Proof of Murder

by Lauren Elliott

  She inhaled the stale, dusty, aged-leather scents hovering in the air and stepped inside. An icy chill wrapped around her. Glancing at the large closed windows, she rubbed her hands over her arms and took stock of the bookshelves. In the light of the room—growing muted by the increasing storm clouds outside—she spied a woman crouched down in front of a barrister’s bookcase. The woman shook the unyielding door latch and stood up, her long, wavy, auburn hair swinging across her back. She straightened her embroidered suede bomber jacket and adjusted the sunglasses propped on top of her head, then tapped her bloodred manicured fingernails on the glass door.

  Addie squinted. It can’t be. “Kalea Hudson? Is that you?”

  The woman swung around. Her face lit up with recognition. “Hi, cuz.”

  “What on earth are you doing here?” Addie dashed toward her and flung her arms around Kalea’s neck, squeezing her in a tight hug.

  “I was just in the neighborhood.” Kalea squealed, returning her embrace.

  “I’m not buying that.” Addie eyed her. “Greyborne Harbor is hardly on a direct route to anywhere, and an auction preview is the last place I’d expect to find you lurking about.”

  “What? Can’t a cousin drop into town unannounced?” She shifted her weight onto one beige, skinny-panted hip and fluttered her long false lashes. “And, I’ll have you know”—she flicked a strand of hair out of her eyes—“that I’m not the same party-girl you once knew. I have expanded my horizons.”

  “I always did hold out hope that you’d come to your senses.” Addie smiled and held her by the shoulders. “But it’s been years. Since college, if I remember correctly. Why didn’t you call and tell me you were coming to town?”

  Kalea’s cheeks rosied against her porcelain complexion. She draped an arm around Addie’s shoulders and squeezed. “I was going to drop in on you after I finished here. You know, a surprise, but it looks like you’ve found me out. So, surprise!”

  “Aw, I’ve missed you. Ten years is way too long.”

  “I totally agree.” Kalea grinned at her cousin. “But I promise now to keep in better touch since I’ve settled down in Cape Cod—”

  “What are you doing in here?” a voice shrieked from the doorway.

  Addie spun around and looked at the enraged birdlike woman looming in the door.

  “Didn’t you see the door sign?” The woman’s beaked mouth set firm-lipped. “This area is not prepared for viewing.”

  Addie glanced at the open door. A NO ENTRY sign was taped on what would have been the exterior side. She could tell by the set of the woman’s jaw that she expected an answer. “I’m terribly sorry. It was open when I came in and I didn’t see—”

  “Yes . . . me . . . me, too.” Kalea’s voice faltered.

  The woman crossed her long, slender arms in front of her navy two-piece, pencil-skirted suit that cried Saks Fifth Avenue, and flipped her brown, up-swept haired head, tapping her foot, glaring at them. Addie studied the hawkish woman, who peered back at her just as intently—except in the woman’s case, she appeared to be ready to swoop in on her prey. This, and something in her mannerism struck a familiar chord with Addie. She flipped through her mental files but came up empty. Nothing in her recent memories could help her place this woman.

  “Addie, I can’t believe it!” A tall, middle-aged man with hair graying at the temples swept past the bird creature in the doorway. “I had no idea you were in Greyborne Harbor,” he said as he rushed over to plant a light kiss on her cheek. “As soon as I saw your name on the registration sheet, I had to come and find you.”

  “Blake, it’s great to see you.” Still struggling to place the woman hovering in the door, Addie took one more glance at her before refocusing her attention on her old family friend. “I don’t think it’s been since my father’s funeral, right?”

  His lips tightened and he dropped his darkening gaze, nodding. “Well,” he said, apparently shaking off his melancholy, “I see you’ve had the pleasure”—he cleared his throat—“of meeting Charlotte McAdams, co-owner of McAdams Insurance. Our appraisers on this contract.”

  A light switch flipped on in Addie’s head, and a smile tickled the corners of her lips. “We never got as far as formal introductions.” Now she knew who the woman was—at least by reputation and observation of her sometimes testy encounters with Addie’s old supervisor at the Boston Library. Part of Charlotte’s reputation was how disagreeable she could be to work with, but no one ever negated her abilities as a topnotch appraiser. Addie couldn’t help but feel a little starstruck and awed in her presence.

  “You know these two?” Charlotte glared at Blake.

  “Yes, this is Addie Greyborne, the daughter of my dearest and oldest”—he crossed his heart—“friend. And, if I’m not mistaken”—he looked at a silent Kalea—“this is her cousin Kalea Hudson.”

  “I’m surprised you remember me, it’s been years.” Kalea blinked in surprise.

  “It’s the big hazel-green eyes—they’re the same as Addie’s. One of the many wonderful features she inherited from her beautiful mother, as I’m sure you did from her equally beautiful sister.”

  “Umm, thank you.” Kalea hesitantly smiled, glancing from Blake’s beaming face to the piercing birdlike eyes scrutinizing them from the doorway.

  Charlotte’s nostrils flared. She stomped her clickity-clack, gray high-heeled shoes across the wooden flooring to the leather chair behind the desk, and noisily began to shuffle a stack of papers. “Well,” her voice sliced the air. “This reunion is touching. However, I have work to finish before the auction tomorrow, so if you don’t mind . . .” She waved her hand. “Take this somewhere else and let me finish up here.”

  Blake’s jaw tensed. “Charlotte,” he said, his voice straining to remain level. “My company has used the services of McAdams for over thirty-five years. At no time under the direction of your father were either I or any of my clients ever subjected to such contemptuous treatment. Now apologize to these young women and don’t ever let it happen again.”

  Charlotte rose to her feet to meet his narrowed glare as she leaned on the desk toward him. “You do realize, Blake, that we would not be in this mess if you had listened to me a month ago, when I informed you that there wasn’t enough time to appraise and catalogue the contents of this entire property in time for the premature auction date you set.”

  “You’ve had well over four months to do a job that would have taken any other insurance team two months to complete. What am I paying you for? The wasted time you’ve spent driving back and forth to Boston to check up on your incompetent brother and so-called partner, Duane?”

  “How dare you speak about incompetency, when just this week your crew discovered that”—she pointed to the barrister’s bookcase—“in a storage space in the attic. Something they should have found months ago.”

  “And they would have,” Blake’s eyes flashed, “had it not been for all the distractions you and your brother created with the inconsistencies between your appraisals and inventory lists.” The explosion of hatred in Charlotte’s eyes matched Blake’s as his voice dropped to a barely audible whisper. “Remember, my dear, your father is not dead. He’s retired, and he’s only one phone call away. How do you think he will react when I tell him what I suspect the two of you have been up to? Especially when it’s not only his company’s good name you’ve placed in jeopardy, but also mine. And I won’t let you take it down!” He spat out his last words standing tall and formidable. “Since it appears you’ll have a long night of work ahead of you appraising the books in the barrister’s case, I’ll leave you to get started. Just make certain that all of the inventory found in it is accounted for.” He pushed past Addie, without even a glance in her direction, and strode out of the room.

  Addie jumped as he slammed the doors behind him.

  Chapter 3

  The tension in the room was stifling. Addie tilted her head toward the red-faced Charlotte, who appeared on the verge of bursting i
nto tears. Addie couldn’t really blame her. Obviously, everyone’s nerves here were on edge as the auction loomed closer but based on what Addie had just witnessed between Charlotte and Blake, she sensed their conflict ran deeper than pre-auction jitters. Her Curious George ears had perked up with a few things that had been said, but meddling in Blake’s private business affairs wasn’t something she could allow herself to get mixed up with. However, ensuring the success of the auction for her old family friend was something she could involve herself in.

  She glanced over at the barrister’s case. All her instincts told her that she should help Blake’s auction house retain its sterling reputation, but something gnawed at her and she couldn’t say the words she needed to. She looked back at Charlotte, who was known to be crusty on the outside. However, judging by the dampness on her cheeks now, Addie could see that inside she was really a soft dough ball.

  Addie’s gaze drifted around the room, drinking in the magnificence of her dream library—a place she never wanted to leave. Her mind raced. With her new life here in Greyborne Harbor, such as it was in her little bookstore, would she ever again have the opportunity to explore a room like this, or the chance to work with one of the East Coast’s most highly acclaimed appraisers? Oh, what the heck!

  Addie drew in a deep breath and mentally crossed her fingers, hoping that Charlotte’s softer side would still prevail and that Addie’s next words wouldn’t come back and bite her. “Maybe I could help out. I mean, if this is the last room to audit before tomorrow.”

  “You?” Charlotte swatted at her dewy cheek as if to displace a fly. “What would you know about rare and vintage books?”

  “Because that’s what she handled for years at the Boston Library and the British Museum,” squeaked Kalea from over Addie’s shoulder.

  Addie spun around and quirked an eyebrow at her cousin, who flashed a sheepish smile.

  “I might not have kept in touch with you, but I did stay up-to-date with what you were doing and where you were,” said Kalea.

  A twang of guilt plucked at Addie’s conscience. She hadn’t kept up with her cousin’s latest life events at all, now she felt horrible about it.

  “You said the Boston Library and the British Museum?” Charlotte snapped, her bird eyes narrowing on Addie’s. “Where did you study?”

  Addie accepted the hawkish woman’s challenge and braced herself. “My degrees in Literature and Ancient History were from Columbia. I also completed course work at the Smithsonian, and then I worked at the Boston Library and the British Museum, researching and cataloguing old and rare books.”

  “What did Blake say your name was again?”

  “It’s Addie . . . Addie Greyborne.”

  “Yes . . .” Charlotte stroked her chin, slowly nodding. “I’ve heard about you.”

  “You have?” Addie could barely contain her excitement over the fact that this woman, who was in the top of their field, actually knew about her.

  “You might prove useful to me after all. What about you?” She pinned Kalea with a steely gaze.

  “I’m a paralegal and just have Addie’s interest in old stuff, but I don’t know much about appraising it.”

  “Pfffft.” Charlotte waved her hand. “Then, Miss Greyborne, you may start with that bookcase and its contents that Mr. Edwards so eagerly dumped on me this week with, as you no doubt heard, clear instructions to have it catalogued by tomorrow’s ten a.m. auction start.” She opened the top drawer to the desk, pulled out a box of cotton gloves, and shoved it and a key ring toward Addie. “But before you start appraising, you two can move all these boxes of other books out of the way and line them up in order according to the lot sale numbers I have marked on each crate.”

  Addie looked at the dozen or so boxes. Kalea groaned. “Why didn’t you just leave them on the bookshelves? Wouldn’t that have been more convenient?”

  Charlotte puckered her lips. “For who? Certainly not for the auctioneer. He’ll need easy access to the lot numbers, and that’s impossible when the shelves they came off are way over there behind the desk and his podium will be over there beside the table.”

  Kalea’s shoulders slumped. Addie knew the scolding she had just received was totally unnecessary. Even though Charlotte was correct in her reasoning her delivery was completely uncalled for. Addie’s heart went out to her cousin because she had attended enough auctions in her day to know that the auctioneer would have an assistant who, prior to a lot number being called, would fetch the items and display them—in this case, on the table—in time for the bidding to commence.

  She’d explain the procedure to Kalea later; right now she could only fume inside. Addie didn’t care if Charlotte was in a bad mood because of frayed nerves or the altercation she’d just had with Blake, her rudeness was unacceptable. Addie opened her mouth to reprimand the hawk-woman on her crass behavior when she spun toward her on her spiked heel.

  “Since this latest imposition by Mr. Edwards appears to be taken care of, if you’ll excuse me, I have another pressing matter to deal with.” Charlotte stalked out, banging the doors closed behind her.

  “Whoa! The nerve of that woman. I was ready to pop her, right here and now.”

  “Me, too.” Addie’s brow creased. Well-respected appraiser or not, her behavior just now was inexcusable, especially since they were volunteering to help her out. In Addie’s mind Charlotte McAdams had just slipped off the pedestal Addie had placed her on. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. She’s exactly like my old department supervisor at the law firm. I developed a thick skin because of her.”

  “That’s too bad. I hope she was let go because of the way she treated you, as I imagine someone that nasty”—Addie glared at the closed doors—“treated everyone the same way.”

  “It was kind of my fault, though.” Kalea traced the toe of her shoe over the carpet edge.

  “Don’t ever think that being verbally abused by anyone is your fault, it’s—”

  “Even if you’re dating her husband, the senior law-firm partner?” she said, looking up sheepishly.

  Addie’s hand flew up in a stop motion. “I don’t want to know.”

  “Let me explain. I know that sounds horrible, but I’m not a home wrecker.”

  Addie turned her attention to the boxes on the floor.

  Kalea grabbed Addie’s arm and spun her around. “They were in the middle of a nasty divorce, and Nolan and I just sort of clicked. But his soon-to-be ex had issues with that. I think she was afraid I was after his money, and then there’d be less for her to get her hands on.”

  “Were you?” Addie pinned her with a knowing look. “I remember how you behaved in college with every man you dated. You actually kept a ledger of what their net income earning potential was going to be as a way of measuring if you’d see them again or not.”

  “That was just my way of getting a dig in at you. College was supposed to be fun, and you were soooo serious about everything.” Kalea flashed a hesitant grin.

  “You called my course load stuffy and outdated. As I recall you actually said, ‘Something only old spinsters would be interested in.’ Which makes me wonder what happened to you, because the Kalea I knew wouldn’t be caught dead within miles of an auction preview.”

  Kalea heaved out a breath. “It’s because Nolan is a collector, and he’s gotten me interested in all this.” She waved her hand at the boxes of books and chuckled. “Well, sort of. I’m still learning, though.”

  “Is that why you’re really here, for this auction, and not to see me?”

  “No, I really came to see you. When I got into town, I saw the flyer for the auction preview and thought I’d just stop in here for a few minutes before I dropped in on you. Like I said, I’m just learning about all this stuff and I wanted to surprise Nolan with a special gift. That is, if I can find something here for him that’s not too expensive.”

  Now it finally made sense to Addie. In spite of Kalea’s profession to having expanded her
horizons, Addie still knew her cousin well enough to be aware that she hated all things old—unless they were men who had money. And true to her cousin’s MO, a man was involved.

  “Come on, you can give me a hand. Maybe I can help you learn a little more about rare books, and you can impress your boss-slash-whatever he is with your newfound knowledge of his hobby.”

  “Perfect.” Kalea rubbed her hands together. “Where do we start?”

  “First, let’s get these boxes moved so we can begin the interesting part of what might be a very long day.”

  “Did you understand what she meant with her lot-sale numbers and all that?”

  “Yes, and I agree in theory with her, but she could have been nicer in her explanation, so I’ll translate for you. It’s important in an estate sale of this kind to have all the auction items sorted and divided into their separate sale packages beforehand. If they’re marked clearly and made easily accessible, the sale moves faster because the auctioneer will have an assistant who will display the items in each lot sale on the table prior to the bidding. That way, attendees can actually see what they’re bidding on.”

  Addie scanned the room. “It appears Charlotte has the shelves over there on the sidewall, closer to the center table and where the podium will be, broken into group or lot sales. Here . . . see how these shelves are tagged?” She pointed to a cardboard memo card hanging at one end of a shelf. “She’s sorted them up into publishing dates and genres. These lot sales appear to be ones that are considered collectible but aren’t actually rare books the same with the ones in these crates. Let’s get them out of the way, and then we can get to that table and try to figure out what she’s done with the individual books I see sitting on it.”