At the time, all Alix’s thoughts had been summed up in five one-syllable words that she remembered muttering aloud while reading about the trial: What a crock of shit. He was a crook, and his self-proclaimed objective of saving art from the barbarians had not so incidentally made him a lot of money. (All gone now, of course.)
But that was then. Katryn’s call had shaken things up. For the first time she understood something of what Geoff had felt. No, she wasn’t about to justify what he’d done, but…sell that exquisitely rendered Utrillo she’d been slaving over so lovingly and replace it with…with…M&M’s and rice noodles? Geoff was right, the Philistines were taking over.
The nausea hadn’t gone away, and now there was a gripey kind of pain in her abdomen as well. But the source of them wasn’t quite as high-minded as she’d assumed, she now realized. The last time she’d eaten had been at breakfast the day before; she was hungry.
Cosmic forces would have to take a back seat to coffee and pancakes.
When she stepped out into the hall, she found herself looking through a half-open door into an old-fashioned bathroom flooded with a diffuse rainbow of colors. Assuming it had stained-glass windows, she peeked in curiously, only to find that the windows were of ordinary glass, but thickly painted over with primitive images—an Indian headdress, a chicken, another animal (cat? dog? chipmunk?), along with various geometric abstractions—all jumbled together in an eye-searing hodgepodge of reds, yellows, blues, and greens. This, then, was the celebrated bathroom painted by D. H. Lawrence, scandalized by his hostess’s practicing her ablutions in full view of any (unlikely) passerby. An inscription in one corner confirmed this: D. H. Lawrence painted this window.
Well, she had learned a long time ago that geniuses generally were wise to keep to whatever their specialty was, and it certainly applied here. It was a good thing for Lawrence that he hadn’t decided to pursue a career in art. All the same, it was quite something to see, and although the bathroom went with the room down the hall, she promised herself that she would at least brush her teeth there before she left. Just so that she could say she had.
On the way downstairs she remembered bumping her head in time to duck where the stairs turned and there wasn’t enough headroom. Bending down brought her face to face with a small painting on the wall that she hadn’t noticed yesterday. Mesas, buttes, desert. It was quite well done, and her first thought was that it might even be a Georgia O’Keeffe that the painter had left when she’d stayed with Luhan. But no, on second glance it was O’Keeffelike, all right, but too pretty, too plainly decorative to be the real thing—just an “in-the-style-of” piece intended as an attractive wall decoration. It was a nice rendering, though, deserving of a better display place than a shadowy staircase landing. The picture was modestly signed in blue paint at the lower right: Brandon Teal. The name was unfamiliar.
She had reached the bottom of the steps and turned left, following her nose toward the coffee and pancakes—and now bacon too; slurp!—when she stopped stone-still, her mind churning. There was something about…
She dashed back up the stairs to the painting. There was a small picture light attached to the top of the frame. She flicked it on and stared hard. Yes! There, at the base of one of the buttes, clothed in shadow, was the barely visible figure of a man in profile. The same figure—the same exact figure—that had been on Cliffs at Ghost Ranch and marked it as the fake that it was.
She knew the point of the little figure too. Geoff had talked about it when she’d called him from Ghost Ranch. A “just-in-case alibi” was what he’d called it—an unobtrusive but unmistakable element that some prudent forgers added to everything they painted, whether fakes or their own originals (if any). The idea was that it served as a kind of Kilroy-was-here insignia to “prove”—if it ever became necessary—that the forger had had no intent to defraud. No, no, he had painted the thing as a copy, or an homage, or a study. When had he ever claimed it was anything else? Really, if forgery had been in his heart, surely the last thing he would have done would have been to insert something that a) didn’t belong, and b) was practically his own personal trademark. Of course, if some later owner, some unscrupulous scoundrel, had taken it upon himself to pass it off as a genuine Whoever, how was the poor, innocent artist to blame for that?
The longer she looked at the painting, the more her certainty grew that Brandon Teal, if that was really his name, had painted Chris’s “O’Keeffe” as well. This was absolutely incredible, a terrific development. She considered calling Ted then and there, but it was barely seven o’clock and she was pretty sure Ted Ellesworth was not the early-rising type. Or was she confusing him with Roland de Beauvais? But either way, it could wait. First things first. Pancakes.
The dining room was a spare, somber space that brought to mind the rectory of a monastery with its simple wooden furnishings, floor candelabra, and dull black and red floor tiles. The settings had been laid out, but no one had arrived yet. The big, old-fashioned kitchen opened just off this room, however, and there she found two cooks working away. The smells alone were enough to make her think that maybe, despite the craziness of the last few days, the world at large might still be normal. Add to that the cozy scene in general: two aproned, rosy-cheeked, flour-spattered, middle-aged women cheerfully cutting scone dough into wedge shapes, with a third, younger woman sitting on a high stool beside the tiled work table and quietly kibitzing, coffee cup in hand. This person Alix recognized as Janet, the receptionist who’d checked her in the day before.
She had barely said good morning to the three of them before they saw to it that she had her own cup of coffee, a fresh, warm sweet roll, and her own stool at the table. Heaven. For a while they made small talk: the weather, the fact that this was Alix’s first visit, stories about the house. One of the cooks had been working there when the actor Dennis Hopper had owned it for a while in the seventies. Did Alix know that he had refused to sleep in Mabel’s bed—the bed Alix had been in—because he’d believed it to be haunted by Mabel’s restless and vindictive spirit? No, Alix didn’t know (she was also having trouble placing Dennis Hopper, although she kept that to herself), but she could say with certainty that she had been unhaunted by Mabel. She’d slept like a stone.
Janet refilled her own cup. “I’ll bet. It’s no wonder you were wiped out last night. We heard what happened up near Abiquiu. Your friend—Ms. LeMay—is going to be all right, I hope?”
“She’ll be fine. No serious damage done.”
“Good. Uh…about Liz…” Janet put on a suitably sober face. “I can imagine how distressing her…her death must be. The two of you were old friends of hers, weren’t you?”
“Yes, we were,” Alix said smoothly, “although I didn’t know her quite as long as Chris did.” Three hours, to be exact, but she wasn’t going to squeeze out any confidences about Liz by telling them that. The only thing that was really distressing her at this point was her own good upbringing, which was preventing her from cramming the entire sweet roll into her mouth at once. She settled for a nibble and a slug of coffee. “Chris was really disappointed not to be able to come to this conference, that’s for sure. She was looking forward to meeting some of Liz’s other friends. I know I am. It’ll be a big help to be able to talk about the good things, share stories.” When did I get to be such a facile liar? Alix wondered. One more talent no doubt inherited from good old Dad.
The three women nodded their sympathy and looked reflective, giving Alix the chance to down a few gobbets of almond-paste-centered pastry, far and away the most delicious thing she’d ever tasted in her life.
“Well,” Janet said, standing up, “I guess I’d better get to work.”
“Oh, I wanted to ask you something,” Alix said. “There’s a beautiful little painting in the stairwell, a desert scene—”
“Oh, yes, Brandon did that. He gave it to us. A gift. He’s so nice.”
Brandon? “You know him? I mean, personally?”
“Brandon?”
she said, resettling on her stool. “Sure, we see him all the time. He lives in Santa Fe. He’s signed up for the conference too. I’m sure you’ll see him around.”
“That’d be great. What does he look like?”
“Oh…” She rolled her eyes upward the way people do when they search for a mental image. “Well, he’s pretty hard to miss,” she said, smiling. “He’s a good six-four and burly besides, and he’s got red hair and this beard that looks like orange Brillo—”
Alix blinked. Big, burly, orange beard… “Does he…does he smoke a pipe?” she asked, doing her best to tamp down her swelling excitement.
“Like a chimney. Never seen him without one. He says it keeps him calm.”
“If that’s true,” said one of the cooks, “wouldn’t you just love to see him when he’s nervous?”
“That’s true,” Janet said, laughing. “Big as he is, poor Brandon’s a walking exhibit of raw nerves. He refuses to take his medication. He says it stifles his creativity. The funny thing is, what he doesn’t realize is that his problem is that he’s too creative. His work is all over the map. One year he’s a Post-Impressionist, the next year he’s a, a surrealist or something. Personally, I think if he could just develop one single style, his own style, you know, a Brandon Teal style…”
She finally noticed the odd look on Alix’s face. “Uh-oh, did I say something I shouldn’t have? Is he a friend of yours?”
Alix had heard practically nothing since the red hair, the orange beard, and the pipe. My God! It was stunning enough to make her forget about the sweet roll, at least for the moment.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “did you ask me something?”
“I asked if you knew him.”
“I, um, think I ran into him once,” Alix said.
CHAPTER 19
She wasn’t so excited that it spoiled her appetite, however, so before making the call to Ted she sat down, alone in the big room (technically, breakfast wasn’t served until eight o’clock), and did justice to a huge platter of pancakes, maple syrup, and bacon. Two over-easy eggs as well, although they had to go on another plate. And more coffee. And one more of the delicious little almond sweet rolls, or maybe it was two. Then, stuffed and revivified, she lavished sincere gratitude and approbation on the two beaming cooks, got a coffee refill in a cardboard cup, and went out to the cobblestoned front portico of the house. There she stood for a few moments, contentedly digesting, sipping coffee, breathing in the clean scents of what she took to be an approaching desert rain, and—most of all—relishing the amazement and approbation that Ted was about to lavish on her when he heard that she had identified the forger of Cliffs at Ghost Ranch, who also happened to be the very man she and Chris had encountered in the act of stealing the very same painting from the Blue Coyote after Liz’s murder as well. And, to make everything as easy as possible for the FBI, Mr. Teal was available right there in Taos for a friendly little tête-à-tête at Ted’s convenience. Everything was working out just fine.
Why, I’m happy, she realized. It was as if the morning’s developments—the call from Katryn, the eye-opening flash of insight into Geoff’s motivations, the picture in the stairwell—had combined to shake loose the self-centered mopeyness that had dogged her for so long. The long night’s sleep and the great breakfast hadn’t hurt either. She felt as if a hundred-pound boulder had been unstrapped from her shoulders, as if she’d unexpectedly emerged from a long, dark tunnel that she’d dug for herself. It was all a question of perspective. The world was endlessly fascinating, if you looked at it right, with twists, and screw-ups, and surprises, delightful and otherwise, at every turn. What was so terrible about that? When things got wacky enough, as they’d certainly been lately, about all you could do was laugh.
She was young, healthy, and talented. She was alive. What was her beef? So things weren’t working out careerwise. Big deal. She could always go back to Italy, romantic, delightful Italy, and work and learn alongside the great Fabrizio Santullo, couldn’t she, and how many twenty-nine-year-olds could say that? He’d practically begged her to stay; he’d be thrilled to have her back.
There was something else that was warming her too, a glow she only now recognized for what it was. She’d had time to process what Ted had told her—how it had been her father who’d orchestrated practically all the good things that had been happening to her—and she saw things differently now. What in the world had there been to be resentful about? There was Geoff, ruined, shunned by everyone (including his only child), watching his remaining years waste away behind bars, and where had his thoughts been? With her, with Alix. He had used up what little professional capital he had left, not for himself, but to scrape up opportunities for her. And he had done it with no thought of gratitude or credit, but only for love. She felt the tears working their way up.
The chirping of her cell phone startled her and headed off any waterworks. She sat herself down on one of the portico’s blue wooden benches and flipped it open.
It was Ted, sounding as if he’d been awake every bit as long as she had. “Hi, Alix, I thought we’d better get straight on plans for today. The conference opens—”
“Wait,” she said, brimming with excitement, “I have some things to tell you, and I think you’re going to like them. There’s a small painting here that caught my eye, and when I took a closer look at it…”
It took five minutes to explain, and Ted was gratifyingly impressed, both by her discovery and the rationale for her conclusion, but his reaction to the big news itself wasn’t what she’d expected. It was, in fact, pretty lukewarm. Yes, it was nice that we now knew who the forger was, and Ted would most certainly look forward to a “chat” with him, but it wasn’t the forger he was after; Teal was very likely a minor figure in this, probably hired for a fixed fee. It was the major players that Ted wanted.
“But isn’t it possible that Teal can give you that information?” Alix asked.
“Possible,” Ted said doubtfully, “but usually a ring like this, assuming it is a ring, operates on the need-to-know principle. The less the minor players know, the better. I’d guess this guy was probably out of the loop altogether.”
“Okay, but what about him killing Liz? Isn’t that something you—”
“Teal didn’t kill Liz,” Ted said.
“What?” She’d started, inadvertently knocking the almost-full cup off the arm of the bench and splattering coffee over the cobblestones. “How can you say that with such certainty? We caught him coming—running—out of her office—”
“Yes, but two hours after Liz was killed.”
“Two hours?” she echoed. “I thought—”
“The ME’s finding at the scene was that she’d been dead two hours or less. Mendoza got the autopsy report yesterday: turns out two hours was just about right.”
“All right, but how does that prove he didn’t kill her?”
“It doesn’t prove it, Alix, but murderers don’t stick around after whacking someone. They want to get the hell out of there as soon as they can. Think about it: why would he be hanging around for all that time? It doesn’t make any sense. He’d just take the painting and go. No, somebody else killed her. Then Teal came along later, took advantage of the situation, and grabbed the picture.”
Alix sighed. Ted was right; they were still a long way from the bottom of things. “That raises something else that doesn’t make sense, though,” she said thoughtfully. “Why would he steal his own painting?”
“Now that’s a good question,” Ted agreed. “I’ll make that topic number one when we have that little chat. Alix, the conference opens with a ten o’clock continental brunch. We’d better be there for that. There’s bound to be lots of talk about Liz.”
“Okay, I’ll see you there.”
“Well.” He cleared his throat. “That gives us a few hours. Have you had breakfast yet?”
Had she had breakfast yet! More like breakfast, lunch, and dinner put together. “I had a bite, yes,” she repli
ed, then realized she’d blown what was going to be an invitation to join him. “But I could meet you for coffee?” she added brightly.
Apparently she’d taken too long to come up with it. “No, that’s okay,” he said. “I generally don’t have much of a breakfast anyway.” Pause. “So what are your plans for the morning?”
“I thought I’d get out and see a little of the area. The ladies in the kitchen told me about a nice park just down Morada Lane. I was thinking I might take a stroll there.”
Now it was Ted who’d been given his cue—Oh, really, well, why don’t I join you?—but he dropped the ball as clumsily as she had. “Yes, that’d be Kit Carson State Park. He lived here, you know, Carson did. Died here too, for that matter.”
“Oh, really.”
This was getting too ridiculous for words. They were circling around each other like a couple of sixteen-year-olds, interested but too ham-fisted to get anything going, and neither one of them could seem to figure out how to make the first move. He knew she was single, of course (he knew everything else about her), and her instincts, always so reliable, told her that he wasn’t married either, and that he found her attractive too. Or could it be that those famous intuitive powers of hers were reading him totally wrong? As with D. H. Lawrence, perhaps her aptitudes were better in some areas than in others.
“Well, I’ll see you later then?” she said. And there it was, one more opportunity for him to take the ball and run with it if he wanted to.
But apparently he didn’t. Or couldn’t. “Right,” he said, and the phone went dead.
“Fine,” she grumped into the mouthpiece although he wasn’t there to hear it. “A business relationship is what you want? A business relationship it is. Plenty of other fish in the sea.”
She needed a walk in the park now more than she had before the call, but first she thought she’d better change out of her good slacks and relatively new flats and get into sneakers and a pair of jeans in case she did get caught in a shower. Her windbreaker too. No sooner was she back in her room, however, than she started yawning. Impossible as it seemed after all the sleep she’d had, the bed looked wonderfully inviting. Well, why not? There was plenty of time for a nap before that continental brunch. She slipped out of her shoes and slacks, crawled gratefully between the sheets, sighed once, and drifted off again, undisturbed by Mabel’s ghost.
A Dangerous Talent (An Alix London Mystery) Page 21
