Finding the Forger

by Libby Sternberg

  Speaking of which, one of the pieces that had been taken from the museum was called “Trapezoid with Stencil III.” An oil on canvas from 1979, it was something that practically anybody could have done, even me. It was a canvas in the shape of a trapezoid, painted a pale blue (kind of the color of my bedroom), and in the middle of the thing was pasted a stencil of a rose—the kind you get at craft stores. It was described thus:

  “Beckoning with a drenched shade of blue evocative of old wall finishes” (hey, was I right, or what?), “‘Trapezoid’ captures the blandness of popular culture while gently parodying decorative arts with the burnished stencil.”

  Huh? “Blandness of popular culture”? I felt like showing this artist my poetry magnets. They weren’t bland. They were downright jumpin’. I began to wonder how much “Trapezoid” was worth. And I thought again of Neville’s theory—that maybe it wasn’t an art thief at work but a frustrated artist sending some kind of message.

  I was still musing on these questions when Connie rolled in after eleven. Grabbing my robe, I met her in the hallway.

  “How was it?” I asked, yawning.

  “Okay. Kind of juvenile.” She smiled at me. “But I’ll be on retainer with Witherspoon’s firm by tomorrow.” She walked into her room. “Hey! Someone’s been in my file.”

  “You left it out!” I said in defense of my snooping. “Besides, I think I can help.”

  Connie unbuttoned her jacket and hung it up in the closet.

  “I really need my own place,” she said. But she didn’t kick me out. Instead, she sat on the edge of the bed, pulled the file towards her, and looked up at me.

  “Okay, shoot. What’s your theory?”

  It wasn’t my theory, of course. It was Neville’s. But that didn’t stop me from spouting it out as if I were some art fraud expert. When I finished, she twisted her mouth to one side and narrowed her eyes. Tapping her fingers on the now-closed file, she said, “You know, that’s not a bad thought. Neville mentioned that to me as well.”

  That darn Neville.

  “And,” she continued, “it certainly implicates Hector.”

  “But why? He has a job lined up, a good future …”

  “Well, Miss Smartypants, if you looked through the file, you saw what kind of artist he is. He doesn’t go in for this throw-the-paint-at-the-wall-and-see-where-it-sticks stuff …”

  “Abstract expressionism,” I interrupted. “I think that’s what they call it.”

  “Whatever. He paints real pictures.”

  “Yeah. And he’s going to get paid for them. You saw how he has a job lined up. Why would he jeopardize that with a juvenile prank?” Hmmph—I can use that word, too.

  “Who knows?” Connie shrugged her shoulders and yawned. “I’ve seen smart people do dumber things.”

  “I just don’t see it. He sends money to an aunt. He’s got a job lined up. He’s working his way through school. When people do dumb things, they usually have a pattern of doing dumb things.”

  “Are you speaking from experience?” she asked. When I curled my lip at her, she continued, “He has that record.”

  “That was long ago. He’s reformed. Like Sarah.”

  Connie leaned back. Her leg twitched while she thought.

  “I have to admit,” she said at last, “that I don’t have a gut feeling he’s the one.”

  “There you go.”

  “But what I can’t figure out is why somebody would pull this kind of prank in this way.” She sat up straight. “I mean, if you’re trying to make a point about this, this—”

  “Abstract Expressionism,” I offered.

  “Whatever—if you’re trying to tell the world that it’s a bunch of hooey, shouldn’t you be announcing it in a more spectacular way? Nobody but the board knows about the thefts.”

  “Maybe the criminal didn’t plan it that way.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Maybe they expected it to leak out.”

  Connie yawned. “Look, I’m beat and you have school tomorrow.”

  That was my cue to leave, but as I went, I thought of ways to help solve the case. In the morning, I’d talk to Sarah about a new hunch I had.

  Chapter Sixteen

  IN THE MORNING, however, both Connie and I had our answer to the question on what the fraud artist would do to gain public attention.

  On the front page of the Baltimore Sun, in the lower right corner, was a story about the whole affair, with Connie mentioned as the private investigator the museum hired!

  Connie was furious. As I sat at breakfast, she was answering a phone call from Fawn Dexter, and I could tell from her red face and numerous “yes, Fawn,” “no, Fawn” responses that whatever Fawn was saying was not of the “have a nice day” variety. When she got off the phone, she let out a frustrated growl.

  “You didn’t tell any of your friends about the investigation, did you?” she snapped at me. She grabbed a bowl from the kitchen cabinet and plopped down at the table across from me.

  “No!” Which was the truth. I had no friends—only bickering, squabbling acquaintances.

  “Well, somebody leaked something to the press,” Connie hissed.

  “It wasn’t me! Why do you always think it’s me when something goes wrong?”

  Just then, Mom walked in the room. “What are you girls arguing about this morning?” she asked as she got herself a cup of coffee and snapped on her wristwatch. Tony had a really early class so Mom was driving me to school that day.

  “Connie thinks I blabbed to the Sunpapers about her investigation of the museum case.” I jabbed my finger at the newspaper, and my mother joined us at the table.

  As she read, she nodded her head. “Yes, I’d heard about this. I really thought it was a mistake for the museum to keep it under wraps. It undermines public trust in a public institution,” she said, sipping her coffee.

  Connie and I looked at each other with wide eyes. Mom knew about it? Was she the leak? Before I had a chance to ask any questions, Connie jumped in with her own.

  “How did you …”

  “Baltimore is really a very small town,” Mom said. “And it gets even smaller when you’re dealing with the arts crowd.”

  Hmmm … Mom worked for the District Attorney. Bertrand Witherspoon was a lawyer. It made sense. Someone on the board could have leaked the story, someone who believed, as Mom did, that the museum shouldn’t be keeping it a secret. All I knew was it wasn’t me. Don’t misunderstand me—it’s not like I wouldn’t have leaked it if I’d had the chance. I just didn’t have the chance. Like I would know who to contact at the Sunpapers anyway.

  Connie grumpily finished her breakfast and grouched at me again, whereupon Mom told her not to be so surly with me.

  Maybe it was because of Connie’s sniping, but Mom was in a particularly kind mood as she drove me to school. She asked me if I got tired of packing my lunch and if I’d like money to buy lunch for a change. And she mentioned taking me shopping soon for some new blue jeans, something I’d been bugging her about for awhile.

  Now, any time a parent is really nice to you, your antennae go up, sensing trouble, and I was no exception. As Mom maneuvered the car through morning traffic and maneuvered the conversation around all the wonderful things she was going to do for me, the question that kept echoing in the back of my mind was: “Why?” Why was she so focused on my feelings all of a sudden? My hair was looking good, so there was no more need to sympathize in that regard. Did she know something I didn’t know? Was I failing? Was she going to ask me to give up my room, or tell me I had to quit school and go to work to put Tony through college?

  Shortly before we drove up to the high school, the bombshell dropped.

  “There are plenty of boys out there, Bianca, and you’ll find the right one. If you ever want to talk about it, I’m here.”

  What?!!!! She was slowing down in front of the long walkway that led to the school’s front door. I knew she wouldn’t want to linger because of traffic,
but this could not go unresolved.

  “Doug and I are … well …” I started to say.

  “I know. I saw him with Kerrie downtown last week. But you’ll find someone else. Like I told you, plenty of fish in the sea. And you can still go to the Mistletoe Dance—with one of your friends. That’s what I love about dances nowadays. You don’t have to have a date. In my day, if the boy didn’t ask you, you were left sitting at home.”

  Crash. That was the sound of my heart hitting the concrete sidewalk and breaking into a thousand pieces. Kerrie and Doug downtown? Kerrie and Doug together—maybe holding hands, or his arm around her shoulder, or in some position that told my mother we were “kaput” and they were “in like Flint”—whatever that means.

  What a way to start my day! After I slammed the door shut, I practically ran up the sidewalk to the school, fighting back tears. When your mother notices your boyfriend might not be true— that’s really, really bad news.

  Inside, I raced to my locker and hurried through the morning routine. I didn’t linger to see if Sarah or Kerrie or Doug showed up. I wanted to be alone. In fact, I was so into this alone business that I skipped lunch, just eating an apple in the hallway, and went to the library instead. Let them all wonder where I was. Let them miss me. I felt like kicking pigeons.

  For all my efforts, I was rewarded by a few confused looks from Doug as we passed in the hall during the day, no reaction from Kerrie (I hardly saw her), and at least some concern from Sarah, who caught up with me after school.

  “Hey,” she said as she wriggled into her fleece jacket. It had turned a little chilly over the weekend as a cool front moved through. “Something the matter? You looked kind of down today.”

  I had to use every ounce of self-control not to burden Sarah with my Doug-and-Kerrie story. I so wanted to tell her. I wanted to sob it all out, to rant at the sky and gnash my teeth and rend my garments. My best friend and my boyfriend! This wasn’t fair. This broke all the rules!

  But I had my own rules. I knew if I complained about Kerrie stealing Doug, it would only add fuel to the dry tinder of Kerrie and Sarah’s relationship. I didn’t want to go there. So instead, I used all my effort and pasted a smile on my face.

  “Nothing. Just thinking about the case—the art case, that is.”

  “Did you see the article in today’s paper?” Sarah asked, her eyes widening. “I’m so glad they didn’t mention Hector.”

  “Yeah, me, too. That reminds me—I was thinking that maybe there’s a connection between the alarm going off and this whole thing.”

  “You mean the day you were with me at the museum?” Sarah asked.

  Wow, did that day ever seem light years away. We had been planning a surprise party for Kerrie, something we hadn’t talked about since.

  “Yeah. I was maybe thinking that whoever is doing this wants attention and they thought pulling the alarm would get it. But it didn’t, so he had to leak the story to the paper when the museum started covering stuff up.”

  Sarah grimaced. “Fawn Dexter is going to be in a bad mood today.”

  Usually, the pre-Christmas days are really happy ones for me. I still haven’t lost that holiday glow from childhood, where you look forward to what Santa is going to bring. Even knowing there’s no Santa hadn’t really dimmed my joy. But man, oh man, this season I was feeling like a regular grinch. With all the troubles swirling around my friends and my love life, I could barely focus on school work, let alone shopping. So when Neville called after dinner that night to invite me to a holiday party at his place, my first reaction had been to say I thought I would be busy. When he pressed me, I reluctantly said I’d call him later and tell him for sure what my plans were.

  “You have to go,” Connie said, standing in my doorway. Obviously, she’d overheard.

  “Since when are you my social secretary?” I replied with all the warmth of an Antarctic traveler.

  “Since Bertrand told me Neville is lonely and trying to fit in!” She leaned against the door. “I met with him today. And I’m on retainer.”

  “Bertrand? Does Kurt know about how cozy you’ve become with Bertrand?”

  Connie gave me a look that said, if she’d had a pillow with her, she would have thrown it at me. We Balduccis have perfected silent communication to a high art.

  “Besides,” I continued, “didn’t you and Neville have a hot date? Don’t you think he’d want you there instead of me?”

  “Bianca!” Connie groaned. “Come on. You know that if he were just some guy, completely unconnected to anything I was doing, you’d feel sorry for him and go to his party. You’d probably be starting some Befriend-the-Brit program at school.” Her voice softened. “You know that’s true.”

  She had a point. Even with Neville’s slightly obnoxious personality, chances were that Kerrie and Sarah and I would have taken pity on him and tried to bring him into the fold of normalcy. Just because doing so would help my sister was no reason not to go to his party.

  No, there was another reason not to go—and that was because of Neville’s interest in me when I had a boyfriend—if I still had a boyfriend, that is.

  “The problem,” I said gently, “is that Neville likes me. And I don’t like him—not in that way, at least.”

  “Neville likes everyone!” Connie said. “And he had this mistaken idea that American women like men to be forward.”

  “What?”

  “He tried to lock lips with me after the concert,” Connie explained, “but I told him ‘whoa,’ and the rest of the night he was the perfect gentleman.”

  “He what?” Her suggestion was that, in Neville’s eyes, I wasn’t some special hot tamale he couldn’t keep his hands off. I was just an ordinary tamale.

  “He apologized and told me he thought I’d expected it— thought all American girls did.” Connie laughed. “Frankly, I think that was just a line of you-know-what, but he was friendly afterward, so I think he tries to see how far he can go, and backs off when you set limits.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “In other words, sex kitten, if you make it clear you have a guy, he won’t bother you.”

  “Oh,” I said, searching for some funny and sassy retort to throw at her. But my mind was too jarred by her ego-bursting story. Here I’d thought Neville hit on me because I was such a babe in my new haircut and all. From the corner of my eyes, I glanced in the mirror over my dresser. Hey—I was a babe. I wasn’t relinquishing the title just because Neville had thrown me back into the pond.

  “Well, maybe I’ll go,” I said at last.

  “Great! You can get Doug to take you. That’ll send everybody a message.” Her job done, she waltzed off down the hall.

  I looked at the phone in the middle of my bed. Hmm … ask Doug to a party at Neville’s. What kind of message would that send? Well, it could send a message of cavalier insouciance (I’ve always wanted to use that word in a sentence!), of a sense that I didn’t care about Neville, and that I was so sure of my love for Doug I could go to a party at Neville’s and take Doug with me. And if Doug was hooking up with Kerrie, it would force him to ‘fess up, and at least I’d know where I stood.

  On the other hand … it could send a message of complete disregard for Doug’s feelings if he thought I was interested in Neville,

  and Doug was still interested in me. What’s a girl to do?

  The phone rang, jolting me by surprise. Wow—I ask a mental question and the phone rings. This was, like, weird.

  When I picked up the receiver, the weirdness continued. It was Kerrie and she was calling about Neville’s party!

  “Sarah and I are going,” she said after the hello’s, the exchanges about schoolwork, snarky teachers, and new clothes. “And Doug said he was interested. C’mon, we can go as a group. It’ll be fun.”

  Doug said he was interested? My “boyfriend” told Kerrie he was interested in going to a party before he told me? Was I going to go now?

  Heck, yes.

  “It’s kind of spur-of-the-momen
t,” I said, pretending not to care. “I mean, I’d have to get Connie to drive me—”

  “Doug said he’d drive,” Kerrie said, irritating me even more. “He said he could pick you up at 6:30.”

  “Okay,” I managed to mumble, and then I let Kerrie chitchat with me for another fifteen minutes, finally using the excuse I had homework to do to get off the phone and mope. I was in Mopus Extremis, and felt like a big dark cloud was pressing down on me.

  Chapter Seventeen

  NOTHING MUCH HAPPENED in the days leading up to Neville’s party. In fact, we entered a kind of eye-of-the-hurricane period where you just knew the worst of the storm is creeping up on you, but you let yourself believe sunshine and blue skies are here to stay.

  Doug was still acting strange, hardly talking to me, and even avoiding eye contact when we passed in the hall. Now, ordinarily I’d have thought those were really bad signs, even portents of doom, if you know what I mean. But I was in serious denial. After all, we had this date thing coming up—the party. Okay, it was more a “semi-date” since we were going as a group. But I had my pride and I insisted on thinking of it as a date.

  In fact, I invested quite a bit of time pondering what to wear for this date. I decided I needed to really impress on Doug that I was still his girl, still worth having as a girlfriend, and still worthy of his trust. Okay, okay—if he was dumping me for Kerrie, I wanted him to suffer with yearning.

  So I pawed through the darker recesses of my closet and in no time at all found the perfect party outfit.

  Actually, it took me about two hours to find it. I did a lot of tryons, standing in front of my mirror in a broomstick skirt (too hippie), new jeans (too casual), sundress (too beachy), short black dress again (too obvious), and even khaki shorts and flamin’ crop-top (too trashy, and besides, too cold for early December).