Chapter 13
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Doreen stared down at the contents in the secret drawer in the back of one of the master suite’s dressers.
As she and Scott waited until Mack showed up, Mugs wandered around, sniffing, his nose heavy to the ground.
She watched him and noted how he was more interested in that than the contents of the drawer.
When Mack showed up, she pointed at the drawer.
He walked over, pulled it open, and sighed. “Of course.”
“What is it?” Scott asked, standing at the front of the dresser.
“A weapon.”
Scott stared at her in surprise, and she nodded. “It’s a gun, the second one we’ve found so far. I’ll add this one to the first one in Mathew’s home office desk for now.”
“Oh dear,” Scott muttered.
Doreen asked Scott, “Did you say more secret drawers are in this dresser?”
“Yes, I will open that next.”
Mack always carried plastic gloves and donned one and quickly picked up the weapon and sniffed it. “Hasn’t been fired recently either.” Then he took it away.
“I’m really glad he’s here to handle that stuff,” she muttered.
Scott noted, “I had no idea that your ex-husband was so into weapons.”
“With the dodgy lifestyle he had, and so much money stashed in this place, I guess it makes sense.”
“It does, indeed. The problem with amassing such valuable stuff is that you then have to protect it,” Scott explained. “That tends to drive a lot of people mad because the last thing they want to do is lose everything they’ve invested in.”
“And yet it seems counterproductive to worry so about it because then these things you’ve coveted and worked so hard to get become the very things that drag you down and that rob you of joy. I know firsthand that Mathew got so paranoid that he couldn’t enjoy these things at all.”
Mack returned and rejoined them. “I imagine Mathew’s actions were counterproductive,” Mack acknowledged.
Scott agreed. “In my line of work, I find collecting anything to extremes can be a cold and calculating hobby in very slow and insidious ways. We’ve dealt with a lot of collectors, and sometimes they’re really well adjusted, but other times it just becomes an obsession.”
“I don’t know if Mathew was to the obsession level but probably not far off,” she admitted.
“Maybe he got something worthwhile from amassing these things, but I never got to see much of them,” she noted.
“What did he do with them? Just stare at them all day? And now he’s left me with this mess here. ”
Scott pointed out another hidden drawer. “You need to look at this one too.”
She took a hesitant step forward, slowly pulled it open, and then smiled. “This one’s empty.”
“Good for that,” he muttered with relief.
“Any others?”
“No, I think that’s it,” Scott said. “Wasn’t that gun enough?”
“Absolutely.” She looked around the master and asked, “How are we doing?”
“I have someone here to help—”
Just then a person stepped out of the huge master closet, somebody Doreen had never seen before. He walked over, smiled at her, and announced, “I’m Jewels.”
He was extremely well dressed, exhibiting fashion-diva vibes, not a hair out of place. If she had any energy left, she would be jealous, but she was just too overwhelmed by the rest of it. She smiled at him. “Hey.” Scott’s introduction shared how Jewels was here about the clothing.
Jewels began, “I found suits that have never been worn, still hanging in their bags.”
“That would be Mathew. If he liked something, he purchased multiples, so he never ran out of something, keeping them in perfect, pristine condition until he might need to use them.”
“Interesting system,” Jewels noted. “And do you want to keep anything in these closets?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“What about the women’s clothing?”
“Absolutely not,” she stated. “My husband kicked me out a long time ago, so none of that stuff is mine.”
“Some of it is beautiful though.”
“Maybe,” she conceded, her mind thinking that maybe she should try to sell it on consignment.
Yet she instantly realized she would just be dealing with all that so much longer.
So there was a point. Time to let it all go.
She smiled at him and replied, “If you guys can sell, use, or whatever regarding anything in there, please do.”
He nodded. “I’ll give you a full listing. I’m working on it as I go.” Still muttering to himself, he headed back into the massive closet.
She looked over at Scott. “Mathew’s closet needed a special clothing expert? Really?”
He nodded. “You have no idea.”
“Apparently not,” she muttered.
Scott shrugged. “Clothing of this level can just be cleaned—or dry-cleaned as needed—and an awful lot of buyers are out there for these slightly used items.”
“That’s good,” she stated, “because I don’t know anybody. I guess that’s not totally true. I did sell an awful lot of my grandmother’s clothes way back when.”
“She probably had quite the clothing collection in her day,” Scott noted, with a laugh. “I do remember meeting her, and she still phones me on a regular basis.”
Doreen frowned at her phone, not hearing from Nan today. “Speaking of which, if we’re done here, I’ll give her a quick call.”
“We’re absolutely done,” Scott declared, beaming. “The remaining furniture in any other guest bedroom should be all gone today—except for small decor pieces, which we are not interested in. They want to get onto this master tomorrow.”
“Perfect. … A lot of stuff is still here, isn’t there?”
“Yes, but hopefully we will get through it in one more day.” He added, “We haven’t discussed the living room furniture.”
“Take everything you think you can sell,” she said. “Anything else can be donated to the local women’s shelter.”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely sure.”
He added a bit reluctantly, “I did take a little sneak peek in the main kitchen area. Do you want me to bring in any experts?”
She frowned at him and asked, “What stuff in the kitchen?”
“Mathew had china, very expensive china.”
“Oh, that’s right. We never used it, which I never understood.”
“Of course not,” Scott exclaimed in astonishment. “Some of those pieces are not for using.”
She winced. “Every piece in my house in Kelowna is a piece to use,” she muttered. “I won’t have it any other way.”
He smiled. “I gather then that I can take a good look and whatever we think we can sell …”
“Absolutely,” she murmured, cutting him off, “the more you take, the better. Everything that you don’t take, I still have to deal with. I’m trying to avoid that, if possible.”
*
And that pattern continued for the next day and the day after.
Thankfully Scott reported all jewelry and loose stones had been removed from the house and was already in the air.
Detective Clark was around part of the time, asking questions, and she did her best to answer them.
Butch’s body had been removed from the apartment, and the bedding he had been on was removed by forensics.
The remaining contents of the room would go to charity when the cops were done with the crime scene.
Not much was there in the garage apartment, and it certainly wasn’t of the same quality as the contents of the main house. She and Mack did another search of the apartment, looking for anything related to Butch that the forensics team may have missed.
“By the way,” he whispered, in case anybody was nearby, “Captain Hawkins confirmed Butch’s gun was the one used to kill Pete. Seems they were jailbirds together too.”
“Makes sense,” she muttered, “since Mathew was working with them. Does Detective Clark know that the gun ties Butch to Pete?”
“Yes, as Captain Hawkins informed him of that.”
“Is he checking with the prison for more info on our two dead guys and gonna share it with you?”
Mack grinned. “A professional courtesy has been extended to share info with me, so yes.”
Doreen muttered. “Good. Should we have Nan and crew see if they can find out anything else on these two?”
Mack had to grimace. “As much as I don’t want to encourage them, I sent Nan a photo of Butch. I presumed they were working without my authorization already, so I caved.”
Doreen chuckled. “Sounds good.”
“Now,” Mack said, pointing around at the furnishings still in the garage apartment, “what is your plan for these contents?”
She told him how a local women’s shelter came looking for some furnishings earlier, and she expected them later today.
“They will come through first, taking what they want. Then I found another local charity, already spoke to them on the phone. They talked about some garage sale or consignment or something, but I don’t care.
As long as they make a few bucks or can use it to help somebody out, I am happy for them to take whatever’s left.
I’ll call them to come as soon as the first charity is gone from here. ”