MY FAIR LATTE Page 7
“Will do—and thanks,” I said.
Kendra and I lingered over another cup of coffee before heading to Paula’s place.
Residential areas near the downtown district are made up largely of charming, colorfully painted Victorian houses, from mansions to tiny cottages. And nearly a hundred of them operate as bed and breakfasts.
Paula Turpin, fiftyish, her graying brunette hair pulled back in a French braid, opened the front door and stepped outside as we approached her lavender and gray Victorian with gingerbread trim. After introductions Paula sat down in a white-washed wicker chair on the side porch and invited Kendra and me to take a seat across from her in a wooden swing. The chain suspended from the purple ceiling squeaked as we sat down.
“As I told Trudy, the cops already searched Vince Dalton’s rental and hauled some things off. So, I see no harm in letting you look through it. The police are supposed to let me know if they get in touch with Vince’s mother or some other relative who might want to collect his belongings.”
“How long had Vince been living here?” I asked.
“About a year, although he hadn’t renewed his lease.”
“They didn’t mention in the paper. What did he do for a living?” Kendra asked.
“Not much, as far as I could tell. Spent a lot of time poring over books and papers. His desk was next to the window and I could see him there all hours, day and night. Thought maybe he was doing research for a book, but he never said so.”
“Could he have been some kind of developer? Maybe looking over maps or blueprints. Did you ever see him with oversized papers, like an architect might have?” I asked.
Paula thought for a moment. “Not that I recall. Of course, I couldn’t see everything he had spread out on the desk. But I don’t see how he would’ve had money to invest in developing or building anything. He always paid, but he was late with his rent half the time.”
Paula fidgeted with her rings and glanced at her watch a couple of times. Remembering Trudy’s admonition not to be too pushy with odd bird Paula, I sensed it was time to move on.
“Well, we don’t want to take up too much of your time. Could we take a look at his apartment now?” I said.
Paula nodded and started off across the yard. “This little cottage in the back was his. I rent rooms in the main house to overnight guests, but it’s easier to rent my other properties out to long-term tenants. I’ve got two more long-term rentals down the street—a three-bedroom family home and a converted carriage house behind it.”
The little frame house that had been Vince Dalton’s had a sagging porch and could use a coat of paint, but it was still cute. Paula unlocked the front door and led us inside. It was a wreck. I wondered if the cops had left the mess, ransacking the place for evidence, or if they had found it in this condition.
“Pull the door closed when you leave. It will lock on its own,” Paula said. We said thank yous to the back of her head as she turned quickly and left.
“Paula said he pored over lots of books, but I don’t see any books here,” Kendra said.
“The cops must’ve taken them. They may want to page through them looking for notes or underlined stuff,” I speculated. “We’re probably wasting our time. Anything of importance the police have probably already taken away.”
“Let’s look with open minds,” ever-sunny Kendra said. “If nothing else, maybe we can get a sense or impression about Vince Dalton, what kind of person he was.”
“You’re right. We’re here. We might as well make the most of it.”
I dug through scraps of paper in the trash can and looked for indentations in the paper, hoping to find words left behind from the pages on top that had been carted away by the cops. After rubbing a pencil over the indentations on several blank pages, I revealed two words: ham and barber.
“Good news, Kendra, I think I’ve discovered that Vince ate a sandwich and got a haircut at some point.”
Kendra had been thoughtfully eyeing some knickknacks on a shelf, as well as making a careful examination of a lamp beside the table.
“So does the historian/former museum worker think any of this stuff is valuable?” I asked hopefully.
“Not really. I was looking at the lamp because there’s a burn mark. I wondered if someone had tried to electrocute Vince before they poisoned him, or however they killed him. More likely, it’s just faulty wiring. But this is interesting,” she said turning her attention to a man’s ratty old boot, sitting on the shelf.
“Yeah, everything else on the shelf looks like a keepsake or at least decorative item,” I said. “Why display one beat up boot? Or maybe the cops found it in the closet and just happened to leave it on the shelf.”
“The boot could be worth something, if the other half of the pair was here. I’ve looked through the house and didn’t see it. I’m pretty sure it’s Civil War era, possibly a Confederate soldier’s boot. But I’m no expert. Hand me that pencil and a piece of paper, please.”
Kendra placed the paper I handed her against the boot and rubbed the pencil across to make an impression. Then she held the piece of paper up to the light.
“What do you see?” she asked me.
“Looks like there are a lot of cracks in the old leather to me.”
“Look right here at this darker mark,” she said, pointing it out with the pencil tip.
I squinted and examined the mark.
“It looks kind of like an anchor, I guess. Wait, an anchor! Does that mean this boot was worn by someone in the Confederate Navy?” I asked, excited by the possibility that we were looking at a piece of history, valuable or not.
“No. I think we may be looking at a map. And if it is, it could be what got Vince killed,” she said in a near whisper.
I stared at her in disbelief and was about to explode with a hundred questions. But before I could ask one, she said quietly, “Let’s not talk about this here.”
Kendra took several shots of the boot from different angles with her cell phone and we left, making sure to pull the door shut behind us.
CHAPTER 11
I drove back to the theater and parked in the alley, and we hurried up to my apartment. I was dying to hear what Kendra wouldn’t tell me at the cottage.
I grabbed a couple of beers out of the fridge.
“A little early for beer, isn’t it?” Kendra said.
“I don’t have any Cokes, and the only food I have in the house is a bag of pretzels. Do you want a glass of water instead?”
“No, I’ll take a beer with the pretzels. The escape rooms are closed today, so I can live on the edge.”
“Okay, now tell me how this old, raggedy boot is a map and how it could’ve gotten Vince Dalton killed.”
“Did you notice, if you looked at Vince’s decorating style as a whole, it kind of had a Wild West vibe?” Kendra said.
“No. When I looked at his place as a whole, it had a complete mess look, kind of like Uncle Leon’s place the first time I saw it. But now that you mention it, there was a cowboy hat and a little stagecoach statue—and that boot. By the way, can we get back to the boot now?”
“I’m getting there. The hat and the stagecoach stuff reminded me of some research I did on outlaws almost two years ago when I first moved to Utopia Springs that I thought about using for an escape room theme. But I got distracted by a jewel robbery—the one Trudy made the necklace for—and never got back to it.
“The Jesse James gang spent some time in this area. When it comes to Jesse James, there’s a lot of legend and not much substantiated history, which is probably why I lost interest. I’m into actual history. Anyway, Jesse and Frank’s step-grandparents owned a house about fifteen miles from Utopia Springs. It’s still standing; I’ve driven past it. And there are hundreds of stories about the James gang hiding buried treasure in or near caverns, mostly in Oklahoma and Kansas, but
also in the Ozark Mountains in Missouri and maybe even on the Arkansas side of the Ozarks, close to here.
“Wherever they supposedly had buried treasure, Jesse James and his gang carved symbols on nearby cliffs and cavern walls to mark the spot. And one of the symbols that repeatedly shows up is two facing, interlocking ‘Js,’ which look like…”
“An anchor!” I said, a lightbulb finally going off in my head.
“There are also a lot of stories about how Jesse once carved a treasure map into his boot and left it with his mother for safekeeping.”
“Are you saying that old boot may have actually belonged to Jesse James?”
“I very much doubt it,” Kendra said. “In fact, the more closely I look at the boot the more I wonder if it’s actually a reproduction. You know, like something Civil War reenactors might wear.”
I felt deflated.
“I don’t get it. If it’s not a treasure map from Jesse James then why is it worth anything and why would somebody possibly kill Vince over it?”
“It may not be real, but Vince—and others—could have believed it was authentic. Let’s look at what we know about Vince Dalton. A: he was trying to buy buildings on your block in downtown, but it’s unlikely it was for any kind of development. B: he had a fascination with the Wild West and possessed a boot he may have believed was a treasure map. And he was poring over maps and books. And C: there are caverns and tunnels under the city, on the very block where you live. They even give tours about underground Utopia Springs,” she said.
“Vince Dalton thinks, or thought, there’s buried treasure under the theater and other businesses?”
“It would explain why he was so desperate to buy buildings he couldn’t tear down or substantially change. But he still would have needed a partner—someone with money. He could barely pay his rent, according to Paula. Exploring and excavating under the buildings without causing them to collapse would probably take a lot of expertise—and some expensive equipment. And why should the partner share the loot with Vince once he’s learned everything Vince knows?”
“Wow.”
I leaned back and took a swig of Uncle Leon’s Red Stone beer, a bargain basement brand that I’d actually developed a taste for. Although it might be partly sentimental on my part. And partly practical, since there was so much of it on hand.
“Okay, so I’ll do a little research on the buried treasure lore at the library, museum, and hall of records. If Vince was digging and asking questions there, his partner—or killer—may have been looking for that information, too. I’ll see what I can find,” Kendra said.
She took a swig of beer and grimaced.
“We should buy you some decent beer. Something that normal people can drink,” she said. Obviously Kendra hadn’t developed a taste for the cheap brand the way I had.
Kendra looked up at the deer head on the wall that stared down at the recliner.
“I see you never got around to taking that thing down. I’ve got some drywall board and spackle and such at my place. If you have time this afternoon we could take the deer head down and patch the wall. Then in a day or two you could paint.”
“I know I had said I wanted to get rid of him. But I’ve decided to keep Derek.”
“Derek? You’ve actually named a deer head hanging on your wall? I’m concerned you may be spending too much time alone.”
“Don’t be silly. It’s just, after I put the party hat on him he started to grow on me. I figure I can put twinkling lights on the antlers at Christmas and festoon them with red, white, and blue streamers for the Fourth of July. Besides, I don’t plan to keep much of Uncle Leon’s décor—obviously—but I have a feeling this deer meant something to him,” I said, gazing up at Derek with affection.
“Alright then, Derek stays.”
Kendra ate a few more pretzels and downed the last of her beer with a frown before starting toward the door. “I should work on a few things in the escape rooms. And it just so happens, tonight is the quarterly meeting of the local history society. I’ll see if I can find out anything on the sly there, as well. Before the history society thing, I’m meeting Joe for an early dinner at Jade Garden. You want to join us?”
“No, but thanks. I halfway promised Trudy I’d have supper with her and George tonight.”
“Okay, give them my best. So long, Halley. See ya, Derek.”
I hadn’t actually promised Trudy I’d take advantage of her standing invitation to mooch dinner off her and George. But I did want to fill her in on what Kendra and I had discovered. And I didn’t want to be a third wheel with Joe and Kendra, who are obviously crazy about each other—even if neither of them seems to realize it.
I called Trudy, saying I’d like to come by later and tell her about our trip to Vince’s cottage. Thankfully, and predictably, she invited me to stay for supper, sparing me the embarrassment of inviting myself—and also sparing myself a trip to the market for some groceries.
I finally got down to work cleaning the auditorium and quickly came to the realization that cleaning up sticky stuff was going to be a part of my life from now on. But I figured it was a small price to pay in exchange for owning my own business in a charming town.
The fact that the main entrance to Trudy and George’s apartment was through the kitchen, meant it pretty much always smelled delicious when I walked in. And since I was usually hungry when I visited, this was a good thing.
Trudy was fussing over something on the stove when I tapped on the door and let myself in. She made unnecessary apologies. “I hope you don’t mind leftover pot roast.”
“Are you kidding? Pot roast is one of those foods that’s always better the next day.”
She put a lid on the pot she was tending, poured us two glasses of wine and motioned for me to join her at the kitchen table.
“Where’s George? Can we talk freely?” I asked in a hushed voice.
“He was taking a shower; he’ll be here in a minute. But you don’t need to worry about him overhearing. We had a little talk and I told him since you’re a suspect we are going to do some snooping whether he likes it or not, and it would be more helpful to you and better for our marriage if he’s not an old grouch about it,” she said as she raised her wine glass and clinked it against mine.
The chinking of glasses must’ve been George’s cue to enter.
“Hi, Halley,” he said. He walked to the table, stood between my chair on the end and Trudy’s beside me and laid a hand on my left shoulder and one on Trudy’s right shoulder. “Did you and Kendra find anything interesting at Vince Dalton’s place?
“Sit down, hon, I’ll get you some wine,” Trudy said.
Trudy started to rise, but George gently pushed down on her shoulder. “You stay put. I’ll get it.”
George filled a glass and set the wine bottle on the table as he sat down, facing me.
I told them all about Kendra’s buried treasure theory.
“I think the idea that the boot belonged to Jesse James is a bunch of hooey,” George said.
“Kendra doesn’t think it’s actually Jesse James’s boot. Just that Vince could have believed it was,” I said.
“If he shared his ideas about where some alleged Jesse James loot might be buried, it could’ve gotten him killed. People have certainly killed for less. And people who dig for treasure aren’t necessarily inclined to share. Just think about all the old-time gold prospectors who knocked someone off over a claim. But I think it’s time you told Halley about that other possible motive,” Trudy said giving George an instructive look.
“Yeah, well, assuming Dalton was the man who approached Leon about buying the theater—which seems a safe bet since we know he approached Hamish about buying it after his death—Dalton didn’t exactly take no for an answer when Leon refused to sell. He resorted to blackmail, trying to strong-arm Leon into selling,” George said.
George shook his head. “I don’t know. Honestly, Leon didn’t tell me. He said it wasn’t anything illegal, just something Dalton thought would be embarrassing if word got out. But Leon told me he wasn’t a blushing schoolboy and he didn’t care if Dalton took an ad out in the newspaper, he wouldn’t pay that…so-and-so one red cent.”
“Should we tell the police?” I asked.
“We thought about that. But, honestly, hon, it would just make things look worse for you. Like Vince was threatening to sully your great-uncle’s memory. Plus, we don’t have any proof or even know what it was about. But there’s more. Leon may not have been the only business owner Vince tried to blackmail,” Trudy said, turning to George.
“She didn’t come out and tell us, but after talking it over this morning, Trudy and I believe Dalton likely played at blackmail with Linda, the candle shop owner, too, after he offered her a fair price for the shop and she refused. Around the same time Leon told me about the blackmail attempt, Linda came to Trudy and me confidentially and asked our advice about possibly selling her shop. We thought it was strange at the time that she seemed so conflicted about whether to sell or not, since she told us she couldn’t imagine doing anything else.
“Do you think Linda may have killed Vince?” I asked.
“No, I don’t,” George said. “The one thing we know for certain is that Leon didn’t kill the blackmailing son of a…But I’m almost as sure that Linda didn’t kill him either.”
“I can’t see Linda as a killer either,” Trudy said. “But, George, I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me earlier, but if Vince was interested in buildings on that block, he likely approached other business owners, too, like maybe the owner of the Wooden Nickel Saloon.”
“Could be,” George said, stroking his chin. “We know Dalton was playing at blackmail, at least with Leon and maybe with Linda, too. If anyone in town has skeletons in his closet my money is on saloon proprietor Trey Tilby. I’ll see if I can quietly find out if there’s any real dirt on that sleazy wannabe cowboy.”