The Devil's Own Game

by Annie Hogsett

  Time to go. Otis, Tony, and Lieutenant Wood were waiting.

  Tom and I both thanked Chad, and the three of us executed smooth handshakes all around. Otis shook his hand too. Chad beamed, but as we turned away, he had one more question. Troubled again, the flush of pride fading.

  “Tom? Did you ever wonder if maybe they shot that blind guy by mistake? Thinking it was you?”

  Chapter Nine

  10:55 a.m.

  Provenance, the museum’s restaurant, was poised to open its doors to the early luncheon crowd, but we slipped through, doing our best not to look like a threat to priceless art. As Tom threaded his way, folks kept glancing and glancing again. Appraising the tall, handsome blind guy. Dead ringer for a dead blind guy.

  The possibilities were tantalizing. And after all, how rude could it be to stare? I didn’t blame them, I stared at Tom all the time. But their double takes unnerved me. Moments before, Chad had spoken my worst unspoken fear. The pesky elephant I’d been frantically trying to banish from the room inside my chest was now barging around in there.

  Blind guy shot by mistake.

  I was painfully grateful when the young woman at the desk shepherded us through and walked us around a corner out of sight.

  The Provenance staff had set us up in a room designed for banquets. No banquet for us. Water, coffee, mints. End of story. No festive glassware laid on for a celebration. No understated floral design. We all brought our game faces. Three of the five of us brought guns.

  The windows of this room overlooked a moody vista of yellowed grasses, misty trees, and lowering clouds, dominated by the golden dome of the Temple-Tifereth Israel, now the university’s performing arts center. Beautiful. Atmospheric. Somber. Maybe that last part was me.

  We barely got a sip of the museum’s water before Deputy Director Cecilia Southgate—power-suited, and focused like a blowtorch—joined our party. Ms. Southgate was allowing us ten minutes out of the crisis-management intensity of her day. She made sure we were “comfortable and well taken care of” before she set us straight.

  “We’re grateful to have you all here this morning.” She scanned the table. Sharp blue eyes behind fashion-forward frames searched, assessed, and approved each of us in turn. Check. Check. Check. Check. Her gaze lingered on Tom, and a long, thoughtful pause shadowed her expression. Check.

  I strained to see Tom through Ms. Southgate’s eyes, minus the filter of all my Thomas Bennington addictions. He was the mirror of her most commanding qualities. Comprehensively educated, fiercely competent, devoted to the arts—even after his blindness stole the lion’s share of their joy from him. She was all that, but also the sort of woman who might be hearing Andrea Bocelli when she looked at Tom. I could let her off the hook on that one. Him too. Matter of principle. He couldn’t help being hot.

  Something else was front and center for Ms. Southgate as she sat staring at Tom. The realization triggering the distress I read in her eyes—and the fear that was rocking me now. On a dark night Tom could pass for Kip Wade.

  Blind guy shot by mistake?

  She shook it off. Damage control was her main job today. To be fair, nothing much had happened inside the museum. The guy showed up at the Touch Tour for mere moments, contributed to a scene of unpleasantness at the museum’s door, went on his way. What Ms. Southgate was still in the dark about was the news that Kip Wade, in 241-C, handed a blind woman in gray a message. For Tom. And the woman in gray had given it to me instead. An indelible moment I’d wiped clean off my consciousness.

  I can give the note to you now. For Tom.

  I blinked. Came back to what Cecilia Southgate was saying. “—why you’re here. All of us need this terrible crime to be solved. Explained. We’ll be able to breathe better when that happens.”

  She was gazing at Tom again. Sadly. Behind those sharp eyes a human being.

  “For Kip Wade and his family, this is a senseless tragedy. I knew Kip. He was a complicated young man but devoted to the arts and to this museum. He would want all of us to be safe and for you to help us find answers to give us all peace of mind. And bring his killer to justice, of course.”

  She stood up. Brisk again. “You have many things to talk about. I’ve given Detective Wood and Officer Valerio my number. If you have questions. If you have concerns. If you need food, coffee—Anything. Carte blanche. Call me. Ask anyone here for help or information.

  “You have my full cooperation and that of our staff. Don’t hesitate—” She left the invitation hanging.

  We waited in silence until her footsteps died.

  Cleveland Homicide Detective Olivia Wood took command of our round table. “Here’s where we are. As of this morning, Officer Valerio is on loan from the Fifth District to Homicide. We’re grateful for his help and his contribution to all our efforts last night. He is here, primarily, as our liaison with your agency, Tom and Allie. Your T&A—”

  Good job, Lieutenant Wood. She only rolled her eyes maybe a quarter-roll. Her lips only twitched a slight bit.

  “Let’s just call it the ‘arrangement’ you and Allie have with Officer Valerio. And Otis, who’s ex-cop and, I understand, a licensed PI. And your other associates.

  “Up to now, we’ve caught only glimpses, but I feel safe saying this is not a straightforward murder. Homicide is not usually this entangled. Somebody shoots somebody and we go pick up the one who’s still alive. Or it’s domestic—Woman hands us a gun and says, ‘I’ve been putting up with his shit for years.’

  “We need another shoe to drop.” She shook her head. Rueful. “I don’t think I’ve ever said that about a case. Not out loud.”

  “There’s a lot we don’t see yet. Connections not made. Perhaps the envelope we’ll be able to open shortly will cast some light—But I do believe you four will have a role in helping us resolve it. Tom, you have skills I’ve not encountered before. You’ll be an asset to this investigation, I’m sure.” A flash of wry humor. “Maybe now we know why the “T” gets top billing.”

  Tom shook his head.

  “Well, despite the unconventional name, I’m confident you all are not going to be a bunch of loose-cannon vigilantes, roaming around, interfering with our investigations, annoying citizens, getting yourselves hurt.”

  I did not dare look at Tony. I bet his eye roll was the full three-sixty. Tom could probably hear it. The hard, cold truth? On our first official case, we fledgling T&As crossed every single one of those boundaries in hot pursuit of answers. With exactly, but exactly, the results she’d enumerated. If we ever decided to ditch “T&A” as our name, we could pick up “Loose-Cannon Vigilantes” without missing a beat. Never mind. We were learning.

  Fortunately for me, Lieutenant Wood was giving Tom all her attention. “I’ll be frank about this too, Tom. Your money has already made a difference for us.”

  Refreshingly blunt, Detective Wood. No pussyfooting around the Mondo. I liked that about her too.

  “I understand you would prefer not to think of it as your money, Tom, but until you give it away or someone takes it from you, the power of it is yours. In the past months, you’ve more or less footed the bill for some good work. You prevented a significant crime against yourselves and a whole circle of people around you, and, more important from the CPD perspective, you helped dismantle a widespread criminal operation the Fifth District was delighted to see go. And, Tom, you and the T&A—

  Woo. Barely a flutter this time.

  “You helped solve a premeditated murder we were all set to miss. It’s safe to say there’d be no justice for Lloyd Bunker if not for you.”

  She refocused on the rest of us, rallying her points. “All of you are uniquely positioned to help us out now. For a number of reasons. Not the least of which is our awareness that last night’s incident keeps circling back to you.”

  I resisted the impulse to clamp my hands over my ears. Don’t let Tom
be the next victim. Don’t let him be the intended first victim. Don’t let somebody take a second shot.

  Too bad, Allie.

  I couldn’t shut out the cold certainty, coiling and twisting inside me. Like Tom’s kudzu. Or a nest of snakes. Kip Wade’s murder was somehow all about Tom.

  A quiet tap. The door to our meeting room swung open and the sound of merrily clinking crystal and silver, dinging against china, broke into my fragile state of mind like a falling tray of glassware.

  With impeccable, gut-wrenching timing, here came Chad Collins and the crime scene guy. Chad was wearing gloves like a pro, beaming like a Christmas morning, and proudly delivering, as if it were a square, paper version of the holy grail itself, an envelope.

  The Envelope.

  * * *

  Chad delivered his trophy to Olivia Wood, who produced a pair of gloves of her own, and he laid my “wedding invitation” on her gloved palms.

  “Ms.— Lieutenant. Wood. The woman who got this from Mr. Wade and gave it to Ms. Harper was wearing gloves.”

  I found my voice. Kept it level as I could. “She said, ‘As if it wasn’t bad enough to be blind,’ she had severe skin allergies.”

  Chad nodded. “But Allie wasn’t wearing gloves, of course. And the envelope spent the night in your purse, Allie.”

  He permitted himself a small disapproving grimace that suggested, “And your purse, Allie, is the Evidence Contamination Epicenter of the Known Universe. Also the purse equivalent of a twenty-nine-dollar-an-hour motel.”

  I wanted to shoot Chad an eye-dagger but spoiling his moment of glory would be like kicking a kitten. Also, in spite of the roil of fear and confusion set off by what this envelope might contain, I couldn’t un-notice the smudge of chocolate on its corner. I sucked all that up. No comment.

  Olivia handed the envelope over to the crime scene specialist who also wore gloves. He took pity on me. “It probably makes no difference, Ms. Harper. The entire area was unsecured until this morning because nobody last night understood it was significant. We did our best, but those galleries were a freeway. Once we have suspects, we may get additional opportunities to find something useful as evidence. For now, we agree we should open the envelope. Carefully. And see what it says. It could be—” He pressed his lips together. “Time-sensitive.”

  Our homicide detective agreed. “We want to see this now. Larry, do you have what you need?”

  Ah, Larry. Good to have a name. In case I had a question. And the guts to ask it.

  “Yes. Here. I’ll open it.” Larry hesitated. “Sorry, guys. You all get to wear these.”

  Disposable masks. All around.

  Moments freeze people. This one froze me. Especially my lungs. Trapped inside my mind, deep under icy water. Drowning. Dying for lack of my next breath and afraid to breathe it.

  Breathing could kill me. Kill us all.

  Larry noticed. He spoke to the table at large, but he looked straight at me. Captured my stare with his eyes. They were brown. They were warm. His eyebrows were reddish brown. I took the breath.

  “I’m Mr. Abundance of Caution,” he said in a reassuring, this-is-no-big-deal way.

  “You can skip the masks and step away, if you’d prefer. The odds are—Listen, it will be fine. It’s not going to explode or anything. This is routine. Protocol. Whoever sent it wanted to get your attention and probably scare you. Not kill you.”

  Of course I believed him. He’d saved my life.

  We all put on our masks. If one tiny grain of anything fell out of there, we’d leave the room in an orderly way. Everyone in the building would probably go too. In an abundance of caution.

  None of that happened. Larry, who I will always think of as Larry Calm & Brave, slit the envelope. The only thing big enough to be visible to the naked eye—a square of high-quality stationery—came out. A handful of words in elegant script, stood out black against the vellum. I could read it from where I was sitting.

  What you don’t see is what you get.

  Chapter Ten

  I put my hand on Tom’s arm as Olivia Wood read the message aloud, and I felt the muscles tense as he clenched his fist.

  “We can take our masks off now.” Larry said.

  We were all breathing again. But not smiling in relief. Chad was frowning bafflement. “What does it mean?”

  “I can think of a lot of things.” Tom had not unclenched his fingers.

  Larry, said, “There’s one more thing about this you all need to know.”

  We waited. He focused on me.

  “Allie, it’s—”

  “Larry?”

  “Your blind woman wasn’t blind.”

  * * *

  A coil within a coil.

  Larry Calm & Brave told us everything he knew.

  “While I was finishing up my part up in the galleries, one of the University Circle cops stopped in. He’s working with museum security, reviewing the thousand miles of tape they’re going through down there. He told me he kept hearing about the weird blind woman so he went and searched through the footage to figure out how she left the building. He found her, the bli—” He glanced toward Tom. “The woman in the gray dress.

  “He said he could tell she—or someone who briefed her—studied where all the cameras on her route into the museum were located and where they were aimed. Said the cameras do a great job and don’t miss much, but they can’t cover every square inch. You can duck them if you work on it. Takes effort. And attention. You’d have to be able to see.

  “She passed through at a precise angle to each one to keep them from catching her face. Looped her head scarf up close. Had her big glasses. He said she looked plenty eccentric but not blind. No cane in sight when she was in the atrium. And she left the building in a giant hurry. No tapping around—Sorry, Tom.”

  Tom shook him off. “Larry. No kidding. Tapping around is my freedom. You and I are fine. Somebody who steps up when there’s maybe anthrax on the table is my friend for life.

  “But this feels like more bad news. If she is not blind, she’ll have no connection to the people at the Tour. No record of registration. Nothing. We’ve lost her, and anything she knew about what happened. Except everything about her—about all of this—feels like it points to—”

  My elephant of dread was sitting at the table with us now.

  A name I’d never wanted to hear. A face I’d hoped never to see again.

  “Tom.” Lieutenant Wood cut him off. “Stick with us. We haven’t exhausted the possibilities. Not by half. There’s CCTV everywhere on the street and the grounds here. Give us a minute to run her down. This woman didn’t pop out of nowhere to casually hand you or Allie the envelope. Someone schooled her on how to pass as a blind person. Someone told her exactly what to say. She had to study the cameras, so she had to come here and look at them. At least once. Even if someone gave her a schematic or whatever. Take my word for it, Tom. People slip up. We’ll find her.

  “Even if she’s only the messenger, she knows more than she knows she knows—” She paused, chasing her sentence around. Shrugged. “You know what I mean.”

  Our eyes met and I knew something else: The homicide detective and I were having the exact same thought in the exact same moment. Only the messenger?

  Kill the messenger.

  A handful of times in my life, I’ve met someone who gave me the electrical jolt that says, Here is someone you are meant to know. Tom was all that and more. At first sight. No question. Unfortunately, D.B. Harper, my reprehensible ex, was so high-voltage and blue-eyed-red-hot back in the day, he was a false positive on that one. Fried all the circuits of common sense. Too bad. Those electrical shocks can be misread. And killer painful.

  In that moment with Lieutenant Olivia Wood of CPD Homicide, I was looking into the alternate universe in which I could have been her. Of my many roads-not-ta
ken, she was one. Too late now for that path, but I would at least become a much more effective amateur detective if I could learn from the woman who was definitely not looking at me as if I were “A Force for Crazy.” At all.

  I answered the realization I saw on her face.

  “We’d better find her soon.”

  She nodded without breaking eye contact. “Yes. Allie. We’d better. We’ll make it a priority.”

  The world unfroze and we moved on.

  Tom knew the messenger was in danger too, I could tell. He’d read the vibration off a high-frequency glance he couldn’t see. The Blind Spidey never sleeps.

  * * *

  Larry C&B was done with us. “Okay. Chad and I are out of here. I’ll take this envelope to the lab and we’ll see if—” His body language said, Don’t get your hopes up.

  Before they could make it to the door, somebody knocked on it.

  My vote was for coffee or maybe even lunch this time.

  Nope.

  A police officer in a blue uniform—the standard twenty-pound array of cop equipment, including cuffs, mace, and gun, bristling on his belt—popped the door open and walked on in. He was medium-tall, burly, with a blond crew cut that suited him perfectly.

  Larry said, “Oh, hey, Jack. I was just talking about you. Chad and I are done here. Come on in. Lieutenant Wood, this is the officer from the University Circle PD who’s looking at the tapes.”

  Officer Jack took three steps into the room, nodded to Lieutenant Wood, said, “ma-am,” to her. And then to the room at large, inquired, “Ms. Harper? Mr. Johnson?”

  Otis said, “That’s me.”

  I said, “And me.”

  The officer said, “Ms. Harper, Mr. Johnson. I need you to come with me.”

  To my paranoid ears that sounded official. For three seconds I wondered whether the University Circle cops had a jail, and if it would have decent Wi-Fi.