Alex Ames - Calendar Moonstone 01 - A Brilliant Plan

by Alex Ames

  “Thomas, so good to see you.” I said, “Unfortunately, the gallery is closed for business today due to a crime.”

  Cornelius gave us his widest American toothpaste-advertising smile to morph into the apologetic mouth that acknowledged the tragedy. “I have heard, of course. That is why I am here. But this gentleman,” he pointed toward the policeman, “would not let me through.”

  He wore a black suit over a black turtleneck, Armani. His blue eyes could be charming one minute and cool the other. His gray, carefully groomed short hair, together with his healthy tan, gave him a look of quiet authority, someone you didn’t doubt.

  Ron listened to our small reunion of friends from the sideline but the cop got the better of him. “Are you a business associate of Mr. Altward?” He retrieved, flashed and put away his badge in one very smooth motion.

  Cornelius gave Ron a longer look, glanced back at me, noticed that I wasn’t wearing handcuffs and gave a slow nod. “Yes, Mr. Altward and I are partners in a couple of art deals.”

  “How impolite of me not to introduce you,” I suddenly chirped in. “Thomas, this is Detective McCloseky of the SDPD. Ron, this is the famous art collector Thomas Cornelius III, from New York City.”

  Ron asked innocently. “A collector? You collect precious gemstones? Got something from Calendar in your collection already? I heard that she is unique.” If one were a shady character with something to hide, one could hear Ron’s underlying suspicion. But good old Thomas was much too suave to care much less notice.

  “I assure you that Calendar is very unique. But no, nothing from her in my possession, yet. I specialize in art from the late nineteenth century. Precious gems, jewelry, paintings, sculptures, furniture. Our friend Calendar is talented, no doubt, but I always wait for the opinion of history as to what to collect or not.”

  “What Thomas is trying to say is that I must be dead and gone for at least 100 years before he will consider my work,” I explained.

  Thomas put his long aristocratic arm around me. “But that sad day will be long after my own passing, Cal.” This definitely meant that he would have me killed in the next few days.

  I forced a smile and snuggled into the arms of my future killer. “Thanks for the praise.” I said.

  Ron asked, “Do you happen to collect works of Patrick Monte-oat as well?” I wasn’t sure whether he mispronounced it intentionally, since he had heard my pronunciation before.

  “Montee-oat? Oh, Montenhaute! No, he is eighteenth century, not my taste. You could delight my grandmother with his stuff though. The eighteenth century was much too decadent and aimless for my taste. But around 1900, you could feel the turn of the times in art.”

  Ron switched subjects and clarified things. “Mr. Altward is not in; maybe you should try his home?”

  “Oh, thank you, I must have been misinformed.” Thomas looked at me while he spoke. “Calendar, I hope we have a chance to talk about pleasure and business both in the next few days.” He pressed my hands for a second, shook Ron’s hand with a nod and went back to his small but expensive Mercedes SLK, black of course, and sped off.

  Thomas Cornelius III was probably the one most organized crime czar of the East Coast and when he meant business, he meant business. The instant one of his minions spotted my arrival at the Altward Gallery he had come over to deliver his message personally.

  And the message was, “You stole something that I planned to steal; hand it over.”

  However, I was pretty sure that whatever I stole the night before was not the stuff in which he was interested. I was also pretty sure that he was looking for the items that the killer had stolen. And I was well aware that it would become a little difficult for me to explain the double burglary at Altward’s gallery to Thomas. Such coincidence did not exist in his vocabulary.

  Things were getting complicated.

  Chapter 8

  RON DROPPED ME off at The House of the Moon and I stepped up to the porch. It was around midnight; my parents were obviously out, since the cats were still prowling around in the garden, waiting patiently for the late night milk my mom would be putting on the patio before closing shop.

  I felt dead tired, the mess of the bungled job, the dead night watchman, the closeness of the police, Ron’s nice smile and eyes and then the appearance of Thomas Cornelius. Not to mention Fowler Wynn. I opened the door to my room, prepared to jump into my soft bed and simply fall asleep without bothering to undress, when I spotted Mundy reading Huckleberry Finn, Junior Edition.

  He looked at me and immediately read my distress.

  “You’re back.”

  “You’re here.”

  “Where else.”

  “I am dead.”

  “You look like it,” Mundy stated and got up, snapping the book shut, the sound made me jump. “Whoa, I see nerves!”

  “Mundy, can you shut up and hold me for a second?” I suddenly sniveled through the mist of my eyes.

  “Are you acting the part now?” Mundy didn’t know whether to play along or whether to step back from me.

  “For real! Hold me please,” I cried. Mundy stepped forward, made two awkward attempts to hug me, our arms were in each other’s way but finally we simply stood in the middle of my childhood room, holding each other. I snuggled up to his neck, spilled a few tears in his hair and got patted repeatedly on the back. Mundy’s way of saying he was there for me.

  After a final sniff, I drew back and fetched a tissue from the bathroom. When I came back, he had retreated to the petite writing desk, doodling on a Disney notepad. He didn’t look at me due to embarrassment.

  “You want to talk about it? Fowler Wynn?” was Mundy’s guess.

  “I met Thomas Cornelius tonight,” I started.

  “Who is Thomas Cornelius?”

  I sat down on my little girl couch and drew my legs up under me. “Thomas Cornelius III is a renowned and respected collector and curator of fine arts. He is one of the foremost authorities on American art of the last, well, the nineteenth century.”

  “The Third, eh?”

  “His family is old money. In East Coast terms, this means nineteenth century money. Railroad and shipping.”

  “Oh, those Cornelius. The Rockefeller Astor Cornelius I am impressed that you know someone that prominent.”

  “We met before several times but never got into any business dealings so far.”

  Mundy’s eyes grew to slits. “Why is he bothering you so much?”

  I drew a deep breath. “Because Thomas Cornelius is the greatest dealer of stolen gemstones and jewels along the East Coast. His network controls every criminal transaction involving stolen gem art east of the Mississippi. Nothing goes without his saying. Talking about organized with a capital ‘O.’”

  “A fence? He’s got a secret identity as a fence?” Mundy’s mouth fell open.

  “Mundy, he is not ‘a’ fence. He is called ‘The Fence’ by criminals and authorities alike. Not many people know his true identity. He is working through several layers of trusted middlemen and a computer network. The middlemen structure is build very similar to the Mafia. Someone near him is arrested; he walks the walk but he talks no talk.”

  “Cornelius has never been arrested then?”

  “Not even suspected. Never had anything traced to him. Concerning the police and the New York art society, his shirt is spotless. And most of the underworld only knows him by his nickname ‘The Fence.’”

  “Which brings us to the question as to how you two master criminals originally met,” Mundy prodded.

  “To make a long story short, we had a relationship when I was living back East with Uncle Mortimer.”

  Mundy’s mouth fell with an almost comical expression. “You went to… ” He caught himself and his manners in time. “You went out with a master criminal.”

  “In fact, we were engaged and were about to marry.”

  Mundy’s mouth stayed open, overload. “You… ”

  “I didn’t know it at the time!�
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  Mundy stopped. His gear was rattling inside his skull. He finally gave up trying to comprehend and simply asked, “How did you find out about his secret identity? Pillow talk?”

  I cleaned one thumb’s nail with the other. “It came out one day when curiosity got the better of me and I opened a safe I wasn’t supposed to open.”

  “Let me guess, the safe belonged to him!”

  I gave a tight-lipped nod and crinkled my nose. There was much more to that story but this wasn’t the time to let Mundy’s brain explode and splatter all over the room.

  Fortunately, Mundy let go of Thomas’ and my history. “You two seem to synchronize your actions well, don’t you think? What is the chance that years later you two raid the same location at the same time?”

  “That is the worst of it! I think he was about to raid the Altward gallery. But someone was faster and had already nicked the stuff that was due to belong to The Fence.”

  “With you in the middle….”

  “Mi-ddle.” I slumped back into my couch, feeling small.

  “Can’t you simply tell him the truth? Get it over with; throw in the old relationship and all.”

  “Let’s not raise his blood pressure unnecessarily. What are the chances he will believe me? Two groups hitting the very same spot at the exact same time?”

  “What are the chances that you actually stole his stuff?”

  “Trust me, the chances are zero. What I took from the back-office safe is not in the style of someone as big as Thomas ‘The Fence’ Cornelius III. Or his sense in beauty and value has declined dramatically in the last few years.”

  Mundy cocked his head to listen. “Your parents are back.”

  “Let’s call it a night,” I said, “I need to get up early tomorrow.”

  “But tomorrow is the day after Thanksgiving?”

  “Policewoman has to work.” I said as I stood up and went over to the walk-in closet to retrieve the winter blankets and some sheets for Mundy.

  “And that is another story altogether,” Mundy groaned and prepared to sleep on the couch. He bustled and shuffled with the blankets and cushion and finally settled down. Very formally, like two strangers on a bus, we wished each other a good night. Mundy was too shy to make any remarks about sleeping with the woman of his dreams, and I was simply too tired to care.

  The last duty of the day was the setting of my old alarm clock. I simply fell onto my bed, left switching off the light to Mundy and slept.

  Chapter 9

  THE NEXT MORNING was a typical San Diego autumn day with sunshine and 70 degree temperatures. Mundy snored lightly on his couch as I tiptoed around him to dress. The house was still asleep when Ron picked me up and we rode to Andrew Altward’s apartment in Downtown San Diego’s Marina district.

  During the ride, Ron rattled off some information about Altward, most of which I already knew.

  I asked, “By the way, do the guys from the gallery have alibis?”

  “Let’s see. The second partner, Faulkner, is still away on business in Mexico City. He’s supposed to come up tonight. Pretty solid. We’ll talk to him tomorrow. Serge, the assistant, was out with his boyfriend, seen by several people. They were out partying most of the night. Altward was dining out with a customer and afterwards he went home. His alibi is the weakest, cuts the time frame pretty tight.”

  Altward lived in a penthouse with an expensive view and a terrace garden. A Spanish maid opened the door and led us onto the roof top terrace. Potted palms provided shade, a small fountain was making soothing sounds and wind chimes were dangling away somewhere out of sight. Andrew Altward was like a small-scale version of Thomas Cornelius. Scratch all the old money and one or two zeroes on the personal worth and you got an art dealer with a very good local reputation with the museum and collector community and some valuable connections to the East Coast and the L.A. and San Francisco scenes. He looked younger than his middle fifties, dark hair without specks of gray, fashionably long. He sported a thin mustache that started to twirl on the edges giving him a pre World War One look.

  He looked worried. On shaking hands, he immediately asked, “When will I be able to reopen my gallery, Detective?”

  Ron gave him a professional smile. I was making a sport out of reading his face and deciding which mimic was genuine and which one was purely professional. He replied, “The crime scene investigators have finished. You need to clean up, of course, but from our side you could start business right away.”

  “And the Calder?”

  “Impounded, of course.”

  Gesturing with considerable bravado, Altward threw an agitated hand in the air, “You know how much that piece is worth?”

  “I understand your problem, Sir,” Ron explained patiently, “but it is a murder weapon. Therefore, it is evidence and can only be released after we are sure that it will not be needed in an eventual trial.”

  Altward looked as if he was ready to explode as he mentally calculated the months or years until he would see the Calder mobile again.

  To lighten the mood, I said, “But imagine the collector’s value of a Calder murder mobile.” My concept of playing good cop, bad cop.

  Altward gave me a sharp glance as if he had noticed me for the first time and Ron took the chance to introduce me. “Miss Moonstone is acting as a consultant in this case.”

  Altward and I shook hands and he asked, “Are you from the insurance company, too?”

  “No, independent freelance,” I answered, deadpan.

  “We do that sometimes to help us with certain aspects of a case.”

  “You are from here? Have we met before?” Altward inquired.

  I shook my head. “I have a store in Redondo Beach. I design jewelry.”

  Whether he recognized my name, or me, he didn’t say. Then he gave me another long look as if to decide into which category to put me. Altward offered us sodas, which we declined, and seats, which we took. We situated ourselves around a large wooden dining table. Placed centrally on the large terrace, it was obviously used for all kinds of work and living purposes.

  Altward patted a small stack of paper and files. “You asked for photos and descriptions of the stolen goods.” He spread out several high-resolution color photographs from a large envelope. “Here are the four pieces that are missing.”

  Ron and I bent over the photos and he gave me a questioning look. Time to work for my consultant fee. “All four pieces were created by a French jeweler shortly before the French Revolution in 1775. Patrice Montenhaute was one of the royal jewelers. He did repairs and modifications and created a large number of smaller pieces.”

  Altward gave a curt nod and added. “His family was from Malta originally and settled in Paris around 1750. He learned the trade and developed his own style; the double row of small stones framing his subjects is one of his trademarks.”

  I pointed out to Ron what Altward had meant on the photographs.

  “What is the value of the pieces?” he asked.

  Altward gave the predictable answer. “They were insured for a total sum of about five hundred thousand dollars. Mr. Wynn, the insurance agent, verified this fact for me last night.”

  “How can the thief turn them into money?” Ron thought along practical lines.

  “Same way he can turn a car radio or a stolen TV set into money. By offering it to the right people.” Andrew Altward looked a little impatiently at Ron. “Isn’t that your line of work, Officer?”

  Ron gave a polite smile. “What I meant is do you know any of the fencing sources in this area?”

  “Excuse me?” Altward appeared a little shaken. Again, his impatience showed.

  “Forget the question, Sir,” Ron said and pulled another one. “Where were you at the time of the murder?”

  “I gave you that answer yesterday, out with a customer and then in bed,” Altward was visibly annoyed.

  “No real alibi, if you ask me.”

  “Is that a statement or a question?”

>   “A statement,” Ron answered.

  “Had I known I needed an alibi, I would have arranged for one,” Altward shrugged. “Had I planned to raid my own shop, I would offer you a very solid alibi, indeed. Otherwise, it would be plain stupid.”

  “You wouldn’t believe it, but some thieves are,” Ron was all business. “Can we keep those pictures?”

  “Please, take them. What a nightmare.”

  Ron continued down the items in his notebook. “Do you have any idea why this particular set of pieces was stolen? I noticed that the displays in your safe are all secured the same way with hardened glass and a Definer-lock.”

  “Sorry, I can’t tell you that. As you said, after entering the main safe room, he had free choice.”

  Time to earn some of my free lunches. “In your opinion, was the Montenhaute set selected for a specific reason?”

  Altward rubbed his hands. Was that an indicator of not telling the truth? Had to ask Ron about that later. “Montenhaute has his aficionados; that is for sure.”

  I nodded in agreement, old Patrice certainly did.

  “Did many people know of the Montenhaute set on display?”

  Altward gave Ron another ‘Do-I-pay-for-your-questions-with-my-taxes’ look.

  “What Officer McCloseky means is did any of your customers show particular interest in the Montenhaute set lately?”

  Altward looked at me again and from the corner of my eyes, I could see a smile playing around Ron’s lips.

  “Yes, there were some, of course. There are not too many pieces on the shop market. Most of them go through the big auction houses.”

  I was in full detective mode now. “Could you try to remember the names or times so we could run the names and faces against our computers?” Our computers, I was one of ‘them’ now.

  “Some of the names I know, I will find them in my client database. I will also have to ask Paul Faulkner and our assistant. With faces, do you mean the security tapes?” I nodded eagerly. “Sure, I know the approximate dates and times. The security company can send me the DVD and I will try to do the spotting.”