Brandon was a split second behind her. He leaped over the rail and fell straight down through a canvas patio awning that had supported her weight but failed to support his.
“I’m okay!” Brandon shouted.
Walt watched the woman’s bare backside flee across the parking lot. She pulled on the shirt midstride.
By the time the other two deputies took off, she was long gone. An escape route had been planned. Walt was betting she’d grabbed a cell phone off the desk.
No one had seen her face, but Walt thought he had a vague idea what she looked like. It was the woman with the baby stroller.
15
On a manicured lawn, nestled behind the Sun Valley Lodge and cast against a backdrop of rugged, summer-snowcapped mountains, loomed an enormous white tent. In a darkening sky, fiery pink clouds began to melt and dissolve. Vintners put last-minute touches on their tables in preparation for the wine tasting, a preview of the following night’s auction items.
The presenters, smartly dressed and deeply tanned, knew one another well. With the preview being as important to them as the rehearsal dinner was to the bride, nerves were on display. It was a matter of honor and company pride to fetch higher bids than the competition, even at a fund-raiser. A few lots would sell with reserves. The most famous of these was the John Adams.
Walt, Brandon, and a deputy named Blompier delivered the attaché case without incident. The search for the female suspect had failed, adding to Walt’s unease. Although the motel was being watched, Walt didn’t expect anyone to return.
With the temperature in the low seventies and expected to drop ten degrees every hour for the next three, the Adams bottles had been transferred to a temperature-controlled Plexiglas viewing case. Brandon stood guard immediately behind the case despite Remy having requested something low-profile.
Guests began arriving.
Seeing the reverence in the faces of the onlookers as they approached the Adams display, Walt understood how rare such a viewing had to be. To him, they were three scratched old bottles of wine, but he overheard the discussions: the story of Remy’s discovery of the bottles in Paris, the lengthy authentication, marred by some kind of myth straining to be legend… the controversy… and always the astronomical reserve price.
Walt had posted several deputies: four in uniform outside, two in plainclothes inside. He had the Mobile Command vehicle, the MC, parked nearby, a thirty-foot RV tricked out with all sorts of communications equipment, all of it donated.
Walt spotted Remy, crossed the tent, and politely ushered him into the grand dining tent, where a sea of bare round tables and a massive stage awaited the following night’s festivities. He handed Remy a stack of nine photographs that Branson Risk had e-mailed to him.
“Do you recognize this man?”
The photos were dark, the faces distorted by movement. The man in question had been wrestling with the attaché case, which was locked to the Taurus’s seat frame. Two of the nine caught a piece of his face in focus.
“No,” said Remy.
“You have to wonder how these people knew what they knew,” Walt said. “They went to a lot of trouble trying to steal that case.”
“The Adams bottles have been in the catalog for months, Sheriff. Whoever did this has had a long time to plan.”
“But as I understand it, Branson Risk contained the delivery details to a handful of people.”
“I’m certain of it. But they are in the business of moving valuable art, are they not? Certainly they must establish patterns to their work, no?” He passed the photographs back to Walt.
“It still doesn’t explain how they knew which flight Malone would be on or which car he’d rented.”
“Someone at the airport… a TSA agent, perhaps. The case required all sorts of waivers because of the TSA’s ban on fluids. We did as they asked. If you paid off the right agent, you’d know what’s moving where.”
“You’ve thought about this, have you?” Walt asked.
“It’s my million dollars, Sheriff. A man has been killed. Yes, I’ve thought about it.”
“We are on occasion asked to provide transportation for valuable art,” Walt conceded. “As you can imagine, there’s a great deal of it in this valley. This kind of thing is not entirely foreign to me. But, honestly, we’ve met private, not commercial, jets. I’ve never known of any big-dollar private art arriving on a commercial flight.”
“That was at my request, I’m afraid,” Remy said. “Your local airport ran out of landing times for general aviation, given the high volume of private aircraft arriving this weekend. That left us the option of landing the bottles privately in Twin Falls and driving them two hours north or flying them in commercially and requiring a nightmare of paperwork. The less they’re moved, the better. I opted for the commercial flight, going against Branson Risk’s recommendations. So the blame falls on me.”
“And Branson Risk,” Walt said.
“I’m not convinced this is going to get you anywhere.”
Walt tapped the top photograph. “I need to identify this individual. I need to know how they could be so well prepared and ready for Malone’s arrival.”
“You believe they will try again.” Remy made it a statement. “I seriously doubt that.”
“Tonight, tomorrow night-they’ve spent time and money on this. They’ll make another try. It’ll be something bold, daring, and, they hope, completely unexpected. The way they used the wrecker tells us that much.” He pulled Remy deeper into the tent, well out of earshot. “What if I could have a local artist duplicate the bottles? Copy the labels? Replace the real bottles with fakes?”
Remy’s eyes hardened. “Don’t be ridiculous. This is an educated crowd, not easily fooled. I guarantee you.”
“Just a thought,” Walt said.
“And a ridiculous one at that,” Remy said. “Do me a favor and protect my bottles, Sheriff. Don’t go getting creative. If we need to reinvent the wheel, no one will be knocking on your door. So do what you’re good at and be a presence.” Saliva popped from his mouth with the p in presence. He thumped Walt on the arm playfully. “Okay?” he asked. “Okay,” he answered rhetorically.
16
With Lorraine Duisit on his arm, Christopher Cantell entered the wine-auction preview displaying an invitation that had him as Christopher Conrad, owner of Oakleaf Barrels, a manufacturer of casks and distributor of distillery equipment. He wore black silk pants, a white linen shirt, a hand-loomed sweater of burgundy raw silk and forest green microfibers, and lots of gold bling on his hands and wrists. He had donned a medium-length hairpiece and green contact lenses, easy additions that grossly altered his looks. Lorraine wore a copper satin top over tight-fitting autumn-toned linen pants and Ceylon-white, crystal-beaded Bianca sandals. The pair exuded enough nouveau richness to repel any possible interest in them.
Cantell left the photography to Lorraine, who, even though she was a natural brunette, could play the dumb blonde with aplomb. She made a point of giggling and jiggling her way around the tent, speaking a little bit too loudly, name-dropping and snapping shots. She made sure to get shots with the golf shop in the background.
Cantell took note of the large number of drivers and security personnel loitering outside. He was less surprised by the two undercover and four uniformed men, probably from the Sheriff’s Office. He and Lorraine confined themselves to the lots of red wines, tasting several cabernets and pinots, sampled the hors d’oeuvres, then pulled away, keeping to themselves and making a point to stay away from the Adams bottles.