2 Pane of Death (20 page)

“Matt, I didn’t ask for this! Nat dropped in, handed it to Cam, and asked him to help. What was I supposed to do?”

“Stay out of it, like I asked? No, that would be too much to expect, wouldn’t it? Where is the damn thing now?”

I nodded toward my bedroom. “Cam left it here. He went back to San Diego this afternoon.”
To avoid just this kind of unpleasantness
. Cam didn’t like confrontations any more than I did. I did not mention that Cam still had all the information from the computer in his possession. Matt could figure that out for himself.

The rigidity of Matt’s stance spoke volumes about how hard he was working to contain his temper. “I’m going to have to have a few words with Ms. Special Agent.”

As if on cue, there was a knocking at my door. I was not surprised to see Nat on the other side of the peephole. “Looks like you’re going to get your wish.” I opened the door and stepped back to let her in. “Hi, Nat. Were you looking for me? Cam’s not here.”

Nat stalked into the room and saw Matt. She stiffened. “Chief. What are you doing here?”

“I might ask you the same question,” Matt replied, steel in his voice.

Both ignored me, and I was just as happy to get out of the line of fire. I decided this would be a good time to make some more coffee. I had no idea how long it would take to clear up this mess.

Matt ignored her question. “I understand you have some property that belonged to Peter Ferguson.”

“You’re referring to his computer, I assume?”

Matt nodded, once. “Yes. You asked Cameron Dowell to look at it? Knowing that his sister was under suspicion in this investigation?” Matt’s color was deepening again, although he held his voice level.

Nat moved into my living area. “Oh, come on, Chief, you don’t really think Em killed the man, do you? That’s just little Madelyn blowing smoke. And Cam’s good—don’t you think I had him thoroughly checked out before I handed him that computer? But I needed someone fast, and if I went through channels this would drag on forever, and the art would be long gone.”

“You could have consulted me,” Matt replied.

“And what would you have done? Look, I know that maybe I could have handled this better, but I wanted to move this forward quickly.” She turned to me. “Em, where is Cam?”

“He’s on the road back to San Diego,” I replied sweetly.

Now Nat was turning interesting colors. “He left? And he didn’t answer my calls! What’s his game, Em?”

I decided it was time to get back into the fray. “Nothing, Nat. You’re right—he’s good at what he does. And he does have a job, which he’d like to keep, so he went home. And for the record, neither of us appreciates getting stuck in a tug-of-war between the two of you. Anyway, relax, both of you. He left the computer and printouts of what he found. Why don’t we all sit down and share? Play nice?”

A second passed, then another. I might have been holding my breath, waiting to see which way Matt and Nat jumped. Finally Matt made the first move. “Agent Karamanlis, I would like to request that you share whatever information you have obtained from the computer that you took possession of at the crime scene,” he said formally.

Nat nodded. “Chief Lundgren, I would be happy to cooperate with you, and I’m sure that by pooling our information we will be able to proceed efficiently.”

I beamed at them. “There. That wasn’t too hard, was it? Now sit down, have some coffee, and we can go over what Cam found.”

“We?” Matt cocked one eyebrow at me.

“Yes, we,” I said firmly. “You know damn well Cam was going to let me in on whatever he found, whether you like it or not. And I’m the only one here who actually knew Peter. So get over it, and let’s move on. Sit!”

They sat. I retrieved the laptop and the stack of papers Cam had left and dumped the whole pile on the table. “Okay, ground rules. You have to work together. Cam told me that there were basically three kinds of documents on that computer: corporate, personal finance, and art collection. I haven’t looked at them yet, but I can help interpret the corporate and financial side of things. Nat, you should probably look at the art stuff.”

“And we’re all looking for a motive for killing the man,” Matt added.

“Exactly.” I dealt out papers around the table, then went for the coffeepot. Everyone was silent for several minutes as we reviewed the dry details of Peter Ferguson’s life.

Nat riffled through the stack and pounced on some pages. Matt took the remainder from her and leafed through them more slowly. I watched their expressions. At least they didn’t look as though they wanted to kill each other—or me. In fact, they were absorbed in reading, and I had the good sense to keep my mouth shut.

Since Nat had the smaller pile, she finished first. She pushed her chair back and took a long drink from her mug, which I refilled silently. She waited until Matt had turned his full attention to her before speaking.

“Okay, the lists I see here correspond to what the insurance company gave me—no surprises there. Nothing off the books, and the man used reputable dealers and kept his paperwork in order. You got anything, Matt?”

“Some ideas, I guess. Nat, who would have known about the collection, and who would have the means of disposing of it?”

“Depends on how high a profile Ferguson kept. As I said, he used top-of-the-line dealers, auction houses, so he would have been known within the collectors’ community, certainly. This wasn’t a secret collection, although that’s where the pieces might well end up.”

“What do you mean?” Matt asked. He looked honestly interested.

“A lot of the stolen art in this country ends up in the hands of passionate collectors—they want a piece and they don’t care how they get it, or where it comes from. And they hoard it—they don’t let anyone else see it. Twisted, isn’t it? They have this weird relationship with their collection, almost sexual. Anyway, the end result is that the art disappears and is never seen again, at least not on the legitimate market. That’s one of the reasons why the Art Crime Team was put together, but we haven’t been around long and there aren’t many of us yet, so there’s a lot of ground to cover.”

“So what kind of a success rate does your team have recovering any of it?”

“Not great yet, I’m sorry to say.” Nat and Matt shared a complicit look, two professionals talking to each other, and for a moment I felt shut out.

“What about his security system?” I felt the need to remind them that I was in the room.

Matt threw me a bone. “It was a state-of-the-art system, but it was disarmed.”

Nat nodded eagerly. “In any case, this kind of thief is not a smash-and-grab type. They do their homework. They could have known exactly what system was installed, or they could have gotten to the contractor who installed it. So that doesn’t really tell us much, Matt. Either Peter let the person in, or someone knew how to get around the system.”

By now Matt had pulled out a notebook, and he made a note. “It could have been someone he knew and trusted. There’s no sign the alarm system had been tampered with.”

“There is that. But he hadn’t been in Tucson long—had he, Em?”

How nice, they were going to include me in this conversation. “No. A few months. But we didn’t exactly socialize, so I can’t tell you who else he knew. Contractors. Maddy, me. But he must have talked to somebody, gone somewhere. That’s your department, Matt.” Another thought struck me. “How about this? It was clear he really cared about his collection—could someone who knew that have engineered this theft just to get back at him? If we discount Andrew Foster, what about the ex? And the murder really was just an unfortunate accident?”

Matt nodded. “We’re checking her out. And I assume you are, Nat?” Now they were good buddies. “By the way, we just talked to Foster. If his story checks out, he’s in the clear. He was at the house, but he claims he and Peter were on reasonably good terms. And Peter was breathing when he left. Still, he’s the last person we know of who saw Peter alive, so we’ll keep an eye on him.”

“Thank you for filling me in on that, Matt. Saves me some time. I’ll send you what we’ve got on the ex-wife in the morning, but it looks as though they parted amicably enough, and he was financially generous to her and the kids.”

“I’d appreciate that.”

The collegiality was making me gag. “Okay, what do we do now?”

Two heads turned toward me. Matt answered. “We—the police department and the FBI—continue to investigate. You do whatever you normally do.”

Great, shut out again.
“And Cam?”

They exchanged a glance. “Since Cam is already involved, there’s no point in excluding him now. He should let one of us know if he finds anything else of value. I assume he kept copies of the material on the computer’s drive?”

Busted again. “Yes, I’m sure he did.” I was in no mood to mention that Cam had some ideas about the stuff there that he hadn’t had time to look at yet. Let them figure that out for themselves. “Well, since you don’t need me for anything else, I have a busy day tomorrow.” I stood up and looked at them pointedly.

It took them a few seconds to get my drift, and then they stood too. “Can I offer you a lift, Nat?” Matt said courteously.

“No thanks, Matt, I’ve got a car. Why don’t I swing by your office in the morning and we can compare notes?”

“An excellent idea. Say, nine thirty?”

“Great.”

I felt like a kindergarten kid whose playground buddies had just abandoned her. Okay, I’d told them to make nice, but I hadn’t expected them to go this far. I figured I’d better get them out of my home before I started saying stupid things to them. “Well, I wish you every success. Nat, I’ll tell Cam you’re looking for him, if you don’t reach him first.”

“Thank you, Em, I’d appreciate that. He’s been a big help. Shall we?”

She and Matt left, chatting amiably. Alone, I found myself wrestling with conflicting emotions—and annoyed at myself for having them. They were doing their jobs, and I had no role in that. Sure, I wanted to know who had killed Peter, but there was no place for me in this investigation. Except . . . I seemed to have forgotten to mention that Maddy was more than willing to talk to me, and she might know more than she had already dumped in my lap. Nobody had said I couldn’t talk with her, right? And Cam would share, no matter what Nat told him. No way was I going to sit back and wait for the big kids to solve this thing.

Having reached that vague but satisfying conclusion, I went to bed.

The next morning I was scheduled to work in the shop with Allison. Her mind was clearly somewhere else, and I wondered if there was anything I could say or do, then decided against it. I had spent a lot of years “mothering” Cam, since our own mother had fallen a bit short in that department, but there was no way I could micromanage his love life.

I looked up from sorting bills in the cash register when a customer walked in. I sized him up quickly: not local, definitely. Great suit—I might not recognize individual designers, but I knew quality when I saw it. Fortyish, tan, and fit. And he carried himself with an indefinable air of assurance. And then I realized he looked familiar—the man I had seen at Peter’s house, on my first trip out there. The dealer . . . Ian Gemberling? What the heck was he doing in Shards? I put on a friendly smile and moved to intercept him.

“Is there something I can help you with?”

“You can if you’re Emmeline Dowell.” He smiled to reveal impossibly even teeth.

“That’s me.”

“I don’t know if you remember, but we met very briefly at Peter Ferguson’s. Ian Gemberling. I own the Gemberling Gallery in Los Angeles. Peter Ferguson spoke of you.”

Interesting. And did this man know Peter was dead? “I assume you’ve heard . . . ?”

“About Peter’s unfortunate death? Yes. A tremendous loss—he was an intriguing man.”

“You knew him through the collection?”

“Oh, yes. In fact, I helped him to assemble his glass collection—I acquired two of the panels for him. That’s why I’m still in Tucson. I wanted to offer my expertise in the medium to whatever law enforcement officials are working on the case.”

“The FBI Art Crime Team has been called in.”

“Excellent! I’m relieved to hear that.”

“So how did Peter come to mention me?” I was flattered that Peter had thought enough of me to bring up my name with one of his dealers—unless, of course, he wanted this man to know that someone else might be messing with his precious works. Was Gemberling Peter’s backup to my backup? No, that line of thinking was too confusing, especially for this early in the morning.

“He mentioned that he had acquired some of your glass pieces recently and thought you showed promise. He knew that I represent a select group of lesser-known artists and thought perhaps I should take a look at your work.”

I was rather tickled by Gemberling’s use of the term “lesser known.” If I were any more lesser known I’d be invisible. “That was kind of him.” And how unfortunate that my would-be benefactor was now dead.