(36/40) The Fine Art of Murder

by Donald Bain

  Marlise’s nostrils flared. “How did that happen?”

  “Anthony Curso invited me, with Edgar Peters’s permission.”

  She looked at Corman: “See what I mean?” she said.

  Corman grinned. “You’re obviously someone whom people naturally take to,” he said.

  “I like to think I’m easy to approach,” I said. “Marlise, do you have a few moments?”

  “Sorry,” she said, “but I don’t. Willard thinks I should move out permanently.”

  “Oh?”

  “He’s right. It’s macabre, rattling around in the same house where my husband was murdered and where my dear stepson has accused me of having killed him.”

  I couldn’t argue with his logic, or her acceptance of it.

  “I’ll be at Jonathon’s suite at the Four Seasons,” she said. “I can’t leave the city. I feel like a caged animal in this house. I’ll come back when necessary. Mrs. Tetley is packing my things as we speak. We’ll have to find another time to talk, Jessica.”

  “No problem,” I said. “Why don’t I call you later at the hotel?”

  Corman offered me a ride back to my hotel, which I accepted.

  “Marlise seems more upset than she’s been before now,” I offered.

  “The longer this drags on, the bigger the impact on her,” said the attorney. “Mind if I ask a question?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Did you decide to tour the art collection because of a love for art, or did you have another reason in mind?”

  I had to smile. “Why do you ask?” I said. “Did I say or do anything to indicate that I had another reason?”

  “Not at all,” he said, laughing, “but I do have the feeling that you’ve decided to try to get to the bottom of Jonathon Simsbury’s murder. From what I read about you, it wouldn’t be the first time.”

  “I’ll plead the Fifth Amendment on that.”

  “Fair enough. I’d be delighted if you came up with something that would help clear my client.”

  “If I do, you’ll be the first to know.”

  “By the way,” he said as he pulled up in front of my hotel, “I’ve been getting calls from the press asking about your involvement in the case.”

  “I hope you deny that I have any involvement.”

  “Yes, that’s what I tell them. I assume they’ll be coming to you directly at some point.”

  “Hopefully not. Thanks for the lift.”

  “Stay in touch, Jessica. I’m always available.”

  I went directly to my room, where the red light on the phone was blinking, indicating that I’d received calls while I was out. There were three.

  The first verified Corman’s prediction. It was from a reporter for the Chicago Tribune. Her name was Diane Albanese and she was requesting an interview regarding the Simsbury murder. I jotted down her phone number and brought up the second call. It was from Cabot Cove’s sheriff and my friend, Mort Metzger. I listened to his message twice.

  “Hey, Mrs. F. Mort Metzger here. Sorry to bother you on your trip, but thought you’d want to know about a call I got this morning from an Italian detective named Maresca. He was calling from Rome about that robbery and murder you witnessed a few months back. He says he left messages on your answering machine but thought you might be away, so he called me as the town’s law enforcement chief. Seems they’ve arrested the guy who killed that retired policeman you were with on your tour, and they need you to make an ID on him. I didn’t know where you were staying in Chicago, so I called the doc and he gave me your number. Nice fella, this Detective Maresca. Spoke pretty good English.” Mort had left the number Detective Maresca had given him, and suggested I get back to Maresca as soon as possible.

  The third call was from Anthony Curso, who asked again whether I was free for dinner. He ended by saying, “I really need to speak with you—alone!”

  I took a chance that Detective Maresca would still be in his office and called Rome. The detective picked up immediately.

  “Ah, Signora Fletcher. I was hoping to hear from you.”

  I explained that I had received a call from Sheriff Metzger.

  “A good man, your sheriff,” he said. “He told you that we have arrested one of the thieves who took the Bellini? He is the one we believe killed the retired officer.”

  “Yes, he did. Congratulations!”

  “But as I told you before you left Italy, Mrs. Fletcher, it would be of great help if you would come and identify this young man from a lineup.”

  I sighed, sat back in my chair, and toed off my shoes. “Is that really necessary?” I asked.

  “Signora Fletcher, I will be honest with you. While we have gathered other evidence that connects this man with the theft and murder, the case is not as you would call a slam dunk, huh? We have only the one, not his accomplice. If we are able to prove to him that our case is one hundred percent solid, we might be able to get him to make a deal and tell us who he worked with and those who financed his activities. To have you positively identify him would do that for us, I am sure.”

  “I understand that, Detective, but I’m not sure I can get free to return to Italy, at least not right away.”

  “And I understand that, Signora Fletcher. Naturally, I have no way of compelling you to come and make an identification, but knowing of your reputation as a writer who always sees that justice prevails in her books, I was hoping that it would extend to the pursuit of real justice in the real world. Please consider it, Signora Fletcher.”

  “I assure you that I will. Let me get back to you in a few days.”

  “Grazie. I look forward to hearing from you.”

  I’d no sooner hung up than the phone rang.

  “Jessica, Tony Curso here.”

  “I was just about to return your call.”

  “I’m hoping that you’re still free for dinner.”

  “I am. You said in your message that you wanted to discuss something with me alone.”

  He chuckled. “I don’t wish to appear to be secretive, but I suppose I do enjoy a certain cloak-and-dagger existence. I would be most appreciative if you would allow me to explain over dinner.”

  “All right,” I said.

  “Splendid. May I pick you up at six?”

  “That will be fine.”

  My curiosity was piqued, of course. What could he possibly want to discuss that necessitated our being alone? We’d just met. I decided that as a man of the arts, he undoubtedly had his share of quirks, and the topic of the evening would probably prove to be fanciful. I’d thoroughly enjoyed the brief time we’d spent together and looked forward to simply being in his company again.

  My thoughts quickly shifted, however, to my conversation with Detective Maresca and his insistence that I come to Italy to identify the young man now in custody. It was not a trip that I wished to take, and I certainly wouldn’t have a problem coming up with reasons to decline his request. On the other hand, a sense of duty and responsibility tugged at me. I’d had the misfortune of being face-to-face with the young man who’d shot and killed the former Italian police officer. Even if it was an inconvenience, how could I not see to it that justice was done?

  I put that dilemma on the shelf and returned the call to Ms. Albanese, the reporter from the Tribune.

  “This is Jessica Fletcher,” I said when she answered.

  “Oh, yes, thank you for getting back to me. I’d really appreciate the chance to talk with you about the Jonathon Simsbury murder.”

  “I’m afraid that’s impossible,” I said. “The investigation is ongoing and it would be inappropriate for me to comment.”

  “Well, Susan Hurley didn’t seem to think so, and as his assistant, she was a lot closer to the victim than you. She was willing to talk; why aren’t you?”

  “I don’t wish to be rude, but I don’t owe you an explanation for my decisions. I don’t want to be involved in your story. That’s all I care to say.”

  “But you’ve already becom
e involved in the case, Mrs. Fletcher. After all, you accompanied Wayne Simsbury back to Chicago to testify against his stepmother.”

  “I realize that,” I said, “but I wasn’t aware that that was his intention. I’m sorry, Ms. Albanese. I know it’s your job to ask questions, but you’ll have to excuse me for not wanting to answer them.”

  “I’ve been told that you don’t believe what Wayne Simsbury has said, Mrs. Fletcher. What do you base that on—your friendship with Mrs. Simsbury?”

  “I don’t know where you’ve heard that, Ms. Albanese, but I haven’t come to any such conclusion. You’ll have to excuse me. I’m late for an appointment.”

  I don’t like lying, but sometimes it’s acceptable.

  I think in this case it was.

  Chapter Thirteen

  It had become overcast and misty by the time Anthony Curso picked me up at the hotel. Happily, he had raised the top on his vintage sports car. Again he was nattily dressed, this time in a silver gray double-breasted suit and a navy blue tie over a pink shirt. I was conscious that I wore the same outfit that he’d seen me in last. There hadn’t been any time for shopping, and my selection of clothing was very limited, as Seth had pointed out. Curso, however, was very gracious.

  “You look absolutely beautiful tonight,” he said as he walked me to where he’d parked his Healey.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “I’ve chosen what I believe will be a restaurant that you’ll particularly enjoy,” he said after we’d settled in the car. “It’s called Everest, forty stories up in the Chicago Stock Exchange building, splendid views of the city, and world-class food.”

  “Sounds wonderful,” I said, caught up in his enthusiasm. He tended to talk in superlatives; everything was top-notch or world-class or to die for. I know others who do the same, but their superlatives aren’t always to be trusted. Curso meant every word of his praise, and I had the feeling that his evaluation of things was probably accurate most, if not all, of the time.

  We pulled into an underground parking garage beneath the Stock Exchange reserved exclusively for the restaurant, and rode the elevator to the fortieth floor, where we stepped into a dazzling space. Curso was greeted warmly by the maître d’—he was obviously a regular there—and we were escorted to a prime table facing huge windows that afforded splendid views of the city’s glittering light show below.

  “What a spectacular view,” I commented.

  “The best in the city. Are you up for a martini, Jessica? The bartender is a friend of mine and he’ll make it to my standards.”

  “Do you know every bartender in town?” I asked playfully.

  “I believe that I do,” he replied with an easy laugh.

  “Actually,” I said, “I know something about martini making from old movies, at least the way Nick and Nora Charles made them in The Thin Man series. Nick—William Powell—claimed there was a proper way to shake a martini and it was all in the rhythm. Let me see if I can recall it. He said that when shaking a Manhattan you had to do it in fox-trot time, and a martini had to be shaken in waltz time.”

  “You’re right,” Curso said, “but you forget what else he said. To make a proper Bronx cocktail you must shake it in two-step time.”

  “A Bronx cocktail?”

  “Gin with both dry and sweet vermouth, like a ‘perfect’ Manhattan, only with gin instead of bourbon or rye.”

  “I suppose there’s a Brooklyn cocktail, too,” I said.

  “Of course. Blended whiskey, some dry vermouth, a dash of maraschino liqueur, as well as a dash of the apéritif Amer Picon.”

  “Would you be offended if I preferred a glass of wine?”

  “Not at all. The wine selection is superb, including by the glass. May I choose for you?”

  “By all means.”

  Our waiter greeted Curso like a long-lost brother. My host ordered wine for me, an extra-dry martini for himself: “Please tell Juan it’s for Tony Curso. He’ll know what to do.”

  “So,” he said as we waited for our drinks to be served, “here I am with a beautiful woman who also happens to write bestselling murder mysteries.”

  “And I’m delighted to be here,” I said, meaning it. “But I have to admit that you’re behaving very mysteriously. What did you need to discuss with me alone?”

  He smiled. “Perhaps it was a ruse to entice you to have dinner with me again.”

  I looked at him askance.

  “Do not worry, my lady. I might sink to subterfuge on occasion, but this is not one of them. However, I would prefer to wait until we’ve sated our appetites,” he said, opening my menu for me and doing the same with his own. “There are two dishes Everest is famous for,” he said, “a magret of duck with wild pine honey and marinated turnips Alsace style, or classic baked filet of sea bass, also Alsace style.”

  I perused the menu before deciding to follow his lead. I ordered the sea bass for myself, and he ordered the duck.

  “Notice the art?” he asked after he’d ordered. “These bronze sculptures on each table are by the Swiss artist Ivo Soldini, the paintings on the wall by a fine local artist and good friend, Adam Siegel. Too few restaurants pay attention to the art that accompanies their culinary creations, and the art in hotel rooms, even the most upscale hotels, is, well, to be kind, dismal.”

  And so went the conversation throughout dinner, jumping from fine art to cocktail making, and on to the history of transatlantic steamship travel, then back to cocktails, art, and the lowering of taste in society, a subject that he was particularly passionate about. I nursed my single glass of wine throughout dinner while Curso enjoyed a second and third martini, which didn’t seem to affect him. He hadn’t overstated how good the food would be, and the restaurant’s chef and proprietor, J. Joho, ventured from the kitchen to welcome Curso and “the lovely lady” with him. Dessert was compliments of the chef. I wasn’t able to eat another thing, but Curso ordered a rum-infused baba based upon an eighteenth-century recipe that called for pineapple confit and Tahitian vanilla glacé. He asked for a second spoon and insisted that I at least taste this creation, which I had to admit was everything he said it would be.

  “Well,” Curso said after we’d been served coffee, “about my reason for wanting to be with you this evening. It’s often hard for me to get to the point quickly, but I shall do my best. Simply put, Jessica Fletcher, I wish to collaborate with you on a book.”

  If I had made a list of things he conceivably wanted to discuss with me that night, writing a book wouldn’t have been on it.

  “I realize that it’s presumptuous of me to even assume that you would be interested in collaborating, and the puzzled expression on your pretty face tells me that I’m right.”

  “Oh, no, it’s just that I wasn’t expecting collaborating on a book to be the thing you wanted to discuss.”

  “Let me be more specific, Jessica. Having spent my adult years immersed in the world of art, particularly the less savory aspects of it, I’ve amassed a considerable amount of information that isn’t well-known to the general public. There is a dark, even evil side to the art world that I feel would make for a wonderful murder mystery in the hands of someone like Jessica Fletcher.”

  “It wouldn’t be the first time that the art world has been the basis for a murder mystery,” I said. “I’ve read quite a few of them.”

  “Oh, I quite agree with you, and I’ve made it a point of searching out and reading virtually every one ever published. Many of them are nicely written, but even those fail to truly take the reader inside the world of art forgery and theft. I might not have come up with the idea of a collaboration had you not experienced a firsthand example of the greed that permeates much of it. Frankly, I can’t imagine that your horrific experience in Italy didn’t set your creative wheels spinning.”

  “If you mean did I come back from Italy thinking about writing a novel based upon my experience, the answer is yes. But it was only a fleeting notion and I haven’t given it a second thought.
Many experiences and ideas intrigue me, but I don’t always follow them up with a book.”

  His ebullience subsided a bit. He took a sip of his coffee and sat back, a frown on his face.

  “Which isn’t to say, Tony, that I wouldn’t be interested in working with you. It’s just that I’ve never collaborated with anyone before and I’m not sure how it would work.”

  His face brightened as he leaned forward, elbows on the table, a twinkle in his eyes. “Does that mean that you’ll consider it?”

  “Perhaps, but I can’t promise you anything.”

  “I believe that a little candor on my part is called for. Besides my work as an appraiser, and my teaching responsibilities, I’m also a consultant with the Italian police, particularly members of its art squad. I’m told that you will probably be traveling to Italy to help identify the young farabutto who stole the Bellini and killed the man on your tour. Farabutto. ‘Villain’ in Italian.”

  I wasn’t pondering the meaning of the word he’d used. Instead, I’d put my brain on rewind. Had I mentioned to him during our first dinner together that I’d been asked to return at some future date to make an ID on the suspect? I was sure that I hadn’t. Was he assuming, without having been told, that the police would want me to return?

  He read my mental process and laughed. “Let me be forthcoming with you, Jessica. After you recounted for me and Edgar Peters your hair-raising experience in L’Aquila, I called a good friend on the art squad in Rome, Filippo Lippi.”

  “I met with Detective Lippi when I was there,” I said, my voice mirroring my surprise. “We had a delightful lunch together.”

  “That devil Lippi. He appreciates a pretty woman as well as recognizing a fake Titian or Caravaggio.”

  “He was the consummate gentleman.”

  “They have arrested the perpetrator.”

  “So I’ve been told. I didn’t know that you would know, too.”

  “Lippi called me this afternoon.”

  “He did? I was called by another officer, a Detective Maresca.”

  “Ah, Sergio. He works closely with members of the art squad, including my good friend Filippo.”