The Bloody Canvas

by KJ Kalis

  Eli nodded. “That’s why I wanted to talk to you in person.”

  “If that is the case, then we are going to need help on an international level,” Kat said.

  Carson nodded. “That might take me a little time. I have plenty of contacts in the area, but not many that work on an internationally.”

  Kat pulled her phone out of her pocket. “I think I might be able to help. Give me a minute.” Kat got up from the table and walked back through the curtain into the showroom area. The smell of mustiness and attics permeated the store. Although she wasn’t a fan of antiques, all the things that surrounded Eli seem to fit him perfectly. She stared at her phone and went to her contacts, pulling up one name that she thought might be able to help.

  “Kat, is that you?”

  “Hi, Henry, how are you?”

  Henry Nash worked for Scotland Yard. More specifically, he worked for the counterterrorism unit within the department. He had been Kat’s contact when she was in England investigating the cathedral fire. They had formed a friendship and Kat had ended up taking his ex-wife’s dog, Tyrant, home with her after Bev’s death. If anyone had the international contacts to help figure out where the art had gone, it would be Henry. And, if he didn’t know it himself, he’d know who to talk to. It was the only idea she had. They had to solve the mystery of where Hailey’s art had gone. In her gut, she knew that was key to figuring out who had killed Hailey and why.

  “Kat, it’s so good to hear from you! I’m doing quite well, thank you for asking. How’s Tyrant?”

  “She’s amazing, Henry. She’s become quite a part of our family.”

  “From the sound of your voice, Kat, it sounds like you are calling with an agenda.”

  “You’d be right.” She paused for a moment wondering how much to tell Henry. After all, he wasn’t really part of the case. Neither was she. She didn’t want to upset Carson and have him block her out of any information that might come in. At the same time, the more she told Henry the more he would be able to help her. “I’m working on a story right now and have run across some information that I am not sure to do with. I was wondering if you’d be able to help?”

  “Of course, love. What are you up to?”

  Over the course of their time together, Henry and Kat had become good friends. It didn’t start out that way. Kat had been sent to England under the guise of being a US Army contractor looking into a cathedral fire that had destroyed a communications hub for the government that was located under the cathedral. The Brits didn’t know anything about the American hub. Her contact in the Army, Hannah Carter, had introduced her to Henry. Henry had been her guide during her entire time in England and had accompanied her back to the United States as they solved the case. By the time they were done, Henry had saved her, and she had saved Henry. A friendship had been born. They’d stayed in touch once Kat got back to the United States. “I’m in Savannah, Georgia, right now. I’m working on the case of an art student that was murdered.”

  “That sounds like a local issue,” Henry said.

  “I know… but it has turned out to be something more, or at least I think it will be something more.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Kat could hear Henry fumbling in the background. In her mind, she imagined him in his office at Scotland Yard. The way she remembered it, it was filled to the brim with paperwork and coats and equipment and file drawers. She imagined he was pushing things around on his desk to try to find a piece of paper to write notes on. “What brought me down here in the first place was that the suspect is a ten-year-old child. He’s accused of stabbing a twenty-year-old student from the Savannah College of Art and Design in the park. She bled out on the scene.”

  He whistled through his teeth, “But there’s more?”

  “Yes. In the process of trying to put the story together, I went to her apartment. In it, there was a locked room that had approximately thirty pieces of art — replicas of famous paintings — that are now missing.”

  “And what makes you think that Scotland Yard would be interested in your art student?”

  “Well, I ran into a local art expert, Eli Langster. He did a little digging for me and said that one of his contacts told him that a large shipment of art had just been sent out of New York on its way to London.”

  Kat could hear Henry tapping on his computer keyboard. “Hold on for one moment. Let me see something.” Another moment passed, and Kat could hear Henry typing more.

  “What are you looking up?” Kat said.

  “For years, I worked on customs enforcement. Somehow, the name Eli Langster sounds familiar to me.”

  A shiver ran down Kat’s spine. Could the mild-mannered man in the next room have some connections she wasn’t aware of? In her most logical moments, it always surprised Kat how danger seemed to pass everyone so closely. Most people never suspected that the people around them could do them harm, not to mention what they might be capable of if pushed.

  “Yes, yes. It’s right here. We have had some dealings with Eli Langster before. Looks like he was a rather good informant. What did he tell you?”

  “Nothing more than what I just told you. He said he had a contact who mentioned that a shipment of art was on its way to London. Eli said that shipping thirty pieces at one time was unusual.” Kat glanced back toward the curtain that separated the showroom from where Carson and Eli were having tea from where she was standing. She eyed it suspiciously, wondering what her next step should be. “Henry, let me ask you, is Eli a problem?”

  “Oh, I don’t think so. Based on what I can see here he just passed information along to get himself out of a scrape. Can’t say for sure, but I think you’ll be okay.”

  Kat took a deep breath and started to relax a little bit. Knowing that Eli was just passing information made her feel better. She had been in too many situations that had violence attached to them. Her PTSD was finally under control, or at least she thought it was, and she didn’t want to go back to living the way that she had been.

  The tapping on the keyboard continued. “Here’s what I was looking for,” Henry said. “We keep shipping manifests in our files. They are for merchandise that is coming into London and the things that go out. Let me take a look at these and give you a call back.”

  “Thanks, Henry, I appreciate it.” Kat walked back to the kitchenette, pulling the curtain to the side. She found Eli and Carson still sitting at the table. Carson had a pastry in front of him and was breaking it into small pieces with his fingers. She realized he probably didn’t want to get anything on his suit. “I made a call to a friend I have at Scotland Yard.” She looked directly at Eli, “He seems to know you.”

  Eli’s cheeks reddened, “Really?”

  “He said you had provided information to them in the past.” Kat sat down at the table and pulled the plate closer to her. She chose the pastry that was on the top and put it on her plate.

  “Anything I should know about that, Eli?” Carson said, his mouth full. He wiped his hands on a napkin and looked directly at Eli.

  Eli’s face flushed even more deeply. “There are a lot of good people in the art world. There are also a lot of bad people in the art world. During my career, I’ve bumped into many from both camps.”

  Carson raised his eyebrows. “If Scotland Yard knows you, then it sounds like you run into your fair share of bad eggs.”

  Eli stammered, “I got myself into a scrape with several gentlemen who wanted to move art. I just provided information to Scotland Yard.”

  It was Kat’s turn to raise her eyebrows. “I’m guessing you traded information so that you wouldn’t get into trouble?”

  Eli nodded. “As I said, there are lots of good people in the art business and lots of bad ones, too.”

  “Is this contact that you got in touch with, is he one of the good ones or one of the bad ones?” Kat asked.

  “He sort of straddles the line…” Eli immediately looked down into his lap. Kat had the feeling that he wasn’
t telling them the whole story and that the part he wasn’t telling them he was a little ashamed about. She didn’t want to push him. The last thing she needed was the information to dry up all of a sudden.

  “Those are sometimes the best sources,” Kat smiled. She could tell by Eli’s reaction that he was a little embarrassed that his past had been exposed. She didn’t know the extent of it. She hoped Carson didn’t decide to dig too deep and scare Eli off.

  “So, where do we go from here?” Carson asked standing up from the table and pushing his chair in.

  “I’m just waiting for my contact at Scotland Yard to get back to me to let me know what’s going on.” She looked down at her phone, “He’s usually pretty fast.”

  “While we are waiting, how about if you tell me a little bit more about this art that you saw at Hailey’s apartment?” Carson asked, looking at Eli.

  As they started to talk, Kat walked back out into the showroom, wandering the tightly packed aisles, waiting for Henry to call her back. Impatience surged through her system. She pulled her phone out of her pocket and sent a text to Van. “Source here says paintings may have been shipped to London.”

  Van texted back right away. “Are you going?”

  Kat’s stomach clenched into a small ball. Going back to London would inevitably remind her of the last time she was there. While there were good things that came out of her trip — finding a missing Navy SEAL and bringing her girl, Tyrant, home — there were also a lot of other memories that she would prefer not to relive. Things like how a blackmail list that she had turned over to criminals had gotten the Navy SEALs in trouble in the first place and how it all linked back to her time in Afghanistan. Sometimes she felt like she walked around with a cord that tied her to her past. She could only go so far before she bumped up at the end of it. Tears started to form in her eyes. She quickly turned a corner around a stack of old antique books and wiped her face. The last thing she needed was to have a complete meltdown.

  Her phone started to vibrate. She looked down and recognized it was Henry’s office calling. “That was fast,” she said, wiping the last tear from her face.

  “Well, you know how we work here at Scotland Yard. We are efficient about once a year. You happened to get lucky.”

  Kat laughed, the tension melting from her chest. Despite what she had been through she had made a lot of good friends. She counted Henry Nash as one of them. “Don’t keep me waiting. What did you find out?”

  “Well, there is a shipment of art that is on a plane to London right now. According to the manifest, there are approximately thirty pieces in the collection. Sound familiar?”

  Kat’s heart started to beat a little faster in her chest. The fact that Henry had found a shipment with the exact same number of pieces of art in it gave her hope that they had found Hailey’s work. “What do we do now?”

  “I’ve put a notice on the customs manifest to hold it for additional screening when it arrives. If we don’t find anything though, we’ll have to let it go.”

  Kat chewed her lip. Why would student artwork get shipped across the world? It just didn’t make sense to her. “Henry, I just don’t understand. If it is Hailey’s art why send it the whole way to Europe?”

  “There’s a lot of money in forgeries, Kat,” Henry said. “We see it all the time. Some fakes are better than others, but no matter what, they always command a lot of money. There is an entire division that’s devoted to just looking at forged art. It’s a big deal here in Europe.”

  Kat did a quick calculation. If the pieces that were on the plane were actually Hailey’s work, someone could buy them not knowing that they weren’t real. “How much do you think those pieces of artwork are worth?”

  “It’s hard to tell. But the whole group together? It could be worth hundreds of millions of pounds.”

  Kat shook her head. The idea that Hailey’s work could make it across to London and disappear frustrated her. Even worse, Kat thought about the collectors, museums and churches that could easily be duped into spending millions of dollars for work that had been painted by a student artist. Not that the work wasn’t beautiful, Kat realized. She had seen the pieces herself. It would be nearly impossible for an average person to notice they weren’t originals, but if someone was paying for an original and didn’t get one, that would be quite the heist. “How long will you hold the shipment for?” An idea began to form in her head.

  “We can hold it for up to forty-eight hours. That is, unless we find something. Then all bets are off, as you Americans say.”

  “Hold that shipment for me, will you? I’m on my way.” The words were out of Kat’s mouth before she realized what she said. She committed herself to flying the whole way to England to follow up on the delivery of art. It could be a wild goose chase. She instantly regretted saying that she would. Toughen up, Kat, she told herself. See the story through.

  Kat walked back toward the table where Carson and Eli were still chatting. The redness in Eli’s cheeks had returned to normal, so she guessed that they were talking about something other than Eli’s checkered past. They both stopped and looked at her as she walked in. “I just got a call from my contact at Scotland Yard. There is a delivery of art on the way. I’m going to London.”

  Carson and Eli both raised their eyebrows simultaneously. Eli stood up. “How will you know what you are looking at?”

  “I think I can remember the ones we saw.” Eli’s comment felt like a punch in the gut. Kat was no art expert. Could she remember?

  “I’ll go with you.” Eli stared at her, “After all, I’m the only one of the three of us that has any art expertise. I’m also the only one that saw all the pieces of art in Hailey’s apartment and would be able to remember which pieces they were. You need me. Plus, I’ve got some connections that might come in handy.”

  Kat didn’t say anything for a moment. She was surprised that Eli would want to go the whole way to London. “What about the shop?”

  Eli shook his head. “My wife will run it. It won’t be a problem.”

  Kat considered his offer. “Are you sure? This could be a complete waste of time.”

  Eli stood up a little straighter. “I haven’t had a good adventure in quite a while. It’s time I get out of Savannah for a bit.”

  Kat stared at Eli for another moment. His slumped posture had straightened up and there was a sparkle in his eyes. She tried to imagine how he had been ten, fifteen, or even twenty years earlier before the gray had permeated his hair. She wondered about the time that he had worked with Scotland Yard and how he knew Henry Nash. Who was she to deprive him of an adventure? The reality was that she wasn’t an expert in art and could definitely use the help. And he was right about one thing, he was the only one who had seen all of Hailey’s art before it had disappeared. She had been busy looking at the apartment. He would be their best shot at positively identifying that it was her work. Kat nodded, “You’re right. I’m not sure I would know what I was looking at.”

  Carson stood up, putting his notebook back in his pocket. “That settled, then. Keep me in the loop once you get to London.”

  Kat sent a quick text to Henry and purchased two tickets to go to London. She sent another text to Van to let him know what was going on. It was research, so the newspaper would pick up the cost to go. “Want to drive me back to the hotel so I can get my things?” she asked Eli.

  Eli nodded. “Sure. I don’t need to stop at home.”

  Kat tilted her head, “You’re already packed?”

  “When I heard from my contact, I figured there was a chance you might want to go and see for yourself. I’m prepared,” Eli smiled.

  She followed him out to the car, hearing the click of the lock as he closed the shop. Her mind raced, veering between what she was doing right now and what she had done in the past. Thoughts of being in London and walking through the rubble of the Stratham Cathedral fire, the smell of smoke still in her nostrils. She turned to Eli, wondering where this journey would take
them. As he started the car and pulled out of the parking lot, she swallowed hard. Did she really want to follow this? Wasn’t it enough that Henry knew that the art was on its way to London? She shook her head, not saying anything. The words of her therapist floated through her head, reminding her that if she would give it a few minutes, the thoughts would clear, and she would be able to move forward. She hoped that was the case this time...

  14

  Dr. Abibi Roux finished teaching her classes for the day, not without some level of distraction. The visit from the day before from the journalist was still rattling in her mind. The woman had seemed nice enough, but her questions weren’t something that Abibi was expecting. The fact that someone was looking into Hailey’s art and her side job was troubling. The last two years had been exciting and profitable. She didn’t know what might happen now that Hailey was dead. She needed to make a phone call.

  “Yes,” a male voice answered.

  “I’m calling because I have some concerns.”

  “What might those be?”

  Abibi had met Christopher Lavaud at an art auction two years before. She pictured him in her mind as they spoke. He was tall and blonde. She had watched him at the auction. He stood at the back of the room, his hands in his pockets, his eyes moving not only across the art, but across all the people. It looked at the time like he had been taking stock of nearly everything.

  The art auction had been held in New York City, in the plush room of a hotel in upper Manhattan. Most people assumed that the best art auctions were held in places like Soho, the bohemian center of the art world in New York. It just wasn’t true. The people with the money to buy the most expensive pieces of art didn’t like to have to stray too far from home, no matter what anyone else thought. With the traffic always being a challenge in New York City, the auction organizers decided to host it at a hotel that would be close to their clientele. It was a smart move.