1 - Artscape: Ike Schwartz Mystery 1 (7 page)

Harry grinned. He liked this girl.

“Jennifer,” the boy whined, “don’t make them angry.”

“Oh, shut up, Jack. What can they do to us? I mean, whether I am nice or nasty isn’t going to make any difference now, is it, whoever you are?”

“No, Miss,” replied Grafton, “probably not.” He unlocked her cuffs and led her to the bathroom. He stood in the door and indicated that she should go ahead.

“Do you mind? I would like a little privacy. I know there isn’t much of me that you people haven’t seen, but I would like to, you know—alone.”

“I’m sorry…Jennifer? That’s your name? I’m sorry, Jennifer, but I can’t. This is one of those motels where they install a lot of useless extras, like instant coffee makers and telephones in the john, so you don’t notice how rundown and tacky the place really is.”

The girl glanced at the wall to her right and saw the phone that was an integral part of the paper dispenser.

She sighed and started to lift her skirt.

“Hold it a minute,” Harry said. He went to the phone, bent down, and disconnected the modular clips at both ends of the cord, removed it, and shoved it in his pocket. He turned, checked the window over the tub, painted shut, and then waved.

“Enjoy,” he said, and left the room, pulling the door closed behind him.

She showed him a lopsided grin. “Thanks.”

Chapter Ten

Somehow, Ike realized, he had managed to get through another week without incident. Except for the usual traffic accidents and violations, the loud parties and occasional D and D, the week passed quietly, uneventfully. He congratulated himself for having buried another one hundred sixty-eight hours of his life. Now it was Friday noon, and in five hours or so, he could begin the weekend, one that was his, not a repeat of the previous one.

He sighed. Was it just a week ago he had been conned by his father into going out to the farm? It had passed pleasantly enough. His father kept his promise and not talked politics, career, or Ike’s future. That left little they could talk about, but they shared some hours reminiscing. Ike’s fears about having to fend off the advances of the eligible Miss Rubenstein turned out to be groundless. To his delight and his parent’s consternation, she showed no interest in Ike as a marital prospect at all. She had, it turned out, a “gentleman” in Richmond whose virtues she described in great detail and at great length all day Saturday and Sunday. Ike heard about Dr. Milton Rappeport, the eminent orthodontist, at breakfast, at the swimming pool, in the library, at every turn. Milty, she declaimed, was kind and considerate. He escorted Barbara to only the best restaurants, purchased nice presents for her, and danced attendance on her every wish and whim. He was expert in the inner workings of the New York Stock Exchange and people’s malocclusions. He knew the difference between Bordeaux and Burgundy, which years were good or excellent. He read books, went to plays, vacationed in Stowe and Miami Beach. “He skis on water and snow, Ike, did you ever…” Barbara gushed, eyes aglow, hands clasped Madonna-like over her heart.

Ike had been impressed. He hoped she would find real happiness in this new relationship. Indeed, the only thing standing between Barbara and certain connubial bliss was the disconcerting fact that Milton was, if not happily, permanently married to the mother of his five children.

All in all, it had been a quiet time and fulfilled his filial duties for a month or two. He could now feel free to spend his weekends as he pleased. And this one, he decided, would be at the cabin, a retreat he purchased years ago as a place to hide. He had an idea a dozen years before that he would like to write. Except for the yellow-lined legal pads and the computer with its high-powered word processing software he bought when he purchased the cabin, he’d made no progress on that career. But the cabin played an important part in his life, anyway. He ran to it three years ago, like a hare from a fox, after Zurich, after the funeral. Without phone, television, or radio, he reveled in his privacy, cut off from any intrusions from the rest of the world.

Maybe this weekend, Ike thought, maybe this weekend I’ll write it down…put the whole mess on paper, but he knew he would not, could not.

He stared at his desk and shook his head at its clutter. Not by nature a disorderly man, his survival in the past depended on a methodical way of working. But desks were an unsolvable mystery to him. Somehow, no matter what system he devised, papers, memos, reports, letters, and reminders piled up in untidy stacks with coffee cups, parts of ballpoint pens, rubber bands, and paper clips. His desk, he decided, looked like a sanitary landfill.

The department secretary, Rita Joyce, learned to copy everything that went into Ike’s inbox, because the likelihood of its ever coming out again was nil. Periodically, Ike would clean, sort, annotate, and discard paper in a frenzy of neatness. His desk would be clear for perhaps two days and then the mess miraculously reappeared.

Ike pulled a trashcan over to his chair and began sorting. Urgent/important items he piled on the floor at his feet. Letters to be answered went into his lap. Items which were completed, or whose deadlines for completion had long since passed, went into the outbox for filing. Everything else went into the trash.

After an hour, the trashcan was filled and its overage spilled into the urgent pile at his feet. When he reached to separate the two, the pile in his lap slipped down to join them. It was almost three o’clock and Ike decided he had enough. He scooped up all the papers at his feet and returned them to his desk. Even though a substantial number of documents had ended in either the trash can or the outbox, the pile on his desk looked as large as when he started. There must be a law, he thought—one of Murphy’s, perhaps—that covered this. The depth of the pile on the desk is inversely proportional to the occupant’s importance. Not bad. The phone rang. Essie wigwagged to Ike from the outer office that he should pick up.

“Sheriff’s office, Schwartz.”

“Sheriff, this is Dr. Harris’ secretary…out at the college.” The last word was pronounced with a rise in inflection, making a verbal question mark.

“Yes?”

“Well, Sheriff, we’ve got a problem here.”

“What sort of problem?” Ike said, wondering why people never seemed to be able to get to the point in the first exchange on the telephone.

“Well, we’ve had a robbery,” she said.

“I’m sorry to hear that, Miss, Mrs.…”

“Ewalt, Agnes Ewalt. I’m President Harris’ personal secretary,” she said, barely disguising the pride she felt for holding such an exalted position.

“Well, Agnes, pardon, Ms. Ewalt, I’ll send someone out right away.”

“I don’t think ‘someone’ will do, Sheriff. President Harris said you’d better come yourself.”

“Me? Just what happened?” Ike said. Now he was getting impatient.

“Well, someone seems to have broken into the Art Storage Compound. Are you acquainted with the Art Storage Compound, Sheriff?” she asked. Ike was close to losing his temper.

“Ms. Ewalt, will you please get to the point? Yes, of course I know the facility, everybody in town knows about the bunker. What was taken?”

“All of it, Sheriff.”

“All? All of what?” Ike shouted.

“Why, the paintings, Sheriff. They’ve stolen the Dillon Art Collection, that’s what all.”

“Good God, Agnes, why didn’t you say so in the first place. I’ll be right out,” he shouted.

He hung up the handset and bolted out the door.

“I’ve called Billy and Whaite. They’re on their way,” Essie announced.

“Thanks, Essie. Tell one of them to come by here on the way and pick up a kit. We’ll want to dust for prints and collect whatever we can find.”

***

Ike pulled into the parking lot next to the Art Storage Compound and climbed out of the car. A knot of people stood around its open door. He recognized Ruth Harris, Colonel Scarlett of the state police, and two of Callend’s security people. A few paces away, Whaite Billingsly was talking to the little moon-faced, bearded man Ike had seen the week before outside President Harris’ office, the day she’d called him a fascist. This ought to be fun, he thought.

As he drew closer, he was struck by the expression on each of their faces. Ruth Harris was angry, exasperated. Colonel Scarlett, who had the rugged outdoor look one associates with cigarette ads or country music singers, at least before they all started growing beards, a look he accentuated by wearing tooled cowboy boots and his service revolver low on his hip, stared off into the woods, impassive. The security people looked uneasy.

Whaite wore the look of strained patience which seems to be the exclusive property of police officers. His companion was agitated.

“Good afternoon, President Harris, Colonel,” Ike said and nodded to the others. “You’ve had a robbery. Your secretary, Ms. Ewalt, says someone cleaned this place out. Is that right?”

“Yes, Sheriff, that’s right,” Ruth Harris snapped. “We are in the process of getting on with the business at hand. Colonel Scarlett here said we had to notify you. Something about jurisdiction, he said. So, you have been notified, thank you.”

“Appreciate that,” Ike said, turning to Scarlett. “What happened?”

“Well,” Scarlett drawled, “I got a call at dinner time, ’bout noon, I reckon, from somebody up at the capitol saying I should get my butt out here pronto because some pictures got ripped off last night. So here I am. When I found out you ain’t been called, I told them to call you. I haven’t done anything else.”

“Thanks, Colonel,” said Ike. Scarlett was as phony as a three-dollar bill. Except for three years on the highway patrol, where he was an efficient, but not noteworthy writer of speeding tickets, Scarlett had served his entire career, before making regional commander, as one of the governor’s series of bodyguards and chauffeurs. Nevertheless, he was not stupid and he knew his limits. Right now, he was off limits and he had called in Ike.

“You said ‘last night’? The robbery was last night?”

Scarlett opened his mouth to answer, but Ruth Harris cut through whatever he was about to say.

“That’s right, Sheriff, last night someone or some people broke in here and removed almost all the paintings.”

“I see. When was the robbery discovered, Ms….Doctor Harris?” Ike asked, feeling the anger beginning to build. He knew what the answer might be, and he was trying to get his temper under control before his suspicions were confirmed. He did not want another go-round with this woman. Keep cool, he thought.

“Nine this morning,” said Ruth.

“Nine,” Ike exploded. “You knew at nine this morning and you waited until three this afternoon to report it? What in God’s name—”

“You are mistaken, Sheriff,” Ruth interrupted icily. “We reported it almost immediately.”

“To whom?”

“Well, we called—”

“We? Who’s we, Ms. Harris?” Ike was angry. There was no hope for it. He and this insufferable woman were going to go at it now.

“We, is me, if you must know. I called—”

“Thank you, that’s what I thought.”

“And what is that supposed to mean?”

“Skip it. You called whom, President Harris?”

“I called the Dillon people. After all, it’s their art and their building. I thought they should know. And of course, I wanted their guidance. They, that is, Mr. Dillon himself, said he’d arrange for the state police and the FBI to be notified. So then I called the insurance company to alert them. That’s it,” Ruth said.

“That’s it?” Ike asked in amazement. “Didn’t it occur to you to call the police?”

“We did, Sheriff. Colonel Scarlett is here. The FBI’s on the way, I’m told.”

“No, no, Ms. Harris. Not the state police, not the Federal Bureau, the
police
—me. Don’t you know that you call the local police first, that the state troopers and the feds have no jurisdiction here—can do nothing for you unless I ask them to?”

“What?” Ruth exclaimed. “You mean to tell me that you are going to decide how to investigate the theft of a half a billion dollars’ worth of the world’s art heritage—you?”

“Sorry, lady, but that’s the way it is—my rural police force and me. Isn’t that right, Colonel?”

“That’s the size of it,” Scarlett said, “and you know you can call anytime, Sheriff. Well, I’m off. Keep in touch.” Scarlett ambled off with a wave of his hand.

“Colonel Scarlett?” Ruth was near panic. “You can’t leave. Mr. Dillon expects you to take charge here. He.…”

“I’ll be in touch, Colonel,” Ike said and turned to Ruth Harris.

Chapter Eleven

“Let me get this straight. This robbery was pulled off last night. It’s now three in the afternoon. You have known since nine o’clock this morning and nothing has been done? Your bungling gave the thieves a six-hour advantage they shouldn’t have. Do you have any idea how far you can go—I suppose in trucks for this job—in six hours? Do you have any idea what your screw-up gave them?”

“Bungling? Screw-up?” Ruth shouted, “Now look here, Mister—”

“Screw-up. In six hours, they could have gone three hundred, three hundred fifty miles. Figure they pulled out of here at dawn, say, five-thirty. They’ve had nine hours to get lost. They could be in New York or Pittsburgh by now. What in hell were you thinking about? I am fifteen minutes away. You call your police. They start the investigation. If the state police or the FBI or the U.S. Army is needed, we call them in—not you,” Ike shouted back, outraged at this smug, arrogant woman.

“You? You and your fumble-fingered cowboys are the last people in the world I want to handle this. We are talking about five hundred million dollars in art, Sheriff. This is not a holdup at the local Taco Bell. We need experts—”

“You get me, lady. Until I say otherwise, you don’t get a choice.” Ike turned his attention to the two embarrassed security police.

“Nine o’clock you discovered this?” Ike asked, fixing them with eyes that by now had taken on the characteristics of a ninety-mile-an-hour wind off the South Pole.

“Yes, sir, nine,” one answered. He swallowed, his eyes gazing out of focus at a tree behind Ike’s right shoulder.

“I thought this building had the most elaborate alarm system and television surveillance in the state,” Ike shot at him.

“Sheriff, I don’t believe I want my people to be interrogated by—”

“Dr. Harris,” Ike snarled, “you will go over there to that bench and sit down. You will stay there until I say so. If you don’t, so help me, I will arrest you on suspicion of grand theft larceny, obstruction of justice, assaulting a police officer, jay walking or anything else I can think of. Is that clear?”

Sparks flashed from Ruth’s eyes. She was about to reply when something in Ike’s manner convinced her she was not hearing an idle threat. She turned and did as she was told, settling for a frosty, “You haven’t heard the last of this, Sheriff.”

Ike turned back to the guard.

“Well?”

“Well, Sir, them alarms got broken into somehow and the television worked all right, but they fixed it so we seen the same picture all night.” The guard shuffled his feet and looked at the ground like a small boy caught sneaking into the movies.

“Fixed? What do you mean fixed? What picture all night?” Ike said.

“Ike,” Whaite Billingsly broke in, “they got a pair of video tape decks back there.” He gestured toward the back of the building. “They must have tapped the line, recorded a couple of minutes for each of the cameras, then cut the tapes in on a loop playback and cut the live transmission out. These guys looked at the same sequence all night.”

Ike thought a minute and turned back to the guard again. “The interior scene, I can understand, but the exterior camera…it was a night scene, right?”

“Yeah, that’s right, I guess,” the guard mumbled.

“And the sun comes up around five-thirty, six o’clock, this time of year, right?”

The guard nodded.

“So by six-thirty at the latest, someone should have noticed that the sun was shining on the whole State of Virginia, everywhere except on this parking lot. Didn’t it occur to you that something was wrong?”

“Well, yeah, I guess, only—”

“Only what?”

“Well, I come on at seven o’clock and the monitor for the lot was off,” he replied.

“Off. Why off?”

“Well, Jake, he had the eleven to seven shift, said that on account of the car…see, we didn’t want to make no trouble for old Parker, you know, and so we generally turn it off when there’s a car down there.”

“What the hell are you talking about? What car?” Ike shot back. He was getting angry again. His whole day seemed to be filling up with circumlocutions.

“Well, Sheriff, we got this rule, see, that nobody’s supposed to park down there, so if someone does, Captain Parker he slips down and shoos them away. Sometimes he makes the kids walk out and hitch back to town and then they have to come back next day and get their machine. Parker calls it impounding. He says it teaches them a lesson.”

“If no one’s supposed to come down here at night, why don’t you all just lock the damned gate at the end of the lane at the main road?”

“Well, generally we do, but—”

“But what?” Ike waited, watched the man’s eyes turn from apprehensive to fearful.

“Well, see…listen, you won’t tell him I told you, will you? He can be mean as hell sometimes, and I need this job,” the guard stammered.

“Tell? Tell whom? Who’s mean as hell? What in God’s name are you talking about?” Ike was shouting again.

“Parker. See, he leaves the gate unlocked sometimes when he’s on duty at night, you know? He hopes kids will come so he can go after them. You won’t tell, will you?”

“No, I won’t tell. So, because you didn’t want to know about the car, you or your buddy turned off the monitor. Where is Parker, by the way?” Ike asked, looking around,

“Don’t rightly know,” the second guard said. “When I came down here this morning to open up and seen this mess, I right away called and…Well, nobody can find him.”

“Whaite.” Ike turned to his deputy. “You seen or heard anything of Loyal Parker?”

“Not a thing, Ike. You want me to look?”

“No, not you. I need you here. Get a bulletin out. Have one of the boys start looking for him. Get on the radio and tell Essie to pull everyone back on duty. Get one group to go through town and locate Parker, and ask for anything you can get on two men.” Ike described the two men he had seen Monday in the Crossroads Diner.

“Get another group out here and see if they can find anything. Start inside, then out here. We will want footprints, tire tracks…anything. Then move out a hundred yards or so—have Billy do that.

“I want you to get those TV tapes and get what you can on the car. Find it. And Whaite…” Ike paused. “Fingerprint the whole lot here, including her.” He jerked his head in Ruth’s direction.

“You’re sure?”

“Oh, yeah—her particularly.” He turned back to the guards. “You two stay here, and, I’m sorry, I don’t know who you are,” he said to the bearded man who sidled up.

“Bialzac, Sergei Bialzac. I am the head of the history of art department here at Callend. Shocking, positively shocking,” the man said.

“Yes, well,” Ike muttered, “you’ve been inside, Dr. Bialzac?”

“Yes, I have. It is awful. It is just dreadful. They have gone through there like vandals, like Huns. Even if you find the paintings, it will be months, perhaps years, before they can be displayed again,” Bialzac groaned.

“How’s that?” Ike asked.

“Look, I’ll show you, Sheriff,” said Bialzac, and indicated that they should enter the building.

Ike paused at the door and noted the hole inscribed in its face. He inspected the magnet on the contact alarm and stared at the screen lying against the wall, the trough of water in the corner. He walked to the alarm panel and whistled at the lace-work of wires, clips, and jumpers that had been constructed. He peeled away the tape that held one of the palette knives in place and stared in admiration. Good work, Ike said to himself, better than good—damned near perfect.

“Sheriff?” Bialzac ventured.

“Coming, Doctor. I was just admiring a little artwork they left behind.” Ike shook his head, and turned to join Bialzac.

Ike and Bialzac surveyed the wreckage on all four floors of the building. All but twenty or thirty paintings had been removed from the racks that held them vertically. Their progress was slow because they had to step over the hundreds of frames scattered all over the floor.

“Tell me,” Ike said, “what’s the collection worth?”

“Well, that’s hard to say, Sheriff. It’s insured for five hundred million dollars. That’s its appraised value—the amount they might get for it if Dillon decided to sell. If they don’t sell, they’re worthless.”

“How’s that again? What do you mean, worthless?”

“Well, Sheriff, this is a well-known collection. It has been cataloged, studied, and described by hundreds of scholars and collectors over the years. Everything in it is as well-known in art circles as
La Giaconda
, um, the Mona Lisa. It is, for all practical purposes, unsellable. No reputable art collector would buy any part of it. He would know right away where the item came from. I do not understand this at all.

“There are some people, of course, who even knowing it was stolen, might buy a piece—rich collectors, Arabs, people like that, who would put the painting aside for ten or twenty years, then bring it out. But there aren’t many of those.” Bialzac paused, deep in thought.

“There are pieces in the collection which are not well-known which Dillon bought later and which, while valuable, haven’t the sort of recognition the bulk of the collection has, but.…”

“But what, Doctor?”

“Well, they seemed to be the ones they left behind. They took the most important pieces, the least saleable. It’s strange.”

Ike studied the little man and tried to read his thoughts. Then he said, “You wanted to show me something, Doctor.”

“I beg your pardon, what?” Bialzac came out of his reverie.

“You said before, outside, something like vandals, it would be months or years before the paintings could be displayed again when they are recovered,” Ike replied.

“Oh yes.” Bialzac’s mood shifted again. He became agitated, angry once more. “Look here, Sheriff.” He picked up a dozen or so frames and discarded them. “You see, the pictures are held in place by clips or a retainer of some sort. To extract the paintings from the frames properly, they must be removed. But look here, and here, and here; they have just yanked the pictures out. They must have torn or damaged them. Scandalous, they had no right—they knew how important.…”

Bialzac retreated into the professor’s cluttered world again.

“No time, I suppose,” Ike said. “If they’d removed all the paintings like you’re supposed to, they’d still be here.”

“But it’s monstrous, the work of thugs, people who know nothing about art, crazies,” Bialzac expostulated.

“No, I don’t think so,” Ike said.

“What do you mean, Sheriff?”

“Well, the work on the alarms has a master’s touch. And they only took the good stuff. You said so yourself, they left the less valuable pieces. No, these people were professionals, and professionals never pull a job without knowing what they’re stealing.”

“But the damage…” Bialzac said, concern in his eyes.

“Oh, that. Well, that confirms your guess, Doctor. They do not care about the paintings as paintings. They have something else in mind for them. Now, if we only knew what.”

They were back at the door. Ike turned to the little professor and extended his hand, which, after a brief hesitation, Bialzac shook.

“Thank you for your help, Doctor. Would you do me a favor and join the others, and tell Dr. Harris I would like to meet with her in her office later, say, six o’clock. I’ll be tied up here until then.” Bialzac’s hand was dry.

Ike watched him make his way over to the bench and speak to Ruth Harris. He was amused to see her back stiffen and smiled at the angry glare she flashed at him. If looks could kill, Ike thought. He looked at the door and let his eye run over its surface, down to the sill. He bent, looked again, and picked up the wafer-thin diaphragm. Very good, he thought, very good indeed.

Police cars began to arrive. Ike made his assignments and told Billy to call the county.

“We haven’t the time to do all of this, Billy. See if they will send out a crime unit to dust inside. You stay with them, look for things that might be useful. Start inside, and then do the outside. Take your time. I don’t want to miss anything. Whaite will join you when he gets done up at the college.”

Ike got on the radio and was patched through to the state police frequency. Colonel Scarlett was as laconic as ever.

“Can I do for you, Sheriff?”

“I’ve had a chance to look around, Colonel. I think we’re looking for trailers, one tractor and two trailers. That means unless they’ve got another tractor somewhere, they’re hop-scotching the paintings out of the area, or they’re parked. If your people notice anything would you let us know?”

“Will do, Sheriff. Anything else?”

“Not right now, thanks. I’ll be in touch,” Ike said, and signed off.

The afternoon submerged into the orderly confusion of police work. Ike moved through the ever-growing cadre of people arriving on the scene. He had cordoned off the area, but still had to deal with the media, local papers, a stringer from the
New York Times
, a television crew, and the editor of
Callend Comments
. He shooed away self-appointed assistants and people with theories from the college faculty and the town. He moved in and out of the bunker a dozen times. Billy joined him outside the building a few minutes before six.

“Ike, I reckon we got one or two hours of good light left. You want me to get the floodlights?”

Ike considered a moment and then said, “No, I guess not, Billy. We’ve lost so much time already. We’re better off being careful than quick. Wait until tomorrow if you have to. We can’t afford to miss anything. Tape this place off and put a couple of the boys on the line to keep folks out before you go.”

“Oh, I don’t know if it means anything, but I found this piece of paper over by that tree there. Somebody tossed their cookies and this might of fell out of their pocket.”

Ike scanned the scrap. The word
Artscape
had been scrawled at the top and there was a series of figures and what could be serial numbers in a neat column below.

“Bag this and give it to Whaite.”

Ike stretched and glanced around him. He was startled to see Ruth Harris still seated on the bench. She could not have been there all the time, or could she? He walked over to her.