As Vera Mae would say, it was a “solid show.” Not the type of show that would rock the ratings or lead to a local Emmy for WYME, but it was educational and entertaining. I figure it ranked a six on a scale of one to ten.
We were heavy on history and academic experts at the moment, in honor of the time capsule ceremony. Next week, we could go back to our usual mix of zany callers and light, off-the-wall topics, like people who eat Häagen-Dazs in their sleep and women who are shopaholics.
I checked the log book and saw that Vera Mae had already scheduled a Monday show on hoarders, which would surely pull in the ratings. Tuesday was devoted to why spouses cheat, which is always a hot-button topic. I looked for Chantel’s name on the schedule and didn’t see it. She wasn’t listed as a guest host on my show, and she wasn’t listed as a solo host.
Interesting.
Maybe Cyrus was waiting to see which way the wind blew on the popular medium. My gut instinct told me there was something going on with Chantel, but not murder. I kept waiting for all the pieces to arrange themselves into a pattern in my mind, but it just wasn’t happening.
“Not bad,” Vera Mae said as we finished the last commercial and closed the show. Today she was wearing a T-shirt that said, I’M NOT SUFFERING FROM INSANITY. I’M ENJOYING EVERY MINUTE OF IT. She took off her headphones and wandered into the studio chewing on a Twizzler. “The lines stayed busy pretty much all the time.”
“I need to record a few more spots.” Chantel strolled into the studio and slapped some pages down on the console. She plunked herself in my chair and adjusted the mike so that it was close to her lips. “I’ve already chosen the music, so I think we can knock them out fast.” She tapped the mike to see whether it was live. “The sooner we get started, the better.” She gave a thin smile. “You know what they say: time is money.”
“Sure thing,” Vera Mae said. She waited until Chantel’s back was turned, threw her a mock salute, and marched back into the control room. “See you later, sugar,” she tossed over her shoulder to me.
I grinned and headed to my office, pondering my next move. My cell rang as I tossed my show notes on my desk, and I answered it without looking at the readout.
“Maggie? We’ve got something going on.”
Rafe
. His voice was hurried, excited.
“What’s up?” For a moment my mind stalled. “Is there a break in the case?”
“You bet there is. The forensic guys came up with an analysis of those blue chips falling off that painting you brought in. They’re azurite. There’s no doubt about it.”
“Azurite?”
The word sounded vaguely familiar, but maybe I was thinking of my high school French class.
Azur.
Blue. As in “Côte d’Azur.” My pulse was thrumming. “And this is important?”
“Very important. Swing by the station, and I’ll tell you all about it.”
I didn’t waste another second pondering. I waved a quick good-bye to a stunned-looking Irina as I headed through the reception area. “I’m going down to the police station,” I yelled. “You can reach me on my cell.”
Big Jim had been lounging on the sofa reading a newspaper, and he jumped to his feet. “Are you finally going to confess, Maggie? Which old lady did you murder?” He whipped out a notebook from his back pocket. “Was it Althea or Mildred?” His round face had turned a bright red from excitement, giving him an unfortunate resemblance to an heirloom tomato. “Or did you kill both of them?”
“Calm down, Jimbo. I didn’t kill anyone.”
“I can see it now,” he said, his eyes glazed, seeing a bright future for himself at one of the big Miami stations. “ ‘When Shrinks Go Mad: A Big Jim Wilcox Exclusive.’ This one will take me to the networks. I know it will.”
“I’m telling you, I didn’t kill anyone,” I said, scrabbling for my car keys in my oversized tote bag. I looked at Irina. “Tell Vera Mae to call me down at the station, okay?”
“You won’t be able to make any calls in lockup,” Jim said gleefully. “Just one call to your lawyer. And they’ll give you a public defender if you can’t afford one. I want an exclusive, Maggie. Don’t talk to anyone else. I better give Cyrus a heads-up on this,” he called over his shoulder as he headed down the hall. “You’re smart to turn yourself in,” he added as a parting shot. “Maybe they’ll go easy on you. Especially if they think you’re nuts.”
Irina and I exchanged a glance, and she lifted her shoulders in a delicate shrug. There are times when I’m convinced Jim Wilcox is certifiably insane. Ever since the day Rafe handcuffed and perp-walked me out of WYME after an explosion, Big Jim has been waiting for me to snap. He’s convinced that I’m teetering on the edge of madness and all I need is a little push over the edge.
“Big Jim is . . . How you say?” Irina began. She tapped her ballpoint pen against her temple.
“Insane? Crazy? Loco?”
She smiled and nodded. “Yes, he is all those things. He is the very big idiot. That is what we would be calling it.”
The very big idiot.
It was perfect. I loved it. For someone who speaks English as a second language, Irina certainly has a way with words.
“The very big idiot. You’ll have to tell that to your instructor, Simon Brent.”
Irina’s face clouded. “I haven’t been telling you the sad news. He is no more here in Cypress Grove.”
“He left town? What happened?”
Irina shrugged. “He is not good man, I don’t think.” She raised her eyebrows. “Not what he seems, if you know my meaning.”
I hesitated. Had Simon Brent dumped her? “Was he married?” I asked.
Irina shook her head. “Oh, no, he is not married man. Much worse. He is pretending to be English instructor, but is all a spam.”
Spam?
“You mean a scam?”
“Yes, that’s it. He’s here only to meet Chantel and write the biography of her. The kind no one gives permission to do.” Irina gave a little sniff. “He called to tell me truth last night. He left town this morning. I can’t believe I was taking in by him.”
So Simon Brent was here to gather material for an unauthorized bio of Chantel. Interesting. “I’m sorry, Irina. I know you liked him.”
“Is okay,” she said, her face brightening. “As Vera Mae says, there are many more fishes in the sea.”
I smiled. “You’re right on that one, Irina.”
“So tell me about azurite,” I asked Rafe twenty minutes later.
“You really don’t know what it is?” We were sitting in his office, and he was shooting me a sideways glance, part thoughtful, part amused. “I thought you were an art-history buff. You told me that was your minor in college.”
“I know a little about painters and styles but nothing technical. What’s so important about azurite?”
He rubbed his hand over his chin, his dark eyes rolling over me. “Azurite is a pigment that they used to add to paint. In the old days.”
I waited a beat. I dredged through my memory banks and came up empty. “In the old days. As in past tense?”
“Very past tense. They haven’t used it since the turn of the century. Newer paints don’t contain azurite.”
“Aha. And that’s important because . . .”
“Because our forensic guys found another painting hidden under that monstrosity that Althea had hanging in her hall. Someone had slapped a very amateurish painting over the real one. It’s the real one that has azurite in the pigment. Someone painted right over it.”
“And this original painting, the one underneath, is valuable?”
Rafe leaned back in his chair and locked his hands behind his head. “It’s worth a small fortune. And I think it’s stolen. The presence of azurite helps to date it. We’ve reported it to the FBI, and they’re scanning their National Stolen Art File databases right now. I wouldn’t be surprised if they find the owner by morning.”
I knew art theft is big business worldwide. And hiding a painting under another one is the latest trend. You can remove the fake layer with a solvent, and there’s no damage to the original.
I thought of Chris Hendricks and the blue chips scattered on the floor of his shop. “Where is Hendricks in all this? He must have been involved somehow.”
“We’re going to bring him in for questioning.” Rafe sat forward, put his hands on the desk, and cracked his knuckles. “He’s trying to give us the runaround, but so far he hasn’t lawyered up. If he does, he’ll clam up and we won’t get anywhere.”
“What do you need to do to tie him to Althea’s murder?”
“We have to tie him to the crime scene. We have to place him at the historical society. The azurite chips aren’t enough. Even if he discovered the painting underneath and planned on keeping it, that doesn’t link him to the murder. He could be a thief but not a killer.”
I thought for a minute. Chris Hendricks
was
a killer. I knew it.
I suddenly remembered the dust in the foyer of the historical society. A few azurite chips had slid under a doily on a Parsons table next to the umbrella rack. How had they gotten there? I remembered that Candace Somerset was a tall woman, and she had to stand on her tiptoes to reach the painting. And Chris Hendricks was short, maybe five-six. There was only one way he could reach the painting without using a stepladder.
“Rafe,” I said suddenly, “I think you need to look at the crime scene again. And this time look in the front hallway. There’s a Parsons table—”
“A what?”
“A table, a big piece of dark furniture, in the foyer. I think Chris Hendricks probably stood on it and hung the picture back up on the wall. A few blue chips fell off the painting while he was doing it.” Rafe nodded, listening.
“What makes you think he stood on it?”
“He’s a little guy, really short. So I figure Hendricks had to hang it back up there fast and get out of there.”
Rafe looked interested, his eyes flashing. “Go on,” he urged me.
“He had to stand on something handy, and the table was the closest thing. I bet he jostled one of the other paintings and it fell on the floor. He was in such a rush, he grabbed both the paintings and hung them back in the wrong place. And I bet he never noticed those little blue flakes falling off the painting.”
“And he was in a hurry because—”
“Because he had just murdered Althea.” My pulse was jumping. It was just a hunch, but I felt good about it. Everything was falling into place. All Rafe needed was the trace evidence to nail Chris Hendricks.
“Somehow Althea found out that Chris had uncovered the real painting underneath the fake one and was planning on stealing it.”
“Althea could have confronted him—” Rafe’s voice trailed off as he started writing furiously.
“That’s what happened. I’m sure of it. He killed her and hung the painting right back up on the wall. That would have been the smart thing to do. He didn’t dare take the painting right then and there, because he was afraid Althea may have told someone that she was having it reframed. And it would raise suspicions if it was missing. This way, there’s no paper trail tying him to the painting. He figured he’d be in the clear.”
“That’s quite a theory. The question is, will it hold up? Can we prove it?” he said, his brows furrowed in concentration.
“As long as he got in and out of the historical society without being seen, he knew he was in the clear.” The scene was playing itself out in my mind like a DVD from Netflix. “After all, he’d had time to examine the painting. He was the only one who knew it was valuable. The painting wasn’t going to go anywhere. All he had to do was hang it back up on the wall and bide his time.” I sat back in my chair, my mind buzzing.
“So you’re saying this is the perfect crime?”
“Chris Hendricks thought it was. He figured he could come by the historical society and steal the painting at another time, maybe when her sister closed up the place. Or maybe he’d offer to buy it from her for a few bucks. Anything is possible. I know the society is auctioning off some items to raise money.”
“Candace Somerset is in the dark about all this. I’ve already talked to her.”
“Exactly. Candace Somerset doesn’t know the true value of the painting. She hates it. She told me so. She probably would have given it to him if he’d asked nicely.”
“I’ll get someone over to the historical society right away.” Rafe reached for the phone, and I zipped out the door. It was tempting to stay and talk with Rafe, but Vera Mae had just texted me with a 911 in the subject line. What was this all about? I had my phone to my ear before I was out the door to the parking lot.
Chapter 29
“Something interesting happened right after you left, girl,” Vera Mae said. Her voice was low, excited. “Chantel let something slip. Something big.”
“Big as in she murdered someone?” I was only partly teasing. I didn’t think Chantel was a killer, but I also didn’t think she was as pure as the driven snow.
“Not quite. Big as in she’s not telling the whole truth about coming inside my house the other night.” Vera Mae paused for effect. “I’m positive that she’s the person I walked in on. She’s the one who went running out the door.”
“Is that so?” I murmured. There’s no way to hurry Vera Mae when she’s telling a story, and even though I was seething with impatience, I got in my car, willing myself to be patient.
“In fact, I think she lied to the police and she left out a
major
part of the story.”
Okay, now my nerves were stretched taut like a rubber band. “Vera Mae!” I wailed. “I can’t stand the suspense. What happened? Why do you suspect her?”
“Well, we were doing those time capsule promos, and she was having a fit because Tweetie Bird was singing and ruined a couple of takes. It was no big deal. They were only thirty-second spots, so it was easy to redo them, but she raised a fuss about it.”
“I don’t think she’s ever liked Tweetie Bird.”
To be fair, a lot of people at WYME don’t like Tweetie Bird, a perpetually molting parakeet who is the love of Vera Mae’s life. She brings him to work every day in his cage, and he regales us with his limited repertoire of sound effects and warbly renditions of show tunes.