Behind the Frame

by Tracy Gardner

  “Yeah, I hate that.” She’d half expected the detective to jump in his patrol car to give the driver a ticket, but she supposed he couldn’t ticket everyone.

  “Anyway.” Jordan followed them into the house. “I hope we didn’t hold you up too long.”

  “It’s okay, Detective. We plan to send out acceptance or denial emails to the applicants by Monday. It’ll be fine.” She and Britt moved through into the office to the right of the foyer, Savanna deliberately avoiding looking toward the hallway beyond the staircase where she’d seen John’s lifeless body.

  “Give me a shout when you two are ready to go,” Jordan called over his shoulder, heading toward the back of the house.

  Savanna began shuffling through art submissions. When the first several started arriving a month ago, through the designated P.O. box and also a dedicated email address, the three of them—Savanna, Britt and John—had decided to print a copy of every electronic submission, for a more hands-on approach to choosing the eventual one hundred pieces of art that’d be entered into the Art in the Park contest. All one hundred would be displayed during the festival, but only three lucky artists would win first through third place, with the overall winner earning full tuition to Michigan Art Conservatory and substantial exposure through interviews with multiple media outlets. The scholarship alone was worth over $50,000. The Art Conservatory and a handful of the school’s benefactors offered the handsome scholarship every year, a huge incentive to applicants.

  “What a mess,” she murmured.

  Britt nodded. “Well, we thought we’d be sorting all of it out days ago. This was a ‘maybe,’ wasn’t it?” He held up a charcoal portrayal of an elderly man on a tractor.

  “Yes. I remember talking about that one. Here.” She dug around in her purse, produced a black magic marker, and wrote MAYBE on an empty box, handing it to Britt. “We can’t possibly go through all of them here. But as we’re packing up, if anything strikes us as great, we can at least categorize it.” She bent and pulled two more empty boxes from under the table, writing YES on one and a large question mark on the other.

  He took them from her and lined them up between them. “And everything else goes in this one,” he said, dropping two pieces into the question-marked box. They worked for a while in silence, the stacks of paper thinning as the boxes filled.

  “What’s this?” Savanna held up a printout of an online submission. It was an abstract painting in deep blues and purples; the printed version of the artist’s submission still showed interesting textures on a horizontal composition. A bright-orange sticky note in the upper righthand corner bore John’s block writing: DISQUALIFY.

  Britt moved to her side, taking the paper copy from her. The top of the page held the entrant’s name and contact information, and the title of the piece. “John wrote this. The artist is Nina McCullen. She’s a senior at Romulus High School.”

  “Why would he disqualify her?”

  “No idea,” Britt said. “What gets applicants disqualified from the event? Plagiarism, obviously…what else?”

  Savanna stared at Britt. He frowned at her, holding the submission at arm’s length as they both studied it. “It’s good, especially for an emailed copy. Look at what she did with the negative space.” Savanna pointed to areas between brushstrokes on the left third of the painting. “It has a bit of a discordant quality, doesn’t it?”

  “It does.” He nodded. “And it’s not reminiscent of anything I’ve ever seen before. Does it ring a bell for you?”

  Savanna shook her head. “No. And how would John recognize a plagiarized copy, anyway? He was the business portion of our team.”

  “So what else? Oh! Age, right? Applicants have to be twenty-five or younger.”

  Savanna was already typing into the search engine on her phone. “Okay, here’s a Nina McCullen. It’s got to be the same one—Romulus, Michigan. Hold on, there’s a Facebook link.” She turned her phone toward Britt, displaying a profile picture of a young woman who looked to be seventeen or eighteen.

  He squinted at the screen. “That says she’s a senior at Romulus High. And look,” he said, swiping his finger over Savanna’s phone screen. “All of her posts are pictures of her artwork. So, same girl. She looks young. There’s no way she’s over the age limit.”

  “What if she’s related to someone? That’s the only other thing I can think of that’d get someone disqualified. Did John discover she’s a relative of someone on the state committee? Maybe Mrs. Kingsley?” Savanna tapped the search icon at the top of Nina McCullen’s Facebook page.

  “What are you doing?” Britt looked over her shoulder.

  “Checking to see if she’s Facebook friends with anyone on the committee, anyone involved at all. Okay, no Mrs. Kingsley. Let me try a few others. Hector Ramirez,” she spoke as she typed. “Nope. Oooh! What about the judges?” She tapped her screen, muttering “nope, nope,” and then sucked in her breath. “Oh, wow.”

  “No. Way.” Britt saw the name and photo at the same time Savanna did, listed in Nina McCullen’s friend list.

  “Talia DeVries. The judge.”

  Britt frowned. “How are they friends? Talia DeVries lives up north and is in her thirties or forties, isn’t she?”

  “Hold on.” Savanna went back to Nina’s profile information. “Talia DeVries is Nina’s aunt!”

  “Do you think she knew?”

  “Who?” Savanna asked. “Talia DeVries or Nina McCullen?”

  “Both?”

  “Britt.” She gripped her friend’s forearm. “That argument. The night of the banquet. Did you see any of that?”

  He shook his head. “What argument?”

  “It was brief. John was outside in the vestibule, having a conversation with Talia DeVries and Paul Stevens—a hotel owner from the town that hosted Art in the Park the last couple of years,” she offered. “It wasn’t really a conversation, though. Mr. Stevens was angry, and he jabbed John in the chest.” She poked Britt, scrunching up her face, demonstrating. “He stormed out right after that, but Ms. DeVries stayed to talk to John. She looked upset about something, like she was pleading with him. Ugh! I wish I’d gotten out there sooner!”

  “Sounds like you saw plenty. What did John say when you went out? Was he upset?”

  She shook her head. “Not by then. He seemed completely unfazed.”

  “Did you ever get a chance to talk to either of them? The art critic Ms. DeVries or that hotel owner?”

  “Not yet.” Her mind was already racing, planning. “I’m driving up to the hotel in Grand Pier this week. And I can track down Ms. DeVries—she shouldn’t be hard to find. We need to know what the deal is with this.” She took the art submission out of Britt’s hand.

  “Right. I mean, this girl is talented. It’s a shame to disqualify her if we’re wrong.”

  Savanna nodded, looking down at the submission and tapping the orange sticky note. “But this is a high-profile art event. If they are related, what are the odds she didn’t know her art critic aunt was a judge? Better question, what are the odds Ms. DeVries hoped she’d get in and planned to skew the results in favor of her niece?”

  “John must’ve talked to her,” Britt mused.

  “It’s the only explanation,” she agreed. “So she was out there with John that night, trying to convince him to let it slide? To let her niece participate?”

  Britt was quiet.

  “Okay,” Savanna said. “I’m getting derailed here. None of that would be reason enough for her to want to hurt John. And not the way he died.” She shuddered. “That knife—that was such a violent way to go.”

  “You never know what someone’s capable of.” A deep voice came from the doorway, and Savanna jumped. She hadn’t even seen Detective Jordan standing there. “Especially when something important’s at stake.”

  “What? An art scholarship? That’s r
idiculous.”

  “Well…” Britt spoke. “To be fair, it’s more than an art scholarship.”

  “What exactly does the winner get?” Nick Jordan walked over to their cluttered corner of John Bellamy’s office.

  “First place comes with a full ride to Michigan Art Conservatory, interviews and media exposure, and a monetary prize as well,” Savanna said.

  “My office put a call in to Ms. DeVries earlier this week, based on what you told me the other day about the argument in the vestibule. She hasn’t gotten back to us yet. I’ll check her out.”

  She tipped her head at him. “I don’t mind talking to her. Wouldn’t that seem a little more natural?”

  Detective Jordan raised an eyebrow at her. “Why would I be concerned about keeping things natural in a murder investigation?”

  Savanna laughed. “Good point. But I think this is kind of silly. You must have better leads? Have you looked into anyone else who might’ve had a problem with John? Like—” She cut herself off. She’d been about to say Remy James, but she felt bad throwing him under the bus after hearing from Aidan how terribly his father had treated him.

  “Like…?”

  “I don’t know. That hotel owner in Grand Pier, the one who was so angry the night of the banquet. Or anyone else who could’ve had access to the restaurant’s kitchen? Anyone could’ve gotten their hands on a knife from Giuseppe’s if they really wanted to.”

  “It’s an active investigation, Savanna.”

  She heard the hint of condescension in his words—leave the crime solving to the professionals. “Got it.” She returned to their task of packing up boxes, she and Britt now working in silence.

  Twenty minutes later, Savanna stood in the doorway to John’s office, the last box balanced between her arm and hip. She couldn’t believe he was really gone. She turned to join the detective and Britt outside, but she couldn’t leave.

  Picturing him behind that imposing mahogany desk, she had the oddest sensation. She wasn’t sure at first what it was. Something was just…off.

  She moved to the center of the arched doorway, squarely facing his office, the Piet Mondrian reproduction of Red Tree centered on the wall behind his desk. Except, it wasn’t. Savanna blinked and turned her head slightly to the side, feeling her brow furrowing. The painting was crooked. Had it been crooked the other night?

  She’d bet her life it hadn’t. Now that she saw it, there was no way to unsee it. And she knew there was no way she’d have missed it the night of the murder. The painting was at a distinct angle, glaringly disturbing to her eye. “Jordan! Detective Jordan!” she shouted, not wanting to take her eyes off the painting.

  Nick Jordan appeared beside her. “You need help with that one?” He took it from her arms before looking at her and following her gaze. “Okay, what’s up?”

  “The Piet Mondrian is crooked. Who was in here after you took John away Sunday night? Did your guys go through his office?”

  “No. Nothing more than a cursory walk-through. This room looks like something out of a museum; nothing’s been touched.”

  “Nothing except that painting. Don’t you see it?”

  Detective Jordan stood beside Savanna and stared at the painting. He tipped his head and then straightened. “I don’t know. Maybe?” He set the box on the floor and walked over behind John’s desk, pulling on a purple latex glove before Savanna could even see where he’d produced it from. He applied pressure to the bottom corner, and the heavy painting moved.

  Savanna gasped. She went quickly to the detective’s side. He pulled the edge of the painting a couple of inches away from the wall and shone a small flashlight behind it, and she poked her head into his space, peering behind it to see a wall safe.

  He cleared his throat.

  Savanna stepped back. “It’s like something right out of a Nancy Drew novel!”

  He cocked an eyebrow at her. “Or it’s just something the wealthy think will help conceal their assets. The lock is broken. Don’t touch anything.” This time he stepped aside and held the flashlight so she could see.

  The door to the safe stood open about an inch. It was about two feet square and who knew how deep, and sat in a recessed compartment in the wall.

  “All right. I’ve got to get my evidence tech back out here. Good catch, Savanna.”

  Wow. That was high praise coming from the detective. “What do you think it means?”

  “Not sure. I can see why we missed it,” he admitted. “And you were probably too shaken up on Sunday to notice anything.”

  Savanna bit one side of her bottom lip, frowning. “I would’ve noticed. It’s a classic painting, even if it is a reproduction. I did see his office Sunday, and nothing seemed off.”

  “Hmm.” He was quiet. “We’ll have to see whose prints we can pull from the frame.”

  “Oh!” Savanna tapped his arm excitedly. “And then see if they match the ones your guy got off the cellar door! Which probably aren’t a match for Joe Fratelli, right?”

  He scowled at her.

  It’d been worth a try, but she knew he couldn’t divulge any details. “I can’t help that I was here the night he died,” she said. “I’m just going off what I heard when your team was finishing up, Detective.” She stuck her hand in the pocket of her jeans, feigning a more relaxed posture and trying to appear less enthusiastic.

  Jordan picked the box up again and moved toward the front door. “You and your colleague can go. I appreciate your find, really. I’ve got more work to do here.”

  Everything loaded into her car, Savanna watched the detective head back to the house, phone to his ear. Oh, how she wished she could be a fly on the wall when his evidence tech got there.

  She and Britt spent the bulk of the day and evening sorting through art submissions in Sydney’s sunroom. The light shifted as the sun moved across the sky, and Savanna finally pushed her chair back from the long table she and Britt shared, arching and stretching her back. “I can’t do anymore today. How about you?”

  Britt’s summer fedora rested on the far end of the table, and his white-blond hair had had a hand scrubbed through it a few too many times; it was spiked up at odd angles, giving him a comical horned appearance. “Thank goodness.” He stood, his chair rolling out behind him.

  Sydney poked her head around the corner into the sunroom and turned on the ceiling lamps. “Guys. It’s getting dark. Aren’t you starving? Come and eat, I ordered pizza.”

  In the kitchen nook, Savanna opened her sparkly pink notebook and made checkmarks next to items on the running to-do list she’d started two months ago for the festival. Tomorrow they’d send out notifications to all the accepted entrants. She and Britt split the list alphabetically, giving them fifty each, minus the uncertain decision on Nina McCullen. That would have to wait until Savanna could speak with Talia DeVries. She could cross her emailing task off her list by noon and still have plenty of time to start preparing her Sunday dinner. It was her turn, and she was making Yooper Pasties and Mixed Berry Shortcake.

  She swallowed a bite of the delicious veggie pizza Sydney had picked up in town just as her phone dinged. “She answered me!” She turned her phone toward Britt. “Talia DeVries. I emailed her after we left John’s, asking if I could meet with her. We’re going to have to remove either her or her niece from the event.”

  “What did she say?”

  She scanned the message. “She’s in Grand Rapids next week for work. I’ll ask if I can meet her somewhere for lunch to go over details of the event. I’ll tell her we’re doing the same with each of the judges.”

  Britt rested his elbows on the countertop, pointing a finger at her. “Smart. Meeting in public, in case she’s the killer.”

  “What?” Sydney looked from Britt to Savanna. “The female judge from the banquet? You think she murdered John? How? She’s tiny!”

  “You
’re tiny, but you’re freakishly strong.” Savanna raised her eyebrows at her sister.

  “Okay, good point. But still.”

  “And she’s not actually tiny,” Britt said. “She’s about Savanna’s height, and twenty years younger than John.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Sydney said. “If you suspect her, you can’t meet her alone.”

  Savanna felt that little thrill, the one she got whenever she realized she was working on something big. At Kenilworth, it had happened occasionally when an acquisition had turned out to be even more valuable than the curator had originally thought. Last year, figuring out who was trying to kill Caroline Carson, she’d felt the thrill every time a new piece of the puzzle had fallen into place. Some pieces didn’t contribute as much as others to the ultimate result, but each was instrumental to seeing the big picture at the end.

  Chapter Twelve

  Continuing the Shepherd family tradition of preparing Sunday dinner at their parents’ home, Savanna sprinkled flour onto the granite countertop and began rolling out dough for her Yooper Pasties. She wasn’t sure, but the beef pasty seemed to be purely a Michigan thing. She’d never found one in Chicago; Skylar had once sent her a dozen of them packed on dry ice for Christmas, and she’d eaten well for weeks. Rob had hated them, but that’d just meant more for her. Pasties were a delicious concoction of diced skirt steak, onion, potato, carrot, rutabaga, and a light peppery seasoning, wrapped in a circle of pastry with one edge crimped into a crust. Savanna always considered the rutabaga the key ingredient—it lent the pasties their unique flavor. They had to bake for a solid hour, but she had plenty of time.

  Savanna had finished emailing the accepted applicants for Art in the Park, and that in itself was probably the most exciting process so far in running the event. Several of her fifty must’ve been constantly refreshing their inboxes, as she’d almost immediately gotten replies back from a bunch of the artists. Savanna had never received so many expressions of gratitude in her life. She and Britt had left Nina McCullen on the fence for now. She’d contact her with an acceptance or rejection, depending on how the lunch went with Ms. DeVries.