by Gwen Moffat
‘Some is. Not this table, I grant you, nor the swans. I always admired those swans.’
‘Take them, dear —’
‘How about looking around?’ Miss Pink suggested. ‘See if you can spot any more gaps. Among the valuable pieces,’ she added, raising an eyebrow at Sophie.
They toured the house, Edna able to recall which items had stood where but displaying no emotion regarding disappearances except in one instance. A missing stein didn’t bother her — ‘A German tankard.’ Sophie was contemptuous. ‘An ugly thing, but it was gilded and with one of those European hunting scenes on it, worth a bit, I guess.’
A bracket clock had gone, a collection of porcelain snuff boxes, a silver tray. ‘And the scent bottles,’ Edna said sadly. ‘That’ll break Clyde’s heart. I was about to ask Jen could he have them.’
‘Not those little bottles with the painted peacocks?’ Miss Pink was incensed.
‘Who’s taken them?’ At last Edna was back in the real world. ‘It can’t be any of the maids.’
Back in the kitchen Sophie said, commanding her attention: ‘Edna! You have to report this, or’ — she glanced at Miss Pink — ‘I’ll do it.’ Edna stared at her, blinking confusedly. ‘Byer has been stealing from you,’ Sophie said clearly, as if she were addressing a child. ‘Those pieces’ — she indicated the jasper fragments. ‘We found one in the bottom of his closet, the other two were at the edge of the water. He broke your vase and threw the pieces in the creek, except these bits that he missed.’
‘Where are the little scent bottles?’
‘He’ll have sold them — but we’ll get them back, don’t worry.’ There was small chance of that but neither she nor Miss Pink was comfortable in the face of Edna’s bewilderment. ‘I’ll call Hilton,’ Sophie went on. ‘He’ll know what to do.’
‘Where is Byer today?’ Miss Pink asked gently.
Edna made an obvious effort to orientate herself. ‘He’ll be at home, dear; he has a house on Bear Creek —’
‘He’s not there,’ Sophie cut in. ‘His pick-up’s gone. Where does he go weekends?’
Edna thought about that. The question seemed to demand excessive concentration. ‘With Paul?’ she ventured.
‘How close are they?’ Miss Pink asked as Sophie, disgusted, turned to the outer door.
‘Paul and Erik? They’re very close.’ Edna considered. ‘They’re buddies, partners — hunter-poachers, Daddy called them. Thieves, he said; you name it, Paul and Erik did it. Isn’t that so?’ She appealed to Sophie. ‘Daddy said Paul killed Carol. That was Paul’s first wife,’ she told Miss Pink.
‘Second wife,’ Sophie said, resigned, as if she’d heard this a hundred times. ‘And Charlie was not your daddy, for Christ’s sake!’
‘What’s going on?’ Clyde opened the screen. ‘You sound like you’re bullying Mom.’ But he was grinning as he entered, nodding affably to Miss Pink, removing his hat.
‘She’s started referring to Charlie as “daddy”,’ Sophie protested.
‘She does that. She did when we were kids. It’s natural as she — gets older, nothing to bother about.’
‘Clyde, there are a lot of valuable things missing from this house.’
‘Oh, no, don’t —’ Edna cried and lapsed into silence as they turned to her, fingering her lips, her eyes on her son.
‘Don’t what?’ He put an arm round her shoulders. ‘It’s all right, Mom, don’t be scared. What’s wrong?’
‘The perfume bottles you liked,’ Sophie said, ‘they’re missing, and the German tankard and stuff — and that’s all that’s left of the blue Wedgwood vase.’ She pointed.
He stared at the fragments. ‘Where’d you find those?’
‘One piece in Byer’s closet, the other two at the edge of the creek by his house. The rest will have been swept away by the water.’
‘He broke Mom’s vase?’
‘By accident probably,’ Miss Pink said. ‘He’d have intended to sell it — and the rest of the stuff he stole — in some big city.’
‘How long’s this been going on? Mom, why didn’t you say?’
‘She didn’t know, Clyde.’ Sophie rushed to Edna’s defence.
‘Where’s Byer now? He’s not at home.’
He shook his head. ‘How would I know? He’ll be back Monday. My God, I’ll — I’ll —’
‘You’ll leave it to the police,’ Sophie told him firmly. ‘I’m going to call Hilton —’ She stopped and stared at Miss Pink, aghast at a thought.
‘Let’s go outside,’ Miss Pink said. Her eyes slid meaningly to Edna. It would be highly imprudent to discuss matters in her presence: no knowing what she might repeat to the wrong person.
Clyde followed them out. In the yard Sophie clutched Miss Pink’s arm. ‘We can’t report it. If we accuse Byer, he’s going to open the whole can of worms.’
‘Does he know?’ Clyde asked.
‘He knows Val was at the cabin —’
‘But she wasn’t —’
‘Right, she didn’t visit Charlie, but Bret did.’ She told him how they’d come to the conclusion that Byer was blackmailing Val on the strength of the washed coffee mugs and pot. ‘If Byer tells Hilton,’ she said, ‘Hilton’s going to ask Val why she washed up and never said a word to anyone. Once he tumbles to it that she thought she was protecting Jen, it puts Jen in the frame, see?’
‘Why shouldn’t she wash up? It’s an innocent action. But if Byer was at the cabin the night before, and said he wasn’t, now that’s not innocent.’
‘Nice one, Clyde. We have to go down there, talk to Val before Hilton does.’
‘No one’s phoned Hilton yet,’ Miss Pink reminded them, her brain racing. ‘Val never said she’d washed those mugs. Make sure you find out about that.’
Aunt and nephew were moving to the Cherokee. ‘You stay with Edna,’ Sophie called back. ‘Don’t let her use the phone, or go out, or anything. We won’t be long.’
Miss Pink returned to the kitchen, thinking about Byer. ‘Where did they go?’ Edna asked.
‘To talk to Val.’
Edna sighed, stood up from the table and walked to the refrigerator. From the freezer compartment she selected a large parcel. She placed it in the sink and turned the hot tap on. Miss Pink followed, switched off the water and read the label: Saddle of Elk. She hoisted the parcel to the draining board, calculating it weighed all of ten pounds. ‘You’re expecting company?’ she asked.
Edna looked confused. ‘Are we, dear? You’re good company.’
‘Tonight? The family’s coming to dinner?’
‘That will be nice.’
Miss Pink replaced the venison in the freezer. ‘We’ll all help with the cooking,’ she said. ‘Not such a large joint, perhaps, this would take too long to thaw. Tell me, what plans have you made about where you’re going to live?’
Edna blinked. ‘This is my home.’
‘Isn’t it a little inconvenient for one person?’
‘Jen and Bret will be here.’ Edna beamed happily. ‘And there will be children.’
Not if Jen was telling the truth. ‘When did you find out Jen was pregnant?’
If Edna was happy before, now she was radiant. ‘She is? Isn’t that neat? I must think about a nursery. How about we go and —’
‘She’s not pregnant,’ Miss Pink said kindly. ‘She was, ten years ago. Your husband knew.’
‘You could never believe Charlie.’ Her mind switched channels without any appearance of emotional transition. ‘He was a great joker,’ she assured Miss Pink.
‘So I understand. Like telling Jen that Paul Skinner is her father.’
Edna started to fidget with the broken Wedgwood. She hadn’t been asked a question and she didn’t respond.
‘Did Skinner murder his second wife?’ Miss Pink mused, seeming to commune with herself.
Edna was trying to fit the jasper fragments together like a jigsaw. She looked petulant. ‘Carol? He couldn’t unless he used Erik —’ She re
garded Miss Pink doubtfully. ‘As the hit man?’ she hazarded.
‘Was that Charlie’s opinion?’
‘I don’t remember. He said they were two of a kind. He was about to fire Erik.’
Miss Pink was very still. The refrigerator was quiet and from outside there came the cry of the red-tailed hawk. ‘But he liked Erik,’ she said. ‘He confided in him, told him the contents of his will.’
‘He changed after Abdullah was stolen. He was Ali’s sire.’
‘Erik stole a horse?’
‘His statue. Solid silver it was. Didn’t you notice the gap above the fireplace in the den? No, I moved the others along so the gap wouldn’t show. But Daddy saw. He always knew Erik was a thief but he said he’d never dare steal from Glenaffric. It was why he wouldn’t have live-in help; he said servants were all thieves.’
‘Had he told Erik he was fired?’
Edna shrugged and looked blank. Then something snagged in her mind. ‘Daddy didn’t like them being buddies.’ She nodded emphatically. ‘He was frightened of AIDS.’
Miss Pink’s mind did a backwards somersault. ‘Buddies,’ she repeated slowly. ‘Paul and Erik?’ Edna had gone rigid, staring at her. ‘A gay couple,’ Miss Pink went on, looking out of the window as if bored, making polite conversation.
‘I shouldn’t have said that,’ Edna muttered. ‘Daddy loved his little joke.’ She paused. ‘They went to Seattle.’ She frowned. ‘But they couldn’t…’
Miss Pink said clearly, ‘Paul and Erik went to Seattle at the same time?’
Edna shook her head irritably. ‘That’s what I’m saying: they had to go separately or people would talk —’
‘Wait a minute. Seattle’s what — five hundred miles away? One day to drive there’ — Miss Pink’s eyes glazed — ‘a day to return, a day there? Charlie gave Erik three days off at a time?’
‘No, dear. Erik leaves after he’s done chores on Saturday morning — that is, when Clyde doesn’t do chores. If he does, then Erik leaves Friday evening. Clyde did chores today because Erik didn’t come in.’
‘He should have done?’
‘Oh yes.’
‘So Erik has only two days off at the most. How could he drive to Seattle and back, and attend to business… He doesn’t go, Edna.’
‘Doesn’t he, dear?’
‘No.’ Miss Pink was grim. ‘Byer does the stealing, Skinner takes the loot to a fence in Seattle.’
Edna smiled. Miss Pink sighed and stood up. The woman seemed happy enough and now that there was plenty of money available the family could run to nurse-companions round the clock. It was comfortable to think that here was one old soul who wouldn’t have to be incarcerated in an institution.
16
‘Let’s get this straight,’ Cole said. ‘You say Byer stole this silver statue before Charlie Gunn died, but all the rest he took afterwards?’
He’d arrived at Bear Creek to find Sophie and Miss Pink waiting for him. Hilton was engaged on another case, he told them; Miss Pink thought it more likely that Hilton was concerned with another aspect of the investigation into Charlie’s death, but she wasn’t about to question the statement.
She had telephoned the others from Glenaffric, bringing them back to hear her suggestion on how the thefts could be reported without touching on the family scandal. Cole had been run to earth in Irving and a message delivered for Hilton. Cole came back with the request that a member of the family should meet him at Byer’s place.
While they waited at Bear Creek, Sophie told Miss Pink that Val had come clean. On the morning of the search she had been the first person to reach the cabin. She had left Byer with Clyde to look for signs of Charlie in the vicinity of the landslide. And yes, she had rinsed the mugs and the coffee pot and replaced them.
‘It’s as well to know for certain,’ Miss Pink said. ‘Now we know what to avoid and how to skirt round it. Byer won’t say a word; no way is he going to admit that he reached the cabin the previous evening when he’s always maintained he turned back at the slide.’
‘But if you’re thinking that Byer shot Charlie on the Saturday why would he go back to the cabin Sunday evening?’
‘Because he left something —’ It was at that point that Cole arrived.
They showed him over the house, gave him the piece of Wedgwood found in the closet and took him to the creek bank, where they looked for more fragments without success. Sophie handed over a list of the missing items.
‘How would he expect to get rid of this stuff?’ he asked. ‘These porcelain boxes: eighteenth century? What would they fetch?’
‘I’ve no idea,’ Sophie confessed. ‘It could be hundreds, maybe thousands. They have to be insured, there’ll be a record.’
‘Thousands? Where would he find a dealer who wouldn’t be suspicious?’
Which was when Miss Pink told him about Skinner and his trips to Seattle.
‘Byer may have gone there himself this time,’ Sophie said. ‘He’d guess that an inventory is going to be made of the more valuable contents of the house. I figure Byer isn’t coming back.’
‘He left that buckskin jacket and his good boots.’
‘Maybe he went in a hurry; he didn’t lock the door. He could have known you were getting close.’
‘Ma’am! You only just reported it. How could we be getting close?’
‘She means Charlie’s death,’ Miss Pink said. ‘You might ask Byer what he was doing on the Saturday that Charlie was at hunting camp.’
Cole couldn’t hide his amazement. He stared at the shabby little house. ‘Charlie didn’t die in the cabin,’ he said weakly.
‘Just a thought,’ Miss Pink said, adding, as if it were an afterthought, ‘Charlie was about to fire him; he’d spotted the silver horse had disappeared.’
Cole gulped and took refuge in the list of missing articles. ‘How could he get this stuff out of the house? A silver tray? What size would that be?’
‘The maids don’t live in,’ Sophie told him. ‘Byer’s there all hours, tending the stock, and my sister is — er — confused. And she likes her drop of Scotch…’
He took a deep breath; he was feeling his position keenly. ‘I have to be getting back. Thank you for your help…’ They knew he was dying to get to his mobile; Miss Pink could hear the gears meshing as he prepared to tell Hilton that there was another suspect for Charlie’s violent end. Or suspects. Skinner was in for a big surprise; however, if he was disposing of the stolen items it was unlikely that he’d kept any in his trailer.
A feature of this case was that, although it would seem that a lot was known about the movements of most family members and people connected with them, nothing was known of Skinner. Sam had appeared on the search, at Benefit, at the funeral; even Russell — connected through Clyde — could be placed: he went fishing, he drove to Irving for supplies; but Paul Skinner was an unknown quantity. Living in his tacky mobile home he had two horses and, presumably, a pick-up and trailer at his disposal. What did he do all day — and night? Had he been to Seattle since Charlie’s death and the latest thefts? Was he there now? Was Byer with him?
‘Useless to speculate,’ she said aloud, as the dust rose behind Cole’s car. ‘Except,’ she added, with a glint of amusement, ‘one wonders whether he should have put a seal on Byer’s door.’
‘A seal?’
‘To prohibit entrance. He should do that if Byer’s a murder suspect.’
‘So since he hasn’t —’
‘He may come back. Cole, I mean. I don’t think Byer will. Cole will be reporting to Hilton and I’d guess that he’s going to be sent to speak to Skinner — unless Hilton comes himself.’
‘Now you are speculating.’
‘Touché.’ Miss Pink looked up at the slopes of the Bobcat Hills. ‘We’ve done our part here. I think I’ll go and ride.’
Sophie blinked at what looked like a declaration of withdrawal from the action. She said coldly, ‘Like I said, you take Barb. I have to check my stock and the
Glenaffric animals. There’s a lot to do. I doubt if Val and Clyde are putting in much time today.’
‘I need to clear my head.’ Miss Pink was apologetic. She wanted to empty her mind of theories and times and alibis, and the niggling suggestion that it would be a great relief if it turned out that Byer had been the one to shoot Charlie. And yet there was the possibility that Charlie had not been shot. Still there appeared to be no confirmation of a bullet track. How could that be proved in the circumstances? Would there be traces of metal if the bullet had scraped bone?
*
‘You see,’ she said to Barb as they plodded up the long slopes, ‘my mind is going round in circles. I need to clear the cobwebs and perhaps there’ll be a flash of light that will illuminate one corner.’ Barb’s ears had twitched at the first words but as her rider rambled on the mare lost interest and settled to the job in hand.
They were following an old wagon road that climbed the Bobcats, steering well clear of the old mines and steep gradients. The going was excellent although the outlook was a trifle dull: a few low flowers, the odd woodpecker in a juniper, no view until they reached the top, which turned out to be a false summit.
The ways divided. Below, in a shallow basin that was scattered with statuesque firs, several small lakes formed the shape of a hand with three fingers, their water reflecting the bright sky. The wagon road dipped to a turning circle, its dust marked by tyre tracks, presumably those of Russell and Clyde on their fishing trip yesterday. The basin had an abandoned air and, as if to deepen the feel of wilderness, a large ungainly shape was motionless on the far side of a tarn, watching them.
Miss Pink’s lips tightened. Barb’s head was up, her ears pointing. ‘He can never run as fast as an Arab,’ Miss Pink murmured soothingly.
The bear dropped on all fours and ambled away. Barb turned with alacrity and resumed the plod to the summit ridge. They came to the top and the ridge continued southwards, heading for the high country where the grizzlies hung out. The snow peaks were dazzling, white as the puffy clouds that appeared motionless in the cerulean sky. Below, seemingly close in that crystal atmosphere, the Black Canyon was marked by its bottle-green timber, rimmed on the far side by the pearly crags.
