Nobody's Child (Georgia Davis Series) by Libby Fischer Hellmann Page A

their theory? Drugs?” Hatters asked. With long brown hair tied back in a ponytail, she was wearing jeans and a flannel shirt and looked more like a hippie than a gallery owner. Maybe that was the point, Georgia thought. Pearl Lady for the older generation, Hippie Sue for the younger. Ingenious.
    “Isn’t it always?” The older woman gave a shrug and twisted her pearls again.
    Georgia turned to a painting of a sailboat being launched off the shore of a rocky beach. She tilted her head. Something about that setting was familiar. She knew this place. She tried to blot out the chatter so she could concentrate, but the women’s conversation was relentless.
    “I hear there’s going to be a press conference this morning,” Pearl Lady said.
    Georgia’s stomach lurched. That was news to her. Had they ID’d the tail? Or was the conference simply to soothe nervous residents? Were they going to reveal her part? Gutierrez had promised not to; then again, he wasn’t in charge. Some PR flunky might pull rank on him. Having her name bandied around was not good. It would draw attention to her. And whoever gunned down the tail.
    She continued to stare at the sailboat. She knew nothing about technique, but she was drawn to the painting. A lonely beach, cresting waves, a muscular surf. A figure stood on the boat, but it was indistinct, and she couldn’t tell if it was male or female. That had to be intentional, Georgia thought. The artist wanted to emphasize the smallness of man versus nature. One lonely sailor against the elements.
    “I hear the mayor’s speaking,” Pearl Lady said.
    Georgia’s gut loosened. The fact that the mayor was talking meant the press conference was political. The mayor of Evanston, a down-to-earth woman Georgia occasionally saw in the grocery store, needed to calm turbulent waters. She’d gone door to door after a previous murder asking residents for suggestions on how to make the city safer. Georgia turned away from the painting.
    “You like that?” Hatters asked. “We just got it in.”
    “It’s powerful,” Georgia said. “I feel the passion.”
    Hatters nodded. “That’s what drew me to it.”
    “Funny, it looks familiar. I keep thinking I’ve been there before.”
    “It was done by a woman in Glencoe. She was away for a while and just got back.”
    “Where was she?”
    “I’m not supposed to say.” Hatters’s voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. She leaned over the counter. “But everybody knows. She was in prison.”
    Georgia sucked in a breath. She turned back to the painting and peered at the artist’s initials in the lower right corner.
A.W.
Andrea Walcher. She’d dealt with Walcher and her daughter on a case not long ago. She’d been to their house, a palatial estate that overlooked the lake in Glencoe. The painting was a lake view of the rocky beach below their home.
Small world,
she thought.
    Or maybe it wasn’t.

Chapter 16
    G eorgia reached Gutierrez on his cell a few minutes before the press conference. “You were going to keep me in the loop.”
    “Your point?” No “Hi, how are you.” More important, no “I’m sorry.” Gutierrez wasn’t big on pleasantries. Then again, neither was she.
    “How about the mayor’s about to hold a press conference, and I heard about it in an art gallery?”
    “It’s got nothing to do with the investigation. It’s just to smooth things over. Remind everyone the mayor is committed to make Evanston safe. I didn’t think it was relevant.”
    He had a point. Still, it rankled.
    “You got anything new?” he asked.
    She hesitated, then decided to be a good soldier and summarized the review of her cases. She gave him the names of people she thought he should follow up on. Then, “What about the autopsy? It was this morning, right?”
    “Not much. Except for one thing.”
    “What was that?”
    “There were some tattoos.”
    Georgia stiffened. “What kind?”
    “The kind they get in Russian prisons.”
    “What were