The Monet Murders (9 page)

“Who knows? I thought he might be trying to return it, maybe mend some broken fences. Or maybe he got cold feet and realized he wasn't cut out for the art underworld.”

“What about the husband?”

“Clueless, according to his wife.”

“About the boyfriend or the stolen painting?”

“Both. Out of curiosity, does he have an alibi?”

“Seems to. He was gambling out on the
Lucky Lady
pretty much all through the day and most of the night. Plenty of witnesses saw him. He called the cops when he got home. The boys said he was pretty shook up.”

“I'll bet. But I keep wondering why Hanson came to the house that night. I keep thinking he was trying to return the original and get back on the side of the angels.”

“No one in this town is on the side of the angels. Our name is a cosmic joke. But I see your point. If he was trying to make good, the other painting, whether real or copy, would be soaking up some gigolo blood when we got there.”

“That was the idea.”

“Good idea, but no cigar. There was plenty of blood, but it was being soaked up by a Persian carpet. The only painting was hanging above the mantel—not that I paid much attention to it. I'm looking at the crime-scene photos now, and there's definitely a picture above the mantel. But there's no second painting anywhere. Sorry.”

“Hmmm. Maybe Wilbur stashed the painting somewhere safe and went to Emily's house to beg for forgiveness.”

“Promising to return the painting later?”

“Right.”

“It's possible, I suppose. Most likely we'll never know. But what do you want out of this?”

“The lady in question gave me a ten-day retainer. I'd like to earn some of it, anyway. Would you have any objections if I looked into the art-forgery business? It's a side story to the murder/suicide, which as you've said is pretty straightforward—thanks to my information. I'd like to be able to set the husband right as far as his property is concerned.”

“How do you plan to do that?”

“I thought I'd take a look at Hanson's place. Maybe he has the thing hidden there.”

“Real or the forgery?”

“Who knows? Could be either one. If I can't find anything there, I guess I'll get ahold of the husband and tell him his wife thought there was something wrong about the painting and that she suspected it had been stolen and replaced with a forgery. She came to me to make a discreet inquiry, which will cover her if her husband looks over her cancelled checks. And it will cover her till the adultery story breaks—if it breaks.”

“Oh, it'll break sooner or later.”

“I imagine. But once I broach the idea of a forgery, he can hire an expert and take it from there. If the one he's got now is genuine, he can sit back and enjoy. Or sell it. If it's a fake, he can call the insurance company and get his money back. All neat and unconnected to the murder. Even when the adultery story comes out, the art angle doesn't really matter.”

“It matters a little, but I take your point. It complicates something that otherwise appears pretty straightforward. Simple crime of passion. And it's better for us if it seems straightforward. Complications make paperwork. Better to have a good, clean story than one that's messed up with truth. So go ahead. Keep me informed.”

“I assume you've checked Wilbur's apartment.”

“Yes. It's got the standard crime-scene yellow tape across the door.”

“I won't disturb anything.”

“Okay. I'm guessing you can figure out a way of getting in.”

“Yes. It's Lesson Two in the Private Detective Correspondence School.”

“Anyone asks you what you're doing, have them call me. But just remember when you're poking around—it's no trouble putting a private dick out of business, if we don't like what he's doing and how he's doing it. If you find something, anything, I want to know about it. And if by chance you should happen to find the original, don't forget who it belongs to.”

“I'll remember.” I thought about correcting his use of “who,” but decided against it. Almost nobody uses “whom” anymore.

“Stay in touch,” he said and hung up.

I'm not sure I liked that part about putting somebody out of business. But maybe he was just practicing his tough-guy act. As a college graduate, he had to be especially hard-assed. The other cops were suspicious of anyone who wore glasses and was good at anything beyond shaking down a suspect, accepting cash in an envelope, and lighting a match with a thumbnail.

This guy Hanson lived in one of the countless semi-Spanish two-story apartment buildings. This one was U-shaped with a pool in the middle. It was on a side street in Santa Monica. That was convenient for me, because I was planning to meet Perry later that evening, hoping he would have some interesting news about Catherine Moore for me.

I parked on the street and walked a block or so to the building, known as the Hanging Gardens Apartments. It wasn't hard to locate Hanson's place, because of the yellow crime-scene tape across the door. There were a few aspiring
starlets sitting around the pool, and they watched me as I went up the stairs to the second floor. I was wearing my fedora and so looked official, and I paid no attention to them, but I could hear them whispering something. I got out the piece of plastic that all junior G-men learn to carry and slipped it through the doorjamb and opened the lock. I ducked under the yellow tape, went in, and flipped on the light.

There was a funny smell in the room. I couldn't identify it exactly, but patchouli came to mind. Maybe that was it. The apartment obviously came furnished, because all the stuffed chairs and the sofa had that sagging, depressed appearance of things that had been forced to stay in service beyond their expiration date. It was only one room, with a kitchenette along the back wall, one closet, and a bathroom large enough to turn around in if you had to.

The distinctive feature of the place, though, was the amount of artwork on the walls. Even I could see that these weren't the usual cheap copies of senoritas or bullfighters. They were elegant-looking nudes—a half dozen of them arranged tastefully above the sagging sofa. I bow to no man in my appreciation of nudes, but I have to say I prefer it when the nudes are women. These weren't, and there was no attempt to disguise the fact, for all of the winsome lads in these pictures were facing the painter in various states of exuberance. The six paintings were all of different people, although they all shared a common well-endowedness. All but one were of young men with an effeminate look to them. The other one was of an older man, somewhere between forty and fifty and in good condition. I looked closer at each of them, checking for the signature of the painter, and was
only mildly surprised to see the name “Wilbur Hanson” in the lower right-hand corner.

I wondered why Kowalski hadn't mentioned this aspect of the case, although it was possible he hadn't personally examined the apartment.

Even to my untrained eye it was clear that the recent Wilbur Hanson was a talented painter. Unfortunately, I didn't see any Monets anywhere on the walls. I looked in the only closet, but there was nothing in there except a few silk suits, a silk kimono, a half dozen pairs of shoes, and a rack full of ascots. I rummaged around in the dresser drawer but found nothing beyond what you'd expect to find.

The rest of the apartment seemed bereft of hiding places—no dropdown overhead, no hollow-legged tables or chairs. I turned over all the cushions, thinking he'd maybe sewn the painting amidst the springs, but there was no sign that the ancient material had been disturbed. The cushions themselves had no zippers. I gave the rest of the room a thorough going-over, but the only paintings in the apartment were the ones hanging on the wall.

So it would seem that if Hanson had the painting, he had it stashed somewhere, and the odds of finding out where were long, to say the least—which meant my next move would be to meet with the husband, tell him the semi-truthful tale about the possible forgery, and then let him take it from there.

I also wondered where Hanson had done the nudes. Obviously, this rather dingy apartment would not do as a studio, and besides there were no paints or easels or anything to indicate that he'd done these portraits here. It occurred to me that might be an avenue to investigate.

I had a cup of coffee at a sidewalk café that had a view of the beach, if you stood up. There were the usual ragged hobos in the park across the way: drunks, drug addicts, the simple-minded, and the philosophers. They came here according to the season and got rousted by the cops and put on buses to Phoenix. But there were always others to replace them. They were like water coming in through the bottom of a leaky boat. Bail away, but there's no end of it. Well, it's hard to beat this weather if you have to sleep outside.

It was getting close to seven, the time I was going to meet Perry. I was just about to leave when a woman came up to my table. She was firmly in the first category of California women—a soul-selling opportunity.

“Do you mind?” she asked, as she sat down opposite me and crossed her legs—an exercise worth watching. If she'd been wearing silk stockings, they would have made an alluring swish. But she wasn't, and she didn't need them.

“Never minded anything less in my life, unless you have a commercial proposition in mind.”

“Do I look like that kind of girl?”

“No.” She did, of course, because those kinds of girls come in all shapes and styles. So I'm told. But one must be gallant.

And she was a stunner. Auburn hair that looked natural, blue eyes, full lips that, surprisingly, did not have too much lipstick despite the current fashion. She was wearing a tight-fitting low-cut jersey top with alternating blue and white horizontal stripes, like a French sailor, and cream-colored shorts. Everything was tastefully snug and left very little to
the imagination. Her clothes were like the sheer curtain that gets drawn after the main curtain has gone up. A formality.

“Are you a cop?” She had a velvety sort of voice and precise enunciation, a phony-sounding combination that you can learn at any one of the acting schools in this town. These schools were generally on second-floor studios run by faded bit players with a theory and a nose for business. Somehow those places never made sense to me, because their basic message was “I can't make a living as an actor, but I can teach you how to become a star.” They were the acting equivalent of a matchbook correspondence school in diesel mechanics or hairdressing. But as I said before, hopefulness was a widespread local affliction. Very contagious.

“So, what's the deal?” she asked. “Who are you?”

“I'm still working that out.” I said this with a disarming smile, which she took for what it was worth.

“I saw you at the apartment a little while ago. You were in Wilbur's place.”

“Oh. Yes, that was me.” I know it should be “that was I,” but it sounds so prissified.

“Well, are you? A cop?”

“No. Private. But I am working on the investigation.”

“Private dick?”

“Right. Name's . . . Bruno Feldspar.” Again, the difficulty. I gave her a card.

She smiled, showing just a trace of kindly ridicule. “What kind of name is that?”

“Just a name. You know the line—‘What's in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.'”

“I heard that in a movie, I think.”

“It's possible.”

She studied me for a moment, trying to decipher something or other.

“You don't look like a Yid. Feldspar sounds like a Yid name.” That was true. It was one of the reasons Ethel suggested it. In this town, it helps.

“No, strictly Presbyterian. What's your name, honey?”

“Rita Lovelace. And don't call me honey.”

“All right. And what kind of name is Rita Lovelace?”

“It's a name I figured the studios would like.”

“I agree. It's nice. What's the real one?”