Secret Combinations (13 page)

Tigger returned with the mail file and plopped it on the desk. It contained a thick stack of opened envelopes.

“Anything I should watch for?” asked Kenyon.

“I tagged most of the bills and client checks,” said Tigger. “I think the rest is tosh. Have a look, though.” The reception phone rang, and Tigger rushed out.

Kenyon pulled his chair closer to the desk and began to work through the pile. He placed the top portion of bills and checks to one side; the rest consisted of solicitations for donations, invitations to exhibition openings and wholesale catalogues for art gallery supplies.

Tigger was still on the phone, so Kenyon re-sorted through the mail to make sure he didn't toss anything important out by mistake.

One envelope was from the Organ Donor Foundation. Kenyon had passed over it the first time, thinking it might be a solicitation, but when he glanced at it the second time, he noticed it was addressed to “The Estate of Lydia Kenyon.”

Kenyon opened it up; it was a thank-you letter.

On behalf of the Organ Donor Foundation, we wish to thank the family of Lydia Kenyon for her generous contribution to our program. We are happy to say that her specific donor card request to harvest her skin was fulfilled, and we used grafts to treat victims of a serious house fire. As well, her corneas helped to repair the sight of two glaucoma sufferers. Unfortunately, we could not, as per her wishes, donate her retinas to research, as the tissue had been damaged beyond the realm of use.

Sincerely yours, Dr. Clive Merton.

Kenyon stared at the letter for several moments; it simply didn't make sense. He finally dialed the number listed for the Organ Donor Foundation. It took several minutes for the agent to get through to Dr. Merton. “It says in your letter that the Organ Donor Foundation couldn't use her retinas because they were damaged beyond the realm of use,” he said. “I don't understand.”

“She suffered from photo retinopathy,” the physician explained.

“What's that in layman's terms?” Kenyon asked.

“Sun blindness. It often occurs when people stare at the sun too long during solar eclipses.”

“How bad did she have it?”

Merton flipped through the file, reading. “Her case was severe. Her retinas were too damaged to function.”

“You mean, she was blind?” asked Kenyon.

“Totally,” replied Dr. Merton.

Kenyon laughed out loud. “I hate to tell you this, but she drove at least five miles on the night of her death.”

“That's impossible,” replied Merton.

“I can round up a room full of witnesses, if you want,” Kenyon replied.

“I simply don't understand,” said Merton. “One of my colleagues had a soccer-playing patient who suffered only a fraction of the damage in Lydia Kenyon's eyes, and he was blind for a week.”

“How long did he stare at the sun?” Kenyon asked.

“He didn't. Hooligans shone a laser pen in his eyes during a match.”

“A laser pen?”

“Yes. They're intended to be used as pointers in lectures, but some of them are so powerful they can severely blind a person.”

Kenyon felt his head swim. “Could the damage in Lydia's eyes have come from a laser pen?”

Dr. Merton paused for several seconds. “Yes,” he finally replied.

Detective Inspector Arundel sat in
Lydia's office at the gallery, listening intently on the phone. He held the Organ Donor Foundation letter by one corner, pinched between the thumb and index fingers of his right hand.

“Yes, Dr. Merton,” he said, staring at the letter. “I understand.”

Kenyon watched from the other side of Lydia's desk. When the
FBI
agent had called Arundel with his revelation, the Scotland Yard detective had been skeptical at first, but had finally agreed to come down and examine the evidence at the gallery.

“Thank you, Dr. Merton,” Arundel concluded. “We shall be in touch.” He hung up the phone and laid the letter from the Organ Donor Foundation down on the desk. “This is most peculiar.”

“It's not peculiar,” said Kenyon. “It's murder.”

Arundel stood up and walked over to a shelf in Lydia's office. He stared blankly at the books for a second, lost in thought. “As I said, it
is
most peculiar.”

Kenyon squinted his eyes warily at Arundel, sniffing trouble. “What's your problem with this?”

“You are basing your claim on one piece of evidence,” Arundel replied. “What if the Organ Donor Foundation made a mistake at the lab and mixed up Lydia's retinal tissue with someone else's?”

“We can double-check.”

“Dr. Merton just told me her retinal tissue was destroyed,” Arundel said, pointing to the phone.

“That doesn't matter,” Kenyon said, slapping his hand on the desk. “I
know
what happened.”

Arundel leaned against the wall and crossed his arms over his chest. “Then, do tell.”

Kenyon had spent the last half hour trying to piece it together. “You saw where Lydia was killed,” he began. “The murderer stood behind a tree in ambush and waited for her car to come up the hill. Once it came around the bend, he shone the laser pen into her eyes and blinded her. She lost control and flipped the car. Pow. She's dead.”

“Allow me to play the Doubting Thomas,” said Arundel. “Under your scenario, the killer needed to know in advance where she would be that night.”

“Easy,” Kenyon said, flipping a sales pamphlet to the desk. “The auction was sponsored by Lydia's gallery. It was widely promoted. You didn't have to be a genius to think she would be there that night.”

“Agreed. But, secondly, and more significantly, the killer needed to know when she was leaving.”

“Not that important,” said Kenyon. “It's a lonely country lane. The killer simply had to keep out of sight until she came up the hill. You can hear a Morgan coming from quite a distance, and those headlamps would be easy to spot.”

Arundel nodded. “Finally, and this is important, the killer needed to know which route she would take back from the auction into town.”

Kenyon fell silent for a moment. “Maybe she made a habit of going that way.”

“Perhaps,” Arundel said, pulling out his cigarette case and lighting one. “Assuming, for the moment, that all that is true, then why would someone go to the trouble of using a laser pen? Why not simply use a gun?”

“Because they wanted it to look like an accident,” said Kenyon.

“But a laser pen? I've never heard of such a thing.”

“Exactly,” said Kenyon. “It was brilliant—there was no way any coroner would pick it up. Why check a driver for blindness? The killer only got caught out because Lydia donated her eyes.”

“I agree, it is rather ingenious, but it still leaves one question: why kill her in the first place?

Kenyon stared at the surface of the desk. “I don't know.”

“I'm afraid that's not good enough.”

“What do you mean?”

Arundel waved his hand vaguely in the air, swirling the smoke from his cigarette. “What you've told me, without a motive, dear chap, it doesn't make a case.”

Kenyon stared at the detective. “You're telling me you're
not
going to launch an investigation?”

“I simply cannot go to the chief inspector and ask him to commit valuable resources based on suppositions and evidence that no longer exists.”

Kenyon punched the surface of the desk with his fist. “What more do you want? You think she blinded
herself
?”

“Be reasonable, Kenyon. What would your superiors say if you showed up with such a nebulous postulation?”

Kenyon pointed to the door. “Get out of my office, you stuffed-up piece of shit.”

Arundel's eyebrows rose. “I shall pretend I never heard that.” The detective crushed his cigarette in the Picasso ceramic and straightened his jacket, then brusquely left the office.

Kenyon sat at Lydia's desk, staring at the still-smoldering butt in the ceramic. He felt like hurling the ashtray against the wall and smashing it into a million pieces, but he resisted the urge. It took several minutes to calm down, but he finally regained his temper enough to dial the phone.

The telephone rang three times before it was picked up on the other end.

“Gonelli here,” croaked the familiar voice.

“Marge, it's Kenyon calling from London.”

There was a second's pause. “It's three o'goddamned clock in the morning. What the hell is going on?”

“I'm sorry, but I have to talk to you. They murdered Lydia.”

That snapped her awake. “What?
Who
murdered her?”

“I don't know,” Kenyon said, taking a deep breath. “I just know she was.”

“Okay,” she said, half talking to herself. “I'm gonna put on some coffee. Then you're going to tell me everything what happened.”

While Gonelli filled the percolator in her kitchen, Kenyon related finding the letter from the Organ Donor Foundation and his thoughts on how Lydia was killed with a laser pen.

“The first thing you do, you call Stan Fairmont, the legal attaché in London,” said Gonelli. “He's a good man.”

“I can't, he's in Belfast,” said Kenyon.

“Oh, yeah, I forgot,” replied Gonelli. “You try the contact at Scotland Yard?”

Kenyon snorted. “Yeah; he didn't believe any of it.”

“You're shittin' me?”

Kenyon mimicked Arundel's voice; “I simply
cannot
go to the Chief Inspector and ask him to
commit
valuable resources based on
suppositions
.”

“The bureaucratic butt-wipe,” said Gonelli.

“Somebody killed her, Marge. And nobody cares.”

“Jack, it's time for you to come home.”

“I'm not coming back until I catch the murderer,” Kenyon said, sitting straighter at the desk.

“Whoa! You start mucking around, you're going to end up screwing up the case.”

“What case?” retorted Kenyon. “There is no fucking case.”

Gonelli's voice firmed. “You come home on the next available plane.”

“No.”

“That's an order!”

“I'll quit.”

Gonelli sighed, then fell silent for a moment. “As your commanding agent, I must inform you that any exploitation of your position as an agent of the
FBI
in this situation is unauthorized. You are strictly a private citizen with no official status.”

“Fair enough,” said Kenyon. “Now, are you going to help me find Lydia's killer, or not?”

“What, you gotta ask?” replied Gonelli.

“Thanks, Marge,” replied Kenyon. “Where do we start?”

“The murderer seemed to know a lot about her habits,” said Gonelli. “Let's start with her pals.”

Kenyon thought of the people he had met so far. “Well, there's Tanya O'Neill, her lawyer, and Bruno Ricci, the gallery manager, and Ilsa and Raymond Legrand. Oh, and there's this art evaluator named Hadrian deWolfe.”

“Okay,” said Gonelli. “Who had the means, motive, and opportunity?”

“Well, I know the means; somebody blinded her with a laser pen.”

“These laser pens; can you get 'em in England?” asked Gonelli.

Kenyon scratched his head. “I don't think they're illegal—you can probably order one on the Internet and have it mailed in.”

“Okay, so that ain't gonna help much. What about motive? You know; jealousy, hate, greed.”

Kenyon sat up. “Yeah—Lydia was having an affair with Raymond Legrand. His wife Ilsa knew about it.”

“Hoo-hoo,” said Gonelli. “Did she have an opportunity for revenge?”

“Ilsa was hosting the auction the night Lydia was killed,” said Kenyon. “If she did it, she had to sneak out of the auction and cut across country in an evening dress and high heels.”

“What about Lydia's loverboy, Legrand?”

“Same problem, only no high heels.”

Kenyon could hear a rustling coming from the other end of the phone. He imagined Gonelli unwrapping the foil from a cigar. “What about dough? Who stood to gain financially from her death?”

Kenyon thought about Bruno Ricci. “The gallery manager's a real slimeball. I don't know how he'd profit, though.”

“Okay. Here's what you do next. You got access to all her banking records and stuff?”

Kenyon glanced around the office. The low, steel filing cabinet looked like a good place to start, and he remembered tucking Lydia's Filofax into the leather portfolio. “Yeah, there's plenty of stuff.”

“Good. I want you to go through it all and establish a pattern, you know, how she lived normal.”

“Okay, then what?”

“Then you look for something that don't fit.” Gonelli took a slurp of coffee. “Did she drop a lot of dough somewheres? Take a quick trip to Rio? When you find it, check it out.”

“Thanks for the help, Marge. Sorry I had to wake you up.”

“Don't worry about it, sweets. Give me a call when you got something.”

Kenyon hung up the phone and turned to the steel filing cabinet. It was locked, but he soon found the key and opened it.

The top drawer was for the gallery business, the hanging folders carefully labeled with utilities, tax statements, and client files. He closed the drawer and tried the bottom one.

The second drawer held personal files. Kenyon glanced through the papers. There were telephone bills, credit card charges, and other documents, all arranged by date. Kenyon was thankful that Lydia had a neat streak. He lifted out the files and placed them on the desk.

The agent examined the phone bills first. British Telecom listed each call made, including date, time, and duration. The most recent month wasn't in the file; he had to dig through the pile of new mail on Lydia's desk until he found it. Kenyon scanned the list until he came to the day of her death. There were half a dozen phone calls spread throughout the day; he would have to cross-reference them to numbers listed in her address book.