The Sign Painter Read online

  “That is not going to happen.”

  “It is happening. Right now it’s happening. A lot of the kids Lucy is trying to reach, they could go either way. They come to the church looking for safety and afraid to trust anyone. Then what happens? Dealers start pitching their tent across the street, the women start walking the block between the church and where these kids live, and they think, No way, this church thing is as bogus as all the other promises society made me and never kept. And they go over to the dark side. Some have started dealing out of the church’s parking lot. Which means sooner or later the church elders, the ones who didn’t want us opening this outreach center in the first place, will go ballistic. And everything Lucy’s crew is doing will be lost.”

  Paul felt the icy grip clench his gut more tightly still. “No, what I meant was, I will not let this go any further.”

  Granville had a fleshy, pockmarked face that looked uncomfortable with a smile. “So what’s just another retired cop from Baltimore going to do about a drug gang protected by the DEA?”

  Paul pointed forward with his chin. “Drive us on back to the church. I need to make a couple of calls.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Amy vanished in plain sight. She got straight to work, ignoring the people who stared at her through the storefront windows. Because she pretended they did not exist, after a while they did the same for her. Amy sketched out the designs, then drew a pastel overlay on the first three. She stepped back and surveyed her work. It was approaching two in the afternoon. Her back and arms and shoulders ached. She had not stopped for lunch or even a drink of water.

  Now came the difficult part.

  Amy returned to the owner’s outer office. The elderly secretary gave her a frosty look and wrinkled her nose at the odors Amy carried in with her—turpentine and paint and sweat from a hard day in the Florida sun. “Can I please have a minute of Mr. Denton’s time?” Amy asked.

  The secretary opened her mouth to speak, but Mr. Denton called through the open door, “Be right with you!”

  The secretary was in her late sixties and looked to Amy like a plant that had grown roots into the carpeted floor. She sniffed at Amy and typed furiously at her computer. Bob Denton came out wearing his big smile and said, “What can I do you for?”

  “I just thought you’d like to have a look at my designs before I start laying the first coat.”

  “Sure, sure. Hey, have you met Shirley? This is Amy, I’m sorry, I forgot—”

  “Dowell. Amy Dowell. Nice to meet you.”

  “Shirley’s been with us since my father sat in that office. She’s retiring tomorrow. And we’ll miss her a lot.”

  Shirley sniffed again and continued typing. As they left the office, Bob said, “I’ve been running this place for twenty-three years, and Shirley still treats me like I’m in short pants and a bow tie.”

  Amy followed the boss through the new-car showroom. She had studied the salespeople through the window. Most of them were her age or younger. But the way they acted—the jocular chatter, the pranks, the loud hellos and bravado—left Amy feeling a generation older.

  The afternoon sunlight was strong and made seeing her designs difficult. Amy had expected this and walked the company owner to the shade of the entrance overhang. “I thought I’d do a rainbow over the doorway here, with cars blooming from the pots of gold at each end.”

  “This is great. Did you do this for Vickers?”

  “No, actually, it came to me when I saw your ads in the local paper, you know, the ones with the ‘bright shiny day’ logo. I plan to replicate that logo on the windows to either side of this display.”

  He turned from the windows. “You checked out our ads?”

  “Well, sure, Mr. Denton, I wanted—”

  “Call me Bob.”

  “I wanted to do a professional job.”

  “I wish I could get that sort of professionalism from my sales staff. You know what research they do before they apply for a job? Zip. They think if they can name the models, they’re golden. And here you are, checking out my ads just to paint my windows.”

  He was giving her that stare again. And a couple of the people inside the showroom were noticing. “All part of the service, Mr. Denton.”

  “Have dinner with me.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” When he looked ready to press his case, she added a gentle note of firmness to her voice. “Thank you, but no.”

  He was so disappointed that he actually deflated. Slumped a bit and scuffed the pavement. “I’m too old for you, aren’t I?”

  She smiled for all the faces turned their way. “I better get back to my work, Mr. Denton. Thanks for your time.”

  An hour later, she reentered the office and told Shirley she was breaking for an early dinner and received another sniff in response. The door to Bob Denton’s office was closed, and the boss did not show himself. Amy jogged back to her truck and hightailed it to the church. She arrived ten minutes past the day-care center’s closing time of four o’clock. When she rushed into the center, she found Kimmie playing on the floor of Lucy’s office, building a house out of wooden blocks. “I’m so sorry.”

  “For what? Your daughter is an angel who’s captured our hearts.”

  “Look, Mommy.” Kimmie held up a battered doll that obviously had come from the day-care toy chest. “The baby’s gonna have a nap in her new home.”

  For some reason the words made Amy’s eyes burn. She knelt on the floor beside her daughter and said, “Where she’s going to be safe and happy.”

  “And no big bad trucks are gonna come and eat her.”

  “They don’t eat you, honey.”

  “That’s what they sound like.” She made a growling sound. “I hate it.”

  Amy stroked the soft hair. “I know you do.”

  Lucy asked, “How long have you been on the road?”

  “Almost nineteen months. A lifetime.” Amy kept stroking her daughter’s hair. “I thought it would be a couple of weeks.”

  “I believe I’ve heard that before.”

  “The biggest problem is, the longer we lived in the camper, the more trapped we got. Every cent I earned was spent before it came.”

  “Making a deposit on a place is impossible,” Lucy filled in. “And the unexpected expense leaves you helpless.”

  “My little darling got a fever five months after we started this life,” Amy remembered. “Three trips to the ER, some tests, and the last of our savings was gone. Since then, the thought of what happens next time wakes me up most nights.”

  Lucy gave that a moment, then asked, “You ready to sign some forms?”

  Amy smiled through the liquid veil covering her gaze. “In blood, if you like.”

  “My plastic pen will do fine, thank you very much.”

  Lucy led her through an array of documents. There were several for the apartment and another for the power company’s deposit, which the church would front but expected her to repay. Amy responded by pulling out the envelope holding her first check from Denton Chevrolet. Lucy smiled approval and pulled out bank forms to open a bank account. “We run a full-service operation here.”

  There were some forms that the church elders required, which were intrusive but necessary. First was an agreement for the center to access her police and court records. Then there was a form requiring her to have blood tests within three days, and another informing her that she would be subject to random drug tests. Amy signed happily.

  Lucy walked her through the rules and regulations governing the apartment, which was hers for a maximum of nine months. Amy tried hard to concentrate, but her mind kept returning to those two amazing words. Nine months. She wanted to pick up her little girl and do a dance down the central corridor.

  “Mommy, I’m hungry.”

  Lucy opened her bottom drawer and pulled out a
couple of cereal bars. “I’ve got raspberry and peanut butter.”

  “Kimmie loves peanut butter better than anything, don’t you, honey?”

  “Mommy says I’d eat peanut butter on liver if she let me.”

  Her daughter scooted up into Amy’s lap and held the doll with one hand while she ate the bar with the other. As Lucy was starting back on the regulations, there was a knock on her door. “Come.”

  A burly man with a pockmarked complexion and very kind eyes opened the door. He was also a cop. Amy knew the look and the movement and the smell. All too well. “Got a minute?”

  “Sure.” When Amy started to rise, Lucy motioned for her to keep her seat. “Amy Dowell, meet Granville Burnes. He runs our church’s security team. Amy and her daughter are moving into unit eight.”

  “Good to meet you, Amy. I hope you’ll be very happy here.”

  Amy wondered if there would ever be a time when she could be comfortable around the police again. “Thank you, Mr. Burnes.”

  “Call me Granville.”

  Amy picked a corner off her daughter’s cereal bar. Her throat was dry, and her stomach congealed around the tension that every cop caused her these days. She took the food because it gave her something to concentrate on.

  Granville said to Lucy, “I took our guest over, like you said. Gave him the ten-cent tour.”

  “What’s your take on Paul Travers?”

  “Jury’s still out. But he’s not wasting any time. He’s over in the conference room, pacing and talking on his phone. Got all steamed up when I told him about the feds blocking our way. You want my opinion, I don’t see what good another cop on permanent vacation can do for us. But my buddy, the pastor in Baltimore, said this guy was the real deal.”

  Lucy responded with a shrug. “Doubtful he’ll shift this mountain. But I don’t see what choice we have. Who is he calling?”

  “He said it was best I didn’t know. Spent too much time with the feds, you ask me. All smoke and secrets.”

  When the cop let himself out, Amy risked a glance. The glass wall opened onto the side corridor. On the hall’s opposite side was a narrow conference room, where the handsome man she had seen at breakfast talked into a cell phone and jabbed the air with his free hand.

  “He’s a hunk,” Lucy declared.

  “He’s also a cop.” Amy went back to picking another crumb off her daughter’s cereal bar. His being a former fed simply meant the load of trouble he could bring down was bigger. She said, “I need to go get something hot for Kimmie’s dinner. Then I have to go back to work.”

  “You’re pulling a double shift?”

  “There are no shifts. This job needs to be finished by Saturday morning. It pays twelve hundred dollars. I’ll sleep when it’s done. I’ll put Kimmie down in the cab and park on the lot.”

  “There’s no need. We have another two families working night shifts. They’ll bed their kids down in the day-care bunks. Kimmie’s welcome to join them.”

  Kimmie piped up, “I want to stay here, Mommy.”

  Amy found her throat clenched up tight. “All right, sweetheart.”

  When her eyes cleared and she glanced over, Lucy was watching her with genuine approval. “Something tells me you’re going to be just fine.”

  “I wish there was some way to thank you—”

  “Get back on your feet, make a stable home for your daughter, climb out of your hole, keep your feet on the path.” The words came out like a well-used chorus. “That’s all the thanks I ever need.”

  Amy rose to her feet, Kimmie clinging limpet-like to her neck. She asked, “Can the blood tests wait until next week?”

  “You ever do drugs, Amy?”

  “No. Never.”

  “Next week will do fine. Go earn some money and then get some rest. We stocked your fridge and your pantry. All part of the welcome.”

  Amy stopped again by the door, turned back, and asked, “Are we going to be friends?”

  Lucy’s smile lit up the room. “I thought we already were.”

  As they passed through the exit and crossed the parking lot, Kimmie asked, “Are we going to our new home, Mommy?”

  Amy stared upward and blinked fiercely. Above the tired buildings and the pitted asphalt and the spiderweb of power lines was just another Florida sunset. She had never seen anything so beautiful in her entire life. “Yes, sweetheart. We are.”

  CHAPTER 6

  When Amy returned to work, a new shift of salespeople had taken over. The evening sales staff were entirely different from the day people. The first time she had observed such a change, it had frightened her. Now she knew this was typical for most city dealerships. Most senior sales staff didn’t bother with the early-morning traffic. They came in late and did the deals with the people coming off work. The people with money. The people in a hurry. What she saw of most late-shift salespeople, she did not like.

  They glanced her way and they shot their cuffs and they slicked back their hair and they paraded around. They made certain Amy noticed how well dressed they were and how they laughed like winners and how lucky she’d be to have any of them snap their fingers at her. She had learned to put such men down fast and hard. Sometimes it was enough for her to give them the look. The one that promised to double any trouble they tried to give her.

  When the first of them started her way, Amy stopped and straightened and glared and used her leveling rod to point the guy away. She mouthed one word: Don’t. The guy must have seen the message in her eyes, because he smirked and strolled past her, shouting a hello to a fellow rising from his car. As if he had never planned to put the moves on Amy. She resumed her painting.

  The boss came back around eight that evening. Bob Denton did a slow circuit of the desks out on the salesroom floor. He spent some time with his manager, whose glass-fronted office was next to Denton’s. He was drawn into a couple of negotiations, the last one not ending until almost ten. Then he went home. He did not glance at Amy once. She was sorry about that and wished she could have been gentler about the turndown. She had no interest in going out with him. But Bob Denton seemed like a genuinely nice man. She liked how he treated everyone with a grave respect. Amy pushed the thoughts away and returned to her work. She needed the money. And the last thing she had room for was a man.

  Just before closing, the showroom saw a flurry of business. There were three quick purchases of Corvettes, all handled by the salesman who had started to put the moves on her. The customers raised her hackles so much that Amy shifted around to the farthest window, in the back, where she could hide. They wore shades and slick gym gear emblazoned with emblems from professional sports teams. They came with their entourages, eight people in all, five women and three men. The men wore tight-brimmed velvet homburgs over do-rags, with big watches and bigger scowls. The ladies were beautiful and hard and deadly. One of the women noticed Amy and walked over to stand on the window’s other side. Her clothes cost more than Amy’s camper. She had a diamond in her nose and a lot more diamonds on her wrist. She smirked down at where Amy crouched, pretending to paint the window’s bottom corner. She mouthed at Amy, What you waiting for, girl?

  Amy packed up her paint and brushes and left. Behind her, she thought she heard laughter floating over the traffic noise.

  She went down the road to a 7-Eleven and treated herself to a cup of coffee and a doughnut. She gave it forty-five minutes, then returned to her work. As she’d hoped, the lot was quiet. The only sign of life was the security guard doing slow circuits on his modified golf cart. He must have been alerted to Amy’s presence, for he asked her name, then offered her a gentle hello and continued on his way.

  She finished the rainbow arching over the main entrance just after three in the morning. By that point, her body ached and her vision was going a little fuzzy. But she had learned to go a lot longer than this without sleep. She moved away from
the main windows and left that more public work for later, after she’d gone back for a nap and a meal. She could sleep two hours and wake refreshed, as long as she had fifteen minutes with her little girl. She moved down to the last window in the direction opposite where she’d been hiding. She started to sketch out the design she was going to use, a starburst with “sale” written inside the center.

  Then she saw the money.

  The sales force had desks spaced around the showroom floor. On the desk closest to her rested two stacks of bills, possibly more. She could not be certain exactly how much was there because the stacks were covered by a mass of papers. Each of the stacks was over an inch thick. She could see the money only because of her position, crouched at the one angle where the cash was visible under the mound of forms.

  Amy knew instantly what had happened. The entourage had paid for their three cars with cash. The salesman had been rushing around, trying to complete the transactions before the close of business. He had walked out with the buyers, laughing and joking, and forgotten the money. It was amazing, especially to her. But she knew how things could get at the end of a long shift. Mistakes happened.

  Amy jerked at the sound of voices and slamming doors. She straightened as though she had been caught doing something wrong.

  She turned around and saw that the company’s cleaning crew had arrived. Four women and one grumpy man stumped past her, headed for the entrance.

  Her heart went into overdrive at the prospect of what might happen next. She could just see the cleaners working their way through the room and coming upon the cash. And pocketing it.

  If she alerted the security guy to the cash, maybe he would be honest. Maybe. But an hourly-wage grunt staring down at a wedge of cash, there was no telling.

  All they had to do was look around for somebody to take the blame.