Corpse in the Carnations

by Dale Mayer

  “But not the way you think,” he said gently.

  She frowned at him. “What do you mean?”

  “He was the DB at the scene.”

  It took her a moment to figure out what DB meant Dead Body. “Oh, my God! You mean, he’s dead?”

  He nodded. “Looks like a self-inflicted wound.”

  “So he kills his girlfriend, dumps her in front of the Family Planning Center, goes home, and shoots himself?” It almost made sense.

  As Mack rolled his shoulders in a big shrug, she realized it was probably something he’d seen many times.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “That seems like a lot of effort to then turn around and take your own life.”

  “It depends,” he said. “You know people in a rage often do things they regret. These two were known to have had a very volatile relationship.”

  “But it’s very cold and calculating to dump her body on the grounds of the Family Planning Center,” she said, “and then to return to the house where he shot her just to shoot himself. That takes it from passionate rage to very clear thinking. Wouldn’t he talk himself out of suicide at that point? Plus that wouldn’t work according to the gunshots I heard. Two and then two, right in succession. So, unless you found more bullets, … I don’t think that theory will hold.”

  “Forensics is on it,” he said. “But that is what it looks like. We have to wait for the coroner to get back to us with his ruling as well of course.”

  She was happy for him if it was solved so quickly. “It would be nice if it was an open-and-shut case. What about the vehicles, did you find those?”

  He nodded. “They were parked in the back. It would be nice to have a quick close to this, so don’t go making trouble where there isn’t any,” he warned.

  She gave him an innocent look. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “The other thing you could do potentially,” he said, “is rent a storage locker and put all this stuff in it.”

  “Sure. And how will I pay for the storage unit and who’ll look after the storage locker?” she asked.

  “Good questions,” he said with the laugh. “But at least those units are behind locked entry gates, and you would have a lock on the storage container itself.”

  She frowned, not sure how she felt about it. “Maybe. I’ll think about it.”

  “You do that. In the meantime, I’ll send somebody around to see if we can grab some fingerprints.”

  She brightened at that idea. “That’s a good thing. Check the chair and the doorknob and the hutch. I don’t know what else. Obviously mine and Fen Gunderson’s are all over the place.”

  He nodded. “Okay. I’ll see you in a little bit then.” At that, he took off, not giving her a chance to ask why she’d see him again.

  In the meantime she would get some food and that coffee she had forgotten about. Because, as soon as that local appraiser called her, she would need all kinds of information from him.

  Chapter 14

  Saturday mid-morning…

  She looked at the local appraiser, stunned. “Those numbers … They’re just flabbergasting,” she said.

  He chuckled. “They are, indeed. You’ve got quite a windfall here. I talked to Nan many years ago about selling this living room set.” He looked at the couch and chairs. “That you’ve got both chairs is amazing.”

  “You mean, the two side chairs and the couch?” she asked.

  He nodded. “They were originally part of a large bedroom set. But to find even three—four, counting the coffee table—pieces together is pretty special. There should be a little end table and a large bed with night tables and more. If you had the entire thing, I think you’d be looking upward of fifty thousand dollars. Possibly a lot more.”

  She sank into the closest chair.

  He smiled. “Only if the set was complete.”

  She swallowed hard. “Do you want to come and take a look at the bed I’ve been sleeping in?”

  “Are you serious?”

  She shrugged. “It has the same kind of scrollwork on the posts as the couch does.”

  His face lit with excitement. “Where is it?”

  She pulled herself to her feet and letting Mugs race ahead so he didn’t trip her as they went up the stairs. As they got to the top, she saw Thaddeus sleeping on one corner bed post and Goliath stretched out across her bed.

  The appraiser came into the room and exclaimed, “Oh, my God! Oh, my God! It is! Oh, my goodness.” He just stood with his hands over his mouth in absolute delight.

  “So I guess I’ll be looking for a new bed then?”

  “Do you want to sell this?” He turned to her. “I do have private buyers, and I can put you in touch with the auction house.”

  She nodded and pointed at the night tables. “I think they’re the same, aren’t they?”

  He removed the lamp from one and carefully picked it up, rotating it to check the back. He sighed happily. “Not only is it one of them, but it’s absolutely the same mark as the couch and the chairs downstairs. We must do a further exam to ensure they’re all the exact same set of pieces. But it looks like you have almost a complete set.”

  “I would like to sell it,” she said. “I’d like to sell as much of it as possible. I won’t sleep well or at all, knowing so many valuables are in the house, and I don’t have a security system.”

  He looked absolutely horrified at the idea. “Give me half an hour to get this process started. Do you have a table where I can sit down and work?”

  She led him back downstairs to the kitchen table, where he made phone calls as he opened his laptop. “Do you have photographs?”

  “I have what I took yesterday.” She brought up her laptop and showed him what she had.

  “Okay, it’ll take me a few hours to photograph the maker’s marks, and we do need to see if you have any provenance for these pieces. But the fact is, the furniture bears the marks, and that’ll give it a certain amount of value. If they’re legally obtained, or if you have some bright and colorful history you can document, that’ll add more value to it.” The excitement never left his countenance.

  She nodded. “How quickly can we make any of this happen?”

  “Not that quickly,” he said. “I get that you’re worried and want to move it. But it’ll still probably be at least a week.”

  She sighed. “Okay, then I need to make sure this place stays safe.”

  “You certainly do.” He focused on her. “And I know the bed is one you’ve been sleeping in, but …” He let his words dwindle away.

  She nodded. “Maybe I shouldn’t sleep in it anymore?”

  “I don’t even want to say that to you,” he said, “because obviously it’s been in good use all these years, and that’s what it was intended for.” He spoke apologetically.

  She nodded. “Still, I’m not sure I need to sleep in that particular bed.”

  “But we’re jumping ahead of ourselves here. Let’s get the photos done. Then you can get back to me after we’ve heard from Christie’s. Maybe. I don’t know which is better. I think for this set, probably Christie’s,” he said, “but I will contact them. And they will want to see the photos, so that’ll be first. I do have a camera with me. I’m quite used to taking photographs, if that is okay with you.”

  “Yes. And …” She hesitated.

  He looked up at her. “What is it, my dear?”

  “I already had an intruder last night,” she said. “After Fen Gunderson was here. I’m just a little worried that, once you take the photographs and leave, there’ll be, you know, other people finding out about this.”

  “It certainly won’t be from me,” he said, “because I’ll get a finder’s fee. So it’s in my best interests to help you make this auction happen with Christie’s. If anybody steals anything, it’s not because of me.”

  “Of course,” she said. “I don’t mean to imply you would steal anything. I’m just really nervous.”

  “With good re
ason,” he explained. “Let’s get the photographs done and take care of that part.”

  It was a methodical and slow process. They upended every chair and took pictures from every angle. As they went through the entire living room and then the master bedroom, he taught her how to check for the marks and what particular mark was left on each of the sets.

  By the time they were done with the bed, both night tables, and the living room furniture—including the coffee table—she understood what he was excited about. “So you’re saying, all seven of these pieces—the coffee table, two chairs and the couch, the two night tables and the bed—all had that same maker’s mark, plus the same little … I don’t know what you call it … but the number of the set.”

  He nodded. “Exactly. Not only do you have most of a ten-piece set, but they are also part of one set made at the same time. Now a few pieces are missing, which is a shame, but it’s certainly understandable after all these years that they aren’t all here.”

  She walked around the first floor. “I know a basement door is here somewhere, and Nan did say she had more pieces down there, but I haven’t found the access door, and I’m sure we can’t deal with all that at the moment anyway.”

  He nodded. “If we do find it as we go forward, it’ll just add to the excitement. At the moment, what you have is already pretty incredible.”

  She gave a happy sigh and sat back.

  “Now I must ask you,” he said. “Do you have the right to sell these?”

  She nodded. “Nan gave me the house and its contents. We have legal documents to that effect, and I spoke to her yesterday about the antiques in particular. She said they’re mine to sell as I want.”

  “That’s very generous of her,” he said. “Does she understand the value of all these pieces?”

  “I gave her a lot of the values as I understood them yesterday from Fen, but of course, I didn’t know about the set being that much more. I can certainly ask her again, but I’m pretty sure she’ll give the same response, telling me it’s mine.”

  “That would be lovely.” He almost rubbed his hands together in glee. “I’ll send off these photos to Christie’s. I have an agent there I deal with. I should hear back by tomorrow afternoon at the latest.”

  She smiled. “But you said it would take at least a week.”

  “Yes, for the overall sales and delivery process, it could be quite a bit longer,” he said. “But I should speak to someone from Christie’s by phone by tomorrow. So just keep it to yourself, don’t tell anybody, and live your life.”

  She smiled.

  He looked at her, reached out to shake her hand, and said, “Remember all these pieces have been here for years. So don’t panic, don’t worry about damaging them, just live your life.”

  She walked him out the front door and smiled. He turned and put his card in her hand.

  She went back in and tucked the card into her purse so she wouldn’t lose it. She sat down in the living room, thinking of the words he had just said about living her life, yet, she was absolutely petrified to sit on the couch. It was too freaking much money. As long as she could keep these valuable antiques from being gossiped about, then maybe she would be fine. Then she could focus on finding out more about Fen Gunderson’s grandson.

  And something was seriously wrong about Celeste’s body being found on the Family Planning Center property and her boyfriend’s at the Hawthorne house. She knew the police wouldn’t find out all the answers, especially if they had decided this was a murder-suicide case. She knew the questions from the authorities would just stop. They wouldn’t even be looking for answers.

  Then she remembered what she’d said to the appraiser.

  She picked up the phone. “Good morning, Nan,” she said when her grandmother answered the phone.

  “Good morning. How did you sleep last night?”

  “Okay,” she said. “I think we had an intruder in the house.”

  Nan’s gasp of shock filled the phone.

  “I’m okay though,” Doreen said.

  “I’m so sorry, dear. We never did put any kind of security in there. It seems like, all the years I lived in the house, it was a very different town. But nowadays we have a lot of homeless people. Maybe he was just looking for a place to rest.”

  “Nan?” Doreen hesitated, not knowing how she would broach the subject.

  “Yes, dear?”

  “Did you tell anybody about the antiques?”

  “No, of course not,” she said. “But lots of people already know about them. I’ve been collecting them for years, decades even. I’ve had various people over to appraise them. Have to, for insurance purposes.”

  “So the house and the contents are currently insured?” Doreen asked, holding her breath.

  “Of course, dear.”

  Doreen waited for more, but her grandmother said nothing else. “Where did you get the bedroom set and the couch set from?”

  “Well, that was my grandmother’s. I didn’t buy that. When you sleep at night, my dear, you’re sleeping like royalty.” She chuckled. “That entire set came from her. But I’m not exactly sure where she got it. I think it’s been in the family for well over one hundred years.”

  Doreen stared at the phone. “From your grandmother?”

  “Yes, my dear. I was born too, you know.”

  She said it with such a sense of humor that Doreen laughed. “Of course you were. And a sweetheart you are now. I imagine you were an absolutely adorable baby. What about your mother? Didn’t she want the set?”

  “She hated antiques, so my grandmother gave it all to me. And she had had it for all of her married life. That was close to fifty years, if not sixty,” Nan said thoughtfully. “I’ve had it since, jeez, since she passed away, so it’s been at least eighty years, if not one hundred years, in our family. I was born late in my mother’s life, and Mother was born late in Nan’s life.”

  “You have no idea where your grandmother got it?”

  “No. It’s in the paperwork in a folder somewhere.”

  “Right. I haven’t had a chance to look for that yet.” Doreen spun around in the kitchen, wondering where the folder could possibly be.

  “What about the body at the Family Planning Center?” Nan asked. “Did you hear any more about that?”

  “Yeah. The boyfriend, Josh Huberts, was found dead at the house where I heard the gunshots,” she muttered. Her gaze studied the cupboards in front of her. She opened them, looking for the paperwork.

  “Interesting,” Nan said. “Because, once you realize who it was, I figure it has to be related to Fen Gunderson.”

  Doreen froze. “Nan, what are you talking about?”

  “The boyfriend was the grandson of the handyman accused of kidnapping Fen Gunderson’s grandson.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yes,” Nan said. “It was a terrible time back then. And I don’t know that the handyman really had any evil reason for picking up the boy. Maybe he was just giving him a ride home.”

  “What time of year did it happen?” Doreen asked, trying to confirm the details from the newspaper articles.” It was summertime, right?” She thought it was May or June.

  “Oh, my goodness. Must have been late spring or early summer. We had high floods that year,” Nan said. “And I know that really hampered the search efforts. They had assumed originally he had drowned because lots of the streets were flooded, and we had flash floods all the time. But that theory was tossed out the window once somebody came forth and said they saw Paul get into Hubert’s truck.”

  “Oh,” Doreen said. A lot of thoughts were piling in on her. “Nan, if you hear any more about that, or if you have any thoughts about where that provenance folder is, can you let me know? I’ll be staying home mostly for the next few days, just so I can keep track of what might be… To make sure nobody tries to steal my antiques.”

  “Not a problem,” Nan said. “I wouldn’t mind coming over. Maybe today or tomorrow. A lot of history is in that
old house. Now, as I recall, one or two of the pieces had hidden drawers.” Her voice faded away.

  Doreen’s ears perked up. “Seriously?”

  “Yes, absolutely. But I don’t remember which ones. And I’m not sure how to get into them anymore. I remember playing with them at my Nan’s house and always finding little candies and toys hidden away.”

  “That sounds absolutely lovely,” Doreen said warmly. “Anyway, Nan, I’ll talk to you later. Whenever you want to come over, just let me know. I can either come and pick you up in the car, or I can walk there, and we can walk home together.”

  “Ha. I’m walking just fine. When you least expect it, I’ll show up.”

  After she hung up, Doreen grabbed her notebook and wrote down what Nan had said. Then she opened up a file on her laptop, labeling it Paul Shore.

  As soon as she had a file started, she wrote down the details as she remembered them. Because all she could think of was that lost little boy and how his grandfather had been so very helpful to Doreen. It was the least she could do.

  As soon as she finished that, she searched through every one of the kitchen cupboards, looking for Nan’s folder. If that had any kind of provenance for these pieces, then she needed it. And she needed it soon. She didn’t have a clue how much money all this stuff would bring in the end. It wouldn’t be enough to set her up for life, she guessed, but, if it gave her some kind of a monthly income until she was a little better established, she would be more than happy with that.

  An hour later she was beyond frustrated. She found no folders in the hall closet, in the front closet, in the living room closet, or in any of the kitchen cupboards. She groaned, made herself a cup of tea, and walked out to the living room to sit down again. This time she sat on the floor. Then she remembered what Fen had said about the carpet. And she bounced back to her feet. She walked into the kitchen, grabbed a kitchen chair, and brought that to the living room to sit on.

  “This is ridiculous,” she said, realizing she was being foolish. She’d already spilled coffee and tea on the furniture and the rug. She put her tea on the coffee table with a coaster, grabbed her laptop, and sat on the couch. She loved that Nan’s grandmother used to hide treats in hidden drawers in some of these old pieces. That was an absolutely special memory. And she was grateful she had the relationship she did with Nan now.