Bones of a Feather - Carolyn Haines [65]
Eleanor only nodded and left the room.
True to her word, Tinkie prepared a delightful omelet. After we cleaned up the kitchen and fed the dogs, we retired to our bedrooms on the second floor. I took a moment to assess the layout of the room, which reminded me of one of the suites in the old black-and-white horror movies that featured Vincent Price as a man who brewed exotic and horrible experiments in the basement of the house.
The furnishings were lush—heavy silk draperies and bed hangings on the four-poster. Wingback chairs and a sofa in front of a fireplace, unlit because of the season. A thick Oriental rug glowed with patterns of crimson, turquoise, buff, and navy. The mantel held several family photographs, and when I picked them up I realized they were old tintypes of young women, the Levert brides. Whatever else could be said for the family, the women were a handsome lot. Especially the wives of Barthelme.
But what would possess a young woman to marry a man whose prior wife had died so shortly after the wedding? A man with a history of wives who perished. Staring at the features of the women, I saw their youth and naïveté. They looked no older than eighteen at the most, wide-eyed with innocence.
During the 1800s, marriages were often arranged. Women had no say in whom they married as long as the match was considered financially sound. But how could a father and mother barter their child, their daughter, into wedding a murderer?
I returned the pictures to the mantel and prepared for bed. It wasn’t even midnight, but we had a long day ahead of us. I’d just crawled under the covers when I heard a tapping at my door. “Come in.” I knew it was either Tinkie or a raven. If it was a large black bird, I was outta there, case or no case.
“It just doesn’t make sense.” Tinkie shuffled into the room wearing Barney pajamas and big purple slippers. Her petite size allowed her to buy in the children’s department when the whimsy struck.
“What doesn’t make sense?”
She plopped on my bed. “The ride of the horseman. If it isn’t Barclay trying to shake up his relatives, what’s the purpose?”
I propped up beside her in the bed. “Do you think Jerome is exacting some type of revenge?” I told her about the love letters from Eleanor and my suspicions that Monica had deliberately busted them up. We hadn’t had much of a chance to compare notes on our activities, and since neither of us could sleep, it was an opportunity we couldn’t waste.
“He has to be involved with the horse. He’s not a stupid man. He knows the animal is on the property.” She wiggled her purple-encased feet. “I feel sorry for Eleanor. She’s lost everyone, Sarah Booth. Her parents, her fiancé, and now her sister has been taken.”
I cleared my throat. “I regret I was mean to her earlier.”
“She seems sincere in her concern for Monica.”
“She does.”
“Tinkie, we aren’t hostage negotiators, and we aren’t trained to retrieve kidnap victims. She should call Gunny, but since she won’t, remember, Eleanor must make the drop. Neither of us can afford to be put in such a dangerous position.”
“I agree.”
I was surprised. “You do?”
“Absolutely. While I think the kidnapper would have already killed Monica if that was his intent, delivering the money is too dangerous. If Eleanor won’t call in the law, she needs to do it herself.”
Her response was a load off my mind, but something else troubled me. “Does Oscar know he’s cashing a check for ransom money?”
Tinkie studied her slippers. “No. I couldn’t tell him.”
“You have to, Tink. He can’t risk all that money without knowing the details.”
“The check is good, no matter what Eleanor does with the money. If Monica signs it later, great. If she’s … dead, they’ll reissue the check to Eleanor. It’s the insurance company behind the check, not Eleanor or Monica.”
Tinkie was normally the partner with the business head. She understood money far better