Chapter Thirty-Three
Thirty-Three
Simone chose an ocean theme for Richard’s celebration of life, and I was able to get a last-minute booking at Shedd Aquarium, where the guests would be able to view over thirty-two thousand marine animals while dining in the conservation-conscious venue. Cristian was in his absolute element and insisted on being my right-hand man, not only helping with the planning and organizing, but also taking the guests around to talk about the exhibits.
“Don’t you think it’s in poor taste to have an ocean-themed memorial for someone who was eaten by a shark?” Chloe picked up one of the shark cookies on the buffet platter and bit off its head.
“I did gently try to convince her to celebrate one of Richard’s other passions—golf, wine, whiskey, treasure hunting, and collecting taxidermied animal heads…”
Chloe gagged and grabbed a glass of water to wash down the shark head lodged in her throat. “I know it’s terrible to say at a time like this,” she said between gulps, “but when I saw those scars on Simone’s arm, I thought she was better off without him.”
We made the rounds, checking that everything was going smoothly, and returned to the buffet to find Detective Garcia munching on a shark.
“I was just about to go looking for you,” he said. “This is some party.”
“It’s a memorial,” I corrected him. “Richard’s celebration of life.”
“The dude who got eaten by sharks.” He picked up another shark cookie and ate it in one bite. “I came here to ask Simone a few questions and to talk to Vera Hearst. I went to both their houses. Vera’s assistant said they were here. Could you point me in the right direction? Either one would do.”
I couldn’t believe Garcia had come to interrogate Simone during her husband’s celebration of life. It wasn’t like him to be so insensitive, especially when a loved one had died. “Can you come back another time? We just had Richard’s funeral this morning and now we’re remembering the deceased. Poor Simone is in mourning.”
I grimaced when I heard laughter and cheering from the guests enjoying the beluga encounter. Simone had wanted the event to be fun above all else. She had even insisted that we rent a photo booth with a live aquarium backdrop, and it was a big hit.
Garcia took yet another cookie. “It can’t wait. I still have a few questions for them about Peter Hearst’s death.”
“I thought you were investigating the burglary.” I moved the cookies away in case other guests wanted to remember Richard by eating a wheat-and-sugar-based replica of the animal that had eaten him.
“I’m still on the burglary, but I’ve been promoted.” Garcia pulled out his wallet and flipped it open to show me a shiny new badge. “Homicide. There has been an increase in murders lately and they wanted to expand the team. I’ve been assigned to both cases.”
“Congratulations.” I was genuinely happy for Garcia. He was a smart guy, hardworking and ambitious. He deserved the promotion. “How is the Hearst case going?”
Garcia’s smile faded. “We got an anonymous tip about a truck that was seen leaving the vicinity of Vera’s house around the time of the murder. We tracked the shipment all the way to a container terminal in Newark and spoke to the drivers involved. They were hired to collect forty boxes from an exit in the alley beside Vera’s house during Peter’s celebration of life. The shipment was prepacked and left inside the unlocked door.”
“Wait…everything was already there, packed and sealed? How is that even possible? Not more than forty-five minutes passed between the time Chloe left me to talk to Peter, and Vera came to tell me he was dead.” Although I already knew the shipment was packed and waiting, I still hadn’t figured out how the thieves had managed to get the job done so quickly.
Garcia nodded and stroked his chin. “There are a lot of unanswered questions. I was hoping Vera or Simone might help me shed some light on them.”
“Maybe the thieves accessed Peter’s museum the night before,” Chloe offered. “Could they have packed it all up and moved it into the tunnel ready to go? The boxes were already there because the collection was going to be shipped to their yacht that weekend.”
“But how did they overcome all that security?” I’d been so focused on trying to save Jack, I hadn’t given much thought to how the art had been stolen in the first place. “And why kill Peter and cut off his finger if they had already bypassed the biometrics?”
“Maybe they were at the party and overheard him offering to take me downstairs after showing me his new car,” Chloe suggested. “They were worried he’d find out he’d been robbed before the truck arrived, so they knocked me out, killed him, and then cut off his finger so it looked like the theft had just happened.”
“That’s not a bad theory,” Garcia said. “But then why did they need to knock out the security on the day? Why go to the trouble of killing Peter and cutting off his finger? If it was just a matter of ensuring he didn’t go down to the museum before the truck arrived, why not just knock you both out? And why did they not take the goods the night before? Why pull off the heist in broad daylight when there was a high chance of being caught? Why hire a commercial truck that could be easily traced? And why, if they were professionals, did they not steal the paintings in the vault, which Vera says are worth over $100 million?”
“That’s a lot of questions.” I picked up a shark cookie, suddenly finding myself in need of a sugar hit.
“I need a lot of answers.”
“Were you able to trace the missing items?” Chloe asked.
“They were loaded onto a shipping container headed for Belize, but a few days into the voyage, there was an explosion on the ship, and a number of containers went overboard. When we radioed the captain, he said the container we were looking for didn’t show up on the manifest. He thought it must have been one of over a dozen containers that they were unable to recover.”
My stomach twisted and I snapped the shark cookie in two. If not for Chloe, Jack and I would have been in that container, lost at sea.
“Poor Vera,” Chloe said. “First her husband and then all his precious possessions.”
“Vera didn’t seem too concerned about the contents of the museum.” Garcia picked up a shark-tooth puff-pastry canapé filled with caviar. “I stopped by a few days ago to give her the bad news, and she didn’t even want a copy of my report to file an insurance claim. She said the entire collection was fake and her husband had been taken advantage of by unscrupulous black market art and antiquity dealers.”
I sucked in a sharp breath, feigning surprise. “Are you saying Peter was killed for nothing?”
“We don’t know,” Garcia said, “but we are interested in talking to the woman who booked the truck. The receptionist at the trucking company told us that a woman made the booking over the phone, but because she wanted to pay in cash and it was a substantial sum, the manager insisted she come in person and sign the paperwork. Apparently, she was oddly dressed in overly large clothes and she wore a hat and sunglasses even though it was raining.”
“Do you think she was the killer?” I wrapped a napkin around my shattered shark and discreetly dropped it in the nearby bin.
“Right now, she’s our prime suspect,” Garcia said. “The signature on the shipping documents is consistent with someone who writes with their left hand. The autopsy report also concluded that we were dealing with a left-handed killer, and one who didn’t have the strength to make a clean cut. Given the short time frame between when Peter was last seen alive and Vera found him, I’m still working on the theory that the suspect was at the party. I’ve been collecting signatures to compare, but it’s been one hell of a job to track everyone down.”
“Is that why you got us to sign the NDA?” I said, suddenly understanding.
Garcia chuckled. “Yes, but I also didn’t want any of you sharing information about the investigation, so it served two purposes.”
Something niggled at the back of my mind, but I was too focused on what Garcia had just told us to figure it out. “What about Chloe? Why didn’t they kill her? She would have been a witness.”
“Chloe said she was standing on the opposite side of the garage checking things out. Peter was sitting in the driver’s seat when she was struck from behind with a length of pipe that we found at the scene. It is very unlikely that either of them would have stayed where they were if the other was being attacked, so we believe that the killer was already in the vehicle when they arrived in the garage and there was a second person involved who hit Chloe.” He grabbed a handful of shark cookies and stuffed them in his pocket. “If Chloe hadn’t been injured, I would have suspected you.”
“Me?” I stared at him in shock. “Why would I kill Peter? He was my client. And what would I do with his art collection? Vera told me it was fake the first time we met.” I didn’t like where the conversation was going, or Garcia’s slightly hostile tone, so unlike his usual gentle teasing.
“I don’t have any facts,” he said. “That means I have to consider all possibilities and coincidences, including the fact that a few short weeks ago Tony Angelini, the head of a known criminal organization, was sitting in your office, and now a collection of art has been stolen and three people all connected to you are dead.”
“Three?” I shared a puzzled glance with Chloe. “Peter, Richard, and who else?”
“Tony Angelini was killed in his living room last Thursday night. He was stabbed in the heart and shot through the head.”
“Tony Angelini is dead?” I faked a gasp. “I guess I won’t get that event booking after all.”
“That’s a pretty tenuous connection to Simi.” Chloe gave a light, forced laugh. “I almost feel like we’re back to the days where you thought we were thieves.”
“I feel like we’re back there, too.” His blue eyes hardened and there was no trace of the warmth I was used to seeing on his face.
My mouth went dry, and my heart pounded so hard I thought it might break a rib. “Are you going to arrest me?” I shot a frantic look at Chloe. “Should I call my cousin Riswan? He’s a partner now at his law firm and his rates have doubled…”
Garcia studied me for a long time, and then he sighed. “No, I’m not going to arrest you. We have witnesses who saw you in Vera’s garden almost every minute of the afternoon. In fact, I managed to track the movements of all your staff, and none of them left the party except for Emma, who was spotted in her car, and Chloe, who I’m pretty sure didn’t knock herself out.”
“That’s a relief.” With my knees shaking and my pulse pounding, it was everything I could do not to collapse in the nearest chair.
“But I do want to talk to Simone,” he said. “I don’t think her husband’s death was accidental. We got the toxicology report on the parts of his body that were found and there was no alcohol in his system.”
“She should be here somewhere,” I said, frowning. “Although…now that you mention it, I haven’t seen her since the funeral…” A shiver ran down my spine. “Usually, she’s the life of the party.”