Break-ins and Bloodshed

by Danielle Collins

  “Oh.” Henrietta smiled. “Didn’t I mention I’ll be looking into that too? Why do you think I’m going to Everett’s?” She flashed a smile at the gaping men and headed for the front door.

  “Don’t do anything foolish,” Ralph called after her.

  “I never do.”

  11

  It was a testament to how much Ralph trusted her that he actually let her walk out of their office without one of them escorting her to the house. But, as she’d begun to reason herself, she wasn’t in any immediate danger. At least she didn’t think so, and she assumed Ralph didn’t either since he hadn’t put up much of a fight.

  She mulled over the new information on the way to H.H. Antiques to pick up Olivia. It was now clear, or becoming more so, that Preston might be involved with the mysterious young man and Mary. Henrietta knew that Scott was looking into a possible connection, but she had a feeling it would come down to a chat room, or game, or something of that nature that had brought them together.

  How one went from playing a game to planning a robbery, she wasn’t sure, but there in lay the answer as to how they had come together. The next part was proving it was them as well as figuring out how the poor girl had been killed. Had it been an accident? Or had it been foul play? The ME hadn’t been able to give a definite answer. There had been no hard evidence either way. It could have been that she fell and struck her head or that she was pushed.

  Henrietta pulled up to the curb and honked once to signal to Olivia that she was there, then let her gaze wander over the shops around her. They were all preparing for the Fall Street Fair that would be going on in just a few days.

  H.H. Antiques would have its doors open, but Henrietta had decided against bringing furniture out into the yard as they had for the summer festival. It was fun and unique, but there was too much risk of bad weather this time of year. Instead, she’d arranged to have hot cider and cinnamon twists for her guests and would of course have a roaring fire in the fireplace to welcome anyone in from the cold.

  Olivia came down the steps, her thick scarf wrapped around her neck and her eyes bright. Henrietta had told her to close up the shop while they were gone. It was still early afternoon, but she had a feeling taking an extended lunch wouldn’t damage their business too much.

  “Hey there,” she said, slipping into the Mini Cooper. “We’re going to Everett’s then?”

  Henrietta gave a droll laugh. “It appears so.”

  “Does he know I’m coming?”

  “Not yet,” she said, sending a smile toward the young woman. “But he’ll find out quickly enough.”

  “Anything new on the case?” she asked, settling in for the drive to The Cliffs.

  “We’re making progress,” Henrietta said enigmatically. She didn’t want to leave the woman out, but at the same time, they were all just theories without solid facts yet.

  “Glad I can at least help you with one thing.”

  “You’ve been such a help, dear. I’m sorry this whole investigation business has caused you so much extra work.”

  “Nonsense. I enjoy it. I really do.”

  “You can have some time off the moment we solve this,” Henrietta said.

  “I’ll take you up on that.”

  They rounded the bend, and Henrietta saw the gated community ahead.

  “Um, Henrietta?” Olivia asked, her voice quieter than before.

  “Yes?”

  “I have one quick question.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Do you think I should break up with Nelson?”

  Henrietta let out a breath. If this was Olivia’s idea of a quick question, she wasn’t sure she wanted to know what a long question was.

  “I mean, like your gut reaction,” she clarified.

  Henrietta took a moment, pulling into the circular driveway. She turned off the car and looked over at the young woman. She knew there were many things she could say in this moment, including her thoughts on what the young woman should do, but time and experience told her there was one easy response.

  “I think what’s more important is your gut reaction.”

  Olivia wrinkled her nose. “I was afraid you were going to say that.”

  “Dear, you know what to do. In here.” She motioned to her heart. “But it’s one thing to know and another thing to take action to do. Trust yourself and your instincts.”

  “Okay,” Olivia said, nodding. “I will try to.”

  “Good. Now, ready to see some beautiful antiques? That’s one thing that I enjoy about coming here.”

  They laughed and made their way toward the house.

  “Ah, Etta, good to see you. And a lovely friend. Who might you be?”

  Henrietta introduced Olivia, and they went to the back yard and the portion of the garage where the antiques had been placed. As she’d suspected, Everett’s question was much less dire than he’d said, and she was able to answer it almost immediately. She wanted to tell him that, from now on, they should conduct their business by phone, but the appearance of Preston caused her to bite back the words before they could come out.

  “Preston,” she said, managing to sound happy to see him. “How are you?”

  “Good, good.” He offered a smile toward Olivia then turned back to Henrietta. “Just heard voices and thought I’d come see who Dad had over. Happy to see it’s two lovely ladies.”

  His charm sounded fake, but she laughed as was expected.

  “What are you up to these days? Still working on that gaming community?” she asked.

  “Yeah. I’ve got a convention in Canada to go to. Heading out next week, if all things go well.”

  “You’re leaving? For how long?” Everett’s surprise caused Henrietta to look more closely at him. The frown he wore ran deeper than a moment’s annoyance at being interrupted.

  “Not sure. What’s it to you?” His rude reply made Henrietta cringe, but Everett seemed to blow it off.

  “You can take your work with you wherever you go, I suppose?”

  “Uh yeah.” He swiped two fingers over the top of a dresser next to him. Dust flew up and he coughed, covering his mouth with his hand. “Darn dust. It’s so dirty in here, Dad.”

  “You could lend a hand in cleaning up once in a while if you weren’t so busy gallivanting around who knows where.”

  They bantered back and forth for a moment, and then something became clear to Henrietta in that moment. The cough. Just like the coughing fit he’d had at her shop. Was it possible…

  Her eyes found Olivia’s and, when she was sure that Preston and Everett were not looking, she mouthed, “Go with me.” Olivia nodded her understanding, and Henrietta made a big show of looking at her watch.

  “I’m afraid we really should get going,” she began. Both men turned to look at her. “We’ve just had a stunning shipment of antique gems come in.”

  “Oh, that’s right, we’ve got to catalogue those,” Olivia added seamlessly.

  “Gems?” Preston said, looking interested.

  “Yes. They are rather stunning. Should fetch a wonderful price. But I’ve got to get them catalogued and logged into our system soon. I don’t like having that many valuable things just laying around, you know.” She laughed, as did Olivia.

  “Laying around.” Everett looked shocked. “Do you want to keep them in my safe?”

  “She’s got her own safe,” Preston added. Henrietta turned to look at him and he covered quickly. “I mean, you do, don’t you? It would be foolish not to.”

  “Your son is right,” she said to Everett. “I’ll keep the gems in the safe. Plus, I’ve got Ralph on retainer for guard duties.” She shrugged and motioned for Olivia to follow.

  “Are you sure you don’t want my safe?” Everett laughed, making a joke at Ralph’s expense.

  She pretended to consider it and noticed Preston’s keen interest in the outcome of her decision. “No. I’ll be fine. But thank you. Good day!”

  They walked down the sidewalk to he
r car and, once they were inside and on their way back to the shop, Olivia turned to stare at Henrietta. “Want to tell me about these gems?”

  “Didn’t I tell you, dear?” she said, grinning. “We’ve got a large array of fake, priceless gems.”

  “The Bobson collection?” she asked.

  “One and the same.”

  “You and I both know that they are worthless. Nothing more than costume jewelry.”

  “Yes, we both do know that, but no one else does.”

  Olivia slumped back against her seat. “Please tell me you’re going to call in Ralph and Scott on this?”

  “Absolutely. And what about you?”

  “Count me in,” she said, a look of triumph on her delicate features.

  Henrietta slipped into silence as she thought about the trap they’d be setting that night. If all went according to plan, this would be the end of their robbery troubles.

  “You’ve got to go,” she said to Ralph.

  “And miss all the fun?” he whined back to her.

  “Yes. You’ve been wanting to teach at more conferences like this and this is your break-through opportunity. There’ll always be bad guys to catch red-handed.”

  He offered a half-hearted laugh along with a sigh. “I don’t like this, Henri.”

  “I know. You’ve said that multiple times now. Just trust that Scott will be here, and so will Olivia. We’ll have the police on speed dial.”

  “Shouldn’t they already be there if what is supposed to happen happens?”

  “Scott said he’d put in a word to a few of his friends. They’d patrol the area, but I’m afraid that’ll tip our friends off to the sting operation.”

  “Sting…” She could almost hear Ralph roll his eyes. “This is getting to be too much. I’m going to cancel the teaching.”

  “No!” She was insistent. “You need to do this. I’d never forgive myself if you canceled on this for no reason. Go.”

  The silence on the other end of the phone told her that he was considering her suggestion. He’d gotten an email with all the arrangements for him to head over to Seattle that night. It was sudden but such a great opportunity, Henrietta knew he had to take it.

  “Fine. I’ll go. But you’d better never do something like this without me again.”

  She smiled. “Agreed. Now go teach the next generation of private investigators.”

  He hung up, and she let out a contented sigh. She was happy for her friend. He was getting the opportunity to do something he’d dreamed about.

  With that thought in mind, she began to prepare for their potential guests that evening. Making exaggerated movements, she went to the safe and opened it. Pulling out a box of documents she kept in there. Thankfully, whoever might be watching her would never know they had been documents and not gems.

  She went through with replacing them with the costume gems and then placed them in the safe. She did her best to act as if the box really did contain priceless gems, double-checking that the safe was indeed locked. Then, per her nightly routine, she turned on the alarm and turned off all of the lights before making her way upstairs.

  At the top of the stairs, she opened the outside door to let Scott and Olivia in. To her surprise, Nelson was there as well with downcast eyes. She sent Olivia a confused look but got nothing in return as the woman’s eyes were downcast as well.

  They went into the living room and Henrietta began to fill them in, to an extent, on what she suspected would happen tonight. They made a plan that would be put into effect around midnight, taking a gamble on the fact that no one would rob a house earlier in the evening, and then Henrietta served baked ziti that she’d made earlier that day.

  When it was nearing eleven-thirty, she asked Olivia for advice on a wardrobe issue, excusing the ladies from the company of the men. When they were in the quiet of Henrietta’s room, Olivia offered her a confused look.

  “What do you need advice on?”

  “Oh, dear,” she said with a kind smile. “That was so I could get you in here to chat.”

  “Oh?” Olivia tried to look innocent, but Henrietta could see through it. The tears came quickly as Olivia buried her face in her hands. “Henrietta, it’s awful.”

  “It’s alright, dear,” she said, coming alongside her and wrapping an arm around the girl. “What happened?”

  “I went to talk to Nelson today,” she said between sniffs. “I had resolved to break up with him.”

  Henrietta didn’t say anything, urging the woman on with a patient look.

  “I just don’t think we’re right together. Anyway, I started to tell him all of this and he broke down. I mean, he was crying like a baby and I…I caved.”

  “What do you mean by caved?” she asked.

  “I told him I was wrong. I—” Her tears came more quickly. “I told him I wanted to stay together.”

  “And is that what you want?” she asked.

  “No. I mean, I don’t think so? I don’t know.”

  “Ah, I see. Emotions can be a little tricky, can’t they?”

  “Yes. I mean, I thought I knew what I wanted, but then seeing him so broken…I couldn’t go through with it.”

  “Is that why he’s here?”

  She looked down sheepishly. “I couldn’t leave him there crying, so I told him I’d agreed to help you with something. I didn’t tell him what it was about, just that we had to be here late.”

  Henrietta tried to hide her smile. “He’s going to get a rude awakening.”

  “I know,” Olivia said with the first hint of a smile. “I mean, I don’t think he’d tip off Preston, but they are really good friends. I think, if anything, he’d assume his friend was innocent and want to say something.”

  “That was a wise decision,” Henrietta said. “I think it’s just about time we headed down to take our places. Will you be all right?”

  “I suppose,” she said, letting out a long breath.

  “Think of it this way,” Henrietta said. “Perhaps this will open a pathway of communication between you.”

  She didn’t look hopeful but nodded anyway.

  Henrietta checked the time and nodded toward the light switch, which Olivia turned off.

  Now it was time to hurry up and wait.

  12

  Henrietta only heard the sound of her own breathing. The stillness of the shop was more than a little unnerving, and the shadows cast by the streetlight down the road made everything look jagged and eerie. She’d kept Sepia upstairs so that she wouldn’t get underfoot, so Henrietta knew that any movement was either one of her partners—as she started to refer to them as—or an intruder.

  She swallowed hard at the thought of someone breaking in. It had happened to her before, though they hadn’t actually broken anything. She’d had her shop alarm updated since then, but if they were dealing with the same robbers as The Cliffs area, an alarm wouldn’t stop them.

  An image of the poor woman Henrietta had found while investigating the first house filled her mind. While she had no exact evidence to link to the fact that it had been murder, she had a feeling that it hadn’t been an accident. Perhaps murder hadn’t been the intended outcome, but harm had been done to the young woman, even if there wasn’t evidence to support that.

  Then Henrietta’s mind traveled to Ralph and where he was in his journey. If she calculated correctly, he had already crossed on the ferry over to Seattle and was now heading to his hotel room to prepare for the next day. It seemed like such short notice, but as they had said, someone had canceled at the last minute, which offered Ralph the opening he needed.

  She was proud of him. She imagined Marjory and how she would have beamed to know that Ralph was finally pursuing his dream of becoming a teacher. Her gaze inadvertently went to where Scott was hiding. She was thankful that he’d agreed so readily to come and stay and while she wasn’t happy about the outcome of Olivia’s conversation with Nelson, she had to admit it was good to have another man around in the immediate vicinit
y.

  Risking a glance at the digital clock on the microwave across the room from where she was, Henrietta saw that it was almost a quarter after one in the morning. Would they come tonight? Had she made it too obvious to where they suspected something? How long would they have to wait until it was clear no one was coming? And if that happened, would she have to start all over again?

  The question filled her mind and she found herself mulling over and over things for another ten minutes. Just when she was getting to the point of deciding a time to call their little operation off, she heard a sound at the front of the shop.

  Her eyes went wide and her breath caught in her throat. She’d positioned herself along a wall that afforded her seclusion from the front of the shop. It would give her protection from what she had to do next.

  Pulling out her phone, she wrapped her pashmina scarf around her and turned on the device. Even with the brightness set to the minimum amount, the light was still blinding after the near complete darkness of the shop. She opened the security app that she’d installed and maneuvered to the log that kept record of turning on and off the alarm.

  Sure enough, the alarm had been remotely disarmed.

  Her eyes went wide and her heart began to pound. Someone had hacked into her alarm system. They were inside her shop!

  She switched back to the front of the app, the part that had a panic button in case of emergency. She would keep it open in case of emergency but hid her hand and phone with her scarf wrapped around it.

  Henrietta’s eyes began to adjust to the dim light, which was when she caught sight of the first moving shape as it came down the narrow aisle from the front of the shop. The figure, or was it two figures, blocked out what little light shone in through the windowed front door.

  They were here. They had taken the bait. Now to put a stop to this.

  Just as she was about to stand up and throw the room into bright relief, the sound of a screeching cat ricocheted through the room followed by the sound of crashing glass and a yelled curse. The next sound was another body thumping to the ground.