Chapter 12 The Forgers Trunk and the Handcuffs #2
"You paid a hitman for paper, Gregory," Birdie snapped, her eyes flashing with disgust. "You financed the destruction of our mountain."
"I didn't kill him!" Gregory screamed in full hysteria.
"Listen to me! If I paid him twenty-five thousand to forge the ledger, why on earth would I bash his head in with an antique scale before he finished it?
Look at the case! The blank paper is still blank!
There's no deed here! If he died, my whole plan went up in smoke!
Why would I murder the only man who could print my ticket out of bankruptcy? "
Lawson didn't blink. He unclipped steel handcuffs from his belt.
"Gregory Vance, you are under arrest for conspiracy to commit grand fraud, uttering a forged instrument, and tampering with probate records. And you’re being detained as a prime suspect in the homicide of Julian Croft."
"No! Vanessa, call my lawyer! Call Arthur in Raleigh!" Gregory stumbled back, his loafers skidding in the gravel, but Luke caught his arms with calm, immovable strength.
"Easy there, friend," Luke said quietly, holding him steady while Lawson clicked the cuffs around his trembling wrists.
"You're making a catastrophic mistake!" Gregory wailed as Lawson steered him toward the cruiser. "I was in the kitchen with Mrs. Gable at two o’clock! I was eating a scone! Ask her!"
Lawson guided Gregory into the back of the cruiser and shut the door with a solid thunk.
Vanessa stood frozen, cigarette limp in her fingers, staring at the car as if her brother had turned into an alien. "The idiot," she whispered with vicious venom. "The absolute, bankrupt idiot. He ruined everything."
She turned on her heel and strode back toward the house, heels clicking furiously on the stone steps before the heavy front door slammed shut.
Agent Miller closed the titanium briefcase, latched it, and carried it to the SBI SUV. "I’ll transport this directly to the state crime lab in Asheville, Sheriff. Good luck with the preview."
"Thanks, Miller," Lawson sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose as the SBI vehicle backed down the turnaround and departed.
He walked back to where Birdie, Luke, and I stood by the tailgate. For a moment, none of us spoke.
"Well," Birdie said, letting out a long whistle. "That explains why Julian Croft looked at that Moravian desk like a starving hound eyeing a pot roast. He wasn't looking for antiques to sell. He was hunting raw materials to mimic."
"It fits," Lawson admitted, glancing at the cruiser where Gregory was weeping against the glass.
"Gregory was facing massive margin calls in Raleigh—over two million in debt from bad real estate ventures.
If he secured that timber tract, his debts vanished.
Croft gets a cool hundred grand. Croft comes in as an independent appraiser to gain unfettered access to Eleanor's sitting room and inspect the desk. "
"Except he didn't find what he needed," I said.
Lawson turned to me, his hazel eyes narrowing. "What do you mean, Maggie?"
"Think about what Gregory just said, Frank," I urged, stepping closer. "For once in his sniveling life, Gregory was telling the truth. Why would Gregory kill Julian in the carriage house at two o'clock on Tuesday?"
"Greed?" Birdie ventured. "Maybe Croft demanded more money? Blackmail?"
"If Croft demanded more money, Gregory would have had to stall or negotiate," I reasoned.
"Because without Julian Croft, the forgery was impossible.
Gregory couldn't forge 1840s Moravian script to save his life.
He didn't have the ink or the paper. Look at that case, Frank!
The ink bottles were never uncorked. The cotton rag sheets are untouched. The forgery hadn't even begun."
Luke nodded, his jaw grim. "Maggie’s right. A con artist doesn't destroy his only tool before the job is finished. And Gregory doesn't have the stomach to swing a fifteen-pound brass scale. He gets dizzy when a truck backfires."
"Then who killed him?" Lawson asked.
"Someone who knew what Julian was really doing," I whispered, the hair on the back of my neck prickling in the cool mountain breeze.
"Someone who discovered Julian Croft wasn't just an arrogant appraiser from Atlanta, but a mercenary hired to steal the mountain.
Someone who realized the original 1845 ledger held the true land deed—and confronted Julian in the carriage house.
When Julian couldn't produce the real book because he was busy trying to forge a fake, that person struck him down in cold-blooded fury. "
I looked down the long, curved driveway toward the heavy iron gates.
Through the wrought-iron gates, the line of parked cars stretched down the county road. The carriage house clock struck a resonant chime across the valley.
Nine-fifteen.
"Forty-five minutes," Birdie said, her voice dropping its usual swagger as she checked her watch.
"In forty-five minutes, Frank, we have to unlock those gates.
There are over two hundred people out there right now.
Local collectors, neighbors, mountain families whose land borders this estate, and antique hounds. "
"And among them," Luke added softly, looking toward the gate, "is whoever took that brass scale off the wall and split Julian Croft's skull."
Lawson looked from the iron gates back to the locked Audi, then to me, his jaw set hard.
"Maggie," Lawson said quietly. "Are you telling me the real killer is going to walk through those front gates the second you open them?"
I looked at Buster, who had stood up, his ears pricked forward, staring intently down the driveway toward the gathering crowd.
"I’m telling you, Sheriff," I said, my heart pounding an urgent rhythm against my ribs, "they’re already waiting in line."