Between traffic jams, detours, and a scenic route designed by a civil engineer with homicidal tendencies, Bill and I didn’t reach the gallery until late afternoon the next day. There was no answer when I rang Doug’s bell and the gallery was locked up tight, so we headed out to Meg’s beach house. Bill parked the Rolls in her driveway and unloaded our bags while I ran up the stairs and banged on the screen door. Meg opened it, and I pointed over my shoulder.
“Want to take a picture?” I asked.
“I never doubted you,” she said. “But who’s that carrying the luggage, your manservant? Does he do windows?”
“It’s a long story, Meg,” I murmured.
“I’ll bet,” she replied, elbowing me in the ribs. She turned and hollered over her shoulder. “Doug! They’re here!”
Doug Fleming was slender, balding, bespectacled, and gay. He and Meg had been lovers in college, and when that hadn’t worked out, they had become best friends and, eventually, business partners. Their partnership was a finely tuned balancing act: where Meg was blunt and bossy, Doug was tactful and diffident. When it came to compassion, however, they were evenly matched; I wasn’t the only friend they had helped through tough times.
I gave Doug a hello hug when he appeared, introduced Bill, then followed Meg inside, pausing in the living room to say hello to Van Gogh, Meg’s one-eared cat, who was perched in his usual place atop the bookcase. Bill put our bags beside the couch, reached up to give Van Gogh a scratch behind the ear, and we all ended up in Meg’s kitchen.
Since Meg only did housework when she was in a grumpy mood, I was relieved to see dishes in the sink and art catalogs stacked helter-skelter on every horizontal surface. Bill cleared off a chair for me, then stood behind it while Doug and Meg filled me in on the latest gallery news.
“We closed up shop early today to celebrate your visit,” Doug concluded.
“But not early enough to get any food in the house,” said Meg. “You want to hit King’s Cafe?”
“I’ve got a better idea,” said Bill. All eyes turned to him. “Why don’t you three talk while I make dinner?”
“Sounds good to me,” said Doug, “but I’ll lend a hand in the kitchen, if you don’t mind. I think these two want to get down to some serious gossiping.”
Bill scanned the kitchen, then fixed his gaze on Meg’s portly form. “Linguini,” he said. “Garlic bread. Caesar salad, heavy on the anchovies. Cheap red wine. A nice, light, chocolate soufflé for dessert. And… maybe some Amaretto with the coffee.”
“Shepherd,” said Meg, “you’d better marry this guy.”
“Oh, she will,” said Bill.
“What?” I squeaked. Meg grabbed my arm and Doug all but shoved Bill out the kitchen door.
“We’d better get to the grocery before it closes,” Doug urged.
“The grocery?” Bill’s voice came through the open window. “Is that where they have the tomato soup?”
If Meg had let go of my arm, I would have gone straight out the window after him.
“Deep breaths, Shepherd,” she murmured. “Deep breaths. Come on out on the porch. I think you need some fresh air.”
*
“So let me see if I’ve got this straight,” said Meg.
It had taken her a while to get a complete sentence out of me, but when she did, the whole story had come tumbling out, everything that had happened since the letter from Willis & Willis had arrived. A sense of calm had settled over me once I’d off-loaded the story, and I sat in a chair on the covered porch, Van Gogh purring drowsily in my lap, listening to the surf crash against the rocks below, and watching the sky. Dark clouds were moving in, lit now and then by flashes of lightning. A storm was brewing out at sea.
“You’re ready to throw away ten grand looking for a needle in a haystack,” Meg summarized, “but it’s a needle your mother wants found, so I can understand that. You two always were pretty tight. I like the stuff about the letters, too.”
“They’re in a cottage,” I said, “near a place called Finch.” A dreamy smile crept across my face. “A cottage in England. Isn’t that a kick? I can’t wait to see what it looks like.”
“Maybe you already know what it looks like,” said Meg.
“How could I? It’s not in the photograph, if that’s what you mean. I went over the thing with a magnifying glass and there are no houses in sight.” Van Gogh yawned and began licking my hand, and Meg directed her next comment to him.