The Bitter Season (Kovac and Liska, #5)(75)

He looked at Taylor out of the corner of his eye: a man just coming into his prime, smart, fit, hungry, good-looking. All the things Kovac had been nearly two decades ago. Well, he admitted, he’d never been that good-looking. He had probably never been that fit, either. He had to grit his teeth against the urge to groan as he got out of the car at the insurance agent’s office, his body protesting old injuries and the lack of sleep.

The agent, Ron Goddard, a short, bald Buddha of a guy, met them at the receptionist’s desk with a friendly smile and showed them down a narrow hall to his small office, which looked out onto the parking lot. He closed the blinds with a twist of a wand and went around behind his desk.

“I can’t believe what happened,” he admitted as he took his seat. “Twenty years in this business and I’ve never had a client murdered. A college professor and his wife. A nice home in a good neighborhood. You just don’t expect a murder.”

“They weren’t expecting it, either,” Kovac said.

Goddard shook his head. “I told Professor Chamberlain he’d be wise to upgrade his security system. The technology today is amazing.”

“Why didn’t he?” Taylor asked.

“He didn’t see the need. The system he had worked well. They had never had any serious crime in the neighborhood.” He made a sheepish face. “And to be perfectly honest, he was cheap. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say he was paranoid. He always thought people were trying to rip him off. I had to work to get him to insure the household contents for replacement cost. He thought I was just trying to make a bigger commission.”

“What about the collection?” Kovac asked.

“That was his passion. He was more reasonable about that. The collection had a separate policy.” Goddard placed three binders side by side on the desk and tapped each one in turn. “Household, jewelry, and the collection. The inventories and appraised values. You can take those. I printed them out for you.”

Kovac picked up the binder for the collection and started to page through it.

“There’s a DVD in each one, too,” Goddard said.

“The son gave us one of those,” Kovac said.

“Charlie. Nice young man. He tried to convince his father to upgrade the security, too. Typical twenty-something tech-savvy kid. If I didn’t have one in my family already, I’d go out and adopt one,” the agent said with a chuckle. “My phone is smarter than I am. These gadgets are going to take over the world.”

“When was the last appraisal done on the collection?” Taylor asked.

“Five years ago. I had it in my pending file to suggest to Lucien that he might want to have it reappraised next year, just to be sure nothing had changed significantly. To my surprise, he called me Monday and asked about just that.”

“He wanted to have the collection reappraised?” Taylor asked. “Did he say why?”

“He said he was planning to donate it to the university.”

Kovac came to attention. “He what?”

“I was shocked myself,” Goddard said. “He’s spent his life building that collection. But the university is going to be doing a big expansion of the Asian studies program. Lucien felt he could donate it, get plenty of notoriety and whatever kudos the university would give him. He wanted to get the appraisal first to be sure to get every nickel of his tax deduction.”

“Had he told anyone at the U about this?” Kovac asked.

“I wouldn’t know. But it would be like him to get the appraisal first. He liked his ducks beak to tail.”

“What about his kids?” Taylor asked.

Goddard made a little frown. “He said it was his collection to do with whatever he wanted, not theirs.”


*



“THERE’S THE PROFESSOR’S END-AROUND PLAY,” Taylor said as they got back in the car. “He could blow off the Office for Conflict Resolution if he thought he had something that trumped his disagreement with Diana.”

“He was going to leverage the collection for the job,” Kovac said. “If he had had that and knowledge of Diana and Sato’s affair, Sato wouldn’t have been just dead in the water as far as the promotion was concerned. He could possibly have gotten rid of Sato altogether.”

“Smells like motive to me,” Taylor said. “If Sato knew about it.”

“I tried to get Charlie to tell me what the big fight at Dad’s birthday dinner was all about,” Kovac said. “But he wouldn’t spill it.”

“If Daddy threw his new big plan in Diana’s face, she would have gone straight to Sato and told him,” Taylor said. “Suddenly they’re both better off with Lucien Chamberlain out of their lives.”

“Sato knows how to handle a sword.”

“But on the mother?” Taylor said. “That’s still a sticking point for me, no pun intended.”

“She’s collateral damage.”

“That attack was so vicious.”

“Or it was the fastest, most expedient way to kill her. Sato told me the first strike would be at the neck and shoulder. Mrs. C was nearly decapitated. She would have died quickly.”

“Try selling that to her daughter.”

“I think Diana believes whatever she needs to believe to get the reality she wants. Don’t you?”