Hannah West: Sleuth in Training (Nancy Pearl's Book Crush Rediscoveries)

by Linda Johns

“Do you know how many messenger companies there are in Seattle?” Lily asked.

  “No, but I think you’re about to tell me.”

  “That’s right. I am. There are eleven. And Swifty’s isn’t even the biggest, according to my dad.”

  “And all of this supports the total significance of me seeing Swifty’s bike messengers repeatedly,” I said.

  “Maybe you notice them more because they wear purple. You’ve had this thing for purple ever since we were in second grade.”

  She had me there.

  “We need to get back on track with our case,” I said.

  “It’s not like you’ve been hired to solve this or something,” Lily said, as if that somehow needed clarifying.

  “That’s what makes us the perfect sleuths. No one notices teen girls.”

  “We’re sleuths? We’re teens?”

  “Yes, we’re sleuths. And we’re almost teens.”

  “Cool. Let’s look at this James guy. Maybe Mimi is working on some top-secret project with him at that studio,” Lily said.

  “Nina can’t keep a secret. I think if Mimi Hansen were working in her studio, she’d spill the beans. She definitely would have told Mom. And Mom would have said something to me,” I said.

  “Parents can keep secrets, you know,” Lily said.

  “Some parents can keep secrets. But Maggie West can’t,” I countered.

  “Okay. Let’s say that Mimi wasn’t using that studio. Maybe James saw Mimi’s work and was copying it,” Lily said.

  “But Mimi stopped by the studio yesterday,” I said. “If James is imitating her work, he’s totally busted.”

  “That brings us back to the theory that she uses the Studio 4 space to paint.”

  Lily’s theory that Mimi painted in the same space as Nina wasn’t exactly taking hold of my imagination. But Frankenstein was. I stayed up late reading for my English quiz the next day. I have to admit that I thought Frankenstein was a zombie guy with bolts in his neck. And even though I’d heard people refer to it as “Frankenstein’s monster,” in the original story the monster is nameless.

  Sort of like Mimi Hansen paintings. They might have titles, but they’re nameless. Or signatureless.

  CHAPTER 19

  THE 6:30 DISCO alarm came way too early Friday morning. I woke up expecting to be a character in some gothic novel. But then I looked out Owen Henderson’s window at the Bainbridge Island ferryboat crossing Elliott Bay, and I snapped back to the twenty-first-century reality.

  I didn’t give Mimi Hansen a second thought. Heck, I hadn’t even thought about Jordan Walsh. But then I got to Chavez Middle School. That’s when I saw Mimi Hansen’s little white convertible zip past me and park in the bus zone. And get this: A Channel 4 News camera was pointed right at her when she pulled up.

  The camera person came closer to the car. Mimi hopped out and smoothed her skirt. Jordan got out on her side, tossing her backpack over her shoulder and putting on sunglasses.

  The vice principal gets a little testy whenever someone parks in the bus-loading zone. But I hardly think it’s newsworthy. Something was definitely up.

  “You’re never going to guess who’s here,” I said to Lily. We met at our regular spot, the spindly maple tree at the Fifth Avenue side of Chavez Middle.

  “Let me guess. Channel 4 News?” Lily said.

  “Well, yeah, them, too. But that isn’t who I’m talking about. Mimi’s here.”

  Lily didn’t seem to connect right away.

  “Mimi Hansen is at school. And so is a news crew.”

  “What’s up with that?” Lily asked.

  “I think we’re about to find out,” I said. Grace Malone, the mouth of the middle school, headed straight for us.

  “What’s up, Grace?” I asked.

  “You’ll never guess why Channel 4 is here!” Grace oozed with excitement.

  “Are they here to give you the Perkiest Student Award?” I asked. When Grace giggled, I kind of hated myself for being sarcastic to her.

  “You know about all those paintings by that famous artist that have been stolen?” Grace whispered.

  We nodded encouragingly.

  “Well, it turns out that Jordan Walsh is her daughter! Channel 4 is doing one of those human-interest thingies, you know, where they follow people around to show how famous people are really ordinary and all that. So they’re getting some shots of Mimi and Jordan at school,” said Grace. “I bet I can guess the angle they’ll take. It will be all about how Jordan is a budding genius artist, too. This is soooo exciting!”

  Lily and I rolled our eyes at each other. I could tell that Grace was thinking over what kind of things she could say on camera, just in case the Channel 4 News crew decided to interview one of Jordan’s classmates.

  I’m not a TV expert or anything, but I’m pretty sure that following a middle-school student’s mother around Chavez Middle wasn’t going to be a ratings hit. The crew was probably just getting a few shots of Mimi letting her daughter off at school, and that was it.

  Boy, was I wrong.

  “Oh, brother,” I murmured. A camera was aimed right at each of us as we entered the art studio.

  Jack Finster made a face into the camera. Demi Demick gave a peace sign. And I, Hannah West, looked at my shoes and walked into the classroom as quickly as possible. I’m sure we all made fascinating TV.

  A woman wearing a red suit jacket and tons of makeup was talking to Ms. Murdoch at the front of the room. Ms. Murdoch was smiling and nodding, but she looked a little tense. Maybe she was worried that she’d end up on TV or something.

  “Class, we have a reporter here from Channel 4 News today,” Ms. Murdoch said. That explained why the red-jacket woman was wearing so much makeup. “They’re doing a story on Jordan’s mother, Mimi Hansen, and how she volunteers to help at Chavez Middle School’s arts programs.”

  Huh? Mimi Hansen volunteered at school? This was Jordan’s first week at this school. Besides, Mimi didn’t seem like a PTA mom or the kind of mom who helped out in the classroom. Especially not in middle school, when no self-respecting student would allow a parent inside the school. But there she was, wearing a big blue work shirt with the sleeves all rolled up, like she was ready to finger-paint with us or something.

  Ms. Murdoch told us we’d be sketching a still life that Mimi had arranged for us. She aimed some lights at the worktable, lighting up a Buddha, a pyramid, and a tall vase with spiky branches coming out.

  “Try walking around the room and looking at this from all angles,” Mimi called to us, but she was really talking into the camera.

  The camerawoman followed Jordan as she slowly circled the room. Each time she stopped, the camerawoman zoomed over to the still life, as if trying to see what Jordan might be seeing.

  “You know, I just don’t get into the classroom as much as I’d like,” Mimi Hansen said to the reporter.

  “How often do you help in your daughter’s school?” the reporter asked.

  “Try ‘never,’” I heard someone say. Could it be? Yes! Those words of truth came from Jordan Walsh herself. I’d assumed that Jordan was totally digging this TV thing. But she actually looked mortified.

  “What was that?” the reporter asked, looking around the room.

  “I said, ‘not often enough,”’ Mimi said through a clenched-teeth smile.

  “Jordan, as you know, your mom won’t allow us into her private studio at your home. Can you tell us what it’s like to work on art projects side by side at your home studio?” the reporter asked with a blindingly white smile.

  “Actually, Mom doesn’t—” Jordan began.

  Mimi rushed over to Jordan’s side. “We really like to keep our home life private, don’t we, honey?” Mimi said. I think she meant Jordan when she said “honey,” but she was talking directly to the reporter.

  I was paying way too much attention to all this. I tried concentrating on Buddha.

  Suddenly the room got darker. I looked up and realized that the T
V lights had turned off. Mimi flounced out of the room.

  “’Bye, Mom,” I heard Jordan call.

  Mimi turned and gave a dramatic wave. “Good-bye, darling,” she said with a smile. But the smile and the wave were aimed at the TV camera, not at her daughter.

  I had an icky feeling in my stomach. I wanted to look at Jordan, but I didn’t want to. I looked anyway.

  She was bent over her sketch pad. But I could tell she was crying.

  I couldn’t believe it. I actually felt sorry for Jordan Walsh.

  CHAPTER 20

  JORDAN WASN’T IN social studies or language arts. Grace Malone told Mr. Ogata it was because she was busy being interviewed for a primetime TV special.

  “Thank you for the update, Grace,” Mr. Ogata said. “I’ll make a note of that right next to the column where I’m marking her absent.”

  I was thinking about Jordan so much that when I did finally see her at lunch, I had to say something.

  “Hey,” I said. I was trying to put a lot of compassion and kindness into that one-word greeting.

  “Is it okay if I sit here?” Jordan asked. She was sitting on the stoop where Lily and I usually hang out in the morning and where I like to sit and sketch during lunch. “I mean, I know this is your spot and everything. I just don’t feel like being down there.” She motioned toward the bed of social activity in the main lunchroom.

  “It’s cool,” I said. “Want a taquito?”

  “No, but thanks,” Jordan said. “What do you draw when you’re sitting here?”

  “Just regular stuff,” I said. I didn’t mention the recent sketch of her as Medusa. “You know, I just have to keep drawing.” I glanced at her. “Do you feel like that? Like you have to draw?”

  “Um, I don’t think I’m actually very artistic,” Jordan said.

  “You must be, or you wouldn’t be in Ms. Murdoch’s art class,” I said. Geesh. I hadn’t known I could be so polite and supportive.

  “Ms. Murdoch asked to have me in her class. I have no idea why.”

  “Maybe she thinks you’re genetically programmed to be an artist,” I said. “You know, because of your mom and all.”

  “Pleeeeeze,” Jordan said. “Mom wasn’t born an artist. She just became one. In fact, when she broke up with my stepdad, she thought all artists were airhead idiots. But maybe that’s because my stepdad had an affair with an artist.”

  “Really?” I said, in what I hoped was an encouraging tone to keep her going. I was part nosy and part sincere.

  “Yeah. Mom was all wrapped up in being a hotshot public-relations person. She worked all the time. All she talked about was Wentworth Enterprises. My stepdad was a Wentworth. But he was never at work. He wasn’t at home, either. He was having an affair with a twenty-two-year-old art student who won a design competition for the new Wentworth logo. My stepdad got a new logo and a new wife. Mom got a divorce and a washed-up career.” Jordan delivered this family history with a monotone voice.

  “That’s brutal,” I said. “Maybe your mom used art to work through her problems, or something.”

  “If she did, I sure never saw her do it. She was telling that Channel 4 reporter about how private she is about her studio at home. It’s so private that I’ve never even seen it,” she said.

  “You mean, it’s locked and you can’t go in?”

  “I mean that there isn’t even a studio at our house,” Jordan said. “Not at our old house in Bellevue and not in our new house here in Seattle.”

  I had a clear picture of Jordan from her downcast eyes and the way she was talking. She might be a rich kid from the suburbs, but she was also a shy kid at a new school.

  “I have to go now,” Jordan said, looking uncomfortable.

  “Sure. Later,” I said.

  I made it back to the apartment at Belltown Towers after school without witnessing any art crimes. I’d call that a successful day. Mom was sitting at the dining-room table with her laptop computer. She had her back to the window so that she wouldn’t be distracted by the view of the water and the ferryboats. I knew that meant she was on a deadline.

  “What are you working on?” I asked. I grabbed a Granny Smith apple from the refrigerator.

  “Calendar listings for Art Voice,” she said, without looking up. Once a month she writes a column that gives previews of all the visual-arts shows going on up and down the West Coast. Her column is called “The West View.” (Clever title, isn’t it? I thought of it.) Mom’s column has quite a following.

  “This is just unbelievable,” she grumbled.

  “What’s unbelievable?” I asked.

  “Seven different galleries have planned Mimi Hansen shows this summer. They all claim that they’ll have ‘new, never-before-viewed’ pieces by her,” Mom said, shaking her head in bewilderment. “It just doesn’t seem possible that one person could create so much.”

  “Or be so prolific?” I asked.

  “She’s prolific, all right,” Mom said. “The mind-boggling part is, so far, what I’ve seen, her stuff is actually good. It’s so varied. It’s like she’s twenty different artists all at once.”

  “Interesting,” I said. “Maybe she has multiple personalities and each one paints differently.” Interesting, indeed.

  “That could be one explanation, if this were a made-for-TV movie or something,” Mom said. “The only thing I can think of is that maybe she was secretly working for years and years, and she just didn’t show anyone her work.”

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “My multiple-personality theory would seem more likely after what I learned today.”

  I told Mom about what Jordan told me at lunch.

  “Wow. That’s a heavy load for a kid,” Mom said. She got up to get a cup of tea. I sat down at her laptop and Googled Mimi Hansen, Wentworth Enterprises, and Walsh.

  “Even if she doesn’t have multiple personalities, it looks like she’s had multiple names,” I said. “Did you ever hear of Mimi Wentworth? She used to be married to some guy named Wentworth. There’s a whole bunch of articles here about Mimi Walsh Wentworth and the Mills Brothers campaign.”

  “I remember reading about Mimi Wentworth! She was a PR person for Mills Brothers, a business that landed a bunch of high-power executives in jail,” Mom said. “A lot of MegaComp millionaires invested their money in Mills Brothers, which was supposed to be a company to rival both Starbucks and Amazon. I don’t remember the details, just that it was a big fat fraud. Mimi Wentworth got people to invest money in nothing.”

  “But nothing happened to Mimi Wentworth?” I asked.

  “She just sort of dropped out of sight,” Mom said.

  “Until now,” I said. I showed Mom the computer screen. I’d placed a photo of Mimi Wentworth, the marketing genius, next to Mimi Hansen, the artist. I hadn’t been able to find a photo of Mimi Hansen without her sunglasses, though.

  They looked like two completely different people. Mimi Wentworth had big hair. Really big hair. She had big lips, too. But mostly she had lots and lots of makeup on.

  “Now watch this,” I said.

  I went into Photoshop and took the photo of Mimi Wentworth. I changed her long auburn curly hair to a chin-length straight blond style. I made her lips smaller and a lighter color. I toned down her makeup.

  “Getting closer …” Mom said.

  Then I put dark sunglasses on her to cover her blue eyes.

  “Bingo!” Mom said.

  CHAPTER 21

  NOW I KNEW that Mimi Hansen used to be Mimi Wentworth.

  So what, right? I knew it meant something. I just wasn’t sure what.

  The big Mimi question remained: How in the world did Mimi Hansen create so many paintings so quickly?

  I headed up the fire stairs to the penthouse floor to pick up Ruff. I opened the door to the thirteenth floor just as someone with a Swifty’s-bike-messenger jersey disappeared behind the elevator’s closing doors.

  “Dorothy!” I ran to the door of Dorothy Powers’s apartment an
d rang the doorbell.

  “Come in if you’re Hannah,” she called.

  “I don’t think that’s the safest way to answer the door,” I said as I walked into her apartment. “Is everything okay in here? Did you just get something delivered?”

  “I’m fine, dear. But nothing was delivered,” Dorothy called from the couch. She had her right leg propped up over the side of the couch. I knew she was having knee trouble and that she tried to elevate her leg as much as possible.

  “I just saw a bike messenger in the hall get on the elevator.”

  “There must have been a delivery to Marvin Chomsky across the hall. He has messengers deliver everything to him, even toilet paper,” Dorothy said. “But mostly his deliveries are for his research and his groceries.”

  “Just what exactly does Mr. Chomsky research?” I asked.

  “He’s an art historian. Quite famous in his field, I believe,” Dorothy said. “Apparently he’s in great demand all over the world.”

  “But he never leaves his apartment?” I asked.

  “Not that I know of,” Dorothy said. “He’s mentioned museums from Oslo and Amsterdam that send him paintings to research since he won’t travel to them.”

  “He doesn’t even come across the hall?” I asked.

  “He’s turned down all my offers to come over for coffee.”

  “Maybe he’s holding out for a dessert invitation,” I said.

  “Maybe he is.” Dorothy chuckled.

  “Ready for your walk, boy?” I asked the little terrier. Ruff ran to the kitchen and got his leash. I’d trained him to do that in just two sessions. “Such a good boy,” I said, rewarding him with a dried-liver treat.

  “I’ll see you later, Dorothy,” I called as Ruff tugged at his leash. “Keep your knee propped up. I’ll get Ruff tuckered out for you.”

  Ruff loves to walk, and he’s pretty fast for a little guy. But the vet had said he was a few pounds overweight. I was under strict orders not to let people feed him on our walks. This turned out to be the toughest part of the job. Ruff knows almost everyone in the Belltown neighborhood. And almost everyone wants to give him a treat.