Finding the Forger

by Libby Sternberg

  No, what I decided to go with is a look I think of as “sleek but sweet.” I found a pair of pinstripe pants I’d forgotten I had—maybe I should clean up the closet more often—and paired them with a stretchy red top with three-quarter sleeves and gathered bustline. Since the pants are also snug, they both brought out my best feature—I’m slim. I can eat virtually anything and not gain a pound. I’ve got some supercharged metabolism that burns up calories before they even get to my mouth. It drives Kerrie nuts, but she’s got curves where I’ve got angles, and with the Doug thing going on, I wasn’t feeling too sympathetic.

  Anyway, in this number, I looked tall and thin and sophisticated and hot, but also not too flashy.

  The night of the party, I paired the outfit with a simple gold chain with my birthstone on it—a garnet—and with matching earrings my mom gave me one year. With my hair brushed and my body perfumed, I was ready.

  First problem—the pick-up. Doug was late. He didn’t pull up to the door until nearly 7:00, when I was ready to either start calling emergency rooms or put out a contract on his life. And to make matters worse, when he came up to my door, he didn’t apologize. He laughed!

  “Ready?” he said between chuckles.

  “Uh-huh. What’s so funny?” We walked down the steps to the car, which he’d pulled into a parking spot. Well, “pulled into” is too generous a phrase. The car stuck out at a forty-five degree angle, with its rear bumper halfway in the street.

  “Kerrie. She was just telling me about Baker’s music history class.” He shook his head at the memory, obviously still enjoying her scintillating conversation.

  “Yeah, I have him for chorus,” I said, trying to get in on the fun. When we got to the car, I noticed Kerrie was in the front seat. Uh-oh. Another bad sign. But she immediately jumped out to let me in, big smile plastered on her face.

  “No, that’s okay,” I said to her, getting in the back. Okay, so I wanted Doug to protest. But he didn’t. Instead, after we were all buckled in, he told Kerrie to regale me with her humorous anecdotes about Baker. I felt like punching them both.

  And when she did tell me the story, I was miffed. I already knew about the “Amazing Grace” trick. I’d hoped to tell Doug that one myself but had forgotten.

  Oh well, at least that anger distracted me from my other bad feelings. Like envy. The envy I felt when we arrived at Neville’s and I noticed for the first time what Kerrie was wearing. A short denim skirt, beige sweater and … boots! How could I compete with knee-high boots, for crying out loud?

  Luckily for me, she disappeared into the crowd almost immediately after we arrived, or I would have had to rip them off her.

  Neville’s house was more like a palace. It was in the northern part of the city, a kind of privileged class zone, behind a brick wall and wrought-iron gate. It had a Tudor-style look to it with big jutting wings and tall windows and even a curved turret-like thing stuck on one corner. Oh, and from what I could make out, the lawn looked landscaped. Not just mowed and clipped. Landscaped. As in “put the delphinium over there, Jeeves, and the Siberian irises by the fountain.” This was serious money.

  Neville greeted us with a big smile and a glass in one hand. He was drinking. Uh-oh. I don’t drink and neither do any of my friends. Sure, we know kids who do. But I decided long ago (okay, okay, maybe just when I entered high school) that I wasn’t going to bring that kind of sorrow to my mother’s door.

  “Do come in!” Neville said and made a big sweeping gesture to the inside of the house. A big gesture that ended up sloshing beer on me. Yup, that’s right. Beer on my perfect outfit. Beer my mother was sure to smell on me later. Good grief.

  Neville didn’t even notice. Someone called his name and he was off into the house before I had a chance to say “get me out of here quick.” And then Kerrie was summoned by someone she knew and the party hit full tilt.

  “I’ve got to get this out,” I said, pointing to the spot on my slacks where the beer had sloshed.

  “It won’t show,” Doug said. He kind of had to shout because at that moment someone had turned up the volume on the CD player big-time and some rap singer was shouting out lyrics right next to my ear. At least that’s the way it sounded to me.

  “But it smells!” I walked off down the entrance hall searching for the kitchen. Darn Doug. He didn’t show any sympathy for my beer spill, but he’d been all over Kerrie after the sushi avalanche at the art museum.

  Neville’s house was big and confusing. To the right of the entrance hall was a huge living room where a fireplace glowed and several couples were engaged in serious make-out sessions on various sofas. To the left was another huge expanse—a dining area of some sort with furniture that looked like it belonged in a museum. Beyond these rooms was a staircase, a bathroom, a guest room, a work-out room, and a family room that had so much electronic equipment in it that it could have doubled as a Circuit City show-room.

  Finally, finally, just across from this room—where the party was going full swing—I found the kitchen. In there, a nice maid helped me dab the beer from my pants. That’s right. A maid. Neville sure was raising the bar as far as parties went.

  “Thanks,” I said to the woman.

  She just smiled at me, and turned back to a tray of dip and chips—I mean “crisps”—that she was getting ready. When I went back into the hallway, Doug was nowhere to be found. The music was blaring, but I heard laughter coming from the family room, so I tried there. About a dozen kids were laughing and talking. Some of them, like Neville, were drinking. I only recognized one or two of the people, and wondered where Neville came up with the rest of this crew. Kerrie was talking in the corner to a girl I didn’t know, and Sarah, who’d arrived before us, was chatting with Hector. Hmm … Neville must have invited everyone he’d met since arriving in the New World.

  I went back into the hallway and looked up the stairs. Oh, what the hey. Maybe Doug was checking out the rest of the house. I walked up the steps, which curved around to the second floor. The walls were decorated with art, and I noticed right away that some of it looked exactly like the abstract expressionism at the museum. In fact, one of the paintings looked strikingly similar to the Bargenstahler we’d found in Sarah’s trunk! My heart pounding, I walked on into the dim hallway.

  Although I’d started this search to find Doug, now I was on a different mission. I wanted to see if I could detect a pattern. Bargenstahler. Maybe he had more of them. I looked into a room to the right at the top of the stairs. Nothing. Just a bathroom. All right, a pretty spectacular bathroom, with gold spigots and warm brown marble, but a bathroom nonetheless. Beyond this, a bedroom, clean as a whistle, looking unlived-in. Probably a guest bedroom. Beyond this an office. I stepped inside. It was dim, with only the milky light from the moon illuminating everything in shades of charcoal and gray. Peering into the darkness, I let my eyes adjust to the light. On the walls were some paintings, but I couldn’t quite make them out.

  Flick. Lights. Action. Caught! Someone had turned on the lights. Startled, I jumped and looked at the doorway. Neville. He leaned against the jamb.

  “Nice, huh?” He nodded to the paintings.

  Now that the light was on, I had a chance to really look them over. They were landscapes. Beautiful, romantic landscapes. Rolling hills in autumn. Spring ponds. Summer ocean. Not at all like the Bargenstahler or the other art works on the staircase wall.

  “Who did them?” I asked after swallowing hard.

  Neville shrugged and came closer. He squinted at the signature. “Oh … Mummy! I forgot she’d painted these.”

  “Where is your mother?” I asked.

  “Mummy and father have been divorced for some time. She’s an art dealer in London. Thought I mentioned that.” He hiccupped.

  An art dealer who also painted? I remembered his theory—that the thief could be someone trying to make a point.

  “Has your mother been to America recently?” I squeaked out. Yup, that was subtle.

  N
eville laughed. “No, she’s too busy to travel. Keeps saying she’ll take holiday when business slows down.”

  “Does she paint a lot?”

  “Not an awful lot. Come here, I’ll show you some more.” He led me down the hallway to the next room I had intended to explore. It was obviously Neville’s room and it was as messy as the other ones had been neat. In fact, it reminded me of my room, except maybe kicked up a notch value-wise. Where my room was Dollar-store style, Neville’s was brand-spanking-new-expensive-designer-label style. A big four-poster bed jutted out from the far wall, its rich green bedding mussed and a few pairs of trousers strewn at the end. A desk cluttered with papers and a Hopkins catalog sat under the window. Cherry dresser and night stand completed the bedroom suite, and a massive armoire was pushed against the wall opposite the bed. Its doors open, it showcased a TV, DVD player, stereo, and other equipment I didn’t even recognize. When Neville saw me staring, he chuckled.

  “Don’t know what half that stuff is. Can’t even program the damned time into the thing.” He pointed to a flashing timer, then turned to the wall by the bed, and nodded. “Here you go. These are of the countryside around our home.”

  Along the wall were four small paintings, exquisitely rendered, of lush valleys and distant hills. They had the quality of photographs, but were enlivened by a deeper sense of feeling— something a lens couldn’t capture. I was impressed. And my mouth hanging open probably communicated that oh-so-elegantly to Neville.

  “Poor Mum. Can’t find a market for her stuff amongst the la-de-dah crowd.” His voice, so cheerful a moment ago, now sounded sad.

  I looked over at Neville. He wasn’t smiling any more. His lips were shut tight and his brows furrowed. Was he trying to make a point? I shook my head. No, not Neville. It couldn’t be! After all, he was the one who’d originally suggested the art-thief-as-message-sender theory.

  “How long have you been in Baltimore?” I asked.

  “Oh, let me see now …” He scratched his head, “Since the summer. Oh, but before then, I came over to scope things out. In the spring. Why?” His sunny mood came back and he walked over to me and put his arm around me to gaze at the paintings. Although it made me uncomfortable, I let him keep it there. I wanted to keep him talking.

  “Does it bother you that your mother’s work doesn’t sell?”

  “Hmm … I don’t know. I suppose. She’s very talented. One doesn’t like to see any talent go to waste, no matter who the poor soul is.” He didn’t sound very passionate on that score, but maybe he was covering.

  “So she doesn’t paint much any more?”

  “No, too busy, like I said.”

  “But she’d paint more if she was selling?”

  “Why, yes, I suppose she would.” He laughed, then turned to me and put both his hands on my shoulders. “That’s well sweet of you, Bianca, to ask so many questions about Mummy. Why, one might even think you were interested in me.” And then he did the kissing thing again! He swooped in on me and planted a light warm smooch on my tender lips. I was about to explain that no, I wasn’t interested in him, at least not in that way, but he was a fine “bloke” all the same … when my boyfriend did it for me.

  Yup. Doug chose that moment to play caring companion. He stood in the doorway, and with his mouth hanging open and his fists clenched by his side, I almost expected him to say something like “take your hands off her this instant, pardner, or I’ll have to blow them off with this six-shooter of mine.” Instead, he said nothing and walked out of the room.

  And I ran after him. “Doug! Wait! You’ve got it all wrong!”

  He increased his pace, and I chased him down the staircase and out onto the lawn until I finally caught up with him by the babbling fountain.

  “Look, where are you going?” I said at last.

  “Nowhere. Home. I don’t know.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and stared at the ground.

  “You can’t go home. Not without me and Kerrie. You’re our ride.”

  “Sarah can take you.”

  “I don’t want Sarah to take me. I want you to.”

  “Didn’t look that way to me.”

  “I told you—nothing was going on. Let me explain!” And then I told him about my little investigative foray into the upper floors, and how Neville liked to think of himself as a lady’s man, and how I was about to tell Neville to stop when Doug had shown up on the scene.

  At first, Doug didn’t say anything. Then he grimaced. Then he looked back at the house. And I was ready to scream at him. Just say it! Say you don’t care! Hurl more accusations! Just say something!

  Okay, if he wouldn’t do it, I’d do it for him.

  “You don’t believe me,” I said softly. “And you don’t because you know Neville already kissed me once before.” I told him that story, too, and how Connie had had the same experience.

  “It’s not me, Doug. It’s him. He’s kind of a ladies’ man. Or thinks he is. He doesn’t mean any harm. He’s kind of desperate, don’t you think? I mean, who are all these people at this party?”

  “People he’s met,” Doug volunteered. “Some of them just recently.”

  “See what I mean? He’s lonely. He’s trying just a little too hard. At everything.”

  That did the trick. When I sidled up to Doug, he put his arm around me and even kissed me on the top of my head. But now that I had him in sympathetic mode, I decided it was time for me to hurl the accusations at him. Didn’t want the opportunity to go to waste. So I spilled out my own little bag of resentments about how much time and attention he’d been paying to Kerrie lately. I expected a protest and maybe even an argument, and instead got laughter.

  “It’s nothing, let me tell you. I just thought you’d be upset if Kerrie was upset. And so I was trying to be nice to your friend.”

  “You mean you don’t like Kerrie?”

  “I like Kerrie,” he said, “but she’s not my kind of girl.”

  “She is kind of high-maintenance.”

  “I’ll say.”

  And then he hugged me tight and all was right with the world.

  Chapter Eighteen

  WE DIDN’T STAY at the party much longer. Too many people we didn’t know. Too noisy. Too much booze. So I was home well before my curfew but with a far lighter heart. Doug even went out of his way and took Kerrie home first so he and I could share some private moments together on my doorstep before calling it a night.

  I was in such a good mood, in fact, that it didn’t even bother me that someone had rearranged the poetry magnets yet again. Now, they read:

  Life dreams big and bold

  Grab action, sister

  Friend flirt totally wild

  All right. My bet was on Connie now. “Grab action, sister” seemed like her style.

  In the morning, I was ready to tackle a whole new world, and part of that was continuing to plan Kerrie’s birthday party. Now that I knew nothing was up with her and Doug, I could throw myself into that activity full throttle. I started by calling Sarah and asking if she wanted to get together. She said “yes” right away and we made plans to meet at the Enoch Pratt Free Library downtown, ostensibly to go over a “project.”

  There was another reason I wanted to talk with her, though. As I’d fallen asleep the night before, I kept hearing Neville’s voice as he talked to me about his mother’s art. It had been so different—so sad and serious and lonely. Not at all like the chipper Mr.-British-Stud voice he used most of the time. It bothered him big-time that his mother wasn’t getting anywhere with her stuff. And if it bothered him enough, maybe he could be the culprit. The fact that he was the one who came up with the theory of the caper as an act of art vengeance fit in with that. If he was nuts enough to pull this off, he was nuts enough to draw attention to it, to brag about it.

  Anyway, I wanted to talk to Sarah about this—see if she observed anything I missed at Neville’s house—and get more info out of her about Hector to help clear his name. Time was running
out. I knew my sister, and I knew she’d be making a report to the museum soon. And now that the whole thing had been in the papers, the police were going to get involved. Not good for Hector if he was still the main suspect.

  I had Tony drop me off in front of the big box-like library building and looked down Cathedral Street for Sarah. Within a few minutes, her battered blue car came slowly into view. Unlike Doug, she was pretty good at parallel parking and had her car into a metered spot with a few easy turns.

  “Hey!” she said when she got out.

  “I have a lot to tell you,” I said as she walked over to me. Before we were even in the front door, I’d spilled the beans about Neville, his mother’s art, and my theory. Okay, so it was his theory, but I was telling it, and possession is nine-tenths of the law. Or something like that.

  Sarah was a happy camper when she heard my ideas. She said Hector was getting pretty depressed about the whole thing and was thinking of leaving town.

  “But that’ll make him look even more guilty,” I said.

  “I know,” she responded. “I keep telling him to hang on.”

  I sighed and twisted my mouth to one side as I thought. “I keep thinking about the security tapes,” I told her. “The problem is Hector had access to them. And somebody switched them.”

  “Well, other people probably had access to them, too!” Sarah sounded frustrated. She put her keys in her pocket and rocked on her heels. “Fawn has keys to everything. So do a bunch of folks in the museum.”

  “Fawn … Neville said his dad and Fawn were cozy,” I mused. “Maybe Neville got the keys that way. Have you ever seen him hanging around the office?”

  Sarah stared into the sky and did the scrunched-up mouth routine. “No … but that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t have had access. I overheard her making plans to go out with Neville’s dad last week. And I know that Neville’s been checking out Hopkins, which is just around the corner from the museum. And I’ve seen her keys sitting out on the desk more than once. It would be pretty easy to grab them …”