Shooting Gallery (16 page)

I headed towards the Bay Bridge, anxious to put some physical space between me and the lunatic sculptor. Traffic was light on this Sunday afternoon, and as I drove along I began to relax and think about my little tête-à-screamingtête with Pascal. It now seemed highly unlikely that I would ever convince him to return
Head and Torso
to the Hewetts, which meant it would be unethical to continue charging them for my time. Cancel the meal ticket.

More important, though, it also seemed apparent that my mother was involved in something unpleasant, if not downright dangerous, related to Seamus McGraw's murder. But what? My mother was a small-town housewife who painted watercolors in her spare time and was married to an art history professor. What could she possibly know about—

I caught myself. Not only was Beverly Kincaid an intelligent woman, but she had been raised by her widowed father, the master forger Georges LeFleur, and spent her formative years in the great capital cities of Europe, in the bosom of the art world's shadowy underground. The odds were good my mother had learned at an early age how to handle the unsavory characters with whom my grandfather consorted. In fact, it was entirely possible that my mother took after Georges more than anyone in the Kincaid family appreciated—especially her younger daughter.

I wondered again what my grandfather might know about all this. Pulling over on Third Street, I scrolled down my cell phone's directory until I found his last known number in Paris. I left a message with a groggy French woman who claimed never to have heard of Georges LeFleur, a second with an equally sleepy man in Brussels who pretended he didn't understand English, and a third with an exceedingly polite desk clerk at the Hotel Royal in Prague who made me spell my name four times. The calls were going to be expensive and might not produce results, but it was the only way I knew to track down my elusive grandfather.

There was one other call I wanted to make.

“Inspector Crawford,” Annette answered, her voice deep and authoritative.

“Annette! It's Annie! How are you?”

I heard rustling in the background and Annette's voice dropped. “This isn't a good time.”

“I'm sorry, should I call back later?”

“That wouldn't be a good time, either. This number is for police business.”

“This
is
police business,” I insisted. “I'm calling about the stolen Chagall.”

“Do you have information pertinent to the case?”

“Not exactly, but I—”

“Then it doesn't count.”

Aren't we just the big-shot police inspector?
I thought resentfully.

As if she'd read my mind, Annette's voice thawed slightly. “I'm sorry to be so abrupt, Annie, but I can't discuss this with you. It's not even my case. Perhaps I gave you the wrong impression when I asked for your help with Mr. Boissevain's interview.”

“But Agnes Brock said that if I found the painting she would not make any trouble for Bryan.”

“Annie, I suggest you steer clear of this case. Mrs. Brock has made some rather wild accusations. She seems to think you have connections to the criminal art world. I told her she was wrong, of course.”

“I should hope so!” I blustered.

“Mm-hmm. Because if that were true it would be unfortunate for us both,” she said. “I have noticed, though, that you do have a knack for showing up at the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“You know what they say about the luck of the Irish. As for the Chagall . . .”

“Annie, I work homicide, remember? Everything I can tell you has already been in the news.”

Note to self: subscribe to the stupid newspaper already.

“Indulge me?” I begged. “Please?”

“Hold on.” Her muffled voice asked someone to get her a double skinny latte and a California roll. “Okay, I'm back.”

“Coffee and sushi?” I teased. “Is that the dinner of champions these days?”

“I prefer to think of it as caffeine, calcium, and no fat,” she replied lightly. “Where were we? Oh, yes, the stolen painting. As you would know—”

“If only I read the paper . . .”

“If only you read the paper, the investigation is focusing on a ransom note that mentioned the situation in the Middle East. A couple of days ago the Brock received an anonymous postcard claiming the Chagall was being held in the cellar of a house in Switzerland that used to be owned by some Nazi bigwig.”

“Are you
serious
?”

“The FBI is checking it out with Interpol. That's all I know at this point. As long as your friend Bryan has no ties to the Middle East or to Nazis he should be fine. The inspectors may call him in for one last interview, so tell him to remain calm and bring his lawyer.”

“The lawyer I can guarantee. Whether or not he'll remain calm is more doubtful,” I said, thinking of Bryan's over-the-top response to something as mundane as toilet tissue hanging the wrong way on the roll. “Thanks, Annette. I appreciate it.”

“You bet. And, Annie? Do me a favor?”

“Sure!”

“Forget you know this number unless you're calling about a murder.”

I pulled into traffic, frustrated. If I could find the Chagall I could not only clear Bryan, but prove once and for all that Agnes Brock's suspicions of my character were unfounded. I could also cancel Tuesday's date with Michael, who, if he was running true to form, was almost certainly planning something criminal. Besides, I should be concentrating on whatever was going on with my mother, not traipsing around with an art thief, no matter how drop-dead gorgeous.

I was nearly at the entrance to the bridge when I was forced to slam on the brakes to avoid crawling up the rear of a metallic blue minivan that had cut into my lane. The van's
Free Palestine!
bumper sticker reminded me of what Annette had said. Ransom notes demanding peace in the Middle East and postcards hinting at a connection to Nazis in Switzerland had sent the FBI and the police hiving off after nonexistent culprits and diverted suspicion from likelier suspects. Frank had said museum personnel were often behind the theft of minor artworks. Agnes Brock's arrogance toward those in her employ was the stuff of legends, and likely to produce dozens of potential suspects within her own marbled halls.

But I didn't need dozens of suspects. I needed only one. Someone with a grudge against the Brock, access to the museum, and an intimate knowledge of its security system.

Well, duh. I could not believe I had not thought of it before. I would bet the family atelier that I knew who had taken the Chagall.

And I knew just where to find him.

—Georges LeFleur, in an interview with
Smithsonian
magazine

 

It took me twenty minutes to get across town to the Brock Museum and another ten to find a semilegal parking space. I forked over the five-dollar fee to the bored young man behind the glass at the entrance booth and handed my ticket to the docent at the turnstile. She looked like the universal grandmother: plump, bespectacled, and pink-cheeked. The name tag on her flowered nylon blouse read
Esther! Here to Help!

I grinned. She beamed.

“Do you know where I might find a security guard named Carlos Jimenez?” I asked.

“Oh dear,” she said with a shake of her head, the smile falling from her face. “I'm afraid I don't know them fellers. You might ask over there.” She pointed to the security kiosk in a corner of the entrance hall and ripped my ticket in two. “Enjoy your visit!”

The kiosk was all of four feet square, with barely enough room for a cluttered desk, an old-fashioned intercom, and a black telephone. A security guard was hidden behind the sports section of this morning's
Chronicle
, his feet propped on the desk, only the bald spot on his head visible. Apparently the recent theft of a painting had not put the Brock's security force on a heightened state of alert.

I cleared my throat.

The poor man jumped straight out of his chair, knocking over a Styrofoam cup and splashing coffee all over the desktop. “Jesus Christ!”

“Samantha Jagger,” I said, using my friend Sam's name in case Agnes Brock had issued a memo with
Annie Kincaid
circled in red and bisected with a slash mark. I handed him several brown paper napkins from a pile on the desk. “Sorry if I startled you. I'm looking for Carlos Jimenez.”

“Chuck?” he barked as he mopped up the puddles. “Whaddaya wanna see him for?”

“I'm Chuck's . . . niece,” I improvised. My paint-splattered overalls added ten pounds to my butt but took ten years off my age, and I emphasized the suggestion of youth by pitching my voice higher. “I'm here to see the botanicals exhibit? 'Cause I'm an art history major at SF State? And the last time I was here I didn't visit Tío Carlos? And when I got home my mama just about smacked me for not giving him a hug 'cause we're so proud of him, working at the Brock—”

“Yeah, whatever,” the guard interrupted, consulting a clipboard hanging on a nail in the wall. “Chuck's downstairs, in Antiquities.”

Hurrying down the central stairs and through the galleries, I spared a minute to appreciate two ancient Egyptian sarcophagi and some meticulous Roman mosaics but detoured through the Bauhaus furniture exhibit to avoid the Renaissance galleries. It would have taken me hours to savor the richly detailed portraits by Bronzino, Carlo Dolci, and Antonello de Messina; the lush, idyllic landscapes of Giorgione and Francesco Guardi; and the colorful still lifes of Bimbi and Luca Forte. And that wasn't even including the charming genre paintings by the likes of Caracci and Strozzi.

I might not appreciate Cubism, but I could recognize the work of Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo at fifty paces.

I reached the Antiquities gallery and roamed the rooms searching for a stout, barrel-chested man with merry brown eyes, jet-black hair, and a neatly clipped mustache. Carlos Jimenez and I had become buddies during my stint at the museum, brought together by a mutual dislike of aristocratic pretension in general and of Agnes Brock in particular. Carlos was the sort of man who bragged about his wife's cooking, horsed around in the yard with his kids, and mowed the lawn for the old lady next door. He dreamed of one day opening a restaurant in his hometown of Cerrito Lindo, near the Mexican border. After decades haunting the Brock's galleries, Carlos had become an art connoisseur who took his job very seriously. Accusing him of stealing the Chagall was going to take some finesse.

I finally spotted him near the Pre-Columbian ceramics, giving directions to a visitor in search of the African American quilts exhibit. His eyes widened when he saw me.

“Heya, Carlos,” I said. “Long time no see. How are you?”

“Sure, okay. I'm okay.” His eyes slewed away from me and he clasped his hands in front of his belly.

“I was hoping we could talk. Any chance you could take a break?”

“Gee, Annie, I'm afraid not. I'm on duty, you see.”

Just then another uniformed security guard walked up. “Here to relieve you, Jimenez,” the man said. “Lucky dog.”

Carlos looked more hangdog than lucky. “Thanks, Roy,” he mumbled, and strode away briskly as I trotted along behind.

Just past a display of jade and silver Mayan ceremonial masks, he halted and unlocked a door marked
Museum Staff Only
. Ever the gentleman, he waved me through before hurrying down the empty corridor. We reached an employee exit, where Carlos placed his right thumb on a small scanner to the left of the door, releasing the electronic lock.

“Wow,” I said, impressed. “When was that installed? Thumbprint scanners, that's really something.”

He ignored me, barreling down the sidewalk until stopping abruptly a block away from the museum. “What do you want?” he demanded fiercely, hands on his hips. We had shared so many easy laughs in the past that his belligerence took me by surprise.

“Well—”

“How much?”

“What?” I asked, puzzled. “I don't—”

“I should have known it wouldn't be this easy,” he muttered, his eyes searching the quiet residential street. What was he looking for? A police dragnet? An armed accomplice? A Starbucks?

“Listen, Annie. Whatever you do just leave my son out of this.”

“Your son?” Now I was really confused. “What does—”

“Leave him out of this!”
Papa Bear loomed over me, prepared to defend his cub.

I took a step backwards. This was not the Carlos Jimenez I had known.

“Look, Carlos, I'm not here about your son,” I said rapidly. “I'm here about the Chagall. The police think a friend of mine may be an accomplice in the theft, but we both know that's not true. I'm hoping the painting can be returned so my friend won't take the fall for a crime he didn't commit. That's
all
.”

For the first time since we'd left the museum Carlos looked me in the eye. “Put it
back
? Are you nuts? I can't do that.”

“Why not? Have you already sold it?”

“You think I sell stolen paintings?” He sounded deeply offended. “Is
that
what you think of me?”

“That is the usual procedure . . .” What was with these hypersensitive art thieves, anyway?