by Nina Wright
We all leaned forward.
“I didn’t work the lunch shift Tuesday because I had a dentist’s appointment just down the street. When I passed Town & Gown, a young couple was coming out. They were laughing real hard—too hard for people who’d been shopping at a store as nice as Martha’s. I mean, they sounded drunk or something. That’s why I stared at them. I didn’t get as good a view of the man as I did of the woman. But he had to be the guy who died on Noonan’s table. The woman called him Dan. I remember that because it’s my brother’s name, too.”
Chapter Eleven
Jenx jumped in her seat. “Cell phone’s vibrating.”
After taking the call, she said, “What goes around comes around. That was my old pal Balboa from the police academy. She works with the Boys from East Lansing and keeps me posted. As we speak, she’s emailing me Holly Lomax’s mug shots. Will you look at them, Peg? See if Holly’s our Town & Gown gal.”
At the station, Peg studied the image on Jenx’s computer screen.
“That’s her, all right. But she had bigger hair when I saw her.”
“Like Pretty Woman?” I explained about the Julia Roberts movie, the magazine picture, and the desk clerk’s comments. Peg saw the connection, but she predicted that eighty-year-old Town & Gown proprietor Martha Glenn wouldn’t.
“Martha won’t remember seeing her or Dan Gallagher. She can’t remember what day it is. I don’t know how she stays in business.”
Jenx said, “I’ll interview her again, but I don’t expect much.”
“You’re officially off the case,” I reminded her.
“And you’re officially a realtor.”
“But if you want Abra’s help, I’m at the other end of the leash.”
For some reason, everyone found that amusing. Peg said, “Speaking of Abra and her leash, has Judge Verbelow called you yet?”
“About what?” I said, alarmed.
“About a date, probably,” said Jenx.
Peg asked, “Haven’t you noticed how he looks at you?”
“He’s giving off very strong vibes,” agreed Noonan. “And you’re both lonely.”
“I am not!” I sputtered. “I have a very full life!”
A piercing scream interrupted me. We rose as one and dashed to the lobby. Brady was bending over a prostrate Marilee Gallagher, Officer Roscoe was licking her ghost-white face, and Chester was running in circles. Abra was absent.
Chester cried, “She did it again!”
My heart sank when I noticed that the unconscious Marilee did not have a handbag.
“Which way did she go?” I said, resigned to the inevitable.
Brady inserted two fingers in his mouth and whistled shrilly. Everyone froze. The station’s front door flew open and in sailed Abra, a black leather shoulder bag swinging from her jaws.
Chester checked his sports watch. “One minute, fifty-five-and-forty-three-one-hundredths seconds. A new record!” He and Abra began leaping and rolling in a celebratory pack dance.
“I’ll take that.” Brady extracted the slimy purse strap from Abra’s mouth. “Now that’s what I call a good day’s work.”
I pointed to the widow on the linoleum. Jenx was administering smelling salts.
“Did Abra knock her down?” I said.
“No way!” said Chester. “She didn’t even steal the purse.”
“Technically, that’s true,” said Brady. “The citizen placed it on the counter, opened it, closed it, and passed out. Abra grabbed the bag after the owner had hit the tiles.”
Chester said, “It’s what we practiced all day. Abra thought it was another drill!”
Marilee Gallagher moaned as Jenx helped her sit up. She blinked at her surroundings, spotted her purse in Brady’s hand, and promptly passed out again.
“There’s something about that bag!” Jenx cried.
Abra yipped in agreement, and Brady popped open the clasp. We watched the color drain from his face.
“What is it?” demanded Jenx.
Brady closed the purse. “Uh—this is police business, Chief. Everybody else needs to leave.”
“It’s a finger!” Marilee wailed, sitting up again. “I found the purse behind the dresser in my motel room when I moved the TV to get better reception. I thought it might be a clue, so I brought it right over. I didn’t open it till I got here.”
A severed finger? That made me scream—for about two minutes. So I didn’t hear what anybody else said in immediate response to Marilee’s announcement. I was able to stop screaming when Jenx gripped my shoulders and shook me like a can of whipped topping. She pointed out that nobody, not even an eight-year-old child, was reacting as badly as I was. How humbling—or should I say humiliating. When Jenx swore us all to secrecy, I mutely nodded my ascent.
“We don’t know what this means,” Jenx insisted, “so don’t go around speculating.”
I had no desire to do that. Brady and Roscoe escorted Marilee back to the Broken Arrow. Peg scurried off to the Goh Cup, and Noonan headed home. That left Chester, Abra, Jenx, and me. Plus the finger. I tried to act normal.
“You need dinner about now, don’t you?” I asked Chester.
He reminded me that Cassina was back. “You’re off the hook—till she leaves on her World Tour.”
“Cassina’s got another World Tour?” asked Jenx. “Tell her Brady and I will check the house while she’s gone. Are you going with her, buddy?”
Chester said, “Cassina wants Whiskey to watch me, only Whiskey’s not sure.”
“Why not?” Jenx demanded.
“Because I’m a realtor, not a child-care provider!” I pointed to the purse on Jenx’s desk. “What will you do with that? Since the case isn’t yours anymore.”
“I’ll think it over.”
“For God’s sake, you’ve got somebody’s finger!”
“Well, it’s too late to give it back. Want to see?”
Jenx pushed the purse in my direction. Reflexively, I leapt to my feet, knocking the chair into Abra, who had been cleaning herself. She snapped at me.
Definitely time to clear the room. I gave Chester ten bucks to go buy himself and Abra a treat, and I told him to take his time.
“You can’t withhold evidence,” I warned Jenx.
“No, but I can keep it on ice for a while. I want to see what I can find out. The Boys from East Lansing will get the finger soon enough.”
“How could the state police have missed the purse when they searched the motel room?”
“Maybe they were too lazy to move the furniture.”
“Or maybe somebody put it there later?”
Jenx thought that was unlikely since the room had been sealed.
“’Sealed’? You mean with that lame piece of yellow tape Brady put up?”
“That’s called police procedure, Whiskey. And so is this.” With the care of a surgeon, she donned surgical gloves and laid the purse on its side.
Don’t let the finger roll out, I prayed.
“Ever heard of Rare Art For Sale?” said Jenx.
“Hasn’t everyone?”
“I mean the company. Their business card is in this bag. Read but don’t touch.”
She pushed the card across the desk to me. It bore no individual’s name or title. No address or phone, either—just the company name, a fancy logo, a web site and an email address.
“Could this be the Santys?” I said.
“You’re thinking about what the Mounties said—that they might be selling art online. If so, it’s one more connection to Holly Lomax, who’s very likely the dead woman we’ve been calling Mrs. Santy.”
“How do we find out?”
“Check that web site while I call Balboa.”
“Wait,” I said. “If I help you with this, does that make me your accessory?”
Jenx grinned. “I’m not into accessories. Or haven’t you noticed?”
I typed www.rareartforsale.com. What came up was one of those “This page cannot be displayed”
messages. The web site was either currently unavailable or experiencing technical difficulties, or else my browser settings were screwed.
The email address was [email protected]. I knew enough about the Internet to appreciate that emails leave footprints. Just for fun, Chester once showed me how to create an anonymous web-based email account.
At the time I said, “Why would I want to do that?”
He said, “Maybe someday you’ll want to play in a Chat Room.”
This wasn’t about that, but I was ready to send my first email from [email protected]. WooWoo was Leo’s pet name for me.
Jenx had said to keep the message short. “Ask ‘What’s your price structure?’ and hit ‘send.’”
To my astonishment, I got an instant reply: “What are you looking for?”
“What have you got?” is what I wanted to write, but that seemed too obvious. So I typed “Paintings” instead.
“Real cute” came the reply. I tried again: “Watercolors.”
“Artist?” he or she wrote back.
I almost said, “Yes, please,” but opted for a name instead: “Matheney.”
“Starting at $45k” was the answer. I stared at the screen a minute, then typed: “How do we do this?”
Reply: “You’re beyond cute, you’re hilarious. Try online with credit cards. Which Matheney do you want?”
Before I could answer, [email protected] wrote: “Cumulus, Cirrus, or Nimbostratus?”
“Ask Brady, the Scholar.” Jenx was back, reading the screen. “He’ll be here any minute, and he knows about art.”
“How’d it go with Balboa?”
“The State Boys found human hair in the bathroom at Shadow Play. Long brown hair, so it didn’t belong to Mrs. Santy or Mrs. R. And they found hair dye.”
“What color?”
“Who has more fun?”
“Living people,” I said. “Our blonde got whacked.”
“There’s more.” Jenx’s eyes danced. “Balboa’s cousin works for the Chicago P.D. Being a cop is a family tradition. She said the police kept a key fact about Matheney’s death out of the news.”
“Don’t tell me. . . .”
“Yup. The corpse was missing a finger. Third one, left hand.”
“He must have been murdered,” I said.
“It looked like a heart attack. The finger removal came later.” She held up the purse. “We’ve got Cloud Man’s finger in the bag! But it’s missing his Celtic ring. Supposedly, he never took it off, but the cops haven’t found it.”
“Matheney’s Cloud Ring?” asked Brady, loping into Jenx’s office, Roscoe at his side. “Man, it was huge! And butt-ugly. I saw it myself when he was at the West Shore Gallery. It was his trademark. Oprah asked him about it when he was on her show. You could tell she thought it was butt-ugly, too.”
We brought Brady up to speed on Balboa’s report and my current adventures on the Internet. He sat down to study the messages from [email protected].
Chester appeared in the doorway, munching a T-bone Teaser, the oversized sandwich sold at Bake-The-Steak. Abra was eating one, too.
“What’s new with the finger?” said Chester.
“You didn’t tell anyone about it, did you?” I asked.
He made a face. “That would be unethical.”
“That can’t be right,” Brady said from his seat at the computer. “If you could even find a Matheney for sale right now, it’d cost four or five times this much. At least.”
“Do we have Matheney’s finger?” said Chester.
“Not on purpose,” I said.
“What are you writing?” Jenx peered over Brady’s shoulder.
“Test question. Let’s see if they pass.”
We moved toward the monitor to watch. Roscoe sniffed the non-regulation treat in Abra’s mouth. With atypical generosity, she let him have half.
“Bingo!” Brady cried.
The reply from [email protected] read: “Cumulonimbus not yet available.”
“What does that mean?” said Jenx.
Brady scratched his chin. “Rumor had it Matheney was starting a Cumulonimbus series. There were no public showings, though.”
He typed a question about provenance, which he explained to us means proof of origin.
“When you buy or sell fine art, you need documentation. It’s like the pedigree you get with your dog.”
The mere allusion to breeding was enough to set Abra off. She made a “come-hither” canine sound and displayed her hind end for Officer Roscoe’s viewing pleasure.
“She’s not in heat, is she?” Brady said. I recalled how she’d flirted with Roscoe the night they were at Shadow Play.
“Uh—” I began, realizing that I hadn’t got around to spaying her.
“No,” answered Chester with authority. “But it’s imminent.”
“I can’t believe a kid your age knows words like that,” Jenx said.
“I’m not six.”
“Well, well . . . ” mused Brady at the computer. “Our dealer’s doing a little dance. He says buyers get papers of provenance when they take possession.”
“And how do they do that?” Jenx asked.
“The old-fashioned way: Credit cards and overnight express. All they need is a credit limit of at least seventy grand.”
“Cassina charged a Mercedes once. With American Express,” offered Chester. When we stared at him, he added, “You have to pay that card off every month.”
“What did you tell the dealer?” I asked Brady.
“I said I’d get back to him. But he won’t respond again. We asked too many questions. ‘WooWoo’? Where’d you get that handle?”
I shrugged. Suddenly Brady jumped from his seat bellowing, “No, Abra, no!”
I looked where he was looking. Abra was prying open the purse on Jenx’s desk.
“Who trained her to do that?” I cried.
“We had a good day,” answered Brady. He grabbed what was left of Chester’s sandwich and tossed it to Abra.
Chester said, “She’d rather have the finger!”
Roscoe was barking, Brady was yelling, and the room was spinning. When I came to, I was on the linoleum, not far from Marilee’s spot. But Roscoe wasn’t there to lick my face. Brady and Chester were gone, too. So was Abra.
“What the hell happened?” I asked Jenx.
She said that Abra had grabbed the purse and escaped. But the best tracking team in Magnet Springs was on her trail. I pointed out that it was the only tracking team. And it consisted of an art-history student and a child.
“And Officer Roscoe,” Jenx reminded me.
“Officer Roscoe’s in love.”
Jenx bristled. “He’s a neutered professional.”
The door swung open. Brady and Chester shook their heads at us.
“Roscoe’s still on the case,” said Brady. “But Abra’s too fast. No way I was going to crawl after her through those brambles on Schuyler Street.”
“What do we do now?” I asked.
