Natalie's Art: a Frank Renzi novel

by Susan Fleet

  “He was a good technician, but a second-rate artist. Nothing like Vermeer. His only claim to fame was fooling the art experts and that Nazi pig, Goring. He died in disgrace.” Pym waved his hand contemptuously, frowning at her, eyes narrowed, thin lips set in a line.

  A metallic taste filled her mouth. Was he angry with her? Maybe not. Like many men who were short in stature, Pym was ultra-sensitive about what others thought of him. To men like Pym, a man's reputation was paramount. Even now, more than three centuries after his death, Vermeer was revered by the art world. Van Meegeren had died in disgrace. But what did that have to do with Pym? The question would have to wait, though. Now she had to be Valerie, Pym's mistress.

  Foxhill and his wife, Daphne, greeted them as they entered the dining hall, a huge room with a flagstone floor, a high ceiling and a wall of windows overlooking a flower garden bordered by oak and willow trees. “Please be seated,” Sir Edmund said, gesturing at a small table set with white linen, crystal glassware and fine china.

  She took the chair opposite Daphne. Pym sat on her left, Sir Edmund on her right. He was older than Pym, a white-haired, ruddy-faced man with deep-blue eyes. Daphne looked at least fifteen years younger, slender with beautiful reddish hair. An emancipated woman. After they married she had kept her maiden name, Turner.

  A tuxedo-clad butler wheeled in the first course, a thick fish soup which he ladled into gold-rimmed china tureens and set in front of them. Sir Edmund and Pym began discussing the road repairs that had plagued them yesterday on their way here from London. Relieved that she didn't have to make conversation, she attacked the soup with gusto. It was tasty, but rich with cream. She smiled at Daphne. “Lovely soup. What sort of seafood is it?”

  “Scallops and lobster. I don't know what I'd do without a chef.” Daphne flashed a smile, which accentuated the dimples in her cheeks. “I'm useless in the kitchen. How about you?”

  Grateful for the girl talk, she responded with a rueful smile. “The same, I'm afraid.”

  “Bloody awful what happened in Oxford,” Sir Edmund said to Pym. “You heard, of course.”

  “Yes,” Pym said, spooning up his soup. “Another Rembrandt gone.”

  “And they shot the security guard!” Daphne exclaimed. “It was on the telly last night.”

  She spread butter on a roll, picturing the Beretta, hidden in her quarters. If they kept talking about the Oxford heist, she’d never be able to eat. She didn't dare ask what had happened to the Security Director.

  “Yes,” Pym said. “A nasty business. Have they got any leads?”

  “I hear that chap in London is on the case,” Sir Edmund said. “The Art and Antiquities chief.”

  Her stomach churned with acid. Who was the Art and Antiquities chief and what did he know about the heist?

  “Good man,” Pym said. “I heard him speak at a convention about art thefts a couple of years ago.” He smiled at Foxhill. “Right about the time I met Valerie.”

  His jovial tone curdled her blood. Met her after he fired whoever had been helping him steal paintings. He'd given her no details about the earlier heists but made it clear that her predecessor had fucked up. His words. An unmistakable warning. Where was her predecessor now, she wondered. Dead or alive?

  Foxhill spooned up the last of his soup and signaled the butler to take it away and bring the next course.

  “A lucky break for you,” Daphne said to Pym. “Meeting such a lovely woman. Please don't think me rude, Valerie, but you have such an exotic look about you. Where are you from?”

  Pym nudged her foot under the table. “Tell her your story, Valerie.”

  She forced a smile. Be who they want you to be. She parroted the same fake story she'd told Pym. Given his emphasis on the word story, she suspected he knew it was fake.

  “My mother was Vietnamese. My father was American, stationed there after the war. He was a captain in the army. After they got married my father left the military and they moved to France.”

  “Whereabouts?” Daphne said, as the butler set a plate of roast beef in front of her.

  “I was born in Lyon, but we only stayed there a few years.” She faked a laugh. “Just long enough for me to learn to speak French. Then we moved to the United States.”

  “What an interesting life you've had,” Daphne said.

  You have no idea. “What about you?” she said. “Are you related to Turner? The British painter?”

  Daphne trilled a laugh. “I wish. Not even a distant cousin, I'm afraid. I'm not the least bit artistic.”

  “Speaking of art,” Sir Edmund said to Pym, “On Wednesday, the board members of several art museums are meeting in London to discuss these thefts. As chairman of the Tate Museum board of trustees, I feel it's my responsibility to keep tabs on the investigation. Care to join me?”

  “Absolutely,” Pym said. “The sooner we find the bastards, the safer our priceless art will be.”

  His response disgusted her. Pym had called van Meegeren a trickster, but the art forger couldn't hold a candle to the ruthless art thief seated beside her. Pym was like a chess master, planning his game ten moves in advance. Take her out of London. Keep her with him to make sure he knew where she was every minute of the day and night. Get Sir Edmund to invite him to a meeting about the art heists so he could keep tabs on the investigation.

  She stared at the slice of rare roast beef her plate, bleeding into the mashed potatoes, and flashed on the dead security guard. Her stomach heaved. She clenched her teeth to keep from vomiting.

  What was Pym planning? Two years ago, she had managed to escape from New Orleans, but the threat from Pym and Gregor was worse. The police wouldn't kill her in cold blood, but Gregor would.

  She was certain he'd murdered the insider guards he had hired to facilitate the previous thefts. Would she have a fatal accident too?

  A drug overdose? Would she get mugged in in an alley some dark night? Thrown off a bridge into the Thames?

  She had to get away.

  As soon as they got back to London she would run for her life.

  CHAPTER 5

  Tuesday June 22, 2010 – New Orleans

  Jazzed with adrenaline, Frank gripped his cellphone in one hand, scribbled notes with the other. DCI Leonard Stanford had called to tell him about another art heist, a Rembrandt stolen from the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, northwest of London.

  “This one was a bit more complicated than the others,” Stanford said. “They killed a man, put another one in the hospital with a fractured skull.”

  A bit more complicated? That was an understatement. “Who'd they kill?”

  “The security guard, execution-style. One shot to the head.”

  His heart thrummed his chest. “Sounds like the woman I'm looking for. She shot three men in New Orleans and another one in Boston. One to the head each time.”

  “Bloody hell, no wonder you're after her.”

  He was after her all right, no need to tell Stanford how badly he wanted her. He heard Stanford yawn. He knew the feeling. A big case meant no sleep for days. He glanced at the clock. Two-thirty Central Time in New Orleans, six hours ahead in London, it was eight-thirty at night. Stanford was working overtime.

  “They took a Rembrandt,” he said. “Just the one painting?”

  “One was plenty. It's worth millions, no telling if we'll ever get it back. Two Rembrandts and a Vermeer were stolen from the Gardner Museum in 1990. Twenty years later they're still missing.”

  “I know. I was with Boston PD when it happened.”

  “You don't say! Don't suppose you were working the case . . . ?”

  “No. I was working Homicide, but every cop in Boston knew about it. The Boston FBI office took charge of the case, but I might be able to put you in touch with someone who worked on it.”

  One hand washes the other. Give a little, get a little. He wanted to go to London so bad he could taste it. He was convinced Natalie was involved in these heists. This could be the break he needed to fin
d her.

  “That would be splendid!” Stanford said. “Ever run across that Irishman? Whitey Bulger?”

  “Back in the day, some people figured he masterminded the Gardner heist, might be holding the paintings as a get-out-of-jail-free card. If they ever catch him.” Whitey and his girlfriend had been on the lam since 1995 when Whitey's FBI handler tipped him that the State cops were about to arrest him.

  “What about Myles Connor? Cheeky bloke, that one. Stole Rembrandt’s Portrait of a Young Woman from the Museum of Fine Arts in 1975, tried to cut a deal to spend less time in jail for another art theft.”

  Frank smiled, aware that Stanford was demonstrating his expertise about art heists, not just in Europe but all over the world, including Boston. Which was why Stanford was in charge of the Art and Antiques Crime Unit.

  “Myles Connor was in prison when the Gardner heist went down,” Frank said. “I never met him, never met Whitey either, but I worked a few gang-related cases. Drug dealers mostly.” Displaying his own expertise, hoping to convince DCI Stanford he'd be an asset to the London investigation. Anything to get himself to London.

  “That's my theory on these heists,” Stanford said. “These gangs are getting smarter. Dealing drugs brings too much heat. Stolen art is just as lucrative. These thugs are ruthless, Corsican gangsters in Marseilles, a Spanish gang working out of Madrid, Sicilian mobsters.” Stanford paused, then said, “No relation to you, I 'spose.”

  Frank laughed. “Hey, you never know. My father's family came from Sicily. But my father's a judge. What makes you think a gang did the Oxford heist? And the others, for that matter.”

  “Very professional. Neat and clean, no clues left behind, in and out fast, and no dust-ups. Until last weekend. Whoever masterminds these heists is smart. Might not do the actual theft, but he's cagey enough to hire ruthless people. This was cold-blooded murder.”

  “You got any leads?”

  “Not yet, I'm afraid. But here's another angle. A woman in Amsterdam keeps hounding me. Her husband, Pieter Wynkoop, was the security guard at the Frans Hals Museum when a Hals was stolen in 2006. A few weeks later he died of a drug overdose. His wife Sonja swears he never did drugs in his life.”

  “That's what they all say.” Frank glanced at the clock. He wanted to go talk to Vobitch.

  “That's what I thought, but Sonja called again this weekend, got me thinking. I went over my files. They hit the Ashmolean six years ago in January 2004, which may be why the Security Director popped in unexpectedly. When I checked the file on the previous heist, I noticed the security guard died a month later in a car accident. Sent up a red flag, so to speak. So I checked the other case files.”

  “Some of the other security guards died too?”

  “Yes, under suspicious circumstances, shall we say? The car accident, Pieter Wynkoop's drug overdose, a mugging, a suicide, and a break-in at one guard's flat.”

  “They were in on the heists,” Frank said. “They were killed so they wouldn't talk.”

  “That's what I'm beginning to think. Sonja Wynkoop may be right. Her husband didn't OD on drugs, someone killed him in such a way as to make it look like he did.”

  “So you've got five security guards who may or may not have been murdered. Plus the one last weekend. But you said there were eight heists with the same MO. What about the other two?”

  “The theft at Drumlanrig Castle in Scotland happened in the daytime during a visitor tour, a man and a woman. The woman grabbed the painting, ran outside, jumped in a getaway car and away they went.”

  His neck prickled. “A woman. When was this?”

  “May 2005.”

  Frank couldn't remember where Natalie was then, but he'd use the woman angle regardless. Whatever it took to persuade Morgan Vobitch to send him to London.

  “In March 2007,” Stanford said, “they hit the Westfries Museum north of Amsterdam overnight. No guards inside the museum, just two men on patrol outside. The robbers disabled the guards long enough to get inside and make off with a Vermeer and a Terborch.”

  “Any chance I could interview the woman who called you? I'd really like to talk to her.”

  “Sonja Wynkoop? She'd talk to you all right. Hells bells, she'd talk to the man in the moon if she thought it would clear her husband's name. As it stands now, Pieter Wynkoop's name is mud, on duty when a Hals was stolen, dead of a drug overdose a few weeks later.”

  Hearing Stanford hesitate, Frank sensed a problem. “But?”

  “I have no problem with it, but I'd have to clear it with my superior. You know how it is.”

  Indeed he did. Every police department was territorial. Bureaucracy and red tape. Same thing in London apparently. “How does your boss feel about American detectives? Did he watch NYPD Blue?”

  Stanford let out a hearty laugh. “I sincerely doubt it, but I did. Watched it on video. Good show. Try and round up that bloke who worked the Gardner heist. That might help. Cooperation across the waters, so to speak.”

  “I will. Speaking of cooperation, the woman I'm involved with—she's a detective too—hails from a family of cops. Her father once did a favor for a police officer in London, DI Ian Attaway. Maybe he could put in a word for us. Kelly's great at interviewing women.” He'd take Kelly with him and have her interview Sonja Wynkoop.

  “Good idea. Have him call DSC Elliot Wolfe and give him a nudge.”

  Frank heard Stanford yawn again. “Get some sleep,” he said. “You've earned it. I'll be in touch.”

  He shut his cellphone and jotted notes, mustering arguments for his sit-down with Morgan Vobitch. One way or another he was going to London. To catch Natalie Brixton.

  _____

  London – 8:30 PM

  She ate the last bite of chicken and set her fork on her plate.

  “We'll have brandy in the library,” Pym said to the butler as he cleared their plates.

  I don't want brandy, she wanted to scream. She wanted to call her Chinatown contact and prepare her escape plan. After leaving the Foxhill estate, they had arrived at Pym's mansion at 5:45. She had no time to call Chen, had barely enough time to dress for dinner.

  But Pym was in control, as always. She pushed back her chair and followed him into the library.

  Pym sank onto his favorite recliner. “Sit down, Valerie. I have some news for you.”

  What kind of news? He'd said nothing about the Oxford heist today, either. Did he know something that she didn't? She perched on the other recliner.

  “You're going on a trip tomorrow. I already have your plane ticket.”

  A plane ticket to where? Aware of his gaze, she maintained a neutral expression. Be who they want you to be.

  “This business at the Ashmolean Museum is getting a lot of attention. That's why I got you out of London for a few days. But it will get worse. You need to stay out of sight until the heat dies down.”

  This business at the museum. His cavalier attitude disgusted her. One man dead, another in the hospital, but to Pym it was only business. He wasn't the one who'd shot the guard. He wasn't the one the cops were after. Still, the fact that he wanted to send her away until the furor abated might be a good sign. Maybe he wasn't going to kill her.

  The butler came in with their brandy, set the snifters on the table in front of them and left.

  “What have you heard about the Oxford heist?” she asked.

  “It's all over the news.” Pym raised the snifter and gulped some brandy. “We need a distraction. The next heist will be in the United States. That's where you're going.”

  The next heist? Steal another painting and have more cops after her?

  “Where in the United States?” Please, not New Orleans, not Boston.

  “I'll tell you tomorrow when we drive to the airport.”

  She wanted to give him a Taekwondo kick, put him on the floor and press the Dokko point under his jaw until he was dead. But that would be suicidal. She'd never get out of here alive.

  “How do I know what cloth
es to pack?”

  “It's summertime,” he snapped. “Pack accordingly. And don't forget your passport.”

  Clutching the snifter in both hands to stop them from shaking, she gulped some brandy.

  “Gregor will be in charge of the heist.”

  Her heart slammed her chest. “Gregor scares me,” she blurted. “He made me shoot the guard.”

  Pym smiled. “A little bit of fear is a good thing.”

  She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from screaming. She had to get away from this evil man. Maybe she'd leave tonight, pack a few things, go to Chinatown and figure things out from there.

  “Finish your brandy, Valerie. Then we'll go upstairs to my quarters and have a proper farewell.”

  Snuffed out like a candle, the last shred of hope died inside her. He wasn't going to let her out of his sight.

  “Will I have time to say goodbye to my friends?”

  He gazed at her, expressionless. “Valerie, right now I'm the most important friend you've got.”

  _____

  New Orleans – 3:45 PM

  “A woman was in on at least one of the heists,” Frank said. “DCI Stanford called me a half hour ago and told me about it. A daytime snatch and grab. Witnesses saw her do it.”

  Vobitch looked at him, his slate-gray eyes skeptical. “And you think it was Natalie.”

  “Last weekend they killed a security guard at a museum near London. Execution-style, one shot to the head. That's Natalie's MO.”

  Vobitch scratched his jaw. “Okay. What else have you got?”

  “The security guards in five of the previous heists wound up dead.”

  “What do you mean, wound up dead?”

  “Suspicious causes. A drug overdose, a suicide, a mugging, a car accident, a B&E. I figure they were killed so they couldn't talk.”

  “Your London contact thinks these guards were in on the heists?”

  “Yes. He says a Dutch woman keeps hounding him. Her husband was one of the security guards, died of a drug overdose, allegedly. But she says he never took drugs. I want to talk to her.”