“You told me you didn’t believe me,” I said to Sergeant Itani. She was Rosa when we were in her office or on the phone. But here, in uniform and with a whole unit of police officers under her command, and a couple of bad guys in the van, she had to be addressed with respect, even if just in my mind.
“You’re right, I didn’t,” she said. “But after we got off the phone, I did a little digging. Enough of what you said checked out, so I asked a car to swing by, and they found suspicious activity.”
“What checked out?”
We were standing out in front of my building. The night air was refreshing after the smell of wood and wax I’d inhaled with my face pressed against the floor.
“Well, for one, it seems possible to me that Morrison Brine’s death was not entirely accidental.”
“Really?” Of all the things I’d expected to hear, that wasn’t one.
“Yeah. And you’re right, your parents’ place getting broken into was odd. Considering the timing.”
“Right?”
“But what really got me thinking was the Mafia connection you suggested. And you were right there too. There were connections hinted at between Brine’s success and that of a certain branch of the Rossi family. I looked fast, and the connections I was able to make at a glance wouldn’t stand up in court. But it was enough to get me a little worried about all the poking around you’ve been doing. You never know what kind of hornet’s nest you’ll stir up with that kind of stuff.”
“And here we are.”
“Right. And here we are. Now, I’m not sure yet who those guys are, but I’m sure they didn’t have a key to your place. Am I right?”
“Geez, Rosa, they were in there when I got home. Your timing could not have been better, or they’d have gotten away with the wine.”
Rosa looked at me speculatively, as if weighing whether I was pulling her leg. She must have realized I wasn’t kidding around, because she shook her head and said, “No wine, hon. Just this.”
She led me to a pile of crumpled paper. At first I didn’t realize what it was. And then…I sort of did, though not exactly.
“I can tell by your face,” she said. “You recognize these.”
“Kinda. Not really. They sort of look like the papers the bottles were wrapped in.”
Her eyes kind of widened at that, but she didn’t say anything at first. Then: “Look more closely.”
I did. The papers the bottles had been wrapped in were folded over onto each other. Unfolded, it became clear that each bottle had been wrapped in a sheaf of papers.
“Stock certificates?” I ventured.
Rosa nodded. “Good guess. Go to the head of the class. You recognize the stock?”
“No. Is it the same one Joe was pumping?”
“No. That was some cheap penny stock. That wouldn’t have been worth hiding. Or stealing. No. Look more closely.”
I did. And then said, almost right away, “These are shares in Enzo Rossi’s development company.”
“You’ve got it. We’ll have to look at it all more closely, of course, but I’m guessing this is some kind of holding stock we’re looking at. Like, not a significant share of the company.”
“But valuable?”
“I’d guess so. Based on the fact that these guys didn’t knock.”
* * *
Finally settled at my desk, a cup of tea cooling at my elbow, my story came together quickly. Oh, there were holes still to be filled in—lots of them—but I was well on my way, the pieces all fitting the way they should. This was the story that would make my career. I just knew it. It had everything—murder, intrigue, high stakes, significant sacrifice. I almost wept while I wrote parts of it. I was so astonished with the deftness of the piece, the variety of elements and my skill at handling it all. Truly, I thought, I was going to be unstoppable. I had trouble keeping my excitement down.
“But I don’t think I understand,” Kyle said to me when I told him everything. I’d called him before I started writing. Then I’d buzzed him into my building around the time I wrote -30- at the bottom of the piece, signifying “the end.” I filed the story while he tromped up the stairs. “You mean the wine was never the target? They wanted these stock certificates all along?”
“Well, we don’t have all the details yet, but yeah. Something like that.” I told him the conclusions in the story I’d written earlier and filed. It would be in the morning edition, a fait accompli.
“So let me get this straight. Someone killed Brine in order to get those stock certificates.”
“Looks that way.”
“And all that business with Joey and the stocks he was pumping?”
“Coincidence, in a way. Except the fact that Joey was bidding on the desk must have been what made these galoots think the desk held what they wanted.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It was known that Joey was a promoter. There were times he would have inside information on certain stocks—or at least he allowed people to think he did. And it was known that Brine, for whatever reason, had a golden touch. And all of a sudden Joey is bidding on a dead man’s desk? It wouldn’t have taken much math for them to figure something was going on.”
“And they were there, too?”
“Folowing him, yes. That’s what I imagine.”
“Okay, so that’s Joey. How’d they know to come to you?”
“That’s been bothering me too. I think it must have been the girl at the auction house. But I guess with all the poking around I was doing, I didn’t exactly make my interest a secret.”
Once Kyle was gone, and with my story written, I had a strong desire to close this chapter. The chapter of the desk. I wanted a fresh start, everything new. And the feeling of violation, of having been broken into—I wanted that gone as well.
I’d brought home some oil soap from my mom’s. She blends it with water and puts it in a special bottle so that you can spray it on wood to clean it. Honestly, if you want something cleaned, ask a Scot. That’s been my experience. My mom has a cleaning solution for everything, and bleach figures in a lot of those recipes. For wood, it’s oil soap, water and a damp rag. And so I went to work on the desk.
I hummed while I did it, enjoying the rise of the honey-gold color of the wood as I rubbed the oil soap in. After a while the wood seemed to glow. When the outside of the desk was polished and gleaming, I turned to the inside. I pulled out the drawers and cleaned everything I could see or reach, going deep into the corners and lovingly around the dovetail joints.
When I went to push the top drawer back in, it stuck. I tried it this way and that, but I could not put it back where it had been. Something was in the way. I reached in and felt…something. What? The tips of my fingers identified the texture of thick paper—which, it seemed to me, shouldn’t be jammed at the back of a desk drawer.
I got out my flashlight. Peered deep inside. And against the pure symmetry of this well-designed piece of furniture, I saw something that didn’t quite fit. I reached in as far as I could, but I couldn’t quite grab it. I went to the kitchen. Got my longest set of tongs. Reached inside with them and grabbed. I felt a surge of adrenaline as I got hold of whatever it was with the tongs and pulled it out. It felt like victory even before I knew what it was.
The envelope was creamy and thick, with a rich texture. An envelope from another time. Sari was written on the front of the envelope in a firm blue hand.
Before I did anything else, I called Kyle.