Elizabeth Lowell - Blue Smoke and Murder

The plane pulled up on the strip near Zach’s truck and shut down. One of the crew opened a door in the fuselage and let down a set of steps. He began unloading six large aluminum suitcases. Behind him, six slightly larger, hinged wooden boxes with dead-bolt locks waited to further protect the suitcases and their contents.

Zach talked to another of the crew, handed her the first package of two paintings, and watched. With great care she unwrapped the tarp, matched the paintings inside to the cutouts in one of the foam-lined aluminum cases, closed the case, and slid it into a plywood shipping box. She secured the dead bolt on the box and turned to receive the next package of paintings.

He nodded and returned to his truck, sure that the paintings were in the hands of people who knew what they were doing.

“Get out and stretch your legs,” he said to Jill. “You’ll be cooped up in the plane soon enough.”

“I will?”

“Yeah.”

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“Into the wild blue yonder.”

Zach pulled his soft canvas duffel from the truck bed, followed by Jill’s backpack. Her belly bag was looped through one of the backpack’s many fasteners.

“You want your ‘purse’ with you or with the rest of the luggage?” he asked her.

“If it’s with the luggage, can I get to it during the flight?”

“Not easily.”

“Give it to me, then.”

He unfastened the waist pack and tossed it toward her. Though stuffed to bursting, the pack didn’t weigh much.

“Any special reason you’re keeping the canvas scraps?” Zach asked. “Even if the rest of the paintings are solid gold, the shredded one isn’t worth anything.”

“When I want to strangle you, I think of the rags. My temper improves dramatically.”

Zach smiled. “Good plan. Let’s go.”

He headed toward the plane.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“Up, up, and away.”

“Zach-”

“Try something new,” he cut in. “Trust me.”

“I’d rather count canvas rags,” she shot back.

“And I’d rather be reconditioning the muscle car I left in the Eureka’s parking lot. In or out, Jill. Your choice.”

Without a word she headed for the plane.

OVER CALIFORNIA

SEPTEMBER 15

6:30 A.M.

The 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.

Zach 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?”