Heart Wounds (A Miranda and Parker Mystery) (5 page)

“I do so appreciate it
on such short notice.” He turned to her and reached for her hand, still holding onto one of Parker’s. “And this must be Miranda. I’m so glad you’re here, my dear. Both of you. Though I wish we could have met under happier circumstances.”

His
touch was gentle, his skin soft and aristocratic. His face was round and almost childlike, a contrast to his thin body. His white hair had a faint angelic glow in the backlight, enhanced by the earnest expression of his well-groomed matching brows. His accent was posh, but warm and friendly. Not stiff and cold, like you might expect from a Brit.

And the look of kindness mixed with desperation in his
crystal blue eyes melted her heart into a buttery pool.

“We’re here to help, sir,” Miranda told him. “We’ll do all we can.”

He closed his eyes, pain distorting his innocent expression. “And I need your help so desperately. I don’t know what to do. They’ve taken George.”

“George?” Parker asked.

“George Eames. My Chief Collections Manager. My friend and colleague. They took him in for questioning this morning. They think he’s a suspect in this horrible matter.”

Miranda looked at Parker.
He seemed as bewildered as she was. “The police have already made an arrest?” she asked.

A
door opened and footsteps echoed below. “There they are, sir.”

Miranda turned a
nd saw three men scurrying toward the staircase. One tall and thin. One short and round. The third one was Officer TightAss. The other two were in gray slacks, ties, and long dark coats that billowed out as they ran.

The officer waved an arm their way. “
Sir, I apologize these imposters have broken in and—”

Sir Neville
’s whole body stiffened. Eyes flashing, he held out an arm in a protective gesture, looking like one of the mummified cats suddenly come to life to fight its captors. “They most certainly are not imposters, officer. And I’ll thank you to pay them their due respect. These are my friends from America. They’re private investigators. I’ve hired them.”

“You’ve what?”
said the man in a coat who towered a good four inches over the officer.

Sir Neville started down the stairs. “I’ve hired them to
help with this investigation, Inspector.”

“I haven’t authorized—”

“As director of this museum, I have the right to hire anyone I see fit to aid in this matter, Inspector. If you have a problem with that, perhaps I’ll have to speak to your superior.”

Miranda snuck Parker a look of surprise. The old gent wasn’t as helpless as he
seemed.

Parker sauntered down the steps with his characteristic air of ease and e
xtended a hand. “Good morning, Inspector, gentlemen. As I told your officer here, I’m Wade Parker of the Parker Investigative Agency, and this is my associate, Miranda Steele.” He turned back and gestured to her as ingratiatingly as if he were introducing her at a dinner party. “We intend to give you our full cooperation.”

As if it took all the strength he had not to slap a pair of handcuffs onto Parker’s wrist, the inspector took his hand and gave it a single, curt shake. “I’m
Special Inspector Clive Wample of the Metropolitan police, and these are Assistant Chief Officer Vincent Ives and Officer Tadsworth.” He waved his free hand toward Officer TightAss and the small, rotund man between them, the shortest one of the three.

Miranda
scuttled down the steps and joined in the handshaking.

Wample and Ives. Sounded like a brand of bourbon. No, it was Wample, Ives and Tadsworth.
More like a law firm or maybe a boy band.

Inspector Wample put a skinny finger under his thin crooked nose and sniffed. “I was about to tell Sir
Neville we’ve almost finished our examination of the key areas on the premises. You should be able to open again in the morning.”

Sir Neville’s mouth opened in alarm.

Parker descended the last step. “Well, then, Inspector. You shouldn’t mind if we have a look at these key areas.”

The inspector’s eyes flashed
, but one glance at Sir Neville told him he’d be in hot water if he didn’t comply. “Very well, Mr. Parker. However I insist we escort you.”

Sir Neville led them back to the hall where the Antony and Cleopatra exhibit was. He explained what had happened that day, the same details Miranda had read in the newspaper. He’d used a cart to bring in the crate that was supposed to have held the dagger, and when he opened it up—it was empty.

His voice broke and his face went pale as he retold the story but since the crate, the cart, and of course the dagger had been removed, there wasn’t much to see there.

The party moved upstairs and reluctantly Sir Neville led them to a hidden elevator that went to the apartments on the third floor where some of the staff lived.

George Eames
’ rooms were a cramped little space with a tiny kitchen and bedroom. The rectangular-shaped living room had a small window overlooking a park, and its walls were crammed with musty old books on archaeology and ancient history.

The inspector paced up and down the narrow space while Miranda and Parker looked it all over. “We’ve already gone through everything thoroughly, Mr. Parker.”

Parker pulled a book from the shelf and examined it. “And did you find the dagger?”

“Not a trace of it, sir,” said Officer Tadsworth.

Miranda heard Wample wheeze out an exasperated breath. “He lived here alone?”

“Why, yes,” Sir Neville said. “He never married. His mother lives in Devonshire. He goes to visit her on the weekend. Oh, dear. She’s going to be devastated.”

Feeling sorry for both of them, she strolled over to the desk in the corner. Its surface was crowded with papers, pens, periodicals, open books. George Eames might not be neat but he was definitely studious.

“George was working on the
Battle of Actium. It was to be our next exhibit.”

Must be what the chicken scratches on the notepads were. “Did you find any mysterious letters or notes about the dagger? A telegram? A diary?”

This time the inspector replied. “No, nothing of the kind.”

Didn’t sound like they had much of a case.

Parker turned to another shelf where there was a photograph. He studied it. “Who’s this?”

Miranda came over and gave it a look. Four young men
stood in front of an old church dressed in—what was that, cricket uniforms? They all were grinning and had their arms around each other like the best of chums.

Sir Neville peered over Parker’s shoulder. “
Oh, that photo’s from Cambridge. The four of us all went to school together. We were good friends.” He pointed to the two figures on the left. “That’s George and myself. We, of course, were mad for archaeology.” He moved to the next young man, the tallest one. A sturdy, broad-shouldered fellow with dark hair and features. “That’s Trenton Jewell. He went on to be a barrister. He practices here in London.” He pointed to the last figure, a slight fellow with a hairline that was already receding. “That’s Cedric Swift. He’s on the faculty now. Teaches computers.” He smiled sadly. “Can you imagine? Back then we were inseparable, but now we’ve gone our separate ways.”

“Except for you and Mr. Eames,” Parker pointed out.

“Yes. Though I do see Trenton occasionally at social events. George was considering the academic life and did teach for a while. About ten years ago he came to me and said he wanted to work for the museum, so of course I hired him. He was eminently qualified.”

“I see.” Parker put the photograph back on the shelf.

His face was bland but Miranda could tell what he was thinking. The same thing she was. Could the motive behind the theft of the dagger have been professional jealousy?

Parker turned to Inspector Wample.
“We’d like to see where the dagger was received.”

###

Back down the hall to the elevator the entourage went, Sir Neville at the lead. Then back across several rooms on the main floor to another elevator, down into a dungeon-like hall below the building.

At the end of the hall stood aluminum double doors. Sir Neville punched numbers into a pad on the wall to disengage the security system and opened the doors.

Inside, it was nothing like a dungeon. Bright with fluorescent overhead lighting, the huge space was almost friendly. Roomy tables and stools. Rows and rows of shelving units holding various shaped crates. Rows and rows of long drawers full of objects of antiquity, so Miranda supposed.

It was cool and the dampness she’d felt everywhere else in the building was gone. A unit hummed in the background. Probably responsible for environmental control.
Still, the faint smell of ancient things hung in the air.

Sir Neville gestured to a small cart that stood about waist high. It was covered with a black velvet cloth and a narrow crate sat atop it. “That’s where the dagger was supposed to have been.”

“It was delivered in that crate?” Miranda asked.

“Yes. George received delivery at 17:55 two nights ago.” He strode over to a countertop where a computer screen sat and pressed a few buttons on the keyboard. “There. See for yourselves.”

Miranda went over for a look with Parker beside her. They bent together to examine the data on the screen. “Looks like the barcode was scanned at the time you said, Sir Neville.”

“Yes, of course it was.”

Miranda ran her tongue over her teeth and thought a moment. “Any chance there was a breach in security in the delivery? Before the truck got here?”

Sir Neville’s eyes grew round. “Certainly not. We’ve been using
that company for years and have never once had an incident.”

There’s always a first time. But she decided it was better not to voice her thought
just now.

Parker
put his hands in his pockets and began to stroll around the room, giving it a once over, with a nonchalance Miranda knew was driving the cops nuts. She loved watching him twist the guts of people who took the easy way out of solving a crime.

He
turned back to the cart and studied it a moment. Then he reached into the front pocket of his jacket and drew out a small thin rod. He clicked the end of it and a beam appeared.

Flashlight. How’d he get that through the airport? Miranda wondered.

“We’ve printed everything already,” Wample said. That was obvious from the gray powder splotches everywhere. “Except the things that will be bagged and taken to the lab.”

Parker bent down alongside the cart and lifted the black velvet to peer inside. Miranda joined him. Stainless steel, two wire shelves, wheels. Nothing on the shelves
but more fingerprinting dust.

Parker rose again and ran his flash
light over some of the crates on the shelving units along the walls.

Wample danced fitfully from foot to foot.
“Honestly, Mr. Parker. There’s nothing more you can do here. What on earth do you expect to find?”

“Now I can’t tell you that until I find it, can I?”

Miranda couldn’t resist grinning at the inspector. The truth was, as an ace investigator, Parker had found a lot of things the police had missed. And she had uncovered a few items herself, for that matter.

“In my ’
umble opinion, we should call it a day and all go ’ome.” The opinion came from the short, rotund Assistant Chief Officer Ives. It was the first words he’d spoken since they’d met and he sounded like a Cockney frog. A very tired Cockney frog.

Miranda could empathize with
him on that score. She’d hardly had any sleep and was battling a case of jet lag. But nothing energized her more than an unsolved case. Apparently even if there wasn’t a murder involved.

Parker
ambled around a little more, then looked up at the ceiling. “No security camera here.”

“We use motion sensors in the storeroom itself
,” Sir Neville explained.

“Hmm.” He focused on a spot just over the cart.
“Now that’s interesting.”

Miranda followed his gaze. A large ceiling vent was suspended right above the crate. Someone with the right knowhow could climb onto the roo
f, crawl through the duct work, loosen the vent and…what? Shimmy down a rope to get the goods?

“
You say there are motion sensors when the system’s on?” Parker asked.

“Yes, most assuredly.” Sir Neville gestured, drawin
g lines in the air. “They crisscross every meter. It was quite an expense but one we felt was necessary. Now it doesn’t seem as if it was enough. Perhaps we should have installed more cameras.”

Cameras or not, with all those laser beams ready to sound an alarm at the slightest touch, getting in here w
ould have been pretty tricky to pull off. You’d have to be a professional.

Parker ran his beam along the lower portion of the shelves, then along the floor
under the units. The light fell on empty flooring, and Miranda was about to agree with Ives when she saw a flash.