The Curious Case of the Missing Figurehead: A Novel (A Professor and Mrs. Littlefield Mystery)

by Diane Noble

  I paused again and then said, “He was on a blood thinner, and the vomiting apparently started some internal bleeding.”

  “I can’t help but feel responsible,” Max said. “If I hadn’t brought the figurehead here …”

  Again, my throat tightened. I had been the one who talked him out of putting off the party. The full weight of it all fell on my shoulders. I swiped my tears away. They would serve no purpose now.

  “There’s been a lot of talk here about the cause,” Max said, “but no one’s come to any conclusions.”

  “What did you eat?” I leaned against the metal railing at the top of the steps. The cold seeped through my chef’s shirt, and I shivered.

  “A little of everything. It was delicious.”

  “How about drink?”

  “Water from the pitcher on the table. It had a lemon slice in it.”

  I ran it all through my mind for the ninetieth time. “Katie and I both tasted everything to adjust the seasonings, including the hors d’oeuvres,” I said. “If it was in the food, we would have gotten sick.” I paused. “Did you have any of the punch?”

  “Only a few sips when I was toasted.”

  “The nonalcoholic one or the one with champagne?”

  “I didn’t know there was a difference. Jane Fletcher picked up a glass for me for a toast. Others came over and toasted as well. If it had champagne, I couldn’t taste it.”

  “Did anyone else say how much of anything they ate or drank?” Something was taking flight but refusing to land in my brain. It was as if I knew the poison. Had possibly even used it. Sort of like a word on the tip of your tongue that you can’t find. The words heart fibrillation flitted around the edges of my mind but refused to tell me anything more.

  “I’ve got to go,” I told Max. “Enrique was arrested for stealing my van. I’m at the courthouse right now, hoping to straighten things out.”

  “I’ll check in with you later,” he said with a note of regret, which surprised me. Regret that I hadn’t had other news for him? I hadn’t told him about the missing figurehead. And now wasn’t the time, not when he was still dealing with the news about Dr. Delancy.

  “I’ll let you know if I hear anything,” I said.

  I headed for the sheriff’s office at the rear of the building, turned a corner and met up with a sliding-glass window. Behind it, a woman was busy with what appeared to be a phone bank with blinking lights of different colors. It seemed hopelessly old-fashioned in our techie age. With a moment of chagrin, I realized she must be the dispatcher.

  I cleared my throat, and she removed her headset. “Can I help you?”

  “I’m here about Enrique Fox,” I said. “He’s been accused of stealing my van, which he didn’t do.”

  “You must be the woman I talked to earlier.” She looked none too eager to be talking with me now. “What did you say your name was again?”

  “Littlefield. Mrs. Littlefield.” I smiled “Was and still is.”

  Still unsmiling, she wrote my name on a pad.

  “I would like to clear this up without delay,” I said. “Enrique isn’t guilty of anything. He works for me.”

  A scoffing sound came from someplace between her nose and her throat. “Working for you fifty miles outside city limits, driving at speeds up to ninety miles per hour? It turned into a car chase.” She shook her head. “And you think he isn’t guilty of anything.”

  I sighed heavily. “With everything that went on tonight, I’m sure he had good reason.”

  She laughed. “Yeah, right. He’s still good for resisting arrest and assaulting an officer. Those charges won’t be dropped.” Her mouth puckered, prune-like.

  Since this morning, it seemed that troubles had piled upon troubles. The destructive mass whirled in my mind like a tornado, picking up speed and creating greater and greater havoc as it moved.

  “I would like to talk with Sheriff Doyle.”

  She made that scoffing sound at the back of her throat again. “He’s a very busy man. Especially tonight. I’m not even sure he’s in.”

  “He’s in. I saw his car in the lot. We talked earlier. I think he’ll want to see me.”

  She tapped the eraser end of her pencil on the desktop, and then, with her free hand, punched one of the blinking lights on her console.

  “He said to come right in, Mrs. Littlefield.”

  “I know the way,” I said, and smiled, attempting to try to cheer her. She sniffed and donned her earphones.

  Deputies, male and female, passed each other as they scurried here and there. They looked harried. They wouldn’t want to relive this night anytime soon. Make that anytime at all.

  I found the sheriff’s door, knocked lightly, and then heard a gravelly, “Come in.”

  Sheriff Doyle stood as I entered. His expression was businesslike and cold, very different from the man I’d come to know and admire through the years. “Quite a night. Have you heard anything from Dr. Gilvertin?” He gestured for me to sit in the chair facing his desk.

  “No, and I’m still worried sick.”

  “Our dispatcher received a couple of 9-1-1 calls earlier. They came from a burner phone, no GPS.”

  “There’s no way to trace them?”

  He shook his head. “No way to know who or where they came from. I mention it only because cell service is sporadic in these mountains. Calls without connections are common.” He shrugged.

  I leaned forward. “But because it came into your dispatch office, it’s likely to be fairly close.”

  “Still a large area,” he said.

  I leaned back. “Dr. Gilvertin is not in on this,” I said. “You’ve got to believe me.”

  He gave me a stare that said the jury was still out.

  “I’m here about an employee of mine. He was picked up speeding in my catering van tonight. He was watching a person of interest on behalf of Dr. Haverhill.”

  The sheriff leaned forward, narrowing his eyes. “Person of interest?” He pulled out a legal pad and clicked his ballpoint pen.

  “You’ll need to speak to Dr. Haverhill about the details, but a man named Marcel Devereaux had been following him.”

  He sat back. “That’s old news. Dr. Haverhill already alerted us to this Devereaux person. We checked him out. He’s legit.”

  “Dr. Haverhill was worried enough to want to cancel the banquet.”

  “Is that right?” His eyes remained fixed on mine. “Cancel the banquet that was to be in his name? What made him change his mind?”

  “I talked him out of it,” I said. “I told him that we would keep an eye out for Devereaux.”

  He made some notes and then looked up. “And did you?”

  I nodded, suddenly feeling that I was on the witness stand. Again.

  I stood to make my point. “I intend to work as hard—make that harder—on this case than any I’ve ever been involved with. It’s Hyacinth, my best friend, for heaven’s sake. It’s my company’s reputation on the line. Why do you keep coming back to point the finger at Hyacinth, at me, at my company, and earlier, even at my daughter?”

  He stood then too, towering above me. “I have to go where the trail leads, Mrs. Littlefield. Your catering company puts on a meal and more than half the attendees end up in the hospital. A valuable artifact is stolen at the same time from your best friend’s library. Eyewitnesses saw her open the door for the thieves and jump into the getaway vehicle on her own accord. Now, you tell me, Mrs. Littlefield, why I shouldn’t suspect either—or both—of you.”

  I blinked at him, and my hand flew to my chest. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “I’m not kidding at all. Just know, Mrs. Littlefield, that our past ‘working relationship,’” he said, making air quotes, “doesn’t mean a thing.”

  He sighed heavily and let his body drop into his chair, then
removed his glasses and cleaned them with his handkerchief. “Circumstantial evidence speaks loud and clear. You’ve got to bring me something concrete that tells me—and the DA—that you didn’t have anything to do with this.”

  “What would be my motive?”

  He laughed mirthlessly. “The treasure in the library. Who needs a catering company if you nabbed the figurehead?”

  I put my hands on my hips. “Do you know how laughable that sounds?”

  He nodded. “Unfortunately, yes, I do. Better get used to it. I’ve heard it’s tomorrow’s headline in the Chronicle.”

  “A special edition?” I stifled a groan. Of course. All this was big news. But making headlines wasn’t something I wanted to think about right now.

  “Let’s get back to Enrique.” I leaned forward. “I think he saw something, or someone, suspicious. Maybe his cell phone was damaged or taken by whoever it was that accosted him. He knew I’d want him to follow. My guess—with a high degree of probability—is that’s why he was arrested for speeding fifty miles from here. I can vouch for him, Sheriff. He’s never been in trouble before. I can’t imagine he assaulted an officer—that’s just not like him.”

  The sheriff reached over to pick up his phone. “Sergeant,” he said when the other end picked up, “bring that Fox kid to my office.” He listened for a moment, his face immobile. Then he said, “I don’t care what the charges are; we’ll handle that later. Just get him up here ASAP.”

  Enrique arrived a few minutes later. I gasped and stood so fast my purse fell to the floor. Blood and soil covered his face and arms. His clothes were torn and covered with dried blood.

  He stood, handcuffed, with his head down and his shoulders sloped.

  “Enrique,” I breathed. “What happened?”

  Enrique looked up, and despite the smudges of blood and grime on his face, he attempted a smile. “I tried …” was all he got out before the sheriff told him to sit down.

  “This is not protocol,” Sheriff Doyle said. He went on for a bit about regulations and the seriousness of the charges. Enrique nodded that he understood.

  Not being one to let an opportunity go by, I interjected. “Sheriff, can we hear Enrique’s side of things? If he’s seen something, or knows something, we’re wasting time not listening. And by the way, do you really think he needs handcuffs at this point?”

  Sheriff Doyle scowled a bit at my interruption, made a call, and a moment later, an officer arrived to take off the cuffs.

  The sheriff turned again to Enrique, who was rubbing his wrists. “Tell us what happened.”

  “I, uh, it happened so fast. And I didn’t, well, I tried …” Enrique looked at me, tongue-tied. It was no wonder. He’d been through a lot.

  I leaned forward and drew his attention away from the sheriff, who now glared at me.

  “What did you see?” I kept my gaze on the boy, willing him not to glance at the sheriff and risk being intimidated again.

  “You know the monitor in the van?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, it was picking up the feed from the library camera. I was watching it when two men went by with something on a stretcher. It looked weird so it caught my attention.”

  I leaned in closer. “Weird? Like how?”

  “It was a block-like shape. If it was a person, it was covered with a tent or something.” He shrugged.

  “The people who carried it, were they firemen or medical people?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Enrique was an eyewitness. He witnessed the robbery. I wanted to yell yahoo and give the air a punch, but restrained myself. “Did you see their faces? Anything that could identify them?”

  “It happened so fast I almost missed it. It seemed fishy because they were coming from the library, not the Encore.”

  “Then what happened?” I could hear the sheriff’s loud scribbling on his notepad. At least he wasn’t interrupting or scaring the young man.

  “I got out of the van and ran over to where I’d seen them.”

  “And where was that exactly?”

  “On the service road the gardeners use. You know, the one just below the library.”

  “Good,” I said. “This is really good information, Enrique. What else did you see?” I resisted shooting a look of triumph in the sheriff’s direction.

  Enrique hiked his shoulders up a notch. “Well, that was when I saw the ambulance.”

  The scribbling sounds continued from the sheriff’s desk.

  “Can you describe it?” I kept my eyes locked on Enrique’s.

  “It was red and white. It looked just like most of the others. The only reason I noticed it was because of where it was parked—over by the library, like I said.”

  “Okay, that’s good,” I said. “What else did you see?”

  His eyes darted to the sheriff’s and then back to mine. It seemed he didn’t want to go on.

  “It’s all right,” I said. “Please, tell us everything. Why don’t you start with what they looked like?”

  “I couldn’t see their faces. They wore rubber masks, the kind that look like real people. But I saw that one was tall with blond hair sticking out the back of his mask, and the other one was very short.” He shrugged. “Maybe that one was a woman. I don’t know.”

  “Go on,” I said.

  He cleared his throat. “They put the stretcher into the back of the ambulance, and then, while I was watching, Dr. Gilvertin ran out of the library and climbed into the ambulance with them.”

  “Dr. Gilvertin,” the sheriff repeated. “Did she appear to go willingly?”

  Enrique turned to me again, as if for permission. I held my breath. What if I was wrong about Hyacinth? What if …? I didn’t let myself go there. I had faith in my friend no matter what.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “Tell us what you saw. Every detail.”

  “She seemed to know what she was doing. She almost jumped into the back of the ambulance. I didn’t know what to do.” He shook his head slowly. “I was too far away to stop them. I decided it would be best to follow them and then call and report what I’d seen.” He glanced at me again.

  “You made the right choice,” I said.

  “You said they were carrying someone on a stretcher,” the sheriff asked without looking up from his notepad.

  “That’s what I thought at first. But now I think it must have been the figurehead from the library covered with a white sheet. At least, that’s what I think.”

  Sheriff Doyle cleared his throat. “So, just to be clear, in your opinion Dr. Gilvertin left with them voluntarily?”

  Enrique glanced at me, and I could see how sorry he was. “Yes, it seemed like she went along because she wanted to.”

  I jumped to my feet. “I know my friend. If she went voluntarily, she had good reason.” In my agitation, I paced in front of the sheriff’s desk, then stopped short. “If Hyacinth got into the ambulance on her own accord, it was because she couldn’t imagine that piece of history and art leaving without her.”

  The sheriff didn’t appear to be moved. “No one in their right mind would voluntarily get in a vehicle with a couple of thieves. Unless …”

  He made a few more notes and then looked up again at Enrique. “So you went back to the catering van. What happened next?”

  “I had just started the engine when an explosion happened next to me. At least, that’s what it sounded like. Somebody in a dark hood hit the window with a crowbar. It shattered the window on the driver’s side. He reached in and unlocked the door, practically lifted me off the seat, and threw me on the ground.”

  He stopped for a minute and picked at his bloodied arm. “In the glass. He broke the equipment”—Enrique looked at me, and I knew he meant our audiovisual monitoring equipment—“with the same crowbar. Then he grabbed the keys to the van and next, cam
e after me. He only got in a couple of good licks before I rolled out of the way.”

  “He took your keys,” the sheriff began, “then how—?”

  Enrique smiled and shrugged. “Hot-wire.”

  I took over the questioning. “That must have taken some time—all that breakage and beating. How did you know which direction the ambulance went?”

  “I guessed they would hide in the line with the other real emergency vehicles. So I pulled alongside the stream of vehicles headed to different hospitals. I didn’t know if I would find the right one with all the others mixed in. But as I followed, I saw one ambulance veer out of line and head up the on-ramp to the interstate. I took off after him.”

  “Smart thinking,” I said, feeling tremendously proud of Enrique. “You said your plan was to call in what you’d seen as soon as you were tailing the thieves …”

  “After the man trashed the van, he grabbed my phone and squashed it with his boot.”

  The sheriff scribbled another line or two and then looked up. “And the rest of what you are accused of is, as we say, history. You still have serious charges made against you by an officer of the law.”

  I jumped in again. “It may be history from the cop’s point of view. I want to hear Enrique’s version.”

  Enrique shot me a look of gratitude. “At first, the ambulance blended with traffic. The driver made no sudden moves, and I stayed far back so I wouldn’t be seen. I followed for a half hour or so, ducking behind cars and trucks and big rigs. Then they began to pick up speed. Soon they left the rest of the traffic behind. I think they must have figured out I was following them.

  “Suddenly it was like they were in a NASCAR race. I was going ninety, and I couldn’t catch them. When they saw the cop car coming toward them from the other direction, they flipped on their lights and siren, obviously to look legitimate.”

  “Giving them a ‘reason’ to be speeding.” I frowned as I thought of Hyacinth dealing with those scoundrels.

  Enrique went on with his tale, now seeming to enjoy being the center of attention. “The cop swung a U-turn and shone his lights on me. I pulled over to tell the officer what had happened. I suppose I got carried away. I wanted him to follow the ambulance. But he wouldn’t listen.