Sammy Keyes and the Art of Deception (12 page)

“Grams?”

“I'm fine, Samantha, and I'm sorry. I'm afraid the sound of a Harley can still get to me.”

“But Grams, there are motorcycles everywhere, and you've never freaked out like
that
before.”

“Not all motorcycles are Harleys, Samantha. And
that
Harley in particular … well, don't ask me. Maybe it's tricked out the same or something. It just got to me.”

Tricked out? What kind of expression was “tricked out” for a
grandmother
to use?

Then all of a sudden she stumbles. I don't even know on what. One minute she's trucking along, chin jutting out, arms pumping high, and the next minute she's a heap of twisted grandma, sprawled on the gravel.

“Grams! Are you all right?”

“Owww,” she says, grabbing her ankle.

“Did you sprain it?” And I really am worried about her until it hits me what's going on. I eye Hudson, who's talking to the motorcycle guy, and whisper, “Is this like fainting only not as stupid?”

I thought she was going to blow a gasket. “No!” She slaps the grit off her palms. “How can you even
think
such a thing?”

Out of nowhere, Flannel Man appears, kneeling right beside her, saying, “Are you all right, miss?”

Miss?

Grams looks at him. At his flannel ears sticking straight out. At his layers of shirts and the mud-caked knees of his
jeans. “I'm fine,” she tells him. “I must have slipped on the gravel.”

He nods at her feet. “Lovely shoes, miss, but not much for walking, wot?” He helps her up. “Does yer husband know the rider?” he asks, looking over his shoulder at Hudson talking to Motorcycle Man.

“He is
not
my husband,” Grams huffs as she dusts herself off.

Flannel Man looks from side to side. Like he's holding a stick of dynamite and not real sure how to get rid of it. So I give him a little don't-worry-about-it shake of the head and tell him, “They're probably just talking bikes.”

It's like I snuffed the wick. He smiles at me, then says, “Never fancied motorbikes myself. And that one makes quite a racket.”

I point up at the branch of a tree. “Your squirrels don't seem to like it much, either.”

He spots Guiditta and Luciano scurrying back and forth along the branch. And I think he was about ready to march over and tell ol' Thumper to shut his contraption down, when the guy finally reaches over and turns off the key himself.

Now the bike doesn't just shut off. First it rumbles and sputters, then it blasts a huge flame out the tailpipe like a burning hot fart.
Then
it dies.

Motorcycle Man swings off the bike like the fire show was no big deal, and after talking with Hudson for another minute, he pushes the Harley up toward Diane's house.

Hudson hustles to join us, saying, “Sorry to make you
wait. I thought it might be a good idea to find out who that fellow was.”

Now I'm just shaking my head, 'cause boy, is Hudson digging himself in deeper, or what? I mean, first he's got to go and gush about Diane's paintings belonging in the Louvre, then a mud-caked squirrel-feeding gnome with helicopter ears has to help Grams up 'cause Hudson's too busy protecting his purple-eyed princess from a gaspassin' Harley to notice the tumble.

And while I'm shaking my head and Grams is looking about as happy as a singed moth, Flannel Man asks, “And who exactly
is
he?”

“Oh, just her brother.”

Flannel Man's eyes shoot open. “Lance? That's
Lance
? Crimy!”

“Why?” I ask him. “What's wrong with Lance?”

“We all thought he was dead, we did! Couldn't find him for Dr. Duane's funeral. Courtney tried, God rest her soul. And if you can't be found for your own father's burial …” His voice trails off and he frowns. “All these years. Imagine that.”

All of a sudden Grams is back on the case. “Who's Dr. Duane?”

“Why, Dr. Reijden, miss. But he always insisted I call him Duane, so I called him Dr. Duane.” He gives her a shy grin. “A compromise, wot?”

“And Courtney's the mother?” Grams asks.

He nods. “Yes, miss. Lovely lady. So full of grace and kindness. Lizzy, bless her heart, stayed with her to the end.”

“You were neighbors a long time?”

“Have been, yes. Very private people, the doctor and the missus, but they treated me like family, they did.”

“So what made the brother disappear?”

He shrugs. “He was always a bit of the black sheep. And being Dr. Duane's son, why, those were big footsteps to follow. That's always been my take on it, anyway.”

We said our good-byes, and on the way back to the car Grams whispered, “He's the one. She got him to do it for her.”

“Who? Flannel Man?”

“No! The brother!”

“But Grams, why? That doesn't make any sense!”

“Yes it does. Perfect sense. It explains everything.”

“No, it doesn't! You've got the facts all mixed up. Whoever it was, was trying to get
away
with the paintings. They were
stealing
them. If I hadn't tackled them, they'd be out the door and down the street. Why would Diane get her brother to do that? I mean, she couldn't just pop them back on the wall after that, right?”

“But—”

“And excuse me, but a motorcycle does not make a very good getaway car. Besides, if this is the first time ol' Helicopter Ears has seen the brother, then they can't have been in cahoots. You can't exactly sneak around on that Harley!”

“You're just not seeing this right, Samantha. It's all for publicity! It's all for—”

“Grams, that doesn't make sense! Just admit it, would you? You
want
it to be her 'cause you're jealous.”

Now Grams is about to say something back, but Hudson cuts in with, “What
are
the two of you whispering about?”

“Nothing,” Grams snaps.

He looks at me, so I just shrug and sort of roll my eyes. But then I decide to toss him a bone. “You didn't notice Flannel Man coming to Grams' rescue when she fell?”

He gives me a really puzzled look. “You mean that Pete fellow?”

“Uh-huh.”

He turns to Grams. “Rita, you fell?”

“
Hrmph,
” she says, and picks up speed.

He looks at me, completely baffled, so I pat him on the shoulder and say, “Hudson, you're the smartest guy I know. I can't believe you're not getting this.” He just stares at me, so I shake my head and say, “C'mon, let's go.”

Grams made me sit up front on the way home. And it was weird—I wasn't mad at either of them, but they both seemed mad at each other
and
me. I tried breaking the ice by asking them stuff like, “Why do you think squirrels like rotten nuts?” and, “Where do you suppose
that
road goes?” and, “Is anyone else starving to death?” but all I got was a bunch of grumbling.

By the time I met Grams back at the apartment, she was in the strangest mood I'd ever seen. She raided the dregs of my Christmas candy, poured herself a big glass of my 2% milk instead of her fat-free stuff, and sat down at the kitchen table with a yellow pad of paper and a jar of colored pencils. Then she stuffed her face with chocolate,
peanuts, and caramel and started scratching out a chart. “Why anyone else can't see this is beyond me,” she muttered. “You want facts? I'll give you facts.” And when I asked her, “You want me to make dinner?” she just ripped into a Three Musketeers and said, “Sure. Fine. Whatever you want.”

Whatever I want? Well, this was a first. So while she scrawled away, I cooked up something Grams would normally never eat—some blood-cloggin', vein-stoppin' Pasta of Ill Repute.

That's right, I made us some mac 'n' cheese.

And when I brought two bowls of it to the table, she blinked at it, then at me, and said, “I can't eat that!”

I picked up her Three Musketeers wrapper and read, “Calories: 260. Calories from fat: 70.” I grabbed the Snickers wrapper. “Calories: 280. Calories from fat: 130.” And I was reaching for the PayDay wrapper when she said, “All right, all right! You've made your point. But could we at least have some kind of vegetable to go with it?”

“I am not mixing in peas or tuna or anything else, Grams. I—” and then I remembered something. “Salsa!”

“Salsa?”

I flew back to the refrigerator. “You know, tomatoes, onions, peppers … ?” I grabbed the salsa jar, a spoon, and an extra bowl and sat back down.

“Salsa is not a vegetable!”

“That's right, it's vegeta
bles.
Full of all those wonderful antioxidants you're always pushing me to eat.”

“You're putting that
in
your macaroni?”

“I've heard it's really good. Actually, I've heard it's god-like.”

“God-like?” She watched me mix up a little batch in the extra bowl, her face crinkled in disgust. “From whom?”

Actually, that was exactly what I was trying
not
to think about. I mean, I'd picked up this little tip clear back in January, so at this point I could easily have forgotten where I'd heard about mac 'n' salsa, right?

“Samantha?”

A lie flashed through my mind. A
meteor
shower of lies flashed through my mind. But since I'd recently made a pact with Grams that I wouldn't lie to her if she would try to trust me again, well, I didn't lie. I just shrugged like it didn't matter and said, “Just someone at school.”

“And that someone's name is … ?”

“Casey,” I said, then took a bite.

At first my mouth went into shock. Nothing moved. Then all of a sudden my tongue and teeth and palate and gums went crazy. Like they were jumping up and down for joy.

Casey was right.

It was god-like.

“Samantha?” Grams was looking worried. “Go on— spit it out!”

“Oh!” I started chewing like crazy. “Oh, Grams! This is so good, you won't believe it!” I spooned a bunch of salsa into my bowl and mixed, then grabbed her fork and gave her a bite.

“Say!” she said after chewing a minute. “That's wonderful!”

“Here.” I passed her the salsa. “Have some veggies.”

She laughed and mixed her own, then said, “So, who's Casey?”

Uh-oh. I stuffed my face. “Just somebody at school.”

Now I could tell Grams was getting ready to sniff down a whole new trail of clues, so I reached over, snagged the pad, and said, “Let's see your ‘facts.' ”

Across the top she'd written SUSPECTS, but she'd only listed one—Diane “Lizzy” Reijden. And beneath her name she had:

1. Fainted during heist to cause diversion
   

2. Recognized bandit
   

3. Wanted to create reasons for the
   L.A. Times
   to write about her paintings
   

4. Was in no hurry to meet the reporter—knew he would be over to see her soon enough!
   

5. Dislikes Tess Winters
   

6. Does not want the police to investigate
   

7. Has a mysterious, black-sheep brother (who rides a Harley)
   

“Who rides a Harley? I guess that makes him guilty right there, huh?”

“Take it from me, Samantha, you can't trust a man on a tricked-out Harley.”

“Well, the guy who kicked me in the jaw was wearing tennis shoes, not biker boots. Thank God.”

She scowled at me. “Most people have more than one pair of shoes. And I don't know … maybe a Harley doesn't make for a quiet getaway, but who says he wasn't planning to just strap them to the sissy bar and blast out of there?”

To the sissy bar? The
sissy
bar? Who
was
this woman?

I shook my head. “Wouldn't that be really, really conspicuous?”

“Perhaps, but you did notice he only took four of them, right?”

“He couldn't
carry
all eight of them! Not under one arm!”

“Ah-ah-ah,” she said, looking at me like she had the key to the universe. “He couldn't carry them all on the back of a Harley.”

“But he could carry four? Gra-ams!”

“Okay, okay!” she grumbled, but then brightened. “So maybe he's also got a car.”

“Not if he just came into town. Admit it, Grams. Your theory just doesn't hold up.”

She crossed her arms. “I stand by my clues.”

“Your clues.” I shook my head and snagged her pad and a pencil. And while she ate zippy mac 'n' cheese, I made columns of my own. One for Tess Winters, one for Austin Zuni, and one for Jojo Lorenzo.

“Jojo Lorenzo?” Grams said, reading upside down. “Why on earth did you list
him
?”

So I told her all about seeing him at the Renaissance Faire and how he gets fifty percent of anything that's sold while it's at the Vault. “Diane's only showing her paintings there for three weeks, so he's got to move fast.”

“Pshaw.”

I blinked at her. “ ‘Pshaw,' Grams?”

“You know—nonsense. Ridiculous. Absurd. Preposterous—”

“I know what pshaw
means
, Grams. I just didn't think it was something people actually
said.
”

“Well, I just did, and that's my exact assessment.”

“Okay, well, what about the fact that Jojo ‘forgot' to call the police the night of the robbery? Don't you find
that
a little odd? Maybe he was trying to give the squirt gun guy extra time to get away? Ever think about that?”

She waves it off. “That's perfectly in keeping with the way that man is.” Then, just like that, she drops the only decent clue I've got and points to the paper, saying, “I know you've got things against that Winters woman, and heaven knows anyone would relish seeing her tried and convicted, but I place my money on Miz Liz.” She wags her fork at me. “Intuition, child. You've got to trust it.”

“Well, my intuition tells me Tess could very well have done it.”

Grams shrugs. “List me some facts, then.”

So I did.

1) Kept watching the front door.

“He came in the side door.”

“Well, she was expecting
some
one.”

“The reporter, most likely.”

I scowled at her and wrote, 2) Needs publicity

“Any more than Diane?”

“Yes! Jojo says she hiked up her prices to be in the same ballpark as Diane's.”

“Oh, pshaw.”

I blinked at her, and then I couldn't help it—I cracked up. And when I quit laughing, I said, “You'd better not start using that all the time, all right?”