Loose Change: The Case Files of a Homeless Investigator

by Sean Huxter

  Grateful to get out of the cold, I rushed inside the door.

  The place was very beautiful, with a deep atrium-like foyer and a stairway leading up to the second floor. These houses look small from the outside, but they are incredibly spacious once you see them from the inside. He invited me into the living room where we could discuss the painting in its presence.

  “I looked. I saw the initials.”

  He went to a cabinet nearby. “Can I offer you a drink?”

  “No thanks,” I said. “Three thousand four hundred twenty nine days sober.”

  He nodded his understanding and continued to pour one for himself. Then we turned to the back wall. Look at us. Two sophisticated gentlemen conversing about art.

  “This does indeed appear to be a wedding present, and from the date, it was a wedding that took place in 1980,” he said. “This painting, it was yours wasn't it?”

  “Yes,” I said. I pointed out my initials and told him my name. I mentioned my wife's name. “We were married in 1980. The painting was commissioned for us by my wife's rather well-off parents. It was one of our favorite places, the bridge over the Public Garden.”

  “I don't know what to say,” he stood looking at the painting. “I bought it just about three years ago in a shop on Newbury Street. And I'm not stupid enough to think that you'd be here if it wasn't stolen. It was stolen, wasn't it?”

  “Yes. A home invasion back in 1998. Circumstances very similar to your own invasion last week. What can you tell me about it?”

  “It was horrifying. A man knocked on the door claiming he was a courier. I opened it without thinking and the next thing I knew two men were storming in and I was out cold on the floor. I woke up and my wife was lying next to me, bruised and beaten. The Vermeer was gone.”

  “Where is your wife now?”

  “She's out with friends. She's ok, but she needed to see her friends. I imagine this whole thing was more traumatizing for her than it was for me.”

  “I imagine.” I had to wonder if Mosley and his partner had followed his previous MO here. If so, I wasn't about to ask, and I doubt Sprech would be that candid with me.

  “What can you tell me about the – perpetrators?”

  “The one I saw clearest, the one who shows up on my security camera, was short, blonde, had a gruff voice and was very efficient. I mean he had me knocked down before I could even see that his courier uniform was a fake. He must have known his art, because he took the Vermeer but left your Mather, not a valueless piece but not on the level of the Vermeer, and didn't take the reproduction Rembrandt, even though it is a very very convincing copy. Registered of course. I'm not trying to pass it off as original, I just liked it and could afford a very accurate copy. I'm proud to own it.”

  “The implication being that the blonde man either recognized it for the fake it was, or knew through some information he had received that it was a fake.”

  “I assume so. Gillian, who was conscious during the theft, said he examined it closely but left it.”

  “Really? That means he did an on-the-spot appraisal?”

  “So she thought, yes.”

  “Is there anything more you can tell me about him or his partner?”

  “I'm afraid not. Gillian gave everything she knew to the police, and it wasn't much either. I'm afraid we were not very helpful with the police. Just physical descriptions mostly.” I had read those in

  Loose Change .

  “Ok, Mr. Sprech. You've been good to give me this much of your time. I won't take up any more of it. But before I go can you tell me where you bought it?”

  “Certainly. It was the Fresco Gallery on Newbury Street. I buy a lot of pieces there. They also arranged the commissioned Rembrandt copy through a reputable art restoration business in town.”

  I turned to leave, but Sprech's hesitance stopped me.

  “Look, I bought this Mather in good faith,” he said. “But it's clearly not mine to own. I'd like you to have it.” He walked toward the painting, a modern impressionistic view of the Public Garden bridge at sunset, and I have to admit it ached to see it again. He began to take it from the wall.

  “Please. Mr. Sprech. You keep it.” I had last seen this painting on the wall of my own living room. “I can't bring myself to look at it anymore.”

  Chapter 5 The next day I walked down Newbury until I found the steps leading up to Fresco Gallery. I opened the door, stepped inside and stomped some of the snow from my boots, shivering audibly. The cold rapidly disappeared in a very well-heated gallery. Before I could turn around a lovely young lady approached me asking if she could help me choose a beautiful work of art... until I did turn around. She recoiled almost instantly, but regained her composure.

  “Actually, I was looking for some information about a painting sold here over three years ago.”

  “Three years, look, Mister... uh...” I declined to offer my name. “Look, those records will have been moved to storage.”

  “Sure. I understand. You'd know this painting. It was a Mather painted in 1980. 'Public Garden Bridge at Sunset', an impressionistic work.”

  “I'm afraid I can't really talk about our inventory or our records. Now if you'll excuse me...” She turned to go, probably to phone Security.

  “I just want some information about the painting.”

  She pretended I had already walked out.

  “Look, Miss, I'm not here to cause trouble. Really, I'm not. I just need to know where you acquired it.”

  She picked up a desk phone near the counter.

  I raised my voice. “Or should I just make sure everyone else knows it was a stolen painting?” The few patrons that were in the shop perked up their ears.

  She froze. She glanced to each side and leaned forward, and spoke in a harsh whisper. “I don't know what you're playing at, sir, but I can assure you...”

  “You can't assure me of anything. That painting was stolen and it was stolen from me, so don't tell me you can't help me.”

  She was in a quandary now. Alerting Security may be the last thing she'd want to do. Well, the very last thing would be to involve the police when doing so may expose the shop to a devastating very public reputation-ruining accusation of art theft.

  “What do you want?” she hissed.

  “I would like to know where the painting was acquired, and when.”

  “That painting was acquired through a reputable art restoration business on East Berkeley Street. Berkeley Restorations. Their restorers are top-notch. We use them frequently and recommend them liberally to our clientele. This is the first time I'm hearing about any stolen paintings coming from there. I guess anyone can purchase

  lost pieces if the works are lesser-known.”

  I conceded that point. Still. The theft wasn't very secret.

  “Miss Uh, I'd like to thank you for your cooperation.”

  She seemed very eager to get rid of me, and sighed in an obvious exhalation of breath when I turned towards the door.

  “Be seeing you,” I added, implying that I might further darken her door if I wasn't satisfied with the information.

  Chapter 6 I walked down to East Berkeley, hugging the buildings as closely as I could. Now and then a police cruiser would come by and I'd just huddle in a doorway against the chill wind, lifting my parka hood up close.

  When I got there the building was dark. Berkeley Restorations was an unassuming building made from an old car repair garage that was probably a bustling business back in the 1950s before the city densed up and garages moved out to the suburbs for the most part.

  I stood on a corner watching. I'm not dumb, I told myself. I tried reasoning things out. If Turley's people had ID'd the guy through fingerprints, and Turley had run the prints through the databases and come up with a hit from an unidentified suspect connected to a case that has been cold since 2001, then Mosley was very good at hiding himself, or very careful about not leaving witnesses. And it was Mosley all those years ago. Mosley and his partner. I r
emembered the two men, and Mosley was not the ringleader. He was the muscle, the guy just following the leader.

  And it certainly gave Turley a reason to suspect me, especially since the mug's mug was plastered all over

  Loose Change , which I'm well-known for selling. But I hadn't picked up the papers yet and didn't even know what had gone down until Turley tried to take me in.

  Shit. I couldn't blame Turley. But he came at me with not a whole load of anything but circumstantial evidence.

  I waited a good fifteen minutes, saw no activity, and approached the building. Before I got to within 50 feet of the place I heard patrolmen shouting: “Stop!” They began running at me from two different stake-out points, places I thought I had cleared in my watchful vigil. Nope.

  That was it, I had to run. Again. I'm getting too old for this shit.

  Luckily East Berkeley connects to Harrison, and what's on Harrison but the Pine Tree Inn, a homeless shelter I use sometimes. I often take meals there, and at one point I gave them quite a nice donation. I ran for all it was worth. One of the officers must have gone for his patrol car because I saw only one running behind me up the street. Sure enough, within seconds the cruiser took the corner, lights blaring, sirens screaming.

  I made it to the shelter, ran in and immediately hid among the rest of the occupants. Slowly I made my way down a hallway past a group of workers in chef's garb and out the back door. From there I was easily able to make it back to my old haunts, but I knew I couldn't get back to my alley, my blankets. Was going to be another cold night unless I found something to help. Times like this I wish I could talk to Old Fernie for advice, but even getting to him was too much to risk.

  Chapter 7 I booked some time on a computer at the Public Library and started browsing. I looked up the Vermeer that Sprech had had stolen, the Rembrandt he had had copied and my own Mathers piece. The news was all abuzz about the Vermeer. No mention of the Rembrandt. No reason there should be. And the only articles about my Mathers went back to before the internet was really a big thing, not long after it was stolen.

  I was able to find out more about Berkeley Restorations too. Everything I read about it was positive. It started up a year or two after my case. My case. That certainly sanitizes it, makes it a nice convenient package doesn't it? It was anything but.

  I found out that Mosley began by selling paintings he'd find at yard sales. He'd make sales through private individuals, which means it wouldn't have been difficult to push my Mathers off to an unsuspecting buyer. Later, he could buy it back from the same guy, still at a fraction of what it was worth, and then sell it for a decent profit to the Fresco Gallery. By now the painting had changed hands enough to introduce some plausible deniability. And so it goes.

  My painting ended up on display minutes from where I spent the last ten years – Public Alley 437.

  Now it hangs in the home of an unsuspecting man who, thanks to the connection between Fresco and Berkeley Restorations, was the victim of a home invasion, brutal beating and art theft himself. By the very men that did the same to me.

  So Mosley steals some art, sells some and somehow gets into the legitimate business of restoration. Could be he used the money he got from my painting, as well as who knows how many others, and started up a legit business.

  So why now? Why thirteen years later would he risk it all to steal again? Why risk getting caught and being put away? Especially getting connected to a cold case that looked to get him sent away likely for life?

  I could only think of one thing. The other perp – his partner – must have been away. Jail? Thirteen years away, and comes back, looks up his buddy and like that embarrassing college roommate you're just trying to forget, coerces you back into

  his old habits? And you can't refuse, otherwise you'd be exposed. This guy had him right where he wanted him. I felt that this was indeed the dynamic between the two back then. It made sense.

  And now one was dead and the other was in the wind, and I'd likely never find him.

  I hadn't needed a drink this much in - three thousand four hundred thirty days.

  Chapter 8 A couple of uncomfortable days later, having slept however I could during some very cold nights, I thought it might be safe to revisit Berkeley Restorations. When I arrived, and having endured a much longer, more careful scoping out of the place, I snuck around back and tried to see where I could get inside. Police crime scene tape was covering the exits, but other than that, the place looked completely abandoned.

  The rear door was fitted with a very strong security lock. Which had been destroyed probably by police breaking in to investigate Mosley's murder. A replacement lock was holding it shut. Leave it to the police to think this lock would hold. The door was isolated from the streets so I just kicked it in.

  There were no lights on inside but if I left the door open I could at least see my way around. This would be riskier if I had used the door facing the street.

  It was a working art shop. There were statues standing next to tables with cleaning solvents, there were easels with paintings on them in various states of cleaning and repair. It looked legit. Of course I couldn't tell if there was any illegal reproduction going on. It would take an expert to determine if any fraudulent activity was being perpetrated here, just by eye.

  It seemed a fairly unsecured place to restore and clean valuable art. They were dealing with lesser works, nothing too expensive. Otherwise there would have been extremely tight security measures.

  I could see signs of a struggle, and blood, outlined by numbered chalk circles. The police had been thorough in their examination of the crime scene. Mosley had obviously been murdered here and his body moved to the Hatch Shell, probably to throw the police off the scent. Good plan. It had worked very well so far.

  I had a good look around. I saw small Polaroids hung on a bulletin board labeled “Classic Work”. The Polaroids were of some very fine paintings, and it appeared they all had gone through this shop. A wrinkle fixed here, a rip repaired there, whole generations of cigarette smoke removed from the faces of paintings... the bulletin board looked like a trophy case displaying their proudest work.

  I almost expected to see the Vermeer sketch, or the Mathers. Even the Rembrandt copy. Nothing. It all looked too legitimate to be run by an art thief – and worse. Much worse.

  There was an office room behind a frosted glass door. I tried it but it was locked. I looked for another way in. Not hopeful, since these small buildings usually had rooms with only one entrance. I walked the perimeter of the room and met up with another wall. Something about this was peculiar. I ran outside.

  I walked to one end of the building and began counting paces as I walked to the other end. I ran back inside and repeated the process. I started laughing and looking for the hidden panel or door that would open onto the secret work room.

  I moved easels, cabinets, shelves. Nothing. I knew the entrance had to be inside that locked office, so fuck it, I just kicked until the door gave way and pushed my way in. I felt safe turning the lights on because it was a completely internal room with no window. I went back to close the back door. This way no passing police officer would be alerted.

  And there it was. If you weren't looking for it it would have been invisible. But once you knew it was there, the single sheet of old pressboard paneling in lime green wood grain stuck out like a sore thumb. And the fact that it was screwed into place - not nailed - meant it was intended to be removed. I found a screwdriver on the desk and got to work.

  The room was small, but here's where this company made its real money, I guessed. On the floor I saw several reproductions of famed works of art. There was even another Vermeer. And not a sketch – a full painting: two ladies, one playing an ornately painted grand piano or harpsichord, another standing, looking like she's singing from a song sheet or something, and a man with his back to the painter sitting in a chair listening to the concert. Why did this ring a bell with me? It wasn't the Vermeer Sprech had had stolen.


  In the center of the room was a workbench made up of a metal grate, and a recessed space underneath it. There was a drill, and a number of other tools, chisels, files, things needed to restore and clean art. And not far from this stood a small apparatus for melting down metal. There were lead ingots next to the melting pot.

  Next to the bench on the wall were Polaroids of a gold statuette standing about fourteen inches, on an ebony base. The statuette was of a dancing sprite or dryad. On a small desk nearby were some handwritten notes. The notes indicated the statuette was solid gold and indicated an exact weight in grams.

  There was, however, no statuette.

  There was a name and address on the notes. The client, one James Huntington, of an address on Beacon Hill, had picked the article up a few days ago. Not surprising. If you can afford to live on Beacon Hill, you can afford a solid gold cast statuette I guess.

  Chapter 9

  It was a good couple of days later and I felt it might be safe to venture back to my dumpster and at least retrieve my blanket and tarp. I was very careful. No one was around. I got the tarp and my blanket and headed back out the alley. As I was nearing the entrance a police cruiser slammed to a halt right in front of me. I turned and ran only to see Turley and two more beat cops behind him.

  “Don't run,” Turley said. “There's no need.” I was scanning the alley for a way around them. It was futile. I dropped my blanket and raised my hands.

  “Put 'em down. We know it wasn't you. You can relax.”

  “What?”

  “We went to Mosley's restoration shop last week. We found signs of a struggle. The ME assures us the murder happened there.”

  “Which lets me off how?”

  “The body was dragged to a car and driven to the Esplanade where it was dragged to the Hatch Shell and deposited. Now unless you've been holding out on me and have a car stashed somewhere here...”

  I slowly lowered my arms.