Tanner dropped me back at headquarters so I could work on background checks and the search warrant for Lucas Watson’s financials while Tanner called on his friend in the St. Louis PD to get the scoop on the shooting investigation.
Yvonne stopped by my desk. “So what did you think of the movie?”
“Oh, sorry, I’ve had a crazy few days. I haven’t been able to find time to watch it with my friend.”
A playful glint lit her eyes. “Tanner didn’t seem too fond of the guy.”
I shrugged. As a rookie, I’d learned that attempts to thwart speculation about the nature of my relationship with Tanner—thanks to him winding up at my parents’ dinner table a time or two—only fueled people’s imaginations.
Ron, an agent from the terrorism squad, stepped next to Yvonne. “Hey, Serena, I heard you were trying to sell tickets to a fundraising gala at the end of the week. I’d be interested, if you have one left.”
“That’s great.” I pulled the ticket book from my purse. “Everyone’s been so supportive this year. I appreciate it.”
Yvonne laughed. “It’s because you promised Ivan a dance if he bought one. So all the other guys think they’ll get to dance with you too.”
“Are you serious?” I looked to Ron, who turned an unbecoming shade of pink.
He shrugged. “What’s a few dances for a good cause?”
Chuckling, I took his money and handed him his ticket. “Right.”
Yvonne lowered her voice as he walked away. “I think the guys have a pool on who will score the most dances with you.”
I rolled my eyes. “My mom will be in her glory.”
I pulled together the search warrant request for Lucas Watson’s financials and ran a more extensive background check on Truman Capone—the man who’d apparently bought one of Tyrone’s paintings. He was a single, sixty-nine-year-old Caucasian with a spotty work history. He’d done stints selling souvenirs at Cardinals and Blues games, driving a trolley tour bus, and bussing tables on river cruises. It was the kind of work history that smacked of an alternate means of supplementing his income. Yet he had no criminal record and hadn’t so much as collected food stamps.
I pulled up his driver’s license photo on my computer screen one more time. It made sense that a guy like this would buy his paintings on the cheap. But how did he hear about Tyrone’s talent?
“What’s Capone on your radar for?”
I swiveled my desk chair to find my boss, Maxwell Benton, standing at the entrance to my cubicle.
“You know this guy?”
“Sure, hard name to forget.” Benton grinned. “Capone’s a fixture at the We’re All Legit Flea Market.”
“We’re All Legit Flea Market?”
Benton chuckled. “I’m not convinced the moniker is always true.”
“Which is why you frequent it?”
He shrugged, the twinkle in his eye suggesting he liked bargains as much as the next guy, but yeah, those FBI warnings on movies were there for a reason. Pirates beware. Benton was on the job. “Capone sketches portraits of people on the spot. He drew my daughter. The likeness is uncanny.”
“That explains a few things.” If nothing came of the warrant on Lucas’s financials, maybe I’d just wait until the weekend to pay Capone a visit at the flea market. “He sell paintings at his booth too?”
“Some. He seems to do most of his business in portraits, though.”
“Paintings he’s done or ones by others?” Might explain why he picked up the painting from Tyrone.
“I assumed he’d done them. But I don’t know. I never asked.”
“Thanks.” I shut down my computer so I could head to the courthouse to get the warrant signed.
“You never answered my question,” Benton said. “Why the interest in Capone?”
“I saw him with one of my students’ paintings. A gifted student. And I was concerned his motives might not be aboveboard.”
Benton frowned. “I can’t see it. He’s always encouraging the kids who come up to the booth to try their hand at sketching a portrait. He seems like a really good guy.”
“Good to know.” I drove to the courthouse and got the warrant signed. The bank would have ten days to comply with the request for records and was bound by an additional nondisclosure request to not inform Lucas of the search. But considering he was the bank’s CFO, I wasn’t holding my breath that he wouldn’t find out somehow.
As I returned to my car, I revisited Saturday night’s dinner conversation at my parents’ or, more specifically, Nana’s mention of her busybody housekeeper by the name of Horvak. It was too much of a coincidence for Petra Horvak, the mastermind behind the Monet heist, to claim she knew something about my grandfather’s murder and to share the same last name as his housekeeper at the time.
Then again, housekeeper had been among the laundry list of jobs Petra had taken after her divorce. Maybe she met Nana’s housekeeper precisely because they did share the same last name. And housekeepers talked. Gladys’s and her neighbors’ housekeepers were proof of that.
I returned to headquarters and ran a search on Lucille Horvak.
Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
“Am I never going to catch a break?” I swiped the computer screen back to my blank desktop and stared at my hazy reflection. Why can’t I figure this out? Some detective. I can solve every crime except the one that matters most.
Tanner telephoned. “Where are you?”
“Headquarters.”
“Get over to Dinah’s Diner. You’re going to want to talk to Detective Richards. Burly guy, no hair, triple chin. Picture Robert Morley in Around the World in Eighty Days.”
I laughed. Tanner knew of my penchant for identifying people by their actor lookalikes very well, but I was surprised he was familiar with the sixty-year-old movie in which Morley played the governor of the Bank of England. I still remembered the night Granddad and I watched an old VHS recording of the movie. The movie was so long it filled two tapes.
“He worked an art theft like your grandmother’s friend’s,” Tanner went on. “But he can only give you a few minutes while he grabs his lunch.”
“Thanks for the tip. I’ll head over now.” Talking cases in a public place wasn’t smart, but since it didn’t sound as if I’d get another option anytime soon, I wasn’t going to quibble.
I arrived at the ’50s-style diner ten minutes later. It didn’t look as if being overheard was going to be a problem. The place was deserted. I ordered a coffee and slid behind a steel-legged Formica table in the back corner.
As the waitress poured me a coffee, a man I presumed was Detective Richards, from his uncanny resemblance to Morley, strode into the restaurant.
“One of those for me too, Mabel,” he said, hiking his belt up over his ample middle and striding my way. He looked to be in his midfifties, and I counted four chins. “You Jones?”
“Yes.” I stood and shook his hand. “Thank you for taking time to meet with me.”
The waitress set a mug of coffee in front of the chair opposite me. “Anything else, Charlie?”
“Yeah, bring me a slice of pie, will ya, honey?” He unbuttoned his brown herringbone sports jacket as if he knew it wouldn’t be able to hold out against the dessert and plopped into his seat. “So Tanner says you’re working a theft where the painting was replaced with a forgery too?”
“Yes, I was hoping we could compare notes.”
He pulled a small, black notebook from his sports coat pocket, turned it to a page midway through the book, and pushed it across the table. “You’re welcome to look all you want,” he said, showing no interest in reviewing my notes. “It’s pretty thin.”
I jotted down the scant details he’d recorded about the missing piece—a Margaret Keane, who was best known for her large-eyed waifs, and a list of names, none of which matched my suspects’ in Gladys’s case. “What tipped the homeowner off to the forgery?”
Richards scarfed down half his coffee as if it wasn’t hot enough to melt his hide. “The painter was cocky. Painted his initials—TC—into the splotches.”
Huh, I’d have to take a closer look at the Dali, see if I could find anything comparable. Wait a minute. “TC, you said?”
“Yeah, I cross-referenced them to a database of known forgers, but nothing popped. You know any artists with those initials?”
“As a matter of fact, I do. Truman Capone. An older guy who sketches portraits at a booth in the flea market.” Sounded as if paying Truman Capone a visit needed to be put back on today’s to-do list. But even as fast as he worked, he’d need days to forge an oil painting. “Was the victim away from home for an extended time? Did you get a list of everyone who’d been in and out or who had unfettered access?”
“I know how to do my job.” Richards’s gaze rippled with impatience. “Tracking down a guy who wants to nab what passes for art these days, from people with more money than sense, isn’t on the top of my priority list. Not when I got some creep terrorizing women, and—”
“Okay”—I raised my hand to stop his tirade—“I get the picture. And I appreciate your priorities.” Although I suspected more mercenary reasons were also at play. To climb the ranks, detectives needed a high clearance rate on the crimes they were investigating. With no witness to the theft and no suspects, Richards had little incentive to spend time on the case.
Then again, a city the size of St. Louis has its own homicide detective unit, its own property crimes unit, its own robbery unit, and so on. And if Richards was investigating someone terrorizing women, it sounded as if he worked robberies, so how’d the art theft burglary—a property crime—land on his plate?
The waitress brought Richards his coconut cream pie, and he began shoveling it into his mouth. “If you ask me, the whole art market is one giant Ponzi scheme. But the truth is, the guy’s house might as well have been Union Station for how many people he’s had coming and going. He’s getting the place ready to sell, so everyone from painters to real estate agents are parading through the place.”
Real estate agents? As in, maybe Peter Hoffemeier? “Okay, thank you for your time.” I returned the detective’s notebook, dropped a couple of bucks on the table for the coffee I hadn’t touched, and headed for the door. Apparently Gladys’s son and Truman Capone both warranted a closer look.