“Don’t I though? Clearly your brains are paying off.” Decker put the car into drive and grinned. “Now all we have to do is work on the brawn.”

Chapter 23

CHAPTER 23

FUELED UP ON coffee and carbs, Decker drove back to Greenbury on the highway, keeping an eye out for silver vans and black ice. He thought McAdams was dozing off, but then the kid suddenly sat up and dry washed his face.

Tyler checked his watch. “Six-thirty. It feels like eleven. I hate winter: the long, dark, cold nights. No wonder there’s so much drinking and screwing in college.”

“Don’t blame that on winter,” Decker said. “California universities have just as much drinking and screwing.” A pause. “What’s your take on Goddard? Anything in the shop worth beaucoup bucks?”

“Nothing worth killing for. His shop has a little of this and a little of that: a perfect front to fence stolen items.”

“Like the framed antique maps and prints,” Decker said. “And he had some antique books behind the glass case. I noticed The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler. That has to be worth something.”

“If it’s a first edition, yes. There was also a Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust.”

“Given his reputation in New York, Goddard as a fence doesn’t seem like a stretch. But do you see him as a murderer?”

“No. He’d never get his hands dirty. Maybe he hired someone.”

“Do you see him arranging contract killings? Knowing those kinds of people?”

“I know this sounds pedestrian, but I watch those true crime shows. It seems pretty easy to get some lowlife to shoot someone. It doesn’t even take that much money.”

“But Latham’s murder did not have any hallmarks of being an amateur hit. Someone was proving a point. You fuck with me, this is what happens. Do you see Goddard setting up a professional hit?”

“Maybe not.” McAdams took off his jacket. It was warm in the car. “So what do you think about Goddard?”

“Instinctively, I don’t like the man, but that doesn’t mean he’s a killer.”

“I saw some Tiffany pieces from the grapevine collection, but those aren’t major Tiffany. So are we back to thinking that Maxwell Stewart is the bad guy?”

“I don’t see that, either.” A pause. “I keep coming back to the Petroshkovich icons.”

“Why? That happened ages ago.”

“Because Latham was butchered and his field was Soviet art. Plus, he had this weird codebook in educated languages, which sounds international—and I like Russian mobsters as bad guys.”

“Russian mobsters?” McAdams made a face. “How’d you get from stolen Tiffany to Russian mobsters?”

“Well . . .” Decker bit his lip. “With the codebook, I think Latham had been doing something illegal for a while. I think he was the intended target.”

“Agreed.”