Delivering Death: A Novel (Riley Spartz) (22 page)

“Easy to carry, easy to sell. That’s routine.” He had me sign some paperwork. “The TVs stayed behind, so that might mean the burglar was on foot.”

The cop left to knock on the door of my neighbors on each side in case they’d seen anything, but I reckoned he was only going through the motions because I worked for a TV station. Unlike home invasions and armed robberies, residential burglaries hold no urgency in criminal investigations. I knew better than to expect them to dust for fingerprints and string any
POLICE LINE
tape.

My landlord arrived to board up the back door and see if I needed anything else. “I’ll have someone over to replace the glass.”

I knew he didn’t want to lose me as a tenant. I paid my rent on time and didn’t hold wild parties. My lease was month by month, and now that I no longer owned a dog, a backyard wasn’t vital. Moving to a more secure building—maybe a downtown loft—sounded appealing. After all, I was a single woman living alone.

The doorbell rang while I was cleaning up. I thought the police officer might have learned something and come back. Instead, Nick Garnett stood outside. He no longer had a key, so I let him in.

“Heard you had some unwelcome company,” he said. “How bad?”

I didn’t ask how he knew about the break-in. He’d spent twenty years as a Minneapolis cop, most recently a homicide detective, and had contacts in every department. He’d probably hear if I got a speeding ticket. No doubt, a burglary at the home of a TV reporter would be buzzed around law-enforcement circles.

“Just a blip, Nick, compared to everything else I have going wrong,” I said. “I just want to straighten this place and forget that some jerk violated my space.”

“I’ll help you pick things up. Where do you want to start?”

I didn’t have time for him, and was about to tell him not to bother when I thought of a way he might be useful.

Offshore bank accounts weren’t just a means for white-collar criminals to hide assets, or for drug dealers to launder money, or even for the top one percent earners to manage their wealth. Terrorist cells also used them for anonymous cash flow. So I was fairly certain that Garnett, who just left a job with Homeland Security, might have some insight about the mysterious numbers on the fish painting.

“You can help shelve books.” I figured I might as well put him to work while picking his brain. My literary interests were varied, classics like
The Great Gatsby
by F. Scott Fitzgerald as well as epic sagas like Barbara Taylor Bradford’s
A Woman of Substance.
“Let’s try to keep them alphabetical.”

Garnett handed me
In Cold Blood
and I made a mental note to reread Truman Capote’s nonfiction novel and look for the fabricated scenes now raising controversy. I wasn’t surprised by the allegations that Capote had fibbed—very few true-crime stories can’t be improved with some fictionalization. Unfortunately, it was another example of a relationship between a journalist and a cop crumbling under scrutiny.

When he passed me Robert Ludlum’s
The Bourne Identity
, one of the top spy novels of all time, I saw my chance to transition to some news research.

“This book uses a secret Swiss bank account as part of the plot,” I said. “Do you know much about offshore banking?”

“Does your question involve Jason Bourne or Jack Clemens?” Garnett immediately knew I wasn’t just making idle conversation or trying to start a book club.

“Jack Clemens.”

He rolled his eyes. “Why don’t you tell me the whole story.”

We abandoned the books and moved to a leather couch where I showed him the photo of the fish painting on my phone. He called it ugly, but became hooked when I filled him in on the hidden ciphers in the artwork.

“Here’s the one from Singapore, that started it.” I showed him a close-up I’d taken. The letter-number combination was legible when I expanded my screen.

He explained that the letter code was an abbreviation for the name of the offshore bank, and that the number code was the actual account number.

“So the FBI has this information?” he asked.

“But that’s not all.” I told him about David Johnson’s intense interest in purchasing the painting, and then revealed the true identity of my potential buyer.

Garnett was surprised, which pleased me. He was not an easy man to catch off guard.

“They’re using the painting to lure Jack Clemens,” I said.

That
news disturbed him. “The painting’s not the only bait, Riley. You are.”

The wind howled through the plywood nailed over the shattered window. Garnett walked to the back of the house to examine the boarded door, then checked the locks on the front door and ground-floor windows. He didn’t linger in the bedroom like he did the last time we were there alone, tangled together in blankets and bliss.

But if that night was on his mind, he didn’t show it. “I’m worried your burglary might be a bit too convenient to be coincidental.”

“But the painting wasn’t even here.”

“He wouldn’t have known that. This might have been a . . . fishing expedition. And if it was him, that means he knows where you live.”

“The feds have the art now. He’ll never get it.”

“Unless he has you.”

I went back to the bookcase and methodically began filling the shelves, abandoning all alphabetical ambition. It was something to do while I processed his take on the events.

“Are you staying here tonight?” he asked.

I hadn’t thought about that until just then. “No.”

He didn’t invite me to crash at his place. Even if he had, I would have declined. Let him wonder where I was sleeping, even though, at that moment, I had no idea myself.

T
hanks, Nicole.” I carried an overnight bag into her apartment. She lived near downtown, a few blocks north of the river. “It was either your couch or the green room. And it’s hard to get a good night’s sleep when the morning crew shows up at four
AM.
”

“Sorry to hear about your house getting broken into,” she said. “You’re welcome to stay here as long as you need.”

We unfolded a hide-a-bed, and she tossed me a pillow and blanket. I lay down and shut my eyes to test the mattress. Decent.

The door bell rang, prompting me to sit up. “That’s the pizza,” Nicole said. “No slumber party without pizza.”

We each grabbed a slice from the cardboard box and settled in front of the TV. Nicole had been watching a crime drama featuring a child abduction storyline. Just as the show went to commercial on a cliff-hanger where we couldn’t tell who was screaming, Scott popped up on the screen with a Channel 3 news update. There really wasn’t anything fresh, but he read his lines smoothly and promised to be back at ten with more.

“I hate to say this,” I said. “But he really has that read-with-authority anchor presence down. It’ll be interesting to see if viewers connect.”

“Just be careful around Scott. He may not show it on the air, but he’s real upset.”

“Why? What happened?” I asked.

“His line got cut from the movie.”

“Really?”

“Scott doesn’t want to cover the wedding anymore, but Bryce is making him because of all the exposure.”

Speaking of which, a thirty-second promotion touting the wonders of Channel 3’s new studio set came on at the end of the commercial break.

“I’m impressed how much airtime Bryce has managed to get for promoting the new set,” I said. “Especially during network prime time.”

“Bryce gets what Bryce wants,” Nicole said. “And since Scott wants off the wedding beat, I’m putting together local reaction pieces to Rachel and Ricky exchanging vows at the mall.”

“Better you than me.”

She insisted it was actually fun. “There’s a pack of girl fans who don’t want Ricky to marry. We’ve got video of them waving a banner reading,
RICKY, WAIT FOR ME!
”

“Sounds more like fanatics than fans.”

“True, but look at it from the perspective of teenage girls,” Nicole said. “Once he gets married, that ends each of their individual dreams of marrying him.”

“They can join forces with the same-sex marriage opponents to try to shut down the film,” I said.

“Three heterosexual couples dropped out as extras because they didn’t want to be wed in the same ceremony with gays and lesbians,” she said. “But the waiting list had plenty others to choose from.”

“There seem to be a lot of people with motives to stop this wedding.”

“Add the happy couple’s family to that tally. While interviewing them, I got the impression his mother was hoping for a more traditional—and private—ceremony. And her father is upset that he won’t get to walk his little girl down the aisle.”

We spent the next minutes debating whether the engagement and subsequent nuptials were a Hollywood ruse to get publicity for the movie and even boost the actors’ film careers.

“Whether that’s their intent or not, the wedding is getting attention in all the right places.” Nicole showed me a
People
magazine article about how Hollywood couples have been finding love on the movie set for decades, from Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton to Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. “Just having their engagement picture next to those superstars has to elevate their own status.”

I skimmed the article and saw a relationship expert quoted.

When actors rehearse being in love, trying to convince an audience their emotions are authentic, they sometimes convince themselves it’s the real thing.

“So what do you think, Nicole? Is it possible to find true love on the job or not?”

“I don’t know. I have my doubts two people can fall in love so fast. They might be pulling a Kardashian.”

“It’s not falling in love that’s hard,” I reflected, “it’s staying in love.”

“Some people need a lesson in falling out of love.” She pointed out a sidebar article on the next page with a picture of Rachel on a beach with another man. “This is Rachel’s old boyfriend. He didn’t take the news that she’s found someone else too well.”

He had a reputation as an emerging bad-boy comedian and was quoted as saying he was still certain the two of them would end up together. “Don’t rule out me showing up and stealing the bride.”

“Sounds a bit obsessive.” But then I wondered if he and I weren’t so very different. “Maybe I need some advice on getting over a past love.”

“Which one?”

“Nick Garnett.”

I had a rule against discussing my private life with work friends, Malik being the exception. But because Nicole was sharing her apartment with me, that made us more like sorority sisters. Since I didn’t want to bounce this off Father Mountain, she was my best bet for a sympathetic confidante.

“I thought that relationship was over,” she said.

“It is.” Now we were coming to the part I hesitated saying out loud. “But I’m not sure I want it to be.”

“I don’t see how you have any choice, Riley. If one half of a couple says it’s over, it’s over.”

“But on some level, I know he still cares for me. He dumped me and doesn’t want to admit he was wrong.”

Our relationship had been on, off, on again, off again. I needed to do something to break the pattern.

“Is it possible your pride is the problem?” Nicole asked. “He dumped you and you don’t want to admit you were wrong? I’m just asking.”

That wasn’t the kind of gal pal advice that I wanted to hear, so I changed the subject. “So are you seeing anyone?”

“Are you kidding? With my crazy schedule?” Because Nicole was low on the seniority list, she often worked night and weekend shifts. “How would I meet anyone? Actually, how did you?”

“Well, I’ve been married once and engaged once, and I met them both on the job. So there’s hope for you.”

“And they were both cops,” she said.

I nodded, thinking maybe that was another pattern that needed breaking. I vowed my next love would not wear a badge.

I slept poorly that night, telling myself it was because of a streetlight outside the window, but it was really because my heart was pining for Nick Garnett. I wondered if he wondered where I was sleeping.

T
he next morning I called my realtor, the one who’d sold my old house before the real estate market collapsed, and told her I might be in a buying mood. “Security is important to me.”

“There are lots of great deals still to be had,” Jan Meyer said. “Our agency just listed one that sold for four million before the bubble burst. We’ll be lucky to get half that now.”

“Too rich for me. Too bad for the sucker who owned it.”

“Actually, he’s out of the picture.” That’s when she told me it was Jack Clemens’s mansion and one of her coworkers was selling it for the court to recover money for the victims fund.

“How about a tour?” I asked, curious how Jack had lived day to day.

“Showings are really only for serious buyers.”

“How about if I bring a camera and interview one of you about the house for the news? That’s essentially free advertising for the listing.”

I sold her with that line.

•  •  •

Xiong was as pleased as a geek can be when I arrived at the station. The license plate database Channel 3 had purchased from the city was up and running on his computer system.

“More than two million numbers,” he said, anxious to demonstrate its tracking feature, a display of where and when specific vehicles were photographed by law-enforcement cameras. “What is your license plate number, Riley?”

I actually had no idea, and Xiong took the bus, so I fumbled in my wallet to find my auto insurance card. I set it by his keyboard and he typed it in, then showed me the results, arranged chronologically by most recent sightings. My car had been captured on camera thirteen times, mostly in downtown Minneapolis. He stroked a few more keys and it appeared over a geographic map.

“If we knew nothing else about you,” he said, “we could deduce you lived or worked around here.” He pointed to a two-square block area that included the station.

“Interesting,” I said.

He seemed disappointed I wasn’t more effusive, but the whole thing was a little anticlimatic, telling me something I already knew. I tried to muster some enthusiasm. “Let’s watch for an opportunity to try it out on a news story.”