Dusted (A Maid in LA Mystery)

by Jacobs, Holly

  “But—”

  “Don’t make me pull out my mom-look,” I warned her. “My mom-look casts terror, even in teenaged boys’ hearts. You might never recover.”

  “A mom-look’s not necessary,” she said with a smile. “Yes. I’ll be there. And you don’t cast terror in anyone’s heart.”

  “You wouldn’t say that if I were trying out for a Walking Dead zombie role. That would cast terror in your heart.”

  “Not even then, Quincy Mac. You could come at me with zombie guts and gore everywhere, and you still couldn’t strike terror in my heart.” With her panic over, Tiny said, “So what’s on the agenda today?”

  “Can I do anything to help settle your pre-wedding nerves?”

  “You know I’m not nervous about marrying Sal, right? It’s the ceremony—I want it to be perfect.”

  “I do. But I wish you wouldn’t worry about the wedding. Here’s the thing, Tiny, it’s just a day. What you need to focus on is the marriage. That’s forever, and that is something that will absolutely be perfect. As for the wedding, is there anything else I can do?

  “No, you talked me off the ledge for today.” She shot me a smile and looked like herself again. “I’m fine.”

  “Then I’ve got a pile of paperwork in my office, and I have to go to the gallery again this afternoon. I think I have a lead.”

  “Want to talk about it?” she asked.

  “Not yet. Let me see how it pans out. I got the information from Rob again. We’re going to owe our personal computer geek a few more weeks of cleaning.”

  “You’re enjoying torturing Theresa, aren’t you?” she asked.

  “Would it make me wicked to say yes?”

  “No, because I am, too.”

  We both laughed and I went into my office to start on my stack of dreaded paperwork.

  I glanced up at my maid pictures from Peri.

  Really, if Jerome hurt her, I was going to think of some way to torture him as well.

  Like I said, I don’t believe in physical discipline, but a bit of creative punishment has some merit.

  Tiny went out to meet Sal for lunch, something I heartily encouraged. He could calm her down better than any pill.

  I ate lunch at my desk and finally cleared the paperwork.

  There was a lot of it.

  But it was all done, including the schedule for next week.

  I’ll confess, I smiled when I put Rob Williams on Theresa’s list.

  Tiny came back into the office at two.

  “You still going out?” she asked.

  “If you’re here, then I’m out of here,” I said. “Unless you need anything?”

  “No, I feel much better. I told Sal about my dream, then about what you said about it would have been worse if I’d dreamed you were naked in front of me. He wiped at his eyes and said never, use the words Quincy and naked together in a sentence again. He thinks of you as a sister, and was a bit creeped out.”

  Rather than being insulted, I felt touched that Sal thought of me as a sister.

  Another brother.

  No sane woman needs that—and Cal has questioned my sanity more than once, but I cling to my sane status—but still it was sweet.

  “Don’t bother coming back in when you’re done. Enjoy your solo afternoon. Maybe Cal can take a dinner break?” She wiggled her eyebrows suggestively.

  It didn’t sound like a bad idea to me.

  I waved at her and then took off for the gallery.

  I found a parking space and walked what was now the familiar block to the brick building.

  I opened the door.

  Miriam came out, saw it was me, and rolled her eyes.

  Whatever connection we’d had yesterday was gone. The Dragon Lady had her armor back in place.

  “I was hoping Summer was around,” I said. “I have a few questions.”

  “Of course you do,” she said with a sneer.

  I didn’t say anything to that because really what could I say?

  Miriam finally decided I wasn’t going anywhere and said, “Yes. Summer’s in the back. You just head through the door in the back of the gallery.”

  A woman dressed much nicer than my jeans and Mac’Cleaner’s t-shirt, came to the door. “Hurry,” Miriam whispered.

  I obliged her and hurried into the back room.

  I shut the door quickly behind me.

  “You didn’t come in the front door wearing that, did you?” A tall woman with dark brown dreadlocks trailing down her back asked.

  “Yes, afraid so.”

  “I bet the Ice Queen fractured something trying to hurry you back here.”

  She wiped her tattooed hand on her holey jeans and said, “I’m Summer. And you are?”

  “Quincy.”

  She nodded at my t-shirt which made the small stud in her nose catch the light and call attention to itself. “A maid?”

  “Yes.”

  She gave a little hoot of laughter. “Oh, I’m sure the Ice Queen loved that. You are not her normal clientele. Are you here for a job?”

  “No, I’m here to talk to you.”

  “Well, come over to my little corner and talk.” In the back of the workroom was a couple padded metal chairs and a small counter. “Herbal tea?”

  “No,” I said. It didn’t seem polite to accept tea from a woman you were about to question in a bunch of forgeries.

  “I’m here to ask you a few questions,” I said again.

  “About?”

  “You worked for Gaia’s Gallery before you worked here?”

  “I did. I worked there for five years, with the understanding I was working my way into a partnership, but that didn’t pan out.” From her expression, she was furious that she wasn’t going to be a partner in the gallery. “So, when Miriam made me her offer, I jumped at the chance.”

  “What exactly do you do?” I asked, not because I doubted Miriam’s description, but because I wanted to start out asking easy questions. It’s what Brenda Leigh would do before asking the hard ones and inducing the suspect to make a full confession.

  “I do less here than I did there,” Summer said. “I do custom framing and matting. I’m responsible for packing any art that we sell. For local clients, I frequently go out and hang their paintings. Not just hang them, but arrange and light them. You don’t just drive a nail in the wall to hang pieces that cost this much.”

  “And you’re an artist, too?”

  She nodded, then her eyes narrowed. “Why are you asking me these questions?”

  Fibbing wasn’t an option. I knew Miriam would throw me under the bus at the first opportunity, so I simply said, “I’m looking at things that tie together the recent art that was stolen and replaced with forgeries. It turns out all the paintings were either bought here, or from—”

  “Gaia,” she filled in.

  “Yes.”

  “I guess your first question is why I’d do something like that?” she asked.

  “Yes. A person’s motive is always important. Money comes to mind.”

  “There’s that, or there’s the fact that some of the art that sells for absurd amounts of money has no complexity or depth.”

  “It’s something a kindergartner might bring home from school,” I assured her, voicing my previous thoughts.

  “Exactly,” she said. “I make my living framing, packing, and hanging other people’s art, but what I want is for someone to notice my art. My motive could be that maybe jealousy finally got the better of me.”

  “That is a very good motive.”

  “It is. The only flaw is, I didn’t do it. Sure, I look at some of the derivative drivel that sells and I wish it was my piece on a wall selling, but I’d never steal it, and I’d certainly never paint something like that, even if it was a forgery.”

  “I don’t know, jealousy is a powerful motive,” I said.

  “And if I understand the news articles, this happened over time, but no one knows what the time frame is, so I can’t provide an
alibi.”

  I nodded. “Right.”

  “But you’re not a cop.”

  “Nope.” I plucked at my t-shirt. “I really am a maid.”

  “So what do we do now? Are you going to go to the cops?”

  “I’ve been told in no uncertain terms that my assistance on this case isn’t required, nor is it welcome, so no, I can’t imagine I will. I wanted to talk to you and see what I thought.” Before she could respond to that, I said, “Do you have something you painted here?”

  She paused a moment, then glanced at the door to the main gallery, then looked back at me. “If you promise not to tell the Ice Queen, I do.”

  I crossed my heart. “Promise.”

  She led me to the back of the workroom and pulled a smaller canvas from behind a table. Then set it on an empty easel.

  Now, this was my kind of art. It was a farm scene. It had a farmhouse…that looked like a farmhouse. A barn…that looked like a barn. It had grass, a sky and various animals and they all looked like what they were. It also had a beautiful sunset.

  “This is stunning,” I said and I meant it. “Really, Summer, I love it.”

  “It turns out LA isn’t the best place to sell something this rustic is how one critic put it.”

  “This is the kind of art I like,” I told her. Then I noticed an apple tree and added, “I might have a name for you…someone who would love to add something like this to their collection.”

  “What?”

  I thought of Mrs. Santa Claus and her stolen painting. “Mr. Neilson bought her a Kirchoff, because he thought she’d like it. She kept it because he gave it to her, but it definitely wasn’t the style of art she collected. This is. Why don’t I give him a call and see if he’d be interested in buying a replacement piece?”

  “You’d do that?” Summer asked.

  “I would. How much would you charge for something like this?”

  She named an absurdly low amount. I immediately blocked it from my mind and said, “You have more available?”

  “Yes.”

  I reached in my purse, pulled out my checkbook and wrote a check for twice what she’d asked. “Then if you’re willing, I’d like to buy this one for me, and you can show Mr. Neilson some of your other pieces.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I like it. Here’s the thing, I’ve been investigating this for a while now. I know more about Kirchoff’s work than I ever wanted to, and I still don’t get it. This,” I pointed at the painting. “This I get. And I like it. And when I was starting my business, I had some very influential friends not only hire Mac’Cleaners, but tell their friends about us. I’m paying that kindness back. And hey, it’s a great investment. I’m getting in on the ground floor.”

  She jumped up and hugged me.

  “My parents don’t understand,” she said. “They’re both lawyers, and feel I’m a disappointment because I’m not.”

  I laughed out loud. “I’m not laughing at you,” I said. “But with you. Not just my parents, but I come from an entire family of doctors. My brothers, their wives, my grandparents. I came out here to be an actress, and I became a maid. I so get it.”

  She laughed. Then tucked the check in her pocket. “Thank you.”

  “No, thank you. When you show your potential clients paintings, pick something else with apple trees. It’ll be a sure thing. ”

  “I will,” she promised. Her delight gave way to worry. “So, do you think the cops are going to track me down?”

  “The cop investigating this is Mickey Roman. He might, but I don’t think he’ll seriously look at you as a suspect. Especially now that you’re a hotshot artist in your own right. But could you do me a favor?”

  “Sure,” she said.

  “Don’t mention I was here. I’m supposed to be staying out of his way. But I don’t trust him to figure it out on his own.”

  She snapped her fingers. “You’re her,” she said.

  “Her who?”

  Summer nodded, her brown dreads bobbing. “You’re that maid who solved a murder.”

  I didn’t get recognized often, but when I did it flustered me to the extent that I was sure being a famous star wouldn’t have suited me. “I am.”

  “That’s so cool.”

  “That’s not what the cops thought.”

  We both laughed and I took Summer up on the cup of tea. We visited. Turns out she was from Cleveland, Ohio, which is less than two hours from Erie and also sat on the shores of Lake Erie. She was an only child and we discussed being the family black sheep.

  Finally Summer looked at the clock. “I have to go. I’m supposed to be at the Mitchell’s in half an hour.”

  “I don’t really think Miriam would appreciate my walking out of the front door with the painting. Is there anyway you could drop it off at Mac’Cleaners? I was going to hang it at home, but I thought it might get you a little more notice if I hung it in our lobby.”

  She hugged me again. “I think it was my lucky day when I made your suspect list. Thanks. I’ll drop it off tomorrow, if that’s okay?”

  “Sure.”

  She looked at the clock again. “I’d better go.”

  “Me, too.”

  She headed toward the service exit and I went back to the front. Now, I could have left with Summer, but I knew leaving from the front would annoy Miriam, so that’s what I did.

  I can be a bit cantankerous sometimes.

  If you ask my mother, or my brothers, or my sons… Well, if you ask a lot of people they’d say I can be more than a bit cantankerous.

  Miriam was standing by the door glaring at me from behind her upturned nose. “So did you find your thief?”

  “No, I don’t think so.” Summer wasn’t the thief. I was going to have to go home and cross off another perfectly good suspect.

  What would Brenda Leigh, or Trixie Belden, or any other perfectly good fictional detectives do now? Despite annoying Miriam, I felt a bit depressed. Maybe finding Mr. Banning’s murderer was a fluke?

  “Why? Why don’t you think she did it?” Miriam asked.

  “I think she has too much artistic pride to ever copy someone else’s work. People who forge art, or who plagiarize another person’s writing, are two of the lowest forms of human beings. All the great detectives agree it always comes down to motive. I think in this case it comes down jealousy of someone else’s talent. Jealousy of someone else’s success. Or simply money. But whoever did it is pretty low. And I just didn’t see that in Summer.”

  “But you’re not going to stop looking?” Miriam asked.

  I shook my head. “No, of course I’m not. So far, the fact Mac’Cleaners cleaned the homes that were robbed hasn’t made the paper, but I have professional pride. I’m not going to let someone come into my clients’ homes and get away with stealing their possessions.”

  I walked in front of a painting that was at least a little more complex than a giant square and I mused. “Money. I think it has to be money. Because even if another artist was jealous, stealing the art in question and replacing it wouldn’t really damage the actual artists. If anything, the news has made their names far more public.” I nodded to myself. “Yes, I’m pretty sure it was money.”

  “How would that work?”

  “We don’t know how long the thief was working. They could steal and replace a painting at any time. If it was about the money, maybe they took one and discovered that no one figured out what they’d done. When the money they got from selling that first painting petered out, they went back for another one, and another one.… Maybe that’s what we need to do. Check out who on the suspect list had financial problems. Financial problems that magically cleared up. Someone who makes a habit of living beyond their means. Someone who—”

  “Stop it. You don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing?” Miriam shrieked. “Of course you figured it out. I knew that it was someone at Mac’Cleaners who solved the murder. Everyone in LA has heard about the Mac’Cleaner’s maid who so
lved a murder. But I looked it up and of course it was you. One of the articles called you tenacious. I knew you’d find me.”

  Well sh—boogers. I’d found the thief, but like Mr. Banning’s murderer, I’d stumbled on them, rather than honed in on them.

  And if I wasn’t mistaken, I’d stumbled on another nut job.

  Oh, yeah, she was a whack-a-doodle.

  Miriam had wild-eyes. You know those cartoons where the character’s eyes makes the little whirlpool sort of spin? I swear, that’s what hers were doing.

  “Miriam,” I said, using the same sort of voice I’d use if I were talking to a bear, or a rabid dog. “It will be okay. You can turn yourself in and—”

  She reached into her purse.

  Yes, I realized immediately that I should have noticed the purse and wondered why an employee was carrying it around the art studio. But I hadn’t, at least not until the moment she reached into and pulled out a tiny little, pearl handled gun. I mean, the thing was tiny. I wondered just how big a bullet it would hold, and how much damage a tiny bulled could inflict.

  “Don’t underestimate this. I’m close enough that it can kill you.” The gun wavered in her hand.

  “Now, Miriam, you don’t want to do that. Stealing artwork is one thing, but murder is a different thing entirely.” I thought of Mr. Banning and didn’t want someone to walk in and find me with a hole in my chest.

  “It shouldn’t have come to this. It was a victimless crime,” she whined.

  “I don’t know how you figure that,” I told her. “The people you stole from were victims.”

  “They’re insured. They got their money back. I know, because I’ve got mine.”

  I had a light bulb moment. “That’s how it started, right? You took your own paintings, replaced them with forgeries and sold the originals. But then you ran out of pieces that were simple to copy. You went into your client’s homes.”

  “I went into the Giffords’. The first two pieces they bought here, but I knew they had another Kirchoff. I took pictures when Summer hung the first two and made a copy of their key, then when they went on vacation, I simply went in and replaced that one. The Neilson’s house was even easier. Mr. Neilson bought just that one piece, and I replaced it here. Summer unwittingly hung it. I have some pride in the fact she never noticed the forgeries, and she calls herself an artist. She even asked me about displaying some of her work.” Miriam scoffed. “As if.”