Tanner didn’t leave immediately, though. He turned a couple of pages in his notebook, as if they were in a reading room at the library.
He glanced up finally when her cell phone rang.
Area code 202. It was the FBI.
“I’ll need to take this,” Hunter said.
“Okay. Hasta la vista.” Tanner stood and marched out.
“Hunter,” she answered.
“Well, you’ve done it again.”
It wasn’t the call Hunter had expected, from John Marcino, her contact at the FBI. It was Dave Crowe, an FBI special agent and Hunter’s onetime mentor. Crowe had reappeared in her life during the Psalmist case.
She took a breath. “Well, hello,” she said, forcing a greeting.
“How are you?” he said. “What’s the deal with this photo?”
“I didn’t know there was a deal.”
“Techs here are taking unusual interest.”
“Why?”
“I thought you were going to tell me.”
“No,” Hunter said. She got up and closed the door. Tanner was in his office with his head tilted back, trying to listen. “I can’t,” she told Crowe, calling up on her computer the images Susan Champlain had sent Luke. “Why are they taking interest?”
“It’s complicated,” he said. Crowe often did this with her, talking with a slightly heightened sense of drama. Eight years earlier, they’d gone out on a date together, followed by a couple of near-dates. Hunter wasn’t as good in personal relationships as she was in her work.
She studied Susan Champlain’s three images, which she’d forwarded to the FBI that morning, as they talked. Why would the Bureau have any interest in these cell-phone pictures?
“Between us?” Crowe said. “You’ll probably be hearing from a guy named Scott Randall in another day or two. Okay? He’s been asking about you.”
“Has he? Why?”
“And frankly? You may regret it if you become involved with this guy. Okay? Just a friendly warning,” he said, only stoking her interest further. “Call me once you’ve heard from him, if you want to talk about it.”
It was Crowe who hung up first, skipping the goodbyes.
Eleven minutes until the Police Commission meeting.
Hunter called up an FBI directory. Scott Randall, she discovered, was the new director of the FBI’s Stolen Art Division based out of D.C.
Now things were getting really weird.
Chapter Ten
When she arrived at Conference Room B, Hunter found a sheet of computer paper taped to the door: Police Com. mtg moved to State Aty’s Office. 4 P.M. The peculiar left-slanted felt-penmanship she recognized as the work of Connie Elgar, the state’s attorney’s executive assistant.
“Scheduling conflict,” Wendell Stamps explained as Hunter took a seat in front of his immaculate glass-covered desk. The others crossed legs and shuffled papers, giving the impression that the meeting was already under way, although Hunter was in fact a minute early.
“I thought it might be more useful if we just went ahead with the four of us.”
“That’s fine,” Hunter said. At this point, she didn’t have anything, anyway; she wasn’t ready to talk about the photos.
Stamps was a big, shrewd man with thin blond hair and a wide, impassive face. He was dressed, as always, in pinstripes. In many ways, Stamps ran the justice system in Tidewater County; it wasn’t uncommon for people from one or more agencies to gather unofficially in his office to chart out some slightly clandestine course of action.
The other two in the room this afternoon were the sheriff’s public information officer, Kirsten Sparks, and Stamps’s investigator, Clinton Fogg, who was doodling arrows onto a yellow legal pad.
“I understand from Gary Martin that you have information the husband may have made a verbal threat of some kind in the days preceding the incident?”
“It came up in an interview,” Hunter said. “I wrote a report and submitted it this morning.”
“We’ve got it.” It was on top of his small, neat stack of papers. “Are you going anywhere with it?”
“Not at this point, no.”
“Champlain has an airtight alibi, supposedly,” Stamps said. “Right?”
“That’s what we’re hearing,” she said. “Although time of death is not an exact science, sir. As you know.”
“No, it isn’t.”
Stamps showed his perfect poker face. Fogg continued to doodle, turning an arrow into a triangle.
“The preliminary autopsy,” Sparks said, “I’m told, is leaning toward accidental?”
“Yes,” the state’s attorney said. Sparks sat forward, making it clear that she was asking him this, not Hunter. Then sat back again, watching Hunter with a small smile, emboldened slightly by the state’s attorney’s affirmative answer. Sparks was blond and attractive, with a hard outer shell and lots of insecurities. She became defensive whenever Hunter spoke to her forcefully, compensating at other times by either ignoring her or looking at Hunter with a silent, slightly superior expression, as she was doing now.
“Well, no,” Hunter said. “Inconclusive or undetermined.”
The state’s attorney half shrugged, meaning same difference. “Inconclusive” meant they could sell it as accidental if they wanted. They were really here just to see if she had anything they didn’t.
“But you have no reason to think this was homicide?” Stamps said. “That’s the issue.”
“No, sir, not at this time.”
He slanted his eyes very slightly as if he didn’t understand. “But—you have something you’re looking at?”
“Not at this time, sir,” she lied.
“Understood. But at a later time?”
“No, sir. Not that I’m aware of.”
Fogg kept his head down, as if not listening, doodling arrows again. Hunter knew he was hearing every word. The S.A.’s office didn’t want to pursue this; but they also didn’t want to be caught flat-footed.
Wendell Stamps tried again. When he couldn’t get Hunter to say anything, he closed the meeting, and the other two left the room. Hunter stood too, but didn’t leave.
“Why do I get the feeling you’re holding something back?” Stamps asked.
“I’m not, sir. My only issue, if you want to call it that, is I’m concerned that Nicholas Champlain was allowed to leave town when there were still questions to be answered.”
“Questions.”
Hunter cleared her throat, realizing she shouldn’t have used that word. “Yes. Questions of timing,” she said. “Even if he’s not involved, he could help clarify time frames. Help us determine whether or not this was an accident.”
He looked at her with a trace of frown or, maybe, smile. It was hard to tell. He glanced at the antique German wall clock. Hunter was thinking about the photos on Susan’s phone, about the necklace in the sand, about what Dave Crowe had just said about the case being “complicated.” But she wasn’t ready to share any of that. She had a strong feeling about Susan’s death, but no good explanation yet.
“I did speak with his business manager thirty-five minutes ago,” Stamps said. “Who told me that Mr. Champlain wants to cooperate fully.”
“I’ve left a message with him.”
“He’ll talk with you I’m sure, whenever you want. Just give him a day or two. He’s dealing with the funeral arrangements right now. I also spoke with Hank Moore, this morning.”
Hunter’s supervisor. Making it clear he’d covered all the bases. Hunter watched him.
“But nothing else I need know about?” Stamps tried again. Hunter shook her head, deciding to act dumb. With Stamps, he assumed it anyway. In fact, Hunter wanted to keep her own investigation separate until she had a clearer idea what had really happened to Susan Champlain.
“No,” she said, showing a smile. “Nothing at this point.”
“Are you recommending we hold off saying anything on this preliminary, then?” Stamps, to his credit, was a diplomat, if a self-serving one.
“No, sir. Although, if you’re asking me, I’d say it might be smart to wait a couple of days. And maybe have a moratorium on saying it was an accident. But that’s only a suggestion.”
“You know I can’t control what people are saying.”
If only that were true. Hunter decided to leave it there. He knew what she meant.
The FBI’s number had come up again on her phone during the Police Commission meeting. Crowe. She tried him as she walked down the corridor to her office but had to leave a message.
Tanner had placed a note on her desk: Out doing interviews.
Hunter also had an e-mail from attorney John McCoy. Nick Champlain’s “business manager.”
Mr. Champlain is currently making arrangements for his wife’s funeral. He will be able to meet with you on Monday at 1 P.M. at his office in Philadelphia. If this is acceptable, please confirm.
It was an odd, impersonal way to tell her, but Hunter wrote back, accepting.
Minutes later, Sonny Fischer came out. He leaned in her doorway, to give her an update on what he’d found. For some reason, he didn’t like sitting in other people’s offices.
“Not a lot yet. Problem with two: Markos and Rodgers,” he said, speaking in his quirky verbal shorthand.
“What’s the problem?”
“Basically, don’t exist.”
“Okay,” Hunter said. That could be a problem. “Meaning—?”
“No DMV, birth, property records. I can dip into tax reports if we need to.”
“How about the necklace?”
“Not yet. Security tapes to go through.”
“Maybe work on that a little first?”
He nodded. Fischer was good, thorough to a fault sometimes. Hunter didn’t want him data-mining into places that could potentially be legally challenged. Not yet, anyway.
She worked in her office until several minutes past six, when she realized she needed to feed Winston, her eccentric tuxedo cat. Winston let Hunter know immediately—with his sashaying walk and bizarre howling—that she was half an hour late.
She fixed a frozen enchilada dinner for herself and poured a tall glass of red wine. Then she settled in to review what she had, starting with the notes Fischer had prepared. One detail led to another and she lost the thread of time on several occasions, pausing only to commune with Winston and, once, to listen to a song by the Pogues through earbuds, dancing in her living room to let off steam. Winston sat on the sofa arm, watching as she did, a perplexed and not very happy expression on his face.
It was a misty night and the wind made a loud sound through the trees that resembled human breathing. Hunter fell asleep with her windows and deck doors open. She’d made a list of three things to follow up on in the morning: ask Luke about Kairos; ask Champlain’s business manager about the necklace; determine who Joey Sanders was and what sort of relationship he might’ve had with Susan Champlain.
But by morning, the list wouldn’t matter.
Chapter Eleven
The death of developer Nicholas Champlain’s wife was news, much as Walter Kepler had feared. But it was passing news, a regional wire service short with the shelf life of a single news cycle. The words “apparently accidental” helped; they’d head off potential innuendo, as would Nick Champlain’s aversion to publicity. But what really concerned him now was what Champlain thought, and whether or not it would affect their plan.
Nick was staying at one of Kepler’s condos on the Delaware coast tonight, letting his business manager handle inquiries and condolences. Kepler was eleven miles to the north in a larger apartment, although Champlain didn’t know that.
“Nick, I’m sorry,” he said, conjuring a sympathetic tone. “I wanted to give you a chance to get your bearings. Just know I’ll do whatever I can.”
“I’m letting my business manager handle it with the media,” Champlain said, talking on one of the disposable phones Kepler had given him. “We’ve issued a statement.”
“I saw.”
“That should take care of it.” He added, “This doesn’t affect our arrangement?”
“No. Should it?”
“No. That’s why I’m asking.”
There it was, then: He was asking the question. Everything was fine. Kepler breathed more easily, turning to look at the Atlantic Ocean. Nick Champlain had probably loved his wife very much on the day they were married, four years ago, he imagined—but not on the night she died. By then, Susan Champlain had become a liability to him. That’s why she was down in Maryland for the summer—to keep her out of the way. Although, according to Belasco, who had been Kepler’s eyes in Tidewater, that hadn’t worked out so well.
“You understand, I wasn’t there,” Champlain said. “It was an accident. That’s what the police are saying.”
“I hear it,” Kepler said. “And I appreciate you telling me. I really do.”
Kepler looked at the fast-moving night clouds over the water. Thinking: They were in the storm now, weren’t they? He felt the change in the air, the miracle only a week away now. “You’re going to the funeral?”
“I’m paying for it,” Champlain said. “They don’t want me there. The sister doesn’t.”
“We’d like you to tell people you’re going,” Kepler said. “It would work into our new time frame.”
Champlain was silent.
“Okay?”
“Okay,” he said. Then: “What’s the new time frame?”
“My client would like to move the whole thing up by three days. Is that possible?”
“Three days,” he repeated.
“You said they just needed twenty-four-hour notice.”
“That’s right.”
“Good.” In fact, from what Kepler knew of the Rosa family—who controlled the painting and were now selling it to him through Nick Champlain—he suspected they didn’t want a lot of notice. They wanted this deal to go quickly, to collect their $5 million and move on. “So can we just pick up where we were, then? We’ll meet Tuesday. I’ll have the rest of what you need then.”
“All right.”
“Take care of yourself, Nick. Again, I’m sorry.”
Kepler only hoped that Belasco hadn’t waited too long.
Chapter Twelve
That was the night that Luke and Charlotte finally had the talk about their future—the real topic of which was whether or not to enlarge the Bowers family from three to four. It didn’t come off quite as Luke had imagined. First, he prepared dinner—roasted salmon with slivered almonds, prepared in butter and lemon juice—while Charlotte made the salad, chopping tomatoes and onions she’d picked from their garden.
As the fillets were simmering, they slipped into the bedroom and made love, which had become a fairly regular Thursday night activity at the Bowerses’ domicile. In bed afterward, savoring the cross breezes, Luke had spontaneously brought it up. Not as the question he’d been formulating in his thoughts for several days. But as a statement that came to him in a flash of inspiration: “I think we ought to have a child.”
Charlotte leaned on her elbow, looking at him with the tiniest of smiles. “Okay,” she said.
“Okay?”
“Yes.”
“Really?” Luke said.
“Really.”
“Okay. That was easier than I expected,” he said, wondering if the death of Susan Champlain had nudged them a little.
The decision was one thing, of course, the details another. Those would be a much longer discussion, he knew, which they began to have that night over dinner, and a couple glasses of white wine. It involved deciding where
to live (not enough room in the parish house), how long they would stay in Tidewater (Methodist ministers averaged only four to six years at one location) and also how long Luke wanted to remain a pastor.
They sat on the deck afterward, talking about it over another glass of wine. But eventually their thoughts drifted to more private places and more mundane concerns.
“I’m going to check something online,” Charlotte said vaguely a few minutes past nine. Luke gravitated to his own space in the sitting room, glad to work on his sermon for a while—reading several times through the passage in James about the brevity of life.
Charlotte came in with Sneakers and a glass of wine later to check on him, and to say that she was going to review her notes for a few minutes. Charlotte was writing about Delmarva-region Indian treaties from the 1600s and 1700s—including the famous treaty of 1722, which professed to be binding until “world’s end.”
He could hear her later talking to herself, which she sometimes did, as if alone in the house with Sneakers, her voice occasionally rising on a phrase or a word. “Now, that’s interesting,” he heard her say at one point and he wondered if she might be on the phone. Charlotte had a phone voice that was slightly different from the tone she used with him; she tended to gesture with her arms while talking on the phone, too, as if the person on the other end could see her.
Then she went quiet. Luke looked at the clock when he heard her again: 9:47. “Are you kidding?”
“No way,” she said, at 10:19.
Feeling left out, Luke decided to see what was up.
“Everything under control in here? You two behaving?”
Charlotte turned, surprised. Sneakers, too, raised his head and looked up. She was deep into something, he could see; she’d tacked all kinds of printouts to her bulletin board.
“Sorry,” he said, “I just wanted to make sure you weren’t indulging a secret porn habit.”
What Luke saw on her computer was only slightly less surprising, though. Blown up on the screen was one of the images Susan had sent him the day before. Was this what she’d been working on so diligently for the past hour or so, while Luke assumed she was researching Indian treaties?
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