To Catch a Leaf (31 page)

“This is a picture of Frank Talbot, a suspected art thief.”

Griffin's eyes widened. “Does my aunt know about that?”

“I don't know what your aunt knows. When I showed her this photo, she fainted.”

“She tends to do that when she's stressed.” Griffin glanced at his watch, then straightened, as though he were about to leave.

I got to my feet. “Is it possible your aunt was letting Francis into the house to steal the paintings?”

“Anything's possible, but I really don't know. Look, I need to get back to my writing. I have a deadline coming up.”

What a champ. Griffin was more concerned about his deadline than with the fact that he'd just ratted on his aunt. Seriously, was making a deadline
that
important?

“One more quick question. Did your grandmother visit you Monday morning?”

He glanced at his watch again and said hurriedly, “She came to say good morning, as she always did.”

“Why did she cancel her manicure that morning?”

“I didn't know she had, and that's two questions, not one.”

“Sorry, I'm terrible at math. So your grandmother came to see you right after her argument with Juanita?”

Griffin's Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed. “She what?”

“Didn't she come to tell you she knew about your affair?”

“That's beyond absurd. Once again, where do you get these ideas?”

“Come on, Griffin. Your grandmother found out Juanita was sneaking over to your apartment, so she canceled her appointment to have a talk with you, to ask you to call it off. But you must have denied the affair; either that or you told her you wouldn't call it off—”

“Not true!”

“—because at lunchtime, she had another argument with Juanita, and shortly afterward was pushed to her death.”

His face drained of color.

“Did Juanita push your grandmother down the stairs, Griffin?”

“No!” he said in a choked voice.

“Can you prove it?”

“I don't have to prove her innocence.”

“Okay,” I said. “We'll let the cops do that. I'm sure Juanita will love knowing you wouldn't defend her.” I turned, as though to walk away.

“Wait!” He put one hand on his forehead, as though he didn't know what to say. Then, after a heavy sigh, he said, “Juanita was with me.”

“I need details, Griffin.” Remembering another one of Marco's favorite lines, I added, “I can make this go easier on you and Juanita both if you talk to me.”

He sank onto the bench and put his head in his hands. For several minutes, he sat there shaking his head, as though he couldn't believe what he was about to do. Finally, in a small voice, he said, “Nita came over after lunch, all upset, saying my grandmother had threatened to tell my father if we didn't stop seeing each other. Nita's fear was that my father would divorce her and she would be poor again, so I told her I would support her, but she said we couldn't afford to take that chance. Then she took off in her car and didn't come back until after the police arrived.

“Yes, it's true Grandmother treated her like a child, but not in a bad way. Grandmother wasn't happy with my father when he married Nita, but she accepted her.”

“Just not as your lover.”

He seemed to sag inwardly, as though the weight of his guilt was too much. “It was wrong, and I knew it. Grandmother pleaded with me to stop seeing Nita, but I denied that anything was going on. She left angry and disappointed, so very disappointed, in me—and that was the last time I saw her.”

He put his hands over his face and turned away, his shoulders shaking in silent sobs.

I left him there to mourn privately.

What an afternoon. I'd gotten a lot more information than I'd expected and couldn't wait to tell Marco about it.

 

When I got to Down the Hatch at five o'clock, the concerned frown on Marco's face was enough to make me forget all the exciting news. “What's wrong? Did something happen?”

He began to massage my shoulders. “Did it go all right with my mom? She didn't give you a hard time about the invitation, did she?”

“Not at all. It went surprisingly well.”

The worry lines between his eyebrows disappeared and then he lifted me off my feet in a bear hug. “That's great, Abby.”

“Were you really that concerned?”

He scoffed. “Not at all.”

Yeah, right. That was the way Marco always reacted to good news. “Why don't we sit at our booth and I'll tell you about my amazing afternoon.” I suggested.

“You can tell me in the car. We have to take a field trip to Chicago this evening to track down the elusive Professor Francis Talbot. With a little luck, Abby, we may be able to wrap up the art-theft case tonight.”

“And clear Grace's name, too?”

“Let's hope so.”

“Awesome. And yes, that's my stomach growling again.”

Marco picked up a large brown bag. “I have sandwiches packed. We can eat on the way.”

“What spurred this field trip?” I asked, folding back the wrapper on my sandwich as we headed north to the interstate.

“Three things. First, after making a lot of phone calls to various former employers this afternoon, I was able to track down a cell phone number for Professor Francis Talbot. Then, after some serious arm-twisting and promises of free beer, my source at the cellular provider e-mailed me Talbot's records for the last thirty days, and it appears he's been in England for part of the month. But there was one call on the list made to a cell phone registered to Virginia, and that establishes enough of a connection for us to talk to her again.”

“If Francis has been in England, then he obviously directed the operation from there.”

“That's what I was thinking. After more phone calls, I found out that Mrs. Talbot is back in residence, so I figured we should get up there tonight and see if she can verify that Francis is our man Frank.”

“Perfect timing, Marco. Let me tell you what I found out this afternoon. You will be so amazed.”

I went through the whole story from beginning to end, feeling quite proud of myself, and then opened the floor to questions.

“I have one,” Marco said, taking a swig of water to wash down the last of his sandwich.

Only one? I must have done a better job of explaining than I thought. “Go ahead, please.”

“What the hell were you thinking, Abby?”

He was a lot less amazed than I'd imagined.

“Breaking into their house? Putting yourself in jeopardy? Did you think any of it through beforehand?”

“Well, to tell you the truth—”

“What if Griffin was in on the art scheme with his aunt?”

“I'm pretty sure he's not.”

“With Juanita, then? What if he's our killer? What if Griffin decided to make sure you couldn't tell anyone else? Can you even begin to imagine the danger you put yourself into? Why didn't you at least let me know where you were going?”

Way more than one question. “In the first place, I wasn't there alone, Marco. Virginia was up in her studio and—”

“Virginia was up in her studio on Monday morning, too, Sunshine, if she's telling the truth. It's not the same as someone having your back.”

“But I got answers.”

Marco sighed so deeply, clearly frustrated, that it seemed to start at his toes. “Abby, Abby.”

Merely by the way he said my name I could tell how disappointed he was, and that was much worse than his being angry with me. Disappointing Marco made me feel awful.

“I'm sorry, Marco. I got caught up in the moment.”

“You let your ego take over, Sunshine. That's how private investigators get themselves killed.”

I wanted to argue, but the little voice of conscience in my head said,
He's right. You were on such a roll, you threw caution to the wind.

Did consciences always talk in clichés?

At least Marco was still calling me Sunshine. “You're right. I knew better. I promise I'll try not to let that happen again.”

He reached over to take my hand. “I do my best to protect you, babe, but I can't protect you from yourself. Just be aware of the signs that your ego is taking control and stop it immediately, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Good. Now, tell me what happened with my mom today.”

“Your mom was a big help in the shop, Marco. And get this! She liked the invitation we picked out and wants us to have one big shower instead of separate showers for each side of the family.”

“Are you sure this is my mom you're talking about?”

“Yep. And she asked me to call her Francesca.”

Marco sighed again, but this time it was a sigh of relief and came from the belly region. When he stopped for a red light, he leaned over to give me a kiss, then pulled back to gaze into my eyes. “I love you, Abigail Christine Knight.”

He remembered my middle name! And that made
me
sigh, but mine started at heart level.

 

It was still light outside when we got to the Gold Coast neighborhood where Francis Talbot lived. There was no public parking lot in the vicinity, so Marco had to circle the block for fifteen minutes before we finally found a parking space along the curb. Inside the high-rise condominium building, a doorman in a blue blazer with black braids on the sleeves asked us to sign in at the reception desk. Marco wrote down our names, then displayed his ID to the security guard behind the counter.

“I'm Marco Salvare,” he said. “This is my assistant, Abby Knight. Are you William?”

“Yes, sir, that's me,” said the sixtysomething man with salt-and-pepper hair.

“I spoke to Maryann at the management office today,” Marco said. “She told me she'd let you know I was coming this evening to meet with Mr. and Mrs. Talbot.”

“Yes, sir, she did say you were coming in to see them. This is about an inheritance, isn't that right?”

“That's right,” Marco said. “Our job is to make sure we have the right Francis Talbot before the legal department can proceed any further in processing the inheritance. And along those lines, would you identify the man in this photo please?”

Marco held out a copy of the newspaper picture of Frank Talbot. William glanced at it briefly, then nodded. “That's Mr. Talbot, all right. It's an old photograph, but that's him. I'm sorry to say that Mr. Talbot is out at the moment, Mr. Salvare, but Mrs. Talbot is here. Do you want me to ring her?”

“That would be helpful,” Marco said. “She's in the penthouse, right?”

“That's right, sir.”

As William picked up a phone at his desk to call the Talbot apartment, I whispered, “How did you know they live in the penthouse?”

“I didn't, but I figured he'd tell me which floor if I was wrong.”

“They must be doing well financially.”

Marco held his finger to his lips as the security guard began to talk.

“Mrs. Talbot? This is William. I've got a gentleman here by the name of Marco Salvare. He wants to see you about an inheritance. Do you know anything about that?” He listened a moment, then said, “No, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. Thank you, Mrs. Talbot.”

He replaced the receiver in the cradle, then looked up. “She said to have a seat and she'll be right down.”

Wow. I couldn't believe Mrs. Talbot had bought our story. Maybe she was unaware of what her husband had been up to.

We looked around the spacious waiting area and decided on an upholstered sofa on the far side of the room, out of view of the bank of elevators. The reception room had a black marble floor and four long baby-blue sofas, with a beautiful silk centerpiece on a large, white marble-topped table in the center. Obviously this was a building for tenants with money.

I heard an elevator ding, and a minute later, a woman came around the corner. She was an attractive older woman in her midseventies with white hair cut in a blunt bob, with thick silver hoops in her ears.

I recognized her at once and grabbed Marco's arm, whispering, “It's her! It's Dot, Marco, the lady who was renting the Donnelly house.”

“She can't be Frank's wife, Abby. She's too old. She must be his mother.”

Dot looked very elegant in an apricot silk blouse and matching wide-leg pants with silver flats. When she spotted me walking toward her with Marco at my side, I saw a glimmer of recognition in her eyes, but she calmly turned and went back to the elevator. Before she could get inside the cab, however, Marco stopped the door from closing. He waited for me to enter, then let the door slide shut.