On the Hook Read online

  “Don’t tell him that,” Smith hissed. “If he thinks we’re holding something over him, it’ll keep him in line.”

  Westen slapped a palm to her forehead and wished this day would hurry and get done with.

  ****

  In their room, Smith beelined for the shower. Westen flopped on the bed, the cell phone—the one given to her by KJ—open. She dialed Grady, asked how things were going and was assured they were as right as rain.

  She shut the phone and rolled on her left side, prepared for a nice catnap. The phone rang. She groaned, knowing the only person who would be calling was KJ. Westen managed to answer by the fifth ring.

  “Where are you?” KJ’s accusing words flew through the phone.

  “At the hotel.”

  “What’re you doing there? You’re supposed to be out finding my painting.”

  As calmly as possible, Westen drew in a breath. On the exhale she outlined their day.

  The bathroom door opened. Smith, wrapped in a fluffy white towel, stepped into the room.

  “Well,” Westen continued, “Smith spilled something on her shirt. We had to come back here so she could change.”

  Smith grinned and mouthed, “KJ?”

  Westen nodded.

  “What were you doing on top of that trailer?”

  For a moment, Westen wondered if a camera had been placed in her belongings, then realized KJ must’ve spoken to Ryan.

  “Guess you should’ve been here if you had such a need to know.” The last of the sentence was said to a dead phone because KJ had hung up. Westen stowed the phone in the depths of her handbag before it could ring again. Why wasn’t KJ here anyway? The woman was fanatical to know every bit of news. Seemed like she be here to see, hear, and do firsthand.

  “Are you okay for real?” Westen asked Smith.

  “Yeah. Except for this.” Smith parted her hair where, as Westen had already noted, a good-sized section of hair was missing.

  “Good thing it’s underneath.” She sat back on the bed and tried not to watch as Smith tossed off the towel, yanked things from the drawer and bent, back to Westen, and slipped into black slacks. “Where to after this?”

  Smith turned, buttoning her blouse—electric blue and white stripes. “I think we should go see that curator.”

  “I was thinking we ought to visit that other trucking company—the one Brad mentioned. What was the name of it again?”

  “I don’t know. You were the one on top of that trailer.”

  “Well, I tried to fill you in on what he said but every time I opened my mouth you bit my tongue off.”

  The ludicrous image struck them both at once and they exploded in laughter.

  “You know what I mean.” Westen spent a few minutes detailing her experiences with the best breezes the windy city had to offer.

  “He kept you from falling off?”

  “Yeah. Which says a lot about him as a person.”

  “It sure does. You might’ve landed on me. I could’ve got all broken.” She took hold of Westen’s arm and propelled her toward the hall.

  Westen snatched her handbag from the bed. It rang again. “I don’t hear anything, do you?”

  “Nope.” They moved into the elevator. “I don’t think we need to bother with that trucking company,” Smith said.

  “Because?”

  “Those drivers aren’t guilty of anything more than overloaded bladders. We can’t learn anything there that’ll make any difference.”

  “Maybe you’re right. I do want to talk to Andy again.”

  “Yeah. The broad held out on us.”

  ****

  As Ryan spun the car into traffic and headed for the Art Institute, Smith dug KJ’s notes from the envelope. “The curator is named Charles Fenwick. It says here that he originally wanted to be an archaeologist but—get this—he’s allergic to dirt and had to leave the program while doing fieldwork in Greece.”

  “Bummer. That can screw up a career,” Westen said.

  “It can but he didn’t let it. He went on to get a degree in anthropology from Dickinson in Pennsylvania. Apparently, he’s done a lot for this museum. He’s brought in millions in endowments.”

  “Anything about relationships with the trucking company, either of the drivers, or the insurance companies?”

  “Not really. The company that insures his museum has nothing to do with any of the others.”

  “No mention of the takeover?” Westen asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “What were KJ’s comments about that guy Fenwick?”

  Smith was quiet several minutes while she read. Westen watched the city fly past the window, hoping Grady had told the truth—that things were well back at the shop. “How far is this place?” she asked Ryan.

  He didn’t answer. He seemed to be dividing his attention between the traffic and something in the rearview mirror.

  When Westen asked, “What’s wrong?” Smith looked up. “Somebody following us?”

  “I’m not a hundred percent sure.”

  “But you think so…”

  “Yeah. A light blue pickup. I have a plan. It’ll be a detour of about an hour but it’ll let us know for sure.”

  “Remember, KJ said his attitude changed when she refused to go out with him.” Smith gave a hearty chuckle. “I think a lot of these observations are products of her overly fertile imagination.”

  Westen was inclined to agree. KJ was a very opinionated person and the opinions, it was turning out, seemed to reflect her history with a person rather than a broad picture of them as a whole. “What else did she say?”

  “He helped above and beyond what I expected to make this showing work out,” she read. “He was in personal touch with both other curators, Henderson McGee and Russell Batchelder to facilitate the movement of the Picasso.”

  “He would be helpful, wouldn’t he, since it’s ultimately his head on the chopping block if something happens.”

  “You’d think KJ would’ve realized that. It says here, he recommended Starfire Trucking.”

  “Is that right?” Westen sat forward, stretching the nylon of the seatbelt.

  “He said they’d used the company numerous times, though admittedly not with so valuable an item.”

  “Is there a criminal report on him in there?”

  “Can’t be. They wouldn’t let him work at the museum, would they?” This came from Ryan in the front seat.

  “Could be,” Westen said, “if the crime happened when he was a kid, or after he’d been hired and he somehow managed to keep it quiet.”

  “Could happen, I s’pose.” Smith performed a fruitless search for the report then she slid the information back in the large brown envelope.

  “I’d like to go in there with some ammunition. Something to compel him to talk.”

  Smith produced a cell phone and tapped a number with a blunt fingernail. Westen could hear the phone on the other end ringing. “KJ,” Smith said. “Did you do a criminal record search on Charles Fenwick?”

  Westen couldn’t understand KJ’s response, but from the tone it was clear she hadn’t thought such work was needed.

  “I need one, asap.” Smith hung up. She stowed the phone in her shirt pocket and brushed her hands together in a job-well-done gesture. “That’s how you handle Kendra Jean Valentine.”

  Ten minutes later, Westen’s phone vibrated with an incoming text message. Charles Fenwick does indeed have a criminal record. She laughed to see KJ had sent it to her rather than Smith. For the first time, Westen found something to like about Kendra Jean—an aversion to being ordered about.

  “Mr. Fenwick was arrested on July 22nd of this year for assaulting his mother. Beat her so badly she ended up in the hospital. KJ’s going to forward the police report if she can get one.”

  The announcement caused Ryan to flash a look over his shoulder. “Sleaze-bucket.”

  “It’s definitely sleazy,” Smith said, “but domestic abuse isn’t anything related to the
museum. Nothing to do with stolen Picassos, trucking companies, or anything like that. And it’s not like he’s gonna beat up a mummy.”

  “Very funny,” Westen said.

  “I wonder how he kept the news of his arrest from his boss.”

  Westen checked KJ’s message again. “I suspect it’s because it happened at the mom’s home in Michigan. I wonder if there’s something in the record that we can turn in our favor.”

  “I see what you mean. Something that’ll encourage him to talk besides a shiv in his gut.”

  “Right.”

  “Perhaps the threat of his boss finding out will be enough.” Ryan flipped on the right turn signal and directed the car into the airport.

  “Is our tail still back there?”

  “I don’t see it. I think when they realized we were headed this way, they turned off.”

  “Hopefully they’re satisfied we’re leaving their fair city.”

  Ryan maneuvered through the vehicles dropping off and picking up travelers and made his way back out onto the highway. “It’s only about fifteen minutes to the museum from here.”

  Sure enough, in seventeen minutes he stopped in front of the building, an imposing structure perfectly suited to being the intended forever-home of The Old Guitarist. As they were about to climb out, Westen’s phone vibrated with another message from KJ. She read from the small screen. “I scanned the report so I could get this to you fast. Might be more than I’m seeing right off. Looks like he beat her with his fists. Broke a cheekbone and they had to do surgery on her left ear. Mom moved away. Her address is undisclosed.”

  Westen typed back the word THANKS and followed Smith onto the sidewalk.

  “Wow!” Smith spun around, taking in the scenery.

  “Did you know this is the second largest museum in the country?” Westen said, demonstrating more of her usually useless font of information. “It’s second only to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.”

  Smith gave her the now-familiar eye-roll and a “that right?”

  “Smashing kitties. Just smashing,” Smith said, regarding the enormous bronze lions standing guard at the cement stairs leading to the building.

  “They’d be nice additions to your menagerie. Don’t eat much or make noise. And they don’t poop on the floor or escape to the neighbors.”

  With that last line, Westen realized she’d gone too far. Smith turned and suddenly found something extremely interesting out the window. Westen wanted to apologize, but something about Smith’s demeanor said the time wasn’t right.

  “Come on, let’s go in.”

  Westen felt tiny inside the gargantuan foyer. “Wow,” she mimicked Smith’s earlier admiration of the lions. She stepped up to a woman wearing a tag on her lapel. “May we see Mr. Fenwick, please?” Her voice echoed even though at least thirty people milled about the area.

  “Certainly. He’s right over here.” She gestured toward an extremely tall man wearing a severe black suit. The way he held himself, and sober expression on his face, said he took this job very seriously. “Who may I say is here?”

  “We’re investigators for New Hampshire Property and Casualty.”

  Westen didn’t know what she’d expected to come from this visit, but it certainly wasn’t for the tall man to elbow his way through the crowd and disappear out a back door.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Westen performed a more ladylike version of Fenwick’s departure while behind her, Smith shouted for the security team. Suddenly the place was full of uniformed men and women. Westen pointed toward the tall, double doors between which Fenwick had flown. Without hesitation, not even knowing who or what they were after, the guards zipped through the doors into a room full of Egyptian antiquities. The place looked like the inside of a pyramid, complete with sarcophagus on a raised, jeweled dais in the center.

  What Westen didn’t see was the fleeing curator. Two museum-goers turned from their examination of a gold Siamese cat, eyes wide as the crowd of people burst into the room. And stopped in their tracks.

  One of the guards faced Westen. “What are we looking for?”

  “Your boss, Mr. Fenwick.”

  His expression turned to one of disbelief.

  “Stop doing a goldfish impression and get him,” Smith said. “We want to talk to him.”

  “Why not just ask to see him? Why go through all th—”

  “We did, and he ran away.”

  “Who are you, anyway?” another guard inquired.

  “We’re from the insurance company.”

  “Why would he run from you?”

  “Catch him and you can ask him yourself.”

  “Maybe their coverage is being canceled since he let the Picasso be stolen,” Smith said.

  “He didn’t have anything to do with that.”

  “When he takes off this way, it makes him look like he did,” Westen said. “Now get him, please.”

  Two of them moved off to search the room.

  “There’s another exit.” A female guard headed in that direction, muttering, “I always thought there was something strange about him.”

  Strange was a rather mild word considering what Westen knew.

  A shout came from the corner where a pair of sarcophaguses leaned against the wall, a heaping pile of ancient household belongings between them. Two guards stood in front of the left-hand sarcophagus. The door was open and they were pulling Mr. Fenwick into the open. It didn’t seem to matter that he was their boss and hadn’t been charged with any wrongdoing, they were none too gentle with him.

  Even so, he managed to squirm loose. He launched himself back into the Egyptian room, barreled into the two customers, knocking them aside like bowling pins, then shot into the hallway. Westen stood to the side so she wouldn’t get trampled by the gaggle of guards and other people intent on capturing their now-fugitive boss. As the group stormed through the building, Westen followed the sounds of shouted warnings and breaking glass, ready to pounce with questions once Fenwick was suitably subdued. The chase ended in an auditorium where seats surrounded a wide movie screen on which a body was being embalmed by a person wearing garb suitable to Cleopatra’s time period. About half of the fifty-odd chairs were occupied. Surprisingly, nobody seemed turned off by what was happening on-screen, yet several complained when Charles Fenwick’s scrawny silhouette superimposed itself over the embalmer.

  Fenwick was cuffed and escorted back to the office behind the Egyptian room where he was none-too-gently encouraged into his desk chair. In front of the burgundy color drapes, the man’s pale skin looked ghostlike. The need-to-flee seemed to have fled.

  Westen and Smith stood side-by-side staring at him. Westen, for one, was speechless. A trip she’d expected to be a ho-hum waste of time, produced heart-pounding excitement akin to the climax of a Frank Marshall movie—though she still had no idea why the curator had put them through all this.

  “Mr. Fenwick. I am Westen Hughes, a freelance investigator for the insurance company who underwrote the policy on the Picasso. This is my partner, Phoebe Smith.” The words freelance investigator sounded good to her ears.

  Charles Fenwick blinked watery blue eyes. They flicked back and forth from Westen to Smith. “You mean, you’re not from—”

  They waited for him to finish. He didn’t.

  “We’re not from what, Mr. Fenwick?” Smith asked.

  He seemed to consider not replying. Then he changed his mind, sat up straight and smoothed some wrinkles from the front of his shirt with his cuffed hands. “I assumed you were from the police department.”

  “Is that how you always act when police come asking for you?”

  “I do if I’m expecting—”

  “Don’t stop now, Mr. Fenwick.” Westen didn’t add: I’m really getting interested.

  “If I’m expecting to be arrested.”

  “Why would police arrest you?” Smith waited a moment. When no reply came, she added, “Does this have to do with what you did to
your mother?”

  The man lost whatever deportment he’d recovered. He dropped his head on the desk, his long fingers clenching clumps of dark hair near the nape of his neck. Westen couldn’t help picturing the same place on Smith’s head where her hair was missing. She looked at Smith who shrugged. They waited while the clock on the far wall ticked away. The relentless click click sounded ominous. Westen wondered how often three people had been in the same room with this much silence.

  She spent time taking in the surroundings: a nice, plush office, with drapes that exactly matched the deep pile carpet. The uncluttered desk was burnished mahogany. On one corner sat a picture in a gold filigree frame. Westen stepped close and spun it around. The movement brought Charles Fenwick’s head upright. He looked surprised to see them still standing there.

  The picture was of three people in front of a wide-trunked maple tree. One person was clearly him at about ten years of age. A boy, probably two or three years younger, knelt beside him; an older woman sat beside the boy. All three shared many of the same features: wide mouth, hair color and crinkles at the corners of the eyes.

  Westen handed the picture to Smith, who asked, “Your mother and brother?”

  He nodded.

  Westen tried to imagine this man beating on his poor mother but couldn’t. The image didn’t come, but an idea did. “Mr. Fenwick, you didn’t hurt your mother, your brother did.”

  Smith’s head spun toward her so quickly Westen couldn’t help thinking about the movie The Exorcist.

  Charles Fenwick shook his head hard, but Westen held her ground. “Why are you protecting him?”

  He gave another head shake, then a small nod that, if she hadn’t been watching, she would’ve missed.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “He’s—” He made a palms-up defeated gesture. “He’s always been in trouble. I just thought that if I helped out this one time, he’d realize—that maybe he’d get his act together.”

  “You chanced ruining your whole life for him?” Smith set the picture on the desk, then gave it a deliberate turn so he had to look at it. When he didn’t respond, she added, “How’s that working out for you?”

  “I managed to keep it quiet. Till you arrived.”