Death Come Quickly (27 page)

“She doesn't think it's the identical car,” Ruby replied. “Just a later model. Lots of people stay with the same
kind
of car, you know, year after year.” She laughed. “My crazy uncle Dave had this thing about Saabs, for instance. He bought a new car every three or four years, always a Saab, and always a gray one. Dave's new gray Saab got to be a family joke.”

Well, now. Sharyn Tillotson had told us that Roberto Soto had continued to do curatorial work for the foundation—but she had definitely left the impression that this had taken place sometime in the past. And she certainly had not mentioned that Soto had been a recent guest. Was Mrs. Kern right? Was Sharyn having an affair with her dead cousin's lover, who might also have been her cousin's
murderer
? Just how much did Sharyn know about Christine's death?

The rain was coming down harder now, and the windshield was beginning to fog. I turned up the air conditioner and swiped at the windshield with my hand, clearing a space. There was something else I needed to know. “Ruby,” I said, “have you figured out why you weren't able to see the painting at the Morris house yesterday?”

“Not really,” Ruby said with a sigh. “I'm still trying to puzzle out the hexagram the I Ching gave me. Hexagram 20—Kuan. Seeing and being seen. Or maybe setting an example for others to look at and follow. But if the painting is supposed to be an example for others to follow, why couldn't I
see
it? Or maybe it means that my not seeing the painting is an example for others to follow. Or maybe—” She broke off with a sigh. “The I Ching can sometimes be
very
frustrating. It can mean too many contradictory things.”

“Plug this into your thinking,” I said. I told her what I had learned in my conversation with Lucia and what was going through my head. That took a while, and when I was finished, there was a whispered “Wow,” followed by a long, long silence. It was raining harder now, and I turned up the windshield wipers.
Whap whap whap.
I peered into the stormy distance, hands on the wheel at two and ten. If the rain kept up like this for very long, it was not going to be a pleasant drive back to Pecan Springs.

After a moment, I asked, “Are you still there, Ruby? What do you think? Does that help at all? Does it—”

A pickup truck passed me, going too fast, spraying sheets of water that flooded my windshield and curtained my view of the road. The woman driver was hunched over the steering wheel as if she were Danica Patrick and this were the Daytona 500.

“Does it
help
?” Ruby cried with great excitement. “Of course it helps! China, that's the answer! Why didn't I figure it out for myself?” She paused, and I could almost see her frowning, turning matters over in her mind. “There was that painting, hanging on the wall right in front of my eyes, and I didn't
see
it. Why? Because it isn't the real thing, that's why. It isn't the original. It's a
copy
. That's what I think.”

That's what I thought, too, and I didn't need the I Ching to prompt me. The real
Muerte llega pronto
had been sold at auction for a cool quarter of a million dollars. The painting that was hanging on the wall at the Morris house was a forgery, a fake. If that was true, who else knew? Had Christine known it—was that why she died? I thought of the Sotheby's catalog in Karen's briefcase and remembered that Karen herself had produced a documentary on art forgeries. Had
she
known it? Was that why she was killed?

But wait just a minute. I had Ruby's intuition—her inability to “see” the painting—to thank for the notion that the Morris'
Muerte
was a forgery. How did I know that Sotheby's
Muerte
was the real thing?

Maybe it, too, was a forgery, and the real
Muerte
was on someone else's wall.

Come to that, how many copies of
Muerte
might there be, each one seeming to be the real one, the original?

And what about the other paintings in the Morris collection? Were they forgeries? How many? Who put them there? Did Sharyn know? Who had painted—

I reined myself in. I was speculating, guessing, getting too far out front of the available facts. And it was all too confusing, a series of images dancing in my head, combining and recombining like a Cubist painting, or a hall of mirrors, each one reflecting the image in all the others. It was making my head hurt.

“Listen, China,” Ruby said. “There's something else. I'm really sorry to tell you this, but Blackie called a little while ago. Sheila is back in the hospital.”

“Uh-oh,” I said. “She's still carrying the baby? She hasn't miscarried?”

“Bad news,” Ruby said. “I'm sorry to tell you, but—”

The Danica Patrick wannabe was now about fifteen car lengths in front of me, still in the left lane, passing another car. Her pickup truck looked like it was hydroplaning, and I tapped the brake, slowing down.

“But what?” I asked.

“But it's an ectopic pregnancy.” Ruby's voice changed. “You know—where the baby grows in your Fallopian tube, instead of your uterus, where it's supposed to.”

“Jeez,” I exclaimed fervently, as the pickup ahead of me fishtailed, slammed into the car it was passing, and knocked both of them off the road and down a steep slope. The pickup rolled twice, bounced, and settled on its roof. I clutched the wheel. “Oh, God, I hope she makes it!” I cried.

“I really don't think it's
that's
bad,” Ruby said in a comforting tone.

“Yes, it is,” I said. “It's a killer.”

I was pulling onto the shoulder to see what I could do to help, when behind me, I saw the rotating blue light of a police car and heard the wail of the siren. Ahead of me, in the eastbound lanes, another cop car materialized and bounced across the grass median. Help was already arriving. I would just be in the way, and it was dangerous to stop along here, especially in this rainstorm. I pulled back onto the road.

“But she's not going to die, of course,” Ruby said comfortingly. “I read somewhere that one out of every hundred pregnancies is ectopic. It used to be terribly dangerous, but not these days.”

“Sorry,” I muttered. “There was a wreck, a bad one, right in front of me. Some woman driving too fast for the road conditions. She sideswiped a car and rolled her pickup. Twice. But the cops are on the scene, so I'm going on. There's nothing I can do to help.”

Of course, I could stop and tell one of the cops that she was driving too fast, but they would figure that out for themselves pretty quick, if they hadn't already.

“Gosh,” Ruby said. “Sounds bad. I'm glad
you
weren't involved.”

“Me, too.” I went back to the subject. “What do the doctors say about Sheila? What are they going to do?”

“They've already done it,” Ruby said. “A laparoscopy. It's a ninety-minute procedure, and when Blackie called, she was already in the recovery room. Everything went just fine and there's no reason to think she can't get pregnant again. Blackie said she'd be going home early in the evening.” She sighed. “I'm so sorry about the baby, but—”

She didn't finish her sentence but I knew what she was thinking. Sheila and Blackie could have another baby. And maybe the next time, things would be a little more comfortable for both of them.

“Yeah. It's too bad,” I said. “But it could have been worse.” I took a deep breath. “Listen, Ruby, it's raining pretty hard and I can't see the highway very far ahead. I'd better pay attention to my driving. We can talk about all this later, when I get back to Pecan Springs.”

And the way it was raining—the clouds had opened and it was pouring buckets now—that might be a while. The traffic had slowed from its usual seventy-plus miles an hour to a more reasonable sixty, and then to fifty-five, which was a very good thing, and I was staying in the right lane. But the rain was coming in such heavy sheets that the wipers were barely coping, and I was worried about somebody smashing into my rear end. I turned on my hazard lights, clenched my teeth, and focused on the road ahead, trying not to think about anything important—about Christine Morris' murder, about Johnnie's alternative suspect, about Richard Bowen's possible homicide, about Karen Prior's mugging, about the Izquierdo forgery (if that was what it was), about Sheila's ectopic pregnancy. I cleared my mind as best I could and simply concentrated on driving.

Until Justine Wyzinski called. At which point I had to pull off the road and into a convenience store parking lot. I find it a challenge to talk to Justine under the best circumstances. Driving in a torrential rainstorm, on a busy highway, it would be suicide.

• • •

W
HEN
Justine and I were in law school, everybody called her the Whiz because she was so smart. She knew the answer to our professors' questions long before the rest of us, and could come up with a more or less comprehensible theory while we were still sorting out the facts. I was out-of-my-mind jealous of her and worked like crazy to keep her from getting more than a half mile ahead of me, which earned me the nickname of Hot Shot. This competitive insanity went on until we both made it to the relative security of Law Review and could relax a little and grow into a wary mutual respect. When I left the law and bought Thyme and Seasons, the Whiz publicly expressed the conviction that I had lost all my marbles and ought to be committed forthwith, while I privately thought she was nuts to keep on doing what she was doing, at the speed at which she was doing it. But aside from that small difference of opinion, we've remained friends, and every now and then, we even manage to be useful to one another.

“So,” Justine said, without preamble, “you're interested in Roberto Soto. What's up with that?” Without stopping for breath, she added, “Make it quick, though, China. I'm in the parking garage on my way to a deposition, and I'm already twenty minutes late.”

I was not surprised. The Whiz is a multitasking speed demon who constantly operates on warp drive, which is one reason I find it so hard to talk to her. She is always on her way somewhere, with at least three things to do when she gets there, and she is always running late. (Maybe I find this depressing because she reminds me of the person I used to be.)

I told her the story as succinctly as I could, beginning with Christine Morris' art collection and her subsequent murder, going on to Mrs. Kern's excluded testimony and Bowen's acquittal, and concluding with Bowen's supposed suicide, Karen Prior's mugging, and the Sotheby's catalog I had found in her briefcase with the marked photograph of
Muerte llega pronto
, which had sold for a quarter million dollars while a possible forgery of that painting hung in the Morris Museum. Quite a lot of facts to tuck into a three-minute summary statement. But I'm pretty good at that.

“Why can't you bring me something simple?” the Whiz complained when I was finished. I could hear her huffing and puffing—climbing the parking garage stairs, I guessed. The Whiz is five foot two, shaped like a fireplug, and twenty-five pounds over her law school weight. Her usual working costume is a baggy khaki jacket with a missing button and a stain on the lapel, a blouse that won't stay tucked, and a dark skirt that won't stay straight. Every day is a bad hair day and her plastic-rimmed glasses are always crooked because she jerks them off and uses them to punctuate her sentences. The Whiz does not dress for success. But that's because she doesn't have to. In fact, dressing down is a good thing for her. It gives other people something to feel superior about.

“I know it's complicated,” I replied. “But that's why I need your help. If it were a simple matter, I could handle it myself.”

The Whiz raised her voice over the screech of tires and the sound of a car peeling out. A valet, no doubt, returning a parked automobile to its owner, minus several ounces of wheel rubber. “Yeah, but this is even more complicated than the usual tangle of stuff you drag me into, China. And anyway, it's your turn. You owe
me
, remember? Not the other way around.”

It was true. The last time I called Justine, I needed her help with Sally, McQuaid's ex-wife and Brian's mother, who was a person of interest in her sister's homicide. Justine isn't crazy about Sally, but she had rolled up her sleeves and jumped right in, and I was grateful. But I needed her again, regardless of whose turn it was.

“I know I owe you,” I said. “And I'll make it up to you. But could you—”

“Could I help you collar Soto?” she asked. In the background, a car alarm began whooping and she raised her voice. “I sincerely doubt it. He's one slick buckaroo, and art fraud is a hard thing to prove. Expensive, too. Expert witnesses don't come cheap. But what did you have in mind?”

“For starters,” I said, “what's he up to these days?” I heard a distant car horn, echoing, the way it does in a parking garage.

“He's still in the gallery business,” Justine said. “Roberto Soto, Fine Art. In fact, he just made headlines, artistically speaking, with a big exhibit—three well-known Latin American painters. The San Antonio art aficionados were over the moon. Google his gallery name and you'll find the newspaper story.”

“Any indication that he's back in the art fraud business?”

“He never admitted to that, you know,” Justine replied. I heard the ding of a bell and the whishing of a heavy door. She was getting on an elevator. “He maintained that he had no idea that the painting he sold was a fake. He pled to a lesser charge, paid a fine, and that was it. Period. Paragraph. End of story.”

“You got court costs and restitution for your client,” I reminded her. “It was a forged work said to be by Dr. Atl?” I paused, thinking of something I had wanted to ask her. “Any idea who painted the forgery?” If I had the answer to that question—