Blue Smoke and Murder sk-4

by Elizabeth Lowell

  “Nobody but you and Zach has actually seen them. I sent JPEGs of three other paintings to various gallery owners in the West.”

  “Including Ramsey Worthington,” Zach drawled.

  “And?” Frost demanded impatiently.

  “Worthington as good as told me I could be arrested for fraud,” Jill said.

  Frost’s eyes narrowed. “Show me those JPEGs.”

  Zach went to his duffel, pulled out his computer, and booted up. He got the JPEGs on screen and handed it over to Frost.

  The older man spent much less time with the JPEGs than he had on the canvases themselves. “No one even asked to see the paintings?”

  “Only someone called Blanchard,” Jill said, “after a fashion.”

  “Who doesn’t exist under that name,” Zach added.

  “What did Blanchard say about the art?” Frost demanded.

  “Not much. When he didn’t find the paintings in Jill’s car, he trashed it and left a death threat.”

  “And a ruined painting,” Jill added.

  “After our trip to Snowbird, I knew I wouldn’t get anywhere inside the Western art circuit,” Zach said. “That’s when I called your part-time cook and housekeeper, and told her that we’d be here for dinner.”

  “Well, that explains the quantity of food Lupita made,” Frost said. “She always thought the sun shined out your backside.”

  “Smart woman,” Zach said blandly.

  Jill snickered.

  “We needed an honest opinion of the paintings,” Zach said. “I came to you.”

  Frost’s mouth softened into something close to a smile. “Well, at least you trust me that much.”

  “So give us your opinion,” Zach said.

  “If those paintings aren’t by Thomas Dunstan, I’ll eat my whole collection of Anasazi pots. But I don’t have droit moral. I don’t have Ramsey Worthington’s stature in Western art circles. With my opinion and four hundred dollars, you could frame a small painting.”

  “Don’t be too sure of that,” Zach said. “Your kind of reputation doesn’t disappear, it becomes legendary.”

  Frost looked at Zach the way he’d looked at the Dunstans. Then he nodded abruptly. “What can I do to help you?”

  Jill sensed rather than saw the long breath Zach let out.

  “Thank you,” Zach said. “St. Kilda will be glad to pay for your-”

  “Don’t insult me,” Frost interrupted curtly. “Get the ladder out of the garage and take down my Dunstans.”

  Zach started to bridle at the orders, then smiled slightly. “Yessir.”

  Frost looked surprised, then almost smiled, too.

  “I’ll get the ladder,” Jill said quickly.

  “Never mind,” Zach said. “I’ve played monkey for this man more times than either of us wants to remember.”

  “So stop yapping and get the ladder,” Frost said. “I want those Dunstans side by side.”

  “Yours are bigger than mine,” Jill said to Frost.

  “No matter what a teenage boy tells you, bigger ain’t better,” Frost retorted.

  Jill blinked, then laughed. Garland Frost wasn’t an easy person, but she liked him in the same way that she preferred rapids to lazy, sweeping river curves.

  Without a word, Frost disappeared into another room. Jill could see just enough of it to know that it was a library.

  Zach reappeared, carrying a big aluminum ladder. He set it up beneath the two Dunstans and started climbing. He handed the first painting down to Jill.

  “Get a good grip,” he said. “It’s heavier than it looks.”

  She took the weight without staggering. Rowing rivers was a great way to build upper-body strength. “I have it. You can let go now.”

  “Lean it against the desk pedestal,” Zach said.

  Carefully she placed the painting by the desk and went back for the second one. By the time she put it next to the other one, Zach was beside her, looking at the paintings.

  “One of them has a figure in it,” she said. “Very small, but still there.”

  “Male,” he said, examining the painting closely.

  “Maybe. And maybe it’s a woman in jeans. Women did wear pants back then. Working on a ranch, long skirts are worse than useless.”

  “The great icon of the masculine West painting a woman in or out of pants?” Zach asked dryly. “Worthington would dump a brick at the idea.”

  “I’d like to dump a brick on him.”

  “Frost’s paintings are signed,” Zach said.

  “Lucky him.” She hesitated. “Do you really think my twelve paintings are by Thomas Dunstan?”

  “I’d bet a lot more on it now than I would have two hours ago.”

  “Frost is that good?”

  “Yes. And he knows it.”

  “Does Ramsey Worthington?” Jill asked.

  “Yeah.” Zach grinned like a pirate. “Should be an interesting pissing contest.”

  Frost appeared with a large, rather thin book. He set it on the desk and opened it to a previously marked page.

  “These are my Dunstans,” he said. “Canyon Dawn and Before the Storm.”

  Jill looked at the plates of the paintings, then at the front of the book. “Dunstan’s catalogue raisonné. When did it come out?”

  “Tal Crawford commissioned it eighteen months ago,” Frost said, “about the time Dunstan’s paintings started to soar in value. And I mean soar.”

  “Who is Crawford?” Jill asked.

  “A major collector,” Frost said. “I made a lot of money off him when I was in the gallery business. Heard he’s been bidding on every Dunstan that comes on the market. He’s been angling after my two paintings for years.”

  “Why?” Jill asked. “I mean, sure, I love Dunstan’s paintings, but I don’t feel a need to own every available one.”

  “You’re not a collector,” Frost and Zach said together.

  “Different breed entirely,” Frost continued.

  “Amen,” Zach said. “Like river rats.”

  “Gotcha,” Jill said, smiling. “Crazy within predictable parameters.”

  Frost looked at her. “Thank god Zach’s taste in women has improved.”

  “I’m a client,” Jill reminded him.

  Frost smiled. “You keep telling yourself that.”

  Zach changed the subject. “If anything, Jill’s paintings are in better shape than yours. Brighter. More vivid.”

  “They were kept in a trunk in the attic,” she said.

  Frost winced. “Well, that’s better than being stored in a barn. Have you hit them with the black light?”

  “No,” Zach said.

  “Why not?”

  “No black light,” Zach said. “No time.”

  “Make time,” Frost said. “Get mine. Second drawer, right side of the desk. Check the female figures in Jill’s paintings. They could have been over-painted, added later, whatever.”

  Zach went to the desk and returned with what looked like a hand-held work light, except that the bulb was black rather than clear and it was battery operated. Jill watched over his shoulder as he turned on the light and aimed it at the first canvas. A purple glow spread across the landscape.

  “Ultraviolet light,” Zach said.

  “Goth kids used them in raves,” Jill said.

  “I can’t see you at a rave.”

  “Funny, I don’t have that problem with you.”

  Zach’s teeth flashed eerily in the backwash of the light. “When I’m not raving, I use UV to detect repairs or over-painting on canvases.”

  Jill looked at Frost. “Is that what you think happened? The female figures were added later?”

  “It wouldn’t be the first time,” he said. “Was your great-aunt an artist?”

  “No, but my grandmother was. From what my mother told me, Justine Breck did portraits of children and flowers.”

  “Female things,” Frost said.

  Jill bit her tongue.

  Zach used the bla
ck light on each of the canvases in turn, paying particular attention to the female figures in the pictures.

  “Anything?” Frost asked impatiently.

  “No. The figure is integral to each painting. Same for the gas station in Indian Springs. All painted at the same time as the landscape, and all necessary to the balance of the painting as a whole.”

  “I could have told you that,” Jill said under her breath.

  Frost ignored her. With easy expertise, he popped one of his paintings out of its frame and set the canvas among her paintings. He did the same with the second.

  A chill prickled over Jill’s skin. Without the frames, the signed Dunstans fit very well with the unsigned canvases. Speechless, she looked at Frost.

  “Thank you,” Frost said, but he was looking at Zach. “I haven’t seen anything like these paintings in twenty years.”

  The two men faced each other for a long moment, each trying to say something that stuck between their minds and their tongues.

  “You’re welcome,” Zach said finally. “I knew you would give an honest opinion, whether it was the one I wanted or not.”

  “Is it?” Frost asked.

  “The one I wanted?”

  Frost nodded.

  “Part of me is doing backflips of delight,” Zach said.

  “And the rest of you?” Frost said.

  “The rest of me is going to call St. Kilda and tell them that this assignment has just morphed into a grenade with the pin halfway out.”

  43

  TAOS

  SEPTEMBER 15

  7:10 P.M.

  Score sat in the back of the anonymous rental minivan. He was parked close to a cutesy bed-and-breakfast sign. That was the good news-a strange vehicle wouldn’t be noticed.

  The bad news was that the B amp;B actually had some guests, even though it was the lull between summer tourists and winter skiers. But there wasn’t enough foot traffic to get in the way and the van’s heavily tinted glass offered surprising privacy. He was rather comfortable as he stared across the street and down the block at the iron gate and high adobe walls of Garland Frost’s home.

  The really bad news was that nothing Score had learned about Frost made him want to smile.

  Western art expert. Big reputation despite lack of degrees. Uncanny eye for good stuff. Retired.

  But not so retired that St. Kilda can’t get to him.

  At least Frost has a reputation for being arrogant. People spend a lot of time on their knees before they get his attention.

  With any luck, the Breck bitch will piss him off.

  The script from the bug in Breck’s sat/cell was tantalizing, but hardly definitive. Amy was running it through various electronic cleaner programs. He should hear from her or Steve any minute.

  He’d better.

  Man, this is turning into a real cluster. I have to know if Frost is looking at JPEGs or the real thing or refusing to look at all.

  And I have to know real soon.

  The auction was breathing down his neck. The worst-case scenario told him that Frost was looking at the real paintings.

  I can get over or through the gate. No problemo.

  But the house?

  Big problemo.

  He’d bet real money that Garland Frost’s house was wired for sound and pictures. Not like the old lady with her piece-of-crap rifle for security. Frost had a lot of valuable goods inside.

  Score wasn’t going to risk a black-bag job on that house unless he was certain there was no other way.

  What really steamed him was that he couldn’t even use his directional microphone to pick up conversation inside the house. Those adobe walls were a real sound sponge, and he couldn’t get to any windows without exposing himself all over the place. Stalemate. His second computer beeped. He looked over, then activated the voice-calling feature. Steve’s voice came out over the built-in speakers.

  “Score?”

  “No, it’s the Easter Bugger. What do you have?”

  “Definitely a third voice,” Steve said.

  Ya sure? Score thought sarcastically. I could have told him that myself.

  “Dude’s got a mouth like a sewer,” Steve continued. “It’s all in the transcript.”

  “Individual words or just the general direction of the conversation?”

  “Words. Want me to read the script?” Steve asked.

  “Not unless it’s talking about paintings.”

  “Plural? Nope. Everything was really muffled, just like it has been,” Steve said, “then suddenly it was clear. The new dude was on a rant about assholes who destroy art.”

  “Anything else?”

  “The new voice faded into the other two voices, like the dude walked away from the bug. Things got soft again, but not like before.”

  Score came to a point like a hunting dog. “What’s different?”

  “Difference between turning the volume down and burying a speaker in mud. I’ve got a new sound-booster program that I’d like to try, but I didn’t want to without ask-”

  “Do it,” Score interrupted curtly. “Get back to me soonest.”

  “It may be several hours. This program uses complex algorithms that take a lot of time, especially on my laptop.”

  “No matter how late, call me. And I mean call. Cell phone. Got it?”

  “Got it.”

  “Then do it.”

  Score ended the voice program and stared out the window. All he could be certain of was that a painting had been destroyed. Since he’d been the one with the machete, he already knew that.

  Why is it always the simple jobs that go from sugar to shit?

  He went to the back of the van, opened a small silver suitcase, and pulled out a semiautomatic pistol. He screwed the silencer on, checked the magazine, and went back to the front of the van.

  When it was fully dark, he’d look around Frost’s grounds. There might be a window where he could safely set up shop. From what he’d learned about the cargo at Taos Regional, six crates of goods had been unloaded from the plane St. Kilda chartered. It looked like the op was putting all his eggs in one basket.

  Or maybe not.

  If it walks like a duck, and talks like a duck…

  It could be a red herring.

  And Score knew just how to fry fish.

  44

  TAOS

  SEPTEMBER 15

  7:15 P.M.

  The breakfast nook in Frost’s big kitchen seated three. Barely.

  The constant heat and flex of Zach’s hard thigh pressed against Jill’s was making her hotter than Lupita’s tamales. Zach didn’t seem to notice anything unusual. Except that with every motion, however small, he ended up closer to her.

  It had to be accidental.

  And chickens lay chocolate eggs, she thought, feeling the heat of a fit, big male body all the way from her ankle to her hip.

  “I hear what you’re saying,” she said to Frost, “but I still don’t understand the problem. Experts disagree all the time. Any lawyer can tell you that.”

  Zach leaned over to get more hot sauce. Coming and going, his arm slowly brushed against her breast. It was a good thing Frost was speaking, because right now Jill couldn’t have said a word if her next breath depended on it.

  “Experts can, and do, disagree,” Frost said with a shrug. “I’ve seen litigation over attributions that go on for years, even in nineteenth-and twentieth-century Western art, which is relatively well documented.”

  Zach went for a second helping of hot sauce.

  Or something.

  “I’ve seen more money change hands in lawsuits over attribution than the art was worth in the first place,” Frost said. “There’s a case up in Montana right now, a picture I thought was a Charlie Russell and some others thought wasn’t. One of the dealers went public with his doubts. The owner of the piece sued him for slander, defamation, and general idiocy for destroying the value of a five-million-dollar painting.”

  “What happened?” Zac
h asked, his voice low, husky.

  Jill forced herself to breathe.

  And reached across Zach for the stack of paper napkins on his right.

  One good rub deserves another, she told herself.

  Zach’s breath came in swiftly. His thigh muscles flexed against hers.

  “The good ol’ boys on the Montana jury ruled in favor of the good ol’ boy Montana expert,” Frost said. “So the dealer turned around and sued the owner of the disputed Remington for malicious abuse of legal process. Another Montana jury awarded the Montana expert twenty million dollars or some such ridiculous amount. It’s being appealed seven ways from Sunday. Going to be in court until hell won’t have it.”

  “A lesson to us all,” Zach said, breathing out when Jill’s body finally settled back next to his, “but it’s a good example of what can happen when you get wealthy collectors, lawyers, and art experts together. A real Mongolian goat-fu-er, roping.”

  “Does that mean you don’t want to go public with your opinion of my paintings?” Jill asked Frost.

  He laughed. “That’s one of the joys of getting old and rich. I don’t have to be afraid of anything or anybody.”

  “Like you ever were,” Zach said.

  Frost ignored him and spoke to Jill. “An expert pissing contest is only part of your problems. Another part is that, by comparison to the rest of Western art, the Dunstan market is thin and narrow.”

  Zach reached for more hot sauce. “I’ve seen recent sales prices that looked pretty good to me.”

  Jill got even by taking a deep breath. She knew her nipples were hard.

  Now he did, too.

  “Look behind the sales, boy,” Frost said. “Things aren’t always as real as they seem.”

  Zach coughed and cleared his throat, quite sure that everything he’d touched had been real. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Dunstan had a low output,” Frost said. “That can work against an artist.”

  “I thought that scarcity was the name of the game in positional art,” Jill said.

  “If there are several hundred canvases around, the competition gets spread a bit wider,” Frost said, waving his fork for emphasis. “More people jump into an auction because there’s more chance of picking something up.” He stopped and looked at Zach. “You keep reaching for that hot sauce and you won’t have any taste buds left when you’re my age.”