Vampire for Hire (11 page)

 
      
 
God, I felt so strong. So powerful.

 
      
 
I swept through a long, arched tunnel full of hanging vines, past the sitting area of an outdoor cafe, nodded at a large tour group leaving the museum, and stepped inside Orange County’s only significant cultural museum.

 
      
 
At the front desk, a young docent smiled brightly at me. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but we’re closed.” She seemed profoundly relieved that they were closed. Perhaps today had been a particularly difficult day at the museum. I suspected I knew why. In fact, I knew the reason why.

 
      
 
I told her who I was and why I was here. Somehow, she managed to contain her excitement. She made a call, nodded, and a moment later led me down a hallway lined with offices and cubicles. Or perhaps these weren’t offices and cubicles. Maybe this was some weird, hip, modernistic “Cubicles as Art” exhibit.

 
      
 
Or not.

 
      
 
I was led to the last office on the left, where a tall woman with a vigorous handshake greeted me and showed me to a guest chair in front of her desk.

 
      
 
I sat and she sat, and after a short exchange of pleasantries, she got right to the point. “As you know, Ms. Moon, we had a robbery here last night.”

 
      
 
“Yes, you mentioned that over the phone. I’m sorry to hear it.”

 
      
 
Her name was Ms. Dickens. Yes, that’s how she introduced herself to me on the phone and even now in person. So, on that note, I introduced myself as Ms. Moon, and she seemed perfectly at ease with that. I wasn’t at ease with it. I mean, c’mon.

 
      
 
Anyway,
Ms.
Dickens wore a very old-fashioned business suit and seemed about twenty years older than I suspected she really was. She was a seventy-year-old woman trapped in a fifty-year-
old’s
body.

 
      
 
She said, “I assure you, so am I. The police have been called, of course. And as far as they can tell it was an inside job. The police, however, don’t seem to grasp the nature of the crime or the importance of the stolen artifact. I fear that our case will be forgotten by the overworked Santa Ana Police Department.”

 
      
 
I made sympathetic noises. Truth was, overworked police departments are what kept many private eyes in business. Had police departments been adequately staffed, I would have been relegated to doing background searches and cheating spouse cases. Background cases were fine, and were easy money, but I avoided cheating spouse cases at all costs. I hated hearing the rotten cheating stories, and I hated being involved in the painful drama.

 
      
 
Not to mention, I tended to want to strangle all the cheating men. I wonder why?

 
      
 
Not to mention, I was a trained federal agent. I was above cheating spouse cases...unless, of course, I needed money.

 
      
 
Anyway, I asked what had been stolen, since Ms. Dickens had been vague on the phone. “A single item,” she answered. “A crystal egg sculpture from the Harold Van Pelt collection.”

 
      
 
Harold Van Pelt, apparently, was a world-class gem photographer. But what wasn’t so well-known was that he had become, over the course of 35 years, a master gemstone carver. Apparently, he had perfected the art of taking a solid block of quartz and turning it into hollowed vases or, in this case, a hollowed egg. The Wharton was the first museum to showcase his work.

 
      
 
“The quartz is cut so paper thin and polished so perfectly that it is as clear as glass. How he does it, I have no clue.”

 
      
 
“Well, like they always say, just carve away anything that doesn’t look like a crystal egg, right?”

 
      
 
She stared at me. “I’m sure there’s more to it than that, Ms. Moon.” I was fairly certain that if she had a ruler, she would have rapped my knuckles with it.

 
      
 
“Why do the police think this was an inside job?” I asked.

 
      
 
“They haven’t said.”

 
      
 
“Which makes sense,” I said. “If it was an inside job.”

 
      
 
Ms. Dickens tilted her head to one side. “Are you implying that I’m a suspect, Ms. Moon?”

 
      
 
“Oh, it’s much too soon for me to imply that,” I said, smiling brightly.

 
      
 
Not to mention I wasn’t getting a negative feel from Ms. Dickens; meaning, she checked out clean to my sixth sense. That is, if it was to be relied upon.

 
      
 
Brightly or not, Ms. Dickens didn’t like the direction this conversation was going. I didn’t, either, for that matter. I needed the job and I needed her retainer check. Badly. The last thing I needed to do was offend the lady. There was always time to offend her later.

 
      
 
The curator
unpursed
her lips. She was, after all, a reasonable woman. Or so I hoped. She said, “If this was an inside job, then I suppose everyone here is indeed a potential suspect. Me included.”