Another Day, Another Dali

by Sandra Orchard

  “That’s nothing new. Their parents died when Randy was still a teenager, and Nate, being six years older than him, has always been overprotective.”

  “Good to know. Thank you.” I stopped by Nate’s apartment before going up to mine to see if he wanted to join me for the movie we’d skipped Thursday night. And to cross one thing off my to-do list that was on a fuzzy line between work and personal for a Sunday . . . finding out what Randy knew, if anything, about my mugger and about whoever forged Gladys’s painting.

  Nate didn’t respond to the knock. I tried again and cocked my ear to the door. No sound of a TV. Or a shower running. And it was too early for bed.

  I knocked a third time. He wasn’t the kind of guy who worked with ear buds hanging out of his ears, blasting music too loud for him to hear. And how long could anyone sit on a toilet? He must be fixing something around the building.

  I strolled up and down the halls of all three floors and then around the perimeter, but there was no sign of him. His curtains were drawn. That was weird. I was sure they were open when I drove in a few minutes ago. Standing outside his window, I pulled out my cell phone and rang his number.

  No response.

  Concern warred with the niggling sense he was avoiding me. Was he embarrassed about his brother? Randy had flat out asked him if I knew. Whatever that was about. Did Nate know something he didn’t want to have to tell me?

  That was probably it.

  But he’d come around. Do the right thing.

  Except as I trudged upstairs to my apartment, Tanner’s voice whispered through my thoughts.

  There’s something shady about him.

  13

  “Get away from me!” I screamed and with a colossal effort, flung the slithering, snake-like zucchini across the meadow. Plunk.

  I jerked awake, tangled in my sheets on my bedroom floor. Harold leapt on top of me as if tumbling out of bed was a new game he wanted in on. I raked my fingers through my hair. Wow, talk about a surrealist nightmare. I definitely needed to get a new hobby that was more relaxing than painting—say, bomb defusing—because my fruit-and-veggie bowl seemed to want revenge for bad brushstrokes and poor color choices. I was still sweating from the vision of a giant zucchini slinking after me.

  I squinted at my bedside clock. 7:00.

  “What? How’d I sleep through the alarm?” I scrambled to my feet and raced to the shower. No time for my run this morning. Tanner had said he’d be here at seven thirty to accompany me to interviews.

  An involuntary shiver rippled through my body. It was standard procedure to conduct interviews in pairs, but Dmitri’s threats had no doubt motivated Tanner’s offer, while I couldn’t help but think I’d be a whole lot safer if Tanner weren’t within five blocks of me.

  Then again, he hadn’t been around Saturday morning when the gunman opened fire on the pawnshop.

  Twenty minutes later, dressed in my usual FBI fare of navy slacks and jacket with a white blouse, I searched my fridge for something quick to eat. I jerked open the crisper drawer and jumped at the sight of a cucumber that looked too much like a smaller version of the zucchini I’d been wrestling. I grabbed an apple and slammed the fridge shut.

  Harold plunked himself in the middle of the kitchen floor and yowled.

  “I guess you’re hungry, too, huh?” I jiggled some kibbles into his dish and replenished his water bowl. “See you later,” I said, adding a scratch behind his ears for good measure.

  I glanced out my hall door, just to make sure my note writer hadn’t paid me another visit. Mr. Sutton was coming up the hall with his daily newspaper in hand. “Today’s word of the day is lachanophobia,” he said.

  “That wouldn’t happen to be fear of zucchinis, would it? Because I’d have no trouble using that in a sentence today.”

  “Close. Fear of vegetables. Although botanically speaking, zucchini is a fruit.”

  Right, so I had a fruit phobia, which sounded even wimpier. “Well, have a good day. Hope it’s lachanophobia-free,” I said with a wave, which earned me a chuckle. He wouldn’t be laughing if he’d heard the snorting noise the zucchini I’d tackled this morning had made. I mean, it wasn’t as if I didn’t eat my fair share of vegetables. Maybe I’d subconsciously superimposed Nana in the zucchini role. She’d always been a stickler for making us finish our vegetables. And I couldn’t deny being anxious about how irritated she was with my nonexistent progress on Gladys’s case.

  I slid the dead bolt home and went out the kitchen door. Tanner’s Bronco sat idling next to the bottom of the metal steps.

  He reached across his front seat and pushed open the passenger door. “Guess what I found out about Peabody’s Pawnshop?”

  I climbed in and clicked on my seat belt. “Am I going to like it?”

  He swung his arm over the back of the seat to reverse out of the driveway. “It might be good news.”

  “It’s one of Dmitri’s many holdings?”

  He braked at the curb and looked at me as if I were mentally deficient.

  “What? You said good news, so the way I see it, if Dmitri owns the pawnshop, he wouldn’t shoot it up, not even to terrorize me. Don’t you think?”

  “Good point.” He veered onto the street. “Then maybe it’s not good news.”

  “Just tell me already.”

  “The pawnshop’s connected to the drug dealer with the fake art. Seems a lot of his customers finance their habit by hocking their valuables there.”

  “And you thought this might be good news why?”

  Tanner opened his mouth, but only a puff of air came out before he closed it again and shook his head. “Wishful thinking. Which way?”

  I gave him directions to Gladys’s son-in-law’s place first. He’d been released from the hospital Saturday night, but if he was eager-beaver enough to return to work despite multiple lacerations, I figured we could still catch him before he left home.

  Lucas was heading out his front door in a suit and tie, carrying a laptop bag, as we pulled into the driveway behind his Bentley. We exited the Bronco, flashed our badges, and introduced ourselves.

  “I remember you,” he said. “You’re the granddaughter of my mother-in-law’s friend. Is this about Saturday’s shooting? Because I already told the police everything I could remember.”

  “Can we go inside to talk?” I suggested.

  He glanced at his watch. “Will this take long? I need to get to the bank for an eight o’clock meeting.”

  “It shouldn’t.” Frankly, I was surprised he was fit to return to work after all the glass the doctors had to extract from his skin two days ago.

  He led us around the back of his house to a sun porch. “We can sit here. My wife’s still in bed. This way we won’t disturb her.”

  “Your wounds healing up okay?” I asked.

  He cupped his hand over his upper arm. “Yes, had one nasty bleeder that was a bit of a concern. Ended up with thirty stitches all told.”

  “Why were you in the pawnshop?”

  He gave the same story as the clerk about redeeming jewelry he’d hocked.

  “I’m surprised a man in your position would have a cash flow problem.”

  He ducked his head. “I made some bad investments and needed temporary cash to meet the call options.”

  “The shop paid you enough on the jewelry to do that?”

  He chuckled, his gaze darting away. “It helped.” He swiped his hand over his mouth.

  I glanced at Tanner to see if he noticed the telltale signs the man was lying.

  Tanner nodded imperceptibly. “Why not ask your mother-in-law for help? Or get a short-term loan from your bank?”

  “I didn’t want my wife to know.”

  That would explain the furtive behavior his wife had complained about.

  “What does any of this have to do with the shooting?”

  “We’re exploring motives,” I said. “Would you mind if we review your investment statements to confirm your testimony?”
r />   His face paled. “I don’t see how that will help you catch the shooter.”

  The shooter wasn’t my priority. I suspected that if we could convince a judge to sign a warrant to review Lucas’s financial records, we’d find the extra cash he’d needed far exceeded the payoff for the jewelry, perhaps to the tune of a fenced Dali. Then again, when an option was called, the investor usually didn’t have more than forty-eight hours to meet the obligation. Not enough time to commission a forgery to replace his mother-in-law’s painting. Unless, of course, he had insider advance notice.

  “Do you have any enemies?” Tanner interjected.

  Lucas shifted in his chair. Squirmed might be more accurate. “Uh, don’t you coordinate with the police? I’ve already answered all these questions.”

  Tanner nodded, saying nothing, his gaze fixed on Lucas.

  Lucas stared back, but after about ten seconds, he couldn’t seem to handle the silence. “I’ve refused two or three loans to prospective borrowers at the bank over the past couple of months. That tends to get people riled.”

  “I noticed you were questioned in connection with a drug case several months ago. What was that about?” I asked.

  Sweat beaded on his upper lip. “I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. The police thought I might’ve seen something helpful.”

  “Did you?”

  He shrugged. “I guess.” He glanced at his watch once more. “Are we done? I’m already late.”

  I looked to Tanner, who gave me a one-sided shoulder shrug.

  “Yes,” I said to Lucas, rising to shake his hand. “We’ll be in touch if we have any more questions.”

  “What do you think?” Tanner asked as he climbed into the Bronco beside me.

  “He has opportunity and motive for the Dali theft, and he looked real guilty.”

  “And nervous. Like maybe he’s worried whoever shot at him will try again.”

  “You think he was the intended victim, then?” I asked.

  Tanner backed out of the driveway and swerved onto the street. “I’d rather think it was him than you. After we finish interviewing your other suspect, I’ll pay a visit to St. Louis PD and see what else they have on the shooter. Where to now?”

  I read Ted’s address from my notepad. “If he hasn’t moved since the last time he renewed his driver’s license,” I added. “The pawnshop doesn’t open until ten o’clock, so chances are good he’ll still be home.” I’d done a cursory background check last night after making the interview plans with Tanner. Ted had a clean record, but that didn’t mean much considering he was dating a married woman and lied to me about his occupation. There was no such entity as Ted’s Pest Control. He’d worked at the pawnshop for four years, and before that at The Arch. Not that I didn’t appreciate the humor in his quip about pest control, considering Tasha had sent him to spy on Nana. At the time he said it, he’d probably counted on never seeing me again.

  Ted lived on the ground floor of a three-story triplex that made Tyrone’s neighborhood look good. Shredded screens hung from the windows. Hard-packed dirt dotted with weeds lined the covered front porch, which practically sat on the street. The porch sported a pair of foldout lawn chairs, the kind with wide netted bands crisscrossed to form the seat. Only, enough bands were missing that a small child would fall straight through. A thick layer of grime and a half dozen crushed beer cans covered the rusty TV tray propped between the chairs.

  I gingerly stepped over a pile of bird droppings decorating the top step and avoided the equally decorated handrail altogether.

  Tanner glanced up at the rafters, where cobwebs competed for space with birds’ nests. “Nice.”

  Ted answered the door in his boxers. “What?”

  We introduced ourselves and flashed our badges, but he betrayed no sign he recognized me from his spy run, despite having presumably recognized me outside the pawnshop. Unless his story about an ex-girlfriend stalker was legit and not meant to be about me. “We’d like to ask you a few questions.”

  He swung the door wide. “C’mon in. Is this about Saturday’s shooting?”

  “Yes, where were you at the time of the shooting?”

  “On my way home.”

  “Can anyone verify that?”

  He shrugged. “I took the bus. Swiped my Metro Pass in the fare box. Can they pull that record?”

  “Perhaps.” Not that it’d prove much since he could’ve exited the bus at the next stop.

  “How would you describe your relationship with Tasha Watson?”

  “She told you about us?”

  I nodded.

  He shrugged. “I help her forget her husband troubles now and again.”

  Tanner made a show of looking around Ted’s dingy apartment. “So if her husband had died, you’d have been sitting pretty.”

  “Motive enough to kill her husband,” I added.

  Ted laughed. “Hardly. I’m a plaything to her. Not husband material. She wants a man she can show off at that club of hers, not one who strikes deals with the down and out.” He tapped a cigarette out of the box that’d been lying on the couch beside him and clamped it between his lips as he went on a hunt for matches.

  “The husband’s life insurance could go a long way toward funding your transformation.”

  Ted’s lips curved into a smile around his cigarette as he lit a match and touched the flame to its tip. He took a long draw, then blew the smoke out in a perfect ring. “Who says I want to be transformed?”

  His bruised knuckles snagged my attention, reminding me of the attack on Randy. Tasha’s brother knew Randy, which meant she likely did too. Maybe well enough to ask him to recommend a forger. Then again, if Randy had helped her, why ask her boyfriend to beat him up?

  “How’d you get the bruised knuckles?” Tanner asked before I had the chance.

  Ted glanced at the back of his hand as if noticing the bruises for the first time. He chucked his chin toward the phone, or rather the dent in the drywall beside it. “Lost my temper.”

  “Can you think of any reason someone might’ve shot up Peabody’s Pawnshop?” I asked.

  “Nope, management tries to steer clear of turf wars.”

  We asked him a few more questions before leaving, but Ted was a cool cucumber—a vegetable not unlike a zucchini—which might explain why I didn’t trust him, given my new lachanophobia.

  “What you smiling about?” Tanner asked as we walked out to the car.

  Was I? My lips stretched wider. “Grilled vegetables.”

  Tanner arched an eyebrow. “A new diet?”

  “Ha! No, I could use a coffee. Maybe a donut.” I usually wasn’t a stress eater, which was a good thing, or I would need to go on a vegetable diet. “You think I got enough to convince a judge to give me a warrant on Lucas’s financials?”

  “You’ve got motive and opportunity. Throw in your disarming smile, and I don’t see why he wouldn’t.”

  Disarming?

  A warm glow spread through my chest, but I rolled my eyes. “The judge could be a she, you know.”

  Tanner nodded thoughtfully “You’re right.” He flashed his lady-killer grin. “We might need my disarming smile.”

  14

  Tanner dropped me back at headquarters so I could work on background checks and the search warrant for Lucas Watson’s financials while Tanner called on his friend in the St. Louis PD to get the scoop on the shooting investigation.

  Yvonne stopped by my desk. “So what did you think of the movie?”

  “Oh, sorry, I’ve had a crazy few days. I haven’t been able to find time to watch it with my friend.”

  A playful glint lit her eyes. “Tanner didn’t seem too fond of the guy.”

  I shrugged. As a rookie, I’d learned that attempts to thwart speculation about the nature of my relationship with Tanner—thanks to him winding up at my parents’ dinner table a time or two—only fueled people’s imaginations.

  Ron, an agent from the terrorism squad, stepped next to Yvonne
. “Hey, Serena, I heard you were trying to sell tickets to a fundraising gala at the end of the week. I’d be interested, if you have one left.”

  “That’s great.” I pulled the ticket book from my purse. “Everyone’s been so supportive this year. I appreciate it.”

  Yvonne laughed. “It’s because you promised Ivan a dance if he bought one. So all the other guys think they’ll get to dance with you too.”

  “Are you serious?” I looked to Ron, who turned an unbecoming shade of pink.

  He shrugged. “What’s a few dances for a good cause?”

  Chuckling, I took his money and handed him his ticket. “Right.”

  Yvonne lowered her voice as he walked away. “I think the guys have a pool on who will score the most dances with you.”

  I rolled my eyes. “My mom will be in her glory.”

  I pulled together the search warrant request for Lucas Watson’s financials and ran a more extensive background check on Truman Capone—the man who’d apparently bought one of Tyrone’s paintings. He was a single, sixty-nine-year-old Caucasian with a spotty work history. He’d done stints selling souvenirs at Cardinals and Blues games, driving a trolley tour bus, and bussing tables on river cruises. It was the kind of work history that smacked of an alternate means of supplementing his income. Yet he had no criminal record and hadn’t so much as collected food stamps.

  I pulled up his driver’s license photo on my computer screen one more time. It made sense that a guy like this would buy his paintings on the cheap. But how did he hear about Tyrone’s talent?

  “What’s Capone on your radar for?”

  I swiveled my desk chair to find my boss, Maxwell Benton, standing at the entrance to my cubicle.

  “You know this guy?”

  “Sure, hard name to forget.” Benton grinned. “Capone’s a fixture at the We’re All Legit Flea Market.”

  “We’re All Legit Flea Market?”

  Benton chuckled. “I’m not convinced the moniker is always true.”

  “Which is why you frequent it?”

  He shrugged, the twinkle in his eye suggesting he liked bargains as much as the next guy, but yeah, those FBI warnings on movies were there for a reason. Pirates beware. Benton was on the job. “Capone sketches portraits of people on the spot. He drew my daughter. The likeness is uncanny.”