Mixed Up With Murder

by Susan C. Shea

  “He can’t,” I told Vince. “But I’m sure he wants to explain—”

  “—stay there and I’ll come over.”

  Was he not getting this? “Stay there” as if I had options? “There isn’t time. Call the police station. Talk to the chief, but only the chief. There’s a crooked cop in this. I think he’s headed over here.” But Margoletti had hung up.

  “Your father’s on his way. I told him to call the police. We should stay away from the windows,” I said, speaking to the hallway. “Is the door locked? Maybe McManus will think we’re not here.”

  “My car…” J.P. began, and stopped to swear viciously. It was past sunset but there was enough light coming in from the streetlights so we weren’t in complete darkness. The space was both dangerous and intimate.

  “I’m still trying to figure it out,” I said, speaking softly into the darkness and silence. “You have a special interest in a handful of expensive paintings, for which there doesn’t seem to be as much regular documentation as for the rest of the collection. Those paintings are, I’m guessing, on the accountant’s list, the one Larry had that was worrying him, but not on the list your father’s lawyers drew up for the gift. I’d assume that only meant your father didn’t intend to give them to Lynthorpe, except that people have died because of the discrepancy, and now you’re threatening me while someone outside is after both of us.”

  A loud exhale but nothing else from J.P.

  “Something criminal, then. Meanwhile, Vince has demanded Lynthorpe accept the gift without looking further into any discrepancies. He is definitely trying to paper over something, and having all that art come to Lynthorpe is the answer. You, on the other hand, are trying to intimidate me into going away without finishing the job, which could slow things down.”

  Still nothing from J.P.

  “I thought about money laundering, something to do with drug cartels.”

  A harsh laugh. “He’s ethically compromised, but not that much.”

  “You?”

  Another laugh, quieter this time. “Who would ask someone with no money to start moving large sums around? No, not me.” Silence, then “All I have to do is get the Lichtenstein.”

  “The Lichtenstein is missing. I remember that.”

  “Actually, it’s not. Not yet, anyway. I got it from that Loros guy but the deal to move it is still in the works.”

  “Got it?”

  “Told him my father was going to expose how he took someone else’s idea and ran with it to the tune of a few hundred million unless he gave him something extra nice for the collection.”

  “You were blackmailing the CEO on your own?”

  “I have a buyer in Austria waiting for it.”

  “Then someone told him that the inventories didn’t match, the accountant, I’ll bet, and Vince knew somehow that you were stealing from the collection. That’s why he’s been so determined to transfer everything to Lynthorpe, to stop you.”

  “He doesn’t know,” J.P. insisted. “The accountant was worried and told Saylor. The accountant guessed it was me because I’d been in the San Jose storage facility a few times when the staff was there, but he had no proof. No one wanted to tell my dad.”

  “I think he does know, J.P. He knows, but he’s protecting you.”

  “No way. Even if he figured it out, he’d only care about the money he was losing or the embarrassment if it came out.”

  Maybe, but I was sure Vince cared about J.P. and J.P. cared about his father, wanted his approval. Tragically, father and son were talking on different channels. “Were there others? I only saw a few that had incomplete or unusual provenance.”

  “Don’t need many. That O’Keeffe? It’s on its way to a private buyer in Mexico right now.”

  “You’re kidding. You can’t disappear a major piece like that.”

  “Dad’s mistake was to leave the collection in the hands of bean counters who don’t know what they’re looking at. They write down what they see, going by the labels.”

  “So you substitute forgeries?”

  “No, just fancy photocopies of the originals in frames.”

  “Giclees.” A lot fancier than photocopies and so good that artists who supervise the printing often sell them openly as prints. “Hey,” I said, suddenly remembering. “The Sam Francis?”

  “My first. A disappointment. Not enough to set me up and cover old debts. A contact in Argentina found me a buyer in Europe who would pay cash for bigger names, no questions asked. The good news is he’s panting for the cartoon painting.”

  “Roy Lichtenstein,” I said absently. Good going, Dani. As if an art lesson matters right now. “Let me guess. You knew Sotheby’s would be fussy about letting the painting leave their custody. They’d hardly hand it over to you. So, you had it delivered to the facility where the dealers knew Vince kept his art with proper climate control and high security.”

  “I wish. It wasn’t supposed to make it into the warehouse. The Sotheby’s sheet and the papers came to me and I planned to have the painting picked up in New York by a friend. But Corliss screwed up, had it sent over to the storage place on his own. So I had to rescue it, and then try to erase it from their list. Corliss paid more than twenty million for it, did you know? Of course, I’ll only get half that if I’m lucky.”

  “Weren’t you afraid he’d go directly to Vince?”

  “Nah, he hated my dad by that time. My father made such a big deal about what he’d done for Corliss whenever anyone asked, and I bet Corliss was just waiting for the other shoe to drop. I think he was relieved that he could deal with me instead.”

  “You must feel bad that he’s dead,” I said into the dark room.

  “Dead?” he said, standing up straight suddenly, his voice rising an octave. “He’s not dead. What do you mean?”

  “You didn’t know? He threw himself under a train in Palo Alto a few weeks ago. I think your blackmail convinced him Vince would hold his actions over his head for the rest of his life.”

  “Not from anything I said. I told him this was it.”

  “All blackmailers say that.”

  A string of curses, and then suddenly his fist slammed into the door.

  J.P.’s phone rang and we both jumped, jarred out of our dark cocoon. He grabbed it from the bed and frowned. “Why is my father calling me?”

  “Why don’t you answer and find out?”

  “Why don’t you?” he said, tossing the phone in my direction. My reflexes kicked in, I caught it, and before he could change his mind, I hit the talk button.

  “Mr. Margoletti? Did you call the cops? You’re in your car? Great, but did you talk to the police chief?”

  J.P. wasn’t making a move to terminate this conversation. “You’d like to talk to him? J.P., what about it? The police are on the way. Why don’t you explain…” J.P. had disappeared again. I lowered my voice. “There are several paintings in the collection you’re giving to Lynthorpe that aren’t accounted for. Do you know which ones I mean?”

  There was silence for so long I wondered if he’d hung up on me, but then Vince said, “Put him on now. I insist. Tell him he has to talk to me right away, while there’s still time. I can help him. Tell him I’m on the way.”

  I repeated the message in a loud voice to J.P. He laughed from somewhere in the apartment, not a good laugh. “A little late, don’t you think? Ask him about risk and reward,” he shouted. “Ask him how hard it would have been to give me a fresh start when I asked for it. Tell him I have some very nasty people looking for me, thanks to his not giving me some cash to pay them back. Tell him none of this would have happened if he hadn’t been so hard-nosed. Let him think about that for a few minutes.”

  Sharing this with his father wasn’t my highest priority right now. “Did you or did you not call the police?” I snapped into the phone.

  “Yes, and they’re coming, as am I. Why are you even involved in this family dispute?” the senior Margoletti said in a cold voice. “Let me speak
to my son.”

  “I would if I could. He doesn’t want to talk to you, but I do.” All I can say is I was tired, I was stressed, my head hurt and I don’t usually talk to donors this way. “Your son has been pointing a gun at me for two hours and he keeps threatening to kill me, so I guess I am involved. He’s talking about goons who want to kill him and plots to extort money to pay off the goons.”

  “I’m pulling into the parking lot now. The police are close by. Tell J.P. I want to come up there. We can talk about it in person.”

  I turned around. “He wants to come up here. He says you can talk about it here. Listen.” In the silence, we both heard sirens.

  “No,” the son yelled. “Keep him away from me.”

  “I heard that,” the senior Margoletti said in my ear. “Give him the phone. Please.”

  I walked out to the living room. “Tell him yourself,” I said to J.P. and held the phone out. He lashed out with his free hand and slammed the phone from my palm to the floor, where it skittered into a corner. There went my lifeline. “Are you crazy?” Stupid question. Of course he was crazy.

  “If I am, you’re the reason,” he shouted.

  We might have continued bickering like an ill-matched couple but there was a sharp banging on the apartment door. At the same time, we heard sirens getting much closer. Could be a highway crash, or a fire, or a meteor crashing to Earth, but I was hoping it was Detective Kirby and the entire Bridgetown police department, minus one dirty cop.

  CHAPTER 29

  My kidnapper cocked his head and listened as he pushed the gun barrel into my side.

  “J.P., it’s me. Open the door.” The bogeyman had arrived.

  “Don’t do it,” I whispered. “He’s dangerous, J.P.”

  Another knock, this one more like a slammed fist. “Let me in, pal. We only have a few minutes before the cops get here. We gotta get you out of there.”

  J.P., proving once and for all that he was less intelligent than the average fifth grader, left me standing in the center of the living room and undid the chain lock and the bolt. He actually believed Macho Cop was here to rescue him? If I’d had anywhere to run that wouldn’t have cornered me, I would have bolted. The door banged open as McManus, in uniform, pushed his way in. He had left his mirrored shades somewhere. His eyes swiveled immediately over to me. He drew his gun from his holster and held it at his side. “You. Of course. I heard an APB on the radio there was a hostage.”

  “She’s not a hostage, J.P. said in a rising pitch. “Not exactly.”

  “Here’s what we have to do,” McManus said, riding over J.P.’s protest. “First, put her in the bathroom.”

  McManus was a lot more decisive than the junior Margoletti. Plus, if J.P. was telling the truth, he had shot two people, which was a bad omen for me right now. The younger Margoletti grabbed my arm and yanked me hard back toward the hallway.

  I started babbling. “You can’t trust him, J.P. He framed Dermott. He’ll frame you too.” He had pushed me into the bedroom before McManus appeared in the short hall and said, “I said the bathroom.”

  “No lock,” J.P. said in a voice aimed at appeasing the stronger man.

  “Okay, the bedroom then. Doesn’t matter. You’re going to shoot her, but I guess you’ll have to be in the room when you do it. Can’t be sure to hit her through the door in a larger room.”

  “Me? Why me?” J.P. said, in a high-pitched whine.

  I pulled my arm free of his weakened grasp and slid down the wall so I wouldn’t faint. J.P. didn’t try to pick me up. He didn’t seem any more willing to go into the bedroom than I was. “You left her there to die,” I whispered, looking up at the pale-eyed cop. “An innocent woman, and you shot her for no reason at all. She thought you were one of the good guys.”

  “Me? Is that what he told you?” McManus grinned. “Why, daddy’s little boy is quite the shooter. They already have the gun and, guess what, it has your prints all over it, J.P., so you’ll be the one the police arrest.”

  J.P. started to sputter, but I raised my voice. “Wait. That can’t be true. The gun from Dermott’s apartment has his prints on it. J.P., he’s trying to trick you.”

  “I didn’t do it.” J.P. was beginning to babble. “I was there for the papers. He was only supposed to scare her so she wouldn’t tell anyone.”

  “My job was to get you out, buddy. Like it is now,” McManus said. “C’mon, J.P. Do her. We don’t have any time left.”

  “I don’t think we have to kill her, she won’t say anything.” J.P. was sweating and waving the gun around like a handkerchief.

  The sirens had stopped and I had given up on that rescue, but now, all of a sudden, bright lights stabbed into the hallway, and an amplified voice filled the space. “Mr. Margoletti, we know you have someone in there. Let her come out of the building by herself. You won’t be harmed if she comes out safe.”

  McManus whipped his own gun out and made a grab for me, but I rolled out of reach. “Let me go, J.P.” I said. “You didn’t kill Gabby—”

  There was confused shouting going on outside the apartment door, and the cell phone J.P. had knocked out of my hands moments before began to ring. I scrabbled to it on my hands and knees. Before either man could grab it, I hit the button and started yelling, “In here, we’re all in here.” I would have said more but Vince Margoletti’s voice was roaring in stereo, which took me a minute to figure out. He was outside the apartment, yelling into his phone. I hit the speaker button, and held it toward J.P.

  McManus reached down and yanked me to my feet, but he would have had to let go of me or holster his gun to get the phone, and he apparently decided having the gun trumped everything else.

  Vince was yelling. “I know about the art, son. I can make this go away. Please, J.P., trust me.”

  I jammed the phone in my pocket and began kicking and twisting to get out of McManus’s grip. With the cop distracted, J.P. rushed into the living room. McManus strode there with me still more or less in his grip, his gun pointed at the ceiling.

  A new, mechanically amplified voice chimed in. “Mr. Margoletti, this is Captain Benders of the Bridgetown police department. We need to talk with you. Can you come to the door?”

  “Don’t open the door,” McManus said, still gripping my arm. “They’ll kill you.”

  J.P. stopped in his tracks, but so far he hadn’t put the gun down for a moment, and McManus had one too. Two people were dead and another injured, and I wasn’t even counting the guy back in San Francisco who went under a train. All I had was a smart mouth.

  “Talk to your father,” I said. “He’s right outside. If you release me, the cops will back down.” Or, maybe not, but once I was outside, J.P. wasn’t my problem any more.

  “Don’t, J.P.,” McManus said in a low voice. “We have one chance to get you out of here. I say I’ve captured you and get them to stand down while you go out the back window. I’ll pretend to shoot at you but only after you have time to get away.”

  I had a bad feeling about how this was going to end. The cops probably had a SWAT team surrounding the building by now, and then there was me, who knew too much and would be alone in the room with a crooked cop.

  The red lights from the police cars rolled rhythmically across the ceiling and the wall. We’d been stuck in this airless place for hours and J.P. had gone into panic paralysis as far as I could tell. McManus was twitching badly, and I couldn’t think of another argument they’d buy to let me out of here. I had the phone, but what use was it if taking it out of my pocket would only make McManus come for it?

  Now he said, “Time to roll, pal. They’ll be storming this place in about a minute. You,” jabbing at me with his gun, “back in the bedroom. And you,” looking hard at J.P., “no more second thoughts. Shoot her or give me the gun and I’ll do it.”

  J.P. looked confused and panicky. His eyes jumped to McManus’s gun.

  “Can’t use this one, friend, it would be traced to me.”

  “See, J.
P.? He’s going to frame you for this,” I said, jerking back as the cop’s arm grabbed for me.

  CHAPTER 30

  Macho Cop held me by the neckline of my Donna Karan jersey top, which made some small part of me mad since it was a favorite. I cursed myself for my inability to stay focused on remaining alive, and concentrated on breathing and trying to salvage something other than clothing from the moment. If I was going to get shot, I’d at least capture some kind of confession on the phone in my pocket, assuming anyone out there was listening. “You killed Gabby, didn’t you, McManus? You shot Dermott, then framed him when you were sent to search his apartment. You hit my car, didn’t you,” I squeaked, “and followed me later. How much did you get paid for all this?”

  “The car stuff? No way. That was his job,” he said, grunting as he dragged me along. “I do the shooting, he does the easy stuff. That’s why I get the big bucks and the babes, Rio style. No more hick town for me. ”

  “But if he hasn’t paid you yet, you can’t kill him.” I choked and tried to ignore the ripping sound at my neckline.

  “You think I’d risk it without getting the money first?”

  Divide and conquer, as good an idea as any right now. “J.P., you trust this guy? He kills Gabby, shoots her husband to frame him. You’re sure he won’t shoot you?”

  Score. The preppy polo player, novice blackmailer, and all around amateur crook pivoted, stuck his arm out straight and pointed his gun at McManus. “Not if I do it first. And I’ll have better lawyers.” His eyes were unnaturally wide open. He licked his lips and pulled the trigger.

  McManus froze. I flinched. Nothing happened.

  J.P. swore, grasped the gun harder and fired, sending a bullet flying somewhere but not hitting either of us. The sound was enough to unleash everything Bridgetown’s police department had, plus one desperate father. Before I could react, McManus spun toward me and hit me on the side of my head with his gun. I fell, breathless with shock, disoriented, as McManus dropped my arm. Dimly, I heard a loud crashing noise. Squinting from my place on the floor, torn between curling up in a ball and trying to find a way out of this hellhole, I scooted away from the killer and leaned against the far wall as the front door begin to splinter. McManus and J.P. both turned their guns in that direction.