Sammy Keyes and the Art of Deception

  “I don't think so.”

  “Were they wearing British uniforms or something?”

  “Grams! They were just little red ants.”

  “But with yellow antennae.”

  “Yeah.”

  She sighed and said, “Well, I can make hide nor hair of that one.” She stroked my head. “Did you want to try to get some more sleep?”

  I looked at the clock. “It's eight already?”

  “But it's Sunday. I can read a little longer if you want to rest.”

  “Nah,” I said, swinging my legs off the couch. I eyed the flowers, then looked at her. “How are you, anyway?”

  “Fine,” she said real primly.

  “Well, I have some information that I didn't get the chance to tell you yesterday.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah. I ran into Jojo at the Faire yesterday.”

  “And … ?”

  “And I found out that Diane Reijden isn't going to have the police investigate who tried to steal her paintings.”

  All of a sudden Grams is sitting right beside me, grabbing my forearms. “She said that?”

  “Jojo said she wants to put it all behind her.”

  Grams let go and raised an eyebrow. “Is she an artist or a politician?”

  “Huh?”

  “Never mind,” she says, rubbing her hands together. “Just tell me this—why wouldn't she have them investigate?”

  “I know. It does seem kinda strange.”

  “So … ?” she says, turning to look at me.

  “So … what?” I ask, staring right back at her.

  Her face zooms closer. Her eyes burn brighter. And out of her mouth come words I never in a million years thought I'd hear.

  “I think you and I should prove it.”

  EIGHT

  “Prove it? Grams, I've been trying to stay out of it! I thought you'd be all proud of me for that. And now you want to go and prove it?” I shake my head. “Besides, I don't even think it was her.”

  She just looks at me. Level stare. Pursed lips. Hands folded calmly in her lap. “Well, I do.”

  I take a deep breath and try again. “Look. Even if she did hire some guy to make it look like her art was worth stealing, so what? She's just got, you know, creative publicity strategies.”

  “What she's got is a coy, deceptive, cunning mind.”

  “Oh, come on! You barely even met her. Besides, she seemed like a perfectly nice lady to me.”

  “A perfectly nice lady wouldn't scare a room full of people out of their wits just to pull off a publicity stunt.”

  “Exactly!”

  We stared at each other for a minute, then she said, “Well, obviously what we need is some more information.”

  “Grams, I don't see why—” I stopped short. Her eyes were twinkling. Her lips were curving up.

  My grams had come up with a plan.

  “What are you thinking?” I asked her.

  She took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and said, “I'm coming with you.”

  “Coming … with me?” I followed her into the kitchen. “Where am I going?”

  “You've forgotten already? To interview Ms. Reijden, of course!”

  “Oh.” I watched her move around the kitchen. Bending for a pan, twirling around to click on the stove with one hand as she flicked the water on with the other. Then she practically did a pirouette as she pulled the milk out of the refrigerator, snagged a wooden spoon from the utensil jar, and tapped the refrigerator door closed with her foot. It was like a tightly choreographed dance. And for the first time in my life, I realized that my grams—my sixty-something guardian with the gray hair and oversized glasses—wasn't stodgy or stiff.

  She was agile.

  Smooth.

  Graceful.

  “What are you staring at, child?”

  “I … Nothing. I just never saw you do that before.”

  “Make oatmeal?” She laughed. “You've seen me do this nearly every day for over a year!”

  I got down the bowls. The sugar. The walnuts. I set the table and poured us some juice. And the whole time I tried to act normal, but I had my eye on Grams, and the truth is, I was feeling very, very strange.

  By one o'clock, Hudson had called three times. The first time it was, “Make a list of questions, Sammy. If you're going to interview someone, you can't shoot from the hip. It's disrespectful.”

  The second time it was, “Would you like to borrow my tape recorder? You don't want to misquote her, you know.”

  “Hudson!” I told him. “It's for a junior-high art class. Not The Washington Post!”

  The third time it was, “How's it coming with those questions?”

  “Fine, Hudson. I've got plenty.”

  “Let's hear them.”

  I tried to protest, but he made me read the whole ten questions to him.

  “That's it? That's all you've got?”

  “Hudson,” I said, trying to sound as polite as possible. “The report only has to be a page or two.”

  “Hmm,” he said. “Well listen, I have a couple of questions I think you should add to your list. Ready?”

  I rolled my eyes but jotted them down, just to make him happy. And the whole time I'm writing, Grams is pirouetting and sashaying around the house, dusting her little knickknacks. I swear I even saw her moonwalk out of the corner of my eye, but it was over by the time I actually looked.

  When Hudson was finally done, my list of questions had doubled. “I hope you left plenty of room for answers.”

  “I did,” I lied.

  “Good. I'll be out front in about half an hour.”

  “Half an hour? I thought you said it was right off Morrison.”

  “It is, but we don't want to be late.”

  “We sure don't want to be early.”

  “Hmm. Okay. I'll meet you out front in forty-five minutes.”

  “Fine. And oh, Hudson?”

  “Yes?”

  “Grams is coming along.”

  Silence.

  “You don't have a problem with that, do you?” I was eyeing Grams, frozen with one foot kicked up behind her, the feather duster in midair.

  “No, no! But I'd hate for Ms. Reijden to feel … invaded.”

  “So … maybe I should go in by myself, then.”

  “Well—”

  “Or why don't you just drop us off? Or if you give me the address, we could just walk there ourselves. I mean, we managed to walk home from the Vault the other night. This can't be farther than that….”

  Sometimes I can be so bad.

  But it worked, because all of a sudden he's rushing to say, “No, no, no. I'll be out front in forty-five minutes. We'll just play it by ear.”

  “Great,” I said. Then I hung up the phone and grinned at Grams. Already I could tell—this was going to be fun.

  We couldn't see Diane's house from the street. All we could really see was a narrow gravel driveway with an arch of out-of-control creeping roses and lots of plants every-where. But we knew we were in the right place because of the two mailboxes that were T-ed to a post. One was labeled 580—MOSS, the other 584—REIJDEN.

  “Do you mind walking?” Hudson asked as he pulled off the road. “I'm afraid Jester'll get scraped up if I drive through there.”

  It was true. Hudson's car is pretty big. And pretty old. And, according to him, pretty valuable. Not that I'd ever want to own a 1960 sienna-rose Cadillac, but Hudson loves it, and I've got to admit—it glistens.

  Anyway, we got out and started hiking down the gravel driveway, me in dirty white high-tops, Hudson in Panamanian iguana boots, and Grams in her best leather pumps.

  Thirty feet past the archway the wind seemed to vanish and we found ourselves in the middle of a jungle. Seriously. There were plants everywhere, growing wild, tangling into each other, and twisting up into tall pine trees. We could hear birds twittering and bees buzzing and water trickling somewhere off in the distance.

  So we're crunching
along the gravel, passing by 580—a weathered wooden house with a rickety fence and a splintery-looking rocker on the porch—when I hear, “Ch-chch-ch-chee!”

  Hudson puts his arm out like a crossing bar at a railroad track. “What was that?”

  “Ch-ch-ch-ch-chee!”

  Grams catches up and says, “Sounds like a squirrel.”

  “Ch-ch-ch-ch-chee!”

  “That's no squirrel,” Hudson whispers, one ear strained forward like a hound dog. “Maybe a bird?”

  “It's a squirrel,” Grams says, pushing down his arm and walking past.

  Then from high in a pine tree we hear a different voice cry, “Chee-te-te-te-te-te-te!” and all of a sudden a big, bushy gray tail flashes from behind the trunk and a squirrel spirals down the tree.

  Grams gives Hudson a little I-told-you-so grin over her shoulder and says, “Pretty bird.”

  Hudson and I look in the yard, and what we see is a man on his knees in the dirt. He's wearing a red-and-black flannel hunter hat with the big earmuffs sticking straight out, and about three layers of flannel shirts. In one hand he's got a planting trowel, and in the other he's holding out something sort of round and dirty-looking for the squirrel.

  Grams backtracks to join us, and when she sees the squirrel taking the dirt ball out of the man's hand, she says, “Will you look at that!”

  The squirrel scurries off a few yards, then starts pulling and prying at the dirt ball with its front paws. And while it's busy doing that, the man digs in the ground, pops up another dirt ball, and calls, “Ch-ch-ch-ch-chee!”

  Hudson eyes Grams and whispers, “That was not a squirrel, that was a man.”

  “Hrmph.”

  “Ch-ch-ch-ch-chee! Come down, Guiditta! Supper's ready!”

  Another squirrel comes twisting down the trunk of the pine tree. The tail of this one's not nearly as bushy as the other's, and she doesn't go over to Flannel Man like the first one had. Instead, she sneaks up to the first squirrel and snatches his dirt ball from him. And even though the bushy one is bigger than the second one and even though Flannel Man scolds, “No, Guiditta! Naughty girl!” in the end she's running off with the Bushy One's dirt ball.

  So Flannel Man holds it out to Bushy, saying, “Thar ye go, Luciano.” And when Luciano scurries over to snag the dirt ball, Flannel Man says, “Isn't it time ye stood up to 'er, boy?”

  Now, I have a big urge to shake out an ear, because Flannel Man sounds English. Distinctly English.

  Hudson calls, “What are you feeding them?”

  “Huh?” Flannel Man says, then stands up like he could use a good oiling at the joints. “Why, hallo. Didn't see ye there.” He hobbles our way, saying, “They're walnuts is wot they are. I bury 'em 'cause that's how they like 'em. Good and rotten. Turn their noses up at the fresh ones, they do. Especially Guiditta. She's a picky one, that.”

  By now he's over at the fence, dusting off his hands. “Come ta visit Lizzy, have ye? Or might ye be lost?”

  “Lizzy?” Hudson asks. “No, we're here to see Ms. Reijden.”

  “One and the same.” He motions down the driveway. “The Reijden place is there, at the end of the lane. She knows you're comin'?”

  Hudson nods. “We have an appointment.”

  “All right, then,” he says. Like he's the gatekeeper, letting us through. “Tell Lizzy hallo for me, will ya? Haven't see her about much these days.”

  “Will do,” Hudson says.

  As we got closer we could see the house through the vines and trees. It was only one story, but it had lots of wood and spindles and shutters, a tall stone chimney, and a vine-covered porch. We followed a cobblestone path under another, smaller arch of roses and passed by a pond with water from a clay pipe trickling into it and lily pads growing all over it.

  “Wow,” I said. “What a cool place!”

  Hudson agreed.

  Grams didn't say a word.

  A minute after Hudson rang the bell, Diane opened the door and sang out, “Hudson! Welcome,” like he was a long-lost friend. She had a small paintbrush in one hand and was rubbing the bristles clean with a cloth in the other. She turned to Grams. “It's … Rita, right? How nice you could come.” And before Grams could say anything, she turned to me and positively beamed. “Sammy. My gutsy little heroine.”

  I blushed and shrugged. “I took down a guy with a squirt gun. No big deal.”

  “I beg to differ!” she said as she let us into the house.

  The house smelled wonderful. Like cinnamon and oranges and … honey. And while I'm sniffing the air, Hudson's saying, “Your neighbor told us to tell you hello.”

  “Pete? Oh, he is such a dear. I really must stop in and see how he's doing.”

  I said, “He was digging up nuts for squirrels when we saw him.”

  She nods. Like she knows all about it. “Luciano and Guiditta have him wrapped around their little paws,” she says with a laugh. Then she notices my notepad and says, “Why, look at that! You have questions all written out. Very professional.”

  All of a sudden I was grateful for Hudson's advice. “Yeah. I hope I don't have, you know, too many.”

  She chuckled. “We have plenty of time, don't worry. Now come. I've prepared cookies and tea.” She smiled at me. “Or cookies and milk, if you prefer.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “But tea's fine. Hudson's kind of got me in the habit of drinking it.”

  She taps Hudson on the hand with her paintbrush and says, “Shame on you!” but her eyes are twinkling.

  Now, I can tell that steam's beginning to billow from around Grams' collar, but she's doing a beautiful job of smiling, anyway. And as we follow Diane and Hudson down the hall, I notice that she's not just following along. Her head's jerking around, her eyes are darting back and forth, and as we move from the hall through a living room with a big stone fireplace, it hits me what Grams is doing.

  She's casing the joint.

  I nudge her and mouth, “Grams!” but she keeps right on scanning the room and mouths back, “Keep your eyes open!”

  So, okay. To do Grams a favor I check the room over, too. Lots of lace. Old books. A rocking horse, an old trunk with big brass hinges. A telescope. Dolls. A spinning wheel. Old, no, ancient, ice skates. And here and there among all this old stuff are statues. Three big rough-looking plaster statues of human bodies.

  Now let me tell you, these are no Michelangelos. No tucked torsos. No jutting jaws or chiseled cheeks. These statues have parts sagging everywhere, wrinkles galore, and hands with long spindly fingers. And even though two of them don't have heads, the one that does has a face that would make its body run for the hills if it could.

  “What do you think of those?” Grams whispers in my ear.

  “They look like they were cast off of nursing home patients,” I whisper back.

  Grams doesn't scold me like she normally would. Instead she eyes me and nods. And from the look on her face, I know just what she's thinking.

  There's something strange about this woman.

  Something very strange.

  NINE

  Diane leads us into a sunny sitting room that has a piano, red velvet armchairs, and a window that takes up nearly one whole wall, ceiling to floor. The view through it is amazing, too. There's tall grass blowing in the breeze, an enormous tree, and dark green vines with little blue flowers weaving around a little picket fence. And birds. Birds fluttering everywhere! It's like her very own little wildlife park.

  Trouble is, there's also one of those headless statues standing right outside the window like some sort of ghastly guard. And even though it's off to one side, once you notice it, you don't really see the yard anymore. It's like a nasty scar on someone's face keeping you from noticing how pretty the rest of them is.

  Anyway, Diane puts aside her brush and rag and says, “Here we are,” as she motions for us to sit in the chairs around a tea table. And as she takes a seat next to Hudson, he points to a guitar that's on a stand beside the piano. “That's a beautiful
Gibson.”

  “Pardon me?” she asks.

  “The guitar?”

  “Oh, that. It was my father's.”

  “He was a musician?”

  “A doctor, actually, but he was also musically gifted. As was my mother. She bought him the guitar, he bought her the piano.” She sighed. “They were serious collectors, and everything you see here was theirs. At first it was very haunting, but now I find being surrounded by their things comforting.”

  “How long ago did they pass on?” Grams asked her.

  “Dad's been gone nearly three years. I cared for Mother until the end—about a year and a half ago.”

  “I'm sorry,” Grams told her, and I could tell she meant it.

  “So!” Diane said, taking a deep breath and turning to me. “Before we begin with your questions, I want to thank you again for saving the day on Friday. What an absolute nightmare that was!”

  Now, I'm about to say, No biggie, but Grams has already downshifted into snoop mode and jumps in with, “Do you have any idea who that fellow was?”

  I look at Grams, sitting primly in her chair, looking ohso-innocent.

  Innocent like a hawk.

  “Some desperate individual, to be sure. And,” she adds as smoothly as she's pouring tea, “I suspect a drunk to boot.” She smiles at Grams as she hands her a dainty cup and saucer. “Milk or sugar?”

  “Oh, no thanks. But a drunk? He seemed very sober to me!”

  “I'm sure I detected alcohol.” She hands a cup to me, saying, “Did you notice any strange odor on him, Sammy? You were certainly close enough.”

  “Uh, nuh-uh. He did seem kind of dirty, though, and kinda wiry.”

  Hudson says, “Are you sure you don't want Sammy to tell these details to the police?”

  She twinkles at him. “That he was dirty and wiry?” She laughs, then pats his hand. “Sweet man!”

  I checked Grams—steam was billowing.

  “Well, then,” Diane says, holding the pinky of her right hand out as she takes a dainty sip of tea. “What questions do you have for me?”

  I put aside my cup and saucer and pick up my pad and pencil. “How about, Where were you born?”

  She gives me a very regal smile. “That's better than when were you born. Let's hope you're not planning to work up to that.”