The Case of the Purloined Painting Page 7

  I sucked on an ice cube. I normally don’t take ice in my scotch, but I hadn’t been paying close attention when the bartender came by the last time with a new drink. This one was stronger than the last.

  “Did you know,” Katz continued, “That there are an estimated ten thousand plus pieces of art still unaccounted for? Some of it quite valuable.”

  “Wow.”

  “Wow indeed.”

  “How do you know this?” I asked.

  “Records. Like you just said, those Nazis, in addition to all the horrendous things they did to people, kept records of their thefts and other stuff. There are records of the numbers of people murdered in the death camps. They even kept track of the numbers of shoes and more ghoulish things that resulted from the wholesale slaughter. Some Nazis forced Jews to sign faked bills of sale so they could later claim legitimate purchases.”

  Michael’s voice quavered with rage and he stopped to take a long breath.

  “Sorry,” he said and went on in a more normal tone. “Many of the records are lost, of course, but most were found and are still being mined for evidence. People are spending their entire careers trying to locate objects that belonged to their ancestors.”

  “And you know about this how?” “A distant cousin is one of those seekers,” Katz nodded solemnly. “I’ve never met the man but we correspond occasionally. He reads and speaks English, but I have to have his letters translated when he writes to me.”

  “All right. So let me ask you this. If some GI returned home to Minneapolis, say with a valuable jewel or a painting, for example, would that be worth dying over?”

  Katz frowned. “I shouldn’t think so, not all by itself. But the circumstances might suggest something different.” I was watching his face and I saw that in his mind he went away from Casey’s blues bar for a moment.

  After a minute or so I said, “Let me give you a scenario. Suppose a man brings home a small painting. Years later somebody discovers he has it, wants it back and murders the guy to get it. Make any sense?” I asked.

  “No, especially since nearly all the people directly involved are either dead or almost so. But think about alternatives. What else, other than a jewel or some other artifact, might a soldier bring home? And consider the effects of what came home. A lot of relatively worthless souvenirs. But maybe something of real value?” he stopped and I thought he was going to continue in that vein. But then, “I have to go back to work.” Katz stood and extended his hand. “Intriguing questions, my friend. Let me know how it all turns out.” I watched him mount the small stage and thought about what I had just learned.

  Chapter 13

  I still wasn’t sure what I had learned from my guitar-playing friend, but there was this feeling. It’s something that happens to me periodically during a case. It’s a sense that I’m getting somewhere, although the where may not yet be entirely clear. In other words, I was becoming the repository of almost a sufficient number of facts to solve the puzzle. Or at least part of the puzzle. I just had to sort and resort until links appeared and facts became associated with other facts. In this case, one of the problems was that I still couldn’t see the outline of the whole puzzle. Having the edges of a jigsaw in place frequently made the whole easier to solve.

  Meanwhile, back at the ranch, storm clouds appeared on the horizon. Not real ones, of course.

  “I haven’t made as much progress as I think I should by this time.” Catherine glanced up from her busy fingers preparing what looked like a fine green salad at the kitchen counter.

  “I’m sorry to hear that. Can I help?”

  “You might do a computer search for me. Look up the family Gottlieb.” I thought about what I was asking. “Only it might be better if you did it from a public computer, since you returned the loaner.”

  Catherine’s busy fingers paused. “I’ve added a program. It conceals my digital footprints from all but the most sophisticated mining programs.”

  “Really? You can do that?” I sauntered to the refrigerator and found some ice cubes in the freezer section. “Since when? And what are mining programs?”

  She explained that programmers have figured out how to keep track of which sites internet users go to, the better to target advertising. “Other programmers are just as quickly figuring out how to shield internet users against such tracking. We now have such a shield.” She grinned and reached for the drink I had just made for her. “Now I update it every year. I get a little help from my friendly tech.”

  “I’ll be damned.” I knew Catherine had computer skills far superior to mine, which are at the unsophisticated toddler level. I mean, I can turn the thing on and off and type stuff that manages to stick around. “Apparently you knew, even before I did that I might have to ask for technical help from time to time.”

  “Sure. And when I thought about the kind of profession you’re in, it occurred to me that leaving a trail back to Lucy,” she nodded toward our office, “would be unwise. Thanks for the drink.”

  I smiled up at my companion. “My pleasure. You have some amazing connections.” Catherine also had a habit of naming some of her belongings. Her computer was Lucy, her favorite massage table is Max and her new BMW is as yet nameless. Having examined Max intimately on more than one occasion, I was as yet unable to determine how Max differed from other massage tables, but it wasn’t something I worried about. “So Lucy has a digital veil over her trail, is that it?”

  “Yep. I’m sure the NSA could penetrate it but why would they? It’s something I think you ought to consider for that ancient monstrosity in your office. If such protection is even available for a machine that old. Maybe I’ll gift you a slick new PC or Apple for some holiday or other. Your birthday?” She slid the salad bowl aside and turned to examine the plastic-wrapped porterhouse steak thawing in a bowl of warm water.

  The ancient monstrosity in my office she referred to was my four-year-old Dell PC. “I almost never use the internet connection you insist I have installed. Email is one of the biggest wastes of time ever invented. Worse than the plague,” I grumbled.

  “Wait until I get you hooked up with Facebook and Twitter,” she smirked. She picked up the floating steak and poked it. “I think it’s about ready for the broiler.” The way she poked and caressed the steak with her talented fingers reminded me of her expertise at massage, a skill I was happy to indulge at every opportunity.

  Two culinary techniques I’d introduced to Catherine were brining fowl carcasses and bringing steak, beef in particular, to room temperature before grilling. Especially on the barbecue. It was entirely too cold this February day to grill on our miniscule deck, but we had this indoor grill device. A George Herman, or something. I don’t know what I think about naming cooking utensils after human beings. It isn’t the same, of course, this indoor grill in a metal “fence,” but it’s still pretty good. If you bring a steak to room temperature before you grill, you get better charring and more even cooking all the way through, whatever your desired level of doneness happens to be.

  After dinner we relaxed with a fine brandy. “I’m starting to hear things,” Catherine said.

  “You’re hearing things?”

  “Umm, about you.”

  I sat up. I didn’t like that. I’m not one of those high profile P.I.s or lawyers you hear about on TV or read about in the newspapers. That’s not my thing. Quiet and self-effacing is more my style. After more than twenty years of P.I.-ing, I can walk into almost any law office or corporate HQ or small shop on the street and go unremarked as a complete, if shorter than average, stranger. With the exception of the cops I know and my street contacts, I’m nobody. I like it that way. The closest to public exposure I ever get in the local daily is “an unnamed source is reported to have said…” So when Catherine says she’s hearing things about me, I have to pay attention.

  “I teach an adult class
at Beth-El.”

  “Yes.”

  “The other day I heard two of my students talking about something the rabbi said. It had to do with local efforts to trace some stolen art.”

  “Was my name mentioned?”

  “No. Apparently there is a private organization called Atria. It specializes in trying to trace art that was stolen by the Nazis in World War Two, and where it may have ended up. The art.”

  “Atria, as in atrial, something about the heart.” I thought a moment. “Isn’t an atrium the Roman singular for atria? An open space surrounded by a structure, like a residence courtyard or something?”

  Catherine nodded. “I think that’s right. Anyway, the student said the rabbi said she’d had an inquiry from a local Atria representative. Then the two students speculated about that. They seemed to know what the name represented.”

  “Interesting, but I don’t see a link to my own self.”

  “Ah, wait. I’m getting to that.” I twisted on the couch so I could look into Catherine’s face. She didn’t look anything but relaxed, maybe a tad solemn, perhaps.

  “For no apparent reason that I can explain, later at the office I did an internet search. There really isn’t anything to find that seemed relevant except one entry. Atria in Minneapolis. No address just a phone number. So I called it. Whoever answered said I’d reached the law offices of Derrol Madison.”

  I sat up suddenly. Derrol Madison, the powerful, wheel-chair-bound, attorney. Derrol Madison who had met with me in an out-of-the-way restaurant to enlist my help with a non-client from Chicago named Aaron Gottlieb. A non-client of his, attorney Madison was careful to point out. Madison had shrugged off my question about how this grand nephew of the murdered Gottlieb had located and contacted Mr. Attorney Derrol Madison.

  “And that’s how my name came up?”

  “I miss-spoke. What I should have said was that I’m hearing gossip about this case you’re involved in. The Gottlieb affair.”

  There was that word again. Affair. I was beginning to think a simple murder investigation had morphed into an international spy game. I don’t have the resources to compete with spies and terrorists. They are like the mob. Too much money and a level of ruthlessness I’m not up for.

  Some time later, after we’d gone to bed and all that implies, I abruptly awoke and sat up. I stared into the darkness at the pale rectangle of window. Beside me, I listened to Catherine’s even breathing. I could tell she wasn’t fully asleep. After a moment, her drowsy voice said, “Something bothering you?’

  “Yeah, there is. It’s a link, a connection that I can’t quite grab hold of. It’s something floating out there just beyond me. Thing is, it feels alarming, as if I ought to know or do something to avoid a big pothole in the highway. I think it would be a really good idea if you happen to do any internet stuff for me in the next few weeks, for you not to use your computers at school. In fact I’m not even sure about Lucy.”

  Chapter 14

  The new February morning had dawned like most of them so far this year. Dark, dreary, overcast with low heavy clouds. A wind was blowing down all the city canyons. Was it a raw wind? I had no way of knowing, but it made things even more miserable.

  I was in my office when the door opened and this tall, good-looking, blond sashayed in. No, that’s a line from one of Chandler’s books, I think. The door did open but a man of small stature stepped in. It was my landlord. He smiled and said, “We’re redoing the office down the hall for a new tenant. It’ll be a little noisy at times. Just wanted you to know.”

  I smiled and nodded.

  He nodded back and went out, closing the door softly behind him. I went back to my puzzle. I had laid out some note cards like the ones

  You used to find in the library card catalogue. I printed a brief note on each, like the name of one of the players. Gehrz, for example and his apparent job. A Gottlieb, nephew, man. Gottlieb, doa. Ann/Anne—NLN, missing. For some of them the notes were more extensive. I had decided on my way to the office that my paying client, Gehrz, should be part of this exercise. After all, I had no reason to exclude him.

  I threw in a cop for the hell of it, Ricardo Simon, my homicide buddy. He hadn’t caught the death of Manny Gottlieb, but the department wasn’t that big that cases weren’t shared. He might tell me a few things. If I asked the right questions. But what did I know?

  M. Gottlieb died presumably protecting something, some physical object. Two men murdered him. A woman, Ann/Anne NLN hires yours truly to find evidence to put the two men away. I have a card with Anne and two large black question marks on it.

  A guy named, he says, Robert Gehrz, shows up and hires me to cherchez la femme. The femme in question is a woman he’s been dating who seems to have disappeared. I take the case knowing this is such a wildly improbable scenario as to strain credulity. But the money is nice, and I can always be a cut out if it appears said female doesn’t want to be found—after I locate her.

  Of course.

  Next a card for Derrol Madison, attorney at law. He meets me in a small out of the way bar to ask me to meet and help Aaron Gottlieb, grand nephew of the dead guy. From Chicago. I do and have another client. Another card. It’s beginning to remind me of that good novel I just read, Too Many Clients, by David Walker.

  Then there is the house and the tenant, Ursula Skranslund, Finnish graduate student. Another file card. I decide to make two cards, one for the student and another for the house itself.

  I wasn’t making significant progress finding the woman Gehrz wanted me to locate, and I wasn’t aware of the cops making much progress finding the killer or killers of Manny Gottlieb. So I made another card, this one for a group named Atria.

  According to Ann/Anne, the two who threw Manny off the bridge were after something he wouldn’t or couldn’t give them. So I made a card for an object. I labeled it the Maguffin.

  Then I realized what my subconscious mind had done. It’s probably the same hook my head was wrestling with last night in bed. Many clients, one case. Perhaps. Self, I ask, let me pose this supposition.

  Suppose the woman who saw the murder of Gottlieb is the same woman that slick Mr. Gehrz is looking for? And suppose Anne/Ann was in position to witness the murder because she is somehow connected to both Gottlieb and the Maguffin. If Slick Gehrz is looking for Anne/Ann, then it stands to reason he too is looking for the Maguffin.

  Let us not forget the truck that tried to kill me. Another card, although I don’t usually make cards for incidents. Then there was the guy from Justice. Not a client, but somebody who has an interest in this puzzle. So I made a card for the U.S. Justice Department, Office of Special Services.

  I went downstairs to the tiny sandwich place in the lobby and got me a ham and cheese on rye. When I got back upstairs to my office, the telephone was ringing, so I answered it.

  “You’re in the mud again,” said Detective Ricardo Simon when I picked up.

  “What? Why?”

  “Manny Gottlieb? There’s a fire at his house.”

  “Oh, shit.”

  “Indeed. Thought you ought to know. Why do so many of your cases seem to have complications for us?”

  He hung up and I wondered about Ursula Skranslund while I grabbed coat and cap and gloves and charged out of the office. I nearly bowled over a workman carrying a short stepladder down the hall toward the site of the renovations. By the time I got to my car and skidded into Central Avenue, reason suggested that, since I wasn’t a fireman and the City of Minneapolis had a professional firefighting operation, there wasn’t going to be anything for me to do there except observe.

  So instead of tearing dangerously along icy streets, running red lights and endangering myself and half the city’s pedestrians, I took twenty minutes to reach the scene.

  There wasn’t much to see. By that I mean, nothing much out of
the ordinary. Smoke billowed out of the attic windows. Firemen secured to the slippery inclines by safety ropes went about their tasks, chopping vent holes in the roof. Other fire people—impossible to tell men from women—hauled and aimed hoses that squirted tons of water into the upper floors, water that then ran down the walls and seeped into cracks and crevices. The water would stagnate and breed mold and creepy crawlies. The place would be unlivable at least for months, if it ever could be lived in again.

  I found a battalion commander by his red automobile just outside the perimeter established by the trucks. He shook his head when I ambled up.

  “Shame. These old houses ought to better protected.”

  I introduced myself. “I’ve met the woman renting a room there.”

  “You know the owner?”

  I nodded and did a bad imitation of a turtle to try to protect the back of my neck from the winter wind. “His name is Aaron Gottlieb. He lives in Chicago. He’s related to the previous owner, recently deceased.” The fire guy frowned as if the name had some meaning for him. “Did I recently read about a Gottlieb found dead on the river ice?”

  “The same. He was the home owner. It’s probable the guy was murdered.” I didn’t want to be too forthcoming with the commander, possibly prejudice his attitude.

  “Murdered. Huh.” He fished a cell phone out of his jacket and dialed a number. I stepped away to give him some privacy. The conversation was brief, but the man’s attention to me had clearly sharpened. “So, Mr. Sean, you have anything to tell me?”

  “More questions than anything.” I proceeded to tell him what I recalled and gave him particulars on how to reach Ursula Skranslund at her new place somewhere in southeast. “I assume there’s no body?”

  “That’s right. There’s something a little odd about this fire.” He paused. His stare was cool.

  “Such as?” I filled the empty air to hurry things along. My feet were beginning to grow numb.