Still As Death (15 page)

“Yes. Okay.” But Keane didn’t get up. Instead he sat there, his hands worrying in his lap. Quinn had the feeling that if he just waited, he would find out what it was that was making Willem Keane so hostile. “Detective Quinn,” he said finally. “You must understand that we depend upon donors and benefactors to grow our collection here at the university. If they … well, if they feel that our security is somehow lacking, they will be less likely to do so. Particularly if I did in fact leave the chest unsecured. I was hoping that we could keep the fact that there’s been a breach of security, well, quiet.”

Quinn stood up and went over to open the door. “Mr. Keane, there’s been a murder. I’m sorry if the museum gets bad publicity,
but our first order of business has to be figuring out who killed Olga Levitch. Do you understand?”

Just as Ellie came back into the room, Keane rose and smiled hello to her as though nothing but light conversation had been exchanged for the past half hour. “Of course, Detective,” he said. “Of course.”

“WHO’S NEXT?” Ellie asked, sitting down in the chair where Keane had been sitting. She stretched her legs out, getting comfortable, and looked up at him, her blue eyes shining with excitement. She looked like a kid who’d been brought to the circus.

He snapped at her, “Don’t sit behind his desk. That’s his desk. We’re using his office, but it doesn’t mean we get to sit at his desk.”

She jumped up and sat awkwardly in the chair she’d been sitting in before, embarrassed now.

He asked, “You got the security tapes?”

“Yeah, yeah. I have Johnny on it. They have to get someone from the security company to come over and figure out how to access them. It may take a little while. They’re going to get it all set up and give us a call when it’s ready.”

“What do you think about that thing with the chest being left unlocked?”

She seemed surprised that he wanted her opinion. “I guess you can kind of understand how it happened. The rest of the cabinets in the museum lock automatically. And he said too that he didn’t usually open cabinets to show things off. It was just that this one wasn’t
specifically designed for the chest, so it was hard to see it unless you opened it up. That’s what he said, anyway.”

“Did you buy that? I’m not sure I do.”

She thought for a moment. “I know what you mean. That part seemed a little insincere to me. You know what I did buy, though? When he said that he was so excited about showing it off that he opened the cabinet even though he knew he shouldn’t. I really believed him when he said that.”

Quinn grudgingly admitted to himself that irritating habits and all, Havrilek was right about Ellie. She had a good feeling for people, for when they were lying and when they were telling the truth.

“But how did the thief know it would be open? Was Keane in on it? Did he leave it open on purpose?” That didn’t make any sense. Why would Keane help someone steal a piece he’d just gotten?

“The thief didn’t have to know. Remember he tried to break it.”

She was right. “But that’s just … What are the chances the thief got that lucky? I mean, come on. We don’t see that kind of luck very often in our profession. You know that.”

She shrugged, and he watched her for a minute. There was something about the way she sat that bugged the shit out of him. Her knees were pressed together and her hands rested awkwardly on them. As though she could read his mind, she leaned back in the chair, trying to look more casual.

“Can you do me a favor and listen this time?” He hadn’t meant it quite as harsh as it sounded. “I mean, just let me lead the questioning. I have a rhythm and …”

Her lower lip did something funny and she looked down at her lap.

Jesus Christ
. “I’m sorry. Just listen and let’s try to get through this.” She nodded, still looking down at her thin hands.

He checked his list of witnesses and the notes he’d jotted down about each one from the initial conversations with the guys who had first arrived on the scene. Fred Kauffman, who was in charge of photography at the museum, had said he’d gone downstairs to get something out of the office, then gone outside to use his cell phone
and come back in just as the police were being called. Quinn was wondering whether he’d seen anyone leaving the museum.

But when he asked that question, the answer he got made him suspicious. Kauffman was a nice, friendly-looking guy, on the short and round side, with curly gray hair and a face that reminded Quinn of one of Megan’s teddy bears.

“No, no. I didn’t … I mean, I saw a lot of people leaving, but just, you know, people who had been at the opening.”

“Were you watching the main entrance to the museum the entire time you were on the phone?”

“Not exactly. No. I mean, I was talking so I was paying attention to that …” His answer kind of stuttered out, as though he was making it up as he went along.

“And who were you talking to on the phone?”

Kauffman nearly jumped in his seat. “Just a friend. Why do you need to know?”

Quinn, following a hunch, said, “Well, we’ll need to check with this friend, of course, in order to pin down exactly where everyone was and when.”

There was a long silence, and then Kauffman said, “Look, I told my wife and everyone that I was going out to make a phone call, but actually, I just needed a breath of fresh air. I wasn’t talking to anyone. It sounds silly now, but I had told my wife that’s what I was doing and she was there when the policeman asked us.”

“Why couldn’t you tell them that you needed to get outside for a minute?” Quinn tried to pretend that he was merely curious, but he was actually very suspicious. Kauffman was about the jumpiest guy he’d seen in a long time.

“It was stupid. I just … my wife would have wanted to come with me, and I really just needed to be alone. I can’t explain very well. I was so tired of talking to people, of playing host, and I just wanted to get out. I walked around the yard and came back about fifteen minutes later. When I walked through the front entrance, I knew something had happened. Sweeney was standing there yelling
at Denny and he was on the phone and she said something about Olga and then they told me.”

Quinn asked a few more questions, then let him go. He noted that Kauffman seemed relieved but tried not to make too much of it. After all, most people were relieved when they finished being questioned by the police.

Next was the uptight-looking woman who had accosted Quinn when he first arrived to tell him that it was very important to keep “his men” from touching the works of art. She’d pissed him off by looking down her nose at him and saying, “You may not realize how fragile they are.” He had to admit, though, she looked like the kind of person who might be able to give him a minute-by-minute account of everyone’s movements over the course of the evening.

“Ms. Tyler, is there anything you can tell us. Anything you noticed that might help us?”

“Oh, I don’t think so. I don’t think you’re looking for someone who would have been noticed.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re not looking for someone stupid enough to do something to bring attention to himself or herself. Himself, I’d think. Organized criminals are usually men, aren’t they?” She smiled at the look on his face. “This wasn’t just some person who walked in off the street, Detective. This has to be the same people who robbed the museum before, don’t you think?”

Quinn, who had decided that she was probably right, asked her a few more questions and moved on. They made their way through the guests and the few students who had been upstairs when Olga Levitch’s body was found. Nobody had seen anything out of the ordinary, but then none of them had gone down to the basement.

Quinn rubbed his eyes. It was ten now and he’d been up with Megan a couple of times in the night. Megan. He felt a wave of guilt. He’d asked Patience to sleep on the couch and she hadn’t minded—she never did when he had to work late—but he still wondered what Megan thought when he wasn’t there to put her to bed.
Sometimes, he saw the way Megan looked at Patience, with absolute and total love and trust, and he felt a little jealous. Of course she looked at him the same way, but when it came right down to it, hour for hour, Patience took care of her more than he did. It made him nervous, thinking about how his daughter had invested so much love in someone who could be taken away from her, the way her mother had. He was the only one who couldn’t be taken away. He had to be.

Quinn rubbed his eyes, told himself to stop wallowing in parental guilt, and told Ellie to go get Ian Ball. Quinn studied him as he came in, walking as though he’d practiced the exact way he wanted to walk into a room to be questioned by the police. Quinn had had a roommate in college, a guy who had been a really, really good soccer player, and he moved the way this guy did, gracefully, full of his right to be moving in the world. It struck Quinn that he was just the kind of guy he’d expect to see with Sweeney. His black hair reminded Quinn of the Kennedys, and his glasses and the neat blue shirt and green tie under his dark suit made him look like an ad for men’s clothes. Quinn sat up a little straighter, suddenly aware that he’d come rushing out wearing a polo shirt he’d taken out of the laundry. A few hours out, it was beginning to smell a little funky. “So you were upstairs in the gallery the whole evening?” “That’s right. We arrived around four, and while Sweeney was showing the reporter around and talking to people, I stood with Lacey—I’m sorry I don’t know her last name, but she’s Fred’s wife—and we spoke with some of Sweeney’s colleagues. So I’m afraid I can’t help you much. We saw the woman who was killed as we came in because she was running the coat check—not that there were many coats to check in this wretched heat.” He smiled at Ellie, and Quinn watched Ellie smile back, then blush a little under her porcelain doll skin.

“You’re visiting Boston, is that right? But you live in London?”

“Well, in a way. I’ve been here for eight months now. I’ve been opening a Boston office of my company. We’re an auction house.
We’re still quite small, but we hope to open some other satellite offices. Perhaps New York or Washington next.”

“And your place of residence while you’re here?” He gave them an address on Russell Street in Cambridge. Quinn looked up. It was Sweeney’s address. They were living together. “And how long do you intend to be at that address?” He felt Ellie glance at him. It was a strange question.

“Don’t know, really. I’m trying to convince Sweeney to move to London with me.” He smiled. “We’ll see if I can wear her down.”

Quinn felt hot suddenly, and he couldn’t think of what he wanted to ask next. When the silence grew uncomfortable, Ellie said, “So you didn’t see anything strange during the evening, anyone who looked out of place?”

Ian Ball laughed. “No. I wish I could help you there. Everyone looked perfectly respectable to me, but I suppose that’s how they pulled it off. By looking respectable, I mean.”

“Thank you,” Quinn said. “I think that’s it.” He wanted the guy out of the room.

Ian Ball stood up. “I’ve dealt with a few of these thefts before,” he said. “I’d be pleased to help you identify some contacts. If you’d like.”

“Thanks. We’ll let you know.” Quinn stood up and waited until he’d gone before looking at Ellie. She was watching the door as though she could still see the handsome ghost of Ian Ball lingering there.

“Let’s do the rest of the people who were upstairs,” he said, making some notes in his notebook.

“It might be helpful to …”

“I said, let’s do the rest of the people who were upstairs.”

Silently, she went out and came back in with one of the History of Art Department faculty members.

They finished with the rest of the witnesses, including Fred Kauffman’s wife, who told them that she’d been upstairs all evening and that her husband had too except for when he’d gone outside to
make a phone call. Quinn decided there wasn’t any reason to tell her the truth. Not yet, anyway. He let her go.

Denny Keefe was next. They’d already talked to the other guard who had been on duty, but he’d reported just what Quinn had expected him to report, that he’d done his rounds, hitting each gallery every thirty minutes, and hadn’t seen anything out of the ordinary. He warned a couple of guests about getting too close to paintings. Other than that, nothing.

Keefe was an older guy, with gray hair slicked back against his head in the old-style way that Quinn’s dad and his friends had worn their hair. Keefe even smelled the way they’d smelled, kind of musky and herby, like some ancient, mysterious potion.

“You were at your post near the main entrance throughout the evening?” Quinn asked him.

“Yeah, that’s right. That’s the protocol. One officer at the front, one doing rounds.”

“Anything out of the ordinary last night?”

“Not really. A lot of people coming through all at the same time. That’s kind of stressful for us, ’cause we got to check all of them and the line kind of builds up. Other than that, it was pretty easy. People stayed upstairs for the most part. There was the thing with the kid, though.”

“The kid?”

“Yeah, a student. He had a bag with him, like the kind you would put a computer in, you know? And he wanted to bring it in. I told him he couldn’t. No bags bigger than a purse. But he was kind of mad about it. He made an issue of it, you know, said it wouldn’t be safe in the coat check. Finally, he left it there, but he was mad. You could tell.”

“What did he look like? Did you know who he was?”

“No, I hadn’t seen him before. But he had on this Hawaiian kind of shirt. It was just like one I used to have, back in the fifties probably. Red and orange, with those palm leaves on it.”

Quinn wrote that down.

“So you were by the front entrance all night. You didn’t step away, even for a second?” One of the other guards had told him he’d walked by the front desk at six-thirty and hadn’t seen Denny Keefe.

Keefe looked down. “Well, once things quieted down, I had to use the restroom. I was going to try to get Patrick to come up and take over, but he was up on the fourth floor, so I just ducked in for a quick whiz. Oh, sorry.” He’d forgotten Ellie was there. “I’m telling you, though, I was gone maybe two minutes, three tops. I shouldn’t have, I know, but boy, I had to go, and at my age, you can’t leave it too long.” He smiled at them, trying to make a joke, then said, “You don’t think that’s when this person got out the front door, do you?”