I heard a mild cough behind me and turned.
Chapter 47
What the… & More
“Can I help you?” said Lenny, enjoying my reaction.
I had not expected to see Helen/Lenny at this gallery. Her transition from an incensed client confronting Clay and I, to art appraiser, and now finding her at a competing gallery was unsettling.
Still trying to make the leap, I said, “You work here?”
“No, I own it.” she said.
“But who’s Jeffrey Price? Doesn’t he own the gallery?”
“I’m Mrs. Price.”
“Then who was one of my associates talking to here?”
“One of my associates,” said Lenny
My trio read it all wrong.
“What happened to Jeffrey?”
“If you don’t mind, I’d rather not talk about him.”
Was he dead? It sounded like it.
“Sorry to hear that.”
“Don’t be. I’m not.”
That threw me. I remembered my initial reaction to her: lean and mean, back at the Logan Inn when she interrupted Clay and me having lunch, demanding we help her. Then it hit me. “Hey, you told us your name was Helen Costner.”
“That’s my maiden name.”
A ruse that sucked Clay and me in. “Clever.”
Lenny gave a knowing smile. “I thought so.”
“So what was the purpose of the deception?” I asked.
“You might call it educating the uninitiated.”
“The uninitiated?”
“You two are obviously novices to the art world.”
I gave her a half-smile. “That obvious, huh?”
“We wanted you to start asking the right questions and stop what was going on if you could. We needed help.”
“We?”
“A few gallery owners, myself included.”
“Exactly what did you think was going on?”
She looked around to see if anyone was within earshot of us then leaned in close. “Discounts and cosmetic art surgery.”
I nodded. If she meant forgeries, why not just say it?
I could play vague too. “So others were aware what was going on and were reluctant to take on who was involved.”
I thought back. They approached us: UPS, Lenny and Tony. Clay and I should have picked up on that, but we were caught up and distracted by art information overload.
I now knew Lenny’s objective, but the others? UPS was dead. And Tony was feeling more and more like deception. And there were too many loose ends that needed tying up.
Were Lenny’s true intentions what she claimed?
“Can you give me a name?” I asked.
Lenny’s tone changed. “This artist’s name is Anderson.”
I looked at her odd segue. What artist? “What?”
“He’s a local artist. Quite good, don’t you think?”
From behind us came, “Ah, Jeffrey Price to the rescue.”
The words spilled out when I turned “You’re alive?”
He wrapped his arm around Lenny, “and kicking!”
“Sorry I couldn’t help you, Miss,” said Lenny stiffly.
Chapter 48
The Art Of Deception
I left Price Gallery more confused than when I got there. What was going on with Lenny and her husband? Why did she change the subject so abruptly? Was she afraid to speak in front of her husband? This cat and mouse behavior had trouble written all over it.
It was time for backup: Martha, Hazel and Betty.
When they called me back, I explained to my crew what we needed: find out what was going on over at Price Gallery. Improvise.
I also arranged a time to meet for drinks with Clay and the ladies later on. We had something to discuss: forgeries.
I returned to Worth Gallery and headed up to the loft. I needed to learn more about art forgeries. Whose money was involved? I opened my laptop and began searching.
The most notorious forger was Wolfgang Beltracchi. It said he could paint with the best and lie even better. For decades, experts were completely fooled by his elaborate art scam, making him, his wife, Helene, and his two partners millions. To date, Beltracchi was the most prosperous art forger in history. He was an extremely talented individual.
By the age of 14, he could copy Picasso perfectly. Later on, he began painting artists such as Max Ernst, Raoul Duffy, Fernand Lager and George Braque among other 20th century artists of the Impressionist and Surrealist genre.
What made Beltracchi different was he’d paint in the exact style of a famous artist (what he thought they would paint if they had other paintings out there). They were originals by Beltracchi, but painted with that artist’s name.
He copied the artist’s brush technique perfectly, using canvases from that time period. He even created artwork from paintings that existed but had been missing for years.
Signatures and provenances were documented with tea-stained labels and aged markings on the frames. Well-worn and old-looking black and white photos showed his wife, Helene, posing as her own grandmother with Beltracchi’s forged paintings hanging on the walls in the background.
Beltracchi’s wife claimed she received these paintings from her grandfather, Werner Jägers, who hid them before WWII in a country home near Cologne. She inherited them upon his death. This explained why the public never saw them before.
Art experts were fooled. Beltracchi’s paintings ended up on museum walls like the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Sotheby and Christie sold them at auction and they were also listed in many art catalogs. Various experts worldwide vouched for provenances of these works of art. The multi-talented Beltracchi fooled everyone with his counterfeits, which made him millions.
Were we dealing with real stolen paintings or forgeries?
Chapter 49
It Happens To The Best Of Them
“Well, how was he finally exposed?” asked Hazel over drinks at Triumph’s. It was crowded and the five of us were waiting for our table to eat dinner, but everyone was more interested in my account of Beltracchi and his downfall.
“A buyer from Munich,” I explained, “used scientific analysis and determined three paintings were fake.”
“Then what happened?” asked Betty.
“According to one article, one painting supposedly painted in the 1920’s tested positive for pigment developed in 1957. Beltracchi mistakenly used the wrong titanium white that wasn’t available in the period that the canvas was allegedly to have been painted.
“Berlin’s art fraud branch seized Beltracchi’s paintings, him, his wife and their accomplices in 2010. But because of a lack of further evidence at the trial, the judge terminated the proceedings with a reduction in jail time. Jamie Martin, a forensic art analyst, said, if those paintings were inspected more closely, Beltracchi would’ve been caught sooner.
“At the trial, prosecutors claimed that Beltracchi created 36 artworks that were bought for about $46 million dollars. Beltracchi himself claimed there could be well over 300 more counterfeit paintings still out there in circulation.
“It was reported that the four accomplices: Beltracchi, Helene and two others made millions of dollars over four decades. And since the trial, the police in Germany have discovered 60 more paintings as fakes. Whatever else may be out there is still undetermined.”
Martha whistled. “Even though provenance is proven and vouched for, you can still get taken in, even today.”
“Exactly my point!” I said. “If a clever art forger was talented enough, they can still fool the best of them.”
“The sad thing was the provenance on those paintings was proven as worthless as the paintings,” said Betty.
“There must be a lot of angry art buyers,” said Martha.
Clay nodded. “Galleries are probably being sued left and right and insurance companies must be nervous.”
Martha laughed. “Welcome to the world of sleuthing.”
Hazel su
ggested. “Maybe Mr. UPS did get his hands on a forged painting and sold it to the wrong party.”
“And someone found out,” said Clay, “and struck back.”
“If Anne’s original forgery wasn’t destroyed, her ex got hold of it and sold it, she might be in trouble too,” I said.
“Wouldn’t that depend on who bought it?” Betty asked.
I smiled. “Like Tony, maybe?”
“That could very well be the case,” said Betty.
“I don’t know about the rest of you,” said Hazel, “but all this talking is making me hungry.”
Martha laughed. “I’ve got some chocolates here…”
Both Hazel and Betty held up their hands.
“You’re a bad influence on us,” scolded Hazel.
Martha saluted. “About time I got a compliment from you.”
Chapter 50
Where There’s Smoke…
The next morning Clay and I headed to the gallery. My senior trio had an appointment in Lambertville. We were by ourselves, determined to check behind the paintings to see what was attached to the Worths’ alarm system. We had read Alicia’s info on how to deactivate the whole system including the paintings and did that first, right after finding the monitoring system.
We found the system hidden inside the locked armoire on the gallery floor. Finding the armoire locked, it triggered a search for the key. I found it up in Alicia’s loft, taped to the underside of her top desk drawer. Clay took a guess at the password and tried the obvious: brown.
Our rationalization was that the sophisticated and pricey alarm system was used for the most expensive paintings. But we weren’t sure which paintings held the most value: another clue that Clay was getting in over his head in buying into this art business in the first place.
In Clay’s defense, how could he know, when he wasn’t privy to the original purchase price? But I didn’t think we wanted to bring that to Alicia and Chris’s attention. This art gallery business was proving to be a learning curve on the treacherous side. And, as far as Clay was concerned, every profession had one: some more than others.
We both heard a loud rumbling noise and stilled.
“Clay, did you hear that?”
Just then Abby rushed through the packing room door into the gallery. She still had her jacket on. Clay and I both turned after having just stepped back from one painting to make sure it wasn’t crooked. Our timing was perfect. We had just reactivated the individual alarms on the art and didn’t want to let on what we were doing.
Clay moved off after making eye contact, letting me know he was putting the key back in Alicia’s desk up in the loft. He didn’t want to forget to do it later.
Abby’s face was flushed. “You will never guess…”
I tried to calm her. “Take a breath first.”
A fire engine raced by blaring its siren. I glanced out the window then turned back to Abby. “Now, what is it?”
She pointed to the street. “That’s what!”
“What happened?”
Clay scrambled back down the loft stairs after hearing Abby’s alarmed voice. “What’s wrong?”
Abby was beside herself. “Did you hear that explosion?”
“An explosion? Where?”
Then I remembered my crew! Lambertville!
She could barely get it out. “The Price Gallery!”
Clay and I eyed each other, weren’t they going there?
I couldn’t voice my concerns about Lenny and Jeffrey Price in front of Abby. She was shaking like a leaf.
I grabbed Abby. “Was anyone inside?”
“I don’t know! The boutique next door told me as I pulled into our lot. They yelled over to me after getting a phone call from their other store over in Lambertville.”
Clay pulled me closer. “I can go check. You stay here.”
After Hazel and Betty came close to being blown up in Switzerland, I just couldn’t imagine…
“No, I’m coming too. Let’s go!”
I jumped when my cell phone rang, just as we were heading out the door. “Yes?”
Chapter 51
Who Was Responsible?
Martha spoke excitedly. “Did you hear about it?”
I let out a sigh of relief at hearing her voice. “I just heard,” I said, without adding more in front of Abby. The possible connections attached to the Worth Gallery and the Price’s was up in the air. I didn’t know if I could trust Abby at this point, especially after she delivered that art piece.
Abby started to speak, but I held up my hand.
Martha was breathless. Had she been running?
Then I heard commotion in the background: people talking and yelling.
“Where are you?” I asked her.
“The three of us are outside the taped off area in front of the Price Gallery. There was an explosion inside. Someone mentioned a possible gas leak.”
The line went silent. “Martha? Are you still there?”
“…The three of us had an appointment to meet Jeffrey Price and were running late.”
“Oh, Martha. It must be such a shock at how close…”
“All because Hazel had to stop at that damn craft store.”
I gave a nervous laugh: relieved her humor was intact.
Martha whispered, “I could kiss Hazel’s feet for that, but you didn’t hear that from my lips. I’ll deny it!”
“Feel up to staying to keep us posted?” I asked.
“Will do!” she said, but before disconnecting, shouted to someone, “Hey, as a public citizen I can stand right here!”
Abby and Clay listened intently as I explained the close call Martha, Hazel and Betty had: about to enter the Price Gallery when it exploded. I didn’t give the real reason they were there: to meet with Jeffrey Price to question him. The less Abby knew of our intentions at this point, the better.
“Should I give Anne a call on her cell?” Abby asked.
Clay and I made eye contact. Was Anne responsible?
“Good idea. I have some questions for her,” said Clay.
Abby took a few steps toward the back room for her cell, but then turned back to us. “You don’t think Anne…”
I didn’t want to raise any alarms and shook my head. Why jump the gun when we weren’t even sure if Anne was involved or not? Although she was in the thick of it, she could very well be an innocent bystander caught up with her ex and a web of art fraud. But then again, who knew?
After the packing room door closed behind Abby, Clay pulled me to the loft. He motioned to keep our voices low.
“So what’s your take on this?” he whispered.
I shook my head. “I have this strange feeling that what we think we see isn’t necessarily what we actually see.”
“I agree. We’re missing something obvious.”
“And it’s right in front of our noses.”
My old mantra, worth paying attention to, came to mind.
Who had the most to lose and who had the most to gain?
Chapter 52
Cause I said so
Now that the ladies were safe, Clay took off alone for Lambertville to see the accident scene and touch base with the Martha, Hazel and Betty. To tell you the truth, I think he was still concerned for their safety. If it was a gas leak, that was one thing. Otherwise, they’d be marked just for snooping around.
Tony sent that point home when he contacted the ladies at the restaurant that one afternoon. Even though there was no hard proof of Tony’s affiliation with any ‘organization,’ I couldn’t write him off from being a major player in this whole thing. There was something about the guy…
Abby returned so I figured I’d take the Jeep and go check out that old shed outside the Worths’ house: the one the four of us had been trapped in. I texted Clay, saying I was stepping out to run an errand. If he knew, he’d insist on coming along. He was busy enough. I could handle this.
Clay had previously padlocked the shed, even though another key might be o
ut there. He was also on the lookout for Tony, who had disappeared into thin air. So I had to grab the key from the house. I walked over to the shed and gingerly stepped inside: that is after propping the two doors open with the two heavy logs.
With the doors braced wide open and the sun shining in, I could see clearly and didn’t need my flashlight like before. I was disappointed though. No paintings lurked in the corners, only spiders. Still, I kept searching.
I was lifting tarps and moving fencing and anything that could possibly block or conceal a crate when another dark shadow fell in beside mine. My stomach sank. Someone was standing behind me. I distinctly smelled aftershave and it wasn’t Clay’s. This one was overpowering and seemed familiar…
Uh-oh! As I began turning around, I heard that voice.
“That’s it. Turn around nice and easy-like, Blondie.”
I did as I was told, already knowing what was waiting for me when I did: Tony and his gun. I smiled. He didn’t.
“I hadn’t heard from you, Sam, so I followed you here.”
“You’re not exactly an easy person to track down.”
“Did you really think you could outsmart me?”
What the hell, I told him what he wanted to hear. “No.”
He laughed. “Smart girl. Said what I wanted to hear.”
Like I said before, maybe he wasn’t so dumb after all.
He motioned with his gun. “Let’s take a walk.”
I hesitated. “…Does this involve taking a ride too?”
If it did, I was going to duke it out right here in the shed.
Tony winked. “No, we’re going inside the house.”
My mind was racing. “What for?”
“Even though you conveniently unlocked and disarmed it for me, I have some business to attend to there and don’t need you sneaking up on me. Now move, ’cause I said so!”
Never get trapped. I had to get away no matter what.
No Hope In New Hope (Samantha Jamison Mystery Book 7) Page 9