“He was a walk-in?”
“A Russian national with a big wallet.” He waved Decker off. “I don’t want to talk about it other than to say that I’ve had the piece authenticated by three separate dealers. But it’s not for sale. It’s hanging in my living room as a reminder of carelessness.”
Rina wheeled McAdams over to Decker. “Lovely pieces,” she said. “I noticed you wrote a book on icons. Can I buy it?”
Merritt said, “I’ll give it to you.” He looked at Tyler. “I’m sorry about what happened. That’s terrible.”
McAdams shrugged. “I consider myself lucky.”
“Is there anything else?” Merritt asked.
“Actually, yes.” When Merritt groaned, Decker said, “I believe you when you say that no one offered you any plates.”
“Does that merit a thank you?”
“Merit from a Merritt,” Oliver said. When the dealer looked at him, he said, “If I’m joking, it means you’re probably off the hook.”
Merritt looked at Decker. “Go on.”
“Is it possible that one of your employees might be doing some shady business on the side?” When Merritt appeared stunned, Decker said, “Who in your employ would have access to your client list?”
“I don’t give the list out to anyone just for the asking.”
“But it’s on your computer. How hard would it be to access?”
The man pursed his lips and considered the words. “It is just a file and I’m not at my desk all the time.”
“Thank you for being honest,” Decker said. “Has the gallery had any suspicious thefts in the last three months?”
“No.”
Oliver said, “Did anyone in your employ recently take a sudden vacation?”
Decker looked around. “Speaking of which, where’s Victor?” A long silence ensued. “Victor Gerrard. He was here when we first visited. Where is he?”
Another long silence. “It wasn’t a vacation. Victor’s father is ill. He asked for time off.”
“Okay.” Decker smoothed his mustache. “Uh . . . how long has he worked for you?”
“About a year. And I’ve had absolutely no problems with him at all.”
“Where does Gerrard live?” Oliver asked.
“He rents a room when he’s in the city during the week. He’s in Philadelphia on the weekends. His cell has a Philadelphia area code.”
“What about his father? Where does he live?”
“I believe he told me that his dad lives in Chicago or maybe it was Cleveland.”
“How long has Gerrard been gone?” Decker asked.
“About two weeks.”
“Right after the time of our visit, “McAdams said. “Has he called in?”
“No . . . he hasn’t. And I haven’t called him. I figured he must have his hands full. And business is traditionally a little slow in the wintertime.”
“Can I have his number?” Decker asked.
“I’ll call,” Merritt said. “I’m not giving out any numbers without his permission.”
“Then please go ahead and do it, sir.”
“Very well.” Merritt punched in the digits. A moment later he got voice mail and left a message. “I’ll let you know when he calls back.”
“No, no, no,” Decker said, “We need to find his whereabouts as in now. When he applied for the job, he filled out an application, correct?”
“Of course.”
“Go pull up his application. Maybe he gave you his father’s number for contact information.”
“It might take a few minutes.”
“Mr. Merritt, this is a murder investigation. We need the information. Please get me his application.”
Merritt said, “Very well. I’ll be right back.”
After he left, Oliver said, “Think he’s telling the truth?”
“I do.”
“Me, too.”
McAdams said, “Shouldn’t someone be there when he makes the call?”
Oliver said, “He’s being cooperative. Let’s not push it.”
“What we really need is the client list,” Decker said. “Maybe we’ll find a fence among the names. But he’s not going to give it to us without a warrant.”
“We can use eminent danger to get the list.”
“Yeah, that might be worth a try.”
Five minutes passed. Rina said, “Maybe I’ll go grab a book.”
“What do you think of him, Rina?” Decker asked. “Do you think he’s lying?”
“I’m not an expert, but I don’t think he’s lying. He’s just prickly.”
“I agree with you,” Oliver said.
“The iceman cometh,” McAdams whispered.
“More like the snowman,” Oliver said. “He’s white.”
Merritt said, “The application form in my computer has been erased. But I keep the paper applications in a separate file. On it, he claims his father died five years ago.” He wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. “Dear God! What is going on?”
Oliver said, “We need your client list.”
“I can’t give it to you, Detective. It’s confidential.”
“We’ll get a warrant.”
“Then do so.”
“And while we’re doing that, whoever else is brutally murdered is on your conscious.”
“That’s a horrid thing to say.”
“Don’t get mad at him,” McAdams said. “He just doesn’t want you to wind up like me. At least I’m breathing. The next one may not be so lucky.”
Merritt buried his head in his hands. Decker looked at him. “We need the list.”
“What makes you think that Gerrard was dealing illegally with one of my clients?”
“Do I really have to answer that?”
Merritt nodded. “Wait here. I’ll print it out for you.”
“Thank you. You’re doing the right thing.”
After he left, Oliver said, “Who do we contact about Gerrard? NYPD? Philadelphia PD?”
“I’ll do Philadelphia first. Cindy works there.”
“Yeah, right. How’s she doing?”
“She’s fine. She should be moving up to detective soon.”
“Good for her. And the boys?”
“They’re ready to play pro basketball.”
A moment later, Merritt returned with several sheets of paper in hand. “It goes back five years, but I haven’t updated in years. Some of the people may even be deceased.” He handed it to Decker. “And should someone ask, you didn’t get the names from me.”
“Got it.” Decker scanned the names with Oliver looking over his shoulder. “It’s your complete client list, though.”
“It’s the only list I have, yes.”
“Could you look it over for me? Make sure no one important has been erased.”
“It’s over three hundred names.” When Decker didn’t answer, Merritt grabbed the list back and with an index finger went over the names. It took him more than a minute, which meant he was paying attention. “I’m not positive but it looks complete.”
Rina stood on her tiptoes and whispered into Decker’s ear. He turned to her. “Can you do that?”
“I can’t. Maybe Tyler can.”
“Do what?”
“See if the client list was recently updated,” Decker said.
“I told you I haven’t updated it in a while,” Merritt said.
“And you also told me that it isn’t hard to get access to your computer. We’re wondering if this list was updated right before Gerrard left.”
“How would I know that?”
“Check previous versions of the file,” McAdams said. When the dealer didn’t answer, he said, “I could check. If you have an automatic backup, it’s not hard to do.”
“Yo
u’re not touching my computer.”
“You can watch me.”
“It’s a murder investigation,” Decker reminded him.
Merritt gritted his teeth. “I suppose it would be okay if I was there.”
“We’ll all come.” Decker smiled. “If it’s okay with you.”
“Oh, for God’s sake.” The dealer marched off and the crew followed him to his office. It was a decent-size office but not meant to accommodate five people let alone a wheelchair. McAdams elected to leave the appliance outside. He hobbled over to the desk chair, sat down, and it didn’t take long to find what he was looking for. “The list was updated three weeks ago.”
“That’s not possible!” the dealer exclaimed.
Decker said, “Tyler, can you pull up an older version of the list?”
“Yep.” A few moments later. “Here we go. Can I press the print button?”
“Yes, yes.” Merritt removed it from the printer and gave it to Decker who put the two lists side by side and started going down the names. Within a few moments, he found his first discrepancy. Two more followed, making it three clients missing from the updated version of the file. He showed the names to Merritt.
“Alex Beckwith?” Merritt said. “Why on earth would anyone delete him?”
“Who is he?”
“He heads the Cultural American-European Liaison Association.”
“Which is?”
“Just what it sound like. Beckwith acts as a go-between when museums want to borrow from each other. For instance, if the Met was having a Renoir exhibit and wanted a painting from the Louvre, he’d liaison from one museum to another. He’s a very prominent individual.”
“Does he buy stolen art?” Oliver said.
“I won’t dignify that with an answer,” Merritt said. “His position is critical. Since Chabad’s challenge to the pieces in the Russian Library, European countries are disinclined to loan anything out to the United States without an indisputable provenance.”
“I should hope so,” Rina said.
Merritt looked incredulous. “Art is above politics, my dear.”
“Not when it comes to theft, sir.”
Merritt bristled. “I’m afraid we are of two minds.”
“Guess my mind comes from being the daughter of Holocaust survivors.”
McAdams had already pulled out his iPad. “Twelve thousand religious items and fifty thousand books assembled over two centuries by the Chasidic movement are in the Russian Library in Moscow. In 1991, a Moscow court ordered the library to turn over the items to Chabad, but then the Soviet Union collapsed and the judgment was set aside by the Russians. Then an American court sided with Chabad, but the Russians are refusing to honor the judgment claiming America has no jurisdiction in Russia.”
“That means loaned art—especially Russian art—might be seized in America,” Merritt said. “It really has had grave consequences for museum loans.”
“Such a pity,” Rina said.
Decker couldn’t quite hold back the smile. “Mr. Merritt, what can you tell me about the other two men left off the list? The names look Russian.”
“They are Russian and, honestly, I don’t remember them. Obviously they bought from me a while ago but I can’t place their names with faces.”
“Let me get this straight,” Oliver said. “They bought Russian art from you here in the United States and took it back to Russia?”
“I have better art than most of the Russian dealers. Like I told you, the crème de la crème was bought by my grandfather when no one wanted it.”
“If these men are clients, you must have invoice files on them,” Decker said.
“I should.” He sat down at his desk. After a minute, he sighed. “Their files are gone.” He looked at Tyler. “Perhaps you can find previous files?”
“You read my mind,” McAdams said. He poked away on the keyboard. “I can’t find any copies. Maybe he trashed them.” He kept typing. “Nothing in the recycle bin.” He looked up. “You could get an expert to go into the hard drive and see what was erased, but I can’t do it.”
“Are we done?” Merritt asked.
“For the moment.” Decker nodded. “Thank you.”
“Do I still get my free book or have you changed your mind?” Rina asked.
“Of course.” Merritt smiled. “I admire your grit.”
“Tell that to my husband.”
The crew left the gallery in search of a place open for an early lunch. McAdams said, “At least, we’ve narrowed down the list to three names.”
“Good work, Harvard.”
“I did the work, but I wasn’t the creative part of the equation.”
“A-hem,” Rina said.
Decker laughed. “Thank you very much, my brilliant wife.”
“You’re welcome.”
“So where does that leave us now?” McAdams asked.
“We’ve got names,” Decker said. “We do it the old-fashioned way: legwork. Or in your case, McAdams, we can call it wheel work.”
CHAPTER 33
NO MISSING PERSONS report has been filed,” Cindy told him. “How long has this Victor Gerrard been out of contact?”
“Around ten days to two weeks.” There was a pause on the line and Decker knew what Cindy was thinking, what any cop would be thinking.
“And you’re just reporting it now?”
“I just found out about it now.” He switched his cell to his other ear. “Look, honey, all I need is for someone to go over to his apartment just to make sure he’s not moldering.”
“I think someone would have reported a moldering body. It kinda stinks.”
“Please?”
“And you’re sure this is the right address?”
“No, I’m not sure.”
“And you don’t want to place an MP report? Make it a little more professional?”
“No need for the bureaucracy yet. It’s possible that we could locate him in New York.”
“So why don’t you let me know what happens in New York before I do anything.”
“It may take us a while. I just want to know if you have a dead body.”
Cindy said, “This is what I’m going to do because I love you. I’ll go to the apartment and see if I have a body. If I can’t find a body, I’ll see if something looks off. If something’s off, I’ll start the paperwork. But I’ll do it all in about an hour because it’s already been a while and I’d like to finish up my shift because it’s bad form to piss off your partner.”
“Thank you, Cynthia. You are the bomb. How are the kids?”
“Doing great. They love their new school. Come visit them for grandparents’ day. It’s in a few weeks.”
“I’ll be there.”
“Call me a cockeyed optimist. I choose once again to believe you.”
“Low blow. I’ll be there, I promise. I love you, dear.”
“Same.” She hung up. Decker walked back to the table where the gang had been seated for lunch. It was an overcrowded kosher vegetarian storefront with long wooden tables and hardback chairs, making the wheelchair the most comfortable seating in the café. There were a half-dozen mixed appetizers on the tabletop that probably looked better than they tasted and a pitcher of diluted, organic tea.
“She’s going over to his apartment in an hour, God bless her.” Decker sat down.
“Do we think Gerrard is still alive?” McAdams asked.
“I have no idea.” Decker picked up a mock chicken egg roll. Not too bad but then again anything fried, sugary, or salty always tasted okay. His cell rang. The window showed Radar’s cell. He depressed the button. “Hold on, Mike. Let me get to a spot where I can hear you.”
He stood up again and walked outside into the cold. The skies were gray and there were snow flurries, but it wasn’t as cold a
s it had been up north. He had gloves on his hands and a scarf around his neck, but he’d taken off his hat and left it in the restaurant. Icy flakes landed on his head like a bad case of airborne dandruff. “What’s going on?”
“I just got a call from a retired detective named Allan Sugar. I have no idea who he is, but since he asked for you, I’m assuming you know something about that.”
Oops. Decker said, “Sugar is the original detective on the Petroshkovich icon thefts. We think that Angeline Moreau was stealing plates from one of the original Petroshkovich books and subbing them with forgeries. To do that, she’d have needed copies of the originals and it would have looked suspicious if she checked the book out in her library. So I asked Sugar if he could go to Pretoria College and see who else might have checked it out since it was shared between the two libraries.”
“You think John Latham pulled out the plates and gave them to Angeline to copy.”
“Exactly. I knew you were short of manpower and I figured Sugar wouldn’t mind. I should have filled you in but it slipped my mind. Sorry.”
“Yeah, it’s not cool to look like a doofus. Find out what he found out and call me back.”
“Right away.”
“In the meantime I went over to Littleton and spoke to a few of Lance Terry’s friends, asked them what spooked the kid to leave midsemester.”
“And?”
“Hang-up calls: several of them. And then Terry began to think he was being followed. His buddies tell me he became a little paranoid. In view of everything that has happened, I’d label the paranoia as being perceptive.”
“I’ll talk to Terry again. Maybe he noticed a silver van. Any luck with that?”
“We’ve checked about fifty of them in the area. All registered and accounted for. On a positive note, Moreau does have a copy of the key found in Latham’s empty bin.”
“Yes!” Decker pumped his arm, eliciting a few stares from startled passersby. “Our first tangible link between Latham and Moreau.”
“We’re getting warmer. And that means you need to watch your back. I’d like you here in Greenbury where bad things stick out. When are you coming home?”
“I’ve still got business down here.” He gave Radar an update on his conversation with Merritt. “After lunch, we’re on a hunt to find Victor Gerrard.”
Murder 101: A Decker/Lazarus Novel (Decker/Lazarus Novels Book 22) Page 34
