Brush With Death

by Lind, Hailey

  That did it. I was swearing off men for the foreseeable future. I would sublimate with chocolate, I thought with a bite of warm croissant.

  A gust of wind rattled the café’s front window and jolted me from my reverie. Okay, Annie, focus. Forget Michael and his lying, thieving, sexy ways. You’ve got bigger fish to fry. Aaron Garner and Billy Mudd were planning to develop a Tim O’Neill-inspired subdivision on Bayview Cemetery’s Potter’s Field, and Helena was champing at the bit to build a home with a view of her son’s grave. The cemetery didn’t have the money to fight the development unless it came up with some big bucks. I’d shot down Roy Cogswell’s hope of cashing in on the miniature portraits collection. What else might there be of value?

  I drummed my fingers on the tabletop, annoying the elderly man at the next table, who stalked out in a huff. Let’s see, cemeteries had bodies, and lots of them. And gravestones. And monuments. And crypts. Louis Spencer’s crypt had contained more than a bowing stained glass window. The metal box Cindy Tanaka and I had found held objects worth thirty-five thousand dollars. Might other crypts have hidden wealth? I remembered Mrs. Henderson telling me that Roy Cogswell grew up in the cemetery, which meant he’d had plenty of time to explore the crypts. Roy was also tall. And lanky. I closed my eyes and imagined him in a cape and a green mask.

  Well, duh.

  I raced out of the café, flagged down a taxi, picked up my truck at the studio, and headed across the bridge to the columbarium. Miss Ivy wrinkled her nose when I swept in.

  “Where’s Roy?” I demanded.

  “You look like a drowned rat,” she sniffed.

  “Thanks. Where’s Roy?”

  “He left not long ago with a professor from Cal. They went over to the cemetery office. What do you—”

  Darting through the raindrops and splashing through the puddles, I reached the former caretaker’s cottage and barged in, prepared to confront Roy and demand an explanation.

  The words died on my lips when I saw the gun.

  Chapter 20

  . . . Art is a habit-forming drug. That’s all it is, for the artist, for the collector, for anybody connected with it. Art has absolutely no existence as veracity, as truth.

  —Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968), French painter

  If art is a drug, then I must be the head of a drug cartel, which sounds very dreary.

  —Georges LeFleur

  Staring down the barrel of a deadly weapon is a terrifying experience. Even when the man holding the gun looks like he’s ready to keel over.

  “Get in here,” Roy hissed and slammed the door behind me. On the brown Naugahyde couch sat Dr. Gossen and Helena, pale and wary, like children waiting to be shown into the principal’s office. Over the stone fireplace, Tim O’Neill’s floral version of domestic heaven seemed to mock our little party.

  “Hey, Roy,” I said, trying to sound calm. “What’s going on?”

  “Sit on the couch with them,” Roy said, gesturing with the gun.

  “The gun’s not necessary, is it?” I asked, moving toward the others.

  Roy shook his head, as though he were trying to rid himself of thoughts. “I don’t know what to do. This is terrible.”

  “I have to say I’m surprised, Roy,” I said. “You’re the last person in the world I would expect to be brandishing a weapon, much less robbing graves.”

  “You think I wanted to desecrate Louis’ crypt? I had no choice!” He sank into an upholstered chair but kept his weapon trained on us. “I needed money, and I needed it fast. My father always said there was treasure buried in Louis Spencer’s crypt. I never used to believe it, but Russell convinced me to look. And then Cindy showed up, of all the nights! I was scared witless.”

  “And you needed the money to fight off the land development?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Garner found a loophole in the land deeds. Under the law, the Potter’s Field residents can be removed and the land sold provided the developer agrees to relocate and rebury the remains. Do you know what that would have done to my father, to the good name of Cogswell?”

  “Really, Roy, you’re overreacting,” Helena piped up. “The bodies in Potter’s Field don’t care where they are. Why waste that beautiful view on a bunch of . . . those kinds of people?”

  “You stupid bitch!” Roy yelled, swinging the gun in her direction. “You’re the cause of all this!”

  Clearly Helena had not caught on to my calm-down-the-psycho-with-the-gun game plan. I shot her a will you shut up, you fool? look, and she crossed her arms and sat back with a huff.

  “You felt pressured to accept Garner’s offer, is that it?” I said gently.

  Roy’s eyes looked tired and unfocused as they turned towardme. “Annie, you don’t understand. Our financial situation was my fault, all my fault. I gambled the endowment funds on the green burial movement, but it hasn’t done well. Garner made a generous cash offer, and the board’s fiduciary responsibilities require it to accept the offer unless I could find another way to pay off the debt and finance the earthquake retrofit. When the buried treasure angle didn’t pan out, I hoped the painting would be our salvation. And he”—Roy gestured at Dr. Gossen—“said it was valuable.”

  “I don’t know anything,” Dr. Gossen babbled, holding his hands up. “I was gobsmacked by the whole thing. Cindy said the painting was worth a lot. I only just got around to reading a prospectus she had written up about the whole affair. But then her boyfriend told me to keep my ‘nosy nose’ out of it, and Cindy killed herself, and then her roommate brought me the results of some tests . . . I was only trying to help.”

  “How did Cindy get involved with all of this?”

  “She was doing some research in the cemetery,” Roy said. “I gave her a key to the place and suggested she speak with Mrs. Henderson. I guess Cindy decided to write up her biography, which of course included Henderson’s lifelong obsession with that damned painting.”

  “La Fornarina?” I clarified.

  “We took it to an expert a while ago,” Roy said with a nod, “but he confirmed it was a copy from the eighteen hundreds. I looked over the file again, and the authenticator had no doubt. But Cindy insisted, and then with those test results . . .”

  “That girl got what she deserved,” Helena muttered from the couch.

  My stomach clenched in anger, but I ignored her. I could only deal with one crazy at a time, so I thought it wise to focus on the one with the gun. The rain pounded on the roof, and the wind rattled the eaves. Although it was not yet noon, the sky outside the window was dark, lending a surreal quality to our bizarre discussion.

  “Roy, none of this explains why you’re holding us all at gunpoint.”

  “I lost control of everything! First Cindy, then Russell— someone’s killing people over this! I wouldn’t have hurt you, you know,” Roy mumbled, and the revolver drooped in his pale hand. “But Russell was furious that you sprayed him with mace.”

  “It wasn’t mace, it was Lady Clairol. Extra-firm hold.”

  Roy ran his hand through his hair, leaving a tuft sticking out from his scalp at a forty-five-degree angle. He could use a spritz of Lady Clairol himself at the moment.

  “Poor Russell!” he lamented. “I knew he had allergies, but to die like that . . .”

  “Russell’s dead?” I gasped, recalling with a pang the helpless look in his eyes as I pounded on the Cadillac’s windows.

  “No. No, it looks like he’ll pull through. But he almost died. Russell was just trying to help me save the cemetery. He loves this place as much as I do. But he wouldn’t stop, even after what happened to Cindy. If we had found a fortune in Louis’ crypt we wouldn’t have to sell the land. But that stupid metal box was full of ashes! When I went to the crypt today to put it back I found—”

  “I told you a long time ago there was nothing worth stealing in that crypt,” Helena snapped, her coral lips twisted in an ugly frown. “Just accept the situation, Roy. The housing development will be beautiful, inspired by Tim O�
��Neill’s wonderful paintings, no less.”

  “You found the Raphael in Louis’ pyramid, didn’t you?” I asked Roy, ignoring the head docent.

  Roy looked at me, surprised, and nodded. “It was in the sepulcher. Someone put it right where the metal box had been. How did you know?”

  If only I’d figured it out sooner. I imagined I would never know what happened to Cindy Tanaka after we parted ways the night we met—did her late-night assignation with her “sort of” married lover turn into a nightmare with Billy demanding she tell him about the painting? Threatening her? Cindy must have come back the next morning, switched the original with the digital copy, moved La Fornarina somewhere that felt safe—Louis Spencer’s already robbed crypt—and then left the suitcase with the box for me at the columbarium. Had she wanted me to replace the metal box in the crypt, and thereby find the little baker girl?

  “Who would break into a crypt?” Helena frowned. “Some people have no respect for the dead.”

  “Listen to me, Roy,” I said. “If you’ve got the original painting, I can broker a deal for you with the Italians. I know some folks, officials at the National Gallery in Rome. You’ll have plenty of funds to take care of this place.” I paused and held out my hand. “Just give me the gun.”

  “How do I know you won’t shoot me?” he whined, swinging the gun toward me. I cringed. A whiner with a weapon was not a comforting combination.

  “I promise,” I said. “I’m not a violent person.”

  “She’ll shoot me,” Roy said, nodding at Helena, who looked as if she was plotting that very thing.

  “No, she won’t,” I insisted. “I’ll hold the gun.”

  “It’s not even loaded,” he sighed, defeated, and handed it to me.

  “Glad to hear it.” I checked the weapon for bullets; it was empty. My grandfather had long ago taught me the care and feeding of small sidearms—“just in case”—though I refused to own one because I didn’t think I had the guts to shoot anybody except by accident. I slipped the ugly thing into a pocket in my overalls. “You know what they say—guns don’t kill people, bullets kill people.”

  Roy, Dr. Gossen, and Helena looked confused.

  “It’s a joke, folks. Let’s all lighten up a little and see if we can figure out what’s going on.”

  A crack of lightning made us all jump and illuminated the stained glass window behind the counter.

  “Is that a Rosicrucian cross?” I asked to keep the conversation going until I could figure out what to do. We could be here awhile because at the moment I was clueless. “I noticed a similar one at your house, Helena.”

  “That’s an heirloom from Dick’s side of the family,” she said.

  “The whole family’s Rosicrucian,” Roy explained. “In fact, Louis Spencer was named for Spenser Lewis, who founded the church in San José. But we kept quiet about it. Father was afraid it would hurt business.”

  “You’re related to Dr. Dick?”

  “My grandfather and his grandmother were brother and sister. What does that make us?”

  “Beats me,” I said, my genealogy-chart-making skills failing once more.

  “Second cousins,” said the anthropology professor.

  “Did you all know the stories of treasure in the crypts?” I asked Roy.

  “Sure. Aaron, Dick, Helena, and I all grew up here, went to Piedmont High together. Dick was in love with Helena even then, I think.” He looked at Helena. “When you married Garner it nearly killed him.”

  Helena smiled in satisfaction, and again I wondered what it was about this woman that caused men to lust after her so. It had to be something unnatural.

  “Let me get this straight, Roy,” I said. “If you found something valuable enough you could persuade the board not to sell Potter’s Field to Aaron Garner and Billy Mudd, is that right?”

  “Why do you think I’ve acted like such an idiot?”

  “But then someone was trying to stop you and Russell. And Cindy.” And if Garner and Mudd didn’t acquire the land, Helena wouldn’t get her house with a view of her son’s grave. How far would Aaron Garner be willing to go to ensure his ex-wife’s happiness? Could he be putting those headstones from his yard to good use?

  “Where’s the painting you found in the sepulcher?” I said.

  Roy stood, reached around the counter, and brought out a long cardboard tube. “Take it, it’s yours. I can’t do this anymore.”

  I uncapped the tube and slid the painting out. For all I knew I would find Crispin Engels’ copy, or even the cheap digital one. But the merest glance revealed the canvas was old, very old. I took the painting to Russell’s desk and slowly unfurled it. Everything receded as Raphael’s beautiful baker girl, his lover and perhaps his wife, gazed at me with utter self-assurance across the distance of five centuries.

  I reminded myself to breathe, so exhilarated and frightened was I to touch Raphael’s great masterpiece. I had to get it to the authorities, and fast. I had to—

  The door flew open. It was Dr. Dick. With a gun. And, I presumed, bullets.

  “There you are,” he said to Helena, who smiled coquettishly.

  I reached into my pocket and pulled out Roy’s weapon. “Don’t even think about it, Dr. Dick,” I said, channeling Clint Eastwood.

  He paused.

  “Her gun’s not loaded, darling,” Helena said, and Dick smirked.

  I knew I didn’t like that woman.

  “Give me the gun, Annie,” Dr. Dick said. “Go on, now. Or I’ll shoot Roy.”

  I handed it over. Dick stuck it in my face, and pulled the trigger.

  I knew for a fact the gun was empty, but the good doctor didn’t. My heart leapt into my throat, and my bladder threatened to explode. Note to self: in the future, avoid psychopathic physicians willing to shoot you in the head at point-blank range.

  “Empty it is,” he said in a conversational tone. “Why would you threaten me with an empty gun?”

  “It was worth a shot. So to speak.” I thought my voice wavered but it was hard to tell over the sound of my pounding heart.

  Dr. Dick spotted the painting. “Lovely, just lovely. And it is the original?”

  “Hard to say,” I hedged.

  He shrugged. “The box, please.”

  “What box?”

  “The one from Louis Spencer’s pyramid. Time to tie up the loose ends. As if it’s not bad enough being forced to work with Garner on this housing development, I had to take care of all of these fortune-hunting idiots who were trying to stand in our way. The past few days have been very difficult. You have no idea what stress does to the gastrointestinal tract.”

  At the moment, I thought I just might.

  “Darling, Roy says the box only held worthless ashes,” Helena told him.

  “I’m not about to take his word for it, pet,” Dick said with a smile for his wife. “I want to put everything back where it belongs, make sure nothing incriminating is floating around.” He held his gun to my head. “Where’s the box?”

  “If I tell you, what’s to keep you from killing us?”

  “Tell you what. Either you tell me if the painting is real and where the box is, or . . .”

  Silence hung over the room like a thundercloud.

  “. . . I’ll destroy the painting.” Dr. Dick reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small vial of clear liquid. “This is concentrated sulfuric acid. Are you familiar with it?”

  “Chemistry’s not my strong suit,” I said.

  “Never would have made it through medical school, then! Sulfuric acid is a combination of hydrogen, sulfur, and oxygen. It’s highly corrosive. We used to sing a little ditty about it in organic chem class.

  ‘Little Johnny took a drink,

  but he shall drink no more,

  for what he thought was H2O was H2SO4.’”

  Helena laughed and clapped her hands.

  Good Lord, she’s as nutty as he is, I thought. Dr. Dick was right. They were made for each other.
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br />   “If I pour this acid on the painting, the resulting exothermic reaction will eat right through the canvas,” he continued.

  “You can’t do that!” I protested.

  “My dear, I assure you, I can. And I will.” He uncapped the vial. “Two little questions. Is the painting real? Where’s the box?”

  “But—”

  “Is. It. Real?” Dick repeated, tilting the vial over La Fornarina.

  “Yes. Don’t. Please.”

  “That wasn’t so hard, was it?” He recapped the vial and dropped it in his pocket. “Now, where’s the box?”

  “It’s hidden.”

  “Roy said he put it back in Louis’ crypt,” the ever-helpful Helena offered.

  “That was a decoy,” I said. If I told Dick I’d given the box to the police, what was to keep him from murdering us right here? I’d take my chances outside. “I know where the real one is.”

  “Where?”

  “In a crypt.”

  “But not Louis’ crypt?” He looked suspicious.

  “No, another one, up on the ridge.” I met his eyes, hoping I sounded sincere. “Near the Locklear Memorial.”

  “All righty.” He grabbed the Raphael with one hand. “Helena, pet, stay here. I don’t want you getting your footies damp and catching a cold. The rest of you, come with me.”

  I took a step toward him. “Please, Dr. Dick. Leave the painting.” The centuries-old paint and varnish would be able to withstand a little rain, but not much.

  “I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

  “At least let me put it in the cardboard tube to protect it.”

  “I never could resist a request from a pretty girl,” he sighed. “Go ahead, but hurry up.”

  I carefully rolled La Fornarina, whose steady gaze seemed to reassure me, slipped it in the tube, and popped on the plastic cap.

  “What are you doing here, Professor?” Dick looked over at Gossen. “You were so stubborn about not giving me Cindy’s personal information, I assumed you were smart enough to stay out of it.”