Landry's Law (11 page)

“It’s Angelica Seagal.”

“The designer?” Savannah asked as they walked toward the Bronco. “Someone thinks Angelica is the killer? Isn’t that a little far-fetched?”

“Maybe,” Seth acknowledged. “But she does have Vincent working for her and according to Mable, Angelica has a gun so popular it has its own permit.”

“A .22?”

Seth nodded as he unlocked the car. “We’ll swing by so I can get the warrant, then pay a visit to Jasper’s resident jewelry designer.”

“Is she as weird as everyone says?”

“And then some,” Seth assured her. “She’s a recluse with a passion for Native American clothing, even though there are no Native Americans in her ancestry.”

“She sounds eclectic.”

“
That
she is.”

“But why would she have killed the three men?” Savannah wondered aloud.

“Two men,” Seth corrected. “I think we can safely assume that Ken Updyke killed his partner, Whitlock. Cody has every agency in the U.S. and Interpol looking for him as we speak.”

“Okay, then why would Angelica, this famous designer, want to kill a man she’s never met and the man who supplies her with her gems?”

“We’ll know when we get there.”

Seth drove like the proverbial bat out of hell. Even with the stop to pick up the search warrant and the inventory list of gems from Grayson’s briefcase, they were pulling up to the locked gate at Angelica’s massive home-studio in under an hour.

Seth pressed a small button on a speaker box. He got no response, even though they could clearly see lights on up at the house. Sam pressed again. Still nothing. He muttered a curse and turned on his sirens and lights.

Savannah could hear some muffled voice from the speaker box, but Seth apparently had no intention of turning off the siren and lights. His obstinacy
paid off, and in a few seconds, the high electric gate began to swing open.

Probably to punish the temperamental artist, Seth didn’t cut the lights and the siren until he shut off the engine in front of the house.

Angelica’s house was landscaped and well lit on the outside. All the January snow had been removed from the large lawn and all the shrubs. She wondered what they had done with all that snow. Probably trucked it to Brock Creek. Or they had a freezer full of snowballs. It was a massive historic home, made to look even larger by the white paint on everything, including the doors and shutters. Apparently Angelica’s artistic talents didn’t include complimentary trim on shutters.

Still, it was incredible. The front portico even dwarfed Seth.

Vincent opened the door, scowling and looking so much like Lurch that Savannah couldn’t think of him by any other name. He had to be close to seven feet tall, emaciated to the point where his cheeks fell into his face. His hair was snow-white, as were his eyebrows. His mouth was thin and appeared out of place on his otherwise large face.

Seth took out the warrant and pressed it into Lurch’s concave chest. “This gives me the authority to search the premises.”

“I’ll have to check with Miss Seagal.”

Seth muscled his way past Lurch, bringing
Savannah with him. “Check away. I’ll start searching.”

“You can’t do that without permission from Miss Seagal. She’s in the middle of working on a piece. Can’t this wait until morning?”

“No.” Seth was emphatic. “I’ll give you about three minutes to get Miss Seagal here. After that I start searching without her being present.”

Lord, he even groaned like Lurch!
Savannah thought as he shuffled off through what appeared to be a dining area. Savannah used the opportunity to wander over to the beautifully carved staircase. Peering up, she realized the house was four levels, and they all appeared to be the same sanitary white as the exterior.

Only the pale oak floors added drab color to the rooms. She never would have pegged this as the home of a world-renowned jewelry designer. It looked more like a hospital or sanitarium, and she told Seth as much.

“It is pretty creepy,” he agreed. “I hope this lets me off the hook for having had animals on my walls. Which,” he began as he moved closer, his lips just a whisper from her ear, “I asked J.D. to swing by and take down.”

“What?” Savannah asked, shocked. “You took down your tribute to roadkill? Why?”

His gaze held hers. “For you.”

Savannah knew she shouldn’t, she just couldn’t help it.

She smiled at the kind gesture. “But there’s not much chance that I’ll be back to your home.”

“Yes, there is,” he said. “Until we catch our killer, I think we should move around a bit. Stay at my place, out at the ranch, your house. Just want to keep the person on their toes.”

Savannah pursed her lips. “I guess that means you don’t think Angelica is our killer.”

“I’m just planning ahead,” he said.

A waft of perfume preceded Angelica Seagal. Instantly, the pure white Maltese she was holding yapped a couple of times, but she soothed the dog and continued to cradle him or her in her arms.

She was dressed in the same shade as the oak flooring. Some kind of buckskin dress and leggings completed by a pair of leather moccasins with a triangular bead design on the top.

Angelica’s outfit was authentic, right down to the strap ties at her shoulders and a complete lack of undergarments. She was a full-figured woman, so it was hard to miss her heavy breasts swaying unchecked in the vicinity of her waist.

Savannah guessed she was at least sixty. Angelica made no attempts to hide that fact. Somehow, it didn’t mesh with Samantha’s understanding that Angelica had been Bill Grayson’s prom date. Her hair was salt-and-pepper, parted in the center, and allowed to flow well past her shoulders. She had a good six inches of split ends and a very angry ex
pression on her sun-weathered face. She didn’t look like your typical killer.

“What do you mean by barging in here to search my home?” Then she turned her faded hazel eyes on Savannah and asked, “And why, pray tell, did you bring along a store clerk? This must be a violation of some law.”

“Nope,” Seth answered. “According to Judge Duckett, I have every right to search every inch of this place for the items listed on the warrant. Now, you can either show me where they are, or I can go on my own search.”

Angelica’s face turned even more sour as she glanced at the warrant. “Relating to the murders of Richard Fowler and Bill Grayson? You’ve got to be kidding.”

“This is no joke, ma’am,” Seth assured her.

“You want my gun and diamonds, rubies and emeralds?” she read. “I’ll have Vincent go get you the gun.”

“No,” Seth said urgently. “I need to be the one to retrieve it. We need to preserve all the fingerprints. Speaking of which, I’ll need you and Vincent to come by my office tomorrow to have your prints taken for exclusion purposes.”

A slow, dark red stain spread from Angelica’s wrinkled neck up to cover her entire face. “Young man, I can’t possibly come to your office. I wasted two days this week finishing up my taxes and I have
some special order pieces for some very important clients.”

“With all do respect, ma’am, I don’t care if you’re making special pieces for the Queen. You’ll be in my office before noon tomorrow or I’ll send a deputy to bring you and Vincent in. Your choice.”

Angelica handed Lurch the Maltese. He looked pretty foolish holding such a small dog with its hair pulled back in a nearly invisible white bow.

Savannah and Seth followed her up to the third floor. Angelica wasn’t taking this well.

“I can tell you that I haven’t fired my gun in years and I can account for every moment of my time. I keep very detailed journals for myself and Vincent.”

Savannah was surprised to see a touch of color in Angelica’s bedroom. There were a few framed photographs on a massive dressing table. There was also a collection of perfume atomizers. But that wasn’t what she thought most interesting. There wasn’t a speck of dust to be found. Even the eleven-foot ceilings—also painted pure white—seemed to be devoid of cobwebs. Lurch must be a very busy boy to keep a place this size so spotless.

Angelica opened a drawer in her French-style end table and was about to reach in when Seth clamped down on her wrist with a viselike grip. That seemed to panic Angelica. She leapt away from him the instant he let go.

While Seth carefully took the gun from the
drawer with a pen and placed it in a bag from the pocket of his leather jacket, Savannah silently evaluated Angelica. The woman appeared to have a full litany of psychological disorders. The compulsive need for cleanliness, an aversion to being touched, her ill ease around people, and the whole thing with the white. The list just kept getting longer and she knew Molly would have a field day diagnosing this woman. Whether she could be successfully treated was a whole other matter. Angelica didn’t seem like the kind of person who would be open to getting professional help.

“The jewels?” Seth prompted.

“I don’t have them,” Angelica insisted. “So now you can leave? I’m not involved in any of this and I resent the intrusion.”

Seth shook his dark head. The action caused several locks of his hair to fall forward and it was everything Savannah could do to keep from reaching out and brushing them back into place.

“Isn’t
she
the one who killed those men?” Angelica fairly screamed as she pointed a slightly bent finger in Savannah’s direction.

“Miss Wyatt has been cleared of all suspicion,” Seth said.

Funny, but that was the first time he had actually said that aloud. It sounded wonderful.

“Was that before or after you became lovers?” Angelica spat. “It’s all over town.”

“We are
not
lovers,” Savannah told the batty woman.

“And if we were, it wouldn’t be anyone’s business,” Seth added.

Savannah felt her cheeks warm, and wished Seth hadn’t left the possibility open.

“Well, why on earth would you think I had Bill’s jewels? He was killed
before
we had an opportunity to meet and discuss prices.”

“We received a tip,” Seth said. “May I please see your studio now?”

Angelica let out a string of very unfeminine curses as she led them back down to the first floor and through the white dining room, complete with two white floral arrangements on the Chippendale table for twenty.

They traveled through a narrow hallway to a closed door, which Angelica opened. The scent of butane and metals was pretty thick, and this room was also white, but it wasn’t spotless like the rest of the house. In fact, this wasn’t even a regular room. Angelica had torn through the ceilings, so the area was four stories high with skylights and track lighting everywhere.

There were several workstations, and Savannah recognized a few things, like a polishing machine and a diamond blade cutter. The other items strewn around the cluttered, disordered room were completely foreign, but interesting.

Angelica took Seth over to the right-hand wall, where a cabinet about ten feet long by ten feet high stood. It appeared old, as if perhaps it had once been part of an apothecary shop. Or maybe it was left in the house from the beginning. This was the first assay office in Jasper, maybe the cabinet had something to do with assaying. Savannah was about as fluent in assay materials as she was in jewelry-making equipment and tools.

“That’s not possible!” Angelica was screaming. “I had no idea those were there!”

Savannah watched as Seth slipped on a Latex glove and pulled a rather large bag of gems out of one of the higher drawers.

“Those aren’t mine!” Angelica continued to protest.

Seth gave the woman a warning look, then said to Savannah, “Help me compare the inventory, please.” He handed her a glove.

Angelica slumped onto a stool at one of the workstations while Seth and Savannah counted the stones. “This has to be some cruel joke, or maybe someone put them there to implicate me. But my journals will prove that neither Vincent nor I was anywhere near the Mountainview Inn when
her
dates were murdered.”

There was the exact number of each kind of stone, but neither of them knew how to determine carat weight.

“Miss Seagal.” Seth went to her and isolated one of the stones through the bag. “Is this a three-carat ruby?”

She nodded. Seth then went through the tedious job of having her estimate the weights and sizes without actually touching them or the bag.

Once he had sufficient confirmation, he pulled a pad out of the breast pocket of his shirt. “I’m giving you a receipt for the .22 and the gems,” he explained to Angelica.

“I have no idea how those gems got here!” she insisted.

“Has anyone been in the house recently? A stranger, a repairman, anyone?”

She shook her head. “No.”

Seth nodded and said, “Don’t forget about coming to the office for fingerprints.”

“Is that really necessary?” Angelica whined. “I’ve told you everything I know and I’ve given you my gun. I have no protection should someone break in.”

“You have Vincent,” Seth told her. “I’m serious, Miss Seagal. If you aren’t there by noon tomorrow, I’ll send a deputy for you.”

“I don’t think I like you,” Angelica commented, slightly more angry after Seth’s threat. To Savannah, she said, “And I’m
sure
I don’t like you.”

Savannah smiled. “The feeling is mutual. Have a nice evening, Angelica.” Seth grabbed her hand and led her away.

Outside, Savannah turned to Seth. “She’s crazy, Seth. Maybe she’s paranoid enough to kill. She’s a catalogue of personality disorders, one of which is a tendency to attack without provocation because of some perceived paranoia. Maybe one of her paranoias is men and she’s driven to kill.”

“Thanks for the profile, but my gut tells me it isn’t either of them. In fact, I think the gems were planted,” he said as they reached the Bronco.

“She cooperated, and I just can’t see looney Angelica or Vincent shooting anyone and putting them in Brock Creek. Not to mention, how would they know to write 9-1-2 on Whitlock’s hand?”

Savannah was blowing warm breath into her cold hands as she waited for Seth to start the engine and the heat to get going. It was close to midnight and the temperature couldn’t be much above zero. Savannah yawned. It had been a long day. Not to mention alternatingly trying and exciting.