Page 70 - Labelle Gramercy, Detective

Road Kill

letter had vanished. Her case was circumstantial at best, I thought.
Did she really expect one of these men to jump up and confess?
“When I arrived at Lon Durer’s house that night, I observed that
he had packed up most of his belongings, including art objects on the
walls. I also talked with a jiri-tigi outside his gates; he confirmed that
Lon Durer had frequently purchased wood carvings and other local
artifacts. Yet when I questioned Lon, he denied that he had much, if
any, interest in Jolibanan art. Then I asked him about Chiwara
figures, and his answer revealed that he knew a good deal about the
value of those objects. That aroused my suspicions, and I encouraged
my counterpart in the police to have Customs impound and examine
thoroughly Mr. Durer’s shipment of household effects.”
“You did what!” Durer bellowed and staggered to his feet,
knocking over his chair. His eyes were red marbles bulging out of a
fright mask. The men on either side of him shrank back as if a wild
boar had just crashed into their midst.
“Encouraged them, as I said. They found, as I suspected, a
quantity of ancient terra cotta figurines illegally excavated by tomb-
robbers in the Jolibana Delta. Dealers in New York and London have
been selling these stolen national treasures for hundreds of thousands
of dollars. There exist several old smuggling routes northward across
the Sahara to Morocco as well as established conduits southward to
Abidjan, and Jolibanan archaeologists have been appealing to the
United Nations for years to help stop the plunder of their patrimony.
The Russians, we know, send kilos of gold out of Jolibana in their
diplomatic pouches, so it occurred to me that art objects might also
be leaving the country in Foreign Service baggage. That was the
secret Sally Furth discovered; she must have used a contact in the
States to confirm Lon Durer’s connection with the illicit trade, and
that confirmation in a letter was her ticket to bigger and better
things.”
“No, no!” Durer shouted. “You can’t pin this on me! Yes, I tried
to make a killing on those clay figures. They were worth millions on
the art market in the States and Europe, and I saw them as my way
out of the rat race. But I didn’t kill her: he did!”
His wavering finger pointed unmistakably at Harry Hofbrauer.
I glanced at Labelle. Her mouth, still grimly set, twitched upward
at the corners. So this was her strategy.

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