Blue Smoke and Murder

by Elizabeth Lowell

  “No. Some relative of hers, apparently. Same last name, different first name. Supposedly the old woman died and Jillian Breck is the heir.”

  Worthington clicked to a second image. It was as powerful as the first.

  Cahill made a disgusted sound. “Whoever is out there painting these ‘Dunstans’ should give it up and paint under his own name. He’s good enough to make a decent living. With the right representation and some luck, he might even make an excellent living. He’s quite powerful. Technique and intensity both. Not a common combination.”

  Worthington nodded.

  A third image came up. Powerful, beautiful in its stark landscape and overwhelming sky.

  “Did you send these to Lee Dunstan?” Cahill asked.

  “Not yet. He was furious about the painting Ford Hillhouse sent. Sounded like Lee was going to stroke out over the phone.”

  “Why does something like this always happen before a big auction?” Cahill muttered.

  Worthington shrugged. “Greed. Someone knows that big money is out there attached to Dunstan’s name. They want a piece of it.”

  “They should have done their homework,” Cahill said.

  Worthington nodded. “Yes, the human figures are unusual for Dunstan. Any forger would know it. Which means this one is either stupid—”

  “Unlikely,” Cahill cut in. “He knows his subject too well.”

  “—or these just might actually be Dunstan’s work.”

  “They aren’t Dunstans until Lee says they are,” Cahill pointed out.

  “Either way, I hope we can sit on them until after the auction,” Worthington said. “The last thing we need is twelve excellent, probably fraudulent Dunstans circulating. Smaller things have taken the wind out of the market.”

  “What are you going to do?” Cahill asked.

  “I’ll think of something.”

  Cahill laughed quietly. “You always do.”

  8

  HOLLYWOOD

  SEPTEMBER 12

  9:00 P.M.

  Score was sweating hard, pumping iron in a controlled frenzy that kept him from punching a hole through the wall. It seemed that people just got stupider every day. He’d been lucky to leave the office before he took somebody’s head off and shoved it up their dumb ass.

  His cell phone went off. His private cell, the one that only a few people had the number for. He racked the weight and looked at the caller ID.

  Blank.

  “Score,” he said briefly into the phone.

  “I hope you’re on the trail of those paintings.”

  “Like I told you.” About ten times already. “Dead end. They burned.” The only thing that kept Score’s voice neutral was the really sweet yearly retainer this client paid.

  But the more they paid, the more demanding they were.

  “Then why is Jillian Breck asking galleries all over the West to look at JPEGs of three unsigned Dunstans?”

  “So there were photos somewhere, sometime,” Score said, wiping off his sweat with a big towel. “So what? I took care of the paintings, and the rest is bullshit and ashes.”

  “I’d like to believe that. I don’t. Find those paintings or bring me proof that they don’t exist. And do it before the auction!”

  Score looked through his home gym’s front window to the glittering panorama of lights that was the L.A. basin at night. “How can I prove something doesn’t exist? Run the ashes through a spectrograph?”

  “Whatever it takes. That’s what you’re paid for.”

  9

  ARIZONA STRIP

  SEPTEMBER 12

  11:15 P.M.

  Jill rolled over and tried to find a more comfortable position on the bunk. She couldn’t.

  This bunk is softer than my usual bed on the rowing bench of a raft. Relax, damn it!

  Eyes closed, she listened to the wind playing with the cottonwood leaves. At the rate the temperature was falling, the leaves soon would be turning sunshine yellow and flying away.

  What if Purcell is right? What if Modesty meant to die?

  The wind blew harder.

  Jill rolled over again.

  What if she didn’t?

  With a word she rarely used in front of clients, Jill kicked out of her sleeping bag.

  “Never should have had that extra cup of coffee,” she muttered, coming to her feet in a rush.

  But she didn’t have to pee and it wasn’t caffeine keeping her awake. If she was up and prowling around, it was because she was too restless to lie still anymore.

  “Maybe one of the galleries has sent me an e-mail.”

  And maybe not.

  She thought of going to the hideout in the back of the pantry and looking at the paintings again, just to reassure herself that they were really real.

  “It took you half an hour to wrap them and put them away. Do you really want to—”

  The satellite phone rang, cutting across her words.

  “Guess I’m not the only one awake.” She picked up the bulky unit, looked at caller ID, and saw “private caller.” Pretty much what she expected. Most cell phones didn’t register on the land-based system, much less on the satellite phone.

  She hated accepting unknown calls at satellite rates.

  It rang again.

  “It’s got to be better than talking to myself. And the rates are real low right now.” She punched a button, and said, “Hello?”

  “Jillian Breck?” The voice was oddly thick, like someone with a plugged nose.

  “Yes. Who are you?”

  “Blanchard. I’m a Western art dealer. I understand that you have some paintings I’d be interested in seeing. That true?”

  Jill frowned. She didn’t remember sending an e-mail to anyone called Blanchard. But he easily could be working for one of the galleries she’d sent messages to.

  “You have me at a disadvantage,” she said slowly. “Are you sure you’re calling the right number?”

  “I understand a relative of yours tried to sell a canvas near Salt Lake City. That true?”

  She shifted uneasily, remembering the sheriff’s warning: If you try to pass those paintings off as something they’re not, you could end up in real trouble. The criminal kind.

  “Mr. Blankford—”

  “Blanchard.”

  “Sorry. I think you’ve been misinformed.”

  “You don’t know about a dozen Western landscapes that have been in the Breck family for a long time?”

  Silently Jill absorbed that Blanchard knew more about the paintings than had been included in her e-mail to various galleries.

  What she didn’t know was if that was good or bad.

  “My great-aunt submitted a canvas that had been in the family for appraisal,” Jill said neutrally, “but I wasn’t aware that she’d spoken to anyone about paintings other than the one she sent to Park City, not Salt Lake City.”

  “The Western art world is small and real close.” The caller coughed hoarsely. “The canvas your relative sent made the rounds of a number of dealers. She hasn’t answered my follow-up letter, so I’m trying you.”

  Jill’s voice tightened. “Modesty Breck is dead.”

  “Huh. Sorry to hear it. Do you have the painting she sent out?”

  “It was lost.”

  Blanchard made a sound that could have been a laugh or a smoker’s cough or he could have been choking on something.

  He cleared his throat. “What about the other paintings? They lost, too?”

  Jill hesitated, then shrugged. She had put out lures in the shape of JPEGs, and someone had bitten.

  “Which gallery are you with?” she asked.

  “I work with several. Do you have any paintings like the first one your great-aunt sent out?”

  “The paintings have been in the family so long nobody knows much about them. My great-aunt believed they were quite valuable.”

  “Your great-aunt must have watched too much Antiques Road-show,” Blanchard said, impatience giving an ed
ge to his hoarse voice. “We run into that a lot in this business. People look at a show on public television and get the idea that an old family trinket has huge value.”

  “If the pictures aren’t valuable, why are you interested?”

  The man blew his nose. “’Scuse me. I’m just trying to save you some trouble. Any family paintings of yours might have historical value, maybe a few thousand dollars, but they’re not by some great artist. If there are other paintings, you should be very careful with them. Passing counterfeits off as original works is called fraud.”

  Jill felt a chill, then exhilaration, like the sensation she experienced when she pushed off into the maelstrom of a big rapid. As a river runner, she knew what she was doing, and there was always an element of risk.

  That’s why she did it.

  Blanchard, whoever and whatever he was, knew more about these paintings than she did.

  And Modesty was dead.

  “Funny thing,” Jill said. “This is the second time today somebody has warned me about the paintings.”

  “Maybe we know more about the situation than you do.”

  “That wouldn’t be hard,” she said dryly. “That’s why I’m asking questions of experts.”

  “You don’t seem to like the answers.”

  “What I really don’t like is the fact that the painting my great-aunt sent out is missing,” she said.

  “I heard something about that. Wasn’t sure it was true, though.”

  “As you mentioned, you’re a close community,” Jill said. As in closed. “Even people I don’t send JPEGs to hear about them.”

  He coughed again. “’Scuse. Getting over a cold. I’m interested enough in those paintings to want to see them in the flesh, rather than electronically. How many did you say there were?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “You’re a lot smarter than your great-aunt was. How about this? We’ll set up a meet in a public place,” Blanchard said. “You choose it.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Anywhere you want me to be, any time, as long as you have those paintings with you. How about it?”

  Jill hesitated the same way she did before nosing into the approach to Lava Falls.

  I’ve chosen my course. Now I have to bail out or go with it.

  She certainly didn’t want to meet Blanchard at the Rimrock Café. She wanted a place where she didn’t know anyone and no one knew her.

  “Ms. Breck?” he asked.

  She took a deep breath and headed toward the heart of the rapids. “Meet me tomorrow at 6:00 p.m. near Mesquite, Nevada, in the casino at the Eureka Hotel. I’ll be at the penny slots wearing jeans, river sandals, and a black T-shirt that says Spawn Till You Die.”

  Blanchard gave a bark of laughter, coughed, and said, “I’m in east Texas now. Get a room in case I miss connections, okay? Weather’s tricky at this time of year. And bring those paintings with you. I really can’t tell what they’re worth unless I actually see them.”

  He hung up before she could agree or disagree.

  She punched out and stared at the phone. It was the first time she’d ever shoved off into bad rapids without getting a good look at the water. The adrenaline she was used to.

  The fear was something new.

  Again she thought of Joe Faroe and St. Kilda Consulting.

  No. I’m not a little girl who needs her hand held in the dark by a big strong man. The casino is a public place with lots of money and therefore lots of guards and cameras.

  I’ll be safer than I am on the river.

  10

  EUREKA HOTEL, NEVADA

  SEPTEMBER 13

  3:00 P.M.

  Jill parked in the huge, dusty lot of the Eureka Hotel. She looked at the belly pack on the passenger seat, weighed the satellite phone in her hand, and decided to leave the expensive means of communication in the car. The throwaway cell phone she’d bought for emergencies worked just fine in this location. She stashed the satellite phone under the passenger seat, locked the car, and walked through the parking lot toward the lobby check-in.

  The desert wind had painted a fine layer of grit over the long-haul trucks and RVs parked at the back of the lot, and the cars of the tourists who had been sucked off the highway by the promise of excitement.

  She didn’t understand the lure. The river took care of her adrenaline needs.

  An inch beyond the parking lot and hotel, the desert waited, untouched and patient, knowing that wind, sun, and time would eventually grind down civilization and its sprawling greed.

  She’d rather have walked into the desert. But she didn’t. She went to the hotel. The moment she opened the front door, she got a dose of stale, smoky air. Yet the huge neon sign out front advertised smoke-free lodging.

  It also advertised instant money, loose slots, and the best gambling in Nevada.

  Living proof that you shouldn’t believe everything you read.

  “Sure doesn’t smell smoke free,” Jill said to the desk clerk.

  The clerk wore makeup like she was still the showgirl she’d been twenty years and forty pounds ago.

  “Rooms are smoke free,” the clerk said. “In fact, there’s a five-hundred-dollar room-cleaning charge if you smoke in your room. You want to smoke, go to the casino. It’s allowed there.”

  “And the air-conditioning for the hotel and casino comes from a single central unit, right?”

  “Yeah. Sign here, initial the notification of nonsmoking, the fine if you do, and length of stay,” the woman said automatically. “Your room is through the casino to the elevators, fourth floor. Turn right and follow the room numbers.”

  Jill looked over the form, signed and initialed, and pushed the paper toward the clerk. “Any messages for me?”

  The woman looked at the name on Jill’s registration form and queried the computer. “No. Expecting someone?”

  “A Mr. Blanchard might call. If he does, put him through to my room.”

  “Sure thing. Need help with your luggage?”

  “No, thanks. Which part of the casino complex has penny slots?”

  “The part that doesn’t serve free drinks. North side. You get better odds on the dollar machines and the drinks are free.”

  “Thanks, I’ll keep it in mind.”

  Jill set off through a casino whose machines flashed and beckoned at every step. She saw the distant neon sign that guaranteed penny slots and million-dollar payoffs. The stink of cigarettes smoldering unnoticed in flat tin ashtrays near “Nevada’s loosest slots” almost covered the smell of anxiety and greed.

  She grimaced and hurried through the casino. She might have problems with the sober, righteous Mormon patriarchy, but at least the air in Utah’s public buildings was breathable.

  When she walked into her room, the smell of air “freshener” made her feel like she was walking through the perfume aisle in a dollar store. She shut the door behind herself and threw the dead bolt. She didn’t like hotels much, but it was more anonymous than the Rimrock Café.

  She ordered a big salad and a hamburger from room service and settled in to wait.

  11

  EUREKA HOTEL

  SEPTEMBER 13

  7:00 P.M.

  When it was full dark, Score finally stirred from his observation post in the back of his minivan. Ms. Breck’s dirt-bag SUV was where it had been for the past four hours, collecting dust.

  He’d been collecting dust since dawn. He was used to the stake-out routine, but he didn’t love it. Eating mini-mart snacks and pissing into Gatorade bottles got old real quick.

  It had been especially hard to wait knowing that the paintings were locked in that tin-can SUV fifty feet away. She hadn’t carried anything sizable inside, or sent the bellman out after any more luggage.

  Score bit back a yawn, checked his watch, then looked for the guard whose boring job it was to drive through the hotel parking lot for eight hours, five days a week. The dude must have decided to save wear and tear on tires, because he�
�d parked his little golf cart and was drinking coffee, using one of the long-haul trucks for a windbreak.

  When Score moved forward and opened the driver’s door of his minivan, the wind nearly yanked the handle out of his hands. “Son of a bitch,” he muttered.

  The wind was as cold as it was strong. No wonder the guard wasn’t driving around in the open golf cart.

  If somebody told me to freeze in this wind for minimum wage, I’d tell them to jerk off.

  Even though it was dark between the parking lot’s widespread, sickly orange lights, Score pulled a toque over his head and down to his eyebrows. The result concealed the color of his hair and kept his ears warm. He stuffed a machete under his thigh-length leather jacket, taking care to keep the hooked end of the blade from notching his balls by mistake. His “slim jim” was already in its own special inside pocket, just itching to be used on a locked car.

  He walked to the Breck SUV. As he’d guessed from the way she locked it up, the vehicle had a manual rather than an electronic lock.

  Piece of cake.

  He pulled out the slim jim, slid it down the driver’s window, fished a bit, and yanked up the lock.

  No alarm.

  Nobody looking his way.

  It took less than a minute to see that there weren’t any paintings inside the SUV.

  Hell, that would have been too easy.

  But there was a satellite phone underneath the passenger seat that was as old as the car. Like the car, it still worked.

  Tucking the satellite phone under his jacket, Score went back to his minivan. He opened the sliding door, ducked in, and closed it behind him. Both side walls of the van had custom racks that secured a multitude of metal suitcases, ranging from palm-size to big enough to hold an automatic rifle. He selected a case, turned on his penlight, and glanced quickly at the contents. Locaters and bugs of all sizes were stashed in their cut-out foam nests. He opened Jill’s satellite phone, looked at the battery, and shook his head.

  He pulled out a second metal suitcase. The bugs and locaters in this one came inside their own batteries.