The Gauguin Connection

by Estelle Ryan

  Forty-eight hours. Apparently that was the time limit on my ability to share living space with two bickering men. What made it worse was that I hadn’t seen Phillip since they brought me back from the police station. I missed his calming, buffering presence. I missed his natural, easy knowledge of working with people. I missed him.

  It was early evening. I had planted myself in front of the computers again. Vinnie was stacking the dinner dishes in the dishwasher. Colin was glaring at the television. They had just had another argument about Vinnie’s contact taking his time to get back regarding the stolen weapons. I did not understand it at all, but they seemed to enjoy the bickering. It was driving me insane. I wanted them to leave. I wanted my old life back.

  “What about your girlfriend Francine?” Vinnie asked loudly from the kitchen. “It’s not like that chick got into those files in the first ten minutes. And what about all the info on those companies? Huh?”

  Colin ignored Vinnie’s provocation. I had come up empty on my searches for more details on the companies. I had been convinced that their registration particulars would be public information. It wasn’t.

  “Francine is your girlfriend?” I asked. The status of their relationship was news to me.

  “She’s not my girlfriend.” Colin turned his glare from the television to Vinnie. He had been quiet most of the afternoon and evening. I suspected that he was regretting his insistence on staying here. I regretted giving in so easily. I turned back to my computers and left the men to their juvenile arguments.

  The last two days I had spent watching every second of footage that Manny had been able to send me. My saving grace had been the headphones that I put on to listen while I watched. That way I hadn’t heard most of the bickering. At first I was concerned that their friendship was in danger. Their non-verbal cues, however, totally contradicted the insults they were hurling at each other. The only conclusion I could draw from this was that they found this to be an entertaining outlet for the tension that was building in all of us.

  Colin had kept his promise. He hadn’t been in my way. Not in the sense of him intruding on my space. The two of them never ventured close to my bedroom or bathroom. The rest of my apartment had been completely taken over though. I sighed and focussed my mind on the footage of last year’s event. Every time I watched it, I saw something new. I couldn’t wait to show it to Manny. He had phoned a few times, but had spent the last two days with Leon and the investigation into Crenshaw’s murder. Not even under the most severe torture would I admit that I missed Manny.

  “Dude.” Vinnie’s shocked exclamation pulled me out of my zone. “This is wicked sick.”

  Vinnie had moved from the kitchen to the sofa. They were watching the television in fascinated horror. I heard feminine grunts and suction sounds that widened my eyes. Of all the audacious things they could have done, this was too much.

  “What are you watching?”

  “Oh, Jen-girl. You have to come and see this.” Gone was the quarrelling. Vinnie sat next to Colin, no argumentative body language on display.

  I slowly got up. “If you two are watching porn in my apartment, I will notify every law enforcement agency of your whereabouts.”

  Both heads swivelled to me in shock. Just then the doorbell rang. I started moving towards the door, but Vinnie stopped me with a head shake. He got up, made some hand signals to Colin, who nodded. Vinnie walked to the door and I to the sofa where Colin had lost interest in the television. I was still curious about the sounds filling my apartment.

  On the television screen were two women wrestling in mud. At least it wasn’t porn. I had nothing against people watching porn. I simply didn’t want two men watching it in my apartment. The two women were trying to grab hold of each other, but the mud did not allow for that. They were in a large square tub, knee deep in mud. A large male-dominated crowd was cheering them on. I frowned. “Why would they do that?”

  “Because the men think it’s sexy, Doc.” Manny spoke next to me. I hadn’t heard him come in, and turned. He looked oddly amused. And typically rumpled. Vinnie stood behind Manny and had completely lost all traces of laughter. Colin’s mirth also disappeared and I sighed. Great. Now I was going to have not two, but three men bickering. On the television screen one of the women had the other face down in the mud. Loud male cheering filled my apartment. I almost asked again about the mud wrestling, but decided that I really wasn’t interested.

  “Hello, Manny. Please tell me that you have new information.” I grabbed the remote control off Colin’s lap and switched the television off. I ignored their protests. “I have all those lists and would be grateful to have something new to compare them against.”

  “Ah, you and your lists.” Manny shrugged out of his suit jacket and mindlessly threw it over the back of one of the wingback chairs. I swallowed hard, picked up the jacket and carefully draped it over a hanger and hung it on the coat rack by the door. I walked back and nodded pointedly towards the computers. All three men immediately followed me to the dining room table.

  “So, do you have something new for me?” I asked Manny again. A bit less patient this time.

  “I do.” He pulled out a chair and placed himself in front of the EDA computer. “What about you?”

  “We haven’t heard anything about the guns or the files or the registration details yet.” I was not ashamed to admit that I was pleased when Manny gave Vinnie and Colin an ugly, disapproving look. They shrugged it off and everyone took their usual seats. I pulled my shoulders back a bit and lifted one eyebrow in arrogance. “I, on the other hand, have discovered something very interesting. But you must show me yours first, then I’ll show you mine.”

  There was a pregnant silence for a millisecond. Long enough for me to realise that I had said something to bring surprised looks to their faces. I remembered Manny saying something similar once. It only took another millisecond for me to conclude how they had interpreted my word. I threw my hands in the air. “You are unbelievable. You’re thinking of sex? Really? Can we please focus on work?”

  Manny cleared his throat. “Of course, Doc. Let me start with the Crenshaw case.”

  “Have they found anything else to connect him to Piros?” Colin asked.

  “As a matter of fact, they did. In one of the bedrooms was a black and white photo of Budapest’s parliament. On the back of the photo was written, ‘to Piros, congrats on the divorce’, with the date next to it.”

  “What date?” I asked

  “We already checked it. The date written was October 1996. During that time Crenshaw was stationed in Hungary.”

  “So he was Piros?” Colin didn’t sound convinced.

  I also couldn’t believe this. On the video where I recognised the insignia, the soldier talked about Piros in conversation with Crenshaw. Or had he? I never heard the full sentence. Maybe he addressed Crenshaw as Piros. Did I miss something?

  “Miss what?” Manny asked.

  I blinked at him a few times before I realised that I must have been thinking aloud. “I don’t know. Let me check something.”

  I turned to the EDA computer and mentally patted myself on the shoulder for my obsessive nature. The time stamped markers that I had placed on the video now made it easy to access that clip.

  “What are we looking at?” Colin asked next to me.

  I didn’t answer him, just played the clip. Then played it again. I played it for a third time in slow motion.

  “Crenshaw is not Piros.” Once I knew what to look for it was easy to see.

  “How can you tell?” Manny asked.

  “Crenshaw’s reaction when the soldier mentions Piros.” I played the clip again, pausing it at a specific moment, and zoomed in on Crenshaw’s face. “Look at the tightening of his jaw muscles, his neck is stiff, his nose wings are flared and then there is the lip occlusion. All indicators of a negative emotion causing great tension. There are no other cues showing it to be anything but fear. And he only displays this on hearing Pir
os’ name. Crenshaw is not Piros.”

  “But we have a photo with a date,” Manny said.

  “I heard a but in there. What is wrong with that date?” I asked.

  “Sharp, Doc, sharp.” Manny nodded his approval. “Crenshaw was stationed there during that time. He also got divorced around that time.”

  “But?” I wished he would get to it.

  “But,” Manny smiled at me, “at that time Crenshaw was involved in some diplomatically delicate proceedings. Those details are still classified. All I know is that he told me years later that he and his wife had to pretend to still be married long after the divorce had gone through. Apparently their divorce would have ruined years of work. So they got all the legalities done, but nobody knew about their divorce until two years after the fact.”

  “Nobody?” Colin pressed his index finger to his eyebrow. Classic eye blocking. He disagreed with Manny. “There is always someone who knows.”

  “Granted,” Manny said. “Leon swears that Crenshaw loved the cloak and dagger stuff. He would never have told anyone. He liked knowing things no one else was privy to. That limits it to his superiors. Leon phoned around and none of them were on real friendly terms with Crenshaw. They respected his work, but would never have sent him a congratulatory photo.”

  “So the photo was planted?”

  “That is the general consensus. The crime scene investigators also determined that the frame that originally hung in that specific space had been smaller. There is a faint shadow on the wall, which means that the previous frame had been there for a long time. All the other frames in the house had a thin layer of dust on the top. The photo’s frame didn’t. So yes, I think that photo was placed there recently.”

  “Any fingerprints on the photo?” I asked. After my recent experiences I had become very aware of fingerprints.

  “None. That is equally suspicious. No fingerprints anywhere on the photo or the frame is simply impossible. Unless it had all been cleaned.” He leaned back in the chair. I wondered what Manny would look like if he was rested, shaved and wearing pressed clothes. “Leon and I spent most of today looking at Crenshaw’s employment records. I compared it to your lists, Doc. There was record of him living or travelling to most of the places where the artists were murdered. Maybe not at the exact date, but around that time. There were some places he had not been to though. At least not in an official capacity. Leon and I realised that the problem with that is that Crenshaw was not the only person connected to some European agency or military to have visited those places.”

  “Making a list of all those people and placing them there would require a staggering amount of data.” I was doing the calculations in my head. “Is there any way that we can narrow it down?”

  “Let’s not worry about that list, Doc.” Manny pulled the EDA computer closer to him and I groaned. He was moving it out of place. “I have another list for you.”

  “What list?” The wrong angle of the computer was forgotten.

  “All the art that is in the house where last year’s gala event was held. La Maison Russie. Look at this.” He worked the computer and then turned it towards me. Again at a wrong angle. Every cell in my body screamed at me to align the computer as it had been. I forced myself to focus. On the screen was a badly organised list. It didn’t make sense.

  “What am I looking at?”

  “A list of all the artwork in La Maison Russie.” He smiled when he saw my eyebrows lifting. “Quite something, yes?”

  “It’s a terrible list.” I frowned angrily at the screen. “Nothing is in order. It’s not organised at all. Not alphabetically, by artist, era or even medium. Who drew up this list?”

  “I did, missy.” The words were clipped. I looked away from the screen and saw Manny’s face pulled tight in anger. Oh dear. “Not everyone systemizes things as anally as you do.”

  “What does my anus have to do with being organised?” My question elicited different responses. Vinnie chuckled, Colin groaned and Manny stared at me incredulously. Nobody answered me. “Well?”

  “Jenny, it’s an expression people used to describe obsessive perfectionists,” Colin explained.

  “It doesn’t make sense,” I said, discounting the expression. I turned back to the computer. “I’ll organise this list and compare it to the lists I have of the miraculously recovered art and suspected forgeries. Do you have the name of the owner of the house?”

  “It belongs to a Russian investment firm.” Manny looked relieved to talk about the case instead of anatomical euphemisms. “The name of the company is on the bottom of the list.”

  “You included irrelevant information to this list?” Do people have no concept of list making? I scrolled down the page. “P&S.”

  “P&S?” Colin asked.

  “It’s short for Posiet and Somov ZAO.”

  “Another closed joint-stock company.” Colin said. “Does this Posiet & Somov mean anything to you?”

  “Nothing aside from both names being Russian surnames. It would be safe to assume that those are the surnames of the people who founded this company. I wonder if they also registered in Volosovo.”

  “Give me a moment,” Colin said. He picked his smartphone off the table. After a moment of tapping the screen, he put it to his ear and smiled at me. “I was hoping to surprise you with this.”

  “With what?” Manny growled next to me. Colin lifted a finger to indicate silence. This seemed to anger Manny further, if his breathing was any indicator.

  “Hallo, sexy.” Colin smiled into the phone. Who was he talking to? There was silence around the table. We were all watching Colin. “No, I’m well, thanks, love. Listen, do you have the registration details yet?”

  “I want the details for that friend of his,” Manny said next to me. I ignored him. The only person Colin would ask about registration details was Francine. That information interested me much more than Manny’s displeasure.

  Colin was making agreeing sounds. “Fantastic. You’re a doll. I have one more company for you to check. Posiet & Somov ZAO... Yes, I’ll wait.” He looked at me and smiled. “She’s just making a quick call. And she’s going to email me the details for those companies. She got all of them.”

  “Francine?” I asked.

  “Yes.” There was a full minute of silence in my apartment. I glanced at Manny and could see his mind working. He was busy building up a righteous fury. Just as Manny inhaled angrily, Colin lifted his finger again. “Yes, hon, I’m still here ... yes? ... Super. Thanks, doll. Can’t you tell me anything more about those codes?” More agreeing sounds. “Hon, I really appreciate it. Yes, yes, I know. It will be a larger bottle than last time, I promise.”

  A few more promises and Colin finished his call. He turned to us. “Our Francine has some interesting friends. She knows somebody who knows somebody who works in the Russian bureaucracy. That person has been able to get her everything we need. Not only were all thirty-three shipping companies registered in Volosovo, but P&S as well.”

  Vinnie shook his head. “This seems like a huge criminal enterprise that has been running for many years. How could they have made such a fundamental mistake?”

  “Says the expert on criminal activity.” Manny was sarcastic. He was angry.

  “I’m not in prison, am I?” Vinnie was halfway out of his chair when his cell phone started ringing. He glared at Manny for two more rings, answered the call and walked to his bedroom.

  “Please tell me this Francine is your trusted friend you talked about. My ulcer won’t be able to handle yet another criminal knowing everything.” Manny looked pained.

  “Yes, she is the same person,” Colin said. “She said that it should take her programme another few hours to get into those files. She’s very impressed with the coding.”

  “Okay then.” It looked like Manny was having just as much trouble as I co-operating with criminals. For me it was moving in life’s gray areas that I didn’t like. For a man like Manny it would be working with pe
ople who did not work within the same honour code as he. Both of us were challenged outside of our clearly delineated beliefs. I supposed for Colin and Vinnie, they were having difficulty being forced to work within parameters.

  This was a totally mismatched team and it made for fascinating observations. Contrary to all indicators, we were tolerating each other pretty well. A common goal did that to people. We were inclined to forget race, religion, politics, even personal beliefs if our goal was commanding enough. Ours was. Stop the people who were using, then killing artists.

  “Show me what you’ve got, Doc.” Manny brought me out of my musings.

  “The video footage you sent me.” I moved my computer back and aligned my chair. Moved the computer again. Tilted my head and narrowed my eyes. Another five millimetres to the right and I sighed contentedly. Movement caught my peripheral vision. Manny and Colin were shaking their heads at me. At least they agreed on one thing. Even if it was at my expense.

  “Watch this.” I clicked on a clip and played it once.

  “Is this last year’s gala event?” Colin asked.

  “Looks like it.” Manny answered. “Yes, there is that White Bowl still life painting.”

  “Still Life, The White Bowl,” Colin sighed. “What are we looking at, Jenny?”

  “Group dynamics are interesting to observe, to learn from. Watching a group of people, whether they are teenagers, female friends, gangsters or a police team can teach us a lot about the dynamics in that group.”

  “That’s how you knew that the German was the leader of the group that broke into your place.”

  “Yes.” My hand moved involuntarily to my left eyebrow. Most of the bruising was gone. The memory was still very fresh. “When watching people who know each other in a group setting, you can see who’s considered the alpha, the leader. The other’s eyes will constantly stray towards him or her to check in.”

  “Check in?” Manny asked.

  “For approval, permission, acknowledgement. Even if they are not standing together in the same group, there will constantly be eye contact between them. Millisecond eye contact. If someone’s behaviour is off, the others will have disapproving looks and might even intervene. But it all depends on the leader.”

  “And every group has a leader,” Colin stated.

  “Even in a group of friends there is a stronger personality that the others will follow. It doesn’t mean that it is like a military outfit where everyone follows the officer blindly. They would just imitate that person’s habits, from choice of drink to relating to people. The leader would not seek out acknowledgement. He or she would give it. Now watch this clip again. Watch Crenshaw.” I replayed the same clip and turned down the sound. Sometimes we see better without auditory distractions.

  The formal part of the event had taken place and people were mingling. Business cards changed hands, social smiles were abundant and eyes were roaming constantly for the next contact to be made. Crenshaw was standing next to a pillar with a glass of red wine in his left hand. He was talking to an elderly couple. His body language was submissive, which led me to believe that this couple held enough power for him to want to impress them.

  “Doc,” Manny said while the clip was playing. “I can watch this all I want, but I don’t know what to look for.”

  “He’s not acknowledging anyone.” Didn’t they see it? It was so obvious.

  “How would that look?”

  I demonstrated with an elderly gentleman who Manny said was the European Commissioner for Trade. Quite a few people at the event were connected to him. It was visible from how their eyes were seeking him out. If they made contact, he would nod slightly or lift his eyebrows. That pacified and pleased those people, relaxing their facial muscles and body language.

  “Okay, so what does this mean?” Manny asked. This was going to be more difficult that I thought.

  “That means that I noticed how Crenshaw did not give acknowledgement, but rather sought it. I then made note of where he was looking. Then I looked for other people also looking in that direction. That included the guys from the intelligence division of Eurocorps. They were definitely submissive to Crenshaw, but they only made eye contact with him when they needed to talk to him.”

  “So who were they looking at?” Manny was studying the screen.

  “I don’t know. That person is off screen. This is the only footage that I have of this part of the event. Were there any other cameras? Any possibility of any more footage?”

  “I’ll have to check,” Manny said. “So how do you interpret all this, Doc?”

  “From watching this and other clips, I don’t think that Crenshaw was the brains behind the operation.”

  “We already agreed he wasn’t Piros,” Manny said. “Leon and I talked a lot about Crenshaw. I’m no profiler, but he doesn’t sound like he could plan a thing like this. He was an operations guy. He made things happen; he didn’t plan them. He was also good at the diplomatic stuff, but never took initiative.”

  “And this would need initiative,” Colin said.

  “A chess player, like I said before,” I stated.

  “Leon said that Crenshaw couldn’t play chess if his life depended on it.”

  “Enough said.” That was it for me. I was convinced.

  “Unfortunately this isn’t concrete evidence. It’s just reasonable doubt.” Manny looked very tired. “I’d rather we now focussed our energy on finding the person behind it all. I would also love to know what Crenshaw’s part in all this was.”

  “Hopefully the coded files will give us insight into that.” The need to comfort Manny surprised me. I’m not an empathetic person.

  “First they tried to intimidate Jenny from working the case, then they set her up for Crenshaw’s murder. At the same time we are given clues making Crenshaw look like a master criminal. Who has the power to do this, Millard?” For a change Colin didn’t sound argumentative. Just very concerned.

  “I don’t know, Frey. And that worries me.”

  “How sure are you about Chief Dutoit?” Colin asked.

  Manny hesitated. “Sure.”

  “I don’t need Jenny’s skill to know you’re lying, Millard.”

  “Until this case I was very sure of him,” Manny admitted after a minute of glaring at Colin.

  “What changed?” I asked.

  “His uncommon interest in this case. Doctor Face-reader’s observations.” Manny’s cell phone started ringing with a most annoying disco ring tone. His eyes widened. “Talk about the devil.”

  I frowned at yet another expression that I didn’t understand. Listening to one side of a telephone conversation was more interesting than linguistic mysteries, so I focussed on Manny’s conversation. He cleared his throat nervously, pressed something on his phone and said, “You’re on speakerphone, Chief Dutoit.”

  “Thank you, Colonel Millard. Good evening, Doctor Lenard.”

  “Um ... Good evening.” I had no idea how to address this man. And I did not want to speak to him. Next to me Manny was gesturing to Colin to keep quiet. Colin lifted his middle finger in a vulgar gesture, but sat back in his chair. Vinnie folded his arms and glared.

  “Colonel Millard’s been telling me what a wonderful asset you’ve been to this investigation. I appreciate all the work you’ve done so far as well as your discretion. I can’t stress enough the importance of keeping this as confidential as possible.”

  I took a moment to find the safest answer. “I understand, sir.”

  “Earlier tonight I spoke with Phillip Rousseau. He kindly agreed to remove himself from this investigation.”

  “He what?” Phillip would never leave me on my own with all these people. All these men.

  “The Commanding General of Eurocorps’ Headquarters, Lieutenant General Barreiros and I had a lengthy conversation with Colonel Millard and Major General Leon Hofmann. We decided to limit any other eyes on this case. Mister Rousseau completely understood our position. He did, however, sound ver
y concerned about you spending time with Colonel Millard. Are there any problems I should be aware of?”

  “No, there aren’t any problems. Not yet.” There were so many things I wanted to address. I started with the most disturbing. “I don’t understand your rationale for removing Phillip from this investigation. He knows everything.”

  “And I have his word that all that information is safe.”

  “So what’s your problem? I need Phillip.” Next to me, Manny gasped at my irreverence. I didn’t care. I was feeling the loss of Phillip’s presence and interpersonal skills in my life very strongly.

  “Doctor Lenard.” Chief Dutoit’s voice turned hard. “We are focussing on a much larger problem here. Not to take away from the horror of the deaths of those artists, there are the stolen weapons from Eurocorps. The political impact of all this alone can be staggering, as could the long term damage to the agency’s reputation and credibility. And I really don’t want this to touch the EDA.”

  I was tempted to tell him I didn’t care about his stupid politics, but I breathed through it. It would seem that we all needed reminding to stay focussed. “I understand.”

  “We will keep all information limited to us here in Doctor Lenard’s apartment. It will not leave here, sir.” Manny needed commendation for that brilliant sentence. It was not a lie. Simply an ingenious manipulation of the truth. He had successfully included Vinnie and Colin without Chief Dutoit being any the wiser.

  “Well, that’s good. Colonel Millard, I want you to focus on this investigation. It needs to be done with.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “In the meantime, Lieutenant General Barreiros and the Head of the EDA decided that we’ll issue a statement that Crenshaw’s death was a bungled burglary. Mister Rousseau agreed to spread the word that Doctor Lenard is on extended sick leave.”

  “I’m not sick.”

  “I know that, Doctor Lenard. If anyone else wonders why you’re not at work, sick leave makes much more sense. Especially if it is due to overwhelming stress.”

  “I’m not stressed.” Although my voice sounded very stressed at that moment.

  “I know that too, Doctor Lenard.” A sigh came through the phone. “Mister Rousseau is very concerned about you. He agreed to this, because I reasoned that the people who had tried to intimidate and set you up for murder might back off a bit if you are at home, too stressed to work.”

  That made sense. “Okay then. Can I at least phone Phillip?”

  “No. The only people you will be in contact with are Colonel Millard and me. Understood?”

  “I understand,” I said. I was under house and phone arrest.

  “Good. I hope that we have this wrapped up very soon. And once again, thank you for all your help, Doctor Lenard. I’ll be keeping an eye on you.” I blinked at that. Was it a threat or was it supposed to make me feel safe? I hated telephonic conversations. Without non-verbal signs to read I felt lost. Since this was an official phone call, we thankfully didn’t waste a lot of time on pleasantries. The phone call ended and we sat in silence. Every day we seemed to unearth more pieces to a puzzle that had only revealed background until now. I needed more prominent pieces to start making sense of it all. I needed something more concrete. Something that could start filling in the huge gaps and create a better picture.

  And I needed Phillip. I rued the day I agreed to get involved in all this.

 

  Chapter TWENTY-FOUR