Quinn 2 Always a Thief by Hooper Kay

Author:Hooper, Kay [Kay, Hooper,]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2010-12-24T00:43:17.073000+00:00

Since Storm had to deal with a worried call from Ken Dugan—who was understandably anxious about museum security since the discovery in the basement—Wolfe took the opportunity to go down and check on the progress of the police forensics team. They had slipped into the museum as quietly and anonymously as possible, working under an official order not to disturb the museum or the Mysteries Past exhibit, and Wolfe doubted that any of today’s visitors had even noticed.

He found Inspector Gillian Newman supervising the removal of the knife from the statue’s marble fist.

“Keane isn’t back yet?”

“Our boss wanted him to check out the Carstairs house,” she replied readily. “Everybody’s getting paranoid, looking for connections to this museum or the exhibit, and since Keane is the expert on thieves in this town . . .”

“They want his take.”

“Exactly.”

Wolfe frowned as he watched technicians easing the knife from the statue’s grip. “Do we know anything else about that?”

“Not much more. It’s blood on the blade, we know that, but it’ll take a while to compare it to Jane Doe’s. No fingerprints on the handle, which figures. Forensics found some marble dust, but whoever did this cleaned up after himself.”

“So Morgan was right about the statue being undamaged when it was brought down here for storage.”

“According to the museum records, yeah. Sean, drill marks?”

The technician, who was on a stepladder peering down into the warrior’s fist with a flashlight and a magnifying glass, nodded. “Definitely. And saw marks where the original marble knife was.”

“Morgan was right about that too,” Wolfe said.

“Looks like. He brought a nice little bag of tools with him. Which, to my mind, says he didn’t kill anybody down here. He just planted that knife.”

“How do you figure? Because he came prepared?”

“It makes sense. He had what looks like a murder weapon he wanted to plant, and he wanted to be . . . really creative about it.”

Still frowning, Wolfe said, “The only thing I don’t get is, why here? You cops had no reason to do a more thorough search down here, it just wasn’t practical. If Max hadn’t asked some of the guards and me to look around, this might not have been found for months. If ever.”

“There has to be a reason,” Gillian said. “A piece of the puzzle we don’t yet have.”

“You mean another one?”

Reasonably, she said, “It’s a picture we’re meant to see—sooner or later. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be so many blatant clues left for us to find. We’re following a trail.”

“Or maybe Morgan was right about something else. Maybe we’re all being led around by the nose.”

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