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

by Jane K. Cleland

  I smiled back. “I didn’t know there was a profile.”

  “Most of the men who leave their families without a word and disappear have both a history of avoiding responsibility and difficulty handling setbacks. Some guys work very well in regimented situations, for instance, like the military, but can’t cut it on their own. Other guys are fine as long as things go their way but collapse or freeze or go postal when trouble comes a-knockin’. I’ve always been a you-can-count-on-me sort of guy. Big into personal responsibility. And I’m of the ‘trouble happens, move on’ philosophical bent. Not to blow my own horn or anything.”

  I smiled again. “No wonder I fell for you.”

  Ty slid into the booth beside me, pulling me close.

  “I love you,” he said, nuzzling my ear.

  “I love you, too,” I whispered and kissed him, a long one, full of romance and caring.

  I leaned my head against his shoulder, and we sat in comfortable silence for several seconds while I thought about men who vanish.

  “You’re into personal responsibility,” I said, “yet you thrived when you were in the army, and you’re thriving now in a very big decentralized organization.”

  “The ability to work in a highly structured organization and valuing personal responsibility aren’t mutually exclusive characteristics. If we’re looking at it from a profile perspective, the key issue is fitting in. Men who leave don’t fit in. They’re physically, emotionally, or mentally isolated, and isolation is a reliable predictor of trouble.”

  “Of all sorts of trouble, right?” I asked. “From suicide to homicide.”

  “To just walking away—but nothing is black and white. Legions of people endure lifelong feelings of bitter isolation and don’t kill themselves or others or disappear.”

  “‘The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.’”

  “Thoreau,” he said. “He also said, ‘It is characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.’ Maybe Henri’s not wise.”

  “I can’t believe you just quoted Thoreau from memory.”

  “I’m a man of many facets.”

  “And very smart,” I said.

  “And lucky in love.”

  I looked deep into his eyes, feeling the familiar, irresistible pull of attraction, a visceral link that warmed me like fire. “So where’s Henri?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I’m upset.”

  He encircled me with his arms and held me close. “That means you need a hug.”

  As usual, he was right—I did need a hug.

  * * *

  At six thirty the next morning, just as I was about to step into a steamy shower, the phone rang. I turned off the water and grabbed it.

  “I’m sorry to call so early,” Leigh Ann said, her tone frenetic, “but I need help. I know today is tag sale day, so I figured I’d better get you before you’re tied up with business.”

  I shivered and clasped the lapels of my pink chenille bathrobe tightly around my throat.

  “What can I do?” I asked.

  “Ask Eric to meet me at Crawford’s, at the storage unit, at noon. The police have agreed to open a missing person investigation then. As far as we know, Eric was the last person to have seen Henri, and since he saw him there, that’s where they want to start the hunt. Can you do that?”

  “Certainly. Do you want me to have Eric call the police now?”

  “No. Because of that stupid rule—they won’t do anything until Henri’s been missing twenty-four hours—if they know someone saw him later than that, they’d delay starting the investigation. Once they officially open it, though, they have to continue. I’ve already hedged a little, calling it noon when you told me Eric saw him later than that.”

  “You haven’t heard a word from him? Not a word?”

  “No.” She gulped, swallowing tears. “I’ve texted him a dozen times and called more often than that.”

  “Oh, God, Leigh Ann. This is so unbelievable. So frightening.”

  “I’m terrified, Josie. Just frightened beyond words.” She gulped again, but this time it took her several seconds to regain her composure. “After we left your place yesterday, Scott and I drove every route I could think of from the storage facility back to the shop, trying to see if I could find the van … or if there was a broken guard rail or tire tracks disappearing down an embankment, anything like that. I didn’t see any signs of an accident, and I didn’t find the van. It’s as if Henri just vanished into thin air.”

  “I’m so sorry, Leigh Ann. Did you contact the dealership?”

  “Yes, and they can help, but they require a subpoena to let me access the records, and that requires the police to send a formal request to the attorney general, etcetera, etcetera. Nothing can happen until the investigation is officially opened. The van isn’t fitted with LoJack or anything like it. There’s an app called Find My Phone, but Henri never installed it. To use their own technology to find his phone, the phone company said the same thing as the dealer—they need a subpoena, too.”

  “You must be going insane with worry, Leigh Ann. Is there anything I can do at this point? Do you want company? Have you eaten anything?”

  She sniffled, then swallowed loudly. “Thank you, Josie. I’m all right. As all right as I can be. Scott is here.” She paused. “He’ll drive me to the storage facility.”

  I ended the call with another offer to help, aware of spiky tension growing inside me at a feverish pace, tightening the muscles along my shoulders and upper back, pricking at my stomach and heart. I looked into the mirror hoping to see that I looked less panicky than I felt. Remnants of steam from the shower had created a moiré pattern on the mirror, and looking at my winter-pale skin and wide-eyed anxious expression through the cloudy, lacy weave suggested a fragility more in line with a character from a Victorian novel than the self-reliant woman I knew myself to be. Grasping my cuff to hold my sleeve in place, I used the chenille like a rag to clear the mist and was relieved to see that once again, with the glass clean, I looked like myself. I found comfort in knowing that the emotions churning in me didn’t show.

  The time display on my phone told me Ty was an hour out of Rocky Point, with two hours still to drive to reach his training destination, Berlin. At five thirty, I’d barely been aware of his good-bye kiss. I pushed the speed dial button I’d assigned to him and got lucky. I caught him at a rest stop stirring milk into coffee.

  “I have news,” I said, “not good.” I stared at the old-fashioned black and white hexagonal floor tiles, uncertain how to phrase the bad news. “It’s Henri. Leigh Ann just called. There’s still no word.” I repeated what she told me, then said, “I wish you didn’t have to work today.”

  “Me, too. I’m really sorry to hear this, Josie. I thought for sure she’d have heard from him by now.”

  “I know. This is the kind of thing that you read about, not the kind of thing that actually happens to people you know.”

  “How’s she doing?”

  “Better than I would be if you were the one who’d gone missing. She was actually formulating plans, like getting court orders and so on.”

  “You’d be doing just the same. You personify grace under pressure.”

  “Wow,” I said, cheered up by his unexpected praise. “Thank you. Hurry home … Wait! What am I saying? Considering the storm they’re predicting, drive slowly.”

  “I’m still hoping to make it back by late afternoon, but I got to tell you—the forecasts are growing more ominous by the minute. I may have to stay over.”

  I told him I understood and I loved him, and he told me he loved me, too, and then we hung up.

  I turned the shower on again, and as I stepped under the hot, pulsing water, I thought that maybe when I’d tried to find a logical reason for Henri’s disappearance, I’d been overcomplicating the issue. Maybe he’d left simply because he’d had enough.

  I could see how a man who loved Paris and New York City might have found the unremitting qui
et of a small New Hampshire town unendurable. Add in a dose of business disappointment, a wife he seemed certain would be unforgiving, and a forecast of yet another storm in a season of record-breaking snow, which along with the inhumane subzero temperatures we’d been enduring was certain to slow down commerce, and I could see how the prospect of starting a new life in a warmer climate might have appeal.

  What if Henri found something valuable in his storage unit, something easy to sell and lucrative enough to fund a fresh start? Perhaps he tucked it in his pocket or tossed it in the van and headed for the interstate, instead of home. Route 95 was plowed clear and stretched all the way to Florida.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Eric and I arrived at Crawford’s just before noon in separate vehicles, so when Eric was done he could make a delivery. He parked our company van off to the side. I drove my personal car and parked next to him. I waved to Leigh Ann, sitting in the passenger seat of her SUV, a white Ford Explorer. Scott was behind the wheel. The engine was running. Even from a hundred feet away, I could see that Leigh Ann’s eyes were rimmed in red and her skin was blotchy, as if she’d spent the night crying. Scott’s brow was deeply lined.

  Police Chief Ellis Hunter stood with his back to Henri’s storage unit. He wore a standard-issue police hat, heavy wool, with a fur lining. The ear flaps were down. The Rocky Point police medallion was embroidered on the front. His down coat was bulky. A dark red jagged scar ran along his right eye, the color muted in the dull light filtering through the thick clouds. Ellis was just shy of six feet, with regular features, and gray eyes that communicated both his sedulous approach to work and his genuine empathy. Ellis and I were friends. He’d taken Rocky Point’s top cop job after retiring as a New York City homicide detective, and for just about the whole time he’d been here, close to three years, he’d been dating Zoë, my landlady, neighbor, and best friend. We spent a lot of time together as couples, all of it good. A younger police officer in uniform, a tall blonde named Officer F. Meade, stood beside him. She wore the same style of hat and a longer version of the down coat.

  Scott kept his hand on Leigh Ann’s elbow as they walked toward the locker. From the concerned glances he kept aiming in her direction, I had the sense he thought she might collapse. From her haggard appearance, I thought he might be right.

  “Thanks for coming,” Ellis told me as I approached.

  Ellis looked at Eric, then back at me, his raised brows posing a question he didn’t ask. He wanted to know why Eric was with me, but he didn’t want to make a thing of it until he knew what was what.

  “You remember Eric, right?” I asked.

  “Sure.” He looked at him. “Do you have information about Henri Dubois?”

  “Is the investigation official yet?” I asked, jumping in before Eric could answer.

  “No. Not until noon.” He raised his jacket sleeve enough to see his watch. “Five minutes from now. That’s the last time you saw him, right? Noon, yesterday?”

  “About then, yes. I don’t know the exact time.”

  Eric stood next to me, taking it in. Ellis focused on him.

  “What do you know, Eric?” he asked, his tone stern.

  Eric looked at me, and I shook my head.

  “Please,” Leigh Ann said, her eyes on Ellis.

  “I have noon straight up,” Scott said.

  I noted that he didn’t look at his watch. Ellis did, and I followed his gaze. It was three minutes to twelve. Ellis didn’t comment. He cast his eyes around the lot, then up at the sky. The clouds were solidly gray, and it smelled like snow. He waited another fifteen seconds or so, then turned toward Officer Meade.

  “Please note that it’s twelve. We’re accepting a missing person report on Henri Dubois.” He faced Eric. “What do you know?”

  “I don’t know anything,” Eric said. “I mean, I saw Henri yesterday afternoon, here. I helped him load his van. He was fine.”

  “What time was that?”

  “I’ve tried to think,” Eric said, “but I just didn’t notice the time.”

  “Can you figure it by working backward?” I asked. “You walked into the tag sale room about three ten or three fifteen. Call it three fifteen.”

  He nodded and bit his lip, concentrating. Leigh Ann clung to Scott’s arm, her eyes steady on Eric’s face, willing him to remember.

  “It took me a good half hour to unload the van back at our place,” Eric said. “That’s two forty-five. And it’s about a ten-minute drive from here. So I must have left here about two thirty-five. I swept out the unit, then got Vicki to okay it. She inspected it and gave me back our deposit. All told, that took about fifteen minutes. So that’s two twenty. Before that, I loaded our van, and it took longer to load it than it did to unload it, because, you know how it is, you have to work it like a puzzle to get everything in … call it forty-five minutes … that’s what? About one thirty-five. Maybe one thirty. I helped Henri just before that, and it took us, I don’t know, about ten or fifteen minutes, not longer, so that would have been about one twenty, maybe one fifteen.” He nodded. “Somewhere in there. That’s when I saw him last. At the end of that time … about one thirty.”

  “Good,” Ellis said. “How did you come to help him?”

  “He asked. He came to where I was working and asked if I could help him load a couple of heavy items. I said sure, locked up our van and the unit, and walked with him over to his locker.”

  Ellis had him repeat their conversation as nearly as he could, and Eric did a good job, but I couldn’t see how anyone could glean anything meaningful from their exchange. As far as I could tell, their discussion was both banal and innocuous. They made three trips to the van, lugging furniture and heavy boxes. Henri thanked him. Eric said he was glad to help. Henri starting carting more boxes on his own, and Eric walked back to our unit to finish loading our van. After he got the deposit back from Vicki, he left. He didn’t notice if Henri was still working. He didn’t notice if the van was still there. He was fretting about how long it took him to clean out the locker. He knew Gretchen was covering for him in the tag sale room, and he wanted to get back.

  “How did Henri seem?” Ellis asked.

  “Fine,” Eric said.

  “Same as always?”

  “I guess.”

  “No sadness? No worry? No extra happiness?”

  Eric looked bewildered. He wasn’t a man used to considering people’s emotional states.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “He seemed fine.”

  Ellis thanked him again and asked him to come to the station house after making his delivery to repeat his statement on video. Eric, anxiety evident in his eyes, looked at me, and I nodded.

  “Okay,” Eric said.

  Ellis told Officer Meade to alert Detective Brownley to expect Eric later. She nodded and tapped something into her smart phone.

  “So Henri was last seen at one thirty,” Leigh Ann said softly, trying to find hope, trying to find answers.

  “Now we need to—” Ellis broke off as Vicki Crawford’s clomping caught his attention.

  We all turned and watched her cross the lot, her expression fierce.

  “What’s going on?” she demanded.

  “I’m Police Chief Hunter,” Ellis said, matching her tone. “And you are?”

  “Vicki Crawford. I own this place.”

  “Good to meet you. We spoke earlier. As I explained, we’re investigating the disappearance of one of your business associates.”

  “And I told you that I don’t know anything about any disappearance.”

  “Did you see Henri Dubois here yesterday?”

  “Sure, in the morning at the auction, and a couple of times during the afternoon, loading up his van.”

  “Can you pinpoint the last time you saw him?”

  “I don’t keep that close track. It was after lunch, so around twelve thirty. I eat early.”

  “Any altercations?”

  “Altercations? Give me a break. This is a storage f
acility. Why would there be fights?”

  “Did you notice anything usual about Henri?” he asked.

  “Like what?” Vicki asked, impatient and irritated.

  “Like anything. Was he sad? Mad? Glad? Anything?”

  “He was happy to have won the bid. He told me so when he paid for it.”

  “Anything else? Anything later?”

  “This is a business. I don’t ask about people’s moods.”

  “Point taken.” Ellis scanned the lot, his eyes coming to rest on Leigh Ann’s statuelike face. My guess is that she was one rung away from hysteria, but to look at her, you’d never know it. She was totally self-contained. “Our next step, I think, is to open the storage room. Is this your lock?”

  “No,” Vicki said. “I presume it’s his.” Her lips thinned. “It isn’t supposed to be here. The deal is you win the bid, you clear out the unit pronto, by the end of the day, which means he’s forfeited his deposit.”

  “There may be extenuating circumstances,” Ellis said. He turned to Leigh Ann. “Do you have a key?”

  She shook her head. “Henri would have it.”

  Ellis turned to Vicki. “Do you have any shears we can use?”

  “Forget it. No way can you break into a room just on your say-so.”

  “This is his wife,” Ellis said, nodding in Leigh Ann’s direction. “She’s reported him missing. This is an official police investigation.”

  “I don’t know anything about any of that. I don’t know you. I don’t know her. All I know is that the unit is registered in Henri Dubois’s name, not his wife’s, and if you want in, I need to see a piece of paper giving you the right.”

  Ellis didn’t try to get her to change her mind. “I’ll get the paperwork going. It shouldn’t take long to get a court order.”

  “Whenever,” Vicki said. “Let me know. I’ll be in my office.” She marched off.

  I ran after her.

  “Vicki!” I called, and she stopped. “Can we wait in your office? It’s so cold, and it’s, well, it’s kind of an emergency.”

  She shrugged. “Sure.”

  I thanked her, but she waved it aside. Vicki wasn’t wired for gratitude.