“After you had drinks with your friend, were you with anyone who’ll vouch for you?” Sam asked.
“No. Collins, my partner, isn’t here right now.”
Sam persisted. “You didn’t stop anyplace else on your way home?”
Liz stood up and looked out into the gallery, as if she heard a noise.
Sam repeated the question.
“Drinks, dinner, home. That’s about it.” She sat down without looking directly at either detective.
“Anything else you think we should be aware of about Eubie Kane?” Danny asked. “Any enemies? Anybody who disliked him intensely enough to want to harm him?”
“Not that I can think of. He was always playing the tortured artiste, which was boring and annoying, but I can’t think of anyone who truly hated him.”
“So, who found him annoying?” Danny asked.
“Most recently? Me and another gallery owner, Sophie Woods. I talked to her right after he was here that Monday, and she was steaming about how much time she wasted talking to him when he knew he couldn’t sign with her.”
They asked a few more questions before winding up the interview, thanking Liz for her time. As they walked to Sam’s truck, a young man with dark hair and a couple small Band-Aids on his face, as though he had cut himself shaving, walked past them, stopped close to the gallery and stared at them. Sam returned the stare until the man broke eye contact, knocked on the door of the gallery, and Liz let him in.
Danny stood by the driver-side door while Sam unlocked it. “She’s not telling us everything,” she said. “She skipped a step or two about what she did after she had drinks.”
Sam nodded agreement. “And she must be six feet tall and left-handed from the way she picked up that coffee pot. She could have done what it would have been hard for Amanda to do. But would Robin Jordan have let her into Bullseye? And where’s the motive? Would she kill the goose that laid the golden — or in this case, glass — egg? And fighting with Jordan that way? Killing her? I don’t see it.”
Danny didn’t seem to be paying attention to Sam’s musings. She was looking across the street. “That car over there. The guy working across the street from Bullseye that night not only saw Amanda’s Highlander, he saw Eubie Kane’s van, a beater Toyota Corolla, and what he called a classy looking silver or gray car, a BMW, he thought. That silver Beemer across the street from the gallery — wanna bet when I run the plate, it belongs to Liz?”
“She was there, too? Christ, what was going on at Bullseye, free beer night?”
“Liz strikes me as more the wine type but, other than that, I agree with you. After I see who owns that car I’ll go back and ask her one more time where she was,” Danny said, “before I go on to my next appointment.”
“If you can let me know … ” He didn’t finish the sentence.
“I’ll try, Sam. I promise.”
• • •
Liz Fairchild let Mike Benson into the gallery and locked the door before she said, “You’re not due to work today, Mike. And frankly I’m surprised you showed up at all. It’s not often a thief returns to the place he robbed.”
He handed her a fistful of bills. “I’m not a thief. I came by to give you the money for the bracelet. It was marked $95. It’s all there. I shouldn’t have taken it before I paid you but I had this hot date and wanted to give her a present. It was her birthday.”