With boys, you always know where you stand. Right in the path of a hurricane.
—Erma Bombeck
BOUNDING OFF THE school bus, Spencer whooped with excitement when he saw me through the shop window. He burst through the front door, tossed his backpack behind the counter, and faced me.
“Are the pictures here?!”
“Nice to see you, too. Can I have a hug, please?”
He obliged. “Glad you’re back, Mom.”
“That makes two of us.” Sadie smiled. “We missed you.”
“I missed you both, too.” I mussed my son’s copper hair, and he tilted up his freckled face.
“So?” he pressed, wasting no time. “Do you have them?”
“Yes, Mr. One-Track Mind. We have the pictures.”
Through the store’s window, I noticed Seymour’s tow truck arriving. So did he. “My ride is here!” With a wave good-bye, he hurried out—a huge relief.
I no longer had to worry about Seymour blurting anything, and I could break the bad news about Walt to Sadie this evening, when we had the time to talk it over and she had the privacy upstairs to react.
Right now, the shop was open and there was work to be done.
As Sadie went back to ringing up customers, I headed for the stockroom to process special orders, my son on my heels.
“What kind of pictures did you get, Mom? Are there any monsters? How about gorillas? Are there any gorillas? When can I see them?”
“I’ll be setting up the art show in the event space tomorrow. You can see the pictures after you get home from school.”
Spencer tugged my arm. I stopped to face him.
“But you promised I could see the pictures yesterday. Then you didn’t even come home. Now I have to wait until tomorrow? It’s not fair, Mom.”
The pint-size Perry Mason wore me down. “Follow me . . .”
Entering the stockroom, which doubled as our store office, I skirted the desk and file cabinets and gestured to the many pieces of art leaning against the walls and shelves, their details still masked.
“You can pick one. Just one. And I’ll unwrap it for you now. A private showing, just for you.”
Eyes wide with excitement, Spencer raised his arm, finger extended. Without warning, I felt a sudden, highly suspicious draft flow through the room, gusting just strong enough to stir my son’s hair. With a little shiver, Spencer suddenly swung his arm in the opposite direction and jabbed his finger.
“That one!”
The canvas and frame felt surprisingly light as I set them on an easel. I tore at the tape for a moment, and the brown paper fell away to reveal Nathan Brock’s painting of the nude Ruby Tyler.
Spencer’s eyes went wide. “Wow, Mom!”
I jumped in front of the canvas and quickly re-covered it with paper. “That one might be a little too adult for you,” I announced with pointed emphasis for any spirited eavesdropper who might be listening. To my son I gently said, “Let’s try again.”
“Okay!” Spencer grinned, pleased at this bonus reveal. “How about that one?”
The picture was large and weighty, and Spencer had to help me place it on a second easel. I didn’t do more than tear at the corner before I recognized the heavy antique frame of Harriet McClure’s portrait. I tried to cover the painting again, but the tape refused to stick and the paper fell away.
“Hey, that’s not a cover, Mom,” Spencer said, disappointed. “And it’s really weird.”
Apparently, my son was immune to Harriet’s supernatural charms.
“Last time,” I said.
Spencer rubbed his hands together like a game-show contestant contemplating which door to open. Once again, he raised his arm, finger extended toward one of the wrapped paintings. And again I felt a sudden, highly suspicious draft gust through the room. With a swing of his arm, my son abruptly changed his choice—
“That one!”
This time Spencer selected a picture that would satisfy any boy’s imagination. The full-color rendering depicted a big, tough-looking blond cowboy blazing away at a rampaging dinosaur using a pair of six-shooters.
“Whoa! That is awesome!” Spencer cried.
It was more than that. There was something about the cowboy and the painting that struck me as vaguely familiar.
“Is this picture in the book?” Spencer asked excitedly, pulling me away from my thoughts.
“Let’s see.” I grabbed my copy of the Palantines’ By Its Cover and flipped through the pages.
“Found it! This was the cover for Fantastic Western Adventure, June 1948.”
Spencer cocked his head. “What else does it say?”
“Artist Roland Prince, a skilled painter and illustrator, was quite prolific. In his short career, Prince produced more than five hundred covers and interior illustrations in wildly differing artistic styles.”
“Five hundred? Wow, that’s a lot! Roland must have been rolling in dough if he sold that many paintings.”
“I suppose so.”
Spencer’s attention returned to the image. “That’s a pretty cool T. rex, Mom, don’t you think? It’s just like the one in Jurassic Park. I can’t wait to show this picture to Amy!”
Which was fine with me. I doubted even Amy’s helicopter mother would find fault with a vintage fantasy image of a cowboy and dinosaur, though when it came to parental objections these days, one could only feel safe with a blank canvas.
“Okay, honey, that’s all for tonight—”
“Hey, what’s this?”
“What’s what?”
Spencer pointed to a notation in the lower right corner. Beneath the Roland Prince signature, there was a small circle with the letter B drawn inside it.
“I think it must be a special mark for the painter,” I said, voicing my assumption.
“But why would Roland Prince use a letter B? Wouldn’t you think he’d use a P for Prince or RP for Roland Prince?”
“Maybe it’s not a signature.”
“What else would it be?”
I shrugged. “Maybe it was a notation for the printer or the magazine that bought the rights. This could have been the second in a series of illustrations they commissioned—A, B, C, and so on.”
Spencer’s eyes widened again. “I’d sure like to see A and C, wouldn’t you?”
“Not at the moment, honey. It’s getting late. You can see the rest of the pictures tomorrow. Now, go upstairs and do your homework. I’ll be up to make dinner soon.”