Gwenny June

  Chapter 11 – More Detecting

  Roger was back at it early the next morning. What was Glissy’s game? If she wasn’t from the authorities, wanting their Hermitage artifacts back, with the hides of those who had stolen them, who or what had sent her to the June’s house that night?

  He sat in the kitchen, staring at the Russian blues, sipping coffee. They stared back, sipping nothing. He thought at one point he detected a knowing look on the face of one of them, but he couldn’t be sure. If they could help him figure out the woman in black underwear, he wouldn’t say no. When no windfall clue emanated from them, he closed his eyes and reverted to Kipling’s Drift, Wait, Obey.

  Where could she have learned about the heist artifacts if it wasn’t from the Hermitage authorities? Where could she have learned about them here, in the States? Where? Where? They only existed in three places: the warehouse, the house on Sullivan’s Island, and the house on Kiawah Island.

  Roger and Gwen trusted all the Hermitage team members, and their special friends. There were no rats there. The only person who was not a team member or friend, and who knew about the warehouse, was Salvator. He was the antiques dealer from Savannah who they had hired to help inventory the artifacts. Roger went into the sunroom where Gwen and Catherine were sipping their coffee. He smiled at Catherine and then asked Gwen, “Salvator. Is he a rat? Did Glissy come for us, working for someone who learned about the stuff from Salvator?”

  Gwen leaned back against the sofa cushion. So Roger thought Glissy was not working for the Russian authorities. Hmm. What an idea. If not them, then who? Gwen was glad Roger was doing something constructive. Salvator. Salvator. Was he a rat? She closed her eyes, and thought. When she opened them she looked at Roger and shook her head, No, which was good enough for Roger. Salvator was in the clear. He left the room, smiling apologetically at Catherine for the interruption.

  When he had gone Catherine asked, “What is meant by this man being a rat?”

  If the leak had not come from the warehouse, then it must have come from the Sullivan’s Island house or the Kiawah Island house. These beautiful beach houses were owned by members of the Hermitage heist team. The Rodstras owned the Sullivan’s house, and the Gromstovs owned the Kiawah house. Constantine and Slevov Rodstra, Henric and Helstof Gromstov. Two heavy hitting Russian businessmen and their wives who had been co-opted into the Hermitage caper. After the theft they had come to Charleston and bought the houses, with the intention of relaxing there on the sunny beaches while their old friends in Saint Petersburg were freezing their asses off in February. Both houses had been partially furnished from the warehouse horde of stolen artifacts: carpets, paintings, china, silver, small furniture. All heritage items previously held in trust by the Hermitage Museum for the Russian people; now held in trust by the Rodstras and Gromstovs, for their personal heritage appreciation. Roger knew that neither of the couples had compromised the integrity of the heist mission. But what about someone else, a visitor to their houses who was smart enough to smell the odor of stolen goods? Valuable stolen goods.

  Roger placed this thought in front of his mind, and let his mind absorb it and change it to an intuition. It floated around and under and through his mind, and a suspicious answer appeared to the question: who in Charleston knew about Russian antiques, who could play a high stakes game over them with the Junes? The suspicion made Roger a very nervous man.