Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
Sometimes we dance upon the shore,
To whistling winds and seas that roar;
Then we make the wind to blow
And set the seas a-dancing, too.
~ Anonymous, “The Fairies’ Song”
I PAID FOR MY TREAT, but I didn’t take it to go. Asking pressing questions often made me lose my appetite. I swung by Open Your Imagination to drop off the cookies and found Joss finalizing a sale for a customer.
When the customer left, I said, “Don’t eat these all at once.”
“As if. I’ll offer them to our regulars.” Joss peeked inside the box. “How pretty. I love the whisks of snow on the snowmen’s bellies. So”—she took one and bit into it—“did you learn anything?”
“Shara owns a metal detector,” Fiona said.
“But Fiona and I don’t think she’s the killer,” I added, and explained our reasoning. “I should visit the Monterey County Assessor-Recorder’s Office.”
Joss polished off the cookie and brushed crumbs from her hands into the trash basket. “To learn what?”
“If Tianna could have had legitimate ancestral rights to the courtyard property.”
“She didn’t,” a man said emerging from the hall, his overcoat hanging open, his red suspenders, white shirt, and baggy chinos in full view.
Ferguson Moss. I winced.
“Did he just use the facilities?” I whispered to Joss.
“Yes,” she said, sotto voce.
“Why is he here?”
“To buy a gift for his girlfriend.”
“Even after claiming what we do at the shop is a hoax?”
“He thinks saying we see fairies is deceitful, but he liked the Christmas bells.” She pointed to a tote bag tied with raffia.
“As to your question about Miss Thistle’s entitlement to the property,” Ferguson rasped, “she does not own it now, and none of her ancestors did in the past.”
The hair at the nape of my neck bristled with unease. I didn’t want to turn away customers, but I wanted this guy gone.
Fiona flew around him and grimaced. “He’s not trustworthy.”
“I know what I say is true,” Ferguson continued, “because I visited the recorder’s office.”
“Why would they tell you anything?” I asked.
“Because my family goes back six generations in these parts.” He peered at the patio and a sly smile drew up the left side of his mouth. He caught me staring at him and frowned. “What?”
“How many generations?” I asked.
“Six,” he repeated.
“Gee, you don’t look like you have Spanish heritage.”
“Huh?”
“One hundred years typically engenders three or four generations. The current town of Carmel blossomed after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake when artists and authors ventured south to establish a creative community. Formerly, the area was influenced by Spanish occupation. Father Junipero Serra established a mission in the late 1700s.”
“Fine. Three or four generations,” he revised.
Joss said sotto voce, “Courtney, the recorder’s office won’t care about his lineage. Anybody can view records.”
I glowered at Ferguson. Believing he was bluffing and recalling what Hercule Poirot said a detective had to be good at—guessing—I blurted, “Where were you Wednesday night?”
“Why do you care?”
“Because Tianna Thistle, the woman you threatened Tuesday, was murdered in my shop.”
He balked. His bulbous nose reddened and his puffy eyes narrowed into slits. “I didn’t threaten anyone.”
“You did.”
“Well, I didn’t kill her.” He raised his chin which made his drooping jowls waggle. “I was tending to my gardens.”
“Talking to snails,” Joss chimed.
Fiona tittered.
“Any witnesses?” I asked.
“Why would I need one?”
“Mr. Moss, you just admitted you went out of your way to seek information that would destroy Miss Thistle’s credibility.
When she alleged her family had ancestral rights to this property and any treasure it might reveal, you bullied her and said, ‘Not if something happens to you.’” I pursed my lips.
“What really went down? Did you steal into my shop first? Were you digging up the courtyard when she found you?”
“Digging . . . your courtyard?” His cheeks reddened. “No. I wasn’t here. I was in my garden. My neighbor saw me. Multiple times.”
I tilted my head. Was a neighbor-sighting the go-to alibi nowadays? “Why?” I asked. “Are you someone who needs to be watched?”
“Bah!” He filled his cheeks with air and blew it out. “You’re crazy.” He grabbed the handle of the gift bag and stormed through the showroom. “You’ll be hearing from my lawyer if you defame me.”
When he left, my fervor deflated. I grabbed the edge of the sales counter to steady myself. Fiona doused me with a silvery calming potion.
Joss rested a hand on my shoulder. “Did you believe him?”
“Sadly, I did.”
The Monterey County Assessor-Recorder’s Office was located in a utilitarian building in Salinas, a town known as the Salad Bowl of the World because of the abundance of lettuce, artichokes, and other crops they grew there.
A clerk with café au lait skin, hazel eyes, and a welcoming smile greeted me in the recorder’s office. Her badge read Santos.
Fiona danced along the front of the clerk’s desk. The woman didn’t seem to detect her.
“May I help you?” she asked.
I explained my quest and asked if she could provide me access to the property records.
“With the Assessor’s Parcel Number anyone can obtain the earliest document we have on file.”
“Assessor’s parcel number?” I repeated. “I don’t have one.”
“It would be on your tax bill.”
“I don’t pay the tax bill. Our landlord Logan Langford does.”
“What’s the address?”
“We don’t have addresses in Carmel.” All mail was distributed via the main post office. I gave her the name of the Cypress and Ivy Courtyard and the cross streets.
In a minute, she came up with the APN and jotted it down. “To delve further, you can use the public access computers. There you may explore ownership history. You’ll want to perform a grantor/grantee search.”
A half hour later, I had the information I needed.
Ferguson Moss was wrong. The Tillbury family had indeed built the courtyard.
Dexter Tillbury’s father had been the initial owner, and he’d bequeathed it to his son Dexter.
The errant son Daniel was not mentioned.
When Dexter died in 1940, the property transferred to his daughter, Thessalonia.
She willed the property to her daughter Tillie York in 1970.
Tillie married and years later sold the property to Logan Langford in 1990.
“Uh-oh. You’ve got that look on your face.” Fiona furrowed her brow to mimic me. “Where are we going?”
“Back to Miss Santos. Something about Dexter’s death is sticking in my craw.
Lissa Reade said Dexter’s brother killed him, misguidedly believing their father would include him in his will.
What if one of Daniel Tillbury’s descendants believed he or she should be the rightful owner of the property?
What if that person discovered Tianna was intent on finding the treasure and followed her to steal the fortune? ”
Fiona said, “Could Ferguson Moss be a relative? He sure seemed eager to beat her to the prize.”
“Interesting theory,” I said as his words get there first cycled through my mind. Had he followed Shara, thinking she was the rightful heir to the property, only to learn Tianna believed she was? Did he then trail her?
We returned to the front desk, and I asked Santos if she or someone in the building could help me. I didn’t think saying us, meaning me and Fiona, would be a wise decision.
Santos’s eyes brightened. “You’ve come to the right spot. I am a devoted historian. My family goes back eight generations, in both Monterey and Carmel. I’ve memorized everything there is to know about missions, land development, and more. What do you want to learn?”
I filled her in about Tianna’s murder. She paled.
“Tianna shared how her great-great-grandfather inherited the property in its entirety,” I went on, “and I confirmed her account. His name is the original name of record. Upon his death, the property transferred to his daughter, and she bequeathed it to her child. Many years later it was sold to the current owner.”
“The Tillbury debacle. Ah, yes.” Santos shook her head.
“It made the front page news in Monterey. My abuela was a front page junkie. She clipped and saved every major story for fifty years. She wasn’t a packrat, but she was determined to know what was going on in the world.
The Tillbury story had a central place on her bulletin board.
” She laughed. “Her innate curiosity was to be expected. She was a librarian.”
“Can you tell me more?”
“Not much.” She wagged her head. “The murderer Daniel Tillbury went to jail and perished. His wife succumbed to a heart attack. They had a daughter. Reenie was her name, short for Doreen. She moved away when she was seventeen.” She flicked the air with her fingers.
As I left the building, I felt eyes on me and shuddered.
“What’s wrong?” Fiona asked.
I explained and turned in a circle to scope out the area, but I didn’t see anyone overtly watching me.
There was a man in jogging clothes to my left scrolling through something on his phone, and a woman pushing a baby carriage to my right.
In her dark scarf and sunglasses, she reminded me of Audrey Hepburn in the movie Charade.
Was there even a baby in the carriage? I mused.
All of a sudden an infant cried, and I laughed to myself. Don’t get paranoid, Courtney.
“Ahem, Courtney,” Fiona said. “How can we find out if Ferguson Moss is related to Tianna?”
“A DNA test, but I doubt he’ll submit to one.”