by Lee, Rachel
And Gil wanted to know what had been stolen. How big the case was. And what might have cost Eddy Malacek his life. Important questions every one.
“Well,” he said, “there’s no point in duplicating. I’ll question the girl. Where will I find you in about two hours?”
“I’ll be here at the museum. I don’t expect to quit early tonight.”
“Not until pigs fly.”
“Or roosters sleep through dawn.”
Gil suddenly thought of his partner Seamus, with whom he’d traded just such lines for years. “I wish my partner weren’t on vacation,” he heard himself say.
“And I’m glad mine’s not here,” was the dry answer. “Two hours, here?”
“About that. I’ll see you then.”
Carole Efrem had nothing to add. She sniffled and teared her way through the questioning, using up a whole box of tissues, painting a picture of two students working their way through graduate school, who planned to marry someday, when they could afford it. Students who had so little money that they never used air-conditioning, which meant that determining the time of death was going to get real chancy. The body had been warm when he’d arrived on the scene, but so had the house. And the lack of air-conditioning was no clue to anything at all.
After an hour he had little to show for his time except a list of Malacek’s closest acquaintances, some of whom Carole knew by first name only. He was sure he’d be able to locate them anyway. One friend would lead to another.
But he wasn’t feeling hopeless anymore by the time he got onto I-275 and headed across the bay to the university. There’d been a burglary while Eddy was on duty, which provided a credible motive for murder. And made for a much more interesting case. He felt the bit settle between his teeth.
Then he remembered Trina, and wondered what she was up to. He should have swung by home, but he was already approaching the Howard Frankland Bridge, and turning around would now cost him at least forty minutes. Breaking his own rule, he pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and autodialed his home number.
The machine picked up.
Natch. She wasn’t home. When she was home alone, she always made the phone by the second ring, fearful of missing a call from her friends. When he was there she always politely asked if he wanted to get it. And when she was out, she always turned on the machine.
Damn. He cut the call and tossed the phone on the seat beside him. Dollars to doughnuts she’d gone to the beach with that boy. She just couldn’t understand why he had a problem with a fifteen-year-old girl racketing around in a car with a sixteen-year-old boy. Never mind that he thought the kid was a slug. Most boys that age were unimpressive. But the kid didn’t have much experience behind the wheel, and on average Florida drivers were some of the worst in the world.
First you had your old folks who quite sensibly slowed way down, but occasionally didn’t seem to see too well. Then you had your aggressive drivers who took it personally if anyone got between them and doing eighty in a forty-five-mile-per-hour zone. People who zigzagged, cut you off, wouldn’t let you change lanes, rear-ended you when you slowed down…
The list was endless. He often surmised part of the problem came from having so many people from all over the world who brought their distinctive driving styles with them. Mostly he considered it a problem of simple courtesy and patience. For every poor driver there were at least ten who drove in a rage.
And she was out there among them.
Speaking of which… a fuel tanker pulled in front of him, forcing him to jam on the brakes to avoid having the front end of his car torn off. Too bad it was out of his jurisdiction. The Howard Frankland Bridge often reminded him of the Indy 500, everyone jockeying to be first at the highest possible speed.
Thirty minutes later, on the edge of some road rage himself, he pulled into a parking space in front of the Museum of Antiquities. Yellow tape cordoned off the area around the building, and he displayed his badge to get past it.
He stepped into a spacious lobby with a two-story ceiling and noted the number of cops milling around in blue uniforms. Big doings. This wasn’t about some office machine missing.
One of the cops approached him, and he flashed his badge again. “I’m here to see Detective Tebbins.”
Moments later he was ushered into an office that had apparently been commandeered by the Tampa police. Detective Tebbins rose to greet him, and Gil’s first thought was Oh, my God.
It wasn’t only that Tebbins was a small man; Gil was accustomed, at six-two, to looking down at a majority of people. Tebbins scraped somewhere around five-five or five-six, yet it wasn’t his stature or his almost dainty hands and feet.
It was his moustache, black, long, and waxed into curls on either side of his mouth. It was his bow tie, an outrageous Stuart plaid. It was his suit, which looked like something lifted from the Edwardian era. Hercule Poirot? Sherlock Holmes?
Gil had met deluded cops before but this…. On the other hand, Tebbins couldn’t be really deluded and still hold his current position.
“How was the drive over?” Tebbins asked sociably enough.
“It gets more miserable every year. Even when most of the tourists are gone.”
“I’ve noticed.” Tebbins’s eyes were sharp, intense. “Have a seat. So you have a body I was hoping to find alive.”
“Apparently so. What happened here?”
“Theft of the central artifact in the exhibit.” He rounded the desk and sat, steepling his fingers in a contemplative pose.
Gil followed suit, taking the chair facing him and crossing his legs loosely. “What was it?”
“A jade-and-gold dagger with a jaguar’s head topping the hilt.” He opened a manila file folder and pulled out a brochure. “This tells about the exhibit. The missing piece is featured on the inside.”
Gil unfolded it, and his eyes immediately landed on the dagger. “Pretty piece. Probably worth a fortune.”
“So are other things in the exhibit. This was the only piece taken.”
Gil looked up. “I smell a rat.”
“Or three-day-old cod.” Tebbins smiled faintly. “What’s more, the dagger was carefully replaced with a replica. After the criminologists finish up, and the security-system designer gets here, we’re going to open the case and find out what’s under the dagger. Looks like the corner of an envelope.”
Gil nodded. “Was there anything special about this piece?”
Tebbins nodded. “One thing. It’s cursed.”
“Cursed.” Gil repeated the word stonily. “Hoo boy. Don’t let that get into the papers.”
“It already has. It was part of the hype for the exhibit.”
Then Gil remembered. Pieces clicked into place. “Got it. I remember now. I wasn’t especially paying attention when I first heard about this exhibit, but yeah, there was a buzz about something spooky.” He looked down at the picture again. “Witches? A coven? A warlock? Or just somebody who has a thing about daggers?”
“Or somebody who got stopped before he could finish.”
Gil shook his head slowly. “No. I don’t think so. It sounds too careful, especially the replica.”
Tebbins beamed. “Exactly. We have a criminal mastermind here.”
Gil’s head jerked up and he stared at Tebbins. A criminal mastermind? “We don’t know that. Most criminals are reasonably stupid.”
“True. Which makes them boring. Trust me, this one is not boring. What about the guard? Malacek. What happened to him?”
“Death by apparent overdose. However, he was left-handed, but stuck himself in the left arm.”
Tebbins’s eyes gleamed. “So, an act of stupidity.”
“Whose? Malacek or the murderer?”
“The murderer of course.” Tebbins waved an airy hand, then twisted one end of his moustache around his finger. “So now we have to wonder if Malacek participated and was killed afterward, or whether he was an innocent victim.”
“Brilliant observation, Watson,”
Gil said drily.
“Not Watson. That was last month. This month, I’m Poirot. Next month, who knows? And pardon me, you don’t look a thing like Holmes.”
Gil couldn’t resist. “I thought the curtain rang down.”
“I rang it back up.”
Which, now that he thought about it, gave Gil a qualm. In Curtain, Agatha Christie had turned Hercule Poirot into a killer who died in the last scene. The final line in the book was something like The curtain rings down. He had a moment of unease, wondering about how far Tebbins planned to carry the charade. But Tebbins was already moving on.
Tebbins let go of his moustache and leaned forward. “I suspect we’ll both find our answers at the same place. Shall we cooperate?”
“Sure.” Although he was dreading it. A man who was looking for a criminal mastermind might miss simple things that were right under his nose—or his moustache.
“And what did the girlfriend have to say?” Tebbins inquired.
“Very little. He didn’t do drugs, he hated them. They both worked hard and planned to get married when they finished school. Pretty ordinary story.”
“What about time of death?”
Gil shook his head. “Nothing official yet. The body was still warm when I got there, but they never used air-conditioning. The place was pretty stuffy, all the windows closed, and the morning sun had already heated it up pretty well. The M.E. might be able to work out something more accurate, but you know how that goes.” As a rule, time of death could usually only be established within a few hours.
Tebbins nodded, once again twirling his moustache. “Well, he’s on the security tape, making the shift change at 8 A.M. What time was he found?”
“Approximately 9:30 A.M.”
“So. He was here at eight. Dead by nine-thirty. Beautiful.”
Gil lifted a brow. “Beautiful?”
“Of course! Surely you see the meticulous planning. The guard…” He checked his notes. “Malacek. I need to remember that. Malacek probably assisted the theft in some fashion, but had to be here for the shift change, and had to appear at appropriate times on the surveillance tapes. So, they had to wait for him at his home and kill him before his girlfriend got there. Meticulous.”
Gil had the distinct feeling that Tebbins was searching for something that wasn’t there. “Not meticulous,” he said bluntly. “The girlfriend was in Melbourne visiting her father. She came home a day early.”
Tebbins waved his hand grandly. “Still meticulous. The girlfriend’s lucky she didn’t come home yesterday. Or too early this morning.”
“Not meticulous,” Gil said again. “The killer didn’t bother to learn that Malacek was left-handed.”
That took a bit of the wind from Tebbins’s sails. He frowned. “True.”
“And that’s good.”
It was Tebbins’s turn to raise his eyebrows. “How so?”
“The more mistakes he makes, the likelier we are to catch him.”
“True.”
“Besides, I’ve worked on cases involving meticulous murderers before. Unfortunately, they all turn out to be serial killers. So if you don’t mind, I’d really rather this guy not be meticulous.”
“Dismiss meticulous,” Tebbins said, smoothing his moustache as if he were smoothing his ruffled feathers. “Not meticulous. But still brilliant.”
“I’ll withhold judgment on that.”
Tebbins smiled. “As you wish. Still, he managed to carry off the heist without setting off the alarms, made sure that his traces would be well covered by visitors to the exhibit before anyone noticed what had happened, and killed the only witness before anyone got to him. He even made sure the videotape would be normal by having the guard remain to the end of his shift. He appears to have thought of everything.”
“Nobody thinks of everything. How did he bypass the alarms?”
“We’re still waiting for the security specialist. He should be here shortly.”
“What about video surveillance of the dagger? Didn’t that show anything?”
“There isn’t any.” Tebbins raised his hand as Gil started to object. “I know, I know. It sounds insane. But the idea was that with all the redundant security systems in effect at night throughout the exhibit the cameras aren’t needed. So they kick on only when an alarm is triggered. No alarm, no pictures.”
“Damn.”
A tall redheaded woman appeared in the doorway just at that moment and both Tebbins and Garcia immediately rose.
“Detective Tebbins? The security specialist is here. Do you want to meet here or in the conference room?”
“The conference room, please. Anna, this is Detective Gil Garcia from the St. Petersburg Police. Apparently the guard, Eddy Malacek, was murdered this morning.”
“Eddy?” Anna paled, and her green eyes became huge in her face. A beautiful woman, Garcia thought. Absolutely stunning. Slender, with chiseled cheekbones and hair so bright he almost wanted to warm his hands on it. Too bad she was involved in the case.
“Yes, Eddy,” Tebbins said, then turned to Gil. “Anna Lundgren is the head curator of the museum. She’s the one who discovered the theft.”
Gil regarded her with renewed interest. What was she doing, carrying messages like a secretary then? Or maybe the whole museum was just messed up today. Probably, with all the people being questioned. “Did you know Eddy?” he asked her.
“Yes.” She shook her head and wrapped her arms around herself as if she were suddenly cold. “Not personally. It’s just that… while we were constructing the exhibit he volunteered a lot of hours to help with that, in addition to his work. He was so nice and ready to pitch in.”
Gil felt his eyes slide toward Tebbins, and saw the same thought there. “What exactly did he help with?”
“Oh, moving things, painting scenery. Just about anything we needed. He has… had such a lovely girlfriend. She helped, too.” Her wide sad eyes met Gil’s. “What happened? Why was he killed?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“Oh, my God. Is Carole all right?”
Gil nodded. “Safe. About what you’d expect otherwise.”
“My God,” she murmured again, and to Gil it seemed her gaze turned inward to some painful memory of her own. But whatever sorrow she’d been contemplating suddenly gave way to another thought. She looked at Gil. “Do you think it had something to do with this theft?”
“So it seems,” Tebbins answered. “And there you have it, Ms. Lundgren. A death associated with the curse.”
Something flickered on her face, something wounded and angry. “I don’t believe in curses.”
“Apparently,” Tebbins said, “someone does.”
CHAPTER SIX
The conference room was just off the main lobby, easily accessible for use by persons who were not regular employees of the museum. Windowless, it still felt airy and light, with track lighting and potted tropical plants. The centerpiece was a conference table large enough to seat eighteen comfortably.
Dinah Hudson, the expert from HiSecurity, was a small woman of about thirty who wore her black hair cropped close and apparently scorned contact lenses in favor of wire-framed glasses. She was dressed in khaki cargo pants and a black tank top that advertised a whipcord build. The purpose of the pants was soon obvious as she began to pull various things out of her pockets: pen, pad, informational booklets that she passed around. For the schematics, though, she resorted to a long round blueprint case.
She spread the schematics out on the table. Only Tebbins appeared to know anything about what he was looking at, and Gil strongly suspected it was a pretense. A master electrician could probably trace those things for days before he figured out exactly how it worked.
“Why don’t I just give a brief overview,” Dinah said. “Then you can ask me questions.”
Tebbins and Gil both agreed. Anna looked as if she wished she could be excused.
“Basically,” Dinah said, “no security system is foolproof. It’s a deterr
ent, a way to make it as supremely difficult as possible for a thief, but it’s not foolproof. What we want from the system is threefold.”
She took advantage of the whiteboard on an easel nearby and began to write in green.
“One. Deterrence. Two, sufficient redundancy so it’s not as easy to knock out completely as human guards. And three, to alert us that something is happening so that a swift response can be made.”
She looked around, as if seeking questions, but none were forthcoming.
“Okay,” she continued, putting down the marking pen and returning to the table, “what we have here is a near impossibility. I’m not saying it is impossible—very little is—but it’s still a near impossibility. Since you called, I’ve been trying to figure out how this could have happened, and I honestly don’t know.”
“It might help,” said Gil, “if you explained how the system is supposed to work. Just an overall view, for now.”
“Well.” Dinah looked down for a moment. “Where to begin.”
“At the beginning,” suggested Tebbins drily. “Which alarms malfunctioned?”
“All of them, apparently.” She pulled out a chair and sat. “Something sure went haywire. As soon as I was notified what happened, I checked the data readouts from last night. We get a continuous feed from the alarm systems here, and I’m sorry to tell you there was no interruption of any of the systems recorded. We’d have known if a wire was cut, power turned off. Even key entries are automatically logged. There were none.”
Gil spoke. “Someone with a key could turn off the system?”
“Yes. Parts of it anyway.”
“That explains a lot.”
“I wish it did,” Dinah said. “Let me explain.”
Tebbins spoke, waving his hand with exaggerated courtesy. “By all means.”
“We installed a video-surveillance system and a motion-detector system. Either one of these can be switched off. It’s necessary to be able to switch off the motion detectors so that people can get into the exhibit. Obviously.”
