Rings and Things was in a three-story brick building on Granville Street that looked like it had been built in the late 1800s. Shauna swiped her damp palms on her jeans and tried to shore up her shaky knees as they approached the store. She paused to look in the windows at the exquisite jewelry. All the pieces were very different—some with sea glass, some with diamonds, and others with the same black stone called argillite that had been used in her mother’s necklace. There was nothing exactly like the necklace the sheriff carried, but the style looked similar enough she was sure they were in the right place.
The sheriff held the door open for her, and she stepped onto old brick floors. The ceilings soared overhead with exposed ductwork. The place smelled expensive—a combination of luxury furnishings and high-end perfumes carried into the space by wealthy patrons.
A perky, dark-haired woman smiled their way from behind glass display shelves. More items glittered on shelves beyond her, probably of lesser value but still beautiful. “Good morning. Can I help you?” Maybe a little younger than Shauna, she had the high cheekbones and bone structure of someone with Native American heritage.
The sheriff stepped forward. “I’m looking for Dorothy Edenshaw. Is she here this morning?”
The woman eyed them. “She’s in the design room in the back. Who may I tell her is asking for her?”
“Sheriff Everett Burchell. From Lavender Tides, Washington.”
“You’ve been pestering her.” The friendliness in her face vanished. “I don’t think she wants to speak to you.”
“It’s just a friendly inquiry about a piece of jewelry she might have designed. I’d like to see if she recognizes it. I can go to the Vancouver police instead and ask them to bring her in.”
The sheriff had already told Shauna it was unlikely they’d receive local support, but the threat worked because the woman shrugged. “Let me ask if she’ll see you.” The black swinging door gave an indignant whoosh as she exited into a back room.
Shauna let out the breath she’d been holding. “I was sure she was going to kick us out.”
“Most people don’t want to be hauled down to the police station. It’s much more discreet here.” He bent over the shelves. “Felicia would love this.” He pointed out a beaver etched into a teardrop pendant of argillite. It’s only five hundred dollars. I think I’ll get it for her.”
She wouldn’t have guessed the sheriff made enough money to drop that much on a bauble, but she shrugged and turned away to browse another display case.
The door opened, and the woman appeared with an older woman on her heels. The two were clearly related. The shape of their dark eyes was identical, and they both had the same long necks and full lips. Mother and daughter? Shauna met the younger woman’s defiant gaze. Yep, the protectiveness was a sure giveaway.
Shauna looked over the woman’s shoulder and felt a strange sense of déjà vu as she stared into Dorothy’s eyes. She’d seen her before, but when? The older woman wore her salt-and-pepper hair in a long braid that hung over her right shoulder. Her skin glowed with a warm tan, and her dark-brown eyes tilted up at the corners. She wore a loose-fitting dress that came nearly to the tops of her fur-lined boots. The design on the dress looked Native American, though Shauna stumbled at recalling the name of the pattern.
A frown appeared on Dorothy’s face, and she stared back. “Theresa?” She shook her head. “Forgive me, but you look like someone I knew a long time ago. You can’t possibly be her. She’s been dead for many years.”
“My mother, Theresa Duval?”
“Brenna?”
Shauna caught her breath. “I’m Shauna. How do you know about Brenna?” Very few people even knew the baby’s name. “Did my dad mention her?”
Dorothy waved a hand glittering with two rings. “Shauna. Of course, how silly of me. Forget everything I just said. I’m befuddled.”
Shauna could hardly form a sentence with her mouth so dry. Was the name only a slip of the tongue? And something about Dorothy’s manner put her off.
Dorothy’s gaze swiveled to the sheriff. “You have a piece of jewelry you wish me to identify?” She glanced around. “There are no customers right now, so I think we can take care of this quickly enough here.”
In other words, if anyone comes in, please get out. The unspoken command rankled Shauna, but she stepped back and said nothing as the sheriff pulled out the necklace.
He unwrapped it from its leather pouch. “Did you make this?” He rolled out the necklace, and it sparkled in the overhead lights.
Dorothy inhaled. “Oh yes, one of my finest pieces. I thought it was buried with . . .” She glanced at Shauna.
“With my mother.”
The older woman’s nod was curt. “Obviously Lewis saved it for you. Which is wonderful.” The sour tilt to her lips gave lie to the words.
“He says he doesn’t remember what happened to it.”
The sheriff shot Shauna a stern glance. “Let me handle this.” He turned back to Dorothy. “She bought it from you?”
“No, her husband bought it from me for their anniversary. It’s worth more money now, I suspect. Many of the pieces I designed back then are collectibles today. I think it might fetch twenty-five hundred dollars at this point.”
The sheriff never took his attention from her. “Have you ever heard of a couple named Clarence and Lucy Glennon?”
Dorothy frowned and shook her head. “No, I don’t believe so. They are customers?”
“We don’t know. This necklace was found in their possession. They also happen to now be dead.”
Dorothy gasped and put her hand to her throat. “I’m so sorry. I can’t help you, though. I haven’t seen this necklace in many years.”
The door behind them opened and a laughing couple staggered in, arm in arm.
The sheriff wrapped the necklace and put it back in his coat pocket. “Thanks so much, Ms. Edenshaw.”
Back outside in the stink of car exhaust, Shauna wanted to stomp her feet. “She’s lying. I know she is.”
The sheriff shrugged. “Why would she? This necklace doesn’t really seem to be related.” He studied her face. “In fact, I’m going to give you the necklace. It was your mom’s, and I think you’d like to have it.”
“I would.” Shauna’s eyes burned. Even if the necklace had nothing to do with the murders, she wanted to pursue this and find out what Dorothy knew about her family. What about Brenna? Shauna resolved to ask her dad about Dorothy. His manner had been evasive when he’d first heard her name.
The fire crackled in the fireplace, and the faint scent of wood smoke hung in Zach’s living room. The dogs curled at Shauna’s feet, and the cat had finally come out, as evidenced by Zach’s burning eyes. He sat beside Shauna on the sofa and went through the links that had popped up in his search.
“Look here.” He stabbed a finger at his computer screen to show Shauna. “Dorothy’s daughter’s name is Penelope.”
Shauna sat snuggled up in a fleece throw beside him. Wisps of hair had escaped her topknot and drifted around her face.
“Yeah. It doesn’t list a father in the birth announcement.” He stopped to listen. “Was that Alex?”
“I think it was the cat.”
He glanced around for the source of his runny nose and found that Weasley had curled up on the afghan in the armchair. He made a mental note to wash it. “You said Penelope seemed angry. Why do you think she seemed antagonistic?”
“She had this challenging look in her eyes, and though it’s a little too strong of a term, she almost had her lip curled in contempt. I’ve never met her so I don’t know what her problem was.”
“It might be something she heard from her mother about your family.” Would either of the women talk to him about the family? He didn’t think Dorothy had anything to add to the murder investigation, but maybe she knew something about what happened when Shauna’s mother and siblings died.
He’d like to give Shauna some closure on that, especially with that necklace popping up again. It was all such a mystery.
The house felt more homey with her and Alex in it. When it had been just him rattling around alone, Zach often looked for excuses to go out and do something. Now he was more than content to sit on the sofa with her and lean in to watch the way her eyes caught the light. Playing Go Fish with Alex was something he looked forward to. What was he going to do when they left?
The thought made him wince.
She must have seen it. “You okay?”
“Sure, just thinking about everything that’s happened.”
She pulled the throw around her neck and turned to stare into the fire. “I’m having a joint funeral for Clarence and Lucy on Sunday. Three o’clock.”
“You’re planning it?”
Shauna nodded. “There’s no one else. With Darla gone, I’m the closest thing they had to family around here. I called Clarence’s brother, but they’ve been estranged for years, and he wasn’t interested in attending.”
“That’s pretty cold.”
“I thought so too, but I didn’t argue with him.”
“Lucy doesn’t have any family?”
She shook her head. “Her mother died in childbirth, and her dad passed away when she was ten. She went into foster care then. I’ve never heard either of them mention any family except Clarence’s brother.”
“Do you know what caused their estrangement?” Could this brother have had anything to do with Clarence’s death? Zach was grasping at straws, but there seemed to be no good leads to the murderer.
“The brother was engaged to Lucy, and she broke their engagement to marry Clarence.”
“Whoa, that’s a hard one. But still, they’re family. You’d think he would have gotten over it years ago.”
She took a sip of the hot spiced cider beside her on the side table. “And if they’d lived near each other, maybe they would have, but he lives in New York. He’s a bank executive, always busy, and he never married. So they drifted apart and stayed that way.”
“Still, to hold a grudge even at their deaths seems pretty extreme. Did you tell the sheriff? He might want to look into the guy’s whereabouts when Clarence and Lucy were killed.”
She set her mug back on the table. “I can tell him, but I think that’s a dead end.”
“You aren’t paying for burial expenses, are you?”
“No, that will come out of their estate.”
Their estate. “Who’s their beneficiary?” Greed was a common motive for murder.
Clarence had told Zach the mortgage was paid off, and his place overlooked the water. The land itself would fetch half a million or more. Maybe closer to a million with its panoramic view out over Rainshadow Bay. And then there would be the insurance money for whatever the house had been worth.
“I don’t know. I’m not even sure the sheriff knows if they had a will or not. They might have left it to the church. Clarence never talked about that kind of thing.”
Zach watched the cute way she pursed her lips as she considered it. The fleeting thought of kissing those lips passed through his mind, and he pulled away a few inches. What was wrong with him? He needed to get over this attraction to her and fast. The thought of stepping into Jack’s place was unacceptable.
“You need some help planning the service?”
“The pastor is handling it. I wanted to provide a space for friends to come and gather, to remember what they meant to us. They already had plots together in the cemetery, so I didn’t have to worry about picking anything out. They’d even done all the prearrangements for their funerals.”
She yawned and kicked off the throw, then stood and folded it. “I think I’ll go read for a while. Hopefully, we’ll be out of your hair soon.”
He watched her slim form walk away from him, and a sense of hopelessness swept over him. Once the killer was caught, she’d be walking out the door forever. That day wouldn’t be a happy one for him.