by Sara Rosett
He took a few steps in the same direction then paused to look at a display of paintings.
Zoe focused on the conversation as Thacker said, “I’ll take care of getting the sketch released.” His voice had a weary why-do I-have-to-do-everything quality. “I’ll make a few calls. You should be able to bring it home in a day or two. What about the painting?”
“No sign of it, so far. I’ll call Gloria tonight. She said she would visit Luis in the hospital to check on him. Hopefully, he’ll be awake, and he might be able to tell us something about who took it or what happened.”
“Keep me updated.” The line went dead.
“Well, goodbye to you too,” Zoe muttered after checking to make sure the call had disconnected. Gloria had been right about Thacker’s personality. When things were going well, he had a playful and accommodating nature, but when things didn’t go his way, he could be quite ugly.
A couple hovered at Zoe’s shoulder, trying to read the menu so she moved on. She browsed the windows of a few shops, then slipped inside a sombrero store. She watched Jug Ears through the store’s front window as he meandered along in her wake, then paused at the same restaurant menu display that Zoe had studied.
Who was this guy? Had Munez sent someone to follow her? Had the police been keeping an eye on her before Munez called her? Even if he was a police officer—which was better than some other scenarios that she could come up with—she didn’t like it. Her instinct was to slip away. No matter who the guy was, she didn’t want someone following her.
Zoe admired some hats near the window and kept an eye on him. He checked his watch a few times, but didn’t seem to be interested in the sombrero shop. Zoe purchased a straw hat with a wide brim and told the woman that she wanted to wear it out of the store. The woman removed it from a large bag and clipped the tag, then offered her the large empty bag. Figuring it would add another layer to her disguise, Zoe took the empty bag.
Zoe twisted her bright hair into a knot, and shoved the hat over it. She used the mirror positioned on the counter to check and make sure all her hair was tucked up under the hat, then timed her exit from the shop so that she joined a group of three women as they left.
Zoe saw Jug Ears still lingered beside the restaurant menu. She didn’t glance over her shoulder as she kept pace with the three chattering women. She stayed on the far side of the group, making sure they were between her and Jug Ears. The women were making for one of the arcaded passageways on the far side of the plaza. Zoe stayed with them until they left the plaza.
She turned down the first street that she came to, then slipped into the nearest shop. This one was selling T-shirts, key chains, and shot glasses, all with images of bulls, matadors, and the Madrid skyline. Zoe browsed the two crowded aisles, keeping an eye on the street. When Jug Ears didn’t appear, she left the store.
A quick glance up and down the street showed that Jug Ears had not followed her. The road was less crowded than the plaza, and it was easy to see that he wasn’t lurking. Zoe set off again at a brisk pace, working her way to the Puerta del Sol, which was filling up with the evening crowd, but she didn’t stop.
She entered the hotel and breathed a sigh of relief, but she waited until she was in the elevator before she took off the hat and shook out her hair. When Zoe inserted her key card into the lock on the door of her hotel room, a small red light blinked at her. The handle wouldn’t move.
“Typical, for today,” Zoe said to herself and returned to the elevator.
As she walked across the lobby, she heard her name over the sound of the splash of the lobby fountain.
“Over here,” the voice called again, and Zoe saw Gloria waving to her. She was near the entrance to the hotel restaurant with her daughter at her side. As Zoe crossed the lobby to her, Gloria leaned down and said something to her daughter, who shot by Zoe on her way to the fountain.
“I called you earlier but you didn’t answer so I left you a message,” Gloria said.
“I must’ve missed it. Sorry about that,” she said. “How is Luis? Did you get a chance to go see him?”
“Not so good. He did wake up, but he’s in and out of consciousness, and can’t remember a thing about what happened. The doctor says that’s common, and his memory will probably come back later.”
“I’m glad he’s doing better, but that doesn’t help us figure out what happened. I had a call from the police this afternoon. Did Chief Inspector Munez contact you, too?”
“No.”
“I’m sure it won’t be long.” Zoe told her about the Dalí sketch and her chat with Munez.
“That is amazing. I’m so glad they found—Sophia,” Gloria called, “throw your coin and come back.” Gloria made a tossing motion with her hand. Sophia, who had been examining the fountain from every angle, squared her shoulders and tossed the coin. It landed on the top tier with a plop, and Sophia raced back to Gloria’s side, chattering in Spanish.
Gloria murmured to her, un momento, and turned back to Zoe. “Have you spoken to Thacker?” She brushed Sophia’s hair off her forehead as she spoke, a soothing gesture to calm the girl who was clearly impatient to either throw another coin or move on.
“Just now. He’s not happy.”
She grimaced. “You can’t blame him. Two pieces of art stolen before he has even seen them.”
Sophia tugged Gloria’s arm, her voice pleading as she asked a question. Gloria replied with a firm negative then rolled her eyes at Zoe over Sophia’s head. “She just ate two plates of tapas, and says she’s still hungry. More like aburrida, I’d say.” Gloria smiled at Sophia. Sophia grinned back at her and swung her arms back and forth.
“I remember that word,” Zoe said. “It means bored, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, that’s right,” Gloria said. “I should go. I’ll call you if anything changes.”
Zoe said goodbye and went back around the fountain, threading her way through the chairs and couches scattered around the lobby, passing the business center on her way to the front desk. She was sure the snafu with the key card was because of the change in her hotel reservation.
She had almost reached the front desk when she saw a man in a blue shirt with short dark hair and protruding ears. A large tour group streamed into the lobby, cutting off her view. They gathered around their pile of luggage with bright yellow tags. She slowed her pace as she moved through the tour group, scanning the lobby, but she didn’t see the man again.
Could it have been Jug Ears? Was she just hyper-aware of men with short hair and conspicuous ears? She wished she’d seen his face, but even though she spent a few more minutes looking around, she didn’t see him again.
At the front desk, Zoe explained the situation to the clerk, a middle-aged man with a narrow face and a mustache, who spoke perfect English.
“I apologize, Señora Andrews. We have an electrical outage in several rooms on the seventh floor, and your room is affected. We’ve arranged to move you to a room a short distance away, just across the hall and down a few doors. Will this be acceptable?”
“That’s fine. Have you already moved my things?”
“No. I will help you.” He picked up two key cards.
“It’s fine,” Zoe said. “If you’ll just give me a key card that will unlock the door to my original room I can handle it myself.”
“But there is no light in your room. It is a safety issue. I apologize for the inconvenience. We also have a package for you. Would you like to take that with you now?”
“A package?”
“Yes, it came in this morning.” He consulted the monitor in front of him. “We left a message on your room phone this morning to let you know.”
“I haven’t been in my room all day. I’ll take the package now,” she said.
He disappeared through the door behind the counter then returned, carrying a rectangular package wrapped in brown paper. “Here you are.”
Zoe took the package and stood motionless. Her heart thumping, she flipped it o
ver and looked at the back. A small sticker with the name Cabello Gallery was affixed to the paper.
24
“Is there a problem?”
Zoe’s head snapped up. “No,” she said to the desk clerk. “Not at all. Who brought this, do you know?”
“Let’s see…” The man looked at the monitor. “A courier brought it this morning about ten. No note of the name or the company that delivered it, though.”
“Okay. Thank you.” Zoe stood for a moment, her hands suddenly sweaty as she tried to work out what had happened. For some reason Luis must have sent the painting by courier. Why would he have done that without notifying her? She had told Luis she would pick up the painting at the gallery. Had his plans changed? Had he forgotten? Did someone else from the gallery send it without Luis knowing? She fought off the impulse to rip into the paper. She wanted to be alone when she opened the package, and she couldn’t do that until she was in her new hotel room. If it really was the painting, then she’d decide what to do with it.
The desk clerk cleared his throat and transferred the flashlight from one hand to another. “Sorry. I’m ready.” Zoe pressed the package close to her chest and followed him to the elevator.
He apologized again for the inconvenience as he used the new key card to open Zoe’s hotel room door.
“Believe me,” Zoe said, “It’s the least of my worries today.”
The room was dim but not completely dark. The desk clerk entered first, using the flashlight. As soon as Zoe crossed the threshold she caught a whiff of a distinctive aroma. She sniffed and recognized the faint scent was cigarette smoke. The desk clerk didn’t seem to notice. The curtains were partially closed, and he had moved across the room to pull them open, letting in the evening sun.
A bright red light blinked on the room phone. “Let me check that message,” Zoe said, still holding the package.
She had two messages. The first was from Luis. “Zoe, I am sorry, but I have had a change in plans. I have to close the gallery this morning—another urgent appointment—and I will not be here when you arrived to pick up the packages. I’m sending them by messenger to the hotel—” He muttered something in Spanish, his tone irritated, then he switched back to English, “I must apologize a second time. I just noticed that the sketch was not packed properly.”
He broke off again, and Zoe heard a few muffled words of Spanish, then his voice came back on the line. “The courier has arrived. I will send the painting to you now, repack the sketch the correct way, and then call for another courier to pick it up. Hopefully, this message will catch you before you leave your hotel. I do not have your mobile number with me, or I would contact you that way. Again, I apologize for the inconvenience, and thank you for your patience with this change of plan.”
The second message was the desk saying that a package had arrived for her.
“Can the messages be forwarded to my new room?” Zoe asked as she tightened her one-handed grip on the package, which must contain the blue butterfly painting. Luis must have been attacked after he sent the painting off, but before he could call for a second courier for the Dalí sketch.
The desk clerk said, “Of course.” Zoe saved the messages, then handed the receiver to him. He made a call, spoke to someone briefly, then said, “It’s done. They will be on the phone in your new room. May I help you pack?”
“No, it will only take a second. I don’t have much.” Zoe carefully set down the package on the bed. She was itching to open it, but wasn’t about to do that until she was safely locked away alone in her new hotel room. Zoe’s suitcase sat on the luggage rack, the lid tossed back as she’d left it. She wasn’t an extremely neat person, but she did remember that she’d decided the day was warm enough that she wouldn’t need to bring her black sweater to the gallery. She’d tossed it on top of the stack of clothes in her suitcase before she went out the door. Now the sweater was squished to the side under her white shirt.
Before she bundled her clothes into the suitcase, Zoe paused, her gaze running over the room. The desk clerk was twitching the bed cover straight, smoothing out several wrinkles.
It hadn’t looked like that this morning when Zoe left the room. The maid had arrived early, and Zoe had gone down to get a coffee while the maid cleaned the room. Zoe had returned to the room before she headed out to eat breakfast on the way to the gallery. When she left the room, the bed didn’t have a single ridge or furrow. Someone had been in her room, and she didn’t think it was one of the hotel staff.
It only took Zoe a minute to rearrange the clothes so they fit more neatly in the suitcase. She placed the package on top of the clothes then zipped the suitcase. “Now I only have my things in the bath.”
Zoe rolled the suitcase into the bathroom with her. She wasn’t about to leave the package unattended in the hotel room, even though the desk clerk looked nice. At this point, Zoe wasn’t letting it out of her sight. Because the bathroom didn’t have any windows, it was pitch black. The flashlight came in handy as Zoe tossed her makeup, hair clips, and toothbrush into her small flowered bag. “Okay, that’s all.”
The desk clerk insisted on checking the closet and every drawer in the dresser before leading her down the hall. He opened the door to her new room and flipped on the lights, demonstrating that they worked in this room. He insisted on doing a quick inspection of the room, checking that the temperature was acceptable to Zoe and demonstrating how the heated towel rack worked. Zoe declined his offer to help her unpack and hustled him out of the room.
She threw the deadbolt, unzipped her suitcase, and removed the package. She held it in her hands a moment, studying the brown wrapper.
She knew she should call Chief Inspector Munez, but he had manipulated her earlier today, letting her think that he had recovered both pieces of artwork when he only had the sketch and a mangled frame. She wasn’t feeling too charitable toward him.
Once she called him, the package would be sealed away in a plastic bag. She wouldn’t get to examine it closely—probably not even touch it. She debated with herself for about two seconds, then ran her finger under the tape at the edge of one of the seams. The painting wasn’t even stolen property—not really. It had only been misplaced. They had assumed the thief had taken both pieces of art, but this package had been delivered to her here at the hotel.
As the paper and layers of padding fell away, she sucked in a breath. There was something almost magical about art. It stopped you in your tracks. Even in the midst of the craziness of this day and everything that was going on, Zoe had to take a moment to appreciate the shining wings on the blue butterfly and the blur of the hummingbird’s wings. It was indeed the missing blue butterfly painting—still in its ugly metal frame too—completely unharmed.
25
“What is it about you that’s so interesting?” Zoe murmured as she paced back and forth in front of the dresser where she’d propped up the blue butterfly painting.
The whiff of cigarette smoke along with her mussed suitcase and the rumpled bed in her former hotel room made her think that she wasn’t paranoid. Jug Ears had been following her today, and it was probably a good assumption that he’d searched her room. It seemed more and more likely that Jug Ears wasn’t with the police. With the painting sitting in the room behind the hotel reception desk, it had been safe, but he must have assumed that either she had it with her or that she would lead him to it.
That train of thought was worrying in its own way. Had he been following her since she arrived in Madrid but she’d only noticed him in the elevator today? Zoe shook off those thoughts. She was safely locked in her new hotel room. She couldn’t answer any questions about Jug Ears right now, but she could focus on the painting.
Zoe looked over the paperwork that came with the painting again. She’d already glanced through it once. The packaging contained a packing slip with a list of contents, a bill of sale from the Cabello Gallery, and a slim unsealed envelope with the original bill of sale from 1866. Everything with the
documents appeared to be in order. The bill of sale showed the sales price, which made Zoe’s eyebrows fly upward, but she supposed that for someone like Thacker the amount, which seemed exorbitant to her, was only pocket change.
Gloria had authenticated the painting, declaring it was a genuine Martin Johnson Heade. Could she have been wrong? Was there something else about the painting itself that she had missed? Perhaps there was another painting underneath? Was that why Jug Ears was so interested in her?
Zoe dropped the paperwork on the bed and picked up the painting, gazing intently at it from every angle. Gloria said she’d examined it with ultraviolet light, which didn’t show anything unexpected, but she hadn’t x-rayed the painting or performed any other tests. Thacker hadn’t wanted her to.
Did Thacker know that there was something about this painting that made it so valuable that he didn’t care about—or need—the high-tech tests? He’d said he didn’t want the scientific reports and didn’t rely on them, but maybe he knew something else about the painting. Was he pursuing it with a collector’s passion or was there more at work?
If there was something underneath the painting, it might explain his insistence on tracking it down and purchasing it without a full battery of authentication tests. Zoe sighed. Without some advanced technology she could stare at the painting all day long and never know what was under the top layer of paint.…unless there was some telltale pigment of a completely different color on the edge of the stretcher that she could see with the naked eye.
It wouldn’t be conclusive, of course, even if she did find something like that. Zoe had learned that painters often reused canvases, so it might not mean anything except that Martin Johnson Heade recycled his materials, but she couldn’t think of anything else to do.