Chameleon's Death Dance Read online

  My tablet showed an incoming message, and I saw an email from Dad.

  Gavin O’Bannon, thug from Ireland. A favorite of organized crime in Europe. I’ve heard rumors that he’s a mutant. Extraordinary long-range eyesight, extra-fast reflexes, very strong. One of my contacts told me once that he is deformed but you can’t see it with his clothes on. Known to have a sadistic streak and enjoys torturing people. I’ve always avoided doing business with him. Why?

  I sent him a reply.

  He just took out someone I was following.

  Dad responded by telling me to be careful, and I promised that I would. Then I turned my attention to Boyle’s treasures.

  The bag held papers, including documentation concerning his bank accounts, and a small black book with some interesting encoded entries. The rest of the bag’s contents consisted of antique jewelry. I ran a scanner over all of it and verified that none of the pieces had a museum microchip. I wondered if Boyle had siphoned off some of the museum’s acquisitions before they were recorded, or if he’d received them as stolen goods. Although I didn’t recognize any of the jewelry, I thought they might fit in with the crown jewels NAI had sent me to recover. Most of the pieces Boyle had would be hard to sell except to very specialized collectors, and I couldn’t even guess the values.

  Turning my attention to the box Boyle had brought out of the museum, I discovered it had an electronic combination lock similar to a safe. I passed my hands over the box and felt a battery inside. That might have deterred some would-be thieves, but it played right into my strengths. Shorting out the lock and opening the box took only a few seconds.

  Inside, the box was divided into two spaces, each containing a rolled canvas. I carefully unrolled the first one to find Monet’s Springtime, a small painting about twenty by twenty-five inches. The other painting was larger, Picasso’s Girl with a Mandolin, one of the most famous and influential cubist paintings in the world. If Boyle had a legitimate claim to ownership of either of the paintings, then I was a virgin.

  The Rembrandt and the Van Gogh were still missing, but I was building quite a collection. I put all the loot away and checked the security system. I briefly wondered what the premiums would be like if I boosted my renter’s insurance to cover a quarter billion credits.

  I poured myself a shot of whiskey and noted that my hands shook a bit more than I expected. Hell, I’d watched a man die, shot the murderer, and escaped with my life carrying two priceless paintings. Just another routine day. Why should I be shaky?

  I followed up the first shot with a second. Then I sat back and tried to figure out what to do next.

  My first gambit—the impersonation of a nonexistent heiress—needed to be called off due to personal safety issues. My fallback plan was to let Boyle lead me to the paintings. I had definitely played that one wrong and got Boyle killed.

  Time for Elizabeth Nelson, Insurance Investigator, to step into the picture.

  I used my computer to convert my voice into a man’s and called Inspector Fenton. When he answered, I said, “Langston Boyle was killed at his boat this afternoon by a man named Gavin O’Bannon. He took a bullet doing it.” Then I hung up, changed clothes, and drove down to the marina.

  The cops had the road into the marina closed off, so I again parked in the lot across the street. Wearing a dark suit coat, trousers, and a white shirt, I looked the part of a corporate representative when I flashed my identification and talked my way past the cops guarding the entrance road.

  Several cop cars, an ambulance, and two crime-scene vans crowded the area leading toward Boyle’s boat. As I approached, I was able to see they had fished the body out of the water, and it lay on the side of the pier. They also had found the suitcase. Men in white coveralls crawled all over the boat.

  “You can’t come down here, Miss,” a detective said as he approached me.

  “I’m looking for an Inspector Fenton.” I showed him my NAI identification.

  He didn’t look happy. “Wait here,” he said and walked off.

  A few minutes later Fenton came to where I stood. I held out my identification again.

  “Miss Nelson, I’m Inspector Fenton. Might I ask what you’re doing here?”

  “North American Insurance is the largest insurer of fine art in North America,” I said. “When the director of a museum as prestigious as the Vancouver Art Gallery goes missing, then turns up dead, we’re interested.”

  Fenton looked as though he’d taken a bite of something very sour. “I can understand that, but specifically, how did you manage to come here?”

  “Police scanner,” I said with a smile and watched his lips pucker even more.

  “Why do you say that Boyle was missing?” he asked. “We had no reports of that.”

  “No one has seen him in two days,” I said. “I had an appointment to speak with him. There have been rumors about stolen artworks in Vancouver for some time, and many of those rumors referenced Langston Boyle.”

  “I see.” His puckered lips spread into a frown. “I would think that such thefts would have come to my department’s attention.”

  With a chuckle, I said, “I’m sure the Vancouver Police Department has access to the Art Loss Database. However, I’m not talking about art stolen here in Vancouver.”

  Fenton didn’t like my implication, but he picked up on it readily enough.

  “How did he die?” I asked.

  With a shake of his head, Fenton said, “We’ll have to wait for the autopsy.”

  I was four or five inches taller than Fenton. Stepping to the side and standing on my tiptoes, I looked at the body twenty yards away.

  “Let me rephrase my question. Did he lose half his head after he died, or was that the cause of death?”

  The puckered expression was back.

  “Inspector, you and I might help each other. I appreciate the job the local police do, and I try to be useful and not get in the way.”

  “I can appreciate that, Miss Nelson, but…”

  I cut him off. “I have a job to do, and so do you. It’s so much easier to be friendly about this sort of thing, don’t you think? But if I have to go through the Chamber, I will do that. You call my shot, Inspector.”

  The Chamber of Commerce’s security division outranked and supervised the local police. Mostly, they let the locals to their thing, but when the interests of the large corporations were involved, the Chamber often stepped in.

  His expression didn’t change, but I saw the flash of anger in his eyes. “All right, Miss Nelson. We’ll play it your way. As long as you hold up your end of the bargain.” He turned to look at the body. “Yes, it looks as though he was shot in the head.” Fenton motioned toward the gangplank. “Blood and brains there, and then he fell into the water. The boat has been searched, and we haven’t found anything of interest.”

  “Thank you, Inspector. As to my contribution, I believe you’re also investigating the death of another art dealer, a Mr. David Abramowitz. I suspect the two deaths are related.”

  The expression on his face changed, betraying curious interest. “And why do you suspect that?”

  “Both men had a reputation of dealing in stolen art. Both had client lists that included people wealthy enough to afford the kind of art I’m tracking. Both were killed within days of each other.”

  “What kind of clients are we talking about?”

  “The kind of people who live on Stanley Island.”

  He sucked air through his teeth.

  I continued. “I have reliable witnesses who have seen famous stolen artworks displayed in some of the mansions on the island. Now, I’m a realist, as I’m sure you are. The chance of getting a search warrant for any of those houses is less than zero. But there are other ways to recover such assets.”

  “Do I even want to know?”

  I grinned and winked at him. “Some are rather benign. Threats of lawsuits and exposure. Buying a painting back for a fraction of the insured value. NAI and other insurers don�
�t really expect to come out whole on that sort of thing, but they can cut their losses.”

  “We’re talking artwork that costs millions, aren’t we?”

  I shook my head. “The specific collectables I was sent to recover were insured for almost a billion credits. That’s a drop in the bucket compared to what I suspect is hiding in this town.” Hell, what I’d seen in the Robertsons’ place alone would probably hit a billion. That family had no scruples whatsoever as to buying hot merchandise.

  Fenton stared at me with his mouth hanging open.

  “So,” I said, “do you have any leads as to the killer?”

  He cursed.

  I grinned. “Just thought I’d ask, since I know that’s the first question you’ll get from the media.”

  “Yes, it probably is. We got an anonymous tip about Boyle, and the tipper did mention a name. We haven’t had the chance to check it out yet.”

  I motioned to O’Bannon’s blood trail, cordoned off by small orange cones.

  “How many times was Boyle shot?”

  Fenton squirmed a bit.

  “You’re holding out on me,” I said.

  “We have an alert out at all the hospitals and clinics,” Fenton finally said. “It looks as though someone else was here.”

  “Yeah, the shooter,” I said. “So that’s either from the shooter, or there was a third party. Come on, Fenton, level with me.”

  He shook his head. “We don’t know. The tip we got said the shooter took a bullet.”

  “And the shooter’s name? You said the tipper gave you a name.”

  “And I said we haven’t had a chance to check it out.”

  The irritation in his voice told me I’d pushed him as far as he was going to go, so I dropped it. “Who do you have at the museum?”

  His eyes narrowed. “Why?”

  “Well, I’m wondering what’s missing over there. I mean, you did send someone over there to secure the place. Right?”

  A bit of panic started to creep into his eyes.

  “Inspector, if Boyle was involved in shifting stolen art, I doubt he could keep it secret from everyone at the museum. He might have one or more accomplices. Hell, he might have been selling the museum’s collection out the back door. If it were me, I’d lock that place down and tell the board of directors to call in the auditors and their insurance company.”

  Fenton stood staring at me for about a minute, then he whirled away, pulling his phone out of his pocket. He talked for about ten minutes, then hung up and called to the detective I had first spoken to.

  “I’m going to meet some of my people at the museum,” he told me. “Want to come along?”

  I clapped my hand to my chest. “Inspector, you do know the way to a girl’s heart. That’s the best offer I’ve had all day.”

  On the way to the museum, Fenton said, “Please don’t take offense, but you do seem young to be in this line of work.”

  “University degree in computer science with a minor in art history,” I replied. “My primary business is security systems. My dad was VP of security at MegaTech, so I’ve been around security my whole life. My dad and I were installing a system at the Art Institute of Chicago when they had a theft. I helped recover the objects, and NAI liked my style. They occasionally contract me.”

  MegaTech was one of the fifty largest corporations in the world. Revealing my connection to the upper echelons of the corporate world rarely hurt when I was conducting legitimate business.

  I could tell he was sizing me up out of the corner of his eye. I wasn’t going to stun the world with my beauty the way Danielle did, but I knew men liked the way I looked. It didn’t bother me, and it often made my job easier.

  By the time we reached the Gallery, a fairly large contingent of police had secured all the exits, and people were exiting the building in a steady stream.

  “I hope all those people leaving are visitors,” I said, “and not any of the employees.”

  Fenton shot me an alarmed look, and started talking on his phone before he finished parking.

  “What do you think we should do with the employees?” Fenton asked as we got out of the car.

  “Give them each a five-minute interrogation as to where they were when Boyle was killed,” I said. “See if you get any interesting reactions when you tell them he’s dead and is suspected of art theft. Maybe you’ll get lucky, and a guilty conscience or a whistleblower will surface.”

  Fenton barked a laugh. “Oh, you are young. I remember when I was that optimistic.”

  Several of the staff were off that day, and the night staff—mostly security and custodial employees—hadn’t arrived yet. Half a dozen people who should have been there couldn’t be found. The rest were ushered to an auditorium and pulled out for individual interrogation.

  Jon Cruikshank, the young detective who sat with Fenton and me in a small room interviewing people, gave me the creeps. It was the way he looked at me, and the way he looked at some of the people we talked with.

  Boyle’s administrative assistant—a tall, leggy brunette–was the fifth person we interviewed. Her designer suit and five hundred credit shoes seemed a little out of place for an employee at her level.

  “Miss Barbara Willis,” Fenton started, “I regret to inform you that Langston Boyle was killed today. Where were you between ten o’clock this morning and three this afternoon?”

  She stared at him with a horrified expression on her face, then she burst out crying. The young detective got a puzzled look on his face, and when Fenton looked at him, Cruikshank gave a small shrug.

  “Miss Willis,” Fenton continued, “we’ve found some evidence that Director Boyle might be involved in stolen artworks. Would you know anything about that?”

  Other than a small hitch in her crying and a quick glance up at Fenton’s face, her only reaction was to shake her head. Cruikshank leaned back in his chair and nodded.

  Fenton called in a policewoman and said, “Miss Willis, we’re going to need to ask you some more questions. The constable will escort you down to our station.”

  The constable took Willis out. I turned to Fenton.

  “I’m pleasantly surprised, Inspector. Very few police agencies in my experience are broadminded enough to employ known mutants.”

  Cruikshank shot me a look.

  “Empath? Not a telepath, I’m sure,” I said. “No one is comfortable around telepaths.”

  “Jon’s abilities are invaluable,” Fenton said.

  “Oh, I’m sure they are.”

  By the time we’d run through the entire staff, we had sent four people down to Fenton’s office for additional questioning. In addition to Willis, Fenton detained Giorgio Wang, the assistant director, Kieran Murphy, an assistant curator, and one of the security guards. When the night staff arrived, we added the sergeant in charge of the night security detail to the list.

  Murphy’s reaction to news of Boyle’s death mirrored that of Barbara Willis.

  “What do you think?” I asked Cruikshank as Murphy was led away.

  The young detective looked at Fenton, who nodded.

  “I think he was doing both of them, but they didn’t know about each other,” Cruikshank said.

  “Do you think both of them knew about his side businesses?” I asked.

  “Willis knew for sure. Not as sure about Murphy, but there’s something going on there.”

  “Maybe she suspected something, but wasn’t sure what? In other words, she wasn’t in on it?”

  “Could be. Willis is definitely hiding something.”

  “Well,” Fenton said, rising and heading for the door, “it should be interesting.”

  As I rose to follow him, Cruikshank said in a low voice, “What are you hiding, Miss Nelson?”

  I turned and looked down at him. I was at least six inches taller than he was, not counting my heels. A feeling I couldn’t identify told me he was trying to scan me. I had run into empaths in the past, and my own mutation seemed to make me an enigma
to them.

  “Constable Cruikshank, don’t you know it’s rude to ask a lady’s secrets?”

  “I know you’re a mutant,” he said. “I can read your surface emotions, but that’s it. Nothing deeper. But there’s something that you’re hiding. Something about this case.”

  I leaned down and whispered, “My agenda and Inspector Fenton’s agenda aren’t completely in line with each other.”

  “I’m shocked, but that’s not what I’m talking about. You’re a witch, and you know something about these murders that you’re not telling us.”

  He took me by surprise—not so much what he said, but the utter seriousness and certainty with which he said it—and I straightened.

  “There are no such things as witches,” I blurted.

  “Oh, yes there are. I’ll be glad to introduce you to a coven, if you like.” He regarded me for a few moments, then said, “No, I can’t read you. Interesting.”

  Chapter 8

  Barbara Willis sat in the interrogation room doing her best to project arrogant upper-class pique. Detective Constable Cruikshank had a different take.

  “What do you think, Jon?” Fenton asked as we watched her through a monitor.

  “She’s about to wet her pants.”

  Fenton nodded and opened the door. He laid a folder on the table, sat down, and opened the folder. It contained pictures of Boyle. His face was barely recognizable.

  “We have evidence that Langston Boyle was involved with dealing stolen art,” Fenton said, ignoring the horrified expression on Willis’s face. We think he double-crossed someone, and they had him killed. We don’t know if they recovered the art or the money they thought he had, but if they didn’t, they’re going to come looking for it. And anyone they think might have been involved is a potential target.”

  He looked up from the pictures. “The kind of people we’re dealing with don’t really care if they get the wrong person.” He opened a second folder containing pictures of David Abramowitz and Karen Schultz.

  “You worked closely with Langston Boyle,” Fenton said. “You were romantically involved with him. Do you think these people will believe you when you say that you don’t know where he kept what they’re looking for?”