Fatal Impressions (26 page)

Rob had never felt worse. This case had been a nightmare, and he and his agency had done a miserable job. Ace, to whom he’d assigned tracing the Davidson daughters and their mother, had been unrepentant about his dereliction: he’d been busy at school, and just “hadn’t got around to it.” Rob had not realized Ace was so irresponsible. Ace was paid by the hour, so firing him had little impact on him, but Rob couldn’t use Ace again, and he was already short of staff.

The men who’d failed to get the information about the Victor sisters’ lovers from the old woman across the hall from their apartment weren’t defensive; when criticized, they’d retorted that they hadn’t been given photographs of the various men involved in the case. That was Rob’s job, not theirs. All too true, and as for Dinah and Jonathan’s alarm system, it simply hadn’t occurred to him. He’d been overworked, understaffed, and preoccupied with persuading Coleman to marry him.

But all of that was no excuse for his oversights and his bad performance. He’d try to pick up the pieces somehow, starting with a letter of apology to Jonathan and Dinah. He didn’t think anything would improve his relationship with Coleman. He’d seen how she looked at Jeb Middleton.

Bethany and Zeke had come back from North Carolina starry-eyed, full of plans, and floating on air. Bethany had wanted to tell Dinah the news first, so she’d made Zeke promise to keep their secret till she’d spoken to Dinah. But as soon as she saw Dinah’s face, Bethany knew something was wrong. “What is it?” she asked. “What’s the matter?”

Dinah burst into tears. When she’d managed to stop crying and explained that her tears were partly relief because Loretta was all right, Bethany couldn’t understand at first. When she finally grasped Dinah’s incoherent story, she was horrified. “You’re tellin’ me I let this happen ‘cause I left early?” Bethany said.

Dinah shook her head. “No, no, don’t think that. Loretta told Coleman that she had a plan B. If you hadn’t left her there alone, she was going to leave with you, and go back later, tell the guards she forgot something, do everything just the way she did. She was obsessed with showing us what a good detective she was. I guess everything that happened before she got here went to her head—” Dinah broke off, staring at Bethany’s left hand. “What a gorgeous ring. Are you and Zeke engaged?”

Bethany smiled. “Yes, we’re gettin’ married in three weeks. I want you to be my matron of honor, and Coleman maid of honor. But I need to know for sure: are you certain
I’m not responsible for Loretta bein’ hurt?”

“Good Lord, no. You can’t stop girls like Loretta from doing rash things. Loretta has to learn everything the hard way. Forget all that. It’s over. And I’d love to be your matron of honor. That’s an easy decision. Here’s one that’s not so easy.” She handed Bethany a letter.

Bethany, saucer-eyed, read it and said, “What an honor! Wow! You’re goin’ to do it, aren’t you? You can’t turn this down, Dinah. It’s a fabulous opportunity. And you deserve it.”

Dinah didn’t hesitate. “Yes. Yes, I am going to accept it. Can you run the gallery and be a newly married lady at the same time?”

Bethany laughed. “You bet I can!” Her face sobered. “But what will Jonathan say?”

“I don’t know what he’ll say. A husband ought to be thrilled if his wife won an honor like this one, but Jonathan might not see it that way. Whatever he says, I’m going to do it. It’s the chance of a lifetime, and if I don’t take it, I’ll always regret it.”

When Bethany told Zeke about the conversation, she said, “You know how sweet she always looks? So agreeable and easy goin’? For a few seconds, she looked just like Coleman does when Coleman says she’s goin’ to do somethin’, and you know nothin’ in this world will stop her. That’s how Dinah looked. I see trouble ahead. That Jonathan is bossy, and he likes to keep Dinah on a short leash.”

“If he tries to stop her, I hope she’ll tell him to go to hell,” Zeke said. “It’s time Dinah got recognition. And it’s time Jonathan supported her, instead of putting obstacles in her way. I’d never do that to you.”

She smiled. “I know,” she said.

Since everything had turned out all right, Dinah and Coleman hadn’t called Loretta’s parents to tell them about her injury. They’d left it up to her to tell. Or not. Loretta appreciated their discretion, and she’d decided to keep the story to herself. But she felt odd. The doctors said she was fine, and she might look the same on the outside, but inside, where it counted, something had changed. She didn’t yet know how it would all play out, but maybe—just maybe—New York wasn’t the place she wanted to be—or should be. Maybe she wasn’t ready for the major leagues. She’d made a lot of mistakes, had been overconfident, had been determined to show off. Her people judgment wasn’t too good either—she’d thought the man who tried to kill her was a nice guy. She’d been naïve, and it nearly got her killed. She was going home to North Carolina, and maybe she wouldn’t come back.

Coleman sat behind the big desk in the enormous office Debbi had designed for her. The room was forty feet long, too big for comfort. The view was magnificent, but she’d always disliked heights, and the fifty-fifth floor was way too high; she didn’t like looking down on New York. All the walls that weren’t glass were bare, waiting for her to decorate them. If she moved the framed
ArtSmart
covers up here from her little office on the fifth floor, they’d be lost. Even if she framed every cover she’d published, not just her favorites. She sighed and looked at Dolly. Dolly’s basket was so far away they could hardly see each other. Coleman moved the basket close to her desk every morning, but every night the cleaning people always put it back where the decorators had placed it.

She scuttled crablike across the room, staying close to the back wall and as far from the windows as possible, grabbed the basket in one hand, and cuddled Dolly in her other arm. She put the basket beside her desk and held Dolly in her lap. Dolly wagged her tail and settled down. Just the feel of her warm furry little body snuggled against her helped, but she still felt strange.

A closed door to her left led to Heyward’s office. He said he’d leave it open when he was in. But he
wasn’t
here. Heyward was in London and wouldn’t be back for another week. She missed him. She’d call Dinah, but what was she to say? That she was lonely? She was never lonely. Call Rob? They hadn’t spoken since the dinner at Heyward’s the night that Loretta was nearly killed. He was hurt by her flirting with Jeb, but he had finally accepted her refusal to marry him. She’d like to be friends, but he wasn’t interested. So be it. There was always work to do, and she should get on with it.

The phone rang. She picked up the receiver. “Coleman Greene speaking,” she said.

“Hi, Coleman, Amy here. We have a lot to talk about. Are you free for lunch?”

Coleman brightened. “Absolutely. Anywhere but at your place.”

Amy laughed. “No chance. Hunt closed down the dining room and the cafeteria, and let Trixie and her trashy troops go.”

Coleman sat up straight. “No! What else?”

“Lots and lots of news. Tell you later. How about Michael’s? Twelve thirty?”

“Great. I’ll see you there.” She felt better. She had a friend. Someone to talk to. The phone rang. Good. She needed distraction. From missing Heyward. From this huge office. From the view.

“Coleman Greene,” she said.

“Hey, it’s Jeb Middleton. I’ve been tryin’ to reach you for days—were you hidin’ from me?”

“Don’t be silly. I’ve been working really hard. I was so far behind, I didn’t answer the phone.” All of that was true, but not quite the whole story. She’d wanted a breathing spell before she saw Jeb again. She’d been out with him three times. He was almost too attractive, and like everything else in her life, her relationship with Jeb was moving at high speed.

“Would you like to have dinner tonight? Before you say no, I warn you: I’ll ask you out every night for months till you say yes.”

Coleman smiled. She’d played hard to get long enough. “I’m not about to say no. I was hoping you’d call.”

“Wonderful. I made a reservation at La Grenouille, just in case. It’s one of my favorites because the food is so good and it’s quiet. If that’s all right, I’ll pick you up at seven.”

“Lovely,” she said. “I’ll look forward to seeing you.”

She leaned back in her chair, thinking about Jeb. She felt the thrill of anticipation. She liked being pursued. She also liked a man who chose the restaurant, and told her which it was so she’d know what to wear, but gave her a chance to say she’d rather go somewhere else. What
should
she wear? Something sexy but not too obvious. She had just finished a dark green lace jacket to wear over a green silk slip dress…

The phone rang. Good heavens! This was Telephone City. “Coleman Greene.”

“Coleman, this is Hunt Frederick. I’m so sorry about everything that’s happened. I called to ask you if you’d let me take you out to dinner tomorrow night, so I can apologize properly.”

Coleman was dumbfounded. “Well—uh—what a surprise. I had the impression you didn’t like me.”

“On the contrary. I’ve wanted to ask you out ever since we met. But circumstances—oh, Lord, I can’t do this on the phone.
Will
you have dinner with me tomorrow night?”

Coleman smiled. “Well, sure. I’d like to hear what you have to say about our early meetings. You certainly managed to disguise your interest in me.”

“I can explain. That’s what men always say, isn’t it? But it’s true. Is Le Bernardin okay? Shall I call for you at seven thirty?”

“Perfect. Do you have my address?”

“I certainly do.”

When she’d hung up, Coleman stroked Dolly’s soft white fur. Dolly looked up at her, dark brown eyes adoring. “That was a surprise, wasn’t it? I thought Hunt Frederick hated me, and I sure didn’t like him. Looks like I might be wrong about him. Funny, we were all wrong about Ted. I remember what Jonathan said about him—nice, not very smart. We all thought he was a lightweight. No one thought he was dangerous. I certainly didn’t. I was wrong about him. Maybe I was wrong about Hunt, and I thought Moose was just a buffoon. And I thought Rob was a good detective. And I thought I had good people judgment. That’s a laugh.

“I don’t know, Dolly. So much has happened. I feel as if I’ve been on a roller coaster. I think we’re back on the ground again, but it’s a lot higher than when we started. Do you think we can learn to like the fifty-fifth floor?”

Reba White Williams worked for more than thirty years in business and finance—in research at McKinsey & Co., as a securities analyst on Wall Street, and as a senior executive at an investment management firm.

Williams graduated from Duke with a BA in English, earned an MBA at Harvard, a PhD in Art History at CUNY, and an MA in Writing at Antioch. She has written numerous articles for art and financial journals. She is a past president of the New York City Art Commission and served on the New York State Council for the Arts.

She and her husband built what was thought to be the largest private collection of fine art prints by American artists. They created seventeen exhibitions from their collection that circulated to more than one hundred museums worldwide, Williams writing most of the exhibition catalogues. She has been a member of the print committees of several leading museums.

Williams grew up in North Carolina and lives in New York, Connecticut, and Southern California with her husband and Maltese, Muffin.  She is the author of two novels featuring Coleman and Dinah Greene,
Restrike
and
Fatal
Impressions
, along with the story of Coleman and Dinah when they were children,
Angels
. She is currently working on her third Coleman and Dinah mystery.

We hope you enjoyed getting to know Coleman and Dinah Greene in
Fatal Impressions
. Coleman and Dinah first appeared in the novel
Restrike
.

One of Coleman’s writers is discovered selling story ideas to a competitor and The Greene Gallery is in the red because sales are down. When billionaire Heyward Bain arrives with a glamorous assistant, announcing plans to fund a fine print museum, Coleman is intrigued and plans to get to know Bain and publish an article about him. Dinah hopes to sell him enough prints to save her gallery. At the same time, swindlers, attracted by Bain’s lavish spending, invade the print world to grab some of his money.

When a print dealer dies in peculiar circumstances, Coleman is suspicious, but she can’t persuade the NYPD crime investigator of a connection between the dealer’s death and Bain’s buying spree. After one of Coleman’s editors is killed and Coleman is attacked, the police must acknowledge the connection, and Coleman becomes even more determined to discover the truth about Bain. Coleman must risk her life to expose the last deception threatening her, her friends, and the formerly tranquil print world.

New York Times
bestselling author Julia Spencer-Fleming called
Restrike,
“An ambitious, fascinating and textured puzzler, rife with suspects and red herrings. A polished gem of a read.”

Here’s an excerpt:

Coleman Greene paused just inside the entrance to Killington’s auction room to look at a group nearby. The central figure, a dark-haired fortyish man, was only a few inches over five feet tall—about Coleman’s height in the three-inch heels she always wore—but like Napoleon, he exuded power. This had to be Heyward Bain, the man she wanted to meet. He was flanked by an enormous hulk—probably a bodyguard—and a voluptuous redhead in a pink Chanel suit, dripping gold chains.

Coleman stared at him as long as she felt she decently could, memorizing his tanned face. She was close enough to see that his eyes were a light gray, and his black eyelashes were so long they looked false. She’d have liked to speak to him, but there wasn’t time. The auction was about to begin.

She was looking around for an empty seat when her cousin Dinah touched her arm. “I saved you a seat down front—all that was left when I got here,” Dinah said.

“Before we sit down, check out the trio to my left,” Coleman said in a low voice.

Dinah’s blue eyes widened. “Who are they? I’ve never seen them before. I’d remember.”

Coleman nodded. “Anyone would—they’re definitely distinctive. They’re new in town. Debbi Diamondstein called me late last night to tell me that Heyward Bain has come to New York to open a print museum; she said he’d be here and I should introduce myself. She’s handling his press, and she wants me to interview him for
ArtSmart.
That’s Bain.”

Dinah was still staring. “A print museum!”

It figured that Dinah, newly married and a print dealer, would be more interested in Bain’s plans for a museum than his looks or his fortune. Coleman, on the other hand, was thrilled to see a handsome new bachelor in town.

“Is he here to buy? Or is he just sightseeing?” Dinah asked.

Coleman shrugged. She was scanning the room for celebrities to mention in her article, but Bain was still on her mind. “Who knows? If he buys, I’m sure he’ll have someone bid for him like all the other big-deal collectors.”

Dinah was still staring at Bain and his entourage. “Who’s the redheaded woman?”

“It must be his assistant,” Coleman said. “Debbi told me her name—Ellen Carswell. She’s expensively dressed—that outfit costs thousands, and her jewelry looks real. I wonder if she’s more than an assistant? I’d hate to learn that Bain was already spoken for.”

At ten o’clock Killington’s top auctioneer, a tall brunette in a trim black pantsuit, stepped into place at the podium. She’d move the auction along rapidly, with one lot sold every forty seconds. A lot might include only one print, or several. If all went well, two hundred lots of about three hundred prints would have been sold shortly after noon. Coleman planned to stay till the end of the auction, or until she saw Bain leaving. She could get the auction details from Dinah. Bain was the news.

She craned her neck for another look around. The room was packed with dealers, collectors, artists, art press, and an unusual number of spectators—who, unlike those who planned to bid, didn’t have paddles—and it buzzed. The crowd looked expensive—designer clothes, coiffed hair, even furs, unnecessary on this beautiful October morning. The room even smelled rich: perfume, a hint of tobacco, and the odor of new leather.

Killington’s, the largest and grandest of the auction houses that had opened in the years since the price-fixing scandal at Sotheby’s and Christie’s, was holding its first auction of the season. After more than a month of pre-opening festivities—benefits for the New York Public Library, the New York Botanical Garden, and the Central Park Conservancy—Killington’s was launching its autumn season with a print auction.

A surprising choice. Prints weren’t as glamorous as many other art objects. Nevertheless, Killington’s had rounded up some outstanding works and attracted a stellar crowd.

But if not for Heyward Bain, Coleman wouldn’t have covered the auction; she’d have sent one of the writers. Since she’d bought
ArtSmart
three years ago, she wrote only a monthly column and a few important articles a year. Bain was her kind of story.

Still, since she was there, she would pay attention to the auction. Of the many interesting and unusual works on sale, the biggest draw was a rare print by Winslow Homer,
Skating Girl
, from about 1890. Homer had used the image several times—a long-skirted girl on ice skates holding a muff and smiling flirtatiously at the viewer—but no one had ever seen this print. The ice in the print glistened in sunlight, an effect achieved with flecks of white ink or paint—added, according to the experts, by Homer himself, greatly increasing the print’s value.

The crowd held its breath as the bidding soared swiftly past the high estimate of $150,000.
Skating Girl
sold for an astonishing $500,000. Coleman strained with everyone else to spot the person with the winning bid, paddle number 132.

“Who’s he? I don’t seem to know a soul today,” Dinah said, watching the tall, slightly stooped man in a modish English-cut suit stroll toward the back of the room.

“Simon Fanshawe-Davies. He’s an Old Master paintings dealer, works for the Ransome Gallery in London. Look, he’s talking to Heyward Bain—he must have been bidding for him. Why else would an Old Master dealer buy an American print?”

Dinah shook her head. “I haven’t a clue. I’ve never heard of him, let alone seen him at a print auction. Usually when a collector asks somebody to bid for a print, he chooses someone who knows something about them. If I were a collector instead of a dealer in not-very-expensive American prints, I’d have asked David Tunick to bid for me. I’ve heard he even handled a Homer with that same type of enhancement.”

“I agree, he’d have been the logical choice. Maybe Bain and Fanshawe-Davies are friends. I’ll find out. I’m going to interview them both. I’ll call you later.”

But by the time Coleman forced her way through the crowd to the back of the room, Bain and his companions had disappeared. She wandered around looking for Bold Face names, but a number of bidders and most of the sightseers had left after the Homer sale. She couldn’t spot a single celebrity.

Maybe she could find a Killington’s source who would tell her something about
Skating Girl
’s provenance. The auction catalog contained almost nothing about the print’s history, not even the identity of the seller, usually a matter of public record when the object was rare and expensive.

Coleman glimpsed the lanky figure of an old friend, Zeke Tolmach, across the room and waved. She’d have enjoyed a chat with Zeke, but she’d spotted a bespectacled junior assistant in Killington’s public relations department. He’d been known to spill secrets when he’d worked at Brown’s Auction House in Dallas. Maybe he’d be as indiscreet today.

Nearly two hours later, Coleman abandoned the exhausted young man in the Third Avenue luncheonette where she’d plied him with coffee and doughnuts. After a lot of coaxing and some not-so-gentle bullying, he’d revealed the name and telephone number of the seller of
Skating Girl
—Jimmy La Grange, a small-time dealer she’d never heard of. Odd. Anyone with the money to acquire art that valuable should be in her Rolodex.

Back in her office she tried the number, but La Grange’s answering machine picked up. She left a message, but she’d also try again later. Persistence might be required to get this guy to talk. How had an unknown dealer acquired such a valuable print? La Grange had some explaining to do.

Meanwhile, she needed to interview Simon Fanshawe-Davies and Bain. Coleman decided to ask Debbi to set up meetings with both of them. Debbi would do all she could; she was
ArtSmart
’s
press agent as well as Bain’s. She was also one of Coleman’s best friends.

Fifteen minutes later, she had a dinner date Wednesday evening with Bain, and breakfast with Simon Wednesday morning before the Grendle’s auction. She entered the appointments in her diary and turned to her messages. Nothing important except that her friend Clancy from the
New York Times
wanted her to call him. Urgent.

“Clancy? What’s up?”

“A suspicious death early this morning of a guy connected to the art world. Jimmy La Grange. Do you know him?”

“What? I can’t believe it. I’ve never met him, but I’ve been trying to reach him. A print he owned sold at Killington’s this morning for half a million dollars.”

“You have to be kidding. The police say he’s a part-time art dealer, part-time model, part-time actor, maybe a small-time hooker. They sure don’t think he had any money—he lived in a run-down tenement in the West Village. They think his death was a sex-gone-bad crime—he wanted it rough, and it got
too
rough,” Clancy said.

Coleman was taking notes. “Tell me everything you know, then I’ll fill you in on the auction and the print.”

“Okay, but can you get me background on this guy? It might not be a story for the
Times
, but if it is, I’ve gotta be prepared.”

“I’ll find out what I can. Dinah probably knows him. Now, tell.”

“The police say he picked up a couple of biker types and took ’em to his apartment. A neighbor on the way home after a late night out saw two gorillas leaving La Grange’s building about one this morning. The police think La Grange was probably dead or dying by then. They’ll know more after the autopsy, but they already know he was battered to death. Did you know he was into rough stuff?”

Coleman grimaced. “Yuck. No, I never even heard of him till today. I don’t know anything about him but what I’ve told you. Who discovered the body?”

“An old lady who lived across the hall noticed his door was open, and went in to see if he was all right. She’d heard a lot of noise the night before, but didn’t see anyone. But the one witness they have is sure he’d recognize the men he saw.”

“Too bad about La Grange. Young, on the verge of getting all this money, and dying in such a terrible way,” Coleman said.

“Yeah, he got a bad deal. Of course, if it was an accident, a consensual sex death, it’s nothing to do with the
Times.
But if there’s an art angle, I have to look into it. What do you think?”

“There’s a
big
art angle. Have you heard the Heyward Bain story?” She reported what she knew about Bain, the purchase of
Skating Girl
, and Jimmy La Grange.

“I’d heard about Bain and the museum, but I had no idea of a connection with La Grange. I’ll talk to my police sources, see what they know. Call me if you learn anything from Dinah.”

Coleman fetched a cup of coffee from the conference room, sat back down at her desk, and pondered Jimmy La Grange’s death. The poor guy finally gets a big financial break, and is immediately killed. That couldn’t be a coincidence. But neither could it have been somebody trying to steal the money he got for
Skating Girl
: Killington’s wouldn’t send out the check for weeks. But what was the link between the print and Jimmy La Grange’s death, if not money?

She telephoned Dinah, but Dinah knew almost nothing about La Grange. She’d met him a few times when he’d visited the gallery, offering prints for sale, but that was the extent of their acquaintance.

“He sold prints he picked up at garage sales, places like that. He was a runner—didn’t have a gallery—carried everything he had for sale in a portfolio. I liked him. He was shy, sweet, quiet. I bet
Skating Girl
was supposed to be his big break,” Dinah said.

“Yes, but it may have turned out to be a curse. His selling that print for so much money almost certainly caused his death.”

“Do you know anything about his personal life?” Coleman asked.

“No, I didn’t know him that well, and I never heard any gossip about him. But I don’t think that looking-to-be-beat-up story makes sense. He told me he made more money modeling than selling prints. His face was his fortune—he was gorgeous,” Dinah said.