Blue Smoke and Murder (12 page)

OVER CALIFORNIA
SEPTEMBER
15
6:30
A.M.

T
he small plane took a sudden downward swoop, then settled into a bouncy kind of stability as it cleared the Cajon Pass and rushed toward the high desert country. Below, a freeway unrolled in two wide, curving bands covered with traffic.

Score woke up, rubbed his eyes, and booted up his computer. The first thing he opened was the latest script summary Amy had e-mailed. There were a few more words this time, but paintings still weren’t mentioned. Something about scraps and rags, canvas and belly pack. He switched to the GPS file.

They’re on the move.

The subjects had stopped somewhere outside of Colorado City. Then suddenly they’d started making good time, heading north to Utah, way too straight a travel line for a highway.

He turned on his microphone and asked the pilot, “Is there an airstrip near Colorado City?”

“Yeah. Not much to it, but it’s there.”

“Do you have to file a flight plan for it, coming and going?” Score asked.

“These days if you fart, you file a flight plan. Why?”

Score didn’t answer. He switched to e-mail, sent a blast to his office, and waited.

He didn’t have to wait long. Flight plans, no matter how small the strip, were of interest to Homeland Security and the FAA, and quite available on the public record.

“We need to file a new flight plan,” Score said to the pilot.

“What?”

“We’re going to Snowbird, Utah.”

The pilot started to say something, then shrugged. If the wind cooperated, there was plenty of fuel to make Salt Lake City and still stay within safety regulations. If not, they could refuel in Las Vegas.

She entered the new destination into the onboard computer, filed the change, waited for the okay, and adjusted course.

“The additional cost will be added to your credit card,” the pilot said.

“Just get me to Snowbird.”

OVER UTAH
SEPTEMBER
15
9:30
A.M.

Z
ach switched his headphone from sat/cell input to the plane’s passenger intercom. As he did, he frowned at the battery reading on his sat/cell phone. No way to recharge in the air. Hopefully, there wouldn’t be any need.

Leaning over, he switched Jill’s headphones from canned music to passenger intercom. She glanced at him in silent question.

“Nothing on Blanchard,” he said.

“I’m shocked.” She tried not to yawn.

“Ramsey Worthington is the new big thing on the Western fine arts circuit. He’s planning to go public, turning himself into a kind of Western Sotheby’s.”

“Fascinating.” She covered another yawn.

“No blots on Worthington’s record. Not so much as a speeding ticket. Big on the charity circuit, whether it’s Mormon or Catholic or Hollywood.”

“Hollywood is a religion?”

“Believe it,” Zach said. “If you don’t genuflect at the altar of Hollywood’s latest cause du jour, you’re dog food.”

“Good thing I don’t plan to be a movie star.”

He smiled. “Yeah. No one has responded to your JPEG queries.”

That got her attention. “I didn’t give you my e-mail password.”

“Looks like you’re being ignored by the Western art literati.”

“Zach, I didn’t give you my—”

He kept talking. “A few months ago, one of Worthington’s colleagues sold a Charles M. Russell oil. It was described as ‘one of his better, but certainly not his best work.’ It went for nearly seven million dollars.”

Jill’s lips moved but she was too shocked to say anything. Finally she managed, “I grew up with Russell’s pictures from old feed-store calendars. He understood horses and wild animals, but…”

“So did everyone in the non-urban West,” Zach said. “Most of the scenes we think of as ‘Western’ came from Russell and Frederic Remington art, or John Ford/John Wayne movies, arguably another kind of art.”

“First you hack into my e-mail, then you talk about various genres of art.”

“Utility infielder, that’s me.”

His off-center smile would have been charming if she hadn’t noticed the piercing intelligence in his eyes.

But she did.

She was fascinated, not charmed.

She thought about pursuing the subject of having her e-mail hacked, then decided it wouldn’t do any good. She’d asked for help. She’d got it, and its name was Zach Balfour.

Nobody said she had to like everything about it.

“Russell understood the West that was,” she said, sticking to the relatively neutral topic of art, “from the land to the Indians, and the Europeans who replaced them. Nobody was a god. Nobody was a devil. Just people going about their lives.”

“You’d get an argument from the modern critics who condemn Western art as bigotry on canvas.”

She shrugged. “Beats being ignored.”

Zach gave a crack of laughter. That was the beauty of a smart woman—she went right for the jugular while other folks were still trying to figure out what was happening.

“You’re right,” he said. “Some Western art is now accepted as world class, which means a whole new carcass to carve up for the folks with advanced educations and sharp academic knives. Plus new piles of money for art sellers.”

“Still, nearly seven million dollars is way out there, isn’t it?”

“When Gustav Klimt sells for an eighth of a
billion
dollars, everything on canvas starts heading up in price, even a painter once dismissed by Eastern critics as ‘a mere illustrator.’ Yesterday’s stratospheric price is today’s bargain.”

Jill just shook her head. “So the cost of Western art rose because everything else did?”

“Partly. Mostly it was the simple fact of money moving west. The center of financial gravity shifted, and with it the idea of what is and what isn’t art. Blue smoke billowed and high prices followed.”

“Who bought the Russell?”

“I can guarantee that the new owner doesn’t live full-time on the East Coast,” Zach said dryly. “But there’s a lot of money out west these days. New tech millionaires and billionaires with Western roots want to make statements about those roots and themselves. You have to decorate those second and third mansions, right?”

“So Western art has become positional art?”

“You learn fast. According to Ms. Singh, Worthington is the first dealer west of the Mississippi to have a vision of fine Western art as the new new thing in a world that is full of old old things. He’s hoping to raise a few hundred million with his public offering.”

“To buy art?” she asked.

“To create a big gallery and auction-house business specializing in fine arts, emphasis on the West.”

For a time Jill was silent and motionless but for her fingers worrying a scrap of canvas that had crept free of her belly bag’s straining zipper. “Sounds like a big money business.”

“It is. A few years ago I worked on a case involving Russian art. Some high-end galleries in the West were importing container loads of Russian Impressionist art, trying to create a market for it here in the United States.”

“Did it work?”

“The project is still under construction.”

The ironic tone of Zach’s voice made Jill wince.

“What happened?” she asked.

“The gallery importers ran up against the Russian
mafiya,
which was laundering money through Russian Impressionist art in its own American galleries. Those dudes don’t play well with others. Transnational crime is a down-and-dirty business.”

“God…” Jill let out a long breath. “Modesty had no idea what she was getting into. She just wanted to raise a few thousand for taxes. Instead, she raised a whirlwind and ended up dead.”

“Oh, we do real well with our own homegrown thugs,” Zach assured her. “The Russians are just some of the newer crooks at the international art money buffet.”

“Blanchard? The good old American thug? Is he one of the pros?”

“Maybe. It’s hard to tell the pros from the wannabes. A whole lot of kicking and gouging going on at this point.”

“And the last one standing wins,” she said unhappily.

“Pretty much.” Zach stretched his shoulders and legs. Charter planes were better than cattle class on commercial flights, but the seats still weren’t designed for long-legged people. “Research had some interesting things to say about Dunstan, too.”

“Such as?”

“He was one of the few Western artists who actually came from the West.”

She blinked. “Really? Where did the rest of them come from?”

“Moran and Bierstadt were Hudson River School. Easterners.” Zach swirled coffee in his plastic cup, then drank the rest.

Jill waited.

“Most of the painters of the time were the same,” he said, holding out his empty cup, looking expectant. “City boys. Paris trained, or learned at the knees of teachers who were schooled in Paris. The new kids on the block illustrated government surveys of the West and Eastern magazine articles to make a living. Or they taught.”

“For someone who claims not to have a degree,” she said, pouring the last of the coffee into his cup, “you sure know a lot about Western art.”

He shrugged. “Like I said, I can bullshit with the best of ’em.”

“It’s more than that.” She capped the empty thermos. “Why are you so prickly on the subject?”

Because I learned at the knee of one prickly son of a bitch.
But all Zach said aloud was “Dunstan was Western born and bred. He specialized in what today is called the Basin and Range Country, with forays into Taos, Santa Fe, and the Colorado Plateau country for variety. Studied back east, came home to paint. But you probably already know that.”

She shook her head. “Modesty never talked about her sister, much less her sister’s lovers. And Mom…Mom was ashamed to be born outside of marriage. She rarely talked about her mother, and never said one word about the man who might or might not have been her father.”

“Sound like you had to stumble around some mighty big lumps under the family rug.”

Jill smiled, surprising both of them. “You trip a few times and then you learn to walk around the lumps. It’s called growing up.”

“Not everyone gets around to it.”

“You did, prickly and all.”

“Thomas Dunstan didn’t. He drank. He was born in Wyoming, son of a hard-luck rancher.”

“There are a lot of hard-luck ranchers in the West,” Jill said. “Fact of life in a dry land.”

“No argument from me. My mother’s family wasn’t dirt poor, they were dust poor. Do you want to know more about your grandmother’s sometimes lover?”

“I think it’s past time I learned about him.”

Zach handed Jill his half-f coffee cup. Then he opened the computer, selected the Dunstan file, and began reading parts of it to Jill, who might or might not be the granddaughter of the drunk who happened to be a fine painter when he was sober.

“…regarded as a chronicler of the empty quarter of the West, a painter capable of capturing the majesty of land before the white man came and blah blah blah,” Zach said, condensing what was in the file.

She snickered and sneaked a sip of his coffee.

He noticed, winked at her, and went back to picking facts from the computer file.

“…painted and destroyed canvases until he produced one that he liked. Sometimes it was years between new canvases.”

“Too bad more painters didn’t cull their work before it went public,” Jill said. “Picasso and Dalí come instantly to mind.”

Zach laughed and kept picking out tidbits. “Sold well for the era, despite the scarcity of paintings. He drank. A lot. And this was noticed at a time and in a place where hard drinking wasn’t remarkable.”

“Sounds like the money he made from art went into booze.”

“Back then, booze was cheap. Having a family and a mistress is expensive.”

“Don’t expect me to feel sorry for him.”

“I don’t. A man is born with two heads. Dunstan listened to his dumb one.”

Jill almost choked on another stolen sip of coffee.

“…sold for as much as ten thousand dollars a painting before he
died,” Zach continued blandly. “Back then, ten thousand was today’s half million. Hell, maybe a million. Inflation happens.”

She cleared her throat. “Does the file say who collected him?”

“In the beginning, mostly cattle barons and railroad tycoons, the kind of Western men who saw themselves as powerful enough to tame the wilderness. But lately…” Zach called up another file.

Jill waited, sipped more stolen coffee, and watched the dry land race by beneath the airplane’s wings. She was having a hard time understanding that her wild-child grandmother’s life had intersected with that of a man who became an iconic artist of the West.

A very expensive artist.

Zach’s soft whistle came through the earphones, distracting her.

“What?” she asked.

He turned the computer screen so that she could see the record of Dunstan sales from the time of his death to the most recent sale a year ago.

Five hundred thousand dollars in the late twentieth century.

Four million dollars last year.

One painting.

Jill felt like the airplane had dropped out from under her. She swallowed hard. Then she turned to Zach, who was watching her with narrowed, intent eyes.

“Four. Million. Dollars?” she asked, her voice rough.

“Yes.”

She shook her head sharply. “I’m having a tough time grabbing hold of this. I mean, I can’t believe our family has twelve Dunstans, much less that they’re wildly valuable.”

“We don’t know that they’re Dunstans.”

“Well, they sure got
someone’s
attention,” she said, thinking of her poor old car. And the slashed-to-ribbons painting. And Modesty Breck.

Dead.

SNOWBIRD, UTAH
SEPTEMBER
15
10:04
A.M.

R
amsey Worthington waited with concealed impatience while Cahill carefully, slowly, delicately opened a shipping container from the estate of a wealthy collector of Western art. The paintings were among the stars of the upcoming auction.

As the owner of several galleries, and an auctioneer in high demand, Worthington knew that he wasn’t supposed to have a favorite artist. Or at the very least, he shouldn’t let anybody know that he did.

Yet Cahill knew his boss was daffy about Nicolai Fechin’s paintings.

The “Tartar” painter might have been born in Russia, but in the second quarter of the twentieth century he had painted the Native Americans of the Southwest with an impressionistic urgency and energy that was both personal and universal.

More than half a century after Fechin’s death, his paintings were more valuable than ever, well over one hundred thousand dollars a canvas, and that was for the smaller works. Yet it wasn’t the potential hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars the Fechin oils represented that lifted Worthington’s pulse.

Quite simply, he wanted to be in the presence of greatness.

Worthington cleared his throat. He’d seen various representations of the Fechins in this dead collector’s collection, but he hadn’t seen them in the original.

Cahill hid his smile. Perhaps it was petty to tease Worthington by dragging out the process of opening the shipping container, but it certainly was enjoyable. Intellectually and fiscally, Cahill understood the importance of Fechin’s portraits. Emotionally, they didn’t lift his pulse. Give him the sweep and radiant grandeur of a Thomas Moran landscape any day. Now that was an artist to bring a man to his knees.

After a few more unnecessary flourishes, Cahill relented and removed a canvas from its carefully constructed nest.

Worthington made a sound that was between a sigh and a moan.

Cahill freed more paintings.

More rapturous noises came from Worthington.

“Stop it,” Cahill said. “You’re making me hard, and you have a luncheon appointment with your wife.”

If Worthington heard, he didn’t comment.

Cahill didn’t bother to hide his smile. Worthington’s relationship with his wife was a source of amusement to both men. She was clueless about her husband’s cheerful bisexuality.

The phone rang in Worthington’s office. His private line, reserved for his best clients. Or his most useful ones.

Worthington ignored the phone. He was lost in the vivid colors and insights of Nicolai Fechin.

Cahill strode over and picked up the call. “Fine Western Art, Jack Cahill speaking. How may I assist you?”

“This is Betty Dunstan. Is Ramsey available? It’s about the auction.”

“Betty! It’s always good to hear from you.” Cahill rolled his eyes.
He didn’t have to ask which auction. The one Worthington was overseeing in a few days was the most important thing on the Western art horizon. “How are you and Lee doing?”

“We’re fine. Very anxious about the auction, of course. But I have some, um, concerns I’d like to talk about with Ramsey.”

“Of course. Let me put you on hold while I pry him away from a client.” Cahill punched the hold button and looked at Worthington. “Well?”

“You take it. I’m tired of holding her hand. And you have a monetary interest in the auction, too.”

“Not as much as you do.”

“I’m the auctioneer as well as the organizer,” Worthington said. “Of course I’m better paid.”

The hold button blinked like a red lightning bug.

“About her call…” Cahill said.

“Oh, hell. Give it to me. You don’t understand women.”

“Big
duh
on that one.”

Worthington laughed. “Betty is a nice person, if a bit tightly wrapped. Don’t know how she puts up with the pompous donkey she’s married to.”

Shaking his head, Cahill punched the hold button again and handed over the phone.

“Hello, Betty. Always a pleasure,” Worthington said. “Sorry you had to wait for me. How may I help you?”

Cahill tuned out the one-sided conversation while he began tidying up the shipping/receiving room. As he worked, he kept looking at the Fechin oils, trying to understand their appeal emotionally as well as intellectually.

Maybe if he stopped thinking about the vermin situation during the time Fechin painted the natives, he’d appreciate the work more. But Cahill just couldn’t get past the queasy certainty that many if not all of the models for Fechin’s portraits likely had needed a good
scrubbing down with lye. The thought of all the fleas and lice underneath the rustic costumes made him twitchy.

It was the same thing that had kept him from traveling in the poor places of the world. For him, hygiene wasn’t a choice, it was a religion.

Give him Moran’s elegantly wild landscapes any day.

“…assure you,” Worthington said evenly, though loudly, “if there were any loose Dunstans running about the Western art scene, I’d be the first to know.”

He listened impatiently.

“Yes, yes, I know, the JPEGs,” he said. “But JPEGs are simply electronic bits of nothing. Only the flesh and blood of canvas is real. The rest is—”

As Worthington listened to her interruption, his face flushed. His anger was visible if not audible.

“Betty, dear, you’re working yourself up over nothing,” he said, trying to sound soothing. “If any unknown Dunstans exist—and there is no proof that any do—Lee would still have the last word as to authenticity. As the author of Dunstan’s catalogue raisonné, Lee’s imprimatur is absolutely necessary to anyone wishing to sell
any
Dunstan canvas.”

Cahill gave up pretending to be busy and listened. As Worthington had pointed out, Cahill had a financial interest in the outcome of the auction.

“Yes, I’m very certain,” Worthington said. “Please don’t worry. When the auction is over, you and Lee will be quite pleased. No unauthenticated Dunstans, assuming any exist, can prevent that.”

Worthington shifted the phone to his other hand.

Cahill waited.

“No problem at all, my dear,” Worthington said soothingly. “We’re all excited about the upcoming auction. I’m glad I could put your mind at ease.”

Worthington opened his mouth, closed it, and bit his tongue.

Cahill paced.

“I understand,” Worthington said. “Of course, you would be the first to know if I see or hear anything substantial about the existence of unknown Dunstans.”

Cahill pretended to look at Fechin’s portrait of a young Pueblo Indian girl. Her black eyes were both innocent and already old, almost eerily so.
To hell with vermin,
he thought. The ancient understanding in the girl’s eyes transcended her time and circumstances.

And vermin?

Cahill sighed. He simply couldn’t get past reality to the art beneath.

Worthington hung up the phone and looked at Cahill.

“Still bothered by head lice?” Worthington asked sardonically.

“I almost got past it. Something about that girl’s eyes. Remarkable. Riveting.”

“The eyes are the living, breathing center of all Fechin paintings. That’s what makes him such a brilliant portrait artist.”

“True.”
But not for me. Can’t get past the creepy crawlies.
“I take it that Mrs. Dunstan is in a knot about the JPEGs.”

Worthington grimaced. “Between her and Mrs. Crawford, I’ll be ready for a straitjacket before the auction even opens.”

“Lee Dunstan has bent my ear a time or three,” Cahill said. “The man is obsessed with his father’s former lover.”

“Since Justine Breck was the cause of Thomas Dunstan’s erratic output, I can understand Lee’s ire. God only knows what that woman cost the world of Western fine art.”

“Millions and millions, if the auction goes as planned.”

“Of course,” Worthington said almost impatiently, “but the loss of Dunstan’s unique insight into the dying of the classic West is beyond price.”

“Polishing your auction rhetoric?”

Worthington smiled. “People don’t attend auctions merely to buy art. They come for the experience, the entertainment, the chance to be seen as a mover and shaker among their peers.”

Laughing, Cahill shook his head. “Is our auction really going to be the slam dunk you described to Mrs. Dunstan?”

Worthington’s smile vanished. “It better be.”