Under Suspicion

by Lee, Rachel

  “Actually, it makes you a lot safer. Not even you could persuade those officers to accept any coffee.”

  Anna jumped up from her chair. “See, that’s exactly what I mean! This weirdo could come along and shoot them both, but I’m safe because I can’t give them coffee. Like I drugged the cop last night. Like I would be so stupid!”

  Tebbins offered only a shrug and a quiet smile almost masked by playing with his moustache. Jeez, Anna thought, he really does work that prop for all it’s worth. The quiet staring contest continued for almost a full minute before Tebbins finally spoke. “What would you have me do?”

  “I think it’s obvious,” Anna said, aware that the color was rising in her cheeks. She began ticking off points on her fingers. “It had to have been an inside job. Someone who was familiar with the exhibit and the security. Someone who could move around the museum, anywhere, at any time of day, without anyone paying much attention. Someone everyone thinks they know and thinks they can trust. That’s who you’re looking for.”

  “You’ve just described yourself pretty well,” Tebbins said mildly.

  “Is intellectual myopia part of police training,” Nancy cut in, “or did you come by that naturally?”

  Tebbins huffed. Actually huffed, Anna thought. She was reminded of the Labrador retriever her aunt had owned. Tebbins had made the exact huff she’d heard so often when the dog had been shooed out from under the table or off the sofa. A huff of polite disgust, as if to say “I ought to be above such indignities.”

  Which was very close to the truth of what Tebbins was thinking. There were many insults he could endure in good grace. He’d never been handsome, and he knew it. He’d always been a bit of an oddball, and he’d known that too. For him, retreat had come in the intricate intellectual puzzles found in the true crime and mystery books he’d read endlessly until he reached the point where he could sniff out the killer long before the hero was even on the right track. He’d become a cop because it seemed to be the one profession that took advantage of a skill he had fostered and developed through countless hours of childhood and adolescent escape reading murder mysteries. And which he’d fostered further with years of real-world experience, often spent working alongside and sometimes for the very kinds of jocks and “Big Men On Campus” he’d so studiously avoided in his youth.

  He’d put up with their squad-room antics, their inability to understand him, their brash mannerisms, because the job gave him an opportunity to put to good use one defining feature of his identity: He was not intellectually myopic. He could wander around a case and watch the vectors of motive, means, and opportunity coalesce almost as if they physically materialized from the ether.

  And that, he realized with an uneasy clarity, had not happened in this case. Nancy’s barb cut close to the bone not only because it flew in the face of everything he liked to believe about himself, but also, he realized, because it was true. Lacking those almost tangible psychic signposts that normally guided him—what others called intuition but he thought of as the hallmark of genius—he was walking down the path of least resistance.

  He huffed again, this time at himself, and more forcefully because of that. He reached deep inside for something that would pass for a conciliatory smile. “Shall we dispense with the insults and focus on the case?”

  “I suppose we could,” Anna said. “If you could manage to stop insulting my sister and me by treating us like prime suspects in the robbery of an exhibit I worked for eighteen months to put together, and the murder of a bright young man whom I liked.”

  He opened his hands. “It’s not personal, Ms. Lundgren. It’s the job.”

  Nancy let out a bitter laugh. “It’s not personal. I love that one. That’s what the mob killers tell their victims in the movies. ‘It’s not personal, Mr. Rigatoni. It’s just business.’ “ She fixed him with a glare. “Well, Tebbins, it’s personal to us.”

  He nodded. “I can see where it would be. Were I in your shoes, I’m sure I’d be equally uncomfortable. So… I ask again. What would you have me do?”

  “There can’t be that many people at the museum who have all of the right connections to pull this off,” Nancy argued. “But I’m sure there are more than just Anna.”

  Anna nodded. “That’s true. I mean, they’ve all been through the exhibit at one time or another, probably. But knowing enough to come and go without a trace… that means someone who worked on the security, or who was at least around when it was being installed. That ought to narrow the field some.”

  Tebbins nodded again, and busied himself with his moustache for a moment. “Can you get me a list of the people who were working at the museum when the security was installed?”

  “Sure,” Anna said. “But of course, I’ll be on the list.”

  “So you will,” he said. “So you will.”

  Anna shrugged. “Just as long as I’m not the only one on the list. You can rule out Ivar right from the top. That man couldn’t tell a circuit from linguine. But there are the security people, too, Tebbins. Dinah and her techs. They’d be the best people to bypass their own system.”

  He wagged his finger at her. “See? You underestimate me. We’re already looking into that very closely. The problem there is motive.”

  Nancy shifted impatiently. “Why? There’s a lot of money involved.”

  “To be sure.” Sitting back in his chair, he smiled. “But you see, there is a major difficulty with money as a motivator in this case.”

  “Why?” Nancy threw up her hands. “A quarter of a mil is a quarter of a mil.”

  But Anna shook her head. “No, Nance, he’s right. That dagger is very identifiable. It’s a one of a kind. If the thief was after money, he’d have been smarter to help himself to the gold artifacts. He could at least melt them down.”

  “Exactly,” Tebbins said, beaming at her as if she were a bright pupil. “Very few thieves would have the connections to fence an article of that kind. So, we are looking for someone who is acquisitive, or someone who is in the employ of a collector—or someone who isn’t interested in the money at all.”

  Anna sighed. “Why do I have the feeling I fit at least one of those categories.”

  “Actually,” said Tebbins, “you fit all of them. You could be a collector.” He glanced toward the replicas on her shelf. “After all, I have only your word for it that those items on your book case aren’t real.”

  “Jeez.” Anna nearly groaned the word. “You know, you could take those to any antiquarian who specializes in MesoAmerican artifacts and verify that they’re replicas. Help yourself. Pack them up and take them.”

  “I just might. Then, of course, being in the museum business, you probably have a great many contacts that could put you in touch with a collector.”

  “Not that I’m aware of.”

  He shrugged. “I have only your word for that. And finally, my dear Ms. Lundgren, you have a personal interest in the dagger.”

  Anna looked at her sister. “I think I’d arrest me, too.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t,” Nancy said stoutly. “It’s just too absurd. Why in the world would you have told the board about your personal connection with the dagger if you were planning to steal it? You’re smarter than that, Anna. You wouldn’t have mentioned our dad to anyone. You certainly wouldn’t have told enough people that it wound up in the papers.”

  Tebbins leaned forward. “You told the board about your father? Why?”

  “Because I was trying to keep them from ballyhooing the curse in the promotions. First of all, I didn’t think that would be scientific. But mostly, well…” She flushed. “I didn’t want all that raked up again.”

  “Hmm.” He stroked his moustache thoughtfully.

  “I guess I was stupid,” Anna said sadly. “Someone sure ran to the press with the story.”

  “Someone who means you no good, I’m sure,” her sister said darkly. “What about that person?” she demanded of Tebbins. “Maybe the thief just wanted to ruin Anna.”


  “We’re looking at that, too,” Tebbins said. Reaching into his breast pocket, he pulled out a pad. “There’s a certain person… ah, here it is… Peter Dashay. I understand he created a scene in the lobby the day after the theft.”

  “Peter?” Anna almost laughed. “The thought of him skulking around in the middle of the night to rob a museum… God, that’s hysterical.”

  “Why?” asked Tebbins. “He seems very angry with you.”

  She shrugged. “His male pride is wounded.”

  “That could be enough, with some men.”

  Anna shook her head. “I don’t think so, not him. He’s got a touch of the petty tyrant, but otherwise he’s a wuss.”

  “You gotta watch those wusses,” Nancy said. “They’re the ones who can go off on you.”

  Tebbins didn’t comment. He just made a note on his pad. “Is there anyone else who might have a grudge against you?”

  “Oh, probably,” Anna answered. “But I don’t know who. Nobody’s been overt about it.”

  “Well then.” He put his notebook away. “Get me that list of people who were at the museum when the security system was installed. People who maybe hung around more than average, who asked a lot of questions. We’re also getting ready to interview all the employees one more time.”

  “Why?” Nancy asked.

  “Because they’re no longer shocked by the burglary and death. Because they’ve had some time to think about it, and some of them might have begun to remember little things that seemed out of place.”

  “He’s not so dumb,” Nancy remarked after Tebbins left.

  “No,” Anna agreed. “But he’s still tightening the noose around me.”

  Sunday morning, Gil returned Trina to her mother. It was always a wrenching experience for him, like cutting out part of his own heart. After five years he ought to be used to it, but he was beginning to think he never would be.

  The hug she gave him was stiff, reluctant. She was still mad at him about Jamie, he supposed, but he wasn’t prepared to back down, and he didn’t know any other way to smooth things over.

  Rina, his ex, regarded him with disapproval after Trina had gone inside. “Well,” she said, “it looks like you put on another sterling show of fatherhood this week.”

  Irritation surged in him. As far as Rina was concerned, he could do no right. “I did,” he said flatly. “I told her I don’t want her seeing Jamie anymore.”

  “Bright,” she answered sarcastically. “We’ll have our very own version of the Montagues and Capulets.”

  He shook his head, feeling the old exasperation return as if it had never waned. “I want to talk to you about that.”

  She looked to the heavens, as if seeking patience. “You know, Gil, you have to stop filtering everything in the world through that cop lens of yours. Your daughter’s fifteen, and she’s going to date whether you like it or not.”

  “I know that. But I’d be a neglectful parent if I didn’t step in when my daughter’s boyfriend refused to bring her home, kicked sand at her in a fit of rage, and threatened to hit her. She had to come home with someone else.”

  Something in Rina’s face flickered, temporarily obliterating her impatient expression. Guilt? Was he seeing guilt? Was her boyfriend treating her this way? Or had she known of previous instances of Jamie treating their daughter this way? “He hasn’t done this kind of thing before, has he?” Gil asked.

  “No. No. Look, I’ll talk to her about it, okay?”

  “It’s going to take more than talking. She’s refusing to listen to sense. She keeps apologizing for him, saying he’s just mad. But they’re not kids in a sandbox anymore, Rina.”

  “I know,” said Rina. Her face closing, she turned away without saying good-bye and marched into her house.

  In his car, Gil had to resist the urge to slam his fist on the dashboard. Parenting by remote control was impossible.

  He worried about his daughter all the way across the bay, but as soon as he reached the museum, he had to put it on hold. That was considerably easier to do when he saw Anna in the lobby.

  She looked great in a green pantsuit. He felt again that pull, that awareness that made him want to stand taller and puff out his chest a bit. That made him want to smile. He forced it down.

  Nancy was there, too, wearing shorts and a gray T-shirt with a cowboy hat and boots. Very Texan, he supposed. Or very Nancy.

  He greeted them both, then asked, “Where is everybody?”

  “I don’t know,” Anna said. “But it’s only a few minutes past ten.”

  “Fifteen to be precise,” Nancy remarked. “I guess everyone is on mañana time.”

  “We’re waiting for Tebbins and the security people, right?”

  The women nodded at him.

  “When does the exhibit open for the day?”

  “At noon,” Anna answered.

  “So nobody’s around right now?”

  “Just the guard,” Anna said, with a nod in the direction of the security booth, which was next to the ticket windows.

  “But the front doors are unlocked.”

  “I guess he figures since we’re waiting for an invasion of cops and security people, we’re okay.”

  That bothered Gil. He would have thought ordinary security procedures would have dictated otherwise. “Excuse me for a moment?”

  “Sure.”

  He felt her gaze on him as he walked over to the glassed-in security room and flashed his badge through the window.

  The guard called to come on in. So even the booth wasn’t locked. Thoughtfully, he rapped on the window as he entered and realized it was bulletproof. Bulletproof glass, but the door was open. Brilliant.

  Inside, he smiled at the guard who was sitting in a wheeled gray office chair before a two-tiered bank of large TV monitors, each split into four pictures. At his elbow was a large foam cup of coffee. He was wearing the gray uniform of a well-known security guard company, and carried a pistol in a holster on his belt, along with a large key ring. The man himself was middle-aged, balding, and a bit paunchy.

  “What can I do for you, Officer?” the guard asked. His nameplate announced that he was J. Wiggins.

  “I was just wondering about what you do in here all day. And how you manage to stay awake.”

  “Pull up a stool.”

  Gil did so, sitting a few feet away and scanning all the screens. “Does it ever get overwhelming to watch all these monitors?”

  “Nah. It’s busier during the day, obviously, but mostly you just have to keep an eye out for something unusual. So I don’t really look at them, if you know what I mean. I just kind of sit here and scan until something grabs my attention.”

  “How often does that happen?”

  “Oh, maybe a couple dozen times a day now that the Maya exhibit’s so busy. Mostly it’s just kids acting up in front of the monitors. Sometimes it’s couples having a quarrel.” He shook his head and grinned. “Sometimes I wish we had audio.”

  “I bet you do.”

  “Reminds me of the Honeymooners.” The guard swiveled his chair a bit and began pointing at the various monitors. “These are on the exhibit upstairs, the one about the sunken galleon. That’s not too busy right now because they’re rebuilding it since they moved it. Mostly there’s someone there only on weekdays or Saturday, and it’s people I recognize, staff mainly, and volunteers.”

  Gil nodded.

  “These here are the public places, the upstairs and downstairs lobbies, the ticket booth. Over here is the outside doors, all of ‘em, and that one’s shipping and receiving. That gets hectic every now and again. And these over here are the Pocal exhibit. Lots of ‘em.”

  Gil nodded. “What if you want to see better than this?”

  “Oh, that’s easy.” He used a mouse to click on one of the images, and it immediately filled the whole screen. “And see? With this knob here, I can zoom in.” To demonstrate, he did so with a flourish, bringing the empty dagger case into screen-filli
ng relief. A moment later, he zoomed back to normal view and clicked again, restoring the four-way picture split.

  Gil glanced at the lobby monitors and saw Anna and Nancy in two of the images, from different angles. They were together and talking. He imagined with that zoom that he could probably read their lips.

  “What about the halls and offices that aren’t under surveillance?”

  “Well, in the daytime it don’t matter much because everybody’s here. But when we’re closed, I’m supposed to get up every half hour and take a stroll around.”

  “So somebody could be in one of the offices and no one would know?”

  “I would, sooner or later. I suppose they could hide if they was careful, but…” He shrugged. “What’s the point in hiding? You can’t do anything.”

  Gil nodded as if he agreed. “Did you know Eddy Malacek?”

  “That kid that was killed? Yeah, sorta. I mean, I switched off with him a couple of times, we chatted for five or ten, then we’d part ways. He seemed nice enough. Pretty reliable, too. He never kept me waiting. I was kinda leery when the company told me the contract required them to hire some students for part-time work, but Eddy was a good egg. Seemed to take it seriously.” Wiggins shook his head woefully. “He had big dreams, I guess.”

  “Big dreams, how?”

  “Oh, I just meant him going to graduate school and all. Him and his girlfriend both, he said. Must’ve wanted to get somewhere real bad.”

  Then Wiggins laughed. “I wanted to get somewhere, too. Problem was, I didn’t look far enough down the road.”

  “What did you do?” Gil asked, smiling.

  “Oh, I was in too much of a hurry. Jumped right into construction from high school. Figured I’d work my way to the top. Made it to site supervisor up in Ohio, then the wife got arthritis pretty bad, and the doc said she’d do better in a warm climate, so down we came. Pay’s not as good here.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  Wiggins nodded sagely. “No unions. It’s a right-to-work state.” He guffawed. “Right-to-get-fired state, they mean.”