Invisible Prey (11 page)

Jane was working on her own breakfast, consumed by the music, projected across the kitchen by her Bang & Olufsen speakers; it was like living inside an orchestra, and by adjusting the speakers according to the Bang & Olufsen instructions, she could vary her position from, say, the violas, back through the woodwinds, and all the way around the violins. It was lovely. She never referred to the speakers as speakers; she always referred to them as the Bang & Olufsens.

Jane Widdler, née Little. At Carleton College, where she and Leslie had met and become a couple, Leslie had been known to his roommates as Big Widdler, which the roommates had found hilarious for some obscure reason that Leslie had never discovered.

And when he courted and then, halfway through his senior year, married a woman named Little, of course, they’d become Big and Little Widdler. For some reason, the same ex-roommates thought that was even more hilarious, and could be heard laughing at the back of the wedding chapel.

Jane Little Widdler disapproved of the nicknames; but she rarely thought of it, since nobody used them but long-ago acquaintances from Carleton, most of whom had sunk out of sight in the muck of company relations, widget sales, and circus management.

Jane was putting together her breakfast smoothie. A cup of pineapple juice, a cup of strawberries, a half cup of bananas, a little of this, a little of that, and some yogurt and ice, blended for one annoying minute, the whining of the blender drowning out the Mozart. When it stopped, she heard Leslie’s voice, through the sliding screen door: “Oh, my God!”

She could tell from his tone that it was serious. She couldn’t frown, exactly, because of the Botox injections, but she made a frowning look and stepped to the door: “What? Is it the brook?”

The Widdlers were leading a petition drive to have the name officially changed from Minnehaha Creek to Minnehaha Brook, a combination they felt was more euphonic. They’d had some trashy kayakers on the brook lately—including one who was, of course, a left-wing lawyer, who had engaged in a shouting match with Leslie. Paddling for the People. Well, fuck that. The brook didn’t belong to the people.

But it wasn’t the creek, or the brook, that put the tone in Big Widdler’s voice. Leslie was on his feet. He was wearing a white pullover Egyptian long-staple cotton shirt with loose sleeves, buttoned at the wrists with black mother-of-pearl buttons, madras plaid shorts, and Salvatore Ferragamo sandals, and looked quite good in the morning sunlight, she thought. “Check this out,” he said.

He passed her the
Star Tribune.

The big headline said:
Did Murders Conceal Invisible Heist?
Under that, in smaller type,
Millions in Antiques May Be Missing.

“Oh, my gosh,” Jane said. Her frowning look grew deeper as she read. “I wonder who Ruffe Ignace is?”

“Just a reporter. That’s not the problem,” said Big Widdler, flapping his hands like a butterfly. “If they do an inventory, there may be items…” The Bang & Olufsen slimline phone started to ring from its spot next to the built-in china cabinet, and he reached toward it. “…on the list that can be identified, and we won’t know which ones they are. If there are photos…”

He picked up the phone and said, “Hello?” and a second later, “Uh, Detective? Well, sure…”

Jane was shaken, placed one hand on her breast, the other on the countertop. This could be it: everything they’d worked for, gone in the blink of an eye.

Leslie said, “Hello, yes, it is…uh huh, uh huh…” Then he smiled, but kept his voice languid, professional. “We’d be delighted to help, as long as it wouldn’t prejudice our position in bidding, if there should be an estate auction. I can’t see why it would, if all you want is an opinion…Mmm, this afternoon would be fine. I’ll bring my wife. Our assistant can watch the shop. One o’clock, then. See you after lunch.”

He put down the phone and chuckled: “We’ve been asked to advise the St. Paul police on the Bucher investigation.”

Jane made a smiling look. “Leslie, that’s
too rich.
And you know what? It’s really going to piss off Carmody & Loan.”

Carmody & Loan were their only possible competition, in terms of quality, in the Cities. If C&L had been asked to do the valuations, Jane would have been
royally
pissed. She couldn’t
wait
to hear what Melody Loan had to say about
this.
She’d be furious. She said, “Maybe we could find a way to get the news of the appointment to this Ruffe Ignace person.”

Leslie’s eyebrows went up: “You mean to rub it in? Mmmm. You are such a
bitch
sometimes. I like it.” He moved up to her, slipped his hand inside her morning slacks, which were actually the bottoms of a well-washed Shotokan karate gi, down through her pubic hair.

She widened her stance a bit, put her butt back against the counter, bit her lip, made a look, the best she could, considering the Botox, of semi-ecstasy. “Rub it in, big guy,” she whispered, the smoothie almost forgotten.

B
UT AS
L
ESLIE
was inclined to say, the Lord giveth, and the Lord is damn well likely to taketh it away in the next breath. They spent the morning at the shop, calling customers and other dealers, dealing with bills, arguing with the State Farm agent about their umbrella policy. At noon, they stopped at a sandwich shop for Asiago roast-beef sandwiches on sourdough bread, then headed for St. Paul.

They were driving east on I-494 in Jane’s Audi A4, which she now referred to as “that piece of junk,” when another unwelcome call came in. Jane fumbled her cell phone out and looked at the screen. The caller ID said
Marilyn Coombs.

“Marilyn Coombs,” she said to Leslie.

“It’s that damned story,” Leslie said.

Jane punched the answer button, said, “Hello?”

M
ARILYN
C
OOMBS WAS
an old lady, who, in Jane’s opinion, should have been dead a long time ago. Her voice was weak and thready: she said, “Jane? Have you heard about Connie Bucher?”

“Just read it in the paper this morning,” Jane said. “We were shocked.”

“It’s the same thing that happened to Claire Donaldson,” Coombs whimpered. “Don’t you think we should call the police?”

“Well, gosh, I’d hate to get involved with the police,” Jane said. “We’d probably have to wind up hiring lawyers, and we wouldn’t want…you know.”

“Well, we wouldn’t say anything about
that,”
Coombs said. “But I got my clipping of when Claire was killed, and Jane, they’re just
alike.”

“I thought Claire was shot,” Jane said. “That’s what I heard.”

“Well, except for that, they’re the same,” Coombs said. Jane rolled her eyes.

“You know, I didn’t know Claire that well,” Jane said.

“I thought you were friends…”

“No, no, we knew who she was, through the quilt-study group, but we didn’t really
know
her. Anyway, I’d like to see the clipping. I could probably tell you better about the police, if I could see the clipping.”

“I’ve got it right here,” Coombs said.

“Well. Why don’t we stop by this evening,” Jane suggested. “It’ll probably be late, we’re out on an appointment right now. Let me take a look at it.”

“If you think that’d be right,” Coombs said.

“Well, we don’t want to make a mistake.”

“Okay, then,” Coombs said. “After dinner.”

“It’ll be later than that, I’m afraid. We’re on our way to Eau Claire. What time do you go to bed?”

“Not until after the TV news.”

“Okay. We’ll be back before then. Probably…about dark.”

T
HAT
GAVE THEM
something to talk about. “Is it all falling apart, Leslie? Is it all falling apart?” Jane asked. She’d been in drama club, and was a former vice president of the Edina Little Theater.

“Of course not,” Leslie said. “We just need to do some cleanup.”

Jane sighed. Then she said, “Do you think the Hermès is too much?” She was wearing an Hermès scarf with ducks on it, and the ducks had little red collars and were squawking at each other.

“No, no. I think it looks quite good on you.”

“I hope it’s not falling apart on us,” Jane said.

“Most cops are dumber than a bowl of spaghetti,” Leslie said. “Not to worry, sweet.”

Still, Jane, with her delicate elbow on the leather bolster below the Audi’s window, her fingers along her cheek, couldn’t help think, if it
were
all coming to an end, if there might not be some way she could shift all the blame to Leslie.

Perhaps even…She glanced at him, speculatively, at his temple, and thought,
No. That’s way premature.

Then they met the cops. And talked about missing antiques, including a painting by Stanley Reckless.

O
N THE WAY
out of Oak Walk, Jane said, “That Davenport person is
not
dumber than a bowl of spaghetti.”

“No, he’s not,” Leslie said. He held the car door for her, tucked her in, leaned forward and said, “We’ve got to talk about the Reckless.”

“We’ve got to get rid of it. Burn it,” Jane said.

“I’m not going to give up a half-million-dollar painting,” Leslie said. “But we have to do something.”

They talked it over on the way home. The solution, Jane argued, was to destroy it. There was no statute of limitations on murder, and, sometime, in the future, if the call of the money was too strong, they might be tempted to sell it—and get caught.

“A new, fresh Reckless—that’s going to attract some attention,” she said.

“Private sale,” Leslie said.

“I don’t know,” Jane said.

“Half-million dollars,” Leslie said, and when he said it, Jane knew that she wanted the money.

They went home, and after dinner, Leslie stood on a stool and got the Reckless out of the double-secret storage area in the rafters of the attic.

“Gorgeous piece?” he said. He flipped it over, looked at the name slashed across the back of the canvas. Though Leslie ran to fat, he was still strong. Gripping the frame tightly, he torqued it, wiggled the sides, then the top and bottom, and the frame began to spread. When it was loose enough, he lifted the canvas, still on stretchers, out of the frame, and put it under a good light on the dining room table.

“Got a strong signature,” he said. Reckless had carefully signed the front of the painting at the lower right, with a nice red signature over a grassy green background. “Don’t need the one on the back.”

“Take it off?”

“If we took it off, then it couldn’t be identified as the Bucher painting,” Leslie said.

“There’d always be some…remnants.”

“Not if you don’t want to see it,” Leslie said. He looked at the painting for a moment, then said. “Here’s what we do. We stash it at the farm for now. Wrap it up nice and tight. Burn the frame. When I get time, I’ll take the ‘Reckless’ off the back—it’ll take me a couple of weeks, at least. We get some old period paint—we should be able to get some from Dick Calendar—and paint over the area where the ‘Reckless’ was. Then we take it to Omaha, or Kansas City, or even Vegas, rent a safe-deposit box, and stick it away for five years. In five years, it’s good as gold.”

Bad idea, Jane thought: but she
yearned
for the money.

T
HREE HOURS LATER,
the Widdlers were rolling again.

“There is,” Leslie said, his hands at ten o’clock and four on the wood-rimmed wheel of his Lexus, “a substantial element of insanity in this. No coveralls, no gloves, no hairnets. We are shedding DNA every step we take.”

“But it’s eighty percent that we won’t have to do anything,” Jane said. “Doing nothing would be best. We pooh-pooh the newspaper clipping, we scare her with the police, with the idea of a trial. Then, when we get past the lumpy parts, we might come back to her. We could do that in our own good time. Or maybe she’ll just drop dead. She’s old enough.”

They were on Lexington Avenue in St. Paul, headed toward Como Park, a half hour past sunset. The summer afternoon lingered, stretching toward ten o’clock. Though it was one of the major north-south streets, Lexington was quiet at night, a few people along the sidewalks, light traffic. Marilyn Coombs’s house was off the park, on Iowa, a narrower, darker street. They’d park a block away, and walk; it was a neighborhood for walking.

“Remember about the DNA,” Leslie said. “Just in case. No sudden moves. They can find individual hairs. Think about
gliding
in there. Let’s not walk all over the house. Try not to touch anything. Don’t pick anything up.”

“I have as much riding on this as you do,” Jane said, cool air in her voice. “Focus on what we’re doing. Watch the windows. Let me do most of the talking.”

“The DNA…”

“Forget about the DNA. Think about anything else.”

There was a bit of a snarl in her voice. Leslie glanced at her, in the little snaps of light coming in from the street, and thought about what a delicate neck she had…

T
HEY WERE
coming up on the house. They’d been in it a half-dozen times with the quilt-study group. “What about the trigger?” Leslie asked.

“Same one. Touch your nose. If I agree, I’ll touch my nose,” Jane said.

“I’ll have to be behind her. Whatever I do, I’ll have to be behind her.”

“If that finial is loose…” The finial was a six-inch oak ball on the bottom post of Coombs’s stairway banister. The stairway came down in the hallway, to the right of the inner porch door. “If it’s just plugged in there, the way most of them are…”

“Can’t count on it,” Leslie said. “I’m not sure that a competent medical examiner would buy it anyway.”

“Old lady, dead at the bottom of the stairs, forehead fracture that fits the finial, hair on the finial…What’s there to argue about?” Jane asked.

“I’ll see when I go in,” he said. “We might get away with it. They sure as shit won’t believe she fell on a kitchen knife.”

“Watch the language, darling. Remember, we’re trying.” Trying for elegance. That was their watchword for the year, written at the top of every page of their Kliban Cat Calendar:
Elegance!
Better business through
Elegance!
Jane added, “Two things I don’t like about the knife idea. First, it’s not instantaneous. She could still scream…”