Liar's Key

by Carla Neggers

  On his own, Oliver wasn’t that neat. His things seemed to have exploded out of his battered soft-sided leather suitcase. The room had been cleaned that morning, which no doubt helped. Colin noted the expensive shaving gear, Floris aftershave and a bristle hairbrush, none of it brand-new. Oliver struck him as the sort who bought classic quality and replaced it only when he had to.

  Colin returned to the bedroom. He’d left the room door open, which allowed Oliver to walk right in. “And here I thought I hadn’t latched the door properly and the wind blew it open.” Oliver tossed his waxed-cotton jacket on a chair. “Hello, Colin. I suppose you’re going to tell me you’re doing the turndown service?”

  “Why not? I like to help my folks. Do you want me to put on soothing music for you?”

  “I enjoy the sounds of the wind and waves. Were you looking for anything specific?”

  “Besides towels that need to be replaced? Let’s say Gordy Wheelock’s phone is missing. I’d like to find that. Then let’s say there’s an envelope about the size of a book that was given to him at his hotel in Boston, and it’s also disappeared, its contents unknown.”

  “You’d like to find that, too,” Oliver said.

  Colin shrugged. “I’d settle for the contents. Money, notes, blackmail material, recipes. Whatever it is.”

  “What about a murder weapon? A gun, a knife—a crowbar, perhaps?”

  A rock, Colin thought. The state guys had found a baseball-size rock in the grass by the cottage’s front door that was the likely murder weapon. It looked as if someone had been inside the cottage, surprised Gordy and nailed him on the head with the rock, about where he’d hurt himself on Wednesday night. It was unlikely whoever it was had grabbed the rock on impulse but instead had had it in hand, for use as a weapon.

  But Colin wasn’t giving any of that information to Oliver.

  He noticed Oliver was still waiting for a response. “I’d take a murder weapon, too,” he said. “Agent Wheelock was injured Wednesday night when he fell down stairs in Boston. You were at the O’Byrne House Hotel in Declan’s Cross then, but an associate of yours could have pushed him.”

  “Or it could have been an accident. He could have been killed in a robbery gone bad, or he surprised a deranged person who decided the cottage belonged to him, or something along those lines. We can all speculate, Agent Donovan.”

  “If you’re connected to Gordy Wheelock’s death, Oliver, your friends in MI5 can’t protect you.”

  “They wouldn’t want to and I wouldn’t blame them. What are your plans now that you’ve seen to the turndown in my room?”

  Colin nodded toward the door, still open to the hall. “Fin Bracken gave my folks a bottle of Bracken fifteen-year-old to celebrate the opening of the inn. I know where they keep it. Can I offer you a glass?”

  “If I say no?”

  “It’s the peated expression. Only a few bottles left. You’ll like it.”

  “Then I accept,” Oliver said. “Will Emma be joining us?”

  “No.”

  “And my hosts?”

  “Out.”

  Oliver’s eyes narrowed, but he stood back and motioned with one arm. “After you, Agent Donovan.”

  Colin let Oliver get settled in the front room and grabbed the Bracken 15 and two glasses out of a locked cabinet in the dining room. When he returned, his guest was examining a watercolor painting of the Cape Elizabeth lighthouse hanging above the sofa. “My mother got it at a yard sale. It’s not worth anything.”

  “It’s rather charming, though, isn’t it? People who stay here must love lighthouses.”

  “Lighthouses are all automated these days.”

  “Ever the wet blanket, aren’t you, Agent Donovan?”

  “Just stating a fact.” Colin poured the whiskey and handed Oliver a glass. “Fin and Mary Bracken stopped here a little while ago. You drove Mary back?”

  “I did. The fear and fatigue in those midnight-blue eyes reminded me why I live a quiet, solitary life. Don’t fret, Colin. Lucas Sharpe is more Mary Bracken’s type, but he’d have to move to Killarney and take up whiskey-making. It’s in that Bracken blood of hers. She’s not going anywhere. If you’d like, I can psychoanalyze her.”

  “Thought you were a mythologist.”

  “I believe Mary was deeply affected by the deaths of her sister-in-law and nieces, and it’s had a deleterious influence on her romantic relationships. She’s afraid. She doesn’t want to suffer her brother’s fate—to lose the people she loves. That’s why she’s having such a hard time with Finian’s vocation and his move to Maine. She feels she’s losing him, too.”

  Colin sat down with his whiskey. “She tell you that?”

  “I’m psychoanalyzing,” Oliver said. “I could be an FBI profiler, don’t you think? A keen observer of human nature.”

  “A profiler who can also break into museums. That’d be something.”

  Oliver raised his glass. “Cheers.”

  “Yeah. Cheers.” Colin sipped the whiskey, watching Oliver do the same.

  “Long day, Agent Donovan.”

  “Yes.”

  “Agent Wheelock wasn’t killed in a break-in and robbery, was he?”

  “How well did you know him?”

  Oliver cupped his drink. “I didn’t know him at all.”

  “But you kept an eye on him,” Colin said. “Part of your fun as a thief was taunting the people trying to catch you. Gordy Wheelock was one of them.”

  “I live in the Cotswolds and London. Agent Wheelock was based in Washington during his years with the FBI. This past year, he’s been retired in North Carolina. I’ve never been to North Carolina. Look it up if you don’t believe me.”

  “He spent time in London.”

  “I didn’t offer him the guest suite at the flat,” Oliver said lightly, raising his glass to his mouth. He hesitated, then took another sip. “It is a fine whiskey.”

  Colin could feel fatigue and impatience burning up his nerve endings. It was late, and if all had gone according to plan, he’d either be at a pub or looking up at the stars above Kenmare Bay from Finian Bracken’s cottage. But here he was, talking to Oliver York about a murdered retired FBI agent. “When did you learn Agent Wheelock was in London this past week?”

  “Soon after he arrived. Friday, I believe it was.”

  “How?”

  Oliver set his drink on a coaster on the coffee table in front of him. “Wendell Sharpe told me.”

  “He was here in Maine by then.”

  “He phoned me. He believed one way or another Gordy—that’s what Wendell called him—was in London because of Alessandro Pearson’s death. Wendell had the open house coming up. Gordy would be there. He wanted me in the loop. The invitations for the tea party at Claridge’s had already gone out. I wasn’t surprised when Gordy showed up with Claudia Deverell.”

  “You threw the party in order to...what? Smoke out a few bad guys funding terrorists with stolen antiquities? No wonder MI5 was there. They had no idea what you were up to until the day of the party, did they?”

  “The day before. They agreed to let it go forward. Whatever their agenda, mine was to continue my rather ambiguous efforts to gather information on the illegal antiquities trade. I’d helped British intelligence uncover a smuggling scheme over the winter. I’d heard vague rumors about stolen mosaics and thought I might hear more at the party.”

  “You invited Claudia Deverell because of her family’s collection?”

  “I’d invited Adrian and Henry, too, but they left London before the party. Isabel Greene came. And Gordy Wheelock, of course,” Oliver added.

  Colin studied the Englishman, noted that he looked rumpled and tired. As determinedly cheeky and energetic as he was, he wasn’t impervious to the trials of the day. Finally Colin p
ut his whiskey glass on a side table. “Are you the unnamed collector, Oliver?”

  “What would I do with Byzantine mosaics? Now, Aoife O’Byrne’s watercolor of porpoises in Ardmore Bay is altogether different.”

  Colin wasn’t going to be distracted. “If you’re not the collector, who is?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “But you have an idea.”

  Oliver gave a tight shake of the head. “I don’t speculate.”

  “Let me speculate, then. It was Alessandro Pearson. He wasn’t a collector, but he floated the rumors.” Colin settled back in his chair. “What do you think?”

  “Now I understand why Emma isn’t here. She’d have stopped you by now.”

  “She’s with her grandfather and brother, asking the same questions.” He got to his feet, looked down at Oliver. “Make sure we have the times and places you met Agent Wheelock and everything you talked about.”

  “You have them already,” Oliver said simply.

  “Did you tell the state detectives you were here last under an assumed name?”

  “Consulting with Hollywood under a pseudonym is perfectly legitimate.” Oliver rose, following Colin out to the front porch. It was dusk now, the harbor quiet and still in the fading light. “I’m sorry about Agent Wheelock. I truly am. If his death is related to any unfinished business he had concerning illegal antiquities, he should have trusted us.”

  Colin bristled at us but said nothing as he walked down the steps. He glanced back, saw that Oliver was watching him. But there was no smart-aleck remark from the English thief. He gave a quick wave, then went back inside, presumably to the rest of his rare peated Irish whiskey.

  * * *

  Fog rolled in, cool and damp, and Colin lit a fire in the fireplace. Emma had been in the living room, staring at the unlit fireplace, when he’d arrived. Now they were sitting side by side on the floor, leaning against the front of the couch with their legs out straight. He’d pushed the coffee table aside and kicked off his shoes. He could sense Emma’s pensiveness as she grappled with the events of the past few days, particularly finding Gordy Wheelock—a man she’d known, worked with, admired.

  “The detectives are convinced Gordy burned something in the grill behind the cottage,” she said. “He cleaned up but not enough. He left a few ashes behind. It could have been someone else—the person who killed him, for example—but he had a lighter on him, and it explains the saucepan and spatula.”

  “He got rid of the ashes,” Colin said.

  “Evidence. Whatever was in the envelope.”

  “Was he being blackmailed?”

  A chunk of dried oak bark caught fire, creating a burst of orange flames. “Blackmail, or information he wanted to keep secret for other reasons—to protect someone else, maybe.”

  “Directions to buried treasure.”

  She leaned against his upper arm. “For all we know that’s true. It could have been a robber who decided to burn a few things he didn’t want, just for the hell of it, then ran into Gordy and killed him in a panic.”

  “Or the ashes are unrelated to Gordy’s death.”

  “This is why we’re trained to gather evidence and see where it takes us. We can’t allow ourselves to get tunnel vision or locked on one theory.”

  Colin slipped his arm over her shoulders. “But?”

  He felt her intake of breath more than heard it. “But Gordy burned evidence, and he didn’t fall the other night, and it all goes back to his work last year and his abrupt retirement. I checked his files. He didn’t keep extensive records his last two months on the job. In fact, I’d say they weren’t adequate, especially compared to his earlier notes.”

  “Skimping was out of character for him?”

  “Yes. There had to be something between Claudia and Gordy.”

  “And whatever it was broke the rules,” Colin said.

  “Granddad knew, or at least guessed.” But her certainty evaporated. “He was tired when I saw him.”

  “An improper relationship between a legendary FBI agent and a contact could be one of those things your old granddad didn’t put in the Sharpe files. Would he have told Lucas?”

  “I suspect Granddad has a few things he’ll never speak of to anyone and take to the grave with him. An affair between a married FBI legend and a source, the daughter and granddaughter of old friends from Maine, might be one of them.”

  “Could Claudia have been his CI, not just a resource?”

  “If she was, it was unofficial. I keep going back to Alessandro Pearson and his friendship with Claudia and her mother. They worked together on antiquity preservation in some hot spots on the Mediterranean. Since we’re speculating by the fire, I’ll go out on a limb and say he could have been onto a pipeline of illicit antiquities, particularly mosaics, and was concerned profits from their sale were going to some very bad guys. And I’ll say he had help dying.”

  “The bruise on his back?”

  “Surprised and shoved from behind, just like Gordy. Only Gordy survived and lied about it, where Alessandro had a heart attack and died.” Emma gazed at the fire, the flames settling down after the oak-bark surge. “Gordy was a good agent with top-notch instincts. He didn’t lose that in a year. He’d figured out something. He wasn’t sure what to do. He had conflicting loyalties, and probably a few things about himself he wanted to hide. He came to me for information, a sense of what I knew and didn’t know about Alessandro’s death, Oliver, this tea party in London.”

  “He should have been straight with you.”

  Colin got up and took another oak log from a stack of wood on the hearth. He set it on the fire and then grabbed the black-iron poker and adjusted the burning logs. He didn’t know if he was doing that much good, but he’d imagined himself doing just this, keeping a fire going, sitting in his living room on a foggy, chilly Maine evening with his fiancée.

  He sat down again, one knee up as he stretched out his right leg along Emma’s left leg. “If Gordy suspected Oliver and Wendell were colluding and whatever they were up to could expose his shortcomings, missteps or actual wrongdoing, and MI5 was involved, he’d play it close to the vest with you.”

  “Who killed him, Colin?” Emma didn’t wait for his response. “I hope your friends in major crimes don’t suspect Granddad or Lucas was involved. Granddad doesn’t drive in the States—he shouldn’t in Ireland—and Lucas was busy with the open house. That doesn’t rule them out, I know, but they didn’t kill Gordy.”

  “He wanted to keep you on his team in Washington, didn’t he?”

  “Yank already had HIT in mind and wanted me for it once he got the green light. Gordy didn’t like that. I think it had more to do with his dislike of Yank than with wanting to keep me. Yank didn’t care. He’s pragmatic. He wanted me to have broad experience and get what I could from my time with Gordy.”

  “Yank never imagined the two of us together. Talk about bucking the bureaucracy. You were complicated the day we met. Rather I’d been a lobsterman for real?”

  “You are. You’re just also an FBI agent.”

  “I have options, within FBI, outside of it. Whatever it takes, Emma. You know that.”

  She smiled. “You could always help your parents with the inn and guests like Oliver.”

  “Not one of my options, but I like your sense of humor.”

  “Wendell and Lucas won’t stonewall the investigation.”

  “I know. I’m sorry this happened. We’ll do what we can to help with the investigation but we’re too close to all the players. I know the state guy in charge. He’ll chop us to the ground if we overstep.” He lifted her onto his lap and slipped his arms around her, drawing her close. “Think we’ll have rain on our wedding day?”

  22

  Gordy’s dead...dead...dead...

&nbs
p; Claudia hadn’t budged from the porch since the police had left. Isabel had brought her dinner, but she had managed only a few bites. Now it was dark, foggy, cold, the sort of Maine night her mother had loved.

  It was real, Claudia thought, nursing a glass of white wine.

  This force in her life for more than a year was gone. It was as if the last of the terrible, intrusive pressures she’d faced during her mother’s final months had released her from its grip. She hated herself for feeling this way, but it was undeniable: this utter, blissful relief that Gordy Wheelock was actually, absolutely, without any doubt gone.

  Dead.

  “I’m glad,” she said aloud, as if to convince herself it was okay to feel that way.

  She’d done the right thing, and now she had only to sort through the Maine house and get it on the market. Her mother’s sometimes indiscriminate storing and collecting would make the process more time-consuming and complicated, but it was nothing compared to having a renowned FBI investigator on her case.

  She heard the front door creak open. In another moment, her father joined her in the grouping of old wicker chairs. “How are you, Claudia?” he asked.

  “It’s been a day,” she said.

  “It’s emotional enough being back here without anyone turning up dead. The detectives won’t say he was murdered, but it’s clear from their questions he was. I’m sorry about what happened. He must have just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Ah, Claudia. My dear Claudia.” Her father sat on a chair facing the dense fog over the Atlantic and the immediate coastline. “Your mother loved this place. I know it’s hard for you to give it up.”

  “It’s time, though.”

  “Yes. I’m trying not to have an opinion.”

  “Oh, you have one, you’re just not offering it.”

  Adrian mounted the steps from the front walk. Claudia smiled at him. “I didn’t know you were out there.”