The Master’s Hand

by Diane Noble

  They took their time on the self-guided tour, stopping at each exhibit but paying close attention to the walls, floors, and ceilings around them. Kate took extra time as she came to each of the paintings. Again she noticed the slight gaps all around each picture between the canvas and the frame.

  “What about insurance fraud?” Nehemiah whispered as they went upstairs to see the exhibits on that floor. “Those gaps tell me that someone might want to change those pictures out—you know, take out the real McCoy and replace them with fakes.”

  “That’s a possibility,” Kate said. “But why would Davis Carr choose to do something like that here?”

  Nehemiah chuckled as they reached the top step. “Maybe because he thinks we’re a little podunk town, unsophisticated, and wouldn’t know the difference.”

  Kate raised an eyebrow. “Then he’s got another ‘think’ coming.”

  They found nothing unusual in the two bedrooms upstairs, though Kate stopped by the small, quaint bathroom twice to examine the wall behind the princess-style claw-foot tub, which had been set into a small lace-curtained enclosure.

  “Did you notice this?” she said to Nehemiah, who was following behind her. “This enclosure is the only place in the house where there’s a wood covering rather than painted plaster or wallpaper.”

  “What do you think that means?”

  She frowned in thought. “I’m not sure, but if my theory is right about something being hidden inside the walls of this old house, maybe it’s someplace that can be gotten to easily.”

  She thought about all the noises she’d heard when Garfield was upstairs tapping the walls and ceilings, and who knew what else. “I need a hammer,” she said to Nehemiah. “Preferably a ball-peen hammer.”

  He grinned. “Sorry, it’s not something I usually carry on me. If you need a pocket Bible, I’ve got one of those.”

  She shot him an affectionate look; she loved his humor. “I think Paul’s got several in the garage—hammers I mean, not Bibles.”

  “Do you want me to go back to the parsonage and get one?”

  “Would you mind?”

  “Not at all. Something tells me we’ll be doing a little tapping of our own.”

  “I want to try to match the sounds I heard. See if Garfield, the exterminators—and whoever else—are looking behind wood or plaster.”

  Nehemiah gave her a mock salute, then turned rather quickly and walked out the door toward the stairs.

  Kate was softly rapping her knuckles against the slatted wood in the bathtub alcove when she heard what sounded like a piece of soft furniture tumble down the stairs. Then her heart threatened to stop when she heard Nehemiah cry out.

  She flew out of the bathroom toward the sound, then gave a cry of her own when she saw what had happened and descended the stairs to where his crumpled body lay.

  Eli was already kneeling beside him and looked up, white-faced, as she knelt beside her beloved friend.

  She reached for Nehemiah’s wrist and took his pulse.

  Chapter Fifteen

  As Kate bent over Nehemiah’s crumpled body, he groaned and complained about his ankle, which had apparently twisted underneath him as he fell. Kate tried to get him into a more comfortable position while Eli called 911. As soon as the paramedics arrived and loaded Nehemiah into the ambulance, Kate called Paul to let him know what had happened. He immediately left the church and headed for Pine Ridge Hospital.

  After carefully examining Nehemiah, Dr. McLaughlin, the ER doctor, ordered an MRI to make sure there were no serious injuries. It turned out that his ankle took the brunt of the fall and was his only injury.

  “In some ways,” Dr. McLaughlin said to Nehemiah, “a soft-tissue injury is worse than a clean break. You’ll find it takes longer to heal. You’ll need to stay off it for twenty-four to forty-eight hours, and then keep it elevated as much as possible for at least a week.”

  Kate and Paul were in the exam room with their friend, and he looked over at them with a wan grin. “Can you stand me that long?”

  “It’ll be a privilege,” Paul said.

  “We’ll love having you stay longer,” Kate added. “Besides, you’ll have all the time in the world for your rear-window work.”

  Dr. McLaughlin frowned as he wrapped the ankle. “Rear window?”

  Nehemiah chuckled. “Ever see the James Stewart movie? It was a Hitchcock.”

  “Of course. Loved it,” the doctor said as he fastened the bandage. He rolled his stool back and gave Nehemiah a stern look. “That’s about all I want you to do, though, until I see you again.”

  “Rear window, it is,” Nehemiah said.

  “And you’re going to feel pretty sore. You’ve got some serious bruising. You let me know if any of the bruises swell too much or feel hot.” He looked up at Kate. “You might keep an eye on his temperature. Let me know if it’s elevated at all. Also, I want him to do some walking—nothing strenuous, but enough to keep the blood flowing—a few steps now and then. We don’t want to have to deal with phlebitis, or any kind of clotting.”

  He had the nurse bring in some samples of instant-activating ice packs to take home and gave Nehemiah a prescription for meds to be picked up at the hospital pharmacy and an order for crutches to be given on loan.

  PAUL DROVE BEHIND KATE in the pickup and then helped Nehemiah to the living-room sofa when they arrived home. Kate gathered pillows so he could stretch out and elevate his feet.

  “I’m comfy,” he said. “This is perfect. Thank you.” He looked apologetic. “But I don’t want to be any trouble.”

  Paul said, “Hey, we’ll keep you busy doing the rear-window watch, plus I may have you write a sermon or two since you’ve got to stay put for a while.”

  “Glad to do both,” Nehemiah said. “More than glad.”

  After a bite of lunch, Paul left for his office at the church.

  The phone rang just after he drove off. It was Renee. But the call was the strangest Kate had ever received from her. Single words; short, choppy sentences. She would start to say something, then abruptly stop.

  “Are you okay?” Kate finally asked when she could get a word in edgewise.

  “I’m just so worried that everything I say will come out as gossip,” she said. “I’ve been trying to tell you the club members want bright-yellow ball caps with the club logo embroidered on them—honeybees in a field of daisies.”

  “That’s lovely, Renee,” Kate said.

  But Renee didn’t answer. Kate tried to picture the seventy-one-year-old fashion plate in a bright yellow ball cap with bees embroidered on it. The image didn’t work. She bit back a giggle.

  Then she heard a distinctive snap. Then another.

  “What was that?”

  Renee sighed. “Some of us are wearing rubber bands on our wrists, and every time we’re tempted to say something negative about someone, we snap it to remind us not to.”

  “Is it working?”

  “Just started it this morning,” Renee said. “It was Lola’s idea.” Lola was Renee’s neighbor and obviously had joined the Bee Attitudes. Kate heard another snap in the background.

  “I’ll be praying for y’all,” Kate said. “I know this can’t be easy, but what an excellent idea to try to live out the Beatitudes.”

  Renee’s voice rose an octave. “Try to live out?” Another snap.

  “None of us is perfect,” Kate said gently. “All of us slip up once in a while. That’s where grace comes in.”

  “Easy for you to...,” she began, then her voice faltered. Another rubber-band snap followed.

  Kate decided she’d better end the call before Renee’s wrist turned into a mass of welts.

  Kate peeked in on Nehemiah, who was napping, then headed back to the kitchen to put on a pot of chicken soup and stir together some cookies.

  After setting the oven to preheat, she pulled out the ingredients for one of her favorites: oatmeal with butterscotch chips and pecans. As she mixed the eggs, sugar, and softened b
utter, she mulled over what she knew for sure—which was far too little—and what she needed to investigate.

  She suspected that James was upset because of his involvement either in something dangerous or illegal. Or both. He was at a vulnerable age, and she knew his parents were terribly worried.

  She’d also determined that several people were looking for something in the house, and she was pretty sure it was hidden in the walls. Why else the fake exterminators? Why else the ball-peen hammers and stud finder?

  What she didn’t know was why so many people were involved in this. Were they all working for Davis Carr? What about the monk? Was he also looking for something? Why else would he be there? That, especially, didn’t make sense.

  She stirred in the dry ingredients, then the whole oats, the pecans, and finally the butterscotch chips. The oven temperature was up to speed, so as soon as she spooned the dollops of dough onto the baking sheet, she slipped it into the oven and set the timer.

  She took the mixing bowl to the sink and filled it with soapy water, dropping in the blades and spatula. As she swished the cloth around the inside of the bowl, she thought about the gap between the frames and the canvases on all three paintings. And what about the scratch on the frame of The Enchanted Garden? Why had Davis had it fixed after Kate pointed it out?

  Kate checked the timer, gave the soup a stir, then went back to rinse the bowls and utensils, thinking about the smaller details that niggled at the back of her brain.

  She’d detected, even in the one conversation she’d had with Celine Diamante, that her accent was probably fake. Was she faking her identity as well? That made Kate wonder if Davis Carr knew. If so, was he in cahoots with his cousin Clive Garfield and the others? Were they all looking for some hidden treasure in the old Victorian?

  Her brain was beginning to hurt with the possibilities. When the timer went off, it was almost a relief. She went over to the oven, grabbed a hot-pad mitt, and pulled out the baking sheet.

  The scent of her secret ingredient was heavenly: just a hint of almond extract. She always added a half teaspoon of vanilla to her oatmeal cookies, which she thought gave them a little something extra. She waited for them to cool just a bit, then scooped one off to bite into while it was still warm.

  Nothing like a bite of a fresh, out-of-the-oven cookie to relieve the brain ache that came from too much puzzling. She smiled as she scooped the remaining cookies onto a rack to cool, then added more spoonfuls of batter and put the sheet back into the oven.

  She went back to her puzzling as she again waited for the timer. Celine was affiliated with the Tate museum in London. That would certainly be easy enough to check out on the Internet. She made a mental note to ask to borrow Nehemiah’s laptop when he woke up.

  Her thoughts returned to Davis Carr. She also needed to do some research on the history of his business dealings. Did he do similar philanthropic projects often? Was Copper Mill the first?

  Rumor had it that he was a ruthless businessman. So again she wondered: why the warm fuzzies now with Copper Mill and these three valuable paintings?

  The timer chimed again. Kate grabbed a spatula and carefully slipped the cookie sheet from the oven. She repeated the baking process two more times while ticking off her next few projects: grab a ball-peen hammer and head back to the museum to do a little surreptitious tapping, borrow Nehemiah’s computer to nose around a bit for information on Celine and Davis, and take an even closer look at the paintings—online—printing the originals to check against those in the museum.

  Her head was starting to ache again, so she grabbed another cookie on her way to the garage to look through Paul’s collection of hammers. She found what she wanted, checked on Nehemiah, who was still sleeping, and placed the cordless phone within his reach with a note telling him where she was headed. She jotted down her cell number to call if he needed anything. Then with the ball-peen hammer in her handbag, she tiptoed to the front door to let herself out. She stopped, remembering what Nehemiah had said about seeing someone in a lab coat wearing a stethoscope. A stethoscope would come in very handy for listening to those bathroom walls.

  She searched her memory, knowing that long ago she’d kept a used stethoscope handy for when the kids got sick. But she hadn’t seen it since they’d moved from Texas. She tiptoed back into her bedroom and searched through a few boxes, only to find keepsakes from her children’s school days.

  She grabbed a nylon zipper bag at the back of the closet on the top shelf. Even before she unzipped it, she could tell what it was. She dropped it in her handbag and once again headed for the door.

  As she passed the living room, she could see that Nehemiah was still sleeping, so she quietly tiptoed again to the entrance hall, pulled the door open, and stepped outside. Then she stopped dead in her tracks as a new thought flew into her brain. What if Davis Carr’s mother had sent him to his aunt and uncle’s for a very different reason than the one he mentioned at the grand opening?

  Kate had already done a search for “Carr” and any connection the name might have to Copper Mill. Nothing had come up. But what about his mother’s maiden name? Then it hit her like a blast of cold air. The two men shared a common name: Davis Carr and Clive Davis Garfield. What if Davis Carr’s mother had named him Davis because that was a family name?

  Kate knew they were cousins, but it hadn’t occurred to her until just now that a Garfield might have owned the old Victorian. She could search the county property records and find that out quickly enough. If the house really had belonged to the Garfield family, maybe something would pop up to provide a link in a chain that was missing many links—a chain that seemed to be wrapped around everyone who’d come to Copper Mill to be involved in the exhibition of these paintings. And worst of all, the chain seemed to be tightening around an innocent seventeen-year-old who just wanted a “really cool” summer job.

  As Kate marched out the door to the car, the image of James’ troubled face drifted into her consciousness. He had been watching his mother at the grand opening, and now that Kate thought back on the moment, she wondered what had been going on in his head. Was he afraid of something or someone? Was he still?

  All she knew was that she needed to get to the bottom of this fast. For Livvy and Danny. And for James—especially James. She blinked back a tear that threatened and climbed into the Honda.

  KATE REACHED THE MUSEUM just as several other patrons and guests were taking the guided tour. Some she recognized from church; others she’d seen in town.

  She studied each painting even more carefully than before, paying close attention to color variations and detail, even down to counting blades of grass in The Enchanted Garden, waves in The Tempest, and fingers and toes in Gather Ye Rosebuds While Ye May.

  She trotted upstairs to the bathroom, closed the door, and twisted the old-fashioned Victorian lock. She grinned. Nothing like a little privacy when you need it.

  She pulled the small hammer from her handbag, set her handbag on the floor, then scooting around the lacy drapes, went to the back wall of the alcove and started tapping lightly, listening for any tone variations.

  There were none...at least at first. She moved toward the floor, still tapping. She stopped and frowned, then tapped again. She put the stethoscope to her ears and tried it once more.

  There did seem to be a sound that came into her ears as more solid than hollow. She sat back on her heels, staring at the spot. She couldn’t just start ripping boards off the wall. But how could she see inside the space? Or any space, should she find another.

  She stood, rubbing her arthritic knee.

  Someone knocked at the door, startling her. “You all right in there?”

  She recognized Eli’s voice. “Yes, I’m fine.” She rounded the tub, still holding the ball-peen hammer.

  He sounded worried. “Someone said they thought you’d been in there quite a long time.”

  She opened the door and held up her small hammer. “Just doing a bit of sleuthing,” she s
aid with a laugh and then stepped from the small room.

  Then she noticed the “someone” who’d obviously reported her. The compressor-running exterminator. Only this time he was wearing jeans and a faded, tie-dyed T-shirt.

  “You’re a busy little lady,” he said as she brushed by him.

  Eli didn’t notice the sarcasm. “One of the busiest in town,” Eli said. “You ever want anything done, Kate Hanlon is the one to call.”

  “I’ll remember that,” the exterminator said.

  BACK IN HER CAR, Kate called Livvy to report the latest—and to ask if she would mind downloading copies of the original Waterhouse oils. “And could you have them printed out in the highest pixel number possible?”

  “I’ll be happy to,” Livvy said and then asked for the titles and dates Waterhouse painted them. Kate had a brochure in her handbag and went down the list, giving Livvy everything she needed to find the exact paintings.

  “I’ll stop by in a few minutes.”

  “Great. Is there anything else you need?”

  Kate laughed. “X-ray vision would help right now.”

  “That I can’t help you with,” Livvy said.

  Chapter Sixteen

  It was after eight the next morning when Kate finally had time to sit down at the kitchen table, where she had spread the prints Livvy made for her at the library. One by one, she went through them, comparing the details against those she’d noticed on the oils at the museum.

  Nothing jumped out at her. Rather, she marveled at the vivid hues and incredible detail even in these laser-printed copies.

  Kate sighed. Maybe she was making a mountain out of a molehill, making too much of niggling little puzzle pieces that she couldn’t fit together. Maybe there had never been a puzzle in the first place. Maybe everything was exactly as Davis and Celine set it up: a very nice loan to a museum that happened to be in a house that harbored fond memories for both Davis Carr and the CEO of Safe Keeping. A loan to the town where Davis’ aunt and uncle, parents of Clive Garfield, lived.