Dark Tort

“Charlie Baker paintings. Two of them. From Dusty’s journal, I think he gave her one of them, as a thank-you for the work she had done for him. I’m afraid the second one is unfinished.”

“Unfinished?”

“Yes, Charlie’s friend Meg said he never wrote down the last ingredient of his recipe until the very end, when the paintings were going to be sold at the gallery, or given to someone like Dusty. Some of the paintings that are floating around now have an ingredient missing. And get this—there are some inventory forms that the department will want to go over. Dusty had taped them to the backs of the paintings, so she was trying to keep them from somebody.”

Tom cocked an eyebrow. “Inventory forms taped to the backs of the paintings?”

“Don’t worry! I’m not going to keep them. I’ll leave figuring them out to the geniuses down at the department. But listen, I suspect that Nora Ellis bought an unfinished Charlie Baker painting, thinking it was a completed one. So I hope your guys can go talk to her—”

Tom held up his hand. “You’re going to have to explain all of this to me, and then maybe I can send a detective to go talk to the Ellises. Okay?”

“Sure. Now tell me your news.”

“We have a line on a guy, but not the guy himself, who tried to mow down Vic. You know how crooks are always the worst rats?” When I nodded, he went on: “Seems a guy we’d had a forgery warrant out on got himself arrested. First thing he tries to do is deal. Seems he has a friend named Jason Gurdley—” I shook my head. “Hey, his mother named him, not me. Anyway, Jason bragged about being paid a thousand bucks just to run over anyone bringing any stuff out of the Routts’ house.”

“What?”

“Apparently, someone was afraid of what Dusty had.”

“This is where you tell me that you found Jason, and he gave up the name of whoever paid him to try the rundown.”

Tom smiled at me. “Hey, you can’t have everything. Jason Gurdley has skipped to parts unknown. We’ve left messages all over saying we need to talk to him pursuant to a murder investigation, but that might cause him to stay hidden, wherever he is. Still, now we know someone was behind the attempt to kill Dusty’s computer.”

“And Vic.”

“Yeah; him, too.” His eyes gleamed. “Our guys did arrest someone else, though.”

“When were you going to tell me this?”

“Well, you had me chauffeuring you around with your paintings—”

“Who, dammit?”

“Somebody tried to pawn that opal-and-diamond bracelet in Denver, just this afternoon. The pawnshop owner had gotten our fax of your drawing and called the department. The detectives drove down and showed him photographs of Vic and everyone who worked at the law firm. He picked out the person who attempted to pawn the bracelet. So our guys got the fastest search warrant on earth, and found something extremely interesting in the Dumpster outside the apartment of our would-be bracelet seller.” Tom paused for effect. “Try a sledgehammer covered with some dark red car paint and glass fragments.”

“Oh Lord.”

“Our guys just picked up Louise Upton.”

“What? Maybe the bracelet was Louise’s, and she loaned it to Dusty—”

“Or maybe Dusty gave Louise a sledgehammer in exchange for the bracelet. Do you think?”

“But what motive would Louise have to kill Dusty?”

“Goldy, I don’t know. She saw the bracelet and thought she could pawn it for needed cash. She struggled with Dusty and ended up strangling her. I’m telling you, that woman, Louise Upton, is as hard as granite. She didn’t even protest when they arrested her. She just said she wanted an attorney. Look, I’m going to call the guys at the department, have them come get this evidence.”

“Just wait a sec, okay? Tell me why you think Louise would have used a sledgehammer on Dusty’s car.”

Tom held the phone loose in his hand. He said patiently, “Crime of passion? Say a guy is going to kill his ex- girlfriend and trash her car, too. We find slashed tires, broken windshields, garbage dumped all over a lawn? We know somebody’s been hurt real bad. Hurt in the heart. Problem is, this behavior is well known, ’cuz stories about it are in the paper all the time. Now, a perp wants to make it look as if he’s killed out of passion, instead of just trying to shut somebody up, say? He’ll get out the hammer and go after his victim’s stuff.”

I still was doubtful. Louise Upton under arrest for Dusty’s murder? Okay, Louise was desperate for money. Had she stolen something besides the bracelet—say, a painting or two—and been discovered by Dusty? But if Dusty had discovered Louise was involved in nefarious doings, Louise wouldn’t have been stupid enough to kill Dusty and leave her corpse inside the office of the firm she said she was married to, would she?

Then again, my brain yelled back at me, Louise might have left Dusty’s body if she’d killed Dusty in a burst of panic. So it was possible.

“Tom,” I said tentatively while he was dialing, “may I just look through Dusty’s things for a couple of minutes?”

Tom’s shoulders slumped. “All right, go get some of those surgical gloves your favorite health inspector says you have to use when you handle poultry.”

I responded with alacrity, which was one of Arch’s vocab words that I particularly liked. It meant that you got your butt in gear with enthusiasm and speed.

Five minutes later, I was wearing a pair of my surgical gloves and sifting through the papers attached to the inventory forms. It was becoming increasingly difficult to see what exactly about the law it was that Dusty found attractive. I didn’t understand why the forms couldn’t merely state: “Attach a list of the dead guy’s stuff.” But in the last analysis, I guessed that wouldn’t work.

After a few moments, I finally got the bright idea to compare the two lists, page by page, side by side. After straining my eyes for what felt like an eon—Julian even came out of the kitchen to see what was going on—I saw the discrepancy. Or thought I did. On one page listing miscellaneous assets, someone—Dusty?—had typed “45 paintings.” On the page that matched it from the other inventory, the same listing indicated “9 paintings.”

So, could I make the deduction that there were thirty-six Charlie Baker paintings out there, all missing one ingredient, that someone had stolen and was trying to sell? I thought so. And Nora Ellis, who had plenty of money but no cooking ability, wouldn’t have known a recipe for Journey Cake from one for beef stew, right?

But where had she gotten the painting? From Richard, who supposedly had been in charge of getting new keys and locks made for Charlie Baker’s house? From Louise, or from Wink, either of whom might have been actually ordered to get those new keys and locks made? From Vic, ever hard up for money and, until recently, Dusty’s boyfriend? He could have borrowed the keys from Dusty, stolen the paintings, and returned them without her knowing, couldn’t he? But would Vic be able to change the inventory sheets? That would indicate someone in the law firm. What about Alonzo Claggett, who was Dusty’s workout buddy…might he have snagged and copied the keys? I had no idea.

I told Tom my theory, but lack of a clear suspect, when he got off the phone.

“You think somebody killed Dusty because he, or she, wanted to steal some paintings?”

“Yeah, maybe. And then that person—maybe Louise, okay—started selling the paintings to people with lots of dough who want a genuine Charlie Baker.”

Tom considered this for a moment. “How’s Julian doing on your cooking tomorrow?”

“I can check. Why?”

“Be a good idea if you typed up everything you’ve figured out about the paintings. We can give it to the guys when they come up.”

Alacrity was getting to be my middle name. I hopped up and headed for the computer in the kitchen. There, Julian had finished the Asparagus Quiches, which were rising in the oven and giving off an enticing scent. Now he was peeling apples.

Apples? “What are you making?” I asked. “We don’t have anything on the menu tomorrow that includes apples.”

Julian peered down at the prep sheets. “Prosciutto Bites—prep is done, but they have to be finished at the