files of the richest clients are housed in a room off his office, and nobody has access without his permission.”
“And he gave Crane that permission?”
“No. He has a bedroom and bath there, and when he woke up in the night, she’d be gone. He says he’s a heavy sleeper, and she would have had the opportunity to get at the files.”
“Weren’t the file cabinets locked?”
“He didn’t say, but apparently not.”
“That’s all very interesting.”
“There’s more. In my conversation at lunch with Jack, he told me that his insurers—Steele—recommended Don Dugan for the replacement of his security system.”
“And the person at Steele recommending Dugan could either be Crane or someone she could influence, like Barnes.”
“Right. If I’d thought of this earlier, I’d have asked him. Also, I remember when I switched my household insurance to Steele, after they became my clients, they sent a representative over who went through my house with a fine-toothed comb, making lists of items to insure and commenting on my security arrangements. The other Steele client, who was robbed of his bearer bonds and gold, would have had a similar visit. That could be how the safecracker found the safe concealed behind a panel.”
“I wonder who’s going to be robbed next?” Dino asked.
Stone took Jeb Barnes’s notes from a pocket and handed them to Dino. “This is a list Jeb made of his richest clients, the ones with the most insurance. It would be interesting to know about their experience with Steele, if the company recommended Dugan for security system work and who from Steele surveyed their apartments or houses.”
“It certainly would,” Dino said, tucking the list into his own pocket. “I’ll have each of them interviewed by a detective.”
“Barnes is worried about Crane’s being interviewed by detectives,” Stone said. “He believes she might be innocent in all this, and he doesn’t want her unnecessarily disturbed.”
“Let’s see if her name comes up in these next interviews,” Dino said. “If it does, we’ll be talking to Crane whether Barnes likes it or not.”
“Jeb’s greatest fear is that his company will find out he was fucking Crane and fire him. I told him I’d ask you to be discreet in your investigation.”
“Sure, we’ll be discreet—up to a point. Anything else?”
“Nope. Your turn.”
“I talked with a detective who’s our top jewelry theft investigator and dropped the name of Jacob Sutton. He actually knows Sutton, because he’s spent a lot of time at the diamond center investigating cases, but he had no idea that the guy was a fence. I’ve authorized him to have a team look into the man and his business thoroughly. If he’s been fencing for as long as Coulter says he has, he’s probably connected to a lot of robbery cases over the years. We’re concentrating on the ones that the statute of limitations hasn’t run out on.”
“Sounds good.”
“Everybody’s excited about Jake Sutton. Nailing him would be a very big win for the department.”
“And for you, since your predecessors never nabbed him.”
“Yeah, well.”
They ordered steaks and fries and wine and began to enjoy themselves.
After dinner, Dino said, “Viv tells me that Crane is impressing people at her new job.”
“Good for her.”
“Makes me wonder, though.”
“Wonder what?”
“Who is Crane fucking at Strategic Services?”
36
Stone arrived home and went to his study to check his phone messages. Nothing. That was a relief. He turned the lights off and went upstairs to his bedroom. On the way up in the elevator, he had the odd feeling that something had been amiss in his study, but in thinking about it, he couldn’t imagine what.
He undressed in his dressing room and got into a nightshirt, then he adjusted the bed to point him at the TV and turned on the late news. Again, he had the feeling that something was wrong with the room, but it took him a couple of minutes to grasp what it was. He sat bolt upright in the bed and stared at the bedroom wall facing him. His mother’s four paintings, which normally hung there, were gone.
He got out of bed, raced downstairs, and turned on the living room and study lights. Two more paintings in the study and five from the living and dining room were gone. He had a terrible feeling in the pit of his stomach, and he had to take a few deep breaths before he could call Dino.
“Bacchetti.”
“It’s Stone.”
“You think of something else I should know?”
“Yes. The next robbery has occurred. All of my mother’s paintings, eleven of them, are missing.”
“Holy shit, Stone, those