by Laura Childs
“I’m not sure we have any evidence,” Drayton said. “All we know is that Brooklyn’s a phony. After that, we’re just limping along on wild hunches and suppositions.”
“But we’ve got this photograph.” Theodosia tapped her computer screen. “An image that’s strangely spooky but just might lead us down the right path.”
* * *
* * *
“She knew about the flag,” Theodosia said to Tidwell once she’d run through a quick version of Drayton’s and her suspicions about Brooklyn Vance. And she told him about the shadowy face that had popped up in the photograph—the face that the longer she stared at, looked decidedly more like Brooklyn.
“And you say she’s involved in the art world?” Tidwell asked. “I remember hearing the Vance woman’s name mentioned, but I wasn’t the one who interviewed her.”
“Brooklyn Vance claims to have had a career in art. Which leads me to a somewhat strange question. You used to be an FBI agent. Doesn’t the FBI have some kind of art heist squad?”
“You mean the FBI’s dedicated Art Crime Team?”
“That’s a real thing? Perfect. We surely could use their help. And yours, too.” Theodosia paused. “In fact, what are you doing right now?”
“Getting ready to slip into a nice dry martini,” Tidwell said.
“Could you forgo your drink for now and come over to the tea shop? Take a look at this photo? It would mean an awful lot to us.”
A long silence spun out before Tidwell replied. “If I must.”
* * *
* * *
Tidwell showed up at the Indigo Tea Shop some twenty minutes later, clutching a laptop and looking off-duty rumpled in a pair of ill-fitting khaki slacks and a brown jacket that billowed about his frame. His lips were set in a straight line as though he was unhappy about being called out on a Saturday night, which he undoubtedly was.
“Internet connection,” were Tidwell’s first words.
“In my office,” Theodosia said. She led him through the darkened tea shop and into her office.
Drayton stood up hastily and said, “Thank you for coming.”
Tidwell answered with a shrug and a grunt.
Theodosia hoped this wasn’t going to turn into a conversation of monosyllabic proportions.
It didn’t.
“You realize,” Tidwell said as they fumbled with cords and plug-ins and finally established an Internet connection for his laptop, “that when the Navy Jack flag disappeared from Don Kingsley’s home, I immediately checked the FBI’s National Stolen Art File.”
“But the flag wouldn’t have popped up at that point,” Theodosia said. “It was too soon. We really didn’t know it had gone missing a second time until Charles Townsend’s confession last night.”
“Thank you for pointing that out to me,” Tidwell said in a facetious tone. He dropped into her desk chair, straining the side rails and causing the chair to emit a low groan.
Theodosia prayed that he hadn’t permanently disabled her chair.
Tidwell’s chubby fingers poked at his computer keys, almost a hunt and peck mode of typing. He called up the FBI website, then entered a long string of numbers and letters—his password code. A whirling ball occupied center screen for a few moments and then, voilà, they were in.
“Are you checking stolen art or known suspects?” Theodosia asked.
“Suspects obviously,” Tidwell said. “I’m guessing there aren’t that many women in the database.”
Surprisingly, there were almost a hundred.
“We need to narrow this down by parameters,” Tidwell said. “Age, hair color, that sort of thing.”
“I’d say between thirty and thirty-five,” Theodosia said. “Dark hair.”
“Last known address?”
Theodosia shrugged. “Wilmington? I don’t know. That was probably just a ruse.”
“People often base their fictional alibis on partial truths,” Tidwell said. He tapped away some more until five grainy pictures appeared. “Take a look at these possible candidates.”
Theodosia and Drayton leaned over his broad shoulders and stared at the screen.
“Whoa,” Theodosia said. It wasn’t quite a gasp, but almost. One of the photos looked suspiciously like Brooklyn Vance only with shorter hair.
“Which one caught your eye?” Tidwell asked.
“The woman in the middle,” Theodosia said.
“Is that her?” Drayton squinted at the photos on Tidwell’s laptop.
“Look,” Theodosia said, pointing to the blur on her own computer screen. “The pictures are different enough. Her hair is lighter and wispier in the FBI photo and now it’s dark and worn much longer. But take a look at the curve of her cheekbone, the slightly pointed chin.”
“Sweet Fanny Adams, I think you’re right,” Drayton exclaimed. “It’s practically a match.”
“Did either of you see the movie Catch Me If You Can?” Tidwell asked.
“With Leonardo DiCaprio playing the impostor,” Theodosia said. “Figuring out bank routing systems and cashing millions of dollars in phony checks.”
“And using phony identities,” Tidwell said. He reached forward and hesitated, and then tapped the screen. “I’ll bet you anything that’s our girl.”
* * *
* * *
They moved into the tea room then, where Drayton brewed a pot of Indian spice tea and Theodosia put out a plate of leftover raspberry scones that she’d grabbed from the freezer and heated up.
“So now that we think our killer might be Brooklyn, how do we go about finding her?” Theodosia asked.
Tidwell blew on his cup of tea and then took a small sip. “Brooklyn Vance is obviously from out of town. So where has she been staying?”
“No clue,” Drayton said. “It’s going to be like looking for a needle in a haystack. If she’s still in town.”
“Then we’ve got to narrow that haystack down to a single bale,” Tidwell said. He grabbed one of the scones, took a large bite, and chewed thoughtfully.
“What if . . . what if Brooklyn was staying at the Featherbed House?” Theodosia ventured.
“Is that a wild guess out of the clear blue or do you know something we don’t?” Tidwell asked.
Theodosia tried to dredge up an image from a few days ago. It swam up in her memory, circled around, and dove back down again into the netherworld. She focused harder and let it slowly rise to the surface again. “Okay, the first time I ever laid eyes on Brooklyn Vance was when she was leaving Tawney Kingsley’s B and B and heading in the direction of the Featherbed House.”
“If Brooklyn was staying there,” Drayton said, “it might have put her right in the catbird seat. She might have been privy to all sorts of rumors and critical information.”
“Like who are the main suspects and has the blame shifted to Harold Affolter yet?” Theodosia said. “And what new information Angie had picked up?”
“Remember at the funeral lunch, when Brooklyn started getting cozy with Earl Bullitt?” Drayton said.
Theodosia remembered it well. “I’ll bet you anything that was Brooklyn taking the pulse of the investigation.”
Tidwell scarfed down his final bite of scone and smacked his lips. But he didn’t look like his usual satisfied scone-eating self. He looked unhappy, as if he’d been badly snookered. “And to think,” he said, “she was right there under our noses all along.”
32
They rode to the Featherbed House in Tidwell’s practically obsolete Crown Victoria. It was the color of cheap Burgundy wine, the springs were shot, and it carried a faint aroma of motor oil and spilled coffee. But good coffee, probably a French roast.
Tidwell loved the car; it was his baby. As his radio buzzed frantically with static and police alerts, he called ahead and requested that two squads meet them at Angie’s B a
nd B. When they arrived, four uniformed SWAT officers were waiting outside on the sidewalk.
In their dark uniforms, Theodosia thought they looked like a SEAL Team ready to make a major assault on Fallujah. Still, Brooklyn was armed and dangerous, so it was nice to have some firepower for backup.
Theodosia ran up the front steps of the Featherbed House and into the lobby. She looked around, saw a half dozen guests sipping wine and helping themselves to a table filled with hors d’oeuvres. The last thing Theodosia wanted to do was disturb the guests’ peace and quiet, but then she saw Teddy Vickers emerge from the breakfast room to put out a new plate of cheese nibbles. She ran over to him, grabbed him by the shoulder, and spun him halfway around. A few of the cheese nibbles fell on the floor.
“Theodosia?” Teddy said, looking a little unbalanced.
“Teddy, we need your help!” Theodosia said in a hoarse whisper.
Teddy glanced about the lobby. That’s when he saw Detective Tidwell, Drayton, and four well-armed officers slinking in, trying to look unobtrusive but failing miserably. His face pulled into a look of deep concern.
“What’s wrong?” Teddy asked. “It’s not Harold, is it?” He licked his lips nervously. “Are you here to . . . ?”
“We need to ask you a few questions,” Tidwell said, bulling his way to the front of the group.
“Just show Teddy the FBI photo,” Theodosia prompted. “Then we’ll know if we’re on the right track or not.”
Tidwell opened his laptop and showed Teddy the single photo that he’d downloaded.
Theodosia pointed to the photo. “Has this woman been staying here? Is she a guest?”
Teddy’s face darkened as he squinted at the photo. “Um . . . maybe?”
At that moment, Angie walked in from the dining room. She saw Tidwell, Theodosia, Teddy, and the SWAT team, and took a step back. Her shoulders sagged and her face went slack. “You’re here to arrest Harold?” she said in a frightened whisper.
“No,” Theodosia said. “Come take a look at this photo. We think this might be our suspect and that she’s possibly been staying here all along.”
“What!” Angie said. She was so stunned she seemed rooted to the floor, unable to take a single step.
“What’s going on?” Harold suddenly loomed in the doorway behind Angie.
“Mr. Affolter, we need you to look at this photo,” Tidwell said. “Tell us if this woman has been a guest here.”
“Why are you asking about one of our guests?” Harold sounded agitated, bordering on angry. “Haven’t you people made us jump through enough hoops?”
“Please just calm down and take a look,” Theodosia urged. “See if you can identify this person.”
Angie managed to find her voice. “Wait, are you saying you might have found the killer? The one that took down the hot-air balloon?”
“It’s a possibility,” Tidwell hedged. “Obviously we’re still investigating. But before we can do anything at all, we need to identify this woman and ascertain if she was a guest here.”
Angie turned to Harold. “You look,” she said. “I’m too frightened.”
Harold came forward and took a look at Tidwell’s photo. He blinked and stared at the screen. Then his jaw tightened as if he were grinding his teeth together. “Yes,” he said. “She’s staying here.”
“You’re absolutely sure?” Tidwell asked. “This is Brooklyn Vance?”
“That’s the woman who’s been staying in 5C,” Harold said. “One of the small guesthouses across the courtyard. But she’s not registered as Brooklyn Vance.” Now he sounded more confident in his answer.
“What name is she registered under?” Theodosia asked.
Harold glanced over at Teddy Vickers. “Teddy? Can you . . . ?”
Teddy practically broke a leg running to the check-in desk. He slipped on a pair of reading glasses, and then his fingers clicked against computer keys. “You said room 5C?” He cleared his throat officiously. “That room is registered to a Gail Winter.”
Tidwell made a sound somewhere between a trumpeting elephant and an angry rhino. “That’s one of her aliases,” he said.
Guests at the Featherbed House who were all dressed up and on their way out for dinner gasped in amazement when they saw Tidwell’s SWAT contingent thunder through the lobby, slam through the double doors, and rush out onto a patio filled with damp tables and limp umbrellas. The group spun past a goldfish pond, hooked a left past a small greenhouse, ran down a cobblestone path, and then pulled up short at the path that peeled off to the guesthouses. From there they tiptoed up to the door of room 5C.
Tidwell gave a sharp jerk of his head. “Officers?”
In unison, the four SWAT team members un-holstered their weapons and stood at the ready.
Tidwell held out a hand. “Key.”
Teddy handed over his passkey.
Tidwell stuck the key in the lock, turned it hard, and jumped back. The four officers stormed into the room, yelling, “Police! Hands up!”
The room was empty. Brooklyn Vance wasn’t there.
“Gone,” Tidwell declared as he stepped inside and looked around for himself. “We must have just missed her.”
“Did she skip out on her bill?” Theodosia asked.
“We always take a credit card imprint,” Harold said. “Of course, if she’s registered under an alias, her card was probably fake, too.”
Drayton poked his head in as the SWAT team continued to scout the room. “My goodness, it looks as if a knockdown, drag-out fight took place in here!”
5C had once been a cozy little cottage with a four-poster bed, lovely cream-colored armoire, and a pink paisley rug. Now it was a wreck! Sheets were tangled, damp towels were scattered all over, the down comforter was twisted up and lying on the floor, closet doors hung wide open, and hangers looked like they’d been pitched everywhere.
“Did anyone hear a fight going on?” Tidwell asked.
“No, no, this is fairly typical,” Teddy hastened to explain. “Whenever we have a single woman staying with us, they wreak absolute havoc on our guest rooms. Pretty much trash them.”
“Is that true?” Drayton asked Angie.
She nodded. “I’m afraid so.”
“Are Brooklyn’s clothes gone? Her luggage?” Theodosia asked. But as she looked around she could see for herself that Brooklyn, or whatever the woman’s name was, had emptied the place out.
“Everything’s gone but the towels,” Angie said. “And sometimes they take those as a parting gift.” She scrunched up her face and looked at Tidwell. “What now?”
“All we can do is put the word out to law enforcement,” Tidwell said.
“Local law enforcement?” Theodosia asked.
“Local, state police, FBI, probably customs and border patrol,” Tidwell said. “This is a woman who quite possibly masterminded a triple homicide. We want her bad.”
“But why did she stick around for such a long time?” Drayton asked.
Tidwell shrugged. “Playing games. Taunting us and getting her jollies?”
“I think she stayed in Charleston so she could throw up a smoke screen and point her finger at other possible suspects,” Theodosia said. “Brooklyn was smart. She kept her ear to the ground and gathered as much information as she possibly could.”
“But after the hot-air balloon crash she could have just skipped town,” Angie said.
“Think about it,” Theodosia said. “Brooklyn couldn’t leave town, it would have looked way too suspicious. So she stuck around for a while, stirring up trouble, following the investigation as close as she could, and dropping innuendos here and there. And then she played her hunch with Townsend and was right. He had the flag and she took it away from him at gunpoint. Or maybe she did a hot prowl on all the players—Tawney, Slawson, Earl Bullitt, even Harold here—and narrowed it
down through process of elimination.”
“Do you think she was the one who stole my drone?” Harold asked.
“Most likely,” Tidwell said.
Theodosia and Drayton stepped outside and hovered at the edge of the patio, watching the SWAT team wrap it up. Tidwell was calling in the crime scene squad, one officer was stringing yellow tape across the guest room door, and the other officers were milling about quietly. They looked subdued and a little disappointed that they hadn’t been involved in a major shoot-out.
“Face it,” Drayton said to Theodosia. “You put some serious heat on Brooklyn. Toward the end she must have known you were on her tail.”
“But I wasn’t close enough,” Theodosia said.
Drayton cast his eyes skyward. “Thank heaven for that.”
33
Theodosia arrived home feeling a bundle of mixed emotions. On the one hand, she felt completely disheartened that they hadn’t been able to lay their hands on the very dangerous Brooklyn Vance. They’d come so darned close—had been hot on Brooklyn’s pointy little designer heels—but now the woman had blown out of town like an ill wind.
On the other hand, Pete Riley’s plane had touched down an hour ago. And right this minute he was probably turning on lights in his apartment and setting grocery bags on his kitchen counter. He’d be gearing up to cook a fabulous dinner for the two of them. And Theodosia knew that when she walked in, he’d greet her with open arms and tender kisses.
Feeling a little drained—it had been a strange and busy day—Theodosia let Earl Grey out into the backyard and went upstairs to change.
What to wear? she wondered. Go uptown casual with jeans and a sweater? Go downtown chic with a little black dress?
Wandering into her walk-in closet, Theodosia hunted around, trying to shift her mind from being in hot pursuit of a murder suspect to business as usual. After a few minutes of shuffling through racks of clothes, she decided on a black sweater and slacks with a camel jacket tossed over her shoulders. She figured that outfit would project a welcome-home-kiss-me-feed-me message all wrapped up in one.
