by Curry, Edna
Their glances met, and held. Then Mark leaned over and kissed her.
“I wish Henry had introduced us a long time ago,” he said softly, trailing a finger along her earlobe.
“So do I.”
As he leaned forward to kiss her again, Lacey saw the curtain move in the front window of the apartment house they had just left.
She pulled back and whispered, “We’re being watched.”
Mark straightened up and put the car in gear. “Let her watch. Where to now?”
“Mankato. About an hour’s drive, isn’t it?”
Mark drove his luxury Oldsmobile with ease and Lacey leaned back to relax. Evergreen trees gave way to open farm fields as they headed south along the tarred road. There was little traffic, so it was easy to talk to each other.
The antique dealer’s name on their list was a familiar one to Lacey, and she was anxious to talk to him. Mark had suggested phoning, but Lacey wanted to talk to him in person. She trusted her instincts, and the unconscious signals she received from facial expressions and body language were a large part of that, she was sure.
Mr. Highman’s shop was on a side street, small and crowded, but clean and orderly. The familiar smell of old paper and cloth met her at the door.
“May I help you?” A tall, willowy man in a brown workman’s uniform appeared from an office in the rear of the store.
Lacey liked him on sight, from his steady gray eyes to the lined face and pleasant smile.
“Mr. Highman?”
“Yes.”
“I’m Lacey Summers, from Landers.”
“Oh, yes, that’s quite a ways up north, ain’t it? I know a fella there. Henry Schmidt. Do you know him?”
Lacey smiled, pleased that he remembered Henry. Perhaps this would be easier than she’d thought. “Yes, Mr. Highman, I’m his niece.”
“Well, well. Henry was just here last week.”
“What day was that, Mr. Highman?”
“Why, Thursday, I think. No it was Friday. Yes, I’m sure it was Friday, ‘cause we had lunch at the cafe. I remember we had their special, which is always a fish sandwich and chowder on Friday. My fish was still raw and I sent it back. Henry was embarrassed, but I made them bring us both another sandwich. Can’t stand raw fish, I can’t.”
Lacey drew a deep breath and explained about Henry’s murder. Mr. Highman seemed genuinely shocked and distressed.
“So you see why it’s important for us to try to find out what he was doing on Friday, Mr. Highman. It could help us discover who did this. Or why. You may have been one of the last people to see him alive.”
“Sure thing, Lacey. But we just talked business, like we always do when he gets down this way. Nothing unusual about that.”
“Did he come here for anything in particular? Or just stop here on his way somewhere else?”
“Why, he didn’t really say. But he did ask a lot of questions about an old lithograph he’d gotten from me a few years ago.”
Lacey glanced significantly at Mark. Mark’s attention was already riveted on Mr. Highman’s face.
“What picture was that?” he asked casually.
“A dreary blue landscape called The Lone Wolf. He seemed real stuck on it.”
“What kind of questions did he ask you?”
“Where did I get it, when, from who, that sort of thing.”
“And?” Mark’s blue eyes snapped impatiently.
“And what?”
“Where did you get it, when, and from whom?”
“From whom, is it? Your uppity friend a school teacher, Miss Summers?” Suddenly Mr. Highman was no longer friendly, or cooperative. His face held a rebellious scowl that plainly asked, ‘and why should I tell you?’
Lacey shot a warning glance at Mark, and quickly tried to placate Mr. Highman. “Yes, he is a school teacher, Mr. Highman, and he gets carried away sometimes. He’s so used to correcting his pupils that he forgets himself. Never mind him. Was there anything you could tell my uncle about that lithograph?”
“No, nothing special. I bought it on purpose to resell to Henry, ‘cause I had remembered that he collected them. So I called him and he came down to get it. That must have been about five years ago.”
“Yes, in May,” Mark put in thoughtfully.
“And how would you know?” Mr. Highman blustered, his lined face red with anger again.
“From Mr. Schmidt’s records,” Mark said quietly. “He kept everything in his computer.”
“It was Henry’s new toy,” Lacey put in quickly. “He typed everything into it.”
“We went through his records hoping to find some reason for his murder,” Mark added.
“If you already knew when he got it, why come here?”
“Because that’s all we knew, where he got it and when. We were hoping you could tell us more, Mr. Highman,” Lacey put in.
“Like what?”
“Where did you get it? Could it have been the original painting instead of a lithograph copy?”
Mr. Highman laughed hollowly. “Nah, I got it at a household auction near here. It was in a big box full of stuff. Didn’t cost much.”
Mark asked, “Could you give us the name of the person who had owned it before? We’d like to find out more about it if we can.”
“Why, sure, the lady lives in the senior citizens’ care center down the street now. A new brick building-you can’t miss it.”
“The lady’s name?” Mark pressed, impatiently.
“Oh yeah, sure. Mrs. Evans.”
***
Although the building was new, it already seemed to have absorbed the age of the people it surrounded. The air was heavy with mingled odors of floor wax and disinfectant.
Mark and Lacey walked down the long hall toward the room to which the floor nurse had directed them. Several very old people in wheel chairs watched their progress curiously.
Mrs. Evans proved to be a slim, white-haired lady in a deep purple satin bathrobe. She was sitting in a soft chair watching television.
As she turned toward them, Lacey gasped in surprise. Her face was so familiar to Lacey, it was almost like looking at a photo—the photo on her parents’ bedroom wall.
“What is it?” asked Mark.
Lacey seemed not to hear, but walked woodenly closer to the old lady. She knelt and stared into Mrs. Evans face, taking her frail, papery-skinned hand in her own. “Aunt Helen?” she asked, her voice unsteady.
“Yes, I’m Helen. Have you brought me my tea, young lady? It’s late again. I like my tea right at three o’clock,” she scolded, her pale blue eyes peering at them through thick glasses.
“I’m sorry, but, no, I didn’t bring your tea. But why are they calling you Mrs. Evans? Isn’t your name Helen Garner?”
“Garner? Oh, that was my maiden name. Goodness, child, I haven’t heard that name in years. No, no, I’ve been Mrs. Evans ever since I married Tom. He’s dead, now.” Helen’s face crumpled.
Her feelings in turmoil, yet sympathetic to the older lady’s obvious distress, Lacey put her arms around Helen, who gratefully leaned on her shoulder.
Over Helen’s head Lacey told Mark, “I can hardly believe it. She’s the missing Aunt Helen I told you about.”
Mark stood watching and looking helpless, as Lacey comforted Helen, and tried to explain their relationship to her. Helen looked confused and incredulous at the same time.
“I think we could all use some tea,” Mark mumbled, his voice suspiciously gruff, as he turned and left the room.
When he returned carrying a tray a few minutes later, Lacey and Helen were quietly talking. He arranged chairs around the small table and sat with them.
As they shared tea, Helen told them all about her move to the home. She went on and on about the people she shared meals and visited with at the home, and all about the nurses and their problems with the plumbing in the downstairs ladies’ room. Her mind seemed to be very clear about the here and now, and also about her childhood that she told t
hem about at length. But whenever Lacey tried to question her about her recent past life, she seemed confused, or changed the subject back to complaints about the nursing home.
“Do you remember your mother Minnie’s marriage to my grandfather, Bill Schmidt?”
“Oh yes, I remember. I told her it wouldn’t last. Second marriage for both of them, you know, and neither one was a spring chicken anymore. Mama hated that farm—I did, too. ’Til finally she just gave up and moved back to town. They never got a divorce, but they were going to, so I was right, wasn’t I?” She looked at Lacey for assurance.
“Yes,” agreed Lacey.
“Mama told me it was all agreed. She said she didn’t want any of his land. She was always afraid people would call her a gold-digger.”
“Really?”
“That’s what she said. So she signed a deed giving up her rights to his land. They were only married a couple of years, you know.”
“I know.”
Helen laughed to herself, nodding, her eyes looking at the wall, but not focused, as though she were seeing things from the past. “Jake was furious at Mama for giving Bill that deed.”
“Your brother knew she signed it?”
“Oh yes. He got mad, called Bill lots of names, had a real yelling fit, he did. I think Bill was afraid of him. Then Jake stormed out of the house. I haven’t seen him since, except for their funeral. Jake wouldn’t even talk to me then, just looked mad at me across the caskets, as though it was my fault, too, somehow.” Helen stared straight ahead, tears running down her cheeks unheeded.
She looked at Helen. “Think, Aunt Helen. Do you know what happened to the deed?”
“What?” Helen’s attention had returned to the television set. She reluctantly looked back at Lacey.
“The quit-claim deed your mother signed. Do you know where it is?”
“She gave it to Bill.”
“But what happened to it?”
“That was the night of the accident, you know. They went out to dinner together and never came back. Dead, all dead, now.” She shook her head sadly, then swung her gaze sharply to Lacey. “Is Jake dead, too?”
“No, Aunt Helen. Jake’s fine. He lives in Canton, now, just a few miles from Bill’s farm near Landers. He owns an antique shop there.”
“Lacey,” Mark interrupted softly. “You’re getting off the subject. Can’t you forget your problems with your mother? Ask her about the Lone Wolf picture.”
Lacey threw him a frustrated look and sighed. He was right. She was letting her relationship with Kate get in the way of more immediate problems, just as she always had.
She tried once more to pry Helen’s attention away from the television program, describing the picture they were looking for. But Helen just gave Lacey a puzzled frown in answer. “I don’t remember Mama having any picture like that. If she did, maybe I threw it out after Mama died,” she murmured. “But you might look in my attic.”
“It was on your auction, Aunt Helen. When you sold the stuff from your house before you came here.”
“No, my house is waiting for me to get better. I’m going home soon. My lawyer said I could, as soon as I’m better.”
Lacey looked helplessly at Mark, who just shook his head.
The nurse came to tell them their visiting time was up.
After promising Helen that she would come back to visit again soon, they left.
Lacey explained that Mrs. Evans was her long-lost Aunt Helen. The nurse seemed pleased that Helen would now have some relatives to visit her.
“A sad case,” the nurse said as they walked back to the main entrance. “She’s had several strokes and has lost some memory. Sometimes she is very good and her memory seems clear; other times she doesn’t remember what happened an hour ago.”
“But she’s still very young, only in her fifties.” Lacey said.
“Yes, isn’t that too bad?” the nurse agreed. “Well off, too. I understand she inherited money from both her mother and her husband.”
“She thinks she’s going back to her house soon. But I thought that everything was sold at an auction.”
“I believe a lawyer handles her affairs. But no, she’s not likely to improve enough to return to self-care,” the nurse said sadly.
As they walked back outside, Lacey took a deep breath of the fresh air, relieved to be out of the antiseptic atmosphere of the rest home. It had grown very hot and muggy outside, considering that it was only May.
“Aunt Helen didn’t remember me, didn’t even seem to understand that I was Bill’s granddaughter,” Lacey said sadly as they left the depressing building.
“She didn’t seem to remember the Lone Wolf picture either.”
“No. But we already knew it came from her house. It was probably just one of many things her mother had. Can you name every item your mother owned?”
“True. But why does someone want it so badly?”
They drove on in silence.
“Where to, now?”
“We’d better head back,” Lacey said, regretfully. “I promised Marion I’d help her with the church bazaar.”
“Then let’s continue the list tomorrow, okay?”
“Sounds great,” said Lacey, her heart tripping fast at the prospect of spending another day with Mark.
“Good.”
“I can’t believe Jake didn’t know where she was.”
“Remember that she married, which changed her name.”
“Which he could easily have found out through friends, newspaper wedding stories, or the license bureau.”
“If he had wanted to know.”
“Yes. But don’t you think it was strange of her to not tell anyone where she moved, or anything?”
“Lots of families have been separated over less. It must have been a shock losing her mother and Bill together, and quarreling with her brother. To suddenly find herself without a family, you know.”
“I suppose. Then only a few years later, she lost her husband, too. Maybe all that stress brought on her illness.”
At length Lacey mused, “Now I know that Jake lied about knowing that Minnie signed that deed.”
“Of course,” Mark said. “If you couldn’t produce it, he would inherit a share of Bill’s estate, since Bill died first and they weren’t yet divorced.”
“But that’s not how Bill wanted it.”
“I know. But that’s how it is. If there’s no will, the state’s rules apply, whether we like them or not. That’s the law.”
“Now you sound just like Mr. Hammerton,” Lacey said, frowning. “He says unless Kate can produce that quit-claim deed Bill said he had, she has to share Bill’s estate with Helen and Jake even though Bill had already given Minnie a generous settlement of cash and their house and car.”
“The land is worth a lot, now?”
“Not really. But it’s such an emotional thing with mom. She’s obsessed with winning this battle, even if she doesn’t get much money for it. The buildings are quite old, and the tenant farmer is hardly getting rich off the land with crop prices as low as they are.”
“Kate is getting the rent off of the farm now?”
“No, Mr. Hammerton handles it. The money is held in escrow until the courts decide who gets what. But real estate taxes eat up a big share of the rent money since the farm is near Minneapolis.”
As they neared the turnoff to Landers, Lacey said, “Just drop me at the church. Marion will be there by now.”
Mark said, “Aunt Martha put a couple of boxes in my car trunk this morning. I have strict orders to leave them at the church for your bazaar.”
“I’m sure the ladies will appreciate it. They’ve been working very hard at this. This is the second bazaar they’ve done, you know. The first one they did last month raised five hundred dollars. They’re hoping to match that this time.”
“What are they raising money for this time?”
“They’re remodeling the church basement. These bazaars will help raise money to p
ay for their new kitchen.”
Lacey helped Mark carry the boxes down to the basement where tables lined the large dining room. Several ladies were putting price tags on dishes and books. Others were unpacking more boxes of donated merchandise.
Marion took the boxes with an appreciative smile.
“Come to my house for supper and a swim about six,” she told Mark. “Dave’s coming, too.”
Lacey turned to Marion in surprise. “Dave? You didn’t tell me you were seeing him.”
Marion blushed. “Well, yes, some.” She flashed her wide smile and flipped back her long black hair, then frowned as she looked across Lacey’s shoulder. “Here’s the Sheriff.”
“Ben?” Lacey asked with a guilty start. Had he already heard what she and Mark had been up today? “I wonder what he wants?” She turned to watch Ben striding towards them, a frown on his face.
Chapter 11
“However did he know we would be here?”
“I called him, Lacey,” Marion said, beckoning to the sheriff. “Let’s go out to the kitchen,” she added.
A wave of speculative tittering among the other women reminded them that all eyes were on them. Anything said within earshot of those women would be all over town in hours.
Mark, Lacey and Ben followed as Marion led the way into the kitchen, waved them to a seat at the table and poured them all coffee.
“No sense letting the whole town know about this,” Marion said, sitting down herself.
“Glad you’re here too, Lacey, Mark. I need to talk to both of you,” Ben said. “But first, Marion. What’s happened?”
“The oddest thing has happened, Sheriff. Kate had cleaned out her stuff in Elaine’s attic for this bazaar, you know. When I told her that you wanted to check out our copy of The Lone Wolf picture because it was on Henry’s list, she said it was already out on the table to sell. I went out to save it for you to see first, and it was gone. No one is allowed to sell anything until tomorrow, so it wasn’t sold. Someone must have stolen it. Isn’t that weird?”
Ben’s face was grim. “Not really, considering that three others on that list were also stolen in the last two weeks.” He looked uneasily at Marion.
