Feint of Art: Read online

  “Naomi! It’s Annie!” My voice rang with false cheer and bonhomie. “Annie Kincaid!”

  Silence.

  “Naomi? You there?”

  “Hullo, Ann,” Naomi replied stiffly.

  My given name was Anna, though I preferred Annie. Either would do. Ann would not.

  Naomi knew this.

  “This is probably an odd question,” I babbled on, as if Naomi weren’t sending subliminal “drop dead” messages through the telephone line. “Or maybe not, considering what’s going on there. And listen, about that, I don’t really know, but it’s bothering me, which is why I’m calling.”

  Hmm. Maybe I should have thought this out better before dialing.

  “What do you want, Ann?” Naomi asked curtly. True to form, she was not going to make anything easy for me.

  “I heard Stan Dupont was killed last night at the museum,” I replied. I winced at my bluntness. Poor Stan.

  “We’ve been asked not to discuss the matter with the public,” she said frostily.

  “I’m not ‘the public,’ Naomi. I’m your old friend. Remember, Nancy Fancy Pants?”

  That should get her. “Nancy Fancy Pants” was Naomi’s freshman-year dorm nickname. The students on our floor had bestowed it upon her because while everybody else wore patched jeans and faded T-shirts from Goodwill, Naomi wore matching separates from Burberry and Ann Taylor. The woman had an unhealthy relationship with monograms.

  To be fair, Naomi was not singled out for this treatment. Everyone in our dorm had a nickname. Mine was “Kinky Pinky Kincaid,” thanks to a brief and largely regrettable flirtation with fuchsia hair dye. But whereas everybody else outgrew their nicknames, Naomi’s had stuck.

  “You most certainly are the public, Miss Hoity Nose,” she replied hotly.

  It was my theory that Naomi had never forgiven me for being a better artist than she. I wasn’t sure where the “Miss Hoity Nose” came from.

  “Just tell me what happened,” I said, remembering another pertinent fact about Naomi: she couldn’t resist gossip.

  “Well . . .” she said dramatically, “as long as you promise not to tell anyone . . .”

  She was cracking. I checked the clock on my truck’s dashboard. It had taken less than three minutes.

  Naomi’s voice fell to a whisper. “It was last night, after closing. The interns were gone by about ten, so it must have been after that. The museum was as silent as a tomb,” she said, piling on the melodrama.

  “And . . . ?”

  “I’m trying to tell you, if you’d just listen,” she whined.

  “So tell me already.”

  “You don’t have to be so rude, Ann.”

  I took a deep breath and counted to ten.

  “It was Stanley Dupont, one of the janitors. He was shot. Murdered most foul.”

  “Was it a robbery? Was anything taken?”

  “That’s the weird thing,” she replied. “The security tapes should have shown something, but they’re missing. Apparently the alarms were shut down for a while just before midnight, and someone opened a side door. You know Stanley had been with the Brock forever—he had access to almost everything. Carlos in Security told Debbie in Accounting that he heard that Stanley had brought in a woman, but nobody knows for sure. It’s hard to imagine him sneaking a woman in for a secret rendezvous. I mean, ick.”

  “Mmm?” I replied, distracted by the image of myself as Mystery Woman.

  “The really odd part is, Stanley was found near the main vault, where The Magi is kept,” Naomi continued, clearly delighted, as people often were, to be the bearer of bad news. “You know, the Brock’s newest acquisition. But the vault was locked. If someone was trying to steal the Caravaggio, why kill Stanley before the vault was opened?”

  “Surely Dupont didn’t have access to the vault?”

  “No, of course not, but a thief might have thought he was Security. Stanley always had a lot of keys. Or maybe he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “So The Magi is still there?”

  “Yes. Nothing was taken. And poor Stanley was doing so well. He just bought himself a new cherry red Miata and a time-share in Cancún. I saw pictures. Lots of thatched-roof huts on the beach. All for nothing. I mean, it just seems so senseless.” For once, Naomi and I were in accord. “Maybe it was something personal. Maybe the woman was someone’s wife. Can you imagine cheating on your husband with Stanley?”

  Nope, sure couldn’t.

  “Does the name Anton Woznikowicz mean anything to you?” I asked her.

  “Anton Wozni—whatsis?”

  “Woznikowicz.”

  “Wooznookoowhich?” When it came to music and languages, Naomi had a tin ear. Where I’d aced French our freshman year, she’d flunked it, as well as Russian, Spanish, and Italian. By our senior year, she was desperate to fulfill the college’s foreign language requirement. Fortunately for her, Latin was not a spoken language.

  “No, Woz-ni-ko-wicz. Just like it’s spelled.”

  “Doesn’t sound familiar.”

  “How about Harlan Coombs?”

  There was a long silence. “Don’t tell me you’re getting involved with that sort of thing again? Really, Ann, I thought you were trying to be an honest housepainter.”

  “Just answer the question, Naomi,” I said through clenched teeth. Naomi was always primed to assume that I would slip back into criminality if given the chance. “I take it you’ve heard of him?”

  “Who hasn’t? He was only the city’s foremost art dealer until he absconded with tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of valuable drawings. You of all people should know that.”

  “I only know what I read in the papers, Naomi. Did the museum buy from him? I mean, before anyone knew what he was up to?”

  There was another pause and I tried to figure out how these recent events were connected. What did Dupont’s death, Ernst’s absence, and the fake Caravaggio have to do with Harlan Coombs and the stolen drawings? And how in the world had Anton gotten himself mixed up in the whole mess?

  “Coombs was here a few weeks ago,” Naomi said slowly. “That was when, as far as we knew, he was still legitimate. Then the police were here asking about him. Before the murder, I mean. They were here again today, of course. It makes it so hard to get anything done—”

  “What did Coombs want?” I interrupted.

  “I presume he was meeting with Acquisitions. We’ve done business with him for years. No one had any reason to doubt his character. Well, listen, Ann—I’ve got to run. Things are pretty crazy around here. Can’t yak all day on the phone like some folks.”

  I bit my tongue and reminded myself that Naomi wasn’t evil, she was just clueless and self-absorbed. I was about to hang up when I remembered to ask about Ernst.

  “Ernst Pettigrew?” she asked. “He hasn’t come in today. Probably has that flu that’s going around.”

  He seemed healthy enough last night at the Brock, I thought. Maybe it was a twenty-four-hour, avoid-the-police kind of flu. “Do you have his home number?”

  She sighed. “Really, Ann. He’s involved with a lovely woman. I know you’ve made some bad choices, but don’t you think it’s time to get on with your life?”

  That did it. Maybe she was evil. The gloves were coming off.

  “Thank you so much, Naomi, you’ve been such a help,” I purred. “Do be sure to let me know if I can ever return the favor. I may have a few old drawings lying around.”

  I hung up on her shocked silence. Art restorer, my ass. I could out-restore Naomi with my hands tied behind my back and a paintbrush in my mouth. Speaking of which, I now had an idea for how to find Anton. My grandfather had once mentioned, in a tone suffused with contempt, that in addition to forgery Anton did legitimate art restoration for a number of local gallery owners and art dealers. I could remember the name of only one of those galleries, but it seemed like a good place to start.

  I crawled across town toward the shopping mecca of Uni
on Square, swearing at the midday traffic, and gratefully surrendered my truck to the parking garage at the intersection of Ellis and O’Farrell. Within several blocks of Union Square was a high concentration of art galleries, both small and large, alternative and mainstream. There were galleries sprinkled all over San Francisco, but it was not a true art-loving city in the style of New York or Paris, where entire city blocks were devoted to art. Here people were in pursuit of the artistic life more than the actual art itself.

  As I marched past Macy’s, eyes averted to prevent my lusting after things I didn’t need and couldn’t afford, I realized I was dreading doing the gallery hop alone. Like Hester and her scarlet A, I always felt as if I bore the mark of Georges LeFleur. Whenever I walked into an art gallery I half expected the owner to bolt from behind a desk, point a long, scrawny finger at me, and screech, “Forger’s spawn! Forger’s spawn!”

  For today’s mission I needed someone irreverent. Someone sassy. Someone who was a lot like me when I wasn’t having a crisis of confidence caused by my unfortunate choice in grandfathers. Whipping out my cell phone, I called Mary, who as part of her commitment to being earth-friendly, traveled by bicycle. It would take her half an hour to get here. I signed off, relieved.

  Still . . . thirty minutes was plenty of time to speak with at least one gallery owner. Why was I being so cowardly? Was I somehow less worthy because I had taken a brief walk on art’s wild side?

  I lifted my chin, squared my shoulders, and hiked a few blocks to a building on California, where I took the elevator to the sixth floor and sauntered down the corridor, past several modern art galleries, until I reached Albert Mason’s Fine Arts.

  I moseyed through the gallery, perusing its offerings while an exotic-looking woman at the front desk went to fetch “Monsieur Mason” for me. Paintings in the Old Master style had become all the rage, forcing smaller galleries like this one to scramble to meet the demand. Mason had several quality eighteenth- and nineteenth-century pieces, but he also had a lot of bad art that just happened to be old. Evidently he was not immune to the pressure to fill his customers’ orders regardless of artistry.

  Albert Mason materialized, inquisitive yet sedate, pleasant yet distant, in the manner of gallery owners the world over. In his late fifties, with short salt-and-pepper hair, a stocky build, and the kind of complexion that reddened easily, he looked the type to take ballroom dancing lessons and dote on an overfed cat. He wore gray gabardine pants, a crisp pink Oxford shirt, a striped tie, and a blue blazer with brass buttons. Imported Italian leather loafers with tassels graced his dainty feet.

  “Thank you for speaking with me, Mr. Mason,” I began after introducing myself. “I’m looking for a mutual friend, Anton Woznikowicz—”

  “In that case, you are not welcome in this gallery, young lady,” he spat, turning a disturbing shade of scarlet. “I’ll thank you to leave.”

  Pivoting on his heel, he disappeared behind a privacy wall. I followed.

  “Mr. Mason, please,” I pleaded to his blue serge back. “I need to know . . .”

  His shoulders twitched, which I took to be an encouraging sign.

  “How about Harlan Coombs?” I persisted. “Could we talk about him?”

  That stopped him. He jerked his head toward his office.

  “Who are you?” he demanded as he sank into a leather chair behind his desk.

  “I’m, uh, well, as I said, I’m Annie Kincaid,” I told him, following his example and taking a seat. “I worked in restoration with the Brock Museum,” I said, twisting the truth a tad, “and now have my own business in China Basin. I’m trying to locate an old friend, Anton Woznikowicz. Coincidentally, I’m also trying to track down Harlan Coombs.”

  “Is Coombs an ‘old friend’ of yours as well?”

  “Uh, no, not really.” Why hadn’t I worked out a story before I came here? Still, I supposed I could tell him what I was doing without naming names. “A . . . mutual friend asked me to look into some drawings that he’d lent to Harlan Coombs. I thought they might have been . . . um, shall we say, ‘improved’ by Anton, and I know Anton has done restoration work for you in the past, so I thought you might know where I could find him.”

  Now that wasn’t so hard. I smiled at him brightly.

  Mason glanced at the closed office door, as if worried that all of San Francisco was lurking outside to catch a whiff of scandal. Those of us in the art world tended to think that everyone was as passionate about art as we. In fact, most of the people in my life not only didn’t know a Bronzino from an Alma-Tadema, they didn’t much care. But because this man was an art dealer who clearly cared passionately, I scooted my chair closer.

  “Listen, Ms., uh, Koolaid,” he said, a pink tongue darting out and licking his lips. “If you do find Harlan, he’s got a few things of mine, too. Bastard skipped town with all kinds of drawings.”

  “Why would he do that?” I asked, mentally filing “Koolaid” away for use in the future as a possible alias.

  Mason leaned forward, his arms crossed on the desk, an eager look on his face. “I heard he was involved in day trading.”

  “Oh?”

  He glanced about furtively, and I found myself doing it, too. Paranoia was contagious.

  “You know,” he said impatiently. “In the stock market. He apparently made a lot of money, but when tech stocks took a dive last fall he took a bath. I heard Harlan kept hoping that if he invested more, he’d recoup his losses. Even make a killing. That was when he took off with seven of my most valuable drawings, including a sketch of a mother and child by Mary Cassatt and a sketch for Madonna del Baldacchino by Raphael. He sent back two, but they were obvious forgeries. The rumor is it was because of a woman he was seeing, that she pushed him to live high on the hog.”

  Sure, I thought sourly, blame a man’s bad behavior on a woman. Some things never seemed to change.

  “Do you have any idea where Harlan might be?” I asked.

  “If I knew that, I’d have my drawings, wouldn’t I?” he snapped.

  So much for our friendly gossip fest.

  “What about Anton?” I asked.

  “The last time I saw Anton, he was having a drink with Harlan at Vesuvio’s, in North Beach. That was when Harlan was still playing the market. Then, when he disappeared with my drawings, Anton claimed he didn’t know him.” Mason snorted derisively. “Well, I know what I saw, Ms. Koolaid. I haven’t heard from either of them since.”

  I mulled that over. “Do you have an address for Anton?”

  “It won’t do you any good. He’s gone.”

  “Could I have it anyway, please? And Harlan Coombs’ address as well.”

  Mason put on a pair of black-rimmed reading glasses and flipped through the giant Rolodex at his elbow. He scribbled the information on a piece of paper and shoved it across the desk.

  “You said you were associated with the Brock Museum, Ms. Koolaid?” he asked as I was rising to leave.

  “Mmm,” I managed.

  “Can you tell me anything about last night? Do they think the curator—Pettigrew—did it?”

  “Did what?”

  “The murder. Didn’t you hear?” Mason asked with relish.

  “Yes, but what does Ernst Pettigrew have to do with it?”

  “He’s only the most obvious suspect.” Mason lowered his voice and leaned toward me conspiratorially. I leaned forward, too, so that our foreheads were almost touching. Frankly, it was kind of creepy.

  “I heard that The Magi is a fake and Ernst killed the janitor to hush him up,” Mason whispered.

  I leaned back. That was absurd. Ernst was no killer. Moreover, if he were, and he wanted to silence anyone who knew the Caravaggio was a fake, I would have been the first to go. Last time I checked, I was still alive and kicking.

  “Why would Ernst kill the janitor to cover up a crime and then disappear? Wouldn’t that just make him look guilty?” I asked. “Besides, don’t tell anyone, but I heard from a very good source at th
e Brock that Dupont was involved in a love triangle, and that Ernst was in Cabo San Lucas wooing a wealthy donor, some old friend of Agnes Brock’s.”

  This was how nasty rumors got started, and I was happy to do my part. I was, after all, a forger’s spawn.

  I thanked Mason for his time and started toward the door.

  “By the way,” he said, “I would be willing to offer a small reward in the event that my drawings were recovered.”

  I turned back to him and smiled. “I believe twenty percent of the market value is the going rate.”

  Mason looked as if he’d swallowed a bad oyster. “All right. Twenty percent.”

  Before I left I got it in writing.

  As I wandered out of the gallery and rode the elevator down to the street, my mind was on Ernst. What in the world had happened last night? I kept imagining Ernst calling me up and amusing me with some long, involved tale, told in his cute Austrian accent. The scene ended with Ernst announcing that his model girlfriend, Quiana, was too skinny and too vapid. He had never realized how much he missed my idiosyncratic take on the world, until—

  Get it together, Annie, I told myself. Not only is that not going to happen, but deep down you know you don’t want it to, anyway.

  Here’s what else I knew: while I was at the café waiting for Ernst, somebody killed Stan Dupont and Ernst Pettigrew dropped off the radar screen.

  Here’s what I did not know: everything else.

  No, wait. I also knew that Anton Woznikowicz had forged The Magi as well as a number of sketches that Harlan Coombs used to defraud gallery owners, such as Anthony Brazil and Albert Mason. And at some point before the murder, Harlan had disappeared.

  So what did it all add up to?

  Darned if I knew.

  “Annie! Hey!” Mary called as I wandered onto the street.

  Mary looked like an angel on steroids. For reasons known only to herself, she had donned a sparkly tuxedo jacket over her vinyl vest, put on fingerless black lace gloves, and exchanged her usual Doc Martens for leather motorcycle boots. The very outfit I would have chosen for a bike ride through inner-city traffic.