Feint of Art: (11 page)

“What’s up, toots? Something wrong?” Mary asked, joining me at the desk.

“I don’t think Fender Bender likes me,” I said, deflated.

“Yeah, I met him today. He stopped me when I passed his office and asked what my business was here. Sexy, though,” Mary declared. “Too bad he’s gay.”

“Gay?” I was surprised. “Are you sure? My gaydar didn’t go off.” True, there had been no wedding ring. In these parts, that was rare for a good-looking straight man with two nickels to rub together.

“With those spiffy suits and that slicked-back hair?
Totally
gay,” Sherri declared from the sitting area. Sherri and Mary were from the same small town in Indiana. After devoting their adolescence to scoring illegal cigarettes and dyeing their hair with Kool-Aid powder, the two had hitchhiked to San Francisco. Here they found hordes of young people who shared their passion for smoking, black clothes, and Goofy Grape-colored hair. Despite her diminutive stature and baby-doll voice, Sherri worked alongside her leather-clad husband, Tom, as a process server.

The young men sprawled at Sherri’s feet nodded in agreement.

“You’ve
all
met the man who owns the building?” I asked. No wonder Fender Bender was annoyed. Five sets of heavy motorcycle boots trodding the old wooden floorboards outside his office must have sounded like a contingent of Nazi storm troopers. I had to smile.

“I don’t know,” I continued, unconvinced. “He’s too stuffy to be gay.”

“C’mon, Annie. Have you
ever
seen a straight man in the City who dressed that well?” Mary insisted.

“True enough,” I conceded. “But remember, he’s not from here. There are men in other parts of the world who dress like gay men do here. The French, for instance. Stand in a room full of Frenchmen and you’d swear they were all gay, but they’re just stylish.”

“Huh. Maybe so,” Mary said thoughtfully. “Guess we’ll have to check it out.”

“How do you propose to do that?” I said, suddenly wary.

Mary and Sherri smiled. “Don’t worry—we’ll come up with something.”

“Hey, do not, I repeat, do
not
get me in any more hot water with the landlord, okay? I’m serious, guys.” I was going for severe, but feared I’d hit only plaintive. The phone rang, and I answered it while shooting stern looks at my assistant. “True/Faux Studios.”

“Ms. Kincaid.”

Speak of the devil.

“Mr. DeBenton!” I cooed. “How nice to hear from you. And so soon!”

“Indeed. I thought I should inform you that two inspectors from the San Francisco Police Department are on their way up to see you,” he said.

Two SFPD inspectors were
here
? To see
me
? I considered slipping out the back door but decided against it, seeing as there was no back door. And I figured that vaulting out the window and climbing down the fire escape might give the cops the wrong impression. It then occurred to me that this was the second time today I had considered escaping through a second-story window and I hadn’t even had lunch yet.

“So,” DeBenton continued, “would this be the part about not causing trouble?”

“Yeah, well . . .” Anxiety had jammed my brain’s circuitry. “Anyway, I don’t see how this is pertinent to . . . Oh, Lord, they’re here.” I slammed down the phone. My youthful interactions with the authorities had been unsettling, to say the least, and I harbored a sneaking suspicion that, as my grandfather always insisted, larceny ran in my blood. For whatever reason, I always assumed I was guilty until proven innocent. And in this case I
was
guilty, at least of not approaching the police earlier to tell them about the events at the Brock.

“May I help you, Inspectors?” I asked, using my best Citizen of the Year voice and trying not to hyperventilate. Filling the doorway were one pale, skinny, white man who reminded me a little of Ichabod Crane and one solidly built African Princess. Both flashed badges. Neither smiled.

“Anna Kincaid? We’d like to ask you some questions, please,” the Princess said in a deep, authoritative voice.

None of Mary’s friends had budged. I tried to imagine the scene through the inspectors’ eyes and saw instead tomorrow’s headline in the
Chronicle
: MUSEUM MURDER SUSPECT RUNS DRUGGIE DEN FOR YOUNG MUSICIANS.

“Guys, why don’t you all run over to the park or something? Get some fresh air and sunshine?” I said to Mary’s crowd, as if they were eight years old.

“We might need to speak with them,” Ichabod intervened. “Do you know how to get in touch with all of them?”

“Certainly,” I lied.

The group got languidly to their feet and clomped out, avoiding the official eyes. Grandfather’s voice whispered, unbidden, in my ear: “It is important, my darling, when entertaining members of the constabulary, to act like a lady. It will mislead them.”

Accordingly, I gestured to the now vacant sofa. “May I get you anything?”

“No, thank you. I am Inspector Crawford,” the Princess said, her voice terse, “and this is Inspector Wilson.” Ichabod nodded and his Adam’s apple bobbed. “We have reason to believe you met with Ernst Pettigrew two nights ago.”

“Oh?” I tried to project interest without commitment.

“We found your name in his diary,” Inspector Crawford continued, eyeing me.

“His
diary
?” I protested. “I hardly knew the man!”

I kept a diary when I was eleven. I found it last year, when my mother sent me an old box marked ANNIE’S STUFF—STAY OUT! The diary would have been hilarious if it were not so pathetic, since it was mainly a catalogue of how “barfy” I thought some of my schoolmates were. I didn’t think grown men kept diaries. What had Ernst written about me? Was I barfy?

“It wasn’t that kind of diary, Ms. Kincaid,” Inspector Crawford said, her mouth twitching in an unwilling smile. Ichabod remained stone-faced. “It was his desk calendar. It indicated he had an appointment with you yesterday.”

“Oh.”

“And did he?”

A woman of few words, the inspector. What to say, what to say? Although I had fully intended to approach the police voluntarily, my reflex was to lie, and I had to remind myself that I had nothing to do with Ernst’s disappearance or Dupont’s murder.

“Yes, he did,” I said, deciding that, notwithstanding my grandfather’s example, sometimes honesty really was the best policy.

The inspectors scribbled something in their notebooks. To me, it didn’t look like “Witness said yes.” To me, it looked like “Suspect admitted meeting missing curator. This will crack the case! She’ll rue the day she tried to fool SFPD’s finest! Bwahahahaha!”

“—was that?” Inspector Crawford was asking.

“Pardon?”

“What. Time. Was. That,” she repeated slowly.

Note to self: maybe if I acted really dim-witted, it would allay their suspicions.

“Um, around midnight,” I said, realizing that sounding dim-witted was one thing, but sounding guilty was another.

“Isn’t that a little late for a business meeting?” Inspector Crawford asked.

“Yes. But Ernst Pettigrew said he didn’t want anyone to know.” That sounded worse. “You see, it’s . . . well, it’s complicated. Ernst was worried that an important painting acquired by the Brock was not, um, genuine.”

“Not genuine? You mean a forgery?” Inspector Crawford cut to the chase.

“Mm-hmm.”

“Don’t museums check these things out before buying artwork?” she asked.

“Of course.” I decided to be up-front and share my professional expertise. “At least, they try. The painting underwent the usual tests and was authenticated by the Brock Museum’s appraiser, Dr. Sebastian Pitts. Ernst was still not convinced, but he didn’t want to cause an uproar without first getting a second opinion.”

“Why would it have caused an uproar? Because of the money involved?”

“Yes, but it’s more than that. The Brock got burned a few years ago when a British art historian proved that a Roman statue the museum had paid nine million dollars for was a modern fake. And a rather poorly done fake at that. It made the Brock’s staff look like a bunch of amateurs, and in the art world reputation is everything. The Brock family has spent the past several years trying to put the incident behind them. The last thing they’d want is another well-publicized forgery.”

The two inspectors seemed to be taking it all in. There was no more scribbling in their notebooks, which I hoped was a good sign. All they had wanted was a little cooperation.

“And did you see the painting?” Inspector Crawford inquired.

“Yes. Ernst showed it to me.”

“Where?”

“In the vault.”

“So you were in the vault?”

I hesitated. Was that bad? Probably. Had I left fingerprints? Assuredly. Might as well ’fess up. “Yes.”

“By yourself?”

“No, with Ernst.”

“And your assessment?”

Despite Inspector Crawford’s formidable air, her steady brown eyes were reassuring, so I took a deep breath and went for it. “It was a fake.”

Two sets of eyebrows shot skyward.

“How could you tell?” Inspector Crawford inquired.

“It’s hard to explain. Contrary to what most people think, it’s really not that difficult to fake a masterpiece, provided you know what you’re doing, you have the talent, and you use the proper materials. Scientific tests can determine the age and place of origin of a canvas, as well as detect pigments or media that were unavailable before a certain date. But barring an obvious problem, appraisers have to go on gut instinct. And my instinct said this was not a genuine Caravaggio.”

“How sure are you?”

“Very.”

“Did you tell that to Pettigrew?”

“Of course.”

“What did he say?” Inspector Crawford probed gently but firmly.

“He was pretty upset. I think he’d been hoping he was wrong. But Ernst would no more permit a forgery to hang in his museum than he would streak through the museum naked on a Sunday afternoon. By which I mean he wouldn’t. Either of those.”

“So are you suggesting, Ms. Kincaid, that Ernst Pettigrew would have made the news of the forgery public?”

“I don’t see how it could have been avoided. The Brock has made a huge to-do over acquiring
The Magi
. In fact, there’s a celebratory gala coming up soon.”

“Then it seems to me he might have wanted to keep the news quiet,” Inspector Wilson chimed in. “Do you know where Pettigrew is?”

“No. I haven’t a clue.”

“If you hear from him, please let us know. We’d like to ask him a few questions,” Inspector Crawford said. “What can you tell us about Stan Dupont?”

“I scarcely knew the man. I didn’t even know his first name was Stan.”

“When and where did you last see the victim?”

I winced at the thought of someone I knew, however superficially, being reduced to “the victim.” “In the museum’s employee parking lot, after midnight on Saturday night. He unlocked the door for me after my meeting with Ernst. That’s it. That’s all I know.”

“Do you have any idea why someone would want to murder him?”

“None at all.”

“Perhaps because Dupont knew the painting was a fake?”

“I don’t see how he would have known that, unless he overheard us that night,” I protested. “Plus both Ernst and I would have been more logical targets.”

“Have you told anyone about your meeting with Pettigrew?” Crawford continued.

“No,” I lied. I had told my friend Samantha, a jewelry designer whose studio was down the hall from mine, but I figured she’d be safer if I kept my yap shut now.

The inspector watched me carefully. “You do realize that you may be in danger?”

Danger? Me? Why would anyone want to kill me? I was a mild-mannered faux finisher.

“Of course, the killer might not know about you,” she continued. “With Dupont dead and Pettigrew missing, the killer may think there’s no one left to cause problems.”

“Do you have any idea what happened to Ernst?” I asked. “You don’t suspect him of anything, do you?”

The inspectors ignored me. I guess I wasn’t supposed to be the one asking the questions.

“What time did you leave the museum, Ms. Kincaid?” the Inspector asked.

“Twelve thirty.”

“On the dot?”

“Pretty much. I noticed the time because I had agreed to meet Ernst at Grounds for Suspicion to talk things over.”

The inspectors wrote furiously in their notebooks again. I wished they would stop that.

“So you saw him there?” Inspector Crawford asked.

“No. He never showed up.” Sounded bad for Ernst, I realized. It cast suspicion upon him . . . or suggested he might be the victim of foul play. On the other hand, maybe Ernst simply hightailed it back to Austria to drown his sorrows in a barrel of peppermint schnapps.

“Could anyone verify you were at the café?”

“The barrista. And a weird guy in striped pajamas with a dog.” It had never occurred to me that I would need an alibi. “And some students. I ordered a nonfat latte. And a big cookie. With M&M’s instead of chocolate chips.”

“Skinny latte, big cookie, M&M’s,” Inspector Crawford repeated as she jotted more notes. She kept a straight face, so I couldn’t tell whether or not she was making fun of me. “The Grounds on Fillmore?”

I nodded, anxious for this interview to be over. I didn’t like the implications of what had just been said, not one bit, and I needed to think. A hot bath and a big glass of wine wouldn’t hurt, either.

“Did you see anyone else at the museum?” It was clear that Inspector Crawford wasn’t going to leave just to suit me. I supposed homicide inspectors were like that.

“Nobody in the flesh. There were a couple of cars in the employee parking lot, which I guess belonged to the Housekeeping and Security staff. I didn’t see or hear anyone else.”

“You’ve been very helpful, Ms. Kincaid,” Inspector Crawford said, while Ichabod squinted. “We do appreciate it.”