Found Art (Maine Justice Book 3)

by Susan Page Davis

  Found Art

  Book 3, Maine Justice Series

  Susan Page Davis

  Found Art, Copyright ©2017 by Susan Page Davis

  Published by Tea Tin Press

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, electrical, chemical, mechanical, optical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner. Inquiries may be sent by email through www.susanpagedavis.com

  Scripture quotations taken from the New American Standard Bible® (NASB),

  Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973,

  1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation

  Used by permission. www.Lockman.org

  Chapter 1

  Thursday, September 16

  An unexpected bonus turned up in the tobacco smuggling case we’d been working on for weeks. My best detective, Eddie Thibodeau, had investigated and identified the suspects. We’d raided their nondescript beige ranch house at dawn and sent the prisoners off in a marked unit.

  Arnie Fowler was in charge of cataloguing the contraband we found in the garage. A red pickup with a Maine license plate and a green SUV with a Quebec plate were parked in there, and the SUV was ready for the run to Canada, where the taxes on cigarettes are extremely high. The boxes were piled in the back seat and behind it in the cargo area, with a tarp thrown loosely over them.

  “How could they take all this over the border?” Nate Miller asked. He was the newest detective in the Priority Unit, and Eddie’s partner.

  “They wouldn’t try to go through the customs gate,” Arnie said.

  Eddie nodded. “Yeah, they had a contact scheduled to meet them on a woods road. The border patrol plans to meet them at the drop tonight.”

  There were places, lots of places, along the world’s longest unguarded border, where people and contraband could cross undetected, bypassing the checkpoints. A four-wheel drive and a little nerve went a long way. Although it might seem small potatoes compared to some drug operations, smuggling tobacco could be very profitable, and these guys had figured to make a bundle on the cargo of cigarettes.

  Arnie turned to me, clipboard in hand. “All set, but there’s something odd here, Harvey. Help me set it out on the floor, Nate.”

  They lifted a large, flat box out of the cargo area of the SUV and set it on the cement floor in front of me.

  “This was behind the tobacco,” Arnie said.

  “Did you open it?” I asked.

  “Not yet.” Arnie handed Eddie his completed inventory of the items in the SUV. “You want me to?”

  I stepped closer and looked it over carefully. A large cardboard box with “Panasonic printing with option—” on the side had been trimmed to fit the contents and taped around it, making a flat, rectangular box about three inches thick. When I picked up the package and shook it, it didn’t make any noise. I took out my pocketknife and carefully slit the filament tape along the seams and laid the cardboard back. Eddie, Nate, Arnie and his partner, Clyde Wood, stood silently watching me. The edge of a nice, hefty frame showed in the opening, and I lifted it out.

  “A painting,” Eddie said.

  “A good painting,” Arnie agreed. “What do you think, Harvey?”

  I didn’t recognize the picture or the artist. It was an oil painting of fishing boats nuzzling each other in their harbor slips. A fretful, brown sky lowered over them. It reminded me a little of the Turner in the chief’s office, but it was newer and brighter. The boats had numbers on their bows—numbers with ME in front of them, the state’s designation.

  “Not an old master, but it’s good,” I concluded. I squinted at the signature in the lower right corner and made out E. L. Nevar. “All right, Arnie, add it to your inventory. I’ll take it back to the station myself and do a little research.”

  Arnie took the clipboard and scribbled on it, then handed it back to Eddie.

  “Okay, guys, let’s do a thorough search of the house,” Eddie said. “Don’t want to miss anything.”

  The others went inside, but I called to Eddie to stay for a minute as I wrapped the cardboard around the gilt-framed painting and stuck the tape back in place as well as I could.

  “Good job, Ed,” I said. “Everything under control?”

  “I think so. We’ll get the stuff to Evidence and go over the vehicle more thoroughly.”

  “The prisoners didn’t mention this at all?” I nudged the cardboard box with the painting in it.

  “No. Do you think it’s stolen?” he asked.

  “Could be.”

  “I’ve got enough paperwork to do,” he said. “If you want to handle the painting...”

  “Sure.” I looked at my watch. It was 6:30 a.m. “Okay. I’ll head out.”

  I was home by seven, and Jennifer, my wife of two months, met me at the door.

  “Thought you’d be sleeping,” I said. I couldn’t keep my smile in. She looked great in her worn jeans, long-sleeved T-shirt, and moccasins, and her long, golden hair was pulled back in a ponytail.

  “I can’t sleep when you go to work at 4 a.m.” She kissed me, and I shut the door and walked through the entry to the kitchen with my arm around her.

  I kissed her again before I let her go. She poured coffee for me, and I sat down at the table with a contented sigh. Jennifer, home, and hot coffee, in that order. What could be better?

  “So, everything went okay?”

  “Yes. Eddie did fine. Three people in custody, and the border patrol will handle the other end.”

  “Nobody hurt?”

  “Not in our unit.”

  She frowned. “Did you fire your gun?”

  I looked down into my coffee and nodded. It was the first time I’d fired my pistol outside the shooting range since a bombing suspect had hit me on my Kevlar vest several months before. “Yeah. I was wondering how I’d do when it happened again.”

  “I guess you did fine,” she said.

  I shrugged. “Those guys were lousy shots.”

  “I’m glad you don’t do this every day. I’d be a nervous wreck.” She sat down beside me.

  “It doesn’t happen very often.” Before Jennifer married me, I think she had the vague notion that cops got into shoot-outs every day, the way they do on TV. I’d tried to reassure her on that score, and yet it seemed I was going into more high-risk situations since I’d met her. I sipped my coffee, and I could tell immediately that it wasn’t decaf.

  “You can’t drink this,” I said.

  “That’s okay, I thought you’d need high-test. You only got five hours of sleep.”

  “Don’t remind me.”

  The bell on the microwave rang. She got up and rummaged in the cupboards and came back with a cup of tea for herself and a plate with two muffins on it.

  “Are you eating this morning?” I asked.

  “I feel great.”

  I smiled. She’d had a couple of days when she couldn’t keep breakfast down. I was forty-one. We’d both wanted to start a family right away, while I was young enough to keep up with the kids, and God had smiled on us. Unfortunately for Jennifer, morning sickness was part of the deal.

  Jennifer was the woman I’d thought I would never find, the one steady spot in my chaotic life. She had settled into our new home easily, content to be Mrs. Harvey Larson, and made no secret that her main goal in life now was making me happy. I tried to just enjoy and appreciate that. Otherwise I started to feel inadequate.

  I called her every day from work. She didn’t usually call me. She was afraid my phone would beep in the middle of a court hearing, or when I was trying
to arrest someone. The day she’d learned the news, I’d been very busy at work but took a break at noon to call her. Her first words were, “Are you coming home for lunch?”

  “Too much paperwork,” I said.

  “Can’t it wait?”

  “Have to keep up my image of efficiency.”

  “I wanted to talk to you.”

  There was a little edge to her voice that got my attention. “Talk. I’m listening.”

  “Well, it’s one of those bad-news-good-news things. I was really hoping to tell you in person.”

  Things went into slow motion. “Give me the bad news.”

  “Well, it’s going to cost money, and we have to do more decorating.”

  Relief hit me. She was teasing me. “So? That’s not so bad. Decorate all you want.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure. What’s the good news? Your sister got a job at Maine Medical, and she’s moving in with us?” Abby, one of her younger sisters, was a nurse with a hankering to move to the city. I wouldn’t mind helping her out.

  “No, not that,” Jenny said.

  “What, then?”

  “I—I really want to see your face. I’ll just wait until you get home tonight.”

  My brain was in gear, finally. Good news that had to be delivered in person. I said, “I’ll be home in fifteen minutes.”

  I grabbed my jacket and went to the locker room. Eddie was in there, poking around in his locker.

  “You ready for lunch?” he asked.

  “Ed, I’m leaving for the day.” I opened my locker door.

  He looked at me in surprise. “Okay, Harv. Everything all right?”

  “Yeah, I’m sure it is. It’s just something personal.” From the top shelf, I pulled a teddy bear, soft and snuggly, with stitched eyes that babies couldn’t choke on. “You know I don’t do this often.”

  “You never do this.”

  “First time for everything,” I said.

  “Sure.” Eddie kept up with me as I set a quick pace for the stairs. He eyed the teddy bear as I punched the security code at the door. We had to have doors that locked from both sides, in case one of our prisoners decided to take a walk.

  “Make sure everybody gets their reports done,” I said.

  “Okay. Congratulations.”

  I hit the driveway in twelve minutes. Jenny opened the door before I got the key to the lock and fell into my arms. “How did you figure it out?” she asked, cradling the teddy bear.

  “Hey, gorgeous, I’m a cop.” That was a line she had never let me get away with, but this time she laughed as I pulled her into the house and shut the door.

  A week had passed since that day, but we were still in the euphoric stage. I’d wake up in the morning, and it would hit me: I was going to be a father. I smiled a lot those days.

  “Want to see what we found on our raid this morning?” I took out my phone.

  “Is it gruesome?”

  “No, I think you’ll like it.” I showed her a picture I’d snapped of the painting we’d confiscated.

  “That’s pretty nice.” She nodded at the screen. “Your kind of art,” which I took to mean classic and realistic.

  “Yeah, I kind of like it,” I admitted. “It’s probably hot, though. I’m trying to find out where those guys stole it.”

  After we finished breakfast, I got a shower and dressed in a suit and tie, befitting a police captain. My shoulder holster went on under the jacket, and I clipped my badge on my belt, pocketed the rest of my gear and picked up my briefcase. Never thought I’d be carrying a briefcase to work, but I was getting used to it.

  The men weren’t back at the office yet when I arrived, and I set the boxed painting down beside my desk, opened my briefcase, and pulled out the paperwork I’d taken home the night before. Requisitions for office supplies, preliminary notes for upcoming evaluations, and profiles of candidates for the position of deputy chief of police.

  The paperwork wasn’t urgent, and I couldn’t resist getting right on my computer and looking for information about the artist, Nevar, and any recent art thefts. Evelyn Nevar seemed to be a fairly new artist, still living, who painted things that looked old. I flagged her name in a special computer program Jennifer had designed for me and checked the painting’s box and the frame for fingerprints. Nothing I could use there.

  About nine o’clock, I called Mike Browning, the police chief, in his office on the fourth floor, directly above mine.

  “Something interesting turned up on our tobacco case this morning. Can I come up there and brief you?”

  Mike knew me very well, and immediately told me to come. I took the stairs, carrying the painting with me.

  I was now privileged to have the security code for the top floor, so I let myself in there. Mike had a private secretary, Judith, who was old enough not to take offense if people called her a secretary instead of an administrative aide, or whatever the newest term was. She nodded soberly at me. “Go right in, Captain.” She never smiled.

  “What’s this?” Mike eyed the box. “A present for me?”

  “No, but you might wish it was.” I peeled back the tape and took the framed picture from the carton.

  “Nice,” he said. “I like it. It looks pretty good to my untrained eye.”

  “It was in the vehicle with the cigarettes bound for Quebec.”

  “No kidding. Somebody up there wanted a Maine coastal scene hanging in his den?”

  “I think so. The artist lives in Ohio, but has a summer home on Swans Island. Evelyn Nevar. She’s done a lot of Maine scenes. They sell in the neighborhood of two grand.”

  He whistled.

  “I’ve been checking the updates to see if one’s been stolen lately, but I haven’t turned up anything yet.”

  “So, you know a little bit about art?”

  “Not much. I guess I could bone up on it fairly quickly.”

  Mike smiled. “See, that’s what I like about you. Whatever I need an expert on, give you a week and you’re it.”

  I shrugged. “I’ll never be an art expert, Mike.”

  “Well maybe an art aficionado will do.” He stood the Nevar against the wall on top of a bookcase that held his reference books. “You’d better talk to Ron Legere. His detectives had a couple of art thefts not long ago. Let’s see if he can come up here.”

  He made the call, and soon Legere, the detective sergeant, joined us with a manila folder in his hand. Judith came in with extra mugs and fresh coffee.

  Sergeant Legere nodded at me and sat down, looking slightly harried. “You’ve got something related to the art burglaries?” he asked.

  Mike had replaced the old chief’s antique but uncomfortable wooden chairs with upholstered armchairs, and I was making myself comfortable with the coffee.

  Mike nodded toward the painting. “Harvey’s latest loot. We’re thinking it’s stolen, and you two ought to work together.”

  “Well, we’ve had two art thefts this year, and we think maybe they’re related.” Legere frowned at the Nevar.

  “Thefts from where?” I asked. “Galleries? Museums?”

  “Nope, private collectors,” said Mike. “Brief him, Ron.”

  Sergeant Legere opened the folder and said, “Sunday we got a call from a homeowner in the West End. Someone had broken into his house Saturday night and made off with a bunch of stuff, including four works of art. Three paintings and a framed sketch, valued between three and ten grand each. He had some other prints and things hanging in the house, but the thieves didn’t touch them. Anything worth less than a thousand, they left. But they also stole his computer, his TV and VCR, a video game setup, and an antique platter and some Depression glass.”

  I ran my hand through my hair. It was getting too long in the back. “So, they knew what they were after, as far as the art goes.”

  “Right,” said Legere. “But they grabbed some small stuff, too. They did the job in the early morning, when the owners were asleep.”

 
; “They were in the house?” I didn’t like the sound of that.

  “That’s right. That’s what made me connect it with a case we had in February. I handled it with Clyde Wood.” Ron looked at me over the top of the folder. “He’s in your unit now. He can tell you about it. Same M.O. Thieves broke into a rich guy’s house in the night, stole all his good art right from under his nose. The guy got up in the morning, and the walls were bare. We haven’t caught them.”

  “So, you think maybe they waited seven months and struck again?” I asked.

  “Maybe. More likely they were operating someplace else in the interim.”

  “Can you check on that?” Mike asked me.

  “Sure, I can tap into back records in the area, Cape Elizabeth, South Portland, maybe Westbrook, and see if they’ve had anything like it.” I had computer links with law enforcement agencies all over. “I can also flag the type of crime in Jennifer’s program. Then, if any new art thefts turn up in the state, we’ll catch it right away.”

  “It works with things like that, not just names?” Mike said.

  “Sure, I can flag some phrases like ‘local artist,’ ‘stolen paintings,’ and so on.” I’d hit pay dirt a few months earlier with “car bomb,” but that was painful history and I didn’t mention it.

  “When’s your wife going to market that program?” Mike asked. “I think it’s time we had it installed on a few more computers, including mine.”

  “Well, I don’t know, Mike. Jennifer’s not in the software business anymore.”

  “Somebody else could market it for her. She’s sitting on a gold mine.”

  “I’ll mention it to her.” Jennifer had gladly given up her career designing computer programs before we got married, but she knew Mike was intrigued by the program she’d customized for me.

  “All right, so you’ll do some cyber checking on this art thing?” Mike got up and refilled his coffee mug from the pot Judith had left on a hotplate.

  “Sure,” I said.

  “I was thinking I’d hand the whole thing to Priority. What do you say?”

  I wasn’t sure how Legere would take that. His detective squad was good, but my smaller unit was considered the elite. We got the sensitive cases—the high-profile murders and the industrial espionage—anything likely to make the mayor’s blood pressure rise. I didn’t want to cause hard feelings between the Priority Unit and the detective squad, though.