Blind Overlook (Book 3 of the Jay Leicester Mysteries Series) (6 page)

"No,” he
laughed, setting the bottle back on the table and picking up his champagne
flute. "I promise. The label's still on the one I've selected for dinner,
which we'd better decant now. We eat in thirty minutes, my dear,” he said to
Kathleen.

We went back to
the cellar. Chamberlain set a dusty bottle on the wooden table before we went
upstairs to open the champagne. He lit a candle and gently picked up that same
bottle. "Here,” he said, holding it so I could see the label. "What
do you think this will be like?"

The label was
covered with dust and mostly eaten away. But I could clearly make out, Chateau
Lafite, 1875. This was astounding. The wine was almost a hundred and thirty
years old. There was no ullage, and a perfect wax seal. Sitting my champagne
glass on the table, my attention was riveted on the Lafite.

"You really
want to do this, J.L.?" I heard myself saying. "It's probably way
over the hill. It would surely bring a lot of money at auction."

"Hog wash,”
Chamberlain said, carefully removing the wax seal. "Wine is to be drunk,
enjoyed. Not sold."

"Still..."

"There were
six bottles originally,” he said, ignoring my comment. "I've opened one
before. I think you'll be surprised."

Holding the
decanter while Chamberlain poured the wine over the candle flame, I noticed
when he was finished that there was almost two inches of sediment remaining in
the bottle. The cork was in perfect shape. The wine in the decanter had a deep
garnet color.

"We'd
better get the steaks cooking,” Chamberlain said, handing me the decanter.
"We don't want this to breathe too long. Take it up to Kathleen. I'll put
the meat on."

Obeying like a
child, I sneaked a smell on the way. There was not a whiff of decay.

Refilling my
champagne glass, I noticed Kathleen had not drunk any of hers. Carrying the
bottle out back to where Chamberlain was grilling the meat, I also noticed that
there were only two steaks on the grill.

He saw me
looking. "Kathleen won't eat meat. It's the chemo, throws off her
taste."

"Understood,”
I said, refilling his glass.

The steaks were
perfect. And the wine! The bouquet, closed at first, developed quickly in the
glass. It had a delicate fruit, with a rich warm wholemeal-bisquit character,
which, to me, is the essence of the finest claret, as it blossoms in the glass.
It was slightly sweet, lightish, rich but soft, with a silky texture in the
mouth. There was a delicate acidity on the aftertaste. Again, I wanted to get
on my knees.

"The meat
was too much for the wine,” Chamberlain said, holding his glass up to a candle.
"Should have tasted this with no food."

He was right,
but I wasn't complaining. Kathleen, bless her heart, only sipped at hers.

After dinner
Kathleen showed me the prints she had framed of Rockwell Kent. There were six
from a set issued with his book, GREENLAND JOURNAL. They were enclosed in black
wood with red matting. The one Chamberlain said was his favorite, PEACE ON
EARTH was nice. Another, showing an Eskimo boy carrying a huge bird across his
back, appealed to me. He obviously had just slain the bird and was proudly returning
home with his quarry. Kent had titled it, SMALL BOY and BIG BIRD.

"They are
beautiful, aren't they?" She said, looking fondly at the prints.

"Yes.
Excellent lithographs,” I said, as if I was an expert.

Kathleen
laughed, patted me on the arm. "Here,” she said, handing me two books.
"If you want to learn about Kent, these will inform you. One is his
autobiography, the other is a catalogue of his work."

Looking at the
titles, I saw that the autobiography was, IT'S ME O'LORD; the other, THE PRINTS
OF ROCKWELL KENT, by Dan Burne Jones. Thanking her, I promised to return them
tomorrow.

"No hurry,
Jay,” she said softly, taking me by the arm. "Take your time, enjoy
them."

Declining
Chamberlain's offer for dessert wine, I'd had enough greatness for one night, I
said that I wanted to get started reading about Rockwell Kent.

Preparing to
leave, I thanked Kathleen for everything and told her the music, it had been
the Civil War tunes all evening, was very pleasant.

"Yes,” she
said, looking deeply into my eyes. "The songs of that war do convey
powerful emotions. I'm truly glad you enjoyed them."

Sitting in the
car for a moment before starting the engine, I looked at J.L. and Kathleen
Chamberlain standing on the porch of Owl's Head on the edge of the Atlantic
Ocean in a far northern state called Maine. It was a moment I would long
remember.

CHAPTER
NINE

Back at the
Navigator Inn, I knocked on Sandy's door. She opened it slightly, then all the
way. In the dim light of the room she appeared a truly beautiful young woman.
Her blond hair flowed down around her shoulders like an island waterfall. But
all I could see was Kathleen Chamberlain's face. A face with only a few months
of life.

"I'm not
leaving,” I said, gripping the door handle for support.

"What?"
Sandy asked, looking up at me, puzzled.

"There is
no way that I can leave Chamberlain with two unsolved murders,” I said,
tightening my grip on the handle. "The man needs my help. If you don't
want me to continue working for you, then I'll stay and look into them on my
own."

Sandy reached
over and turned on the overhead light. She was silent for a moment. Then:
"You're right. I guess I wanted to flee from this place where Renato was
killed. Yes, I want you to stay." She was silent again for a few seconds.
"But I've got to go back to New Orleans. The Gallery needs to be opened.
Plans must be made to finalize the purchase of the Moran collection with Guy
Robbins. There are other deals in the works. I need to leave tomorrow."

"Certainly,”
I said, releasing the door handle, a little confused. She had mentioned nothing
about shipping Nat's body back for burial. "I'll drive you over to Augusta
in the morning for a flight out to Boston. When I get back to my room, I'll see
what kind of connection we can make from Boston."

"Great,”
she said, sounding relieved. "You'll call me every day, keep me abreast of
what you find?"

"Agreed."

We stood in
silence some few moments.

"What about
the remains, Sandy?" I asked, gently. "You want them shipped back to
New Orleans?"

She turned her
head slightly, wiped away a tear. The question needed asking.

"Will you
handle it for me, Jay? Please?" She leaned against the wall, her voice
shaky.

"I'll call
you for the details as soon as the autopsy is finished. Everything will be
taken care of, it's part of what I get paid to do."

"Thank
you,” Sandy said, sniffling. "You're a big help. I appreciate it."

Leaving Sandy in
her room, I took the two books on Rockwell Kent and prepared for a long night
of reading.

Sliding my glass
doors open allowed a sea breeze to blow refreshing, cool, salt air into the
room. A Delta Airlines agent confirmed that a regional airline left Augusta,
Maine, at ten a.m., connecting with their flight to New Orleans. I booked Sandy
a first class, one way ticket.

Sitting back in
my chair, I thought about Nat Rinaldi. Whatever he had stumbled into, or fell
victim of, it wasn't getting him a first class ticket home. I intended to find
out exactly why.

*
* *

It was near dawn
when I finally dosed off. Rockwell Kent led a fascinating life. He was the
consummate artist. The man never did anything in his life which was not artistic.

Politically,
Kent believed in the rights of the individual, and used his art to that end.
Subpoenaed to appear before the McCarthy committee in 1953 at age seventy-one,
he was not intimidated by Joe McCarthy and took the Fifth Amendment on the
question of belonging to the Communist Party. He had never been a member and
considered it nobody's business whether he was or not.

There was one
exchange between Kent and McCarthy, which made me smile. He asked if he could
give a statement for the record. McCarthy rejected the request: "I'm not going
to listen to a lecture from you." Kent snapped back, "You're not
going to get one. I get paid for my lectures."

I fell asleep
looking at the extensive collection of prints brilliantly put together by Dan
Burne Jones in his book, THE PRINTS OF ROCKWELL KENT: A CATALOGUE RAISONNE.
Those Kent did of the sea were my favorite. One titled, GODSPEED, is the best
that I have ever seen.

Henry, the front
desk clerk, rang my room at seven thirty, as I had asked. Sleepily thanking
him, I struggled to the shower.

Later, while
drying off, I called the police department. My road map showed Augusta only
about forty miles from Rockland. Thinking I had better check to see how long
the drive would take, my old friend, the Desk Sergeant, confirmed my guess.

"Take
highway seventeen, Mr. Leicester. It should take about thirty or forty minutes.
Drive carefully, the roads are crooked. Yes, sir, I'll tell Detective Chamberlain
you will call him this afternoon. Good-bye."

If we left the
motel by eight-thirty we should have plenty of time to get Sandy to the plane
on time.

Knocking on
Sandy's door at eight-fifteen, she opened it naked, holding only a towel in
front of her. Her blond hair was wet and hung in strings across her shoulders.

"I just got
out of the shower,” she said, not embarrassed at all. "Come on in, I'll
only be a minute."

She turned and
padded barefoot toward the bathroom. Her naked spine made a delicious curve
down to what used to be a tail, and now begins the upper insertion of the gluteus
maximus, the ass. As she walked away, her spine traced imaginary curves in the
small space of the motel room. How lucky, I thought, to see these firm young muscles,
bathed in early morning light, dance together so perfectly in absolute
synchronization. Walking out on the balcony, I gazed far out into the North
Atlantic Ocean, and tried hard to get my mind off of raw sex.

*
* *

Sandy appeared
soon from the bathroom, dressed in black slacks and a sweater. Her damp hair
was bound with a cockade-like band wrapped around the head. She looked like a
palefaced Indian princess.

"Ready,”
she said, smiling, pulling the sleeves up on the sweater. "Did I run us
late? God, I hope not."

"We have
plenty of time,” I said, taking her small ditty bag, wondering where she had
acquired the bandanna.

We drove north
out of Rockland, picked up highway seventeen and headed for Augusta. We rounded
high hills covered with majestic fir trees. Patches of obsidian rock, black and
shiny in the crisp, clear, spring air, glistened down at us. An endless flight
of blackbirds, early for this time of year, crossed the sky like visible wind,
undulating and whipping.

"Are we now
an expert on Rockwell Kent?" Sandy asked with a sly grin.

Laughing, I
said, "My definition of an expert is any s.o.b. away from home with a
briefcase."

Sandy smiled and
ran her fingers through the rapidly drying blond hair. "I wonder where the
Kent collection is?" She said, more to herself than me. "With Renato
and Bilotti dead, it could be sitting somewhere undetected. Maybe forever."

Sandy was an
enigma to me. One minute she did not seem to care who killed her brother, or
where almost half a million in cash went. Now she was thinking about an art
collection. It would be a logical question coming from Chamberlain, but Sandy?
I probably would never understand this lady, or her mood swings.

"It could
have been a slick setup, Sandy,” I volunteered, slowing the car as we rounded a
sharp curve in the two lane road. "The collection may not exist. Your
brother may have been killed for the money. The Kent collection merely the tool
used as part of the scam."

"You will
find out, won't you?" She squeezed the ends of her hair as if to wring
water from it.

"You can
count on it,” I answered, accelerating back to the speed limit.

Watching Sandy
walk toward the sleek, new-generation turboprop, her black slacks stretched
tight, reminded me of those same muscles I had admired earlier. Trying hard to
think about what I knew about airplanes rather than those muscles did not work.

*
* *

On my way back,
I stopped by the Navigator Inn. Henry flagged me down.

"I tried to
catch you before you left this morning,” he said, handing me a note. "It
came in just as I saw you driving away."

"You can
check Miss Rinaldi out of her room,” I said, handing him her key. "She's
on her way back to New Orleans." I looked at the note with amazement.
"You say this came in as we were leaving?"

"Yes. He
was a rude bastard, too." He slid Sandy's room key back into a small
cubbyhole. "Does it have anything to do with the two murders?"

News travels
fast in small towns.

"I don't
know, Henry,” I said, folding the note and putting it into my shirt pocket.
"Thanks for the message. You do good work."

Walking into the
restaurant, I ordered a cup of coffee from the same waitress who had witnessed
Sandy's little outburst at breakfast the other morning. Pouring a spoonful of
honey into the coffee, I took the note out and reread it: 'Miss Rinaldi, please
call Gino Anastasio at, it listed the number, regarding sale of Kent collection
to Renato Rinaldi. It is imperative we talk. Today.' The note was in Henry's
handwriting, but I could sense the message, and the urgency. Interesting
development, I thought. A good cover-up in progress. Or I had been dead wrong
about the rip-off.

The waitress
came over with a refill.

"How's the
little wife this morning?" She asked, pouring the coffee.

Putting the note
in my shirt pocket, I looked up at her. She had graying brown hair, a nice
face, and appeared to be around forty years old. A good-looking woman who had
kept her figure, probably from working hard all her life.

"The
wife?" I stirred more honey into the coffee. "No, I work for the
lady. She's gone back south."

"You going
to be in town for awhile?" She asked, throwing a hip out to one side and
resting a hand on it, flirting.

"Few days,”
I said, thinking about firm, hard, rippling muscles.

"Maybe we
could have a drink sometime?"

"Maybe."

As I started to
leave, the waitress handed me a folded ticket.

"Coffee's
on the house. Name's Mabel, that's my number,” she said, pointing to the
ticket. "Use it."

"Thanks for
the coffee, Mabel,” I said, saluting her with the folded ticket. "I may
just do that."

Leaving, I
cursed firm muscles and well-kept bodies. I needed a cold shower. Or a long
night of slow, passionate, uninhibited lovemaking.

The drive to the
police department helped me refocus.

"Sergeant,
is Detective Chamberlain in?" I asked, not wanting any bureaucratic
runaround today. "It's urgent."

"Yes, sir,
Mr. Leicester. He's been waiting for your call."

The Sergeant was
getting better.

"Jay,” Chamberlain
said, looking up from a file he had been reading. "Enjoyed last night. It
did Kathleen a world of good. She liked you. Maybe we can do it again real
soon."

"Hello,
J.L.,” I said, sitting down in the hard, wooden chair. "Sandy's on her way
back to New Orleans."

Chamberlain
looked quizzically at me.

"Pressing
business,” I said, answering the silent question. "I'm going to stay on,
help you anyway I can."

"Rather
sudden, wasn't it?" He asked, leaning back in his chair. "Her
departure, I mean."

"She's a
strange lady, J.L." I crossed one leg over the other. "I've never
been able to figure out women, quit trying a long time ago."

"That's
because they are smarter than us." Chamberlain laughed, laced his fingers
behind his head.

"How's
Kathleen feeling this morning?" I asked, ashamed it wasn't the first thing
I had said to him when I walked in the office.

"She woke
feeling fine. It's uplifting to see her have a good day."

"I'm glad,”
I said, handing him the note. "Came this morning, shortly after we left
for the airport in Augusta. Henry took it."

Chamberlain read
the note, a frown forming on his college professor face.

"Interesting,”
he said softly. He thought for a few minutes, rubbing his chin. Finally:
"Let's call him. You talk, tell him you represent the Rinaldi's. We'll
tape the conversation, perhaps know more where we stand after he's had his
say."

Nodding in
agreement, I shifted position in the chair.

Gino Anastasio
did not need explaining between Chamberlain and me. He was as famous as Sam
Giancana, Meyer Lansky, Paul Castellano, or John Gotti. He was the Chicago mob.
It was now a fact that Nat Rinaldi had been dealing with Anastasio. The
question was, why would such a powerful Mafia figure concern himself with
something of this nature?

Chamberlain set
up the call to Gino Anastasio. He had some surprisingly sophisticated equipment
for a small police department. Seeing me admiring some of the machines, a few,
which I'd never seen before, he said, "Federal funding for
municipalities."

I shook my head.

Sitting at a
desk in a back room, I punched in the telephone number. Someone answered on the
first ring.

"Mr.
Anastasio, please,” I said, in my most polite voice.

"Yeah,” the
voice said. "Who should I say is calling?"

"Tell Mr.
Anastasio my name is Jay Leicester. I represent Sandy Rinaldi." Sitting
stiff in the chair, I felt the tension along my spine.

The voice didn't
say anything, but a moment later someone whom I assumed was Gino Anastasio
said, "How do I know you represent Miss Rinaldi? You could be anybody."

"Well,” I
said firmly, the tension tightening my back muscles. "Try this on for
size. You think up a scam to rip-off an art gallery, which you know does some
shady deals, of half a million dollars by offering a Rockwell Kent art
collection as bait. You insist on being paid in cash. Then you send a mole,
who's stolen from you, or broken some stupid code of silence, down to collect
the money. You whack the mole and the art dealer. Now you're rid of a rat, plus
half a million richer. Only the art dealer's sister hires me when the brother
fails to show up. And guess what? I'm not stupid. Nor is the local detective
who's got two bodies with similar bullet holes in their heads. Does any of this
help convince you I represent Miss Rinaldi?"