by Barry Ergang
“Fifteen years. Lexie was thirteen when her father died.”
“Have you ever gotten along?”
Sadness distorted his smile. “Once in a while. At the beginning, Lexie opposed our marriage. Later on she came to accept it, and we’ve had an uneasy truce ever since.” He bit at his mustache.
I became vaguely aware of Derek’s shooing Marjorie and the others out of the gallery and briefly glanced away to watch a bevy of black-clad women boil through the doorway. Marjorie, still smiling, looked at her husband and tapped her wristwatch, then followed the women around the corner.
“Better an uneasy truce than a constant war,” I said.
Gaines nodded, his eyes lidded with an old, anchored pain. “She‘s not my daughter, but I’d like to be someone positive in her life.”
“All you can do is be there if she needs you, Bart.”
Derek stood in the doorway, grinning as he held the camera, sighting into the gallery.
“Are you finished yet?” Gaines asked impatiently.
He clicked another picture and lowered the camera. “Last one. Thank you, Dr. Gaines. I appreciate your tolerance.” He pulled the door closed and pointed the camera at us. “How about a shot of you and Dr. Driscoll?”
“We’d rather not.”
Derek tilted his head in a brief bow. “Very well, then. I’ll rejoin the party.”
When he’d gone I asked: “What’s his role in Lexie’s life?”
“The latest in a long line of boyfriends. Men seem to be disposable commodities for her. He says he wants to be a fine arts photographer but earns his living shooting commercial ads at the agency Lexie works for. They met there a few months ago.”
“Well, maybe this one’s Mr. Right.” I hoped I sounded more convincing than I felt.
“He’s a little too smarmy for my liking, but it’s not my decision.” He looked at his watch and sighed. “If Lexie’s right and this is a circus, I guess it’s time to play ringmaster.” He removed the gallery key from his pocket.
“Wait a minute,” I said. “Just to be safe, let’s make a final check.”
He nodded and let me precede him into the room, empty except for the benches, the paintings, and the sculptures, silent except for our footfalls. Nomad still rested on its easel, placid and undisturbed but disturbing to look at. Darnell entered and crossed the room as I opened the closet. Except for the ladder, duster, and hose, it was the same narrow empty space we had seen earlier. I shut the door.
“Everything under control?” Darnell asked.
“Perfectly.”
Gaines drew in his lips in an uncertain grimace. “I suppose it’s what they call ‘showtime.’”
We left the gallery. Gaines locked the door and went to fetch his guests.
“Sorry I took so long,” Darnell said, “but I had to find Chadwick, then chase him between the kitchen and the deck to ask questions. He says everyone here today has worked for him at least six months.”
Five minutes later we heard a burble of voices, then Gaines and Marjorie came into view, their guests an orderly procession behind them. Gaines turned and smiled at them proudly but nervously. “I crowed enough in the living room; I won’t keep you waiting any longer. Have a look at Nomad.”
He unlocked the door, stepped aside, and the guests streamed into the gallery, Darnell and I at the rear. The sound of the crowd was at first just a murmur, rippling and gradually building in volume that erupted into a dissonant chorale of gasps and suppressed cries. Someone, perhaps Carol, blurted, “Oh, God, no!” and someone demanded, “Is this a joke, Bart?”
Gaines pushed forward through the throng, and his voice silenced them with an agonized bellow: “Marchand!” The name echoed and rang in that long high room, an invocation and a curse. An adrenaline chill surged through me when I saw why.
The gilt frame still reposed on the easel, but it was empty now. On the floor below lay the wooden stretcher from which the canvas had been removed.
A lengthy hush enveloped the gallery as though an ethereal, malign presence at its margins mocked our collective sense of invasion and loss. In an astonished whisper, Julian Lakehurst put the exclamation point to it: “My God, he’s done it!”
The others roused; their murmurs and stirrings made the room hum again with apprehension. Darnell swore, staring at the empty frame. The brackets around his mouth deepened. “Nobody got past us, Darnell,” I said tightly.
He didn’t reply. He looked at the assemblage, from one of us to the other. Barton Gaines stared at the empty frame in mortified consternation. Beside him, one hand on his shoulder, her lips compressed, Marjorie was a portrait of shocked outrage. Julian Lakehurst, shifting uneasily from foot to foot, shook his head and muttered inaudibly. With a pained expression, Carol Prentice moved stiffly to one of the padded benches and sat down, her youthful buoyancy and litheness overcome by sudden gravity.
The soundless burst of light from Derek’s camera might as well have been a thunderclap. We all started nervously.
“Put it away,” Darnell ordered. Derek lifted a conciliatory hand and lowered the camera. His face was blank, but his eyes gleamed with satisfaction at having gotten his picture.
Sipping champagne, Alexis strolled complacently among the guests. “Poor Bart and Carol,” she said. “Their baby kidnapped. Probably by an art critic.”
“That‘s enough, Alexis,” Marjorie snapped.
Darnell moved to the closet door, then signaled to me. He reached beneath his jacket and drew his gun, provoking more gasps from the crowd.
“It’s all right,” Gaines told them. “Mr. Darnell is a detective in my employ.”
“And a wonderful detective, at that,” Alexis sneered.
“Handkerchief,” Darnell mouthed, nodding toward the door.
I took a handkerchief from my pocket and wrapped it around the doorknob. The room fell silent. Darnell kept the gun aimed at the door while I, from the hinged side, slowly turned the knob, then, tensing, yanked the door open. The closet was empty except for the vacuum hose nozzle-flat on the floor, the ladder, and the duster. After a brief scrutiny, Darnell closed the door. He holstered the gun and, moving to a corner, waved Gaines and me over. Marjorie joined us.
“Who was in here while I was talking to Chadwick?” Darnell asked.
“Eight of us,“ Marjorie said. “Derek took some pictures of the girls and me.”
“Alexis, too, for a moment,“ I added. “But the room was empty before we locked it. You saw it yourself.”
Darnell nodded sourly. “Maybe we’d better invite the cops.”
“Absolutely not.” Marjorie’s voice was low but intense. “We’re paying you to handle this.”
“A felony’s been committed, Mrs. Gaines.”
“I don’t care. I told you I wanted this to be low-profile. I won’t have policemen, and possibly reporters, crawling all over my home.”
“And I have no authority to detain your guests.”
“Why should that be necessary? Obviously Paul Marchand succeeded in stealing the painting.”
“Obviously?”
“Stop fencing, Mr. Darnell.”
“Okay. Suppose Marchand’s not your thief. Suppose it’s someone here in the house now.”
With one instinct we looked at the people thronging the room. Some of our university colleagues were talking among themselves; others communed with their own thoughts. Lakehurst lingered by the plundered easel, his glance fastened on the empty stretcher that lay on the floor, perhaps staring through and beyond it. Carol still sat on the bench, hunched over now, right hand abstractedly rubbing her knee, left elbow on her thigh, left hand shielding her eyes as if against the unbearable glare of Nomad’s absence. Two of the art students huddled with her, offering solace. Alexis's expression combined insouciance and arrogance as she sat down on another bench, sipped her champagne, and surveyed the room. Derek, forbidden to use his camera, moved about with apparent aimlessness, yet with eyes that seemed to be framing shots of people and paintin
gs. The Gaines and Crowell family members formed a protective knot against outsiders.
“That‘s nonsense,” Marjorie said.
“Is it? Everyone here today knew about the painting. Plenty of them—maybe all—know the Marchand story. Someone might’ve used it to his advantage.”
“Once again, nonsense.”
Darnell let out a breath. “What do you want me to do, Mrs. Gaines?”
“Recover the painting. It would still be here if you’d been more alert.”
“Then I’ll have to talk to some of your guests and the help. You’ll have to keep everyone in the house or on the grounds. I can’t detain them.”
Barton Gaines’s face brightened with feverish hope. “Then you think the painting is somewhere in the house?”
“I don‘t know. But if it is and people start leaving, the odds are greater it’ll go, too.”
Gaines, looking at Marjorie, spoke to Darnell: “We’ll try to convince them to stay.”
A moment later they were entreating their guests to partake of lunch and not to let the regrettable event put a damper on the party.
“You don’t exactly endear yourself to your clients, do you?” I said as guests and hosts left the gallery.
“Detectives are like proctologists. Sometimes they’re necessary, but nobody likes them poking around.” He rubbed his eyes with a thumb and forefinger. “Okay, Professor, tell me what happened while I was chasing Chadwick.”
I did, including every detail I could recall, right up to his return during our final inspection of the room. Uncertain as to its relevance, I told him about the argument between Derek and Alexis I had overheard.
“You say Derek took a picture of the gallery from the doorway after everyone was out. A picture of what? And why?”
I shrugged. “Maybe he wanted a panoramic shot of the gallery.”
“Mm-hmm. Look around, Professor. This room is full of paintings worth a lot more than the Riveau. Why weren’t any of them taken?
“Marchand didn’t have time?” I asked lamely.
“Yeah, sure. This master thief comes and goes invisibly, gets in and out of locked, guarded rooms, has a history of stealing masterpieces, but only has time to rip off what looks like something Hieronymus Bosch did after a three-day bender—the least valuable piece in the place.”
“It’s his style, as Bart said.”
“And why today? Why grab it in a house full of people?”
“Once again: style. He’s a showman.”
“Mm-hmm. C’mon.” He went to the closet and opened it. “See anything different?”
After further examination, I admitted I didn’t.
“Look at the shelf.”
Doing so, I noticed a crescent-shaped disturbance in the dust at the front edge. “I see it, but I don’t understand it. It wasn’t there this morning, and I’d swear it wasn’t there when we looked before we locked up.”
“What about this?” He pointed at a small blue smudge a few inches above shelf level on the left-hand wall.
“It wasn’t there.”
“I know.”
“Then how did it get there?” I asked exasperatedly.
“Good question.” He closed the door. “Let’s have a talk with Derek. I want to see the picture on that disk.”
A funereal rather than celebratory atmosphere shadowed the living room, the mood somber and subdued, infecting even the black-clad student hostesses who served robotically, bereft of their earlier sprightliness. Only Lakehurst showed signs of animation, excitedly telling a small group of people about Paul Marchand: “As art thieves go, he’s among the best. He’s never been caught, there’s no evidence outside of Riveau’s journal to link him to any crimes, and yet his audacity is spectacular. Why, he once looted a museum in Paris of....”
Derek was nowhere in sight.
A dispirited Carol Prentice, holding a tray of champagne glasses, drifted by without noticing us. I touched her arm and asked if she’d seen him.
“Derek?” Her tone held the muzziness of someone who has just awakened from a confusion of dreams. “No. No, I haven’t.” She blinked rapidly, as though straining to see through a fog.
“Did he leave?”
“Leave?” she repeated.
“Wake up, Carol,” Darnell snapped. “Where is he?”
She blinked again, staring through the fog from eyes suddenly moist. “I’m sorry,” she whispered with barren hopelessness. “It’s been a horrible day.”
I put a hand on her shoulder. “Carol, we know you’re upset about the painting, but we have to find Derek. Do you know where he is?”
She shook her head, blinking, a tear trailing down her cheek, and without another word moved away.
“Big help,” Darnell muttered.
“She takes it personally. She’s deeply involved in Bart’s project.”
“Yeah, well, it’s not helping us find Derek.”
We continued to inquire among the guests and students, but none of them had seen him.
“Let’s look upstairs,” Darnell said.
We went up to the second floor and along the hallway, glancing into bedrooms. Bart‘s and Marjorie‘s, complete with sitting area, was spacious and beautifully appointed. Shelves lined one wall, filled with books, a stereo system, compact discs, a television set, and bric-a-brac. Predictably, paintings and photographs abounded.
Athletic trophies atop a low bookcase indicated that the smaller room across the hall belonged to Carol Prentice. Its decorations reflected her passion for art. Unframed reproductions of famous paintings and posters advertising museum exhibitions floated against the walls without apparent support. The towel she’d used at poolside lay discarded on the bed.
We continued down the hall. Alexis Crowell came out of the room next to her mother’s and stepfather’s. Despite her apartment in the city, she evidently still maintained quarters here, too. Holding a glass of champagne and moving with an inebriate’s self-consciousness, she raised her glass in a mocking salute. Champagne slopped over the rim.
“No boogieman up here,” she needled Darnell.
“What about Derek?”
“He’s not a boogieman.” She shook her head with exaggerated emphasis.
“Lexie, where is he?” I asked.
“Prob’ly taking pictures of the scull’ry maid.” Her laugh was off-key, brittle, her eyes unfocused and her voice thick with the effort to enunciate.
“Lexie…”
“Y’really a bartender now, Alan?”
“Yes. At Culhane’s. Come in sometime and I’ll buy you a drink.”
“Oh, you can’t afford what I drink.”
What she drank was disaffection, buried anger, and self-loathing, a brew bitterer than any bartender could concoct. I was glad of my impoverishment.
“Ms. Crowell,” Darnell said sharply, “where’s Derek?”
“Ooh! Grilling me, Mr. Detective?” She thrust out her hip, patted it, and made a loud kissing noise. “Just what the hell is a scull’ry, and why does it need a maid?”
“Lexie, this is important,” I said.
“So serious, Alan!” She made a face. “Oh, all right. He went to get lunch.”
We went back downstairs and retraced the path we’d taken when we first entered the house, emerging onto the deck near the pool. The sunlight was dazzling, the air thick with heat and humidity. Guests filled their plates before sitting down at the umbrella-shaded tables. Derek wasn’t among them. We continued around the house, neither of us speaking, our footfalls on the deck the only sound.
We found him not far from sliding glass doors that led into Gaines’s office. His widened eyes stared at the sky as though at another enticing shot, but he couldn’t see it. He lay on his back, his face darkly congested with blood, his tongue swollen between his lips. The camera strap was looped tightly around his throat, the camera sitting on his chest like a huge religious medallion. His accessory bag lay a few feet from his body. Disks spilled onto the planking.
> I looked away abruptly. For the second time that day I felt an adrenaline chill. This time bile rose in my throat. I heard Darnell say: “Now we’ll invite the cops.”
Shadow on a sun-bright day, the hour following the arrival of the police was a plodding nightmare of bureaucratic efficiency and formality. Darnell had phoned them from Gaines’s office while I remained on the deck, looking out over the rolling slopes of lawn, not looking at Derek. When Darnell returned, he let me choose whether to tell the Gainses about the death or to stay with the body while he told them. Hating both choices, I concluded that dealing with the explosive aftermath of the announcement was less appealing than staying where I was.
“Cops’re on the way,” Darnell said. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
He went into the house while I stared out across the lawn, my hands on the railing, breathing slowly and deeply, and tried not to think about what lay on the deck a few feet away. The day had metamorphosed into the cacodemonic snare depicted in Riveau’s painting. Minutes moved like glaciers. Eventually I heard cars pull into the driveway and stop, their doors being slammed. Footsteps sounded on the deck, and a group of men came around the corner of the house. Two were in plain clothes, three others in uniform.
“You Darnell?” one of the plainclothesmen asked.
“No, I’m—”
“I’m Darnell” came from behind me.
He emerged from the office followed by a pallid Barton Gaines who stared at Derek’s body with transfixed revulsion.
The plainclothesman showed Darnell his badge. “Detective-Sergeant Mitch Warner.” Indicating the other man in mufti, he said: “This is Jim Cochran.”
Warner was tall, slender, and dark-haired. Cochran was an inch or two shorter, stockier, with crewcut reddish-blond hair and a spray of freckles across a face set in a permanent adolescent sneer. Both appeared to be in their late thirties.
Cochran drew a pair of latex gloves from the side pocket of his sports coat. He slipped them on and knelt beside Derek’s body.
“Let‘s hear it,” Warner said to Darnell.
The endless hours of shadow had begun.
Police activity roiled around us while Darnell explained the situation. A photographer took pictures of Derek’s body from various angles, a grisly irony that made me wonder if the deceased would have thought of himself as an “enticing shot.” Cochran tagged and carefully put the camera, disks, and accessory case into plastic bags. The medical examiner performed his duties, then someone else chalked an outline of the corpse on the deck. Next came the indignity of the body bag, that final appalling ritual of mortal diminution. I observed all of this with a haggard Barton Gaines standing alongside, both of us silent. Other detectives and uniformed officers went into the house to take statements from the guests.
