“Not hardly,” I said bitterly. “I feel like a cat that’s been staked out on the highway.”
“What happened exactly? Tony didn’t go into details.”
“That smash-and-grab I went to. They say I stole one of the jewels when I was at the scene. They found it in my pocket. Christ, I reached in and handed it to them.”
She’d left the kitchen door open, and we entered together. “How did it get there?” she asked.
I looked at her peevishly. “How the hell do I know?”
I saw the hurt in her eyes and reached out for her shoulder. “I’m sorry. It’s crazy. There’re just too many possibilities.”
She steered me over to the island in the middle of the kitchen. “Sit. You missed dinner last night. I’m going to make us waffles.” She held up her hand as I opened my mouth. “Don’t argue. We need to think this one out, and do something while we’re at it. In fact, don’t sit. Make us something hot to drink-tea, coffee, whatever floats your boat. And slice up that cantaloupe.”
It was, of course, sound advice. I put myself to work.
“Okay,” she resumed, reaching into cupboards and pulling out what she needed. “Let’s go back to when somebody could have planted that jewel. Maybe that’ll open up some doors.”
I was by now mimicking her actions on the other side of the kitchen. “I tried that. It could’ve been anytime, and if they were good, or somebody I knew well, they could’ve even done it when I was wearing the damn coat. It was my breast pocket. Ever since handkerchiefs went out, it’s almost never used. Somebody could’ve slipped it in there a week ago, and I wouldn’t’ve known.”
She paused to look over her shoulder. “A week ago? I thought you said it came from the jewelry store.”
“It did… No, let me back up. We think it did. The inventory’s still being done, but the store manager’s so disorganized I doubt he’ll be able to swear when he last saw it. It could’ve been missing for days.”
She pointed at the pocket. “It doesn’t have a flap. If you took the coat off and threw it over the back of a chair, the brooch might’ve fallen out. Whoever went to all this trouble would’ve thought of that.”
The obvious truth of that startled me, and made me doubt my own ability to think this out. “You’re right.”
“So it was probably done this morning. Who were you standing close enough to that he might have had a chance?”
I shook my head. “That doesn’t work. Willy picked me up-” I suddenly froze. “Shit.”
“What?”
“We parked across the street. We had to push through a crowd to get in the door, and I ducked under the tape. Someone could’ve… No.”
“Why not?” she asked. “That sounded plausible.”
“How would they’ve known where I was going to cut through the crowd?”
“Where did you? Directly opposite the door?”
“Yeah.”
She smiled hopefully. “That’s logical-exactly what the guy would’ve expected.”
I thought about that for a moment. “Maybe. It seems a little wobbly. If we’d parked on the same side of the street, we would’ve entered the scene from a different angle.”
“How big was the crowd?” I made a vague gesture. “Bigger than I would’ve expected. The alarm drew them out. A dozen maybe.”
“That’s not many, Joe. He sees you coming, he moves to intercept.”
I paused in the middle of putting the filter into the coffee machine. “I don’t remember anyone in motion. I don’t think anyone even saw us coming.” Again, I was struck by the idea’s fancifulness. “It’s such a long shot-putting so much faith on my having the right kind of jacket, presenting it at just the right angle at just the right time-not to mention the skill involved in pulling off something like that.”
“Be worth checking out,” she said simply, pouring milk into a bowl. “A good pickpocket could’ve done it, working in reverse. Maybe you should look at people with that kind of background.”
More to mollify her than from any conviction, I said, “Pierre was positioned outside, facing them all. Maybe he saw something, or could remember who was there.”
“All right,” Gail said, with assumed authority. “That’s a possible how. I’m guessing Kunkle could have done it, too, along with whoever else was there, but that’s pretty unlikely. Agreed?”
“Yeah. Plus, neither the manager nor the owner ever got close enough to me.”
“Okay. Let’s go to the why.”
I measured out enough coffee for one cup. Gail never touched the stuff. I was going to boil water for tea for her. “That’s the one I was thrashing out all the way here. It could be anything, from this CIA thing I’m working on to some bastard I put away twenty years ago.”
“If the latter’s true, maybe the timing’s important. You could match pickpockets with past cases and recent prison release dates and maybe come up lucky.”
I turned away so she couldn’t see my obvious skepticism. “I suppose.” In fact, I couldn’t remember ever dealing with a pickpocket. It seemed like a profession straight out of Dickens.
“Or,” she went on, vigorously beating the contents of the bowl, “it might be connected to a current case-someone hired by somebody you’re squeezing.”
I opened my mouth to put the brakes on all this when I was struck by the reasonableness of what she’d just said. Once again I flashed back to the Korean War Memorial. “Like my mugger, you mean.”
She poured a ladle of waffle mix onto the electric griddle and closed it, checking her watch. “Could be.”
I walked over next to her and placed the kettle on one of the gas burners. “It still doesn’t tell us a goddamn thing.” I grabbed a cantaloupe and a knife but did nothing with either. “I mean, say the CIA tried to have me killed and now is trying to land me in jail, the question still remains, why? I haven’t done anything unique. Some kid found the body, the ME’s office sliced it up, the crime lab came up with that stupid ginkgo seed. I’ve just been a cog in this whole thing. Why do I deserve all the attention?”
I’d been using the knife as a baton throughout this speech. Gail pointed to it and said gently, “Cut the cantaloupe, Joe.”
I did as she asked, my confusion unabated. “This might make some sense if I thought it was leading anywhere. But even sniffing around the inn, we still don’t have enough for a warrant.”
“You might with time.”
I scooped the contents of the cantaloupe out into the compost bucket. “Maybe, but that misses the point. I was mugged in DC before I knew much of anything, and whoever ordered that couldn’t have known a ginkgo seed was going to suddenly appear to lead us to the inn. That’s too crazy.”
Partly to my regret, that quieted her down. I sliced and prepared the rest of the melon in total silence.
Finally, Gail checked her watch again, opened the griddle, and extracted four waffles, which she placed on two plates. Her voice missing its earlier strength, she asked, “So what’s the department do now?”
I set out the mugs, syrup, and utensils and sat opposite her. “They have to find out if the brooch came from the store. Maybe, if the manager’s as much of a jerk as his boss thinks he is, that’ll be the end of it. But I doubt it. After that, it’ll be by the numbers, and you know what they are-paid suspension, while everyone sets out to prove at least possession of stolen property, and maybe grand theft. They have to come up with intent, knowledge that I knew it was hot, but the way things’re going, I’m sure they’ll be able to do that. Christ knows how.
“If whoever called this in had phoned the PD instead of Derby, I might’ve had some slack to play with. But he obviously knows how things work. Derby’s hands are tied, and the whole department’s been cut out of the loop. This’ll have to go to external investigators.”
Neither one of us had made a move to eat the breakfast we’d prepared. It sat there between us, looking increasingly unappetizing. Gail finally let out a deep sigh. “You want to blow this off?”
I merely tilted my plate over the compost bucket and set it in the sink. I turned on the water to wash things up, but Gail placed her hand over mine to stop me. “Leave it. Let’s go to bed.”