Rook kicked the toe of his shoe against the lip of the rug. “Look, this is starting to sound more like an intervention than an arrest.”
“I promise, we won’t make you wait long. After all,” she said with mock solemnity, “you’ve earned that.” She got in the elevator with Roach.
“Just for that I may do my whole article about someone else.”
“Break my heart,” she said as the doors shut on him.
When Detective Heat entered through the front door of the apartment, she found Noah Paxton by himself in the living room. “Where’s Kimberly?”
“She’s not here.”
Raley and Ochoa stepped in behind Nikki. “Check all the rooms,” she said. Ochoa disappeared with Raley down the hallway.
“Kimberly’s not back there,” said Paxton. “I already checked.”
Heat said, “We’re do-?it-?yourselfers. We’re funny that way.” Her gaze went to the room full of artwork, hanging as it always had been, floor to ceiling. Nikki marveled at the sight. “The paintings. They’re back.”
Noah seemed to share her bewilderment. “I don’t understand it, either. I’m just trying to figure out where the hell they came from.”
“Relax, you don’t have to playact anymore, Noah.” She watched the furrows crease his brow. “They never left the Guilford, right? We tapped her phone call to you not twenty minutes ago.”
“I see.” He thought a few seconds, no doubt sorting through his side of the conversation, wondering if he could be an accessory after the fact. “I told her she was nuts,” he said.
“Now, that’s a good citizen.”
He opened his palms to her. “I apologize, Detective. I knew I should have called you. Guess I still have my protective instinct for the family. I came over here to talk sense into her. Too late now.” Nikki just shrugged. “When did you find out she stole them? During that phone call?”
“No. The alarm bells sounded for me when I heard our widow-?in-?mourning bought a piano and left town for the delivery. Does Kimberly strike you as someone who’d leave rearranging her precious antiques to a work crew and a dimwit nanny?” Nikki ambled to the Steinway and tinkled one key. “We checked with the building super. He confirmed the piano movers came here in the morning with a huge crate, but didn’t recall them leaving with one. It fell off his radar, I guess, after all the confusion around the blackout.”
Noah smiled and shook his head. “Wow.”
“I know, pretty sneaky, huh? They never left the building.”
“Ingenious,” said Paxton. “And not a word I associate with Kimberly Starr.”
“Well, she wasn’t as smart as she thought.”
“What do you mean?”
Nikki had run this over and over in her head so that it was crystal clear to her. Now she would bring Noah along on the ride. “Did you know Matthew had changed his mind about selling his collection?”
“No, I didn’t know anything about that.”
“Well, he had. The same day he was killed, a woman from Sotheby’s named Barbara Deerfield came over here to appraise it. She was murdered before she got back to her office.”
“That’s horrible.”
“I believe her murder was connected to Matthew’s.”
His brow darkened. “It’s tragic, but I don’t understand the connection.”
“Neither did I. I kept wondering, Why would anyone kill an art appraiser? Then I discovered that Starr’s entire art collection was made up of forgeries.” Nikki watched a pallor wash out Noah Paxton’s face.
“Forgeries?” He let his gaze wander the walls. Nikki saw his eye fall upon a piece of art near the archway. The one covered by a shroud.
“Fakes, Noah.” His attention snapped back to her. “The whole collection.”
“How can that be? Matthew paid top dollar for these paintings, and from reputable dealers.” Paxton’s color was coming back and then some as he grew more agitated. “I can assure you when we bought these they were not fakes.”
“I know,” said the detective. “The insurance documentation pictures bore that out.”