by J. C. Eaton
“It’ll have to be.”
Two coffees later, Marshall left for the office. At least it would be quiet on a Sunday. No one to interrupt him. The same couldn’t have been said for my place because the minute he left, it seemed as if the phone wouldn’t stop.
The first, and strangest of all, was my aunt Ina, but that shouldn’t have surprised me.
“Phee! There are only three nail salons in the valley that can do that iridescent holographic glitter coat and wait till you hear the cost. It’s over four hundred dollars. My mind was so preoccupied with Louis’s recollection about Quentin I completely forgot to tell you about this when we spoke on Friday.”
“Um, hi, Aunt Ina. Are you calling to tell me you want your nails done that way?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’ve never been a huge fan of glittery nails. And four hundred dollars . . . True, my Louis wouldn’t bat an eyelash, but it got me thinking. What kind of bartender can make that much money? Especially out in the desert boondocks. Yet, there she was, fancy nails and all.”
“Maybe she has a friend who did them. There are nail salons up north in Payson.”
“Tsk. Tsk. None that know how to do that style. I got a listing of that city’s salons and called them.”
“Why are you so concerned about that lady’s nails?”
“Because I can spot a fake when I see one and she had ‘imposter’ written all over her. I didn’t want to say anything at the time because you had enough to worry about.”
“Why would someone pretend to be a bartender? And if she was pretending, she did a really good job.”
“I know. Now we have to figure out what else she was doing up there.”
“I’m sure if there’s any suspicious activity, the Gila County Sheriff’s Office will find out. Nate said they’re going to check into those coordinates.”
“Good. And they have us to thank for pointing them in the right direction. Oh, was that a pun? Did I just make a pun? Usually Louis is the clever one.”
It was a good thing we weren’t on Facetime or she would have seen me grimace.
“Um, well, yeah.”
I told my aunt the county lab would be testing the water bottle, and I also informed her about the break-in at the clay club. I stopped when it came to the diamonds, or would-be diamonds, depending upon the outcome. Marshall was right. I needed to take things one step at a time.
“Maybe whoever killed Quentin Dussler was looking for something and didn’t find it in his house. The next logical place would be the clay club room. Shall I write this all down for your boss?”
“Gee, uh, no. I think he’s already on top of things.”
The next interruption was a brief one—my friend Lyndy. Calling to see if I wanted to go for an evening swim. I said yes and we agreed to meet at the condo pool at eight. I was about to take a shower when the third call came in.
My mother sounded as if she was being choked. “The most horrible, horrible thing happened. Someone broke into the clay club room last night. I was going through my e-mails this morning when I saw the note from the club president. They smashed the window to get in.”
“Hi, Mom! I was just going to call you. I know about the break-in. I was with Marshall when he got a text about it. We both went over there.”
“You did? And you didn’t tell me? Why didn’t you call? What did they steal? The note wasn’t too specific.”
“They only took one item. Like I said, I was going to call to tell you—”
“I knew it. I knew it. Some miscreant simply had to have that platter of mine. That’s the trouble with creating unique art. It’s all one-of-a-kind and once someone sets their sights on it, there’s no stopping them.”
“They didn’t steal your piece of artwork.”
“Oh.” The disappointment in her voice came through.
“Sorry, Mom. The only thing they took was that large greenware urn or bowl thing we dragged out of the back closet.”
“That grotesque thing? Who would want that?”
“Exactly. Nate and Marshall need to know. Sheriff’s department too. That’s why I was going to call you.”
“How would I know who would want something that ugly? Besides, it hasn’t even been fired yet. Which reminds me, when you saw my platter, had it been fired?”
“Yes, yes. You can relax. Lucinda too. So, tell me. Was that urn signed on the bottom? The two of you were scrutinizing everything. Was there a signature carved in it?”
“Hmm, offhand, I don’t remember, but I’ll call Lucinda and see if she does. She’ll be happy to know her jar is still there.”
“Great. If I don’t answer, leave me a message. I’ll be in and out.”
I heard a faint yip in the background. “Streetman wants a snack. It’s his munchy time. I’ve got to run.”
Munchy time. Oh brother. “Fine, catch you later.”
* * *
Monday morning seemed to arrive in the blink of an eye and I found myself back at my desk sifting through accounts. Marshall had some follow-up work to do, which meant he’d be out of the office most of the day. Nate’s schedule was pretty similar. It felt as if all of us were at a standstill regarding the murders.
No news yet from the sheriff’s department and no calls from Rolo Barnes. Marshall had broken down and put him on the case as well. As for the forensic lab at the sheriff’s department, they’d take their own sweet time. As far as Rolo was concerned, it was definitely a crapshoot.
At a little past one, Nate rapped on my door frame. “Your mother can relax, kiddo. Sharon Smyth’s note wasn’t a hit list. The forensic crew that cleaned out her apartment found the other half of the note. Seems she tore that half off to write a grocery list on the back. They found it clipped to a pile of coupons in one of her kitchen drawers.”
“Wow, that’s a relief. What did it say?”
Nate read me the note verbatim and I was stunned. “What? She never let on that she still taught at the clay club. And that note. My God! That’s worse than a hit list. We can’t tell my mother what that note really said. She’s better off thinking someone’s gunning for her and Lucinda. You know how she is.”
“Eventually she’ll find out.”
“Yeah, well, let her find out from someone other than me. Or you. What about Quentin’s note?”
“That, I’m afraid, just had the names on it. Hard to say if it’s the same thing or not. Hey, don’t look so forlorn.”
“What do you expect me to look like? It feels as if everything is stalled.”
“It always does. And then the proverbial you-know-what will hit the fan and you’ll wish we were back to waiting.”
While it wasn’t exactly a fan blade wobbling from a direct hit, Rolo Barnes did call Nate about an hour later and, once again, my boss shared that conversation with me.
“Hey, kiddo, you’ll be happy to know things are coming together.”
“Huh? What? When?” I automatically saved the program I was working on and shoved my chair back from my desk. “Tell me everything. Did the Gila County deputies find anything in the high desert?”
“Not that I know of. Not yet, anyway. But your favorite cyber sleuth did.”
“Rolo! What did he find?”
“Probably his way into my bank account, but, seriously, he tracked those numbers from Quentin’s inventory. We were right. They were bank routing numbers. But not easily recognizable ones. It would have stymied the sheriff’s department. The numbers were encrypted.”
“How do you encrypt a number?”
“By using algorithms, but that’s all I know.”
“Ew. My math skills are limited to standard accounting procedures. So, what did he find out?”
“Mind if I pull up a chair? I’ve been running around all day and my feet are worn out. Anyhow, Rolo faxed me the information and Augusta’s putting it together. He didn’t want to e-mail it, and it was too long to relay over the phone. Plus, he has this thing about phone conversations. He’s pretty certain
the National Security Agency is listening in.”
“Uh, why does Augusta have to put it together?”
Nate rolled his eyes. “Because Rolo sort of encrypted that, too. Only he gave me the code to decipher it.”
“Yikes. How long will that take?”
“Hold on.”
Nate leaned his chair back and shouted, “Augusta, how are you coming along with that fax?”
“Almost done. Be right in.”
At that moment, the main office door opened and I heard Marshall’s voice. He and Augusta were speaking. Within seconds, Marshall walked into my office and handed Nate the papers. He slid another chair closer to the desk. Our eyes were glued to Rolo’s discovery.
“I made you three copies, Mr. Williams,” Augusta shouted. “Two for the investigators and one for Phee, so she won’t be leaning over your shoulders.”
“Thanks a heap,” I shouted while everyone laughed. Then I took a closer look at the sheet in front of me. “Holy cow! Look at the locations. How would someone in the United Arab Emirates have heard of Quentin Dussler? Or the Turks and Caicos islands, for that matter? I can’t imagine what made that guy’s pottery so coveted.”
“That seems to be the question of the hour,” Nate said. “Along with why someone would want to kill him.”
Marshall lifted his head. “Take a look at the second to last name and location on this list.”
We were all silent for a minute. Long enough for it to sink in. I blinked and stared at the paper again. Then I grinned. “At least we won’t have to go to the United Arab Emirates or somewhere in the North Atlantic Ocean to have a conversation with one of those buyers.”
My boss stretched out his arms until his shoulder blades met. “Nope, only a half hour jaunt to the Lillian.”
“Shouldn’t you notify the sheriff’s department or something?” I asked.
He smiled and looked at Marshall. “Eventually.”
The two men scrambled to their feet and nearly knocked each other over as they bolted to the door.
Nate shouted, “Lock up, Phee,” and Marshall added, “I’ll call you later.”
Suddenly my spreadsheets looked tedious and boring. I wanted to go with them, but I wasn’t about to act like a petulant child about it. “Fine. Have fun.”
Chapter 27
Augusta was standing at my doorway in a matter of seconds. “Those two hit the road like the devil himself was after them. Only one name was local. I suppose that’s where they were headed, huh?”
“Yep. They couldn’t wait to get there.”
“That Rolo Barnes certainly doesn’t make things easy for anyone. I was about to tell Mr. Williams about something else I noticed, but the phone rang and I got tied up with a new client. Now it’s too late.”
“You can always tell them tomorrow.”
“I know. But I wanted to save them some time. Take a look at the third name on the list. I’ll bet they looked at the location first and ignored the name.”
I grabbed the paper and read it out loud. “Marque Living.”
Augusta grunted. “That’s the biggest damn retirement conglomerate in the Southwest. They run independent living, assisted living, and all sorts of living. If you can call it that. Seeing their name on that list kind of makes me wonder. What would they want with a piece of pottery?”
“Same as the first name, I guess. It doesn’t strike me as being all that odd. I mean, those places spend a lot on decorative items for their residences. You should see some of those resort retirement communities. Fresh cut flowers, gourmet meals, fancy movie theaters . . .”
Again that “tsk” sound from her. “Flowers don’t break. Those elderly people bump into things all the time. Why risk breaking a thousand-dollar item? If you ask me, I’d wager whatever they bought is sitting in someone’s fancy living room and not in one of their residences.”
“My gosh, Augusta. You’re beginning to sound as suspicious as my aunt Ina. She’s gotten herself in a tizzy over that Punkin Center bartender’s nail polish.”
“Ain’t going there. Don’t know a thing about nail polish.”
“Augusta, getting back to that fax from Rolo you deciphered, is there any chance we can figure out if there’s a name associated with Marque Living?”
“Nope. When that Dussler guy sold his piece of pottery, the buyer was Marque Living. End of story.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. They have a corporate office in Scottsdale. Want to know how I know?”
“You’ll tell me anyway, so go ahead.”
“At one of those annoying brunches from my mother’s book club, the topic of senior living came up. Hey, don’t look at me that way. It was a better topic than their usual stuff. Well, seems the ladies were all talking about what they would do when they reached their nineties, and Marque Living came up. And none of them had anything favorable to say.”
“Bad reputation? Senior abuse? Filthy housing?”
“No, no. Nothing like that. They just see it as another one of those corporations that have been buying out the little guys. You know, the independent retirement communities. Like the Lillian and the Monte Carlo, for example. They’re not part of a chain.”
“I get it. Who wants to eat at some franchise when a family-owned restaurant is right around the corner?”
“Uh-huh. Too bad that office is in Scottsdale. I’m tempted to take a drive over there myself. Guess I’ll have to offer up this new tidbit to Marshall.”
“Yeah, well, don’t forget to tell him where the tidbit came from.”
“Don’t worry, Augusta. He’d figure it out even if I didn’t tell him.”
“By the way, that Rolo Barnes sounds as if he isn’t off the grid, he’s in his own grid. The cover sheet that came with his fax is a doozy.”
“What do you mean?”
“See for yourself. I probably should’ve shown it to Mr. Williams but I was too engrossed in figuring out how to interpret the information.”
Augusta handed me the cover sheet and I read it out loud.
“ Still working on the Klingons. Expect another fax tomorrow. R ”
“See what I mean?” Augusta said. “Klingons. Like in Star Trek. Those techie guys are so far into that sci-fi stuff it scares me. What do you suppose he’s going to be faxing Mr. Williams? Whatever it is, it’ll probably take me all morning to put it together.”
“Yeesh. I haven’t got the slightest idea. When Marshall calls later, I’ll let him know.”
“You know what baffles me? The amount of money those buyers paid for that pottery. I don’t think an original Michelangelo sold for that much.”
I looked at the sheet again. “I see what you mean. I think those numbers with the decimal points next to the banking numbers reflect an amount based on one million. So, this one, for some buyer in California, says one point oh three. That must mean he paid one million, thirty thousand for it. Is that what you’re thinking?”
“Yep. I could buy an estate in Belize and a new car for that amount, and unlike that piece of pottery, I wouldn’t have to worry about it breaking.”
“Hmm. At first I thought Quentin’s pieces were selling high. Like in the thousands. But now, after seeing this, I’m absolutely astonished.”
“Astonished or not, I’ve got a pot roast in my slow cooker and it’ll fall apart if I don’t get home to eat it.”
We locked up the office at a little past five and headed to our respective homes. I gave Lyndy a call the minute I stepped in the door and convinced her to take a quick swim with me at seven. Thank goodness Lyndy was flexible about time. By nine, I should have been fully relaxed, only I hadn’t heard from Marshall. Nothing on my answering machine and no voice mail on the cell. I figured he and Nate’s investigation had gone longer.
Finally, at a few minutes before ten, he called.
“Sorry it’s so late, hon, but we had a hell of a time with something that should’ve taken us an hour at most.”
“Stopping by the Lillian always takes long
er than you expect. I’m surprised the management didn’t mention purchasing something from Quentin. Augusta and I figured out what they paid. It was close to half a million for that piece, wasn’t it?”
“Sure was. Too bad Nate and I never found Kimberlynn Warren to ask her about it. When we got to the Lillian, those two blondes told us she had gone home early for the day. Took our best persuasive skills to get them to tell us where she lived. Festival Foothills. Of all places. Another nine miles down the road.”
“So, did you get a chance to speak with her?”
“We might have, if it wasn’t for those Gertrude sisters. They spotted us at the reception desk as they were coming out of the dining room. The minute they saw us, they flew into a panic. One of them shouted, ‘My God! Is there another murder?’ and the next thing we knew, we had a crowd of octogenarians surrounding us and bombarding us with all sorts of questions. It was impossible to get away. And I swear, those blondes at the desk were snickering behind their computer monitors.”
“That sounds horrible.”
“It was. Believe me, it was. To make matters worse, today was apparently the day when Sharon Smyth’s apartment got cleaned out. The sheriff’s department was done with their forensic investigation and the management was anxious to re-rent the place. Nate and I had to hear all about that as well.”
“Oh no.”
“Yeah. One guy kept muttering, ‘Like it never happened. Like it never happened.’”
“I think that’s the slogan for one of those restoration service companies.”
“That would explain it. Anyway, by the time we got out of there, it was much too late to drive anywhere but home. I picked up a take-out order from Jack in the Box and ate most of it on the way. Tomorrow, Nate and I will go straight back there to have that conversation with their director.”
“You think she used the Lillian’s money to buy that clay creation for herself?”
“I’m not sure about that, but the banking numbers indicate the Lillian. An independent business. Not a corporation or an individual. So, it begs the question, who authorized that sale? And personally, I’d like to see that half-a-million-dollar piece of pottery. Business dealings gone bad can be motives for murder, but this is way over the top. It makes my head spin.”
