“Look at this everyone!” I exclaimed, holding up the puppy, “we found it at last.” Everyone gathered around all excited, but our excitement cooled off when I said the puppy was empty. There was a lot of other papers in that safe however, plus an envelope with a letter to Denise from Ben. In that letter he told Denise about the jewels and the fact he had sold them 5 years after the robbery in order to get rid of them. He was always nervous about keeping them around the house.

He sold them quickly for just 25% of their actual value, but he had good investment sense and invested the money well. That is what all these other papers are all about, or a lot of them anyway. I called Walter and he and Crandall came and picked up all the papers to take them to Baldwin so he could look at them more closely. He knows more about these things than I do. He called in a short time very excited about what we had found and said that Sky was now a very wealthy woman.

In the will that Denise left, she said that everything in the safe belonged to the person who owned the chateau when the contents were found. That would be Sky. Since Sofie and her son would be going to prison, there are no other relatives to contest the will. “That means I can make all the upgrades to our chateau myself,” she said, “we do not need to rely on Mr. B., besides, he gave us the chateau for our wedding gift, so he should not have to pay for the upgrades too.”

“That does make sense,” I said, “now, we need to put our puzzle pieces together and get this case closed.” “Well, we found the lost puppy,” said Crystal, “and in a sense we found the jewels too. That finishes our part, does it not?” “Well, yes, it does partly,” I said, “but the case kind of grew a bit to include the murder of Denise and the murder of that guard the night Mack and Sofie stole those jewels.”

“I thought Mack shot the guard,” said Rock, “that is why he spent 30 years in prison.” “Yes, poor Mack,” I said, “he got the worst of things and the theft was not even his idea. The police should be here soon, so time to go up and get ready to hopefully get things tidied up a bit.” We all went upstairs, Sofie had fresh coffee ready for us, so we all sat down to talk for a while until the police arrived. “Have you got everything now Sofie?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said, “the last of the boxes are sitting outside waiting to be moved to my new flat.” “That is good to hear,” I said, “moving is such hard work.” “Oh my yes,” she said, “I am just exhausted from it all. But I am very happy to be moving out of this chateau and get somewhere that I can relax again.” “I am glad you are looking forward to moving,” said Sky, “I sure hope you will enjoy your new place.” Just then there was a knock at the door and Rock went to let the police come in.

“Oh, I was not expecting the police to come again today,” said Sofie, “um, would you care for some coffee?” “No thank you,” said the officer in charge. “Well Sofie,” I began, “I called the police to come over again because we have found some new evidence concerning the robbery of those jewels.” “You did not mention finding anything to me,” she said almost angrily. “Well, that is because I wanted it to be a surprise Sofie,” I said.

“And why do you keep calling me Sofie,” she said sternly, “you know my name is Sofie, not Denise…I mean, my name is not Denise, it is Sofie! NO, now you did that deliberately to get me flustered and mixed up!” “No Sofie,” I said, “not to get you mixed up, but to get you cleared up. We know that you are Sofie, and the dead woman we found was Denise. That was very easy for the coroner to prove.

You see, you had been trying for a long time to get Denise to tell you where the jewels were hidden, those jewels that you and Mack had stolen and given to Ben for safekeeping until Mack got out of prison. But Denise would not tell you and finally you got so angry with her that you hit her on the head with an old table leg in the basement.”

“I did no such thing!” she screamed, “you are just trying to put me in jail for something I did not do!” “No Sofie,” I said, “I want to put you in jail for something you did do. We found the table leg and it has blood from Denise on it, we already checked it out. Then you called your son to come and get rid of her body for you.”

“No, she was still alive,” Sofie retorted, “the coroner said she drowned, so it was my son who killed her.” “True, but he also said that Denise would have died from the blow on the head you gave her anyway,” I continued, “so you are still an accomplice to her murder anyway, plus you covered it up, which is also a crime.” Her mouth was wide open now…

To Be Continued.

©2022 Steve McLeod.