Diane Davidson - Sticks & Scones

“Goldy!” Trudy cried. “C’mon in! This kitty thinks he’s my baby. I fried him up some trout Bill caught and froze last summer, and now I don’t think he’s ever going back to your place.”

“Oh, well - ” I began, but got no further before Jake bounded around a corner, leaped up on me, and started slathering my face. No way I’m staying at the Quincys’! Leave that stupid cat here and let’s go home! I told him to get down, then patted him feverishly so Trudy and I could talk without further interruption.

“Do you have our mail?” I said casually. “I’m looking for something in particular. Something important.”

“Sure.” She frowned and glanced down at Scout. “It’s in a big pile on the dining-room table. We can walk in there, but not too fast. Kitty doesn’t like to be hurried.”

I sidled into the Quincys’ dining room. Scout and Jake eyed each other, but I ignored them. I asked Trudy - who was no Sukie Hyde in the organizational department - if there happened to be any order to the mountain of letters. She said the new stuff was on top of the old stuff. I turned the heap over and started going through it.

From Monday there were two bills, seven ads, three catalogs, the sheriff’s department newsletter, and a postcard for Arch.

From Tuesday, there were nine ads, six catalogs, a bill, notice of a cooking equipment sale, and a bulk-mail fundraising letter from Elk Park Prep.

And then. His handwriting was uneven and loopy, the b’s and l’s tall and unevenly slanted, the j’s dotted with tiny circles. The letter was addressed to Tom, with “Gambler” scrawled in the upper left-hand corner. Postmarked Monday. No return address. I snatched it, thanked Trudy, and sprinted out. Behind me, Jake wailed.

Over my shoulder I called, “I’ll be back tomorrow, Jake!”

He raised his howl several decibels, unconvinced. Scout, a.k.a. Kitty, took no notice.

-24-

Racing back to the castle, I could have sworn that letter was burning a hole in my purse. But I could not open it; I’d already committed all the invasion-of-privacy sins I cared to in this lifetime. Still: If Tom was asleep, this was one time I was going to shake him awake.

He was awake, sitting in one of the wingback chairs, talking on the telephone. From the bits of conversation I snatched before urgently waving the letter in his face, he was discussing the ongoing investigation into the whereabouts of Troy McIntire. Paying no heed to my antics, Tom turned his head toward the fireplace and continued talking. Troy McIntire, philatelic agent, seemed to have mailed himself somewhere without a known address. Clutching Andy’s letter, I scooted in front of the fireplace and did a few jumping jacks. Since Tom knows how much I hate to do jumping jacks, he cocked an eyebrow and signed off. I slapped the letter onto the coffee table.

“What’s this, Miss G., another stamp from Mauritius?” he asked, without looking at the missive. “You keep finding them, they’re going to think you stole ‘em. I just learned that stamp you found in the chapel was part of the heist. No discernible fingerprints besides yours.”

I slipped into the chair across from him. “Tom, this letter’s from Andy Balachek. Mailed to you. Postmarked Monday. Which probably means he mailed it sometime Sunday. A day before he died. Or rather, a day before someone murdered him.”

Tom, who is seldom surprised, leaned over the envelope and frowned.

“Is it Andy’s handwriting?” I demanded, increasingly impatient. In addition to Tom’s other skills, his ability to analyze handwriting means he is often called to testify in forgery cases. I held my breath.

“Maybe. All I’ve ever seen is his signature. It’s a long, skinny ‘A’ that’s a scripted ‘A’, not a printed one. His ‘A’ looks like the back of a bald guy’s head, tilted to one side.” He picked up the envelope and examined it on both sides. “Trudy picked this up with the rest of our mail? What day?”

“My best guess is it came Tuesday.”

Tom whistled: “Could you get my tweezers out of my suitcase? Then you could use them to open the letter without getting your fingerprints on it, and put it down here for us both to read.”

“You trust me to open your mail?”

“No. But do it anyway.”

And so I did. The struggle with the damned tweezers I took an agonizing eight minutes.

Tom, the letter read. I’m getting scared now because I need to pay my dad back for his truck. If I don’t, he’s going to die in the hospital. So I’m going to get the stamps tonight. If I don’t make it, if you get this and I’m dead, then my gamble didn’t work. You tried to help me, so I owe you. I‘11 tell you what my partner told me. Maybe it’s a lie and that’s what I’ll find out. Anyway, the stamps are in the Hydes’ chapel. If you get this and my dad has a new truck and I’ve gone to Monte Carlo, then you’ll know I made it. If not - well, then its up to you. A.

“Oh, crap!” I cried. “He told us where the stamps were, but didn’t tell us who his partner was! We’re not any closer than we were before!”

But Tom was thinking. “We know Andy believed the stamps were in the chapel, and they were, weren’t they? Or at least one was. Still, how would Andy know the lockbox combination? Would his partner have been so naďve as to tell him that? When that chapel’s locked, you can’t tell me it’s easy to get into, or it’d be the local site for every teenage beer bash.”

“Let me assure you,” I retorted, “our town doesn’t possess a single building that’s easier to get into than that chapel. Yesterday, Julian and I locked the door to keep out early lunch arrivals. But remember, I told you first Buddy and Chardé showed up, then the Jerk and Viv Martini. I’ll accept that Buddy and Chardé might have a key, and might not have completely shut the door before the Jerk barged in. But I don’t think so. I think Eliot told his dear close friend Chardé the decorator, and his ex-girlfriend Viv, how to get into the chapel. Or gave them keys. Or else they’re both splendid at picking locks.”

Tom pondered this for a minute. “Maybe Andy’s partner intercepted him, shot him, left his body in the creek by the chapel, put up a ladder and grabbed the stamps, but somehow missed one. And didn’t realize it until he’d made off with the loot.”

“Yeah, that’s what I’ve been thinking. Except there’s no blood at the crime scene. No sign of a struggle. No obvious way Andy was electrocuted.”

“Right.” He stared at the cold fireplace. “Let me call down to the department, have somebody come get this letter.”

“Wait a minute!” We had to be close. I’d found a clue, and now Tom was just going to pass it off? “Let’s speculate.” I thought back to my visit to the shooter’s site, on the north side of the state highway, up on a cliff in a county park. “Say Andy’s partner uncovers Andy’s double-cross, electrocutes Andy, shoots him, removes all but one of the hidden stamps from the chapel, then plants Andy’s body in the creek. Okay, then he waits for you to show up.”

“How does the partner know I’m coming back Monday?”

I shrugged. “Let’s say he doesn’t know what cop will show up when the body’s discovered. He just suspects Andy’s been communicating with the sheriff’s department, because he caught Andy in the double-cross. Or thought he caught Andy in a double-cross.”

“It’s weak.” I closed my eyes, thinking back to that morning, running it through my mind in slow motion. Tom gets out of his car; motions for me to move away from the edge of the creek. Then he walks - not toward Andy s body, but straight west, toward me, which is also the direction of the chapel… .