Wall-To-Wall Dead (33 page)

Derek nodded pensively.

I continued, “He wouldn’t want to do that. Candy might have been a fun pastime, but Jamie told me it’s his wife
who has the money. Her family owns Guido’s and the strip club and a lot of other businesses. David married into the family—and into the money. He wouldn’t want to lose it, not to marry a twenty-two-year-old waitress. One his wife employed.”

Derek nodded again, more certain this time.

“Jamie said the wine and chocolates were from him. He’d know what Candy liked. And he stopped by the hospital today. When I saw him this afternoon, I told him what had happened and that she’d been taken to the hospital. He got angry. Maybe because she was still alive. Maybe he’d thought she’d be dead already. He could have gone to the hospital and done something to her, when Jamie wasn’t looking.”

“Anything’s possible,” Derek said as we heard footsteps on the stairs, echoing through the building. It was Josh coming back, car keys jingling in his hand.

“I called Dad and told him I was coming. He’s waiting for the stuff.”

“I’ll go with you,” Derek said.

I blinked, surprised. He hadn’t said anything about that.

Josh blinked, too. “Why? Are you afraid I’m gonna take something out of the envelope before I pass it to Dad?”

“No,” Derek said calmly, “I’m just making sure you get there.”

There was a beat of silence. Then Josh tried to laugh. “You can’t be serious.”

It sounded hollow, and then he stopped laughing and swallowed, his face pale in the bright light from the fluorescent bulb overhead. “Are you?”

“Just being cautious,” Derek said. “If there’s something in that envelope someone’s been willing to kill for, that same someone might just decide to try one more time. You know what that’s like. It’s just a month since your car went off the road and into the ocean.”

Josh swallowed again. “Sure,” he said. “After that, I’d just as soon not be alone.”

Derek nodded. “Did you figure out a place to stay? Other than here?”

“There are rooms at the inn,” Josh said, referring to Kate’s bed and breakfast. “I’ll give Dad the stuff and crash there for the night.”

“If you don’t mind some free advice,” I said, “maybe you should find the time to take Shannon aside for a talk, too. You’re gonna have to tell your dad how you got the stuff, and he’ll guess that Jamie must have pressured you in some way to get you to steal it. It’s better for Shannon to hear about Jamie from you and not your dad.”

Josh nodded, and drove a hand through his hair. “Guess I don’t have a choice, really.”

“Honesty is always the best policy,” Derek said. “Much better to tell the truth and deal with the fallout, than lie and have it blow up in your face later. Let’s get it over with.” He gave Josh a push toward the front door. “C’mon, Tink.”

I came, until we were outside in the cool air, and then I realized something. “I left my laptop here on Friday. I want to go upstairs and get it. And bring it home.”

“Can’t it wait until tomorrow?”

“There’s something I want to look up,” I said.

Derek looked mutinous, and I added, “I’ll be fine. No one’s going to try to hurt me. It’s not like I know anything more than anyone else does. Just go. Pick up the stuff and take it to Wayne. I’ll grab the laptop and be out of here in two minutes. I promise.”

He relented. “Fine. But if you get yourself killed, I’ll never forgive you.”

“I won’t get myself killed.” Sheesh, talk about paranoia. “I’ll see you at home later. Right?”

He nodded. “Oh, yeah. From now on, you’re stuck with me whether you want to be or not.”

“I want to be.” I tilted my face up and got a kiss while Josh busied himself by unlocking the doors of the Honda and getting in, giving us a moment of privacy. “I’ll see you in a half hour or so. Have Josh drop you off at the house.”

Derek said he would, and then he jogged across the parking lot to where the Honda was idling, waiting to go. I went back inside the building and up to the second floor,
where I let myself into the Antoninis’ condo and locked the door behind me before going to look for the laptop.

It was exactly where I’d left it, on the floor of the living room, not too far from the balcony door, and I grabbed it and headed back out. Above my head, I could hear Jamie moving around. I had expected her to go straight to bed—to be honest, she’d looked beat—but maybe she couldn’t sleep. Any minute now, she’d probably walk across the hall to knock on Josh’s door for some company.

Yes, indeed: No sooner had I opened the door into the stairwell, preparatory to leaving, than I heard the door upstairs open as well. I held my breath as soft footsteps padded across the landing. The knock on the door sounded hollow as it echoed between the walls in the hallway.

There was no answer, of course—Josh was gone—and after a few seconds, there was another knock. Then Jamie’s voice. “Josh? Are you there? Josh?”

I thought about telling her that he’d left, but I thought better of it. Instead I just waited quietly while she knocked again, called his name again, and finally gave up. I heard her footsteps move across the landing over my head, and then the door close and lock upstairs. I waited a few more seconds before I started pulling on my own. I was just about to shut it when Jamie opened her door again.

Damn. Maybe she was on her way out. Maybe, in a minute, she’d come down the stairs and see me standing here.

But no, it wasn’t Jamie after all. These sounds came from below. Must be William Maurits, since Miss Shaw’s apartment, obviously, was empty. Maurits and I hadn’t parted on the most perfect of terms earlier, so it might be best if I waited until he’d done whatever he planned to do, before I went downstairs. We were all stressed out and nursing fraying nerves at the moment; to be honest, I wasn’t up for another conversation, especially with someone I’d annoyed earlier.

He locked his door and then headed down the stairs. I ducked back inside my own apartment and pulled the door shut behind me. And moved through the dark hallway into
the kitchen, where I went to the window and looked out. If he was headed to the basement, to do laundry or root around in his storage bin, I might be here awhile. Derek would get to Aunt Inga’s house and find it empty, and then he’d worry. If I got stuck here, I should probably call him and let him know I’d been delayed. But if Maurits was going somewhere, all I had to do was wait until his car had driven away, before I could get out of here myself.

It was rather late in the day to go for a drive, but even later to do laundry. I kept my fingers crossed as I peered down into the parking lot.

Yep, there he was. Walking across the parking lot from the building toward his car with something under his arm. Something square and brown. A pizza box?

But what kind of idiot carried a pizza box vertically under his arm? Pizzas have to be kept horizontal, or the cheese slides off. Everyone knows that.

Although when he got to the sedan and beeped open the trunk, he set the box right side up and stowed it carefully, even a bit reverently, inside. And then, almost as if he couldn’t help himself, he lifted the lid and peered lovingly at the contents.

No, not pizza.

The trunk light had gone on when the trunk opened, and although I was far away and didn’t have a fantastic view into the trunk, I saw enough. A rectangle, just slightly smaller than the box, with a dark background, an ivory oval, a red smear, and a golden halo.

“Whoa!”

It was the
Madonna
. The painting that supposedly had been destroyed in a gallery fire five years ago. The painting that the insurance company Maurits worked for had paid a half-million dollars in settlement for.

It could have been a copy, I suppose. But if it were, why was he carrying it around in a pizza box at ten o’clock at night? Just thirty minutes after we’d warned him that the police would want to talk to him about it?

Obviously he was getting it out of his condo before the
police arrived. It must have been in one of the rooms we hadn’t seen. Maybe he kept it above his bed, so he could gaze at it before going to sleep at night.

Downstairs, Maurits lowered the lid of the box gently over the Madonna’s face. I saw the logo of Guido’s Pizzeria for a second before he closed the lid of the trunk on top of it. And then he headed for the door of the car.

“Shit,” I muttered. I’d thought he might just be planning to keep the box in the car overnight, and take it to work with him in the morning. Leave it somewhere along the way maybe. But it seemed he was taking care of it now instead. He must be desperate to get it out of the house, if he was willing to risk heading out now. Going for a car ride at this time of night looked so much more suspicious than just waiting until the morning.

If I had any hope of keeping up with him—and of course I wanted to; for all I knew he might be on his way to destroy the
Madonna
—I’d better hustle. But not too fast, or he’d see me. So I scurried across the kitchen and out of the apartment while Maurits started his car. While I locked the door, he backed out of the parking space, and while I hustled down the stairs and along the basement hallway, he drove to the entrance to the parking lot. I stood just inside the front doors and watched him take a left, toward downtown Waterfield, Barnham College, and the ocean, and then, as soon as he was out of sight, I hustled to the Beetle, threw myself behind the wheel, and followed.

It was déjà vu all over again: just two days since I’d followed Candy along this same road. But unlike on Friday, William Maurits didn’t stop at Guido’s. He didn’t stop at Barnham College, or Wellhaven. In fact, he kept driving until he was far outside the Waterfield city limits, and for a while I thought I’d have to follow him all the way to Portland. However, twenty minutes later we’d made it to a small town called Brunswick, and here he turned off.

I haven’t spent a lot of time in Brunswick, other than to pass through on my way to or from Portland. I’d never been in the area where I tailed Maurits now. If Brunswick had
an underbelly, this must be it. Pawnshops, bail-bonding companies, and used car lots surrounded by barbed wire fencing and guarded by watchful dogs. It was dark, and I had to follow a little more closely than I liked so I wouldn’t lose Maurits in the labyrinth of streets. If I got too close, I was afraid he’d recognize the Beetle.

Through all of this, I hadn’t given Derek a thought. When my phone suddenly signaled, I jumped. And because I did, I fumbled the phone, dropped it on the seat next to me once, and had to retrieve it before I could push the speaker button. “Hi.”

“Where are you?” Derek demanded.

Oops. It had been more than thirty minutes. He must have gotten to Aunt Inga’s house and found it empty.

“Sorry. Somewhere in Brunswick.”

There was a moment of silence, when I wondered whether we’d lost the connection. “Derek?”

“I’m here. What are you doing in Brunswick?”

“Following Maurits,” I said. “When I came out of the apartment with the laptop, Jamie was knocking on Josh’s door. I didn’t want to deal with her again…” Especially after Derek had so accurately predicted the chain of events; I hadn’t been sure I could talk to her with a straight face. “So I had to wait for her to go back to her own condo. But then Maurits headed out, and I didn’t want to deal with him, either. So I waited for him to leave.”

“This doesn’t tell me how you ended up in Brunswick,” Derek said.

Right. “He had the
Madonna
with him.”

There was another pause. “The entertainer or the religious figure?” Derek asked.

I stuck my tongue out at him, not that he could see it. “The painting. Hidden in a pizza box. He put it in the trunk of the car and then opened it. I saw it clearly.”

“He didn’t see you, did he?”

Not as far as I knew.

“You better make sure he doesn’t,” Derek said, “because if Miss Shaw knew he had that painting, and he killed her
because of it, he might kill you, too. Dammit, Avery, why do you do these things?”

Because I couldn’t not, I guess.

“Don’t worry. I’m not going to confront him. I just want to see where he’s taking it. So I can tell Wayne where it is.”

“What if he tries to destroy it?” Derek said.

I hadn’t thought of that. “I guess I might have to try to save it. I mean, if he destroys it, there goes the evidence. Right?”

“No!” Derek said. “If he tries to destroy it, you let him. I’d rather the painting go up in smoke—for real this time—than you hurting yourself. You were lucky to survive the fire back in July. It’s just a painting. Promise me you won’t do anything stupid.”

I promised. I didn’t want anything to happen to me, either. “But I don’t think he will. If he wanted to destroy it, he could have done that at home. Taken a sharp knife or a pair of scissors and cut it to ribbons. I think he’s just giving it to someone else. Or leaving it somewhere.”

And possibly sooner than I’d realized. While we’d been talking, Maurits had slowed down. As I watched, he took a right into a driveway.

“Stay on the line,” Derek ordered.

No problem. After a quick look around to make sure there were no cop cars waiting to pounce on me, I cut my lights and rolled closer, in time to see the rear lights of the sedan disappear through a sliding chain-link gate. Inside the fence were row upon row of storage units.

“U-Stor,” I read the sign. “He must have a unit here. He’s disappearing into the back.”

“What’s the address?”

It was posted below the name on the sign beside the gate. I read it off to him.

“He’s probably just putting the painting there for safekeeping,” Derek opined. “I’ll call Wayne. When it’s light, he can get a warrant and search the unit. Come home, Avery.”

“Yessir,” I said, and turned my lights on and did a U-turn
that would have gotten me pulled over for sure in Waterfield, before I made a beeline for home.