A Perfect Eye Page 8

  “I tried to mentor the boy, but George cast him off like trash. The truth is—”

  “Rosie—” Elena warned.

  The food arrived. Lily was grateful for the timeout, but she had to get Rosie away from Elena. “Have you seen Kurtz’s art collection?” she asked him.

  “Oh, yes.” Rosie was suddenly preoccupied with his sandwich.

  “How did you and Kurtz meet?”

  “Come to my shop and I’ll tell all,” he promised. “Now let us toast dear George.”

  They raised their bottles of Coors.

  “To revenge,” Rosie proclaimed. “Unlike a Philly Cheesesteak, a dish best served cold.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Verdigris lions guarded a cream-colored building onto which vaguely Asian additions had been tacked, rendering its architectural origins tantalizingly mysterious. The windows held a single brass urn and one porcelain vase. Crossing the threshold of Petrosian’s Fine Art and Antiquities, Lily entered a vast room filled to the rafters with art.

  Rugs from India, Persia, and the Central Asian steppes were rolled and stacked against the walls. Chinese horses and roof tiles, pear-shaped lutes with silk strings, Mongolian armor laced with rows of iron plates. Any sense of order must have been in Rosie’s head, for these treasures appeared to be whatever caught his eye. As she ran her fingers over the brass fittings of a Korean blanket chest, Rosie emerged from the back.

  “Lily!” He threw out his arms, and his mustache tickled her cheek. “Welcome to my domain. Have you caught George’s murderer?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Now it’s my turn. Let me show you—”

  A woman had followed him out. She was a foot taller than Rosie, and had chin-length white hair, blue eyes and a sphinxlike gaze. She wore a black dress, high-laced shoes and a long silver chain with keys around her neck.

  “Ah, Miss Sjostrom!” he cried. She had to be north of sixty. “Scribe, muse and guide extraordinaire.”

  “Tea?” Her accent was a flat Midwestern.

  “That would be lovely,” Lily said.

  Sjostrom glided off and Rosie took Lily’s arm. “She worked for my father,” he whispered. “She has a peculiar affection for Native American artifacts, so I collect some baskets and beads. Don’t tell Elena, but without Sjostrom I’d be lost.”

  He walked her through his collection. Each item was precious, from the humblest pottery bowl to the most elegant Persian rug at 1200 knots a square inch. He could—and did—recite its provenance, from the village where it was made, to the family who produced it, to the materials and tools and vegetable dyes they used, and the precise circumstances under which he or his father or grandfather first saw and acquired it. No Petrosian would dream of cutting up a rug to cover an ottoman or footstool. He unfurled an exquisite rug with an intricate floral pattern.

  “Take your time,” he said.

  Lily scrutinized the rug. One peony petal was a slightly darker shade of rose.

  “Why is the thread different?” she said.

  “Elena was right!” He beamed. “It’s a Persian flaw. The weaver embraced his imperfection by introducing a subtle but deliberate mistake. Native American artists insert the wrong color or size bead to show humility, too. It’s called a spirit bead.”

  The tour ended at his carpet-cleaning operation in a renovated auto body shop out back.

  In contrast to the hodgepodge in the showroom, here an antiseptic orderliness prevailed. A man in rubber apron and boots hosed down a Kurdish tribal rug in a shallow cement pool. His colleague combed the fringe of a Tabriz with a metal rake as gently as if he were untangling a baby’s hair. Rugs of all descriptions hung from tall metal drying racks, and in the background industrial fans ran.

  “What does this remind you of, Lily?”

  “A carwash for rugs.”

  “That’s all?” He was disappointed. “I think of it as a morgue.”

  “Well…” She looked around again. “The cement slab could be an autopsy table.”

  “The hose?” he said.

  “Flushes away blood and human waste.”

  “Precisely! And the rake...”

  “To comb a corpse’s hair.” Test or not, this was fun. “You could hang cadavers from those racks. As for the ceiling fan—”

  “—those bodies do get ripe!” He clapped with delight. “Now tell me how George looked.”

  “You really want to know?”

  “Yes, and before tea. Sjostrom has no stomach.”

  There was no getting out of this. “Kurtz was sitting in a chair…”

  Rosie waited.

  “…split up the middle from his pelvis to his chest. The rest was flayed.”

  “Blood?” he asked.

  “Gobs,” she confirmed, “smeared with his intestines on the wall.”

  “In his library, papered in silk? Such a waste!” He seemed more dismayed about the damage to the wallpaper than to Kurtz. “Off the top of your head, Lily: who murdered George?”

  “You knew him—” she protested.

  “Exactly my point. Elena says you see things I can’t.”

  Sjostrom had slipped in behind him and was listening intently.

  Lily took a deep breath. “I think the killer’s an artist.”

  “Because?” Rosie said.

  “He made Kurtz into a landscape.”

  “Style?”

  “Impressionist. The armchair, the flay marks, those gobs on the silk.”

  He nodded. “Was it an analytical study, with crisp angles and brushstrokes all very precise, very Cezanne? Or an existential howl of rage, like Edvard Munch?”

  “If it was rage,” Lily said, “I think he enjoyed it.” Sjostrom slid off. Now for the quid pro quo. “You said revenge is best served cold.”

  “He who waits a thousand years is impatient.”

  “Come on, Rosie.”

  “In good time, my dear.” He patted her arm affectionately. “Sjostrom gets cross if she’s kept waiting, and she likes her tea hot.”

  The tea was brewed from fresh mint leaves boiled on a hot plate in his office. Sjostrom served it in glasses with just-baked Swedish thumbprints with lingonberry jam.

  Reinvigorated, Rosie turned to his scribe.

  “The key, Sjostrom.” She detached a small shiny key from her chain and handed it to him. “You may leave if you like,” he said kindly. “You’ve heard this story before.”

  Sjostrom settled back in her chair.

  “If a picture tells a thousand words, how captivating a story does an object paint?” Rosie took down the Chinese scroll behind his desk and dialed the combination to his safe. He carefully removed a lacquered box about a foot and a half square. He opened the box with Sjostrom’s key and placed its contents on his felt blotter.

  Lily’s breath caught.

  The vase was sixteen inches tall. Glazed in translucent jade, it had a primrose yellow neck and its curves were perforated in a sort of basket weave. The medallions on them were enameled with fat golden carp frolicking in rolling waves. Charming as the carp were, what made the vase so irresistible was what lay inside. Through the perforations in the outer wall a second vase could be seen. That vase was Ming, with blue flowers scrolling down white porcelain. It was almost too perfect.

  Hubris, Sjostrom mouthed.

  “Qianlong Dynasty, circa 1740,” Rosie said crisply. “They call the style ‘Yangcai’ because the colors came from Europe. She’s priceless, of course.”

  She? Lily longed to touch it but didn’t dare ask.

  “The Emperor who commissioned her was an ascetic. Each day he rose at 6:00 a.m. He breakfasted alone at 8:00, and had another brief and solitary meal at 2:00 p.m. He read, wrote poetry, and painted. He was slim and elegant and wore a yellow silk robe. He was Manchu, of course.” He glanced playfully at Sjostrom. “Unlike the Chinese, he took his tea with milk from a special herd of dairy cows. Thanks to a devoted servant who was apparently a hermaphrodite, he lived to the age of eighty-nin
e.”

  Sjostrom snorted.

  “Where did you find the vase?” Lily asked.

  He wagged his finger. “Did Elena teach you nothing? Let’s just say we met on a trip, and I made the mistake of telling George. For reasons as to which I can only speculate, he informed the U.S. Customs Service. They confiscated the vase and charged me with some nonsense over an improper form. It took six years and a fortune in legal fees to get her back. Lord knows what she was subjected to in captivity.”

  “Pity to lock her away,” Lily said.

  “She wasn’t safe with George alive.”

  “What will you do with her now?”

  He looked at Lily for a long moment. “Donate her to the museum, if the right person asks.” Sjostrom nodded briskly before pouring more tea and passing the cookies again.

  “Why did Kurtz betray you?” Lily asked.

  “George fell in love with the Emperor. He physically resembled him, you know—tall and thin, the same aquiline nose. In private, he started wearing a yellow silk robe. If only he could have found a hermaphrodite!” Rosie seemed more amused than aggrieved. “His attraction to the Emperor was erotic, of course; they both had to possess the objects of their passion through any means necessary. George lusted after the vase because the Emperor owned it. I refused to sell it to him.”

  “That’s it?” Lily said.

  “Of course not. Close your ears, Sjostrom.”

  She and Sjostrom leaned forward.

  “George liked The Tropics, too, and he was wild for Elena. Maybe it was that gilded cage.” Rosie’s eyes glittered like jet beads. “I took her from him, so he took the vase from me. But that’s ancient history.”

  Or so he wanted her to think. At the gala, Kurtz’s interest had felt more predatory than erotic. And no matter how hot Elena was back in the day, it was hard to imagine Kurtz making a serious play for her, or her giving him more than a glance. A man who wore yellow silk and fantasized about hermaphrodites might have shocked even Elena.

  “What happened to Kurtz’s son?” Lily asked. “Wasn’t he pleasing enough?”

  Rosie’s laugh was unexpectedly harsh. “Jay was as beautiful as this vase.”

  “Then why—”

  “He hated Jay because he envied him.”

  “Why envy his own son?”

  “Because Jay had nothing to lose.”

  Sjostrom poured the last of the tea.

  “Who do you think killed Kurtz?” Lily said.

  Rosie twirled his moustache. “An artist he insulted, the living portrait of The Scream.”

  Sjostrom burst into laughter.

  “What’s so funny?” he said.

  “You two are missing the point!” Sjostrom said. “The art world’s filled with wounded souls like Munch’s.”

  Rosie’s whiskers twitched. “Then who is he?”

  “An art forger.”

  “Ah, Sjostrom.” He patted his stomach and sighed like Escoffier contemplating a fine pâté.

  “Talk about soul murder,” Sjostrom insisted. “A forger doesn’t do it for money. He does it to prove a point. The art world rejected him and he must prove the experts wrong.”

  “What makes you so sure it’s a man?” Lily asked.

  “Forgers usually are.” Sjostrom smiled regally. “And he and Kurtz are two of a kind.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Hubris.”

  “But we’re talking murder!” Rosie cried.

  “Precisely.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Undulating shoulder to knee, Paul surged across the pool. Two breaths carried him to the wall, where he executed a perfect flip and continued without missing a beat. She’d forgotten butterfly was his stroke, that he’d been captain of his college team. As he ricocheted from one end of the pool to the other, it was like watching an Olympic ping-pong player compete against himself.

  She’d called him after leaving Rosie’s, and he suggested meeting in the Ritz-Carlton lobby at five p.m. Arriving early, she was directed to the athletic club next door. In the lull between late-lunchers and the after-work crowd, he clearly hadn’t expected an audience. As he climbed from the pool in his knee-length Lycra swim shorts and stripped off his goggles, he quickly hid his surprise. “Care to join me?” He spoke easily but his shoulders heaved. “Salt’s good for the skin.”

  “Another time.”

  He reached for his towel, then paused. His skin was ruddy and water beaded the wiry curls on his chest. The salt enhanced his scent, added a tang to his sweat. Fresh from his goggles, his eyes were dilated. They stared at her now. He was never sexier than after a workout; exercise burned off that professional edge, gave vent to his athleticism and frustrations. And in his Lycra shorts…

  He pulled off his swim cap and brushed his hair from his forehead. As he adjusted to the bright overhead light, he blinked. In three seconds he’d be the man who was sleeping with Gina.

  “Join me in the hot tub,” he said. One. “This time of day, you don’t need a suit.” Two. “Or we can book a couples massage at the hotel spa.” Three. “Afterwards—”

  She picked up his towel and flung it at his midsection. “You’ll catch cold, if you haven’t already.”

  It took willpower for him not to glance down. “Can I shower?”

  “This won’t take long.”

  He tied the towel around his waist and sat on the bench.

  “I spoke with an old friend of Kurtz’s.” She recounted her meeting with Rosie.

  “You think the killer’s a rug salesman?”

  “Of course not!” She couldn’t imagine Rosie wielding anything more lethal than a bamboo pen. “But Kurtz had enemies.”

  “I’ll check into whether Denver has enough Armenians to make a mob.” He rubbed the stubble on his chin and started to rise. His workout flush was gone, and he had gooseflesh—this time for real. In five minutes he’d be in his room shaving for dinner. A date with Gina?

  “I have another lead, Paul.”

  “Kurtz’s son?” He shook his head. “Jay’s been dead for five years.”

  “Maybe it was someone he knew.”

  He smiled condescendingly. The balance of power had shifted the moment he donned that damned towel. Now he stood, not in the least self-conscious about the state of his balls. “Sure you don’t want a massage? Hotel spa has a Mile High Malt Scrub with a beer mask, and you love a good microbrew….”

  “You know I hate beer.” But it reminded her of something. “Kurtz had a weakness, Paul. It’s sold at ballfields.”

  He wiggled his eyebrows. “Hotdogs and peanuts?”

  “Canned beer. Pabst Blue Ribbon.”

  “Lily, for Christ’s sake—”

  “I’m serious. Rosie knew him well.”

  He sat again. “Okay. What’s your real lead?”

  “What if the killer’s an art forger?”

  “Forgers aren’t violent, Lily.” She hated that patronizing tone. “Their victims are institutions and rich people who want to be deceived. Every collector dreams of finding a masterpiece. When he does, he wants it to be real.”

  But Paul was right: the art world’s hubris ensured only the clumsiest forgeries were caught. An art historian or dealer could analyze stroke, pigment, and themes till the cows came home, but as often as not authentication depended on a “feeling”. Rival experts could be played off against each other. Tell one his competitor thought a painting was fake, and he’d say it was real. Even if you subjected the canvas to forensic tests, a forger could defeat them by using period materials.

  “…Robin Hood. Catch one and he becomes a folk hero,” Paul was saying. “What’s gotten into you, Lily? First you think Caillebotte inspired Kurtz’s killer, now he’s a forger.” He winked. “Tell you what. If the Armenian mob pans out, I’ll take you to the swankest steakhouse in town…”

  “You already did, and I didn’t get to order.”

  “…and if it doesn’t pan out, you’ll give me something I want.”


  “A dozen cigars?”

  He smiled indulgently. “You’ll stop seeing Nick Lang.”

  “What?”

  “He’s not right for you, Lily. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

  “You prick!”

  A guy in a Speedo and a girl in a tank suit were coming out of the locker rooms.

  “Want to know why?” he continued. The swimmers dangled their feet in the pool, pretending not to listen.

  “Go back to D.C.!”

  “You really want that, Lily?” He was playing to them. “How about dinner instead?”

  “How about doing your job?”

  His eyes flashed. “My job?”

  “That burglar’s bullshit and you know it. Are you throwing this case?”

  ―

  Paul looked at his watch. Nine o’clock Denver time, which meant 11:00 p.m. in D.C. The person he reported to kept late hours. He took his drink to a booth and hit the speed dial.

  “Senator Grace,” he said.

  “Paul! How nice of you to call.”

  He did that every night when he had something to report. In her background were voices and tinkling glass. He wasn’t about to tell her Lily’s crazy idea, but he had to give her something. “I’m running down a lead, Senator.”

  “I wish you’d call me Susan. How many times must I ask?”

  She wasn’t technically his superior, but as the ranking minority member of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary and the subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism, she might as well be. He simply could not call her Susan, nor was he accustomed to reporting to anyone but the FBI’s chain of command. But she’d been steering plum assignments his way for years and asked nothing in return. Until now.

  “Still working with the locals?” she said.

  They’d been over this before. How could a former prosecutor not understand that cutting the locals out of the loop was impossible—and stupid? “They’ve been helpful.”

  “You’re my eyes and ears on the ground.” She was in a huff. “If I wanted to rely on the Denver cops, you wouldn’t be assigned to this case!” She sighed. “Wrap this up, Paul. You’re more valuable here.”

  Was she referring to his testimony eight years earlier on campaign finance law enforcement? It was basically a recap of the tax code, but he’d labored over it. Later she’d summoned him to her office. You handled that beautifully, she said, with such sincerity. Want to go places, Paul? She searched his face. For what? The senator smiled, and then he knew. She smells the barnyard on me. I am a dead man walking….