Arts and Thefts Read online

  “I’ve seen Quinn around,” Case said. “She’s in my art class. Shy, keeps to herself.”

  Larissa nodded. “That sounds like Quinn. She’s going to be vice president of the Art Club next year, though. Art really is her comfort zone.”

  Huh. I was starting to wonder if Lee’s relationship with Quinn was of the long-distance variety. That seemed about right.

  “That’s impressive,” Case said.

  “Two painters, huh?” I said. “Sounds like you and your sister have a lot in common. Maybe we’ll see your work in this contest next year.”

  Larissa blushed. “Oh, no. I don’t really like competing. I’ll just support Quinn again next year.”

  “Does she need support?” I twisted the corner of a napkin between my fingers. “I mean, there are a lot of good artists here. Does Quinn have a chance at winning the contest? In your professional opinion, as a painter.”

  Larissa picked at the paint specks around her nails. “She might. But you’re right: there are so many talented artists here. I think it’s good that she’s not counting on a win. Just a feeling, but I don’t think this is her year.” She smiled at Case. “It could be yours, though. I saw that beachscape you did; it has class.”

  “Well, I always try to keep it classy,” Case said, leaning back in his chair. There was a creak, a garbled squeak, and then Case crashed to the floor.

  Hack and I burst out laughing.

  “Very classy,” I said.

  As Hack soothed a mortified Case and I picked up the fallen chair, I mulled over the conversation. Quinn seemed well adjusted and confident, if a little quiet, but her own sister didn’t think she was a contender for the top prize. Why would she be so confident if she didn’t have a chance of winning?

  She would if she knew something we didn’t. And Lee had looked at her.

  The commotion of the falling chair had attracted attention. I scanned the tent to see kids laughing (Mia and Brielle among them) and Case’s parents peeking over to make sure their oldest child wasn’t hurt before going back to their conversation.

  There were Lee and Ethan, talking to Quinn. They glanced over briefly, Lee’s face lighting up with smug cheer at Case apparently embarrassing himself. What a jerk.

  And there was Becca, searching the room. I should have guessed. There had been a crash, a commotion. It would have made a great distraction for some kind of criminal to slip away under her nose, and she knew that. Her eyes were wide and she was starting to redden with anger. Suddenly I realized it was me she was looking for, and she couldn’t find me because, without my costume, I wasn’t as conspicuous as a circus clown at a high schooler’s birthday party. Great.

  Again, nice to know the disguises had worked. But I needed to meet up with her soon, or I’d be off the job. And possibly in a lot of pain.

  “Nice to meet you, gotta run,” I said to Larissa, and waved at Case and Hack.

  “Becca?” Hack asked, and I nodded.

  “We’ll smokescreen,” Case said.

  “No, you won’t. Leave her alone. I’ve got this.” The last thing I needed was my friends taking out their anxiety on Becca.

  Hack waved. “Get out of here.”

  I nodded at him. “Thanks.” Then I bolted back to the refreshments table, sliding out of sight.

  “Who’s Becca?” I heard Larissa ask.

  “A nightmare,” Case replied.

  My stomach twisted as I sorted through the pile of clothes that made up Disguise Number One. I hated deceiving my best friends. Again. But I was doing this for them, and they wouldn’t understand the details. I had no choice.

  No sooner had I replaced the buttons in my shoe and the shoe on my foot than I saw a pair of mismatched feet right in front of my face. Becca.

  I waited, again with bated breath (maybe it has something to do with the word abate?) as Becca stepped by. Now she was a few feet to my left. Quietly I slipped out from under the table and stood behind her. I grabbed a plate and filled it with a stack of four brownies.

  “I’d offer you one, but you strike me as a lemon bar person,” I said.

  Becca spun around and saw me there, in my poncho, hat, and sunglasses, leaning against the table so close to the lemon bars my snotty costume brushed the plate’s edge.

  “Me, I’m more of a brownie guy.” I took a bite of one of them and grinned, mouth full.

  “Where have you been?”

  “No need to snap at me. You were the one who ran off.” I took another bite.

  “I was looking for you. Were you behind that crash? Your crook friends help you?”

  “I was right there behind you. Huh. Makes a good metaphor for us. Me there, behind you, the whole time.”

  “That’s creepy.”

  I thought about it. “Yeah, a little. Anyway, I needed to talk to you.”

  “About what?”

  “Not here. Too many eyes.” Four of them belonged to friends who would know me if they looked too close. They might think I was just messing with Becca, but only for a few minutes. After that, they’d have too many questions.

  Becca grabbed my arm and pulled me out of the tent, safely away from my friends.

  In and out, safe and undetected, with a few strong suspects, information on the changed prize, and holding a plate of brownies covered in chocolate icing. Not bad for my first interrogation session. I was getting good at this gumshoe stuff.

  OUTSIDE THE TENT, I PULLED Becca to a shed that held the park’s landscaping and maintenance tools so we could stash our disguises until we needed them again. Sure, Case and Hack might see me walking around with my archnemesis, but the odds weren’t good, as they would be enjoying the art show or the cool of the tent, and I’d be sneaking around, catching a criminal. Besides, it wasn’t worth wearing the poncho in the hot, humid summer’s day when I could duck behind a wall for a few seconds. I’d just have to be vigilant.

  “Keep an eye out,” I told Becca outside the toolshed. “I’ll see if it’s locked.”

  If you’ve been following my adventures, you’ll know by now that as far as I’m concerned, no door is locked. But what Becca didn’t know couldn’t hurt me.

  A few minutes later, I tucked away my lockpick set and waved Becca in. “Time for debriefing,” she said, tossing her orange hat onto a lawnmower.

  “Debriefing? I want out of this costume as much as you do, but that seems a bit extreme,” I said, taking off my hat and sunglasses.

  “Don’t be gross. It means telling each other what we found out,” Becca said, giving me a death glare. “Like you explaining to me how you spent your time. Please say you did something productive.” She pulled the muumuu off, and I took the opportunity, while she wasn’t watching, to stash the plaid shirt and ball cap inside an empty plastic bucket.

  As I took off the poncho (finally), Becca grabbed one of my brownies and started nibbling it.

  “No, sure, go ahead. What’s mine is yours.” I tossed the poncho over the bucket, hiding my second disguise from view.

  “That’s the point, partner.” Becca winked.

  I was torn between telling her never to call me that and playing it up to annoy her, but decided against both. Time to reveal the big information.

  “I know why all the contestants are acting like this is a fight to the death instead of an art contest,” I said. That made her pay attention.

  “And that is?”

  “A bigger prize. A much bigger prize. The winner of Best Overall gets the picture, art supplies, and display, as well as five hundred dollars plus a scholarship for an art camp at the Harris Art Academy.”

  Becca looked like she’d swallowed a whole lemon. “That explains a lot.”

  No kidding. “I think you’re right about this sabotage thing. I also think we’re looking for more than one thief.”

  She tilted her head. “Are you sure?”

  “I wouldn’t say it if I wasn’t.”

  Becca rubbed her chin. “It’s possible. The evidence at Heather’s was p
retty well disturbed by the time I got to the crime scene. Heather had brought friends to her room before discovering the theft, and they’d walked everywhere and touched things. All I could determine is that there was a theft and what specifically was stolen, not how many thieves there were. Two people could have easily done it.”

  “Or maybe one person stole the brushes and paints and the other acted as lookout,” I said.

  “What got you started on the two-thief theory?” Becca asked. She stuck the last bite of brownie in her mouth.

  I took off my shoe to tip the buttons out. “I talked to this kid, Lee Moffat. He’s here with his friend Ethan. He’s also one of the only contestants in the tent who isn’t freaking out.”

  Becca tilted her head as she slid the mismatched shoes off her feet. “The one with the bow tie who hangs around with the guy with the long hair?”

  “That’s Lee and Ethan.”

  “And he told you there’re two thieves?” Becca asked.

  “No, but he was way too confident to be innocent.”

  “Confidence isn’t proof of guilt. If it were, you’d be hiding a million crimes. Oh, wait.”

  “Before you can take another shot at my effective methods for fighting crime in Scottsville, could you let me finish?” Becca folded her arms and waited, so I continued. “Consider the new-and-improved prize. Now think about what that much confidence means. I’ve never seen confidence like that, and I eat lunch with Case on a daily basis.”

  Becca smiled. “Case didn’t seem all that confident to me earlier.”

  “He pulls this Jekyll-and-Hyde when he’s in a contest. On any other day, he’d say he’s the best artist in the state.”

  “I’m guessing Lee would take exception.”

  “Oh yeah. And he wouldn’t break. I tried everything to stir up some real emotion. Prying, trigger words, telling him I heard the judges talking about their favorites and none were him. And you should have heard him talk to Ethan. He was such a jerk.”

  “A jerk? Oh, call the presses. We have a break in the case.”

  “It’s not nothing,” I shot back. “But you’re right. It’s not much. I couldn’t crack that confidence.” I laughed. “Confidence? I mean arrogance.”

  Becca thought about it. “Okay, but none of that’s necessarily proof of criminal activity for one person or two. He could just be delusional in his belief that he’s the best artist here.”

  Are you kidding me? That kind of confidence belongs to criminals alone. But Becca didn’t know that; she spent most of her time talking to victims and witnesses. Narrowing down a list. For me, the list is always one person: the culprit.

  I sighed. “Maybe, if it were just one person. But when you have two people behaving out of the ordinary, you have a problem.”

  “What do you mean?”

  I chewed my lip, considering my situation. “Permission to speak freely?”

  “Granted. Are you trying to be exasperating?”

  “I just want to make sure that I can bring my expertise into this without consequence. Remember, I may have asked to join your job—”

  “Case.”

  I stopped. “What about him?”

  “No, I mean it’s a case, not a job.”

  “Whatever. But you let me help because I know about thieves better than you do. I just want to be able to draw on the lessons I learned from . . . past experience without you going all Batman on me.”

  Becca smiled. I think she was imagining herself as Batman. Then she shoved me. “If you have evidence, give it over. Even if it’s based on your dark past.”

  I straightened. “In my past work I’ve dealt with lots of people who have committed a crime. Some of them act guilty the way you’d expect, sure, hiding and looking over their shoulder. But for some, committing a crime has a certain amount of fun.”

  Becca grinned. “Sounds like someone I know.”

  “I’ll admit I enjoy the occasional jump from a window,” I said, smiling at her. I knew from experience she did too. She’d glowed after we’d leaped from Mark’s bedroom window.

  Becca didn’t react, so I continued. “But that’s not what I mean. Some criminals love the feeling of knowing something no one else does. Most, though, love it even more if they have someone to share it with. If you know what to look for, you can figure out who your suspect is sharing his crime with.”

  “And you know what to look for.”

  I shrugged. “I get jobs where kids give the stolen item to a friend to hold. It’s just easier if I can spot the connections and go to the right hiding place first.”

  Becca paced and nodded, processing my information. “So you think Lee is confident because he knows he will win—”

  “Because he is planning to sabotage the favorites.”

  “But you don’t think he’s the one who stole the brushes.”

  I nodded. “Lee is a sculptor. You said the thief had an insider’s knowledge on which brushes to steal.”

  Becca nodded. “Lee would know which brushes to steal if he were in cahoots with a painter.”

  “Exactly. Or, the painter steals the brushes and Lee stands guard.”

  “So, brilliant reader of human connections, who do you think his partner in crime is?”

  “Again with the sarcasm. When I was questioning Lee, he gave a quick glance at this one girl. Quinn.”

  Becca stiffened. “Quinn Eccles? The quiet girl from school?”

  “How many girls named Quinn could there be in this town?”

  “I talked to her. She seemed honest. Not glowing with self-confidence but well adjusted. She told me she was okay not winning this year because she’d try again next year. She seemed sincere. It isn’t her.”

  “Her sister said the same thing. It sounds like a story to me. Nobody is that well adjusted, not when everyone else is falling to pieces. Again, five hundred dollars is at stake. And why would Lee look at her when I asked him if he had any friends other than Ethan with him?”

  “Maybe he likes her.”

  “It’s possible.” More than possible, actually. “But it’s more than that. I saw them talking in the tent before we left.”

  “Maybe they’re friends.”

  “Then why haven’t they been hanging out together? If I were free to do as I pleased, I’d be spending the day with my friends.”

  “She’s a girl. Maybe he feels awkward.”

  “But not too awkward to chat with her in front of everyone?”

  “It could be complicated.” Becca rubbed her forehead. “Look, I’m not saying Lee’s not worth looking into. Just that Quinn is honest. I talked to her, remember? I think I know what a criminal looks like.”

  “So did I, before the whole Mark incident. Anyone can get played.”

  Becca raised a hand. “Watch it. I agree that we should look into Lee, if only because we need to start somewhere. But I don’t agree with the two-thief idea. It’s too complicated.”

  I was about to protest, but she had a point. One thief made more sense, logically. And hating Lee didn’t automatically make him a criminal, no matter how much I wished it did.

  But still. “My hunches are usually good. At the very least it’s a place to start.”

  “Agreed,” Becca said. “Why would he steal brushes, though? Couldn’t he use some other method of sabotage?”

  “Maybe he stole brushes to throw the blame onto a painter or as some kind of statement. He really seemed to hate painters, when I talked to him.”

  Becca nodded. “That could give us motive. But remember, sabotage was a hypothesis, not a proven fact,” Becca said. “Maybe Lee is just an unpleasant person. We have to consider all possibilities.”

  That was technically true; the sabotage angle was just a guess. If there was no saboteur, though, why was I spending this time with Becca when I could be hanging out with Case and Hack?

  I guess Becca noticed my internal conflict, because she raised a finger. “Sabotage isn’t out until we’ve caught the thief, especial
ly when we know how amazing the prize for Best Overall is this year. We have to keep assuming the worst if we want a chance to stop it.”

  “I’m sick of assuming things. We need evidence.”

  “My thoughts exactly.” Becca pushed a pair of clippers hanging on a rack, making it swing. Then she sighed and sank to the ground.

  “What’s wrong?” I knelt next to her. “You have a few suspects! It’s a good start.”

  “I’d be happier if I had only one. Preferably carrying the paints and brushes. With a clear motive.”

  “And twirling an evil black mustache, right? Maybe cackling and muttering a monologue?” I grinned and faked a mustache twirl, and Becca laughed.

  “Yeah, something like that. But seriously, how are we going to get the evidence we need to find our culprit? Everyone’s away from home, and it’s not like they’ll have the brushes in their pockets.”

  “Not their pockets, no.” I stood and stretched, exhaling loudly. “We’re not going to get a confession by sneakily asking questions. People lie. But objects don’t. All the contestants are keeping their things in the locker room of the museum. If I could just go in there and search their belongings, we could have our bad guy in a few minutes.”

  Becca stood and leaned against the shed doorframe. “I told you, I don’t work that way.”

  “Why not? We’d have the culprit and the evidence. We could confront them and return the stolen goods without even having to worry about cooperation.”

  “And how would it look to the parents if we showed up with brushes taken from their child’s backpack? It doesn’t matter that they were stolen; they’d just see two kids who went through private property. Then we’d get in trouble. Also, it’s wrong. So no. Keep your thieving hands to yourself.”

  Frustrated, I walked to the door and peered out at the park. Families were wandering the paths, oohing and aahing over every under-fifteen artist’s work, completely unaware of the evil lurking in this heart of paradise. If there was a saboteur, we had to catch them before the art show ended. Even if Lee and Quinn or whoever it was chickened out and didn’t sabotage anyone, any chance we’d have to catch them would be gone when the prizes had been awarded and the fake walls taken down.