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“And he didn’t leave it in his car, because Ryland checked that, too.”
They sat for a full minute in silence, and then Connor nudged Kit’s mouse, waking up her screen. “Was William Freeman a veteran?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Why?”
“The charity he signed the painting to is Warriors with Wounds.” He pulled Kit’s keyboard within reach and began typing. “Here. Wounded Warriors is the famous charity. The name is close enough that William Freeman could have been fooled.”
“Look up Warriors with Wounds,” Kit said. “If she faked a veterans’ charity, she’s a real piece of work.”
Connor’s hands paused on the keyboard. “She is a killer, Kit.”
She scowled. “I know, but defrauding veterans is a really shitty thing to do.”
Connor pursed his lips again, this time to bite back a smile. “Fine.”
“Shut up. I know it sounds ridiculous, but stealing from a charity is low. Even for killers.”
Connor gave up trying to hide his smile. “The very nerve.”
She sighed. “Just look up the fake charity.”
“It’s not registered in California.”
Kit tapped her desk. “Check Tennessee. That’s where Roxanne went to college and where she was sending that package to her sister, right? That’s what the nurse from Serenity Retirement Village said. LaVerne Dempsey.”
“She did.” He searched for the Tennessee business database and typed in Warriors with Wounds. “Bingo. It’s an LLC. Not a charity. If any of her victims wanted to check on the existence of her so-called charity, it’s right here if they look it up. The names are the same, but the charity itself doesn’t exist.”
“All profit, all day,” Kit said grimly. “The puzzle pieces are starting to fit. Roxanne did steal valuable coins from Benny Dreyfus and she did steal Woman on a Summer Night from William Freeman. She just made her victims—William Freeman, anyway—believe they were donating to charity. And William wasn’t going to tell because he didn’t want his family to know he was giving anything away. If Roxanne had talked with William and he’d told her this, she’d know he was a safe bet. By the time the family found out that the painting was missing, it was too late. She’d already sold it to Emil Barrington Senior, who wasn’t going to let anyone else see it. Barrington Senior even made that a requirement in his will—that the painting was never to be loaned out or shown to anyone outside the family.”
Connor nodded thoughtfully. “So there was no risk to Roxanne of anyone seeing it. And if the other nineteen thefts were the same way and anyone did find out that their senior citizen had given her something, she could deny any knowledge. The person she’d tricked into donation was dead. They’d died thinking they’d made a legit charitable contribution. And her name is on none of the paperwork. She’s guilty of theft, but all the evidence is circumstantial.”
“Exactly. Until Benny Dreyfus. Both Georgia Shearer and Devon Jones said that even in his confusion, Benny knew that the coins needed to be hidden. Protected. He wore gloves. He called his daughter when he couldn’t remember the combination. I don’t think he was willing to give them to Roxanne despite her attention, and I think she figured that out.”
“So she flat-out stole them,” Connor said. “And somehow got Kent Crawford to turn off the camera that could identify her. How did she know Crawford would help her? He didn’t find out about the coins until later.”
Kit shrugged. “Maybe Roxanne recognized a fellow thief. Georgia said that Frankie suspected Crawford was stealing.”
“If Roxanne did her homework before arriving at each assignment, she might have seen that Crawford drove a fancy car.”
“She was most likely the woman in his motel room,” Kit said. “The lipstick on that cup was the same color as the lipstick on Crawford’s autopsy photo.”
“So Roxanne does a little flirting, gets on Crawford’s good side, gives him sex, and then…what? He tells her how to turn off the cameras?”
Kit shrugged again. “He had to have turned them off on Friday, before Roxanne was able to steal the coins. I think she killed Crawford because she didn’t want to share the loot, but he could have threatened to expose her as well. So she’s in Crawford’s motel room sometime after midnight on Saturday and she drugs him. The oral sex happened shortly before he died.”
“Maybe the oral was to distract him from noticing that he’d been drugged. He finishes and feels tired. According to Faye Evans, that was his usual. He ‘rolled off’ her and ‘went to sleep’ when he was done.”
“Sounds right. Once he was dead, Roxanne took his laptop, his cell phone, and enough clothes that she would look like Crawford on the surveillance tape when she left Shady Oaks after stealing the coins.”
“But somehow she knew that Frankie Flynn suspected her,” Connor said, “so she waited until Eloise’s birthday party on Saturday evening to search his place. Frankie comes back early from the party because he dislikes duck confit and wants a real meal. He surprises Roxanne, who kills him with a thin stiletto.”
“And then she panicked and staged the butcher knife scene—we still need to figure out why she did that, by the way. There’s got to be something about that stiletto that we don’t know yet.” Kit noted it for later. “Like you said earlier, she probably knew that she’d have to kill Benny once she’d killed Frankie, but she waited until after Frankie’s body was found. Which brings us to now. It still bugs me that we don’t know how she and Crawford knew they could work together.”
“I guess we’ll have to ask her when we find her.”
Kit scowled. “Trouble is, we’re no closer to knowing where she is.”
Connor checked his phone for the time. “We’re going with Goddard to check out that dark-web private sale in less than two hours. If Roxanne did steal those coins, we’ll catch her there.”
