than that, oddly enough, his face was untouched. It was the back of his head and most of its contents that had splattered over the glass case immediately behind him. A glass case filled with lovely things gathered from the far corners of the world, trinkets made in cloisonne. beautiful objects of ivory, jade and gold.
Hawk didn’t bother to feel for a pulse. An easy death, he thought, gazing dispassionately at the iron-gray moustache that framed a mouth frozen in an 0 of eternal surprise. The man probably hadn’t even seen it coming. So the killer was a real pro-a thought that didn’t cheer Hawk. It meant that, in all likelihood, he wasn’t going to find what he’d come for.
Still, he had to be sure. Regretfully aware of what he was doing to someone else’s crime scene, he began a careful search of the body and its vicinity. After giving the same attention to the cluttered desk, with as much success, he paused, fingers drumming restlessly on the blotter. Hawk didn’t suffer defeat well. His mind was once again on rewind, zapping back to this afternoon’s telephone conversation with Loizeau…
“I understand. You are absolutely certain the item I am interested in was shipped-”
“Oh, yes, yes, quite certain. I remember that consignment very well. The seller insisted it was to go to Rathskeller’s and to no one else. But there will be no problem,
“I might just do that. I’m interested in the one painting, as I believe I mentioned. My wife-you understand, she has her heart set on it. I’d like to surprise her. If you can get me the lot number-”
“Yes, yes, of course,
“I’d rather come by the shop, if that’s okay. How late are you open?”
“Until six,
Hawk stared down at his restlessly drumming fingers and at the thick paper blotter beneath them, willing his mind to methodical processes.
Hawk’s fingers stopped drumming and began instead to stroke the surface of the blotter, slowly, delicately, like a lover’s caress. He could see Loizeau, picture him sitting here in this very spot, pulling the phone closer as he checked the telephone number on the shipping receipt. Picking up a pen, poising it over that same receipt while he waited for the overseas connection. Smiling, nodding as he jotted down the lot number. That piece of paper, the shipping receipt, was gone. But the blotter…
It took him longer than he would have liked. He kept having to remind himself to go slowly. Be careful. Take it easy, Hawkins… don’t blow this. He even felt a little silly doing it, painstakingly rubbing graphite over a small piece of white paper, like making leaf rubbings in kindergarten.
Silly? There was a dead body cooling at his feet. And maybe a lot more lives-uncounted thousands of lives-at stake.
So he kept at it, while darkness crawled like a villain through the streets outside the shop and tension cramped his hand and coiled around the back of his neck, and in the end his hunch and his patience paid off. It was there, all right, imprinted in the blotter where Loizeau’s hand would have rested as he sat at his desk with the telephone cradled between his ear and shoulder, busily making notes. Hawk’s rubbing produced a perfect negative in the shopkeeper’s neat, if somewhat prissy, hand: Rathskeller’s -Lot #187, 3/22, Arlington, Virginia.
He sat for a moment, looking down at the piece of paper in his hand. Then, releasing his breath with a soft hissing sound, he folded it once and tucked it away in his shirt pocket. Like it or not, it looked as though he was going home.
Chapter 1
“Jane? Dear, are you coming?”
With regret, Jane Carlysle allowed herself to be pulled out of the eighteenth-century Viennese ballroom and back to the foyer of the West Arlington Community Center, where her friend Connie Vincent was waiting for her with, it appeared, some impatience.
“Sorry,” she murmured, drawing her fingertips once more across the silky surface of the ornately carved baby grand piano she’d been leaning against. “I was just…coming.”
“Do you think this is for sale at this auction?” she asked Connie, who was peering at her over the tops of the half glasses she wore perched on the very tip of her nose-glasses that were kept from jeopardy only by virtue of the chain that was attached to the earpieces and looped around her neck.
“The piano? I should imagine so. It has a tag and a lot number, hasn’t it? Here, dear, why don’t you queue up for registration while I go and grab us a couple of catalogs.”
“How much do you think it’ll go for?” Jane persisted with faint hope, although she was sure she knew the answer.
Connie shot her an amused look as she confirmed it. “Oodies.”
Shuddering, Jane muttered. “I thought so. I have fatally expensive tastes. As you know.”
Jane knew Connie had good reason to be familiar with her tastes, since Connie’s shop was directly across from the bank where Jane worked, and right next door to Kelly’s Tearoom and Bookshop where she usually ate lunch. She and the antique shop’s new owner had hit it off right away, although Jane wasn’t quite sure why. The truth was, they had very little in common. Connie was originally from London, unabashedly middle-aged. unmarried and childless, though Jane had an idea there had been a Mr. Vincent somewhere in a rather murky past. Now, though, Connie’s life seemed to be her business-antiques, a subject upon which she seemed to be something of an expert- and travel.
When Connie wasn’t out of town on one of her buying trips she and Jane had lunch together several times a week at Kelly’s Tearoom. What someone as well traveled and sophisticated as Connie found in the relationship, Jane couldn’t imagine. She, on the other hand, thought the English antiques dealer was the most interesting person she’d ever met. She particularly enjoyed hearing about all the exotic places Connie had traveled to. Vicarious adventures, after all, were probably the only kind she would ever experience. With the exception of the couple of years encompassing her divorce, Jane’s life had been notably uneventful, and she saw very little likelihood that things were going to change much in the future.
While Connie went in search of catalogs, Jane joined a small knot of people loosely bunched in front of the registration desk. While she waited her turn-and for Connie to return-Jane studied the crowd that had gathered in the community center’s carpeted foyer, awaiting the opening of the auditorium doors. People-watching was an occupation she’d always enjoyed, and this gathering of veteran auction-goers seemed an interesting and varied bunch. Male and female in almost equal number, rather quirky in their dress, most of them. Quirky, but prosperous-antiques were expensive. Mostly middle-aged, or older.
Jane suddenly had to hide a smile. She was remembering what her daughter Tracy had said to her on the phone when she’d mentioned she was going to an auction with Connie.
“Mom,
