“Don’t rightly know. The state fire marshal told me privately he smelled a rat, but he also couldn’t prove anything. If it was arson, then they had a professional do it.”
“When did it happen?”
The chief squinched his mild round face. “Let’s see … late April? No, come to think of it, second of May. I got a call about four in the morning. When I got there they were just trying to save the building on the right side. The other one’s granite with a slate roof.”
“Was LeBlanc’s business still there at the time?”
“No. That’s why the fire marshal thinks there ought to be an investigation. Mr. LeBlanc cleared out about a week before. Told people he had to go back to Switzerland and take care of the family business.” He shot me a searching look. “You know, you’re the second person from Seaboard who’s been here poking around about Mr. LeBlanc.”
“Really?”
“Eyah … Not long after the fire, a fellow came through asking pretty much the same questions.”
“Did he give his name?”
“He did, but I didn’t write it down. Phil somebody. It sounded foreign in a fakey kind of way.”
Though I had a pretty good idea he was talking about de Buitliér, I asked if he could describe him.
“I can and I will. He was on the short side, beard, and a tweed jacket and tie even though the day was hot and humid.” He paused. “You know of him?”
“As a matter of fact, he works for me.”
He glanced at me sharply. “Tell me, how do you spell his name?”
“It’s complicated.”
“I ain’t simple.”
So I spelled it out as best I could remember. I wondered what he had been doing here. I asked, “What was LeBlanc’s shop like?”
“Never was in it. Wally Marsden did odd jobs for him. He helped him pack up. I heard around town that there was some pretty high-tech stuff in there.”
“Such as?”
“Computers. Laser-guided lathes. Gas-fired smelters. Drills. Presses. All kinds of chemicals.”
“Did he leave a forwarding address?”
“Not with me. You could check the post office.” He rubbed his chin. Can I ask what your interest is in all of this?”
I took out my card. “I’m director of a museum up in Seaboard. I’m trying to trace the origin of some counterfeit coins.”
He glanced at it. “Right. You’ve had a couple of murders up there. Bad business all around.”
“Where could I find this Wally Marsden?”
“Wally lives over on the other side of Route Two. Go right on Bear Creek Road. First place on the left. Kind of run-down. Can’t miss it.”
We left Chief Ballard and ambled over to the post office playing tourist as we went. We duly took in the glacial potholes worn into beautifully patterned granite bedrock along a green-banked river. We strolled along the Bridge of Blooms, an old railroad structure, now a marvelous linear garden of color and scents. Diantha took pictures of the displays with her remarkable little camera.
I paused to read the names on a war memorial dedicated to those from the town who had perished in recent conflicts. As I went down the list, I tried to imagine their faces, where they were born, how they died, the heartache. These are the real heroes, I thought to myself, the ones who gave all. Yet how small were their names. Compared with the very wealthy who, after some ingenious swindle of one kind or another, have their names emblazoned in huge lettering in granite on the outside of some building as proof of their magnanimity. And sometimes all over the interior as well, so that one cannot escape their futile, ostentatious benefaction. Futile because, as Felix so aptly pointed out, after a while a name is only a name.
It’s another reason I’m glad I turned down Elgin Warwick and his mummification scheme, even if his money is “old.” (The robber barons at least made and built things, unlike the latest crop of super-rich.)
But I digress.
The interior of the post office looked much as it would in Key West or Attu in the Aleutians what with special issues advertised on the walls and the usual array of packing materials.
Yes, Mr. LeBlanc did leave a forwarding address, a box number in Zurich, but a couple of things forwarded there had come back.
In Diantha’s formidable vehicle, we drove over to Route 2 and followed Chief Ballard’s directions. Sure enough, we arrived at a ramshackle sort of place, two old barns, one virtually collapsed near the road and, well up from there, a porched cottage set back against a wooded hill. We drove into a clearing between them and parked beside a spanking-new pickup big enough to be a trailer truck.
I morphed into my private eye persona and made my way through a litter of junk that included an overturned ski mobile, a rusting lawn mower, old tires, what might have been a hay baler, and assorted car parts. I mounted uncertain steps to the paint-blistered porch. I knocked on the screen, though there was a man standing just a few feet away in the gloom of the interior.
“Wally Marsden,” I said neutrally.
“Who wants to know?”
“A friend of Alain LeBlanc’s.”
I guessed the man to be in his late thirties. He had stringy light hair, dissipated eyes, bad teeth, and wore a sleeveless T-shirt tucked into oil-stained jeans. He pushed open the screen and came out far enough to stand in the doorway.
“How do I know that?”
“You don’t. I’m not exactly a friend. He did some work for my company.”
His eyes stayed skeptical and puzzled at the same time, as though trying to gather his wits. “He did lots of work for lots of people.”
“Actually, Mr. Marsden, I owe Alain money and I’m trying to find out where to reach him.”
“He left a forwarding address at the post office.”
“I know, I tried.”
He glanced down at the yard. “Who’s that down in the four-by-four?”
“My wife.”
He nodded. “Nice.”
“I think so.”
“You say you owe Alain money?”
“I also have a piece of jewelry I want to send him.”
“How much money you owe him?”
“Depends.”
A sly smile came and went. “Depends on what?”
We didn’t entirely drop the pretense. I said, “I need to know a few things.”
“I’m listening.”
“I know that he made … replicas of old coins.”
“Nothing wrong with that.”
“True. I just want to know if he did any work for anyone up in Seaboard.”
“I think you would owe him about a hundred for that.”
I took out my wallet and fingered a couple of fifties. I gave him one and hung on to the other.
He nodded and glanced with longing toward our vehicle. “LeBlanc never told me much. There was a guy with a German name that dropped off a set of really old coins.”
“Heinrich von Grümh?”
“Sounds about right.”
I gave him the second fifty. “How many copies did you make?”
“Hey, listen, I didn’t have anything to do with what he did.”
“What did you do?” I still had my wallet out.
“I did odd jobs. Cleanup. Supplies. Packing and shipping. He said he’d teach me how to use his gear, but he never did.”
“So how many copies of those coins did you make?”
“You’d owe another … fifty for that.”
I took out two twenties and a ten and looked at them.
“Okay, I’m pretty sure he made two copies.”
“And sent them both back?” I handed him the money.
“As far as I know.”
“Nice truck.”
“Yeah, ain’t it.”
“How did the fire start?”
His eyes turned hostile for a flash. He shrugged. “Fire marshal’s been up here asking me the same thing. An insurance guy, too.”
“What did you tell them?”
“The truth.”
“I’m still listening.”
“Look, I had nothing to do with it. Nothing at all. There was lots of chemicals left behind. Oil-soaked rags, that sort of thing. Could have been spontaneous combustion.”
“And you don’t know where I could reach Mr. LeBlanc?”
“He’s back in Switzerland all’s I know.”
“Well, thank you, Mr. Marsden. You’ve been a great help.”
“What about that money you owe him?”
“I thought I just paid that.”
We drove up into the hills for some sightseeing through forest and farmland before checking in at the Inn at Mountcharles. A rambling quaint clapboarded affair, it dated from the Revolutionary War. I liked it immediately, though Diantha balked at the accommodations, which were rudimentary but comfortable. We settled in and then lingered down to the bar and restaurant. I was charmed by what might be called the inadvertent authenticity of the place, especially the framed sepiatoned photos from long ago and folk art in the reception rooms with the chintz-covered armchairs and sofas.
“It’s very local,” Diantha said after we had taken our drinks to a table by a window looking out over a well-wooded ski slope.
“That’s exactly what I like about it.” I was perusing the menu but really thinking about the case. It was clear now that de Buitliér had found something that led him to suspect the authenticity of Heinie’s collection. He had a few samples tested, confirming his suspicions. Did he then try to blackmail Heinie, threaten to expose him unless …? Heinie refused to pay. De Buitliér leaked the story to the Bugle. They met, argued. De Buitliér got the gun away from him and shot him. It didn’t add up.
“I’m going to have the chicken,” Diantha said to the matronly waitress, who had highly recommended the rib roast. Local, I thought, looking up at the work-worn, pleasant face. “The rib,” I said, “medium rare.”
Later, on a comfortable bed in our sparsely furnished room, I lay spent in the aftermath of lovemaking that had been truly lovemaking. In the course of our prolonged encounter, Diantha had noticed that the level of my amatory expectations had risen. Not that she objected except to say, with a rueful laugh, “It’s Merissa, isn’t it? She’s spoiled you.”
23
I must confess that I have been remiss in not investigating Feidhlimidh de Buitliér’s possible role in the murder of Heinrich von Grümh. He still does not appear to me as a probable suspect. What did he have to gain? Academic spite can corrode steel. But murder? Members of the professoriat of whatever rank are seldom people of action. With the exception, perhaps, of paleontologists and other natural historians.
Perhaps I simply cannot take him seriously as a suspect in a murder when I do not take him seriously as a man. I could not believe that he would have the gumption to kill someone in cold blood. Not when I thought of what it takes to hold a revolver up against the temple of a fellow human being and pull the trigger.
But Chief Ballard’s description had been smack-on. De Buitliér had been out to Shetland Falls snooping around. Or had he been in on the deal? Had LeBlanc double-crossed him? I had a moment of unease wondering about the authenticity of the other items in the Greco-Roman Collection.
The first thing I did the morning after I returned was to call the financial office and tell them I wanted to review phone records for the last couple of months.
A patient voice directed me how to access the file on my own computer. It proved childishly easy. I clicked into the subfile for Greco-Roman Collection Curatorial Office. Lots of long-distance calling. And then, there it was, the 413 number for LeBlanc’s operation. It had been called three times, once in March and twice in April.
I subdued a frisson of predatory anticipation and pondered my next move. I knew I should call Lieutenant Tracy and tell him what I had found so far. But what had I found? The forger? Possibly. But I had no real proof.
In the midst of these cogitations I received a text message from Alphus containing what sounded like good news. Esther Homard, the literary agent, has a renowned and well-financed publisher interested in his memoirs. So interested, in fact, that they are chartering a plane to fly him to the great big apple for a meeting.
Alphus wants me to accompany him, but frankly, I think Felix would be far more useful. There’s already been some e-mailing back and forth about establishing a trust of which I would be one of the trustees. It strikes me as strange that Alphus is not recognized as a legal entity.
I sent back a text message (I am not comfortable with text as a verb) congratulating him. I also asked him to stand by for a lie detector exercise in the afternoon.
I called Diantha out at the cottage. “Angel,” I said, using my Humphrey Bogart voice, “could you do a background check for me on Feidhlimidh de Buitliér? There’s a site called something like Who Was Who.com.”
“I could try. How do you spell that?”
I spelled it out for her and then told her about Alphus’s good news.
“Fly him to New York?” She sounded skeptical.
“On a private charter. I think he would do better in a car.”
“Whatever.”
I heard some of her old exasperation. I said, “Diantha darling, if Alphus gets a nice fat advance, he’ll be able to afford some place of his own and hire a keeper.”
“If …”
“Yes, if.”
Rather than call my latest suspect and arrange to have him come by for an interrogation, I decided to drop in unannounced at his small office on the third floor.
He wasn’t in, but a young man, a veritable ephebe of Hungarian birth named Josef, asked me if he could be of any help. I told him who I was and that I wanted to speak directly to Mr. de Buitliér.
“Doctor de Buitliér won’t be back until later,” he said vaguely. “Do you want that I take a message?”
“Yes, tell him to call me the moment he gets in. Tell him it’s very important.” Then, neutrally, I asked him what he did in the museum.
“I’m Doctor de Buitliér’s assistant.”
“Really? I don’t think personnel knows about that.”
“Actually, now I am only an intern.”
In the course of this exchange, I happened to glance out the window. It was, like most of the windows at the museum, a large, generous thing. It gave out onto both the museum and Center for Criminal Justice parking lots and would have afforded de Buitliér a direct view of what happened on the night of von Grümh’s murder. That is, if he had been around.
Why hadn’t I thought of this before? I asked myself. I had not even checked the electronic log for him or others who might have been at the museum that night.
Cursing myself for neglecting such routine yet critical investigative tasks, I took the elevator down to the basement to see Mort. He was in his office keeping an eye on the big panel of security screens while watching a baseball game on one of those little things that fit into a drawer.
I let it slide. I had better things to talk to him about. “The records for the night of May tenth,” I said, taking a seat nearby.
He nodded, pecked at a keyboard, and after several false starts brought it up with a flourish. “There,” he said, giving the word two syllables.
I frowned. The record showed that de Buitliér left the building around six thirty and did not return that night.
“Mort, tell me, is there any way of getting into and out of the building without swiping your card?”
When he began to squirm and shake his head, I said, “Mort, this is very important.”
“Well … You know the loadin’ dock in the back and the two big doors that open out. Off to the side, there’s a small access door. You need to swipe there to get in, but it ain’t wired into the records yet. They’re supposed to come look at it all summer, but you know how contractors are.”
“Who knows about this?”
“Don’t know. Word gets around.”
“Good. Thanks. And what’s the score?”
; “Three to nothing Sox in the fifth. Last I knew.”
Back in my office I again considered calling Lieutenant Tracy and letting him in on what I was doing. But I felt I needed to tie up a few more loose ends first. For instance, who had reported to the police the meeting between me and Heinie at the Pink Shamrock? Who but de Buitliér?
It was one o’clock and I had gotten a bit peckish. I printed out a likeness of de Buitliér I found on the museum’s Web site. With this in pocket I drove over to that establishment, which I found to be busy with a mixed crowd in terms of sexual preference, at least as far as I could tell.
A large-faced genial bartender by the name of Pat asked what he could do for me. I ordered a pint of ale and glanced at the menu. “The ham on rye looks good,” I told him.
“Ham on rye it is.”
I sipped my ale and ate the sandwich, which I found excellent. I didn’t begin my inquiries until it was time to pay the bill.
“You’re Pat?” I asked, fishing several twenties out of my wallet.
“The very same. Pat Kelly.” He reached a big hand across the bar. “From Ballinasloe, County Galway.”
“Norman de Ratour. I work at the Museum of Man.”
“Just up the road.”
I nodded. I said, as casually as I could, “You don’t strike me, Pat, as very much like a lot of your clientele.”
“As indeed I’m not. It’s a job. And they’re people, you know, no less than you and me.”
“Do they confide in you?”
He laughed. “Some of the more desperate ones do.”
“What do you tell them?”
“I don’t. I just listen.” His eyes turned shrewd. “What can I do for you, Mr. de Ratour?”
I produced the folded printout of de Buitliér’s likeness and showed it to him. “You could tell me if this gentleman frequents this bar.”
Pat eyed me suspiciously for a moment. “You’re not police, are you?”
“No.”
After a glance at the picture, he leaned over the bar and, keeping his voice dramatically low, said, “That’s Philly de Buitliér. He’s not really a regular. He comes and goes. I would say he was from Ulster if I had to, but I don’t think the man is from anywhere.”
The Counterfeit Murder in the Museum of Man Page 27
