Killed by Clutter

by Leslie Caine

  Helen returned the cushion to the sofa and reclaimed her seat before answering. “According to Lois, it was a gift from George. From twenty years back. I was always a bit incredulous, though. The man wasn’t exactly generous. And she never once displayed it while he was alive. Not even after he died.”

  “Did she tell you why not?”

  “Because it wasn’t to her taste...too delicate and fussy-looking. Plus she hates the color pink.”

  “Lois? Hates pink?”

  “I know. It’s odd. George was the one who really hated pink. After he died and she moved in with me, she painted her bedroom pink...out of defiance, or something. She said afterwards, ‘I just remembered something, Helen. I dislike this color every bit as much as George did.’ She decided it was worth the effort, though, to repaint.”

  My attention was riveted to the glorious three-inch egg. I am not a jewelry expert by any means, but there’s a telltale precision and clarity to real gems that’s difficult to miss. The brilliant gold band that circled the egg contained twelve large, sparkling jewels, which looked unnervingly like two-karat diamonds. The carving in the pedestal base was astonishingly elaborate. It resembled a bouquet of roses, each bud of which boasted a dazzling ruby-red gemstone. The base was black, perhaps carved onyx, decorated with scrolls of gold.

  What should I do? I didn’t want to take a wild guess and exaggerate the monetary value of the piece. Nor did I want Helen to think she could be cavalier with it, and risk having Kay swipe it in their personal version of “Keep Away.” “If these gemstones are real, Helen, this could be worth a whole lot of money.”

  “Oh, I very much doubt they’re real. George would never have given Lois anything expensive...if this was truly a gift from him. He was always giving her cheap little presents after they’d quarreled, but otherwise, she was lucky to get a birthday card from that man.”

  “Even if the jewels are fake, this is real gold surrounding it, Helen. And the craftsmanship is exquisite. If this is a knockoff, it’s an expensive one. I’d be shocked if it was worth anything less than ten-thousand dollars.”

  Worry lines creased her brow as she eyed the egg nestled in my palm. “Oh, dear. That’s what I was afraid of. Lois had told me it was just gold paint, but I began to worry when I couldn’t scrape it off with my thumbnail. What should I do now?”

  Though it was probably my imagination, the piece started to feel heavy and hot in my hands. “The thing is, Helen...there’s a big possibility that this is stolen property. We should take it straight to the police.”

  “No, Erin. There’s no proof that this is valuable. Maybe it’s just...a really thin coating of gold. A veneer. I’m going to continue to hope that this is just some knockoff bauble that George purchased legitimately. After one of their bigger spats.”

  Her tone of voice made it clear she was trying hard to convince herself. For my part, my suspicious brain mulled various troublesome possibilities of how George had acquired this “bauble.” “Here’s what we’ll do then,” I said. “I’ll see what I can find out about missing Faberge-like eggs. In the meantime, you should probably return this to your sofa and not mention a word about showing it to me.” I studied her guileless expression. “Have you told anybody else about this?”

  “No one. Lois asked me not to. Not even her own children know about it. She said it would only cause bickering in the family...that Stephanie would be especially angry at her for keeping it hidden away.” She sighed as she studied the thing. “I told Lois at the time that this did look like something that Stephanie would want to own.”

  “Yes, it does,” I said as noncommittally as possible.

  A very real—and chilling—possibility was that the secret hadn’t been kept all that well. That would explain why Peter had been breaking into Helen’s house to “steal” his own possessions. If he knew about this egg and knew, too, that it was stolen property, neither he nor Stephanie could legally inherit it. To make any money whatsoever for the egg, it would have to be fenced. Maybe he reasoned that his sister had far too much to lose to risk taking such an illegal action.

  Peter could very well have paid the ultimate price for his trying to keep the tiny work of art away from his sister’s hands.

  I stopped in at my office, fired up my computer, and searched on: stolen Faberge egg Colorado. Soon I was looking at an archived article from the Crestview Sentinel on “Famous Unsolved Crimes.” There were two paragraphs about “a Faberge egg stolen from a Crestview art museum.” The egg had been custom-made in 1955 by the artisans at Faberge for a Denver aristocrat who subsequently donated it to the museum. The article went on to state:

  “The rose-quartz jewel-encrusted egg has not surfaced since it was stolen on July 14, 1966 from the Crestview Art and History Museum. With the curiosity factor adding to its value, some experts have stated the egg could now be worth more than $200,000.”

  The article was written three years ago. The egg was probably worth more like a quarter-million dollars by now. In some ways, its value was irrelevant, because it belonged to a museum. With my heart in my stomach, I drove straight to the museum and pulled up at the small white house that had once been a private residence but now bore a hand-carved wooden sign that read: Crestview Art & History Museum.

  Charlotte, my favorite curator, was on duty that day. She was a pleasant-looking middle-aged woman with a daughter who was studying design, but I was too thirsty for answers to exchange more but the briefest of pleasantries before explaining, “I’m curious about a Faberge egg that was stolen from this museum many years ago.”

  She nodded. “We get asked about that particular incident quite a bit. Every now and then, the newspaper does a story on it. The whole thing occurred before my time here, though. It must be some forty years ago by now. Why are you asking?”

  “Research for a client. I’ll explain it all to you later...once I get some answers for her. Is there anybody I could talk to who was with the museum at the time?”

  Charlotte hesitated, searched my eyes, then slowly replied, “There’s the former curator. She comes in every once in a while, but I’m not sure how trustworthy her memory is, frankly. But maybe I can answer your questions.”

  “Do you have any idea how the theft occurred?”

  “Sure do,” she said with a nod. “That incident is a required case-study for all employees. We’re hoping to avoid a repeat of past mistakes, and so far, thank heavens, we haven’t had a second theft.”

  “Not in forty years?”

  “Well, not ones which involve anything of that magnitude. Of course, that incident was also the last time we ever displayed quite such a valuable, easily pocketed item. And we have a lot better security devices in effect now. Laser detectors, and so on.”

  “I’d imagine so. How was the burglary accomplished?”

  “With assistance from the security guard.”

  “Who was arrested, I assume?”

  “No. Questioned at great length. The security guard on-duty that night had ties to the police department, which probably didn’t help matters. Apparently there was never enough evidence to convict the guy.”

  “Was the security guard’s name Teddy Frederickson or George Miller, by any chance?”

  “I’d have to look in our old records to get you that information. Can I call you back?”

  “Absolutely. I’d really appreciate it. Thanks.” I gave her my cell phone number and left.

  My thoughts were in a whirl. Why would George have given his wife hot merchandise, worth a small fortune? Was there any explanation at all that didn’t sound nefarious for her having it? Could Lois possibly not have realized it was stolen property?

  I had reached my office when my cell phone rang. When I answered, Charlotte identified herself and said, “I’ve got the security guard’s name for you, Erin. You were right. It’s George Miller.”

  Chapter 23

  The task of letting Helen know that she possessed stolen property was best done face-to-face. I dr
ove straight to her house after getting off the phone with the curator. The moment Helen answered her door and saw me, she sighed. “Come in, Erin, and have a seat. I can see this isn’t going to be good news.”

  “No, it isn’t.” A few items of clothing and an ancient-looking transistor radio had migrated back onto her piano bench. In fact, her whole living room was starting to get messy again. Her clutter apparently behaved like a flock of homing pigeons. I cleared a space and sat down while she took a seat on the bentwood rocker. “The egg is stolen property, Helen.”

  “Oh, dear.”

  “It’s from a museum in Crestview. Where your late brother-in-law once worked as the security guard. Obviously you can’t let Stephanie have it. We’ll return it to its rightful owners through the police.”

  “I’m going to have to report another crime to the police? My word. The Crestview police are going to think I’m Ma Barker. Isn’t there some way we could simply...drop it off at the museum? You could distract them, while I stick the egg on a shelf.”

  I knew she wasn’t serious. “Maybe we should get this thing over with now.”

  “I just hope they won’t decide to lock me up. They probably consider me a career criminal.” We rose and headed into the kitchen, where her natty sofa was still stranded. She dug behind the cushions and removed the Faberge egg in its sock. “You’d better hang onto this for me while I get ready to go.”

  She’d stuck Rachel’s bouquet, basket and all, in the sink, I noted, which was the only available surface, other than the pathways on the linoleum floor that Sullivan and I had created on Saturday. I eyed the sofa, wishing I could teleport it into the living room. Helen handed me the egg, sock and all, plucked a plastic footstool from a messy heap of possessions underneath the table, grabbed a roll of tape from atop the cat food on the kitchen counter, and proceeded to tape a hair across the opening of the back door. Apparently, we would be leaving through the garage.

  Unable to resist stealing another glance at the astounding work of art, I peered into the sock. The Faberge egg was every bit as stunning as I’d remembered it to be. “Has this been hidden in your sofa ever since your sister passed away?”

  “Oh, heavens no. It was in Lois’s bedroom till I decided to move it into the couch.”

  “I thought you said she kept it ‘under lock and key.’”

  “And so she did, for years. According to Lois, she’d kept it in a safety deposit box at a bank until George died. I myself had never seen or heard a word about the egg until Lois moved in with me two years ago.”

  “And at that point, she took it out of the bank and hid it in her bedroom?”

  “Yes. Lois had kept it under her bed, stuffed inside that old sock. When she died, I moved it into the couch.”

  “It’s kind of hard to believe that your sister never realized that she was in possession of stolen property.”

  Helen gave me a sidelong glance as she squeezed past the sofa and into the living room, where she dragged the piano bench toward the front door. She retrieved a second roll of Scotch tape from the piano keyboard, then allowed me to carry the bench to the door. She climbed onto the bench as she plucked one of her hairs. “Lois put up with a bushel of grief. She always had to work hard at keeping George under control. He was always a little on the reckless side.” She frowned as she taped the strand of hair into place. “George had a drinking problem.”

  “And a theft problem, too.”

  “She probably did know it was stolen,” Helen admitted with a sigh. “She must have snatched it away from George and hid it. That would have been just like her...to try and hide everything away and pretend nobody was hurt, if she’d discovered that her husband was a thief.”

  “She wouldn’t have anonymously returned it to the museum?”

  Helen froze for a moment as if realizing that her suggested scenario didn’t paint her sister in the best possible light. Then she sighed again and shook her head. “Her first priority would have been to George and the kids.” She gingerly stepped back down from the bench, ignoring my proffered helping hand. “Lois wouldn’t have been willing to risk the authorities tracing it back to George. That would have sent him to jail, plus ruined their children’s image of their father. Those would have been terrible prices to pay, as a consequence of her good deed.”

  I had to bite my tongue as I returned the bench to its rightful place, thinking that returning the egg wouldn’t have been merely a “good deed” so much as not committing a federal offense herself, in the aftermath or her husband’s. Lois must have read about the Faberge-egg theft in the papers when it first happened. She had been aiding a crime and harboring a criminal—her husband!

  I eyed Helen’s guileless features. Was her story plausible? She kept all of the local newspapers where the stories of the theft would surely have been thoroughly reported. Yet the most recent article on the egg was from three years back, and she hadn’t even known Lois had the egg till two years ago, when Lois moved in with her.

  Helen was turning in a slow three-sixty, scanning the room, and I saw a set of keys near the porcelain dancers on top of the piano. “Is this what you’re looking for?” I asked, holding the keys aloft.

  She snatched them from my grasp and started to lead the way to the garage. “It’s like I always say: if your house is truly messy, you can hide almost anything indefinitely. I guess subconsciously I’ve known for two years now that Lois’s egg was valuable. And that it could have been stolen. And that it could be the reason someone kept breaking into my house.”

  “Maybe her having the egg is why she was killed,” I said. I had a hideous, chilling image of someone deliberately feeding Lois the fatal bell pepper and then withholding the epinephrine shot until she revealed the location of her precious treasure.

  Helen must have had an equally hideous vision, because she turned at the door and gaped at me. “Oh, Erin! Perish the thought! That would mean my keeping my sister’s secret inadvertently led to three deaths!”

  “No, it doesn’t,” I said, rapidly backpedaling. “You couldn’t have known any of this would happen—”

  “Yes, Erin, I could have. I knew very well about my sister’s blind-spot regarding George. And, as I said before, I was worried that the silly little egg was what the burglar was really after...but I never said single a word to anyone about it!”

  She looked so upset that I was kicking myself for blurting out my current theory about the motive behind her sister’s death. Fortunately, Vator had pranced into the room, and Helen swept the cat up. She dropped into the sofa.

  “But, Helen, it was Peter who’d been breaking into your house,” I reminded her.

  “And somebody shot him with a harpoon! And poisoned my chocolates! And used my kitty to set a cruel trap that killed Jack!” She began to rock herself while cradling her cat. “Maybe I was wrong. Maybe Peter did find out about the egg...and that’s what he was looking for when he was killed! I could have prevented everything, including Lois’s death, if I’d just insisted that she tell me the whole story. And then made her turn the blasted thing in to the police. I’m a terrible, terrible person, Erin!”

  “No, you’re not, Helen. We don’t know that the Faberge egg has anything to do with any of those tragic events. And even if it does, you’ve only behaved the way we all do. You heard a fishy story from your sister, and rather than provoke her into an unpleasant confrontation, you accepted her version as the truth.”

  She muttered into her calico’s fur, “Yes, bully for me. I swept the whole thing under the rug. Or, more accurately, into the sofa.”

  Vator made a rr-r-rr noise and hopped off Helen’s lap and darted out of the kitchen.

  Helen got unsteadily to her feet. “Let’s go, Erin,” she said, her eyes averted.

  My thoughts were racing. If the valuable within the sock I carried was indeed the underlying cause of these murders, there had to be a way to identify the killer; he or she had to have known that the egg was hidden in this house. “You’re ab
solutely certain you never told anyone about the Faberge egg?”

  “Positive.” She opened the door to the garage. “And Lois would have kept that secret, too, believe me. She would have wanted to protect George’s reputation, at all costs.” She winced and added under her breath, “Although I’m quite certain Lois would have had no idea just how high those costs were going to turn out to be.”

  Helen insisted on driving us, even though she once again had some trouble starting her car. I emptied my purse into all my pockets and slipped the egg and its protective sock into my purse. I held the purse on my lap, half wishing the gem-encrusted treasure would magically vanish. It felt as though my brain was on a spin cycle. Helen was telling me the complete truth; of that much I was certain. But I couldn’t help but conclude that the deaths and sabotage had all been caused by the Faberge egg. I started to concoct wild theories—that Stephanie and Peter knew about the egg, but also knew they wouldn’t get enough money for it in an estate sale, and so they were vying against each other to find it and fence it for cash, setting booby traps along the way to off the competition. Or that admitted-thieves Kay or Teddy had somehow learned about it, and that one of them were the guilty party. Maybe Rachel had an affair with George, and he told her about the stolen egg, so she killed her own husband and then her partner-in-crime, Peter, to get it.

  My immediate concern, though, was Detective O’Reilly. As outrageous as the scenario was, he could conceivably charge Helen with willful possession of stolen property. I had to give the egg to Linda. Except there was no telling what Linda would do; she would instantly recognize its significance in the case and would probably be duty bound to turn it over to O’Reilly immediately. My best hope was that she’d be out and Mansfield was in; her partner was a nice enough guy, but not the sharpest crayon in the box. As partners, they worked the same shift, though, so that was a long shot.

  We arrived at the stationhouse. Helen shut off the engine, but remained in her seat. She gripped her steering wheel with both hands. She was pale, and her gray eyes were wide with fright. “Everything’s going to be fine,” I assured her. “I’ll explain why we came in, and you just need to answer their questions, simply and directly. Please don’t speculate about how Lois got the egg, though. If they ask you that, tell them you don’t know...which is the truth. Okay?”