The Big Score

by Kilian, Michael;

  “I’m sure that’s all part of Mr. Poe’s full press recruitment drive.”

  “If he accepts your design, will you do his building?”

  “I haven’t decided yet.” Why did he lie? That building was the key to everything.

  “If you do, it’ll put your firm back in business.”

  “Certainly will.”

  “And when you’re done, you can move on to other things. We both can. Though I suppose you might want to leave Chicago—again.”

  “That building will take two years at a minimum. It would take that if he started tomorrow.”

  “So this is for the long haul.”

  “Yes. If he goes for it. Long enough of a haul.”

  “I feel like we’re at a point of no return. That it’s our last chance to walk away from him.”

  The sun had touched the western horizon. Its light was turning to amber.

  “Do you want to?”

  “Matt. Are we going to get married?”

  He wished he could better see her face. He felt so sorry for her, almost as sorry as he felt for Jill. Unlike Jill, he could do something about Sally, could undo what her wretched mother had done to her, to them both. Her happiness could now be assured with just a few words—his words.

  “My darling Sally. I think the fates ordained that a long time ago. Your mother just got in their way.”

  She came toward him now, pausing at the foot of the bed. “You’re sure?”

  What about his happiness? What about Diandra Poe?

  That was utterly impossible. He needed to remind himself of that now in a very firm way. He needed to make certain that what happened at the museum would never happen again.

  “Yes.” He said the word.

  “Truly?”

  “Sally, if I didn’t feel this way, I’d be back on the Côte d’Azur at this moment, sketching people for drinks in some café.”

  She climbed onto the bed and crawled into his arms, pushing him back against the pillow. Her skin was very warm.

  “I don’t ever want you to have to do that again,” she said.

  “I don’t either.”

  “No more sleeping on beaches.”

  “No.”

  “Matt?”

  “Yes?”

  “Are you over your wife?”

  “Hillary? Yes. She’s very happy with her new husband. I’ve no interest …”

  “And Jill Langley?”

  He hesitated. “I’m not over her murder.”

  “I don’t suppose any of us is.”

  There was a sudden sound from the floor below, a door slamming.

  “Christian,” he said. “He disappears for two days and picks now to come back.”

  “He’ll know I’m here. My purse is downstairs.”

  “I don’t think he’ll be exactly surprised.”

  “We should get dressed.”

  Matthias might have said that seeing Sally naked would be no shock to Christian, either. Instead he sighed in resignation. She began picking up her clothes.

  They found Christian in the kitchen, mixing himself a martini.

  “Big brother!” he said. “Sally! I’ve the most outrageous news.”

  He was smiling, the expression at once comical and cynical. Matthias simply stared, waiting for his brother to play out his game.

  “Aaron Cooperman’s been named president of the Park District,” Christian said, barely restraining his mirth.

  Another win for Peter Poe. “That’s hardly outrageous. It was expected.”

  “Yes, but, big brother, guess who’ve they picked to fill the other vacancy.”

  “Why don’t you tell us.”

  “Our father! They announced it this afternoon.”

  Matthias stared into his brother’s wickedly glittering eyes. “Is this a joke? A little merriment to go with your gin?”

  “I’m perfectly serious, Matthias. It’s really true.” Christian took a sip of his drink, then raised his glass in mock toast. “And why not? They’ve put judges on the Circuit Court who can’t think as clearly as dear old dad. If he falls asleep on the job enough, they might just make him an alderman!”

  Zany sat on his screened-in porch, enjoying a cold beer along with the sunset over the lake. He was waiting for a call, as he had been for several days. There was a New York cop he knew in the Manhattan burglary unit—a detective who specialized in art theft, a much bigger deal in that city than it was in Chicago. The detective, a friendly Italian guy like Baldessari, had been in his assignment for more than a dozen years and worked his beat like any other cop, relying on a network of friends and informants, most of them respectable art dealers but some of them crooks and snitches, to keep him apprised of any illicit traffic.

  Using his computer, some art magazines, and out-of-town telephone books at the library, Zany had tried to work up a list of collectors and dealers who bought and sold the kind of art the Curlands kept locked up in their basement vault—pre-World War II German painters—but he didn’t know enough. The New York burglary detective might be able to help him. The man might have heard about recent trade in Kirchner paintings. He’d promised to check his sources.

  Zany had an Anne Murray recording on his CD player, but kept the volume low, so it wouldn’t drown out the intermittent chatter on his police radio monitor, which he left on at all times now.

  He was opening another beer when he heard the sudden sharpness of voice—Hejmal, almost shouting.

  “Zane!” Judy called out. “Something’s going on!”

  Zany hurriedly got to his feet and went inside. He stood listening to the radio a moment, then went to the phone, not wanting to break into the conversation on the police two-way. Officer Vaclav answered his call, sounding even more excited than Hejmal.

  “It’s the St. Stanislaus Church, Chief!” she said. “They robbed it! Tied up Father Dubinin!”

  “Men in ski masks again?”

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  “Get everyone over there. Hejmal, too. You stay put. I’m on my way.” He wondered where he had put his service revolver. He hadn’t carried it in months—or was it years?

  “Chief, don’t you want me to call the state troopers?”

  Zany swore. How could he forget that? “Yes.”

  “Well, I already did. Just before you called.”

  He could imagine a big smile on her broad face.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  CHAPTER 8

  Poe’s big sloop—newly rechristened Lady P and with the hull painted a bright crimson beneath the waterline—was one of twenty-seven boats in the Chicago-to-Menominee race, and probably the handsomest. Matthias had picked a good crew, most of them young—four men and a woman who had raced with him in the past. Poe had demanded the best crew, but Matthias had replied to that enigmatically, saying that such a crew would have to include Jill Langley, and that not even Peter Poe could raise the dead. Noting how disturbed Poe was by this, Matthias told him not to worry. The sailors were in good physical shape, enthusiastic, and worked well together. Yacht races were won by making the right decisions, and those came from the helm.

  Poe didn’t worry overmuch. The crews that Tribune sailing writer Bill Recktenwald had rated the best were aboard the commodore’s boat and Bill Yeats’s. The lawyer knew better than to win this contest. It would be up to Yeats to deal with the commodore as well—though Poe hadn’t told Matthias that.

  As a grand, attention-getting gesture, Poe had put up a $100,000 prize on the race, which traditionally had provided the winner only with a trophy. This unofficial side bet, which none of the other competitors had shown any interest in matching, had a considerable string attached: The victor had to give the money to his or her favorite charity. Poe would pay Matthias a bonus separate from that—if they won.

  The ten-minute warning gun had fired, startling Poe as he was shifting into a more comfortable seat by the helm. Matthias had smiled, amused to see the mighty mogul caught unguarded, but said nothing.
Poe was getting tired of that smile—pleasant and friendly but so irritatingly superior. A few days more, and Curland would be so much in his pocket that he could tell him to knock off the smiling as he might his maid or Krasowski—tell Curland to stand on his head if he wanted.

  The boats were tacking and maneuvering into positions that would take them in a group over the start line at the next and last firing of the gun. Any bumping or fouling would be counted against them now, so the skippers were being very circumspect, slackening sail when necessary to keep clear of other craft.

  Matthias was still at the wheel though he had promised Poe he could take and keep the helm until they were well away from the downtown waterfront. He was holding the Lady P back at the rear of the flotilla. Poe had objected to the time and distance they might lose, but Matthias countered that they’d be better able to judge the rival skippers’ tactics and the play of the weather in this position, and plot their race plan accordingly. The wind was light, out of the west, but was expected to switch to the north and freshen by evening. Matthias planned to make his move for the lead while the wind was shifting.

  There was a fair-size crowd lining the shore and the dock of the yacht club, Diandra Poe and Sally Phillips somewhere in it. Poe’s man Krasowski was going to drive Diandra up to Menominee in one of Poe’s red stretch limousines to await the end of the race. Poe had invited Sally to go along, but she’d declined, wanting to spend the weekend with her daughter, whom she feared she’d too much neglected. Matthias was just as happy. He wasn’t sure how well Mrs. Poe and Sally were getting along.

  Matthias glanced at his watch. “All right, Mr. Poe, let’s trade places. Time to take the helm.”

  “I told you, Matt. Call me Peter.”

  “Very well, Peter. Take the helm.”

  Poe stood up, putting a hand on the wheel. There was a press boat full of photographers not too far distant. He turned toward it and waved, smiling broadly. They had telephoto lenses and would doubtless capture the vain moment.

  “Don’t you have the mainsail too far out?” Poe asked, trying not to be heard by the nearby crew members. “The wind’s from the west. Shouldn’t we be at a beam reach?”

  “Correct, Peter. We’ll trim it in when the starting gun goes off. If we do that now, we’ll ride up on that boat on the port quarter. She’s drifting to the right a little.”

  “You’ll give the command?”

  “I’ll attend to the changes in sail. No one ashore is going to hear us. You just keep the heading.” He paused, adding “Skipper.”

  Poe grinned.

  The gun caught him by surprise again, but he held the wheel fast. Matthias barked out an order and a husky young man on the main sheet smartly hauled the big sail in to proper trim. A blond-haired girl on the starboard winch simultaneously trimmed in the big Genoa jib accordingly. The sloop glided forward, spreading a wider wake, heeling at a steeper angle, gaining on the boat ahead.

  “Fall off a little and we’ll pass him,” Matthias said. “I want a clearer view of the leaders.”

  “Fall off?”

  “Turn it off the wind a little, Peter. To starboard. To the right. Remember?”

  Poe nodded grimly, giving the wheel a shove.

  “Too much, Peter,” Matthias said. “Bring it back some.”

  Poe obeyed, clenching his teeth.

  “Very good. Steady as she goes now.”

  “Aye aye,” Poe muttered.

  He looked over his shoulder. The press boat was following. He turned and gave its passengers a thumbs-up.

  Grand Pier’s Town Hall adjoined Zany’s police station, so he hadn’t far to go to the meeting he’d been summoned to—though it seemed a journey of a thousand miles. He’d always known his job carried the potential of ensnarement in local politics, but he’d heretofore managed to avoid that. Because of his status as a genuine former Chicago police detective, and the general lack of crime the community had enjoyed in his tenure, no one had ever bothered him—except for District Attorney Moran, who seemed to lust after as much crime as he could get the local newspapers and radio stations to cover.

  Now everything had changed. Moran was getting crime heaped on his plate beyond his wildest fantasies, and Zany was over his head in political trouble. He was being called to account for himself and his little department. He wondered if he’d be able to walk away with his job.

  The Town Hall contained a big outer room with a long counter at which the town clerk issued beach permits and dealt with tax matters and other municipal concerns. There were a couple of small offices behind the counter, and beyond them—down a short corridor—a chamber used both as a courtroom and as a meeting place for the town board.

  They were assembled there now, with Mayor Genevieve Braunmeister presiding. Moran was present also, as was the president of the local chamber of commerce. Braunmeister sat at the head of the table and the others along the sides. Zany, feeling very much in the dock, took a folding chair at the end. He nodded amiably at couple of the town board members, both of them his friends, but they looked away.

  Mayor Braunmeister had a stack of newspapers in front of her. “You’ve seen these, Chief Rawlings?” She held up one of the front pages, as if it were a dirty thing.

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Zany. “Pretty lively reading, these days.”

  “It’s a damned disgrace,” said Moran.

  Zany glanced at him with some amusement. Moran’s picture had been featured on most of the front pages.

  The chamber of commerce man cleared his throat. “The motels are reporting vacancies. In July.”

  “So where do we stand?” Braunmeister said. “Any arrests? Any suspects? Any idea as to what in the hell is going on?”

  “No arrests, no suspects,” Zany said. “But, yes, I have a real good idea what’s going on.”

  This caught most of them by surprise. Moran frowned. Zany hadn’t taken the prosecutor into his confidence about any of this.

  “You want to share it with us?” Braunmeister said, leaning forward. She was a small, thin woman, with oversize eyeglasses. Her husband owned the local marina.

  “I think the robberies are a response to my investigation of the Jill Langley murder. I think there are people who want me to lay off the case, and are trying to tie me up with these penny ante stickups.”

  “Penny ante?” said Moran. “They shot the 7-Eleven to smithereens. They assaulted a priest!”

  “Why would a couple of stickup men care about your investigating a murder?” Braunmeister asked.

  “I don’t think they’re professional stickup men. I think they’re just goons who pulled these jobs on orders, orders from somebody who wants me to lay off the Langley case.”

  “And who might this somebody be?”

  “I don’t know.”

  They looked at one another.

  “You haven’t made any progress at all,” Moran said. “You’ve given me nothing to go on. In fact, you’ve hardly communicated with me at all except to ask for a subpoena to go rummaging in some art museum in Chicago.”

  “So what progress have you made, Chief?” the mayor asked.

  “I’ve reason to believe that the dead girl was involved in some way with art theft, or art fraud, and that the two brothers who run that museum in Chicago may be involved—if not as perpetrators, at least as victims. Also, I think the art gallery she worked for could be part of it.”

  “You think these museum people and the art dealer are robbing 7-Elevens?”

  “That’s not what I’m saying.”

  “Do you have any evidence of their involvement?”

  “No. What evidence I had was stolen from my hotel room.”

  “Yeah, we read about that,” said another of the board members, a man who owned the biggest service station in town. He began to laugh. Soon everybody was laughing, except Zany.

  He accepted the humiliation, glad of anything that might lighten their mood.

  “And you don’t have any suspects at all?�
� Braunmeister asked. Her levity hadn’t lasted long.

  “No suspects. Just suspicions.”

  The president of the chamber of commerce cleared his throat again. “You think these robberies will continue, as long as you’re investigating the murder?”

  Zany shrugged. “I hope not. The sheriff’s office is helping us out with some extra patrols. And the State Police are watching over the interchange with the interstate.”

  The mayor’s tiny fist came banging down on the table. “Goddamn it, Zane, that’s the point! We’re spending good taxpayers’ dollars to maintain a police department, and we have to call in outside help to protect our convenience stores and churches? For God’s sake, we’ve had to close the town swimming pool because of the recession. People aren’t going to stand for this.”

  “How many trips you made to Chicago on that case, Zany?” the service station owner asked.

  “A couple.”

  “Where’d you stay, the Ambassador East?”

  “My expense reports are on file. I stayed at a Days Inn.”

  “That’s some Days Inn.”

  “Look, I didn’t ask for that sailboat to come bumping up on the breakwater.”

  “You know, Zany,” said another board member, the town mortician. “It was just a twist of fate that it did. If the winds had been different, it might have come ashore at New Buffalo or Union Pier, or maybe St. Joe.”

  “We don’t know where the homicide took place,” Zany said. “The body came here. According to the law, we’re stuck with the case.”

  “The State Police are on it, right? The criminal investigation unit?”

  “As much as the district attorney here will let them. Their operating theory is that it was a robbery, that we may have pirates or something out here on Lake Michigan. They’re not much interested in my theory. The Chicago police aren’t either.”

  “What about drugs?”

  “Not a trace of anything like that on the boat. No trace of anything but alcohol in her, according to the autopsy, and not much of that.”

  The chamber of commerce man cleared his throat yet again. “Haven’t you come up with anything on the robberies, Zane? Not even a little clue?”

  “No prints, but we recovered a lot of shell casings. We’ve got descriptions of the vehicle. There’s an all-points out in four states.”