3 The Braque Connection (7 page)

“Any idea what this means?” He pulled a chair closer and sat down hard.

I pushed my sleeve back down and cradled my arm. “Not yet, but I’ll figure it out.”

“I’m sure you will, Doc.” He lifted the phone in his hand. “I got a call from the lab. You were most definitely drugged.”

“Was it a benzodiazepine?”

“Yes. The lab guys said that they identified it as Lorazepam.” Manny glanced at Colin. “Your results are the same, by the way.”

“Gee, thanks, Millard. At least now you have proof that I was too drugged to kill someone.”

“Ah, not that simple, my criminal friend.” A malicious smile lifted the corners of Manny’s mouth. “They found the Braque painting.”

“Which one of the many?” Vinnie asked from the glass door. He looked less stressed than after initially seeing the blueprint photo. Francine joined him, also waiting for Manny’s answer.

“The one stolen from the McCarthy house.”

“How can you be sure that it was the one that was originally there? If the original had been replaced by a forgery, who’s to say that the painting found isn’t another forgery?”

“Whoa there, Doc.” Manny lifted both hands. “They know it’s the McCarthy forgery because it has traces of the butler’s blood on it. It also has Frey’s fingerprints on it.”

“Not possible. I was not there.”

“I know, I know. Don’t get your panties in a twist.”

“Um, Colin doesn’t wear panties. They are called boxers. Panties are only for females.” I thought about this for a moment. “And maybe for male cross-dressers. Or men with a fetish.”

Everyone laughed, even Manny. I didn’t know what they had found humorous. I was feeling a bit defensive. “Cross-dressing is a strongly developed subculture. Men who prefer to wear women’s clothes are not necessarily transgender. There is a rich history of men dressing as women as far back as in Greek and even Norse mythology. As for men with a fetish, this is generally a well-hidden subculture. Anthropologically speaking, this is a rather interesting topic.”

“Moving right along.” Manny shook his head, still smiling. “Frey’s fingerprints were found all over the painting. A significant find was his prints overlaying the butler’s.”

“Meaning that Colin had touched the painting after the butler,” Francine said. “There is no way that any good thief would touch an item without gloves on. Colin uses gloves.”

I watched Francine’s statement impact Manny and the others. A realisation had just registered with them and did not sit well—regardless of the posturing between them, these people had begun to trust each other. Three people always in the grey areas of legality, and Manny ever the law-abiding and law-enforcing individual.

“I think we need to move on here as well.” Colin’s soft suggestion was met with a lot of nodding. “If my prints were all over that painting, it is very possible that it is the Braque I had painted for my safe house. How my prints got to be on top of the butler’s is only a guess. It could be that they copied my prints and used a thin rubber cast to press over the butler’s. Most likely, they pressed his fingers on the painting after he died.”

“That sounds like a viable explanation,” I said, suppressing a shudder at the violence of this act. “What else did they find on the painting?”

“My guys had some expert look at it and the guy is convinced it is the original. I’m not convinced. I think it’s Frey’s handiwork.”

“Why do you think that?” Colin asked.

“A hunch. You’ve fooled experts before.”

Colin nodded, then pushed his hands through his hair. “Why does Kubanov have such a hard-on for me? Can you get that painting here?”

“It will be here. I knew you would be the best person to identify it as your own work. Or tell us if it is the original.” The change in Manny was miniscule. As usual, he was scowling and speaking to Colin in a manner the elite would use to address someone of a much lower echelon. Yet the change was there. He was showing empathy, but attempting to hide it.

“I will definitely know if this is my painting.” Colin thought for a moment. “This is a really elaborate setup. For Kubanov to have gone this far is quite significant, right, Jenny?”

“Definitely, but something is off.” I didn’t know what or how, but my mind was telling me this was not like the cases we had before. “Something is different this time.”

“What?” Francine asked.

“I’m not sure. What I have now, what
we
have now, is his behavioural history.” I counted on my fingers. “He always uses a third party through whom he executes his plan. There is a strong motive acting as a distraction to his true motive. He uses that third party’s criminal system to overwhelm us with events and data to investigate so we can’t see his end plan.”

“And you want to get to his end plan first?” Colin asked.

“I would like to. But if I go on our experience with him, we won’t have any clue as to what he plans until we’ve solved the puzzle of the third party.”

“And that means you want to start with solving twenty-seven murders.” Manny shook his head. “You are light years ahead of us, Doc.”

“I’ll help,” Colin said. “Vinnie will also help to look through these murders. Between the two of us, we have enough knowledge of the crime world to spot things. You can then analyse it.”

“It might be more prudent if you tell us who would hate you deeply enough to assist Kubanov in killing you.”

My question startled Colin. His eyes flashed and then narrowed in thought. It only took a couple of seconds before Colin, Vinnie and Francine were looking at Manny, similar expressions of accusation on their faces.

“Oh, fuck off, you lot.” Manny returned their stares until all four chuckled.

“You know, old man,” Vinnie straightened away from where he was leaning against the wall, “this would make you the perfect patsy. Personally, I like the idea. You and Colin share a history that Kubanov knows about. He even got you that little statue to show you just how much he knows. He’s toying not only with my man here, but also with you.”

“Hmm. I hadn’t thought about that.” He looked at Vinnie. “See what you can find out about this gun blueprint from your buddies.”

Vinnie only stared at him. I would’ve been surprised if he hadn’t already contacted someone in the industry to inquire about his suspicions.

When Vinnie didn’t answer, Manny grunted. “You criminals are going to drive me crazy. I know you are already paranoid, but it might be wise to watch your backs.”

“Aw, Manny.” Francine dropped her voice to a sultry tone. “You really care about us. Will you be watching my back for me? Or even better, will you be washing my back for me?”

“You wouldn’t know what to do with me, little girl.” Despite Manny’s scathing words, a slight redness coloured his cheeks. He got up and rolled his shoulders. “I have to go pick up that McCarthy forgery with Frey’s prints all over it. I don’t know how long I’ll be out. If you find anything significant, let me know, Doc. And before you ask, anything significant to this case. I really don’t care about any other interesting discoveries you make.”

“A bit testy, isn’t he?” Vinnie said as the wooden door to the hallway whooshed closed behind Manny. “I think he’s really disappointed that he can’t arrest you, dude.”

“Manny is working hard to exonerate Colin,” I said. “You’re quite mistaken, Vinnie.”

Vinnie uttered a rude sound. “I’ll be in the team room checking out those murder cases. Holler if you need me, Jen-girl.”

“I’ll join you,” Francine said and followed Vinnie into the next room. The glass doors slid closed, making my viewing room soundproof again.

“Vinnie knows something, doesn’t he?” I had observed only a few micro-expressions, but my suspicion was confirmed by Colin’s stronger reaction.

“What makes you think that?”

I lifted an eyebrow and waited.

“Okay, fine.” He glanced at the glass doors. “You know he has connections with gun runners.”

“Illegal arms traders?”

“Yes. The ballistics are making Vinnie very suspicious. He plans to speak to his contacts about this, to find out what they are thinking. Maybe they’ve heard about these guns that leave no traceable evidence. It would be a very hot commodity in their business.”

“Tell me about Susan Kadlec.” Remembering the pain on his face, I kept my voice low and soft.

Colin gave a humourless laugh. “Of course you caught something. What gave me away?”

“Your eyes. There was a lot of grief there. Did you know her well?”

“Yes. I met Susan when I was stealing my education.” He leaned back in his chair, his eyes losing focus on the present. “When I was sneaking into the university to learn about art and other subjects, Susan was only an assistant professor, but everyone knew that she was going to be the top of her field one day.”

“What was she teaching?”

“Art history. It was her passion and she was good at it. Good at teaching, good at connecting with the students and even better at restoring artwork.” He paused for a moment. “It was her restoration work that gave her away.”

“What do you mean?”

“After four months of my never missing a class, Susan got suspicious of me. None of her students were as dedicated. She tried to find me on the register and couldn’t. That was when she realised that I was attending her classes illegally. Well, as illegal as getting an education can be. She called me to her office and scolded me for not getting a formal education. She was convinced that I had greatness ahead of me and squandering it by fooling around was a crime in her opinion.

“While she was ranting at me, I had a look around her office. There were two impressionist paintings leaning against a filing cabinet. When she noticed my interest, she asked my opinion of her restoration skills. I got up to look more closely at them and told her they were exquisite forgeries. To this day I will never forget her shock. At one point I thought she was going to faint, especially when I told her that I had seen her work at an auction just the previous week. It had been an amazing Monet forgery that had passed all the vetting. You see, the really good art restorers are at heart forgers. She was good, really good.”

“She taught at a university. The ethical and moral conflict is too much for me to imagine.”

Colin smiled. “If only life was as black and white as you see it, Jenny. No, Susan lived in so many shades of grey that I don’t think she ever saw black or white.”

“Even more than you?”

“She’s the one who taught me most of what I know about forging and fencing. She took me under her wing and I even did a few forgeries for her once she was satisfied with the quality of my work.”

“I don’t understand how you can sound proud. It was—it
is
—a crime what you did.”

“Grey, Jenny. Grey.” He shrugged. “She changed later on. It wasn’t long after I stopped attending university that I started reappropriating art that was illegally acquired.”

“You were stealing back stolen artworks.” Why the need for euphemisms?

“Yeah, okay. That. Well, Susan was confused by this. She had found in me a protégé of sorts and had thought us to be kindred spirits.”

“Criminals?”

“Master forgers,” he corrected. “We had long philosophical debates about my work. When Manny arrested me, things changed even more. I was then unofficially officially hired by Interpol to continue what I had been doing.”

I tried, but simply couldn’t let it go. “You can’t be unofficially officially anything.”

“I was on Interpol’s payroll, Jenny. That made it official. No one apart from four men at the very top of the agency knew about my involvement, knew that I was stealing for them. That made it unofficial. Ergo, unofficially official.”

“That’s just wrong.” I waved my hand around. “Tell me more about Susan.”

“In the last six years she stopped forging altogether. Instead, she”—he smiled—“officially started doing reproductions of famous masterpieces. Nothing illegal about that. She put her name on it right underneath the artist’s forged name. She wasn’t particular about the paints and canvasses, using newer materials. That made it nigh on impossible to trace any of her earlier forgeries to her more recent works. Not that any of her earlier forgeries had ever raised any suspicion. Like I said, she was really good.”

“And her connection to you?” Kubanov and his apparent vendetta against Colin came to mind. Was he looking for people from Colin’s past?

“Oh, we kept in touch.” Colin tilted his head to the side. “You’re thinking about Kubanov, right? I have no idea how he would connect us. This might be a coincidence. I know you don’t believe in that, but maybe Susan got involved in something that she couldn’t control and it got her killed.”

His voice stumbled over the last few words. He rubbed the heel of his hand on his sternum. He had lost a friend, a colleague and someone he had respected. I had never faced a situation such as this and had no idea what to do or say to someone mourning a dear friend. I awkwardly patted his hand, then decided to rather take his hand in both of mine. For a few seconds, he only stared at our hands. When he looked at me, his eyes were shiny.

“We’ll find her killer, Colin. I will make that a priority. Then we will find Kubanov. He will no longer be allowed to take away people we care about.”