Bone China: A Richard Lacey Detective Mystery

By Taylor Jones

When a young Jewish woman turns up missing; Detective Richard Lacey sets out to find her. He suspects her disappearance is linked to a dispute with Brenton Pottery her employer. But it does not explain the other people that are also missing.
Lacey searches the old, abandoned Brenton factory on the Susquehanna River, and finds a kiln that he suspects was used to cremate bodies. Or was it?
What he learns throws him into a sea of intrigue and danger.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Feb 10, 2000
• ISBN: 9781469754833

Taylor Jones

TAYLOR JONES was inspired to start Dearphotograph.com as he flipped through old family photos at his parents’ kitchen table. The twenty-one-year-old came across one of his brother sitting at the same table and lifted it up to match the lines of the photo to what he saw in front of him, then snapped a picture of the picture. In a moment, Dearphotograph.com was born, creating an Internet phenomenon that has captured the hearts of millions from around the world.

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All Rights Reserved © 1999 by Taylor Jones

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the publisher.

Writers Club Press an imprint of iUniverse.com, Inc.

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ISBN:0-595-08865-1

ISBN: 978-1-4697-5483-3 (ebook)

Contents

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

About the Author

Dedication

This novel is dedicated to those men of the 17th Regimental Combat Team, 7th Infantry Division that left their life s blood in the mountains and valleys of Korea.

Chapter One

When she poked her head into my office, I was reading the bank statement for the White Rose Detective Agency. I was forty-five bucks short of being able to make my car payment and there was not one recoverable dollar in accounts receivable. I had decided to find a real job. Maybe get back on the Highway Patrol. Those were the dark days of starting the agency.

Then she walked in, dressed in designer jeans and a gray pullover. She said, Your secretary wasn’t at her desk. I waited but—

I said, She’s not here. She hasn’t been paid for three weeks so she quit yesterday. It’s not the first time she’s quit.

I smiled, she didn’t. What can I do to help you?

Are you Richard Lacey?

I nodded, yes. She was not thirty years of age, perhaps younger by as much as five years. She held her purse in front of her with both hands. I asked her to sit down and offered her something cool to drink guessing that she would probably refuse. The mini refrigerator was empty.

She said, No thank you.

A good answer.

Her lips were thin and she hardly moved them when she spoke. She said, I probably shouldn’t have come here, Mr. Lacey. I hope I’m not being silly. It’s about my roommate. She’s missing.

What’s your name, I asked.

Martha Green, Mr. Lacey. I work at the Brenton Pottery.

I had driven by the place once or twice. The Brenton Pottery was in Brentonville across the Susquehanna River north of Columbia, Pennsylvania in the Amish country. It was not an art pottery where they have those cute little octagonal kilns. It was a large factory with tunnel kilns a city block long that turned out tons of dinnerware every day.

You’re a designer, no doubt.

No, I work in the laboratory. I’ve been there two years.

Not dressed like that I suppose. I smiled hoping to relax her.

It depends on what I’m doing. My Uncle Aaron is in the clothing business. He gives me clothes whenever I take the train to see him in Manhattan.

There was sadness in her dark eyes. She pushed an unruly lock of her jet-black hair back from her face. She paused and said, I know she didn’t run away. We were raised together in New York. Our families have been together for three generations, maybe longer. I know her like I know my two sisters. She would not leave without telling me where she was going.

She walked over to the window and looked out on Duke Street. The sun cast her shadow on the hardwood floor. Maybe she didn’t put money in the parking meter. Maybe her time was running out. I waited for her to turn.

The meter maid won’t be back for an hour, I said.

What? She looked confused.

So she was looking at something else. Probably just checking to see if her car was still there. You never know in this part of town.

I said, Did you go to the police? I suppose you did or you wouldn’t be here.

Yes, they said I would have to wait thirty days.

I said, They seldom take action on adults unless they’re sure that they are not missing on their own volition.

She was still standing there with her forlorn look. I said, Please sit down, Martha.

She looked at the old oak chair that a friend in the office downstairs had loaned me when I lost the sofa, cadenza and bookcase for non-pay-

ment. She said, Well, maybe I should be going, Mr. Lacey. I’m sorry I wasted your time.

She was not unobservant. She could see that the White Rose Detective Agency was flat on its ass-that I was broke. White Rose was not yet an efficient nor successful operation. She was going to fire me before she hired me.

I said, What is your roommate’s name, Martha? I needed to rekindle her interest.

Her name is Jill Steinberg. She works in the casting department at the Brenton Pottery.

She looked at one of my appreciation certificates on the wall. They were what the patrol gave me instead of money. Maybe the certificate she was reading would impress her, and if not that, the picture of me hiking the ball for the Pittsburgh Steelers. And there was my college diploma from Ohio State University.

Unimpressed, she turned and said, Do you think I could use your telephone book before I go?

Sure, I said. I even smiled. I could take it. I had been fired or not selected by clients more than once in my short career as a detective. I pointed toward the door, The telephone book is on my secretary’s desk.

She didn’t smile back. She said, Thank you, Mr. Lacey, and left my office, closing the door behind her. I picked up the newspaper and found the help-wanted ads.

I heard her leave the outer office when the door closed with its usual thunk. I heard her go down the stairs. I looked out the window and watched her cross Duke Street. She climbed into a green Toyota and started the engine. She looked up at me as she drove off. I waved to her, but she did not wave back. Now I had her look of forlorn.

I decided she had used the telephone book to find a different agency. I was right. In Marilyn’s office, the York telephone book was open to the classification for detective agencies. I perused the list myself. I hoped her Uncle Aaron was rich.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out my grandfather’s railroad watch. It was almost lunchtime. I drove out Market Street to the Reliance Cafe. The new waitress, who didn’t talk much, brought me a bowl of York County Clam Chowder and a hamburger with fries. A friend and an acquaintance came in and joined me. We ate our lunch and sipped our beer. Then I saw her come in, Martha Green, that is, who’s friend, Jill Steinberg, was missing. She was with my fiercest competitor who could afford to take his clients to lunch.

I waited until they were seated on the other side of the restaurant and then I said goodbye to my friends and left.

I went back to the office and put my feet up on the desk. It was times like that when I wished I had a television set. I don’t read much anymore, just the newspaper. Waiting for a telephone call or a client to drop in was the worst part of my job. With Marilyn gone, I had to stay in the office and could not go out and generate business. I sat there wishing I had been born rich, a millionaire, and didn’t have to worry about rent and automobile payments. Then the telephone rang and shattered a nice dream I was having of prosperity on the French Riviera.

I answered the telephone: Hello. White Rose Detective Agency. Can I help you. That’s what Marilyn always said when she answered the telephone and she insisted that I do the same.

It’s Martha Green, Mr. Lacey. Her voice was raspy and it sounded as if she were upset.

I take it your friend is still missing.

I’m sorry, Mr. Lacey. I know you saw me at the restaurant.

I said, I was trying not to be so obvious. But there I was, in full view of those coming in the door.

Mr. Lacey, I have five hundred dollars that I can give you now. But I don’t think I can give you more than two thousand total. Will you take the case for that?

Where are you now?

I’m still at the restaurant. If you will take the case, I’ll tell your competitor goodbye and drive back to your office.

He is a little pricey. What did he say about me that caused you to call me back?

He said you were a good detective, and that all you lacked was a clientele.

Well, cast your bread upon the waters, I said.

Did you do something for him? she said.

Yes, I do something for him all the time. I give him zero competition.

Her first laugh was sweet to my ears. I called Marilyn and told her if she didn’t get back into the office she was fired. She said, We’ve got a client? I’ll be right over.

Marilyn had a form she designed for clients to fill out to help find missing persons. Martha Green filled out the form to find Jill Steinberg. I decided to get right to the point. I asked, Who are Jill Steinberg’s enemies?

She looked at me as if I was crazy. She said, Jill is very loving and outgoing. Everybody likes her. Except the usual problem.

The usual problem, Martha? What do you mean by that?

We’re Jewish. She bowed her head.

Are you saying that some people don’t like Jill because she is Jewish? Who are they, Martha?

She didn’t say anything for a while, but seeing I was waiting for an answer, she said, I don’t know what you mean. I didn’t mean that we are threatened physically, not in America.

Some synagogues have been bombed by enemies of the Jewish people. Did anyone dislike her at work.

She looked at me thoughtfully and said, No one disliked her, but Jill did raise a stir. She said that the company was using bone ash that could have pig bones in it. She had asked our rabbi about it and he said that bone china made with pig bones would not be acceptable to some Jewish people. Our rabbi says that purification takes place when the bone is calcined at very high temperatures, and certainly when it is fired at even higher temperatures in the porcelain body.

I said, Bone ash? Pig bones? Calcined? I guess you mean like the way they make lime. Does the bone ash go into the ceramic with the clay?

Yes. The ingredients are bone ash, china clay, ball clay, flint and feldspar.

I said, How did Jill know this? I mean, how did she learn about the bone ash change?

Her chair wasn’t comfortable and she shifted her weight. She said, I told her. I work in the laboratory. The company changed suppliers. I read in the supplier’s literature that they bought bone ash on the commodity market. It said the bone ash could come from over ninety different countries.

I said, But didn’t you say that Jill worked in the casting department? Why would she be involved in a controversy on the origin of the bone ash? I would think that you would have been the one involved if there was such a concern.

She looked at me, a stare. She didn’t like the question.

Perhaps she thought that she should have been the one to cause the stir and not Jill. I felt like Martha had gotten into my brain. I didn’t like the intrusion.

She said, Do you think that Jill threatened the company enough to affect their share of the dinnerware market?

I said, That was a good thought that I didn’t think. Did anybody threaten her?

Her supervisor was the most adamant about the suggestion that Jill made. He told her the supplier had guaranteed that only cattle bones were used and that pig bones would discolor the bone china. Jill didn’t back down. She said if the supplier was buying bone on the commodity market, instead of from a controlled source, the supplier could be getting pig, horse, cattle, sheep, camel or llama bones.

I said, You know that I know little about the pottery business. Like I said, I thought they used clay to make dinner plates. Why do they use bone ash? What does it do?

It melts into a glass which is optically very similar to the crystals formed during firing. This makes the bone china body very translucent and white. She immediately got back to the subject. Jill was threatened with loss of her job. I was too, because I gave her the information. We agreed with the company to forget the issue, but Jill didn’t forget. I heard that she was going to be fired. That was the rumor around the factory. Mr. Lacey, I don’t think the company would have done more than that. I don’t think they would make her disappear.

I said, The Company probably wouldn’t. They have other ways to resolve their problems. Tell me about her supervisor in the casting department.

Hans Becker? He’s a ceramic engineer trained in Luxembourg. He has been with the company for a long time. He’s gruff but nobody would think that he would be dangerous. In fact, most everybody likes him. He never harassed Jill about the bone ash when she was working, only in meetings on the subject. Anyway, the company went back to their original bone source, which guaranteed that only cattle bones would be used to make bone ash. That should have been it except that Jill said that some bone china had been shipped with the commodity bone ash and that Jewish people, who would not tolerate swine bones, wouldn’t know they were present. Hans said that there was no evidence that pig bones were used and that the subject was closed.

I said, If there were pig bones in any of the porcelain, it would be discolored, right?

No. That is just a myth created by the bone-ash suppliers.

Martha said that Jill normally worked from six in the morning until two-thirty in the afternoon. All of the casters did. On the other hand, Martha worked from seven in the morning until three-thirty in the afternoon. They were the normal working hours in the factory except for the managers, who worked from eight to four-thirty. On the day that Jill disappeared, she came into the laboratory at the end of her shift and asked Martha what they should have for dinner or would Martha rather go out. That was the last time Martha had seen her roommate and lifelong friend.

After I had discussed the missing person form in some detail with Martha, she left my office. As an afterthought, I caught up with her and walked her to the car. It was getting dark and I didn’t want her to have an unfriendly encounter with one of the street hoods.

She turned to me after she unlocked the door. She was of normal height for a woman but the top of her head came only to my chin. I looked down into her solemn face. She said, Please find her, Mr. Lacey.

I’ll see you tomorrow, I said.

The next morning I drove to Brentonville on the east bank of the Susquehanna. The railroad tracks and River Road separated Veterans Memorial River Park from the town. The park ran along the river and was several miles long.

Brentonville was a small town of twelve thousand people. The area was partly agricultural and partly industrial. The Brenton Pottery was the major employer.

Most structures in the town, homes and buildings, were made with red brick. Row houses lined the streets with their front porches very near the curbs. If you wanted trees, you had to go to the park or peak over the fences into the back yards. It was Sunday morning and the church bells were ringing.

Martha and Jill lived at the corner of River and George Streets. I parked up the street and sat in the car watching for neighbors. I didn’t want the neighbors to think that my client was having an affair, not so much as me going into the house, but coming out of the house on a Sunday morning. It doesn’t take much to piss a client off. You have to be professional. It looked clear, so I walked up to the house and knocked on the door. Martha answered the door immediately and let me in.

With the formalities of greeting out of the way, she said, Will you be able to find Jill?

I said, I don’t know, Martha. But you can help us. First you can help by checking Jill’s personal belongings. Can you tell me what is missing such as clothing and personal items? It says on the form that she is a photographer in her spare time. Is any photography equipment missing?

Sure, Mr. Lacey. I can check everything that she has.

Martha methodically went through the house, starting in the bathroom, then the kitchen, then the dining and living rooms and then upstairs to the second bath and the bedrooms. She checked every drawer, nook and cranny.

I thought I was a detective, I said.

There was no smile from Martha. She made no comments and took no notes. Finally, she completed her search. She said, Toothbrushes, the red one and the blue one are still here. Her lingerie is here except for what she’s wearing. She is dressed in jeans and a red sweater. She has woolen socks and hiking boots. Her coat is camouflaged and has a hood. Several of her cameras are missing, not only with telescopic lenses but also with a wide-angle lens. She obviously went to photograph something.

Does she often do that after work?

No, she usually does it on the weekends. Maybe she had an assignment that she didn’t tell me about. It could have been an assignment that she took on short notice.

Does she get a lot of assignments.

No, if she did, she would quit the factory job. She would like to be a full-time photographer more than anything else in the world.

I turned some business cards over in my hand that I found on a Seder plate on Jill’s desk. Did she work for the Red Rose Advertising Agency?

She smiled and said, She contacted all the agencies in the telephone book and visited several. But I don’t know of any agency that gave her a specific assignment. But she did sell photos to some agencies. She also sold photos to a few magazines and newspapers. Whenever she got a check, she would jump up and down with joy. Then she would take me to dinner and blow the whole thing.

She smiled at the reminiscence and went back to looking at Jill’s belongings.

I said, Did she ever mention the Red Rose Advertising Agency?

She turned to me quickly, her soft hair flew off her shoulders. Mr. Lacey, I’m scared! I should have checked earlier to see if anything was missing. I just didn’t think. I just thought Jill would pop up. The police! I never got over to the station to file the missing person report! I only talked to them on the telephone. The car! They could have been looking for the car!

She held back tears. She reached for a handkerchief.

I said, "I have the car on the stolen car list. A friend in the patrol did it for me. If they find the car, the Brentonville police will know about it and so will we. Now, where does