Body in the Antique Trunk-A Lady Locksmith Mystery

by Curry, Edna

  “How did you find me?”

  “We followed your cell phone signal. They were already looking for you at the restaurant and figured you were in trouble. Then your mother got a call from you and you didn’t say anything to her. She gave the phone to the Detective who was with her and he had us trace you. We’d been watching this house for the past couple of hours in case he showed up here, so knew immediately where he was headed when you got near here.”

  “Thank God. I didn’t even know anyone could track my phone like that.”

  “We can track lots of phones, ma’am.” He led me to a police car.

  Tires squealed and I saw Chance’s car pull up, skidding to a stop. He jumped out and ran to hug me tightly. I hugged him back, so happy to see him.

  “Thank God. Are you okay?” he asked, leaning back and looking me over. “You’re sure you’re not hurt?”

  I wiped away tears of relief. “I’m fine, Chance. But I sure hope you can keep that nut behind bars this time.”

  Buddy sent them a glare from the back window of the police car as it pulled away.

  “Is it okay if I take her to the station to make her statement?” Chance asked the other officer.

  The other man grinned. “Looks like she knows you, so sure. I’ll talk to the residents here.” He gestured to the doorway, where Jane and Maynard Carson were talking to another officer.

  “I’m sure they’ll be glad to know that Buddy is back behind bars,” Chance said. “Our sheriff told them earlier that he had escaped the hospital and might come here. I’m sure glad you guys kept an eye out for him. It paid off.”

  “Sure did. Goodnight, ma’am.”

  I phoned Mom to let her know what had happened and that we were fine and Buddy was back in jail.

  We spent an hour at the station, explaining the situation and making our statements. Then we headed back to Canton.

  I leaned back against the seat, exhausted. I said little on the return trip. Chance knew I was still furious with him.

  As we neared Canton, I said, “Why did you have to tell them about the shooting and spoil the whole evening?”

  “I’m sorry,” Chance said, sending her an apologetic smile. “I really hoped they might help me figure out who shot at you and why.”

  “I told you, I’m sure it must have just been a mistake,” I repeated. “You’re giving that incident way too much importance.”

  Chance grimaced. “I wish I could agree with you.”

  I turned to stare at him. “Why do you say that? Buddy has to just be a mental case. Why else would he think these people are ones he knew?”

  “But Cassie, the ones Buddy talks about were real people. Even though they’ve been dead a hundred years, they did live exactly where he says they did. And many of those two gangs fought and died just as he said.”

  I couldn’t help sniffing to show my disbelief. “Then he must have looked it all up on the internet or old newspapers or something. Or maybe he had an old relative who told him stories about the past and he’s jumping into the stories as though they were real. I know he doesn’t seem like that kind of person, but there’s no other explanation.”

  He parked in my driveway. We went inside and Chance carefully checked out my house.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m just being cautious. Buddy keeps talking about the Bears gang, saying he’s sure more of them are around here.”

  “Oh, my God. You think he might not be the only one after me?”

  “It’s possible. If you don’t mind, I’d like to stay close to you until we wrap this thing up and are sure there’s no one else.”

  I shuddered. “Sure. I’ll feel safer if you do.”

  Chapter 12

  We climbed into my bed and made love with our usual enthusiasm. It was a perfect ending, making up for a lousy day. Afterward, Chance fell asleep almost immediately.

  But I couldn’t even doze off. I kept thinking about what Buddy had said. Was there some woman reporter in Chicago who looked enough like me that Buddy could have mixed us up? I slipped on a robe, stuffed my cellphone into the pocket so it wouldn’t wake Chance if anyone called me this late at night and went to my office. I sat at my computer and searched the internet for a Chicago newspaper reporter named Carrie Phipps. And there she was. But she didn’t work there now; she’d worked there a hundred years ago. And even had her own byline, back when women could work behind the scenes, but their work was only rarely acknowledged.

  She had indeed written articles about Chicago gang wars and wrote that the police needed to round them up and put them all behind bars. Two gangs seemed to be special targets of her wrath; the Lions and the Bears. I printed out everything I’d found and took the stack of paper from the printer to a soft chair in the living room to read.

  In a little while, Chance joined me with two cups of hot cocoa and asked, “What are you doing up at this hour?”

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you. I couldn’t sleep so I looked up the woman Buddy thinks I am.”

  “Carrie Phipps?” He put the cocoa down on the coffee table between us and leaned down and kissed me.

  I looked up and smiled, accepting his kiss. “Yes.” I picked up the cocoa and sipped. “Mm, delicious.”

  He eased into the sofa. “Looking up Carrie was on my list of things to do next. What did you find?”

  I passed him a couple of the printed articles. “I’m surprised the paper printed these, especially with her name on them.”

  “Yeah, you’d think they’d know they were putting her in danger.”

  “Besides the fact that they could easily have printed them anonymously, since women were rarely given credit for writing back then, anyway.”

  “True. Though I remember some exceptions.”

  “And those exceptions proved the rule,” I said with a laugh.

  Chance read the articles and drank his cocoa. Then he turned a page and gasped. “Oh, my God.”

  “What?” I leaned over to see what he was excited about. It was a photo of Carrie.

  He turned the paper around so I could see it better. I stared at it, then glanced back at him, feeling the blood drain from my face. I swallowed and gasped out, “She looks a lot like me. She has long hair, pulled back into a bun or something, but her face is shaped like mine and she has my odd hairline. How can that be?”

  Chance shrugged. “Could she be a relative? Ancestor, maybe, like a great aunt or great grandmother or something?”

  I fought the bile rising in my throat and reached for my cup, but it was empty. “I don’t remember hearing the name Phipps in our family.”

  Chance rose. “You’re pale. I’ll get you some water.” In a minute he was back with a glass of ice water and handed it to me. I gulped it down, feeling a little better.

  “My cousin, Annette, has done some genealogy on both our families,” I said, pulling out my phone. “I’ll email her and ask if she’s run across that name.”

  “Good. Maybe she’ll have an answer.”

  “But Chance, even if this Carrie is a relative, it still makes no sense. It would explain why I might look like her. But how could Buddy know someone who lived a hundred years ago and think she was me?”

  “You’re right. And he talked like he knew her in person and she wrote those articles just a short time ago.”

  I wrapped my arms around myself, feeling chilled. “This is just too weird for words.”

  “You’re cold. Come on, let’s go back to bed and get some sleep. It’ll be morning soon enough.”

  “Okay.” We cuddled into my bed and I welcomed the warmth of his bare skin against mine. The erotic scent of our earlier lovemaking clung to us, but suddenly my world seemed to have gone cold and dark.

  “You’re shivering,” Chance said, kissing me. He tucked the blanket closer and wrapped his arms around me. “Try not to worry. We’ll figure this out tomorrow.”

  “I know. But it’s all just so weird.”

  “I’ve found most
things have a logical explanation.” He stroked my hair, kissed me and pulled me tighter against him.

  I kissed him back, shuddered and closed my eyes. “I sure hope so.”

  ***

  Chance got up early, leaving Cassie asleep. He knew she hadn’t slept well the night before, so didn’t want to wake her. He quickly made coffee, drank a cup and then headed for his own apartment to change clothes and get ready for work.

  At his office, he and Ben discussed the past evening’s events over more coffee.

  “They’ll keep Buddy in Minneapolis on their charges until we can get him indicted for murder here,” Ben said, accepting another cup of the fresh, hot brew from Chance. “And I’ve told them all the weird stuff he’s been claiming, so they’re going to do a mental evaluation.”

  “Good. Maybe a doctor can tell us what’s going on in his head. And Cassie will be glad to hear he’ll stay behind bars,” Chance said. He picked up his phone to call her, then laid it back on his desk. “I’ll give her another hour. She was still asleep when I left.”

  Ben grinned at that admission he’d slept at Cassie’s house.

  Chance scowled back and said, “I thought it best to stay with her at night until we solve these murders, at least until we’re sure no one else is targeting her. Oh, and Cassie found out something else last night.”

  “What?”

  “That Chicago reporter Buddy thinks Cassie is, Carrie Phipps? She’s a real person and looks a lot like Cassie except for her hairdo.”

  “Oh yeah? So he just mistook Cassie for her?”

  Chance shook his head. “Carrie Phipps lived a hundred years ago, just like the Goldie he thought George was and the Jonesy he claims Jane is. And those Bears and that guy Buddy he keeps claiming to be.”

  “Yikes. So, either he’s making this all up or he’s a real nutcase, eh?”

  “You’ve got that right. Trouble is, he really seems to believe it all and is willing to kill anyone who opposes him. Can we have someone guard her?”

  Ben shook his head, looking unhappy. “Chance, I wish we could, but you know we don’t have the staff to do that.”

  Chance closed his eyes with a sigh. “Yeah. And I can’t very well stop working to do it, either.”

  “How about telling her to stay with someone else, like maybe her parents?”

  Chance laughed. “Her mother suggested that at the birthday party last night, after they found out someone had shot at her. You know Cassie, she flat-out refused, saying she’s not going to be chased out of her home or work.”

  “Damn. Want me to put her in protective custody?”

  “Are you kidding? She’d never forgive me.”

  Ben nodded. “Then I guess we’ll just have to make sure Buddy acted alone.”

  “But we can do more drive-bys and I’ll call her every hour or so to see where she is.”

  “Isn’t she still supposed to be staying at home, taking it easy?”

  Chance grimaced. “’Supposed to be’ is the operative word. But she probably won’t be. Someone will call and she’ll go.”

  Ben frowned. “She could tell them she’s ill and to call someone else.”

  “She could, but she won’t.”

  “Yeah.”

  Anything else new?”

  “I was just about to check my email.” Chance sat at his desk and downloaded it. “Here’s

  the report on those fingerprints from the file cabinet in Alfred’s office. Damn it, Ben! They’re Buddy’s! So he killed Alfred, too.”

  “Well, that should wrap both cases up.”

  “Yeah. Time to turn it over to the DA.”

  Chance grimaced. “Yeah, we’ve got his admission and the fingerprints. But I wish I had a motive that makes some sense.”

  ***

  The next ten days went past uneventfully. Then one hot summer evening, as Chance and I were driving to a restaurant for dinner, he got a call from Sheriff Ben.

  “Come on into the office for a bit. I’ve got some news you’ll want to hear,” Ben said.

  “Now? Cassie and I were just on our way out to dinner,” Chance objected.

  “Bring her along. This concerns her, as well.”

  “Okay.” Chance hung up and glanced at me. “You heard?”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Yeah. He really wants me to hear this? Usually, he wants me to stay far away from your cases.”

  Chance laughed. “Well, Ben can be cantankerous, all right. But he’s usually fair. Let’s go see what this news is.” He made a U-turn and drove back to the office. Canton’s businesses had mostly closed at five or six and only the bars and the Flame’s coffee shop were still lit up.

  He parked on the nearly empty street. We entered the building, said hi to the deputy manning the phones at the dispatch desk, and went up to Ben’s office.

  Ben was in his favorite position, leaning back in his office chair, his long legs up on his scarred, wooden desk. Now he swung his feet to the floor and indicated chairs. “Have a seat.”

  “What’s up?” Chance asked as we both sat on the wooden chairs across from him.

  He picked up some papers from his desk. “I got the report from the doctor who did Buddy’s evaluation,” he said. “I’m sure there’s a copy in your email, too, but I thought you’d both want to hear this.”

  “What did the psychiatrist say?”

  “He’s got a lot of big words in here. I called him and we had a nice talk where he explained some of it in plainer language. But, basically, the doc says Buddy is telling the truth. He really is the Buddy who lived a hundred years ago and belonged to the Bears gang in Chicago.”

  We both sat up straighter and I blurted out, “What? That’s crazy!”

  And Chance asked, “How can this be?”

  Ben shrugged. “Apparently, this psychiatrist believes in reincarnation. He’s done a lot of past life regressions, as he calls them. Where people remember themselves in former lives. He says the Buddy we know today lived before as the other Buddy Conners in Chicago and died in that gang fight he told us about. Then he was reborn in Minnesota and raised as Bob Dennison and insisted on being called Buddy from the time he was little.

  “Somehow, that car accident injured his brain and brought back the memories of his former life as Buddy Conners in Chicago. And he had all the old memories from his former life, so went about looking for the Lions guys the Bears had vowed to kill in their old feud.”

  I’d been listening with my mouth hanging open in disbelief. Finally, I spluttered, “I don’t believe this. I’ve never heard of such a crazy tale.”

  Chance put his hand over mine and said, “It does sound pretty far-fetched. How did he get the Conner’s ID?”

  “Apparently, Buddy told a friend he’d lost his ID and didn’t want to go through the hassle of going through legal channels to get another one. So he paid the guy to make him a fake driver’s license. He gave them the Chicago address and the guy took his picture for it.”

  I insisted, “This whole story is crazy.”

  Chance nodded. “Yeah. Maybe Buddy is making it up so he can plead insanity.”

  Ben raised an eyebrow at us. “You’ve never heard of reincarnation?”

  “Well, of course, I’ve read about it,” I said, blushing. Did he think I was stupid and uneducated? “I mean, it’s a far-east belief, isn’t it? Like in India? People here don’t really believe in that, do they? It sounds impossible.”

  Ben smiled. “A lot of things in this world seem a little far-fetched to most people. Doesn’t mean they aren’t real to those who experience them.”

  Chance shifted in his chair. “Like your mother’s ghost that you told me about, you mean?”

  “Yeah.” Ben glanced at me and went on, “My mother swears that when her mother died, Grandma came to her bedroom to say goodbye. No matter who laughed at Mom for believing it, she believed it. She said she knew what she saw, and didn’t give a hoot whether they thought she made it up or not. To her dying day, she was calm abou
t death, ’cause she said she knew life went on, even if her body didn’t.”

  I squirmed. “But Ben, how could Buddy find these people he knew again? I mean, he thinks I’m this Carrie Phipps.”

  Ben nodded.

  And Chance paled and turned to me. “Remember that research you did on the internet, Cassie?”

  I frowned. “Of course I remember.”

  He turned to Ben and explained, “Cassie looked up this Carrie and found she really was a reporter who wrote about those gangs and she did live where Buddy said. And we found a picture of Carrie. She looks just like Cassie.”

  Ben just smiled, as though he’d expected something like that. “Buddy looks a lot like Buddy Conners, too. The Doc says lots of people retain similar facial structure in various lifetimes.”

  Now I felt sick. “But that would mean I lived a hundred years ago in Chicago? That’s crazy!”

  “No crazier than Buddy’s vendetta against the Lions that began back then. It explains a lot of things.”

  “But how could he find all these people again?”

  Ben shrugged. “I asked the doc that, too. He said people often reincarnate in groups, planning their lives together before they’re born. Interesting stuff. I’m going to have to read up on it some more. Apparently there are a lot of books out there, written by doctors who’ve regressed patients. And even books about people who remember their former lives without being hypnotized.”

  I swallowed hard. “Yes, I’m sure there are. But I’m not sure I want to know about this. It’s scary stuff.”

  “Not so scary, Cassie. People have believed in reincarnation for thousands of years. Why, there’s even evidence of it in the Bible. Remember when Jesus asked his disciples, ‘Who do you say that I am?’ They thought he was one of the old prophets, born again as Jesus of Nazareth.”

  I swallowed and nodded, feeling overwhelmed by all of this.

  Chance put his arm around me and gave me a hug. “At least this means there aren’t any more of his gang looking for Cassie. We’re pretty sure Buddy acted alone, aren’t we, Ben?”

  Ben nodded. “Yes. The doc said he was pretty sure Buddy acted alone, that he was only reacting to things he remembered. And since he’s confessed to killing both George and Alfred, he’ll be locked up for the rest of his life.”