Authors: Libby Sternberg

Finding the Forger (17 page)

But we didn’t talk later. We just brooded in our separate little stewpots. I became so depressed about the whole thing that I didn’t seek out Doug to continue our conversation because I became terribly afraid of where it might lead. Although I’d not done anything wrong with Neville (okay, the kiss was a mistake, but I wasn’t planning on repeating it), I was beginning to suspect that Doug was getting ready to dump me and take up with Kerrie. If that happened, I’d lose both my boyfriend and my girlfriend, and my heart would be broken.

It was only natural, then, that I gravitated toward Sarah. At lunch, during which Kerrie sat with some other girls, Sarah talked more about Hector and the museum. To keep myself from going bonkers over my Doug and Kerrie problems, I paid sharp attention.

“Does Hector have any idea who it might be?” I asked Sarah.

She scowled a little, as if she didn’t like fingering people, even if doing so meant clearing Hector. “Well, he’s not too crazy about Ms. Dexter.”

“Why would she be doing something like this?”

“Publicity? I don’t know. He said something about how it could draw attention to the museum. You remember that big fuss over the Brooklyn Museum?”

Yeah, I remembered. We had discussed it in religion class one day. The Brooklyn Museum had launched an exhibit of new works that included some stuff considered sacrilegious by some Catholics. No matter which side you were on in that debate, one thing was clear—the museum got tons of attention. Not bad for a place that had always played second fiddle to places like the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art.

“Well, if she wanted that kind of publicity,” I said, “she would have gone to the police and made a big deal over it.”

“If she’s the criminal, she wouldn’t want the police involved,” Sarah said.

“Then how does she get the publicity without the police involved?”

“I don’t know.” Sarah said it so sadly I figured this was a point neither she nor Hector had figured out yet.

Before I left school that day, I passed the office, where girls and boys stood waiting to purchase Mistletoe Dance tickets. I didn’t see Doug in the line. In fact, I saw him rushing past the office door to the walkway outside. For all I knew, Kerrie was out there waiting for him.

It turns out, though, that Kerrie was staying after school for drama club, so Sarah offered to take me home.

Once there, I saw a note on the kitchen table from Connie.

“Mom says fix spaghetti.”

I did my homework and got dinner started. While working in the kitchen, I rearranged the poetry magnets yet again, this time to read: “All over/boyfriend gone/life sucks.” I wasn’t in the mood for florid phrases.

At least one of the Balduccis was happy that evening, though. When Connie breezed in right before supper, she was perkier than a Christmas ornament.

“I got in!” she announced, shaking off her raincoat. “I’ve got an appointment to see Witherspoon! Just agreeing to go out with Neville must have done the trick!”

“Woohoo,” I said in a rather subdued tone of voice. As we ate dinner a little while later, Mom peppered us with questions about our lives. Tony answered with grunts, Connie with vague replies about how things were “moving along,” and I just mumbled, “okay.”

“We need to finish that green velvet dress,” Mom said, pointing her fork at me. “We all get so busy this time of year. I’m afraid if we don’t get on it now, we’ll be rushing around at the last minute.”

I didn’t have the heart to tell her that maybe I wouldn’t even need the dress, so I just nodded my head and acted like I had a mouthful of food and couldn’t answer. But after dinner, she made good on her offer and had me try the thing on for a fitting.

Not that it mattered, since my Mistletoe Dance prospects were being sucked relentlessly down the drainpipe of lost dreams, but the dress wasn’t shaping up. Don’t get me wrong—I love my mom and know she means well. But her sewing skills are inconsistent. Some times she can make a really fine dress that looks like it came
from a high-priced boutique. Other times, she can make skirts that look like they were whipped up by a designer whose inspiration was Picasso during his cubist period. This green velvet was falling into the latter category.

While she pulled pins from her mouth to hold up the hem, I stared at myself in the mirror, trying to determine exactly what was wrong. Perhaps it was the way the seams at the shoulders bunched awkwardly on one side while laying flat on the other. Or maybe it was the way the heavy fabric bubbled at the empire seam below the bust, creating a sort of maternity dress effect. Or maybe it was the color. It had seemed like a nice-looking jade under the bright fluorescent lights of the fabric store. In our house, though, it looked like mashed peas—kind of dull and sickly.

Normally, this sort of thing would cause me to search for tactful reasons I couldn’t wear the thing, or at least ways to secretly destroy it when Mom wasn’t looking, thus justifying the purchase of a real dress. But in my mood, with my prospects of even going to the dance now dimmed, I stood soldier-straight, reconciled to my fate. If Mom enjoyed pinning the hem, let her pin the hem. It was my gift to her, right?

After our seamstress session, I thanked her, ran upstairs to change, and then stopped in Connie’s room for a chat about the Hector situation. She was grabbing up a bunch of beauty products and getting ready to take a shower.

She was in such a good mood that she listened patiently. Even so, she didn’t have any good news to offer. Like everyone else, she was assuming Hector might be involved.

“The Fawn Dexter theory doesn’t work,” she said, and then gave me the very reason I’d given to Sarah at lunch—if publicity was the motive, where was the publicity?

“But we know Hector didn’t do it—he’s not on the tape,” I said weakly.

“Nobody was on the tape, as you wisely pointed out, kiddo. The tapes were switched with one from an earlier time frame. I found out this afternoon.”

“So it was someone who had access to the security tapes,” I said. Like a security guard.
Gulp.

“The best thing you can do for Sarah,” she said ominously, “is tell her to stay away from the guy.” With that, she went into the bathroom to get ready for her “date.”

As a thank-you for my help with the case and the new Witherspoon account, Connie showed pity on me and actually shared some of the case information.

Well, maybe not actually shared. But hey, she did leave the file out on her bed when she knew I was home, so that’s a form of sharing, right? She had to know I’d come in her room and look at it.

In the file, Connie had copies of reports and interviews, and background info that she herself had gathered. The bad news was that Hector had a couple of hefty debts to pay off—his student loans and some credit card bills. The good news was that Hector was a top student in college. He supported a younger sister and sent money to an aunt in Mexico every month.

But here was the thing that grabbed me—he had a great job lined up. According to Connie’s notes, Hector had interviewed with a prestigious graphic design firm in New York City and was told that he was a “prime candidate” for a slot they had opening next year. They would even pay for night classes so he could finish his degree at a New York art college. A copy of the letter making this offer was in her file.

Now a guy with debts might do something stupid to make the
money he needed to clear up his financial mess. But a guy with a future wouldn’t risk it, especially a guy like Hector, who appeared to be on the road to responsibility. Call me crazy, but I just didn’t see it.

Besides, Neville had said it would be hard to sell the stuff on the black market, and I couldn’t envision Hector taking contemporary pieces from the museum and putting them into his own private collection. Connie had included a few photos of Hector’s work—they were all realistic pieces. The few “abstracts” were graceful explosions of color that resembled photographs of the Northern Lights. He just didn’t seem to have the taste for the stuff that was faked.

Speaking of which, one of the pieces that had been taken from the museum was called “Trapezoid with Stencil III.” An oil on canvas from 1979, it was something that practically anybody could have done, even me. It was a canvas in the shape of a trapezoid, painted a pale blue (kind of the color of my bedroom), and in the middle of the thing was pasted a stencil of a rose—the kind you get at craft stores. It was described thus:

“Beckoning with a drenched shade of blue evocative of old wall finishes” (hey, was I right, or what?), “‘Trapezoid’ captures the blandness of popular culture while gently parodying decorative arts with the burnished stencil.”

Huh? “Blandness of popular culture”? I felt like showing this artist my poetry magnets. They weren’t bland. They were downright jumpin’. I began to wonder how much “Trapezoid” was worth. And I thought again of Neville’s theory—that maybe it wasn’t an art thief at work but a frustrated artist sending some kind of message.

I was still musing on these questions when Connie rolled in
after eleven. Grabbing my robe, I met her in the hallway.

“How was it?” I asked, yawning.

“Okay. Kind of juvenile.” She smiled at me. “But I’ll be on retainer with Witherspoon’s firm by tomorrow.” She walked into her room. “Hey! Someone’s been in my file.”

“You left it out!” I said in defense of my snooping. “Besides, I think I can help.”

Connie unbuttoned her jacket and hung it up in the closet.

“I
really
need my own place,” she said. But she didn’t kick me out. Instead, she sat on the edge of the bed, pulled the file towards her, and looked up at me.

“Okay, shoot. What’s your theory?”

It wasn’t my theory, of course. It was Neville’s. But that didn’t stop me from spouting it out as if I were some art fraud expert. When I finished, she twisted her mouth to one side and narrowed her eyes. Tapping her fingers on the now-closed file, she said, “You know, that’s not a bad thought. Neville mentioned that to me as well.”

That darn Neville.

“And,” she continued, “it certainly implicates Hector.”

“But why? He has a job lined up, a good future . . .”

“Well, Miss Smartypants, if you looked through the file, you saw what kind of artist he is. He doesn’t go in for this throw-the-paint-at-the-wall-and-see-where-it-sticks stuff . . .”

“Abstract expressionism,” I interrupted. “I think that’s what they call it.”

“Whatever. He paints real pictures.”

“Yeah. And he’s going to get paid for them. You saw how he has a job lined up. Why would he jeopardize that with a juvenile prank?” Hmmph—I can use that word, too.

“Who knows?” Connie shrugged her shoulders and yawned. “I’ve seen smart people do dumber things.”

“I just don’t see it. He sends money to an aunt. He’s got a job lined up. He’s working his way through school. When people do dumb things, they usually have a pattern of doing dumb things.”

“Are you speaking from experience?” she asked. When I curled my lip at her, she continued, “He has that record.”

“That was long ago. He’s reformed. Like Sarah.”

Connie leaned back. Her leg twitched while she thought.

“I have to admit,” she said at last, “that I don’t have a gut feeling he’s the one.”

“There you go.”

“But what I can’t figure out is why somebody would pull this kind of prank in this way.” She sat up straight. “I mean, if you’re trying to make a point about this, this—”

“Abstract Expressionism,” I offered.

“Whatever—if you’re trying to tell the world that it’s a bunch of hooey, shouldn’t you be announcing it in a more spectacular way? Nobody but the board knows about the thefts.”

“Maybe the criminal didn’t plan it that way.”

“What do you mean?”

“Maybe they expected it to leak out.”

Connie yawned. “Look, I’m beat and you have school tomorrow.”

That was my cue to leave, but as I went, I thought of ways to help solve the case. In the morning, I’d talk to Sarah about a new hunch I had.

Chapter Sixteen