A Palette for Murder

by Jessica Fletcher

  I looked back; the press stood on the sidewalk. I felt better.

  I gave Mr. Mayer the address of the sprawling old waterfront house in which Miki Dorsey had lived before her death. We pulled into the driveway and stopped. Mayer turned. “Here we are, Mrs. Fletcher.”

  “Fine. You’ll wait, of course.”

  He smiled. “I’m yours for the day. For the next seven days. That’s the deal.”

  I knocked on the front door. When no one replied, I tentatively opened it. “Hello?”

  “Hello” came a male voice from somewhere in the house.

  I stepped inside, closed the door, and headed down the hall I knew led to the large living room. Chris Turi, whom I’d met on the jitney, and who was said to have been Miki Dorsey’s love interest, was seated on a window seat by a window overlooking the ocean.

  “Hello, Mrs. Fletcher,” he said.

  “Hello, Chris. Hope you don’t mind my barging in unannounced like this.”

  “No. How are you?”

  Since he didn’t get up, I went to him. “I’m not very good, to be honest. You heard, I assume, about the reporter, Jo Ann Forbes.”

  At least I’d gotten his attention. He sat up and said, “No. What about her?”

  “Did you know her?”

  “No. Well, maybe I met her at a party or something.”

  “She was murdered this morning.”

  “Huh?”

  “She was murdered early this morning. Not far from here, as a matter of fact.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “Sorry to be the bearer of the news. Chris, do you think I could see Miki’s room?”

  He frowned. “I suppose so. But why?”

  “Just curious. I feel a certain kinship with her. I suppose it’s because I was there when she died.”

  “Yeah. I can understand that. Actually, I’ve—well, once the police were through checking out her room, I sort of moved in. It’s bigger than mine was and—”

  “No need to explain. Have all of Miki’s things been moved?”

  “Yes. I mean, out. They’re in a storage room. Her father says he’ll arrange for them to go back with him to England.”

  “Has he been here much?”

  Turi shook his head. “Come on, I’ll show you the room. But excuse the mess. I’m still getting settled.”

  The room was at the other end of the rear of the house. The door was open, and Turi indicated with his hand that I should enter. It hadn’t been an overstatement; the room was in chaos. Clothing was tossed into every comer. Books from piles had toppled to the floor. The bed was unmade. The blinds were crooked. Pictures on the walls had obviously been hung haphazardly and at cockeyed angles. I thought of the movie Rocky, and Burgess Meredith’s line when he first saw Rocky’s hovel: “Nice place you got here.” I didn’t say it.

  I stood in the middle of the room and felt a profound sadness. This was where Miki Dorsey read, and slept, and thought about her life and where she wanted it to go.

  I turned and said to Chris Turi, “Do you know anything about a painting missing from Miki’s room?”

  He didn’t seem comfortable answering, so I asked again.

  “The Leopold.”

  “You do know about it.”

  “I heard.”

  “My understanding is that it hung right here in her room. Do you remember seeing it?”

  He shrugged, and looked even more uncomfortable. “I guess I did. I never paid attention.”

  I shifted my attention to the paintings on the walls. “Are these yours, Chris?”

  “Yeah. Are you hungry? Can I get you something?”

  “No thank you. Your work is very good.”

  What struck me about them was their similarity to the Joshua Leopold painting style. To my untrained eye, they could almost have been interchangeable to some of Leopold’s paintings in Maurice St. James’s gallery.

  “Did you know Joshua Leopold?” I asked.

  “Who? Oh, Leopold. No.”

  “Never met him?”

  “No. Look, I—”

  “I ask because your style strikes me as being influenced by him.”

  “Nah. Pollock, maybe. Lichtenstein. Kandinsky. I like Kandinsky a lot. And Masson.”

  “I don’t know him.”

  “He brought the viewer into the unconscious. Done here, Mrs. Fletcher?”

  “Yes. Thanks for showing it to me.”

  We stood in the kitchen, where Turi made himself a sandwich. I accepted a diet drink from him. As he spread mayonnaise on his bread, he asked, “How was the reporter murdered?”

  “Someone hit her head very hard.”

  “You said it happened not far from here.”

  “That’s right. At a beach cottage rented by a German art collector, Hans Muller.”

  He dropped the knife to the floor, hurriedly picked it up, and wiped the resulting mayo spill with a paper towel.

  “I take it you know Mr. Muller,” I said, following him to the window seat. He sat and started to eat.

  “I’ve heard of him. It happened at Hans’s—his cottage?”

  “That’s right. Well, Chris, you’ve been very gracious. Thanks for the soft drink. It was refreshing.”

  “Sure. Anytime, Mrs. Fletcher.”

  He didn’t make a move to escort me to the front door, so I started on my own. Before I left, I turned and said, “When we met in the pizza parlor, I said Anne Harris told me you and Miki were close. You denied it. Were you?”

  “What do you mean, ‘close’?”

  I smiled. “Chris, I think you know full well what I mean.”

  “Did we sleep together? Sure. Big deal. Welcome to the nineties, Mrs. Fletcher.”

  I chewed my cheek. “I’ve heard that the pendulum has swung into the nineties, Chris. But you’ve answered my question, thank you. Hope to see you again.”

  Fred Mayer jumped out of his cab and opened the door for me. “No need for that, Mr. Mayer,” I said. “But thanks anyway.”

  “Where to now?” Mayer asked, starting the engine.

  I checked my watch. A little after eleven. I knew I should have been tired, considering I’d been up since four. But I wasn’t. I was energized. The problem was I didn’t know what to do next with my energy.

  “Feel like a tour?” Mayer asked.

  “A tour. That sounds wonderful. I really haven’t seen much of the Hamptons.”

  We drove along narrow country roads, coming close to water, leaving it, skirting marshland, passing lovely homes large and small, then back at the water, quiet bay beaches that reminded me of Cabot Cove, old inns and ultramodern houses. There were lots of bike riders, which caused me to reconsider my decision to hire Fred Mayer to drive me. I often ride my bicycle at home and love it. But I rationalized my decision based upon a lack of time. When I ride my bike, I like to do it leisurely, without a need to be somewhere quickly. As appealing as getting on a bike in the Hamptons was, Fred Mayer made more sense.

  After forty-five minutes, Mayer asked if there was anything I especially wanted to see.

  “A restaurant,” I said. “I’m hungry. But first, would you drop me off at Scott’s Inn. I need to pick up something.”

  “Sure thing. That’s a nice place to stay. Joe Scott’s a real gentleman.”

  “He certainly is. And he runs a very good hoteL”

  As I walked through the door to the inn, I was surprised to see Vaughan Buckley in the small library, browsing in one of my books he’d taken from the shelf.

  “Vaughan. What are you doing here?”

  He replaced the book, shook his head, and motioned for me to sit down in a small upholstered chair in the comer. He sat in a matching chair at my side. “Hoping you’d return,” he said.

  “Is something wrong?”

  “Yes. I’d say there is. Hans Muller arrived at the house right after I talked to you.”

  “And?”

  “He was beside himself. Of course, it doesn’t take a lot to send him
off the deep end.”

  “Has he been accused of Jo Ann Forbes’s murder?”

  “Not officially. But they’re holding his passport.”

  “Somehow, Vaughan, I don’t think you’re here because your chain-smoking German friend lost his passport.”

  “You’re right, Jess. It’s what else he lost that brings me here.”

  “What was that?”

  “The painting he took from the house last night. You know, the modem work he wanted to examine.”

  “He’s lost it?”

  “That’s what he says. Jess, when you were called to his cottage, did you see that painting?”

  “No. But then again, I wasn’t looking at anything except Ms. Forbes’s body. When Mr. Muller left your house after the party, he stopped in to see Blaine Dorsey at Dorsey’s hotel.”

  “The dead model’s father?”

  “Yes.”

  “How did you learn that?”

  “Police Chief Cramer.”

  “When did you talk to him?”

  “This morning. Vaughan, were you being truthful when you said you didn’t know the artist who’d done that painting?”

  “Between you and me?”

  “Sure.”

  “Olga and I think it’s a Joshua Leopold. An early work. That’s the only reason I allowed Hans to take it. He’s a Leopold expert.”

  “So is Blaine Dorsey.”

  “Maybe he took it to Dorsey for his opinion.”

  “A good possibility. But now it’s lost, you say.”

  “That’s what Hans says. He claims he took it with him to his cottage, found Ms. Forbes, called you, and waited for the police. Then, he says, after everyone left, the painting was gone.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not the painting that upsets me, Jess, although it does represent a possible substantial loss. The problem is that I don’t believe Hans.”

  “About the painting simply disappearing?”

  “Right. And once you don’t believe a friend about one thing, it’s hard to believe him about others.”

  “Like Jo Ann Forbes’s murder.”

  “Exactly. Jess, stay away from Hans.”

  My laugh was small. “I’ve already come to that conclusion on my own. We were to have dinner tonight. I canceled.”

  “Good.”

  “Vaughan, tell me what you know about Hans Muller, his life, his background.”

  “I don’t know much. He’s East German, worked for one of its agencies until the wall came down.”

  “What agency?”

  Vaughan laughed. “Some clandestine agency, to hear him tell it. Like a KGB or CIA. From what I’ve heard, he was in a position to smuggle out of East Germany a lot of expensive art. But you can’t prove it by me.”

  “Interesting.”

  “He’s an interesting man, despite those infernal cigarettes and his penchant for too much whiskey.”

  He glanced out the window. “That cab waiting for you?”

  “Yes. I booked him for a week.”

  “Jess, why didn’t you call me. I could have arranged for a limo and driver.”

  “I don’t need a limousine, Vaughan. Mr. Mayer is charming, and knows a lot about the Hamptons. I’m perfectly happy with him.”

  “You can be—frustrating.”

  “My Scottish friend, George Sutherland, says the same thing. I’ll keep my eye open for your painting. And you can do the same where my sketch is concerned.”

  “I almost forgot. A friend told me your sketch is now being offered for three thousand.”

  “Three thousand?” I couldn’t help but laugh loudly.

  “Name value. Dinner tonight?”

  “Love it. Call me later.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  I went to my room and sat in an overstuffed chair by the window. I needed a few minutes of relax time. The trauma of that morning was catching up with me, and I didn’t want to allow that. If I totally let down, I was afraid I’d spend the rest of the day and night with nothing on my brain but the gruesome vision of Jo Ann Forbes wedged between the bed and wall of Hans Muller’s cottage.

  I freshened up and returned to where Fred Mayer waited in his cab. I’d made a decision on my way down. I wanted to touch base with Jo Ann Forbes’s patents—if I could find them. Police Chief Cramer said they were on their way to the Hamptons from Baltimore.

  “Next stop?” asked Mayer.

  “Police headquarters, if you don’t mind.”

  “Thought you were hungry.”

  “Hungry for information,” I said. “I’ll eat after police headquarters. Have a good restaurant to recommend?”

  “I will by the time you’re ready, Mrs. Fletcher.”

  Chief Cramer wasn’t at headquarters, but I was introduced to his deputy, a young woman named Gloria Watson, sharply dressed in her close-fitting brown uniform, her short-cropped red hair as precise as Chief Cramer’s.

  “I was with the chief earlier,” I told her.

  “I know, Mrs. Fletcher. He told me. Can I help you?”

  “I was wondering whether Ms. Forbes’s parents have arrived yet. Chief Cramer said they were coming from Baltimore.”

  “They got here only ten minutes ago. They flew to Kennedy, and took a private plane out of there to Spadaro’s Airport.”

  “They must be devastated.”

  “Surprisingly calm, Mrs. Fletcher. Maybe that’s not the right word. But they are in control of themselves. They mentioned you.”

  “They did?”

  “Yes. Evidently, Ms. Forbes kept in very close touch with them. She told them during phone conversations that she’d met you and was—”

  A door opened and a middle-aged man and woman looked at us. Deputy Watson glanced at me, then at them. She seemed unsure of what to do.

  The woman, who was short and chunky, locked eyes with me. “Jessica Fletcher?”

  “Yes.”

  “Mrs. Fletcher, this is Mr. and Mrs. Forbes,” Deputy Watson said.

  “I’m so sorry about your daughter,” I said.

  Mrs. Forbes tried to force a smile, which immediately degenerated into tears. Her considerably taller husband put his arm around her. I fought back my own tears.

  “This is not the time for us to meet,” I said. “Perhaps another time.”

  “No,” Mrs. Forbes said. “Please, stay, Mrs. Fletcher. Jo Ann was thrilled at meeting you. She said you and she were becoming friends, and that you’d offered to help her with her stories.”

  “That’s true,” I said. “She was a lovely young woman, and I suspect a very good reporter.”

  Mrs. Forbes swallowed hard, again supported by her husband.

  “Would you like to sit?” Deputy Watson asked, indicating the room in which Mr. and Mrs. Forbes stood. I looked past them to see a good-size room containing a conference table and chairs.

  “Please,” said Mr. Forbes. He extended his hand. “I’m Bob Forbes. This is my wife, Mary.”

  Deputy Watson closed the door behind us as we took seats at the pine table. I was uncomfortable; what can you say except “I’m sorry for your loss”?

  But Bob Forbes put me at ease by saying, “I know how awkward this must be for you, Mrs. Fletcher.”

  What a remarkable man, I thought. Jo Ann Forbes came from good stock. “Yes,” I said. “It is. Please call me Jessica.”

  “I suppose you can say that Mary and I are pragmatists. That doesn’t alleviate the pain of losing Jo Ann, especially considering the violent nature of her death. But she taught us a lot.”

  “She taught you?”

  “Yes. She had this fatalistic view of life. You take chances, you take risks. And if you’re not lucky, you can get hurt.”

  “Quite a sophisticated philosophy,” I said.

  “She was a very sophisticated young woman,” said Mary Forbes. “She had such ambition as a journalist. She saw the art story she was working on as a possible launching pad to a job with a big newspaper, maybe even televisi
on. She always said she wanted to work on Sixty Minutes.” She wept softly and her husband covered her hand on the table with one of his.

  “Have you heard anything, Mrs. Fletcher, about who might have murdered our daughter?” Bob Forbes asked.

  “Sorry to say that I haven’t. You mentioned a story Jo Ann was working on about art.”

  “Yes,” her father replied. “The one she said you were helping her with.”

  “I’m afraid not much of a story has developed with that,” I said. “It had to do with a young model’s death from natural causes.”

  “She told us that. But she said you weren’t convinced that it was natural causes.”

  “Just a hunch on my part, Mr. Forbes.”

  “Bob. And Mary.”

  “Of course. Bob, was Jo Ann looking into that story beyond the model’s death?”

  His eyebrows went up. “Yes. I assumed you knew.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know more than what I’ve told you, except my question about the model’s death—her name was Miki Dorsey—seems to be on the minds of a few other people.”

  “The missing painting.” Mary Forbes said it so softly and flatly that I barely heard her.

  “What missing painting?”

  “The one you and Jo Ann were trying to find.”

  “Oh, that missing art. My sketch.”

  “Your sketch?” said Bob Forbes. “Jo Ann didn’t say anything about that. She said she’d learned that paintings by some artist here in the Hamptons—his name was Leopard or Leonard, or something like that—were missing.”

  “Leopold,” I offered. “Joshua Leopold.”

  “That’s it.”

  “Was your daughter talking about a painting allegedly missing from the dead model’s room?”

  Bob and Mary Forbes looked at each other, their expressions quizzical. Mary Forbes answered: “No, I don’t think so. Jo Ann said—what term did she use, Bob?—she said there was an underground market for this artist’s paintings. People were stealing them. Wasn’t that what Jo Ann said, Bob?”

  “Exactly.” He smiled. “Of course, when Jo Ann was excited about something she was working on, she talked fast. Full of enthusiasm. She—”

  Mary Forbes broke down. Bob Forbes wrapped his arms around her and held her tight.

  I was glad when the door behind me opened and Deputy Watson, along with Chief Cramer, entered the room.