Tanner banked the corner too fast for the road conditions.
I grabbed the armrest and braced my other hand on the dash. “Take it easy. I want to get to the hospital as a visitor, not a patient.”
A few minutes later, Tanner turned into the hospital parking lot. “We’re looking for a white Caddy.”
“Stop! There she is.”
Malgucci had Aunt Martha by the upper arm and looked as if he was muscling her toward a car, his other hand in his pocket.
Holding a gun? In my mind, I jumped from the SUV, my weapon drawn, and crouched behind the hood, shouting, “Hands in the air!”
In reality, I was paralyzed. Or . . . no, were those Tanner’s fingers clamped around my arm? “What are you doing? They’re going to get away.”
“Your aunt doesn’t look as if she’s with him against her will. Look at her face.”
Malgucci pulled his hand from his pocket, sporting a key, not a gun, and as he reached for the door handle, I could see Aunt Martha’s face in the glow of the parking lot lights. She was smiling. Positively beaming.
Tanner’s grip on my arm loosened. “How about you holster that gun and we go out and chat with them?”
“Right.” I snapped my weapon back in place and shoved open the door. “Aunt Martha, you okay?” I stayed behind the cover of Tanner’s hood while I gauged Malgucci’s reaction.
“Serena? What are you doing here?”
“Looking for you.” I glanced at Malgucci. “Mom was worried.”
Aunt Martha weaved around the parked cars toward us, tugging him behind her. “This is Carmen and he’s offered to be tested as a possible kidney donor for Mrs. Burke.”
My attention snapped back to Malgucci. “Really?”
His gaze dove to the ground, his cheeks reddening.
“Ten years ago his wife needed a kidney and a perfect stranger came forward to help her,” Aunt Martha explained. “After I talked to him Saturday night about Mrs. Burke, he couldn’t stop thinking about her and wanted to see if he might be a match.”
“Wow.” I stepped around the hood of the SUV, joining Tanner. If this got out, it could do serious damage to his mobster reputation.
Aunt Martha moved closer and lowered her voice. “I think we put her poor husband in shock, though. He kept saying, ‘I never thought she’d come through.’”
“I can relate,” Carmen said somberly. “There were many times I thought my wife would never come through. When you have to wait so long for a donor, you start to lose hope. I was tested for my wife, and from those records, it looks like I might be compatible with Mrs. Burke, but we probably shouldn’t have said anything before it’s confirmed.”
“You will be,” Aunt Martha said positively. “I can feel it in my bones.”
“Are you heading home now?” I asked, thinking about what Mom was probably feeling in her bones about now.
“I’ll take her straight home,” Carmen promised.
“Thank you.” I mulled over what Aunt Martha had said about Burke’s reaction as they headed back to Carmen’s car. What if Burke hadn’t been referring to his wife?
Aunt Martha’s crazy theory flashed through my mind that the paintings had been stolen to pay for a kidney. I shook my head.
“What are you thinking?” Tanner asked me as Carmen and Aunt Martha drove away.
I muffled a groan. “If my face is that transparent, I need to seriously rethink going back undercover.”
He laughed. “It’s not to everybody. I just happen to know your tell.”
“What? I don’t have a tell.”
He slanted me a look. “Mmm-hmm.”
“I don’t!”
Silence.
“Okay, what is it then? Tell me.”
Tanner grinned. “Well, if I tell you, it wouldn’t be a ‘tell.’ It’d be a . . . drumroll, please.”
I rolled my eyes.
“A ‘told.’”
“Tan-ner,” I said, as menacingly as I could while stifling a laugh.
He finished chortling at his own joke, then relented.
“You nibble on your bottom lip when you’re thinking about something that makes you uneasy.”
“I do?” How could I not be aware of that?
“So . . . what were you thinking about just now?”
I sighed. “Aunt Martha’s painting-for-a-kidney theory.”
Tanner’s head tilted. “You think Burke stole the painting? To pay for a kidney?”
I shook my head, already regretting even mentioning it. The last thing I wanted to do was arrest the husband of a critically ill woman. “I’d thought he might’ve seen who did and accepted a bribe to pay his wife’s medical bills. But his ‘I never thought she’d come through’ made me think of Linda. Like what if the bribe wasn’t money, but a promise to find him a donor?”
“We’d better talk to him,” Tanner said. “Especially if you’re right about that dead kid being one of your suspects.”
We hurried up to Mrs. Burke’s room, but her husband wasn’t there.
“He was worried about the weather,” she said. “Left about ten minutes ago.”
The lights were off in Burke’s house when we pulled up in front of it, and the driveway was empty.
“Doesn’t look like he’s home yet,” Tanner said.
“Listen.” I lowered the passenger window. “It’s a motor running, and it sounds like it’s coming from the garage.” I jumped out of the car, raced to the garage’s side door, and peered through the tiny window. “His car’s in there, but I can’t see if he’s inside!”
I rammed my shoulder against the garage door. Gave it a hard kick above the doorknob. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” I said as Tanner ran up with a Maglite.
He shone the light through the window. “It looks like he’s slumped over in the front seat. Call 911.”
As I pulled out my phone, Tanner rammed his boot at the doorknob and the door splintered open.
“Show-off.”
He pulled his jacket over his mouth and nose, jabbed on the lights and the remote that opened the bay door, then raced to the car and tugged on Burke’s door. “This one’s locked.”
Following Tanner’s example, I pulled my scarf over my mouth and nose and tried the passenger door. “This side too.” Burke’s face was ashen. “He doesn’t look good.” The garage reeked of engine exhaust, but carbon monoxide—odorless and deadly—was the real concern.
“Watch out!” Tanner snatched a hammer off the workbench and smashed the claw end through the passenger window.
It shattered into a thousand crumbly squares. I reached in and unlocked the door, then turned off the ignition and felt Burke’s neck. “Got a pulse!”
Tanner raced to the driver’s side. “Unlock this door so we can get him out without dragging him through the glass.” He clamped his arms around Burke’s chest and pulled.
I ran around and grabbed his legs. “Outside! He needs fresh air.”
Sirens cut through the night as we carried him out. The icy rain had stopped, but the ground was still slick. Tanner backed his way toward the porch where it was drier.
My heart crunched at the sight of Burke’s pasty complexion, and the memory of Granddad’s lifeless face caught me by the throat.
Burke began to rouse.
“Mr. Burke, Mr. Burke, can you hear me?” We laid him on the porch and as I rubbed his hand, trying to get him to respond, Tanner balled up his jacket and tucked it under Burke’s head.
“Why?” Burke whispered, a tortured expression twisting his face. “I told her I wouldn’t tell.”
I exchanged a glance with Tanner, not liking how this sounded. “Told who?” I patted his cheeks. “Mr. Burke, stay with me. What wouldn’t you tell?”
Tanner caught me by the shoulders and pulled me away. “The paramedics are here.”
I resisted letting him move me more than a few feet back. “Didn’t you hear what Burke said? Someone did this to him. A her. A her who was afraid he’d tell
on her.”
Tanner shook his head. “You’re extrapolating. For all we know he could’ve been talking about something he told his wife.”
“He has a contusion on the back of his head,” one of the paramedics said. “Did you see how he got it?”
“No.” We filled the paramedics in on how we found him slumped in the front seat of the running car, then repeated the story to the police officers who arrived shortly afterward. My friend Matt Speers was one of the responding officers. I told him what Burke said and about the contusion the paramedics found and that Burke was a witness in a federal case. “This wasn’t a suicide attempt. You need to canvass the neighbors. Ask if anyone saw someone suspicious lurking around. A strange vehicle on the street. Anything out of the ordinary.”
“We will,” he assured.
Tanner gave Matt his card so he could keep us posted, and then we followed the ambulance to the hospital. The triage nurse relegated us to an empty waiting room.
Tanner motioned me to take a seat and pulled another chair up beside mine. “What do you think Burke knows?”
I reminded him of my theory that Cody had bribed Burke to keep quiet about something he saw, and my unconfirmed belief that Cody was killed in a hit-and-run by a driver of a black pickup.
“And now you think Cody’s partner is tying up loose ends?”
“Yes.”
“And I’m guessing you think the partner is Linda?”
“You heard Burke. He said her.”
“Half the population is female.”
“Yes, but Linda’s the only one who’s quit her job and skipped town since I started investigating this case. Not to mention convinced her powerful boyfriend to pull strings with Benton to get her off my suspect list.”
“Benton wouldn’t have done that unless he believed she was innocent.”
“I have an informant who says a blonde tried to sell the Monet to a local pawnshop before Christmas.”
“And what’s that? Half the female population?”
“You got any better theories?”
“Nope. If he comes around enough for us to talk to him, let’s run with that one and see where we go.”
Matt Speers stepped into the small waiting room. “Doesn’t look like any of us will get more information out of your witness tonight.”
I sprang to my feet. “Did you talk to the doctor?”
“Yes, he says Burke hasn’t regained consciousness, and if he does, the doctor doesn’t want us disturbing him before morning.”
“But he’s going to make it, isn’t he?” I asked.
Matt shrugged. “Apparently the CO levels in his blood are dangerously high.”
I turned to Tanner. “We need to talk to his wife.” I would have told him he could head home, but I needed him to take me to retrieve my car from the bowling alley’s parking lot, and I didn’t want to leave before I talked to Burke’s wife.
Matt blocked our exit. “There’s something else I need to tell you.”
I didn’t like the look of his jaw working back and forth or the shadow that crossed his eyes. “What?” My voice sounded unnaturally high.
“Two of Burke’s neighbors noticed a black pickup parked on the street around the time he returned from the hospital.”
I stared at him, feeling as if my mind were racing through the implications at the same time it was being sucked into quicksand.
“Did either of them get a license plate?” Tanner spoke up.
Matt searched my eyes before lifting his gaze to Tanner. “No.”
I drew in a deep breath and sank into a chair. “But this is good, right? It means that everything’s connected. Cody’s death, if I’m right about that. The attempt on Burke’s life. My”—I swallowed hard, searching for the right word—“excitement on the highway this morning.”
Tanner hunkered down beside me and squeezed my hand.
Right, who was I kidding? A guy who’d run down a kid in cold blood and stuff an unconscious man in an exhaust-filled car didn’t clip my car for the fun of it.
I slipped my hand from Tanner’s clasp and lifted my chin. “The only thing Burke, Cody, and I have in common is my investigation into the art museum theft. The real culprit must’ve been afraid Burke was going to give him away. We need to post a guard on his room in case he tries again.”
“Taken care of,” Matt confirmed.
“Good, let’s see what his wife can tell us.”
The nurse intercepted us before we got to the room. “I’m afraid it’s too late for visitors. Our patients need their rest.”
I reached for my badge, but Matt was in uniform and said, “This is police business.”
The nurse wavered a moment, then let us pass.
“You might want to post a guard outside her room tonight too,” Tanner suggested to Matt before we went in.
Matt gently broke the news to Mrs. Burke about her husband’s condition, sounding far more optimistic about his prospects for recovery than he had ten minutes ago. Not that I blamed him. Mrs. Burke looked so frail, lying in the hospital bed with oxygen under her nose and an IV taped to the back of her age-spotted hand. Matt motioned to Tanner and me. “These are the agents that saved your husband. They’d like to ask you a few questions.”
Gratitude filled Mrs. Burke’s eyes. “Oh, thank you so much for saving my Henry. I don’t know what I’d do without him.”
I pulled up a chair next to her bed as Tanner leaned against the wall beside Matt. “Mrs. Burke, your house wasn’t burglarized, so it appears that your husband’s assailant had been waiting for him. Do you know who would want to hurt your husband?”
She shook her head. “That can’t be right. Everyone loves Henry. He must’ve surprised another prowler.”
I recalled her mentioning hearing a prowler that first day I’d visited their house. “What was the prowler looking for?”
“I don’t know. We don’t have anything worth stealing.”
“Your husband mentioned a woman, someone he’d made a promise to about not telling something. Do you know who that would be?”
The wrinkles on her forehead deepened. “No.”
“Do you know what secret he’d promised to keep?”
Her eyes rounded. “You’re wrong. We never kept secrets from each other.”
“We think it might’ve been an employee at the museum,” I pressed. “And he could still be in danger. If you know anything, anything at all, you need to tell us.”
She gasped, panic lighting her eyes. “I don’t! You have to be wrong. Henry is a good man.”
Tanner pushed off the wall and whispered close to my ear. “Let’s go. She doesn’t know anything, and you’ve already got everything you need to know.”
Yeah, that Burke was the kind of man who’d do anything for the woman he loved.
18
At the sound of a motor humming through my apartment door, I reached into my jacket pocket and palmed my small off-duty pistol. I didn’t usually carry when out for a run, but with black-pickup dude playing pinball with my life, I wasn’t taking any chances. On second listen, the motor sounded a lot like a vacuum.
What on earth? Hit men were cleaning up before their crimes these days?
I opened the door and followed the vacuum cord down the hall. I had a hard time believing Aunt Martha got bit by a cleaning bug, but she and Zoe were the only ones with keys to the place. Well, and Nate.
I hesitated halfway down the hall and nixed the homey image of Nate doing my chores. Nate wouldn’t let himself in to vacuum, would he? That would cross waaaay too many boundaries.
I reached down and yanked the cord from the outlet.
“Lousy breakers,” Mom muttered, shuffling out of the bedroom, blowing wayward hair out of her eyes.
“Mum? How did you get in here?”
“Oh, Serena, you’re back. Good. I used the spare key Aunt Martha gave me when she lived here.”
“Why?”
“Because she’s gone out again with that M
algucci fellow and you need to do something.”
I zipped the pocket hiding my pistol and dropped my jacket on my bed. “I have to have a shower and get to work. Besides, Carmen seems like a nice enough man.” If you ignored his alleged profession. “And in case you haven’t noticed, no one stops Aunt Martha from doing anything she sets her mind on.”
Mom huffily wound up the vacuum cord as I grabbed my bathrobe and towel. Not that I was complaining. I’d rather her fuss about Aunt Martha’s love life than mine, and if she wanted to go on a cleaning binge while she did it, bonus.
“What’s with that orange smell?” Mom asked as she shoved the vacuum back in the closet. “The whole apartment smells like oranges.”
“I was diffusing the essential oil. It’s supposed to relieve stress.”
“Stress? Ha! Wait until you have a daughter who wants to play cops and robbers instead of give you grandchildren, not to mention a crazy aunt who dates a mobster. Then we’ll talk about stress.”
“Mum, Aunt Martha is fine. She’s not doing anything illegal.”
“Where your aunt’s concerned, I wouldn’t be too sure. You never should’ve encouraged her sleuthing.”
Okay, I would’ve conceded that point, but a call interrupted the discussion. Detective Hanes. I edged away from Mom as I answered. “Do you have news?”
“Yes, you were right. Cody’s dental records confirmed he’s our John Doe.”
“I can’t say I’m glad to hear it, but it’s good to know. Thanks for calling.” I clicked off the phone. “I’m sorry, Mum. There’s been a new development in my case and I need to hurry.” I didn’t mention that the college kid I’d been looking for had been killed in a hit-and-run, possibly caused by the same jerk who’d tried to take me out on the highway. Wouldn’t want to add to her stress.
Mom snatched her coat out from under the sleeping cat on the spare bed. “Okay, but if your aunt winds up in the slammer, you’ll be the one we’ll call to bail her out.”
“Fair enough.” And as much as I didn’t think we needed to worry about her being out with Carmen Malgucci, I wouldn’t be surprised if I got such a call. Aunt Martha was like one of those extreme sports nuts who didn’t realize “safety harness” was a pseudonym for “hang on for dear life or you’ll die harness.”
A Fool and His Monet Page 19