Free The Body in Bodega Bay by Betsy Draine Page B

leave.
    â€œIs there anything else I can tell you?”
    â€œThere’s just one thing,” I said. “What made you decide to sell the icon now after all these years? And Peter’s artwork?”
    â€œSimple. I needed the money. Times are bad. My sales are way down.”
    Toby got up too. “So how did the storyboards do, if you don’t mind my asking?”
    â€œYou know what? I cleared twelve hundred dollars on the lot after Morgan’s took their cut and only six hundred on the icon. I was expecting a whole lot more. And to think that someone might have been killed on account of it—it doesn’t make sense.”
    â€œNo, it doesn’t,” I agreed. “It doesn’t make sense at all.”
    T hat was quite a story,” Toby remarked as we headed back to Duncans Mills. The rain had slackened to a drizzle.
    â€œShe’s quite a woman. It must be a lonely life for her, but she seems to have it together. She’s independent. I liked her.”
    â€œSo did I.”
    â€œEven when she slapped your wrist for getting antsy?”
    â€œEven so. Sometimes I do get impatient.”
    â€œYou’re such a man.”
    â€œAnd that’s bad?”
    â€œActually, in the general scheme of things, it’s good.”
    â€œThanks. I suppose. What do you make of her story? The pieces don’t all seem to fit.”
    â€œNo,” I admitted. “There must be a link between the icon and the Hitchcock memorabilia, but how in the world could Charlie have made a connection? Unless it was just luck that they ended up in his possession.”
    â€œIf luck was involved, it was bad luck for Charlie. I wonder what he did with those storyboards? I’m going to have to make another search of the shop.”
    â€œFine, and while you’re doing that, I’ll check the catalog entry on the storyboards and type up my notes for Dan.”
    W e stopped at the Cape Fear Café in Duncans Mills for a quick bite to eat before reopening the gallery. They make a good, old-fashioned BLT. I always ask them to hold the tomatoes, so I suppose the sandwich I order should be called a BL. While we were wolfing down our lunch, Caroline, the woman who owns the gift shop next to Toby, came in. “Hey, Toby. There was someone asking for you this morning. When he saw you were closed, he seemed disappointed. I told him to stop by again later today, and he said he would.”
    â€œThanks. I’ll keep an eye out for him.”
    â€œSure, me too.”
    â€œDid he say anything else?” asked Toby.
    â€œNo. Just that he’d call again.”
    â€œOkay, thanks, Caroline.”
    Back at the shop, Toby removed the closed sign from his door and started a systematic search of the premises while I scanned Morgan’s auction catalog for the lot Charlie bought. It didn’t take me long to find it.
    Three preproduction storyboards for
    Alfred Hitchcock’s film The Birds , 1962.
    Original watercolor and ink drawings.
    Each 12" × 20".
    The Property of a Lady.
    Est. $2,000–$2,500.
    Only one of the three was illustrated in the catalog. The sketch showed a side view of a wood-frame house partially hidden by a group of trees. There wasn’t much detail. It was years since I’d seen the film, but I vaguely remembered the farmhouse where the family lives and where the final bird attack takes place. At least now we knew what the storyboards looked like.
    But that was as close as we got to them. After an hour, Toby threw up his hands. “They’re not here. Either Charlie never brought them to the shop, or whoever stole the icon found the storyboards and took them too. They’re gone.”
    Meanwhile, though, I had made a discovery. “Toby, come take a look at the catalog. The storyboards are listed on the first day of the auction, the icon on the second.”
    â€œSo?”
    â€œThat means that Charlie bought the storyboards first and