Catherine Nelson - Zoe Grey 02 - The Trouble with Theft (21 page)

Mr. McKinnon was
nodding in agreement.

I really don’t
understand the art world.

“Okay,” I said. “This
has been very helpful. Thank you both very much.”

“Would you like to see
the rest before you leave?” McKinnon asked.

I would have passed.
Natalie, however, was halfway up the stairs, deep in conversation with Mr.
McKinnon, before I could form a response.

__________

Mrs. McKinnon and I sat in the
kitchen drinking milk and eating Oreos while we waited for the art tour to end.
Mrs. McKinnon wasn’t as passionate about art as her husband was, apparently.
But she did ask me if I was going to get the painting back. I wanted to tell
her yes, I wanted to be able to right this wrong, to right all the wrongs in
the world, but I knew the chances of that happening were highly unlikely, and I
told her so. She didn’t seem surprised, but she had been just a tiny bit
hopeful my answer would have been different.

When Natalie was
finally ready to go, we said our goodbyes and thank-yous and got back in the
truck. I drove west to Eric Dunn’s house, watching the mirrors closely for
silver Cadillacs. I saw none. When we got to Dunn’s place, I noticed the Camaro
was not in the driveway and hoped he was home.

Having had such a good
time at the last stop, Natalie didn’t even think about passing on this one. She
was out of the truck and halfway to the door by the time I caught up. I rang
the bell and waited, not sure the door would be answered. But two minutes
later, Dunn did appear.

“Ah, the girl who
likes muscle cars,” he said, stepping out onto the porch. “And the girl my
client just pressed formal charges against. You shouldn’t be here.”

Natalie shot me a
look, heavy with judgment. It seemed her opinion of me, which had started off
on a bad foot, was veering off in an entirely backward direction now.

“I just have a few
more questions,” I said to Dunn. “Speaking of, where is your car? I didn’t
think you’d be home.”

He shrugged. “A friend
of mine borrowed it to run to the store. I’m sorry, but I’m afraid you really
must go. And next time we speak, you should have an attorney present.”

“I’m not here as a
defendant. I’m here as a bond enforcement agent. I’m looking for a fugitive,
and so long as our conversation maintains that focus, you can, and should,
speak to me. I only have a few questions.”

He studied me for a
beat, a faint smile playing over his mouth.

“Well,” he said,
smiling openly now. “Anything I can do to help.”

“You said you don’t
have any house staff, but do you use any kind of service company regularly?
Maybe a cleaning company or a lawn service?”

He shook his head. “I
have a woman who does the cleaning, but she’s not with a company. She and her
daughter do private work, and they’ve been with our family for years. I do the
yard work; I like getting my hands dirty.” He smiled again.

I pulled out the new
photo of Dillon. “What about this woman? Have you seen her before?”

He took the photo and
studied it.

“Is this the same
woman? I can hardly tell.”

“Do you recognize
her?”

“Mmm, I’m not sure.”

He was lying. As he
just reminded me, he was Jeremiah Vandreen’s attorney. Danielle Dillon had
beaten the crap out of Vandreen. I’d done the same thing, and he’d recognized
me. How was it he didn’t recognize someone else charged with a crime against
his client?

I took the photo back.

“I can see you have
some art in your home,” I said, looking over his shoulder to the display case
I’d seen on my last trip. Natalie shifted on the porch so she could get a
better look. “I’m wondering if any of your art has ever been stolen.”

“Oh, my gosh!” Natalie
said, bolting forward past Dunn into his house.

“Hey, wait a minute!”
he called, turning and following her in.

I hurried in after
them both.

“Is that a Russian
decorative egg?” Natalie asked, rushing up to the case and peering inside, her
nose inches from the glass.

“You’re familiar with
them?” he asked, the same surprise and appreciation in his voice as I’d heard
in Mr. McKinnon’s.

“Yes, they’re
extremely rare, and absolutely beautiful.”

They were looking at a
small egg-shaped thing propped up on a gold stand, about three inches at its
tallest point. It was gold, covered in intricate designs and inlaid with dozens
of gems, among them rubies, emeralds, diamonds, and several others I couldn’t
name but that looked pretty.

“This one was supposed
to have been crafted for the wife of the last czar of Russia,” Dunn said.
“There is none like it.”

“Wow,” Natalie said. “You
know, I heard Caroline Marks had a Russian egg in her collection.”

“I’ve heard that
rumor, too,” Dunn said. “Unfortunately, I was never able to see her collection
for myself.”

Natalie stared at the
egg for a while longer then stood upright and took in the other items in the
case. Now that I was closer, I could see I’d been right about the collection
being eclectic. Even my layman eye could see these items must have been from
cultures as differed as Africa, China, and Europe. Natalie walked to the left
and stopped. She was particularly interested a pair of jade sculptures. Well,
not sculptures so much as rectangular slabs of jade with carvings on them. They
were each about eight or ten inches in height, and they reminded me a lot of
the erotic carvings on the exteriors of Indian temples I’d seen in books and on
TV. (I really like to watch documentaries on the History Channel.) Each
sculpture depicted a man and a woman in an intimate position. Natalie stood and
pointed at the jade pieces as she turned to look at Dunn.

“These must be the
last two in existence in a private collection,” she said.

Dunn nodded and smiled
proudly. “There are only seven left in the entire world. And you’re right, the
other five are in museums.”

Natalie must have seen
my blank look because she began to explain.

“There was a Kama
Sutra-like ritual an ancient sect of Indians would perform in one of their
temples. They carved eleven of these jade pieces. They also had a jade
sculpture of their fertility god. They would place the carvings in a circle,
with the sculpture on a pedestal in the middle, and then perform Kama Sutra
acts with their mates inside the circle. It was believed doing so would help
the couples conceive. The temple was torn down long ago, and over time, four of
the carvings have been lost or destroyed.” She turned to Dunn again. “Several
months ago, I heard the sculpture was stolen from a private collection.”

He nodded. “I heard
the same thing. The location of the statue has been very hush-hush for the last
ten years, ever since it was removed from India, suspected to have been stolen.
All anyone knows is that it was in a private collection, but no one knows where.
It was big news when it was rumored to be stolen.”

“I heard the carvings
and the sculpture were in the same private collection,” Natalie said.

Dunn laughed. “I wish!
But, no, I’ve never had the sculpture. In fact, I’ve only seen photos of it.”

“This sculpture,” I
said. “It sounds expensive.”

They both looked at me
the way people look at the special ed kid when he says something that makes no
sense.

“‘Priceless’ is a
better word,” Dunn said.

“No price has ever
been fixed on either the sculpture or the carvings,” Natalie said, “because
they are agreed to be priceless. However, they would easily fetch several
billion dollars on the black market.”

“I’d say that’s a
conservative estimate,” Dunn said.

“That’s a lot of
money,” I said.

There was another
sorry-for-her look from each of them, then Natalie turned back to the case.

“You never answered my
question,” I said to Dunn. “Have you ever had anything stolen?”

“Why would you ask
that?”

This is that thing
people do when they’re lying—or are going to lie, in Dunn’s case. Honestly, I
would have expected more from Dunn since he’s a lawyer. Aren’t all lawyers
supposed to be liars? You’d think they’d be good at it.

“You have a lot of
rare and expensive items in this case alone,” I said. “I imagine there are
others throughout the house. People with rare and expensive items are often targets
of theft. It’s a reasonable question. I’m curious why you’re unwilling to
answer it.”

Dunn laughed. “Forgive
me for being curious. No, I’ve never had anything stolen.”

“That’s the second
time you’ve lied to me,” I said.

He laughed again.
“Really? How do you figure?”

I held up the photo.
“This woman, Danielle Dillon, beat the shit out of Jeremiah Vandreen a few
weeks ago. This photo was taken at the time of her arrest. All those photos
would have been given to you, as Vandreen’s attorney. Given the size of this
house and the amount of money sitting in this case alone, I’d say you’re a
pretty good attorney. It follows, then, that you are in fact familiar with the
Dillon-Vandreen case. You lied to me when you said you didn’t recognize her.

“You also lied about
having nothing stolen. Besides her connection to you through Vandreen, she’s
somehow associated with your address. The other two addresses she’s associated
with have had something very expensive stolen from them. Yours isn’t any
different. That you’re lying about it makes me believe you know something you
don’t want me to know. Naturally, I’m curious to know what that something is.”

His demeanor had
changed dramatically. He was no longer outwardly jovial and relaxed. He was
rigid, guarded, and angry.

“It’s time for you to
leave, Ms. Grey,” he said. His tone left no room for argument.

I may not like to be
ordered around, but I know when to fall back. This was one of those times.
Whatever I’d sensed radiating from Eric Dunn the first time I’d met him was not
money, at least not in whole. There was something else, something very much
like power. I wasn’t afraid, but I knew I could be, and a smarter person might
have been.

I was about to grab
Natalie when I heard a voice calling from the front door. It was the only voice
on the planet I never wanted to hear again.

“Eric, the door’s
standing open!” Priscilla Casimir said. “Did you forget to close it?”

“No, I was just
showing off my art collection,” Dunn called back. His friendly, carefree manner
had returned, but under it I could clearly still see the anger. “Actually, they
were just leaving.”

I did a mental eye
roll. I really hate Priscilla. There was no way to get out unseen. I heard her
stupid heels clicking against the hardwood floor as she came inside. Standing
up a bit taller, I braced myself for impact, trying to think quickly. 

“Let’s go,” I said,
reaching for Natalie.

She seemed reluctant
to leave. Throwing one last longing glance at the jade carvings and the Russian
egg, she took a step toward me. I reached out and took her arm. Not roughly,
but firmly, I pulled her past Dunn and toward the front door. We’d made it four
steps when Priscilla came into sight carrying a paper grocery bag. She stopped
dead when she saw me.

“Zoe,” she said in
that tone. “What are you doing here?”

“I had a couple
questions for Mr. Dunn about things that came up in the course of my
investigation,” I said.  “We were just leaving.”

I pushed Natalie on.

“What investigation?”
she asked.

“I’m not at liberty to
discuss it,” I said without stopping.

“You know, I’m
surprised to see you without Amy. You two are practically inseparable. You
always were.”

I couldn’t really
explain it, but the thought of Eric Dunn knowing about Amy,
my
Amy,
someone closer to me than even a sister, made my stomach turn. Not only with
disgust, but with fear. I’d never forgive myself if anything ever happened to
Amy. I had no real basis for that fear, but I wasn’t willing to dismiss it,
either. I didn’t understand enough of what was going on yet.

“You know,” I said,
slowing and turning back to Priscilla. “High school was a long time ago. Amy
and I aren’t very close anymore.”

“But at lunch, I saw
you together. You were having lunch.”

“She had information
about a case I’m working on. We met for lunch to discuss it.”

“But you said you’re
friends.”

“We aren’t close
anymore, but we both still hate you. We were only saying that stuff to get to
you.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, really.”

I hustled Natalie out
of the house and into the truck before anyone could say anything else.

I wasted no time in starting the
truck and driving away. My nerves were frayed. I didn’t think I could withstand
another encounter with Priscilla Casimir. Amy’s wish for something to happen to
Priscilla’s face might come true sooner than she thought. Secretly, this was my
wish, too, but I really tried not to run around hitting people.

I had just pulled onto
Horsetooth when I saw the silver Cadillac behind me.

“Who’s Amy?” Natalie
asked.

“The best thing to
ever happen to me,” I said, watching the Cadillac closely in my mirrors.

“You’re a lesbian?”
she asked, shocked at the idea.

“Not like that,” I
said, irritated. “Geez, what’s the matter with you? I never would have survived
my childhood if Amy hadn’t been there with me. Actually, I’m not sure I’d
survive adulthood without her.”

“But you said you
weren’t friends anymore.”

“Sometimes bad guys
use the people we care about to get us to do what they want us to do, or to
send us messages. I don’t really know what’s going on yet, but I didn’t want to
risk anything happening to Amy. Of course, I’d be more worried about whoever
they sent after her.”

“Why’s that?”

“Let’s just say Amy
can take care of herself.” Having taught me everything I know and knowing more
still, this was an understatement.

I drove to Timberline
and made a left.

“Where are we going?”

“The police station.”
For the third time today. When I’d made that stupid crack about doing this all
day, I hadn’t actually believed I would be doing it
all day
. It was
getting old.

“Why? I thought you
said my brother is busy.”

“Yeah, that’s not why
we’re going to the police station.”

This time the Cadillac
seemed to know what I was up to. When I turned left into the police station
parking lot, it made the next right. After turning around in the subdivision,
it stopped at the corner, waiting for me to leave the police station. Cussing,
I parked and turned off the truck.

“What are we doing?”
Natalie asked as I got out.

“We need to go inside
for a few minutes.”

She carried on as we
went inside, and I asked to speak with Ellmann. The officer behind the desk,
now a man, made the call. I watched the Cadillac from the door while we waited.

“Miss?” the officer
called. “He wants to speak with you.”

I took the phone from
the officer.

“What’s going on?”
Ellmann asked. “Is everything okay?”

“It’s about the
Cadillac.”

“It was following you
again?”

“Actually, this is the
fourth time today. The driver knows I only came here to shake him or her. He or
she is waiting in the subdivision across the street for me to leave.”

“Stay inside. I’ll
send someone to check it out. Don’t suppose you got a look at the driver.”

“No, don’t suppose I
did. By the way, the windows are tinted
way
beyond legal.”

Hey, we have laws
about that sort of thing in Colorado.

“I’ll be sure to have
the officer follow up on that.”

We disconnected.

I informed Natalie it
would be a few minutes, and she huffed as she flopped down onto the sofa. While
Natalie fussed, I went back to the door and peered out. About ten minutes
passed. I wondered how long the Cadillac would wait. Then, as if finally
catching on to the game, it tore out into traffic and zipped down Timberline.
The police officer Ellmann must have sent had only been about a block away. He
saw the Cadillac whip out in front of him, then he flipped on his lights and
sirens, taking up chase. Leaving them to it and satisfied the coast was now
clear, I turned back to Natalie.

“All right, let’s go.”

“What, we just had to
sit here?”

“Look,” I said to her
as we walked back to the truck. “You’ve been pretty useful to have around this
afternoon, but all you do is whine. If you’re going to tag along, you’ve got to
stop it.”

“I whine? I’m just
telling you what I want.”

I pulled out of the
lot.

“No, you’re
bellyaching because you can’t have your way; that’s not the same thing. I’m not
a patient person anyway, but I’m running particularly short today. I can’t take
anymore.”

“Fine. Why don’t you
just take me back to Alex’s?”

“I’m tempted to, but I
promised I’d entertain you for a while. He’s stressed enough without you
calling and whining every five minutes.”

“I want to go back to
Alex’s house.”

“See?
That’s
how you tell someone what you want. Unfortunately, it’s not going to happen.”

“Where are we going?”

“The place I work. I
have to look up some things.”

“Why can’t we go talk
to some more people?”

I shot a glance at her
across the truck.

“You were actually
having fun, weren’t you?”

“Fun? I don’t think
so.” She was doing a bad job of hiding it.

“So my lame job of
driving around looking for people all day is actually kind of fun, isn’t it?”

“I will admit, I was
able to view two private collections I would have otherwise never been able to
see, both of them containing really rare and unique pieces. But it’s pushing it
to say it was fun. I think sitting around your office while you do research
will be boring, that’s all.”

“Uh-huh. Well, with
any luck it won’t take very long.”

“Then we can go talk
to some more people?”

I thought about where
I was with the Dillon case. I felt like I’d made progress, but that progress
hadn’t brought me any closer to finding Dillon. And I wasn’t sure what my next
move should be, so I didn’t know who I might go talk to. Cory Dix was still
hanging out there, though. If she really wanted to do something exciting, I
could let her chase him around for a while.

__________

When we got to the office, I parked
in the main lot and used the front door. The weekend receptionist smiled at us
as we passed, busy talking on the phone and working at the computer. The door
to Amerson’s office was open. Despite it being a Saturday, the man was still at
the office. In fact, as far as I knew, Amerson was at the office from open to
close every day of the week. This didn’t leave much time for a personal life,
and I wondered if the military had squashed any ideas he might have had for a
personal life a long time ago. This thought made me feel sad for him.

“This is where you
work?” Natalie asked, looking around.

“Yep.”

Through the window, I
saw Amerson stand, hang up the phone, then pick up a file and move around the
desk. We were just passing his door when he came out of his office.

“Grey,” he said.
“Where’s Dillon?”

“I’m working on it.
How’d it go with Zornes last night?”

“Bagged him. Now it’s
your turn.”

Yeah, right. It had
taken three guys with more than twenty years of combined experience the better
part of six days to track Zornes down. I was one girl with a whopping four
weeks experience and had only been looking for two days. It wasn’t really a
fair comparison.

“Is this your boss?”
Natalie asked.

Amerson and I both
said no at the same time.

“You ever tried
telling her what to do?” Amerson asked Natalie.

She scoffed and shot
me a dirty look. “Yeah.”

“So you know it’s a
lot like herding cats. I don’t bother.”

“He just nags
instead,” I said, moving away from them. “Why don’t you two commiserate about
me for a few minutes while I check out a couple things?”

Before either could
respond, I turned and hustled down the hall. I ducked into the workroom and saw
another part-time guy at one of the computers. After a head nod and a “What’s
up?” I found a chair and we both turned to our work. My legal-pad notes were
getting to be a dozen pages long. I needed to get reorganized and try to
assimilate what I’d learned with what I thought might be going on.

My first step was to
run any new license plate numbers I’d written down. This is always the most
tedious part, but when something comes of it, it’s worth every bit of effort.
So far, I’d compiled an impressive list of plates and not a damn thing had come
of it, but I was—deep down—an undying optimist.

After checking the
plates against DMV records, I punched them into the spreadsheet then sorted
them by plate number. Not surprisingly, there were no duplicates. Next, I
sorted them by location. I ran my finger down the list quickly, not expecting to
find anything. Then I saw it, the name “Andrew Dyer.” But I hadn’t found that
plate at Lyle Young’s place. According to my list, I’d seen that plate in Eric
Dunn’s neighborhood.

The one thing I didn’t
include on the spreadsheet was when I’d written each plate number down. I
picked up the legal pad and flipped back to the first page, scanning the plates
until I found the one I was looking for. I’d written that one down on Friday,
the first time I’d gone to Dunn’s house.

What were the chances
of Eric Dunn being connected in some way to
another
person associated
with this case and Danielle Dillon?

The more I learned,
the more I suspected Eric Dunn to be right in the middle of everything. I had a
gut feeling he even knew where Danielle Dillon was. I wondered under what circumstances
he might tell me.

I leaned back in the
chair and read over my notes, starting from the beginning. The first place I’d
been was the Conrad house. I’d talked to the neighborhood busybody, Bonnie
Matheson. I’d learned about the Conrad murder, which had proven to be, in one
way or another, connected to the rest of this case. Bonnie hadn’t recognized
the photo I’d shown her of Dillon, though. Since Linda McKinnon hadn’t
recognized Dillon until I showed her the new photo, I thought it was worth a trip
out to Matheson’s place again. If she could ID Dillon, I might be able to
figure out just how Dillon was connected to the Conrads, their house, and their
son.

I was finishing up a
couple things when Natalie came in. She held her phone out to me.

“It’s for you,” she
said.

I took the phone as
she dropped into a chair beside me.

“I wanted to get back
to you about the Cadillac,” Ellmann said. “The officer chased the driver
through town, down Harmony, and out to the interstate. The driver cut off a
semitrailer just before the on-ramp and caused it to jackknife. Traffic is
still backed up, literally across town, and the officer was caught behind the
semi. About all I know for sure is the officer ran the plate; it’s registered
to Aaron Shelton. This was the same car you saw the first time. We still don’t
know anything about Aaron Shelton.”

I sighed. “That
sucks.”

“Yeah. You said this
was the fourth time you’d picked him up today?”

“Yes. The first time
he got tied up in the parking lot, and I was able to get lost in traffic before
he caught up. The next three times I drove to the police station. I shook him
the first two, but like I said, he got wise to my plan this last time.”

“Strange he was able
to pick you back up three times.”

“Yeah, tell me about
it.”

“Okay, there’s
obviously some explanation. An easy one is that he put a tracking device on
your truck. I’m going to call Amerson and ask him to look it over.”

“Why Amerson? I’m
perfectly capable of looking at the truck.”

“Zoe, Amerson’s
military career involved a lot of electronics. He used to be the guy planting
the trackers. If there’s one there, he’ll find it.”

“How do you know about
Amerson’s military career?” I asked. “
What
do you know?”

“Nothing I can say.
Wait for him to take a look before you leave, okay?”

“When did you and
Amerson become so close?”

“Amerson can be a
dangerous man. He and I became close the day you started working with him.”

Ah. It was one of
those
things.

“Are you close with
everyone here?” I asked.

“Close enough,” was
all he said.

I found it kind of
annoying Ellmann had been getting to know the people I was working with,
because it was sort of like checking up on me. I knew he did it because he was
worried about me, which I thought was sort of sweet. But mostly it was
annoying.

We disconnected, and I
handed the phone back to Natalie, who dropped it in her bag.

“Dean gave me a tour
of the office,” she said. I thought she was blushing a little bit.

“Really? There isn’t
much to see.”

“I think it’s great.”
She was
definitely
blushing now.

“Great,” I said,
packing the last of my things back into my bag and logging off the computer.
“It looks like you’ll get your wish. I’ve got someone else to talk to.”