Murder and the Museum Read online

  She spotted Carl deep in conversation with what looked like a husband and wife regarding an early 19th century blanket chest. A few minutes later he accompanied the couple over to the counter and gave the sales tag to his assistant, so she could ring up the sale.

  Carl saw Marty and walked over to her. “Well, what do you think of what my new assistant has done with the shop?”

  “It looks great, Carl. No wonder the store is full of customers.” Marty said with a wide-eyed expression on her face. “I’ll bet you’re probably making more money than you ever have. “

  “Thanks, and it’s been like this since a few days after she started working for me. She’s learning the antique trade and wants to combine it with her degree in design. The way she’s learning I know she won’t be with me all that long, but I sure am enjoying what she’s been able to accomplish here.”

  “Seems to have worked well enough that the couple you were just talking to bought that blanket chest.”

  “Honestly, Marty, every day is like that. Let me tell you, I am spoiled. I don’t know how I can ever replace her.”

  “Why do you think she’ll be leaving soon?”

  “She wants to open up her own interior design business combining antiques and contemporary design. She moved here recently from Los Angeles, because she thought a business like that would work well here in Palm Springs. I agree. The girl will go places, mark my words.”

  “Seems to me you’re missing out on the most obvious next step.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Go into business with her. Have a custom antique design arm of your business. You know everybody who’s anybody in Palm Springs and you certainly have the clientele for it, plus the knowledge of antiques. Combine that with her decorating skills, and she’ll be with you for life.”

  Now Carl was open-mouthed. “Marty, that’s a great idea! I’ll talk to her when I get back or else tomorrow. I owe you big time for that one, but somehow, knowing you, you’ll probably collect sooner rather than later,” he said with a laugh. “Let me get my notebook, and I’ll be ready to go. I see you’re parked in front. I’ll meet you in your car in just a minute.”

  *****

  Marty easily drove to a southwest area of Palm Springs where a neighborhood called The Mesa was nestled at the base of the San Jacinto Mountains. It was an historic neighborhood of homes and was a nature lover’s paradise with its rugged terrain, natural dry streambeds and nearby jagged peaks.

  “I can sure see why Camille chose to live here,” Carl said as Marty drove up the driveway. “It’s kind of like she was, private and secluded.”

  Marty parked her car, and together they walked up to the front door of the house. On either side of the door were glass panels that looked through the house and out to the pool beyond, with the mountains framed as a scenic backdrop. It was beautiful. She rang the doorbell, comparing its shiny brass to the corroded broken one she’d rung at Austin’s home a short time earlier.

  The door was opened by a blond woman who appeared to be in her mid-forties. “Please come in. I’m Emma Schneider. You must be Marty Morgan. I’ve been expecting you,” she said in a heavy accent which Marty couldn’t place.

  “Yes, I’m Marty, and this is my associate, Carl Mitchell. I’m sorry about your employer. Had you been with her for very long?”

  “Yes. When I came to the United States from Germany with my husband I had no skills. I worked for a housecleaning service and one of the clients was Ms. Borden. After a few months she called the company and told them she wanted to hire me full-time. It was a good thing for me, because my husband and I had decided to get divorced, and I didn’t know what I was going to do. I’ve worked here for fifteen years. I don’t know what I’ll do now.”

  “I’m sure when people find out that Camille Borden’s housekeeper is looking for work, you’ll have more offers than you can accept.”

  “I hope so. The man I spoke with, Ms. Borden’s accountant, said he wanted me to show you the different rooms where her art and antiques are, as well as the western collection which is in the garage.”

  “I noticed that the garage has five doors. Is it a five-car garage?” Carl asked.

  “Yes, sir, and it’s stuffed to the brim,” Emma confirmed.

  “To save time, would it be possible for you to show Mr. Mitchell where the western collection is?” Marty asked. “He’ll need some time to look at it and determine how many days it will take him to do the basic work-up for the appraisal. While he’s doing that, you could show me the different rooms here in the house where she had her collection.”

  “Of course. The garage is this way. Ms. Borden always said she needed to organize that collection, because she couldn’t get her car in the garage, but it never happened.” Emma shook her head sadly. “She just kept adding to it.”

  She opened the door to the garage. When Marty and Carl saw the extent of the collection, they were both slack-jawed. The five-car garage was stuffed from floor to ceiling with every type of Native American and western artifact that could be bought on the open market from beaded baby carriers to Old West guns. It was simply overwhelming.

  “Good luck, Carl,” Marty said. “Think you better make a deal with your assistant to cover for you a little longer than you originally thought. Have at it. I’ll be back in a little while.”

  Marty and Emma spent the next hour looking at Camille’s extensive collection. Closets, rooms, drawers, and about every space that could hold something was home to some sort of a treasure, even the guesthouse. Marty hadn’t been told how many square feet the proposed museum was going to be, but she was fairly certain it would not have been large enough to house Camille’s extensive collection.

  “I think that’s about all I can do today, Emma. I’ll be back tomorrow morning, and Carl and I can get started then. Camille said she was almost finished with an inventory she’d done of her collection. If you have it, I can take it with me and that will save me some time tomorrow.”

  “Certainly Ms. Morgan. It’s in her office. I never wanted to say anything, but she had a number of chemotherapy treatments for her cancer, and I think it affected her brain.”

  “What do you mean, Emma? How?” Marty asked as they walked down the hall to Camille’s office.

  “Well, she was always losing things, you know, forgetting where she put them, and some of them were pretty important. Fortunately, I have a good memory, so when she had something important, I would often notice where she’d put it. I could usually find the things she lost.”

  “I’m sure you were invaluable to her,” Marty said.

  “I hope so. She was such a good person, I truly hope so,” Emma said in a voice breaking with emotion. She opened the closet door in the office and took a large loose-leaf binder from the shelf and handed it to Marty.

  “This should help. It’s far better than the manila envelope she kept everything in for so many years.”

  “Thanks. I think we better rescue Carl. This is a lot to take in. I appreciate your giving me such a thorough walk-through. I know it will help both of us both timewise and with the research that I’ll have to do.”

  CHAPTER 16

  “Carl, are you alive and well?” Marty asked as she and Emma walked into the garage.

  “Barely.” Carl appeared from behind a pile of artifacts. “This is an incredible collection. You know I have a pretty good private western collection, but there are some things here I’ve never seen for sale. I wonder where she bought them. I thought I was pretty knowledgeable in that market. Emma, do you know?”

  “She didn’t buy from just one person. I know she did a lot of buying at auctions. She used to call her bids in and then when she was the high bidder, the item would arrive a few days later. She told me once that she’d developed a reputation as a collector, so whenever people had things they thought she might like, they called or emailed her. Often there were several a day. She was very careful to meet people in public when they offered her somethi
ng.”

  “Did she have an office somewhere?” Marty asked.

  “No, there’s a coffee shop several blocks from here, and she’d meet the people there. The man who owned it and his staff all knew her, and I think she felt safe there. If she liked something, she’d buy it, put it in her car and bring it here. Big items, like furniture she bought at auctions or from dealers she knew, she had trucked here by a company she always used. She told me once that they were insured, bonded, and extremely reliable.”

  “Emma, I found these manila envelopes. They have ‘Taxes’ written on the outside of the envelopes, but I didn’t feel it was any of my business, so I didn’t open them,” Carl said as he handed the envelopes to Emma.

  “See, Ms. Morgan. That’s exactly what I was telling you. Ms. Borden looked for those envelopes for days. They were tax records her accountant had given her. She probably brought them home from his office and discovered that something had been delivered for her collection and set them down in the garage. Well, at least that mystery is solved.”

  “Would you mind if I took the envelopes and gave them to my husband?” Marty asked. “He’s the detective who’s in charge of the case. Maybe there’s something in there that can help him.”

  “No, what would I do with them? Take them,” Emma said.

  “Thanks,” Marty said. “I have one more question, if you don’t mind?”

  “Of course not. I’ll try and answer it, if I can.”

  “I met Ms. Borden’s daughter-in-law today and saw her son. Something doesn’t seem quite right with them. She was dressed in very expensive clothes and driving a sports car. The outside of the house was really unkempt. I briefly saw her son and even though it was about two in the afternoon, it looked like he’d just gotten out of bed. Can you tell me anything about them?”

  Emma looked down at her hands and Marty could see she was nervously twisting them. “I shouldn’t really say anything, but now that Ms. Borden’s gone, I suppose it doesn’t matter. She’d talked about disinheriting her son, because of…you know. I really hate to say why.”

  “He’s a drug addict, isn’t he?” Marty asked. “I’ve heard rumors,” she said avoiding Carl’s eyes, “and when I saw him today I thought the whispers were probably true.” She went on to tell her what Austin had said to Leticia.

  “Yes. Ms. Borden was very clear that she was going to disinherit him, but then she got cancer, and everything else kind of got left for later.”

  “I can see where it would,” Marty said. “Do you know if she ever got around to doing it?”

  “No, but that doesn’t mean she didn’t. Like I told you, the chemotherapy treatments really affected her memory. She even used to call it ‘chemo fog.’ I guess it’s pretty common when people have that treatment.”

  “I’ve heard the term,” Marty said, “but I’ve never known anyone who had it. It must be horrible not to be able to remember things.”

  “It was for Ms. Borden. Before the cancer, I don’t think she ever forgot anything. Her mind was like a steel trap. I’d have to say after the treatments she only remembered some things. I think that was why she was so anxious to get the museum built. I think in her heart of hearts she knew she didn’t have a lot of time left.

  “She told everyone she was in remission, but one day after she came home from the doctor’s office, she put her appointment summary on the kitchen counter. I’m sure she was planning on putting it in her office, and like she did so often, she forgot it. I wasn’t snooping, but I saw where the doctor had told her that the cancer had come back, and he wanted her to undergo a more aggressive treatment for it.”

  “Did she?”

  “Not to my knowledge.” Emma looked at Marty with sad eyes. “I think she just wanted to get the museum built and that would get in the way of it. Anyway, that’s a long answer to your question about Austin.”

  “What about his wife, Leticia? What was her relationship like with Ms. Borden?”

  Emma pursed her lips. “Ms. Borden thought she was a gold digger, plain and simple. The only time I ever saw any warmth on Ms. Borden’s part was when Leticia brought her a gift for her western collection.”

  “Why would she do that? Letitia doesn’t seem like the type of woman who would be interested in anything old. From what I saw she was only interested in what the latest fashions and things were.”

  “Leticia has six brothers, and although I’ve never met them, I understand they are constantly being arrested for fighting and gang involvement. Totally the opposite of what Ms. Borden was like. Anyway, one night, Austin and Leticia were here for dinner, and Ms. Borden was talking about her western collection.

  “You know the type of woman that’s phony sweet? Well, that’s Leticia. You could just see what was going on in her mind. Ms. Borden mentioned that she had just purchased a collection of western knives and she was pretty excited about it. Leticia asked her if there was a navaja in the collection. Ms. Borden didn’t know what that was. Leticia told her it was the traditional Spanish folding-blade fighting and utility knife.”

  Marty turned to Carl and said, “This is in your area, not mine. Are you familiar with that kind of a knife?”

  “No, I’ve heard of them, and I know some Hispanic people use them today, although they’ve been around since the 1600’s. They’re pretty dangerous. How would Leticia know about them?”

  “She told Ms. Borden that her brothers and father had several of them,” Emma explained. “She said she would get one and give it to Ms. Borden for her collection.”

  “Did she?” Marty asked.

  “Yes. A couple of weeks later she came here in that little sports car of hers and made a big deal of presenting it to Ms. Borden. I think she thought that would make Ms. Borden accept her.”

  “From the tone of your voice, I’m getting the feeling it didn’t help much,” Marty said.

  “Not a bit. Ms. Borden was gracious in accepting the gift, but she could have cared less about everything else Letitia represented. The latest fashions meant nothing to her. She didn’t approve of drugs in the least, and she had nothing but disdain for people who tried to get close to her because of her money. All in all, I don’t think there’s anything Leticia could have done at that point to make Ms. Borden proud to be her mother-in-law.”

  Emma flicked a speck of invisible dust off of a bubble-wrapped package. “She was sick about how Austin had turned out, and from what she said a couple of times, I believe she thought Leticia was helping him get drugs, so he’d be dependent on her.”

  “Well,” Marty said, “from what my husband has told me it wouldn’t be the first time that’s happened. Emma, we really have taken up way too much of your time. When would you like us to come tomorrow?”

  “I hate to delay this, but I promised my daughter I’d go with her to the doctor’s office tomorrow. She’s pregnant.” A smile spread across Emma’s face. “It’s her first child and tomorrow the doctor is going to do an ultrasound. It’s kind of a big deal, and my son-in-law is in the military. Actually, he’s in Afghanistan at the moment. I really don’t want to disappoint her.”

  “Of course you don’t, and that’s not a problem,” Marty assured her. “Would one o’clock be a good time for us to come?”

  “Perfect. See you then.”

  When they got in the car, Carl said, “That’s perfect for me too. I can talk to my assistant and get started on an addendum to my career. Thanks again, Marty.”

  “Anytime. Just call it a draw. Your information on the Phillips for my help launching your new career. I’ll pick you up at 12:45 tomorrow afternoon.”

  CHAPTER 17

  Marty dropped Carl off at his shop and headed for home. It was her favorite time of day in the desert. It was that moment when the sky, the surrounding mountains, and the desert splashed against one another with various shades of pinks, purples, and blues. She never tired of watching the kaleidoscope of colors, each hue so brief that if you blinked, you’d miss it.

  When she
got to the compound, she realized she was the last one to arrive. Even Jeff’s car was there, which surprised her. Given that he was working three cases, she would have bet that he’d be late.

  Duke and Patron were waiting at the gate for her, a sight that never failed to make her smile. She remembered Laura’s suggestion that morning, that she take Patron with her on her appraisal. After meeting with Emma and hearing that Camille’s dogs had been placed with rescue groups, she decided to give it a try tomorrow. Even if it didn’t work out, it would only be for half a day.

  She waved to Les, Laura, Mike, and Max. “I need to change clothes, and then I’ll join you. Where’s Jeff? I saw his car when I drove up.”

  “He’s in your house. Said he had a couple of things to do before he joined us,” Les said.

  The door was open, and she could hear Jeff talking on his phone to one of the officers who worked for him. She walked by the office and waved at him on her way to the bedroom. A few minutes later, comfortable in a t-shirt and jeans, she dropped the envelopes Carl had given her on Jeff’s desk and waved at him again as she walked into the courtyard, Patron at her side, Duke having chosen to stay with Jeff.

  “Marty, don’t you ever get tired of having a shadow?” John asked with a laugh.

  “No, now that Duke has abandoned me for Jeff, it makes me feel wanted,” she said as she approached the table.

  “Why do I have the feeling that you have all kinds of things to tell us?” Laura asked.

  “Because I do, but rather than repeat everything, I’ll wait until Jeff gets out here. It sounded to me like he was wrapping up a call, so it shouldn’t be too long.” She turned to John. “So, what’s on the resident chef’s menu tonight?”

  “Good old bacon wrapped filet mignons, baked potatoes with all the trimmings, and a spinach salad with a sweet dressing. For dessert I have about five different kinds of ice cream. Used up all my creativity earlier in the day, but I didn’t think anyone would mind having a nice steak for dinner.”