Lethal Treasure: A Josie Prescott Antiques Mystery (Josie Prescott Antiques Mysteries)

by Jane K. Cleland

  “An interesting thought.”

  He held open the door for me to precede him.

  “Suzanne!” he said, approaching a tall woman, younger than me by five or six years, sitting on the guest side of Leigh Ann’s desk. A welter of paint chips covered the desk.

  I’d seen her before, but it took me a few seconds to recall where and when. At last month’s annual Rocky Point Winter Festival, she’d taken a seat a few tables away from me. I’d been struck by her delicate beauty and wondered who she was. Once the evening was over, I hadn’t thought of her again.

  “Henri!” she said, standing, extending her hands to greet him.

  He squeezed her hands, then embraced her, kissing her on both cheeks, four times, Parisian-style.

  For reasons that weren’t immediately apparent, Suzanne reminded me of my mother, an odd and disconcerting feeling since she bore no resemblance to her. My mom had been shorter than me, which was saying something, whereas Suzanne was taller by half a foot. My mom had dressed for what she called country comfort—jeans and heavy cable-knit sweaters and tweed skirts—whereas Suzanne was dressed with city polish. Her moss green suit fit her like a dream. My mom’s smooth brown hair had hung straight to her shoulders. Suzanne’s auburn hair was twisted into a stylish chignon. She wore more makeup than my mother had used in a year, but it was so well applied, it was almost invisible. The overall impression I had of Suzanne was one of quiet sophistication. Then I saw how affable Suzanne looked as she chatted with Leigh Ann and Henri, her eyes full of interest, communicating an ineffable graciousness. She exuded sincerity and warmth—just like my mom.

  The sleigh bells tinkled, and Ty walked in. He saw me and smiled, a special one, just for me, and I smiled back, a high-wattage one, just for him. Standing just over six feet, Ty had broad shoulders and craggy features and deep dark piercing eyes. Since he’d been organizing outdoor training exercises for Homeland Security, his skin had weathered and browned.

  “Hey, gorgeous,” he said.

  “Hey, handsome,” I replied, moving forward, reaching him, and taking his hand.

  He brushed his lips against mine, a tease, then greeted Leigh Ann and Henri and turned expectantly toward Suzanne.

  “Have you met Suzanne yet?” Leigh Ann asked us. “Suzanne Dyre. The new manager of the Blue Dolphin. This is Josie Prescott, owner of the best antiques auction house in the region, and this is Ty Alverez, a big-cheese training guru for Homeland Security.”

  “You’re new to the area,” I said, smiling. “Are you settling in all right?”

  “Actually, I’m settling in beautifully, largely because of friends like Leigh Ann and Henri.”

  “I can believe that,” I said. “They’re very special.”

  Leigh Ann looked pleased. “You two! You’re making me blush. Suzanne, tell Josie about your thimbles.”

  “There’s not much to tell.” She laughed, setting her eyes twinkling. “I collect thimbles.”

  “Do you specialize in a certain style or a specific material or anything?” I asked.

  “No, I just go with what attracts me. My grandmother was quite a seamstress, and she had the most beautiful sterling silver thimble. There was a peacock on top.” She shook her head, some special memory taking hold. “I loved my grandmother very much.”

  “I think that’s about the best reason to start a collection I’ve ever heard,” I said. I handed her a card and told her about the weekly tag sales.

  “I’ll add my welcome,” Ty said when I was done. “Where did you move from?”

  “Los Angeles,” she said, smiling as she explained that she’d been reassigned by the holding company that had purchased the Blue Restaurant chain, an investment group that specialized in restaurant turnarounds. Since the Blue Dolphin had closed three years ago, it had languished, the building boarded up, waiting for someone to come to its rescue. “There was definitely a bit of culture shock moving from L.A. to New Hampshire. Don’t get me wrong—I’m having a great time!”

  Ty asked what about Rocky Point was working for her. Suzanne said all the right things, the things you say to natives when you’re a newcomer on their turf, but I had the sense that she meant them, which was either true or a tribute to her polished professionalism.

  “It’s great news that the Blue Dolphin has reopened,” I said after hearing how much she liked the rugged New Hampshire coast and how friendly she found the people. “It was my favorite restaurant.”

  “I hope it lives up to your expectations,” she said, sounding confident that it would.

  “It’s got to be hard trying to re-create something,” Ty said. “You have to wear a lot of hats.”

  She laughed. “You’ve got that right. To do this job you need to know as much about wielding a screwdriver as you do about managing personnel. Luckily, the building itself was in better shape than I’d expected, and a lot of the staff came back, including the head chef. Between that and the way Leigh Ann and Henri cleverly re-created the inside decor … well, let’s just say I got a real leg up.”

  “We’re the lucky ones,” Henri said. “It is a wonderful tribute to you, to your company, that you gave us, newcomers, such an important job, working on Rocky Point’s top restaurant. We are so grateful for your trust.”

  “You won the bid fair and square,” Suzanne said. “You earned the opportunity.”

  As she spoke, I scanned the dusky rose and purplish mauve paint chips spread over Leigh Ann’s desk.

  “Where are you with your color choices?” I asked Suzanne.

  “Somewhere between Victorian Rose and Sunset.” She glanced at her watch. “Well, break’s over. I’m sorry, Leigh Ann, that I can’t make up my mind. Oh, well! Tomorrow’s another day.”

  Henri’s jacket shimmied, then buzzed.

  “My phone,” Henri said, reaching into a side pocket. He glanced at the display. “I must take this call. Excusez-moi.”

  He hurried to the far side of the room, moving with lithe grace, like a fencer, and stood by the glass table with his back to us.

  Leigh Ann cocked her head, watching Henri for a moment, then turned to Suzanne.

  “You’ll see us in about ten minutes,” Leigh Ann said. “Josie brags on the Blue Dolphin’s food like nobody’s business. I can’t wait to see what all the fuss is about.”

  Suzanne smiled at me. “Thanks for giving us a try.” She reached for her to-the-ankle faux-mink coat, hanging next to Henri’s.

  “Is it still like an ice chest out there?” she asked Ty.

  I heard Ty say that it was colder than an ice chest, but nothing else. My attention was on Henri. He shook his head, no, no, no. I glanced at Leigh Ann, but her focus was on Suzanne. Both women were laughing as Ty held Suzanne’s coat and she struggled to find the armhole.

  Henri’s call ended abruptly barely a minute after it began, and he half-turned toward us, then stopped midstep, his eyes on his phone, maybe willing it to ring again, perhaps reliving a patently difficult conversation. As if he could feel my scrutiny, he looked up and met my eyes. After a second, maybe two, he smiled, a shallow attempt to cover up his true feelings. I didn’t return his smile. I hoped he could read my expression, understand that I perceived his dismay, and know that I would help him if I could. Henri glanced at Leigh Ann and his faux happiness gave way to something closer to dejection. He took in a deep breath and smiled again, and this one stayed frozen in place. He expected Leigh Ann to be as troubled by whatever he’d just learned as he was, and he hoped not to have to tell her about it, at least not now.

  “I’m sorry,” Henri said to us all. “Business. Always business.”

  “Good news?” Leigh Ann asked.

  “Of course,” he said, giving her a shoulder-squeeze.

  “See you soon!” Suzanne called, pulling a matching hat over her head. She looked like a million bucks, as chic as if she’d walked off the pages of Vogue, and cute as a bug.

  Everyone called good-bye; then Henri leaned over Leigh Ann and kissed the top
of her head, casting a quick conspiratorial glance in my direction. I turned to see if Ty had witnessed any part of the minidrama, but he was looking at his watch.

  “How about if we put the hearts in my car before heading over to the Blue Dolphin?” I asked. “I’m in the garage.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Ty said.

  I picked up my tote bag and the tub of hearts. Ty and Leigh Ann were chatting about whether it was too cold to snow. When I glanced at Henri, he was staring at me again, and he raised his finger to his lips. I nodded.

  Two minutes later, bundled up against the bitter late-afternoon air, the four of us headed out. I was silent the whole way to the garage and then to the Blue Dolphin, thinking that Henri and I shared an approach to receiving bad news. I usually wanted to keep my own counsel, as it seemed he did, to think things through at my own pace before discussing them with Ty. I hoped my nod had reassured Henri. If he knew me better, he’d have known that he had nothing to worry about. I was discreet, and nothing if not a loyal friend.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The Blue Dolphin was housed in an eighteenth-century brick building originally designed to fit into the curved corner of Bow and Market streets in downtown Rocky Point. The restaurant appeared wonderfully unchanged.

  The dome-shaped hammered-copper awning gleamed under the golden recessed lighting. The heavy wooden door, embellished with wrought-iron hinges, was just as I remembered it. Standing at the hostess stand, I could see through into the dining room, and smiled. A wood fire crackled in the five-foot-wide fireplace, the aroma scenting the air. The wide-plank oak flooring, burnished to a rich golden brown through generations of use and polishing, was original to the building. The walls were painted the same antique white with Colonial blue trim that I recalled. Even the curtains were identical, toile, featuring a blue and white pastoral French country theme. The tables were familiar, too—laid with the same crisp white linen and set with the same lustrous silver flatware and sparkling cut crystal as before. The crystal wall sconces, chandeliers, and table lamps also appeared unchanged. Flickering bulbs cast a shimmering glow throughout the room. The design of the Blue Dolphin’s main dining room communicated security and substance. Stepping inside felt as warming and comforting as my mother’s kitchen on days when she’d baked bread.

  “Unbelievable,” I said to Leigh Ann and Henri. “It’s as beautiful as I remember. More beautiful than I remember. What an accomplishment.”

  “Thanks, Josie,” Leigh Ann said, squeezing my hand.

  I turned to Frieda, the hostess I’d known for years and hadn’t seen since the restaurant had closed. “Yay! You’re here, and everything looks the same.”

  “Josie!” she said, leaning in for an air kiss. “Welcome back. We’re so pumped! Jimmy’s here, too, and Chef Ray is ruling the kitchen like he never left. Have you met Suzanne Dyre, our new general manager? Suzanne, this is Josie Prescott and Ty Alverez, two of our favorite customers.”

  “We just met,” Suzanne said, extending her hands. “Welcome!” She and Leigh Ann exchanged a fluttering butterfly kiss; then she introduced Leigh Ann and Henri to Frieda as the magicians who’d brought the Blue Dolphin back to life. As we handed our coats over to a woman I didn’t know working the coat check room, Suzanne turned her radiant attention toward me. “We open for dinner in about fifteen minutes, at five. Were you thinking of having a drink first?”

  “Yes, indeed!” I said. “I love the lounge!”

  “You are making my day, Josie, what with your enthusiasm and support.”

  “Mama always said dinner tastes better when you’ve had a cocktail first,” Leigh Ann said as we got situated at my favorite table by the bow-shaped window that overlooked the Piscataqua River. “But that might have been because she was such a bad cook.”

  I laughed. “I want to meet your mom someday. She sounds like a hoot.”

  “You’ll have to go to Thibodaux then. Mama doesn’t trust Yankees, so it’s thanks, anyway, but I’ll stay here in Louisiana.”

  “How do you feel being around all us northerners?” I asked.

  “Like a fish out of water, if the truth be told. Don’t get me wrong—I liked New York City just fine, and I like it here, too. But I think for most people, where you’re reared is where you feel most at home. Even when you hated it and couldn’t wait to get out.” She turned toward Henri and smiled. “Maybe that’s why Henri and I get along so well. We’re both out of our element, what with Henri coming from Paris and me from down south.”

  “Good to see ya, Joze,” Jimmy said, approaching the table. “You too, Ty. What can I getcha?”

  “A French martini, please,” I said. To Leigh Ann and Henri, I added, “This is Jimmy, the best bartender in town.”

  Jimmy greeted them with practiced warmth. He hadn’t aged at all. His hair was just as red, his smile just as easy, and his trick of flipping cocktail napkins as if he were skimming rocks across the ocean surface was just as familiar and predictable as the tide. I felt myself relax. To some people, familiarity might breed contempt; to me, it bred contentment.

  “I’ll have a French martini, too,” Leigh Ann said, patting Henri’s hand. “Not that I know what it is, but if it’s French, it must be wonderful.”

  Henri raised her hand to his lips and kissed her fingertips. “Ma cherie.”

  Ty ordered a White Birch ale, and Henri ordered Johnnie Walker Black. Half the tables in the lounge were occupied, a good sign, I thought, since a large segment of the happy hour crowd would just now be getting out of work.

  “You don’t think of Rocky Point as being a place people move to,” I said, “yet we all have come here from somewhere else, Suzanne included.”

  “That is true,” Henri. “All of us for business.”

  “As well as I know you … I can’t believe I’ve never asked—when you decided to open your own design firm, why did you come to Rocky Point?” I wondered if their story was anything like mine, a tale of escape. “Why didn’t you open the company in New York?”

  “I moved to New York to be an actress,” Leigh Ann said. “I moved to New Hampshire to get away from failure.”

  “Non, ma cherie,” Henri said, squeezing her hand. “We left for a new opportunity. There was no talk of failure. Not for you. Not for me. We moved together to this place, and it is exactly right for us.”

  Leigh Ann shrugged and smiled, but this one lacked conviction. “Makes no never mind at this point, that’s for sure.”

  “New York’s loss is Rocky Point’s gain,” I said, touching her elbow.

  Tales of disappointment ended there. We spent the rest of the evening exchanging opinions about winter sports (oddly, no one skied and everyone skated), winter cookouts (we were all fans), and winter vacations (none for them; the Bahamas in March for us). We ate steak and salad and potatoes and creamed spinach, and then Suzanne bought us a complimentary dessert sampler for the table, chocolate lava cake and crème brûlée and apple pie with Stilton cheese and butterscotch cream puffs—a thank-you, she said, for giving the restaurant a whirl during its reopening week. Everything was delicious, better than before, or maybe I just thought it was better. Recovering something you’d loved and lost was rare. My dad always said to never cry over something that could be replaced with money, so I understood why I felt emotional. There were scores of restaurants up and down the seacoast, but there was only one Blue Dolphin. When I’d first arrived in Rocky Point, a stranger, reeling from loss, facing an uncertain future, the Blue Dolphin had been my sanctuary. And now it was back.

  By the end of the evening, I’d reached two conclusions: I liked Leigh Ann and Henri more than ever, and Suzanne Dyre was maybe the best restaurateur I’d ever met.

  * * *

  The next morning, Friday, just after nine, I stood in the front office listening as Cara, our grandmotherly receptionist, updated me on my staff’s schedules. Gretchen, my administrative manager, and Eric, my facilities manager and jack-of-all-trades, were walking the tag sale venue flo
or to discuss setup ways and means. Fred, one of my company’s antiques appraisers, was en route to Durham. He had an appointment with a museum curator about an antique lute we were featuring in an upcoming auction called Music for Life.

  Cara nodded to where Sasha, my chief appraiser, sat reading an antiques journal. “Sasha is researching something about a cello for Fred,” she whispered.

  “Which means you don’t need to whisper!” I said. “You know Sasha! When she’s in research mode, it would take a battalion of buglers to rouse her.”

  “That’s true, isn’t it?” Cara said, smiling. “Her ability to focus is a wonderful thing.”

  “You have it, too. I’ve seen you proofreading catalogue copy, and if that doesn’t take focus, I don’t know what does.” I picked up my ankle-length down coat. “I’m going to run an errand en route to the—”

  I broke off as Suzanne Dyre pushed through the door, setting the wind chimes Gretchen had hung there years earlier jangling.

  Seeing that I had my coat in hand, she said, “Oh, no! I knew I should have called for an appointment.”

  “Not a bit! We welcome visitors anytime.”

  I glanced at the Mickey Mouse clock that Gretchen kept on her desk. It was 9:10. I had a good half an hour before I had to leave for yet another abandoned-storage-room auction. I’d planned on dropping off some dry cleaning, but I could do that after the auction just as easily as before.

  Cara helped Suzanne settle in at the round guest table, taking her red wool coat and matching pillbox hat, and told her it was nice to see her again. As I tossed my coat and tote bag onto one of the guest chairs, they chatted about the record-breaking cold and dreary sky. Cara brought her a cup of tea and a plate of homemade gingersnaps.

  “Before you say anything,” I told her, “I want to tell you how truly fabulous dinner was last night. Everything was as good as before, and maybe better.”