Valley of Shadows

by Cooper, Steven

  “Of course,” Preston allows her. “Has anyone been in here asking about them? Friends? Family? Strangers? Anyone?”

  She shakes her head. “I can’t recall,” she says. “But yes, I have a vague recollection. Maybe. Oh, dear, I must sound old and senile. May I be excused for a moment? We log all our visitors. I know if I run down the log, it will trigger something.”

  “That’s fine,” Mills tells her.

  “How far do I need to look back?”

  “Three to five weeks will be fine,” he says. “Besides, you could receive a subpoena for the log as part of the ongoing investigation.” Jacqueline Carmichael gulps on that remark as if it’s a slice of Octavia Spencer’s shit pie. Then with a spit she says, “Oh lord, a subpoena! I hope not!”

  She turns to the doorway. “I’ll leave you boys here, but remember there are security cameras.”

  “We’re cops. Remember?” Preston says.

  She clutches the doorframe and flashes a smile. “You just have to forgive me. I’m not used to this drama every day.”

  Of course you are, Mills thinks as she disappears. Her departure gives Mills the opportunity to check in with the OME. He gets Calvin Cloke on the phone, who tells him that he’s up to his elbow in guts. “I don’t mean that figuratively, Detective.”

  “I’m aware, Calvin.”

  “If you’re calling about your lady with the bullet holes, I can almost certainly say that the gunshots to her head killed her,” Cloke tells him. “But I can’t say anything for sure until toxicology comes back.”

  “Also aware, Calvin,” Mills says. “But I’m wondering about the integrity of the bullets. Have you gone digging through her brain matter?”

  “Not yet, buddy. We’re kinda busy here. There’s a queue.”

  “Got it. You’ll hit me up as soon as you can tell me something?” “As always,” he says and disconnects.

  Mills and Preston exchange glances. The two of them, in this mortuary of a room, scanning the artwork, don’t have the aptitude for this kind of legacy. Mills is confused by the garish furniture in the corner. He knows this is not his wheelhouse, that he couldn’t tell the difference between an original and a print, a Renoir and a Rembrandt, a fucking Dali and a fucking deli. Well, that’s not entirely true. He does know where to get the best corned beef sandwich in Phoenix (Miracle Mile, maybe Goldman’s in Scottsdale) and, man, is he getting hungry.

  She returns. She glides into the room with a sigh. “Yes,” she says. “After an exhaustive search, I did find something. Not a visitor. But a call we logged in about three weeks ago. From Viveca’s sister-in-law, Phoebe. Phoebe Canning Bickford.”

  “What was she calling about?” Mills asks

  “The note only said she wanted to know if her Dali was in storage, or whether it had been loaned out.”

  “Hers?”

  “I think she meant the one she gifted to Clark Canning.”

  “Did you take the call?” Preston asks.

  “I must have. My initials are in the log.”

  “Do you remember what you told Mrs. Bickford?” Mills asks her. “I’ve been trying and trying to recall that conversation. The only thing remarkable was that she was upset. Very upset. When I told her the piece was actually in Viveca’s house, Phoebe started stuttering or sputtering, or whatever you call it. But I didn’t ask for details,” Carmichael explains. “This is a highly confidential business we work in, you must understand. Most things are none of our business.”

  “Understood,” Mills tells her. “Do you mind explaining to me what the furniture is doing in here?”

  Carmichael puffs up and says, “It’s art.” She pitches her nose at just the right incline to peer down at the detectives. “I assume you gentlemen don’t have much appreciation for the masters.”

  “That would be a safe assumption,” Preston tells her. “Is the furniture something that she’d loan out for exhibits?”

  “She has.”

  “Would she ever put it in her home?” Mills asks.

  Carmichael laughs. “Oh, heavens no. This isn’t home décor, Detective. They’re priceless heirlooms. Not to mention they simply wouldn’t ‘go’ with today’s modern furnishings.”

  Mills studies the ornate, gaudy pieces. “What would you call that style?”

  “Rococo. Eighteenth-century French, some Italian.”

  “Damn, even the style sounds pretentious,” Preston whispers. Carmichael tsks. “It doesn’t suit everyone. But it suited Viveca. She knew her art. And her collection’s worth a fortune, if you ask me.” “I’d like to ask you what happens with it now,” Mills says.

  “That would depend on her estate. But she once confided in me that the collection would be divided between her heirs and her church.” “Do you know the value of the untitled Dali?” Mills asks her.

  “I think they were all untitled pieces,” she says.

  “The one gifted to Clark Canning . . .”

  “I think you’re better off asking Mrs. Bickford.”

  Preston points to the far corner of the room, beyond the elaborate table and the desk, behind the chair drooling with ornamentation, at a lone wooden chest, decidedly not Rococo, more rustic; Pier 1 Imports meets Pirates of the Caribbean. “What’s that?” his colleague asks.

  “That chest is another heirloom,” Carmichael tells them. “It’s Moorish, 1400s. She bought it from a dealer in Kentucky.”

  “Kentucky? I was thinking maybe Spain or Morocco,” Mills says. “That much I know.”

  “Well, of course that’s where it originated from, but it has changed hands quite a few times since the Moorish centuries.”

  “What’s in it?” Mills asks her.

  Carmichael, again, bristles at his ignorance. “Nothing, to my knowledge. It’s not functional at this point. It’s art.”

  Mills points to a large gold padlock hanging from two handles on the chest. “But that looks like a modern lock,” he says. “May we investigate?”

  She nods and leads them closer to the piece.

  “Beautiful,” Preston says.

  They both admire the dark wood and the faded inlaid design, a fable, Mills imagines, scribbled out in the penmanship of a faraway language.

  “But I don’t think the lock was designed by the Moors,” Preston adds. He points to the engraving on the padlock that says S-C-H-L-A-G-E. “Any idea why Viveca would keep this locked?”

  “No idea,” Carmichael says, her voice now betraying her impatience.

  “Do you have the key?” Preston asks.

  “No.”

  “Who would?” Mills asks her.

  “The only one to my knowledge would be Viveca.”

  Preston scoffs. “Great. The dead woman has the key.”

  Mills shoots him a look.

  “Like I said, the piece is not used for storage,” the woman reminds them. “I don’t recall her ever opening it.”

  Mills backs away toward the exit. “All right. I think we’re good,” he tells her. “But don’t be surprised if you’re served with a search warrant. It’s just business as usual. Standard procedure in case we need to enter something into evidence.”

  “But you’ve already searched . . .”

  “No, ma’am, we’ve looked. Thanks to your willingness. But a search warrant would allow us to seize items we think are helpful to the investigation,” Mills explains. “Again, thanks. You’ve been great about this.”

  A half-truth he can live with if it lubricates this woman for next time.

  Sophia Loren! That’s the Italian actress she resembles.

  It’s, once again, hot as fuck today. August will never end. He and Preston both use the cotton fabric of their polo shirts to grasp the door handles of the car. Not doing so risks third degree burns. The steering wheel sizzles. No window tinting in the world can prevent a car from becoming an oven of hell during a Phoenix summer. As the A/C stirs to life, Mills listens to his voice mail. Two messages. One from Kelly saying it’s too hot to cook tonight. “
Salad or we’re going out.” He’s fine with either option. Her voice in the middle of the day is a sudden, cool breeze. The next message begins with an unfamiliar voice. “Hi Sergeant . . . or is it Detective Mills? Or both? My name is Jillian Canning. Sorry I missed your calls. I’m at the airport in San Francisco. I’ll be in Phoenix early tonight . . . staying with my aunt. I want to see my mother . . .” She pauses, takes a deep breath, then Mills hears her shivery exhale. “I want to see her if that’s even possible. Can you call me tomorrow? Thanks.”

  Speaking of Jillian Canning’s aunt, and Mills assumes she means her aunt Phoebe Canning Bickford, the men buckle up and head south on Scottsdale Road to Camelback, en route to the lady who lives on the mountain.

  High up on Hawkeye Ridge multi-layered homes climb the belly of the camel and the sight pisses Mills off. He shakes his head the whole way up. Yeah, people have a right to the beautiful view, but at what cost? He doesn’t begrudge these privileged folks their four million, eight million, twelve million, sixteen million dollar homes, but he doesn’t think money should be able to buy public scenery and make it private. Besides, part of the allure of Camelback is seeing her from afar. And that view has changed forever. As development continues to carve into the beautiful beast—this icon, this landmark, this compass of the valley—Mills wouldn’t blame the animal if it rose on its haunches and ran away.

  He recognizes the ledge. It’s familiar, too familiar. A few years back a psychopath dumped a body here; his victim was a young tourist who he’d lured up here to see the view. The killer had taunted everyone, especially Mills, in a case that still inflicts embarrassment. He’d rather forget. But he can’t forget. Not now as he approaches the ledge where he and his squad found the body stuffed into a shallow cave. And yet, the ledge is all but gone, the cave nowhere in sight. Instead, this is Phoebe Canning Bickford’s address. A big, fat box of a home protruding from the mountain. He rolls through the open gate and up the driveway.

  They ring twice before someone comes to the door.

  “Can I help you?” The uniformed woman is young and Asian and, clearly, not Phoebe.

  “We’re here to see Mrs. Bickford,” Mills tells her.

  “Is she expecting you?”

  “Not necessarily, though we have tried calling her,” Mills explains. He introduces himself and Preston.

  “I’ll just be a minute,” the woman says. “Come in out of the heat.” She asks them to wait in the foyer, a two-story vestibule of glass and bronze. Sculpture and other multidimensional art hang from the walls and the ceiling. The sun splashes everywhere.

  “Any chance we’ll be dropping by any middle class homes today?” Preston asks.

  “Doubtful. Unless you’d like to drop by mine.”

  They stand quietly for a few minutes before footsteps return, a shuffle in the distance, and then more discernable, the woman rounding a corner and reappearing in the hallway. She calls to them. “Come this way.”

  They’re led to a box within the box. The room has a wall of glass overlooking an infinity pool and the expansive view of Phoenix, a view that regularly drew Phoenicians and their visitors to see spectacular sunsets before the ledge was displaced by Phoebe Canning Bickford’s home. The other walls are lined with shelves and bookcases and cabinets unified in a light-colored wood, probably teak, and all the chairs in the room face outward as if the only thing that matters is the view. There’s a nautical quality to the space, with the blue and white fabrics, the sailboat images, an enormous area rug that is a rough rendition of a compass and a mast. And then Mills gets it. This room is meant to represent the inside of a yacht, a stateroom, maybe. A private verandah, perhaps. It’s confirmed when Phoebe Canning Bickford appears in her docksiders and Mills almost laughs. He bites his tongue, not figuratively. She’s wearing those pants that stop just below the knee, exposing tan calves and a diamond anklet on her left leg. She’s salon blonde. Mrs. Bickford is probably in her late sixties, but looks younger, thanks to her glowing skin and, perhaps, a scalpel. She doesn’t introduce herself. She waits for the men to make the effort. And once they do, she stands there staring at them as if they haven’t done enough to make her care.

  “Do you mind if we have a seat and talk?” Preston asks.

  “Of course. Don’t mind me,” she says. “I was just trying to figure out what Jasmine can whip up for you boys.”

  “Oh no,” Mills says. “That’s very kind. But we won’t be needing anything. We won’t be here that long.”

  She sits and they do likewise. “At least let me get you something cold to drink. Jasmine can do a nice refreshing daiquiri or, if you’d prefer, we have all kinds of imported beers.”

  “No, ma’am, we don’t drink on duty,” Preston tells her.

  She crumples. “Well, then fresh squeezed lemonade it will be!” She pulls out her phone and texts, presumably an order for the lemonade to Jasmine. “I received your messages, but I’m afraid things have been tossed around like a ship at sea these past twenty-four hours,” she says as if she’s intent on dramatizing the nautical theme.

  “I understand. Nobody saw this coming,” Mills says. “Or did they?”

  “I haven’t a clue,” the woman says. Her skin is a seafaring bronze, an even brown tan spreading across her chest, up her neck, flawlessly covering her face, making the whites of her eyes and her teeth look so much brighter, the diamond P hanging from her neck more dazzling. “I don’t know why anyone would want to hurt her, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “That’s one of the questions we’re asking,” Preston confirms.

  She shakes her head, puts her hands palms up. “You got me.”

  “She wouldn’t have confided in you if she were in trouble or threatened?”

  Phoebe tightens her chin and again shakes her head. “No. We weren’t close. We couldn’t be close.”

  “How come?” Mills asks her.

  “Viveca wanted my brother all to herself. She didn’t want anyone or anything standing in the way.”

  “Were you standing in the way?” Preston asks.

  She utters a single laugh. “Only to some of the fortune. Viveca didn’t come into the marriage poor. She was the daughter of money. So I would never describe her as a gold digger. I abhor that term. But she was very protective of my brother’s wealth.”

  “Wasn’t his wealth her wealth?” Preston prods.

  “Much, yes, from his own business, but some of it was Canning family wealth.”

  “And that’s where you get involved,” Mills says. “Did she feel threatened by you?”

  She smiles oddly and searches the room with her eyes, hums blithely for a moment, then says, “Probably. But that doesn’t mean I ever threatened her.”

  Mills is listening and nodding. Nodding just to keep her talking, but listening to every phrasing of every answer, because sometimes it’s in the phrasing that people reveal themselves. Their choice of words. Their choice not necessarily conscious. Phoebe Canning Bickford is sitting here in this replica of her yacht describing herself as an adversary, whether she knows it or not, whether she means it or not. “I think we should probably discuss the Dali.”

  Phoebe blanches through the tan. “What about it?”

  “We understand that you’d been feuding about it with your sister-in-law . . .”

  She crosses her legs, folds her hands around a kneecap, and says, “I don’t mean to be patronizing, but that’s no secret.”

  Mills would argue that she does mean to be patronizing, but he wouldn’t argue it aloud. Instead, he says, “You do know the Dali is missing.”

  She nods heavily. “My nephew told me.”

  “Do you have it?” Mills asks her.

  “No. I don’t.”

  “Do you know where it is?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Do you believe it belongs to you?” Preston asks.

  “Yes. I purchased it for my brother. And, as you can imagine I paid an inordinate amount of money for it. I d
on’t believe it belongs in their estate.”

  “I think the law would disagree with you, ma’am,” Mills tells her.

  “Which is why I chose not to sue her for it,” Phoebe says. “I thought she’d just be sane enough to give it back.”

  “You said you paid an inordinate amount for it,” Mills says. “How much?”

  The woman bristles. “I don’t like discussing money, and I don’t remember the exact figure. But it was just north of a million.”

  “Do you have a photograph of it?” Preston asks.

  “No,” she replies. “Why would I?”

  Preston says, “I don’t know. I don’t know much about the art world.”

  “If you’re thinking about a catalogue, then yes, there are photos of it in catalogues,” she says. “I’ll see what I can do to find one.”

  Jasmine arrives with the lemonade. Phoebe is all smiles again as her maid/cook/whatever pours the drinks into highball glasses and passes them around. The ice cubes tinkle as if they’re sharing a private joke. And this seems to please Phoebe Canning Bickford, convinced, perhaps, that this is a party, after all. “I hope you enjoy it. It’s fresh squeezed. Did you know it’s good for the kidneys?”

  “No, ma’am. I didn’t,” Preston tells her. “I get kidney stones, so that’s good to know.”

  “Ah, yes, stones,” she says. “My husband gets them and his urologist recommends frequent consumption of lemonade.”

  “Duly noted,” Preston says.

  “Would you mind if we searched the premises?” Mills asks.

  His question is the pin to the party’s balloon.

  “Absolutely, I would mind,” she says, the muscles of her neck and face tightening. “Is this where you tell me I’m a suspect?”

  “Everyone’s a suspect,” Mills says. “This is where I tell you that we can eliminate you as a suspect by letting us search the house.”

  She’s up on her feet. “Good luck getting a warrant for that,” she says. Her eyes are jewels of fury. “Even I know enough about the law to know you have no cause.”