Wall of Glass (22 page)

“What—” it came out scratchy, and she cleared her throat, “—what are you going to do with the photograph?” She winced suddenly, remembering. “There's more than one,” she said. “Isn't there?”

“There are three of them,” I said, “that you'd be interested in. If you cooperate with me, I'll hold them until this thing is cleared up. Then I'll destroy them or mail them to you, whichever you want.”

“You could've made copies.”

“I didn't. All I want is any information you can give me about Silvia Griego.”

“I've never done anything like that before,” she said, unlocking her arms, leaning forward. “With a woman, I mean. I'm engaged. He's a really good man, and we're getting married in September. I've never seen that woman again, either. I mean, not that way.” She actually fluttered her eyelashes and blushed. I hadn't witnessed anyone doing that for a long time, and I thought it was fairly fetching. “Honestly,” she said. “I was drunk and coked up, and I didn't know what I was doing.”

“I believe you,” I said. I didn't, not really, despite the blush. In the photographs she seemed to be displaying a lot more expertise than she was giving herself credit for now. But at the moment, my belief in her was less important than her belief in me. “And I don't have any reason to hurt you. I only want to know about Silvia.”

She frowned. “What do you want to know?”

“How long had she known Frank Biddle?”

She shrugged. “For four years, at least. He was hanging around as long as I can remember, and I started here four years ago, as assistant director. Silvia made me the director two years ago.” Adding this last bit because she was rattled, I think, and wanting to reestablish her importance to herself.

“What was her relationship with Biddle?”

“They used to sleep together. Not all the time. Occasionally.”

“How occasionally?”

She shrugged. “I dunno. Once a month, maybe. Sometimes Silvia liked to do scenes.”

“Scenes?”

The eyelashes fluttered and she blushed again. It was slightly less fetching this time. “You know. Sex stuff. Fantasies. Sometimes she'd call him up and he'd come over in a pick-up truck and they'd do it in the back. Things like that.”

“How do you know?”

“She told me. She was proud of it.” She frowned again, bemused, and gave a small shrug. “Like that was a big deal, making it in a pick-up truck.”

“This was here at the gallery?”

She shook her head emphatically. “No, no, Silvia was always really straight at the gallery. Prim and proper, you know? No, she did all this at home, at her house. Sometimes she organized parties there, too, and once in a while she'd ask Biddle to come.”

Her face crinkled slightly when she mentioned his name.

I said, “You didn't like Biddle.”

She shook her head. “I thought he was creepy. He was always coming on to me, staring at my breasts.”

Involuntarily, my own glance dipped in that direction.

She fluttered her eyelashes again, but left out the blush. Maybe she forgot it. She did remember, though, to reach up and run her fingers through her short blond curls, which tightened the material of her low-cut top against the breasts in question.

“Had she been seeing Biddle recently?” I asked.

“No. Not since last year, in the fall.”

“Do you know why she stopped seeing him?”

She shrugged. “I never asked.”

“These parties,” I said. “They were the ones in the Polaroids?”

She nodded. She was more relaxed now. She had decided that she knew how to handle me.

“How often did you go to them?” I asked her.

“Only that one time. Honestly.” She held up her right hand, two fingers raised. Scout's Honor.

“Then how do you know whether Biddle went?”

“Like I said, Silvia was always telling me about her sex life. I mean, sometimes, that was all she talked about. She'd say, ‘Listen, Linda, you'll never believe what I did last night, I had Frank over and we did blah blah blah.' She really thought it was fascinating.”

“Why listen to her?”

She looked at me as though the question were senseless. “She was the owner here.”

“Right.” I had a sudden image of the two women, the older one confiding her sexual adventures with a kind of excited, almost frantic pride; the younger one listening, nodding and smiling with a feigned interest that masked boredom and, apparently, contempt. It occurred to me that although the older had been dead for almost twenty-four hours, the contempt was still alive. I said, “How often did she have these parties?”

“Not very often. Once or twice a year. She hasn't had one for over a year—that one, the photograph you've got, was the last one.” Another shrug. “I think the AIDS thing, all the stories about people dying, I think that sort of scared her.”

“Did Stacey Killebrew ever come to these parties?”

“Stacey who?” Frowning, puzzled.

“Big guy, works out with weights. Light brown hair, light brown mustache. Yellow teeth.”

She shook her head. “No, I never—wait, was he a friend of Frank Biddle's? I mean, like a long time ago? Two years, maybe?”

“Yeah.”

“Uh-huh, yeah. I saw him here with Biddle once or twice. Then I didn't see him for a long time, and then he came by here again a couple of months ago. It was in the morning, I was coming to work, and he was leaving. I asked Silvia about it and she said he was delivering something.”

“Do you know what it was?”

She shook her head. “No. I mean, I didn't know it was important. Was it?”

“Maybe. Who handled the accounts for the gallery?”

“I did. I signed all the checks, kept the records, and Silvia and I went over everything together at the end of the month.”

“Do you know anything about a company called Liebman and Sons in Germany?”

“Sure, in Munich. We do a lot of business with them. The Germans are crazy about Indian art, especially the old stuff, the artifacts. Silvia told me there's this German writer, Karl May, Its M—A—Y, but they pronounce it
my.
Anyway, he writes these crazy Westerns, and the Germans love him. They all want to be cowboys.”

“How long has the gallery been dealing with Liebman and Sons?”

“Since before I came to work here.”

“And how much business have you done with them?”

“Money-wise? Altogether? Well … over the whole time, I mean the four years I know about … maybe sixty thousand dollars. Maybe seventy, I don't have the exact figures. But that's pretty close.” She raised her eyebrows, made herself look helpful, open, trustworthy. “I could look them up if you want.”

I shook my head. “What happened to the money?”

She frowned, as though wondering why I'd want to know, and then shrugged, as though deciding motives didn't matter. “Some of it went to pay outstanding bills. The rest went into the corporation account.”

But none of it, evidently, had gone into a numbered account in Berne. I said, “The gallery was doing well?”

“Sure, really well. Of course,” her face going slightly sour, her voice slightly weary, “we never did well enough for Silvia.”

“Silvia was greedy.”

“Well, no. I wouldn't put it that way, exactly.” She raised her eyebrows again. “I mean, after all, I don't want to speak ill of the dead or anything. It's just that Silvia was sort of an anxious person. Insecure, I mean. You know how women can be sometimes, when they get older? And money was like a security blanket for her. Profits were down a little bit this year, not much, nothing to worry about, you know? But Silvia was all bent out of shape. I mean, she was practically living on Valium.”

I was glad I'd never been around the girl when she did want to speak ill of the dead.

“What sort of things did you sell to Liebman and Sons?” I asked.

“Artifacts, mostly. Hopi pottery and ceremonial stuff from Awatovi. That's the ancestral Hopi city. The new stuff was all kachinas.”

“Who made the kachinas?”

“John Lucero. He's the only kachina artist we carry.”

“Do Liebman and Sons handle jewelry?”

She shook her head. “As far as I know, they only do art.”

“Have the police asked you yet about the gallery accounts?”

“No, not really. I talked to one of them this morning, and he mostly wanted to know whether or not Silvia had any enemies.”

“Did she?”

A shrug. “Not that I knew of. I mean, honestly, she was okay and all, but I don't think she was interesting enough to have any enemies.”

And with employees like this one, who needed them?

I said, “The police'll be back.” I knew that if they hadn't already found the strongbox in Griego's closet, they would, soon enough.

She said, “I won't tell them I talked to you. Honest.” She smiled and showed me her Boy Scout hand again.

“Tell them anything you want. But if I were you, I'd probably forget about mentioning the Polaroids.”

“Oh God, yes. What a mistake.” Her face went earnest and she said, “Look, could I at least have that one, the one you're carrying? I mean, I've been straight with you, haven't I?”

I reached into the blazer, took out the print, tossed it to the desk. She picked it up, grinning happily, and leaned back to study it. Without bothering to flutter her lashes, still grinning, she looked at me. “At least you can't say I take a bad photograph.”

“Nope.”

She opened a drawer, tossed the print inside, closed the drawer. The grin became a smile, and there was a hint in it of self-satisfaction, of a job well-done. “When can I have the others?”

“In a few days. Soon as all this is cleared up.”

She plucked a card from a silver salver on the desk and leaned forward, offering it. “Here. It's got my home phone number, too.” I think that manipulating me, which she clearly thought she had done, wasn't enough for her. She wanted to neutralize me, and the only way she knew how to do that was sexually. I took the card, stood up.

“Call me,” she said, smiling as her glance slid up and down me. “Maybe we could have lunch or something.”

“Sure,” I said. I wondered which one of us was supposed to be the entrée.

FIFTEEN

W
HEN
I
CALLED
R
ITA
from my house that night and told her what had happened at the gallery, she asked me what I thought of Linda Sorenson.

I said, “I don't think she's going to become one of my favorite people.”

“As I recall,” she said, “you don't have too many favorite people. How many at last count?”

“Besides you and Tina Turner?”

“Yes.”

“None. And to tell you the truth, I'm starting to worry about Tina. She's not returning my calls.”

“So what is it, exactly, that's wrong with Linda Sorenson?”

“I wouldn't want her working for me. I wouldn't want her to be standing behind me with a knife, either.”

“Could she have killed Griego?”

“Not that way. She wouldn't want to mess up her miniskirt. But if it were in her best interest, I think she could've poisoned her without losing too much sleep.”

“But do you think she was telling the truth?”

“For the most part, yeah. Like I said, I think she was exaggerating the little girl number. From the Polaroids, I doubt she was the novice she's claiming she was. But about the other stuff, I think she was telling me what she believes is the truth. When I mentioned Liebman and Sons, she didn't even blink. Unless she's a much better actress than I think she is, she doesn't know anything about that account in Switzerland.”

“And she says that Griego hadn't seen Biddle since last fall.”

“Yeah.”

“All right. What do we have so far? Biddle came to Santa Fe five years ago. For four years he and Griego are sometimes lovers. That relationship ends, if Sorenson is right, in the fall of last year. We don't know why. Griego has been dealing with Liebman and Sons for at least five years, and it looks as though she's been keeping two separate accounts with them, one legal, the other not. For at least two years, Biddle has been working for the Leightons. Last year, in the fall, the Leightons fire him. We don't know why. A few weeks later, the necklace is stolen. According to Sergeant Nolan, the M.O. matches that of Stacey Killebrew. But according to your good friend Montoya, Killebrew hasn't fenced the necklace. No one has. Again, we don't know why. According to Carla Chavez, Killebrew and Biddle had a falling out after Biddle came back from Amarillo in November.”

“At about the same time Biddle stopped seeing Griego.”

“Yes. And once again—”

“—We don't know why. Are you reading this out of a book?”

“Six days ago,” she said, “Biddle comes to you with an offer to return a piece of jewelry to an insurance company. The next day, he's dead.”