Hearts Grove Cozy Mystery Boxed Set, page 19
part #1 of Hearts Grove Cozy Mystery Series
“Ah, Etta, good to see you. And a lovely friend. Who might you be?”
Henrietta introduced Olivia, and they went to the back yard and the portion of the garage where the antiques had been placed. As she’d suspected, Everett’s question was much less dire than he’d said, and she was able to answer it almost immediately. She wanted to tell him that, from now on, they should conduct their business by phone, but the appearance of Preston caused her to bite back the words before they could come out.
“Preston,” she said, managing to sound happy to see him. “How are you?”
“Good, good.” He offered a smile toward Olivia then turned back to Henrietta. “Just heard voices and thought I’d come see who Dad had over. Happy to see it’s two lovely ladies.”
His charm sounded fake, but she laughed as was expected.
“What are you up to these days? Still working on that gaming community?” she asked.
“Yeah. I’ve got a convention in Canada to go to. Heading out next week, if all things go well.”
“You’re leaving? For how long?” Everett’s surprise caused Henrietta to look more closely at him. The frown he wore ran deeper than a moment’s annoyance at being interrupted.
“Not sure. What’s it to you?” His rude reply made Henrietta cringe, but Everett seemed to blow it off.
“You can take your work with you wherever you go, I suppose?”
“Uh yeah.” He swiped two fingers over the top of a dresser next to him. Dust flew up and he coughed, covering his mouth with his hand. “Darn dust. It’s so dirty in here, Dad.”
“You could lend a hand in cleaning up once in a while if you weren’t so busy gallivanting around who knows where.”
They bantered back and forth for a moment, and then something became clear to Henrietta in that moment. The cough. Just like the coughing fit he’d had at her shop. Was it possible…
Her eyes found Olivia’s and, when she was sure that Preston and Everett were not looking, she mouthed, “Go with me.” Olivia nodded her understanding, and Henrietta made a big show of looking at her watch.
“I’m afraid we really should get going,” she began. Both men turned to look at her. “We’ve just had a stunning shipment of antique gems come in.”
“Oh, that’s right, we’ve got to catalogue those,” Olivia added seamlessly.
“Gems?” Preston said, looking interested.
“Yes. They are rather stunning. Should fetch a wonderful price. But I’ve got to get them catalogued and logged into our system soon. I don’t like having that many valuable things just laying around, you know.” She laughed, as did Olivia.
“Laying around.” Everett looked shocked. “Do you want to keep them in my safe?”
“She’s got her own safe,” Preston added. Henrietta turned to look at him and he covered quickly. “I mean, you do, don’t you? It would be foolish not to.”
“Your son is right,” she said to Everett. “I’ll keep the gems in the safe. Plus, I’ve got Ralph on retainer for guard duties.” She shrugged and motioned for Olivia to follow.
“Are you sure you don’t want my safe?” Everett laughed, making a joke at Ralph’s expense.
She pretended to consider it and noticed Preston’s keen interest in the outcome of her decision. “No. I’ll be fine. But thank you. Good day!”
They walked down the sidewalk to her car and, once they were inside and on their way back to the shop, Olivia turned to stare at Henrietta. “Want to tell me about these gems?”
“Didn’t I tell you, dear?” she said, grinning. “We’ve got a large array of fake, priceless gems.”
“The Bobson collection?” she asked.
“One and the same.”
“You and I both know that they are worthless. Nothing more than costume jewelry.”
“Yes, we both do know that, but no one else does.”
Olivia slumped back against her seat. “Please tell me you’re going to call in Ralph and Scott on this?”
“Absolutely. And what about you?”
“Count me in,” she said, a look of triumph on her delicate features.
Henrietta slipped into silence as she thought about the trap they’d be setting that night. If all went according to plan, this would be the end of their robbery troubles.
“You’ve got to go,” she said to Ralph.
“And miss all the fun?” he whined back to her.
“Yes. You’ve been wanting to teach at more conferences like this and this is your break-through opportunity. There’ll always be bad guys to catch red-handed.”
He offered a half-hearted laugh along with a sigh. “I don’t like this, Henri.”
“I know. You’ve said that multiple times now. Just trust that Scott will be here, and so will Olivia. We’ll have the police on speed dial.”
“Shouldn’t they already be there if what is supposed to happen happens?”
“Scott said he’d put in a word to a few of his friends. They’d patrol the area, but I’m afraid that’ll tip our friends off to the sting operation.”
“Sting…” She could almost hear Ralph roll his eyes. “This is getting to be too much. I’m going to cancel the teaching.”
“No!” She was insistent. “You need to do this. I’d never forgive myself if you canceled on this for no reason. Go.”
The silence on the other end of the phone told her that he was considering her suggestion. He’d gotten an email with all the arrangements for him to head over to Seattle that night. It was sudden but such a great opportunity, Henrietta knew he had to take it.
“Fine. I’ll go. But you’d better never do something like this without me again.”
She smiled. “Agreed. Now go teach the next generation of private investigators.”
He hung up, and she let out a contented sigh. She was happy for her friend. He was getting the opportunity to do something he’d dreamed about.
With that thought in mind, she began to prepare for their potential guests that evening. Making exaggerated movements, she went to the safe and opened it. Pulling out a box of documents she kept in there. Thankfully, whoever might be watching her would never know they had been documents and not gems.
She went through with replacing them with the costume gems and then placed them in the safe. She did her best to act as if the box really did contain priceless gems, double-checking that the safe was indeed locked. Then, per her nightly routine, she turned on the alarm and turned off all of the lights before making her way upstairs.
At the top of the stairs, she opened the outside door to let Scott and Olivia in. To her surprise, Nelson was there as well with downcast eyes. She sent Olivia a confused look but got nothing in return as the woman’s eyes were downcast as well.
They went into the living room and Henrietta began to fill them in, to an extent, on what she suspected would happen tonight. They made a plan that would be put into effect around midnight, taking a gamble on the fact that no one would rob a house earlier in the evening, and then Henrietta served baked ziti that she’d made earlier that day.
When it was nearing eleven-thirty, she asked Olivia for advice on a wardrobe issue, excusing the ladies from the company of the men. When they were in the quiet of Henrietta’s room, Olivia offered her a confused look.
“What do you need advice on?”
“Oh, dear,” she said with a kind smile. “That was so I could get you in here to chat.”
“Oh?” Olivia tried to look innocent, but Henrietta could see through it. The tears came quickly as Olivia buried her face in her hands. “Henrietta, it’s awful.”
“It’s alright, dear,” she said, coming alongside her and wrapping an arm around the girl. “What happened?”
“I went to talk to Nelson today,” she said between sniffs. “I had resolved to break up with him.”
Henrietta didn’t say anything, urging the woman on with a patient look.
“I just don’t think we’re right together. Anyway, I started to tell him all of this and he broke down. I mean, he was crying like a baby and I…I caved.”
“What do you mean by caved?” she asked.
“I told him I was wrong. I—” Her tears came more quickly. “I told him I wanted to stay together.”
“And is that what you want?” she asked.
“No. I mean, I don’t think so? I don’t know.”
“Ah, I see. Emotions can be a little tricky, can’t they?”
“Yes. I mean, I thought I knew what I wanted, but then seeing him so broken…I couldn’t go through with it.”
“Is that why he’s here?”
She looked down sheepishly. “I couldn’t leave him there crying, so I told him I’d agreed to help you with something. I didn’t tell him what it was about, just that we had to be here late.”
Henrietta tried to hide her smile. “He’s going to get a rude awakening.”
“I know,” Olivia said with the first hint of a smile. “I mean, I don’t think he’d tip off Preston, but they are really good friends. I think, if anything, he’d assume his friend was innocent and want to say something.”
“That was a wise decision,” Henrietta said. “I think it’s just about time we headed down to take our places. Will you be all right?”
“I suppose,” she said, letting out a long breath.
“Think of it this way,” Henrietta said. “Perhaps this will open a pathway of communication between you.”
She didn’t look hopeful but nodded anyway.
Henrietta checked the time and nodded toward the light switch, which Olivia turned off.
Now it was time to hurry up and wait.
12
Henrietta only heard the sound of her own breathing. The stillness of the shop was more than a little unnerving, and the shadows cast by the streetlight down the road made everything look jagged and eerie. She’d kept Sepia upstairs so that she wouldn’t get underfoot, so Henrietta knew that any movement was either one of her partners—as she started to refer to them as—or an intruder.
She swallowed hard at the thought of someone breaking in. It had happened to her before, though they hadn’t actually broken anything. She’d had her shop alarm updated since then, but if they were dealing with the same robbers as The Cliffs area, an alarm wouldn’t stop them.
An image of the poor woman Henrietta had found while investigating the first house filled her mind. While she had no exact evidence to link to the fact that it had been murder, she had a feeling that it hadn’t been an accident. Perhaps murder hadn’t been the intended outcome, but harm had been done to the young woman, even if there wasn’t evidence to support that.
Then Henrietta’s mind traveled to Ralph and where he was in his journey. If she calculated correctly, he had already crossed on the ferry over to Seattle and was now heading to his hotel room to prepare for the next day. It seemed like such short notice, but as they had said, someone had canceled at the last minute, which offered Ralph the opening he needed.
She was proud of him. She imagined Marjory and how she would have beamed to know that Ralph was finally pursuing his dream of becoming a teacher. Her gaze inadvertently went to where Scott was hiding. She was thankful that he’d agreed so readily to come and stay and while she wasn’t happy about the outcome of Olivia’s conversation with Nelson, she had to admit it was good to have another man around in the immediate vicinity.
Risking a glance at the digital clock on the microwave across the room from where she was, Henrietta saw that it was almost a quarter after one in the morning. Would they come tonight? Had she made it too obvious to where they suspected something? How long would they have to wait until it was clear no one was coming? And if that happened, would she have to start all over again?
The question filled her mind and she found herself mulling over and over things for another ten minutes. Just when she was getting to the point of deciding a time to call their little operation off, she heard a sound at the front of the shop.
Her eyes went wide and her breath caught in her throat. She’d positioned herself along a wall that afforded her seclusion from the front of the shop. It would give her protection from what she had to do next.
Pulling out her phone, she wrapped her pashmina scarf around her and turned on the device. Even with the brightness set to the minimum amount, the light was still blinding after the near complete darkness of the shop. She opened the security app that she’d installed and maneuvered to the log that kept record of turning on and off the alarm.
Sure enough, the alarm had been remotely disarmed.
Her eyes went wide and her heart began to pound. Someone had hacked into her alarm system. They were inside her shop!
She switched back to the front of the app, the part that had a panic button in case of emergency. She would keep it open in case of emergency but hid her hand and phone with her scarf wrapped around it.
Henrietta’s eyes began to adjust to the dim light, which was when she caught sight of the first moving shape as it came down the narrow aisle from the front of the shop. The figure, or was it two figures, blocked out what little light shone in through the windowed front door.
They were here. They had taken the bait. Now to put a stop to this.
Just as she was about to stand up and throw the room into bright relief, the sound of a screeching cat ricocheted through the room followed by the sound of crashing glass and a yelled curse. The next sound was another body thumping to the ground.
“Now!” came Scott’s voice.
Henrietta flicked the light switch at the same time her thumb jammed the police call button on her alarm app. The alarm went off, causing everyone to cringe, and Scott stepped into the main room, a gun in one hand and his phone in the other.
“Don’t move,” he said, and it was only then that Henrietta took in the sight before her with some shock.
Two men lay on the floor surrounded by shattered glass and blinking at the blinding light. Up above them on the grandfather clock sat Sepia, licking a paw. She had a very self-satisfied look on her feline features, and Henrietta suppressed a laugh, despite the situation. She had to have slipped through their legs when they’d gone downstairs.
“Wha—what’s going on?” the burglar on the bottom yanked off his facemask and the other cursed at him, telling him to leave it on, but the damage was done.
“Preston, I’m so disappointed in you,” Henrietta said, coming to stand over them.
“Preston?” Nelson said, coming out of the shadows, followed by Olivia.
“Nelson? What is going on? Why are you here?”
“Shut up, dude,” the other masked man said.
In one swift motion, Scott ripped off the man’s mask and Henrietta saw it was the same man from The Deli.
“But…I don’t get it.”
“They knew we were coming,” the other man sputtered out.
“But, Vance—”
“Don’t say my name!” The young man—Vance—turned toward Preston as if he were going to punch him.
“Hey, calm down,” Scott said. “The police are on their way.”
“You said we’d never get caught. You said it was impossible. You said—”
“Shut. Up!” Vance said, clearly unnerved by Preston’s willingness to talk.
“No, Preston, don’t be quiet. Tell us why you would do something like this?” She stepped forward but not too close to the men, just as the sound of sirens began to grow louder. “Why would you ever need to steal other people’s things?”
Taking the advice of his friend, Preston pressed his lips together and cast his eyes downward. It didn’t matter, though. Henrietta had a feeling the police would be able to work out some sort of deal for him if he told what he knew, informing on his friend. It would seem cruel, but from his show that night, it remained likely that he had not been the mastermind behind everything.
Silence fell over all of them and the screech of tires told Henrietta that the police were there. It was time to put an end to this whole thing.
“I’d better go let the police in.”
Henrietta sat at her small kitchen table, the time reading three o’clock in the morning. Scott sat to her left and Olivia to her right. Nelson had said he felt too overwhelmed to stay and had gone home. Olivia hadn’t wanted to go and had chosen to stay instead, saying that she needed time to process with Henrietta.
“What a night,” Scott said.
“You can say that again,” Olivia said. Henrietta caught the look she gave him before dropping her gaze.
Despite the fact that Olivia hadn’t felt the ability to break up with Nelson that night, Henrietta had a feeling it had begun an avalanche of sorts. She would keep an eye on the poor girl, but she would also let her have her space to figure out what her heart truly wanted.
Until she did, Henrietta was more than happy to be her friend as well as her boss.
“Tell me one thing,” Scott said, meeting Henrietta’s gaze. “How could you be so sure that they would come tonight?”
She offered a thin smile. “To be honest, I wasn’t. But I was hopeful.”
“Why, though?”
“It’s something that Preston said without even meaning to.” She thought back to their conversation at Everett’s house. “His father implied that he was gone often—this falls in place with someone who has other things to do as well as other places to be. I assume we’ll hear from the police that Vance has an apartment or something where they planned all of this.”
“That’s it?” Scott pressed. His thirst for knowledge reminded her of Ralph.
“No. It was also the fact that he mentioned Canada.”
“Canada,” Scott said, slamming his hand on the table and causing Olivia to jump.
“What was that for?”
“Henrietta asked me to look into travel agencies that dealt specifically with Canada.”
“And?” Henrietta prompted.
“I don’t know how you knew, but yes, Vance worked for one in the area as a temporary worker. He was placed there by some unknown temp agency.”
“I don’t get it,” Olivia said.
