Not that I should feel guilty. I returned to the kitchen and fixed my hot cocoa. I’d put in way more than my quota of hours for the week. It wasn’t as if I was racing against the clock to save a kidnapped child or track down a serial killer.
I carried my hot cocoa to my easel in the living room. Sipping the cocoa, I compared the photos I’d taken of the bridge over the river near the Grand Basin in Forest Park with the scene emerging from my canvas. I wasn’t sure why, but something about bridges and water spoke to me more than any other image.
I mixed ultramarine blue with a touch of black and added shadows to the river beneath the bridge.
A squeak from the vicinity of the floor made me jump, sending a streak of muddy blue across my canvas.
“Harold, get in here!” I shouted as our mouse dashed across the living room.
Harold zoomed past my easel and slapped his paw on the mouse’s tail. The mouse skidded to a stop, and then Harold seemed at a loss to know what to do next.
“Hold it.” I ran to my bedroom for a shoe box.
The doorbell rang. Shoe box in hand, I peeked out the peephole and yanked open the door. “Nate, am I glad to see you. Is that the trap?”
“Yes.” I reached for it, but Nate swung it out of my grasp. “Unless ‘trap’ is some kind of code for ‘ambush’?”
“Huh?” He held it easily out of my reach as—hello?—the mouse was probably making his getaway.
“Your personal security detail isn’t just around the corner ready to take me out?”
My personal what? Oh, he meant Tanner. “Cute.” Men! Could they not focus on priorities? I snagged the bottom of the trap and pulled it out of Nate’s hands.
“I brought a live trap, because I hate the idea of killing the poor little guy if we don’t have to.”
“Aw.” He was nothing but a big softie. Who could stay annoyed with that? “In here,” I said, hurrying toward the living room.
Except apparently Harold shared Nate’s sentiment about killing, because at the sight of Nate, he lifted his paw and let the mouse escape. “No!”
Harold sprang on it again, and I kind of felt sorry for the little guy.
Nate snagged the shoe box I’d tossed. “Hold still, Harold.”
That was Harold’s cue to lift his paw. Maybe he and I had more in common than I’d realized. I’d been tempted more than once to release a quaking, desperate-eyed suspect. Then again, I doubted it was pity that caused Harold to let up on our mouse.
Thanks to Nate’s quick reflexes, the mouse soon had a shoe box cell. “I’ll relocate him outside, but you’ll probably want to set the live trap along a kitchen wall in case he’s left buddies behind.”
“Right.”
Nate’s head tilted sideways, his gaze on my painting. “Interesting.”
“That”—I motioned to the swipe of muddy blue springing from my river onto the bridge—“wasn’t deliberate. It’s the mouse’s fault.”
A mischievous smile curved his lips. “Wasn’t it Beecher who said, ‘Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures’?”
My eyes widened of their own volition. I knew the quote, but I was amazed Nate did. A pet sitter, a tea connoisseur, and an art enthusiast. The surprises kept coming.
To think when I bailed on tonight’s dinner with my parents, my mother had complained that I never do what she wants. Yet right now, I couldn’t help but think Nate would be a fun guy to date. Something that would please my mother very much. Far too much. Except . . .
My gaze slid to the ruined painting as his words—paints his own nature into his pictures—sank in. I planted my hand on my hip. “What are you saying? I’m a mess?”
He chuckled. “More like unreinable.”
I frowned. “I don’t think that’s a real word.” Although at least he’d said it like it wasn’t a bad thing.
9
I checked my watch—still an hour before I had to meet an informant—and strolled into the living room. Sipping my tea, I assessed the bubbly froth I’d added to yesterday’s oops streak on my painting. It almost looked as if a mischievous boy had thrown a rock into the river to watch the splash. I pictured a younger version of Nate standing on the bridge, dropping the biggest rock he could lift over the side. “Unreinable, indeed.”
A rap at the door jolted the tea out of my cup. For crying out loud, what was with me? I’d never been this jumpy. “Just a minute,” I called, hurrying to the kitchen to rinse the tea from my hand. Who would visit on a Monday morning? If I hadn’t worked all weekend, I’d already be on my way to headquarters. I peeked out the peephole.
A rainbow-colored, multi-pom-pomed ski beanie filled my field of vision. Either Aunt Martha had gotten a new hat or the circus was in town.
I threw back the dead bolt and opened the door. “Aunt Martha, what are you doing here?”
“I thought we could shop for Janessa’s baby shower gifts. You didn’t forget it’s this Friday, did you?”
My younger cousin was having a baby—how could I forget that? “I’d love to shop with you, but I can’t this morning. I have to work.”
Aunt Martha pushed her way in. “Peeshosh. What are you going to do? The museum’s closed Mondays.” She tugged off her crazy hat, then hunkered down on the floor and dangled the pom-poms in front of Harold, who swatted at them like they were the greatest thing since catnip.
“I do have other cases, Aunt Martha.”
“Makes no never mind. You deserve a day off. You worked Saturday. And . . .” She waggled her finger at me as if I’d been a naughty girl. “Sunday afternoon.”
“I was painting yesterday. That’s why I didn’t make it for dinner.”
“That’s not all you were doing.”
“How would you know what I was doing?” My gaze snapped to the dieffenbachia she’d also left behind with the apartment. I wouldn’t put it past her to plant a bug—the listening kind—in the plant.
Aunt Martha laid a finger alongside her nose like the TV detectives she aspired to be. “Mrs. O’Riley’s son said he saw you at a pub in Dogtown.” Aunt Martha arched a penciled eyebrow. “You telling me you’re a hoyden?”
“A hoyden? What on earth’s a hoyden?”
“A carefree, boisterous girl. Didn’t Mr. Sutton tell you?”
Ah, the newest word of the day.
“He says using it in a sentence will help you remember it.” She wrestled a pom-pom away from Harold. “If you were a girl,” she cooed to the cat, “we could call you a hoyden. You should have seen Serena when she was a girl. Oh my, she was a hoyden and a half.”
“Okay, I think you’ve mastered the word already. And yes, I mean no, I’m not a hoyden. Yes, I briefly interviewed a suspect at the pub Sunday afternoon.”
“Then your boss shouldn’t mind if you do a little shopping this morning.”
“Aunt Martha, I—” My ringing cell phone interrupted. I glanced at the screen. “Excuse me, I need to take this.”
“I have news on the Monet,” one of the dealers who’d received my email blast said in a thick French accent.
“Perfect. What do you have?”
“A dealer in Paris bought it on January 5th.”
I snatched up a pen and paper. “What’s his name and address? Does he still have it?”
Aunt Martha clapped her hands. “Isn’t this exciting, Harold? We have a lead.”
“Non,” my contact on the other end of the line responded. “He sold it to a dealer in Nice who-o-o—how do you say?—was not happy to learn it was stolen.”
“Does that dealer still have it?”
“Non, and he claims not to know who bought it.”
It wasn’t uncommon for art collectors to make purchases anonymously to keep paparazzi, other collectors, thieves, or even museum curators courting donations at bay. “Okay, I appreciate you digging up this much for me. Could you give me the names, addresses, and phone numbers of the two dealers?” I jotted down the information and hu
ng up.
“You got a break in the case?” Aunt Martha sprang to her feet without the slightest hitch, despite Saturday’s scuffle.
“Yes, the Monet turned up in Paris last month.” And if Linda told the truth on the message she’d left for her other number, that vacation she’d been on may very well have been in Paris. Linda, who was dating a senator with a direct line to my boss. I muffled a groan. Why did my strongest suspect have to be the one my boss didn’t want me to bother?
“So do you get to fly to Paris? I’ve always wanted to go back to Paris. Eat frogs’ legs.” Aunt Martha nuzzled Harold against her chin. “You’d like those.”
Harold purred his agreement as if he’d been around during her globetrotting days as a business tycoon’s personal assistant.
“No, I need to make a phone call.” Paris was seven hours ahead of us and it was already past 9:00, which meant it was—I did a quick calculation in my head—after 4:00 in the afternoon there. I scrolled through my contact list and put a call in to the FBI Legal Attaché—legat for short—in France and explained what I had. The legat had no actual authority to investigate the crime and interrogate witnesses, but he could liaison with the local police.
“Oui,” the legat agreed. “I’ll call the Police Nationale to arrange to interview the dealer here in Paris. It’s unlikely I’ll have any information for you before tomorrow.”
“I understand.”
“Then it will be a couple of days more before I can get to Nice to accompany the local police to interview the second dealer.”
Yeah, I itched to hop on a plane and do it myself. Although if there’d been any trail to be found, the dealer had probably already taken measures to eradicate it, because worse than the quarter million he’d be out if he had to reimburse his client was the tarnish to his reputation if word circulated that he’d sold a stolen painting in the first place.
Aunt Martha clicked off her cell phone as I disconnected my own. “Get your coat.”
“What? Why?”
“You want to know if that suspect of yours was in Paris too, don’t you?”
Great, now Auntie Sherlock was listening in on my phone calls. “How do you propose we do that?”
“By asking Nate’s travel agent. He’s on his way up now.”
I tried to imagine how an apartment superintendent had the time or funds to travel frequently enough to have a travel agent and decided some things were better left unasked. “Aunt Martha, I’m a federal agent. All I have to do is ask CBP to look her up.”
“CBP?”
“Customs Border Patrol.”
“Oh.” She looked crestfallen. “I’d really hoped we might hit a few shops for that gift after paying the travel agent a visit.” Her hand drifted to the knee she’d twisted in Saturday’s attack and massaged it as if it’d started to hurt again. No wonder, with the way she’d been down on the floor with Harold a moment ago.
I wanted to believe it was a ploy to guilt me into playing hooky for an hour, but I felt guilty just thinking it. “I’ll tell you what. I have to meet someone at the mall in”—I glanced at my watch—“half an hour. You can come along and start scouting potential gifts while I talk to him, and then we can select something together. Sound good?”
“Him?”
“What?”
“You said you were meeting a him.”
I rolled my eyes. “Not that kind of him.”
Surprisingly, her face brightened.
Okay, there was no figuring out my aunt. “I just need to make a quick call to headquarters before we leave.” I connected with CBP and filled the contact in on what I needed on Linda. By the time I got off the phone, Aunt Martha was explaining our change in plans to Nate at the door. “I appreciate the offer, though,” I added as I grabbed my coat.
He smiled. He had a nice smile. One that lit his eyes and made the corners crinkle. “Anytime,” he said on his way out.
Aunt Martha gave Harold one last tussle with her hat, then tugged it back on her head. “Nate’s nice, don’t you think?”
“Yes.” I turned the deadbolt to lock the hall door and grabbed my purse, trying to ignore the twinkle in Aunt Martha’s eye. “Let’s go out through the kitchen.”
The shining sun intensified the feeling bubbling up inside me that I might be on the verge of breaking the case. The informant I’d arranged to meet had given me good information in the past.
Midmorning traffic was light, making the trip to the mall a quick one, but Aunt Martha still found enough time to catalog all the nice things Nate had done for her over the years she’d lived in the apartment. She was as transparent as an empty picture frame, and I couldn’t help but wonder if she’d availed Nate of a laundry list of my noble acts too. I cringed to think about what might make Aunt Martha’s list for me. Hopefully not the time I tried to cheer her up when she was sick by sticking straws over my eyeteeth and pretending I was a walrus.
I dropped Aunt Martha off at the mall entrance, figuring there was less chance of her spying on my meeting that way. “I’ll find you in the baby boutique in about twenty minutes, okay?”
“Sure thing.” She closed the car door and waggled her fingers. “Cheerio!”
To be on the safe side, I opted to walk in by a different entrance. My informant—a pawnshop employee who’d gotten caught fencing stolen property for a buddy—was already reclining on a bench by the fountain, eating a chocolate bar.
I fished a coin out of my pocket and tossed it in. “You think wishes come true?” I asked for the benefit of anyone who might be listening.
He shook his head. “Nah, I wouldn’t waste your money.”
“Ah, c’mon, you’ve never had a wish come true?” He wasn’t in jail, so the way I saw it, he’d had at least one, even if he didn’t like the conditions so much.
He shrugged.
I surreptitiously glanced around to ensure no one was paying any attention to us, then took a seat on the bench beside him and pretended to search in my purse for a cough drop. “What have you got for me?”
“The week before Christmas, a blonde tried to sell my boss a Monet. She didn’t mention a Rijckaert.”
“But you saw the Monet?”
“Yeah. Looked like the one in your email. The woman wanted twenty grand for it, and I could tell my boss knew it was the real thing, but he tried to convince her it wasn’t and offered her a grand.”
“What did she do?”
“Said she already had an antique shop willing to give her fifteen, so if he didn’t want it, she’d go. He said he might have a client who’d be interested and asked her to come back after Christmas.”
“Did she?”
“Not that I saw.”
A sudden movement at the edge of my peripheral vision caught my attention—Aunt Martha, in her rainbow hat, hurrying to the restroom. It’d be just like her to try to eavesdrop on the conversation.
I pulled a tissue from my purse and pretended to wipe my nose. “You catch her name?”
“She didn’t leave one.”
“Can you describe her?”
“Classy looking. Real tall, except maybe that was ’cause of her high heels.” He pointed a few inches down his arm. “Her hair was about to here, wavy, pinned up on one side with a gold clip.”
So far she sounded a lot like Linda. “Body type?” I asked, returning the tissue to my purse and continuing my make-believe search of the contents.
“Slender, but curvy. She had a great body. Wore this clingy kind of dress that . . . well . . .”
I looked up from my purse. “Kept you from paying much attention to the painting?”
With an “Mmm-hmm,” he popped his last square of chocolate into his mouth, then crumpled his wrapper and tossed it into the trash.
Aunt Martha emerged from the restroom without a glance my way and headed toward the baby boutique. Maybe she hadn’t seen me after all. “Did you see what the woman was driving?” I asked the informant.
“No.”
I resisted the urge to pull out my cell phone and show him a picture of Linda. I needed to do it right, give him a photo lineup of blondes to pick her out from. Since Linda had a senator for a boyfriend, I couldn’t afford any slipups. I thumbed a lozenge out of its packet and zipped closed my purse. “And were you able to find out anything about Norman Fellowes?” When the informant called last night to ask for a meeting, I’d decided it wouldn’t hurt to see what he could find out about Norm’s debt situation.
“He worked out a deal with Manny the Masher.”
“What kind of deal?”
“He’s paying off his debt by remodeling the guy’s kitchen.”
“You’re sure?”
“That’s what one of Manny’s lackeys told me.”
“Thanks. I’ll be in touch.” I walked off without another glance his way, just in case someone had been watching. Popping the lozenge in my mouth, I visited the restroom to jot down the information while it was still fresh in my mind. If Linda had been determined to hold out for at least twenty grand, it was conceivable she’d opted to fly to Paris with it herself, maybe figuring she’d get even more.
I thumbed in the number for headquarters as I headed to the boutique to meet Aunt Martha. “Hello, Jones here. Can you put me through to the CBP officer?”
“Hold please.”
Aunt Martha waved from the checkout counter. “Over here. Look at these.” She held up a Winnie the Pooh crib sheet set and a baby mobile. “Aren’t they adorable? And these can be from you.” She held up a selection of outfits in unisex colors.
“Wow, that’s great. I’ve never seen you pick out gifts so quickly.”
“Nonsense.” She shoved her credit card at the cashier. “I know you’re in a hurry to get to work. I don’t want to keep you.”
Headquarters came back on the line.
“Excuse me a sec.” I turned and walked to a quiet corner. “Hi, yes, this is Serena. I was wondering if you have an answer for me on Linda Kempler.”
“Jones, this is Benton.”
A Fool and His Monet Page 11
