by Bird, Peggy
She sat on the couch, her head back, unable to move. When her phone indicated an incoming text message, it startled her. She pulled it from her pocket, looking to see if it was Sam apologizing for walking out.
It wasn’t. She stared at the message, rereading it again and again. Chihuly jumped up on the couch beside her, licked her face and whined a little, demanding attention. Absentmindedly she gave him a pat or two. “I can’t let anything happen to him, can I, boy? Not after what he’s done for me.” She stood up and walked her dog to the kitchen door. “I have what this guy wants. I’ll just give it to him.”
• • •
Sam pounded on the steering wheel of his truck as he waited for the light to change. He wasn’t sure if he was angry or frustrated, or both. Every cop instinct he had said she wasn’t telling him the truth. But he had no idea what she was lying about. Nor did he know where to start to find out.
When he got home, he tried calling her, to apologize for the way he left but he got voice mail. She wasn’t picking up, apparently didn’t want to talk to him. He left a message saying he was sorry and would apologize in person when they had dinner the following night.
But apologizing was only part of why he wanted to talk to her again. He wanted to get to the bottom of this. Fast. He had a bad feeling about this. A feeling she was in danger.
Chapter Eleven
By the next morning Amanda had a plan. Although she didn’t know the name of the guy who’d contacted her, she now understood what he was after. He’d referred to it in the text he’d sent and it was obvious from what she found in her studio the morning after the murders. In the letter from Tom Webster, her late boyfriend had denied stealing money from his partners, saying Amanda had taken it from his apartment and he thought she’d hidden it in a “safe” place. That was what the intruders had been looking for in her house — a safe full of money.
She didn’t know where the mythical safe was or how much this guy thought she’d stolen. But she could get money from her trust funds to bribe him. If he had the money, he’d leave her alone.
The anonymous text from the night before, like the anonymous note in her studio, also threatened Sam. So the second part of the plan was to keep him away from what she was doing, to keep him safe. She didn’t know what would happen if Sam found out what she was doing. It could end any chance she had for a future with him but she didn’t care. He had to be out of harm’s way. And she was the only person who could make that happen.
She answered the text. Said she had what the sender demanded but it would take her a couple of days to get it. Then she’d deliver it someplace public. As long as he left them alone.
One more text and she’d head for her beach house where she’d be out of everyone’s reach, even Sam’s. Especially Sam’s. She didn’t know how much longer she could keep what she knew from him.
• • •
Sam picked up a message as he was walking up the steps into Central Precinct. It was from Amanda, canceling their dinner.
He went back down to the sidewalk, crossed the street to the park, and called her. He expected her to avoid answering but, surprisingly, she picked up.
“Amanda, I apologize for the way I left things last night. I’m sorry. I handled it badly.”
“Did you get my text?
“A text message? Ah … what did it say?”
“I need to cancel tonight.”
“I upset you. Let’s talk.”
“That’s not it. I’m not feeling — I mean, I think maybe Chihuly’s sick.”
“Can I help you take him to the emergency vet clinic?”
“No, I just need to stay with him.”
“I’ll bring over take-out. You have to eat.”
“He’s not good with anyone other than me when he’s feeling bad.”
“Maybe we can have dinner tomorrow, after you see how he does. Will you call and tell me how things go?”
“Sure. I’ll call.”
“Amanda, I … ” But he was talking to a dead phone.
He tried all weekend to get in touch with her. There was no response. When he drove by her house and her Highlander was gone, he went to the studio. She wasn’t there, either, and Giles said he hadn’t seen her.
Sam left notes, called, texted, emailed, patrolled her street looking for her. Nothing. Where the hell was she?
• • •
Monday morning, Amanda drove back from the coast and went directly to her bank. Her banker was concerned at the size of the withdrawal she wanted and politely asked what she was planning to do with it. A real estate deal, she said, with an eccentric old man who wanted cash. The banker knew she had a number of real estate investments so he reluctantly agreed. But it would take a couple days to get the cash.
• • •
Sam was waiting for the elevator when the door opened and Danny Hartmann got out, a paper cup in her hand. “Welcome to Monday,” she said. “Have a good weekend?” She held the door for him.
He got on the elevator, seeming not to want to share what his weekend had been like. Finally he said, “It’s over. That’s the best I can say about it. How ’bout you?”
“Better than yours, from the tone of your voice.” Sam let the elevator door close before she could say anything else.
She knocked on the door of Lt. Angel’s office.
“Danny. Good. Come on in. Tell me what you have on Kane/Jordan.”
“It gets curiouser and curiouser.”
“Wouldn’t have thought you were the Alice-in-Wonderland type, Danny. Although now that you mention it, you do resemble the Red Queen sometimes.”
“Thanks for the compliment. If that’s a compliment, which I don’t think it is. And how the hell do you know about Alice in Wonderland?”
“Five daughters, remember? Ask me anything about Disney princesses, Alice, Hermione. I‘ve read it all.” He sighed. “Not one super hero or G.I. Joe.”
“At least with Hermione you got Harry Potter.”
“Yeah, a fucking wizard. But that’s not what you have for me, is it?”
Danny set her coffee cup on his desk and summarized what Amanda had told her. “She may have been wrong to withhold telling us she was there but she’s right about one thing — there are too many similarities to the Webster case for coincidence. And all those coincidences wrap it up neatly. Also like last year.”
She finished off her coffee and pitched the cup in the trashcan. “We’re being led by our noses to see Amanda St. Claire as the perp. Why the similarities to the Webster case, I haven’t figured out yet, but I will.”
“She has a motive.”
“Weak, according to the folks I’ve talked to but, interestingly, established publicly in front of half the Bullseye staff.”
“You think one of them is our perp?”
“I think Kane wanted an audience to establish she had a reason to hate him. I don’t like the time element either. The guy across the street says she was there less than ten minutes. I don’t think she could have done what was done in ten minutes. Add a left-handed perp who brought down a six-footer and the image it paints for me isn’t Amanda St. Claire.”
“Okay, for the moment, let’s accept what you say is true,” Lt. Angel said. “That still leaves her lying about being there. Why?”
“I think she saw something and is too scared to tell me. Maybe the murderer or someone she knew. I’m not sure. I wish she’d trust me enough to talk to me honestly.”
“Let me think about this for a while. Got anything else?”
“A few odds and ends. The guy who saw Amanda there also saw a ‘classy car,’ as he described it. Silver, he thought, or gray, probably a BMW. Liz Fairchild, who owns the gallery where Kane showed his work, has a silver BMW and was on the eastside that night. She was evasive about where
she was, even intimated that she might have been a little drunk. I think she was at Bullseye, too.”
“Could Amanda have seen her? Maybe that’s who she’s trying to protect. I imagine they’re acquainted.”
“Yeah, they are. The Fairchild Gallery represents Amanda. Maybe they’re each protecting the other.”
Lt. Angel got up from his desk. “I’d congratulate you on your work but since you’re right, it’s Wonderland quality, I’ll save the awards and decorations until you come back with a name. I will say you’ve turned over a lot of interesting rocks. What’s next?”
“I want to find out whose fingerprints are on the kiln controller and the glass, so I’ll nag the lab. And I’m going back to the Pearl to talk to Liz Fairchild. Maybe now that she’s had a chance to think things over, she’ll have more to say to me.”
• • •
“Detective Hartmann, how nice to see you again.” Liz Fairchild greeted the police officer as she opened the door. “But I’d appreciate it if you’d come during regular gallery hours to see what my artists are exhibiting.”
“Sorry to inconvenience you, Ms. Fairchild, but this isn’t so much about art appreciation as an appreciation for the truth. Or lack of it, in this case.”
“Oh, my, you’re more confrontational than you were the last time you were here.”
“That was the good cop. I’m here today as the bad cop.”
“I thought that was a game you played with two officers.”
“We’re understaffed. Can we go back to your office for a few minutes?”
Liz led the way. “Okay,” she said when they were both seated, “what now?”
“Unless you want to spend the afternoon at the precinct with your lawyer and a couple of officers really playing good-cop/bad-cop, you can tell me the truth about what you saw at Bullseye when you were there the night of the murder.”
Liz took a deep breath and rummaged around aimlessly on the top of her desk. Eventually she looked straight at Danny Hartmann.
“Look, I didn’t lie. I just left out a few things.”
“Lot of that going around,” Danny said.
“I got a phone call while I was eating dinner. A voice whispered that if I wanted to get the contract thing straightened out with Eubie, I should get to Bullseye ASAP.”
“Did you recognize the voice?”
“No. But I went anyway. It wasn’t much of a detour to swing by Bullseye on my way home so I thought what the hell, I might as well go see what he had to say.”
“What did you see while you were there?”
“The building was dark. No signs anyone was there, except for what was parked in the covered parking area: an old brown hatchback, Eubie’s van, and … and a red SUV. Amanda St. Claire’s. With her vanity plate, it’s easy to identify.”
“Was she in her vehicle?”
“No, I didn’t see a living soul. Or a dead one.”
“So, what did you do?”
“It was pouring rain so I stayed in the car and waited for a couple minutes to see if anyone came out. No one showed so I left.”
“Any idea what time it was?”
“Around nine, I’d guess.”
“You’re sure that’s all.”
“Yes, Detective Hartmann. That’s all. I didn’t kill anybody. I didn’t see anyone get killed.”
“But you saw Amanda St. Claire’s SUV there about the time two people were killed and that’s why you’ve been evading my questions.”
Liz sighed. “Yes. I did and that’s why I have been.”
Chapter Twelve
Guilt — actually fear of getting caught — had kept Sam from any more snooping around his partner’s desk. But the next morning, delivering a cappuccino he’d gotten for her when he got his morning latte, he saw a report on fingerprints he couldn’t resist checking out.
What it said sent him back to his computer for a quick search of the old Webster case records.
And there it was: the fingerprints found on the glass from the big kiln at Bullseye belonged to Beal Matthews, a low-level thug hired by Tom Webster to run errands for the drug ring. He’d been dimed out by the cops who’d been involved in the operation, had served time for possession and been released about two months prior because of good behavior and jail overcrowding.
But it was Matthews booking photo that made him mutter, “I’ll be damned.” Staring back at him from his computer screen was the man he seen entering The Fairchild Gallery the day he and his partner interviewed Liz.
As the printer chugged out a copy of the photo, he called Matthews’ parole officer. The p.o. said Matthews had been a model prisoner and had been following all the rules since he’d been out. Sam got a home and work address as well as the information that Matthews had recently been doing some part-time work for a business in the Pearl, but the p.o. didn’t know where. Sam did.
He grabbed the copy of the booking photo and his coffee and headed out to his pickup before anyone — read, L.T. — could stop him or ask what he was working on.
At the car repair shop where Matthews worked, the owner said his employee had called in sick that morning, a first. Matthews wasn’t at his apartment, either. An apartment Sam wasn’t surprised to see was close to both Amanda’s studio and Bullseye.
He debated stopping by the GlassCo studio but decided not to. Amanda still hadn’t returned his calls and he wasn’t sure he wanted to find out what that meant just yet. Deal with one crisis at a time was his motto for the day.
Instead, he checked Eubie Kane’s neighborhood. Kane’s next-door neighbor thought Matthews might have been hanging out with Kane for the month or two before he was killed. The neighbor wasn’t positive. Kane’s new friend seemed shy, didn’t like to talk, always wore a hoodie with his face obscured or a baseball cap pulled down on his forehead.
Last, he went to The Fairchild Gallery where Liz confirmed that Beal Matthews was Mike Benson. She also told Sam about the gold bracelet he’d taken from her gallery to give to his hot new girlfriend for her birthday.
He hadn’t found his suspect but at least he could confirm for the parole officer where his client had been working part-time. And the mysteries of Robin Jordan’s gold bracelet and her secret boyfriend seemed to have been solved.
Sam drove back downtown to Central Precinct sure in his belief that Beal Matthews was the man they were looking for. All they had to do was find him.
• • •
Danny Hartmann couldn’t decide if she was pissed, scared or frustrated. Acting on the fingerprint information on her desk, she’d begun the legwork to track down Beal Matthews. Only to find out that every phone call, every visit was on the heels of one from Sam. She was pissed at his going off on his own, scared he’d get caught and suffer the consequences, frustrated that he didn’t trust her enough to take her into his confidence.
She almost blew off a visit to Amanda’s studio assuming Sam had gone there, too. But when she thought about it, he’d been adamant that Amanda had been out of contact so she took a chance and went to the GlassCo studio to see if Amanda recognized Beal Matthews. Only Leo Wilson was there. He identified the man in the photo as Mike, a guy who lived in the neighborhood and who’d dropped by a few times to talk about blowing glass.
She also learned “Mike” had asked a lot of questions about how they protected themselves from robbery when the area was deserted at night and Leo had told him about the gun they kept in the office. He couldn’t say for sure “Mike” knew where it was but it was possible he’d seen it when Leo had opened the drawer for a pen and paper to write down a phone number.
That left only one place to go — Amanda’s house.
“This isn’t a good time, Detective Hartmann,” Amanda said when she opened the door.
“It’ll only take a minute.” Hartmann pull
ed Matthews’ picture out of her leather bag. “Have you ever seen this guy?”
Danny watched Amanda’s expression harden. “I said, I can’t talk to you right now. Please go.”
“This is important. Leo says this guy dropped by the studio on several occasions. Maybe you saw his car? We think it’s an old Toyota hatchback.”
Shock broke through her neutral expression but Amanda still didn’t say anything.
Danny waited a few moments to see if there was more. “Nothing rings a bell?”
Amanda just stared at her.
“Couple other things might interest you: he’s been living about two blocks away from your studio and Bullseye.” She paused. “Oh, and he worked for Tom Webster selling drugs. Got out of prison a couple months back.”
The look of steely determination returned. “I have to go, Detective Hartmann.” Amanda started to close the door.
Danny put a foot on the threshold to keep the door from shutting. “We think he killed Eubie Kane and Robin Jordan. I also think he set out to mimic the circumstances of the Webster murder. Any idea why he’d want to do something like that?”
Amanda looked straight into Danny’s eyes. “Do you know how hard it was to get past the hell I went through last year because of what Tommy and a couple of your less-than-honorable colleagues did? I had to leave town to get away from the gossip even after the court acknowledged I wasn’t guilty of anything other than bad judgment in my personal life.”
“I appreciate what happened to you, Amanda.”
“I doubt that, Detective Hartmann. Portland can be a small town and it’s easy to have your reputation wrecked by careless police work and bad press coverage. I hope you never find out how easy.”
She pushed the door against Hartmann’s foot. “So, in case I haven’t been clear, listen up. I had nothing to do with what Tommy did; I had nothing to do with what happened at Bullseye. Other than that, I have nothing to say to you. And if you want to talk to me again, I need advance notice so I can have my lawyer with me.”