Hot Button (19 page)

Thinking, I tapped my fingers on the table. “It would explain why he suddenly showed up at a button conference when he’s never come to one before. If Thad had something to sell—”

“And he knew button collectors were the only ones who’d be interested enough to buy—”

“He might make an exception and come to a conference. It would be worth coming out of his hermit shell if there was enough money to be made.”

“And forty thousand bucks isn’t exactly chump change.”

“But why…” We’d been going along pretty well, and I hated to interrupt the flow, but really, we had to consider all the possibilities and all the pitfalls. This was a pretty big pitfall.

“But if the killer bought something from Thad and already gave Thad his money, why kill him?” I asked.

“Buyer’s remorse?” Nev was guessing and he knew it, but he threw out possibilities. “The buyer found out Thad had something even more valuable and was going to sell it to someone else? The Geronimo button was a fake?”

“It didn’t look like one.”

“I know. I know.” I guess my jumpiness was contagious, because Nev rapped the table with his knuckles. “I’m grasping at straws, but hey, brainstorming is a tried-and-true method for thinking through a problem. Maybe we’ll hit on something that actually makes sense.”

“OK, so let’s walk through it again.” I pulled in a breath. “Thad Wyant has something to sell. He contacts collectors he knows might be interested, gets ten thousand bucks from each of them, then arranges a meet. I think we can safely say that at the meet, that’s where the buyer is supposed to get the product.”

Nev didn’t say I was right. He didn’t say I was wrong, either, so I went on.

“Apparently, the meet on Sunday night goes well. So does the one on Monday morning. So whatever Thad was selling, the buyers must have been pleased. Unless, of course, one of those buyers bought the Geronimo button and then, for some weird reason, decided he—or she—didn’t want it anymore. Then it’s time for the meet on Monday evening, right before the banquet.”

“And something goes terribly wrong.” Nev took over the conjecture. “Langston Whitman says that the murder weapon is the awl Thad took from his booth in the vendor room, so we can assume that Thad had it with him. Maybe in his pocket or something. Or maybe he took it along for protection because he wasn’t sure about this particular buyer and he didn’t feel comfortable. They make the exchange—”

“And we know that, because we know there weren’t any buttons found with Thad’s body. Whatever he was selling, the killer took it with him. Or her.”

“Exactly.” Nev pursed his lips, thinking through the rest of the puzzle. “They make the exchange and something goes wrong. The buyer questions Thad. They argue.”

“Thad pulls out the awl.”

“And somehow, our killer gets ahold of it.”

“The rest…” The rest made my stomach queasy, so I didn’t want to spell it out. “It makes sense,” I said.

“It does.”

“But it still doesn’t explain who killed Thad Wyant.”

Understatement, but before Nev could point it out, his cell rang. From what he said by way of greeting, I figured out he was talking to the police in Santa Fe, and I figured they’d tell him what they’d been telling him for the last
twenty-four hours: that they hadn’t had any luck locating Thad’s brother.

Which was why my heart bumped to a stop when Nev’s eyes popped open. “What?” he asked into the phone.

I couldn’t hear a word the person on the other end of it said, but that wasn’t from lack of trying. I leaned nearer.

“Of course,” Nev told the caller. “I understand this changes everything. We’ve got a lot to discuss, Detective Martinez. Yes.” Nev listened for a moment. “Yeah, let’s say tomorrow morning, eleven my time. That will give you time to get the scene secured and looked over. Yeah. Right. Until then.”

Like a guy who’d just been whacked over the head with a baseball bat, Nev’s eyes were fixed, and his expression was dumbfounded. He set his phone on the table, shook himself out of the stupor, and looked at me.

“Well, that settles that,” he said. Only not in a way that said anything was settled. “We don’t have to worry if someone killed Thad Wyant because of buttons.”

This sounded like good news to me. “We don’t? Does that mean—”

Nev’s face was pale. His sandy brows were low over his eyes. “The Santa Fe police just found Thad Wyant’s body,” he said. “It was in the basement of his home, stuffed in the freezer.”

Chapter Twelve

L
IKE ANYONE COULD BLAME ME FOR NOT BEING ABLE TO
get a wink of sleep that night?

Thad Wyant was dead.

Only Thad Wyant wasn’t Thad Wyant.

Because Thad Wyant was dead.

See what I’m getting at here? It was enough to make anyone’s head spin!

And the next morning, it was enough to make me station myself at the door to the room where the panel on molded-glass buttons was taking place, just so I could keep an eye on the hotel lobby. The second I saw Nev walk in, I ducked out of what was an interesting conversation about the differences between the glass buttons made in Czechoslovakia in the 1940s and those made today and intercepted Nev outside the dealer room.

“So?”

He gave me a quick look out of the corner of his eye. “So what?”

“So who is he? Or I should say, who was he? If Thad Wyant wasn’t Thad Wyant—”

“We really shouldn’t talk here.” With a quick look around to make sure we hadn’t been overheard, he took my arm and steered me away from the lobby and into a quiet corridor. “The longer we can keep this under wraps, the better.”

He was right. And I was embarrassed. By now, I should have known enough about murder investigations to keep my mouth shut. What I was not, however, was sorry when Nev kept his hand on my arm—even after we were tucked between a vending machine that featured plastic bottles of Coke and Mountain Dew for two dollars each and an ice maker.

When Nev realized he still had ahold of my arm, he stepped back, but he didn’t let go.

“It was Brad,” he said.

“Brad?” I didn’t think something as small as the touch of Nev’s hand could throw my equilibrium completely off balance, but it must have because I wasn’t exactly following. I raised my voice over the chunky, clunky sound of the ice machine doing its thing. “Brad who?”

“Brad Wyant.”

“No, Thad. Thad Wyant. He’s the button expert.”

“He is.” Nev nodded. “But he’s not our dead guy. Well…” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “He is our dead guy. Only he’s our dead guy out in Santa Fe. Our dead guy here is—”

“Brad Wyant.” It was starting to make sense. A little. The ice machine finished replenishing its supply, and we were suddenly hemmed in by a silence punctuated by the hum of the vending machine and the thump of my heart. “And Brad is—”

“Thad’s brother. You know, the actor.”

“Which explains…” I shuffled through what I remembered, which wasn’t as easy as it sounds. If there was one thing I’d found out in the course of the murder investigation I’d been part of earlier that summer, it was that the information just keeps on comin’. There are times it’s hard to tell the good guys from the bad guys without a scorecard, and times when the info piles up and my brain feels like it’s in overdrive.

“That explains why you couldn’t get in touch with Brad to tell him Thad was dead,” I said to Nev. “Because Brad was dead here in Chicago, and Thad was—”

“According to the Santa Fe police, the real Thad Wyant’s been dead at least a couple of months. It’s kind of hard to tell because of—”

“The freezer. Yeah.” Guilt by association. I stepped away from the ice machine. It was horrible to think of Thad Wyant—the real Thad Wyant—stuffed in there and… I gulped. “Please tell me he was dead before he was put in that freezer.”

The pressure of Nev’s hand on my arm increased just enough to reassure me. “It looks that way.”

“And you think he was murdered, and that the killer—”

“Well, we don’t know for sure yet, but my gut says it must have been Brad.” Rolling his shoulders, Nev leaned back against the wall. “Thad’s neighbors say Brad went to visit his brother last summer. They remembered because Brad didn’t come around very often. After he left, they don’t remember seeing Thad. I guess that didn’t cause them to be too suspicious because, as you know, Thad was something of a hermit, but hey, he did leave his house once in a while. But nobody saw him come or go after Brad left, not that they can remember, anyway. That was a couple months ago;
the timeline is right. And Thad’s credit cards have been used steadily since then. It doesn’t take a leap of logic to figure out that Brad scooped them up and has been living high off the hog. The stuff he’s been charging went way beyond Thad’s credit limit.”

“Which is why Thad’s charge was declined when Brad tried to use it at Langston’s booth in the dealer room.” This made a whole bunch of sense. “And no doubt, Brad wasn’t paying the charges—”

“Because he knew there was nothing anyone could do to him. If they were going to come after anyone for the payments, it would be Thad. And Thad was—” The ice machine made another clunky sound and even Nev—seasoned cop that he was—caught the symbolism and made a face. “Obviously, Thad wasn’t able to make the payments. Brad’s plan was probably to float by as long as possible.”

“And Thad really being Brad… I mean, the Thad who was here really being Brad… That explains it!” Honestly, I would have slapped my forehead if I wasn’t afraid I’d leave an ugly mark. “When I was reading through Thad’s articles about the Geronimo button, his bio said he was a vegan. And yet on the dinner cruise…” I remembered the scene about the meat that had been too overcooked for Thad’s… er, Brad’s… liking. “It explains why he didn’t seem to know very much about buttons. I mean, on the dinner cruise, when Langston said he specialized in supplies, Thad… er, Brad… thought that was some kind of button. It also explains why he didn’t act the way I thought a Western button expert would act, either. I expected a man who was academic and quiet. And I got—”

“Brad Wyant, pretending to be his brother and acting the way he thought a Western button expert would act. According to the neighbors, Brad didn’t come around unless he
needed something. And their phone records don’t show any calls between the brothers. Brad was playing a role, and since he didn’t know Thad all that well, he didn’t realize he was playing it all wrong. Anyone heartless enough to kill his brother and stuff the body in a freezer wouldn’t realize that a man can be an expert at something and not have to wear his ego on his sleeve.”

Something told me Nev knew a lot about this. He was an expert, too. An expert at crime and investigation and getting people to talk, even when they didn’t always want to. He was an expert at handling the bad guys, and that meant the good people of Chicago could live their lives securely. Nev wasn’t flashy or loud. He wasn’t showy or pushy. Like Thad Wyant—the real Thad Wyant—he didn’t wear his ego on his sleeve.

There were usually too many wrinkles on Nev’s sleeves to accommodate it, anyway.

In spite of the fact that we were discussing murder, I found myself smiling. But then, it was hard not to when a sudden thread of warmth tangled around my heart.

Nev, of course, was completely unaware of what I was thinking. Thank goodness!

“I got an e-mail this morning,” he said. “Pictures from the state coroner’s office in New Mexico, and I have to say, Thad and Brad, they looked enough alike to be twins even though they were born a year apart. Thad was so reclusive, Brad just naturally thought he could get away with impersonating his brother. He was an actor, remember. Even if he wasn’t a very good one.”

“Good enough to fool all of us.” I hated to admit it. “He would have gone right on fooling us, too, if he hadn’t been murdered. I guess that was something he never figured on when he came up with his scheme. Whatever it was. It’s
crazy, isn’t it? I mean the whole identity thing and…” I gave Nev a look. “You’re sure?”

“That our Thad is really Brad and that the real Thad is…” Even Nev was having trouble keeping it straight. He wrinkled his nose. “Between us and the police in Santa Fe, we’ve checked fingerprints, and everything matches up. Of course, the people from the medical examiner’s office have taken DNA samples from our victim, but I’m willing to bet—”

I didn’t know Nev well enough to go into details when it came to discussing what my life had been like with Kaz, but—duh!—he was good at picking up on clues. At that last word, his cheeks got dusky. At least he didn’t patronize me by apologizing. Instead, he went right on.

“After seeing those pictures from Santa Fe,” he said, “I’m sure of it, and I bet that speck of blood we found in his suite will confirm it. It was Brad Wyant, all right, and he killed his brother and assumed his identity. Whatever he was up to, whatever he was doing with all that cash we found in his room, he figured he could come here to Chicago where nobody knew him and get away with it.”

I groaned, and because even that wasn’t enough to convey my frustration, I threw up my hands. “It was staring us in the face this whole time, and we never saw it. The way he was acting, it should have sent up a huge red flag. All that hokey talk about varmints and heck; he even called me little lady. Nobody talks like that. Not for real. Nobody but somebody who’s read too many bad scripts for B Westerns.”