A Fatal Slip (16 page)

Emma waited impatiently for the elevator. Suddenly she couldn’t wait to get to Brian’s room—to see him up and about and looking normal. Well, relatively normal. His leg would still be in a cast. Finally the elevator doors fanned open on his floor. Emma exited and headed toward Brian’s room. She was already smiling as she neared his door, and she knew she was positively grinning as she walked into his room.

Brian was in a wheelchair parked next to the bed. A stuffed, blue plastic drawstring bag with
Henry County Medical Center
written on it in white lettering sat on the empty bed. A pair of crutches leaned in the corner.

Brian began to grin as soon as Emma entered the room. His broken leg was encased in a cast and stuck straight out, supported by the wheelchair’s footrest, and he had a vase holding a bouquet of mixed flowers in his lap.

He held the flowers out to Emma. “These are for you. It seems I missed Valentine’s Day while I was out. I’m sorry.”

Emma took the flowers and buried her nose in them, absurdly pleased that Brian had remembered, however belatedly. “They’re lovely, thanks.” She noticed a little red plastic card stuck in the flowers and pulled it out. It read
Get Well Soon.
She showed it to Brian.

Brian gave a crooked smile and shrugged. “I asked the nurse to get me some flowers from the gift shop downstairs. The messages were limited to get well wishes or congratulations on your new baby.”

Emma laughed. “They’re still lovely.”

“I’m glad you like them.” Brian gave a devilish grin. “How about a kiss for all of my efforts?”

Emma braced herself on the arms of the wheelchair and leaned in close until her lips met Brian’s. They stayed like that for several long moments until the sound of someone passing in the hall made them pull apart.

“It looks like you’re all packed,” Emma said a little breathlessly, indicating the plastic bag on the bed.

“I’m more than ready to get out of here. Shall we go?”

Emma retrieved Brian’s jacket from the cupboard at the foot of the bed and helped him into it. She hung the plastic bag from the handles of the wheelchair, while Brian held the flowers and the crutches in his lap.

“All set?” Emma released the brakes on the wheelchair.

“Yup. Let’s blow this place.”

She wheeled Brian out of the room and into the hall. A nurse passing by waved, and he waved back. “Good luck,” she called over her shoulder before disappearing into a patient’s room.

The elevator was large enough to fit a gurney, so Emma had no trouble maneuvering the wheelchair into the space. All the exterior doors were equipped with door openers so that was no problem, either.

“The air feels so good,” Brian said as Emma wheeled him onto the sidewalk alongside the parking lot.

She found the cutout and smoothly pushed him down the rows of cars until they came to her Bug. She had just beeped open the doors when the realization struck. How on earth was she going to get Brian into the car?

Brian must have noticed the look on her face. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know how to get you into the car.”

Brian laughed. “We’ll manage it. If you can give me some support, I can stand on my good leg easily enough, but I think I’d better get in the backseat if you don’t mind.”

Emma stood by while Brian got himself to a standing position. He put a hand on her shoulder for balance, and at one point, Emma was terrified he was going to fall over. But somehow he managed to get into the backseat. The problem then became what to do with his leg? He couldn’t bend it, and she couldn’t shut the door the way it was.

Brian started to laugh and so did Emma.

“I should have borrowed Liz’s station wagon,” she said, wiping her eyes.

“How about if you roll down the window, and I just stick my foot out.”

Emma opened the window.

“See,” Brian said, “this will work.”

The sight of Brian’s leg sticking out the window sent Emma into fresh gales of laughter. “We need a red flag to hang on the end of your foot.”

“Just don’t get too close to any parked cars.”

Emma got behind the wheel and slowly drove out of the parking lot. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. It’s just a little . . . breezy back here.”

Emma cranked up the heat. “How are you going to manage at home?”

“I should have told you sooner. Fortunately we’re going in the right direction. I’m staying with Liz and Matt for a couple of weeks.”

A few minutes later, Emma pulled into the driveway in front of Liz’s house. Matt came running out the front door.

“Need some help?” He couldn’t help grinning when he saw Brian’s foot sticking out the window of Emma’s car.

“If you could give me a hand,” Brian said.

Matt opened the back door, and Brian stuck his arm out, grasping Matt’s. Matt pulled him out of the car and onto his good leg. Brian was standing, albeit unsteadily. He got his crutches under his arms, and with Matt’s help began to make his way into the house.

Liz welcomed them all with open arms and led them into the living room, where a fire was burning and spitting in the stone fireplace. She had a bottle of wine open on the coffee table alongside a plate of cheese and crackers.

They got Brian settled in a chair with his leg on an ottoman, and Emma took a seat by the fire, holding her hands out toward the flames. Driving with the back window open had chilled her to the bone.

Suddenly Brian’s cell phone rang. He dug in the pocket of his jeans, pulled it out and glanced at the caller ID. “I’m really sorry, but it’s John Jasper. We’re doing some renovations on his house—very minor, the big projects are already done—but I’d better see what he wants.”

“No problem,” Liz said as she poured Emma a glass of wine.

They heard a bunch of uh-huhs from Brian followed by a startled exclamation as he half bolted from his chair.

Brian clicked off the call and turned to Emma, Liz and Matt with a startled face.

“That was John Jasper,” Brian said. “Well, I guess I already told you that.” His face still bore a look of shock and surprise. He turned to Emma. “Do you remember he told us he’d been buying a few pieces from Hugh Granger?”

Emma nodded her head. “Yes. I got the impression that Hugh was helping him build his collection.”

“Well it seems that one of the pieces he purchased—the big piece by Mark Rothko, he said—has turned out to be a forgery.”

THEY
all sat in stunned silence for a moment.

“I think I know the painting,” Brian said. “It’s in their living room. It’s massive with thick stripes of red, white and a sort of grayish color against a black background.” He shifted in his chair. “It’s the pride of their collection. He must be distraught.”

“I’m surprised,” Liz said, nibbling on a cracker. “Hugh Granger has always had a good reputation. At least I’ve never heard anything against him. There are a couple of paintings hanging in the Memphis Brooks Museum that he donated. I remember seeing them when I was there.”

Matt leaned forward and plucked a piece of cheese off the plate. “Granger might not have known it was a fake. From Brian’s description, it doesn’t sound as if it would be hard to produce a forgery.” He shook his head. “I guess I’m just a country bumpkin. I don’t get this modern art stuff. I want to know what I’m looking at when I look at something.”

“Perhaps if we could find out where the painting originally came from,” Brian suggested. “If it comes from another reputable source, then obviously several people have been fooled.”

“You can fool some of the people all of the time . . .” Matt said and laughed.

“You enter all that information into the computer database, don’t you?” Liz turned to Emma.

“Yes. The title, date, measurements and what they call the provenance of the painting or where it came from.”

“Can you check tomorrow? See where the Grangers got it?”

“Good idea.” Emma finished the last bite of her cracker. “Unless they’ve been holding on to it for a very long time, it can’t have come from Rothko himself. He died sometime in the early seventies. I’ll need the name of it though, and the year and so forth.”

“Let me get John back on the phone.” Brian pressed a button on his cell.

John must have answered immediately. Matt handed Brian a piece of scratch paper and a pen. Brian nodded as he wrote down the information. He said good-bye and clicked off the call.

“I’ve got it all here.” He handed the paper to Emma.

Liz looked thoughtful. “Maybe this isn’t the first fake that Granger has sold.” She turned to Emma. “Could it be the reason why someone murdered him?”

• • •

ARABELLA
was late arriving at Sweet Nothings the next morning. Emma stood by the window, a mug of tea in her hand, watching for Arabella’s Mini to turn the corner into the parking lot. She wanted to tell her what they’d learned about Hugh’s art business before Arabella heard it from anyone else.

Finally, Emma saw Arabella’s Mini come down the street, and moments later Arabella herself stepped into the shop.

“Good morning, dear,” she called out cheerfully as she unclipped Pierre’s leash.

He made a beeline for his dog bed, but Bette had already discovered it and was curled up fast asleep. Pierre gave a low, warning growl that soon had her scampering for safety by Emma’s feet. Emma bent down and scratched the puppy’s ears consolingly.

“I’ve got something to tell you,” Emma said as Arabella poured herself a cup of coffee and stirred in sugar and creamer.

“Oh? What?”

“Do you remember meeting the Jaspers at Hugh’s party?”

“Of course. She was quite beautiful—wearing a very unusual pair of earrings. I would be interested to know where she got them.”

“Her husband has bought a number of artworks from Hugh.” Emma fiddled with a button on her blouse. “One of them has turned out to be a fake.”

“Really?” Arabella stopped with her coffee mug halfway to her mouth. “Do you think that’s what Francis and the TBI are after—art forgeries?”

“I don’t know. But if he cheated someone else and then refused to give them their money back . . . well, that person might have been mad enough to shoot Hugh and push him off that balcony.”

“But Hugh would hardly have invited them to his party.”

“It was fairly common knowledge around town that Hugh was giving this party. Even Angel knew all about it. The killer could have just walked into the Beau and waited for the right moment.”

Arabella put a hand on Emma’s arm. “Now I’m really getting nervous about you going over there.”

Emma smiled reassuringly. “Don’t worry. I’ll be careful.”

• • •

EMMA
had butterflies in her stomach as she pulled into the Grangers’ driveway. Today she really would be snooping—not just overhearing conversations or gossiping with Molly. If one of the Grangers was a murderer, she could be in danger.

Emma tried to quell her nerves as she made her way down the hallway to the storage room where she was working. One of the drawings on the wall caught her eye, and she stopped to admire it. She felt her heartbeat slowly return to normal. She was being overly dramatic—she was just having an attack of nerves.

While waiting for the computer to boot up, she went to the rack of paintings and found where she’d left off. She took the piece over to the worktable and turned it over so she could read the label. She entered the data, and then looked around.

She was all alone. At one point she thought she heard footsteps, but no one came through the door. Besides, no one could possibly guess what she was doing, she rationalized, as she sorted the various data in the computer database.

She started by sorting according to the artist’s name. Strange, there were no Rothkos listed. Perhaps the information had been entered incorrectly? She clicked a few keys and the database was now sorted by title. Emma went through them carefully but still didn’t come up with anything that remotely matched John Jasper’s painting. Finally, she sorted by date and was dismayed when she again came up empty-handed.

Emma leaned her elbows on the desk and put her chin in her hands. What next?

She thought about when she’d started the project a couple of days ago. How stupid of her! The very first entries in this database had been hers. Jackson had told her he’d already started taking an inventory, but he had said he’d used the desktop in the library. Obviously the two databases hadn’t been merged. Did she dare check out the other computer?

Emma spent another hour logging paintings into the database debating about going into the library and sneaking onto that computer. The house was quiet—she hadn’t seen any signs of Jackson or his partner, Tom Roberts. Mariel hardly ever came down this wing. Emma might not get another chance.

Her hands were cold and slick with perspiration. She crept down the hall and across the foyer. Molly was in the kitchen, humming to herself as she swept the floor. Emma wasn’t particularly worried about her—Molly had no idea what Emma was doing and wouldn’t realize that Emma’s job didn’t normally take her into the library.

The light was off in the office where Liz usually worked. Emma paused briefly to listen, but she couldn’t hear anyone about. She tiptoed down the hall toward the library and peeked in. The room was empty.

She left the lights off as she slipped into the chair in front of the desk. Hopefully she couldn’t be seen by someone casually walking by. She powered up the computer and jumped when the light from the monitor came on.

Her hands were damp, and her fingers were clumsy on the keys. Fortunately, the files on the computer were very neatly organized. She found a folder marked
Inventory
and opened it.

A rustling sound from the hall froze her and she held her breath. She listened carefully. Was someone coming? She waited a minute and then let out her breath. False alarm.

Emma clicked a few keys, and the database opened. She had been afraid it might be password-protected but obviously Jackson didn’t see the need to go that far. She sorted the information by artist and scanned the column until she came to the
R
s. She gave a hiss of frustration. No Rothko works were listed. Again, she sorted the database in several different ways, but the title of John’s painting did not appear. There weren’t very many entries—Jackson had obviously quit attempting to inventory the paintings rather quickly.

Emma leaned back in the chair. Did Jackson remove things from the database when they were sold? She tabbed across the page until she came to a column labeled
Sold.
Names, dates, all the information one would expect was listed there. But no mention of John Jasper or his fake Rothko painting.

Emma closed the file, turned off the computer and sat drumming her fingers on the desk. There was a stack of papers to the right of the computer weighed down by an elegant crystal paperweight. Emma caught the name of a local bank, the Commercial Bank and Trust Company, out of the corner of her eye.

She convinced herself it wouldn’t hurt to have a closer look even though she had no idea what she hoped to find. She eased the paper out from under the paperweight. It was a bank statement, and the account was in the name of Jackson Granger. Several large sums had been deposited recently, and the account total was staggering—at least to Emma.

She straightened the papers quickly and had just gotten up from the chair when Jackson walked into the room.

Emma couldn’t stifle the cry that came to her lips.

“I’m sorry. Did I startle you?”

“Yes. I didn’t hear you coming.” Emma’s heart was pounding furiously. She was surprised Jackson couldn’t hear it.

Had he seen her on the computer? She couldn’t tell. She thought he was looking at her rather strangely, but it might be her guilty conscience. The silence lengthened and Jackson raised one eyebrow as if to say
What are you doing in here?

“I was just . . .” Emma searched frantically for an excuse. She noticed the copy of
Art International
that Tom Roberts had tossed on the sofa, still splayed open to hold his place. “I was just going to borrow this magazine, if you don’t mind.” Emma picked it up and brandished it at Jackson. “This article on the Nazis and stolen art looks very interesting.”

She couldn’t tell if Jackson believed her or not. She didn’t care. She bolted from the library for the relative safety of the storage room. She looked at her watch, but she really couldn’t justify leaving yet. It might arouse Jackson’s suspicions.

Instead, she hauled the next painting out of the rack and began entering the data. She was typing in the information when something occurred to her—Jackson had been lying when he told her that the Cézanne painting she’d found to be slightly wet had been to the restorer. Much more likely it was a fake—one that had just been painted and put into the inventory to be sold to some unsuspecting client.