Free The Art Whisperer (An Alix London Mystery) by Aaron Elkins, Charlotte Elkins

killed.
    He sank into a chair with a washed-out sigh. He was wearing a rumpled gray suit, a tired white dress shirt open at the neck, its collar points limp and wilted from a few dozen launderings too many, a loosened tie, and a world-class five-o’clock shadow. He made a go-ahead motion to Campbell. “Please continue.”
    The young officer looked surprised. “Me, sir? Not you?”
    “No, young Dennis, you go right ahead and do it the way they taught you. I’ll just sit right here and apprise you of your mistakes so you can learn from them.”
    “Thanks a bundle, sir. I appreciate this opportunity to partake of your wisdom.”
    It seemed to Alix a pretty cavalier way to begin, especially with her sitting right there, but then maybe they were just more laid-back in Palm Springs and this kind of badinage was routine. In any case, the young police officer, not observably rattled by Cruz’s oversight, couldn’t have been more professional and efficient with the interview. H e was considerate, too, charmingly so. When he asked if the intruder had “tried to take advantage of you in a sexual manner,” he’d apolog ized for the question and might even have blushed. Cruz offered no direction or questions of his own, merely listening amiably and non-judgmentally, and jotting an occasional note in a pad of his own; he could have been watching a TV show that he’d seen before but that still held some points of interest. Despite the world-weary, seen-everything look, he couldn’t have been more unthreatening.
    Somehow, the moment when it had seemed appropriate to ask about coffee had passed, but at about the twenty-minute mark, the worried resident manager showed up with a cart loaded with a thermal coffee carafe, cups, and a dozen or so cookies on a plate. Alix went for the coffee the way a drowning man goes for a life ring. Cruz poured himself some as well, but not Campbell. No takers on the cookies.
    “Does this matter have to be in the paper?” the manager wanted to know. “Are we going to have TV reporters all over the place?” A hesitation and then an eager whisper: “Was it the Phantom?”
    He was sent on his way with sincere thanks for the coffee and not-so-sincere prevarications on the questions, and Campbell resumed the interview, which took fifteen more minutes. Cruz had yet to ask a question or make a comment of his own, but once Campbell had finished, he took command with easy assurance.
    “Dennis, go and see if anything’s turned up over at the other bungalow, and then give the techs a hand searching around the outside, will you? Crime Scene will be back out in the morning when it’s light, but it wouldn’t hurt to have a look now, while everything’s fresh. Pay special attention to the area around the patio, especially to the ground on the other side of the brick border, where the lady says he stumbled over it. Might have dropped something when his foot caught, or something might have popped out of his pocket.”
    “Will do.” Campbell unholstered his flashlight and pulled on a pair of plastic gloves as he left.
    “Oh—” Alix suddenly said. “ He was wearing plastic gloves too. I forgot. Or maybe rubber.” After another second she said, “So there won’t be any fingerprints, will there?”
    “Not if he was wearing gloves, no. But then there never are, with this guy.”
    “ ‘This guy?’ You think he’s this Phantom Burglar I’ve been hearing about?”
    “That,” he said, “is the working hypothesis. Subject to change at any moment, of course.” He was sitting back in his chair with his hands folded over his stomach, looking wise and canny. “So. You said your laptop’s missing—probably in that duffel bag you saw. I don’t suppose it has built-in tracking, or did we get lucky for once?”
    “Uh . . . I don’t know.”
    “Is it an Apple?”
    “No, something else. HP, I think. No, Acer . . . oh, wait . . .”
    “And you never subscribed to a service that . . . no, I