“My God. I’ve been mugged and threatened, and someone who worked for me was killed, and another person who worked for me betrayed me and told me she hates me. Now someone wants to kill me? I can’t believe it.” She put down her fork. “Baker is dead? Oh, God, that’s my fault, too.”
“The dog isn’t dead yet, but they don’t think he’ll make it. It isn’t your fault, but we have to take it seriously. I think it’s time for amateurs to leave this business to me and the police and stop taking risks.”
His voice was warm and gentle, and his eyes were kind, but his words were annoying, patronizing.
Coleman had to struggle to control her temper. She had to find a way to make him see how wrong he was. “Did you ever hear of The Women’s Murder Club series?”
“No. Why? Are you trying to change the subject?”
“No. The books are about four women—a homicide detective, a medical examiner, an assistant district attorney, and a newspaper writer—who join forces to solve crimes.”
He groaned. “Coleman, that’s fiction. We’re talking real-life murder here. Amateurs just get in the way in a situation like this.”
Coleman was unpleasantly reminded of her first meeting with Rob. She hoped he wasn’t going to turn into a know-it-all bully again.
She forced herself to speak calmly. “Now hear me out, Rob. I don’t take kindly to being interrupted. We’re in a good-versus-evil battle. There’s an evil person involved, maybe more than one. Two people are dead, and you say someone’s trying to kill me. So far, the police have done a terrible job. I rarely say ‘I told you so’ but a while back you and the police were sure none of this had anything to do with art. Don’t forget, Chick and Dinah and I found Blackbeard’s, and with Clancy’s help, forced the police to arrest the Apemen. Using Chick’s lead, Dinah and I discovered that the Rembrandt plates were missing. Rachel uncovered The Midget scam and found out the Dürers were stolen. None of that would have come out but for us amateurs.”
Rob winced. “Okay, you have a point, but I’m terrified you’re going to be hurt. Your friend Chick was investigating this, and he was killed. The same thing could happen to you.”
She smiled. “But you’re going to prevent that, aren’t you? Look at how we’ve discovered clues in the case: we’ve needed art historians, amateur debuggers, and my friend at the New York Times.”
Rob nodded. “Granted, this is an unusual situation, and it hasn’t been susceptible so far to traditional police methods. Maybe that’s the way it’s going to be. But please, Coleman, be very, very careful.”
Dinah, still teary, called Coleman from Claridge’s. Coleman reassured her that she was fine, and Jonathan grabbed the phone to suggest that Coleman and Rob meet them at Cornelia Street. “Our plane gets to Kennedy at eleven thirty, and we should be at the apartment before one. We have a lot to tell you,” he said.
Dinah reached for the phone again. “Rachel Ransome’s a darling, and she’ll do all she can to help. She thinks Simon would kill her if he could get away with it—she found a note with ‘Get rid of Rachel’ on it. But Heyward Bain is a rat. I’ve never been so deceived by anybody in my whole life. I hate him, partly because he’s made me feel like such a fool. I stood up for him when Jonathan insisted he was a crook. I hope this doesn’t make you feel bad, but he says he’s not in love with you. I was wrong about that, too. I’m so sorry I misled you.”
Coleman laughed. “I’m not surprised. He sure hasn’t acted like he’s in love with me. When we’re not talking transatlantic, you’ll have to tell me why you’ve taken against him. I hope it’s not because he isn’t in love with me. Lots of people aren’t, and you can’t dislike them all.”
Dinah had been sure that Coleman would be upset when she learned about Bain. What was going on? But Coleman was right. This wasn’t the time to discuss it. “Don’t hang up—I have to tell you a few more things.” She recounted Rachel’s story about The Midget, and Bain’s reaction to it. “Some ethics, right? But the most interesting thing we’ve learned is that Delia Swain—that snippy little twit at the Harnett—was the woman in Oxford whose rental car was ‘borrowed’ and photographed at the Baldorean.”
“No! A link at last!” Coleman said.
“That’s exactly what I said. How can we get her?”
“We’ll talk about it when you’re home. Fly safely—I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Coleman paced her office and thought about Delia Swain. Jane Parker should know Swain’s background. The Harnett Museum must have files on anyone working there. When Jane answered her phone, Coleman asked about new developments.
“Nothing. I’m afraid we’ll never find the missing Rembrandt plates. I feel terrible.”
“Don’t give up yet. We’re checking some leads. In that regard, what can you tell me about Delia Swain?”
Jane hesitated. Then, “Why do you ask?”
Maybe Jane liked Delia. Coleman would have to be careful. “Well, she was so bitchy to us when we were down there. I’ve had her on my mind ever since. I couldn’t figure out what she had against Dinah and me.”
“Oh, that’s just Delia. She’s the only child of rich parents. They moved down here from New Jersey when she was a baby. They don’t pretend to be Southern, but she acts like the reincarnation of Scarlett O’Hara. She’s a volunteer here. She calls herself our public relations person, but she just hangs around the museum and bothers people. Her father’s chairman of the board of the museum, and on the board of the college, so she can do whatever she pleases.”
“Where’d she go to school?”
Jane said Swain had attended a finishing school in Switzerland, having failed to get into a college that met her social standards. She’d interned with a public relations firm, and considered herself a PR expert. “As you saw, she doesn’t exactly make friends for the museum,” Jane concluded.
“Could you fax me her résumé, if you have one? If not, could you patch together whatever you can find, and fax that? Confidentially, her name has cropped up again in our investigations, and I’d like to check her background for connections to other people.”
“Do you think she could have had something to do with the missing plates?”
“It’s possible,” Coleman said. “But I don’t think you ought to tell anybody. It might cost you your job if you even hint she’s a suspect. Send me anything you can without getting into trouble.”
“I’ll see what I can do. It would be a great relief if the theft were solved and the plates returned without hurting any of the employees—which she isn’t. I’ve always wished she’d find another playpen. Uh—no one questioned Delia about the plates. They wouldn’t have dared, given who her father is.”
“I understand. And Jane? One more thing. Bain took Sleeping Kitten to the Metropolitan Museum yesterday to find out if it’s a restrike. I bet they already have an answer. Do you think they’ll talk to you?”
Jane laughed. “I’m sure they will. They know we have—had, I should say—the plate. I’ll let you know.”
“Thanks, Jane.”
Forty-Three
Saturday
London
Quincy called Rachel early Saturday morning. “Your American friends telephoned me last night—it was late, and they didn’t want to disturb you but they wanted you to know they’re leaving this morning. They may have already left,” he said.
Rachel frowned. “Did something happen?”
When Quincy described the gift meant to harm—perhaps kill—Coleman and her dog, Rachel was horrified, but not surprised. She had been sure Coleman was in danger. “How dreadful! Thank God no one was hurt.”
“Yes, quite. I gather the group also quarreled. Mrs. Hathaway was unhappy about some of the things Heyward Bain said earlier in the evening, and she criticized his behavior. As she should have, in my opinion. The Hathaways expect to be in New York by lunchtime.”
“I’m concerned about Coleman Greene. I hope they’re protecting her. On another topic, I have devised a sch
eme to prevent Simon from repeating his Lautrec trick. I will fax you material to your office today. Could you telephone me on Monday, and let me know what you think?”
After her guests left, Rachel had combed The Record, and had identified twenty-six people who owned prints that Simon might attempt to acquire at low prices and sell for multiples of what he’d paid. He would try to implicate her and the gallery, of that she was sure. She would block his efforts.
Miss Manning, who did not usually work on Saturdays, had come in at Rachel’s request to type letters to the people she thought he’d approach, and to help Rachel reach the experts to estimate values for the works Simon might try to buy. When Rachel had done all she could, she asked Miss Manning to fax Quincy a copy of the letter to a woman who owned many valuable prints, including three by Degas and one by Mary Cassatt.
Rachel’s letter explained that the prints’ values had increased greatly in the last few years, and included an evaluation for each. The letter warned the recipient that she might be offered very low prices for the prints, ostensibly on behalf of the Ransome Gallery, and ended by saying that she, Rachel, was the only person authorized to acquire prints or any other art objects on behalf of the gallery. Rachel advised her to refuse any offers for less than the evaluation.
Saturday
New York
Coleman fed and walked Dolly, drank two cups of coffee and checked her e-mails. She read Rob’s first.
I enjoyed Wednesday night. And despite the circumstances, I had a great time yesterday at lunch. I still owe you that gooey dessert.
Here’s the Baldorean photo you wanted.
Coleman smiled, and turned to the e-mail from Jane Parker:
I made some calls and got a few details about Delia’s background. After school in Geneva, she worked in Los Angeles at a PR firm for a couple of months. She spent another month or two in LA interning at a magazine, then worked for some kind of research outfit in Chicago before returning to Virginia. Sleeping Kitten is a very contemporary restrike. Let me know if I can do anything else.
Chicago and Los Angeles were the two cities where Ellen’s companies were located. Could Ms. Swain have worked at the Artful Californian, or at Computer Art Research Services? Or both? Coleman couldn’t follow up on most of the information in Jane’s letter until Monday, but there was one thing she could do.
She dialed Clancy at home. “Clancy? Do you know anyone at the major newspaper in Richmond?”
“The Times-Dispatch? I do know someone. Why?”
“I’m investigating a woman whose name has come up a couple of times in connection with art thefts. Would you call your friend and check her out for me?”
“Sure, fax me her name and anything else you’ve got on her, and I’ll get back to you. If this is a story, we’ll share, right?”
“You bet. Thanks, Clancy.”
Coleman leaned back in her chair and thought about everything that had happened in the art world since the October auction at Killington’s. Dinah had predicted it: Heyward Bain’s money had unleashed greed, and some person—or persons—had come up with a number of ways to get Bain’s money. If she listed all the print-related and other art-related cons, scams, and crimes that she knew or suspected had occurred, maybe she could detect a pattern.
A. Print crimes directly related to the Print Museum and Heyward Bain:
Theft of the Dürers.
Theft of three Rembrandt plates.
Restrike from stolen plate (Rembrandt’s Sleeping Kitten) sold, and not identified as a restrike.
Cheating owners—persuading them to sell low—so that the resale would be very profitable (The Midget).
Conspiracy at the auction houses? “Ring” practices—a partner “bidding up” works to an agreed price level. (The underbidder always on the telephone; record prices, always above expectations.)
Falsely identifying the owner of prints to the auction houses that sold them—Illegal? Or unethical? (Jimmy La Grange consigned prints owned by someone else.)
Overpricing of the prints sold to Bain—selling prints to him at way above the market. (No evidence, but again, logical.)
B. Art world illegal practices not necessarily connected to the Print Museum, or Bain:
Espionage at ArtSmart: part of a plan designed to take over ArtSmart?
Simon’s attempt to damage Rachel’s reputation: part of a plan to take over the Ransome Gallery?
Coleman’s mugging, and the attempt to kill her, or to make her sick. (Dolly? Baker?) Was this to facilitate taking over ArtSmart? Or was there some other motive?
C. Two murders: Chick’s connected to La Grange’s, but La Grange’s still unexplained. Was it art connected? Or . . . ?
Coleman tapped her pencil on the desk. She had no way to prove or disprove that anyone had sold overpriced objects to Heyward Bain. They probably had, but if they had, it wasn’t a crime. It was caveat emptor, and Bain apparently didn’t care. She crossed it off her list.
Cheating owners, persuading them to sell too low, as Simon had done with The Midget. Sharp practice, but not illegal. Caveat venditor. She crossed that off, too.
The false seller issue was an auction house problem. The rule that the seller must swear he or she owned the work was to provide the auction houses with recourse if the work turned out to be problematic. It wasn’t a big deal to anyone else. Of course, Jimmy’s “selling” all those important works when he obviously didn’t have the money or the contacts to have bought them—and at off-beat auction houses—raised red flags. But the victims were the auction houses and Bain, and Jimmy was dead. She crossed that off, too.
The theft of the Dürers and the theft of the Rembrandt plates were crimes. Selling the contemporary restrike without identifying it was stealing, too, or, at least, selling it under false pretenses. If exposed, the seller would have to refund the money to the buyer. Same with the Dürers; jail was a possibility, too. But the value of the stolen objects, while huge to the likes of Coleman, was small as art thefts went. They were surely too small to be associated with murder? If one dared pun over something as serious as murder, the murders were “overkill.” But if the killings weren’t associated with the print thefts, what was the motive for them? Was it possible, as the police had thought from the beginning, that La Grange’s death was not connected to the art world? And that poor Chick was killed because he stumbled on La Grange’s killers?
Taking over the Ransome Gallery (“Get rid of Rachel”) could involve real money: The Ransome Gallery had to be very lucrative. And if the espionage at ArtSmart was part of a plan to take it over (“Get rid of Coleman”?) for the reasons she and Zeke had concluded, that could produce big money, too. But were the amounts large enough to inspire murder? Murder didn’t come easily to most people, thank God.
Forgetting alibis, who had the ability to do all these things? Simon? Coleman didn’t think he was smart enough. Bain? Bain had the brains, and his recent behavior was suspicious. Suppose he turned out to be a crook after all, as Dinah now believed, and Jonathan had thought all along? Ellen? She had the ability, but the print stuff seemed too petty to interest someone as successful as Ellen. That went for Bain, too, in spades. Why would a billionaire involve himself with penny-ante crime?
Rachel Ransome? She had the ability, but no motive. She might be a little too eager to identify Simon as the culprit—but then, so was Coleman. That reminded her of the Baldorean photo. Why had Rachel been so sure it was Simon?
She printed out the JPEG and put the picture of the bearded man on her desk, tilting her desk lamp so the image was brightly lit. She laid beside it a photo of a grinning Simon—the ArtSmart photographer had caught him at his moment of triumph when he’d bought The Midget—from the Print Museum file. The two figures were about the same height. The face of the Baldorean figure was so covered with hair it was difficult to compare the two, but the heads were about the same size, and both figures had long horsy faces. But that was as far as she could go.
Coleman t
hrew her pencil on the desk and stretched her arms over her head. God, what a mess! She felt as if she were comparing apples and oranges. The items on her list were incongruous, from the grand designs—the plans to take over the magazine and the gallery—to the petty print crimes. And the vicious killings and her mugging and attempted poisoning were another kind of crime entirely. There must be a motive behind the violent crimes she hadn’t considered.
Oh hell, her head was splitting, and she hadn’t come up with anything new. She stood up and grabbed her coat, and Dolly’s pouch. “C’mon, it’s time to go to Cornelia Street.”
Dinah and Jonathan arrived at their apartment a little before one and were greeted by Coleman and Rob, who had bought a dozen pots of daffodils to bring a touch of spring to the empty apartment. A fire burned brightly in the fireplace and Rob had made spaghetti sauce, redolent with garlic, basil, and tomatoes. Under his direction, Coleman had put together a salad. Best of all, the vet had called, and Baker was better—not out of the woods yet, but definitely better. He could have visitors tomorrow.
Rob and Coleman served lunch, while Dinah and Jonathan described the trip to London, including Rachel’s revelations, Heyward Bain’s reactions, and the unpleasant scene at Richmond’s.
“To me, the oddest thing you’ve told us is Heyward Bain’s behavior. I can’t understand it,” Rob said.
“Bain’s behavior was peculiar, but I think the most interesting information you turned up is the fact that Delia Swain rented the car that was driven to the Baldorean. I’ve started making inquiries about her. I wish I’d trusted my instincts and done it earlier. I’ve learned a few things already,” Coleman said, and repeated everything Jane had told her.
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