Somehow, I managed to resist the urge to spend thirty minutes looking for parking and pay twice the going rate for anything. Of course, I was dead broke and I doubted Cinnabons served chilled hemoglobin.
The broke part was why I was taking this meeting.
A few blocks later, I turned into the Wharton Museum parking lot. As I did so, the sun finally set behind a horizon cluttered with apartment buildings and old homes. I stepped out of my minivan and inhaled the warm dusk air and felt more alive than I ever did when I was human.
God, I felt so strong. So powerful.
I swept through a long, arched tunnel full of hanging vines, past the sitting area of an outdoor cafe, nodded at a large tour group leaving the museum, and stepped inside Orange County's only significant cultural museum.
At the front desk, a young docent smiled brightly at me. "I'm sorry, ma'am, but we're closed." She seemed profoundly relieved that they were closed. Perhaps today had been a particularly difficult day at the museum. I suspected I knew why. In fact, I knew the reason why.
I told her who I was and why I was here. Somehow, she managed to contain her excitement. She made a call, nodded, and a moment later led me down a hallway lined with offices and cubicles. Or perhaps these weren't offices and cubicles. Maybe this was some weird, hip, modernistic "Cubicles as Art" exhibit.
Or not.
I was led to the last office on the left, where a tall woman with a vigorous handshake greeted me and showed me to a guest chair in front of her desk.
I sat and she sat, and after a short exchange of pleasantries, she got right to the point. "As you know, Ms. Moon, we had a robbery here last night."
"Yes, you mentioned that over the phone. I'm sorry to hear it."
Her name was Ms. Dickens. Yes, that's how she introduced herself to me on the phone and even now in person. So, on that note, I introduced myself as Ms. Moon, and she seemed perfectly at ease with that. I wasn't at ease with it. I mean, c'mon.
Anyway, Ms. Dickens wore a very old-fashioned business suit and seemed about twenty years older than I suspected she really was. She was a seventy-year-old woman trapped in a fifty-year-old's body.
She said, "I assure you, so am I. The police have been called, of course. And as far as they can tell it was an inside job. The police, however, don't seem to grasp the nature of the crime or the importance of the stolen artifact. I fear that our case will be forgotten by the overworked Santa Ana Police Department."
I made sympathetic noises. Truth was, overworked police departments are what kept many private eyes in business. Had police departments been adequately staffed, I would have been relegated to doing background searches and cheating spouse cases. Background cases were fine, and were easy money, but I avoided cheating spouse cases at all costs. I hated hearing the rotten cheating stories, and I hated being involved in the painful drama.
Not to mention, I tended to want to strangle all the cheating men. I wonder why?
Not to mention, I was a trained federal agent. I was above cheating spouse cases...unless, of course, I needed money.
Anyway, I asked what had been stolen, since Ms. Dickens had been vague on the phone. "A single item," she answered. "A crystal egg sculpture from the Harold Van Pelt collection."
Harold Van Pelt, apparently, was a world-class gem photographer. But what wasn't so well-known was that he had become, over the course of 35 years, a master gemstone carver. Apparently, he had perfected the art of taking a solid block of quartz and turning it into hollowed vases or, in this case, a hollowed egg. The Wharton was the first museum to showcase his work.
"The quartz is cut so paper thin and polished so perfectly that it is as clear as glass. How he does it, I have no clue."
"Well, like they always say, just carve away anything that doesn't look like a crystal egg, right?"
She stared at me. "I'm sure there's more to it than that, Ms. Moon." I was fairly certain that if she had a ruler, she would have rapped my knuckles with it.
"Why do the police think this was an inside job?" I asked.
"They haven't said."
"Which makes sense," I said. "If it was an inside job."
Ms. Dickens tilted her head to one side. "Are you implying that I'm a suspect, Ms. Moon?"
"Oh, it's much too soon for me to imply that," I said, smiling brightly.
Not to mention I wasn't getting a negative feel from Ms. Dickens; meaning, she checked out clean to my sixth sense. That is, if it was to be relied upon.
Brightly or not, Ms. Dickens didn't like the direction this conversation was going. I didn't, either, for that matter. I needed the job and I needed her retainer check. Badly. The last thing I needed to do was offend the lady. There was always time to offend her later.
The curator unpursed her lips. She was, after all, a reasonable woman. Or so I hoped. She said, "If this was an inside job, then I suppose everyone here is indeed a potential suspect. Me included."
"Some people are less suspect than others," I added.
"You have a job to do," she said, which was encouraging. "And part of that job is getting answers. I get it."
"Thank you," I said.
"Well, you certainly seem capable, Ms. Moon. I called your references. In particular, your boss at HUD. Earl, I believe his name was. Anyway, he assures me you are very professional and reliable. I think he used the word spunky."
I had worked at HUD for a number of years before my attack rendered me into something...very different. After the attack, I had been forced to quit my job and work the night shift as a private eye. The transition from a federal investigator to a private investigator had been an easy one, although I missed the camaraderie of a partner and the massive resources of the federal government. Luckily, or perhaps, smartly, I retained my friendships with most people in the agency, and often they gave me access to their super-cool computers.
"Earl always thought highly of me," I said.
"He also said you were forced to quit suddenly because of a rare skin disease." She tilted her head down, studying me over her bifocals. "Could you expand on that?"
"It's a rare disease that I have under control. Mostly, I have to stay out of the sun and away from McDonald's heating lamps."
"I see some of that spunkiness coming through."
"You caught me."
"Will your condition affect your performance?"
"No, ma'am, although I tend to work nights, as we've already discussed over the phone."
"Working nights is fine with us. We don't need any more distractions during the day. And besides, the theft occurred at night, too. Maybe there's something to that."