The Coloring Crook

by Krista Davis

  “It’s my dad.”

  Chapter 22

  I moved closer to see Edgar’s face while he spoke.

  “I found the picture in my mom’s room when I was seven or eight. She denied that it was him, but she didn’t have any other pictures of him, so I always imagined him looking like this, living in this house.”

  “You never met your dad?” asked Eric.

  Edgar shook his head. “Mom was super sensitive about him. I have a twin sister, Lucy, and when we would ask questions about him, Mom would always clam up. Lucy said it was because he left her in the lurch, pregnant with twins, and disappeared. Maybe she could never forgive him for that. You can’t imagine how many days I stayed by the window hoping he would walk up to the front door. When that didn’t happen, I watched the cars that drove by. I thought maybe he was ashamed to come home, but he’d want to know how we were doing because he still loved us, and he might drive by.” Edgar shrugged. “Maybe he did and I never knew about it.”

  He appeared to be a little bit more relaxed now. “When you’re a kid, your parents are superstars, you know? I guess every kid thinks a missing parent will show up one day with a story about rescuing the world.”

  His hand trembled as he focused on the photo. “I spent my whole life on the lookout for him. Hoping I would see him in a crowd or a store somewhere.”

  I reached for the photo and glanced at Edgar, comparing him to the man in the picture. They both had dark hair in a similar cut, and a slender build.

  He smiled. “Mom always said he was the best-looking man she ever saw.”

  “Is she still alive?”

  “She’s in Ohio, living in the house where I grew up. Never did marry anyone. I think he was the only one for her. Even all these years later, I wonder if she’s still waiting for him to find her.”

  “Find her?”

  “They lived in Washington at the time they were dating. But she moved home when she was pregnant. They weren’t married. I guess she needed family around to help her with two babies. But now Lucy needs a kidney. I’m not a match, and none of the relatives on my mom’s side are matches. It seems like a long shot that a man who never bothered to find us would donate a kidney, but I had to try. She’s on the kidney transplant waiting list, but the doctor recommended trying to find Dad anyway. If he has other children, one of them might be a match.”

  “You’re just going around town asking if people know him?” Eric looked at him in disbelief.

  “Pretty much. We tried Facebook and other social media, but we couldn’t find anything. I even submitted a”—he made a fist and circled it in front of his mouth—“swab to be tested for a DNA match. That didn’t yield any helpful results, either. It must seem stupid to you. The first thing I did when I got to Washington was look for the house in the picture. Imagine my amazement at finding the exact house. I was so excited. What if he lived in the house? There was a sign out front that said Basement Studio for Rent. I sucked up all the courage I had, imagining that he might answer the door when I knocked on it. But it was Dolly who answered.”

  “That must have been disappointing.” I sat down beside him.

  “I hoped she might have a husband and when she told me her husbands had all died, I asked if I could see pictures of them. Even though he wasn’t one of her husbands, I felt kind of like I had found him. At least, I knew he had been here. He had walked these sidewalks. He had come to this neighborhood and strolled by all these houses.” Edgar wiped his nose. “It was kind of magical, you know? I found a place where I knew my dad had been.”

  “Did Dolly recognize him?”

  He sniffled and coughed. “She didn’t know him. I had hoped he might have been attending a party here or something. It’s silly but I feel like his spirit is here. Even if he was just passing by when he posed for this photo. He was here! My mother’s sister had never said a single thing to me about my dad in all the time I was growing up. He was off topic. Not a word. But when I was getting in my car to drive down here, she stopped me out of earshot of my mom.” He smiled a little. “She gave me a package of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies for the trip and said, ‘Edgar, you need to understand that your dad might not want to be found. If you go asking the wrong people about him, you might scare him off.’”

  My heart went out to him. I could see the little boy in him still suffering because Daddy never came back. I couldn’t imagine how awful it would be to not know my father. It would be like a part of me was missing.

  “He might have another family now,” said Edgar. “If he heard I was looking for him, he might hide or leave town. I could be the last person in the world he wants to see.”

  I gazed up at Eric, wondering if he was thinking the same thing I was. I couldn’t say it out loud. Not in front of Edgar. A man who disappeared? Surely the thought must have crossed Edgar’s mind by now that his father might well be the skeleton in Dolly’s attic.

  Edgar’s sad tale made me feel a little bit guilty for having slightly whacky parents who loved their golden retriever, Veronica, and me more than anything. Edgar’s anguish would never leave him as long as he didn’t know what had happened. Maybe if he found his dad, he could get some resolution and put that part of his life in perspective. Even worse, if he didn’t find him, his sister might die. It was a long shot all right, but if it were Veronica, I would do everything I could to help her, no matter how unlikely it seemed.

  “What’s his name?” asked Eric.

  “Thomas Jones. It’s so common that it’s almost hopeless. Still, I have to try for Lucy.”

  “What are you doing to find him?” I asked.

  “When I told Mom I was coming here to search for him, she said he used to be a trader.”

  “Stock market?” I asked.

  “Flea market,” he said. “He traveled around to flea markets where he sold things and acquired new stuff to sell.” He tilted his head sheepishly. “I’m checking around town with antiques dealers and junk shops, hoping I’ll run into someone who recognizes him.”

  I had such mixed feelings. Edgar’s story about his sick sister, Lucy, made my heart go out to him. But there must have been a reason that his assailant thought he had The Florist. Could this sweet and anguished man have murdered Dolly for the book? But wouldn’t he have taken off if he had? It would have been easy enough for him to disappear into the night. True, one would hope the cops would have found him. I didn’t know what to think about Edgar Delaney.

  Eric’s presence bolstered my bravery. I looked Edgar straight in the eyes and asked, “Do you have The Florist?”

  “No. And it would be fine with me if I never heard of it again.” He looked at Eric. “Do you think it’s safe for me to stay here? What if he comes back and kills me?”

  “I’ll ask for a car to swing by here now and then. In the meantime, don’t open your door to anyone you don’t know.”

  The EMT crew marched in at that moment. They tended to Edgar first, but one came over and checked me out, too. I insisted that I was fine, but he warned me to rush to the emergency room at the slightest sign of a headache.

  I was beginning to feel the strain on my muscles, but other than that, I was okay.

  Eric and I left Edgar in the capable hands of the EMTs. He was refusing to go to the hospital, which I took as a sign that he felt better and was getting over the shock of being attacked.

  We paused at Eric’s car, and I asked, “Do you think the skeleton could be Edgar’s dad?”

  Eric took a deep breath. “For the sake of Edgar and his sister, I hope not. When he’s a little calmer I can ask him about the possibility of doing a DNA match.”

  “They can get DNA off bones?”

  “Sure. Unfortunately, the time frame fits. The picture doesn’t mean much, but it does place him here, assuming that it is his dad in the picture. It would be interesting to know if the Beauton sisters recognize him.”

  “By the way, Olivia wanted me to tell you she saw Nolan at the house the night Dolly
was murdered. But you’re not supposed to let on that it was Olivia who ratted on him.”

  “Because?”

  “Priss has a thing for him.”

  “Heaven forbid a murder investigation get in the way of a romance,” he quipped. “I may have to pay them a visit. As long as I don’t tread on homicide’s turf.”

  I waved as he left. I had been away from the store for hours. Bob and Veronica would be wondering what happened to me. I stretched a little bit to see if the gardening lady across the street happened to be outside. Maybe she had gotten a good look at Edgar’s intruder.

  I crossed the street and walked up to her front door. But when I knocked, there was no answer. On a whim, I peeked into the garden behind the house, but she wasn’t anywhere to be seen. When I returned to the sidewalk, I noticed a baseball cap hanging on her climbing roses as though someone had thrown it in haste. Someone who had just threatened Edgar and who had plowed over me.

  I jumped up to snatch it but missed. The curse of being short. Dolly’s neighbor was too precise about her garden to leave twigs or sticks lying around. I jumped repeatedly until I managed to knock the baseball cap to the ground. Proud that I had managed to retrieve it, but sore from my encounter with the mysterious man, I finally headed back to Color Me Read. The second I walked into the store, Veronica and Bob descended upon me.

  “If you’re going to take half the day off, you ought to tell a person,” growled Bob.

  “I have been calling your phone for hours. Where have you been?” Veronica demanded.

  Bob looked at my hands. All I held was the baseball cap. “At the least you could have brought us lunch.”

  I pulled my phone out of my pocket and showed it to them. “I’m sorry that I left you in the lurch, Bob.”

  When I told them what had happened to Edgar, their tunes changed.

  “What’s going on around here?” asked Veronica. “I understand needing money, but people are irrational about that book.”

  I sent Bob out to get lunch for all of us, then hung the baseball cap on a hook near the register. It might contain a hair that could be used to collect DNA. The cap would probably be the last thing the police would check for DNA, if they were willing to do it at all. Still, I planned to hand it over to Eric.

  Over barbecued chicken sandwiches, Bob, Veronica, and I tried to make sense of the bizarre things that had happened.

  “It all started with the discovery of The Florist,” said Bob. “Before that everything was normal.”

  “Then Dolly was murdered, and The Florist went missing.” I bit into my sandwich.

  “You know it’s kind of ironic,” said Veronica. “The two people who broke into the bookstore committed a crime. Yet it would be to their advantage for us to know who they were because it means they didn’t kill Dolly. If they had, they wouldn’t have been nosing around here for The Florist.”

  “Have either of you seen anyone else looking around the store as though they were searching for The Florist?” I asked.

  “There was the guy Helen was freaked out about.” Bob popped a potato chip in his mouth.

  “I don’t recall hearing about that.” I looked at Bob, waiting for him to swallow a gulp of soda.

  “You know how Helen is. Anyone who isn’t wearing the latest fashion is immediately suspect. He was an older guy. Lots of wrinkles. I didn’t say anything to you because there wasn’t anything wrong with him. He said hello and browsed around like he wasn’t in any big hurry.” Bob shrugged. “I didn’t see the problem. Helen can get a little hysterical over nothing.”

  It wasn’t much of a description. Most older people had wrinkles. “Did he have a British accent? He might be the one who threatened Edgar.”

  “British accent?” Veronica sighed. “We have loads of customers from the British consulate.”

  “It’s hard to imagine that anyone could be so desperate that he threatened and choked Edgar. It sounds to me like it was Frederic van den Teuvel, so be super careful if he happens to come into the store.” I took a sip of water.

  “What does he look like?” asked Veronica.

  “I’ll draw a sketch of him. We can leave it by the cash register.”

  “What about Percy?” asked Bob. “Everybody is talking about the lawsuit Lucianne Dumont is bringing against him. No one is more desperate than Percy. If she gets a million-dollar judgment against him, he’ll be ruined for life.”

  “We can’t let that happen,” said Veronica. “Percy is really a very nice guy.”

  I looked over at her. “Really? You’re defending the dufus who put the book in a yard sale in the first place?”

  Veronica glared at me.

  Oblivious to her ire, Bob said, “Lucianne . . . would she hire someone to find the book?”

  I shrugged. “I feel like we ought to put up a sign on the door that says The Florist is not on the premises.”

  As afternoon shoppers drifted in with questions, we all got back to work. I drew a sketch of Frederic van den Teuvel and taped it near the cash register in a spot where it wouldn’t be seen by customers. I had just finished when Olivia came in, poured herself a cup of coffee, and hung out around the checkout desk.

  “Where’s Priss?” I asked.

  Olivia groaned. “You and I have a lot in common, Florrie. The older girls in the family are smarter, but the young ones get the men.” She watched Veronica when she spoke.

  I was taken aback. Maybe it was true, but she sounded bitter, while I didn’t care a whit. “Priss is out with Nolan?” I guessed. “Can he walk yet? Maybe he’s showing her apartments.”

  “Wouldn’t that be a nice switch? I’m the one who does all the legwork. Just like you do.”

  “No luck yet? Did you check out Zsazsa’s building?”

  “I loved it. It’s so modern. Quite a switch from Dolly’s house. The two-bedroom unit is way too expensive for us, though. They showed me Zsazsa’s apartment, which we could swing if we took on a little more work, but I don’t see how we could carve another bedroom out of it. One of us would have to sleep in the living room.”

  “Like Dolly did when Maisie was growing up.”

  “Exactly.” Olivia gazed at the table of new releases. “I just don’t know. Stay here in Georgetown but live in a cramped situation, or move out of town and have some space and privacy. I think I’m getting too old to bunk on a sofa bed permanently.”

  While we were speaking, Percy waltzed into the store carrying a folder the exact size of The Florist.

  Chapter 23

  With a big grin, Percy plopped the folder on the checkout desk. “There you go.”

  “What’s this?” My pulse quickened. Had he found the book?

  “The Florist. You said you would authenticate it if I brought it in.”

  I opened the folder and didn’t even have to flip the first page. It was painfully apparent that he had bought brand-new parchment paper designed to look old and had printed the pages off the Internet. I stared at him in shock. For once, I truly didn’t know what to say.

  Was he really that stupid? Or did he think I was that dumb? If Percy was actually so clueless, then I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. On the other hand, part of me was offended that he would even try such a con. I opted for the simple truth and tried to say it without a tinge of irritation in my voice. “This is a copy of the book and it has no value.”

  At that very moment, Professor Maxwell walked into the store.

  “But it’s an authentic copy,” Percy protested.

  Huh? I had no idea what he meant by that but played along. “All right. It still has no value.”

  Percy blinked hard. His face brightened up and he said, “Thank you! Books are worthless. I tell everyone that, but they never want to believe me. Of course it has no value. That’s what I need you to testify to. I’ll give your name to my lawyer.”

  Professor Maxwell frowned at Percy. “I’m glad you weren’t one of my students. No book is worthless. Between the covers of books lie the ans
wers to the mysteries of life that men have pondered through the ages.”

  Percy stepped back and pointed at me. “She’s the one who said it has no value.”

  “That doesn’t sound like Florrie.”

  “He downloaded a copy of a rare book and printed it on paper made to look like parchment,” I explained.

  Percy appeared to be afraid of Professor Maxwell. He grabbed his papers and backed toward the door. Pointing at me again, he said, “You’ll hear from my lawyers. Thank you for your help. You have saved my life.”

  He turned and ran out the door fast. I felt truly sorry for him. He didn’t seem to be capable of understanding reality.

  “Percy? Is that the fellow who sold Lucianne Dumont’s priceless book?” asked the professor.

  “The very same.” I wandered over to the show window and watched him. Lucianne Dumont stood on the sidewalk speaking to no one. I assumed she was yelling something at the woman in her Bluetooth earpiece. I didn’t think she saw me because she focused on Percy.

  But then, when I least expected it, her eyes locked on mine like a gunsight on its target. Moving swiftly like a panther, she stalked toward the store and tried to rip off the sign we had hung in front announcing the upcoming release and reading of From Fame to Infamy: The Dumont Family Curse.

  I muttered, “Lucianne is trying to tear down our sign.”

  The professor walked up beside me. “What is it attached with?”

  “Chain from the hardware store. The sign is a tough vinyl with a backing so it can stand up to the weather.”

  “And apparently to Lucianne,” chuckled the professor.

  Lucianne pulled and tugged, but she couldn’t rip it off. I thought I might have heard a few swear words. Her face had turned a frightening shade of purple. I had a bad feeling that she expected the hapless Angie on the other end of the phone to magically cause the removal of the sign.

  “Lucianne had a few choice words to say about you,” said the professor.

  Uh-oh. I wanted to shout I can explain! But that would sound so lame.