Killing Cupid (A Jaine Austen Mystery) (12 page)

Chapter 19

W
hen last we saw Greg, those of you who were paying attention and not running to the fridge for a snack will no doubt remember that he’d been heading off to an art gallery with a “freshly painted” oil he’d just hauled out of a dusty closet.

I was pretty much convinced he was a fraud and that somehow Joy had found out about it and was blackmailing him. But I couldn’t confront him, not without admitting I’d trespassed on his private property to spy on him.

I needed a way to get him to admit he was faking those paintings of his.

And with a great deal of thought (not to mention a few Double Stuf Oreos), I figured out how to do it.

After a pit stop at my local home supply store, I headed out to Greg’s place in Santa Monica.

I was happy to see his Lamborghini in the driveway. Which meant he was home and my plan could proceed unimpeded.

Well, not exactly unimpeded. There were two furry obstacles standing in my way.

Namely, Rocky and Bullwinkle.

What if those rascal rodents were lurking in the front yard, just waiting for their chance to chomp into my elastic waist jeans?

But if you think a woman of my mental fortitude was about to be intimidated by two pint-sized, pea-brained squirrels—you’re absolutely right.

Which is why I’d picked up a can of something called Squirrel-B-Gone at the home supply store.

Clutching it now in my sweaty palm, I scooted up Greg’s front path. If Rocky and Bullwinkle came anywhere near me, I intended to let them have it straight in their beady little eyes. But thank heavens all was quiet in Greg’s front yard. No sign of my bushy-tailed assailants anywhere.

I made it to the front door without incident and rang the bell, stashing my Squirrel-B-Gone in my purse.

Greg came to the door in his jeans and work shirt, his hands once again immaculately clean.

He frowned at the sight of me.

“You again?” he snapped. “I’ve said all I have to say about Joy Amoroso.”

“But that’s not why I’m here,” I said, plastering on my brightest smile. “I seem to have lost one of my earrings yesterday, and I’m pretty sure I dropped it in your living room. Mind if I come in for a sec and look around?”

He rolled his eyes, not even trying to hide his annoyance.

“If you must,” he sighed, reluctantly letting me in.

Following him into the living room, I made a beeline for the sofa where I’d been sitting yesterday. Immediately I started running my hands between the cushions, eyeing the box of Valentine’s candy still on his coffee table.

(Isn’t it amazing how some people take
days
to finish a box of chocolates?)

When I figured enough time had elapsed, I cried, “Here it is!”

I then held up an earring I’d been clutching in my hand all along.

“I’m so happy I found it. It’s a family heirloom passed down to me from my mom.” (It was passed down to me from my mom, all right—via the Home Shopping channel—for $29.68, plus shipping and handling.)

“How touching,” Greg said. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to get back to my painting.”

“Just one more thing,” I said, not moving an inch. “I was hoping you could do me a tiny favor. You see, I’m painting my bedroom, and I can’t decide which color I like. What with you being an artist, I was hoping you could help me make up my mind.”

And before he had a chance to object, I whipped out some paint chips I’d picked up at the home supply store.

“What do you think? Azure? Or Robin’s Egg Blue?”

He gave the chips a cursory glance and said, “Robin’s Egg Blue.”

“That’s the blue you prefer?”

“Yes, that’s the blue I prefer!” he said with an impatient tap of his work boots.

“Very interesting, I said. “Because both of these paint chips happen to be green.”

An angry flush surged up under his tan.

“Get out of here!” he screamed. “Now!”

But I wasn’t about to go anywhere.

“You’re colorblind, aren’t you, Greg? I noticed it yesterday. Your socks didn’t match. They still don’t.”

He looked down at his socks, then up at me.

“So? I’m colorblind. What’s the big deal?”

“It’s no big deal, not unless you’re an artist famed for his use of color.”

His eyes darted around the room like he was looking for the nearest emergency exit.

Clearly I had him rattled.

“And if you’re so busy painting, how come your hands are so clean? Not a spot of paint anywhere.”

“Ever hear of turpentine?” he sneered.

“Sure have. It has quite a distinct smell. Your hands smell like Zest to me.”

“Exactly what are you trying to say?”

This was it. The moment I’d been waiting for.

“You’re a fraud, Greg. Someone else painted your paintings.”

“That’s preposterous!”

He tried to look outraged, but it wasn’t working. Those darting eyes of his refused to meet mine.

“You can’t prove a thing!” he said, a hint of desperation in his voice.

“Oh, yes, I can.” I decided to throw caution to the winds and tell the truth. “I happened to be sitting in a tree outside your studio yesterday. I saw you take that dusty old painting out of a closet and tell someone at an art gallery that you’d just finished painting it.”

“Okay, that does it!” he said, whipping out his cell phone from his jeans pocket. “I’m calling the cops and having you arrested for trespassing!”

“Great. And while we’re waiting for them to show up, I’ll call your art gallery and tell them you’re a fake.”

“It’ll be your word against mine.” He clamped his arms across his chest in a gesture of defiance. “They’ll never believe you.”

“I think they will when I tell them about that mysterious closet of yours. Something tells me there may be a whole lot more ‘freshly painted’ oils stacked up inside.”

That was it. Game over. Score one for Jaine.

Shoulders slumped in defeat, Greg clicked his phone shut and sank down into a nearby armchair.

“Joy knew all about this, didn’t she?” I asked.

He nodded mutely.

“And she was blackmailing you.”

“For five miserable years,” he groaned.

“So who really painted your stuff?”

“My uncle George. He died about six years ago. Left me everything in his will
.
Uncle George painted as a hobby. Never thought of himself as an artist, just kept piling his pictures in the garage. He thought they were worthless, and so did I.

“At first I planned to have them all hauled off to the Goodwill. Except for one painting that I’d hung in my living room. Then one night I brought home a woman I met in a bar. She took one look at the painting and fell in love with it. Saw it was signed G. Stanton and assumed I painted it. I didn’t correct her. I was trying to score with her, and I thought that might help. Turns out she worked at an art gallery on Melrose. She brought it in, and the owner put it up on display. Two weeks later it sold for forty-five grand.”

He smiled at the memory.

“Needless to say, I canceled that trip to the Goodwill. I realized I had a gold mine on my hands. If I parceled out Uncle George’s paintings carefully, I could live on them for the rest of my life.

“Soon I was getting a lot of press, and Uncle George’s paintings started selling for more and more money. Everything was going along fine. Until Joy came along.”

He slumped even lower in his seat.

“She showed up at one of my gallery exhibits. I knew she was trouble the minute I saw her waddling over to me in one of her tent dresses. She had this smile on her face, like a cat who’d just caught a particularly juicy mouse.

“She said she knew all about my little secret and that unless I joined her crummy dating service and agreed to be photographed with her all over town, she’d tell the world what a fraud I was.”

“How on earth did she know about your uncle George?”

“After my Aunt Min died, Uncle George was lonely. He wanted to join Dates of Joy but couldn’t afford the initiation fee. So he wrote Joy a letter, asking if she’d accept one of his paintings instead of money. She turned him down flat, of course, money-grubbing bitch that she was.

“Unfortunately Uncle George had enclosed a photo of himself with the painting, and Joy never threw it out. Then, when I made my big splash on the art scene, she saw a picture of me in the paper with one of ‘my’ paintings. Joy knew I didn’t paint it, because she had a picture of Uncle George holding it—date stamped three years before I claimed to have finished it.”

Ouch.

“That was all the blackmail ammunition she needed. And so for the past five years I’ve been paying her a small fortune to keep her mouth shut. I didn’t mind the money so much. It was having to constantly show up at her stupid parties, never able to form a relationship because I had to stay single for Joy.”

So I’d been right all along about Greg’s dubious membership in Dates of Joy.

“Joy claimed she had Uncle George’s photo stashed away in a safe deposit box. So I thought I was trapped. Until a few weeks ago when Tonio told me the truth. He and Joy had just had one of their many fights, and he was pissed. He’d always felt sorry for me and confessed that Joy had made up the story about the safe deposit box. She was too cheap to rent one. Uncle George’s photo was in a file cabinet in her office.

“I made up my mind to get it. When I bumped into you outside of Joy’s office the night of the murder, I was on my way to bust into her file cabinet. Which I did. I found the damn picture. I was free at last.”

“So you didn’t touch her chocolates?” I asked.

“No, I’m not the one who poisoned her chocolates. But after all Joy put me through, I’m very grateful to whoever did.” Then, with a weary sigh, he added: “So how much is it going to cost me to keep you quiet?”

“Nothing.”

“Really?” He blinked in disbelief.

“Your uncle left you those paintings. As far as I’m concerned, they’re yours to do with as you wish.”

And it was true. It was none of my business what Greg Stanton did with his uncle’s paintings. All I cared about was whether or not he killed Joy. And at that moment, I have to confess, I believed him when he said he was innocent.

(Then again, I believed The Blob when he promised to cherish me forever, so I’m not exactly infallible.)

“I’m very grateful,” Greg said, at last making eye contact with me. “I just hope you won’t change your mind.”

“I won’t change my mind,” I assured him. “You don’t owe me a thing. Except maybe one of those chocolates over there,” I said, nodding to the box of Valentine’s chocolates still on his coffee table.

“Of course,” he said, hurrying over to get the box. “Here. Keep the whole box.”

“Oh, no, one’s enough,” I said, reaching for a candy.

“You’re not really writing a story for the
L.A. Times,
are you?” Greg asked as I bit into a caramel crème.

“No,” I confessed with a sheepish smile.

“So what are you up to, anyway?”

“Just poking around, asking questions, trying to find the killer and clear my name. You were right about me being a suspect. The cops think I may have killed Joy.”

“If you want to find the real killer,” he said, “I suggest you check in with Joy’s aunt.”

“Aunt Faith?”

“Some old dame who sells wackadoodle jewelry.”

“That’s Aunt Faith. I met her at Joy’s memorial service.”

“Tonio tells me that Joy died without a will and that the old lady was her only living relative. Which means she inherits everything. And gives her plenty of reason to want Joy dead, don’t you agree?”

I did, indeed.

Chapter 20

I
headed for my car with a spring in my step and a box of Valentine’s candy under my arm.

(Okay, so I took the whole box.)

It had been quite a productive meeting. I’d confirmed the truth about Greg’s paintings and got a lead about Aunt Faith to boot.

It was definitely time to pay Joy’s not-so-loving relative a visit.

She’d had nothing but nasty things to say about Joy in her “eulogy,” and for all I knew, she’d knocked off her niece to get her hands on a juicy inheritance.

I rummaged around in my purse and fished out the business card she’d given me at the memorial service.

Printed in elegant calligraphy were the words:

I called the number on the card, and a cheery voice at the other end trilled, “Faith Cooperman here!”

“Hi. I’m Jaine Austen. I don’t know if you remember me. We met at Joy’s memorial service.”

“How could I forget? It’s not often I see someone in a
CUCKOO FOR COCOA PUFFS
T-shirt at a memorial service.”

Oops. I’d been hoping no one had noticed it under my blazer.

“Anyhow,” I said, plowing past my fashion faux pas, “I was hoping I could stop by and see your jewelry.”

Not true, of course. I had no interest whatsoever in her baubles, but it was a good excuse to get some face time with her.

“I just need the address for your shop.”

“I don’t have a shop, honey. I do most of my sales on eBay. But come on over to my apartment, and I’ll be happy to show you what I’ve got. I just finished a fabulous bracelet made out of lug nuts!”

“Can’t wait to see it,” I lied.

She gave me her address, and after just two more Valentine’s chocolates—okay, four more, but I was skipping lunch, so don’t give me any grief—I was on my way to Faith’s apartment in the San Fernando Valley community of Tarzana.

Faith lived on a leafy street crammed with low-rise apartment buildings. A lone bungalow stubbornly clung among them, a reminder of what the street had undoubtedly looked like a half a century ago.

I found a parking space outside Faith’s building, Tarzana Gardens. As far as I could see, the “gardens” consisted of a row of wilted impatiens bordering a patch of balding grass.

Faith buzzed me in on the building’s rusty intercom, and minutes later, she was opening the door to her apartment, clad in an eye-popping floral muumuu and a paper clip necklace. Once again I was struck by her remarkable resemblance to Joy. The same chubby bod, the same thick blond hair, the same turned-up nose and blue eyes.

But then she smiled a broad, welcoming smile, and all similarity to Joy faded away.

Aunt Faith was either a very friendly gal, or she knew how to fake it.

“Come in, come in,” she said, ushering me into her living room, a rather shabby avocado and gold affair straight out of a Sears catalog, circa 1972.

“This is my husband, Bert,” she said, pointing to a florid sixty-something guy napping on a recliner, an open racing form splayed across his belly.

“Wake up, Bert!” she shouted.

He jolted awake with a snort.

“Say hello to Ms. Austen. She’s here to buy my jewelry!”

Oh, hell. I was hoping to window shop on this trip and not actually have to part with any cash.

“Hi there,” Bert said, waving a feeble finger.

Faith led me past him to her dining room table, where she had a whole bunch of her Trash to Treasures jewelry spread out. Some of the pieces, I’m afraid, looked like they hadn’t quite made it past the trash stage.

“Here’s that piece I was telling you about,” she said, holding up a heavy hunk of metal. “My lug nut bracelet! Can’t you just see yourself in it?”

Only if I was changing a tire.

“And it’s just thirty-five dollars!”

Thirty-five dollars for a bunch of lug nuts???

“And how about these?” she gushed. “Zipper earrings!” She held up two miniature zippers dangling from earring posts. “So on trend, aren’t they?”

All I could think was that somewhere some leprechaun was missing his fly.

“Or how about this? My toothbrush bracelet!”

Now she was holding up a pink plastic toothbrush that had somehow been molded into a circle, the bristles painted chartreuse.

“Only forty-five dollars,” she said, waving the bristles in my face.

No way was I paying forty-five dollars for a used toothbrush.

I was desperately trying to think of a way out of buying any of this junk when I glanced down at one of the dining room chairs and saw a stack of real estate spec sheets—the kind they hand out at open houses.

“You guys house hunting?” I asked.

“Yes!” Faith beamed. “I got a call from Joy’s attorney, and it turns out she died without a will, so I’m her sole beneficiary!” She clapped her hands like a kid who’d just learned she’d won a giant teddy bear at the fair. “What a surprise! I thought for sure she’d have left everything to that greaseball boyfriend of hers. Or her other significant other, her plastic surgeon.”

From the recliner, Bert piped up: “That gal had her face lifted so many times, she had nothing left in her shoes.”

“I can’t decide what to do with the money,” Faith was musing. “Buy a new condo in the city, or open my own jewelry store.”

“I vote for a condo!” Bert said. “I’m sick of living in the valley.”

“It’s poetic justice, that’s what it is!” Faith rambled on, ignoring the vote from the peanut gallery. “After all Joy put me and her mother through, she owes me. Big time.

“I only hope the police don’t think I had anything to do with her death. They were here questioning me the other day. There was no love lost between me and Joy, but I certainly didn’t kill her. After all, she was my sister’s child.”

At last. The conversation was right where I wanted it—on the murder.

“I don’t see how the police could possibly suspect you,” I said. “I’m sure you were nowhere near Joy’s party on Valentine’s night. Right?”

If she had an alibi, now was her chance to use it.

“Absolutely not,” Faith said. “I’ve never once stepped foot in that office of hers. Not after the way Joy pulled the rug out from under her mother and me. No, Bert and I were here all night having a romantic Valentine’s evening. Weren’t we, Bertie?”

Over in his recliner, Bert squirmed, clearly uncomfortable.

“Um . . . right,” he said. “We were home all night.”

Hmm. Very interesting.

I couldn’t tell if he was embarrassed at the memory of the high jinks involved in their “romantic evening.” Or if he was uneasy because his wife was lying about being home all night.

“Yes,” Faith was saying, “after a lifetime of treachery and abuse, I’m finally getting my just rewards. First thing tomorrow I’m going to put all Joy’s designer shoes on eBay and have that Cupid statue in her office appraised. I’m pretty sure it’s bronze with gold leaf detail. Should be worth a few grand.”

Hold on a sec.

If I wasn’t mistaken, I’d just caught Aunt Faith in a bit of a lie.

“But I don’t understand,” I said. “If you’ve never set foot in Joy’s office, how did you know about the Cupid?”

A merest hint of hesitation before she said, “Oh, I’ve seen it a million times in those corny ads of hers.”

But there was something in that beat of hesitation before she answered, like someone who’d just steadied herself before tripping, that made me wonder if she’d seen that Cupid up close and personal—perhaps on the night of the murder, while she was slipping her niece a poisoned chocolate.

“So what do you think?” she asked, holding up the zipper earrings.

Oh, hell. We were back to the jewelry again. Why did I tell that stupid “I want to buy jewelry” lie in the first place? Why couldn’t I have told her my other stupid lie about doing a story for the
L.A. Times?

“Just twenty-five bucks,” she cooed.

I wasn’t about to spend twenty-five dollars on a pair of zipper earrings. No way. No how. Never in a zillion years.

I’d simply tell Faith I thought her jewelry was lovely but I’d take a pass. That would be it, clean and simple.

“Do you take personal checks?” were the words that actually came out of my mouth.

What can I say? She was so damn proud of her wacky jewelry, I couldn’t say no.

I’ve actually wound up wearing the earrings a few times. They look sort of cute. Especially with my toothbrush bracelet.