Doubled Up (Imogene Museum Mystery #2) Page 2

  “He had two deliveries on board — one for us and one for a gallery in Portland. Both picked up in Seattle yesterday. The booking was handled by the same freight forwarding company that arranged their shipment in a sealed container, so they must have come over on the same freighter. Port of departure was Liverpool. Our shipment is listed as ‘stone statuary.’ The shipment for the Portland gallery is listed as ‘carved wood artifacts.’

  “What’s the name of that gallery, Meredith?” Dale asked from deep inside the trailer. He was bent over, aiming a pencil flashlight into the shadows.

  I picked out the faded letters. “The Rittenour Gallery, on Naito Parkway.”

  “Then I think I got something,” Dale said. He squatted and lifted a crate the size of an apple box and brought it to the open doorway. “This crate’s addressed to Rittenour. It fell between a couple of the big crates that are addressed to the Imogene. Your crates appear intact, and there are five of them. Does that match the paperwork?”

  “Yes. Five statues,” Rupert said. “Toad, Rat, Mole, Otter, Badger.”

  I shuffled quickly. “Yeah. Five listed on the bill of lading, too.”

  “So somebody followed this truck, conked the driver on the head and stole the crates addressed to the Rittenour Gallery,” Sheriff Marge said.

  “Except they missed one.” Dale tapped the wood box.

  “There were fourteen crates for the Rittenour,” I said.

  “Uh-huh." Sheriff Marge stood with arms akimbo. “Rupert, would you mind checking on Terry, see if Nick is finished with him yet? Set him up with some coffee. I’ll be in soon to take his statement.”

  Rupert nodded and disappeared around the side of the trailer.

  Sheriff Marge pulled a folded clear plastic tarp out of Dale’s kit bag and opened it on the ground. “Since it’s stopped raining, Dale, set the crate down here.”

  Dale jumped from the trailer, slid the crate off and eased it to the tarp. “Thing weighs a ton for its size.”

  We stared at it. Sheriff Marge cleared her throat.

  I glanced at Sheriff Marge and found her ogling me with raised eyebrows. “What?”

  “I think that, as the curator of a similar institution, you might be overcome with professional curiosity,” Sheriff Marge said. “Especially since I don’t have a search warrant on me.”

  Dale bent his head and scratched his neck then strode to his squad car and returned with a crowbar. The bottomless trunk of a deputy sheriff. He handed me the crowbar. “Happy birthday.”

  “It’s not — oh. Thank you.”

  Sheriff Marge turned and gazed out over the river, where the clouds had lifted a little, revealing a couple of winterized sailboats bobbing at the end of the marina docks. She whistled the same three notes over and over.

  I shared an amused look with Dale then stuck the flat end of the crowbar under the corner of the crate’s lid. It came off with a sharp cracking sound. Compressed raffia-like packing material sprang up and some tumbled out.

  Sheriff Marge and Dale crowded in to watch but let me do the unpacking. I removed a few clumps of the brown grassy stuff then jumped back. “Yah!” I shrieked.

  Sheriff Marge high-stepped out of the way as half a dozen huge brown beetles scrambled over the lip of the crate, plopped onto the tarp and darted under the trailer.

  I realized I still had packing material in my hand and flung it to the ground. “What were those?”

  “Haven’t you ever seen cockroaches?” Sheriff Marge asked, breathing hard.

  “Gross. Shouldn’t they have died? In the crate?”

  “Cockroaches can go a month without food,” Dale said. “In fact, they can live that long without heads, too, because they breathe through spiracles. They really only need their heads for eating and drinking.”

  Sheriff Marge and I stared at him.

  Dale shrugged. “My kid’s doing a report on insects for school. Hey.” He snapped his fingers. “If I can catch one of those, he could pin it in his display case.”

  “There’ll be plenty more,” Sheriff Marge said. “You ready?”

  She kicked the crate and quickly retreated. An extended family of creepy monster bugs fled over the crate’s sides. Dale held up the tarp edge to keep the scrabbling creatures contained. He reached in with a gloved hand and grabbed a big one. Then he let the tarp drop, and we watched the rest of the roaches escape through the puddles. Dale dropped his catch in an evidence bag and sealed it.

  I shuddered. “I need gloves before I’m touching anything else in that crate.”

  Dale handed me a pair of gloves. I slid them on and bent over the crate, gingerly picking at the packing material. It became musty and damp the deeper I plunged. “Phew. Water must have leaked in somehow.”

  “Which would have made the roaches happy,” Dale said near my shoulder. He was squatting, watching closely as I pulled out a gob of reeking cockroach nest.

  “I think maybe I should be wearing a mask,” I said, and my hand bumped something hard. I felt around the foot-long object and lifted it, brushing off the loose raffia strands. A dark carved wood statue of a woman with a grotesquely disproportionate face and figure.

  “Whoa,” Dale said. “Thank God none of the women I know look like that.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “What is it?” Sheriff Marge asked.

  “I’d guess aboriginal folk art. I can’t even tell you what continent, but probably Pacific Island, Australia or Africa. If I knew what kind of wood, that might narrow down the location. It’s really heavy.”

  “Because it got wet?” Sheriff Marge held out her gloved hands.

  “I don’t know.” I handed the statue to her and bent to rummage through the crate again. I found seven more statues — another woman, three men, a water buffalo/cow, a goat and a creature that appeared to be a cross between a boar and an anteater — all with body parts skewed or somehow not quite right.

  “Fourteen crates of those, huh,” Dale said. “How much do you think they’re worth?”

  “Not much, except to a collector,” I answered, “or for historical reasons. But if they’re valuable historically, they should have stayed in their country of origin, which I am quite sure is not England.”

  “So it’s fishy.” Sheriff Marge said.

  “Yeah. I think the shipment was fishy to start with, and became fishier when someone stole most of it,” I answered.

  Sheriff Marge set her fists on her hips. “Dale, we’re impounding the truck and all its contents until we can sort this out.”

  “What about my statues?” I asked.

  “What?”

  “Mole, Ratty, Toad—”

  Sheriff Marge scowled. “More animals?”

  “Much cuter animals. You’ll see.”

  “You can probably have them. But I want to talk to the driver first.”

  “Who is getting very fidgety,” Rupert said, strolling into view and puffing on a Swisher Sweet cherry cigar. “Ford’s keeping him company.” His eyes widened. “What is that?”

  Wrinkling my nose, I held up a statue.

  “Hideous.”

  “And the reason the truck was broken into,” Sheriff Marge said. “Know anything about it?”

  Rupert hunched toward the statue and squinted but did not offer to take it from me. “No. This kind of stuff has never appealed to me. A form of folk art, I suppose. Not North American or European, that’s for sure. Or Asian, for that matter.” He shuddered. “I wouldn’t want that thing looking at me from a shelf.”

  “Maybe they’re death statues,” Dale said.

  He returned a sheepish grin as we stared at him again. “Discovery Channel.”

  “Well, like you said, nobody wants to look at these very long. They make me feel off-balance — tilted, while my brain tries to make sense of them. So better they’re buried in a grave than out in public view,” I said. “Weird.”

  “And worth something to somebody, which means I don’t want to leave them in this trailer wi
th the lock busted,” Sheriff Marge said.

  “I can keep them in my office,” I replied. “I’ll research them. Should we contact the Rittenour Gallery?”

  “Not yet. I need to get my notes in order first. But, good, your office will be fine for now.” Sheriff Marge pulled her gloves off. “Is the driver in the kitchen?”

  “Yes.” Rupert turned to walk with Sheriff Marge.

  “Can you send Ford out with a transit cart?” I called. “There’s no way I’m taking this crate up to my office.”

  Rupert waggled the okay sign.

  As soon as I stopped moving, a chill crept deep into my flesh, making me shiver from the inside out. I retrieved my raincoat and jammed my good arm into the sleeve.

  CHAPTER 2

  A few minutes later, Ford Huckle, the museum’s groundskeeper and handyman, pushed a transit cart with a squeaky wheel out the museum’s front entrance and around to the back of the trailer. His perpetual grin revealed more gaps than stumps of teeth.

  Ford was wearing what he always wore — dirty olive green coveralls and mud-caked boots. Today, though, he also had a floppy-brimmed camouflage fishing hat tamped down on his head with the drawstring pulled snug under his jaw.

  “Here you are, Missus Morehouse,” he said.

  “Thanks, Ford.” I shook my head. The ‘missus’ always gets me. I think Ford knows I’m not married. But he calls all women ‘missus,’ so I suppose it’s his way of showing respect. Ford grew up in an era when kids with developmental disabilities were classified as ‘slow’ and no one bothered to figure out why or if anything could be done to help them.

  I crouched and placed a statue on the cart’s protected second shelf since it was starting to sprinkle again.

  Ford knelt beside me and picked up the anteater/boar figure. He turned it over in his large, calloused hands and fingered the long snout. “What is it?”

  “Some kind of animal, I expect.”

  “Not from these parts.” He placed the statue on the cart and reached for the water buffalo.

  “Nope,” I agreed. “It’s a mystery.”

  “You goin’ to display these?”

  “Not for us. For another museum. We’re just going to keep them safe for a while.”

  “Pop whittled better’n this. Made me a Noah’s ark when I was a tyke.”

  I examined Ford’s lined face as he placed the last figure on the cart. “Do you still have any of your dad’s carvings?”

  “Got used for kindlin’ one hard winter. I’d outgrowed ‘em anyway.”

  I pondered that bit of information. I mourned the great loss reflected in such a simple statement — the loss of what was probably interesting if not valuable folk art, the loss of a parent-child bond held in an object lovingly made, the loss of childhood innocence when toys were burned for survival. I inhaled sharply before the dreamy past sucked me in too far — one of the perils of the job. I often find myself imagining walking around in other people’s skins, looking out through their eyes, when I handle the things they’d used.

  “Do you have a rain slicker, Ford?”

  “Forgot. Goin’ back to get it after I help you.”

  “Good. How’s your new septic system?”

  “Everythin’ drains.”

  Talking seemed to exhaust Ford. I’d maxed him out with this verbal spurt — it would be a while before he was ready for another chat.

  I straightened and waved to Dale who was methodically scanning the ground in an arcing radius around the truck and trailer. Ford followed me along the sidewalk pushing the noisy cart. I held the doors open for him. We rolled past the gift shop, across the oak parquet floor of the main ballroom and beyond a maze of hallways to the freight elevator tucked next to the servants’ stairwell.

  We rode in silence, listening to the groan and rattle of the old cables. The elevator’s original to the mansion and was quite a novelty for a private residence at the time.

  At the top floor, the doors creaked open. I unlocked my office door. I sidled to the other side of my desk and stacked piles of books and papers together to clear some space. Ford lifted the statues off the cart and stood them on my desk as though he was placing bone china teacups.

  One of the male figures fell over with a loud clunk.

  Ford cringed. “Sorry.” He tried to right it.

  “Not your fault. They’re lopsided.” I patted his arm. “Let’s lay them on their sides.”

  “Thanks, and don’t forget your raincoat,” I called as Ford trundled the cart back to the elevator.

  I quickly made copies of the bills of lading from Terry’s clipboard. Then I sped down the stairs to make a detour on the first floor and, I hoped, catch the end of Terry’s interview with Sheriff Marge.

  o0o

  Terry turned out to be shorter than I expected. I hadn’t noticed when he was prone, but now that he was perched like a gray leprechaun — knees splayed, heels hooked on the high rungs of a barstool, paunchy belly tipped over his low beltline — my first thought was that it wouldn’t have taken much to conk him on the back of the head. I probably could have managed it myself under cover of dark. Given the possible value of the shipment, it seemed odd it was in the care of this little man. He probably didn’t know anything about the contents of his trailer, though.

  His eyebrows scowled into a unibrow, and his chin jutted forward. His arms crossed over his chest and rested lightly on his belly shelf. Sheriff Marge, still ensconced in rain gear, leaned against the counter next to the coffee maker, periodically smacking the base of an empty mug she held in one hand into her other palm.

  I’ve known Sheriff Marge for over two years, and this was the first time I’d seen her look fierce. Stern, in-charge, no-nonsense, don’t-mess-with-me-mister? Yes. But fierce? No. Not until today.

  I fought a rising urge to laugh. Here were two stocky, gray-haired adults well into the experienced years of their lives, and they might as well have been toddlers in a tugging match over a toy: Sheriff Marge ‘you have to share’ vs. Terry ‘you can’t make me.’

  I slid into a folding chair next to the lunch table. If there’d been a bookie on the premises, I’d have placed all my pocket money on Sheriff Marge in this battle of the wills. Terry didn’t stand a chance.

  Terry finally burst the silence. “What do you expect me to do, sit here until you catch the guys who attacked me? At the rate you’re going, I’ll be Rip Van Winkle.”

  “The more you tell me, the faster I’ll move. Why do you think I’m still standing here?” Sheriff Marge replied.

  “I got a job to do, or I’ll get fired.”

  “Which is why I’d like to see your CDL. No doubt your employer requires you to have a commercial license.”

  “They must’ve taken it.”

  “They?”

  “The guys who attacked me.”

  “There’s a bulge in your back right pocket. I presume that’s your wallet. Let’s have a look.”

  “It ain’t in there.”

  “So you’re saying these guys stole your license but not your wallet?”

  “Yeah.”

  I wrinkled my nose. Terry was a terrible liar.

  “Where do you keep your license?” Sheriff Marge asked.

  “With my paperwork.”

  "You mean this?” I held up the clipboard.

  Terry’s jutting angles — elbows and knees — slumped, and he lifted a hand to feel the bandage on the back of his head. He grunted.

  “This is all really tidy. Everything looks in order,” I continued. “You keep a permanent document like your license with the paperwork that changes from load to load? I can’t imagine how you keep from losing it.”

  Sheriff Marge fired a warning glance my direction.

  “Well, maybe I lost it,” Terry mumbled. “Don’t remember.”

  “Uh-huh. Well, my deputy’s going to come sit here with you while I get into the database and dig up your license,” Sheriff Marge said.

  “Uh, one thing,” I said
. “I need Terry to move the truck. It’s blocking the view of the museum’s entrance. We get so few visitors as it is, I’d hate to make it even harder for them to find their way into the building. We’re opening in twenty minutes.”

  Sheriff Marge blew out a big breath. “Okay.”

  She pointed at Terry. “Park your rig down by the marina, out of the way. It’s staying there until we figure this out.”

  Terry sidled by Sheriff Marge, glaring at her out of the corner of his eye.

  I waited a second and then whispered, “What’d I miss?”

  “Not much,” Sheriff Marge replied in an undertone as we followed Terry at a discrete distance. “He was downright chatty about the guys who robbed him. Swears there were at least two, maybe three or four because the only way he could be waylaid is if they ganged up on him. Claims he doesn’t remember anything after getting hit on the head.”

  I arched my eyebrows.

  “Yeah, I know. Arrogant little peacock.”

  “But why was he here in the middle of the night?”

  “Closer to 4 a.m. No good explanation. Just said he was early. Said he was stretching his legs before catching some shut-eye when he was jumped. He thought they’d planned it, were waiting for him.”

  “So they knew what was in the trailer.” I caught the right front door on its swinging rebound from Terry’s forceful shove and held it open for Sheriff Marge.

  “Not sure how much to believe.” Sheriff Marge sighed. “Especially since he completely clammed up when I started asking questions about him personally.”

  We stopped on the sidewalk and watched Terry stalk to the cab, climb in and slam the door. “By the way, providing excuses for a hostile witness is not a great idea.”

  “Sorry,” I said. “I was thinking out loud.”

  The truck engine snorted to life and coughed a cloud of black smoke out the high exhaust pipe. Dale jogged around the trailer and held his arms out in a questioning gesture. Sheriff Marge nodded her plastic-covered hat in answer.

  Dale ambled up to us. “Not much on the ground. Looks like they opened one or two cases to check the contents, and that’s what the splintered wood fragments are from. I think they took the rest of the cases unopened, except the one they missed.”