Last Breath Part 11

"What do you mean?" Connor frowned.

"Look, the realtor said we shouldn't talk about it to anyone, that we should just direct potential buyers to her. That's probably what I should do."

"We're not potential buyers," Connor told her. "We're trying to track down the Blumes. Do you know how we can contact them?"

"Really, you need to talk to the realtor. Her name and number are on the sign." She picked up her shopping bag and went through a service door into her house.

"Well, that was odd," Daria said. "What do you suppose that was all about?"

"Maybe there was some scandal, maybe the Blumes went bankrupt and the bank took the house." Connor found his phone in his pocket and walked toward the sign. When he got close enough to read it, he punched in the numbers for the real-estate office, and hoped that Nancy Keenan was around.

He was in luck. She was not only there, but willing to show the house right away if Connor could wait five minutes for her.

The realtor drove up the driveway in a brand-new sedan and parked at the end of the drive. She was very fas.h.i.+onably dressed in a short black linen dress and sandals with kitten heels. Her dark hair was expertly cut-a fact that did not go unnoticed by Daria-and she carried a large black bag of pebbled leather. All in all, her appearance was very upscale, as befitted the neighborhood.

"Thanks for waiting, Mr. s.h.i.+elds." She extended a well-manicured hand. She turned her attention to Daria. "And Mrs. s.h.i.+elds. Nice to meet you."

"Oh, I'm not-"

"We appreciate you dropping everything and coming over to show us the house," Connor said smoothly, placing a hand on the back of Daria's neck and giving it a very gentle squeeze. "We were just pa.s.sing through and saw the sign."

"It's a wonderful neighborhood, isn't it? Did you look around the outside while you waited, as I suggested?"

"We did, yes. Very nice." Connor nodded.

Fis.h.i.+ng her keys from her shoulder bag, Nancy waved them on to the front door, which she unlocked and held open so that Daria and Connor could enter.

"Don't you love the chandelier here in the foyer?" She stepped past them and went straight to the kitchen. "Let me turn on the air and cool the house down. I usually try to do this before buyers arrive. Would you prefer to wait outside until it cools off a bit?"

"No, we're fine," Daria said and winked at Connor. If Nancy thinks this is hot, she's obviously never been in the Sahara in summer. He got it, and winked back.

"Then let me show you around the first floor. As you can see, the foyer floor is marble-that's Italian marble, by the way, hand-selected by the previous owners."

"Really?" Daria said, feigning interest.

"Oh, yes. They oversaw every bit of the renovation, just three years ago," Nancy a.s.sured them. "Everything was replaced, and I mean everything."

"I noticed the living room has a lot of niches built into the walls," Connor said.

"The people who lived here were collectors. They had a very valuable collection of ancient pottery and things of that nature."

Connor went up the steps ahead of Nancy and Daria, looking through every room until he found the master bedroom.

"This is a wonderful s.p.a.ce," Nancy said, coming into the room a few minutes behind him. "Large bedroom, sitting room with a fireplace, two dressing rooms, baths, and walk-in closets."

"It looks like the carpet in here is brand-new," Connor noted. "Here in the bedroom, and in the hallway."

"Yes, it was replaced before the house went on the market."

"Funny," he said, "you'd expect the downstairs carpet to have more wear, and require replacing before the bedroom carpet. Especially since everything in the house was replaced within the past three years. Isn't that what you said?"

"Yes." She s.h.i.+fted her gaze to the pull shade in the front window and pretended to fuss with it. "It was an odd color."

"Was it red?" he asked.

She turned to him and, all the charm now gone, asked flatly, "Who are you?"

He held out his badge. "We're looking for the Blumes."

"If you're really with the FBI, you shouldn't have any trouble finding out what happened to them. I'm sure you can get the reports-"

"Let's say we want to hear your version."

"The Blumes were murdered in this house a few months ago. It's made it a real hard sell."

"What can you tell me about it?" Connor asked.

"Very little. Just what was in the papers, actually. The son listed the house, and he didn't want to talk about it, so I didn't pump him for information. All I know is what everyone else knows. The Blumes were at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia on a Sat.u.r.day night, they came home and apparently caught someone in the act of burglarizing their home. They were both killed."

"The killers ever caught?"

"Not as far as I know. It really cast a pall over the neighborhood, though," Nancy told them. "Everyone was very nervous for months afterward, though the police said the Blumes were most likely targeted because they had a lot of valuable things in their house and never made any effort to hide that fact."

"Things from their collection?" Daria asked.

"Yes. They often loaned things to the museum in Philadelphia, that's how important some of their items were. There was a big article about them in Philadelphia Magazine about a year ago."

"You mentioned a son..."

"Yes, Martin Blume." Nancy took a card from her purse and a small notebook. "I can give you his number if you give me a minute, Agent s.h.i.+elds."

"Take your time."

"Here we go." Nancy wrote on the back of the card and handed it to Connor.

"Thanks, Nancy," he said as he pocketed the card. "We appreciate it."

"How did you know?" Nancy asked as they started down the steps. "About the blood on the carpet?"

"I could smell it," he told her when they reached the bottom.

"Great." She grimaced. "No wonder the house isn't selling..."

"Who's next on the list?" Connor asked when he and Daria were back in the car.

"Elena Sevrenson." Daria's seat belt closed with a click. She read off the Philadelphia address to him. "Could you really smell blood in that bedroom?" she asked as he programmed the address into the system and started the car.

"Nah. But I could smell the chemicals they used to remove it. That smell lingering in the room for so long, well, that says blood-soaked carpet and the floor underneath to me."

"Guess that wasn't such a good idea, having a magazine feature your collection of valuable antiques and artwork," Daria said. "You think that's what happened? Someone read about it and decided to rob them while they were out?"

"I think that's probably how the thief or thieves found out about their collection, but I doubt the robbery took place while the Blumes were gone. They would have had a killer security system in place. As a matter of fact, I recognized the name of the company on the keypad by the front door. They handle a lot of specialty security on the East Coast. I doubt your local burglar could have gotten around it. I think it's more likely someone was waiting for the Blumes when they returned home that night, made the Blumes unlock the house, robbed them, then killed them."

"I wonder what they took-and how the Blumes died."

"We're about to find out." Connor speed-dialed a number and waited for the call to be answered. "Will. Connor. How's it going? Good, good. Listen, I need you to put those legendary computer skills to work for me. Here's what I need..."

Elena Sevrenson's eighteenth-century town house was located on the fringe of Philadelphia's Society Hill. Like the Blumes' neighborhood, it was strictly upscale. Connor made several trips around the block before he found a parking s.p.a.ce on the narrow city street.

"This is so pretty here. All the houses are so tidy, and so colonial-looking." Daria's admiring eyes went from one house to the next.

"These are some of the oldest continuously inhabited streets in America. They've been lived in since the 1700s," he told her.

"I feel as if I should be giving you the history lesson. After all, I'm supposed to be the expert."

"But probably not in American history." He smiled. "Which was one of my minors."

"What was the other one?"

"Political science and English lit." He checked the address and pointed to the house two doors down. "That's the place."

"You had three minors?" She frowned. "What did you major in?"

"Statistics."

"How the h.e.l.l did you end up in the FBI?"

"It was sort of the family business," he said as he rang the doorbell.

The door was answered promptly by a tall, willowy woman who appeared to be in her mid-thirties.

"Yes?"

"Are you Elena Sevrenson?" Connor asked.

She surprised them by asking in return, "Who are you?"

Connor showed her his credentials and repeated the question.

"No. I'm Lily DiPietro, her niece. My aunt died four months ago."

"Ms. DiPietro, I'm so sorry," Connor told her. "May we come in for a moment?"

"Sure." She stepped back. "Agent...s.h.i.+elds was it?" She turned to Daria. "And you're?"

"Daria McGowan."

"Please, come in." Lily DiPietro led them into a living room that was perfectly furnished in a style consistent with the architecture. "May I ask why you're looking for my aunt?"

"We have reason to believe she owns an artifact that may have been stolen from a museum," Connor told her.

"That's impossible." Their hostess's stare went cold. "My aunt would never have purchased anything that had been stolen. She was very careful who she bought from, and she had very strong feelings about the black market."

"She wouldn't have known the piece was stolen, and the piece did not come into this country illegally," Daria a.s.sured her. "And depending on when she bought it, the piece was probably presented to her with credible provenance. The dealer may not have known."

"What piece are we talking about?" Lily asked. "Although it hardly matters, since everything was sold after Aunt Elena's death."

"May I ask how she died?" Connor ignored her question for the time being.

"She was murdered, Agent s.h.i.+elds. Right here in this house." Her eyes filled with tears.

"Was it a robbery?" asked Daria.

Lily nodded her head and lowered herself to the sofa.

"What was stolen?" Daria sat next to her.

"Just two objects."

"Would you happen to know what those pieces were?" Daria asked.

"A pair of gold griffins. Turkish, I think they were."

Daria's heart jumped in her chest.

"The funny thing was," Lily continued, "she always had something on display in three cases in the dining room. I've been telling her forever that wasn't smart, that she was asking to be robbed, but she was very stubborn. Her att.i.tude was that she didn't collect these things to keep them locked away. She wanted to look at them, enjoy them, every day."

"May we see the display case the items were stolen from?" Connor asked.

"I can show you the cases," Lily told him, "but the items that were stolen weren't on display at the time. That's what's so strange. My aunt rotated the items every six months. The griffins hadn't been out of the vault for over a year."

She led them into the dining room and pointed to gla.s.s cases, all of which now held china birds.

Connor stood in front of the first case. There was no lock on the gla.s.s door, and he couldn't help but wonder what a person could have been thinking, keeping something valuable in so seemingly careless a manner.

"There were objects in these cases, but nothing was touched. Just the griffins from the vault. Why they took them and nothing else..."

"Where was the vault?" Connor asked.

"In the bas.e.m.e.nt. She had it built years ago. It was even supposed to be bombproof." Lily shook her head in disbelief. "Can you imagine going to the expense of building such a thing, and then just putting things on display in your dining room? If I told her once, I told her a million times, Aunt Elena, put it all in the vault or in the bank or give it all away."

"What pieces did she have on display at the time of the theft?" asked Daria.

"Some pottery jars, I think. But the police have a full report. You can get all this information from them."

She looked across the room to where Connor stood. "Why were you looking for her anyway? What brought you here?"

"There was a theft from Howe University," Connor explained, "and though we don't know exactly when it occurred, we do know what items are missing. We identified your aunt as the owner of two of those pieces-the gold griffins-and we wanted to talk to her about how they came to be in her collection."