Ani quickly types on her phone and then gasps. ‘Oh my gosh, it actually did kill him!’
‘What do you mean?’ I hope she means that the search for Mrs Dimas/Kostas/Anastasia-the-beautiful-art-thief killed Detective Larsson morally or professionally, not literally.
‘It. Actually. Killed. Him.’ Ani shoves her phone in my face.
My hopes stand corrected – the investigation into finding Mrs Dimas/Kostas killed the detective. He followed a fake lead to her childhood home and died in an explosion in the car outside. ‘Poor guy.’
‘You don’t think Mrs Kostas was responsible for blowing him up, do you?’
I shrug. ‘No idea but it’s a possibility. We need to separate ourselves from thinking we knew her because we clearly didn’t. Every question we have, we have to answer with proof. OK?’
‘Yep.’
‘Oh,’ I breathe, scanning the article. ‘Look, Mrs Dimas/Kostas was allegedly seen in another car. The witness didn’t take any pictures but he reported seeing a woman fitting Mrs Dimas/Kostas’s description cry at the explosion and then run off.’ I frown. ‘Why would she have been there in the first place?’
‘Maybe while Larsson was chasing her, she also chased him.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, if I were an international art thief on the run and my partner was jailed, I would try to see how close the police were to finding me. Like cat and mouse.’
I nod slowly. ‘That’s still odd. I mean, she should’ve been running off into the sunset instead. What other reason could she have to be at the same place at the same time?’
Ani mutters, as if she’s having a conversation with herself. ‘Maybe she wanted to retrieve something from her childhood home? Before running off into the sunset.’
‘Possible. It’s still odd, though.’
Ani sighs. ‘I know. Maybe she was trying to send him a message? To tell him to back off?’
I rub my face. ‘I don’t know . . . Why would she cry? If he was chasing her to imprison her, then she’d be happy when he died, right?’
Ani half shrugs. ‘It’s a standard human reaction? Plus, that could explain why she didn’t drive in California or here in Castlewick. Painful memories, much?’
I can’t believe any of this. Much less the fact that we’re actually making progress.
Ani thinks. ‘This detective – does he have any living relatives? Sometimes, they’re so intense about investigations that they pass them down like heirlooms. If so, then we could speak to them, see if he was close to catching her. Maybe she had a rival. Was something about her worth killing for? Maybe she had kept the art she’d stolen all along? Nothing was ever recovered, remember.’
I google Detective Larsson. ‘No. He says it himself here that he has no immediate family. His job, he said, is his life. Or, it was.’
‘So, that’s a dead end then,’ Ani mutters.
Silence settles between us.
I continue searching for as much as I can about Larsson. There’s a profile piece about him being on the stand at Nikolaos’s trial. In the photograph he looks to be in a luxurious home. A maroon embossed wall is behind him with intricate gold details. Tendrils of a chandelier shadow his forehead. He’s standing proudly in between a large Japanese Akita breed of dog and a vase, and he’s holding up his detective card like it’s a badge of honour. Behind him is a framed quote. I nudge Ani and she looks at it while I zoom in. The quote reads: ‘At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice, he is the worst.’
‘Aristotle.’ Ani sounds faraway. ‘Mrs Kostas wanted that as the TUSC’s motto. I declined.’
‘Maybe . . . she said it before to Larsson, to taunt him? And he framed it to taunt her? Cat and mouse?’
‘Or maybe he wanted to send her a message? Knowing she’d be keeping tabs on Nikolaos’s trial and see his piece?’ Ani shrugs. ‘Or maybe it’s a coincidence.’
We go quiet again for a few minutes.
‘Hey, did you catch that?’ I randomly ask, realising something. This information is like a puzzle clicking into place, although it’s delayed – I should’ve noticed sooner. Ani follows my eyes to the article.
‘The names of Mrs Dimas/Kostas’s husbands – Barnaby Nikolaos Dimas and Ares Aloysius Kostas III – include some of the names of her lover/thief. Nikolaos Aloysius Ares.’
‘Ohhhhh. Well, what does that mean?’
I shrug. ‘Maybe we should see what it leaves, instead of what it means.’ I tap my mouth with my pen and cross out the names Nikolaos, Aloysius, and Ares. That leaves Barnaby, Dimas, Kostas and III. ‘These names must have been important if she used them as part of her alias.’
‘I don’t know,’ Ani replies with a huff. ‘Shall we try googling it?’
‘Sure.’
Barnaby Dimas Kostas III 
Nothing.
Dimas Barnaby Kostas III
Nothing.
Barnaby Kostas Dimas III
Nothing.
Kostas Barnaby Dimas III
Something.
‘That’s the name of the artist who painted the first painting – Athena – that “Anastasia” and “Nikolaos” stole,’ Ani says.
‘And?’
Ani smirks. ‘The theft of Athena brought Detective Larsson onto the case. The guy who died.’ She smugly unlocks her phone. ‘Supersleuth’s log. We’ve made a few discoveries. Mrs Kostas/Dimas was an art thief.’
‘Which is a crime,’ I cut in. ‘She was a criminal.’ I want to be the President of the United States so I have to believe in the justice system, and I’ve never heard of a good criminal. I swallow, my mouth suddenly dry. I could be getting nervous because of Ani’s furrowed brows and narrowed eyes. It looks like she hasn’t let it sink in that Mrs Dimas/Kostas was a criminal. ‘We can’t eliminate the possibility that she killed Detective Larsson, can we? Who knows how many aliases she’s had?’
Slowly Ani nods a few times and I watch her rub her face. ‘She was a criminal,’ she whispers, more to herself than to me.
‘Let’s not forget that,’ I say, for the purpose of the investigation being objective. ‘Remember to separate yourself from thinking you knew her. Neither of us knew the real her.’
Ani nods again, this time faster, then claps and continues in her normal tone: ‘Mrs Kostas/Dimas’s lover, who was also her partner-in-crime, died in prison. He was caught, whereas she went on the run.’ She daydreams into the distance, lost in thought. ‘Wait, that could explain –’
‘What is it, Ani?’
‘That might explain something else from Mrs Kostas’s past. I’ll tell you later. Now –’
‘She had many aliases,’ I add. Ani gives me a stern look. No interruptions, got it.
She puts her phone closer to her mouth, angling herself away from me so I don’t interrupt again. ‘The victim had more than one alias. For each alias, the name of her fake husband includes her lover’s names. Remaining names are of a painter who painted the first work of art they stole. It must be sentimental to her, because of Nikolaos. Their first theft as a couple, right?’
I nod. ‘That’s poetic and romantic, her having a piece of him wherever she goes.’
‘Yeah.’
There’s more silence between us.
Ani rubs her face. ‘OK. I think we’ve discovered enough about the victim. Let’s create a timeline.’ With that, she leaves the bedroom. I follow.