Sleight of Hand: A Novel of Suspense (Dana Cutler)

by Margolin, Phillip

  Benedict took a key out of his pocket that was identical to the key Blair had given him. He opened the front door again.

  “Make sure it’s locked,” Benedict instructed before he stepped outside and shut the door. Moments later, he reentered the front hall.

  “This is your proof?” Blair asked. “No court will rule that Carrie violated the prenup because you have a key to my front door.”

  Benedict removed an envelope from his inside jacket pocket.

  “I also have a DVD showing Carrie and me making love. Would you like to see it?”

  Blair’s shoulders sagged and he suddenly looked his age. His marriage to Carrie had disintegrated but he was still shocked that he had never suspected that she was cheating on him.

  “How much do you want, Mr. Benedict?”

  The lawyer looked confused. Then he looked offended.

  “You think I came here to ask for money?”

  “Well, I . . . naturally.”

  “No, no, I should have made myself clear from the start. I was in love with Carrie, and I thought she cared for me. She told me she had to stay with you because of the prenup, but she swore she loved me and would marry me when she got your money and could divorce. Then she dumped me.”

  Benedict looked down. “She said she’d found someone else. She said she was bored with me. I couldn’t believe how callous she was. She’d been using me all along, Mr. Blair, the same way she used you.

  “No, Mr. Blair, I don’t want money, I want her to pay for the way she treated me. Carrie took advantage of both of us and I want to see her suffer the way she’s made me suffer.”

  Benedict held out the sex tape. “This DVD is my gift to you. Make good use of it.”

  Benedict and Blair shared a drink and talked for another half hour. As soon as the lawyer left, Horace phoned Jack Pratt, his attorney at Rankin, Lusk, and told him to come to his estate. It was late, and senior partners at Rankin, Lusk rarely made house calls, but Horace had been one of Pratt’s best clients for years.

  As soon as Walter showed Pratt into the library, Horace motioned the lawyer toward the armchair Charles Benedict had recently vacated and handed him a glass of the aged single-malt scotch the attorney favored.

  It would be difficult to guess that Jack Pratt was in his mid-sixties. He worked out every day in the firm’s gym with a personal trainer. His suits, which were hand-tailored in London, fit like the proverbial glove, his teeth gleamed, and not a strand of his sleek, expertly dyed black hair was out of place. Pratt had cultivated manners that would have met with approval in the home of a British royal, and even though he was ruthless in legal matters his adversaries rarely disliked him.

  “I’ve received some very upsetting news, Jack.”

  Blair, who was not given to emotional displays, was visibly upset.

  “What happened?” Pratt asked.

  “Carrie has disappeared.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Exactly what I said. This morning, I received a visit from a Lee County homicide detective. No one has seen Carrie since Monday afternoon. She hasn’t come home or to her job, and no one knows where she is.”

  “You said a homicide detective. Do they think she’s been murdered?”

  “They don’t know. She’s just disappeared.”

  Pratt frowned. “This can’t be good, Horace. Carrie has every reason to be here this week.”

  “Yes, she does, and the prenup is the reason I called you. I had a visitor this evening. Do you know a lawyer named Charles Benedict?”

  “I don’t know him, but I’ve heard of him.”

  “What’s his reputation like?” Blair asked.

  “I really don’t know. He practices criminal law, so we don’t run in the same circles. Do you want me to check him out?”

  Blair nodded. Suddenly Pratt smiled.

  “What’s so funny?” Horace asked.

  “I just remembered. Benedict is an amateur magician. I saw him perform at a Virginia Bar Association awards dinner a few years ago. He did card tricks, and he was pretty good.”

  “There’s nothing funny about what happened tonight. Benedict knows about the prenup.”

  Pratt stopped smiling. “How did he find out?”

  “Carrie told him after they . . .” Horace flushed. “He was screwing her, Jack. She cheated on me, and Benedict isn’t her only lover.” Horace held up the DVD. “He gave me this. It’s a recording of them . . . doing it. I want you to take it and put it somewhere safe. I don’t know why she’s gone missing but she’s going to show up again to demand her money.”

  Blair paused. Pratt could see that he was furious. “She is not to get one penny, Jack. Not one red cent.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Vancouver, British Columbia, was a symphony of towering snow-capped mountains and picturesque bays that made its setting one of the most beautiful in North America. On Tuesday, Dana phoned Margo Laurent from Seattle before driving there, but the call went to voice mail. She phoned again after she checked into her hotel in Vancouver, with the same result.

  On Wednesday morning, Dana caught the 6:00 a.m. ferry to Victoria. One and a half hours later, the ferry docked in the Inner Harbor and Dana found herself facing the Empress, a massive, elegant Edwardian-style hotel that would have been at home in England. The glass-and-steel building where Dana was headed was only a few blocks from the Empress, but centuries away architecturally.

  Dana walked through the revolving door into a thoroughly modern lobby at five to nine. A security guard and a desk clerk examined her closely.

  “Will you please tell 515 that Dana Cutler is here?”

  Five minutes later, the doors of Dana’s elevator car opened into a living room that was almost as big as Jake’s house. The blond giant who had followed her from Rene Marchand’s office was waiting for her. He was wearing Nike trainers, pressed jeans, a black turtleneck, and a shoulder rig. The butt of a .45 automatic protruded from the holster attached to the rig. Behind the bodyguard, through floor-to-ceiling windows, Dana saw a seaplane landing in the Inner Harbor.

  “The countess is ready for you,” the blond said in German-accented English. He reminded Dana of the Nazis in World War II movies. She was tempted to ask him if he was just following orders when he tailed her in Seattle, but she tamped down the desire to crack wise.

  The Aryan turned his back to her and walked to the far end of the living room, where a stunning blonde was seated. The countess had high cheekbones and iridescent blue eyes and looked to be an inch or so taller than the detective. She was dressed in a black-and-red body-hugging, floor-length, high-necked silk cheongsam decorated with flowers and dragons that made her look like a madam in a Shanghai brothel.

  “I am Countess Carla Von Asch, Miss Cutler. Please sit down. Can Kurt get you something to drink?”

  Once again, Dana heard a German accent.

  “I’m good,” Dana said as she sat in a comfortable armchair opposite the countess. “Let’s discuss the scepter? Do you have it?”

  “If we can agree on a price I will be able to secure it for your client.”

  “So you don’t have it?”

  The countess smiled. “Let’s leave any discussion of the location or ownership of the Ottoman Scepter until you can assure me that your principal is willing to pay for it.”

  “Okay. What’s your price?”

  “Ten million dollars.”

  It took all of Dana’s self-control to keep from reacting. “I’ll tell my client. How can I get in touch with you?”

  “I will be here on Friday morning. Let’s agree to meet at the same time.”

  “What if my client isn’t willing to pay that much? Do you have a cell phone or e-mail?”

  The countess smiled. “This is not a negotiation. If your client wishes to meet my price you will be here on Friday morning and we will work out the details of the sale. If you are not here I will know your client has declined.”

  The bodyguard escorted Dana to t
he elevator. On the way down, the private investigator was overcome once more with a feeling that something was not right. As soon as the doors opened, Dana walked over to the desk clerk, who was manning the desk by himself.

  “This is some place,” she said, smiling.

  He nodded but didn’t say anything.

  “What does one of these condos go for?”

  “You’ll have to talk to the rental agent. I don’t have that information.”

  “Yeah, good. Can you give me the agent’s name and number?”

  The clerk handed Dana a card.

  “I was just in 515. Does the countess own that or is she just renting?”

  “I can’t tell you that information.”

  Dana had anticipated this type of response. She placed her palm on the counter and pulled her hand away, revealing four fifty-dollar bills.

  “Are you sure you can’t help me?”

  The clerk eyed the bills greedily. Then he looked down the hall across from his station, on the alert for the security guard. When he was certain they wouldn’t be disturbed he leaned toward Dana and whispered.

  “The woman and a blond guy checked into the condo yesterday, but she doesn’t own it.”

  “Who does?”

  “Horace Blair.”

  Dana had never heard of Horace Blair.

  “Thanks,” she said. “One more thing.” She slid another fifty onto the pile. “What car is the woman in 515 driving? A license number would be great if you have it.”

  Dana staked out the condo’s garage. Ferries left for Vancouver every hour. If the countess was headed back to the mainland she would be leaving soon. Two hours later, a Volvo that had seen better days drove out of the garage with the countess at the wheel and the bodyguard in the passenger seat. The arrangement struck Dana as odd, and the car was not of the sort she was expecting a countess to own.

  Dana let several cars get between them once she was certain where the Volvo was headed. Then she drove onto the ferry just as the countess and her companion were getting out of their car to go to an upper deck. The bodyguard was still dressed in jeans and a turtleneck, but he wasn’t packing. The countess had pulled her hair back into a ponytail and was wearing jeans and a green cable-knit sweater.

  Dana decided to stay in her car during the trip to Vancouver. She didn’t want to risk being seen. While she waited, she reviewed everything that had happened in the past few days, starting with her meeting with Margo Laurent. What was her first impression of her client? She remembered thinking of her as a French femme fatale, a character out of some old mystery novel. Dana frowned. Now that she thought about it, every person she’d dealt with was like a character out of some old mystery novel. Professor Pickering was an oddball who lived in an eerie mansion on a spooky island. Captain Leone had reminded her of a pirate captain. And there was definitely something odd about Rene Marchand. A high-end antiques dealer would want to impress wealthy clients. Marchand’s office looked as if it had been thrown together hastily. It didn’t even have a phone, and she didn’t remember seeing a computer. Finally, there was Countess Von Asch with her slinky Chinese dress and Teutonic bodyguard.

  But most of all, there was the case itself. In real life, private detectives were not tasked with finding golden scepters belonging to Ottoman sultans. Was it possible that none of this was real? When she thought about it, her adventures were like something out of a 1940s pulp magazine, or . . . Dana’s jaw dropped. It was like that old movie that Jake loved. They’d watched it on the Turner Classic Movies channel during an evening devoted to Humphrey Bogart. What was it called? The Maltese Falcon! That was it. This case was exactly like that movie.

  But someone had tried to murder Otto Pickering, and the money was real. Margo Laurent had given her twenty-five thousand American dollars and a first-class ticket to Seattle. If it wasn’t so she could find the Ottoman Scepter, what was it for? Still, the whole setup didn’t feel right. When they docked, Dana planned to follow the countess. Maybe she would see something that would help her make sense of the Case of the Ottoman Scepter.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Shortly after the ferry docked, Dana was driving south on I-5 toward Seattle, a few car lengths behind the Volvo. Several hours later, the Volvo got off the interstate at the Mercer Street exit and Dana followed it up Queen Anne Hill until the Volvo pulled into a parking space in front of a tavern. Dana cruised by and saw the countess and her bodyguard walk into the tavern. Then she found a parking space a block away that gave her a clear view of the tavern’s front door.

  While she waited, Dana got her laptop and searched the Internet for Countess Carla Von Asch. She came up blank. She also drew a blank with Margo Laurent, Otto Pickering, and Rene Marchand. Then she tried Horace Blair, and got several thousand hits.

  It didn’t take long for Dana to learn that Horace Blair was the multimillionaire head of a conglomerate with tentacles in shipping, scrap metal, real estate, and other lucrative enterprises, but nothing she learned helped her understand why Margo Laurent, or whoever she was, had sent her across a continent in search of a golden scepter.

  Was the scepter even real? Dana hadn’t questioned its existence until now. It didn’t take her long to confirm a part of the story Margo Laurent had told her. Mehmet II had given a gold, jewel-encrusted scepter to Gennadius after bringing him to Constantinople on a horse from the imperial stable that was outfitted with a silver saddle. But she could find no further reference to the scepter.

  Dana looked up to make sure the countess and her bodyguard weren’t leaving the tavern. After watching the door for a few minutes, Dana got another idea. She typed in Isla de Muerta and brought up a website run by the island’s chamber of commerce. The Stanton’s B&B was recommended as a place for tourists to stay and she learned that sport fishing trips and nature hikes were among the island’s draws.

  Dana clicked on a section that gave a history of the island and learned that it had indeed gotten its name from the men who’d died on the ships that had wrecked on the rocks surrounding it. She was about to leave the history section, but she paused when she saw a paragraph mentioning famous people who had vacationed on Isla de Muerta. Horace Blair owned one of the summer homes on the island. Dana bet she knew which one. This was the second time Horace Blair’s name had come up. What did he have to do with a golden scepter?

  Dana was about to research the millionaire in more depth when Otto Pickering walked into the tavern. Pickering had told her that he didn’t know who owned the scepter, so this was either an amazing coincidence or Pickering had lied to her.

  Dana got out of her car and headed for the tavern. When she walked inside she saw the bodyguard and the countess seated at a table talking to Professor Pickering and Rene Marchand. The bodyguard said something that made the others laugh. Dana was willing to bet that the joke involved her.

  “Hey, guys,” Dana said as she walked toward them, “I’m looking for the Maltese Falcon and the Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Do any of you know where I can find them?”

  Heads swung toward her, and Rene Marchand said, “Uh-oh.”

  Dana pulled a chair over to the table and sat down.

  “So, who are you really?”

  They looked at one another, unsure of what to do. Then the bodyguard shrugged.

  “I guess the cat is out of the bag.”

  Dana heard a bit of the South where his Teutonic accent had been.

  Otto Pickering held out a handbill that announced that the Queen Anne Players appeared Fridays and Sundays in LaRosa Restaurant’s Interactive Comedy Mystery Dinner Theater.

  “You’re actors?” Dana said, not really surprised.

  “Part time,” Pickering said.

  “Am I safe in guessing that none of you are who you said you were?”

  The professor held out his hand. “Ralph Finegold, at your service. I teach chemistry at the university.”

  “Patty Weiss,” said the countess without any trace of a German accent. “I’m a s
tudent.”

  “George O’Leary, accountant,” the bodyguard said.

  “And I’m Marty Draper,” said the antiques dealer. “I own an art gallery, and I do sell antiques through it.”

  “And who is Margo Laurent?” Dana asked.

  “Ah,” said Ralph Finegold. “That we can’t tell you.”

  “Can’t or won’t?” Dana asked.

  “Can’t. We have no idea who she is,” Patty said.

  “We got a call on the Queen Anne Players’ answering machine, last Thursday,” Ralph said. “The woman had a French accent and she said she was willing to pay twenty thousand dollars and expenses if we would role-play a mystery. That definitely got our attention.

  “I called her back and she said she wanted to play a practical joke on a friend who was a real private eye. She said that two of us would have to go to Isla de Muerta. One of us would wait in a summer home for you and the other person would wait outside and shoot into the house. George and I went up and Captain Leone took us across. He runs the only taxi service to the island.”

  “So he’s for real?” Dana said.

  “Yeah,” George laughed. “You couldn’t invent a character like that.”

  “The Stantons were in on the prank, too,” Ralph said. “Mr. Stanton unlocked the house where we met and hid George after he shot at you.”

  “That was pretty stupid,” Dana said to O’Leary. “You could have hurt one of us and I would have shot you for real if I’d caught up with you.”

  George shook his head. “You were never in danger. I was in the army and I’m a very good shot. If you examined the bullet holes, you would have seen that they were very high and very wide.

  “I also had the distances worked out and I left my car engine running. I was pretty sure you wouldn’t just charge out, and I was pretty certain you wouldn’t get to me before I drove off.”

  Dana didn’t challenge him. The incident was in the past and there was no way to know what would have happened if she’d reacted a little quicker.

  “What was the point of the joke?” Dana asked, still mystified.