“Hey!” Duke shot Titus a look of pure irritation. “I figured I’d rather nap than listen to you argue.”
“Yeah? Well Hilary is gone and there is a mob of people downstairs all being pestered by your suspect.”
“What?” Duke nearly fell over as he realized Titus was correct.
There was a crowd of people downstairs all looking as though they were eagerly waiting for the star of the show to pay attention to them for just a moment. Phones were out and people were waving to Riley as he went through the whole gamut of his silliness.
Duke grabbed his camera and looked through the viewfinder. He spotted Riley pretending to bump into people, doing his more of the photobombing, and enjoying a plethora of other ridiculous slapstick behavior.
“Hey, did you see that?” Titus muttered behind his camera.
Duke adjusted his viewfinder and snapped off a picture. Then he realized what Titus was referring to. Duke heaved a sigh. “Yeah, I see it. He’s flipping us off!” Duke actually began to laugh. “That old bastard is flipping us off like he thinks he’s gotten one up on us.”
Duke moved away from the viewfinder of his camera and watched Riley’s careful interactions with the crowd below. There was not one incident of touching a purse or putting his hand anywhere near something that might be considered threatening in a thieving sort of way. The guy was playing them.
“He thinks he’s being clever,” Titus murmured as he too watched Riley play for the crowd. “Look at him. He’s actually trying to show us that he’s harmless. That he’s popular and people love him and he’s innocent.”
“It’s not doing anything for me,” Duke commented almost more to himself than to Titus. “I think he’s our guy. He touches a woman’s purse earlier in the day and all of a sudden, there’s a theft reported to the gift shop counter. Now, he’s going to be very careful and not touch a thing, but there will be no theft reported.”
Titus’s gaze got more intense as he stared at the knots of people milling about below. “That’s not necessarily true. What if this is a set-up? What if he’s found someone else to steal a wallet and has planned for us to watch him every single second of the night so he makes sure to look nice and innocent into the bargain.”
“Holy crap,” Duke growled. “If we start trying to second-guess ourselves, the crooks and everyone else, by anticipating any possible move that they might make, we’re going to go stark raving mad!”
“Mad,” Titus agreed. “So, we need a plan to catch this guy.”
“Actually, I think we already have caught this guy,” Duke mused. “I just have to get my hands on the report that leads me to the woman I saw him pickpocketing earlier.”
Titus made a face. “And let’s not forget that we need to find the loot. That will be the big one. What’s he doing with all of the stuff anyway?”
“And why is he vandalizing his own show?” Duke figured that was the million dollar question.
Chapter Seventeen
Olivia sat and fidgeted behind her desk. She knew the show was over because she could hear the dull hum of conversations filling the foyer outside her office. She was busy on the computer though, or at least she was pretending to be busy behind the computer. She could not stop thinking about Duke’s accusations against Uncle Riley. But even more than that, she could not stop thinking about the way Uncle Riley had reacted, as though it was some kind of conspiracy to make him look bad because Duke Dunbar was incompetent.
Was Duke incompetent? Olivia sat back in her chair and felt as though she needed to think about that for a moment or two before even beginning to make a decision about it. She had gone to Rock Wolf Investigations because she needed help. That was true. She had felt as though her head was on the chopping block. They’d had this increase in incidents, which bothered her. But worse than that was the hopeless feeling that she was going to somehow be responsible for losing the theater because the thefts were going to affect the show’s attendance, which in turn would make it possible for Harvey Lightman to close the Moonrise.
So, what did Olivia believe was really happening? Maybe that was the big question. She stood up and walked to the windows. It was so bright outside that there was no possibility of seeing the stars in the night sky overhead. They said you could still see stars out on the lake, or within the other little communities tucked against the rocky, hilly shores of Tablerock Lake. Places with silly names like Blue Eye or Kimberling City and Hollister, where so many people owned vacation or retirement homes that you were likely to see just as many golf carts as cars on the streets.
What do I believe?
Olivia couldn’t say for sure. She didn’t think Duke Dunbar was the kind of man who would lie in order to solve a case. He had never struck her as the sort of man to care that much about his ego. Would it frustrate him if he couldn’t find the person or the culprit behind these thefts? Sure. But maybe they were just looking in the wrong place. Maybe it was an employee of the theater, but it was someone else. Clara or John or one of the ushers.
Except the idea of someone like Clara picking the pockets of their customers was absolutely ridiculous. Olivia exhaled a sigh and went to the door of her office. She pushed it open and stood there for a long moment watching. There were more people filing out than there were milling about. That was good. It was time to go home. It felt like a million years had passed since she had left her house this morning. It was harder to believe that last night she had discovered Harvey Lightman in her office trying to steal the show’s bank statements and financial information from her desk. All of that seemed a million years ago.
She tilted her head to the left in order to see up into the ceiling beams. Both Titus Holbrook and Duke Dunbar currently occupied the catwalk. The men had cameras and other things up there. They were photographing the crowd. That wasn’t technically legal since it was nonconsensual. Not that it was unusual in the Branson area or independent of a standard security camera, which was totally legal. Of course, there were a lot of people who would pay good money to get photographed in this area as long as it came with some kind of way to attach their name to a movie or music star.
For some reason, the sight of those two security guys up in the rafters photographing the guests below rubbed Olivia the wrong way. She wanted to keep her customers safe, but how far was she willing to go? She had personally invaded a woman’s privacy and searched her purse. That wasn’t the sort of atmosphere they wanted at the Riley Saunders Show.
Whether it was this or something else, Olivia felt the urge to go upstairs and deal with it for good. There was just no reason for her to continue keeping a security team employed. They’d given her some great ideas, but maybe the police had been right in the first place. Increased security, a gentle reminder to their guests, would be enough.
Olivia marched out of her office and over to the spiral staircase leading up to the catwalk. She made the climb very quickly, practically dancing up the steps to the platform and then nearly sprinting to the other end where Duke and Titus had set up their stuff.
“Hello, Olivia,” Titus Holbrook said with painful politeness. “How are you this evening?”
She stumbled over her words. It was impossible to be polite in return and yet starting out with a polite phrase felt as though it wasn’t exactly getting the right message across to her audience. “I’m fine thank you, but we really need to talk, Mr. Holbrook.”
“Oh?” Titus was the only one looking at her.
Duke appeared to be intentionally ignoring her. “What did you need to talk to me about?”
“Well, I’ve been thinking about it and I just don’t think that we need your services here at the Moonrise Theater anymore.” There. She’d managed to get the words out all in one sentence and she hadn’t stumbled over them either.
Titus didn’t say anything. Not at first. Duke didn’t either. In fact, Duke stopped what he had been doing with his camera and began to put it away as though he was totally done with this job anyway. She felt the ac
ute sting of that at once, as though she had just been rejected by someone she had felt a certain kinship to. He knew things about her that very few people did. He had seemed kind and understanding. Yet now she had to accept the possibility that the entire thing had been a charade for the job.
“I’m sorry to hear that, Ms. Houghton,” Titus finally told her. His expression was absolutely unfathomable. His face was hard and expressionless. And he looked so calm that he could have been discussing the recent weather change. “But I suppose that when an investigation begins to point very close to home, that we must figure out a way to get back to the comfortable place we held before we saw things that we never wanted to see.”
His words were twisting and turning. A condemnation disguised as a statement of understanding. She didn’t like it, but what else what she going to do? So, she nodded and then gestured to the small amount of equipment on the catwalk. “I’ll expect you will need to stay long enough to get your things together. And then any pertinent information you have on this case will need to be returned to me. You know, because of privacy and all that.”
“Of course,” Titus murmured.
Duke grunted. “What about the report from earlier today?”
“Excuse me?” Olivia felt her stomach tighten uncomfortably. “What are you talking about?”
“The report that Clara took down in the gift shop on the latest theft involving a purse and a wallet after the noon show today, the day I saw your uncle putting his hand in someone’s purse. A wallet went missing at the same time. It seems more than a little suspicious. Don’t you think?” Duke gazed at Olivia so hard that she could not meet his eyes. She looked at Titus instead.
But looking at Titus was worse. The man had the strangest eyes. They weren’t entirely human-looking. In fact, they looked rather animalistic, like staring into the face of a wild beast who can see right past your skin and read everything you thought you were hiding from the rest of the world.
Olivia felt an unwelcome shiver slip down her spine. “There was no report to read.”
“Great. So basically,” Duke said irritably, “you know exactly who the thief is. You would just rather handle it in-house. Got it.”
“I will also expect at least a partial refund of my money—” Olivia began.
Duke made a loud scoffing noise and nearly sent his camera bag sailing over the railing into the crowd below. “You’ve got to be out of your mind! You want your money back too? You’re lucky that I don’t charge you extra just for dealing with all of this bullshit!”
“Duke, that’s enough,” Titus said with quiet finality.
Olivia was mildly surprised when Duke’s mouth closed with an audible click. She hadn’t thought that there was much that Duke would listen to above his own desire to vent. Apparently, Titus was one of those rare things. Of course, Titus was his boss.
Titus cleared his throat and looked at Olivia. “I’m not going to refund any of your money. We’ve put enough hours on this case already and some of it with two agents. If you want to complain to me, feel free. I will happily let the entire world know that you were not happy with the direction the investigation was heading because it was incriminating the star of your show.”
“You wouldn’t!” Olivia gasped. She could only imagine what that sort of review would do to ticket sales. “That’s—well that’s extortion!”
“No, ma’am.” Titus narrowed his eyes so hard that, for a moment, Olivia thought he might actually have laser vision that he was about to use on her. “That isn’t extortion. That’s you not paying any attention to what you were really asking when you hired a private investigation company. You thought you were ready to hear what’s happening with your business. You thought you were ready to dig in and find the truth. But the truth is rarely comfortable and in your case, I would imagine it’s downright catastrophic.”
Olivia tried to response, to speak, to say something or anything to refute what Titus’s words seemed to be implying, but she couldn’t. Titus was right. He was absolutely right. She didn’t want to hear that her uncle was a thief. That wasn’t going to work for her. And if that was the case, then anything that was said to try to make her acknowledge that reality was not going to work for her either.
“You’re both wrong,” Olivia said hoarsely. “Uncle Riley would never do that. Someone is framing him. Someone is trying to make him look guilty. And you’re probably in on it.”
Duke cursed beneath his breath. This was the most she had seen of what might be considered a temper in the man and he seemed very upset. “We’re in on it? Really? That’s what you think? That we are somehow conspiring with—with who? With Harvey Lightman? We were secretly hired by Harvey Lightman to contract ourselves out to you in order to make sure your uncle looks guilty of a crime so Harvey can shut down the Moonrise Theater? We work for you, not Harvey!”
“Duke, let’s just go. All right?” Titus touched Duke’s shoulder. “It’s not worth it. I promise.”
“You promise?” Olivia whispered. “What’s not worth it? Me? Or telling the truth?”
Titus snorted as he slung his camera bag over his shoulder. “That’s really a question you ought to be asking yourself, Ms. Houghton.”
The two men did not wait any longer. They left with their equipment banging against their sides and their strides long and probably eager to walk away from this place. Olivia felt a strange and profound sense of relief when she watched them go. She didn’t follow them down the steps. Not yet. She needed to figure things out first. She needed a moment to collect herself. If that was even possible right now when it felt as though everything was falling apart.
Were they right? Was Uncle Riley really stealing from their customers? Riley swore that he wasn’t. He said they were looking for a scapegoat because they were too incompetent to find the real thief. But how could you find the real thief? It wasn’t like there was a great way to scan every single person in the theater.
“Signs,” Olivia whispered. “Signs to keep customers alert and more cameras. And maybe a security guy. We could hire a guy to sit in a booth and watch security footage. That might help.”
Yes. All of these things were the answer. That was what Olivia kept telling herself as she walked toward the end of the catwalk and the stairs. But before she could go down, Riley came up.
“I see you got rid of them,” Riley observed with a half twisted smirk on his face. “That’s good.”
Olivia swallowed. Somehow, Riley’s words didn’t sound all that innocent. “I fired them.”
“They were trying to make trouble for us,” Riley decided. He pursed his lips and shook his head. “I’m almost certain that Harvey Lightman got to them. It would make sense. Don’t you think?”
“I don’t know what I think,” Olivia whispered the words and felt like she didn’t want to think about this anymore. “I just want to go back to my office and total up the receipts for tonight. I’ll do the deposit and we can all go home and get some sleep.”
“That’s a good plan.” Riley put his arm around her and gave her an awkward kind of hug.
It was odd. He was her uncle. He had let her live with him for a year or two after her parents had died in a car crash when she was only fifteen years old. But she had never had much in the way of physical affection from him, Riley wasn’t that sort of man. He was supportive of her desire to dance and to perform. That he understood. But he wasn’t all that great with the other stuff, like basic human to human interactions that did not involve animals.
“I found a donkey,” Riley told her suddenly. “I think I’m going to go look at him tomorrow.”
Olivia bit her lip. How was the show supposed to afford this new act of his? Except Olivia knew how. He expected her to figure it out, to make it possible. As usual, she would cut and trim in other places so he could have what he needed, when he needed it, and where. Sometimes it felt like that was her only purpose.
Chapter Eighteen
Getting “fired” from the job at the
Moonrise Theater should not have been a big deal. It wasn’t like Duke and Titus didn’t know why they’d gotten fired. Their investigation had started to get too close for comfort. Too close to making Olivia face the awkward truth.
“Don’t take it so personally,” Titus murmured from the passenger side as Duke steered Henry the truck through the last knot of traffic before the winding two lane Route 76 opened up a bit just a mile or so away from their office. “She obviously knows what’s going on. That pretty much means you did your job in my book.”
Duke grunted. “I think we’ll have to agree to disagree there.”
“What? You think she’s honestly going to take a sincere look at that situation and just accept that her uncle has been picking pockets on the side?” Titus gave a shake of his shaggy dark head. “That’s not an easy thing to do. It takes time. I expect she’ll be calling us back in a few weeks when they’ve really gotten some complaints. Now that the old man has gotten away with it and managed to squeeze past the police and a private investigator, he’ll start getting pretty bold.”
There was one part of this whole thing that baffled Duke. “Why would he do that?”
“Escalate?”
“No. I get the escalation part. Escalation happens when a criminal either gets away with it or gets bored with the status quo. I mean the fact that he’s doing this at all!” Duke squeezed the steering wheel. “Is this some kind of compulsive problem? Does he need the money? I can’t help but wonder what he’s doing with the money he gets.”
“You mean is he ditching everything but the travelling cash or is this bigger than we realize?” Titus growled low in the back of his throat. “Without the ability to do a full victim profile, we don’t know. I’m sure those people involved have been taking care of their credit cards and that. But we don’t know if he’s used their driver’s licenses to steal their identity or not. Not without calling all of them and asking some pretty pointed questions.”
Rock Wolf Investigations: Boxset Page 13