The Death Artist Read online

  “Brown—” Mead was interrupted, someone shouting a question, lots of muffled voices in the background. “Sorry. Good work today. I hear you were even better than usual.”

  “Thank you.” He waited. But there was nothing from Mead. “I’m sure about this one,” he finally volunteered.

  “Huh? Oh, yeah. Sorry. Slattery’s shovin’ something under my face.”

  Brown waited again. His shell steak and baked potato were cooling. “Is there anything else you need on the shooter, sir?”

  “The shooter? No. Look, I’m not calling about the shooter—of course I wanted to congratulate you—you did fine work, but you already know that.” Mead sighed into the phone.

  There were moments Brown almost felt sorry for Mead. He could tell that he made the chief of homicide nervous. Partly because Mead wasn’t sure what kind of political clout a black cop like Brown might have these days, and partly because Brown was an old hand—a seasoned cop who couldn’t quite cover up his doubts about the likes of his new superior. Brown hated to see men like Mead make it up the ladder so fast without putting in their time.

  “I need you to get your ass over here. Park and Seventy-eighth. Number—shit—what’s the number over here? Slattery! What’s the fucking address here?”

  “Right now?” asked Brown.

  “Shit, yes. Now. I want you to see the scene before the tech boys destroy it. We got a stiff in a bathtub. Could be an accident, but the ME is gonna want to do his thing. So I need you here ASAP.”

  Floyd Brown stared at his reheated dinner, cooling down for the second time. He wondered if nuking your food too many times could give you cancer or something. He looked over at Vonette, holding her coffee cup against her cheek, staring at the wall, probably trying to figure out why she had stayed married to a cop for twenty-seven lonely years. Damn pretty woman, Floyd thought, and her fiftieth birthday only a month away.

  Floyd wanted to stay in tonight, catch up on a little love and tenderness, but . . . He looked at his watch. “I guess I can be there in about a half hour.”

  Vonette glanced over, sighed, looked away.

  Randy Mead hung up before Brown could say another word. He didn’t need to take crap from his own men, not after months of heat with this goddamn psycho shooter driving everyone in New York nuts, and Chief of Police Tapell breathing down his neck. And now this guy, dead in his goddamn bathtub, and it didn’t look like an accident. He moved out into the living room, barked at a tech man dusting for prints. Lots of art out here. Mead noticed a sunny landscape, decided that the Monet signature had to be real in a snazzy place like this. He jotted a note to have his detectives check with the victim’s insurance carrier to make sure nothing valuable was missing. Could be an angle on the murder—if it was murder. And hardly anyone drowns in their goddamn tub. Nor was there any suicide note, nothing. And the floor around the tub was sopping, like the guy splashed around a lot.

  Plus, the guy was some fat-cat socialite.

  Jesus. Did he need this?

  Mead knew there were people waiting in line for his job, and figured the chief of police probably wanted someone black. He made a mental note to be nicer to Floyd Brown, took a breath, hoped this rich guy’s death was just some kind of freak accident.

  “Hey, Mead. Get a load of this.” One of the crime scene cops, heavyset, balding, moved slowly across the somberly decorated living room. Hanging from his plastic-gloved hands was a large piece of flaccid black leather: a hood, bondage variety, with crude stitching, cutouts for eyes, nose, mouth.

  “Where’d you find that little number?”

  “Bottom dresser drawer.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Some porn mags, and we’re still looking. Could be this guy picked up some rough trade, and it got a little rougher than he wanted.”

  The idea of this fat cat being some sort of S and M freak brought a smile to Mead’s face. “McKnight!”

  The heavyset, balding cop lumbered back over. Mead nodded at the bagged leather hood. “Keep this item under your hat, okay? Nothing to the press about it. No leaks. Got it?”

  “Yeah. Sure, Chief.” McKnight shrugged.

  Mead lifted a black permanent marker out of McKnight’s hand and printed the victim’s name in large block letters on the top of the plastic bag: WILLIAM MASON PRUITT.

  9

  Did she cry when her mother died? Why can’t Kate remember? Everything else about that day was etched in acid: Sister Margaret coming to the classroom; the metal taps on Kate’s shoes echoing off the gray-green corridor walls; the nun’s frown—taps were forbidden—softened by pity on the old woman’s face; the taxicab waiting to drive her home; her father standing in the doorway, dusky gray suit only a shade darker than his ashen face. And, naturally, Aunt Patty, cooking and cleaning, preparing for the onslaught of relatives to the McKinnons’ home, the house already smelling of Pine-Sol cleanser and stewed cabbage, and her mother dead only a few hours.

  But did she cry?

  “Katie, are you there? I mean, after all, the girl was like a daughter to you. It’s okay to be upset, to cry.”

  “Yes, of course, Aunt Patty, I know that,” said Kate, coming back to the moment. She pictured her father’s sister in her Forest Hills apartment, balancing on the arm of the plastic-covered sofa in her floral-wallpapered living room. But then, she looked up, saw that damn photo she’d pinned above the desk, Elena’s eyelids painted over. She’d been planning to show it to Tapell, and she would, but the idea of Tapell telling her to go home and take her feelings with her for a second time just didn’t appeal to her. She had to know more.

  “Why don’t you take a break, Katie. You know, come on out to Queens. I’ll even whip up a batch of my chili that Richie likes so much.”

  “That’s really sweet, Aunt Patty. And we will, soon,” said Kate, but she was no longer listening. A small banner on the front page of the Metro Section had caught her eye: “Financier/Socialite Found Dead.”

  “Aunt Patty,” she said, sliding the Times closer. “I’ve got to go. But I’ll call you later. And thanks.”

  Kate skimmed the article on Bill Pruitt’s death. It listed his association with Let There Be a Future, his various clubs—Yale, Century—the fact that he was president of the Contemporary Museum’s board, and that he was discovered in his tub. His tub? Did he have a heart attack?

  She immediately called Richard. Did he know? She tapped her fingernails along the counter, waiting, listening to the phone’s ring. Richard was in court. The Wall Street firm that had been taking up too much of his time lately—the partners suing one another. Greed versus Greed, Richard had called it.

  Kate went back to the article, was searching for details when the intercom sounded. Ryan, the young doorman. A package for her. He’d bring it up, he said, a bit too eagerly.

  Ryan’s eyes practically caressed Kate’s shoulders. She pulled the sash of her terry robe tighter.

  A standard manila envelope, messengered to her, no return address, simply her name typed in all capitals onto a self-adhesive sticker.

  Inside, about the size of an ordinary postcard, was some kind of mosaic design, a hodgepodge of colored bits glued down. Some artist’s exhibition invitation? Kate flipped it over. Nothing. If it was an invitation, it was surely an enigmatic one. She ran her finger over the surface, felt the cut edges. It was handmade. Especially for her?

  Kate’s nerve endings were tingling, that graduation photo flashing in her mind. Could there be a connection? Why had this been sent to her? She dropped it, watched as it looped its way to the floor, then retrieved it, along with the magnifying glass she used to study those tiny details in the corners of Flemish paintings. It confirmed that it was a collage, the tiny pieces part of a photograph.

  Ten minutes of straining her eyes through the magnifier, and Kate was fairly certain it was a painting—perhaps a Madonna, from the fragments of a cross, gold leaf, and a breast she had detected.

  And she knew just the man to he
lp her be absolutely certain.

  All the way in the cab Kate’s heart beat fast. Someone was sending these things to her—but why?

  With the collage back in its envelope—she wished she hadn’t gotten her hands all over it, but too late for that now—Kate stepped into the elegant brick town house just off Madison on Seventy-fifth Street. No need to read the small bronze plaque. She knew what was engraved on it: The Delano-Sharfstein Gallery—an oasis of quiet beauty, a world of blue-chip paintings and high-end objets d’art.

  With its dark wood and Oriental rugs, Delano-Sharfstein looked like a small, very private museum. Except here everything was for sale. Talk about giving rich people what they want.

  As a student, Kate had made it a habit to stop in on a regular basis. It was on her third, maybe fourth, visit that she was confronted—ever so politely—by a tiny, compact man with a beautifully chiseled face interrupted by a shocking beak of a nose. He stood beside her a moment, observing her, she determined, while she, in turn, pretended to study a sixteenth-century portrait.

  “Exquisite, isn’t it?”

  “Indeed,” she said, taking in the man’s elegant three-piece suit.

  “I couldn’t help but notice you over the past few months.”

  His voice was cultured, but created, Kate determined—and she should know, having created one herself. He extended a small, perfect hand. “Merton Sharfstein.”

  “Oh,” said Kate. “This is your gallery. A pleasure.”

  And it was. After Kate told him she was an art history student, she received a personal tour of not only the first floor, but the second floor’s private viewing rooms—normally reserved for serious clients—where she was treated to a selection of fine art she didn’t think existed outside of museums.

  Kate became a gallery regular, and Mert’s continued attention paid off. When Kate married Richard years later, she brought him to Delano-Sharfstein, and though Richard’s main interest was contemporary art, Mert let Richard know that an art collection without “history” was not—how did he put it?—“important enough for a man of your taste, Mr. Rothstein.” Oh, yes, Mert was good. Richard couldn’t wait to plunk down a few hundred grand for a piece of “history.”

  “Joel. How are you?”

  “Very well, thank you, Mrs. Rothstein.” This spoken barely above a whisper by the pretty young man behind the discreet mahogany desk—no big white island counters here. “Mr. Sharfstein is expecting you on two.”

  Kate cut through the public exhibition space with its enormous marble fireplaces, inlaid floors, decorative plaster ceilings; everything about it whispering in your ear: Money. Money. Money.

  The gallery’s grand circular staircase was a set for that actress of yesteryear, the one Kate’s mother liked so much, Loretta Young.

  “A cup of coffee, tea?” offered another young man, even prettier than Joel, this one whispering as though a baby were asleep in the next room as Kate took a seat in one of the small viewing rooms outfitted with a suite of Goya etchings.

  “Will Mert be long?”

  “Just a few more minutes,” he whispered. “He’s with a client.”

  Kate perused a Goya. Up close, the print was impossible to read, nothing more than washes of black and gray ink, dark and mysterious.

  The assistant urged her to back up. She did, and the image sprang to life: a matador slashing a bull.

  “You were too close to see it,” he said.

  A good point.

  Kate moved up again, studied those misty grays, then back, just as the door to Mert’s office swung open and the art dealer emerged, trailed by a young man in skintight leather pants and silky lizard-print shirt open to the navel.

  “Kate Rothstein. Mr. Strike.”

  “Strike, man. Just Strike.” He raised his head of wild blue-black hair toward Kate.

  “Oh, the musician. I just love ‘Mosh Pit Stomper.’ ” Kate snapped her fingers, then let loose with her best Joan Jett: “Kick me, punch me, love me to death, oh, mosh pit stomperrrrr . . .”

  Mert stared at her, mouth open.

  “Musician, that’s the ticket, luv.” Strike threw his multi-tattooed arm over Kate’s shoulder, gave her a mascara-heavy wink. “To everyone else I’m just a bloody rock star.”

  “Mr. Strike, excuse me, just Strike, has a finely tuned aesthetic sense. He’s just selected three old master drawings, a Rubens and two Dürers.”

  “Don’t know about that, luv. But they fucking well set me back. That’s for damn sure.”

  “Yes.” Mert managed a smile, but after another minute he dispatched Strike with his usual grace, then let out a dramatic sigh.

  “Honestly. The riffraff one must deal with these days.”

  “Strike just dropped what—maybe a mil, or two—and I’m supposed to feel sorry for you? ’Fraid not, luv.” Kate kissed Mert’s cheek. She laughed, then got serious. “Mert, I want to show you something.” She slid the collage out of the envelope, her fingers trembling slightly. “Would you put on gloves. Please.” It might be too late as far as her prints were concerned, but why contaminate it any further? Just looking at it again, Kate was unnerved.

  Mert eased his delicate hands into white cotton art-handler gloves. Kate gave him her magnifier. He squinted through the glass, his eye enlarged to the size of a tennis ball. “Could be a figure, a child, or—Hold on. I have an idea.”

  Moments later, another of Mert’s pretty boy assistants was scanning the collage into one of the gallery’s computers—the image enlarged on the screen four times its original size. Mert tapped his lip, then pointed out one tiny fragmented image after another. “Blow them all up. And print them.”

  Fifteen minutes later, the assistant had not only enlarged over a dozen of the tiny fragments, but, under Kate’s and Mert’s direction, cut them out like puzzle pieces. Now, Kate shifted them around on Mert’s desk, linking up ones that fit together to create about a third of the painting: a child’s head, a breast and an arm, a good part of a royal-blue robe—a Madonna and Child.

  “It’s like a graduate-school art history test. Name the painting from the fragment.” Kate pushed another piece into place. “From the way it’s painted I’d say it’s too sophisticated to be anything medieval, but . . . not quite Renaissance either. What do you think, Mert?”

  He smiled. “Quite astute, my dear. I’d agree. About fourteenth century. Definitely Italian.”

  “Who in New York collects this sort of stuff?”

  “Well, offhand, your husband comes to mind.”

  “Only one or two pieces—thanks to you. And not since it’s gotten so expensive, he doesn’t. Who else?”

  Mert twisted up his mouth. “Your Contemporary president, Mr. William Mason Pruitt, expressed interest in a piece I had about six months ago, but he balked at the price.”

  “Bill Pruitt?”

  “An absolute cheapskate—or was. Forgive me. I just heard the news. But he tried to get me to sell him a Rubens water-color for half the price—because he was so important. I told him to look elsewhere.”

  “Anyone else you can think of?”

  “Several people, but I’d have to check my files. And there are a few other dealers in New York who trade in such works, several in Europe, naturally—not all of them reputable. As you well know, Kate, stolen paintings and artifacts are a thriving enterprise, and—” Mert stopped short, regarded the cut-up fragments. “Wait a minute.” His canny eyes narrowed, his beak practically twitching as he hit the office intercom. “Joel. I need to see the most recent listing we have on stolen artwork. No, make that the last six months. Right away, please.”

  “Mert, what is it?” Kate caught some of his excitement.

  “We get updates every month,” said Mert, flipping pages and pages of stolen-art reports until he found what he was looking for. He slapped it onto the desk beside Kate’s incomplete puzzle painting.

  The report, one page, had a large color Xerox of a Madonna and Child at the top, a paragraph below:r />
  Italian. 14th Century. Sienese.

  Egg tempera on wood panel

  This small altarpiece, part of a church predella from Asciano, Italy, disappeared on or about March 11.

  The work is attributed to the School of Duccio, possibly even painted by the master himself.

  Approximate worth: three to six million dollars.

  Art dealers should look for the identifying Crosshatch design in the gold-leaf background.

  Kate looked from one image to the other, raised the magnifier to her eye, noted the identical crosshatching in both. “Mert, you’re a genius!” She snatched the stolen-art report, slid it into the envelope along with the enlarged cutouts and the original collage. “I need these.”

  Mert’s eagle eyes narrowed. “What’s this all about, Kate?”

  “When I find out,” she said, “you’ll be the first to know.”

  10

  Dark suits. Black dresses. Everyone appropriately solemn. The minister, who obviously didn’t know Bill Pruitt, mouthing empty declarations of praise for the man’s “good works.” No one volunteering when he asked, “Would anyone like to say a few words about the deceased?” Kate was almost tempted to say something—But what?—simply to break the uncomfortable silence.

  She surveyed the crowd in the Upper East Side chapel: the staffs of the Contemporary Museum and Let There Be a Future, several recognizable Republican politicos, a handful of New York’s ruling class, the soon-to-be-defunct director of the Contemporary Amy Schwartz, curators Schuyler Mills and Raphael Perez, on either side of her, stone-faced—though the red carnation in Mills’s lapel seemed inappropriately celebratory. Across the aisle, Blair, Kate’s friend and co-host of the foundation benefit, rolled her eyes with each tribute the minister managed to conjure.