Another Day, Another Dali

by Sandra Orchard

  “Where?” I asked, despite my growing doubts any of the results would prove useful.

  “The We’re All Legit Flea Market, of course. Lots of vendors leave their wares onsite.”

  “You’re brilliant! Yes, his neighbor said he leaves his paintings set up. So if I can get a search warrant . . .”

  “Pfft.” Aunt Martha swatted her hand. “Livvy—you know, the garage-sale lady who lives down the street—she can get us in. It’s her brother-in-law who runs the place, and if he gives you permission, you don’t need a search warrant, right?”

  “Right.”

  Within minutes, Aunt Martha had made arrangements for Livvy’s brother-in-law to meet us at the flea market.

  “Are you sure you’re up to walking around?” I asked Aunt Martha as we headed for my new SUV. “Your ankle still looks swollen.”

  “Nonsense, I can’t let you have all the fun.”

  The flea market was located in the burbs twenty minutes north of downtown. Or rather, in a dicey-looking industrial strip on its outskirts. Aunt Martha grabbed the dash as I turned into the parking lot. “Good thing you got this fancy smantzy new vehicle. The parking lot has more potholes than Beirut.”

  And she would know. She’d traveled just about everywhere in her years as an assistant to some bigwig corporate exec.

  The building was a long, low, steel-clad affair with three wings branching off like a capital E. A burly man waved us over to a door at the tip of the middle branch.

  “There’s Dan,” Aunt Martha said and pushed open the SUV’s door.

  Dan had long, gray hair tied in a ponytail with a red bandanna and a tattoo of a snake hiding in the fuzzy hair covering his arms.

  “He’s Mom and Dad’s neighbor?” Nana would have a meltdown on the spot if he happened by to borrow a cup of sugar while she was around.

  Aunt Martha grinned. “The coolest chap on the street. A regular Willie Nelson.” She made introductions, and Dan led us through the maze of booths featuring everything from T-shirts to shoes, books to DVDs, antiques to small firearms. I paused in front of a glass case displaying a collection of knives, pepper spray, and stun guns. A sign at the back of the booth proclaimed, If you don’t see what you want, ask. No wonder Benton kept an eye on this place.

  “Isn’t this place a hoot?” Aunt Martha said. “You should’ve seen what one vendor tried to sell me when I was shopping for my gun.”

  “You bought your gun at a flea market?”

  My exasperation must’ve made the question sound a tad judgmental, because Dan turned around and said, “All my vendors are legit.”

  Yeah, right, and there really is a Santa Claus, Virginia. To Aunt Martha, I whispered, “Did you make sure the serial number on the gun you bought wasn’t filed off?”

  She giggled.

  “I’m not kidding!”

  “Here you go.” Dan stopped in front of a ten-by-ten booth adorned with portraits and sketches and an eclectic mix of art, from impressionistic landscapes to modern pop art. “I’ll leave you girls to it,” he said, walking backward down the aisle. “I’ll be in my office up front if you need anything.”

  “Thanks!” The paintings all hung askew. “It looks as if an earthquake rumbled through the place and threw everything off-kilter,” I said, pulling the paint tester from my purse.

  “Probably from the cars rumbling through the car park,” Aunt Martha quipped. “The holes are big enough to swallow small children.” She squinted at a few paintings. “What do you want me to do?”

  “See if you can find Capone’s initials hidden in any of the paintings that are copies of famous ones. That’s how the owners of the Keane figured out their original was replaced.”

  “TC?”

  “Yeah.”

  “We’ve got T people coming out of our ears on this case—Tyrone, Tasha, Truman . . .”

  Ted. I opted not to disclose that suspect to Aunt Martha. “Only one with the initials TC, though.”

  “You’re forgetting Tanner. His last name is Calhoun, right?”

  “I’m confident he’s not our forger.”

  She shrugged. “You never can tell about people. Just because someone’s in law enforcement doesn’t mean he’s honest.”

  I grinned. “Trust me. I’ve seen him play Pictionary.” It wasn’t Tanner I was worried about being honest. It was Pete blipping my radar.

  “Did you find a TC on Gladys’s painting?”

  “No.” Not on the O’Keeffe forgery I’d looked at this afternoon either. “But my theory is that it’s his trademark, or a prideful touch or something, and the ability to skillfully hide it is part of the allure.”

  She pulled a magnifying glass out of her suitcase-sized purse. “Sounds believable.”

  While Aunt Martha scrutinized the other paintings, I gathered data from two painted in colors similar to the Dali and to the Keane Detective Richards was investigating.

  “I can’t find his initials hidden in any of these,” Aunt Martha complained. “Did they look like the T and C in his signatures on the portraits?”

  I glanced at the signature on the nearest portrait, and the next, and then the next. “You know what? It didn’t look anything like these.” Truman signed his name with an almost calligraphic beauty. “The initials were in plain print on a slight slant that blended with the design.”

  She took a second gander at the painting in front of her, then shook her head. “I don’t think he made a habit of secretly initialing his work.”

  “You’re probably right. If he was selling to criminals who wanted to pass them off as the genuine article, they wouldn’t appreciate the tell.”

  “Or maybe he was basically honest, and once he realized what his client was doing with the commissioned paintings, added his initials so he could point to them later as proof he wasn’t in on the scam. Or at least didn’t want to be.” Aunt Martha sucked in a sudden breath. “Ooh, maybe that’s why they killed him, because he refused to paint for them anymore and knew too much.”

  “Could be.” Satisfied with the data I’d collected, I packed my paint tester back in my purse. “I wondered why they would kill the most important cog in their scheme, but yeah, if he’d become uncooperative—”

  “And a liability, sneaking his initials into his paintings,” Aunt Martha added.

  “Then it would make sense. Except you’d think they’d have confiscated any evidence on the spot.”

  “Maybe the neighbor was wrong about the men in the van. They could’ve been collecting the evidence and got spooked.”

  A thud came from a booth down the main aisle.

  “Did you hear that?” I asked, pushing Aunt Martha behind me.

  “It’s probably Dan coming back to see—uh-oh.”

  I snapped my gaze in the other direction to see what had Aunt Martha worried. Dan was heading up the aisle, followed by Detective Irwin and a couple of uniformed officers.

  Aunt Martha yanked me behind the cover of a display stand. “Can they arrest us for being here?”

  “No, we had permission.” Although I wouldn’t put it past Irwin to try to charge me with interfering with a police investigation. “But that doesn’t mean we have to stick around.” I ushered Aunt Martha through an opening in the back of the booth and out another aisle before he caught sight of us. “I’ve got what I came for.” Only . . . what or who made the thud?

  Chances were slim one of Dmitri’s goons had picked up my tail in the new SUV without me noticing, but I didn’t want to take any chances. “Wait here a second,” I said to Aunt Martha as we reached the back exit. I glimpsed movement in the shadows to the right.

  I palmed my gun and edged around a bookshelf that doubled as a booth divider.

  A black cat scrambled across the open floor and under a table. I scanned the area for potential hiding places for something bigger and, seeing no one, I returned to Aunt Martha. “All clear. Let’s go.”

  I hurried her to the SUV and gunned it out of the parking lot.

>   “Woohoo, that was fun,” Aunt Martha whooped.

  Glad she thought so. I kept my gaze glued to the rearview mirror the entire drive back to my parents’ place.

  Aunt Martha texted a thank-you to Dan, no doubt with some creative story about why we’d left in such a hurry. “Where are you off to now?” she asked.

  “Back to headquarters,” I fibbed, knowing she’d want to tag along if I admitted I planned to speak to Tyrone.

  Mom was home by the time I dropped off Aunt Martha and came out on the porch as I gave Aunt Martha a hand down from her seat.

  “Did you see the new vehicle Tanner gave Serena?” Aunt Martha said to Mom. “He wanted to make sure she’d be safe. Isn’t that sweet?” Aunt Martha flounced inside, leaving Mom to glower at me.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know what kind of nonsense she’s been feeding you, but playing one man against another is not a good strategy for landing a husband.”

  “Landing a husband? What are you talking about?”

  “Nate and Tanner. Aunt Martha’s been rooting for Nate from day one, so if she’s singing Tanner’s praises, I can only imagine she thinks it’ll somehow turn things in Nate’s favor.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Tanner is a colleague, and Nate is my building superintendent who happens to be good friends with Aunt Martha.” And okay, who shares my love of old movies and art.

  Mom folded her arms. “First of all, any man who buys a woman a fancy new SUV because he’s concerned for her safety is hearing wedding bells.”

  I let out a strangled sound halfway between a laugh and a gasp. “Mom, it’s a work vehicle.”

  “A work vehicle Tanner handpicked and delivered to your house in person.”

  “How do you know that?” Was everyone and their grandmother spying on me?

  “I stopped by the apartment to drop off the notepad that fell out of Nate’s jacket when he was here last night and he mentioned seeing Tanner this morning, looking for you. And don’t think Nate just sat around here last night, waiting for you to answer the half-dozen text messages he left you. He hopped back in Aunt Martha’s car and drove around looking for you. Then phoned every cop and official he knew to track you down.”

  Warmth spread through my chest. Nate was an all around nice guy. He’d drive tenants to the ER in emergencies. Send out the cavalry, aka me, to hunt down the never-late Aunt Martha. It was no surprise he’d pull out all the stops to make sure I was okay.

  But it still felt nice. Really nice.

  20

  Tyrone wasn’t at home or at the drop-in center, so I decided to stop by the art museum and knock two things off my to-do list in one visit—make peace with Zoe and make sure the museum didn’t have any of Capone’s forgeries hanging on their walls.

  I spotted Matt strolling out of the nearby zoo with his wife and little boy and pulled over. “Hey,” I called out my window, “good to see you enjoying some time off with the family.”

  His wife, Tracey, wrapped her arm around his waist and grinned. “We’re off to have a picnic in Turtle Park now.”

  “Ooh,” I said to their toddler, making my eyes go wide. “Fun.”

  “By the way,” Matt said to me, “we did get some good news last night. A traffic cam got the license plate number of the driver who flicked the cigarette at you. He claims he didn’t do it deliberately.”

  “You believe him?”

  “Yeah, I do. He doesn’t have a record. And no known ties to XYZ Inc. or any of its employees.”

  “That’s great.” I shot Tracey an apologetic look for interrupting their family time with work. “Now get back to enjoying yourselves.”

  I shifted the SUV back into drive and parked it along the street in front of the museum. It was a sweet ride. I took a few minutes to experiment with all the bells and whistles and to ensure no one had followed me. The love song Zoe had picked for her wedding played on the radio, and Mom’s words echoed through my brain. Any man who buys a woman a fancy new SUV because he’s concerned for her safety is hearing wedding bells.

  I shook my head. Mom was seeing what she wanted to see. Tanner was married to his job.

  I strode in the front doors of the art museum and showed my ID to bypass the metal detectors, then headed straight to the security room.

  As Zoe opened the door, she said to the man surveying the line of monitors, “If you see anyone watching or following her or doing anything suspicious, radio me immediately.”

  “I’m sorry. Are you in the middle of a situation? I can come back.”

  Zoe grinned. “You’re the situation.”

  I groaned. “You heard about the bus incident?” Zoe had a tendency to joke about things she was especially worried about. Maybe that was why we got along so well. We shared the same deranged sense of humor.

  “Oh yeah. The phone lines around the neighborhood were buzzing all night.”

  “I guess that means Jax won’t want you rescheduling our shopping trip anytime soon.”

  “Ha, we’re thinking of ordering online from the security of a heavily guarded conference room.”

  I frowned. She wasn’t being serious. But she probably should be.

  Zoe pulled me into a hug. “I’m glad you’re okay. I tried calling, but the phone was busy all night.”

  “Reporters,” I said, giving her a quick hug, then stepping back to avoid attracting unwanted attention. We were still standing in the short hall outside the security room, within view of the museum’s main lobby. “Eventually I just left my apartment phone off the hook and turned off my cell phone.”

  “Well, don’t worry about the dress shopping. We’ll figure something out.”

  I ignored the twinge of guilt that worrying about dress shopping had been the furthest thing from my mind and steered her toward the Impressionists’ gallery. “I also needed to talk to you about some paintings.” I explained the situation with Capone and his photographs of pieces from the museum.

  “Oh sure, I remember him. He came here a lot. Painted fabulous reproductions.”

  “Yes.” I stopped in front of the Pissarro I’d recognized in one of Capone’s pictures and handed Zoe the contact sheet I’d made of his photos of museum pieces. “Like this one.” I scrutinized the painting more closely but didn’t notice any telltale signs it was fake. Then again, I was no expert. “To be on the safe side, you might want to check to make sure they’re all still the originals.”

  A shudder reverberated down her arms. “Absolutely, we don’t want a repeat of what happened at Caracas Museum in Venezuela,” she said, referring to a Matisse, stolen and replaced with a forgery, that remained undetected for two years.

  “Hey, the FBI recovered it for them.”

  “Ten years later. I’d be out of a job by then for letting it happen on my watch.” Zoe’s radio buzzed, and I automatically scanned the area. Zoe laughed. “That’s the code for a problem with the bathroom, not for someone following the FBI agent.” She winked.

  “I’ll leave you to deal with that, but let me know if you turn up any iffy paintings.”

  “Will do.”

  I headed straight home from Forest Park. The street was quiet. No suspicious vehicles lurking outside my apartment building. I parked in the small lot behind the red brick three-story and scrutinized my door and window, accessible from the outside metal staircase. No sign of tampering, so I walked around to the front of the building to collect my mail and check the inside door.

  Mr. Sutton, my next-door neighbor, was just locking up his box. “Evening. You use today’s word of the day?”

  “Um, I think I missed catching today’s. What is it?”

  “Pettifogger. A person who tries to befuddle others with their speech.”

  “Hmm, if I could master all the words you’re teaching us, I’d make a good pettifogger.”

  He laughed. “That’s the idea. Yes.” He pushed the elevator button and then held the door for me when it opened.

  “You go ahead,” I said,
opening my mailbox. “I’ll be a bit.”

  Nate rounded the corner, carrying a ladder, a tool belt slung low over his hips like a gunslinger. “Planning on reading your mail in the lobby, are you?” Amusement twinkled in his eyes.

  “No, I was going to talk to you.”

  “Uh-huh, and did that idea come to you before or after the thought of being closeted in an eight-by-eight box suspended by a thin metal cable?”

  I stuck out my tongue at him. I’d never broadcast the fact I might be slightly . . . somewhat . . . horribly claustrophobic, but he’d apparently figured it out.

  He grinned. “You interested in watching that DVD tonight?”

  “That’s a great idea.” In fact, it sounded really safe and normal. I could use some normal.

  “I could come up around eight. Work for you?”

  “Perfect.” I jogged up to my second-floor apartment. No note on the door. Looking good so far. I scanned the edges from top to bottom. No signs of trip wires. I cocked my ear to the door.

  Meow.

  Harold’s paw shot out under the hall door and swatted my foot.

  Okay, that was a good sign. Maybe Tanner’s pals decided to take the day off from terrorizing me. I unlocked the door and, pushing it open, scooped up Harold before he could scoot out. “Hey, buddy, you talking to me again?” I eyeballed the parts of the kitchen and living room I could see from the doorway. No sign anything had been moved.

  I closed the door, released Harold, and did a thorough check of all the rooms. “We’re good. And guess what? Your pal Nate is coming up to watch a movie with us tonight.”

  Mom’s pettifogging on Nate’s apparent romantic interest whispered through my mind—he phoned every cop and official he knew to track you down. Uh, boy. What was I supposed to do with that?

  Harold twined around my legs, meowing and nudging me closer to his bowl.

  “Okay, okay, don’t worry. I won’t forget your dinner tonight.” I filled his bowl with kibbles and tossed a frozen TV dinner into the microwave. Mom would cringe if she knew, but I actually kind of liked them. Well, okay, I liked pretty much anything I didn’t have to cook, except maybe frog legs. Not that I couldn’t cook. There were just a lot of other things I’d rather do.