A Brilliant Plan

Chapter 42

"Scary," Fowler growled, slumped in his seat.

"He cut some wires and hacked away on a laptop. In no time, there was the usual click and the safe door was open. He told me that there were now no traces of any opening of the door in the alarm system logs that night."

Altward paused, Ron continued. "You opened the door to retrieve something later that night and you closed it before the hacker arrived. The hacker opened the safe again. None of these accesses were logged because the hacker was able to override everything?"

Altward nodded again. "Like an alibi. Which it was. Perfect."

"Wasn't the safe cracker scared by the dead body of Mr. Eastman?" Ron asked.

"He didn't see him. He was under the impression that we planned to perform some insurance swindle. I doubt that the hacker would have gone along with covering up a murder."

"After the electronic barriers had been bypassed and the lock was open, you didn't open the door?"

"No, I told him to leave it as it was. He shrugged, packed his stuff and left."

"Did the hacker wizard have a name?"

Altward shrugged. "You will have to ask Paul."

"What did you call him that evening?"

"I didn't call him by his name at all, far as I remember."

"How was he paid?"

"No idea, Paul arranged that as well."

"You didn't give him a little piece of art, jewelry or anything else?"

Shake of head again.

Ron put a photo of Hans Polter on the table. "Is that the guy?" Altward looked astonished. "Yeah, that's him. You already have him?"

Ron took the photo away without answering. "So the door was open, the hacker left, you were alone with Mr. Eastman's body and you continued with your plan to fake a break in."

Altward continued. "Such madness. I was searching for something 'to steal,' took the Montenhaute jewels out of the display and began to close the safe when another thought occurred to me. The police would surely come and search the premises, the safe room. The insurance guys would arrive and enforce an inventory count. I had stored the Maximilian Jewels in the safe, the safest place in the world for me. They would have been discovered. So I removed them from the safe room."

"And you brought them here right away?"

"No, that was probably the biggest mistake I made." Altward was forgetting the killing, but who was splitting hairs here. "The first place that came into my mind was with the person I had a date with that night. My girlfriend, Phoebe Eastman."

Although Ron had to be careful not to lead too much with his questions, in his posture, I could see a panther ready to leap. He was close to bursting with anticipation. "You stored the Maximilian Jewels in the apartment of Miss Eastman in La Jolla?"

"Yes. I drove there right after I closed the shop again."

"You switched off the lights, left the safe room open and locked up the gallery. Took the Montenhaute and the Maximilian Jewels with you. Why did you kill Mr. Eastman?"

"I didn't kill him. Don't make it sound as if I were a vicious murderer. It was an accident, an argument escalating, and the heat of the moment."

"About Phoebe," I said.

"Yes. About Phoebe. Her father couldn't stand the fact that I was seeing his daughter. The rich and renowned gallery owner having an eye on his beloved daughter. The dirty old man and the young thing. At first he held back with comments but later as my relationship with Phoebe got more serious he started bickering whenever we happened to be alone in the gallery at night."

"He complained or foulmouthed you?"

"It was more like he was talking to himself. He made his rounds in the gallery or in the office and spoke to himself."

"And that evening it was a little more than usual?"

"Yes, I had to fetch something from the safe that I needed early in the morning for a last minute customer. That was the reason I had to open the safe room. While I was checking the jewels, Wally came sneaking in, waving his large flashlight like Charlie Chaplin, and 'talking' to himself again. But that night I wouldn't take it no more."

"Why did you employ him at all? You could have requested his replacement."

"On behalf of Phoebe. She was afraid that he would lose his job if I requested a change, which was probably true." Altward shrugged.

"He got you enraged."

"You can say that. We had a heated argument that went on for several minutes. Push came to shove and suddenly I hated that pathetic little man and his stupid protective hand over his daughter's life. I should be ashamed to use his daughter... that she deserved better... and so on."

"So you hit him over the head with the Calder statue."

"Mobile. We had become a little physical, pushing and slapping. I tried to end the argument several times by finishing my errand and going back to the office but he wouldn't let go. Pushed me, poked me with his nightstick two or three times. I pushed back. And then... " He covered his face again. "I hit back with the first thing that came into my hand."

"The Calder."

"You know, the thing is, in a clear state of mind I would never, never have taken one of my pieces of art and used it for whatever, door opener, hammer, much less as a weapon. But some fuse inside of me clicked. It just clicked."

We were silent for a minute.

"Just clicked," Altward repeated several times. "And now they are all dead, all dead." Altward started to cry.