by Susan Daitch
“I’ve got pictures of you with Joan Mitchell, Basquiat, Yves Klein. He must have been visiting from France, no?”
“Stella, listen to me. When the men were here they recognized one of my photographs. They said, ‘There’s Birdwell.’ ”
“Who’s Birdwell?”
“He worked for the IRS or the SEC, something that he referred to by its initials. He wore a leisure suit. Powder blue.”
Oscar was seized by a convulsion but quickly came out of it. He had resources of strength that I hadn’t counted on.
“They saw the picture, and they said, ‘That’s Birdwell.’ ”
“Who did?”
He had another convulsion. This one was worse. Even if the medics appeared instantly, we both knew it was too late. Napoleon, at fifty-two, couldn’t survive continual exposure to toxic paint. Oscar, decades older, couldn’t survive a potentially lethal dose.
“My fault. My fault.”
“No, Oscar, no. It’s not your fault.”
“I gave them the paint.”
“They put a gun to your head. They made you open the safe.” Frantic, I didn’t know this for a fact, but I wanted to say something reassuring, something I could assume was true. The safe, clearly open, not forced, was up against a wall. Lapis lazuli, the most valuable of all pigments, was still there, glittering brilliant blue through its glass jar.
“No. No gun. They made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”
“They offered you money you needed. No one would blame you.”
His eyelids bulged with trapped tears. Ambulance sirens blared in the distance, stalled in traffic on narrow streets. There was an electric clock on the wall, probably as old as Oscar, that had stopped at six o’clock, the hour the Queen of Hearts told the Mad Hatter he was murdering time. It had become unplugged in the ransacking.
“My grandson’s life they would take if I didn’t give them what they wanted. I was such an idiot. I could have fooled them easily. I could have handed them anything.”
“You couldn’t gamble with his life. They would have seen that you made them the wrong colors.”
“No. They couldn’t, Stella. The Shark and the Hawk are color-blind.”
The Dagbents. He recognized their voices.
Color-blind was the last word spoken by Oscar Kronstadt.
In the minutes before the ambulance arrived, I searched the ruins of his office, sifting through papers and photographs that might have been tacked to a wall, but could find no picture of a man in a powder-blue suit.
Chapter 9
Garfield didn’t waste time between the ambulance leaving Eldridge Street and picking me up for questioning. He appeared just as it pulled into traffic.
“You know he’s headed for the morgue, not the hospital.” Garfield wasn’t wearing a uniform, but he certainly was on duty.
“You should be looking for identical twins, shaved heads, in possession of some amount of a brilliant green pigment in a glass jar or jars with Kronstadt’s label.”
“On their way to the Emerald City, no doubt, to meet up with your boss.”
“When Oscar refused to sell it to them, they came back in order to steal what they wanted.”
“Why didn’t they just rip and run the first time? Why come back and kill the goose? In the car, Stella. We need to ask you a few questions. In the back.”
I wasn’t sure who ‘we’ was. There was only him. Also, it occurred to me that this was when I should ask to call a lawyer. His car was similar to the one Demetrius had driven to the Navy Yard. It was anonymous, but inside it smelled like lemonade and gasoline.
“Tell me about Sandro Moonelli.”
“I never met him.”
“The stiff dressed like Little Lord Fauntleroy who exited your studio for a dip in the East River.”
“I don’t know anything about him. I mean, I didn’t know him personally and never laid eyes on him while he was alive.”
“No?” Garfield put on his surprised-but-not-really face. “Let me refresh your memory glands, then. Sandro Moonelli was born Sandra Moonelli on the Upper West Side. She studied performance art and painting at Oberlin College. When she returned to New York, her parents bought her an apartment in Williamsburg. She was transitioning from female to male. On both sides of her transition, Sandro was extremely promiscuous and all over the gender map. From her computer records alone, the number of partners is extensive, but she felt she was a gay man trapped in a woman’s body. Though why she didn’t just leave her options open, I can’t say.”
“I think you’re meant to use the male pronouns.”
“What difference does it make?”
“Out of respect for the dead, Detective Garfield.”
He looked at me as if I didn’t know crabs from crab cakes.
“It’s possible Sandro met Ashby in his office.” This was the first time I’d hinted to anyone about Jack Ashby’s midnight arrangements, and it didn’t feel great. Ashby’s private life was his business, as far as I was concerned, as long as no one got hurt. I didn’t want to be in the business of wagging a finger at anyone’s predilections. Even while Per Dagbent was chasing me past the Oldenburg hamburger, I wouldn’t have thought, Yeah, Jack, you went too far, it’s on you now. But Garfield was a hair away from arresting me for murder. I couldn’t help picturing Ashby telling his version of that night over martinis on his roof garden. Everyone laughing. I had no answers for what might have linked him to men with tattooed eyes or the theft of the painting. But he met men at night, and they often put on costumes and did weird shit with the art. Some of that weird shit could have involved auto-erotica gone bad. I wasn’t going to take the fall for Ashby.
“This we know. Sandro had arranged to meet Ashby, but Ashby claims he canceled and left work before Sandro arrived, so there was no way they ever met.”
“I think they did meet. I heard them.”
“There is no footage of him arriving at Claiborne’s, but the thieves disabled the security cameras, so there wouldn’t be footage, in any case.”
“I think he was in the building, and they did meet.”
“Well, you know, funny thing about that. I’m not crazy about guys like your bosses. I’m not open-minded about men with proclivities, so when Moonelli washes up in the Navy Yard, neither fish nor fowl, I go back to ask your Mr. Assby a few pressing questions, and I think he was straight with me. So to speak.”
“But Moonelli was in the building.”
“That’s news? Death was by strangulation, and you’re taller than Moonelli. She was a shrimp with minimal muscle mass. That’s why these so-called transitions are a waste of taxpayer dollars.”
“Taxpayers don’t pay for gender reassignment, Detective.”
“I know. I’m just saying. I’m just making a point.”
“Look, Garfield, I know the name of the guy who chased me. Per Dagbent. He has a twin brother.”
He wrote nothing down.
“The white lead found in Sandro’s body has the same chemical signature as the white lead found in your studio. Kronstadt only made it on demand for one or two customers a year. You’re on record as being one of them.”
“I work on paintings that are hundreds of years old. They were made long before white lead was considered poisonous, and I often need the same material in order to work on them. White lead has to be handled carefully, but it has a unique creamy consistency and luminosity that titanium white just can’t reproduce. For historical accuracy, sometimes I have to use it.”
“I thought you conserve, not restore and add on. I thought that was a big deal for you people.”
“There are times when paint is needed.” I didn’t want to go into the finer points of my job. I wanted to get out of his car. “She didn’t die from white-lead poisoning, though in time she might have. I’m just saying here’s a substance not many folks have a use for, and isn’t it interesting that we find it in the murder victim’s body and we find it in your studio. Moonelli was strangled by someo
ne with small, strong hands, the kind you need for doing difficult but refined work where a lot of pressure to a surface might be required on a daily basis.”
“Like a dentist?”
“No dentist had the security code to your studio. In fact, Ashby told me it was changed the day before Las Meninas arrived from Spain. Only you, Fieldston, and Ashby had the code. Only you were in your studio that night.”
“Detective, listen to me. Why would I even kill Moonelli? I didn’t know him from Adam.”
“The security guard let her into Claiborne’s before he punched out. Ashby never rescinded her pass to enter because he assumed she wasn’t yet in the building. He didn’t know she was early for their rendezvous.” He drew out the syllables of the last word with particular distaste. “She was already in the building, so she had a look around, and got in the way.”
“So who helped me out? Las Meninas is ten feet five inches by nine feet eleven inches. How did I carry it out?”
“I’m not saying you did, and I’m not saying that, if so, you didn’t have help. The dolly has been invented. The freight elevator opens to the loading bay in the back of the building. For reasons best known to your bosses, you don’t need a magnetic key card to get in and out. The freight elevator is one of those old industrial kinds you used to see downtown when things were manufactured in the city.”
The elevator had been long overdue for a security upgrade. Ashby had complained about it, but Fieldston, whose assessment of danger reflected his life as an extremely protected person, had a romantic attachment to the old lift and didn’t want it replaced. It was like a huge floating box, dented gray walls sometimes cloaked with movers’ blankets, its gate a metal lattice gate that had to be cranked open and shut, the last of its kind.
“There was a major theft at your last job, wasn’t there? Someone took the staff-only elevator—admittedly, anyone could—then strolled into your lab, which had been left unlocked, and walked out with a Picasso drawing.”
“He was caught the next day, taking it to his car in an airport parking lot. It had nothing to do with me.” I turned to stare at Garfield. He gave me an I’m-just-doing-my-job sort of look.
“He had to know his way around the museum, and where the drawing would be. It helped considerably that you left the door open.”
“Lots of people worked in that lab. There were always people coming and going. In the middle of the day, the door was rarely locked.”
“According to the museum, only three people worked in the conservation department. One was out sick that day. One was traveling to a consultation in another part of the city, and so, once again, that left you. Funnily enough, shortly after that incident you were hired at Claiborne’s. No more museum work, huh? Was the Picasso a dress rehearsal, a dry run for the Velázquez?”
“Are you related to the actor John Garfield?”
“Never heard of him.”
“But you have the same last name.”
“So do a lot of people.”
“But you have a few other things in common also. Like you, he was born in New York, though on the Lower East Side, not in Brooklyn. He refused to name names before the House Un-American Activities Committee. So, no, you’re not like him. That Garfield was blacklisted and died shortly afterward because he couldn’t find work. No one would hire him. Funnily enough, as you would say, some of his friends, also blacklisted, died around the same time. Mady Christians, J. Edward Bromberg, Canada Lee.”
“That doesn’t make me a Communist. Nobody’s a Red anymore.”
“But have you ever been?”
“Get lost.”
“With pleasure.”
“Not so fast. How much time elapsed between your leaving your studio that night and pausing in the stairwell before returning?”
“Fifteen or twenty minutes. I told you the night of.”
“Oh, and one more thing. Does the name Jeannette Bender mean anything to you? I understand she weighed two hundred pounds and was hard to miss.”
“I didn’t murder her or Sandro Moonelli.”
“Well, it’s a possible scenario, but you might want to be going down a list of criminal lawyers. I hear the Yellow Pages is still a reliable resource.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Bodies seem to turn up wherever you go. You’re in the chain of people who know people. First Claiborne’s, then Kronstadt’s. Your prints, and I mean this metaphorically, are everywhere. With art theft, you follow a chain of someone who knew someone who knew someone, until you get close to the original animal. You have to prove you’re closer to the Scotland Yard end of the spectrum, say, than to whoever has their hands on the Velázquez, to say nothing of the deaths of Sandro Moonelli and Oscar Kronstadt.”
“That’s ridiculous. If I killed them, why would I call 911?”
“To not look like the killer. I’m just saying. I’m just letting you know. Forensic linguists and speech analysts always analyze 911 tapes for anxiety indicators. Remember the JonBenét Ramsey case? A grand jury voted to indict her parents for the murder, but the district attorney refused to sign the indictment.” He took a deep breath. “I’m telling you this for your own good. Furthermore, your father is in the scrap-metal business, and even if he’s clean, and that’s a big if, he knows people in the business, some of whom have been convicted for dealing in stolen car parts, trade coercion, conspiracy, grand larceny, arson. He’s on the chain of people who know people.” He started humming “People Who Love People” as if he were Barbra Streisand.
It wasn’t just about me anymore. He was letting me know.
Chapter 10
Calvin agreed to meet me at a bar near the Roosevelt Island tram on the East Side, not far from Claiborne’s. The bar occupied a marginal sliver in the otherwise ritzy ZIP code. The ASPCA had an office nearby where Ashby once took his Jack Russell terrier in an emergency when his regular vet was on vacation. Prostitutes who worked those few blocks, he discovered, brought their pets here, and Ashby dubbed the place the Hooker Vet. The bar next door had been serving since Nelson Rockefeller was found deceased in the arms of Megan Marshack. It was all due for demolition, to be replaced by yet another luxury tower. Calvin was already well into his drink when I arrived. He had the look of a worried man, and I don’t think it was due to the city landmark commission’s failure to save animal shelters and old dive bars.
“The place can’t last if all this shit about stolen goods and some wackadoo body comes out,” he said, referring to the auction house and taking a swallow of Canadian Club. He was gloomy, but for some reason we both felt partial relief that one piece of a nasty business could be exposed. “I’m near retirement, and I have to look for another job. You would have to go and find a dead body.”
We clinked glasses. He was only half joking.
“I knew we shoulda never walked in on sneaky-ass Jack doing his business, no matter what he said, no matter what he paid.” Calvin tapped a forefinger on the table, making a salient point.
“He paid you to walk in?”
“He slipped me cash from time to time, yes.”
“I got zilch.”
“That’s because you’re higher up. You’re a part of the business.” The word business, coming from Calvin, was versatile and elastic. I understood why he thought this, even though I certainly never felt that way.
“If I hadn’t left my studio when I did, I would have ended up dead. They would have gotten into my studio and left me in a pile of velvet.”
“You gotta point.”
“Calvin, I need to get into Claiborne’s immediately. Tonight, in a few hours, right after Ashby goes home.”
“I can’t let you in, baby doll. It’s true Jack don’t do no more business at night, but I’d lose my job, what’s left of it, if you was caught. They’d know it was me that let you in. It’s more than my job’s worth.”
“If there was an earthquake, a tsunami, a saber-toothed tiger on my heels, they would not let me in the front door, a
nd there’s, effectively, no back door, I know, but, Calvin, you’re my only hope.”
He shook his head. “What you need to go back for? If you left stuff, I’ll collect it for you.”
“I need to find something in Jack’s office.”
“You crazy, girl. Whatever it is, let it go.”
“I can’t. I’m not interested in taking the fall for Jack.” Even this didn’t sway Calvin. I don’t think he believed me. “Are the security cameras fixed and working?”
“Of course they are.”
“What if there’s an emergency-plumbing problem? Throw some obstruction down a toilet, so it’s badly clogged, causes a flood. There are no cameras in the bathroom, right?”
“One never knows, do one?”
“Calvin, seriously. Call me and I’ll arrive in a jumpsuit with some company name on the back that the camera will register. I’ll pull a cap over my face. You can let me in, but it won’t be me; all the camera will see is a plumber.”
He finished his whiskey, then agreed, reluctantly. All I needed was a jumpsuit and a toolbox, and I was in business.
—
It had been just a couple of days since I heard the screams coming through the floor, but Ashby’s office hadn’t changed much. Matisse paper cutouts hung behind his desk. Wearing white plastic gloves, I turned on his computer and clicked on the Caravaggio icon. Once again, a list of untitled but dated and timed files appeared.
Ashby wasn’t a hoarder, and had his limits with clutter, but he was a secret sentimentalist, and as, a curator by training, he was also an archivist. It was, in some ways, the core of his existence, his raison d’être he once said while Fieldston visibly cringed at his attempt to pepper his speech with bon mots. He saved programs from plays he’d seen years ago, postage stamps commemorating early television shows, recipes clipped from magazines or yellowed newspapers, beautifully designed matchboxes, and ticket stubs used as bookmarks. (Half of a ticket for Lawrence of Arabia at the Ziegfeld Theatre had fallen out of the Nevelson monograph—that was my first clue to the sentimental side of Jack Ashby.) Many things that reminded him of some place or someone were saved. The older he became, the more nostalgic he grew, and so he saved stuff, at least for a while. The infinite potential of electronic devices, he once told me, were well suited to saving pictures, snatches of music, witty chats—and all taking up virtually no space whatsoever. All I can say is everybody makes mistakes.