Murder at the Falls

by Stefanie Matteson

  Then there was a host of other suspects, starting with Bernice Spiegel: greed again, as well as the desire to preserve her brother’s reputation. With Randy out of the way, the palimony issue would be eliminated. There was also the possibility that she could have claimed the missing paintings for Spiegel’s estate. The estate lawyers had told Patty that the paintings would go to her, but maybe they were wrong. Next was Louise Sicca: same motive as above, but diluted. Unlike Bernice, she didn’t care about her husband’s name. Nor did she appear to care about his money. Bernice and Louise were the major suspects on the “B” list. There were also two minor suspects. The first was Patty, who might have killed Randy for the same motive as her father. The second was Mary Catherine Koreman. For her, Randy’s death not only eliminated an expensive middleman, it also opened up new business opportunities in the form of shaking down other galleries for the Lumkins’ business.

  In considering Bernice, Louise, and Mary Catherine as suspects, Charlotte wondered briefly if a woman would have been capable of wrapping Randy’s body up in the aprons and tossing it into the raceway, and concluded that it would not only have been possible, but easy. Though he was muscular, Randy had been a small man—he couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred and forty. Bernice, Louise, and Mary Catherine were all large women, reasonably fit and in good health. Bernice and Louise probably outweighed Randy by twenty or thirty pounds, and Mary Catherine by a good deal more. Charlotte remembered noticing how muscular Louise’s forearms were, probably from pounding clay. And though Patty was petite, she would also have strong arms. Carrying trays laden with heavy Buffalo-ware was no easy feat.

  She reached for another handful of potato chips, but the bowl was empty.

  She was getting up for a refill when the phone rang. It was her stepdaughter, Marsha Rogers, nee Lundstrom. Though Charlotte no longer kept in touch with Jack, she did with his daughter. She and Marsha had similar interests, chief among them their interest in art, and Marsha often accompanied Charlotte to museum and gallery shows. Now that Marsha was married—she had married a paleontologist whom she’d met on a trip she and Charlotte had taken to China—she didn’t spend as much time in New York, and they no longer palled around as much as they once had. But they did stay in touch.

  Marsha was calling now to say hello. She had spent the earlier part of the summer on a dig in China, as she had for the past four years. The fact that her husband had discovered dinosaur fossils in China was a happy circumstance for a wife who happened to be a scholar of Tang dynasty poetry, While he dug for fossils, she translated antique manuscripts.

  “How is your father?” asked Charlotte. She winced inwardly at the mention of a topic she would rather not have discussed, but which she felt compelled to bring up out of a sense of politesse that was probably overblown.

  “At the moment, I’d have to say that he’s steaming mad.”

  “Over what?” asked Charlotte, hoping it wasn’t her.

  “A Lipschitz,” Marsha replied, referring to the sculptor whose abstract pieces had helped define cubism. “A small mother and child. He bought it a few years ago at a Madison Avenue Gallery.”

  “The one that was on the pedestal in the living room?”

  “That’s the one. Anyway, as you probably know, he was quite attached to it. The other night he gave a party, and one of the guests identified the piece as having been stolen from a warehouse in Hastings-on-Hudson where Lipschitz’s sculptures are stored.

  “How did this person know?”

  “He was an art critic who had not only written a book on Lipschitz, but had also drawn up the catalogue raisonné of his works. He knew precisely which works had been stolen from the warehouse.”

  “Didn’t the gallery Jack bought it from supply a provenance?” asked Charlotte. It was unusual for the kind of prestigious uptown galleries that Jack patronized to be anything less than on the up and up.

  “Yes, they did. That’s the interesting part. This is what the thieves had done: they had placed the piece in a house sale, not an everyday house sale, but a house sale at a mansion up on the Hudson—the kind of place that would have fine art, but not great art, if you know what I mean. They didn’t identify it as a Lipschitz, of course. Then they bought it back for a fraction of its real worth. Now they had a receipt for an abstract sculpture of a mother and child purchased for five thousand, or whatever. They then offered the piece to Sotheby’s. Sotheby’s questioned the receipt, but the thieves had the catalog from the house sale to back it up. Sotheby’s auctioned it off as a Lipschitz—it had been signed by the artist—and the Madison Avenue Gallery bought it.”

  Something about Marsha’s story was sending signals to an alarm at the back of Charlotte’s brain, but she didn’t know what it was. “I hope the gallery is going to reimburse Jack,” she said.

  “Oh yes. He’s not out any money, but he is out the sculpture.”

  As Marsha went on about Jack trying to buy the sculpture back from the Lipschitz estate, which owned the sculptures in the warehouse, the alarm in Charlotte’s brain suddenly went off. She remembered where she had seen the painting of the diner that Tom had bid on at the Ivanhoe Gallery auction. “Excuse me,” she said. “I don’t mean to be rude. But you might have just helped me solve a very important problem. Would you mind if I called you back in a little while? I have to make a phone call.”

  After hanging up, she immediately called Voorhees’ home number, which he had given her. He seemed surprised to hear from her, but was willing enough to listen to what she had to say. She could hear the tinkling of ice in a glass; it sounded as if he had spent the evening doing the same thing she had.

  First she told him about Randy’s attempt to murder Spiegel, and then about their discovery that Ed Verre was really Don Spiegel. Next she told him about John seeing Arthur Lumkin behind the diner. Finally, she told him about Spiegel’s plan to “gaslight” Randy. She also asked him to check Verre/Spiegel’s alibi, and reminded him to let her know what he had found out. “We only found out today that Patty Andriopoulis was Randy’s heir,” she complained. “It was a crucial bit of information that you just happened to leave out.”

  “I did?” he said, all innocence. “I must have forgotten.”

  “Well, next time tie a string around your finger,” she snapped. Then she told him about their deduction that Randy’s body must have been thrown in the raceway below the dam at the old gatehouse.

  “I would say that you’ve been busy, Miss Graham,” Voorhees said when she had finished. There was an unconcealed note of admiration in his voice.

  “Now for the meaty part,” she continued. “I know who stole the paintings. But this time you’re going to be the one who has to wait to find out the details. Would tomorrow at ten be all right?”

  “I’ll be there with bells on,” he said.

  No sooner had Charlotte hung up the phone than it rang again. This time it was a woman with a heavy accent. Charlotte had trouble understanding the message at first. Then she finally got it: the caller was an Andriopoulis relative calling at Patty’s behest to tell her that John Andriopoulis was dead. He had died in the coronary care unit at St. Joseph’s earlier that evening. The funeral would be held in two days at St. George Greek Orthodox Church. The caller went on to say that the family appreciated Charlotte’s efforts to clear John’s name, and that they hoped she would be able to attend.

  Charlotte wasn’t surprised; John had looked like a goner. But she was surprised at how sad she felt about the death of a man she hardly knew. A lot of it was her own reading of a life that, to all outward appearances, had been one of unremitting drudgery. But she doubted that he had felt the same way. To him it had probably been a rich life, with close ties to family, church, and community. She felt as if she should go, but she also felt as if she would be doing so under false pretenses. She hadn’t really been trying to clear John’s name—she had just been trying to solve a murder.

  Now she wondered if she ever would.

 
She arrived at Voorhees’ office a little early. Though it was a foggy, rainy day, which usually slowed traffic down, it hadn’t been as bad as she expected. The weather was due to the effects of a hurricane that was churning up the waters off the coast of the Carolinas. The National Weather Service had issued a hurricane watch for the storm, Hurricane Clyde, which was expected to start heading inland soon. She found Voorhees with his feet up on his desk, dictating into a tape recorder. She wondered what he was going to do about the investigation now that the suspect who had been charged with the murder was dead.

  “Oh, Miss Graham,” he said, returning his feet to the floor. “Come in.” He nodded at the tape recorder. “I was just dictating some case notes,” he explained. “Please have a seat.” He pointed to a folding chair against the wall.

  She nodded at the recorder. “Is there anything in your notes I should know about?” she asked sarcastically as she sat down.

  “Touché,” he replied, with a glimmer of a smile. “As a matter of fact, there is.” He picked up a piece of paper and handed it to her. “You might be interested in taking a look at this.”

  It was a hand-drawn map of Randy’s camp—actually two maps. The first one showed the general layout with the locations of each of the diners and the connecting pathways; the second one was a detailed floor plan of the Short Stop including everything from bidet to bird bath. The second map included a broken line indicating a sight line that ran from a nearby tree to the bed.

  “Arthur Lumkin?” she said. As she spoke, she realized that they would never have the chance to show John the photo of Lumkin, and to determine for sure if it was he who had driven around the diner.

  Voorhees nodded. “We found it in a desk in his apartment. Quite a place, by the way. A Park Avenue penthouse. Have you been there?”

  “A few parties,” she said.

  He looked impressed. Charlotte imagined that the Lumkins’ penthouse, with its opulent appointments and fabulous art must have been quite a switch from the tenements and burned-out mills that were the usual venue of Voorhees’ investigations.

  “We went in to talk with him last night, after you told us about John’s seeing him at the diner. We had a search warrant. We also found another map—of Goslau’s studio, with the number of steps from one room to the next all spelled out. Did you notice the sight line?”

  Charlotte nodded.

  “The map of the studio has one too. From the bluff overlooking the parking lot across the street. I find it hard to imagine a man of Lumkin’s stature hiding in a tree with a pair of binoculars. Why do you think he would do something like this? You know him.”

  “Not that well. He never says much; it’s always Xantha who does all the talking. I never understood why he put up with her affairs, but then, people do strange things in the name of love.”

  “So they do,” he said with a rueful little smile.

  “Did you find anything else?”

  “A stack of bills from a private eye, along with transcripts of Xantha’s telephone conversations with Goslau—some of them pretty spicy. He’d had Goslau’s phone tapped. Also, some photos of her in bed with Goslau. Also pretty spicy.”

  Charlotte raised an eyebrow.

  “Here’s the map of the mill,” he said, handing it over to her.

  Charlotte looked at the drawing. “Maybe writing it all down gave him a feeling of control,” she speculated. “Or maybe he’s a voyeur who gets a kick out of seeing his wife in bed with another man.”

  “Or maybe he’s a jealous husband who’s obsessed with his wife’s infidelity,” he said. “Obsessed enough to kill.”

  “Maybe,” she agreed. “I came across a piece on the gossip page of the Post that mentioned Xantha’s leaving him for a young photorealist artist. It seems like more than just a coincidence that the piece ran the day before his wife’s lover was murdered.”

  “I didn’t know that. It looks like I’m not the only one who’s been holding out.” He looked at her, and smiled. “You’re right: it does seem like more than just a coincidence.”

  They were interrupted by the arrival of Martinez with a woman whom Voorhees introduced as Agent Carolyn Healey of the art fraud squad of the FBI’s New York division. Agent Healey was the least likely FBI agent Charlotte had ever met, though of the limited number of FBI agents of her acquaintance, none had really fit the image. Not only was she a woman, she was plump, middle-aged, and frumpy. With her round, rubicund face, wire-rimmed glasses, and Prince Valiant haircut (which looked as if someone had put a bowl over her head), she might have been a rural schoolteacher. But when they shook hands, the impression of schoolmarmish severity was immediately dissolved by her wide, sunny smile and honeyed Southern accent.

  “Agent Healey has been working on the recovery of the missing paintings,” Voorhees explained. “She’s been working with art dealers and Interpol. The FBI is always called in to assist the local police on the theft of art worth over five thousand dollars because of the likelihood that it will be transported across state lines, which is a violation of Federal law.”

  Martinez, who had left the room, returned with another folding chair, which he placed next to Charlotte’s for the FBI agent.

  “Agent Healey is very eager to hear what you have to tell us,” said Voorhees. “As am I and Martinez, here. We would be very pleased if you would enlighten us.” Then he waved his arm stiffly as if he were Ed Sullivan introducing the next dog act, and the attention of the three law enforcement officers shifted to Charlotte.

  “First, I’d like to see a list of the missing paintings, with descriptions,” she said. “Do you have one available?”

  Voorhees dug out two sheets from among the untidy heap of papers on his desk, and passed them to Martinez, who got up and handed them to Charlotte.

  She, in turn, pulled out an auction catalog from her pocketbook. “This is the catalog for an auction that was held at the Ivanhoe Gallery last Thursday,” she explained, handing the catalog to Healey. “The Ivanhoe is located on Spruce Street, just below the Falls. The owner is a Miss Diana Nelson. I call your attention to Lot Number Four: Diner, unsigned. Photorealist style. Oil: twenty-four by thirty-six.”

  Healey stopped taking notes to study the catalog.

  “Now I’m going to tell you a story related to me by my stepdaughter, Marsha Rogers.” She went on to repeat Marsha’s story about the Lipschitz, to the bafflement of her audience. It was clear from their expressions that they thought she was off on a wild goose chase. Voorhees was wriggling with embarrassment at having called in the FBI agent to listen to such a wild tale. After pausing at the end of the story, Charlotte continued: “When I heard this story, I thought of the diner painting in the Ivanhoe auction. Though I didn’t remember it until later, I had seen this painting several days before in the studio of the Paterson artist Jason Armentrout. Jason’s usual subject matter is the world of go-go bars, and I remembered thinking then that a diner was an unusual choice of subject matter for him.”

  “Why were you visiting him?” asked Healey, pencil poised.

  “I was there to ask him about the murder victim, Randy Goslau. Lieutenant Voorhees had asked me to draw on my connections in the Paterson art world—such as they are—to look into Randy’s death.”

  Healey raised an eyebrow at Voorhees, as if to say, Do you mean to tell me that you’re involving amateurs? and Voorhees stared her down like an insolent fourth-grader caught breaking the rules.

  “Jason was a friend of Randy’s,” Charlotte went on. “Or had been. They had had a falling out over a loan that Randy had never paid back. What I think happened is this: when Bernice sued Randy for the return of the paintings, he became worried that she would break into his studio and steal them. His studio was in the mill that had been owned by Spiegel, and was inherited by Bernice.”

  “So she would have keys,” said Healey.

  Charlotte nodded. “The fact that she had already tried to evict Randy demonstrated to him that she had few scruples when
it came to protecting what she saw as her rightful inheritance. To prevent her from getting hold of the paintings, he asked his friend Jason to hide them in his studio.”

  “Address?” asked Healey, who now was sitting up at attention.

  “I don’t know. It’s in the Columbia Bank building in downtown Paterson, to the right of City Hall.”

  “Martinez will get it for you,” said Voorhees. He pointed the end of his pen at Martinez, who made a notation on a pad. “Do continue, Miss Graham,” said Voorhees, now reassured that she wasn’t going to make a fool out of him, that she might, in fact, even make him look good. He leaned back in his chair, and folded his hands across his belly.

  “When Randy died, Jason realized that he was sitting on eight million dollars’ worth of paintings that nobody knew were in his possession. Maybe he even thought he had a right to them because of the money Randy owed him.”

  “How did he know that nobody knew?” asked Voorhees.

  “Maybe Randy told him that he wasn’t telling anyone else. Or maybe he just waited, and when no one came forward to tell the police where the paintings were, he came to that conclusion. He decided to sell the paintings. But how to go about this? Any reputable gallery owner would question a painting without a provenance. That’s where his diner painting comes in.”