Arsenic and Old Paint Read online

  “How is Frank?”

  “Technically, he’s not talking to me, but since he vouched for me I guess there’s still hope.”

  “Where are all the club members, anyway?” Annette asked. “Other than you three, a few housekeepers, and the parking lot guard, this place is deserted.”

  “Most of the staff is on vacation while the members are on a retreat in Sonoma County. You know, like the Bohemian Club?” The Bohemian Club is a super-secret fraternal society whose elite membership engages in an annual male bonding retreat that, rumor suggests, involves pagan rituals, cavorting nude in the forest, and urinating on centuries-old redwood trees. I didn’t get it, but I wasn’t really the target audience. “The board asked me to finish the job while they were gone.”

  “Don’t want your arty self polluting their rarified atmosphere?”

  “Something like that.”

  A cell phone trilled, and Annette answered, murmuring softly. It occurred to me that the F-U boys would have a collective aneurysm when they returned from their fresh air frolic to learn that not only had one of their own been murdered in the mansion, but also an African American woman was running the investigation. The thought made me smile.

  Annette snapped the phone shut, dropped it in her jacket pocket, and resumed the interrogation. “Continue.”

  “We were working upstairs, but when I plugged in a hairdryer to dry some plaster, a fuse blew. This place not only has the original wallpaper, it must also have some of the original wiring. We were on our way downstairs to look for the electrical panel.”

  “All three of you?”

  “Sam’s better at electrical stuff than I am, and Evangeline refused to be left alone. This place creeps her out, and I can’t say I blame her. Even in the middle of the day it’s full of shadows. Feels like bad juju.”

  “And by juju you mean...?”

  “Negative energy.”

  “Have you been hanging out in Berkeley again?”

  I nodded. “I’m taking a yoga class.”

  “How’s it going?”

  “I pulled a groin muscle, but I’m learning to breathe.”

  Annette smiled and nodded. “Go on.”

  “The three of us were coming down the staircase when we heard a woman screaming. We found Destiny in the bathroom with the, um, body.”

  “Do you recognize the victim?”

  “Never saw him before.”

  “How well do you know Destiny?”

  “I’ve seen her around, but we haven’t had any real interaction. She’s one of the few housekeepers working during the retreat.”

  “Describe what you saw when you entered the bathroom.”

  “The man was in the tub, just as he is now, with the sword....” Something about the gruesome tableau nagged at me, like an itch in the brain that I couldn’t scratch.

  “Where was Destiny?”

  “Kneeling over him. She was...sort of...touching the sword.”

  “What do you mean, ‘sort of touching’?”

  “She was holding it.”

  “Stabbing him?”

  “No, the sword was in his chest and—” I took a deep breath. Murder made me queasy; I hadn’t outgrown that “—she had both hands on the hilt.”

  Annette scribbled furiously, and I hastened to add, “Maybe she was trying to pull it out.”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “No, really. She seemed confused, asked me what happened, who would do such a thing. It could be, she discovered the body and grabbed the sword as a reflex. You know, trying to help him.”

  “Could be.”

  “We don’t know—”

  Annette reached into her jacket pocket, took out a well-worn brown leather case and flipped it open, revealing a shiny gold badge. “Oh look, I am still a detective. I thought for a moment we had switched roles.”

  Chastened, I held my tongue. Despite our earlier tussle, something about Destiny tugged at my heart. I couldn’t imagine her as a cold-blooded murderer, capable of running a man through the chest with a sword.

  Still, the inspector was right: I wasn’t a detective, and I didn’t know anything about Destiny. Maybe her usual mild manner and sweet face masked a homicidal soul. Maybe she was working through some childhood issues by stabbing a man who reminded her of her father/grandfather/pervy uncle. Maybe she’d changed one too many sets of five-hundred-thread-count Egyptian-cotton sheets and decided to off the first rich snob she encountered. I’d done a brief stint as a summer housekeeper at the Olive You Motel in my hometown of Asco, and by the time my first coffee break rolled around I was prepared to wield the toilet bowl brush to inflict grievous bodily harm upon the first rude guest to cross my path.

  “What did you do then?”

  “Sam called 911. That’s when Destiny freaked out and Evangeline grabbed her.”

  “And you threatened her with a chair?”

  “I was just trying to get her to calm down, and help Evangeline.”

  “Did Destiny say anything?”

  “She said she wasn’t supposed to be here. That none of us were supposed to be here.”

  “Did she indicate what she meant by that?”

  “When I was hired the board told me in no uncertain terms to stay out of the public areas and to use the rear servants’ stairs, never the main stairs.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m the hired help. And I don’t have a penis.”

  On that note a middle-aged officer entered the room and mumbled something in Annette’s ear. As he turned to leave I forced myself to meet his eyes and smile like an innocent person.

  When I was a mere stripling, my grandfather Georges had not only trained me in the techniques of art forgery, but had also implanted a deep and abiding distrust of officialdom in its many guises. I was starting to run out of patience with this trait—I was thirty-two years old, for crying out loud, surely the shelf life of Georges’s teachings had expired—and reminded myself that I was entirely, one-hundred-percent blameless. This time.

  “Is that it?” As Annette cocked her head, her pounded copper earrings flashed in the light, accentuating the strong planes of her otherwise unadorned face. “Any other details, no matter how insignificant? Did you see anyone, hear anything else?”

  I shook my head. Annette wrote another note to herself in her notebook.

  “Annette, what will happen to Destiny? Are you going to arrest her?”

  “Let’s see.... She was found standing over the victim, holding the alleged murder weapon with both hands, and tried to flee the scene. What do you think?”

  “But you don’t know that she—”

  “Do I need to bring out my badge again?” Annette looked up from her notes, and her tone softened. “I’m not going to railroad an innocent woman, Annie.”

  “Do me a favor?” I dug a business card out of my wallet. “Give her this?”

  “I doubt she requires the services of a faux finisher,” Annette said, and glanced at the card. “A defense attorney?”

  “Sounds like she needs a lawyer.”

  Annette stuck the card in her notepad. “Anything else?”

  I shook my head.

  “All right. Should you think of something, get in touch.” The inspector rose and handed me her business card. “In case you’ve forgotten the number.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Believe it or not, it’s good to see you again, Annie. I want to speak with your friends for a few minutes, then you’ll be free to go.”

  “Annette, I hope this doesn’t sound heartless, considering the circumstances, but I really need to get back to work. The attic’s one floor up, you won’t even know I’m here.”

  When I had mentioned this project to my Uncle Anton, an art-forger-turned-art-restorer whose decades of hands-on experience made him a font of useful information about the chemistry of paint and dyes, he’d subjected me to a lengthy lecture on the dangers of “killer wallpaper.” I had delayed stripping the paper until I tested for nasty toxins
like lead, arsenic, and mercury in the original dyes to be sure I wasn’t about to accidentally melt my brain or those of my friends. Now the clock was ticking on the club members’ return, and I prided myself on finishing jobs on time, as scheduled.

  “Sorry, no. You’ll have to wait until we’ve finished processing the crime scene. I’ll have an officer go upstairs with you while you retrieve your things, and escort you out.”

  There was no point in arguing. Inspector Crawford Hath Spoken.

  “When do you think I’ll be able to get back to work?”

  “I’ll keep you posted,” she said over her shoulder as she headed for the door.

  The unscratchable itch suddenly presented itself. “Annette, wait.”

  She paused, one hand on the doorknob.

  “It sounds silly, but... You’re going to think I’m nuts.”

  She lifted a single eyebrow again. Apparently that ship had sailed long ago.

  “The murder scene reminded me of a painting.”

  “A painting.”

  “David’s Death of Marat.”

  2

  Betrayal can be beautiful: it is the source of exquisite pain, and therefore a fountain for great art. Always remember: artists must suffer for their art...but a lovely bottle of wine makes the suffering much easier to bear.

  —Georges LeFleur, “Craquelure”

  “Isn’t David a statue by Michelangelo?”

  “No—actually yes—but this has nothing to do with Michelangelo,” I said. “Jacques Louis David was a painter who supported the French Revolution. The Death of Marat is one of his best-known paintings.”

  “Who was Marat?”

  “One of the most radical of the French revolutionaries, which if you think about it is saying a lot. He was assassinated in his bathtub.”

  “Stabbed?”

  I nodded. “By a woman, something Corday. Charlene...no, Charlotte, I think.”

  I couldn’t remember what I ate for lunch or the names of influential clients I had met three times, but when it came to art-related trivia, I was a rock star.

  “How did she manage to corner him in a bathtub?”

  “Marat suffered from a skin disease that was relieved by cold water. He spent so many hours soaking in the bathtub that he habitually worked there. Corday was a moderate revolutionary who didn’t like Marat’s penchant for guillotining political opponents; she got in by claiming to have information about an uprising, but instead she stabbed him in the heart. In David’s painting, Marat’s head is wrapped in a white cloth, his arm is drooping to the floor, and in his hand is a piece of paper—a petition from his assassin, Corday.”

  “Talk about your bad juju,” Annette said. “What else can you tell me about this painting?”

  “David painted two other revolutionary martyrs, but only The Death of Marat survived the counter-revolution. I imagine it’s in one of France’s state collections, but I’d have to look it up.”

  “And you’re saying the murder scene was staged to look like this painting?”

  “It sure looks like it.”

  “If that’s true, we may be dealing with a lunatic.”

  “Or someone sending a message.”

  “About what? The French Revolution?”

  I shrugged. “You asked if I noticed anything unusual. You have to admit this fits the bill.”

  “Write down the name and artist. I’ll compare it to the crime scene photos.” She handed me her pad and pen, then gave me a searching look. “How well known is this painting? Would a normal person have heard of it?”

  Annette considered my endless store of Fun Facts about Fine Art to be “eccentric” because she was too polite to call it “freakish.” I suspected what bothered her most was the contrast between my expertise in art and forgery and my dearth of common sense in other areas: cooking, balancing my checkbook, staying out of jail....

  “It’s well known in France, both because of its history and because of its beauty. The poet Baudelaire praised the painting’s visual elegance.”

  “What about Americans?”

  “Most wouldn’t recognize it unless they’d studied art or French history,” I conceded.

  “That’s what I thought.”

  * * *

  Evangeline turned down my offer of a ride in the cramped cab of my two-seater truck, declaring her intention of picking up some takeout from her favorite Pakistani restaurant and holing up in the apartment she was subletting from my vacationing assistant, Mary. It wasn’t an apartment in the strictest sense, just the dining room of an old Victorian in the Mission District that was separated from the rest of the flat by a blanket slung over a clothesline. But to Evangeline it was home.

  She also muttered something about looking for another job. “No offense, Annie,” she honked in her upstate New York accent before heading for the bus stop. “But you’re kinda scary. I never did see no dead bodies where I come from.”

  Given all we had been through in the past year I didn’t blame her. Sometimes I thought I wouldn’t hang out with me if I had other options. I needed an assistant, though, because for the next few weeks I had a full painting schedule in addition to running my new Internet art assessment business.

  Not to mention coping with my ex-felon of a business partner who, despite the terms of his parole, had taken an unauthorized leave of absence.

  Samantha and I climbed into my little green Toyota truck and headed across town towards our studio building in China Basin. Sam spent her days creating one-of-a-kind jewelry, while I ran a mural and faux-finishing business, True/Faux Studios. My real love was portraiture, but faux finishing was much more lucrative. The days of artists becoming celebrated revolutionaries while making a living painting portraits were long past.

  I caught a faint whiff of patchouli oil and looked over at my calm, steady friend. With her long, thick locks, her penchant for wearing bright African-print fabrics, and the slight Caribbean lilt that was intensified under the influence of stress or too many mojitos, Samantha Jagger scored about a twenty on the Cool-o-Meter scale of one-to-ten. I looked at my paint-splattered overalls and worn athletic shoes. I cleaned up okay, given sufficient time and motivation, but even on my best days the Cool-o-Meter hovered around four and a half.

  Neither of us was in a chatty mood, but I needed a distraction from the ominous sounds emanating from beneath the hood.

  “Talk to me so I don’t have to listen to the engine’s death wail.”

  Sam was game. “How’s your love life?”

  “Nonexistent.”

  “C’mon, I’ve been married for twenty-one years. I have to live vicariously. Tell me the good stuff.”

  “I’m afraid there’s not much to tell these days.”

  Not long ago I had broken up with Josh, a sweet, decent carpenter because I decided he was a little too sweet, and a lot too decent, for the likes of me. Sam was rooting for me to hook up with our studio building’s straight-arrow landlord, Frank DeBenton, but he had treated me with icy aloofness since I announced my intentions to set up shop with an art thief. The criminal in question, Michael, was sex-on-wheels but bad news, all of which was a moot point at the moment. He had been AWOL for the last week.

  My mother advised me to find a nice, steady computer engineer with health insurance and a 401(k) plan. For the moment I was doing a fairly good job sublimating with chocolate.

  “Frank’s being exceedingly polite to me,” I said.

  “He’s not thrilled about your new online business. Or should I say, your new business partner. What’s his full name, Michael X. Something?”

  “Michael X. Johnson is his current moniker.”

  “Meaning?”

  “It’s the name he uses on the paperwork. I’ve given up trying to discover his real one.”

  “Was forming a business partnership with a man whose real name you don’t know such a good idea, d’ya think?”

  “There were extenuating circumstances.”

  “Such as?”
>
  “Poverty. Besides, Doug—Michael’s parole officer—believes that thieves like Michael can sincerely repent their lives of crime and be rehabilitated.”

  Sam laughed. “Let me guess: Doug’s a Buddhist from Berkeley.”

  She wasn’t far from the mark. I, on the other hand, was a lapsed Presbyterian from a small Sacramento Valley town—by way of Paris—who believed that felons such as Michael could sincerely rue getting caught and develop a healthy respect for the authorities.

  Last spring I had come to the realization that I would never attain economic stability—much less comfort, still less retirement—through my art studio alone. So when the allegedly reformed art thief I knew as Michael X. Johnson proposed we join forces to offer online assessments of art and antiquities, it seemed like a relatively straightforward cash cow.

  Besides, the FBI’s Art Squad was in on the whole thing. With their approval, Michael and I set up a website offering online assessments, while sending out a few rumors that we might be morally flexible when it came to assessing less-than-legitimate art. Despite the Hollywood archetype, most thieves are neither clever nor suave—Michael being the exception that proved the rule—and every so often a crook would contact our website looking for an online assessment of a stolen work of art. We forwarded the information to our “handler” at the Art Squad, and collected a hefty reward if the FBI arrested the perp.

  Last week, using information from our site, the police tracked down two Riker’s Island corrections officers who had swiped a Salvador Dalí drawing from the prison lobby and replaced it with a twelve-dollar poster. It had taken the prison authorities eight months to notice their Dalí was missing, and the thieves might have gotten away with it had they not quarreled over the value of the purloined piece and decided to seek an outside opinion.

  The naiveté of the average art criminal had paid the last few months’ rent with a few dollars to spare, and I had begun to dream about cutting back on my faux finishing to concentrate on portraiture. First things first, though: I was shopping for a new truck. I planned to call it the Thief Mobile.

  I pulled into a parking spot right in front of Frank DeBenton’s office, next to one of his armored cars. In addition to owning the building, our landlord Frank ran his own secure transport business specializing in—ironically enough—valuable art and antiquities.