I reached over and took the brooch from Bixby, turning it over in my hand. Still seemed as garish as the first time I’d seen it. I held it back out for him, but he shook his head.
“How about if you give it to your brother for me? I want the police to have this. I don’t really want to leave it around the hospital. It might get lost or stolen.”
I thought about how the pin had been reported stolen already. It probably should be in police hands. They’d most likely give it back to Lester Fine.
Something Jeff had said picked at my brain. Lester Fine’s name came up in conjunction with the investigation into Wesley Lambert. Lambert had been poking around for the brooch. There had to be a link there somewhere. I could give the brooch to Tim and tell him what I’d found out.
I nodded. “Sure. I’ll give it to Tim.” I put it in my jeans pocket.
He flashed me that smile again, the one that made me a little weak in the knees. I almost told him the ink was on the house, but Bitsy wouldn’t be happy about that. I consoled myself by not accompanying him to the front desk where the money would change hands, or at least the credit card would be swiped.
I went back to the staff room. Trevor’s laptop still sat on the corner of the light table. It reminded me of something, and I went back out to the front, where Bixby was just about to leave. He looked up when I approached.
I tugged on his sleeve.
“Just one question,” I said.
“I haven’t been interrogated this much since my prom date’s father.” He grinned.
I wanted to kiss him again but pushed the thought aside. Time for that later. I hoped.
“I saw some pictures,” I said. “Trevor had some pictures, and the funny thing is, Lester Fine’s in one of them.” I didn’t want to describe it, so I just stopped there.
It was like someone had switched the light off. Bixby’s face grew dark. “Listen, Brett,” he said in a tone so low I had to lean forward to hear him. “If you think you saw Lester in a picture and you think it means something, maybe you should just tell your brother and let him handle it in whatever way he feels is appropriate. I don’t think Lester would like it very much if you start throwing accusations around.”
I was already on Lester Fine’s bad side. But Bixby wasn’t done yet.
“Rusty Abbott is more than just a personal assistant, Brett. He’s taken care of things for Lester for the last couple years.” Bixby paused. “He can make accidents happen. Get my drift?”
Chapter 47
Accidents can happen. I remembered how Jeff Coleman had said that was Abbott’s message to me.
“How do you know all this?” I asked. “This is more than just him showing up for a procedure, isn’t it?”
Colin Bixby traced my jaw with the tip of his finger, and I felt it all the way to my toes. Although I wasn’t quite sure if it was in a good way or not, because what he’d said creeped me out.
“I’ll call you,” he said, leaning over and brushing my cheek with his lips before going out the door.
Bitsy was watching with her mouth hanging open.
“You look like some sort of fish,” I said a little too sharply.
“You move fast,” she said.
“I just spent over an hour with the guy.”
“Yeah, touching him.”
“Not exactly. The needle was touching him.”
“It’s romantic.”
I sighed. This was getting us nowhere. “When’s my next client?”
“Half an hour.”
I needed more sugar. I’d managed to get only a couple of truffles before Joel finished them off. I thought about the gelato place over in the Palazzo shops on the first floor. Usually I didn’t go for five-dollar ice cream, but I was in the mood for a little splurge. I went into the staff room and grabbed my bag. On my way out, I tucked Trevor’s laptop on the shelf under the light table.
Bitsy and Joel both placed orders, and I made a mental note to call Tim when I got back to find out what was going on with Ace. I recalled Joel’s question about Charlotte: Had she gotten the job at the shop to check out one of us? Ace? They’d gotten very close very quickly. And now he had all that cash in his account.
For a split second I wondered if he was somehow involved with all this.
But then I mentally slapped myself. While I did know Ace less than I knew Bitsy or Joel, we’d all been together now for two years. I couldn’t see Ace doing something like stealing money from Trevor.
Should I tell Tim about the picture of Trevor and Lester and the 1099s on the laptop? Probably. But then I’d have to tell him I’d taken the laptop from Trevor’s apartment. I’d conveniently left that small fact out when I told him and DeBurra about my first trip to Trevor’s yesterday. Somehow, I wasn’t quite sure how to relay that information without putting myself in a really bad light. It would have to be done delicately.
I’d think about it.
I walked around the end of the canal, where people were waiting for gondolas. Back in St. Mark’s Square, I could hear lutes and a harp and some singing. Without even looking, I knew costumed men and women were probably dancing, entertaining the tourists.
I kept walking past the shops and down the escalator to the first floor.
Spray from the waterfall misted my face, and I combed my hair back off my forehead with my fingers. I didn’t want to think about how much water was being wasted.
There was a line at Espressamente illy. I stood between it and the escalator, debating with myself. I could go back upstairs and get gelato at St. Mark’s Square, but I preferred the gelato here. As I hesitated, someone knocked into me from behind.
I whirled around and saw Frank DeBurra.
Just my luck.
“What do you want now?” I asked wearily.
But he wasn’t paying attention to me. His face was screwed up with anger as he addressed a gaggle of twentysomething girls on the other side of him. They were giggling and whispering and hadn’t paid attention when two of them bumped into him.
“Watch where you’re going!” he said.
He whirled around, not accepting their apologies.
I eyed the escalator, knowing if I’d been just a few minutes earlier or later I might not have had another close encounter with my new nemesis. Since he was probably stalking me again, I figured I should go on the offensive.
“What’s going on with Ace?” I asked. “Have you charged him officially with anything?”
“That’s none of your business.”
I sighed dramatically and threw up my hands. “This is all my business. You won’t leave me alone. You won’t leave my staff alone. I really don’t know what you’re looking for, what you want from me. Why don’t you ask Charlotte? She’s working for you, isn’t she? Doesn’t she have any answers for you?”
I had succeeded in surprising him. His eyes grew wide, and his mouth hung open. Finally, “How do you know about Charlotte Sampson?”
“So it’s true?”
For a second, something flashed across his face that I couldn’t read. Either it was dismay that I’d just been baiting him and he’d admitted the truth, or it was disgust that I knew something I shouldn’t. Maybe it was a little bit of both.
Finally, he said, “We’re just trying to protect her. That’s why we need to find her.”
His tone seemed sincere, but I was getting tired of going over the same old territory. So I decided we needed a new subject.
“You know, Trevor had a Facebook page.”
He looked at me like I had three heads.
“You know? Facebook? Social networking?”
He snorted. “I know it. What does this have to do with anything?”
I shrugged. “I was looking at the pictures he’s got there and I saw one of a drag queen who looked familiar.”
Something crossed his face that I couldn’t read. “What do you mean?”
“Remember when I said someone slashed my tires? I saw a woman walking by. And I think she was t
he one I saw in the picture on Trevor’s Facebook page.”
“How can you tell?”
“Looked the same. Even almost the same sort of dress.”
“But not familiar?”
“I didn’t have time to look that closely at it. I’d have to look again. I can show you. Maybe she’s the one who slashed the tires.”
“Why would she want to do that if you don’t even know her?”
Well, now, that was a good question, wasn’t it? “It was just an idea,” I said.
DeBurra stared at me for a second, then said, “Why don’t you leave the ideas to me?”
So we were back to belligerence. Fine.
“I have to get back to work, Detective,” I said, emphasizing the last word as though it were of the four-letter kind.
He studied my face for a second.
“Watch your back,” he said and turned and walked away.
I forgot about the gelato and got back on the escalator. Maybe I should’ve told him about the picture of Lester Fine, too. Maybe then he wouldn’t dismiss me so quickly. But to tell him about that picture would mean I’d have to tell him I had Trevor’s laptop. I wasn’t ready to admit that yet.
My imagination started to go a little crazy: Maybe that money in Trevor’s apartment wasn’t just bodyguard money. Maybe Trevor blackmailed Lester with the picture. Rusty Abbott was at Trevor’s apartment earlier. Maybe he wasn’t just looking for the pin in the makeup case. Maybe he was looking for the laptop, too. Maybe he knew about the photograph.
Lester Fine was running for public office, after all.
Chapter 48
Ace was leaning against the front desk when I got back to the shop. Bitsy was leaning toward him from behind the desk, taking in every word. When I pushed the door open, they both turned to me with deer-in-the-headlights looks, as if they were sharing a secret that no one else was supposed to know about.
“Glad to see you back,” I said to Ace. “What’s going on?” Even though my tone was casual, I was anything but. I wanted to know everything that had gone down at the police station, and he knew it.
“They let me go,” Ace said, stating the obvious. “That cop, the one looking for Charlotte, he brought me back.”
So that was why DeBurra was hanging around. He wasn’t stalking me again. He could’ve told me, though, when I asked him about Ace.
“What about the money?” I asked, ignoring Bitsy’s raised eyebrows. “The money in your account?”
Ace shrugged, his hands moving to his pockets as he slouched. “It’s gone.”
“What do you mean, it’s gone?”
“I guess it was there, and then it was gone. That cop, DeBurra? He kept insisting that I knew where it was.” His eyes grew dark with anger. “I kept telling him that I didn’t know it was there in the first place.”
“So was it?” Bitsy asked.
“Was what?”
I followed what she was thinking. “Was the money really there in the first place?” I asked.
He nodded. “Yeah. I saw it on the computer. And then it was gone. Just like that.” He snapped his fingers.
“It disappeared while you were sitting there?”
He snorted. “And they still wouldn’t let me go. I didn’t even touch the mouse.”
“How did they know it was there in the first place?”
Ace ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “I don’t know. They got into my account somehow.”
“They’re Homeland Security,” I said.
“What, do they think I’m some sort of terrorist or something?”
Bitsy and I shrugged but didn’t answer.
“Where’s Charlotte?” I asked.
“I have no idea. Haven’t seen her since yesterday. She was a little nervous.”
No kidding.
I debated whether I should tell him about seeing her on that balcony. But while I was thinking about it, he spoke again.
“She called me this morning, though.”
“What did she say?”
He pulled himself up a little, took his hands out of his pockets. “What is this? The inquisition? I just finished up with that.”
I didn’t much care. “Did you tell the cops you talked to her this morning?”
He sighed, slouching again as if he couldn’t keep up the anger. “I told them everything. Your brother’s the one who got me out. He told that cop DeBurra that he had to let me go. It was clear I didn’t move that money.”
Chalk one up for Tim. I made a mental note to say thank you.
“So what happens now?” I asked.
“Ace has a client coming in later,” Bitsy said loudly. “And you’ve got one coming in, too.”
Nice to know life went on. But I was still feeling a little obsessed with everything that had transpired in the last few days.
I looked at Ace. His usual perfect mane of hair was a little disheveled; he had dark circles under his eyes; his mouth sagged at the corners. I’d never seen him look less than handsome. “If you want to go home, you can,” I said. “You’ve had a long day. I’ll take your client.” I glanced at Bitsy, who was already looking at the appointment book.
“I can switch a few things around,” Bitsy said. “Don’t worry.” This last was to Ace, who looked so relieved that I was happy I’d read him right.
He gave Bitsy and me a wan smile. “Thanks,” he said, and we both smiled back as we watched him head out.
I turned to Bitsy when he was out of sight. “I do wish he’d been a little more forthcoming about Charlotte.”
“You shouldn’t badger him, though. Just before you came in, he was telling me how she broke up with him in that phone call this morning. Said she didn’t want to cause him any more trouble, that he was better off without her. He’s pretty broken up about it.”
I had the sense that Ace had told her this in confidence, but he should have known by now that you can’t count on Bitsy to be discreet.
I didn’t get a chance to continue the conversation, however, because at that moment, Ace’s client came in. Bitsy explained that Ace was out sick, but that I could take him, if he was okay with that. The guy looked remarkably like Tony Soprano, and he gave me a look that made me wish I hadn’t been quite so generous after all. He was perfectly okay with me taking over.
Fortunately, he was just in for a New Zealand tribal tattoo on his biceps, which didn’t take much effort at all. I could understand why Ace had issues with “sacrificing his art.” As I worked, I tried to push everything that was going on out of my head, but I kept wondering about that money. If Charlotte hadn’t taken it, like she said, then who did? Was it the unknown person in Trevor’s apartment who shot at us? Or had someone gone in after I’d been there with Kyle and before I went back with Jeff? What about Rusty Abbott?
When I deposited Ace’s client with Bitsy to deal with payment, I went straight into the staff room. While I was thinking about the money, my thoughts had wandered back to Trevor’s laptop and that picture of Lester Fine. Finally free for a little while, I took the laptop out from under the light table where I’d left it and booted it up.
I went back to Facebook to look at those party pictures again. Maybe Trevor had posted a picture of Lester without realizing it. Then I could tell Tim that there was something on Facebook rather than tell him I’d been snooping.
I clicked on the photo albums link.
There was only one problem.
All the pictures were gone.
Chapter 49
How could this be? As far as I knew, only Trevor-and me, now, because I had his password-could delete any pictures. I began to wonder what the rules were with Facebook when someone died. Did Trevor’s page just stay up there indefinitely?
Then I remembered that I’d told Frank DeBurra about that picture. Maybe he actually took me seriously. That would be a switch.
I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and made a mental note to ask him whether he found out anything from the pictures.
> I heard Springsteen warbling “Born to Run” from inside my bag. I got up and took out my cell phone, flipping it open even though I didn’t recognize the number on the screen.
“Yes?”
“It’s Kyle.”
His words were rushed, his voice lower than usual.
“Do you have a cold?” I asked.
“It’s Charlotte. She’s sick.”
Panic rose in my chest. “Sick?” I thought about Wesley Lambert on the floor of his bedroom, dead from ricin poisoning, and Charlotte’s hoodie in the living room. Granted, I’d seen Charlotte between then and now, talked to her, but it was possible that it just took that long for her to get sick. “Where is she?”
“Chez Tango.”
“Can I meet you at the hospital?”
“Here.”
I looked at my watch. My client would be here any minute. “Just take her to the hospital.”
“No. Here.”
This sounded a little too familiar. “Last time she wanted me to meet her I ended up alone with a dead body.”
“Not kidding. Please.” The last word was said with so much emphasis that I couldn’t ignore it.
I sighed. “Fine. I’ll be there in a few.”
He’d already hung up, so I closed my phone and stared at it a second. She must be really sick. Kyle was such an upbeat guy, but he sounded defeated, so unlike himself. Almost like he was sick himself.
I didn’t like the idea of Charlotte not going to the hospital right away. Then I had a thought. Colin Bixby. He was a doctor. He might know what to do. And I had his card somewhere. Where had I put it? I grabbed my bag and rifled through it. Had Tim returned the card with all the other things? I couldn’t remember.
Finally my hand settled on something that felt like a business card. Yes, this was it. I punched the number into my phone.
“Hello?” he asked hesitantly. Oh, right, we hadn’t exchanged phone calls yet, so he wouldn’t know my number offhand.
“It’s Brett,” I said, and before he could respond, I told him what was going on.
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