In Their Footsteps and Thief of Hearts

by Tess Gerritsen

  He turned to the next page.

  “Three years ago she was convicted of harboring a felon and destruction of evidence,” said Richard. “She served ten months in the Massachusetts State Penitentiary, with time off for good behavior.”

  Jordan turned to Clea. “Is this true?”

  She gave a low and bitter laugh. “Yes. In prison I was very well behaved.”

  “And the rest of it? The conviction? The ten months served?”

  “You have it all there. Why are you asking me?”

  “Because I want to know if it’s true.”

  “It’s true,” she whispered, and her head seemed to droop even lower.

  She seemed in no mood to elaborate, so Jordan turned back to Richard. “Who was the felon? The one she aided?”

  “His name’s Walter Rice. He’s still serving time in Massachusetts.”

  “Rice? Is he a relative?”

  “He’s my uncle Walter,” said Clea dully.

  “What crime did this uncle Walter commit?”

  “Burglary. Fraud. Trafficking in stolen goods.” She shrugged. “Take your pick. Uncle Walter had a long and varied career.”

  “Of which Clea was a part,” said Richard.

  Clea’s chin shot up. It was the first spark of anger she’d displayed. “That’s not true!”

  “No? What about your juvenile record?”

  “Those were supposed to be sealed!”

  “Sealed doesn’t mean nonexistent. At age twelve, you were caught trying to pawn stolen jewelry. At age fourteen, you and your cousin burglarized half a dozen homes on Beacon Hill.”

  “I was only a child! I didn’t know what I was doing!”

  “What did you think you were doing?”

  “Whatever Uncle Walter told us to do!”

  “Did Uncle Walter have such power over you that you didn’t know right from wrong?”

  She looked away. “Uncle Walter was…he was the one I looked up to. You see, I grew up in his house. It was just the three of us. My cousin Tony and my uncle and me. I know what we did was wrong. But the burglaries—they didn’t seem real to me, you know. It was more of a…a game. Uncle Walter used to dare us. He’d say, ‘Who’s clever enough to beat that house?’ And we’d feel cowardly if we didn’t take him up on the dare. It wasn’t the money. It was never the money.” She looked up. “It was the challenge.”

  “And what about that issue of right and wrong?”

  “That’s why I stopped. I was eighteen when I moved out of Uncle Walter’s house. For eight years I stayed on the straight and narrow. I swear it.”

  “In the meantime, your uncle went right on robbing houses. The police say he was responsible for dozens of burglaries in Boston’s wealthiest neighborhoods. Luckily, no one was ever hurt.”

  “He’d never hurt anyone! Uncle Walter didn’t even own a gun.”

  “No, he was just a virtuous thief.”

  “He swore he never took from people who couldn’t afford it.”

  “Of course not. He went where the money was. Like any smart burglar.”

  She stared down again at her knotted hands. A convicted criminal, thought Jordan. She hardly looked the part. But she had managed to deceive him from the start, and he knew now he couldn’t trust his own eyes, his own instincts. Not where she was concerned.

  He refocused his attention on the file. There were a few pages of notes written in Niki Sakaroff’s precise hand, dates of arrest, conviction, imprisonment. There was a copy of a news article about the career of Walter Rice, whose exploits had earned legendary status in the Boston area. As Clea had said, old Walter never actually hurt anyone. He just robbed and he did it with style. He was known as the Red Rose Thief, for his habit of always leaving behind his calling card: a single rose, his gesture of apology to the victims.

  Even the most skillful thief, however, eventually meets with bad luck. In Walter’s case it took the form of an alert homeowner with a loaded pistol. Caught in the act, with a bullet in his arm, Walter found himself scrambling out the window for his life.

  Two days later he was arrested in his niece’s apartment, where he’d sought refuge and first aid.

  No wonder she did such a good job of dressing my wound, thought Jordan. She’s had practice.

  “It seems to be a Rice family trait,” observed Richard. “Trouble with the law.”

  Clea didn’t refute the statement.

  “What about this cousin Tony?” asked Jordan.

  “He served six years. Burglary,” said Richard. “Niki hears through the grapevine that Tony Rice is somewhere in Europe, working as a fence in black market antiques. Am I right, Miss Rice?”

  Clea looked up. “Leave Tony out of this. He’s clean now.”

  “Is he the one you’re working with?”

  “I’m not working with anyone.”

  “Then how were you planning to fence the loot?”

  “What loot?”

  “The items you planned to steal from Guy Delancey?”

  She reacted with a look of hopeless frustration. “Why do I bother to answer your questions?” she said. “You’ve already tried and convicted me. There’s nothing left to say.”

  “There’s plenty left for you to say,” said Jordan. “Who’s trying to kill you? And maybe pop me off in the process?”

  “He won’t bother with you, once I’m gone.”

  “Who won’t?”

  “The man I told you about.” She sighed. “The Belgian.”

  “You mean that part of the story was true?”

  “Yes. Absolutely true. So was the part about the Max Havelaar.”

  “What Belgian?” asked Richard.

  “His name is Van Weldon,” said Clea. “He has people working for him everywhere. Guy was just an accidental victim. I’m the one Van Weldon wants dead.”

  There was a long silence. Richard said slowly, “Victor Van Weldon?”

  A glint of fear suddenly appeared in Clea’s eyes. She was staring at Richard. “You…know him?”

  “No. I just heard the name. A short time ago, in fact.” He was frowning at Clea, as though seeing some new aspect to her face. “I spoke to one of the constables about the man shot at the railway station.”

  “The one who tried to kill us?” said Jordan.

  Richard nodded. “He’s been identified as a George Fraser. English, with a London address. They tried to track down his next of kin, but all they came up with was the name of his employer. He’s a service rep for the Van Weldon Shipping Company.”

  At the mention of the company’s name, Jordan saw Clea give an involuntary shudder, as though she’d just been touched by the chill hand of evil. Nervously she rose to her feet and went to the window, where she stood hugging herself, staring out at the afternoon sunlight.

  “What about the other gunman?” asked Jordan.

  “No sign of him. It seems he managed to slip away.”

  “My guardian angel,” murmured Clea. “Why?”

  “You tell us,” said Richard.

  “I know why someone’s trying to kill me. But not why anyone wants to keep me alive.”

  “Let’s start with what you do know,” said Jordan. He went to her, placed his hand gently on her shoulder. She felt so small, so insubstantial to his touch. “Why does Victor Van Weldon want you dead?”

  “Because I know what happened to the Max Havelaar.”

  “Why it sank, you mean?”

  She nodded. “There was nothing valuable aboard that boat. Those insurance claims were false. And the crew was considered expendable.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  “Because I was there.” She turned and looked at him, her eyes haunted by some vision of horror only she could see. “I was aboard the Max Havelaar the night it went down.”

  Eight

  “It was my first trip to Naples,” she said. “My first year ever in Europe. I was desperate to escape all those bad memories from prison. So when Tony wrote, inviting me to Brussel
s, I leapt at the chance.”

  “That’s your cousin?” asked Richard.

  Clea nodded. “He’s been in a wheelchair since his accident on the autobahn last year. He needed someone he could trust to serve as his business representative. Someone who’d round up buyers for the antiques he sells. It’s a completely legitimate business. Tony’s no longer dealing in the black market.”

  “And that’s why you were in Naples? On your cousin’s behalf?”

  “Yes. And that’s where I met my two Italian sailors.” She looked away again, out the window. “Carlo and Giovanni…”

  They were the first mate and navigator aboard a boat docked in the harbor. Both men had liquid brown eyes and ridiculously long lashes and a penchant for innocent mischief. Both adored blondes. And although they’d flirted and made eyes at her, Clea had known on some instinctive level that they were absolutely harmless. Besides, Giovanni was a good friend of Tony’s, and in Italy the bond of trust between male friends overrode even the Italian’s finely honed mating instinct. Much as they might be tempted, neither man would dream of crossing the line with Clea.

  “We spent seven evenings together, the three of us,” murmured Clea. “Eating in cafés. Splashing in fountains. They were so sweet to me. So polite.” She gave a soft laugh. “I thought of them as younger brothers. And when they came up with this wild idea of taking me to Brussels aboard their ship, I never thought to be afraid.”

  “You mean as a passenger?” asked Jordan.

  “More as an honored stowaway. It was a little escapade we hatched over Campari and pasta. Their ship was sailing in a few days, and they thought, wouldn’t it be fun if I came along? Their captain had no objections, as long as I stayed below and out of sight until they left the harbor. He didn’t want any flack from the ship’s owner. I could come out on deck once we were at sea. And in Brussels they’d sneak me off again.”

  “You trusted them?”

  “Yes. It sounds crazy now, but I did. They were so…harmless.” Clea smiled at the memory. “Maybe it was all that Campari. Maybe I was just hungry for a bit of adventure. We had it all planned out, you see. The wine we’d bring aboard. The meals I’d whip up for everyone. They told me it was a large boat, and the only cargo was a few crates of artwork bound for an auction house in Brussels. There’d be plenty of room for a crew of eight. And me.

  “So that night I was brought aboard. While the men got ready to leave, I waited below in the cargo hold. Giovanni brought me hot tea and chocolate biscuits. He was such a nice boy….”

  “It was the Max Havelaar you boarded?” asked Richard softly.

  She swallowed. “Yes. It was the Max Havelaar.” She took a deep breath, mustering the strength to continue. “She was an old boat. Everything was rusted. Everything seemed to creak. I thought it odd that a vessel that large would carry as its only cargo a few crates of artwork.

  “I saw a manifest sheet hanging on one of the crates in the hold. I looked it over. And that’s when I realized there was a fortune’s worth of antique art in those crates.”

  “Was the owner listed?”

  “Yes. It was the Van Weldon company. They were the shipping agent, as well.”

  “What did you do then?”

  “I was curious, of course. I wanted to take a peek, but all the crates were nailed shut. I looked around for a bit, and finally found a knothole in one of the boards. It was big enough to shine a penlight through. What I saw inside didn’t make sense.”

  “What was there?”

  “Stones. The bottom of the crate was lined with stones.”

  She turned from the window. The two men were staring at her in bewilderment. No wonder. She, too, had been just as bewildered.

  “Did you speak to the crew about this?” asked Richard.

  “I waited until we’d left the dock. Then I found Giovanni. I asked him if he realized they were carrying crates of rocks. He only laughed. Said I must be seeing things. He’d been told the crates were valuable. He’d seen them loaded aboard himself.”

  “Who loaded them?”

  “The Van Weldon company. They came in a truck directly from their warehouse.”

  “What did you do then?”

  “I insisted we speak to Vicenzo. The captain. He laughed at me, too. Why would a company ship rocks, he kept asking me. And he had other concerns at the time. The southern coast of Sardinia was coming up, and he had to keep a watch out for other ships. He told me he’d check the cargo later.

  “It wasn’t until we’d passed Sardinia that I was able to drag them below decks to look. They finally pried open one of the crates. There was a layer of wood shavings on top. Typical packing material. I told them to keep digging. They went through the shavings, then through a layer of newspapers. They kept going deeper and deeper, expecting to find the artwork that was on the manifest. All they found were stones.”

  “The captain must have believed you then?”

  “Of course. He had no choice. He decided to radio Naples, to find out what was going on. So we climbed up the steps to the bridge. Just as we got there, the engine room exploded.”

  Richard and Jordan said nothing. They only watched her in grim silence as she told them about the last moments of the Max Havelaar.

  In the panic that followed the explosion, as Giovanni radioed his last SOS, as the crew—what remained of the crew—scrambled to lower the lifeboat, the rocks in the cargo hold were forgotten. Survival was all that mattered. The flames were spreading rapidly; the Max Havelaar would be a floating inferno.

  They lowered the lifeboat onto the swells. There was no time to climb down the ladder; with the flames licking at their backs, they leapt into the dark Mediterranean.

  “The water was so cold,” she said. “When I surfaced, I could see the Havelaar was all in flames. The lifeboat was drifting about a dozen yards away. Carlo and the second mate had already managed to crawl in, and they were leaning over the gunwale, trying to haul aboard Vicenzo. Giovanni was still in the water, struggling just to keep his head up.

  “I’ve always been a strong swimmer. I can stay afloat for hours if I have to. So I yelled to the men that they should get the others to climb aboard first. And I treaded water….” She’d felt strangely calm, she remembered. Almost detached from the crisis. Perhaps it was the rhythmic motion of her limbs stroking the liquid darkness. Perhaps it was the sense of dreamlike unreality. She hadn’t been afraid. Not yet.

  “I knew the Spanish coast was only two miles or so to the north. By morning we could’ve paddled the lifeboat to land. Finally, all the men were hauled aboard. I was the only one left in the water. I swam over to the lifeboat and had just reached up for a hand when we all heard the sound of an engine.”

  “Another boat?” asked Jordan.

  “Yes. A speedboat of some kind. Suddenly the men all were shouting, waving like crazy. The lifeboat was rocking back and forth. I was behind the gunwale and couldn’t see the other boat as it came toward us. They had a searchlight. And I heard a voice calling to us in English. Some sort of accent—I’m not sure what kind. He identified their boat as the Cosima.

  “Giovanni reached down to help me climb aboard. He’d just grabbed my hand when…” She paused. “When the Cosima began to fire on us.”

  “On the lifeboat?” asked Jordan, appalled.

  “At first I didn’t understand what was happening. I could hear the men crying out. And my hand slid away from Giovanni’s. I saw that he was crumpled against the gunwale, staring down at me. I didn’t understand that the sound was gunfire. Until a body fell into the water. It was Vicenzo’s,” she whispered, and looked away.

  “How did you escape?” asked Jordan, gently.

  Clea took an unsteady breath. “I dove,” she said softly. “I swam underwater as far as my lungs would carry me. As fast as I could stroke away from that searchlight. I came up for air, then dove again and kept swimming. I thought I heard bullets hitting the water around me, but Cosima didn’t chase after me. I just
kept swimming and swimming. All night. Until I reached the coast of Spain.”

  She stood for a moment with bowed head. Neither man spoke. Neither man broke the silence.

  “They killed them all,” she whispered. “Giovanni. The captain. Six helpless men in a lifeboat. They never knew there was a witness.”

  Jordan and Richard stood watching her. They were both too shocked by her story to say a word. She didn’t know if they believed any of it; all she knew was that it felt good to finally tell it, to share the burden of horror.

  “I reached the coast around dawn,” she continued. “I was cold. Exhausted. But mostly I was desperate to reach the police.” She shook her head. “That was my mistake, of course. Going to the police.”

  “Why?” asked Jordan gently.

  “I ended up in some village police station, trying to explain what had happened. They made me wait in a back room while they checked the story. It turns out they called the Van Weldon company, to confirm their boat was missing. It made sense, I suppose. I can’t blame the police for checking. So I waited three hours in that room for some representative from Van Weldon to arrive. Finally he did. I heard his voice through the door. I recognized it.” She trembled at the memory. “It was the voice from the Cosima.”

  “You mean the killers were working for Van Weldon?” said Jordan.

  Clea nodded. “I was climbing out that window so fast I must have left scorch marks. I’ve been running ever since. I found out later that Cosima’s registered owner is the Van Weldon Shipping Company. They sabotaged the Havelaar. They murdered its crew.”

  “And then claimed it as a giant loss,” said Richard. “Artwork and all.”

  “Only there wasn’t any artwork aboard,” said Clea. “It was a dummy shipment, meant to go down on a boat they didn’t need anymore. The real art’s being stored somewhere. I’m sure it will be sold, piece by piece, on the black market. A double profit, counting the insurance.”