“Locket?”
“See for yourself.” Augusta picked up a magnifying glass from the side table. “Here it is. It has a swamp lily etched on it signifying the Ten Thousand Islands. Our family home. She wore it on every special occasion, long as I can remember. And if this ain’t a special occasion, I don’t know what is.”
The rounded glass enlarged the picture enough that I could see a small gold rectangle resting on the bibbed bodice of Delia’s dress.
I sat for a few minutes, assuring Miss Augusta that we’d get the things Delia needed, then Ryan and I headed off to Delia’s house and a chore I dreaded. Once we were in the car, I confided, “I feel funny doing this. I don’t think I’ve ever been in a dead person’s house before, and as for going through her clothes and jewelry, well, it doesn’t feel right. I’m not a relative or anything.”
Ryan cleared his throat. “About the jewelry. I didn’t want to say anything in front of Miss Augusta, but when we were searching the house, a box with a cracked lid, seemed to be a jewelry box, was lying on the bedroom floor. Except for a couple of unmatched earrings, it was empty.”
My head snapped in his direction, and he responded to my unasked question.
“Nope. I wouldn’t bet on our finding the locket. Whoever killed Delia probably took it. And be prepared, Sas; the house was ransacked pretty thoroughly. Afterward our techs went through it with a fine-tooth comb, and they’re far from neat.”
Ransacked was one word for it. The first thing I noticed was that Delia’s collection of bird figurines was shunted to one side of a bookshelf attached to the living room wall, and the books, well, they were tossed on the floor, scattered about; some had landed spine down, others had their dust jackets ripped off and dropped on top. Delia had always taken excellent care of her books. It broke my heart to see them left this way. And the furniture! Every piece was topsy-turvy. Why would anybody flip chairs, tables, even push the rolltop desk helter-skelter? It looked like a mess deliberately created by the stage crew for a murder scene in a television show. Except I knew better. This murder scene was real.
Ryan took my elbow and led me to the staircase.
“Come on. Let’s get what we came for and get out of here.”
I nodded.
Delia’s bedroom was at the top of the stairs. I ignored the disarray and opened the closet door. Each item of clothing sat straight on its hanger, and the hangers were in a tidy row. My eye swept from the muumuus I was used to seeing Delia wear, moved past a few pastel dresses, things Delia probably wore to church and on special outings to downtown Fort Myers or Naples. On the right-hand side of the closet, separated by a few inches from the rest of her wardrobe, was her one special dress, teal blue with an empire waist. I checked the shoe rack tucked on the closet floor, and found sandals, water shoes and sneakers. Not one pair of dress shoes of any color, much less blue.
Then a thought struck.
“Ryan, can we check the other bedroom, the guest room?”
He hesitated, so I explained.
“Closet space is at a premium for most women. So we often stash things we don’t wear frequently in places where they won’t be in our way.”
He nodded and led the way to a closed door a few feet down the hallway.
Sunshine filtered through lace curtains and brightened the room, which seemed to have escaped being torn apart like the rest of the house.
Next to the bureau opposite the daybed, a closet door stood slightly ajar. I opened it. Sharing the top shelf with some neatly folded quilts I spied a plastic box labeled “fancy shoes.” I couldn’t quite reach. I stepped out of the way so Ryan could take it down, and that’s when I noticed the square pink leather box on the bureau.