. He claimed he’d been highly offended and hurt by Laurie’s insinuations about his bookkeeping and said that she deserved to know how it felt to be wrongly accused, at least by the picketers. He also insisted that he’d been able to afford his few luxuries because of wisely investing the money he’d inherited from his mother along with her glass collectibles—“not that it’s anybody’s business,” he’d added.