My heart jumped to my throat at the sound of my supervisor’s booming voice.
“I want to see you in my office ASAP.”
“Sir?” My voice quavered. Crud. This couldn’t be good. He must’ve heard about my request for information on Linda’s recent trips. Only his objections had to go a lot deeper than not wanting me to interrupt a senator’s Saturday night date. “Is there a problem?”
“We’ll discuss it when you get here.”
“Understood. On my way.”
Aunt Martha joined me with her shopping bags. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong.” I clipped my phone back on my hip and forced a cheerier note into my voice. “My supervisor wants to see me when I get in is all.”
“Oh my, then you should go straight there. I can take a bus back to the apartment to get my car.”
“Don’t be silly.” I steered her out of the store. “I’m not going to make you take a bus.”
“I don’t mind. In fact, I insist. I’m the one who dragged you away from work in the first place. I’m not going to let you get in trouble with your boss.”
“I’m not letting you take a bus,” I repeated adamantly.
“But”—she glanced from store window to store window—“I saw a gorgeous outfit as I came in that I still want to check out.”
We had a staring contest as I debated the professional repercussions of making my supervisor wait.
“Go. I’ll be fine,” she insisted.
Only something made me a tad uneasy about her eagerness to get rid of me.
For some reason as I left the mall parking lot, my car didn’t turn where it was supposed to and before I knew it, I was outside Linda’s apartment building. It was on the way to headquarters . . . in a roundabout sort of way. And if Benton was about to tell me to lay off the senator’s girlfriend, this might be my last chance to question her without defying a direct order.
The museum was closed and the senate was in session, so chances were good I’d find her at home.
According to DMV records, Linda drove a Honda, but there was no sign of it on the street. I walked to the corner and looked both directions. Okay, this wasn’t looking hopeful. But I was here now. Maybe she’d mentioned to a neighbor where she was headed. I returned to the building and reached the second floor just as a man carrying a gun breached her door. I drew my weapon. “FBI. Freeze.”
The guy turned to me, his arms raised, a dead bolt, not a gun, in his right hand. “What’s your problem, lady? I work here. I’m fixing the lock.”
“Did you advise the tenant you’d be entering her premises?”
“What’s to advise? She canceled her lease. A couple of guys with a van moved her stuff out this morning.”
No, no, no, no. No! I holstered my weapon. I knew I should’ve come back here yesterday. “Was her brother still here?”
“How do I know?”
“Did she leave a forwarding address?”
“Nope.”
“Okay, thank you.” I headed back to my car. Linda was looking guiltier by the minute. During the drive to headquarters, I tried to get Tanner on the phone. It went to voice mail. Terrific. Our supervisor was as straight as an arrow. At least that’s what I’d always thought. I couldn’t believe that if he knew the senator was mixed up with a thief, he’d tolerate a cover-up. Then again, putting a stop to my interrupting the senator’s dinner smacked of an old boys’ loyalty that had already hampered my investigation. And what else would he be summoning me to his office to discuss?
An image of Baldy and Sidekick flickered through my mind. Okay, that wouldn’t be good either.
I parked near the back door and hurried up the stairs, two at a time. Shedding my coat as I walked, I detoured past Tanner’s desk, but he wasn’t there. Benton must’ve spotted me, because he stuck his head out of his corner office and waved me over. I dropped my coat on Tanner’s chair and approached Benton on wobbly legs. Facing him suddenly felt ten times worse than being holed up in a hotel room with Baldy and Sidekick, wondering when my backup would show.
Oh, right, that’s because this time, I had no backup.
My hands were sweating. My heart was pounding. And I didn’t even know what I’d done wrong.
Besides having the nerve to suspect a senator’s girlfriend of stealing a pair of priceless paintings.
“Sit down, Jones.”
“Yes sir.”
Maxwell Benton was in his late forties, with a full head of white hair that made him look like Richard Gere. I’d been told the hair was a side effect of his first divorce at twenty-nine. He’d had two more divorces since then and had a teenage daughter he rarely saw.
I’m not sure why that thought ran through my mind, except as a vain search for common ground to meet him on.
He removed his reading glasses and studied me over steepled fingers. “You’re a good detective.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Tenacious. I like that.”
Sensing a “but” coming, I held my breath.
“But you’re on the wrong track with Linda Kempler. She’s not your thief.”
I exhaled slowly. “If that’s the case, then the evidence should bear it out.”
“I’m afraid she can’t afford to have you digging around in her life. You’ll have to take my word for it that she’s not involved.”
I planted my feet firmly on the floor and sat taller in my chair, gripping the armrests. “With all due respect, sir, how can you know that? I have an informant who said a woman fitting Linda’s description tried to sell a Monet at the pawnshop where he works.”
“It wasn’t Linda.”
“Are you aware that she hasn’t been back to work since the paintings were discovered missing? That she’s vacated her apartment? That according to her phone message, she was away on vacation when one of the missing paintings turned up in Paris?”
Benton’s eyes widened. “You’ve already located one of the paintings?”
I relayed the details of this morning’s new developments.
“Excellent work.”
“Why can’t I talk to Linda? If she’s innocent, the—”
“Not going to happen. You need to look elsewhere.”
My gaze skittered over the commendations and related photo ops plastering his wall as I tried to convince myself that the request wasn’t motivated by friendship or politics. Nope, I couldn’t do it. “What is she afraid I’ll find?”
“This conversation is over,” he said more sternly, “as is your investigation of Linda Kempler. Do I make myself clear?”
“A simple analysis of her phone, banking, and travel records would go a long way to assuring me that I’m not turning a blind eye to one of my prime suspects.”
“She’s not your thief. You have my word on that.”
“But—”
“That needs to be good enough. Dismissed.”
I had a staring contest with him for another three seconds, then gritted my teeth and let myself out.
Tanner was waiting for me in my cubicle, looking concerned. He handed me the coat I’d left on his chair. “You okay?”
“Peachy.”
“Want to talk about it?”
“I wish I could.” Somehow I didn’t think Benton would appreciate me telling anyone he’d ordered me to stop investigating my prime suspect. I wasn’t surprised the senator was pushing his weight around. A politician couldn’t afford a scandal. And while dating a woman accused of swindling her brother out of his inheritance might be forgiven by the public, dating a woman who stole half a million dollars’ worth of the city’s paintings, money that opponents would speculate had been funneled into his next campaign, would finish him. “Have you ever investigated a public official?”
“Are we talking Linda Kempler’s state senator?”
I let out a ragged sigh and slanted a glance over the wall of my cubicle toward our supervisor’s office. “Benton’s crossed her off my suspect list.”
“Huh.”
“Huh?” My voice pitched up a couple of octaves. “That’s all you’ve got for me? She was my prime suspect. And let me tell you, the fact she vacated her apartment and has probably already left town doesn’t make her look any more innocent.”
“You don’t have any evidence against her, though, right? Yesterday it sounded like you were thinking the guy who pointed the finger at her might be worth a second look.”
“That was before the Monet turned up in Paris around the time Linda was traveling abroad.”
“You know that for a fact?”
“No, Benton gagged CBP on me too.”
“So you only have her brother’s word on it? And that Malcolm kid from the museum?”
“An innocent person doesn’t skip town two days after a federal agent approaches her for questioning.”
“Maybe she has something else to hide.” Tanner lowered his voice. “Maybe she’s in witness protection and she was afraid all the attention wouldn’t be safe. It would explain why Benton’s being cagey.”
“Be serious. A person in witness protection would have to be an idiot to date a politician. There’s no escaping the cameras, especially come election time.”
“Speaking of idiotic dating choices . . .” Tanner did that single eyebrow raise he was so annoyingly good at.
“Meaning . . . ?” I raised a disdainful eyebrow of my own. Or maybe two.
“Your handy-dandy superintendent/guard dog buddy.”
“Nate? What are you talking about? We’re not dating.”
Tanner snorted. “Does he know that?”
“Of course he does!”
“Uh huh. At any rate,” he went on in that irritating superior tone, “I’ve known plenty of idiot witnesses. Interview the other employees. Follow the leads you can. Something else will turn up.”
Great. Apparently, Tanner had gone and joined the old boys’ club too.
10
By Monday night, a big fat zero had turned up. I’d caught up on all my case notes and reviewed the backgrounds of a couple dozen more art museum employees in preparation for another day of interviews tomorrow, and none screamed “I did it.”
Never mind that I wouldn’t have suspected Linda from her background check either. But she was running now, and my boss didn’t find that suspicious.
I yanked on my sneakers, needing to run off my own pent-up frustration.
“I’ll be back in thirty minutes,” I shouted to Harold as if he had a clue how long that was. Is that what spinster cat ladies did? I slammed the door, not really wanting to know.
I crossed Skinker Boulevard to run the loop around Forest Park. It was already dark, but the sidewalks were dry and well lit.
“Hey, Serena!” Jax, a fellow runner who lived a couple of streets over from me, waved from across the street, then immediately skirted traffic to join me.
“I didn’t know you ran at night,” I said, setting the pace. We would occasionally cross paths during our morning runs and pace a couple of miles together.
“I had a day I’d like to forget.”
“I hear ya.” Jax was an assistant circuit attorney, which probably meant he got saddled with the grunt work. “Tough case?”
“I’d rather talk about anything else than my day. How was yours?”
“Not one I want to talk about either.”
He laughed. “We make a fine pair.” He motioned me to take Government Drive into Forest Park.
I didn’t usually run through the park after dark, but Jax was no pipsqueak. Between the two of us, I figured we’d be safe.
“Have you been skating yet this winter?” he asked.
“Not in years.” There was an outdoor rink at the other end of Forest Park. As teens, Zoe and I had hung there a lot, getting ridiculously giddy whenever a boy would ask one of us to hold hands and skate around to the music in the moonlight.
“I was thinking of going sometime. You want to join me?”
“I doubt my skates would fit me anymore.”
He didn’t say anything more, and as good as the streetlights were, they weren’t bright enough for me to tell what he was thinking. Had he been asking as in . . . like . . . a date? We jogged together a lot and had occasionally crossed paths at the local coffee shop, shared a table, but . . . did he think I was interested in him that way?
I mentally flipped through my Rolodex of friends. “I should introduce you to my friend Marissa. She loves to skate.”
“That’s okay.” He chuckled, but it sounded like one of those fake chuckles you make when you don’t want the other person to know you feel embarrassed.
We ran in companionable silence for a half mile, my mind mulling over Benton’s edict. I’d have an easier time taking his word on Linda’s innocence if I could at least take a gander at her financial and cell phone records. Then as we raced up the hill past the art museum, a brain wave struck. “Can I ask for your legal opinion on something?”
“Sure.”
What I needed was probable cause for a search warrant that my boss couldn’t ignore. Jax wasn’t a federal prosecutor, but he could give me a solid legal opinion of what I’d need to make the request fly. “Can you tell me if this is enough to convince a federal judge to give me a warrant?” I recited everything I had on Linda.
Jax’s pace slowed. “You think this person stole paintings from the art museum.”
“Yes.”
“Has the Paris dealer made a positive ID?”
“My cohort in France won’t have a chance to talk to him until tomorrow at the earliest.”
“Then why not wait to see what he says?”
“My suspect has already vacated her apartment and for all I know, plans to flee the country.”
Jax nodded. “How do you think she took the paintings?”
“There are dozens of ways she could’ve slipped them out of the building.”
“Such as?”
From Jax’s tone, I had a bad feeling my chances of convincing a judge to give me a search warrant were going south faster than Linda’s next flight. “She could have hidden them in her book bag.”
“Aren’t employees’ bags checked as they leave?”
“Security can easily be distracted.”
“Do you have a witness who saw this person leave with a book bag? Or surveillance footage?”
“No,” I said, fighting to keep my tone even.
“There are dozens of explanations for her actions that are a hundred percent legal. What about a motive?”
“She has expensive tastes.”
“I have expensive tastes. Doesn’t mean I stole a painting.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry. I know it isn’t what you wanted to hear, but I couldn’t get a state judge to buy this request, so I doubt your people could find a federal judge that would. It looks too much like a fishing expedition.”
“That’s what I was afraid of. And unfortunately the suspect has friends in high places.”
“How high?”
As we circled the roundabout onto Lagoon Drive, the all-too-familiar churning returned to my stomach with the fear I’d already said too much. “Pretty high.”
“Well, federal judges are appointed for life, so you don’t have to worry about political intimidation.”
Easy for Jax to say. It wasn’t the judge possibly being intimidated.
“But you need something a lot more solid than this. You got a friend who can access the banking records for you?”
I practically fell over in shock that he’d think I’d do such a thing. “If I had that, I wouldn’t need the warrant,” I joked.
“Well, if you wanted to use the information in court you would. But what I was getting at is if a friend checks the records and sees something incriminating and tells you, then you could request the warrant on the strength of your”—he made air quotes—“confidential informant’s information.”
That didn’t sound terribly legal. Not that it mattered, since I didn’t have a confidential informant. Unless . . . I asked Kristal
.
Kristal was a childhood friend who grew up across the street from me. She’d searched banking records on the sly to help the head of the high school reunion committee locate almost everyone from our class to invite them to the upcoming ten-year reunion.
“Any teller could probably look up the info for you.” Jax tossed a smile at me. “Pick a male one. A woman as beautiful as you won’t have any problem getting him to look to see if your suspect’s had any large deposits go into her account.”
Oh, wow. He was talking as if he thought I’d do it. Okay, admittedly I was a little obsessive when it came to following rules, but I thought in law enforcement of all places it would be appreciated. Yeah, okay, I clearly hadn’t been paying attention to all those cop shows I’d been watching.
“I can’t lie to the prosecuting attorney about a CI I don’t have.” Let alone ask a perfect stranger to risk his job to look up information for me on some vain hope that he might be able to go out with me. Thank goodness I didn’t run into Jax while Aunt Martha was with me. She’d already be down at the bank pestering Kristal.
“A CI doesn’t have to be listed by name in a warrant,” Jax reassured.
“You actually think I should do this?” I had a hard time keeping the disbelief from my voice.
He shrugged. “That’s your call. How far are you willing to go to seek justice?”
I wasn’t pusillanimous, I told myself for the dozenth time as I parked in front of the museum Tuesday morning. The instant I’d stepped out my door this morning, Mr. Sutton had assaulted me with the synonym for cowardly—his word of the day—and it had felt like some sort of divine judgment, which was ridiculous. I was obeying my boss. Following the rules. Doing what I was supposed to do.
As I stepped out of the car, my gaze strayed to the rugged stone bridge at the bottom of the hill—the one depicted in my painting. Remembering Nate’s take on it, or rather what it said about me, I shook my head. He didn’t know me at all.
If I was unreinable, I wouldn’t have thought twice about defying my boss and marching down to the bank to sweet talk some hapless teller into giving me the lowdown on Linda Kempler’s bank account.
An unreinable person would be unstoppable, a force of nature that would breach the riverbank and jump the bridge and not let something like her boss’s pesky cease-and-desist hamper her from getting to the truth.
A Fool and His Monet Page 12
