“The registrar discovered a mint Penny Black stamp missing from the vault and added it to the list last night,” he said as he handed her a sheet of paper. “It was donated only a little over a month ago.”
“What’s it worth?”
“Only about twenty thousand.”
“Only?”
“A Penny Red went for almost a million dollars last year.”
“Who knew it had been donated?”
“The Commercial Appeal ran an article about it along with a photo of the gentleman donating it, so almost everyone who keeps up with that sort of thing.”
Kelsey had missed the article. Someone rapped sharply at the door.
“That’s probably Jackson,” Tomlinson said. He opened the door. “Come in and have a seat. I’m afraid Ms. Allen has a bit of bad news for you.”
“More bad news? Walter’s death was enough for a lifetime,” Jackson King said as he acknowledged Kelsey with a slight bow. He took the chair opposite her. “So what’s this bad news?”
“It’s something we can fix. You want to tell him about it, Kelsey?” Tomlinson said.
Both men fixed their attention on her, and she sat up straighter. “It’s about the closed-circuit TV. I accessed it earlier this afternoon to play back—”
“What?” Jackson shot forward. “How did you get into the feed?”
“Any amateur hacker can access your IP address and detect your cameras. Why haven’t you changed your username and password from the default?”
“I don’t know, but I’ll be finding out.”
“Good. Because if I can google the serial model of the camera and find the default username and password, anyone can.”
Jackson sat back in his chair.
“That may not be the worst part,” she said.
“There’s more?”
“Maybe. I haven’t had time to check, but either the camera in the hallway leading to the vault malfunctioned or someone turned it off. I didn’t take time to see how long it was off, but the timing corresponds to Mr. Rutherford’s murder.”
Jackson took out his phone and dialed a number. “Were there any malfunctions with any camera Saturday night?” He listened and grimaced. “Why was I not told?”
A minute later he ended the call. “Show me how you hacked into my cameras, and then let’s change that password.”
As Kelsey booted up her laptop she’d brought with her, she said, “Was there a malfunction?”
“The screen went blank, but the security officer monitoring the feed couldn’t find a cause. Unfortunately, he didn’t notice when the screen first went blank—evidently it happened when he took his dinner break at seven thirty and didn’t have anyone cover for him. It was when he returned that he noticed the blank screen and was in the process of determining why when the feed mysteriously came back on at nine forty-five.”
“And by then Mr. Rutherford’s body had been found.” Could Jackson’s employee be involved? “Why didn’t he mention this Saturday night?”
“In the excitement, it slipped his mind. He did say that they’d had trouble with this particular camera since it was installed and the company was sending an IT specialist this week.”
“Do you know if that happens with any of the other cameras?”
“When we finish here, we’ll interview the security officer and find out,” Jackson said.
“So, you want me to stay on?”
“Definitely.”
“Still using the conservator job as a cover?”
Jackson glanced at Tomlinson. “What do you think?”
“I need a conservator, and Kelsey might get more information from the employees if they don’t know she’s working with security.”
“Then I wouldn’t want anyone to see me with you when you talk to your security officer,” Kelsey said. “But ask him to pull the records from the old cameras as well as the new ones. We’ll check the dates of any malfunctions against the thefts.”
“Done,” Jackson said. He raked his fingers through his silver hair and then studied her for a minute. “Are you certain you want to continue on in this job? It could be dangerous.”
Quitting wasn’t an option with her. “Mr. Tomlinson and I have already discussed this. Any security job can be dangerous. Knew that when I applied for my license. That’s why I’m an expert shot with a gun and know enough self-defense moves to protect myself.”
It was hard to explain, but discovering the camera had possibly been tampered with whet her appetite for the investigation. The adrenaline pumping through her veins was the same high she got scaling a building. “Someone is stealing artifacts from the museum, and I intend to figure out how.”
“All right—as long as you work with the police on this, we’ll continue with the contract you had with Walter. And by the way, I only learned this morning when I went over the contract that you are actually the one testing our security systems as the Phantom Hawk.”
She nodded, acknowledging his statement. It was a relief to know it was in writing somewhere.
“That’s quite an accomplishment, but I don’t want you going after Mr. Rutherford’s murderer.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll leave that up to the detective.” Thank goodness that meant working with Reggie, not Brad.
12
MONDAY MORNING, Brad transitioned from Homicide to the Cold Case Unit in less than half an hour. He cleaned out his desk and threw out a few things. Everything else he arranged in the desk in his new office, then hung the photo of Tripod catching a Frisbee on the wall and walked across the hall to the conference room for orientation. That wouldn’t take long, either. His lieutenant, David Raines, was a man of brief words unless there was a need for more.
He leaned back in his chair. It was good to sit at the conference table sharing stories and drinking strong coffee with Raines and Will Kincade, another cold case detective.
“I hear you had a rather interesting weekend,” Lieutenant Raines said.
“You could say that. I was just telling Will earlier that between us, Reggie and I combed through 146 statements.”
It hadn’t been how he wanted to spend his Sunday afternoon and evening, especially after Elle showed up on his doorstep, but he hated to bail on Reggie. At least this time, she hadn’t gotten upset with him because of his job. In the past, choosing to work over spending time with her was a bad move. Maybe she had changed her attitude about his job.
“Think you’ll miss Homicide?” Will asked.
He took a sip of lukewarm coffee and set the cup down. “Sure, but I’m looking forward to investigating cold cases. There’s something about being able to finally give families closure that appeals to me.”
“I know what you mean,” his friend replied.
Brad looked forward to working with Will again. They’d been friends since they were kids and had worked together in Homicide until David recruited his friend for the Cold Case Unit. They’d even worked together on Will’s first cold case, which involved the death of Brad’s sister.
“You both better be glad you’re not in Burglary. Did you hear about their problem?” David asked.
Brad shot his boss a quizzical glance. “No. What?”
Will laughed. “I heard they’re chasing a ghost who breaks into security systems.”
“What are you talking about?” Brad hadn’t heard anything about a hacker, which he assumed Will meant.
David leaned forward. “There’s a cat burglar breaking into businesses and leaving his calling card. Something about being breached by the Phantom Hawk.”
“You’re kidding.” He swallowed. The image of Kelsey climbing down the side of the Pink Palace popped into his mind. It wasn’t possible . . . “You say it’s a man?”
Will nodded. “Burglary is assuming it is. Outside of the movies, a female cat burglar is rare. Besides, I don’t see a woman rappelling from the roof of a 400-foot building to get into an office on the thirty-fifth floor—that was the first break-in. Thursday night’s w
as only a 160-foot building.”
His friend hadn’t seen Kelsey climbing down the drainpipe with the ease of an acrobat.
“I understand he’s also hacking into the company’s computers,” Will said.
Tension increased in Brad’s shoulders. Kelsey was into history and art and computers. But surely she wasn’t this Phantom Hawk. He checked his watch and remembered he was supposed to see her at eleven this morning, and it was almost that time. He’d better call. Before he could excuse himself, there was a knock at the door, and Reggie entered.
“Don’t mean to interrupt you, but I need to ask Brad a question,” he said.
“Privately?” Brad asked. Reggie looked as though he’d never gone to bed last night.
“No, I just need to know if you have the interview with Kelsey Allen. I’m handing the case off to Rachel Sloan, and I need to include it with the others.”
“It’s not complete, but I’m leaving shortly to go by the Pink Palace and talk with her again,” he said. “Why are you giving Rachel the case?”
Reggie blew out a tired breath. “The inspector moved me to a new murder. At one this morning, a man’s body washed up at McKellar Lake. Finally got an ID on him two hours ago. Troy Hendrix. He worked in that building the Phantom Hawk broke into after hacking their security system and turning off the cameras.”
“You’re kidding,” David said.
“Nope.” Reggie shook his head. “And the odd thing is, his email had an automatic response saying he’d be out of town a few days, but nobody knew anything about him taking off. When I talked to his secretary, she said he missed an important meeting Friday.”
Brad rubbed his jaw. “So the killer left the automatic response? He would have to know Hendrix’s email password . . . or he hacked into it.”
“Yep. Hacker plus burglar—if we can come up with the identity of the Phantom Hawk, I think we’ll have our murderer.” He turned to Brad. “Would you mind contacting Rachel? I have to get back to work.”
“Sure thing. I’ll even wrap up the interview for her.”
After Reggie left, David gathered his papers. “You seem interested in this case.”
Will laughed. “I don’t think it’s the case. According to Andi, he had a date with Kelsey Allen on Saturday night.”
“Can’t you and my sister find anything better to do than discuss my social life? I don’t suppose she told you she helped set it up?” When Will shook his head, Brad said, “I didn’t think so.”
“Thing is, I don’t get why you’re jumping mad at a little teasing,” Will said. “Maybe if you dated more, it wouldn’t be such a big deal. And I sure don’t understand why a looker like Kelsey Allen—”
“I’m not interested in Ms. Allen.” Brad narrowed his eyes. He wasn’t about to tell his friend he’d talked to Elle—it would go straight back to his sister, and he wasn’t ready to answer her questions.
Brushing the thoughts away, he turned to David. “Is there any particular cold case you want me to start with?”
The lieutenant nodded toward the inside door. “You can have your choice of cases. I think there are over a thousand files in the storage room.”
“Alphabetical order?” He’d promised Kelsey he’d look into her father’s case, and if he could tell her he’d pulled the file, she might be more willing to work with him.
“I wish. They’re arranged according to the year the crime occurred. Do you have a particular case in mind?”
“A man disappeared twenty-eight years ago, and I halfway promised the family I’d look into it.” But first he needed to call Kelsey and tell her it would be closer to noon before he got to the museum.
Thirty minutes later, he decided Paul Carter’s case was not in the cold case files. He’d found the year the file should be in, but so far, nothing. Then he spied a box without a date and pulled it down from the shelf. At least it was the right year, and he thumbed through the files. Nothing under Cs. Brad kept looking and found it under the Ps and slid it out.
He set an alarm on his watch for fifteen minutes, then took the thin folder to the conference room and pulled up a chair for a quick look before he drove to the museum. First he checked to see who investigated the crime, recognizing the name of a retired sergeant with a reputation for being thorough. Good. That would save time.
Sergeant Warren’s report was concise, painting a circumstantial case for Paul Carter stealing artifacts from the museum and attempting to sell them to the highest bidder and then hightailing it out of town before the thefts were discovered.
Brad scanned the names of people interviewed for the report and wondered how many of them were still living. Maybe Kelsey knew some of them. He recognized a few—many of them he’d seen Saturday night. Like Sam and Cynthia and Grant Allen. Sam and Grant would have been in their late twenties or early thirties. A note in parentheses stated Sam and Cynthia married six months after Carter skipped town. Another note on the next page indicated Sam was on the museum’s board of trustees. That was odd. Board members usually rotated off after a few years. Maybe he’d rotated off and then came back on.
Jackson King was on the list. He leaned back in the chair. Twenty-eight years ago, he would have only been eighteen or nineteen. Why was he interviewed in the first place? A quick scan down the page revealed another note on him—he had worked as a summer intern at Coon Creek in McNairy County, but the year Carter disappeared, he’d worked at the museum in the Pink Palace. The alarm he’d set on his phone buzzed, and he closed the file and hurried to the elevator. This looked to be an intriguing case.
Brad exited the parking garage on Washington Avenue and wove his way through Midtown to Central Avenue. Midtown was his favorite section of Memphis, with its grand old homes and businesses that had been around since the early 1900s. But none of the homes rivaled his destination. When he turned into the drive leading to the museum, he admired what undoubtedly would have been the largest residential home in Memphis at the time if Clarence Saunders hadn’t lost it in a financial crisis. But Saunders’s loss had been the city’s gain.
He parked in the employee lot and walked to the back entrance. Judging by the three school buses parked next to the curb, someone was having a field day, and he bet it wasn’t the teachers. At the sign-in window, Detective Rachel Sloan stood talking to one of the security officers, and she motioned that she wanted to see him.
After he signed in, he texted Kelsey that he was in the building, and she replied that she would be in the sandwich shop on the first floor.
Rachel stepped out into the hallway, and he put his phone away. The detective had recently been transferred to Homicide from Burglary, and Brad admired her investigative skills.
“What are you doing here? This is my investigation.”
He didn’t admire the chip on her shoulder, but he understood it. With some members of the Homicide team, female detectives constantly had to prove themselves. This was particularly true of Rachel since she hadn’t made sergeant yet. Brad thought she knew he wasn’t one of them. “Finishing up what I started Saturday night.”
“Which is?”
“Getting Kelsey Allen’s statement.”
“Give me what you have, and I’ll take care of it.”
“Do you mind if I do it?” He kept his voice neutral.
“Why?”
“Kelsey doesn’t warm up to people very quickly. And I have a history with her.”
Rachel looked down at her notes, then back up at him. “According to Reggie’s notes, your history may be why you didn’t get her statement Saturday night.”
Heat burned his neck. “I need to see Kelsey about something else as well.”
“Why don’t we go together? I’ll get her statement, then you can discuss the something else.”
Brad swallowed his objection. It was Rachel’s case, after all. “She’s in the sandwich shop.”
13
THE BELLA CAFFE SURPRISED KELSEY. She’d had no idea the museum even had a coffee and sandwic
h shop when the very pregnant conservator offered to buy her lunch after a busy morning. And she’d been quite glad when Brad texted that he would be late.
“You didn’t have to do this,” Kelsey said.
“It’s the least I can do, leaving you high and dry like this,” Erin Dolan said.
“Don’t worry about it. If the doctor says you have to be off your feet for the next six weeks, then that’s what you have to do.”
“He didn’t even want me to come back to the museum today. I had to promise him and my husband, who will be picking me up shortly, that I wouldn’t lift so much as a pencil. But I just couldn’t leave without showing you a few more things.”
“No worries,” Kelsey said. “I worked as a conservator for years, so I know what to do.”
Erin was about to say more when the waitress brought their lunches, and they concentrated on eating the tangy chicken salad. When she finished, the conservator brushed some crumbs from her chin and leaned back in her chair. “I had so hoped to work on the circus with you.”
“There will be plenty for you to work on after the baby is born,” Kelsey said. The restoration of Clyde Parke’s replica of a big top circus would take a few years to finish. “Did you ever see it in action?”
“No. Did you?”
“When I was a little girl.” It was one of the attractions Kelsey had been fascinated with as a child. The circus was animated by a series of pulleys and belts, and if she closed her eyes, she could still see the horse-drawn wagons and the bareback rider balancing on a dapple horse that circled around and around.
Erin’s face brightened. “Maybe I can work on some of the pieces at home. Help pass the time.”
Kelsey nodded. “I can box up a few pieces and bring them by your house.”
“I don’t know where Mr. Tomlinson found you,” the conservator said, “but you are a godsend.”
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