Death of a Toy Soldier (15 page)

“You wanted to . . . sell ghosts?” Jack threw his head back in laughter, but Althena was appalled.

“It doesn’t matter much anyway, because I haven’t figured out how to trap them, so don’t worry. However, if this house is as active as it seems, I don’t even need to go that far. I can open up the place for tours and use that to fund my experiments.”

“Sully would have tried to dissuade Sy from inviting you and your team to investigate the house,” Dad said, his voice soft but distinct. “He certainly wouldn’t want you marrying the man and moving in.” Dad squinted at Kimmie, whether for effect or because of the dim light, I wasn’t sure. “What happened between the two of you?”

“Look, I didn’t invite you here to interrogate me,” Kimmie said. “The truth is, Sy did invite me, and he liked what I had to say so much, he made sure I got the house so I could continue my work.”

“But why marry him?” Jack said.

Kimmie laughed. “It suited both our purposes. Even though he made sure he changed his will, leaving his house to a stranger would always be suspect. Had I somehow swindled the old dude? Was he really of sound mind and body? Besides, Sy lived here a long time. The spirits surely were comfortable with him. As his wife, the relationship gave me a clear connection that they would understand.” She smiled at Jack. “Mostly Sy was for the idea because he wanted to see how the family would react. Too bad he never got a chance to tell them.”

Jack tipped his head. “There’s still the second autopsy.”

“Do you seriously think I offed your dear Uncle Sy?” Kimmie said.

“You didn’t have to,” Jack said. “But if evidence comes back that suggests he might have suffered neglect in his final days, expect a good fight in court.” He held up his hands. “Not from me, mind you.”

Kimmie smirked at him, and her voice came out dripping saccharine. “Of course not.”

Suddenly Althena, who had been silently listening to us all this time, put her hands up, as if to quiet us. “Somebody’s here. Sully, is that you?”

I distinctly heard a cough.

“Who was that?” I said.

Everybody at the table shook their heads. Zack and Chuck were still upstairs.

“Sully,” Kimmie said loudly, “are you angry at me for getting you fired?”

“Uncle Sy,” Jack called out, mocking her tone, “are you angry at Kimmie for making a mockery of your death?”

“No,” Althena said. “I’m sensing—”

Before she could finish, a whispered voice said, “Yesssss.” As the final consonant faded into a hiss, we all looked at each other, wide-eyed and barely breathing.

“Did someone move the monkey?” I stood at the register and stared, transfixed, at the toy with the cymbals. I wasn’t sure what was different, but a shiver ran down my spine anyway. I had a macabre sense that, when nobody was in the shop, it hopped down from the shelf and banged its cymbals together, sending a message in Morse code to all the other demonic monkeys, thus furthering their plot for world domination. Or, at least, my personal demise.

Cathy waved a hand in front of my face. “Don’t freak out, Liz. I dusted the shelf this morning.”

I closed my eyes and sighed in relief. When I looked up, Cathy was grinning at me.

“I don’t blame you for freaking out,” she said. “Last night sounded bizarre.”

“Do you believe all that ghost stuff?” I asked. “I mean, somebody could have faked the voices.”

“You mean like
someone
faked the noises?” She waved at Dad.

He looked up from where he was trying to patch his prized toy soldier and sent her a sheepish grin.

“Jury’s still out,” she said, “and I don’t expect them to reach a verdict anytime soon. Is there anything so wrong about wanting to reconnect with those you lost?”

“It’s not natural,” Dad said. He and I exchanged glances. While living with Mom had been tough, losing her had been just as hard on Dad. On all of us, really. I think there’s a sense of missing not only someone but also what that relationship could have been and never would be.

“Of course it’s not natural,” Cathy repeated, oblivious to our moment. “That’s why they call it the
super
natural.”

“I’m still more interested in what we learned about real, flesh-and-blood people last night,” Dad said. He pushed his mound of plastic and patches aside before setting up a portable table in an open space near the register. “Let’s concentrate on the normal rather than the paranormal.” He pulled open a folding chair and sat down.

“We certainly learned a lot about Kimmie Kaminski.” I opened another chair.

“Are we calling Kimmie normal?” Cathy said as she set another chair at the table for herself.

“I need something to write with,” Dad said. “I miss my board at the station.”

Cathy handed him an Etch A Sketch.

He stared at it blankly, as if he were considering it.

“We don’t have twelve years.” I went to the counter and retrieved some old scrap paper and a jelly jar full of mismatched pens we keep for scoring our game tournaments.

Dad fished out a colorful pen bearing the name of a local dentist and started writing. “So Kimmie Kaminski. Maybe not normal, but at least she’d register on an infrared camera,”
Dad said, then paused. Apparently it was up to us to fill in the gaps.

“She seems to think she will inherit Sy DuPont’s house,” Cathy said. “She might have wanted to kill the old man so she could claim her inheritance quicker.”

“We need to focus on O’Grady’s death,” Dad said. “Unless the medical examiner finds anything to suggest that Sy DuPont’s death was caused by anything unnatural. I suppose she had means and opportunity. Anyone, really, might have followed Sullivan O’Grady here. My question is,
why
would Kimmie follow him, and why would she choose this shop as a location to commit murder?”

I found myself sucking on my chapped lower lip. “It’s still unclear to me why Sully came here.” I broke eye contact with Dad before continuing. This would be so much easier if he remembered what had happened the night O’Grady died, even if he remembered why they’d met in the closed shop at night in the first place. “What if it wasn’t about the toys? What if he came to tell you something, maybe about Kimmie? What if he sought you out because you were once the chief of police?”

“Why not go to the current chief?” Dad asked.

“Because he trusted you more,” Cathy said. “What do we really know about Ken Young, anyway?”

“If that were the case, perhaps the toys were merely a ruse to give him a reason to see you,” I said. “But why would he need one?”

Dad nodded. “The truth is usually simpler. It’s safer to work with the assumption that O’Grady came for an evaluation of the toys.”

“The toys that belonged to his employer,” Cathy said.

“Or to Sy’s neighbors,” I said, “if we believe Irene and Lenora. And eventually to the toy museum, unless Sy changed his mind about donating them posthumously when he reworked his will to include Kimmie.”

Dad leaned his elbows on the table. “That’s a lot of claims on a collection of old tin.” He scratched his brow. “So assuming O’Grady didn’t steal them, which jibes with what others have said about him, it’s possible that Sy initially sent his aide here to get an evaluation of the toys. Maybe he was trying to decide what to do with them and wanted to know what they were worth.”

“Do we even know that yet?” Cathy asked.

“Mostly,” Dad said. “A few hundred each, give or take. Except the mystery one nobody can identify. Miles was hoping to hear from the expert later today.”

“Fred and Ginger,” I said. “I don’t think it’s as simple as O’Grady being sent here by his employer. He seemed awfully nervous. Then he gave us the fake name. If he was here on a legitimate errand, he’d have no reason to be so stressed, certainly not enough to hide his identity.”

“The question is, from whom?” Dad said. “That opens up a whole ’nuther list of suspects: people who feel they’d have some claim to the toys.”

“The Wallace family, for instance,” Cathy said. “Dear old Uncle Sy had been making them promises for years. They can’t have been happy to learn he was stringing them along.”

“They were all ready to clear that place out, until Kimmie walked in,” I said. “I suppose they might have resented O’Grady if they saw him walking around town with a box of
their uncle’s things and thought he was trying to abscond with part of their inheritance. But enough to kill? So far, beyond a few snarky remarks, the Wallaces seem to be channeling their anger into litigation.”

“
Channeling
?” Cathy repeated.

“That’s the spirit,” Dad said. “You’re possessed by a great talent, but you don’t have a ghost of a chance of surpassing me in the pun department.”

“I’m haunted by that reality. Sorry, the pun wasn’t intentional,” I said. “I just mean that the Wallaces might be ticked enough to take dear Kimmie to court, but they’re far from homicidal. Jack seems to find it downright amusing.”

Dad tapped the pen on the table. Just then a mother and young daughter came into the shop. He shuffled his paper into a neat pile, with blank sheets on top. I guessed a murder investigation might scare away customers. While the pair strolled into the doll room, Cathy hovered nearby, ready to be of assistance. I went back to the counter, and Dad drained his coffee cup and headed to the back room for a refill.

His timing was again impeccable, because no sooner had he cleared the threshold than Peggy Trent entered with a covered plate. She glanced around the room and the corners of her mouth fell. “Don’t tell me I missed him again! One of these days I’m going to lay eyes on that man. I suppose I can leave these with you.”

As soon as she put the plate on the counter, a delightful aroma of ginger and nutmeg wafted all around me. She peeled back the foil to reveal perfectly plump and gorgeously decorated gingerbread men. “I just have to share my holiday baking,” she said, “and with your mom gone these many years, I
can’t imagine anyone I’d rather share with. You’ll make sure that elusive father of yours gets at least one, right?”

“I’m sure he’ll enjoy these,” I said. That much was true. He loved her cooking. It was merely Peggy he couldn’t stand.

“Will the shop be open for game night tonight?” she asked, tapping the table where Dad had left his stack of notes.

“Absolutely,” I said.

“Maybe I’ll see him there.” She lingered a few more moments, pretending to peruse our inventory, but her gaze didn’t move far from the door to the back room. Eventually she gave up the pretense and drifted out.

No sooner was she out of sight than Dad returned with his coffee.

“How do you do that?” I said. “It’s like a superpower.”

“Do what?” he asked.

I held out the plate of gingerbread cookies. He winked, then helped himself to a cookie. As did Cathy and I. The cookies were soft, chewy, and sweet, with just the right amount of molasses without being overpowering.

“That woman can bake,” I said. “I’ve changed my mind. I want her to be my new mommy.”

Dad shook off the idea like a dog shakes off bath water.

“Besides,” Cathy said, then paused to bite off the head of another gingerbread man. “How do you know that the baking wouldn’t stop the moment she thinks she has him, huh? Your best bet is to keep stringing her along.”

“I haven’t given her one ounce of encouragement,” Dad said.

I licked my finger. “Cathy’s right. Just keep doing what you’re doing.”

Cathy had to swallow quickly. Her customers had exited the doll room and were headed to the register with several vintage Barbies. “This was my first Barbie,” the mother said, smoothing the doll’s hair, “and now I can share it with my little girl.”

I smiled at Dad. That’s what we were all about: helping adults rediscover the joys of play and passing the traditions on to future generations.

As soon as the customers left, Dad pulled out his papers again. “Where were we? Oh, yeah, people who might have had claim to the toys. I have the Wallace family, and I suppose we need to add
Arsenic and Old Lace
.”

“Those sweet old biddies?” I said.

“Which is why I called them
Arsenic and Old Lace
,” Dad said. “To remind you that not all old maids are sweet and innocent. The sisters do have a prior claim on the toys, at least the boxers.”

“True,” I said, “but they seemed genuinely surprised that Sy still had their toy.”

“Surprise can be faked,” Cathy said, helping herself to one more cookie.

“Even so,” I said, “how would Irene and Lenora have known that O’Grady had the toys and was bringing them here? Do they even have the mobility to follow him? Would either one of them have had the strength to drive a lawn dart into a man’s chest?”

“Don’t know. Don’t know. Don’t know.” Dad put three question marks on the page next to their names. “Whenever I talk with them, I get the feeling that they know far more than they’re letting on.”

I was about to argue with him, but I’d entertained the same impression, and on more than one occasion. “The only other folks with any kind of claim to the toys would be the museum. But they didn’t have to kill to get them. As far as they were concerned, the toys were going to be added to their collection upon Sy DuPont’s death.”

“Unless,” Cathy said, “he changed the will and everything went to Kimmie.”

“How would they know that?” I said.

“Too bad.” Dad shook his head. “Can you imagine how much fun it would be to frame Peggy Trent?”

I didn’t want to encourage Dad’s bad behavior. “So the only other suspect I can think of is Mrs. O’Grady.”

Othello picked that moment to jump on the table, only there were no game pieces to swat around. He seemed disappointed. He gave the plate of cookies a sniff, but then backed off. Perhaps the intense spices messed with the super-sniffer cats were born with. Dad scratched him behind the ears, and Othello climbed onto his shoulder to snuggle.

“It’s usually the spouse,” Dad said. “So much simpler that way.”

“And the O’Gradys were separated,” I said.

The bell over the door rang again, but this time Miles walked in. Dad waved him over and offered him a cookie. Miles took one but leaned against the display while he ate it rather than taking a seat at the table.

“We were discussing the murder,” Dad explained. “I’m sure Mrs. O’Grady’s at or near the center of the official investigation.” He stroked Othello’s tail, which the cat then
swished in his face. Dad was unfazed. “I could be wrong, but I still don’t think she did it.”

“Because she’s a woman?” Miles asked.

“I think a woman could have killed him,” Dad said. “I have no illusions that the fairer sex is incapable of violence. And if it’s a question of strength, those blades were sharp. Back in the day, lots of folks with clay soil used to sharpen the points even more. I knew we couldn’t sell the darts. Still, I thought they’d be safe locked in the case. I should have chopped off the points or thrown the whole set away. Here’s a new company policy: no more lethal toys. Period.”

“You couldn’t have predicted what happened,” I said.

“I also can’t see Mrs. O’Grady using a lawn dart to kill her husband.” He held his hands up to stave off any protest from us. “Life insurance aside, I don’t think that Mrs. O’Grady really wanted to have to raise that brood of kids all by herself.”

“She might have forgotten that in the heat of anger,” I said.

“What was there to be so angry about here? If she’d caught him cheating with another woman, then maybe. But he was meeting an old man in a toyshop. What could have happened to set her off?” Dad shook his head. “It doesn’t work for me.”

“Is there anyone you like better for it?” I asked.

“What about the people who tried to break into the house?” Cathy was keeping up with the conversation, but her eyes were glued to the cookies.

“Let’s protect these from Othello.” I secured the foil over the plate. But Othello just blinked at me from Dad’s shoulder. “The break-in was the day of Sy’s funeral,” I said. “If
whoever tried to gain entry into the DuPont house was the same person or group of people who killed Sully, they would have already had the toys. So what then? They figured out where the toys had come from and decided to go back for more. But how would they have known about the connection between O’Grady and DuPont?”

“Does the attempted break-in even have anything to do with O’Grady’s death?” Dad said, but I doubted he was talking to me. His eyes were on Miles.

“I wouldn’t rule it out.” The cookies now out of sight, Cathy swept back into the doll room.

Some strange vibe was passing between my father and Miles. “Is there something you two would like to tell me?” I asked.

Dad stared down at his paper while Miles leaned back and studied his sneakers for a good ten seconds. Finally, he looked up. “I might know who tried to break into the dead guy’s house.”