“I know that if I tell the world about you, my reputation will be gone, and I’ll have to leave Duke, and I’ll be infamous as the person who ruined all your lives. But a lot of people will thank me for telling the world what you are. I bet this isn’t the first time y’all have tried something like this. I promise every one of you: touch me, and your lives will be over starting tonight.”
Coleman stared at the boys, who seemed paralyzed, their faces gleaming pale in the twilight. She turned to Maxwell Arnold and said, “A lot of people saw me leave the dorm with you tonight. Everyone will know what a monster you are. You probably don’t care, and from what I know about your family, they probably wouldn’t care either. But touch me, and you’ll go to jail, so help me God.
“And that’s not all. If you ever come near me—if you ever even speak to me again, I’ll curse you such a mighty curse you’ll wish you’d never been born. I’ll devote the rest of my life to taking my revenge on you. I’ll stay after you until I die, and after my death I’ll haunt you.”
That night was engraved in Coleman’s mind forever—the words she spoke, the scent of the pinewoods and the honeysuckle, the soft night air, how the boys looked, and how she felt. Mostly she felt anger, but in the back of her mind was a tiny flicker of fear. They could have killed her, of course, and they were all drunk. Drunks were unpredictable.
But they got back in their cars, and she climbed in beside Henry. She knew his family best, and she certainly wouldn’t get in a car with Maxwell Arnold. She looked back, and Maxwell Arnold was standing in the clearing by himself, staring after her. He shook his fist at her as the car pulled away. Neither she nor Henry spoke on the way back to campus.
If only that had been the end of it. The boys—Tommy, Buddy, Henry, and Paul—begged for an opportunity to apologize to her, but she wouldn’t speak to them, so they turned to Dinah to plead for Coleman’s mercy. They blamed everything on Maxwell. He’d told them she was “willing,” it was a “party,” Coleman “wanted it.” After they sobered up, they knew how close they’d come to ruin, and that she still held their futures in the palm of her hand. But there was nothing they could do but get on with their lives, so that’s what they did.
Except Maxwell Arnold. The way Maxwell saw it, Coleman had humiliated him in front of his buddies, and he was determined to make her pay for it. He kept his distance from Coleman, but he bugged Dinah. Every time he saw her, he told her how much he hated Coleman and Dinah, too, because she was Coleman’s cousin. Coleman considered complaining to the authorities, but he never actually threatened her or Dinah, and she wasn’t sure he was doing anything illegal.
Anyway, the Arnolds owned one of the biggest tobacco processing companies in the South. Even with the decline of smokers in the States, they made a ton of money exporting their products to the third world, and they contributed to all the right politicians. She didn’t think anyone would do much about Maxwell, unless they caught him breaking the law. Even then, he’d probably get his hand slapped.
Arnold’s little “party” had put her off college dating. She never knew what trap Maxwell Arnold might set for her. And as much as she’d tried to reassure Dinah, Coleman thought Maxwell was dangerous. She’d received notes and cards from him several times a year ever since that long-ago evening. The notes were never overtly threatening, but they were ugly. She could handle it, but she wished he’d stay away from Dinah. Coleman kept hoping he’d forget about her and Dinah but he hadn’t changed, even after she’d read that he’d married. Seemed like he had some kind of grudge against her that was bigger than an episode in the pine woods outside Durham.
That evening in the King Cole Bar at the St. Regis Hotel, Coleman sipped a Diet Pepsi and told Zeke about her conversation with Tammy. “She’s so wrapped up in wedding plans she’s not thinking about anything else. And she doesn’t seem to need money. I can’t see why she’d do it.”
“Well, if you’re pretty sure it’s not Tammy, then it’s got to be Chick, right? What are you going to do?”
Coleman rattled the ice in her empty glass. “Talk to him, I guess. What else can I do? I’m writing the best stories myself, keeping my ideas secret so they won’t be leaked. I’m exhausted, it’s bad for morale, and time-wasting. I should be investigating Jimmy La Grange’s death, or at least the history of the prints he’s supposed to have owned, and how he got them. New subject: have you learned anything about the Artful Californian?”
“Damned little. I studied every issue, and I don’t recognize a single name on the masthead, or a byline. The major editorial difference between ArtSmart and the Artful Californian is that Artful takes very strong critical positions on contemporary artists—unknown California artists, Australian artists, Russians. They push the work. They aren’t touting the work of any East Coast artists, so they must not have staff here. I haven’t ever met anyone who works there, have you?”
“No, not a soul. I’ve noticed they publish puff pieces on certain artists. We don’t hype artists. I think it’s unethical for a magazine to do it, and most people in the business agree. It’s too easy to buy up paintings, run up the prices, and sell them. But if you’d stoop to stealing ideas from another magazine, what’s a little more slimy dealing?”
She paused. “Wait a minute. I have an idea. Suppose they want to damage ArtSmart enough to be able to buy it cheap? They could merge the two magazines, and they’d have a great entry into the East Coast art world. With ArtSmart’s reputation for catching trends—if its reputation isn’t ruined by then—they could buy art, and then push it—they could make a fortune. Double, triple, quadruple their investment.”
Zeke leaned towards her. “Have you ever known anyone who did it?”
“Yes, a columnist for a now-defunct art magazine. He used to seek out little-known talented artists who were desperate for money. His secret partner bought up the artist’s work for next to nothing, and put it away. A year or so later, the columnist would ‘discover’ the work, and write a glowing review, and the value of the artist’s work would shoot up. Suddenly the artist was hot, and everybody was trying to buy his work,” Coleman said.
“What kind of money was involved?”
“An artist told me the critic’s partner bought five paintings from her for a thousand dollars. Two years later, he sold one of them for $50,000,” Coleman said.
“Good God! If a lot of artists were involved, we’re talking multimillions. How do you think Artful is working it?”
“Management might have several people buying art, several people writing rave reviews. That’s probably what they’re doing with the art they’re touting now—Russian, Australian, whatever. But if they could get ArtSmart, and get an in with New York artists, they could go big-time. Before readers caught on, the people behind the magazine would make a fortune.”
“I bet you’re right, Coleman. That’s got to be it,” Zeke said.
“We may know why, but we’re not any closer to knowing who. Who owns the Artful Californian?”
Zeke shook his head. “A holding company with an innocuous name—‘Art-All.’ I’m trying to learn more about it, but my lawyer says these holding company structures can be impossible to penetrate.”
“Well, let me know if you learn anything,” said Coleman. “Thanks for the drink, thanks for listening, and thanks for your help.”
Jonathan stayed in his office until after nine, talking to the West Coast. But he learned nothing. Heyward Bain had no school records, no employment history, no telephone listing, no credit rating, no social security number. Jonathan wouldn’t have dreamed it was possible to live forty years and leave no tracks. It was as if Bain didn’t exist. He must be a criminal.
Twelve
Friday night
After she’d fed and walked Dolly, Coleman put on her nightgown and robe and settled down on the couch in the sitting room. She loved her little apartment on East Fifty-Fourth Street. Debbi and Dinah nagged her to buy something bigger and fancier, but even if she were as rich
as Bill Gates, she wouldn’t move. The kitchen was tiny, but who cared? She didn’t cook. Her snug home office was a desk in the dining nook. The sitting room windows looked out at the Queens skyline beyond the East River, gorgeous at night. She’d installed bookshelves wherever she could fit them in, and the room was warm and inviting.
But the best part was the two bedrooms. Coleman slept in the smaller one—Dinah said its narrow bed and white walls reminded her of what she’d read about nuns’ cells—and used the second bedroom as her sewing room, where she kept her sewing machine and the dressmakers’ models she’d made for herself and for Dinah. She hung many of her dresses and suits on a big clothes rod on one side of the room, instead of crushed in a tiny closet. The shelves on the other walls were stacked with brilliantly colored fabrics—bright green, turquoise, blue, red, hot pink—and fashion magazines. She’d designed it to look like the sewing room where she’d worked with Aunt Polly, except then the magazines hadn’t been Vogue and Bazaar, but battered copies of Ladies’ Home Journal and Good Housekeeping.
When she’d arrived at Slocumb Corners, a dirty, uncivilized five-year-old orphan, the household was desperately poor. Coleman had always been poor, but her grandmother, Miss Ida, Miss Ida’s sister, her great-aunt Polly, and even seven-year-old Dinah worked. The people Coleman had lived with mostly drank and smoked dope. Coleman had never known people who worked the way her new family did.
Miss Ida baked—wedding and other cakes were her specialty—and catered for parties, and Dinah helped in the kitchen. Aunt Polly sewed. She made dresses, and anything else the local ladies wanted—curtains, slipcovers, baby clothes, whatever. She did alterations, too, and Coleman helped her. Coleman took to sewing, and by the time she was in sixth grade, she was making all her own clothes and Dinah’s. She winced when she remembered those clumsy creations, but the clothes she’d designed and made for high school and college were much better-looking. When her classmates saw them, they, too, wanted “Coleman” labels. She’d sewed her way through college.
These days, she could afford to buy designer clothes, and sometimes she did. But most outfits for someone only five-feet-two-inches tall were designed to make the wearer look cute, and Coleman hated cute. She wanted clothes to make her look taller, slimmer, more sophisticated, and the best way to get them was to design them herself. Fashion wasn’t easy if you were short, curvy, blonde, and dimpled. Anyway, playing with fabrics and patterns was fun. And relaxing. If she weren’t so tired, she’d go in the sewing room and work out a new design, but she just didn’t have the energy.
She picked up the Daily News from the stack of newspapers and skimmed through it, but she couldn’t concentrate. Dolly climbed onto her lap and settled down for an after-supper nap. Coleman stroked the little dog’s soft fur and picked up the TV remote. Maybe she could find an old movie—she loved fifties films—but before she could turn on the television, her phone rang.
It was Clancy. “Bad news, Coleman. The police have decided they were right from the beginning. They never found anything to tie Jimmy La Grange’s death to the sale of those prints. If they ever find the guys Jimmy was seen with, they can easily make their case. But they’re not looking very hard.”
“Are you still working on it?”
“No. Unless something new turns up, it’s over, at least for the Times. But I know there’s an art connection. I can’t figure out how La Grange could have bought those two prints, or why the real owner—or owners—are lying low, unless they have something to hide. Keep me posted, okay?”
“Sure. Thanks for calling, Clancy. Let’s talk soon.”
Coleman lay back down on the couch, Dolly on her chest. Clancy’s throwing in the towel was a blow. He was her only link to the police. The New York Times had great sources. But she couldn’t blame him.
All she had were questions: Who killed La Grange and why? Who was Bain? What about Simon?
Thirteen
Friday
London
Rachel Ransome had not heard of Jimmy La Grange’s murder, but she knew that he was ostensibly the seller of The Midget. That kind of information came readily to the owner of the Ransome Gallery. News of La Grange’s sordid death was not important enough to make the London papers, but even if an item had appeared, Rachel would not have read it. She found the daily news at best boring, at worst distracting. She was immersed in the sixteenth century.
In the more than ten years since Rachel had established the Ransome Gallery, she had become successful. She did not seek publicity, and the passing years had made her even less interested in other people than she had been when she was young. Few members of the public knew the Ransome Gallery existed, but every important museum in Europe and the United States sent representatives to call on the gallery, and every private collector of Renaissance art knew Rachel. She met with clients by appointment. There was no walk-in business for the treasures found at the Ransome Gallery.
Many of the works Rachel sold were part of her inheritance from Ransome. She doled them out, since Renaissance connoisseurs coveted treasures from Ransome’s collection. Other objects had come her way through The Record, the document Ransome left behind detailing locations of art all over the world—in museums, of course, but more important, in private collections. Nothing was more useful to a dealer than supply, and the owners of works of art tucked away in attics or dark corridors in freezing country houses were often willing to sell them when they learned of their value. Finally, some works came through those who had known Ransome and honored Rachel as his heir.
She had no need for the wealth she had accumulated through the sale of art. Ransome had left her far more money than she could ever spend. Her life was patterned on that of Professor Ransome’s. He had taught her to enjoy elegant simplicity. She had been so influenced by Ransome that she could not remember what her tastes had been before the many years she’d spent with him.
Because she lived such a secluded life, she might never have heard about Simon’s purchases for Heyward Bain, had she not happened on an item about him in the art press. She had learned about the sale of The Midget from a story in Art Journal and had inquiries made as to its seller. She did not discuss these matters with Simon. She thought of him as a remittance man. She paid him handsomely to stay out of England, and away from the gallery.
Recently, however, a Dürer collector had come in to choose a piece of Renaissance jewelry as a gift for his wife. After he selected a handsome pendant and was waiting for it to be wrapped, he said, “I’ve never seen Dürers in more beautiful condition than the four woodcuts Simon bought for Heyward Bain—not even collector’s stamps. Do you know anything about their provenance?”
“I haven’t been involved in Simon’s purchases for Bain. Which Dürers were they?”
“The Holy Family with Three Hares, The Virgin Crowned by Two Angels, The Beheading of St. John the Baptist, and The Annunciation. Would you ask him where they came from? They were sold at an auction house I never heard of, and the only provenance in the catalog was the Ransome Gallery. Nothing before that.”
Rachel nodded. “I’ll ask, and let you know.”
Four Dürer woodcuts in exceptional condition? Where could Simon have found them? But she was preoccupied with a puzzling attribution, and put the subject aside.
She didn’t think of the Dürers again until evening when she was sipping her pre-dinner sherry. A faint suspicion occurred to her, but she dismissed it as impossible, and turned to her grilled turbot and asparagus.
In her bedroom that night, however, she unlocked the closet where her furs and less valuable jewelry were kept, opened the safe secreted behind a panel, and took out the ancient Italian chest containing her more precious jewelry. Behind the chest and yet another panel, opened by a pressure point, a locked metal box housed the four notebooks in which she had written the information culled from The Record before storing the originals in the bank vault. She turned to the D’s. There it was: “Dürer—four woodcuts in pristine conditio
n. No collector stamps. Baldorean Collection. Keeper, Yeats.”
The prints listed were the four that Simon had purchased for Bain. Simon had stolen those prints from the Baldorean Collection. There could not be an identical set of Dürers in existence, and they could not have come on the market in any other way.
He had gained access to The Record. Worse, he had used the gallery’s name when selling stolen prints. He had dared to involve the Ransome Gallery in his petty schemes. She was angrier than she had been in many years, but this was not the time to waste energy on impotent rage. She would end Simon’s schemes, but not tonight.
After she returned everything to the safe and secured the system, she put on one of the high-necked, long-sleeved white silk gowns she bought from a little shop near the Rue de Rivoli in Paris, unbraided her hair—still as heavy and thick as when she’d first met Ransome, but now streaked with gray—and brushed it. When she had settled down in her four-poster bed, propped up on the big white pillows and tucked under the white eiderdown, she sipped the hot chocolate that her housekeeper had left in a thermos on her bedside table.
Usually at this time she read a few pages from Jane Austen. She read and reread Austen’s novels. She had never found anything to equal them for bedtime reading. But tonight she stared into space, thinking. When she finished her chocolate, she set the cup down and switched off the bedside lamp. She would put her worries aside for the weekend. Almost immediately she fell asleep.
On Monday, Rachel met her assistant downstairs at eight thirty. Miss Manning, sixtyish, small and prim, had been “made redundant” in her previous job and was grateful for her current employment, which included a number of perquisites—tickets to museum and gallery openings, a delicious lunch, and exquisite teas—in addition to a very good salary. For six years she’d assisted Rachel with both her personal affairs and the business of the Ransome Gallery. Rachel trusted her more than she’d trusted anyone since Ransome died.
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