“If he keeps floating theories, he’ll sound like a fool,” Monty said.
“Well, he can’t exactly come out and say that Toland’s society darlings gave their jewelry to Nicholas Scratch in order to help finance the HFL movement but claimed the jewelry was stolen in order to collect the insurance money. But the stones are gone because someone put them in the bear, and the bear ended up in Lakeside with Lizzy, and that means Scratch doesn’t have the fortune he expected.
“And that brings us back to Elayne Borden,” Burke continued. “How does a woman go from being the lover of a disgraced police officer to the lover of a public figure like Nicholas Scratch?”
“I’ve thought about this since I first learned about Elayne’s involvement with Scratch,” Monty replied. “Elayne, or I should say Elayne’s mother, was always fixated on social status, but her family doesn’t have the money or the clout they want to believe they have.”
“But they do have, or had, something that Scratch wanted,” Burke argued. “They provided him with some kind of connection. Otherwise, why would he get involved with Elayne or her family?”
Why would he? Monty thought. “So someone has decided that if Elayne didn’t have the jewels on her at the train station, then Lizzy has them. Why not assume that they were hidden in the apartment and left there?” Monty paused, then answered his own question. “Because the apartment had been searched even before the police became involved. Whether Elayne was in on acquiring the jewels or had found them and realized who was involved, she knew too much and she was running. Therefore, she was a liability.”
“Someone knew where the gems were supposed to be, and Scaffoldon was sent to fetch them. It isn’t likely that he thinks Lizzy still has them. If he was going to believe anything, it would be that I found the jewels and kept them.” Burke smiled. “I didn’t, but I could have hidden them in the evidence lockup or in a desk drawer.” The smiled faded. “That being said, I think it would be a good idea for Lizzy to stay in the Courtyard unless she’s with you. Now, what did you want to tell me?”
Churned up about Elayne, and feeling he had forgotten something, Monty set the newspaper on the desk and pointed to an article about a woman being killed in a random attack while out shopping with her family.
“Heather Houghton?” Burke said.
“She worked at Howling Good Reads. Resigned last month after Meg Corbyn . . .” Monty’s throat tightened.
“Ms. Corbyn saw this?”
“Saw something. Meg reads the Lakeside News. I don’t know if anyone else in the Courtyard does.”
“You should make Simon Wolfgard aware of this.” Burke sighed. “It’s so seductively easy to think that using the cassandra sangue’s pronouncements will make the bad things go away, that we’ll be forewarned about anything and everything and will avoid being in the wrong place at the wrong time. But it’s not always true.”
“No, sir. It’s not always true.”
Monty met up with Kowalski in the parking lot. The younger man glanced at the newspaper, then got in the car, saying nothing.
“You saw the article?” Monty asked.
Kowalski nodded. “Heather’s family had been pressuring her to quit her job, had threatened to disown her if she didn’t quit. If she’d still been working at Howling Good Reads, she wouldn’t have been in that store, and she’d still be alive.”
“You don’t know that,” Monty said gently. Since Kowalski was feeling the same kind of pressure from his own family to distance himself from the Others, Monty didn’t offer platitudes. But he wondered exactly what was said before Meg saw that vision.