The Monet Murders

by Josh Lanyon

  He had waited to do it in person, so point. But he had also held off doing it—and when he had got around to doing it, he’d done it in such a way that he might as well have cut Jason loose over the phone. It had been that impersonal. Certainly it had felt that impersonal to Jason.

  And because Sam—Kennedy—had delayed, Jason also could not help feeling that he’d strung him along.

  Okay, in fairness, a little long-distance flirtation and a few late-night conversations that verged on confessional weren’t much of a string. No real lines had been crossed. But.

  But all the same he was pissed off.

  And yes, hurt.

  “Grow the hell up,” Jason muttered. He brushed by a juniper bush, startling several small, winged somethings, which circled overhead, twittering, and disappeared into the network of bare branch oak and birch trees.

  Bats.

  Perfect. Just what the day had been missing.

  Anyway, it wasn’t childish to care about someone, to be open emotionally to…possibility. Jason wasn’t in the wrong for that. For starting to feel something for Sam. Back in June, Sam had indicated a willingness to pursue…something. Once he’d changed his mind, the right thing to do would have been to let Jason know ASAP. So that Jason didn’t continue to— Well, it was painful and stupid to even think about.

  But I like talking to you.

  Yeah, that was the truth. Sam did like talking to him. There weren’t a lot of people in Sam’s universe he could talk to as openly and easily as he’d talked to Jason when they were both unguarded and off the clock. Sam didn’t have a lot of friends. It was possible he didn’t have any friends beyond Jason. Jason couldn’t remember any mention of friends in all those phone calls. In fact, although the word “solitary” seemed to suggest an emotional vulnerability Sam didn’t possess, he was in a lot of ways a solitary guy. Or at least in any other person, Sam’s isolation would have seemed lonely.

  But one thing Jason had figured out over the past eight months: alone was the way Sam liked it. Alone was his default.

  The wild oaks and birches gave way to ornamental trees, including a ten-foot wall of winter-bare lilacs. Beyond the straw-colored stretch of muddy lawn, Jason spotted the house.

  After the sight of the Greenleafs’ crumbling clock tower and the news of Indian burial grounds, he was ready for anything, but the house was a perfectly ordinary three-story mansion. Reinforced concrete and brick veneer with lots of detail lifted from 13th Century Gothic architecture, including a slate mansard roof and rows of French windows.

  He crossed the long expanse of mushy yellow-gray grass, wondering if his approach was being observed by someone standing at those elegant windows. Even so, not a lot of room to run on an island.

  He reached the double front doors—nine-foot-tall and painted black and gold—and rang the bell.

  He could almost feel the shock reverberating through the house as the chimes died away.

  Nothing happened for a long minute.

  Two long minutes.

  He was about to ring the bell again when the towering door suddenly swung open.

  The tall forty-something brunette standing before him was undoubtedly the housekeeper. That demure brown shirt dress communicated her job title as effectively as a name plate on an office desk. She wore her dark hair in the sleek flip still favored by so many wives of conservative politicians—not including his own sister.

  Same make but different model as the devoted Ms. Keating, if Jason was any judge.

  “May I help you?” she asked after a surprised moment. Her voice was pleasant, her brown eyes curious. She gave the impression of looking Jason up and down without ever moving her gaze.

  Jason introduced himself, offering his ID.

  “FBI?” she repeated mechanically, staring at his badge.

  “Correct. I’d like to have a word with Barnaby Durrand, Mrs.…?”

  She was frowning. “Merriam. I’m Mrs. Durrand’s housekeeper. You came all the way out here looking for Mr. Durrand?”

  “That’s right. I—”

  “Without calling first?”

  “I understand Mr. Durrand is visiting his mother.”

  “Well, yes, but...” She hesitated, still frowning, still clearly taken aback. “Yes,” she repeated. “But he’s not here at the moment.”

  “Really?” Jason didn’t bother to hide his disbelief. “According to the manager of his Los Angeles gallery, here is exactly where he is.”

  “He sailed over to Cape Vincent this morning.”

  She was too genuinely bewildered to be lying, but there was more than a tinge of exasperation in Jason’s instinctive, “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “No. I’m certainly not kidding you. I believe he had a business meeting.”

  “I see.” Jason recovered his self-control. “And when is Mr. Durrand expected back?” He held his breath, waiting. If she told him Durrand wasn’t coming back, he was going to end his misery and jump in the St. Lawrence River.

  Her expression grew wary. “Tomorrow afternoon.”

  “What time tomorrow afternoon?”

  “I don’t know. He didn’t say.”

  Jason opened his mouth, and she added hastily, “He’ll be back in time for dinner, naturally.”

  Naturally.

  “I see.” If he didn’t know better, he’d say Barnaby had received advance warning he was coming. The only person with that knowledge outside the Bureau was Chris Shipka, and Jason had trouble believing Shipka would tip Barnaby off, given his attempt to further implicate the Durrands in fraud, larceny, and what had sounded a lot like a possible murder. But you never could tell.

  “Was Mr. Durrand expecting you?” Mrs. Merriam inquired, recovering her own equilibrium. She had to know the answer to that one, but her expression was one of polite inquiry.

  “He should be.” Jason was aware he’d lost the element of surprise; there wasn’t a chance in hell she wouldn’t notify Barnaby that the FBI had shown up at his front door.

  He considered his limited options. “Okay, Mrs. Merriam. I assume you’ve got some way of getting in touch with Mr. Durrand. Please let him know that I’ll be back tomorrow afternoon. If he’s not available, perhaps I could speak to Mrs. Durrand.”

  Mrs. Merriam looked startled. “Mrs. Durrand? Mrs. Durrand doesn’t—isn’t—” Her gaze went automatically to the badge once more clipped to his belt. Yeah. The Big Initials.

  “She’ll see me,” Jason said ominously. “Either Barnaby or Mrs. Durrand. I plan on talking to somebody in this house tomorrow. I’ll leave it to Mr. Durrand as to who that’s going to be.”

  Her jaw dropped. And so would George Potts’ if he ever heard about this exchange, but Jason had well and truly had it with the runaround. He was not really going to insist on interviewing a sick old woman—had no legal jurisdiction to do so even if he was ruthless enough to try—but Barnaby couldn’t know that, and, if Jason’s instinct was correct, wouldn’t risk such a meeting in any case.

  He delivered a formal and professional smile to the wide-eyed Mrs. Merriam and departed.

  Chapter Nine

  Mostly it was academic curiosity that sent Jason in the direction of Camden Castle.

  For one thing, he now had a day to cool his heels before he could interview Barnaby Durrand. For another, the former art historian in him wanted to see that grandiose structure up close.

  Alluring as was the idea of spending a day watching Sandra Bullock movies… Yeeeah, no.

  He spied the pointy tilt of the witch’s hat towers above the bare white tree branches as he hiked toward the Greenleaf property. No question that there was something eerie about these woods. Maybe it had to do with all those different burial grounds scattered across the island. Maybe it was something else. A lot of this forest predated the fort and the graveyards. These trees were very old—the shining trunks, knotted limbs, and bony twigs reminded him of an army of skeletons—and the silence had a listening quality to it.

 
In fact, “silence” was relative. The steady thud of his boots on damp soil, the furtive rustle of underbrush as unseen life watched and waited for him to pass, the occasional tentative birdsong served to remind him that he was just another traveler on a very long road.

  The sun was making a half-hearted attempt to warm things up. Patches of yellow light filtered through naked branches and pooled beneath the twisted roots. His shadow appeared and then vanished on the path as he crossed beneath towering trees filtering the sun with crisscrossed twigs and branches. It was not yet spring, but the butterflies didn’t seem to know it, furling and unfurling mystery-colored wings before vanishing into the gray, filmy shadows.

  The cool silence was ruptured by the sound of distant gunfire.

  Rifle shots.

  One.

  Two.

  Jason halted in his tracks, counting.

  Boom. Three.

  His heart paused for the length of a couple of beats while he tried to place the direction they were coming from. It was not hunting season, but this was a rural space and people in wilderness areas used firearms more casually than people in suburbia. These shots were coming from the south side of the island—well away from him—and Jason was irritated with himself for his irrational reaction.

  Reaction? Fear.

  Call it what it was.

  The unexpected sound of gunshots still scared him. It was stupid and infuriating. He had been on the weapons range plenty of times since Miami, he had been involved in a shooting incident in Massachusetts, and—on top of everything else—he had not been injured by rifle fire, and yet his immediate response to the sound of a rifle was fear.

  How the hell long was this going to go on? For the rest of his career? He’d hoped after Massachusetts he was past it—and he was much, much better—but even so.

  Even so, the unexpected sound of gunfire sent his pulse rocketing, caused him to break out in a cold sweat.

  Anyway, it was a momentary reaction. He was fine again. Irritated with himself, but steady.

  He jumped as his cell phone rang, the sound weirdly loud in the enclosed and secret silence of the trees. Okay. Mostly steady. He thought he’d put the damn thing on vibrate.

  He reached for his phone and snapped out, “Yes? West here.”

  “Yo, G-man,” came a cheerful male voice.

  “Lucius.” Jason relaxed. Lucius Lux was one of his top informants. A genuinely gifted young artist who had, unfortunately, turned his gift to forgery. Jason had pulled a lot of strings to keep Lux out of jail—and more strings to get him into a top-notch art program at Otis College of Art and Design. Lux was always threatening to quit Otis, but he’d lasted a year so far, and so far was so good in Jason’s opinion.

  “What up? Busy chasing bad guys and harassing little old ladies?”

  Jason thought of his threat to interrogate Caroline Durrand, and winced. “Something like that. How’s it going?”

  “Haven’t flunked out yet. What can I do you for?”

  “I’m looking for information.”

  Lux’s sigh was noisy and exaggerated. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  Jason smiled to himself. He was fond of the kid. While it was true that most forgers were failed artists, unable to break into the brutally competitive market on their own creative merits, that wasn’t the case with Lux. He’d been sidetracked by the lure of quick and easy money, but his ego was healthy enough that more and more he wanted his own career.

  “What have you heard about forged works making their way into Fletcher-Durrand?”

  “Fletcher-Durrand?” Lux sounded slightly less breezy. “Me? Nothing.”

  Until that moment, Jason had been willing to believe he was making a felony out of a bit of harmless fakery. But that infinitesimal change in Lux’s tone alerted him that he just might be onto something.

  “Nothing at all?”

  “No, man. Was that all you wanted?”

  Jason felt a flicker of concern. Lux was naturally both curious and chatty. Yet he showed zero interest in the possibility of forgeries at one of the best-known galleries in the state. Hopefully that was not a hint as to his own involvement.

  He said neutrally, “If I was looking for someone to copy a Reuven Rubin, who would I talk to?”

  “Nobody, man. What you’d want is someone to do you a nice long-lost Monet. That’s what sells. That’s where the money is. Monet. Monay.”

  “Monet. Really?” That at least sounded like the normal Lux, and Monet was a frequent and favorite target for forgery, so Jason didn’t want to leap to the conclusion that two and two made eight. But the sudden mention of Monet in this context made him uneasy.

  “Funny you say that. I saw a really lousy forgery of Monet the other night.”

  “Yeah? Well, there are a lot of them around.” Lux stopped there, again noticeably unlike his usual self.

  “If I’m in the market for a Reuven Rubin, who do I talk to?” Jason tried again, and this time Lux’s tone was edged.

  “I thought the feds were after F-D for selling off what don’t belong to them.”

  “We are. But I noticed a copy of a Reuven Rubin last time I visited the gallery.”

  “Maybe it wasn’t a copy.”

  “The original is hanging in MoMA. I got an email verification this morning.”

  Lux made a noncommittal noise.

  Jason gave up on diplomacy. “I need to know who’s supplying forged works to Fletcher-Durrand.”

  “Not me.”

  “I know not you. But someone.”

  Lux said seriously, “You want to stay away from them, G-man.”

  “I’m not in the stay-away business,” Jason pointed out. “I’m in the bring-people-to-justice business.”

  “I’m just saying…there are rumors.”

  “Fill me in. What kind of rumors?”

  “More like whispers.”

  “Okay. What kind of whispers?”

  “That bad things happen to people who get on the wrong side of the Durrands.”

  Jason was silent for a moment. This might be something. Or it might not. He said casually, “Like? Give me an example. Give me a name.”

  “I don’t have names. I don’t have an example. If I had an example, it wouldn’t be a rumor!”

  “Okay. Don’t get excited. I have to ask, right?”

  “No. You don’t. You don’t have to ask me. I can’t be your only snitch.”

  “You’re not a snitch. You’re a friend.”

  Lux said sulkily, sounding younger than his twenty years, “Yeah, well.”

  “You’re a friend able to move in circles I can’t. That’s why I’m asking you.”

  “Oh, I owe you, believe me, I get that,” Lux’s tone was unexpectedly bitter.

  That was the truth, but it pained Jason to hear it. He liked Lux; he genuinely wanted to help him—hoped he was helping him—but he had cultivated their friendship with this end in mind: Lux’s continued usefulness.

  All the same, Lux was too young to be that cynical.

  “Forget it,” Jason said. “You’re right. I have other informants. How do you like your classes this semester?”

  Silence.

  Lux burst out, “Rabab Doody. That’s who you need to talk to.”

  Before Jason could respond, Lux disconnected.

  Jason sighed, pocketed his phone, and strode on toward the Greenleaf estate.

  His angle of approach brought him up behind the house on a hillside overlooking the deep bay of a small, sheltered harbor. From this distance, the mansion looked more like an insane asylum for witches. An abandoned asylum. There were large holes in sections of the roof, and a number of the windows were shuttered or boarded up.

  Not entirely abandoned, though. There was smoke drifting from one of the chimneys, and laundry hung from a clothesline in a small courtyard.

  It was one thing for the Durrands to continue to inhabit ye old family estate. Their ancestral holdings were still in excellent repair, from
what Jason could see. Who the hell would choose to live in a relic like this one? It would take millions to restore the house to its former glory, and clearly there was no spare change in the Greenleaf family coffers. If restoration was out of the question, the next best bet would be to sell the property to some organization that could preserve and protect the building, while profiting from the real estate. A resort chain maybe. Although that might be easier said than done. Camden Island was not exactly on the beaten path. But then that was also what might make it a very enticing property to an investor with vision.

  Jason hiked down an steep trail to the burned ruins of a yacht house and then checked out the crumbling remains of a nearby skiff house. It was probably a five-minute walk to the mansion itself, but back in the day, a carriage would have been sent down to the harbor to transport guests and goods.

  As he neared the house, he was struck again by the sheer size of the building. That was typical of these Gilded Age palaces. It was built for weekend house parties and lavish summer retreats. It would comfortably house a large extended family as well as a fleet of servants.

  He couldn’t quite pin down the architectural style, but Walt Disney would probably have given it a thumbs-up. The mansion seemed to be the end result of a collision of ideas and creative impulses, almost sculptural in effect with its advancing and receding turrets, dormers, and massive chimneys crowning high, steep roofs. Whatever the guiding principle of design might have been, the result was a big and complicated structure, richly, even ornately decorated. The exterior walls of the upper stories were paneled in a variety of silvery diamond and scalloped wood shingles, framed in a semi-Tudor half-timber pattern of wood beams. The lower story and a half were constructed of masonry and clad in a fortune’s worth of beautifully carved gray marble.

  The final effect was neither graceful nor stately, and yet it was weirdly appealing. Jason walked to the end of the stone path and glanced down.

  A double tier of retaining walls lifted the villa’s gardens—draped in a tangle of dead vines—high above the water.

  Even from the garden level, that was one hell of a drop. Stunning view, though.