Reluctantly, she got to her feet and went to the door. She spoke to someone while a dog growled in the background. Mark Horner, brandishing a large kitchen knife, poked his head in the door. “Don’t worry. I’ll make sure nobody touches anything until the cops come. You all okay?”
Sue returned to where Tom was still trying to get to his feet. She knelt beside him and he leaned into the support she offered. “Stay where you are,” she said. “I can hear sirens, and everything is under control outside.”
He felt ghastly. “First day on the job. Never got shot before.” He lifted his head. “Is it Mike Bingham?” He waved a hand toward the door.
“I couldn’t see. Whoever fired the shot is being held by Maculato and two big men. There’s a shotgun on the ground by the window, and our neighbor is watching it. The cops and the EMTs are on the way, so there’s nothing for you to do but sit there. You could even faint if you want to.”
He turned a pasty smile on her, then lowered his head into his hands. “Cripes, I feel awful.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
“I suppose you couldn’t ask for better publicity,” Tom DiAndreo said to Ginny Brent with a grin. It was a late afternoon in early July and promised to be a fine evening. He sat at Brush & Bevel with the gallery owner and her two employees. There was a lull in the preparations for the festivities surrounding the unveiling of Jerry Berger’s last painting, so they enjoyed chowdah in bread bowls before the big event.
Ginny Brent rolled her eyes at him. “Oh, yes I could. Having Jemmie Demarais and Mike Bingham indicted for murder this morning is definitely not good publicity.”
Tom laughed, pleased at having teased her. “Sure it is. No such thing as bad publicity, right? You’ll get lots of coverage for tonight, and the prints will be in much higher demand because of it, won’t they?”
Ginny had to agree to that much. After long discussions, Jenna and Bob Rudolph had agreed to issue a limited edition of two hundred and fifty prints, signed by Howard Berger. After tonight’s showing, there would be strong interest.
“In the long run,” Elsie Kimball noted, “this messy murder thing won’t hurt the art. Especially since we decided to clean off the red stuff once the trial is over.” That had taken negotiation, too. Because the watercolor paste—as it turned out to be—was on top of the sealer, it was obviously a late addition, meant only as a clue to the whereabouts of the hidden box of appraisals. It could be removed without compromising the artist’s original vision. The prints would be made from the cleaned painting, although they would include a small image of it with the red paste marks and a brief history of the circumstances.
Ginny nodded as if she wasn’t sure she agreed. “True. The art is good enough to stand on its own.”
Sue Bradley cleared her throat. “How are you feeling, Tom? All healed?”
He moved his arms and twisted his back in demonstration. “All better. Have you guys fixed up all the pellet holes?”
“There weren’t that many, really,” Ginny told him. “Going through the glass slowed most of the pellets, and the police found the rest on the floor. We found a few more, but nobody was terribly interested in them.”
Someone knocked on the front door and flashed a press card. “Seven o’clock!” Sue called. “Not a minute before!”
Ginny sighed. “The phone was so bad I disconnected it. That’s what I mean about not good publicity.”
“Cheer up,” Tom said. “It’ll all be over after tonight. Or at least the worst of it will be.”
They thought about that for a minute. Then Sue asked, “Would you mind going over it all again, Tom? We know all about how it got from Jerry’s studio to here, but everything after that night Mike Bingham showed up is sort of a blur. I’d like to have it all straight in my mind.”
The women all turned hopeful eyes to him. He sat back in his chair—he was still a little sore—and put his thoughts in order. “I have to go back a ways. Some of this isn’t confirmed yet, especially the stuff about what happened when Berger and Bingham were killed, so don’t talk about it. If anyone asks, just say the police are still looking into it. We still have a lot of questions about a lot of things, but here’s what it looks like.
“We think Sue was right, Mike was cheating on insurance and using the money to buy jewelry. It’s not entirely clear, but Jemmie seems to be claiming Mike threatened to put frogs in his shop if he didn’t comply with his demand for falsified appraisals. As far as we can tell, the frog thing goes all the way back to his childhood. Some pretty nasty hazing, I hear. He was never the most stable character. Anyway, Abby had been a pretty regular customer of Jemmie’s until about three months before her death. We don’t know how she found out about the scheme, but that’s when the appraisals from the other jewelers are dated. Okay so far?”
“So Abby confided in Jerry, and they buried the box out in the woods?” Ginny suggested.
“So it seems. Jerry was smart enough to leave you some clues. There may have been a note that should have come here with the painting. No trace of that ever showed up, but it’s mentioned in the receipt from RunAround that we found in his archives. From a few things Jemmie has said when questioned, it looks like Jerry and Abby had a little warning that day. They did the best they could. I wish they had called the cops,” he said with regret. “We could have helped. Anyway, Jemmie swears Mike killed Abby, and Mike swears Jemmie killed Jerry. Neither one of them will say anything else about what happened.”
Sue snorted. “Neither one could accuse the other without implicating himself. They framed each other. Neat.”
“And they made it look like a murder/suicide,” Ginny added. “A triple frame. I would guess Mike was responsible for that. Jemmie just doesn’t seem capable.”
“That’s what the Major Crime Unit thinks,” Tom agreed. “We don’t actually have a good sequence of events for that day. All the rest seems to fall into place. After the murder, they probably dumped Jerry’s car in Lowell or someplace like that, where it would have been stripped or stolen right away. The gun probably went with it. Mike does his frantic husband routine, quits his position as alderman, sells the insurance agency, and moves away. He was the natural suspect, of course, but with all the uncertainty about the time of death, there was no way to pin it on him.”
There was another rapping on the door. This time Ginny scrawled a hasty sign, “No admittance until 7 p.m.,” and taped it to the window, ignoring the shouted questions of another reporter. When her cell phone rang, she checked its display and declined to answer it. “Go ahead, Tom.”
“Well, time passed. Leads petered out. Until that painting showed up here, there was no reason to open the case again.”
“Wait a minute,” Sue said. “Didn’t Mike make an insurance claim on the jewelry? Doesn’t that ring a bell somewhere?”
“It might have, except nobody seems to have followed up on it. Apparently, he made a claim against the moving company that hauled his stuff out west. Their insurance handled it. Naturally, they didn’t want any publicity about it.”
“What happened to the actual jewelry?” Elsie asked.
Tom shrugged. “There are dishonest people who will pay for cheap gold and stones, no questions asked. Once the stuff is disassembled and cut up, it gets real hard to trace it.”
“Okay,” said Sue. “So the painting shows up here, we find the box, and the whole thing busts wide open again, thanks to you, Tom. What I want to know is, how did Jemmie know to follow us into the woods, and how did Mike know we’d all be here the night you were shot?”
“This part is conjecture, but it holds up pretty well. Jemmie knows we’ve got the painting, which freaks him out even though he doesn’t understand the circumstances. He calls Bingham—it shows up on his phone records. Even though we don’t know exactly what Bingham says to him, we think he ordered him to keep an eye on you gals. Then he sees me come racing over here, so he does something really old-fashioned. He listens at the door and finds out we’re looking for the rocks where the painting was done. I think he followed us from the time we left here, but he might only have picked us up when we turned onto Jerry’s road. As for Bingham, I’m sure he kept an eye on the news from here. Once he heard about Jemmie’s arrest, he had to come back and see if he could cover things up. His credit cards show he arrived here the day he shot through the window, so obviously he didn’t think things through very well. Whether he planned to hurt anybody or just destroy the painting, we don’t know.”
“And my husband, lucky fellow, just happens to come over for chowdah, and he brings the dog,” Elsie said.
Tom shrugged again. “Hey, sometimes even the cops get lucky.”
“Yes, but I’m trying to train a bird dog. Not a guard dog. Not a frog dog!”
This time the rapping came on the interior door at the rear of the shop. Ginny walked over and set her hand on the knob. “What’s the password?”
“Nosy gals!” came the response.
She grinned and opened the door to Mark Horner and one of his staff, bearing trays of snacks and sandwiches. “I guess story time is over, folks. Sue, Elsie, back to work.”
They jumped up and began to arrange the food on the tables. Tom watched the women as they also set out bottles of champagne in coolers and fussed with the remaining artwork on the walls. He realized then, looking around, that there were no other artists represented in the gallery tonight; it was all Jerry Berger. For a moment he wondered where all the framed pieces had come from, but as he strolled around he noted the small tags next to many of them, as in a museum, stating “Loaned by…” or “From the collection of…” There was an impressive number of original works, as well as prints on paper and on canvas. Perhaps he and Donna could afford one of those, someday.
Precisely at 6:45 p.m., Ginny opened the rear door once more to admit two burly men carrying a surprisingly small flat object, covered with a velvet cloth. The men nodded to Tom as they moved to the large easel in the center of the room and set their burden down on it. Tom had, in fact, recommended the off-duty officers to Ginny, to serve as security for the evening, though with Mike and Jemmie both in custody he wasn’t terribly worried. Still, an ounce of prevention, as he said.
Sue appeared at his shoulder. “Well, that’s everything. Jenna and Bob will be here in a minute. I wonder if the press is still out back?”
“What do you mean?”
Her eyes were bright with mischief. “Well, we had Yaneque put one of those magnetic signs on her new PT Cruiser, the one that doesn’t have her name on it yet. According to the sign, she’s from something called ‘Security Transport,’ and she was supposed to cruise through the parking lot, let everyone get a good look, and then go around back. We figured they’d all follow her there and let your men bring the real painting down from the insurance company upstairs.”
“You had it at the insurance company?” he asked in disbelief.
She laughed. “Sure! Your guys brought it over from the Rudolphs’ yesterday. Don’t worry, it’s been under lock and key all the time. Ginny upgraded our security system after Mike was here—”
“Thanks for the advice, by the way!” Ginny called from the other side of the room.
“—the Rudolphs are okay on their end. One of the folks from the Silver Spoon let Yaneque in the garage door, so everything is cool. Any minute now Jenna and Bob will walk in, and then we’ll open the doors.” She heard one more rap on the rear door and opened it to Yaneque’s grinning face, the gap between her front teeth showing.
“Worked like a charm,” she said. “I never had so many men following me! I think one is still caught under the door.” She giggled.
Tom checked with the security guys, then found an unobtrusive corner where he could watch everything. Once the doors were opened, he planned to circulate quietly among the guests.
A quiet knock was followed by Pam and Howard Berger and the beaming owners of the painting, Jenna and Bob Rudolph. Bob turned out to be a pleasant-looking man in his forties, handsome enough to be a match for Jenna’s polished good looks. Ginny took them in hand and showed them the arrangements for the evening. She introduced them to the two burly men and asked them to stand beside the easel for the moment.
At a signal from Ginny, Elsie and Sue joined her at the front door, twitching their clothes into place. They all looked around one more time, took a deep breath, and opened the door.
Warm, humid air accompanied a rush of people who had been milling around in the parking lot. Collectors of Jerry Berger’s work rubbed elbows with representatives of the museums that housed his originals. Art critics from Boston and New York raised their eyebrows at the presence of the blatantly uncultured Matt Baldwin, who shuffled about until he found an unobtrusive spot near the finger sandwiches.
Yaneque’s ruse had worked for a time, but the press showed up in short order. They made beelines for the Rudolphs and the Brush & Bevel staff, only to find their questions ignored. Elsie and Sue offered champagne and smiles, but no more. Ginny smiled, too, and said only, “Thank you for coming.”
Jenna and Bob hovered near the covered painting, greeting anyone who came within earshot and accepting envious congratulations on their good fortune. “Imagine!” people kept exclaiming. “A real Jerry Berger hanging in a bar!” The Rudolphs just smiled and repeated that the full story would be told for the first time that evening.
After it became apparent everyone who was coming had already arrived, Ginny tapped on a wineglass for attention. The crowded room fell silent. “Thank you all for coming,” she began. “This is certainly a festive occasion. Tonight Brush and Bevel is pleased to present the first public viewing of
Lady in the Wood
, a formerly unknown work by Jerry Berger, who as you know died about ten years ago. The story of how this piece was lost and recovered will be told for the first time. First, however…” She gestured. “Jenna and Bob, will you do the honors, please?”
With a practiced flourish, the couple removed the dark green velvet veil from the painting. The assembled crowd gave a collective “aah” of appreciation and applauded. They gathered close to view the work in detail. Cameras flashed.