Deadly Homecoming at Rosemont Read online

  “And the auction took place when?”

  “Back in March.”

  “So Addison bought the house out from under Rosemont?”

  “No,” I snapped, “it wasn’t like that at all. Attlee went through the proper channels.”

  Elmore raised his eyebrows and waved his pencil, eliciting more.

  “To have Trey declared legally dead,” I said.

  “Why’d he do that?”

  “Because Attlee thought he was. He hadn’t been seen in twenty-five years and all attempts by the authorities, his parents, and private investigators to find him failed.”

  “Trey Rosemont didn’t want to be found,” the lieutenant concluded.

  “Apparently not.”

  “But Rosemont comes back to town and finds Addison has something that rightfully belongs to him. This house. His family’s house.”

  I responded to his argumentative statement in like manner. “The proceeds from the auction went back into the estate. He’d be entitled to that.”

  “Yeah, but what if he wanted the house?”

  “Well, he couldn’t have it.”

  “Because Addison wouldn’t sell it back?”

  “I doubt it.”

  “Why not?”

  “He loves this house.”

  “And he would do anything to keep it?”

  “Sure,” I said emphatically.

  Elmore’s head came up, flaunting a satisfied smile.

  “I didn’t mean anything. Not murder,” I stammered.

  “I think that’s all for now, Miss Grayson,” he said dismissively.

  I jumped up. “Now wait a minute.”

  “I’ll get someone to move Addison’s truck, so you can get back into town. I’m sure the mayor is waiting on you.” Elmore turned to leave.

  Full of righteous indignation, I said, “And I’m sure he’ll have something to say about this.”

  Elmore stopped and came back, leaning in so closely, I could feel his breath as he spit words just above a whisper. “No, I don’t think he will. A mayor wanting to be reelected won’t get in the middle of a murder investigation, not even if our TV princess asks him. Now go to your car and get off my crime scene.”

  His sarcastic reference to TV princess shouldn’t create too much of a stir. By night, I was Havens’ city recorder and television celebrity. My fame was limited to the local cable channel, where council meetings were televised and I could be seen twice monthly, sitting next to Mayor Tallmadge, taking minutes.

  Finished with me for the second time, Elmore spun and marched away. My hands in fists, I looked up to the house, wanting to finally see Clay standing there. Instead, I found Baines watching the scene. This was Elmore’s show. Baines stood in the background. The tilt of his head and the fold of his arms told me he took note of how to be a better bully.

  Face of a King

  I slammed my palm into Midnight’s steering wheel. “Idiot,” I said aloud.

  The one-word insult was self-directed and justly deserved. Within minutes of seating myself in the shady swing, Elmore proved me both a fool and capable of betraying Clay. I needed to walk this back somehow, but was it even possible to undo the damage?

  Midnight’s clock read 9:03. Mayor K.C. Tallmadge would be lowering his considerable girth into his desk chair right about now. K.C. could tell me if the ammunition I supplied the Homicide lieutenant produced a mortal wound or a glancing blow. With a spurt of gravel, I pulled out of the drive and pointed the PT Cruiser up Hattersfield, away from the community of farmland on the city’s eastern edge.

  I drove a half dozen blocks into town when my original morning plan popped up, like a window blind suddenly retracting itself. I stared at the wrought iron gates announcing the entrance to Avondale Cemetery.

  How could that plan have strayed one millimeter from my mind? How could I have allowed anything—even a murder investigation, or a friend in trouble—to overshadow my quiet morning visit with my grandmother? Visiting the cemetery after visiting Rosemont had become a welcomed ritual in my life.

  Guilt pressed hard against my chest. I knew Grams would never compile the damage. Her understanding of the situation would be flawless.

  I looked into the distance down Hattersfield, but could not break the routine. Slowing, I slipped through the gates. The decision was made, and yet, my eyes filled. This woman raised me, and I lost her a year ago in February when her heart gave out.

  I routed myself along the narrow cemetery roads, rounded the final bend, and parked under the red oak as I always do. I scuffed through the grass, intentionally trying not to hurry through the visit. When I reached her grave, I kissed my palm, then, for several precious seconds, laid it on the marble marker’s top edge. Another ritual. The engraving on the stone’s face read, Virginia Reston, Beloved By All.

  “So far, this has not been the best day, but it does feel good to be here.” I rolled my shoulders and took in the blue sky. These times spent with Grams included my one-sided banter while I hand-trimmed any untidy grass around the marker. I was just ready to go after a few tall blades when my cell phone rang.

  The caller was Gideon.

  For fourteen years, Dr. Gideon Douglas taught history at Eastwood University. The words that rushed from him were cut with concern. “My god, Wrenn, are you all right? I just heard what happened at Clay’s place. Who was murdered?”

  “Trey Rosemont,” I said, taking a few steps.

  “Trey? I thought he’d dropped off the radar—what—twenty-some years ago?”

  “Twenty-five. The whole thing’s bizarre. Clay and I found him in the foyer. The house was locked up tight with no sign anyone broke in.” Then I rebuffed his notion Trey entered via an old house key, just as Clay had when the notion was mine.

  “Hmm,” he said, “but you’re okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” I murmured.

  “You’re sure?” He paused. “You’re sounding kind of little.” That’s a Gideonism used to describe a certain vulnerability in my tone.

  True, I was worried about Clay and angry with Elmore. Absorbed in the peacefulness surrounding Grams’ grave and now hearing Gideon’s voice quelled the worse of that. “Gideon,” I said, packing some heft in my voice, “how did you find out about the murder?”

  “From a cop.”

  “Campus police?”

  “Burglary Unit,” he corrected. “Eastwood was robbed.”

  “Not the Egyptian collection!” I spun toward the gravestone.

  “Go,” I imagined Grams saying.

  Hattersfield Road continued as my conduit into town. It was the main artery that cut Havens in half. South of Hattersfield was the downtown; north was Eastwood University. A five-minute drive and a residential neighborhood of large Victorian homes separated the two.

  I traveled north a few blocks. At Bingham Avenue, I dropped Midnight down to a crawl to navigate the border of the compact campus. During the quiet summer months, Eastwood’s residential rim took one long, collective breath. Between September and May, the influx of 1,500 energetic students tested neighbors’ patience considerably and pushed our population past the sixty-thousand mark.

  I took the corner at Llewellyn Avenue and sped up the street, bumping the PT over the curb and into the parking lot for Blake Hall. That building housed the history department. The burglary drew the attention of three police cruisers, two campus security vehicles, and an unmarked. The scene here appeared less intense than the one I just left. I based this judgment solely on the lack of a coroner’s wagon.

  That prompted a thought. Did Havens even have two? I tried to remember the last time two high-profile crimes, like a murder and a theft, divided the police department’s resources. Nothing came to mind. Sure, Havens experienced a rash of the small stuff, but this morning’s activity might be unprecedented.

  I smiled with relief to find Gideon waiting for me. He was the rhythm of my heart in motion and a ruggedly handsome mix of sunbeams, bronze, and the sands of the nomadic Weste
rn Desert. His sandstone-colored shirt was tucked into matching pants at a trim, belted waist. Long sleeves were haphazardly rolled up to the elbow, revealing curly blond hairs on his arms, which stood out against tanned skin. He marched my direction in well-worn leather work boots. It seemed like an eternity passed since I looked upon his sleeping face this morning.

  By the time I angled into a slot and killed the engine, he had my door open, helping me out. He stood nearly a head taller with a square-cut face, softened by a slightly tapered chin. His lips brushed my left ear. He held me in a warm, tight hug. Air rushed deeply into his lungs, and I felt his tension ease away as he released it.

  I soaked in his comfort, his concern, and his cologne. There were these few seconds of solace before he caught me off guard. “I should be angry with you.”

  “Why?” I asked, pushing back to search his softening blue eyes.

  “You didn’t wake me this morning to say you were leaving.”

  “You knew I had to meet Clay at six-thirty.”

  Tilting his head the way he does, his tone dropped. “I’m quite willing to give up a little sleep to kiss you goodbye.”

  I understood this gentle rebuke. He was a man with sensitivities. A little while earlier, he heard the word murder and my name in the same breath. I saw the familiar look of love in his eyes and knew this would be one of Gideon’s rules I would follow simply because he asked.

  “Fair enough,” I teased, “I’ll wake you from a sound sleep every chance I get.” Then the serious business of the theft took over. “I don’t understand, Gideon. How could this have happened? Only a handful of people even knew the shipment arrived yesterday.”

  “And there’s been absolutely no press. We didn’t want details released until after the pieces were in their security cases.” He paced in front of me, hands deep in his pockets, shoulders slumped. “This took more than a few hours to plan. Someone had prior knowledge. They must have, to move in this quickly. Literally overnight.”

  “What was taken? Surely not the entire collection?”

  “The funeral mask and the exhibit’s jewelry collection. I have pictures,” he said, taking my hand. We zigzagged through the lot. None of the officers chose to leave their cruisers within the suggested lines defining orderly parking. We were headed toward his Chrysler Crossfire, a red two-seater. He opened the passenger door, reached into the bucket seat, and retrieved a thin text titled, National Archeological Museum’s Touring Collection. “I should have shown you this last night,” he said ruefully.

  The soft-bound guide was artfully arranged on high-grade photographic paper and rolled out the twenty-five-piece collection in short order. As he flipped past statuettes, mummification tools, an obelisk, canopic jars, and children’s toys, I easily got a feel for the layout. Each page represented a mini-tutorial, speaking to periods, dynasties, and kingdoms, gods and goddesses, and, above all, symbolism. The entire thing boiled down to religion: a way of life and a firm belief in an afterlife. Near the back, he found a fold-out page and opened it, revealing three pieces of jewelry, then handed the booklet to me.

  “This pendant and bracelet are both Nineteenth Dynasty. The pendant’s chain is fragile, nearly too fragile to hold the lapis ram. Which is heavier than it looks,” he said, giving a first-hand account. Yesterday, he held the three-dimensional ram, crowned with gold and resting on a golden base when he uncrated the exhibit’s pieces. “Do you see how the bracelet is hinged here? This was very delicately done. And here,” he continued, pointing to an inscription in the metal, “is the hieroglyphic symbol for the bee. The bee is a designation for Lower Egypt. This third piece is a pectoral. The stone is called a faience. This chain is much sturdier than the first one, and this ornamental plate is about this wide.” He gapped his finger and thumb around four inches of air. The faience, glazed to a bluish-green hue, was centered on the plate while golden cobras raised their wide heads into a scroll on either side.

  I drew my eyes away and up to Gideon. “Is this all gold?”

  “Every bit of it.”

  “Impressive.”

  Awestruck as I was, his next move couldn’t have been more perfectly timed. Flipping the page, he said, “You’re going to love this.”

  I emitted an audible gasp and stared open-mouthed into the face of a king.

  He spoke softly. “Remarkable, isn’t it?”

  “This would be worth the price of admission.”

  “I wish you’d seen it, Wrenn.” In his tone lived the resignation that the stolen funeral mask would be lost forever. “The archeology world remains divided on whether this is a likeness of Ta’o, the second, or not. No one doubts it’s Theban or Seventeenth Dynasty. The mask is made of a substance called cartonnage. That’s a mixture of plaster, linen, and papyrus. While it’s in a pliable state, it can be shaped to the contours of the deceased’s head and shoulders.”

  In my opinion, this was done with great skill. Our traveling king possessed a straight nose, delicate mouth, full cheeks, and rounded chin. His eyes were large—wide-open for all eternity—and outlined in black paint with sleek black brows. His typically elaborate Egyptian headdress was banded across the forehead, lifting up over an extended crown, flaring six or eight inches from the sides of the head before tapering to an end just above the diaphragm. He’d been adorned in death with layers of royal collars from his chin to well below his breastbone. The gilded and painted mask achieved a flattering replica of its wearer. The skin’s rich bronze tint contrasted with the headdress and adornments in turquoise, black, and coral.

  “What can be done with stolen artifacts? Would they be sold or ransomed back?”

  He shook his head. “I’ve been thinking about that. They’re invaluable, but recognizable. They’re not a commodity that can be sold to just anybody, and they could never be displayed publicly.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “They’d go into a private collection. There are people out there—a few I’ve heard of—who have enough money to acquire items like these, then keep them privately for themselves.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. Word gets around.”

  “So, in a few years, they’re not going to wind up on some episode of Antiques Roadshow?” I spoke with mock sincerity.

  A genuine smile crossed his face, and the lines between his brows eased. “Now you’re just sassing me, aren’t you?”

  “Uh-huh,” I said, reaching to smooth an out-of-place tumble of his sandy hair.

  “I’ll get with Sherrie. I can make a few calls and give her the names of these collectors to investigate.”

  “Sherrie. Who’s Sherrie?”

  His gaze dropped somewhere just under mine, and his voice held a guilty quality. “Well, I guess it should be Sergeant Lippincott. From the Burglary Unit. She’s in charge. Taking statements. Adam’s, Jan-Jan’s, and mine.”

  Adam Porter was an associate history professor, and Jan-Jan was Gideon’s shortcut to Janice Jankowski’s name and the department’s clerical staff.

  “You got to know her pretty quick to be on a first-name basis.”

  “Actually, I knew her already. The fact is we dated for a few months.” He raised his head, tipping it sideways and adding his ever-ready smile.

  “You dated a cop.” I giggled. Already scenes involving handcuffs were materializing inside my head. This would be the first time I met one of his conquests over a felony. Oh yes, and I met quite a few over the years. Luscious playthings, one and all. They were always overly flirtatious while I felt under-endowed. They seemed to have heard about me as if a newsletter was published so my predecessors could keep up. Their glowering assessments were rewardingly consistent: I had indeed captured his heart, and I was younger than they. That seemed to be the clincher. The difference in age between Gideon’s and mine being fourteen years. Gideon seemed reluctant to share details about his string of women, and I didn’t push. No need, really. Almost immediately after our relationship gelled, several began stepping forward of t
heir own accord, and the picture became abundantly clear. “Breaking up with a cop could’ve been dangerous. How’d that go? The next girl must’ve been taking her life in her hands.”

  “The next girl was you,” he said simply, then enjoyed my startled reaction.

  Recovering, I said dryly, “Well, this day just keeps getting better.”

  “Tell me about it,” he said. “I don’t remember her being this exhausting when I dated her.”

  My head came up. “Exhausting?” My imagination gave more depth to the handcuffs scene.

  “Sorry.” He grinned. “Bad choice of words. I meant meticulous. Thorough. She wants to know everything: When the shipment arrived, why it was late, how long it took Adam and me to uncrate it, the plans for setting up the security cases and alarm system today, and the name of the electrician assigned to that job from Maintenance.” This explained Gideon’s khaki-colored attire. He planned to work right alongside the electrician. “I loaded her up with background on the grant Eastwood receives from the Collegiate Foundation for the archeological studies program and its connection to this exhibit. And before you ask,” he interrupted himself, holding off my question with the flat of his hand. “Yes, we’re in danger of CF yanking that funding. Sherrie also wanted the names of the six seniors who were scheduled to help today. And I explained about the three-day conference we were set to host, so the other Foundation schools could see the collection privately before it went on public display for a month.”

  “You were right the first time,” I said, reaching for his hand. “Exhausting.”

  Social Graces

  Voices carried down to Gideon and me from Blake Hall. I recognized Janice Jankowski’s. The soon-to-be-grandmother and Gideon’s office assistant spoke in passing to the squat policeman on sentry duty at the building’s east entrance. A cruiser was parked on the wide concourse outside the hall. The raised trunk lid revealed a host of crime-fighting necessities.

  “Looks like Jan-Jan survived Sherrie,” Gideon observed.