by Lee, Rachel
But Eddy wasn’t looking as interesting as he had that morning. Not since Gil had spoken with Tebbins and Anna and learned some of the details of the burglary.
One, no alarms.
Two, nothing on videotape.
Three, the motion detectors hadn’t even been turned off.
Then there was the problem of the dagger replica. It had turned up on Anna’s desk, then had disappeared sometime during the evening while the museum was full of guests. Tebbins had witnessed it.
That bothered him. All of it bothered him. Any way he looked at it, it seemed to point a finger at either Tebbins or Anna.
The crime itself suggested an insider. Someone who knew how things worked, and had at least an acquaintance with the security system. He supposed that put Dinah Hudson on the list of suspects, too, and however many of her associates.
He tensed in his chair and found himself suddenly wondering how he could have been so stupid. Picking up the phone, he dialed Clarence Tebbins’s home number across the bay. He was rewarded with voice mail, the universal prerecorded voice of Personal Secretary, telling him to leave a message.
“Tebbins, it’s Garcia. I thought of something. Give me a call.”
Then he hung up, thinking about how much he hated Personal Secretary. At least in the days of the old answering machines, people often picked up during a message when they wanted to talk to you. These days, with the phone company doing the job, you couldn’t even break in on the message once it had transferred to voice mail.
But Tebbins didn’t disappoint him. The return call came after only two minutes.
“It’s Tebbins,” said the rather high, nasal voice. “I’m sitting here sipping cognac and thinking over the day.”
The image immediately brought to Gil’s mind a dark, nineteenth-century library with a fire burning beneath an ornately carved mantel. Great for television, horrible for Florida. “I’m sitting here swigging a diet soft drink in my recliner, waiting for my daughter to get out of the shower so I can lay down some new rules about her boyfriend.”
After an instant, Tebbins’s ratchety laugh reached his ear. “Daughters and boyfriends. I’ve been spared.”
“You don’t know how lucky you are,” Gil said drily.
“But you’ve apparently been thinking while you were waiting?”
“Of course. When the day comes I learn to turn off my mind, I might actually consider spending a week on vacation.”
“I use my vacations for thinking. Oh, yes.” Tebbins sounded quite pleased with himself. “There’s nothing quite like being stuck on a Caribbean beach for a week to get your mind working. Sheer boredom does wonders.”
“I’ll pass.”
“So, you said you thought of something?”
“Yes. We’ve been focusing on the guard who was murdered this morning. Has anyone looked at the guard who relieved him?”
“Only a little so far. He was on the videotape and nothing was disturbed. And he was only there an hour before most of the staff came in. Of course, there were others there before that. One can see him letting them into the building between eight-thirty and nine.”
“Hmm. And someone verified that he did indeed let those folks in this morning?”
“I believe so. If memory serves, there were at least three people who confirmed he let them in before the doors opened. We have their names.”
“Okay.” Gil was disappointed, but something still niggled at him. “There’s something wrong with the videotapes, you know.”
“There must be. I have the lab reviewing them.”
“And Eddy Malacek may have been killed only because he caught on to something.”
“Of course. Or his death may indeed have been an overdose.”
Swiftly Gil reviewed the morning’s investigation. “He was murdered. Right after he got home.”
“Well, I’ll not deny it was probably related. It’s a rather large coincidence otherwise.”
“And I’m still concerned about the relief guard. Can we question him tomorrow?” He hated having to ask, but it wasn’t his jurisdiction, something that he figured was going to scald him more than once before all was said and done.
“I’ll arrange it,” Tebbins said. “But it’s pretty slim. He already said he came in like he always did, and we can account for his actions during the critical hour.”
“What about after nine? The exhibit doesn’t open to the public until ten.”
“He was there on the front desk, and the best alibi he has is that you can see the visitors beginning to arrive in large numbers to buy their tickets. But yes, let’s talk to him. When?”
“When he finishes his shift tomorrow. I need to go out and question some of Malacek’s friends in the morning.”
“Fair enough. I’ll set it up.” Tebbins paused. “Any thoughts about Anna Lundgren?”
“Yeah,” Gil said, as something seemed to come instinctively clear. “She’s too damn obvious, and too smart to be that obvious.”
“Or smart enough to look too obvious,” said Tebbins.
God, thought Gil, dealing with this guy was going to be fun. He was going to add potential twists and turns to every avenue while he looked for his “mastermind.”
“Maybe,” he said after a moment. “For what it’s worth, my gut says no.”
“Ahh, your gut talks to you,” said Tebbins.
Gil shifted in his chair, feeling a surge of impatience. “Call it cop intuition then.”
“I prefer the brain. It thinks so much more clearly than the gut.”
He heard the amusement in Tebbins’s voice, but it didn’t much appease him. Right now he’d give anything to have his partner back from vacation.
“Something is rotten,” said Gil.
“Well, yes, and not only in Denmark.”
Almost in spite of himself, Gil smiled. Tebbins didn’t quite pick up the ball and run with it, but he at least was in the ballpark answering Gil’s reference.
“Okay,” Gil said, “we’ll talk tomorrow.”
“Certainly.” Tebbins didn’t sound at all irritated that Gil was firmly horning in on his investigation. Give him marks for that.
After he hung up, Gil leaned back in his recliner. From the sounds, he gathered that his daughter was about to exit the bathroom, which meant that the postponed confrontation about Jamie couldn’t be postponed any longer.
But for the few minutes he had left, he found himself wondering why he was so reluctant to consider Anna as a suspect, and so ready to consider Tebbins.
The answers he got didn’t please him at all.
Outside Anna’s house in the deep darkness, the watcher stood within the embrace of a tall azalea, following the shadows of two women cast against the drawn curtains. He’d seen Anna come home, but he hadn’t noticed the other woman arrive. Had she already been there? Or had he somehow missed her appearance?
Either notion disturbed him, and for a while he was annoyed by the idea that his careful plan might be going awry. But then he reminded himself that it wasn’t yet time. He didn’t need to get to Anna tonight. She didn’t yet understand her role in the drama, and until she did he couldn’t touch her.
No, what he needed to pay attention to, now that the first stage was complete, was the second act, wherein the message would be made clear to her and others. But mostly to her, because she was the centerpiece.
Nevertheless, he stood in the bush a while longer, savoring his victory of the previous night, and anticipating victories to come, as he drew the noose ever tighter around Anna.
He felt pulled to her, attached to her, he realized suddenly. He didn’t want to leave, though he had nothing else to do there. He just wanted to stand and watch her shadow move against the curtains.
But of course he felt attached to her, he reminded himself. They were joined by the curse, locked now in a battle to the death.
It was time to go, he told himself sternly. The longer he stood there, the more likely it was that someone would spot hi
m and call the police.
Just then lightning, absent for hours, resumed its display, arching overhead. The crackle of thunder was deafening and served as a warning.
Until he finished his task, the paw of the jaguar god might reach down and snatch him. And standing in the branches of a bush beneath a large tree was a stupid thing to be doing even when he wasn’t under a curse.
After scuffing his footprints in the wet grass and soil, he spared one last glance for Anna’s windows, then melted away into the night, like the jaguar he served.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Anna spent a thoroughly miserable morning showing the representative of the Mexican museum through the exhibit. He was not a happy man in any language. While he thoroughly approved of the staging, he couldn’t stop complaining about the theft of the dagger, even after Dinah Hudson, hurriedly called in, had explained yet again the security systems.
“In Mexico,” he said again and again, “we don’t have these problems.”
Surprisingly, the police had reopened the museum to the public. She had thought they would want to keep the public out for at least a while longer, but apparently they felt they had collected all the evidence they could. Even more surprisingly, the number of visitors had soared, their interest apparently caught by the robbery.
Around lunchtime, when she turned Señor Cuestas over to Ivar, who looked as if he were swallowing a whole bottle of cod liver oil, she found the lobby packed with winding lines and people waiting for their time to begin touring the exhibit. Three ticket windows were open instead of the two they’d had on opening day.
Anna found herself hoping the interest would last through the rest of the run.
Then she spied Gil Garcia standing in the line with a girl of about fifteen. The young woman was beautiful, with long inky hair and snapping dark eyes very like Gil’s. She was also painfully pink with sunburn, and from the way she moved Anna suspected her tank top and white shorts were irritating it.
Anna started toward her office, then thought better of it. Walking over, she said, “Hi. Going to the exhibit?”
Gil smiled at her. “My daughter is. She’s getting bored hanging out while I work, and I thought she’d enjoy this.”
The girl’s eyes looked doubtful.
“Well, it’s a great exhibit,” she said cheerfully. “But you don’t need a ticket. Listen, my sister’s already up there waiting for her walk-through. Why doesn’t your daughter go through with her? Nancy’s a lot of fun. Kinda crazy, but nice crazy.”
Gil’s daughter brightened a bit. Apparently she’d thought going through the exhibit alone would be boring. “Dad?” she said hopefully.
“Sure,” Gil said after a moment. “What’s your sister look like?”
“You can’t miss her,” Anna said with a laugh. “She’s my identical twin, except she’s in cowboy drag.”
That brightened the girl’s face even more.
“She’s from Austin,” Anna explained. “It’s in her bones now.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Gil said, suddenly recalling himself. “This is my daughter, Trina. Trina, this is Ms. Lundgren. She’s the museum curator.”
That didn’t exactly seem to impress Trina favorably. Amused, Anna said, “My sister’s a computer geek. Go ahead and tease her about Star Trek. Or Lord of the Rings.”
Trina giggled at that.
Reaching into her pocket, Anna pulled out one of the guest passes she still had left. “Here you go. Just tell Nancy I sent you. Or, if you want, I’ll introduce you myself.”
“It’s okay,” Trina said. “Just as long as she doesn’t mind?”
“She’ll be delighted.”
Trina walked away, and Gil turned to look at Anna. “Thank you. That was very nice. So you have a twin sister?”
“Yes. She arrived unexpectedly last night. But she does that a lot. I’ll start thinking about her, and she’ll call or she’ll just show up.”
“I’ve heard that about twins.”
Anna smiled. “It’s true about us, at least. Except my radar must have been screwed up the last few weeks. I had no idea she’d broken up with her… S.O.”
“So she came to get away?”
“Partly. And partly to see the exhibit.”
“Because of your father?”
Reluctantly, she nodded. “I keep telling her, and everyone else, that Dad didn’t find Pocal’s tomb. One of his crews did. He may have gone to look at the site before calling for archaeologists, but he certainly didn’t find it. Unfortunately, Nancy seems as determined as many other people to link the earthquake to the discovery.”
“The human mind seems to run that way. Listen, can we go to your office for a few minutes? I’d like to ask you about a few things.”
“Sure.”
They started walking toward her office, working their way through the growing crowds of visitors.
Gil spoke. “Looks like it’s going to be a successful exhibit.”
“I hope so. The theft was bad enough. It would be awful if the museum lost its shirt over the exhibit, too.” She shook her head. “I just spent all morning listening to how this doesn’t happen in Mexico.” She glanced at him. “The representative of the museum there is visiting today.”
“That must have been fun.”
“Absolutely delightful. I can’t say as I blame him. But this doesn’t happen all that often anywhere.”
“Wasn’t there a theft here two years ago?”
Anna flushed. “Well, yes. I hadn’t started here then, so I can’t tell you much about it.”
“Some mask or something,” he remarked. “I recalled it yesterday, and checked it out. One of a kind, I understand.”
“Yes.” She stopped and faced him. “Are you insinuating something about this museum?”
He shook his head. “Only that it’s had a run of bad luck.”
“Why do I think you don’t believe in runs of bad luck?”
“Oh, I do,” he said, surprising her with a smile. “I’m as superstitious as the next guy.” He touched her arm briefly, and found his thoughts straying from business to forbidden places.
And looking into her eyes, he saw his reaction answered. Oh, hell, he thought, this isn’t going to help at all.
The watcher was keeping one eye on Anna and Garcia, and another down the hallway where he had sent Tebbins. Now, he decided. It had to be now.
He’d been waiting for an opportune moment to put the envelope that was in his pocket on Anna’s desk. A moment when someone else might be implicated in the theft. And implicating Tebbins would be choice.
Because Tebbins frightened him. The man, for all he looked like a deluded jerk, was actually very intelligent. This morning the watcher had had the unpleasant experience of being questioned by Tebbins about the night of the benefactors’ party. The questions had seemed innocuous, even casual, but the watcher had noted how sharp Tebbins’s eyes were, and how he seemed to weigh and retain every single word he heard.
The man was a threat. If he got too close to the truth too fast, the entire plan would go awry.
But now, if the watcher moved fast enough, he could torpedo Tebbins in the most appealing way.
Five minutes earlier, Tebbins had asked the watcher if he knew where he could get a copy of the guest list for the party the night before last. The watcher had opened his mouth to say that Ivar Gregor would have it, as would some of the secretaries, but then the new idea had come to him in an instant.
“Ms. Lundgren has one on her bulletin board,” the watcher had answered promptly.
“Really. Well, I don’t suppose she’ll mind if I make a copy of it.”
Anna still hadn’t emerged from the exhibit where she was giving that Mexican guy the tour, although she would come out any minute, the watcher had known. But that St. Pete detective was over in the ticket line, too, and if the watcher knew anything about Anna, it was that she would stop and speak with him, and maybe offer him a pass. She was like that.
He loved h
er generosity, and always had. But just then it was going to aid him.
Unfortunately, she started heading toward her office with the detective too soon. Glancing down the hallway again, the watcher saw that Tebbins was at last emerging from Anna’s office with the sheet of paper in his hand.
Could he possibly get down to Anna’s office and plant the envelope before she and the detective would see him in the hallway? Hurry up! he willed Tebbins. The last thing on earth the watcher wanted was to pass Tebbins in that hallway. Tebbins was too bright.
But then Anna and the homicide dick paused and were looking at each other oddly. And Tebbins slipped into the copier room three doors down from Anna’s office.
The watcher took off. Walking as swiftly as he dared across the lobby, he disappeared into the hallway. His feet, shod with shoes that had been carefully chosen, barely made a sound on the hall floor as he quick-walked down it.
If anyone stopped him or saw him, he would say he was going to the bathroom. A perfect cover.
But no one came out of an office or down the hall. Glancing quickly around, he darted into Anna’s office and placed the envelope on the end of her desk beneath the corkboard on the wall. Then, slipping out, he hid himself in the alcove once more.
Sitting there he waited, peeling the rubber cement off his fingertips. Someone had mentioned that trick to him years ago, about painting your fingertips with rubber cement to avoid leaving fingerprints. It seemed like it would work, but it was also damned uncomfortable.
Amusing himself, he rolled the stuff up into little balls and scattered them in the corner. He heard Anna and Garcia come down the hallway, talking casually. Where was Tebbins? How long did it take a man to make a copy? He’d been hoping that Anna would find Tebbins in her office, putting the list back.
But still no Tebbins. The watcher sighed and peeled more rubber cement off his middle finger. Damn, the thing he most hated about this was all the waiting.
That and the ever-present possibility of making a slip.
Anna and Gil made their way to her office. She didn’t much feel like sitting down, though, and instead leaned back against the ledge under the wide window. She was too wired, she realized. Between the theft and the visit by Señor Cuestas, she was wound tightly as a spring. Folding her arms almost self-consciously—since he had given her that look in the lobby, she’d been feeling as awkward as if a camera were watching her every move—she looked at Gil, who had sat in one of the chairs facing her desk. He had made her aware of her body in a way she hadn’t been for a long time, and she wasn’t sure she appreciated that.
