Murder in the Arts District

by Greg Herren

  She was casually dressed, but further inspection showed the “casual” look was carefully constructed. Her dove-gray sweater was cashmere. A double rope of perfectly matched pearls rested on the impressive shelf formed by her large, full breasts, and the skinny jeans were an expensive style of an expensive brand. Pearl teardrop earrings sparkled at her ears. Her makeup-free look was also not quite as makeup-free as it looked at first glance; there wasn’t much of it, but what little there was had been so artfully applied that it did its job perfectly without being noticeable. Her waist was almost ridiculously narrow, but her hips had a lush curve to them that straight men would find irresistible. Her legs were long and shaped well beneath the compressing cotton / Lycra blend of the skinny jeans. A bracelet of thick gold links adorned her right wrist, and an expensive watch encrusted with tiny diamonds sparkled at the other one. Her hands were in perfect proportion to her arms, with long, aristocratic fingers ending in French manicured nails trimmed to just the right length to flatter her hands.

  “So lovely to meet you at last! I’ve heard such lovely things about you from Paige and Barbara and, well, all of the mobs of friends we have in common.” She gave me a dazzling smile, exposing pearl-white teeth that were so perfect they couldn’t be natural. She threw her head back and barked out her raucous laugh. She laughed with her entire body, holding out her hand to be shaken when she was finished.

  I had stood up when she entered the room, and shook her cool, dry hand. Despite her height, her hand disappeared inside mine. “I’ve heard wonderful things about you, too,” I replied, sitting back down on the sofa.

  “Have you really?” She gave me a shrewd look before giving me a sly smile. “I’m sure you’ve heard some horrible things about me as well.” She shrugged. “And it’s probably all true.” She barked out that laugh again. It was infectious, and I couldn’t help grinning back at her. She sat down in a chair that looked like black metal and some cushions had been put together before being blown up with dynamite to reshape it. She gracefully moved her right ankle over the left, revealing a gold charm anklet dangling there over the white tennis sock. She peered at me. “My, everyone told me you were good-looking, but I had no idea just how good-looking you are.”

  I could feel color coming to my face. “Thanks, I think.”

  “Oh, don’t be modest. Modesty is overrated.” She leaned back in the chair. “Did Therese offer you anything?”

  “I’m good.”

  “Well, I’d like some coffee.” She picked up a cell phone and quickly typed on its screen, her perfectly manicured fingernails clicking on the surface. When she was finished she tossed it onto the coffee table with a clatter. “So you’re here to ask me about the Lovejoys? What took you so long?” She arched an eyebrow up, which I wouldn’t have thought she could do because of the Botox, which I was apparently wrong about. “Todd of course called me as a courtesy to let me know you’d come sniffing around—those aren’t his words, darling, obviously. As I am sure Paige has told you, I’m a bit of a troublemaker. I love to stir the shit.” Her eyes twinkled.

  “If I didn’t know before, I do now.” I smiled back at her. Her charm was contagious.

  She beamed at me. “I do love gay men, you know, darling. I just know we’re going to be close friends.”

  I tried not to laugh. “So, what can you tell me about the Lovejoys?”

  “Well, it is so terribly sad about Collier.” The smile disappeared, and the corners of her mouth turned down. “Such a horrible thing to have happen. Myrna must be just destroyed. She adored him, you know.” She made a face. “People have said terrible things about them over the years, but there was never any doubt in my mind about how much they loved each other. No matter what happened, no matter what went down, they loved each other.”

  She paused as Therese entered, carrying a silver serving tray with a silver carafe and full coffee service on it. She placed it on a sideboard and turned to us. “If you need anything else…” Her voice trailed off and when neither of us said anything, she walked back out of the room.

  Serena rose and walked over to the service, pouring herself a cup. “Are you sure you don’t want anything?”

  “No, I was just at Starbucks.” I shrugged. “I’m good.”

  “So, how’s Myrna holding up? I’ve called her several times but haven’t been able to get through. I just get her voicemail…but then I would imagine she’s too shaken to talk to anyone, and getting thousands of calls. She must be prostrate with grief. I thought about running a casserole over there—isn’t that what you do when someone dies? Bring food to the family?” She sat back down and sipped her coffee.

  “I suppose.” I debated with myself for a moment, then decided what the hell and plunged forward. “No one’s been able to reach Myrna. She’s not at home, and no one seems to know where she is. Her son doesn’t know where she is, and the police haven’t been able to track her down.”

  “That’s not good, is it?” Serena frowned. “That’s definitely not like her. If she adored Collier, she basically worshipped the ground Cooper walked on. She would never abandon him for any reason, no matter how grief-stricken she might be.” A look of alarm crossed her face. “I’m serious, Chanse—if Cooper doesn’t know where she is, she must be in serious trouble. That child was like the second coming of Christ to her.” She shook her head. “She had trouble getting pregnant—they even went to fertility experts, thought about getting a surrogate. She wanted a child pretty badly—and then of course just when they started interviewing surrogates she got pregnant. Isn’t that always the way?”

  I didn’t think so, but saw no point in disagreeing with her. “So the marriage was in good shape? They didn’t have problems?”

  “Well, no marriage is perfect. They had their ups and downs, but Myrna adored that man. You could see it on her face every time she looked at him. It was a little sickening, to be honest, but then again, what do I know? I’ve tried marriage four times and failed miserably every time. I’m friends with all of my ex-husbands, of course, but I seem to get along better with men as a friend rather than as a spouse. Never again.” She shuddered delicately. “No, I’ll just take lovers in the future, thank you very much. I always admired Collier and Myrna’s relationship, honestly. It was almost like a fairy tale.” She laughed. “Nauseating as it sounds, they really did love each other—but some people, of course, didn’t think so.”

  “And why was that?”

  She leaned forward, her ropes of pearls clacking against each other. She lowered her voice, like someone was listening and she didn’t want them to overhear us. “They had an open marriage—Myrna told me once she and Collier hadn’t had sex in years—but they were devoted to each other.” She gave another little shrug. “Myrna took lovers. If Collier did, I never knew of any, and Myrna’s never lasted long. Collier was more of a best friend to her than anything else, you know.” She shook her head slightly. “I always wondered if Collier might not be gay. I guess we’ll never know now, of course. Poor man.” She picked up a tissue from the box on the end table next to her chair and dabbed carefully at her eyes.

  Taken aback by her blunt openness, I blustered, “So how long did you know them?”

  “I’ve known them—knew them—oh, whatever. I met them years ago, when we were all barely more than children.” She pulled an electronic cigarette out of a little box on the table and clicked it on. She took a long drag on it before expelling white vapor in a plume. “When I graduated from college and shed my first husband—I was practically a child bride, you know, and my family did not approve of my first husband, not that they’ve approved of any of the others, for that matter, but my father was particularly glad to write a check so Hubby Number One—he might have been broke, but he was an honest-to-God Italian count but my father was convinced he was a gigolo—could ride off into the sunset—I’m still rather close to Giulio, I’m close to all of my exes, of course—what was I saying? Oh yes, of course, after I got out of college and built
my own home, I needed art for it, of course.” She smiled. “Art is the only constant lover I’ve had, you know.”

  “And that’s how you met Myrna? At her father’s gallery?”

  “Yes, of course. I’d already decided that I was going to be a great collector of art, have lots of affairs and live a grand life full of high drama, then die and leave my vast collection with enough of an endowment to some little museum that could then turn itself into a rival to any of the greats.” She took another puff off the cigarette. “Delusions of grandeur have always been a problem for me, Chanse. Anyway, that was how I first met Myrna. I went to New York to buy art, and the Lovejoy Gallery was one of the places any serious art collector had to go to. It was like a pilgrimage. In order to be taken seriously as a collector, you had to impress Myrna’s father, Simon Lovejoy. He was quite wonderful, a charming old bastard, and he could sell ice to Eskimos. She was working there while she was finishing her master’s, and since we were around the same age, we became fast friends.” She exhaled. “I’ve always suspected her father encouraged her to befriend me, you know—every time he looked at me he saw dollar signs—but I genuinely liked both her and Collier. They were fun, they always knew where the best parties were and could of course get me in. They also never made fun of my accent or that I was from Texas, like so many of those pretentious Manhattan fucks did.” She went on, uncrossing her legs and tucking them beneath her on the chair. “I used to go up to New York several times a year when I lived in Dallas. I do buy a lot of art.” She gestured at the bare walls of the sitting room. “As you can see, I’m trying to be a bit more minimalist in this room. But I have acquired a wonderful collection.” She winked at me. “Our family place in Dallas is quite palatial—my grandfather built the house specifically to be enormous in order to have lots of art to display.” She shook her head, the blond hair bouncing around her head. “I majored in art at SMU—Southern Methodist, though I’ve never been much of a Methodist—and so when I had the chance I started buying new art for the place.” She pulled a lock of hair into her mouth and chewed on it for a moment. “I’m always looking for new artists, you see, the unknown artist who’s going to be the next big thing. That’s part of the fun of being a rich bitch, you know.” She drummed her fingers on her leg. “Yes, back then I rather liked Myrna.”

  “Back then? You don’t like her now?”

  “I was far more callow, and far less discerning, in my youth.” She said this with the utmost seriousness, and once the words hung in the air she exploded with peals of laughter. “No, seriously, though, when I was younger I thought someone who always knew where to get the next line of coke from and owned a gallery in the village was the epitome of cool.” She shrugged. “Myrna always knew where the next party was. She really had her finger on the pulse of the city, you know what I mean? She was ahead of the trends, always knew what the next big thing was going to be…and there I was, a rube from Dallas with a degree in art and more money than she knew what to do with.” Her eyes narrowed. “Ripe for the plucking, was I.” She blew out her breath. “Although I will give Myrna credit—she did know what she was talking about. She advised me what artists were on the rise, or were about to break big…so I got some great, valuable art for far less than it would have cost a few years later.”

  “So, I gather the two of you had a falling out of some sort?”

  She gave me a shrewd look. “Of some sort, yes. That’s a rather elegant way of putting it.” She started laughing again. “Myrna always had a problem with the truth, you see. She also failed to see it as a character flaw. She liked to tell people what they liked to hear, even if it wasn’t true. That always proves problematic in the long run. And then after her father was murdered—that was such a terrible time, can you imagine? She inherited the gallery and took it over. Apparently once she got her hands on the books she was horrified. He’d been losing money hand over fist for years—she thought she was inheriting this great business, a veritable cash cow, only to find out she was maybe one step from the bankruptcy courts. I made the colossal mistake of loaning her money to bail her out of her difficulties.” She rolled her eyes dramatically. “And like I said, I wasn’t particularly smart back then. I was in the process of divorcing my third husband and feeling particularly vulnerable…I wrote her a check without even thinking twice, or even getting something in writing.” She turned the cigarette off and replaced it in the box. “To this day she hasn’t paid me back. I won’t tell you how much the so-called loan was for—but it was enough to buy this house.” She sighed. “I don’t wish her ill, you know. I just don’t know how she can live with herself, owing me so much money. You can imagine how shocked I was when she decided to relocate here, open another gallery.”

  “Did you know Bill Marren back then as well?”

  “Bill.” She smiled, her eyes glinting nastily. “I’ve heard the police out in the middle of the swamp or wherever that monument to slavery he bought is don’t believe his paintings were stolen. Imagine that.”

  “What do you believe?”

  “It’s funny,” she replied slowly, leaning back in the couch. “Those paintings—original, missing Anschlers, right, isn’t that they’re supposed to be?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t she offer them to me? I collect him. I have the largest collection of original Anschlers outside of a museum.” She shrugged. “And she knew that—she was the one who introduced me to Anschler’s work all those years ago in New York. The first painting I bought from her father was an Anschler.” She shook her head. “It wouldn’t surprise me in the least, Chanse, if those paintings never existed in the first place.”

  “Never existed?”

  “Well, they existed, of course, but it wouldn’t be a huge surprise to me to find out that Myrna never had them.” She shook her head. “I’ve heard stories about her selling art to people before she’d been commissioned to actually sell it. And those Anschlers…those paintings…” She hesitated. “You know they disappeared during World War Two?”

  “I’d read that, yes.”

  “I think they were destroyed.” Serena’s lips set in a firm, disapproving line. “Or lost forever during the war. Anschler’s daughter was the only survivor, and you know by the end of her life she was practically broke, right? Living off her New Orleans relatives? Why wouldn’t she have sold the paintings then? Why would she have lived like a poor relation when she could have sold those paintings?” She narrowed her eyes. “It doesn’t make sense.”

  “But what would be the point, Serena? That doesn’t make sense. Why would Myrna pretend to sell paintings she didn’t have?”

  “Who knows why Myrna does anything?” Serena rolled her eyes. “But the paintings have disappeared again, haven’t they?” She smiled smugly. “No provenance, either, I heard, and no insurance. Only a fucking insane idiot wouldn’t have insured paintings worth millions, Chanse. And why did Bill take possession of the paintings before he owned them?”

  “I wondered about that myself,” I replied. “I gather that isn’t normal? Todd wouldn’t say one way or the other.”

  “Todd is discreet, which can be a drawback.” Serena loaded another cartridge into her electric cigarette and inhaled again. “But no, it’s not standard or normal. Myrna and her father both bent the rules, did things other art dealers wouldn’t.” She smiled at me. “I heard on the news this morning that Bill Marren was shot and killed last night…that’s kind of odd, don’t you think?”

  “Did you know him?”

  “I know everybody, Chanse.” She exhaled white vapor. “But yes, Bill is a collector, and we’ve crossed paths any number of times. I suspect Myrna might have, oh, I don’t know, been up to something there.” She sighed. “I’m not trying to cause trouble for her, despite our little falling out. Myrna, for example, has no idea that I don’t think of her as a friend anymore. But ask yourself this, Chanse.” She leaned forward again. “Collier’s dead, and so is Bill Marren. Several million dollars’ worth of pain
tings have been stolen—paintings that weren’t insured, that don’t have a provenance. Now, Bill has—had—a reputation for not having a lot of scruples when it came to his art.”

  “You think Myrna was selling art that was Nazi loot?”

  “I didn’t say that, now did I?” Serena puffed away at her cigarette. “But as soon as I heard about what happened out there at Belle Riviere, well—let’s just say I have my own suspicions about those paintings and leave at that, shall we?”

  Chapter Twelve

  My back was hurting again when I got back into my car and started the engine. The cold seemed to somehow get through my jacket and my sweater, going straight to the epicenter of the pain. I sat there for a moment with my eyes closed, waiting for the heater to start blowing warmth through the vents again. Despite the growing pain trying to push everything else out of my mind, I couldn’t stop thinking about what Serena had said. Over and above the pain, the words kept swirling around in a vortex in my mind, leaving steadily more wild theories behind in their wake.

  What if the paintings had never existed in the first place?

  Had the entire thing been a scam from the beginning?

  The paintings had been delivered but not removed from their crates, was what they had told me. The thieves had stolen the crates. What if the paintings had never been inside the crates to begin with? That was why they had to be stolen back before they were opened and discovered to be empty.

  I put the car into gear and pulled away from the curb, trying to remember exactly what Tom and Bill had said to me that first morning when I’d gone out to Belle Riviere. I distinctly remembered Tom saying, We didn’t unpack them from their crates because we didn’t want to have to re-crate them if the provenance didn’t come through.