“And I knew that Fred figured something out, since he asked Christopher to bring that wine specifically. Fred must have guessed that the wine was bogus. After all, he knew that the paintings were fake, and knew that Christopher had no qualms about selling fraudulent stuff, if it made him a profit. If you know someone is OK selling expensive paintings under false pretenses, it's not a huge stretch to assume that they are not above cheating a little where rare and collectible wine is concerned. When Fred Nordqvist heard that some of the Domaine Leflaive had been sold at an auction to a collector, he must have thought that Christopher was the seller. He got in touch with the buyer, I guess through his existing contacts in the wine auction world, and probably suggested he test the wine for authenticity. I remembered Fred’s speech at the opening, how the wine had the same pedigree as the paintings. And how angry Christopher looked at that time. Looking back, it occurred to me that the speech was Fred’s way of announcing to the world, in a veiled manner, that the wine was fake. Maybe he viewed making that fact public, even if in an obscure manner, as ‘insurance’.” I shrugged. Officer Martins was taking notes, scribbling quickly. “And Christopher lived in Walla Walla, plenty of wine and wine knowledge around, relatively easy to create a passable fake.”
“Was it all counterfeit, you think?” Martins asked, eyes on his notepad.
“I think some of the wine from Calvin Willembauer’s collection must have been real – but for each case of real wine, Christopher probably was ready to create two, or five, cases of the fake wine, with laser-printed labels, containing some local Washington or Oregon product, wine that was good enough to be a plausible stand-in for the rare white and red Burgundies that he was selling.”
“We’ll run some tests on the bottles at Christopher’s house, and those that he sold to the Nevada collector.” Detective Johnson said, draining his coffee cup.
I yawned. It'd been a long night.
“I've got to get home,” I said finally.
I got a ride home in the police car and was greeted with Bitty’s demanding meows as soon as I turned on the light in the entryway. I was glad to see her again after my adventure, and gave her a couple of small salmon treats – she inhaled them in the time it took me to close the bag, and said “Urr urr” in gratitude. I lifted her up to my chest and gave her a kiss on top of her head. She purred. She was happy to have me back home, and all was right in her world.
Epilogue
The news media were all over the arrest story in the following days. I had talked to Detective Johnson to make sure that my role in that evening's happenings got minimized, so much as to be practically non-existent, and that my name wasn't mentioned anywhere. I preferred to keep my anonymity, – I'm shy, and it's not good for me to become too well-known and be too easily findable (online and in the physical world), because of what I do. So the focus of the breathless reportages had been Detective Johnson and Pete – who talked about running to help a woman who slipped, and then noticing an altercation in the alley. It looks like he might get some job offers from his altruism and new-found renown.
The coffee cup in evidence, the one fished out of the garbage in a waterfront park, had Christopher’s fingerprints on it. And the police found scanned wine labels on his computer, and correspondence with people from whom he was buying old, empty bottles at auctions – to create a ready supply of bottles for pouring the fake wine in. Gamma- ray spectrometry on the contents of several bottles at his house showed that it was not from 1985, but much more recent. And the label analysis concluded that the labels on the bottles were fake, just fancy photocopies.
In exchange for testifying against Christopher on the subject of fake paintings, Andrew accepted a reduced sentence of a year in jail on art fraud charges.
Linda Raven made a deal with Pauline and Connie to buy the gallery. Pauline is studying art and working in the gallery part-time. She tells me that Connie and Alex are starting a business together.
Linda Raven also stood by her promise to pay if I could prove that she didn’t do it. I told her that the Pioneer Square missions would be more worthwhile recipients of her cash – so she, with a big flourish, gave them a check, and got plenty of publicity for it in the local newspapers. As for myself, I added a donation to the charity providing veterinary care to homeless people’s pets.
Some time soon, I may head to the drugstore to pick up a box of haircolor.
Acknowledgements
A big ‘Thank you’ to the readers of my first novel, “A Motor for Murder”, for your interest, encouragement and reviews!
Thank you, Mom, for your help with inspiration and research materials!
Very grateful to Krista, Marina, Lena, Anna, Jonathan and Olga for their kind words, and for their patience in listening to me talk about my book.
Thank you, Mark, for editing and taking care of the logistics involved in getting this book completed.
About the author
Valerie Murmel has been working in the software industry for over 16 years. She enjoys traveling the world, hiking, skiing, volunteering, improv theater and dance. She lives in the Seattle area with her cat, Bitty, and is working on the next novel in the Veronica Margreve series.
Art and Arsenic (Veronica Margreve Mysteries Book 2) Page 15