Winter's Child

“A friend, not a girlfriend. I mean, a friend who happens to be a girl.”

Reese and I were both laughing by then.

“Oh, the hell with both of you!” He jumped out of the truck and headed for his own wheels.

“She was cute,” said Reese. “All the same, I bet she thinks twice before she shoves her trash out a window again.”

C H A P T E R

10

They are honest in their dealings with one another. Where-fore no one keeps watch.

—Theophrastus

Saturday morning, 22 January

Despite the cold, the director of the Morrow House was pacing the flagstone terrace out front in his shirtsleeves when Dwight and Paul Radcliff arrived, followed by a couple of Radcliff’s officers.

“Thank goodness you’re here!” said Frederick Mayhew. His teeth were chattering, but whether from anxiety or the frosty air was hard to say. “I simply don’t know what to think. Everything was locked and I’m sure the alarm system was set when I left. We’ve never had a rob-bery before. Oh, some of the children might pick something up —we did lose a doll bonnet once but the child’s mother made her bring it back—but this!”

He opened the door for them so vigorously that it banged hard against the wrought-iron stop and Dwight almost expected the beveled glass to shatter.

“We keep them in the library,” Mayhew told them and led the way through the spacious entrance hall and large front parlor to a smaller room lined with bookcases.

“There!”

On a rectangular oak library table that stood in the center of the room sat a glass-topped display case. An empty glass-topped display case.

Indentations in the crushed red velvet marked the places where a small derringer, a dueling pistol, and a long-barreled revolver, each neatly labeled, once lay. The case was closed but not locked, as Mayhew quickly demonstrated, yet there appeared to be no scratches on the lock itself.

“Who else knows how to work the alarm system?”

asked Radcliff.

“Just Jonna.”

“And when’s the last time you saw the gun?”

Mayhew pushed his rimless glasses up on his nose and frowned. His pale blond hair stood up in disordered tufts.

“I can’t honestly say. Definitely during Christmas week because a troop of Boy Scouts visited, and boys are always interested in firearms.”

“The case is normally locked?”

“Oh, absolutely. We couldn’t have anyone handling them, tarnishing the silver plating. The temptation to touch is such a human foible, isn’t it? Taken together, the three guns are valued at nearly half a million dollars, and the presentation gun is one-of-a-kind. Irreplaceable.”

“Half a million!” Radcliff exclaimed. “And you kept them out like this?”

Mayhew gave a fatalistic shrug. “My hands are tied. It’s a condition of the donors. They quite naturally like to see their names on the display cards. Besides, they are well 9 documented and the insurance company had them laser-tagged with our own ID code. No one could sell them.”

“Who has the key to this case?”

“There are only two. They hang with the rest of the keys on a board in a locked cupboard, and before you ask, both keys are still there.”

“Then who has access to that cupboard?” Radcliff asked patiently.

“Well, I do, of course, and Jonna. And there’s a spare key that we keep in a vase on the mantel in our office.”

“Who knows about the spare?”

“Only Jonna and I.”

“What about a cleaning woman?”

“Cleaning man,” he corrected, shaking his head. “Dix Lunsford may have noticed it when he dusts, but I doubt if he knows what it’s for. Besides, he’s never in the office alone. Not that we don’t trust him, heavens no. He and his wife used to work for Jonna’s mother and he’s devoted to Jonna. He wouldn’t take a straight pin that didn’t belong to him.”

“Does he have keys to the house itself?”

“Certainly not! There are only five. One for Jonna, one for me, and one for each of the three officers on our board of trustees.” He paused and pushed up his glasses and sheepishly admitted that perhaps they knew the alarm code as well.

A gust of cold air announced the opening of the front door.