Darned if You Do

by Monica Ferris

  So when she asked him if he would care to come along on a visit to a possibly volatile person of interest in this murder case, he quickly agreed.

  “Has he agreed to talk to you?” Connor asked as they got into Betsy’s Buick.

  “No. He doesn’t know we’re coming.”

  Connor started to ask if that was a good idea then changed his mind. Once burnt, after all.

  But while they waited for the light to change crossing Highway 7, she glanced at him and said, “Do you think this is a foolish thing I’m doing?”

  “I don’t know,” Connor replied truthfully. “Have you done this sort of thing before?”

  “Sort of. But I don’t usually go up against someone I’ve been warned has a temper.”

  “Is that why you asked me along?”

  “Frankly, yes. Do you mind?”

  “If you hadn’t asked me and got hurt, I would have been very upset about it. You’ve been doing this investigative thing for some while, however, so I must trust your instincts.”

  “Oh dear, you are being really careful around me, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, and that will continue until we regain the equilibrium we used to have.”

  A pause. Then she said in a very sarcastic voice, “Well, if you weren’t so damn bossy—”

  He smiled and replied in kind, “Well, if only you weren’t so damn independent—”

  They both chuckled, because each had warned the other of those exact failings just before they moved in together.

  But the meager good mood faded as Betsy began to look back and forth at the houses on the street they were on, trying to find the right house number. It was a quiet street in a modest neighborhood of mostly 1950s look-alike homes. One, set well back on its lot, had its big front yard filled with very young children playing on swings, a hard plastic toy house, and a slide.

  “What’s the number?” asked Connor.

  “Twenty-seven fourteen.”

  Connor looked out the window. “Twenty-seven oh nine, twenty-seven eleven, twenty-seven thirteen—should be right across the street from here,” he said, counting up.

  Betsy pulled to the curb. The house was big and old, different from the rest. It had probably started life as a farmhouse, back when this was all countryside. A sign in the front window read, ROOM FOR RENT.

  Betsy and Connor walked up the wooden steps and onto the big front porch. Up close, it was apparent that the house was getting shabby around the edges. The floor of the porch was scabby, and the screen door—which should have been switched with a storm door by now—was a little too big for the doorway.

  Betsy pressed the doorbell and heard a loud brrrring from inside the house.

  In about half a minute the door was opened by a tall, spare gentleman with sharp brown eyes, a smiling mouth, and a halo of white hair. He wore a blue chambray shirt under a knit black and blue argyle vest, and shapeless old corduroy trousers.

  “Lookin’ for a room?” he asked in a thin tenor voice.

  “No, sir, we’re looking for one of your tenants, Chester Teesdale.”

  “Come on in, go on through to the kitchen. I’ll fetch him down. Who shall I tell him is calling?”

  “Connor Sullivan,” said Connor at once.

  “All right. Have a seat at the table.”

  They sat down at the stainless-steel-legged Formica-topped table, its pattern of tiny brown leaves faded from much scrubbing. The room smelled of coffee. Betsy said, “Quick thinking, giving your name. If he recognized mine, he might not have come.” They sat quietly for a few moments. Then Betsy reached for Connor’s hands, and he took hers in his strong, reassuring grip.

  “Yeah?” said a deep, sleepy voice, and both of them turned to look at the big man coming into the room. His eyes were dull and red rimmed, his mouth a little slack. He wore a thick red plaid flannel shirt, dirty khakis, and flip-flops. His dark hair looked as if he’d combed it with his fingers.

  “Do I know you?” the man said to Connor, speaking slowly, puzzled.

  “No, I don’t think you do,” Connor replied. “But you’ve spoken to this lady here. Her name is Betsy Devonshire, and she’s investigating the strange appearance of a rifle on your father’s grave.”

  “Oh.” He hesitated for a moment. “Oh yeah.”

  “I’m glad to meet you, Mr. Teesdale,” said Betsy.

  “Uh-huh,” he nodded.

  “What you said to me was very interesting, but I’d like to hear more of the story, if you don’t mind.”

  After another few moments he said softly, “Maybe I do mind.” But he sounded as if he weren’t quite sure.

  “I hope you’ll think about it for just a couple of minutes. It’s important, more important than you know. You see, that rifle isn’t the only thing that’s gone missing from the Riordan house.”

  “No?” Teesdale sighed gustily and scratched the top of his head as if trying to stir up some thoughts. “I only took the gun.”

  “Here, sit down,” invited Connor. “Do you think we can get a cup of coffee?”

  Teesdale let his eyes wander around the kitchen. “Uh-huh,” he said again, and then, after a pause, “Sure.” Another pause during which he visibly pulled himself together. “Oh, hey, yes. Mick keeps the coffee going all day long for us and our guests.” He paused again. “Are you my guests?” he said as if in jest.

  Betsy said, “Maybe just visitors. But I’m hoping that together we can solve a puzzle.”

  “Huh,” he said. Obviously he was a man of few words. He walked to the wall cabinet beside the big white refrigerator and opened it to reveal about three dozen coffee mugs of varying sizes, colors, amusing or snarky or sexy mottos and sporting emblems.

  He took out a Vikings-purple mug, a Twins red and white mug, and a blue-gray mug with a big marijuana leaf painted on it. He brought them to the table, then paused for a few moments, picked them up again and took them to the counter under the mug cabinet. A gallon-size coffee urn with its little red light gleaming stood there and he filled the mugs one at a time and brought them to the table.

  Betsy took the one he brought first, the Twins mug, and Connor the second, marijuana one, leaving Teesdale the Vikings one. He, noting this, said “huh” again and sat down.

  Already on the table were two café-style containers of sugar and dry creamer, and a mug half full of teaspoons.

  He lavishly sweetened and lightened his coffee, took a big, noisy slurp, and said, “Okay, now what?”

  “I’d like you to tell me the story of the rifle,” said Betsy. “Where it came from, how it ended up in Tom Riordan’s house.” She had reached into her purse for her notepad, but when she consulted Connor with a glance he shook his head no. She took a sip of the coffee, made a face, and added sugar and creamer.

  Connor tasted his coffee. It was overcooked, strong, and bitter. But he’d had worse.

  “Why do you want to know?” asked Teesdale.

  “Because someone is telling a strange story about a small red box with three needle cases and a ball of carved mice inside it going missing, and I’m trying to figure out what happened to it.”

  He stared at her. “I never saw no red box in Tom Take’s house.”

  “But you saw the rifle—and took it.”

  “Well, yeah. But like I already told you, it’s my gun and I can do whatever I want with it.”

  “Tell me how it came to be in Tom Riordan’s house.”

  “That’s right, Riordan’s his real name, I kind of keep forgetting that.” He drank some more coffee and looked expectantly at the two of them.

  Connor, inhaling lightly, was not surprised to smell marijuana on the man’s clothing.

  “Tell us about the rifle,” coached Betsy.

  “Oh, yeah.” Teesdale sighed, “Well, Dad took me to go target practicing as soon as I could walk
and started letting me shoot when I was eight. The first time I fired his old over-and-under shotgun, he’d put a full choke on it and the recoil knocked me over. He laughed at me, but bragged to his friends that I got right up and asked to try again.”

  He looked at Betsy, who nodded and looked interested. Connor wondered if she knew what a full choke was, or, for that matter, an over-and-under.

  “Dad and me was real close. Mom was kind of a witch. She liked my two sisters okay, but she didn’t like me. But Dad and me went hunting and fishing and he let me help work on his truck as soon as I got big enough to tell a hammer from a screwdriver.” He drew himself up and nodded once. “We was tight, y’know?”

  “That must have been great,” said Betsy.

  “Sure. So this one time Dad was gone somewhere and I wanted to do some shooting, so I sneaked his brand-new Marlin thirty ought six out of the closet, filled my jacket pockets with ammunition, and went out on my bike to a gravel pit down by Christmas Lake.”

  “How old were you?” asked Betsy.

  He blinked three times. “Fifteen, old enough to know better.” There was regret and shame in his voice.

  “Go on,” said Connor gently.

  “As I was coming up the street, I saw Dad’s truck in the driveway, and here I was with his brand-new rifle out in the rain.”

  “Uh-oh,” said Betsy.

  “You bet. So I hid it in a kind of lean-to that was a firewood box built against the garage, and went in the back door.” Teesdale got up and poured himself another cup of coffee. He seemed more fully awake now, even restless. He came back to the table and sat down without looking at either Betsy or Connor. He reached for the sugar and creamer and doctored his drink heavily.

  He took a big drink and continued, “Dad didn’t notice the gun was missing, but he yelled at me for leaving my bike out in the rain instead of bringing it up on the porch. I had to go back out and get it. And rain? It rained like it was the last time it was gonna get the chance, rained and rained. I finally went to bed, but stayed awake. After a long while, the rain stopped. Everyone else was all asleep and I snuck out and went to the wood box, and the gun was gone. There were some old logs left over from last winter and I lifted them out but it wasn’t there. I couldn’t think what happened to it.”

  There was a long silence. Connor took a breath to say something encouraging, but Betsy shook her head very slightly at him.

  At last Teesdale, his voice harshening, said, “The hardest thing I ever done in my life was tell Dad what I did. And he didn’t believe me! He said I musta sold it and where was the money. I didn’t have any money so he beat me half to death. Mom finally got scared and made him stop and took me to the emergency room. He broke my nose and two of my fingers and cracked a rib on my left side and I was all over bruises.

  “And things was never the same between us. He called me by a new nickname, Thief. He never forgave me, never, till the day he died. It was like he loved that gun more than me.

  “And I said all right, if you think I’m a thief, then I’ll be a thief. I made some new friends at school who showed me how to steal and smoke dope and I never looked back.”

  The room fell silent for a long minute. Betsy looked inexpressibly sad.

  Connor said, “But you volunteered to help Valentina Shipp clear out Tom Riordan’s house. That was a good deed.”

  “Hah, I volunteered because I thought maybe I could steal something. I was working on that closet, looking for something I could stick in a pocket. There was six golf clubs in there, and I went to put them on that old green couch and, swear to God, the second I saw that rifle I knew it was Dad’s. I picked it up and it was all beat up, but it was the Marlin. I just walked out of the house with it and kept it under my bed for two days while I tried to think what to do. Tom musta seen me put it in that firewood box and took it. He was a great one for walking out in all kinds of weather.” He shrugged and took a drink of coffee. “You know where it ended up. I hope Dad looks down from heaven—or up from hell—and sees it there.”

  After another wait, Betsy asked softly, “Did you go see Tom Riordan in the hospital?”

  “No, huh-uh, no.” But he didn’t look at either of them.

  “They have video cameras in hospitals nowadays,” said Connor. “At every entrance.”

  They waited again. Teesdale said angrily, “All right, I went to the hospital, but I was so mad I changed my mind about going to his room.”

  “Too mad? I don’t understand,” said Betsy.

  “I was so mad I might’ve killed him.”

  On the drive home, Connor said, “What do you think?”

  “I think we finally have another suspect besides Valentina.”

  “My dear, I think you may be right.”

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  JILL called Betsy the next morning. “Lars thinks Mike is going to arrest Valentina today or tomorrow.”

  “Now hold on! I called him yesterday and gave him a viable suspect besides Valentina. Chester Teesdale.”

  “I know. But Teesdale is shown on HCMC entrance videotapes walking in and walking back out two minutes later.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  Betsy snorted. “Seriously? Two minutes? That’s an odd amount of time. If he changed his mind, it should have been thirty seconds.”

  “You’re reaching, Betsy.”

  She sighed. “Yes, I know, I know. But I still really feel Valentina didn’t do this. I know she didn’t!”

  “You’re going to have to offer Mike more than your heartfelt belief. You need some E-V-I-D-E-N-C-E.”

  * * *

  THE next day, Emily called Betsy. “I’m sorry I didn’t get back to you until now,” she said. “I had to wait till I got hold of Ellie—she went to a wedding in Omaha—and ask her to find out that the name of the auction company is House of Schwales. They’re based in Edina—lah de dah—somewhere around Fiftieth and France.” Edina was to Minneapolis the equivalent of Saint Paul’s White Bear Lake. Both were high-end neighborhoods.

  Betsy got the phone number for House of Schwales from Emily, thanked her, and hung up.

  “What kind of a name is House of Schwales?” asked Godwin, coming to look at what Betsy had written down.

  “I can only surmise that someone with the surname Schwales founded it,” said Betsy.

  She dialed the number Emily had given her, and a very loud and jolly voice answered, “House of Schwales! Wally himself speaking! How can I be of service to you?”

  “Good afternoon,” Betsy replied. “May I speak with the owner of House of Schwales?”

  “He’s out of town. But this is the head auctioneer in person!”

  “I’m doing some research into auctions, and I’d like to make an appointment to interview you.”

  “Are you a reporter?” The voice had dropped in volume while gaining in respect.

  “No, sir, this is a private investigation.”

  “Investigation into what?” Now he sounded suspicious.

  “A trio of carved ivory needle cases that seem to have gone missing.”

  There was a long silence on the other end. Betsy bit her tongue and waited.

  “Who do you represent?” he asked at last, very quietly.

  “A woman you have never met, and who has never been to your place of business, but who has seen and handled the needle cases. The cases were stolen, I believe from your auction rooms, then stolen again by another person. They have disappeared a third time, and the second thief has been murdered. I am trying to learn if there is a connection between the thefts and the murder.”

  “What kind of—? There’s no connection, couldn’t possibly be a connection!”

  “How do you know that?”

  He said very firmly, “Because we never brought any ivory needle cases to the auction floor
at House of Schwales.”

  “It’s true that you didn’t auction them off. But they were on your list of items to be auctioned.”

  “That was an error we regret.”

  “You had them, though,” Betsy insisted. “There’s a photograph of them on your web site.”

  “No, there isn’t.”

  “Not now. But there was.”

  “Ma’am, why are you bothering us about this? You said yourself the person you’re representing has no connection whatsoever to our place of business.”

  “Because Schwales had the needle cases, I’m wondering if you also handled a box made of cinnabar and a small ball-shaped carving of white mice, both presumably of Chinese origin.”

  “And you think the whole lot has gone missing?”

  Bingo! thought Betsy. “So your needle cases were part of a lot.”

  “I didn’t say that!”

  “Yes, you did. You knew they were in a single lot, and I believe they were stolen from Schwales before they could be auctioned.”

  “Who do you think you are, Mrs. Sherlock Holmes?”

  “No, I’m the owner of a small business in Excelsior, with a part-time hobby of criminal investigations.”

  “Hey, we haven’t done anything criminal!”

  “No, you had something criminal done to you. Do you have any idea who stole the cinnabar box and its contents from you?”

  “. . . No.”

  “Was anything else stolen?”

  “I’m not admitting anything at all was stolen, and I resent your implication that my company is part of a criminal conspiracy.”

  “I’m not—”

  The man hung up.

  Betsy logged on to the Internet and looked up the site for House of Schwales. She found their post-auction listing of items, with the prices they had sold for, but didn’t find the cinnabar box lot. She logged off and phoned Connor. “Dear heart, do you know anything about House of Schwales?”

  “Not much. They’re a high-end outfit. They specialize in Asian and African art and collectibles, which I’m not much interested in.”