Cooking Up Murder (21 page)

Up ahead, the traffic light turned from red to green, and I scanned the cars in the line in front of us. "What kind of car?" I asked Eve.

She buckled her seat belt. She was as jazzed as I was, and her eyes sparkled when they met mine. She gulped in a breath, so proud of her part in the hunt, she looked like she would burst. "Green."

Good thing traffic was moving like molasses. We didn't jerk (at least not too much) when I slammed on my brakes.

"Green? As in green sports car? Or green minivan? Or green sedan? What make of car is it? What year? Did you get a look at the license plate?"

Eve shrugged, and her smile wilted. "Green. It was green. You know, the same color as that winter coat I bought a couple years ago. The one I never wore because it made me look fat."

The way I remembered it (and I knew I remembered it correctly), the coat in question never made Eve look anywhere near fat. But there was no use getting into that discussion again. We'd gone a few rounds at the time she bought the damn thing. What mattered now was that I remembered the coat. I knew exactly the color she was talking about. It was green, all right. Dark green. Like a Christmas tree.

Which was great, and actually might have been helpful if the traffic in front of us wasn't as thick as flies at a church picnic, if it wasn't just past sunset, and if, between the glow of the streetlights and the glare of the headlights from the cars headed toward us from the other direction, every car in the sea of cars didn't look the exact same dark color.

I scrambled to come up with a plan B.

"Which lane did she get into?" I asked Eve.

She closed her eyes, thinking hard. "Right," she said. "No. Left. Definitely left. She pulled away from the curb and angled her way across a couple lanes. Like she was going to turn."

She imparted this piece of information just as we cruised under the light. I didn't have time to wonder if it was right or wrong. I didn't bother with a signal, either. I turned left.

Traffic wasn't quite as heavy in this direction. I glanced over the cars up ahead. The bright lights of a bar washed over the sidewalk and out into the street; in the glow, I saw a green car.

"There!" I didn't wait for Eve to confirm my hunch. I stepped on the accelerator, and we took off as fast as a four-year-old Saturn can. When the green car made a right at the next cross street, we did, too.

I hung back a little. Just in case it was Beyla. Just in case she looked in her rearview mirror and saw that we were following.

"What do you think?" I asked Eve.

She leaned forward and squinted to get a better look at the car twenty feet or so in front of us. "It looks like the right one. Maybe. I dunno. It could be. Yeah!" Her expression cleared, and she sat up straight and grinned. "It has one of those magnetic signs. One of those yellow ribbons on the back of the trunk. Beyla's car had that. I remembered because I thought the yellow looked good against the green. Definitely. Yeah, it's her."

"Good. Let's not lose her again." I waved toward where I'd tossed my purse on the floor of the front seat. "Open the front zipper pocket," I told Eve. "There's a notepad in there, and a pen. Write down the license plate number, and that it's a green Taurus. I don't know the year; do you?"

I didn't know why it mattered, either; I only knew I wanted all my ducks in a row. And I wasn't talking ducks with orange sauce.

The traffic light up ahead was yellow, but when Beyla cruised through the intersection, I followed. When she turned, I turned. When she headed across the Potomac toward Georgetown, I glanced at Eve.

"What are the chances she's heading for Arta?"

"The gallery?" Eve was skeptical. I was too busy concentrating on the road and on my quarry up ahead to spare her a look, but I could tell from the tone of her voice. "That doesn't make any sense. If she's got the computer disc and she's trying to keep Yuri from finding it, she wouldn't be taking it back to where she stole it from in the first place. Besides, just because we're headed across the river doesn't mean anything. There are a million other places in this direction."

It was true; there were. But Beyla was headed to only one of them.

When we turned onto M Street, I knew I was right; that one place was Arta.

OK, so my smile was a little on the smug side when I turned it on Eve. But who could blame me? I was starting to get the hang of this Sherlock Holmes thing. And truth be told, I suspected--or should I say deduced?--that I was getting pretty good at it.

I stepped on the brakes and pulled up next to the curb in an area clearly marked No Parking, Bus Stop, watching as Beyla slowed just before she got to the gallery, then rounded the corner onto the nearest street. Though I couldn't see her car, I knew from the faint red glow of brake lights that she'd stopped. I knew we had to act fast. If we were going to keep her in our sights, we needed a parking place, too.

Have I mentioned that finding a parking place in the D.C. Metro area is like trying to get out of the seventh circle of hell?

Except this time.

Like a gift from heaven, a spot opened up twenty feet ahead, across the street from and just a little ways past Arta. Before I had a chance to remind myself that I was scared to death by the very thought of parallel parking, I shot ahead, poked the gearshift into reverse, manuevered my car into place, and cut the engine and lights.

"Now what?" Eve whispered.

"I don't know," I whispered back. Not that there was a chance Beyla was going to hear us; she was across the street and around the block. But I guess there's something about a stakeout that demands secrecy. "We're going to have to check it out." I paused, the wheels in my head turning a mile a minute.

"I'll head over to the gallery," I told Eve. "There's got to be a back door. Maybe I can see if it's open, see if she went in that way. Why don't you--"

"Oh, no!" Eve shook her head so hard and so fast, it mussed her hair. Always conscious of appearances, she smoothed it back into place. "No way are you sending me off on my own. Not in the middle of the night in a strange part of town. I'm sticking with you. You're in charge, fearless leader! Just tell me what to do--as long as it involves doing whatever I'm doing at the same time you're doing it."

There was no use even trying to argue with logic like that.

With a nod that told Eve I was ready, I slung my purse over my shoulder, opened my car door, and pointed across to the gallery. "Let's take a look. Only we're going to need to be quick. And quiet." I mouthed the words and hoped that in the dark, Eve could see enough to know what I was saying.

I didn't have to worry. Eve stuck to me like a limpet on a rock. Together, we crossed the street and closed in on Arta.

There was a spotlight trained on the burnt orange and turquoise Arta sign. Instinctively, I skirted its glow, keeping to the shadows. Maybe it was instinct, too, that told me to keep my back up against the wall. When we got as far as the front window of the gallery, I signaled Eve to stay put and pivoted to take a look.

There was no one in the gallery. Most of the interior lights were off. Here and there an overhead light shone on some objet d'art: a blue glass vase artfully displayed on one shelf, a hammered copper bowl on another, an abstract painting on the far wall that looked like water lilies. Or was it a New York City taxicab?

Before I had time to give it any more thought, Beyla walked into the gallery.

I dropped to my knees below the window and the window box in front of it, pointing inside as I did. "She's in there," I whispered just loud enough for Eve to hear me. "I wonder what she's doing."

There was only one way I was ever going to find out.

With a signal to Eve to stay put and keep quiet, I rose to my feet. The window box was overflowing, and I positioned myself behind a spicy geranium and parted the red impatiens, trying for a better look. I was just in time to see Beyla peering into the copper bowl.

That might not be a weird thing for a customer to do, but it struck me as an odd way for a burglar to act.

So did the fact that when she'd satisfied herself that the bowl was empty, Beyla lifted it, looked underneath it, and ran her hand over the shelf where it was displayed. When she was done, she took what looked to be a man's big, white handkerchief out of her pocket and wiped every surface she'd touched.

"She's not looking to hide anything," I told Eve while I shifted positions from the cover of a geranium to a curtain of marigolds. "She's searching for something."

"You think?" I saw Eve's muscles tense and stopped her with one hand on her arm before she could move. It was dangerous enough for me to be risking exposure. There was no use taking the chance of Beyla seeing the two of us watching her through the flowers.

When she was done with the copper bowl, Beyla moved on to the blue glass vase. It was big and obviously heavy and she used two hands to lift it. She studied the vase and the shelf where it was displayed carefully before she put it back into place. She gave the same kind of attention to each of the paintings on the wall. When she walked over to the counter where purchases were written up and wrapped, I figured I'd better provide Eve with some kind of narrative.

"Whatever she's looking for, she hasn't found it yet," I told her, partly to relieve the I'm-dying-to-know-what's-going-on look on her face, and partly because I was trying to work through the thing in my head, and I found it easier to think out loud.

I also found out the hard way that keeping still while half crouched and hunched over did ugly things to my calf muscles.

I winced and dropped onto the sidewalk, rubbing the back of my right leg with one hand. "Something tells me Yuri got his info wrong," I said. "If she already has the disc, why would she be here looking for it?"

"Unless she's looking for something else."

It was a possibility. Still, something about Eve's theory just didn't feel right to me. Neither did Yuri's take on the situation.

"I don't think so," I said, convinced, though I didn't know why. "She's being too careful. And she doesn't want anyone to know she's been here, either. She's wiping away her fingerprints."

"Really? This I've got to see!" Eve moved too fast for me. Before I could stop her, she slid away from the wall and turned to look in the front window. Let's face it, tall and beautiful is great when it comes to most things, but it's not much of an asset when you're trying to be sneaky.

I made a grab for Eve to tug her down next to me, but she waved me aside.

"She not there," she said. I guess I must have looked like I didn't believe her. "Take a look for yourself." She pointed into the gallery. "She may have been in there before, but I don't see hide nor hair of Beyla now."

Eve was right; Beyla was gone. And the way I read the situation, that meant that there were two possibilities: either she was in one of the back rooms, or she'd already left.

Two possibilities, and only one way to find out which one was right.

"Come on." I grabbed Eve's arm and tugged her toward the street where Beyla had parked her car. "Let's go around back and find out what she's up to."

We crept around the corner. When I saw that Beyla's car was still parked at the curb, I breathed a sigh of relief. "She's still in there," I whispered and pointed. There were no windows on that side of the building, but there were three stairs that led up to a small, rectangular porch and a door. Obviously, that was the way Beyla had gotten in, and for a moment, I considered checking to see if the door was still open and going in after her.

For a moment.

Logic prevailed, as did my desire not to be caught doing anything that looked even a little like breaking and entering. I continued down the sidewalk toward an alley behind the building. "Maybe there's a window."

"Back there?" Eve hissed. She glanced to where the sidewalk met the back alley and gulped, as if she expected something to jump out of there and bite her.

Which, for all I knew, it could have.

"It's the only way we're going to find out what she's up to," I reminded Eve, fishing in my purse for the mini flashlight I kept there. I might have been a new woman, but I hadn't lost all my common sense.

"There's the Annie Capshaw I know and love," Eve said, relieved now that we had a little bit of light. "Always prepared. Always on the ball. Always sure of herself."

I hated to burst her bubble. Because I was about to make a very un-Annie Capshaw-like move. I pulled back my shoulders, lifted my chin, and trained the beam of my flashlight into the pitch-dark alley. Before I could talk myself out of it, I followed the trail of light inside.

My self-confidence lasted for exactly three steps.

That's when I slammed my knee into the corner of a wooden packing crate. I stopped to rub it, arcing the ray of light all around.

From what I could see, the alleyway ran along the back of Arta as well as behind the two buildings beside it on M Street. My flashlight beam only penetrated so far, and beyond its soft yellow glow, everything was dark and quiet. At our backs was another row of buildings, their shapes tall and hulking in the dark. Right next to us were the packing crates I'd already gotten too up close and personal with. They were stacked one on top of the other in a neat pile, probably awaiting a trash hauler to cart them away. There was no back door, but there was a window that looked out over the alley. From what I remembered from our reconnaissance trip, the window was in Drago's office. Unfortunately, it was also at least ten feet off the ground, and there were no lights on inside the office. From here, all I could see was a black square a little less dark than the building around it.