A Veiled Antiquity (Torie O'Shea Mysteries) (3 page)

The vice president of the historical society is her sister Wilma, who is for the most part Sylvia’s exact opposite. She’s quiet, happy, and remarkably prudish. Neither have ever been married.

Sylvia now owns the Gaheimer House, one of several historic homes in our town built by an early settler named Hermann Gaheimer. I’m not sure what my role is exactly, because I have no title. But I give the tours, which I get paid for, and I take care of records and transcribe original documents in the archives and courthouses. I’ve even hired out my genealogical services and traced family trees, including my own.

The lineage we get is completely random, by the way. There’s nothing grand or glorious, there’s no divine reason that one person has a better family tree than the next. I am a descendant of a Revolutionary War soldier who was at Valley Forge. I can lay claim to the Dukes of Abercorn, and Robert the Bruce. I also have a private in the Union Army of the Civil War, and a Confederate private as well, so I suppose that means that I’m at war with myself. I even have an Indian, and no, she isn’t a Cherokee princess.

I also have my share of deserters, illegitimates, and even a murderer. No kidding, I have an ancestor who beat his wife to death with a piece of firewood because his dinner wasn’t cooked right. They lynched him. Finding out who I am was so much fun.

I’m basically of Scottish and French stock, with a little English thrown in for good measure. But the French is the blood that comes through the most. I’m short, with green eyes, and I tan easily. I did not, however, inherit my French ancestors’ dark hair. Mine can’t decide if it wants to be blond or brown and thus changes with the seasons.

Sylvia came into the office, glared at me, and sat down. I didn’t think anything of it. Sylvia always glares at me.

“Yes, Sylvia, what can I do for you?”

“That Sheriff Brooke of yours has cornered the Dijon market.”

“Wait,” I said, holding up a hand. “First off, Sheriff Brooke is not mine. He’s your great stepnephew. Secondly, what the heck is a Dijon market?”

Sylvia wears her hair in twisted braids on top of her head, just as Wilma does. She’s very thin, has silver gray eyes and entirely too much energy for somebody sixty-something years my senior.

“Marie Dijon. There will be an estate sale, and I’ve heard the sheriff is going to make a bid for everything in the woman’s house. Nobody else in New Kassel can counter that offer.”

“Well, since he bought Norah’s Antiques, he’s been throwing everything he has into it. He’s trying to set it up for his retirement,” I explained. Sylvia said nothing. She could more than afford to counter any offer that Sheriff Brooke wanted to make. I happen to know personally that Hermann Gaheimer left Sylvia a million and something dollars when he died in the 1930s.

It is knowledge that I should not possess.

Sylvia was single-handedly responsible for renovating the town and had loaned many people money to start businesses, interest free. She could counter his offer if she wanted. But she didn’t want to draw too much attention to just how much money she was sitting on. She even made the town hold fundraisers for the historical society. Part of that was to cover up her wealth. The other was because she wanted the people of New Kassel to have to work for things. I understood that train of thought. Sylvia was such a complex person.

“Well, Sylvia,” I began diplomatically, “if Sheriff Brooke wants to ‘corner the market,’ so to speak, he certainly has his inalienable rights.”

“Oh, pooh,” she said. She narrowed her gray eyes on me. “I know for a fact that Marie Dijon had some very rare and expensive pieces in her possession. I think that the people who have a little knowledge of antiques and a respect for historical items should be allowed to at least view what she had and have a chance to bid on them,” she said. She was very serious.

It felt suddenly stuffy in the office. It is small and has only one window covered by a lace curtain. One wall has an antique rose of Sharon quilt hanging on it. It is a beautiful quilt with pink appliquéd roses and a swirling green vine. No matter how beautiful it is, it makes the room more confining. And Sylvia did not help my claustrophobia any.

“It will be some time before all the legal junk is finished and anybody can really make a serious offer. Sheriff Brooke is probably just blowing hot air,” I said. “What do you want me to do about it?”

“Why, tell him he cannot do this, of course.”

I laughed at her. I laughed heartily because I knew just how serious she was.

“Victory, you are treading on thin ice, young lady. You show me the respect that I deserve.”

“Yes, Sylvia.”

I tried to straighten up and act right. It was sort of like in the fifth grade when Miss Thomas told us all to “straighten up and fly right.” It didn’t work then because she had a long piece of toilet paper hanging out of the waistband of her pants. This didn’t work either because I could just imagine me telling Sheriff Brooke that he wasn’t allowed to bid on an estate. The vision it evoked brought me to laughing again. “I’m sorry, Sylvia. I’m trying.”

“Marie Dijon was a very generous and giving woman,” Sylvia said. “I don’t think that she would want one stingy human being to get everything she had.”

“What do you mean,
generous?
” I asked.

Sylvia looked uncomfortable. “Well, you know the earrings that you wear with the chenille-ball fringe dress?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said. “The gold ones with pearl drops?”

“Those are the ones. Well, they were on loan from Marie.”

“On loan?” I asked.

“Yes. She said to just pay her whenever, and I never paid her.”

“You stole the earrings?” I asked, amazed.

“Of course not. They are very expensive. They are prerevolutionary France. Something like seventeenth century.”

“Oh, crap,” I said.

“No vulgarities in the Gaheimer House, young lady.”

“How expensive?” I asked. “Sylvia? How expensive?”

“At least twenty thousand.”

“Dollars?!”

“Now you know why I hadn’t gotten around to paying her for them. I intended to, but then she died.”

I thought about this for a minute. “So, in other words, since the earrings aren’t paid for, you have to return them to the estate, to be auctioned off.”

“If I want to be honest about it. I could keep them and nobody would ever know the difference, but I won’t do that. I have to be honest about it. But I’d like to keep them in the Gaheimer collection, and I can’t if Sheriff Brooke buys the entire estate.”

“Twenty thousand,” I repeated.

“They are rumored to have been worn by Anne of Austria.”

“Well, that’s one expensive rumor.”

“Do you know who Anne of Austria was?” Sylvia asked me.

“Yes, the wife of Louis the … uh—I hate Roman numbers—the thirteenth,” I said.

“Yes. I’m impressed,” she said.

“I’m sure if you ask Sheriff Brooke, he’d be happy to make a settlement over the earrings.”

“I want you to do it. I refuse to speak with him,” she said and arose from her chair. “There are a few things in the top drawer that need to be returned to her estate, as well as the earrings. Please see to it that Mr. Reaves receives them. I will keep the earrings in my safety deposit box until an agreement can be met.”

“How do you know that Mr. Reaves is handling her estate?”

“Victory, there’s very little that goes on in this town that I don’t know about,” she said and then added, “Bernice Thorley told me.”

She was out of my office as fast as she had come in.

I picked up the telephone and called the law office of Wilbert Reaves. A young, feminine voice answered the phone.

“Wilbert Reaves, attorney at law,” Jamie said.

“Hello, Jamie. This is Torie O’Shea. I need to speak with Wilbert.”

“He’s not here. Won’t be for the rest of the day.”

“Well, can you see when he has an opening? I need to bring him some things and speak to him regarding the Marie Dijon will.”

“Tomorrow around two, or you can catch him out at the Dijon place this evening. I’m pretty sure he said that he’d be out there around seven this evening.”

“All right. I’ll try that. Thank you.”

Three

After dinner, I read the kids a story, then did the dishes. My oldest daughter, Rachel, is seven now, and even though she can read, she likes it when I read stories to her. She has brownish hair and extraordinary black eyes, and Rudy is already concerned about how he is going to fight off the hormone-pumped teenage boys. My youngest daughter, Mary, is three, almost four. She has blond hair and green eyes and is slightly more plump than Rachel. She will not sit still for anything in this world, except
Aladdin
and my story time.

My mother was at her sister’s house in Meyersville, visiting my grandmother. My mother is the youngest of four daughters, three of whom live within ten miles of New Kassel. Aunt Millicent lives in West Virginia.

Rudy was late getting in, so I had to take the kids with me to meet Mr. Reaves. I decided that I’d walk down to Marie’s house instead of taking the car. It takes more gas starting the darn thing than it does to get two blocks down the road. From about ten in the morning to five in the evening the streets are usually packed with tourists. This late in the evening, the only tourists out were the ones going to dinner or staying at the Murdoch Inn.

There was nobody at Marie’s house when the children and I arrived at quarter till seven. I sat on the front porch of her house, watching the birds pecking at the ground in her front yard. I could see the very top of my roof from Marie’s porch.

I played with the envelope awhile, wondering why Sylvia insisted upon me returning this to Mr. Reaves. All the envelope contained was Marie’s family tree and a minor history of the Dijon family. Usually, we keep that sort of thing on file or at least make copies. But Sylvia had insisted that I return it.

So, there I sat, waiting for Mr. Reaves. Now that I thought about it, I couldn’t figure out why he’d be coming to Marie’s house in the first place unless he was meeting an individual about her will. Or maybe a contester? Oooh, now that would be a bit of juicy gossip.

Directly across, the firehouse was quiet, as it usually was. We had three firemen, plus our chief, and six volunteer firemen. There was usually only one person at the firehouse at a time, other than the fire chief, Elmer Kolbe, who seemed to live there. He happened to be out front at the moment. He washed the red fire truck, taking particular care around the headlights, as if it were a human being. I waved to him, and he waved back.

I was bored. Which is when bad things usually happen.

I suddenly realized that the girls were no longer on the front porch. I could hear their giggling voices coming from the backyard. I walked around the back of the house by way of the driveway.

Both girls were hopping like bunny rabbits in the recently loosened dirt of Marie’s flower bed. Wherever Rachel hopped, Mary hopped, but with much more effort because her legs were a great deal shorter. Their pigtails flopped on top of their heads with every jump they made.

“Girls, get out of the flower bed,” I said, vaguely even remembering that they were actually in the flower bed. I was too interested in looking at the back of Marie’s house. There was no crime scene tape or anything, because there was no crime scene. The sheriff’s department had collected everything they wanted within the first two days of her accident. Nobody had been here in two or three days at least.

I’m not sure what it was I was looking for, only that I was looking for something. Anything that seemed out of place.

Just then, I saw a flash of purple. One of my girls was climbing on the back porch banisters. Which one was it? They were dressed in matching purple short outfits, purple with little orange squiggly things.

“Rachel! Get down.”

“It isn’t me, Mom. I’m over here.”

Rachel was still in the flower bed. I had assumed that it was her climbing on the banisters because she was the oldest. Oldest doesn’t automatically make her the bravest, I suppose. “I told you five minutes ago to get out of that flower bed. Why don’t you listen to me? Your sister listened to me,” I said.

True. But she was hanging upside down on a banister at the moment, ready to drop on her head from seven feet.

“Mary! Get down. No, don’t get down. I’ll come and get you,” I said. I realized in midsentence that it would be like her just to jump. “Rachel, come with me. Now. You probably trampled those poor flowers to death. Not to mention what you’ve got all over your new white tennis shoes.” Why are they always
new
white tennis shoes? They are never old white tennis shoes. I suppose because if they were old they wouldn’t be white anymore. I don’t know why all of the marketing geniuses can’t invent brown tennis shoes and just get it over with.

When I finally reached the back porch, I grabbed Mary off the banister by her feet. She put her hands on the floor of the porch and then flipped over. I shook my finger at her. “This is not our house. You can’t just destroy other people’s property.”

Not that she was free to destroy ours either.

I stood on my tiptoes and peeked in Marie’s back door. I leaned a little too hard on the door, and it swung open with a creak.

An open door is the worst temptation. It’s worse than chocolate. I tried convincing myself that what I really wanted to do was okay. After all, I’d have to step inside the kitchen in order to reach the door to shut it, right?

I should have been a lawyer.

Just then, Mary took off and was inside Marie’s house before I could stop her. All right, somewhere deep down I knew that I shouldn’t do it. But what if the sheriff missed something? They were so intent on it being an accident, I don’t think they wanted to look at it as a possible crime scene.

“Come on, Rachel,” I said to her. She came in behind me. I grabbed Mary by the hand and set the envelope that I had been holding on the kitchen table.

“Mary, don’t touch anything. You touch anything and you won’t play on the swing set for a year. Understood?” She nodded.