Deadly Appraisal (22 page)

CHAPTER FORTY

S

oon after Max left, the chimes sang out, announcing an arrival. I turned and saw Wes’s stocky form awkwardly pushing through the door. He was breathing hard, winded by the run from his car to our office. He wasn’t wearing a raincoat and the small black umbrella he carried had a broken spoke. Drops of water dripped steadily on the floor.

Gretchen popped up from her desk and took the sodden umbrella from his hands. “Oh, wow, it’s really coming down, isn’t it?” she said with her bright, welcoming smile. “I’ll just put your umbrella here in the stand, okay?”

“Thanks. It’s pretty wet,” he agreed.

“Hey, Wes,” I said.

“Got a sec?”

I couldn’t imagine why he was here. After all our circumspection, for him to boldly walk in was an anomaly that smacked of danger. My trouble meter whirred into high alert. “Sure,” I said. “Follow me.”

I led the way through the warehouse and unlocked the door to the tag-sale area where we’d met before. Tomorrow, Thursday, the place would become a beehive of activity as Eric and a gaggle of temporary and part-time workers began to set up the displays for Saturday’s all-day tag sale. By Friday midday, they’d be done. But today, the tables were bare.

Sometimes I questioned my policy of returning all unsold items to inventory and starting the setup from scratch each week, because the procedure added hours of extra work, but I couldn’t think of an easier way to ensure that our displays always looked fresh. Over the years, I’d concluded that merchandising was an art form. For instance, I’d observed that a cobalt blue bud vase looked different when it was positioned among glassware than it did when it was placed next to a lamp in a display of living room knickknacks. One buyer wouldn’t even notice the vase in the midst of all the glasses, but would leap on it in the living room display. Another buyer, who collected only items made of cobalt-colored glass, might not even visit the living room display area.

“I’m surprised you’re here,” I said. “I expected you to call, not just show up.”

Wes nodded. “I need to talk to you. On the record.”

Rain pounded at the building and rivulets of water streamed down the windows. It was a good day to be inside. I turned on the lights and the globe-covered high-wattage bulbs overcame the dull grayness of the stormy day.

I tilted my head, considering him. “What about?”

“The theft of the tureen.”

Damn
, I thought,
just what I need
—
another hit of bad publicity
. “What do you know about the theft?” I asked.

“Why? So you can see how little you have to tell me?”

“I don’t have to tell you anything, Wes,” I said, unyielding.

“I’m writing tomorrow’s lead about it—and don’t be thinking that it’s covered by our off-the-record arrangement, because it’s not. That only applies to the murder.”

“Wes, if you write one word about this, you’ll be sorry forever. I promise you. Not one word, do you hear me?”

“Josie, it’s my job to write about crimes. Theft is a crime. Talk to me. Control the spin,” he said, his tone reasoned.

The more rational Wes sounded, the more worried I became. The inevitability of seeing my name in print in the morning loomed large. I flashed on Detective Rowcliff’s last admonition—not to talk to reporters—and smiled.
How could I resist?
Talk about killing two birds with one stone. With one innocuous quote, I’d help Wes and irritate Rowcliff.

“Okay. Here goes. Are you ready?”

Wes pulled his crumpled notepad out of his pocket and nodded. “Go,” he said.

“Everyone at Prescott’s is shocked and appalled by the theft. The circumstances are under investigation by the police and we have every confidence that the tureen and the perpetrator of this terrible crime will be located quickly. All staff members at Prescott’s are cooperating fully with the police. It was an isolated incident, a fluke, an unfortunate onetime event. Prescott’s has state-of-the-art security and a highly professional staff.” I paused to think if there was anything else I should add, taking solace from the thought that Wes must hate my white-bread statement.

“Come on, Josie. That sounds like a press release.”

“Well, why not? You’re the press. Those are my only words on the subject. Our other arrangement stands, right, Wes?”

“What did you discuss with Detective Rowcliff?” he asked.

“The theft. He asked if I knew who stole it and I told him no.”

“What else?”

“That’s it.”

“No way, Josie.” He looked up. “All you told me was that you met with the police.”

“No comment.”

“Okay, okay. Let me ask you to verify some facts.”

Wes peppered me with questions that revealed a detailed knowledge of the crime, once again suggesting that he had access to inside sources. He knew about the smudged fingerprints, Eddie’s surprise reappearance at my building Monday afternoon, and the limited distribution of reproduction tureens. Britt, I guessed, the old gossip, was responsible for some of his inside scoop. But he also had to have a police source.

I neither confirmed nor denied anything. “Would you agree that I have refused to discuss the details of the case with you?” I asked.

“Hell, yes!”

“Do you have any reason to think I have any guilty knowledge of the theft?”

“No.” He looked at me for a minute. “Why?”

“I expect to read both of those facts in your article tomorrow.”

He made a note. “Fair enough.”

“I’ll tell you something else—but it’s got to be off the record,” I said.

He sighed, acting put-upon. “Okay. What?”

“Eddie is MIA.”

“What do you mean?”

“You heard me—but you can’t quote me. The police can’t find him.”

Wes’s eyes lit up in anticipation of a new lead. “What do you know?” he demanded, all business.

“The police think he’s in Arizona. I have him in Oklahoma.”

“Got it.” He made a note. “What else?”

“That’s it. They can’t reach him.” I shrugged and paused as he wrote. “Can I ask you something?” I said when he looked up.

“Sure,” he replied.

“Do you have any new information about the origin of the money in Maisy’s account?”

“Yeah. It takes us nowhere, though.”

“How so?”

“It was moved through six U.S. cities—starting in New Orleans and ending in Atlanta. From there, it went to Montreal, and then offshore to Belize.”

“And then to Europe?”

“No record. Belize keeps banking private.”

“I thought those days were gone.”

“No way. Have you ever heard of the MLAT?”

“No. What’s that?”

“The Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty. Belize doesn’t adhere to it.”

“Wow. So the whole point of moving the money around is to muddy the waters?”

“Exactly. To make it harder to trace.”

“But it sounds as if you were able to do so.”

“Yeah, but tracking it is of no real value, because at each stop along the way, there’s a different name. Some accounts are personal, some corporate. Sometimes the money moved in one lump payment, sometimes in several payments over a few weeks.”

“All electronic transfers?”

“Yup.”

“I wonder who’s behind it.”

“That’s the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question,” Wes said.

“My mom used to say that. ‘The sixty-four-thousand-dollar question,’ ” I commented, remembering.

“Mine, too.”

Funny to think about Wes having a mother. I smiled at him but didn’t pursue the conversation. Instead, I asked, “What about Britt? Were you able to trace the origin of the four hundred thousand?”

“No dice. Britt Epps has not made a big withdrawal, nor sold any asset of record, during the last year.”

“Really?” I asked, astonished.
How can that be?
I thought.
I was so certain that we were onto something
.

“Yup, looks like he’s not the one we’re looking for.”

I sat for a moment, thinking. “Unless he keeps a lot of money under his mattress or something.”

“I suppose,” he said without enthusiasm. “To tell you the truth, Josie, I think it’s another false lead.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

“And you know what that means. No money, no blackmail. No blackmail, no motive.”

I shook my head. “Yeah.”

He gave me a long, penetrating look. I didn’t flinch.

“Anything else?” I asked indifferently.

“Yeah, but you won’t discuss it.”

“My word is good, Wes. You know that,” I responded, knowing the importance of maintaining good relations with the press. “As soon as I can tell you more, I will. Exclusive to you.”

He shrugged. “Okay, then.”

“You’ll let me know about Eddie?” I asked as I led the way back toward the warehouse.

“Yeah. So how are you, anyway?” he asked as we walked.

Ignoring the fact that his solicitous inquiry was his last thought, not his first, I told him I was improving.

Wes was in a hurry to leave and seemed oblivious to Gretchen’s good-natured chat as he got his umbrella opened; then, with a final wave, he dashed across the lot to his car. The rain seemed to be coming sideways now, heavier than ever.

It
has
to be Britt
, I thought.
How can it
not
be?
But if Wes was right, and it wasn’t Britt who’d poisoned Maisy and funded her Swiss account, who had?
Eddie?
No way did he have access to that kind of money.
Unless
, I thought, shocked at the idea,
he has, in fact, been stealing for a while, and the four hundred thousand dollars sitting in Maisy’s account are the ill-gotten proceeds of his thievery
.

Britt or Eddie? Or, I suddenly wondered, was there someone else responsible for the murder, theft, and the attack on me? Someone I hadn’t even considered as a possible suspect? I had no idea. I was overwhelmingly confused. Not knowing who might lurk around the next corner, or what they might do next, was terrifying. I had no control over events, and I knew it. And I was on my own.

Shivers of fear rippled up my arms like goose bumps.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

G

retchen called to say there were no matches between our database and the police listing of Mitsubishis. “I ran a dupe check for each field,” she said.

I sighed. I’d felt so hopeful, and now I was, once again, baffled and disheartened.

I racked my brain trying to think of who else might own the Mitsubishi—or if it had been stolen specifically to attack me, why it hadn’t been reported missing.
Maybe the owner is out of town
, I thought,
and no one has noticed that it is gone
. If so, the report would come in sooner or later, I supposed. I shook my head, frustrated.

A thought occurred to me and I gripped the phone in a spasm of panic.
Unless Gretchen lied
—all she’d have to do is delete one of the entries in our database before sending it on to the police and comparing the lists herself, and neither the police nor I would ever know that we had a hit. It felt as if I’d catapulted through time into the petrifying hall of mirrors of my childhood and I could no longer trust my perceptions.

Work the problem
, I reminded myself.
Don’t make things worse by panicking
. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes for a moment.
How can I test Gretchen’s integrity?

“How many names are there in the combined file?” I asked, opening my eyes and reaching for the up-to-date customer list that I kept in a three-ring binder on my desk.

One of Gretchen’s thousands of duties was replacing the pages whenever she updated the database so that I always had a hardcopy backup, just in case of computer failure. I flipped to the last page—a man named Martin G. Yardley was last on the list, customer number 1,429.

“Let me see . . .” Gretchen said. “Fifteen hundred and sixty-nine.”

The 140 names on Rowcliff’s list plus 1,429 on ours totaled 1,569. Tears stung my eyes, but I managed to thank her and hang up without revealing my emotionalism. I felt drained.
I can’t take the anxiety
—
the struggle
—
the not knowing who’s out to get me
, I thought.
I’m so sorry, Gretchen, for doubting you. I just can’t stand it
. But I knew I could—and would—endure. After a moment, I took a deep breath and considered what to do next.

I swiveled toward the window, anxiety fading away. It was early afternoon, but darker than dusk. Most of the branches had been stripped bare by the relentlessly driving rain. I turned back to my desk and dialed Max.

“No luck, Max,” I said when I had him on the line. “There’s no match.”

He paused. “That’s too bad, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. And worse, I think I’m going crazy.” My voice cracked. “This whole thing is making me see devils in the shadows.”

“What do you mean?”

“I just did a check on Gretchen, to see if she’d deleted any names.”

“Why would she do that?” he asked.

“I have no reason to think she would, but she
could
have. So I checked. I added the one hundred and forty names on Detective Rowcliff’s list to the number of entries in our database and had her confirm that that’s the number she had in the combined file.”

“That’s pretty clever, Josie. I’m not sure I would have thought of that.”

“Desperate times lead to suspicious thinking. On the one hand, I’m completely relieved that she passed my test. On the other, I’m disgusted with myself for even considering that it was possible that she wouldn’t have.”

“I take a different view. I think you’re smart, Josie. You know the saying: ‘Trust, but verify.’ ”

“Yeah—I guess. I keep thinking that the switch of tureens must be an inside job.”

“You can’t know one way or another until we have more information. And until we find out what’s going on, you can’t be too careful.”

“Do you think we’ll ever know?” I asked, fighting tears as a wave of hopelessness washed over me.

“You bet. I have a lot of confidence that one of the avenues Detective Rowcliff is pursuing will pan out.”

“Why? Nothing has so far.”

“You’ll see. I’ve got a good feeling about it. . . . There’s going to be a break soon.”

“Thanks, Max.”

“No problem. I’ll call Detective Rowcliff and let him know the results.”

I hung up the phone, exhausted and discouraged. I scanned my office. There were no projects that enticed me, no deadlines that had to be met, and nothing that was waiting for my immediate attention. I didn’t know what to do.
Stop it
, I chastised myself.
When you don’t know what’s best to do
, my father once advised,
pick the least bad of the alternatives. If you still don’t know what to do, stop thinking about it. Instead, call a friend and have some fun for a while
. I called directory assistance and got Zoe’s phone number.

“Hello,” she said, a cacophony of clattering in the background.

“My God, Zoe! It sounds like World War Three has broken out in your living room.”

“That’s about right. Except that I’m in the kitchen. It’s Emma making war. She’s commandeered all of the pots and pans. And the lids.”

I laughed and felt better already. “I’ll let you get back to your peacekeeping duties. I was hoping you and the kids could come to dinner tonight.”

“You’re a lifesaver. I was just thinking that I wouldn’t be able to cook because I had no pots or pans!” She laughed heartily.

I smiled, thrilled by her acceptance. “Come about seven, okay? Is that too late for the kids?”

“Nope, it’s perfect.”

“Anything you’re allergic to? Anything you hate?”

“You cook it, I’ll love it!”

“How about the kids?”

“They’re easy. . . . I’ll bring mac and cheese and they’ll be happy.”

“Are you sure? I can make it.”

“Not like Mama you can’t! No, I’ll bring their mac and cheese, their jammies, and a bottle of wine; you do the rest. How’s that?”

“Great! See you at seven.”

I allowed myself a small
attagirl
for finding the strength to make the call to my new maybe friend, the first step, perhaps, in finding a chink in the wall of my self-limiting isolation.

I closed my eyes, allowing myself to enjoy the relaxation that came from thinking of my mother’s recipes.
What should I make for dinner?
After considering and rejecting several options, I decided on roast chicken with homemade stuffing, and following my mother’s instructions to add complex flavors to balance the simplicity of the chicken, herb-stuffed tomatoes, broccoli with a lemon-tarragon sauce, and chocolate bundles for dessert.

I wrote the grocery list, and called Chi to alert him that I was going grocery shopping, then home. He thanked me for calling and told me he was on the property and ready when I was.

Downstairs, I entered the office just as a young woman with pink-tinted hair and six earrings in her right ear perched on a guest chair. Her eyes were intent on Sasha as she sorted through a box of leather-bound books.

I could tell by the undistinguished gold-tooled spines that most were uninteresting twentieth-century volumes, but a couple bound in mahogany-colored leather looked intriguing, and I noted that Sasha had set those aside.

Sasha straightened up, twirling her hair, a sure sign that she was nervous. “You said you wanted to sell them. Is that right?” Sasha asked.

“Yeah. That’s right,” she responded.

“I can offer you forty dollars.”

That worked out to about four dollars a volume, a fair offer for leather-bound books of no particular value.

“No way,” the pink-haired woman argued, looking shocked. Another seller with an unrealistic notion of value.

“I’m sorry I can’t offer more,” Sasha said softly. She began to replace the books in the box.

“Oh, man, jeez. Are you trying to rip me off?”

“No, no,” Sasha said, appalled. “It’s just that that’s what they’re worth to us.”

Pink hair flying, the woman jumped up and slammed the remaining books into the box.
Don’t take it out on the books
, I silently entreated, wincing.

“What a joke,” she snorted. She lifted the box as if it had some heft and shielded it from the relentless rain with her body. I watched as she quickly walked to an old beat-up Chevy truck waiting in front with its engine idling. She ripped open the passenger door, hoisted the box onto the seat, and jumped in. The truck screeched away.

“Anything there?” I asked Sasha, who stood with her head down, looking troubled.

“Not really,” she said. “Maybe I should have explained why the price was so low.”

“Maybe,” I said, acknowledging her remark with a shrug. “But it probably wouldn’t have made any difference. You win some, and you lose some. It’s no big deal.”

Gretchen wasn’t in the office. I inferred that she was on break, because I could see the home page of one of her favorite celebrity gossip Web sites on her computer monitor. Instead of tracking her down, I asked Sasha to tell her I’d left for the day.

Zoe arrived in a laughing fuss of backpacks, umbrellas, children, bedrolls, and plastic containers. I accepted coats, packages, blankets, and a bottle of wine. Jake began a running survey throughout the downstairs rooms, screaming, and Emma wailed, wanting to be picked up.

“Come on, sweetie! Are you going to help Mama get the bedrolls ready?”

“I can’t believe you brought bedrolls!”

“Are you kidding? By eight, I hope they’re both dead to the world. I love them to death, but they’re exhausting.” She turned to Jake, still tearing through the house. “Jake, come here, darlin’! Look!”

He paused long enough to glance at the sliding-piece puzzle she was handing him, happily screeched, “I can do it!” and plunked down on the living room carpet.

“Zoe?” I said, having become aware of her raiment. She wore a full-length floral-patterned flannel nightgown with little ruffles at the hem and cuffs.

“What?” she responded, guiding Emma in unrolling the bedroll on the carpet.

“Why are you wearing a nightgown?” I inquired, bemused.

“Oh God!” she exclaimed, spinning around to face me, her eyes huge. “Don’t tell me there are other guests.”

“No, no, just us.”

“Okay, then,” she said, and turned back to her task.

“But why?”

“They wouldn’t put on their jammies unless I put on mine,” she said in a tone of abject resignation.

“Of course,” I replied, and started laughing.

By the time Zoe left around ten o’clock, I felt calmer and more prepared to cope with my confusing situation than I had in a long time. We dashed back and forth carrying Jake and Emma, both fast asleep and swaddled in their bedrolls, and all their supplies, laughing as we leaped puddles. My muscles and ankle complained, but not much.

On her final trip, she told me, “This was great! Thanks, Josie. Best damn chicken I’ve ever had!”

“It meant a lot that you were here.”

And then she was gone and I was alone.

Ty phoned around eleven. I was in bed reading
Plot It Yourself
.

“Aunt Trina seems to be weakening,” he told me.

“How come?”

“They don’t know.”

“That sounds frightening.”

“It happens.”

“And you’re okay with that?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, it sounds a little unclear is all. Do you think you should get a second opinion or something?”

A too-long pause made me feel as if I’d said the wrong thing. “We’ll be fine,” he finally responded.

“What does that mean?” I asked, sitting up, slapping the book aside, spine side up.

“Nothing.”

“What do you mean ‘nothing’?”

“Not now, Josie.”

“Right. No problem.”

I hung up, gently cradling the phone, looked at the blank wall across from the bed, the one I intended to decorate with seashells, or family pictures or something, and thought,
Why bother? If Ty doesn’t want to confide in me, so be it. If I have to watch every word I say for fear of offending him or overstepping his unspoken boundaries, forget it. Maybe he’s not quiet and deep like I thought. Maybe he’s emotionally unavailable or domineering. Maybe he just can’t stand a woman who voices an opinion that implies he might have made a mistake
. I shook my head.
Would he let Aunt Trina continue to weaken, maybe even die, rather than accept unsolicited advice? No way. Not Ty. Ty is reasonable and rational and open
, I reassured myself.
Unless my perception that he’s a good man is wrong
.

Doubt and despondency once again replaced hope. I had no energy for anything but switching off the light. I turned toward the window. Usually, slivers of moonlight were visible at the outer edges of the shades, but not tonight. Tonight, the sky was blacker than ink, and the windswept rain hammered the house unceasingly. I plumped the pillow and tried to sleep, but I couldn’t seem to find a comfortable spot.

The phone rang, but of the people who were likely to be calling, there was no one to whom I wanted to speak—not Wes with his unrelenting demands for information, nor Ty with his closed heart and glib explanations, nor Rowcliff with an emergency question. No one. I let the machine pick up. It was Ty and his words were utterly disarming.