The Bloody Canvas

by KJ Kalis

  “She and an art expert went to London to go intercept the shipment.”

  “And she found the missing artwork?”

  Carson nodded. “Yep. According to the art expert, it’s exactly the same work that was sitting in Hailey’s apartment before it was stolen.”

  Ginny stood up. “Well, I’m no detective, but it seems to me that everything connects to those pieces of art. If you figure out that part of the story, you’ll figure out the rest of it.”

  Ginny gave Carson a smile as she walked out of the office. Her comment hung in the air. Carson sat back down at his desk, wondering if she was right. Maybe the murder was less about Hailey than it was about the art. He looked at his cell phone. With the time difference, it was night in London. He paused for a moment, wondering if it was too late to call. He decided to call anyway.

  “Hello?”

  “Kat? It’s Carson.”

  “Carson. Is everything okay?”

  “Yes. I’m sorry for calling so late. I just wanted to check in to see if you’d found anything new.”

  “I wasn’t asleep anyway. I’m at Henry’s now. We had a bit of an incident tonight.”

  The hair on the back of Carson’s neck started to prickle. “What do you mean?”

  “I’m gonna put you on speaker so you can talk to Eli and Henry, too. Hold on for a moment.”

  Carson could hear Kat call for Eli and Henry and some scuffling as she set the phone on speaker. It sounded like she set it down on a counter or a table.

  “Carson? Can you hear me?”

  “Yes.” There was a little bit of static on the line, but for the most part, Carson could hear Kat clearly. “You said there was an incident tonight?”

  “Yes,” Kat sighed. “After I got dropped off at the hotel, I decided to go take a walk and do a little shopping. I needed to clear my head. Someone followed me and chased me down an alleyway. They nearly got me in a restaurant. And I thought I got away…”

  Henry’s voice came on the phone. “Carson? Henry here. Let me give you the recap. Kat’s a little upset. Apparently, Kat took a brief tour of about five blocks of the street area near the hotel. It’s well populated, generally. Lots of shops and restaurants. Someone decided to follow Kat, chased her down an alleyway and in through an Asian restaurant. She jumped into a cab in front of the restaurant, but it seems that it was a follow car. The car took her back to the hotel unharmed, but with a stern warning.”

  Carson’s stomach turned as a wave of nausea hit him. What had Kat gotten herself into? For that matter, what had they all gotten themselves involved in? The feeling in Carson’s stomach turned to anger. Who had threatened Kat? What did they want? “What did they say?”

  Kat stammered, “They basically told me to stop nosing around in their business and to go home.” There was a pause. “I want to go back to my life, I really do, but I know we're onto something.”

  Henry came on the line, “As soon as Kat called, I sent the police to the hotel and met them there. I’ve now moved Kat and Eli over to my house. They’ll stay with me until they get back on a plane to the United States.”

  Carson nodded, “That sounds like a good plan.” Before Carson could ask another question, he heard a phone ringing in the background.

  “Hold on. That’s mine ringing,” Henry said.

  “Eli? Are you there?” Carson asked.

  “Indeed. I’m here, Detective Martino.”

  “Tell me, what have you found with the artwork?”

  “Well…” Eli cleared his throat. “The work that we unpacked was clearly Hailey’s. It was meticulously done. Without an expert eye, it would be hard to know whether the canvases were real or fake.”

  “What you’re saying is they are forgeries?”

  Eli coughed a little bit in the background. “Well, that depends on how you define forgeries. Many art professors assign their students to copy historic works of art. It’s one of the best ways for them to learn. Now, if those are done just for homework, that’s one thing. If they are done to be sold on the open market without noting that they are done after a famous work of art, well, that’s another thing…”

  “What you’re saying is they were done to be sold?”

  “Now, now, I don’t know the intentions of the people who took them from Miss Park’s apartment. I don’t want to speculate on that.”

  Carson smirked to himself. Eli was a slippery one. Carson heard Henry in the background, talking loudly. “Okay, we will be right there.”

  Carson wished he could see what was going on at Henry’s house. “Henry? What’s going on?”

  “I just had a call from the customs agents that checked the artwork. Remember how we told you that the drug dog sounded off?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, apparently they did smuggle drugs in. The agent didn’t want to get into details on the phone. I’m taking Eli and Kat with me back to the warehouse now.”

  Carson’s breath caught in his chest. Another layer to the story had just emerged. “Okay, let me know when you hear something.” The call ended. Carson leaned back in his desk chair, his mind stumbling over questions rattling in his brain. He pulled the file out from the papers on his desk. And opened it. It would be a long night…

  28

  Kat and Eli got back into Henry’s Scotland Yard sedan after the call from the customs officer. Kat gripped the back of the seat in front of her while Henry backed out and into traffic. The roads were so narrow in England, she wasn’t sure she would ever get used to it. Henry had offered her and Eli each a bottle of water on the way out the door. She had gratefully accepted it, twisting the cap off while they were on their way and taking a long drink.

  A reminder crossed her phone. “Schedule pediatrician’s visit.” She shook her head. It seemed like forever since she had been home. Her heart reached for Van and Jack, their dogs, and their quiet house in California. She knew she would be back there soon, or at least she hoped. She swallowed hard, a lump forming in her throat. She needed to stop thinking about what had happened and focus on where they were going. “Henry? Tell me again what the officer said?”

  Henry glanced in the rearview mirror. Kat hoped he didn’t notice how pale she was, or at least how pale she felt. “The officer didn’t say much. Just that they had found the source of why the drug dog had alerted.”

  Kat thought back to earlier that day when Bear had responded to the open crates so loudly. The barking had echoed off the walls of the large warehouse. Kat wondered if he was still there now, “What do you think they found?”

  Henry shook his head slowly. “Honestly, I have no idea. The drug shippers have become more and more creative over time. Really, some of the ways they try to sneak drugs in are quite brilliant.”

  Kat leaned back. The upholstery in Henry’s car had a slight sour smell to it. She started to think about why the car smelled funny but then decided not to. Some things were better left unconsidered. Her mind drifted back to the customs warehouse, the tall brick walls, the cavernous echoing of their footsteps. The news that the customs agents figured out the source of the drugs and that it was enough to pull Henry out of his house late at night piqued Kat’s curiosity.

  The drive to the customs warehouse wouldn’t take more than about twenty minutes. She turned her head to look out the window, listening as Henry and Eli chatted about practically nothing. Most of the homes were dark or only had a single light on. Kat imagined families inside, watching television together, or parents tucking their kids into bed telling them stories to get them to sleep. Kat cracked the window a little bit allowing some fresh air to circulate through the back seat. England smelled surprisingly just like home. She furrowed her eyebrows, wondering why she had expected it to smell differently. She was tired. That was a fact.

  As they got into the more industrial area where the customs building was located, the parked cars flanking either side of the street thinned out. The road widened, and there was little traffic. The residential homes dropped off
, more and more commercial buildings lining the streets. Kat could see office buildings and small manufacturing firms, their brick façades telling the story of the fact that they had been built in the economic boom that happened after World War II. Kat had read that somewhere after her first trip to England.

  What most Americans didn’t understand was that much of England had been flattened by the air raids of the Nazis during the war. There were still frequent reports on the news about World War II, memorials and celebrations of their victory. The first time that Kat went to London, it was hard to understand, though she didn’t have much time to talk to Henry about it. England was much more historically focused, unlike the United States, which was much more future-focused. Kat wondered if a devastating event hit the United States if that would change the way that Americans looked at the nation. That was a question she didn’t know the answer to.

  As Henry’s car bumped up the side of the curb, Kat stared ahead of the car, realizing they were at the customs warehouse again. Henry pulled the sedan into an unoccupied spot in the lot. There were no other cars there. The three of them got out and walked to the front door, Henry keying in the code on the pad.

  Inside, there was a soft glow of lights. They gave the building an eerie feeling, as though ghosts might appear between the crates stacked from floor to ceiling. A young man stood at the gate, opening it the minute the three of them walked into the building. It was a vastly different experience than the one they had earlier in the day.

  Kat followed Henry and Eli down the long space between the stacked crates toward the back of the building. She half expected to see the same agents that she’d seen earlier in the day, but when they arrived near the loading dock, she could see a much larger team. There were probably ten or fifteen agents working on the three crates. She glanced around her. The crates had all been dismantled and spread across the floor. They had been stripped down to bare wood. In front of each crate was a pile of the packing materials, the plastic, Styrofoam sheets, shipping peanuts and craft paper that had wrapped each individual piece of artwork. There were small yellow numbered cones in front of each pile. A forensic photographer was taking pictures and documenting as the team worked.

  A voice broke through the chaos of the agents moving around, “Agent Nash?” A woman approached Henry, wearing the gold bars that signified an officer of the customs unit.

  “Yes. Special Agent Henry Nash. I was told to report here.”

  The woman, just a bit taller than Kat, with black hair slicked back off of her face into a long ponytail, said, “My apologies. Special Agent Nash, thank you for coming. When we changed over the shift, agent Davis said that you had some special interest in this art shipment. That’s why I had her call you. Is that correct?”

  “That’s correct. Let me introduce you to Kat Beckman and Eli Langster. They are guests of Scotland Yard from the United States.”

  Kat glanced at the woman waiting for her to respond. She wondered for a moment what it meant to be a guest of Scotland Yard.

  “I’m Mary Brown, Deputy Chief Investigator of Region Five. I was called in today when the drug dog sounded off and they couldn’t find the source of the alert.”

  The group of them followed Mary as she walked closer to the crates. “As you can see, we have basically torn apart each one of these shipments based on what came inside of the crate. We’ve made piles of each shipping material and looked at them carefully to determine if there is any drug residue and if so, where it came from.”

  Based on the way that Mary was moving from pile to pile, Kat could tell that she was excited, as though she had discovered treasure on a deserted island. Kat moved closer to her so that she could hear better, the commotion of everyone working casting a low din in the building.

  Mary pointed, “Our first clue came from crate number two. We took swabs of each one of the packing materials and did an analysis on them. While there was only a small amount of drug residue on the plastic and paper that was used to wrap each one of the canvases, we got a hit on the peanuts.”

  Eli took a step forward, “Was there any drug residue or testing done on the canvases?” Eli looked nervous, Kat thought. She could tell that he didn’t want any damage done to the art.

  Mary shook her head no, her black ponytail swinging across her back. “No, we ran a simple swab test around the edges, careful not to disturb any of the paint or varnish.” She looked at Eli, “Don’t worry. We do this all the time.” Her face cracked into a smile, softening her features. “There is no evidence of drug contamination on any of the canvases. We believe that the plastic and kraft paper protected them from any contamination.”

  Mary waved for them to follow her. Kat, Eli and Henry walked behind her as she moved through the back of the warehouse. What Kat hadn’t been able to see when she had been in the building before was that there was a large investigation room towards the back of the building, separated from the tiers of crates that were being stored and waiting for inspection, approval and transport.

  Mary scanned her badge at the door, the lock clicking open with a soft beep. “We use this isolation room to do testing when we don’t want to expose the rest of our customs deliveries to foreign objects or substances.”

  Kat blinked as she entered the room. Like the customs inspection area, this room was bathed in brilliant light. Powerful fixtures hung from the ceiling preventing any shadow from forming in the room. As her eyes adjusted, she noticed that there were quite a few stations spaced around the area. The room itself was large, with rows of laboratory equipment and other scientific pieces of equipment she couldn’t name. There were three people working in the lab even though it would have been what they considered the graveyard shift. Each one of them was wearing a white lab coat, safety glasses and gloves. Mary led them forward around the end of a long table that housed what looked to be awfully expensive laboratory equipment to a man who had his arms inside of a Plexiglas box. Kat stared at it for a moment. The man was wearing thick beige rubber safety gloves that had been permanently attached to the inside of the box. As he pulled his hands out, the gloves fell limp and drooped. “Well, hello!” the man said, turning toward them.

  Mary nodded, “Please meet William. He’s one of our Chief Investigators.” The group nodded and waved. Mary continued, “William, this gentleman is with Scotland Yard, and these are his guests. They came here to track down the shipment of art that you have been examining.”

  William stood up, his diminutive figure not much taller than the Plexiglas box on the table. He took off his safety glasses. He was several inches shorter than Kat, which put him at not any taller than five feet. Everything about him was small. His hands, his features, the width of his body. The white lab coat hung on him like he was simply a hanger for it. “This has been interesting, very interesting.”

  Henry cocked his head to the side, “I’m sorry?”

  “Right, right. When I get excited, I tend to start in the middle of the story, not the beginning.” William took a deep breath and pushed up the round frame glasses that sat on his nose. “Mary called me late this afternoon, just after you had left the building, I believe.” Mary nodded. William cleared his throat, “She explained that the drug dog had alerted on your art shipment, but they couldn’t figure out where the drugs were.”

  Kat looked at him. “It isn’t our art. We are tracking it because of a murder investigation back in the States.”

  William’s eyes got wide, “Well, that does make for an interesting story.” He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down in his thin neck. “So, when Mary called me, she asked me to come in and see if I could figure out why one of our drug dogs alerted on the shipment.” A small smile crept onto one side of his face. “I love those drug dogs. Bear is my favorite. I brought him some organic treats because he’s such a good boy.”

  Mary raised her eyebrows and looked at William, “The story, William?”

  “Yes, yes. I’m sorry. Let me get back to it. Anyway, after I fed Bear
a few treats, I decided to do a full observation of everything that had come in the crates. I reran swabs on all the packing materials and came up with the same conclusions that the first set of our technicians did. Now, one thing to know is that the tests that I use are far more sophisticated than the field test kits that are customs agents have. That’s why I’m here,” he shrugged. “At any rate, when I had done the full round of tests, I came to the same conclusion. The only place there seemed to be any drug residue was the Styrofoam packing peanuts.” William walked over to a line of equipment that was near the Plexiglas box that he had been working in. “I ran a full set of tests on a sample of the packing peanuts. Actually, three samples, to be accurate. I pulled one from each crate.” He pointed to a line of equipment on one of the stainless-steel laboratory tables. “As I did the initial testing, I saw that the test results are coming back positive for fentanyl, carfentanil, to be precise.”

  Kat frowned. “Isn’t carfentanil the more powerful derivative of fentanyl?” she asked.

  William beamed, as though Kat had just become the star student in his little class. “Exactly! That’s when I moved the testing over to this beauty.” He walked back over to the Plexiglas box and tapped the top of it like he was petting a dog. “Anytime we are dealing with the opioids, particularly fentanyl, we use this isolation chamber. It allows us to do research without risking exposure. Carfentanil is lethal.”

  Kat could tell by looking at Henry that he was getting impatient. “Okay. So, what you are saying is that the only thing that tested positive for drugs was the packing peanuts. What else did you find?”

  “Well, we are just at the beginning of the story!” William said.

  Kat glanced at Mary, who shook her head slightly. Kat guessed that William rarely got visitors and so having an audience tonight would make his year, “William, I have to confess, I’m a journalist, not a scientist. Could you give us a simple explanation so I can understand what you’re saying?”

  “Oh, how wonderful! I had no idea. Come here, come here. The best thing to do is to show you.” William sat down on the stool that was in front of the Plexiglas box. He inserted his hands back into the long rubber gloves that were mounted into the side of the box, his small fingers filling out the rubber, moving toward a pile of peanuts that were already inside the enclosure. “I decided to take a better look at the peanuts, to get an idea of what we are dealing with.” William held up a peanut using one of the rubber gloves, a scalpel in his other hand. “The only thing about using this isolation chamber is that I have to anticipate every tool I could need before I put materials in the box and seal it. If I unseal the box while I’m working to get another tool, I have to start all over again.” He shook his head. “So, luckily I had grabbed a surgical toolkit before I started the examination. Watch this.”