Yesterday's Shadow: A Lacey Summers Mystery

by Curry, Edna

  “Yeah, I guess so,” Ben conceded, sighing. “But I have to check out every possible angle. Not much to go on so far, you know.”

  “Oh.”

  “You realize that the burglar may come back.” Ben studied her face sympathetically. “Why don’t you stay in town with your mother at Jerry’s place? It would be safer.”

  “I suppose it would,” she agreed. “But you know how they are,” she said, thinking of her mother’s hovering and her stepbrother’s sharp tongue. “We never got along. No, Ben, I’d rather stay here. I have my pistol and Scamp.”

  Ben nodded, noting the stubborn defiance on her face.

  “Too bad it’s Sunday. But I’ll speed up the phone company a bit to get this repaired tomorrow, and have someone fix this window, too. You ready for a look at the shop, then?”

  “In a minute. I’d better dress up a bit. I’m bound to see lots of people before the day’s over. Can’t shock Mom too much, you know.”

  She changed into a soft blue slacks and sweater set, and grabbed her raincoat in case it began to rain again.

  She drove into town behind them and spent a painful hour looking over Henry’s shop. She could see little that was different from before.

  They went into the office at the back of his shop where he’d been killed, and Lacey shuddered at the telltale brown stains on the papers still lying on his desk. Involuntarily, she saw again Uncle Henry’s short, burly body sitting at his desk, chain-smoking as he worked on his accounts. He loved book work, unlike most men, so he had always spent a good deal of time in this office.

  In fact, there was his ceramic bear ashtray, still full of cigarette butts, as though he had just walked out of the room. The short, bent, white stubs with the green, menthol line and brand letters around them seemed to stare, back at her mockingly. One slim brown stub among all the white stubs bespoke a visitor who had smoked a different brand.

  She could almost see Henry here, reaching out to snuff out one cigarette as he talked, then a moment later, lighting up another, leaning back in his swivel chair to blow rings of smoke at the light over his desk.

  She shook away the image, and steeled herself against the pain.

  “Find something?”

  “No, only that he had a visitor,” she said, nodding at the ash tray.

  “Yes. I noticed that. But it doesn’t tell us when the visitor was here. The ashtray obviously hadn’t been emptied for days. Henry wasn’t that neat.”

  “That’s true. So it may mean nothing.” She turned away and began going through the stained, scattered papers on his desk, but could see nothing unusual. They were just the usual monthly bills and some receipts for items that Henry had recently bought, and was apparently in the act of filing when he was killed.

  Lacey sighed and went back out into the showroom, where Ben was pacing about, deep in thought.

  Then Mark Lantro walked in. Lacey’s pulse sped up by several beats in spite of herself. She reminded herself of her early morning suspicions, but now, in daylight, they seemed unlikely. How could this tall, soft-spoken professor possibly do what she had suspected? It was a crazy idea best returned to the dreamworld that had spawned it.

  She was glad now that she had said nothing of those suspicions to the Sheriff. Ben obviously knew Mark better than she, and she had told him of his visit. If Ben had thought it odd, he had said nothing. Perhaps, after all, Mark had only been doing the expected, neighborly thing.

  Mark was again casually dressed, this time in brown slacks, a cream-colored shirt and his soft suede deerskin jacket.

  Unbidden, the feel and scent of him as he had held her in his arms when she had cried last night leapt into her mind. She felt a warm flush rise to her cheeks.

  Mark smiled at her as though he could read her thoughts, saying, “I thought I’d find you here,” then turned to Ben, asking, “Find anything?”

  Ben shook his head. They talked about Mark’s visit last night at her cabin, and speculated on possible reasons for the intruder’s attempt at entry. Lacey’s eyes roved about the room as she listened, then suddenly riveted on a bare spot on the far wall, a chill slid down her spine.

  “Ben,” she said, “One of Henry’s pictures is gone.”

  “What?” Ben’s sharp brown eyes swung round to her at the sudden interruption.

  “Look up there on the wall, between The Three Horses in Storm and Rosa Bonheur’s Horse Fair. See the bare space between pictures? One is missing.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure. The killer must have taken it.”

  “But Henry might have sold it. You said yourself that he could have bought or sold lots of things since you were here last,” Ben said.

  “I suppose so. But Henry always rearranged the pictures as soon as he sold any. It was one of his quirks. He liked to have all of them in a certain order.”

  “Think, Lacey. Can you remember which picture it was?”

  She frowned, trying to remember the order Henry had them in. Suddenly she was sure, and a coldness gripped the pit of her stomach as she realized which one it was. “The picture was The Lone Wolf,” she said.

  Ben eyed her closely. “Positive?”

  Her eyes swept the wall looking for the blue and black tones of the missing picture, hoping Henry had only moved it. But it wasn’t there.

  She nodded. “Yes. Besides, he said he was waiting for me to bring him some information on that picture this weekend.”

  “Then you did talk to him since you were here last?” Ben frowned, rubbing the side of his nose thoughtfully with a large forefinger.

  “No. He wrote me a letter on Monday night. I got it on Wednesday. He said that he had a buyer for that picture, but he wanted more information about it. That was why I was supposed to come out this Friday night, after I got off work.”

  “But you didn’t arrive until Saturday afternoon.” As usual when Ben was upset or frustrated, his voice was getting louder and more belligerent, even though he was talking to someone he knew well. Her dander began to rise along with his voice, and her cheeks flushed. Did Ben suspect her, for heaven’s sake? No one had loved Henry more than she.

  “A burglar broke into Lacey’s apartment Thursday night,” Mark put in. “She was busy on Friday night cleaning up the mess he left behind.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Ben turned to look down the long length of his hooked nose at Mark. “And just how do you know what she was doing? I know you both live in Minneapolis, but didn’t you tell our whole card group just last weekend you didn’t know Henry’s niece?”

  “I didn’t know her then.” Mark returned calmly.

  Lacey held her breath. Shut up, Mark, for God’s sake! I don’t want this whole gossipy small town to know you spent the evening at my apartment. They would never believe it was innocent.

  Chapter 5

  “Explain yourself,” Ben said belligerently.

  “Henry introduced us himself this week by sending us both to the same library on a rush research errand for him. Maybe he was playing cupid,” Mark said calmly, not backing down an inch before Ben’s anger, yet revealing little.

  “Is that right, Lacey?” Ben turned on her.

  What Mark had said was what he had told her he thought had happened. Now he was telling it to the sheriff as fact. She was about to deny it, when she realized she couldn’t give any better explanation for their meeting. Until she knew the real one, it was as good as any. She could hardly admit to the straight-laced sheriff that she had allowed a strange man to give her a ride home from the library in a large city like Minneapolis. She knew he would consider it a pick-up. Mark had made it sound like a formal introduction by her uncle.

  “I never saw him before he wanted the same book I was using at the Minneapolis library Thursday night,” she agreed. “Why? What does it matter when we met, anyway?”

  “Don’t suppose it does.” Ben’s anger cooled a bit, and he lit a cigarette thoughtfully. “I just don’t like things that don’t jibe. Tel
l me about the burglary.”

  “What’s to tell? Mark gave me a ride home from the library and left. I found my landlord waiting up for me. He told me someone had broken into my apartment and left it in a mess.” Be damned if she was going to tell him the embarrassing part about the slashed finery and the detective’s theory of a jealous husband or lover.

  “What was taken?” Ben asked.

  “That’s what is so funny. The only thing I noticed missing was a copy of The Lone Wolf just like here. Isn’t that odd?” Lacey asked.

  Ben looked incredulous. “More than odd. What was so special about that picture? You said you both did research for Henry on it.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well? What did you find out? Was it famous or valuable? Stolen perhaps? Anything like that?”

  Lacey shook her head. “Why should there be?” The idea had never crossed her mind, but now it sent a cold shiver of fear sliding down her back.

  “No special reason. I just don’t believe in coincidences. Seems to me too much has been happening too close together not to have some connection. I can call the Minneapolis department and ask if they found anything suspicious. I’ll need the address. Didn’t mean to upset you,” he said more kindly. “Do you still have that letter from Henry?”

  She nodded.

  “I’d like to see it, if you don’t mind.”

  Lacey dug it out of her purse and handed it to him.

  Mark grinned, commenting wryly, “What women don’t carry in their purses.”

  Lacey glared at him, about to make a comment of her own but Ben was asking Mark if Henry had written to him as well.

  “No, just phoned on Wednesday night,” Mark returned. “I’m afraid I don’t have any proof to show you. You’ll have to just take my word for it.” There was quiet assurance in his manner, and although Ben didn’t look pleased, there seemed to be little he could say.

  “Did Henry say why he wanted the information?”

  “No. He’s often asked me to look something up for him so I didn’t think it unusual. You know he hated the city, wouldn’t even go into town when he needed something from there like research.”

  With a “Humph,” Ben stuffed Lacey’s letter in his pocket. “The address on the envelope was for your apartment there, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes. But I’d like that letter back when you’re through with it, Ben,” Lacey said quietly. “It’s the last one I got from Henry.”

  “Sure thing, Lacey.” His voice had a gruff tone, but she noted there was a catch in it. Ben wasn’t as hard-boiled as he pretended.

  “Who else besides Mark knows you in both Minneapolis and Landers?”

  “Why...Arthur and my family, of course. Marion Sanderson has been in to visit me and go shopping, and Karen from work has been out here for a party,” she added slowly. “But, Ben, I know that none of them would have done that. And Mark was with me at the time,” she defended them all.

  “If we assume the killer took that picture, then I’d better have all the stuff you learned about it. How much it might be worth, when and where Henry bought it, and whatever else you dug up for him. Maybe if you can take time to go through Henry’s stuff here, Lacey, you might be able to find some record of whom he was planning to sell it to. A letter of inquiry, or note he made. Anything.”

  “All right, Ben. Today?”

  “Now, if you can. It would really help me out. Your mom came last night, didn’t she? I reckon she’ll take over the family duties anyway, knowing Kate. The funeral’s tomorrow, isn’t it? Hate to bother you today, but it shouldn’t take long.”

  “I’ll help you, Lacey,” Mark offered.

  “That won’t be necessary,” she began, drawing a quick breath at the very thought of working closely with him. But Ben was already thanking him and taking his leave.

  “How about lunch? Is that time enough? I’ll meet you both at, say, noon across the street. You can tell me whether you find anything,” Ben said.

  “Fine,” Mark agreed, and before she could say a word, Ben touched his hat and strode out the door.

  Again her doubts and suspicions came forward, but the tingle of excitement at the idea of being alone with Mark again crowded them out.

  “I’ll make some coffee,” she said to cover her flushed cheeks. “This may take a while.” She filled the coffee pot on the table in the corner from the sink in the little bathroom-workroom next to it, and plugged it in. She spilled part of the coffee grounds, glancing at Mark to see if he’d noticed. He had, but only grinned and handed her a wet paper towel to wipe them up.

  They spent the next two hours painstakingly combing Henry’s records.

  A shiver coursed through her body as it occurred to her that if Mark were the killer, she and Ben were giving him the perfect excuse to hunt through Henry’s files for whatever it was he wanted. Then she told herself that was silly, and smiled at his head of wavy black hair bent over a folder of papers. That wayward lock had fallen down over his forehead again, giving him a boyish air.

  She was glad she had met him, however it had come about, by Henry’s instigation or not. Somehow she felt sure he would have approved of her friendship with Mark.

  He looked up and smiled in return. “What was that for?”

  “Nothing. I was just wondering if Henry did, after all, mean to introduce us. If not, how did we happen to both be at that library at once?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe he was just overanxious about this one sale, for some reason, and only asked both of us to do the same thing to be doubly sure he got the information. After all, he couldn’t have known when we would go there, or even which branch of the library we might try when.”

  “True. I got the letter on Wednesday. Only I had a meeting to go to that night, so I waited until Thursday night.”

  “And he might have assumed that I would use my computer instead of the public library. Or the university library.”

  “Yes, of course he might have.” She poured their coffee and handed a mug to him. “Why didn’t you?”

  “I did try both first. But I didn’t have much luck. Most of their information didn’t go back far enough.”

  “Oh,” she said, trying not to watch the way that one curl kept falling over his right eyebrow.

  “Then maybe it was just Fate that we met,” he grinned.

  “Maybe,” she agreed, that tingle running through her middle again. This man was dangerous. With a supreme effort she brought her mind back to what they were searching for.

  “Speaking of computers, that’s the one thing we haven’t gone through,” she said, remembering Henry “newest toy,” as he had called it.

  “Well, yes,” Mark agreed doubtfully, looking at the desk top model sitting on a corner table by itself. “Only I don’t know a thing about that one. Mine runs on Windows 7, and this one doesn’t, I’m sure. I don’t recognize any of the software. Do you?”

  “Of course. Henry and I set up the system together right after he bought it for himself at Christmas a few years ago. Said it was a present to himself. But he never trusted it. That’s why he still has everything in filing cabinets, too. Said he wasn’t good enough at it, yet. He would still occasionally erase things without meaning to.”

  “Well, that can happen to anyone, not just a novice.”

  He made a wry face. “I’ve done it more than once, myself.”

  She sat at the desk and booted up the computer, checking the recent files used. Henry had been using the word-processing system, and the most recently opened data was one of his sales files. She closed the drive and opened the file, her fingers tapping keys with the easy confidence of long practice.

  She had spent many an enjoyable hour playing with this last winter. Armstrong Investigations had laid her off for a month in February and she had spent the long, cold Minnesota winter days in this very snug office both helping Henry and enjoying herself playing on the keyboard, learning its many quirks.

  “We’re in luck. He was working on these no
t too long ago, so they may have something.” She opened file after file and scrolled them across the screen so they could read them, but nothing looked the least bit unusual.

  Henry had evidently enjoyed playing with his new toy and had typed in lots of details of various items he had bought and sold. Meticulous lists of items bought, the prices paid on what date and then when sold, the price received for that item and then the difference, apparently in preparation for income tax time.

  “Odd,” she frowned. “The dates are all wrong.”

  “What do you mean, wrong?”

  “The computer automatically adds the time and date that a file is saved. But these are all a month old or more. So why was this CD in the drive?”

  “Maybe Henry just looked back at something, then it would still carry the same date, wouldn’t it?”

  “Yes, but the modem is all hooked up to the computer. See, the phone jacks go through the modem to the computer for keyboard control of direct dialing, etc. Neat, eh?”

  “Right,” Mark said dryly. “Just like the one I used to use. But if Henry had a modem, why did he ask me to do the on-line research? No high speed internet out here?”

  “There is, of course. But Henry just used dial-up. Said he didn’t use it enough to pay the high speed fees. And dial-up ties up his phone line. If I can find the CDs he was using for back-up, maybe he saved what he was looking up.”

  “And maybe not. I only save stuff if I find what I was looking for.”

  After trying a couple without success, she exclaimed, “Here’s a file saved at 9:00 p.m. Wednesday. Aha. He was looking up The Lone Wolf!”

  “Bingo!” Mark crowed leaning over her shoulder, sending a warm shiver through her.

  “But it yields almost nothing.”

  “That must have been when he phoned me in frustration,” Mark said. “Let’s see what else he’s got on those pictures.”

  She searched through the CDs for something that might have customers’ names or addresses, trying different CDs, flipping through their indexes, occasionally calling up a file to check what was meant by a cryptic title. Mark sat beside her, handing her CDs, and re-filing them after she had searched them. She was all too aware of his closeness, the occasional touch of his hand as they worked, the warm brush of his breath on her neck as he leaned forward to read something over her shoulder. Was he as affected as she by their closeness? If so, he gave her no sign. His voice was steady and sure, his face serious and preoccupied as he studied the green letters on the black screen in front of them.