Buttoned Up (5 page)

One of the crime-scene techs came in and asked Nev to come into the gallery, and this time I knew better than to poke my nose where it clearly didn’t belong. It was one thing working alongside Nev to think our way through an investigation. It would be another altogether if the techs, uniformed cops, and other detectives there to do their jobs thought I was an interfering buttinski.

Rather than stand there with nothing to do, calling attention to the fact that I was hanging around where I didn’t belong, I stepped back into the church. Nev was taking a look at the body. Me, I went in the other direction.

Just like I had the night before, I walked down the main aisle of the church, stopping now and again to imagine all that had happened after Forbis dropped his champagne glass and ran. As long as I was at it, I looked around and wondered what Forbis had seen when he raced by.

Pews.

Nothing but row after row of pews.

Though if someone had decided to duck into one . . .

The thought struck, and I stopped and thought back to the scene. Though the art installation was brightly lit, it was pitch dark here in the body of the church, and even if I’d bothered to look around as I raced outside, I doubt I would have seen Forbis if he’d sidestepped into one of the pews and scrunched up to hide.

But why?

I took another look around the church. From here, about halfway down the aisle, there was a clear shot to the old altar area and the box where Congo Savanne lurked. If Forbis really had run away from the exhibit just as a stunt designed to attract attention to himself and his artwork, this would have been an ideal place to watch the show. From here, he could see the stunned expressions on peoples’ faces when they realized the star of the show had just taken off like a bat out of hell. He might not have been able to hear exactly what they said, but he would have been able to catch the excited hum of their conversation, just like I could hear the overlapping voices of the crime-scene techs at work around the exhibit.

This was a possibility Nev and I hadn’t considered and, wondering if it was actually feasible, I sat down in the nearest pew to think.

I stood up again just as quickly when I realized how slick the wooden pew was.

Of course! It made perfect sense. Laverne said that church services were conducted in the basement. Which meant that except for the art shows up front, most of the old church went largely unused and wasn’t cleaned often. This pew was coated with dust and that meant the others were, too.

Quickly, I headed to the front of the church, then back down the aisle, glancing left and right as I did. If Forbis crouched down in any of the pews, he would have left a smudge in the dust, just like I had when I sat down.

Only he hadn’t.

He didn’t.

Except for the spot where I’d just sat down, the light that flowed in through the stained-glass windows showed that the dust was undisturbed, a slick, smooth coating on each and every wooden pew.

Sure I was disappointed that my hunch hadn’t worked out, but I am nothing if not determined. Ask all the friends and family members who’d given me weird looks when I told them I’d decided to quit my admin job at an insurance company and open up my own button shop. Ever practical, I knew it was time to move on to Plan B.

This would actually have been a really good idea if I had a Plan B.

Grumbling, thinking, and grumbling some more, I wandered out the door at the back of the church and into the vestibule. There was no use going outside. I’d been out there the night before—me and hotness personified, Gabriel Marsh—and I knew there wasn’t anything to see. Not anything that would help me figure out what happened to Forbis, anyway.

I was just about to throw in the towel and go back into the church when I realized all wasn’t lost. There were other possibilities. Two of them, in fact. To the left of the main doors was an alcove that contained a baptismal font, and to the right, the stairs that led to the choir loft.

Like so much of the church, the baptistery was dusty and obviously unused. That left the choir. I took the steps two at a time, and by the time I got up to the loft that spanned the width of the church, my heart pounded and I was breathing hard.

I didn’t turn on the lights. That would only have attracted the attention of the cops swarming the art exhibit and, for now, I wanted to keep this little piece of the investigation to myself. If it panned out, I would certainly mention it to Nev. And if it didn’t, well, there was no use in him knowing that I’d tried and gotten nowhere.

Then he’d only have another reason to compare me to beautiful and brilliant Evangeline.

I slapped the thought out of my head. It was unworthy of me. Not to mention small-minded. Besides—a slow smile spread across my face—Evangeline might be an expert when it came to vudon and Barrier Islands culture, but I had it all over her when it came to buttons, not to mention murder.

The thought firmly in mind, I took a look around.

There was a rose window to my left, a long way off and directly opposite from where the old altar used to stand. With the morning light streaming through, it was breathtaking, but I tried not to get distracted by the pools of blue and purple and red that stained the old wooden floor. The night before, the choir loft would have been completely dark and not as easy to negotiate.

There were five rows of pews up here, each a little higher than the one in the row in front of it. That made sense, of course, both from the perspective of the congregation, who could look back and see the singers, and for the singers themselves, who would have a bird’s-eye view of the services. There was an aisle between the two sets of pews and directly at the end of it, a big old organ, its pipes arrayed on either side of the rose window.

I checked the pews, just as I’d done downstairs. It wasn’t hard to find the smudge in the pew on the left, three rows back from the railing that looked out over the church. It was at least three feet long and it rippled from the front of the pew to the back, like someone hadn’t just sat down there, but more like that someone had shifted back and forth. Or maybe tried to scrunch down to hide.

Oh yes, someone had been in the choir loft, and recently.

Another glance around and I knew exactly who that someone was.

There it was on the floor just next to the pew, its plastic wrapping caught in a particularly vivid ray of golden light so that it winked and flashed at me.

A root beer barrel.

• • •

I hurried back downstairs, and this time I didn’t worry about looking bad; I found Nev and told him what I’d seen up in the choir loft, and he sent a few of the techs up there.

“Good work.” When he smiled at me, I smiled back. It felt good, comfortable, and I was just about to tell him so when Richard Norquist walked into the church.

Talk about bad timing!

A team from the medical examiner’s office was just lowering Forbis’s body down from the statue, and Richard took one look at what was going on and turned as white as those buttons on Congo Savanne’s skull.

Nev and I exchanged glances and we knew we were on the same page: if Richard fainted and cracked his head on the stone floor, we’d have another problem that we didn’t need on our hands.

“Mr. Norquist, you really shouldn’t have come here.” Nev got to Richard before me and put a hand under Forbis’s agent’s elbow to pilot him to the nearest pew. Richard sat down so hard, the thump reverberated up to the painted angels who looked down at us from the high ceiling. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m . . . I’m . . .” Like Laverne had earlier, Richard stared at the body, and Nev, just like he had before, moved to block the view. I was struck by his thoughtfulness. That, and his desire to keep the conversation on track and to keep Richard Norquist from falling completely to pieces.

Richard passed a hand over his forehead. “I’m . . . I’m . . .” He swallowed so hard, I saw his Adam’s apple jump. He looked up at Nev, his eyes wide. “I’m sorry. What did you ask me?”

“I asked what you’re doing here. How did you know about Forbis?”

“I . . . I didn’t.” Richard pressed a hand against the front of his navy blue windbreaker. “Laverne called. She didn’t say what was wrong, she just said I should get down here. She sounded so upset . . .” He pulled in a breath, and like he’d just woken from a very sound sleep and a very bad dream, he shook his head. “I thought maybe the church had been broken into and some of the artwork was gone. Or that a pipe had burst and there was water damage. I never imagined . . .” Richard leaned to his right so he could see around Nev. “Do you think Forbis was murdered?”

“Somebody glued buttons to his eyes and mouth and put him in with that statue.” I did my best to keep from sounding cynical, but it wasn’t easy. “Do you really think—”

“Where were you last night, Mr. Norquist?” Nev interrupted me, and maybe that was a good thing. No doubt the irony of my words was lost on Richard Norquist. “After Forbis Parmenter left the show?”

“I . . . I . . .” Richard thought back. “I stayed around for a while. You know that.” He looked at me, then Nev. “And you do, too, Detective. You were both here. Forbis ran off—”

“And where do you suppose he ran to?” Nev asked.

Richard’s doughy features accordioned in on themselves. “I figured it was a stunt. I thought Forbis was looking for attention. I just thought he ran out of the nearest door and hit the closest bar. You don’t think—”

“You haven’t told us where you were,” Nev reminded him.

Richard took a moment to collect his thoughts. “Like I said, I stayed around. I did a little networking. You saw me, certainly. Detective, I talked to you and that very pretty woman you were with.”

Since I was outside looking for Forbis, the very pretty woman was obviously not me. I gritted my teeth.

“I reminded folks that even though Forbis wasn’t around, they were still welcome to look at his work,” Richard continued. “I told them they could certainly still make purchases. That woman you were with, Detective, you remember, she asked for prices on a couple of the pieces.”

Investigation, I reminded myself, and repeated the word like a mantra.

The investigation was what was important.

“Did anyone buy anything?” I asked him in the name of the investigation.

Richard shook his head. “It really fried me, I’ll tell you that. Forbis pulls these crazy publicity stunts, and he doesn’t even stop to consider that they don’t build interest in his work, they just turn people off. Like that time in Asheville when he had those models dressed as old-fashioned housewives—you know, wearing aprons and housedresses and high heels—show up at the exhibit that featured buttons on household goods. Everyone was so taken with these five gorgeous models, much more than they were with blenders and mixers and vacuum cleaners covered with buttons. Forbis just doesn’t get it. If he’s going to get anywhere in the art world—” He thought better of the comment.

“If Forbis
was
. . . If he ever was going to get anywhere in the art world, he knew the drill. The way to become popular is to get some of the movers and shakers to buy your pieces. That’s how this business works. People with big bucks. You know, investment bankers. Actors. Actors are great for business. Once a movie star buys a piece, everybody else thinks it must be real art. If we could get that to happen, I knew the world would beat a path to our door.”

“And last night . . .” Nev gently nudged him back on the path where we’d been headed before Richard took a major detour.

“Well, after all that drama from Forbis, no one made an offer on any of the pieces. I could have wrung his neck!”

Richard realized the error of his word choice just a second after both Nev and I had. His already pale face went a little paler.

“I didn’t mean that,” he said. “I mean, I did, but only as a figure of speech. You understand?” He didn’t care if I did; he looked at Nev, his eyes pleading.

“So you were angry.” It went without saying, but Nev, was a good interrogator. He knew it was important to let Richard know that he understand how Richard felt. “But not angry enough to try and find Forbis and figure out what he was up to. Unless you did find him.”

It took a moment for what Nev wasn’t saying to sink in. “Me?” Richard squeaked out the word. “I didn’t. I swear, I didn’t.”

“But you didn’t go after him,” I said. “And that seems odd since you’re his agent. I barely knew the man, and even I tried to find Forbis.”