“We have surveillance video that suggests otherwise,” Chang tells him. “How do you think we got our warrant?”
“Why would I want to break into her vault?” he asks. “I got enough money to buy art. I don’t need to steal it.”
Chang notices Mills leaning in the entranceway. “Gabriel Norwood, please meet Detective Alex Mills . . .”
Mills steps forward, extends a hand. The men shake. Mills assesses Gabriel Norwood, this son of religious quackery. He’s not bad looking, but the dark circles and the bags drooping in sad half-moons from his eyes make him look like a much older person. Mills has seen these eyes before. These are the eyes of a drug dealer. Maybe a coke addict. The kid’s hair is a golden tousle of curls. There’s no hint of the Phoenix sun on his face, instead the kid’s face bears a sallow complexion; Gabriel Norwood needs a good night’s sleep. In this shape, he looks like neither of his parents, though his Colgate smile does suggest they all share the same dentist. The smile lasts about three seconds before Gabriel sinks back into the couch beside Chang and folds his arms across his chest. Mills sits opposite them.
“How many more detectives have to show up before I change my mind and call a lawyer?” Gabriel asks.
“Is that a rhetorical question?” Mills retorts.
“No.”
“You’re welcome to call a lawyer at any time,” Chang tells him. “But we haven’t arrested you. Yet . . .”
Norwood rolls his eyes. His insolence, Mills guesses, is genetic. He’s wearing a crisp pair of linen trousers and a crisp V-neck t-shirt that fits him like the tightest hyperbole in the drawer. His shoulders, pecs, and biceps burst from the fabric. Mills is surprised by the man’s physique given his obvious affection for drugs. Ah, yes, drugs . . . steroids are probably on the menu as well.
“He told us he was out of town on the night of the gallery breakin,” Chang says. “Says he was with his mother in Switzerland. When we asked about his passport to prove his whereabouts, he told us he’d already returned it to his safe deposit box at the bank.”
“Wow,” Mills says. “What do we do with all these lies?”
Norwood scoffs. “If it weren’t for your damned search warrant, I’d kick you out of my house this minute.”
“I thought we’d wait for you, Detective Mills, to disprove his alibi. Since you might be the only one in the house right now who can,” Chang says.
Mills begins with a bitter laugh. “I’m just wondering, Gabriel, when did you return from Switzerland?”
“Day before yesterday . . .”
“Did your mother come back with you, or is she still in Switzerland?”
“She’s still there.”
“She isn’t.”
The kid snorts and Mills wants to punch him in the face. He hasn’t punched anyone in the face in a long, long time, and never a suspect, but he’s tempted to make an exception for this little shit. “I would know where my mother is,” Norwood says.
“I would know where she isn’t,” Mills counters. “Because she’s at the Desert Charm, and she had been there a while before Viveca Canning’s murder.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“Surveillance spotted you at the hotel. And I’ve met with her there. Twice,” Mills says. “Did she not tell you?”
“She did not,” Norwood says, impatience in his voice. “And what makes you think she didn’t jet off to Switzerland for a few nights? She might have been gone with me the night of the so-called break-in.” Chang leans closer and says, “OK, Gabriel. If you were in Switzerland with Mom, tell us who was driving your car that night. If you give us a name we can verify, that changes the situation . . .”
Not a peep.
They all sit there looking, not looking, nodding, not nodding. Sure, they can hear the sound of the search warrant, but the riffling through the life of Gabriel Norwood has become a buffering white noise.
Powell enters the room. She surveys the silence and seems to take a special joy in breaking it. “Nothing conclusive yet,” she says. “But obviously there are plenty of fingerprints here, so Scottsdale will try to match the prints found at the gallery. We should know very quickly.” Then she leaves the room with efficiency.
“Told you,” the kid actually says. “Nothing conclusive.”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t hold on to that hope much longer,” Chang tells him. “So, again, who was driving your car the night of the break-in while you were in Switzerland?”
“I don’t name names.”
“Even to clear yourself?” Chang asks him.
“Right.”
“Dude, you sound like an amateur,” Mills says. “It’s best to cooperate. I think Francesca in Bungalow 18 West would agree.”
Norwood sits up, pushes himself to the edge of the couch. “Leave my mother out of this.”
Mills admires the guy’s nerve even if he mocks it at the same time. “But I’m really surprised she didn’t tell you about my visits with her. It’s a huge case, and Viveca was so close to your family.”
“Look, Detective, my mom and I are just, kind of, getting reacquainted,” Gabriel says, suddenly even and amenable. “So she’s guarded. Still keeping her distance.”
“That’s right,” Mills says, as if he’s just remembering, “you were excommunicated for embezzling money from the church.”
The guy laughs. “I think ‘embezzling’ is an embellishment.”
“You stole a million dollars from the church.”
“I was never charged!”
“Because your parents never reported it to the police!”
This brings back memories for Mills. Not that his son ever stole a million dollars from anyone, but back in high school Trevor did sell pot to an undercover cop, and the disappointment and the anger and the embarrassment raged through Mills like a virulent disease. So, here he is, years later, in a fever, yelling at Gabriel Norwood. He hears his own words, doesn’t understand the relapse. Mills has forgiven his son and they’ve moved on.
“Why don’t you take responsibility, Gabriel?” he hammers. “Huh? Because that would force you to fucking grow up? Why don’t you fucking grow up? You’re twenty-five, not fifteen.”
“You can’t talk to me like that!”
“Don’t fucking try me, buddy. Or it’ll get much worse.”
Gabriel jumps to his feet. Mills gets up instantly in response. They stand there like wrestlers before a match, and Chang clears her throat, as if to signal a timeout before the match has even begun. Now she’s on her feet, one hand to Mills’s chest, another to Norwood’s. “Guys, come on,” she says. “You both sit down now. We’re all on edge. Nothing about this is pleasant.”
Mills takes a bird’s-eye view of the whole scene and sees his own embarrassment, the redness in his face. He mutters an apology to Chang and sits down. To her other side, she pushes Gabriel to the couch where he sinks. She’s about to retreat as well when Jan Powell enters with one of the Scottsdale cops.
“We’ve got a crime scene here that looks like something out of Anne Frank’s diary,” she says.
“Nazis?” Mills asks. Nothing would surprise him these days.
“No,” Powell replies. “A bookcase that hides a hidden stairway to an attic.”
“We found drugs,” the Scottsdale cop says. “Pills, probably Fentanyl, and what looks like cocaine.”
All eyes turn to Gabriel Norwood, whose face is taking on the purple of a bruise. It’s as if he’s holding his breath and banging his head against the wall at the same time. But he’s doing neither. He’s just sitting there quietly imploding.
“Oh, Jesus, I’m going to have to arrest you on more charges than I thought,” Chang says.
“Plus, a pet cobra and two little monkeys,” the cop says. “I think tamarins.”
“Come on, Norwood,” Chang says. “Is there a crime you haven’t committed?”
“No, there isn’t,” Powell says. “We found even more . . . Preston?”
Moving like a human easel, Prest
on comes in from around the corner carrying a painting. He’s walking backward, then spins around. The painting, even to the untrained eye, looks an awful lot like a Dali.
37
Dalis are distinctive. You just know. There doesn’t seem to be a doubt in the room. Mills pulls up his inbox on his phone, searches for the email from Phoebe Canning Bickford. He studies the photo she attached, then the painting. He volleys back and forth like that to confirm, to reconfirm, to re-reconfirm. Stick figures on a desert landscape. Sand dunes. Sky. It’s obvious. It’s the same image. It’s the painting taken from Viveca Canning’s home.
“I guess this is my cue to arrest you for the murder of Viveca Canning,” Mills tells Gabriel Norwood, as he cuffs him and chants his Miranda. “Let’s go, dude. There’s a cruiser waiting for you outside.” Gabriel apparently doesn’t grasp the right to remain silent.
“You don’t understand! You don’t understand!” he cries.
“What don’t we understand, Gabriel?” Mills ask him.
The guy is curled up on the couch, nearly fetal, his eyes full of tears. “I didn’t act alone. I promise. This wasn’t my idea.”
“What wasn’t?” Mills reaches for his phone again, turns on the voice recorder.
“Any of this.”
Mills takes a deep breath. He braces himself for a desperate fantasy, but he also braces himself for the truth. He’ll know the truth. “Maybe you’d like to explain when we take you in for questioning . . .”
Gabriel sits up. “You’re looking at the wrong Norwood . . .”
“Are you sure you don’t want a lawyer present?” Mills asks him. “When you hear what I have to say, I won’t need a lawyer.”
Mills shakes his head, not so much to caution Norwood, but to dismiss the kid’s stupidity. “Whatever you say, Gabriel. I think we should continue this at headquarters. Let’s go.”
“No! Wait! Please take off the handcuffs . . .”
“I can’t do that,” Mills tells him.
“But when you hear what I’m going to say, you won’t need to arrest me.”
“You’re already under arrest,” Mills reminds him. “But I’m listening.”
According to Gabriel, the break-in at Carmichael & Finn was an attempt to locate an ancient key that Clark Canning stole from Gleason Norwood. The key represented some kind of leverage, and Gabriel’s father wanted it back.
“What if I told you the key you were looking for was locked away in a chest?” Mills asks.
“Then we would have just taken the chest . . .”
“Really?” Preston asks. “Then what’s this?” He nods to the Scottsdale officer who holds up a small gold key. Mills isn’t wearing gloves, so the officer brings the key to his face. It’s a Schlage.
“Interesting, Detective Preston,” Mills says. “That looks like the key that might have fit the lock on the chest. Hmm. How did you come by this?” he asks Norwood.
The kid starts to shake. “Someone gave it to me.”
“Who?” Mills asks.
“I don’t remember,” Gabriel sputters, his body nearly convulsing.
“Well, I can certainly help jog your memory,” Powell says. “The key has adhesive residue all over it, as if it were stuck to something or taped to something. Curiously enough, when you turn the painting around . . .”
She gestures to Preston who spins the exhibit, like a game show host, to show the audience the backside of the Dali.
“You’ll find a patch of rough adhesive on the back of the frame,” Powell continues.
Preston points.
“The key came from the frame of this painting,” Powell says. “A painting that was taken from the home of Viveca Canning.”
Gabriel’s head is in his cuffed hands. He speaks to the floor when he says, “I told you it wasn’t my idea.”
“Then whose was it?” Mills asks.
“I’m dizzy,” Gabriel says.
“Would you like some water?”
“Yes.”
Chang crosses the room to the kitchen where she grabs a bottle of water from the fridge. On her way back she opens the cap, says, “hope this helps,” and hands Gabriel the bottle.
He gulps. He’s saving his own life. He drowns. He flails. Mills doesn’t know what he’s watching. Then Norwood comes up for air and says, “Eventually you’re going to find out that I did this for my father.”
“Did what?”
“I’m not making a full confession.”
“Then I don’t understand you,” Mills says. “Let’s go, Gabe. I’m taking you in.”
The man sobs. “Jesus Christ,” he roars between choking tears. “Let me have my laptop.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s been seized as evidence,” Mills says, then looks to Preston. “Could you leave that masterpiece with us and go check with Myers on the laptop?”
Norwood gulps the rest of the water, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. Mills is beginning to smell the guy’s fear, not figuratively; the guy really is beginning to stink. His sweat glands must be working on overdrive as they secrete his dark, compromising secrets.
Preston returns with a MacBook.
“I’m going to show you something on my computer,” Norwood says. “I’ll read it to you. And if you want it, I’ll forward it to you.”
“You can do this with handcuffs on?” Preston asks, opening the laptop.
“Watch me.”
“Wait,” Mills says. “You need to put on gloves even if it is your own device.”
The Scottsdale cop provides the gloves, and the handcuffed suspect types away. Then he reads.
“‘Gleason, I do not appreciate the way our conversation ended today. I know what I know. And I’ve seen what I’ve seen. No amount of threats can undo this. I just came to you with questions and you threatened to have the police remove me from the church. That was hurtful and ugly. No one has supported you more so than Clark and I have. We have essentially built that church for you. And, trust me, you do not want the police at that church . . .’”
Mills stops him. “If that’s some kind of communication between Viveca and your father, we should also have it. We seized her computer.”
Gabriel stares at him. “You won’t find it,” he says. “Nope. I hacked into both her computer and my dad’s and removed all incriminating emails. He told me to. But I saved the best ones.”
He’s now smiling deviously.
“Just so you know, we would’ve found this one eventually, despite your hacking,” Mills tells him. “I have an expert who’s recovering pretty much everything Viveca ever did on that computer.”
Gabriel shrugs. “And that can take forever ’cause there are hundreds of emails. But now you don’t have to waste your time. You can have this if you let me go.”
Mills laughs, despite himself. It was a visceral reaction, instinctive. “First of all, we’re taking it. It’s evidence. It’s already ours. Secondly, we don’t make the deals. That’s for the county attorney. And I promise you, the county attorney is going to want a whole lot more from you than one email to even consider negotiating a plea deal. I really think you’ll want a lawyer if this is any indication of your judicial prowess.” Chang claps her hands. “Nicely said, my man.”
Mills smiles at her, but also winces.
“Let me finish,” Gabriel insists, and then reads, “‘This is my official resignation from the Board of Directors from the Church of Angels Rising. This is also my notice that I will be leaving the church and denouncing my membership. Effective immediately. I have everything documented, so if you try to punish me for my defection as you have others, you will not prevail. I will live my untouchable life in peace and serenity. I will be leaving Phoenix. You will soon find that I’m changing my will and leaving my full estate to my children rather than the church. The art will go to the Heard. My legacy will not be a legacy tied to a church of horrors. I told you what I saw. You know I know the truth. I don’t yet know what I will do to expose you and your church. I do
n’t yet know how law enforcement will react to my discoveries. But you shall soon find out. You are a despicable man, Gleason Norwood. You have ruined people. You have destroyed the minds of innocent people. You have engineered a pathological, devious program of brainwashing and punishment. It will come out. I promise you. You will pay the price. I’m sorry it has come to this, Gleason. I’m deeply hurt and disappointed. Please don’t contact me. If I need to I will get a restraining order. One more thing . . . I suspect you’re behind the death of my husband. Sincerely, Viveca Canning.’”
Mills lets that sink in. He lets the room take a collective breath. On the exhale he says, “So, it seems Viveca confronted your father in person about something she saw at the church. Maybe he threatened her, and then she went home and composed her farewell. Poor woman, though. She had no idea she’d be making a fatal and permanent move.”
“What did she see at the church?” Powell asks.
According to Gabriel, Viveca saw everything. In the blabbery that comes next, Gabriel describes a maze of rooms and hallways underneath the church, through a door that can only be opened by that ancient key. He says there are chambers behind that door where the worst of the church’s activities take place. “That’s all I’m going to say. If you want to know what Viveca saw, you’re going to have to get a search warrant for the church . . .”
“With enough time for you to tip your father off?” Powell asks him.
“I’m in custody. Remember?”
She sneers at him. “Don’t be a smartass.”
“So, your father decides that he needs to eliminate Viveca Canning?” Mills asks the suspect.
“Originally, I was only supposed to get the key from Viv,” Gabriel says. “But then her confrontation with Gleason happened . . .”
“So you killed her to silence her?” Mills asks. “This doesn’t add up, Gabriel. You’d been excommunicated from the church, cut off from your parents, why would you turn around and protect the church that banished you?”
Gabriel closes the laptop. Tears fill his eyes. He shakes his head, wipes his nose with the bottom half of his designer t-shirt. He’s cornered. Decorum is a moot point. “My dad promised to reinstate me in the church if I got the key and got rid of Viveca Canning.”
Valley of Shadows Page 35