by Nupur Tustin
“I have a feeling he had a better reason for thinking her presence at a crime scene would go unnoticed—or unremarked, at any rate,” she repeated the thought floating into her mind, although she had no idea what it meant.
What reason could there be for accepting a stranger’s presence at a crime scene?
But the words must have meant something to her listeners. A moment of stunned silence followed—as though she’d dropped a bomb.
Then Julia responded, her voice troubled: “I don’t like where you’re going with this, Celine.”
Followed a half-beat later by Blake’s fervent, “God, I hope you’re wrong about that.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
Celine fingered the bandana that was sliding down the bridge of her nose and peered anxiously at her friend.
Julia looked tightlipped, stern. What exactly had she said to bring on that expression?
“You don’t get the implications of what you said, do you?” Julia asked, responding to Celine’s unspoken question.
“I’m afraid I don’t.” Celine shook her head. “A woman who’d go unnoticed at a crime scene—” Then it hit her. “Oh!”
“Exactly.” Julia’s smile was tight, her blue eyes weary. “You’re opening up a can of worms—ones that probably should be opened. But we have no idea now whom to trust. It’s worrisome.”
She put her hands on her hips, bracing her shoulders back.
“But the General’s always had corrupt agents and officials in his back pocket. So what’s new?”
“Like Bill McCormick?” Celine’s voice was quiet. They’d never talked about this.
Seven years ago the FBI, in the person of Special Agent Bill McCormick, had marched into the New England museum where Celine worked and upturned her life. The intrusion had coincided with the apparently accidental death of a museum intern.
Celine had been able to persuade then Durham PD detective Keith Elliot that Laurie’s fall was no accident; it was a well-staged murder. But the killer had eluded capture.
“I had my suspicions,” Julia said. “McCormick was too smooth, too slick. But there was never anything concrete. Then back in March, Penny said—” Julia pressed her lips tightly together, a flurry of emotions—anger, outrage, betrayal—warring for control on her face.
She took a deep breath. “Penny said McCormick called the Gardner asking about the tip Laurie had called in. Not the other way around.”
Laurie Robbes, the flaky intern under Celine, had made a career of blackmailing the museum’s wealthiest patrons, accusing them of possessing stolen art. In Hugh Norton, she thought she’d hit the jackpot.
“I always thought Hugh Norton should’ve been investigated,” Celine now said. “Laurie tries to blackmail him, just like she does several other museum patrons, and she gets murdered for her troubles? Somehow that never washed. And it was cyanide that killed her.”
The same toxin used to poison the box of chocolates left in the winery.
“Yup.” Julia nodded. “It was the General. That’s obvious now. But”—her blue eyes penetrated Celine’s—“there was never anything on Norton. And when we went to his place—well you know; Keith would’ve told you, I’m sure—the Gardner’s Shang dynasty gu turned out to be an imitation. Very well done, but an imitation nonetheless.”
“Forged by a clever sculptor,” Celine said. “Someone like Reynolds.” She wasn’t sure why the thought had occurred to her. “He was talented enough to pull off something like that.”
“What could I have forged?”
The slurring male voice behind them caught her by surprise. She spun around.
Reynolds stood, leaning unsteadily, against the doorjamb. His green eyes were dark with hostility.
“You’re back?” Celine managed.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” Reynolds swayed across the room. “I live here.”
“Who is it, Celine?” Julia gripped her arm.
“It’s Reynolds.” Celine kept her eyes fixed on the sculptor’s swaying back. “He’s here.” And he looked drunk, wobbling unsteadily across the room to his closet.
The aftereffects of the horse tranquilizer, Celine, Sister Mary Catherine breathed into her ear. He’s confused.
Of course! Reynolds’ connection to his body—still strong despite the severance of the silver cord—was causing a memory imprint of its physical state to seep into his energy.
That coupled with the aftermath of a violent death was enough to make him disoriented and woozy.
“Can you get anything out of him?” Julia’s fingers dug into her flesh.
“I can try.” Celine shrugged off Julia’s arm and followed the sculptor to the closet.
“Tony?” She kept her voice quiet, gentle, not wanting to alarm him.
“She was in here.” His voice was loud, belligerent.
“Who, Tony?”
“Sofia.”
She bit her lip, disappointed. They already knew that.
He suddenly whirled around, making her jump back.
“Why are you here, anyway? Checking up on me?” He jerked his chin toward Julia. “Who’s the older broad?”
“Julia, my friend. She used to be an FBI agent.”
Reynolds’ face shut down, his expression stony. He turned his back on her.
“Don’t want to talk with any FBI agents. They’re all in the tank . . .” his voice faded to a mumble.
Celine crept closer to him. “You can trust Julia, Tony. She’s an honest cop. She helped me figure out who killed Dirck. She can help bring your killer to justice.” She paused. “If you’ll just talk to us.”
But Reynolds was ignoring her. “My key,” he mumbled. “She got my key. The bitch!”
“Who got your key?”
“Sofia, who else?”
“Was it in your closet?” She had a vision of a slim hand, its nails painted a deep magenta, closing over something.
“Don’t be an idiot,” he scolded her. “It was in my pocket. She filched it.”
“But Sofia couldn’t. . .” Celine looked back at Julia, and lowered her voice. “He had a key in his pocket. Someone took it.”
“Couldn’t have been Sofia.” Julia shook her head. “The body was long gone by the time she arrived. Must’ve been Fussy Phil. Or the other woman. Ask him who she was?”
“Tony?” Celine crept a little closer to him. “There was another woman here, remember? She came after Fussy Phil left.”
“I asked her to call 911. I don’t know if she heard me.” His face—greenish-white now, drained of energy—wore an expression of bewilderment. “She barely gave me a glance. I was on the floor. It wasn’t that dark.”
“A police officer?” Celine asked. He must have already been dead; she wasn’t surprised the woman hadn’t heard him. But not to have afforded him so much as a look—that was callous.
Reynolds shook his head. “Don’t think so. She was in a business suit. I may have seen her around. I don’t know.” He clutched the back of his head. “My neck feels weird. My head hurts. Don’t know what Fussy Phil stuck me with.”
Go easy on him, Celine, Sister Mary Catherine whispered.
Celine nodded. She was losing him, but she needed to ask him one last question.
“Tony, who is Sofia? Why was she here?”
He looked up at her, a half-bitter, weary smile on his face. “She’s a Daddy’s little girl I should never have bothered with. She dumped me.” He indicated the shelves in the closet. “There’s a picture of her somewhere in there.”
Reynolds headed for the door. “I’ll be in the studio if you need me. Have an exhibition at the Gardner. There’s your commission to complete.” At the door, he turned back to her. “You ought to check out my installation at the Gardner. I think you’ll like it.”
“Where’d he go?” Julia asked, seeing Celine staring at the door.
“To his studio.” Celine turned to face her. “I don’t think he realizes he’s dead. But he’s missing a key—to what exactly, I
don’t know. And it turns out he and Sofia were an item. She broke it off.”
“Wow! I never would have guessed. And you have no idea why Reynolds thinks she’d turn against him, steal from him?”
“Nope.” Celine turned toward the closet. “But there’s a picture of her in his closet.”
She reached toward the shelves the sculptor had indicated. The magenta-painted nails swam onto her mental screen again. She saw the slender white hand crushing something. A photograph?
She searched the shelves. Nothing.
“The photograph’s gone,” she gasped out loud. “Sofia must have taken it.”
“She risked being charged with criminal recklessness for the sake of a photograph?” Julia voiced the question in Celine’s mind. “She hated the guy that much?”
Julia’s words triggered a series of impressions.
Celine stood before Reynolds, body slightly bent, fists shaking. “You’re a fraud, a phony. You disgust me!” she heard herself scream at him. The sense of anger and betrayal she felt were overwhelming.
“Sofia, please.” Reynolds moved toward her, pleading. “That was all in the past. It’s over, I swear.”
“Get away from me,” she shrieked. She whipped something off her finger and flung it at him. A glint of gold caught her eye as the object struck Reynolds on the side of his face.
“We’re done, you understand. Done!”
“They were more than just an item,” Celine said as the images receded. “They were engaged. She broke it off.”
“How recently? If she’s a respectably married socialite now, I can see why she’d want her picture back. A liaison with a playboy, however distant, is not the kind of gossip you’d want the media getting their claws into.”
“I can’t tell how long ago. But whenever it happened, she was livid.”
Why had Sofia been so infuriated? There’d been such contempt in her voice. As though she’d caught Reynolds cheating on her. Somehow Celine didn’t think that was the case.
There are other reasons for a woman to hate a man, Celine, her guardian angel said. To lose respect for him.
Such as what?
“She called him a fraud and a phony,” Celine said, thinking out loud. “She felt betrayed.”
“Well, he’s always been quite the womanizer,” Julia replied.
“No, that wasn’t it. This was something to do with his past. He swore he’d put it behind him.”
Forger.
The word entered her brain. It was followed by an image of gold-framed canvases stacked one in front of the other.
She described the images to Julia.
“Wow, some girlfriend. She was ready to believe the worst of Reynolds—based on what? Gossip, rumors?”
“Sounds like it. Although he didn’t exactly deny it.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Sofia Wozniak picked up the phone and punched in the number she’d memorized. She was using the landline in a hole-in-the-wall restaurant she’d discovered as she hightailed it out of Tony Reynolds’ neighborhood.
Former neighborhood. He was dead. Good riddance!
But a pang of doubt—sadness even—welled up within her as the phone at the other end began to ring. She hadn’t spoken to Tony since they’d broken up.
Not one word.
Tony hadn’t bothered to reach out either. Not to her. There’d been plenty of other women.
Oh yes, she’d heard all the rumors.
Now he was dead. Murdered?
She pushed back the deep, aching hurt that threatened to bring tears to her eyes.
That’s what happens to criminals, Sofia, she told herself. If he’d given it all up, like he told you, he wouldn’t be dead now, would he?
“Hello?” The voice at the other end of the line was soft, cautious.
“It’s me,” Sofia said, equally cautious.
She’d intentionally decided against using her iPhone. Too easily traced. Ditto, the landline in her apartment.
“You found it?”
Sofia’s slender fingers gripped the receiver tightly. “No.” Her tone was apologetic, regretful. “I found nothing.” But Tony’s place had been trashed. Should she mention it?
“It’s gotta be there, Sofia. I don’t know where else—”
“I know.” Her cheeks were flushed—the bitter acid of long-held certainty and resentment making her skin burn. Only someone like Tony—a criminal and a two-bit crook—would be willing to hide a hot item.
Where else could it be? Who else could have it?
“Sofia”—the voice sounded hesitant—“would . . . do you think . . .?”
“No!” Sofia’s tone was sharp. “We don’t need help.”
It had stung when Tony had called her a Daddy’s little girl all those years ago. She wasn’t going to prove him right in death.
If things didn’t work out, she’d ask for help. But until then . . .
“We handle this ourselves. Trust me. I’ll figure something out.”
“Tony?” Celine pushed open the door to Reynolds’ studio. He was sitting at a workbench, staring at a clay bust that looked remarkably like Dirck. The smell of drying clay and plaster dust permeated the air.
“It looks like Sofia took her photograph.” She crossed the room, Julia close upon her heels.
“Why are you telling me this?” Reynolds didn’t bother to turn around. “It’s a curious thing,” he continued, his tone casual. “I can’t pick up a thing. My arms just go through anything I try to touch.”
He demonstrated his point. He reached for the bust. His arm penetrated the clay torso, fingers wiggling out from between the bust’s shoulder blades.
“What’s he saying?” Julia hissed into her ear.
“Just that he can’t touch anything” she whispered back. “His arms slice through solids.”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake! He’s dead. What does he expect?”
“I know, I know. But he doesn’t seem to realize that. And I can’t tell him that he is.”
“Why not?”
Celine sighed, exasperated. “Because,” she hissed, “you can’t just break that kind of news to people. I may be psychic, but it isn’t my job to inform people of their demise. It’s the kind of realization that needs to come on its own.”
It was the sort of thing Sister Mary Catherine had frequently said—in life and in death. But now her guardian angel was changing her tune.
Julia’s right, Celine, she said. You should break the news to him. He needs to realize he’s free of his physical body. He’s been in denial long enough.
Oh, for heavens’ sake! But she did as Sister Mary Catherine asked.
“Tony.” Celine walked around the workbench until she was facing him. When he looked up, green eyes puzzled, she continued, “What’s happening to you is perfectly normal, Tony. You don’t have a body. That’s why you can’t touch anything.”
He stared at her. “No body?” His eyes roved the length of his arms. “No body?” he repeated. “Are you kidding me?”
“I wish I were. Fussy Phil destroyed your body. He killed you. The question is why?”
“Why?”
Celine nodded. “Why did Fussy Phil want to kill you?”
“You should know why. You’re psychic, aren’t you?”
“Yes, but—”
“I didn’t want to lie anymore. I wanted to give it back.”
“Give what back? One of the stolen items from the Gardner?”
“What else?”
“All right.” Celine ran her fingers through her hair, exasperated. Extracting information from the dead man was like trying to wring water from a rock. “Which one?”
“I thought you were psychic,” he said again.
“I am,” Celine ground out. “That’s how I know Sofia and you were engaged. It’s how I know Sofia took the photograph you had of her. But was she after anything else?”
“Frankly, I find it hard to believe she was desperate enough to assault an officer of
the law just for the sake of a photograph,” Julia added. Celine could have communicated with Reynolds telepathically, but with Julia around, she figured the former fed should at least have the opportunity to hear part of the conversation.
Reynolds swiveled around on his seat to look at Julia. “You’re right, Sofia wasn’t here just for a photograph. She came here for the key.”
“She can’t hear you,” Celine informed him. To Julia she said, “He still thinks Sofia was after his key.”
“What does it open?” Julia asked immediately.
“My warehouse studio.”
“Your warehouse studio?” Celine repeated for Julia’s benefit. “Where you work on larger pieces? Why would Sofia want to go there?” She scanned the walls, a sudden insight striking her. “She didn’t come in here, did she? Why not?”
“She’s allergic to plaster dust. It affects her sinuses.”
“And she went to the warehouse because . . .?” Julia spoke over the sculptor’s voice.
Reynolds grinned. “She thinks it’s hidden there.”
“Thinks what is hidden there?” Celine snapped, at the edge of her tether. She’d had just about enough of Reynolds’ cryptic answers.
“You’re telling me you don’t know what it is? Or where it is? You haven’t found it yet? Some psychic!” Reynolds rolled his eyes.
Celine clenched her fists. The man was impossible! “Could you please just tell me what you’re talking about?”
“Take a look at my installation in the Gardner,” Reynolds suggested. “Maybe it’ll give you some ideas.”
She turned to Julia, frustrated. “He won’t tell me anything. Apparently, there’s some clue in his installation at the Gardner.”
He’s learned not to trust people, Celine, Sister Mary Catherine explained. It’s hard to break a habit like that. You’ll have to be patient.
I am being patient, Celine thought resentfully. As patient as any human could possibly be.
She must have spoken the words aloud because Julia responded with a sympathetic smile: “You’ve been great, my dear. I had no idea dead people could be so hard to work with.” The crinkles at the corners of her eyes deepened and an amused smile tugged at her lips.
