Perry looked up, his expression blank. “No.” He shrugged. “I don’t think so. She looks like a lot of people.”
“You know someone else who looks like her?”
Perry shook his head quickly. “I just mean she doesn’t seem like anything special.”
The man said oddly, “Oh, she’s something special, all right.” He put the photo back in his jacket pocket.
“Are you a cop?” Perry inquired.
The flat eyes met his own, and Perry felt a little prickle at the back of his neck. “Yeah, that’s right. Keep it to yourself, though.”
“Sure.”
He glanced around, and Nick was striding down the street toward them, his face impassive, but eyes alert. Did he think there was trouble here?
Perry nodded to the man and moved away. The man continued to watch him. Had he done anything to give away his recognition of the photo?
Nick reached him, asking, “Who’s your friend?”
Perry glanced back. The man was walking into the bakery.
“I don’t think he’s anyone’s friend.”
He told Nick about the photo of Jane back in the day, and Nick said grimly, “He’s no cop.”
“How do you know?”
Nick shook his head. “I just know. Do you think he believed you about not recognizing the picture?”
“He seemed to.” Perry glanced back uneasily. “It doesn’t look like he’s watching me.”
Nick put his hand briefly on Perry’s arm. “Yeah, and let’s not get caught watching him, or he’ll know it’s bandits at twelve o’clock.”
“If he’s not a cop, why would he be asking about Janie?”
“Why don’t we ask Jane?” Nick said.
They were in the pickup and on their way back to the estate when Perry remembered to ask, “Did you learn anything at the sheriff’s station?”
“They’re releasing Teagle. They got confirmation on his alibi. He couldn’t have killed Swiss, and even these idiots can see that the two murders are probably connected.”
Perry said slowly, “Maybe Miss Dembecki thought Swiss was a burglar and used her trusty poker on him.”
“And then what?” Nick questioned. “Shot Tiny when he tried to blackmail her?”
Trying to imagine Tiny having the smarts to attempt blackmail was even harder to picture than Miss Dembecki blowing him away with her trusty .44 Magnum.
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Perry shrugged. “Probably not. But I think Janie is right. I think Miss Dembecki is losing it.”
“Yeah, I think you’re right.”
“Did you notice how excited she was at the idea of the passageways?”
Nick nodded.
“And she’s been searching the grounds, searching the gazebo.” Perry sighed. “She must have been in my rooms for a reason.”
Nick kept his eyes on the road. “You think she’s looking for the jewels too.”
“I do, yeah. If she’s getting senile, then I guess there could be another explanation of course, but…”
“That’s how I read it,” Nick agreed, and Perry felt foolishly flattered.
“What do you think happened? Shane Moran hid the jewels in one of the secret
passages and then was killed before he had a chance to retrieve them?”
“Now that…I have no idea.” Nick considered, chewing. “I guess it’s possible. If it’s a fact that he and Alston’s wife were lovers, she might have told him about the passageways. In fact, he may have already known about them -- they may have used those tunnels to smuggle booze into the house. The question is why would Moran stash the jewels at all? Why wouldn’t he just leave with them? What would there be to come back for aside from them?”
“Why did he hang around in the woods to get shot?” Perry agreed.
Their eyes met.
“Verity Lane?” Perry suggested.
Nick frowned. “You think he thought she might change her mind about leaving?”
“Maybe.”
Nick grimaced. “Then he was pretty stupid.”
“Maybe he just really loved her a lot,” Perry said quietly.
* * * * *
Inside the house, Jane was pacing up and down the front hallway.
“Did you see that? There was a news van here a while ago! I called the sheriff on them.” She smoothed her hands up and down her upper arms.
“Are you still not feeling well?” Perry asked. Now that he thought about it, he was pretty sure Jane hadn’t left the estate in over a week.
She snapped, “This goddamned place is freezing. I think the old bat turned off the furnace.”
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“Which old bat?” Perry asked.
Jane gave a harsh laugh.
Perry’s eyes met Nick’s, and he read the message there. “Janie…” he began awkwardly.
As Perry told Jane about the man who was going around town showing her photo, Jane turned paler and paler until she was so white he feared she was going to faint. Nick must have thought so too, because he took her by the arm and guided her to one of the overstuffed chairs by the unlit fireplace.
Jane put her face in her hands. “What did you tell him?” she asked, muffled.
Perry said, “I told him I didn’t recognize you.”
She looked up, fastening her green gaze on him. “Did he believe you?”
“I don’t know.”
Nick said, “Even if he did, sooner or later he’s going to stumble on someone who knows you from that picture. This is a small town.”
Jane nodded. She seemed to be listening to an inner voice. An inner voice delivering some very bad news.
“Who is he?” Perry asked, and Jane’s eyes jerked his way.
“I have no idea.”
“But…”
She said carefully, “I don’t know who he is, but I know who sent him.”
“Who?”
Her face worked. At last she said huskily, “Have you ever heard of Michael Cimbelli?”
“No,” Perry and Nick said at the same time. Their eyes met.
“Michael is -- was -- the head of the Martinelli crime family.”
Nick said nothing. Perry said, “This is going to be really bad, isn’t it?”
Jane said, “I’m not a former hit woman, if that’s what you’re thinking. I didn’t have anything to do with that P.I. getting murdered -- or Tiny. This is nothing to do with any of that.” She licked colorless lips. “I was Michael’s mistress for four years. Then I…left him.”
“And he doesn’t take rejection well?” Perry asked.
“He doesn’t, no. But that wasn’t the main problem. I” -- she swallowed -- “I agreed to testify against Michael in exchange for protection. I went into the Witness Protection Program, but Michael’s lawyers were able to delay a trial by claiming that Michael was mentally unfit. They’ve successfully stalled for three years. Now Michael has been declared competent to stand trial.”
“And his goons are looking for you?” Nick finished.
Jane nodded.
“Won’t the Witness Protection people move you again?” Perry asked.
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“They would,” Jane said. “But they don’t know where I am, and I don’t want them to know.”
“Why?”
“Because I left the program. I didn’t want to live my life like an animal in a cage,” she said passionately. “And because of David.”
“David?”
“Center,” Nick supplied.
“I know who she means,” Perry said. “I just can’t…David?”
“Hey,” Jane said with a flare of spirit. “You’re in no position to talk. You were on the verge of falling in love with a guy on the Internet named Marcel. At least I actually know David.”
Before Perry could respond, Nick said, “Don’t they move spouses and lovers into the program?”
Because, Jane’s poor choice of men aside, this was the crux of the problem. If Jane went back into the program, she would never see David Center again -- which instead of being the relief you’d expect, was apparently tragic enough that she was considering risking her life.
Jane bit her lip and nodded. “They do, but David and I aren’t at that point in our relationship. We need more time.”
“You don’t have more time,” Nick said flatly.
Perry and Jane both stared at him.
Nick said, “You can’t stay inside this house indefinitely, and even if you could, sooner or later someone in town is going to recognize you from that photo.”
“Or,” Perry said suddenly, “Your picture is going to turn up on the newswire.”
“I have to think,” Jane said, rising.
“There’s nothing to think about,” Nick said. “This is survival time.”
Jane did not answer. She went into her apartment and closed the door quietly after her.
“What do we do?” Perry asked Nick.
“Nothing,” Nick said. “This is her choice.”
“But…”
Nick was already on his way upstairs.
“There’s got to be some way we can help her,” Perry was saying as they reached Nick’s tower room. They could hear the phone ringing from inside.
Nick unlocked the door. “She’s a grown-up. She can make her own choices. Stay out of it.”
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He opened the door and got the phone, and Perry listened to the one-sided
conversation while he stared out the window at the bare trees and clouds moving in from the north.
“Just winding things up here,” Nick said after the initial greetings were out of the way.
That would be Roscoe calling -- the former SEAL buddy with the private investigation firm in California.
Perry listened to Nick’s silence, and then Nick said slowly, “Another week, but I can probably move it up if I have to.”
Perry closed his eyes. When he opened them, he could see the little circle of his breath on the windowpane.
* * * * *
Mr. Teagle came home and went straight to his rooms, locking himself in. The sheriff’s deputies returned and questioned everyone again, and Perry went over each and every step of coming home from San Francisco and finding the dead man in his bathtub.
“They’re trying to work out a timetable,” Nick told him. “They’ve narrowed Swiss’s death to Friday afternoon -- which lets you and Teagle out, but leaves everyone else here a suspect.”
“If Swiss was a private investigator, what was he investigating?”
Nick said, “Apparently, even his secretary didn’t know. She’d been on vacation when he took whatever job it was he took on. But here’s the thing…” Nick’s expression was guarded, as though he knew Perry would not like what he was about to tell him.
“What?”
“Swiss apparently had mob ties.”
Perry stared, trying to make sense of this. Then he said indignantly, “No way did Janie kill that guy. And then what? She killed Tiny to keep her secret? No fucking way, Nick!”
“I’m just telling you --”
“Who said he had mob ties?”
“Roscoe.” And at Perry’s look, Nick explained, “I asked him if he could do a little checking for us.”
Us? There was no us. Nick wanted this thing wrapped up as fast as possible so he could split for California and not have to give Perry or this place a second thought.
“I don’t care what that asshole Roscoe thinks, Jane didn’t kill anyone!”
Nick’s dark brows rose. “Where the hell is this coming from? Roscoe doesn’t think one thing or the other about this. He just ran a name at my request.”
“Did you share that information with the sheriff?”
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Nick met Perry’s glare, unmoved. “No, I didn’t. But if you think they won’t put this together pretty damn quick, your head is buried as deep in the sand as Bridger’s.” More patiently, he said, “Come on, Perry. You saw how frightened she was today. If someone came after her, it’s possible she might have struck out in a panic. You heard the stuff she said about accidentally killing someone and not being able to come forward.”
“She wasn’t talking about herself.”
“You don’t know that.”
“What about the Alston sapphires? What happened to that theory? We haven’t talked to Mr. Stein.”
“I’m sure the cops did, even if they didn’t ask him about the sapphires. Besides, what motive would he have for knocking off a Jersey P.I.?”
“According to you, motive doesn’t really matter that much. It’s all means and opportunity. That was what you said before. And even if she’d known about the secret passage -- which I don’t believe -- Jane wouldn’t be able to drag Swiss anywhere. Or Tiny.
And the same goes for Miss Dembecki. Which leaves David Center, Mr. Stein, and you.”
Nick cut off his immediate exasperated response. He really didn’t want to get into an argument with Perry over this. They had little enough time left as it was. He said, “The sheriff is satisfied that Center is not faking his blindness. Which doesn’t mean that he couldn’t supply the muscle if Bridger needed help carting a body around.”
“If they were on those terms, I think Janie wouldn’t be worried about his leaving here with her,” Perry said tartly.
Nick privately thought he had a point. Which also brought up the fact that if Bridger had killed two people, wouldn’t she be calling her pals in Witness Protection to come get her so she wouldn’t have to deal with a murder investigation?
He said, “Just because motive isn’t the only thing that cops look at doesn’t mean it doesn’t factor in at all. I never said that.”
Perry raised his eyebrows in haughty skepticism -- a look that sat oddly on his pointed features. Instead of pissing Nick off, it made him want to laugh, and grab the kid, and wrangle away his bad mood in the best way he knew.
He controlled himself however and said, “I think maybe in this case motive is a factor, and I think the motive of a bunch of loonies searching for some lost sapphires is kind of farfetched.”
“You think a million dollars is a farfetched motive?”
“I think those jewels are probably scattered all through the woods. I think I don’t want to waste time arguing with you.”
That got through. Perry’s eyes raised to Nick’s, and the set lines of his face relaxed.
“Come here,” Nick said softly. “I want to share another one of my theories with you…”
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* * * * *