Art and Arsenic (Veronica Margreve Mysteries Book 2)

by Valerie Murmel

The police apparently insinuated that Pauline could have made the poison out of apricot pits. And the same suspicion could apply to anyone else.

  And Christopher, I remembered, was a high-school chemistry teacher. It was feasible that he could have ordered some nice specimen of an arsenic salt for his classroom months ago, and then chopped off a little piece to bump Fred off with. If he brought it over to Seattle, would a police search find any traces of it in his luggage or in his hotel room?

  And what about Linda? I figured that it was time I talked to her again. I might as well make an evening out of being argumentative and confrontational to people on the phone.

  “Hello?”

  “You’ve been holding out on me.” I purposely gave my voice a slightly threatening tone.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve been told that you had plans to make significant in-roads into Nordqvist Fine Art gallery.” I said and waited.

  “Well… I was considering some business opportunities. Just like in any business…” Her voice trailed off. I kept silent and waited some more.

  “Yes, I made offers to the staff to come work for me!” She finally burst out. “There is no crime in that!”

  “Everyone on the staff?”

  “Yes.” Her voice had a challenge in it.

  “That's a lot of people. It looks like you were really trying to put your competitor out of business.” She didn't respond. Finally I asked: “Is that all?”

  “OK, OK, I learned that Fred was going to get another divorce. So I thought I’d make Connie an offer for her share of Nordqvist Fine Art, and then if she accepted, I could use that as a bargaining chip to get Fred to close it down altogether!”

  “How do you expect me to try to convince the police that you didn’t do it, when crap like this comes up and almost blows up in my face?”

  “But you do believe me, that I didn’t kill Fred, don’t you?” The challenge was gone from her tone, replaced by an edge of panic.

  “Is there anything else I should know about your involvement with anyone at Nordqvist Fine Art? Anyone at all?”

  “No, no, that’s it, I swear!”

  “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

  “I… well… You didn’t ask…”

  “Linda, I hope you have a very good lawyer!” I played up my irritation to throw her off-balance a little.

  “Wait, wait. Hear me out, please! The police came today with a warrant and did some tests on a bunch of my stuff. They implied it tested positive for arsenic! Like I kept poison here before going over on Friday and poisoning him!”

  “Did you?”

  “No, absolutely not! Maybe my stuff tested positive because I had some hair removal stuff around, left from my trip to the Middle East last year? That's what I told them.”

  I didn’t know that they could get the results of the arsenic test on the spot, so I thought that Detective Johnson might be bluffing and putting pressure on Linda.

  And Linda had an explanation prepared as to why anything in her possession might have traces of arsenic on it. It seemed suspicious that she was so ready with blaming it on the depilatory – but it might be that she just did what I did when I first learned that Fred Nordqvist had been poisoned with arsenic: do a web search for arsenic and products containing it.

  But in that case, wouldn’t it be smarter to get rid of the hair-removal product, so that the police couldn't find a ready-made means for the murder? After a moment’s thought, I realized that it would have looked more suspicious, and that leaving the stuff around where it was had been as good a choice as any on her part, once she knew that she would be suspected in the death.

  “What did you and Fred really talk about on Friday, Linda?”

  There was a long pause, then a sigh.

  “He knew that I wanted to get some of his people to come work for me. He threatened me, said that with the DoS report and with accusing me of trying to poach all his employees, he could destroy me, my gallery and everyone who went to work for me.”

  So – Linda’s motive just went from just ‘eliminating a competitor’ to ‘protecting the very existence of her business and livelihood’. That seemed to be a lot weightier!

  “Linda, I think you really need good legal advice!” I repeated. “Think about it!” And hung up.

  Linda sure seemed to get around – she was tied up in Fred's business practically everywhere I turned. She appeared to have talked to everyone connected with Nordqvist Fine Art in an attempt to handicap that gallery.And she was the only one so far who took any proven damaging action against Fred and his business; the others had just lots of sharp words.That fact made me wonder: Could she be involved in some sort of a conspiracy to murder Fred? But Linda herself was at the scene on Friday night, and was therefore under a cloud of suspicion. So being a part of a conspiracy (as opposed to plotting everything by herself) didn’t seem to get her any benefits.

  And she couldn’t expect Fred to call her and demand to see her on Friday, could she? Maybe not; as a novice at cyber-attacks she probably didn’t expect to be found out so quickly. But in everything else, she was a shrewd woman. She could have refused to go to his office if she knew that someone else had poisoned Fred already, to establish an alibi for herself.

  Hmm… Much as I’d like, a murder conspiracy with Linda in the center didn’t quite fit.

  But I had to admit – Fred's threats against Linda did have weight behind them. He could have easily destroyed her reputation in the art world, and maybe sued her for damages. I thought of Fred's words about “reputation” on Thursday, the conversation between Alex and Fred, and Fred's cold tone alluding to ruining “that woman”. And I recalled Alex's denials of coming back into the inventory room and threatening Fred.

  And then the penny dropped. The rest of the conversation I overhead on Thursday – I knew who Fred was talking to and was threatening to expose! I felt pretty confident I had figured out a piece of the puzzle. But was that person the killer?

  20

  If I was right in my suppositions up to now, then that conversation was related to the works in the show almost certainly being fakes. Did that by itself amount to a motive for murder? I went back over the legal angles of fake art, from my library book research.

  Apparently, creating a fake painting wasn’t illegal by itself; even if using materials in the old style (e.g. old wooden boards from the furniture of the period, pigments created according to old recipes). Signing a fake canvas with a fake artist signature could be legal also – after all, a painting is not a legal document. Even trying to sell such a painting could be perfectly legal – if you never actually claimed that it was by a famous master!

  What was illegal and fraudulent was knowingly claiming that the painting was real when it was in fact fake, when offering it for sale – either by describing it as by a certain artist, or by faking a provenance document or a certificate of authenticity (because those, in fact, were legal documents). Interestingly, relying on an opinion of an expert made it alright, in the eyes of the law – the expert could be making a mistake, and being mistaken is not a crime.

  I contemplated for a while what to ask Andrew, the art expert, and whether he would even tell me anything. How do you ask someone lightly, in passing, whether they had recently committed criminal fraud? He’d probably get a lawyer and keep quiet. I congratulated myself on coming up with a pretext to spend some time with him tomorrow night – we’d be looking at and talking about art, and I probably would find some way to ask about the shows at Fred Nordqvist's gallery.

  Was Fred himself a criminal? If he knew of the fakes and still sold them as works of David Cox, then yes, he was. If he didn’t know and was just relying on Andrew’s opinion – no, he wasn’t. In any case, he certainly benefited from the paintings being passed off as real: in publicity for the gallery for such a rare collection, and in higher prices for the works, and thus higher commissions.

  And Christopher, – assuming he knew for sure that the w
orks were fake, – very carefully, made sure that he was within the law on this one. Very, very interesting!

  But if he did poison the bottles of Montrachet he gave Fred Nordqvist, it seemed a bit stupid to hope to not be caught, because that wine was a memorable element of the opening party. And a lot of people drank it – if the wine contained enough poison that a small sip killed a man as large as Fred, that’s potentially a lot of dead bodies. And Christopher drank it himself: I searched my memory and came up with an image of him, red in the face, with a little of the liquid in his glass. At the time, I attributed his facial color and expression to being embarrassed – but maybe he was angry instead?

  But perhaps he didn’t know that the wine would be served at the party on Friday? Maybe he hoped that Fred would drink it at home, later in the evening? And that might happen a bit later on, when Christopher was safely back in Walla Walla… According to Alex and Pauline, Fred always served his “usual” wines at the opening parties – so it might have been a good guess to think that he’d drink a collectible wine at home.

  But in that scenario, one bottle would be enough to kill Fred. And whatever still remained in that bottle, plus the second bottle, would be very convincing evidence against Christopher.

  Why would Fred open such a rare and expensive wine as Domain Leflaive Chevalier-Montrachet 1985 at the reception, in any case? Wouldn’t it make more sense for him to keep it in his cellar for showing off to friends, or for drinking to commemorate a special occasion – or just as an investment? Fred formerly positioned himself as an advisor in alternative investments. And wines – both in their physical form, in bottles and cases and cellars, or in abstract, like Bordeaux futures – had become a relatively well-known form of investing one’s money. And if memory served, they didn’t lose in value during the financial crisis much, either.

  Fred was smart and tended to look beyond the obvious – what was his angle on this? He might have thought that offering the reception crowd the taste of the exclusive wine would showcase his gallery as being more high-class, and loosen people’s purse strings? That the “cachet” of the wine would translate to the art? In which case spending – (I did a quick internet search and found the price per bottle for this vintage, and brought up the link to the sommelier's tasting notes sent to me by Krista) – $3400 on alcohol to sell a painting for ten times that might have made financial sense to him. And Christopher said that the two bottles were a gift to Fred, so Fred wouldn't have been spending cold hard cash on the wine – even though he was surely aware of the price of those bottles, and could have sold them quickly. I looked at the tasting notes on my screen absent-mindedly, as I thought about how Fred talked about the wine and the art coming from the same collection.

  Suddenly it hit me. My heart was being fast and I felt my mouth going dry. The bottles would still be in police custody, so the thing I was thinking of could be checked. It didn’t amount to full evidence of the murder, but it was start. And it fit almost all of the known facts.

  I called Detective Johnson again.

  “Yeah, what?”, he grumbled into the phone.

  “I think I know who killed Fred Nordqvist, and how it was done.”

  21

  That night, I didn’t sleep well. In my dreams, I kept seeing all-white rooms morphing into narrow and twisting tunnels that allowed traveling into the past, straight into the 19th century. Coming out on the other side, like Alice through the rabbit-hole, I saw a pastoral landscape with a small picturesque barn and rugged cliffs in the background, where a group of people (dressed in 21th-century clothes, I noticed) were milling about and drinking wine full of iridescent bubbles. The bubbles kept growing bigger and bigger, floating up, reflecting and distorting everything around them, until they became giant colorful balloons. On one of them an elderly man with a paintbrush in his hand was riding and boasting: “My work’s the real thing!” I kept trying to catch the big balloon, but the man on it was throwing tubes of red paint down on me, and I had to duck them.

  Bitty had settled in to sleep next to me. My moving and thrashing around in my dream had bumped her, and she let out a discombobulated “Urr” as she re-adjusted her position. She curled up again and purred softly.

  I lay in silence, staring at the ceiling. I thought I knew who the killer was. I did not know why – although I could guess. I had told Detective Johnson my idea, and he sounded skeptical. And the bigger problem was that I didn’t have any proof.

  How would I go about proving something like this? Confront the person I was thinking of with the accusation of murder? The suspect would likely deny it. Tell Detective Johnson to get a search warrant and test for traces of arsenic? I had already heard some potential explanations from people as to why evidence of the poison could be on their belongings and surroundings – so likely there would be another possible justification.

  No. Try offering a sweet deal. Something that would turn out to be a trap. But I was going to need help with it. I got out of bed, turned on the light and got to planning.

  I was sitting across from Christopher at a coffee shop in Kirkland. He was still in town, prohibited by the police from leaving, and I had called him in the morning and asked him to meet me. I could tell that he was nervous, looking around and over his shoulder, his fingers drumming a loud syncopated beat on the tabletop. The man was scared.

  To lull his suspicions, I started out by being extra-friendly.

  “Thank you for meeting me. What can I get you?” He declined my offer of a drink, paid for his own coffee, and stood at the end of the counter watching the barista make it, then carried it carefully back to the table where I was sitting with my hot chocolate. Almost at the table, he realized that he forgot a napkin – he turned around, with the cup still in his hands, and went to the counter to get it. He seemed like he was afraid to turn his back on me, or leave me unattended with his drink. For good reason, I thought, given that Fred was poisoned less than a week ago.

  As he sat down and sipped his coffee, I leaned forward and smiled.

  “I know about the paintings. They are fake.” I looked straight at Christopher and kept smiling. He fidgeted uncomfortably. “And I think you always knew it. It might have been Fred’s idea to sell them as originals.”

  I took a sip of my hot chocolate and tried not to make a face – it was too hot. I touched my lips with a napkin and tried to look sufficiently impressive and in control, as I continued:

  “Of course, Andrew was in on that.” Christopher had gone pale while I was talking. “It was a very nice set-up, while it lasted. Fred was smart. And look what it got him”, I said conversationally, continuing to lean forward. “Apparently, it was worth it to you to shut him up.”

  Christopher looked at me unblinkingly. “What are you talking about?”

  I kept a friendly smile on my face and spoke slowly and clearly. “There is no use denying it. I know a lot already, and I can find out more. You may not know much about me. You wouldn’t, I keep a pretty low profile. But if there is any digital trail, like in your e-mail to anybody, or even you browsing some internet forums, I will find it.”

  “Trail of what?”

  “That you were fully aware that the paintings were fake. Trail of any agreement you had with Fred to sell the fakes as real works of David Cox.”

  Christopher made a motion with his hand as if to wave my words away.

  “I have a copy of your original contract with Nordqvist Fine Art, the one you signed before this show. It promised exclusive rights to Calvin Willembauer's entire art collection to the gallery. I know what rates he was playing you, and it wasn't much.” I gave him my best pitying look. I had gotten a scanned copy of the contract from Pauline earlier in the day. “I can't say that I blame you for trying to look for a better deal somewhere else. How much more would you have made if you went with another place, like Ravenswood?”

  Christopher scrunched up his nose and sighed. “About twenty-five grand more.”

  “And now, with his death �
� you are obviously a suspect.” I looked at him expectantly, and he winced. “I could come up with a perfectly plausible narrative, putting you in the role of the killer. Isn’t that right? There are probably people you talked to about how to get out of your contract with Nordqvist Fine Art. The police could find them.” I put my hand on my cup again to check the temperature – still too hot. “And with Fred ending up dead – well, maybe you thought that you could convince Connie to cancel the show, and then take the paintings to a different gallery. But she likely saw the interest the death has generated, and decided to continue with the sale as planned. And in any case, from what I’ve heard, the paintings are selling briskly, for more than originally estimated. So you are making very good money from this show.” I smiled brightly at him from across the table. “You have, shall we say, benefited from this situation. And I can make it sound good enough for the police to detain or arrest you. So – what would you offer me to keep quiet?”

  He didn’t answer. His eyes were searching the room, as if trying to dig up the best way to handle this from underneath the carpet.

  I decided to add to the pressure.

  “You wouldn’t want me to spill what I know, would you? That you were in on the fakes from the very beginning. I did some research – the Calvin Willembauer collection of art and wine could be worth up to a million dollars, if it was all real. If people knew how you bent the truth for your own profit, it would tarnish your personal reputation. No-one would trust anything from your uncle’s collection any more. Your nice little income stream of selling off parts of it would come to an end. What do you say?”