Either the police had already been here or Cliff didn’t have anything to hide (I found the latter hard to believe). I opened a small closet behind the door, and something large and heavy covered with a white sheet tumbled onto my foot. “Ow!”
Darby rushed up and peered around me. I peeled back the sheet.
“Why would Cliff store his paintings in a closet?” she asked.
I pointed to the “walls” which were basically windows. “He doesn’t really have a place to hang that type of stuff.”
“True.” She shrugged and went back to her search.
Was that why Mona had left him her art, because she knew he didn’t have a way to appreciate it? Talk about cold hearted.
I continued to stare at the paintings. They looked so familiar. A couple of watercolors and an oil, all three different sizes and different artists. All were dramatic landscapes with excellent contrasting of light and dark. I looked at the signature on the smaller framed oil painting. Thomas Cole.
“I think these are the same paintings Mona had in her bedroom.”
“He has a copy?” she asked from the other end of the yacht.
“This is really confusing. Why would Mona leave him her art, if he already owned the same piece? Can you own the same piece? I wish Grey was here.”
“Mel, I think I found something in a nightstand,” Darby’s excited voice pierced my confusion.
She raced to my side and held out a brown Moleskin notebook. We held it under the light and flipped through the pages. It looked like recordings of betting entries, winnings, losses, names and dates.
What jumped out at me was that losses outnumbered the wins. By a huge margin.
I whistled softly. “He owes a lot of money.”
“But if he owed money, wouldn’t killing Mona be a bad idea?”
“When I called him about Fluffy, he made the comment that Mona hadn’t paid him in a while. What if Mona was paying off his gambling debts to save face, then decided she’d had enough and stopped enabling the louse?” I said.
“Or she couldn’t give him money because she was broke.”
“Exactly. He’d be mad and desperate. Especially if he was stupid enough to take mob money to pay his gambling debts.”
“He could be in serious trouble.”
“I agree. If he thought he’d get Fluffy, and her money, after Mona’s death, that’s a strong motive for murder.”
“Do you think Malone knows about this?” Darby asked.
“If he doesn’t he’s going to.”
“What about the paintings?”
I pulled out my cell phone and snapped a couple of pictures. “We can’t take those with us.”
The Yacht tipped to the side, throwing us against the closet.
“You’re sure you saw someone over here?” a male voice drifted down toward us.
“Someone’s here,” Darby said.
“Hide,” I croaked.
Rooted in place, we looked around. There was nowhere to hide one person, let alone two. We were about to get caught red-handed.
“I’m
Galvanized into action, I shoved the paintings back into the closet.
“I’m positive,” a soft female voice assured the man.
I immediately recognized that breathy voice. Tova. What the heck was she doing here?
“Mr. Michaels, is that you?” the man called out.
She’d brought company. The boat continued to sway as the two boarded. I held my index finger over my lips. Darby’s eyes looked like they were about to pop out of her head.
I pointed toward the sleeping area, motioning for her to stay there. She shook her head frantically.
“Who’s down there?” he demanded.
“I swear I saw two people,” Tova’s voice drifted into our hiding place.
I’d kill her. We were going to get caught because of dingbat Tova.
“Stay,” I whispered.
I brushed past Darby and skittered toward the stairs. “Hello,” I called out. “Are you looking for Cliff, too?” I stumbled into a doughy-faced kid who looked like he was fresh out of security training school. The name tag sewn to his uniform read, “Bruce.”
“Who are you?” he asked, his voice breaking on “you.” He cleared his throat.
“Where’s Cliff?” Tova asked at the same time, clutching a wicker patio chair as the boat continued to rock.
Obviously, she wasn’t surprised to see me. “I don’t know. I’ve been waiting for him. I needed to talk to him about Fluffy.”
“Dressed in all black?” Bruce eyed me with a large amount of skepticism.
“I had a yoga class.”
“Mel has bad fashion sense. Everyone knows that.” Tova’s lame explanation was the least of her problems. Each time the boat swayed she’d stumble, struggling to find her sea legs.
“You know her?” Bruce asked Tova.
My eyes narrowed in Dingbat’s direction. Was it my imagination or was she looking slightly green? “What are you doing here?” I asked.
“I’m thinking about buying a sailboat, and Cliff offered to help me,” Tova’s voice quivered. She gulped a couple of times.
“Really?” I glanced at the death grip she had on the chair. “You’re not exactly dressed for yacht shopping.”
My comment allowed Bruce the opportunity to openly gawk at Tova. His eyes devoured her model shape tightly wrapped in a short tweed skirt, draped t-shirt that more than hinted at her cleavage, and a pair of suede knee-hi boots.
I didn’t believe for a minute she was in the market for a yacht. “Why are you following me?”
Her eyes widened. “I-I didn’t.”
Bruce’s face flashed from outraged to injured. “You followed her? Are you playin’ me?”
She started to shake her head, then stopped abruptly. “I-I came by your place to talk about, well, you know…” She swallowed and swayed slightly. “I saw you and-” she covered her mouth.
“Bruce, you’d better get her off Cliff’s yacht. She looks like she’s about to throw up.” I interrupted before she ratted out Darby. And she really did look like she was about to puke.
He forgot all about me as he helped Dingbat Tova to dry land. I waited until they were a few yards down the dock before I called out to Darby.
“Coast is clear. Quick, turn off the lights, and let’s get out of here.”
She bound up the stairs, and we jumped off the yacht. “Where did she come from? Why is she following you?”
“I’m sure it has something to do with my visit with her earlier today.”
Tova and I were going to have words later.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
It was completely dark, with only the full moon as a flashlight. It had taken us mere minutes to rush to the Jeep and race back to Laguna. I wasn’t sure what had happened to Tova, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find out tomorrow that somehow her getting sick would be my fault.
“I can’t believe we made it off
