by Mary Maxwell
“Not so fast, sweetheart,” he said. “I distinctly remember floating the idea a few months ago after Dionne Bach and I visited your law firm in Denver. She’d embarrassed you in front of your partners. I was sick of dealing with her nasty tone and the way she treated me. Like I’ve been some kind of servant instead of a great artist. I could tell you were inclined to do something drastic to get one up on Dionne and make some cash for yourself. Too bad that’ll never come to pass.”
“But we’re in this together, Vito!” Liza thundered. “You, me, Phil and June.”
Vito’s laugh was hard and cold, a jagged reminder that he was the only one of the group armed with a handgun.
“Phil is an idiot,” Vito said. “Thinking he could fool the police by pretending to be held captive in the closet at the motel.”
“It worked,” Phil boasted proudly. “They believed my story.”
“For now,” June said. “But they’ll see through it at some point.”
“That doesn’t matter,” Phil said. “We’ll be long gone by then.”
Vito laughed again. “Things change,” he said. “I can no longer trust any of you. I’ve already been on the phone with the broker in Brussels. I explained that none of you are working on the project at this point. What we’re going to do is get in my car, take a little drive and then you three can say nighty-night for the last time.”
“What!” Liza shouted. “You’re going to…” Her voice cracked and she struggled to finish the thought.
As I waited for the next bombshell out of Vito’s mouth, I felt a hand on my back and heard someone whisper my name. I was so startled that I spun around with such force that I nearly knocked Dina Kincaid into the row of potted fir trees in front of the building.
“Sorry,” she said quietly. “I thought for sure you heard my footsteps.”
I shook my head. “Too busy concentrating on the craziness inside.”
“What’ve we got?” she asked.
“Liza Canfield, June Calloway, Phil Bickerton and Vito Marclay,” I answered.
Her eyes bulged. “Vito Marclay?”
I nodded. “I’m guessing that he’s the mastermind behind this bungled art theft and his own staged disappearance.”
“Well, I sure didn’t see that one coming,” Dina said. “Do you want to step around the side and wait while we go in?”
“We?”
She motioned toward the far side of the building and two uniformed CCPD officers stepped from the shadows. I recognized Stephen Castle, but the second man was unfamiliar.
“That’s Mike Kramer,” Dina whispered. “Joined the force last week.”
“A rookie?”
She shook her head. “Ten years in Grand Junction. His wife was transferred to Boulder, so—”
“Are we going in?” Stephen Castle called. “Amanda and Denny are ready at the back entrance.”
“Yes,” Dina said, giving me a slight nudge toward the alley. “Let’s do this.”
CHAPTER 45
An hour later, I was leaning against the trunk of my car sipping a bottle of water when Dina came out of the Langhorn & Diebel offices.
“How’re you doing, Katie?” she asked.
“I’m okay,” I said. “How’s Roxie? I saw the paramedics carry her out on a stretcher.”
Dina managed a weary smile. “She’s doing okay now. Apparently, she fainted when we stormed the building and hit her head on a filing cabinet. They wanted to take her to the hospital, but she refused the offer. They’ve got her down the block now sitting inside an ambulance with an oxygen mask over her mouth and a blanket draped across her lap.”
“That’s good to hear,” I said, feeling a modest flicker of relief. “Do you know how she ended up inside with June and the others?”
“Wrong place, wrong time,” Dina said. “Vito saw Roxie when she was getting into her car. I guess he waited until she got off the phone and then went back out to confront her. Roxie attempted to play innocent, but Vito wasn’t buying it. He ordered her into the law firm along with Phil, June and Liza.”
“Any news on Pia?”
Dina’s fatigued grin returned, but it brightened so quickly that I knew it was good news.
“We found her at June’s house,” said Dina. “She was in the little apartment above the garage, tied to a chair and gagged with a dish towel. I guess they moved her there after she overpowered Phil and tried to escape from the motel room.”
“And she’s unharmed?”
Dina nodded. “Other than a little bump on her head, she’s fine physically. But we can only imagine how traumatized she is at this point.”
I nodded, trying not to think too much about what Pia endured after our final phone conversation. I imagined that one day, if she wanted to talk about it, I might hear her version of the events. In the meantime, I hoped to get at least an overview of what Dina had learned during the past hour.
“Okay,” I began. “I know that you can’t do a deep dive, but what do you know so far?”
She shrugged. “It’s pretty tentative at this point,” she said. “But June Calloway can cover a lot of ground when she’s amped up.”
I laughed. “Sounds like her motor mouth kicked in?”
Dina nodded. “I had to ask her to slow down about every five minutes,” she said. “But the whole thing started with a simple plot to swindle Dionne Bach. At this point, it looks like the scheme involved Vito, June, Phil, Liza and one of Dionne’s bodyguards. We’re pretty certain that he’s the victim we found in the shallow grave on Morris Springs Road.”
“How did their simple plan go sideways?” I asked.
Dina smiled. “At some point,” she said, “Dionne’s bodyguard got cold feet and asked Vito for more money. His original role was to keep her in New York, away from what Vito and the others were doing here. But Dionne’s a savvy character. She somehow figured out that everyone had been deceiving her. Her bodyguard lied that he was trying to find the paintings and Vito. Vito lied when he told her the original paintings were taken during a break-in at his house. June and Vito were dating at the time the plot was conceived, so he kept her in the loop so she wouldn’t alert Dionne. And Liza cooked up a big stinking pot of sham stew when she told Dionne that Vito was telling the truth about the burglary.”
“Okay, so…” I paused, considering all of the players and potential motives. “In the end, this started with Vito’s hunger for money?”
Dina nodded. “Yes,” she said. “At least, that’s the way it looks based on June’s babbling and some evidence that we’ve recovered from his house and car. It looks like he was tired of being associated with Dionne Bach. After having some success with his own paintings, he wanted to spread his wings and fly without having to answer to his benefactors. But if he was walking away from the monthly stipend he received from Dionne, he’d need a nest egg to live on until his next gallery show.”
“Okay,” I said. “How did Phil, June and Liza get involved?”
“Phil was fed up with having Dionne as a business partner,” Dina said. “I guess she has quite the reputation. Sort of like Marie Antoinette, Attila the Hun and Coco Chanel rolled into one. She’s wealthy, beautiful and the art world considers her a huge success, but she can be pretty demanding and rude when things aren’t going her way.”
“What was she doing here in Crescent Creek?”
“Following her instincts,” Dina said. “She’d heard something during a conference call with Phil Bickerton and Liza Canfield that didn’t sound quite kosher.”
“Liza Canfield?” I said. “How does Dionne know her?”
“That’s simple,” Dina told me. “Liza’s law firm in Denver represents Bickerton Gallery.”
“Ah, so Dionne met Liza at the firm,” I said. “And that’s how Liza originally met Vito?”
“You got it,” Dina said. “After Dionne started to suspect that something was going on, Phil called to say that Vito’s house had been burglarized. He told her that the thief got away wit
h all of the paintings that she’d loaned Vito when he moved to town.”
“Okay, so then what?”
“Then Dionne, her son and two security guys showed up a few days later,” Dina explained. “I think you know the rest.”
“What a mess,” I said.
Dina groaned. “And we’ve only begun,” she said. “I can’t wait to get in the room with Vito and hear his version of things.”
I considered everything that she’d just told me along with the bits and pieces that I’d overheard earlier. There were plenty of lingering questions about the events of the past few days, but I decided to ask one in particular before Dina went back to work.
“Had the bodyguard also been stabbed?” I asked, remembering the evidence bag that Stephen Castle showed me at Vito’s house.
Dina shook her head. “The residual blood on the knife we recovered was from a deer. Based on June’s initial statement, Vito shot the bodyguard at the house on Balsam Drive, hustled the body outside and loaded it into the Aston Martin.”
“Speedy,” I said. “He was going out the back that afternoon when Pia was coming in the front.”
“Guess so,” Dina said. “The bodyguard had used the sports car to drive over and confront Vito, so it made sense to drive him away in it.”
“And then Vito used it again when he went to Pia’s later that night?”
She nodded. “Apparently. Our techs found plenty of blood spatter on the passenger seat. We’ll know later if it matches the body we recovered from Morris Springs Road.”
I felt my stomach drop. A foolish plot to steal a few valuable paintings had ended with kidnapping, assault and murder.
“I’m worried about Pia,” I said. “I mean, the man she fell in love with turned out to be a two-faced monster.”
“I’ll bet she’s stronger than either of us know,” Dina said.
“And where did you say you found her?” I asked.
Dina smiled. “In the apartment above June’s garage.”
“Was Stanley home?”
“When they brought Pia in to the apartment?” Dina asked.
“No, when you found her after June was in custody.”
Dina scowled. “Talk about out to lunch,” she said. “Stanley was there in his lounge chair, eating a bowl of chili and watching ESPN. He had no clue that his sister was involved in any of this stuff.”
“That must be a huge shocker,” I said. “The police knock on your door and ten minutes later you see them rescue a kidnap victim and learn that your beloved sibling is one of the crooks behind the whole thing.”
“I wouldn’t use the word ‘beloved’ with Stanley and June,” Dina said with a laugh. “I guess he had some choice words to share with the officers after they got Pia to the hospital.”
“Goes with the territory,” I said. “I mean, June was involved with stealing millions of dollars worth of art before she kidnapped a good friend. That’s not the kind of thing most family members would have to deal with.”
“I suppose,” Dina said. “But enough about them for right now. How are you doing?”
“I’m good.” I raised my cup of coffee. “I’ve got something to drink, a place to wait and a good feeling that you’ll get a full confession before the sun comes up.”
She laughed at the prediction. “From who?”
“June and her crew,” I said.
“I just hope she didn’t spend a fortune anticipating a huge windfall,” Dina said with a wink. “There’s not much room in a prison cell to store your belongings.”
“Speaking of which,” I said. “Have the paintings been recovered?”
Dina nodded. “Denver PD has them. The manager at the U-Store place on Colfax was more than happy to lend a hand. I guess June showed up there with Liza recently and the guy was subjected to Miss Calloway’s Medusa impersonation.”
“I feel so gobsmacked,” I said. “I mean, did you ever suspect that June could do something like this?”
“I’ve never met her,” Dina said with a shrug. “I saw her at one of Mayor Washington’s parties, but we didn’t exchange more than a polite smile.”
“And she was really good at those,” I scoffed. “Polite smiles and fluffy handshakes and a few words about her consignment shop.”
“She’s kind of like Dr. Jekyll and Mrs. Hyde,” Dina quipped. “Battling the good and evil in her heart.”
“Isn’t that a lyrical way to describe a moral vagabond?” I said. “She knew all along that what she was doing was illegal and unethical, but her desire for revenge and money was stronger than her moral compass.”
“I don’t think she has one of those, Katie. She said some pretty scathing things while I was talking to her.”
“Such as?”
Dina shook her head. “I can’t go into most of it, of course. I wouldn’t want to jeopardize the investigation or anything that we’ll need at trial.”
“Of course. I was just wondering if any of her biting remarks were about me.”
A faint smile came and went on Dina’s face.
“Oh, she didn’t say anything bad about you, Katie.”
I felt a tiny flicker of joy. “Really? What did she say?”
“June told me that she felt horrible fibbing to you about the burglary,” Dina began. “I guess she somehow thought it would help slow the investigation once they’d left town.” She paused and shook her head. “The poor, foolish thing. I guess Vito convinced her that we couldn’t possibly know what we’re doing because Crescent Creek is such a small town.”
We shared a laugh before I asked if June had revealed anything else during their conversation.
Dina smiled. “Actually, there was one more thing. She said that you make the best pies in town. But don’t you dare tell a soul that I shared that with you.”
“Cross my heart,” I said. “What’s the latest on Dionne Bach?”
“Still a grouch,” Dina said.
“Excuse me?”
“Tyler Armstrong found her and Desmond at the Crescent Creek Lodge,” she explained. “Mrs. Bach was having a hot stone massage in the spa while her son and the other security guy stood watch outside the door. They planned to eat a nice dinner at Luigi’s later.”
“Ah, the life of the rich and infamous,” I said. “Do you think she’ll keep Bickerton Gallery open now that Phil’s going behind bars?”
Dina smiled. “I have no idea,” she said. “But if she does, I hope and pray that she’ll feature less bizarre paintings. I don’t ever want to see a purple poodle wearing sunglasses and heels again!”
CHAPTER 46
When Julia scrambled through the backdoor into the Sky High kitchen the next morning, I was waiting with a fresh pot of coffee and two white chocolate pecan scones.
“Oh, my word!” she gushed. “I heard the news, Katie! Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I said, handing her a mug.
“Blanche told me that you helped catch Pia’s kidnappers! I called to see if it was true, but you didn’t answer.”
“I turned the volume off on my phone at some point when I was downtown,” I explained. “And after I got home, I called Zack. We talked until midnight, so I figured it would be okay to tell you this morning.”
She sipped her coffee and pulled a stool from beneath the counter.
“Here,” she said, patting the seat. “You sit down and tell me everything while I get started on prep.”
“I did it already,” I said with a wide grin. “It was kind of impossible to sleep last night, so…” I pointed at the front counter. “I’ve got the grill heating, the waffle irons plugged in, the reach-in restocked and just about everything else set to go.”
“You’re a nut!” Julia giggled and shook her head. “After a crazy night of excitement, I wouldn’t be able to sleep either. But you didn’t have to do my work.”
I sat down and she joined me on the next stool. As we sipped our coffee and enjoyed the scones, I brought her up to speed on Vito Marclay’s harebra
ined scheme to swindle Dionne Bach.
“Is he also responsible for shooting the man they found on Morris Springs Road?” Julia asked quietly. “Blanche sent me a text after she heard about it from Amanda Crane’s sister.”
I nodded. “Looks that way.”
Neither of us said anything for a few minutes as the sorrow and gravity settled in around us. Julia had known Pia much longer than me, so I wasn’t surprised by how confused she was in the aftermath of the inexplicable crime spree.
“I mean, murder,” she whispered finally. “Could you ever imagine Pia’s fiancé doing such a thing?”
“Never in a million years,” I answered. “But jealousy and rage can be powerful motivators.”
“And money, right?”
I nodded. “You bet,” I agreed. “If they’d been successful, they could’ve sold the paintings and had enough to live on for the rest of their lives.”
“Is that true?” Julia asked.
I nodded. “I suppose it depends on how frugal you are,” I said. “But Dina told me that a guy she knows in New York estimated that the profits from selling those paintings would be ten or twenty million.”
She laughed. “I could make that work,” she said. “For more than one lifetime.”
“Unless you go overboard on shoes,” I suggested.
“True. But I’d probably move to Fiji or somewhere like that, so shoes wouldn’t be of much interest.”
“I bet you’d still shop online,” I joked. “It’s in your DNA at this point.”
Julia smiled and we both sipped our coffee. I silently considered everything that Pia had been through in the past few days.
“What are you thinking about?” Julia asked eventually.
“The whole thing,” I answered.
“I know,” she said. “It’s such a sad, sad turn of events.”
I finished my coffee, walked my mug to the sink and told Julia to stay put.
“But there’s work to do,” she protested.
“Just sit tight for a second,” I said. “There’s something in the office for you.”
I hurried out of the kitchen and down the hall. When I returned a moment later, Julia was still perched atop the stool.