When Stars Collide (Chicago Stars #9)(91)
*
Piper sat with Olivia at the police station the next morning as she gave her statement to Brittany. Olivia appreciated having Piper with her today, but it should have been Thad by her side, both of them giving their statements together.
And whose fault was that?
She’d barely slept last night. Even after she was warm, clean, and awash in Throat Coat tea, she couldn’t fall asleep. It was ironic. Like every opera singer on the planet, she was paranoid about catching a cold. She guarded against drafts, stayed away from cigarette smoke, slept with at least one vaporizer running, and didn’t drink water that was too chilled—only to end up underwater in the Chicago River in early May. She was lucky to be alive, but that wasn’t what kept jerking her awake. It was the image of Thad’s face when she’d come up for breath.
Olivia and Piper had barely settled into the chairs across from her desk before Brittany told them they’d caught Gillis. “He was apprehended on Sheridan Road a little before midnight.”
Brittany looked as if she’d spent the rest of the night interrogating him instead of sleeping. She’d abandoned her ice-blue gown and high, strappy sandals for dark pants, a wrinkled white blouse, and sensible loafers. Leaning against the side of her desk was the same big purse she’d been carrying last night. Olivia had wondered why she hadn’t brought a more fashionable evening bag to the gala, and now she knew. A pretty evening bag wouldn’t have held her service revolver, and like most cops, she liked having it with her.
Brittany looked up from her notepad. “Tell me about the bracelet.”
Tell me about Thad, Olivia thought. Is he all right? Have you talked to him? Did he ask about me? Do you love him?
Olivia didn’t say any of that. “Kathryn’s husband Eugene loved Aida, and not long before he died, he sent me the bracelet. He told me one of his buyers had picked it up at a souvenir market in Luxor. I remember that. He called it a costume piece and said it was unworthy of my talent.” She rubbed her temple. “I think we can safely assume it’s not a costume piece.”
“How long have you known the Swifts?” Brittany asked.
“I knew Eugene for almost ten years. He was a fixture on the Muni’s board of directors. Our friendship was never inappropriate, if that’s what you’re wondering. He enjoyed reminiscing about singers he remembered from his boyhood or talking to me about obscure operas—La finta giardiniera, Medea in Corinto, Tolomeo—that sort of thing. I loved listening to his insights. I adored him.”
Piper forgot she wasn’t the one leading the interrogation. “What about his wife?”
“I never met his first wife. As for Kathryn . . . She was always cordial to me, but she didn’t share Eugene’s enthusiasm for opera. Eugene told me she used to sneak out of performances at intermission. Art museums are Kathryn’s passion. That and maintaining her status with Chicago’s social elite.”
Brittany clicked her ballpoint pen. “She doesn’t like opera, but she’s on the Municipal Opera’s board of directors? That seems odd.”
“She took over Eugene’s seat after he died. It added to her social currency. She’s also a good fundraiser, so the Muni was more than happy to have her.”
“What about Norman?” Piper asked.
“Eugene never said much about his stepson. They weren’t close.”
Piper pulled out her own notepad. “I’ve done some research on Swift Auction House. It’s a high-end operation dealing in fine arts: paintings, sculpture, jewelry—a smaller version of Sotheby’s.” She raised her head from the notepad. “It specializes in antiquities.”
“Not all of them legal,” Brittany informed them. “Norman was chatty, at least for a while last night. He said Eugene Swift was running a side business dealing in illegal artifacts—pieces smuggled from their home countries and sold to wealthy, and very discreet, private collectors in Asia, the Middle East, Russia, some in the US.”
“Never!” Olivia exclaimed. “Eugene would never have done anything like that. If the auction house was involved with illegal antiquities, Kathryn was behind it.”
“Not according to Norman.”
“He’s a snake. Dig deeper, and you’ll find if anything illegal was going on, it happened after Kathryn took over the business.”
Piper stepped in. “Dozens of museums have pieces of ancient Egyptian jewelry in their collections. That’s what I don’t understand. What makes this bracelet valuable enough to kill for it?”
Brittany shook her head. “Norman clammed up before we got that far, and right now, Mrs. Swift isn’t talking.”
Piper closed her notebook. “Let’s hope that changes.”
*
Thad had gone for a five-mile run after he gave Brittany his statement, but the exercise hadn’t lightened his misery. He needed someone he could take out his ugly mood on, so he called Clint, but when the kid arrived, Thad couldn’t summon the energy to watch film with him, or even tell him he was an idiot, so he kicked him out again.
On his way to the door, Clint dead-eyed him like the leader he already was. “You’d better get your shit together, old man, because right now you’re useless.”
Thad mumbled something under his breath and closed the door on him.
He spent the next few hours on the Internet learning everything he could about ancient Egyptian jewelry. All the time, he was thinking about what had happened in Las Vegas. Olivia had been wearing her bracelet the night Gillis had abducted them, just as she had the whole time they’d been in Las Vegas, but Gillis had initially gone after Thad’s wallet and watch. That had obviously been a diversion, a way to make it look like a robbery and keep anyone from suspecting Gillis had only been after the bracelet.