Death in D Minor

by Alexia Gordon

  Yseult nodded. “Ryan’s is a place of interest, and the Hester Creech miniature is an item of interest.”

  “An item of interest. You mean a fake? You can’t seriously believe Jackson is involved in art fraud. I waited for,” she glanced at the clock, “over an hour for someone to come talk to me. Add that to the time Jackson spent here before I arrived, and it adds up to plenty of time for you to do your homework. So I’m sure you know, number one, Jackson’s no idiot. If he was going to steal art—which he’d never do—he wouldn’t try to walk out of a secure building, or any building, with stolen goods shoved in his pocket. You also must know, number two, Jackson’s on your side. He’s helped law enforcement more than once in fraud investigations. He’s dedicated to stopping art crime, not committing it.”

  “Yes, I did do my homework. I familiarized myself with Dr. Applethwaite’s efforts on behalf of law enforcement, among other things. I also familiarized myself with your career. You’re quite the prodigious musician.”

  What did her musical talent have to do with embroidery, stolen, fake, or otherwise? “We’re talking about Jackson.”

  “Let’s talk about parties instead, at least for a moment. Have you ever heard of Olivia McCarthy-Boyle?”

  As a matter of fact…“She’s an art collector. Lives here in Ballytuam.”

  “Art collector, philanthropist, renowned hostess. She’s hosting a fundraiser the day after tomorrow to benefit the children’s hospital. It’s possible one or two of the party guests will actually care about children’s health.”

  “Meaning the other guests care about what?”

  “Mrs. McCarthy-Boyle’s art collection. They’ll be there to get a look at it before she sells it off. Which she’s been doing bit by bit.”

  O’Reilly mentioned Olivia’s recent auctions. He hadn’t seemed to think much of them. Did Yseult? “You’re going somewhere with this.”

  “I’ll hurry and get there. We believe an art forgery and theft ring moved from Dublin and now operates out of Ballytuam. They sell art forgeries—paintings, textiles, sculptures, antiquities—to seemingly respectable galleries. The gallery owners are in on the scam; they know they’re buying fakes. The galleries then sell the fakes below market value to carefully selected art collectors. These ‘special’ collectors know they’re buying fakes. They’re co-conspirators. Now the fakes have passed through the hands of ostensibly reputable galleries into the hands of notable, if unscrupulous, collectors. They have provenance.”

  “They look legit.” Like O’Reilly explained.

  Yseult continued. “The collectors wait an amount of time, years in some cases, then sell the fake artworks at auction or in private sales. At or above market value. Sometimes the collectors use an auction house in on the scheme. The auctioneers provide additional completely bogus documentation authenticating the works and steer sales to buyers who won’t question the auction house’s authentication. Other times, the collectors pretend the objects are genuine. If a collector can’t sell the work, it may be conveniently stolen by the same criminal ring who created the fake in the first place and the collector files an insurance claim.”

  “That’s how the scam worked in New York and Dublin? Selling fakes, then stealing them back for the insurance money or pawning them off on dupes at auction? Except in New York and Dublin it was paintings, not textiles.”

  “You have an interest in art crime, Dr. Brown?”

  “I saw an article in the Dunmullach Dispatch. Jackson mentioned he’d been consulted about historic paint colors. Of course, since you did your homework, you probably know that.”

  “I am aware of Dr. Applethwaite’s past efforts on behalf of law enforcement. But time passes. People change. They begin to see the world differently after they dedicate years of their lives to doing the right thing with little to show for it while the bad guys go unpunished and reap the wealth.”

  “Other people change. Not Jackson. Or did you mean Mrs. McCarthy-Boyle? You think she’s mixed up in art fraud and theft? That she’s become one of the ‘special’ collectors? I don’t know a lot about her, but from the little I’ve heard, I gathered she’s a doyenne of the fine art world.”

  “Being a respected personage is no elixir against greed.”

  True. Look at Hank Wayne. And Olivia did own the sampler planted in Jackson’s coat pocket. “Do you think she’s behind this? The theft was a setup to file a bogus insurance claim?”

  Yseult hesitated again. Did she always weigh her words so carefully or was she just holding out? She rubbed Gethsemane the wrong way. Or had Frankie’s opinion biased her?

  “We’re keeping an open mind about the attempted theft of the miniature,” Yseult said. “However, my—our—investigation focuses primarily on another piece in Olivia’s collection. The star of the show. The Patience Freeman sampler.”

  “The what?”

  “The Patience Freeman sampler, a piece too rare to be believed. Excuse me.” Yseult went to the door and spoke to someone in the hall. She came back to the table a moment later with a folder in her hand. She laid it on the table and opened it to a photograph, which she handed Gethsemane.

  “What am I looking at?” Gethsemane held up the photo. An embroidered sampler—an alphabet above and a multiplication table below—filled the frame. A flowered border surrounded the letters and numbers and tied the two sections together. Centered at the bottom, below the flowered border, a stitched name and date identified the maker and the year of creation—Patience Freeman, 1764. Someone had written “20 x 24” on the photo’s border.

  “It’s a schoolgirl sampler.” She’d learned that much from Jackson.

  “Not just any schoolgirl sampler. The Patience Freeman sampler.” Yseult took the photo and gazed at it. Almost lovingly, Gethsemane thought.

  “Is Patience Freeman someone I should know?” she asked.

  “Dr. Applethwaite may have mentioned her?”

  Gethsemane shook her head. If he had mentioned her during one of his curbside lectures, she hadn’t paid attention.

  Yseult explained, “Patience Freeman, the daughter of a free black seamstress and an enslaved silversmith, lived in Williamsburg, Virginia prior to the American War of Independence. She attended the Williamsburg Bray School, one of the schools founded by English philanthropists to provide black children with a Christian education, run by Ann Wager.”

  Gethsemane nodded at the photo. “Patience Freeman stitched the sampler while a student at the school?”

  “Yes, when she was eleven. The photo doesn’t do it justice. Patience possessed needle skills as fine as any degree student at the Royal School of Needlework. The quality of the stitching alone would make the sampler worth a fortune. And eighteenth-century schoolgirl samplers are like hen’s teeth. A sampler by a less skilled stitcher in such good condition would fetch a huge sum at auction. Plus, samplers by black schoolgirls from any century are practically nonexistent—”

  “Meaning this sampler is rarer than rare and you could sell it for more money than what Facebook, Apple, and Samsung combined are worth.”

  “Precisely. Now you understand why I say the sampler is too rare to be believed. If something sounds too good to be true—”

  “It probably is. You think it’s a fake,” Gethsemane said, “a product of the crime ring you’re investigating.”

  Yseult shrugged. And smiled.

  “But you’re not sure if Olivia is in on the scam and knows it’s a fake, or if she’s been duped. But I still don’t see what any of this has to do with me. I could understand if you asked Jackson to help, but—”

  “Your brother-in-law doesn’t play the violin. Olivia’s hired an ensemble, a sextet, I believe, to provide the entertainment at her fundraiser. One of the musicians canceled at the last minute. Auditions for a replacement are being held. The last audition is tomorrow.”

  “And you want me
to, what, get the gig? Go to the party?”

  “And while you’re there, have a look around Olivia’s office for the bill of sale for the Freeman sampler.”

  “I’m a musician, not a detective.”

  “I hear you’re quite the investigator. You found evidence to exonerate a man twenty-five years after he’d been falsely accused of a crime. Don’t sell yourself short.”

  She said she did her homework. “I’m flattered you consider me a first-class snoop, but I’m a civilian. Can’t you send a garda or an investigator from the prosecutor’s office or one of your ‘special’ colleagues to look for the receipt?”

  “We can’t send guards without warrants, and we can’t get warrants without cause. We have no evidence—yet—any crime has been committed related to the Freeman sampler. Judges don’t issue warrants just so we can look ’round. My ‘special’ colleagues have other, let’s call them obligations the night of the party. And you have the best cover. You’ll be working at Olivia’s house, so you’ll have opportunity to search areas not open to party guests without raising eyebrows.”

  “And if I get caught, you can plausibly deny having anything to do with me.” Her mistrust of Yseult had nothing to do with Frankie’s opinion.

  “You won’t get caught, Dr. Brown. I have faith in you. And you won’t be completely on your own. Other assets will be present in the arena.”

  Assets in the arena? Had she stepped into a John Le Carré novel?

  “Attending to their other obligations?”

  “But available in an emergency.”

  “I’m not going to steal anything.”

  “We’re not asking you to steal. That would be against the law. We’re only asking you to try to find the receipt and to photograph it front and back if you do find it.”

  “In exchange for which you’ll forget the absurd notion Jackson had anything to do with attempted art theft.”

  “We would certainly take your cooperation in the matter into consideration.”

  Quid pro quo. Help Yseult, help Jackson. “What if I don’t get the gig?”

  “Have no fear. With your talent and—what shall we call it—determination, I’ve no doubt the job is yours for the asking. Especially since the other musicians who auditioned played about as well as my seven-year-old niece.”

  How could Yseult know what the competition was like, unless…“Lucky break, that musician canceling at the last minute.”

  “You make your own luck.”

  “I want to see Jackson.”

  “You’ll help us?”

  “Yes, I’ll help.” Snooping around a fancy party for a receipt couldn’t be any harder than snooping around dead men’s houses and abandoned asylums for clues to a killer. “I want to see my brother-in-law.”

  Yseult rose. “One moment. Wait here.” She paused in the doorway. “I’d appreciate you not sharing the details of this conversation.”

  A short while later, Jackson, shirt open at the collar, pants crease wrinkled, sat in the chair vacated by Yseult. The tip of his necktie protruded from his suit jacket pocket.

  “How are you?” Gethsemane asked.

  “I’m fine, Sissy. How are you? I told you to go home.”

  “And I told you I wouldn’t. Don’t worry about anything. It may take me a little while, but I’ll find you a lawyer. We’ll get you out of here before nightfall.”

  Jackson put a hand on her arm. “I don’t need a lawyer. Not yet, anyway. So far, they’ve only asked me questions. Lots of questions. Art theft’s a serious crime.”

  “A crime you had nothing to do with.”

  “I’m sure we’ll get things straightened out. I’m not worried.”

  “Jackson—”

  “You shouldn’t worry either.”

  “I swear you’d say don’t worry if we were standing in the middle of Main Street during an earthquake with the four horsemen of the apocalypse bearing down on us at full speed. You can’t just sit back and trust things will turn out the way they’re supposed to.” She learned that the hard way. If things had gone as planned, she’d be conducting Mahler in Cork right now. “You have to take action.”

  “Sissy, it’s too early to panic. I haven’t been charged with any crime, and I’m voluntarily cooperating with the investigation.”

  “Can I at least call—”

  “No. You know how your sister gets. Please don’t call her. She’ll only get worked up for no reason.”

  Her middle sister did tend to overreact to distressing news. “So there’s nothing I can do?”

  “You can please go home. The one thing I am worried about is you hanging around here worrying about me.”

  Gethsemane acquiesced. She said goodbye to Jackson and promised to come back and fetch him, lawyer in tow, if he didn’t return to Dunmullach before midnight. An officer escorted Jackson out and Yseult resumed her chair. She laid a floral pendant on the table.

  “Jewelry?”

  “Look closer,” Yseult said.

  Gethsemane examined the pendant. Rose gold petals and pearls concealed a small lens. “A camera.”

  Yseult bent one of the petals back. Gethsemane barely heard the shutter’s soft click. “Remember,” Yseult said, “we’re only asking you to photograph the bill of sale front and back. Nothing more.”

  “What will photos of a receipt prove?”

  “Prove? Nothing. But they will give us some indication of the legitimacy of the sale. Enough to let us know whether we need to—obtain—the actual document.”

  “With one of those probable cause warrants you mentioned?”

  Yseult shrugged.

  “And what if I don’t find it? What if no receipt exists?”

  “That would tell us something, too. My mother saves receipts for any purchase more expensive than a pair of shoes. You could buy a human life for less than what the Freeman sampler’s worth. If you bought something so valuable on the open market, free and clear, wouldn’t you save the receipt?”

  “Yeah, I guess I would.” No further questions. Yseult would only craft another of her non-answer answers. She disliked this woman. She picked up the camera pendant. “I have a train to catch.”

  “I’ll have someone drive you.” Yseult rose.

  “Don’t go to the trouble. The air will do me good.” And the wait for a ride would mean another hour sitting in the station.

  Preoccupied with her thoughts on the walk to the station, she passed the Perryman gallery without stopping. However, from the corner of her eye she saw the tapestry she’d admired earlier had gone from the window, replaced by a needlepoint fire screen. She backtracked and leaned closer to the window to look. She noticed someone inside the gallery: a well-dressed man with a silver pompadour.

  Hank Wayne. In an art gallery. Given his attitude toward classical music, she’d filed him firmly under “Philistine.” She couldn’t imagine he was buying art. Was he in Ballytuam to buy more properties? She went inside. “Hello, Mr. Wayne.”

  A practiced smile replaced the developer’s annoyed frown. “Dr. Brown, this is a surprise. What brings you to Ballytuam?”

  High-end auctions, art crime, family in distress, the usual. “I heard there were a lot of nice galleries here, more than in Dunmullach. I’m looking, uh, for a present for a friend who collects. How about you? Thinking of turning this place into another Wayne Resorts International Star Property?”

  The smile dimmed a few watts.

  “I’m purchasing a piece or two for my own collection. I think that,” he nodded at a tapestry depicting a Roman banquet, “would do nicely at Carraigfaire.”

  She ignored the gibe. Sort of. “Actually, seascapes are more in keeping with the whole cliffside-cottage-lighthouse-waterfront motif. Kind of like the paintings already hanging. I didn’t peg you for an art collector. Seeing as how real estate keeps you
too busy for music, I’d have thought it left you no time for any of the finer things in life.”

  “Art is an investment.” No trace of smile remained. “Well-chosen, it increases in value. Not this stuff, though.” He waved a hand around the gallery. “Strictly for the tourists and yokels. Perryman sources high-value works for me on commission. Don’t you, Perry?”

  “Yes, sir, Mr. Wayne.” A youngish dark-haired man in a mink-brown double-breasted wool suit and wire-rimmed glasses entered from a back room.

  “I’ve known Perry for years, since he was a dealer in New York.” He addressed the gallery owner. “You were a kid then. Barely out of short pants.”

  “Just out of college, anyway.”

  “You stormed the scene, made the deals, took no prisoners. You were aggressive, hungry. I admired that. Reminded me of me at that age. How long’s it been since that auction at Christeby’s? What was it called? ContempoPop?”

  “Yes, sir, ContempoPop. It’s been a while.” He turned to Gethsemane. “May I help you with anything?”

  “No, thank you. I recognized Mr. Wayne through the window and stepped in to say hello.”

  “Have you gotten that Jasper Koors for me yet, Perry?”

  “Still working on it, sir. The current owner is loath to part with it.”

  “Offer her more money. Everyone has a price. At some point, she’ll decide she’d rather have the cash than the canvas.” Wayne’s smug smile made Gethsemane want to stomp on his foot. “I’ve already selected the spot in my New York office where I’m going to hang it, and I want it up before the next board of directors meeting.”

  Something about the exchange, something other than Hank’s attitude, nagged Gethsemane. She spied a copy of Irish Craft magazine on a table and it hit her. “You don’t have any paintings on display, Mr. Perryman.” Needlework hung framed on the walls, lay folded on shelves, and stood incorporated into objects throughout the gallery. But not a single painting.