Elizabeth Lowell - Blue Smoke and Murder

“And you’re a professional liar,” she muttered, not wanting to be lured by the belief that Zach understood her paintings.

And her.

He ruffled her nerves enough on a physical level, without adding all the complications of intelligence into the mix.

“Sometimes I’m a liar,” he agreed. “Right now isn’t one of those times.”

Jill blew out a hissing breath. “I keep thinking about the ruined painting and Ford Hillhouse’s suggestion that it was all a fraud, but he’d pay Modesty a couple thousand to go away. How do you ‘lose’ a painting?”

“You send it out to three or four other dealers for their opinion, one of them has a foul-up in shipping, and a painting goes missing. It happens. That’s why shipments are insured. Ask anyone in the trade.”

“But-”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if Hillhouse showed the painting to a few Dunstan collectors, just to see if one of them would be willing to roll the provenance dice.”

“That’s fraud.”

Zach shook his head. “Not if both seller and buyer are aware that the painting hasn’t been authenticated. Then it’s just business.”

“Then why did Hillhouse as good as call the painting a fraud?”

“That was one of the questions I was going to ask him,” Zach said, “but he never took St. Kilda’s calls, the painting is now a pile of scraps, and there’s no point in wasting time nailing his balls to the wall. If anything in that equation changes, I’ll get whatever answers I need from him, whenever I need them.”

“But if he won’t talk to you, how can you-” Her words stopped when she looked at Zach’s eyes. She swallowed and reminded herself that just because people lived in civilization, they weren’t always civilized.

“She’s wrapping up her conversation,” Zach said, indicating the woman.

“How can you tell?”

“Body language. You ready to play?”

“I’ll never have a career in fine art,” Jill said muttered. “I can’t paint and hold my nose, which is what I’d have to do to keep from smelling the bullshit that seems to be a big part of the scene.”

“That’s how you get blue smoke,” Zach said. “You build piles of bullshit and set fire to them. Now lose the inner bitch and look pleasant for the nice saleslady.”

Jill gritted her teeth. “It’s a little hard to make nice with a stranger who won’t answer e-mails and might have had a part in my great-aunt’s death.”

“Do it or take a walk. Now.”

A single look told Jill that Zach wasn’t kidding.

She forced her mouth into a smile and turned toward the elegant brunette who was approaching them.

SNOWBIRD

SEPTEMBER 15

11:07 A.M.

Zach watched the woman as she walked up to him. She wore a cashmere sweater that showed discreet cleavage, painfully stylish high heels, and the kind of black wool slacks that cost more than most people made in a week. Her black pearl earrings and elegantly simple gold-and-pearl pin looked real, and really expensive.

“Hello, I’m Jo. I see you’re admiring our Russian Impressionists. Their technique is-”

“Well known to dealers and consultants,” Zach cut in, smiling to soften the words. “I’m here with Ms. Jillian Breck in regard to the unsigned Thomas Dunstan painting that you may have seen last month, and the JPEGs of unsigned paintings that were e-mailed to you recently.”

At Dunstan’s name, the woman’s eyes widened and her hand went to her throat.

Zach saw the reaction for what it was-an involuntary effort to hide a strong emotional reaction. Fear, most likely.

Adrenaline slid sweetly into his veins.

It’s about time someone noticed us.

“Is something wrong?” he asked, his expression and body language concerned.

“Wrong?” Waverly-Benet’s voice was too high. She cleared her throat and lowered both her voice and her hand. “No. I just wish I’d never seen that particular canvas. I suspect it cost me a considerable commission, and tested the goodwill of people who are very important in the Western art market.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Zach said gently. “Professional jealousies are an unfortunate fact of life in the art business.”

“So is fraud,” she said in a flat voice.

Jill moved sharply.

Zach’s casual stroke down her arm kept her quiet.

“I sent that painting to the definitive Dunstan expert,” Waverly-Benet said, her body tight. “He sent me back the nastiest letter I have ever received. He called me ‘obviously incompetent’ for even considering that the painting might be a genuine Dunstan.”

Zach whistled. “That’s harsh, even in a business noted for its prima donnas. I saw that painting. It was a superior canvas, one that no one should be insulted for appreciating.”

Ms. Waverly-Benet relaxed, warmed by Zach’s understanding. “I thought so. Later I found out that the expert advised a prominent Western art collector not to place one of his canvases in my gallery for resale because I was an idiot.”

Zach shook his head. “That sounds much more like a personal opinion than a professional one. In fact, it sounds legally actionable. I’m sorry you had to suffer it.”

Jill tried not to stare at the gentle, reasonable, supportive, sympathetic alien who had taken over Zach’s body.

“Unfortunately, this expert’s opinion is the only one that really counts,” Waverly-Benet said bitterly. “It came from Olympus, so to speak.”

“Are we talking about Lee Dunstan, the artist’s son?” Zach asked.

“Yes, unfortunately.”

“It’s a shame the son isn’t an artist,” Zach said, “either by training or inclination.”

Waverly-Benet sighed. “I agree. But Lee Dunstan controls the Dunstan droit moral, and that’s that.”

Jill frowned. “I know that it’s common, especially in Europe, for a dead artist’s family to retain the moral right to designate that artist’s works as authentic. Without the family’s stamp of approval, a work can be deemed a fake or, worse, a fraud.”

Waverly-Benet flinched.

“Picasso’s heirs have made a great living from droit moral,” Zach said. “But it’s much more rare in American art.”

“Not lately,” Waverly-Benet said, her body tight again. “The more famous the artist, the more likely you are to encounter some moral authority with the power of life and death over questioned pieces. If not a family member, then an academic or a curator or a critic who has made a lifetime study of an artist and produced that artist’s catalogue raisonné.”

“Ah, yes,” Jill said. “Gathering piles and setting fire to them.”

Zach fought a smile.

Waverly-Benet didn’t have a smile to fight. Underneath the sleek exterior, she was angry and afraid. She pinned Jill with a dark glance and said, “If you’re still trying to sell the painting I sent back to Hillhouse, you should be aware that you’ll be courting serious legal problems.”

“Modesty Breck sent the canvas out for appraisal, nothing more,” Jill said. “The word ‘sale’ was never suggested.”

“That so-called Dunstan was appraised and found wanting,” Waverly-Benet said. “If that’s what you came to me about, you’re wasting my time and possibly harming my reputation.”

“But you thought enough of the painting to-” Jill began.

“Obviously I was wrong,” Waverly-Benet cut in. “I’ve had enough trouble over that canvas. I don’t want anything more to do with it. Unless you have something else to talk about, please leave.”

Jill started to say something.

Zach’s hand settled over her forearm. And squeezed.

“Sorry to bother you,” he said to Waverly-Benet. “We won’t take any more of your time.”

Jill allowed herself to be herded outside and into the SUV.

As soon as Zach started the engine, she said, “That was one scared woman.”

“She’s sitting on millions of dollars in inventory, her ski-resort rent would support a small third world country, and her reputation within art circles just took a hell of a hit. Damn straight she’s scared.”

“Still, she has no right to-”

“You should be scared, too,” Zach continued relentlessly. “It’s not your livelihood being threatened, it’s your life.”

SNOWBIRD

SEPTEMBER 15

11:18 A.M.

This time I’m the hard case and you’re the sympathetic one,” Zach said as they walked up to the next gallery.

“Does that mean the sweet thing actually gets to speak?”

He gave her a sideways look. “Was I stepping on your lines back there?”

“What lines?”

“That’s why I did most of the talking,” he said blandly. “You don’t know your lines.”

“Really? I thought you’d been taken over by an astonishingly polite alien.”

“Get ready for the rude alien.”

“Nothing alien about that,” she muttered under her breath.

“Aliens have excellent hearing.”

She shut up and stared at the door buzzer, the locked door, and the very visible guard. “Looks like a bank.”

“Fine art is portable and pricey, a combination that crooks can’t resist. Worthington is getting ready for the Las Vegas auction. Some really high-end canvas wealth is stashed in this gallery, waiting to be escorted to Vegas.”

“But the auction is only four days away. Why is it here?”

“The hotel probably didn’t want the insurance risk of storing the paintings until the auction. Or the individual insurers balked. I keep telling you, art is a business.”