“Well, you do. If the operation is a success, you can take care of your forgeries yourself. That’s what you wanted, right? As for returning to prison, well, first things first. For crissakes.” She folded her arms in front of her chest.
“It’s not worth it. I’m sorry I ever bothered Uncle Larry about it. Now the Villa is at risk, and—”
“Hush up, girl. You can cut the ‘poor me’ business.” Gilda silently counted to ten before continuing. She wanted Adele to think this over thoroughly. “Yes, we’ve put ourselves at risk, and, yes, we’re going to a lot of work for you. And what do we get? Not gratitude, not joy, but regret.” She raised her chin. “You should be ashamed of yourself.”
Adele examined her fingers. Gilda thought she heard a sniffle. “I’m sorry,” Adele whispered. “I guess—I guess I’m just overwhelmed.”
“And acting like a scared kindergartner is going to help? Stop that boo-hooing. Honestly. Where’s your moxie? Or did the professor take that, too?”
Adele brushed away a tear. “I’m sorry.”
Gilda rolled her eyes. “Honey, I know you’re in a tough spot. But we don’t have the luxury of second-guessing things now. Now, we move ahead. All right?”
Adele didn’t reply.
“I said, ‘all right,’ and I expect an answer.”
She raised her head. “All right.”
“Good.” Beyond Adele, the easel faced the window so that she would have light from the barely opened blinds. Enough tough love for the moment. “Made any progress on that painting?”
Adele brightened. “A little. It’s nothing, really. Do you want to sit for me?”
“I guess I have a few minutes. Let me see, first.” Gilda made her way to the corner and stepped behind the canvas. A soft squeal escaped her lips. The last—the only—time she’d made that sound was when Mayor Bradley gave her an emerald parure in nineteen fifty-three. “Good lord, honey. This is gorgeous.”
The painting’s green outlines were filled in now, and Gilda had appeared in a mix of majesty and down-home appeal, like Queen Elizabeth dressed for a walk with her corgis. This was not how she appeared in the mirror, but she had to admit it was how she felt when she was explaining the intricacies of the mistress-wife relationship to Mary Rose after dinner in the cafeteria.
Adele smiled again and picked up her palette. She squirted blobs of red, blue, and yellow paint on it and started to mix with a paintbrush.
“I don’t see why you bother with forgeries when you can paint like this. Honey, you could make a mint. Every rich lady in town would beg you to paint her. Heck, you could paint whatever you wanted.”
“I’m not a real artist, just a craftsperson. I’m too commercial. Derivative.” As Adele said the words, she didn’t seem to listen. Her gaze was focused on Gilda and had taken on that faraway look she’d had in their earlier session when she’d painted the outline.
“Right. I remember.”
Adele didn’t respond. Her paintbrush moved with assurance between the blobs of color, making a handful of flesh tones.
“That art teacher who got in your pants.”
She barely nodded.
“Good grief. We’ve been through this. Remember?”
Adele swallowed.
“Well, it’s a load of hogwash. ‘Derivative. Commercial.’ I bet the loser never sold anything he made. Did he?”
At last, Adele looked up, and her eyes widened.
“He’s a swindler, that’s what he is. Taking advantage of young girls.” Gilda had met a lot of men like that art professor. Boxcar loads of them. Usually it was someone with a little power. He used it to seduce girls and boost his ego. Like that second-rate boss she’d had when she waited tables, before her singing career. He thought that just because he owned a truck stop, he was entitled to nookie in the walk-in refrigerator. “We’ll get you that operation, then you can sell a painting and hire yourself a shrink.”
Silent, Adele stared at her.
“What? You don’t have anything to say?”
“You told me to stop being a baby. I’m taking my medicine.” She gave a small smile.
“Good girl.” Gilda leaned back and tilted her head just a bit, to match her likeness on the canvas. “Keep painting.”
17
After dinner, Gilda pushed herself away from the dinner table and reached for her walker. “Padre, you ready?”
Father Vincent jangled a ring of keys from his finger. “You bet. I thought we’d take Claudine’s Mercedes. She’ll be happy to see it.”
When they arrived, Claudine was waiting for them downstairs in the perfume boutique. She opened the side door, and this time Father Vincent came in, too, holding an umbrella over Gilda against the spring rain.
“Hey, Deanie,” he said as he shook water off the umbrella. “I gapped your spark plugs. The Mercedes purrs like Eartha Kitt now.”
“Thank you. What do I owe you?”
Father Vincent actually looked embarrassed. “I thought—well, I thought maybe you’d let me do a little sampling for a new cologne.”
“Why don’t you look around while Gilda and I talk?”
“You fixing to go out, Deanie? I like the lipstick.” Hank’s daughter never did wear much makeup. She always looked great, of course. Kept herself strong and limber for her old break-in work, and that moody look was a real turn-on for some men.
“I am, in fact. A late dinner.”
“Not with the Oz?” Oswald was Deanie’s ex-husband and a troublemaker. Catnip to the ladies, though.
“No, Gilda. I haven’t seen him since the Cabrini heist. I probably won’t see him again.”
Gilda studied Claudine’s expression for sadness or dissatisfaction, but all she found was the usual indifferent set of mouth. “We never had much of a chance to talk about that. Are you ever sorry you didn’t go through with it?”
Hank had died on the heels of Claudine’s decision to give up a gigantic jewel heist—the Cabrini jewels—to save the firehouse for a family shelter. It was the heist that would have set her up for life. Instead, she’d left it for her ex-husband to carry out.
“No.” The word came without pause, but also without conviction.
“Truth, Deanie. Are you sorry?”
Claudine held her emotionless expression. “I told you the truth.”
Maybe it was leftover anger simmering from her “grow up” lecture to Adele, or maybe it was the culmination of months of grief, but Gilda couldn’t contain her feelings any longer. She nailed Claudine with her gaze, and using the force of years singing in a nightclub without a microphone, said, “I’ve had it.”
Claudine’s chair jolted back an inch, but she didn’t respond.
“You planned that heist for months, and you gave it up. Your father died. You left your old life for some new gig as an insurance detective. And you are as cold as” —Gilda searched for the words as her anger gathered steam. Her gaze lit upon an oversized perfume flacon filled with amber water— “as that phony bottle of Shalimar.”
Father Vincent didn’t seem to notice the storm on their side of the room. He bent and sniffed over a bottle, his skirt whooshing against the glass display case.
Maybe it was Gilda’s imagination, but she thought she noticed a softening around the girl’s mouth. A moment passed, then two.
“I’m sorry I haven’t been by to see you. It’s been—hard.” Claudine’s words fell into the silence soft and soothing as feathers.
“Oh, honey.” Gilda fell into Claudine’s arms and erupted into tears. She didn’t need Claudine to go into detail. For Claudine, this was detail. “I thought you didn’t care about me anymore. I thought you’d found a new life, and we’d never see you.” She pushed back into her chair.
Claudine smiled, a real smile. “I love you, Gilda. I really do.”
Gilda sniffed and wiped her eyes. “You’re avoiding us. I’m not the only one who notices.”
“I still can’t believe Dad died. If I stay away from the Villa,
I can pretend he’s still around.”
“How do you think I feel?” Her words dropped to a whisper. “It’s so hard.”
“I know.” Claudine’s voice was just as soft. “I know.”
Rain splatted through the gutter outside the window. Father Vincent tunelessly hummed at the other side of the boutique. A lump still clogged Gilda’s throat, and she forced it out with an “ahem.” “Tell me about this man you’re having dinner with.”
“He’s a fellow I work with.”
“Really?” This took a moment to sink home. Claudine, dating someone who wasn’t on the make?
“You have anything with more of an automotive feel?” Father Vincent asked. He stood, seemingly stymied, in front of a row of bottles of pink perfume.
“Over there. Try the Bulgari Black,” Claudine said. Then, to Gilda, “He’s all right. I think you’d like him.”
“Does he know about—?”
“Nothing he can prove.”
Gilda clipped and unclipped her purse. What would Hank say? He’d always liked the Oz, even though she’d pegged him for a player from day one. “Are you sure you want to get involved with someone who might, well, misunderstand our lifestyle?”
“He understands it, all right.”
“But he doesn’t approve.”
Claudine sat upright. “He doesn’t have to. I’m not part of that life anymore.”
The room fell silent, except for Father Vincent’s fumbling with bottles.
Not in the life anymore. That would explain her reluctance to drop by the Villa like she used to for Sunday suppers and the occasional card game. The hollow Hank’s death had left deepened.
“All right.” Gilda’s voice was quiet. “I won’t keep you, then. What’s the progress on Adele’s paintings?”
“Love this one, Deanie,” Father Vincent said. “Nice whiff of rubber and smoke. I had a sixty-seven Mustang once that smelled just like it.”
“Take the bottle,” Claudine said. Bringing her attention back to Gilda, she said, “You were right. I got quite a bit of credit at the insurance company when I nailed eight forged paintings.”
“They didn’t ask you how you got the list?”
“Nothing I couldn’t answer.”
“What do you think, Gilda?” Father Vincent thrust a wrist under her nose.
She pushed his arm away. “Very nice. We’re not through here yet. Why don’t you check out Deanie’s Toyota?”
“It has been running a little rough,” Claudine said.
Father Vincent was out the side door before Gilda had time to reply.
“What happens now?” Gilda asked.
“I’m tracking down where they all are. Not all the insurance holders update their records when they move or sell something. A couple of her paintings actually ended up at the Holgate.”
“That fancy museum?”
“The very one. Another painting is here in Carsonville. Besides the one at the golf club.” She cast a sideways glance at Gilda.
“Carsonville. I’ll be—” She stopped. Here in town. “Carsonville?”
“Some art professor owns it. I left him a message today.”
Gilda turned this over in her mind. Adele’s art professor. No. That would be too much of a coincidence, although Carsonville couldn’t contain more than a handful of them. “I wonder if Adele knows him?”
“How is Adele, anyway?”
Claudine really did look lovely with lipstick, although the shade might be a bit orange on her. “She’s all right. We’re going to get her to a brain surgeon that Doc Parisot recommended.”
“A brain surgeon? That’s expensive, plus Adele’s a hot commodity right now. How are you—oh, no. The dog bed.”
Gilda felt her face warm. This straight life of Claudine’s was too much. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You don’t know anything about an eighteenth-century lit de chien that was stolen from a prominent neurosurgeon’s house this morning.” She put it as a statement, not a question.
“Know anything about it? I can’t even spell it.”
Another of the awkward silences fell. This never used to happen. Not that Claudine was ever the talkative type, but they’d always had so much to catch up on. And not just about Hank, either. They were family.
Claudine rose and slipped her purse over her shoulder. “Good. Let’s keep it that way. Now I have to go out.”
“You’re not mad?”
She slipped her arm through Gilda’s and smiled. “Only if you’re not still mad at me.”
18
Ellie had fallen onto the couch prepared for a sleepless night. Her afternoon and evening since the failed heist had been spent pacing the school’s corridors trying to figure out where she’d gone wrong.
How had the dog bed disappeared? B. E. Lancaster always kept it in the shrine room. Mitzi had talked about it incessantly, about how he cared more about it than he did about her. Maybe the dog bed was on loan to a museum. Or maybe his wife had destroyed it.
No. Couldn’t be. The shrine was set up exactly as it would be were the dog bed in place. Someone had stolen it.
Meanwhile, her plan to destroy the Booster Club was done for. By now, she should have been watching the police swarm the Villa and remove its residents in handcuffs. She should have been saying goodbye once and for all to this god-forsaken hellhole. She should have been heading off to a new life in Palm Beach—or wherever. She punched at the couch’s lumps and turned over.
Despite the anger and disappointment that had needled her, she must have fallen asleep eventually, because she awoke Sunday morning with the boy mouth-breathing over her.
“Hi, princess,” he said.
Ellie groaned and rolled away from him.
“It’s morning now. Time to get up.”
She sat and blinked at the sunlight. Last night’s rain had given way to cold, clear sun.
“What’s this?” The kid held up an empty whiskey bottle. Ellie didn’t respond. “It’s Mr. Iverson’s,” he added.
“Yeah, well, it was a tough night.” She picked at the housekeeper’s uniform she still wore. At least it was relatively clean. “What are you doing here?”
He drew a hand from behind his back and gave her a piece of folded paper. On the front he’d drawn a grayish disk and a pile of yellow spots. Inside, the card read, “Thank you for the food.”
“Hamburgers and corn,” he said, pointing at the drawing. “Can I have some more?”
“It’s Sunday, um—”
“Josiah,” he said. “What’s your name?”
“Never mind that. It’s Sunday, and I don’t know what’s in the kitchen.” He stared at her, softly breathing through his mouth. Poor kid. Obviously didn’t have breakfast. “Don’t they feed you at home?”
No reply.
“Honestly. Tell me what you had for breakfast.”
“When?”
She swiveled her legs around so she faced him. “Breakfast. This morning.”
Again, nothing.
She exhaled in exasperation. “What are you going to do when I’m not here?”
“Are you leaving?”
The concern in his eyes shot a javelin of warmth through her. “I can’t stay in this filthy den forever. Where do you usually get breakfast?”
“They give it to me at school.”
“And on the weekends?”
He continued to stare. The kid was skinny. She’d known dogs that were better cared for than he was. The thought reminded her of the Marie Antoinette dog bed, and she groaned again.
“All right,” she said. “Go to the bathroom and wash your face. I’ll meet you in the kitchen.”
He darted toward the door and paused before opening it, giving her a broad smile that highlighted the missing tooth on his upper jaw. “Thank you, princess,” he said.
Ellie rubbed the small of her back. What she’d give for a decent mattress. And a decent meal. No more odds and ends from the school kitchen. Sh
e took up the telescope. They were probably having a nice Sunday breakfast at the Villa. French toast and bacon, maybe. She’d given up carbs years ago, but now she’d kill for a stack of pancakes. She trained the telescope on the Villa cafeteria’s window and gasped.
The dog bed. The telescope clattered to the floor and rolled away. The freaking dog bed was at the Villa, sitting right there on the table by the window that old redhead used for her floral arrangements. There was no missing its gilded posts and blue upholstery.
Then she remembered the Bombast Cable van she’d seen first at the Villa and then outside the Lancasters’ house. They were so common that she’d hardly noticed. The Villa’s residents had stolen the dog bed before she’d arrived. Why, she didn’t know, but it also didn’t matter.
She smiled, then flinched at the strain on facial muscles not often used. “Ha ha ha.” The laugh sounded dry, but it was heartfelt. Providence had come through. She wouldn’t even have to go to the trouble to plant the dog bed. The Villa’s residents had taken care of it for her.
She’d call the police. Definitely. Right after she fed the kid.
19
Breakfast over, the Villa’s residents gathered in Adele’s room. Gilda took up a commanding spot at the desk chair, once she’d pushed the easel closer to the wall. Grady and Mort borrowed chairs from Mary Rose’s room across the hall. Father Vincent leaned in the doorway. Warren, not usually so interested in Booster Club matters, sat within protective reach of Adele.
“All right,” Gilda said. Being a ringleader was really starting to agree with her. “Step one, steal painting at the Oak Hills golf club. Done.”
“Thank you,” Adele said.
“That was an easy one,” Father Vincent added.
“Speak for yourself. Step two, the rest of the paintings. Claudine is working on it.”
Adele lifted her head. “What’s happened so far?”
“I talked with her last night.” The memory of the awkwardness between them distracted Gilda a second, and she had to repeat herself. “I talked with her last night, and she says they’ve tracked down most of the paintings. A few have been sold since they were planted.” Gilda turned to face Adele head-on. “One of them’s in Carsonville.”
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