The Body in Bodega Bay (9 page)

But that was as close as we got to them. After an hour, Toby threw up his hands. “They're not here. Either Charlie never brought them to the shop, or whoever stole the icon found the storyboards and took them too. They're gone.”

Meanwhile, though, I had made a discovery. “Toby, come take a look at the catalog. The storyboards are listed on the first day of the auction, the icon on the second.”

“So?”

“That means that Charlie bought the storyboards first and then went back on the second day to bid on the icon. Why? I've checked his files and found the bill of sale. That's the sequence, all right. First he bought the storyboards, then he bought the icon, then he asked the auctioneer how to contact the consignor.”

“What does that tell us?”

“I wish I knew. Then, when he speaks to Rose, she tells him that the icon and the storyboards both came from her.”

“And a few days later, Charlie turns up dead, and both the icon and the storyboards go missing,” Toby summed up. He shook his head. “It still doesn't make sense. I'm going to search the shop one last time.”

Toby set out again, prying into drawers and nooks and crannies, and I began working on an e-mail to Dan. I tried to summarize our interview with Rose. I recounted what she had told us about her phone conversation with Charlie, her relationship with Peter Federenco, the circumstances under which he had given her the icon, including Peter's report of a threatening cousin, and what we had discovered so far about a link between the icon and Peter's artwork for
The Birds
.

An hour later I was almost finished when the bell tinkled above the door and a man entered. He was elderly, well dressed in a cashmere sport jacket and slacks, carrying a cane, yet walking briskly. He had close-cropped gray hair and a pencil-thin gray mustache. “Are you Mr. Sandler?” he asked Toby, who was going through a bookcase at the far end of the shop.

“That's me,” said Toby, approaching him. “Is there something I can help you with?”

“I came by this morning, but you were closed,” said the potential customer in a neutral tone, without accusation.

“I'm sorry for the inconvenience.”

“Not a problem,” returned the man, “I'm used to dealers who keep odd hours.” His eyes made a slow sweep of the gallery.

“So you're a collector,” Toby said. “Are you looking for anything in particular?”

“It so happens I am. I'm looking for something very particular.” There was a pause. Toby waited for him to continue. “But then my tastes are broad within the general category of my interest.”

“Which is?” queried Toby.

“Russian decorative arts—silver, jewelry, Fabergé eggs, pre-Revolutionary objects. And religious art,” he added, narrowing his eyelids meaningfully. “I have a small but to me very precious collection of Russian icons.”

Toby tensed. “And you've dropped in today because you happened to be passing by?”

“Not exactly. I saw a story on the news last night in San Francisco about the murder of your partner. It mentioned the robbery of your gallery. I'm very sorry. You have my condolences.”

“Thank you. So the story made the TV news in San Francisco,” said Toby, angling for additional information. “I didn't know that.”

“Yes, and there was mention of a Russian icon that might have been the object of the robbery,” continued the stranger. “That was the first time I was made aware that any gallery outside the city handled material of that nature, so I drove up for the day to see what else you might have along those lines. Again, I'm very sorry for your loss.”

“I see. Then I have to disappoint you. I don't have anything else at the moment that would meet your needs.”

“Nothing at all in the category of Russian icons or antiques? Imperial porcelain, perhaps?”

“I'm afraid not. We don't usually carry items of that description. The icon was a one-off find. A chance purchase, you might say.”

“Oh. Well in that case, I must be disappointed. May I ask if you were the one who made that purchase?”

“No, my partner did, and as a result, I know very little about it.”

“Ah. Out of curiosity, can you describe it? What was the subject, for example?”

“It was an icon of St. Michael, I believe,” answered Toby, “but I only glanced at it when my partner brought it to the shop. I know almost nothing at all about Russian art, to tell you the truth. I'm afraid I can't tell you much about it.”

“St. Michael, you say? A pity it was stolen. I have a special feeling for St. Michael. I would have liked to see it.”

Toby nodded.

“Are there any other galleries in Sonoma County I may have overlooked that carry religious icons or Russian objects of historical interest?”

“Not that I know of,” replied Toby. “But it might be worth your while to look around in Guerneville or Graton. Even Sebastopol. You never can tell what might come into a shop from week to week.”

“Yes, you're right. You know, I may spend a day or two more in the area. Let me give you my card. In case you do come across any Russian objects that might interest me, would you be so kind as to give me a call?”

“Of course.”

“And in the event that the missing icon is recovered, I would be extremely interested in seeing it. As I've said, I have a special reverence for St. Michael, and I won't quibble about price if I find a piece I like.” He extended his card to Toby, who slipped it into his shirt pocket without reading it. “Thank you,” said the stranger, and with that, he exited the shop, with a quick, polite nod in my direction.

I had felt a growing sense of unease during this conversation. Now Toby walked back to where I was sitting, withdrawing the card from his pocket. As he gazed at it, he stopped abruptly, then looked up.

“What's the matter?” I asked.

Wordlessly, he handed it to me. It was a plain white business card bearing a name, an address in San Francisco, and a phone number. There was nothing particularly interesting about the card except the name.

Andrew Federenco.

T
HE COUSIN?
The man Peter feared? I called Rose right away, but the best she could do was confirm that Andrew might have been the cousin's name. Honestly, she couldn't remember. Still, it was enough of a reason to call Dan. He picked up the phone on the first ring. He had just been reading my e-mail, and now with this piece of news, he decided to swing by to see us. He was at the shop within twenty minutes.

“Hey, guys. Thanks for the Cassini notes. Let's review them step by step.”

In answer to his methodical questions, we walked Dan through our interview with Rose, relating her conversation with Charlie and her tales about the past. We concluded with Andrew Federenco's recent visit. Toby handed over Federenco's card, and Dan studied it. “Address and phone number, that helps,” he said. “I'll have somebody get on it right away. Good job, you two.”

We thanked him. Dan was now following several lines in the investigation. He'd discovered that Charlie had been a regular at a high-stakes poker game run by a gambler named Arnold Kohler, who moved the game around from place to place in the county. It was rumored that Charlie owed him a bundle. Kohler's alibi for the night of the murder was strong, but he was known to have unsavory associates. Dan was also looking into Tom Keogh's affairs.

Toby mentioned that Tom had come to the shop and complained about his interrogation.

“Upset, was he?” Dan said, with a shrug of dismissal. “That's too bad.”

“Is he a suspect?” I asked.

“At this stage of the investigation, he's a person of interest. We don't have any evidence to hold him, but he did have a motive. You were right about there being bad blood between the two of them,” he said, looking at Toby. “Tom was jealous of Charlie playing around, and that's why they broke up. In fact, Tom threw him out of the house.”

“I guess I heard that from Annie when I stopped in for a beer,” said Toby.

“According to friends, they had a couple of loud fights in public about Charlie's infidelities before Charlie packed up and left. Tom admitted that much, though of course he denies having anything to do with Charlie's murder. Plus, he claims to have an alibi for that night, which we're still checking out.”

“Charlie owed him some money, too,” Toby added. “Did Tom mention that?”

“He didn't volunteer it, but it came out during the questioning.”

None of this felt right to me. “Tom Keogh didn't kill Charlie. He seems really broken up by Charlie's death.”

“That doesn't mean he didn't do it. I've seen other cases of jealousy leading to violence, and it's not uncommon afterward for the attacker to feel remorse. In fact, that's fairly typical in a crime of passion.”

Toby looked annoyed. “Aren't you jumping to conclusions?”

“No, I'm just speculating. Now I've asked you this before. Can either of you tell me what Charlie was doing on a lonely stretch of road leading out to Bodega Head at one or two o'clock in the morning?”

We couldn't.

“Because that's where he was murdered, on land, not on that boat. We've marked out a crime scene on Westshore Road between the marina and the turnoff to the housing for the marine lab.”

Dan's reference was to a desolate stretch of road that runs along the harbor from the marina leading out to Bodega Head. There's a research center out there for the study of marine life, run by the University of California–Davis. But aside from a driveway to a few small dormitories that provide housing for the lab workers, there's nothing along the shore but scrub brush and a few stands of cypress.

“We found an area of matted grass with scattered blood traces near the water,” Dan continued. “There was a struggle there. And there's a clamdigger's rowboat tied to a tree, which is what I think the killer used to transport the body. I'm guessing that he didn't intend to kill Charlie on that spot, but when it happened, he improvised disposing of the body by using the rowboat to haul him out to the grounded sailboat. Could be he figured that nobody would find the body for a while if it was stashed in the cabin. It was a moonless night and high tide around the time Charlie was killed, which made it easy enough for the killer to move the body without anyone seeing or hearing anything.”

“What about the people from the marine lab dorms?” I asked.

“We've talked to all of them who were there that night. No one heard or saw a thing—didn't expect anyone would, unless one of them happened to be out for a stroll. But we've got bloodstains on the rowboat, and I'm betting they'll match the stains found in the grass. And there's something else you should know. Someone broke into Charlie's apartment on the night he was murdered. Threw stuff around. In anger, maybe? That would fit a crime of passion. So I'm thinking, what if Charlie was on his way out to Bodega Head to hook up with some guy for a nocturnal tryst, and what if Tom caught him at it, followed him, say, and flew into a jealous rage? Let's say he didn't mean to, but he killed him, panicked, hid the body on the boat, and then trashed Charlie's apartment. It's a plausible scenario.”

I shook my head. “I don't know, Dan. If Tom killed Charlie and trashed his apartment in anger, are you saying he's the same one who ransacked Toby's gallery? That won't wash. Whoever went through the gallery did a careful search. Things weren't tossed around in anger. The person who did it was looking for something, not just vandalizing property. Maybe when Charlie's killer didn't find what he was looking for in one place, he went looking for it in the other—isn't that a more likely scenario?”

Dan grinned. “You know, I can walk and chew gum at the same time. If theft was the motive for Charlie's murder, that opens a different line for the investigation. That's why I'd like you to follow up on Rose Cassini's story about the boyfriend who gave her the icon and this cousin of his who was involved in a family feud. Didn't she say that an article appeared in a newspaper that spooked the boyfriend into giving her the icon for safekeeping? Let's find out what that was about. Is there any chance you could dig up that story for me? I've got enough on my hands. That kind of research is more in your line of work than mine.”

I had already thought of doing a newspaper search. “Sure thing. I can start going through the archives of the
Chronicle
tomorrow.”

“Good. You look for that story and I'll look for”—he glanced down at the card in his hand—“Mr. Andrew Federenco. Plus I'm still talking to Arnold Kohler. Then we'll compare notes.”

“Dan? One more thing,” said Toby.

“Yes?”

“What about Charlie's next of kin? Does his family know?”

“There's just the brother. I've been in touch with him. He's asking when the body can be released for a funeral. I think that can happen in another day or two.”