How to Crash a Killer Bash (21 page)

When he looked puzzled, I realized it was an odd request.

“I want to get a map of the place,” I explained.

He nodded silently and sat down on a nearby bench to wait for me. He looked tired.

“I’ll be right back.” I went inside and walked directly to the cashier counter in the center of the room. “Do you have any—” I started to say to the woman, then stopped when I saw a familiar face among the store crowd. Brad’s brother Andrew was flipping through one of the coffee-table-sized art books.

Abruptly I left the cashier, who stood waiting for me to finish my sentence.

“Andrew!”

He looked up slowly from the book and flushed. “Ms. Parker.”

I reached my hand out to shake his, but he had a white-knuckled death grip on the big book. I dropped my hand.

“What are you doing here?”

He blinked rapidly and hugged the open book to his chest. “I wanted to learn more about the artifacts here.”

I frowned, wondering why he was browsing through an art book instead of getting my friend out of jail. “Really? But what about Delicia? What about bail?”

“No bail,” Andrew said simply, then returned to the page he’d been studying. “Judge said not in a murder case.”

I stared at Andrew. This guy wasn’t getting it. What had Brad been thinking when he gave him the job of representing Dee? After Andrew said nothing more, I asked, “What are you doing, Andrew?”

He lowered the open book for me to see and pointed to one of the artifacts on the page. I looked at it.

“Yes, it’s a dagger,” I said.

He bit the inside of his lip as he continued to examine the photograph.

And then it dawned on me. It was a picture of the dagger we’d replicated for the mystery event.

“I have to go,” he said suddenly, closing the book and replacing it on a nearby table. Before I could say anything more, he sped out of the museum shop and vanished.

“Well, that was weird,” I said aloud. A woman glanced at me, and I smiled at her to show her I wasn’t entirely crazy. Returning to the cashier, I snapped up the detailed map of the de Young Museum, paid her, and went to join Corbin.

“Okay, let’s go.”

As I drove him home, Corbin gazed out the side window. I thought about Andrew’s appearance at the museum and his odd interest in the dagger, and wondered what was going through his mind. People with Asperger’s syndrome tend to notice details that others might not. Maybe the picture of the dagger was some kind of clue.

Corbin continued to look out the window. I tried a few conversation prompts, but again got little more than “Yeah,” “Nah,” and “Whatever.” I pulled up to his place and turned to him. “Corbin, are you all right?”

He reached for the door handle. “Yeah.”

“I know you’re depressed. You’ve lost both your parents, and that’s going to have a traumatic effect on you. Are you seeing anyone who can help you through this?”

“Nah. I’m okay.”

No way was he okay. Clinical depression wasn’t something he could control. I placed my hand on his arm. “Listen, if you want to talk about anything, I have a background in psychology . . .”

He opened the car door.

I tightened my grip on his arm. “Corbin . . .”

He turned back. “What?” he snapped. Instead of his usual blank look, his face grimaced in anger

I released my hold. “Um . . . just . . . be careful . . .”

Corbin got out of the car, grabbed his duffel, closed the door, and headed for his front door.

I waited until he was inside, then pulled into traffic, determined to find out more about the moody son of Mary Lee Miller. I had a gut feeling he was involved in this mystery—but how?

If he didn’t have anything to do with the deaths of his parents, maybe he knew who did. Maybe he was being blackmailed?

Or maybe he was afraid he’d be next.

 

Back at my desk, I pulled out the papers Sam had found in Mary Lee’s locker. Flipping through the five sheets, I tried to make sense of them—a list of names with numbers next to them. Surprisingly I recognized a few of the names, mostly well-known society people. But one name jumped out at me:

Christine Lampe.

Next to her name was the number 10,000.

Was it a sum of money? A donation? Why would Mary Lee have a separate—and hidden—list of donors and amounts?

Corbin had also retrieved something from his locker. What was in his backpack that was so important, he needed me to drive him to the museum?

I kept coming back to Corbin.

I typed the name Corbin Cosetti into my computer. The screen lit up with several links.

I scrolled down, looking for something beyond the routine announcements and brief mentions. My eye caught on the name “Christine Lampe” in one of the references.

Odd. Corbin’s name linked to Christine’s?

I pulled up the article from
ArtNews
, dated five years ago, and began reading.

I skimmed the rest of the article, which offered more praise-singing and little fact-giving. But the article itself had me wondering if Christine Lampe was in fact Christine Lampe.

I did another search on Lampe, pairing up her name with such words as “expedition,” “Africa,” and “Dogon,” and found no reference to any trips she was supposed to have taken in the years between her position at the Portland museum and her hiring at the de Young. Had she really been doing anthropological research among “lost civilizations”? Or were those just “lost years”?

As for Christine’s claim of being Corbin’s godmother, something didn’t jibe. Corbin hadn’t seemed especially fond of Christine, and she hadn’t paid particular attention to him either, during the mystery rehearsals. In fact, I didn’t recall them exchanging two words, let alone a hug or a smile.

Once again I kept coming back to Corbin. He had to be the link in all of this—but I still had no idea how. I couldn’t accept the idea that he’d murdered both his parents. He was depressed, not homicidal. And even if I bought the inheritance motive, he had no reason to kill his father.

Did he?

“Solve it yet?”

Brad stood in the doorway of my office, one hand behind his back. His white jumpsuit had dirt on the knees and dark streaks down the front of the chest.

Blood?

“Yeah. Professor Plum did it. In the conservatory. With the candlestick.” I nodded at his chest. “Got blood?”

He looked down at his jumpsuit.

“Chocolate. Spilled a mocha frap on my way here.” He pulled out another from behind his back and handed it to me.

Grinning from the surprise, I took the drink. “You’re a saint. This is just what I needed.” The first sip sent a chill through my body. A brain freeze wouldn’t be far behind. I set the frosty drink on my desk. “So, how’s your brother doing on Delicia’s case? Any progress on getting her out of jail? I can’t stand the thought of her being in there with real criminals.”

“Let me get out of this suit, and I’ll fill you in.” He slipped into his office, and I surreptitiously watched through the office window as he wriggled out of his jumpsuit, revealing a sky blue T-shirt and easy jeans. I had to stop myself from picturing the rest of the striptease.

Unfortunately, he caught me staring and grinned.

“Shoot,” I whispered under my breath. Feeling my face fill with color, I turned back to my computer screen. I Googled “Asperger’s syndrome” to find out the latest on the disorder and watched as the screen filled with links. Skimming the choices, I pulled up the official site and began to read. I was surprised at how much was now known about the disorder. For years it had been a little-known mystery, with little information beyond the fact that it was a mild form of autism under the category of Pervasive Developmental Disorders.

I read over updates in the
DSM-IV
.

As I read, I jotted down notes and thought about how each characteristic applied to Andrew.

I scrolled down to view the differences between Autism autism and Asperger’s: Later onset. Less severe involvement. More positive outcome. Higher verbal IQ. Fewer neurological disorders.So that was it in a nutshell, I thought, and then regretted my choice of the word “nut.” I heard Brad breathing behind me and spun around. He sat in a folding chair opposite me, his legs askew, hands at his crotch. Leaning forward on his knees, he said, “Reading up on Asperger’s, huh?”

I closed the computer screen and tried to obscure the notes I had taken with a sheet of paper. “It’s been a while since I’ve lectured on the subject. Thought I’d see what’s new. Things change so quickly in this business, you know . . .”

“Learn anything?”

“Basically that Asperger’s is still a puzzle.”

He chuckled. “That’s the organization’s symbol—a puzzle piece.”

“What was it like, growing up with him?” I said, studying Brad’s face.

He gave a half shrug, but his flushed face countered the casual response. “You know. He was my kid brother—a pest, like any other kid brother. Sometimes he bugged me. Sometimes I felt sorry for him. And sometimes we just played like any other brothers.”

“When did he become interested in the law?”

“As far back as I can remember. He was obsessed with shows like
Law and Order
and the old
Perry Mason
. He tried to predict the outcome, and he was usually right. But no one expected him to actually go to law school, let alone make it to college. He proved us all wrong. He was academically gifted and totally focused.”

“Impressive. So, how’s the case going?”

Brad stretched his legs out in front of him. His foot touched mine under the desk, and I got a tingle.

“He’s working on it, but it’s too soon to tell. He usually does research for the firm. This is something new for him.”

I felt my neck tense up. “He hasn’t done this before? What’s his strategy?”

Brad sighed and glanced away. “I’m not sure. He said something about circumstantial evidence, but—”

“That’s it?” I looked at him in disbelief. “That’s all he’s got?”

“Presley, calm down. He’s a good lawyer and he’ll do everything he can to help Delicia. Meanwhile—”

I stood up. “Meanwhile, the police are doing nothing to find the real murderer and Delicia is rotting in jail!”

“Pres, she’s not exactly rotting—”

“You know what I mean!”

Brad took my hand. I jerked it away and turned my back on him. He stood up, took my arm, and spun me around. “Presley, we’re going to find out the truth.”

“When? And who’s ‘we’? Not your pal Melvin. He’s convinced Dee did it. And Andrew’s had little experience with this. He’s only focused on the legal aspect. So tell me—who? Who’s helping clear Delicia? Who’s going to find her killer?”

“We are.” He held my arms, then slid his hands down into mine. “You and I. Okay? We’ll find out who’s behind all this. And why.”

He leaned in, possibly to kiss me. Like a fool, I burst into tears and tucked my head into his shoulder.

If Delicia was relying on me to get her out of jail, she was in big, big trouble.