An Imitation of Murder (Sky High Pies Cozy Mysteries Book 9) (3 page)

CHAPTER
6

When I came around the corner of
the house, Pia was sitting on the edge of a lounge chair, her shoulders hunched
and her head bowed. She was wearing a blue blazer over tan slacks and a white
blouse. I approached silently until I was at the edge of the expansive granite
terrace.

“Pia?”

Her head rotated in my direction.
When our eyes met, the corners of her mouth dropped into a mournful frown
before she stood and came toward me.

“I’m so glad to see you,” she said
as I encircled her with my arms. “I’ve never witnessed anything so…”

The rest was lost in a sob, a
gut-wrenching wail accompanied by waves of uncontrollable trembling. We stood
together for a few moments, the embrace buffeting the emotional whirlwind that
threatened to knock her to the ground.

“We’ll get you through this,” I
said when the crying subsided. “Just take it as slowly as you need to, okay?”

She stepped back and swiped at the
tears with one hand. “I’m so sorry,” she said in a hoarse whisper. “And I’m so
embarrassed, Katie. I promised myself that I wouldn’t lose it once you got
here. I was going to call my sister, you know? But she’s never liked Vito, even
though I met him at one of her parties.”

She took a tissue from her purse
and dabbed at her cheeks.

“Why don’t we sit down?” I
suggested. “Trent Walsh or Dina Kincaid will be here soon. They’ll want to talk
with you about what you found inside.”

She nodded, pressing her lips
together in a stiff smile. “And then I’ll have to go through it all a million
times more after that, right?”

The comment was odd, but I imagined
her mind was filled with dozens of fractured, anxious thoughts. I saw my first
crime scene during the second year that I worked as a private investigator. I
was following the business partner of a woman who feared she was being
defrauded. One snowy night in the middle of an especially harsh Chicago winter,
the guy went into an alley. I sat in my car waiting and watching. When another
man ran from the shadows a few minutes later, a revolver glinted in the light
from the nearest streetlamp. Despite my initial reservations, I decided to
check on the man that I’d been tailing. I found him in a pool of blood behind a
pile of empty wooden crates, bludgeoned and unconscious, with a single gunshot
to his abdomen. Although the victim in that case survived, the images from that
night replayed often in my mind when I watched certain movies and television
shows.

I was thinking about the man in the
alley as Pia pressed the tissue to her face and explained that she didn’t think
she could repeat the account endlessly.

“Let’s not worry about that right
now,” I said, guiding her toward a table and four chairs near a set of French
doors. “We can just sit without talking if you’d like.”

She pulled one chair from the table
and slowly lowered onto the seat. I noticed flecks of something red on one of
her shoes, imagining that she’d inadvertently stepped in blood after
discovering the terrifying scene in Vito’s living room. I also spotted an
ashtray on the table that contained two cigarette butts. While they both had a
distinctive thunderbird logo printed on the side just below the filter, only
one was edged with red lipstick.

“Why did this happen?” Pia mumbled
as I sat beside her. “Everything was going so well for him.”

There was a familiarity and warmth
in her voice, like the compassionate tone most people would use when tragedy
had suddenly engulfed a family member or good friend.

“Did you see the knife?” she asked.
“It looked like there was blood on the blade.”

“Officer Castle had it in an
evidence bag,” I said. “Do you know if it belonged to Vito?”

She nodded. “He went hunting a
couple of times last winter after he moved to town.”

“Do you know the significance of
the three letters engraved on the handle?” I asked.

“I don’t know what they stand for,”
she said. “But it’s got something to do with Vito’s role model. He always used
those initials instead of actually saying their name, so I don’t even know if
it was a man or woman.”

“Do you know anything about the
person?” I asked. “Where they live? How Vito met them? Maybe the nature of
their relationship?”

“No, sorry,” she said. “But there
might be—” She suddenly stopped and her eyes went wide. “Oh, wait a sec!”

She reached into the pocket of her
blazer and pulled out a folded piece of paper.

“I forgot all about this. It was on
the floor just inside the front door when I came in earlier.”

She unfolded the item, smoothed it
quickly on the tabletop and held it up so I could get a look.

“See?” she said. “The name matches
the initials on the knife.”

Pia was holding a deposit slip for
a large national bank. Besides the name and address printed in the upper left
corner—someone called E. A. Hoffmann with an address on Pine Grove Lane in
Steamboat Springs—the piece of paper was blank.

“Do you know that name?” I asked.

Pia shook her head.

“What about the address? Does Vito
have friends in Steamboat Springs?”

She shrugged. “I have no idea. I
know he goes there on business every so often, but I don’t know who he meets
with.”

“Well, we should give this to the
police,” I said. “I’m sure they’ll probably ask you about it later.”

She frowned. “I still won’t know
the answers,” she whispered. “We never really talked about business that much,
you know? He asked me a few questions about catering. I asked him how long he’s
been a painter. The rest of the time we just…” A single tear formed in her left
eye before gliding down her cheek. “I can’t believe this is happening, Katie.
It’s so hard to imagine that Vito could be involved with anything like this.”

I waited while she dried her face.
Then I asked how long she’d known Marclay.

“Just a few months,” she answered.
“We met at a cocktail party that my sister had in Denver for law firm clients.
Liza always invites me to her work things, but I usually tell her that I’m busy
or make up some kind of excuse. But that night, for whatever reason, I decided
to go. And I’m really glad that I did because I met my soul mate.”

“That sounds so romantic,” I said.
“And the look in your eyes tells me you’re in love.”

She giggled. “I am now, but we
didn’t hit it off right away. Vito’s funny and charming and so incredibly
talented, but he can also be cranky and rude if things aren’t going his way.” A
smile flickered on her lips briefly. “But I’ve fallen for him, Katie. He’s so
creative and brilliant! Did you know that he had his first solo gallery show
when he was only twenty-one?”

I shook my head. “I’m sorry, but I
don’t know anything about his work. I mean, until you mentioned him yesterday,
I didn’t even know that he was living in the area.”

She shifted in her chair. “Really?
I thought everyone heard the news when Barnaby Granger sold this place. His
family had owned the property for…” She paused, squinting to retrieve something
from her memory. “…well, I think it was for at least three or four generations
or so.”

“Oh, I heard about the sale,” I
said. “But I thought a couple of people bought the property as a business
investment.”

Pia’s eyes narrowed. “That’s true,”
she said. “Until very recently, Vito’s financial situation was a little tricky.
When he still lived in New York, he was hoodwinked by a couple of crooked
accountants. In a nutshell, they got rich and fled the country, Vito lost
everything he had and was essentially living on the street when he met Phil and
Geraldine Bickerton.”

“I’ve met them,” I said. “They
opened the contemporary art gallery years ago over on…uh, is it on Piñon?”

“It’s on Tremont,” Pia answered.
“It’s one of several local businesses that Phil owns now. He was essentially
Vito’s first benefactor when he was struggling to get back on his feet, sort of
like when the Medici family helped Michelangelo.”

I smiled. “Wouldn’t that be nice?
To have benefactors take care of your expenses and write all the checks?”

“It’s not exactly like that now,”
Pia said. “Bickerton and another partner still own this place and Vito lives
here, but his work has been selling very well for the past couple of years.
That’s helped him turn things around.”

“How did Mr. Bickerton and Vito end
up in Crescent Creek?” I asked.

“Fate,” Pia said with a watery
smile. “Phil’s family was originally from Gunnison, so he was familiar with the
state. During a ski trip one year, he was showing his late wife around and she
fell in love with Crescent Creek. Phil still has a place back east, but he
spends quite a lot of time in Colorado.”

“And he and someone else bought
this place for Vito?”

She nodded. “Phil’s wife was still
alive when they met Vito in New York, right about the time he was recovering
from an especially challenging experience. They’d owned a gallery in New York
for a really long time, so they invited him to mount an exhibition. It went so
well that they did another show the next year. Things went nicely until Vito
got involved with some sketchy people and his drinking got out of hand. Phil
and his business partner did an intervention at some point, convincing him that
Colorado would be a better place to live and work. Phil and the other partner
bought this house for Vito to use as a sanctuary and studio, somewhere quiet
and peaceful after all those noisy, crazy years in New York City.”

“That’s pretty generous,” I said. “Considering
the asking price when Mr. Granger put it on the market.”

“Phil and the other benefactor are
very wealthy people,” Pia explained. “They’ve represented Vito’s work since the
early days, so it makes sense. I’m sure plenty of people will think it’s odd,
but Phil is a true connoisseur of creative talent. He’s also shrewd and feisty
when it comes to business and finances, which is definitely
not
one of
Vito’s strengths. Phil and the other investor know a good thing when they see
it, whether it’s Vito and his art or a prime piece of real estate here in
Crescent Creek.”

I’d met Phil Bickerton and his late
wife during one of my trips back to Colorado when I still lived in Chicago.
They’d opened the art gallery in Crescent Creek’s downtown business district
after falling in love with the area on one of their annual ski trips to Aspen.
Although they hired a local man named Oscar King to manage the business, the
Bickertons usually came to town a few times each year. Since Geraldine and my
mother were the same age, she and Phil made a point of eating breakfast or
lunch several times a week when they were in town. It had been a terrible shock
when my mother called one day to share the sad news that Geraldine had died
from a sudden heart attack.

“I’m pretty sure Phil still
considers this place a wise investment,” Pia added. “He and the other investor
own properties in several cities and they’ve got more money than you’d ever
dream about, so paying Barnaby Granger a few million dollars was probably an
easy decision.”

“A few million?”

Pia nodded. “That’s what Vito told
me.”

“But I’d heard that Mr. Granger was
asking just under—”

I stopped when the French doors
opened and Trent Walsh appeared in the entryway along with Dina Kincaid.

“There you are!” He stepped onto
the terrace and Dina followed. “I thought you’d be up front.”

Dina, Trent and I had attended the
local high school at the same time. She and I were classmates, and Trent was a
couple of years older. He was also my boyfriend for a fleeting moment until
Dina enticed him away. Even though Trent and Dina married and divorced during
the years that I was in Chicago, they’d developed a cordial working
relationship at the Crescent Creek PD. He served as deputy chief and Dina was
the department’s lead detective.

“Hi, there,” I said, getting to my
feet. “Pia was pretty shaken up, so Stephen and Amanda told her it would be
okay to wait out here.”

Dina approached the table slowly,
moving her eyes between the phone in her hand and Pia’s face.

“Miss Lincoln?” she said, extending
one hand. “We haven’t met yet. I’m Detective Kincaid. After we chat here for a
bit, I’ll escort you to the station so we can talk in one of the conference
rooms.”

“Have you found Vito yet?” asked
Pia.

“We’re doing everything we can,”
Dina said. “In the meantime, I’d like to take your statement and ask you a few
questions.”

Pia glanced at me. “Can you stay,
Katie?”

“That’s up to Detective Kincaid,” I
answered.

“I don’t see any problem with Kate
being here while we talk,” Dina said. “But once we go to the station, I think
it would be best if just you and I discuss the situation.”

“I’m willing to do whatever you
ask,” Pia said. “Especially if you think it will help find Vito.”

CHAPTER
7

A half hour later, I was standing
beside Trent’s SUV in Vito Marclay’s driveway. After Dina asked Pia a few
rudimentary questions about what she’d discovered earlier, they had both
climbed into a patrol car for the trip back to the CCPD station.

“How’d you get involved with this,
Katie?” Trent asked.

“Pia called me,” I answered. “She
was pretty much in a panic, so I think she dialed the last number in the call
log on her phone instead of 911.”

“Well, I’m glad you reported it,” Trent
said. “Although we also had a call from someone named…” He paused to check the
notes in a pad on the dashboard. “Eva King. Does that name ring any bells?”

I shook my head. “Is she related to
Oscar?”

His forehead crinkled. “Which
Oscar?”

“He manages the art gallery on Tremont
Street that Phil Bickerton owns.”

The crumpled brow was replaced with
a distrustful sneer. “The skinny guy that wears a red plaid coat all the time?”

“I don’t know anything about that,”
I said. “I’ve never met Mr. King. But Pia told me a few things about Vito
Marclay and Phil Bickerton while we were waiting out back.”

“Like what?”

“Just some basic background,” I
answered. “Vito’s an artist. Bickerton and his business partner own a gallery
in New York and the smaller one here in Crescent Creek. They bought this house
for Vito to use as a studio and sanctuary.”

Trent smiled. “A sanctuary?”

“C’mon,” I said. “I’m just telling
you what I heard from Pia.”

“When this thing goes to trial,
you’ll have to testify.”

“I can handle it,” I said. “I was
just doing what any friend would when someone calls in distress.”

“Did she mention the burglary?” he
asked.

“What burglary?”

“A few nights ago,” Trent said.
“Marclay reported that someone broke in while he was out to dinner. They
ransacked the place, but didn’t take anything valuable.”

“What did they get away with?”

Trent shrugged. “Mostly a bunch of
art supplies.”

“Well, Pia didn’t mention that,” I
said. “But she was pretty upset about what she found when she got here this
afternoon.”

He grumbled and checked his notes
again. “And you said that Pia called you because you were the last number she’d
dialed before finding the blood and the knife?”

I nodded.

“Well, Eva King called 911 a couple
of minutes
before
you did,” Trent said. “She claimed that someone she
knew had been involved in some type of altercation out here, so we were in the
process of dispatching a car to the scene when your call came in.”

“I wonder if Eva King could be
Oscar’s wife,” I said, sifting through what little I knew about the guy that
ran the art gallery.

Trent glared at me. “She was his
sister,” he said. “But she died when they were kids from a rare disease
called…” His eyes bounced down to the notepad again. “…ah, it’s here
somewhere,” he continued, sounding more frustrated than a few seconds before.
“I could swear I wrote it down when Tyler called me on the drive.”

“You were taking notes while
driving?” I asked. “Isn’t that illegal?”

He answered with a blistering
scowl. Then he said, “What else did Pia tell you?”

“Hmmm…”

“I don’t have all day, Katie.
There’s something about this story that isn’t exactly adding up. Your friend
claims that she walked into an empty house where the living room floor was
covered with blood. We’ve got a dead girl calling 911. And then you somehow got
mixed up in all of it. Do you have any clues about what’s going on? Because I
sure don’t.”

I raised one eyebrow. “Neither do
I, Deputy Chief Walsh.”

“Then let’s get on with it,” he
said. “Just the highlights. What else do you know?”

“Well, Pia and Vito have been
dating,” I said. “That was something new that I hadn’t heard until quite
recently.”

He smiled. “Slowpoke. I ran into
Myra Wheeler and Agnes Grimsby at Food Town a couple of weeks ago. They were
both chattering away about the millionaire artist and the divorced caterer.”

“What did they say?”

He shrugged and rolled his eyes.
“You know how it is. If they’re just gossiping about people, I maybe catch
every third or fourth word. So that night at the store, I heard, like, ‘Pia
Lincoln, blah blah blah, too much makeup, blah blah blah, that painter from New
York City, blah blah blah, then maybe something about how she was robbing the cradle
and—”

“Whoa! Robbing the cradle?”

Trent laughed. “Yeah, that’s what Myra
kept saying. Vito’s around thirty and Pia is in her late forties.”

“She’s thirty-nine,” I said
defensively. “Just a few years older than you.”

His chin jutted out. “I’ll be
thirty-three next birthday, Katie.”

I nodded. “Yeah. Like I said, Pia
is just a few years older than you.”

“Can we get back to business?” he
asked.

I smiled, waiting for his next
question.

“Did she mention anything about a
silver Aston Martin?” Trent said.

I blinked. “Pia?”

“Yes, Katie. Did she tell you that
a silver Aston Martin was parked in Marclay’s driveway when she arrived.”

“No, she told me there was nobody
in the house,” I said. “Why are you asking about an Aston Martin?”

He reached into his pocket, retrieved
his phone and then worked the screen for a few seconds.

“Because of this,” he said, holding
the phone toward me.

The screen was filled with the
image of a two-door silver sports coupé parked in front of Vito Marclay’s front
door.

“What am I looking at?” I asked.

“It’s the car,” Trent answered.
“The silver—”

“Right, of course,” I interrupted.
“I see that it’s a silver sports car. But how is this picture associated with
Pia Lincoln and whatever happened here at Vito’s house this afternoon?”

Trent tapped the screen before
sliding the phone back into his pocket.

“Because that was from Pia’s
Instagram,” he said. “She took that picture and posted it about five minutes
before we got the call from Eva King.”