by Julia London
“I’m calling the cops,” she tearfully informed him.
“You do that, and I’ll tell them you’ve been in on it from the beginning,” he said, his voice full of venom now. “Think where all the shit is! Who are they going to believe? Me? Or your fat ass?”
That did it. That so did it. She was seething now, barely able to contain her full-scale, nuclear fury. “My God,” she breathed into the phone. “You’re nothing more than a thieving son of a bitch.”
Myron snorted at that. “Maybe. But a rich one now. And you made it easy—Jesus, you’re getting a doctorate in history and you can’t even tell a real piece of art from a fucking replica? How stupid are you? All I can say is, don’t be stupid now. Be a good girl and carry all that shit down to the basement just in case the cops show up. I gotta go,” he said, and clicked off.
But not before she heard the announcement that the flight to Savannah was boarding.
Well then. She was stupid enough to have trusted him, but she wasn’t so stupid that she didn’t know Savannah was next to Hilton Head Island, where his parents had a condo, and where he was going to get stoned, lie on the beach, and contemplate his sorry life. “Asshole!” she shouted as she slammed the phone down.
She paced her living room trying to think what to do, and at last came to a couple of hard conclusions. She’d been an idiot, but she was not about to take this lying down.
Rachel picked up the phone again, dialed Dagne. “Hey,” Dagne began brightly, but Rachel quickly cut her off. “It’s real, Dagne. That painting is real. The bastard has been stealing stuff from the museums. I don’t know what his scam is, but he’s been using me.”
“W-what?” Dagne stammered. “You’re not serious.”
“Oh, I’m dead serious,” Rachel said, choking back a sob. “He said if I called the cops, he’ll tell them I was in on it. Dagne, that stuff is all over my house! And worse, you sold some of it on eBay!”
“Oh, Jesus,” Dagne uttered. “Oh, Jesus. What do we do?”
“I don’t know for sure. But I know one thing—Myron’s on his way to Hilton Head Island. Remember the year we went and stayed a week? His parents have a condo down by the lighthouse somewhere. I know he’s going there, I could hear them boarding in the background while he was talking on my phone. I’m going after him.” And honestly, Rachel had never felt as fiercely determined as she did in that moment. That asshole had her phone, and she was going to go get it back. And maybe kill him in the process, too.
“No, Rachel!” Dagne cried. “Don’t do that! They’ll think you are running away. God knows what else he’s got in your house!”
“I have to,” Rachel said, her determination growing in leaps and bounds.
“Jesus, no you don’t! What do you think—you’re Charlie’s Angel or something? You can’t go chasing after a . . . a . . .”
“Lying sack of shit!? Yes I can, Dagne, and I am,” Rachel said. “Don’t come around here, okay? Who knows what’s here or who will be looking for me. Once it gets out you have that painting, the RIHPS is going to figure it out and start looking for the jackass. And they can damn well have him—just as long as I get my hands on him first.”
“Rachel!” Dagne shrieked. “You can’t—”
“Yes I can, Dagne!” Rachel cried, on the verge of hysteria. “Dad is right! It’s about time I quit hiding and just step off the ledge and fall into life! I’ll call you, I promise, but I’m going,” she said, and hung up before Dagne could argue.
She glanced at the clock. A little past six. She snatched up her PDA, pulled up the number for Lear Transport Industries in New York and hastily dialed the number.
“Hello?” she said, getting Dad’s secretary on the line. “Oh hi, Belinda. How are you?” she said, trying to keep her voice calm. “Listen, is Dad in New York for a while? Great . . . I need the plane . . . No, wait! No, really, it’s okay, I don’t need to talk to—” Damn! “Ah, hi, Dad,” she said brightly, frantic now.
“What’s this about you needing a plane?” he asked calmly.
“Dad.” She took a deep breath. “Remember our talk? About how it was time for me to get out and face life and not be afraid of it?”
“Of course I do.”
“There is something I need to face. And I need you to trust me. I just need to go do it and I don’t have time to talk, because I have to get to Hilton Head fast.”
“Hilton Head—”
“Dad, please! I am going to go down there to take that asshole Myron Tidwell down, but I need to do it in a hurry! I’ll explain everything later, but could I use the plane, please?”
Dad didn’t say anything for a moment, and she squeezed her eyes shut, her mind already racing ahead to how she’d get there if he said no. A train. Trains left all night. But for the second time that week, Dad surprised the shit out of her. “I guess it needs to pick you up in Providence?”
She opened her eyes, feeling, remarkably, stronger than she ever had in her life. “Yes,” she said, and worked out when to meet the pilot.
Flynn arrived at Dagne’s apartment complex and parked next to Joe, who was waiting for him “She’s inside,” he said as Flynn slipped into the passenger seat. “So what’s up?”
“You’ll not believe it. This one,” Flynn said, jerking his thumb in the direction of Dagne’s apartment, “took the Badger portrait to some televised show where people bring their heirlooms to have them appraised.”
Joe’s jaw dropped. “Antiques Roadshow?” he exclaimed in disbelief. “Christ Almighty.” He shook his head. “I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised,” he added, and reached behind him, grabbed a pair of silver candlesticks wrapped in plastic and showed them to Flynn. “Some guy in Michigan bought this off eBay. When he received them, he suspected they were authentic and had them checked out. They were authentic, all right, so he turned them over to the police, who traced them back to a seller here in Providence. One Dagne Delaney.”
“Bloody hell,” Flynn said.
“What about Rachel Lear?”
What about Rachel Lear . . . Flynn glanced out the window into the dark. “She’s got quite a number of items lying around and seems unconcerned in general.”
Joe said nothing for a moment, but finally said, “Dude. I’m sorry.”
Flynn wasn’t sorry. At least not yet he wasn’t—in his heart of hearts, he didn’t believe for a moment that Rachel was involved in this scheme. That would go against everything he knew about her. And he was, generally, a bloody good judge of character. Actually, he was usually spot on when sizing people up.
But then again, he couldn’t come up with a plausible explanation for how those items had landed in her home without her having some part in it.
He couldn’t think about that now. At the moment, he was more interested in retrieving that priceless portrait of Colonial Woman and said, “I suppose we should have a chat with Miss Delaney to start, eh?”
At the door of 4A, Flynn knocked. Dagne answered a moment later, but the instant she saw them, her eyes went wide and she tried to slam the door shut.
“One moment, if you please,” Flynn said, stopping her from shutting the door with a stiff-arm to the door. “I’m Rachel’s friend Flynn Oliver.”
“Flynn?” she said, her eyes getting wider. “You’re Flynn Oliver?” She suddenly smiled. “Wow. Rachel wasn’t lying when she said you were a hunk—”
“Might we have a word?” Flynn asked, pushing a little on the door.
She looked at Joe then, and her eyes narrowed into suspicion again. “Wait. How do I know you’re Flynn Oliver?” she said, pushing back. “And who’s this bozo?”
“I’m really Flynn Oliver, and this . . . bozo . . . is my American partner,” Flynn said, digging in his back pocket. He retrieved a small case and flipped it open.
Dagne squinted at it. “Lloyds of London. . . Flynn Oliver. Okay,” she said, glancing up at him. “You’re Flynn. So where is Rachel?”
“At home,” Flynn said, smiling charming
ly now. “She’s quite all right, and in fact, was preparing dinner when last we spoke.” That earned him a look of surprise from Joe, but Dagne folded her arms across her middle.
“No she’s not. I just talked to her.”
“That’s great. And now we want to talk to you,” Joe said, stepping up. “Take a closer look at Mr. Oliver’s credentials. He’s an investigator with Lloyds of London. And I,” he said, pulling out his badge, “am a detective with the Rhode Island State Police. So do you want to let us in, or do you want us to haul you downtown?”
Dagne glared at the badge, then at Joe, and she held on to the door tighter, bracing herself against it. “Listen, pal, you can’t just come in here like that. I watch Law & Order! You have to have a search warrant!”
“A warrant just to talk to you?” He laughed. “You need to watch a few more episodes, because I don’t need a warrant just to talk. And I can talk to you here, or I can take you downtown. Right now I’m giving you a choice. But if you don’t let us in, I might stop being so magnanimous.”
“I’m calling the cops,” Dagne said.
“I am the cops. If you call more, they’re going to come out here and tell you the same thing I just told you. And then they are going to ask, just like I’m about to ask, what your problem is. Do you have something to hide in there? Should we go get a search warrant?”
“I don’t have anything to hide!” she said angrily. “I just don’t like being pushed around—”
“No one’s pushing, Miss Delaney,” Flynn said calmly. “This is really about Rachel. She might be in a spot of trouble, and I, for one, would like to help her.”
That softened her up. She blinked at Flynn, glowered at Joe, but seemed to think the better of it and stepped back, letting them inside. “I smell vanilla,” she said as Flynn passed her. “Vanilla!” she said again, only louder. Flynn ignored her.
Joe assumed a fairly aggressive stance—legs apart, hands on hips and coat flared back so that she couldn’t miss his gun, and that backed the poor girl up against the wall. “All right, Delaney. How is it you came to be in possession of the Joseph Badger painting?” he demanded as Flynn walked to where it was perched on the couch and picked it up.
The blood literally bled from the girl’s face. “I ah . . . I d-didn’t . . . Can you ask me that question?”
“I can ask any question I want. Why wouldn’t you answer? Afraid of something?”
“No! Look, you are not going to bully me. I was just helping Rachel out—”
“Helping Rachel do what? Fence stolen property?”
“No!” she cried, aghast. “What are you saying? Do you even know Rachel?”
“Do you?” Joe pressed.
“Yes, I do, better than anyone, and she’d never do that. She didn’t even know—” Dagne squealed then, clamped a hand over her mouth, and big fat tears welled in her eyes.
Joe eased up on her. “I think you better sit down and tell us what you know.”
She nodded slowly, lowered her hand. “It’s my fault. I should have done a spell to ward off the evil,” she said, gulping down a sob.
“What?” Joe asked, confused.
“I’ll explain later,” Flynn said, and with the priceless portrait under his arm, he put a hand to Dagne’s elbow, guided her to sit at her little dining table.
With some prodding, Dagne told them what she knew. Professor Tidwell, or Myron, as she called him, had been bringing Rachel presents from time to time, all of them, ostensibly, from the museum gift shops. “I always thought he was trying to make up for borrowing her money and eating her food,” she said, staring morosely at that table.
“So how did you end up selling the stuff on eBay?” Joe asked.
She explained that Rachel’s father, Aaron Lear of the huge Lear Transport Industries, had recently cut her off, which came as something of a surprise to Flynn. “He thought she’d been in school too long and was running around with the wrong people. Which,” she said, stabbing the air to point at herself, “she was, hello!”
Another loud sob, a comforting pat on the back from Flynn, and she continued.
“So anyway, she was having a hard time finding a job and paying her bills, and I thought I’d help her out! That’s all! She didn’t like the stuff Myron brought her anyway, and she’d put it in the dining room or in the guest room and say she was going to decide what to do with it later, but she didn’t want to throw it out because she was afraid of hurting his feelings or something . . . she’s just really nice like that. So I started taking things. One at a time, you know, so she or Myron wouldn’t notice. And I . . . I sold them on eBay!” she cried out in a flood of tears. “But I gave all the money to Rachel!”
“How many items?” Flynn asked.
“Am I going to jail?” she sobbed into her hands.
“Not right this minute,” Joe said, casually leaning back, his feet propped on an empty chair as he watched her.
“Perhaps not at all if you can help us,” Flynn said.
“How many items did you auction?”
“I don’t know,” she said, lifting a very red, tear-streaked face. “Maybe six or seven things. Enough to pay the utility bill. Except she used the money to have that stupid Thanksgiving party for her weaving class because she’d already promised them. God, sometimes I just want to slap her!”
Joe rolled his eyes, drummed his fingers impatiently against the tabletop. Dagne reached for a paper towel and blew her nose, sounding a bit like an old bleating sheep.
“And how many items do you think the professor brought her?” Flynn continued.
“Oh hell, I don’t know. There was something all the time.”
“Were you ever present when he gave something to Rachel and claimed it was a replica?”
“Yes. The torch thingies. I remember because I thought it was weird they’d have those in a gift shop. I mean, who would buy them, right? And then I thought, well duh, Myron the idiot, who else?”
Joe looked at Flynn. “Let’s go pay a visit to Professor Tidwell.”
“Righto,” Flynn said. “Have you any more items here, Dagne?” he asked. She shook her head.
Joe stood and looked down at Dagne, then suddenly bent down, so that his face was just inches from hers. “You leave this apartment without calling me,” he said, flicking a card at her, “you’re definitely going to jail for a long, long time.”
Dagne wailed, motioned for him to go away.
“Look at me,” Joe said sternly, and when she looked up, he said, “Do you think I’m kidding?”
“No,” she said, sniffing. “I think you’re a jerk.”
Joe smiled, came to his feet. She buried her face in her hands again. Flynn patted her on the back, followed Joe out.
Myron was not in his apartment. Nor was he at the RIHPS offices, or the bar he frequented. Their last stop was Rachel’s; it was almost eleven o’clock, but there were several lights on in the house, and her car was in the drive. There was no sign of the professor.
Joe and Flynn jogged up the steps to Rachel’s house, knocked loudly, then stood there, waiting for her to open. Several seconds passed; Joe walked down the steps, looked at the upstairs lights. “I’ll check around back,” Flynn said, and withdrawing a small pocket flashlight, walked around the porch, down the steps to the drive, and along the bank of windows that framed the dining room. The garage was closed and locked, but the kitchen light was on and the back screen door was slightly ajar. Flynn tried it, but the door was locked. He knocked, waited for a time, but heard nothing from within.
After checking the back of the house, Flynn walked up the east side and around to the front, where Joe was still banging on the door, and was about to speak when someone behind him asked, “Who are you?”
Startled, both Flynn and Joe turned toward the male voice. A short man with a knitted cap that stuck up on his head like Cat in the Hat was standing there with a rake in his hands, despite it being quite dark out.
“One might ask the same o
f you, mate,” Flynn said, turning around fully and shining his light in the man’s face. “We’re looking for Miss Lear.”
“Well, you’re frightening my wife with all this noise!”
There was no noise, and the man’s attitude did not set well with Flynn. He took several steps forward, until the man had to bend his neck back to look at him. “Sorry if we’ve been a nuisance, but it’s very imperative that we find Miss Lear. Have you seen her?”
“Yeah, I seen her,” he said testily. “I keep an eye out for that one—I’ve called the cops on her before, you know, because they do all sorts of weird stuff back there. And that tree—she don’t care at all about that tree!”
Flynn had no idea what he was talking about, but closed in on him, leaning down so that his face was inches from the little man’s face. “When did you last see her?”
“A while ago! She took a taxi.”
“And what do you mean, a while ago? Within the last hour? Two hours? Longer?”
“She left sometime after seven,” he muttered, fearfully clutching the rake.
“Thank you,” Flynn said, let his gaze slowly flick the length of the man, then turned and walked back to Joe. “She’s gone,” he said. “A cab, more than three hours ago.”
“Shit!”
“I suspect,” Flynn said, shooting a glare at the neighbor, who was sneaking up to eavesdrop, “that her friend will know exactly where she is.”
“Let’s go,” Joe said, and came off the steps, pausing in front of the neighbor. “Go back home before I punt you there.”
The man scurried away.
“What is it about people with plastic yard art?” Joe muttered, and shaking his head, walked briskly with Flynn to the car.
Unlike Rachel, Dagne hadn’t appeared to have left the table, much less her flat. She opened the door timidly when Joe pounded loudly, and offered no resistance when he pushed inside. The girl had been crying; it was plainly obvious, what with the red face, swollen, bloodshot eyes, and clogged nose.