Chapter Four #2
“The point is,” she began as she sampled the Irish bacon—so damn good—“part of the investigation has to probe into the original theft. How those jewels—all the contents of the vault, but those jewels particularly—came into the victim’s possession. Who knew about the vault, about the contents?”
“Understood. It would be difficult, even for you, Lieutenant, to find any crumbs to follow back to that brilliant night. You’ll contact Scotland Yard, Interpol, Tate security, their insurance investigators. And you’ll find I left not a single crumb for them to follow.”
She ate some eggs. “Now you’re bragging.”
“I can’t deny it’s a fond memory for me. Near to six months of preparation as I recall, the mental and physical challenge of it, perfecting the timing, creating the tools, learning how to, in a way, dance under, over, around the beams.”
He smiled in memory. “A kind of ballet, or kata. A combination of both.”
She had to admit, it didn’t annoy her as much as it should that she would have loved to have seen him do it.
He buttered a slice of toast, offered it to her. “I was young, Eve, but never reckless. I knew if I could succeed with this, I could do anything I needed to do.”
“What about Brian, your other friends in Dublin back then? The people you ran with?”
“Not a word to any of them, no. If I’d failed, it would pull them down into it, wouldn’t it? There’s a reason Brian punched me in the face when we walked into the Penny Pig a few years ago. I pulled back from my mates, slowly, gradually, then all at once.
“The jobs I took, or the ones I aimed for on my own? Bigger, riskier. They were my family, and I trusted them. But.”
“It only takes one slip.”
“Yes, only one. So I made sure not to slip.”
“How did you handle the money? The fee?”
“As with all. Wired into an account I’d set up, and from there into another, and into a company I used as a front until I could dissolve that.
Investing it, you see, as we lived as we always did.
I had the hotel, the first building I bought, so you—well, it’s just a matter of washing the funds clean, then building them.
Invest in another property, keep your sidelines, we’ll say, well to the side. ”
“Basically, buried accounts, two sets of books.”
“Well now, more than two for certain before you. I’ve closed that door, and you’ll have to trust me. There’s no key to be found.”
“I just don’t want to find some … awkward surprise while I’m digging.”
“I’m doing some digging of my own. I made some contacts this morning.”
“Who? Where?”
“I’m going to skip over the who, as we’d be back to awkward there for those I spoke with who may still be in the game. And the where’s here and there. But none I spoke with knew—or admitted to knowing—about this job. If it was brokered, none I’ve reached as yet know the who there.”
“What about the original broker? Did anyone take over his business?”
“His grandson, who’s now retired and living in Italy.”
“Where?”
“I’ll find out if you like. The broker’s legitimate businesses—which of course he financed through his brokerage—passed down to his wife and children.
He had but one wife through his life, and six children.
He left plenty to share—properties, a pub, a restaurant, and so on.
But to the grandson of his youngest son, he left what he used to build his comfortable fortune. ”
“Since he’s dead, why don’t you say his name?”
“Lifelong habit. In any case, how would it help you now? And how would you explain knowing any of it?”
He gave her hand a pat, topped off her coffee, then his.
“I know the man I worked with kept both his clients’ and his, I suppose agents’ would do, names out of his records. He had a kind of code. Such as, for this? It was … let me think.”
Frowning, he sipped coffee.
“I believe it was something like Yank Scut—scut meaning he didn’t much care for Barrister—for the Five Green Pieces—those being the jewels—through the Jammy Jackeen. That would be me.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“The broker came to Dublin from the west counties, and jackeen’s a Dubliner—in an insulting way. Jammy? It’s lucky. And he had—you can’t hold me to the exact of it except my own take, which I remember very well. He had, I’m thinking he had ninety-point-ten. That would be—”
“I get it. Ninety’s his take, ten’s yours.”
“There you have it.”
“And how do you know he kept his records that way?”
He gave her one of his easy shrugs. “Because after I turned over the jewels, I made it a point to slip into where he kept his office one night and see for myself. I made sure nothing but his word against mine could tie me to them.”
As she ate, she twisted it one way, wrapped it around another, turned it upside down, then back again. She just couldn’t manipulate it all to pull his eighteen-year-old self into it.
“What about the other piece? The statue.”
“Ah, the magnificent Venus.” He finished his eggs. “The Bargello in Florence.”
“I don’t want the details, at least not now. My head might explode. Just, first, is that the only other thing you stole that’s in that vault? And second, did it all work the same as the emeralds?”
“Yes and yes.”
“Okay. For now anyway, we’re going to put that aside. Not away, Roarke, aside. If I hit on something that feels like it could flip in that direction, in your direction, we’ll figure out what’s next.”
“And if I do, I’ll tell you. I’ll share with you anything I find out. This will make a splash in the media, but it will also have a considerable impact in other circles.”
“You need to be careful with your own shovel, pal.” She rose. “Whoever did this didn’t hesitate to kill.”
“And whoever did this has very likely already turned over the goods, collected the fee, and enjoyed a lovely afterglow.”
“Not everyone’s as slick as you.”
She went into her closet. Because she refused to think about clothes, she grabbed black trousers, a black tee, a black jacket, belt, and boots. And the weapon harness she’d hung in her closet the evening before.
“No cracks about funerals,” she said as she came out. “I need easy today.”
Now he rose, stepped to her, drew her in. “And I’ve made it harder than it has to be.”
“Not you, not really. It just is harder than it has to be. Or stickier’s the better word.
“I need to write it up, set up my board and book. Structure makes it easier, too.”
“I’ll set up your board. You.” He pointed at the cat wandering innocently toward the plates. “Out.” To make sure of it, he hauled the gray pudge up in one arm, and after stepping out with Eve, closed the bedroom door.
“And I know, yes, he might just figure out a way to open the door and get what he wants.” He used a thumb to scratch under Galahad’s chin and made him purr. “He might’ve been a grand associate back in my before.”
“You did have associates in your before.”
“I did, yes, now and then. But none in the jobs that apply here.”
She really did need to put it aside, Eve reminded herself. She needed to focus on this time, this investigation.
When they turned into her office, Roarke put the cat down, and she went straight to her command center.
“I haven’t downloaded the scene from my recorder.”
“I’ll handle it. I know what you’ll want on the board. If I miss anything, you won’t.”
After she opened operations, he worked on the auxiliary.
It gave her time to write up her report, to start the murder book, and then to do a full run on the victim.
Nathan Barrister had done well for himself—up until a few minutes before one that morning.
The only son of a wealthy man, he’d had the best education money could buy—and from the looks of it, brains and application had carried.
He got his MBA from Harvard—so his oldest daughter continued that university tradition.
He’d joined the business as a VP at twenty-four—after spending the best part of a year traveling after grad school.
He’d cohabbed with his future wife in the same condo his sister now owned. Married at twenty-five. They’d moved to a house in Brooklyn— if her math was on target—when they expected their first child.
They owned a second home in the Hamptons, a flat in Prague, and some sort of cabin in Maine.
Before the bequests in his father’s will added to it.
His wife’s business, launched while they lived on the Upper East, had earned a solid rep by the time they’d moved to Brooklyn and started a family.
He’d been COO of Zip Global by forty.
No criminal, no addictions that showed.
On his father’s death, he’d taken over as CEO, had inherited the Barrister House, its contents but for some specific bequests, a villa in Tuscany, its contents, some commercial properties—including Zip’s Manhattan headquarters—a yacht, two vehicles, a private shuttle. Not to mention several billion.
She checked the time, calculated she didn’t have quite enough to do deeper runs on the spouse, the sister, the staff.
She glanced over, saw her board complete, and Roarke sitting on the sofa talking on his ’link.
She left him to it and walked over to the board. Hands in pockets, she studied it. Yeah, he knew how she liked it done, and saw nothing left out.
The position of the body at the crime scene. Not where and how he’d fallen, but she could extrapolate, within reason, by calculating how and why it had been moved.
The wife comes in, turns him, ends up cradling him. The medicals move her back, lay the body down to attempt a miracle.
No reason in either case to reverse the direction of the fall, or to change by any substantial amount the distance from the vault, the desk, the door, from where she’d found it.
“Walking away from the vault and toward the desk.” She circled the board. “Had to be. Check with the MTs, make sure they didn’t move him, but had to be.”
When Roarke joined her, she continued to think out loud. “He doesn’t close the vault—not trying to hide it or the contents—but starts toward his desk when he’s hit from behind. That clear kind of tray thing there on that stand. The same size and shape as the murder weapon.”
“A lighted display,” Roarke told her. “It would shine from below, show the amethyst off.”
“On the office door side of the vault. There’s no sign of struggle, scuffle, fight. Maybe the killer slides behind the office door. ‘Oops, gotta hide.’”
She circled, hissed out a breath.
“But shit, didn’t he have ears? Didn’t he hear somebody coming? Maybe not until too late to take a dive out the window. He grabs that big purple chunk of rock. Barrister sees the vault open, walks over, looks in. ‘Well, shit, we’ve been robbed.’ Turns, starts for the desk. Killer steps out.”
Eve joined her hands together to mime holding a bat.
“Swings. Barrister goes down. Drop the rock, then dive out the window.”
“Sloppy,” Roarke said. “In the end, sloppy. Panicked and sloppy.”
“What would you’ve done? You can’t get to the window and out in time.”
“That would’ve been a mistake, but they happen.”
He studied the board, the crime scene as she did. And very easily imagined himself there, in the dark with a fortune in his hands.
“Better to slide behind the office door as you said. Wait. He comes in, goes to the vault, you slip around the door while his attention’s fixed there.
If you’ve done your job, you know how to get out another way, as that’s a basic thing to know.
The security’s still off. Into the next room I’d go, and out that window.
Out and over the wall before he’d finished telling the cops he’s had a break-in. ”
“No panic?”
“Panic gets you nicked,” he said simply. “And murder? Beyond taking a life, it gets you life instead of the five to ten you’d deal down.”
“You’d get more than that five to ten if you’d been busted before.”
He acknowledged that. “True enough. Added to it, you’d do the time empty-handed after having those sparkling baubles in hand. There’s no word about the theft as yet. Not from the sources I’ve tapped. A take like this? There’ll be some talk soon enough.”
He ran a hand down her back. “It could be some of the sources might hear something that cracks the door a bit. Brian’s doing a bit of poking.”
“Brian.”
“He’s not in the game, and hasn’t been, really, since we were barely more than lads. He’s a publican, but he hears things, and knows how to prime a pump. Added, he’s not one who’ll hold back because I’m married to a Garda.”
Smiling, Roarke patted her ass. “He’s very fond of you, Lieutenant Darling.”
“Right. I’ve got to get going.” She walked back to her desk, picked up her recorder, and fixed it on. “Morgue first. Then I’ll go into Central. It should be quiet, so I’ll work there for a few hours. I want to stop back by the Barristers’ on the way home. Do a follow-up, talk to the daughters.”
“I’ll do what I can from here.”
She paused by the board again. “I’m speculating Barrister left the vault door open because he was going to report the break-in, and if the wife and sister are telling the truth, he intended to return everything.
Took too long to figure out how and when, whatever, but they weren’t keeping the stuff.
I believe that—or lean toward it—because there’s nothing to indicate otherwise. ”
“But you’ll talk to the lawyer, the daughters.”
“Yeah, I will. So I get why he didn’t close the vault. But why didn’t the thief? Maybe ran out of time again, but why not?”
“The vault could’ve given him more trouble than he’d anticipated. Or his popper on the electronic window lock needed finessing. Or he spent far too much time playing about in the vault. Or.”
“What’s this or?”
“He followed instructions, and they were to leave it open.”
Intrigued, she angled her head. “Why?”
“Bragging rights for the client, if the client’s an eejit. More likely, if it’s that or? The client wanted it known quickly the Suite had been stolen—even if just by the owner of the vault.”
“Like a smug factor?”
Laughing, he nodded. “Could be that simple and petty, yes. And likely figuring no one’s going to report the break-in, as they’d have to explain how it was they had possession not only of the emeralds but of all the rest in the first place.”
“I buy that or. Not just the smug factor, but figuring no cops involved. And I’ve got one more or. Knowing this Barrister will bring in the cops.”
The way he nodded, she knew he’d reached that or himself. “So the theft makes a splash, a public one. Adds excitement for a potential auction.”
“And boosts up that smug factor. I’ve got to get started, and I’ll be back when I’m back. Go on, get that workout, take that swim.”
“I may.” He took her by the shoulders, kissed her, lingered. “Take care of my cop.”
“Always the plan.”
He watched her go, and decided not to think about those best-laid plans.