There was nothing like a fashion discussion to snag Eve’s interest.
Usually.
This time she ignored me, and I knew for sure that I was in trouble.
“All we have to do is prove she did it,” Eve plowed ahead.
“If it was that easy,” I reminded her, “the cops would have already done it.”
“Yeah, if Beyla wasn’t so clever. She knows better than to drop her guard. You heard her-she said she didn’t even know Drago.”
“And we know she did.” I had to give her that one. I couldn’t ignore the fact that Beyla had lied, both to us and the police. I mulled over the thought. Naturally, my brain took it one step further. “And we know Monsieur Lavoie knew Drago, too. We saw Drago storm out of the store, and we saw how upset Monsieur Lavoie was by the whole thing. And then there’s John. He said he was having coffee with Beyla after class that night, but we know for a fact that-”
I heard my own words and the thread of excitement in my voice as I logically worked my way through the argument. Eve wasn’t one to miss little nuances. Her eyes lit up.
“Gotcha!” she said.
I wasn’t about to roll over so quickly. I tried one last objection. “Eve, we can’t-”
“You want to help me get back at Tyler, don’t you?” Her eyes grew sharp in a way that it was impossible for any best friend to discount. “You don’t want him to spend the rest of his happily ever after with what’s-her-name, talking about poor little Eve DeCateur and how she couldn’t even-”
“All right already!” I threw my hands in the air, surrendering. “But I’m only going to give this a few days.”
“A few days is all it’s going to take.”
“And I’m not going to do anything stupid.”
“I wouldn’t ask you to.”
“And I’m not going to do anything dangerous.”
“Annie! I wouldn’t dream of it,” Eve exclaimed. “I was thinking we could just start with a little computer research. I’m not very good at that sort of thing and…”
She left the rest of the sentence unspoken, but I knew just what she meant. I checked the clock that hung above the lunchroom door. “I’ve got ten minutes until I need to get back to work,” I told her. “Let’s get started.”
A couple minutes later, we were logged on to the Internet on the computer that sat on a table in one corner of the lunchroom. It was supposed to be a sort of company benefit, a place where employees could play games or check e-mail while they were on their breaks. But the computer was old and even slower than the one I had at home. Most of the time, no one used it.
Luckily, today was one of those times.
Because it seemed like the most logical place to begin, I Googled “Drago Kravic.” The computer went through its motions and, surprisingly, came up with a hit.
“Arta,” I read the little blurb and clicked on the URL. “Looks like Drago had something to do with an art gallery.”
Another wait, and then a home page popped up. “He owned it!” Eve exclaimed, reading over my shoulder and pointing to the screen. “It says here that Drago Kravic was the proprietor. Look, it’s right over in Georgetown. You know what this means, don’t you?”
I did, and just the thought was enough to make my stomach queasy.
It meant that after work and before Brussels Sprouts 101, Eve and I were going on a road trip.
I DIDN’T THINK DRAGO’S GALLERY WOULD BE OPEN, especially not just a few days after he died. In my mind, I pictured a black wreath on the front door and a line of sad-faced customers snaking its way around the block, waiting to pay their respects to the dearly departed owner.
Truth be told, I suppose that’s why I agreed to go to Georgetown with Eve. I figured we’d be there and back in twenty minutes. The trip might even prove to Eve once and for all that there were better uses for our time than sleuthing. Particularly when the sleuths didn’t know what they were doing.
And I still had to make a trip to the grocery store for those Brussels sprouts.
We stood by the curb on M Street, studying the building across the street. We could see the sleek turquoise and burnt orange Arta address sign. Much to my surprise-not to mention disappointment-the gallery lights were on, and we could see a man inside. It was raining, which seemed appropriate in a film noire sort of way. Eve shivered inside her lemon-colored tank top. Me, I was prepared; I slipped on my jacket. Just as I did, something clicked inside my brain.
I took another gander at the address.
“That’s it!” I reached into my pocket, suddenly remembering the piece of paper Drago pressed into my hand right before he died. “That’s what was written on the back of the restaurant receipt. The address of Arta. Look!” I pulled out the crumpled receipt and smoothed it so that Eve could read it.
She nodded, confirming my deduction, which, I will say, felt pretty darned brilliant.
“You know what it proves, don’t you?” Eve asked, and when I didn’t, she shook her head, amazed that I still wasn’t thinking like a detective. “We’re supposed to be here,” she said, and before I could come up with a dozen reasons why she was wrong, she grabbed my arm and pulled me across the street.
We pushed open the gallery door and found ourselves in a huge room with track lighting on the high ceiling. The paintings that hung on the redbrick walls were too abstract for me to decipher, and the sculptures… well, to my untrained eyes, they looked like rocks piled one on top of another.
The man we’d seen from across the street was on the other side of the room, looking at one of the rock piles. He certainly didn’t look like he worked there: he was tall, thin, and bald, and he was dressed in jeans, a dark golf shirt, and expensive sneakers. I figured him for a customer until I realized that there was no one else around. He refused to make eye contact, and I think he would have ignored us completely if Eve hadn’t headed right over to where he stood.
The man turned to us sharply, and murmured an uncomfortable, “Good afternoon!”
“Hi there! We’re interior designers,” I blurted out. Eve turned to me, eyes wide with surprise. OK, OK, so I wasn’t as good a liar as she was, but I figured I needed to take charge of the situation. “Redoing a home in Bethesda,” I continued. “We’re looking for just the right painting.”
“This is not possible.” The man’s voice was heavily accented, like Drago’s. And Beyla’s, for that matter. “This is a private gallery. You do not walk in without an appointment. If you will excuse me…” He backed away at the same time he gestured toward the front of the gallery. There was no mistaking what he meant.
Don’t let the door hit you on your way out.
For all I knew about the world of art, this was how things were done. Still, to me, it seemed a funny way to do business. Or not to do business.
“I’m not sure you understand,” I continued. I could tell Eve was just as baffled as I was by his attitude, and not sure what to say. “We want to look at paintings. We want to buy.”
The man’s smile wavered around the edges. “Yes, yes. This is very good. But you must understand. You do not come to a gallery without an appointment. How do you say this? It is not done.”
Three cheers for my brain. It clicked into action again.
“But we do have an appointment. Or at least a referral.” The receipt with Drago’s writing on it was still in my hand, and I showed it to the man. “We met Mr. Kravic just recently at this restaurant. He told us to stop by. See, he wrote the address down for us. If you ask him-”
“This is not possible.” I guess he wanted to see the proof up close and personal, because he tried to pluck the receipt out of my hand. But I was faster. After I was sure he’d seen it-and Drago’s writing on it-I stuffed it back in my pocket.
He cleared his throat. “I am sorry to tell you, but Drago Kravic, he is not here.”
I managed a chirpy smile. “We can wait.”
“No, no. You are not understanding.” The man shook his head sadly. “My dear frie
nd Drago, he is not coming back. He is dead.”
We feigned surprise. I thought Eve’s surprise was more convincing than mine, but like I said, I’ve never been much for prevarication. Still, I must have been convincing enough. The man turned a somber smile on me.
“I am sorry I have to tell you this distressing news,” he said. “I am Yuri Grul, Drago’s partner. It is a sad time for me. For all of us. If there is anything I can do-”
“Now that you mention it, you just might be able to help,” Eve piped up. She glanced around the gallery, wide-eyed and with one hand on her Kate Spade to prove to Yuri that she was serious when it came to spending money.
“That nice Mr. Kravic, he talked about a painting, and I’m just dying-” How Eve could make herself blush on command was a mystery to me. Her hand flew to her mouth. “Oh! I guess that’s not the best word to use, is it? You’ll excuse me, won’t you, sugar? What I meant to say, of course, is that the way Drago described it, why, I just know I’m gonna love that painting. We may not be able to get back here for a good, long while. So if you could just show it to me? I mean, if it isn’t too much of an imposition at a time like this.”
For a couple seconds, I thought Yuri was going to say it was. I almost wished he had-then we could get out of here and get back to minding our own business.
But mourning or no mourning, Yuri was obviously a man of business. He smiled in an oily sort of way that made me uncomfortable. “The name?” he asked.
“Why, it’s Eve DeCateur, and this is Annie Capshaw.” Eve pressed a hand to her heart and twinkled, but Yuri’s blank expression said it all. “Oh, you mean the name of the painting!” She rolled her eyes as if amazed by her own foolishness. “I just know it will come to me,” she said, chewing on her lower lip. “Maybe if you show us around?”
“Of course.” Yuri stepped back to allow us to get closer to the displays. That was my cue-we’d discussed that much on the way over, though I never thought we’d actually do it. If Eve could keep the gallery people distracted, I could snoop around. The thought of it sent a chill up my spine, but then again, I’d already concocted a whopper of a story to get us this far. I might as well go all out.
Besides, I knew that if I didn’t act fast, Eve would take matters into her own hands. And who knew what might happen then!
“If you’ll excuse me for a moment.” I did my best to look embarrassed. It didn’t take much acting-this whole thing was beginning to feel like a scene from a bad sitcom. “Ladies’ room?”
“Of course.” What else could Yuri say? He waved vaguely toward the other side of the gallery, and when Eve wrapped her arm through his and started to chatter, I took off in the opposite direction.
I found myself at the back of the building in a long hallway that struck me as particularly gloomy compared to the bright lighting out on the floor. I saw the door marked Ladies and passed it by, glancing over my shoulder to make sure Yuri wasn’t paying attention. I heard the light sounds of Eve’s laughter echo against the high ceiling, and Yuri’s lower, more guttural replies. Knowing she’d keep him busy for a few more minutes-and hoping a few minutes was enough time-I headed off to find the gallery office.
What was I looking for?
I really didn’t know. I only knew that Eve had this crazy idea that if I could get a peek into Drago’s office, I would find something that would give us a clue to the identity of his killer.
In Eve’s mind, of course, that killer was Beyla.
Did I believe it?
Honestly, I still didn’t know what I thought about Beyla. At that moment, the only thing I was sure about was that I wasn’t cut out to be a thief or a spy. My heart was pounding like the drum line of a high school marching band. My palms were sweaty. My blood was racing so fast and hard, it felt like it was going to spurt out of my veins.
I took a deep breath, attempting to get a grip and trying to reason through the panic cluttering my mind.
Therewas the receipt from Drago with the address of the gallery scrawled on it, I reminded myself. And there were his final words to me.
“This… important. You will see.”
Maybe Drago was trying to lead me here all along. Maybe Eve was onto something after all. Maybe this trip to the gallery was significant. Maybe I would find something in Drago’s office.
If Yuri didn’t catch me snooping around first.
The thought fueled my footsteps, and I picked up my pace down the hallway. There was a brass sign hanging beside the next door on my right that said Private. The door was closed, but it wasn’t shut all the way. I peeked inside.
One look in the office told me that any chance I had of finding a clue was officially gone.
All three of the file cabinets in the room were flung open, and file folders littered the blue and red rug on the floor. The desk drawers were gaping, too, and whatever had been in them was piled on the desk chair.
There was a window on one wall and a small safe under it. That had been opened, as well. It didn’t appear to me that it had been broken into. I may not be much in the burglary department but I do know a mess when I see one. The door of the safe was hanging open, and what looked to be record books kicked to one side definitely qualified as a mess.
Somebody had gotten here before us, and it seemed as though that somebody had an advantage over Eve and me.
He-or she-knew exactly what he-or she-was looking for.
And it was obvious that he-or she-would do anything to find it.
Eight
“SMUGGLING.”
“Art forgery.”
“Fake antiques.”
“That’s almost just like art forgery. That doesn’t count.”
Eve rolled her eyes. At least she remembered to keep her voice down. We were in class (Fabulous Fruits and Vivacious Vegetables), and as we had all the way from Georgetown to Arlington, we were trying to figure out what sort of shady dealings Drago could have been involved with that would have resulted in his office being trashed-and in Drago being killed.
Eve whispered to me while she opened her can of chestnuts. “Maybe it doesn’t have anything to do with the gallery.”
“Except that Drago said the gallery was important,” I reminded her. “That’s why we’ve got to concentrate on crimes that involve art. Unless Drago wasn’t involved in anything illegal at all.” Don’t ask me why, but that was a new thought. I had been running on the assumption that Drago was a bad guy.
“Maybe he was an innocent bystander,” I suggested. “Or a government witness. You know, like on all those TV shows.”
“Of course he wasn’t!” Eve practically sneered. In a beauty queen sort of way, of course. “You saw him that evening when he was coming out of here. And you saw him when he and Beyla were arguing. He was one nasty dude. Bad as bad can get.”
“I hope that’s not the Brussels sprouts you’re talking about.”
We’d been so deep in our speculations, I had no idea Jim was standing right behind us until his comment interrupted our discussion. I jumped, and the chestnuts I was just pouring out of the can landed half in the sink and half on the floor.
“Sorry.” Jim sprang into action. He stooped to retrieve the chestnuts on the floor. I suppose in the great scheme of things, I should have been grateful for his gallantry.
Except that I bent to get them at the same time.
We clunked heads, and both of us came up rubbing our foreheads.
“Sorry,” I said sheepishly. I was all set to bend down again when I saw that Jim was going to, too.
“Sorry.” It was his turn.
We exchanged uncertain smiles, and though it was unspoken, we made the executive decision to let the chestnuts stay put for a while.
“So…” He concentrated on the ones that had landed in the sink. When he leaned over to scoop them out, his arm brushed mine.
I suppose I was still jittery from the whole snoop-around-the-gallery adventure, not to mention the way we made our excuses to Yuri and hurried out of th
ere after I found Drago’s office looking like a tornado had gone through it. I sucked in a breath as my arm involuntarily jumped.
“I hope I’m not that scary.”
The smile Jim turned on me was as hot as his accent. And believe me, that accent was plenty hot.
I reminded myself that he was just being nice, like any cooking teacher would naturally be to any cooking student, and did my best to corral the suddenly out-of-control fantasies that threatened to leave me grinning back at him like some brainless bimbo. Or worse, like a woman whose head was too easily turned by something as simple as a man being nice to her.
Even when the man in question was the yummiest thing she’d seen since the last pint of Funky Monkey she’d gone through.
He turned off the hot-as-hell smile just as quickly as he had flashed it and backed away enough to take in both Eve and me in one quick glance.
“So, you were saying? About the Brussels sprouts?”
I was still too electrified by the brush of Jim’s skin against mine to cobble together any sort of reasonable response. It occurred to me that I knew I was in trouble when I left the logical replies to Eve.
“Not Brussels sprouts,” Eve said. So far, so good. That seemed sensible enough. She leaned in closer and lowered her voice even more. “We were talking about Drago.”
Thatwas not sensible!
I jumped again, this time back into the conversation before the spark of interest that lit in Jim’s hazel eyes kindled into anything else. Like curiosity. Or more questions.
“Oh, Eve, you are such a kidder!” I gave her arm a playful whack and turned to Jim, my discombobulation forgotten in the face of my need to steer us clear of a subject we had no right to be discussing. Not with Beyla and John only a few feet away. “Of course she’s not talking about that poor dead guy. We didn’t know the dead guy. We don’t know anything about the dead guy. We were just talking about the Brussels sprouts.”
I flashed what I hoped was an extremely carefree smile and returned my attention to my chesnuts. Jim stood in silence for a moment, regarding us with a glimmer in his eye. Then he turned and walked away.
Cooking Up Murder Page 8