2 Pane of Death (25 page)

“You’ve talked to her?”

Nat nodded. “She was quite happy to cooperate—just in time for the twelve o’clock news. But she didn’t have anything to add. And I can’t see her doing the deed, or even contracting for it.”

This talk wasn’t cheering me up at all. “Nat, you’re eliminating all the suspects. Who’s left?”

Nat contemplated the exposed pipes on my ceiling. “There are still people who might have had a beef with Peter Ferguson and wanted him dead. There are fewer people who understood his glass collection, and even fewer who would know what to do with it if they got their hands on it. So, was killing Peter the primary goal? I don’t think so. I think the art has been at the center of this from the beginning.”

I nodded. “Makes sense.”

She looked pleased. “Good. Now, how about you tell me how someone got the stuff out of the house.”

“You mean, the physical process of moving it? You probably know as much as I do about it.”

“Maybe, but most of what I know applies to paintings or small objects. Big glass is a whole different arena. I mean, you don’t just pick up a panel and toss it in the back of a pickup, do you?”

I shuddered at the thought. “Not if you want it to stay intact. Okay, let me think.” Mostly I packed small individual glass items, but I knew something about the general principles. “To some extent it depends on how you’re shipping the piece. If you’re doing it yourself, if you’ve got your own truck, then it’s less elaborate than if you go commercial. But in any case you’ve got to keep the panels vertical, and they can’t be allowed to twist or torque. That usually means a crate, and that crate has to be tailored to the piece. You can’t just go to a package store and buy one.”

“Right. Which means somebody would have to have the measurements of each piece ahead of time.”

I shook my head. “But there
were
crates—Peter was still unpacking them at the house, up until the week he died. I don’t know if he’d kept the crates around, but it’s possible they never left the house. That would make the thief’s job a whole lot easier, if all the packing stuff was sitting right there and waiting for him.”

“Interesting point, Em. Either someone knew they’d be available, or someone got very, very lucky. Anything else?”

“You’ve got to make sure that there is some way to stabilize the crates in the truck—they can’t move around or crash into each other. That means some kind of braces, and I’ve heard that people also use bungee cords, which allow a little give but prevent hard bouncing. Am I telling you anything you don’t know?”

Nat smiled. “Hey, you’re the expert. Keep talking.”

“So once you have the crate, you’ve got to cushion the piece inside it—corrugated cardboard works, or high-density foam. And you need to tailor the packing if there are any irregularities in the piece.”

“What, no peanuts?”

“They compress too much.”

“Darn! And I thought we could just follow the trail of peanuts. Go on—I’m just having fun here.”

“Really, that’s about it. Protect the glass itself with some sort of covering, put it in a fitted crate, secure the crate in the truck, and away you go.”

Nat leaned back and contemplated the ceiling. “Okay. Nothing exotic in there, right? Let’s assume the crates were in the house. Would it take long to shift the panels into them?”

“Depends on how careful you wanted to be. You’ve got to remember, the oldest one of these panels is something over eight hundred years old, and it’s fragile. They all are. And it would definitely take more than one person to do it.”

“So someone knew the glass and knew what to do with it, and showed up with manpower and transport. How much would one of these suckers have weighed?”

“I’m just guessing, but maybe a couple of hundred pounds, even before the crating. And it would be better to have two men, to keep each one steady, maneuver it into place.”

“So the thief would have to have had at least one accomplice.”

“That about covers it. Does that help you any?”

Nat seemed focused on some inner voice, not me. “And it would take time, as you say. You don’t just slam a valuable piece into a box and run. That means they needed to spend time at Peter’s house—and they needed to know they wouldn’t be disturbed.”

“Yes. And for that they needed access—no alarms went off, remember? Matt said the system wasn’t on. But the question stands: Was Peter dead when the thief started, or was he killed along the way?”

“Pretty cool customers, if they stabbed the guy and watched him bleed out while they packed up the goods.”

“I suppose if you find the crates and there’s blood on any of them, you’ll have your answer.”

“Maybe.”

Another thought crept into my mind. “Will Peter have a funeral?”

Nat made a sour face. “Jennifer has that covered. To be precise, she is having the body cremated, and I think she plans to spread the ashes over the Arizona desert somewhere, since this was where Peter chose to be in the end. Then she’ll have some very public memorial service in someplace not quite as provincial as Tucson—starring Jennifer, of course.”

“Figures. Poor Peter. I wonder if this is what he wanted.”

After a moment of silence, Nat sat up straighter. “You got anything like dessert around here?”

“Ice cream.”

Her eyes gleamed. “You’re my kind of woman. Lead me to it.”

There followed a satisfying interlude while we inhaled three different flavors of premium ice cream. We were scraping the bottom of the cartons when Nat’s cell phone beeped. She turned away to answer. I busied myself with cleaning up the few dishes we had created; there were no leftovers to put away, much to Fred and Gloria’s disappointment. Of course I kept one ear on Nat’s end of the conversation, but it was mostly “yeahs” and “okays.” Not very helpful.

After a minute she slapped the phone closed and turned to me with an air of excitement. “Looks like we’ve caught a break.”

“You going to tell me about it?” Moment of truth: Did she trust me?

“Matt’s picked up a guy who says he has info about the murder and he’s willing to talk, if we cut him a deal. I’m going to head over to his office now.”

And I wasn’t invited. Once again I felt like the little kid left out of all the fun. But I rallied: I really didn’t have any right to be there. And Nat would fill me in, if Matt wouldn’t. Right?

“You’ll let me know what you find out?” I said hopefully.

“I will, Em. I promise. Look, I’d better go. I’ll call you later, if I get a chance. And thanks a lot—I mean it.”

“Thanks for the dinner,” I said as I escorted her to the door. Maybe I was easy, spilling my guts for the price of a couple of egg rolls. But I really wanted to be sure that she, with or without Matt’s help, managed to get a lead on the glass before it disappeared to who-knows-where.

It was only after Nat’s taillights had vanished that I realized I had never mentioned what Cam had found in Peter’s files. I hoped that it was moot, that she wouldn’t need Peter’s algorithm to track down his own collection.

Nat did not call me that night. Nor did Matt. I wasn’t surprised, but I certainly was frustrated. Of course, even if they had a suspect in custody, it might take a while to put a deal together, find a lawyer, and contact the Pima County District Attorney’s Office and all that stuff. Or maybe the guy didn’t really know anything and had just been stringing them along. Or if he did give them useful information, maybe they were busy tracking down the rest of the gang. It was clear that this heist had required more than one person to pull off, so there had to be others involved. In the end I gave up staring at the phone, willing it to ring, and went to bed. My sleep remained undisturbed by phone calls.

The next morning I was out of sorts, and even Allison noticed when I stalked into the shop. “Something wrong, Em?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know. I’m just cranky. There’s too much going on, and nobody will tell me anything. I’m going to try to get some work done, okay?”

“Don’t forget you have a class later,” she reminded me.

“I know. At least that should keep me busy. Let me know if you need me for anything.”

As penance for my bad mood, I went to my so-called office next to the studio and put in the orders for the materials I needed, which involved sorting out details about my new trucker, all of which took some time. Then I called Chas and told him what I’d done, which took more time. Finally I allowed myself to go into the studio, and fired things up. Normally I could fall easily into the rhythms of working with hot glass, but today something was off, and I ended up botching more pieces than I normally would. Glass demands full attention, and unfortunately my mind was somewhere else. I was actually relieved when Allison interrupted me. “Em, there’s a phone call for you.”

I followed her back to the shop and picked up the phone, trying not to snarl. “Em Dowell.”

It was Ian Gemberling. “Ah, Em, I’m glad I caught you. I wondered if you’d given any more thought to what we talked about the other day?”

My, he was impatient. “Of course. But I’ve got a lot of questions too. Where are you?”

“Still in Tucson at the moment, although I should be leaving in a day or two. Why?”

“Can we get together? Somewhere down here?” I looked at my watch. I could squeeze in lunch if he could get here quickly.
Look at you, Em
—
like your time is more valuable than Mr. Hotshot Gallery Owner’s?
“How about lunch?”

He hesitated a moment. “That, would, ah . . . yes. Shall I meet you at your shop, say, noonish?”

“Noonish. See you then.” I hung up before he could change his mind. Frankly, I wanted to see him here in the shop again, watch what pieces of mine he responded to. I wanted him to articulate what drew him to my art—if he could. Something about this still seemed off to me, and I hoped it wasn’t just my lack of self-esteem talking. I looked down at myself, my usual grubby work clothes. And then I decided that I didn’t care. I was doing what I loved to do, and I was comfortable, and if Ian Gemberling didn’t like it, too bad. We were going to have lunch on
my
turf and talk about
my
work.

I realized that Allison was staring at me strangely. “What?” I demanded.

Poor Allison quailed at my tone. “Nothing, nothing. It’s only . . . you seem a bit angry. You’re having lunch with that gallery owner again?”

“I am. I don’t want to have this thing hanging over my head. I want him to tell me what pieces he likes and why, and then I can decide if I want to twist my life out of shape for this show of his.” And then I realized how I must sound to any rational person. “Sorry, Allison. I guess I’m on edge. A man I respected has been murdered, and I found him dead, and nobody will tell me what’s happening with the investigation. And there’s just so much else going on—the missing art, and now this idea of a show. But I didn’t mean to take it out on you.”

“Not to worry, Em. It’s a lot to think about, I know. Can I do anything to help?”

“How about we go through my glass pieces and decide if we want to juggle what’s on display? We’ve got a little time before he shows up.”

In the end I did shift some of the more commercial pieces to the storeroom and brought out a couple of “artsy” pieces, but mostly we just straightened and dusted. If my pieces didn’t speak for themselves, it was too late to do much about it.

Ian arrived promptly at noon, looking unruffled by our impromptu luncheon. Maybe he was used to dealing with temperamental artist types, not that I’d ever seen myself as such. I tried to be more gracious than I had been on the phone. “Welcome, Ian. I’m sorry if I’ve upset your plans for the day, but I thought since you were still in town, we could take a look at some of my pieces and you could tell me what you’d like to see in a show.”

“Delighted, my dear. And I appreciate your candor. Most people would be blinded by the opportunity, but I think you’re approaching this quite intelligently. Peter was right about you.”

I tried to ignore the compliment, although I was still glad that Peter had believed in me. “Well, then, let me walk you through some of my works, and you can tell me what you think.”

We spent a pleasant half hour dissecting my pieces. Not surprisingly, Ian was an informed and articulate critic, and I found myself looking at my work and how I described it in a new light. Up until now I had been proud of surviving—setting up a business and making a living doing what I loved—but Ian made me wonder if I had been underestimating myself. In any case, we both seemed very pleased with ourselves.

He checked his watch. “Shall we eat?”

“Do you like southwestern food?” When he nodded, I said, “Then follow me.”

I escorted him to one of my favorite semi-upscale places—the food was reasonably authentic, but the ambience was a cut above funky. He ordered knowledgeably from the menu, and when the waiter had left, he turned to me.