So, of all the people at that affair I might have been overhearing, why was it that bozo? My gut told me there was a reason. I usually listened to my gut, particularly when, as now, it was sending signals that I should take in some protein. I went to the kitchen, fried me an egg and some low-fat, relatively tasteless, sausages and a piece of toast. Then I called Catherine.
“Hey, babe.”
“Think about the other night at the ball,” I said. A preparatory ploy.
“Okay.” She was used to my verbal ploys.
“There was a man there whose name I now need.”
“Seriously? Wow, there’s probably a guest list available, but…” Her voice trailed off.
“I can describe the man. He is large, was formally dressed in a good quality dark suit. Florid. He’ll probably die of a heart problem before many more years pass. His well-shorn hair, all his own I judged, was going to gray. He’s on the board of MIA and I got the impression his political views are conservative. Probably in his sixth decade.”
“Hmm, doesn’t ring any bells. Let me make a few calls for you,” she said.
“Thanks.” We hung up and I had another cup of coffee and read the morning paper. I also stared out the kitchen window at the overcast day. The news wasn’t good and nothing seemed likely to bolster my spirits. Maybe a good massage from one of Catherine’s students would help.
The telephone beeped. It was my office line again, so I picked up. “Murchison. Albert Murchison is his name,” Catherine said.
“No shit!” I exclaimed. “What a fantastic coincidence.”
“Life does that at times. I take it you’re pleased with the information.”
“You bet.”
“There is more. He recently went on the institute’s board. His family is wealthy. They are powerful politically and in other ways in Minnesota and have been here a very long time. Mr. Murchison is in manufacturing and his younger brother is a lawyer in a firm you know. This Albert Murchison sits on a lot of corporate boards.”
“Harcourt, Saint Martin, Saint Martin, Bryce, et cetera,” is the law firm, I said.
“Correct.”
“Anything else?”
“Gossip, rumors, as there always is about important people in the community.”
“Sure. Tell.”
“A long time ago a Murchison donated an important piece of art, an oil painting, to the museum. It was worth a great deal of money at that time. More now, I assume.”
“In the millions?”
“Easily.”
My gut was bouncing in restrained and premature glee. “And?”
“Well, now a question of provenance has come up. I’m repeating gossip, you understand. You know what provenance is, I assume. Path of ownership, that sort of thing.”
“I get it. If there are questions relating to legitimacy of ownership, clouds gather. I bet there are actions being quietly taken to figure out how to make the questions go away.”
“I suppose so,” Catherine said. “What does this have to do with you?”
“Suppose the donor of the object in question, the painting, was able to arrange for the painting to be quietly returned up the line to someone whose ownership was unquestioned? Wouldn’t that be easier to do if the returner was an institution, rather than an individual? Would that make the questions go away?”
I heard silence on the line while Catherine pondered. You might not think it, but Catherine McKerney, expert massage therapist and business woman, has more entrée to the convoluted world of wealthy folks and social manipulators than do I. In the past I have used her insight and connections to advantage.
“Yes, I suppose it would,” she said. “The institution could simply insist the donor’s identity had to be protected for the deal to go through.”
“It would be a little trickier if the original donation to the institution was publicly acknowledged. But it would work if somebody close to the original donor was in a position of power and had, wink wink, plausible deniability.”
“I’m sure you’re right. I have to go. Hope I’ve helped, my morose friend.”
She clicked off and I was left to ponder that last remark. Apparently I had not been as successful at dissembling my feelings the last few days. I’d have to practice on that. Meantime, there was new information to consider.
The Murchison name had appeared earlier. In one of my conversations with attorney Madison, he had mentioned the name of that very family. Was there an older link between the name Murchison and art and between Gottlieb and Murchison or…
The possibilities were extensive, not to say endless. Research was called for. With a rising sense of excitement I toddled off to my office and my ancient computer. I would be delving with the Dell for several hours.
There were no recorded messages, there were no phone calls and no visitors, so I was able to concentrate for a couple of hours. I went to various sites for which I paid some serious money to winkle out tidbits of information. For example, a Murchison family of no remarkable attributes had shown up on a city census as early as 1890. The patriarch of the family listed his occupation as laborer.
I followed the family, living in Minneapolis, through a number of generations. I was able to discover that several Murchisons from the family I was researching had been in the military service. One of them had been assigned to an unspecified unit somewhere in Poland. Probably a liaison of some kind to the Russians. That assignment was short because less than a year later, in 1946, Arthur Murchison was mustered out and came home to Minneapolis and, presumably, to the relieved and welcoming bosom of his wife and two small sons.
Four years later, Arthur Murchison was considerably wealthier. I was able to deduce this from the fact that he moved from a nice but ordinary home on the north side of Minneapolis to the hamlet of Wayzata. Anyone who has even a little familiarity with the Twin Cities knows Wayzata is mostly made up of important and pretty well-off movers and shakers.
Further, Mr. Murchison was now the manager or CEO of a small but active machine parts manufacturer, as well as one of the owners. In the space of a very few years, Mr. Murchison had become a minor if significant player. His sons had apparently inherited the family penchant for successfully making money out of other money. A few years later, the Murchison family owned the manufacturing plant outright. More power to them, I figured. My curiosity and interest focused on that initial jump from north Minneapolis to owner-slash-CEO of a manufacturing company.
I decided I needed a higher level of expertise in the history and activities of corporate America. I needed a hacker. I ambled down the hall to the office of my friends and occasional associates, Belinda and Betsey Revulon. These two large and lush ladies of Scandinavian extraction were computer competents of the highest order. Their business, designing and operating large databases and programs for corporate clients, was beyond my comprehension, but I had yet to find a data storage problem they could not penetrate. I occasionally wondered if they sometimes hacked into our government systems just for the fun of it. I never asked.
The cousins had adopted me as a sort of pet. They felt they looked after me as one should, of a short-statured fellow. When the luscious blond Belinda threw her arms around me, I was often crushed into the considerable valley of her bosom in a way that made my lungs protest.
Chapter 22
Belinda, her feet up on the desk, and her ample lap cradling a wireless keyboard, smiled a happy greeting. “Welcome! I see by the look on your face you’d like some help.”
I explained my need, all the while trying to avoid staring at her exposed cleavage. “One more thing,” I said. “Be especially reticent about this one.” Reticent was a code word we occasionally used to signify something particularly sensitive.
After Belinda received my background information she nodded and said, “Okay. What you want to
know is where did this Art Murchison get the moolah to go into manufacturing. And the period is between 1946 and 1950. Correct?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“Hokay! I’ll get back to you soon as I have anything worth the while.” Dismissed, I went back to my office down the empty hall, pausing only once. Hokay? Where had that come from?
When I pondered something, that is think hard about something significant, I tended to look at the floor or the ground. Especially so when I’m walking. Somewhere safe. Thus it was when I came to my office door I saw on the tile a small speck of mud and water. It couldn’t have been there long because the hallway was warm enough to melt snow, even if the manager of the place liked to use small light bulbs in the overhead fixtures to conserve energy. The floors were swept nightly and swabbed and polished as needed. Frequently in winter.
I bent lower and scanned the floor. A little way along I found another speck of watery mud. This one was larger and there was even a trace of icy snow. In a shot I leapt to the window just beyond the elevator door and scanned what I could see of the parking lot behind our building. Cars but no foot traffic appeared. I went back to my office and stood to one side as I twisted the doorknob and pulled the door open. No sound emanated from my digs.
I exhaled and went inside and closed the door. Standing just inside, I stared carefully at the entire room. Nothing appeared disturbed. I paid particular attention to my desk top. I did not routinely leave my office unlocked, nor did I leave important papers lying out. So what was I alarmed about?
Since the beginning of this dance with the death of Gottlieb and the missing market woman, this affair had been swaddled in an odd atmosphere. I went to my desk and eased into my chair, all the while looking closely at the drawer pulls. I couldn’t remember the last time a fed had paid me a visit. I bet if I really looked, I wouldn’t find a single incident, beyond the one the other day. Likewise, I could count on two fingers the times I’d had any meaningful interaction with attorney at law, Mr. Derrol Madison, esquire. They had both come during my inquiries into the Gottlieb affair and my tenuous client, Anne/Ann of unknown last name, mysterious conductor of random pieces of ledger paper.
I extracted my pile of note cards from my desk and shuffled through them, adding a bit here and there. I jotted down information regarding the Murchison clan and the art world. Then I sat back and waited. For inspiration, for a phone call, for a white box truck to show up in the alley. None of that happened for quite some time. I expect I dozed off once or twice.
I debated whether I should call one of the lawyers I knew at Harcourt, St. Martin, Bryce, et cetera to probe for Murchison family gossip. I decided I needed more background before that would be helpful.
At 3:00 p.m. The telephone rang and my cases began to come together.
“I have something for you, sweetums.” Belinda Revulon’s voice carried smug overtones.
“I’m on my way.”
“Once again, you will not be asking for sources, will you.” Belinda’s voice was now flat and serious sounding as she regarded me over the top edge of her monitor screen. It was not a question.
“I’m okay with that.”
“We’re very clean and reticent here.” Reticent was a code word I’d adopted when I wanted the Revulons to be especially careful to avoid leaving any traces of their electronic probing. When one of them said things were clean, I knew they’d gone and done whatever it was they went and did whatever it was they did, and no one would find a trace leading back to them. I had no idea how that all worked and had zero curiosity about it.
“Your subject borrowed money against an art object. Probably a painting. The piece apparently hung on a bank officer’s wall for a while but has long since been retrieved.”
“A lot of money?”
Shrug, which set a lot of bare flesh to quivering. “Depends on your meaning. On today’s market, the amount is not large. In 1949 it was significant. Enough to buy a controlling interest in a very nice medium-sized manufacturing operation.”
“Ah,” I nodded. “A manufacturing operation that now carries a sign proclaiming Murchison Manufacturing. Any description of the painting?”
“Nothing meaningful. Even the painter’s name appears to be redacted in the documents.”
“And no provenance.”
“Gee, Sean, you know some big words.”
I smiled, thanked my benefactor, and toddled back to my office. So art. How much was anybody willing to bet the art in question was the same piece that old Al Murchison had used to back that loan of so long ago? The big question lodging itself in my brain was where had old Art Murchison laid hands on that piece of art? There were associated questions. Like, from whom and when.
Naturally, it could all be perfectly legal and on the up and up. Probably was. Well, I’d make some inquiries, because if the painting came through the hands of Art’s granddaddy, a man not known for his strict adherence to the straight and narrow, it might be the same one that Arthur was referring to in the conversation I had overheard. I made another note card and reached for my coat and hat. It was getting late and in February in the northland darkness came early.
I called detective Ricardo Simon to advise him I had received another payment, this time with no additional pages copied from the elusive ledger. I gave him a couple of opportunities to update me on his analysis of the papers in the package from the basement, but he adroitly deflected the question by explaining that they still had no active leads on the murder of Manny Gottlieb and unless something broke pretty soon, the case would lose some of its priority status.
I’d learned through my many years in the detective business that late afternoons often found targets at a lower ebb, energy-wise. When one has had a full day at the office, one’s ability to maintain an acceptable level of alertness and deal with impertinent probes from nosy private investigators was sometimes not high enough. That can apply to private investigators as well and that may be why I skipped naked out of the office. That is to say, I was unarmed.
Chapter 23
My office on Central Avenue, physically on the edge of the city’s near north side, was only eight snowy blocks from Murchison Manufacturing. I slid into the single open visitor’s parking slot in the well-plowed lot beside the beige painted cinderblock building. Small signs directed me to the proper entrance and into the lobby I went. In the back of my mind I registered that tiny snowflakes were beginning to sift down from gray skies.
The receptionist was a nicely set up female person of indeterminate age. She smiled and asked me how she could be of help.
“I’d like a few minutes with the owner, Mr. Murchison?”
“Have you an appointment?”
“No, I’m afraid not but I won’t take up more than a very few minutes of his time.”
Frown appeared on her smooth brow. “I’m afraid you must have an appointment to see Mr. Murchison.”
I opened my mouth to protest but she went on without pause. “However, I see Mr. Murchison’s second in command is still in the building. Perhaps he can help?”
“Sure. I’ll start there. Could I have his name?”
“Yes, it’s—oh, Mr. Murchison.” She was looking past me. A man had come into the lobby from somewhere in the building. He stood half way into the lobby with the door open. I could hear the sounds of machinery emanating from behind him. Second in command? Yet another Murchison?
“This gentleman wanted to see Mr. Murchison, senior. But he has no appointment. Perhaps you have a minute to help him?”
She smiled, rather sweetly, I thought, but there was something else in her tone. I looked across the lobby. This was definitely not the man I had observed at the recent arts fundraiser, but I noticed family traits. This Murchison was younger, weighed less and had reddish blonde hair. A son perhaps?
“Sure, I have a few minutes. Let’s
go to my office, Mr.—” He put out his hand and since I had by now strode the few steps across the small lobby, we shook. His handshake was firm but not crushing and his hand was dry and smooth.
“Sean Sean,” I said quietly, watching his eyes. There was just the tiniest flicker there. It could have been because of my names, but it could have been something else.
He led me through the door, which closed behind us with a quiet snick and we walked a few steps to an office. It was an ordinary square-shaped office with narrow windows high up at the eaves. Burglar proof, I judged, unless you were an unusually small person.
“Now, Mr. Sean, is it? You’ll have to excuse me. I don’t believe I’ve ever met anyone before with the same first and last names.” He smiled and waved me to a seat beside his massive gleaming wooden desk.
“That’s quite all right. I’m used to it. And to the reactions.”
“Well, how can I help you?”
I fished out a business card that identified me as Sean Sean, independent scholar-slash-historian. It was a fresh card and when I handed it over, I had a momentary niggle that the ink might smear.
“I’m making inquiries of a historical nature about World War Two. I’m focusing on some local veterans who were involved in actions outside of the major, celebrated, battles. I’ve been led to believe your father was a soldier in Europe?” an old detective trick. I think I learned it reading Richard Prather. Or it might have been from something by Michael Connolly. The trick is to make some inconsequential mistake because it lowers your target’s suspicion or their wall of resistance, when your target is the individual being questioned. I knew very well it couldn’t be this bozo’s father, it was his grandfather who served in the army in Europe during the Second World War.
Murchison—I didn’t yet have his first name—grinned and shook his head. I could almost see him relaxing. Parenthetically the question was, what did this guy have to be tense about in the first place? He hadn’t reacted to my name in any abnormal way he shouldn’t be tense at all, unless he already knew why I was there. Anyway, he grinned and said, “No, Mr. Sean. I’m afraid it wasn’t my father, that would be my granddad. Albert Murchison.”
The Case of the Purloined Painting Page 11
