The Marsh Madness

I glared at her. “Of course I have. We are not criminals and we are not fools.” Kev, mind you, was remarkably foolish and a prime candidate for a Darwin, but never mind. “None of us stole these items, and if we had, you wouldn’t have found them here. You know that and so do I.” I didn’t mention that the sterling would have been already melted down if anyone in my family had a hand in it.

“Mr. Kelly has disappeared,” she said.

“I’m sure he’ll be back. You’ll notice he didn’t disappear with any of this.” I pointed to the so-called evidence. “Lieutenant Castellano, you should be asking yourself who wants to frame us.”

“Give it a rest,” she said. “You haven’t been framed. Don’t think for one minute any of us here will fall for that. One of you slipped up, and we’re going to keep on this until we’ve made sure there’s nothing else. But I’m betting there will be.”

I managed to look unfazed.

But I did realize somewhat late in the game that I’d forgotten all about “no comment” as a means of communication with the police.

What would Sammy say?

But Sammy wasn’t there and Castellano was.

She must have had royalty somewhere in her DNA. How else could she stand there with such unassailable dignity and power looking down at me, the Irish peasant accused of poaching? Of course, the heels on those boots added to her visual impact, even if they had a bit of mud on them now, but the woman was born to power, I swear. Maybe being a detective was the route to world domination or something.

“Cui bono?” I said, tossing in a bit of college Latin in an attempt to balance things.

She raised a beautifully sculpted eyebrow.

I added, “It means—”

“To whose benefit? I know what it means. But what do you mean by it?”

“Well, I mean to ask who benefits from this whole situation.” I was babbling. I reminded myself to chant one of the many Kelly mantras: You’re as good as anyone, Jordan, probably better. My uncles had sent me off to school with those words in my ear, and they’d helped.

But Castellano wasn’t a school yard bully out to make the new kid miserable. She was a detective who could practically taste victory. Wild-goose chases would not be her thing.

She said, “Get to the point.”

“Well, none of us would benefit from Chadwick Kauffman’s death. Not at all. Vera wanted the collection for sure, but Vera buys things. She doesn’t steal them. And she still has enough money to do that. You can dig around until you retire, but you won’t find anything to indicate she has ever stolen an object or even done something dishonest. You’re barking up the wrong tree, Detective.”

“Not a dog. Not barking. You’re out of time. We’ve found the evidence we need.”

“Wait.” I tried not to squeak. “This whole Summerlea thing has brought us nothing but trouble. We certainly don’t benefit. My point is that Kauffman was an incredibly wealthy man. So follow the money. I say where there’s a will, there may have been a way.”

She rolled her eyes. “Is it National Bad Pun Day already? Even if it is, we’ve found the equivalent to the money. Right here.”

“We’d have to be fools to leave that there. From the look of it, this stash had everything but a treasure map with an X to mark the spot. Do you not see that we’re being framed? Who benefits from that? Relatives! Heirs! Surely they are suspects too. Isn’t that a more logical approach—?”

“Don’t question my logic. It is impeccable, and as for your ‘where there’s a will there’s a way’ idea, that was one of the first possibilities we checked out.”

I inhaled.

She stared at me.

“And?” I said finally. “Close relatives?”

“No. There were second cousins, but he didn’t have much to do with them.”

“Friends?”

“No.”

“Lovers?”

“No. Chadwick Kauffman did not have any relatives closer than second cousins. He didn’t leave anything to them, except for some family jewelry, a coin collection and a stamp collection, more sentimental than valuable.”

“But—”

She raised an elegant, long-fingered, scarlet-nailed hand to silence me. It worked.

“He didn’t seem to have friends outside of work. And no romantic partners turned up.”