Art and Arsenic (Veronica Margreve Mysteries Book 2) (10 page)

If I trusted the story, it meant that Dr. Bencham, either by himself, or with full knowledge of his wife, was denied a loan that he apparently needed, and told that the paintings that they spent – I thought back to what Monica told me – $50K on were fake. That was just a couple of months ago.

Was that a sufficient motive to murder someone? Maybe yes, maybe no. I heard that Dr. Bencham was very full of himself and thought that he knew everything best – so something like this, being taken in by a swindle, or being unable to immediately resolve his financial difficulties, was probably a huge blow to his ego. It might have pushed him to murder, who knows…

But what about the franks, expired or not? Dr. Bencham was angry with Fred on Friday, pushy, and talking about kosher franks. Where did they fit in?

I didn’t quite know how to tackle this. To have a place to start, I decided to assume that the franks and their expiration were connected to the Benchams’ need for a loan in late January, and see where it got me. It seemed to be as good a guess as any.

I did a web search for “franks expiration January” and scrolled through a page of search results. Besides the expected food safety articles and recipes, in the middle of the page were some links about Dodds-Frank act; as well as a foreign-currency trading site. As I looked through the results, suddenly it made sense to me.

I knew what happened in January. And maybe all of this together made an even stronger motive!

I dialed Detective Johnson, practically pulsing with excitement myself, and left him a message with all the info that I learned or surmised about the Benchams today, and their possible motive for murder.

16

After spending the evening on the phone and piecing together out what I felt was a solid murder suspect with a sufficiently-weighty motive, and exhausted from lack of sleep the previous nights, I fell into slumber.

In what seemed like a heartbeat later, I faintly heard the beeping of my alarm. Apparently, it was already Wednesday morning.

Ever since I was a kid, my alarm had resided in some location where I had to get out of bed to turn it off – high on the wall, on top of a large wardrobe, or, like now, on a dresser across the room. But the fact that I already got out of bed never stopped me from getting back in, once I turned the infernal noise off.  All of this activity woke Bitty, who was curled up on the edge of my blanket. After I cozied in to try to catch some more sleep, she walked on top of my ribcage, balancing, and proceeded to meow in my ear. I valiantly tried to ignore her for twenty minutes – during which her insistence on breakfast got progressively louder. I finally had to give up and get out of bed for the second time in the morning.  I said “Good morning, Bitty”, and she answered with a yowl. She paced and complained outside the bathroom door as I took a shower. She was appalled at my horrific judgment in subjecting myself to a stream of water, and probably concerned that her food source would get injured by all the evil liquid, and be unable to provide her anything to eat. Then the little cat ran ahead of me down the stairs towards her food dish. I gave her breakfast and poured myself some tea. I looked out the window. Clouds raced across the sky, gray with rain. The day didn't look very inviting – but nonetheless it was time to deal with everything I had planned.

When I walked into the gallery, I saw that the office door was open. Connie was there, behind the monitor, with some papers spread out on the desk.

She raised her eyes at me. Her bobbed hairstyle reminded me of Anna Wintour, and the look she gave me was what I’d imagine the famously steely Vogue editor-in-chief would give an intern who couldn’t distinguish a Dior gown by John Galliano from a Dior gown by Raf Simmons. She didn’t look in the least like someone who had a recent death in the family – or a death of anyone she knew at all, for that matter. I knew that people processed their grief differently, and that some chose to bury themselves in work – but I got the impression she didn’t experience any sadness at her still-husband’s passing. The fact that his funeral was happening later that day didn’t seem to impact her demeanor in any way. She was wearing black, but I could not see any signs of tears, or even of lack of sleep in her eyes.

“What is it?” That voice and clipped tones again.

On impulse, I put my hands behind my back and made myself look intimidated by her, even bowing forward slightly. It seemed like she was used to ordering people around – well, let her think that she can order me around, too.

“I was wondering whether there is anything else you’d like me to do.”

“No, you can leave.” I was being dismissed, just like that.

“I am still technically on the gallery’s payroll till tomorrow. So I could help out with any of the tech-related stuff, if you want?”

She looked back at the monitor in front of her, and clicked the mouse over something. She was sitting in Fred’s chair, being in essentially the place where he died, and it didn’t seem to bother her in the least. She clicked a couple of buttons, and bracelets jingled on her slender wrists. I noticed that she wore a Rolex watch with a pearl face.

“Oh, I see that you are.” A couple more button clicks.

Time to play timid and looking for work.

“I was glad I could help at least a little, defend your website. Do you think you’ll be needing more computer services in the future?”

A stern look back at me.

“No, I don’t think so.”

“In that case, could you please sign and date the paperwork saying that everything is fixed, and initial our Non-Disclosure Agreement again?” I handed her a stylus and my touch-screen laptop, with the documents on the screen.

She put her glasses on and read quickly, then signed.

“Thank you.”  I took the laptop from her. “And do you have a copy of my report?” I reached into my bag and handed her a new report copy, printed out specifically for this reason.

She took it with a look of displeasure on her face – I was clearly taking up her time. I knew my chances of getting any info from her in this state were minuscule, but I was enjoying annoying her in this way. Yes, I was fully aware that it was so heartless of me to pull this on the grieving widow!

She glanced down at the report and was about to toss it dismissively on the desk when something on it caught her eye.

“Ravenswood! Ravenswood Gallery was behind that attack on our website?”

“Yes.”

“I can’t believe Linda would do such a thing to me!” Connie’s face was twisted when she looked up at me.

“Oh my!” I tried to put what I thought would be a suitable expression on my face – mournful and indignant at a friend’s betrayal.

“On second thought – this shouldn’t surprise me, really. Linda was always an operator.” She flicked the report down on the polished surface of the mahogany desk, as if it were a poisonous spider – aiming to get it as far away from herself as possible, but carefully so as not to get bitten.

“In what way?” The expression on my face was sympathetic with a dash of ingratiating.

Connie might have normally been too composed to tell me all this – but right now the indignation got better of her natural reserve.

“She approached me recently, asking whether I would sell my stake in the gallery. It was no secret that Fred and I were separated. Her offer was higher than what Fred was going to offer to buy me out, and would have been a nice way for me to cash out.”

And now you got a half-share of the business, plus possible insurance money coming your way, I thought.  Aloud I said:

“When was that?”

“Oh, about a month back.”

“Did you consider her offer?”

“Yes. I hadn’t made up my mind yet – I wanted to see how this sale did. I thought the gallery could be a more valuable asset than Fred or Linda let on.” Ah, I bet you did, I thought to myself.

“Yes, that’s sensible.” I agreed out loud, to show her that we were on the same side. Throw in a little flattery while I’m at it. “You must be a very experienced businesswoman! What were your plans for after the gallery, anything exciting?”

“I was thinking of starting another business.”

“Oh! That's so interesting! Were you planning to get a partner?”

“Quite.” Her tone of voice indicated that I was over-stepping my role of servile computer tech. In Connie’s eyes, I was just the “hired help”, so I decided not to press on the issue of a connection between Alex and her, or bring up what I saw at the Sounders game.

So – Linda Raven offered to buy Connie’s part of Nordqvist Fine Art, likely when she got wind of the possible impending divorce. And maybe this was part of the reason for the DoS – Linda being annoyed at the other woman, at the delay, and wanting to bring the value of the gallery down as a negotiating ploy against Connie?

But, practically speaking, I doubted that Linda buying Connie’s half of the gallery could have happened – depending on how the business had been originally structured, some sort of a poison-pill provision would have stopped that. Perhaps Fred would have tried to get additional financing to match Linda’s offer – and if he couldn’t, the matter would have served to drag out the divorce, distract Fred Nordqvist and complicate the business dealings of the gallery. Which may have been Linda’s goal, at least partly, from the start.

Linda definitely didn’t mention any of this to me in any of our conversations, or in her plea for my help. This omission was certainly material, and made her look untrustworthy in my eyes, to say the least.

And Connie didn’t have much art experience herself. With Fred out of the way, maybe Connie would be more likely to sell the entire gallery, and perhaps even at a discount?

Just like that, Linda had a motive for murder.

But wait a second – a similar motive would apply to Connie herself. If she wanted to “cash out”, as she put it – perhaps she helped her beloved husband on his way to the after-life herself, planning to benefit nicely from her inheritance?

All of this went through my head as I was standing in front of Connie in the gallery’s office. I wasn’t sure how much of my thoughts were reflected on my face, so I decided to give it an expression of righteous anger, with words to match:

“To go and attack you like that – wow, the nerve of that woman! I am so glad I could stop her!” I hoped my words sounded heart-felt.  “Well, I will be going then.” I put on cheerful smile and exited the office. Connie’s eyes went back to her computer.

Once outside, I waited till I was in my car and with the door locked to dial Detective Johnson. I heard a gruff “Hello?” on the line.

“Detective Johnson? Veronica Margreve here. I may have some new info for you.”

“Yeah? Go ahead.” It sounded like he chewed his lips thoughtfully.

“Connie, Fred’s almost-ex-wife, just told me that Linda Raven approached her about a month ago with the suggestion to sell her share of the gallery. Connie said she didn’t respond to the offer yet, was waiting to see how this sale does.”

“Hummph”. The noise was quite empathic. Then he said: “She just called me a minute ago – Connie, I mean, – and told me that she suspects Linda of murdering her husband.”

“Oh”. I shouldn’t have been surprised much. Connie seemed a smart and efficient woman, and after finding out the specifics of my report, she probably reached the same conclusion as I had about Linda. And acted on it in the time it took me to walk to my car.

“We are going to talk to Ms Raven again”, he said.

“Did she get a lawyer, do you know?”

“Yeah, she did.”

I waited a little for him to add more detail, and when none was forthcoming, continued:

“As I see it, this gives a motive to both Linda and to Connie.”

“Hummph”. This one sounded like a thoughtful hippo, at the other end of the phone call, taking a break from chewing grass and relaxing in an African lake. “Yeah, it definitely does. Thank you for calling me about it.”

“And did you get my message about the paintings? It seems there is something fishy about them, they could be fake.”

“Yeah, I did. Do you have any evidence to connect with Fred’s death in any way?”

“No concrete evidence. But Linda told me on the phone that when there was a previous sale from Christopher’s uncle’s collection, she thought that the paintings were ‘off’ in some way. Of course, she might be making that up.”

“Humpph”. He was silent for a long moment, then said: “Do you think they are fake?”

“I am not an art expert. But how Christopher talked about them yesterday – that they could be fake, that there is no provenance documentation altogether, and that he was relying on art experts’ opinions for authentication – made me think that he at least suspects that they are fake. Or maybe he knows it for sure. And he probably wants to show that he’s innocent in any fraud going on, by giving an appearance of being forthcoming about things.”

Another thoughtful “Humpph”.

“And, per Linda again, an art expert in L.A. ruled two David Cox paintings sold through Nordqvist Fine Art as fakes, and the Benchams’ loan request was denied because of that. I think that they might have a pretty good motive. And apparently Andrew heard that tense conversation between Dr Bencham and Fred Nordqvist on Friday, all about ‘expired franks’.”

“Humph. So your theory was that the Benchams got burned on the Swiss franc speculation in January, when the currency jumped over 20% in one day, is that right? And that’s why they needed the loan, for some sort of a margin call?”

“Yes. I also think they got burned by Fred Nordqvist twice – I would guess it was he who recommended they trade Swiss francs. That was his previous line of work, alternative investments. It would fit, think about it. First, a financial move he advised blows up in their faces. And then the paintings that they acquired through his gallery turn out to be fake. I think that’s plenty for a motive for one or more of the Benchams there, don’t you?”

Detective Johnson was silent. Then he said. “Thank you for your info. We’ll check into it.”

I said I was glad to help, turned on my car and drove out of the parking lot.