Edited for Death (12 page)

Clarice is quiet for a heartbeat then says, “See, this is just weird. When I came back from Marshalltown the first time I told you there were strange things. Too many coincidences, too many secrets. Do you think it’s the town, or the hotel or the family...?”

“It could be any of those. Well, I don’t think the town because so many new people have moved in. I’m not sure there’d be time for all of them to learn about and hide secrets. The rest?” I shrug.

I take a deep breath, let it out, stand up and walk over to flip the pool lights on. The pool glows turquoise, the light and color shifting as a breeze finally kicks in and runs over the surface of the water.

Part of my unease comes from not having any idea of who or what was hidden. Did the old town know and cover up? Did the Calverts do something? Or is it the hotel itself? Does Jim Dodson know and won’t share all his information with the press?

“I don’t know, I just don’t know,” I say. “Do you remember when the Monroe cops came in just before Christmas and asked for help with finding that missing woman, what was her name?”

“Oh, God yes, her name was Sharon Smithers,” Clarice says. “Her husband reported her missing. The cops brought us a family Christmas portrait to run, hoping somebody had seen her. They found her car in a bank parking lot, but no sign of her.”

“That’s the one. Remember, we all were sure that the husband killed her and got rid of the body before he reported her missing, but the cops were playing it straight as a missing persons case.”

“It was only a few weeks until the cops finally arrested the husband,” Clarice says. “There are times when I think we do know more than the cops. It turned out that the guy’s first wife ended up dead after falling down a flight of stairs, and we uncovered that as well.”

“Yeah, but they have a different burden of proof,” I say.

“I guess we can’t just go to court and say we have a gut feeling,” Clarice laughs. “Well that’s sort of the same feeling I’m getting now. Not that I think there’s a suspect, but that there’s more there than we know. Possibly a lot more even than Dodson knows.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

To: Phil [PEtange]

From: AHobbes

Hi...

I’m going to look into Robert Calvert’ s financial support. He started his career using his war hero status, but he still had to have a lot of big-money backers. Even in the 1960s he had to spend for name recognition....television and radio ads, billboards and all that is steep, way beyond somebody whose parents owned a small hotel in a tiny town.

Could you find out 1) where Nevell’s financial backing came from

2) where was he before he surfaced in San Francisco

3) what was his war record

4) what does he primarily handle

5) how well known is he outside of San Francisco or California

6) has he traveled much

7) what’s his private life (married, kids. gay.....).

I really had a great time....again?

The email to Phil moves to the top of the agenda with the Terry James murder wrapped up. I want as much information on Ben Nevell as Phil could dig up, true. Do I want more from Phil?

I sent the email from home. By the time I set my purse down in my office, I have an answer. And more questions

To: AHobbes

From:Phil [PEtange].

Ben showed up in San Francisco in the late 1950’s. He was from the East Coast; consensus says the New York-New Jersey area, but his prewritten obit says Long Island. Doesn’t have any living relatives listed. Not much on his war record; served in the Army from 1943 to ’45, stationed in Europe. Honorable discharge in late 1945. Nothing between then and his arrival in San Francisco. He seemed to have enough money to begin getting well-known at the fringes of the art crowd. He opened his first gallery in 1963 and was handling limited edition prints, primarily Europeans. Over the next ten years he took on some Op and Pop work, had some Warhol advertising stuff. For the past 25 years, he’s expanded his stable and moved the gallery a couple of times. He moved to Maiden Lane four years ago and seems to be doing well. He still carries a few Picasso prints, some Lechtinstein sports prints, some contemporary West Coast prints like Wayne Theibaud and about once a year does a show for an emerging Bay Area artist, almost all two dimensional work. Over the years I’ve only seen half a dozen sculptures and three or four assemblage pieces; his stock and interests are considered fairly conservative.

One odd thing, he’s always talked about an interest in lost artwork. Not only the Van Gogh that shows up in somebody’s attic (don’t you wish for one of THOSE) but pieces that haven’t been seen for years. Stuff like the Klimt piece that just sold.

I’m good to go again. Just whistle.

The Klimt piece. What’s the Klimt piece?

I close my eyes, and wish my brain could just go buy some plug-in memory.

Ha! Klimt was that Austrian artist, worked around the turn of the 20
^th
Century, used gold in a style that looked like exotic tiles, painted “The Kiss” ....

Oh my God, I finally make the connection. A Klimt piece looted by the Nazis in Vienna had been found. It was returned to the surviving family and just recently sold for the highest price ever paid for any painting.

I log on to Google and a string of hits come up. In 1907, a wealthy Viennese commissioned Gustav Klimt to paint a portrait of his young wife, Adele Bloch-Bauer. She died in 1925. Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer fled to Switzerland in 1938, just ahead of the Nazis, but the Klimt work had already been looted.

In 1998, Austria enacted a law forcing museums possessing art looted by the Nazis to return them to the heirs or families of the original owners. Maria Altmann, a Bloch-Bauer heir living in Los Angeles, spent seven years fighting to regain possession of the portrait. She won and earlier this year sold the piece to Ronald S. Lauder for $135 million—the highest price ever paid for a painting. Lauder planned to display it at his New York gallery.

Is Phil intimating Nevell trades in works of art stolen during World War II? Nevell certainly can’t have had anything to do with the Klimt piece; his gallery and life style don’t reflect that kind of money or acquisitions. Or is Phil pulling my leg with his comment about the Klimt. Does he mean Nevell is trying to get publicity by discovering previously unknown or lost art works? Maybe Phil watches too much “Antiques Roadshow.”

Since I have Google open, I type in “looted Nazi art” and get more than 95,000 hits.

Good God, I can spend all day on this.

I pick up on one hit from “Art Talk” about an Egon Schiele painting that also sold this year for $21.7 million at a Christie’s auction in London. The Art Talk story says t
his is “almost double the estimated price for the painting, which was feared destroyed after being seized by the Nazis during World War Two. According to Christie's, the painting was confiscated by the Germans in Strasbourg and was auctioned in 1942. The picture, considered to be one of Schiele's masterpieces, then disappeared. The painting was among a collection of about 50 paintings owned by Austrian art collector Karl Gruenwald that was confiscated by the Nazis in France and sold at auction in 1942. Gruenwald unsuccessfully tried to find his collection after the war. He died in 1964 and attempts by one of his sons to locate the paintings were also unsuccessful. But in late 2005, Christie's was contacted by a person who had acquired a painting along with an apartment he had bought in France a few years earlier. The price tag makes it the second most expensive Schiele painting after the landscape ‘Krumauer Landschaft’ which sold for $23.2 million in 2003.”

I wonder why 2006 is such a hot year for finding and selling stolen Nazi paintings. It’s fascinating history, but isn’t getting me answers to Robert Calvert’s financial background. I’d like to spend some time on this, but I need to get work sorted out first.

Luckily, this is a slow news day. I’ll have to scrounge for some page one candidates, but it’s nice to just deal with routine. Even Clarice, blowing in at noon, is relaxed.

She sticks her head through the door and says, “I don’t have much yet on my plate. Any holdover you want me to do?’

“
I’m sure I can find some,” I say. “Anything on your beat?”

Clarice grins. “I’m checking the arraignment log in a few minutes and I’ll let you know what’s up. I think the heat kind of saps everybody’s energy in the morning. This afternoon and tonight, after work, a few beers, things may liven up.”

She grabs her purse, notebook, cell and sunglasses and heads out the door.

It’s way quiet in the afternoon. Gives me a chance to catch up on cleaning my desk which means rearranging and restacking the piles. After an hour of straightening, I’m antsy so I call the Marshalltown Hotel and leave a message to talk to Stewart Calvert. I need to chat with him to see if I’m stepping on his toes with the possible book I’m researching.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Marshalltown, 1963

“Stand a little closer.”

The
Marshalltown Crier
photographer wanted a good shot. He might be able to sell it to the major dailies in the state. This was home-town boy making it big.

Robert Calvert, certified war hero and California State Senator was announcing his bid for the Big Show—running for the U.S. Senate in the 1964 elections.

The group on the verandah of the Marshalltown Hotel gave each other directions and suggestions as they closed ranks. Robert, his wife and son; his brother, William; his parents. At the last minute, a face appeared over Robert’s shoulder and smiled as the shutter clicked.

“Just a second,” the photographer said. “I don’t know who you are. Are you supposed to be in the picture?”

knows all my dark secrets.”

The group laughed and broke up. The photographer shrugged and loaded up his equipment, thinking well, the important people were identified and this may not go any further. He doubted that a major daily would want such a cozy family scene anyway. He’d come back later and get a couple of good shots of Robert and maybe his wife and son.

“Come on in to the family dining room. I’ve asked the waitresses to set up a cold buffet for lunch.” Robert’s mother shooed the group through the hotel dining room and into a smaller private area off the kitchen. “Pauli, you sit next to Gramma.”

Paulson, named for his great-grandfather and nicknamed Pauli, was twelve that summer. Really, too old to be a kid any more but not interested in hanging around with the adults. The only one who was at all worth talking to was the guy who showed up last night. His dad introduced him as Ben, a friend he met in the Army. But even World War II was too far removed to keep Pauli’s attention for very long.

When he was really a kid, five or six, he wanted to hear all his father’s war stories. And his favorite was the story about how his dad killed all those Germans and won the medals. Now, though, it seemed like that was the only story anybody wanted to hear. Pauli was tired of all the reporters crowding around and asking his dad to tell about the skirmish that had made him a hero.

Being a war hero, though, was still important. Ever since Eisenhower went from military leadership to civilian leadership, a good war record was worth campaigning on. Pauli knew that, but all that history was old. Everything was modern now. They were even talking about sending men into space and launching satellites. As he drifted away after lunch, he heard his father ask his grandfather about renovating the hotel and thought “Good. This old place can use it.”

“I thought we could use Harmony Construction, Dad,” Robert said. “They’re small but they’re local and they know our history.”

“I guess that’s fine with me, Robbie,” the older man smiled. “I’m not sure why you really want the hotel renovated, though. We redid it before the war, when we took it over from your grandparents,”

Robert hid his own smile. “That’s been almost 30 years, Dad. A fresh look will bring in a lot more business.

“And if—no, when—I’m elected you and Mom and the hotel will be getting a lot of publicity. Don’t you want to have your best foot forward?”

“Sure. You know we do Robbie. We’re so proud of you...well, both you boys,” the elder Calvert said. He cut his eyes to William who was talking with Robert’s wife. “I wonder if William is ever going to settle down like you did, Robbie. I worry that we’ll only have one grandson.”

Now Robert looked over at his brother. “He will, Dad. I may have rushed the gun a little, getting married just after I finished school. Willie’s playing it smart. He stayed in school so with his new job as Berkeley he’s set. I heard that there’s a young lady teaching assistant he’s been seen a few times. I bet within a year he’s an old married guy, too.”