“And we know how well that turned out,” Shawn said. “We’ve got to move fast. If you start staring moonily at that picture, or start lecturing us about it, we’ll all be caught and you’ll never see it again. Get up close, take the pictures, and get out. Okay?”
“I understand,” Kitteredge said. “I’ll try to hold off my emotional reaction until the proper moment.”
“Here’s a hint,” Shawn said. “You’ll know that the proper moment has arrived when I’m not around.”
Kitteredge nodded absently at him, and Gus went to the draped wall. He tried to move the curtain along its rings, but it wouldn’t budge.
“It’s stuck,” Gus said, feeling a new sense of panic rising in him. “We’re going to have to pull it down.”
“Or we could just do what Lassie did and use the control thingy.” Shawn stepped past Gus, reached into the folds of the curtain, and came up with the device. He pushed the button.
Above their heads, the small motors whirred and whined, and the red curtain began to move across the wall.
“This is exciting,” Shawn said. “I’m so glad we didn’t do what I wanted to do last night. Because we’d never see anything like a red velvet curtain if we went to the Bijoux Theatre. Oh, except for the one in front of the screen.”
“If C. Thomas Howell is in jail because someone framed him for murder, then I’ll consider the possibility that we went to the wrong event,” Gus said.
“I’m sure C. Thomas Howell is perfectly capable of ending up in jail without the help of someone framing him for murder,” Shawn said. “And then he could solve the crime from inside his cell with the help of the beautiful young warden’s daughter, who just happens to stroll around the prison yard topless. In fact, I think that one is playing at the festival.”
“Well, if we clear Professor Kitteredge’s name before eight o’clock tonight, we can still make it in time for night three of the festival,” Gus said. “Meanwhile, maybe we should focus on this case.”
Shawn shrugged. Gus turned to make sure that Professor Kitteredge had started taking pictures instead of staring in awe at the painting.
But Kitteredge wasn’t taking pictures. He was staring straight ahead, a look of despair on his face.
“Professor, we need to get moving,” Gus said.
“We’re too late,” Kitteredge said. He raised a hand and pointed at the wall the curtain had just revealed.
Gus turned to see what he was pointing at, and his heart sank. On the wall, the ornate frame was hanging just as it had the night before. But inside the frame there was nothing but blank wall.
The painting was gone.
Chapter Nineteen
“Cell phone!”Gus hissed at Kitteredge.“Keep that cell phone pressed to your face.”
“What’s the point?” Kitteredge moaned.
“The point is not getting caught,” Gus said. “And you’re not making that easy.”
Actually he seemed to be trying to make it as hard as he could. As Shawn and Gus led the professor through the crowd of people thronging the museum steps, he refused to hide his face behind his conversation with Aunt Mabel the way they had urged him.
“I can’t hide forever,” Kitteredge said. “And now that they’ve got the painting, I have no other choice. Because the only clues to the sword’s hiding place were hidden in it. How can I ever hope to prove my innocence if I can’t point at the people who framed me?”
“I don’t know,” Shawn said. “How about an alibi?”
Kitteredge stared at him blankly, exposing his face to a pair of uniformed police officers who were, fortunately, engaged in directing traffic around the crowd of evacuees who were spilling onto the street. Gus lifted the professor’s arm and placed his left hand against his right ear, so that his elbow would hide his face again.
“An alibi?” Kitteredge said, his voice muffled by the tweed of his sleeve.
“You know, the place where you really were when the murder was being committed,” Shawn said.
Kitteredge looked rattled and dropped his elbow away from his face. Gus pushed it back into place.
“I can’t,” he said.
“What do you mean, you can’t?” Gus said.
“Well, there are two possible meanings,” Shawn said. “The logical one is that no one seems to know yet exactly what time the murder actually happened, so it’s impossible to pinpoint where he was at the time. But I think he’s aiming for meaning number two, which is that he refuses to say where he was.”
“Why?” Gus was shocked. “This is your life, Professor. What could be more important than that?”
“I was probably driving up from Riverside at the time,” Kitteredge said.
“And let me guess,” Shawn said. “You didn’t stop, you weren’t clocked speeding by a highway patrolman, and you didn’t wave at any little kids who might suddenly remember having seen you right before the jury comes back.”
“Nothing like that,” Kitteredge said. “You see, I have a bad habit. When I have a lot on my mind, I get in my car and drive without paying any attention to where I’m going. I let my body take over the driving, and my mind focuses on my work. And when I was coming up from Riverside, I had so much to think about as I was preparing to view the painting. I can’t say exactly where I went or what roads I took, but I left Riverside at seven in the morning, and I didn’t arrive here until close to twelve hours later. And no, I didn’t stop for gas. I have a hybrid.”
“Which is not good, if it’s true,” Shawn said. “But there’s still that other possibility.”
“Which is what?” Kitteredge said.
“That there’s another reason Filkins was killed,” Shawn said. “It has nothing to do with the painting. It’s really about Kitteredge coming home after a couple of weeks. He stops in a bar, and his old buddy Andy gives him the bad news. His new bride wasn’t home that night. Since he’s been gone she’s been sleeping with everyone in town, including Filkins. Kitteredge picks up his gun and goes to Filkins’ house, but when he gets there, he’s lying in a pool of blood.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Kitteredge said.
“That’s ‘The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia,’ ” Gus said.
“That’s the night they hung an innocent man,” Shawn agreed. “All because his wife couldn’t stay faithful.”
“I don’t have a wife,” Kitteredge said.
“Sure,” Shawn said. “That’s one body that’ll never be found, because little sister don’t miss when she aims her gun.”
“I don’t have a sister!”
It was a good thing he was keeping the professor’s arm pressed to his face, Gus thought, because it might have started beating Shawn around the head and neck.
“That does complicate things,” Shawn admitted. “You don’t know anyone who wanders these hills in a long back veil, do you?”
Kitteredge pulled his arm away from Gus. “What an arrogant fool I’ve been,” he said. “All these years thinking I could best the Cabal, never realizing how powerful they really are. If I’ve stayed alive this long it’s only because they chose to let me live. I should go up to the nearest policeman and turn myself in. Because there’s nothing I can do to clear my name.”
Kitteredge took a step in the direction of the cops who were still directing traffic. Gus grabbed his arm again.
“Please, Professor, don’t do that,” Gus said. “We will find a way to prove your innocence. You had enough faith to come to us for help in the first place. Don’t let go of that, now that things look bleak.”
Kitteredge barked out a bitter laugh. “I came to you for help? That’s the rock I should build my faith on?”
“I still have the letter,” Gus said, patting his breast pocket and hearing the crackle of twenty-four-pound bond.
“Maybe you should reread it,” Kitteredge said.
“If you want me to, I will,” Gus said. “But it’s not safe out here. My car is parked across the street. I’ll read it there if you’ll come along with us.”
“Now,” Kitteredge said.
Gus turned to Shawn for help, but Shawn only shrugged. “Unless you want to pick him up and carry him, you’ve got to do what he says.”