Master of Illusion

by Nupur Tustin

  “El Camino Real.” Julia craned her neck out the window to read the words painted on the road.

  “I imagine parts of the 101 follow the historic route. The Royal Highway or the King’s Highway is what it translates to.” Celine smiled. “A fancy name for a dirt road.”

  The 600-mile trail had in Spanish colonial times connected twenty-one Spanish missionaries, presidios, or fortresses, and pueblos, or settlements. She mentioned it to Julia, the rich history of Central California a more pleasant subject than the oppressive thought of Dirck’s murder.

  “All the way from San Diego to Sonoma,” Julia said. “I know; I’ve read the entry in my guidebook, Celine. What I really want to talk about is your dream.”

  Celine sighed. She’d wanted to pretend if only for a few minutes that she was a tourist hitting the road instead of a victim in search of answers. She had already recounted the broad details of her dream to Julia. The interpretation, in her mind, couldn’t have been clearer. Simon Underwood was in danger.

  “Is there any way of knowing which Simon was meant?” Julia pressed on. “Whether you were in the past, the present, or the future?”

  “I don’t recall ever having informed anyone that a man by the name of Simon was dead. I think I’d remember something like that.”

  “If it was a psychic dream, you may not have been inhabiting your own body,” Julia countered. “Many of the psychics I’ve worked with—”

  Celine gave her a sharp glance. “You’ve worked with psychics?”

  “Sure. The FBI has on occasion called in psychics. You have to be careful who you work with, but there’s no reason not to draw upon a particular expertise, unconventional though it may be. We’ve had better luck with cold case homicides than with the Gardner heist, but I hope that’s about to change.”

  “Meaning me?” Celine gave Julia another quick glance.

  “Yes, you,” Julia replied impatiently. “That’s why I’m here.”

  Celine pursed her lips. The thought of being involved in this affair any more than she already was made her nervous. She was quite sure she wasn’t cut out for it. Although, of course, if Dirck had uncovered anything about the theft, she’d do her best to follow through on what he’d initiated.

  “As I was saying,” Julia cut into her thoughts, “many of the psychics I’ve worked with find themselves tapping into either the victim’s psyche or the criminal’s. Based on the visions you’ve shared so far, it seems you tend to tap into the criminal’s head. That’s probably why you can’t see the faces of Dirck’s attackers.”

  “It’s my perspective,” Celine murmured, remembering her guardian angel’s words. “It limits what I can see.”

  “Precisely. On the other hand, you have access to the criminals’ thoughts and feelings. And that can furnish us with vital clues. Now in the case of this dream you had—”

  “I was in my own body, Julia. And if I wasn’t—if this was something that happened in the past—wouldn’t that just confirm Simon Duarte’s death—in 1990? Because Simon Underwood is still alive—I hope.”

  Julia was quiet. “I just don’t think Duarte died in 1990. If he did, that would mean the art is gone, too. That . . .” She shook her head “I can’t explain it, but that theory just doesn’t sit right with me.”

  Celine’s hold on the steering wheel tightened. Julia was right. The Gardner art had survived. She didn’t know how she knew that, but she could feel it in her bones. She was about to confirm the former federal agent’s impressions when the tinny sound of her cell phone playing the first few bars of Vivaldi’s famous concerto—Summer—sounded.

  Celine pulled the phone out of her shoulder purse. “Hello?”

  “Ms. Skye?” It was Detective Mailand. “Have I caught you at a bad time?”

  “No, Detective. What can I do for you?” Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Julia staring at her. It couldn’t have been more than three hours since they’d left the police station. They hadn’t expected the Detective to have any fresh leads on the case quite so soon.

  “Were you aware that the security cameras outside the Delft and in the interior were disabled?”

  “Disabled? What—no! That’s impossible.”

  “It doesn’t look like the cameras were tampered with. In fact, our best guess would be that either you or Mr. Thins turned them off and erased the day’s footage. The only question is why.”

  “Those cameras are supposed to run 24-7, Detective. We never turned them off. If Dirck switched them off, he was forced to do it.” Although another more unpalatable explanation had come to mind as well. If Dirck had a clandestine meeting planned, he may well have disabled the cameras.

  “Are you saying all the footage from the entire day has been erased as well?” Celine barely heard his mutter of acknowledgment. “I don’t see why . . .” Unless Dirck’s attackers hadn’t wanted Greg identified. Possibly because locating Greg would lead the police straight to them.

  “Maybe.” Detective Mailand’s response to her theory when she suggested it to him was lukewarm at best. Could he really suspect her of disabling the cameras? Or erasing the footage? For the twenty odd minutes she’d been alone at the bar, it hadn’t even occurred to her to check the security camera footage.

  Celine suspected Mailand already knew she’d inherited both the Delft and the Mechelen—a sizeable inheritance for a woman as young as herself. She was barely twenty-nine. In his eyes, no doubt, that gave her a motive for killing Dirck. He didn’t press the issue, however, merely requesting that she come in to work with a sketch artist. She agreed readily.

  “The cameras were disabled and all the footage from yesterday erased,” she explained to Julia after she’d disconnected. “Any hope we had of tracking Greg down through that footage is gone.”

  “Then we’ll just have to rely on your memory, won’t we?” Julia said. “But that’s not what’s bothering you, is it?”

  Celine chewed on her lip. A sign flashed by. Exit 219 to Morro Road was a quarter of a mile away. If she didn’t concentrate, she’d miss it.

  “I’m pretty sure Dirck disabled the cameras. I think I understand his reasons for doing so. What I don’t get is why he decided to erase all the footage.” She turned right onto Morro Road. “I have a feeling that was his decision, not something he was forced to do.”

  She took her eyes off the road.

  “Why would he have wanted to protect Greg, Julia?”

  The tracker was moving out of Paso Robles again. Blake watched its movement on his laptop for a few minutes. Celine Skye was clearly still unaware that she had an FBI tracker on her person.

  He turned away after a while, giving up on his attempt to guess her destination. He’d know soon enough.

  Simon Underwood’s house and studio was on the left corner of South Street and Morro Avenue. Gusts of moist, salty air heavy with the spray and fishy odors of Morro Bay whipped into Celine’s features and blew back her red-gold hair as she eased to a stop in front of 462 Morro Avenue.

  “This it?”

  Julia stared at the expansive structure with its façade of light-peach siding. A brick-covered section—set with a dark cedar tilt-up garage door and its own red-slate gable roof—protruded from the main building. A short, rust-red stamped cement walkway curved between mounds of green lawn from the sidewalk to the front stoop.

  “Yes, this is it.” Celine turned off the engine. Its soft purr was replaced by the noisy screeches and squalls of gulls flying overhead. She threw open her door and climbed down. She had wanted to satisfy herself that Simon was all right. But now that she was here, her urge to see the artist had dampened considerably.

  She had nothing more concrete than her dream to point to that Simon was in danger. Would that be enough to persuade him the threat was immediate and serious? She hoped Simon was out, but that expectation dissolved when a young man carrying a large portfolio under his arm and an artist’s bag in the other hand emerged from the front door.

  He look
ed up at them and smiled. “Looking for Simon? He’s up on the deck painting.”

  A winding flight of stairs on the side of the house led up to the deck. Followed by a huffing Julia—“I’m so out of shape!”—Celine climbed up. Simon, clad in a loose-fitting white shirt and faded blue jeans, had his head thrust into a wooden, pyramid-shaped frame covered on three sides with a dark blue curtain. A thick cylinder projected up like a telescope from an opening at the top.

  “What is he doing?” Julia hissed in a stage-whisper. “I thought he was supposed to be painting.”

  “He is painting.” Simon’s muffled voice boomed out from within the pyramid before Celine could respond. “I’ll be with you in a minute.”

  “It’s a camera obscura,” he explained, withdrawing his head from the device a few minutes later. He laid down a paintbrush tipped with black paint onto a palette and rubbed his hands on the thick cotton apron he was wearing; it had once been white, but was now a pale gray-beige flecked with splotches of black and minute traces of other colors.

  “What brings you here, Celine?” Seeing the white envelope in her hands, he smiled. “Don’t tell me Purple Water has sold already?” He turned to Julia and his smile widened.

  Celine suppressed a sigh. So Simon hadn’t heard the news yet.

  “The Delft was broken into,” she said, “and a number of our paintings were . . . handled roughly. Yours, I’m afraid, was slashed.”

  She held the check out, but Simon didn’t take it. “Why didn’t you bring it back? I’m sure I could’ve fixed it.” He regarded her, his faded blue eyes puzzled, a frown forming under the thatch of white hair that perched atop his head.

  “Celine didn’t have much choice in the matter,” Julia said, briskly drawing the reins of conversation into her own hands. “You see, your painting along with all the others that were . . . roughly handled”—she raised an eyebrow as she echoed Celine’s terminology—“are now in the custody of the police.”

  “Why?” Simon pulled his apron over his head and dropped it onto a deck chair that stood near his easel and a table with his art supplies. His gaze shifted from Julia’s face to Celine’s. “I don’t understand. Did Dirck—?”

  “Dirck is dead, Mr. Underwood. The men who manhandled your painting also, we believe, killed your friend. He was your friend, wasn’t he?”

  “Yes, yes, he was.” Simon stared at Celine. “Surely, that isn’t in question.” It took a few moments for the substance of Julia’s remarks to sink in. “Dirck is dead?” he asked softly, a troubled expression on his face.

  “I take it the police haven’t called,” Celine said.

  Simon shook his head mutely. He stretched his arm out toward a bundle of brushes on the table, fingers absently toying with the bristles.

  “Is there any reason you can think of, Mr. Underwood, why someone interested in your painting would have wanted Dirck dead?”

  “I . . . er . . . I just don’t see the connection,” Simon mumbled.

  Celine’s heart went out to him. Poor Simon. His plump pink cheeks looked wrinkled and gray like a balloon that had popped and had all the air suddenly sucked out of it. An image of a long-haired man in a dark, slashed waistcoat and baggy breeches, seated on a stool before an easel, floated into her mind. Unsure of its significance, she cast it aside.

  “Simon,” she began tentatively. “Julia is a former FBI agent who worked on the Gardner Museum theft.” That caught Simon’s attention. Celine thought she saw his eyes widen, but a fraction of a second later wondered if she’d imagined the reaction.

  Simon cleared his throat. “I see.” He looked at Julia and attempted a smile. “I was in Boston at the time, but I swear I had nothing to do with it.”

  “No one thinks you do,” Celine said quickly before Julia could say anything to contradict her. She had the feeling the former federal agent remained convinced that Simon held the key to the Gardner heist. “But we think Dirck may have uncovered some clues about what happened. And I expect he confided in you—”

  “No, he didn’t.”

  “But you were one of his closest friends.”

  “We went back a long way”—Simon turned to Julia—“all the way back to when we were students at Boston University.” His eyes returned to Celine. “But if he uncovered any clues about the heist—and I seriously doubt he did—he didn’t share his discoveries with me.”

  “You know that, Mr. Underwood.” Julia gazed out at the deep blue waters of Morro Bay and the rock that rose high above the waves that surrounded it. “We know that. The question is”—she turned to face him—“does the mob?”

  “The mob?” Any trace of pink that had remained in Simon’s cheek was now gone.

  “The Boston mob. They were behind the heist. I’m convinced they were responsible for Dirck’s murder. And I strongly suspect they’re after you.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “But I’ve never heard Dirck mention the Gardner Museum or Simon . . .” Simon Underwood frowned, trying to recall the names Julia had mentioned.

  “Simon Duarte and Earl Bramer,” Celine prompted.

  The artist nodded. They were seated in a spacious living room beyond the deck. Simon had listened to Julia’s theory regarding Dirck’s murder with growing bewilderment.

  “And I don’t understand it, even if Dirck had found out anything about the heist, how exactly would the Boston mob have gotten word of it?”

  Celine was quiet. She didn’t doubt the details she’d seen or Julia’s interpretation of them. But Simon was right. How had the mob gotten to know? From the way Julia’s eyes had widened, Celine knew the former federal agent hadn’t thought to ask the question either.

  “There are only two things you can do with the kind of information we think Dirck discovered.” Julia uttered the thought in a slow, pensive tone; her eyes were on the floorboards of the deck visible through the open door set into the wall opposite.

  Celine knew exactly what Julia meant, and reacted immediately.

  “Dirck wasn’t the kind of person to blackmail anyone.” The words burst out of her more forcefully than she’d intended. But the idea that Dirck Thins, a well-to-do business-owner, would need—or want—to profit from his knowledge of a crime was preposterous.

  “I said there were two possibilities,” Julia interjected mildly.

  “If Dirck did anything at all with what he knew, it was to call the authorities. His phone records will prove it.”

  “No offense, Ms. Hood,” Simon cut in before Julia could respond, “but what if Dirck’s only mistake was to call the FBI? The Boston FBI isn’t exactly known for its integrity. I recall a Boston Globe article from 1988 insinuating—”

  Julia shook her head vehemently. “That we were hand-in-glove with Whitey Bulger? Yes, that’s true. Every organization has bad apples, and the FBI, unfortunately, is no different. But that’s all in the past. And the Art Crime Team has never had any connections with the mob.”

  But Celine sensed the note of uncertainty underlying her words.

  “The agents may not have any mob connections, but a CI might.” Confidential informants, Celine remembered from the few criminal justice classes she’d taken in college, were frequently criminals themselves, trying to work off minor, or major, offenses by working with law enforcement.

  But Julia was quick to dismiss the suggestion. “And why would an agent who’d been contacted with the kind of tip we’re talking about need to get in touch with a CI?” she snapped. Her thick ponytail swung from side to side as she shook her head.

  “And the fact remains”—Julia turned to Simon—“that the mob is involved. Or someone just as dangerous. But whoever it is, they’re interested in your paintings. What would they find on the canvas under your works?”

  Simon smiled. “I can show you,” he offered, getting up, and gesturing toward the deck. “It’s quite fascinating.”

  Blake stared at the information Google had pulled up. Noticing the tracker had stopped moving, he’d ta
ken down its current location and typed it into the search engine. Four sixty-two Morro Avenue was the street address for Simon Underwood’s studio.

  What business did Celine Skye, current owner of the Delft—Mailand had shared that interesting tidbit—have with Underwood? If she’d needed to inform him of Dirck Thins’ death, wouldn’t a phone call have sufficed?

  Unless of course—Blake recalled the information he’d received from the Mechelen’s Italian winemaker—the terms of Underwood’s consignment arrangement with the Delft needed to be renegotiated.

  Or simply restated.

  He pulled up Underwood’s website. Snippets of text—quotes from art reviewers—floated across the screen. Underwood had been praised as a Master of Illusion; in his treatment of light and shadow, a veritable Vermeer.

  Blake’s thumb flicked rhythmically across his chin. Underwood’s consignment arrangement with the Delft had been undertaken, Blake recalled, as a favor to its owner. What did that mean? That Thins had known something about Underwood himself—or his art?

  Was Underwood sufficiently skilled to disguise an old master, covering it in layers of new paint?

  Or had Thins made some kind of discovery about his associate? And been killed for it?

  Penny Hoskins’ tip to check out Duarte’s sister was making more and more sense.

  Fifteen minutes later, Simon withdrew a sheet of oil paper from his camera obscura and said, “This is what you’d find, Ms. Hood.”

  An image was blocked out all in black acrylic on the oil sheet. Simon turned it over and carefully pressed it upon the prepared canvas that stood ready on the easel by the pyramid-shaped device. Rubbing his palm firmly up and down over the sheet, he transferred the image.

  Then, he peeled the sheet off and turned to look at Julia. “That’s what you’ll see if you examine Purple Waters or anything else I’ve created.”

  A black-and-white image of gulls wheeling above the water was impressed upon the canvas. There was a curious quality about it, Celine noticed.