Feint of Art: (15 page)

All eyes slewed back to me.

“
Well?
” the dragon lady demanded shrilly.

I said nothing, trying to keep my temper in check. It wasn’t my fault that her stupid painting was a fake, and I had had enough of her abuse. I didn’t work for the family anymore, and I didn’t have to take this crap.

“Speak! Speak!”

That did it.

“Woof!” I barked.

A collective gasp issued from the Brocks, though I could have sworn I heard a snort of laughter. It didn’t come from Agnes Brock, that was for sure. The old woman made a choking sound, her face turned bright red, and for a horrible moment I thought she might collapse.

Taking advantage of the shocked silence, I spoke again, more reasonably this time.

“I realize this is an awkward situation,” I told them. “Please bear in mind that the world’s finest museums and galleries have bought and displayed fakes, and that those paintings had also been authenticated by experts—”

I thought my little speech was rather gracious under the circumstances, but apparently I was alone in this opinion, for at this point all hell broke loose. Sebastian Pitts and Agnes Brock leapt to their feet and started spewing invective, Edward Brock countered with a few tentative words in my defense, Camilla Culpepper seconded them, Richard and Phoebe Brock turned hotly on Edward and Camilla, the Brock cousins chimed in, and soon an all-out family shouting match was under way.

Inspector Crawford cleared her throat and a hush fell over the room. How does she
do
that? I wondered. When Pitts and old lady Brock took their seats, the inspector nodded at me.

“As I was saying,” I continued, “I’m not trying to stir up trouble. But Ernst Pettigrew had his doubts about
The Magi,
despite the authentication.” Note to self: avoid Sebastian Pitts’ eyes, which were doing their best to turn me into a pillar of salt. “That’s why he called me in. Whatever you may think of my personal history—indeed, for that very reason—if you are honest you will admit that I know forgeries when I see them. And there are several problems with the Caravaggio.”

The conference room was now so quiet that I could hear the ticking of the ancient grandfather clock that Mrs. Brock’s family had shipped all the way from Boston to California in 1852.

“First, the brushstrokes are off,” I explained. “Not all of them, but in the background—”

“It was common in the sixteenth century for lesser artists, or for artists-in-training, to fill in the backgrounds for the master artists,” Sebastian Pitts interrupted. “Background work required minimal skill, and delegating it to assistants saved the masters a great deal of time, allowing them to create other masterpieces.”

“True enough, but as I am sure you will recall, Dr. Pitts, Caravaggio was vilified by his peers because of his scalawag lifestyle, and cast out of society altogether when he was accused of killing a man over a tennis match,” I responded. “He was a solo act. As I was saying, Caravaggio didn’t use his brush that way, nor did he work in a studio with those who did.

“Second, until the eighteenth century blue oil paint was made from semiprecious stones, like lapis lazuli and azurite. It was extremely expensive, and used primarily by artists with rich patrons. Caravaggio could rarely afford it, yet in this painting the Christ child’s blanket is lapis blue. The unusual use of color is another red flag that
The Magi
might be a fake.

“And finally, the lighting on Balthazar’s face is off ever so slightly, and as you all know, Caravaggio’s chiaroscuro, or dramatic use of light and shadow, was his trademark. The lighting here isn’t wildly wrong, but it’s not as strong as I would expect to see in a Caravaggio.”

I stopped there. These problems alone were sufficient to cast grave doubts upon the painting’s authenticity. But there were other, far more damning ones that I decided not to share with the Brocks and the inspectors. Thanks to my grandfather’s tutelage, I had recognized that the apparent flaw in the lighting was not a mistake. It was an inside joke—a sure tip-off that the painting was a fraud.

One of the biggest problems an art forger faces is his or her own ego. It takes years of training and remarkable talent for an artist to create a copy worthy of being acclaimed as a true masterpiece, and in the end the forger does not have the satisfaction of claiming credit for the work. However, I knew that few forgers could resist secretly “signing” their best pieces. One of the keys to unmasking fakes by known forgers, therefore, was to know what signature to look for.

The trick with the lighting and the addition of a touch of lapis blue were Anton’s signature. Grandfather’s was the tiniest little hatch marks in the mottled background color. My signature, when I was forging Old Master drawings, had been the slight smile I gave to one of the subjects in the scene. Before the twentieth century, drawings or paintings rarely portrayed their subject smiling, and thus those that did were much more valuable. Unfortunately, my signature proved to be my downfall when I raised suspicions by flooding the market with too many smiles.

I said none of this to the group assembled. I wasn’t about to rat out Anton. Or Grandfather. Or myself.

Predictably, Pitts was unconvinced and launched into a long and inventive tirade during which he condemned me, my grandfather, and pretty much all those of artistic temperament. When he finally wound down, he demanded we view
The Magi
so he could put the issue to rest, once and for all. Striding dramatically across the conference room to the covered painting on an easel in the corner just behind me, Pitts yanked off the cloth with a flourish and revealed
The Magi.

The brush marks were consistent with Caravaggio’s style, the Christ child’s blanket was a classic Venetian red, the lighting on Balthazar’s face was perfect.

I started to sweat. My face grew flushed, and the muscles at the base of my skull began to cramp. My wool suit was itchy and stifling. It was hard to breathe.

I walked over to the painting and peered at the background. There they were, plain as day: tiny, exquisite hatch marks. Georges François LeFleur, art forger extraordinaire, had struck again.

I looked up dully. Pitts’ round face was split with a smile, relishing the prospect of my imminent humiliation. I caught Inspector Crawford’s eye.

“May I speak with you for a moment, Ms. Kincaid?” she asked. I could have kissed her.

“Certainly, Inspector,” I said, already halfway out the door. Ichabod followed us into the mahogany-lined hallway, shutting the door behind us.

“What just happened in there?” Crawford asked. “What did you see?”

“It’s a fake.”

“Yes, you’ve already said that.”

“No, it’s a
different
fake.”

“
What?
” For the first time since we’d met, Inspector Crawford’s face registered surprise. “Are you sure?”

“Quite.”

“Why would anyone paint two fakes?” Ichabod piped up.

“They’re two different fakes. Painted by two different forgers.”

The inspectors stared at me. I shrugged. Well,
I
didn’t do it.

“Do you recognize the artists?” Inspector Crawford asked.

“Why ask me?” I demanded disingenuously. “It’s not as though I’m in the forgery business.”

In politics, this was called the non-denial denial.

“Sebastian Pitts and Agnes Brock have suggested otherwise,” Ichabod replied.

I shrugged again, in a “What can you expect from such people?” kind of way.

“You haven’t answered my question,” said the suddenly perceptive Ichabod, leaving me to recall his former silences with fondness.

“All I know is that the painting in that room is
not
the same painting Ernst Pettigrew showed me the other night, nor is it a genuine Caravaggio.”

I was going to
kill
my grandfather.

“Okay, you two, that’s enough,” Inspector Crawford interjected. “This isn’t getting us anywhere. Wilson, please see Ms. Kincaid to her car. I need to speak to the board.”

Once again the Brock Museum had been the scene of my professional humiliation, and I hurried outside, Ichabod a silent escort. A few minutes later Crawford caught up with us as we started down the front steps. She looked royally pissed, but I wasn’t sure at whom.

“How well do you know the Brock family?” she asked abruptly.

“Not very. I met Agnes Brock when I worked here, because for all intents and purposes it’s her museum, but mostly I dealt with her secretary. The others I know only by reputation.”

“What kind of reputation?”

“Richard Brock and his wife, Phoebe, are socialites, and they crop up in the society columns,” I said as we reached the sidewalk and paused in the shade of a thirty-foot-tall palm tree. “I met them at a Christmas party, but I doubt they’d remember me. The interns used to call them Dull Dick and Fabulous Phoebe because he’s so boring and she’s such a clotheshorse. I never met their children. Rumor had it that Cousin Frederick wanted to bump off Mrs. Brock and take over, but that was probably just gossip.”

“Any of the others?”

“Only by sight, and then only because of the Brock brow ridge, which you must have noticed. Mrs. Culpepper would show up for events and board meetings, but I never really met her. I heard she had an eye for young men, but rumors are always swirling in a place like this. It’s just the nature of the institutional beast.”

“Did you know anything about security when you worked here?”

“Just procedure.”

“Who would have access to the vault?”

“Besides Mrs. Brock? Well, the head curators, of course. Probably Sebastian Pitts. But that wasn’t the sort of thing that concerned interns, and we weren’t allowed near the vault.”

“What about the rest of the family?”

“As far as I knew, they showed up for parties but weren’t involved in the museum’s day-to-day business. It’s been a while, though, so that might have changed. Agnes Brock always wanted the museum to remain in the family’s control.”

“Mm-hmm,” she murmured, flipping through her notes. “What about the janitor?”

“You mean Stan Dupont? I don’t think so. I never saw any Housekeeping staff in the vault, but then I wasn’t there myself. The current staff would be able to tell you more, surely.” I glanced at my watch. Quarter after twelve. “If it’s all the same to you, I’d like to get going now.”

The ten-minute walk to my truck helped clear my mind, but I still sighed with relief when I climbed behind the wheel and headed for the Golden Gate Bridge and points north.

Two fakes, two forgers, and one murder were adding up to one big boatload of trouble.

—Georges LeFleur, “Modern Masters?” unfinished manuscript,
Reflections of a World-Class Art Forger

 

My cell phone chirped and I snatched it up, hoping it was Grandfather. I stabbed blindly at the ON button, afraid to take my eyes off the busy approach to the Golden Gate Bridge. “
Allô oui?
”

“Wee wee yourself, Annie.” It was Pedro. “What’s with the fran-SAY?”

“Well, you know me”—I slammed on the brakes to avoid a collision with a faded blue Volkswagen Beetle that was covered with bumper stickers proclaiming its owner’s outré political beliefs—“I hate to miss a chance to sound Frenchified.”

“Listen, nothing checks out on your Michael Johnson as a PI, with or without an
X.
Oh, and I overestimated. I only got eighty-two thousand hits on the name.”

“Uh-huh,” I grunted.

“There’s a Mike Johnson, but he’s sixty-four years old and lives in Eureka, so I’m thinkin’ he’s not your guy. There are sixteen other licensed private eyes named Johnson, but no other Mikes.”

Just as I suspected. “Okay, thanks for trying,” I said, focusing on keeping my non-power-steering-equipped truck in its lane as I wheeled through the twists and turns of the wooded Presidio and headed for the Golden Gate. “What do I owe you?”

“Dinner. A cheap one. It took me all of thirty minutes. You should learn to do this yourself, toots.”

“Naw, you know I like having you on call, snookums. Oh, and Pedro, one more thing. Actually, two things. I need Ernst Pettigrew’s address.”

“The Brock Museum dude who disappeared? Have you checked the phone book?”

“Uh, nope. Good idea. Okay, second item: I need background information on a friend of his, Quiana something. Q-u-i-a-n-a. I don’t have a last name, but she’s Ernst’s girlfriend. Maybe a live-in.”

“What’s this guy to you, Annie?” Pedro asked. “You’re not involved in this Brock thing, are you?”

As far as I knew, Pedro did not know about my less-than-completely-lawful past. So why did my friends always assume I would slip off the straight and narrow at the drop of a paintbrush?

“No, I’m not ‘involved.’ Just say no if I’m asking too much.”

“Don’t get snippy,
m’ija.
I was just curious. I’ll check her out. You be careful.”

“Thanks, Pedro. You’re a pal.”

I zipped around a lumbering tourist bus and onto the bridge. This maneuver required concentration. The graceful Golden Gate carried six lanes of traffic, two lanes headed north, two lanes headed south, and two lanes in the middle that changed directions during commute hours. Nothing separated you from the oncoming traffic except itty-bitty plastic rectangles stuck in the asphalt. To make things still more interesting, the cars were usually buffeted by gusting ocean crosswinds. However, the view from the bridge was spectacular, and I probably would have appreciated it had I not been so intent on maintaining my death grip on the steering wheel.