The Case of the Confirmed Bachelor Read online

  “Thanks, Jean,” he said warmly.

  The woman smiled back and with an envious glance at Helen, went on her way.

  “She likes you,” she said.

  “I know. I like her, too. But that’s all it is,” he added, his face very serious as he met Helen’s curious stare. “Stop trying to play matchmaker. You only complicate lives.”

  He sounded incredibly bitter. “Are you trying to tell me something?” she asked quietly.

  “You threw me together with Tabby at that New Year’s Eve party the last time we were home. You didn’t mention that you’d told her I flew all the way from Houston just to take her out.”

  He hadn’t talked about this before. She felt guilty and apprehensive at his tone. “I didn’t think it would hurt,” she began.

  He cut her off. “She had some crazy idea that my feelings had changed and I wanted a relationship with her,” he said curtly, his eyes accusing. “I wasn’t expecting it and I overreacted. She cried.” His face went harder. “In all the years we’ve known Tabby, I’ve never seen her cry. It really got to me.”

  Helen knew Nick well enough to guess what happened next. “You lost your temper,” she guessed.

  “I told you, I wasn’t expecting it. One minute she was telling me about some new find they were studying in the anthropology department, the next she was off on a tangent about the future.”

  “The punch was spiked,” she said. “I didn’t know. I poured her two cups of it.”

  “I finally figured out for myself that she was three sheets to the wind, but that sudden burst of affection knocked me off balance,” he replied. He rammed his hands into his pockets and looked uncomfortable. “I panicked. Tabby’s a sweet woman, but she’s not my type.”

  “Who is?” she challenged. “You make confirmed bachelors look like old married men. You could do a lot worse than Tabby.”

  “She could do a lot better than me,” he countered. “A little cottage with a picket fence isn’t what I’m saving up for. I want to sail around the world. I want to go exploring. In the meantime, I like being an investigator, even if this job is beginning to wear on me.”

  “Tabby’s an investigator, did you know? She searched for the solutions to ancient mysteries. That’s what anthropologists do—they discover the cultures of ancient civilizations and how they worked.”

  “No two-thousand-year-old mummy is likely to sit up in his sarcophagus and pull a gun on her, either,” he argued.

  “Probably not,” she conceded. “But digging for the truth is something you both like to do.”

  He ran an angry hand around the back of his neck. “I didn’t like hurting her that way,” he said abruptly. “I said some harsh things.”

  “Well, that’s all in the past now,” she reminded him. “She’s dating someone and it sounds serious, so you won’t have to worry about any complications while you’re deciding what we should do about Dad’s house.”

  “I suppose not,” he said, but he wasn’t looking forward to seeing Tabby again. His treatment of her wore on his nerves, and she wasn’t going to be pleased to see him. Tabby, like Nick himself, deplored losing control. Her lack of pride was going to hurt her as much as Nick’s sharp words, and she wouldn’t like being reminded of their confrontation any more than he did.

  “It will be all right,” Helen said gently.

  “Your favorite saying. What if it isn’t?”

  “For goodness’ sake, think positively!” she chided. “Buy a plane ticket and go to Washington.”

  “I guess I will. But I still have my doubts,” he said.

  Two days later, with Dane Lassiter’s blessing, Nick was on his way down Oak Lane to his father’s old house in Torrington.

  It looked just the same, he thought as he wheeled lazily along in the rental car. The oaks were a little older, as he was, but the street was quiet and dignified, like the mostly elderly people who lived on it.

  His eyes went involuntarily over the flat front of the redbrick home where he and Helen had grown up. There were blooming shrubs all around it and the dogwood and cherry trees were green now with their blossoms gone in late spring. The weather was comfortably warm without being blazing hot, and everything looked green and restful. He hadn’t realized before just how tired he was. This vacation was probably a good idea after all, even if he had fought like a tiger to keep from taking it.

  It was Friday, and not quitting time, so he didn’t expect to see Tabby at her family’s house next door. But in his mind’s eye, he saw her—long brown hair down to her waist and big dark eyes that followed him everywhere as she walked by the house on her way home from school. She was tall, very slender, with curves that weren’t noticeable at all. That hadn’t changed. Her hair was in a bun these days, not long and windblown. She wore little makeup and clothes that were stylish but not sexy. Her body was as slender as it had been in her teens, nothing to make any man particularly amorous unless he loved her. Poor Tabby. He felt sorry for her, angry at Helen because she’d engineered that meeting at New Year’s Eve and made Tabby think he cared about her.

  He did, in a sort of brotherly way, mainly because that was how he’d always interpreted Tabby’s attitude toward him. She’d never seemed to want a physical relationship with him. Not until New Year’s Eve, anyway, and she had been intoxicated. Perhaps this colleague she was dating did love her, and would make her happy. He hoped so.

  Life in a garret wasn’t for him. He was already thinking about applying to Interpol or as a customs inspector down in the Caribbean. A tame existence appealed to him about as much as drowning.

  He pulled into the driveway of his father’s house and sat just looking at it quietly for a long time. Home. He hadn’t ever thought about what it meant to have a place to come back to. Odd, with his need for freedom, that it felt so wonderful to be in his own driveway. Possession was new to him, like the feeling of emptiness he’d had since the Christmas holidays. Loneliness wasn’t something he’d experienced before. He wondered why he should feel that way, as if he were missing out on life, when his life was so full and exciting.

  As he unlocked the front door and carried his suitcase inside, he drank in the smells of wood and varnish and freshener, because he’d had a woman come in and clean every week since the house had been vacant. His parents’ things were neatly kept, just as they’d been when he and Helen were children. Nothing changed here. The smells and sights were those of his boyhood. Familiar things, that gave him a sense of security.

  He scowled, looking toward the banister of the staircase that led up to the three bedrooms on the second floor. His long fingers touched the antique wood and fondled it absently. Selling the furnished house had seemed the thing to do. Now, he wasn’t sure about it.

  As the day wore on, he became less sure. The power had been turned on earlier in the week, and the refrigerator and stove were in good working order. He found a coffeemaker stashed under the sink. He went shopping for supplies, arriving home just as a small blue car pulled in next door.

  He paused on the steps, two grocery bags in one powerful arm, watching as a woman stepped out of the car. She didn’t look toward him, not once. Her carriage very correct, almost regal, she walked to the front door of her house, inserted the key she held ready in her hand, and disappeared out of sight.

  Tabby. He stared after her without moving for a minute. She hadn’t changed. He hadn’t expected her to. But it felt different to look at her now, and it puzzled him. He couldn’t quite determine what the difference was.

  He went inside and started a pot of coffee before he fried a steak and made a salad for his supper. While he was eating it, he pondered on Tabby’s lack of interest in his presence. She had to have seen the car in the driveway, seen him go to the door. But she hadn’t looked his way, hadn’t spoken.

  He felt depressed suddenly, and regretted even more the wall he’d built between them at New Year’s. They were old friends. Almost family. It would have been nice to sit down with Tabby a
nd talk about the old days when they’d all played together as children. He didn’t suppose Tabby would want to talk to him now.

  After he’d finished his meal and washed up the dishes, he sat down in the living room with a detective novel. The television wasn’t working. He didn’t really mind. It was like entertainment overkill these days, with channels that never shut down and dozens of programs to choose from. The constant bombardment sometimes got on his nerves, so he shut it off and read instead. Nothing like a good book, he thought, to cultivate what Agatha Christie’s hero Hercule Poirot called the “little gray cells.”

  He was knee-deep in the mystery novel when the front door knocker sounded.

  Curious, he went to open the door.

  Tabby stood there, unsmiling, her hair in a neat bun, her glasses low on her nose, her expression one of strain and worry. She was wearing a neat suit with a white blouse, and she obviously had worn it all day. It was nine in the evening and she hadn’t changed into casual clothes.

  “Hello,” he said. His heart felt lighter and he smiled.

  Tabby didn’t return the smile. Her hands were folded very tightly at her waist. “I wouldn’t have bothered you,” she said stiffly, “but I don’t really know any other detectives. It seemed almost providential that you came home today.”

  “Did it? Why?” he asked.

  She swallowed. “I’m under suspicion of theft,” she said. Her lower lip trembled, but only for an instant until she got it under control. Her head lifted even higher with stung pride. “I haven’t taken anything, and I haven’t been formally charged, but only I had access to the artifact that’s disappeared. It’s a small vase with cuneiform writing that dates to the Sumerian empire, and they think I stole it.”

  Chapter Two

  Nick’s dark blond eyebrows rose curiously. “You, a thief? My God, you walked two blocks to return a dollar old man Forbes lost when you were just sixteen. People don’t change that much in nine years.”

  She seemed to relax. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, but I need proof that I didn’t do it. If you’re going to be in town for a few days, I want to employ you to clear me.”

  “Employ for pete’s sake!” he growled. “Honest to God, Tabby, you don’t have to hire me to do you a favor!”

  “It’s business,” she said firmly. “And I’m not a pauper. I don’t need to impose on our old friendship.”

  “You can’t imagine how prissy you sound,” he mused, his dark eyes twinkling as they searched hers. “Come in here and talk to me about it.”

  “I, uh, I can’t do that,” she said, glancing uneasily around her as if there were eyes behind every curtain. “Why not?”

  “It’s quite late, and you’re alone in the house,” she reminded him.

  He gaped at her. “Are you for real?” He scowled and leaned closer, making a sniffing sound. “Tipsy, are we?” he asked with a wicked gleam in his eyes.

  “I am not!” she said stiffly, flushing. “And I wish you’d forget that. I was drunk!”

  “Absolutely,” he agreed. “I’ve never seen you with a snootful. Your mask slipped.”

  “It won’t ever slip again like that,” she told him. “I hope I didn’t embarrass you.”

  “Not really. Why can’t you come inside? I almost never have sex with women in suits.”

  The color in her cheeks got worse. “Now cut that out!”

  He shrugged. “If you say so.” He folded his arms across his broad chest. His shirt was unfastened at the collar, where a thick golden thatch was just visible. It seemed to disturb Tabby, because her eyes quickly averted from it.

  “I thought, if you had time, we might meet for lunch tomorrow and I’ll fill you in.”

  He sighed with mock resignation. “There’s not really any need for that.” He reached beside him and turned the porch light on. Then he escorted her down the steps and neatly seated her on the middle step, lowering himself beside her. “Here we are, in the light, so that everyone in the neighborhood can see that we aren’t naked. Is that better?”

  “Nick!” she raged.

  “Don’t be so stuffy,” he murmured. “You’re living in the dark ages.”

  “A few of us need to or civilization as we know it may cease to exist,” she returned hotly. “Haven’t you noticed how things are going in our social structure?”

  “Who hasn’t?”

  “Drugs, killer sexual diseases, streets full of homeless people, serial killers.” She shook her head. “Anything goes may sound great, but it brings down civilizations.”

  “Most people don’t know about ancient Rome,” he reminded her. “You might start wearing a toga to get their attention.”

  She glowered at him. “You never change.”

  “Sure I do. I’d smell terrible wearing the same clothes over and over again.”

  She threw up her hands. It was just like old times, with Nick cracking jokes while her heart broke in two. Except that now it wasn’t just her heart, it was her integrity and perhaps her professional future.

  He touched her chin and turned her to face his eyes. The mockery was gone out of them as he asked, “Tell me about it, Tabby.”

  She drew back from the touch of his hands, so disturbing to her peace of mind. “There was an old piece of Sumerian pottery that I was using to show my students while I lectured on the Sumerian Empire. It was a very unique piece with cuneiform writing on it.”

  “You’ve lost me. It’s been years since I took Western Civilization in college.”

  “Cuneiform was an improvement in the Sumerian culture, one step above pictographic writing,” she explained. “In cuneiform, each wedge-shaped sign stands for a syllable. There are thousands of pieces of Sumerian writings contained on baked clay tablets. But this writing,” she continued, “wasn’t on a tablet, it was on a small vase, perfectly preserved and over five thousand years old.” She leaned forward. “Nick, the college paid a small fortune for it. It was the most perfect little find I’ve ever seen, rare and utterly irreplaceable. I was allowed to use it for a visual aid in that one class. None of us dreamed that it would be lost. It cost thousands of dollars…!”

  “Only the one artifact?”

  “Yes,” she agreed. “It was on my desk. I had to tutor a student in the classroom and I was going to put it back under lock and key afterward. I wasn’t gone more than five minutes, but when I came back, it was missing. There was no one around, and I can’t prove that I didn’t take it.”

  “Can’t the student vouch for you?”

  “Of course, but not about the artifact. She never saw it.”

  He whistled. “No witnesses?”

  She shook her head. “Not a one.”

  “Anyone with a motive for stealing it?”

  “A find like that would be worth a fortune, but only to a collector,” she admitted. “Most students simply see it as a minor curiosity. Only a few members of the faculty knew its actual value. Daniel, for one.”

  “Daniel?”

  “He’s a colleague of mine. Daniel Myers. We…go out together. He’s honest,” she added quickly. “He has too much integrity to steal anything.”

  “Most people who steal have integrity,” he said cynically, “but their greed overrides it.”

  “That’s not fair, Nick,” she protested. “You don’t even know Daniel.”

  “I guess not,” he said, angered by her defense of the man. Who was this colleague, anyway? His dark eyes whipped down to catch hers. “Tell me about Daniel.”

  “He’s very nice. Divorced, one son who’s almost in his teens. He lives downtown in Washington and he’s on staff at the college where I work.”

  “I didn’t ask for his history. I said tell me about him.”

  “He’s tall and slender and very intelligent.”

  “Does he love you?”

  She shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t think you need to know anything about my personal life. Only my professional one.”

  He sighed. “Well, you don’t
have anyone to look out for you,” he reminded her. “I always used to when you were in your teens.”

  “That was then. I’m twenty-five now. I don’t need looking after. Besides, you’re only five years older than I am.”

  “Six, almost.”

  “Daniel wants to marry me.”

  “What do you get out of it if Daniel doesn’t love you?”

  “Will you take the case?” she asked, changing the subject abruptly.

  “Of course. But Daniel had better not get in the way.”

  “Oh, he won’t,” she said, but with unvoiced reservations. Daniel tended to be just the least bit superior. He wouldn’t like Nick, she decided. Worse, Nick already didn’t like him. It was going to be a touchy situation, but she was sick with worry. She had to have someone in her corner, and who better than Nick, who was one of the best detectives in the world according to his sister Helen.

  “I’d like to come around to the college tomorrow and get a look at where you work.”

  “Tomorrow is Saturday,” she stammered.

  “Classes won’t be in session,” he reminded her.

  “Daniel was going to take me shopping…”

  “Daniel can buy his clothes some other time.”

  “Not for clothes, for an engagement ring!”

  His eyes narrowed. He hated that idea. Hated it, for reasons he couldn’t put a finger on. “That will have to wait. I’m only going to be in town until next Friday.”

  “I’ll phone him tonight.”

  “Good.”

  She got up, smoothing her skirt, and Nick rose with her, his face solemn, concerned. “Don’t they know you at all, these colleagues?”

  “Of course. But it does look bad. My office was locked at the time. Nobody else has a key.”

  Nails in her coffin, he was thinking, but he didn’t say it. “Try not to worry. We’ll muddle through.”

  “Okay. Thanks, Nick,” she said without looking at him.

  “No need for that. I’ll call for you about eight in the morning. That too early?”