The whole case against the professor was pretty thin… except for the fact he had a copy of the print in his living room. But then again, there were other prints, too. Most likely, LeFleur had prints of all of his students’ paintings he considered to be good works of art.
Troy felt a light tug on his line and he jerked the pole to set the hook. A satisfying and heavy weight took hold of the line and he started to reel. This was a big one! He wasn’t sure what he had yet, but he was guessing it was maybe a twenty or twenty-five pounder. He fought it for a few minutes, letting the fish run, then pulling him back, letting him run, pulling him back. The idea was to eventually wear him out and when he was tired, bring him on in.
Out the corner of his eye, Troy caught a glint of sunset reflecting off something drifting down the river. He looked over at the thing floating toward him and a sharp memory hit him in the face. It was a metal Jon boat with the words RENT ME printed on the side. In his stupor, he let his grip on the pole relax and the fish jerked hard. The whole rig went flying into the water. Déjà vu struck Troy so hard it almost knocked him over.
“Oh, hell no,” he said, “not this again.”
He picked up his jug of water, turned around, and ran down the dock as fast as he could without looking back. His boss saw him running toward him and barely jumped out of the way before being bowled over.
“What the…?” his boss yelled.
“Pole fell in the water,” Troy said as he ran past him. “Take it out of my paycheck cause I ain’t goin’ in after it.”
He heard his boss yell something about how Troy couldn’t afford that pole – or something like that – as he jumped on his bike and took off, pedaling hard to escape the destiny that seemed to be following him everywhere he went.
A half hour later, covered in a sheen of sweat and trying hard to catch his breath, Troy pulled his bike up to the loading dock behind the Jepson Center. It had closed a few minutes ago and everyone else was already gone for the night, but Troy had an exhibit to pack up and load onto a waiting truck. He plopped down on the back stoop and slowed his breathing.
Gulping water from the jug, he drank it down until it was almost gone. He punched the security code into the back door and walked into an almost pitch-black storage room. Inside, someone – maybe Bobo – had stacked boxes, packing peanuts, bubble wrap, and tape guns, ready for Troy to stuff the pieces from the finished Calypso exhibit into them and load them for shipping. Just inside the garage door over the loading bay, there were four bags of trash ready for the dumpster. Troy idly wondered why someone wouldn’t take the ten extra steps to dump them before they left… but eh, it wasn’t hard work, so he didn’t complain.
He kicked around a few of the supplies, mentally preparing himself for the job ahead. It would likely take two or three hours to get it done, but that was all right. Troy liked the solitude of it all. He got a lot of thinkin’ done on nights like this. Suddenly, the silence was broken by the wailing of an alarm going off. Bright white lights flashed in his eyes.
21
Plain Sight
“Dangit,” Troy started running.“Forgot the dang alarm.”
Upon entering the museum, he’d remembered to key in the door code, but he’d forgotten to disarm the motion sensors. Once inside, you had two minutes to make your way down to the security room and key in the disarm code there for the various sensors around the museum. He jerked open the door marked Security Employees Only and ran to the keyboard. Above it, black and white screens showed various pictures from around the museum. He punched in the code and waited until the alarm fell silent. A few seconds later, the phone rang. This was standard protocol when the alarm was set off, and this wasn’t the first time Troy had done it.
“Yeah, yeah,” he said, “it’s Troy Bodean. The passcode is impressionism.”
The alarm monitor service representative – who may or may not have been answering the phone inside the country – thanked Troy for the code and hung up. If he hadn’t given the proper passcode, the police would’ve been alerted and would’ve arrived in minutes.
Troy slumped down in the leather office chair in front of the bank of closed circuit screens. The light green tinge of the night vision cameras glowed in his face. Different views of every corner of the museum were displayed here. They were all motionless and silent.
The picture on the bottom left showed the wall where Tayler’s painting had hung. It looked odd that a camera was pointed at nothing… but there had been a fake hanging there just a week ago.
How long had the fake been there? Troy leaned forward. He pulled up a recording file on the computer that sat on the desk below the monitors. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for, but there on the desktop was a file called BACKUP. He double-clicked it an opened a folder with seven files inside. They were labeled in sequential date order: CAMFILE SAT 08-19. The fact there were only seven files – one for each day of the week – meant the museum was offloading those recordings – or maybe deleting them. This was why the police hadn’t found a recording of the timeframe during which they thought the thief might’ve come. What they did know, was that it had to be over a week ago…
Troy did a little mental math. Tayler had been gone for nine days. There were seven files here dating back to last Saturday. If the assumption was right that the thief had stolen the painting after Tayler was gone… but wait… why did they think that? Troy remembered that upon Tayler’s death, the museum had moved the exhibit to a more prominent location and added a memorial plaque. They did that on Thursday… the day after Tayler died. The canvas had been framed at that point, thus, they would’ve easily detected any funny business. So, the painting had been stolen on Friday… The day before the files ran out.
On a whim, Troy clicked the recycle bin icon in the lower righthand corner of the computer screen. A list of files propagated slowly into the file explorer. Troy scrolled down the list… it looked like no one had ever emptied the bin. And, there it was… CAMFILE FRI 08-18.
Troy double-clicked it. A window popped up and showed a screen capture video of the entire bank of videos. They were pretty small in order to show all twenty-four in one window. The bottom right window showed Savannah Smiling hanging in its halo of light.
Troy clicked the fast forward button and the video sped up. Visitors to the museum that day streamed past the painting, laying flowers and wreaths and memorials to Tayler in super-fast, buzzy-bee-like motions. Troy watched as the gifts piled up throughout the day. Then the museum closed and the screen flickered dark as the lights were turned off. A millisecond later, the familiar green-glow of the night vision cameras filled the screen. An hour after that, the thief entered the picture carrying a cardboard tube. It was clear the thief knew about the cameras and protected their identity with an extra-large black hoody, baggy black pants, and big combat-style boots. Troy couldn’t even tell if the person was male or female.
He watched on with something between fascination and horror as the thief walked straight to the painting, carefully removed the canvas from the back, and laid it on the floor. The thief then pulled the print from the tube, unrolled it and attached it on the frame, and hung it back on the wall. Then they rolled up the original and slid it into the tube. Before walking out of the shot, the thief adjusted the frame to be sure it was hanging level, then disappeared out of the picture.
The entire event had taken less than two minutes. Troy rewound it several times trying desperately to find a clue… any clue to the person’s identity. But there was nothing. He scrolled back a few minutes and watched as the thief punched the code into the back door, walked in, headed straight for the security room – in which there was no camera – and emerge seconds later. Then the thief made a beeline straight to the Savannah Smiling exhibit, switched the paintings, and traced the path back to the security room. Apparently, after setting the alarm again, the thief headed out… but this time, out the front door. The camera out here showed a beautiful sunset, plenty of light to see by, but
the figure was shrouded so well in the bulky clothes,it was still impossible to detect who it might be. The thief walked to a lamppost, got on a moped or a bike – it was hard to tell that distance from the camera – and rode away.
The theft was done. And then something moved on another screen from inside the museum that night. Troy refocused on the image and could not believe what he saw.
There was a dude, pushing a wide broom around in the Calypso exhibit. A dude wearing a pair of light-colored shorts, a short-sleeved linen shirt, brown flip-flops… and a cowboy hat. Troy was watching himself sweep the floor. He’d been in the museum the night the painting had been stolen, and hadn’t seen a damned thing.
“Dangit,” he muttered to himself.
22
G.P.S.
Eddie Vargo and T.D. rolled up to the garage where all their business deals originated. The glass door that served as a decoy had a sign that DISTRIBUTION OFFICE. Distribution was pretty close to a legitimate description, but nobody would think to walk in and ask for their services… nobody that didn’t understand what they were really doing, anyway. Eddie unlocked the door and whisked in with meanness on his mind.
“T.D., you get on that damn phone,” he said, pointing to a small desk with a fake plant, a laptop, and a landline office phone sitting on it, “and call the Enterprise people. Tell them you saw an abandoned car at the airport charging station with their name on it. Tell them you’re with the police and you need to know who rented it. If it’s some pimply-faced part-time kid, you’ll get a name. When you get that name, you track ‘em down. When you track ‘em down, you make sure to bring ‘em back here to me. Got me?”
“Yeah, boss.” T.D. sat down at the desk and started clicking on his cell phone. “You think it was the airport Enterprise, boss?”
“I dunno, and I don’t care,” Eddie said. “Call ‘em all… every one of ‘em within two-hundred miles.” He stomped around the office a few times, his footsteps echoing around the near empty room. “And what about the number?” he asked. “Ain’t there no way we can trace it? Or track it? Or some shit like dat?”
“I don’ know, boss,” T.D. said with a shrug of his massive shoulders.
“Well, find that out, you got me?”
“Yeah, boss.”
Eddie made a few more circles around the room, his hands wringing furiously. “And banks,” – he pointed a finger at T.D. – “you got any buddies at any banks in town?”
“I… uh…” T.D. stuttered.
“Somebody’s gonna be depositin’ a big chunk o’ change, ya know?”
“That’s right.”
“So, I don’t care if you gotta go to the bank and muscle down on some tellers,” Eddie growled, “I wanna know ‘bout any sudden new riches comin’ in.”
T.D. nodded uncertainly.
“C’mon T.D.,” said Eddie, exhaling, “there’s gotta be somebody who knows what the hell happened today.”
“What about them kids at SCAD?” T.D. asked, “the ones who was friends wi’ that kid.”
“Huh?” Eddie squinted his eyes.
“You know, the black kid.” T.D. held up a finger; someone had picked up at Enterprise.
Eddie listened quietly as T.D. spoke to the clerk. The conversation sounded like it was going well. T.D. never even raised his voice. He politely told the clerk he was thinking about renting a car like the Honda he had seen on his way out of the airport and did they have one like it. After a few minutes, T.D. hung up the phone.
“Good news, boss,” he said proudly and holding up a piece of paper, “the car was turned in a few minutes ago.”
“You gotta be freakin’ kiddin’ me,” Eddie snorted. “So, the rat fink went back to the car?”
T.D. shrugged his gargantuan shoulders again. “I guess so, boss.”
“Well?”
“S’cuse me, boss?”
“Well, what else did you find out?” Eddie raised his voice.
“Oh, um…” T.D. turned the piece of paper back around so he could read his notes. “Says here it was rented with a credit card online and the car was picked up after hours.”
“And…?”
“Uh, yeah,” – T.D. scratched the side of his head with his pen – “the name on the card was John Smith.”
“Really?” Eddie said and sucking his teeth, “Frickin’ John Smith?”
“That’s right, boss,” T.D. said proudly.
Eddie smacked his associate on the back of the head. “That’s clearly a fake name, T.D.”
“Oh, sorry, boss,” he said rubbing his head and pouting.
“Ah, shit.” Eddie put his hands on his hips. “I’m sorry T.D. I’m just frustrated we got took in by this creep.”
“Yeah, I know.” T.D. held up the paper again. “But the good news is we can rent the car now.”
Eddie sighed. “T.D.,” he said quietly, “why in God’s name would we want to rent that car?”
The big man sat still, and Eddie could almost see the wheels screeching with effort in the hulk’s head.
“I dunno, boss,” he finally said and shaking his big round head, “I just figured if we could track where they took the car then maybe—”
“Shit, that’s it!” Eddie cut him off.
“Huh?”
“Maybe the thief used the car for more than the drop,” Eddie said. “I mean, it’s unlikely, but maybe they typed something into the car’s GPS. If we can track recent entries, maybe we can get a clue to dis frickin’ jackhole’s whereabouts.”
T.D.’s face crept into a smile.
“Yeah, boss,” he said his teeth flashing into view, “that’s what I was thinkin’ too.”
“You’re a genius, T.D.,” Eddie said, clutching T.D.’s ears and kissing him on the forehead. “Now, let’s get over there and get that damned car.”
“You bet, boss!”
Eddie grabbed the keys to the Buick and ushered the huge man out the door.
23
Downtown
An hour later, they were sitting in an abandoned Kmart parking lot in the Honda Civic they had just lost two-hundred grand in. Eddie was fiddling with the built-in touchscreen trying desperately to figure out how to work it. T.D. sat next to him, flipping through the owner’s manual.
Eddie was a man of means, and had a nice enough car with a similar dashboard computer, but he’d never used it for the GPS. He prided himself on being able to get anywhere he needed to go without a computer leading him there.
Suddenly, T.D. shoved the book in front of Eddie’s face. Eddie glared at him until he brought it down to a more comfortable reading position.
“Sorry, boss,” he said, “but I think I got it!”
“Yeah?” Eddie became more interested. “Whadda ya got?”
“Recently found,” T.D. said.
“Okay, and what the hell does that mean?”
“Here, let me do it,” T.D. said reaching up to punch the screen.
A few beeps later, the big man beamed, pointing at the screen. “There ya go,” he said.
The GPS listed three addresses. The clerk had said they usually wiped the memory of the unit, but Eddie had said they were in a hurry and that he didn’t need to do that.
“So, what now?” Eddie looked blankly at the screen.
T.D. tapped the first address. A window popped up with two options: SAVE and GO. His meaty finger pushed GO. The screen changed to a digitized map of Savannah. An arrow formed a blue line. Over the top of this, a message reading: CALCULATING 99%.....
After a few seconds, a woman’s voice said, “In two-hundred feet, turn right.”
“Nice work, T.D.” Eddie smiled and pushed the gas. “Now, let’s go get this bum.”
“Right on, boss,” T.D. said, tossing the manual back into the glove compartment. “Do you think we can stop on the way for a candy bar? I’m starving.”
“For this,” Eddie said pointing at the moving arrow on the GPS, “you can have ten candy bars!”
The silver
car accelerated and raced into downtown Savannah.
24
Curiouser And Curiouser
Alain Montgomery watched through the glass front windows of the Savannah Super Box CrossFit gym as Becky Patton heaved a twenty-pound, cushioned medicine ball over her head to a mark high above her on the concrete sidewall. She did it over and over and over, looking more and more exhausted, but pressing on. She wore a black sports bra, skin-tight shorts about the length of his whitey-tighties, high black socks that came up to her knee and a pair of neon yellow and orange sneakers that looked like specialty CrossFit jobs. Her entire body, including her rock-hard six-pack abs, was covered in a sheen of sweat. Her hands had the dusty remnants of chalk all over them and he thought he saw a little blood on her palms as well.
Alain wondered why in the world people put themselves through this nonsense. Becky happened to look in his direction and Alain raised his hand to wave at her. She put up a wait-a-second finger and continued to throw the massive medicine ball up the wall. A giant LED wall clock counted down to zero, and a buzzer sounded. Becky stopped throwing the ball and high-fived the people nearby as they all cheered for each other. After that, she fell flat on the floor and lay back on the ground, breathing heavily. It must’ve been some kind of ritual, because several of the others did it too. None of the guys had their shirts on, so they all left sweat angels on the rubber mat flooring.
“Gross,” Alain muttered to himself.
The Complete Troy Bodean Tropical Thriller Collection Page 80