Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. Vol. 40, No. 6, June, 1995

Perhaps reading McLean’s expression, Regina clucked. “I never said he was a good businessman. It seems he was as disorganized as Zoe was. I tried, I tried often, as his store manager, to get him to pay those bills, but he just didn’t take owing money seriously, I guess. He is, he was, quite a salesman. I’m afraid Zoe’s no better off now than before.” She stopped talking and looked down at her hands, but McLean sensed more than was said. A hint of broken promises. A hint even of anger.

“His will should help her out somewhat.”

“Will? Clement had no will.” Regina laughed uncomfortably.

McLean rubbed the bum scar barely hidden by his mustache. “Was Firth married? His background seems a bit sketchy.”

“No. Never.” An oddly positive statement for a relationship less than a year old.

“Were you and Clement close friends?”

Regina’s face hardened. “Do you mean were we lovers? Of course not. And you never answered my question. Will the insurance company blame Clement?”

“I work for Zoe’s lawyer. The insurance company will send its own person. Did you know Mr. Firth in Florida?”

Regina bristled. “How would I have known him in Florida? I’ve never been there in my life. We met here, in Summit, last year when he hired me to run the store.”

She rose abruptly. “Since you’re not from the fire department or the insurance company, we have nothing further to discuss.”

Eric ghosted into the doorway, a crooked grin on his face and a razor knife in his hand. “You need help leaving, pal?” Stuffed up with his cold, he sounded as threatening as Daffy Duck.

“I’ll see myself out, thank you.” McLean left casually, one eye trained on Eric, reflected in a front window. Eric, watching him watch, took a one-step lunge like a child teasing a chained dog. McLean stiffened but didn’t quicken his pace out to the truck.

He ransomed the developed photographs, then headed for the opposite side of town to meet Juanita Lopez, Tom’s wife. Her living room, like Regina’s, overflowed with a variety of furniture styles. Nothing was less than a century old and McLean’s involuntary reaction was always to stand in the center of the room, touching nothing.

She smiled at his discomfort, then sat down at a cherrywood table that had probably cost Tom several weeks’ profit from his garage. “Sit down, P. J., and show me the photos.”

McLean sat down at the table almost reverently and slit open the pictures’ protective envelope. “Are these the same pieces of furniture you and Tom looked at several weeks ago?”

Juanita studied them carefully. “No.” She tapped a photo of the walnut secretary Tom had pointed out. “Have you heard of marriages or monkeys?”

“Never in the same sentence.”

She arched an eyebrow. “I was in the shop three weeks ago, hunting. I went back Friday, determined to buy the secretary. It was expensive, but we buy because we like, not for investment. This is the piece that was there Friday. It isn’t the piece that was there three weeks ago.” Her voice rose in anger. “But Clement insisted it was the same. Acted like I was some taco-brained chica.”

McLean swallowed a smile. Anyone who underestimated Juanita Lopez because of her accent was stepping in front of a bus. “Were they similar?”

“Oh sure, if you have absolutely no idea what you’re doing.” She lifted her shoulders gracefully. “The first one was made of walnut. Beautiful piece. Crafted by someone who loved what he did. This one.” She snapped the picture with a short fingernail. “A marriage and a monkey. The top part was grafted on. It didn’t fit properly and was made of pine. That’s the marriage. The bottom, well that was a little better, a little older, but the hardware on the drawers was wrong and the slant top was made of oak while the main body was walnut. That’s the monkey. As in monkeyed with. He wanted the same amount of money, though. Twelve hundred dollars. That man had brass, I’m telling you.”

McLean showed her the rough inventory he’d taken that morning. “Is this consistent with what you saw Friday?”

She looked over the list, then sorted through the photographs. “This is what I saw Friday all right. But most of it isn’t what we looked at three weeks ago. I can’t be positive, but I’d guess that whatever happened to my secretary happened to a lot of other stuff in there, too. Most of this is junk. Some of it’s old, okay? But it’s still junk.”

McLean thanked Juanita, then borrowed her phone and told Mort Reed he was on the way.

Mort rolled into his combination living room and office followed closely by McLean and Caleb, Mort’s Rottweiler friend, aide, and guardian. Not that Mort needed guarding. He pivoted to a stop, grabbed an overhead bar, and, with biceps capable of crushing bricks, hoisted himself into an easy chair. He’d spent hours hunched over his computer digging through databases from Oregon to Florida and looked tired.

“You have everything I’ve been able to dig up on Zoe and Clement,” he motioned to the wad of papers in McLean’s fist. “How’d the inventory go with Regina? Any surprises?”