Being The Steel Drummer Part 27

"It's about Gabe lying. Lying a lot and having the acting skills to pull it off. It's time I got some answers from Gabe."

"I'm coming with you," Kathryn said, getting her coat.

As we left, Jessie called, "Be sure Buster has his dinner!"

And I distinctly heard Farrel say the word, "Team."

"What did you see in that box that is making us rush over to Gabe's?" asked Kathryn as we walked swiftly along the darkening street.

I was still putting things together in my mind. When I hadn't answered her for a block, Kathryn said, "I'm supposed to be the steadfast partner. Enlighten me about the evidence."

"OK, Suzanne had a small Matisse cutout. It fell on the floor when Buster tipped over a box."

"A real Matisse?"

"I think it was a book plate print. But if it wasn't a repro...."

"I priced one of those once. The ones from Jazz are worth around seven thousand dollars!" said Kathryn.

"I know. It's hard to believe someone would leave that behind when they moved out and Gabe must have known that when he packed it away. I'd like to get a better look in those boxes."

As we made it to 10th Street we saw a squad car pulling up to Fen House.

A uniformed officer and Gabriel Carbondale got out of the idling car and walked to the door.

"OK, are you up for some team work?" I asked Kathryn.

"Consider me your able-bodied apprentice. What are we going to do?"

"As soon as the police car drives away, ring the doorbell. Then chat with Gabe to get him to stay in the front of the house while I take a quick look around the back."

"You can't just break in. Oh rats, we're back to that again."

"I'm going to get Buster to invite me into the mudroom. I just want another look at those boxes before I talk to Gabe. Ring my phone as soon as he stops talking to you."

"Just don't shoot the dog," said Kathryn.

"Jessie would kill me with her bare hands if I did that."

"Wait, Maggie... um... When Carbondale came back from England and found Suzanne's expensive Matisse still on the wall, surely that was suspicious. Why didn't he tell you or say anything to the police? Why didn't he act more concerned?"

"Act is the pivotal word. He didn't act concerned because he's an actor. Get ready."

We gripped each other's hands and looked into each others eyes and then Kathryn moved closer to the front door to be able to swoop in as soon as the police left. I ran around to the back alley. I reached over the top of the backyard gate, slid the latch back, and swung it open enough to slip through and edge into the yard.

Buster burst through his dog door, bounding toward me like a bull charging a matador. He reared up, landing his snowshoe-sized paws on my shoulders. Dog s...o...b..r whipped my cheek. I lifted him down and wiped my face with my sleeve."

"Hi buddy," I whispered as I patted him into a tail-wagging frenzy.

"Shhhh. OK, calm down."

He immediately turned and charged back through his dog door into the kitchen.

I cupped my hands around my eyes and peered through the window into the mudroom. There was a low light on in the kitchen. n.o.body back there... Not a creature was stirring except a dog the size of a small pony. Buster paced the room, swinging his beer-can-thick tail like a dull scythe.

I could faintly hear Gabe and the cop talking in the vestibule. Then I heard the front door close and the police car pulling away. As I waited for the doorbell, I admitted to myself I had no good excuse to sneak into Gabe's house.

I tapped on the gla.s.s. "Buster... Buster... gimme a reason." He tilted his head, then he ran out of view in the direction of Suzanne's old office. A minute later he came back to the mudroom doorway, sat down, and looked at me. Then he looked toward the office, then toward me, then toward the office. He ran to the office again, his frying-pan-sized paws were surprisingly quiet. He came back to the door, sat down, and looked up at me, doing a great imitation of every fictional dog in media history trying to tell the main character something important. Buster yawned and shook his head, jangling his tags and chain collar like sleigh bells.

I took a step back into the dark yard because Gabriel Carbondale suddenly walked into the kitchen from the living room hallway. He shrugged off his jacket to hang it on the hook next to the back door. He moved slowly, like a man who had way to much on his mind. Not a surprise, since his wife had just been found murdered.

Gabe noticed Buster, who ran out of view to the left. Gabe watched him and then followed. I faintly heard him say something. A light went on to the left in Suzanne's office. Buster ran back into my view and sat down, looking left then at me, then left.

Then suddenly a gunshot split the night and Buster reared back and howled like a horror movie werewolf, just as the doorbell began to ring.

Chapter 18.

Before I was even conscious of moving, I was squeezing through Buster's dog door, glad I still had my gun with me. I pulled it out of my shoulder holster and flattened against the wall. Buster continued to howl until I told him to stop.

Buster pranced ahead of me and I slowly followed in full defense mode, with my left hand teacupping my right hand that held my gun, pointed down but ready. Somewhere close was a person who had just squeezed a trigger.

I turned the corner. Gabriel Carbondale was slumped over Suzanne's office table. There was a small neat hole in the side of his head and the small gun that had made it lay on the floor below his dangling hand. A red pool was rapidly leaking from Gabe's head and spreading over the tabletop. I moved toward Gabe. Buster held back, politely letting me go first.

I inched into the office and uselessly felt Gabe's neck for a pulse. I scanned the room. The other door that faced the hall to the living room was open. The hall beyond it was empty.

Buster padded back into view and sat in the doorway.

"Is there anybody in here?" I whispered to him.

He c.o.c.ked his head to one side, flipping an uncut ear over his eyes. He leaned toward the rest of the house as if to listen. Then he shook his errant ear back in place, exhaled like a person, and yawned.

Either that meant no, or it was just comic relief.

I listened intently. There was no noise. There didn't seem to be anyone in the house. It looked pretty conclusively like suicide.

I called the police, told them simply that there was a dead body at Gabe's, and it was Gabe. I could hear the sirens before I'd even finished giving the information on the phone.

Kathryn texted me while I was talking to the police.

< sirens?=""> I texted back, < gabe's="" dead=""> *******

The police swarmed the block. In minutes Kathryn joined me in the backyard and Sgt. Ed O'Brien was on the scene again.

"You've been drumming up a bucket of business for us lately, Maggie," said O'Brien, meeting me in the backyard.

He brought me back into the house and Kathryn tagged along without asking. As Jessie always says, It's easier to get forgiveness than to get permission.

"Maggie, you want to tell me how you got in, or shall we just overlook the little issue of the back door being locked."

By way of explanation I glanced at Buster's dog door.

"Usually people leave notes, but there's no note. So, help me out here... Carbondale just killed himself because he was upset about his wife being dead, or because somehow he flew over here from England and killed her and felt remorse?"

"I don't know about that, but there are a couple of things I do know. For one, he hid his wife's possessions that she certainly would have taken with her if she'd left him. We also know someone was making it look as though she was still alive by sending electronic messages. It might have been Carbondale doing that to cover up her murder."

"There's no way anyone in here could have gotten by you?"

I shook my head, looking into the office. The crime team was going over it. In the hallway an officer with a police dog came out of the door under the stairs that must have led to the bas.e.m.e.nt. He called, "All clear."

I swear Buster's brows furrowed when he saw the other dog.

"No one got by me," I said, turning to Kathryn.

She said, "I was at the front door and no one came out of it."

O'Brien heard what Kathryn said but didn't acknowledge her.

"Here's another spanner in the works, Ed. Looks to me like Carbondale was a trained actor. He quoted Shakespeare without thinking, and he seemed to fall back on quoting the Bard when he was lying. I think lying was a skill he'd learned. The sadness, shock, and innocence over Suzanne's death and that guy Frankie getting shot in the cemetery may all have been an act."

"Geez," said O'Brien, running his fingers through his thinning hair. "So suppose he had his wife killed. Why?"

"Perhaps to get his hands on the antiques and sculpture in Victoria Snow's studio. They're quite valuable," said Kathryn.

O'Brien looked over to Kathryn then back to me. He deadpanned, "New partner?"

I hesitated. From the corner of my eye, I saw Kathryn's eyebrows lift. "Ed, this is Dr. Kathryn Anthony. She's working with me on this case. Kathryn, this is Sgt. Edward O'Brien. He's leading this investigation."

Suddenly Buster crashed through his dog door and rammed Ed into the cabinets, interrupting further elucidation.

"Maybe your partner could get this dog outta here? Have the guys taken his footprints?"

Buster sat down, looked at each of us, and then lifted his paw.

I whispered to Kathryn, "He's an orphan now, so I guess we'd better bring him to Farrel and Jessie's." I went to the cupboard next to the sink and found a bag of Buster's food.

O'Brien agreed to let Kathryn take the sealed bag. She grabbed a leash and left reluctantly with her new best friend.

"I'll see you in a little while," I called after her.

"Partner," O'Brien muttered, smirking.

We watched the team going over the crime scene. I ran through the case in my head.

O'Brien told me to stay while he went over the area. Then he came back to talk to me. He said, "So, whadaya think?"

I said, "Carbondale was ready to spend his own money to seal up the crypts. He tried pretty hard to keep people from going down there. Maybe Kathryn's right. He could have been trying to get that stuff for himself."

"What was it worth?"

"Well, if you count all the sculptures on the shelves and the huge one of marble in the back, millions. But n.o.body could have converted those things to that much cash. It would be worth more to Gabe as a historical discovery. Suzanne was working on a book. She could have capitalized on the sculpture find for book publicity, but they probably belong to the college and couldn't be sold off."

"How much cash could someone get out of that stuff on the sly?"

"Hmmm, I guess if you had the right connections you could probably get between 500K and a million. But no one could do that who was actually known in the field, and Carbondale was. He'd need to use some kind of go-between or agent."

"Like Frankie Kibbey?"

"No, no way. Kibbey blew out $50,000 worth of stuff for $500. Frankie was working on his uneducated-own. And Carbondale was in England, Ed, how could he..."

"Maybe he found a way to come back in the middle of the conference."

"You think he flew back here and killed her and then flew back to England? C'mon Ed, there are so many holes in that, even the Chief wouldn't believe it."

"No, see I figure he and the wife both found the antiques in that bas.e.m.e.nt. He goes to England but knows she's going to leave him and might turn the stuff in to the college before she goes. At the conference he lifts somebody's pa.s.sport and uses it to get a fast round trip ticket. He gets here, gets her to go to the studio, kills her in the vat, then flies back and no one's the wiser. After the conference he goes to get the antiques but Francis Kibbey follows him. Carbondale figures out Frankie is stealing the goods and might find the wife's body, so Carbondale shoots Frankie in the cemetery. Then when we find the wife's body, Carbondale knows he's in for it, so he offs himself."

"Doesn't work, Ed. Red said the shooter was in the crypt. Why would he make that up?" I thought for a minute. "Try this. Gabe knows about the antiques in the studio and wants the money. He's angry at Suzanne and doesn't want her to surrender the antiques to the college, so he hires someone to kill her. Maybe Frankie himself. Then one of them kills Frankie to keep him from talking. That would have scared Gabe into hurling, but he'd still have to use his acting skills to cover up what he knew. After that Gabe thinks Red knows about the contract he'd put out on Suzanne, or he might have just been keeping Red from telling anyone where the studio was, so someone like me wouldn't find her body. So he tried to kill us with that van. Wait. The van. Oh s.h.i.+t."

"What?" asked O'Brien.

I held up my hand and squinted into s.p.a.ce. "Ed, I'm a fool. I... I saw that van the night Samson Henshaw called me. It was parked out on Was.h.i.+ngton." I pointed north toward the side of the house.

O'Brien clapped his hands. "Great, it fits then. You know, Henshaw probably saw Carbondale himself get that hand truck from the van. It was Carbondale that Henshaw followed to the studio. I'll get the investigation team to find that white van. If it's Carbondale's, it'll be in the neighborhood and a little splashed paint on the front'll clinch it. Course, if we don't find paint on the front, then it's not the van that chased you up the mountain."

But I knew in my bones it was the same van.

Sgt. Marc Freligh joined the conversation. He said, "The body's in the bus. We're going over the crime scene now."

"Ed, I'm really not sold on this thesis, there are so many holes. For one thing, down there in the studio only one of the boxes of stuff had even been opened. How would Carbondale have even known the stuff in the other boxes was valuable? For all he knew, they could have all been family photos," I said shaking my head.

"Whoa, it's your theory and it's not bad. Give it a rest, Maggie. Carbondale got somebody to kill her, then he killed himself. Maybe just for the sculptures. You said they were valuable. We're searching the house now. It's a small place. Bet we find evidence of a hit. Go on and give your formal statement to one of the team and then you can go."

It was late when I got home. I stepped quietly into the bedroom. The reading lamp was on. Kathryn was in bed propped up against pillows. Her book had fallen to her side and she was asleep. The covers were pulled low enough to see she was wearing nothing. It took a minute for me to realize I was staring at her. The sight of her soft skin, her faint smile, the sheet just barely covering her b.r.e.a.s.t.s made me breathe deeply.

She said without opening her eyes, "Well, you won the bet. It was Lois, so I'll give you a ma.s.sage."

"Aren't you kind of tired from getting up before dawn, chasing around a rabbit hole... and all the other things that happened today?"

"Yes," she yawned as she opened her eyes languidly. "But a bet's a bet. Of course maybe I should punish you for leaving me alone for the last few hours."