Full Cry

CHAPTER 26

In small towns, people notice one another. Tedi Bancroft would have lunch with Marty Howard. Someone would notice. Word would spread. Not that this is a bad thing, but it can lead to that great Olympic sport: people jumping to conclusions.

Then, too, there is a certain type of personality who lives by the motto “There is no problem that can’t be blown out of proportion.” The media is filled with just such personalities, but they thrive even among other segments of the population.

Knowing that, Sister asked Ben Sidell to swing by the farm sometime Wednesday. If seen together in town, any number of scenarios would have been bandied about.

The two sat chatting in the library.

“That was my first thought,” Ben confessed, after hearing Sister’s conjecture. “Berry Storage would be the obvious place.” He reached for a sandwich. “Fortunately, most people who own good silver and jewelry keep an inventory. Many now mark the items themselves in some unobtrusive spot, a number, a series of letters. If they haven’t catalogued their goods, they have photographs with duplicates to the insurance agency. It’s fairly easy to rip off a car and sell it. With something as unique as George II silver, it’s not easy to fence. Something like that usually is going out of the country.”

“What about a ritzy shop on Madison Avenue, a high-class fence?”

“We’d track it down, most likely. Now if the goods are presold, if you will, the items go directly to, say, a buyer in Seattle, we probably wouldn’t find them. Sometimes you get lucky, though.”

“After reading the papers about the silver thefts in Richmond, I thought . . . well, you know what I thought.”

“Logical.” Ben appreciated her concern. “Quite logical that antique furniture and silver could be crated and hidden at Berry Storage, shipped out, and it would all look like business as usual. Worth millions of pure profit, no taxes.”

“I see.” She crossed her legs. “And everything in the burned building is accounted for?”

“No. The insurance investigator from Worldwide Security is still working through what she can. What we did when we could get in there without melting the bottom of our shoes was to open the crates. The ones in the back were intact. Nothing was burned, although everything smells like smoke. We checked to see if anything was on the list of items stolen from Richmond. Nothing. Naturally, we’ll work with the insurance investigator—her examination will be detailed—but I don’t think Berry Storage has been a way station for this high-class theft ring.”

“For the sake of argument,” she uncrossed her legs, leaning forward, “if remnants of stolen silver or Chippendale chairs are found, is it possible that something like this could be done without Clay knowing about it?”

“Unlikely, but yes, it is possible.”

“Or they could both be in on it . . . Clay and X. Selling stolen goods, collecting insurance on the fire.”

He shrugged. “That’s possible, too.”

“I’ve wasted your time with my ideas. I was so sure I was onto something with the theft ring,” she paused, “because of yesterday’s hunt.”

“Heard it was wild.” He smiled.

“That it was, but what set my mind in motion was how my attention was so focused on the chase that I missed the danger signals, the signs of the mountain lion. I rather thought this might be the same sort of thing.” She blushed.

“It might. When I get an I.D. on the body, that should help.”

“I would think it would. And no one locally has been reported missing?”

He looked at her intently. “No. Think how many people live alone. If our victim was a loner, I might not get a missing-person call until his coworkers report it. If the victim doesn’t have a regular job . . .” He threw up his hands. “But I’m confident we’ll get a dental match soon.”

“Baffling.”

“Yes, it is,” he agreed.

“Do you think this has anything to do with the deaths of Mitch and Tony?”

“I don’t know. At this point, I don’t see a connection.”

“Nor do I.” She put her forefingers on the sides of her temples for a second. “And yet, the warehouses aren’t far from where those men lived the last part of their lives. They were throwaway labor, for lack of a better term. Perhaps they were literally thrown away.”

“It’s a stretch.”

“I know. And I’m just running on. I don’t have an ounce of evidence, but I do feel something, something disquieting, and I’m probably making too much of missing the signs after yesterday’s lion hunt.” She smiled slightly.

“I like having you on my team,” he reassured her.