The Angel Singers (17 page)

Walking me to the entrance to the living room, she said, “Johnnie-Mae will show you out.”

“That’s quite all right.” I sensed that she wanted to get back to Arnold. Besides, the front door was in plain sight. I smiled at her as I took her outstretched hands. “I think I know my way by now.”

She laid a hand on my arm. “Of course, you do,” she said, “but Johnnie-Mae has your jacket…and a little something for you to take home.”

A moment later, Johnnie-Mae appeared carrying my jacket in one hand and what I assumed to be a cake box in the other. Iris gave me a hug and a peck on the cheek then returned to her husband.

“I understand you have a young one at home now,” Johnnie-Mae said with a warm smile. Whether she meant Jonathan or Joshua I wasn’t quite sure, but assumed the latter. “I thought he and your friend might like to have a piece of pie for dinner—and there’s enough for you, too, if you won’t mind having banana cream pie twice in one day.”

I wanted to hug her but resisted. That might be crossing some sort of line—not for me, but for her. “Thank you, Mrs. Dabbs,” I said sincerely. “I do wish I could hire you away from the Glicks!”

She gave me a broad smile. “How would they get along without me?” she asked, and I grinned.

*

On the ride home, I thought over this whole Robert Smith/Kenneth Johnson/Clarence Farnsworth thing. I knew nothing about the art world or art auctions, but wondered how common it was to be approached by someone claiming to be an art dealer immediately after leaving an auction. It was also highly unlikely that two scammers would be working the same auction house.

No, there were too many coincidences at work here, the timing of Johnson’s first visit and Grant Jefferson’s murder being prime among them. The main problem was there was no way in hell Johnson (Smith/Farnsworth?) could possibly have known, when he zeroed in on the Glicks after the auction, that they lived in the same town as Grant, even if he knew where Grant was living.

Admittedly, working a scam on the wealthy, who might be expected to be a little more worldly wise than your average Joe, required considerable skill and inventiveness, but the rewards were also proportionately greater. I was pretty sure the “letter of referral” Johnson produced from the conveniently dead famous art collector—whose name Arnold had brought up in the first place —would be relatively easy to fake, as would other glowing references. But I had to admire the speed with which he produced the letter—the day after he’d met the Glicks—was impressive. However, it was quite possible Johnson had a number of similar referrals from well-known collectors on hand.

That the Etruscan head Johnson sold the Glicks was apparently authentic could have been a well-baited hook to land the Glicks as regular customers. He probably knew they would have been foolish not to want verification of authenticity. But having taken the bait, they would be far quicker to accept anything else Johnson wanted to foist off on them, which was undoubtedly the purpose of his upcoming visit.

Exactly how he might have come by an authentic piece of Etruscan statuary I couldn’t guess. Outright theft? If he got it to the Glicks fast enough, there probably wouldn’t have been time for it to have appeared on any stolen property lists. The black market? The steady and possibly illegal stream of undocumented artifacts into the country was well known. And scammers often relied on the equally well-known tendency of people to look the other way when they don’t want to see something, or think it might be to their advantage not to see.

Well, Saturday should be an interesting day.

*

I waited until after Jonathan had returned from chorus practice before telling him about the invitation; I hadn’t wanted to mention it while Joshua was still up because I didn’t want to get into the diplomatic minefield of having to explain to him why he couldn’t go with us. As I’d anticipated, Jonathan was enthralled by the prospect of going to dinner in Briarwood, and I’m sure only my immediately stressing that it would be very casual kept him from asking about tuxedo rentals, although not from insisting we had to go out and buy new clothes for the occasion.

His what-to-wear panic segued into concerns over his self-perceived lack of knowledge of social etiquette.

“How will I know which fork to use? I don’t want to embarrass you!”

I hugged him. “The Glicks don’t strike me as the kind of people who care much about what fork to use,” I said. “And you could never embarrass me.”

“We have to call Craig right away to see if he can babysit.”

Craig was Craig Richman, the seventeen-year-old gay son of police lieutenant Mark Richman, who considered us to be positive role models for his son.

“I already did, and he can’t,” I said. “He’s got a date.”

“Do you suppose we could ask Tim and Phil?”

“We could, except that Phil will be out of town this weekend on a photo shoot, remember? You were the one who told me after you talked to them last week. And I don’t know if Tim would be up to handling Joshua alone.”

“He’s not a herd of wild buffalo. He’s one five-year-old boy.”

“Same difference,” I observed and received a rolled-eyeball response.

“I could ask Eric if he might be willing to do it,” Jonathan volunteered.

“Uh, I’m not quite sure Joshua would like that idea,” I said. “He’s still a little jealous of Eric for taking up so much of your time.”

He looked at me. “Eric’s not taking up my time, the chorus is.”

“Yes, but Eric is in the chorus with you, and in five-year-old logic, it adds up to the same thing.”

He sighed. “Yeah, I suppose you’re right. But he does seem to be warming up to him.”

“I know, but I don’t think he’s quite ready yet.”

“Well, we could at least ask Tim,” he suggested.

“Yeah, we could.”

He immediately got up and went to the phone.

*

By the time Saturday evening arrived, we were both in the mood for a little relaxation. With the chorus concert slightly more than a week away, there was a general concert run-through on Saturday afternoon. With his class on Wednesday, rehearsals on Tuesday, Friday, and Saturday, that left Jonathan with only Monday and Thursday night at home. And Rothenberger had decided the tenor section needed a little more practice on a couple of the songs and called a special meeting at his home for Sunday evening.

Busy week.

I’d not been totally idle myself. Aside from Joshua duty, which wasn’t really all that bad—I think I was finally getting the hang of this surrogate-parent thing—I had tried to check out Kenneth Johnson with little success. The Glicks really knew very little about the man, and checking the Manhattan-and-boroughs phone books for a guy named Kenneth Johnson was, as I had known it would be, an exercise in total futility.

On the outside chance that, if he was legit, he might have a listing under “Art Dealers,” I checked all the books a second time. There were two Kenneth Johnsons—one a Kenneth T.—one in Queens and one in Manhattan. I even tried calling to see if either of them had sold an Etruscan head to the Glicks, but no luck. There was no answer at all at Kenneth T. Johnson, and I got a recording on the other number saying he was on a business trip and would not return until the first of next month.

Well, I’d see if I could pin anything down at dinner.

*

We took Joshua over to Tim’s shortly after five with the equivalent of a small moving van full of books, games, and toys, though we knew he’d probably spend much of his time watching the fish in their large aquarium. Tim, bless his heart, realizing that Jonathan and I had not had a night by ourselves in a very, very long time, suggested that we let Joshua do a sleep-over, which Joshua (not to mention Jonathan and I) thought was a great idea. Joshua considered it to be further evidence of his almost-grown-up status.

We returned home long enough to change clothes—I had, with a great deal of effort, convinced Jonathan we really didn’t need to buy new clothes for one dinner party. On realizing we were totally alone with no threat of a five-year-old boy wandering in on us, we gave in to a moment of erotic spontaneous combustion on the living room floor. (Come on, don’t pretend you haven’t done it—or at least thought about it.)

*

We followed a taxi the last three blocks to the Glicks’, and were surprised to see it pull into the drive ahead of us. I pulled over in front of the house until the cab disgorged its passenger, a well-dressed forty-something in a business suit.

“See?” Jonathan said accusingly. “I knew we should have dressed up!”

When the cab backed out into the street, I pulled into the drive and headed toward the parking area in the rear. The man was at the massive double front doors ringing the bell as we passed him. He didn’t look at us.

“I wonder who he is?” Jonathan wondered.

“I’d be willing to bet that’s Kenneth Johnson, Boy Art Dealer.” I hadn’t gone into detail as to the reason we’d been invited to dinner, and Jonathan had been too excited to ask. He gave me a strange look but said nothing.

There were two cars I didn’t recognize in the parking area, and we pulled up next to a late-model Lincoln. As we got out of the car, I took one of the packets of moist towelettes we kept for Joshua from the glove compartment and carefully wiped off each of the door handles, except for the driver’s door, and the area around them. Jonathan gave me a
very
strange look.

“Johnson—assuming it was him—arrived in a cab,” I explained. “I think it would be nice if we offered him a ride home.”

“And you want to play with your fingerprint kit, don’t you?” He knew me too well.

“Can you think of a better way of getting his prints? They might tell us exactly who this guy is.”

He shrugged. “You’re the detective. What if we don’t give him a ride?”

“Then we’ll have clean door handles,” I said, opening the driver’s door and putting the used towelette in the plastic garbage bag I kept under the front seat.

I’m sure we could have gone in through the pool area, but I wanted to give Jonathan the full tour so we walked around to the front and rang the bell. Almost immediately the left half of the double doors opened, revealing Johnnie-Mae in a formal maid’s uniform complete with a starched white apron. She smiled.

“Good evening, Mr. Hardesty.”

“Good evening, Mrs. Dabbs. I don’t think you’ve met my partner, Jonathan Quinlan.”

She turned her smile on Jonathan. “Welcome, Mr. Quinlan. The Glicks are expecting you.”

She stepped back a bit to allow us to enter.

“I wanted to thank you for the pie, Mrs. Dabbs,” Jonathan said. “It was the best banana cream pie I’ve ever had in my whole life!”

“I’m glad you enjoyed it.” She beamed and walked us to the living room.

Iris, standing near the massive fireplace with the man from the taxi talking with a seated couple, saw us approaching.

“Ah, there you are!” she said brightly, quickly excusing herself to come over to greet us. She grasped me by both arms and leaned forward to give me a cheek-peck then turned to Jonathan.

“And you must be Dick’s other half!” she said, extending her hand, which Jonathan took with a rather shy smile.

“Iris Glick, this is Jonathan Quinlan,” I said, feeling rather like a character in one of Oscar Wilde’s plays.

“It’s so good to meet you, Jonathan,” she said warmly. “I’m so glad Dick finally settled down.” Taking Jonathan’s elbow, she propelled us toward the others. “Everyone,” she called, “I’d like you to meet Dick and Jonathan.”

Everyone rose except the only other woman in the room, and introductions were made. In addition to Iris and Arnold, the two other couples were a mid-forties Stella and Ernest Conrad, a sixty-ish Porter Meade and his forty-something partner Hunter Pyle, and the reason we were there, Kenneth Johnson.

In his early- to mid-forties, Johnson bore a slight resemblance to the actor Dirk Bogarde, and I detected a very slight accent, though its origin was hard to pin down.

After the requisite exchange of introductory pleasantries, we settled in. With Johnnie-Mae busy in the kitchen, Arnold took our drink orders and went to a small portable bar in one corner of the vast room to fill them.

Porter Meade, I learned, was a psychiatrist who ran a clinic for disturbed children and teens; his partner was a podiatrist. Ernest Conrad was an investment banker and his wife apparently devoted most of her time to charitable activities. I already knew Johnson’s occupation.

I was pleased to note that Stella Conrad, on learning of Jonathan’s interest and expertise in horticulture, paid a great deal of attention to him and mentioned she would be delighted if he might consider coming over one evening to give her some advice on landscaping their newly built home. I could tell he was both flattered and delighted, and as I watched him being charmingly at ease with her—even giving her a card from Evergreen, where he worked—I flashed back to the day I first saw him, a skinny, gawky kid hitting on me in Hughie’s bar. The world, it was, indeed, a-changin’.

It was Johnson who asked what line of work I was in, and he didn’t flinch when I said I was a private investigator.

“That’s most interesting,” he said. “Are you working on anything at the moment?”

Since he had opened the door, I couldn’t resist stepping through. “A murder case, yes.”