Read Online Stealing the Countess by David Housewright - Free Book Online

over.
    â€œChief,” she said.
    â€œIced tea,” he said. “Thank you, Ellis.”
    Ellis, my inner voice repeated. Another small town where everyone knows everybody. That could be useful.
    Ellis glanced at me, and I pointed at the empty South Shore bottle.
    â€œOne more,” I said.
    She hurried away.
    â€œSo, Chief Neville,” I said. “What would you like to talk about? The weather? It’s just perfect.”
    â€œThe reason you’re in Bayfield.”
    â€œWhat have you heard?”
    â€œAre you trying to be funny?”
    â€œHonestly, sir, I am not.”
    â€œYou’re here to buy stolen property, specifically, the Countess Borromeo. You’re willing to pay a quarter of a mil for her.”
    I was thinking about G. K. Bonalay’s warning, the one about lying to the police, when I answered.
    â€œI have been spreading that rumor, it’s true,” I said. “However, it could be mere subterfuge, a lie spoken to draw out the thieves and see that swift and merciless justice is meted out. Who knows?”
    The chief chuckled at that.
    â€œYeah, okay,” he said. “You’ve done this before.”
    Ellis returned with our drinks. We both thanked her by name, and she moved away.
    â€œSir, I mean to cause you and your department the barest minimum of inconvenience,” I said.
    â€œI like the ‘sir.’”
    â€œAnd I apologize for flouting your authority in public, only I wanted to talk to you as much as you want to talk to me, and I don’t think we could do that at the hall.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œToo official. Too much public record. I used to be a police officer myself, in St. Paul, Minnesota.”
    â€œI did twenty years in Houghton, Michigan, before coming here to do eight more.”
    â€œSo, we understand each other.”
    â€œI was hired to serve and protect the citizens of Bayfield. You’re not from Bayfield. Do you understand that?”
    â€œI do. Just out of curiosity”—I glanced at my watch; I had been in Bayfield for just over three hours—“who told you I was here?”
    â€œYou’re staying at the Queen Anne, am I right?”
    Good answer, my inner voice said. A cop’s answer, giving me information without giving it.
    â€œI am at the Queen Anne,” I said aloud.
    â€œIs that where you’re keeping the $250,000?”
    â€œOnly a moron would carry around that kind of cash.”
    â€œYou can get it in a hurry, though, isn’t that the correct answer?”
    â€œTell me, Chief. Of the five hundred and thirty people living in Bayfield, who do you think was the most likely to steal the Stradivarius?”
    He took a long sip of his iced tea before he answered.
    â€œThese violins have been stolen before from dressing rooms and apartments; a café outside a train station in London that I read about…”
    â€œOr B&Bs,” I added.
    â€œUsually it was done quietly. The thieves—and the owners—always wanted to create as little noise as possible, which would make recovery that much easier. Yet this particular theft created nothing but noise that got louder and louder. There’s also the issue of who would buy a four-million-dollar Stradivarius after it was stolen. No dealer in the world would touch it. The FBI’s art crime guys told me that a collector might want it even if he could never show it to anyone. But all the collectors I know—and I don’t care what it is that they’re collecting, cars, comic books, autographs, whatever—they live to show off their stuff.”
    â€œWhat’s your theory?”
    â€œYou can’t discount the nitwit factor.”
    Another cop answer. He’s telling you that the crime was either unplanned or planned by amateurs.
    â€œI have copies of reports,” I said. “The FBI’s; yours, too.”
    â€œIs that right?”
    â€œThey tell me that the