Art of Evil

by Bancroft, Blair

  He offered me a seat in an upholstered chair so deep and comfortable I feared I might not be able to get out. He disappeared, returning with a tray of crust-cropped tea sandwiches and tall glasses of iced tea.

  “Did you make these yourself?” I asked as I helped myself to what appeared to be chicken salad.

  “I’ve done just about everything in my life,” he said, with a gentle smile, “including playing at chef. I like to keep my hand in, you know.”

  I complimented him on both taste and presentation. A beaming smile reflected his pleasure.

  Like Maria Joffa, he had heard no rumors, could not even begin to imagine who was playing games with the Bellman. He also agreed that Circus people would never be so petty. Well . . . even Circus people went round the bend occasionally, but the community was tight-knit. If someone was having that kind of problem, he’d have heard. And so would Maria Joffa, he added. If she hadn’t known of anyone—

  “Would she be covering?” I asked

  Daniel thought about it, shook his head. “I think she would have given you a hint that the problem was being solved. And, believe me, it would have been.”

  And then he, too, began to tell me stories, his enthusiasm spilling out in a tide of nostalgia spiked by frustration, for Daniel Miller was not only a Circus buff, he was actively trying to raise money for a pet project: the renovation of the railroad car that had been Richard and Opal Bellman’s home when they traveled with the Circus. “Do you know where they kept the money?” he asked, eyes gleaming. “In a safe under the bed. Richard slept on it!” Daniel chortled. “Everything was cash then, you know. All that money, and he slept on it.” He shook his head. “They spent fifteen million renovating the Casa Bellissima, and no one is willing to renovate the Bellman rail car. It’s sad, it really is.”

  I agreed, sincerely and wholeheartedly. But that, of course, wasn’t why I was here. “You must have heard some of the old scandals of that day,” I said. “Could any of them have simmered all these years, then sprouted into the troubles the museum’s had these past few weeks?”

  He took his time, clearly considering the matter seriously. “Near the end,” he said at last, “Bellman made a lot of enemies. The circus was mad at him because all he seemed to think about was the darn art museum. The Great Depression was on, and he was cash poor. He owned land and investments everywhere, not just here in Florida, but he owed everybody, including his second wife.”

  “Second wife?” I burbled, thoroughly shocked. In nearly four months at the museum—not even while auditing the weekly docent classes—had I ever heard a word about Richard Bellman’s married life other than raptures about his perfect marriage to Opal.

  “Opal’s health was poor, she died young. No children. Guess Richard didn’t like living alone. He up and married Melba in no time at all. A mistake for both of them. He loved Art, the Circus, and was caught up in developing huge tracts of real estate. She had no interest in any of it. He filed for divorce. Very publically, I’m told, with no attempt at finesse. Pretty it wasn’t.”

  “Did Melba have descendants?”

  Daniel shrugged. “Not by Bellman. As for any other relatives, I just don’t know. As I said, if Melba’s any indication, Sarasota isn’t a place they’d ever want to be.”

  At last I’d found a scandal large enough to linger, festering, for seventy-five years. I forced myself to sit still and ask more questions, the upshot of which was that Richard Bellman had died owing a lot of money, but many of his investments were sound, and the debts had finally been settled. Some local families might have legends in which Richard Bellman was not a hero, but it was doubtful any of them had reason for such petty revenge against the museum as two effigies and a mannequin disfigured by red nail polish.

  I thanked Daniel Miller, and paid my debt for his information. He was abjectly grateful when I promised to speak to both Aunt Hy and Martin Longstreet about the Bellman rail car.

  For a moment there, I’d been excited. Then reality set in. A failed, childless marriage three generations in the past and debts that had been settled nearly sixty years ago were poor fodder for motive. And Maria Joffa and Daniel Miller had me almost convinced that the pride and honor of the Circus community would never stoop so low. Harass the Bellman Museum, the Shining Dream of the founder of the Bellman Circus? Never! That left Richard’s conflict with his second wife hanging out there on a limb all by itself.

  I was still stewing over what I’d learned at nine-thirty that night when the phone rang.

  “I’m in line for a rental car,” said a voice I recognized instantly. “Will you meet me out front in half an hour? Drive out to the beach?”

  The beach. In November. At ten o’clock at night.

  I agreed, hung up the phone. Then I went to my closet, lifted down a locked case from the top shelf. I took out my Glock .40, shoved in a clip, and slipped it into the deep pocket of my blue denim jacket.

  I was ready for my late night rendezvous with Josh Thomas.

  Chapter 10

  Josh’s car was just another rental, a modest four-door, dark green and inconspicuous. The night doorman, whom I scarcely knew—a sad reflection on my social life—opened the passenger door and flashed a sedate smile as he patiently waited for me to insert my bad leg, my cane, and myself inside. Josh sat there, doing his best imitation of benign and concerned. Not a trace of bronze satyr, as the doorman wished us a good evening before carefully closing the car door.

  We wended our way down the artificial hill, negotiated the new Ringling bridge construction, crossed a small, mostly man-made island—around here, called a key—and five minutes later we were on the large barrier island that featured one of Sarasota County’s primary beaches. Unfortunately, there was a problem. Visions of sitting in the car and gazing soulfully at the Gulf of Mexico disappeared as soon as we pulled into the parking lot.

  Since sand and canes do not mix, I had avoided the beach and was unaware it had been reconfigured from the days of my previous visits to Aunt Hy. The picturesque view we anticipated had been transformed into a solid berm of sand, anchored by sea oats, with wooden walkways at intervals, stretching up and over to the Gulf.

  “Sorry,” Josh said, “I didn’t realize—”

  “Keep going,” I told him, pointing south along the barrier island. “There’s a place . . . if they haven’t messed with that too,” I ended on a grumble.

  At the southern tip of the key we found what vague memory had recalled. A secluded park set down in the midst of a shaggy canopy of Australian pines. Across a narrow strip of water, lights shone from houses on the northern tip of the next barrier island to the south. To our left, far across the bay, the city of Sarasota glowed in a balmy haze of tropical splendor. I pictured the Gulf, dark and menacing all the way to Mexico, and was grateful the city hadn’t changed this park. Somehow it was the shelter I needed at the moment. A place with a soft glimmer of light to offset the darkness. Evidently, Josh felt the same way. I could almost hear his tension draining away.

  As we walked across the crushed shell parking lot and the heavy carpet of long pine needles, Josh held my free arm firmly. Oddly, I didn’t mind. Not only did I need support over the dark, treacherous ground, full of undulating pine roots, but Josh’s touch felt right. Which made no sense, because he was a very scary person.

  We sat on a wooden picnic bench with our backs to the table, so close to the water we could hear the rush of the current. It was beautiful. Peaceful. I forgot the gun weighing down the right side of my jacket.

  “Anybody ever try to swim that?” Josh asked, nodding at the pass between the two islands.

  “Only if they’re suicidal. There are No Swimming signs posted all over.”

  “Ah.”

  For one horrified moment I felt as if I’d waved a red flag in front of a bull. Issued a challenge. I could almost hear the clicks inside his head as the enigmatic Josh Thomas wondered if he should strip and give it a try.

  “Guess not,” he said
. “I’d probably make it.”

  “That bad?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “It must have gone bad fast.”

  “It went sour before I left. I was just picking up the pieces. Trouble was,” he added softly, “there wasn’t much left to pick up.”

  “Can you talk about it?”

  Josh’s arm, in a classic maneuver, stretched out along the back of the table behind me. Was I being played? I didn’t think so. Josh’s anguish was all too real.

  “I was on the far side of the mountains, somewhere around where the Urubamba drains into the Ucayali—”

  The Urubamba ran past Machu Picchu. That much I remembered from one all-too-quick trip to Peru. But I’d heard Aunt Hy talk about the good old days when visitors could attend the Quechua village markets where the only money used was coca leaves piled high in a sack beside each vendor, as they sat on colorful woven blankets laid on hard mountain ground.

  “You don’t want to hear it,” Josh said. “People died who shouldn’t have. Sometimes . . . things just happen.” His arm closed around my shoulders. “But I don’t have to tell you that.”

  He was good. Very, very good. Was he sincere, or playing me for all he was worth? But a breeze had come up—the tide must have changed—and his arm felt good where it was. It had been a long time . . .

  “I’m staying for a while,” he said. “I’m overdue for a vacation. I’d already rented a condo when I had to make the trip to the jungle. Hopefully, no more emergencies for a while.” The park’s tall spotlights, filtered through a web of pine needles, illuminated his pale face, black hair, and onyx eyes. He leaned in, distinctly haunting—and terrifyingly appealing.

  “You’re staying,” I echoed faintly, wondering how it was possible to feel this much physical attraction while the Voice of Doom whispered in my other ear.

  “Martin found a villa not far from his,” Josh said. “On a canal. I was hoping”—he broke off, gazing for a moment at the swirling white-capped race between the barrier islands—“I was hoping you might be willing to show me around while I’m here.”

  “The blind leading the blind?”

  “You’re four or five months up on me. You must have learned something about the area?”

  “You need a girl you can take to the beach. Canes and sand don’t mix.”

  He removed his arm. I was suddenly cold.

  “Any more trouble at the museum?” he asked, as if none of our previous conversation had existed.

  He was Martin’s friend, and I’d been rude. Tonight he had shown me something secret and private. A vulnerability I could not reconcile with the ruthlessness I sensed in him. Yet I feared his power. Not over life and death, but over my own vulnerable self. Josh Thomas could matter to me. Very much. And I wasn’t ready for that yet.

  So I reminded myself that Martin Longstreet and Aunt Hy sanctioned my acquaintance with this man of mystery. Correction. Were actively promoting a relationship. If I used Josh as a sounding board, what could it hurt? If he was involved in what was happening at the Bellman, the worse he could do was inwardly curl his lip and laugh at me. At best, he might actually be of help. So I told him everything, including the gist of my meetings with the old timers from the circus. When I was done, Josh Thomas knew as much as I had told Ken Parrish.

  “You know it doesn’t make sense?” he pointed out after several moments of silence.

  “Of course it doesn’t make sense,” I snapped. “That’s why it’s so damned aggravating.”

  “Don’t like to be stymied, do you?” he said with what sounded all too close to the smug amusement of a professional hotshot to the poor female cripple.

  Blast him! If only I weren’t so stiff-necked, so scared of what he could make me feel. And then there was the problem of trust. Was he merely enjoying my frustration or was he gloating because he knew exactly what was going on. Certainly, Josh Thomas would not hesitate to hire a sculptor to create effigies. And he was born to play Zorro, wallowing in the thrill of tossing a bloody mannikin into a crowd of Beautiful People. Dashing over rooftops, rappelling sixty feet down into the dark shadows of an octopus-like banyan tree.

  The image was so vivid, I sucked in a ragged breath. An intuitive flash? Or was it just my imagination, roaring into overdrive?

  The beam of a powerful flashlight caught us from behind. “Sorry, folks,” boomed a voice out of the darkness, “but this place closes at midnight. Time to get going.”

  I flushed, swept by all the guilt of a teenager caught “parking.” Thank God Josh had removed his arm. Thank God we weren’t sitting in the car.

  “You can open your eyes, Rory,” Josh said. “He’s gone.”

  That wasn’t quite true. The park ranger had returned to his car and was waiting patiently for us to leave so he could close and lock the gates.

  As we made our way back to the car, Josh leaned in close and hissed, “I just hope he doesn’t notice that sag in your jacket pocket.”

  I ignored him. If I’d done what I would have liked to do to him at that point, we’d have been arrested on the spot.

  Josh waved, politely, to the ranger as we drove by. “Armed and dangerous,” he murmured provocatively as he continued on down the deserted road, with high-rise condominiums and resort hotels looming along the waterfront to our left. “Just my luck to choose a tour guide who carries concealed.”

  “And you don’t,” I taunted.

  “But I’m a boy,” he pronounced, with deliberate exaggeration. “A lean, mean secret agent. You’re just a girl with a cane.”

  I gasped and swung at him. He braked, stopping in the middle of the road. Grabbing both wrists, he held me as immobile as he had that first day in my tram. He leaned in until our noses were nearly touching. “Listen to me, Rory Travis. Stop blaming yourself. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. To tell the truth, I’m glad you broke out the gun. I bet it’s been locked up tight for months. Right?” He pressed my arms down on either side of me. “Right?”

  “Yes.” Grudgingly.

  Lights flashed behind us. The park ranger going home.

  Josh let go of me, drove sedately down the road as if nothing had happened. “Like it or not,” he said, “you’re going to be seeing a lot of me in the next few weeks. I was serious about the job offer. But I need the real Rory Travis, not her gimpy ghost.”

  “I’m trying,” I wailed, “really I am. Do you think I want to be like this?”

  “I think you’re resisting your physical therapist every step of the way.”

  Damn and blast. Martin, of course. It had to be Martin, who’d heard it from Aunt Hy, who could never keep her mouth shut about anything.

  “You’re so guilt-ridden you’re entirely useless.”

  “I am not!”

  “Prove it.”

  “How?”

  “Figure out what’s happening at the museum.”

  “You set it up, didn’t you? You and Martin? Give the poor girl something to do, get her hand back in the business.”

  “Actually . . . no,” Josh said in a tone that almost had me believing him. “But I’m not above taking advantage of the situation. Go, girl, take it on. I’ll even help you if I can.”

  I thought of Ken Parrish. We’d talked on the phone after my visit to Maria Joffa, met over coffee after my visit to Daniel Miller. Compared to Josh Thomas, he was so comfortable. And, truth was, he and Billie Hamlin had beat Josh to it. I was already in this up to my neck.

  As we pulled into the porte cochère at the Ritz, Josh turned his fathomless black eyes full in my direction. “I suppose you’d bite me if I kissed you?” he said.

  My stomach flip-flopped. God bless all doormen. The door beside me opened. “Welcome back, miss.” Shiny black shoes, a snappy uniform, and a strong impersonal arm to lean on. I limped with dignity into the brilliantly lit lobby. I did not look back.

  Josh disappeared again. Had I hurt his feelings? Impossible. He didn’t have any. You’re just a girl with a cane. I need the r
eal Rory Travis, not her gimpy ghost. I hoped Josh Thomas would crawl back under his rock and stay there. What did I care that he’d been back in town three days now and I hadn’t heard a word from him. Not so much as a whisper of his presence, not even from Aunt Hy. Evidently, Madame Celestine was taking a Sabbatical.

  Surprisingly, Billie was still patrolling the Bellman grounds in his golf cart. It seems, he told me, that the museum was more interested in knowing who had hired him than in prosecuting him for the end result. Detective Parrish and the Museum hierarchy were hanging tight, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Since nothing further had happened since the night of the Gala, now almost two weeks in the past, there was hope Billie might find another envelope under his door. Hope, however, was waning. Billie was glum, anticipating the snap of handcuffs. If only he could have made a real contribution, he told me. Just let the bastard send him one more letter and the man was toast.

  “Maybe it’s a girl,” I said, just to be contrary.

  Billie perked up, eyes alight. “Her highness, Patricia the Professor,” he chortled. “Sly and snotty. Just her kind of gig.”

  “Motive?”

  “Maybe her lover split on her. I told you he was something big around here. And there’s no spite like a woman scorned, y’know.”

  I thought about it. Somehow it was too subtle, even for Patricia Arkwright, the sly educator. A scorned woman didn’t hire a sculptor to embarrass the museum. She’d be more direct. She’d go after the man himself. And, besides, in spite of her prickly personality, I’d gotten the impression she enjoyed her job. Patricia Arkwright biting the hand that fed her didn’t rate high on my list of theories.

  When I told Billie as much, he shrugged and said, “Hey, I’m desperate here. I wake up at night to the clang of bars slamming shut.”

  “I take it no one’s told Security,” I said.

  Billie placed his palms together, raised his eyes heavenward. “God and Detective Parrish are merciful,” he declared. “Just the cop, the Director, the Deputy Director, and the Chairman of the Board know. If I’m lucky and we get this mess cleared up, I may even get to keep my job, as well as stay out of jail.”