The Key in the Attic (10 page)
Gwen sighed. “Mary Beth was just telling us that the police can’t do anything about getting her clock back.”
“I was afraid that might happen. It’s a pity, Mary Beth, dear, and I’m sorry, but I’m not surprised.” Stella sank into a chair and took her knitting from her bag. “It’s not like they can post an officer to watch every petty thief twenty-four hours a day.”
Alice squinted at her pattern and then took another stitch. “I wish there was something
we
could do. Some way we could make him tell us where the clock is. He must have it hidden somewhere.”
“Well, he’s not likely to just tell us if we ask nicely.” Annie thought for a moment. “There has to be some way to make him show us where it is.”
“Like that Sherlock Holmes story,” Gwen said, “where he pretends the house is on fire to make the woman show where she’s hidden the picture she’s using for blackmail.”
Annie tapped the arm of her chair with the tips of her fingers. “Except we wouldn’t know what to set on fire.”
“
Pretend
to set on fire,” Gwen reminded her.
“Pretend to set on fire. We’d still have to have some idea where he has the clock before that kind of plan would work. But the basic idea is right. We have to figure out some way to make him give himself away.” Annie shrugged. “Well, no need for us all to sit around all morning. Let’s get back to work, and maybe one of us will think of something. All we have to do is figure out how to light a fire under Mr. Sanders.”
12
Mary Beth carried her groceries into the house that evening, trying to keep from dropping anything. She always tried to carry too much at once, attempting to cut down on the number of trips from her car to the house. Invariably, it ended up being harder and took more time to keep everything balanced and intact than it would have if she had taken more trips with smaller loads.
She managed to get everything into the kitchen and was starting to put things away when the telephone rang. Why did people always have to call just as she got home? She decided to ignore the call, at least for the moment, and kept on putting frozen items into her freezer. The answering machine finally picked up, and she stopped for a moment, listening for the message that would follow the beep.
“Mary Beth, it’s Melanie. I need you to call me right away.”
Melanie again. And as usual, she sounded ticked off. She could wait.
“I told you not to bother Amy with your problems,” Melanie continued. “I mean it. Call me!”
“All right. All right,” Mary Beth muttered as she grabbed one of the grocery bags. “As usual, I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I’ll call you. Give me just a minute.”
She made the mistake of holding the bag at the top rather than supporting it at the bottom. Before she got to the pantry, the paper tore through. Various cans of soup, fruit and vegetables thudded to the floor. A can of spaghetti sauce rolled until it bumped into the refrigerator and came to a stop.
She closed her eyes, forcing herself not to scream in frustration, when the telephone started ringing again.
“Listen, Mary Beth, I can’t imagine why you think Amy should have to deal with—”
Mary Beth snatched up the phone. “What is it, Melanie? I just got home and haven’t had a chance to even catch my breath. What exactly is going on?”
“I knew you were there.” Her sister sounded pleased to be offended. “I’m too busy to play telephone tag with you. I’d appreciate it if you’d just answer your phone when I call. It’s not like I just call up to chat.”
“Heaven forbid.”
There was a moment of silence.
“You know I’m very busy.” Melanie’s voice was frigid. “I certainly don’t have time to keep calling you about this. I told you before to not bother Amy with your problems.”
“I haven’t bothered Amy with my problems. I’ve hardly had time to speak to her since the last time we talked about this. What’s wrong now?”
“She’s still badgering me about buying that building you’re in and renting it out to you. Now she’s even asking me to have some of our designers work on original patterns for crochet and knitwear for your shop to carry exclusively. It’s a ridiculous idea, and I’d appreciate it if you’d stop putting this sort of thing into her head.”
Mary Beth closed her eyes. It
would
be a brilliant idea. Melanie was certainly in a position to arrange that sort of thing, but Mary Beth would never expect it of her. “Listen, it’s sweet of Amy to try to help me, but really, it’s not necessary. I have someone who designs patterns for the shop already, and she does a fabulous job. I know you’re busy, and I know you’re not interested in investing in Stony Point or A Stitch in Time or having your name associated with it. Let me make it as clear as I can: I don’t expect anything from you. You have your own business to run. I’ll call Amy and tell her to leave you alone about this. Will that meet with your approval?”
“I already told her I wasn’t doing anything of the kind. You don’t need to call her. She thinks I’m a tyrant as it is.”
Mary Beth fought the urge to rub in her own rapport with Amy. No need to dump gasoline on that fire. “What do you want me to do? I’ve already said I didn’t ask her to talk to you about this. I can call her and tell her plainly that I’m not asking for anything from you and ask that she not discuss the matter with you again. Or I can refrain from calling her about it. I can’t do both, and I can’t do neither. Which would make you happy?”
Melanie fumed in silence for a moment.
“Do whatever you want,” she said at last and hung up.
Mary Beth clicked off the telephone, and as much as she would have liked to hurl it across the room, she instead set it with a forced gentleness into the charger. The moment she did, it rang again.
I don’t need more of this right now, Mel.
She let it ring twice more and then picked up.
“Hello?”
“Is this Mary Beth Brock?”
The voice on the other end of the line was female, very businesslike, and unknown to Mary Beth.
“Yes?”
“This is Officer Wiesner with the Brunswick Police Department. I’m calling regarding the charges you filed against Frank Sanders in the matter of your antique clock.”
“Oh yes! Have you found out anything else? You haven’t gotten the clock back, have you?”
“I’m sorry, no, and I don’t want to get your hopes up at this point. I’m sure the officer who took your information told you it’s fairly rare for us to recover this type of thing.”
Mary Beth sighed. “Yes, he did.”
“But there is one thing we’d like to ask you about. Can you come into the station sometime?”
“What is it?”
“We’re hoping you can tell us that. It’s just a piece of notepaper with some writing on it. We’re not sure it has anything to do with the case at all, but we’d like to see if there’s anything about it that you recognize.”
“What kind of writing?”
“It’s just a little poem, not very good, and some directions. Mr. Sanders claims it was something he made up himself. But, if you could come by and look it over, it might—”
“I’ll be there first thing tomorrow.”
****
“Come in! Come in!” Annie practically pulled Mary Beth into the living room of Grey Gables and over to the sofa. “Sit down. Let me see it.”
Mary Beth took a folded piece of paper out of her purse and spread it out on the coffee table. “It’s just a copy they made for me at the police station. They said it’s definitely in Sanders’s handwriting. It was on his desk when they searched his place. The detective thought he was being a little funny about it, though Sanders claimed it wasn’t anything. That’s why they made a copy, for what it’s worth.”
Annie studied it for a moment:
I hide my face behind my hands,
But still my voice you hear,
And to the treasure of my heart
This path will lead you near
Stand between the trees,
face to the north, move west to east,
from the west move south to north
from the east move north to south
from the north move east again
from the south move downward
and then the key
“This first part’s got to mean a clock,” she said. “What else hides its face behind its hands and has a ‘voice’?”
Mary Beth nodded. “That’s what the police think, too, and that’s why they were interested in it. But I don’t know what the rest of it means, and they said they can’t prove it wasn’t Frank Sanders’s bad attempt at blank verse.”
Annie bit her lower lip, thinking. “Why would he write poetry about a clock anyway? I know he really liked yours, but that would be a little bit much, wouldn’t it?”
She read the page over again, slowly this time, saying the words half under her breath. Then she froze.
“‘And then the key.’ Mary Beth, ‘and then the key’! What if this is another clue from Geoffrey Whyte for Angeline?”
“But how—”
“Did you say the clock was something passed down from your great-great-grandmother along with the desk and the table?”
“Yes. And the vase that got broken too.”
“Exactly. There was a clue in the table—the original clue. There was also one in the vase—the key with the lion on it.”
Mary Beth nodded.
Annie picked up the paper from the coffee table. “Suppose the desk had this clue in it. That would explain why he was so interested in the clock.”
“But there was nothing in the desk. And nothing in the clock. He almost took it apart when he was looking at it before.”
“We
think
there was nothing in the desk. Remember that hidden cubby hole, ‘the deeper secret place’ in the desk? What if he found this clue in there? You said you didn’t know about it, that your family didn’t know about it. What if this was part of a clue Geoffrey Whyte put there in the 1860s and nobody ever knew it was there?”
Mary Beth exhaled heavily. “I don’t know. By itself, this really doesn’t mean much—just a silly rhyme and some directions. It does sound a little like a treasure hunt. Who knows what’s at the end of it? Maybe Geoffrey left Angeline a love letter or an engagement ring. Maybe it was Confederate war bonds, and you know what they’d be worth by now.”
“Yeah, next to nothing. But you’re right. Frank Sanders wouldn’t know about the clue we found or that this leads to anything of value. He wouldn’t have risked jail time based on this by itself. There must be more. Either there was something else in the secret cubby, or he knows something about Geoffrey and Angeline that we don’t.” Annie leaned back into the couch cushions and frowned. “He’s not likely to admit anything at this point, that’s for sure.”
“This clue talks about a key. Do you suppose he found a key hidden in the desk too?”
“He might have.” Annie picked up the paper again, and her eyes narrowed. “I’d sure like to see the original of this. There may be a lot more to it that he didn’t copy down. There has to be some way to find out what all he
does
know.”
“Sounds pretty hopeless. The police say they won’t be doing any more investigating unless I can come up with some new evidence against Sanders, and I sure don’t know what that would be.”
“We’ll just have to think of something then, won’t we?”
The corners of Mary Beth’s mouth turned down. “I guess I just have to let it go. It was just an old clock, but I did love it. It was such a beautiful antique.”
“And I was hoping we could solve Geoffrey’s little puzzle too. Still, whatever it led to in the 1860s might be gone now. I’m sorry things have turned out so disappointingly for you lately.” Annie glanced at her friend. “How are things going with Mr. Huggins? Is he still determined to sell out?”
“Still. He doesn’t really have much choice at this point.” Mary Beth sighed. “I’m running out of time, and the Burly Boy people are really pressing him to sell to them. Poor man, he’d do a lot better to sell to them than take what he’s asking me for the place. I just wish I had the money to do it. Actually, I wish he could keep the place and that his wife wasn’t so bad off.”
“I’ll keep them in my prayers.”
“They’ll appreciate that.”
Annie was silent for a minute, wracking her brains for some way to make Sanders reveal where he’d hidden the clock. The trees. There had to be trees out by the old Whyte place in Virginia.
“We’re not going to give up quite yet,” she assured Mary Beth. “As a matter of fact, I think, first thing tomorrow, I’ll drop by the mayor’s office for a few minutes.”
“The mayor’s office?” Mary Beth’s forehead wrinkled. “Why the mayor’s office?”
Annie grinned. “You’ll have to trust me on that one.”
13
The next morning Annie drove up Main Street and found a spot to park not far from Town Hall. After she got out of her car she took a moment to look down the charming street with its worn brick sidewalks and old-fashioned lamp posts. It was like a little piece of the past safely tucked away for everyone who lived in or visited Stony Point. She didn’t want to lose it to so-called “progress.” She
wasn’t
going to lose it, if she had anything to say about it.
She walked across the street into the Town Square, a planned green space in the center of town which was crowned by a crisp red, white, and blue flag snapping in the sea-scented breeze. She made a beeline toward Town Hall, went inside and strode into the mayor’s waiting room.
“Good morning, Mrs. Nash. How are you?” Annie asked Ian Butler’s secretary.
“Fine, thank you, Mrs. Dawson. May I help you?”
Annie smiled. “I was hoping to see the mayor for just a moment.”
“He’s not busy right now. Go on in.”
Annie walked over to the open door. Ian was seated at his desk, concentrating on something he was writing on a yellow notepad. He looked up when she knocked on the door frame, a sudden smile lighting his eyes.
“Well, if it isn’t my favorite sleuth. How are you, Annie?” He got to his feet and pulled up a chair for her. “I hope you didn’t come over to talk about Burly Boy’s Burgers again.”
She returned his smile, feeling a little flush warm her face, and shut the door behind her. “I’ve been a real bear, haven’t I?”
“Nah, not you. You love Stony Point, that’s all. So do I. I still hope we’re going to have some eleventh-hour miracle before it comes to tearing up buildings on Main Street to put in a fast-food place.”
“I have an idea about something, Ian, and I need your help.”
He lifted both eyebrows. “About stopping Burly Boy?”
“Maybe.” She bit her lower lip. “Oh, I’m not sure. I don’t know if this will help at all, even if it works, but I have to try. And I can’t think of anything else.”
His eyes were warm and understanding. “I’ll be glad to help in any way I can. What do you need?”
“You have to do a lot of granting permits and such for people who want to build anywhere in Stony Point, don’t you?” Annie asked.
“Well, I don’t personally do it, but it’s something the city does. Why?”
“How hard would it be to find out if someone is about to clear some land somewhere and is planning to start construction?”
He shrugged and shook his head vaguely. “I don’t know. I suppose it would depend where it is.”
“I guess what I’m asking is this: If you were to contact another town and ask for that kind of information, would they tell you?”
“It’s usually public information. I guess you could call up the county clerk’s office or the city clerk if it’s an incorporated area. Is it someplace nearby?”
“Fairfax County, Virginia.”
“Virginia?” He chuckled. “And what’s all the way down there?”
She told him about Geoffrey Whyte and the clue about the trees.
Ian knit his brow. “How would you know whether these trees you’re looking for are on a place about to be developed? And if they are, how would you know the right ones?”
The phone on his desk buzzed, and excusing himself, he picked it up.
“Yes, Mrs. Nash?” He nodded. “I see. No, I’ll get it. Ask her to hold for just a minute.” He put his hand over the receiver. “Speak of the devil.”
Annie cringed. “Burly Boy?”
“Ms. McMillan herself. I guess I’d better take it. Do you mind?”
Annie grinned at him. “Do you mind if I listen in?”
He shook his head, chuckling. “Always the sleuth, aren’t you? Sure, if you want to listen, go ahead. I’ll even put her on speaker, if you’ll stay out of the conversation.”
“Ooooh, yes, please. I promise I won’t make a peep.”
Ian punched the flashing button on his phone. “Good morning, Ms. McMillan. How are you?”
“Pressed for time, Mr. Butler.”
“Just so you’ll know, I have a friend of mine here in the office with me,” Ian said, glancing at Annie, “so our conversation won’t be strictly private. Is that OK with you?”
“That’s your call to make, Mr. Butler.” The woman’s words were cool and clipped. “I just wanted to let you know I’ve been on the telephone with Mr. Huggins about that Main Street property he owns. Due to the scheduling of some of our other construction projects, we’d like to get this one taken care of immediately. It will be some time before construction will start there, even if we can close very soon, but as you can well imagine, the timing on every project affects many of others.”
“I can understand that, Ms. McMillan,” Ian said. “How can I be of help?”
“Mr. Huggins has given one of his tenants an option to purchase, provided she can make the necessary financial arrangements by the end of next month.”
“Yes, that is my understanding too.”
Ms. McMillan laughed brusquely. “Let’s be honest here, Mr. Butler. I’ve spoken to Ms. Brock. She has no reserves, no assets, and not even the vaguest prospect of obtaining any by the end of next month. You know that as well as I.
She
certainly knows it. And I’m quite sure Mr. Huggins knows it too.”
“He might. I’m not sure what this has to do with—”
“As I told you, I’ve been trying to reason with Mr. Huggins about this. Of course, it’s been very difficult having any sort of a detailed conversation with him. He’s forever attending to something about his wife’s treatment and then having to call me back.”
Annie fumed at the thought of poor Mr. Huggins being badgered by this woman at such a difficult time, but she held her tongue.
Ian’s usually genial expression was growing more and more stony. “He does have a lot of things on his mind right now, Ms. McMillan, as I’m sure you can understand. Anyway, I’m assuming there’s a reason you’ve called me about this.”
“Yes, of course.” The woman’s voice fairly crackled with disdain. “I suppose that, as the mayor, you have more than a little influence there in your little town. I thought you might be able to reason with Mr. Huggins and with Ms. Brock about this option and see if you could get them to agree to cancel it.”
“And why would I want to do that, Ms. McMillan?”
“I think your town council was impressed with the numbers we gave them as far as what having one of our locations would do for your local economy. And of course, there are other community-enhancing efforts—literacy programs, green energy and conservation awareness, those sorts of things—which our corporation would bring to your area. It would obviously be in the best interest of Stony Point to get this deal done and as quickly as possible, don’t you think?”
“Your company’s presentation did impress the council, I’ll agree, but Mr. Huggins and Ms. Brock’s agreement is outside of their control—and mine too, for that matter.”
“I understand that, of course. But you still have influence, Mr. Butler, and that’s what I’m talking about. Surely the two parties can be made to understand that, for the good of the community, they might want to reconsider.”
“So you want me to lean on them a little, is that it?”
Ian looked at Annie, a flicker of amusement in his eyes. She put her hands on her hips and glared at the telephone.
“To put it plainly,” Ms. McMillan answered, “yes.”
Ian sat up in his chair and tented his fingers together on the desk in front of him. “I’m just curious, Ms. McMillan. Why is this so important to you?”
“I don’t know what you mean. I told you we have to schedule these things out in advance. If I can get this deal done, I can move on to something else. Surely that’s not too hard to understand.”
“But is little Stony Point really worth all this trouble? I mean, there are places up and down the highway you could get.”
For a moment there was only a cold silence.
“Mr. Butler, a lot of people from SLR & FFH have researched this particular location. We’ve done studies and marketing research and cost analyses. We’ve had a preliminary survey and inspection of the property. Based on all that, I have assured our CEO that this is the best place to open a location in the area. I have always gotten the locations I propose, and I’m not planning on letting this be the first one to get away. Even if we do have to wait out this ridiculous little option period between Huggins and Brock, I mean for this deal to go through. Either you can help me or you can’t. Which is it?”
Annie and Ian exchanged incredulous glances.
Ian cleared his throat. “I don’t think I can help you, Ms. McMillan. Mr. Huggins and Ms. Brock have an agreement that’s good through the end of next month. I know you’ve spoken to both of them about terminating that agreement so you can go ahead with your project now, but it seems neither of them is interested in doing so, am I right?”
“Isn’t that what I just said?”
Annie stifled a snicker at the increasing irritation in the woman’s voice, and Ian put one cautioning finger to his lips.
“These people are my friends, Ms. McMillan. Both of them are dealing with difficult personal situations right now, and I don’t think either of them needs me to turn up the pressure. Especially since I should be trying to make things easier for them.”
“Oh please, Mr. Butler, this is a business matter, not a personal one. Your friendship with any resident of your town shouldn’t have any bearing on the decisions you make as mayor.”
“Forgive me, but I don’t believe that’s true. At least it’s not true here in Stony Point. I’m not going to show favoritism to my particular friends, no—but I consider showing consideration to all of our residents a major part of my job.” Ian’s brown eyes flashed. “Now, is there something else I can help you with today, Ms. McMillan?”
“You realize that SLR & FFH has a lot to offer a small town like Stony Point. If you were willing to cooperate with us, we could be very generous.”
Annie’s eyes widened. Was she offering him a bribe?
Ian only chuckled. “I appreciate your community spirit, Ms. McMillan, believe me, but I really can’t do anything to help you in this situation. Generosity of any kind isn’t going to make the slightest bit of difference.”
“I see.” She sniffled audibly and disdainfully. “In that case, I suppose all I can do is wish you a good morning.”
“You have a good morning too.”
Ian hung up the phone, and Annie clasped her hands together.
“Oh Ian, I could just kiss you.”
His face turned a little red, and he gave her an endearing “Aw, shucks!” look. “Just doing my job,” he said, looking quickly at the floor.
Annie blushed too, realizing what she had just said, and he glanced up and gave her a wink.
“I’m not surprised Mary Beth didn’t like her,” Annie said, her smile fading. “Do you think she was trying to bribe you?”
Ian shrugged. “Hard to say. Sometimes people put out little feelers to see how you’ll react. I always find it best to stop that kind of thing before it gets started. Whether or not that’s where she was going, she knows where I stand. That’s never a bad thing.”
“You handled her just right. I’m amazed she keeps her job, treating people like that.”
“I expect she’s very successful at what she does, as long as you measure success strictly as getting what you want no matter what.”
“Ah … well, speaking of getting what we want …”
She gave him a significant glance, and he laughed.
“Oh yeah. You didn’t come here just to witness my masterful way of dealing with difficult people, did you? I take it you want me to find out what you want to know about land- clearing plans in Virginia—right?”
“It would be
very
helpful of you. And maybe—being the important person you are—you could find out quicker than just little old ordinary me.”
“But that brings us back to the same question I asked before. How are you going to know which trees are the right ones or even that they’re clearing the property where these trees are located? I mean, that sounds like a long shot to me.”
Annie smiled at him. “You just find out what I need to know and leave the rest to me. I can’t promise you it will solve the Burly Boy problem, but just maybe it will get Mary Beth’s clock back for her.”
****
Very late that afternoon, Annie’s telephone rang. She stuck an envelope in the book she was reading, marking her page, and picked up the receiver.
“Hello?”
The voice on the other end of the line whispered something unintelligible. It was a man’s voice, low and gruff.
“Hello?” Annie forced her voice to be strong and steady. “Who is this?”
“Seven owls fly low at midnight,” he repeated a little louder.
“Ian! You scared me half to death. What in the world are you talking about?”
He laughed. “Didn’t mean to scare you. I just thought if I was going to pass on classified information, I’d better use a password.”
“Very funny. Next time, try not to sound like some anonymous weirdo. Now, tell me about this classified information. From Virginia?”
“Yep.”
“Hang on while I get a pencil and paper. I want to make sure I don’t forget anything.”
“I don’t know how this will help,” Ian said, “but here goes. There are actually three places being cleared starting this week. All of them within fifteen miles of the old Whyte home.” He gave her the specifics. “That last one is starting the day after tomorrow.”
“Oh perfect. I want to get this done quickly, before our Mr. Sanders has time to figure things out.”
“Umm …”
Annie waited, smiling a little at his sudden uncertainty. “Yes, Ian?”
“You feel like having dinner sometime?”
She managed not to giggle. “I usually do most evenings.”
“I mean with me.”
He was so cute.
“When did you have in mind?” she asked.
“Umm . . . Friday night?”
“I think I can just pencil you in, Mr. Mayor.”
“That would be great.” She could hear the smile in his voice. “Seven?”
“Perfect,” she agreed.
“And this stuff about the trees …”
“Yes?”
“I still don’t see how this is going to help anything, Annie. The information I got doesn’t really tell us anything about particular trees or what they might lead the way to.”