The Trouble with Mirrors (An Alix London Mystery Book 4)

by Charlotte Elkins

  “Protect her,” Ted supplied with a soft smile, and Alix could see his estimation of Tiny changing as he spoke. Her heart soared. Maybe these two were going to get along after all.

  “Well . . . yeah,” Tiny said, and now he was embarrassed. “So I figured if word got around that somebody stole it, well, then, she’d be safe. Sorry about the mess, Alix. I tried to make it look good, you know, but not do any real damage.”

  “Tiny,” Alix said, “you did anything but damage.”

  “I understand all that, Tiny,” Ted said, “but it only accounts for one piece of one painting. What did you do with the rest?”

  “I hid it,” Tiny said flatly, “and I’d be real surprised if it’s not still there.”

  Moscoli, Ted, and Alix all waited for someone to ask the big question, and finally Moscoli did.

  “Dove?” Where?

  “About forty feet from where I found it. In the church, right next door to the palazzo.”

  “In the church? No, I don’t believe it,” Moscoli said. “We went over every millimeter.”

  “Inside the walls.”

  Moscoli energetically shook his head. “No. No. We examined the walls; of course we did. We applied X-ray, we used thermal imaging—”

  “Not ten feet up, you didn’t,” Tiny said proudly.

  “Ah . . . ten feet up?” Moscoli repeated dully.

  “We were up on scaffolding, in the middle of working on that old fresco. Not far away there was a big, blank section of wall that was in bad shape, so Della Rocca had me plastering it over when I wasn’t working with him, okay? Well. I moved the scaffold over there, got up on it, cut out a section of the wall and put the stuff inside, in a space between the beams. Then I put back the piece of the wall I cut out, spackled it in, and plastered over the whole damn wall so there wouldn’t be any seams. Then I took apart the scaffolding and put it in the basement, and . . . well, that’s it.”

  It was a long speech for Tiny and he broke off a restorative piece of his bear claw, downing it with a cheerful sip of cold coffee.

  “Well, how about that?” Ted said slowly, with something like admiration. “What were you going to do with it? What were your long-range—” Alix smiled as Ted caught himself. “You hid them away because you were worried about getting into trouble?”

  Tiny gave his great head a sharp shake. “Hell no. Because I didn’t want that sonofa—sorry, Alix—that rotten, so-called politician who owned them to get them back, that’s why. You know how he got rich enough to get that kind of art? He—ah, never mind, I guess I was just hoping things would change somehow, that . . . I don’t know.”

  “But things did change, Tiny,” said Moscoli. “We caught up with Gamberini a few years later. He’s probably still in prison. The palazzo and everything in it were confiscated. It’s a State museum now, and it’s beautiful, and it’s famous. And this art you hid? That would be part of it, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it goes on show in Rome first, or maybe at the Pitti Palace.” He paused to let Tiny take this in. “Tiny, how would you feel about coming back to Italy and showing us exactly where it is?”

  Tiny was obviously taken with the idea but shocked as well. “But . . . you’re sure I wouldn’t get arrested right at the airport?”

  Moscoli let out a great horse laugh. “Arrested? Tiny . . . Beniamino . . . Santo . . .”

  Don’t forget Paolo, Alix thought.

  “. . . you don’t understand. If what you say is so, you’ll be treated as a hero, not a criminal.”

  “A hero?”

  “It would amaze me if you don’t get a medal pinned on you down in Rome. You’ve safeguarded—and returned—a significant piece of the national patrimony.”

  “A medal,” Tiny mused, a smile slowly forming on his face. Alix was surprised and pleased to see that this former embodiment of low-profile existence seemed to rather like the idea. “Would there be a ceremony? Could my uncle come?”

  Moscoli stood up and held out his hand. “Mr. Abbatista,” he said, “you can bring any damned person you want, and the State will cover the expense. This I guarantee.”

  Tiny was clearly overwhelmed. With the back of a finger he dabbed unobtrusively at his eye. Moscoli was grinning broadly. Even Ted looked pleased for him.

  And for Alix, one wonderful thought reigned supreme: You didn’t cut up the paintings. I knew you didn’t. I knew it!

  CHAPTER 32

  In Italy over the next week-and-a-half, Tiny was not merely a hero but a celebrity. The opening of the cache was a national television event, and Tiny himself was the subject of a thirty-minute TV special on the entire affair: “The Man Who Outsmarted the Mafia and Saved a Cellini.”

  And a week after that, he was at the Quirinale in Rome to receive the Silver Medal for Distinguished Contribution to Culture and Art from the hands of the Minister of Culture himself.

  Among the two dozen invited attendees were his aged Uncle Innocenzo, Gino Moscoli, and Geoff and Alix London. Tiny then went off to Pieve di Teco for his hero’s welcome and a weeklong visit with relatives he hadn’t seen since 1987, and the next morning Geoff and Alix boarded British Airways 571 for their flight to Seattle.

  They arrived at 5:00 p.m. looking and feeling like anybody else who was stepping off a fifteen-hour flight. “Maybe we should skip the Sangiovese tonight,” Alix suggested. “We’ve been up since 2:00 a.m. Seattle time, and you look tired. I know I am.”

  “Certainly not,” Geoff said reproachfully. “It’s Thursday. My public expects me.”

  “Well, we certainly wouldn’t want to disappoint your public,” Alix said jovially, but she was far from jovial.

  There was a plan in the works that Chris had come up with the day before Alix had left for Rome. On their return, Alix would drive Geoff to Sangiovese just as she did most Thursday evenings, and Geoff would do his thing in the fireside niche. Then, when he was still glowing, they would sit down with him in a private corner, and Alix would tell him that she was a married woman and his new son-in-law was FBI special agent Ted Ellesworth, whom he had last seen testifying for the prosecution at his trial almost a decade earlier. With Geoff already in a good mood, and Chris as a moderating influence, things were bound to go reasonably smoothly, or as smoothly as could reasonably be expected. And most important, it would finally be, in Chris’s words, a done deal: no more clandestine marriage folderol, no more secrets from Alix’s father, no more constrictions on Ted.

  Alix had readily agreed, but that was then and this was now, and it no longer seemed like such a hot idea. What was the hurry, after all?

  Well, there was a hurry, though. As she’d said to Chris, Geoff was almost as “connected” as Chris was, with a grapevine that had few equals. And by now there were a lot of people who knew that she’d become Mrs. Ted Ellesworth: Chris, of course (who wouldn’t tell); Moscoli, of course (who wouldn’t tell); Jamie, of course (who wouldn’t tell); Ted, of course (who wouldn’t tell . . . except that he’d already told Moscoli); and then there was the county clerk in Maryland who’d issued their license; and the municipal court judge who’d done the marrying; and the jeweler who was working on her ring; and any people to whom they might have mentioned it.

  And what about Tiny? He didn’t know about the marriage, she was sure of that, but he’d seen how Ted and Alix had been when they were together, and although she doubted that he’d put two and two together, he must have passed on some of his impressions to Geoff, who’d spent time with him in Rome over the past day or two.

  No, it couldn’t be much longer before the information reached her father from others or he deduced it on his own, and she didn’t want either of those things to happen. Telling him tonight at Sangiovese and getting it over with had everything to recommend it, and yet . . . she liked to think it was just the jet lag, but she wasn’t ready to face it, not yet. Surely, it could wait another day. Better yet, two. Time to recover her strength and fortitude.

  And so she’d suggested stopping off at Geoff’s place so
that he could shower and change after the long haul from Rome, and then at her condo so she could do the same, and he agreed, but with reluctance: “As long as we don’t get there any later than eight at the latest.” She was hoping, of course, that if she dragged things out long enough, he might tire and give up. Instead, he emerged from his speedy toilette, showered, shaven, smelling of Old Spice, and looking fresher than ever. So much for that.

  Twenty minutes later, they were in Green Lake, and Alix was climbing the single flight of stairs to her condominium, lugging the larger of her two carry-ons. Geoff was still down at the car, having insisted on bringing up her smaller bag and laptop. The cold feet she’d been developing were now frozen solid, and as she turned her key in the lock she was thinking that, once behind the closed door of her bedroom, she could telephone Chris and call the thing off. It was cowardly and she knew it, but—

  The key had been turned and her hand was on the door handle when the door was pulled open from the other side. Standing in front of her in a freshly pressed, light blue dress shirt with the sleeves casually but impeccably folded up on his tanned forearms, was a smiling, impossibly gorgeous man with a bottle of red wine and two wineglasses held easily in one hand.

  Alix stood there, tongue-tied and stunned. “Uh . . .”

  “Hi, sweetheart,” Ted said. “Welcome home. Thought I’d surprise you.” From behind him came the sweet, sad strains of a Chopin nocturne, and the air was filled with the peppery aroma of the Jamaican beef stew that was a specialty of his.

  Laughing, he pulled the bag out of her numb fingers. “Looks like I succeeded, too.” He stepped back out of the way. “Aren’t you going to come—”

  His attention was caught by the figure of a bearded, elderly man coming slowly up the steps with an overnight bag and a laptop sleeve. Ted froze.

  Geoff continued up the stairs to the landing and handed the bag to him. “Young man, perhaps you’d take this?”

  “Of course, sure.” He looked helplessly at Alix. “I think we have some explaining to do.”

  “Geoff,” Alix said awkwardly, “Dad . . . this is . . . well, the fact is . . .”

  Geoff edged politely past them into the entryway, then turned to face them. “Alix, my dear,” he said, his voice at its plummiest, “really, must we persist in this tedious charade? Don’t you think it’s time to properly introduce me to your husband?”

  Alix goggled at him. “How did . . . how long have you . . .” but Ted just laughed and held out his hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. London. Again.”

  Geoff shook his hand. “Yes, again,” he said dryly, but with an amicable little smile of his own.

  “And now that that’s out of the way,” Ted said, “the best stew you ever tasted is on the stove, there’s more than enough for three, and I for one would really be happy if you would join us.”

  Geoff smiled at Ted, smiled at Alix, and said, “Young man, nothing would please me more.”

  Alix sighed. The world was right again.

  Acknowledgments

  Karen Stewart, Charlotte’s sister, who alerted us to the idea that there had to be a story behind Tiny’s mirror.

  Randy Roberts of the Sequim Bay Yacht Club, who shared with us some of his boating knowledge. We apologize for a liberty or two we may have taken in the interest of smooth story-telling.

  About the Authors

  With their backgrounds in art scholarship, forensic anthropology, and psychology, Charlotte and Aaron Elkins were destined to be mystery writers. Between them, they’ve written thirty mysteries since 1982—garnering an Agatha Award for the best short story of the year, an Edgar Award for the year’s best mystery, and a Nero Wolfe Award for Literary Excellence, among other honors. The authors revel in creating intensively researched works that are as accessible and absorbing as they are sophisticated and stylish. In addition to writing the first three Alix London mysteries—A Dangerous Talent, A Cruise to Die For, and The Art Whisperer—they are also the authors of the Lee Ofsted golf mysteries, including A Wicked Slice, Rotten Lies, Nasty Breaks, Where Have All the Birdies Gone, and On the Fringe. Charlotte was born in Houston, Aaron in New York City, and they now reside on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula.