It hits then. A memory. Last week, going into the greenhouse for mint leaves. I’ve been drinking a lot of herbal tea, and I’ve started getting fresh herbs.
“Mint,” Muriel said, scanning the rows. “Oh, yes. Down on the left. Bottom row. Don’t mind the mess. That’s mine. I’m getting to it.”
I’d had to pick my way through a row littered with fertilizer and half-filled pots. I’d presumed she was in the middle of a planting, but when I came back two days later, it wasn’t much better. Not a mess, per se, but certainly not the pristine condition of this apartment.
This tidiness is intentional.
Nothing to see here.
I dive into a full-on search, and I finally find my clue taped to the bottom of a drawer.
A key.
I’m in the clinic. Dalton was spending a few minutes with Storm, and I find him there with my sister. April wants to keep our dog for another night, and Dalton was halfheartedly objecting. Halfheartedly because he knows she’s right. We’re toobusy with this case to give our injured dog the attention she needs. The objection, I know, is guilt, which I share.
“She should stay,” I say. “One more night. I want Storm home tomorrow night, and if we’re called out in the night again, only one of us responds.”
I sit on a stool and take Rory from Dalton. “I searched Muriel’s apartment, which was even tidier than April’s.”
“Impossible.” April sounds offended.
I point at the counter, where she’s left a pen and a mug.
Her hackles almost visibly rise. “Those are items of convenience, left there temporarily.”
“Right. Everyone does that. Unless you’re expecting guests, you leave things out. A sweater. A water glass. A pen. There was none of that, which I found suspicious.”
April’s snort clearly states that this is a “me” problem.
I continue, “So I searched and found this.” I set the key on the counter as I bounce Rory on my knee. “I stopped by the town hall and opened the key locker. It doesn’t match any in there. Staff are allowed to bring lockboxes, but residents aren’t. This key’s brand-new.” I turn the shiny key over. “I know Mathias and Isabel have locked boxes for case files, Sebastian has them for his medication, April has them here for medication. Phil mentioned having one for his records. I ran this by all of them, and I know it’s not for the med cabinet here.”
“It is not,” she says.
“So while it’s possible Muriel stole the key to a staff member’s personal lockbox, I don’t think that’s the answer. It’s too new, and they’d have reported it missing. It does look like one for a box, though, or a cabinet.”
“Small.” April picks it up and turns it over. “Too small for a cabinet.”
“So likely a locked box, which Muriel is not supposed to have. We must have missed it in her belongings.”
Dalton grunts. It’s always awkward searching a new resident’s luggage. We have to, of course, to look for weapons or drugs, but if we’d found a box of mementos, we might not have looked closely enough to realize it had a lock.
“Whatever this opens, it’s not in her apartment,” I say. “I hate to suggest we head back to her clearing. We will, obviously, if we need to—tomorrow, in daylight—but I’m not convinced it’s there.”
“Buried if it is,” Dalton says. “There was nothing lying around.”
“On the topic of buried treasure, there is a place I consider more likely. I just wanted to be sure you didn’t recognize the key, Eric, before I go digging much closer to home.”
“The greenhouse,” he says.
CHAPTER THIRTY
My mystery-loving sister approaches the puzzle logically. Presumably, Muriel needed to access the box, so it couldn’t be under delicate plants. Itcouldbe under something easily pulled up and replaced. Or something with a high turnover and low value, which she could dig in without Arturo noticing or caring. While there are plenty of pots awaiting new plants, that was too risky—Arturo could easily grab the wrong one and plant something in it.
We start by narrowing our hunt to pots where the soil seems disturbed. The one where we find it appears to be the opposite—the soil is overly packed… which is what tips Dalton off.
The box we recover is small, maybe only three inches square. When Dalton hands it to me, it rattles enough to have Rory perking up in April’s arms, where she’d been drifting to sleep.
“Sounds like money,” Dalton says. “She’s hiding a box full of dollar coins.”
