Ollie arched an eyebrow. “If Daniel knows her as Alexa, that can’t be good. It must mean Alexa is involved in something the FBI is working on. If Daniel’s investigating her, it’s got to be something big. And I mean real big.”
“I’m convinced Alexa was involved with that theft in London, and that she was either shot for real or it was a story designed to make certain people think she might have been killed.” I tapped my finger against my chin. “I think Alexa didn’t just randomly go to London. I think she went there because Doris was working on a story that involved international espionage, and she needed help only Alexa could provide.”
Ollie frowned. “I don’t follow.”
“Long story short, Doris needed Alexa to steal something.”
“Ah.” His expression cleared. “The grimoire?”
“More likely something from the grimoire.” I leaned closer to Ollie. “I keep thinking about Nick Atkins and his reaction to the letter he received, about not being able to trust beautiful women. His reaction seemed rather extreme.” I rubbed at my forehead with the tips of my fingers. “I think that letter revealed that Angelique was really Alexa.”
“Hm.” Ollie’s eyes slitted. “Maybe.”
“You don’t agree?”
“It’s just that his reaction seemed a bit extreme for a mere name change. There’s got to be more to it.”
“I agree.” I narrowed my own eyes. “I don’t think Nick was upset over the fact that Alexa had changed her identity to Angelique. I think he was upset over why she changed it. Why do people change their names, Ollie?”
He laced his hands behind his neck and closed his eyes for a few seconds. When he opened them he said, “Well, sometimes it’s just because they don’t like their birth name; other times, it’s for professional reasons, you know, like Archibald Leach becoming Cary Grant or Lucille LeSueur becoming Joan Crawford. Then again . . .”
“It could be because they’ve got something to hide, or they want to hide,” I finished. “Let’s take it one step at a time. What could Alexa Martin want to hide?”
“Her father was a convicted thief, right? Plus, you said Daisy intimated Violet might be less than thrilled with her niece. A criminal record, perhaps?”
“Hank checked. She had a few minor skirmishes when she was a kid, but I wouldn’t call lifting a pack of Twizzlers a criminal record. That’s not to say, though, that’s all she ever stole; it just means she was good enough to not get caught. Still, I’m leaning toward option number two. I think she changed her name to hide from someone.”
“Who? Her aunt?”
“No. Someone who wants what she took from the Foundation that night. The red stone from the grimoire’s cover.”
Ollie’s eyes widened just a tad. “And that figures into international espionage . . . how?”
I sighed. “I know it sounds whacked. That’s why I didn’t want to mention any of this to Daniel or Samms, at least not yet. It’s just a theory and not a very good one. But take a look at this.”
I went over to my desk, unlocked the middle drawer, and pulled out the pouch. I shook out the gem and held it up.
“Wow,” Ollie said. “That’s some big garnet, or is it a ruby? I can never tell.”
“Neither. It’s synthetic,” I said.
Ollie’s brows drew together. “The stones in the grimoire are synthetic?”
“I think the original stones were substituted with synthetic stones. I found this in Daisy’s hotel room. I think this was stolen by Alexa during the attempt in London, and another stone put in its place.”
Ollie shook his head. “But why?”
I walked over and dropped the gem into Ollie’s hand. “Take a good look at the stone. See anything strange about it?”
Ollie held the gem at arm’s length, and then brought it almost right up to his face. He squinted at it this way and that, and finally handed it back to me. “It looks almost like there are little black squiggles on the surface, but I couldn’t tell you what in heck those lines represent.”
“I know. It’s very odd.”
We heard a slight noise from the wall unit behind us and glanced upward to see Nick, squatting his portly body across the top shelf that held my DVD collection. He swiveled his head to look at us. “Meower.”
“No movies, Nick,” I said. A few seconds later, Ollie and I jumped back as half a dozen DVDs rained down on the desk. “Geez, Nick,” I grumbled as I started to pick them up. “What part of ‘no movies’ did you not understand?”
A plaintive merow from the shelf above answered me. “Spoiled kitty,” I muttered. “No movies for a week, Nick.” I started to sweep the DVDs into a pile, stopped as the one on top caught my eye. Ollie saw the title and chuckled.
“Diamonds Are Forever. So, little Nick is a James Bond fan, eh?” He reached out and took the DVD, turned it over in his hand. “This was one of Nick Atkins’s favorites, too. If I remember correctly, Bond impersonated a diamond smuggler to infiltrate a smuggling ring, and went toe to toe with Blofeld to use the diamonds to build a giant laser. It had great scenery in it, too.” He smacked his lips. “Lana Wood and Jill St. John . . .”
“Whoa.” I held up my hand. “Back it up a bit. They wanted to build a giant what?”
“Laser.”
I turned the disk over in my hand. “I remember a friend of mine did a story once about a laser that could write on plastic and other synthetic material.”
Ollie stared at me for a few moments, and then as the import of what I was saying dawned on him, his lips formed a perfect O. “You think there’s laser writing on that stone. But what?”
“I’m not sure. But whatever it is, it’s something people might kill over.”
Nick chose that moment to loft himself down from the shelf, land on the desk, sit back on his haunches, and warble a loud “Merow.”
“I think he’s trying to tell us something,” Ollie said.
I set the DVD down. “I think he just did.” I grinned at the cat. “Okay, buddy. Movie night’s back on.” To Ollie I said, “I think there’s only one way to get to the bottom of this. It’s time I consulted with the only person I can think of who might be able to give us some of the answers we need to untangle this mess.”
Ollie goggled at me. “And who might that be?”
“The person who steered me toward Angelique in the first place. Wish me luck, Ollie. I’m going to prison.”
TWENTY
“Thanks for coming through with that paperwork, Louis. I really appreciate this.”
It was two days later, and I was in the passenger seat of Louis Blondell’s Ford Ranger, on our way to the prison where Bronson A. Pichard was incarcerated. I’d wasted no time once Ollie had left in calling Louis and explaining to him that I needed to visit the cad in prison as part of this great story I was working on for Noir (a little white lie, but hey—if it got the job done, why not?). As I expected, he couldn’t pass up the opportunity for a circulation-boosting story, so he used some of his “pull” (even I was astounded by the amount of pull he seemed to have) to get the normal application for visiting privileges waived.
“It helps to not have a criminal record,” he joked as we made the turn off the interstate highway onto the exit for the prison. “And, of course, your sister’s was expunged by virtue of the fact Pichard committed the murder she was arrested for. That might have been a bit of a sticky point, you know. Victims of the inmate’s crime are generally disallowed visiting privileges.”
“Yeah, well, I wasn’t the victim. Lacey was.”
“Still, you were instrumental in his arrest. Anyway, there’s one big thing in your favor. Pichard approved your visit.”
I sat back against the leather seat. That in itself spoke volumes. That and the fact Pichard was the one who’d sent me after Angelique in the first place.
How much did he know? I
was convinced he knew a lot more than he’d previously let on, and by God, before this visit was over I was going to pry every last bit out of him.
* * *
“Nora Charles. My dear, this is indeed a pleasure.”
I’m no stranger to visiting people in prison. I’d conducted many interviews at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Chicago, and I’d recently visited my own sister in jail. I can’t say, however, it prepared me in any way for this sojourn to San Quentin to visit Pichard. For one thing, San Quentin doesn’t mess around. This facility is the oldest prison in the state of California, but also one of the toughest. It was formerly the home to California’s only gas chamber and death row, until that was ruled a “cruel and unusual punishment” in 1995 and switched to lethal injection. It has an estimated worth of over $100 million, thanks to its prime location on Bay Area real estate. With its own ZIP code and large population of hard criminals, San Quentin has become one of the most feared incarceration facilities on the West Coast.
I had the feeling Bronson A. Pichard would have been insulted had he been incarcerated anywhere else. He probably got some kind of perverse thrill at being housed in the same institution that had been home to such notables as Charles Manson, Randy Kraft, better known as the Scorecard Killer, and Richard Chase, the “Vampire of Sacramento,” just to name a few.
I was positive a man as conceited as Pichard undoubtedly felt right at home, which might only aid my mission. If he felt relaxed, he might be more inclined to part with some information—information I was convinced he had, in spades.
The visiting procedure was just like they show in all those prison movies, or at least fairly accurate. I went through a search, and then was escorted to a room where I sat on one side of a glass wall. The prisoner was escorted in. He didn’t look much different from the last time I’d seen him—of course then, I’d thought his name was Armand Foxworthy and I’d been on the wrong end of his gun. He sat down in the chair, picked up the telephone, and motioned for me to do the same. The tinny reception didn’t disguise the ebullience in Pichard’s voice as he sat across from me, a big smile lighting up his craggy features. His bicolored eyes, a feature that totally creeped me out, crinkled up a bit at the corners, the blue one a bit more than the brown.
“I’m flattered indeed that you traveled all the way out here just to visit little old me,” he said, the smile never wavering. Actually it was more of a self-satisfied smirk. Like he’d known all along I’d come calling, sooner or later. “I trust you received my letter?”
I gripped the phone receiver tightly. “Yes, Daniel made sure I got it. I’m attempting to track down Angelique Martone. It’s not an easy task. Of course, it might have been made a helluva lot simpler had you also mentioned the fact that her real name is Alexa Martin.”
“Tut-tut. What would the challenge have been if I’d done that?” He leaned back a bit in his chair, still with that amused cat-ate-the-canary expression on his face. “I never said that it would be easy. But if you want answers, it’s a necessary evil.” He paused and fairly beamed at me. “How is your little lifesaving cat? Nick, right? He is still with you, I assume?”
“He’s fine, thanks. I’m sure he’d be very flattered by your interest in his welfare.”
“You bought him a steak on me, I hope.” He let out a short laugh. “I’ve been bested my many people in my life, but to think that it was a cat who was primarily responsible for my downfall—and Atkins’s cat, to boot. Whenever I think of it, I can’t help but chuckle. I mean the irony of it all.”
When I’d come into the room I’d been admonished not to touch the glass. I glanced over my shoulder to make sure the guard near the door wasn’t looking my way and I tapped my nail against it. “Why did you say Angelique was the one person who could tell me what happened to Nick Atkins?”
He looked at me as if I’d just escaped from the loony bin, the eyebrow over his brown eye raising just a tad. “Why, because she is, of course.”
“Why? How is that possible?” I leaned closer to the glass. “Is it because of what was in that letter Nick Atkins got the night he had that fight with her?”
His eyes narrowed down to slits. “I imagine Nick got lots of letters. Are you asking if I know details about one in particular?”
“Even you must admit you seem to know lots of things you shouldn’t.”
He chuckled. “True. I’ve always been one to keep my ear to the ground. In my type of business, forewarned is forearmed. But to answer your question, no. I know nothing about a letter.”
I had the impression he was lying, but I didn’t have any evidence to call him on it. I bit down hard on my lower lip. “I think that letter told Nick who Angelique really was, and I think you had something to do with it. How did you find out she was really Alexa Martin?”
“As I’ve said, forewarned and all that. I was always very careful to have excellent and loyal contacts. As it turned out, Angelique—or Alexa Martin—was a friend of someone who didn’t have my best interests at heart.”
“Doris Gleason.”
His eyes widened a bit, but his expression didn’t change one iota. “Yes. You see, Doris is a very enterprising young lady. She’s a reporter, same as you were, only she’d never give that up to take over the family business, such as you did. She’s a girl with her eye on a star, that one. She wants to get a Pulitzer Prize. She thought exposing my art fraud schemes might do it, but when that failed she set her sights a bit higher.” He tapped his receiver with one long finger. “There’s much to be said for the world of international espionage, my dear Ms. Charles.”
“You’re involved in espionage?”
His lips twitched, just a bit. “I’ve been involved in a great many enterprises, over the years.”
Ah, now I was getting somewhere. I hoped. With Pichard I could never be sure. “And Doris and Alexa were both involved in that?”
“Yes—to a point. Doris was more so. She only involved Alexa because . . .”
“She needed her to steal the grimoire,” I finished as he hesitated. “Or, rather, something from the grimoire.”
His eyes gleamed. “You’re partially right. The grimoire itself was never an object of desire, at least not to the people we’re talking about.”
“So it was the jewels, then?” I gave another quick glance over my shoulder but the guard wasn’t even looking in our direction. “She needed Alexa’s expertise to steal them, and they were partially successful. She got one, didn’t she?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Did she?”
“Let’s not play games. You know she did. You also know she played dead and changed her name to avoid someone tracking her down.” I pushed a stray curl out of my eye. “What I want to know is, how do they figure in international espionage, and what’s Nick Atkins’s connection? You know, don’t you?”
Pichard tucked the phone under his chin and held out his hands to inspect his nails. “They get so ragged in here.” He sighed. “Anyway, to answer you: Many people desire the jewels because of the mystical power they are purported to have. What they don’t realize is there is nothing the least mystical about them. They possess a different sort of power.” He inclined his head a bit closer toward the glass. “You wonder about Nick Atkins figuring into all this? Well, that is why you need to speak to Angelique, or Alexa, or whatever she’s calling herself these days. She knows the extent of Nick’s involvement better than anyone. Whether or not she’ll share that with you, though, is anyone’s guess.”
I pressed the heel of my hand to my forehead. A humdinger of a headache was starting to throb, right between my eyes. “Was Alexa really shot that night, or was that just a cover story?”
“What do you think?”
“She was shot,” I said at last. “And she changed her name and appearance to hide, but from who?”
He shook his head. “You’ll have to ask her that, or Do
ris.”
“Doris Gleason is dead.”
He met my gaze without so much as the flicker of an eyelash and leaned into the glass as close as he dared. “Then Alexa is in greater danger than ever now. She has no champion to protect her, as you do. You’d be wise to find her, and quickly.”
“She’s in danger because of that jewel, isn’t she?”
“She is in danger because she took . . . something very desirable.”
I frowned. “Has it got something to do with what’s inscribed inside the jewel?”
Pichard’s eyebrows shot up. “You know about that? The only way you could know is if . . .”
His complexion paled almost to a pure white, and he pressed himself against the glass as close as he dared. “Get rid of it,” he muttered.
“It is why they’re after her,” I cried. “Whoever ‘they’ may be. What’s so special about it?”
He cast a furtive look around and then hissed. “Look,” he said, “I told you that in spite of you and that cat being responsible for my being here, I like you. You want to know what Angelique—excuse me, Alexa—knows about Nick Atkins. Stick to that. Don’t get involved any further with the grimoire and for pity’s sake . . . get rid of that stone.”
“I’m afraid I’m already involved.” I didn’t feel the need to mention the fact I’d been run off the road and my apartment had been ransacked on account of finding that stone—he probably knew that, too. The guy had so many connections, even from behind prison walls, it was scary. “If you know what’s so valuable about that stone, please tell me,” I implored.
“I’ll give you some advice. Look past the obvious. Think outside the box.”
Wow, and I’d come all this way for such great advice. I really had to kick myself later. I attempted one last question. “Fine. If you can’t, or won’t, help me any further with the stone, then have you any idea why Nick might have gone to New Orleans?”
Crime and Catnip Page 16
