Feint of Art: (27 page)

I was afraid to ask what that meant.

Ten minutes later we were driving up the circular driveway. As Michael and I got out, he grabbed a few more towels. Gargoyles leered at us from either side of the two-story front door, and I was ready to hightail it out of there. Michael only looked bored.

The bell was answered by a young woman who I assumed was the real Emily Caulfield, Mrs. Culpepper’s assistant. She was about my age, but slender and buttoned-down, her pretty blue eyes hidden behind severe tortoiseshell glasses. Michael turned on the charm, and within minutes they were pals, commiserating over poor Pookie, whose car had been stolen an hour ago, and discussing the hands-on training I was getting by accompanying Bruno here on his rounds. Bruno complained loudly that Pookie’s massage table had been in the stolen car, and he did hope Mrs. Culpepper had her own.

Emily led us down a flight of stairs to a ground-floor exercise room, where a professional massage table was set up. She asked if we needed anything, told us Mrs. Culpepper would be with us shortly, and left.

By the time Camilla Culpepper arrived by elevator a few minutes later, Michael had already scoped out the ground floor. It consisted of utilitarian rooms like laundry and storage and a computer room. Not a Caravaggio in sight.

“Oh, Mrs.
Cul
pepper,” Michael gushed at the woman with the brittle, pulled-tight look of the undernourished and overexercised. It was a look I saw a lot in my line of work. Clearly Camilla Culpepper had been pampered within an inch of her life. “We’ve had
such
excitement this morning, have you heard? Poor Pookie had her car stolen!”

Camilla Culpepper smiled carefully as Michael nattered on and on, not allowing her a chance to get a word in edgewise. By the time he whipped off his sweatshirt and slowly rolled up the sleeves of his white T-shirt to better show off his muscular biceps, she was practically eating out of his hand. Within five minutes Camilla was facedown on the massage table, eyes closed and naked except for a towel across her hips. Michael began rubbing her back with lavender-scented oil.

“So I said to Sir Elton, I don’t care what anyone says, ‘Candle in the Wind’ is the best song, like,
ever
—” He looked at me and jerked his head toward the door.

I hesitated, loath to skulk around the cavernous house, not knowing who or what I might run into. But Michael’s pantomime took on a frantic quality, so I decided to go for it. Plus my sanity was at stake, since Bruno had launched into an analysis of the fashions worn at the recent Grammy Awards—“Did you
see
what Babs was wearing? She was a
goddess.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, a woman doesn’t reach true beauty until her sixties . . .”

I crept back up the small staircase to the front hallway, at one end of which was the kitchen. I headed the other way. Even the most casual collector wouldn’t hang a masterpiece in the kitchen, especially if, as seemed to be the case with Camilla, she never ate.

I found myself in the dining room and hoped Michael’s earlier words were prophetic. They weren’t. There were several expensive oil paintings by third-rate artists, but no recently stolen
Magi.

A door on the opposite wall led to a broad corridor with various doors and halls leading off it. For a moment, I despaired of being able to find my way back to the exercise room, much less find an oil painting that measured only two feet by three and a half feet. Footsteps from the vicinity of the kitchen spurred me on.

Sneaking down the corridor, I peered in the first open doorway, which led to a lovely, sunny sitting room with lots of windows, a couple of watercolors, and no oil paintings.

The next door was shut, so I listened for a moment before gently pushing it open. It was a shadowy room that looked a lot like a study. I closed the door behind me, and groped in the dark for a light switch, finally locating one on the wall to the left. The light revealed that it was, indeed, a study, with built-in bookshelves, a huge walnut desk, and leather club chairs. There were no paintings on the paneled walls, other than the one over the fireplace, which portrayed an English hunting scene. Oh, puh-leeze. The lack of imagination among those who could best afford to be imaginative never failed to both surprise and depress me.

I turned to leave, then stopped. What would Michael do? Maybe take a gander at the papers in the desk?

The desk, like the English hunting scene, turned out to have been chosen by the decorator as a stage prop. There was nothing on it but an embossed leather desk set that appeared never to have been used. I tested the top drawer, which slid open smoothly. The drawers were empty.

Switching off the light, I slipped back into the hallway. Other than some muffled clangs and bangs emanating from the direction of the kitchen, the house was eerily quiet. I wondered what it would be like to call such a beautiful mausoleum home and decided that, all things considered, I preferred my humble apartment.

Proceeding down the corridor, I checked out an overdecorated living room, a self-consciously “country casual” family room, a second sitting room—people sat a lot in this house—a guest bedroom with a pastoral motif so over the top that it looked as if a florist’s shop had detonated in there, and a rather nice orangerie.

But no
Magi.

I decided to head upstairs. I wasn’t sure if my search qualified as thorough, but I was getting antsy and, wanting to get the hell out of there, I scurried down the corridor toward the entry hall, which I remembered opened onto a sweeping staircase. I poked my turbaned head out and glanced around to see if I was alone, then scampered up the plushly carpeted stairs.

I relaxed a bit in the upstairs corridor when I realized the thick carpeting must muffle the sound of my footsteps, until I realized that it would do the same for anyone else. I strained my ears listening for housemaids, footmen, butlers, governesses, chauffeurs, or even family members. Nothing. Taking a deep breath, I decided to start my upstairs search with whatever was behind the large set of double doors at the end of the hallway. I didn’t care what Michael said—if I had a stolen masterpiece, I would hang it in my bedroom. I pressed my ear to the door, heard nothing, and eased it open.

My heart leapt in my chest when I was attacked by an animatronic mop that turned out to be a small dog, one of those cosseted pets whose hair care products alone would more than cover my rent. There was something deeply disquieting about an animal whose personal hygiene received more attention than my own.

Small, white, and very fluffy, with an upturned tail that fanned the air vigorously, it stared at me with bright eyes while wheezing through its smooshed nose. It bounced around, delighted to make my acquaintance. It wasn’t much of a watchdog, but I supposed I wasn’t in a position to complain about that. A set of dog tags on the jeweled collar—I had a sneaking suspicion those were real diamonds, too—indicated it was up to date on its shots and was named Miss Mopsy. How original of the Culpeppers.

I had always found dogs hard to resist, and gave Miss Mopsy a quick belly rub before resuming my search. The pooch wouldn’t leave me in peace, though, and tried to instigate a game of tug-of-war with a Hermès scarf she dragged out from under the bed.

The Culpeppers’ bedroom was large, about twenty-five by thirty feet. At its center was a hideous four-poster festooned with exquisitely embroidered brocade draperies. If I’d known anything about sewing—and I did not—I would have guessed that the drapes had been handmade in a French convent by nuns who had clearly had a lot to repent. The bed itself was covered in acres of melting pink satin and about forty froufrou pillows in hues of pink, beige, and cream. The whole thing looked like the sort of altar to lovemaking that would be more at home in a Poconos honeymoon resort than in uptight, old-money Belvedere. I craned my neck upward. Nope, no mirrored ceiling. I had caught a glimpse of Mr. Culpepper in the family photos downstairs, and it was disconcerting to imagine him and the desiccated missus getting down and dirty behind the delicate brocade.

There were a few paintings on the walls, but not the one I wanted. I was about to leave when Miss Mopsy trotted down a passageway that led off the bedroom. I followed.

The hall opened onto a second large room, apparently Camilla Culpepper’s office or private sitting room, which was decorated with English rose wallpaper. A green-and-cream striped loveseat sat under a bank of windows, and in the far corner was an untidy walnut desk. In terms of sheer messiness it was not in the same league as my desk at home, but it did indicate that, unlike the one I’d seen downstairs, this desk was actually used.

And hanging above the fireplace was one recently stolen Caravaggio.

I peered closely. Correction: one recently stolen ersatz Caravaggio. Damned if Anton hadn’t painted this one, too. If my artistic memory served—and it almost always did—this was not the forgery Ernst had shown me in the vault. The small chest of frankincense in King Melchior’s arms, which had been wide open in that painting, was nearly shut in this one. I dragged a chair over to the hearth and climbed on it to double-check, but there was no doubt in my mind.

Maybe Michael was right and there was no original
Magi.

The good news was I could call off the search. The bad news was I had to find my way back to the exercise room without being spotted. I climbed off the chair while Miss Mopsy danced about at my feet, as if this were all some elaborate game for her entertainment. Just as I was replacing the chair, I heard someone enter the bedroom. I froze. This time there were no large canvases, no velvet curtains, no lacquer screens to hide behind. It was just me and Miss Mopsy, right out there in the open.

I looked at the dog, she looked at me, and I did the only thing that occurred to me: I crawled into the kneehole of the desk and curled into a ball. Miss Mopsy joined me. I hoped that whoever it was did not come in here, sit down, and get to work, because talking my way out of this one would be tricky.

There was a rustle of clothing as someone entered the room. I squeezed my eyes shut, although I was not sure why I kept thinking that depriving myself of one of my five senses would help me out of these situations. It must have worked, though, because the desk creaked and I realized that the intruder was sitting on it, probably doing that hip-on-the-desk, foot-on-the-floor sit-stand that I did all the time, even though it made my thighs look huge. I heard the telephone being dialed.

“It’s Emily,” a woman said. “I know, but we need to talk. Yes,
now.
Yes, well, the only reason I agreed to any of this was that I was to be paid a percentage, remember? Having a massage. Well, there
is
some risk to me, there’s always a risk.”

There was silence for a few minutes.

“I don’t like it, Harlan, I don’t like it one single bit. Uh-huh. No. Where? When? Are you crazy? Why did you put them there?” Emily sighed. “All right,
fine.
Yes, I said I’d be there. I’ve got to go. ’Bye.”

Harlan?
With Emily? I could hardly wait to tell Michael. Not only had I found the painting but I had a lead on Harlan. I cocked my head at Miss Mopsy and she cocked hers at me. Damn, I was good! I was a natural for this sleuthing thing! I was—

“What are you
doing
here?”

Miss Mopsy barked. Or sneezed. It was hard to tell the difference.

I looked up to see Emily crouched down, staring at me as I sat curled under the desk. “Well, I, um . . .”

So maybe I had a bit to learn before getting my detective wings.

Emily stepped back, and Miss Mopsy and I unfolded ourselves from our hidey-hole. By the time I was upright Emily was fretting, big time.

“What did you hear?” she demanded.

Like, duh, Emily. As if I could have missed anything you said. I was all of two feet away.
However, I decided not to point this out. Emily, for her part, began pacing and wringing her hands, something I had always assumed was purely a convention of bad community theater.

“I knew something like this would happen. I knew it,” she muttered. “I knew I shouldn’t get involved.” She stopped pacing and shot me a look chock-full of disdain. “I knew you weren’t a
massage therapist.
”

“Why’d you let me in, then?” I said belligerently. I wasn’t the one betraying my boss, after all. Emily lived in an interesting moral universe.

“Who are you? What do you want?” she demanded.

I decided to come clean. Sort of.

I shrugged in a you’re-not-going-to-
believe
-how-silly-this-is kind of way. “Emily, you’re right,” I said, my face perfectly straight. “I’m not a massage therapist. I’m a special agent for the California Fine Arts Commission. I don’t want to get you or anybody else into trouble, but we received an anonymous tip last week and I am duty-bound to investigate. I’m afraid the commission has reason to believe that Mrs. Culpepper might have been sold a fake Caravaggio.”

A long time ago Grandfather told me that if you were going to lie, make it a whopper. For some reason, he said, people were more likely to believe a lie if it was so outrageous that it had to be true. And Grandfather should know.

“The California Fine Arts . . .” Emily repeated. “What are you
talking
about? There’s no such thing.” Apparently she was the exception to Grandfather’s little rule.

Miss Mopsy, bored, barked to get my attention, whereupon Emily scowled and kicked her. Yelping, Miss Mopsy dashed back under the desk.

Now I was pissed. If I lived to be a thousand I would never understand what made some people pick on defenseless creatures. I’d learned a few things in the past couple of days about how to intimidate people, and without thinking I put that knowledge to good use. I grabbed Emily hard by the upper arm, slammed her against the wall, and leaned in close. “Don’t you ever,
ever
hurt that little dog again, you understand me?”