Master of Illusion

by Nupur Tustin

  “That’s right,” the officer said. He’d introduced himself, but Celine had already forgotten his name.

  He turned to Celine. “This isn’t gonna be an exact rendering of the person. But if we can get enough details to jog someone’s memory, we’ll call it good.”

  Celine nodded. “Sounds good.”

  The officer set a notepad on the desk and grasped a freshly sharpened pencil. “Well, anytime you’re ready, ma’am, just tell me what you remember of this guy.”

  It took no more than fifteen minutes to record her impressions, with the officer asking follow-up questions at intervals. He showed her a few reference photos as well, and then retreated to the computer lab to work on the initial sketch.

  Celine sat back with a sigh. “That was pretty painless,” she said.

  “Um-hmm,” Julia murmured. She shifted in her chair and crossed her left leg over her right. “We ought to get a hold of Mailand when we’re done here. At least we know why Dirck’s killers were so interested in the art hanging on the Delft’s walls.”

  “They were hoping to find a Vermeer.”

  The FBI agent Julia had spoken with hadn’t been very forthcoming. But it had been clear that the tip phoned in to the FBI had been about Vermeer’s Concert.

  The painting, about twenty-eight inches by twenty-five, showed a woman seated at a harpsichord next to a man with a lute. A female singer, portrayed in profile, stood next to the two musicians.

  What Celine couldn’t understand was how Dirck could’ve known anything about the painting’s whereabouts. “Why didn’t he tell anyone? He never said a word about it to any of us. Not his lawyer. Not Simon. And he certainly never mentioned it to me.”

  “If it was even Dirck who made the call,” Julia said. “Just because the call was made from the Delft doesn’t mean—”

  “I know. But who else could it be?”

  Julia didn’t respond.

  Celine turned sharply toward her. “You think Simon Duarte called in that tip? Even if he’s alive—which I doubt—why would he, after all these years?”

  “For the reward money, of course,” Julia said. “That’s why certain works of art are stolen. They’re too well known to palm off in the black market. But you can arrange to have the work returned. The reward museums and collectors offer to recover stolen works is considerable. And for the thief, it’s pure profit.”

  “Then why didn’t Greg recover the painting?”

  Julia shrugged. “Maybe he did. We won’t know until we find him.”

  “But then . . .” Celine paused. Julia’s theories weren’t making much sense. “Let’s say, Greg did make off with the Vermeer—that’s what you’re implying, isn’t it? Well, in that case, he couldn’t have been working with the mob. He couldn’t have directed the mob to Dirck—”

  “We don’t know that either, Celine,” Julia interrupted her. “We don’t know anything at this point. All we know is that Greg, a CI for the FBI, is on the run.”

  “Maybe he saw something.”

  “Something he didn’t bother reporting to his handler?” Julia’s right eyebrow rose, giving her face a lopsided look. “Blake can spin this however he likes, but you have to admit, the whole situation smells fishy.”

  Celine subsided. She was certain Greg had intended to meet Dirck later that night and that Dirck had been expecting the CI. But if that were the case, the only person with a motive to kill them both was someone she was equally certain was dead: Simon Duarte.

  So much for certainties, she thought.

  Trust your instincts, my dear, Sister Mary Catherine whispered into her ear.

  How can I, Celine thought, when they make no sense?

  “Here we go.” The police officer returned to the room and handed Celine a printout of his computer-generated composite.

  “Wow! It looks hand-drawn.” Celine heard Julia’s indrawn hiss of breath and her murmured, “Looks very familiar!” but she ignored it.

  Instead, she glanced up at the officer. “I thought it would be more like a photograph.”

  The officer shook his head. “Too misleading. We want something that looks hand-drawn, that’s open to interpretation. Folks understand that about a sketch. All of the features don’t have to match for them to see and recognize a resemblance to someone they know.”

  He pointed to the sketch. “Anything you’d like to change?”

  There were a few things. Celine pointed them out; then there was another wait.

  When the officer returned with his second draft, Celine was sufficiently pleased with the likeness he’d captured to sign the back of the image.

  She’d barely finished thanking the officer when Julia grabbed her arm and marched her out of the room. “We need to find Mailand. I recognize that face. Blake wasn’t being straight with us.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  “Information?” Detective Mailand rose halfway out of his chair as he repeated Julia’s words. “You have information for me, and you’ve graciously consented to share it. What can I say, I’m touched!”

  They’d seen his office door ajar, and before Celine could think about knocking, Julia had thrust her head around the doorway and informed the detective that it was imperative they speak.

  “Please come in.” Mailand waved Julia and Celine in.

  The room the Sheriff’s detective had commandeered at the Paso Robles Police Station looked suspiciously like an interview room—sunless, windowless, and constricted. A desk, a file cabinet, and three chairs had been crammed into the tiny space.

  After they’d all sat down, Mailand stretched his arm out across the desk, palm facing up.

  “I understand you have evidence for me as well, Ms. Hood.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “The tracker, please.”

  Celine pulled it out of her purse. “It was my fault this wasn’t turned in sooner, Detective. I thought it was a watch misplaced by one of our patrons. If Julia hadn’t recognized it . . .” Her voice trailed off as she saw the expression on his face.

  Wordlessly she dropped the tracker into his open palm.

  “It belongs to an FBI informant,” Julia began to say.

  “I’m aware of that, Ms. Hood.”

  Julia stared at the detective. “And his name, Detective Mailand? Were you aware of that as well? He’s been going by Greg Peters. But his name is Grayson Pike. He used to be a guard at the Gardner Museum in Boston.”

  There was a bored expression on Mailand’s craggy features, but Celine’s eyes widened. “You mean he was a guard when—”

  “He was on duty the night before the infamous heist,” Julia replied tersely. “He’s always been on our radar. As someone who knew more than he was letting on, even if he wasn’t directly involved in anything.”

  Celine pondered this. B-aw-ston Greg had certainly acted as though he had some secret information. And he’d known about Simon Duarte and Earl Bramer, even though their involvement wasn’t common knowledge outside of the FBI.

  But what had B-aw-ston Greg wanted with Dirck? Why had Dirck been so eager to meet with him?

  “The man’s on the run, Ms. Hood,” Mailand’s voice addressing Julia penetrated Celine’s musings. “His name and his former occupation aren’t going to help me find him.” He paused for a fraction of a second. “Fortunately, I have a more concrete lead.”

  “Already?” Julia’s eyebrows rose. “And what is it, if I may ask?”

  “You may ask, and I’ll tell you—not that it’s any of your business. We’re tracking the purchases he’s making on his prepaid credit card.”

  “And you know this how?” Julia was leaning forward now.

  “A former colleague of yours gave me the courtesy of a call the moment he realized what his CI might’ve been involved in. Which is more than I can say for you.”

  “So Blake called. Trust him to get ahead of a story.” Julia sat back in her chair, expelling a gust of frustration. “I’ve already explained why we didn’t bring in
the tracker sooner. We were on our way here when we realized what it was.

  “As far as calling the tracker was concerned, it may not have been protocol, but at least it confirmed my suspicions that Dirck Thins’ death is connected with the Gardner Museum heist.”

  Celine cleared her throat. “Dirck’s killers were looking for the Vermeer stolen from the Gardner, Detective Mailand. That’s why all the art was taken down. You were asking me earlier what Dirck had known. Well, maybe Dirck had seen the Vermeer or found out about its whereabouts—”

  “I know about the tip called in to the FBI. We haven’t determined who made that call. But”—Mailand’s gaze shifted to Julia—“I understand the Vermeer the tipster was referring to could’ve been a forgery created by Simon Underwood. You’ve begun investigating him, I hear.”

  “We went to see Underwood to inform him of Dirck’s murder and to let him know his work had been damaged in the commission of a crime.” Julia’s eyes met Celine’s briefly before she continued. “Ms. Skye asked me to accompany her.”

  The lie made Celine uncomfortable, but she sat impassively as Mailand searched her features. His eyes lingered upon her face as he addressed his next remarks to Julia. “You thought he was Simon Duarte?”

  “I don’t anymore,” Julia replied firmly. “Underwood didn’t act like a guilty person when we went to see him, Detective Mailand.”

  Celine nodded. “Simon was genuinely shocked to hear what had happened. Besides, if he’d been responsible for Dirck’s murder, he’d have been on the run, too, wouldn’t he? Just like Greg Peters.”

  “Well, that went well,” Celine commented wryly as she backed the Pilot out of its parking spot onto Park Street. Their exchange with Mailand had been so contentious, she wondered if he’d be willing to even consider any further information they brought him.

  Julia smiled. “It wasn’t that bad. At least we’ve learned something.”

  “We have?” Celine gave Julia a quick look as she made a right onto 9th Street.

  Julia nodded. “We know they’re close to finding Grayson. If he’s using a prepaid credit card, there’s no doubt about it, he’s on the run. And”—she turned toward Celine—“we know to a fair degree of certainty that it was Dirck who called in that tip to the FBI.”

  They’d agreed that B-aw-ston Greg—Celine still couldn’t think of him as Grayson—must have made his asinine reference to Rembrandt for Dirck’s benefit. There’d been no other male within earshot that Celine could think of.

  And Mailand had let fall that the anonymous tipster had specifically asked that any FBI contact use the artist’s name as a code word to identify himself.

  Of course, Dirck hadn’t immediately responded. He’d been busy attending to departing customers. It was only when B-aw-ston Greg had mentioned his hometown that Dirck had come over. Still, the scenario fit.

  “You still want me to look for his phone records?” she asked Julia.

  “Absolutely. What we have now is just an assumption. A reasonable assumption. But we need evidence to back it up.”

  They were cruising down Niblick Road when Celine asked her next question.

  “Was Greg—Grayson—a guard at the Gardner Museum at about the same time Simon Duarte and Earl Bramer were working there?”

  “Yes. He probably knew them both.”

  “Well enough to recognize them nearly three decades later?”

  Julia shrugged. “Hard to tell. People change as they age. Some more so than others.”

  She crossed her legs. “You know, I was in my forties when I went to my first—and last—high school reunion. An elderly, white-haired man came up to me. Wow, someone brought their Dad to the reunion, I thought. Until he introduced himself.”

  “Someone you knew?”

  “Someone I’d had a crush on and had fantasized about meeting. I just could not believe he’d turned into this gray-haired, doddering old geezer.”

  “Must’ve been a shock,” Celine murmured, her mind elsewhere.

  “I got over it,” Julia said. “But what brought this about?”

  After a moment’s silence, she said again: “Celine?”

  Celine gripped the steering wheel hard. She’d told Julia that B-aw-ston Greg had brought up Earl Bramer and Simon Duarte, but she hadn’t mentioned what exactly had triggered that conversation.

  And now she’d begun to wonder—

  “Celine?” Julia said a little louder. “Is there something you’ve remembered?”

  Celine sighed. She didn’t want to talk about it, but this was something she had to get out of her system. Brooding quietly over it would just drive her insane.

  “After John died, Dirck began falling to pieces. I could see it. We all did. I thought it was the stress of running the winery as well as the bar. But Julia”—Celine inhaled deeply—“what if Dirck made some kind of discovery about John—something that would’ve completely shattered his confidence, something so devastating . . .”

  She shuddered. The steering wheel felt sweaty, the leather sticking to her palms.

  She turned to Julia. “What if Dirck uncovered some evidence that John Mechelen was Earl Bramer.”

  “He couldn’t have. They were together at Boston University—according to Simon Underwood, who says he knew them both.”

  Celine exhaled heavily, tension oozing out of her shoulders. That was right. Simon Underwood had known both Dirck and John.

  “What put that into your head, in any case, Celine?”

  “When B-aw-ston Greg saw John’s portrait at the Delft, he seemed convinced—not that he said it in so many words—that John and Earl Bramer were the same person. I figured he’d just seen photos of Duarte and Bramer in the newspapers, but if he actually knew them—” She broke off.

  No, if John was Earl Bramer, he’d have needed to take both Dirck and Simon Underwood into his confidence. What possible reason could either of them have had for helping to conceal Earl’s identity?

  “Of course, there is one other possibility,” Julia said. “Maybe it wasn’t the fact of Mechelen’s true identity that bothered Dirck. Maybe Dirck Thins and Simon Underwood were both aware of it and were willing to cover for a friend they both thought was innocent.”

  “Until Dirck found out otherwise?” Celine asked quietly. Was that how Dirck had come across the Vermeer—as he went through John’s possessions? If so, it must’ve destroyed Dirck to find out. It would’ve been such a betrayal of their friendship.

  Had Dirck died trying to make amends for John’s crimes?

  If that was the case, Celine vowed his effort was not going to be in vain. She’d do everything in her power to recover the art looted from the Gardner.

  Fifteen minutes later the Pilot scrunched to a halt in front of Julia’s cottage at the Mechelen Winery. Celine turned off the ignition, waiting for the former federal agent to gather up her things. Waiting to broach what could be a sensitive topic.

  Law enforcement agents tended to be leery of sharing information with civilians. But Celine was prepared to battle her way through Julia’s objections on this one.

  “I’d like to see whatever you have on the Gardner theft,” she said when Julia, her hand on the door handle, finally turned toward her.

  For what seemed like an eternity, Julia’s shrewd, blue eyes scanned her features. Then her gaze softened. “You want to help?” she asked.

  “I want to understand what Dirck gave up his life for,” Celine replied. Over Julia’s shoulder, she could see a blurry reflection of her own green eyes, large and unflinching in her pale face, on the passenger-side window.

  Her gaze shifted to Julia. “And, yes, I want to help. For Dirck’s sake. This is what he would’ve wanted me to do.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Julia smiled. “I’ve had something put together for you, Celine. And I’ve been wanting to show it to you for some time now. But I didn’t want to impose on you. Not . . .” she spread her hands wide. “Well, especially not after what you’ve been
through.”

  Celine acknowledged the remark with the briefest of nods but couldn’t trust herself to say anything. The tears were already brimming over into her eyes. She’d given up art—any association with it—thinking it would keep her friends safe. Thinking she could prevent what had happened to her parents. But—

  It isn’t your love of art that’s killed anybody, my dear, Sister Mary Catherine’s voice, soft as the delicate breeze outside, rustled at her ear. This was all meant to be. You are where you were meant to be.

  Inside her cottage, Julia busied herself at her coffeemaker. “Sure you don’t want to join me in a cup?” She turned to Celine.

  Celine grinned. “I wish I could guzzle caffeine the way you do. But it affects my ability to see.”

  “Psychically, you mean?” Julia looked to her for confirmation, then turned around and pulled open a drawer. From where she sat, Celine could see the colorful oven mitts and kitchen towels the winery provided its guests.

  Julia slipped her hand underneath those items and withdrew a buff manila folder.

  “Here you go,” she said, handing the file to Celine and sinking into the chaise beside her.

  Celine flipped through the pages. The robbery had taken place in the pre-dawn hours of March 18, 1990. Two men disguised as police officers had gained entry into the museum, overpowered the night guards, and in a matter of a little over an hour proceeded to loot the museum.

  Thirteen works had been stolen, including two artifacts—a Chinese vase and a bronze eagle finial. Celine slid long, tapering fingers over the glossy photos, her eyes drawn for some reason to the finial. A gilded bronze affair about ten inches high, it wasn’t particularly appealing, yet the image of it seemed to jump out at her.

  “Is this valuable?” she asked. General, she thought inexplicably. General. Not understanding its significance, she thrust the thought aside.

  “Not particularly, no. It’s probably currently valued at about a hundred thousand dollars. It’s a mystery why it was taken. They were actually after the flag, but they couldn’t unscrew it from its frame. Guess someone was a fan of Napoleon.”