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John meditated for a second on how many zeros that would be on his final bank draft. “There’s a carpenter crew coming tomorrow morning to start renovating the place.”
“Renovating? Now?” The usually soft, dead-calm voice on the other end of the line rose to a squeak of outrage. “Did you search again?”
“As requested. I went through the place after the carpenters?—”
“Carpenters? You mean they have already begun?”
“They unloaded their supplies,” John said. “They start tomorrow.”
“Did you get the paperwork on the pendants, at least?”
At least? What was this “at least” shit? As if he’d failed? Asshole. “Of course,” John said. “I found the delivery slip with the jeweler’s store address. I also found his home address.”
“And?” The old guy waited.
“And what? It’s past business hours, and the guy was probably eating dinner or fucking his mistress, so I figured I’d wait to?—”
“Wait? For the carpenter’s crew to rip the house apart and find what you are unable to find? And what then, John? What then?”
John’s mouth worked. The dickhead went on before he could reply.
“Assume that the pendants are part of the Contessa’s puzzle,” Haupt said. “The daughters know nothing. The Contessa is dead, thanks to you?—”
“I did not kill her!”
“The only person who could conceivably know more about this situation is the jeweler himself,” Haupt said. “And? So? Do I really need to say it, John?”
John blew a breath through flared nostrils. “All right. Tomorrow I’ll?—”
“Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today.”
“You mean right now? But it’s past midnight, and I?—”
“I know what time it is. Past midnight is an ideal time for an interrogation. It’s an ideal time for many things.”
John reordered his mind around this new imperative. “You are implying an ultimate solution for the jeweler, I take it?”
The man let out a low growling sound of frustration. “When you were recommended to me, I was told that I would not have to micromanage.”
John ground his teeth. “I’ll take care of it.”
“I do not want that crew in that house until we know more.”
A muscle twitched in John’s cheek. “I can’t stop it from going forward without making a big mess,” he said. “Should I arrange an accident for the carpenter?”
“No. No more bodies in that house, not unless it is strictly necessary. A break-in, some vandalism. Delay the work. Search everything again, from the ground up. Not that I hold up much hope, after your failure so far.”
“Yes,” John said, after a brief pause. “I will search the place. Exhaustively.”
“Good. Very well, then. Until tomorrow.”
John laid the phone down and dragged his black plastic box out from under the bed. It was full of curiosities that he’d acquired over the years, devices he’d made and adapted himself, even some antique originals with a dark and storied past. He pulled out a few of his old favorite standbys and loaded his kit bag.
The thought of the job ahead was getting him revved up. Knives and picks in hand, the jeweler screaming, begging. But first, the bitch Contessa’s house.
He selected the lock drill. Even if the contents of the house were inanimate, smashing them to bits was going to feel good.
It was a tantalizing precursor of softer, juicier things to come.