Hidden Riches

that DiCarlo was double-crossed. Whoever he had handling the valuables pulled a fast one and shipped them to Virginia.”
    “Motive?”
    “I don’t know.” She huffed and snatched up her coffee. “Some disgruntled underling he hadn’t promoted, a woman scorned—or maybe just some hapless clerk who screwed up.”
    “That might work if the disgruntled underling or the scorned woman had kept some of the loot. And even a hapless clerk would be hard-pressed to screw up by sending a shipment of merchandise to some dinky auction house in Virginia where it’s unlikely DiCarlo had any ties.”
    “For all you know, DiCarlo might have been using Porter’s as a clearinghouse for smuggled merchandise for years.” She tossed her hair back and scowled at him. “I suppose you have a better theory?”
    “Yeah, I got one. But let’s look behind door numbertwo.” He was grinning now, enjoying himself. He tapped her diagram. “What have you got here?”
    “I don’t have to take your superior amusement, Skimmerhorn.”
    “Indulge me.” He lifted her hand, nipped at her knuckles. “Just for a minute.”
    “Well, it’s obvious to me there were two shipments. The one from the estate sale, and the one with the smuggled goods. Since we agree that it would have been impossibly stupid for DiCarlo to have purposely shipped off his loot to Virginia where it would be offered for sale to the highest bidder, the logical conclusion is that the two shipments were mixed up.”
    “Keep going,” he encouraged. “You’re about to earn a merit badge.”
    “And since both packing slips originated from Premium, one could deduce that the mix-up happened there.”
    “Nice going, Nancy.” Pleased with her, he pulled out his wallet and tossed bills on the table. “Let’s go check out Queens.”
    “Wait a minute.” She caught up with him at the door.
    “Are you saying you think I’m right?”
    “I’m saying we should check it out.”
    “Nope, not good enough.” She shifted her body to block the door. “Look me in the eye, Skimmerhorn, and say you think I’m right.”
    “I think you’re right.”
    She let out a whoop of triumph and yanked open the door herself. “Then what are we waiting for?”
     
    “You know,” Dora said after they’d cooled their heels in Bill Tarkington’s office for fifteen minutes, “most of police work is really boring.”
    “Thinking about giving it up, Conroy?”
    She braced her elbow on the arm of her chair, cupped her chin in her hand. “Is this the sort of thing you did every day for all those years?”
    He kept his back to her, watching the belts and the shipping clerks. “I couldn’t calculate the number of hours I spent waiting.”
    She yawned, hugely. “I suppose it teaches you patience.”
    “No. Not necessarily. You juggle enough hours of tedium with enough moments of terror, and it teaches you not to relax your guard.”
    She could see his profile from where she sat. Only a part of him was in the room with her, she realized. Another part was somewhere he wouldn’t let her follow. “How do you handle the terror?”
    “By recognizing it, by accepting it.”
    “I can’t imagine you being afraid,” she murmured.
    “I told you that you didn’t know me. I think this is our man now.”
    Tarkington bounced up to the door, beaming his cheery smile. “Mr. Skimmerhorn?” He pumped Jed’s hand enthusiastically. “And Miss Conroy. I apologize for making you wait. How about some coffee? A doughnut. Maybe a nice danish.”
    Before Jed could decline, Dora was beaming at Tarkington. “I’d love some coffee.”
    “Just let me pour you a cup.” Happy to serve, Tarkington turned to fill three cups. Dora sent Jed a smug look.
    “We know you’re busy, Mr. Tarkington. I hope we won’t keep you long.”
    “Don’t you worry about it. Always got time for a customer, yes sir. Cream? Sugar?”
    “Black,” Jed told him, and watched, slightly appalled, when Tarkington dropped a flood of sugar into one of the cups.
    “Now then.” He passed out the coffee, took a sip from his own heavily sweetened cup. “You had some question about a shipment, didn’t you?”
    “That’s right.” Jed reached in his pocket to read off the numbers of the shipping invoice he’d copied from Flowers. “A package shipped out of this building on Decemberseventeenth from a Franklin Flowers, destination Sherman Porter, Front Royal, Virginia. Number ASB-54467.”
    “That’s fine.” Tarkington