Jane Cleland - Consigned to Death

Sasha nodded and smiled her little smile. Gretchen hung up the phone and I turned my attention to her. “I’m heading out. I expect to be back by, I don’t know, maybe by noon.” I shrugged and smiled. “Feel free to call if you need me.”

She looked as if she’d like to ask where I was going, but I pretended not to notice. I didn’t want to tell her I was, once again, meeting the police about a murder.

I hugged myself, shivering, as I waited for Max. The rain had stopped, but it was still overcast and the ocean was dark and rippling with two-foot swells. Seaweed had washed ashore overnight, and the sand was pockmarked from the pounding rain. With the gray sky and sharp wind, it felt more like fall than spring.

Max made his way across the street and joined me on the dune.

“Cold today,” he remarked.

“Raw,” I agreed.

“You have the price?”

“Yeah. I had to call New York and London, but I’ve got it.”

“Did you tell anyone why you were asking?”

“No. I stayed vague.”

“Good.” He nodded. “Are you ready for what Alverez is going to ask?”

“What?”

“I don’t know. But the research was just part of the plan.”

I nodded, but didn’t speak.

“Well,” Max said, sounding philosophical, “we’ll just have to wait and see.”

“There’s one more thing,” I said.

“What?”

“I think Barney killed Mr. Grant, and I think I know why,” I said, rushing to get it out.

Max turned to look at me. “What?”

I explained about Roy’s revelation, the call from the Taffy Pull, and how Barney and Paula were related.

“The Taffy Pull? What call? What are you talking about?”

I stared at Max for a stricken moment, then turned away to look out over the ocean and avoid his penetrating gaze. How could I have forgotten that he knew nothing about the research I’d done? In fact, he’d disapproved of conducting an outside investigation at all. Worse still, I realized I’d completely put my foot in my mouth. I couldn’t reveal anything, no matter how crucial, without betraying Wes’s confidence. And that was not an option.

I shrugged, trying for innocence. “I heard about the call, that’s all.”

“From whom?”

“Rumors spread, you know?” I shrugged again. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter, does it? What matters is that, apparently, no one at the store admits to making the call. And nothing would be more natural than Barney, one of the family, stopping by, and while there, using the phone. No one would think anything of it.”

After a short pause, he said, “You’re going to have to talk about how you learned about the call.”

I took a deep breath and shook my head, still looking out over the water. “I can’t.”

“Be prepared for fireworks. Alverez is going to go ballistic.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t say anything about it at all.”

Max thought for a moment. “Let me guide the conversation. I’ll try to share your findings without revealing too much. But you shouldn’t withhold things if they’re relevant.”

“What about what you said about not volunteering information?”

“This is different. Your expertise has revealed a connection he might well have no way of knowing. We don’t know its relevance, but it would be improper to withhold it.”

I swallowed, flickers of fear tingling up and down my spine, causing me to shiver. I hoped Max would think I was chilled, not weak. “What should I do?”

“One-word answers, Josie.”

I nodded, and, resigned to my fate, went slowly across the street.

Alverez greeted us and led the way down the hall to the now-familiar interrogation room. Once we were settled, and with the recorder’s red light aglow, I said, “The highest price I found for a Matisse at auction this year was twelve million dollars, but I don’t think we can count on that amount. Realistically, I think the estimate would be in the one- to three-million range.”

“Why? Why would our Matisse only go for one to three million dollars if another one sold for twelve million dollars?”

“For some reason, there’s a lot of volatility in the market right now. It’s true that one sold for twelve million dollars, but I think it’s an aberration. It could be anything. An overly eager new collector with a lot of cash in his jeans, for instance.” I shrugged. “The fact is that lately most of his paintings have sold for between eight hundred thousand and one million dollars.”

Alverez nodded. “So, for a private sale…”

“Well, for a private cash sale, I should think that you have to discount a lot.” I shrugged again. “I don’t know… I think I’d ask for two hundred fifty thousand dollars cash and hope for a hundred thousand.”

Alverez shook his head and tapped his pen on the desk. “That doesn’t seem like a lot, does it.”

“No,” I agreed.

“In making the request, would you put any restrictions on the transaction?” he asked. “You know, like cash only?”

“Oh, yeah. For sure.” I smiled. “Let me remind you that I have no hands-on experience with this sort of thing. But it occurs to me that maybe I could arrange to have the money electronically deposited in an offshore account somewhere if paying in cash wasn’t convenient for my buyer.”

Alverez nodded and made a note. While he was writing, Max said, “Josie had an experience that we think you need to know about.”

Alverez tilted his head and looked at me.

I detailed the picker Roy’s revelation, adding, “If Barney is broke, that changes everything, you know?”

Alverez nodded. After a moment, he said, “Thank you for the information.”

“Were you aware of his financial situation?” I asked.

“I’m not at liberty to discuss the investigation.”

“Apparently,” Max said in a neutral tone, “Barney is related to one of Josie’s part-time employees, a young woman named Paula Turner. We don’t know if that’s relevant in any way, but we wanted to pass on the information. I gather that Paula’s family runs a candy store called the Taffy Pull.”

Alverez snapped to attention, his eyes boring into mine. “What do you know about the Taffy Pull?”

“Nothing,” I answered.

“Then why do you think a connection between the store and Barney is relevant?”

“I don’t. I thought it might be, is all.”

“Don’t quibble,” he told me.

“I don’t know.”

He glared at me. “Why?” he persisted.

I stared back, gripping the sides of the chair, afraid I would betray my weakness by crying, determined to hold my own. I reminded myself that I’d done nothing wrong. “I’ve told you everything I can.”

He thumped the table. “Now, Josie. Tell me what you know.”

I jumped, startled by his outburst and the unexpected noise, then took a deep breath. My heart was banging against my chest, and I was having trouble breathing. “Don’t yell at me,” I said in as unruffled a tone as I could marshal.

“I’m not yelling,” he shouted, agitated.

We scowled at one another.

Max cleared his throat. “I’m not sure this line of questioning is productive,” he said.

Alverez turned on him. “She tells me I have a leak in my department and you say it’s not relevant?”

Max shrugged. “You don’t know that it’s a leak. First of all, people gossip. Second of all, the police aren’t the only people who knew about the connection between the Taffy Pull and a call to Mr. Grant.”

“They damn well were supposed to be.”

Max shrugged again. “Come on, Ty, what about the phone company employees?”

I’d forgotten that Alverez’s name was Ty and wondered, as I had before, whether that was short for Tyrone. I also noted that using it in the midst of an angry altercation was an effective way of lowering the volume, of reminding someone that you shared a personal relationship. It reminded me of my father’s instruction about handling anger. He always said that when other people are loud and shrill, you should take a deep breath, smile politely, and speak quietly and courteously. It disarms them, kiddo, he told me. Kill ’em with kindness. They’ll follow your lead Because you’ll sound like a leader.