Sleight of Hand

CHAPTER Forty-Seven

Dana was surprised to see Stephanie Robb follow Frank Santoro into Vinny’s.

“I told Steph I hired you and what you learned in Kansas City,” Santoro said. “She’s pissed that I went behind her back but she agrees that it’s time for all of us to get on the same page.”

“And just so you know,” Robb added, “I still think Horace Blair killed his wife, but after what you found out about Benedict, I’m willing to listen.”

“I also told her about the chow here,” Santoro said as the waitress came over and everyone ordered burgers, fries, and beer.

“I’ve been giving this case a lot of thought,” Santoro said when the waitress left, “and I’m convinced that Charles Benedict killed Carrie Blair and is framing Horace for her murder. I don’t know why he killed Carrie, but let’s assume that he did. Can we account for the evidence against Horace in a way that implicates Benedict?

“Let’s start with the keys. Something about them bothered me when we conducted our experiment at Blair’s mansion. Do you remember what the keys looked like, Steph?”

Robb looked confused. “They looked like keys.”

“Right, but there was something odd about one of them. The two keys we found in the grave—the single key and the front-door key on Carrie’s key chain—looked old and abused. They were dull, they had scratches on them. The key we took from Blair that wouldn’t open the front door resembled the keys from the grave but looked much newer and less worn.”

“Why is that important?” Robb asked.

“Remember Ernest Brodsky?”

“Of course.”

“Remember how he earned his living?”

As soon as she made the connection Robb looked sick.

“Dana and I went over the surveillance tapes we got from the River View Mall. On Tuesday morning, a Porsche resembling Carrie Blair’s Porsche entered the mall’s parking lot. I couldn’t read the whole license plate but two of the letters match Carrie’s license and are in the right place on the plate.

“Around the time I saw the Porsche on the tape, a man entered Brodsky’s store and left carrying a small paper bag that was big enough to hold several keys. The man made a real effort to keep his face hidden. He was wearing a sweatshirt with a hood and he kept his head down. I went over Brodsky’s receipts for Tuesday. He sold two keys for cash right around the time the man in the hoodie went into his shop.

“Later that night, shortly after Brodsky closed his store, a Mercedes drove out of the mall. Brodsky’s car was found in the mall parking lot, so it’s a good guess that he was kidnapped from the mall. Benedict drives a Mercedes.

“Here’s the way I see it. Benedict kills Carrie and figures out a way to frame Blair for his wife’s murder that includes making it look like Blair dropped his front-door key in Carrie’s grave while he was burying her. He has Brodsky make a key that looks like Blair’s front-door key but isn’t. Then he kills Brodsky so he can’t be a witness. If I’m right, we also know how the gun, hairs, and blood got in the trunk of the Bentley. The second key Brodsky made was a copy of the Bentley key Carrie had on her key chain.”

“This is all guesswork, Frank,” Robb said.

Santoro smiled. “Not completely. As soon as I made the connection between this case and Brodsky’s murder, I called Wilda Parks at the crime lab and asked her if there was any way to tell if the key on Horace Blair’s key chain—the one that wouldn’t open the front door—had been made in Ernest Brodsky’s store.

“There’s a whole branch of forensics that involves tool-mark identification. Wilda explained that keys are made from blanks that don’t have any ‘cuts.’ ‘Cuts’ are the ridges on the key that interface with the components of a lock. If they are positioned correctly they cause the lock to lock or unlock. These cuts are made in a grinding machine. Different grinding machines will leave different tool marks on a key shaped by that machine.

“I checked with Stuart Lang at the River View Mall. Brodsky’s grinding machines are still in his store. Wilda called this morning. The tool marks on the key on Horace’s key chain—the newer-looking key—were made by Brodsky’s machine.”

“But what about the fingerprints, Frank?” Robb asked. “Horace Blair’s prints were on the key we found in the grave. Blair didn’t have a key to his front door on his key chain, so the key in the grave is probably his front-door key. How did Benedict get Blair’s key?”

“I don’t know,” Santoro said. “But Blair called Benedict as soon as we arrested him. That means they knew each other. I’m sure Blair could tell us if Benedict had an opportunity to get the key. Unfortunately, we can’t ask him because Benedict won’t let us talk to his client. But let’s forget about the key for now. There’s one more connection between Brodsky and this case. Why was Barry Lester in isolation, Steph?”

“He had a fight with one of Nikolai Orlansky’s goons.”

“Gregor Karpinski is a beast. Lester’s not. He’s a wimp. So why would Lester provoke Karpinski? I think it was a setup to get Lester into isolation so he could snitch on Blair. If you remember, Benedict really worked us over to get us to put Blair in isolation. Well, Benedict also represented Karpinski in an assault case.

“Now, here is the clincher for me. If Blair didn’t confess to Lester, then someone fed Lester the location of the grave and the contents of the prenup. Only two people talked to Lester while he was in jail. Dana interviewed one of those people, Lester’s girlfriend, Tiffany Starr. The next day, Starr was stabbed to death. I read the autopsy reports in Starr’s and Brodsky’s cases, then I talked to Nick Winters. In both cases, the knife wounds were almost identical: one shot to the heart.”

“F*ck,” Robb said.

“Yeah, Steph, I agree.”

“There’s something else that links Karpinski and Tiffany Starr,” Dana said. “I talked to Starr on the day she was killed. That night, Karpinski lured me to an industrial park and threatened to rape me if I kept asking questions about the Blair case.”

“Are you okay?” Robb asked with real concern.

Dana nodded.

“Karpinski isn’t so hot, though,” Santoro said. “Dana put him in the hospital.”

“How could you possibly do that?” Robb asked.

“I’ll tell you later,” Santoro said.

“I’m certain the fight between Lester and Karpinski was a setup,” Dana said, anxious to change the subject. “I’d bet everything I own that Blair never confessed to Lester. And if he didn’t, then the odds are that Tiffany Starr told Lester where to find the grave and what was in the prenup. If you need more proof, check Tiffany’s bank account. You’ll find a recent two-thousand-dollar deposit.”

“How do you know that?” Robb asked.

“I’d rather not say,” Dana answered.

“Damn,” Robb said. “I was so sure Blair offed her. Now I don’t know what to think.”

“I’m sure that Benedict has been leading us around by the nose, but I don’t have any idea how we can prove it,” Santoro said.

“If we could talk to Blair, he could tell us if Benedict had an opportunity to get his house key,” Dana said, her frustration evident.

“That’s something that’s not going to happen as long as Benedict is Blair’s attorney,” Santoro said.



By the time Dana got home she was exhausted. Jake was watching a basketball game. Dana pecked him on the cheek, headed straight for the bedroom, and fell instantly into such a deep sleep that she never noticed when Jake climbed into bed an hour later.

Sometime during the night Dana started dreaming. In her dream she was in a narrow shop with a low ceiling. There was almost no light, and the confined space was making her claustrophobic. Dana wanted to get out of the shop, but the floor was covered with so many keys that she could barely move. She was starting to panic because each step made her sink deeper into the pile of keys, which sucked at her like quicksand. Dana struggled toward the door. She began flailing and she didn’t stop until she shot up in bed, damp with perspiration, her heart beating furiously.

Dana cast a quick glance at Jake to see if she’d awakened him but he was sleeping soundly. She went to the kitchen, filled a glass with water, and sat at the table. It was four in the morning and the sky was pitch-black. No moon, no starlight. She could sure use something to illuminate the problem Charles Benedict had posed for her, Dana thought. She was certain he had murdered Carrie Blair, but she hadn’t a clue as to how she could prove it.

If only they could ask Horace Blair if Benedict had an opportunity to get Horace’s front-door key. But no one could talk to Blair while Charles Benedict was representing him.

Then an idea occurred to Dana. She smiled. She thought about it some more and her smile widened. To the best of her knowledge, she and Charles Benedict had never met, and Benedict definitely did not know about the Ottoman Scepter. Dana looked at the clock on the kitchen stove. It was 4:45 on the East Coast and three hours earlier out west. Dana was fired up, but she knew that she would have to practice patience, because Marty Draper would be too upset to give her a crash course on Asian antiquities if she woke him out of a deep sleep at 1:45 in the morning.