Jewels in the Juniper (Lovely Lethal Gardens Book 10) Read online

  “No, I can’t say too much. No children though. And again, the last name would tell you who she is.”

  “Maybe,” Doreen said, trying to hold back her exasperation. “I don’t really understand why it’s an issue though.”

  “Of course you don’t,” the woman said with a sneer. “That’s because you’re thinking about what you want. You’re not thinking about what other people want.”

  Wincing at that because it was true, Doreen said, “You’re correct. I am thinking about what I want. And I was hoping to get in touch with her.”

  “Is there any money involved?”

  Her tone had changed, as if something were behind that question which Doreen needed to be careful of. Because, of course, the jewels were involved, but not necessarily to come to Reginald’s sister or to this snippy caller. “I’m not sure why you would bring up something like that,” Doreen said. “I’m not trying to pay her anything or charge her for anything either, for that matter,” she added for clarity.

  She heard almost a humming sound on the phone.

  “Does she need money?” Doreen asked.

  “Doesn’t everybody?” the snippy woman said.

  “Are you related to her?”

  “No, but when she recognized my name, she mentioned she had come from the same family line.”

  “The same family?”

  “Only in that Abelman is a very old Jewish name,” the woman said proudly.

  “Ah,” Doreen said in understanding. “And, of course, it’s always nice to find other people who are connected in the family tree.”

  “Well, that’s what I thought,” she said. Then she added in a haughty tone, “Yet this woman isn’t really connected. So she doesn’t get the same treatment as family.”

  Chapter 25

  Wednesday Midmorning …

  Doreen nodded, but, at the same time, she gave Mugs a big eye roll. “Well, if you could see your way to let me know what her last name is, or her first name, or where she lives, or her phone number, I would really appreciate it,” she said. “I am not the police. I’m not a journalist. I’m not a creditor looking for money.”

  “Good thing,” she said, “because she doesn’t have any to give away. I’ll have to think about it.” And, once again, she hung up with a sharp click.

  “Wow,” Doreen said to Mugs. “The crazies are out in full force today.” Of course that wasn’t fair, but it suited the way she felt. “Why won’t she just tell me who it is?”

  But she hadn’t. And that left Doreen wondering. She looked up the woman’s address to see if that would tell her anything, but, of course, why would it? And then she looked up the Abelman name she’d gotten from the phone book and checked through the news. Again, another old distinguished family who had been here forever apparently, and, according to the bits and pieces she was reading, was one of the founding families involved in the communities for a good many years. They’d spawned four children, all daughters. All had married, and all had different names now. Which was why it was hard to find an Abelman name anywhere. But there was no relationship to Reginald or to his sister.

  But this woman knew Reginald’s sister. Doreen could just imagine a conversation where they’d meet up somewhere, and she’d introduced herself. What a shock to realize this person had the same family name you did. She couldn’t imagine. Yet, at the same time, why wouldn’t the woman tell Doreen anything?

  Was this Abelman woman a criminal? Was she somebody in politics or one of those wealthy families always worrying about privacy? Not that Doreen had ever had to worry about privacy with her controlling husband. He’d always been very careful to keep everybody out of their lives, so it wasn’t anything she had to worry about.

  As she sat here, the phone rang yet again. She answered it to hear Mack on the other end.

  “What are you doing?” he snarled.

  Surprised, she stared at the phone. “What on earth are you talking about?” she asked. “I’m not doing anything.”

  “Oh,” he said in surprise. There was a moment of silence.

  “What did you think I was doing?” she asked curiously. “Because that was a pretty snarly attitude you tossed my way.”

  “I don’t know. I just got a really bad feeling,” he said.

  Her eyebrows shot up. “Are you a psychic now?”

  “It depends,” he said, “if you’re doing something stupid.”

  She snorted. “That’s not funny.”

  “Neither is you getting into something you don’t belong in.”

  “Maybe.” Remembering the two old ladies she’d met in the library, she asked him, “Do you know Mrs. Applegate and Mrs. Gundon?”

  He said, “Not that I know of. Why?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “What were you doing? I tried to call you a moment ago,” he said. “The phone went to voicemail.”

  “I was talking to somebody in the Abelman family.”

  “You found Reginald’s sister?” he asked in surprise.

  “No, I found an Abelman in the phone book, so I called and got this really weird woman.” She explained about the snippy woman and her conversation during the two calls.

  “Well,” he said, “lots of people like their privacy.”

  “I know,” she said. “It just seems odd.”

  “You’re looking for trouble where there isn’t any.”

  She snorted at that. “You’re a fine one to talk, considering what you said to me instead of hello. You’re the one looking for trouble.”

  “In your case,” he said with a hard sigh, “it’s almost like there is no end to the trouble. But, if you’re not doing anything, and you’re sitting at home, staying out of trouble with the animals, then it’s all good.” And he hung up.

  She snorted at that. “Jeez, Mack, you didn’t have to start imitating me,” she said to the empty room. But, of course, she was the one who had hung up on him so often that now he felt he could hang up on her. She had to admit she didn’t particularly like it and decided it was time to do something about it. So she sent him a text. Stop hanging up on me.

  When she didn’t get an answer she sent another. Please.

  This time, she got a reply right away.

  Don’t like it, do you?

  No. I don’t.

  Another quick reply from Mack. Neither do I.

  She groaned. Fine. I’ll only hang up on you when I really mean it.

  And, with that, she tossed down her phone and grinned. She didn’t know what she wanted to do now, but there had to be something. She was willing to eat up the rest of the pasta though. It was just that this sister mystery was burning away at Doreen, and she wanted that snippy woman to call her back. How else could she find out? She walked outside and studied her neighbor’s fence. He’d lived here for a while; maybe he knew. She walked over to the fence and called out, “Hello?”

  There was a grump on the other side.

  “I just wondered if you knew any of the Abelman family around here.” She heard something being placed against the fence, and then Richard’s face popped up over the top to look down at her.

  “Wilma Abelman?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure,” she said. “That’s possible though.”

  “There’s Mickey Abelman. And Wilma is one of her daughters. They had four daughters. Mickey is the wife.”

  “Hmm, any more details?”

  “Abelman, Abelman. Oh, wait, it was Gorenstein, Wilma Gorenstein.”

  “I’m looking for the sister of Reginald Abelman who had Johnson and Abelman Jewelers way back when.”

  Richard stared at her, his eyebrows slowly rising. “Are you looking into that old theft?” he asked, looking delighted.

  “Maybe,” she said cautiously, not understanding why he cared.

  “A lot of us back then wanted to see that kid kicked out of the family,” he said. “Now the old couple, they were really something. They were good people, but that son-in-l
aw of theirs, he was a loser.”

  “Right,” she said, sighing. “And what about their daughter?”

  He just rolled his eyes at that. “Aretha has always been a snob,” he said. “Born a snob, raised a snob, and carried on as a snob.”

  “Doesn’t seem like anybody likes her,” Doreen said thoughtfully.

  “Nope. She doesn’t like other people, and she makes it an obvious fact. So you immediately know where you stand with her. Except that you clearly don’t stand on the same level.”

  Doreen nodded, hating to hear that because, of course, she’d seen so many people who were just the same. “Apparently not all the jewels were found, right?” Doreen said.

  “No. There were rumors about some of the jewels showing up, but the cops couldn’t identify them.”

  “Right, because the paperwork was supposedly destroyed in the fire.”

  “Well, that and Reginald couldn’t produce the paperwork they needed for the insurance either,” Richard said. “Like I said, that guy was a loser.”

  “It sure sounds like he was a mess,” she said. “Maybe he did end up committing suicide.”

  “If that’s what you call it,” he said. “Drug overdose. … When you think about it, suicide is a pretty demeaning slam. Means he wanted to get the hell away from her.” At that, he snickered.

  “Maybe,” Doreen said, hating the need to defend Aretha. “But she was separated from him at the time.”

  “Hmm. I don’t think the paperwork was finalized then,” he said. “Still, it wasn’t all that common to have a divorce back then. It still takes time to get the paperwork done.”

  “You think he might have committed suicide because of the divorce?” She hadn’t considered that. Maybe he really did love Aretha. Maybe she was the one who saw him as a step up.

  “If you ask me, you ought to take another look at that Aretha,” he said. “If ever anybody deserved to be involved in a crime, it’s her.”

  “She’s really got your dander up, huh?”

  “I walked into that store when she was just a young girl, but she was already snooty,” he said. “I’ve seen her around town a couple times over the years, and my opinion hasn’t changed.”

  “Interesting. Did you ever hear any rumors or theories about what might have happened to the jewels?”

  He shrugged. “Probably went out of here through the pawn shop or maybe down to Vancouver. Or maybe there never were any. Maybe it was all forged paperwork, just to get the insurance company to pay out.”

  “They didn’t pay out though,” Doreen said. “The fire finished off everything that was left. The Johnsons depleted all the assets they had personally, trying to honor their debts and to pay what they could. Bankruptcy was inevitable then.”

  “And then they died,” Richard said. “I remember it all was just like a never-ending stream of bad events. And Aretha ended up being the only one left standing.” He looked at Doreen again with an eagle eye and said, “Remember that.” Then he hopped back down again.

  She frowned. “Do you know if Aretha had a sister-in-law?”

  “I don’t remember anything about one,” he said.

  She sagged, then nudged his memory. “One of the newspapers mentioned that Reginald Abelman had a sister. And his parents were from Vancouver.”

  “You could check the Vancouver phone book then,” he said. “Did you think of that?”

  She stopped and whispered, “No, I didn’t.”

  She bolted back into the house and brought up the Vancouver white pages. She wasn’t sure if she had free access to it. Soon enough she found it pretty easy to find the Abelmans of Vancouver. Hundreds of them. The trouble was, Abelman was a proper Jewish name.

  She frowned at the long list. Then she ended up on one of those searches, finding an Abelman family tree. She thought that was fascinating. And there was Reginald’s name, but it didn’t say anything about other family members. She went back to the Abelman telephone listings. She went through and read them all, but they didn’t mean anything, since it could be any one of them. And the woman on the phone had been correct in that, if the sister had married, it could be anybody else’s number too, as the surname might have changed.

  She went back to the family tree and took more time to study it. She frowned when she ran across another name she hadn’t heard about before. Norm. She went back to the telephone listings and found a Norm Abelman. Immediately she phoned the number. When a gruff male answered, she asked if it was Norm.

  “Yes. Who’s calling?”

  “I’m Doreen from Kelowna,” she said.

  “Yes, what do you want?” he asked.

  “I’m looking for family members of a Reginald Abelman who lived in Kelowna,” she said. “He died about thirty-seven years ago.”

  “Huh,” the man said, but he didn’t add anything else.

  “Do you happen to know if he was part of your family? He married an Aretha Johnson,” she said.

  “Oh, right,” he said. “His parents died.”

  “Yes, but were you related to his parents?”

  “Cousins,” he said. “The parents lived in Vancouver and died twenty-odd years ago. He headed off to Kelowna for better pastures not long after he hit his twenties and ended up marrying into a jewelry company or some such thing. I always thought he had the gall of a salesman to land that kind of an occupation.”

  “That’s the one I was talking about,” Doreen said, her excitement building inside.

  “So, what about him?”

  “I’m trying to find his sister,” she said. She held her breath while she waited for him. She could almost feel the rusted old wheels turning in his mind as he tried to dredge up information.

  “There was a sister,” he said.

  She frowned. “Was a sister? Does that mean she’s dead?”

  “You know what? I’m struggling to remember,” he said. “But, yes, she’s dead. I’m sure of it. But her daughter is not.”

  “Okay,” Doreen said. “Do you know who her daughter is?”

  “Well, you should know that,” he said. “She lives in Kelowna.”

  “Wow,” Doreen said. “I was hoping she lived here, but I don’t have her last name. Or her first, for that matter.”

  Chapter 26

  Wednesday Noon …

  Doreen took a deep breath, trying to calm her frustration. It was one thing to talk to one person who didn’t get you. It was another thing to talk to several who didn’t get you. Because that usually meant Doreen was the problem. But she didn’t think so in this case. “I can’t find her under her maiden name,” she said. “And I presume she married at some point.”

  “Oh, yes, she did. She moved up there after her brother separated from his wife. He needed a hand, and she was the older sister and always helped him out.”

  “Okay,” she said. “Older sister?”

  “No. No, I think I’m wrong there. I think she was younger.” He shook his head. “No, she was older,” he said, correcting himself. “She went up there and stayed for a while. Then she came back to Vancouver, got married here at some point, I believe, and had her daughter. And her daughter went back up to Kelowna. Yeah. I think that’s how it went.”

  “Do you have his sister’s name?”

  “It was something funny,” he said. “Like Lana or Lena. It was weird.”

  “Okay, what about her daughter?”

  He gave a bark of laughter at that. “You’re damn lucky I’m remembering any of this,” he said. “Most of the time I can’t remember what I had for breakfast.”

  “If you could help me with a daughter’s name, I’d really appreciate it,” she said.

  “I don’t think I can remember that much. I’m trying. But I couldn’t even get her mother’s name.”

  “Right,” Doreen said. “Is there anybody else in your family who would know?” she asked, trying hard to keep the note of worry out of her voice. She was desperate to find this name because it was important, but she didn’t know
how to contact anybody who would know.

  “Well, maybe my daughter,” he said. “She’s the one working on the family tree.”

  “May I call her?”

  “I don’t know about that,” he said, his voice turning cagey. “I’d better talk to her first. I’ll call you back.” And, with that, he hung up.

  Doreen groaned. “You can only call me back if you saved my phone number somehow,” she said.

  And now she was frustrated again. The only way to deal with that was to go back outside and see if she could do something to get ready for the deck project. Or at least work in the garden. She had tons more to do there, never any question about that.

  Looking at the lawn, she wondered again what it would cost to get in a bunch of large stones, or at least some crushed rock or something for a pathway. It was a long stretch, at least fifty feet to the creek. That would probably cost her a bundle. So it wouldn’t happen right now, but she still needed to get a couple inches cleared right up against the fences. It would extend the life of the fence boards. Something to stop the garden from catching moisture and holding on to it next to the wooden fence.

  She went to the end by the creek and started pulling the dirt away from the fence, cutting a clean border so she could keep the garden off the wood as she went. She soon sweated heavily.

  Going back inside, she grabbed some water and forgot she had turned down her phone volume. She frowned when she saw a missed call. Groaning to herself, she hit the message and listened. Nothing was there, so she dialed the number back. And, sure enough, it was the old gentleman she’d talked to.

  “She says you can call her,” he said.

  Delighted, Doreen walked to her notepad, grabbed the pen, and said, “What is her number?”

  He read off the number and said, “Her name is Jennifer.”

  When he abruptly hung up, Doreen laughed out loud.

  “How come so many people out there can’t be socially friendly for longer than two minutes?” But it didn’t matter now because she had a name and another number to try.

  As soon as she dialed, a woman answered. “Hi, my name is Doreen.”