Don't Look Back (5 page)

He said what he'd said to Cole only a short time earlier. “You must have spoken to my doctor. It's not unusual with head injuries to forget how the injury occurred."

"I'm not just talking about the night of the robbery."

"Then I don't know what you
are
talking about."

Griffin continued to eye him in that jaundiced way. “All right,” he said at last. “I think it's time we had a little chat."

"Let's chat in the kitchen. The coffee should be about ready."

Aware that he was simply stalling, that he didn't want to have whatever conversation this was going to be, Peter turned and headed for the kitchen.

He didn't have to turn to know that Griffin followed him. The measured tread of his footsteps on the hardwood floor raised the hair on the back of Peter's neck.

The detective leaned against the long cabinet next to the breakfast nook while Peter took cups out of the cupboard. Griffin's steady, impassive gaze made him self-conscious. He didn't like it—and he recognized that it was out of character for him.

"How do you take it?” It was a perfectly reasonable question, and yet for some insane reason he felt the back of his neck growing warm.

It didn't help that Griffin seemed to have to make his mind up about something before answering, “Milk and sugar if you've got it."

Did he?

A quick glance in the fridge verified that he did. Jessica and Roma had done well by him. He had enough food here to throw a dinner party, were he so inclined—and could remember whom to invite.

He quickly prepared the coffee, aware all the time that Griffin was watching him.

"So explain to me how this amnesia thing works. How is it you know your way around your kitchen and how to fix a cup of coffee, but you can't remember who I am or what you were doing Thursday night in the grotto?"

Peter carried the coffee cups to the breakfast nook. Since Griffin made no move to sit, he stood too—though on the other side of the nook—and sipped his coffee. He could practically feel the caffeine working in his bloodstream.

Griffin picked up his mug, swallowed a mouthful of coffee.

Peter said wearily, “Look ... I don't know why. If you talked to my doctor, then you already know that there isn't any organic reason that I can't remember. I just ... I guess I don't ... want to. That's what the hospital psychiatrist suggested, anyway."

"Well, that's sure as hell convenient."

"What do you want me to say? I don't know!” Peter's voice rose and he slammed shut on it. Getting hysterical wasn't going to help.

Griffin took another swallow of coffee, watching Peter coolly over the rim.

"I want to remember,” Peter said. “Not knowing what happened is driving me crazy."

"So I'm supposed to believe that you suffered traumatic shock or something that night and now you can't remember what happened?"

"I guess. I don't know."

"You're not a lot of help, Professor Peabody. But then ... that's kind of your MO."

Peter had been about to take a mouthful of coffee. He lowered his cup sharply, nearly spilling the liquid. “What's that supposed to mean?"

"About a year ago you reported a number of small thefts from the museum. I caught the case."

Griffin had already told him this much in the hospital. Obviously more was coming. Peter resisted the temptation to speak.

"This sound familiar at all?"

"No. I'd assumed I would have filed a police report at some point."

"That's right. You filed a police report. Your story was that until you began cross-referencing data from the old manual catalog system to the new computer program, you hadn't noticed that a number of small but valuable antiquities were missing from the collection. You claimed you initially thought the missing items might have been mislabeled or placed in storage. But when, after extensive searching, you were unable to locate them—and when more items disappeared—you decided that someone was stealing from the museum."

"You keep using words like
story
or
claimed
. Implying you think I'm lying."

Griffin raised his brows. He said blandly, “Let's say I reserved judgment on that point."

Peter swallowed his immediate furious response. He managed to say in an almost reasonable tone of voice, “Why would you think I lied? What would be my motive for stealing from my own museum?"

"The same as anyone's motive would be. Money. A hundred thousand dollars is over two years’ salary for you. It's not
your
museum, after all. You're just an employee—like the gardener or the girl who answers the phones. And apparently there's been some discussion of replacing you. Maybe you thought you'd better—"

"
What
?"

Peter stared at him, unbelieving.

The echo of the cop's callous words seemed to reverberate through his brain. There was a strange rushing sensation in Peter's head—as though a wind tunnel had opened between his ears. The floor seemed to drop out from under his feet. Griffin grabbed his arm, and for a few odd seconds, Peter's face was pressed into the detective's starched white shirtfront. Warm cotton, some vaguely piney aftershave, and the steady pounding of Griffin's heart...

Blindly, he pushed Griffin away, feeling for the back of the wooden bench. He lowered himself awkwardly, bracing his elbows on the table and resting his forehead on his hands.

"All right,” Griffin said roughly after a moment. “So maybe you didn't know that."

"Go away,” Peter said from behind his hands.

"What does that solve?” The truculence in Griffin's voice was undermined by something ... defensiveness? Guilt? “If I go away, I just have to come back later."

Peter struggled to control his voice. He managed, “Get out, will you?"

After a long pause, Griffin went.

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The grotto was at the bottom of the oldest section of the garden. It was man-made, although it looked natural enough—like a small cave covered in flowering vines. Outside the entrance was a koi pond. The red and gold fish lay quietly in the bottom of the green water as Peter stood beside the pool staring into the grotto.

There wasn't much to see. Yellow and black police tape stretched across the open mouth. The interior was lined with tile and bits of colored glass that sparkled in the pale light from the solar lamps slowly winking on as the evening grew dark.

The ugly bare square where the mural had once hung was about ten feet long and six feet high. Not easy moving something of that size. It would take more than one man to get it safely down from the wall of the cave and carry it out of the grotto—and it would require a vehicle to transport it more than a few feet. The grounds were private and locked at night, so how had they done it?

Peter walked around the back of the grotto, passing through the grove of weeping willows, coming at last to a fence well concealed behind a bamboo wall. He followed the fence till he came to a padlocked gate marked EMERGENCY VEHICLE ACCESS ONLY. The gate opened onto a dirt road.

The thieves must have parked out here after the museum had closed for the evening and everyone had gone home. It was certainly quiet and deserted—even at this time of the evening.

The real question was, why wasn't there more of a security system? Who, in this day and age, relied on a padlock and a single security guard—a guard who, if Peter knew anything about it, spent most evenings watching TV in the gatehouse?

Was the responsibility for the security of the museum and grounds his alone? Had it been his decision to leave the mural essentially unprotected? If so, no wonder the board was discussing his removal.

Assuming it was true—that it wasn't something Griffin had made up to rattle him.

He'd like to believe that, but...

It had carried the ring of truth. Looking back, he thought that Griffin had probably regretted dropping that bomb. Something in his tone ... some vast discomfort when he'd had to witness Peter's reaction. You'd expect a cop to be pretty hardened, but Griffin hadn't enjoyed seeing Peter poleaxed.

Which was interesting, because he didn't mind baiting Peter about suspecting him of stealing from the museum. So what had been different about telling him his job was in jeopardy?

Peter turned away from the pasture and started back up the hillside. The garden smelled wonderful at night. The camellias had no scent, but the fragrance of the heirloom roses drifted on the warm breeze. He cut across the grass to the steps. The solar lanterns threw triangles of light across the bricks. In the jacaranda trees, a mockingbird was calling.

Chjjjj ... chjjjj ... chewk...

Peter's steps faltered and he stood still.

He remembered falling on the steps, remembered the shock of seeing his own blood spattering the stones. He stopped and looked down, and sure enough there were little raindrop stains in the porous surface of the bricks. For an instant he was back there, the scent of mown grass and fresh blood in his nostrils and the call of the mockingbird in his ears.

And if he pushed a little harder ... pushed past that veil of forgetfulness ... what had he seen?

The glitter of stars beyond the pale flickering of the jacaranda blossoms. He had come outside for a breath of fresh air. He often walked down to the grotto at night. He liked the silence, the peace. But it hadn't been silent. Not that night. Crickets ... frogs ... That was all right. But he heard voices ... voices where no voices should be. The grounds were locked at night. Once in a while teenagers jumped the back fence.

That's what he had thought. Kids. Kids—maybe vandals. He could hear them talking as he drew near the grotto. Talking ... or arguing? He drew close and he saw oversize shadows looming against the glistening walls of the cave...

And already it was slipping away again. Like a door closing firmly in his face. This far and no further.

If only he could remember. If he could just come up with something he could give Griffin, some solid piece of evidence so that he would stop wasting time talking to Peter and start trying to find out who was behind these thefts.

There was a noise behind him. Peter whirled, ready for ... he didn't know what. It had sounded like the scrape of a shoe on brick. But there was no one behind him.

The shadow swaying on the grass was from the tree limbs moving in the breeze. Right?

He stood there for a moment, watching. Nothing moved.

And if something did move, what would he do? He glanced around for something he could use to defend himself ... a fallen branch, a loose brick, a rock. One thing about Constantine House, the grounds were well maintained. No weapons available unless he was going to yank a solar lantern out of the ground and try to defend himself with it.

After a long, fraught moment, Peter began to feel foolish. The mockingbird seemed to confirm this opinion, chattering at him from high in the branches above.

He turned and went quickly up the steps.

When he reached the bungalow, he reheated the casserole left by Jessica and Roma. It was good, but he wasn't hungry. He ate a few bites, dumped the rest into the trash, and settled for a glass of milk and a couple of pain pills. His head was aching again, mostly due to rushing back to the bungalow before the bogeyman could snatch him.

Well and truly disgusted with himself, Peter retrieved his book from the study and went up to read in bed.

His dreams were strange and troubled, and despite the tablets he'd taken before bed, he began to fight his way out of sleep—which was how Peter became aware of the faint but persistent gnawing sound from beneath his open window.

In his dream, the gnawing turned into rats chewing at the wooden siding of the house ... and as rats were absolutely unacceptable, Peter woke and opened his eyes.

For a moment he lay there, eyes picking out the outline of furniture silvered by moonlight.

There it was again.

A muted scratching sound.

What the hell was that?

He rose, crossing softly to the window, and looked down. A bulky figure dressed in black stood on the crescent-shaped patio busily working at getting inside the back door.

For the space of a heartbeat Peter was rooted in place, disbelieving. Disbelief gave way to alarm. He crossed to the bed, fumbled the phone. He needed light to dial, and fuzzy with concussion and pain pills, he automatically switched on the bedside lamp.

From down below came the
clang
of metal on stone, and then a sound that was probably one of the large geranium pots getting knocked over—pottery hitting hard brick. Peter got back to the window in time to see the bulky figure—ski mask concealing hair and face—racing across the grass to the outstretched shadow of the trees in the back of the house.

Peter angled around trying for a better view, but he saw no one else on the terrace. He got back over to the phone and dialed 911.

The emergency operator assured him a patrol car was in the vicinity and would reach him shortly.

Peter thanked her, hung up, and began to dress swiftly. He would need to call down to the gatehouse and let the night watchman, Donnelly, know that they'd had an another intruder and that the police were on the way.

As he dressed, he began to wonder. Granted, Constantine House wasn't Fort Knox, but it seemed to him that their security was being breached with alarming monotony. And why his bungalow?

Dressed, he sat on the edge of the bed and phoned Donnelly, but no one answered the gatehouse line. The old man was probably sleeping in front of his television.

Peter sighed, hung up, and went downstairs.

For the first time, he began to consider the thefts from the museum itself. He had assumed the items—all small enough to slip into a pocket or purse—had been taken during business hours. There was a security system, but it was outdated and it only encompassed the outside perimeter doors. But the fact that intruders were getting onto the museum grounds after hours opened another unpleasant possibility.

What if the thefts were happening after hours? What if someone was bypassing the security at the main house and getting into the museum that way?