I filled Vera Mae in on what Rafe had just told me. She looked dumbfounded.
“So you had no idea she was going to turn up at your place last night?”
“No, of course not.” Vera Mae gnawed at her pencil. “And that story about wanting to talk to me privately is phony-baloney. We have nothing to talk about.” She frowned. “So does this mean she wasn’t the intruder? And she’s not involved with either of the murders?”
I put my elbows on the desk and my head in my hands. “I don’t know what it means. I’m in the dark as much as you are, Vera Mae.”
I thought about Chantel’s size. She was certainly an imposing figure; there was nothing petite about her. Could she have looked like a man in the darkened living room? “Vera Mae, try to think back to that first moment when you walked in your living room and saw someone in a hoodie. Could it have been Chantel?”
“I told you, hon. I don’t know who it was. It was pitch dark in there. I couldn’t see a thing.” She gave a little shudder. “Just this person who pushed past me and ran out the front door.”
“But you said the person was wearing a hoodie. And you said it was a man. So you did notice something.” I wondered whether Vera Mae had noticed more than she realized. Sometimes in a traumatic, high-stress situation, your mind takes a freeze-frame picture of the event. You do it unconsciously. Maybe if Vera could think about the situation, she’d be able to recollect some more details about the intruder.
“I thought it was a man. But maybe I just expected it to be a man. I don’t know.” She locked eyes with me. “When Chantel showed up outside my back door on that surveillance tape, was she wearing a hoodie?”
“I don’t know. Rafe didn’t say. Probably not, because he said her face was visible. Of course, she could have pulled the hood up around her face after she got inside.”
“Exactly. That’s what I’m thinking.”
I looked at my watch. Rafe said she might be headed toward the station. We had to talk fast. “Can you remember anything else about the intruder? When you said you thought it was a man, did you mean because of the person’s size? The build?”
“Yeah, I guess so.” She hesitated. “But Chantel is a big woman. It could have been her.”
“How are we going to play this when she gets here?”
“Very carefully, sugar, very carefully. From what you told me, they don’t have any evidence against her. It’s no crime if she was standing outside my back door.”
I nodded. If the police had released Chantel, then all bets were off. It’s possible that she was telling the truth. That she’d had an urge for a private chat with Vera Mae and had dropped by unannounced. A little far-fetched, but possible.
Cyrus would be pleased to learn that his new star wasn’t a murder suspect. I could think of one person who’d take the news very hard.
Big Jim Wilcox.
I heard shouting in the corridor, and Vera Mae stood up and opened her office door. Right on cue, Big Jim stormed down the corridor, past Vera Mae’s office, his face twisted in a scowl. “So they’re letting her go? How is that possible?” He was moving at a good clip, trying to keep up with Cyrus, who was rushing toward the newsroom.
“They questioned her and decided there was no reason to hold her. She admitted she was at the scene, but she didn’t break into the house. They’ve got nothing on her. It was all a mistake.” Cyrus looked relieved, which seemed to aggravate Big Jim even more.
“A mistake? Well, I’m not satisfied with that explanation. The police have been wrong before,” he said peevishly.
“They’re not wrong,” Cyrus said. “Give it up, Jim. It’s not a story. It’s a nonevent.”
“It was a story, my story.” Big Jim threw up his hands in defeat and then let them sink slowly to his sides. He watched as Cyrus disappeared down the hall into the newsroom, and then he saw us staring at him through the open doorway.
Vera Mae motioned for him to come inside. “Guess you heard the news,” he said, his face a mask of despair. “The police are letting Chantel go. They didn’t manage to pin anything on her. This time,” he said darkly.
“And that means they’re canceling your exclusive.” Vera Mae winked at me. “Must be quite a blow, Jim. Of course, if Maggie here solves the double murder, you’ll have a big ole story that will probably go national.”
He looked at me with a sudden interest in his eyes. “Are you hot on any leads, Maggie? Anything I should know about?”
I shook my head. “Nothing yet. When I come up with something, you’ll be the first to know.”
I glanced at my watch. I had plenty of time to follow up on a couple of leads right now. “Vera Mae,” I said suddenly, “you don’t need me for a while, do you?”
She shook her head. “No, everything’s under control here. What’s up?”
I smiled. “I’ve got to see someone about a painting. And then I’ve got to visit the library.”
Vera Mae raised her eyebrows, and Big Jim looked puzzled. It didn’t matter. I suddenly realized that a few loose ends were falling into place.
“Of course you can take the picture,” Candace Somerset said to me a few minutes later. I’d rushed over to the historical society from the station, hoping that she hadn’t already left town.
“Is it this one?” She stood on her tiptoes and lifted the Joshua Riggs off the wall. “It’s not very attractive, is it?”
“No, but it might give us some information about what happened to your sister. I’ll need to keep it for a few day. Is that okay?”
“Yes, of course.” She hesitated. “You’ll have it back by the end of the week, won’t you? Because I really want to lock everything up and get back home. And the painting is part of the collection.” She ran her finger over the Parsons bench in the hall and frowned. “I’m going to have this place cleaned professionally before the estate sale starts. There’s a layer of dust on everything. I think it was too much for poor Althea to keep up. She did the best she could, poor thing.”
I nodded. “I understand.” I took the Joshua Riggs painting and carefully wrapped it in two plastic grocery bags before tucking it under my arm.
“Candace, this sounds like a silly question, but did you move this painting? I’m pretty sure it used to be hanging over here, on the other side of the watercolor.”
She gave me a blank stare. “No, of course I haven’t moved it. Why do you ask?”
I thought about what Shalimar had said about sunlight making colors fade. “Well, for one thing, see the empty spot where it was hanging?” I pointed to the burgundy-colored wall. “See how there’s a large square that’s a deeper color than the rest of the wall and larger than the Joshua Riggs painting? That tells me there used to be a bigger painting hanging here. It protected the wall from the sunlight, and that’s why the paint is a darker color in that place.” I gestured to the pond scene. “I’m pretty sure the Joshua Riggs was moved very recently. Someone switched it with the pond scene.”
Candace took a closer look. “You’re quite right. The color is deeper—and larger than the Joshua Riggs painting. Very strange.” She shook her head. “Someone must have moved the painting. But why?”
“I don’t know yet.” I hesitated for a moment and glanced down at the floor. The hallway was dimly lit, but saw a faint dusting of blue powder near the baseboard. Again. Blue dust? Alarm bells were ringing in my brain. “Candace, can I ask you a favor? You mentioned you were going to get the place cleaned. Could I ask you to please hold off on the cleaning crew? Don’t let anyone touch anything until I get back to you. Okay?”
Her blue eyes clouded with surprise. “Yes, I suppose so, but—”
“Please, just do it. It’s important.” If my guess was right, it was
vitally
important.
“All right, then.” She gave a little shrug. “I’ll wait to hear from you before I hire a cleaning crew.” She shook her head. “I’d love to know what your plan is.”
I grinned. “As soon as I know, you’ll know.” I put the painting in the trunk of my car and headed down to the Cypress Grove PD.
It was time to get Rafe in on the case. Vera Mae was right. There was only so much I could do on my own.
“Tell me again your theory about the painting,” Rafe said half an hour later. “You borrowed it from the historical society because you think it’s involved with Althea’s death.” Rafe looked a little haggard, as if he’d been up all night. He had dark circles under his eyes and a sexy stubble on his chin. Tired or not, he was still drop-dead gorgeous, and I felt a familiar little buzz go through me.
“It’s not the painting,” I said patiently. “Well, maybe it is the painting, but—”
“One sec,” Rafe told me as his desk phone rang. He held up a finger. “Yo,” he said softly into the receiver. He listened, nodding a few times, and then said, “Got it,” and hung up. “Okay, Maggie, start over again. It is the painting, but it’s not the painting? Is this a riddle or some sort of psychological quiz? Because I’m all tapped out. I’m not going to play games.”
“This isn’t a game!” I leaned forward out of my chair and slapped my hands palm down on the desk. The painting was leaning against a file cabinet. “Rafe, somehow that painting is involved in Althea’s murder.”
He stared at me for a long moment. He steepled his fingers. “And you know this how?”
“I just know it.” I held up a hand to silence him. I knew he was revving up for a quick comeback. “But it’s not the painting itself. I think there’s something funny about the painting.”
“You do?”
“Yes. Maybe there’s something underneath the painting. I’m not sure.” I told him what Althea had told me about painters sometimes hiding one painting behind another, and then I mentioned the blue chips that I’d seen in Althea’s front hall. The same chips I’d seen over at the frame shop when I’d met with Chris Hendricks.
Rafe nodded, but I could see he wasn’t wildly impressed with my theory. He leaned back in his desk chair, clasped his hands behind his head, and contemplated the ceiling. Meanwhile, I contemplated him. Always a pleasant diversion. Unfortunately, I couldn’t give it my full attention, because I had to plead my case.
“And it’s not just the blue chips I saw in both places,” I said firmly. “There’s more evidence I haven’t told you about.”
Rafe made a let’s-speed-this-up motion with his hands and glanced at his watch. He’d already told me he was meeting with the chief of police in ten minutes to give a progress report, so I knew I had to cut to the chase.
I took a deep breath. “Chris Hendricks was acting very suspicious when I visited his shop.”
“Really. Suspicious, huh?” He gave me a lazy smile, and the words hung in the air between us. I realized as soon as I’d said them that I hadn’t been forceful enough. “I suppose you happened to psychoanalyze him in your brief meeting with him?”
“I didn’t have to psychoanalyze him,” I said forcefully. “The guy was a nervous wreck. He was sweating bullets and he had a facial tic. It wouldn’t take Sigmund Freud to know something was really wrong.”
“Ah. A facial tic.”
“And his foot wouldn’t stop tapping. It’s like it had a life of its own.” Oh, no. Rafe in condescending mode was more than I could take. Why wasn’t I getting my point across? “He was definitely acting suspicious,” I said. “I knew right away he was trying to hide something.” I pulled out my ace in the hole. “In fact, here’s something that will surprise you. Did you know that Althea had visited his shop? Right before she died?”
Hah. That got his attention. Rafe snapped his chair to the upright position and grabbed a legal pad. Suddenly he was all business. “He told you that?” He locked eyes with me, pen poised.
“Yes. He didn’t want to, but he finally admitted it. At first he denied any knowledge of the painting, and then when I questioned him, he said she’d come into the shop. She was thinking about having this painting reframed, and they couldn’t agree on a price. Althea wanted a discount, and he wasn’t prepared to give her one. He said she walked right back out with the painting.”
“Hardly a motive to kill someone.”
I waited for a beat. “No, but there’s more going on. Don’t you think it’s funny he never thought to come forward with that information? He kept his mouth shut even though he knew the police were looking for leads. I’d say that was suspicious, wouldn’t you?”
Rafe nodded. “Maybe, or maybe he just thought it wasn’t significant. I’m sure Althea visited a lot of shops in the week before she died. Who is this guy again?” I handed him the card Chris Hendricks had given me, and he copied down the information.
“What are you going to do?” I saw him eyeing the painting.
“We can have our CSIs analyze it.” He walked over and touched the plastic wrapping. “You probably should have left it where it was,” he said. “It makes more sense from an evidence-collecting point of view. It’s better to examine it at the site where it was discovered.”
“Maybe in theory that’s true,” I acknowledged. “But would you have bothered sending an officer over to the historical society to look at it?” I bit back a sigh. “Would we even be having this conversation right now?”
One eyebrow quirked. Rafe ran his hand through his thick, dark hair and gave me a knowing look. “Okay, Maggie, you win. I get your point. You took the bull by the horns, and maybe that’s not a bad thing. If you hadn’t brought the picture over here”—he shrugged—“who knows what would have happened? But since it’s here, let’s consider it as evidence. I’ll get someone to look at it today. And I’ll even get Officer Brown to have a chat with Chris Hendricks.” He glanced down at the grayish linoleum. “I see what you mean. It looks like little blue particles are falling out of the picture. There must be a hole in the plastic.”
“That’s what I was trying to tell you. It’s like blue confetti.”
Rafe picked up a piece with the tip of a pen and dropped it into a clear plastic evidence bag. He held it up to the light, squinting at it. “Except it’s not confetti. It’s not even paper. It’s hard, like plastic.”
“Then what is it?”