Telling Lies

by Cathi Stoler

  Some of the assurance had slipped from her voice. “I understand what you’re saying, but we’ve got to try.”

  At least she was making good on to her promise to keep him up to speed on everything that was happening on her end. He wondered if Helen would do the same. “She’d better,” he muttered threateningly under his voice, as he picked up his file and left his office.

  * * *

  Aaron had to show his creds and stow his gun in a locker before proceeding through the metal detector at FBI headquarters. The FBI crest—with its Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity motto—dominated the lobby and stood as a silent sentry to the eleven hundred special agents who populated the building. Twenty-six Federal Plaza was the largest field office in the country. It was an intimidating space and meant to be so.

  Aaron signed in and waited to be escorted to Mickey’s office on the 15th floor, where the New York division of the Art Crimes Team was based. After a few minutes, a tall, attractive young woman stepped off the elevator and greeted him. “I’m Special Agent Lisa LoBianco. I work with Mickey.” She extended her hand and gave him a wry smile. “You must be Detective Gerrard.”

  Before he could reply or ask what her grin was about, she turned. “Please, follow me,” she said over her shoulder.

  Great. Aaron felt his face start to heat up with embarrassment, Agent LoBianco’s barely suppressed amusement obvious. I can only imagine what Mickey said about me to get a reaction like that. I’m going to kill the bastard.

  They rode the elevator up to fifteen, the only two passengers on board.

  From the corner of his eye, he could see the agent stealing looks at him every few seconds and biting her lip in an effort not to smile. Finally the elevator arrived at fifteen, and they exited.

  Mickey was waiting as the doors slid open. Dressed in a charcoal gray designer suit tailored to fit his large frame, he presented an imposing figure. Mickey was taller than Aaron and about twenty pounds heavier, with the dark eyes and dark hair that often came with a southern Italian heritage. But his good humor belied his bulk. “Aaron, my man. How the hell are you?” He slapped Aaron on the back and started walking down the hall toward his office. “Thanks, Lise.” His chocolate brown eyes twinkled. “I’ll take it from here.”

  “My pleasure.” She gave Aaron a long, appraising glance before moving away.

  “Jesus,” Aaron sputtered as soon as she was out of earshot. “What the fuck did you say to her about me?”

  Mickey laughed. A big rumble that started in his stomach and worked its way up to his throat before spilling out. “Man, you don’t want to know.”

  Aaron looked at his friend and let it go. They’d always played practical jokes on one another. Next time, it would be his turn, and he’d be sure to make it good. By now, they were in Mickey’s spacious office and settled at the small conference table in the corner of the room.

  “Coffee? Tea? I could ask Agent LoBianco …” Mickey jutted his chin toward the door.

  Aaron didn’t answer. Just gave him a look that said it all.

  “Okay, okay.” Mickey smirked and held up his hands in mock surrender. Then he became serious. “So, tell me, what’s with you and this Hammersmith business?”

  For the next twenty minutes, Aaron filled him in on the details, starting with his and Laurel’s trip to Florence and ending with her phone call from Italy earlier today.

  For all his busting his chops, when it came to business, Mickey was as straightforward as they came. He listened carefully, made copious notes, and asked several pertinent questions. A number of times Aaron stopped and referred to the file he’d brought with him, which included the NYPD’s summary, as well as his own notes and impressions on the case.

  ‘This Laurel Imperiole, she’s the woman you met because of that murder, isn’t she?” He had a knowing look in his eye. “Madonne, almost getting killed wasn’t enough for you? Trying to impress her again, huh?”

  Aaron decided to ignore this gibe and not rise to the bait his friend was tossing out. “I’m beginning to think she was right about seeing that creep, and that detective I mentioned, Helen McCorkendale, agrees with her. But, Sargasso aside, the whole thing feels much bigger than him.” Aaron shook his head. “I mean, what kind of a painting is worth one hundred fifty million dollars?”

  “None that I can think of right now, but it’s just a matter of time. You know from your own research that prices for artists like Picasso, Van Gogh, and Klimt are getting close to that. Take a look at these numbers.” Mickey handed Aaron a sheet with a list of recent auction figures from the sale of major works. They were all well in the fifty to one hundred million range. “And, how about that unknown guy who just waltzed in to Sotheby’s spring auction and picked up Picasso’s “Dora Maar With Cat” for just over ninety-five million? They’re still trying to figure out who he was, or who he was bidding for.” Mickey shrugged.

  “I spoke with the agents who were originally assigned to the Hammersmith case when the deal he’d made with Moto came to light.” Mickey leaned back in his chair, his bulk making it groan. “It might have never come out if his family weren’t determined to get their hands on the missing fifteen million. I mean, think about it. The two people who planned the deal, Hammersmith and Sargasso, were dead. Moto didn’t have the money. So where was it? The Widow Hammersmith was the one who tipped us and got things rolling.”

  “I figured she might have.” Aaron thought back to the detectives in the 19th precinct. “The NYPD got some pressure from above to move on it as well. Probably from her. But, what about Moto? Did he send out any feelers?”

  “It’s more than likely. But none that we could substantiate as coming from him. Now, he really is a cagey bastard.” Aaron could tell Mickey was warming to his subject as he got up and began pacing the length of the room. “If the rumors about him are true, he’s got a treasure trove of art that makes the Met’s collection seem like paint by numbers.”

  “On the up and up?” asked Aaron.

  “Sure, he’s a regular Brother Teresa,” shot back Mickey. “Most of it is reputed to be black market, passed along by dealers and scouts he’s got stashed around the world.” Mickey threw up his hands. “We can’t prove it, and no one we know has seen the collection. But, I’d guarantee that some of it is stuff we’ve been looking for and would love to recover.”

  “What about working through Interpol or your legate office in Japan?” Aaron knew those were the usual FBI channels.

  “Working with Japan is tricky.” Mickey turned his hand from side to side. “They have their own way of looking at things like this. Besides, we’d have to have credible information to open an investigation. You know, be looking for a specific stolen work and establish where it is before we could petition Justice to seize it and get the process started.”

  “Does anyone have any idea what painting Hammersmith was buying?”

  “Not a clue,” replied Mickey,” but for the kind of price Moto was floating, it has to be something spectacular.”

  “Think it’s still out there?”

  “I do, and I bet Moto is biding his time, waiting for the right buyer, another über collector with deep pockets who isn’t too fussy about legalities.”

  Aaron sat back for a moment, digesting the information his friend had just shared with him. He realized that there wasn’t much to go on, and he hated having to disappoint Laurel. “Could I borrow the file on Moto? Maybe I’ll find something—anything—you guys might have missed. A fresh eye. You never know what I might discover.”

  “No problem. You know, this is the new FBI. We’re here to serve the community, and we’re always willing to cooperate with other law enforcement agencies.” There was just the slightest hint of sarcasm in his voice. “I’ll have it copied and sent over to the precinct first thing in the morning. But now,” he shot his snowy white cuffs and straightened his lavender tie, “we have somewhere we need to be.”

  Aaron rose from his chair. “This isn’t going to involve Ag
ent LoBianco, is it?” His body took him where his brain didn’t want to go, reminding him how her hips had moved under her short black skirt.

  “Now why would you think that?” Mickey laughed as he led Aaron from his office like a lamb to the slaughter.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Kips Bay

  New York City

  Helen was on the third floor of her town house organizing her “costume closet,” as she called the place where she stored her many disguises, when she heard the phone ring in her bedroom below. Arms laden with a new supply of goodies, she walked to the top of the stairs and let the machine pick up. Aaron’s deep baritone barked out, “It’s me. Call back now.” She and Aaron had spent the early morning playing phone tag until she had finally given up and left for her undercover assignment. Well, she sighed, he’ll just have to wait another ten minutes.

  Helen had been in Chinatown most of the morning, doing double duty—working and shopping. The Loss Prevention Team at Saks had been so pleased with the successful conclusion of their internal theft case—she’d finally nabbed Antonio Felippe—they’d recommended her to one of their vendors. Helen had met with the client, a high-end handbag manufacturer. Pirated designs of his bags were winding up on Canal Street, where dozens of tiny storefronts offered the knockoffs at discount prices. Savvy to the undercover investigators who normally roamed the street, Helen knew that the shopkeepers could make these items disappear into a truck faster than a bargain hunting New Yorker could say: “Whadda ya mean, counterfeit? I thought they were stolen!”

  New to the scene and unknown to the shopkeepers, Helen had identified four stores for further investigation and reported her findings to her client. She’d also made time to stop at a giant surplus store on Broadway where she purchased a beat-up hard hat, carpenter’s tool belt, and steel-toed boots, which would come in handy if she ever had to blend in at a construction site. After a late lunch of crab soup dumplings at Joe’s Shanghai on Pell Street, she’d headed back to the town house.

  Now she made room for the hard hat on a shelf between a fedora and a tiara, placed the boots on a rack next to boxing shoes and ice skates, and hung the tool belt from a set of pegs, which also held crutches and a fake baby bump.

  “Okay,” she said aloud, admiring the neat shelves and racks filled with wigs, jackets, clothes, accessories, and shoes that made up her undercover wardrobe, “I’m good to go.” Turning off the light, she stepped into the hall, closed the door on her treasures, and headed down to her bedroom to call Aaron.

  He picked up on the first ring. “Detective Gerrard.” His tone was just barely more civil than it had been on her machine.

  Flopping down in a cozy armchair by the window, she made a face at the phone before she spoke. “It’s Helen. Why the hell are you so grumpy? Have another fight with Laurel?” She was goading him just the tiniest bit.

  “No, I didn’t, not that it’s any of your business,” snapped Aaron. “She’s still in Fiesole, making inquiries. I’ve been busy here. I was out last night with my FBI contact trying to get a heads-up on Sargasso.”

  “Oh really,” she said knowingly. “Had one too many tequilas in your search for the truth, did you? Head hurting a little, is it, poor baby?”

  “Great detective work,” he said sarcastically. “Where were you, anyway?” He was attempting to take control of the conversation. “I’ve been trying to reach you for hours.”

  “Not that it’s any of your business, but I was on an assignment downtown. I do have other clients. Satisfied?”

  Aaron ignored her sarcasm. “You do recall that we agreed we’d share all information about this case?”

  “As a matter of fact, I do.”

  “And? Is there anything you’d like to tell me about your visit with Alexandra Hammersmith?”

  “There is.” She enjoyed the turn the discussion was taking.

  “Look, don’t do this today. I’m warning you. I don’t need your snide comments.”

  “Or what? Oooooh, should I be scared?” she added in a mock frightened voice and started laughing. “Did you and your FBI friend actually talk about the case?”

  “Yes, we talked. He made me a copy of their files on Hammersmith and Moto.”

  She sat up straight in her chair, curiosity piqued. “Find anything good?” Maybe there would be something she could use to get more information out of Alexandra Hammersmith or her stepsons.

  “Don’t know yet. I haven’t had a chance to go through it page by page.” Helen sensed Aaron’s weariness at the prospect of spending hours poring over the file.

  “Hey, let’s do this. Why don’t you come to my house for dinner and bring the file. I’ll cook some pasta, we’ll look at the file, and I’ll tell you all there is to know about Madam Hammersmith. Come at eight and bring a nice, red wine.”

  “Helen, I’m not feeling …”

  “Take some Pepto-Bismol and be here on …”

  “Oh shit,” he interrupted. “I gotta go.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Kips Bay

  New York City

  Lior Stern slid the black Toyota 4Runner into a spot across from Helen’s town house and killed the engine. He leaned back against the smooth leather seat and stared out of its windshield. Long past dusk, the sky was an inky black, as starless and somber as his thoughts.

  What the hell am I doing here? He shook his head, thinking of the life he’d chosen for himself and wondering, not for the first time, if in the end it was worth it.

  I’m getting too old for this. He groaned, shifting and stretching his arms overhead in an effort to delay the kinks he knew would form deep in his broad shoulders as he sat and listened in on Helen McCorkendale and her detective friend, Aaron Gerrard. Lior slipped his hand into his jacket pocket and removed the pen recorder and earpiece he’d be using to monitor the pair while eavesdropping on their conversation.

  It hadn’t taken him long to enter and bug the McCorkendale town house. The equipment he’d used was state-of-the-art technology, developed by Yosef Klein, a Mossad scientist who referred to himself as “QX2” in a not so subtle reference to the gadgets guy in the James Bond movies. Lior laughed softly at the image of his friend. “They should hire me to wire up the cars and devise the miniature spying equipment for those films,” Yosef often said, sticking out his jowly chin with pride. “Then they would really have something the public would notice.” Yeah right. Yosef would probably shoot himself in the foot as soon as he got near one of those hot Bond babes.

  I can’t fault him on this operation, though. The bugging scheme he’d devised was brilliant. A little research had shown that McCorkendale’s home had anti-bugging devices in place, and Yosef, as the magician he thought himself to be, had conjured up a simple, yet effective way to overcome them. “Feh,” he’d said dismissively. “Those toys in her house? They won’t be anything next to my latest tricks.”

  Yosef had adapted commercial spy pens to suit Lior’s needs—the kind students take to class to tape their professors and businessmen use at meetings to make sure they aren’t getting screwed. First, he removed and “washed” the microchips from several of the pens so that they couldn’t be detected in an anti-bugging sweep. Then he added a special chip that he had designed for another pen that would signal and control the others. Lior could use this master pen to listen to and record any conversations that took place in the McCorkendale residence. Yosef had also correctly assumed that she, like everyone else he knew, had pens scattered around her house in all the usual places.

  With the right tools you could take over the world. It had been easy to bypass the security McCorkendale had installed and slip into the house while the woman was out. Once inside, he placed each of Yosef’s washed microchips in the barrels of her own pens—one each ­in her study, kitchen, and bedroom. Each chip would lie dormant and undetectable until he activated them by clicking his own pen. One click to start recording. Another click to stop. Since each chip was also programmed for voice recognitio
n, only the pen in the room where a conversation was taking place would be recording. If the speakers moved from the study to the kitchen, the chip in that room would kick in and take over. Or, if she used the phone in her bedroom, that chip would go into action.

  Lior cracked the truck’s tinted window and lit a cigarette as he waited, inhaling deeply. A few minutes later, he recognized Gerrard from the surveillance photos he’d received earlier from Tel Aviv. The detective approached McCorkendale’s building, dressed casually in jeans and a pullover, balancing what looked like a wine bottle perched on top of a cardboard box. Lior noted the detective’s pinched face and slow gait. Climbing the stairs to the town house seemed to be an effort. He appeared to be barely holding it together, trying to hide the rough edges poking through.

  Well, I’ll give them a few minutes for the usual social bullshit, he decided as McCorkendale opened the door and Gerrard entered. Pitching the glowing cigarette butt out the window, he turned and pressed a button on the console between the SUV’s bucket seats. A small device that resembled a Palm Pilot rose from within. He attached the pen recorder to its USB port and pushed another button. The information that flowed from the pen into the pseudo Palm Pilot’s digital recorder would be bounced up instantly to a passing satellite and picked up immediately by a similar device halfway around the world. If Yosef’s bugs worked as they were supposed to, any captured conversation would be relayed to the Asset Recovery section chief with barely a ten second delay.