Chapter Three #3
“Yeah, some vault. Peabody, arrange for a couple of uniforms, one to patrol the property, the other to sit on the crime scene. Rotate them out, another pair in at oh-nine-hundred. Then you and McNab can go get some sleep.”
“I can write this up.”
“No, just get me your reports. I need to think about it. Meet me at the morgue tomorrow. We’ll say ten.”
“The vic’s wife, Dallas? I can’t see it.”
“Nobody knows the inside of a marriage unless they’re inside it. Staff, yeah, they’d have a good sense, but nobody knows the full story except the people in it. She’s low on the list, but nobody’s crossed off, not yet.
“Find McNab, take off. If you see Roarke, tell him I’m almost done.”
Eve stood where she was a moment. She let the quiet take over. But for some murmurs, some shuffling from the sweepers as they spread out to process other areas, that quiet held.
In it, she walked to the office, skirted the blood, moved to the window. Electronic lock, disengaged.
She used a single finger to lift the glass. Smooth and easy. And soundless.
Twelve-seventeen, she thought, jam the security system. A minute or two, a couple more if you’re cautious, careful to reach the window, disengage lock. You’re inside by, at a guess, twelve-twenty-one, twenty-two.
She moved over to the vault.
“Have to know where it is,” she muttered. “Already know it’s here and at least some of what’s inside. How long to open it?”
McNab said fifteen minutes, less for Roarke, but she wouldn’t take that as fact until she’d spoken with Roarke.
“Let’s figure you’ve got it open by twelve-thirty-five, maybe a few minutes longer. What the hell are you doing from then until you bash Barrister? Take what’s in that empty display, lots of big shiny emeralds. Maybe gloat over them.”
Wandering inside the vault, she frowned.
“Did you hear something? Hear Barrister coming down? Oops. Maybe you hide, don’t figure you can get back out unseen yet. Wait, wait. Maybe.”
She didn’t much like it, but maybe. And maybe the whole process took longer from the jam.
“What about the blip? That’s a problem. Your jammer signals the security flipped back on. Oh shit. Have to fix that. Everybody’s asleep, don’t panic. Just get it down again.”
She closed her eyes, tried to see it.
“Napping on your feet, Lieutenant?”
She snapped back, found Roarke right in front of her.
“What, did you come in the damn window?”
“Well now, it was open, wasn’t it?” He ran a finger down her chin. “I’m told you’re about done.”
“About. Trying to get the timing so it makes sense. Start at the top. How long after the jam to get to the window? I figured you were out there doing a test or two.”
“And so I was.”
As he spoke, he crossed to the window to add the security lock.
“After the jam, you wouldn’t wait long, but it’s a quiet neighborhood, so likely wait a minute, make sure the jam held, be certain no lights suddenly come on.
No alarms sound. And so they did, as I can tell you the gates opened enough for a man to slide through at twelve-eighteen, and closed again. ”
“One minute from jam to gate, okay.”
“Someone good enough for all that would, I suspect, be smart enough to take time making his way to this window.”
He turned from it to set up the monitor she’d ordered.
“Be sure no one’s out for a walk to help them sleep. Be sure they haven’t suddenly gotten a dog.”
“How long, most likely?”
“Exactly, as this window lock disengaged at twelve-twenty and forty-two seconds. So there you have three minutes and forty-two seconds.”
Since her recorder remained on, she thought but didn’t say: You’re the B and E expert.
“Then?”
“Listen. Listen to the house, to the tones of the quiet. Rushing equals mistakes, so you don’t.
Make certain, then hit the mechanism that slides the panel open, and there she is.
An old beauty, and one that takes a different skill to seduce than what you’d find more usually today.
It’s math and listening again, patience, nimble mind and fingers. ”
Because he sounded nostalgic, she rolled her eyes. “How long to open it?”
“As it’s not connected to the system—she’s an old beauty, remember—I can’t tell you exactly.
I’d wager between ten and twelve minutes, if you’re experienced, so you’d approximate half-midnight and add a minute or two.
I’d add a bit more, as after coming in, he may have taken that time to listen, feel the house, assure himself he’s alone.
So, give it, ah, twelve-thirty-five, a minute or two on either side, to enter the vault.
“Now, it may be he stood here, a moment or two, basked in it all. Foolish, but understandable, as it’s an impressive array, and you don’t just dump something like the Royal Suite in a sack. Too precious. You’ve got separate bags or cases for each piece.”
“How many pieces?”
“Five if you’re counting the earrings as one. And you’d take a bit of care. Add another five or six minutes, more if—and who wouldn’t?—he wanted to hold those beauties in his hands for just a bit.”
“Still a time lag before TOD.” But not as much of one as she’d calculated. “Why only take the emeralds?”
He smiled at her. “You’ve theorized that already.”
“Because that’s what someone hired him to take. But still, all that? Tempting. So a pro, a pro for hire. Or a pro who already had a buyer lined up for the emeralds.”
She circled back to the door.
“She said she came down looking for him. She’s in a guest room because he’s feeling off and went to bed early.
She checked on him a few times, and the last time, he’s not in bed, so she came down looking.
She said she heard a thump, like he’d knocked something over.
She’s back in the kitchen, according to her statement, so it should’ve been a loud thump. ”
“Like a man falling after being coshed.”
“Yeah, like that. She walked down this way. It would take her a minute, maybe two if she went the other way around the central stairs. Finds him, starts screaming. So the killer’s out by the time she gets to the office. But it’s damn close.”
“Ninety seconds, perhaps a little more, from that spot, through the window, and at a run—and you’d run, wouldn’t you then? Bolt away from the house, and over the wall, as the gates didn’t open again until the medicals and cops arrived.”
“The killer could’ve gotten past her in that minute or so, but … doesn’t hit the logic button they’d go for the door. Why go that way, when the window’s there?”
She took another look around. “Locks and monitors set and activated?”
“They are.”
“Then I’m going to seal up the room. I need that copy of what’s in the vault. That’s a whole other thing to deal with.”
“I have that for you.”
“He was the variable.” Eve studied the blood on the floor. “Otherwise, probably in and out again, way under an hour. Slick. But he wasn’t feeling well, wheezy, a cough, little fever. Maybe woke up, came down to make something hot to drink, or decided to work to take his mind off feeling like crap.
“No sign of a struggle. Attacked from behind.”
Roarke said nothing as she sealed the room, until they’d walked out and she disengaged her recorder.
“You run,” he said now. “There’s a reason you don’t bring a weapon to a job like this. Caught? It’s more time in a cage even if you never use it. So you don’t bring one.”
Eve heard it in his voice, the lightest touch of anger.
“A job goes wrong, you run, as nothing’s worth your life or anyone else’s. But this one didn’t run. So it’s panic at best, or it’s just being willing to take a life at worst. The rest was well-thought-out, I’m figuring. And as you say, the victim was a variable not considered.
“It should’ve been. You always consider the variables. If his wife heard him fall, the thief had the Suite in hand. No need, no need to kill when you can run. The victim had no weapon, you’d have found it.”
Eve slid into the passenger seat as Roarke got behind the wheel. “Killer could’ve taken it.”
“That would be as foolish as it comes, and I don’t see foolish in this setup.”
As he drove, he sighed. “And now I’m going to add to your troubles. There’s an ivory statue, sixteenth century, in the vault. Exquisite work. A sculpture of the goddess Venus. Some—as I recall—seventeen, eighteen years back, I lifted that from a museum in Florence.”
“Shit. Just shit. You said you didn’t know the Barristers.”
“And don’t. I took a job—for that specific item—through a broker. As I did, darling Eve, when I stole the Royal Suite from the Tate Gallery in London a year or so before.”
Now she just stared at him. “Well, fuck me.”
“Ah well, I’ve a strong feeling you won’t be in the mood for that. Not in the least.”