Quinn nodded.
He wished Gladys had talked to him—and he wished he’d reached her in time. He damned well wished Hank Simon had never thought owning the bust would be such a remarkable coup.
But where was the damned thing now?
And how uncanny that a thief had come to steal it—just as Gladys had given in to the darkness....
The Simons had been generous, compassionate people.
He turned to Danni. She was standing exactly where he’d left her, almost as if she’d been frozen there.
“By the way, Dr. Hubert, this is Danni Cafferty. She’s Angus’s daughter.”
Hubert glanced at Danni. “How do you do, young lady? I suppose that question seems inappropriate at the moment. You can’t be doing very well.” He paused. “I knew your father. He was a fine man.”
She smiled fleetingly. “Thank you. Yes, he was.”
“Call me if there’s anything, please,” Quinn said.
“You know I will,” Hubert assured him.
Danni had responded to Dr. Hubert in smooth, well-modulated tones, still not moving.
Quinn touched her arm gently, afraid she’d wrench it away from him. Her eyes met his instead, blue and steady and crystalline.
“We’ll talk with a friend of mine on the crime scene unit,” he said.
She didn’t react, but when his touch signaled that she should turn so they could leave the attic, she spun around and preceded him down to the second level.
He found Grace Leon there. She was the head of her unit, a no-nonsense woman with short-cropped graying hair and a slim figure.
“I heard you were on this,” she said.
“Sure am. What can you tell me?”
“There was a break-in. As you may have heard, the glass was cut, and then removed with a suction device. We followed a faint trail of dust particles from the lower level to the study—and I do mean faint. I have something that might be a viable footprint from the first stair. I’ll let you know what we get, but we’ll need some tech to pump it up first.”
“Did he—or she—make it to the attic?”
“No, I don’t think so. The trail ends in the study. Odd, huh? The old lady hanged herself while she was being robbed. That’s how it appears, anyway.” Grace looked past him to Danni and then arched a brow at Quinn.
“Danni Cafferty, Grace Leon. Grace, Danni,” Quinn said.
“Cafferty?” Grace asked. “As in Angus?”
Quinn nodded.
Grace lifted a gloved hand, then dropped it. “Nice to meet you,” she said.
“Thanks. You, too.”
“You’re free to look around. Just keep the gloves on,” Grace advised. “We’re packing up now.”
“Why don’t we do a final check,” Quinn said to Danni. He realized he’d been waiting for her to bolt. She wasn’t going to.
“All right. I’ll take the downstairs,” she told him. “And the lower level. You can have the second floor and the attic.”
He was surprised again; she seemed all business, as though she knew what she was doing and what she was looking for. She abruptly moved into the parlor.
Quinn found exactly what he’d expected—nothing.
The thief hadn’t bothered with the silver or any of Gladys Simon’s jewelry. He’d removed the statue and apparantly nothing else. While Quinn paused in the study, observing the marvels her husband had collected—a Tiffany lamp, two Fabergé eggs, an Egyptian scepter, a medieval sword and shield, plus walls covered with fine art—he heard someone announcing the arrival of the ambulance that would transport Gladys’s body to the morgue.
Dr. Hubert left with the body, saying goodbye to Quinn in the upper hallway with a quick salute.
As Quinn came down the stairs, the crime scene unit moved on out, leaving a few uniforms behind, as well as Larue. Larue was in the foyer with Bertie, who was seated on the love seat that flanked the staircase.
She was sobbing.
“Is there somewhere else you can stay?” Quinn asked her.
“I should be here. I should watch for more wretched thieves,” Bertie said between sniffles.
“Bertie, what are you going to do if a thief shows up?” he asked. “You shouldn’t be here tonight. The police will keep an eye on the place and I’m sure there’s an alarm.”
“The alarm,” she said dismissively.
“Was it set today?”
“Well, no, not once Mrs. Simon went out,” Bertie said.
“See? We’ll set it and the house will be fine. You shouldn’t be here.”
“I agree,” Larue told her. “Ms. Hyson, both your employers are dead. I didn’t know them, but I knew of them. You’ll be taken care of in their will, I’d bet. But in the meantime, I think that being here could be harmful to your health.”
Danni walked into the foyer then, and Bertie studied her for a long moment.
“But the danger is gone, isn’t it? The bust is gone.” She wagged a finger at Danni. “I knew that thing was evil. It was...like the eyes watched you all the time, followed you wherever you went. It was creepy. I hated being in the room with it. I didn’t dust the study when it was in there, not after that first time. Why, it made the whole room feel...dirty. But...it’s gone now. And Miss Cissy—Cecelia Simon—she’ll be coming here now that her mother has...passed. I have to keep the place for her. Poor dear, she’s just gone back to Baton Rouge after her dad died. Oh, Lord, I’m going to have to call Miss Cissy and tell her that...that her poor mama...”
Bertie broke into tears again.
Danni went to sit next to her, putting an arm around her shoulders. “Don’t worry, Bertie. Detective Larue will call Cecelia. You just have to be ready to comfort her.”
Bertie wiped her eyes and looked at Larue hopefully. “Detective, you must call that poor young woman and tell her. She’ll come right back, and I’ll be waiting for her. I will not leave when the daughter of the house is coming home.”
Larue turned to Quinn, and Quinn shrugged. He was pretty sure Bertie was right; there was no intruder here anymore—and no evil, either.
He didn’t say he believed the thief was the one in danger now.
“I’ll have someone on duty at the door, Ms. Hyson. We’ll watch the house for twenty-four hours, until Miss Simon returns, and through the next night, at least,” Larue said.
“That’s kind of you, Detective,” Bertie told him gratefully.
“You through here?” Larue asked Quinn.
“Yes.” Quinn knelt down in front of Bertie and pulled a card from his wallet. “The number is my cell. If you’re afraid—if anyone bothers you—call me. And if Cecelia wants to talk to me, please have her call.”
He was astonished when a big tear slid down the woman’s face and she reached out to touch his cheek. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry I didn’t see that fine spark in you, Mr. Quinn. I just saw the past. Thank you.”
“Hey, that’s okay...you were a good friend to Gladys, a really good friend.” He stood, but Danni still sat next to the woman, comforting her. A moment later she rose, too.
“I’m so sorry,” she said.
Bertie nodded tearfully.
Danni walked toward the foyer and the door to exit, with Quinn behind her.
He thought she’d leave straightaway, that she would’ve had her fill of him and the Simon house.
But she waited on the sidewalk. “Who the hell are you?” she asked.
There were officers nearby. He hated explaining himself—or trying to explain himself—especially in front of others.
“Michael Quinn,” he began, but she cut him off.
“Michael Quinn, yes. Big high school football hero, and then you went on to quarterback for the state and suddenly you disappeared— Oh, yes, after b
eing in the papers time and again for your escapades.”
“I was a college kid,” he said. “But what you read was true.”
“Was?”
“I learned my lesson the hard way.”
“Oh?”
“I died.”
She leaned back, folding her arms over her chest, staring at him. “You’re a dead man?” she asked dryly.
“I was resuscitated,” he said, shrugging. She didn’t need his whole story just now; she sure as hell wouldn’t believe his whole story even if he told her.
“It changes your perspective on life,” he said.
“How did you know my father?”
“He helped on some of my cases.”
“Yes, right—you’re a P.I.,” she said. Her tone was still cool and skeptical.
He wondered whether to feel sorry for her and try to tell her more about what she apparently didn’t know...or obey his instinct to walk away.
“Gladys Simon is dead,” he said. “Maybe the fates couldn’t be stopped—and maybe you’re to blame, and maybe I’m to blame. It doesn’t matter. She’s past being helped. But that bust is out there. I have to find it.”
“The bust is a thing,” Danni said. “Yes, it was stolen. Yes, it belongs to the estate. But it’s a thing. Just a thing.”
“You really have no idea what your father did, do you?” Quinn asked her.
“I gather he helped the police at times,” she said. “And no, I didn’t know. And although I guess it would be to the estate’s benefit if the bust was found, it can’t be that important. It was stolen to begin with, right?”
“It’s got quite the history. The bust dates back to the Italian Renaissance. I know some of the background, but not all of it. It graced the tomb of a contemporary of Lorenzo de’ Medici’s. It remained there, bringing bad luck to the family, or so I’ve read—until World War II, when it was stolen. According to oral history, it was taken by a supporter of Mussolini who gave it to a German general as a gift. Both men committed suicide. Naturally, it was suggested that they did this because the war crimes they’d carried out were horrendous—and they were afraid that if they were taken in the night by the Russian forces, they’d be tortured before they were killed. From there, the bust supposedly wound up with Hitler himself. After the war, it found its way into the home of a Soviet KGB officer, after which it disappeared until it was unearthed by an American sculptor who smuggled it into the United States. He went on to become a serial killer. His name was Herman Abernathy and he drained the blood of five women in order to make perfect statues of them. The bust went up at an auction house when his estate was sold to pay for his defense and it was bought by a New Orleans entrepreneur and voodoo practitioner. He didn’t buy it for his own estate. He had it placed in the cemetery over the tomb of a family known to have practiced white magic. I assume he believed that the dead who were powerful in the ways of good could control the evil in the statue. Then came the summer of storms, the bust disappeared and people started winding up dead.”
“Those killer storms are a number of years behind us now,” Danni said.
He nodded. “The bust was returned to the cemetery. There was a write-up about its odd history in the Times Picayune not long ago.”
“I remember the article—but just vaguely,” Danni admitted.
“Then it was stolen again. The thief was killed by a junkie, who in turn massacred a bunch of other junkies. He’s awaiting trial now. He sold the bust to Hank Simon right before he was nabbed by the police. And you know what happened after that.”
“How did a man like Hank Simon meet up with a junkie?” she asked.
“Hank was a collector. Vic Brown knew that. No killing had been connected to the bust at the time—and Hank was willing to buy a great piece even if he suspected it hadn’t been gotten legally. You know how much buying and selling goes on outside the law!”
“That’s irrelevant. Anyway, it’s a thing,” Danni repeated.
“Fine. Well, then, thank you very much, Ms. Cafferty, for taking the time to help out here.” Quinn thrust a hand into his pocket and produced another card. “Here, if you feel you really want to understand what your father did, call me sometime. I’ve got to get on with the search for that...thing.”
He left her standing on the sidewalk and hurried to his car. He realized she was disturbed by the events of the day and was fighting the possibility that the bust itself could be evil. That was understandable. But...
Why hadn’t Angus talked to her about the shop?
Maybe, for Angus, separating his life with his daughter—his family—from the shop and his calling had been a method of clinging to something normal.
As he got into the driver’s seat, he saw that she was still standing on the sidewalk, watching him.
She stood tall beneath the moonlight, hair curling over her shoulders, and she gave the impression of an Athena—someone who was strong and ready to face the world in defense of the innocent.
He shook his head, emitting a sound of derision.
Yeah. Big help she was.
Then he took a deep breath. Not fair, Quinn.
He thought about his own past. You didn’t know until...
You knew.
He’d been reprehensible before he’d learned the truth; she was merely ignorant.
But like it or not, he might be moving forward on his own.
With that in mind, he pulled out into the street. Time to hit a few of the shadier spots in the city of New Orleans.
* * *
The bastard.
The arrogant, crazy, single-minded bastard.
Danni watched Quinn drive away, her emotions raging. She was furious. It was late—and he’d just left her on the street, going off on his own.
Not that she’d wanted to go anywhere with him. But he’d dragged her into this, and now she felt guilt and sadness that a woman was dead—and total confusion. People could behave brutally, badly, cruelly. But he was obsessed with an object!
As far as she could see, the damage was done. Hank and Gladys Simon were both dead; the bust—the thing that had driven Gladys so crazy—was gone. Stolen. But surely the bust itself didn’t have any power. Power lay in the minds of people. Somehow Gladys had let herself believe the bust was evil, and therefore, in her particular reality, it was.
“Jerk!” she said aloud.
She headed for her own car in the dark.
As she drove home, she wondered how her father had come to know police officers and forensic experts—without her having a clue. Granted, she and Angus hadn’t been joined at the hip. Although she had her room in the shop, where she’d been staying since his death, she’d also had an apartment near Tulane, which, of course, she’d now let go. She’d grown up in the French Quarter, and leaving the sometime-insanity of the area for a place of her own had seemed a logical progression for her. She loved her art, fellow artists and a number of musicians. She went out with her friends; her father went out with his.
She’d just never imagined him delving into police matters. Knowing that Quinn person.
“Jerk,” she said again.
She bit her lip as she turned down Royal Street. She was hurt, too. Hurt that so much had gone on that she hadn’t known about. She reminded herself that she’d hidden a few things from her father while growing up—not terrible things, but she’d had her share of normal escapades in college. There’d been a few dates she certainly hadn’t wanted to share with him, and yet...
In all important matters, they’d been close. He’d been friends with Jarett Morrison, the love of her high school life, and although she and Jarett had split up in college, they’d somehow stayed best friends. Her father had been her rock when word had come that Jarett had been killed on a dusty desert road by a bomb while in the service; he’d held
her through the funeral. He’d never met Aaron, the wacky engineer she’d dated for only a few months, or Hardy Wentford, the forlorn guitarist. She’d never brought a man home to meet Angus unless she was serious about him, and she hadn’t felt that way about anyone since her mad high school crush on Jarett, a crush that had just faded, as naturally as aging.
Lately, since before her father’s death, she hadn’t even met anyone she really wanted to have coffee with, much less get serious about.
The point was that she’d hidden a few questionable dates; he’d hidden an entire life’s project!
Royal Street was quiet but she could hear the distant, competing music from Bourbon Street—like the beating of the French Quarter’s heart. The real heart, of course, wasn’t in the blaring pop music, the strip clubs or the bars on Bourbon Street. It was in the centuries of history. But tourism kept the city alive, so those entertainers were important.
A few late-night diners were strolling back to their hotels or homes in the Quarter but her block was dead quiet. She hit the remote control button and drove her Acura into the garage. Billie’s little Beetle was pulled into its spot, she noted, but she’d expected that it would be. Billie was a homebody. When he wasn’t working, he might take a stroll down to Frenchman Street, where more locals played at the pubs and bars, but he was usually home early, up in his attic room, watching Storage Wars and gleeful when he convinced himself that no one had ever found treasures to compare with those at The Cheshire cat.
The garage door opened into what had once been a pantry; now it was a hodgepodge of stored objects. She walked into one of the shop’s display rooms. The emergency floor lights were on and she could see the blinking blue lights that indicated the alarm was working. She reset it and moved through the darkened rooms to the stairway, passing the knight in full armor, a life-size voodoo queen doll and a standing display of Anne Rice’s Interview with a Vampire characters. She paused in the shadows, smiling.
“We were a good team, Dad,” she said softly. He’d been the collector, but she’d known how to create displays that made the shop a not-to-be-missed venue in the city. It had gone from a confusion of objects to a showroom worthy of a museum.