by Cassie Page
Russ said, “And you’ll call us immediately, if not sooner?”
Olivia noted the sarcasm in his voice, but Charles hadn’t taken offence.
“Of course, man. Of course. Now have some refreshments. We got some nice crullers, here. Coffee, etc., etc.”
He turned and called to his maid. “Marie? Howsabout some hot coffee for the folks.”
He turned to his guests. “Marie, she makes good coffee, yeah?”
Olivia poured herself a cup from the silver pot on the mantle. She turned to go back to her seat, just as Alistair came up behind her. She bumped into him, spilling her coffee. A few drops splashed on his shoes and he swore at her. “These are new shoes, for crying out loud.”
“I’m really sorry, Alistair. I didn’t realize you were behind me.”
She put her cup down and grabbed a napkin to help clean up the spill. He brushed her away. “You’ve done enough damage. I can do this.”
When she stood up she looked around to see if anyone else had noticed.
Can You Hear Me Now?
“Where were you last night?
“What do you mean? I was here.”
“I tried to call you and you didn’t pick up.”
“My cell died. I had to charge it.”
“Don’t give me that. I called you for four hours straight. You’re avoiding me, aren’t you?”
“I’m not.”
“The next time I can’t reach you on your phone I’m coming after you, you hear that? Well do you? Answer me.”
“Okay, okay.”
“Now listen. You’ve screwed up enough.”
“What are you talking about? Things are under control.”
“The State is sticking its nose in the project now. You call that under control? Listen, we have another job for you. And if you mess up, I’m going to kick you into next week. You got that? Here’s what you need to do.”
“I can’t take you yelling at me. Stop it.”
“Are you raising your voice to me? What have I told you about that? Now pull yourself together. And keep your cell phone on in case I need to talk to you. I’ll check in with you later to see how your plans are coming.”
“What plans?”
“You idiot. What did I just tell you to do?”
“Okay.”
“Let me hear you say it louder. Like you mean it and I can depend on you.”
“OKAY!”
Chapter Eleven: I Don’t Know Much About Art, But
11:1
Wednesday afternoon
Olivia pulled on her rain boots and grabbed her down hiking jacket. Odd smells came from the kitchen where Tuesday was brewing one of her cleansing teas. She walked into the kitchen wrinkling her nose.
“Glad that’s your medicine, not mine.”
“It would make you feel like a new woman, sunshine.”
Olivia gathered up her keys and iPad. “Promises, promises. I’m afraid I’ll have to make do with the old one.”
Tuesday yawned as she stirred. “That blinking cat kept me up again last night and I’m cross-eyed from lack of sleep. If this doesn’t restore my vital signs I don’t know what will.”
Olivia slapped her forehead. “Oh, no. The cat. I forgot again. I promise I will hunt down the owners if there is any light left after the site visit. You going to be okay on your own until I get back?”
Tuesday strained the contents of a saucepan into a cup, tossing a mound of herbs and twigs into the garbage disposal, which whisked them away as soon as she flicked the switch. “Sure. If I get bored I’ll knock on Elise’s door and see if she would like her Tarot cards read.”
“I thought you didn’t know the Tarot cards.”
“Oh, I know them, just not well enough to charge for a reading.”
“So Elise, er, Mrs. Harmon is your guinea pig?”
“Sort of. It’s helping us bond. She’s very deep you know.”
“Actually, I wouldn’t know. She barely says hello to me.”
“You’re not trying.”
Olivia gave a puzzled shake of her head. “She makes me a little crazy, actually. She was very cold and distant when I bought the house and took over her tenancy. Then after we got all that nasty business about her husband’s murder cleared up, for a while you’d think I walked on water. Now it’s the cold shoulder again. I can’t figure her out and right now I don’t have time for it. The environmental folks have an expert on the indigenous tribes of this area. I hope we get some determination about the property today.”
“What time is Matt picking you up?”
“In about five minutes. Oh, what am I thinking? I picked up the truck keys automatically. I’ll leave them here in case you want to go anyplace. I should be gone about two hours. I’m thinking I’ll leave the security guard with you. Nothing will happen to me while I’m with two detectives.”
Tuesday said, “Fine by me. Any chance I get a hottie today?”
“Tuesday! What would Clipper say?”
“Just kidding. Got to stay in practice.” She stuck out her left hand and wiggled a finger. “He hasn’t put a ring on it yet.”
Olivia laughed at her irrepressible friend, catching a whiff of Tuesday’s concoction heating up on the stove. She wrinkled her nose.
“Ewww. Time for me to go.” She gathered up the pizza boxes from the night before. “I’m going to bring this down to the trash cans. Do you have anything for the recycling?”
“Nah. I’m good.”
Her cell rang as she was stuffing the boxes into the blue bin. She stopped to answer. “Pierre, how nice to hear from you. Are you back from your conference?”
He told her he was at De Gaulle airport on his way home. “I received that photo of the Sutcliffe painting.”
“Pretty exciting, isn’t it?” She closed the lid and walked down the driveway to wait for Matt at the curb. She had forgotten about the painting in the Fredericks’ house. There had been too many other things to think about.
“I mean to find a posthumous painting by such a famous artist. I’m not the expert you are, Pierre, but I believe this will rock the art world. I wish I had been able to snag that for my client. It’s not what she usually collects, but that piece is an investment, don’t you think?”
“Olivia, it’s an investment of about twenty dollars in canvas and paint.”
She was checking the mailbox, something her former assistant used to do for her. His comment stopped her cold. “Pierre, what are talking about?”
“I’d need to examine it closely to look at the brush strokes. But I know Sutcliffe’s work. We were close friends, as you know. I’m aware of every one of his paintings. I can’t say for sure without looking at it in my studio, but I’m pretty sure that your client’s painting is a fake.”
Olivia paced on the sidewalk, trying to make sense of Pierre’s news. “I don’t understand. The designer who presented it to my client accepted it as genuine. Though I don’t know his bona fides as an art historian, he’s been in the design business for years. He’s pretty savvy, actually. I think it would be hard to pull a fast one on him.”
This was an art dealer’s, or in Olivia’s case, an antique dealer’s worst nightmare. Paying an outrageous sum for a piece and then discovering it’s a counterfeit. She had taken many courses in detecting forgeries to protect herself and her clients from this very thing. She wouldn’t want to be in Hamish’s shoes when Marguerite found out.
She heard static on the line and then Pierre came back on. “I think he was, Olivia. Duped, that is. I haven’t heard of anyone trying to copy Sutcliffe’s work. It is so distinctive and he had his paintings completely cataloged before he died. He told me he didn’t have any pictures hidden away, even unfinished ones. Everything’s in the catalog. He was also stingy. He never gave any of his work as gifts. He put everything up for sale. I’d like to come out there and see it. This is quite serious. You know how much his work commands. If I’m right, this is significant fraud and has to be stopped.”
/> Olivia checked her watch. Matt was minutes away. “Pierre, I’m completely taken aback. I have to think how to handle this. I’m not sure I was even supposed to see the picture. It had been given to my client on spec.”
Pierre’s call was breaking up. But she heard, “A painting worth a quarter of a million dollars handed over to someone on spec? That’s not the way I work. A painting isn’t a piece of furniture, you know, where you take it home to see if it matches your sofa.”
“You’re right. I hadn’t thought of that.”
Olivia saw Matt’s car turn the corner. “Pierre, I have to go. I’ll get back to you. Have a safe trip home.”
11:2
Detective Johnson rode in the back to allow Olivia the comfort of the passenger seat. They were meeting with Charles, Scott, and Russ at the site to go over some new discoveries. Matt agreed to give Olivia a ride in case Tuesday wanted to use her truck. She was pretty much a prisoner in the house unless Olivia was driving her somewhere.
Olivia was quiet as they got underway, contemplating Pierre’s bombshell. Matt explained the reason for the get together at the site.
“What I heard was that Dr. Lauren’s colleague is an expert on the tribes in this area. They seem to have found some new artifacts. They wanted to explain this new development to us in person.”
Matt turned off Darling Boulevard to head out to the foothills toward the site.
Olivia said, “That doesn’t sound good for us.”
Johnson broke in. “It’s a long shot, but they may have some information about Fisher’s death.”
“How could they help with that?”
Johnson said, “You never know where a tip will come from. It won’t hurt to see what they have to say. Our working theory is that he was killed in the wooded area while he was working and then dumped in the groundbreaking site. The rain left an imprint of what appears to be a struggle and then a body being dragged. Some of the attendees at the ceremony walked around the edge of that forest but only four sets of footprints are deep inside the wood.”
“Are you counting Russ and his girlfriend, er, assistant?” Olivia asked.
Matt looked into the rear view mirror to get confirmation from Johnson. “Yes, they account for two sets. Russ was very cooperative when I asked him about wandering deep into the woods where the meditation center is planned. They were conferencing as he put it.”
Johnson snickered. “That’s a new word for it. In my day they called it old fashioned . . . “
Olivia said, “Point taken, Detective.”
Then she turned to Matt. “And the other two prints?
“Jed’s foreman gave me a run down on the victim’s duties. He was a logger by trade from up around Fort Bragg. He marked the trees to be cleared and supervised getting the logs and stumps out of there. They had cleared some trees, then had to leave the site alone for a few days during the rain. We’re not sure why Jed went back in the night before the ceremony. He was very conscientious. We assume he was marking more trees, but maybe he was looking for more artifacts. We don’t know, but we saw plenty of boot prints, and we matched them to his. He was still wearing them when he was found.”
Olivia recalled seeing the young man’s corpse at the ceremony and shuddered. “What a horrible way to die,” she said.
“Coroner said he thought he died instantly. We’re confused by the second set of boot prints. They were dress boots, more casual than rugged work boots.”
Olivia remembered how important shoe prints were from the first time a dead body appeared in her life. “And you don’t think they were Russ’s?”
Matt said, “Could be, but he has an alibi for the time we think Fisher was killed.”
Olivia said, “Can you get prints and match them to a shoe brand? Would that help?”
Matt sneezed. In the damp weather they’d been having, she hoped he wasn’t coming down with a cold. She also hoped she wouldn’t catch it. Matt pulled out his handkerchief and answered her question.
“Doubtful. We really just got outlines. The scuffle and mud ruined the second set of prints. But we know for sure someone was there and whatever happened, it wasn’t peaceful. Jed Fisher did not fall into that ceremonial ground by accident.”
Olivia said, “So if he was killed in the woods and dragged to ceremony site, that means he was definitely murdered.”
Matt nodded in agreement.
“You hadn’t told me that. That it’s definitive. Any clue as to what killed him?”
Johnson had this information. He looked at his notes on his electronic notepad. “Well he sustained a puncture wound of some kind to the neck. It left an impression of the weapon, like a bruise, but that was not the lethal blow. He died of, I hope I get this right, commotio cordis.”
Olivia did a double take. “I beg your pardon? Cord what?”
“It’s why there was no blood on the body or at the scene. The killer had some kind of weapon and punched Fisher in the chest. It stopped his heart.“
“Wow, so you’re looking for a big bruiser. A weight lifter or someone like that.”
Matt looked over at her with a wry grin. “You’d think. But it was a freakish blow. The killer wouldn’t have had to hit him very hard. Jed could actually have been attacking the guy himself, and in self-defense the guy pushed him back with a bat or something. We still haven’t traced the weapon.”
Olivia said, “I don’t understand. How could pushing on his chest kill him?”
Matt turned down the road to the site, slowing down for potholes. The suspension on the unmarked police car was not ideal and the ride turned bumpy as he related what the coroner had told him.
“It caused sudden cardiac arrest. Chances are one in a million, but there is a point during a heartbeat, we’re talking about a millisecond, when the heart is vulnerable to a blow to the chest. The coroner said you see it in young boys playing sports. I’m sure you’ve read about it in the news.
“Sudden death in a healthy kid. Seems like a mystery. But their chest bone,” he stroked his sternum, “is not fully formed. Not real strong to protect the heart. If they get an elbow to the chest in a contact sport or something like that and the heart rhythm is just so, then boom. That’s all it takes. A second before or a second later, nothing would happen. It’s a perfect storm. You couldn’t plan it. Couldn’t make it happen unless you had the person hooked up to a heart monitor I guess to look for the right moment to hit the guy. If you have a defibrillator handy, you can bring them back, but the mortality rate is like 100% without one.”
Olivia shook her head in disbelief. “So unless you talk to the killer, you won’t know if it was intentional and he got in a lucky shot or they were in a pitched battle. . . “
Matt finished her sentence. “ . . . and it was still a lucky shot. We don’t know why he buried him in the groundbreaking site. Just trying to hide the body, plain and simple, but it was a dumb move. If he’d just left him there it would have looked like a heart attack. Even on autopsy, it looks like a heart attack.”
“So how do you know he had this commotion thing?”
“Because there’s a mark on his chest, right over his heart. Not a big bruise, but enough to show the mark of the weapon. Fisher probably took an aspirin or two the day before which made him bruise just enough for the weapon to leave a mark. The coroner just put two and two together, given how he was found. A heart attack didn’t cause him to jump into that burial site. The wound on his neck was made by something sharp so maybe the guy had a screwdriver. Hard to tell until we catch him and grill him. Could have been the Governor’s shovel that did that. But if Jed had been left there where he fell, the coroner would have figured he grazed his neck, hitting a rock or something on the way down. Killers aren’t always as smart as they think. Sometimes they make it so easy for us.”
Johnson put his hand up for a high five. Matt took one hand off the wheel and returned it.
Olivia said, “Correct me if I’m wrong, but weren’t Sonia and Alistair hit wi
th a bat or a club?”
Matt said, “You got it. Same guy probably.”
“So you think you’ll catch him?” asked Olivia?
“What’s my track record?”
“One hundred percent. Why did I even ask?”
Matt laughed as he pulled into the parking area next to a British racing green 1951 MG TC, one of the few cars in the Bacon collection that Olivia knew well. Brooks had owned one and she had loved zipping around Beverly Hills in the right hand drive sports car.
Charles Bacon was still behind the wheel when they arrived, contemplating his dream of a museum or his disaster of a museum Olivia couldn’t tell. She unsnapped her seatbelt and looked around for Russ Bower’s car.
Remnants of the ceremony mocked the gruesome discovery on the site. The banner drooped from the chain link fence and a box of pink plastic forks and spoons from The Salted Caramel sat forlornly on the table Carrie had used to set up the refreshments. Olivia took a quick glance around the podium area hoping she might spot Tuesday’s hat. Cody had received permission to return the chairs to Bethany, so the space looked spare and forlorn, like the day after a party.
11:3
Scott’s foreman came out of the office trailer and greeted them with a brusque, “Can I help you? Hello, Miss Granville, Mr. Bacon.”
Olivia returned the greeting and began to introduce the detectives. “Do you know . . . ?”
“Sure,” said the man, shaking hands with Matt and Johnson. “We’ve talked a few times since, well, you know. Since Jed and all.”
Olivia asked for Scott.
“Oh Scott’s not here. We don’t expect him today.”
Olivia and Matt stared at each other. “I beg your pardon? But he was to meet us here. The environmental consultants are coming to do a walk through of the property.”
“Scott told me. Dr. Lauren and her team are back in the woods. She said she wanted to get a head start. I’ll take you back there. She asked that we wait on the gravel so we don’t contaminate her site any further.”
