by Todd Cohen
“Why would anyone buy this painting and put it over their fireplace?” I asked myself. It was not pleasant. There was no serenity. It was just plain disturbing. Plus, the fact that it was not only over a fireplace, but rather a waterfront fireplace. Plus, it faced his wife’s masterpiece. A wife that he became estranged from, and was supposedly going to divorce! “Who on earth would subject these priceless paintings to the elements, and put them in harm’s way? Any monster storm, such as Sandy, could easily turn those paintings into a worthless pile of debris.
“Perhaps the Weisbergs were so rich that the priceless Pollock was a mere pittance to them. I guess they could be multibillionaires? If the painting was even worth $300 million, that would be just a drop in the bucket for a multibillionaire.” But what about its importance as art—to the art world as a whole, or a bona fide collector of prized “Postwar and Contemporary Art” as categorized by Sotheby’s or Christie’s auction houses? Or at least as a status symbol? Don’t most art collectors care about the art, and also their own reputations as caretakers of art? How about the Weisbergs? Did they care, like I would have cared?
Chapter 31
The next day I returned next door in order to move everything back into the Weisbergs’ compound. I opened the door and looked up above the fireplace towards the piece that attracted all my attention. My jaw dropped. Where there once was a priceless Jackson Pollock, now there was nothing but an empty wall with only two large picture frame hook fasteners.
Maybe I had moved the painting? I thought for a split second. Absolutely not.
I wouldn’t have even conceived of touching the piece that seemed so secure to the wall. Unfazed by Sandy, a survivor! I had thought yesterday, but now it was gone. I glanced around the room, just to see what else was missing. The rest of the pieces were still there. The Krasner painting still stood above the breakfront, and the broken Calder mobile still rested on the kitchen counter. But those were worth only a tiny fraction of the Pollock.
My heart shook! I was spellbound. Everything else seemed right in its place. That was until I glanced to the right! On the other side of the kitchen counter, I could see extending from the counter’s base long blond hair on the floor. Long platinum blond hair! My heart started pounding, and I began sweating profusely. As I made my way around the island, the blond hair was sitting in a pool of blood, attached to an ashen-grey lifeless body, a body that I easily recognized. No, it couldn’t be!
I just stood there and stared. Then I bent down and felt for pulse, as if there were a glimmer of hope, as if I were treating another cardiac arrest victim in the hospital. But I knew from her pallor and the blood pool that there was no hope. The body felt ice cold, without signs of life. My breathing became even deeper and faster. My fingertips and mouth began tingling, and then I started to feel faint. I can’t remember ever being in a panic like this. Not when I was fired, and not even when I caught my wife in the act! No! All time stood still and I just shivered.
“Dawson,” I said to myself. “Get a grip.”
I had enough of my faculties to realize I was hyperventilating. I knew the pattern and realized the medical sequence of events that was gripping my body. In my dizzying state I drifted back to the words of Dr. Lightfield, my pulmonary attending at Hopkins.
“If you’re ever in a panic and start to hyperventilate, just breathe into a paper bag,” he said.
I quickly glanced back to a shelf in the kitchen. Wedged between two books on the shelf, The Joy of Cooking and The Barefoot Contessa, was a folded brown paper bag. I grabbed the bag and began to breathe into it. Within a few minutes, I could feel my breathing pattern start to reverse, and slow down to a more normal pattern. The same thing happened with my pounding heart. It also slowed back to a more normal pattern. As the dizziness resolved, things became clearer.
“Thank you, Dr. Lightfield,” I thought. Just like he taught us, breathing into the bag helped raise the carbon dioxide in the blood stream and reverse the effects of the hyperventilation.
I walked back to the body and looked down.
Chapter 32
Lying face down was a blond-haired woman, wearing black pumps with red soles, a grey woolen skirt, and a white short-sleeved shirt. I went to turn her over and saw what remained of Mrs. Charley Weisberg. That is, or shall I say was, Angela Weisberg.
Angela was a distant relative of a wealthy and historic family. Could have been the Astors or the Vanderbilts, for all I know. When Angela and Charley got married, their ceremony was featured in Town and Country magazine as the wedding of the decade. Lavish pictures from the Plaza Hotel flooded the magazine. Photos of Charley, in white tails, and Angela, in her elegant white gown, leaving by a horse-drawn carriage near Central Park and walking up the red carpet into the Plaza. It reminded me of the wedding of Prince Charles and Princess Diana, and we all know how that one turned out.
But now Angela was more than not breathing. She was dead. A death that was clearly was not accidental. Her muscles were partially contracted and her joints frozen in rigor mortis. But the body was almost at full stiffness, which typically starts about twelve hours post death. This would put the timing back to last evening after I left the compound.
Her neck had a sharp cut from what looked like strangulation. And bruises all the way around. Asphyxiation! But with what?
And then I glanced towards the doorway. A long, wrapped metal wire lay to the right of the entryway, nearly five feet in length. The same type used to hang paintings.
“Must have been the wire used to hang the Pollock,” I thought.
Why did “they” leave the evidence?
Chapter 33
I dialed 631-288-0911, and Officer John McElroy answered, “Westhampton Police Department. How could I be of service?” The officer expected another downed tree or a local fire perhaps. He was inundated with calls from those battered by Hurricane Sandy. Dune Road was flooded, impassable, and trees blocked many of the side roads. Nobody had power. That is, nobody without a generator, which was 90 percent of the village. Our road was lucky.
“Perhaps the pull from heavy hitters such as Mr. Weisberg?” I thought. “The privilege of wealth and fame.”
But all the wealth and fame could not bring Mrs. Weisberg back to life. She was dead. I felt so helpless. She was gone. Long gone. Yesterday’s victim! Murder no less!
“Officer, you need to come quick, Weisberg residence, on Homans Avenue. Mrs. Weisberg’s been murdered. Please send help!” I said with a shaky voice. It was hard for me to get the words out. I still couldn’t believe what had happened. It was like a drooping clock in a Salvador Dali painting—surreal.
“Name, sir?” the officer questioned.
“Dawson, Matthew Dawson, Officer.”
“Can you repeat the address, Mr. Dawson?” he said.
“Weisberg’s place. Homans Ave.”
“We’re on our way!”
As I stood there in shock, I realized I forgot to mention something.
Chapter 34
THE PAINTING! I forgot to mention THE PAINTING!”
I paced and paced and paced! Starting to slide back into a panic again! Angela Weisberg—DEAD! Pollock—gone! I grabbed the brown bag and started to breathe into it prophylactically. After a few breaths, I proceeded to take a more careful survey of the inside of their property.
By the time the officer arrived, I detected three more pieces of evidence. First, I noticed footprints of mud that came from the area where the Pollock stood and led out the front door. Clearly, that was the path of egress of the painting. I took a sheet of paper from a leftover folded-up New York Times crossword puzzle page in the back pocket of my jeans. I took the newspaper and pressed the clearest muddy footprint on the back of the puzzle page and created an imprint of the footprint. Second, a MedicAlert Bracelet was adjacent to the fireplace grill. I picked up the silver bracelet and read it: “MDT Protecta and Cypher!” This bracelet did not belong to Mrs. Weisberg! MDT was the abbreviation for Medtronic, a pacemak
er company. And Protecta was their most recent brand of implantable defibrillator, a pager-sized box implanted in the chest to detect and treat lethal heart-rhythm problems like the one that befell Mr. Vicks. “Cypher” was the name of a stent manufactured by Cordis, part of Johnson and Johnson. There was no way this belonged to Mrs. Weisberg. I looked over Mrs. Weisberg’s body very carefully, and even felt below the left and right collarbone for the mass effect that would have been created by a defibrillator implant. There was none. No evidence of such an implant in her whatsoever. Could it have been Mr. Weisberg’s? Not a chance. I remember seeing him without his famous Yale T shirt, bare-chested, when I helped him fix a backup from his cesspool. There was no such scar. Only a blue tattoo that read “Eli!” And the tattoo had no relationship to my cabbie from Miami Beach. I hooked the bracelet on my wrist for convenience so I could continue scouring the place for clues. Third, there, adjacent to the side moulding that abutted the entryway, was a three-by-four-inch brown sticker, much like a nametag that you would wear at a mixer. But this was no mixer sticker. I picked up the tag, and turned it over. The tag was aged and had lost its adhesive. On the front I could easily read:
Sotheby’s
Artist: Jackson Pollock
Title: “No. 5, 1948”
Year: 1948
Oil on Fiberboard
8 feet by 4 feet
POR
“POR” stood for “price on request.” Most people who would have requested the price of this priceless painting would have done so more out of curiosity than serious interest in a purchase. But someone did purchase the painting? And it had to eventually make it to the Weisbergs’ private collection. I took the aged sticker and folded it up with the footprint-containing newspaper page—so that from the outside it showed only the crossword puzzle—and stuck it in my back pocket. Lastly, when I looked carefully at the driveway, I saw only one set of car tire prints. Those tire prints had entered the Weisbergs’ driveway and led directly to my place next door. As I looked a little more closely, I felt certain I knew their source. They were the prints from my car’s high-performance Pirelli tires. There was not another set of tire prints in sight. Any vehicle large enough to carry an eight-foot painting, even a minivan, would have made an imprint on the muddy driveway.
Four police cars hit the Weisbergs’ driveway. Officer McElroy was the first to enter. I knew it was McElroy by the name on his uniform, but I also recognized him from town. He was a slender, well-kept policeman, who must have been in his mid-thirties. The Westhampton Beach police officers all took turns patrolling the town’s only real commercial thoroughfare, Main Street, and McElroy had his share of walking the rather mundane beat. The other officers followed. Seven in total: six men and one woman. Officer McElroy came directly to me, while two others inspected the body and the rest searched the house.
Chapter 35
“Mr. Dawson? What happened?”
Like many of the Westhampton regulars, McElroy was a typical blue-collar Irishman. Westhampton had two primary ethnicities. Many locals were of Irish decent. In fact, St. Patrick’s Day is a national holiday on which the road-surface lines of Main Street are painted green and the locals are greeted with a festive St. Patty’s Day Parade. The second ethnicity was the Orthodox Jews. On a typical Saturday morning in summer, one could see the Jews, from Dune Road and elsewhere, walking in suits and dresses to Hampton Synagogue. The temple, with a devout following, is a beacon for Hampton Jewry.
“Officer, their Pollock painting was stolen! And it must be worth millions—probably over a hundred million dollars! And Mrs. Weisberg is dead!” I nervously stated.
“Mr. Dawson, what are you doing here?” he abruptly asked. The officer looked at me, his puzzled face filled with distrust.
“Mr. Weisberg asked for my help. He said he was in Asia and needed me to check out the place. It was washed out by the storm. I tried to dry out all his stuff—and then the painting! Over there!” I pointed to the empty space, and the two lonely hooks hanging over the fireplace.
The rest of the officers were taking pictures of the body, grabbing evidence samples, including pieces of clothing. The whole entire area was treated as a crime scene. McElroy walked me over towards the other officers, who were inspecting the body. The female officer had donned some thin latex gloves to prevent her fingerprints from being confused with that of any suspect or the victim herself. “Why couldn’t I have been that smart and worn gloves?” I said to myself. I had a box from the hospital just sitting next door at my place. I had no idea the Weisberg residence would turn into a crime scene.
“My prints are all over this place, including on Mrs. Weisberg’s body,” I anxiously reflected.
Dusting and collecting fingerprints. Hair samples, footprints, and bodily fluids! This was the blood and guts of an investigation, literally. Remnants of damage caused by either the perpetrator or the storm. It was hard to tell which was more devastating, Sandy or the murderer. The storm was bad enough, and now a grand theft of the highest order and a major murder, all next door to my “shed.”
“Dawson, can I see some ID?” asked the officer.
“Sorry, Officer, I forgot my wallet,” I replied.
“You what?” he snapped.
“Forgot my wallet. I left it back at my other house.”
“How do I know you are who you say you are?” the officer questioned.
“I’ve seen you in town, and I know you know my face. You can ask anybody who is around. They all know me. Terry from Hampton’s Coffee, Simon from the Beach Bakery, Fred Levy from True Value, and Hadley Ferguson from Prudential. If you need my beach pass ID, it’s sitting on the windowsill in my kitchen next door. Do you want me to run next door and get it?” I asked.
“No, Dawson. Your beach pass will do you no good this time of year.” He chuckled. He was not going to let me leave the premises anyway.
“And when was the last time you saw Mrs. Weisberg?” the officer asked.
“I had not seen her for a while. That is, I only met her a couple of times when we first moved to the neighborhood, and when I dropped off a package at their house a little over a year ago.”
“Did you see her when you first arrived at their house the other night?” the officer asked again.
“No, Officer. I only saw her in her present state. Dead. Just plain dead.”
“Were you having an affair with Mrs. Weisberg?” McElroy blurted out.
“Are you kidding me? I only met her a few times in the past. And that was not recently. It was about two years ago. When we first moved to the neighborhood. Don’t know her from Adam. But I do know of her. But I respected the Weisbergs’ privacy.”
“Mr. Dawson, please come with me down to the station!” the officer insisted.
“I guess I was wrong,” I said to myself. With his eerie stare into my eyes, I knew I had no choice.
Chapter 36
I rode with the officer back to the station. Went up the grand stairway that led into the modern large brick edifice, of a police building, that I always passed on the way to my place.
The officer led me to a back room and said, “Wait here,” as he locked the door.
I waited—no, paced—for almost two hours, until the door was open.
Officer McElroy entered with another officer, who was much more intimidating.
“So, you are a doctor, I see,” said McElroy. “Where do you practice?”
“Mount Sinai,” I said. Then I thought, “Did practice at Mount Sinai.”
“What do you mean, did practice?” asked the officer.
“I was just let go,” I said in a softer tone.
“What do you mean let go?” he badgered me.
“Fired, sir.” There, I said it. I’m sure this won’t help matters. Being the first at a crime scene, and now a motive? Although I’m not exactly sure what that motive would be. But the way the officer was talking, I was certain they would find one. Or at least try to concoct some cockamamie story.
&n
bsp; “When did this happen?” he asked.
“Two days ago,” I said.
“And where is your family, Dr. Dawson?”
“My family? They’re back in Port Washington.”
“And Mrs. Dawson?” he asked.
“She’s back there too. But don’t call her. She . . . She . . . She . . . She . . . She just, I mean I just caught her screwing some guy half my age. No use calling her.” All trust was gone! She did not have my back any longer. And since when? A year? Two? Five? Who knows? With deceit there is no trust. I just could not trust her. Calling Shari would not help my cause. But telling the officer not to call my wife? What was I thinking? Will he think that I was having an affair with Mrs. Weisberg as a reaction to my wife’s affair? I was digging my own grave. Maybe I should have kept my big mouth shut like they do in the movies and just have called my attorney.
“Her name, Dawson?” he asked.
“Ah, shit. Do I have to?”
“Yes, Dawson. Now, give it to me and her number.”
“Her name is Shari. You see, I got fired from Mount Sinai, drove home, and caught my wife fucking some guy. She’s not going to be helpful, sir.” I said.
“Dr. Dawson, please give me her number, I will have to call her.” He said.
“Do I really have to?” I responded.
“Yes, Dawson. If you don’t give it to me, I will get it some other way.” He was continuing to raise his voice. Beads of sweat started to flow down the sides of his face. It was sheer, unmitigated anger, and all I wanted to do was get out of this mess. But just like McElroy, I was sweating as well. Slightly shaking.