Dusted (3 page)

They were just two guys
hanging out
with two girls they liked.

With Cal working and the boys occupied with the play or with
hanging out
with the girls, I was sort of on my own. I thought about calling Tiny, but she was crazy busy with wedding stuff. Okay, so not so much
busy
as crazy. We’d crossed everything off her wedding to-do list, but she was still constantly checking and rechecking.

I called Dick’s computer guy on Saturday and left a voice mail. And though I was no computer guru, I started a computer search to find some artsy person here in LA. Someone who would know something about art and forgery.

I’ll confess, I didn’t know much about either. I could name a handful of artists—Van Gogh, Grandma Moses and the like. The artist whose painting was stolen, I’d never heard of.

I Googled his name—Mark Kirchoff. Th
e
Arthur Wadsworth Gallery was mentioned in a bunch of articles related to Kirchoff’s artwork and the LA art scene. I decided to go there for myself the next day and fill up my solo Sunday afternoon. I worked a while longer on the script and I went to the grocery store, knowing that no matter how much I bought, it wouldn’t last long.

The next morning, I woke up to a quiet house. That wasn’t odd. The boys were not fans of mornings. I’d had a couple cups of coffee and read the paper before I saw either of them.

Miles came out first, his shoulder length hair wild. “Rough night?” I asked.

He grunted in a way I took to mean
yes.

“Play practice a problem?”

“If people would learn their lines, it would be easier.”

“Morning, Mom,” Eli said brightly. His hair had that Einstein-ish quality to it this morning. He was smiling as he started to explore the kitchen, looking for breakfast.

“There’s yogurt and there’s bread for toast,” I said helpfully. My phone binged, letting me know I had a text.

Still on the case. You going to be around if I can sneak out for dinner?

I’ll make it a point to be,
I texted Cal back.

“Oooh, Mom’s got a boyfriend,” Eli crooned.

“Maybe it was Hunter,” I said.

“Nah, you don’t get all gooey eyed when Hunter texts. Plus, our oldest brother wouldn’t be caught dead up before ten on a Sunday morning. The only reason I’m up this early is a certain director who seems to think the cast needs an extra few hours of rehearsal today.” Eli nodded at Miles, who grunted and sat down to orange juice and yogurt.

I listened to them snipe and banter their way through breakfasts, then I cleaned the kitchen when they went to get ready for practice.

After they left, I headed for the gallery.

It wasn’t that far as the crow flies, but here in LA even crow flying distances could take a long time. But seriously, this was Sunday afternoon. Where did all these people come from?

I finally found the gallery. It was in a small brick storefront with tinted windows and a tinted glass door. The bell rang as I walked in. And I was immediately surrounded by what I assumed was art.

To my untrained eye, the painting immediately to my right looked like something one of the boys might have done in kindergarten. It was all color and squiggles. I had no idea what it was supposed to be.

A woman in shoes so high I wondered how on earth she could possibly stand in them came out from somewhere the back. I was sure the shoes had a name attached to them. Some big designer’s name. They were the kind of shoes that needed no introduction in certain circles.

In my particular circle, I could easily identify Crocs, but that was about it. Now, don’t get me wrong, I like shoes. But I can’t imagine spending a fortune on a pair.

Ms. Designer Shoes looked at me as if she were pondering what someone in khaki pants and boat shoes could possibly want in the gallery. “May I help you?”

“I’m just browsing,” I said. I moved closer to the piece of kindergarten art and pretended to study it. Really, it did look like something Eli did for me once. It was probably still in his school folder. Maybe he was an art prodigy and I’d just never noticed?

The art lady’s nose rose to an impressive height. It was so high that if we were outside in the rain, she’d drown. “Are you looking for something specific?”

“Maybe,” I said. I couldn’t help but think of Julia Roberts in
Pretty Woman
. If this were a clothing boutique not an art gallery, and if I were twenty years younger and ten pounds lighter—okay, probably more than ten pounds—this would be just how she felt.

Ms. Snooty-Nose obviously didn’t feel I belonged in the gallery.

I pulled out Mr. Magee’s acting lessons and imagined I was
Pretty Woman
-ized. I imagined I had a charge card that had no limit in my wallet. That I was dressed in khaki’s just to avoid being noticed. I imagined my driver was down the block, sitting in my limo.

“Looks can be deceiving because from the outside your gallery certainly underwhelms. But we both know better than to judge a book by its cover, especially here in Hollywood. Why, just last week, Leo came into the cafeteria in costume and in character. You’d have never known him.” Just enough name-dropping, I thought. Then I added, “If you don’t mind, I’m just going to look around. You never know when something will strike my fancy.”

I guess my acting lessons, which had never really paid off in a steady stream of acting gigs, were finally paying off. I mean, I had done some acting. I was a dead body once and almost the face (or teeth) of a national toothpaste campaign.

Ms. Designer Shoes gave me an assessing look and then led me into the gallery.

“This is Jolly Master’s
Ode to Sunset
. He’s a new up and coming talent…”

She droned on about the new up and coming talent, but I was stuck on the fact that someone actually named a male child Jolly. Heck, I wouldn’t name a girl Jolly. I wouldn’t even name a dog Jolly.

Maybe it was my feeling that Jolly might be a kindred spirit to all three Mac children—a family where terrible names ran amuck—that made me take a closer look. I wanted to like his work. Alas, good old Jolly’s oil on canvas looked like a blob of orange over a line of grey. That was it.

The only thing that impressed me about it was that the orange blob matched the color of my gown for Tiny’s wedding.

“…and he’s someone I recommend getting in on the ground-floor. He’s got a long career ahead of him, and these early pieces’ value should only increase in the coming years.”

“Do you have anything by Mark Kirchoff?” I asked as casually as I could manage.

She smiled. “We do. He’s known for painting nature scenes.” She led me to the north corner of the gallery. Okay, so I have no sense of direction, it could have been the southern corner, or northwestern one. It simply felt north to me.

She pointed with flourish to two black blobs in a bunch of green stripes. “This is
Muskrat Love
.”

If I were naming this particular painting, I’d have gone with truth in advertising and simply called it black blobs in green stripes.

Whatever happened to boats on the water? Or nice woodland paintings where the trees looked like trees?

“Interesting,” I said. “I like his use of color and those brush strokes. I like it.” My Google search paid off, and Ms. Designer Shoes nodded approvingly.

Turns out Mark Kirchoff wasn’t one of the gallery’s up and coming artists. He was a well-established artist and the price of this particular painting was a lot of money. I mean,
a lot.

A lot of dollars for a bunch of colored lines.

I felt sick. If they thought someone from Mac’Cleaners stole an original Kirchoff painting, it would be a major crime. I thought that the cost of stolen items affected the charges and potential jail time. I’d have to ask Cal. No, I couldn’t ask him. He’d told me to stay out of it.

“Thank you. I’ll be back,” I said and hurried toward the door. I was going to be sick. I knew it.

“Here, take my card,” Ms. Designer Shoes said.

Miriam Foster, it read.

“Thank you, Miriam.” I purposefully used her first name to establish that I was the top dog, despite my khakis and boat shoes. “I’ll be in touch soon.”

I’d barely shut the door when my phone buzzed in my purse. I stood in front of the tinted windows and looked at it. I didn’t recognize the number. “Hello?”

“This is Robert Williams. You’re Dick’s friend?”

“Yes. I need some help with—”

He interrupted. “I know. Dick called to vouch for you. He filled me in on everything but the name.”

“Could we meet sometime soon?” I asked. “I’ll explain it all to you.”

“No. There’s no need. Dick told me enough, and I’m in Iceland right now.”

“Oh, hang up and e-mail me. I can’t imagine how much the long distance is costing you.”

He laughed and there was a hint of an adult laughing at a child’s innocence in it. “Yeah, don’t worry. It doesn’t cost me anything. I’m calling…” He paused, and switched whatever he was going to say to, “I’m calling you over the Internet.”

He spoke slowly, as if speaking to a child.

“Oh,” I said, hoping I sounded like I knew what he was talking about. “So could you do a check on Theresa Maxwell?”

“Give me your e-mail.”

I did and he hung up abruptly.

Weird.

There was definitely a chance this man had spent more time with his computer than was healthy for him. He had no people skills.

I looked back through the tinted window of the gallery. I’d set everything in motion that I could.

I headed home to write some more and tackle the laundry.

When you have teen boys in the house, the cupboards are always bare and there’s always laundry to be done.

Always.

I was still doing laundry on Monday while I waited for Cal to come over and take me out to dinner. He hadn’t made it over Sunday night.

Murder could be hard on a relationship.

The dryer buzzed, so I went back, grabbed the basket of clothes and rather than fold them at the dryer, I went back to the living room and sat on the couch.

The doorbell rang.

“Come in,” I called.

It was Tiny, not Cal. She came in and shut the door behind herself as she exclaimed, “It’s worse.”

“What’s worse?” I asked as I set down the t-shirt I’d been folding.

“Theresa’s forgery. It’s much worse than we imagined.” She walked back to my kitchen and I followed. She opened the fridge and pulled out my box of wine.

Yes, I drink boxed wine. I could only imagine Miriam, Ms. Haughty-Art-Gallery, Designer-Shoes Lady’s turned up nose if she discovered my secret.

Here’s the thing, I am the only adult in the house and I rarely drink more than a glass of wine with a meal. So the box works well for me. I know that true wine connoisseurs would turn up their noses to it, but thankfully I’m not friends with any wine connoisseurs and this particular friend didn’t seem to mind the box.

Tiny poured herself a glass and sat down.

I sat next to her. “Don’t say Theresa’s forgery. She didn’t forge anything, or have anything to do with it. That computer geek, Robert, told me he couldn’t find anything suspicious about her online—no offshore bank accounts or questionable banking activity—and then he assured me if there were anything, he’d have found it. He’s that good. Well, according to him he is. Seriously, the man has no people skills, though Dick says he has all kinds of computer skills. At least—”

“Quincy,” Tiny said sharply. “That cop buddy of Cal’s—”

“Mickey,” I supplied.