Checked Out

Book 13: Dead-End Job Mystery

by Elaine Viets

Genres: Amateur Sleuth; Cozy Mystery; Female Sleuths

Synopsis

PI Helen Hawthorne goes undercover at a local library to find a painting and solve a murder in the national bestselling mystery series.

Wealthy socialite Elizabeth Cateman Kingsley has hired Helen to find a missing John Singer Sargent painting, owned by her late father. After his death, many of Davis Kingsley’s books were donated to the Flora Park Library, and his daughter suspects the small watercolor—worth a million dollars—was tucked away inside one of those dusty tomes.
 
To search the stacks, Helen applies for a job as a library volunteer and discovers the library has a catalog of complaints—from a mischievous calico cat to the mysterious disappearance of various items that some of the staff are attributing to a ghost. Things only get worse when a dead body turns up in a parking lot. Now Helen is bound and determined to find the killer as well as the painting—before she’s taken out of circulation herself.
 

Release date: May 5, 2015

Publisher: Berkley

Print pages: 288

Sample

Also by Elaine Viets

OBSIDIAN

For the librarians who gave me so much entertainment between the covers

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

CHAPTER 1

“I need your help,” Elizabeth Cateman Kingsley said. “My late father misplaced a million dollars in a library book. I want it back.”

Helen Hawthorne caught herself before she said, “You’re joking.” Private eyes were supposed to be cool. Helen and her husband, Phil Sagemont, were partners in Coronado Investigations, a Fort Lauderdale firm.

Elizabeth seemed unnaturally calm for someone with a misplaced million. Her sensational statement had grabbed the attention of Helen and Phil, but now Elizabeth sat quietly in the yellow client chair, her narrow feet in sensible black heels crossed at the ankles, her slender, well-shaped hands folded in her lap.

Helen studied the woman from her chrome-and-black partner’s chair. Somewhere in her fifties, Elizabeth Kingsley kept her gunmetal hair defiantly undyed and pulled into a knot. A thin, knife-blade nose gave her makeup-free face distinction. Helen thought she looked practical, confident and intelligent.

Elizabeth’s well-cut gray suit was slightly worn. Her turquoise-and-pink silk scarf gave it a bold splash of color. Elizabeth had had money once, Helen decided, but she was on hard times now. But how the heck did you leave a million bucks in a library book?

Phil asked the question Helen had been thinking a little more tactfully: “How do you misplace a million in a library book?”

“I didn’t,” Elizabeth said. “My father, Davis Kingsley, did.”

“Is it a check? A bankbook?”

“Oh, no,” she said. “It’s a watercolor.”

CHAPTER 2

Elizabeth sat with her hands folded demurely in her lap, a sly smile on her face. She seemed to enjoy setting off bombshells and watching their effect.

“Perhaps I should explain,” she said. “My family, the Kingsleys, were Florida pioneers. My grandparents moved to Fort Lauderdale in the 1920s and built a home in Flora Park.”

The Kingsleys might have been early local residents, Helen thought, but this pioneer family hadn’t roughed it in a log cabin. The Kingsleys had built a mansion in a wealthy enclave on the edge of Fort Lauderdale during the Florida land boom.

“Grandpapa Woodrow Kingsley made his money in oil and railroads,” Elizabeth said.

“The old-fashioned way,” Phil said.

My silver-haired husband is so charming, only I know he’s calling Woodrow a robber baron, Helen thought.

“For a financier, Grandpapa was a bit of a swashbuckler,” Elizabeth said, and smiled.

Helen decided maybe Elizabeth wasn’t as proper as she seemed.

“He enjoyed financing silent films. He often went to Hollywood. Grandmama was a lady and stayed home.”

The old gal was dull and disapproving, Helen translated. Grandpapa had had to travel three thousand miles to California to go on a toot.

“Grandmama would have nothing to do with movie people. She dedicated herself to helping the deserving poor.”

Heaven help them, Helen thought. Their lives were miserable enough.

“Grandpapa put up the money for a number of classic films, including Forbidden Paradise—that starred Pola Negri—and Erich von Stroheim’s The Merry Widow.”

Films with scandalous women, Helen thought. Did Grandpapa unbuckle his swash for some smokin’-hot starlets?

“Impressive,” Phil said. “Von Stroheim was famous for going over budget. He ordered Paris gowns and monogrammed silk underwear for his actors in Foolish Wives so they could feel more like aristocrats.”

A tiny frown creased Elizabeth’s forehead. She did not like being one-upped.

“When he was in Hollywood, Grandpapa would drink scotch, smoke cigars and play poker,” she said. “He played poker on the set with the cast and crew, including Clark Gable.”

“Wow!” Helen said.

“Oh, Gable wasn’t a star then,” Elizabeth said. “Far from it. He was an extra and Grandpapa thought Gable wouldn’t get anywhere because his ears were too big. Many men made that mistake. Until Gable became the biggest star in Hollywood.”

There it was again, Helen thought, that glimpse of carefully suppressed glee.

“Gable was on a losing streak that night,” Elizabeth said. “He was out of money. He’d lost his watch and his ring. He bet a watercolor called Muddy Alligators.”

“A painting?” Helen said. “What was Gable doing with that?”

“I have no idea, but he was quite attached to it,” Elizabeth said. “He thought gators sunning themselves on a mud bank were manly. Grandpapa won the painting with a royal flush, but he didn’t trust Hollywood types. He made Gable sign it over to him. Gable wrote on the back: I lost this fair and square to Woodrow Kingsley—W. C. Gable, 1924. Gable’s first name was William. He changed his stage name to Clark Gable about then.

“Grandpapa admired the watercolor, and was surprised that a roughneck like Gable owned a genuine John Singer Sargent.”

“Sargent painted muddy reptiles? I thought he did portraits of royalty and beautiful society women,” Phil said.

“He did, until his mid-forties,” Elizabeth said. “Then he had some kind of midlife career crisis and painted landscapes in Europe and America. Sargent painted at least two alligator watercolors when he stayed at the Florida home of John D. Rockefeller.”

“Sargent switched from society dragons to alligators,” Helen said, then wished she could recall her words. Elizabeth’s grandmother was definitely a dragon.

“Dragons in training, usually,” Elizabeth said, and again Helen caught a flash of well-bred amusement. “Most of his society belles were young women.

“Grandmama refused to display the painting in her house. Grandpapa couldn’t even hang it in his office. She said it was ugly. I suspect it also may have been an ugly reminder of his Hollywood high jinks. She banished the alligator watercolor to a storage room.

“Sargent died the next year and Grandpapa had a fatal heart attack seven years later, leaving Grandmama a widow with one son. The watercolor was forgotten for decades.

“Until about five years ago,” Elizabeth said. “My father, Davis Kingsley, inherited the family home in the fifties. Papa was eighty when he found the watercolor in the storage room. Sargent’s work was fashionable again. He had it authenticated and appraised. The watercolor wasn’t worth all that much, maybe three hundred thousand.”

Helen raised an eyebrow and Phil gave her a tiny nod. Three hundred K might not be much to Elizabeth, but the PI pair thought it was a substantial chunk of change.

“But it was worth much more, thanks to what the art world calls ‘association.’ A painting owned—and signed—by a film star brought the price up to more than a million dollars. The story behind it helped, too.

“Papa told everyone he’d discovered a lost family treasure. My brother, Cateman, and I begged him to have it properly stored and insured, but Papa said it wasn’t necessary. ‘It’s in a safe place,’ he’d say. ‘Safer than any vault.’ But we were concerned. Papa suffered from mild dementia by then.

“He died in his sleep six months ago, leaving his estate to Cateman and me. Papa gave me the Sargent watercolor and my brother inherited the family home. When the will was made five years ago, I was happy with that arrangement. I was a single woman with a comfortable income.”

Comfortable. That was how rich people said they were rolling in dough, Helen thought.

“Since then, I’ve had some financial reversals. That watercolor has become important. I need that painting to save my home, and we can’t find it.”

“It was stolen?” Helen said.

“Worse,” she said. “I believe it was accidentally given away. We’ve looked everywhere in the house, checked Papa’s safe-deposit boxes and the safe, but we’ve found no sign of the missing watercolor. My brother even hired people to search the house. We can only conclude that my father hid it in one of his books that were donated to the Flora Park Library.”

“Who gave it away?” Helen asked.

“Scarlett, my brother’s new wife. Cateman recently married his third wife. It’s a May-December marriage. He’s sixty and she’s twenty-three.”

Did Elizabeth disapprove of her new sister-in-law? Helen thought Elizabeth had made a face, like she’d bitten into something sour, but it was hard to tell.

“Cateman and Scarlett moved into the family home immediately after Papa’s funeral, and Scarlett began redecorating.

“Papa had let things slide in recent years. Scarlett doesn’t love books the way he did. I doubt she reads anything but the magazines one finds in supermarket checkout lines.”

Yep, Helen thought. Elizabeth definitely doesn’t like her brother’s new wife.

“Her first act was to get rid of what she called the ‘dusty old books’ in my father’s library, which dates back to Grandpapa’s time. Scarlett donated more than a thousand books to the Flora Park Library. Most of the books were of little value. Papa was a great reader of hardcover popular fiction, and the Friends of the Library began selling those while they had the more valuable books appraised.

“The Friends put ten mysteries on sale for a dollar each, and the hardcovers were bought within a few days. But a patron found the birth certificate for Imogen Cateman, my grandmama, in her thriller. She returned it to the library. Then a man discovered the deed to property in Tallahassee in a spy novel.”

“The Flora Park Library has honest patrons,” Phil said.

“People of quality live there,” Elizabeth said. “I would expect them to return family papers.”

Elizabeth sat a little straighter. She considered herself one of the quality.

“We concluded that my late father hid valuables in his books, and the missing watercolor was in a donated volume.”

“Why don’t you look for it?” Phil asked. “Don’t you know the people at the library?”

“Of course I do,” Elizabeth said. “But my job as a facilitator for my college alumni association takes up all my time.”

Helen had no idea what a facilitator did, but Elizabeth said it so gravely, Helen felt she should have known.

“I could have taken the books back and searched them myself, but that would cause talk.

“I can only give you a small down payment,” Elizabeth said. “But if you find the watercolor, I’ll pay you ten thousand dollars when it’s sold at auction. The library director is a friend and she’s agreed that you can work as a library volunteer, Helen, while you discreetly look for the watercolor.”

“Me?” Helen said. A library, she thought. I’d like that. I’d get to read the new books when they came in, too.

“If Helen takes this job,” Phil said, “how do you know Scarlett didn’t keep the watercolor?”

Helen thought her husband would make a fine portrait—eighteenth-century British, she decided. He had a long, slightly crooked nose, a thin, pale face and thick silver hair. She dragged herself back to the conversation.

“I showed her a picture of one of the alligator watercolors and she said it was ‘gross.’ She prefers to collect what she calls ‘pretty things,’ such as Swarovski crystal.”

“What about your brother?” Helen asked. “Does he have the watercolor?”

“Cateman is an honorable man,” Elizabeth said. “Besides, he has more than enough money.”

Rich people never have enough money, Helen thought.

“He actually hired people to search his house. Why would he do that if he was trying to keep the painting for himself?” Elizabeth asked.

“The search was done after the books were donated to the library?” Phil said.

“Of course,” Elizabeth said. The frown notched deeper into her forehead. She was annoyed. “My brother is most anxious to help me find that artwork. He has sufficient means for himself and Scarlett, but he doesn’t feel he can afford to support me. His two divorces have cost him dearly.”

Now, that’s convincing, Helen thought.

CHAPTER 3

The Flora Park Library was as beautiful as its name, Helen thought. The color of dawn light, the two-story building had a sun-warmed barrel-tile roof and graceful arched windows. A curving wrought-iron fence wrapped around the Mediterranean building like an elegant vine.

She parked her car in the library lot, next to Elizabeth’s. It was a little after ten in the morning and Helen had agreed to go straight to the library with Elizabeth and get started.

Flora Park was an islandlike enclave on the New River, at the edge of Fort Lauderdale. Helen decided the library looked like an estate in the south of France.

“Gorgeous, isn’t it?” Elizabeth said. “Stately.”

“Stately seems so formal,” Helen said. “This library is inviting.”

“Flora Portland would certainly welcome us,” Elizabeth said, as they passed through the open gates surrounding the library gardens. Rustling palm trees shaded the thick, velvety grass. “This was Flora’s house for almost twenty years. It was built to her specifications.”

“She must have been quite a woman,” Helen said.

“Flora was no fragile flower,” Elizabeth said, her heels clicking on the walkway pavers. “She was as strong-willed as she was beautiful. In the early 1890s, she defied her parents to marry the man she loved. Turned down two proposals.”

“Young women didn’t do that back then,” Helen said.

“Especially not rich, well-brought-up ones,” Elizabeth said. “Grandmama told me the story. She admired Flora greatly. The Portland family was in railroads, and she had many suitors. Flora refused to marry a titled Englishman. It wasn’t a love match. He needed pots of money to restore the family home. But Flora learned he’d impregnated a teenage maid and refused him, even though his family did the right thing and married the maid to the second gardener. Flora’s refusal ruined her mother’s attempt to get into London society. She took her troublesome daughter home to New York, where Flora turned down the banker her father favored.

“Instead, Flora eloped to Paris with her college tutor, Lucian Humboldt. Her parents disinherited her, but Flora had a handsome trust from her maternal grandmother. She and Lucian lived in style abroad until the mid-twenties, when she built this mansion.”

Elizabeth opened the library’s etched glass door and she and Helen stepped into a light-filled lobby. Sunlight danced in a crystal chandelier and burnished the sweep of the grand staircase.

But Helen was drawn to the full-length portrait of a brown-haired beauty in a slim lavender gown. She wore her big-brimmed mauve hat at a rakish angle and looked straight at the world.

“Hello, Flora,” Helen said. She studied Flora’s surprisingly modern face with its high cheekbones. A strong woman, she decided. And a smart one.

“This picture was painted right before she eloped, wasn’t it? I can see the triumph in her face.”

“Perceptive,” Elizabeth said. “Flora crowned herself queen of Flora Park when she and her husband moved here in 1925. This was a happy house. The couple hosted literary discussions and musical evenings. When the widowed Flora died in 1941, she left this mansion, their books and a generous trust to Flora Park for a community library—with one stipulation. That picture would stay in the lobby.”

Elizabeth nodded toward a series of arches behind the staircase. “Much of the popular library is back there. The director’s office is down this hall. Alexa Stuart Andrews agreed to meet us at ten thirty this morning.”

“Before we meet Ms. Andrews, please explain these library titles and organizations,” Helen asked. “I’m going to be a volunteer. Does that make me a Friend of the Library?”

“You could be a Friend,” Elizabeth said. “The Friends are a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting the library. Our dues are ten dollars a year. We have our own board, and decide how our fund-raising will benefit the library. Of course, the library staff has some input.”

Helen didn’t want to think about the genteel power struggles those words implied.

“Last year, the Friends gave this library eighty thousand dollars to create a children’s section,” Elizabeth said.

“You have that many children in Flora Park?” Helen asked.

“We have very few young families,” Elizabeth said, “but lots of grandchildren. The Friends bought children’s books and DVDs and child-sized furniture.

“You could pay the dues and become a Friend, but for your investigation you’ll be a volunteer. You’ll work for the library staff and be subject to the library’s policies for volunteers.”

“And Alexa, the director, is the boss?” Helen said.

“You make her sound like she wears a hard hat,” Elizabeth said, but softened her remark with a faint smile. “Alexa is definitely in charge. Most definitely.”

Helen followed Elizabeth down a rather dark hall with lustrous wood floors, carved Spanish tables and curlicued cabinets. “The furniture is from Flora’s time,” Elizabeth said. She stopped at a glass door to a book-lined room with a thick pink-and-gray Oriental rug. “Alexa’s office is the former morning room,” she said. “It overlooks the ground floor and has a view of the back gardens.”

Alexa Andrews was frowning at her black desktop computer. Helen guessed the library director was about her age—early forties. She looked like a successful CEO. Alexa’s shoulder-length dark hair had a dramatic white streak that framed her fine-boned face. Her pale blue suit was soft and stylish.

“Miss Hawthorne,” she said, and shook Helen’s hand. Helen and Elizabeth sat in the button-tufted barrel chairs opposite her desk, and Alexa got down to business.

“Elizabeth has explained her dilemma to me,” she said, “and I’ve agreed to let you work here as a volunteer, even though my decision will make some people very unhappy.”

“Why?” Helen asked.

“Volunteer positions at our library are highly coveted,” she said.

I should have known, Helen thought. The rich want to do their civic duty, but prefer not to get their hands dirty. Raising money for a worthy cause with a fashionable gala was acceptable. Mixing with actual unfortunates was not. Genteel library volunteer positions would be in demand.

“Seraphina Ormond, who belongs to a Flora Park first family, believes she is entitled to the next volunteer position.”

“What’s a first family?” Helen asked.

“Seraphina’s great-grandparents bought one of the first houses in Flora Park.”

“And that real estate deal gives their family the right to rule Flora Park forever?” Helen asked.

“Of course not,” Alexa said, but her smile wasn’t quite as bright. Helen decided to back off. She didn’t want to get into an entitlement debate.

“But they’ve been here so long, the first families have certain expectations,” Alexa said. “I believe these positions should be given on merit. Seraphina and her friends will be quite annoyed when you get the post.”

“Couldn’t you say I’m only here temporarily?” Helen asked.

“Oh, no,” Alexa said. “We must keep your true mission confidential.

“I’ve asked the Friends of the Library to hold off selling the other books from Mr. Kingsley’s library until they’ve been examined. I’ve said it was a legal issue.”

“Which it is,” Elizabeth said. She was wringing her hands and Helen thought she seemed defensive.

“Exactly,” Alexa said. “The last thing we want is someone creating a stir. It’s bad enough we have a ghost.”

“A what?” Helen said.

Alexa sighed, and tugged on her white streak. “I was going to call in a private eye anyway, and I’ve heard that you’re very discreet. Some people believe the ghost of Flora Portland is haunting this library. I think it’s ridiculous. I don’t believe in ghosts. Flora was a fine woman and I’m sure she’s resting in peace, not roaming this library. Besides, I’ve seen signs that a human is behind this alleged haunting.”

“What are the signs?” Helen asked.

“Food is missing from the staff break room, books reshelved in the wrong places and three emergency flashlights have disappeared.”

“The flashlights could have been stolen,” Helen said. “I worked at a bookstore and stock was mis-shelved all the time. As for the missing food, I’ve worked at offices where my colleagues swiped my lunch or ate my snacks.”

“All true, but our hurricane kit was taken, and that was a substantial loss.”

“What was in it?” Helen asked.

“The usual: jugs of water, juices, peanut butter, breakfast bars, canned fruit, raisins, chips, a can opener, paper plates and plastic utensils, trash bags, blankets and pillows, toiletries, wipes, a tarp.”

“Why a tarp?” Helen asked.

“In case there are holes in the building.”

“Right,” Helen said. Floridians were all too familiar with blue tarps after Hurricanes Wilma and Katrina.

“The biggest losses were a battery-operated television and five hundred dollars in small bills to purchase additional supplies.”

“And you haven’t found any peanut butter jars, juice bottles or food wrappers in the library?” Helen asked.

“Nothing that wasn’t left behind by patrons. The TV has disappeared, along with the blankets and pillows.”

“It is October,” Helen said. “And hurricane season is still on for a month.”

“All true, Ms. Hawthorne. But I still don’t believe in ghosts. Nor do I believe our patrons would steal from us. And our staff is completely trustworthy.”

I’ve heard variations on the “everyone here is honest” theme before, Helen thought. The client is usually surprised when a trusted person turns out to be a crook.

“Has Flora always haunted the library?” she asked.

“Certainly not!” Alexa said. “The haunting started about a month ago, after a heated library board meeting. This is a well-built historic home, Ms. Hawthorne, and Flora Portland’s trust is enough to maintain it. But historic homes do not have reinforced floors, and books are heavy. An average hardback weighs close to a pound, and we have several hundred thousand pounds of books in this building.

“At first, we kept the bookshelves along the walls, but as the collection grew, we put a bookcase in the middle of the floor, then another, and, well, they kept multiplying. Now the floors upstairs are sagging and we have problems with the first floor, too.

“We hired an engineer to evaluate the problem. At the board meeting, he told us the cost of reinforcing the floors in this historic building would exhaust the rest of Flora Portland’s trust. The library would have to be closed for at least a year. We were shocked.

“Then the engineer said it would be less expensive to have a new purpose-built library with floors that could bear the load, and new plumbing and heating systems away from the collections. You can imagine the response that got. Our board president said that Flora would turn over in her grave.”

“Would this building be torn down?” Helen asked.

“Oh, no,” Alexa said. “It’s historic. It would be turned into a community center. I’d hate to move, but a new building would have reinforced floors, accessibility ramps, a delivery dock. I love this building, but we might be able to serve our patrons better with a new library. Right now, the board is split—three members want to renovate and three want to build a new library. But our heritage is important. If the library could come up with the money, the vote would be unanimous to renovate.”

“Where do you stand on the matter?” Helen asked.

“I’m completely neutral,” Alexa said. “The matter is still being discussed, but shortly after the meeting, some of our patrons and staff said that Flora Portland was haunting her library. A week later, a patron—a rather excitable older woman—reported seeing a slender young woman with brown hair running through the stacks. Then Lisa, the president of the library board, said she saw the same thing and the so-called ghost was wearing a long lavender dress. Lisa is an influential person here.

“That story made our community paper, the Flora Park Gazette, and since then, the sightings and rumors have been running wild.

“I want these rumors stopped, Ms. Hawthorne,” the director said, and glared at Helen as if she’d started them. “I want you to find that so-called ghost. The library will pay your regular rate. Bring the contract back by five this afternoon and I’ll sign it.”

“Certainly,” Helen said. This is a dream job, she thought. I get to work at this gorgeous library and hunt for a ghost.

“You can smile, Ms. Hawthorne,” Alexa said, “but your work will not be easy or pleasant. I believe this ghost started as a prank, possibly by someone who doesn’t want the library to change. But now it’s a nuisance. It upsets the staff and patrons and disrupts the library. People are jumpy and edgy. Someone has already been hurt.

“Lisa, the library board president, actually hit a patron with a heavy brass bookend because she thought Flora’s ghost had ‘jumped out at her.’ The poor woman was simply reaching for a reference book in the upstairs study room. She was young, had brown hair and wore a purple sundress. She needed six stitches in her scalp. Fortunately, she did not have a concussion.

“It’s a delicate situation. The board runs this library, and I serve at their pleasure. I have to tread carefully. I can’t offend Lisa, but I can’t have our patrons attacked, either.

“Someone is playing a dangerous game, Ms. Hawthorne. I want it stopped before an innocent person dies.”

CHAPTER 4

“Did you get the job?” Phil asked.

Helen’s husband and PI partner had been pounding the computer keys in the Coronado Investigations office when she walked in after the library visit. She paused to admire her new husband. She liked his long, silver white hair, tied back in a ponytail, his thin aristocratic nose and his blue eyes. She kissed the little worry wrinkle on his forehead.

“Job? I have two jobs,” Helen said. “Three, if you count my highly coveted volunteer job at the Flora Park Library. But only two are paid: I’m searching for the missing million-dollar alligator art, and now the library wants me to be a ghost buster.”

“The library’s haunted?” Phil asked. “Who’s the walking dead?”

“Flora Portland,” Helen said, rooting through a gray metal filing cabinet. “Do you know where we keep our standard contract form? It’s either under C for contract, or S for standard.”

“I thought we put it under F for form,” Phil said. “Is Flora Park named for Flora the ghost?”

“No, but she donated the library to the city. It was her home, and the library opened in the forties, after she died. Ah, there it is,” Helen said, pulling out the contract form. “I have to take this back to