Treasure in Exile

by S. W. Hubbard

  “It’s called a widow’s walk. Houses on the coast of New England would have them so that women married to sailors and ship captains could keep watch for their husbands.”

  Ty chuckles. “I guess Vareena Tate could keep watch for when her sugar daddy got off the train from New York.”

  “Vareena didn’t have much time to watch for her returning husband. She was a young war widow who never remarried. Her husband’s grandfather built this house.”

  A wrought iron fence surrounds the property, with a locked gate blocking the driveway. Ty parks the car on the shoulder of Silver Lane and we get out to peer through the bars of the fence. “Vareena met Lawrence Tate at a dance for servicemen. She was an Army nurse. He was a lieutenant in training to fly for the Army Air Corps at Newark Air Field. They had a whirlwind romance and married two weeks before he shipped out. He insisted that she move into this house with his father and wait for him to come home from the war.”

  “She had to live alone with her father-in-law? That’s kinda weird.”

  “Yeah, I like Sean’s father fine, but I wouldn’t want to live alone with him. I think that’s when Maybelle came onto the scene, I guess to maintain propriety so a young woman and an older man weren’t living alone together.”

  “So what happened to the son and the father?”

  “Lawrence was shot down over Germany on his second flight. His father died a month later; I’m not sure how. And Vareena inherited the entire estate.”

  Ty whistles. “After only being married to the guy for two weeks?”

  “Technically, they were married for two months. But they only lived as husband and wife for a week or so.”

  “And nobody else in the family made a play for the money?”

  “If they did, I guess they didn’t succeed. Lawrence was an only child.”

  “And after the old man died, Vareena was rarely seen. In the 1960s, she stopped going out at all.”

  Ty shakes his head. “Sad, you ask me. To have all that money and never go anywhere.”

  “Yeah—I don’t know why she was a recluse. But she must have had some contact with the outside world. The house seems to be pretty well maintained.” While the lawn isn’t as perfectly manicured as those of the neighbors, it’s not overgrown. The paint on the house’s trim isn’t peeling, the windows aren’t dirty.

  “Yeah, the outside looks pretty clean. We need to see the inside.” Ty lopes along the fence, and soon disappears behind some shaggy pine trees growing next to the fence. A moment later I hear a thump and a grunt. Ty grins at me from the other side of the bars.

  “C’mon. I’ll help you get over.”

  After I boost myself on a log, haul myself over the top, and fall with no dignity whatsoever into Ty’s waiting arms, we head across the lawn to the house. The houses are far enough apart that I doubt any neighbors can see us, but if we are reported, I’m pretty sure a detective’s wife can talk herself out of trouble.

  When we get closer to the house, we can see that the windows facing the porch are covered by thick drapes. But there’s a narrow slit between the panels. Ty peers through, shining a penlight into the interior. “Got the kind of chairs and sofas nobody wanna sit on,” Ty says, stepping aside so I can see. He’s right: there’s a Victorian settee with a high, curved back and several Eastlake parlor chairs. A couple Empire tables and a bow-front cabinet that’s probably filled with figurines complete the part of the room we can see. Nowhere is there any sign of contemporary life—not a book or a magazine, or even a basket of knitting. In the Tate mansion, time stopped in 1882.

  “It’s like Miss Havisham’s house,” I murmur.

  “Havisham? I don’t remember that sale. Was it before I worked for you?”

  “Havisham isn’t a customer. She’s the old lady in Great Expectations whose fiancé left her at the altar. She preserved the banquet room as set up for the wedding celebration. There were cobwebs across the wedding cake. Didn’t you have to read that in high school English?”

  Ty grimaces. “I would remember something that gross. This place doesn’t look dirty.”

  Ty slips between a tall shrub and a bay window on the west side of the house and presses his face against the glass. “Dining room with a l-o-o-ng table and a big crystal chandelier,” he reports. I squeeze in beside him and shade my eyes. I can dimly make out polished parquet floors and coffered wainscoting. Twelve ornate, tall-backed chairs surround the dining table. A huge framed mirror glints on the far wall.

  “Ain’t no one takin’ that table home in the back of a minivan, that’s for sure,” Ty says.

  “I wonder if Vareena and Maybelle ever ate dinner in there?” While Ty is thinking about the practicalities of selling the furniture, I’m fantasizing about the lives lived behind these grand walls.

  “I bet there’s a room in the back with a big screen TV, and a couple a BarcaLoungers. They probably ate mac and cheese offa tray tables every night.”

  “I wonder if we can see into the kitchen? Let’s go around to the back.”

  When we turn the corner, we finally find the first sign of twenty-first century life: two folded lawn chairs with bright green webbed seats leaning against the house on an otherwise empty grand flagstone verandah.

  “The poor old dears must have sat out here on nice days.”

  Ty looks at the chairs with disdain. “These look like the kind they sell at CVS during beach season. Couldn’t they have afforded something more comfortable?”

  “Vareena made the inheritance last for seventy years. I guess she was thrifty”

  “Seventy years of sittin’ round the house doing nothin’ all day? I’d rather be a Wal-Mart greeter. At least you’d see people.”

  I point to a one-story addition on the left side of the house. “I bet that’s the kitchen.”

  The curtains are wide open here, and Ty and I each take a window. “Wow! Would you look at that old stove? I bet it’s the kind you have to light with a match.”

  While the rest of the house looks like a Victorian museum, the kitchen looks like it was state-of-the-art in the 1940s. The linoleum floor is red and yellow checkerboard. The cabinets are painted wood and there are no counters, just a rectangular wooden worktable. The refrigerator is short with rounded corners and a big chrome handle. How could that still be working in the twenty-first century?

  Ty points to a pantry where the edge of something tall and avocado green is barely visible. “Looks like they hadda buy a new fridge in the eighties.”

  “The newest item in their house is a forty year old refrigerator. Amazing. I wonder if they were cheap, or if they just wanted to keep their world intact? Live in their own little bubble.”

  Ty cocks an eyebrow. “What makes you so sure they both agreed? I bet the poor maid wanted an icemaker and a microwave and a dishwasher and a Roomba.”

  On the way back to town, I get behind the wheel.

  “We doin’ a job as big as the Tate Mansion, we sure as hell better get a new office assistant hired,” Ty says. “Jill helpin’ on the weekends not goin’ to fly for this.”

  The departure of my sister-in-law, Adrienne, from our staff was both a relief and a trial. Adrienne, with her high-maintenance ways and her catastrophic marital problems, blew a hole in both our team spirit and our productivity. “This job at the Tate mansion definitely puts the hiring heat on, but...”

  “I know—we don’t want to make another mistake.”

  Not we. I. I was the one who made a unilateral decision to hire Adrienne. I let myself be steamrollered by Sean’s family, and I never even asked Ty’s opinion before I made the offer. I won’t be so foolish again.

  Ty pulls out his phone as I drive. “Lemme check our Monster and Indeed accounts. Maybe some new resumes have come in since Friday.”

  Ty scrolls in silence. Then he clicks his tongue. Then he shakes his head.

  “Bad?”

  “What kinda person writes her resume without any capital letters? ‘Worked at Macys, lower case m
, Bloomingdales, lower case b, and Nordstrom, lower case n.’”

  Ty passed his developmental English class with flying colors and is now killing Comp 1. He’s found proofreading religion. “If she has merchandising experience, she might be good. We just won’t let her do the fliers or the ads.”

  Ty gives me a long, penetrating look. “She’s this careless on her resume, she’s not a detail-oriented person. You wouldn’t let a careless dentist drill your teeth, wouldja?”

  “Right. Keep looking.”

  While Ty continues scrolling, I agonize aloud. “I keep thinking about that woman the temp agency sent us to help with the Milhauser sale. The one who moved here from Ohio. I never should have let her get away. She had graphic design experience, knew something about antiques, followed orders without complaining.”

  Ty grimaces. “She was lame. How we supposed to get along with a person who won’t eat sushi? That’s messed up.”

  Ty has put his finger on the problem. Whomever we hire has to fit in. Another Man’s Treasure is a team, not a soulless corporation.

  “Hmmm.”

  “Found one?”

  “She’s had a lotta different jobs: hair salon scheduler, assistant manager of a make your own pottery franchise, hostess at Nonna Maria’s Pizza and Pasta.”

  “Sounds kind of unfocused.”

  “Yeah...maybe, but listen to what she wrote in her cover letter. ‘I would love this job so much. Nothing makes me happier than cleaning and organizing. Plus, I’m a real people person. And I’m very artistic.’” Ty squints at his phone screen. “No typos either.”

  “Can’t hurt to interview her. Tell her to come in tomorrow. What’s her name?”

  “Donna Frascatelli.”

  Chapter 10

  ALONE UNDER THE COVERS, I sit with my laptop propped on my knees, continuing to read about the Tate Mansion.

  At the foot of my bed, Ethel lifts her head from her snooze, ears cocked. A moment later, I hear the squeak of the back door.

  Sean is finally home. Ten-thirty. That’s some overtime he’s working on the Bostwick case.

  Ethel bounds downstairs to offer her joyful greeting. No level of human enthusiasm can match a dog’s, but I swing out of bed and stand at the top of the stairs in the clingy nightgown Maura bought for my shower.

  When Sean reaches the landing, I throw my arms around him and pull his head down to accept my kiss, so relieved that, unlike Lawrence Tate, he hasn’t plummeted to a fiery death thousands of miles away from me.

  “Whoa, that’s quite a welcome home.” He peels me off him with a mournful expression. “I wish I wasn’t so damn exhausted.”

  “I’ll take a rain check. I just wanted you to know that I missed you.”

  I follow him through the bedroom and into the master bath. “Did you hear about the Parks Center inheriting the Tate Mansion?” I call out above the sound of the buzzing electric toothbrush.

  He nods with toothpaste dribbling down his chin.

  “Tomorrow, the Board wants to talk to me about running the estate sale.”

  His eyes open wide and he spits. “Fantastic!”

  “I also nailed down the Armentrout job.”

  He gives me a thumbs up as he washes his face.

  “And, on top of all that” ...I pause for dramatic effect... “I did some investigative work for you.”

  “Aud-rey.” Sean says this in the tone he uses when he’s threatening to pull the car over unless his sister’s kids stop squabbling.

  So I quickly fill him in on the background to George Armentrout’s story. “But don’t worry. I didn’t give away that I’m married to a cop. George thinks Loretta was despairing and hopeless. He compared it to the way his sister was when she got her terminal diagnosis.”

  Sean grunts as he flosses.

  “And he says Loretta had no valid reason to go up to the second floor of the club.”

  Sean uses a wipe to clean the bathroom counter.

  “And that she was obsessing over the success of the party.”

  Sean turns off the light and slides into bed. “Go back to sleep, Sherlock.”

  I’m disappointed that Sean seems to already know everything I’m telling him. “And George says it was out of character for Loretta to have planned an event like this. She was an Indian, not a Chief. Why did she get it in her head to hold that fundraiser, anyway? Did Jared pressure her to do it?”

  Sean props himself on one elbow and stares at me. “Why do you say that?”

  Finally, I get a reaction from him. “I don’t know. George says Loretta never took the lead in that sort of thing. And you yourself said she didn’t seem very interested in the people who use the Parks Center. So how did she wind up planning this fundraiser?”

  “Since Jared joined the Board, he’s done a thorough analysis of the Parks Center’s financial position. He established fundraising goals for each of the next five years. He recruited Loretta to the Board precisely because she moves in the charity party circuit. Apparently, you can’t invite rich people to these events unless they’re sure they’ll be mingling with all the other rich people they know. Loretta must’ve realized Jared was using her as bait. She’d been around the block a few times.”

  “So how did Jared know Loretta? What made her agree to come onto the Board if she had never volunteered at the Parks Center?”

  “That’s what I have to find out.” Sean plugs his phone in to charge and sets his alarm.

  “Well, no matter why she agreed to host the party, the turnout was great. But maybe people didn’t donate as much as she expected. Loretta wouldn’t have killed herself over not reaching a fundraising goal, would she?”

  Sean flops onto his back and stares at the ceiling. “She didn’t commit suicide.”

  “You know that for sure?” Now it’s my turn to sit up and make eye contact.

  “The autopsy revealed bruising on her upper arms.” Sean reaches up and grips my biceps in demonstration. “Fingerprints.”

  “Someone grabbed her and pushed her over?” I switch the beside lamp back on. There’s no sleeping now. “The fingerprint bruises are enough to prove it’s murder?”

  “Not conclusive proof. The trajectory of where she landed doesn’t seem right for a jump. If she had climbed over that railing and let go, she would’ve dropped straight down.”

  “So you think she was pushed?”

  “Not just pushed. I think someone picked her up and threw her. That’s why she landed so far out in the foyer.”

  “Aaack!” I squeeze my eyes shut and hunch my shoulders. Falling is a terrible way to die, in my opinion. I get queasy when people even talk about skydiving. “So it has to be a man who killed her.”

  “Seems so. Although according to the autopsy, Loretta only weighed ninety-two pounds.”

  “Good grief! Less than the average middle-schooler.”

  “We told her husband this evening that we’re investigating this as a murder.” Sean shudders and pulls me into his arms. “I’ve never experienced a reaction like his.”

  “He was devastated?”

  Sean strokes my hair. “Frederic Bostwick said a murder investigation would be unseemly and tawdry. Those were his exact words. And he asked how we could keep it out of the news. Like I was creating an enormous headache for him instead trying to find justice for his wife.”

  Chapter 11

  EARLY MORNING IS NOT usually a busy time at the Rosa Parks Center, but today the place is hopping. In the glass-walled main office, a cluster of people gathers around the secretary as she peers into her computer screen. High, excited voices drift out of the kitchen. “I can’t believe it!” “The Lord works in mysterious ways.” “Amen!”

  I hesitate in the lobby, not sure where to go. Then my father appears.

  “The Board is meeting in the second floor conference room. Go on up,” Dad urges me.

  Outside the closed conference room door, I raise my hand to knock. But loud voices within restrain me.

  “Y
ou already have your mind made up,” an excited male voice says.

  “I don’t think that’s true at all,” a smooth female voice answers.

  “We’ll hear the options. We’ll take a vote.” That voice, also male, sounds older than the first. There’s some undecipherable murmuring.

  I guess the inheritance is already causing strife. Organizations are no different than families. I go ahead and tap on the door.

  The voices fall silent. A chair scrapes and the door opens. “Ah, Audrey. Come on in. We’re expecting you.”

  Reverend Levi Jefferson puts his hand on my back and ushers me into the room. He’s a tall man and projects an air of the king in his castle. “Perhaps you don’t know everyone here.” He addresses the group around the table. “This is Audrey Nealon. Her father, Roger, runs the chess club and her husband, Sean Coughlin, coaches our basketball team. Oh, and her stepmother, Natalie teaches the parenting class and the knitting class.” He beams at me. “Audrey’s part of the Parks Center family.” Then he turns to point out to me the people sitting around the table. I do know all but one, but I let him run through the introductions.

  “Jared Bellack.” Today he’s wearing a plain gray tee shirt and jeans, and barely glances up from his two phones and wafer-thin MacBook Air. He doesn’t take any more interest in me here than he did at the party when he “borrowed” Sean.

  “Beverly Masterson,” Levi continues.

  A very attractive fortyish woman with flawless mocha skin set off perfectly by a persimmon sheath dress smiles at me. “So nice to meet you, Audrey. I hear all about you from your dad. He’s such a sweetheart.”

  I don’t normally think of my dad as a sweetheart, but I’m glad to get a friendly response from someone. I don’t know what she does here at the Parks Center and don’t think she was at the party. I would have remembered her.

  “Iris Kallner.”

  A thin woman with a wild mop of silver and black hair and an armful of jangling bracelets waves to me. “Super that you were able to get here during our meeting. Thank you so-o-o much.”

  “And I’m sure you know Dennis.”