Darned if You Do (21 page)

They waited again. Teesdale said angrily, “All right, I went to the hospital, but I was so mad I changed my mind about going to his room.”

“Too mad? I don't understand,” said Betsy.

“I was so mad I might've killed him.”

On the drive home, Connor said, “What do you think?”

“I think we finally have another suspect besides Valentina.”

“My dear, I think you may be right.”

J
ILL
called Betsy the next morning. “Lars thinks Mike is going to arrest Valentina today or tomorrow.”

“Now hold on! I called him yesterday and gave him a viable suspect besides Valentina. Chester Teesdale.”

“I know. But Teesdale is shown on HCMC entrance videotapes walking in and walking back out two minutes later.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

Betsy snorted. “Seriously? Two minutes? That's an odd amount of time. If he changed his mind, it should have been thirty seconds.”

“You're reaching, Betsy.”

She sighed. “Yes, I know, I know. But I still really feel Valentina didn't do this. I
know
she didn't!”

“You're going to have to offer Mike more than your heartfelt belief. You need some E-V-I-D-E-N-C-E.”

*   *   *

T
HE
next day, Emily called Betsy. “I'm sorry I didn't get back to you until now,” she said. “I had to wait till I got hold of Ellie—she went to a wedding in Omaha—and ask her to find out that the name of the auction company is House of Schwales. They're based in Edina—lah de dah—somewhere around Fiftieth and France.” Edina was to Minneapolis the equivalent of Saint Paul's White Bear Lake. Both were high-end neighborhoods.

Betsy got the phone number for House of Schwales from Emily, thanked her, and hung up.

“What kind of a name is House of Schwales?” asked Godwin, coming to look at what Betsy had written down.

“I can only surmise that someone with the surname Schwales founded it,” said Betsy.

She dialed the number Emily had given her, and a very loud and jolly voice answered, “
House
of Schwales! Wally
him
self speaking! How can I be of service to
you
?”

“Good afternoon,” Betsy replied. “May I speak with the owner of House of Schwales?”

“He's out of town. But this is the head auctioneer
in person
!”

“I'm doing some research into auctions, and I'd like to make an appointment to interview you.”

“Are you a reporter?” The voice had dropped in volume while gaining in respect.

“No, sir, this is a private investigation.”

“Investigation into what?” Now he sounded suspicious.

“A trio of carved ivory needle cases that seem to have gone missing.”

There was a long silence on the other end. Betsy bit her tongue and waited.

“Who do you represent?” he asked at last, very quietly.

“A woman you have never met, and who has never been to your place of business, but who has seen and handled the needle cases. The cases were stolen, I believe from your auction rooms, then stolen again by another person. They have disappeared a third time, and the second thief has been murdered. I am trying to learn if there is a connection between the thefts and the murder.”

“What kind of—? There's no connection, couldn't possibly be a connection!”

“How do you know that?”

He said very firmly, “Because we never brought any ivory needle cases to the auction floor at House of Schwales.”

“It's true that you didn't auction them off. But they were on your list of items to be auctioned.”

“That was an error we regret.”

“You had them, though,” Betsy insisted. “There's a photograph of them on your web site.”

“No, there isn't.”

“Not now. But there was.”

“Ma'am, why are you bothering us about this? You said yourself the person you're representing has no connection whatsoever to our place of business.”

“Because Schwales had the needle cases, I'm wondering if you also handled a box made of cinnabar and a small ball-shaped carving of white mice, both presumably of Chinese origin.”

“And you think the whole lot has gone missing?”

Bingo!
thought Betsy. “So your needle cases
were
part of a lot.”

“I didn't say that!”

“Yes, you did. You knew they were in a single lot, and I believe they were stolen from Schwales before they could be auctioned.”

“Who do you think you are, Mrs. Sherlock Holmes?”

“No, I'm the owner of a small business in Excelsior, with a part-time hobby of criminal investigations.”

“Hey, we haven't done anything criminal!”

“No, you had something criminal done to you. Do you have any idea who stole the cinnabar box and its contents from you?”

“. . . No.”

“Was anything else stolen?”

“I'm not admitting anything at all was stolen, and I resent your implication that my company is part of a criminal conspiracy.”

“I'm not—”

The man hung up.

Betsy logged on to the Internet and looked up the site for House of Schwales. She found their post-auction listing of items, with the prices they had sold for, but didn't find the cinnabar box lot. She logged off and phoned Connor. “Dear heart, do you know anything about House of Schwales?”

“Not much. They're a high-end outfit. They specialize in Asian and African art and collectibles, which I'm not much interested in.”

“Have you ever gone to one of their auctions?”

“No. I'm on their mailing list,” he admitted, “but I'm on a lot of auction mailing lists. Why are you asking?”

“Because the picture Emily showed us on Monday came from an auction list at House of Schwales. Only it didn't come up at the actual auction.”

“Was it pre-sold?”

“Apparently not. I just talked with their head auctioneer, and he admitted—inadvertently—that the needle cases were indeed part of a group that included the cinnabar box and mice ball, and that they were stolen in advance of the auction.”

“That's a lot to admit ‘inadvertently.'”

“You had to be there,” she said, then laughed at herself when she realized that her entire conversation with the auctioneer had been over the phone. She hadn't been there, either! “I'm satisfied that Schwales had them, that they disappeared, and I know they took them down from their post-auction list.”

“Hmm. Interesting. I wonder if they're having a problem with items disappearing.”

“Is that a common thing, that thieves will steal things at a pre-auction display?”

“I don't know if it's common, but it is an ongoing problem at some auction houses.”

“I wonder who to ask if it's a problem at Schwales? Or Luther Auctions,” added Betsy, remembering the steel needle cases that did not get auctioned there.

“I believe there is a chapter covering that subject in that book I offered you,
Art Crime
. Which you should get back to soon, or the library will get on our case. Meanwhile, perhaps Mr. Schwales will be more forthcoming.”

“He's out of town, and the man I talked with denies that the needle cases were taken. But I'm sure he's lying. They were pictured on the pre-auction list, they weren't sold at the auction, and he didn't volunteer that they were pre-sold. I'm quite sure they were stolen, even though he denied it.”

“What explanation did he offer?”

“None. He hung up on me.”

“You seem to be having a problem with that lately. So what are you going to do?”

“I don't know—wait, yes I do. There's some big web site that lists stolen works of art. I remember coming across it some while back when I was looking up some Asian needlework. I'll see if these pieces are on it.”

“Maybe you should also call the Minneapolis Police Department, see if Mr. Schwales reported the theft.”

“Good idea.”

The items were not on the international listing of stolen art—but Betsy quickly noticed that the items that were listed were extremely valuable and often famous, and the lot Emily had discovered in Tom Riordan's house was neither.

She next phoned the police department and was transferred to the records section. When she inquired into a report of the theft—she had the approximate date and the location—the woman who searched the files had no record of it.

So Betsy asked to be transferred to someone who investigated thefts. She waited patiently on the phone until she heard a gruff male voice say, “Kennedy.”

“Mr. Kennedy, my name is Betsy Devonshire, and I'm looking into a theft from an auction house.”

“What was taken?”

“A carved box made of cinnabar, three carved-ivory needle cases and a ball-shaped carving of white mice with red eyes, all antique Chinese, all in one lot.”

“What auction house?”

When Betsy gave him the name Schwales and its address, he said, “Have you talked to the Edina police department?”

“No, because this is really about the murder of Thomas Riordan, who was killed at HCMC.”

“Maybe the person you should be talking to is the lead investigator handling that case.”

“You mean Mike Malloy?”

“No, I mean Sid Halloran. Like you said, Riordan was murdered in Minneapolis, so it's our case. I can transfer you, if you like.”

“No, but give me the number. I'll talk to Edina first.”

“Sure.” He did, and she wrote it down, then looked up the number for Edina's police department and dialed it.

But Edina didn't have a record of a theft from Schwales Auction House, either. Evidently—no, obviously, Schwales hadn't reported it. What did that mean? Why hadn't Schwales reported it?

Betsy dialed Halloran's number.

“Halloran,” said someone—a female someone.

“Oh!” said Betsy, startled.

“You were looking for someone else?” asked Halloran.

“No, I guess not. Mr. Kennedy said Sid Halloran in Homicide and I just assumed . . .”

“Incorrectly, as it happens,” said Halloran, but she sounded amused.

“Sometimes I forget this custom of giving girls boys' names. I think I'm older than I think—I mean—”

“Let's just say you're having a hard day and try again.”

“Thank you.” Choosing her words carefully to allay any suspicion she was an idle rumormonger, Betsy went over the details of the missing Chinese box and its contents, giving the location and approximate date of the theft—and that the owner of the auction house denied anything was taken.

“So if he says nothing was taken, why do you think it was?”

“Because someone showed me a screen-save of one of the needle cases. The photograph was on the House of Schwales web site. Now it's been wiped completely. And this same person actually found the box and handled the needle cases and the white-mice ball while helping clear out a junker's house. Only they've disappeared again. And the junker has been murdered.”

“Oh, you're talking about Thomas Riordan?”

“Yes. I understand you're the lead investigator.”

“And you think this House of Schwales theft—alleged theft—is wound up in the Riordan homicide somehow.”

“Yes.”

“What's your role in all this?”

“I'm trying to help Valentina Shipp clear herself. I'm strictly an amateur—”

“Hold on, hold on,” interrupted Halloran. “Do you own a needlework store?”

“Yes, I do.”

“And does Sergeant Malloy know you?”

“Yes, he does.”

Halloran began to laugh. “I might've known you'd turn up! Malloy mentioned your name!”

“I hope he wasn't too cruel about me.”

“Not entirely. So you're the needleworking sleuth. It's nice to meet you.”

“Thank you. About House of Schwales—”

“Yes, what you've told me is very interesting. But the fact that Mr. Riordan never visited the auction house would seem to indicate he is not the original thief.”

“Oh, I agree. But I wonder if the thief didn't somehow wander into Riordan's sphere of activity and Tom took the cinnabar box from him. Tom was pretty clever—they found a mailbag with undelivered mail in it in his house.”

“Yeah, Mike told me about that. How did Riordan manage that?”

“I asked him that—I visited him in the hospital. He became evasive, said he found it abandoned in the rain and took it home for safekeeping, then ‘forgot' to turn it in. That was back in 1996—I know that, because the post office delivered the mail they found in the bag and I happened to get something delivered to my shop.”

“What was delivered to your shop?”

“A lace-edged handkerchief. It came from a woman in Atlanta who wanted the shop to carry the pattern. Unfortunately, when I tried to contact her, I discovered she had died some years ago.”

“That's sad, but not connected with this case, except peripherally, right?”

“True.”

“So how did you get involved?”

“As I said, via Valentina Shipp, who came to me to help her round up volunteers to clean out Tom's house. She says you and Sergeant Malloy are building a case against her and she's asked me to help clear her.”