by Brenda Joyce
She could not know that thousands of miles away in a sunlit corner room in a brand-new building on the east side of Manhattan, Ian Marshall sat at his desk, listening to her message, his hands bridged in front of his face.
And when he moved them, it wasn’t to reach for the phone, it was to turn a photograph on his desk more fully toward him.
It was a color photo of a young man with dark hair who looked remarkably like Marshall. The man was wearing a beaten-up bomber jacket, jeans, and scuffed Frye boots, and he was smiling at the camera, squinting against the sun. He was standing in front of a World War II fighter plane with the Royal Air Force insignia, but the man’s long sideburns and shoulder-length hair earmarked the picture as dating to the early seventies and not the war. Marshall stared at the photograph for another moment, and then he turned it away.
He did not return Claire’s call.
CHAPTER 3
One week later, Claire began the process of moving. She had signed a year lease for a small two-bedroom apartment in Mill Valley, which was just over the Golden Gate Bridge. Actually, she was leasing half of a home that had been divided into two apartments. The house was charming, set back in a rustic wooded area, and it had a yard for the dogs. Her neighbors were a young professional couple who owned the house. Claire had liked them both instantly.
She would be moving her things next week; she had a ton of packing to do. In the past, the few times she had moved, she had hired movers to do everything. Now she would pack up what she wanted, to cut back on the expense of the move. She was intending to sell her San Francisco home mostly furnished.
Claire was glad to be so busy now. She planned to go back to work full-time—to throw herself into it completely. She was sleeping about four hours a night; she had also lost eight pounds.
And Ian Marshall had not returned her calls.
He was avoiding her. Her every instinct told her that.
She had reported to Murphy; he told her Marshall was being helpful, and politely, he told her not to worry about the investigation.
Now Claire double-parked her Land Rover in front of her father’s art gallery on Maiden Lane, just a few blocks from Union Square. She was about to begin packing, but she dreaded the time it would entail. Claire was hoping to drag Jean-Léon to lunch. She would also offer to return the valuable painting. Even if he would not take it back, she could never sell it. In her heart, she felt that the painting belonged to her father.
Clad in a black jersey shirtdress and a black leather belt with a silver buckle, Claire slipped down from the big four-wheel-drive vehicle. She wore dark sunglasses, her hair was pinned back in a twist, and she had a print scarf knotted around her throat. A chic outfit, but Claire knew damn well that she looked haggard and hard. She had been slender to begin with. She could barely afford to lose more weight.
The receptionist smiled at her as she walked inside the spacious front room, filled with paintings and sculptures. Claire smiled back and asked Beth how she was. Voices drifted to her from her father’s office, which was just behind the showroom. She could see from where she stood that the door was ever so slightly ajar. “I guess Jean-Léon is with a client?” she asked, realizing that she should have called.
“Yes, he is, but there was no appointment,” the receptionist said, glancing down at her pad. “So I can’t begin to tell you how long he will be.”
There was no reason to become alert. But Claire walked over to her desk. A walk-in potential buyer was not unusual. Still . . . Claire glanced down at the receptionist’s pad. Even though she was reading it upside down, she saw his name as clearly as if it were right side up. Ian Marshall.
Claire gasped. “Ian Marshall is with Dad?”
“Yes, he is,” Beth said.
But Claire was staring at the door to Jean-Léon’s office, the vast expanse of the gallery between her and the doorway. Her pulse had accelerated.
Claire’s feet carried her rapidly across the room. When she was inches from the slightly open door, she slowed. She was agitated and breathless.
Claire looked back at Beth, who was on the telephone and not even looking at her. Claire inhaled, then stepped closer—as close as she dared.
“So you do not recognize this man?” Ian Marshall was saying.
“I’ve told you twice, I do not,” Jean-Léon returned very calmly.
“And the name George Suttill does not ring a bell?”
“What’s this about?” her father asked, with no loss of composure whatsoever. “I have a busy day, Mr. Marshall. I do not have time to spare. Besides, the police already asked me these questions.”
Claire almost fell against the door. Why was Marshall asking her father about George Suttill? Why had the police spoken with her father?
“George Suttill was murdered on April tenth. His throat was slashed. It was not a mugging—there was no apparent motive.”
Claire peered around the door, her heart palpitating wildly. Marshall stood before her father’s huge antique desk; her father stood on the other side, facing him. And although both Marshall and Jean-Léon were speaking in quiet and conversational tones, their body language was that of two adversaries braced for blows.
Jean-Léon walked around his desk. “My son-in-law seemed to be murdered the same way. But you’re not a police officer. You’re with the Bergman Holocaust Research Center. Why are you asking me these questions? I don’t have to speak with you.”
“I thought perhaps you might have some answers for me.”
“What kind of answers?” Jean-Léon was incredulous. “Unless I have had business with this Suttill, I do not know him. Of course, Beth can check our files if that would help. And as far as David goes, I have no idea what happened.”
Marshall stared. “The same killer murdered Suttill and Hayden, Ducasse. That’s off the record, but it’s a fact, and the police have confirmed it.” Suddenly he glanced over his shoulder, toward the doorway where Claire was standing.
Claire jerked back flat against the fabric-clad wall.
“What does any of this have to do with me? Other than the fact that David was my son-in-law and I could not stand him?”
Claire’s heart raced. Of course she had known that David and her father did not care for each other. But it hurt a little now to hear Jean-Léon speaking so bluntly and so fervently.
“You gave David a painting for his birthday,” Marshall said. Claire had to muffle her own gasp of surprise. How had he known that? “How did you acquire the Courbet?”
“Actually I gave Claire the painting. And how did I acquire it?” Jean-Léon sounded surprised. “I bought it. I bought it just after the war, I believe in ’forty-eight. I bought it in Paris.”
“From whom?” Marshall asked.
“I don’t recall,” Jean-Léon said, sounding amused. “Good God, Marshall, that was almost sixty years ago.”
“Fifty-three, if you want to be exact,” Marshall said flatly.
A silence fell.
Claire tried to recover her composure; she tried to deepen her shallow breathing. What the hell was going on? Why was Marshall asking her father about George Suttill and David? And why the questions about the Courbet, which she had been about to pack up and return to her father? At least Marshall was acting like an investigator—and not a copycat psycho killer.
Claire was not really relieved. She stole back to the opening between the door and the wall, to sneak a peek inside the room.
The men stood a few feet from each other, in front of Jean-Léon’s massive desk. They were staring at each other. Marshall spoke.
“I’d like to see the bill of sale.”
“Really?” Two bushy white eyebrows raised.
“Really.”
“You know, Marshall, you have truly been wasting my time. And you are arrogant. What gives you the right to come in here and demand to see an ancient bill of sale?”
“The pursuit of justice,” Ian Marshall said. “The pursuit of a killer.”
Jean-Léo
n made an abrupt sound.
“You do want to see your son-in-law’s killer brought to justice, do you not?” Marshall said, staring coldly.
“Of course I do. Claire shouldn’t have to be going through this.”
“Then humor me.”
“Perhaps I will. It might take some time to find a record like that,” Jean-Léon responded. He returned to his chair behind the desk but did not sit down.
Marshall walked right over to the edge of the desk and leaned on it with both hands. The desk was placed in the center of two corner windows, and it faced the doorway where Claire stood, and the expanse of the room to Claire’s right. When Jean-Léon sat at his desk with the office door open, he could see into a wide, angled portion of the gallery. Now Claire stared at both men from a side view. Ian Marshall said, “Maybe you don’t have a bill of sale.”
The action of leaning on the desktop had pushed aside Ian’s black sports jacket, and Claire saw very clearly that he was wearing a gun in a shoulder holster.
She gasped and ducked away from the door, sweating. Why was he wearing a gun?
Because a killer was on the loose.
“What does that mean? I bought the painting, Marshall. It was just a long time ago.”
“That’s my card. Fax me a copy when you can. I’d appreciate it—and I’m sure your son-in-law would, too.”
He was leaving. Claire didn’t think twice. She ran across the gallery and ducked into the bathroom, locking the door behind her. Then she began to breathe.
What was going on? Clearly Marshall was after David’s killer, but why ask her father if he knew Suttill? Why ask him for some stupid bill of sale that dated back fifty-three years? Somehow, the Courbet must be significant to Marshall, or linked to the killer, but Claire could not make heads or tails of it.
But by damn, she would find out.
Claire came out of hiding as rapidly as she had gone into it, unlocking the door and leaving the bathroom. Ian Marshall was nodding to Beth on his way out.
Claire hurried across the gallery. Marshall was outside on the sidewalk, and he had paused, but briefly. Then he lifted an arm.
He was flagging down a car and driver.
“Mrs. Hayden?” Beth asked, stunned.
Claire ran out of the gallery. Ian Marshall was climbing into the backseat of a dark Mercedes. He was about to shut the door. Claire got her hands on it.
He looked up, startled. “Claire?”
Claire leaped inside, mostly onto his lap. “We have to talk!” she said, pushing herself onto the seat on the other side of him.
He looked at her, and he wasn’t smiling. “Christ.”
Ian had directed the driver to take him back to his hotel, the Mandarin Oriental.
Claire stared at him, thinking that the backseat of the Mercedes had somehow shrunk in size. It wasn’t big enough for the two of them.
He faced her, and he was clearly annoyed. “Hello, Claire. How are you?”
She crossed her arms. “My, so formal. You haven’t returned my calls. Let me guess. Answering machine broken?”
His jaw flexed. “Do you always leap into cars with men you don’t know?”
That gave her pause. He had a gun. Someone had murdered David and George Suttill. This wasn’t a silly game or make-believe. And until she understood why he had been so evasive, and why he had lied to her, she would consider him with suspicion. “Do you have a license for that gun?” she asked uncomfortably.
“Yes, I do,” he said evenly.
“Why? You’re not a cop.”
“You know why. Murphy told me you made the connection between Suttill and David. By the way, I’d like to borrow that photograph and fax.”
The gun was for protection. And he wanted the World War II photograph and the fax from the London investigators. “What is going on, Ian? Why was David killed?”
But Ian was telling the driver to turn around, giving Claire’s home address.
“Are you going to answer any of my questions?” she asked uneasily.
“Yes, but not here, in the car. We’ll talk at your house while we get the photo and the fax.”
Claire stared at him; he was staring directly ahead, as if past the driver. Did she want to get out of the sedan and walk into her home with him? They would be alone.
She felt chilled. They would be alone, and David had been ruthlessly murdered in her house only a week or so ago.
But Ian Marshall was one of the good guys. Wasn’t he?
For the first time, Claire directly faced her worst suspicion—one she wished she’d never had. He was an expert on war criminals, on the Holocaust, and surely, on the subject of World War II. But he was one of the good guys. Wasn’t he?
David had been hostile to him. Ian had been wary in return. The tension between the two had been unmistakable.
And Claire knew that Ian Marshall had not been on the guest list. Murphy had made her go over it at length, discussing everyone present. Claire hadn’t been able to point the finger at anyone.
He had crashed the party, and he had been far too charming, and he had been snooping around her house. Today, he’d been asking her father all kinds of questions, and he wasn’t even a cop. He had misled her about his real occupation, he had lied about his relationship with David. Why?
Claire stole a sidelong glance at him. His profile was hard and chiseled; now she found little attractive about it. Beneath the beautifully cut sports jacket was a gun.
Claire tried to remain calm. Normal people did not carry firearms. At least not in her world. She made a snap decision.
“You know what?” Claire said quickly. “I left my car double-parked in front of Jean-Léon’s gallery. Why don’t you take me back there and I’ll follow you up to the house?” She smiled at him. “I’m going to get a ticket. Or worse, towed.”
“You won’t get a ticket, and I’ll make sure that if you are towed, you’ll have the car delivered back to your front door.”
Claire stared. He turned his head toward her, and their gazes locked. “Can you do that?”
“Yes.”
Okay, so he had connections. That was a plus. “How does one acquire a thumb knife?” she heard herself ask.
He twisted to face her. “Well, you could steal it from a museum. Or you could have one made. Murphy’s got a big mouth. He should lay off the whiskey.”
“Why are you trying to keep me in the dark?” Claire whispered, unable to look away from him. “Why won’t you tell me the truth?”
Their gazes held. “I don’t want to see an innocent bystander hurt.”
Her house looked vacant and lifelessly dull now, Claire thought, as they stepped out of the car. Ian told the driver to go get a cup of coffee.
Claire tensed as the sedan began backing out of her driveway. “Why did you do that?” she cried, turning to face him, aghast.
“Why are you acting as if you’re afraid of me?”
Claire swallowed. “Why do you refuse to answer any of my questions?”
“Are you afraid of me?”
“Yes!”
He stared, his eyes widening fractionally. “Well, that is just great.” He seemed very irritated now. “I sent the driver to get coffee because I am beat and I need some caffeine.”
“Bull.”
He smiled for the first time since she had seen him that day. “You’re cute when you curse.” He started up the walk to the house.
Was she crazy enough to follow him? Claire decided that she was not. She stood where she was, by the drive, like a statue. “That was not a curse, by the way.”
He tested the front door, which was locked. “Coming from you, it most certainly was.”
Claire moved. Acutely interested now, she turned to see what he was doing.
He didn’t look back at her. “I need the keys.”
“I don’t have them,” she lied.
He dipped his hand into an interior pocket and produced something long, like a pick. Claire felt her eyes bulge as he
inserted the object into the lock. Was he an accomplished burglar, too, as well as a Nazi hunter? Oh, this was just too much. “Are you picking my lock?”
“Yes, I am.” He sounded infinitely patient. Claire could not help herself, and she walked over to him.
He slid the object from the lock and opened the door. “After you,” he said with a slight gesture.
Claire did not precede him in. “After you,” she said firmly. She had changed her mind. This was just too rich to avoid. However, she would remain on alert, and she would keep her distance, for now.
He stared down at her. “Are you thinking that somehow I’m involved in the murders of David and Suttill?”
“No. What I’m actually thinking is that you killed both men, imitating some ancient espionage-ish form of murder.”
He smiled, then he started to laugh.
“That’s funny?” She was annoyed now.
“Yes, it is. It’s hysterical, actually. Claire, FYI: I’ve never killed anybody. Let’s go inside.”
He had never killed anybody. Claire hoped that was the case. But what would he do if the opposite were true, stand there and confess? “After you,” she said.
He sighed in exasperation and walked inside, going directly down the hall on their left to the office. Claire followed, leaving the front door wide open. Hopefully a cruiser would go by and come to see what was going on.
“So, why did you really send the driver away?” she asked nervously. She hated the house. It felt like death. It even smelled like death. Claire knew her imagination was overactive, but the shadow of evil seemed to be present everywhere. What was actually present were tons of cardboard boxes.
“Privacy,” he said, entering the office.
She was a schmuck, Claire decided. He hadn’t wanted to talk in front of the driver, that was all. He did not have a dire or foul intent toward her.
Still, Claire remained at the door while he went to the desk, keeping the width of the room between them. She watched him pick up the photo and fax. He studied the photo for a long time.