by Karen Leabo
She knew she should say something to Michael. The man had just possibly saved her life. But she couldn’t force herself to be grateful. It was easier to focus on the dog.
“You’re bleeding,” Michael said, pointing to a scrape on her knee. A tiny trickle of blood wended its way down her leg.
She swiped at it impatiently. With all the adrenaline in her system, she didn’t feel any pain. “It’s nothing. Let’s just take Yoda home and get on with meeting the artist. I’ve wasted enough of your time today.”
Wendy’s sudden ambivalence toward him cast a shadow on Michael’s morning. He’d actually been enjoying all the detours. Watching Wendy work was educational, not to mention arousing. Throwing her down to the ground and falling on top of her would have been pretty fun, too, if he hadn’t been scared out of his mind. If he’d been even one second later in pulling her out of the street, she would be roadkill.
She didn’t seem to realize how close she’d come to meeting her maker. She hadn’t even thanked him for saving her from certain injury. Instead she seemed withdrawn and even a little bit angry.
“The car that almost hit you,” he said as they walked toward the warehouse building. “Did you realize it was the same brown Caprice that was circling the block?”
“Really? Maybe he was in a hurry ’cause he spotted a parking place.”
Michael didn’t think so. There’d been something almost deliberate in the way that car had barreled down the street without hesitation, and the driver hadn’t even stopped after the near-accident.
In all the confusion, Michael still had managed to memorize part of the license plate. The Caprice was a few years old and not a very common color. He intended to track down the driver and find out what the hell he or she was up to. At the very least, he would turn the person over to the Traffic Division for reckless driving.
Wendy reinstated Yoda in his apartment and, despite her threat, gave him another Milkbone. Minutes later they were back in her van headed for the police department’s Physical Evidence Section on Cantegral. Michael tried to get Wendy talking again, but she answered his questions with monosyllables, so he gave up.
Although Michael hadn’t made an appointment with the artist, Linda Bashier was almost always available, and today was no exception. They found her in her second-floor cubbyhole of an office, messing around with modeling clay.
The moment Linda and Wendy met, Michael could tell they would get along. Wendy’s reticence disappeared as soon as she entered Linda’s area. Her natural curiosity rebounded, and she launched a series of endless questions about the artist’s work.
“What’s this?” she asked, examining a life-size model of the head of a young male, made out of clay.
“It’s a facial reconstruction,” Linda replied. “A badly decomposed body was found near the Trinity River, and we couldn’t identify it. So I take the skull and, using certain standard measurements, build a face of clay around—”
Wendy gasped. “You mean there’s a human skull under there?”
Linda shared a wink with Michael. “Yes. I boil it in an acid solution to clean off—”
“Whoa, whoa,” Wendy said, holding up her hands in a warding-off gesture. “That’s more than I wanted to know.”
“Sorry,” Linda said. “I forget how repugnant some people find my work. Shall we get busy?”
The two women settled at a desk with a sketch pad and a thick book that contained facial features of every description. Linda would help Wendy remember every detail, then combine them into a drawing, or perhaps a couple of different ones showing the suspect with and without hair, with and without glasses. Michael planned to circulate the drawing among all the cops, snitches, and other criminal elements, hoping someone would recognize the mug.
During the two hours it took to come up with the composite drawing, Michael made a few phone calls and took care of his stranded car. Unfortunately, the motor pool didn’t have even a bicycle to spare as a loaner, so he was stuck without wheels. That meant that if he wanted to pal around with Wendy anymore, he would still be the victim of her whims.
The prospect wasn’t nearly as unpleasant as it should have been.
He spent the rest of the time on the phone with banks and utility companies, following leads on Neff and the mysterious Pat Walters. The bank, it turned out, did have an account for Bernard Neff. They were tracking down the person who’d taken the original account information.
Unfortunately, the account had been cleaned out through a series of ATM withdrawals over the past several weeks. It sounded as if Wendy’s friend had plans. Maybe he’d even set Wendy up to be caught, to clear the way so he could move cleanly on to his next heist.
At least he hadn’t gotten those last few thousand dollars from the sale of the art deco jewelry, Michael thought. The cash and the jewels were locked up tight in the evidence room.
Bored, Michael decided to wander over to visit Cecil Wanstadt, the resident fingerprint expert. The shiny surface of the topaz on one of the art deco necklaces had yielded a single, fairly clear print. Wanstadt had quickly determined that it didn’t belong to Wendy or to the fence she’d sold the jewelry to. He’d submitted it to the computer fingerprint database to see if a match could be found.
Michael discovered Wanstadt hunched over a keyboard in the room that housed the computer, which the fingerprint expert guarded as if he were a dog with a big bone. On his computer screen were two huge thumbprints, one complete, one partial, which Wanstadt was comparing ridge by ridge.
When calling out Cecil’s name yielded no response, Michael had to tap him on the shoulder to get his attention.
Wanstadt jumped, then broke into a big grin. “Hey, Taggert, what are you doing on this side of the tracks?” he asked as he stood and offered a handshake.
“Came to harass you. Any luck with the jewelry print?”
The older man shook his head. “The computer spit out four candidates for comparison, but when I eyeballed ’em, none matched.”
Michael felt disappointment settle inside his chest like a lead weight. That was the way this case had gone from the beginning, one dead end after another. Although it was encouraging that Wendy’s prints hadn’t been found on the jewelry, she was still his only suspect. If something more concrete didn’t turn up soon, she was in a heap of trouble, and so was he.
He hoped the mayor was bluffing about nixing Michael’s application to the FBI, but what if he wasn’t? He figured he had a few more days’ grace, but then he would have to prove Wendy’s guilt or innocence to get himself off the hook.
“Hey, Tagg, that you in the computer room?” an anonymous voice called from the main squad room.
Michael stuck his head out the doorway. “Someone want me?”
A detective he’d seen often at the courthouse pointed at the phone. “Call for you. Line four.”
Michael picked up the extra extension in the computer room. “Taggert here.”
“It’s me, Joe. I was just talking to Smythe.”
Wayne Smythe was another detective in Theft. “Yeah?”
“You’re not going to like this.”
The lead weight in Michael’s chest doubled in size and sank to his gut. “What? Spit it out.”
“Four houses burglarized in the last five months were owned by clients of Born to Shop.”
FOUR
“It gets worse,” Joe said.
Michael braced himself. “Go ahead.”
“Whoever committed the burglaries got around the security alarms.”
Michael flashed back to Wendy punching in the security code at Yoda’s owner’s apartment building. “Is there more?”
“Oh, yeah. The diamond earrings we found in Wendy’s purse. You know how they weren’t part of the estate jewelry stolen from the museum?”
“Yeah?”
“They belong to a Mrs. Howard Pitts.”
“One of Wendy’s clients,” Michael guessed.
“You got it.”
This
new development shed a really ugly light on Wendy. Yet something didn’t feel right about it. It was too neat. Surely if Wendy were routinely ripping off her clients, she would fake a forced entry, maybe set off the alarm on her way out the door with the loot. Otherwise she would have to know she was implicating herself.
“Thanks, Joe.” Thanks for making a bad day worse.
“Smythe wants to bring her in for another interrogation.”
Now Michael’s insides felt like solid lead, no more room for expansion. Poor Wendy. He’d never sided with a perp, even a possible perp, before. Still, he didn’t relish the thought of the wringer his coworker, Wayne Smythe, would put her through. That guy could make hardened felons, gang members, and ex-cons cry. “Let me see if I can get her to come in voluntarily, okay? She’s already in the system. No need for handcuffs and warrants.”
Joe laughed. “You’re getting soft, Tagg.”
Michael didn’t rise to the bait. “Maybe so.”
He got a few more details from Joe before he ended the call. Just as he hung up, he became pleasantly aware of a fragrance he was coming to know: Wendy. He turned, and she was standing by the door in the computer room.
“I’m done,” she said. Her eyes sparkled with enthusiasm. “Wait till you see what Linda came up with. It looks exactly like Mr. Neff.”
Michael had a hard time coming up with a pleasant rejoinder. He had a sudden visual image of Wendy in prison blues. Maybe that shark lawyer of hers could work out a deal, especially if the mayor remained on Wendy’s side. But with this new evidence that had come to light, even the mayor would have a hard time believing in Wendy’s innocence.
Then why was Michael so anxious to believe there was an alternative explanation?
“Michael?” Wendy looked at him questioningly. “Don’t you want to see it? Linda’s putting the finishing touches on it now.”
“She’ll fax it over to me when she’s done, I’m sure,” Michael said curtly.
“Is something wrong? You look … funny.”
“Yeah, something’s real wrong.” He consulted his notebook. “Hopkins. Lamb. Pitts. Yarbrough. Names sound familiar?”
Wendy paled. “They’re all clients of mine. Why?”
“They’ve all been burglarized in the last few months.”
“Oh, Mrs. Lamb said something to me about that. They took her silver, her furs. But I hadn’t realized there was a rash of—wait a minute! You think I had something to do with it?”
At her shrill question several heads turned. Wendy, bristling with outrage, ignored them.
“What I think is immaterial. Detective Wayne Smythe wants to talk to you.”
Wendy’s head was spinning as they walked outside the Physical Evidence building into the warm, pleasant spring day. Things were going from bad to worse! Her spirits had been momentarily bolstered by the super-accurate drawing she and the artist had produced. But for every step forward she took, it seemed she took two steps back.
Now the police thought she was a museum thief and a second-story woman.
The very idea that she would victimize the lovely people who brought her business, who trusted her with so many very important responsibilities, who made possible the life she wanted to lead—she was nauseated at the thought.
“Do you keep a calendar?” Michael asked. It was the first thing he’d said since they’d climbed into her van five minutes earlier.
“Yes. Why?”
“Do you have it with you?”
“It’s in my organizer.”
“Bring it in with you to the station. They’ll want to know what you were doing, specifically, on the days the burglaries occurred. If you were out of town, or spending the night with …” He paused. “Well, you know. If someone can vouch for you, and you can establish an alibi, it’ll help. A lot.”
Wendy’s face warmed at the mention of “spending the night.” It was not something she was particularly proud of, but if James could provide her with an alibi, she’d kiss him and his new girlfriend.
“I haven’t been out of town much, but I do know someone who can verify that I don’t go gallivanting out to break into houses in the middle of the night.”
“Who?” Michael barked.
If Wendy hadn’t known better, she’d believe there was a jealous note in his question.
“James. James Batliner.”
“You have a boyfriend?”
“You sound really surprised.”
“It’s just that … you never mentioned a guy in your life.”
“That’s because he’s actually my ex-boyfriend,” Wendy said, matching Michael’s snappish tone. “He dumped me yesterday, and I’ve been trying to block him from my mind.”
“You don’t sound terribly broken up about it.”
“I saw it coming, so it wasn’t a big surprise. He was cheating on me. But I’m sure he’ll provide me an alibi if he can.”
“Did you spend a lot of nights with him?”
She cocked her head and gave Michael a sideways glance. “Is this an official question, or are you just being nosy?”
He didn’t even crack a smile. “I just figured if you were with him most nights, your chances of providing an alibi are higher.”
Wendy still wasn’t sure she should answer. She realized then that she was a little embarrassed about her relationship with James. They hadn’t exactly been in love, yet she’d spent a couple of nights at his house.
Deep down, Wendy knew she’d slept with James because he was a nice, likable guy she felt at ease around. Well, she used to think that, anyway.
But she was better than that. Loneliness was no excuse for holding on to a less-than-fulfilling relationship.
“There’s a good chance James can alibi me on at least one of the nights the burglaries occurred,” she said carefully.
“How did you know the burglaries occurred at night?” Michael asked casually.
Damn, he thought she was guiltier than ever. She’d believed that maybe, now that they’d gotten to know each other a little better, he would have realized she wasn’t capable of a life of crime.
“Don’t most break-ins occur at night?” she shot back.
“A lot of burglaries take place during the day, when the residents are at work.”
“Well, did these occur at night?”
“Yeah. In all four cases, the homeowners were out of town. That’s information you would be privy to.”
Lord, no wonder they thought she’d done it. Someone had carried out a damn professional job framing her, and she had a pretty good idea who.
“What about the people in your office?” Michael asked hopefully. “Do any of them have access to the schedules and security access codes?”
“Jillian, my office manager. But there’s no way she would be involved in anything like that. I’ve known her for years.”
“Does anyone else have access to your organizer?” Michael asked.
Wendy gasped. “That’s it! Mr. Neff was curious about it one day, so I showed him how it worked. He didn’t seem to really understand it—you know how most old people are about computers. But he could have been faking it.”
“Did he ever have the opportunity to pull information from it? What about the password?”
Wendy deflated. “That’s right, the password. There’s no way he could have had access to that information.” The names of her clients he could have gotten from other sources, but the security codes were a different matter.
“Think, Wendy. How could a third party get hold of those security codes?”
“I don’t know,” she said miserably. “I keep a backup of my organizer files on my computers at home and at the office, but no one has access to that, either. I guess someone could follow me around and use binoculars to watch me punching in security codes.” She thought again of the car that had almost run her down.
She wanted to dismiss it as coincidence, a stroke of almost-bad luck. But maybe the guy in the brown Caprice had been following her.
<
br /> “That’s not a bad theory,” Michael said. “I know long-distance access codes have been stolen that way. Bring it up during your questioning. Anything you can inject to stir up doubt will help.”
Was Michael Taggert coaching her on how to get through an interrogation? Interesting. He’d gone from browbeating, sneering bad cop to cheerleader good cop in less than twenty-four hours. The change was welcome, but she didn’t entirely trust it—or him.
Her car phone rang. What now? She punched the button for the no-hands speaker phone. “Wendy Thayer.”
“Wendy, I’m so glad I caught you!” It was Jillian, her office manager. “Maggie Courtland just called. She has an appointment with her doctor, and her car won’t start. Can you take her?”
“A lot of that going around,” Michael murmured.
“For heaven’s sake, why doesn’t she call a cab?” Wendy asked.
“I asked her the same thing, but she doesn’t like cabs. She had a bad experience once with a driver who took her out into the boonies and mugged her.”
“Oh.” Wendy could understand the woman’s reticence. She’d encountered a scary cab driver or two in her time.
“She’s on the other line,” Jillian said. “Please, can I tell her you’ll come get her? She sounds desperate, and you know she’s about ten months pregnant.”
“Can’t someone else do it?” Wendy asked, a little desperation creeping into her voice. She would have to level with Jillian eventually, but she didn’t want to do it now, with Michael listening in.
“Everyone else is frantic and running late, what with all the extra errands you stuck on everybody this morning. You don’t have to wait for Maggie at the doctor’s or anything.”
Wendy put Jillian on hold and looked over at Michael. “Would you mind? Mrs. Courtland lives right off Oak Lawn near Brighton. It’s only about ten minutes away.”
Michael rolled his eyes. “The day is shot anyway. Sure, why not?”
“Great.” Wendy confirmed with Jillian that she was on the way, then hung up.
Maggie Courtland lived in a huge house—a mansion, really—on wooded, hilly St. Johns Street. Michael gave a low whistle as Wendy pulled into the driveway. “I’m surprised this Mrs. Courtland doesn’t have a chauffeur-driven limo.”