Arts and Thefts Read online

  “I’m not a thief. I’m—” Larissa sighed. “I’m a thief.”

  I thought hard. Larissa was guilty. She’d put Case in a bad situation. By all rights, I should help Becca catch her and bring her to justice. But Becca was under pressure, and I’d seen what uptight Becca did to people she thought were guilty. Even after everything, Larissa didn’t deserve that. She was just trying to help her sister.

  I had to make all the hard decisions!

  “As soon as you can, get those paints from Case and give the paints and brushes back to Heather,” I said. “You might stay out of trouble if you end this.”

  Larissa nodded. She stood up. “What about Becca?”

  I stood up, feeling heavy and sore. “I’ll talk to her. See what I can do to get her to drop the case.”

  “Thank you!” Larissa threw her arms around me. Then she pulled away, looking at the water on her arms and the dust smears on my nice blue shirt. “Sorry. I’ll give everything back. I was going to do it anyway. I’m going to go get cleaned up.”

  She stood and I raised a hand. “Wait.” Something had been bothering me. “You said if Quinn’s real painting were revealed, it would be like ‘Aaron Baxter all over again.’ What do you mean by that?”

  “You don’t know?”

  “I know he got laughed out of the contest last year because he’s a finger painter, and I get why you wouldn’t want that for your sister, but it doesn’t seem worth stealing art supplies over.”

  Larissa gaped at me. “You don’t know, then? What happened next?”

  I shook my head and she continued, “Aaron’s art was pretty good, and the judges liked it. But then word got around that it was finger painted, and other painters started talking about how finger painting wasn’t real art, that it was just like what you do in kindergarten. Kids laughed, and the judges weren’t supposed to listen to that kind of thing, but they heard what the painters said and it might have affected their judgment. Aaron didn’t win the Best Painting prize because of the reputation he got for being a finger painter. But that wasn’t the worst of it.”

  “Then what was?”

  “Nobody let it go, not really. Aaron doesn’t get invited to parties with other painters anymore. He wasn’t at Heather’s party, and that’s nothing new. He goes to Burdick, but even I’ve heard things. Other painters snickering when he walks into a room, not sitting with him at lunch. Someone even put preschool toys in his backpack when he wasn’t looking.”

  My skin tingled. Aaron had been robbed of the prize last year, embarrassed by his method of art. He’d become a pariah in the art community, all thanks to other painters mocking his unique painting style.

  I remembered the box of art supplies sitting next to Aaron, full of paints and markers of all kinds. Aaron was also an employee and might know the judges’ routes, and a finger painter would be practiced enough to swipe a sponge-laden hand across a painting before anyone could notice it.

  What had Aaron said to Lee? I deserve just as much respect as you. And with all I’m learning, I’m going to get that respect.

  Motive . . . means . . . opportunity. It all fit. Could it be that he was targeting the artists now, especially the painters, to get revenge?

  Larissa waited a moment as I thought, then smiled, waved, and left for the bathroom. I groaned and brushed at the new dust she’d left behind. I needed to clean up too. And, while I was at it, I needed to figure out what to say to Becca to convince her to drop Heather’s case without implicating Larissa. I figured my new information about Aaron might be distracting enough.

  AFTER BEATING AND RINSING EVERYTHING I could out of my pants in the bathroom, then hiding the wet plaid shirt and the ball cap behind the bathroom trash can, I left to find Becca. Did I have any idea what to do or say? Kind of. I couldn’t wait to tell her about how Aaron was our guy. I didn’t look forward to discussing how I was wrong about Quinn, especially since there really was a guilty Eccles sister the evidence could point to.

  I liked Larissa. Something about her reminded me of myself when I was just starting out.

  I couldn’t find Becca anywhere. I returned to the scenes of both sabotages: nothing. I wandered the park as fast as I could, looking for her. Still no Becca. I even visited the Contestants’ Tent in case she was questioning people. I considered looking for Aaron, but honestly, finding Becca would be easier, and with her help, finding Aaron would be a cakewalk.

  Where is she? I thought, skulking near the help office. I had gone there in case Becca was visiting her mother, but I didn’t see Becca. Granted, she could be in disguise, but give me some credit: I’d spotted her following me after a particularly bizarre job involving a pep rally and five cans of spray cheese, and the halls had been crowded then. Worse than the paths today. Besides, would she really disguise herself when talking to her mom? Maybe. I didn’t know what kind of weird family habits had spawned the creature known as Becca Mills.

  As I was imagining Detective Mills Senior reading bedtime case files to a preschool-aged Becca, I saw her. Becca, I mean. She emerged from the help office, but not from the front where I was watching. She came around from the back. Oh, crap.

  When Becca saw me, she waved me over. I threw a glance at the building to make sure Becca’s mom wasn’t watching, and then I ran over.

  “What happened to you?” Becca asked as I followed her around back to the storage room. She sounded better, more like her old self. She must have found some evidence.

  “What do you mean?”

  She gestured at my soaked shorts. “I’d comment, but it’s too easy. I don’t know if I should start on the stains or the water.”

  “Definitely the stains. That’s where my mom’s going to start.” I sighed. “There were complications.”

  Becca smiled but didn’t say anything.

  “Aren’t you going to ask what kind of complications?”

  “So you can brag about your exploits? No way. Besides, I just talked to my mom. She had such interesting things to say.”

  “Oh. Was this a friendly visit, or did you find evidence for her?”

  Becca rested one hand against the brick wall and grinned at me. “Friendly, at first. But then she told me the neighbor kid came strolling into the office to see the sabotaged paintings. Had the worst possible excuse for being there too.”

  Ouch. “I’m sure the excuse wasn’t that terrible.”

  “And if that weren’t enough, Mom got sent on a false tip and then, right as she got back to the office, the air ducts started to play music. They didn’t find anyone; they think someone put a phone too close to a vent and no one wants to own up. But Mom thought it was interesting, and so do I. No evidence, but I know someone who is very good at not leaving anything behind.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Before you bring out the handcuffs and pepper spray, please remember who hired me for this particular job.”

  “Yes.” Becca’s eyes turned steely. “While I’m glad you listened to me and didn’t get caught, after all that trouble, you’d better have gotten what I asked you for.”

  “Relax.” I pulled the bag out, complete with its sample of paint. “I got it.”

  “Don’t wave that around!” Becca snatched the bag from me and, hunching over it, examined it. “Excellent. I’ll give it to Liesl to analyze.”

  “Who’s Liesl?”

  “A friend. The one who likes to hang around in the science rooms.”

  “Who?”

  Becca stared at me. “How is it I know all about your friends and you know nothing about mine?”

  “I don’t follow you around.”

  Becca rolled her eyes and went back to examining the paint.

  “You seem a lot happier than earlier,” I said. “I take it that means there haven’t been any new sabotages?”

  “Nothing. I think they saw the police working on the case and got scared. But that’s not the only reason I’m smiling.”

  “You made a break in the case?”

  “You could
say that. Come with me.”

  Becca pulled open the door to the back storage room. Feeling like ants were crawling under my clothes, I followed Becca into the room—the same one I had just vacated with Larissa. The grate from the air vent was still off, and the painting Larissa had thrown at me was where I’d set it, leaning against the wall. The hamsters looked up at me with evil eyes, like they were saying, “I know you stole that sample, thief.” I didn’t think they would accept the term “retrieval specialist.”

  Becca glanced at the grate, grinned at me, and tossed me a screwdriver. I caught it and then climbed the grill again. Within moments, the grate was relatively well fastened to the wall. Then I jumped down. “Tell me you didn’t bring me in here just to do that.”

  “You’re the one who takes pride in not leaving evidence.”

  “That wasn’t me. It was—like that when I got here.” At the last minute, I decided I didn’t want to bring Larissa up. Not yet.

  Becca looked up at the grate. “Huh. Then why’d you go fix it?”

  “Because whether I did it or not, it looks suspicious.” I am as smooth as freshly made chocolate milk.

  “Uh-huh. Anyway, I came back here to make sure someone wasn’t in any trouble, and I found something. You were right; something isn’t quite aboveground with Quinn Eccles.”

  Beaming, Becca picked up Quinn’s painting and brought it over to me.

  “After you told me Quinn’s painting was weird, I went and checked it out. The painting hanging there wasn’t the same one I saw there earlier when I first ran into you.”

  “Oh, is that what you’re calling it these days?”

  Becca glared at me over the painting, then broke into a smile. “So I went searching for it. This storage room is so close to where Quinn’s painting was supposed to be, and it was unlocked. Odd on a day when the park has something more interesting to offer than a cookout or a volleyball game. Imagine my surprise when I found this just waiting for me. Now, why would a painting be here?”

  “I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation.”

  “Sure,” Becca said, flipping the painting around to look at it. “And I’m a six-foot grizzly bear who likes tabletop role-playing games. This is it, Wilderson. This is the evidence I need. Why would an adult trade out a child’s painting, especially when the saboteur’s method is to slather it with paint? A kid, like Quinn, would have a different reason. Here’s what I think: she decided she wanted insurance against her partner sabotaging her painting, given that she was a painter and they were targeting painters, so she swapped it for the one that’s out there now. When the judges come by—and she’ll know when, thanks to her mom—she’ll put this one back.”

  That was exactly what I had thought before Larissa had told me the truth. It didn’t mean Quinn wasn’t guilty of something, but now, after hearing the other side of the story, I doubted it. “I don’t think that’s what happened.”

  Becca tucked the painting under an arm and tilted her head at me. “Right. Like that wasn’t what you were getting at every time you said Quinn was our culprit. Do you think it happened another way?”

  “I don’t think it happened at all. I don’t think it’s Quinn anymore.”

  “Even seeing this?” She rolled her eyes. “Stop messing with me. I get it; you were right. Too confident to be innocent. I can’t believe I didn’t spot it before.”

  Becca tapped my shoulder. “Guess I should have trusted my partner more, huh?”

  Oh, this was bad. As much as I wanted to support Becca in her ideas, I didn’t want to send her on the warpath to an innocent artist. Even if Becca didn’t attack Quinn like she had Case, Quinn could be out of the running, shamed by the officials, possibly banned from competing in next year’s or any other year’s contest. Not to mention, the real saboteur would still be out there.

  I took the painting from Becca and put it back against the wall. “This isn’t the evidence you need,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

  Becca’s smile fell into a scowl. “What do you mean? Look at it. It’s incriminating. When matched with Quinn’s proximity to a judge and her confidence despite the large prize, it tells a pretty clear story.”

  “Not as clear as you might think.”

  Her eyes flashed. “What did you do?”

  “Nothing! I swear, I just did what you asked me to. And I also found something better than a painting in a closet. I have the identity of one of the saboteurs.”

  “I do too. Quinn Eccles.”

  Weird the way things change. Now Becca was trying to convince me of the same thing I’d worked so hard to convince her of not that long ago. Her mood was souring; I needed to give her something good. I plunged ahead. “It’s Aaron Baxter. He’s one of our saboteurs.”

  Becca frowned. “The guy who got us into the tent?”

  “Yep. Last year he entered a finger-painted work into the contest. Everyone laughed at him and said he wasn’t a real artist, and it cost him the Best Painting win. During the past year, the other painters at his school kept teasing him about it. It got bad. Now, this summer, Aaron is working as a volunteer at the contest. Perks for employees? Access to the tent, which we saw firsthand, inside information on where the judges will be during the day, and a supply of paints and markers that could be used for making snow-cone signs or, I don’t know, sabotaging paintings.”

  Becca nodded. “It’s a good theory. Aaron would have motive and means to sabotage the art. And only paintings have been attacked so far. That would suggest a grudge. But we don’t know where he was when Diana’s painting was attacked.”

  “Doesn’t matter. We know the two paintings were attacked by two different people. If Aaron got Justin’s piece, his partner must have attacked Diana’s.”

  “Then we have our suspects,” Becca said, stone-faced. “Both of them. We’ll go talk to Aaron and then we’ll bring Quinn in too.”

  I shook my head. “You were right earlier. Quinn is innocent. We should focus our attention on Aaron.”

  “Aaron isn’t working alone. Lee isn’t his partner, because he has an alibi, so that leaves us with Quinn.”

  I tried to find some proof that kept Quinn clear of accusation. “No one reported seeing Quinn at Diana’s sabotage. I asked.”

  “You asked one person. Just because Diana didn’t see Quinn, doesn’t mean she wasn’t there.”

  “The marks on the paintings are marker, not paint. Quinn didn’t have a marker.”

  “But Aaron does, if he has access to all the contest’s art supplies. I think he’d be willing to lend it to his partner, don’t you?”

  I started to pace the small room. “There must have been someone else there.”

  “The evidence is piling up against Quinn,” Becca said. “I think it’s time to bring her down for this.” “The way you tried to bring down Case?” I glared at her. “I saw it. There was no mercy there.”

  “The only reason you care about ‘mercy’ is because Case is your friend. You were just as happy to tear down Mark as I was.”

  That touched a nerve. “Mark was different. He took joy in being a terrible person. He stole because he wanted to be a thief. He deserved to go down for his actions. Quinn doesn’t.”

  Becca squared her shoulders. “Quinn is a saboteur. In the end, she’s no better than Mark.”

  “You’re kidding yourself.”

  “And for a minute there, I thought we were all on the same page,” Becca spat. “Would it kill you, just once, to support my ideas?”

  “I do support your ideas.”

  “Sure. No matter what I say, you say I’m wrong. Quinn is evil, Quinn is good. Make up your mind. And now I can’t even stop a criminal without you criticizing me.”

  That annoyed me. “I’m sorry to shatter your world-view, but I’ve had experience dealing with criminals, maybe as much as you have. Have you ever thought about why I never turn in the names of the thieves I retrieve from?”

  That got her attention. She leaned against a child-size
soccer goal, wearing an “impress me” expression.

  Feeling suddenly very exposed, I said quietly, “I’ve seen things, even before I became a retrieval specialist. Not everyone who makes a bad decision is a bad person. Not everyone who does something wrong deserves to be treated like a criminal.”

  Becca straightened up. “This is personal for you, right? You don’t want to be seen as a criminal. I got that, with all the stupid ‘retrieval specialist’ talk. Too bad you are a criminal and ‘retrieval specialist’ is just a fancy term for thief—”

  “This isn’t about me!” I took a deep breath. “And let’s not pretend this isn’t personal for you, too.”

  She stiffened. “I want to stop a saboteur—two of them, actually—before they hurt someone else. How is that personal?”

  “So none of this is about you proving to your mom that you were right?”

  Becca looked livid. “This is about helping people.”

  “Is it? If Quinn broke the rules,” I said, “and I’m not saying she did, we have to consider that she did it with a good reason. Five hundred plus a scholarship? She’s stressed and doing what she thinks she has to. How are you going to help her?”

  Becca’s mouth dropped open. “You’re judging me.”

  I felt knocked back. “Of course not.”

  “Yes, you are. Really? Me? When Quinn is clearly the bad guy?”

  Oh boy. “Do we know that? Do we even know if Quinn did anything wrong?”

  Becca laughed. “Understandable. Right. No doubt right now you’re taking Quinn’s side because she’s one of you. A criminal. I shouldn’t have trusted you with this case.”

  That hurt after I’d chosen her over my friends earlier in the air duct. “I have been nothing but trustworthy all day.”

  She shrugged. “You did what I asked, but you didn’t do it for me. You did it because you enjoy being a thief.”

  “Not true, and also, retrieval specialist.”

  “Don’t quibble. A thief is a thief.”

  “Except when they’re not.” I threw my head back and groaned to the dusty ceiling. “You don’t get it. You’ve never gotten it. In your mind, every criminal is a totally depraved bad egg. A mustache-twirling, black-hat villain. Look at me. See a mustache?” I stuck my face up in hers and enjoyed her uncomfortable expression as I violated her personal bubble.