“Rats, I was afraid of that. Can you give me her home address so I can mail this, uh, item to her?”
His eyes widened. “We aren’t allowed to do that, Ms Sweet.”
Sam lowered her voice to a fraction above a whisper. “I know. But I really need to get this item back to her.”
“The hotel could mail it for you,” he said. “We do that with things that guests leave in their rooms.”
She gritted her teeth. Couldn’t the bonehead see that she was bluffing? “Larry, I’ve known you since you were six years old, and I can still place a call to your mother.”
He actually blanched. He clicked the computer mouse and a printer whirred to life behind him. “Don’t ever tell anyone.” Like a thief in the night he whipped the page off the printer and slid it, face down, across the desk at her.
Sam put on her brightest smile. “Thanks so much. And tell your mom hello for me.” She grabbed up the paper, folded it in half and walked out. Locked inside her van she read the copy of Tiffany’s hotel bill. The address was on State Street in Chicago, probably a fake. No mention of Global Imports in Albuquerque. Well, the girl had certainly covered her tracks, at least partially.
So, what to do next, she debated. Might as well go out to Montague’s place and get the files Beau had requested. She turned and looked into the van’s cargo compartment. Sure enough, there was an empty shipping box she’d meant to take home with her. That would work. She took a side street and followed the back roads out to Talpa.
Fresh tire tracks made an arc in the mud in front of the large wooden gate at the Montague home. Sam parked somewhat away from them and got out to take a look. It didn’t appear that anyone had actually opened the gate and driven through. With the walk-through gate it was harder to tell. She and Beau and his deputies had all entered the property over the last few days, but whether Tiffany—if that was even her real name—had come out here, she couldn’t be sure.
Until she got to the front door. The lockbox she’d hung there was still in place, but the door had taken a beating. It looked like someone had hammered at the lockbox, knocking it against the carved door in an attempt to get the key out of it. Sam tugged at it, but the sturdy metal box held. That was good. She walked around the full circumference of the house, expecting to find a window bashed out, but all the entrances were intact.
She debated calling Beau to tell him about the attempted break-in but since it didn’t appear that the intruder had succeeded, she figured it could wait. She picked up her cardboard box and fished out the key she always carried with her.
Inside, the house appeared just as she’d left it. Chilly. Even with the heat back on, she’d left the thermostats set just warm enough to keep the pipes from freezing. With all that granite and stainless steel, it felt like a morgue. She kept her coat on and went to the study, where she pulled open the desk drawer and lifted the file folders into the box. She caught herself glancing nervously toward the bookcases but they sat solidly in place, not even tempting her to find the switch and open the hidden room. No sir, not me, she thought.
Leaving the box of files beside the door, Sam made her customary rounds, checking all windows and doors, signing the sheet on the counter. Nothing seemed out of place. If Tiffany Wright had been the one who tried to break the lockbox, she’d given up pretty easily. Sam wondered what that meant as she hefted her box of papers, locked up and went to the van. Was Tiffany the real art thief or was she simply making inquiries on behalf of someone else? Someone at Global Imports, perhaps?
Chapter 21
A call to Sweet’s Sweets reassured Sam that the girls had everything under control. Kelly told her that Becky was still in a little bit of a pout over the holiday work arrangements but was cranking out an amazing number of cookies and cupcakes anyway. She told Sam not to worry about getting right back—things were going fine.
Sam’s lunch conversation with Beau and her discoveries about Tiffany Wright occupied her mind, so she decided to go home with the box of files and see if she could find anything that might be useful. She plopped the box onto the kitchen table and turned the heat on under the tea kettle, then took off her coat and came up with two pieces of wonderfully sticky rugelach to go with the tea.
Stacking the folders on the table, Sam wasn’t exactly sure what she was looking for. Odds were good that most of Montague’s business records were on his computer, the one that they’d not found. If someone with Global Imports was behind William Montague’s disappearance, they probably already had all the information they needed. They may have sent Tiffany to Taos to grab up the actual artworks, now that they knew what the collection consisted of. The girl had certainly been pushy about trying to get into the house, right from the start.
The kettle whistled and Sam took a minute to select a flavored tea and watch it darken the water in her mug. Finally, there was nothing to do but dig into the files and see what they revealed.
There were the standard business files that she suspected everyone kept: one labeled Paid Bills, one for Tax Returns, one for Sales Invoices, and something about website design. A quick glance in each, and then she laid it aside. Halfway through the stack she came to an unlabeled folder.
Interesting.
The file contained a half-inch thick stack of two-part forms, a white copy and yellow copy of each. She picked up the first one. It appeared that one or two other sheets had been torn from the back. The printed form was headed with the title: Consignment Agreement. It was a short legal document, apparently between Montague and a customer whose name was typed on a blank line and whose signature appeared, alongside William Montague’s, at the bottom. Sam scanned the fine print.
It was simple enough; the customer was agreeing to place the listed pieces of artwork on consignment with Montague, who would sell the piece and earn a commission. It all looked normal enough as far as she could tell. Even the exorbitant commission rate must have been agreeable—the customers had all signed them.
What she found interesting, though, was that as she began to read the filled-in blanks, she started to recognize some of the descriptions. The paintings and sculptures were the very ones she and Rupert had inventoried in Montague’s home, the art that seemed to be his own really wasn’t.
She let the pages slip back into the folder and took a sip of her tea, which was heading toward tepid.
Odd, but is it illegal? she wondered as she munched on the last rugela. Unless Montague actually kept the artworks was he really doing anything wrong? Most dealers would either keep the pieces in a storeroom or display them in a gallery. Montague was simply displaying them in his own home. There probably wasn’t anything wrong with that. If his buyers paid a visit, they could view the art tastefully displayed; if they bought through his website, that was okay too. So why did the whole thing feel so weird?
Why did Tiffany Wright come this far to get her hands on the art, and then leave without trying to bluff her way through the rest of the charade? Why did some in the art community, like Rupert and Bunny Fitzhugh, seem to adore Montague, while others like the Woodwind Gallery owner reviled him? And of course Sam’s thoughts went back to the hidden room with its eerie assemblage of things that could hardly be called art—was that stuff also for sale or was it Montague’s own little fetish-like collection?
She poured out the cool tea and rinsed her fingers at the sink, then stacked Montague’s files back in the box. She would simply have to let Beau work it out. For now, she needed to get back to the bakery and make sure things were on track.
As if by some kind of ESP, her phone rang just as she was slipping her coat on and she saw that it was Beau.
“Things go okay?” he asked. “I mean, getting the files?”
She told him about the condition of the battered front door and lock box, but assured him that nothing inside had been touched and that she now had the files safely at her home.
“Good. Maybe I can get by there tonight to take a look?”
Which led to her aski
ng him to plan on having dinner with them, stated as she opened the freezer door in hopes of finding something easy to defrost and quick to cook. He agreed, a little distracted as someone in the office spoke to him.
“Sorry. I’ve got someone here. It’s Will Montague’s brother. You want to come by? You might think of some questions to ask him.”
“You sure it’s okay?”
It didn’t take a lot of convincing. Sam was out the door in under a minute, parking her van on Civic Plaza Drive ten minutes later.
Whatever she thought William Montague’s brother might be, she wasn’t expecting what she saw. Whereas Will, in photos anyway, came across as elegantly casual in an international playboy sort of way, his brother was a ramrod-straight, crew-cut stiff military man. He wore civilian clothing—khaki slacks with a razor crease, a fresh white shirt and a pullover sweater in dark blue—but she could see career Army written all over him. He and Beau might have been colleagues, their bearings were so similar.
Beau introduced her to Robert Montague, explaining her involvement as caretaker of the house. It turned out his branch of service was Navy. She caught a strong undercurrent of concern as he greeted her.
“Rob and I were just talking about his brother,” Beau said, taking his seat behind his desk. Sam and Rob Montague took the two chairs in front of it.
“I haven’t seen my brother in a couple of years,” Robert said. “We would talk every few months, but we weren’t really close. The last time we spoke was probably around the end of the summer.”
“You knew that he worked from home, dealing in art through a website?”
“Oh, yes. Will was quite the collector. Took after our mother that way. She was the art and music lover, my dad was twenty years in the Navy. I’m almost there myself, another five to go.”
“I understand that Will lived in Chicago before coming to New Mexico?” Beau had a notepad on his desk but hadn’t written anything on it yet.
Robert confirmed that and added that his brother would have loved to be as wealthy as his clientele, free to travel the world and live the jet-set lifestyle, but he’d never made it quite that big.
“He was involved with a woman named Bunny Fitzhugh at one time,” Robert said. “I got the idea that he thought she might be his ticket. He kind of neglected to tell me that she was married until after she’d already dumped him. Of course, he didn’t really put it that way. Will always had to save face, always made it sound like leaving a relationship or not going to Cannes was his idea. He never let on that the rich crowd really didn’t accept him.”
“That had to be hard,” Sam said, thinking of the photos of Will on a ski slope with an arm around a beautiful woman, another picture on a beach with a different one.
“Does the name Wright mean anything?” Beau asked. “Any family by that name, even distant relatives?”
Rob shook his head. “No. None.”
“What about a woman, probably in her late twenties, named Tiffany?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Global Imports? We think they are located in Albuquerque.”
Again, he shook his head. “What’s this all about?”
Beau gave him the condensed version of the claims by Tiffany Wright, with Sam filling in a few details. Montague seemed genuinely puzzled by it all.
“Her story is bogus,” Robert finally said. “Will and I have no sister and I’ve never heard of a Tiffany, in any connection. I visited Will in Chicago a few times and never met anyone of that description.”
Wow, the woman who’d played the part was certainly smooth, Sam thought.
“You didn’t give her his art, did you?”
“Oh, absolutely not,” Beau said. “No one’s getting that until and unless their claim is proven beyond a doubt.”
Sam piped up. “There’s something that even you don’t know yet, Beau.”
He sent her a guarded look. “What’s that?”
“I found agreements for a lot of the art pieces in that house. They were not Will’s. They were placed with him on consignment.”
Beau processed the information a little more slowly than Robert did.
“Doesn’t surprise me,” Rob said. “As I told you, Will didn’t have a whole lot of money. He loved the lifestyle and the appearances, but he could have never afforded any really valuable art.”
Sam thought back to the values Rupert had suggested for some of the pieces. Rob’s statement made sense.
“So, what happens next?” Rob asked Beau.
“We can’t officially do anything unless someone files a missing person report. I assume you’ll be willing to do that?”
“Of course.”
“We’ve made one quick inspection of his home, just to see whether there could have been foul play.”
Rob sat forward in his chair.
“I’ll let you know that there was some blood. But the results weren’t conclusive.” Beau reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a form. “Once he’s officially reported missing, we can dig further, get search warrants, do more to find out what happened. If you can give us a DNA sample, we can check it against the blood to narrow down whether it even belongs to your brother.”
While Robert Montague went through the report with Beau, Sam’s mind flitted over other possibilities. She wanted to ask questions but wasn’t sure how much Beau wanted to discuss in front of the so-far only known relative of a man who might very well have been murdered.
When Montague stood to leave, Sam tapped Beau on the hand. “The USDA?”
“Oh, yeah. Ask him.”
“The whole reason I came to be at your brother’s home in the first place was because he’d fallen behind in his mortgage payments. The house was presumed to be abandoned and will probably go up for sale at auction.” She felt strange addressing this with the clean-cut man—usually her properties were abandoned by people in much more dire straits. “It’s just that, I don’t know . . . if you could get the payments caught up . . . or just find out if there’s money in Will’s accounts to make them . . .”
“I will look into it,” Rob said. “Is there a way to stall the sale? Just for a little while?”
She assured him that she would present the facts to her supervisor and do her best.
Rob Montague pulled a camel hair jacket with gold buttons from the coat rack in the corner. As he shrugged its well-cut sleeves over muscled arms he said, “Thank you. I don’t know what to make of this whole thing. It’s hard to believe my brother is probably dead.”
Sam nodded. There wasn’t a whole lot to say to that.
Chapter 22
Friday and Saturday passed in a blur, between wedding deliveries and keeping up with the daily crush at the bakery. And Sam couldn’t get the conversation with Robert Montague out of her head. She wanted to believe that his concern for his brother was real, but there had been so many false leads already. At least, as Beau pointed out when they lay together in his bed after luxurious Saturday night sex, Rob had willingly filled out and signed the missing person report and he’d not tried to get his hands on the artwork. That was further than they’d gotten with the mysterious Tiffany, who’d managed to vanish from the radar.
“Have you heard anything more on your inquiries about Tiffany or Global Imports?” Sam asked.
“No, and I’m not even calling the office to find out until Monday morning.” He rolled over and began to nibble at her ear. She ran her fingertips down the length of his thigh and all other thoughts vanished for the rest of the night.
Snow had fallen during the night and they awoke to a couple of inches of white draped over the landscape. Sam sat at the breakfast table, staring out at the open fields, watching Beau’s two dogs, Nellie and Ranger, as they leapt through small drifts. Beau was stirring something at the stove and he appeared at her side a minute later with plates of beautifully prepared eggs benedict.
“Wow, you are a good Saturday night date! Remind me to keep you around,” she said.
&nb
sp; He gave her a kiss that tasted like strawberry, then went to the kitchen and brought back a whole bowl of red, ripe ones.
Sam forced herself to take small bites and savor the eggs, Canadian bacon and sauce, although she could have easily wolfed the whole plateful in a few minutes. She would never say it to Beau but it was very nice having the house to themselves, breakfasting in their robes, not having to be conscious of appearances the way she always was with his mother around. Even though Iris was a spunky senior, who had actually encouraged the two of them to get together, certain things just didn’t feel right.
As for her own parents, Sam hadn’t yet worked up the courage to tell them much about Beau, certainly not that they were sleeping together. Her father would have been okay with it—he tended to accept all things as they came along, which was a good thing, since Sam’s mother dished out a lot. Nina Rae Sweet wasn’t mean spirited, just a little heavy-handed. Okay—sharp and preachy. And the volume of her Southern voice carried—way more than she meant it to. Howard Sweet had long ago learned to just nod and say ‘yes dear’ no matter what the conversation was about.
She looked over at Beau as he mopped up the last of his hollandaise sauce. She was glad that the bakery had given her the perfect excuse not to go home for Christmas this year, that she and Beau could celebrate their first one together without the drama of her family on the scene.
“I can’t believe it’s just a week until Christmas,” Sam said, nesting her coffee mug between her hands as Beau cleared the table. The dogs had settled on the covered porch, shaking the loose snow from their coats licking at chunks of it that had stuck to their feet. “Since it’s on a Sunday this year, I’m posting notices that we’ll be open only a half-day on Saturday. I hope that works. I have a feeling that people will push it, thinking they can get their pies and desserts at the last minute. But I swear, I’m out of there at one o’clock.”
Beau chuckled as he joined her at the table. “Yeah, right. I can see some little old lady showing up as you’re locking the door. There’s no way you’d turn her down, even if you had to pop into the kitchen and bake up her special request.”
Sweet Holidays: The Third Samantha Sweet Mystery (The Samantha Sweet Mysteries) Page 14
