rain rattled the windows. She turned on a switch by the library door and the room was flooded with soft light.
Forty minutes later, she was forced to admit defeat. She’d been through every ledger—Julian was doing extremely well, much better than his ex-wife thought—and had carefully gone through all the correspondence she could find.
One drawer held stacks of elegant writing paper, all engraved with the name Dunster Weald, the address, and a small crest. Julian’s old neighborhood in Southie didn’t run to logos of this sort—
brand names were the rule of thumb—and Faith wondered idly whose escutcheon Julian had pinched. Besides the stationery, there were Mont Blanc pens, ink bottles, even some lowly paper clips and a stapler, but not a word about George, to George, or from George. She’d pushed and pulled at the fixed portions of the desk, but if there was a secret drawer, it would remain so. Julian either did not use a computer or kept it else-where. She suspected the former. The desk hadn’t yielded any disks. There was a fax and answering machine behind a row of faux books on one of the shelves, however, a concession to this century.
Faith tapped at the other rows, but they were all the leather-bound volumes they appeared to be. Could Julian have another workplace? Yet, Stephanie had referred to the library as “Daddy’s office.” It was Courtney who termed it the library when they were discussing where to serve.
Daddy might keep records, especially records he wasn’t eager to share, in other places. Faith looked behind the prints and paintings for a wall safe—although she would have been hard put to crack it if she found one, possessing skills with neither tumblers nor dynamite.
She was soon forced to concede that if this room held any secrets, it wasn’t going to yield them to her. She turned off the lights and directed her attention to the rest of the downstairs rooms.
After a cursory glance in each, Faith ruled them out. They weren’t rooms Julian used; they were showrooms. He wouldn’t keep documents, particularly incriminating ones, in furniture that he was trying to sell, discriminating buyers pulling drawers open, lifting lids. She was happy to see a new table in place in the dining room. It was the same size as the one Julian had sold to the Averys, although not so stunning. She also paused a moment in appreciation at what she already thought of as “their sideboard.”
Moving upstairs, she carefully looked in each bedroom, every closet, even peering into the hampers in the baths. Some of the rooms were being used for storage, and it was hard to move about among the chests, tables, and chairs. She opened drawers, wardrobes, and cupboards, finding nothing more than creased tissue paper, empty hangers, and dust. None of the rooms contained file cabinets, not even old wooden ones.
It wasn’t hard to spot Julian’s room. The bed was hung with deep crimson silk damask draperies, neatly tied to each post with gold tassels.
A kilim carpet covered the uneven floorboards.
Dunster Weald might have started out life as a farmhouse, but it was a manor house now. Unlike the other rooms, this one had little furniture.
Beside the bed was a large round table covered with stacks of books, catalogs, a framed picture of Stephanie as a little girl, a lamp, and a phone.
A banjo wall clock eliminated the need for a Westclox. Julian must have an internal alarm, like Napoleon, waking himself up at the self-appointed hour each day, or night. An armoire, a comfortable-looking chaise, and two ladderback chairs, one by each window, completed the inventory.
Searching the pile next to the bed was impossible without toppling everything over, yet there didn’t seem to be any personal correspondence or a receipt book of any kind. Faith turned her attention to the armoire. It had been fitted out with drawers on one side, the other with a small television, VCR, and stereo. So Julian had a weakness for Leno or Letterman, besides Lowestoft.
Julian Bullock was obsessively neat about his personal effects. Socks were sorted by color in ordered rows. Piles of crisply ironed pajamas from Brooks Brothers, and boxers from the same source, filled two more drawers. Another held sweaters, folded so expertly that Julian could always get a job at the Gap if this antiques thing didn’t work out. The only scrap of paper Faith found was a price tag on a yet-unworn cardigan.
The drawer beneath the entertainment system held a few tapes—
Discouraged, she returned to the kitchen to finish cleaning the oven, first checking the pantry.
Julian didn’t have any canisters. Or much food of any kind, except packages of Pepperidge Farm cookies, tea, and a shelf stacked with canned soups. The few drawers and cupboards, as well as the Hoosier kitchen, were a bust also.
As she scrubbed at the grime, trying not to in-hale the noxious fumes, she tried to think what to do next. She’d been so sure she could find some sort of evidence that would link the two men, which she’d present to John Dunne, leaving the police to do the rest. Everything had been falling into place, and now it was all falling apart. She’d identified James Green and his prints had matched the ones in both the Fairchild and Winslow houses. Then he disappeared. He could be out of the country, too, by now, like Gloria.
Gloria Farnum. Why would she go to Canada if she wasn’t guilty? Was it possible that she
Faith was back to him. It felt right and she had learned to trust her snap judgments most of all.
The oven sparkled and Faith stuffed the paper towels, sponges, rubber gloves, and empty oven cleaner can into a trash bag she’d brought along for the purpose. It was white, not green. She was avoiding those particular Hefty bags for the moment. Body bags were green, too.
The rain had stopped and there were puddles in the back of the house on the flagstone walk.
Fragrant deep pink and white peonies lined the walk, the blossoms bowed low by the storm.
She’d reset the alarm and locked the door behind her. She’d leave the trash bag in the barn and that way she’d know where to leave the trash from tomorrow night, as well. There was a small shed attached to the large post-and-beam barn and it occurred to Faith that Julian might have another office out there—or store his more sensitive records in the hayloft or one of the horse stalls.
Why hadn’t she thought of this before? The barn was a much better hiding place than the house.
Her heart beat a little faster and she quickened her steps. There was still a chance that she’d be able to prove her hunch.
Stuffing the bag in one of the trash cans just inside the door, Faith switched on the light. A ladder reached to the loft, which was filled with hay.
For the picturesque horses, she presumed. An open door led into the shed. It housed a complete workshop, much sawdust, and piles of wood. Julian the handyman, the restorer, the faker? Back in the main part of the barn, the stalls were filled with strange creatures—the quilt-covered articles described by Courtney. Faith picked up the edge of the first one. It proved to be two layers of mover’s quilts and indeed very ratty. She pulled them up and a lovely tilt-top table with a piecrust edge came to light. Soon she’d exposed all sorts of pieces—a bedroom set of painted cottage furniture, a Shaker sewing cabinet, a carved pine blanket chest, and an enormous maple secretary.
The dim light and clouds of dust from the hay added to the sensation that she had stepped into another world, Pandora’s world, where the lifting of a lid, or the opening of a drawer, might release all manner of ills. She found herself moving slowly, carefully.
There were several more stalls. In the one nearest the workshop, a number of items, most the same size, stood—queer shapes under wraps. She started at the rear, crouching low, looking underneath each cover. It was a set of lyre-backed dining room chairs. But the front item was long and low. She tugged gingerly at the quilt tucked over and around it. A corner was revealed. She fell back on her heels and pulled furiously at the rest of the covering, throwing it to one side. It was a drawer, a sideboard drawer.
Her sideboard drawer.
She didn’t need any further documentation. Julian Bullock was guilty. Guilty of receiving stolen goods— arranging for goods to be stolen no doubt—and guilty of murder. She had him. She had him at last!
“Might one inquire as to the nature of your business here?” Julian’s menacing voice had shed every vestige of charm.
