“I started researching the robberies and looking for female suspects. Your name popped up on the Interpol database. The first thing I noticed was that no one had seen hide nor hair of you in nine years, when you disappeared from London.”
“So?”
“So the first victim, Karen Harle, was killed nine years ago. In London. Same time. Same city. You disappeared, and these murders began.”
Jean sipped his wine and looked at Tracy expectantly.
Tracy stared back at him. If this man weren’t threatening to expose her identity and destroy her and Nicholas’s life, she might almost have laughed.
“That’s it? That’s your connection? The nine-year London thing?”
Jean bristled. “It’s a link.”
“It’s nothing of the sort! It’s a coincidence! And I didn’t disappear. I left. I needed a new start and I got one.”
“A coincidence?” said Jean. “Really? Let’s fast-forward, shall we? New York City, three years later. A Pissarro is stolen from a private residence on Fifth Avenue in broad daylight by a woman posing as an employee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Does that not sound like one of your jobs to you?”
“It sounds audacious,” Tracy conceded. “I like the broad-daylight part. But I was nowhere near New York at that time.”
Jean went on.
“Okay. Chicago A diamond bracelet and two pairs of matching earrings are stolen from a Neil Lane store. Not only were cameras and alarms disabled and then reset, but it was three weeks before anybody discovered that the gems were even missing. The fakes used to replace them were such expert reproductions.”
“Again, impressive attention to detail.”
“But not ringing any bells?”
Tracy sipped her wine. “None whatsoever.”
“Mumbai, two years ago. An unscrupulous property developer is conned into buying a nonexistent title to a piece of land the size of a handkerchief by a beautiful young American woman whom he believes to be romantically interested in him.”
“Was the man married?”
“He was, as it happens. Why do you ask?”
Tracy shrugged. “Serves him right, then, wouldn’t you say?”
“I’ll tell you what I would say.” Jean Rizzo leaned across the table. “I would say that every one of these jobs has your name written all over it.”
“Except for the one tiny issue . . . that I wasn’t in New York or Chicago on the dates in question! As for Mumbai, I’ve never been to India in my life. And Hong Kong and Lima and . . . all of these . . .” She pushed the stack of files that Jean had placed on the table between them back in his direction. “I haven’t left the United States in nine years, Inspector. Ask any mother at Nicky’s school if you don’t believe me. I’ve been right here, in Steamboat Springs. The whole town’s my alibi.”
A waitress came over and removed the vongoles, untouched. Jean Rizzo ordered coffees and a plate of cantuccini. All that wine on an empty stomach was starting to go to his head.
Tracy said, “I’d like to help you, Inspector. I would. I think what happened to these women is horrific and I hope you get the guy who d
id it. But you came here looking for Tracy Whitney, and the truth is that Tracy Whitney is dead. She died nine years ago.”
“Hmm,” said Jean.
“Even if she were alive, she was never in the business of hurting people.”
“Hmm,” said Jean again.
“What? What does ‘hmm’ mean?”
“I was just thinking that for a dead chick, she pulled off a pretty neat job in L.A. ten days ago. Tracy Whitney must have been quite a lady.”
Tracy laughed. “I believe she was.”