Murder & The Monkey Band: High Desert Cozy Mystery Series (6 page)

After Nikki and Jeff had left, Marty
turned to Laura and said, “Back to work. We need to finish up the dining room.
That’s going to take some time because the antiques in there are really superb,
and they need to be fully documented. Rosa, we’ll be in the dining room if you
need us.”

When Rosa was safely out
of earshot, Laura said, “Did you notice how nervous Rosa was when Nikki
screamed that the Monkey Band was missing? Honestly, she turned pale and her
hand involuntarily went to her heart. That’s usually a tell - or that’s what us
psychics call it when someone does something involuntarily, and it’s very
revealing. It’s a subconscious thing people don’t even know they’re doing, and
it indicates they’re nervous or scared or know more than they’re telling about
something.”

“I was so busy looking to
see what Nikki was so upset about that I wasn’t paying attention to Rosa. We
can talk about it tonight.”

“Sure, if you’ll tell me
what’s up with you and the handsome detective. Wow, what a hunk he is! And if
you don’t mind me saying so, good sister of mine, I think he’s really
interested in you.”

“Laura, absolutely nothing
is up between the two of us. We’ll just probably be seeing more of him because
he’s the detective assigned to the case.”

“Right,” Laura said
grinning mischievously. “Okay, I won’t harass you about him and the look he
gave you, but you could sure do a lot worse.”

“For your information, I
am not interested in any men at the present time, and that certainly includes
Detective Combs. Now hold the tape measure, so I can get some accurate
measurements. By the way, remind me I need to call Carl Mitchell and the
antique book guy whose name I can’t remember when we get home. Carl owns an
antique shop in downtown Palm Springs, and is very knowledgeable about almost
all antiques, but his real expertise is jewelry, and from what I saw when Jim
took the jewelry out of the safe in his mother’s bedroom, those pieces need to
be examined by an expert. I could probably do it myself, but in an appraisal
like this one, I’d be doing a disservice not to have them examined by Carl.
Since the Will may be contested, it’s even more critical to cross all the t’s
and dot the i’s.”

The remainder of the
afternoon was spent appraising items in the dining room and two of the three
bathrooms in the house. Even though there weren’t extensive collections in
either of the bathrooms, antique mirrors and other decorative objects had to be
appraised.

At 4:30, Marty turned to
Laura and said, “I’m brain dead. All I want to do is go home, pet Duke, and
have a glass of wine. Let’s find Rosa and tell her we’ll see her in the
morning.”

“Can we leave all your
equipment here, or do we need to take it with us?”

“It would be a lot easier
if we left it here, but I want to look at the photos I took and make sure they
all came out okay. I also took a lot of photos of the jewelry, ones I want to
send to Carl to give him a broad overview of what’s here. Usually when I have
him join me in an appraisal, we meet before his shop opens at ten.”

“How long do you think it
will take him?” Laura asked. “I guess I’m asking what time we need to be here
in the morning.”

“I think I’ll make an
appointment to meet with him here at the house at eight in the morning. That
will give him almost an hour and forty-five minutes to do the appraisal, and he
can get back to his shop in time to open. That should be plenty of time. I can
help him by taking the types of photos he’ll need for the appraisal. If he can
meet with us at eight, I’ll call Rosa. The other alternative is for him to come
to the house after his shop closes.”

Twenty minutes later on
their drive back to the compound, Laura looked out the window and said,
“There’s the compound in the distance. It always makes me happy to come home to
it. I still can’t believe I ever found it, and it was for sale. It sure was my
lucky day. It’s so perfect. Les says he’s done his best art work ever since he
started living here.”

“I like him, but I don’t
recall you ever telling me how you met him,” Marty said.

“One of Alliance’s
insureds is an art gallery. Dick thought we should be represented at the grand
opening of their second gallery. The artist they were showcasing was Les. I
attended the grand opening as a representative of Alliance, and that’s where I
met Les. That was over five years ago. We have a wonderful relationship, and I
still pinch myself every day to make sure it’s really me he’s interested in.”

“You sell yourself short,”
Marty said. “What does he think about your psychic abilities?”

“At first it was difficult
for him to accept. After he personally witnessed things happening that I’d
predicted, he became a believer. Now when I suggest he do something or not do
it, he never questions me, which is nice.”

Marty pulled off onto the
gravel road on the outskirts of High Desert and parked in front of the
compound. “Home, sweet home,” she said. “I’ll meet you in the courtyard in a
little while, after I call Carl and the book man, and I’ll show you photos of
what we did today. I also need to send them over to Lucy at the drugstore, so
she can develop them, and I can pick them up tomorrow on the way home.”

“You’re on,” Laura said as
she opened the gate of the stone fence that surrounded the compound. “Give me
twenty minutes.”

“Ladies, how was your
day?” John asked from the front door of his house. “I heard your car drive up.
I hope you worked up an appetite because Max has been helping me, and we’re
having lamb meatballs in a warm yogurt sauce over egg noodles for dinner. It’s
a new dish for me, and I need to test it out on you before I put it on The Red
Pony’s menu. There was some detective here a little while ago who said it
smelled so good he’d love an invitation to dinner, so I invited him. I made
plenty of it.”

Laura and Marty looked at
each other in disbelief. “Are you talking about Detective Jeff Combs?” Marty
asked.

“Yep. He’s the very one.
Seemed like a nice enough guy. He was looking for you, Marty. He said something
about the Monkey Band. I told him I didn’t have a clue what he was talking
about. He’ll be back about six and asked me to tell you he needed to talk to
you.”

Swell. Just swell. I hope
to heck my eyelid doesn’t start twitching, and I can look and act like a normal
person, not like some swooning teenager, which is how he makes me feel. I just
don’t need a distraction like him in my life right now. I haven’t even been
divorced a year. I remember reading it takes a month for every year you were
married to get over someone. Think the article was wrong, because I already am
definitely over Scott, and there’s no denying that Jeff is very attractive. I
also can’t deny that there seemed to be some sort of chemistry going on between
the two of us when we met this afternoon.

Marty opened the door of
her house and turned to wave at Laura and John. “See you in a few minutes. I
need to make a couple of phone calls and get into something more comfortable.”

Marty spent a few minutes petting
Duke who had been faithfully watching for her return. When she was gone, his
favorite thing to do was to lie down with his chin on his paws and look through
the gap under the front fence gate, waiting for her return. From what Laura,
Les, and John told her, as soon as he spotted her car, he would jump up and
stand next to the gate, his tail wagging furiously in anticipation of her
impending arrival. This evening had been no exception.

She put her camera down on
the small oak table in the great room, which was another word for a combined
living room, dining room, and kitchen, although it wasn’t all that great in
size. Two small bedrooms and a bathroom completed the house, but it was really
all the space she needed. Duke got on his dog bed and looked up at her with his
big brown eyes. Whenever Marty spoke to him, his tail thumped as if he could understand
every word she was saying. She poured herself a glass of cold chardonnay wine,
looked up the name of the antique book expert, called him, and made an
appointment with him to appraise the books. The next call she made was to Carl
Mitchell, the jewelry expert.

“Palm Springs Antique
Shoppe. May I help you?” the voice that answered the phone said.

“Carl Mitchell, please.
This is Marty Morgan.”

“It’s Carl, Marty. What
can I do for you this fine evening?”

She told him she was
involved in an appraisal and there was, what looked to her, like some very good
jewelry in it. “Carl, I took some quick photos of the jewelry. If you have a
minute I’d like to send them to you. What’s your email address? I’ll scan them
on my home computer and send them to you right now as an attachment, and
hopefully then we can talk about them.”

“Sure, there’s no one in
the shop, so that would be fine.” A moment later he said, “Got them. Wow!
That’s some pretty high end jewelry. I’d swear I’ve seen a couple of those
pieces. What do you need from me?”

“I’m doing an estate
appraisal for a man whose mother was murdered. Any chance you could meet me at
the house tomorrow morning at eight? I know you like to open your shop at ten,
so that should give you plenty of time to do an appraisal of the jewelry
pieces. You can send me your appraisal report in the next week or so, and I can
attach your report to my appraisal.”

“That will work well for
me. Why don’t you fill me in on the details?”

“A woman by the name of
Pam Jensen was murdered, and it’s her estate…”

“Wait, you don’t need to
go any farther. I knew Pam well, and I was shocked and surprised when I read in
the local paper she’d been murdered. She frequented my shop and was one of the
most astute antique collectors I’ve ever known. Speaking of her, a kind of
funny thing happened to me that she would have appreciated. I had a call
earlier today from a man who wanted to know what the pieces from the Meissen
Monkey Band were worth. It immediately brought memories of Pam to mind. She
told me once that Henry Siegelman wanted to buy three pieces of her Monkey Band
set, but she wouldn’t sell them to him.

“She invited me to her
house once to look at her antiques. I’ll never forget the Monkey Band. That set
is one of the few things I’ve ever coveted in all the years I’ve been in
antiques. Whoever inherits her estate will get a real bonus with that. An
original set like hers is extremely rare, and hers was in perfect condition.”

Marty was quiet for a
moment and then she said, “Carl, did you happen to get the name of the person
who was inquiring about the Monkey Band set?”

“No, why do you ask?”

“The Monkey Band set is
missing from Pam’s home. From what I’ve been able to tell, it’s the only thing
missing. A friend of hers came to the house today and realized it was gone. I
don’t know if that’s a motive for murder, but it certainly is suspicious.
Detective Jeff Combs is coming over to my home in a little while to find out
more about the Monkey Band. He’s the detective assigned to the case. I’ll tell
him about the call you received.”

“I wish I could help you
more, Marty, but I get so many calls from people who want to know how much
something is worth that I kind of tune them out unless they want to sell it. I
do remember asking the man why he wanted to know, and he said he was just
curious. From his response I couldn’t tell if he was interested in buying or
selling a Monkey Band set, or if he’d seen something about the Monkey Band in
an antique magazine and it was nothing more than idle curiosity. Now I wish I’d
paid more attention to him, particularly since Pam was murdered.”

“Don’t beat yourself up
about it. You had no way of knowing. Can you tell me anything about a man by
the name of Henry Siegelman? Do you know anything about him?”

“I’ve never met him. He
hires people to frequent antique shops and auctions and look for things to add
to his collection. It’s pretty common knowledge that his love is Meissen, and
he’s desperate to complete his Monkey Band set. Evidently he’s missing three
pieces. Other than that, he’s kind of a mystery man. Everyone in the antique
world knows about him, but nobody seems to actually know him.”

“Carl, this just popped
into my head because we’re dealing with a murder mystery. Do you think he could
have been desperate enough to kill in order to complete his set? Maybe not him
if he didn’t even bother to come to your shop himself, but maybe he could have
hired someone?”

“Marty, I can’t answer
that. Like I said, I’ve never met the man. I do know collectors often become
obsessed with certain antiques, so maybe he was involved in it. I just don’t
know. I’ve got to go Marty, a customer just walked in. I know where Pam’s home
is, and I’ll meet you there tomorrow morning at eight. Thanks for thinking of
me, and I wish I could have been more helpful to you.”

“See you tomorrow, and
don’t worry, you’ve been very helpful. Thanks. Enjoy your evening.” After she
ended the call, she sat for a few moments thinking about what Carl had said.

So Henry Siegelman needs
three pieces to complete his collection of the Monkey Band. Wow! I better tell
Jeff about that. You never know what someone might do when they become obsessed
with something.