“That camera is just for show,” Stone Head explains, staring up at the cameras like he can’t believe it himself. “City Hall slashed our budget during the installation of our security cameras. We never even got the wires to connect the cameras to anything. But they seem to fool just about everybody.”
“Everyone but the thief,” I think out loud. I wonder if the art thief knew ahead of time that he wouldn’t be caught on camera. Was it just plain luck? Or am I dealing with an inside job? “Dang it! Finally, a coconut falls on my head and it’s hollow!”
“We don’t need a coconut to tell us that your head is hollow,” Hailey mutters, staring up at the fake cameras.
“I’ve got to go!” Officer Lestrade announces abruptly from the stairs. “Something’s up. I just got a call from the police chief himself. He wants a big sit-down for some reason.”
“Boy, this sure is going to be interesting!” I exclaim.
“You kids will have to get a ride home,” he says flatly.
“Oh,” I say, deflating like a popped parade float.
“I’ve got it covered,” Hailey assures him, pulling out our dad’s cell phone. She gives me a wink, acknowledging the fact that our dad trusts her with his cell phone and not me. She turns back to Officer Lestrade. “You roll ten-nineteen. We’ll be ten-eight here for a bit and call if we need a ten-sixteen. Just call us later with your nine-fifty-two.”
Amazingly, Officer Lestrade seems to know what she’s talking about. He nods crisply. “Ten-four,” he replies, and is gone.
While Hailey calls our grandparents for a ride, I corner Stone Head and look over my list of questions. I give him my best detective glare and raise an eyebrow so high even Miss Piffle would be impressed. “What’s so special about this painting?” I ask.
“There are only forty-three paintings by this artist known to exist,” he explains. “For years there has been a rumor about the existence of a forty-fourth, said to be the artist’s masterpiece. And when I saw it, I agreed it was a major discovery. It was to be the star of this auction. The local art world is…was buzzing about the chance to acquire it.”
“Does this place have a burglar alarm?” I ask quickly, trying to catch him off guard. “And if so, did it go off last night?”
“No alarms were triggered last night,” he sighs, looking around over my head like he’s searching for someone more fun to talk to. “I would have been called at home if the alarm sounded. I arrived this morning to prepare for the auction, and I was greeted by this large, unseemly gap on the wall.”
I’m not sure what “unseemly” means, but I decide to let that one go. I push on. “Any cars in the alley outside that window when you arrived?”
“No,” he sniffs, managing a slight shake of his rocklike head. He must have a strong neck!
No cameras. Nobody in the alley. No alarms. No witnesses. Basically, I have nothing to work with. I try a new angle. “Anybody else have keys to this place? Somebody who could have come in last night and ripped off Mrs. Bagby’s painting?”
“I have a set of keys, and so does Clem, our maintenance man for the last eleven years. He also knows the code to deactivate the alarm. But Clem did not come in last night, and there is no record of the alarm being turned off, which would be reflected on the computer printout I gave to the officer.” He looks at his watch for a long time, like he’s counting the seconds till I drop dead.
Something else occurs to me. “Doesn’t the museum have insurance to pay for this kind of thing?”
“Ah, there’s the rub,” he says slowly.
“Okay, I was willing to let ‘unseemly’ go by, but what the heck is a ‘rub’?” I grumble in frustration.
“What I mean is that your art teacher’s painting was never authenticated,” he explains. “Man with a Cat never received an official certificate of authenticity by an art appraiser who would certify—”
“That the painting was really created by the artist,” Hailey interrupts from directly behind me. I flinch. Sneaking up on me and scaring the living cheese out of me is surely her most maddening habit. “And without written proof that the painting was genuine,” she continues, “I bet the insurance company will refuse to pony up a settlement to compensate Mrs. Bagby for any monetary losses caused by the burglary.”
“That’s what I was afraid of,” I agree, trying my best to sound like I actually understand all that jibber-jabber.
“Precisely,” Stone Head says. “Now I really must get back to work, children. The museum’s chairman is pressuring me to put this whole unfortunate episode behind us as quickly as possible. So I must ask you both to leave now.”
Hailey starts pulling me by the arm. “C’mon, Sherlock, Grandpappy’s picking us up in Bessie.”
Hailey calls our grandpa “Grandpappy” because she knows it drives me absolutely crazy.
Sometimes I try to imagine a world without little sisters.
Bessie is what my grandpa calls his pile-of-junk old car that backfires so much you feel like you’re riding in a shooting gallery. It also stalls out every time somebody looks at you funny—which happens a lot since that bucket of bolts backfires just about every time you blink.
“And Grandpappy’s made his famous flat-rabbit stew for dinner,” Hailey exclaims.
Famous? Famously disgusting is more like it!
Instantly, my stomach feels like it’s full of ferrets. My neck gets sweaty. I think my gag reflex even fires off a few times before we reach the stairs.
Surely today could not get any worse!
“Wait! I’ll need to get that shirt back before you leave,” Stone Head calls after me.
“Oh, I thought you gave it to me,” I say.
“No, that was just a loaner,” he says with a sour voice. “And you may also want to know that your zipper’s down.”
“AGAIN! What the—oh, sorry about that,” I say, yanking the zipper back up. “It must be broken.”
If something actually goes right today, I may die from the shock.
