Desert Winter (31 page)

“I hate to suggest this,” I said, “but given Kane's relationship to you, and given your relationship to DMSA, it's conceivable that Kane's forgery would cast
you
in a suspicious light.”

Grant's knuckles blanched on the steering wheel. “That worrisome little wrinkle has indeed crossed my mind.”

“Grant,” I said, touching his arm, “Larry needs to be told this
—all
of this.”

With a barely perceptible nod, Grant agreed, “Of course. And soon. But it's a question of when.” He pulled the car into the bank's parking lot. It was around eleven-fifteen.

“Our best strategy,” I thought aloud, “is to plunge ahead with this evening's press reception. Unless I'm mistaken, the event should be an irresistible lure for Stewart's killer. Larry will be there, and with any luck, he could resolve this on the spot, rendering irrelevant the issue of Kane's forgery.” Not only that, I told myself, but a speedy resolution would put the murder behind us and allow my cast to focus on the opening of
Laura
—the hidden, selfish priority behind my involvement in the investigation.

Grant braked the car and cut the engine. “Even when Kane is exonerated—well, I
hope
that'll be the outcome—it's still reasonable to assume that the forged clipping
is
relevant to the murder. So the mystery boils down to this: Who commissioned the forgery? Who's the man in black?”

“We know he's not who he said he was. We don't even know if he works at the school. It could be
anyone.
” Feeling hopelessly adrift, I heaved a sigh of exasperation.

“First things first,” said Grant, sounding a more positive note. “Let's check on those Swedish masterpieces.” He opened his door.

“
Minor
Swedish neo-impressionist masterpieces,” I corrected him smugly as we got out of the car.

When we entered the bank's stylish lobby, the receptionist said, “My, that was fast.” We'd phoned on our way over. “I'll inform Mr. Lloyd that you've arrived.”

Moments later, Merrit Lloyd's secretary appeared. With a smile and a brisk handshake for each of us, Robin said, “Our quiet morning has turned rather busy. Your brother is here, Mr. Knoll. He arrived a few minutes ago, right after you called.”

“Larry's here?” Grant's brow wrinkled.

I thought aloud, “Wonder what he wants.”

Robin said, “He's with Mr. Lloyd right now, but they said to send you in.”

So she led us back to Merrit's office, announced us at the door, then excused herself to deal with a deskful of work. Merrit's desk of concrete and steel was as sleek and unencumbered as on my previous visits.

Merrit and Larry, seated at the conference table away from the desk, rose as we entered. During our round of greetings, Larry and I made no reference to having seen each other earlier that morning at Bonnie Bahr's home, and Larry showed no surprise that I was now in the company of his brother. This was doubtless no more than simple discretion, but it left me with the uneasy sense that all of us, myself included, were harboring secrets.

Merrit closed his office door and invited everyone to sit. He seemed distracted.

As we settled around the table, Larry told Grant and me, “I felt it was time to bring Merrit up to speed with regard to the clipping. I've just told him that we have reason to suspect that the Stewart Chaffee interview may have been forged.”

May
have been forged? Although Larry had no knowledge of Kane's involvement, he already knew for a fact that the laser-printed interview was not genuine. Why was his revelation to the banker less than forthright? Perhaps he meant to leave room for discussion, hoping Merrit might float some theories, pro and con. Or perhaps Larry just wanted to soften the news.

If the latter, it didn't work. “This is shocking,” Merrit told us flatly, as if his emotions had been numbed. “If word of this got out, it could wreak great damage to the bank's reputation and integrity. News of a possible forgery might even make it appear that
we
had some role in the subterfuge—or, at best, that we'd let our guard down.”

Larry said, “Then let's keep this knowledge to ourselves. There's no reason to go public with this angle of the investigation, and in fact, there's considerable reason
not
to. As of right now, we in this room are the only ones who know about the possible forgery.”

“And Mark Manning,” Grant reminded him.

Larry nodded.

Merrit mulled the name for a moment; then it clicked. “The reporter? Oh, God.” He mopped his brow with the back of his hand.

“Don't worry,” I told him, “Mark isn't here on assignment.”

“So it's important,” Larry emphasized, “that this new information not leave this room. Besides, there are several ways a faked clipping could have gotten into Chaffee's safe-deposit box, and they don't necessarily reflect badly on the bank.”

“Oh?” asked Merrit, eager for any consolation.

“Sure.” Larry took out his notebook and checked a list he'd made. “The way I see it, there are three ways this could have happened. First, Chaffee himself could have forged the clipping, put it in an envelope, then given it to you on Saturday.”

Merrit nodded, finding the theory feasible. “But why,” he asked, “would Stewart bother with the fabrication?”

He and Larry proceeded to discuss this detail, but I knew they were on the wrong track. Stewart hadn't faked the clipping on Saturday; Kane had done it on Sunday.

“So here's a second possibility,” Larry suggested. “Someone
else
forged the clipping and let Stewart unwittingly give it to you on Saturday. Stewart thought there was something else in the envelope, perhaps a homemade will.”

“Yeah,” said Grant, “why not? Someone in Stewart's household—like Pea or the nurse—could have switched the documents.”

They examined this possibility at some length, weighing motives and logistics, but again, I knew they were following a false lead. Kane had not forged the clipping until Sunday, so it could not have been given to Merrit by Stewart on Saturday—unless, good grief, there were two forgeries. My mind was spinning.

“Or,” said Larry, “there's a third possibility. Something else was in the envelope on Saturday, presumably a homemade will. Then, later, someone switched the envelopes.”

“It was a plain white business envelope,” Merrit recalled. “It would be easy to produce an indistinguishable substitute.”

Larry checked back through his notes. “When was Chaffee's envelope placed in the vault?”

“On Saturday, early afternoon, after returning to the bank from our morning meeting at the estate.”

“Who might have had access to Chaffee's strongbox between Saturday afternoon, when the envelope was deposited, and Tuesday morning, when you opened the envelope and found the clipping?”

Merrit shook his head. “Aside from myself, only Stewart had access. He had the only key outside the bank.” Merrit's features brightened as he posited, “Stewart's key could have been duplicated by
anyone
—household help, for instance—or stolen after he was killed.”

I asked Larry, “Do we know the whereabouts of Stewart's key?”

“Sorry. The issue wasn't relevant till now.”

Trying to inject a lighter note, Merrit told Grant, “You've been awfully quiet. It's a good thing
you
didn't have access to the box. As president of the museum board, you might be seen as a
highly
motivated suspect.”

Larry joined Merrit in laughing at this scenario.

Grant and I found no humor in it—other than the grim variety.

Merrit rose from the table, stepped to the door, and opened it. “Robin,” he said, “could you get the log of bank customers given access to the vault since last weekend, please?”

A minute later, Robin joined us in the office, placing a leather-bound ledger on the conference table. Merrit turned to the page of vault activity on Saturday, and finding nothing unusual, flipped to Monday, the day of Stewart's death. “Oh,” he said, pointing to an entry, “Pea Fertig was in the vault during the noon hour.” His inflection conveyed mild surprise but no overtone of suspicion.

Larry and I exchanged a bug-eyed glance. He asked Merrit, “Don't you find that strange?”

The banker shrugged. “Not at all.”

Robin explained, “Mr. Fertig rents a safe-deposit box of his own. He's in and out quite often.” She asked her boss, “Anything else, sir?”

“Not right now, Robin. Thank you.”

She nodded with a smile, retrieved the vault ledger, and left the room, closing the door behind her.

Though she and Merrit had found nothing remarkable about Pea's visit to the vault on Monday, the rest of us found these circumstances tantalizingly suspicious. Grant mumbled to me, “When we visited the estate on Sunday morning, Pea was wearing black.” This comment went over Larry's and Merrit's heads, but Grant's meaning was clear to me: a man in black had commissioned the forgery from Kane on Sunday afternoon.

It was tempting to think of Pea as the source of the bogus clipping, but this notion was hampered by some logical inconsistencies. For example, Kane had met Pea on Sunday morning while helping us return the desk, so Kane would surely have recognized Pea later that day on campus. Further, what possible motive might Pea have had for faking the bequest to the museum?

As I pondered this, Grant and Merrit were immersed in an energetic conversation, reviewing the theories that had been floated. Larry rose from the table and paced the room, checking back through his notes. Catching my eye, he signaled for me to join him.

“Yes?” I said, stepping near.

“Earlier today we learned from Chaffee's nurse that Pea had been humiliated by procuring call boys for Chaffee. Now we know that Pea visited the bank vault on Monday, shortly after Chaffee's death. I don't know how any of this adds up, or even
if
it adds up, but now I'm
doubly
eager to have another talk with that guy.”

“Did you set up the meeting?”

“We're expected at the estate at one-thirty.” He checked his watch. “If you don't have plans, why don't you join me for lunch? Then you can ride over to Rancho Mirage with me. How did you get here?”

“Grant drove me, and—” I stopped short, realizing that Grant and I had completely overlooked the purpose of our visit, sidetracked by Larry's unexpected presence and our discussion of the forgery. “Sorry, Larry. I can't leave yet. Grant and I need to discuss some paintings with Merrit.”

“Will it take long?”

“Shouldn't.” I stepped to the conference table. “Grant? Aren't we forgetting something?”

He looked up from his conversation with Merrit, blinking as my words sank in. “Good God”—he laughed—“I need to start writing notes to myself and sticking them on my lapels.”

“That won't work,” I told him dryly. “I've tried it; then I can't remember what the
notes
mean.” I wasn't senile, not yet, but now and then my faculties had subtle ways of putting me on notice that the slide had begun.

Understandably, Merrit was perplexed by this exchange. “Is something, uh … wrong?”

“Not at all,” said Grant. Then he corrected himself. “Well, aside from the murder, the forgery, and the various dead ends, nothing's wrong. Actually, Merrit, the reason Claire and I are here is to ask if the museum could borrow some paintings from Stewart's collection.”

Grant and I took turns filling in the details: Glenn Yeats wanted to have something on display at the museum that night during the Chaffee tribute and press conference. Since it was short notice and the estate was tied up in probate and most of the collection was in storage, we were hoping to borrow the set of Swedish neo-impressionist paintings that Chaffee had recently acquired. I assumed they were readily accessible because on Tuesday, I'd seen them stacked against a wall of the great room at the estate.

Merrit followed along, nodding. Then something occurred to him. “The museum event, I forgot about that. Now that the validity of the clipping is in question, doesn't the press conference seem a bit, well, premature at best?”

“Absolutely,” I told him. “But Glenn Yeats doesn't know that the clipping was forged, and the museum event was his brainchild. The wheels are in motion. There's no stopping it.”

“And besides,” Larry spoke up, “I don't
want
to stop it. The press conference and official announcement of the bequest may well lure the killer out into the open. After all, the event is an affirmation of the killer's success. If
I'd
plotted this,
I'd
want to be there.”

Grant explained to the banker, “And since you're acting as executor of Stewart's estate, we hoped you could help us arrange to get the paintings—to
borrow
them. They'll be in professional, curatorial hands and fully insured. We need them for tonight only.”

Weighing all this, Merrit conceded, “The ploy might work. If you do flush out the killer and we do wrap it up quickly, the bank's reputation would be cleared before the scandal even broke. I like it.”

“So do I,” said Larry. “How do we make this happen?”

Merrit rose. “We just need to make a few phone calls, make sure the paintings have not yet been moved to storage, and notify Pea that the museum will be picking them up.”

Grant rose also. “I'll arrange with the college to send a truck over. How about three or four o'clock?”

“That should be fine. Let me get Robin started with those calls.” Merrit stepped to the door and opened it, but found that his secretary was already busy on the phone, typing as she spoke. So Merrit crossed his office to the desk and stared down at his own elaborate, multibuttoned telephone. It had various tiny lights, one of them blinking. With a laugh, he told us, “I
suppose
I can figure out how to work this thing.”