Framed (17 page)

“That same old business about the Berger-Bingham murders. I just need to nail down some dates. Hey, is there a way to make copies of the pages I need?”

Jim showed her how to do that and then took his leave, wearing a melodramatic look of martyrdom. “What I don’t do for the press!”

Sue found the microfiche she wanted, but she skipped over the reports on Jerry and Abby. She checked her memories of Yaneque’s accident, then went on to the brief article about the improper auto registrations and the tax problems it was causing for Douglass. It was a little puzzling. It seemed a number of cars and trucks that should have been registered in Mill Falls had been registered in Douglass instead. The taxes on those cars had then been paid to Douglass rather than to Mill Falls. Once the problem was discovered, the city of Mill Falls pressured Douglass to return the funds, but Douglass had already spent the money. At the time of the story, Douglass was trying to figure out how they could repay the money they were not entitled to without busting their town budget. According to the newspaper reports, angry letters flew between the lawyers for the two towns.

Sue sat back and thought about it all. How had the improper registration occurred in the first place? Normally, a car owner showed up at town hall in whatever town he or she lived in, registered the car, and paid the taxes. In small towns where everyone knew everyone else, there was no need to verify the addresses given on the registration forms. Sometimes, however, people mailed the forms in, especially when they were renewing the registration. Ah, she thought, that’s how it happened. But why would anyone bother to register a car in one town when they lived in another? The taxes were the same all over the state.

One thing varied among the towns in New Hampshire. Sue took a break from the dingy archives in the basement and made a quick telephone call. Sure enough, insurance was a lot more expensive in Mill Falls than it was in Douglass. She wondered if other small towns had experienced a rash of wrong registrations. And then she had another thought:

Mike Bingham had owned an insurance agency.

Chapter Twenty-Three

While Sue was in Douglass and Ginny was upstairs with Jenna, Elsie worked downstairs to log in the weekend’s new work orders that would be processed in the next two weeks. The precision measuring and double-checking were soothing to her roiled nerves. By noon, she had set up the work to be done on ten pieces, ordered the mats and frames as needed, and made notes on any questions that arose.

Elsie had just finished up the last piece, a double matted arrangement of five openings for old family photos, when she heard a knock on the door followed immediately by Yaneque’s entrance. The courier carried a plastic zipper-top bag with a dozen or so assorted buttons in it. Another advantage of using RunAround was Yaneque’s less stringent packaging requirement compared to other delivery services, although she could be strict when it came to fragile or valuable items.

“I’ve delivered some strange things in this job,” she said as she came in, “but this takes the cake. What the heck are you planning to do with these?”

Taking the bag with a chuckle, Elsie signed the delivery receipt and pulled an empty frame, some old-fashioned wire-rim glasses, and a rusty pair of scissors out of the storage area. Without a word, she put them on the table, took the buttons out of the bag, and set them into place along with the scissors and glasses. Yaneque drew a deep breath.

“Oh, wow,” she marveled. “Are those real antique buttons?”

Elsie picked one or two up. “Some of them are. I think these are ivory. The scissors came from a yard sale, but they look neat, don’t they? I think we’re still waiting for a bit of crocheted lace before we finish this piece.”

“That’s beautiful. I never would’ve thought of doing that.”

They chatted a bit, comparing notes about the weather and their respective businesses. Yaneque asked about Maculato’s training and Elsie asked if another PT Cruiser was in the cards yet. Yaneque was almost ready to leave when Elsie said, as if it didn’t matter, “I’ve been meaning to ask you…that day you had your accident, was it snowing when you got to Jerry Berger’s place?”

“No, it was just changing over,” Yaneque began. She stared at Elsie. “I—how did I remember that? I haven’t been able to recall anything after leaving my house that day!”

“What else do you remember?” Elsie asked, again without any pressure. “What was his road like?”

“It was muddy and potholed. This is great! I can see it now. I remember turning onto his road—he lived back in the boonies, you know. It was cold and there was snow in the air. Jerry was waiting for me outside.”

“Did you see any other car there?”

“No. Just him, standing there with a package in his hand. He was really nervous about something. He didn’t want to chat like he usually did. I gave him his receipt and I said something about why he had to live back of beyond, and then—” she faltered. “I don’t remember anything else. Geez, Elsie, how did you do that? Even when I was in rehab I couldn’t remember that much.”

Elsie shrugged. “It’s a trick I learned when my mom was losing her memory. Sometimes if I asked something very specific, she could remember it. It didn’t always work.”

Yaneque tilted her head and tapped her finger against her lips. “They told me my memory might come back some day, in bits and pieces. They said it might take a long time, too, or it might never happen. What made you think of it?”

Elsie touched her finger to her nose. “Thinking about my mother. I hope it doesn’t bring up bad memories for you. It must have been awful.”

“It probably was, but I don’t remember. Even now, I don’t remember any more of it. Just that little bit, like a scene in a snow globe. Thank you! I’ll call up my doctor and see if we can go any further with it. I hate having this big hole in my mind.”

“I’m glad you aren’t upset. I wouldn’t want you to be mad at me.”

“Oh, no! I’m so happy you asked. It means that part of my mind is healing. I’ve always been worried I might’ve done something really stupid and forgotten it.” She giggled.

Yaneque bounced out the door, looking considerably relieved. Elsie felt as if she had played a dirty trick on the courier. Despite Yaneque’s gratitude, she was displeased with herself. But she had gleaned one shred of information; Abby Bingham wasn’t at Jerry Berger’s when Yaneque arrived there.

****

Upstairs, now that Jenna had gone home, Ginny was on the phone. She seemed to spend half her working life on the phone these days. There was one more gap to fill in before she could feel confident about the provenance of the Berger. Even though she was sure of her identification, if Matt Baldwin’s wild tale about the Rotarian was correct, it would add a wonderful bit of color to the history of the piece. As if the deaths of the painter and his model needed any embellishment.

She had, after half a dozen phone calls, determined which local Rotary conducted road cleanups on Temple Pass and coaxed the name of the club president out of the Churchville town clerk. Ginny was now waiting for the man to pick up his phone and wondering how she was going to approach him.

“Hello?”

“Is this Jeff Jasper?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Mr. Jasper, my name is Ginny Brent. I’m a freelance writer, and I’m doing a story on the different adopt-a-highway groups in southern New Hampshire.” She rubbed her nose at the glibness of her lie. “Do you have a few minutes to talk to me?”

He swallowed the bait, eager to get publicity for his group. “Sure. We’ve been doing that for ten or twelve years now.”

“You do the section of highway that runs over Temple Pass, don’t you?”

“Uh-huh. Let me tell you, it gets real messed up with all the traffic through there.”

“How often do you do the clean up?”

“Twice a year, spring and fall. Soon after the snow melts and then again in October after the leaf peepers go away. You know how they love to get up on Pack Monadnock there? Well, you wouldn’t believe the trash they throw out of their cars. Them and the truckers.”

“What sort of things do you find along the road?”

“Mostly food wrappers, beer cans, coffee cups. Water bottles, that sort of thing.”

“How about car parts, tires?”

“Uh-huh, some of that. Windshield wipers. I never had a windshield wiper come off my car, but I guess it happens. We find a lot of them. The mud flaps from trucks, they come off a lot, too. A tailpipe now and then. Once we found a whole brake rotor, must’ve been from an accident.”

“Do you go up there yourself, Mr. Jasper? How many members work on the crew?”

“Well, we try to get as many as we can, you know. Members, spouses, kids. A lot depends on the weather. If it’s a decent day, more people come. If it’s real hot or real cold, or if it’s raining, not so many. I’d say at least ten each time, sometimes more. We buy subs and drinks and have a little picnic there at the park afterward.”

“It sounds like fun.”

“Yeah, it is. I mean, it’s hard work, but we make it fun. See who can bag the most stuff, or find the weirdest things.”

Good, this was heading the way she wanted to go. “What’s the weirdest thing you ever found? You personally or someone else in the group?”

“Hmm. Set of falsies once. One of those stuffed deer heads—you know what I mean? The trophy to hang on the wall? Yeah, I think we found two of them one year. Couple times we found eyeglasses, donated them to the Lion’s Club. Oh, and one year one of the guys claimed he found a painting.”

“A painting?” Ginny put a world of doubt into her voice to cover her excitement. “One of those velvet Elvis things?”

“No, I think it was a nude. Some br—” He stopped and censored himself. “A naked lady in the woods. I never saw it, but everybody talks about it.”

“Gee, I’d really like to talk to the man who found that,” Ginny encouraged him. “Would it be in the club records someplace? Do you keep a list of who worked on that project and some of the things they found?”

“I can find out for you,” Jasper offered. “What paper did you say you work for?”

After eliciting his promise to call her back with the name and phone number of the Rotarian who had found what she was sure was the Berger, Ginny left the garrulous old man with the impression she was going to submit an article to several of the local and regional magazines.
Maybe I could write and submit something
. She patted her nose. Maybe it wasn’t a lie.

Chapter Twenty-Four

The Chowdah Bowl was busier than ever this evening. Sue stood in line at the counter about two weeks after the adventure in the woods. Every table was full. Servers bustled between the dining room and the kitchen as if on roller skates. There was a pleasant rumble of conversation punctuated by the clink of spoons in crockery and the rattle of ice-filled glasses.

She stretched her back and shifted from one foot to another. After a long day at work, she was tired and looking forward to a hot meal. Half a dozen customers still stood between her and the take-out counter, even though Ginny had called in her order early in the afternoon. As Brush & Bevel prepared for the unveiling of Jerry’s painting, the staff planned to go through the details after hours, over bowls of Mark Horner’s good chowder. Sue hoped the meeting wouldn’t run too late.

“Hi there,” said a voice in her ear.

She turned to find one of Jemmie’s erstwhile employees queuing up behind her. “Hi, Sandy. How are things going?” She stifled her guilty feeling. If she and Elsie had just left well enough alone, Sandy and her coworkers would still have jobs. As it was, with Jemmie still held in the hospital, his shop was nearly defunct. The staff was taking care of the repairs and orders he’d left unfinished, but they could take in no new work. Jemmie might be a mental junkyard, but he was an inspired jeweler; no one could take his place. It didn’t look like the business would survive without him.

“As well as can be expected,” Sandy replied. “We have about another week’s worth of stuff to catch up on, and then we’re done.”

They shuffled forward a step or two. “What happens next?” Sue asked.

Sandy shrugged. “I guess somebody will take over. Jemmie must have had a partner or somebody who will have to oversee the mess. I can’t see him coming back any time soon. Besides, his reputation is shot.” She rolled her eyes at the pun.

“I feel bad about that. It’s sort of my fault—”

“Oh, don’t worry about it. Bob and Karen both have new jobs lined up already, and I have a couple of interviews. In a way, it’s kind of a relief. Jemmie’s been so weird lately.”

They stepped aside to allow a heavily-laden server to pass by. “Weirder than usual?” Sue asked. “Ever since I put up that poster with all the frogs?”

Sandy chuckled. “Oh, way before then. He was actually pretty good for a long time, and then about two weeks before the poster, he started freaking out again.”

“Do you know, I actually found out there is a kind of frog that has a tooth when it’s a tadpole? Just one tooth. It’s a desert toad, and it uses the tooth to cannibalize other tadpoles. Weird.”

Sandy shuddered. “Please don’t ever tell Jemmie. He’d never get over it.”

“I can’t imagine being so scared of something like a frog, or bugs, or even spiders. Most of them can’t hurt us. Was he always afraid of frogs?”

“As long as I’ve known him.” Sandy thought about it for a moment as the line shuffled forward another couple of steps. “Mind you, the frog thing sort of came and went, but he was always worried about bugs and such. He used to be really paranoid about frogs when I first started working here, but then it got a little better. He worried about them, but he only started panicking about them again a few months ago.”

Sue laughed. “As long as I can remember, he’s been coming downstairs to check on whether frogs were chewing on his storage room door. But you’re right, come to think of it—the frog thing only got bad last fall. I wonder what set him off.”

Sandy shrugged. “The mind is a mysterious thing. Who knows? I must say, though, as bad as his fear of critters was, he really only freaked out about frogs.”

“Poor guy,” Sue said, without any deep sympathy. “I hope he can get some help.”