“No, let them into the showroom, but no further. Carlos and I will address them in a minute. In the meantime, you saw that impression on the back door?”
“The one left by a two-by-twelve?”
“That’s the one. See what you can learn from it. Oh, and while we have the owners inside the showroom, inspect their vehicles. Measure bumper heights, check for damage… You know the drill.”
“Got it.”
I waited for Dominic to leave before turning to Carlos to say thanks.
“For what?” he asked.
I rolled my eyes up at the picture on the wall and tried not to let the granite mountain suck me back in. “That.”
He shook his head. “It must have been awful.”
“It was,” I told him, and left it at that.
Chapter 10
As Carlos and I started across the showroom floor to meet the rest of the store’s owners, an attractive young woman stepped forward from the group to head us off. She was tall, slender, early thirties I’d guess, a snappy dresser with keen brown eyes, long auburn hair and a confident strut, unshaken by her recent misfortune.
“Detectives?” She offered her hand in a businesslike manner. “I’m Lesley Swan.”
“Ms. Swan,” I said, dispensing a polite nod. “I’m Detective Marcella. This is Detective Rodriquez. We’re sorry about your store. I’m sure that—”
“This isn’t my store,” she interrupted.
I looked at Carlos and then at her. “You’re not one of the owners?”
“Oh, heavens no. I’m an insurance representative with the Royal Hall Insurance Group of Warwick, Rhode Island.”
“Really? Ms. Swan, how did you get in here?”
“I walked in with the owners.” She nodded toward the others waiting by the front door.
“I see, and how did you hear about the burglary so quickly?”
“Rachel called me…that is, Mrs. Marx, I mean.” She gestured again toward the group, this time singling out the only female there, an attractive fifty-something, short hair, tanned complexion; she was wearing a tight blouse, a short skirt and high heels better suited for a night on the town than a morning interview with police. She appeared to be instructing the three men accompanying her, perhaps advising them on what to say to Carlos and me. Then again, I supposed that could have just been my suspicious mind.
I said to Lesley Swan, “Ma`am, I appreciate that you have a job to do, but we—”
“Ma`am? Oh, please, Detective, call me Lesley. Besides, ma`am sounds so old. I doubt I’m much older than you.” She gave me a wink that came across surprisingly lascivious. Then again, it might have been her blouse, opened to the fringes of her bra lace, which made me think it.
I turned to Carlos and asked him to begin interviewing the owners without me, adding, “I’ll catch up in a minute.”
I led Lesley Swan back into the office to show her the safe. Pointing to it, I asked, “Do you know how someone might open a safe like that without any tools, Ms. Swan?”
“Sure,” she said, and laughed, as though I had asked a silly question.
“How?”
“With a key and combination.”
I thought she was kidding. “Funny, but seriously.”
Her smile faded. “I am serious.” She splayed her hand in presentational fashion. “Detective, what you’re looking at here is a 1979 Chubb Sovereign model 6428, a six-foot tall, three and a half ton impregnable fortress. It’s a safecracker’s worst nightmare. The walls and door are made of thick alloy plates of copper, aluminum and carbon steel. You can’t cut through it, drill through it, burn it or blow it up. It’s simply the best safe ever made.”
I regarded the safe with a renewed sense of awe. “What you’re saying is the only way anyone could have opened it was with the key and combination?”
“Exactly.”
“So, you think this was an inside job?”
“You’re the detective. You tell me.”
“Do you know what was in the safe?”
She shrugged. “I know what we insured.”
“And that was?”
“Forty-two assorted ideal cut diamonds averaging five-plus carats apiece, each of impeccable color and clarity, totaling twenty million dollars in value.”
“Why?” I asked, not even attempting to conceal the astonishment in my voice. “Why insure such a large investment of diamonds at a single retail location?”
“Are you kidding me?” She pointed to the safe again. “I told you. It’s a Chubb Sovereign. It’s virtually impenetrable.”
“Unless you have the key and combination.”
“Touché, Detective.” She handed me her card. “Listen, I know you have your hands full here. I was hoping I could get some preliminary information for my home office before we began our own investigation. A twenty million dollar claim against Royal Hall Insurance is going to upset the principal investors more than just a little. I’d like to be prepared. Do you think we could get together later tonight, say over coffee…” she gave me another one of those winks, “or a drink, perhaps?”
“Look, Ms. Swan. You understand—”
“Uh-ah. Lesley.”
“Lesley. I’m sure you understand that I can’t go on record with comments about the case, not while it’s still under investigation.”
“Who said anything about going on record?”
“You think I’d comment off the record?”
“Detective, please. Throw me a bone here, will you? I sold this policy. My job is on the line. All I’m asking is that you drop a tidbit or two my way. I mean, after all, I told you about the Chubb Sovereign. That has to be of some help to you. Who knows, maybe I know other things that could help your investigation. We could trade information.”
“All right, Ms. Swan, here’s the deal. I’ll—”
“Lesley.”
I ignored her correction and stiffened my posture to indicate my growing annoyance with her. “I’ll let you know ahead of time any information I plan to release to the press. That way you can prepare your principal investors and they can initiate whatever propaganda campaign they feel necessary in order to deal with the fallout from this thing. Fair enough?”
“Thank you, Detective. That’s all I ask. You have my card. Give me a call any time, day or night.” She hooked her brow and tilted her head seductively. “I mean it. Day or night.”
I pointed to the front door. “As the crow flies, Ms. Swan, head straight out. Don’t touch anything and wait for my call.”
She obliged, crossing the showroom floor and exiting the store with a sassy strut that turned more than a few heads.
Meanwhile, Carlos had separated the four owners with intentions of interviewing each separately. Two of them, however, had gotten together and appeared to be comparing notes.
“Hello,” I said, addressing the rogue couple. “I’m Detective Marcella of the Second Precinct, and you are?”
“Rachel Marx,” said the woman, holding her head high while leveling her eyes and smile to exactly the right degree.
“Mrs. Marx.” I offered my hand. She shook it in a firm, yet dainty, manner consistent with her style.
“I’m Eric Feldon,” said her companion, a tall, slender man whom I pegged somewhere in his early fifties. “I’m one of the partners, Detective, and let me say that I am at your service. If you need anything, just let me know.”
“I will, Mister Feldon. Thank you. Let me first express my regrets for the circumstances bringing us together today. I know it’s upsetting and difficult, so we’ll try to keep our initial interviews short.”
“Initial interviews?” said Mrs. Marx. “Do you mean to tell me that you expect to interrogate us more than once?”
“Mrs. Marx, I’d hardly call it an interrogation, but as for multiple interviews, then yes. Perhaps we’ll need to sit and talk with each of you more than once.”
“Detective, someone broke into our store last night and stole twenty million dollars worth of d
iamonds. What more might you need to know from us?”
“Well, aside from you four, who else had access to the safe?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean the safe wasn’t cracked. Whoever opened it had both the key and combination.”
“Impossible.”
“Why is that?”
“Because, Detective, none of us have total access to the key and combination.”
“I don’t understand?”
Eric Feldon said, “Detective, you may find this strange, but what Rachel is telling you is absolutely correct. None of us knows the safe’s combination in its entirety. For reasons we’d rather not get into now, all you need to know is that we each possess a single number to the combination, with Rachel here possessing both the last number and the key. It cannot be opened without the four of us present to open it together.”
I almost laughed at that, imagining Eric Feldon was pulling my leg, but when I saw he refused to smile even a little, I concluded he was telling the truth.
“All right, if that’s the case, when you all opened the safe last, one of you must have forgotten to lock it up again.”
Feldon and Marx exchanged glances that appeared genuine, portraying two people taken completely aback by the suggestion.
“Well?” I said. “Isn’t that possible?”
“I can hardly believe it,” Marx admitted, “but I have to imagine it is possible, seeing we were robbed.”
“When was the last time you all opened the safe?”
Marx regarded Feldon with uncertainty. “Some time last week, wasn’t it?”
He narrowed that down to, “A week ago yesterday, actually. Don’t you remember, we showed that pink fancy to Mrs. Delacroix.”
“That’s right. We did, but I’m sure we shut it tightly right after that.”
I came back, “Is there something you have to do after you shut it, spin the dial maybe?”
“Detective, the safe locks the moment you turn the key and remove it, which I did.”
“All right. Fair enough. We’ll be looking into that further, I imagine.”
“Tony!” Dominic called from across the showroom, waving a couple of evidence bags as he ran over to us.
“What is it, Dominic?”
“Rick found these in the alley.” He held up the first of two clear baggies, which contained a cigarette butt. “It’s a women’s brand: Melrose light. Appears fresh.”
“Oh?” I looked at Rachel Marx, who merely shrugged as though to indicate it wasn’t hers.
Dominic held up the second baggie. “Rick found this, too. It’s a button. Said it was near the cut lines around the air conditioning unit.”
Naturally, Dominic’s eyes and mine fell immediately to the buttons on Rachel and Eric’s clothing. There did not appear to be a match.
I started to say something about it, when a bout of anxiety swept over me. My breath grew short. My palms began sweating. My head grew light and dizzy. “Listen, I’m feeling….” I held my arms out to catch my balance. Dominic steadied me. “It’s awfully hot in here, isn’t it?”
“A little,” he said.
I wiped my brow with the back of my hand and pinched my eyes shut as if rebooting my vision. It didn’t help. “You know, I just remembered, I have to go somewhere. Would you all excuse me?”
Dominic tapped me on the back as I slipped past him. “Sure, Tony. I know you have that thing you have to take care of.”
He knew there was no thing, but I thanked him for understanding, adding, “It’s ten thirty now. Why don’t you and Carlos meet me back at the office after you finish up here? Say around one?”
“I have a better idea. How about we call you when we’re ready to leave? You know if it’s anywhere near lunch time, Carlos will want to eat.”
“The Percolator?”
“How could he say no?”
“All right. You got a deal.”
I left the jewelry store and headed out of town to the woods behind the demolished research center. I can’t say why, exactly, except that something drew me there. Some strange, inexplicable force that I could not, nor did I want to, fight, beckoned me. At first, I thought it was Lilith, a sort of witch’s light attraction, but then I realized otherwise.
It was the portal. I felt it stirring inside me. As sure as I could feel the feathered touch of a listless wind on the hairs of my arms, I could feel the twinge of the portal’s electric energy down deep in my bones. It wanted me back, and strangely, I wanted it, too.
I abandoned the car on the back road skirting the edge of the woods and started out on foot. Nothing about that area seemed familiar to me, yet I knew exactly where to go. Like an inner Geiger counter, I followed its signal until I found myself standing before it, just two steps away. I could almost reach out and touch it. I nearly did.
If not for fear it might suck me in and deliver me back to the Eighth Sphere before I could say goodbye to Lilith, Carlos, Dominic and Ursula, I might have done it. God help me, I wanted to.
I spent the next two hours sitting in front of the portal, tossing bits of grass, stones, twigs and small bugs into it, wondering about their final destination. Was there someone else on the other side, watching these things spit out of nowhere right before their eyes? Was I introducing strange insects to another world, perhaps upsetting a delicate balance in an ecosystem so foreign that something as simple as a beetle could wipe out entire species of forests, indigenous animals or other insects?
In the end, I didn’t care. The only question that mattered was the one with no answer. What wicked thing was this, my life, whose heart I left in one world while my soul resided in another?
I sat in complete solitude, mesmerized by the barely perceptible signature of an active portal. Like heat waves rising off a hot sidewalk, the illusion of temporal stability gave way to a fluid imbalance of time and dimension. What once made sense made none, and what didn’t once made some.
I stood up and started toward the portal. It seemed to swell in anticipation of my approach. A swirl of leaves gathered in a mini cyclone and raced ahead of me. They jumped into the portal and disappeared from this earth in a blink.
At arm’s reach, I waited, a hesitation that allowed fate to intervene. My phone rang. It was Dominic. He seemed apprehensive, as if sensing my vulnerability.
“You okay?” he asked. Funny it wasn’t, ‘Hi, how are you? What are you doing?’
I nodding, thinking it was an answer.
“Tony?”
“Yeah.”
“I asked if you’re okay. What’s going on?”
“Nothing.” I stepped back from the portal, took a deep breath and shook the walking sleep from my eyes. “Nothing’s going on. I’m just…. What’s going on with you?”
“Carlos and I are finished at the jewelry store. We’re ready to leave. We’ve interviewed the owners, bagged and tagged all the evidence. Bill photographed and videotaped every square inch of the building, and Rick has finished dusting, collecting and swabbing samples of everything he could find.”
I heard Carlos yell in the background, “Tell him I’m hungry!”
“Yes, and Carlos said he’s worked up a small appetite.”
“Carlos worked up an appetite getting dressed this morning,” I said.
Dominic relayed, “Tony says he understands. We can meet at the Perc if you’re buying.”
“Aw, geez,” I heard Carlos complain. “That cheapskate never buys.”
“Fine then, we can meet back at the Justice Center.”
“No, no. Tell him all right. Tell him it’s a deal.”
Dominic came back, “Yeah, Tony, Carlos would like to treat us to lunch at the Perc if you’re up to it.”
“Hey, wait,” said Carlos. “Us wasn’t the deal.”
“Tell him thanks,” I said. “I’ll meet you both there in about twenty minutes.”
Twenty-five minutes later, we were sitting in our favorite booth at the Perc, drinking iced teas and placing ord
ers for lunch. Before she left, I commented to our server that the diner seemed busier than usual. She furrowed her brow and regarded me suspiciously, as though I might have a punch line to follow up my remark.
“No, seriously,” I said. “Isn’t it rather busy in here?”
She shed her suspicions and shrugged it off to light banter. “Yeah,” she answered, playing along. “It’s our pot pies. People come from miles around to try`em.”
As she walked away, I said to the guys, “She thinks I’m kidding.”
Carlos said, “They do have great pot pies.”
“Tony?” Dominic leaned across the table and lowered his voice. “Are you feeling claustrophobic? We can go somewhere else.”
I looked around, suddenly realizing it wasn’t very busy in there at all. It only seemed like it to me. I shook my head to dismiss the subject. “I’m fine,” I told Dominic. “Thanks, but I’ll be all right.”
He leaned back in his seat and offered a reassuring smile, thin but sincere. Carlos, who had been alternating glances between us, simply nodded. I let the awkward moment evaporate, and said, “Tell me how the interviews with the owners went. Any indications they’re hiding anything?”
“I think they’re all hiding something,” Carlos offered. “Especially that Rachel Marx.”
Dominic agreed, adding, “Yeah, getting straight answers out of her is like pulling teeth.”
I nodded, remembering how borderline combative she had been with me. “Give me your abbreviated assessments.”
“I’ll give you the lowdown in a nutshell. The four: Marx, Feldon, Cohen and Shaul, are co-owners, as you know, but Rachel Marx definitely wields more power in the company than do the others. Her husband, the late Sheldon Marx, started the company in the mid-eighties. He died of sudden cardiac arrestinꞌ89. Back then, Rachel was his much younger second wife, arm candy, if you know what I mean.”
Carlos laughed. “Yeah, sweet to look at, maybe, but bitter as a pill to swallow.”
Dominic ignored him. “Sheldon Marx took on the three partners shortly after establishing the company. They no sooner hung the sign up over the door, when there was a…let’s say incident.”
“Let me guess,” I said. “It had something to do with a missing diamond.”
BURY THE WITCH: Book 10 (Detective Marcella Witch's Series) Page 10