Frame and Fortune

by Misty Simon

It creeped me out a little that this could possibly be the guy who had been hitting the people in town for their frames. But I felt relatively safe because my dad was in the house with his binoculars. On the other hand, I couldn’t imagine this guy knocking over a bunch of houses looking for frames.

  I had successfully talked myself out of being scared by the time we reached the garage. “So, here’s what I have.”

  His eyes popped wide open when I rolled back the door to show the many frames lining the inside of the building. I thought I saw a little bit of drool collect at the side of his mouth, but maybe it was just because he was old.

  He began to haggle almost immediately, but only for one frame. He was fierce. I wasn’t up to trying to get him to pay more than twenty dollars for the large oak frame he wanted to buy, so it was a loss from Walmart. At least I’d be able to cross off one person on the list before waiting for another call. Dammit! Total waste of time.

  I helped the man out to his car with the bulky frame. Patting the twenty in my front pocket, I waved him out of my driveway. Now I had to go in and tell my dad it was a no-go. After that, I’d call Ben on his cell to let him know it was a bust.

  When I tromped into the kitchen, the heavenly smell of something spicy filled the kitchen. My dad was sitting at the table instead of looking out the window. He and Ben were talking, but the conversation abruptly halted when they saw me. Dammit, I shouldn’t have announced my presence. I could have gotten the main scoop, but I hadn’t even seen Ben enter the house. Very weird.

  “Ivy!” my dad boomed. I knew right away he had been interrogating Ben on his intentions toward me. I gave Ben a glare I hoped he interpreted correctly. I would kill him myself if he’d said anything to my dad about wanting to marry me. It was bad enough he’d practically moved into my house without my permission.

  “I only sold one frame. He doesn’t look like our guy.” Yanking open the refrigerator, I pulled out a bottle of water. “I’m going down to the Shoppe now to help Charlie close up for the day. I’ll be back later.”

  “Don’t be too late,” Ben called to my retreating back. “The beef stew will be done in about an hour, and I’m making biscuits from scratch.”

  I closed the door on my dad asking if he could stay over for dinner. Did Ben think cooking was the way to my heart? I wouldn’t say no to the delicious-smelling stew, but he already owned my heart. I hoped he knew that.

  Forty-five minutes later, I waved Charlie out of The Masked Shoppe. He bounced merrily down the stairs with his first paycheck in his pocket and a smile on his face.

  Turning back to the store, I made one last check of the front room. Everything was straight and tidy. If I wasn’t mistaken, it looked as if Mr. Hanks had been here again to buy more banana hammocks. I was glad to have escaped that visit.

  As a last precaution, I stepped into the back room with its lingerie, toys, feather boas, and beautiful sideboards.

  I’d paid dearly for the one sideboard, so I caressed it before moving on. I really wanted to hide something in its fake leg simply because I could. But I hadn’t found anything small enough yet. The last thing it had held was a sack of diamonds, but I had nothing like that.

  Everything checked out, so I went back up front to lock the door. I heard a whistle in the air, felt a crack on the back of my head, and everything went black. Again. Damn.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  I came to in the mother-loving fricking closet in the back room. How many times was this now that I’d gotten shoved into this damn thing? I gave a brief thought to having it bricked up so not everyone and their mother could stuff me into it. After blowing a feather boa out from under my nose, I whacked the door with the fake mannequin leg that had been gouging me in the thigh.

  I remembered something at the last moment. There was no longer a lock on this thing since I’d had to break it down last time. Yippee! I gently pushed on the door, waiting for the creaking noise and a breath of fresh air. Unfortunately, neither of those things happened. I did beat on the door then. Still nothing. Honestly, at this point, if the person who had hit me was still in the room, I couldn’t have cared less. I was sick and tired of getting beaned and thrown in here.

  On one particularly vicious swipe at the door, I brought my arm down along my side and felt something I had completely forgotten. My cell phone.

  Pushing speed dial button number two, I had never been so thankful for modern technology. Ben answered on the first ring, but did not sound happy in the least to hear from yours truly.

  “Where are you? I told you dinner was going to be ready in an hour, and you go traipsing off into work completely forgetting to come home. Thanks a lot.” He sounded like a fishwife.

  “Listen, Carpy, I’m stuck in the closet at the Shoppe. I would appreciate it if you could tear yourself away from the stove long enough to come save me.”

  There was a brief pause and then, “Oh, jeez, Ivy. Are you okay? I’ll be right there.” He hung up before I could say anything else. Within minutes I heard fumbling in the room outside my little space. It had better be Ben, I thought, holding the leg aloft.

  And then there was sunlight in my world and luscious lips sealed against mine.

  “Take me home,” I said once he let me breathe.

  “Right away.”

  And he did, while I tried to ignore the fact that he’d come to the Shoppe in a pink-and-white-checkered apron. At home he served me the best beef stew and homemade biscuits I’d ever tasted. But I really felt like I had to say something about this new totally domestic side of him. First, it was unnatural. Though I wasn’t entirely complaining, since everything was delicious, it still felt unnatural. Second, I would rather have him clean up after himself. Third, the carp thing had scared me.

  “Look,” I said after swallowing another bite of biscuit. I almost stopped myself right there because, really, what was wrong with him cooking for me like Betty Crocker? I had always cooked for my dad, so it was a nice change. But then I pulled up my big girl panties and waded in because this just wasn’t right.

  “Look,” I started again, and he stared at me. Okay. “I appreciate all you’ve done with the food lately, but I’m not sure if I can handle you acting like my wife when I don’t come home at the right time for a dinner you slaved over all day.” There I’d said it.

  But then I had to watch him gape at me. I felt about an inch tall. What exactly was I complaining about?

  “I was not carpy.”

  “Yes, you were.”

  “And I’m not saying I expect you home at the same time every night.”

  I chose to ignore that and go straight to the stomach of the matter. Ha-ha-ha. “Is there a reason why you are all of a sudden acting liking a domestic god?” It took serious willpower to not add “ess” on the end of that.

  He looked down at his plate, then threw his napkin on top of his unfinished roll with a mutinous expression on his face. I thought we might finally be getting to the good stuff. I wanted this whole thing to work out with him, but for that to happen we had to communicate. Which sounded really psychobabbly, but I couldn’t be bothered by that at this time.

  “I’m trying to be a good boyfriend.”

  “And you are,” I said, grabbing his hand off the table. “You were before. I don’t understand why you’re trying so hard right now.”

  He raised his gaze to mine, looking me dead in the eye. “I want to live with you. I thought if I showed you how much help I could be around here, you’d overlook the fact that I can’t seem to find the laundry basket with a hand-drawn map and a neon sign pointing the way.”

  I couldn’t help it, I laughed. I laughed long and hard.

  At first he looked offended, but then he began laughing with me. He rose from his seat, threw the apron on the counter, grabbed me from my chair, then waltzed me around the room. Or at least he tried, and that’s something.

  I stopped him when my side began to hurt. I didn’t know if it was from his flying elbow or the laughing, but
either way, I had to catch my breath. Framing his face with my hands, I stood on tiptoe to kiss his nose, then his chin, then his ears. I finally ended up at his mouth and poured everything I felt for him into that meeting of lips. “I love you. I love everything about you. Of course you can stay, after we discuss some ground rules. You can even keep cooking some nights, but I like to cook, too. You don’t have to feel obligated.”

  The look on his face was priceless. “Can I still make my Chicken Kiev tomorrow? My mom emailed me the recipe. I think I can handle it.”

  I kissed him on the cheek, then smacked his other set of cheeks. “Knock yourself out, but I’m putting up that sign for the laundry basket. You will learn where it is, regardless of whether you want to or not.”

  ****

  “We have an issue. Meet me at oh-nine-hundred at the place with the smelly stuff.”

  It was the next day. I was sure the phone was going to blow up in my hand at any second, or Q would pop on the screen with a new set of jet shoes.

  “Be there,” Detective Bartley said, then slammed down her phone before I could utter a single word.

  “Well, okay then,” I said to no one in particular.

  A grandmother type waved to me from across the street and said, “Good morning to you too, dear.”

  I enjoyed the nice greeting as I hustled down a side street, not wanting to be late for my appointment. When I got to the coffee shop, I was ushered right through without even the offer of something to wet my whistle, then shoved into the office. Bartley was pacing back and forth at the window with its drawn curtains. Her hands were in her red hair, making a mess of what had probably been a pretty nice ’do earlier.

  “So what was so urgent?”

  “I just got some lab tests back. That wasn’t Jackson’s blood Bella saw on those bed sheets in the house when she thought he’d died.”

  Well, call me Aunt Bessie and try to see up my skirt! “What?”

  “You heard me.” She ran her fingers through her hair again, making her bangs stick straight off her head. “It wasn’t even human blood. And now we think Jackson is either still in town trying to finish whatever it is he started, or he’s hightailed it out of town and we’ll never find him.”

  “Well, that’s unacceptable.” I said it before I thought better of it. Immediately, I clamped my lips closed. I didn’t think I was going to get away with such impertinence (nice!) without some kind of backlash.

  But it never came. Instead, she said, “I hate to ask this, but do you think Bella would let us arrest her again?”

  “Wow. I guess I’d have to ask, but I bet she’d be game if she thought it would help you catch Jackson for real…and let her wear her own clothes this time.”

  “Deal.”

  And we shook on it. Now all I had to do was deal with what I assumed was going to be a truly pissed-off Bella Landry.

  ****

  “You have got to be shitting me.” This was probably the fifteenth time Bella had said those exact same words. Every time the inflection changed, but my answer never did.

  “Nope.”

  “Bella,” Jared jumped in finally, after sitting with his head in his hands for the last ten minutes. “I think it’s a good plan. Not necessarily what I would do, but still a good one. It relies on his ego, and you know how inflated that is.”

  “Yes, I do, but I can’t believe the bastard is still alive. I cried over him. Cried!” She tugged at the ends of her hair in a parody of the detective. “Cried!” she yelled.

  I patted her arm to show her I understood.

  Without warning, she whipped around toward Jared. “Do you still want to marry me?” She pointed an accusatory finger at her lover, but he only smiled.

  “Of course.”

  “Swear?”

  “It would be my absolute pleasure to have you forever.”

  That should have sounded really sweet. It would have, too, if you only took the words into account. But the delivery made me all hot and shivery inside. I couldn’t imagine what it was doing to Bella.

  But then I didn’t have to imagine because she launched herself at him in his chair. She nearly took them both down to the floor.

  “Okay, then,” I said over the slurping. “I’ll see you guys tomorrow. Don’t mind me. I’ll just show myself out.” And I left them to celebrate their engagement. On the tile floor. I hoped Bella had a strong back.

  I made it back to my house without incident. I let myself in through the front door, calling out for Ben. Something sickeningly sweet descended over my brain, and I fell to the floor like a broken doll.

  ****

  I woke up to scraping and banging, with my cheek pressed against a cold hard floor that smelled of grass. Okay. I kept my eyes shut and tried to assess the situation before giving up the fact that I was awake. I slitted my eyes, hoping to find out more about those sounds, and got the shock of my life. The little old man from this afternoon was dragging all my frames into the back of his van. I was lying on my own garage floor. Was he the one who kept conking me and shoving me into tight spaces? And what about that picture of me in my peach pants?

  I was so very tired of being knocked out, but at least this one hadn’t been a blow to the head, though my skull felt tender. I didn’t know if there were any lumps yet, but I guessed not.

  So here I was, and I had no idea what to do. My brain raced. Should I get up? Try to overpower him? But I had thought he was harmless earlier. What if I had been wrong about that, too? And I didn’t know if anyone was in the house, though I figured he wouldn’t have knocked me out if there had been. Maybe Ben had been called away. Maybe my dad had never shown up as threatened. If both of those were true, than I had no backup that I knew of. Crap.

  I lay still for another moment or two, still having no idea what I was going to do. In the meantime, he had picked up the last frame, so it was now or never. I was leaning heavily toward never, but then what would that do for Ben and his story?

  I gauged how far away he was, then jumped to my feet in one of the most fluid movements of my life. I thought I screamed some kind of karate phrase, but couldn’t be sure, because at the same time a foghorn seemed to be clogging my ears. It did nothing positive for the headache already sitting in my skull.

  “Mr. Needleheim?” I heard out of the dark once the siren stopped. It was Ben, and he looked shocked. “What are you doing?”

  I thought it was pretty obvious. I almost said so before Mr. Needleheim popped in.

  “I just knew it was going to come to this.” His voice was much stronger than it had been yesterday. Jeez, was that only yesterday afternoon? I was worn through.

  “What are you doing?” Ben asked again.

  “Well, you see, it’s like this.” And the guy sat down in one of my lawn chairs like we were around a bonfire waiting for him to tell us a ghost story.

  I gave Ben a disbelieving look, but he shushed me with his hand before I could get any words out.

  Then Mr. Needleheim started his monologue. What is it with the monologue?

  “I’ve worked insurance for thirty years, boy, and I’m tired. I don’t think you were born yet when my brother tore out of here at the age of twenty. He lived a life of crime, see, but when he died last year he left me something I couldn’t resist. And I had a real knack for it, so I took the chance at early retirement.”

  Well, that was about as clear as the pancake batter down at Mad Martha’s.

  “Huh?” Ben said, echoing my thought.

  “Paintings, boy, paintings! I used to be a pretty good artist when I was younger, and my brother forged a lot of paintings before he up and died. I knew what he was doing but never said a word to anyone. When he died I took over for him, but I didn’t have the connections for the frames. I couldn’t just walk into the Artists’ Attic”—argh with the alliteration already!—”and ask for ten frames without someone wanting to know why. So I stole them.” He stood, then hitched his pants up at the waist, puffing out his chest. “I stole t
hem all and would have gotten away with it, too.”

  “If it weren’t for you meddling kids,” I said quietly.

  Ben cracked a smile, but immediately got it back under control. This was not a laughing matter. “Have you tried to pass off any of the paintings?”

  “Nah, I didn’t have those connections, either, but I thought I might know where to start. Now I won’t get the chance.” He looked like a child who had had his favorite toy taken away. A small part of me felt sorry for him, but then I remembered getting knocked over the head when he’d stolen my frames. The feeling dissipated pretty quickly.

  “Have you knocked me out over and over again?” I asked, not caring if it was rude. Puh-lease, as Bella said.

  The old man had the gall to look offended. “I only hit you twice. Once when I took the frames from your house and once just now. I wouldn’t call that over and over again, young lady.”

  Not the answer I was looking for, but since I was sputtering with indignation there was nothing else I could say.

  Ben ushered me toward the house with the promise of taking care of the rest of it. I went into the house to get some aspirin. Oy, did my head hurt.

  When he came in without Mr. Needleheim, I admit I was baffled. “What happened?”

  “Well, I let him go.”

  “You what?” My hearing must have been failing, too.

  “I let him go.” Putting his hands in his pockets, Ben shrugged his shoulders. “I couldn’t turn him in, and he promised he’s going to put the frames back at people’s houses tonight after he watches Jeopardy on the Game Channel. He never sold anything. It’s not a crime to imitate the masters if you don’t try to market the results as anything but copies.”

  I had a few things to say about that, but my damn phone rang, James Brown screaming down the house and splitting my head in two.

  “What?” I snarled.

  “It’s time,” Bella answered. “I’m going to do it in five minutes. Hustle, baby, or you’re going to miss the show.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  And what a show it was. Bella left a message on Jackson’s voice mail telling him she hoped he was okay, and she’d gotten his message with the blood. She wanted to be with him just as much as he wanted her. Now they could be free together. But first, she was being blamed for his murder.