A Perfect Eye Page 7

  “Don’t you hate that all the critics see is sex?” Nick said with a wink.

  The catalog also contained several of the Gennevilliers Plain series, each with scudding clouds over a verdant plowed field. Unlike Seven, none had a man in it. As Nick toasted the English muffins and searched for jam, she wandered to the enclosed porch he used as an office. Above his computer stand was a shelf of cloth-covered notebooks. She took one down. It was stamped FIELD BOOK. The pages were filled with diagrams and notes in pencil and ink.

  “An engineer’s notebook from the 1940s,” Nick said. He spread some jam on a muffin for her. The jar’s gingham lid looked French, but it came from World Market. “The Old Masters in my field.”

  A newer notebook had an orange vinyl cover and sketches by a finer hand. Some were contoured and shaded and accented with bold colored ink. Like études—plein air studies artists made as aides-memoire for landscapes they painted in a studio later.

  “Yours?” she said.

  He shrugged diffidently. “Nowadays engineers take notes on PCs.” He seemed embarrassed about doing it the old way. “They’re projects I worked on, boundaries and maps. My old man talked me into becoming a surveyor, but I got bored and went to engineering school. I miss working in the field but engineering lets me design. And I love ink and paper.”

  He’d seemed so out of place as a trainee. He was younger than the other provisionals, almost all of whom were women. The training was rigorous, with weekly graded papers, lectures, and presentations on an object or painting of choice. Miss two sessions and you were out. Now his motivation made sense.

  “You’re an artist!” She reached for another muffin. It, too, was burnt, but at least he’d tried. “That’s why you ask about brush stroke and pigments.”

  He shrugged again. “I like to know how things work.”

  She looked out the porch window. A mutt was peeing on Nick’s crabgrass. A stout woman gestured at the dog, who ignored her. “Want help pulling those weeds?”

  “Too late for that,” he said. “I need a combine or a tractor.”

  “You know how to use them?” Something sexy about guys and heavy equipment.

  “Hey, I’m a farm boy.”

  Like Paul. “That’s what’s in your garage?”

  “Garage?”

  “I saw the padlock, and you park at the curb.”

  He laughed. “Sorry, just a bunch of rusty old tools.”

  Heedless of the woman next door, he reached for her. She slapped his hands away.

  Nick sighed. “Guess I’m buying breakfast.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  The taxi door opened. Out swung a pair of feet in sensible shoes, followed by a stout woman with a red face.

  “Welcome back, Candace!” he cried. “How was the symposium?”

  Candace fanned herself with a newspaper, then reached for her purse. The cabbie popped open his trunk and hauled out an overstuffed wheeled suitcase.

  “It’s so much warmer here than in Boston, but I’m glad to be home.”

  What did she expect? It was the end of June, for God’s sake. He directed his watering hose to a particularly unruly clump of grass and let it run. To him, roses were no different from weeds. The cabbie set down the suitcase and waited to be paid.

  “I do hope Sargon wasn’t too much trouble,” she called over her shoulder.

  “He never is,” he assured her. Who named a dachshund after an Assyrian king? An art historian. Candace thought she was so clever. She paid the cabbie and he drove off. The suitcase sat in the street. It was too heavy for her to lift over the curb, but he didn’t offer to help. “Did your presentation go well?” Something on Syrian antiquities. She’d gone on at length about it, but he hadn’t listened.

  “Quite. They asked me to deliver it next spring in London.”

  “Bravo, Candace!”

  “I’m sorry I was away so long.” She fumbled in her purse for her keys. “You’re a dear to let me visit Denise.”

  Candace was a widow. Denise, her lumpy daughter in Providence, was her only family. Besides Sargon, of course. How many extra days had she tacked onto her trip? Three, making it a total of ten. More than enough. “You give me far too much credit, Candace.”

  “I don’t know what I’d do without you….”

  The first time he’d cared for Sargon it was two days. As Candace’s trust in him grew, her number of trips expanded correspondingly. Now she attended every symposium and conference that invited her. Did she think he had no place else to be, nothing better to do? Experts like her were all alike: manipulators of perception and taste. They wouldn’t recognize true genius if it bit them on the ass. Which reminded him of Sargon. “No sacrifice is too great for the cause,” he murmured. “The world always needs another art historian.”

  Candace found her keys. Looping her purse over her wrist, she struggled with her bag. One wheel stuck on the curb. As she tugged at it, her agitation excited him. He let his hose play over the grass. He thought of Lily.

  The only person more despicable than an expert was a pretender. He’d put her perfect eye to the test and she’d failed. After he broke into her condo, she blamed it on her ex. It took fifteen minutes to flatten those toothbrush bristles to evoke the grass in a Caillebotte! Was she too unobservant to see the connection, or trying to insult him by ignoring his clue? He couldn’t possibly have been more direct. That is, until he threw her cat off the balcony.

  “Was it this hot the whole time I was gone?” Candace asked.

  “A veritable heatwave. Thank God for air conditioning.”

  Suitcase free at last, she started up her front path. Wrestling her bag to the door, she fumbled again with her keys. Her hands must be trembling in anticipation of being reunited with her beloved dog.

  “Did you put ice in Sargon’s water?” she asked.

  “Those people are experts. I’m sure they know what they’re doing.”

  Keys in the door, she looked at him over her shoulder. “What people?”

  “At the kennel, of course.”

  “Kennel?” Confusion swept her doughy face. He turned the hose to another patch. “But Sargon isn’t at the kennel.”

  “No?”

  “Didn’t you—”

  “Didn’t I what?”

  “Didn’t you take care of him?”

  People believed what they wanted to believe. “Why no, Candace. You said you’d drop him off on the way to the airport. It was an awfully long trip.”

  Candace’s keys slipped from her fingers. She scrabbled to retrieve them. Snatching them up, she stared. Confusion turned to terror and her mute plea gave way to comprehension. Just like George Kurtz. She unlocked her door and recoiled from the stench. He shut off his hose. He waited for the scream.

  Poor Candace!

  This was better than he’d expected—a particularly successful étude. He wound up his hose and went inside. It was awfully hot.

  Now what did he want for dinner?

  Chapter Fourteen

  Palette’s four-tops were covered with white linen, its carpet evoked Klee, and its entrées were works of art. For each major exhibition, the museum’s restaurant and wine bar offered a prix-fixe tasting menu. Van Gogh was fêted with pork terrine and coq au vin. Christian Dior got onion soup and trout amandine. The Samurai’s menu was duck salad and Kobe beef.

  When Angela Kurtz had called and suggested lunch, Lily was pleasantly surprised. She traded her bomber jacket and sneakers for a sweater set and strand of cultured pearls—Elena always said they came in handy—and now made her way to the table where Angela waited.

  “This must be a terrible time,” she began.

  Angela actually looked great. Her hair was professionally highlighted with blonde streaks, and instead of the Jackie O shades, she wore contacts that made her eyes intensely blue. Her fitted designer sheath complemented her cerise lipstick and shapely bosom, and the zipper up the front had a fetching gap at the neckline, a bold fashion statement for a w
oman who was reinventing herself. Even the watch on her formerly pudgy wrist was now an ultra-thin pink-gold with an alligator strap.

  “You’re the only one who bothered to write,” Angela said.

  “Surely Michel—”

  Angela snorted. “Let’s get one thing straight. George Kurtz was a prick.”

  Elena had said as much, but it was shocking to hear it from his daughter. They ordered salads off the regular menu, and a bottle of wine magically appeared. “The museum certainly appreciates your father’s generosity.”

  “The only altruistic thing he ever did was die.”

  Good thing my afternoon’s clear.

  “But it was wonderful of him to donate that Caillebotte. One thing I’m curious about—”

  “See that gal?” Angela pointed at a woman with spiky hair at a table in the corner. Gina, with Amy. “If Michel knew the truth, she’d be out on her ass.”

  But Lily was looking at Amy. Amy with the porcelain skin and pre-Raphaelite curls, the smoky eye shadow and singular focus! Lily’s brilliant young Mellon Foundation assistant was endowed in more ways than one. Did her time with Gina last month turn her head? They were giggling conspiratorially.

  “Or maybe not,” Angela continued. “She thinks sleeping with George is a mark of distinction, but he had something on her, too.”

  “Sorry, who?”

  Angela rolled her eyes.

  At sixteen, Amy had placed first in a prestigious competition sponsored by the National Young Arts Foundation. Her unflinching oil of an elderly woman came to define the beauty and ravages of aging. At eighteen, she was a Presidential Scholar in the Arts. On weekends, Lily saw her painting at an easel at the European & American gallery. Art students trained by copying, but Amy had been out of school for years. Now she and Gina rose to leave.

  “…launder money,” Angela was saying. As she reached to refill their wine glasses, her neckline gaped. Was the zipper coming undone? The last thing a woman starting to care for herself needed was a sartorial faux pas. Lily tapped her pearls to signal her. “All you need is a phony appraisal.”

  “Pardon?”

  “You want to know why George gave the museum that Caillebotte, right?” Angela said patiently. “Charitable trusts are a scam. The higher the appraisal, the bigger the deduction and the closer you get to donating the magic five percent of your assets to satisfy the IRS. When money doesn’t change hands, nobody second-guesses an appraisal.”

  Museum-world’s cardinal rule was never ask what anything costs.

  “IRS doesn’t care,” Angela continued. Two more zipper teeth were unfastening. “You’re a hero, the museum throws a gala, and the real money goes wherever you want.”

  “A slush fund?” Lily tapped her pearls more insistently.

  Amy and Gina were coming their way. Lily tugged urgently at her pearls. Angela looked at her quizzically, then gave a start. She looked down and zipped up just in time to avoid a fashion disaster. Her lip trembled and she mouthed thank you.

  “Angela!” Gina cried. “Why didn’t you tell me you’d be downtown? We could have lunched. How brave of you to be out and about.”

  “Hi, Gina,” Lily said. Is that a hickey on her neck?

  Gina blinked like a semaphore. Her relationship with patrons was sacrosanct. Or was she afraid of what they might be talking about? “What are you doing here?”

  “Even conservators eat.”

  “Aren’t you the Mad Greens type?”

  Angela’s eyes darkened. “I invited Lily,” she said evenly. “We’re discussing paintings.”

  “Why don’t we do that over dinner?” Gina said. “Michel and I—”

  “Not business. Art.”

  Gina recoiled as if she’d been slapped. Angela was no rich girl with daddy issues and a drinking problem, or a shrinking violet finding her place in the sun. Lily looked at Amy.

  Want to play in the big leagues, kid? Watch Angela.

  “We were discussing Gustave Caillebotte,” Lily said, “the thrill of unveiling Fields of the Gennevilliers Plain, No. Seven.”

  “A conservator’s viewpoint is always enlightening,” Gina said.

  Lily smiled back. “We just do scut work.”

  Now Amy looked down at her shoes. What was it like to go from Presidential Scholar to scut work in a lab? She deserved better than that and copying masterpieces on her weekends.

  “Want to work on the Degas?” Lily said.

  “Me?” Amy squeaked. “I’d love to!”

  “You can help me clean it. We’ll talk later.”

  Amy and Gina left.

  “She’s scared,” Angela said.

  “Amy?”

  “Gina. Of you.” Angela poured the last of the wine.

  “She’s not so bad.” She was liking Kurtz’s daughter more and more. “We were talking about the Caillebotte.”

  “Ah, yes—the art of the scam. But George particularly liked Seven. He hung it in his bedroom.”

  “How did he acquire it?”

  “Through Morley Sullivan.”

  “Is he still around?”

  “Died last year. Here’s to the IRS, the museum, and all the politicians George bought.”

  They raised their glasses in a toast. In a fight over Kurtz’s estate between Angela, his ex-wives, and Gina, Lily knew which horse she’d back.

  “Who do you think killed your father?”

  “Not a burglar,” Angela said, “that’s for damn sure. I don’t care how many country club estates have been hit, how crappy their alarm systems were, or what the guy they arrested was high on. George was cheap, but not with security. He let his murderer in.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he had something George wanted. And what George wanted, he took.”

  Lily waited.

  “He loved inflicting pain. On me, my brother…” Angela’s voice caught. “Don’t get me wrong, Lily. I want justice.” Her gaze was firm, resolute. “I want the killer caught so I can thank him.”

  Okay then.

  “Anyone specific?”

  “There was an ugly fight over a company he bought.”

  The lawsuit Margo mentioned? Corporate acquisitions were knife fights, but they didn’t usually end in murder. Lily caught the waitress’s eye for the check, but Angela had already paid. Something said they’d be seeing more of each other.

  “Did your father have friends?”

  “He belonged to the Cactus Club.”

  She’d been invited to the century-old private men’s club for a senior partner’s roast. Seated at a narrow table running the length of the room, they slapped their hands on the wood and cried, Hear, hear!

  “I mean someone who actually liked him.”

  Angela thought hard. “Rosie.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  In scarlet caftan, black leggings and boots, a ceramic choker with stones like robin’s eggs, and yards and yards of turquoise beads, Elena Brandt drew every eye in the Ship Tavern. The man she was with had dyed black hair, a walrus moustache, and a rumpled seersucker blazer. Among the bankers and businessmen in the crowded downtown pub, the two octogenarians were as exotic as a pair of flamingos ringing the New York Stock Exchange’s opening bell. Lily made her way to their table.

  The mustachioed man rose.

  “Anton Petrosian at your service.” He was as wide as he was short, and his trousers didn’t match his coat. He looked like an Armenian rug merchant. Bowing, he kissed her hand. “I am a connoisseur of women and art. You may call me Rosie.”

  Elena winked.

  “Do you know how Elena and I met?” he asked.

  “Rosie…” Elena warned.

  His black eyes gleamed. “The Tropics.”

  “A cruise?” Lily said.

  “Finest burlesque joint in Denver.” The Armenian had raw sex appeal, and the way he was looking at Elena was unmistakably carnal. “The stage had a hydraulic lift and the girls wore leopard jumpsuits with one shoulder strap. Every hour they made tro
pical thunder. That gilded birdcage…” Elena blushed furiously. “You were more beautiful than Tempest Storm.”

  “Elena in leopard skin and a cage?” Lily said.

  “That’s enough, Rosie! Lily wants to know about George.”

  “Elena says you saw his body,” he said. “How did he look?”

  Lily was saved by the waiter.

  “Drinks?” he asked.

  “Something befitting George…” Rosie drummed his fingers. His jade ring was carved like a scarab. “Pabst Blue Ribbon, canned.”

  “Coors is closest, bottled or tap,” the waiter said. “In cans we have local porters and ales.”

  “No, no.” Rosie shook his head emphatically. “Brewpub ale is too fancy. When George slummed, he did it big. How he loved those tallboys—they made him look badass. It wasn’t a side he showed many people.”

  “Tall boys?” Lily said. Was Kurtz gay?

  Rosie looked amused. “Not much of a beer drinker, are you?”

  “Tallboys are forty-ounce cans, ma’am,” the waiter explained. “We don’t carry them.”

  “Bottled Coors, then,” Rosie declared.

  The Ship Tavern’s nautical motif extended from the captain’s wheel over the bar to a menu catering to mariners and landlubbers alike. Lily and Elena ordered Starboard Salads, which had bacon instead of seafood. Rosie chose the Authentic Philly Cheesesteak.

  “Was George really carved up?” he asked when the waiter left. “Word gets around.”

  “Well—” Lily said.

  “I heard he was filleted with a boning knife. Was it bloody? Those gorgeous celadon silk walls…”

  “Rosie, please,” Elena said. “Tell Lily what you know.”

  “George was perverse. He drank canned beer because his father despised it.”

  “Why Pabst Blue Ribbon?” Lily said. Nowadays it was a retro hipster beer.

  “He liked the name. Grandiose—he fancied himself a gourmet, but he had more money than taste. Whatever you wanted, he took. Poor Jay…”

  “Jay?” she said.

  “Kurtz’s son,” Elena explained.