“I’m coming with you.”
A single look told him he could have a screaming match at the curb or he could shut up and take her along. He wondered if it was too late to go back to the silent treatment.
“Do you have the letters that mention Sherberne?” he asked tightly.
She lifted a battered manila envelope.
“Are you familiar with the good-cop bad-cop routine?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Guess which you’re going to be.”
“Bad cop.”
“Guess again.”
He stalked to the gallery door with her hurrying along behind. The silver bell over the gallery door was delighted to announce their entry. A slim, tan, and sun-blond male in a white cowboy shirt emerged from the back room.
“Sherberne himself,” Cain said very softly to her.
Sherberne’s bolo tie was held by a chunk of turquoise the size of a hen’s egg. His polite smile faded as he took in Cain’s clothes. By the time the man catalogued Christy’s well-used outfit, his welcoming expression had disappeared completely.
“May I help you with something,” he said.
It wasn’t a question. His expression said he didn’t have anything they could afford to want.
Cain and Christy looked around the gallery. The decor was Santa Fe modern, white-on-white adobe walls, polished glass display cases, and intensely focused overhead lights. The cases were full of excellent artifacts, yet he catalogued and dismissed them with a single educated glance.
Good, but not unique.
“Mr. Art Sherberne, right?” Cain asked.
Sherberne hesitated, then nodded slightly.
Cain’s easy smile turned hard. He went to the front door, snapped the deadbolt into place, and turned the OPEN sign around.
“What are you doing?” Sherberne asked in a rising voice as he took a step toward his desk.
“Forget your silent alarm,” Cain said calmly. “The last guys you want in your lap right now are cops.”
The gallery owner froze like a man who knew exactly what Cain was talking about.
“What do you have in mind?” Sherberne asked.
“I’m looking for some pots,” Cain said. “Good San Juan Basin black-on-whites, ones that use Kokopelli motifs and maybe a tortoise clan symbol.”
Sherberne’s eyes widened fractionally. “I’m afraid I can’t help you.”
“Just like that? You don’t even have to check an inventory sheet?”
“Items such as those you described are quite rare. I don’t have any.”
“You’re certain?”
“I personally select every piece that passes through this gallery,” Sherberne snapped.
Cain smiled like a wolf. “Then you’d be able to tell me whether you’ve handled any pieces like that in the past.”
“That’s none of your business.”
“Don’t bet on it.”
Sherberne didn’t like whatever he saw in Cain’s eyes. The gallery owner looked away. “Who are you?”
Cain ignored the question and asked one of his own. “Have you handled goods using symbols of either Kokopelli or a tortoise?”
Sherberne’s jaw worked. “No.”
“Wrong answer.” Cain turned to Christy. “Show him the letters.”
She brought out the envelopes that had Sherberne Gallery in their return address.
Sherberne swallowed.
“Does the name Christa Jody McKinley mean anything to you?” Christy asked.
Sherberne’s thin, tanned face turned as pale as his shirt. He looked at Cain with dawning horror.
“You’re the—” Abruptly Sherberne regained control and stopped talking.
“I’m the what?” Cain asked.
Sherberne shook his head.
“Don’t be a fool,” Cain said. “These letters prove you’re involved in the buying and selling of stolen property.”
“Stolen?”
Sherberne looked genuinely surprised. He went to his desk, picked up a pack of cigarettes, and shook one out. After it was lit he stood and looked at Cain narrowly.
“So, you did handle the pieces,” Christy said.
Blowing a stream of smoke, Sherberne nodded.
“Where are they?” Cain asked.
“Sold.”
“Japan or Germany?”
The gallery owner gave Cain a hard look. “I don’t discuss business with strangers. Unless, of course, you’re the police and are carrying badges to prove it?”
Cain and Christy didn’t say a word.
“Good-bye,” Sherberne said. “It hasn’t been a pleasure.”
“We can get the police, if that’s what you want,” Cain offered.
“Listen,” the other man snarled. “I vetted the documentation. It was adequate to the letter of the law.”
Cain smiled thinly. “You know a lot about criminal law for a guy in the fine art business.”
“I’ve bought and sold artifacts for years. I’ve been rousted by the Bureau of Land Management, the Navajo Tribal Police, and even the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”
“Am I supposed to be impressed?” Cain asked.
“Nobody’s ever caught me with a stolen pot or one whose provenance is suspect in the eyes of the law. And nobody ever will.”
“That means you have documentation on the items the McKinley woman sold you,” Christy said, forcing a pleasant tone and smile.
“Of course.”
“Then they were legally dug,” she said.
“That’s what the paper said. It was notarized, by the way.”
“Of course,” Cain said under his breath.
“And you believed her,” Christy said with a sad shake of her head for male frailty.
“Naturally.”
“This Christa Jody McKinley,” she said carefully. “Do you know where she is right now?”
“More or less.” Sherberne shrugged.
“Where?” she asked instantly.
“Hell would be my best guess.”
“What does that mean?” Cain asked.
Sherberne smiled maliciously. “It means the bitch is dead.”
Chapter 44
Cain put a hand on Christy’s arm, caution and reassurance at the same time.
“No,” Christy said in a low voice. “Damn it, no.”
Sherberne looked at her oddly.
“Are you sure?” Cain asked, drawing the man’s attention.
The gallery owner took an impatient drag on his cigarette. “Yes.”
“I don’t believe it,” Christy said. “She can’t be dead.”
“Why not?” Sherberne said with a shrug. “If ever a woman deserved it, she did.”
Christy couldn’t answer.
“Look, if you don’t believe me, try the morgue,” Sherberne said curtly to Cain. “Not that you’ll be able to identify her. She and her half-smart boyfriend crashed his new plane over half the landing strip. Took a day just to pick up the pieces. At first it looked accidental, but now the cops are thinking sabotage.”
Abruptly Christy believed that Jo-Jo was dead. A cold wave broke over her, loneliness and regret, guilt and despair.
Sweet child loved by everyone.
Beautiful woman loved by no one.
Color drained from the world first, then black ate from the edges to the center, shutting down her vision.
Cain caught her. “Breathe, Red. Deep and hard. Breathe!”
Blindly she reached for him, hanging on to his strength while the world spun sickeningly around her. She fought for breath, forcing air into her numb body, breathing deeply until the roaring in her ears stopped and color returned to her vision again.
With it came pain.
She bit back a cry and gathered the shreds of her self-control. The pain of biting her own lip helped. It told her that she was alive.
“At least Jo-Jo doesn’t hurt anymore. Does she?” Christy didn’t know she had spoken aloud until she heard Cain’s low voice a
nd felt the warmth of his breath against her ear.
“She doesn’t hurt anymore,” he whispered, stroking her hair. “Whatever demon was eating Jo-Jo alive died with her.”
With a great effort, Christy lifted her head and looked at Cain. His eyes were watching her with an aching kind of sympathy, silently telling her that he would haven taken the pain for her if he could have.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“She was my sister.”
“I understand.”
“Do you?”
“She knew you as a child, when the future had no limits. And now she’s dead and there are too many limits.”
Christy fought against the tears she’d never cried for a loss she’d never before admitted. Jo-Jo wasn’t within Christy’s ability to heal now.
She never had been.
The funeral hadn’t been held, but Jo-Jo had been dead to Christy for half her life. And Christy had been grieving for half her life. There wasn’t much left now, of either hope or hate, love or grief. It was over.
It had been over for a long time.
“You can let go,” Christy said quietly. “I’m all right now.”
“You look pale.”
“I always look pale. I’m a redhead.”
Reluctantly he loosened his hold. But he stood very close, watching her intently.
“I’m fine,” she said. “Just fine.”
When he was certain she could stand alone, he shifted his attention to Sherberne.
The gallery owner took one look at Cain’s face and backed up several steps before bumping into a glass case.
“What makes you think there was something fishy about the plane crash?” Cain asked.
“The plane was sabotaged. The police assume it was a drug-related killing.”
“Why?”
“Because the two of them acted like cocaine dealers,” Sherberne said. “Lots of cash, no class.”
“When was the last time you saw them?”
Sherberne folded his lips and didn’t say a word.
“Talk to me,” Cain said, “or I’ll do the kind of damage your insurance doesn’t cover.”
The gallery owner hadn’t gotten where he was by being a bad judge of character. He started talking. Fast. “Day before yesterday. Just before they went to the airport.”
“Were they selling stuff to you or just collecting money?”
“Selling. It surprised me. I didn’t think they had anything left.”
“Did you buy?” Cain asked.
“Yes.”
“Do you still have it?”
Sherberne didn’t want to answer, but he did anyway. “Yes. It’s in the basement. They were in a hell of a rush.”
“Let’s see it.”
“Mother,” Sherberne muttered as he stubbed out his cigarette. “Sure. Why not?”
They followed him through his office into a basement work area that was as messy as the gallery was coldly ordered.
“It’s not the sort of material I usually handle,” Sherberne said with distaste. “Not on consignment. Not even on outright sale.”
Cain looked around hungrily. Artifacts were scattered over tables and on chairs, heaped on the floor, and crowded shelves and cupboards on the walls.
“I didn’t want it at all,” Sherberne said, “but they were so desperate to sell, I took it for a flat fee on consignment.”
“Where is it?” Cain asked.
Sherberne went to one of the worktables. As he started to lift the lid on a rectangular box that took up most of the table, he looked warily at Christy. “You’re kind of squeamish. Maybe you’d do better upstairs.”
“Open it,” she said.
“Suit yourself.”
He took off the lid.
The long box was lined with a plastic foam such as was used in packing photographic material. The foam had been hollowed to cushion long, darkly stained pieces of what looked like wood.
But it wasn’t wood.
Empty eye sockets looked out from an equally empty skull. Arms, shoulders, and most of the rib cage were intact, as were the pelvic girdle and one leg.
Christy forced herself to look at the remains without emotion. Death wasn’t fresh to these bones. They’d been a long, long time in their grave before being dragged unwilling into the sunlight.
“I told the woman there wasn’t a big market for human remains. She really wanted to sell. She said she’d take as little as five thousand.”
“Five thousand?” Christy asked, horrified. “You can get five thousand dollars for a human skeleton?”
“Twice that, probably,” Sherberne said. “Maybe three times that. Depends on the collector.”
She looked at Cain.
“Collectors are a strange lot,” he said. “They collect anything, including human bones.”
“Lovely,” she said.
“But I’m not wired into that end of the artifacts trade,” Sherberne said. “She left this on consignment anyway.”
Cain glanced around the workroom. “Judging by the goods I see here, I’m surprised anything is beneath you.”
Sherberne shot him an angry look.
“I draw the line at bones,” Sherberne said. “Ghoulish collectors and Moki sorcerers are not my thing.”
“Moki sorcerers?” she asked quickly. “What are they?”
“Medicine men who practice the black arts,” Cain explained. “They claim to be descendants of the Anasazi.”
“What do they want bones for, stage dressing for their shows?” she asked Sherberne.
He didn’t answer.
Cain did. “They use skulls for certain ceremonies. Some of them grind up bones to use for devil powder.”
“Devil powder,” she said neutrally.
“Soul poison. Some of the Navajo and Pueblo medicine men use powdered human bones to strengthen their curses.”
A feeling of dread welled up. She’d felt the same thing the first time she saw the bone fragment in the alcove, and again when a gold necklace and bone splinters had tumbled out into her palm. She’d felt the clammy sensation in one other place too.
Peter Hutton’s private gallery of demons.
The dread was primitive and soul deep, an acknowledgment that immense darkness existed just beyond the circle of firelight called civilization.
“Anything else I can do for you?” Sherberne asked with exaggerated courtesy.
“Yeah,” Cain said. “When the police backtrack the blonde to your gallery—and they will—forget we were ever here.”
Sherberne shrugged.
“In return,” Cain continued, “we’ll forget that we know where the blonde stole her stuff.”
“My hands are clean.”
“Good for you,” Christy said. “I’m sure the reporters will point out how innocent you are.”
“Reporters?” Sherberne looked unhappy.
“Right now, only the three of us know who sold off Peter Hutton’s stolen artifacts,” she said. “If you don’t tell the police we were here, we won’t tell the newspapers who sold the pots.”
“And the bones,” Cain offered. “Don’t forget them.”
“Ah, yes. The bones.” She grimaced. “Headline stuff. Famous designer double-crossed by famous model. Sex and skeletons. The media will be slobbering. They won’t care what kind of documents Mr. Sherberne says he has.”
“You have made your point,” Sherberne said. “I won’t mention you to the police.”
She looked at Cain and asked, “Does that cover it?”
“Almost.”
Cain put the lid back on the box, picked it up, and tucked it under his arm.
“Wait a minute!” Sherberne said. “You can’t—”
“It was on consignment,” Cain said. “We’re taking it back. If you don’t like it, think how much your customers would like having their names attached to the underground trade in human remains.”
“Ridiculous. I’ve never—”
“Right,” Cain cut in. �
��And now you never will.”
Silently they walked out of the basement, through the gallery, and out the doors.
“Do you think it will work?” Christy asked when the doors shut behind them.
“Probably, until someone uses a better twist on him.”
She didn’t say anything while they walked to the truck. Nor did she say anything while Cain unfastened a corner of the vinyl cover that protected the open bed of the pickup, slid the box underneath, and fastened the cover again.
When they were both sitting inside the truck, Christy let out a long breath. “Now what?” she asked.
“Albuquerque and the Bureau of Land Management.”
“Why?”
“Johnny thought they could save his ass. Maybe they can save ours instead.”
Chapter 45
Albuquerque
Noon
Albuquerque lay under a dirty blanket of smog. East-west traffic on Interstate 40 melded unevenly with the north-south flow on Interstate 25. When Cain walked out of a telephone booth in a service station for the second time that day, he looked at the sky unhappily. He was feeling edgy as a coyote on Main Street. Paranoid to the point of using public phones. The urban haze didn’t make him feel better.
The fact that Christy was about as much company as the skeleton in the box didn’t help. She wasn’t so much grieving as emotionally spent, running on empty. Shut down.
“Larry got the investigator’s name for us from some other cops,” Cain said as he climbed into the truck.
She turned, looked at him, and nodded.
He realized it wasn’t the silence that was getting to him as much as the shuttered pain and open exhaustion in her eyes.
“It’s all set up,” he said. “His name is Hoyt Jackson. He agreed to a deep background interview for Horizon.”
“We’re going to interview a cop?”
“Hoyt Jackson is more archaeologist than cop.”
She didn’t look convinced.
“You can go home anytime,” he reminded her gently.
“You wanted to find out who tried to kill you,” she said tonelessly. “You found out. Now I want to find out who killed Jo-Jo. Then I’ll be able to walk away from it all.” Including the man I wanted who didn’t want me. “But until then, I’m your shadow.”
He started the engine. “Just as well. I’d rather keep an eye on you until I’m sure you’re safe.”
The Secret Sister Page 27