Murder and Mischief in the Hamptons

Chapter Six

  "Field trip!"

  Well, glad to see Pia was excited.

  We had been at the gallery less than half an hour when Pia made this announcement. Just as Giorgio had been trying to explain, there was even less artwork stored in the warehouse than Pia had supposed. Several of the crates in the warehouse were empty, as were some the paper-wrapped picture frames. In these cases, the artwork had been removed from the wrappings, the canvases removed their frames, and then the empty framework rewrapped, leaving no one the wiser of the loss. It appeared that the professor had done a far more extensive job than we had ever anticipated. Now Pia was in a rush to refill the warehouse. Thus, the field trip.

  I was astounded and overwhelmed when we arrived at the Washington Square Outdoor Art Exhibit in Greenwich. Booths upon booths upon booths of artists and their work extended as far as the eye could see. The show featured established artists, as well as up-and-coming ones, and craft artisans of every kind. There was metalwork, jewelry, ceramics, photography, oil and watercolor paintings, sculptures and crafts. You name it, they had it. It was amazing. By far the largest exhibit I had ever laid eyes on. This was the stuff dreams were made of. This was what I had spent two years fantasizing for myself. The thought that I might be able to exhibit some of my own work here next year (there was no way I could accumulate enough art in time for the next show over Labor Day weekend) made my heart pound.

  For today though, the task was not about showing my own work. It was about meeting and greeting as many new artists and students as I could find and passing out business cards. We split up, Simone going the furthest ahead (I figured she thought that way she had a jump on the better artists) with Pia and Zoe not far behind. Gloria was also present, bobbing along over the tops of the booths just to the left of Pia, leaving me to my own devices, and pulling up the rear.

  I spent the next two hours or more meeting and greeting artists and students alike, and stopping to admire nearly everything that caught my eye. I was especially interested in talking to the artists whose creations I was most marveling at, although in all fairness, not just for business reasons. I was genuinely thrilled when anyone took a few moments to talk to me, and we gabbed about creativity and art in general, as well as their own personal creations. Often I was so lost in the conversations that I almost forgot to hand out my business cards.

  Almost.

  By the time I finally caught up with the others, I had passed out nearly all the cards I was carrying and had had several fruitful conversations with budding artists. Overall, I would have called the day a success.

  "Well, ladies, how do you think we did?" Pia was saying when I joined them.

  "I'm bored," Gloria announced.

  "Oh, I think it went very well! What a fantastic day!" Zoe gushed. I could see why Maya would find this annoying.

  "What about you, Simone? How did you do, dear?"

  "I have several appointments for tomorrow, as well as two contracts all ready to go."

  Contracts? Nobody said anything to me about bringing any contracts! I eyed Simone's Louis Vuitton designer briefcase. Damn her for making me look paltry.

  "How about you, dear?" Pia was finally addressing me.

  "Well, I handed out a lot of business cards. And I did make a few contacts."

  "Contacts? You're missing an 'r' in that word." Simone's tone was scathing to say the least. "The point of this exercise was to get con-tracts."

  "Well, I'm sorry if I failed to measure up to your standards, but in all fairness, the least someone could have done was to explain that to me, instead of leaving me to my own devices. How was I supposed to know I was supposed to bring contracts with me? I haven't even been shown the damn things!"

  "You are a buyer! The purpose of a buyer is to buy!"

  "She does have a point," Gloria intoned over the top of her, causing me to miss the next several words. I supposed I owed her a debt of gratitude for that.

  "-should be self-evident. And if you bothered to turn on the computer in your office once in awhile, instead of spending your time decorating it, you would have seen the file with the contracts right on your desktop."

  "Ladies, ladies," Pia intoned. "Let's not make a scene right here in the middle of the park, shall we? Reid, darling, you are right, of course. I failed in my training of you, being as preoccupied as I have been of late. As soon as we get back to the gallery I shall make sure to show you everything that's on your computer and how to access it."

  "Don't worry," Zoe interjected, "it's not hard at all. Pretty basic Windows Office Documents kind of stuff."

  Somehow Zoe's attempt to comfort me didn't help at all. "I'm not a rube, you know. I'm perfectly capable of working a computer. I was raised on a dairy farm, not in an Amish community. I am fully aware that an Apple isn't just a fruit and that Windows aren't just for looking through. We have progressed past the abacus, even out in the sticks. Opening and printing documents isn't the issue. It was never having been told about them in the first place."

  "Ah, so you have seen a computer before. And here we thought all you had for entertainment was cow tipping," Simone sniped. "Did you at least make some appointments? Or did you just waste your time looking at all the pretty pictures?"

  I lifted my chin and returned her glare with a defiant one. "No, I did not. As I said, I made some connections and handed out the business cards. That was all."

  "What about contracts? You know contracts- c-o-n-t-r-a-c-t-s? Those things that bring in the clients?"

  "What about hemorrhoids? You know, hemorrhoids- h-e-m-o-rrhoids? Those things you have the most in common with- being a big pain in the-"

  "Reid!" Pia began, but Simone overrode her, "Holy hell, you might just as well have stayed home and dusted the sculptures. At least then you might have been of some use to the gallery."

  I was starting to see red. Violent shades of scarlet and crimson. Pink need not apply. "I thought you and Ricky dusted them well enough while you were in the warehouse."

  "You bitch!" Simone came at me with her claws extended.

  "Touch me with even one of those acrylics and I'll peel them off and feed them to you one at a time!" I threatened. My tone made it clear it was not an empty threat.

  I can only assume apprehension of the muscles I had no doubt accumulated over years of 'tipping cows' stayed her advance, because she took a step back, though her face remained a mask of fury. Complete and utter. (No pun intended.)

  "Pia!" a woman's voice unwittingly cut through the tense scene like a hot knife through butter. "Pia!" she called again, weaving through a nearby crowd and making her way over to join us. All heads swiveled towards the woman and the reactions were varied and instantaneous.

  "Cat," Pia's voice was cold, as was her demeanor. She was completely unaware of Gloria's ambivalent echoing of the name. Although she added an, '-astrophe,' on the end.

  "What the hell are you doing here?" Simone's response was more violent, her angry temperament quickly redirecting towards the new arrival.

  Zoe just stood there clutching Pia's day-planner to her chest and looking confused.

  Meanwhile, I was trying to remember why that name sounded familiar to me.

  "Nice to see you, too, Simone," Cat responded, tossing her long, bottle-blond hair over her shoulder. Her demeanor was cool and confident, but her dark eyes shot daggers at Simone. "I'm assuming I'm here for the same reasons you are: looking for potential clientele." With that she snatched the day-planner from Zoe and began to investigate.

  "Yep," she said, "just as I thought. Schedule's looking pretty empty, Pia. Needing some new artists?"

  Pia wrenched her planner from Cat's grasp and handed it back to Zoe. "Currently, I don't have a shortage of artists. But one never stops looking, does one? And what are you doing these days, Cat? Working the check-out lane at the local grocer?"

  "Actually, I'm working for Carl Langevelde." Again with the hair toss, but this time her hair caught in her necklace instead, pulling the chain wit
h it, and slapping her in the face with the turtle pendant dangling from it. The turtle seemed to be wearing a pink rose, whose color almost exactly matched color Cat's face was turning. "I'm his new buyer," she said, returning her necklace to its rightful place under her blouse.

  "From assistant to buyer in just a few months. How did you manage that?"

  "Cat always did work better from beneath the desk, than behind one," Simone smirked, to which Gloria snickered.

  "That's a bit of the pot calling the kettle black, don't you think?" Cat retorted. "The last time I checked, you were doing the samba with Ricky in the warehouse!"

  "Turns out, I wasn't the only one taking dance lessons, was I?"

  "Maybe he needed a partner that was faster on her feet. I hear age slows you down."

  "Let's not air our dirty laundry in the middle of Washington Square, shall we?" Pia interrupted before Simone could make any kind of response. "I'm sure we all have better things to do. Good day to you, Cat, and best of luck in your new endeavor. Simone? Let's head back to the car."

  With that, we found ourselves following Pia back to the car. Simone was still bristling, though less at me now and more at Cat, while Zoe tripped along muttering in my ear every step of the way.

  "What was that all about? I mean, who's Ricky? And why was Simone doing him in the warehouse? And did she say that other girl was too? I'm so confused."

  "Welcome to my world," was all I said.

  "Very interesting," Gloria said to no one in particular, though of course she knew I was the only one who could hear her. "Simone's little play boy was actually playing her. I wonder when she found that out? My guess is all those crocodile tears she was spilling back when we were questioning her about the affair, were not for Ricky's death, so much as Ricky's infidelity."

  I nodded.

  "You really think so?" Zoe chirped.

  For the life of me, I had no idea what Zoe thought I had just agreed to.

  "I have got to talk to Raphael when we get back! I just can't wait to tell him about what's been going on right under his nose!" Gloria exulted. She was referring to the ghost that hung out in the rafters of the warehouse. Years ago, when the gallery had been a furniture warehouse, Raphael had lived in the loft. Then a fire wiped out his home taking him along with it.

  Suddenly, Gloria's spirits sagged a bit. "You don't suppose that Jamaican jackass already knew about this and didn't tell me? He knows how much I love to dish the dirt! Why would he keep something like that from me?"

  I could think of a thousand reasons, though I could voice none of them. At least not without looking like a crazy person talking to the air.

  The ride home held the potential to be a silent one since Simone was still stewing over her confrontation with Cat (and probably me too), Pia was lost deep in thought, and Gloria was compelled to make her exit. (Ghosts can't do moving vehicles, so even if they are attached to a person, they are forced to disappear while their person is traveling. Come to think of it, I'm not really certain what happens to Gloria when Pia travels, I only know she can't project her image. For all I know she disappears into a stasis in the ether somewhere, only to pop up again when Pia finally comes to a halt. There is at least a small part of me that wonders if Pia shouldn't consider retiring- she's certainly old enough to do so even if she doesn't look like it- and travel- ghost free- for the rest of her days.)

  But that's all beside the point. The point is- the car was silent. For a second. Maybe two. And then, Zoe filled the silence with her boundless, annoying energy. She rambled on incessantly about the art fair, speaking in great detail about all the artists she had met and talked to, the various pieces she had seen, the sights, the sounds, the smells, and even the blasted pigeons. I was very nearly at my breaking point when my cell phone rang. After checking the screen and seeing Jase's name, I gladly interrupted the chattering coming from my seat partner, and flipped it open to answer (yes, I have a flip phone, and I'm darn lucky to have that- it's part of the family plan my father pays for and there was no way he was going high-tech smart phone- I'm lucky he considered cell phone service at all).

  "Hey, Jase," I murmured, trying to keep my voice low in deference to the other occupants in the car. Actually, in deference to the fact that I preferred not to share my private life with the other occupants in the car.

  "Hey, Reid," he replied. I tried not to melt in the backseat at just the sound of his sexy voice. Oh, yeah, I was harboring a crush the size of Mount Rushmore. We'd only had one official date so far, and that had been the one in the hospital so I still wasn’t sure how much that counted, but he'd visited me daily during my recuperation, but since I hadn't seen him the day before (thank God considering what had happened to my house) I was already starting to suffer the DTs.

  "I was wondering if you might be available tonight. Maybe we can go on a date? You know, restaurant food, maybe a movie. I'll wear jeans and a t-shirt and you wear something a little less open down the back?"

  I laughed. "Yeah, the hospital gown was pretty snazzy, but I'll have to see if I can find something to outdo it." I was only half paying attention to the fact that Pia had finally pulled into the gallery lot at the end of the block and was parking the car. The trip from hell was now over, but with Jase on the phone I wasn't nearly as eager to exit the car as I had been only minutes before. Hell, only minutes before I would gladly have thrown myself from the vehicle while speeding down the highway if only to escape Zoe's ceaseless blather.

  The sounds of car doors opening and closing naturally led to Jase's asking where I was.

  "We just got back from Washington Square, there was an art exhibit," I explained as I filed down the sidewalk, a few steps behind everyone else. "We can talk about it later. So what were you thinking?"

  "About what?"

  "About the date?" I prodded.

  "I just told you, dinner and a movie. Unless there's something else you might be interested in doing? And please don't say art museum, because, honey, that just ain't me. I'd be bored to tears and you'd have to keep waking me up."

  "No, not at all," I was quick to say. "Believe me, with my current job I get more than enough art all day long, without doing it at night to. I was wondering where you wanted to eat?" Really, I was wondering what he wanted to eat. I was starving. I'm a girl with a big appetite and very little shame about it. And I love food. All kinds of food.

  "Oh, I don't know, whatever sounds good to you. Except Indian. I'm not a big fan."

  "I don't think I've ever had any Indian food-" That was as far as I got before the squealing of tires interrupted me.

  This was followed by Pia's shriek of, "Reid! Look out!"

  Too late.

  The next thing I knew, I was pinned between the building and a car.