Dead Certain by Mariah Stewart

know when it would be since it’s currently being treated as evidence in a murder investigation but could she please not turn me in to Interpol?” Amanda said dryly. “You mean that email?”
    “Yes, that one.” Iona sipped her coffee. “She was upset for you—and sends her condolences on Derek’s death—but she said that as long as the piece is safe, she’s okay with the situation.”
    “She’s okay with it? I promised her it would be in her hands within a week, and now it’s sitting in the evidence room at the Broeder P.D. and will be for God knows how long. How could she be okay with that?”
    “Because she knows where it is and that it’s intact and in safe hands. Keep in mind that most of the antiquities that disappear do not resurface, and very, very few of those that do are returned voluntarily. She knows she’ll get this goblet back eventually, and that’s more than she knows about ninety-nine percent of what’s been sold on the black market over the past hundred or so years.”
    “You know, it just occurred to me. . . .” Amanda lowered her voice to a near whisper. “What if . . . ?”
    “What if what? What are you thinking?”
    “What if Chief Mercer is right and there is a connection between the pottery and Derek’s murder?”
    “You think there could be?”
    “I don’t know. Maybe. I dismissed the possibility at first, but at this point, I’m starting to wonder. It makes about as much sense as anything else, though I think it’s a real stretch. I honestly can’t think of one reason why anyone would want him dead.”
    “Then turning the goblet over to the police was probably the smartest thing you could have done.” Iona patted Amanda on the arm. “If someone was after the vase, we don’t need him coming after you to look for it.”
             
    It was almost four o’clock by the time Amanda unlocked the door to her shop, and after five by the time she’d brought in the boxes of carefully wrapped Hull vases and called her customer, who promised she’d be there first thing in the morning to pick them up. Relieved to know that she’d have certain income that week, Amanda cleaned up the pottery pieces in the sink in the back room, dried them, and looked for a place to display them. Deciding on a shelf near but not quite in the front window, she set about the task of moving a row of cut-glass bowls. They were dusty, so she washed them off as well, then arranged them inside the glass counter near the cash register.
    Derek was so good at this, she thought as she looked around for a place to stand the onyx bookends she’d removed from the counter to make room for the cut glass. He just always seemed to know exactly where to display things. He had such a great eye.
    She wasn’t even aware she was crying until she saw the fat drops begin to puddle on the countertop. She’d shed many tears over the past two weeks, but until now, his death had barely seemed real. Now, after having spent most of the day at a sale without him and returning to the silent shop, she knew the loss of Derek was undeniable. The rituals of death now over, she would have to deal, day to day, with the reality of Derek being gone. Gone from the business—gone from her life.
    Numb for most of the days since the murder, she was just beginning to thaw. It hurt terribly, and would, she knew, for a long time.
    She was still sniffling when she heard the sound of something dropping outside her door. She peered through the window and saw Marian O’Connor struggling to lift a box that was obviously too much for her. Unlocking her door, Amanda stepped outside and all but tripped over Marian’s purse where it lay on the walk between the two shops.
    “Marian, here, let me help you with that.” Amanda, the stronger of the two, grabbed the box and took it. “You pick up your purse there, get your keys out, and unlock the door. I’ll hold this.”
    “Oh, Amanda, thank you. I was having a devil of a time with that.