I had decided that when I got to Tom’s apartment I wouldn’t mention what had happened the day before, especially since McKenzie had asked me not to talk to anyone about it yet. But also, I knew if I did I’d probably break down in a sobbing mess, and even just thinking about Levi made my throat feel hollow.
I glanced over at Ice Princess, but she was still staring straight ahead in her own world. When we got to the ninth floor, I thought, I’m going to say something nice to her.
The doors slid open and I blurted, “Hey, I like your necklace.”
At first she looked slightly horrified that I’d even had the gall to speak to her again, but as she stepped out she reached up with one hand and touched the green cross with the tips of her fingers. “Oh, thank you.”
“Yeah, it’s really pretty. Is it jade?”
She held the door open. “No. Peruvian opal. From my homeland.”
I said, “Ah,” and smiled pleasantly.
She let go of the door and then disappeared down the hallway without so much as a nod good-bye, but for some reason I felt better. And now that she was out of the picture, I looked better, too. Tom and Billy Elliot had been on vacation for almost a week, visiting Tom’s oldest son, so I didn’t want to look like an emotional wreck when I greeted them.
As soon as I took my keys out, I heard a low-pitched woof and then the quick tap-tapping of Billy Elliot’s wagging tail on the parquet floor. I like to keep myself on a pretty strict schedule, so over time Billy has learned to anticipate my arrival down to the minute. He was already waiting for me just behind the door.
Greyhound racing is a big deal around here. There’s a decades-old track on the outskirts of Sarasota that puts on races weekly, and there are at least fifteen other tracks within a four- or five-hour drive. I guess it’s fun for people, and I’m sure it pours tons of money into the local economy, but in my book none of that makes it right.
Whenever I hear the word retirement, I think of silver-haired couples driving around in golf carts or touring through town on a bicycle built for two, on their way to a two-dollar matinee at the movie theater or an early-bird dinner at the local diner. But in the world of greyhound racing, retirement is all too often a nice word for something … well, not very nice.
Tens of thousands of greyhounds are bred every year, but only an elite few ever make it to the racetrack, which means the majority get “retired.” Even for the champions, a good racing career doesn’t last long. Their bodies can only take so much, and if they’re not winning they meet the same end as their less-speedy littermates—unless of course they’re lucky enough to become breeders for new stock, or get rescued like Billy Elliot.
You would’ve thought he hadn’t seen me in years. First he ran around in circles, leaping up and down like a rabbit, and then he lavished me with kisses. I found Tom in his wheelchair at the kitchen table, where there were stacks of files and spreadsheets laid out in front of him in a wide semicircle.
Billy Elliot ran over and sat by his side, looking back at me with a wide grin as if to say, Hey, look what I found!
I said, “How was your vacation?”
Tom has a boyish round face with a head of curly black hair and a little round belly. He wears steel-rimmed glasses that always make me think he looks a bit like Harry Potter, that is if Harry Potter were forty-two and slightly pudgy. He’s one of the most well-read people I’ve ever met. He knows a little bit about practically everything—art, music, architecture, literature, finance. When I grow up I want to be just like him.
He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “Well, considering my son is a complete maniac, not to mention an immature, binge-drinking wreck, it was fine.”
“Uh-oh. That doesn’t sound good at all.”
He chuckled. “Well, I might be exaggerating a bit. To his credit I think he invited me down just so I’d give him a lecture about how he needs to grow up. The kid is twenty-six years old and has never held a job for longer than a year. But don’t get me started. How are you?”
“Well, funny you should ask, I’ve had an interesting week so far.”
He pushed himself back from the table. “Oh, good, tell me all about it. I need something to divert my attention from these spreadsheets.”
I said, “Well, I’m fine now, but look…”
I lowered my head and parted my hair to the side.
“Ouch! How’d that happen?”
I considered telling him, but the thought of one more person thinking of me as a delicate fainting flower made me sick, so instead I just very slightly altered the truth.
I said, “Um … I slipped on an orange peel. Can you believe that? I was at a client’s house. I went straight down and hit my head. But Tom, the weirdest thing happened. While I was lying there catching my breath, I saw an image in my mind, it was a statue, kind of like a Buddha, except it was a woman. Have you ever heard of anything like that?”
Tom frowned. “Wait, you’re saying you got knocked out?”
Billy Elliot sighed and stretched out on the floor at Tom’s feet. I think he knew from the sound of our voices he wasn’t getting a walk anytime soon.
I said, “No, no. Nothing like that. But it hurt like hell and I was definitely a little dizzy for a minute, so I was just lying there waiting for it to go away when that image popped up in my head, and it’s just been bugging me ever since. I must have seen something like it somewhere, but for the life of me I can’t think where.”
“Was it Kuan Yin?”
I said, “Connie who?”
He grinned. “Kuan Yin. She’s what they call a bodhisattva, an enlightened being that’s reached a state of grace. Some people think when they die, Kuan Yin places their soul in the heart of a lotus flower. She’s the most well-known female Buddha figure I know of.”
I said, “Huh. She sounds awesome. Does she have big huge bowling-ball-sized breasts?”
He tilted his head to one side. “Um, no.”
“Oh. Well, this one did. And her toes were painted red and she was totally naked and big and curvy.”
He put his glasses back on. “Ha—that doesn’t much sound like the Buddha I know. I think the word you’re looking for is zaftig. Except for the red toes, it sounds more like an ancient earth goddess, like Gaia or Shala.”
“Who?”
“Almost every ancient culture has one. Usually they represent the bounty of nature or fertility, like Venus, the Roman goddess of love.”
“You mean Venus on a half shell?”
He chuckled. “You’re thinking of how Botticelli envisioned her, but the idea was around long before he came along. Some of them date all the way back to the Paleolithic age … Here, I’ll show you.”
He turned his wheelchair back to the computer and tapped a few keys. The screen filled with pictures of all kinds of small sculptures and figurines. They were mostly made from stone or clay, some crude and jagged, but others carved with exquisite care.
“Are they expensive?”
He smiled. “Some are modern knockoffs, but some, especially an older one, could be worth hundreds of thousands, if not millions.”
I said, “Huh.”
Something had clicked in my head. It might very well have been my poor skull shifting back in place, but I think it was something more. Unless I was remembering something from my past life as a cavewoman, there was absolutely no way I’d fainted that morning, because those figurines on Tom’s computer … I’d never seen anything like them before … so how could the whole thing have been a dream?
I looked closer at one that had caught my attention. She was made of white stone. Her oval eyes were blank, but her lips were set at a slightly mischievous angle, and her head was as smooth and bald as an egg.
I pointed. “Hey, Tom? Do you think you could print that out for me?”
19
The parking lot at the Sea Breeze is shaped like a racetrack, with a big oval of lush green grass in the middle, and sometimes I wonder if Tom didn’t move here for th
at reason alone. It’s the perfect place for Billy Elliot.
In his heyday, Billy was a champion racer, and he had a longer career than most. A lot of greyhounds his age, especially the ones with an illustrious record, have to contend with all kinds of health problems stemming from the abuse their bodies took from racing, but so far Billy is in pretty good shape. Tom gives him daily supplements to help keep his joints limber, and he needs a mild pain reliever now and then, but otherwise he’s fit as a fiddle, which is more than I can say for myself.
The order of events is basically the same every day. After Billy does his business and marks a couple of bushes for future reference, we start out at a relatively slow pace around the lot. Then, once we’re both warmed up, we increase the speed a bit. Billy’s usually the one to make that call, and I know he waits a little longer than he’d prefer for my sake.
I do my best to keep up with him, but I never last much longer than twenty minutes. If he looks like he’s still got a little gas in his tank, I’ll let him off the leash and he’ll shift into greyhound gear and race around the lot a few more laps at breakneck speed. That gives me the opportunity to stand doubled over with my hands on my hips and wheeze like a donkey.
While I did that, I thought about the picture Tom had printed out for me. It was folded up and tucked away in my back pocket, and I’d already told myself what I needed to do next: it was time to call Mr. and Mrs. Keller. All I needed was one look at those little statues on Tom’s computer screen to know what had happened to me in the Kellers’ house wasn’t a dream, nor was it the product of my overactive imagination or low blood sugar. Paco was right. Somebody had attacked me.
I still didn’t know where that statue had come from or how it wound up in the hands of my attacker, but I had a feeling Mrs. Keller might be able to shed some light on the subject.
I’d wait until I was back in her house, and since Italy is six hours ahead, it would be around midday there and a perfect time to call. I wasn’t looking forward to worrying her about it, and I really didn’t feel like getting caught up in whatever web of deceit she’d woven to appease her husband, but I knew I didn’t have a choice.
After that I’d call Detective McKenzie. I wanted to tell her the whole story—everything I’d figured out about that morning, including Paco’s theory that my bump wasn’t consistent with a fall, and I also wanted to show her the picture Tom had printed for me. Given how much that figurine might be worth, it seemed perfectly reasonable that somebody could have broken into the Kellers’ house to steal it. Seeing as how it was so early in the morning, they probably thought they could escape without any of the neighbors noticing. Deputy Beane had mentioned she’d canvassed the neighborhood and no one had reported anything suspicious, so all in all it was a perfect plan … except for one thing: Levi.
I think it was possible that, in an indirect way, it was Levi’s fault I got conked on the head in the first place. After my attacker found what they were looking for, they must have planned on slipping out before I even knew they were there. But something had stopped them, and I’d be willing to wager ten bucks it was the sight of Levi driving by, delivering papers.
They probably figured the risk of a witness was much worse than contending with a 135-pound cat sitter, so they donned one of Mrs. Keller’s masks and took me out of the picture with whatever they happened to have handy … like a stone earth goddess. I cringed at the idea of me lying there in the laundry room, unconscious, while they waited for the right time to make their escape. Of course, the big question was: If Levi had been there when they finally came out, had he confronted them?
Or worse, had they followed him home?
* * *
Once Billy and I were back upstairs, both of us panting like crazy, I hung his leash on the hook by the door and then followed him back into the dining room to say a quick good-bye to Tom. He had laid out a few documents with pink Post-its running down the right-hand side.
Turning to me with a somber look on his face, he said, “Before you go, we need to talk.”
I knew by the sound of his voice it had something to do with money. I threw my backpack over my shoulder and whined, “Can it wait till tomorrow?”
“Dixie, sooner or later we have to come up with a plan.”
I said, “How about later?”
“Can you at least sign a couple of things?”
“Ugh. Do I have to read them first?”
He slid his glasses down his nose and gave me a disapproving frown. “Of course you do. Does that mean you will?”
“No.”
He handed me a pen. “I didn’t think so.”
There were three separate documents. As I signed one he’d slide it away and replace it with another. “Dixie, you really can’t avoid this much longer.”
“I know, I know. It’s just hard.”
“That may be, but the longer you put it off, the harder it’s going to get.”
I handed his pen back. “Okay, I promise we’ll talk next week.”
He stared at me as I hurried down the hall.
“I promise!”
* * *
One of my very first jobs as a pet sitter was for a cat named Ghost. Awful name, sweet cat. He was a silver-blue Abyssinian, as stunningly beautiful as his owner, Marilee Doerring. Unfortunately, that beauty had drawn a very bad man to her, and she ended up getting killed.
We weren’t exactly close friends, but Marilee and I had a kind of unspoken bond, and her grandmother, Cora Mathers, is still a big part of my life. I go over at least once a week to visit her. These days, she’s the closest thing I have to a mother.
Marilee was rich, and when she died, her will stipulated that a sizable amount of her estate go to Cora, enough that she’d never have to worry about who would take care of her in her old age. The rest, to everyone’s surprise, went to Ghost. And even more surprising, at least for me, yours truly was named as Ghost’s guardian and sole manager of his inheritance, which, to put it mildly, was a boatload of money.
I knew I was the last person on earth to be trusted with that kind of responsibility. For example, I have no idea how much money I have in my bank account, and the last time I balanced my checkbook Ronald Reagan was president. Math is not my strong suit. It’s not even my weak suit, plus it just made me sad to think about Marilee, so I asked Tom for help managing everything. He’s taken care of all the financial details ever since, and I try to have as little to do with it as possible.
Ghost, on the other hand, I knew exactly how to handle. I found him a good home with a family that runs an orchard just north of Sarasota. They have tons of land, with rows and rows of orange trees teeming with birds and butterflies, and all it took was one visit to know it would be the perfect home for a cat like Ghost. The Griswolds love him and take excellent care of him, and they send me letters and photos every once in a while to keep me up to date on his adventures. In return, they’re given a monthly stipend from Marilee’s estate to help keep Ghost living in the luxurious style he was accustomed to when she was still alive.
Unfortunately, time goes by and Ghost is only getting older, and now there’s the question of what happens to Marilee’s estate going forward. You’d think eventually all that money would just dwindle away and I’d never have to think about it again, but the problem is … well, the real problem is Tom Hale: He’s a financial wizard. Early on, he took a portion of the estate and invested it, and now it’s grown into a small fortune. All of it, every last penny, becomes mine when Ghost passes away.
It’s a secret. Nobody knows but you, me, and Tom, so please—try not to blab it all over town.
20
I read an article in the paper recently about all the unrest in the Middle East, and how one of the lesser-known consequences is that museums have become increasingly vulnerable to looting. Thieves break in and take whatever they can get their hands on, like ancient tools, pottery, jewelry, and, most notably, small statues and figurines. Priceless treasures have disappeared across
the entire region, from Sudan and Egypt all the way to the northernmost cities in Afghanistan.
I was thinking about that as I made my way across the parking lot at the Sea Breeze. You’d think it would be impossible to get away with selling a hot artifact pilfered right out of a public museum, but when riches are at stake there’s always a buyer willing to hazard the risk, plus it can always be passed off to a less knowledgeable (or less virtuous) dealer, then along comes an unsuspecting customer, completely innocent of its questionable provenance. The black market for art and antiquities is a multibillion-dollar business. It extends its long, greedy fingers into every corner of the world … even as far as, say, a charming little gallery on the outskirts of Tampa.
As soon as I got back in the Bronco, I reached for my phone and navigated to my saved voice mails. I wanted to hear Mrs. Keller’s message again. There was one thing she’d said that had stuck in my mind: “I promised Buster I wouldn’t buy any more masks—but this was different, and I just couldn’t stop myself.”
I played that part a few more times. There was definitely something about the way she paused slightly when she said “different,” like there was something else … something unspoken. Of course, they always say it’s a woman’s prerogative to change her mind, and I couldn’t agree more (I think), but I was beginning to wonder if maybe Mrs. Keller had actually kept her word, at least technically. Just because she’d promised her husband she wouldn’t buy any more masks didn’t mean she couldn’t have turned her attention to some other collectible item … say, ancient figurines?
The entire way to the Kellers’ house, my head was buzzing with everything I’d figured out so far, but somewhere in the back of my mind was the lurking suspicion that my whole theory—that there was a connection between what had taken place at the Kellers’ and what had happened to Levi—was as flimsy as a house of cards, as if the slightest breeze or tiny tremor in the earth’s surface could bring it all crashing down.
But I didn’t care. My day hadn’t started out so great, and even if there was no connection between the two, just the action of trying to solve the riddle of it made me feel better. There was one more thing, though …
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