by Susan Fleet
“Maybe because of the previous heist,” Stanford said. “Six years ago they stole a Rembrandt.”
“Did they! Two thefts, two stolen Rembrandts? You think they're related?”
“Could be, sir. The hell of it is, there's been no ransom attempt on any of these paintings. They just disappear.”
“Private collector, perhaps? Some art lover with money to burn?”
Stanford didn't answer immediately. The myth of a shadowy art collector ordering stolen art was popular with the public, encouraged by movies like Dr. No, Topkapi and a recent remake of The Thomas Crown Affair. But the facts didn't warrant it.
Most art thieves didn't give a rat's ass about art. They wanted money. Whenever a painting by Van Gogh or Picasso or Matisse sold for big bucks, the robbers figured plenty more were lying about in museums, why not grab one and sell it? Not knowing that the more famous the painting, the more difficult it was to sell. On the legitimate market anyway. Shady art dealers were different. Often when stolen art was recovered, the thieves had to settle for a small percentage of the painting's actual worth, collecting a ransom or the insurance money.
“These heists have a similar feel to them,” Stanford said. “I figure it's a gang, but what the hell are they doing with the paintings?”
“Quite right,” Wolfe said. “The Oxford police haven't been able to question the security director. His wife died a year or so ago. They're trying to contact his son, but he's on holiday. No luck so far. They talked to the security guard's housemate, but the first go was useless. The girl went hysterical. But here's a scrap of good news.”
Stanford stifled a smile. Wolfe was known for his sarcasm, so he didn't let himself to get too excited.
“The police checked every car parked on the street within a two kilometer radius and got nothing, but they found a stolen Yaris in a parking garage three kilometers from the museum. The plate was stolen, too. The Yaris had been wiped clean, but the forensic blokes will put it under a microscope.”
“Want me to drive out to Oxford and have a look?” Stanford asked.
“Yes. You know the history of these heists. You might pick up something the Oxford cops didn't. Keep me informed. If I get any new information, I'll do the same.” DCS Wolfe rang off.
Stanford studied the scribbles he'd jotted on his notepad. Not much to go on, but maybe this time he'd get lucky. Sod all, he'd better. Eight art heists since 2004, including this one. He believed the same gang was responsible. Now they'd killed one man and put another in hospital.
He had to catch them before they killed again.
A tap sounded on his door and it opened. “Saw your line go dead,” said DI Carpenter. “Got some lovely news for you.” Judging by the twinkle in his eye, the lovely news was anything but. “Mrs. Wynkoop called. I told her you were on another line. She said she'd wait.”
“Ah, yes, Sonja. Can't imagine what she wants to talk about.”
Four years ago thieves had stolen a painting from the Frans Hals Museum in the Netherlands. Haarlem, to be precise. Sonja Wynkoop's husband was the security guard on duty the night of the theft. Three weeks later, Pieter Wynkoop died of a drug overdose. Sonja had been hounding him ever since.
“She saw the newsflash about the Oxford museum,” Carpenter said.
Stanford massaged his temples, his incipient headache in full bloom. He didn't want to talk to her, but if he didn't do it now, she'd keep calling until he did, and the next few days were going to be hectic.
“I'll take it on line two.”
“Line two it is,” Carpenter said.
When the line lit up, he raised the receiver. “Hello, Mrs. Wynkoop, nice to hear from you. What's caused you to ring me at this hour on a Sunday?”
“Hallo, Inspector Stanford. I could perhaps ask why you are in your office at this hour on a Sunday, but I already know. There's been another robbery, eh? Another art theft in your territory?”
Silently cursing the media, Stanford said, “Not my territory, Mrs. Wynkoop. In Oxford. That's quite a way from London.”
“And this time they killed the guard!”
Blast! So the murder was out. Not that he would admit it. “What makes you say that?”
“I saw it on the telly a half hour ago. The cable station.”
The gossip station was more like it, Stanford thought. “Afraid I can't comment on that.”
“Inspector, I have told you dozens of times, my Pieter was murdered! He was not a drug addict. My Pieter never used drugs. The robbers killed him!”
He'd never given much credence to her suspicions, but maybe he should talk to her. Better send a report on the latest heist to that New Orleans detective, too. Frank Renzi. But not tonight and probably not tomorrow. For the next forty-eight hours he'd be lucky to find time to take a leak. “Give me your phone number, Mrs. Wynkoop. I can't promise how soon, but let's have a chat.”
“Thank you!” Sonja Wynkoop exclaimed. “I promise you will not regret it!”
CHAPTER 4
Monday June 21, 2010 – 10:15 AM – New Orleans
Frank tapped on his boss's door, heard him shout, “It's open,” and entered the office. Hunched over his desk, Detective Lieutenant Morgan Vobitch looked up from a yellow legal pad, had a big scowl on his face, looked like he wanted to shoot someone.
Not a good sign, He needed a favor. Frank took the visitor chair in front of the desk. “What's up, Morgan? First thing Monday morning and you're already catching heat?”
Vobitch ran stubby fingers through his silvery-gray hair. “The bean counters at Headquarters think I got a magic wand, want me to solve the Rodriguez case fast and get the media off their necks. You see the editorial in the fucking local rag?” Vobitch's colorful name for the New Orleans Times Picayune.
“No. Enlighten me.”
“Some scumbag sexually assaulted a seven-year-old girl, beat her to death and left her in a vacant house in District Five. Her mother reported her missing last Wednesday. Friday night a crackhead called in a tip about a body in an abandoned house. Christ, we get better tips from the lowlifes than from people in the neighborhood. Needless to say, the girl's family is up in arms. The usual bullshit. The NOPD doesn't care about black crime. Hell, half the murders in this town involve black people, victims or shooters, one or the other.”
“And nobody's talking, right?”
“Right. And now we got this editorial blasting the D-5 cops. Not enough black officers and detectives, it said.” Vobitch tapped the legal pad with his pen. “So now I gotta shuffle my detectives.”
Vobitch supervised the homicide detectives in three high-crime areas. D-8, where Vobitch had his office, covered the French Quarter and the Central Business District. D-1 served the Iberville Project, Tremé, and part of the Seventh Ward. To the east, D-5 covered an even larger, more troublesome area.
“I got two pale-faces leading the investigation. I'm sending Kenyon Miller over there to talk to the family and the neighbors. Maybe he can shake something loose.”
“Good idea. Kenyon’s a member of the Black Neighborhood Association. He's good with the folks.” To lighten things up, he said, “How was your weekend?”
“So-so. Juliana dragged me to the opera Saturday night. Wagner. I hate Wagner.”
Vobitch had met Juliana, one of the few black ballerinas in New York, while working for NYPD. Not many people knew he was a classical music buff, a fact Vobitch had divulged one night when he took Frank out for a beer.
“Gimme Puccini any day. Those Italians knew how to spin out a gorgeous melody, right, Frank?”
Jiving him about his heritage. Vobitch was Jewish, but considered Frank a kindred spirit. When he found out Frank had worked for Boston PD, Vobitch had chortled, “Another damn Yankee, like me.”
“Great melodies,” Frank said, “but everybody dies in the end. Or so I've heard.”
Vobitch favored him with a rare smile. “You oughta go see one. Take Kelly. She might enjoy it.”
He tried to pict
ure Kelly dolled up in a dress at the opera, mesmerized by an Italian aria. The image brought a smile to his face. Digging Dr. John at the Snug Harbor jazz club was more like it.
“So what brings you to my office bright and early on a Monday morning?”
“I need to take a trip.”
Vobitch gave him a sly look. “Honeymoon with Kelly?”
Frank burst out laughing. “Honeymoon! You trying to give me a heart attack?”
“So what's this trip you need to take?”
“Last week I got a report from a London cop about some art heists. A witness saw the thief leave one of the museums and thought it might have been a woman. I think it was Natalie.”
Vobitch's slate-gray eyes widened. “Be a helluva catch if it was. When was this? After poor little Natalie got done killing people in New Orleans? What makes you think it was her?”
“We know she lived in Paris for a while.”
“No, Frank, we don't know she lived in Paris. All we know is what she wrote in her diary. You think a killer is going to tell the truth?”
He knew better than to answer that one. But he'd read the diary and to him it rang true. “According to the diary, she studied art while she was working for that escort service in Paris.”
“Frank, the guy said he never heard of her.”
True. Two years ago he had phoned the manager of the escort service. When he asked about Natalie Brixton, the man said, “No one by that name has ever worked here.”
“How about a beautiful part-Vietnamese woman who speaks French?”
After a long pause, one that told Frank the answer would be a Big Lie, the man said, “I'm sorry Detective Renzi. I cannot help you.”
Which had ended that short and not-so-sweet conversation.
“I think she escaped to London,” Frank said, “and joined a gang of art thieves.”
“Why would she do that? Seems to me she'd lie low and behave herself for a change.”
“Why does anybody steal things? She needs money. The last four heists fit the time frame. Similar MO. Early morning heists, no sign of forced entry, only one guard on duty.”
Vobitch tapped his pen on his desk, laden as usual with pink message slips. “An inside job?”
“Maybe. They questioned the guards, but got nowhere.”
Vobitch smiled, a sardonic smile that spoke volumes about his opinion of witnesses. “Sounds like they got a bunch of Know-Nothings like we got here. Some guy gets shot in broad daylight in front of ten witnesses and nobody saw a thing. What happened to the paintings?”
“Still missing. No ransom demands, nothing. I want to go to London and talk to the witness who saw her.”
“Frank, I want to catch her too. She killed three men in my jurisdiction, including Chip Beaubien, who, if you believe the tape she sent you, was the son of the man who murdered her mother. Poor Natalie, the little girl with the traumatic childhood. Bullshit. She's a stone-cold killer.”
“All the more reason to send me to London.”
“And don't forget the guy she killed up in Boston.” A Sherman tank with a compact body, a leonine head and a mane of silvery hair, Vobitch was working up a head of steam. He smiled but his eyes were cold. “Oliver James, the former CIA agent with the racist CIA-agent buddy.”
Frank couldn't resist goading him. “Heard from him lately?”
“That guy ever calls me again I'll shoot an ice pick into his ear. A gimmick I've been working on, let's you kill obnoxious people over the phone. It's not perfected yet, but ...” Vobitch shrugged.
“Morgan, this is the first lead I've had in two years.”
“Yeah, well, I'm not sending you to London because some witness saw a thief leave an art museum in the dark of night and thought it was a woman—”
“A woman with a distinctive walk. Long legs, he said. Sexy.”
“Frank, I can't authorize a trip based on a cockamamie story like that. The bigwigs would crucify me.”
His temper flared and heat flooded his cheeks. That was Natalie leaving the museum, dammit! He rose from the chair, planted his palms on the desk and said, “Morgan, you're not the one she shot. I want her.”
Vobitch blinked, then silently stared at him. At last he said, “I know you do, Frank. And I don't blame you, but I can't send you to London. Not without something to go on. Get me some evidence I can use to persuade the people at Headquarters. A solid lead that links it to the New Orleans murders.”
Knowing the battle was lost, he backed off. But he wasn't going to quit. He was going to London, even if he had pay for the damn trip himself.
“Okay. But if it turns out to be Natalie, you'll owe me a fancy dinner at Muriel’s.”
“If you catch Natalie I'll do better than that. I'll send you to London for your honeymoon.”
Now Vobitch was jiving him again, and he wasn't in the mood for it.
“Did you tell Kelly the carjacker came at me with a knife?”
Vobitch made his eyes go wide with innocence. “What could I do? She heard about it on the squawk box in her cruiser and called me.”
“Well, next time she calls and asks you what I'm doing, try being a Know-Nothing.”
Vobitch gave him The Look. “Frank, you're the best detective I got. Go catch some thugs.”
_____
Shropshire County, Northwest of London
“Tell me what you know about Vermeer,” Pym said, fixing her with his pale gray eyes.
Startled by the request, she said, “The artist?”
They were having pre-dinner cocktails in their suite on the second floor of Sir Edmund Foxhill's country estate, an enormous three-story Tudor with gleaming oak floors and massive fieldstone fireplaces. She wasn't looking forward to eating another meal with Foxhill and his wife, pretending to be Pym's live-in girlfriend.
“Yes, Valerie, the artist. Surely you've heard of him.”
“Of course. Who hasn't heard of Vermeer?”
“Have you seen his paintings?”
“I saw The Lacemaker in the Louvre. Gorgeous, and so tiny.”
Pym smiled as though she'd just aced his art-history exam. “Yes. It's his smallest painting. Is that the only Vermeer you've seen?” He waved a dismissive hand. “Not some photograph in a book. In a museum.”
Why was he quizzing her about Vermeer? She pretended to sip her brandy, but didn't swallow any. She couldn't afford to let her guard down, not for a second. Being Valerie every minute of the day and night was stressful. Yesterday, Pym had been uncharacteristically silent, riding beside her in the limousine, gazing out the window. To her relief, he'd said nothing about the Oxford heist.
But that didn't stop Gregor's words from playing in her mind. Kill them, or you will die too. Gregor, the man she'd never met and never wanted to meet.
“Well? Have you?” Pym demanded.
“No, unfortunately. But he didn't do many paintings.”
“Thirty-five have been authenticated. That's what makes them so valuable.”
Her palms dampened with sweat. Had one of his wealthy collectors ordered a Vermeer? Surely he wasn't going to ask her to steal The Lacemaker. The Louvre had the best security of any museum in Paris.
Pym drank some brandy and set the snifter on the Italian marble table between them. “Holland was once the most powerful country in Europe. Wealthy merchants commissioned paintings from famous Dutch artists like Vermeer.” Gazing at her intently, he said, “You know van Meegeren?”
“No. Is he another Dutch painter?”
“A Dutch faker is more like it. During the 1930s he forged several Vermeers. A clever fellow, van Meegeren. He bought authentic 17th century canvases, mixed his paints according to the formulas of Vermeer's day and used badger-hair brushes similar to the ones Vermeer supposedly used.”
“Did he get away with it?”
“For a while. In 1937 he painted The Supper at Emmaus, got some fool to authenticate it as a Vermeer and sold it for a huge sum. In 1942 his agent sold one of his fake Vermeer
s to a Nazi banker. The banker sold it to Hermann Goring, the Nazi art collector. After the war the Allied forces found it and traced it to van Meegeren.”
Pym began to cough, an uncontrolled spasm that lasted several seconds. He took out some tissues and spat into them. He cleared his throat and said, “The Dutch authorities charged him with aiding and abetting the enemy, which carried serious penalties. After spending three days in jail, van Meegeren admitted he had forged several paintings attributed to Vermeer.”
Her mind raced, trying to make sense of it. At times Pym made casual conversation, but this wasn't one of them. His demeanor was far too intense, far too emotional. “What happened to him?”
“In 1947, a Dutch court found him guilty of forgery and fraud and sentenced him to a year in prison. But he never served a day. He died of a heart attack.” Pym was about to say more, but his cellphone rang.
When he answered, she rose from her chair and wandered the room. His talk about Vermeer made her nervous. The theft of a Vermeer at the Gardner Museum in Boston in 1990 had made headlines around the world. Her art-history teacher in Paris, a Frenchman with a pencil-thin mustache, had told her about it. That Vermeer was still missing. Did Pym want her to steal a Vermeer?
If she were in London she'd get on her laptop and find out where his paintings were. But she wasn't in London, and she had no privacy here. Sleep was impossible with Pym lying in bed beside her, and every muscle in her body ached from the stress of playing her Valerie role. And it was far from over. She still had to get through tonight and endure the long drive back to London tomorrow.
Pym closed his cellphone. “Dinner is served. Let's go downstairs.”
Hoping for a clue that might explain why Pym had told her about van Meegeren, she said, “I'm surprised I never heard of van Meegeren. What do the art critics say about him?”
