Spotted Cats

by William G. Tapply

  ‘Always the joker. Even first thing in the morning.’ She grinned. ‘You got a nasty shaving rash, too.’

  ‘I was bound and gagged. Tape across my face.’

  She cocked her head at me, nodded once, and dipped back to her coffee.

  ‘I got a big bump where I got slugged, too,’ I volunteered. ‘Also a worse gash here on my collarbone.’

  ‘Right.’ Julie smiled into her mug. Then she looked up at me. ‘So,’ she said ‘Truthfully. How was the big weekend on the Cape?’

  I wiggled my hand back and forth.

  ‘Boring, huh? Well, I never promised you excitement. I just said you had to go and sit with Mr Newton.’ She slurped, then looked up again. ‘Come on, Brady. Something worth reporting must’ve happened. I thirst for gossip. How’s Mr Newton, anyway?’

  ‘He’s in the hospital,’ I said.

  She peered at me over the rim of her mug. ‘Poor man,’ she said. ‘He’s been sick for a long time.’

  ‘And,’ I continued, ‘really, nothing much happened. We were burglarized. A million and a half dollars’ worth of pre-Columbian artifacts were stolen. The cops think I might have masterminded it. I was pistol-whipped, sliced with a knife, and tied up in bed. Two security personnel were shot and had their throats slashed. I caught seventeen rainbow trout on dry flies. The housekeeper seduced me. Your basic boring weekend.’

  She arched her eyebrows. Her head still hovered over her coffee mug. She grinned. ‘Sure,’ she said.

  ‘OK, so maybe it was only twelve trout.’

  ‘Twelve?’

  ‘At least twelve. We kept two. I caught them on Royal Wulffs.’

  ‘That’s more like it.’ She swivelled around and whisked the dust cover off her word processor. I was dismissed.

  I went into my office. My desktop was clean, the way I like to see it. I tapped out the number for my friend Dan LaBreque over at the Museum of Fine Arts. Two or three times every summer Dan took me and Charlie McDevitt out on his boat to catch bluefish. It was Dan who had appraised Jeff Newton’s seven gold jaguars when he brought them home from Mexico.

  Dan answered the phone himself.

  ‘It’s Brady,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, hi. To answer your question, yes, the blues are running, and sure, anytime. They were hitting Rapalas the other night, but I imagine those fancy poppers you throw with your fly rod would work. Actually, I was going to call you this week. So when?’

  ‘I’d love to go fishing. But that’s not why I called.’ I hesitated. He waited. ‘You remember Jeff Newton?’

  ‘The guy with those gorgeous Mayan jaguars? I don’t remember him particularly well, but I sure remember the artifacts. Gorgeous. Also unquestionably imported illegally.’

  ‘The jaguars were stolen Friday night.’

  ‘Yeah? Really?’

  ‘Yeah. Really. And Jeff had his skull smashed in.’

  ‘Was he…?’

  ‘He’s alive. Irreversible coma, it looks like.’

  ‘Jesus,’ he said. ‘So tell me about it, for Christ sake.’

  I told Dan what had happened over the weekend. I included the part about the trout fishing. Dan liked fishing stories. I used the figure seventeen with him, pausing to give him a chance to express his doubts. Bless him, he didn’t. I left out the part about Lily, even though Dan didn’t mind that sort of story, either. He didn’t seem to notice anything was missing from my recitation.

  He listened without interrupting. When I was done, he said, ‘I’ll be damned.’

  ‘What’s the market for pre-Columbian artifacts?’ I said.

  ‘Depends.’

  ‘On what?’

  ‘Whether they’re authentic, with papers to prove it. Whether they were brought in legally before 1971, and there are papers to show that, too.’ He paused. ‘Look, Brady. The truth is, any museum would pay top dollar for those seven jaguars, provided the seller’s got the papers.’

  ‘Even if they had been stolen?’

  ‘Not if they knew they were stolen, of course. But frankly, there are some museum purchasers who wouldn’t look real close at bills of sale. What they’d really scrutinize is the original import papers.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Because without them, the Mexican government could reclaim the pieces and the museum’d be out a million or so bucks.’

  ‘None of the papers on the jaguars were taken,’ I said.

  ‘Wouldn’t matter,’ said Dan.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because Newton’s papers, as I seem to recall, were phony.’

  ‘You weren’t particularly sure of that at the time.’

  ‘I suspected it. I don’t know enough about those kinds of papers. But I’d bet anything your friend smuggled in those pieces.’

  ‘Those papers passed muster with the insurance agency.’

  ‘They wouldn’t pass muster with a museum purchaser. Not if they were fake.’

  ‘Here’s my question, then,’ I said.

  ‘Who’d steal them? Who’d buy them from the thief? Right?’

  ‘Right.’

  I heard him clear his throat. ‘You want me to name names, I can’t. There are collectors in this country who would buy those jaguars, no questions asked, if the price was right, and some who might even set up a theft. They have the money to pay cash. They have the resources to hang on to the pieces for a long time, let the hubbub die down, let them appreciate. They have the contacts to assemble papers that would be hard to prove were fake. Lots of these collectors just really love the stuff. They like to own it, look at it. They’re genuine art lovers. They just happen to be crooks.’

  ‘But you can’t name names.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Who could?’

  He hesitated for a minute. ‘Maria Conway,’ he said. ‘She might be able to. Probably wouldn’t. But she could.’

  ‘Why wouldn’t she?’

  ‘Hell, Brady. There’s confidentiality in our business just like there is in yours.’

  ‘What if she knew one of these so-called art lovers stole the pieces, or bought them from whoever did?’

  ‘I can’t speak for Maria. But, yeah, that would make a difference.’

  ‘Does Maria still work there with you?’

  ‘No. She’s curator for a museum in Phoenix. Has been for five or six years. I still talk to her now and then.’

  ‘How do I reach her?’

  ‘I’ll give you her number. Hang on a minute.’

  I waited. He came back on the line and gave me the phone number of Maria Conway’s museum in Phoenix.

  ‘Listen, Brady,’ he said. ‘The way these things usually work, whoever whacked Newton and took those gorgeous pieces had a purchaser all lined up. The crooks probably got fifty, maybe a hundred grand for their night’s work. They probably dumped them the next day. In quick, out quick. From what you said, they were pros.’

  ‘I don’t know about that. They were unpleasant fellows.’

  ‘Most crooks are.’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ I said.

  ‘It’s possible,’ he said, ‘that they’ll try to ransom them.’

  ‘Like kidnapping, you mean.’

  ‘Yeah. It’s pretty common with art theft. They try to hold up the owner, or sometimes his insurance company.’

  ‘There’d be no sense in holding up Jeff,’ I said. ‘He hasn’t got much money, and anyway, he’s in a coma.’

  ‘The insurance company, maybe,’ said Dan.

  ‘It’s Lloyd’s.’

  ‘Just a thought,’ he said. ‘The ransom thing is most common with really valuable stuff, one-of-a-kind things. Paintings by famous masters that the entire world knows about. These cats, there are probably others around. If they were recovered, it’d be hard to prove they were Newton’s anyway. Hell, your thieves might just take out the emerald eyes and melt ’em down for the gold. Over a hundred pounds of gold, right? Fourteen big fat emeralds? Plenty of value right there.’

  ‘Yeah, I th
ought of that,’ I said. ‘If they do that, we’re sunk. Let’s go back to these collectors, these unscrupulous rich guys.’

  ‘I told you, I don’t know any names.’

  ‘New York?’

  ‘Some, sure. For stuff like that, Mayan, Aztec, more of ’em are in the West, Southwest, though. Houston, Denver, Salt Lake City, Phoenix, San Diego, L.A. You should talk to Maria. That’s her territory. She specializes in that Indian stuff. That’s why she’s out there. Look. You want to go catch some bluefish, or what?’

  ‘I do. But listen. What’re the odds of those jaguars being recovered?’

  ‘Zilch,’ he said promptly. ‘Unless they try to ransom them, in which case chances are they still won’t be recovered, or if they are they’ll be damaged. If they melt ’em down, of course, that’s sayonara. But my bet is some collector’s got them stashed away. They won’t see the light of day for many years. If he tried to resell them through legitimate channels, he’d get nailed. Mexico would take them back.’

  ‘What about illegitimate channels? Do these collectors buy and sell among themselves?’

  ‘Probably. We never hear about it, of course.’

  ‘What do the police do?’

  ‘The police do what they do with any theft. Which, as far as I know, is diddley squat. The insurance company does a few things.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Who’d you say insured Newton? Lloyd’s?’

  ‘I think so. He dealt with an agency in Hyannis. I’ve got to call them.’

  ‘Lloyd’s probably underwrote the policy. They’ll send an adjuster. He’ll talk to you.’

  ‘Why me?’

  ‘Doesn’t sound like they can talk to Newton, and you’re his lawyer. Anyhow, you’re a witness. You can tell him that there really was a theft, that’s it’s not a fraud. That’s what he needs to know. That plus the fact that the security was intact when it happened.’

  ‘There was a theft, all right,’ I said, fingering the scab on my throat. ‘I can personally vouch for that.’

  ‘So if he’s satisfied that the pieces were actually stolen, he’ll pay off and go through his own motions. If Lloyd’s can recover the pieces, they get to keep them. Unless Newton has a buy-back clause. If he does, they get their money back. So they do some standard things. They’ll report the theft to the Art Dealers Association of America and the International Foundation for Art Research. These are clearinghouses for information on stolen art. They publish art-theft bulletins. They’ll carry photographs and descriptions of the jaguars. Also, the FBI has an Art Squad and a Transportation of Stolen Property desk. And there’s Interpol and the Property Recovery Squad of the New York City police. The Lloyd’s guy will make his reports to all of them. It’s routine. It’s about all he can do.’

  ‘But this won’t do any good, you don’t think.’

  ‘Like I said, the only ones who’ve seen those jaguars are the guys who broke into the house and the guy who bought them from the crooks, if somebody did. At least, that’s my bet.’

  ‘Unless someone catches up with those jaguars, I don’t see how they’ll figure out who hit Jeff,’ I said. Or, I thought, who came into my bedroom at night. I lit a cigarette. ‘OK,’ I said, ‘let’s talk bluefish.’

  ‘About time,’ said Dan. There was new animation in his voice. ‘On the turning tide at the mouth of the Merrimack. Anytime out on Stellwagen. We ran into a huge school of them trolling off Plum Island the other day. Smashing menhaden on the surface. You could smell ’em. You know that smell. Ripe melons. Gulls swooping around everywhere, all we could do to keep the damn birds away from the plugs when we stopped and cast to ’em. The fish were absolutely frenzied. Every damn cast. You would’ve been proud of us.’

  ‘Caught a lot, huh?’

  ‘Yeah. And only kept two. Returned all the rest.’

  ‘I am proud.’

  ‘Man with a fly rod would’ve had a blast.’

  ‘OK. I’m hooked. When?’

  ‘Let me check a tide chart. Hang on a minute.’ I finished my cigarette and stubbed it out. When Dan came back on the line, he said, ‘What do you say five-thirty Wednesday? We should hit ’em off Halibut Point.’

  ‘Sure. I can leave the office at four. Be in Gloucester before five-thirty, even with the traffic’

  He was silent for a moment. Then he said, ‘Brady?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You work at night?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘I’m talking a.m.’

  ‘Like five-thirty in the morning?’

  ‘That’s what a.m. means. In the morning.’

  ‘So I’ve gotta get up at four.’

  ‘About that, I’d say. Four-thirty at the latest.’

  ‘Fine. No problem. Actually, I love that time of day.’

  ‘You just love fishing.’

  ‘Naw. I like everything about it. When everyone else is asleep, and the sky is just starting to turn silver, and the ocean from my window looks like burnished pewter, and—’

  ‘Hey, shit,’ said Dan. ‘Can the poetry, huh?’

  ‘Yeah, well I do love fishing. I’ll see you at the marina at five-thirty Wednesday.’

  ‘I’ll bring a thermos of coffee,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you see if Charlie can join us?’

  ‘Sure. I was going to call him anyway.’

  ‘Charlie’s really big on crack of dawn stuff.’ Dan paused. ‘Hey, Brady?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘They have any suspects on that theft?’

  ‘They think they do.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Yeah. Me, for one.’

  I replaced the phone on its cradle and wrote a note on a piece of yellow legal paper. ‘Bluefish, Wed. 5:30 a.m.,’ it said. I folded the paper three times and stuffed it into the pants pocket where I kept my car keys. Not that I was likely to forget.

  I buzzed Julie. ‘What?’ she grumbled.

  ‘Hey. Have another cup of coffee.’

  ‘I’m working on it. What do you want?’

  ‘Seacoast Agency. Hyannis. Victoria Kline.’

  ‘Ten-four.’

  I hung up. A minute later my console buzzed. I pushed the blinking button and picked up the phone. Victoria Kline had a Lauren Bacall voice. I told her what had happened to the jaguars. She neither interrupted nor asked me to repeat myself. When I finished, she told me that an adjuster from Lloyd’s would be in touch with me. I congratulated her on her efficiency.

  I lit a cigarette and had tapped out half of Charlie McDevitt’s phone number when Julie scratched at my door. I replaced the receiver on its cradle. ‘Do enter,’ I called.

  Julie came in. She strode purposefully to me and placed the palms of both of her hands on my. desk. She bent towards me and said, ‘I want to know the truth about your weekend, Brady Coyne.’

  ‘Truth?’

  ‘Not your childish fairy tales.’

  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘Sit down.’

  She remained standing, her eyebrows arched.

  I waved my hand at her. ‘Please sit?’ I said.

  She sat. ‘So tell me. And no bullshit this time.’

  ‘What I told you is true.’

  ‘About Mr Newton being in the hospital?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘His sickness?’

  ‘He was hit on the head.’

  ‘Are you serious?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Then the burglary, it really happened?’

  I nodded again.

  ‘And those marks on your face?’

  ‘Knife wounds.’

  ‘Mr Newton—will he die?’

  I shrugged. ‘The surgeon wasn’t optimistic.’

  ‘Oh, wow.’ She sighed deeply and shook her head. ‘I don’t care about the housekeeper or the fishing.’

  ‘You don’t care about the fishing?’

  ‘You said two people were killed. You were kidding about that, right?’

  ‘I believe I said security personnel.’

>   ‘You did. What—?’

  ‘Dogs, Julie. Two guard dogs.’

  ‘Are you really some kind of suspect in this?’

  I spread my hands. ‘Probably not a serious one. The local cops are fishing around, trying to make it understandable. I could have had something to do with it. I mean, I was there. I could’ve arranged it, let the bad guys in.’

  ‘And hurt yourself like that?’

  I shrugged. ‘I could’ve had them do it. To take the heat off myself.’

  ‘Cops think that way, huh?’

  ‘Sure. Anybody would.’

  She shook her head. ‘Not me. I know you. You’re a baby. You’d never agree to get hurt like that.’

  I patted her arm. ‘Thank you for your continued support.’

  ‘So what are you going to do?’

  ‘Me? I’m just a lawyer, Julie. This is a police matter.’

  She grimaced. ‘Right. And I’m Joan of Arc.’

  ‘I hope I haven’t got anything important for Wednesday morning.’

  ‘Would it make a difference?’

  ‘It’d just have to be changed.’

  ‘Fishing, huh?’

  ‘Matter of fact, yes,’ I said. I don’t know why I felt defensive saying it.

  She shrugged. ‘I will, of course, work it out for you. That’s what you pay me these big bucks for.’ She got up and went to the door. She paused there with her hand on the knob, staring thoughtfully at me. Then she came back and sat beside me. She frowned. ‘It must have been an awful experience for you.’

  I nodded. ‘It was. It was scary. The whole thing. Finding Jeff like that. And what happened to me. Frightening. Except for the trout. And the housekeeper.’

  ‘It’s all so sad.’

  I nodded.

  She stood up and leaned towards me. She kissed my forehead. ‘I hope you’re not planning on doing anything stupid.’

  ‘Not me, babe. I’m going fishing Wednesday, that’s all. And that is not stupid.’

  ‘That’s certainly a matter of opinion.’ She headed for the door again. After she opened it she looked back at me. ‘How many trout did you say?’

  ‘I said seventeen. But it was at least twelve. I didn’t count. It was good fishing.’

  She nodded. ‘I won’t even ask about the housekeeper.’

  ‘You can’t believe everything I say.’

  ‘Boy, don’t I know it.’