CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Andrea was smiling as she read the card. Was it from the sheriff, or was it from Stefan, buttering us up so we wouldn’t be suspicious of him? Finally I could stand it no longer. “What does it say?”
“Thanks. Ward.”
So, the sheriff. That made me happy, but I couldn’t help wondering what he was thanking her for. She had made the call to the Russian embassy, she had taken him the cup with Maria’s fingerprints on it, and she had called and given him information about our blowout. Was any of that enough to merit these gorgeous roses, or would he simply think she was a citizen doing her civic duty by doing those things? She had spent quite a bit of time with him when they met for lunch on Tuesday, but I couldn’t imagine Andrea doing anything more than shaking hands on a first date, if you could call meeting the sheriff for lunch a date. She certainly wouldn’t have done anything to cause the sheriff to send such a bouquet. It must have been Maria’s cup that really impressed him with her initiative.
“They’re absolutely beautiful,” I said, moving toward the black bear prints.
“Aren’t they? It was nice of him to send them.” She joined me and we reached up together and took down one of the pictures.
A rusty wire stretched across the back. It was attached to screws with rounded hooks on the end, screws that were sunk deep into the sturdy wooden frame. Fortunately, the back wasn’t finished the way it would be if it were done in a frame shop today, with brown paper glued over the entire area. A neatly cut piece of cardboard was held in place by small nails driven into the frame. Andrea went to her purse and pulled out, of all things, one of those multi-tool gizmos. Truly, the woman is always prepared for anything. “You brought that, thinking . . . what?”
“I always carry my Leatherman with me.”
She had those nails yanked out in no time. She slid one of the implements along the edge of the cardboard and lifted it out. I was holding my breath at this point. She gently lifted what was under the cardboard and turned over a black bear print. No concealed water lily painting, unfortunately.
I closed my eyes and let my breath out in a long sigh of disappointment. “I was hoping so much that we’d find the paintings in our room. It seemed like fate would have made it so, that we’d be staying in the room where they’d be found.” I sat down on the edge of my bed.
“They were no more likely to be in this room than any other.” Andrea, always the realist, said as she put the picture back together and pressed the nails back firmly with the side of the Leatherman. “I suppose it’s useless to check the other painting. If we find the water lily paintings, they’ll undoubtedly both be in the same room.”
“We can’t be sure. Maybe the Monets were in different rooms to begin with.”
“Of course, if he made frames for some and used old ones for others, the frames are probably going to be different if there’s a hidden painting underneath.” She reached for the second picture anyway, and I helped her take it down.
She went through the same process with this one, with the same results, and we put the picture back on the wall. She put the Leatherman in her pocket. “Let‘s go down the hall and talk to Ivy. Maybe we’ll check out Gunter Bosch’s room.”
Ivy was still cleaning Bosch’s room. She was bent over the bathtub, scrubbing it with a long-handled brush. The tub was one of the old-fashioned kind, with claw feet that held it off the floor. I made a mental note to request this room next time, Number 8. I hadn’t had a long, soaking bath in a tub like that since I was a teenager and still living at my parents’ home. By the time I married John, everyone wanted the new style of tub that rested snug on the floor. A bath in the tub in Gunter Bosch’s room would be a real nostalgia trip and would feel so good when the temperature outside was ten below.
Andrea went to the bathroom door. “We’d like to check out the pictures in this room. We’re trying to locate some of the things our grandparents brought from Europe for the hotel. Stefan told us to go ahead and check out everything.”
“Sure, go ahead. I still have to clean upstairs. I’ll be through here in a minute, but you can lock up as you leave.”
Ivy was being amazingly agreeable now that she understood we didn’t think Asbury was a murderer. We took one picture down and took it apart with no luck. We were putting it back on the wall when Ivy left. The other picture turned out to be just as unproductive. “This would be a good time to look in the empty rooms, before the hotel fills up for the weekend,” I said.
“We’ll do that, but first, go stand watch at the door. I want to check something.”
Andrea telling me to stand watch was more than enough to make me nervous, thinking she was up to something extremely hazardous, but I went to the open door and leaned against the jamb without saying anything. In the periphery of my vision I could see Andrea removing the bottom drawer of the chest and looking into the opening where the drawer had been. Andrea sometimes hides valuables under the bottom drawer of her dresser, and she obviously thought Bosch might have hidden something under his chest. I was so intrigued by what she was doing that it took a moment for my mind to register the fact that Gunter Bosch was coming down the hallway toward me, full steam ahead.
“Psst,” I hissed toward Andrea. I could see her sliding the drawer back and standing up.
He stood there looking from one of us to the other. “Is there any reason you’re in my room?”
“We’re just leaving,” Andrea said. “We’ve been checking the paintings in all the rooms, trying to locate some family pictures that belonged to our grandparents. They owned this hotel at one time.” I was glad she was doing the talking, because with my heart in my throat, I wouldn’t have been able to speak.
“There are no pictures in this room, or any of the others, except for the black bears.”
“We were told by a former employee of the hotel that the black bear pictures were sometimes put in the frames of our family pictures, and our pictures were left behind the new ones. We’re taking the backs off all the pictures and checking them.”
“Are you through in here now?”
Andrea leaned down and picked up the Leatherman from where she had dropped it on the floor when she knelt down. “We’re through.”
He stood aside and we walked out. I tried to look more confident than I felt, confident that he believed us. We went straight to our room. “That was close,” I whispered. “I don’t think he saw you looking under the drawer. I don’t suppose you found anything.”
“On the contrary. I did find something under there.”
Was she going to tell me? With Andrea, I couldn’t be sure. “So what was it?”
“A handgun and a holster. I believe it was a shoulder holster.”
“What do you suppose that means? What’s he doing with a gun? And I found it interesting that he said there were no paintings except for the black bear pictures in his room or any other room. Does that mean he’s been snooping in all the rooms?”
Andrea looked thoughtful. “I’m not sure what it means. Mr. Bosch is one evasive and unapproachable man. I can’t imagine why he’d have a gun in his room, either.”
“Do you think you should tell someone about it? The sheriff should know that someone in his territory has a gun hidden in his room. I wonder if it’s legal to have a handgun here.”
“I’m a little embarrassed to admit I was snooping in another guest’s room.”
I couldn’t help laughing.
“What’s so funny?”
“I’ve never known you to be embarrassed before. It just struck me as funny.”
She looked a little miffed. “I’m embarrassed occasionally. I just don’t make a big deal of it. I’m going to have to think about this. Maybe I should tell Stefan. He’s the one who seems to be in danger here, and in addition to that, he owns the hotel.”
“I think you should tell Stefan and the sheriff.”
“You’re probably right.”
And that probably was another first—Andrea admitting that
I might be right. She took her cell phone from her purse and started pushing buttons.