Statue of Limitations Read online

  “Take a look at this,” Case said.

  “That’s okay. Just tell me what it is.”

  “Athena, I won’t bite. I didn’t come here to harm you.”

  “Then you won’t mind giving me my phone back.”

  “I’ll give it back if you’ll please sit down and let me explain this document to you. It’s what I intended to show you the last time I was here.”

  “So why didn’t you?”

  “As I recall,” he said with a wry smile, “you were late for your dinner date.”

  He was right. I pressed my lips together and said nothing.

  “Please?” He gestured toward the chair.

  I weighed my options. Case was sitting at least three feet away. If I decided to run, I might be able to make it to the front door, unlock it, and be out in public before he could reach me. Maybe.

  If I decided to stay, I wasn’t sure what would happen.

  But as I took a longer look at him, his appearance alarmed me. His eyes had dark circles beneath them, he hadn’t shaved, his hair was unkempt, and he was wearing the same clothes I’d last seen him in—clearly a man on the run. The sight of him looking exhausted, desperate, and alone tugged at my heart. But could I trust him?

  “I’ll listen to what you have to say on one condition. You have to leave immediately afterward.”

  In reply, he pushed the document across the table toward me.

  I sat down opposite him instead of adjacent and leaned over the fragile piece of paper. At the top in large, old-world font was the heading Costas Mouseío Téchnis Kai Glyptikís, with an address in Crete, Greece, on the next line. Below that were the words Paralaví Tis Agorás.

  He leaned across the table to point to the main heading. “This says Costas Museum of Art and Sculpture. Costas was my mother’s maiden name, and it was her grandfather, my great-grandfather, who opened the museum.”

  “So you’re Greek?”

  “A quarter Greek, a quarter Irish, and a mix of German and French.” He pointed to the next line. “This is the address of the museum.”

  “And how does this involve me?”

  “It’s a sales receipt. That’s what Paralaví Tis Agorás means.” He pointed to a smaller heading farther down that said, Treasure of Athena, followed by a detailed description of the statue—my statue. He tapped the description. “Notice anything unusual?”

  “That part’s in English.” I was starting to get a gut feeling about where this was going.

  “Bingo. Now bear with me for a moment.” Case pointed to a line below the description. “This is the price the buyer paid for the statue in drachmas. It would be the equivalent of five thousand dollars in US money, which was a small fortune back in the early nineteen hundreds.”

  He indicated a name and address near the bottom. “Here’s the buyer’s information. As you can see, he was from Manchester, England. From that and a lot of searching I was able to find out that the buyer subsequently sold the statue to an art dealer in London. I tracked the next sale to a buyer in New York, and finally found the Treasure of Athena right here in Sequoia in an auction notice. And that led me to you.” He sat back with a smile, clearly proud of himself.

  “Where are you going with this?” I asked warily.

  “I’m trying to prove something to you. Nothing on an authentic sales receipt would have been written in English back then because my great-grandfather knew only one language—Greek.”

  Case pointed to a scrawled name just below the purchase price. “This is not my great-grandfather’s signature, either. It’s a forgery. This document was written by a crooked art dealer who realized early on that Antonius’s sculptures were going to become exceedingly valuable. The dealer conned the museum manager into helping him steal the statue and then they split the profit. Both of them ended up going to jail, by the way, but by the time the law caught up with them, the statue was long gone.”

  “You’re asking me to believe a six-foot-tall stone statue was moved out of the museum right under your great-grandfather’s nose?”

  “As incredible as that sounds, yes. Look, it’s getting late, so I’ll keep this brief. Let’s just say my great-grandfather’s trust in the museum’s manager was misplaced, serious mistakes were made that resulted in the museum’s closing, and a beautiful statue he’d bought to honor his late wife’s memory was lost as a result. And by the way, my great-grandmother’s name was Athena.”

  Once again, I felt a tug at my heart. I truly wanted to believe Case’s story, yet I still had doubts. “How did you happen to find this forged document?”

  “Through a long, involved process. I found an old newspaper clipping about the theft among my grandfather’s papers when I was helping him clean out his belongings, so I asked him to tell me about it. And after I learned what the Treasure of Athena meant to my great-grandfather, and how long both he and my grandfather had searched for it, I promised my grandfather I’d do whatever I could to find it. Plus, I had the advantage none of them had—the Internet.

  “My next step was to fly back to Crete to convince someone in the police department’s bureau of records to let me rummage through boxes of old files. My mother went with me to act as interpreter because I speak only a few words of the language. But it was worth our effort because the art dealer’s criminal records were still intact, including his bills of sale. Luckily for us, Greeks rarely throw anything away.”

  I folded my arms across my shirt and gave him a skeptical glance. “Amazing how everything worked out.”

  He gave me a dimpled smile. “I agree it sounds like something straight out of a movie, but it really did happen that way.”

  I slid the document toward him. “Okay, so you’ve come a long way to find the Treasure of Athena. Now you’ve found her, and you can tell your grandfather the statue is in good hands.”

  “You don’t understand. The museum could be reopened if—”

  “No, you don’t understand.” I pushed back my chair and rose. “I listened to your story as you asked. Now you keep your end of the bargain and leave.” I held out my hand. “My phone, please.”

  Case ran his fingers through his hair, visibly exasperated. “The whole purpose of showing you this document is to convince you that I came here to right a wrong done to my family. If I can at least take the proof of ownership back to Greece, there’s a chance my family can recoup their loss in court. That would give them the funds to reopen the museum.”

  “But if you have the proof of ownership, what guarantee do I have that you won’t try to reclaim the statue?”

  “Please, Athena, believe me, I’m just an honest man trying to—”

  “An honest man? You broke into our garden center Tuesday morning to steal that proof of ownership.”

  “Wait a minute. I’ll admit I came back to look for the document, but the compartment was empty.”

  “And what would you have done if you’d found the document?”

  “I would’ve asked you to lend it to me long enough for me to take it back to Greece. I wouldn’t have kept it.”

  “So you say now.”

  “The proof of ownership is supposed to stay with the statue. But you didn’t have it, so the most logical place to look next was at the Talbots’. And by the way, I went there to ask for it—or buy it if I had to.”

  I sat down again, thinking about what he’d just said. “Explain to me why anyone would leave a valuable document inside a sculpture where it would be a prime target for a thief.”

  “It was Antonius’s trademark. My grandfather said it was part of the mystique of owning one of his sculptures. And remember, his art didn’t become valuable until after his death.”

  “So why wouldn’t that document have been inside the sculpture when I received her?”

  “That’s exactly what I wanted to know.” Case sat forward, his hands clasped, an earnest expression on his face. “Please believe me, Athena. I went to see Talbot for one reason only, to find out what happened to the proof
of ownership, but I wouldn’t have killed for it.”

  “Then why did the video show you running away from his office?”

  “Because I made a gigantic tactical error. I was going to present myself at the front door and ask to see Grayson Talbot Junior. Then I saw the French doors standing open just a few hundred feet away and knew that’s where Talbot’s office was located, so I stupidly headed in that direction instead.”

  “Whom did you expect to find there?”

  “Talbot Junior.”

  “What made you think it was his office?”

  “I found a virtual tour of the mansion on the Internet that his wife had posted after she did some redecorating. I didn’t realize the two Talbots’ offices were side by side.”

  Bragging on the Internet without a care to their safety did sound like something Lila Talbot would do. “Were you planning to just step inside and announce yourself ?”

  Case scratched his ear. “Let’s just say it wasn’t one of my better decisions.”

  “To put it mildly.”

  “I didn’t realize I’d been caught on his security cameras until I saw my name and face plastered all over the news. Now everyone is convinced I’m a murderer and the whole town is being turned upside down to find me. But the God’s honest truth is that I saw a man slumped over a desk and knew he was dead by his pallor, so I took off before anyone thought I was the killer. And until I saw a newspaper headline yesterday, I didn’t know who’d been killed.”

  “What do you want from me, Case?”

  He placed my phone on the tabletop and slid it toward me. “Help me find the killer.”

  Once again, he’d managed to surprise me. “I can’t do that. I have absolutely no experience tracking down criminals. And I’m already involved in a battle with the Talbots. I can’t jeopardize that by sticking my nose into a murder investigation involving them.”

  “Please, Athena? I have no one else to ask. I’d hunt for the killer myself, but the police surely have their dogs searching for me. I’d be arrested before dawn. I’m a stranger in town. They’ve got me on videotape. What chance would I have of getting a fair trial?”

  Case was right. He wouldn’t stand a chance against Sonny Talbot and his powerful connections. I tucked the phone in my hip pocket. “Let me think about it for a moment.”

  I paced around the room, trying to sort out my feelings.

  The moment the coroner had ruled Talbot Sr.’s death an accidental drowning and failed to do an autopsy, my family had had their suspicions, mainly because of who the Talbots were—greedy, power-hungry people who were unabashedly proud of the influence they wielded in town. With the second death in the Talbot mansion coming so soon after the first, and a murder no less, I was having an even harder time buying the coroner’s ruling on Talbot Sr.’s death.

  Had someone paid off the coroner to skip the autopsy or was it just sloppy, hurried work on Dr. Kirkland’s part? I remembered my dad saying Kirkland was a miserly man easily swayed by money and power who counted the rich in town as his patients. Dad had gotten Kirkland’s number a few years back when his wife had hired Spencer’s to landscape their new house.

  But even if it were true that Talbot Sr. and Harry Pepper had been murdered, if Sonny himself wasn’t doing any questioning, what could I do about it? Was it possible that Sonny was involved somehow? Could it be that he wanted to get rid of the two men who stood in the way of his condominium project?

  If I could prove that Sonny was even partially responsible, I could shut down the demolition immediately. So perhaps helping Case clear his name would be beneficial to both of us.

  One thing I knew for sure. I couldn’t handle the investigation alone, nor could I ask anyone in my family to put themselves at risk to help me. And if I involved Kevin, he’d never be able to keep it under his hat. He’d have to brag about it to someone, and I simply couldn’t take the chance of word getting out, especially since I was now involved in halting the condominium project.

  My only option seemed to be working with a man whom I had to consider a suspect. But how could I do that when his face was plastered all over town? And there was still the question of who the rightful owner of the Treasure of Athena was. If I was able to clear Case of murder—and that was a big if—would I then have to fight him to keep my statue?

  One of Dad’s sayings popped into my head: Keep your eyes on the prize. To me that meant, regardless of my feelings about the man sitting before me, the ultimate prize would be to see justice done. I would just have to keep focused.

  I glanced around at Case to see him watching me expectantly, a hopeful look in his tired eyes. His stubble was filling in quickly and his dark, disheveled hair was curling a bit at the ends. That gave me an idea. Perhaps there was a way for him to help.

  I sat down at the table and folded my hands, my thoughts coming so fast I had to take a deep breath. “Let’s find the killer.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Case’s smile of relief reached all the way up to his tired eyes. In a voice choked with emotion, he said, “Thank you.”

  Even in his disheveled state—unshaven, ruffled hair, wrinkled clothes—I couldn’t help but gaze into those golden-brown eyes and remark to myself how attractive he was.

  Then I noticed him watching me and gave myself a mental shake. I wasn’t about to let him think I was doing this as a favor to him. I had to put that to rest immediately. “This is about one thing, Case: justice. Don’t read anything deeper into it than that.”

  He nodded. “I get it.”

  “Good. Then let me fill you in on what I know.”

  Case leaned back in his chair and folded his arms over his shirt. “Go ahead.”

  “About two weeks ago, Grayson Talbot Senior died from what was ruled an accidental drowning. No one in my family bought it then because of the way the coroner ruled so quickly without ever performing an autopsy.”

  “How did he get away with that?”

  “Exactly what I’d like to know, along with why Talbot’s son didn’t demand one. And now that the elder Talbot’s trusted assistant has been murdered, I’m even more skeptical about the first death being ruled accidental.”

  “How did Talbot drown?”

  “According to his son, Talbot Senior had gone up to his suite for a bath after dinner as usual and sometime later must have slipped beneath the water. His daughter-in-law Lila found his body the next morning when he didn’t show up for breakfast.”

  Case’s eyebrows drew together. “His daughter-in-law found him? In his bath? That seems a little personal.”

  “That’s the story Sonny gave the Sequoian Press.”

  “Who’s Sonny?”

  “Sorry. That’s my family’s nickname for Talbot’s son. When the news about the drowning first hit the press, it was presumed that the elder Talbot’s discovery in the tub was just a matter of his daughter-in-law noticing his absence at breakfast and going to check on him. But now that you mention it, why would she go? Lila had let it be well known around town that she hated him. If he had been my father-in-law, I’d have told my husband to do the checking, or at least send a maid. They did have staff.”

  “Was the daughter-in-law ever questioned as a possible murder suspect?”

  “If she was, it was kept hush-hush.”

  Case shook his head. “It’s hard to believe Talbot’s son didn’t ask for an autopsy. I thought it was automatic.”

  “After a news reporter questioned him, Sonny explained it away by saying that the coroner had decided against an autopsy because of the information Lila had given him.”

  “Which was what?”

  “That he must have fallen asleep in his bath, which explained why he’d slipped under the water. The coroner’s ruling was based solely on Sonny’s word, and no one questioned it. Not only that but he also held the funeral and burial immediately after his father’s death.”

  “That part’s not uncommon, but the lack of an autopsy makes me suspicious.”

&nbs
p; I leaned back against the chair and crossed my arms. “Sonny could have paid the coroner to skip the autopsy.”

  “It’s hard to believe he holds that much sway over a county official.”

  “If you knew the Talbots, you’d believe it. It’s also well-known there was no love lost between father and son. Anyone who had business dealings with them knew Sonny was urging his father to retire so he could run Talbot Enterprises his own way.”

  “At least Talbot’s body wasn’t cremated, so it could be exhumed.” Case leaned his chin on his palm, a furrow between his brow. “Looks like we’ve got our work cut out for us. The first thing we need to do is talk to the coroner and try to get to the bottom of things.”

  “That could be a problem. Dr. Kirkland is a difficult man to deal with. It’d probably be easier to dig up the body ourselves.”

  Case gave a little half smile. “We could do that, too.”

  “I was kidding. Besides, we won’t be doing anything just yet. You’re still a wanted man, remember?”

  “If you think I’m going to sit around twiddling my thumbs while you do the grunt work and possibly put yourself in jeopardy, you’re wrong.”

  “Believe me, I wouldn’t go it alone. I just meant that we’re going to have to change your appearance.”

  He glanced down at his clothing. “How?”

  “Leave that to me. But first I need to find you a safe hiding place for the night so you can get some sleep. I’ll work on a more permanent living arrangement tomorrow.”

  “What’s wrong with staying here?” He glanced around. “All I need is that wicker sofa over there and a bathroom. You have a bathroom, don’t you?”

  “Yes, right next to the office up front, but staying here is too risky. My father sometimes comes in early when he can’t sleep. He could easily catch you off guard.” I chewed a hangnail on my thumb, trying to think.

  Two rapid knocks on the front door brought us both to our feet. I met Case’s alarmed gaze. Who would be at the shop at that time of the evening? It wouldn’t have been anyone in the family. They had keys.