“Oh, my God,” I whispered. I stood frozen in disbelief.
The Renoir had been found.
That explained why someone had entered my warehouse. But it raised other questions. Why would someone searching for the multimillion-dollar painting go to the trouble of sneaking into my warehouse and then leave without it? Or, more ominously, had the person entered not to take it away but to leave it behind? Why? I shivered, as much from mounting confusion and fear as from the cold concrete wall behind me.
CHAPTER SEVEN
By the time Max joined me in the Rocky Point police station interrogation room, it was nearly eleven and I’d made a decision. I was going to try to find out for myself what was going on.
“No charges have been filed,” Max said by way of greeting as he pulled out a chair and sat.
“That’s good news,” I acknowledged.
“Alverez will be in soon. He’s going to ask you questions about the painting. Before he gets here, I need to know the truth. All the truth. Do you have any knowledge of how the painting got into your warehouse?”
“No.”
“Do you have any ideas about why someone would have placed it there?”
“No.”
“Have you ever seen it before, anywhere?”
“No, never.”
“Okay, then.” He stopped, smiled, and reached across the table to pat my hand. “Josie, you’ll be okay. We’ll figure this out.”
What a nice guy, I thought. “Thanks, Max. I sure hope so.” I paused. “Do you remember how you said we should wait to hire a private detective?”
“Yeah, I remember.”
“Do you think it’s time yet?”
“No, not yet. If and when you’re charged with something-that would be the time to think about it. But we may not need to even then.”
“You’re talking about gathering evidence. I’m talking about figuring out what’s going on.”
“I understand your impatience, Josie. But it’s a bad idea. It implies that you’re worried.”
“So what? What bad outcomes could possibly result if people think I’m worried? Why wouldn’t my efforts create the perception that I’m serious about learning the truth?”
Max paused, thinking, I guessed, how best to express concerns that were, to him, self-evident. “You’ll signal fear, and once the world gets a whiff of it, you’re done for. You’ll look desperate.” He shook his head. “Let the experts do their work. The police are doing a thorough job.”
I sighed. “I don’t get it, Max. It’s as if we, and the police, are a step behind all the time.”
“I know it’s hard, Josie, but you need to trust in the system. Everything in its time.”
A gentle rat-a-tat-tat on the door was followed by part of Alverez’s face. “Can I come in?”
“Sure,” Max said, apparently confident that our conversation was over, that he had succeeded in bringing me around to his point of view.
He was wrong. Max might think we needed to stay passive until I was charged with something, but I didn’t. I was no longer willing to wait. And I didn’t understand why he was. His explanation seemed to me utterly lame. Bad strategy or not, I was going to act.
As Alverez got situated and hooked up his tape recorder, he asked, “You okay?”
I brushed hair out of my eyes. “Yeah.”
He nodded and started the recorder, gave the time and place, and read me my rights for the second time. While he recited the words, I looked at him. His face seemed composed of more angles than curves. His eyes were recessed under a forceful brow, his nose was straight, his cheekbones looked sculpted, and his chin was strong and determined looking. Only the pock-marks, scars from long-ago acne, perhaps, were rounded. They weren’t deep, and mostly, they were camouflaged by his five o’clock shadow. I bet he was the kind of guy who looked as if he always needed a shave.
When he finished stating the Miranda warning, he slid the written version across the table, and once again, I read it and signed my name, indicating that I understood my rights.
“So tell me what you know about the Renoir,” he said.
“Nothing.”
“You’ve never seen or heard of it?”
“Only what you know about.”
“Has anyone else talked to you about it?”
“No.”
“So all you know is what I told you?”
“Right. I have never touched it. Period.”
Alverez nodded. “Any ideas about how it got there?”
I shook my head. “No clue.”
“Change of subject,” Alverez said. “Have you had time to look through the warehouse and offices and see if anything is missing ?”
“No, I haven’t looked everywhere. I haven’t had time. I mean, I looked at the auction site, and I’m sure I, or Sasha, who supervised the setup, would have noticed if something was missing. But just looking around won’t necessarily help. A lot of my goods are small and grouped in lots.” I shook my head and gave a palms-up gesture, indicating that it was hopeless. “There’s just too much for me to notice it all right now.”
“How do you control inventory?”
“We use a bar-coding inventory-control system. I’ll be able to tell you tomorrow if any of the items scheduled to be part of the tag sale are missing.”
“Bar codes?” Alverez asked. “What are you, Wal-Mart?”
I shook my head a little, and smiled. “I wish. The software’s cheap nowadays, and easy to use.”
“You’ll let me know as soon as you verify your inventory. All right?”
“Sure.”
“And take stock of office equipment, computers, and so on.”
“All right.”
“Do you have a safe?”
“Yes.”
“Have you looked?”
“No, not yet.”
“What’s in it?”
“Some estate jewelry. I don’t sell fine jewelry to the public.”
“None?”
“Some costume pieces. That’s it.”
“How come?”
“It’s too hard to appraise and too easy to steal.”
“What do you do with the good stuff?”
“I wholesale it to a specialist in New York.”
“How does that work?”
“Aren’t you getting a little off on a tangent?” Max asked.
Alverez shrugged. “Until we know what’s going on, it’s hard to know what’s a tangent and what’s a clue.”
“True,” Max said, and waved a hand at me, gesturing that I could answer Alverez’s question.
“When I have something special, I call him, and he comes up. Sometimes he calls me and tells me he’s going to be in the area.”
“Then he stops by?”
“Right.”
“And?”
“And we go over the pieces and he pays me in cash. Which I declare as income on my tax return.”
“I’m sure you do,” Alverez said, smiling. “How do you know you can trust him?”
“I’ve known him for years and years. He’s reputable.” I shrugged. “Also, don’t forget that I know where the jewelry I’m selling came from, so I know which pieces are likely to prove valuable. Plus,” I added with a modest half smile, “while I’m not an expert, I know enough so it wouldn’t be all that easy to rook me.”
Alverez nodded. “When can you let me know if anything is missing from the safe?”
“Later today. When I get back there, I’ll look.”
“Another change of subject. What size shoes do you wear?”
“What?” I asked, unsure I’d heard correctly, as Max asked, “Why?”
Alverez paused, and Max added, “Come on. You know the drill. Connect it for us.”
Alverez nodded. “We might have some physical evidence. A partial on a footprint. I want to eliminate Josie as a suspect. So,” he said to me, “what size?”
“What size are the prints?” Max asked.
Alverez answered without hesitation. “Women’s nine narrow.”
I felt the weight of the world fall off my shoulders. Max leaned toward me and whispered, “What size do you wear?”