Booker Brothers Detective Agency Box Set Page 7

  I found Lucky near a spiral metal staircase that led toward the “front” doors. He was quiet again and his gaze was distant. There was tension in the muscles of his forehead, and from where I stood a few feet away I thought I heard him let out a small sigh. Was he feeling the weight of the case? This may turn out to be a difficult job after all.

  “Are you okay?” I asked Lucky quietly. Hannah had returned to being engrossed by the painting in front of her.

  “All of Leo’s cases have been jokes, until now, I suppose.” Lucky’s thumb and index finger worked his brow ridge steadily, while the other hand clutched at his hip. It was odd seeing Lucky like this. Was he overwhelmed? I wasn’t quite sure how to handle it, it being my first day and everything. I occupied myself by pretending to be engrossed by a nearby painting, so he wouldn’t feel awkward. Then something caught my eye. A lot of somethings, actually.

  “Hold on a second, Lucky, look.” I started pointing to all of the half-finished paintings around us. “The reason Hannah was talking about chainsawing the paintings in half is because she paints on wood, not canvas,” I said. Lucky took in the fact that we were indeed surrounded by all sorts of various-sized rectangles made of plywood.

  “Hannah,” he called back toward where she stood at her easel.

  “Hmm?” she said. She had a paintbrush between her teeth and another in her hand.

  “Have you always painted on wood, exclusively?”

  “Always,” she called back through the brush. “I have never liked the sound of a brush on canvas. I avoid it at all costs.”

  As Lucky and I said our goodbyes and found our way out of the spacious studio, we discussed what this meant for the case. Portia couldn’t have smuggled the painting out, even if there hadn’t been all that foam in her purse. And nobody with a long dress or jacket either. A piece of plywood the size of Leo’s painting was large enough to make the theft very difficult under surveillance footage. Lucky’s mood had shifted again, and he almost hopped back to the car as we wove through the now much less ominous warehouses. We headed back to the office again to examine the footage for someone hauling a large item out. This new discovery would significantly help the search, and I had made it!

  CHAPTER 9

  Tuesday morning, I arrived back at the Booker Brothers' office promptly at eight. The case had been whirling around in my head all night and I hadn’t been able to get much sleep. Despite the lack of rest, I felt energized and keen to proceed to the next steps in the case. Once again, when I pushed through the unlocked door of the office, I saw that I was the only one there. I glanced around the room to see if Tippy was hovering about, but I didn’t see her. Lucky's and Harrison’s desks were both still empty. I settled in at my desk with a steaming cup of coffee. Doyle had caught me on my way upstairs, insisting I take a cup. I was already too energized by the excitement of my new crime-solving job to drink caffeine, but Doyle was so smiley and persistent that I didn’t have the heart to resist.

  There was a Post-it note on my desk, signed with an ‘L’, telling me that for my keen observational skills, I was being "rewarded" with the job of watching hours and hours of Leo’s home security camera footage. It was no longer a possibility that the painting could have been rolled up and obscured from view. Hannah Otto did not paint on canvas. After visiting the strange woman at her studio, Lucky and I had discovered that she exclusively used plywood as the base for her paintings, and always had. According to Lucky’s note, I was supposed to search through the recorded footage from the night of the party, and hopefully find someone carrying something big enough to hide a two-foot by three-foot board. I noticed there was a small line of messy scrawl at the bottom of the note that read, “Owen will help you.” I must have mumbled his name out loud as I read because suddenly a young man jumped up from behind his desktop screen and took a couple long-legged strides over to my desk.

  “Yes?” the man said, as he arrived beside me.

  “Hi. I didn’t realize—hi,” I replied, startled.

  “I’m Owen. You must be Kacey.” Owen extended his hand to me and I shook it.

  Owen Booker was shorter than his older brothers. He was slim, with narrow shoulders that leaned forwards slightly. He had an oval face with round, blue eyes behind a speckled pair of horn-rimmed glasses, and a small nose to hold them up. Brown hair jutted out of his head at some peculiar angles and fell across his large forehead. His face was not close-shaved like his brothers. There was what appeared to be a few days of growth most prominent around his chin and above his upper lip. He wore jeans with a black and white shirt that that showed silhouettes of the stages of evolution. They began with an ape and ended with a man hunched over at a computer.

  “It’s nice to meet you, Owen. I didn’t see you over there,” I said.

  Owen shrugged as if it was a common occurrence. Instead of looking me in the eye, he became heavily invested in what was going on down by his shoes.

  “Are you able to help me with this?” I asked him, holding out the note. Owen nodded, only meeting my gaze for brief moments at a time.

  “I have you set up over there with the monitors,” he said, pointing to a fifth desk near the copier and filing cabinets closer to his own desk. Owen fidgeted while I picked up my notebook and pen. There were now two screens, and some other electronic boxes I wasn’t familiar with, sitting on top of the desk nearest to the meeting room. He led me over and let me sit down in the work swivel chair. The screens were booted up and ready to go.

  “Thank you, you’ve saved me a lot of time figuring out how to get this going,” I told him.

  “No problem, it’s what I’m here for,” Owen mumbled.

  “I’ve sped it all up to eight times the speed, but if you push that button there you can slow it down.” Owen’s voice was stronger when he was speaking about the computer. He pointed at a yellow dot on the media player window. “So, if you just…” Leaning over me, he opened another window with a long list of files and dragged one over to the player. I felt the soft cotton of his T-shirt against my cheek for a moment and peered up at him while his eyes were glued to the screen. A bright, rectangular reflection showed up on each of his lenses. He was definitely nerdier than the other Booker brothers, but there was something about him, probably the glasses and the unkempt hair, that gave off a subtle Superman vibe.

  “As an example…” he said, clicking one of the files and pressing play. “You can pause, play, speed up, slow down.” He quickly demonstrated the options and which button to press, then suddenly gasped.

  “That’s you, isn’t it?” he said. And it was true, or that was the most logical explanation at least. In the footage, the woman who shared my likeness remarkably strongly strode up Leo’s driveway in a floor-length gown. The tape was black and white, but from the way the sequins brightened and darkened as she crossed the camera’s path, I could tell it would have been very sparkly.

  “Nope,” I groaned. “That’s my nemesis, Katy Chase.” Owen glanced between me and the look-alike on the screen. He swallowed and rubbed the stubbly end of his chin.

  “We’ve always had the same look and even similar names, but that is certainly not me. We show up to audition for nearly all the same roles, or we did. She can have them all now that I’m out of the game for good,” I said. I’d sunk low in my chair with a hand pressed against my cheek. I didn’t know Owen was gone until I raised my eyes again. He’d quietly stepped aside and went back to his desk while I had my moment. Now he sat back at his computer, intently focused on a window that was a mix between coding and spreadsheets.

  I was fantasizing about nabbing Katy Chase for the art theft and kicking her out of Hollywood once and for all… but then I wondered, why? I was finished with all of that, wasn’t I? I was beginning the starring role in my new life. Or so I hoped.

  Once I’d arrived at a semi-peaceful place with the idea of Katy Chase landing all my hypothetical roles, I sped through the clip. No painting. So, I began another.

  About an
hour into my very boring private screening of Leo’s Driveway, coming to theaters near you never, I did spot something that might be useful. One of the cater-waiters walked out, carrying two large trays that I estimated might match the size of the painting. The quality of the footage wasn’t the greatest and it was also dark by that point in the evening. The figure was about average in height, and likely male, although quite thin. The camera didn’t catch a good view of his face before he walked out of the frame, somewhere to the left of the door, with the two trays of food. He wore a black pair of pants and a vest with a white shirt and a black bow tie. I noted the time and flicked through the list of clips from the camera from the side of the house where the catering van was parked. Several minutes in footage time later, the man re-appeared beside the catering truck. Almost everything about him was the same, except now the trays were clearly empty. There were approximately seven minutes between when the figure left one camera’s view and appeared in the other. I double-checked for any more cameras and footage, but I found nothing. I couldn’t account for exactly what happened during those missing seven minutes, but I might have at least solved the mystery of the shrimp-puffs! I was fairly confident at least half of LA would be pleased to hear it. I replayed the clip to watch the waiter enter the truck with the large trays a few times. I was pretty sure they were just large enough to have concealed the painting.

  During the time I’d been attached to the screen, Harrison had arrived. He’d greeted me with a nod and a hand held up in my direction. It didn’t look like he’d had much sleep either. I silently debated which Booker I should share my findings with. Owen was consumed by his own computer monitor and typed away at the keyboard rapidly. Harrison was flipping through pages and sighing periodically. I decided to brief Harrison first. I walked over to his desk and described the events in the footage in detail so that he wouldn’t have to get up and look.

  “Excellent, let’s get our guy,” Harrison said.

  “What about the time gap?” I asked.

  Harrison shrugged. “It sounds like we’ve got him. I’d love to drag out the investigation for more billable hours, but I’m not that kind of guy.” I nodded and began heading back to my desk, but Harrison stood up and took his jacket off the back of his chair. “In fact, Kacey, you should come with me to the catering company. I’ll show you how a legitimate interview should be conducted with dignity.”

  CHAPTER 10

  It was only my second day on the job, and already I was riding in another car with a different Booker brother than I had the day before. I was beyond grateful not to be stuck behind a desk all day. I could already feel my uncertainties from the day before beginning to fade. I could be really good at this. But I wouldn’t get ahead of myself. There was a lot to learn, and working with Harrison would be a different game altogether. Harrison was driving us to the catering company in his well-maintained, but older model, emerald-green jeep. I had to admit, I felt a lot more comfortable in Harrison’s car than the Mercedes. I had always been enchanted by flashy things at first, but I preferred the comfortable and the reliable. I supposed it was because the finer things had been scarce in my upbringing. I took in the faint smell of pine from an air freshener that I couldn’t locate, and the worn fabric of the seats. It was my first time being so close to Harrison, and now that he had come out from behind his desk, I was able to get a better look at him.

  At a glance, Harrison was a lot like his brothers. Especially Lucky. He had the same wide forehead and hazel eyes. But now that I had the chance to look at him more closely, I realized they were more different than I had thought. Harrison’s jawline was smooth and square, meeting in the middle with a rounded chin. His brown hair shot off in different directions. It wasn’t messy so much as it gave off the impression that he had better ways to spend his time than styling his hair. He was as tall as Lucky, but his shoulders, while muscular, didn’t have as broad of a reach. He looked sturdy but slightly weighed down in a way neither of the other Booker brothers were. His voice was deeper than the other two, and he spoke slower as if choosing each word with intention. The lines that appeared in his forehead when he was thinking made him look older but wiser too.

  As we drove, Harrison and I went over the events of the previous day. I filled in any holes that Harrison had questions about, and he nodded over and over as if he was genuinely impressed with my raw observational skills.

  “It probably wasn’t a smart choice on my part to let you start out the job on a case with Lucky yesterday,” Harrison said. “He’s anything but by the book, which is necessary in a job like this.”

  I nodded. And chose my words carefully. “It seems like you come at things in two very different ways,” I said. Harrison snorted. For a second, he had the exact same expression as Lucky when he raised his eyebrows. Harrison shrugged and continued. “I guess that’s how it goes with twins. You’re either of the same mind or polar opposites,” he said and sighed.

  “When I first saw you, I thought you might be five years older than your twin,” I said.

  “Five years older!” Harrison grabbed the rearview mirror and adjusted it so that he could see himself. He alternated staring into it and watching the road while he raised his eyebrows and squinted—I assumed, checking for wrinkles. I hurried to clarify.

  “I mean, it’s just that you really seem to be the one in charge, so a person might assume…”

  Harrison gave up the wrinkle search and stared at me at a stop light. His expression flashed between a superior smile and a shocked frown. Finally, he gave up on deciding whether to be offended or flattered and focused back on the road ahead.

  I was keenly aware that my big mouth might get me into more trouble if I kept talking, so I stayed silent for a few minutes. Thinking about Lucky and Harrison made me think about the way people saw Katy Chase and me as almost twin-like. At first glance it was pretty accurate, even I had to admit that, but if you compared the two of us closely, the way we spoke, the way our faces moved when we were acting, it was all so different. Two totally different personalities and methods from two people who could be twins.

  I sat beside Harrison, pretending to listen to the low buzz of the news, but really, I was thinking about the manila envelope in my hands. It contained a bunch of printed images of the cater-waiter we were on a mission to track down.

  Before we’d left the office, Harrison had instructed me to print out some stills of the security footage. The great big copier had shuffled and clicked and started blinking various lights at me. I was standing there, trying to respond to the nonsensical prompts the machine was spouting when Owen leaned back from his desk and told me to kick it. Kick the printer? I stared at him intently. At this point, I’d try anything, although I was concerned this might be some kind of hazing prank to get me booted out of the office. I didn’t know him well, but I had a hard time imagining Owen was capable of being anything but sincere. He waited patiently, with a perfectly straight face, for me to take his advice. Gently once, and then not very gently a second time, I kicked at the base of the old machine. There were old scuff marks from other shoes on the machine, and a moment later I heard the telltale sounds of the copier whirring into action. I silently mouthed a ‘thank-you’ to back to Owen, who blushed and quickly turned back to his desk.

  I was about to say something to fill the silence when Harrison turned the car into a parking lot. We pulled up to a two-story building next to a busy road. The shopfront for Olive Buns, the catering company, spanned the length of two full glass-windowed storefronts. Images of food and classy events on the glass obscured most of the indoors from view. Harrison had parked the jeep, legally, and we made our way inside. There was a small office partitioned off near the front door, but most of the room was designated for tables and countertops. There were selections of silver platters and various sizes and shapes of dishes on display. I didn’t see any food in the room, but I could smell it wafting in through a pair of double doors. Through the small slit windows in the doors, I cou
ld see a lot of stainless steel and shelving, so I assumed it led into an industrial kitchen space. A tall woman with a short, dark bob poked her head out of the office. She was likely in her early forties.

  “Welcome to Olive Buns, my name is Olivia. What can I help you with?” Her greeting was not cold exactly, but it lacked enthusiasm as if she’d sent the pragmatic robot version of herself to work in her place today.

  “My name is Harrison Booker.” He paused and gestured toward me, so I jumped in.

  “I’m Kacey,” I said, holding up a hand.

  “We’ve come on behalf of a client of yours. He had something stolen last weekend at a party you catered, and we have reason to believe one of your employees may be the culprit.”

  Before Harrison had even finished, Olivia was shaking her head.

  “I don’t hire untrustworthy people.” She sounded defensive. “Are you sure there isn’t some kind of mistake?” There was a severity about her features and the way she was interacting with us that was all too familiar. In that moment, I felt very grateful to have the Bookers as my new bosses. I had almost forgotten what some of them could be like, and my first impression of Olivia was only the tip of the iceberg.

  Harrison walked a few feet over to one of the long tables and started pulling out the printed stills from the security tapes. He lined them up in rows while Olivia walked over. She looked them over carefully and picked up the most zoomed-in one of the suspect. “We only have one person who could be a match for the build of this person. Edgar Fry,” she said, pointing at the image. “He’s a cook, but occasionally he’ll pick up a catering shift here and there.” Olivia frowned. “Come to think of it, his supervisor did mention he was absent for a short time that night. I figured he was off smoking pot,” she added, raising her shoulders and eyebrows with a calm expression.