Fatal Impressions (18 page)

“Did you see this?” Loretta held out Tuesday’s
Daily Reporter
, open at the gossip page.

“No, I haven’t seen the papers. What’s happenin’?” Bethany asked. She took another sip from the paper cup of Starbucks’s strongest and blackest she’d picked up on her way to the office. She’d decided not to eat or drink anything prepared at DDD&W. The people were so hostile toward the Greene Gallery they’d probably poison anything that came near her and Loretta. Anyway, everything here had sugar in it.

“Another story about DDD&W,” Loretta said. “Listen:

Jonathan Hathaway, the scion of one of Boston’s most established families, is dining tonight in Beantown—not on beans, we hasten to add—with Ian MacDonald, chairman of the Prince Charles Stuart Museum, of Stuartville, New York.

Under the late James Davidson’s will, the Prince Charles recently received the multimillion-dollar Davidson Americana collection, from DDD&W, the New York–based consulting firm. But somebody grabbed all the goodies before shipping the bequest to the museum. According to sources who’ve seen what arrived in Stuartville, the museum got only scraps and bobtails, a fraction of what they’d expected.

Hathaway’s wife, art dealer Dinah Greene, and her cousin, Coleman Greene, editor of
ArtSmart
, discovered that the collection had been stripped of its most valuable objects. Hathaway is the bearer of the bad news to the museum. (See
Arts Section
for a related article.)”

Bethany nearly spilled her coffee. “Wow! They know everything, don’t they? What’s the related article?”

“They printed the list from the will beside the list of the things that went to the museum. Is Coleman giving this stuff to the columns?” Loretta asked.

“I’m sure she’s responsible for the earlier pieces, but not this one. Jonathan won’t like havin’ his name or Dinah’s in a tabloid, and Coleman wouldn’t ruffle his feathers. I’m guessing the
Daily Reporter
picked up the story from the
New York Examiner
and did its own research,” Bethany said. She dropped her empty cup in the trash basket and sighed. “Okay, let’s hang—but first, who’s going to chat up the Moose?”

“I’ll do it. I don’t mind,” Loretta said.

She’d tackle Moose right now. But first she’d stop by the ladies’ room to check her appearance. She needed to look her best for this little job. Every time Moose had seen her in the corridors he’d complimented her clothes. He was a noticing man.

The Joan Crawford­–cut turquoise suit and matching platform shoes were just right. The rosy lipstick was perfect, too. She touched the hair sticks she’d tucked into her chignon. Well, knitting needles really, left over from unsuccessful attempts by her great-aunt to teach her to knit. But they’d be sold as expensive hair sticks if she’d had to buy them at Bloomingdale’s. They were hot. She’d buy some more when she’d saved a little. She enjoyed the admiring stares of the DDD&W men, and she looked forward to interviewing the Moose. This was a chance to strut her stuff. She knew what to do; she’d been watching TV detectives for years.

Moose, his brow furrowed and a pencil behind his ear, sat behind an enormous desk littered with paper. He looked up and grinned. “Well, howdy, Love Bird! You here for help? You got the right guy. What can I do for you?”

Loretta leaned against the wall inside his office door and considered Moose. Despite his compliments, she didn’t think he was interested in her sexually, or that talking trash with him would get her anywhere. Today he looked really busy. His eyes were cold, and his jaw looked tight—she’d cut to the chase. She could flirt anytime; this was business.

“You talked about Patti Sue fighting. We know the other woman was Naomi Skinner. Who’s the partner they were fighting over?”

“You got the women right. Forget about the partner, Sweetie. Don’t go there. And stay away from those women. Trust me. Patti Sue’s a mean, ugly bitch, and so is Skinner. Messin’ around with them is dangerous. Don’t get involved. Forget it.”

Loretta, thrilled with having their suspicion of the Skinner woman confirmed, tried again.

“So you’re not the partner Patti Sue and Naomi Skinner are fighting over?”

Moose guffawed. “Get real, Love Bird. The DDD&W women are bow-wows. I take out models and stars—at least, I did before I got married. Lemme show you a picture of my wife.” He picked up a silver-framed photograph from the array on his desk and handed it to her. Loretta recognized the exquisite face, the perfect body, the de la Renta ball dress. She’d seen that lady’s photograph in fashion magazines. Moose must be loaded big-time. Maybe even a billionaire. Dressing the way she did cost plenty.

“Wow! Isn’t she on the best-dressed list?”

“That’s my girl,” he said, his round face glowing with pride.

“I can see why
you
wouldn’t be interested in Patti Sue or Naomi Skinner. But can’t you tell me who is?” she begged, her tone as persuasive as she could make it.

He shook his head, and no matter how she wheedled, he wouldn’t say another word. She gave up and rejoined Bethany and the hangers. When she repeated the conversation to Bethany, Loretta added, “But he knows who the partner is. He just didn’t want to tell me.”

“You think he’s involved with those women?” Bethany asked.

“No, I believe him about that. Anybody married to that Nicole Kidman look-alike wouldn’t go out with what he calls bow-wows. But I think he knows all about it, just won’t talk.” She shrugged. “Boy stuff. Loyalty to the other boys above all. Anyway, we know for certain who the other woman is.”

“Good. I’ll send Rob an e-mail. Let’s hang prints.”

Bethany was standing on a ladder in the hall hanging a print when her cell phone rang.

“Bethany, it’s Rob. We have a problem.”

When he explained that Dinah’s tools had been used to sabotage the bookshelves, Bethany groaned. “Got it. What do you want me to do?” She climbed down the ladder and moved out of earshot of the other hangers.

“See if you can open that file cabinet without a key. Try a nail file or a letter opener. Find out who has duplicate keys to your office and the print storeroom. Someone must. And Bethany, don’t tell anyone about this. Jonathan doesn’t want Dinah to know until she has to.”

“Okay, done.” Zeke, who’d followed her down the hall, raised his eyebrows. She climbed down and smiled at him. “I’ll tell you later, lover. I’m going back to the office for a minute,” she said and hurried down the hall.

When she and Loretta had arrived yesterday, the metal file drawers were locked, and the key had been where Dinah said she’d put it, taped to the bottom of the stapler in one of the desk drawers—not findable without a time-consuming search. Seemed unlikely that whoever used Dinah’s tools would have wasted time looking for the key, and since the killer wanted people to believe Dinah did it, he or she wouldn’t have forced the lock. So how did the killer open the file, and relock it?

Similar cabinets in her high school had interchangeable keys. She bet these did, too. She walked around a couple of corners and stopped at an assistant’s desk. The young woman looked up. “May I help you with something?”

“I hope so. I can’t find the key to the filing cabinet in my boss’s office. But it looks like it’s one of those cabinets where one key fits all. May I borrow yours to see if it works? I’ll bring it right back.”

“Sure, here it is,” the woman said, handing her the key.

Five minutes later, Bethany returned the key. “Just as I thought, your key fits my boss’s file cabinet,” she said. “Thanks.”

The young woman shook her head. “Don’t mention it. Some security, huh? I’ll remember not to leave my wallet in there.”

Bethany grinned. “Me, too. Thanks again.”

Now for the other keys. Dinah said that Ted Douglas’s assistant had arranged the installation of the locks. She was Bethany’s next stop.

“Hi! I’m Bethany Byrd, Dinah Greene’s assistant. We’ve begun hangin’ prints, and I wanted to introduce myself. But I also wanted to ask you something.”

“What’s that?” The woman was so colorless, she was nearly invisible. Grumpy, too. The corners of her mouth turned downward. Douglas’s wife must have hired her.

“The doors to the office and the storage room were open when we got here—I guess Dinah left ‘em that way ‘cause there weren’t any unhung prints lyin’ around. But we’ve had some prints delivered, and we’re expectin’ a whole lot more, and we need to be able to secure ‘em,” Bethany said.

The woman frowned. “Where are the keys I gave Dinah Greene?” she asked.

“I don’t know, ma’am,” Bethany lied. “Maybe she took ‘em with her?”

The woman nodded, her face sour. “Typical. No one here can keep up with keys.” She opened her middle desk drawer and pulled out a large ring holding thirty or more keys, each labeled. She removed two from the ring and handed them to Bethany. “Don’t bother to return them,” she said. “I have several more sets.”

“Thank you so much,” Bethany said. Another moron. Anyone
could have taken those keys. She called Rob and reported what she’d learned.

“Thanks, Bethany. That helps. I’ll tell Jonathan, and he can give the information to Sebastian Grant. The whole office had access to the tools and to the chairman’s office. That doesn’t clear Dinah, but it could mean reasonable doubt. I’m still trying to figure out how to make the police investigate Naomi Skinner. I’ve told several cops about how she had good reason for wanting Patti Sue out of the way, but they’ve ignored me.”

Ted hovered outside Hunt’s office until Hunt couldn’t stand it any longer and called him to come in. “The police are closing in on Dinah Greene,” Ted said. “They found her tool kit in her office here, and her tools were used to loosen the shelves.”

Hunt, astonished, turned to look at Ted. “And after she loosened the shelves, she left the tools here?”

Ted shrugged. “The office was locked, and so was the cabinet where the tools were kept. But that’s not all: Naomi Skinner cleaned out Frannie’s office, and Frannie had twenty or thirty master pass cards in an unlocked drawer. Anyone could have taken them. Anyone could have gotten in this office.”

“What an idiot that Johnson woman was. Are you saying Dinah Greene might have taken one of those cards?”

“Yep. The police now have two more pieces of information they needed. They’ve identified the tools that were used to loosen the shelves and learned that Dinah Greene not only had access to them, she used them all the time. Her tools are definitely the murder weapons and they know how she could have got in your office. I bet there’s an arrest soon, maybe as early as tomorrow,” Ted said.

“Maybe so,” Hunt said. But the story didn’t make sense. Dinah Greene was smart. If she’d used those tools to kill someone, surely she wouldn’t have left them behind. If they didn’t belong to her, he’d think they were planted, that someone was trying to frame her. But they
were
hers. She’d brought them in herself. On the other hand, if Dinah had access to the master pass cards, so did everyone in the office.

When Rachel telephoned Tuesday afternoon, Dinah almost failed to recognize her voice: Rachel, the most controlled person she knew, sounded excited.

“The Stubbs paintings are here! They are for sale in the Dulaney Gallery on Cork Street. My friend at the British Portrait Gallery has an appointment to look at them, and I invited myself to accompany him. I inquired about their history, and the story is rather odd: the seller prefers to remain anonymous and will supply provenance only to the purchaser. But Dulaney is a respectable gallery and would not knowingly handle stolen goods. The gallery received the paintings in January but was asked not to show them until March. My friend thought perhaps it had to do with taxes. If I sense a quick sale in the offing, what should I do?”

“If you think they’re about to be sold, do anything you can to stop it, and call us. But otherwise, don’t do anything. We don’t want to spook the thief. Thank you, thank you, thank you, dear friend,” Dinah said.

“I am enjoying being involved. You must tell me more. I am very curious about those paintings. And Dinah, you are the first to know—except for Heyward Bain, who is an angel—I am free of Simon. I now own 100 percent of the Ransome Gallery.”

Dinah congratulated Rachel and called Coleman. After exclaiming over the discovery of DDD&W’s Stubbs paintings in London, Coleman wanted to know how Bain had freed Rachel from Simon, but Dinah didn’t know the details.

“I’d never have believed it,” Coleman said. “I bet it cost Heyward plenty.”

“But even with a lot of money to pay him off, getting rid of Simon was a miracle. He’s a parasite—he’s fed on Rachel for years, he’d be hard to detach. Rachel says Heyward is an angel. I am so embarrassed when I think how much I disliked him when we met…”

“I know,” Coleman said. “And I still haven’t thanked him for helping my dream come true.” Or almost come true. She longed to tell Dinah about her difficulties with Colossus, but Dinah’s problems were so much more serious, Coleman couldn’t bring herself to add to her cousin’s worries.

Sebastian Grant was in a state his associates rarely saw: stymied. He was also in a tearing rage. He’d telephoned everyone he knew in the higher ranks of the NYPD, repeating what he’d heard about Harrison. To a man, they’d said “Got proof?” But the incriminating information had come from a retired cop. He couldn’t give them the guy’s name. His fellow officers would annihilate him for ratting out another cop.

He started over, calling everyone again. This time, he insisted that the
department
investigate Harrison. “If he turns out to be corrupt, and you haven’t even bothered to look into my allegations, I’ll see you all over the front page of the
New York Times
!” he shouted into the phone.

“You’re making up this stuff because he’s gonna arrest your client,” said one of the cops he was threatening. “We’ll investigate, but it’ll be so slow, your client will be in jail long before we’ve made the first call.”

Grant slammed down the phone and called the deputy mayor he knew best. But city hall wasn’t buying it either. “We can’t look like we’re yielding to pressure because Dinah Greene is connected. The mayor’s had a dozen calls about her—they all say she’s a saint, first cousin to the Virgin Mary. Maybe so, but she’s also a murder suspect. Get her out of the frame, and I’ll see that Harrison is investigated. But that’s the order it’s got to happen in—clear her, and we’ll check him out.” The deputy mayor hung up before Grant could reply.

Grant left for the gym to work off his fury. He’d get that bastard Harrison yet. When he’d cooled down and his mind had cleared, he telephoned Jonathan. He had a plan. They didn’t call him the Cobra for no reason.

“Why don’t
we
investigate Harrison?” Grant said. “The police should clean up their own house, but to hell with them. We’ll do it for them, and get plenty of proof. We won’t tell the bureaucrats until we have everything we need on Harrison and can nail him to the wall. We probably should have done it earlier, but I don’t think we could have turned up anything without the tip from Rob’s buddy about Harrison’s moonlighting at DDD&W. Who’d have thought it? Let’s start with the Fry Building and persuade the guards to tell us what they know.”

Jonathan didn’t hesitate. “I’ll call Greg Fry, and get Rob’s people on it right away.”

At last, a breakthrough and much bigger than Rob had anticipated: the lobby guards admitted that they knew Harrison worked for DDD&W and reported to Oscar Danbury. Yes, they’d agreed to call him about any incidents involving DDD&W. Yes, they’d called him when Frances Johnson was killed. They didn’t see anything wrong with it; still didn’t—until Fry’s head of security set them straight. Two guards were fired and the others were left wiser and more attentive to their duties, which included discretion.

The men had often seen Harrison with his sweetie, Trixie, who worked in the DDD&W cafeteria and dining room. She’d been tight with Frannie Johnson and Patti Sue Victor. Because of Trixie, Harrison spent a lot of time with the sisters. Another piece of the puzzle fell into place: the sisters had blackened Dinah to Harrison even before he met her—Dinah was the enemy, and Harrison’s expensive girlfriend was Trixie of the large bosom and fat-making food.

Now the brass would
have
to act. Rob faxed his notes to Sebastian Grant and called his friend at One Police Plaza and explained about the keys to Dinah’s office and file cabinet. Rob went on to tell his friend about the key cards found in Johnson’s desk during a DDD&W cleanup. Anyone could have borrowed Dinah’s tools. Anyone could have unlocked the managing director’s office. His friend agreed. The search was wide open. He’d alert the police.

“If Ms. Greene is innocent, I’m beginning to doubt we’ll ever get the murderer. Everybody in the place could get in everywhere. Their security is nonexistent,” Rob’s friend said.

“What about alibis?” Rob asked.

“Harrison and Quintero say your client is the only person without an alibi. They say that’s what’s keeping Ms. Greene in the frame.”

“I see,” Rob said. But he didn’t believe it. After they replaced Harrison, everything would have to be rechecked—this time, he hoped, by unbiased detectives. With the information on the easy access to both Dinah’s and Hunt Frederick’s offices, the search for the killer would have to be broadened. But a cloud still hung over Dinah’s head. If only they could discover the identity of the killer before everyone in town heard that she was—or had been—a prime suspect in a police investigation.