Rarities Unlimited 03 - Die in Plain Sight

might have visited,” Ian said. “Then I’m going to take a drive and seeif any of them recognize his photos,” after I doctor them a bit , “or his paintings.”
    Dottie looked at Ian’s computer. “I have a scanner, but it would be faster to use my computer setup and simply print out the photos here.”
    “You can do that?” Ian asked.
    “Yes.”
    Lacey took a deep breath. “Do you still have that personal-style program?”
    Her mother turned hopefully. “Of course. I’ll just take a photo of you and—”
    “No, not me. Granddad.”
    Ian gave her a startled look, then a slow, approving smile. Without a word he went back to creaming the family photos for the clearest ones of David Quinn.
    “Why?” Brody asked his daughter.
    “Because he might have looked different in his other life,” Lacey said, and waited for the explosion. She didn’t have to wait long.
    “Other life!” Brody and Dottie said simultaneously. “What are you talking about?” Brody demanded.
    “The life your father lived before he married SaraBeth Courtney,” Ian said without looking up from the albums.
    “Just because he doesn’t have pictures of his childhood doesn’t mean he led some sort of double life,” Brody said. “He wasn’t a sentimental man. He could have just thrown the pictures away.”
    “There are other things,” Lacey said reluctantly.
    “Such as?” Brody challenged.
    “Such as,” Ian said, “the fact that there’s no official record of anyone called David No-Middle-Name Quinn before the marriage certificate he signed when he married SaraBeth Courtney. No driver’s license in California, no birth certificate, no voting record, no property, no taxes, nothing.”
    Brody opened his mouth. Then he closed it and pinched the bridge of his nose. It didn’t take a lawyer to figure out the most likely reason a man might take the trouble to switch to a new identity.
    “So you think he was a felon,” Brody said.
    “I think we need to know who and what he was before he became David Quinn,” Ian said carefully.
    Brody grunted. “How many reasons can you think of for changing your identity?”
    “Quite a few.”
    “Any of them legal?” Brody retorted.
    “One or two.”
    His face paled except for twin slashes of red over his cheekbones. “You really think he was a murderer?”
    Ian spoke before Lacey could. “I really don’t know. It could have been some scam related to art that caused him to change his name. Did your father always paint, or was that new along with his new life?”
    “He painted,” Dottie said, frowning. “I can’t remember why, but I’m sure of it.”
    “Even before he was David Quinn?” Ian asked.
    Dottie looked at Brody.
    “Yes…” he said slowly.
    “You sure?” Ian asked.
    “One of my earliest memories is of him saying variations on the theme of ‘When I was your age, I could paint trees that looked like trees. A chicken could crap a better painting than this. What’s wrong with you? Didn’t you get any of me except a pecker?’”
    “Wretched, wretched creature,” Dottie muttered under her breath.
    Brody shrugged. “I got used to it after a while. The point is that my father always painted.”
    “Landscapes?” Ian asked.
    “As far as I know.”
    “What about fires?” Lacey asked. “Did you ever see him paint them?”
    Brody gave his daughter a puzzled look. “Fires? Like fireplaces or campfires or candles?”
    “Like burning cars or houses,” she said.
    “Not that I remember. But keep in mind that you knew the artistic part of my father better than anyone else. After I was eight, he gave up on me. He never painted around me and never let me be around him when he painted. He never showed me his paintings. Never showed my mother. He completely locked us out of that part of his life.”
    “The biggest part,” Lacey said, finally understanding why her father found the whole subject of art distasteful.
    “You were the only one,” Brody said simply. “He took one look at thepainting you did of the Christmas tree when you were three years old and fell in love. He let you into places and showed you pieces of himself that he didn’t share with anyone else.”
    “Not all of it, apparently,” Ian said. Thank God . “Mrs. Quinn, I’ll take you up on the offer of your scanner.”
    “Call me Dottie,” she said. Then added casually, “Everyone else in the family does.”
    Lacey groaned. “Mom.”
    Ian gave Lacey a quick, one-arm hug. “Bet your