Swift Justice Read Online Free PDF Page A

beneath a blue bandanna. Stained overalls hung loosely over a white henley shirt. Knee-high galoshes enveloped her feet and calves. She stopped when she saw us and stripped work gloves from her hands as she approached.
    “Help you?” Her voice and gaze were no-nonsense. Eyes that showed more gray than blue peered from beneath straight iron-gray brows. Tanned skin beginning to soften around the jawline and pouches below her eyes testified to her life outdoors. She looked like a farmer, not an artist.
    I introduced myself and stumbled when it came time to present Gigi. I finally called her “Gigi Goldman, my associate.” My lips wouldn’t form the P-word.
    Gigi looked at me reproachfully but merely said, “We’ve met. Remember, Miss Furman? You donated that beautiful blue afghan with the star motif to our silent auction in support of the battered women’s home?”
    Furman’s sharp eyes focused on Gigi. “Right. I thought you looked familiar. Well, if you’re here for another—”
    “We need information, Ms. Furman,” I broke in, “not donations.”
    “I’m afraid I don’t deal in information,” she said, “only art.” She took two steps toward the pen and scratched the black goat on his knobbly head.
    She’d lost me. “I thought you made blankets. We just need to know who you sold this one to.” I nodded at Gigi, and she unfurled the pink blanket she’d been clutching to her chest.
    “And isn’t that art?” Furman asked, whipping around to pin me with narrowed eyes. From the look of satisfaction on her face, I knew I’d fallen into a trap she’d sprung many times. “You’re one of the culturally stunted products of our public education system who don’t consider something ‘art’ unless it was painted or sculpted by a DWEM, a dead white European male.” She pronounced it “dweem.”
    I felt heat rise to my cheeks but said, “I like Georgia O’Keeffe.”
    “Bully for you. How about Junichi Arai or Michail Berger? Maybe Chihuly?”
    I knew Chihuly did glass, but I’d never heard of the othertwo. “Look”—I put my hands up in a surrender gesture—“I didn’t come here for a seminar on alternative art—”
    “Alternative?” Her brows rose haughtily to her hairline. A goat coughed behind her, sounding like it was laughing.
    This was going from bad to worse. “Do you remember who bought this blanket? It was with an abandoned baby.”
    That brought her up short, and she stepped off her soapbox, reaching a surprisingly well formed and delicate hand to grasp a fold of the blanket.
    “I think it’s lovely,” Gigi said.
    “Thank you, dear,” Furman said, tracing her thumb over one of the lambs. She nodded and looked over to me. “Aurora Newcastle. She bought it about six months ago. It was the last one I finished this spring before combing season.”
    “Combing?”
    “You don’t shear goats to get the cashmere, you comb it out of them,” she said, making a motion like dragging a comb down.
    I sensed another lecture coming on, this one on goat husbandry, so I asked quickly, “Was she pregnant?”
    “Aurora?” Furman laughed, a rich chuckle. “She’s as AARP eligible as I am. No, it was a gift for someone.”
    “Do you know who?” Gigi asked. She had the steno pad out, pen poised.
    Furman shook her head. “No. She didn’t say. And before you ask, no, I won’t give you her address. You understand.”
    “Sure.” It didn’t matter. It wouldn’t be hard to Google someone named Aurora Newcastle, and she apparently lived in Colorado since Furman talked like she knew her. “Thanks for your time, Ms. Furman,” I said.
    “I’d love to come back and hear about the goats sometime,” Gigi said, real interest lighting her face.
    “You do that,” Furman said. “I think they’d like you.” She turned away, striding back to the dung-filled wheelbarrow, rubber boots scraping a wsk-wsk sound from her overalls as she walked.
    “Did you hear that?” Gigi said in an awed