Murder in the Museum_Edmund DeCleryk Mysteries

by Karen Shughart

  Ed began renovating his classic sports car and continued restoring the old sailboat that had been sitting in his garage since the previous summer. He attended Bay Association and Rotary board meetings and met some of his retired Navy buddies who had settled in the area for a weekly lunch. Still, he continued to wonder if he and Carrie may have missed something when investigating Emily’s murder.

  One morning over breakfast in early February, Annie told Ed she thought she would go to the museum that day to start looking through the boxes in the basement.

  “You’re ready to do that? Do you need my help?” asked Ed.

  “I am, plus it’s got to be done. The basement is quite dark and will be cold, so yes, I could use your help in bringing them up to my office. I can go through them there. I’m expecting I’ll find mostly junk, but I might discover something that’s worth keeping.”

  Once inside the museum, Annie and Ed walked through Emily’s former office, and Annie turned on a light at the top of the steep wooden steps that led to the basement. The gas furnace and water heater stood on thick, concrete pads placed over a dirt floor along the back wall at the bottom of the steps. The boxes had been stored in an adjacent room, where the only source of light was a bulb on the ceiling that was turned on by a pull string. Even after Annie turned it on, the shadows it cast made it difficult to see.

  Sturdy metal shelves lined one wall, with large cardboard packing boxes stacked two or three each upon them. Ed walked towards the shelves and, because of the dim light, stubbed his toe on two that had been placed in the middle of the floor.

  Exasperated, he groaned, “Annie, why would anyone leave these here on the floor?”

  “I have no idea, Ed. When Donna gave me the building tour before she left to go back to England, I wasn’t all that interested in coming down here. I decided I’d do it some other time, but it’s never been a big priority.”

  The previous museum director, Donna Jones, had been born and raised in England and employed as the director of special projects for the Victoria and Albert Museum in London when her husband, a U.S. Air Force officer stationed at a base there, was reassigned to Fort Drum, in Watertown, NY.

  Bored with attending teas and social events at the base, she conducted an online job search and learned about and applied for a position at the Lighthouse Cove Museum. The museum board of directors, impressed with her credentials, offered her the position within a few days after interviewing her. She resided in the apartment above the museum, with her husband commuting from Watertown to join her on weekends. After a few years, her husband retired, and the couple returned to London where she was rehired at the museum where she’d worked before relocating to the States. She and Annie kept in touch.

  Ed glanced around the room looking for anything else that might be out of place. In addition to a pile of dirt, he saw an old coal furnace, no longer in use; an empty coal bin and next to it, a cast iron coal scuttle. He bent down and peered closely at the scuttle, wondering if the techs had examined it for prints or evidence that might connect it to Emily’s murder. He decided to not say anything to Annie until he thought it through a bit more.

  “Would you like me to start with these two?” he asked, pointing to boxes on the floor.

  “Please. We don’t want anyone to trip over them like you almost did, plus even though the floor feels dry, it’s dirt, so there must be some dampness. Hopefully nothing inside them has been ruined.”

  Ed lifted the first box off the floor and had turned towards the stairs when Annie spied a piece of paper, folded in half, on top of the second box. She picked it up and unfolded it. It looked like a copy of an old map, dated 1785 at the bottom.

  “Wait a minute, Ed, look at this.”

  Ed walked back to Annie and peered at the map.

  “Annie, I know how your imagination works, but before you get carried away, let me remind you that our kids attended a summer camp here years ago. It’s probably a remnant from that. I seem to remember they conducted a big scavenger hunt at the end of the season for the campers where the last stop was a spot where they could dig for treasure that the counselors had buried.”

  “I know, Ed, but this looks more authentic than something a camp counselor drew. Look here, there’s an X marking this spot. You can see the crescent beach, and here’s the bluff plus the park and what appears to be a very primitive lighthouse on the edge of the bluff. Counselors would have drawn a map that depicts the current lighthouse and grounds. Maybe I’m way off base, but I’m wondering if there’s any possibility this could be a copy of a real map. Remember, this entire property has been designated a national historic site.”

  “I wouldn’t get your hopes up, Annie, but if your gut is telling you this might be a facsimile of a real map, you could check with some of the museum board members, especially those with knowledge about the early history of Lighthouse Cove, to see if anyone of them knows anything about this. Maybe they could tell you if there are rumors of buried treasure on this land.”

  Annie smiled. “Even though he’s not been around here all that long, I might ask Charles to look at it. Before he moved here, he brushed up on the history of the southern shores of Lake Ontario. He’s pretty much regarded as an expert, and he has resources to do some research. If he says there’s nothing to it, so be it, but I’d be remiss in not showing it to him.”

  Annie carefully put the paper into the kangaroo pocket of her sweatshirt while Ed carried the first box upstairs and came back for the second. At first, the dim light obscured what was underneath the box, but as Annie glanced down she noticed a large hole beneath it, about two feet deep and 18 inches wide. “What in the world….!” she exclaimed.

  Ed peered the hole. “Why would this be here, Annie?”

  “I’m not sure, Ed, but I seem to remember Donna telling me there had been some plumbing problems with the building some years back,” she responded.

  “Maybe this is where the leak was, and the plumbers had to dig to find the damaged pipes to fix it. That might be where that pile of dirt came from. Then, for whatever reason, they didn’t fill the hole, and someone put the boxes on top to prevent anyone from tripping and falling into it. I can get this filled in, but in the meantime, let’s keep this second box on top of it for safety. Can you pull a couple from those shelves?”

  Ed starting walking over to the shelves, but then stopped, looked at Annie and remarked, “It seems a little odd to me that someone wouldn’t have the common sense to fill this.” He glanced back at the dirt pile and at the coal scuttle.

  “I know you and Donna keep in touch. Do you happen to have her contact information? I’d like to talk with her.”

  Annie laughed. “Really, Ed? Why do you want to talk with Donna? Oh my, you think this might have something to do with Emily’s murder, don’t you? What could Donna possibly know that could help you?”

  “Yes, I’m wondering if there may be a connection to Emily’s murder, but first I want to make sure it doesn’t have anything to do with the plumbing problem. It’s about four p.m. in England, so I can probably still catch Donna at work. If she’s not there, I’ll try and reach her on her cell phone. Do you have both numbers?”

  Annie nodded, opened her contact file in her cell phone and gave Ed Donna’s phone numbers.

  “There won’t be a good connection down here,” he said. “I’ll carry these boxes to your office and then stay there to make the call. If she’s available, would you like to speak with her first?”

  “I would.”

  A few minutes later, after chatting with Donna, Annie handed the phone back to Ed and sat cross-legged on the floor to open the boxes. He related to Annie, after ending the call, that Donna had no idea why the boxes were on the floor or why there was a hole under them. She was certain that the workmen didn’t dig up any pipes.

  Ed asked Annie, “When you were with the techs and Luke after the break-in, did anyone come down here looking for evidence or prints?”

  “I remember one of the
m asking me if we had a basement, and I brought him over to the door and motioned to him to go down the steps. He didn’t tell me that he’d found anything, but surely he would have mentioned it to you or Carrie if he had.”

  “He didn’t say a word to me, or to Carrie as far as I know, so it’s possible the tech found nothing suspicious. If those boxes were on the floor, it may have appeared to him that they belonged there, and like the rest of us, he may have assumed the crime was committed upstairs,” Ed noted.

  “But maybe that’s a wrong assumption. Maybe someone was in the basement the morning Emily was killed, in the process of digging up something.”

  He continued, “Emily may have interrupted whatever that person was doing. It’s possible she heard something in the basement and went down to investigate what the noise was. Not wanting to be discovered, the murderer picked up that coal scuttle and hit her with it, maybe just planning to knock her out so he could escape undetected. But he hit her hard enough to fracture her skull and when he saw what he’d done, he assumed he’d killed her, panicked, picked her up and threw her off the bluff, hoping that because it was still dark out and because of the high water and rough surf no one would find her for months, if ever. That’s probably how her neck was broken and how she sustained all the other injuries. He must have figured she’d just go missing, crime never solved. He probably didn’t see her coat and belongings in her office so didn’t dispose of them, which is why Charles knew she’d been here.”

  “You think the coal scuttle could be the murder weapon, Ed? If that’s true, then why wouldn’t Emily’s killer take it with him?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine, Annie. He may have been wearing gloves so wasn’t worried about his prints being on it. Or he may have been on foot and decided it was too awkward to carry, or in his haste to get out, just forgot about it.

  “Coal scuttles are typically made of cast iron, so yes, I think it could be the murder weapon. If it was dusted for prints there were probably too many on it to provide any conclusive evidence and, as I said, the killer could have been wearing gloves. I’m going to take it over to the police station and ask that they get it over to the crime lab to see if the splinters they removed from Emily’s head might be from the scuttle. I’m assuming they kept them along with other evidence in a cold case file. Why don’t you come with me?”

  “I’d like to stay here and finish this, Ed.”

  He expressed concern. “I’m still uneasy about you being here alone right now, Annie. Can’t we agree that until the season starts you have someone with you when you’re here? I’d feel much better about it.”

  “You’re a dear man, Ed, and I know your concern is because you love me, but you’re being really irrational,” said Annie, giving him a withering look. “We’ve been through this before. It’s plain daylight, and it’s been a few months since Emily’s murder. If the killer wanted to return to the museum, he would have done so already.

  “If it was a random break-in and the burglar was looking for something he could pawn for money, he’s not going to want to come back and risk getting caught, especially in broad daylight,” she argued.

  “Plus, we now have better security. I’ll lock the door, and you can come get me when you’re finished. I’ll be fine.” She grabbed a pencil and wrote some numbers on a piece of paper. “Here’s the code to the keypad. You can let yourself in.”

  Ed reluctantly left the building, knowing that his strong-willed wife would not leave until she finished her project.

  Chapter 30

  Several minutes later, Annie heard someone walking down the hall, but it was way too soon for Ed to have returned. She tensed as she listened to the footsteps, then got up from her desk and called out, “Hello. Anybody here?” Heart beating fast and hearing no response, she walked to the door of her office and peered around the corner into the hallway. Then she saw him.

  “Good grief, Annie, you startled me.”

  “Oh, it’s you, Charles.” Annie took a deep breath. “Didn’t you hear me call out?”

  Charles shook his head. “No, but my hearing’s not that great, and I didn’t put my hearing aids in this morning. Sorry if I scared you. What are you doing here? I didn’t see any cars in the parking lot so didn’t think anyone would be in the building.”

  “Ed dropped me off. He had to run something over to the police station but will come back for me once he’s finished there. I decided to take the morning to go through some archived materials I found in boxes in the basement to see what’s salvageable and what can be tossed. What are you doing here?” asked Annie.

  “My doctor wants me to take a brisk walk every day; says it’ll be good for my heart and for the Parkinson’s. Since I’ll be leaving to go back to Canada in several months, I thought I’d walk over here and start organizing my files for the next president.”

  Wearing baggy old tan corduroy pants, scuffed brown leather hiking boots and a red plaid shirt under a green down vest, Charles looked more like an old prospector than a retired professor. Amused, Annie observed that the slightly rumpled look was very out of character for him.

  “How are you feeling?” She noticed the more defined tremor in his hands, pale face and dark shadows under his eyes.

  “I’ve good and bad days, Annie, but I’m not going to sit around and mope. I have lots of things to take care of before I go back to Canada.”

  “I’ve something to show you.”

  She pulled the map out of her sweatshirt and was just starting to hand it to him when Ed walked through the door into her office and asked, “Annie, why is the front door unlocked? Oh, hello, Charles.”

  “The door was locked, Ed,” replied Charles sheepishly. “I came in to do some work and used the keypad to let myself in, but I’ve been so preoccupied lately, I guess I forgot to lock the door behind me. As I mentioned to Annie, I didn’t see any cars in the lot. I figured I’d be here by myself.”

  “I was just starting to show Charles the map, Ed,” she said as she handed it to Charles.

  “Do you think this could be a copy of a real map?” she asked.

  Charles glanced at the map, and as he started to examine it, his already pale face became bone white, and his hands shook so hard that he dropped it. “Sorry. I’m having a bad spell.”

  Ed quickly pulled a straight-backed wooden chair from a corner of the office and Charles sat down in it, breathing rapidly, while Annie picked up the map. After a couple minutes, his breath slowed. He held out his hand for the map and Annie handed it to him. He nodded and then clearing his throat and, pursing his lips, stared at the map.

  “Why do you want me to do research on this, Annie? It looks like a crude drawing done by someone with an overactive imagination. I can’t imagine it has any historical significance.”

  “That’s just what Ed thought, too, Charles,” replied Annie, “but I’m not so sure. It’s dated at the bottom, and the writing looks ancient, like the original was drawn with a quill pen. The rendering of the shoreline seems like it could be an accurate representation of Lighthouse Cove back in the late 18th century. If there’s even a remote possibility that this is a copy of a real one, I’d be remiss in not asking you to research it for me.”

  “Annie, if it’s that important to you, I’ll take it home and see what I can find. I have a couple of colleagues I can call who would be happy to help. But even if it is a copy of an old map, without knowing where the real one is or who created it and why, this one isn’t going to have much value.”

  A bit disheartened, Annie argued, “But if it is a copy of an authentic map, we wouldn’t need the real one. We can use this one to see if there’s anything buried on the property where the X is marked. And if the original is also somewhere on the premises, we could display it with the other artifacts here. It would be a great tourist draw.”

  Charles’ hands started shaking again and his breathing again became rapid and shallow.

  “I’m not feeling very well right now, Annie. These spe
lls come on very quickly, so I think I’ll grab a couple of files and go home and look more closely at this when I get there. I can come back some other day when I’m feeling better to finish up my work here. I’ll get back to you, but don’t get your hopes up,” Charles admonished.

  “I don’t need to stay with Annie while she goes through the boxes, Charles. Would you like me to drive you home?” asked Ed.

  “I got here on my own power, and I can also get home on it. I don’t need you to drive me,” Charles responded testily, then remembering his manners, thanked Ed. “I appreciate the offer, but it’s only a few blocks, and there are benches along the way if I need to stop. I’ll be fine.”

  He turned to Annie. “I’ll call you as soon as I have any information about this map.”

  As Charles walked down the hall to the entrance, Annie commented, “This is so sad. Charles’ health seems to be worsening, and I wonder if he’ll actually be well enough to make the move back to Canada.”

  Ed shrugged his shoulders and said, “He really should have let me drive him home. Still, you’ve got to respect him. He’s doing the best he can to stay active and remain independent for as long as possible.”

  After Charles left the building, Ed told Annie about his visit to the police station. Ben had reluctantly agreed to have the coal scuttle examined to see if Emily’s DNA was on it and if the splinters from her skull were from the scuttle, but he said he still believed the case had gone cold.

  “We agreed that unless we find Emily’s DNA on the scuttle, there’s no way we’ll be able to prove that that’s what fractured her skull. Ben said he’ll also have the lab check again for fingerprints, but as you and I discussed earlier, if we find some it won’t necessarily implicate anyone because lots of people, including those who’ve served on the board, could have handled it at some point. We still aren’t positive she actually was killed in the museum, but it’s worth a shot, just in case something turns up.”