by BV Lawson
On the way out of the store, she ran into Caleb, leaning on his car. “Morning, Mrs. Jepson,” he said.
“Good morning,” she replied, noting his usual inscrutable expression.
He said, “Yes, it is a good morning. Fresh air is good for the health. So is minding one’s own business.”
She chose to ignore his comment. “Do give my best to Iris. Tell her I have more herbs to exchange. She can pick them up any time.”
“I’ll do that. And you be sure to tell Mr. Drayco I said hello. I’d be curious to know if he’s been on any fishing expeditions lately.”
Did Quintier suspect Scott sent her to spy on him? Maida hurried to her car and hoped she hadn’t done more harm than good.
29
The Art of Arts Gallery was, hands down, the most colorful shop in Cape Unity, with a changing window display of whimsical artifacts. The current offerings included a hot-pink sculpture of Ben Franklin and a psychedelic painting of a hot dog chasing an apple pie. Drayco considered buying that one for the sheriff.
He rubbed his stomach. He was better, but the thought of food made his stomach rumble in protest. He forgot all about that when Virginia greeted him with her latest creation, a portrait in pastels of her mother. “What about this one?” she asked, her eyes daring him to be honest.
He took it from her and studied the image. There was nothing sentimental about the way Virginia chose to depict Lucy, her upper body morphing out of a gray background, head resting on one hand, fingers resting against her forehead. The unsmiling Lucy’s eyes were unfocused like she was lost in a sea mist. A woman adrift.
He was still surprised Virginia cared about his opinion. “You captured your mother’s spirit very well.”
She pointed to a sign in the corner of the gallery window. “See that? Mr. Questa is sponsoring a regional art competition. He wants me to enter. Not in the age category, the general one. I’m thinking this picture of Mom. Is it too cliché? Barry’s going to enter, too. Something more abstract.”
Drayco grinned at her rapid-fire delivery. At first, he hardly got more than one brief sentence out of her. After being together the past week, she now chattered away nonstop. “The portrait of your mother would be a good choice. And it’s not too clichéd. Please tell me you aren’t going to start wearing berets and talking in trendy art-speak.”
She cocked her head to one side and examined her reflection in the display window. “A beret might be just the thing. Okay, I’m kidding. I doubt Georgia O’Keefe or Frida Kahlo would be caught dead wearing a beret. A wide-brimmed hat or flowers, maybe.”
Ordinarily, he’d help guide the wheelchair. Aware of her independent streak, he supported her desire to do as much for herself as she could. As she wheeled herself toward his car, he added, “Sorry it’s a boring old car and not more exciting like Maida’s red motor scooter.”
Virginia sported an uncharacteristically shy smile. “Thanks for the picture of your sister. That’ll be my next project. I want it to be really good so it may take longer.”
After Drayco had the wheelchair stowed and started the car, he spied a grayish-plum luxury car parked nearby. Faris Usher was in the driver’s seat, and Drayco could make out the profile of Vesta Mae Gatewood seated in the back. As Drayco adjusted the rearview mirror, he saw Vesta Mae get out of the car and enter Tallent’s Antiques.
Not so agoraphobic, then, Mrs. Gatewood. It was also early for her to be out—as Nelia Tyler said, if Vesta Mae was seen at all, it was after dark. Usher remained in the car not looking at Vesta Mae, but straight ahead, as if making certain Drayco’s car moved safely away.
Maida gave him a sheepish phone call fifteen minutes ago, of her tailing Quintier into Tallent’s Antiques and what she saw. She was worried about Drayco, but he was more worried about her. He bit back the lecture he wanted to give her. He did tell her not to do it again.
So why was Vesta Mae entering the store so closely on Caleb Quintier’s heels? If Drayco didn’t have Virginia with him, he’d duck back into the store. Despite the temptation, his cargo was too vulnerable to leave alone.
He found it increasingly easier to relax around Virginia, and it appeared the feeling was mutual. She asked out of the blue, “So, why did you stop playing the piano?”
“I still give an occasional concert for fun. After the accident, I can’t practice long hours like I used to.”
Virginia’s voice rose a note or two up the scale, making her sound younger. “What accident?”
“An arm injury. Ancient history.” He didn’t think it appropriate to mention the violent details of the incident that almost cost him his life. “It probably turned out for the best. Performing for a living can take the fun out of music sometimes.”
“That’s why I like art. Just me and the paper and some paints. You still enjoy playing, don’t you?”
“Most fun I ever have.”
“Mom says I get my artistic talent from my father. I never knew him. He was gone a lot before he died. How about your parents? Do you have a father? What’s he like?”
“My father is former FBI, now a private consultant. Like me.”
“Then why don’t you work together?”
He squirmed at that one. Such an innocent question. Such a loaded answer. “We take on different kinds of cases most of the time.”
She seemed satisfied by his reply but then asked, “What about your mother?”
“I don’t know where she is. Or if she’s still alive.”
“Oh.” Virginia grew silent, threading her fingers together, then apart. “Still, it must be nice to have a father. Even if you don’t always get along. Barry’s got his dad, maybe not father of the year or anything, but he’s still around. Wish I’d known Dad better.”
“I can understand that, but your Mom has done a wonderful job. I doubt it’s been easy as a single mother.”
“Hell no!”
Drayco turned his head toward her. “Does she know you curse like that?”
She shrugged. “I think the universe owes me a few swears, don’t you?”
“I’m not sure you need it. You’re one of the strongest people I know.”
She twisted around. “You think so?”
When he nodded, she reached to touch the toy piano glued to the dashboard. “I used to say I wasn’t afraid of anything—except needles. I don’t feel so strong anymore. What happened at that park ...”
She put a hand to her eye, trying to hide it by pretending she was smoothing an eyebrow. “After years of trying to prove to Mom and the whole world I can do just fine, guess it hit me for the first time what a gimp I am.”
They pulled up in front of the Harstons’ Cape Cod with its faded green shutters. As Drayco rescued the wheelchair and let her slide herself into it, he said, “Strength doesn’t come from legs, Virginia.” Then he tapped her forehead gently. “You’ve got it where it counts.”
Lucy came out to greet her daughter and herded her toward the house. He watched from inside the car as Virginia waved until she was out of sight.
###
Barry parked his car down the street behind an old ’50s rustbucket, hoping his car wouldn’t be noticed, and walked among backyard hedgerows until he came to his target yard. Climbing over the fence wasn’t that hard, he did it a million times when he lived here. He kept the key for the side door, too, and wasn’t surprised to find Beth hadn’t changed the locks. Sometimes she was too trusting.
The key was the only memento he had. The only thing to remind him of Beth. He had to have something else. A picture, yeah, that would do it. Something that would bring her back to life.
Arnold Sterling barely tolerated him, Barry knew that. What he didn’t know was why Beth offered to take him in. He wondered a lot of other things, too. He asked her once why she took showers twice a day, and she said she had to wash away the smears of guilt she wore around. She was so good at what she did, how she could possibly have guilt? Must have to do with his father.
Barry kne
w guilt like an old friend. For years, he felt he must have done something evil for his mother to leave them. Now, he knew some people shouldn’t have kids. For every doting parent, there was the kind that saw children as a duty, like being on the board of some charity so you can put it on your résumé. Get married, check. Have kids, check. Put kids in year-round school, check. If you’re rich, that is. If you’re poor, you beat ’em senseless if they get in your way.
Beth was anal about clutter. He wasn’t sure what he might find. Not many photographs, for sure. There was one he remembered, a picture of her sitting on the beach surrounded by driftwood, looking lonely but happy at the same time. Barry liked such contrasts and tried to make his paintings reflect that.
His favorite was one he made of a Madonna and child. The Madonna was white and dressed in a gold silk robe covered in jewels while the child was black and wearing a tattered sheet. They liked that one at the Art of Arts Gallery, but the public hadn’t. Blasphemy and all that.
He went to the bookshelves and grabbed a small photo album. After flipping through several pages, he found the picture he wanted and slipped it out of the sleeve. He wondered if the sheriff would arrest him for stealing one picture. No matter—no one would know he was ever here.
30
Drayco’s conversations with both Brock and Virginia prompted a troubling thought. He hadn’t gone inside the Opera House once. He told himself it was due to the investigation, but that wasn’t the only reason he’d stayed away. The community was pinning a lot of hope on that old fossil, and he didn’t want to think what would happen if restoration funds fell short. It wasn’t the first time he cursed Horatio Rockingham for the unusual bequest.
He pulled up in front of the brick and mortar Grand Dame. The paint around the entry was peeling more than last time. But refurbishing the interior, mainly the concert hall, took priority. Part of his mixed feelings toward this building were wrapped up in the knowledge he was once destined to perform in such venues, not own them.
The Steinway was mostly as he left it, with the blood stains and chalk outline on the floor next to it just a memory. In addition to a crime scene cleanup crew, he arranged for a piano tuner while he was still in D.C. After rattling off some scales, he was pleased to discover the technician had done a top-notch job.
Usually, he turned to Bach’s counterpoint to puzzle through difficult cases. But Virginia had opened up a rift in his musical psyche, so he played the Brahms Intermezzo in A major from Op. 118, one of his sister’s favorites. Maybe a little brooding, yet hopeful.
Few things in life appealed to him as viscerally as the cool smoothness of piano keys under his fingers, a carnal experience that went straight to the limbic part of his brain. The wistful longing of the Brahms piece was perfect for his current mood.
As the last notes died away, a hint of jasmine perfume alerted him to a new arrival. A hand touched his shoulder, and he reached up and stretched his own hand over Darcie’s, hardly surprised she followed him again.
He wasn’t foolish enough to believe she’d honestly fallen for him—even though on his first trip to town, she’d said she was in love with him. Nor was he egotistical enough to think he was irresistible. She was trapped for too long in a loveless marriage with a controlling man. Trapped in a home she dubbed “lonely, cold and soulless.” A woman on the rebound.
“Sheriff Sailor calls you my personal stalker,” he said.
She sat beside him. “Sheriff Sailor should mind his own business.” She pulled him closer and kissed him soundly as her fingers found the top button on his shirt and unbuttoned it. She had on her usual skintight pants, accompanied by a low-cut animal print top, and it had the desired effect.
He drew back. “Are you trying to recreate the tryst you had with Oakley Keys in this place?”
“That was a passing fancy. This is serious.” She unfastened the next button.
“Whoa, Darcie. I told you once before I can’t do this.”
“And I asked you then, why not?”
“Because you’re married, and I’m old-fashioned that way.”
“As good as divorced.” She reached for another button.
“Darcie, wait.” Wait for what? He wasn’t sure he had an answer for that. “Tell me about Caleb Quintier. You said your husband knows him and he’s a wolf who wears his sheep’s clothing well.”
She groaned. “I must be losing my touch. You just want to talk shop. Very well, then.” She scooted closer to him and gave him a mocking smile as if to say, “Touching’s not forbidden, is it?”
Drayco asked, “Is Caleb Quintier so evil he’d kill innocent people in wheelchairs?”
She twirled her hair around two fingers. “He’d murder his grandmother if she got in his way. You’re not tangling with him, are you?”
“If he’s involved in this case, yes.”
“Promise me you’ll stay away from him, he’s dangerous.”
“So, give me the scoop. You’re the Gossip Queen.”
“Then you can start calling me Your Majesty. Quintier is always impeccably dressed. I think he gets his clothes at Brooks Brothers. And he doesn’t get his hair cut around here. That cut is more a D.C. thing.”
She stopped twirling her hair to run her fingers through Drayco’s. “You could use a haircut, yourself. Kinda sexy, that thick dark hair. Makes you look like a Beatle.”
He blinked slowly. She couldn’t read minds, could she? His former fiancée used that same line on him once.
She continued, “I bumped into Quintier up in D.C. a year ago. He was buying a Beaudry diamond necklace at Charles Schwartz. I don’t think it was intended for his wife.”
“He has a mistress?”
“Had. She lived in the District at the time. Caleb gets bored easily.”
“Then why has he stayed with Iris?”
“She has too much on him. Or he can’t bring himself to make her disappear. If you know what I mean.”
“He could easily pay her off.”
“Okay, so he likes the respectability that goes with having a wife.”
“Have you seen Iris lately? If it’s respectability he’s after, then he may have a problem. And there’s nothing respectable about what he does for a living.”
“It’s as respectable as what I do for a living.”
“Darcie, you don’t do anything for a living.”
“I do now. I marry rich men and divorce them. I feel a little sorry for Randolph. He seems so lost these days.”
“He does love you. Despite what he did.”
“If you can call suffocation love, then yes, I guess he does.”
“With that money you’ll be getting in the divorce, you should find a financial analyst, like Quintier.”
She shuddered. “The only things he analyzes are ways to bilk people out of money. I don’t think anyone knows half his dealings. I do remember one case. It didn’t make the local papers. Never made it to court, either. But word gets around.”
“Loan sharking? Or one of his pyramid schemes?”
She lowered her voice. “He was suspected of embezzling money from a children’s charity whose board he served on.”
“Do you have the name of that charity, by any chance?”
“My memory’s not that good. Now, if you were asking me in what year Yves Saint Laurent launched his Rive Gauche collection, I might have an answer.”
“A selective memory, then.”
“Of course, darling. I do recall the charity had something to do with raising funds for scholarships.”
“Scholarships? What kind?”
“For disabled kids.” It took her a few moments and then recognition dawned on her face. “Oh. I never made the connection before. Think it had anything to do with that girl in the wheelchair?”
“I don’t know, Darcie. But I aim to find out.”
31
“One sip. It won’t kill you, I promise.” Reece pushed the glass to Drayco.
“Green chili beer? Isn’t this out
side the normal Fiddler’s Green fare?” He’d skipped lunch as his stomach still hadn’t returned to normal, and a soda might be more the trick. Too bad the Fiddler’s Green Tavern didn’t carry Manhattan Special.
“They’ve expanded their beer list. With the new yuppie transplants, the owners get requests for everything from blueberry beer to Czech lagers. The founders of this esteemed establishment are turning over in their kegs.”
Drayco picked up the glass and took a whiff. “It’s aromatic.”
Chilies were good for you, releasing endorphins, right? Drayco tentatively took a taste. The name should have warned him. The burn was worse than he expected, and he fought the sudden reflux. After the initial kick, a sweet barley malt flavor took over. “Not bad, Reece. I think I’ll stick to my rut. Can’t beat their chocolate-coffee-beer concoction.”
The Happy Hour clientele was more divergent than in March. Plaid flannel shirts and cable-knit fishermen sweaters gave way to board shorts and Hawaiian prints à la Reece. The place smelled different, the alcohol aroma interlaced with a curious brew of designer cologne and coconutty sunscreen.
Reece donned his reading monocle and pulled out a stack of photocopied articles and plopped them on the table. “I did my homework. I hope I get an A.”
Drayco was still amused by the monocle. He had to hand it to the glass-eye maker—Reece’s left eye was remarkably realistic. You couldn’t tell anything was out of the ordinary unless you were in the habit of reading faces.
Drayco read the first article aloud. “Ferguson Farland was admitted to the hospital with third-degree burns to his face after a homemade explosive device detonated prematurely. There was no one else hurt by the incident. Farland was found by nurse midwife Beth Sterling, whose husband Arnold, the intended target of the device, declined to press charges. No motive was given for the attack.”
Reece added, “Our local newspaper journalists aren’t going to win a Pulitzer for investigative reporting. It wouldn’t have taken much digging to find out that Farland and Sterling were rivals for Beth’s affection. They could have asked me—I went to school with Freaky. It was obvious he was as lovesick as a fox in heat.”