A Killer Clue, page 17
I snorted and took off at a faster pace, which Bailey, with her longer legs, easily matched. “I’ve explained his challenges to you, so I expect you to be understanding.”
“Don’t worry. I’ve dealt with numerous peculiar people in the theater,” Bailey said.
“I didn’t say he was peculiar …” I stopped and pressed a finger to my lips as we reached the smallest of the house’s three dining rooms.
The door was ajar. I pushed it fully open and entered, with Bailey on my heels.
“Good evening,” I said to Cam and Eloise, who were already seated facing one another across an oval table draped in white linen. The table, which only seated six, was adorned with a flower centerpiece of lilac, baby’s breath, and greenery. A chandelier overhead dripped with faceted crystals that cast rainbows across the white china dinner plates.
Cam rose to his feet. “Hello, you must be Bailey,” he said, hobbling forward to take her hand. “It’s nice to meet you at last. Your mother mentions you quite often.”
I could see Bailey assessing him, and tightened my lips as I noticed her smile broaden.
“And you’re Cameron Clewe. Mom talks about you a lot too,” she said
“Does she?” Cam raised his eyebrows at me. “Only good things, I hope. And please, call me Cam.” He guided Bailey to the chair beside his at the table. “Jane, if you could please sit next to Eloise.”
“Of course,” I said, crossing to the other side of the table. “You should probably introduce Eloise,” I added, forcing Cam to tear his gaze away from my daughter.
His expression slightly abashed, Cam gestured toward Eloise. “Bailey, this is Eloise Anderson, who’s staying here at Aircroft for a little while. Eloise owns an antiquarian bookshop.”
“How fascinating.” Bailey offered Eloise a warm smile. “I’m Jane’s daughter, Bailey Hunter. I’m sure you and my mom have a lot in common. I don’t do anything nearly as intellectual. I’m an actress.”
Eloise, who was wearing an off-the-shoulder black dress that was more sophisticated than her usual attire, smiled sweetly. “That sounds exciting. Much more so than my life, I’m sure.”
“I love it, but it can be something of a grind,” Bailey said. “As a matter of fact, I have to fly to New York Thursday morning for some auditions, and then turn around and come back Saturday afternoon. No rest for the wicked,” she added, casting Cam a glance from under her dark lashes.
“Is Lauren not joining us?” I asked, as Mateo rolled in a cart holding several covered platters and bowls.
“No, she had other plans.” Cam turned to Bailey. “Lauren is my personal assistant, but unlike my chef, Mateo”—he gestured toward the other man—“Lauren doesn’t live in. She prefers her own apartment.”
“I save a lot of money living here,” Mateo said, as he placed the serving dishes on the table. “But I can understand why a young woman like Lauren would want her own space.”
He didn’t add, especially after dealing with Cam all day, but when I caught his eye, he winked.
“Thanks, Mateo,” Cam said, when all the bowls and platters were on the table. He glanced at Bailey. “We’re eating family style this evening. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Of course not.” Bailey whipped her linen napkin through the air to unroll it before she draped it across her lap. “When I’m on the road, I’m happy to get takeout or grab something off the snack table in the green room. This is much more elegant, believe me.”
She offered Cam a charming smile and then looked across the table at me and Eloise. “And when I was growing up, Mom and I tended to eat dinner off of TV trays.” Obviously noticing my frown, Bailey hastily added, “Not because Mom was lazy or anything; mainly because she had to work all day and do household chores at night and didn’t have time to make fancy meals.”
“I’m sure you helped out,” Cam said, as he passed her a silver basket filled with dinner rolls.
“Well, sometimes.” Bailey wrinkled her nose at me. “I was in a lot of theater productions from the time I was in middle school, so that kept me busy.”
“It paid off, in the end.” I turned to Eloise. “How are you feeling today? Everything okay?”
“I’m fine,” she replied, staring down at the spoonful of glazed carrots she’d just ladled onto her plate.
Looking across the table, I watched Bailey shift her intense gaze from Eloise to Cam. Probably trying to calculate the depth of their relationship, I thought. My daughter was a flirt, but she had strict rules about not interfering with established couples. I knew she’d never make a move on Cam if she thought he was romantically involved with Eloise.
But that ship has sailed. I took the bread basket from Bailey and set it beside Eloise. Grabbing a roll, I slathered it with the dollop of butter I’d placed on my bread plate. I think Cam’s interest in Eloise evaporated as soon as he suspected she was lying about something connected to her case, I thought as I chewed a bite of the soft roll. Albert Clewe lied to him all his life, hiding the fact that he was Cam’s stepfather. Al also told Cam’s biological father that Cam died around the same time as his mother. I can understand not wanting to become involved with a liar after discovering that.
“Is this fresh flounder?” Bailey asked, as she used the serving spatula to slide a piece off the platter and onto her plate. “It must be difficult to find since you’re four or five hours from the beach.”
“I think Mateo has an arrangement with someone who supplies the local restaurants,” Cam said. “They fly in seafood daily.”
“Ah.” Bailey sent me a comical, wide-eyed look.
I gave my head an almost imperceptible shake. “It’s delicious, however it got here.”
“Cam and Eloise, if you’ll indulge me, I have to tell a story about my mom,” Bailey said. “It involves a batch of cookies she was making for the school bake sale.”
I groaned, while both Cam and Eloise turned to me, their eyes bright with interest. “Oh no, not that again.”
“Come on, Mom, it’s hilarious.” Bailey laid down her fork and proceeded to tell the tale, complete with hand gestures and a few sound effects. “Then the entire tray of cookies fell to the floor and guess what happened—they bounced!” she said, sitting back when she finished her impromptu performance.
“You used salt instead of sugar?” Eloise asked. “Didn’t you taste the batter?”
“No. I mean, it was for a bake sale. I was trying not to stick my fingers in it, or anything like that. But Bailey’s right, those cookies had the texture of sponges. I think I could’ve scrubbed the dishes with them, to be honest. In my defense”—I lifted my hands in a mea culpa gesture—“I was totally exhausted that day. We’d had a full week of inventory at the library, and someone who shall remain nameless …”
“Me!” Bailey chimed in.
“Had rehearsals every night that week.” I smiled. “It was funny, after the fact, even if I had to dash to the store the next day to buy something for the bake sale.”
“I suppose it’s good to have a sense of humor about that sort of thing,” Cam said, examining me and Bailey in turn.
“It’s an absolute requirement for being a parent,” I said. “Especially when you have a high-maintenance type of child.”
“Hey, wait a minute,” Bailey said, but then let out a musical peal of laughter. “I was a handful. Always so dramatic.” She swept the back of her hand across her forehead. “Poor Mom.”
We focused on our meal after that, although Bailey continued to talk, telling some equally embarrassing stories about herself. This seemed to draw Eloise out of her shell a little bit. She even laughed as Bailey shared an incident involving a scene where she was supposed to shoot someone on stage. “The gun refused to fire, so I had to grab a prop knife, and then that broke in half,” she said.
“So what did you do?” Eloise asked, her eyes very wide.
“Pulled the scarf from around my neck and pretended to strangle them to death,” Bailey said, in a triumphant tone.
Cam, who’d been watching Bailey out of the corner of his eye, a smile dancing on his lips, laid down his fork and sat back in his chair. “It’s clear you’re someone who thinks on your feet. I commend you for that.”
“It’s just instinct,” Bailey said, casting him a sultry look.
I loudly cleared my throat and pushed my chair back from the table. “Cam, please tell Mateo he outdid himself this evening,” I said. “It truly was delicious. But now I think Bailey and I should head home.” I shot her a warning look. “She has an early flight tomorrow.”
After everyone stood and said their goodbyes, Eloise and Bailey headed out into the hall, while Cam and I lagged behind.
Cam grabbed his crutches and pulled himself up onto his feet. “You and Bailey have a great relationship,” he said, a wisp of sadness flitting over his face.
“We do now,” I said, patting his hand. “We had some rough years. But it’s all good these days. Oh, by the way, I plan to visit Benton House on Thursday. I don’t know if I’ll find out anything useful, but since I have the standing invitation …”
“Might as well use it,” he said, tightening his grip on the crosspieces of his crutches. “Just be careful, Jane. I have my suspicions about David Benton.”
“Don’t worry, so do I. And you know me, I’m not that easy to charm.”
Cam’s laugh followed me out into the hall.
Chapter Thirty-One
It rained steadily on Thursday, which almost made me change my plans. I didn’t like driving in the rain. But I’d already arranged to meet David at Benton House at three o’clock, so I decided I just had to ignore my nerves and drive to High Point, rain or no rain.
David greeted me at the front doors, grabbing my wet umbrella and dropping it into an antique metal umbrella stand. “I’ll take your coat as well,” he told me.
Unsure if he was being gallant or simply didn’t want me dripping all over the valuable items in the showroom, I handed over my raincoat and wiped my shoes on the absorbent welcome mat several times.
“Terrible weather, but it does have one benefit—we don’t have any other customers right now, so I can give you the full tour,” David said, after hanging my jacket on a wood and metal coat tree placed over a rubberized mat.
“Do you get a lot of walk-in customers?” I asked, following him into the showroom.
“Not really. Most of our clients make appointments. We get the occasional tourist, but they almost never buy anything. Of course we’re very busy during Furniture Market. We have to add on temporary staff over those five days in both spring and fall.”
“That’s not open to the public, is it?”
“No, it’s strictly for the trade. Buyers, designers, and so on.” David paused in front of a display that replicated a Victorian parlor. “We like to group our antiques, but all the pieces can be purchased separately. We just find that setting up display rooms really gives buyers the best experience.”
“It is different.” I clasped my hands behind my back and leaned in to examine a side-table-height mahogany revolving bookcase. “Most antique stores have things scattered about willy-nilly.”
“We have to be a little more intentional, since we serve a more specialized clientele.” David walked to the next display, which featured Shaker furniture.
“This is the real thing, right?” I asked, as I looked over a set of ladder-back chairs with woven rush seats.
“Of course. We don’t handle reproductions,” David said, adjusting his blue-and-gray-striped tie.
I glanced over at him, calculating that his tailored pearl-gray suit probably cost more than my entire wardrobe. “Where do you find things? Do you go out on scouting missions yourself, or do you have buyers to do that?”
“A little of both,” David said, as he led me past two more displays—one of mid-century modern furniture and décor and the other set up like a gallery, showcasing a number of early American folk-art paintings. “We can come back to this later. I wanted to show you our rare book collection first.”
David led me down a hall off of the main showroom. At the end of the hall he unlocked a steel door with a metal mesh reinforced window in the top panel.
As soon as I walked into the room I realized that the Bentons were serious about protecting their book collection. The air felt chilly, but dry, and there were no windows. The books were stored vertically in glass and metal cases, each of which had a humidity monitor that I assumed was linked to a remote system. There was also a large dehumidifier in one corner of the room.
“Sorry for the temperature. We have to keep it around sixty-five degrees, as you probably know,” David said.
“Yes, I’m aware. I always kept a sweater on hand when I was dealing with the rare books at the university,” I said, rubbing my hands up and down my bare forearms. “I assume you have a special fire suppression system as well?”
“We recently added a clean agent system,” David said. “Not dangerous for the materials or humans, and environmentally friendly.”
“Ah, it uses a fluorocarbon,” I said, thinking how much money the Bentons must’ve invested in this storage room.
David gave me an approving look. “Yes, pentafluoroethane. When released as a gas it absorbs heat energy at its molecular level faster than the heat can be generated.”
“Which means the fire cannot sustain itself. Smart, but expensive, no doubt.”
“Yes, but it’s worth it. For example”—David led me over to a case containing a solitary book—“this volume alone is worth around two and a half million. It’s the jewel of our collection.”
I peered into the case, reading the title. “El ingenioso hidalgo don Quixote de la Mancha. I’m sure I pronounced that incorrectly, but I assume it’s an early edition of Don Quixote.”
“Not just an early edition, the first edition from 1605.” David’s sonorous voice was filled with pride.
“How in the world did you acquire it?” I asked, straightening and looking up at him.
“Luck, really. We were working with a wealthy family from Dubai. They wanted a few very specific pieces, including an eighteenth-century Hadley chest. Those can be worth a million or more on their own.”
“Nice to have that kind of disposable income,” I said dryly. “I buy my storage pieces from resale stores.”
David smiled. “I don’t use extremely valuable antiques at home, either. Anyway, I traveled with the items to ensure their safe delivery, and while I was there the patriarch of the family showed me this book. We were able to do a deal.”
“They traded the Cervantes for some of the furniture?”
“Exactly.” David gazed down at the book with an expression I reserved for my loved ones. “We don’t usually keep such valuable items for ourselves. My mother is always pestering me to find a buyer, and I know I should sell it, but …”
“You can’t bring yourself to part with it,” I said.
David turned his beatific smile on me. “See, you get it.”
I didn’t, but decided to keep that opinion to myself. I understood Cam’s collecting, which involved books and papers that were more valuable for their research potential than anything else. I couldn’t comprehend this, which to me was more like hoarding. I thought the Don Quixote belonged in a library or museum, where it could be studied as well as preserved. But I simply smiled back at David. “It’s amazing. What else do you have?”
Prompted by my interest, David enthusiastically showed me the other books he’d collected, some of which he planned to put up for auction soon.
“I don’t hold onto most of them for long,” he said, pointing out a first-edition copy of Pride and Prejudice. “As Mom says, this is a business after all.”
“Indeed it is,” said Gloria Benton as she entered the room, closing the door behind her. “Sometimes my son forgets that, which is how we ended up with a set of Hepplewhite chairs in our dining room.”
“Now Mom, you love those chairs,” David said.
“I’d love what they’d fetch at auction even more.” Gloria turned to me with a bright smile. “It’s good to see you again, Jane. How is Mr. Clewe doing?”
“Pretty good. He’s mastered getting around on crutches, although he’s not tackling the main stairs at Aircroft yet.”
“I’m glad to hear it.” Gloria gaze swept around the room. “We are proud of our little book collection. I just have to remind David that they aren’t ours to keep. Buying and selling is the name of the game.”
“You make it sound like I’m a dragon hoarding gold, when you know there are only one or two books I’ve refused to sell over the years.” David cast me a smile. “Mom likes to exaggerate sometimes.”
“Well, I hope you’ll be willing to part with your next acquisition,” Gloria said. “I know how excited you are about it, but it can’t become another one of your personal treasures. Not with that estimated value.”
“What book is that?” I asked, genuinely interested.
David waved his hands. “I really can’t say, not until the deal is done. It’s just a superstition, but discussing an acquisition before we buy it always seems to portend bad luck.” He cast his mother a sharp glance. “Mom knows that as well as anyone.”
“Very well. Sorry, Jane, but you’ll have to come back and see it once we have the book in hand,” Gloria said. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to the office. Balancing budgets waits for no man, or woman.” She flashed me a smile before leaving the room.
“We should go as well. There’s still a lot more to see on the showroom floor.” David held the door open for me, carefully locking it once we were both outside. “I really would like to tell you about that book, Jane, because it is extremely exciting, but I’m afraid I’m cautious about such things.”
“It’s fine,” I said as we walked back into the showroom. “It just gives me an excuse to come back for a visit.”
David’s eyes lit up. “We shouldn’t wait that long to get together again. How about dinner sometime soon?”
I bit the inside of my cheek to prevent an immediate no from flying from my lips. Regardless of the situation, I didn’t want to go on a date with David Benton, or anyone, for that matter. But more importantly, David was still on the suspect list Cam and I had compiled. “How nice of you,” I said, staring at a display of Federal-style furniture and décor instead of looking at David. “But my daughter’s staying with me right now and we don’t get to see each other that often, so I’m not sure when I’ll be available.”
