Софи Келли - Faux Paw

“Oh, thank you,” I said to her, dropping my bag on the chair opposite Gavin.

“You’re welcome,” she said. “Do you need a menu or do you know what you’d like?” She gave me a knowing smile. “Eric’s sourdough breakfast sandwich, maybe?”

“Definitely,” I said. Clearly I was getting to be predictable.

Claire headed for the kitchen and I slipped off my jacket, put my bag on the floor and sat down. “Okay, I’m here, so tell me your idea. You really think you might have a way to figure out who took the Weston drawing?” I reached for the small pitcher of cream in the middle of the table.

“Maybe.” Gavin ran the fingernails of one hand over his bearded chin. “I have a . . . connection in Minneapolis.”

I took a drink of my coffee. It was strong and very hot, just the way I liked it. Not that I would necessarily turn down coffee that was cold and weak.

“A connection could be anyone from someone you worked with to someone you dated to the kid you ate erasers with in kindergarten,” I said.

“I didn’t eat erasers in kindergarten,” Gavin said. “But remind me sometime to tell you the story of what happened when I tried that paste stuff they use for papier-mâché.”

I laughed. “You didn’t.”

“Oh, I did.” He grinned across the small table at me. “I didn’t have the discriminating palate that I have now.”

I laughed. Even though I knew that Gavin was trying to charm me, I still enjoyed his company.

He held up a hand and the grin faded. “Seriously, my connection to Big Jule is professional.”

“Big Jule?” I said, not even trying to keep the skepticism out of my voice. “Like the character from Guys and Dolls ?”

Gavin nodded. “I know what you’re thinking. Big Jule—whose real name is Julian McCrea—is a huge musical theater fan. He’s played the role of Big Jule nineteen times in amateur productions.” He shrugged. “He’s a little . . . eccentric, but if a piece of artwork is”—he paused for a moment, searching for the right word—“generating interest, Big Jule knows who’s interested.”

I took another sip of my coffee. “So he’s what? A thief? A fence?”

Gavin leaned back in his chair. “He’s more of a relocation specialist.”

“A fence, then,” I said. “So does he say ‘youse guys’ and shoot craps in a back alley?”

He laughed again. “You’re not going to break out in a chorus of ‘Luck Be a Lady,’ are you, Kathleen?” he asked.

A mental image of my dad in a snap-brim fedora and a black pinstripe suit when he’d played Sky Masterson in Guys and Dolls flashed into my head.

I raised one eyebrow. “You joke, but I can do the choreography.”

Gavin folded his arms over his chest and grinned across the table at me. “I’d like to see that,” he teased.

Claire was on her way from the kitchen with our breakfast. “Maybe some other time,” I said.

“Saved by a breakfast sandwich,” he countered with a laugh.

Gavin told me a little more about “Big Jule” while we ate. Julian McCrea had had an art gallery for many years. He’d represented several up-and-coming artists. With a degree in art history, he’d even been called as an expert witness in a number of cases in which the provenance of a piece of artwork was in question. Now McCrea specialized in helping a select group of clients add to their private collections. And it was clear that, like the character in Guys and Dolls , this Big Jule’s deals weren’t always aboveboard.

Gavin put down his fork and looked around for Claire. “Come with me, Kathleen,” he said. “I’m going to see Big Jule tomorrow and, well, you do know the choreography for ‘Luck Be a Lady.’”

I laughed. “I think you’ll do just fine without me.”

He leaned toward me across the small table. “Come with me,” he repeated. “I’ll do even better with you. You can talk about musicals with the guy and he’ll be a lot more susceptible to your charms than he is to mine.”

“I have work to do,” I said, using the last bite of sourdough bread to soak up a bit of tomato on my plate.

“It won’t take that long,” Gavin countered. “And I’m serious. Big Jule is more likely to talk to you than he is to me.”

Claire came to the table then and poured each of us more coffee. Marcus walked into the café as she was topping up my mug. The smile that flashed across his face when he saw me was tempered when he saw Gavin. I raised a hand in hello, and Marcus came over to us, crossing the space between the door and the table in about three strides of his long legs.

“Hi,” I said, smiling up at him.

Gavin got to his feet and offered his hand. “Good morning, Detective,” he said with an easy smile.

“Good morning,” Marcus replied, shaking Gavin’s hand and then, once he’d let it go, resting his other hand on my shoulder. “I didn’t know you two had a meeting this morning,” he said. His eyes flicked briefly to me, and while I knew the words were directed to me, he kept his gaze on Gavin.

“It was a last-minute thing,” I said. “Gavin may know someone who can help us figure out who might have wanted the Weston drawing.”

“I’m sure Detective Lind will be happy to have that information,” Marcus said.

“Actually, Kathleen and I were planning on going to talk to my contact tomorrow. No offense to Detective Lind, but I think we’d have better luck.” Gavin’s tone was offhand, but there was nothing offhand in the way he returned Marcus’s gaze.

“This is a police investigation,” Marcus said. His eyes shifted to me for a moment. “You know how this works, Kathleen.”

His hand was still possessively on my shoulder. I suddenly felt like a fire hydrant between two dogs.

I looked up at Marcus. “I do,” I said. “But Gavin has contacts the police don’t.” I couldn’t quite picture a man whose business clearly wasn’t completely legal and who liked to be called Big Jule—even if the name did come from a fifties musical—wanting to share a lot of information with the police, but I wasn’t going to say that to Marcus with Gavin standing right there.

The muscles were tight along his jawline, but he turned to Gavin and forced a cool smile. “I’m sure your contacts are more likely to talk to you than to us,” he said as though he’d read my mind. “But please let Detective Lind know if you find out anything.”

“Of course,” Gavin said.

“I need to get my order and get back to the station,” Marcus said, motioning toward the counter.

“I’ll walk you over,” I said, getting to my feet. His hand fell away from my shoulder. “I’ll be right back,” I said to Gavin. I followed Marcus to the back of the small restaurant.

“Hi, Detective,” Claire said. “Eric’s just putting your order together in the kitchen. I’ll be right back.”

I waited until she’d passed through the swinging door and then I turned my head to study Marcus. “So you’re really not jealous?”

He glanced over at the table. Gavin’s back was to us and he was talking to someone on his cell phone. Marcus’s blue eyes narrowed. “Of him? No. I just don’t want him interfering in the case.”

“He’s acting as a consultant,” I said gently. “That’s not exactly interfering.”

“I know that,” he said. He sighed softly. “Kathleen, I don’t trust him. There’s something he’s not being honest about.”

“You don’t think he had something to do with the robbery and Margo’s death, do you?” I asked.

Marcus shook his head and his gaze darted across the restaurant again for just a moment. “He has an alibi. He was in the bar at the hotel. At least a dozen people saw him, so, no, I don’t think he had anything to do with what happened at the library. Not directly.”