Chapter 18

Tom wanted to scream.

Well…maybe not scream. Screaming always seemed to be something women did.

He wanted to shout.

And punch something.

Not a person—certainly not the person standing in front of him—but a wall, or maybe the paper towel dispenser in the break room.

God, he hated Mondays!

And the shit Emily had just told him was, like, the perfect Monday type of bullshit that always happened.

"I oughta arrest you," he said to her.

They were in the detectives' squad room at the station house, and Emily had just informed him and the other detectives about what she had done last night.

Seeing Emily open her mouth to respond, he held up his hand to silence her. Part of him was surprised that it worked.

"You've interfered with this investigation," he told her. "I mean, even if—if—Priscilla Kroyn was the one who stole the painting of the girl, you've just tipped our hand! Now what do you think she's going to do? She could take the painting, put it on her private space shuttle, and send it to her house on the Moon."

"She won't," Emily stated. And Tom wanted to scream—no…shout—even more because of the way she said it. It was in that smug, self-satisfied, I-know-everything way of hers which he was really starting to hate.

He scoffed, and looked at her with his best Is that so? expression.

"Oh really?" he tossed back at her. "And you know this, how?"

Emily shrugged.

"I just do," she said. "She's not the type to turn tail and run. She thinks she's smarter than I am, and she certainly thinks she's smarter than the police."

"Well, maybe you can discuss that tonight on your date!" Tom retorted.

That was another thing about this he was having trouble digesting. Emily was actually going on a date with Priscilla Kroyn tonight. Unbelievable!

He sighed.

"You've put me in an impossible position…" he muttered, leaning back in his desk chair and placing three fingers on his forehead, right where the headache was starting to form..

"What I did was give this department the push they needed!" Emily replied testily. "We do not have time to fuck around with procedures!"

"Yeah, well, procedures are what makes things legal!" Tom exclaimed. "What you've done is force me to try to get a search warrant for her house based solely on your…intuition. And guess what? With respect to your terrific skills of deduction, no ADA would write a warrant based on that, and even if they did, no judge would sign it."

Suddenly, and somewhat timidly, Andie raised her hand.

Tom glared at her.

"What are you, twelve?" he snapped at her. "Just say what you want to say!"

Andie put her hand down.

"I have a weird idea," she said. "But maybe we could sell it…"

***

Half an hour later, in Lieutenant Randolph's office, which was at the far end of the squad room, assistant district attorney Ophelia Jackson, a tall, athletic Black woman, dressed in a suit consisting of a skirt, jacket, and blue blouse, looked at Tom as though he had just asked her a question in Farsi. She closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath.

"Let me make sure I understand you, Detective," she began. "You want the DA's office to issue search warrants for every woman who was in the museum at the time of the robbery?"

That had been Andie's weird idea, and quite frankly, Tom thought it was a good one, and when he and Andie had presented it to Lieutenant Randolph, their boss at first seemed skeptical, but then told them to contact Jackson, the writing DA for the squad.

Tom nodded.

"All the women whose names we know, yes," he told her.

"And who fit a certain profile," Andie added.

The premise behind Andie's idea was simple…

Since they knew a woman had been the one to set up the robbery, and since there was no evidence showing that someone had left the museum via a means other than when the staff had evacuated the patrons, it stood to reason that one of those women evacuated had stolen the painting.

He explained all of this to the attorney, and then added, "It's probable cause, Ms. Jackson. Any woman in that museum when the robbery occurred is a suspect. Now, we have the names of close to forty of them from the admissions desk. We're trying to track down the identities of about fifteen more whose faces we can make out on the security footage. But if we start with the list we have, and then filter it by age to rule out really old women…"

"And if we filter it down further to only include those who are wearing jackets or other types of clothing that could hide a rolled-up painting…" Andie said.

"Then we've got a workable list," Tom said.

He stopped talking and watched Jackson.

She looked off to the side and was tapping an expensive-looking pen she always had with her lightly against her chin. Nobody else in the room with them—the lieutenant, Andie, or Emily—said anything. And Tom was praying Emily wouldn't open her big fat mouth and fuck this up.

Finally, after about a minute, Jackson started nodding slowly.

"I think I can sell that," she said.

Tom made a fist with his right hand and barely pumped it over his lap.

Now the tricky part…

After taking a glance at Emily, rolling his eyes, and wishing this Monday was over, he said, "By the way…we were thinking…you know, just to cross her name off the list of suspects right away…um…we were thinking that the first warrant should be, uh, written for, um…Priscilla Kroyn's house."

As it turned out, Ophelia Jackson had just taken a sip of coffee the lieutenant had provided her when she had first arrived for this meeting. Apparently, the beverage had a chicken bone in it or something because the attorney started choking and coughing, spluttering some of the coffee from her mouth.

Tom really hated Mondays.

After Jackson gained control of herself, with the help of a handkerchief provided by Lieutenant Randolph, she glared at Tom.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" she asked.

Tom sighed.

"Yeah, so…um…as luck would have it, Priscilla Kroyn happened to be in the museum at the time of the robbery," he told her.

"And she was wearing a jacket," Andie pointed out.

"And Ms. Bacon here," Tom said, gesturing to Emily, "believes that whoever perpetrated this crime was wealthy, and, well…Priscilla Kroyn has some money in the bank."

Jackson stared at him.

"She's the godmother of my boss's daughter!" she exclaimed. "The district attorney! And she plays racquetball with her boss…the mayor! And you want me to write up a search warrant because you believe she stole a painting? Why don't I also write up a warrant to search Jesus Christ's house?"

"See, as I just explained to you…technically, she is a suspect," Tom explained calmly, deciding to leave out all of Emily's bullshit reasons for suspecting Priscilla Kroyn. "And, well…you know…we wouldn't want it to appear as though we're giving anyone preferential treatment. I mean…that wouldn't look good for your boss, right? During an election year? If we search the house of some woman who just happened to take her grandkids to go see some art one day, but we don't search the house of one of the wealthiest people in the city…"

Jackson's mouth dropped open.

"And let me guess…" she began. "If Priscilla Kroyn's house isn't searched, somehow—mysteriously—that bit of information is going to find its way to the press."

Tom not only shrugged with his shoulders, but also his face.

"I mean, look," he said. "Obviously, we wouldn't want that to happen, Counsellor, and would do everything we can to prevent it…but you know how these things go."

"Unbelievable!" Jackson said. She started gathering up her things, finishing up with putting the leather-bound journal she took notes in back into her briefcase. When she stood, everyone else did as well.

"I'll get to work on those warrants, detectives," she said. She glared at Tom. "Starting with the one for Priscilla Kroyn. Expect to hear from me later today."

And with that, she walked out of the lieutenant's office.