CHAPTER 54

“Why did you guys take off?” asked Mom, a look of genuine concern on her face.

“We wanted to get a head start on the investigation,” I said.

“Yeah,” said Beck. “While you two were chatting, the trail was growing colder.”

“All right,” said Mom, giving us an annoyed look, “this foolishness has got to stop!”

“Um, what foolishness are you talking about specifically?” asked Tommy.

“Taking off without telling me where you’re going. Running up and down the corridors of an esteemed art institution.”

“Oh, that foolishness. Gotcha.”

“From now on,” Mom continued, “we only do foolish things together.”

“Yeah,” said Uncle Timothy. “As a family.”

“Um, no, you’re not part of this family,” said Beck. “You’re not our real uncle.”

“Your father always called me Uncle Timothy—”

“You’re not his uncle either.”

“Come on, Mom,” I said, jabbing a thumb toward Uncle T, “family? Seriously?”

“I am absolutely, positively serious about every word I just said.” She looked at all of us sternly. I had a feeling she was doing this to keep Uncle Timothy close and within our sights. It would be harder for him to double-cross us that way.

“O-kay,” said Beck, rolling her eyes because Uncle Timothy was smiling so smugly. “Guess we better show the rest of our ‘family’ the huge clues we just discovered.”

“What clues?” Uncle Timothy was extremely interested.

Storm stepped forward.

“We have reason to suspect that the thief who stole the four masterpieces from this museum has serious issues centered around art,” she said because she’d memorized all of those psychology books by Sigmund Freud, Ivan Pavlov, and Dr. Phil. “He or, for the sake of argument, she is what psychiatrists would label an art hater.”

Storm clasped her hands behind her back and started pacing. She was in full lecture mode.

“As Professor Gregory S. Parks of Wake Forest University in his critical analysis of ‘Gettin’ Jiggy wit It’ points out, and I quote, ‘No matter what they say, haters are not dispassionate and objective people when it comes to their hated object. In essence, they are emotionally motivated to hate.’”

Uncle Timothy peered over the tops of his sunglasses. “Huh?” he said.

“Haters aren’t just gonna hate,” said Tommy. “There’s gonna be a reason for it.”

“Correct,” said Storm.

“You guys have completely lost me,” said Mom.

“We think the sicko art-hating thief returned to the scene of the crime,” said Beck, gesturing toward the adjoining gallery. “It wasn’t enough for him to steal the four masterpieces. He had to replace that beautiful artwork with a collection of grotesque horrors.”

“Come on,” I said. “We’ll show you.”

We walked Mom and Uncle Timothy into the portrait gallery so they could see the cat-tastrophe (not to mention the Elvis, dog, and clown disasters) for themselves.