Miranda Bliss - Cooking Up Murder

I took another gander at the address.

“That’s it!” I reached into my pocket, suddenly remembering the piece of paper Drago pressed into my hand right before he died. “That’s what was written on the back of the restaurant receipt. The address of Arta. Look!” I pulled out the crumpled receipt and smoothed it so that Eve could read it.

She nodded, confirming my deduction, which, I will say, felt pretty darned brilliant.

“You know what it proves, don’t you?” Eve asked, and when I didn’t, she shook her head, amazed that I still wasn’t thinking like a detective. “We’re supposed to be here,” she said, and before I could come up with a dozen reasons why she was wrong, she grabbed my arm and pulled me across the street.

We pushed open the gallery door and found ourselves in a huge room with track lighting on the high ceiling. The paintings that hung on the redbrick walls were too abstract for me to decipher, and the sculptures… well, to my untrained eyes, they looked like rocks piled one on top of another.

The man we’d seen from across the street was on the other side of the room, looking at one of the rock piles. He certainly didn’t look like he worked there: he was tall, thin, and bald, and he was dressed in jeans, a dark golf shirt, and expensive sneakers. I figured him for a customer until I realized that there was no one else around. He refused to make eye contact, and I think he would have ignored us completely if Eve hadn’t headed right over to where he stood.

The man turned to us sharply, and murmured an uncomfortable, “Good afternoon!”

“Hi there! We’re interior designers,” I blurted out. Eve turned to me, eyes wide with surprise. OK, OK, so I wasn’t as good a liar as she was, but I figured I needed to take charge of the situation. “Redoing a home in Bethesda,” I continued. “We’re looking for just the right painting.”

“This is not possible.” The man’s voice was heavily accented, like Drago’s. And Beyla’s, for that matter. “This is a private gallery. You do not walk in without an appointment. If you will excuse me…” He backed away at the same time he gestured toward the front of the gallery. There was no mistaking what he meant.

Don’t let the door hit you on your way out.

For all I knew about the world of art, this was how things were done. Still, to me, it seemed a funny way to do business. Or not to do business.

“I’m not sure you understand,” I continued. I could tell Eve was just as baffled as I was by his attitude, and not sure what to say. “We want to look at paintings. We want to buy.”

The man’s smile wavered around the edges. “Yes, yes. This is very good. But you must understand. You do not come to a gallery without an appointment. How do you say this? It is not done.”

Three cheers for my brain. It clicked into action again.

“But we do have an appointment. Or at least a referral.” The receipt with Drago’s writing on it was still in my hand, and I showed it to the man. “We met Mr. Kravic just recently at this restaurant. He told us to stop by. See, he wrote the address down for us. If you ask him-”

“This is not possible.” I guess he wanted to see the proof up close and personal, because he tried to pluck the receipt out of my hand. But I was faster. After I was sure he’d seen it-and Drago’s writing on it-I stuffed it back in my pocket.

He cleared his throat. “I am sorry to tell you, but Drago Kravic, he is not here.”

I managed a chirpy smile. “We can wait.”

“No, no. You are not understanding.” The man shook his head sadly. “My dear friend Drago, he is not coming back. He is dead.”

We feigned surprise. I thought Eve’s surprise was more convincing than mine, but like I said, I’ve never been much for prevarication. Still, I must have been convincing enough. The man turned a somber smile on me.

“I am sorry I have to tell you this distressing news,” he said. “I am Yuri Grul, Drago’s partner. It is a sad time for me. For all of us. If there is anything I can do-”

“Now that you mention it, you just might be able to help,” Eve piped up. She glanced around the gallery, wide-eyed and with one hand on her Kate Spade to prove to Yuri that she was serious when it came to spending money.

“That nice Mr. Kravic, he talked about a painting, and I’m just dying-” How Eve could make herself blush on command was a mystery to me. Her hand flew to her mouth. “Oh! I guess that’s not the best word to use, is it? You’ll excuse me, won’t you, sugar? What I meant to say, of course, is that the way Drago described it, why, I just know I’m gonna love that painting. We may not be able to get back here for a good, long while. So if you could just show it to me? I mean, if it isn’t too much of an imposition at a time like this.”

For a couple seconds, I thought Yuri was going to say it was. I almost wished he had-then we could get out of here and get back to minding our own business.

But mourning or no mourning, Yuri was obviously a man of business. He smiled in an oily sort of way that made me uncomfortable. “The name?” he asked.

“Why, it’s Eve DeCateur, and this is Annie Capshaw.” Eve pressed a hand to her heart and twinkled, but Yuri’s blank expression said it all. “Oh, you mean the name of the painting!” She rolled her eyes as if amazed by her own foolishness. “I just know it will come to me,” she said, chewing on her lower lip. “Maybe if you show us around?”

“Of course.” Yuri stepped back to allow us to get closer to the displays. That was my cue-we’d discussed that much on the way over, though I never thought we’d actually do it. If Eve could keep the gallery people distracted, I could snoop around. The thought of it sent a chill up my spine, but then again, I’d already concocted a whopper of a story to get us this far. I might as well go all out.

Besides, I knew that if I didn’t act fast, Eve would take matters into her own hands. And who knew what might happen then!

“If you’ll excuse me for a moment.” I did my best to look embarrassed. It didn’t take much acting-this whole thing was beginning to feel like a scene from a bad sitcom. “Ladies’ room?”

“Of course.” What else could Yuri say? He waved vaguely toward the other side of the gallery, and when Eve wrapped her arm through his and started to chatter, I took off in the opposite direction.

I found myself at the back of the building in a long hallway that struck me as particularly gloomy compared to the bright lighting out on the floor. I saw the door marked Ladies and passed it by, glancing over my shoulder to make sure Yuri wasn’t paying attention. I heard the light sounds of Eve’s laughter echo against the high ceiling, and Yuri’s lower, more guttural replies. Knowing she’d keep him busy for a few more minutes-and hoping a few minutes was enough time-I headed off to find the gallery office.

What was I looking for?

I really didn’t know. I only knew that Eve had this crazy idea that if I could get a peek into Drago’s office, I would find something that would give us a clue to the identity of his killer.

In Eve’s mind, of course, that killer was Beyla.

Did I believe it?

Honestly, I still didn’t know what I thought about Beyla. At that moment, the only thing I was sure about was that I wasn’t cut out to be a thief or a spy. My heart was pounding like the drum line of a high school marching band. My palms were sweaty. My blood was racing so fast and hard, it felt like it was going to spurt out of my veins.

I took a deep breath, attempting to get a grip and trying to reason through the panic cluttering my mind.

There was the receipt from Drago with the address of the gallery scrawled on it, I reminded myself. And there were his final words to me.