The Throwbacks (10 page)

“Will you go back to Scotland Yard then?” Grace asked, and he could swear she looked dejected at the prospect.

“I’m on assignment here for two years with the exchange program. But I grew up in Boston, so I may consider staying,” he told her. He was starting to feel that he might be at home for good in Boston. She looked pleased by his response.

“That’s wonderful. Then I’ll have to do some extra special decorating to make your home a place to stay forever,” Grace said.

Before David could lose himself in her gaze, he tore his eyes away to smile at everyone. “When my fate at the Yard is decided and the estate is settled, we should celebrate—I’ll take us all out to dinner.” Everyone nodded wholeheartedly in approval of the plan.

“To closure.” He raised his glass boldly. His friends all followed suit. As he gulped his Scotch, he hoped to hell the committee was planning to exonerate him.

O
N day three of his big case, David sat in the passenger seat of Dan’s official car feeling more like the chief’s Scotland Yard sidekick than he did director of the exchange program. In fact, he felt rather like a character straight from an old-time mystery noir.

“We’ll have a long talk with Rick and his brother, Nick, too. Without the mayor there,” Dan said. They arrived at Rick’s loft at 8:00 a.m. sharp.

“As long as we leave here with a list of people we can run down and either eliminate or put on the short list entitled ‘real suspects,’” David said as they climbed up a few steps to the front door.

Rick had agreed to lay low at the loft for the seven days they had left to come up with the would-be killer. The loft had been on the market but was taken off ostensibly due to the “sudden death” of his brother. Of course Nick was holed up there, and with Theresa there too, David imagined it wasn’t a happy place.

After a knock at the door and a check through the peephole, they were let in. He and Dan followed Rick up some wide-open stairs into a wide-open space. The place was in a state of disarray. The now-unhappy couple had been packing for their post-wedding move, but clearly had not finished the job.

As he looked past a stack of boxes, the last person David expected to see standing in the wide-open room was Grace Rogers. She was not supposed to be here. No one was supposed to be here—no one was supposed to know that Nick was really alive.

“You! What is she doing here?” Dan pointed at Grace, who waved at them cheerfully. Dan looked at Rick and Nick for an answer. David looked at them too. This seemed like a crazy breach of their orders to keep Nick’s secret non-murder under wraps.

“Don’t yell at them, it was all my fault.” Theresa pouted. She stood next to Grace as if to protect her. Maybe she knew Dan was about to throw her bodily from the loft. After he got over his shock, David couldn’t decide if he was delighted or deeply disturbed that Grace was here.

But there she was in all her splendor, removing newspaper from one of many large corrugated brown boxes.

“Don’t worry—my lips are zippered.” Grace mock-zipped her lips. Then she smiled big and somehow the effect of promising to be secretive was all spoiled. Unfortunately, David couldn’t muster the appropriate level of disapproval. He was becoming undone by a decorator.

“I don’t care who said what,” Dan thundered. “
No one
is to say another word to anyone and no one else comes or goes from this loft for the duration.” He scowled at Nick, who shrugged back.

Rick spoke up. “It’s okay. It’s all under control. It was an accident—she showed up and Theresa was thrilled to see her. She needed some girl-company.” Rick gestured for them to come in and sit. “Do we have any leads? Any progress?” He took a seat at the large onyx table centered in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows and under an enormous chandelier reminiscent of dozens of icicles dripping. David seemed to be noticing lots of decorating details today—in honor of Grace, no doubt.

Nick saved Dan the bother of responding to his brother’s question. “Don’t be so impatient, Rick.”

Rick, Nick, Theresa and now Dan all took seats at the table and looked at David expectantly. Grace continued to unwrap china and place it on shelves. He realized he was watching her instead of proceeding with the purpose of the visit. When had he ever been this distracted from an investigation? She looked up at him as if she knew he was watching and smiled almost shyly. He nodded and smiled back. Then he moved to take his seat at the table with haste.

“Nick, I understand you purchased a vase for Rick and Theresa at an elite New York City art gallery for their wedding gift,” David began.

“Yes, it’s beautiful,” Theresa interrupted.

They all looked at her.

Dan frowned to disguise his laugh. Only David knew he was thoroughly amused; the others presumed he was still angry and all business.

“What about it? I thought we were going to talk about your investigation,” Nick said.

“How much did you pay for it?”

Nick raised his brows and smirked, now undoubtedly understanding the line of questioning and the reason for it.

“That’s a rude thing to ask.” Theresa was about to go on, obviously without a shred of a clue that this was business and not casual conversation, when Grace came to the rescue.

“Theresa, it’s all part of the investigation. Why don’t you come over here and help me with the placement of these decorative items?” Grace said.

Theresa gave David one last meaningful glare before she rose from the table to join Grace in the kitchen area.

David decided he ought to speak more softly, but it would be tough to conduct the interview in this open space. Normally, this would all be done at the station, but that was out of the question under the circumstances. After all, Nick was supposed to be dead and Rick wouldn’t be questioned at the station, given his position as lieutenant governor. David gazed at the two women once to make sure they were suitably occupied before continuing.

“I understand the vase is rather costly for someone in your line of business—want to explain the circumstances of your purchase?” David asked. He and Dan had decided that it was better politically if he did all the dirty work, as the relative outsider, questioning the friends and family members. He was surprised that Rick said nothing, but looked on with interest. He’d probably been wondering the same thing himself.

“I paid two thousand dollars for it. But technically I haven’t paid anything yet, since they haven’t sent the bill,” Nick said.

“Are you aware that the vase is worth ten thousand dollars?”

Rick blew out a whistle. Nick didn’t flinch.

“No. Not exactly. I knew it was worth more than I paid, but not that much more. The gallery manager suggested it and said he’d give me a price break. He said they were getting in some new inventory from this artist and heavily lobbied that it was a great value. But he never said how much of a discount it was.” Nick turned to his brother. “I wouldn’t have bought it if I didn’t think you and Theresa would love it. I figured it would go great with your stuff.” He looked at Dan and David. “There was nothing hinky about the purchase, at least not from my end. I’d been doing surveillance of an establishment nearby and had been in the shop looking around a few times. The manager figured out I was a cop. That was no good. I had to tell the chief about it and get reassigned to a different case. They weren’t happy.”

“Here’s the vase,” Grace said, removing bubble wrap from the enormous ice blue glass piece with the same extra-wide base as the red Aquinas vase they’d seen in the local gallery. She lifted it from the granite counter and carried it over as they all watched.

“Let me help,” Theresa said. Grace turned. She moved too quickly and hit the edge of the counter with the bottom of the vase.

“Oh no!” Grace said in the instant the giant ball at the bottom of the vase broke off, crashed to the tile floor and cracked open. David watched in stunned silence as Grace stood there still holding the neck of the vase in her hands. She looked down at the floor. But it was not horror he saw on her face—it was surprise and then puzzlement. She looked like she was about to bend down.

“Don’t move, you’ll get cut,” David said more calmly than he felt and leapt from his chair, a second before everyone else, to rush to her side. Then he saw what she saw and in the next instant, everyone else did too.

“What the heck is that?” Dan asked what everyone was thinking, including him.

Grace bent down and picked up what looked like a copper scroll from the debris.

“It looks like an artifact of some kind—there’s writing on it.” She handed it to David, but before he took it from her, he removed a hanky from his pocket and put it over his hand to protect whatever it was from further contamination. Whatever it was, he was sure it was not supposed to be imbedded inside an art glass vase by Aquinas.

He took it to the table to inspect it under the chandelier light and everyone followed, buzzing with speculation. He thought Grace was dead-on right about it being an artifact. The writing looked like ancient Incan. He was no expert, but he’d handled his fair share of smuggling cases in the old days.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Dan looked at David and Nick.

“Smuggling,” they all said at once.

Dan looked at Nick. “This puts a whole new wrinkle on your murder, doesn’t it?”

“Maybe they were after Nick all along and not me,” Rick said.

“That’s wonderful news.” Theresa brightened. “Can we do away with the fake murder scam now and get married?”

They all looked at her.

“Not just yet,” David told her. “It’s true that the fake murder is no longer a lure for the would-be murderer to take another shot at Rick if he was not after Rick in the first place, but then again, if Nick is the intended target and they think he’s already dead, he’s much safer since they won’t try to kill him again.”

Grace blanched at the reality that David made plain. She was definitely not used to the harsher side of police work, he thought.

“We’ll still use the time the mayor gave us to flush out the murderer. We’ll need to look into this art gallery and possible smuggling connection. Nick, can you find out through your New York City office what’s going on at that gallery?” Dan asked.

“Will do.”

“We’ll have Lester Lump set up a meeting for us to go down and question the gallery manager who sold this to you,” David said.

“Absolutely. I’ll call my boss right away,” Nick said.

“In the meantime, we need to figure out what the heck we have here.” Dan looked at the copper scroll in David’s hands.

“We’ll need to consult with an archeologist. Any ideas?” David asked.

“I know an archeologist,” Grace said. “Dr. Doris. She’s a Harvard Professor and she knows all kinds of things about ancient civilizations. She helped me with a decorating job last year.” They all stared at her. “What?” she asked.

David decided this was beyond happy coincidence. There was some divine intervention going on here. How else could it be explained that his Grace was the missing link in every line of investigation they had?

Dan shrugged and indicated that he had no one better on his Rolodex—or whatever the computer version of a Rolodex was, David mused. He knew his friend wasn’t happy, but he was slowing down in his effort to resist the pull of her charm.

“By all means, let’s give your Dr. Doris a call and see if she can help identify this piece and tell us what the significance or value is.” David beamed a smile at her. Oddly, he felt a twinge of pride, although he told himself he had no cause. He had no proprietary claim on Grace or anything about her. That was a deflating thought. He sincerely wished he had a claim on her—of some kind. The problem was that he didn’t know what it would be except temporary lover, and that was an equally deflating thought.

“I’ll call her now.” Grace flipped a phone from the pocket in her skintight jeans and placed her call. “No answer. I’ll call again later.”

David checked his watch and realized it was only 10:00 a.m.

“Make the appointment for later this afternoon. If you don’t reach her by noon we’ll regroup,” he said.

“I need to get back to the office—you coming?” Dan asked David as he rose from the table and swallowed the last sip of his coffee.

“Give me a ride home. We can rendezvous again later after I take care of a few things.” David winked at Grace. She was due to pop over and show him her design plans and budget proposal, and that was something he did not want to miss.