Wall-To-Wall Dead

by Jennie Bentley

  Maurits blinked and came back to himself. “Dear me. Miss Shaw was murdered as well?”

  “It’s leaning that way. What with the missing EpiPen and now Candy and, of course, the envelope of secrets.”

  I waited. It didn’t take more than a few seconds for him to take the bait. “Envelope of secrets?”

  “Miss Shaw kept tabs on everyone in the building,” Josh said. “You know that.”

  “Remember,” I chirped before Maurits could think of denying it, “you told us about it the first morning we were here? What was it you called her? A nosy old biddy?”

  Maurits didn’t answer, but his cheekbones got a little darker. “What envelope?”

  “I found it in her apartment after she died,” Josh said. “Information about everyone in the building. Little stuff, mostly. I didn’t think anything of it at first, just that I didn’t want anyone to get in trouble over it. But then Dad started talking about how Miss Shaw’s EpiPen went missing, and now Candy’s dead—and I’m thinking I’d better give the stuff to my dad. Just in case there’s something in there that can help him.”

  It didn’t take more than a few seconds this time, either. “What was in the envelope?”

  “About you? Just a picture of one of the paintings your company settled on a long time ago. Something called Madonna. D’you remember it?”

  “Of course,” Maurits said, his eyes stuck on the living room wall for a moment. I looked in that direction, but there was nothing to see. Just the wall between this room and the bedroom, and a different painting, one of—I thought—a field of flowers or possibly a view of outer space. “It was a terrible loss. All the other paintings that were lost in the fire, too, of course, but I have to admit the Madonna was a personal favorite of mine. Perhaps that’s why Miss Shaw singled it out. She knew how devastating that particular loss was for me, not just on a professional level, because the company lost a lot of money on the claim, but because of such senseless loss of beauty.”

  “It looked very nice,” I said politely. “I was wondering…”

  “Yes?”

  “The Madonna…is that the religious figure, or the entertainer? It wasn’t clear from the picture.”

  I’d sort of been able to visualize a face, with a slash of red lipstick, topped by a circle of gold that could either be a halo or blond hair—but beyond that, I couldn’t be sure. It seemed a reasonable question. Maurits obviously didn’t think so.

  “The religious figure,” he said, his voice short.

  “That’s what I thought.” I ignored Derek’s amusement and Josh’s not quite successful attempt to hide a smile. “The halo, you know? It could have been hair, but it really looked more like a corona.”

  Maurits nodded, and looked like he thought I might be trying to make fun of him. I wasn’t, I swear. I just prefer art I understand.

  “I’m sorry it was lost,” I said. “Anyway, there was a picture of it among Miss Shaw’s stuff. In the envelope Josh will be passing on to his dad in the morning. In case Wayne asks you about it.”

  “If he asks,” William Maurits said, “I will tell him that it perished in a gallery fire five years ago, and that the company paid out on the claim, along with all the others. It’s a done deal, settled long ago. Everyone’s happy and no one’s suing anyone else. I have no idea why Hilda Shaw would take an interest.”

  “We don’t, either,” I said. “We just thought you should know what’s happening. And now that that’s done, I guess we should get going.” I glanced at Derek and Josh, who both got to their feet. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Maurits.”

  “A pleasure,” Maurits said, without sounding like he meant it. He jerked his chin up in that little nervous tic that he had. “Thank you for letting me know about poor Candy. That’s terrible news.” He shook his head sadly as he herded us toward the front door. “It’s enough to make one seriously consider moving, isn’t it? Or at least take a vacation until things settle down.”

  A vacation sounded lovely. Somewhere sunny and tropical where there were no dead bodies.

  Ryan and Carla were probably on the beach in Saint Thomas by now. I wished I were there, too. Just Derek and me, in the honeymoon suite, with no dead bodies distracting us from the more important things.

  “I’m glad that’s done,” Josh echoed my feelings when we were out on the landing with William Maurits’s door locked behind us. I nodded.

  “Telling people that one of their neighbors has died is never any fun. I’m glad to be done, too.”

  “So what now?” Josh wanted to know.

  “You have your car keys on you?”

  Josh shook his head.

  “Run up and get them. Don’t look left or right, don’t get distracted. If you see Jamie, say ‘Excuse me’ and keep going.”

  “She’s not going to—” Josh protested.

  “Yes, she is. But if you’re lucky, she’ll wait a few minutes. You’ll have time to grab your keys and make it back down.”

  Josh rolled his eyes, but all he said was, “I’ll be back in a minute.”

  Derek nodded. “We’ll be downstairs.”

  —19—

  “Any reason we wanted to be downstairs?” I asked a minute later, when we had left the landing outside Maurits’s door and were standing in the basement, outside the laundry room, waiting for Josh to return.

  “We wanted to make sure nobody could hear us. I don’t trust these people.” Derek looped an arm around my shoulder and spoke into my ear.

  I didn’t, either. “Did you get any vibes from William Maurits?”

  “Other than that he didn’t appreciate your talking smack about his favorite painting?” He grinned. “He didn’t seem overly heartbroken about Candy. Although he was certainly more heartbroken than he was about Miss Shaw.”

  I nodded. No doubt. “You really think Jamie’s going to try to waylay Josh?”

  Derek looked at me. “Don’t you?”

  I did. The scenario he’d outlined earlier was only too realistic, right down to Jamie’s excuses and Josh’s responses to them. “Sounds like you’ve had some experience with scheming women.”

  “Melissa used to play games like that,” Derek said. “She still does. Remember how she tried to foist a murder weapon off on me back in July?”

  Vividly. I still hadn’t quite forgiven her for that, although the fact that she’d gotten arrested and had to spend a few days in jail had gone a long way toward making me feel vindicated.

  “You don’t think Jamie’s trying to frame Josh for anything, do you?”

  “No,” Derek said, “I think she’s looking for comfort and reassurance and companionship, and he’s proven himself to be susceptible. She just doesn’t want to be alone, and I can’t blame her. But that doesn’t mean I want Josh to fall for it. For one thing, it would really upset Shannon. I like Shannon. And for another, he’ll kick himself later. But by then it’ll be too late.”

  I nodded. “Hence your suggestion that he find somewhere else to spend the night.”

  “Hence. You don’t disagree, do you?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t trust Jamie, either. You made a good case for why she might be guilty of two murders. I don’t really think she is, but I don’t want her anywhere near Josh.”

  He arched his brows. “You don’t still think it’s Mariano and Gregg, do you? I’ll give you Miss Shaw, if she threatened to turn Mariano in to the ICE, but they had no reason to do away with Candy.”

  “Actually,” I said, “I think my money’s on David Rossini for all of it. And not just because he’s an outsider and I hate to think it’s one of the neighbors. I don’t like him. He’s a cheater, and cheaters are by nature dishonest. He had reason to get rid of Miss Shaw, if she threatened to tell his wife about him and Candy, and if he killed Miss Shaw, and Candy knew, she could have held it over his head to try to make him leave his wife and marry her instead.”

  Derek nodded pensively.

  I continued, “He wouldn’t want to do tha
t. Candy might have been a fun pastime, but Jamie told me it’s his wife who has the money. Her family owns Guido’s and the strip club and a lot of other businesses. David married into the family—and into the money. He wouldn’t want to lose it, not to marry a twenty-two-year-old waitress. One his wife employed.”

  Derek nodded again, more certain this time.

  “Jamie said the wine and chocolates were from him. He’d know what Candy liked. And he stopped by the hospital today. When I saw him this afternoon, I told him what had happened and that she’d been taken to the hospital. He got angry. Maybe because she was still alive. Maybe he’d thought she’d be dead already. He could have gone to the hospital and done something to her, when Jamie wasn’t looking.”

  “Anything’s possible,” Derek said as we heard footsteps on the stairs, echoing through the building. It was Josh coming back, car keys jingling in his hand.

  “I called Dad and told him I was coming. He’s waiting for the stuff.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Derek said.

  I blinked, surprised. He hadn’t said anything about that.

  Josh blinked, too. “Why? Are you afraid I’m gonna take something out of the envelope before I pass it to Dad?”

  “No,” Derek said calmly, “I’m just making sure you get there.”

  There was a beat of silence. Then Josh tried to laugh. “You can’t be serious.”

  It sounded hollow, and then he stopped laughing and swallowed, his face pale in the bright light from the fluorescent bulb overhead. “Are you?”

  “Just being cautious,” Derek said. “If there’s something in that envelope someone’s been willing to kill for, that same someone might just decide to try one more time. You know what that’s like. It’s just a month since your car went off the road and into the ocean.”

  Josh swallowed again. “Sure,” he said. “After that, I’d just as soon not be alone.”

  Derek nodded. “Did you figure out a place to stay? Other than here?”

  “There are rooms at the inn,” Josh said, referring to Kate’s bed and breakfast. “I’ll give Dad the stuff and crash there for the night.”

  “If you don’t mind some free advice,” I said, “maybe you should find the time to take Shannon aside for a talk, too. You’re gonna have to tell your dad how you got the stuff, and he’ll guess that Jamie must have pressured you in some way to get you to steal it. It’s better for Shannon to hear about Jamie from you and not your dad.”

  Josh nodded, and drove a hand through his hair. “Guess I don’t have a choice, really.”

  “Honesty is always the best policy,” Derek said. “Much better to tell the truth and deal with the fallout, than lie and have it blow up in your face later. Let’s get it over with.” He gave Josh a push toward the front door. “C’mon, Tink.”

  I came, until we were outside in the cool air, and then I realized something. “I left my laptop here on Friday. I want to go upstairs and get it. And bring it home.”

  “Can’t it wait until tomorrow?”

  “There’s something I want to look up,” I said.

  Derek looked mutinous, and I added, “I’ll be fine. No one’s going to try to hurt me. It’s not like I know anything more than anyone else does. Just go. Pick up the stuff and take it to Wayne. I’ll grab the laptop and be out of here in two minutes. I promise.”

  He relented. “Fine. But if you get yourself killed, I’ll never forgive you.”

  “I won’t get myself killed.” Sheesh, talk about paranoia. “I’ll see you at home later. Right?”

  He nodded. “Oh, yeah. From now on, you’re stuck with me whether you want to be or not.”

  “I want to be.” I tilted my face up and got a kiss while Josh busied himself by unlocking the doors of the Honda and getting in, giving us a moment of privacy. “I’ll see you in a half hour or so. Have Josh drop you off at the house.”

  Derek said he would, and then he jogged across the parking lot to where the Honda was idling, waiting to go. I went back inside the building and up to the second floor, where I let myself into the Antoninis’ condo and locked the door behind me before going to look for the laptop.

  It was exactly where I’d left it, on the floor of the living room, not too far from the balcony door, and I grabbed it and headed back out. Above my head, I could hear Jamie moving around. I had expected her to go straight to bed—to be honest, she’d looked beat—but maybe she couldn’t sleep. Any minute now, she’d probably walk across the hall to knock on Josh’s door for some company.

  Yes, indeed: No sooner had I opened the door into the stairwell, preparatory to leaving, than I heard the door upstairs open as well. I held my breath as soft footsteps padded across the landing. The knock on the door sounded hollow as it echoed between the walls in the hallway.

  There was no answer, of course—Josh was gone—and after a few seconds, there was another knock. Then Jamie’s voice. “Josh? Are you there? Josh?”

  I thought about telling her that he’d left, but I thought better of it. Instead I just waited quietly while she knocked again, called his name again, and finally gave up. I heard her footsteps move across the landing over my head, and then the door close and lock upstairs. I waited a few more seconds before I started pulling on my own. I was just about to shut it when Jamie opened her door again.

  Damn. Maybe she was on her way out. Maybe, in a minute, she’d come down the stairs and see me standing here.

  But no, it wasn’t Jamie after all. These sounds came from below. Must be William Maurits, since Miss Shaw’s apartment, obviously, was empty. Maurits and I hadn’t parted on the most perfect of terms earlier, so it might be best if I waited until he’d done whatever he planned to do, before I went downstairs. We were all stressed out and nursing fraying nerves at the moment; to be honest, I wasn’t up for another conversation, especially with someone I’d annoyed earlier.

  He locked his door and then headed down the stairs. I ducked back inside my own apartment and pulled the door shut behind me. And moved through the dark hallway into the kitchen, where I went to the window and looked out. If he was headed to the basement, to do laundry or root around in his storage bin, I might be here awhile. Derek would get to Aunt Inga’s house and find it empty, and then he’d worry. If I got stuck here, I should probably call him and let him know I’d been delayed. But if Maurits was going somewhere, all I had to do was wait until his car had driven away, before I could get out of here myself.

  It was rather late in the day to go for a drive, but even later to do laundry. I kept my fingers crossed as I peered down into the parking lot.

  Yep, there he was. Walking across the parking lot from the building toward his car with something under his arm. Something square and brown. A pizza box?

  But what kind of idiot carried a pizza box vertically under his arm? Pizzas have to be kept horizontal, or the cheese slides off. Everyone knows that.

  Although when he got to the sedan and beeped open the trunk, he set the box right side up and stowed it carefully, even a bit reverently, inside. And then, almost as if he couldn’t help himself, he lifted the lid and peered lovingly at the contents.

  No, not pizza.

  The trunk light had gone on when the trunk opened, and although I was far away and didn’t have a fantastic view into the trunk, I saw enough. A rectangle, just slightly smaller than the box, with a dark background, an ivory oval, a red smear, and a golden halo.

  “Whoa!”

  It was the Madonna. The painting that supposedly had been destroyed in a gallery fire five years ago. The painting that the insurance company Maurits worked for had paid a half-million dollars in settlement for.

  It could have been a copy, I suppose. But if it were, why was he carrying it around in a pizza box at ten o’clock at night? Just thirty minutes after we’d warned him that the police would want to talk to him about it?

  Obviously he was getting it out of his condo before the police arrived. It must have been in one of the rooms we hadn
’t seen. Maybe he kept it above his bed, so he could gaze at it before going to sleep at night.

  Downstairs, Maurits lowered the lid of the box gently over the Madonna’s face. I saw the logo of Guido’s Pizzeria for a second before he closed the lid of the trunk on top of it. And then he headed for the door of the car.

  “Shit,” I muttered. I’d thought he might just be planning to keep the box in the car overnight, and take it to work with him in the morning. Leave it somewhere along the way maybe. But it seemed he was taking care of it now instead. He must be desperate to get it out of the house, if he was willing to risk heading out now. Going for a car ride at this time of night looked so much more suspicious than just waiting until the morning.

  If I had any hope of keeping up with him—and of course I wanted to; for all I knew he might be on his way to destroy the Madonna—I’d better hustle. But not too fast, or he’d see me. So I scurried across the kitchen and out of the apartment while Maurits started his car. While I locked the door, he backed out of the parking space, and while I hustled down the stairs and along the basement hallway, he drove to the entrance to the parking lot. I stood just inside the front doors and watched him take a left, toward downtown Waterfield, Barnham College, and the ocean, and then, as soon as he was out of sight, I hustled to the Beetle, threw myself behind the wheel, and followed.

  It was déjà vu all over again: just two days since I’d followed Candy along this same road. But unlike on Friday, William Maurits didn’t stop at Guido’s. He didn’t stop at Barnham College, or Wellhaven. In fact, he kept driving until he was far outside the Waterfield city limits, and for a while I thought I’d have to follow him all the way to Portland. However, twenty minutes later we’d made it to a small town called Brunswick, and here he turned off.

  I haven’t spent a lot of time in Brunswick, other than to pass through on my way to or from Portland. I’d never been in the area where I tailed Maurits now. If Brunswick had an underbelly, this must be it. Pawnshops, bail-bonding companies, and used car lots surrounded by barbed wire fencing and guarded by watchful dogs. It was dark, and I had to follow a little more closely than I liked so I wouldn’t lose Maurits in the labyrinth of streets. If I got too close, I was afraid he’d recognize the Beetle.