by Nupur Tustin
She’d instituted fairly stringent security protocols since then, but obviously that hadn’t deterred the intruders.
“But how is that possible? I don’t understand. Is anyone hurt? Anything missing?”
“Yes, that’s why I’m so sure we weren’t imagining it. Do you remember that lovely miniature sculpture you let me have?”
“A bust of Dirck in a Sherlock Holmes-like cape and a soft hat with a paintbrush stuck in it?”
Celine hadn’t seen the resemblance at the time, but now that she thought about it, the bust Reynolds had molded looked remarkably like the Rembrandt self-portrait in the Dutch Room.
The one he’d shown her yet again last night.
Recalling the dream, she wondered if the likeness had been a conscious decision on Reynolds’ part—a message to her. (You’re psychic, aren’t you?) Or a subconscious one.
“It’s gone.” Annabelle’s voice quavered again. “Last night Bryan heard a noise in our cottage. There was no one around when he went to check. But this morning I noticed the bust was gone. I’d displayed it in the living room.”
Don’t trust the mailman. Reynolds’ warning returned to Celine’s mind as Annabelle continued to speak.
It wasn’t the mailman this time, Sister Mary Catherine informed her.
Then who? Celine thought as she directed her attention back to Annabelle.
At his mother’s urging, Bryan Curtis had questioned Bob Massie and learned that the second guard on duty that evening had called in sick. Bob had been alone when a man pulled up, asking if he could come in and search for his wallet, which he claimed to have misplaced during one of the morning’s wine tours.
“And Bob let him in?” Celine was appalled. This was in direct violation of the Mechelen’s security protocol.
No visitors were allowed into the winery after the last tour of the day.
“No.” Annabelle sighed. “It wasn’t really Bob’s fault. He allowed the man to wait in the guard’s room while he checked the facilities for his wallet. You know how he hangs his master key on the hook, in full view of everyone.”
Celine did know. It should’ve occurred to her that this was a security hazard as well. But with two guards taking every shift, who would’ve guessed a stranger would find themselves alone in the guard room? Or that Bob Massie would carelessly leave his master key where anyone could take it?
It was her turn to sigh.
“It wouldn’t have been hard to make a wax impression of the key, have a duplicate made, and to return later at night, would it?”
“That’s what we figure.”
“Have you called Mailand?” Celine wasn’t sure what, if anything, the Sheriff’s detective could do about the break-in and the missing bust. But she’d feel safer knowing that he’d been alerted to potential trouble at the winery.
“He’s on his way, although other than taking a report, I don’t see what he can do.”
“One thing he can do is to check up on the guard who didn’t show up for work. And I wonder if the cameras at the gate picked up anything. I just hope whoever it was didn’t manage to disable them.”
“I’d forgotten about the cameras,” Annabelle confessed. “But I just don’t understand why anyone”—her voice quivered with a shrill, intense outrage—“would’ve wanted to steal Dirck’s bust.”
Blake was at the office earlier than usual the next morning.
He scanned the pages of information Ella had laid out on his desk. His personal assistant had managed to obtain the VIN of every silver Mercedes Benz license ending in the sequence Jonah had noticed on Sofia’s car.
It was an impressive array of data—complete with the name, photograph, driver’s license, and mailing address of the title owners—but ultimately useless.
There was not a single Sofia in the bunch. And no one with the last name Wozniak.
He leaned back and sighed.
“God, this is such a bust!” His hand moved up to his chin, feeling the scratchy beginnings of stubble. Damn!
He’d been so eager to get out of his apartment after the restless night he’d spent, he’d forgotten to shave. Not that anyone had noticed as far as he could tell. Ella certainly hadn’t. She hadn’t looked at him askance or made any other kind of disapproving comment.
And knowing her, she would’ve. His personal assistant didn’t miss a thing. Or an opportunity to let her opinion be known.
Blake raised his eyes toward her. Ella’s bespectacled eyes were trained upon the documents spread out on his desk.
“Do any of the women look familiar, at least?” she asked.
“Nope. I’d have told you if they did.”
Her lips were pinched together, her face looked strained. She’d been to a lot of trouble to track down the partial he’d given her. He knew that—and he felt bad telling her it was all to no avail.
“So I gather there’s no objection to letting the SAC have this?” She waved a hand over the desk bristling with papers.
Blake shouldn’t have had any objection, and yet . . .
“Let me take another look.” He sat up. “I was thinking you could—”
“Cross-check this list with Reynolds’ client list and eliminate any names not on it?”
“You read my mind.” He glanced up at her with a smile. “Good thinking, Ella.”
She returned the smile, eyes twinkling brightly behind her round lenses. “I thought you might like that idea. Glad you appreciate it.”
“I do.” He meant it, too.
He glanced down, eyes roving over the documents one last time.
“And let’s make sure the SAC doesn’t get hold of any name included in Reynolds’ list of clients.”
“The golfing partner story still bothering you?”
“Yup.”
Blake hadn’t thought much of Celine and Julia’s theory about Hugh Norton. But Walsh’s story had struck him as suspicious. Were Walsh and Norton really golfing partners? Even if they were, why would Norton be interested in the same partial they were looking into?
Judging by what he’d learned from his parents, Norton was on the up-and-up.
The Markhams didn’t move in the same elevated circles as Norton, but they’d heard of him. Norton was a well-known and well-respected patron of the arts—a donor on the list of countless museums, the Gardner included.
There was no way he was involved in the Gardner Museum theft. For one thing, Norton had the moolah to buy any artwork he set his eyes on. And he had too much respect for art to steal it.
Blake ignored the quiet voice nudging him: But nothing in the Gardner was for sale.
Yes, I know that, he thought irritably.
“Any word on Sofia?” he asked Ella, more to distract himself than to press her for an update on an assignment she may not have gotten to yet.
“I haven’t had much time to look into it. All I’ve been able to find out is that there are two Sofia Wozniaks.”
“Oh!” He looked up.
She nodded. “An older woman, who’s been dead for over two decades.”
“And the other one?”
“A woman in her late thirties. If your Sofia was engaged to Reynolds, this could be her.”
Blake cast his mind back to the woman they’d seen sprinting down the stairs. A slender, attractive woman, he’d judged her to be in her early thirties. But he supposed she could be older than that.
“Follow up on it, would you?”
“Sure thing.” Ella tipped her chin at the papers. “Done with those?”
“Give me another minute.” He bent his head, taking one last look.
His gaze traveled over his paper-strewn desk. The uppercase beginning of a name snagged his attention. He swept his gaze over it again.
Jesus Christ!
If this was happenstance, it was one helluva coincidence.
He pulled the paper out.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Annabelle’s question was still reverberating in Celine’s mind when
she broke the news of the break-in to Julia. Why had the bust portraying Dirck been stolen? What had anyone expected to find?
“I don’t think there’s any question it was the General,” Julia said thoughtfully.
“No, I guess not.”
“So the General must believe Tony concealed some clue about the Rembrandt’s location in one of those miniatures. There’s nothing in his apartment; where else could it be?”
The former fed had emerged from her room just as Celine was getting off the phone.
“Who was that—Blake?” she’d asked, rubbing her eyes sleepily.
“No, Annabelle.” Celine had been glad to get the news off her chest. Dealing with a situation like this, being unable to do anything to help, was frustrating.
Now as Julia voiced her surmise, Celine interlaced her fingers around her coffee mug and frowned. They were sitting in the living room of their suite where room service had delivered a pot of coffee and a plate of croissants.
“But no one knew Reynolds had given me those pieces other than the three of us—And Blake,” she added.
Not to mention that she’d detected nothing in Reynolds’ manner to indicate the miniature pieces had any significance other than as a model of his artistic vision.
But Julia didn’t agree. “He was obviously trying to tell you something. He still is. The problem is, he communicates in such a cryptic fashion, it’s hard to understand what he’s trying to get at.”
Celine bit her lip, unable to counter that point.
“As for who else might’ve known about those pieces, Annabelle could’ve mentioned it to someone at the hospital—” Julia hesitated. “Or to Wanda or anyone else at the winery.”
Or Byran, Celine silently added, although she didn’t at all care for what Julia was hinting at. And even if the former fed was right, something wasn’t adding up.
“Then why wait until last night to make an attempt?”
Don’t trust the mailman.
“But it wasn’t the mailman, this time,” she murmured to herself.
And he doesn’t work for you. Sister Mary Catherine’s words flitted through her mind, making Celine smile. The mailman didn’t work for her. She’d known that, but her guardian angel’s reminder was reassuring all the same.
“I beg your pardon?” Julia lowered the mug of coffee she’d brought to her lips, her weathered face puzzled.
“The mailman,” Celine repeated. “Reynolds has been warning me about him.” She recounted the dead man’s warning and her guardian angel’s whispered information.
Julia took a sip of her coffee and swallowed thoughtfully.
“This is the mailman he met in Paso Robles, right?” She went on before Celine could confirm the fact, “Reynolds is dead. I guess he has no reason to lie now.”
“Someone did approach him at the winery. I saw it.” The dream—how long ago had she had it?—was still vivid in Celine’s mind. “Reynolds was telling the truth.”
“That means the General has a direct line to someone in Paso Robles.” Julia leaned forward, hands clasped around her coffee mug, blue eyes shrouded in thought. “That’s worrisome, but we can use it against him. If we follow the mailman angle, it could lead us straight to the General.”
Her gaze, piercing and intense, bore into Celine’s. “Have you had a chance to call Blake? We need to get Mailand on this ASAP.”
Celine broke eye contact.
“Why don’t you call him?” she suggested, unable to keep the edge out of her voice. She’d found Blake’s mule-headed pooh-poohing of her suspicions last night highhanded and extremely offensive. Blake had dismissed everything they’d had to say about Hugh Norton without even weighing the evidence.
It wasn’t something she could easily forget. Or forgive.
She looked back at Julia. “I’d like to ask Penny about that Flemish oak cabinet they have standing under Rembrandt’s self-portrait. I still don’t understand what Reynolds was trying to tell me.”
“Maybe that he concealed some kind of clue in there? He must’ve frequented the museum often enough in the weeks preceding the exhibition.”
“Maybe.” Celine’s mug clinked softly as she set it on the glass-topped coffee table and got to her feet.
Blake slid the document across the table to Ella.
“Don’t know if you noticed, but there’s a Norton listed here. A Hugh Norton.”
“The SAC’s golfing partner?” Ella leaned over for a closer look. “Wow, he wasn’t lying about that!” She looked up, eyes wide. “Think it was Norton’s car Sofia was driving?”
“I don’t know.” His mind was still reeling.
But Norton’s interest in the partial was starting to make sense. And, in light of what he’d discovered, the suspicions Celine and Julia had shared seemed even more plausible.
It was too much of a coincidence that Norton’s name had come up—not once, but twice—in connection to a murder with a peripheral tie-in to the Gardner theft. Blake would’ve been willing to dismiss the first incident as mere coincidence.
But twice in under a decade, what were the odds?
The two homicides were startlingly similar in other respects as well. Like Laurie, Tony Reynolds had been willing to capitalize on the information he’d obtained about the Gardner theft. Why else had he called Penny?
And like her, Reynolds had been murdered for what he knew.
But there was yet another realization that struck Blake with sickening force. Hugh Norton, patron of the arts and prime suspect—in two cases, now, connected to the Gardner heist—was also SAC James Patrick Walsh’s golfing partner.
Blake had long suspected a leak in the department. If this was it, it obviously went all the way to the top. Jesus F—in’ Christ.
“I need you to find out whether Norton was on Reynolds’ roster of clients. And regardless of whether he was or not, his is the only information you pass on to the SAC, got it?”
“Blake, I don’t understand.” Ella’s eyes, wide with anxiety, peered through her large glasses.
“I don’t have time for explanations,” he growled. “Just trust me, okay?”
He shoved his chair back and got to his feet. Memories flooded into his mind as he turned blindly to the window.
It had been the SAC’s golfing partner who’d recommended Mary, the General’s mole in the FBI. She’d vanished without a trace before they’d cottoned on to her true identity.
The SAC had brushed aside his concerns, focusing instead on Grayson’s murder and Blake’s negligence in allowing it to happen. Oh God!
He turned around. Ella was still sitting in her chair, staring earnestly at him.
“Ella, for God’s sake,” he began when the phone shrilled.
He glanced at the caller ID. Soldi from Cambridge PD.
Jesus Christ, what now?
Chapter Forty-Nine
Penny seemed distracted when Celine called.
“You were in the Dutch Room, looking at the south wall, when Reynolds spun you around?” She was repeating Celine’s words mechanically, as though reiterating the details would help her better understand the facts.
“Yes.” Celine hoped her dream was making sense to Penny—although she doubted it.
“He said I was looking in the wrong direction,” she offered.
“And you think I might know what he meant by that?”
“Yes.” Celine winced, moving the phone away from her ear. Penny’s voice tended to get ear-piercingly high when she was in the throes of any kind of negative emotion. It was a mixture of frustration, impatience, and outrage this time.
“My dear, I hardly knew the man. I’m sorry but I don’t have the faintest clue what he was trying to tell you.”
You need to ask the right questions, Celine, Sister Mary Catherine whispered. It’s the only way you’ll get the answers you need.
Ask the right questions. That had been another one of the nun’s favorite sayings in life. Right along with: “Put on your thinking cap.�
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Ask the right questions, Celine repeated to herself. What were the right questions?
“Celine, I really need to—”
Penny was in a hurry; she wouldn’t be able to keep her much longer.
What did Tony want you to see, Celine? Her guardian angel jogged her memory.
“Celine,” Penny began again. “Listen, I need to—”
“What is it about that Flemish oak cabinet that’s so special?” Celine rushed the words out.
“It’s a nineteenth-century copy of a seventeenth-century style. There’s no connection with Rembrandt that I can think of. It was fabricated long after he died.”
“Is there anything in it? Was there anything in it?”
“No. Like I told you it’s just a piece of furniture. If it were a glass case, there’d have been some reason to display items in it. But it’s not. There’s no reason to open it.”
A thought occurred to Celine. Reynolds had turned her toward the north wall and forced her head down. What if he’d wanted her to look inside the cabinet?
There was no reason to open it, Penny had said, unless—
Unless . . .
“Penny, what if Tony did open that cabinet? What if he concealed something in it? Some clue about where the Rembrandt is? It could never fall into the wrong hands. You said yourself, there’s no reason to open it.”
“I eh-m . . . I—” Penny seemed stunned. “You think that’s what he was trying to tell you? Whatever he wanted us to know is right here in the Gardner?”
“How could it not be?” Celine was warming to her interpretation. “He’s probably been in and out of the museum for weeks now. What better place to hide whatever information he had?”
“I’ll look into it, Celine. But, listen, I’ve got to run. There’s the memorial service to organize. I have tons to do.”
“Sure, I understand. Check it out when you have a minute. You can call us if you find something.”
“I have a better idea,” Penny said. “Why don’t you and Julia come over after lunch?”
Ella pushed her short, glossy black hair behind her ear and sucked thoughtfully on a pencil. Hugh Norton wasn’t on Reynolds’ client list. That issue had been easily answered.
