“Neil bought a lot of jewelry.”
“Little by little, we’ll get it done,” JoAnne reassured. “I’m going to stop by and order that pizza. Do you want to come with me or should I pick you up in about forty minutes?”
Ken was tracking an incoming storm, and a night sharing a meal and debating weather data with her friends beat returning home alone to listen to the storm come in. “Blackie needs to stretch his legs, and I could use a good walk. Why don’t you pick me up at the church after you pick up the pizza?”
“Sure. Pepperoni and mushrooms okay with you?”
“Excellent.” Meghan turned to walk Main Street and let Blackie set the pace. The heat of the store and her slight headache faded as the fresh air revived her.
The church doors were open as Meghan expected. She entered the sanctuary and walked toward the front. Someday she’d play the piano for Sunday services. The dream felt so far off. She pulled out the bench and sat, picking her way through two songs she had memorized. She turned her attention to playing scales. It felt clumsy. She frowned in concentration and slowly the B-flat scale smoothed out.
“You’re improving, Meg.”
She tilted her head, vaguely recognizing the voice.
“It’s Jonathan. I was wondering if I might find you here.”
She smiled and finished the scale. “I have a piano at home to practice on now, but I love hearing the sound of the baby grand. I heard you were back in town, Jon.” It had been a long time since she had been sixteen and going out with him, but the comfort level was still there. She’d come to really appreciate music since she had gone blind, and he’d been one of the few friends who hadn’t let the change in her eyesight change how he acted around her. “I didn’t think you’d be back until after the London recording sessions were finished.”
“Mrs. Teal’s birthday is this weekend. There are some things a man should honor in his life, and the teacher who opened doors to the world is one of them.”
She finished the scale and dropped her hands to her lap as she heard Jonathan move up the aisle.
“Please, don’t stop playing on my account.”
“I’m finished. Have you come down to the church to practice?”
“I try to get in my four hours a day even when I’m traveling,” he replied, and she heard him lean against the piano. “We can play duets if you like.”
“Why don’t you start your practice time, and I’ll just sit in a pew and listen.”
“I’d love an audience. So what have you been doing with your life since I last saw you? Getting more beautiful, I see. I like you as a blonde.”
“So does Stephen.”
“The guy who bought Neil’s place the month before he died?”
She laughed. “The grapevine is working fine I see.”
She moved to the second pew and rested her hands on the back of the first pew, listening as the music began. “You make that sound so easy.”
“It is.” He added a flourish to a melody. “Mrs. Teal mentioned Neil had passed away. I was sorry to hear that. He was a fixture in town even when I lived here. I understand you are working on settling some of his estate?”
“The jewelry store. He left his estate to the medical clinic so it could be expanded.”
“That must be a challenge.”
“JoAnne’s helping me. We’ve been working on it about a week, and we’re making slow but steady progress. Will you be in town for long?”
“Four or five days. Since I was making a trip back, I said yes to a concert in Chicago and then I have a music clinic to teach. I’ll be back in June to do a series of performances in Chicago.”
“I know Mrs. Teal will be thrilled to have you back for a visit.”
He switched to playing scales. “I’m trying to keep it a surprise for tomorrow morning, but the odds of that happening are slim. Would you be interested in joining me for dinner tonight, Meghan?”
“I’m afraid I have plans. A storm is coming through tonight and I’m helping Ken with his research.”
Jonathan laughed. “Ken always was thrilled by a good storm. Another day for dinner perhaps?”
“I would like that.”
He shifted to a sonata.
“You did well with your gift. You turned it into everything it could be.”
“Thanks, Meg. I’ve tried.”
She stayed and listened to him practice until JoAnne arrived, then gathered up Blackie’s harness. “It was good to see you, Jon.”
“For me as well. I’ll look forward to that dinner.”
“So will I.”
He began playing a jazz piece as she left.
Stephen rubbed an aching shoulder as he walked through his rather sparsely furnished house listening to Meghan’s phone keep ringing. Her machine finally answered. So much for suggesting he would see her today. He left a second message and hung up. It was getting depressing how hard it was to coordinate schedules. She spent her days at the jewelry store; he spent his tied up with deliveries for the remodeling work. Shingles had arrived today. He’d call her parents to see if she was there, but he figured she would have called to say hi if she was so close by.
She’d be at church in the morning. He sat on the couch, willing to consider going to church if only to have a chance to see Meghan and maybe get invited to lunch afterward. What a lousy reason to go. He was faintly ashamed for being so crass about it but he was getting squeezed. Kate and Dave were coming tomorrow afternoon, which meant he had to scratch the idea of seeing Meghan then. Kate must finally have some news about the ring, or else Dave was trying to get her away for the weekend. At six months pregnant, Kate needed to start taking more weekends off.
His new guest butted his ankles. Stephen looked down. “Would you relax and think about getting some sleep?”
The baby goat chewed at his bootlaces. Stephen had the fenced-in area finished and the covered pens done, but the kid would be the only living thing out there tonight. Stephen listened to the wind whip outside and wondered what Ken’s equipment was registering. The storm was blowing in fast. Surely Meghan wouldn’t sit at home alone tonight listening to this storm come in.
“I wish you were a baby lamb or at least something soft. You’re all knobby knees and shedding hair.” He scratched the animal’s back anyway. The utility room would work for the night. There wasn’t anything the goat could butt in there that wasn’t already slated to come out during the remodeling.
His phone rang and he leaned over for it.
“Is there hail by you?”
“Meghan?”
“Yes, sorry. Is there hail by you? Or rain?”
He was thinking about romance and she was thinking about the weather. He couldn’t catch a break tonight. But he had to smile at the contrast—at least she would never be predictable. “Where are you?”
“With Ken tracking this storm data. The rain is coming. He thinks it will hit your place in four minutes.”
Stephen carried the phone with him to the door off the kitchen and stepped outside under the overhang. “There’s wind, a lot of wind, but no rain.”
“Wait for it.”
“You sound like you’re having fun.”
“I am. You should be here. JoAnne and I brought a pizza back for dinner and started helping Ken plot his numbers. The new equipment is working out great. You should see the data streaming in from the windmill.”
He wished he was with her. He heard something in the trees growing louder as it approached. “Here comes the hail.” It started slapping the ground, small white chunks bouncing on the grass showing in the lights from the house.
“Ken called that within five minutes. Not too bad. We need another data station on the west side of town. The small set of equipment he has at his parents’ isn’t as good as what he has on the windmill. I’ve got to go. I need to call Mrs. Teal and see if the rain has reached her place yet. Thanks for the news.”
“No problem. Talk to you later, Meg.” He set down the phone and t
humped his hand against the wall before walking into the kitchen. She was blissfully unaware of any romantic undercurrents as she called and started talking about storm data. It was time to get with reality. From the casualness in her voice, she wasn’t even thinking of something more than friendship. And if he was smart, he’d let it remain that way.
Out the window a light flickered in the distance. He stopped and watched.
Someone was in the barn.
Stephen hunched his shoulders, his jacket lifted high to protect his head from the pounding hail and rain. Mud clung to his boots. A small river now ran across the yard, covering the walkway. Wind buffeted his back. The light, if that was what he had seen, was gone. He walked down to the barn, convinced he had probably seen headlights from the road.
He reached the barn as the first lightning flashed and thunder rolled instantaneously overhead. He pulled the door open. A man slammed into him. They tumbled back, hitting the ground with a splash. Stephen grabbed at coarse fabric of the coat smashed into his face and tried to shove the intruder off him. The smell of sweat and desperation clung to the man, and a weight pressed against Stephen’s chest trying to keep him down on the ground.
Coming from the barn…the thought that it must be a vagrant flashed by as Stephen grabbed an arm and twisted it away. He had to put this man down, or one of them was going to really get hurt. It had been too long since he was in a knock-down-drag-out fight. Stephen threw the man off him like a stubborn bale of hay and got leverage to rise to his knees. He blocked the coming blow and charged from his kneeling position, knocking the guy back through the doors and into the barn. It was like slamming into a steer, the impact numbing his arm.
He ducked a fist thrown at his face and threw a punch back, sending the guy into the shelves he had moved beside the door. There was barely time to get his hands up before the handle of the rake connected, catching him across the face. Stephen rolled with the force of it and scrambled back up. The barn door swung wildly in the wind.
The man was gone.
Stephen staggered to the door and caught it, wrestling to hold it. The thick tree branches whipped back and forth in the wind, darker moving shadows in a dark night. He couldn’t see anyone out there. Stephen wiped his bleeding nose; leaned over, his hands resting against his knees; and sucked in air. Fading adrenaline left white spots in front of his eyes. He heard a car start somewhere far down the road. The idea to give chase lasted only as long as it took for the thought to form. Stephen instead reentered the barn and turned on the lights.
Holes had been punched into the walls and a few places in the floor. Stephen kicked wood out of his way. Had a sledgehammer been swung with great delight at the walls? What had the guy been doing? The floorboard where the pouch had been found now rested upright in the empty crevice. Stephen saw an empty bottle of whisky on the floor and several tossed beer cans. That hadn’t been a kid, and it hadn’t been an old vagrant. It had been a man with at least a bit of muscle on him.
The ring.
If he’d been searching for it, there was some comfort in knowing it wasn’t there to be found. But had something else been here? Stephen had searched this portion of the barn with care, but he hadn’t ripped into the walls.
He went to check his workbench and equipment. At least it appeared to have been left undamaged. The far end of the barn he’d yet to clear of equipment didn’t look disturbed.
Stephen sat on the pile of lumber and looked around. What else had Neil hidden? And who was looking for it?
Puzzles. The others in his family loved them; he hated them. He touched his sore face. Puzzles left people getting hurt.
Meghan. If tonight was related to the jewelry, that meant the store was also a prime target. She was with JoAnne and Ken for the evening, would be at church with her family in the morning, and Kate and Dave would be here by the afternoon. They’d help him figure out what to do.
Stephen wearily pushed himself to his feet. What a way to end a miserable day. He dug out a padlock for the barn doors. He would call the sheriff, but with this weather the man probably had his hands full with accidents. Stephen expected his own pager to sound before long. The morning would be early enough to investigate this.
He needed an ice pack.
Nineteen
Stephen worked his way across the barn roof carrying another bundle of shingles, taking care to find good footing. The breeze still carried a fine drizzle in it. The bundle of shingles weighed eighty pounds, and they were as likely to send him crashing through a soft spot in the roof as tumbling off of it. It would be another month before he wanted to risk replacing the roof. His repairs would hold that long, assuming they didn’t get another burst of sixty-mile-per-hour winds coming through. A vandal damaged the inside of the barn; the storm damaged the outside. His first look in daylight hadn’t been promising.
There had to be an easier definition of home ownership. He wiped sweat and water off his face with the back of his hand and then pulled on his gloves. He ripped open the package of shingles. The staple gun was battery powered, and years of practice meant it took less time to line up and place three rows of shingles than it took to haul them up to the roof.
A blue Lexus came down the road and slowed. Stephen paused to watch as the car pulled into his drive. He picked up his tools. The ladder sank deeper into the ground as he descended. “Welcome to my place,” he called, watching Kate get out of the car. She moved slowly, the six months of pregnancy no longer something that could be hidden.
“Hi, Dave.”
Kate’s husband nodded toward the barn. “How much damage did you get last night?”
“Wind, a little hail, enough to leave its mark.”
Kate walked over to join him and her smile disappeared as she neared him. “Who’d you get into a fight with?” she asked softly; a dangerous softness that hardened her eyes.
He touched his face. Between his left eye and his jaw his face was simply sore. “It looks as black as that?”
“Be glad Meghan can’t see.”
“I had some unwelcome company last night.” He pulled the tarp over the supplies so the packaging wouldn’t turn into a wet lump of paper mess. “You’ve had a long drive. Before you hit me with the questions, why don’t I get you two something to drink while you stretch your legs and look around? It’s not like the details will change.”
Kate looked over at Dave then back at him. “Give me the CliffsNotes first then.”
Stephen touched her determined chin, smiled, and pointed to the barn. “Come on in; I’ll show you. I didn’t fix anything inside yet, figuring you’d want to see it for yourself. My guest was looking for something.”
He reached around her and turned on lights as she entered the barn.
“What a mess,” Dave said.
“I’ll say.” Stephen walked over to look at one of the deepest strikes against the wall. “He punched holes but didn’t come back around to try and pry off the drywall. I’m guessing he was pretty drunk or high, maybe both, and I interrupted him.”
“Any idea who it was?”
Stephen shrugged. “Male, medium height, medium build. He hadn’t had a bath recently. I never got a good look at him. There were beer cans and a whisky bottle left tossed about so there may be prints.” Stephen pointed to the box he’d put them into.
“I’ll have the lab take a look. Does it seem like he found anything?” Kate asked.
Stephen looked around at the dozen or so holes. “Not that I can tell.”
“I’m glad he wasn’t swinging that sledgehammer at you.”
“The rake handle was enough. He ran, and I heard a car start shortly thereafter down by the east pasture, but in the rain I never got a look at the make or model.”
“I’ll go check the area,” Dave suggested. “If he was drinking here, he may have been also drinking and pitching beer bottles while he waited for it to get late enough to start snooping. Maybe he left more trash behind that will help us identify him.”
“Good idea.”
Dave left the barn.
Kate settled on the stool by Stephen’s workbench. “Where did you find the pouch with the ring?”
Stephen pointed. “That floorboard was pried up. He either knew about that spot or saw where I’d recently pulled it up.”
“The ring was stolen.”
“As I nursed my aching jaw last night, I figured that was probably the case,” Stephen agreed. “Who was it stolen from? And when?”
“Five years ago a lady was having her ring cleaned before her thirty-fifth anniversary. She found out then that it was a fake. A really good counterfeit of the piece you handed me. When and where the swap had been made?” Kate shook her head. “It could have been years before. We’ve got no good way to tell.”
“Was it a ring she wore often?”
“Yes. What are you thinking?”
“So the fake was durable.” Stephen rested a boot against the stacked lumber. “I’ve heard about the fake pieces Neil displayed in the front of his store while he kept the real pieces in the safe. They’re so good that Meghan had to bring in two appraisers to help with the store inventory to figure out what is real and what’s a brilliant copy.”
“I pulled Neil’s records and he’s clean,” Kate said. “Nothing shows up for receiving or dealing stolen property. There were no financial or tax problems, no suggestions of anything criminal.”
“He wouldn’t get to be an old thief by making mistakes.”
“Have you found any more pieces?” Kate asked.
“No.”
“Any indication more pieces were hidden here that Neil removed before he sold this place? Maybe he simply forgot the piece you found in the barn?”
Stephen started to shake his head then stopped.
“What?”
“Before I started ripping into the house and barn, I did a pretty thorough assessment of what needed to be repaired or replaced. The attic insulation in the house was disturbed. I remember wondering if a squirrel had gotten trapped up there and panicked before finding a way out.”