Another Day, Another Dali

by Sandra Orchard

  Tanner yanked back his hand as if he’d touched fire. “Easy. I come in peace.”

  I dropped my defensive stance. “Sorry, you surprised me.”

  “No kidding. Have time to talk?”

  Nate’s voice drifted through the window.

  I prodded Tanner up the stairs. “Yeah, sure. Come on up. What’s going on?”

  “I was looking through the other photos I took at the Boathouse and noticed your student Tyrone in a few of them.”

  As I unlocked the door, Randy’s angry voice snagged my attention once more. “Are you going to tell her?”

  I hurriedly let Tanner in as I strained to make out Nate’s response. It was too quiet. Reluctantly, I shut the door. “You want to put the photos on my computer?”

  Tanner pulled a flash drive from his pocket. “Yeah, that would be good.”

  My laptop sat on the coffee table. I opened it and tapped in my password. “Go ahead.”

  As Tanner pulled up the photos, my gaze strayed to the door. My neck prickled, and I glanced back to find Tanner scrutinizing me.

  “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  He cocked his head with a look that said he wasn’t falling for the deflection.

  I wrapped my arms around my waist to mask an involuntary shiver. “I’d just been on my way to pay Tyrone a visit.”

  “Perfect.” His eyes narrowed. “But what’s bothering you?”

  I let out a soft huff. “I overheard Randy and Nate arguing. Randy seemed concerned about whether Nate planned to tell me something. At least, I assume I’m the her they were talking about. As far as I know, I’m the only female FBI agent Nate knows.”

  “What did he say?”

  “I missed that part, but”—at the sound of a car door, I hurried to the window and edged open the curtains. Randy was leaving—“I’m sure Nate’ll fill me in as soon as he can.”

  Tanner shook his head. “I wouldn’t be so sure. There’s something shady about him.”

  I burst into laughter. “Nate? You’ve got to be kidding me. They don’t come any cleaner.”

  “Time will tell.” Tanner motioned me to take a look at the photos he’d pulled up on my laptop. “What do you see?” Tanner asked.

  “Tyrone seems to be very interested in the guy in the black polo shirt. Do you know who he is?”

  “Yeah, Adrik Avilov. He and this guy”—Tanner pointed to a second bouncer-type dude sporting the same black polo shirt, sitting at a table on the other side of his target—“are Dmitri’s bodyguards.”

  “Dmitri’s your target?”

  “Yeah, Russian mob.”

  My heart thundered, but I managed to maintain a neutral expression. “What would a young black kid from St. Louis’s North End want with a Russian mobster?”

  “I was hoping you could tell me.”

  “I haven’t got a clue.”

  “I’d like to ask him, but I suspect he’d be more forthcoming with you.”

  “For sure.”

  “You said you were heading out when I arrived. You still game to do it now?”

  “No problem. I’ll use the pretense of having heard he pulled his art out of the auction.”

  Tanner’s cell phone rang. “Excuse me a second.”

  I nodded, then wandered to the window. Nate should’ve come up by now. He had to know I’d be anxious to hear what his brother had to say to him. At the sight of Nate heading toward the back parking lot, my gut kicked. I glanced at Tanner, who’d pulled out his notepad and was jotting down information. I slipped outside. I wasn’t ready to buy into Tanner’s suspicions of Nate, but considering the surveillance video of my mugger had picked up Nate’s brother, I was a tad disturbed he seemed to be leaving again without touching base.

  “Hey,” I called after him.

  He glanced over his shoulder. “Oh, hi.” He stopped and turned. “I figured you’d be at your folks’ today.”

  Hmm, a reasonable assumption if he couldn’t see my car parked next to his in the lot. “What did your brother have to say?”

  “He doesn’t want to help us anymore. Says it’ll hurt his reputation.”

  “You told him I was FBI?”

  “No.” His forehead crinkled. “I thought you must’ve when he met you at the MAC. He recognized you as Serena when you dropped the British accent after he was attacked.”

  “But I never told him I was FBI.”

  “Your aunt, then?”

  “Maybe. He tell you anything else I should know?”

  “Afraid not.” Nate was still standing at the corner of the building, making no move to bridge the gap between us. Tanner’s There’s something shady about him whispered through my thoughts.

  I descended the steps, expecting him to meet me halfway.

  He didn’t.

  I paused on the bottom step. “Randy tell you why he was beat up?”

  I’d never noticed Nate’s Adam’s apple before. It wasn’t particularly prominent, but it bobbed at my question. “He says he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “You believe him?”

  Nate shrugged. “I want to, but my brother’s teetered on the edge of the law before. I’m afraid he could’ve gotten himself in too deep with the wrong kind of company.”

  “What kind of company?” Tanner interjected from behind and above me. He’d stepped out onto the landing.

  Nate’s gaze lifted to his, and an emotion I couldn’t decipher flickered in his eyes. “I suspect you already know that.”

  Tanner’s slight nod acknowledged Nate’s astuteness. He jogged down the steps. “SWAT’s been called out. I’ve got to go.” He leaned close and added in a whisper, “Be careful if you pay Tyrone a visit. I don’t have to tell you what could happen if Dmitri’s men think you’re nosing into their business.”

  “I’ll be careful.”

  “I better go too,” Nate said, his light tone sounding forced. He waved, then turned and headed for his truck.

  Not like himself at all. Not a good sign. Not at all.

  Traffic was light between my place west of Forest Park and the North End where Tyrone lived. Many residents of St. Louis never ventured north of Delmar Boulevard for fear of landing in a scary neighborhood. Tyrone’s would fall into that category. The houses were mostly old, brick two-stories with scarcely enough room to walk between them. And the number with boarded windows scattered throughout the neighborhood didn’t help its reputation. But at this time of day, the wide, tree-lined streets were pretty empty.

  I wasn’t sure where exactly Tyrone lived, but I knew Charlenae, one of the drop-in center volunteers, would, so I parked in front of her house. That and I figured my car would be safer there. Her husband was a two-hundred-fifty-pound construction worker. Any sane person would think twice before messing with a car parked in front of his house.

  Charlenae was sitting on her front stoop with a glass of lemonade. “Hey, girl, what brings you here?” she called out as I climbed from my car.

  “I wanted to talk to Tyrone. He lives on this street, right?”

  “Just past the next intersection.” She motioned up the street. “The one with the chain-link fence, two houses in from the corner.”

  “Thanks. Okay if I leave my car here?”

  Charlenae’s lips twitched into a smile. “Yeah, we’ll make sure no one messes with it. Got time for a lemonade first?”

  “That’d be great.”

  “Be right back.”

  As Charlenae slipped inside, I made myself comfortable on the stoop and watched Tyrone’s place. A wiry old man came out of the house, carrying a large paint canvas and propped it in the backseat of an old burgundy sedan parked at the curb. Apparently, Aunt Martha wasn’t the only art enthusiast buying Tyrone’s paintings. Good for him. The car cruised past, and I made a mental note of the license plate number for no particular reason, except that the driver might be why Tyrone was at the Boathouse Friday night.

  Charlenae retu
rned and handed me a tall glass of lemonade. “Hey, isn’t that your auntie?” She pointed toward Tyrone’s.

  Dad’s car—she must’ve borrowed it—was parked on the side street, and Aunt Martha approached Tyrone’s yard, carrying what looked like a plate of baked goods.

  “Yes.” I should’ve known she’d be as curious as I was about why he was skulking around the Boathouse Friday night.

  Aunt Martha detoured across the street toward a couple of tough-looking kids in faded jeans and black, skull-monogrammed T-shirts, cigarettes hanging from their mouths.

  Charlenae laughed. “Do you think she’s going to lecture them on the hazards of smoking?”

  Aunt Martha fanned away one of the kid’s cigarette smoke, as if that was exactly what she was doing.

  The kid grabbed Aunt Martha’s plate and the other reached for her purse.

  “Hey!” I shouted. I passed Charlenae my lemonade. “Excuse me.” I raced to the sidewalk.

  But Aunt Martha spun away so fast her purse strap ripped from the kid’s fingers, and the heavy bag caught him up the side of the head on its way back around. A rear elbow jab took the air out of the plate-holding kid.

  I stopped dead in the middle of the street and blinked. Whoa, where did my Aunt Martha learn moves like that? She was like a female version of a Jackie Chan spy movie star.

  She relieved the kid of the plate as he doubled over. “You need to learn some manners, young man.”

  The kids looked my way, their eyes widening, and took off.

  Okay, I didn’t think I looked that scary.

  “Everything okay?” Charlenae’s husband, all two hundred and fifty hulking pounds of him, said from behind me.

  “Ah, yes. Looks like between you and my Wonder Woman aunt, they figured they’d hunt for an easier mark.” I turned back in time to see Aunt Martha dart inside Tyrone’s house, no doubt thinking I might stop her if she gave me a chance to catch up.

  I mentally debated the merits of letting her talk to Tyrone alone versus joining her. Waiting won out. I needed to ask him about his visit to the Boathouse, and the last thing I wanted to do was raise Aunt Martha’s curiosity about a case involving a Russian mob boss.

  I casually leaned against Dad’s car to wait her out.

  She reappeared fifteen minutes later, minus a plate of cookies but up a painting. “Serena dear. What are you doing here?”

  “Waiting to ask you the same question.” I pushed off the car and took hold of the paper-wrapped painting to free her hands to search her purse for her key.

  “Why, I stopped by to convince Tyrone not to pull his painting from the fundraising auction. I sweetened the request by buying one of his pieces myself. I think they’ll be worth a pretty penny someday.”

  “That was nice of you.”

  She shrugged. “I do what I can.”

  “That was an impressive judo routine you pulled on the boys who tried to steal your cookies and purse.”

  She laughed. “Catches them off guard every time. Brash young men don’t expect an old woman to know how to defend herself.”

  “Where’d you learn how to do that?”

  “Oh, here and there.” She opened the back hatch and relieved me of the painting. “I wasn’t always old, you know.”

  “You’re hardly old. Seventy is the new fifty, they say.”

  “Look who’s being nice now.” She winked and opened her car door. “See you later.”

  I stared after her car. Aunt Martha never let an opportunity to grill me on my current cases pass. Something had to be up. And considering we had a psycho Russian in the picture, I didn’t like not knowing what she was up to.

  Tyrone galloped out of his house and pulled up short at the sight of me standing at the bottom of his stoop. “You can save your breath. Your aunt already talked me into resubmitting my piece for the auction.”

  “I’m glad to hear it. Mind if I ask why you pulled it in the first place?”

  He shrugged and became acutely fascinated with his jacket’s zipper.

  “Were your classmates razzing you about it?”

  His gaze bobbed up. “Yeah, that’s it. But they’re just jealous ’cause they can’t paint as good.”

  “Hmm, you are gifted, but remember pride goes before a fall.”

  He ducked his head and mumbled something that sounded like “don’t I know it.”

  “Hey,” I said conversationally, “I happened to notice you at the Boathouse last night.”

  A panicked look flickered across his eyes. He lifted his hoodie. “I got to go. I’ve got friends waiting for me.”

  “I won’t keep you. I was just wondering what brought you to my part of town. Did you come with someone?”

  “Yeah, that’s right,” he said, once again seeming to latch on to the excuse I offered.

  “I couldn’t help but notice that you seemed to pay particular attention to a burly guy in a black polo shirt. He a friend of yours?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I wasn’t paying attention to no one. I mind my own business.”

  Hmm, in this neighborhood, it was no doubt an essential survival tactic. Not that I believed him where Dmitri’s bodyguard was concerned. But—I glanced around—the middle of Tyrone’s street wasn’t exactly a safe place to press the matter. “I understand that,” I said, “but I want you to know that if you ever need my help, all you have to do is ask. You can trust me.”

  “I don’t trust nobody.” His voice cracked on the last word.

  My heart squeezed, because he sounded as if he’d learned from hard experience it wasn’t smart to trust anyone. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “What good is sorry? I got nothing to say.” He stormed off.

  Uh-huh, that went about as well as the last bath I’d attempted to give Harold. I headed back to my car and was struck by a thought. What if Tyrone’s mention of not trusting anyone was more significant than it seemed? Had he seen Dmitri’s guys do something shady?

  Might explain why Tyrone had followed them. Except if Tyrone didn’t plan on cooperating with law enforcement, what did he intend to do with whatever he learned?

  As I drove back to my apartment, I mentally itemized all the things I needed to do—question Ted and Lucas about Gladys’s painting, question Randy about his conversation with my mugger—then again, maybe I should get that second opinion on the authenticity of the painting he tried to steal first. I still needed to take a closer look at Pete’s financials too. Oh, and run the plate of the guy I saw driving away from Tyrone’s.

  He was probably a friend of the family, wanting to encourage the boy in his artistic pursuits. Like Aunt Martha. I drove another block, noting the boarded-up windows in too many of the brick two-stories and imagined what else “friends of the family” might do with Tyrone’s paintings. I eased my foot off the gas.

  It’s Sunday, I reminded myself and pressed my foot down again.

  It was no good. It’d only take a minute to look up the plate, and the wondering would drive me crazy all night if I didn’t. I pulled over to the curb and buzzed the radio room to ask them to look up the plate on NCIC.

  “The car belongs to Truman Capone,” the operator reported a couple of minutes later and rattled off the address, which was a few blocks away. “His record is clean.”

  Aside from the unfortunate last name.

  “No outstanding warrants.”

  “Thanks.” I texted Tanner the info and details of my conversation with Tyrone. I figured I could afford to leave paying Capone a visit until tomorrow to give myself time to research his background and come up with a decent cover story for showing up on his doorstep. Didn’t want to burn my bridges with Tyrone if the customer happened to not take kindly to an FBI agent poking around, asking questions, and gave Tyrone grief for it.

  And I did promise Harold a movie . . . if Nate had returned from wherever he’d been off to. I pulled back onto the street, our earlier stilted conversation replaying in my mind.

&nbs
p; “Call Aunt Martha,” I said to my smartphone.

  She picked up on the second ring. “I wondered how long it would take you to figure out what I was up to.”

  Okay, whatever it was, I had a feeling I wouldn’t like it. I bit back my question about Nate’s relationship with his brother and instead mumbled an “Uh-huh” that sounded as if I knew what she was talking about.

  “Did you check out the guy who drove away from Tyrone’s place with one of his paintings?”

  I slowed the car. “Ye-e-es. His record is clean.”

  “Huh. Not what I expected. I figured he was some scoundrel using Tyrone’s talent to his own selfish ends.”

  I’d had the same thought, but . . . I still wasn’t following what Aunt Martha thought I’d figured out about her actions.

  “I mean, I’d gone there intending to buy one of his paintings anyway,” she went on, “to encourage him and all.”

  “Hmm . . .” I interjected, hoping she’d get around to talking about what I still wasn’t getting.

  “It would be an unbelievable coincidence if they were a match. But he has painted lots of copies of famous paintings. Impressive copies. And he sure got his knickers in a knot when I asked him about the one he sold to the guy in the car.”

  Whoa. I swerved into my apartment’s driveway. “You think Tyrone forged Gladys’s painting?”

  “Don’t you? Why else would we test the paint? Do you have another forgery case you’re working on?”

  Test the paint? Of course. To see if it matched the paint used in the Dali. Aunt Martha really was brilliant sometimes.

  “Not that it’s illegal for him to sell a copy he’s made, as long as the buyer knows, right? I hate to see him get into trouble. With the right encouragement, he could have such a bright future.”

  “Yes, um, while I have you on the phone.” I parked next to Nate’s truck. He was back. Perfect. “What can you tell me about Nate’s relationship with his brother?”

  “Is Randy showing an interest?” Aunt Martha asked, a giddy, mischievous tone creeping into her voice.

  “No, nothing like that. Nate just seemed out of sorts after his brother’s visit this afternoon, but he didn’t want to talk about it.”