by Sarah Graves
So I did. Ellie relaxed in the well-kept parlor and as quickly as I had. It was so comfortably unpretentious you felt you could kick your shoes off, yet spotless and smelling sweetly of houseplants and furniture polish.
And as usual, Ellie noticed something I’d missed. “Jake,” she breathed, peering at something on the wall, “look at this.”
Glancing at it earlier without really seeing, I’d thought it was a painting; instead, it was a large, very detailed piece of needlework, mounted and beautifully framed. Embroidery, I thought, but to call it that didn’t really do it justice.
Nothing could. “Look at those stitches,” Ellie marveled.
Fine as hairs, and in every possible color on the finest of ivory linen, they depicted a rich scene of life in some long-ago royal palace, with courtiers, ladies, peacocks, fountains . . .
It was astonishing, and immaculately worked. I thought it must have cost a fortune.
Then I noticed another chair with a tapestry frame pulled up to it and a magnifying lamp set nearby. Beside the chair lay an open canvas case equipped with slots for the sharp implements it contained: needles glinting in every size, some curved and others straight, scissors whose long, short, and angled blades gleamed wickedly, and a variety of other small, bright tools that I couldn’t identify.
In its organization and the obvious quality of the things it held, it was like Victor’s case of surgical instruments. Ready to hand, too, stood a tall wooden rack filled with dozens of spools of colored thread. Lydia came up behind me as I turned from it.
“Did you . . . ?” I began, gesturing at the framed tapestry. She nodded in reply.
“For a while after my husband passed away, I didn’t do much else,” she replied evenly. “Every time I finish one, I’m certain I never want to start another.”
Each stitch was a tiny marvel, a molecule of color capturing the green iridescence in a peacock’s tail, the purple of a grape.
“But as you see,” she added with a modest little laugh and a wave at the tapestry frame, covered now with a new linen as white and fine as a blank page, “my resolutions don’t last.”
Then she got her first close-up look at Leonora. “Come here, you lovely girl,” she cooed delightedly at the infant, instantly gratifying Ellie, who was still smarting over Azenath Jones’s neglect.
Even Leonora, who was ordinarily not a big fan of strangers, cooperated. She accepted a remarkable amount of cuddling and baby talk before allowing herself to be put down on a soft, crocheted afghan that Lydia supplied, on the floor by our chairs.
And only then did Lydia speak frankly. “When I heard Jim Diamond had been murdered I confess my first thought was, good. Good for whoever did it.”
“Probably you weren’t the only one,” Ellie responded gently.
“Perhaps. But that doesn’t make it right. Only he did ruin my husband’s business and hasten his death,” Lydia went on, “so I can’t seem to shake that last bit of vengefulness in my heart.”
I thought she was being too hard on herself, and said so. She smiled in return.
“You are kind. But I know my duty, and revenge isn’t it, not even in my imagination.”
She shook her head ruefully. “Besides, Diamond was as much a victim as my husband, I’ve come to believe.”
“Really? How so?” I asked, bewildered.
“When the check forging began my husband was still fairly well, and still in charge of the computer. But Howard—my husband’s name was Howard—he wasn’t at the top of his game anymore. He was on medication.”
“So someone could have . . . what? Lied to him? Tricked him?”
Lydia Duckworth shook her head. “That’s just the trouble. I don’t know. Jim Diamond never admitted how he got checks that he could forge. And the computer records were destroyed in a power surge during a storm, soon after he was caught out.”
She sighed regretfully. “So it wasn’t possible to reconstruct what he’d done to them. Or—what someone else had.”
She straightened. “Then Howard’s condition worsened. The business closed, the employees moved away for other jobs . . .”
Ellie’s glance met mine: drat.
“. . . not that it mattered,” Lydia Duckworth added, “because the police had questioned them all.”
“So you couldn’t find out what had been done, or where the money got to,” I concluded.
She sipped from her porcelain cup. “That’s right, unfortunately. But what I do know is, no salesman had the kind of access Jim Diamond had to have gotten, to do what he did. Someone else had to steal those checks and give them to him, and someone who did have good access to the computer—authorized or not—had to help cover his tracks afterward.”
She set the cup down carefully. I got the feeling she’d have liked to smash it. “Jim wasn’t,” she finished, “smart.”
Ellie tipped her head thoughtfully. “So it’s a stretch to think he’d have known how to fiddle the computer at all?”
“Precisely,” Lydia Duckworth replied, looking grateful. “You have no idea how hard I tried to get that idea across to all the investigators at the time. But they just kept insisting that he’d forged the checks and cashed them, and that that was the crime. A helper, a brain for the operation, wasn’t on their wish list.”
“Besides, he insisted he didn’t have one,” I said, thinking again about the usefulness of a silent partner in such cases. To, for example, hang on to the loot until such time as the fall guy finally got out of prison.
Whereupon the fall guy would naturally want his share of the stash.
“Could your husband have done it?”
To her credit, she didn’t look offended. Instead she seemed relieved to be talking about it, even about the parts that might reflect badly on her late spouse.
“I’ve wondered myself,” she answered without hesitation. “Steal money from the business, avoid paying taxes, spend it on luxuries? Or some such notion. But as I say, he was ill by then. Luxuries were the last thing he wanted.”
The dark, hollowly knowing eyes in the photograph agreed. By then, ordinary life would have been the luxury.
She went on. “Besides, once he was in the hospital I had to do all the financial things. Make the final payroll, pay off all the suppliers, and so on. And I never found evidence that he had money hidden, or that he’d spent any I didn’t know about.”
“And after his death?” I inquired gently.
“In the house, you mean? Among his things? I’d looked before he died.” An edge of pain came into her voice.
Which made sense, too; of course she’d have searched the place. And while none of it could have been pleasant, trying to find out if your husband is a thief while he lies dying must rank near the top of the hideous-chores list.
“Jim was arrested just about a month before Howard passed away. The minute I learned the details of what he’d done, I knew Howard could have been in on it even if I couldn’t understand why he might have helped in such a scheme. He could have taken the checks, faked records, and so on.”
Her voice thickened. “That’s why I went over this house from attic to cellar. In the pockets of his old suits. Everywhere.”
She met my gaze. “No bankbooks. No safe-deposit receipts. No secret credit cards or stash of gold coins. Later I even let the investigators look. They didn’t find anything, either.”
Her fingertips pressed together. “So if Howard had any of the money Jim Diamond stole from our business, all I can say is that he must have burnt it up in the fireplace.”
“You didn’t have hard copies of your accounts? Paper printouts, I mean?” I inquired.
Because it seemed awfully convenient that computer records should have been destroyed, just when examining them might have been productive.
She shook her head ruefully. “No. Of course the police all wanted to know that, as well. But it was another thing I learned the hard way, not to rely on electronic storage.”
The old dog got up, str
etched, and moved to lie down beside Leonora. Lydia Duckworth smiled sadly at the pair.
“We tried using the paper records we did have, the canceled checks, the bills from suppliers, and so on. But it was hopeless, and what did it matter, anyway? Money was gone, Jim Diamond had taken it, and no one knew a thing about what he’d done with it.”
“And he wasn’t saying,” Ellie put in quietly. “And then your husband died.”
Lydia Duckworth nodded. “Afterward, I didn’t care. Or,” she added, “I thought I didn’t. Now, though . . .”
Outside the sparkling windows of the Duckworth house, the shadows of the big old maples lining the road slanted toward late afternoon. I got up.
But Mrs. Duckworth wasn’t finished. “Now that Diamond’s death has brought it all to the forefront for me again, I find I do care what happened. I care very much.”
Ellie gathered the baby up. “How he did it? And with whom, if there really was an accomplice?”
“Absolutely,” she answered, her voice grim. “I want to know, even if it turns out there’s nothing anyone can do about it. The money . . . that’s secondary at this point. I just want to know.”
A notion struck me. “Had you ever met his wife before you saw her at my house? Bella Diamond?”
A look of doubt crossed her face as she hesitated. “I’m not sure I . . .”
“It seemed to me you knew one another, that’s all,” I added.
She appeared to decide. “That’s an awkward question. She asked me particularly not to tell anyone, but I managed not to say I’d promise because I thought it was so strange at the time.”
“Strange?” Ellie inquired. The baby woke up and reached out very tentatively to stroke the dog’s ear.
“Yes,” Mrs. Duckworth said, “Bella came to see me. It was around the time Jim died. The same day, if what I’ve read in the papers is true. A few days later I went to her house in Eastport, not knowing it was hers, to leave a blood drive card.” She thought briefly. “So that’s twice I’ve met her, other than the day she came here. First at your house, then at hers. She was at Jim’s sentencing, too, four years ago. But we didn’t speak then. That is, she spoke to other people near me, but not directly to me. So I guess that doesn’t count.”
“Bella came here? What did she want?”
“It was quite extraordinary. She showed up soon after I had finished my lunch, saying she wanted to apologize on Jim’s behalf. For the trouble he caused me, she said.”
She looked down at the floor where the dog had begun snoring again. “And oddly enough, her visit helped. It reminded me that I wasn’t the only victim in the affair. . . .”
Squaring her shoulders, she met my gaze again. “But that day it seemed my listening to Bella helped her. And it’s true, you know: Helping others is the remedy for a lot of troubles.”
Her smile returned. “So, is that all you wanted to ask?”
“Just one more thing. Forgive me, but . . . would you have known how to help Jim Diamond steal that money? And how much did he steal, anyway?”
“Oh, yes,” she replied without hesitation. “It was over a hundred thousand dollars, and I could have done it quite easily. As I said, I took over once my husband was ill. I was familiar with the computer.”
She paused. “But as I also mentioned, the investigation was thorough. Everyone’s financial matters were gone over with a fine-tooth comb, including mine.”
She looked straight at me. “Nothing was found. And it doesn’t really matter anymore.”
She accompanied us to the door. Behind her the neat, well-kept house gleamed comfortably in the afternoon silence, broken only by the slow, measured ticking of the big case clock and the old dog’s snores.
“But for my own satisfaction I’d still like to know how it was done,” Lydia Duckworth said. “And,” she added, “who the snake in the grass was.”
Ten minutes later we were hurrying home through the onset of evening. The sun hung low, glaring blindingly over the horizon when we emerged from thick stands of trees, casting patterns of bright and dark onto the road ahead of us.
“So, is she on the level?” Ellie asked, meaning Lydia.
“What?” I lowered the visor, shaded my eyes with my hands.
Besides the glare, I was preoccupied with the notion Azenath Jones had suggested, and Mrs. Duckworth had confirmed: that Jim Diamond would’ve needed help with the stealing and the stashing of that hundred thousand dollars.
And there was no evidence he had spent it. “Everything she said would be easy to check,” I replied. “And wait till I get hold of that Bella. She never mentioned seeing Lydia Duckworth at all, and she certainly didn’t mention being in Machias that day. Which in case you forgot is in the vicinity of Lubec. Or near enough that she could’ve taken a side trip.” A blaze of sunlight blinded me briefly. “Here we are driving all over creation to try to help her, and she won’t . . .”
“. . . tell us all the pertinent facts,” Ellie finished for me. “You’re right, it’s infuriating. But let’s let her try to explain before we condemn her. She might have a reason.”
“Sure, like her reasons for not telling about the money she was giving him, or about having a key to his place. Or about that damned skillet.”
We reached the straightaway between the small roadside businesses of East Machias: a pie shop, an auto body repair, and a bottle-and-can redemption operation.
“Next thing you know,” I fumed, “we’ll find out Bella just happens to have a handy little diagram of the human brain, so she knew just where to hit him.”
The road curved hard, up and into the real wilderness. “Not that she won’t have a good reason,” I added sarcastically. “Oh, sure, she’ll have that.”
Ellie turned to Leonora, who was starting to get fussy. “Just a little longer. I know, we’re testing your patience.”
But the whole thing was starting to test my patience, too. Fifteen minutes later, we slowed for the intersection at Lubec, barely managing not to allow a camper to pull out ahead of us.
“This means someone can say Bella was in the area when Jim was killed,” I added unhappily. “She could’ve visited Lydia, then gone to Lubec on her way back to Eastport. Maybe she had that skillet along, meaning to give it to him and she ended up hitting him with it instead.”
“But we still think maybe she didn’t, because . . . ?”
“The notes,” I replied grudgingly. “And the money. Where’d it go?”
I pressed on the gas pedal again. “There’s just too much going on that we don’t understand. And until we do . . .”
As we entered the Moosehorn Wildlife Refuge, a large shape loomed ahead of us; I touched the brakes. By this time of day most recreational vehicles had pulled into campgrounds for the evening so we hadn’t gotten stuck behind any, but there was one up there now, lumbering along at about thirty-five miles per hour.
“. . . until then, I’m still going to wonder if the answer is in what we don’t know,” I finished, pulling up behind the big vehicle so the driver could see me, then tapping the horn gently. All I wanted was to let him know I was there.
A quick pull-over to let me by, and I could be on my way while he went on loafing and looking. Instead, he took it as an insult. He slowed to twenty-five and pulled as far to the left as he could, blocking any possible view around him.
I dropped back, biting my lip to keep the curse words I was thinking unspoken. “But for now,” I told Ellie, “we’re right where we started. We don’t know who killed Jim, we don’t know why, and we don’t know what those dratted threat notes had to do with it.”
“Or what Maggie was doing there that day,” Ellie added, as if I needed to feel any more discouraged.
I’d thought Azenath had put us on the right track. To my mind, stolen money was a fine motive for murder. And it had been a good idea, trying to track down someone from Duckworth’s.
But now it seemed all we’d gotten for our efforts was a cup of Earl Grey tea. Al
so, we remained firmly stuck behind that blasted RV for the rest of the trip.
Every time the road straightened, the camper sped up. On hills or curves it crept along, emitting smelly exhaust. Soon we were in a wagon train, as more cars lined up impatiently behind me. No one else could get around the behemoth, either.
Finally at the Eastport turnoff the RV rumbled on up Route 1 and we bid it a not-so-fond farewell, many drivers to the rear gesturing energetically after it to communicate how sentimental they had grown to feel about the big vehicle.
“There’s another complication, too,” I groused as we zoomed toward town with the red sun setting behind us. In the gathering evening the shore birds were black cutouts on the shining water. We sped across the causeway. “It’s not enough to find out Bella didn’t do it, because if all we do is clear her, the next in line to be a suspect is—”
“Maggie,” Ellie concluded. “Because of your car. But no one else knows about that, do they?”
I explained what Bob Arnold had told me, that the car was going to come out sooner or later and that the logical answer to who’d been driving it wasn’t Maggie; that it could be Sam.
“So unless we get ahead of it, the whole mess could go in any number of bad directions,” I groaned.
“Don’t you think Maggie would tell the truth if push came to shove?” Ellie asked reasonably.
“Sure. But would they believe her? Or would they just think she’s lying to protect Sam?”
The streetlights in Eastport were coming on, and at the IGA only a few cars lingered in the parking lot. Turning onto Key Street, I came to a sudden decision.
“Whatever Maggie’s story is, we have to know it now before all this—whatever it is—blows up in our faces. And I think it might be better if I talk with her alone. Maybe she won’t feel so ganged-up on that way.”
Besides, Leonora’s fussing threatened to become a tantrum; she was a good baby, but she had her limits.
“I’ll do dinner duty at your house,” Ellie said generously, “and take care of the animals. But promise you won’t go anywhere else without letting me know?”
