“So how do you know police people like that Lieutenant Vaughn and that professor from John Jay?”
“The pilot I made for StarCrest Productions.”
Marclay tweaked her big toe. “The one where you were supposed to play a Coney Island police officer?”
Luna nodded. “They were consultants on the shooting and we got to be friends.”
Of course they had, thought Buntrock. Luna was as friendly as a six-month-old puppy and just as confident as any puppy that everyone wanted to be her friend, too. Buntrock had to admit that such artlessness was appealing.
Marclay gave the ball of her left foot a final rub, then began on her right. “Too bad it didn’t get past the pilot. You could’ve made some serious bread.”
Buntrock lifted a cynical eyebrow. Trust Marclay to keep his eye on the economic ball. He himself had met Luna through the owner of Marclay’s gallery back when she was with another artist. Marclay had soon cut the other guy out. Out of the gallery and out of Luna’s life. Luna DiSimone might not be an A-list actor—hell, she was probably barely B-list—but she was a connection to that world, and it never hurt to have a sprinkling of showbiz glamour at your openings.
“You add any names to the guest list?” he asked.
Marclay shook his head. “It was her thing, not mine.”
“But you did ask if I’d invited Elliott and Mischa and Orton,” Luna said. She gave a contented sigh as Marclay kneaded the ball of her foot with his knuckles. “Ummmm, that feels so good.”
CHAPTER
10
—
, 1909
The doorbell rang and I called, “It’s open, Elliott. Come on in.”
“Sorry,” Lieutenant Harald said, “it’s not Elliott.”
Dressed in a white parka with the hood pushed back, she entered through the unlatched door, followed by Detective Hentz, whom we had met the night before, and a Detective Dinah Urbanska, a sturdy young woman in a navy blue jacket with golden brown hair and light brown eyes.
Lieutenant Harald seemed a little surprised to realize Elliott Buntrock wasn’t with us. “He left?” she asked.
“No, I’m still around,” he called, striding down the hall. He wore a white silk scarf around his neck now and had a heavy black overcoat draped over his arm. “Luna and her boyfriend said they would try to construct a guest list for you.”
“She doesn’t have the original?” asked Hentz.
“In case you haven’t realized it yet, Hentz, our Luna is a creature of impulse,” said Buntrock. “She decides to give a party, and two minutes later she’s scrolling through the numbers on her phone to text everyone she thinks might like to come to a beach party in January. Amazing how many of us are amused by her impulsiveness.”
“I didn’t find being accused of theft all that amusing,” I said. “And after making such a fuss about that cat, she went off and left it here.”
“Cat?” asked Detective Urbanska. She looked around as if expecting to see a real one emerge from behind a chair.
I lifted the brightly painted wooden cat from a nearby table. “This one. It was over there with those pillboxes. Luna said it was hers. Accused my husband and me of stealing it last night.”
“Now, now,” said Elliott. “She merely blurted out the first thing that came into her head to explain how it got here. She really doesn’t think you stole it.”
“No?” I was suddenly feeling cranky and tired of all these people and wished they would go away and leave Dwight and me alone. I was sorry that someone had died here. Phil Lundigren had seemed like a nice enough person and he probably didn’t deserve to be killed. All the same, it wasn’t as if he were someone we’d had any kind of a relationship with.
“Anyhow,” Buntrock said, “it’s just a cheap Mexican souvenir. Probably didn’t cost her ten bucks.”
“Let it go, shug,” Dwight said quietly. “Any of those guys who helped themselves to our facilities last night could have set it on that table.”
Sigrid held out her hand and I gave her the cat. No more than two inches tall and approximately four inches long from tail tip to nose, it was carved to look as if it were about to pounce. “It was over here, right?”
She carried it to the table halfway down the living room wall and set it down next to the two pillboxes. By lamplight the rich deep enamel had made them glow like jewels. By daylight, they were merely shiny and pretty.
“I can’t swear to it,” I said, “but I think there were at least five or six more of those little boxes there before the cat appeared.”
“Are they valuable?”
“I have no idea. I guess it depends on their age and who made them.” I lifted one and saw some indecipherable characters engraved on the bottom. “Anybody here read Chinese?”
“Is it important?” Elliott asked her.
