Secret Combinations (26 page)

Kenyon thought about his encounter with Ilsa earlier in the day. It was funny how she kept cropping up. Not only did her father own the company that designed the encryption code for Cyberworm, but her husband had been fooling around with Kenyon's aunt. He wondered where else she would turn up: bad luck always came in threes.

They parked in front of Ricci's apartment, and the policemen took up flanking positions as they escorted Kenyon into the foyer. The agent had the distinct impression they were concerned he might make a run for it, and were covering his getaway. Whatever was waiting for him upstairs, Kenyon thought it must be a doozy. He wondered fleetingly if they had discovered the
Techno 69
fake, and wanted him to identify it.

Kenyon and the cops were met by another constable when they arrived at Ricci's floor. He escorted them into the apartment and gestured for Kenyon to continue on into the living room.

Detective Inspector Arundel was sitting at the kitchen table, a pair of black-rimmed spectacles propped on the end of his nose. He was reading a report. He glanced up as the agent entered. “Ah, there you are.” He pointed to a chair on the opposite side of the table. “Do sit down.”

Kenyon settled into the opposite seat. While Arundel read the report, Kenyon glanced around the room. The food, newspaper, and teapot had been cleaned up. Otherwise, everything else looked the same.

Arundel finished reading the report and placed it on the table. “Do you know what this is?” he asked, tapping the paper.

Kenyon read the heading upside down; “City of London Mortuary Office: #SD447.” “The autopsy?”

“Indeed. Would you care to guess what it says?”

Kenyon shrugged. “You tell me.”

Arundel took off his reading spectacles and tapped the report with one of the arms. “It says that Ricci was murdered.”

Kenyon's mouth fell open. “Murdered!” The agent pointed toward the bathroom. “But I saw him! He slit his wrists!”

Arundel kept his gaze on Kenyon, studying his reaction. “At first glance, that is what it would appear. There were no signs of struggle to indicate an altercation. Even the barbiturate in the tea was prescribed by his doctor. Except for the lack of a note, it looked like a straightforward suicide.”

Kenyon stared intently at the detective. “So, why does the coroner think he was murdered?”

“Because the assailant made one basic mistake.” Arundel went to the kitchen and pulled a bread knife out of the cutlery drawer. Returning to his chair, the detective rolled up his sleeves to expose his wrists. “When a suicide slits his wrists, he does it by starting near the thumb and cutting down,” he explained, miming the motion for Kenyon's benefit. “He then swaps hands, and does the second wrist. The coroner can easily determine the orientation of the knife and the direction of the stroke by looking at the serrations in the wound through a stereoscope.”

Kenyon knew all this from his training at Quantico. “So?”

“When the coroner looked at Ricci's wrists, both the cuts were running in the same direction,” said Arundel. “Whoever killed Ricci simply lined his arms up against the tub and slit them together, like he was cutting a loaf of bread.”

Kenyon sat, stunned by the news and trying to absorb the implications. The room was very quiet. He suddenly glanced up; all the men in the room were staring at him. “Whoa, wait a minute,” he exclaimed. “You don't think
I
did it.”

Arundel nodded. “As a matter of fact, yes, I do.”

“Are you nuts? I was with Happy Harry! He saw me go up. There's no way I could have faked his death in the few minutes before you arrived.”

“A curious point that,” said Arundel. “According to the coroner, the time of death is uncertain. It seems that the warm water in a bath tends to keep the body temperature of the victim higher than normal, making the time of death appear shorter.”

“I don't follow you.”

“No need to make yourself sound any less ignorant than necessary,” said Arundel. “We have a detailed itinerary for your movements on the day in question. It seems there were several hours of unaccounted activity. You could have murdered Ricci between 10:00 and 11:00
PM
, walked home, then proceeded over here with Harry as your alibi. Any cursory examination by a pathologist on site would assume it had happened within the hour.”

Kenyon fought to keep his anger under control. “Okay. Let me take a page from your book. When I told you that somebody had killed Lydia, you said, ‘what's the motive?' Well, Arundel, what's my motive for killing this guy?”

The detective stood up and walked over to the kitchen. He leaned his elbows on the island counter and contemplated Kenyon. “I understand you are acquainted with a Mr. Archibald Lump, noted art collector and freelance bookmaker?”

Oh shit
, thought Kenyon.

“As an investigator yourself, it will come as no surprise that the Metropolitan Police take an active interest in Lump,” said Arundel. “Imagine our surprise when, within days of your arrival, you made an appearance at his home. Would you care to explain your presence there?”

Kenyon let out a long breath. “Lydia made a note in her daybook that she paid Lump a hundred grand. I went there to find out why. It turns out he was the guy Ricci sold a bum painting to. Lydia made good, and then some.”

Arundel nodded. “Ah, so that is where you obtained evidence of Ricci's forging. I can imagine that it made you very angry.”

“Not enough to kill him.”

Arundel cocked his head to one side. “What
would
make you angry enough?”

“What do you mean?”

“What else did Mr. Ricci have over Lydia?”

Kenyon swallowed, hard. What did they know about
Techno 69
? “I don't know,” he said.

“Oh, I think you do.” Arundel arose. “Come with me.”

The detective walked into the living room and sat down at the couch in front of the
TV
console. He motioned for Kenyon to sit down in the adjacent chair. Puzzled, the agent complied.

“After we received the coroner's report, we came back here for a more thorough look,” said Arundel. “We found this
DVD
in the recorder.”

Arundel picked up the remote and activated the recorder. The
TV
picture flickered for a second, then an image appeared on the screen.

“Do you know the location?” asked Arundel.

Kenyon stared at the
TV
. The tape was from a security system recorder, with the image split into four. The black and white image was grainy, and there was no sound, but he immediately recognized it as a tape from Kenyon Gallery. “Yeah. It's Lydia's place.”

“Can you tell what's going on?”

The top left corner showed the front entrance to the gallery. Men and women in fancy clothes were entering into the foyer. The upper right corner showed a boisterous crowd jammed into the main gallery. “It looks like some kind of party,” said Kenyon.

Arundel pointed to the date stamp in the corner that read 12/21. “It was a charity reception that Lydia held every year before Christmas. This is from last year.”

The party was obviously in full swing, with people laughing and gesturing in drunken abandon. The agent recognized several movie actors and other celebrities dancing. A large-breasted woman was lifting her miniskirt and rubbing the face of a well-known rock star into her crotch.

“Quite a riotous event, by any standard,” said Arundel. “Do you see Lydia anywhere?”

Kenyon peered closer at the image. There was Legrand, dressed in a tuxedo and clutching a cigar, and he saw Ricci darting in and out of the crowd. He even recognized Ilsa Ingoldsby-Legrand, her face sour, chatting with a man in the corner, but he couldn't see his aunt. “Maybe she went out for some fresh air,” said Kenyon.

“No, she didn't,” said Arundel. “Watch the lower half.”

The bottom left image showed the storeroom, empty of any guests. The bottom right showed Lydia's office; Kenyon recognized her desk and filing cabinet. It was also empty.

Suddenly, the door to her office opened, and a woman entered. She turned toward the camera, and Kenyon recognized her as Lydia.

He leaned forward to study the image. She was dressed in a dark dress, something long and flowing. It covered one shoulder, leaving the other bare. She wore a diamond choker around her long and graceful neck. Even though the image was black and white, she looked radiant.

A second woman entered the room. Her back was to the camera. Her hair was dark, and cut to shoulder length. Lydia advanced to the woman and kissed her full on the mouth. The other woman responded, pushing Lydia back toward her desk. Lydia began to kiss the woman on the neck, working down her shoulders, pulling the back zipper down.

Kenyon began to feel his face flushing, but he couldn't take his eyes from the image.

Lydia, her eyes aflame, pulled the top of her lover's dress off and ran her hands up and down the woman's naked back.

Kenyon finally averted his eyes. “I've seen enough.”

Arundel stopped the tape in mid-frame. “I believe that is Lydia, is it not?”

Kenyon stared at the floor. “Yes.”

Arundel turned to the agent. “You come to me claiming that your aunt was murdered by a laser pen. Then, you just happen to discover the body of her gallery manager. You call the police, and, lo and behold, they discover the murder weapon, just as you had predicted.”

Kenyon sat quietly, saying nothing.

Arundel continued. “The case is closed. Until, of course, we see through the deception. We return and investigate more thoroughly and, look what we discover; the murder victim just happens to have a very embarrassing
DVD
of Lydia in his recorder.”

Kenyon's head began to swim. He almost felt as though he were going to pass out if he didn't get some fresh air.

“Was Bruno blackmailing Lydia?” asked Arundel, quietly.

“I don't know.”

“Oh, I think you do. Ricci invited you here the other night to discuss a business deal, all right, but when you found out what the deal really was, you became angry.”

“No.”

“So angry, in fact, that you decided then and there to kill him.”

“No.”

Arundel stood and began to pace the living room. “Perhaps you went to the bathroom and found the barbiturates in his medicine cupboard. There was an empty vial there. A few tablets in his tea, and he was soon insensate and helpless. You carried him into the bathroom, removed his clothing, then staged the suicide.”

“No,” Kenyon said emphatically. “I didn't kill him. I swear.”

“Then who did? Who had a better motive than you?”

“I don't
know
!”

Arundel sighed. “You're in over your head on this one, Jack. Until you tell me the truth, I cannot help you.”

Kenyon stood up from the couch. “I don't need your help.”

“As of this moment, you are to stay within the city limits,” said Arundel. “Any attempt on your part to leave town will be construed as an act of flight, and I will have you detained. Do you understand?”

Kenyon nodded. He rose to go.

“One final question.” said Arundel. “Do you have any idea who the other woman is?”

Jack glanced back at the image on the
TV
. “No,” he replied.

Arundel nodded toward the door, and Kenyon silently left.

As soon as he was out on the street, Kenyon walked up to a garbage can and gave it a good solid kick. The stupid fuck, he thought. How dare he accuse me of killing Ricci. He kicked the garbage can again, this time putting a serious dent in the side and stubbing his toe.

Kenyon limped for a step or two, favoring his foot, but the brief outburst seemed to help. He leaned against a building and took a deep breath of air. What the hell was Arundel up to? Was he setting him up so that the real killer could go free?

No, that's paranoia,
he thought to himself. Arundel was just doing his job. But, come to think of it, what kind of police branch handled everything from road accidents to murder, anyway? Arundel had been riding his shoulder right from the beginning.

“Think, damn it,” he said aloud. “Think.” He couldn't believe that the police suspected him of murdering Ricci. It just didn't make sense. If they really thought so, they would have arrested him.

He stopped. Unless they wanted him out and about on the streets, a sitting duck for the real killer. Kenyon squared his shoulders. If that was the case, then he'd have to redouble his efforts and find the real killer first. And the best place to start was with the other woman in the
DVD
.

Kenyon had lied to Arundel. He knew who Lydia's lover was, the woman with the tiny tattoo of the butterfly on her shoulder.

He turned and began walking toward the home of Tanya O'Neill.

Kenyon headed west along Cromwell,
then turned north on Gloucester Road, toward Kensington Gardens. The sun had long set, and the streets were dark. The windows of several pubs were open, and laughter spilled out onto the street.

Kenyon noticed none of it, the image of Lydia and Tanya burning in his mind. He was not a prude. Certainly, living in San Francisco had inured him to gay and lesbian couples. But this wasn't just any couple. This was his aunt and his lawyer. His aunt and his
lover
.

Kenyon thought about Lydia. Suddenly, he knew why Cyrus had driven his only daughter out of the house, never to return. Cyrus was a God-fearing man. To him, homosexuality was an abomination, something to cast from your midst. He thought about the heartbreak that Daisy, his foster mother, must have gone through. He felt sorry for Lydia. He felt sorry for them all.

He had no such sympathy for Tanya. No wonder she had reacted so badly to the news that Lydia had been murdered; she was probably worried that he would uncover their secret. He thought of the hot, passionate love-making between him and Tanya, and his face flushed.