The Wrong Stuff (23 page)

The couple took $125, and the wife shook her finger at the man and told him they better not turn on the
Antiques Roadshow
and see him standing between the Keno brothers. He laughed again and shook his head.

As soon as the couple had walked away, Claire walked up to the man. “Is it a Thornbury?”

“I don't know,” he said slowly, “but I have to find out.”

“Do you have a card?” asked Jane.

“Ask my stupid, cheap brother over there. I don't want to do anything dealerlike while that couple might be watching. She'd come over here and peck my eyes out.”

“Would you take five hundred for this right now?” Jane asked.

“No,” he said, “although by tomorrow I'll probably be kicking myself. Do you have a card?”

Jane shook her head. She was beginning to think she'd better get some. Jane Wheel, PI, picker-investigator.

“How will you authenticate this table?” Oh asked, as he offered to help him carry it to his truck.

As they walked away, Jane heard him telling Oh that there was a place nearby called Campbell and LaSalle…

A little after 4:00
A.M.
they were headed back to Campbell and LaSalle. They had fished out the market and were happy shoppers; but more important, for Jane, she had seen the Brewster chair plan in action.

She knew as soon as she saw the table on Tom's truck that it was the one she had watched being “distressed” earlier that day.

And scanning the crowd, spotting another interested party watch the drama of the tall dealer scam the young couple out of a potentially valuable antique, she saw him. Standing tall, hands shoved into his pockets, hat pulled low, Jane could picture him as she had seen him earlier that day, wielding a hammer against that poor, defenseless table.

The problem, she now realized, with figuring out who at Campbell and LaSalle might have a reason to carry out a forgery plan, to make such elaborate copies and set them free in the world, was that she had thought there had to be a money motive. For someone to have fooled Claire with the fake Westman chest or pulled a switch when she picked it up, Jane had believed someone had to be looking for a profit. Hearing the story of the Brewster chair, however, expanded the possibilities.

What if someone wanted to make these forgeries for fun? Just to prove he could do it? He wouldn't sell them; he'd just release them into the dealer/shark-infested waters of country antiques and watch them swim back to Campbell and LaSalle for restoration and authentication.

No one was sleepy when they got back to the compound. No one even looked tired. Everyone who had sneaked out now filed into the lodge with their purchases, hoping that Cheryl and the staff had been tipped off about Moonlight Market and planned breakfast to begin even earlier than normal. The coffee was on and a basket of muffins and scones sat on the sideboard. The kitchen hummed with activity, and there remained an excited buzz among those residents who had gotten away with something by sneaking out.

Since Jane had been semirecruited by Murkel, she was surprised she didn't feel at all guilty about sneaking out or seeing everyone else sneak out. Well, why should she? It was Jane's job, as she saw it, to help Murkel make sure no one got away with murder. The Moonlight Market had provided the perfect opportunity to piece the puzzle together.

She hadn't said anything to Tim, Oh, or Claire in the car on the way back though, because there was one more piece that she had to figure out. If someone wanted to play a trick, work a scam like the Brewster forgery, and didn't care about making money from it, why would anyone be killed over it? Why had Rick Moore killed Horace Cutler, and why had someone killed Rick Moore? What was at stake?

Jane had begun telling Oh some of her thoughts when Tim and Claire brought coffee over to the table.

“What would Belinda St. Germain say about that bag of stuff, Janie?” asked Tim. “Looks to me like you've violated your parole.”

“No, I was reading that book while you all were at dinner,” said Claire, “and as long as you get rid of an equal number of objects, you can have new stuff.”

“I'm afraid you don't know Jane very well; she can't get rid of anything,” said Tim, laughing.

“I'll get rid of twelve things in my purse right now,” said Jane, “while I figure something out.”

Jane pulled a handful of odds and ends from her purse and stared down at them. Solving this murder was going to be easier than sorting out this stuff. She made each card, each pencil, each highlighter, each key ring, each yo yo (where had she picked up two yo yos?), each notebook stand for one of the Campbell and LaSalle residents.

She knew who wasn't taken seriously, who might want to prove himself as a master craftsman, and who wouldn't have to care about making money from it. That was easy. She made her Bakelite compact stand for him. It was at least as well carved and attractive as Blake's handsome face.

“May I have your attention, campers?” said Murkel, who had come in from the office. He was the only one in the room who actually looked like he had been awake all night. Oh nodded at him and gestured slightly toward Jane Wheel, who was laying the contents of her purse out on the table. Jane nodded, too, as if to say, I'll have this worked out in a minute; but Murkel did not look satisfied.

“Although I explained that no one was supposed to leave the grounds for any reason, it seems there was quite a caravan into town last night, this morning, a few hours ago.”

“Moonlight Market,” said Annie brightly. Jane would make the black Bakelite squirrel call that said on the side it was made in Olney, Illinois, stand for Annie. She had wanted Rick to stop blocking her chi.

“We're all back,” said Scott, fixing mimosas at the sideboard. That's the way to start a Monday morning. Jane took her green EZ Way Inn key ring and made it stand for Scott. He wanted money or at the least a dental plan.

Mickey sat down and started buttering a muffin. Mickey could be the Bakelite dice she kept in a leather pouch. He wanted Rick's spot as Blake's right-hand man. And he maybe wanted Annie, too. He'd kept his eyes on her the whole time he slathered butter on his pastry.

Jane found a wrinkled buckeye to stand for Silver and a pack of Life Savers for Martine. Geoff and Jake came in, and Jane found two pink pearl erasers to stand in for them. Jane knew that Geoff and Jake just wanted a place to do their work, Silver needed to get rid of negativity, and Martine wanted a book contract and a little Oprah glory. She wanted to be Belinda St. Germain, for heaven's sake.

Glen and Roxanne were sitting in the club chairs. When Blake took a seat at the table, Roxanne got up and came over to him and he absentmindedly kissed the top of her head. Jane hadn't seen her at the Moonlight Market, but that didn't surprise her. You only had to meet Roxanne once to know that she didn't need stuff to make her happy. She was one of those self-contained people. As long as she had this place to run and Blake to take care of, she would be happy.

“Since everyone's up and at 'em so bright and early, maybe this would be a good time to have a group discussion of Rick Moore's murder,” said Murkel.

Jane found more purse detritus to stand for Glen and Roxanne. A Zippo lighter for Glen and a…what was it her mother had been saying constantly? “A round peg in a square hole?” Is that what she had found to represent Roxanne? Jane told Oh she needed Murkel to stall for two minutes before he started the meeting.

Jane stood up and looked at the circle of objects in front of her on the table. If Annie saw this up close, she might think Jane was laying out her own version of the feng shui compass. Jane looked it over once, picked up a few things, then excused herself.

She needed to check the direction it was pointing one more time.

When Jane came back in, Martine had cornered Oh, who was being defended by Tim. Murkel was talking on a cell phone; and although no one had left, the novelty was wearing off. Everyone was restless, wanting to get to their nests and look over their Moonlight Market treasures. Only Blake looked content, stirring his coffee and smiling at what he had wrought.

Martine was holding a folder over her heart with her right hand, and she patted it with her left, as if calming an infant.

“This is it, my work, my life, my heart,” she said.

“Wow, all that in less than twenty pages?” asked Tim. “You are one hell of a concise writer, Martine. Been studying poetry with Silver?”

Martine was a woman who had been withering people with a glance for years, and she was used to being able to do so at will. She narrowed her eyes into slits and directed all of her goddess/life coach/aquarian/new age/crone/coven power directly at him, but quickly found that it all bounced off his invisible, who-gives-a-shit protective shield.

Martine had met her match with Tim. He was the most unwitherable person Jane had ever met, and she had spent several years in advertising. She had worked with actors and models and clients who could buy and sell her. Yet each and every one of them were the potential victims of their egos. Jane knew that if you attack the ego in just the right way, you can start a hairline crack that can become the Grand Canyon, splitting someone in two. Jane had seen many a client brought to his knees by a supermodel, many a supermodel brought to her knees by an actor, and many an actor brought to his/her knees by a less-than-enthusiastic response to a performance. She had never seen Tim Lowry brought to his knees by anyone.

Jane watched Martine gather herself and prepare to hurl another thunderbolt at Tim. She half wanted to tell her to save her energy because Tim could not be cracked, at least not by Martine. And she half wanted to see Martine hurl herself at the brick wall of Tim's confidence just for the sheer spectacle. Neither half engaged her quite enough.

“I'd like to speak to Mr. Kuruma for a moment, if you would excuse us,” said Martine, wisely choosing frosty behavior over the wasted energy of taking on Tim.

“Nope,” said Tim.

“
Pardonnez moi?
” said Martine, reminding Jane of some actress. When Jane realized that the actress was actually the muppet Miss Piggy, she laughed out loud.

Was it just twenty-four hours ago that they had sat mourning Rick Moore? More precisely, was it just twenty-four hours ago when they had sat drinking and listening to Martine talk about the concept of mourning Rick Moore?

What a difference a day makes,
Jane thought, taking out the printouts that Oh had given her earlier. She skimmed the stories of the Brewster chair from two different perspectives. One article was an interview with the artist, Armand LaMontagne. In it, he seemed to want to talk about his current sculpture but was unable to totally divorce himself from the Great Bewster Chair Hoax. Even though the story had broken over twenty years ago, LaMontagne was still asked about it all the time.

Tim had told the story pretty well. There were a few more interesting details here. He had made the chair out of green wood so that as it dried, it would warp and shrink, mimicking the natural aging process of a real Great Brewster aging over time. He'd swabbed the joints of the chair with a homemade blend of glue, hair, and dirt. He'd even dreamed up a three-hundred-year history for the chair, taking out one of the chair rungs because he imagined one owner liked to lean back and put his feet up.

The other printout that Oh had given her was an article by a professor on noteworthy hoaxes and forgeries. This author was far more damning of those who dared to fool the experts than the writer who had interviewed LaMontagne. Jane understood his point of view, since most of the forgeries and fakes had been fabricated for profit. But the Great Brewster Hoax was innocent enough, wasn't it? Jane might have been less admiring herself if LaMontagne had been out for a buck, but he just wanted to make a point.

The professor who authored this paper, though, thought it was reprehensible for an artist to devote that much time and energy and craft for deception. He maintained that the artist's gratification in fooling the experts and destroying at least one curator's career without committing any crime that could be proven in a court of law must have been pretty thin satisfaction. Jane wondered if perhaps the author of this paper was a museum curator himself.

What had Charley said his speech was about? Hoaxes. The phone kept cutting out, but she had heard the term
hoaxes
; and this paper mentioned, in addition to the Brewster hoax, antique document forgery and paleontological hoaxes. Teams on digs salted the sites of their rivals with fake fossils. At best, it sent one team down the wrong path and slowed them down in their findings. At worst, it tricked a professor or scientist into publishing something that would ruin his or her career. Not necessarily illegal, but certainly not harmless either.

Tim handed Jane a glass of orange juice, and she eyed it carefully.

“What?” Tim asked, laughing. “What?”

Jane sniffed and sipped the tiniest taste. It was, after all, Tim who just yesterday had handed her iced water with olives. She shuddered thinking about it, drinking the juice and being thankful that Tim didn't like to repeat himself.

Okay, here was a profile of a prankster. Tim liked to play a trick or two, like changing the ring on her phone. What was the harm in that? It was all just for fun, to get a laugh. So what was the harm in any of that? Laughter was good. But there was a problem, too. When that laughter came as a result of embarrassing someone else, it no longer was innocent. There was harm done. Or at least, there was the potential for harm to be done.

Blake was sitting near the fireplace to the left of Murkel, holding a brandy snifter, half full. That was Blake's glass, never half empty. Rich, handsome, talented, it probably should have been enough for him. Blake's glass was more than half full.

Jane wondered how long he had been crafting these fake antiques? Had he read the book on Mathew Westman and decided that a Sunflower Chest would be the perfect project. How long had he been banging up those tables and chairs and sending them out on the back of flatbed trucks to swap meets? It would be like starting Internet jokes and chain letters, measuring the time it took for whatever he'd started to come back to him. How did he keep score? And who knew? Had Rick Moore worked on these pieces with Blake and gotten greedy? Had he decided there was a profit in these deceptions? Or had Rick Moore been fooled by Blake's work, then embarrassed? Disappointed?

Or even more dangerous, had Rick Moore been worried for his mentor? Had he thought Blake was about to be exposed, and had Rick decided that he had to protect Blake? Jane was fascinated, watching Blake. He was playing with a cigar and lighter. No one, not even Blake, smoked indoors here; but Blake seemed to be toying with the Cuban and vintage Zippo. He was flipping things back and forth, almost juggling them, along with his drink.

“Ah,” said Jane aloud. Bruce Oh had pulled up a chair next to her and waited for her to explain what she had figured out.

“He's ambidexterous,” said Jane.

Oh followed her look and saw that Blake had gotten out a pocket knife with several tools attached to it. He had flipped out the scissors and was snipping off the end of the cigar using his left hand. He then picked up his brandy with his right hand and drained the glass.

“That explains the carving on the chest, anyway,” said Jane, “even though there are plenty more things left to explain.”

Murkel cleared his throat and, uncharacteristically, the room fell silent. Jane had been correct last night at dinner when she'd noticed some shakiness on the part of the residents. These were people who ordinarily wouldn't give a police officer the time of day, but enough events had unfolded here at Campbell and LaSalle that each of them seemed to be paying this visitor from the outside world a bit more attention than they had yesterday.

“Our interviews are now concluded here, and except for some moonlight madness, everyone has been most cooperative,” said Murkel. Jane sat up a little straighter and waited for Murkel, to whom she had given her notebook, to point his finger at Blake and ask him what exactly had been going on here at Campbell and LaSalle. But Murkel was not pointing a finger, he was shaking hands with Blake, thanking him for laying the compound open to him and his people. The investigation seemed to support the preliminary findings of accidental death for Rick Moore. Then Murkel, who Jane was beginning to see had a wicked flair for the dramatic, repeated the word “seemed” and looked over at Jane.

“Seemed to be supported until Mrs. Wheel took on the case,” Murkel said.

“What?” said Jane, thinking to herself at first that it seemed pretty loud for a silent self-directed question, then realizing it hadn't been silent. She also wondered just what kind of information googling her, or whatever Murkel had done, had produced. “Took on the case?” What had Oh said about her on his police reports?

Imagine that,
Jane did say to herself,
I managed to get all eyes on me even without my cell phone ringing.

“Yes, Mrs. Wheel?” asked Murkel. “Did you have a question?”

“Yes,” Jane said, “I do have a question.”

Jane stood up and surveyed the room. “Well, it's actually more of a comment,” she said, clearing her throat. “I don't see how Rick Moore's death could have been accidental. He hadn't been working with chemicals, and if he were really trying to end it all, surely he wouldn't have chosen a stream with only…”

“How do you know Rick wasn't working with chemicals?” asked Annie.

“Tim and I had gone into the barn before I found him. There weren't any jars or cans opened. There weren't any projects on the floor. There was a row of solvents and a fan below the gallery loft, where I believe he had been sitting with a book,” Jane said, making a mental note to take his Birkenstocks out of her closet where she had stashed them.

“Mrs. Wheel, I'm sure you're an observant woman, but you and Mr. Lowry probably didn't go into the mixing room, next to the office. Rick told me he was going to work there that afternoon,” said Glen.

This was getting exciting.
Maybe this is how
The Mousetrap
ends?
thought Jane.

“You really think he was overcome, Glen?” asked Blake. “Rick knew better than that….”

The look Glen LaSalle shot Blake Campbell vibrated in its intensity. Blake seemed not to notice, but Murkel and everyone else in the room felt the reverberation.

“I mean if anybody understood the safety procedures, it was Rick,” said Blake, totally oblivious.

“Mr. LaSalle, didn't you say at dinner that you thought Rick committed suicide?” asked Oh.

“I said it was a possibility, but…,” Glen began, but was interrupted by Blake.

“That doesn't make sense either, Glen. Rick was a sonofabitch, but he wasn't stupid,” said Blake.

“Christ, Blake, shut the hell up,” said Glen.

By this time, the residents of Campbell and LaSalle were dumbstruck. No one had heard these two raise their voices above a murmur for twenty years, and now they were publicly squabbling in front of guests and the local police. “We at Campbell and LaSalle”—the whole lot of
we
—were shocked.

“But, Glen…”

“I'm trying to save your ass, you idiot. You and your damn tribute pieces. I told you this would ruin us, but no, you wouldn't listen. You were just having a bit of fun with it, proving your genius and all,” said Glen. “You arrogant ass-hole! Are you satisfied now?”

Not only was Blake unsatisfied; he seemed totally clueless. “Are you talking about my fakes?” he asked. “Oh, Glen, no one cares about those. Just hobbies, right, Officer Murkel?”

Glen looked like someone had bashed him in the face with a hand-turned, green-ash spindle. What was Blake doing talking to the policeman about this?

Murkel held up his hand and asked that everyone calm down for a moment.

“Mr. Campbell explained his copies of fine antiques, and he showed us his storage area earlier today. Nothing illegal going on that I can see, although I guess I'd be pretty mad if I was one of those dealers who thought I had a real one on my hands.”

Blake smiled and nodded at Murkel. The sight of that, the two of them grinning at each other, seemed to cause something in Glen LaSalle to explode.

“You dumb fuck! I'm trying to save your life here!” Glen shouted. Roxanne had stood up and motioned to Annie, and the two of them were trying to get Glen to sit down, but he would have none of it. “That ungrateful little shit, Rick Moore, was blackmailing you—I saw the letters. Do you really think you're above the law? Just because this guy hasn't put two and two together yet doesn't mean he won't.”

“I'm thinking with that mouth he might not be guesting on the
Antiques Roadshow
next season,” whispered Tim. “Can you imagine if he disagreed with one of the Keno brothers?”

Jane looked down at the objects removed from her purse—her own feng shui compass or map. Then she looked around the room. Everything had clicked into place. She knew Blake had been making the masterful copies of museum-quality furniture, then banging them up, aging them to have a little fun with dealers who thought they had found the treasure of a lifetime. And now she knew who had killed Rick Moore. If she could get Glen LaSalle to shut up for a minute before he got himself arrested for murdering Blake Campbell in front of several interested witnesses, she could end this high drama. She caught Oh's eye, and he seemed to be giving her an encouraging look. Either that, or a discouraging look. She made a mental note to ask him later how she was supposed to read his expressions to know what to do and when—that is, if they were going to be partners.