To Catch a Leaf (19 page)

“Is there a catalog of the paintings?”

“I believe so, but I can't say for sure.”

I wasn't buying it. For a woman who claimed to be a painter, she had to have taken some interest in the collection. “Was your mom very hands-on with the collection?”

“If by hands-on you mean involved, then yes, out of respect for my father. Truth be told, she preferred books.”

“Was your brother interested in the art collection?”

“Burnett,” she said drily, “was interested in gambling and women, in that order.”

“Women, plural?”

“You do know he's on his fourth wife, do you not?”

My cell phone chirped to signal an incoming text message. I hated to ignore it, but I felt that if I let up on Virginia, I'd never have this opportunity again. “What about your nephew?”

“What about my nephew?”

She was being difficult, and I was losing patience, but I wasn't going to let her know that. “Was Griffin interested in the art collection? Does he know anything about the inventory, storage, rotation—”

“Griffin is a scholar. He writes and studies all things Victorian. Period.”

Another chirp of my phone distracted me momentarily. What were we talking about? Oh, right. Her nephew. “Does Griffin have a girlfriend at present?”

She huffed impatiently. “You really should speak with Griffin if you want to know about his private life.”

“Is that a yes?” My cell phone chirped, throwing me off once again. “Okay, so that leaves Juanita. Did she take any interest in the artwork?”

“The only interest Nita had in the art was how much of the proceeds would have been hers and how many designer outfits she could buy with it.”

Hearing another cell phone chirp, Virginia said, “Would you please either answer that damned thing or shut it off?”

I pulled out my phone and saw a text from Jillian that read,
Call me at once. Seriously!

“I'll just take this out in the hallway,” I said.

Virginia scowled.

I walked to the doorway and phoned Jillian. “What's the problem now?”

“Abs, is it true about the cat burglar stealing art from the Newports?”

“There is no way you could know that already,” I whispered.

“You don't have a clue about the Internet, do you, Abs? Listen, I know exactly what to do to find the thief. First—”

“You are not a detective.”

“Who needs to be a detective? I learned from the master cat burglar.”

“Right. And that would be?”

“Cary Grant. He starred with Grace Kelly in
To Catch a Thief
, remember?”

“No. I'm not the Grace Kelly buff. You are.”

Jillian had to be one of the world's foremost experts on Grace Kelly. Beginning at the age of fourteen, she had believed a prince would come along and sweep her away to a kingdom like Monaco. In preparation, she had watched every movie in which Grace had played a role, and even had outfits made that looked like Grace's.

“So after a big jewel heist where Cary becomes the prime suspect,” she continued, “he—”

Virginia sighed loudly.

“Jillian, I don't have time for this. I'm in the middle of an interview.”

“Okay, I'll text you instructions.” The line went dead.

I shoved my phone into my pocket and hurried back to the sofa, trying to remember where I'd left off. “Sorry. Were you in the sitting room about ten minutes ago having a conversation with someone?”

“I'm not sure what business it would be of yours, but no. Perhaps you heard my sister-in-law. Why don't you go track her down and ask her?” Virginia glanced at her watch. “Would you be good enough to wrap this up? I really have much more important things to do.”

“Do you know what happened to your mother's cat?”

“No, and I don't care, either. I detested the little pest.”

I had a sudden vision of Grace replying with those exact words when asked one day about Simon's stay with us. “Did Charity get into a lot of trouble?”

“I wouldn't know. I rarely saw her. No, it was that my mother preferred Charity to her own flesh and blood. Now the silly animal is worth gads of money that should have been ours, and what does she do but scuttle off somewhere or get herself run over.”

This woman was all sympathy. “I detect a hefty dose of jealousy.”

“No, darling, not jealousy. Hatred.”

“For the cat or your mother?”

She raised an eyebrow. “If you're insinuating that I pushed my mother because of my feelings about the cat, you will have to expand your suspect list to include everyone in this household. That's all I have to say. Now it's time for you to keep your part of the bargain.”

I'd gotten a lot more information than I'd expected, and unfortunately for Virginia, she was about to get a lot less. “What I heard about you from my source was that you and your mother didn't see eye to eye on most things.”

She gave me a look of incredulity. “You kept me here for that? Well, excuse me, but are there a mother and daughter anywhere who agree on everything?”

She had me there.

“I'd find a new source if I were you.” She rose majestically and adjusted her braid to fall over one shoulder. Obviously she thought she had the upper hand.

“That's not all I heard, Virginia.”

She folded her arms, tapping the toe of her shoe on the rug. I could tell she resented me calling her by her first name. “All right. What else?”

Having run out of things that Grace had told me, I started in on what I'd gleaned from Mrs. Dunbar. “I also heard that your mother wasn't happy that you got a divorce.”

Virginia examined her fingernails. “Please. That's not news.”

“And that she liked your professor boyfriend until he came out to the house for dinner; then she changed her mind.”

“My mother was given to her whims.”

This woman wasn't going to budge an inch. I'd have to resort to a method I'd used on Jillian, who was as gullible as they came. “Yes, but
why
your mother changed her mind is another story.”

“What do you mean?” Virginia asked immediately, narrowing her eyes at me.

“You tell me.” I gave her a pointed look, as though I really had something on her.

Virginia contemplated me for a moment, then smiled, revealing teeth so white and even they had to be veneers. “You, my dear, are on a fishing expedition. Well, I hate to break it to you, but my mother didn't need a reason to change her mind.”

“I'm not so sure about that.”

She sat down on the sofa and rested one arm on the back. “Do tell.”

“Your mother had a reason. Otherwise she wouldn't have warned you about getting more involved with the professor. You went against her advice and did so anyway.”

She shrugged. “So?”

Okay, I had nowhere to go with that. I'd have to wing it. “So . . . you paid the price, didn't you?”

Virginia threw back her head and honked in what I guessed was supposed to be hysterical laughter. Having finished with the hilarity, she hardened her expression. “You,” she said, leaning closer so she could point her index finger at me, “are a pathetic excuse for an investigator. So let me be absolutely clear on this once and for all. I did not push my mother for any reason. Do you understand? I did not cause her death in any way, shape, or form, so you'd best fish in other waters.” Then she got up and marched out, her salt-and-pepper braid flapping against her back.

“I never said I was the investigator,” I called. And Virginia was no Jillian.

Well, that was humiliating.

On the other hand, I'd won my bet with Marco.

I waited until I was sure she was gone; then I dashed out of the sitting room and up the hallway toward the back of the house, hoping I wouldn't get lost again. My head was spinning with so much new information that when I came to another hallway, I couldn't remember if I should take it or not. So I kept going and suddenly found myself at a dead end in a part of the house I'd never seen before.

I retraced my steps, then started off in a different direction, realized I was really lost, turned a corner, and plowed straight into Marco's arms. “Oh! Marco!” I said breathlessly, glancing around to be sure no one could hear me. “I'm so glad you found me.”

“You took the words right out of my mouth. Where were you?”

“I'm not sure. But guess what? I won the bet! And just wait till you hear what I learned. First of all, I was walking up the hallway toward the front door when I overheard someone—I think it was a woman—in the sitting room—”

“Take a breath, Fireball,” he said, placing his hands on my shoulders. “There's no rush.”

“Okay, hold on.” I drew in a few lungfuls of air, then started again. “So I heard this unknown woman in the sitting room say in a whisper, ‘We should have gotten rid of it right away. Now it's too late.' And by her tone of voice, I could tell she was in a panic.

“I tried to find out who was talking, but the floor creaked when I moved closer, and then the whispering stopped. So whoever was in the room must have been startled by the noise and slipped out. When I finally looked into the room, no one was there, but she could have left through French doors on the outside wall.”

“Are you're sure you heard a female?”

“Ninety-one, ninety-two percent sure.”

“Did anyone answer her?”

“Nope. No answer. She must have been using a phone.”

Marco rubbed his jaw. “‘We should have gotten rid of it. Now it's too late.'” He thought for a moment. “She couldn't have been talking about the murder weapon because there wasn't one. What I'd like to do is get downstairs to take a look at the murder scene and see if anything clicks. Reilly said he was heading that way. Maybe he'll let us have a peek.”

“Here's my theory, Marco. The woman was Virginia and she was in a panic because of the discovery of the duplicate paintings. What I heard was her chiding her accomplice.”

“I'm following so far.”

“Virginia is the only one in the family who was present when Mr. Ventury discussed the duplicate forgery. And remember how secretive she got, turning him away to question him so we couldn't hear? Then when the cops arrived, she took off like a woman on a mission. I think she ran off to call her partner in crime so they could decide their next move. Then she heard someone outside the room and slipped out the French doors.”

“So how does this fit in with our investigation?”

“If Constance found out about the theft and threatened to call the police, exposing not only her accomplice, who's obviously the forger, but also Virginia, it's a classic motive for murder. We know Virginia was in the house at the time of the murder. She could have shoved her mother down the stairs and then hid in the attic waiting for someone to find the body.”

“I'm impressed, Abby.”

“Don't be yet. After I went in search of the voice on the phone, I came back to the main hallway and saw Juanita coming toward me from the direction of the front door. So it could have been her in the sitting room, too.”

“How close is the sitting room to the front door?”

“I'm not sure. Maybe sixty feet or so. And it gets more interesting. As I was talking to Juanita, Virginia came out of the next room, which is even closer to the front door.”

“Does it also have access to the outside?”

“I didn't check.”

“Let's take a walk and find out.”

“But there's a hitch,” I said, trying to match his long stride. “Juanita wouldn't have known about the paintings, so she would have been referring to something else that should've been gotten rid of.”

“Unless Virginia had just told her about the forgeries.”

“True. And both of them gave me a hard time about investigating on Grace's behalf until I told them I knew that they had withheld important information from the police.” I giggled. “You should have seen how fast they changed their attitudes.”

“You told them they withheld information?”

At the shocked look on Marco's face, my jubilation dissolved. “Was that wrong?”

He held out his hand to give me a high five. “Awesome work, Sunshine.”

“Thank you! And wait, there's more. Under my intense grilling, Juanita got very nervous and defensive about the arguments she and Constance had on Monday.”

“Under your intense grilling.”

“I can grill as intensely as the next florist, Salvare. Virginia apparently hadn't heard that Juanita and Constance had argued, so she turned on Juanita, insinuating that Juanita's indiscretion had caused the arguments.”

“What indiscretion?”

“Virginia didn't offer an explanation and Juanita didn't ask for one, but I have a hunch I know. Here are Virginia's exact words. ‘Is that why Mother was so upset when I came downstairs? What happened, Nita? Weren't you discreet enough that morning?' Now, what does that say to you?”

“That you have great recall.”

I pointed to my head. “Mind always running, remember?” I stopped a few feet from the sitting room doorway. “Here's where I was standing when I heard the voice coming from inside this room. Now look over there. See the French doors? They lead out onto a brick walkway that runs alongside the house. Okay, let's move up to the next room.”

We walked to the next doorway and looked inside. A glossy black grand piano filled at least a third of the room, with half a dozen upholstered chairs facing it.