***
The pathology laboratory had a vague, unpleasant chemical odor. So did the coroner, Dr. Amos Garnet, who sucked vigorously on a breath mint.
There were five people in the room. Laurenski, Larsson, Garnet, Tannerton, and Olmstead. No one, with the possible exception of the perennially good-natured Tannerton, seemed happy to be there.
“Open it,” Laurenski said. “I’ve got an appointment to keep with Joshua Rhinehart.”
Tannerton and Olmstead threw back the latches on the bronze casket. A few remaining chunks of dirt fell to the floor, onto the plastic dropcloth that Garnet had put down. They pushed the lid up and back.
The body was gone.
The velvet- and silk-lined box held nothing but the three fifty-pound bags of dry mortar mix that had been stolen from Avril Tannerton’s basement last weekend.
***
Hilary and Tony sat on one side of the cable car, and Joshua sat on the other. The attorney’s knees brushed Tony’s. Hilary held Tony’s hand as the red gondola moved slowly, slowly up the line toward the top of the cliff. She wasn’t afraid of heights, but the tramway seemed so fragile that she could not help gritting her teeth.
Joshua saw the tension on her face and smiled. “Don’t worry. The car seems small, but it’s sturdy. And Gilbert does a fine job with maintenance.”
As it ground gradually upward, the car swung slightly in the stiff morning wind.
The view of the valley became increasingly spectacular. Hilary tried to concentrate on that and not on the creaking and clattering of the machinery.
The gondola finally reached the top of the cable. It locked in place, and Joshua opened the door.
When they walked out of the upper station of the tramway system, a fiercely-white arc of lightning and a violent peal of thunder broke open the lowering sky. Rain began to fall. It was a thin, cold, slanting rain.
Joshua, Hilary, and Tony ran for shelter. They stomped up the front steps and across the porch to the door.
“And you say there’s no heat up here?” Hilary asked.
“The furnace has been shut down for five years,” Joshua said. “That’s why I told both of you to wear sweaters under your coats. It’s not a cold day, really. But once you’ve been up here awhile in this damp, the air will cut through to your bones.”
Joshua unlocked the door, and they went inside, switching on the three flashlights they’d brought with them.
“It stinks in here,” Hilary said.
“Mildew,” Joshua said. “That’s what I was afraid of.”
They walked from the foyer into the hall, then into the big drawing room. The beams of their flashlights fell on what looked to be a warehouse full of antique furniture.
“My God,” Tony said, “it’s worse than Bruno’s house. There’s hardly room to walk.”
“She was obsessed with collecting beautiful things,” Joshua said. “Not for investment. Not just because she liked to look at them, either. A lot of things are crammed into closets, hidden away. Paintings stacked on paintings. And as you can see, even in the main rooms, there’s just too damned much stuff; it’s jammed too close together to please the eye.”
“If every room has antiques of this quality,” Hilary said, “then there’s a fortune here.”
“Yeah,” Joshua said. “If it hasn’t been eaten up by worms and termites and whatnot.” He let his flashlight beam travel from one end of the room to the other. “This mania for collecting was something I never understood about her. Until this minute. Now I wonder if…. As I look at all of this, and as I think about what we learned from Mrs. Yancy….”
Hilary said, “You think collecting beautiful things was a reaction to all the ugliness in her life before her father died?”
“Yeah,” Joshua said. “Leo broke her. Shattered her soul, smashed her spirit flat and left her with a rotten self-image. She must have hated herself for all the years she let him use her–even though she’d had no choice but to let him. So maybe … feeling low and worthless, she thought she could make her soul beautiful by living among lots of beautiful things.”
They stood in silence for a moment, looking at the overfurnished drawing room.