The Tempest (21 page)

 

Chapter Thirty-one

L
uke dressed quietly in the space they called the sitting room, careful not to wake Charlotte, who liked to sleep in until 8 or 8:30 and then stay in bed for another half hour or so reading.

But when Luke and Sneakers came in from their walk to the bluff, he was surprised to smell coffee and hear a rousing crescendo of violins.

Charlotte was at the kitchen table in her white silk bathrobe, listening to her classical music and gazing at the front page of the
Tidewater Times
. Sneakers trotted to his bowl and began to lap loudly.

“Did you see this?” she said, tapping the front page. “Iran wants to negotiate now?”

“I heard,” Luke said. “Which, to me, is nearly as surprising as you being up at seven fifteen in the morning.”

“Well, I must've caught what you had overnight.”

“Which is?”

“I don't know. Restless brain syndrome?”

“Oh, that.”

She nodded out the kitchen window at the marshlands. “Beautiful morning, isn't it? I thought we might take a drive down to Widow's Point after breakfast and have a look. The three of us.”

“Widow's Point?”

“Mmm-­hmm. Isn't that where you're heading? Or will you wait until later. Two oh three, perhaps?”

Sneakers lifted his head and looked at Luke, as if following the conversation.

“How'd you know?”

“I called the church yesterday afternoon,” she said. “I was told you'd just gone out for an hour.”

“Why do you say two oh three?”

“Low tide?”

“I see.” Not much got by Charlotte. “You haven't been spying on me, I hope?”

“No. But Aggie knew, somehow. She said she'd seen you there.”

Luke snorted and smiled to himself. He shouldn't have been surprised that Aggie would know, but he was.

Fifty minutes later, he parked along the access road and the three of them walked in silence out across the isolated beach where Susan Champlain's life had ended. The air was cool and salty, smelling of wet sand. There was a ­couple way down by the south point, walking the other way; otherwise, the beach was empty. Luke had that same unsettled feeling as he'd had before, a sense that some unfinished business had been left here. The beach was wide, slick with receding waters; seagulls screeched, diving through the shadows, the morning sunlight giving the cliff fringe a fiery yellow glow.

“How many times have you come here?” Charlotte asked as they walked through the shade.

“Three?”

“Not including this one.”

“No.”

“So, four.”

“Okay.”

“What are we looking for? The phone?”

“Not really.” Luke stopped and turned to the water, the light causing his eyes to squint. “At first, I guess I was.”

“Something more intangible, then, now.”

“Probably.”

“Okay.”

Charlotte reached for his hand. She swung it slightly as they walked down the beach out of the shade. It'd been a while since they'd done this and it felt good.

“You wanted to come here alone,” she said. “I'm sorry.”

“No, I'm glad we're doing this,” Luke said. Adding, after several steps, “I'm disappointed in a way that more ­people haven't come here. It feels like Susan's life has receded too quickly. As often happens.”

She tightened her hand on his. Sneakers charged ahead chasing seagulls, acting as if he might actually catch one.

“Should we try throwing him a stick?” Charlotte suggested. “I don't know that we've ever tried that.”

“You know what they say about old dogs.”

“Old?”

“Middle-aged.”

Charlotte managed to find a stick, a branch that must've fallen from the cliffside. She pulled her hand over it, pruning the leaves, and then shook it enticingly in front of Sneakers's eyes. “Want this?” she asked. She shook it a few more times, and then feigned a throw. But Sneakers just sat, pulled back his ears, and made a sound like he was hungry.

“Want the stick?” Charlotte said. “Want the
stick
?!” She wound back and hurled it, a pretty good throw, Luke thought. “Go on, Sneak! Go! Go get it! Retrieve!”

The excited tenor of her voice caused Sneakers to run several steps, but they were in the wrong direction. He stopped, looked down the beach, then turned around and trotted to Luke.

“He's not a stick dog,” Luke said, crouching as his ears pulled back.

Charlotte looked momentarily stricken.

“I think the fad of chasing sticks may be passé now, anyway,” Luke said. “Like Frisbees and bandannas.”

“You think?”

“It's an idea, anyway. Chasing sticks always struck me as kind of dumb to begin with.”

“Well, yes,” Charlotte said. “But you could say that about most human activities.”

“True.”

Luke gave Sneakers what he really wanted—­a vigorous neck and chin rub—­and Sneakers soon got on his side, turning it into a full belly rub. Charlotte began to walk away by herself up the beach, into the breeze. Luke sat in the sand and watched her for a while, a little spellbound by her shadow and silhouette against the blue sparkles of the Bay.

Sneakers broke away from him and galloped off in Charlotte's direction. Seagulls, again. Charlotte turned to him, walking backwards. She made an exaggerated shrug, turning her palms up. Luke smiled and stood. He looked up at the bluff, the fan of sunlight reminding him of the police floodlights last Wednesday night, the crowd gathered to look. Would it ever be possible to come to Widow's Point and not think about Susan Champlain, about how her life had ended?

Luke began walking, scanning the surf for a while, rubbing his feet in the sand. The dead don't come back; but the objects they've left behind don't just disappear, either. Susan hadn't come here wearing one sandal. And it wasn't likely she'd come without her cell phone. Something had happened to them.

They searched the beach separately for close to twenty minutes, Sneakers staying mostly with Charlotte, although at one point he sprinted back to Luke like a greyhound racer.

“What is it, Sneak?”

Sneakers made a small circle in the sand and then just sat down and stared at him, breathing wildly. He trotted back, at a more reasonable pace, to Charlotte.

A few minutes later, Luke noticed Charlotte moving her arms overhead in semaphore-­like motions, her voice lost in the blue expanse between them. Luke began to jog to her.

Sneakers was half circling a spot in the sand when he got there, as if
he'd
discovered something. “What is it?” he said. “A giant meat bone?”

“No.” Charlotte showed him what she had found with her toes in the sand by the surf. She held it out and dropped it in his hand: a pendant, heart-­shaped, covered with diamonds. Probably worth hundreds of dollars.

Luke had an idea what it might be before she said anything. They both stared at it in the folds of his hand.

“Maybe it goes with the necklace?”

“I was going to say that.”

“Which would mean she fought with someone,” Charlotte said.

“Yes.”

“Who tore off the necklace in the process. The clasp was broken, wasn't it?”

“I think so,” Luke said.

He felt a sudden, inexplicable affection for Charlotte. As they began to walk back, he stopped and gave her a hug, feeling the breeze lifting her hair. And then he kissed her, and she made the kiss go on for a while.

“I'm glad we did this,” he said. “Thank you.”

“Me, too.”

They walked to the car holding hands, thinking about what she'd found, and then drove home along the coast road without talking. At one point, Charlotte reached over and wrapped her right hand around his left. He didn't realize at first that she was trying to open it, to have another look at the pendant.

“I guess I ought to take this over to Hunter,” he said.

Charlotte smiled.

T
HE PENDA
NT FELT
to Luke like a puzzle piece. And the idea of a puzzle seemed like a suitable container for Sunday's sermon: the puzzle of how to best live our day-­to-­day lives; the puzzle of faith, of God's “secret wisdom,” from First Corinthians; the puzzle of desire: wanting to fill the church each week with ­people who cared deeply, who took the message of the sermon home with them.

Sermon ideas came in flashes like that; sometimes they panned out, often they didn't. He was mulling over the puzzle idea as he walked into the Public Safety Complex.

Hunter was in the lobby, waiting for him. “Morning,” she said, bounding up from a chair. “Sorry, I can't ask you back.”

“No, that's—­”

“We're meeting in a few minutes. It's a busy morning,” she said, setting her hands on her hips. “I really enjoyed dinner the other night.”

“We did, too. No, that's fine,” Luke said. “I just wanted to show you something. It won't take more than a minute.”

Hunter seemed a little frazzled, Luke saw; her shirt was tucked in funny and one of her collar points was askew, her hair sticking out on one side as if she'd just climbed out of bed. But her light brown eyes had fixed on his like lasers.

“Is there anything new?” he said. “With the case.”

“Well. Yeah. Joey Sanders is dead, for one thing. Down in Virginia. You know who he was?”

“Sure,” Luke said, surprised. “Nick Champlain's assistant. His bodyguard. What happened?”

“Don't know yet. Local PD thinks suicide. I can tell you more after our meeting. It's—­” Her eyes widened briefly with an unfamiliar impatience. “What've you got?”

Luke opened his left hand to show her the pendant. “Something Charlotte found,” he said. “In the surf at Widow's Point this morning. I thought you might find it interesting.”

Hunter carefully took the pendant between her fingers. She placed it delicately in the palm of her own left hand, and wobbled it side to side. Luke was struck by the intense interest that suddenly shone in her eyes.

“I—­we—­thought maybe it was possible that this goes with the necklace you found.”

She was nodding vaguely, studying the pendant, the jewels glinting in the dull lobby light. “Tell me where you found it.”

Hunter's impatience had evaporated; her fascination with the pendant seemed all-­consuming. Luke watched her as she studied it, holding it inches from her face.

L
UKE DROVE HOME
with a new curiosity, as if Hunter's interest had been contagious. The pendant went with the necklace Hunter had found in the sand the night Susan Champlain died, yes. But there was something else about it. Hunter had seen something that he hadn't. He was fairly certain about that. He glanced several times at the dash clock, wondering how long she'd be in her meeting.

 

Chapter Thirty-two

T
here were two theories Amy Hunter had been playing with that morning, each exclusive of the other; each leading to a different explanation for Susan Champlain's death. One was what Gerry Tanner had suggested the night before: that Joseph Sanders had killed Susan Champlain in an alcohol-­fueled crime of passion; and that, for whatever reason, his own death two days later had been a consequence. This seemed the less likely of the two, but the easier to explain.

Pastor Luke had just nudged her toward the other one: that the perpetrator was someone nobody had considered.

One of the files that Sonny Fischer had sent to her yesterday contained thirty still images from security tapes turned over by four Tidewater businesses. Sixteen new images were in her e-­mail this morning. Each corresponded to a digital file, which Fisch or another homicide investigator had looked through. For now, with the meeting minutes away, Hunter needed only a single image. She scrolled through the sixteen new ones, and found it—­among the pictures of Elena Rodgers, not those of Susan Champlain. Time-­stamped last Monday morning at 8:23: Rodgers walking through the lobby at the Old Shore Inn, where she'd been renting a room for the past six weeks. A fit-­looking, nicely postured woman wearing a light-­colored sleeveless dress, a thin valise under one arm. Headed over to Nick Champlain's house, probably, where she worked for several hours three days a week, answering mail, keeping his appointments calendar. Cool but hard. Her dark eyes turned to the security camera in one of the images; wide shoulders, arms slightly buffed, thick swoops of light brown hair, hard facial features.

Hunter enlarged the image, to just the shoulders and head; the pixels blurred, but it was clear enough. Hunter compared the shape, the texture, the number of diamonds. There was no question: On Monday morning, Elena Rodgers had been wearing the same pendant that was now sitting on Hunter's desk in Homicide.

It was 9:24. She made a printout of the image and saved it to her desktop. Then she got up and walked to the conference room two doors down.

Hank Moore was at the head of the table, studying a single-­page report, something unrelated to the case. His transistor radio was on top of a pile of folders, turned off. He wasn't big on greetings. Tanner was there with his leather notebook opened to blank facing pages, his right hand wrapped around a coffee mug. His dark eyes glistened, watching her as she came in. Hunter sat across from him and nodded hello.

Finally, Moore looked up.

“Morning, Hunter,” he said. “Want to get the door?”

“Sorry,” she said, standing. “Where's Fisch?”

“Sonny's working on something at home,” he said, “for you.”

“Okay.” Hunter closed the door and sat. She'd hoped the peace pipe might be passed between Fisch and Tanner this morning. But it would have to wait.

“We've got the footage, Hunter,” Moore said. His eyes narrowed and he nodded grimly at his computer. “Your crank caller.”

“Crank” was an interesting word choice, Hunter thought. “You know who it is?”

His eyes nodded. “Not what we expected. It's probably going to flip your wig a little when you see it.”

Tanner lowered his eyes; she could see that he didn't know yet. Hunter had begun to think the caller might just be a disturbed prankster, nothing to do with the Champlain killing; she kept thinking of Marc Devlin, the art gallery manager, whom she liked; or John Linden, the uptight ex of Susan Champlain, whom she didn't. Or the sheriff's deputy, Barry Stilfork, who always reminded her of a cat under a chair, thinking that if he couldn't see you, you couldn't see him. At this point, though, she realized that she no longer particularly cared
who
it was.

“I've got something, too,” she said.

“Okay.”

“Let me go first?”

Moore squinted his eyes. He shifted in his chair so his left shoulder was more prominent. He coughed once, then he nodded.

N
ICHOLAS
C
HAMPLAIN GOT
on the road at 8:30 that morning, driving the white Chevy van he'd purchased a month earlier and kept stored in a garage seven blocks from his downtown office. He followed Vincent Rosa's instructions on the cell phone that Rosa had delivered to his mailbox that morning. The directions took him on a convoluted route that threaded through the Philadelphia suburbs, looped way out toward Amish country and returned through the suburbs to downtown Philly.

The first stage was an elaborate series of detours, meant to reassure Rosa that Champlain wasn't setting him up, or being followed. There was no rulebook for this sort of thing; Champlain and Kepler had to abide by whatever Vincent Rosa gave them.

When Rosa was satisfied that Champlain wasn't being followed, he directed him to a metered parking lot near Torresdale Station. Nick parked, leaving his keys under the passenger seat, and fed the meter for two hours. Minutes later, Vincent Rosa pulled up, in a Lexus SUV. Champlain stepped out of the van and got into Rosa's passenger seat.

Rosa drove another circuitous route, the radio playing classical music. Kepler, listening in, was amused to hear that it was Mozart's final symphony, of all things. He doubted that Champlain had any idea what he was hearing. Twice, Rosa stopped in a parking lot and waited; each time, nothing happened.

He eventually pulled into a small parking lane above the Schuylkill River, two slots from the other parked vehicle, a white van. It was the same van that Champlain had left in the city two hours earlier. Frank Rosa, Vincent's younger brother, was sitting behind the steering wheel.

The masterpiece was now in the back of Champlain's van. Nick had five minutes to go inside, close the door and examine it. It was unlikely the Rosas would try to sell him a forgery; but it was possible they wouldn't know the difference.

Five minutes later, Champlain emerged out the front passenger door and returned to Vincent Rosa's car. Vincent waited for the van to pull out, Frank driving, and followed behind at a reasonable distance. Then Vincent handed Nick Champlain a phone.

Jacob Weber, sitting with Kepler at his condo in Delaware, took Champlain's call.

“I'm clear,” Champlain said.

“All right.”

Kepler's attorney digitally authorized the payment transfer, four million dollars to the account Rosa had set up in Bermuda. They all waited again, monitoring the transmission by computer. Ten minutes later, the money had been drained. Five million dollars gone now, with the down payment.

Kepler listened to the thin droning of the car engine. This was the unnerving part, the part where the Rosas could take the money and make the painting disappear, if they wanted; where Kepler could lose the whole deal. Five million dollars
and
the painting.

But he didn't.

Maybe it was the shared knowledge that there was an even bigger deal waiting after this one. Maybe it was Nick Champlain. Or maybe it was just the principle of honor among thieves.

Vincent Rosa called ahead to signal Frank in the van. Kepler listened. Twenty minutes later, Frank pulled the van into a remote bend of a public park and stopped. The Lexus followed, parking beside it. Doors opened and closed: Frank Rosa and Champlain trading places, Nick back behind the wheel of his van.

“Be safe,” Kepler heard Vincent Rosa say.

The Chevy van was still running. Kepler heard Nick shift and back up. He listened as the van's engine accelerated. Another several unnerving minutes. But nothing happened. “All right,” he heard Nick Champlain say, cheering himself. “All right.”

He was on his own now, driving away toward the Delaware Expressway with Rembrandt's 1633 masterpiece in the back. It was 2:37. Champlain was headed toward a farmhouse in the Pennsylvania countryside. The painting now belonged to him. Three hours later, it would be Kepler's.