I stared at her, confused. My brain was trying to wrap itself around her words and what they meant. Why would she be a laughingstock?
Then, like a jolt from a cattle prod, it hit me.
“It’s you,” I said, remembering her own frustrated career in art. “You’re Abe Adam Finch.” I’d read about this, mainstream artists who masquerade as outsider artists when their own work is not spectacular or special enough to make it in the art world.
Her smooth face gave an almost imperceptible flinch, a flash of pain. “Not just me.”
Then I finally got it. “You and Pinky Edmondson?” This was getting more and more bizarre. “You both were Abe Adam?”
“It was ridiculously easy.”
“I still don’t get it,” I said, realizing now that perhaps Constance, as crazy as it seemed, might have been right about Pinky’s death being a homicide. If that was true, then the person who likely did it was standing right next to me, looking as normal as my next-door neighbor.
My survival instinct told me to keep her talking until I could figure out what was going on and, even more important, how to extricate myself from the situation. “The first Abe Adam Finch painting was discovered ten years ago. You two have been—?”
“Yes,” she interrupted. “We’ve been carrying on the charade for ten years. I have to admit, at first it was something we did just to see if we could get away with it. Then it actually became lucrative. Very lucrative.”
I knew from Constance, or at least assumed, that Pinky didn’t need the money. “For you.”
She shrugged. “Pinky didn’t need the money, but she did love the excitement. I guess when you grow up with money like she did, having everything you’ve ever wanted in life, you have to dig deep for your thrills. But like so many rich people, she bored easily and wanted to stop.”
And Nola didn’t. That meant there was a very good chance that Constance was right that Pinky was murdered and that Nola killed her. But how? Not that it mattered at this point. If it was true, I had only two possible ways to escape the same fate: talk my way out or overpower her. In hand-to-hand fighting, I thought I’d be able to overcome Nola, but Gabe had told me over and over that you should never underestimate any opponent.
I glanced over her shoulder, trying to figure out if there was a way I could get around her. Still, getting to my truck was only one of my worries. Scout was still out there. I wouldn’t leave without him, not when I didn’t have any idea what this woman was capable of doing. So I had to keep her talking until I could figure out what to do.
“Lionel,” I said. “Was he named after Lionel Bachman?”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “You are pretty sharp. Pinky thought it was funny. I thought it was taking too much of a chance. But I guess that’s what appealed to her about the whole thing.”
“Was he in on it?”
“Of course. It would have been a lot harder to pull it off without someone of his caliber pretending to like my paintings.” Her lips pulled down at the corners. “And he never let me forget that he was pretending. I hated that man. Best day of my life when he died.”
“Okay, so you pulled off this huge trick on the snobby art establishment. What now?”
I saw her draw in a deep breath. “That’s a problem. But not as much a problem as you are. Frankly, I never counted on having to deal with someone like you.”
My stomach churned as I lied like a sideshow barker. “I don’t know what you mean.”
She gave a contemptuous laugh. “I’m not stupid. I couldn’t be stupid and pull this off. You are one of those tediously honest people who would insist on telling everyone the truth about Abe Adam Finch.”
Though I should have kept my mouth shut, I couldn’t help saying, “What you’re doing is fraud. Why not just paint under your own name?” But before she replied, I already knew the answer.
“Because the art world is a closed, narrow world with impossible rules for entry. This was the closest I’ll ever come to being one of the players.” Her lips turned up into a bitter slash of a smile. “Pinky just couldn’t understand that. To her, it was just a lark. Easy for her because she would always be in just by virtue of her money and her name. If Abe Adam Finch’s real identity was revealed, her friends would just laugh and say, ‘That crazy Pinky Edmondson, you just never know what she’s going to do next.’ You see it all the time, rich and famous people getting away with . . . everything! Her fancy lawyers would get her a slap on the wrist. Me, on the other hand . . .”
She was right. She had a lot more to lose. No one would ever take her seriously again in the art world, and she might even be prosecuted for fraud. At any rate, with only her alive now, all the blame would fall on her shoulders. I couldn’t help feeling sorry for her. She’d obviously started out wanting to make art and ended up being seduced by the part of the creative world that was as judgmental and unbending as a Third World caste system.
Her eyes were shiny with angry, unshed tears. “I was so mad when she said it was time we ended the charade. What did she expect me to do? Where was I supposed to go? You know what she did? Laughed. Said I needed to get over myself. That she’d always meant for this thing to be temporary, for the joke to be eventually revealed to her friends.”
“What are you going to do?” I asked casually, glancing over her shoulder, frantically searching the woods for Scout.
She drew a small hand pistol out of her pocket and pointed it at me. “I need time to figure it out now that you’ve ruined things.”
I stared at the gun, trying to calm the rapid beating of my heart. I hadn’t expected a gun, which proved what Gabe said was true. Never underestimate anyone. I felt my senses spring to alert, knowing that in a split second, depending on this unstable woman’s whim, my life could be over.
“Killing me wouldn’t accomplish what you want,” I said. Keep calm, I told myself. Think of her as a green horse or an angry bull. Don’t let her smell your fear.
“I don’t plan on killing you,” she said. “Like I said, I’m not stupid. I just need time to get away. Luckily, I always knew something like this would happen. I should have left right after Pinky died. I have a plan B. I have always had a plan B.”
It was something about the way she said Pinky died that told me that Constance had, indeed, been right. But I wasn’t foolish enough to say it out loud. Right now, I wanted to stay alive myself.
She waved me toward the front door. “I’m going to tie you up and lock you in the basement. By the time anyone notices you’re missing and your husband figures out where you are, I’ll be—” She stopped, clamping her lips together. “Gone.”
She jabbed the pistol in my side. “Now, I mean it, don’t try to be a hero. You can’t beat a bullet. Trust me, I wouldn’t hesitate to shoot you if I had to.” She handed me the front door key. “Unlock the door.”
“I know,” I said, fumbling with the lock, finally opening the heavy wood door. We walked down the hallway toward the door that led to the basement. Would I ever know if Nola murdered Pinky Edmondson? Right now, I didn’t care. All I wanted to do was live.
“Open the door,” she said.
The metal knob was icy to my touch. The cold, dank scent of the unfinished basement drifted up. Panic rose in my throat, a salty bile that threatened to choke me. I didn’t want to go down in this room under the house. It felt too much like a grave. I hesitated a split second. Enough to panic her.
“Go!” she said in a low voice, giving my back a push.
I felt myself start to fall. I grasped at air, my head hitting the wooden railing. My feet tangled, and I tumbled down the stairs, jolts of pain exploding in my head, my arm, my leg. I hit the concrete floor with a thump, my right arm twisted under me, pain ripping through me, pain so intense that I prayed to lose consciousness. The door at the top of the stairs slammed shut, and in the deep, black silence I heard the faint click of a bolt.
Please, I prayed. Lord, help. Then nothing.
CHAPTER 15
I WOKE UP SURROUNDED BY THE COLOR BLUE, A SOFT robin’s egg blue. I was in bed, a firm, bleach-scented bed. For the first few seconds, I wondered if I was dead. Was heaven a room painted blue that smelled like bleach? Voices murmured in the background.
I opened my mouth, and something that sounded like a croak tumbled out. Blurry bodies rushed to my side. I blinked my eyes a few times, finally able to discern a dark shape. The shape loomed over me. Gabe’s familiar ginger scent eased my racing heart.
“Querida.” His voice sounded faraway.
“Gabe?” My lips formed the shape of his name, but no sound came out.
A soft hand touched my cheek. It smelled of sweet, toasty almonds. In the background I heard the rumble of voices: Daddy, Emory, Elvia.
“Dove,” I said in my soundless speech. Tears burned my eyes. If I was dead, then so was everyone I loved.
“Now, now,” she said. “You’re fine, honeybun. You’re going to be fine. You got a concussion and a broken wrist. Sam says he wants to be the first to sign your cast. You’re going to be fine.”
“Nola,” I said. This time I could hear my own voice, jagged and harsh as a thirty-year smoker. “She tried to . . . Pinky . . . she . . . where’s Scout . . .”
“Everything’s under control,” Gabe said, his wide, warm hand touching my face. “Scout’s fine. Go back to sleep. I’ll be right here.”
Knowing I was safe, I let myself lapse back into sleep. Every so often someone would arouse me, and I’d murmur answers to their questions and go back to sleep. I woke up again hours later with a splitting headache. It was dark outside my window, and Gabe was the only one left in the room sitting in a visitor’s chair close enough for me to touch.
“Scout?” I said, remembering what happened.
Gabe bent down to kiss the top of my head. “He’s at home with Mom and Ray. He earned his kibble for the rest of his life. His barking brought you help.”
“He’s a good dog,” I said and started to cry. Gabe moved to sit on the edge of my bed and pulled me into his arms. He didn’t say anything but just let me cry out my fear and relief.
Once I calmed down, he told me what happened after I was knocked unconscious by my fall down the basement stairs.
“You were lucky,” he said. “You could have broken your neck.” His face hardened, imagining the possibility. “Constance was probably right about what happened to Mrs. Edmondson. If I’d only listened to her.”
I placed my hand on his forearm. “There’s no way you could have known, Friday. It didn’t look like a murder. Even the medical examiner wasn’t suspicious. And, frankly, Constance has always been as loony as a . . .” My head throbbed and I couldn’t think. “A loon.”
His blue-gray eyes darkened in the pale morning sunlight. “Still, I should have . . . I don’t know . . .”
“Been able to predict the future?” I touched my aching temple. “Do you know how Nola killed Pinky?”
He shook his head no. “She’s in custody, but she’s not talking.”
My eyebrows went up, surprised. Then I flinched. Even that little movement hurt. “You caught her already? How?”
He smiled, touched my cheek with his warm palm. “You told us.”
“I did?”
He filled in the details of what took place right after my unplanned meeting with Nola Finch. Apparently, Scout had sensed that something was wrong when he came back to the house. It was luck or, I’d rather believe, God’s providence that Bobbie was still out hiking around the property. She heard Scout’s barking and came upon him scratching at Pinky’s front door. She saw my car and naturally assumed I was inside. She knocked and knocked, and when I didn’t answer, she took a chance and broke a window. Once she let Scout in, he ran directly to the basement door and barked. Bobbie unbolted the door, ran down and found me. Though I don’t remember, apparently I woke up for a few moments when Bobbie checked my pulse. As I lapsed in and out of consciousness, I managed to say Nola Finch’s and Pinky Edmondson’s names when Bobbie asked me what happened.
“My training as a cop’s wife,” I said, smiling.
“Thanks to you, she only had a few hours’ head start.”
He went on to tell me how Bobbie called 911, then immediately called Gabe, whose number she found on the cell phone still in my pocket. She told him what I’d said.
“We caught Ms. Maxwell attempting to cross the border into Tijuana,” Gabe said. “She was wearing a wig and carrying a fake ID.”
“Wow,” I said.
“After our APB, she was recognized by a sharp-eyed border patrol agent who, fortunately for us, happens to be a part-time folk artist himself. He’d just read the story that morning in the L.A. Times about your museum’s acquisition of the Abe Adam Finch painting. We were lucky enough that one of the newspaper’s photos showed Nola Maxwell. Which, by the way, is her real name.”
“Where is she being held?” I asked.
“Down in San Diego. I sent two detectives down there.”
“You said she’s not talking?”
He shook his head no. “Already has a lawyer. Did she say anything to you about killing Pinky Edmondson?”
I almost shook my head, then remembered how much it hurt. “Not really. She confessed to the art fraud, and she seemed very angry that Pinky was going to reveal their secret.”
His expression was slightly confused. I realized that he didn’t know the details about why she killed Pinky, or at least what it sounded like to me. Slowly, I told him about discovering the picture of Lionel the cat on Abe Adam Finch’s painting.
“I really didn’t think I was doing anything dangerous by going out there,” I said. “Since I thought I hadn’t done anything to make anyone suspicious about the painting.”
“Obviously, something you did or said worried Nola Maxwell.”
I thought for a moment. “I don’t know what.”
“When did you recognize the cat in the painting?”
“At the opening. I was studying the painting, and that’s when a lightbulb went on.”
“She was obviously watching you and, as I’ve told you before, you aren’t the best poker player in the world.” He softened his comment with a smile. “After that, it is likely she followed you, waiting to see what you’d do with the information.”
I inhaled deeply, causing a sharp pain in my side. “I’ve been stalked enough in my lifetime for ten people. I hope this does it.”
“You and me both,” Gabe said.
“Maybe it just came down to greed. Or envy. Or both. She really liked the social position being Abe Finch’s niece gave her and didn’t want Pinky to end it. Do you think she’ll ever confess?”
“Doubt it. She was smart enough to hire a lawyer as soon as she could. Because of what she did to you, we can charge her with aggravated assault, assault with a deadly weapon, maybe even kidnapping. The DA’s figuring all that out. And anything you’ve figured out is just speculation. Since we don’t have any physical evidence on Mrs. Edmondson, there’s not much we can do now.”
“She’ll get away with murder.”
The edges of his lips turned down in a frown. “Not the first person who has and won’t be the last. But she’ll do the most jail time possible under the law.”
“I wonder how she did it.”
Gabe shrugged. “I asked the medical examiner, and he said if he had to speculate, he’d guess that she used Mrs. Edmondson’s own medicine against her.”
“What medicine?”
“Digitalis. Pinky Edmondson had a heart condition. She also, apparently, had trouble sleeping, because she had a prescription for sleeping pills. Our guess is that, somehow, Nola managed to trick Mrs. Edmondson into taking too much of her own heart medication. Maybe gave her some sleeping pills, then convinced her she hadn’t taken her heart medicine when she actually had. We’ve checked with her pharmacist, and Mrs. Edmondson had a prescription filled two weeks before for a month’s worth. The detectives found the bottle of sleeping p
ills but not the digitalis. Nola Maxwell likely got rid of it, since it would have shown more pills missing than was logical.”
“So many ifs. I guess we’ll never know for sure.”
“Not unless Nola confesses, and though I don’t underestimate the interrogation experience of my detectives, Ms. Maxwell sounds like she is not one who can be easily tricked.”
“Not as easily fooled as the rest of us,” I said, meaning me.
“Don’t beat yourself up, sweetheart. These kinds of people are walking geniuses when it comes to using people.”
“I wonder what will become of the painting? And what it makes the rest of his . . . or rather, their work worth.”
“That’s not my field of expertise,” Gabe said. “For right now, since there isn’t a charge of murder against Nola Maxwell, you can keep the painting.”
“I suppose I need to make an official announcement. We’ll get media coverage, all right. Just not the kind I’d hoped for.”
“You know what they say,” Gabe said cheerfully. “All publicity is good publicity.”
“Who says that?” I said.
He laughed and kissed me. “I don’t know. The people who don’t get publicity? But if what you wanted was for your museum to become known, that’s in the bag now.”
“Except we’ll be a laughingstock.”
“Not as much as the people who paid thousands of dollars for a fake Abe Adam Finch painting.”
“You’re right,” I said, feeling a little better. “At least this didn’t cost us anything.” Then a feeling of sadness swept over me. “It cost Pinky Edmondson her life.”
Gabe’s face was more thoughtful than sad. “Yes, that’s a tragedy, but one she could have prevented by simply not perpetuating a lie.”
“It’s still tragic,” I said. “To die for something so small.” I groaned. “Do you realize what my life will be like once Constance Sinclair finds out she was sort of right about Pinky being murdered?”
“Not as bad as mine.”
Within the next hour, the rest of my family had come back: Dove, Isaac, Daddy, Sam, Emory and Elvia. I had an entourage to help me check out. As Dove and Elvia helped me dress, Gabe filled out my paperwork. In the next hour, I was back home sitting in the living room holding Boo in my lap, Scout at my feet.
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