AHMM, April 2010

by Dell Magazine Authors

  "No doubt. And the police."

  "If it comes to that."

  That wasn't what I wanted her to say. I wanted her to say, “Oh, I wouldn't worry about the police.” Something reassuring. “If it comes to that” was not completely reassuring. I wondered if Bess handled criminal law cases as well as divorces.

  She leafed through the copy of the report I gave her. “And you were certain it's a forgery?"

  "I was certain it's not by Chardin. That's different from saying it's a forgery. I could be mistaken, but my eye is good, Bess."

  "That's why I sent her to you."

  "I'm not sure that I'm altogether grateful."

  "Is it a good . . . forgery or whatever it is?"

  "Pretty good. Subject matter, more or less, colors, brush strokes, so far as I could tell. Pretty good."

  She put down the report. “Strange, isn't it? I wonder what it really matters whether it's a forgery or not. Except for valuation."

  "If someone sells it as the real thing, or passes it off in a divorce, that's stealing, isn't it?"

  "Or something like that. I wasn't asking a legal question."

  "No? There are lots of answers to the non-legal problem, the aesthetic problem of forgeries. Lots and lots, many of them foolish, most of them from academics. And mostly unreadable, I might add, written in lumpy, opaque prose. First of all, the forgery's a lie: a biographical lie, a historical lie, an aesthetic lie. Also, the pleasure a forgery provides, even when you don't know it's a forgery, might approach the real thing, but will never equal it. Can't."

  "Why not?"

  "Oh, I don't know. A lot of people think they do, but they're probably wrong."

  We agreed that we'd notify the appropriate authorities and art theft organizations and art dealers about the missing painting and send out copies of photographs I'd taken. Even if it was a forgery, it had some monetary value.

  "Where did Mr. Bauer buy it? Do you know?"

  "I do not, but I'll try to find out from his attorney."

  "Who discovered her body?"

  It took her a moment to answer.

  She had discovered it, and the experience was not one she cared to repeat. On her way from court to her office, she had stopped by Anne's because Jake's attorney was threatening to seek a restraining order against her. According to Jake, Anne had telephoned him on Tuesday afternoon at his office and screamed at him over the telephone. The attorney didn't say why, but I had a fair idea why: the painting. Bess had tried to get in touch with Anne since late the same afternoon, but Anne didn't answer her phone calls.

  "The door was slightly ajar when I got there. A strong wind would have pushed it open, so I assumed she was around somewhere. When she didn't answer the doorbell, I opened the door . . . It was not pleasant.” She fell silent for a moment. “She was lying on the floor, her body . . . twisted, I guess. There was a bloodstain on her right temple. Nothing much on the carpet. Close range, Toby. Very close range with a very small caliber bullet, the police said. In her front hallway."

  * * * *

  I drove to the college art museum that gray April afternoon. I needed the respite. I wanted to look at art that I didn't own and that wasn't fake. Probably. Though you don't really know. Museums discover with disheartening regularity that some art works on display are not what the museums thought they were. They discover that a statue from antiquity was actually sculpted by some unlikely fellow in rural England, or a prized Old Master was painted by an art restorer in Greenwich Village. We “connoisseurs"—what a pompous term!—get fooled all the time.

  I enjoy the museum's pre-Impressionist collection, mainly Corots, a notable target of forgeries himself and complicit in some of them, and its strange Orientalist extravaganzas. They had newly acquired two or three paintings and a late-Medieval triptych, and I wanted to see them.

  The triptych was marvelous, but beyond my powers to assess, and I liked two of the new paintings, even though one of them was a piece of high Impressionism, a school of painting that seems to me too closely related to cotton candy.

  The third was a fake.

  It was certainly ambitious. It purported to be by Jean-Baptiste Oudry, another eighteenth-century Frenchman and a painter of animals dead and alive, of hunting scenes and nearly everything else except mythological and historical tableaux. It was not by Oudry. The Oudry was larger than the false Chardin, perhaps thirty-six by forty-five inches. I had no idea whether it came from the same hand that had created the Chardin, but I was certain that it did not come from the hand of Jean-Baptiste Oudry. I could not say why I was certain, but I was. And I was certain now, too, that the Chardin was a forgery.

  My first inclination was to seek out the museum director, a woman I had recently come to know, and raise my concerns with her. My second inclination was to seek out the curator of pre-Impressionist European art, a man I knew well.

  My third inclination was to keep my mouth shut, at least for the time being, and that's what I did. I was confused. How was it that two forgeries had popped up in such a short period of time, two forgeries based on eighteenth-century masters? Where did the museum purchase the Oudry? Was the paint dry yet?

  Why had the person who wanted to sell the Chardin consigned it to a gallery in the Berkshires, not to one of the New York auction houses? And assuming he had his reasons for avoiding New York City, why hadn't he approached me to sell it? After all, mine was the only gallery within a radius of a hundred miles that ever dealt in Chardin's contemporaries.

  Which was, of course, precisely the reason the person avoided me.

  * * * *

  The next day I had part of the answer from Bess. Jake had bought the painting from Arno de Giers, a dealer with a gallery in Lenox, a gallery he had opened perhaps two years before. I'd barely met him. I regarded him as yet another specimen of the art dealers who had infested the Berkshires in the recent past. I, of course, excepted myself from that tribe, though others might not. True, I'd only been in Craftsbury five years, but I'd graduated from Crafts College: Didn't that practically make me a native? Mercifully, many of the other dealers vanished to Florida or Phoenix or somewhere when the weather turned cold. Arno de Giers was not among them; he stayed. Like me.

  I needed to visit Mr. de Giers. I didn't know what I'd say to him, but I had more time to puzzle on that than I expected: Before I could leave, the police arrived, two plainclothes state troopers driving an anonymous-looking car.

  It was difficult to tell the two men apart: same height, same build, same gray suits, both white, both watchful. They looked around. One talked; the other didn't.

  "Nice place you got here,” said the talker. “You sell paintings."

  The way he phrased it, it wasn't a question, but I said “Yes, I do” anyway.

  "Mind if we ask you some questions?” What in the world would it have mattered if I did mind? Of course I agreed to answer.

  They wanted to know about the transaction with Anne Bauer, and I told them. Nothing in their expressions indicated whether they believed me or not. She didn't sign anything when you gave the painting back to her? No. She had it with her when she left? Yes. Did you see her get into her car? I did not. Anyone else live here? Well, yes . . . Sandy. Sandy Lisle.

  "Is that Alexandra?"

  "No. No, it's Sanders, Sanders L-i-s-l-e."

  He noted Sandy's name without expression. “Mind if we look around?"

  Umm . . . well . . . didn't they have to have a warrant or something to do that, I wondered? The gallery, which was once a barn, is connected to the house where Sandy and I live, and I was uneasy at the prospect of them prowling around in the house. Not that there was anything to hide, really: two men living together couldn't startle them much nowadays, not around here; but because one of the men was me, I felt reluctant. Well, threatened, to tell the truth, though I know that speaks ill of me. Sandy tells me that all the time.

  I wondered if I should call Bess Nicholson. I didn't.

  They looked around the galle
ry including at works not on display, then around the house, including Sandy's study where Sandy himself was unexpectedly on display and was annoyed by the intrusion.

  "Do you plan on getting rid of any of the art you have here in the next few days?” asked the one who did all the talking.

  "I hope I do. That's how I earn a living. I sell paintings.” The one who talked rocked back and forth on his feet. “Officer,” I said, “if I didn't return the painting to Anne Bauer, if I kept it and made up the story, I don't believe I'd still have it here, would I?"

  Especially if I'd killed her to get it back.

  * * * *

  "Bought the business from my father-in-law,” said Arno de Giers. He had a slight accent that made some consonants sound hard, and his shoulders were stooped. “Moved it up here two years ago.” The d in “moved” sounded like a t, not a d. “From Sheffield, right in the middle of all those other antiques dealers."

  Arno de Giers didn't sell antiques, though, not exactly. Mostly his father-in-law had built up a collection of Viennese memorabilia from the period immediately prior to WWI, and also—a strange bedfellow—Russian artifacts from roughly the first two decades of the Soviet Union. Both collections contained artwork, but the artwork was secondary to the uniforms and photographs and glassware and beribboned medals.

  He showed me around his shop, two stories, three rooms just off the main street in Lenox, not a location of cheap rents. His Soviet-era artifacts were particularly impressive, from original Constructivist posters to handguns locked in a room on the main floor, which he did not open.

  "Yes.” He looked at me curiously. “Some of them are very small caliber. 6.35, .25 ACP, I believe. I'm not licensed to sell ammunition, though. Only firearms designated Curios or Relics by the U.S. government. Curios and relics . . . seems appropriate for an antiques dealer.” He laughed quietly. “It is all very . . . unusual, isn't it? I like the look of the little pistols, but now I intend to move more strongly into the art market,” he said. “More money there."

  There is? I bet he was in for a disappointment.

  I asked him if he'd read about the death of Anne Bauer. He had. Did he remember that he'd sold a Chardin painting to her husband?

  "Her husband? Is that right? I remember the transaction. Shortly after I moved the business here. But . . . the name Bauer? I wouldn't have remembered that, no, though he must be on my mailing list. Terrible tragedy. Her death..."

  "Do you remember how you acquired the painting?"

  He did not answer the question immediately. He rearranged a stack of photographs protected by transparent sleeves. “I assume . . .” he said, “I believe I bought it through a dealer. In Toronto. Handling an estate sale.” More rearranging, this time of silver boxes. “Several years ago. They're not . . . not easy to sell, that period . . .” I agreed. “Why do you ask?"

  "The Bauers are getting divorced. Were. Anne Bauer brought it to me for authentication and appraisal."

  Arno de Giers stroked one of the boxes. “Oh? Authentication?” He didn't look at me. “And?"

  "You know how these things are.” He didn't say anything, but I guessed he did know. “It's dangerous to be too assertive, yes?” He nodded. “But I don't believe it was painted by Chardin."

  "Not by Chardin!” His head jerked up toward me, his shoulders still stooped. “Now, why do you say that? I acquired it from people with impeccable credentials. If I remember right. Impeccable!” He looked away. “I don't think I quite trust your judgment. I don't know you.” Then he added quickly: “Perhaps I should have another look at it. Where is it?"

  "I haven't any idea. Neither do the police nor Mr. Bauer. I thought you might."

  He didn't. I left. But inside the shop I had seen something that would have surprised me a great deal a week before but that didn't surprise me nearly enough now: a fake eighteenth-century French oil, this one ostensibly by Nicolas Lancret. It was far too good. If it really was by Lancret, it was his masterpiece. But it wasn't.

  * * * *

  Sandy and I went to dinner that evening at a local tavern, fitted out to resemble some decorator's idea of what “colonial” might have looked like but probably didn't. Sanders Hamilton Lisle had a name and a manner to match it that suggested he grew up in a wealthy suburb north of Boston or someplace like that. He did not. He grew up in Elko, Nevada. His father taught middle school and decamped when Sandy was ten, leaving him and his sister in the care of their mother, who dealt cards in a local casino. Mrs. Rosen, Sandy's junior year English teacher, saw in Sandy great potential and managed to steer him toward Crafts College and, somehow, Crafts College toward him. There he prospered intellectually and took on the coloration of a native species, a coloration that grew more indelible during his years as a graduate student at Yale. He returned to teach at Crafts, and that's when I met him.

  "I don't often find people creepy, but I thought Arno de Giers was creepy."

  "You find people creepy all the time,” said Sandy.

  "I do? No, I find you creepy most of the time, but not other people."

  Sandy drank some of his wine, an overpriced mediocrity. “Do you think the same person painted all the pictures?” he asked.

  "I barely got a glimpse of the Lancret. But I wonder two things. I wonder if they all do come from the same source and if Creepy de Giers knows they're fakes."

  "This duck is fairly good,” he said, using his napkin. “What does it matter?"

  "To me? Or to the world?"

  "To you, sweetness. The world can take care of itself."

  "I'm not sure. I feel threatened by them, I suppose, afraid I'll be tainted by the bad stuff."

  "How could that happen? Unless the art police found you staring at an unfinished Chardin with a brush in your hand?"

  "The next time I might not know. I might not spot the fake. Or, worse, suppose some evil rumormonger who knows about art and about me starts talk that I'm the one distributing the bad stuff. I mean, why are they showing up around here? Why here? Why not . . . I don't know, Santa Fe or Miami or someplace?"

  "You don't know they're not."

  "I do know that three have popped up around here. I don't like that."

  "You sound unusually paranoid. Finish your sweetbreads. They're getting cold."

  "I take it personally,” I said.

  * * * *

  The April evening had a hint of warmth at its edges when we got home, not real warmth but a lessening of winter's chill which lasts a long time here in the Berkshires. We parked in front of the gallery and started up the few steps leading toward the door to the living space. I heard a sharp cracking sound, as though a small, brittle branch of a tree had snapped in an ice storm.

  But there was no ice storm, and Sandy pitched forward, stumbling on the steps and falling to his knees, grasping his left leg. There was a second cracking sound and a third, and after that I heard footsteps running away on the paved road. I dropped to my knees beside Sandy. “What happened to you? Are you all right?"

  "I'm okay, I think,” he said. “But I'm probably bleeding. Did we just get shot at?"

  Yes. Yes, we just got shot at, three times by my count. I helped Sandy inside and made sure the drapes were drawn. A bullet had torn his trousers and had grazed his skin. The wound was little more than the kind of scratch a kid might get pushing through bushes on a hike, but it was bleeding a little. I cleaned it and bandaged it.

  "I'm going to call 911,” I said.

  "911? Why? I'm not really injured."

  "Someone just shot at us and managed to hit you! I think the police would like to know, and I definitely want them to hear about it!"

  The police spent more time outside searching on the road than they did talking to either of us. I understood that. We didn't have much to offer, and they weren't interested in our guesses.

  Eventually a uniformed officer came inside holding what looked like a small Ziploc food storage bag. He showed it to the detective, and they conferred quietly for a moment. The d
etective peered at the three tiny, metal cylinders inside the bag. “You fellows are fortunate,” he said to us. “Whoever it was shot at you doesn't know much about guns."

  "No?"

  "Any gun using bullets with casings this small will maybe be accurate at a range of twenty-five feet. Tops. Very tops. The distance from your door, across the lawn and the parking lot is forty feet. At least. It was just blind luck that one of the bullets grazed its target."

  "It didn't,” I said.

  That night was the first time I'd ever wished we had a little yapping dog, the sort of dog that barks at the least strange sound. But I don't suppose we'd have known what to do if we had one and it did. We went to a motel instead.

  * * * *

  "He's not going to,” I said to Sandy. “Not in his own gallery and not in the middle of the day. Besides, we don't even know he was the one who fired at us last night."

  "Who else could it have been?"

  "Jake the husband? Someone we don't know? Maybe even Bess Nicholson."

  "Bess Nicholson! That's absurd."

  "I know, I know, but still she had the opportunity to kill Anne if Anne was alive when Bess arrived. Sure, Jake's far more likely. Anne phoned him after talking with me and harassed him, according to his attorney. If she told him the Chardin was not authentic, he had every opportunity to come up here, make sure the painting disappeared and Anne with it. And every reason to do it, if he was involved with passing off the forgeries. The hedge fund racket these days isn't everything it used to be."

  "You don't know that the gun had anything to do with this Arno person."

  "That's why I'm going to his gallery. I want you to come with me and wait in the car. Just in case."

  "Just in case? So we can be eliminated one after the other? Is that your idea of a romantic death pact?"

  I was concerned now not only for my reputation but also my life, and Sandy's, too, if the incompetent gunman overcame his incompetence at a closer range. Whoever it was couldn't do much about the Chardin anymore, but he could forestall unwelcome revelations about, say, the Oudry.