When he hung up, he explained that Underhill had searched Dalton’s studio for missed bugging devices but hadn’t found one.
“Can bugs listen through walls?” I asked. “Or if one was stuffed in a pillow, could it still hear and transmit?”
“From what I’ve learned, yes. Today’s devices are small, powerful, and easy to manage. You can listen to an audio bug through your cell phone if you’re within a few hundred yards of the target.”
I thought back to Dalton’s smashed Buddha, the one with the open mouth. “Was the Buddha statue hollow?”
“Think so.” Gilroy found the photos of the scene on his phone. “Yes, why?”
“What a funny thing. Why take the time to smash a statue when you should be making your getaway? We think we know why the paintings were tossed everywhere—”
“In the search for forgeries, and maybe for landscapes to sell.”
“But the Buddha? It had an open mouth, James. Dalton had stuck a paintbrush in it. Anyone who visited his studio could have dropped a small bug in that mouth when Dalton’s back was turned.”
Gilroy nodded. “Those wired devices behind a light switch and baseboard were Isak’s handiwork. So maybe he added one to the Buddha for good measure. And maybe at a later date.”
“And didn’t tell you that because—”
“Because he didn’t have to. Because he’d removed it. If we’d found it, we might have been able to trace where and when he bought it.”
“Shasta said her affair with Dalton ended months ago, but Isak didn’t trust her.”
Gilroy pulled from the curb.
“Where to?”
“A quick stop at Brodie Keegan’s apartment. I can drop you at home.”
“No, don’t. Are you going to ask Brodie about the photo of Shasta and Dalton?”
Gilroy took his eyes off the road long enough to give me a wry smile. “Should the Juniper Grove PD hire you?”
I smiled back. “Probably.”
“I want confirmation. We need to tie up the loose ends, answer the smaller questions. Then what we’ll be left with is who killed two people and exactly why.”
“Do you have a main suspect?” I asked, turning my gaze to the windshield.
“A picture is forming. It wasn’t Keegan or Mary Blackwell.”
“Yeah, much as I’d like to see her locked up, I agree.”
A light snow had begun to fall. Snowflakes danced in the SUV’s headlights, and the moonless night was lit by streetlights reflecting off snow-covered lawns and streets. Two people dead because of jealousy, ambition, cheating, lies. In the world of detective novels, those were prime motives. In real life, they were shameful excuses to commit the most evil of crimes.
“Do you think Brodie will tell you the truth?” I asked.
“With me standing on his doorstep, yeah. I’ll make it clear that it’s in his best interest.”
“Twirl your handcuffs.”
Gilroy must have memorized Brodie’s address—not surprising, considering his prodigious memory—because he found his house without wandering or backtracking.
He asked me to wait in the SUV, left it running, then strode to Brodie’s door. He rang the bell and the door cracked open, and then Brodie, or someone, stood in the open doorway, backlit by the home’s interior lights.
They talked for no more than three minutes, and in that time, sadly, Gilroy did not reach for his handcuffs.
I wanted him to handcuff them all, especially Mary Blackwell.
Gilroy knocked the snow from his boots before hopping back into the SUV. He turned sideways in his seat. “Keegan had heard rumors about an affair, followed them, took the photo, then showed it to Mary, knowing that one way or another, word would make its way back to Isak Karlsen. It was revenge for Taylor painting his Idaho DUI accident. He claims he didn’t know Mary would lie and tell you someone was blackmailing her with it. I tend to believe him on that.”
“Me too, but I also believe he didn’t give a fig about the effect of that photo on Isak or Shasta.”
“He’s both ambitious and scared for his future, and that’s a dangerous combination.”
“But he didn’t kill anyone.” I laid a hand on his arm. “Isak saw or heard about that photo, and that’s when he added a bug to the Buddha statue.”
“Possibly. It’s also possible this third bugging device has nothing to do with the murders.”
“Except—”
“Except that if a bug was in that statue, then Isak was there about the time Dalton was killed because the statue was deliberately smashed.”
“When Isak and Clay left after the brunch to talk to Dalton, they went in separate cars, so Mary had to take Shasta home.”
“They both verified that in their first interviews.”
“At the brunch, Laura threatened payback. Everyone heard her say it. And she found evidence of Dalton committing forgery several days before the brunch.”
