Winning Amelia

“We didn’t say he had to stay inside the house, Les.”

“You’re too soft, Ruth. I told you we shouldn’t have trusted him.”

“You could have gone to your Elks dinner alone. I wouldn’t have minded.”

“Maybe I should have. Next time I will.”

“Um, guys?” The boy—Jacob—seemed more aware of their audience than his parents were. He jerked his head toward Hank. “Could we focus here?”

Les pointed his free hand at his son. “Don’t talk to your mother like that.”

“Sor-ry,” Jacob drawled, rolling his eyes.

“Jacob!”

He ducked his head. “Sorry.”

The conversational pattern seemed well established. Hank decided he’d better jump in before it deteriorated further. “You guessed right, son. I did want to ask you about the painting. It was sold by mistake at the Goodfellows’ yard sale.”

“Yeah, that’s what the chi—uh, lady said. She wants it back.”

The woman called Ruth tilted her head, appearing thoughtful. Instead of fluffing her hair this time, she twirled a lock around one finger. “Is it valuable?”

“To be honest, the frame is worth more than the canvas, ma’am,” Hank said. “The painting only has sentimental value.”

“Is that so?” The man lifted his beer and took a long swallow, his version of being thoughtful. “Seems to me, Mr. Jones, it’s got to be worth something for them to hire a private eye to look for it.”

“I can understand how you’d assume that, but I’m working on my own time.” He’d told Amelia the same thing, and it was perfectly true. To be exact though, since he was self-employed, all the work he did was on his own time. “I’m helping out the Goodfellows as a favor,” he added. “I’m an old friend of the family.” Which was sort of the truth, too, since they’d been friendly enough to him fifteen years ago.

“So there’s no reward?”

“I wish there was. It would make my job easier.”

“I don’t know. Seems a lot of trouble to go to for something that’s not worth anything....” Les snapped his fingers. “The redhead who came around here must have been Goodfellow’s sister, right? The one who stole all that money!”

Ruth responded first. “It was her husband who stole the money,” she corrected.

“Same thing.”

“It is not the same thing, Les. A wife isn’t responsible for her husband’s behavior.”

“Sure, I’ll remind you of that next time I’m driving. I could do without the speedometer readings every ten seconds.”

“Well, I feel sorry for her. That man ruined her life.”

“Hardly. She let her husband take the blame and got off scot-free.”

Hank cleared his throat. “Excuse me? I think something’s burning.”

Les glanced at the barbecue. Smoke billowed from the hamburger patties. He swore as he scraped them off the grill.

“I can see you folks are busy,” Hank continued, “so I’ll make this quick. Did any of you go to the Goodfellows’ yard sale?”

Ruth seemed about to say something but as had happened before, it was Les who replied. “No way. We’ve got enough junk in our house as it is.”

Hank kept his gaze on the woman as he drew a business card from his shirt pocket and held it out. “If you remember anything later, I’d appreciate it if you give me a call.”

“Sorry, we can’t help you,” Les said. “Got better things to do than worry about that spoiled rich girl’s painting. If you ask me, she shouldn’t be showing her face in public anyway. It was because of her all those reporters camped out in front of her brother’s place last year. It was a disgrace for the neighborhood, brought everyone’s property values down. Next thing you know we’ll have a Hells Angels clubhouse at the end of the block.”

Hank concentrated on not crushing the card. It wouldn’t do Amelia any good if he lost his temper. If this was a sample of the kind of attitude she had to contend with in her own neighborhood, it was little wonder she’d seemed so tense when he’d seen her.

Ruth got up from the table and came over to take the card. She hesitated momentarily, then unlatched the gate and stepped through. “I’ll walk you out, Mr. Jones.”

“Burgers are ready, Ruth,” Les called.

“I’ll be right back.” She led Hank to the front of the house and stopped beside the bed of petunias. Her gaze darted to the neighboring houses. “I don’t want you to get the wrong idea about my husband. He has a low blood sugar condition and isn’t himself when he’s hungry.”

He suspected that apologizing for her husband was another well-established pattern of conversation for this woman. “No problem.”

“And we all think the Goodfellows are decent people. We feel sorry for Will’s sister. It’s nice you’re helping them out.”

“I’m doing my best, but so far I haven’t had much luck.” He lowered his voice confidentially. “They’ve had their share of troubles, and with Jenny expecting again, I’d hate to let the family down,” he finished. Then he waited. He could tell she had something else to say.

“I didn’t go to the Goodfellows’ yard sale.”

He nodded encouragingly.

She leaned closer and spoke in a rush. “But I happened to be weeding my flowers on Sunday morning while that sale was going on, and I remember seeing a man putting something flat in his car trunk.”

All right! “Could it have been a painting?”

“Possibly. It looked like a big, folded blanket, but it could have been wrapping something. Now that I think about it, it must have been the painting.”

“How large was it?”

She held her hands about a yard apart. “It was around this long, maybe bigger. I don’t normally pay attention to what my neighbors do, of course, but I couldn’t help noticing that.”

“Because of the size of the bundle?”

“No, it was the car that caught my eye. It was bright yellow. I suppose you could call it canary yellow.”

“Do you remember the make or model?”

“I wouldn’t know the difference. It was old.”

“Was it rusted? Patched? Dented?”

“Oh, no. I didn’t mean old that way. I meant it must have been from the fifties. It was one of those big, bulky sedans, like the kind that used to be used for taxis.”