The Sayers Swindle (A Book Collector Mystery) (25 page)

“What?” I practically choked. I hadn’t left them alone with him for more than ten minutes.

Vera said, “Yes, after speaking with your Uncle Kevin, we’ve decided that there could be a mutually beneficial arrangement made. And I’ve been sorely disappointed in Eddie’s so-called gardening skills.”

“Huh?”

“Please, Miss Bingham, if you are not prepared to speak in complete sentences, at least you could try and use
actual
words.”

Kevin continued grinning and chewing, pausing every now and then for a slug of cognac.

Lucky for Eddie. He was off the hook, even though he’d volunteered.

“Your uncle has impressed me with his extensive knowledge of horticulture, and as you know, that has never been a strength of mine.”

Had Kevin picked up a knowledge of horticulture in some minimum-security prison or diversion program? No other Kelly had the foggiest notion of plant life or gardening, if you didn’t count cannabis. Of course, I wasn’t going to mention that.

Vera pivoted the wheelchair to face out the multipaned window. “Kevin will stay here in exchange for maintaining the grounds. Eddie can’t keep up with it, and not a single person has responded to our advertisements.”

I could barely squeak. “Here? With me?”

Vera shot me a querulous glance. “Doesn’t that suit you, Miss Bingham?”

“Oh, absolutely, it does.”

“He will have his own accommodations of course. There are rooms over the garage. They used to be the chauffeur’s and gardener’s quarters. Mr. Kelly has said he’ll be able to fix them up quickly. He’ll be very comfortable there.”

“Terrific,” I said with a sinking heart.

I had no idea what kind of conversation had passed between Vera and Kevin that could have gotten him moved in and employed here in the ten minutes it had taken me for first aid and a change of tights. Kelly charm strikes again.

The signora was so taken with him that she forgot to serve me dessert, and Vera didn’t even notice that the green in the sauce was clearly zucchini.

I knew I was the only person in that room who had made the connection about the cats going missing and the cats being found with Kevin’s need to have a new place to live. And Vera and the signora were never going to hear that from me.

I was very glad that Uncle Kev was alive, even though I felt like killing him.

Life would never be the same.

• • •

BACK IN MY
room, I tried not to dwell on exactly what life with Kev would be like. Vera and the signora might be besotted, but they’d learn soon enough. I had plenty to do and at least I didn’t have to worry that he was dead or that he’d killed someone. Not even Uncle Kev could be so vacuously cheerful if he had.

I unpacked my bag from Once More with Feeling. There was Police Officer Barbie, staring at me. I hoped the doll would cheer up Candy since our outing had been cut short. And then I realized I had no number for her, because it was kind of a one-way friendship. She had my address and my phone number and I had only her work information. I glanced at my watch. Good thing I’m a night owl.

I wanted to check on Karen anyway. And Burton wasn’t far from Grandville. As Candy had been called back to work, she might still be there. I wrapped up the Barbie box in pretty paper and then covered that with plain brown wrapping. I didn’t want to embarrass her in front of her colleagues.

• • •

FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER,
I parked the Saab in front of the Burton Police Station and walked in.

I smiled at the officer sitting at the desk.

“I’d like to speak to Officer Candy Mortakis. Do you know when she’ll be back?”

“Sure thing,” he said. “She’s here now. Name?”

“Jordan Bingham.”

He picked up an old-school interior phone. “Candy, there’s a young lady to see you.

“A Jordan Bingham.”

“No idea.”

“All righty.”

He looked back at me. “Go right through. Second desk on the left.”

Wow. Candy had a desk?

He buzzed me through an interior door.

An attractive blonde in a crisp white blouse and trim charcoal wool pants looked up from the file she’d been working on. She wore small gold hoops and a good leather belt. I approved.

“Yes,” she said as I approached.

“I’m looking for Candy Mortakis.”

“You found her.”

“What?”

She frowned. “Who were you expecting?”

“My friend, Candy.”

“I am Detective Sergeant Candace Mortakis.”

I blinked. “But there can’t be two people in this police department with that name.”

She chuckled. “Probably not in the whole world. Tell me, why do you think someone else had my name?”

“Because she told me.”

No chuckle now.

“She told you she was Candace Mortakis?”

“Officer Candy Mortakis.”

“Where did this happen?”

“Could I sit down? I think there’s something very bad going on.”

She gestured to the empty chair by the side of her desk. “Where?”

“Over at 87 Lincoln Way.”

“You mean 89.”

I shook my head. “No, I was looking for Mr. Randolph Adams at Number 87 and she came around and helped me.”

“She told you she was a detective?”

“Officer. She was wearing a uniform.”

“And she gave you my name?”

I nodded. “I don’t understand what was going on. Why would she—?”

“Why would she what?”

I paused and thought. There was so much wrong here. I couldn’t trust the “other” Candy, whoever she was. “Randolph Adams and the entire family have disappeared. All the other cops were busy with the crime scene in the backyard of Number 89. She took me into the house and helped me search to see if Randolph was injured in the house.”

“Without a warrant? No homeowner there?”

“The door was unlocked. The place looked like it had been ransacked. She said it was all right if an old man might be in danger.”

She ran her hand through her nicely highlighted blond hair.

“You find anything?”

This bit I modified. “No. But she gave me some information about the Adamses.”

“Hang on,” she said. “Hank, get over here. You got to hear this.”

Hank, a more rumpled and stereotypical detective, ambled over. He was pleasant looking and pudgy. Perhaps the pudginess was new, as his gray suit was stretched tight over his arms and middle and his white shirt gapped between buttons.

Candy filled him in as far as I’d gotten.

“Do you think she’s a reporter?” I asked. “I wouldn’t have thought a reporter would impersonate a police officer. That’s against the law, isn’t it?”

Hank leaned back against Candy’s desk and crossed his arms over his chest. He gave me a hard look. “You bet it is. So she gave you some information about the Adams family?”

“She said that there was no record of the family until about three years ago.”

Candy might have wanted Hank to hear what was going on, but she wasn’t letting him take over. “And what is your involvement with these people?”

Oh well. I suppose it had to come out. “I work for Vera Van Alst, the wealthy book collector. Her Dorothy L. Sayers collection was stolen some months back and sold to a bookseller who then sold the books to Randolph Adams. The bookseller was not aware that the books had been stolen. I have been tasked with getting them back and once we tracked down Randolph Adams—”

“Who’s ‘we’?” Candy said.

“The bookseller, Karen Smith. She had a brain injury in an attack a few months ago, so her memory is faulty, but we did track him down and were ready to trade the collection for another valuable work.”

“And?”

“And Randolph’s family was very suspicious of us and seemed to want to block the sale. To tell the truth, we thought they were drugging him or something. We noticed he got disoriented and drowsy after drinking some tea from his daughter.”

Hank rolled his eyes. “What is this? Some kind of soap opera?”

“I know it sounds crazy. It even seemed bizarre, being in the middle of it.”

“What else?” Candy said.

Maybe it was a mistake, but I had to leave out the part where I went back to the house with night vision goggles and let myself in and was caught by the imposter Candy.

Hank fiddled with a pen as I spoke. “She said she was lonely. She had no friends here on the force. She wanted to get together for a girls’ night. She talked a lot.”

“What did she talk about?”

“She told me what she’d found out about the Adams family not existing. She told me about the murder victim.”

Hank dropped the pen. Candy’s eyes widened. “What did she tell you?”

“That he’d been stabbed. That he was a contract killer.”

“Contract killer?” Hank used his outside voice. “What do you mean, he was a contract killer?”

“Down boy,” Candy said. “Let her talk.”

“She showed me a picture.”

“We haven’t released a name or photo.”

“I realize that, but she had a photo of a man. He was obviously dead. She said his name was Pierre Gagnon and he was a hit man.”

“Why did she show you the photo?”

“I don’t know.” I didn’t plan to drop either Uncle Kev or Smiley into the soup. “This other Candy was very intense and there had been a murder. She asked if I recognized him.”

“And?”

“I’d seen him in front of the Adams house on my last unsuccessful attempt to see Randolph. He was parked next door, I guess in front of Number 89, just waiting and watching.”

“You saw his face?”

“My pooch ran off and I asked this guy in the Impala if he’d seen my dog. I had no idea who I was talking to, before Candy told me he was a hit man. I guess that was dangerous.”

They exchanged glances. Meaningful glances.

I said, “What? Was he a hit man?”

They were probably decent detectives, but they never would have made a career in theater.

“He wasn’t, was he?”

They weren’t talking.

Actually, they didn’t have to talk. Their expressions were deadpan, but they couldn’t hide the emotion in their eyes.

“Tell me he wasn’t a police officer. There was nothing in the news or—I’m sorry. What’s going on here? I hope he wasn’t a colleague.”

“We need to talk to you about what you saw there.”

“Of course.” Talk about a sinking feeling. There was so much I didn’t want them to know. Uncle Kev’s presence. Tyler Dekker’s. My own extra visits, unauthorized entry and book pilfering.

“We’ll take you to an interview room,” the real Candy said, not unkindly.

My feet dragged. How long would it take for my web of omissions to be revealed? And people I cared about hauled into interview rooms? That would be very hard on Tyler. Of course, I doubted they’d actually catch up to Uncle Kev.

Halfway across the room, the intercom squawked. “All units. Shots fired and multiple suspected shooters at farmhouse just south of the junction of Appledoorn Road and Crawford Road. Hostages likely. All available units.”

I didn’t like feeling grateful for someone else’s tragedy, and I hoped nothing happened to the hostages, but I was thrilled to get out of the station. I gave the real Candy my address at Van Alst House, my cell number and Vera’s number too. I promised not to leave the county.

As I collapsed in my Saab, Candy and Hank pulled out in a Tahoe. Now what? I wanted to get away from the police station.

I passed a silver Audi as I left Burton and did a double take. But of course, the Adams gang would have ditched that car long ago. The driver was a young, dark-haired woman, not Delilah, for sure. Not Mason either, and definitely not Randolph.

I pulled over and took out my cell. Kev and Tyler needed to know. So did Karen and Uncle Lucky. We could make sure our stories made sense later. I figured the cops would be tied up for quite a while at the shoot-out.

For once, Kev was where he was supposed to be. “Thanks for the heads-up,” he said. “I’ll be gone if they show up here.”

“Yeah, well, leave the cats this time.”

Tyler did not pick up. His recent track record with phone messages and texts was terrible. It wasn’t the sort of thing I wanted to leave a message about.

I tried Karen’s number. No luck. Then I tried her cell number. “Oh, Jordan! I am so glad you are calling. I remembered what I needed to tell you.”

I made sure not to interrupt. I knew how easy it was for her to lose her train of thought.

“It was Randolph!”

“Yes?” I said encouragingly.

“He slipped me some books in a plastic bag.”

I wanted to shout, “What books? What bag?” But I merely repeated, “Yes.”

“You were on the other side of the room with Delilah. And that creepy Mason was keeping an eye on you. Randolph slipped me three books and signaled me to keep quiet. He asked me to keep them safe for him. So I did. I slipped them into my tapestry bag and . . . I am sorry to say, after I checked them at home and put them in a safe place, I forgot all about them, until today. Mason was so hostile to us and then all the upsetting news about the murder and everything. I knew there was something I was supposed to mention but I couldn’t bring it to mind. I’ve been tired out by all this.”