Making it Write, page 23
She gave me a sharp look. ‘Not another one. Caleb is easy picking for any predatory female.’
‘You think I’m his girlfriend?’ I said, incredulous. I pointed at the envelope on the ground. ‘Your husband hired me to help him write love notes to you. He never told me what caused the rift between you, but he’s desperate for you to talk to him so he can do whatever it takes to work things out.’
‘I knew he didn’t write those notes. I figured he copied them out of a book or something.’ She peered at me again. ‘He actually hired you to write them?’ She jiggled her head as if that would help it make sense. ‘He’s the most passive person you can imagine.’ She glanced down at the note and box of candy corn. ‘Did you pick out the things he sent along?’
‘That was all him. And the artwork on that is from him as well.’
She leaned down and somewhat reluctantly picked up the envelope. She took a moment before carefully opening it and looking at it intently. I felt an obligation to add my narration. ‘It’s none of my business and actually more profitable for me if you don’t talk to him, but he’s a good guy and no matter what he did, he seems to regret it.’
‘I’m not surprised he never told you,’ she said as her expression hardened. ‘He had an affair with a teaching assistant and there’s a child. An affair is one thing, but a baby is another thing entirely. It doesn’t go away.’ I noticed her shoulders drop and her expression softened. ‘But if I’m honest, I know it wasn’t his fault. She went after him, seduced him with the idea of having his child.’
I was astonished at what she’d said. The thought of him being pursued seemed kind of crazy. He hardly oozed sex appeal. My thoughts must have shown in my face.
‘You have to understand, he’s like the rock star of mathem-aticians,’ she went on, shaking her head as if thinking aloud. ‘He solved an unsolvable problem and is rated as one of the greatest living mathematicians.’
‘Really?’ I said stunned. ‘What happened with the woman?’
‘She thought he would marry her, divorcing me first. He was befuddled by the whole thing, except that he wants the baby to have his name and share parenting with her.’
Now I understood why Caleb wouldn’t tell me what happened. ‘Wow, that’s really messy,’ I said. ‘But could you at least talk to him?’
She looked down at the note and traced the heart he’d made on the front. ‘He really made this for me?’ I could tell she was softening. ‘It certainly is something that he went to all the trouble of hiring you and actually doing artwork …’
We were still standing at the base of her stairs and I glanced toward the lavender house with the fish-scale siding. I noticed a group of people going up the stairs and inside the house.
‘What’s going on over there?’ I asked. She looked up from the card and followed my gaze.
‘It’s that odious man next door. He came over here to complain that my cat was wandering in his yard. He’s always having people over. I think he has them hang out in his studio and watch him paint. It doesn’t seem to matter that his wife died recently.’ She gave the house a disapproving glare as more people went up the stairs.
I watched the arrival with an entirely different thought. It could be a cover for me. Did I dare try to slip in and make things right? The whole episode with my tainted drink and then my writing the piece about Maeve entertaining in her workroom had sparked my memory. In all the confusion that came after, I’d forgotten completely about breaking the cup and trying to cover my clumsiness with moving it and switching it with an unused one from the counter. I remembered there had been liquid in the broken cup that I’d left in my haste to remove the evidence. ‘Evidence’ was the key word here. That cup and the paper around it were evidence of who else had been in the workroom with Maeve. I couldn’t tell Jankowski about it on the chance that he’d consider that I had tampered with evidence. Maybe it was a foolish idea, but somehow I thought if I put the cup back, I could get Jankowski to revisit the workroom without knowing I was involved. There was no time to figure that part out now. The immediate need was to put things back where they belonged.
I made a fast exit from Caleb’s wife, though by now I knew her real name was Rebeka. She went back inside, hopefully to call Caleb, and I slipped down the driveway of Maeve’s house. I could see the crowd in his studio as I went toward the back of the house. Seeing the leftovers of the vegetable garden in the backyard made me think of Kent and of something he’d said about the basement door lock had needed to be fixed. Did I dare try to slip up to the workroom? My heart was thudding as I plastered myself against the building to keep out of sight until I reached the few steps down to the basement door. Convincing myself that I hadn’t lost my mind and was just trying to make things right, I tried the basement door and discovered the lock was still broken.
Taking a deep breath, I went inside. The inside was a jumble of boxes and laundry things. I found the crude staircase and, when I opened the door at the top, saw that I was in the kitchen. Was I really going to do this? I gave a last look back at the basement stairs. There was still a chance to retreat. But I propelled myself forward. The sound of voices coming from the front of the house would hopefully cover any noise that I made.
The back stairs were dark, and I touched the wall to keep my balance as I traveled up them. The next staircase was less worrisome and better lit. My breath came out in a gush when I reached the attic. I probably should have gone right to moving the cup back, but I wanted to check out the storage room first to see if there was anything to prove my conjecture about what Maeve was going to tell me. This time I lifted the ghostly looking sheets to see what was underneath and my mouth fell open.
But now speed was of the essence. I went back to the main room and retrieved the cup and paper around it. There was still a hint of the spicy smell of the chai drink. My hand was shaking as I took out the test kit that Theo had given me. I took some droplets of the liquid and dropped them on the medallion. Two lines showed up, meaning there were drugs in the tea. As the paper around it unfolded, I realized there was even more evidence than I’d thought.
Now to get out unseen. Before I could make a move to go, I heard someone coming up the stairs. There was no escape and I considered hiding under the sheets in the storage room, but then I wasn’t alone anymore.
‘What you doing here?’ a voice demanded as someone strode into the room. I tried to shield the cup from view, but it was too late. ‘Where’d that come from?’ And a hand made a grab for it.
I had been so focused on it being Michael or Jennifer, I hadn’t considered who else had made a visit to the workroom. ‘So it was you,’ I said. The adrenalin was making my mind click and suddenly I understood the motive. ‘It was about money, wasn’t it?’
‘Shut up,’ Sophia said. ‘There’s no reason for anything to change. And with you out of the way, nothing will.’ She seemed in panic mode and grabbed something off the table as she glared at me. ‘You’re an intruder and I’m just trying to protect myself.’ Her voice was low as if she was reasoning with herself. That’s when I noticed that she’d picked up an artist’s utility knife. The razor blade stuck out of the end as she stepped closer and waved it near my face before she moved it down toward my neck. I didn’t want to think about what damage a swipe at my carotid artery would do. I was horrified to realize I was cornered with no way to get past her.
There was a momentary standoff as she seemed to be preparing herself for the attack. What she’d done to Maeve was more passive; she’d probably waited until Maeve had passed out from the drugs before she suffocated her. Slashing me would take a different sort of mindset. I took advantage of the pause to search the room for some kind of help. Just as Sophia seemed ready to use the knife on me, there was a clatter of footsteps on the stairs. Instinctively, she turned her head toward the sound and in that moment I made my move and grabbed the back of one of the wheeled chairs. I pulled it close to me, planning to use it as a shield to keep her a distance. She turned back and, in a panicked move, lunged toward me. I blocked her with the chair and steered it in a dance that kept her at bay. In a last move, I gave it a push, hoping to hit her in the knees. She tried to step out of the way, but wasn’t fast enough and it rammed into her leg, throwing her off balance. She tried to right herself as she made another lunge toward me, but her foot caught on one of the wheels. Her short skirt fluttered upward as she fell backwards and landed with a thud into the seat.
‘What’s going on?’ a shrill voice demanded, as a woman walked up the last step and stared at the two of us. There was no mistaking the too-thin eyebrows and the too-short dress.
‘Ass— I mean Ashleigh?’ I said in surprise.
‘You better get over there with her,’ Sophia said, waving the knife at us as she tried to stand. But instead of getting out of the chair, she squealed in pain. Her eyes widened. ‘What the …’
It took me a moment to figure out what was going on, and then I remembered how my attempt at fixing the cup handle had turned out. ‘So, sorry,’ I said in mock concern. ‘I forgot that I spilled Sukey’s Super Stick in the chair. As I recall, the catchphrase claims it never dries out and bonds anything together, permanently. I guess that means skin, too.’
Undaunted, Sophia tried to wheel the chair closer to me with her hand outstretched as she tried to slash me. I moved away and she tried to roll the chair after me.
There were more footsteps and a barking dog, as Jankowski reached the top step with Drexel nipping at his pant leg. Michael and Suzzanna came up just behind him. ‘Arrest her,’ Michael said, pointing at me. ‘I told you there was an intruder.’
Jankowski looked over the scene and shook his head. Drexel, seeing his mistress, ran to her and jumped in her lap.
The detective’s eyes settled on me. ‘Why don’t you start by explaining what you’re doing here,’ he said.
‘Don’t listen to her,’ Sophia said. She looked at the artist’s knife in her hand. ‘That’s right, she’s an intruder.’ She glared at Ashleigh. ‘That must be her sidekick.’
Jankowski momentarily turned his attention to Sophia. ‘Don’t worry. You’ll get your chance to tell your version,’ he said.
He turned back to me. ‘The floor is yours, Ms Blackstone.’
‘She killed Maeve Winslow,’ I said, looking directly at Sophia. ‘She drugged her tea and then suffocated her with …’ I looked around the room and saw a plastic trash bag. ‘Probably something like that. And then she pushed her down the stairs, so it would look like she fell. You know she didn’t die from the fall,’ I said. ‘There was almost no blood from the gash on her head, meaning she was dead before she fell.’
His expression didn’t give a hint of his thoughts. ‘Conjecture is fine, but where’s the evidence?’ he said.
‘That’s what I came here for,’ I said, pointing to the cup with the paper around it. I hesitated, wondering how to explain. Finally, I simply told the truth about moving the cup and the paper to cover that I’d broken the handle. ‘I didn’t realize it was evidence,’ I said. ‘My plan was to put it back and somehow get you back here to look at it.’ He looked in the bottom of the cup and saw there was some liquid. I offered him the kit I had and he begrudgingly used it and saw the results.
‘That’s OK for now, but we’ll have to redo the test in the lab for it to mean anything official,’ he said.
‘If you want to see who was here with Maeve, just look at the paper,’ I said.
He used a pencil to open it wider and glanced over it. ‘It’s just a bunch of doodles,’ he said.
‘Yeah, made with fingerprints.’
From the corner of my eye, I saw Sophia flinch and try to hide her hands. A spark of interest flared in Jankowski’s face, despite his best effort to keep a neutral countenance. ‘And I suppose you know her motive,’ he said. A uniformed officer came up the stairs just then.
I waved for Jankowski to follow me, and he told the officer to keep everyone in place. Michael pushed around the detective and tried to stop us. ‘There’s nothing in there,’ he said as he made a move to shepherd us back into the main room.
‘I beg to differ,’ I said. Jankowski looked from the artist to me.
‘Why would you listen to her?’ Michael said, blocking the way. ‘Besides, you don’t have a warrant.’ He sounded desperate by now.
‘This is clearly a crime scene,’ the detective said. ‘I need to make sure there aren’t any victims in there.’
Jankowski stepped around him and went into the storage room. I began to peel off the sheets. There were Scotty pictures all over the room, with one in progress on an easel. I pointed to the signature on one of the paintings. ‘It’s just initials,’ I said. ‘It looks like an M and an A or it could be an M with a W leaning against it.’
Jankowski looked at the initials and then shrugged. ‘I don’t get it. What are you trying to say?’
‘Maeve is the one who did the paintings.’ I still had the photograph in my pocket and pulled it out and showed him the picture of the short-haired kid next to the Scottish terrier. ‘When I first saw this, I thought it was Michael Angel with the dog, but when I looked at the back, in tiny writing it said: Seven-year-old Maeve with her best friend Monty.’
Jankowski still didn’t seem to be getting it, and I had to explain that Michael always told the story that the dog had been his inspiration.
‘He stole her story. She was the artist, but he took the credit,’ I said when Jankowski still seemed confused.
When I looked back, Michael had his hands over his face and was shaking his head in despair.
‘Assuming that’s true, how does she come in?’ We’d rejoined the others and Jankowski’s gaze had settled on Sophia.
I again explained what I’d been hired to do and the notes that Maeve had given me. ‘Maeve said in one of them that everything would have been different if she hadn’t gone for sandwiches that day at the art fair. The day that everything changed. I misunderstood at first. I thought she meant if she hadn’t gone for sandwiches, she would have been there to witness the moment that changed everything, but she meant something else entirely. If she had been there, everything really would have been different. Then she would have been there when Sophia and Zander admired the painting of The Scotty in the Sleeping Garden and wanted to buy it. Zander was no fool and knew that the copyright stayed with the artist even when a painting sold. They’d already come up with a plan to market merchandise connected to her YouTube show, using the painting that so resembled her dog co-star. Since Michael was the only one in the booth, he went along with their assumption that he was the artist. He was so glad to have the sale and at more than the asking price, that he gladly wrote something down giving them the copyright.’ I paused and looked at the detective. ‘But it wasn’t his to give away because Maeve was the artist.
‘And they kept the ruse going. I gather that Maeve was OK with it, which meant so much to Michael. He wanted to be a star artist, and he was better at playing the part than she was. Maeve had hinted there was going to be a big disclosure at the end of the book. She was going to tell me about it when we got there, but she said I might figure it out on my own. Sophia must have realized what Maeve was going to do. She was going to disclose that Michael wasn’t the real artist, just when the national prize-winner was announced, causing him the utmost embarrassment. I don’t know how much Sophia made from selling all that merchandise that she didn’t have the right to sell but, aside from whatever legal action there was, Sophia would have to pay back whatever she’d made to the real copyright owner, Maeve.’
Sophia interrupted with a wail. ‘It’s all his fault,’ she said pointing at Michael. ‘How was I supposed to know that he lied? Maeve was going to ruin everything. Make it so he’d never get that prize even if he won. She said I had no right to sell all that merchandise. I tried to get her to leave things as they were, but she was too angry. I acted like I understood and agreed to meet her up here so we could talk it over.’ Sophia cut herself off then, realizing she had already said too much.
‘And I suppose you know why the victim wanted to ruin her husband,’ Jankowski said to me.
‘That was in the notes, too. She’d been able to deal with his short-term relationships, but when he got involved with one woman, she snapped.’
I saw that Jennifer had joined the crowd and she glowered as her gaze stopped on me.
‘I suspect it had to do with her own guilty feelings of meeting him when he was married to someone else. Despite her charm and those dimples, she was a woman on a mission.’ I looked at the group of them in the attic. ‘Isn’t it amazing how easily everybody dismissed Maeve as just being an art teacher and not an artist. But even now, women artists still don’t get their due.’
The detective appeared tired, and I was sure he would have loved a cup of coffee. He had written down a bunch of notes and he turned his attention on Ashleigh. ‘How does she fit in?’ he asked, looking at me.
Before I could speak, Ashleigh took over. ‘I’m here because of her,’ she said, pointing at me. ‘I was following her to see what she was up to so I could tell Ben.’ She glared at me. ‘Ben and I are still married and I need her to bud out.’ She glanced around the group and held up her hands, showing off the silver nail polish with pearl pieces attached. ‘Trailing her was easy. I was going to be a cop if I hadn’t gone into nails. I’m hard as nails,’ she said, striking a tough pose. I wanted to tell her that the cliché wasn’t referring to the nails on your hand, but it didn’t seem the time. ‘She has to understand that we are back together. We’re going to do the whole thing this time – a house, a dog, kids. He’s too soft to tell her. It was up to me to let her know that he’s gone from that writing thing she roped him into.’ She stepped closer to me, looking me in the eye. ‘I mean, really, did you think he’d stick with you when he could have this.’ She did that move of waving her hand in front of her face, meant to highlight her attributes. ‘Just look at her nails.’ She grabbed my hand and held it up for them all to see. ‘No polish, not even buffed.’ Her eyes went skyward, as if my nail condition was that horrendous, before her glance moved around to the rest of them, apparently expecting them to nod in agreement.
