Chapter Thirteen
August 5th. 2009© 2009 Kimberly J. Fish
Chapter 13
Lacy watched Inga crawl out of the recliner with less speed than a turtle chasing lunch. She glanced at her watch. Jane, Henry’s sister, was driving from Dallas. At this rate the woman who was navigating unfamiliar roads in the dark would be in Comfort before Inga made it out of the house.
Lacy fought against tapping her toe. “So, Inga, this evidence that you have?”
Inga turned around, clutching the back of her waist as if something might burst free from the girdle. “Who said anything about evidence?”
Lacy bit back her impatience. “You said you had something that would get Henry released from jail.”
Inga’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Are you in on this with him?”
“The only thing I’m interested in is getting an innocent man out of jail.”
“But you wanted my furniture too, admit it.”
Lacy glanced at the Troy Aikman bobble head on the mantle. She chose words carefully. “You were one of the first people willing to take a risk on my antiques store. And I appreciate you letting me negotiate the sale of your dining room furniture, but beyond that I’m not interested in what you have to sell.”
“Even my pewter?”
Henry had said Inga had an exceptional collection of turn-of-the-century pewter. Even if they didn’t have a manufacture’s mark they’d probably still be worth thousands. “If I had to chose between Henry’s freedom and your pitchers, I’d chose Henry.”
“That’s a might big stake on a man you just met a few days ago.”
And one she prayed she’d never regret. “You can’t put a price on character.”
”I use to think that too, but after what my husband put me through I’d take the pewter.” Inga turned toward the kitchen, her feet shuffling on the flagstone floor. “So the sheriff is keeping Henry on a starvation diet? Is that some form of torture to get him to confess?”
Lacy offered Inga her cell phone. “Do you want to call the sheriff? Maybe if he just heard your concerns, and your suspicions that the real criminal is someone else, he’d let Henry go. He really doesn’t have a lot of strong evidence, except for the deputy finding us in the empty storage unit.”
”Did that numbskull deputy even find the ransom letter?”
Lacy froze. She hoped Kali and Theresa were near enough to validate Inga had asked that particular question. “What makes you think there was a ransom letter in the storage unit?”
“It was a logical guess.”
“Really?” Lacy couldn’t look away to find Kali, she had to keep a leveled gaze on the mastermind of this plot. “The sheriff implied the only one who’d know the contents in the storage unit was the person who put them there.”
Inga pursed her lips. “Well, that sheriff isn’t half as smart as he thinks he is. He should have seen right off the bat that my nephew was helping my husband with his affair. That boy rented the apartment in Austin for my husband. And then he started coming around demanding hush money. Talk about bad blood.”
Her nerves quivered, but she knew the one person who needed to hear this confession was sitting behind a desk five miles away. Lacy glanced to her left and saw Theresa looking behind some of the artwork hanging in the hallway. With the phone in her hand, she unobtrusively reached over and dialed Deputy Michael’s phone number. As she heard Michael’s voice say “hello,” she turned the phone’s microphone toward Inga. “So, Inga, you were saying your nephew was responsible for your husband’s public disgrace?”
“I think that boy was in on it from the beginning. You know that school teacher he’s been dating was a second cousin to my husband’s friend in Austin? Talk about bad blood finding each other.”
“Hello? Hello?” Michael’s voice sounded like it was yelling through a tin can.
Lacy set the phone on the kitchen counter as close to Inga as she could without being obvious. “So you wanted to get back at your nephew? Make him pay for ruining your life?”
“Ruin my life? My husband was stupid to get involved with a woman young enough to be his daughter, but his coronary was the best thing to have happened. I tell you, that man was turning into a whiny milquetoast the older he got. And this way, God gave him his just desserts and left me with the Steinmeyer inheritance. Did you know those silly cuckoo clocks were worth a fortune?”
Lacy’s heart nearly raced out of her chest. “Clocks? I don’t recall seeing any of your clocks.”
“Oh, girl, that’s because they’d been sitting in that storage shed for ages. I took them into San Antonio a few months ago to get cleaned and the man there told me he could sell them for a small fortune. Actually, he turned out to have connections everywhere. Said German craftsmanship was a highly valuable commodity.”
“So he sold a lot of things for you?”
Inga waved her hand through the air. “Everything except that ugly old dining room suit. He said no one would want that.”
She’d never loved Henry more since he was the one who paid good money to buy that dining room furniture from her. Lacy didn’t know if Inga understood just what she was admitting to, but Lacy felt like there needed to be one more thing aired out. “So Henry was supposed to find the letter and tell you about it, but not be the one responsible for stealing your heirlooms.”
Michael’s voice boomed from the mini speaker. “Lacy, put Mrs. Steinmeyer on the phone, this minute.”
“Now what I want to know is which stupid person called the cops?” Inga looked up as Theresa entered the kitchen.
Lacy grabbed the phone before Theresa, with her better hearing, heard Michael’s threats. She put the phone to her ear. “Oh, hi Michael. How odd that I would have hit your phone number tonight, but while I’ve got you on the phone, Mrs. Steinmeyer is standing right here and she wants you to release Henry from jail. She says he wasn’t responsible for the supposed theft and she doesn’t like it that you’ve hassled a newcomer to Comfort.” Lacy thrust the phone at Inga. “Please tell them Henry is innocent.”
Inga rubbed stubby fingers against her forehead. “The sheriff is going to want an explanation.”
Lacy was sorry Inga’s revenge went so far awry, but at any age, a person had to pay for their choices. “Henry is an honest man who was trying to help you sell furniture. He doesn’t deserve jail because your nephew helped your husband carry out an affair.”
Tears welled in Inga’s eyes. “My husband was an honest man once too.”
Lacy put the phone in Inga’s hand. “Tell the deputy Henry was not responsible for stealing your family heirlooms. The rest I’m sure can be worked out privately. Just tell him.”
Inga stared at the phone as if it might bite her.
Lacy reached for Theresa’s elbow shoving the woman toward the living room. “Let’s leave Inga with some privacy. Where’s Kali?”
“I’m here,” Kali whimpered next to the front door. “I had to get some fresh air.”
A cold blast from the opened door swirled around Lacy’s ankles. “We’ve got to go to the jail. The sheriff won’t have any cause to hold Henry when Inga gets off the phone.”
Theresa stopped on the threshold. “But you’re going to leave your cell phone here, with Inga?”
“If I have to chose between Henry and a cell phone, I’ll take Henry.”
“That’s a Blackberry Storm.” Theresa looked back toward Inga’s kitchen. “I’d take the phone.”