by Rick Homan
“Mr. Jappling,” I said, “I must inform you that Mr. Ghent’s painting cannot be authenticated by the experts who have examined it.” Under the circumstances I thought it best to refer to Sandra as more than one expert.
“There is absolutely no need for authentication,” said Jappling. “I have already explained to you: The provenance is perfectly straightforward.”
“Then you won’t mind if we examine the painting in the alcove downstairs.” I glanced over my shoulder at Pat and said, “You did bring the black light with you, didn’t you?”
He hesitated for a moment, and I was afraid I would have to wink to let him know I was up to something, but he worked it out on his own. With a solemn look on his face, he patted the flight bag that hung from his shoulder.
“You will do no such thing,” said Jappling, stepping toward me. Because of his extraordinary height I had no choice but to tip my head back since I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing me back up. He put his hands on my shoulders and said, “This has gone far enough.”
Before I knew what was happening, Pat stepped between us, thrust his hands under Jappling’s arms, lifted him off his feet, and pressed him to the wall behind his desk.
Jappling made useless attempts to pull Pat’s hands away. After he let out one loud “Hey!” Pat flexed his whole upper body and Jappling was suddenly out of breath. Jappling’s jaw moved but he made only a raspy sound. “Uh kuh . . . uh kuh . . .”
I thought he might be trying to say, “I can’t breathe,” and called out to Pat to stop.
Ignoring me, Pat said, “You should apologize to her.”
“Sor—” gasped Jappling.
Pat relaxed his arms and shoulders slightly, and Jappling said, “Sorry.”
“Not to me. To her,” said Pat.
Jappling looked at me and said, “I’m sorry.”
“For what?” asked Pat.
“For pu— . . . for putting my hands on you.”
“And are you willing to sit down now and discuss this business in a civilized manner?”
“Yes,” said Jappling. “Let’s . . . sit down.”
Pat released him, and Jappling braced himself against the wall as he caught his breath and regained his balance. Pat backed up a couple of steps.
Jappling sat behind his desk and reached for the phone.
“Making a phone call right now would be rude,” said Pat.
Jappling leaned back in his chair.
I sat opposite Jappling and noticed his hands were shaking. I myself felt uneasy about the way Pat had used force, but decided this was the moment to push ahead.
“Mr. Jappling,” I said, “Mr. Ghent needs some information he can verify independently regarding the provenance of the painting his wife, Anne Ghent, purchased from you. You said a family placed the painting with you for sale.”
“There was no family, no provenance,” said Jappling.
I took a moment to make sure I had heard him correctly. “Are you now saying that what you told Anne Ghent was not true?”
Jappling shook his head. “I’m saying that what I told you was not true. I never told Anne Ghent anything about a painting supposedly by Picasso, because I never sold her one.”
This sounded like a lame attempt to lie his way out of the situation. “Mr. Jappling, I know you did. I’ve seen the painting, and I’ve seen a receipt for its purchase from the Redburn gallery with your signature on it.”
“Yes, I signed that receipt,” he said, “but I never sold her a painting.”
I studied his face for any sign that he was lying. He seemed to be telling the truth. “Why would you give her a receipt if you didn’t sell her a painting?”
Chapter 25
Jappling leaned back in his chair, took a deep breath, and composed himself before speaking. “About two years ago, Anne Ghent came to me and said she wanted to buy a painting by Picasso. I said I would try to find one on the market and broker a deal, and I quoted her a price range. She said she didn’t want to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for a painting, even one by Picasso. I referred her to legitimate online vendors who offer reproductions in the style of Picasso as well as hand-painted copies of paintings by many other artists. The prices are very reasonable and the copies are convincing even to knowledgeable collectors.”
“And is that what she did?” I asked.
Jappling hesitated. “I’m not sure. When I mentioned that legitimate vendors do not sign Picasso or anyone else’s name to the copies, she said that would not suit her because she wanted a signed Picasso on her wall to impress her friends. I told her I could not help her, but I gave her the names of several art restorers and told her one of them might agree to add a signature to a reproduction. In reality, I knew no one I recommended would do that. I said it just to get her out of my office.”
I took out my phone, pulled up the photo I had taken of Anne Ghent’s Picasso, and showed it to Jappling. “Where did she get this painting?”
He glanced at it and gave a sour look. “I really don’t know,” he said. “Maybe she found someone to add a signature to a legitimate copy or maybe she paid someone to make a forgery.”
“How would a woman with very little connection to the art world find a forger for hire?”
“Obviously they don’t advertise, but art restorers have the necessary skills, and there is a history of restorers making forgeries. Perhaps she kept asking for referrals until she found one.”
“I see. Then how did she get a receipt from the Redburn Gallery for a painting by Picasso?”
Jappling’s face twisted and he clasped his hands in front of him on the desk. “She came back to see me about six months after our first meeting. She said she enjoyed showing off her new Picasso—and I want to emphasize I never handled, never even saw that painting—but that she had another problem. A friend of hers had admired the Picasso and was interested in buying one, but wanted to see documentation regarding the purchase price.”
“Did she mention this friend’s name?” I asked, thinking it must have been Tiffany.
“No,” he said. “Well, not at that point anyway. Anne offered to pay me a substantial fee to write her a receipted invoice for $625,000 on stationery from the Redburn. I took the money—cash. I’m not proud of it, but really, I thought, what difference does it make if some woman from Ohio has a piece of paper to wave around so she can show how much she paid for a painting. It wasn’t as if I was actually selling a forgery or handling enough money to pay for a Picasso.”
No, I thought, you were only compromising your reputation and the reputation of your employer.
I found my photo of Tiffany’s Picasso on my phone and showed it to him. “Do you know anything about this painting?”
The color drained from his face. “This is where things turned really bad. Almost a year and a half ago another woman from Ohio came to see me . . .”
“Tiffany Milman?” I asked.
Jappling’s face went slack. He had no more hope of keeping secrets. “Yes. She came to me, wanting to buy a painting like Anne’s. Naturally I told her I had none and doubted she would find anything similar on the market.”
“And yet, somehow, Tiffany Milman bought one, and she says she got hers from the Redburn Gallery too.”
Jappling started to stand. “I need water. My throat is dry.”
“Finish your story,” said Pat.
Jappling sat and swallowed hard. “Anne came to my office again and said she had arranged to buy another forgery and that she wanted me to sell it to Tiffany Milman through the Redburn as a genuine Picasso. I told her that was ridiculous and that she should have her friend do the same thing she did. She refused, saying her whole point was to trick this other woman into buying a fake.”
Jappling paused as if expecting I would have questions, but the entire scheme was clear to me. Anne Ghent bought a forgery and then persuaded Jappling to document its sale, all for the purpose of luring Tiffany into paying full price for a second forg
ery. I had never heard of such an elaborate and expensive practical joke.
“And what did you tell Anne Ghent?” I asked.
“When I said I would have nothing to do with it, she reminded me she had a receipt from the Redburn with my name on it for a fake painting. She said if I didn’t do as she asked, she would go to the police with a complaint that I had defrauded her. I argued with her, but it didn’t matter. Once I thought about it, I realized, if that receipt ever came to light, the gallery would want to know what I did with the $625,000 I supposedly collected from Anne Ghent for her Picasso.
“So, then you did as Anne wanted and sold a fake to Tiffany Milman?”
Jappling nodded. “It was the worst day of my life when I gave in to Anne Ghent’s blackmail. When the forgery was ready, I hung it in the gallery, and contacted Tiffany Milman. She came here, glanced at it, and wrote me a check for the full amount.”
“How long ago was this?”
“A bit over a year ago.
That meant that for more than a year the two fake Picassos had hung in their respective homes. No doubt their owners had shown them off and guests had admired them. All the while Anne enjoyed knowing she had made a fool of Tiffany. “Was that the last you heard from Anne Ghent?” I asked.
Jappling bowed his head, apparently too weary to hold it up any longer. “I thought that would be the end of it, but Anne came to see me last fall, saying she wanted to sell her fake Picasso. She expected me to put it on the walls here and sell it to someone for full price.”
“What did you tell her?”
“I knew she wouldn’t take no for an answer, but I stalled, hoping I could somehow get out of this nightmare. And I did. You called me with the news Anne had been killed and demanded to know the provenance so her husband could sell the painting. I made up the story I told you about a family who got the painting directly from Picasso. It was plausible. Owners often sell anonymously. If you had just accepted that, and helped Anne’s husband sell the painting, all this could have been avoided.”
That set a new standard for wishful thinking. “Do you mean you would have sold Anne’s fake to some unsuspecting person?”
“It’s not as if that never happened before.”
“And now there’s another one hanging downstairs,” I said.
Jappling’s face went blank for a moment before he gasped. “Oh, right, you saw that. Yes. Apparently, there is to be no end to my humiliation. Six months ago, the owners of the gallery said they were so impressed with the big sale I made to Tiffany Milman that they encouraged me to scour the market for more obscure Picassos. For a while, I made excuses. Then I started looking for legitimate paintings to sell, but it’s a tough market. I couldn’t come up with another in that price range.
“Then, the owners implied that unless I could come up with another big sale they would replace me as sales director. So, I called restorers, saying the Redburn had occasional need to repair paintings and I wanted to know their specialties. Over lunch or coffee I would make a joke about forgeries, and see if the person would return the joke. The process is a lot like picking someone up in a bar. You don’t come right out and ask if they will do it. You just see who is most comfortable talking about it. I think I may have ended up with the same forger Anne used.”
“But you could have called Anne and offered to sell her painting. Why didn’t you?”
“Because I knew she would find some way to use it against me. I couldn’t stand the thought of being involved with that woman any further.”
My head was spinning from Jappling’s wild tale, and I had to get back to my purpose in meeting with him. I needed to bring a letter back to John Ghent to get reimbursed for this trip. Otherwise, I would be carrying a balance on my credit card for the next few months.
“Mr. Jappling, I need a signed letter from you . . .”
“No! I can’t,” he said. “If all this comes out, I’ll never work again. I won’t even be able to get a job as a cashier in a museum store. Please! At least let me resign here and leave town. I’ll disappear, move back to Madison, Wisconsin. I promise you I’ll never be involved in anything like this again.”
“Mr. Jappling, hear me out. I need a letter signed by you saying you did not give Anne Ghent a provenance at the time she bought her Picasso. That much is true, so there’s no harm in putting it in writing. You don’t have to say why you didn’t.
“I will deliver this letter to her husband, John Ghent, and he can do as he likes with the painting. If he wants to sell it, it will be up to him to pay for expert opinions regarding its authenticity. If he has a letter saying no one at the Redburn knew anything about the painting at the time Anne bought it, I don’t see why he or anyone else would come here asking questions.”
Jappling looked as if he’d rather drop dead than answer me.
“Will you write this letter?” I asked.
Jappling sat so long with his eyes boring into the top of his desk I began to wonder if he had heard me.
Finally, he said, “Alright.”
He opened the laptop on his desk and typed a few lines. When he closed the laptop, he said, “I’ll have to pick it up from the printer in the other room.”
“I’ll go with you,” said Pat.
Alone, I stood and stretched to release the tension that built up in me during this conversation.
When two sets of footsteps sounded in the corridor, I began to feel eager to get away from the Redburn Gallery.
Jappling came in and handed me the letter. I scanned it to make sure it said what I wanted it to say. I folded it into its envelope and put it in my purse.
“Thank you for your time, Mr. Jappling,” I said as I walked to the door.
“Please don’t say anything about this,” said Jappling.
“I’ll come back another time to have a look at those watercolors,” said Pat.
“If you do, you can talk to someone else,” said Jappling. It sounded like a warning bark.
When we got to the sidewalk in front of the gallery, I said, “Let’s walk over to Tenth Avenue and get a cab.”
Pat nodded.
I wanted to get away from the Redburn and Mr. Lester Jappling not only because his business dealings were corrupt but also because I now knew he’d had several good reasons to kill Anne Ghent.
Chapter 26
During our cab ride uptown, Pat sat turned away from me, looking out the window at the passing buildings.
After a few minutes of silence, I said, “That was a pretty rough meeting, back there at the gallery.”
Pat turned toward me, shook his head, and went back to staring out the window.
I understood we shouldn’t discuss anything sensitive with the cab driver listening, but I would have appreciated some words of comfort and encouragement. I decided to hold my peace. We would have plenty of time for that conversation on the shuttle back to Newark and at the airport while we waited to board.
When we were a few blocks from Penn Station, police barriers diverted all traffic on Tenth Avenue onto neighboring streets. We asked the driver to pull over and tipped him extra for cutting the ride short. Walking the rest of the way to the station we saw that the cause was not a terrorist incident, as I had first thought, but a movie crew filming.
As we turned a corner, I asked Pat, “Do you want to get a bite in Penn Station?”
“That’s fine,” he said without enthusiasm.
The more I thought about it, the less eager I was to rely on the vendors at the station. When we’d arrived several hours earlier, we’d chosen a pizza place for a quick lunch because it looked better than the other offerings. That meant anything else would be a step down.
I started scanning stores as we walked north. When we crossed 25th Street, I saw a deli on the corner.
“I’d rather pick up a few things here,” I said to Pat. “Then we can eat at the station or at the airport. Do you want a sandwich?”
Without looking at me, Pat said, “Sure.”
“Turkey?” I asked.
“Sounds good.”
This was starting to annoy me. I don’t mind doing my share of the chores, but Pat’s attitude was bordering on rudeness, which wasn’t like him. I guessed he was upset about the way the meeting at the gallery went. I left him waiting on the sidewalk, went in, and bought our food.
With a bag full of sandwiches, salads, candy bars, and bottled drinks, we arrived at Penn Station in time to catch an airport shuttle leaving earlier than the one we’d planned. Since it’s better to be early for a flight than late, we took it.
As we rode to the airport, in an effort to start some sort of conversation, I asked, “Do you have term papers to grade?”
“A few,” said Pat.
“How about exams?”
“What do you mean?”
“Are you giving exams in all your classes?”
“Two of them.”
I made a few more attempts to engage him on light topics before we got to the airport, but he wasn’t interested.
The sandwiches, salads, and candy bars made it through security, but they confiscated our bottled drinks. After we bought replacements at a shop in the airport, I found us a table with some space around it in a food court. I was starving by then, and I guess Pat was too, because we ate in silence for a while.
With more than an hour to go before boarding, the time had come. “Pat, I need to talk to you about that session with Jappling.”
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“For what?”
“The violence.”
I was glad to know he wasn’t angry with me for dragging him along on this trip. “Thanks for bringing that up. It was a little over-the-top, but no harm done, and it did get him to spill the beans.”
“It was wrong.”
“Strictly speaking, I suppose it was,” I said, “but you shouldn’t punish yourself for it. After all, he did lay hands on me. I’m glad you stepped in.”
“I could have just stopped him and told him not to do that. I didn’t have to hurt him.”
“Okay. That’s a good point. Can we just say ‘lesson learned,’ and ‘it won’t happen again?’”