Fatal Impressions (17 page)

“Oh, God, I hate this case. Nothing ever gets resolved, nothing’s simple. Let’s get Dinah in to look at the security tapes to see if she can spot her friend. But even if she does, I don’t know where that’ll get us,” Rob said. He decided to go home and not think about business until Tuesday.

Rob was reading in bed when the phone rang at eleven thirty. It was his friend at One Police Plaza.

“Bad news for your client, Rob. We examined Ms. Greene’s tools. Her screwdriver and the claws on her hammer were used to bring down the shelves. The scars on the wall and on the wood matched.”

“Oh, hell. Will she be arrested today?” Rob asked.

“No, they still haven’t figured out how she got in the office, and the building has no record of her returning after she left at midnight. They haven’t found a cab driver who took her uptown between one a.m. and five a.m., or anyone who saw her on the subway. They’re still being super careful. But if they get either of those two pieces of the puzzle, they’ll arrest her.”

Rob got up and paced. He wouldn’t sleep tonight. He dreaded telling Jonathan and Dinah about the tools. He’d let them sleep while they could.

First thing Tuesday morning, Dinah watched the Fry Building videotapes. Ellie McPhee did not appear in the tapes for the two weeks before Dinah was given the contract, nor had she appeared since. Dinah told Rob she felt like Ingrid Bergman in
Gaslight
. Mystified, she gave up and took a taxi to the gallery. After she’d settled at her desk, she put Ellie out of her mind. She had a theory about the location of the Stubbs paintings, and she was anxious to check it out. She put in a call to Rachel Ransome at her London gallery. She and Rachel had become friends when they met in London last year, and they spoke often.

“Dinah? How lovely to hear from you.”

“Thanks, Rachel. How are you?”

“I think my problems with Simon are about to be resolved, thanks to Heyward Bain,” Rachel said.

Rachel sounded happier than Dinah had ever heard her. Simon Fanshawe-Davies had been a thorn hedge in Rachel’s side. He had been Rachel’s protégé and employee. She’d given him 20 percent of the Ransome Gallery as a reward for what she’d thought was his loyalty and hard work. He’d repaid her generosity by stealing from her and betraying her in every possible way, even trying to implicate her in his unscrupulous transactions. But the legal agreements making him her partner were so binding, she couldn’t free herself from his clutches. Because he’d been seriously injured earlier in the year, he wasn’t around to annoy her. But no matter where he was, he was legally entitled to 20 percent of everything the gallery made, while Rachel struggled to recover the vast amounts of money he owed her. If Rachel had rid herself of that bloodsucker, it was terrific news.

“Wow! Tell me all about it.”

“I cannot yet tell you all the details, but as soon as I can—perhaps later this week—I shall, I promise you. What is your news?”

Dinah had decided not to tell Rachel about her own predicament. Her friend could do nothing to help, unless she could solve the mystery of the missing Stubbs. Given Rachel’s connections as a highly respected dealer and scholar, Dinah hoped she’d be able to discover their whereabouts, if they, as Dinah suspected, were on the market in London.

“Rachel, can you find out if two important Stubbs portraits are for sale in London? Or have been sold recently?”

“Of course, my dear. What are the paintings?”

“
Portrait of Lady J
and
Portrait of Lord J
. They were left to DDD&W, a US company, by one of its founders. But we think someone may have stolen them. The logical place to sell them is England—Stubbs is so much admired there, and if they were sold privately, people in New York might never hear about the transaction.”

“How very interesting. I shall make inquiries immediately and telephone you when I know anything.”

Rob reached Jonathan on his cell phone, on his way to the airport, and gave him the bad news about Dinah’s tools.

“When did Dinah take her tools to DDD&W?” Jonathan asked.

“They were messengered to her last Tuesday—a week ago today. She used them that afternoon to hang prints in her office and left them in a locked file drawer, behind a locked door. As you know, Frances Johnson was killed between two and four Thursday morning.”

“Someone had to know they were in that office, and was able to get past the locked door and the locked cabinet to borrow and use them. Now we know for sure that someone at DDD&W is trying to pin Johnson’s murder on Dinah. We have to catch whoever it is before he—or she—hurts Dinah more than she’s already been hurt. I hate seeing her so miserable.”

Jonathan’s flight to Boston was on time. He met Blair Winthrop and Ned Carville in one of the small private dining rooms at the Firm. Carville, a specialist in corporate law, was a senior partner. He was prominent in his field and rumored to be in line for something big in Washington the next time the Republicans were in office. He sounded like a Kennedy when he spoke—he had that ghastly accent. His brown hair was graying at the temples and his hairline was receding, but his light brown eyes were as bright and clear as a boy’s. His face was lightly tanned and healthy looking, and he was thin as a whip.

They chatted about inconsequentialities while the grilled Dover sole and green salad were served, but when the waiter left the room, Carville turned to the subject that interested Jonathan. “Blair tells me you want to know about the Davidsons,” he said. “It was a tragic family. James and his first wife, Sally, were childhood sweethearts who married young. The marriage was fine until their teenage son was killed. Sally never got over it—took pills, was in and out of clinics, became a zombie. James withstood it as long as he could—he’d always adored her—but he was lonely. He had an affair with his secretary, who became pregnant with twins.” He paused and took a bite of his fish.

Jonathan was making notes on the pad the waiter had left near his right hand. Affair? Illegitimate twins? Very un-Boston.

Carville sipped his Evian and continued. “The divorce was amicable since Sally neither cared what James did, nor what happened to her. She died in an assisted-living home a few months after the divorce—heart failure, they said, but it could have been a drug overdose. No one wanted to blacken her name; there was no autopsy, and she was buried quickly.

James insisted that his secretary take a paternity test to make sure the little girls were his, and demanded a rigid premarital agreement. He’d never have married the woman if she weren’t pregnant, and she knew it. He didn’t treat her very well, and she left him. She soon found another husband, less suspicious and more loving than James. She vanished from his and the girls’ lives. I think she and her husband live in Italy. I’m not sure the girls ever knew her; I’d guess that was part of James’s arrangement with her.” He took another bite of fish, while Jonathan waited for the next installment.

“James was crazy about the twins—Elizabeth and Margaret—but they were only three when he drowned while swimming. He probably had a heart attack. There was nothing suspicious about his death, and again, there was no autopsy. After that, the girls lived with James’s sister and her husband in Virginia, who were their only relatives, and they died in a plane crash when the girls were in college. Tragedy of tragedies.

The odd thing is, nobody seems to know where the girls are now. Lucas Parker, the lawyer you’re seeing this afternoon, might know, but he and I don’t travel in the same circles, and I don’t like him, so I’ve never asked him about the twins.”

“Do the girls have money?” Jonathan said.

“James left some money for their education, but it couldn’t have been much. They went to Miss Mitford’s, a boarding school near Richmond, from the seventh grade through high school, and Witherspoon College, in Summerville, Virginia. Inexpensive schools. He must have settled only a modest amount on them, because he didn’t believe in leaving kids a lot of money—he thought it spoiled them. He wanted them to work for a living. He tied up most of his money in a trust for DDD&W, which, except for the twins, was his only love. He expected the girls would work at DDD&W, but I gather they didn’t?”

Jonathan shook his head. “No, and I don’t know why. It’s hard to believe they could just disappear.”

Carville shrugged. “Girls get married and change their names—or change their names, period. They may even get new social security numbers, if they’re trying to hide.”

Blair, who’d been listening attentively, frowned. “Why would they hide?”

“I don’t know that they
are
hiding,” Carville said. “But the researchers at the Firm tried to find them, and they didn’t turn up under the name of Davidson, dead or alive.”

When the meeting broke up, Jonathan was even more puzzled than he’d been earlier. Not only did it seem impossible that the girls could have disappeared, but their schools were surprising. Why did the only children of the wealthy and socially prominent James Davidson attend such obscure schools? Why didn’t their father leave enough money to give them a decent education? Were they perhaps backward? Slow? Did that explain why they couldn’t get jobs at DDD&W? Maybe this lawyer, Lucas Parker, could supply some answers.

But Jonathan’s three-thirty meeting with Parker was not only uninformative, it turned ugly.

Parker was a Pillsbury doughboy with an unpleasant personality. His skin was flour paste white, and his plump form was held in place by a sausage-casing vest, but he wasn’t cheerful and smiling, let alone giggly like his doppelganger.
Stubborn
and
obtuse
were the words that came to mind: he simply could not—or would not—understand why Jonathan was concerning himself with something that Parker did not think was Jonathan’s business. He insisted that anything to do with the Davidson estate was his affair, and he intended to keep it that way. He said so several times, in an unctuous voice that set Jonathan’s teeth on edge.

“I agreed to this meeting because Blair Winthrop asked me to see you,” Parker said, looking down his nose at Jonathan. “But you have given me no reason why I should discuss the Davidsons’ financial affairs with you.”

Jonathan tried to contain his exasperation, but he felt like screaming at the idiot. “As I’ve said repeatedly, but perhaps too subtly, I’ve encountered some irregularities concerning the Davidson estate, and I’d like to talk to the girls about them.”

Parker’s body, froglike, seemed to swell. “
I
am the only person with whom you should discuss the Davidson estate. As for ‘irregularities,’ you are insulting. The estate was
in my father’s hands, and it is now in mine.”

Jonathan stood up. “Parker, I’ve heard about attorneys like you, but it’s been my good fortune never to have met one. I haven’t asked you for anything confidential. I simply want to talk to James Davidson’s daughters. You won’t tell me if they are alive or dead, let alone how I might reach them. The irregularities to which I refer are about to turn into a public scandal. You should inform yourself by reading these.” Jonathan dropped a set of the photocopied clippings from the columns that mentioned DDD&W on Parker’s desk.

Parker curled his lip. “I’ve seen those articles,” he said. “They’re ridiculous. I’m told that this nasty press campaign is a personal vendetta engineered by you, because your wife is suspected of murdering someone who worked at DDD&W.”

“You’re a pompous jerk, but you’re also a fool. Your saying that proves it. Say it again in front of a witness, and I promise you, you won’t practice law again in the United States. In fact, you’ll be lucky if you can earn enough to
live
in the United States.”

Jonathan strode to the door, but before he departed, he turned back and glared at Parker. “When I find those young women, I’m going to tell them that you are so bullheaded, so stupid, you wouldn’t take steps to protect their assets. Some people would describe your behavior as criminally incompetent—or just criminal. I’ll advise the young women to take legal action against you, and I’ll represent them at no expense. You’re a disgrace to the legal profession. The next time you hear from me, it will be through the Firm.”

In the car on the way to the Century Club to meet Blair, Jonathan telephoned Rob to ask if he’d had any luck tracing the Davidson girls.

“Not yet,” Rob said. “Have you learned something about them?”

“Their lawyer wouldn’t tell me anything. But I have the names of their schools: Miss Mitford’s and Witherspoon College, both in Virginia. Maybe the schools have addresses for them.”

“I’ll put a guy on it right away,” Rob said. He sent an e-mail to Pete explaining his request, adding that if Pete was too busy, he could farm it out to one of his friends. It was a simple request; anyone could handle it.

Jonathan recognized Ian MacDonald’s kilt as the red plaid of the MacDonald clan. With it he wore a black velvet jacket ornamented with silver. He should have looked elegant, but MacDonald was a big craggy man, with tree-trunk legs and receding reddish-blond hair. His fair skin was ruddy and freckled, marking him as a man who spent more time out of doors than at formal dinners. He had laugh lines around his pale blue eyes, but he wasn’t laughing tonight; he looked like a volcano on the verge of erupting.

When Blair asked what he’d like to drink, he asked for Scotch whisky, and swigged it throughout the meal, rejecting the excellent wines Blair had selected to drink with the smoked salmon and roast beef. Even with enough whisky in him to float a yacht, MacDonald was a man of few words. “I ken the Davidson family well. All the Davidsons I ever heard of did good. They go all the way back to the Bible. But the Douglases are a treacherous lot. I know naught of Weeks nor Danbury.” He repeated the speech several times.

Jonathan, bewildered, turned to Blair for enlightenment.

Blair, grinning, explained that the first David in Scotland was the son of Malcolm III, king of Scotland, and Margaret, the much beloved queen of Scotland, a devout Christian. Margaret and Malcolm died in 1093. The Earl of Douglas was said to have deserted the Scottish cause in the fifteenth century. “Scots have long memories,” Blair added.

Jonathan nodded. This one certainly did.

When coffee was served, MacDonald spiked his with more whisky and took a big gulp. The steam rising from it proved it was scalding hot, but the inside of his mouth was apparently as immune to heat as his blood was to whisky. Jonathan took advantage of MacDonald’s mouthful of coffee to ask what he planned to do about the missing art. MacDonald glared at him, his bloodshot eyes the only sign of his alcohol intake.

“I’d like to kill the buggers, but I cannae. I’ll have to beat the bloody bastards with the law.”

“Can the museum afford a prolonged court battle?” Blair asked.

“Nae, the museum cannae, but I can. I got all the siller I’ll ever need, and more besides. But I dinnae ken a lawyer for this. My lawyers deal with the land and such.”

Jonathan and Blair exchanged glances, and Jonathan said, “We already have a lawyer and a detective working on this problem—we think some of the people at DDD&W have committed other crimes. We could probably save time—and money—by joining forces.”

MacDonald’s eyes gleamed. Within twenty minutes a deal had been struck, and MacDonald departed for Stuartville in the back seat of an ancient Rolls Royce, with a young, presumably sober, driver at the wheel.

Jonathan went to bed Tuesday night exhausted but satisfied. Adding MacDonald and the defrauded museum to those prosecuting DDD&W greatly strengthened their position. Eccentric as he was, MacDonald would still make a good ally.

Rob was trying to decide which of the vast list of things to do he should tackle first, when Pete appeared in his office door. “I got a pal to call Miss Mitford’s, the Davidson girls’ school. He spoke to the registrar. Margaret Davidson was married and divorced. She kept her married name, Galloway. She died last summer—suicide, people say, although her sister Elizabeth insisted it was an accident. Ms. Galloway was buried in the family plot in Connecticut with her father and brother, but because of the way she died, the funeral was private, and there were no articles in the local paper. Most people around there don’t even know Margaret’s dead.”

“What about Elizabeth?”

“She was at the funeral, but nobody’s seen or heard from her since, and neither of her schools has a current address for her.”

Rob frowned. “Too bad, the schools were our best hope. See if you can think of any other approach to locating Elizabeth, or her mother.”

Pete, looking dubious, nodded, and departed. Rob put a big question mark by Elizabeth Davidson’s name and returned to his list.