Indelible Beats: An Abishag's Second Mystery (Abishag Mysteries Book 2) Page 7

  His dark eyes softened, and he leaned even closer. “Would you—”

  “Leslie?” A frighteningly familiar but entirely unexpected voice boomed at the dining room door. I jumped from my chair so quickly that it toppled backward.

  In a towering rage, Donovan Reid stepped into the room.

  “Donovan? What are you doing here?” My voice squeaked. Kat shrugged apologetically behind him and disappeared up the stairs.

  “Ah, Donovan Reid. I remember you.” Sebastian smiled and offered him his hand, which Donovan didn’t see since he was glaring at me. “Would you care to join us for dinner?”

  Donovan finally looked at him. “You. What are you doing with my girlfriend?”

  “Eating dinner,” Sebastian offered him another charming smile. “Please join us.”

  Donovan huffed. “I will not.” His eyes narrowed. “You look familiar.”

  I finally found my voice. “He’s Thomas Crowder’s grandson, Donovan. You met him at the funeral. Since Jordan’s housekeeper disappeared, Sebastian’s been helping out.”

  Donovan’s ire re-ignited. “You married again. Without telling me. You know how I found out? Saw the folder in Sid Verona’s office.”

  Donovan didn’t care for any of his colleagues, preferring to schmooze further up the food chain. Discovering my marriage contract in another lawyer’s office only amplified his fury.

  My mother taught me that all relationships require a certain amount of deception and advised me to excel at it. I tried but always failed.

  I couldn’t think of anything to say. My mother would have taken me to task for that too—always have a Plan B.

  Aware of Sebastian watching us, I said the first thing that came to mind. “I have your Christmas present. Shall I get it?”

  He didn’t seem to hear me. “What are you wearing?” He sounded appalled.

  “My holiday sweatshirt.” I wasn’t sure if talking about my wardrobe would be an acceptable Plan B, but I was game. “Brittany made them for all the housemates. Christmas-y, don’t you think?

  “No,” he huffed.

  “I like it,” Sebastian said, buttering a biscuit. I turned to him gratefully, but he studied Donovan with a pleasant look that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Sure I can’t offer you a plate of something before you leave, Reid.” It wasn’t a question.

  “I couldn’t hurt Brit’s feelings.” I gave Donovan my best winsome look, the one that usually softened him. “We haven’t been anywhere since yesterday, and no one’s seen me today. Except for Jordan’s doctor, lawyer, and business partner. No worries.”

  Donovan drew himself up. “No worries? You lied to me about where you’d be for Christmas. Thought you could buffalo me with an elderly aunt, did you? Did you really think I wouldn’t find out? Did you think I would continue to date you after being an Abishag wife a second time?”

  He pointed at my sweatshirt with revulsion. “And you turn up in that? It’s as if I never knew you.”

  When furious, Donovan’s face turned as red as his hair.

  “Actually,” Sebastian said. “You’re the one who turned up.”

  Donovan’s gaze skated across him. “And now I’m leaving.”

  I caught up with him as he jerked open the front door. “Please don’t be mad. I needed the money. You know, to reflect well on my boyfriend, a principle attorney.”

  He turned icy blue eyes on me. “Don’t put this on me, Leslie. I am no longer your boyfriend.”

  I plucked at his sleeve, but he shook me off and stormed down the sidewalk, cutting across the squares, scattering lava rocks into river rock squares, granite pebbles into white quartz.

  I’d been warned that Abishags rarely had friends and never had boyfriends. I’d counted myself lucky to have a Prince Charming, a gifted and handsome lawyer.

  Now I’d lost him. I needed a Plan C to get him back.

  “You didn’t finish your salmon,” Sebastian said, appearing next to me, licking a finger. “What are you looking at?”

  Donovan’s Fiat 500 slewed from the curb and roared off into the dusk.

  “A prince turning into a frog,” I said sadly.

  From the vapor of Donovan’s retreat, a taxi appeared and discharged a short, plump, bald man, small spectacles trembling on his nose and sporting a full white beard. He saw us and said, “I say, is Kathmandu in the vicinity?”

  Without turning, Sebastian shouted up the stairs, “Kat!”

  “Who are you?” I asked, not because I didn’t know. He even wore safari togs as I pictured Indiana Jones would, but carrying the hat and wearing a vest of many pockets didn’t make him Indiana Jones. I’d borne too many disappointments to be surprised that this was—

  “Professor Stegner!” Kat exclaimed. “We saved you some dinner.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  I glumly watched Professor Stegner plow through two helpings of salmon, three biscuits and thirteen Brussels sprouts. Thirteen. I counted as he laid them on his plate, sliced them precisely in half and chewed each half forty-two times.

  If I didn’t already know that Dog and Kat loved each other in a happily-ever-after way, I’d suspect that Kat had a giant crush on Stegner. She picked at her food, folded her hands whenever he spoke, sighed with rapture when he told an anemic story about a cracked tube of cadmium, and giggled (you heard that right) with delight when he shoved back his chair, belched, and headed for the studio. Kat followed him like a celebrity stalker.

  “Seriously?” I demanded.

  Sebastian shrugged apologetically and began removing platters to the kitchen. Automatically I stacked plates and gathered linens.

  “He was a big deal on campus till that thing happened,” he said. “My brother took one of his seminars, one you had to be wait-listed for at least two years. Stegner’s one of the greats.”

  “What thing happened?” We didn’t need another thing happening.

  “I don’t remember the details.” Buried in suds, Sebastian’s hands breached the dishwater to wave vaguely, soap bubbles floating free.

  “What details?”

  “Want to dry?”

  I looked warily at the china, but Sebastian had prepared dinner. As wife of the home, I should pitch in.

  “About Reid—” Sebastian began.

  “We’re not discussing Donovan. Let me worry about Donovan. We need a plan.”

  “A plan?”

  “Obviously,” I said crossly. “You saw what a mess I made of my scheme of keeping Jordan secret from Donovan. I need your help in planning what to do if the painting is a forgery.”

  “Maybe Professor Stegner will have an idea.”

  Gripping a wet fork, I stared at Sebastian. “I’d call Aaron Cochrane, his lawyer, but—”

  “But he might be in on the forgery too? I thought of that.”

  So I had the choice of trusting one of Jordan’s friends or a fired professor now working as an art fence. Great. Marriage is a risky business, the olive oil distiller in La Jolla had said. No kidding.

  “I have Jordan duty in less than two hours.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Les.” Still soapy, Sebastian took my hand. “Some of the best minds on campus are in this house. We’ll figure out what to do.”

  I wanted to believe. “Okay.”

  “You know you have options other than Reid, right?”

  I shook my head. “I really don’t, but thank you for thinking I might.”

  “I—”

  “That was the last plate,” I said. “We should check on Kat and the professor.”

  Sebastian’s shoulders sagged. “Yeah, right.”

  In the studio, Kat had transformed two high wattage flashlights into wall sconces. Looming shadows and acrid musty smells still made it feel like Dracula’s lair.

  Leaning forward and nearly cheek-to-cheek, Kat and Stegner stared fixedly at Indelible Beats.

  I hung in the back while Sebastian joined them. Everyone’s attention seemed fixed on the lower right quadrant where the
painting strokes hung in glottal stops.

  Stegner’s white beard glistened in the flashlight, and his belly jiggled.

  Definitely not Indiana Jones.

  I stifled a yawn and glanced at Jordan’s bedroom window. No fantastical creature posed gargoyle-like at the window, not even a bat. I thought I saw Dog’s shadow cross in front of the window and felt depression overlaid with fatigue settle on me.

  I don’t know why I expected Donovan to stick around. I should’ve been grateful for the handful of dates we had and resign myself to remaining dateless and marrying old comatose men till I graduated from the university. At least I could count on Dog and Kat for companionship. Maybe they’d adopt me. Or I could be their kids’ live-in nanny.

  I shuddered—worst idea ever.

  Or I could focus on my mathematical studies and become a tenured professor at a prestigious university—till I dried up like Stegner, sharing Christmas Eve dinners with strangers on my way to Mexico.

  I frowned. Why was he going to Mexico? Did I want to know?

  “It’s a fake,” Stegner said. “A piss-poor one at that.”

  “I knew it,” Kat said, her hands clasped in agony. I’d expected her to crow with delight when he confirmed her suspicions, but she looked in pain.

  I thought of my parents. “Are we going to ship it to the museum anyway?” I asked. “The truck arrives in a few hours.”

  Kat and the professor exchanged glances.

  Stegner addressed her even though I’d asked the question. “It’d be a big scandal if someone recognized it as a forgery. Even if Ippel had nothing to do with it, artists have been convicted of complicity in their own forged works. His reputation would suffer, guilty or not.”

  After the doctor’s disclosure of Jordan’s selfless act in seducing Talia, I’d begun to see my husband as an F. Scott Fitzgerald without the accent, working when the fever struck him, otherwise sitting in his backyard, languidly waving away gnats, holding court with a few friends.

  I tried not picturing my parents enjoying their dinner, my mother’s navy blue dress hanging in the closet, my dad’s speech in the jacket he’d wear on the day after Christmas when he’d laud the name of Jordan Ippel and his work. I felt sick thinking how this scandal would crush their political dreams.

  “It can’t go to Sacramento, Les,” Kat said. “We have to find the original. Fast.”

  I eased closer to Stegner, who unhappily cleaned his spectacles with his shirt. “How?” I asked.

  Without his spectacles, his eyes looked cloudy and pink-rimmed. He shrugged. “Your options are many and untenable.”

  “What could tip the odds in our favor?” Sebastian asked. “It’s okay to name something outrageous.”

  Stegner blinked at Sebastian in approval, and I felt the warmth of hearing him saying “our,” again throwing himself into the fray out of loyalty for an old friend of his granddad’s.

  “I love a facile mind,” Stegner murmured. “Because we’ve no idea how long the original’s been missing, where it is or even if it still exists—” Kat moaned. “The plan must encompass creating a perfect copy while we track down the original.”

  Sebastian and Kat exchanged looks. That didn’t sound legal. “Can you make a perfect copy, sir?” I asked. Kat’s eyes went wide.

  He shook his head regretfully. “I can forge many things. Signatures were my specialty, and I dabbled in counterfeiting, but art of Ippel’s complexity is beyond me.”

  Bending closer to those famous right quadrant strokes, he mused, “I had a student once who could copy an Ippel so well that not even Ippel could discern which was his.” He laughed thickly. “He had a genius equal to Eugenic Lucas or Han van Meegeren, and I fear I squandered it on a trivial currency project that got me fired and the poor lad suspended.”

  “Wait.” I frowned. This story had a familiar ring. “Are you talking about Harvey Kassem?”

  The little professor squinted at me in mild surprise. “Lad had an honest heart and too trusting of those around him. Seemed wrong of me not to take advantage of his skills.” He shrugged. “Water under the bridge. I expect he’s fine now. How do you know him?”

  Living in his employer’s garage and working as a housekeeper didn’t seem “fine” to me. Especially at the loss of his great talent. “He’s been Jordan’s houseman for ten years. Except he left yesterday and hasn’t returned.”

  “Odd,” mused the professor. “Why would he do that?”

  Kat studied Stegner’s face intently. “I think he killed Ippel.”

  The professor’s lips worked for a moment, and then he roared with laughter.

  Kat’s worship of him drop fifty degrees.

  “Sorry,” Stegner said, still gasping. “If you knew Harvey—” He nearly rolled off his chair in another fit of laughter.

  That killed whatever residue of feeling Kat had for the man. She glared frostily.

  Sebastian interjected, “Sir, is this copy some of Harvey’s work?”

  That sobered the little man. With morbid interest, he put on his glasses and peered again at the painting. Murmuring, “I’d not thought he’d be so sloppy, but—”

  Impatiently, I asked, “Well? Is it?”

  He nodded slowly. “Intriguing.”

  “Why intriguing?” Kat sounded surly, but her attention sharpened.

  “His work was always scrupulously exact, diligent about using the proper materials, but he always added in something to distinguish the copy from the original.”

  He nodded abruptly, and his spectacles slid to the tip of his nose. “Harvey did this, but not with his usual signature or with his former talent. He painted it in his own style, for some reason adding in Jordan’s techniques purposefully clumsily.”

  Kat frowned. “How can you—”

  The professor cut her off by clearing his throat loudly. “Excuse me. May I speak forensically?”

  “You mean, explain how you know this is a forgery?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “I already explained that it’s a forgery and who did it. Knowing Harvey, I can vouch that he would not create a copy to be mistaken as the original, but I can tell you that he did paint this under duress.”

  “How?” we asked in unison.

  Stegner’s hand carefully brushed air over the painting. “I can tell by his mixing a duller shade of yellow that he was under duress in painting it, especially when all the other colors are exact duplicates. But the strokes themselves speak of his rage in being forced to make a copy.”

  “Rage?” Kat asked.

  I had to hand it to her—the professor had demolished her theories about Harvey Kassem and yet she responded graciously.

  He nodded. “I suspect he started reluctantly. You can see some raw strokes here and those there that almost stutter in protest.”

  He pointed at bluish strokes near the lower outer edge of the painting. “See that? That’s fury.”

  I squinted again. Sebastian and Kat nodded.

  The professor stuffed his handkerchief into his pocket. “Well I should be off now. Timing is everything when flying covertly over an international border.”

  “But professor,” Sebastian said. “You haven’t told us what to do.”

  He blinked. “I thought I did.” He looked at the studio ceiling in a puzzled way. “I told them that they should get a better forgery for the exhibit, yes? I did. Thank you for dinner. Hope the New Year finds you rich beyond your dreams. Ciao.”

  Wiggling past me, he trotted from the studio as a taxi pulled up in front of the house. I’d started to follow him down the driveway, but he moved fast for a short-legged, overweight, old man. By the time I reached the orange tree, the taxi sped away with him in it.

  Kat was chattering excitedly to Sebastian as I reentered the studio. “What are we going to do, guys?” I interrupted urgently. “It’s nearly time for me to attend Jordan.”

  “We got this, Les.” Kat made shooing motions. “Stegner’s right—we have to get a better forgery, and t
here’s only one person who can do it. I’ve an idea, so you run along, do your Abishag thing, and leave us to do ours.”

  “But yours is illegal.” I thought of Jordan’s reputation and of my parents sitting happily unaware in their Sacramento motel room. Stegner made a good point about honest hearts being open to subterfuge. “The truck’s coming to pick up the paintings. You don’t have time to do another.”

  Kat hooted. “Me? Thanks for the compliment, but I don’t have the skill to make even a bad copy.” She sounded regretful. “Not of an Ippel anyway. Stegner said it—only Harvey Kassem can create a perfect copy, so we have to find him.”

  Sebastian nudged me toward the door. “Don’t worry, Les. Go.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  I briefed Dog on Stegner’s visit, and he nodded over the decision to search for Kassem and have him create a better forgery for the exhibit. “Better change,” he said. “Jordan’s ready for you. I’ll make sure Kat and your grandson don’t land us in jail.”

  “Funny.” As Dog passed me, I grabbed his arm. “Is Jordan okay? I mean, do you think he’ll die tonight?”

  My husband looked the same to me in that drawn, pale Dracula way of his. Florence Harcourt had assured me he’d die once off life support but still he lived.

  “He seems to be holding his own. Some people last for weeks after being taken off life support.”

  “That’s not what the doctor said,” I protested. Jordan lasting for weeks would sorely impede my efforts to get back Donovan, start winter quarter on time, and stay out of jail in our escalating crime wave.

  Dog skated an impatient look at the door. “Doctors can’t always predict. You know that from your time with Thomas. Fate and failing organs determine when Ippel dies. Doctors don’t. We don’t. It’s our job to wait.”

  I felt guilty about my impatience. “You don’t think he’ll wake up, do you?” I said in a small voice, then risked a look at Dog. Laughter crinkled his face.

  “You know that a Lazarus isn’t common. And you know why you’re thinking this, right?”

  I wondered if Kat had told Dog that I thought Jordan might be a vampire, but he only looked kindly and maybe a little exasperated.