Blue Smoke and Murder sk-4

by Elizabeth Lowell

  Five hundred thousand dollars in the late twentieth century.

  Four million dollars last year.

  One painting.

  Jill felt like the airplane had dropped out from under her. She swallowed hard. Then she turned to Zach, who was watching her with narrowed, intent eyes.

  “Four. Million. Dollars?” she asked, her voice rough.

  “Yes.”

  She shook her head sharply. “I’m having a tough time grabbing hold of this. I mean, I can’t believe our family has twelve Dunstans, much less that they’re wildly valuable.”

  “We don’t know that they’re Dunstans.”

  “Well, they sure got someone’s attention,” she said, thinking of her poor old car. And the slashed-to-ribbons painting. And Modesty Breck.

  Dead.

  29

  SNOWBIRD, UTAH

  SEPTEMBER 15

  10:04 A.M.

  Ramsey Worthington waited with concealed impatience while Cahill carefully, slowly, delicately opened a shipping container from the estate of a wealthy collector of Western art. The paintings were among the stars of the upcoming auction.

  As the owner of several galleries, and an auctioneer in high demand, Worthington knew that he wasn’t supposed to have a favorite artist. Or at the very least, he shouldn’t let anybody know that he did.

  Yet Cahill knew his boss was daffy about Nicolai Fechin’s paintings.

  The “Tartar” painter might have been born in Russia, but in the second quarter of the twentieth century he had painted the Native Americans of the Southwest with an impressionistic urgency and energy that was both personal and universal.

  More than half a century after Fechin’s death, his paintings were more valuable than ever, well over one hundred thousand dollars a canvas, and that was for the smaller works. Yet it wasn’t the potential hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars the Fechin oils represented that lifted Worthington’s pulse.

  Quite simply, he wanted to be in the presence of greatness.

  Worthington cleared his throat. He’d seen various representations of the Fechins in this dead collector’s collection, but he hadn’t seen them in the original.

  Cahill hid his smile. Perhaps it was petty to tease Worthington by dragging out the process of opening the shipping container, but it certainly was enjoyable. Intellectually and fiscally, Cahill understood the importance of Fechin’s portraits. Emotionally, they didn’t lift his pulse. Give him the sweep and radiant grandeur of a Thomas Moran landscape any day. Now that was an artist to bring a man to his knees.

  After a few more unnecessary flourishes, Cahill relented and removed a canvas from its carefully constructed nest.

  Worthington made a sound that was between a sigh and a moan.

  Cahill freed more paintings.

  More rapturous noises came from Worthington.

  “Stop it,” Cahill said. “You’re making me hard, and you have a luncheon appointment with your wife.”

  If Worthington heard, he didn’t comment.

  Cahill didn’t bother to hide his smile. Worthington’s relationship with his wife was a source of amusement to both men. She was clueless about her husband’s cheerful bisexuality.

  The phone rang in Worthington’s office. His private line, reserved for his best clients. Or his most useful ones.

  Worthington ignored the phone. He was lost in the vivid colors and insights of Nicolai Fechin.

  Cahill strode over and picked up the call. “Fine Western Art, Jack Cahill speaking. How may I assist you?”

  “This is Betty Dunstan. Is Ramsey available? It’s about the auction.”

  “Betty! It’s always good to hear from you.” Cahill rolled his eyes. He didn’t have to ask which auction. The one Worthington was overseeing in a few days was the most important thing on the Western art horizon. “How are you and Lee doing?”

  “We’re fine. Very anxious about the auction, of course. But I have some, um, concerns I’d like to talk about with Ramsey.”

  “Of course. Let me put you on hold while I pry him away from a client.” Cahill punched the hold button and looked at Worthington. “Well?”

  “You take it. I’m tired of holding her hand. And you have a monetary interest in the auction, too.”

  “Not as much as you do.”

  “I’m the auctioneer as well as the organizer,” Worthington said. “Of course I’m better paid.”

  The hold button blinked like a red lightning bug.

  “About her call…” Cahill said.

  “Oh, hell. Give it to me. You don’t understand women.”

  “Big duh on that one.”

  Worthington laughed. “Betty is a nice person, if a bit tightly wrapped. Don’t know how she puts up with the pompous donkey she’s married to.”

  Shaking his head, Cahill punched the hold button again and handed over the phone.

  “Hello, Betty. Always a pleasure,” Worthington said. “Sorry you had to wait for me. How may I help you?”

  Cahill tuned out the one-sided conversation while he began tidying up the shipping/receiving room. As he worked, he kept looking at the Fechin oils, trying to understand their appeal emotionally as well as intellectually.

  Maybe if he stopped thinking about the vermin situation during the time Fechin painted the natives, he’d appreciate the work more. But Cahill just couldn’t get past the queasy certainty that many if not all of the models for Fechin’s portraits likely had needed a good scrubbing down with lye. The thought of all the fleas and lice underneath the rustic costumes made him twitchy.

  It was the same thing that had kept him from traveling in the poor places of the world. For him, hygiene wasn’t a choice, it was a religion.

  Give him Moran’s elegantly wild landscapes any day.

  “…assure you,” Worthington said evenly, though loudly, “if there were any loose Dunstans running about the Western art scene, I’d be the first to know.”

  He listened impatiently.

  “Yes, yes, I know, the JPEGs,” he said. “But JPEGs are simply electronic bits of nothing. Only the flesh and blood of canvas is real. The rest is-”

  As Worthington listened to her interruption, his face flushed. His anger was visible if not audible.

  “Betty, dear, you’re working yourself up over nothing,” he said, trying to sound soothing. “If any unknown Dunstans exist-and there is no proof that any do-Lee would still have the last word as to authenticity. As the author of Dunstan’s catalogue raisonné, Lee’s imprimatur is absolutely necessary to anyone wishing to sell any Dunstan canvas.”

  Cahill gave up pretending to be busy and listened. As Worthington had pointed out, Cahill had a financial interest in the outcome of the auction.

  “Yes, I’m very certain,” Worthington said. “Please don’t worry. When the auction is over, you and Lee will be quite pleased. No unauthenticated Dunstans, assuming any exist, can prevent that.”

  Worthington shifted the phone to his other hand.

  Cahill waited.

  “No problem at all, my dear,” Worthington said soothingly. “We’re all excited about the upcoming auction. I’m glad I could put your mind at ease.”

  Worthington opened his mouth, closed it, and bit his tongue.

  Cahill paced.

  “I understand,” Worthington said. “Of course, you would be the first to know if I see or hear anything substantial about the existence of unknown Dunstans.”

  Cahill pretended to look at Fechin’s portrait of a young Pueblo Indian girl. Her black eyes were both innocent and already old, almost eerily so. To hell with vermin, he thought. The ancient understanding in the girl’s eyes transcended her time and circumstances.

  And vermin?

  Cahill sighed. He simply couldn’t get past reality to the art beneath.

  Worthington hung up the phone and looked at Cahill.

  “Still bothered by head lice?” Worthington asked sardonically.

  “I almost got past it. Something about t
hat girl’s eyes. Remarkable. Riveting.”

  “The eyes are the living, breathing center of all Fechin paintings. That’s what makes him such a brilliant portrait artist.”

  “True.” But not for me. Can’t get past the creepy crawlies. “I take it that Mrs. Dunstan is in a knot about the JPEGs.”

  Worthington grimaced. “Between her and Mrs. Crawford, I’ll be ready for a straitjacket before the auction even opens.”

  “Lee Dunstan has bent my ear a time or three,” Cahill said. “The man is obsessed with his father’s former lover.”

  “Since Justine Breck was the cause of Thomas Dunstan’s erratic output, I can understand Lee’s ire. God only knows what that woman cost the world of Western fine art.”

  “Millions and millions, if the auction goes as planned.”

  “Of course,” Worthington said almost impatiently, “but the loss of Dunstan’s unique insight into the dying of the classic West is beyond price.”

  “Polishing your auction rhetoric?”

  Worthington smiled. “People don’t attend auctions merely to buy art. They come for the experience, the entertainment, the chance to be seen as a mover and shaker among their peers.”

  Laughing, Cahill shook his head. “Is our auction really going to be the slam dunk you described to Mrs. Dunstan?”

  Worthington’s smile vanished. “It better be.”

  30

  PARK CITY

  SEPTEMBER 15

  10:15 A.M.

  Jill watched out the window while the plane landed at a small airport on the eastern edge of Salt Lake City. No sooner had the wheels touched the runway than a refueling tank truck headed toward the apron. Three people walked to the tie-down area and waited for the plane. The men were all casually dressed, yet they weren’t lounging around. They looked alert in a way that reminded her of Zach.

  As soon as the plane door opened, Zach went down the stairs. He spoke briefly to one of the men, who handed over a set of keys before he started giving orders to the other men. Zach flipped the keys on his palm as he turned back to Jill, who was standing at the top of the plane’s metal stairway. She had changed into black jeans and a silky kind of green shirt that brought out the color of her eyes.

  She looked way too edible for his peace of mind.

  “Let’s go,” Zach said. “We don’t have a lot of time to waste if we want to be in Taos before dinner. Leave everything on the plane.”

  “Taos? Dinner?”

  Zach was already walking away. “It will take us about half an hour to get to Snowbird.”

  Jill turned back to the plane long enough to grab her belly bag, then ran down the stairs after Zach. No sooner had her butt hit the leather seat of the rental car than he started driving toward Snowbird with a disregard for local speed limits that made her blink.

  Very quickly they were in the mountains. Sun poured over the soaring peaks. Aspen burned up the ravines and on the ridgetops like a golden autumn fire. She let down the window, took a deep breath, and then another. Yesterday’s adrenaline roller coaster from fear to safety and back to fear seemed like a bad dream.

  The black-haired, whiskey-eyed man who had almost enough stubble to be a beard was watching the road, not the scenery.

  “It’s so beautiful,” Jill said.

  Zach looked at the mountaintops without really seeing them. His mind was filled with plans he’d prioritized according to various reactions from gallery owners, plus the unhappy necessity of spending more time in the company of Garland Frost’s arrogant, acid tongue.

  “Yeah, it’s real pretty,” Zach said absently.

  She thought about the plane. “Will the paintings be all right without us?”

  He gave her a swift sideways glance.

  “Never mind,” she said. “Forget I asked. Control issues. St. Kilda rules and all that.”

  Zach smiled slightly and continued to push the new SUV. A discreet bumper sticker was the only indication that the car came from a local rental agency.

  Jill inspected the interior of the car. Then she thought about the fast little plane and the three men who had spread out around it in a manner suggestive of sentries. She wondered if the men were armed.

  Then she thought of Joe Faroe, Zach Balfour, and St. Kilda itself.

  One way or another, the men were armed.

  “Who’s paying for all this?” she asked. “Cars, plane, sat/cell phone, research-”

  “Take it up with Faroe,” Zach cut in. “He’s the one giving orders on this op.”

  “I thought you were.”

  “I’m the man on the ground. Faroe’s the one learning how to hold a baby girl.”

  “A girl? Oh my.” Jill laughed.

  “Yeah, she’ll be keeping Faroe up nights worrying for the next thirty years.”

  “Does she have a name?”

  “Trouble.”

  Jill gave an eye-roll worthy of a teenager. “Somehow I doubt that.”

  “I don’t. Faroe might have come late to parenthood, but he’s one protective father.”

  “Late? Lane is sixteen.”

  “It’s a long story.”

  Jill was curious, but she didn’t ask. She came from a long line of long stories. She understood family privacy.

  “Well, Joe can’t be any worse than the father of one of my roommates in college,” she said. “Sara’s dad was a veterinarian. After she turned fifteen, he mounted a castrating knife on the front door. Claimed it would work just fine as a door-knocker.”

  Zach snickered. “She get many dates?”

  “Not until she went away to college.”

  Shaking his head, Zach kept driving. Hard.

  Jill would have been nervous, but nothing about the car or the man suggested that either was on the edge of losing the road. She settled back, relaxed as she rarely was when someone else was at the controls.

  Coordinated, smooth, quick, thorough. Wonder what else he’s good at?

  She could think of a few things that would be fun test-driving with him. None of them had wheels.

  Very quickly, wild mountain scenery gave way to chalets and chairlifts and empty slopes.

  “Okay, time for your game face,” Zach said. “You’re the-”

  “Sweet stupid thing,” she cut in. “You’re the kind of man Sara’s father hung the castrating knife over the door to discourage.”

  Zach winced. “Not a happy visual.”

  “I’m sure it took the rut out of more than one young buck.”

  Privately Zach thought it wouldn’t have worked over Jill’s door, but he didn’t say anything aloud. It was bad enough wanting her. Having her know it, and back away because of it, would turn a fairly straightforward op into Grade A goat-roping real quick.

  How did Faroe manage to keep Grace alive when he was head over balls in lust with her?

  But Zach hadn’t asked his boss when he’d had the chance, and it was too late now.

  He opened his mouth to go over the scenario for the gallery with Jill again. Then he thought better of it. She wasn’t stupid. If he had to make adjustments to the game plan in midplay, she was quick enough to keep up with him.

  If anything, he should worry about keeping up with her. The lady was too used to leading. Problem was, she could easily go through the wrong door while he was running to catch up. And Zach knew in his gut what Jill knew only intellectually.

  Some doors were fatal.

  31

  SNOWBIRD

  SEPTEMBER 15

  11:03 A.M.

  The first gallery Zach and Jill went to was housed in a fake mountain chalet at the base of one of the ski lifts. The slopes above the town were still summer-naked and dry, not so much as a flake of snow anywhere. Finding a parking place was easy.

  “Western Light and Shadow, Ms. Joanna Waverly-Benet,” Jill said, reading the sign. “This is one of the galleries I sent JPEGs to.”

  Zach already knew that, but he nodded.

  “If the big ones didn’t want to bother
, I thought maybe a smaller, less-established gallery might be more eager to work with me,” Jill explained.

  “Smart. Lucky, too.”

  “How so?”

  “According to Shawna, Ms. Waverly-Benet is an up-and-comer on the Western art scene. Her specialty is painters of Dunstan’s era. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if Hillhouse showed her Modesty’s painting when he was testing the market.”

  “Well, she didn’t answer my e-mail. But then, I haven’t checked it since last night.”

  Zach pulled out his sat/cell phone, frowned at the level of the battery, and noticed that no new messages had come from St. Kilda.

  “Ms. Waverly-Benet still hasn’t answered your e-mail,” he said. “Looks like even the little fish aren’t taking the bait.”

  “Thanks so much for hacking my e-mail.”

  “St. Kilda lives to serve.”

  Jill got out of the big SUV, shut the door hard, and headed for the gallery. Automatically she touched her waist, checking the belly bag. Then she remembered she’d left it on the backseat. The bag’s rough band had kept catching on her only good blouse.

  Zach was one step behind her, then one step ahead. “I go through doors first, remember?” he asked curtly.

  “And people say chivalry is dead.”

  “It was killed by rushing through doors first,” he retorted.

  Large glass windows gave Zach a view inside the gallery. Clean, uncrowded, bright. Nothing unexpected. Everything in place, including a sleek brunette working on a computer just off the main showroom. She was just reaching for the telephone on her desk.

  “Change of plans,” Zach said. “I’m nice for this one.”

  “Should be a challenge.”

  He smiled and brushed the skin at the nape of her neck as he straightened the collar of her silky shirt.

  She gave him a startled look. Then she smiled and smoothed down the collar of his black cotton shirt, taking care to slide her fingers into the opening of the neck.

  Zach’s eyelids lowered. “You’re distracting me.”