Die in Plain Sight (30 page)

Pasadena

Late Sunday afternoon

L
acey looked up from the stack of old photo albums. There were pictures of Grandpa Rainbow’s wedding and the baby boy who grew up to be her father. She’d seen the first five or six Christmases and birthdays, and then the album photos gave way to people that Brody identified as his maternal grandparents or distant cousins. The rest of the stacked albums featured Dottie’s family and, after he moved in with his son, an older David Quinn.

Set to one side was a huge envelope of faded, brittle newspaper and magazine clippings going back fifty years or more. Each clipping dealt with the scandals and sorrows of the Savoy and Forrest families. None of the clippings pictured or mentioned anyone called David Quinn.

Quietly Lacey flipped the last page of the only album that had pictures of David Quinn. “Didn’t he have any photos of his own childhood and parents, like Mom’s parents did?”

Brody frowned. “I never thought about it, but…no.”

“Where was he born?” Ian asked.

“Weed.”

Ian didn’t even blink. “Northern California?”

Brody smiled. “Yes. Didn’t think you’d know it.”

“I’m a Central Valley boy. Did he travel a lot as a young man?”

There was a long pause while Brody searched his memories. “If he did, he didn’t talk about it. Just California. He often said, ‘Why go anywhere else? It’s all here, all the landscapes anyone needs.’”

“Did he ever talk about college?” Ian asked.

Brody shook his head.

Ian looked at Lacey.

“Not to me,” she said, “except to say it was a waste of time for anyone with talent.”

Dottie made a sound like a terrier sinking its teeth into a rat’s neck. Some of their worst battles had been over Lacey’s schooling.

“He had the typical contempt of the undereducated for higher education,” Brody said evenly. “To my knowledge, he never went beyond high school.”

“How about high school yearbooks, or even earlier school photos?” Ian asked.

Brody shook his head. “I have some of my mother’s, if that would help.”

“Only if they went to the same schools,” Ian said. “Did they?”

“No. They didn’t meet until he was forty.”

Lacey gave Ian an unhappy look, wondering if he was thinking what she was thinking. She didn’t ask. Her parents were upset enough as it was.

“So the oldest photo you have of your father,” Ian said to Brody, “is his wedding?”

Brody looked at his wife, who was the official keeper of the family history. She nodded.

“Okay,” Ian said. “Would you mind if I borrowed some pictures of him long enough to scan them into my computer?”

“Why?” Dottie asked bluntly.

“Lacey’s going to give me a list of plein air galleries that her grandfather might have visited,” Ian said. “Then I’m going to take a drive and see
if any of them recognize his photos,”
after I doctor them a bit
, “or his paintings.”

Dottie looked at Ian’s computer. “I have a scanner, but it would be faster to use my computer setup and simply print out the photos here.”

“You can do that?” Ian asked.

“Yes.”

Lacey took a deep breath. “Do you still have that personal-style program?”

Her mother turned hopefully. “Of course. I’ll just take a photo of you and—”

“No, not me. Granddad.”

Ian gave her a startled look, then a slow, approving smile. Without a word he went back to creaming the family photos for the clearest ones of David Quinn.

“Why?” Brody asked his daughter.

“Because he might have looked different in his other life,” Lacey said, and waited for the explosion. She didn’t have to wait long.

“Other life!” Brody and Dottie said simultaneously. “What are you talking about?” Brody demanded.

“The life your father lived before he married SaraBeth Courtney,” Ian said without looking up from the albums.

“Just because he doesn’t have pictures of his childhood doesn’t mean he led some sort of double life,” Brody said. “He wasn’t a sentimental man. He could have just thrown the pictures away.”

“There are other things,” Lacey said reluctantly.

“Such as?” Brody challenged.

“Such as,” Ian said, “the fact that there’s no official record of anyone called David No-Middle-Name Quinn before the marriage certificate he signed when he married SaraBeth Courtney. No driver’s license in California, no birth certificate, no voting record, no property, no taxes, nothing.”

Brody opened his mouth. Then he closed it and pinched the bridge of his nose. It didn’t take a lawyer to figure out the most likely reason a man might take the trouble to switch to a new identity.

“So you think he was a felon,” Brody said.

“I think we need to know who and what he was before he became David Quinn,” Ian said carefully.

Brody grunted. “How many reasons can you think of for changing your identity?”

“Quite a few.”

“Any of them legal?” Brody retorted.

“One or two.”

His face paled except for twin slashes of red over his cheekbones. “You really think he was a murderer?”

Ian spoke before Lacey could. “I really don’t know. It could have been some scam related to art that caused him to change his name. Did your father always paint, or was that new along with his new life?”

“He painted,” Dottie said, frowning. “I can’t remember why, but I’m sure of it.”

“Even before he was David Quinn?” Ian asked.

Dottie looked at Brody.

“Yes…” he said slowly.

“You sure?” Ian asked.

“One of my earliest memories is of him saying variations on the theme of ‘When I was your age, I could paint trees that looked like trees. A chicken could crap a better painting than this. What’s wrong with you? Didn’t you get any of me except a pecker?’”

“Wretched,
wretched
creature,” Dottie muttered under her breath.

Brody shrugged. “I got used to it after a while. The point is that my father always painted.”

“Landscapes?” Ian asked.

“As far as I know.”

“What about fires?” Lacey asked. “Did you ever see him paint them?”

Brody gave his daughter a puzzled look. “Fires? Like fireplaces or campfires or candles?”

“Like burning cars or houses,” she said.

“Not that I remember. But keep in mind that you knew the artistic part of my father better than anyone else. After I was eight, he gave up on me. He never painted around me and never let me be around him when he painted. He never showed me his paintings. Never showed my mother. He completely locked us out of that part of his life.”

“The biggest part,” Lacey said, finally understanding why her father found the whole subject of art distasteful.

“You were the only one,” Brody said simply. “He took one look at the
painting you did of the Christmas tree when you were three years old and fell in love. He let you into places and showed you pieces of himself that he didn’t share with anyone else.”

“Not all of it, apparently,” Ian said.
Thank God
. “Mrs. Quinn, I’ll take you up on the offer of your scanner.”

“Call me Dottie,” she said. Then added casually, “Everyone else in the family does.”

Lacey groaned.
“Mom.”

Ian gave Lacey a quick, one-arm hug. “Bet your mother plans a mean wedding.”

“I sure do,” Dottie said. “And you’re about to see how I do it.” She took the photos from his hand, picked up her computer, and headed for her office, talking all the way. “First I photograph all the important participants and scan them into the style program. Then I decide clothing, hair, makeup, and shoe styles based on body type and coloring.”

“Yeah?” Ian asked intriguede picked up the fat envelope of clippings and followed her. “Sounds like a program I once used to predict how people would look younger or older or with different noses, ears, hair, teeth, that sort of thing.”

“My program will do that. It’s a big hit when our hospital volunteers work with the antismoking clinic, showing people how smoking accelerates the aging process.” Dottie gave him a lookover her shoulder that reminded Ian of Lacey. “Should I ask what you were doing with the program?”

“Think of it as international planning.”

Brody watched the two of them vanish down the hall. “You know that you’re doomed.”

“Huh?” Lacey said.

“She’s already planning your wedding. Even before you got here, she asked me if I still could get into the tux I wore for—”

“No!” Lacey held up her hand. “Don’t go there.”

She stalked off after Ian and her mother, afraid to leave the two of them alone.

Palm Springs

Sunday night

I
t’s awfully nice of you to see us after-hours,” Lacey said, smiling her best Pasadena socialite smile.
Why not?
she thought.
It goes with everything I’m wearing, including my mother’s carnivorous shoes.

The tanned, trim, middle-aged man smiled, showing teeth as white as his silk shirt and slacks. “Any friend of Mrs. Roberts-Worthington is a friend of ours. She’s done an absolutely fabulous job of raising AIDS awareness.”

Mrs. Roberts-Worthington was a friend of Dottie’s sorority sister, not of Lacey’s, but she didn’t feel any need to clarify the relationship. It was enough that they’d found an entrée into the Palm Springs plein air art circuit.

“This is my client, Ian Lapstrake,” Lacey said. “Ian, Chad Oliver.”

Oliver waited for Ian to show the veiled hostility or contempt of the frankly heterosexual male for a frankly homosexual male.

“A pleasure, Mr. Oliver,” Ian said, holding out his hand.

Oliver relaxed and shookIan’s hand. “Come in. My partner isn’t here right now, but he should be backsoon. Until then, perhaps I can help you.”

Ian followed Lacey into the home that was also a gallery. Furniture, sculpture, paintings, everything was artfully coordinated in feel if not in era or medium. The fact that, like their host, the color scheme consisted of shades of white took a few moments to get used to. Even the art was executed in shades of pale, no matter what the subject.

“Coffee, wine, beer, a cocktail?” Oliver asked.

“Nothing, thanks,” Lacey said. “It’s enough that you’ve agreed to talk to us. We don’t expect to be entertained.”

“I insist,” Oliver said. “I’ve been experimenting with canapé recipes. Anthony will be so pleased not to be the only beta tester.”

Ian laughed. “In that case, make mine coffee.”

The kitchen was the open sort, so Oliver could cook and entertain guests at the same time. Ian, who could always eat, set aside his computer case, sat on a bar stool overlooking the kitchen, and watched Oliver gather food and plates. He moved with the efficiency and grace of someone doing a familiar, enjoyable job.

Lacey, whose interest in the kitchen was minimal, wandered off to look at the landscapes. She recognized a name here and there, but mostly she recognized money. This wasn’t decorator art. All the paintings were technically superior, a few were excellent, and one she would have loved for her own collection.

None of them were remotely like her grandfather’s work.

She went back and sat by Ian. In answer to his raised eyebrow, she shook her head slightly.

Oliver pulled a plate of warm canapés from the microwave, set it on the counter near Ian, and handed over a cup of coffee. The plates were white except for a pale, ghostly ribbon of blue just off-center.

Ian popped in a miniature quiche, closed his eyes, and chewed with obvious pleasure. When he swallowed, he said, “Wow,” and reached for more.

Oliver grinned, poured himself a glass of wine, and went to nuke another plate of canapés.

“Better dive in,” Ian said to Lacey, “or all that’s left will be a well-licked
plate.” Then Ian asked Oliver, “Don’t suppose you’d want to share this recipe?”

“You cook?” he replied, startled.

“A man who lives alone and likes good food learns to cook real quick,” Ian said. “And a man who’s going to marry an artist who’s mostly thumbs in the kitchen knows he’ll be doing the cooking.”

“I’m not mostly thumbs,” Lacey said.

“Yeah?” Ian said hopefully.

“I’m
all
thumbs.”

Oliver was still laughing when the front door opened.

Anthony Milhaven was twenty years older and six inches taller than his partner, and had the bearing of a man who had spent a lot of time in the military. Though surprised to find guests, he was as gracious as Oliver had been. Soon everyone was sitting on one side or another of the bar, eating and talking.

“You’ve been in the gallery business thirty years?” Ian asked Milhaven.

“Thirty-three, but who’s counting?” He picked up his scotch and took a healthy swallow. “Damn, I needed that. Been a bitch of a day. Hate inventory. Hate taxes. Love these egg-thingies.” He popped three into his mouth at once and looked at Ian. “What can I do for you?”

“We’re trying to trace an artist,” Lacey said before Ian could answer. “He might have been buying or selling paintings.”

“When?” Milhaven asked, reaching for more canapés.

“On and off for the last thirty years, at least,” she said.

“How old is he?”

“In his eighties. He’s been dead for two years.” As always, Lacey had to swallow hard. The image of the empty truck, the easel set up a hundred yards away, and desert silence made her want to cry. He’d been so alone when he died.

Milhaven saw the sadness in her eyes and wondered, but he didn’t say anything.

Ian reached into his breast pocket and pulled out photos. With the Quinns’ help, he had “aged” the best photos to represent ten-year spans of David Quinn’s life. If these didn’t ring any bells, he had a backup set with different hair, beard, and mustache styles to aid in jogging someone’s memory.

“He was about five feet ten inches,” Ian said, handing over the photos, “lean body, brown eyes, brown hair and beard that went gray from the chin up. Probably had paint-stained hands. Eyeteeth partially overlapped his front two teeth. No accent. No limp. No missing digits. No obvious scars. Somewhat stooped bearing.”

“Were you a cop before or after you were a soldier?” Milhaven asked without looking up from the photos.

“After,” Ian said without missing a beat.

Milhaven nodded. “Military shows in the posture. Cop in the eye and the gun under your jacket.”

“Did you get your twenty years before you got out of the military?” Ian asked.

Milhaven nodded. “Retirement kept me alive until the gallery began to pay its way,” he said, but his attention was on the third photo. It showed the face of a man who could have been between fifty and seventy years old. “I might have seen him, but it was at least ten years ago. Hard to say. I’ve got a head full of faces. Part of the business.”

“Was he buying paintings?” Lacey asked.

With a frown, Milhaven stared at the photo. “He didn’t buy any from me. I remember people who buy.”

“How about selling?” Ian asked.

“You have any idea how many times a day someone comes in and tries to sell me something?” Milhaven asked.

Ian opened his computer, booted up, and opened a file of landscape paintings. “How about this?” he asked, turning the computer screen toward Milhaven.

“Fabulous,” Oliver said, staring at stark desert mountains blushing pink with dawn and a foreground of skeletal shrubs as dark as fear.

Milhaven pinched his lips together and studied the image. Even when translated into pixels and put on a computer screen, the quality came through. “Hell of a painting. Is it for sale?”

“Not at this time,” Lacey said.

“When it is, give me a call.”

“I will.”

He looked up, measuring her.

“I mean it,” she said. “You remember faces and I remember people who help me.”

With a brief nod, he went back to looking at the screen. The landscapes clicked by. Then came a painting from each aspect of the Death Suite.

Milhaven grunted. “Good, but hard to sell. Landscapes are much easier.”

“Have you ever seen any like these before?” Lacey asked.

He shrugged. “I keep thinking I’ve seen this artist before. The landscapes, not the violence. What’s his name?”

“David Quinn,” Lacey said.

Silence, pursed lips, and finally a shake of his head. “Never heard of him.”

“You ever heard of Lewis Marten?” Ian asked casually.

“Marten, Marten. Wait.” He held up a hand to keep anyone from prompting him. “It’s coming back. Painted fifty-sixty years ago, ran with Savoy Ranch artists. Died young. Of course, they all seem young when you’re almost seventy.” Milhaven looked closely at the computer screen, which had cycled back to the first landscape. “You thinking about selling these Martens?”

“The paintings aren’t signed,” she said carefully. “All I really want is—”

“Unsigned?” Milhaven sighed. “Too bad. Takes a real hit in value that way. You get a confident collector, though, and you’ve got a sale. Maybe ten, twenty thousand. Maybe more, depending on how in love with the painting the client is.”

“I’ve had offers a lot bigger than twenty thousand,” she said, remembering Savoy Forrest.

“Must have been a client. A gallery can’t afford to go any higher and still turn a profit on resale.”

“Do you own any Martens?” Ian asked.

“Personally or professionally?”

“I’m not fussy.”

Milhaven looked at the computer screen. “You want to tell me what this is really about?”

“It’s about finding out if you’ve been offered similar art by the man in the photo,” Ian said.

For a long time Milhaven was silent. “I’ll have to think about it. Check my records. I’ve got a hot list of clients who are interested in various styles of art or individual artists. So does every other gallery worthy of the name. It’s called taking care of business. You have a card?”

Ian knew a here’s-your-hat-what’s-your-hurry when it was shoved in his face. He stood, took a business card from his wallet, and handed it to Milhaven.

“Rarities Unlimited,” Milhaven said, reading the card. He gave Ian a look from shrewd gray eyes. “They have quite a reputation.”

Ian’s smile was all teeth. “Lacey remembers people who help her. I remember people who don’t. Check your records and call us.”