Another Day, Another Dali

by Sandra Orchard

  I strode to the door and swallowed hard, forcing calm, cool, and collected into my voice. “Hey, Tanner, what’s up?”

  Tanner rested his forearm on the edge of the doorframe and leaned into it ever so casually. “Is that a trick question?”

  “No, what are you doing here?”

  “Your father invited me for dinner.”

  For a nanosecond, I suspected he’d made up the invitation as an excuse to play watchdog for drive-by shooters, until a whisper of uneasiness snuck into his eyes as he shifted his attention to Mom. “He didn’t tell you?”

  “No worries,” Mom exclaimed, cheerily waving away his concern. “You’re always welcome.” Once upon a time, Tanner had been a star pupil in my father’s second-year economics class, and they’d gotten reacquainted when Tanner was assigned as my field-training agent. I’d still been living at home at the time, and Mom had invited him in for dinner when he’d followed me home so I could change before a surveillance stint. He’d won Mom over with his assurances that he’d always have my back. My dad had just been excited to have a guest who understood his economic words of wisdom.

  In Dad’s mind, everything about the world and human nature could be compared to the stock market, so having someone at dinner versed in the lingo made his day. And he’d made a point of inviting Tanner back at every opportunity. Sometimes it drove me a little crazy. Tonight . . . I was grateful for the reinforcements.

  Stepping inside, Tanner swept his arm from behind his back and offered Mom a colorful bouquet. “These are for you.”

  Mom blushed. “Oh my, you didn’t need to do that.” She beamed up at me with her he’s-a-keeper eyes, before bustling off to the kitchen in search of a vase.

  “I hope you know what you’re in for,” I whispered in his ear.

  Tanner glanced at Dad’s car pulling into the driveway with Nana. “Your dad mentioned something about needing an impartial referee.”

  “Hah.” I stepped out to hold open the screen door since Nana had decided she needed to use a walker to get around tonight. “You are so not going to think this is worth a free meal.”

  Nana hobbled inside, muttering about the uncomfortable ride in Dad’s little car. Dad’s disinterest in status symbols had never ceased to be a disappointment to her. While the streets named after prestigious universities gave Mom and Dad’s neighborhood an air of respectability, it wasn’t prestigious enough for Nana’s only child. She’d wanted Dad hobnobbing with the upper class. But Dad hated pretense. He’d just wanted to live in a nice neighborhood with a good school and to be within walking distance of his job at Wash U.

  At the sight of Tanner, Nana paused in the doorway, straightening to her full five-foot-eight, straight-as-an-arrow height. “Who is this young man?”

  “My colleague Tanner Calhoun.”

  He stuck out his hand. “Pleased to meet you, ma’am.”

  Nana’s jaw tightened, her gaze shifting to mine, telepathing Why is your colleague joining us for dinner?

  Apparently, Dad could read her mind too, because he climbed the stoop behind Nana and said, “I invited him to join us.”

  Nana’s demeanor warmed considerably at the news, no doubt assuming that, as requested, I hadn’t shared any information about Gladys’s missing painting after all. But I had a bad feeling that keeping Aunt Martha from saying anything about the case wouldn’t be easy.

  Aunt Martha bustled into the dining room, carrying a large pan of shepherd’s pie between her giant oven mitts.

  The kind of oblong cake version of meatloaf with mashed potatoes squashed on top had been one of my more favorite meals as a kid . . . when Mom stuck to mixing vegetables like peas and corn with the beef, not . . . brussels sprouts.

  “Sit, sit. Dinner’s ready.” Aunt Martha’s gaze skittered across each of us, and when she spotted Tanner, she frowned.

  “I seem to be back in her bad books,” he whispered close to my ear.

  “No accounting for taste,” I said with a shrug. The truth was, Aunt Martha was secretly, or maybe not so secretly, rooting for Nate to be my beau. He’d been her apartment superintendent for several years before she convinced me to take over her place. A scheme that I now suspected was designed to throw Nate and me into each other’s paths.

  Not that Dad’s impromptu invitation meant Dad was rooting for Tanner. At least . . . I didn’t think so.

  Dad said grace and then launched into a discussion with Tanner about last week’s market dip.

  Nana spooned a bird-sized portion of shepherd’s pie onto her plate, then proceeded to study it as she sipped her water. Mom scooped up a big helping and began shoveling it into her mouth, no doubt to keep from saying anything she’d regret if Nana got around to voicing whatever she was thinking.

  “It smells delicious,” I said to Aunt Martha, who rewarded me with a beaming smile.

  “How are plans for the drop-in center fundraiser coming along?” Aunt Martha asked, directing the question to Nana.

  Tanner must’ve heard my sudden intake of breath because he shot me a concerned glance.

  I knew Aunt Martha too well. The question was a ploy to get around to talking about art—Gladys’s art.

  “Quite well, thank you for asking.” Nana picked up her fork and held it in precisely the right way as she nudged a minute sample of the food onto the tines.

  I readjusted my cavewoman hold on my fork and shot Aunt Martha an ixnay-on-where-I-know-you’re-going-with-this glare.

  She ignored it. “I’m delighted you’ve decided to include a few of the youths’ pieces in the silent auction. Will that charming Tyrone’s be one of them?” She patted her napkin to her lips, the picture of innocence. “I met him last month when I filled in for Serena’s assistant. Such an accomplished chap. I’m thinking of buying one of his pieces.”

  Nana deflected the question to me with a shift of her gaze.

  “Oh. Um, that was the plan,” I said vaguely, still hoping I could convince Tyrone to change his mind about pulling his piece.

  “Will you purchase a new piece for yourself, Stella? I couldn’t help but overhear, when you called looking for Serena yesterday, that you’d wanted her advice on some art.”

  “Perhaps.” Nana’s interest in the food on her plate intensified.

  I tapped my foot against Tanner’s leg and with a head twitch in Aunt Martha’s direction, signaled I could use some help.

  The serving spoon he’d just filled with seconds paused in midair. “The meal is delicious, Martha. How do you get such a nice flavor in the meat?”

  “HP Sauce,” Aunt Martha said and returned her attention to Nana.

  I widened my eyes at Tanner to induce him to say more, but he shrugged and mouthed I tried, then tucked into his seconds.

  “The housekeeper who works next door to your friend Gladys,” Aunt Martha chattered on, “said your friend had an expensive painting nicked.”

  Nana’s fork clattered against her plate. “Why am I not surprised? Can never trust the help to mind their own business.” She looked to Dad. “Remember the trouble I had with that busybody housekeeper I had to let go after your father died?”

  “That’s it!” Aunt Martha exclaimed, and all our gazes snapped to her.

  “What’s it?” Mom asked.

  “The housekeeper. Her name was Horvak, wasn’t it?” Aunt Martha asked Nana and then turned to me. “I told you the name sounded familiar. Eight months. Eight months I’ve been racking my brain, trying to remember where I’d heard it before.”

  My mouth went dry. Petra—the woman who’d orchestrated the Forest Park Art Museum heist—was a Horvak. A Horvak who’d claimed to know who killed my grandfather. A claim I hadn’t been able to substantiate since a sniper took her out to save the man she’d kidnapped.

  At Nana’s yes to Aunt Martha’s question, my own questions piled up in my mind, but I couldn’t push a single one past my thickening throat. I didn’t remember much about Nana and Granddad’s housekeeper. Only that Nana had fired her
soon after Granddad’s death. I’d assumed it was because Nana put the house up for sale, but apparently it had been something the housekeeper had said . . . or knew.

  Inexplicably, my attention shifted to Nana’s hands deftly cutting the meat on her plate. They were pale and bony and bedecked with gold rings studded with gemstones. I gasped, a memory of the night Granddad died flitting through my mind. I’d been ten years old, staying over to paint with Granddad while Nana went out to a church event. When we’d heard a car pull in the driveway, Granddad had scooted me back to my room through the secret passage, saying Nana would have his hide if she saw he’d let me stay up so late. Except I didn’t because I heard strange noises and got scared. I remembered seeing a pinpoint of light seeping through the paneled wall, and when I stuck my eye to it, I saw a hand returning a book to the shelf.

  My breath stalled in my throat. It couldn’t have been Nana’s. She wasn’t a murderer.

  I forced my attention from Nana’s hands to Tanner. After hitting nothing but dead ends trying to substantiate Petra Horvak’s claim, Tanner had convinced me the woman’s assertion had been nothing more than a well-researched ploy to buy herself time to get away.

  Now . . . a hint of doubt shadowed his gaze as it shifted to Nana. “What was your housekeeper’s first name?”

  I was still holding my breath and got a tad lightheaded. Her housekeeper couldn’t have been Petra. She was too young. And Horvak had been Petra’s married name, so it couldn’t have been her mother.

  Nana shot Tanner an indignant look. “Why on earth should you care about the name of my former housekeeper?”

  “Her name was Lucille,” my father said in a tone that warned us not to answer Nana’s question, which was fine by me. The only other female Horvak with a familial connection to Petra was her ex-husband’s deceased mother, and her name was Irina.

  I imagined Dad didn’t want us to upset Nana by bringing up Granddad’s unsolved murder. Not that I’d ever seen her get terribly emotional over anything. She had the British stiff-upper-lip stereotype down to an art.

  Aunt Martha drew a breath as if she was about to launch into another question, but Tanner spoke up first.

  “I brought a special treat to go with our after-dinner tea.”

  “You did?” I interjected. Tanner was actually more of a coffee man, but he knew the surest way to my parents’ hearts was to embrace their British roots.

  He flashed me a wink that I didn’t like the looks of, then pushed away from the table and began picking up dishes. “Some stunning photos of Serena I thought you’d like. I’ll just help you clear the table and then maybe we can plug my thumb drive into the computer.”

  “Oh, we can view them on the new TV,” Mom said, jumping up to join him in clearing the table.

  “Brilliant idea,” Aunt Martha chimed in, not sounding put out by having her interrogation thwarted, which I couldn’t help but think should worry me. “I’ll put the kettle on and bring the plate of biscuits I fixed into the living room.”

  Dad carried a dining room chair to the living room and shifted the sofa chairs so everyone would have a good view of the TV. Nana joined him without comment, probably as relieved as I was to escape Aunt Martha’s probing.

  By the time Mom, Aunt Martha, and I joined them with the tea and cookies, Tanner had the first picture up on the TV.

  Mom gasped. “You look so happy, Serena. Ward, doesn’t she look happy?” Mom said to Dad as if it were a rare sight. She beamed at Tanner.

  Great, now my parents thought we were dating. “I was help—”

  Tanner nudged my elbow and gave me the evil eye.

  I shot back an imploring look. Couldn’t he see what they were thinking?

  He just shrugged.

  Men.

  “Is that at the paddleboats?” Aunt Martha asked as Tanner advanced to the next picture—pictures, I’d noticed, that didn’t include his suspects in the background.

  He chuckled. “I forgot to specify which sunset cruise I was treating her to.”

  “And he didn’t give me time to change.”

  “Hey, can I help it if I wanted to show you off like you were?”

  Mom giggled. “She’s never been the type to dress up much.”

  Oh, Tanner had no idea the fire he was playing with. Mom was bound to get on the phone to my aunts the second we were out of the house, and the next thing we’d know, April would be twittering about seeing us at the Boathouse and telling how Tanner looked at me and who knows what other nonsense.

  Tanner advanced through a couple more pictures. How many did the man take without his suspects?

  “You have a nice smile,” Nana offered.

  Really? Too much teeth showing, in my opinion. She must be trying to refrain from pointing out how windblown my hair had gotten.

  Tanner flicked to the next one. One of him. And an ahhh went up around the room. Well, except from Aunt Martha.

  Tanner really was a hunk, with those warm brown eyes laughing at the camera and that adorable dimple denting his cheek. He flicked quickly to the next picture.

  “So these were taken last night?” Aunt Martha quizzed. “On your date that ended before seven, with a wet frock?”

  “Yes, that was my fault,” Tanner admitted.

  Aunt Martha waved off his implied apology. “Worked out for the best. Nate took her out after that.”

  Ooh, Aunt Martha, that was harsh.

  Mom frowned, her happy bubble burst.

  Dad squeezed her hand and looked at Tanner. “You know what I say when it comes to investing—when there’s blood in the streets, that’s the time to buy. Even if it’s your own.”

  A chill skittered down my spine. Dad didn’t sound as if he was talking about investing, which meant all these dinner invitations to Tanner . . . Huh, Dad was slyer than I thought.

  “Oh, look at that.” Aunt Martha pointed to the TV screen. “Isn’t that Tyrone, the chap from the drop-in center? What’s he doing in the bushes?”

  12

  After church on Sunday, I shared a quiet lunch with Harold—tuna fish sandwiches, minus the bread, were his special Sunday treat—then stared at the painting I’d planned to continue working on. I tried to take a complete mental break from my cases on Sundays. After all, God must’ve known what He was talking about when He said we needed rest. More than once, a breakthrough had come on Monday morning thanks to a “sudden” insightful thought about a lead, and, yes, I suspected they were God’s little rewards for resisting the temptation to work. But today, I couldn’t get that image of Tyrone at the Boathouse out of my head. He’d looked as if he were hiding in the bushes.

  But why?

  Was he spying on someone? On me?

  I’d never broadcast the fact that I was an FBI agent to my class at the drop-in center, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t have found out. He’d always struck me as a pretty good kid. Sure, he shared the bad-boy, swaggering attitude of his hero artist Basquiat, but I suspected that was more a front against his peers who relegated any art, other than graffiti, to sissy’s play. Then again, I couldn’t ignore the fact that his neighborhood was a hotbed of crime. His brothers had been arrested more than once on charges ranging from petty theft to possession.

  Harold twined around my legs, purring.

  I picked him up and scratched behind his ears. “Talking to Tyrone isn’t really working a case. He doesn’t have anything to do with my cases. It’s more concern for his well-being, and acting on that would be a good thing to do on a Sunday, right?”

  Harold dug his head deeper into my palm.

  “Yeah, yeah, I know, your vote is for my petting you all afternoon.” I set him down on his favorite chair. “Maybe when I get back, we can find Nate and watch the movie I borrowed from my colleague. And you’ll get all the fuss you want. Deal?”

  Harold’s whiskers twitched as if he’d have to give it some thought.

  I traded my painting smock for a Wash U sweatshirt over my jeans and tugged on my snea
kers. “I’ll be back soon.”

  I took the exterior stairs down and couldn’t help but hear the raised voices coming from Nate’s apartment below mine. I hadn’t seen him since I left him with his brother Friday night, which was not like him, considering he had to know I’d be anxious to hear what the attack was about, let alone whether his brother had seen through our masquerade.

  I stepped past the open window, still within earshot but outside their view.

  “Honest like you?” Randy hissed, his tone so caustic my ears burned. “I should’ve known you’d never stoop to helping a woman dupe her husband, no matter what her sob story. You could’ve told me the truth. It’s not like I don’t know what you really are,” he spat out.

  My heart pounded. I never should have agreed to continue the charade after Nate and I ran into his brother. It was my fault Randy was mad at him. It was surprising Randy ever bought into Nate’s story in the first place. Sure, Nate would help a woman in distress, but not by cheating her supposed husband out of his wealth.

  “Does Serena know?” Randy went on.

  “Of course not,” Nate said so quietly I scarcely made out his words. “So you’re not going to help us?”

  Know what? What did Nate figure out that he hadn’t bothered to share with me?

  “I’d never be welcome there again if they knew I talked to an FBI agent. You know that. It’s not like they’re criminals. The people buying the paintings from them know they’re copies. My friends aren’t trying to pass the pieces off as anything else.”

  “Maybe not, but they have to know some of their clients are,” Nate said.

  “Try making a living painting and then see if you’re still so quick to judge.”

  Was Randy still trying to make a living with his art—one way or the other? Would Nate cover for him if he knew he was eyeball-deep in one of my cases?

  It looked as if I’d need to put surveillance on Randy, question him about my mugger.

  Someone touched my shoulder and, reflexively, I jerked up my fist and pivoted, ready to take the person out.