Art and Arsenic (Veronica Margreve Mysteries Book 2)

by Valerie Murmel

  “And he never talked about his interest in art?” I opened my eyes wide in surprise.

  “Not that I remember. We weren’t really close when he was alive, but I was the closest living relative, I guess – and we lived in the same town, so it made sense for him to leave everything to me.”

  “When did he pass away?” I hoped the question didn’t come out sounding awkward.

  “Oh, about five years ago.” He paused, and then brought up the elephant in the room.

  “And now there is another death connected with these glorious works.” He gestured towards the wall. “In these times, looking at a painting of the ocean make you yourself feel small before nature, insignificant. Puts things in perspective a bit.” He paused, then turned to me. “I heard you’ve been defending the gallery’s website from attackers?”

  I nodded.

  “Do you think the website attack is related to Fred’s death?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What about the police? I wonder what they think about it all. You’ve kept them abreast of your findings, I presume?”

  I nodded again.

  “Well, I am sure they are working hard on this case.” He looked at the marine landscape again, almost serenely.

  I got the impression that this little interlude was meant to find out how much the police knew of what I discovered. I couldn’t imagine why – was I particularly important, or was he keeping close tabs on everyone involved? It did make me think of Linda, though, since she was the person who explicitly asked me to advocate with the police on her behalf. Perhaps I should look for a connection between Christopher and Linda?

  Meanwhile I decided to bring the conversation back to his background.

  “You must know a lot about art.”

  He smiled modesty.

  “I became interested and started to learn when I inherited the collection. There were dozens of works, mostly landscapes. They looked sort of old and I wanted to find out about them. I liked art before, but didn’t know much about it.”

  “It must have been fascinating to research these paintings!” I was leaning towards the painting, pretending to look at some detail of it, and watched Christopher out of the corner of my eye, while I asked: “Did you discover any documents about where or how your uncle obtained them?”

  Christopher shook his head.

  “No. I think he bought them on his trips to England and Belgium in the eighties or so.”

  “So none of the works have established provenance?”

  He gave me a sharp look, although his lips kept smiling.

  “No, they don’t, I’m afraid. And the attributions of authorship rest only on the signatures and the expert opinions. I’ve wondered myself whether they could all be fakes, ha ha!” He gave a thin laugh.

  There we were. He’d said it – that the works might be fake. He’s made it sound like a joke, but I felt his cold eyes on me, looking for my reaction.

  I shrugged and said:

  “They are beautiful and precious in any case.”

  “But I suppose less valuable if they are not by David Cox himself,” he replied. I wondered why he stayed on this topic of conversation. “I guess I got very lucky that my inheritance is of works by such an established and popular artist, ha ha!”

  OK, he wanted to drive home the point that the works could be fake, that he knew that they would sell for much less if they were by another artist, and that he was just lucky things turned out as they did.

  Hmmm. If he wasn’t tip-toeing around touchy subjects, I wasn’t planning on it either.

  “And wine, too! You inherited some rare wines, as I understand.”

  “Yes-yes, I got lucky there, too. I love the aroma of the white Montrachet we had the other night.”

  “Oh yes, it was very pleasant, lots of acidity and structure. Also unusual. I liked it. Thank you for sharing it with everyone at the party.” I looked at him, interested to see if he’d correct my assumption that he intended the wine to be consumed at the opening.

  “Oh, that’s alright. I thought that Fred would enjoy it. Poor guy.”

  We stood in silence for a moment. After what I judged to be a long-enough somber pause, I said:

  “He was quite a remarkable person, from what I heard. Had interesting tastes in food and drink.”

  “Yes, he had known a lot about wines.”

  “Was he interested in your uncle's wine collection, as well?”

  “Yes, some bottles. I sent him a list of everything I had, he asked me questions about particular wines he was curious about. But those two bottles the other night were a gift.”

  “That's very generous of you”, I said, and he bowed. That's an expensive gift, I thought to myself. Out loud, I continued: “And, I thought someone said he’d liked beef franks? And also kept kosher?” I watched Christopher for any reaction that might help shed a light on the mysterious phrases that apparently passed between Fred Nordqvist and Dr. Bencham at the party.

  He looked puzzled. “Kosher? Fred? No, not that I noticed. He wasn’t Jewish.”

  “Ah, OK, I must have mis-understood.”

  We again looked at the paining of a sail boat in the glimmering water, with yellow cliffs in the distance.

  “What happens to them now, with Fred Nordqvist's death? Does the show continue?”

  He shrugged.

  “Yes, I think Fred would have wanted to show to go. It sounds like a cliché, but I believe that’s what he would have preferred.” He moved his chin towards the office. “And that is what Connie wants as well. I have these works on consignment to the gallery. They keep a percentage of the sale price of the works. Whatever doesn’t sell at the end of two months that this exhibit runs I take back home.” I felt Christopher watching me as he said that.

  I nodded in understanding.

  “Excuse me, let me check with Miss Nordqvist if there is anything I can do to help.” He turned towards the back of the room.

  I took one more close look at the paintings in the main gallery space. I put my bag down in the middle of the gallery space and stared at each work for about 5 minutes, from close up and from afar, trying to determine what I thought about their authenticity; I took some notes and snapped some photos with my phone as well. The gallery’s website had higher-resolution photos that I could study for more details, if I wanted.

  With that, I decided I should be going. I caught Pauline’s eye, waved at her and stepped out into the cold air.

  From the conversation with Christopher, I got the distinct impression that he wanted to make sure that I knew certain things, and that he was looking for my reaction to them. I wondered why. I parsed the words that passed between us in my head on the way home.

  The sky was pale-gray in one corner, with pink in it from the sun rays, and almost black in the other. I drove towards the darkness, and hail started pounding my car roof.

  15

  I put aside the pile of books and sat back on my sofa. Bitty was curled up on top of the blanket covering my legs, and was keeping them warm.

  The talk with Christopher earlier in the day prompted me to go back to my research. If the art really was “off” in some way, it could mean that it was a fake (not by that painter at all), or a fraud (stolen or otherwise problematic, might have been a copy by the same artist but is being sold as the original, or had a signature added to it to increase its value), or somehow modified or painted over. Of course, many masters had schools, and a student could have created it “in the style of the master”, and the master himself could have reviewed and signed the work. Also, some famous artists have been known to sign student works or even outright fakes, or even blank sheet of paper, like Picasso in the eighties. David Cox himself, I learned, was an originator of an entire school of landscape painting in Britain, that was popular for decades.

  I needed another opinion on the paintings on show. I dialed a number on my work phone.

  “Ravenswood Gallery.”

  “Hello Linda, it i
s Veronica.”

  “Oh hello. Are you making progress, in finding who did it?”

  “Maybe.” When did I become answerable to her? Linda herself was still on the suspect list! “A question for you: when you came to the gallery to talk to Fred on Friday, did you get a chance to take a look at the paintings in this sale?”

  “I got only a very quick look. And the only lights in the main area were the little night lights, not very bright.”

  “Did the works seem wrong to you in any way?”

  “Not in any way that I could see. But I really couldn’t see much, it was dark.”

  “Thanks. Was it when you were coming in, or leaving?”

  She thought for a moment.

  “Leaving.”

  “And was Fred drinking anything when he talked to you?”

  “No, nothing.”

  “Ok, thank you.”

  I could easily verify whether Linda looked at the paintings on Friday night, and for how long, by asking Detective Johnson to check with the security footage. If it was when she was leaving, then being so collected as to stop and look at some paintings, in a bad light, would indicate that the argument with Fred wasn’t that intense. And that she didn’t expect him to drop dead at any moment, and that she wasn’t running away from the scene of the crime!

  On the other hand, it could mean that she was so collected and calm, and that she pre-planned a murder, and knew exactly how soon her victim would die…

  I contemplated this while Bitty snoozed at my feet. I could feel her contented warmth through the blanket. I extended a hand to pet her – it woke her up, and she opened one yellow eye and said “Urr?” I scratched the top of her head, and she purred.

  From my research, I knew that provenance of the art was very important – who owned it previously, where it was bought and sold and for how much, etc. From what Linda was saying – if she was telling the truth – she didn’t suspect a provenance problem. But among other things, a provenance problem is generally not something you’d see just from a painting hanging on the wall! – as she claimed she saw in the first David Cox show.

  I thought that I should try to find some better photos of the earlier David Cox exhibit. Nordqvist Fine Art would have put at least some of them on their website – I should look among the files on the back-up that I took.

  While I was at it, I set out to check for any connection between Christopher and Linda. I didn’t find anything in basic public web searches. I went to a trusted site that provided connections between people based on graphs and background info (e.g. what schools people attended, on what streets they had lived). My employer had a subscription, and we used it for investigating cases of insider security breaches and dealing with crime rings. Since I was on assignment for Fred’s gallery, I used the company account to look up the info.

  A couple of seconds later, I was looking at the graph of all connections between Christopher and Linda. Apparently, both of them knew Andrew, Fred, Connie and Pauline – no big surprise there. It seemed that Linda had a distant relative (a second cousin?) in Eastern Washington – a different suburb of Walla Walla than where Christopher lived; maybe they knew each other? I noted that down. I hadn’t been able to find anything else possibly in common between the two – but I did learn that Linda’s real name was Reuben, and that she changed it prior to embarking on her gallery career, starting in LA some three decades ago. Yes, someone like her, who spent most of her adult life working with art, might resent the success of Fred Nordqvist, who started an art gallery seemingly on a whim – or worse, for financial reasons, – and seemed to have done well with it.

  After about 30 minutes of clicking on things and coming up empty, I ran another search, and then another and another.

  I did find Christopher’s uncle. Calvin Willembauer died about 4 years ago, at the age of 76. Apparently he wasn’t married and had no children – no other family connections were showing up on the graph. He had worked in the wine business in Walla Walla almost up to his death – and apparently did well enough at it to amass an art collection. For a moment, I allowed myself to day-dream about being in such a sunny locale, living surrounded by yummy wine and outstanding art. I closed my eyes. That fantasy looked good – all that was missing to make it perfect is sharing it with someone, in addition to my Bitty.

  I thought about what the uncle would have made of this situation. I wished I could sit with him, on a stone patio overlooking a vineyard, share some wine, and learn how and where he had acquired the paintings.

  The thought of libations brought me out of my reverie. I picked up Andrew’s card and dialed his number. After several rings, a cautious voice answered.

  “Hello?”

  “Hello, this is Veronica Margreve. We met at the David Cox show opening at Nordqvist Fine Art on Friday.”

  A sigh. “Yes. What can I do for you?”

  I decided to jump right in.

  “I was talking to Pauline Nordqvist, and she said that you heard some of the conversations Mr. Nordqvist had on Friday night.”

  “I heard some bits and pieces, not much, really.” The voice was guarded.

  “Could you recall any conversation between Fred and Dr. Bencham?”

  There was a pause. I thought to try to describe Dr. Bencham, when Andrew finally said:

  “Monica Bencham’s husband? Yes he came in and sort of cornered Fred.” Something like distaste was in Andrew’s voice.

  “Do you remember what they were talking about?”

  “I wasn’t really paying attention. Something about franks and expiration. And buying. Something about buying franks. I don’t recall anything else about it.” The voice was slow and careful, as if he was tasting and spitting out something unpleasant with every word.

  Franks again. And Pauline mentioned hearing ‘kosher’. For a second I entertained a thought that Fred’s death was really due to food poisoning, eating some expired food. But no, it can’t be, the police said it was due to arsenic. But curious as to how franks, or hot dogs, or any other foods, kosher or halal or not, expired or otherwise, fit into it…

  “Do you know anything about the Benchams’ tastes in wines?”

  “Wines? No, can’t say that I ever noticed what they drank. I mean, not anything special. I've only met them a handful of times.”

  “Well, thank you very much, you’ve been very helpful.” I was still puzzled at the food connection, and almost hung up but then decided to learn a bit more about Andrew, and how he felt about the works in the gallery: did he suspect that they were fakes? Was he sure that they were authentic?

  “I was wondering…” I wasn’t sure where I was going with that sentence. I dropped it and started again. “I was very impressed by the works of David Cox at the gallery. I particularly liked the colors and the calm mood.” This was all true. “I mean… you can sort of tell at the first glance that they are a work of genius!” I wondered whether I was laying it on a bit thick.

  Andrew said “Umm-hmm” noncommittally.

  “And I was thinking of looking for something similar for my house.” I was surprised when that phrase came out of my mouth. But it was a decent cover for asking more art questions – I was going to play a naive art-lover. “Can you tell me more about them?”

  “The landscapes are really brilliant pieces.” It worked – he was giving me their history, at length, together with some snippets of David Cox's biography, details of his school and names of his followers.

  “That is super-interesting. But… I don’t think I can spring for an original David Cox right now. What about something cheaper, or some copies, if possible?”

  “Well, maybe something at other Seattle art galleries would work for you.” I could almost hear Andrew rolling his eyes at the phone. He didn't go anywhere with my reference to “copies”, I noticed.

  “Oh! That’s definitely an option. Any ideas?”, I played along.

  “Thursday night is the First Thursday Art Walk.” This was a monthly event set up by the ga
lleries in the Seattle area – they generally were open till 9 pm, and had some drinks and light appetizers. You could make an evening of it with your friends, visiting several galleries and critiquing the art on its merits and on how well it would go with your couch.

  “Oh, that’s very timely! We could go to that, and I could look at different art! If you are free, of course…” I played up the excitement in my voice, and then changed it to uncertainty. “I would love to have your guidance, but I don’t want to impose…”

  There was a pause. Then, what sounded like a tail end of a yawn, and Andrew said: “I was planning on going anyway.”

  “Oh that’s awesome! If you don’t mind me tagging along – I am sure I’ll see a lot of great art and learn so much!” I was practically squee-ing into the phone.

  “Not at all. We could meet at Pioneer Square at 7 pm and I could show you some stuff, advise you on your art purchase.”

  “Sure, that would be great!”

  Now, as a surprise to myself, I suddenly had a plan for Thursday night. I hadn’t really thought that through before jumping at the idea, but I was viewing it as my chance to pump Andrew for more data about 19th-century British landscape paintings and find out whether he thought the paintings were fake.

  As I was about to call Detective Johnson to tell him about my suspicions on the art works, Linda called me back. Her voice was trilling with excitement.

  “Veronica! Linda here. I learned something that may be very helpful.”