Blue Smoke and Murder

29

SEPTEMBER 15

10:04 A.M.

Ramsey Worthington waited with concealed impatience while Cahill carefully, slowly, delicately opened a shipping container from the estate of a wealthy collector of Western art. The paintings were among the stars of the upcoming auction.

As the owner of several galleries, and an auctioneer in high demand, Worthington knew that he wasn’t supposed to have a favorite artist. Or at the very least, he shouldn’t let anybody know that he did.

Yet Cahill knew his boss was daffy about Nicolai Fechin’s paintings.

The “Tartar” painter might have been born in Russia, but in the second quarter of the twentieth century he had painted the Native Americans of the Southwest with an impressionistic urgency and energy that was both personal and universal.

More than half a century after Fechin’s death, his paintings were more valuable than ever, well over one hundred thousand dollars a canvas, and that was for the smaller works. Yet it wasn’t the potential hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars the Fechin oils represented that lifted Worthington’s pulse.

Quite simply, he wanted to be in the presence of greatness.

Worthington cleared his throat. He’d seen various representations of the Fechins in this dead collector’s collection, but he hadn’t seen them in the original.

Cahill hid his smile. Perhaps it was petty to tease Worthington by dragging out the process of opening the shipping container, but it certainly was enjoyable. Intellectually and fiscally, Cahill understood the importance of Fechin’s portraits. Emotionally, they didn’t lift his pulse. Give him the sweep and radiant grandeur of a Thomas Moran landscape any day. Now that was an artist to bring a man to his knees.

After a few more unnecessary flourishes, Cahill relented and removed a canvas from its carefully constructed nest.

Worthington made a sound that was between a sigh and a moan.

Cahill freed more paintings.

More rapturous noises came from Worthington.

“Stop it,” Cahill said. “You’re making me hard, and you have a luncheon appointment with your wife.”

If Worthington heard, he didn’t comment.

Cahill didn’t bother to hide his smile. Worthington’s relationship with his wife was a source of amusement to both men. She was clueless about her husband’s cheerful bisexuality.

The phone rang in Worthington’s office. His private line, reserved for his best clients. Or his most useful ones.

Worthington ignored the phone. He was lost in the vivid colors and insights of Nicolai Fechin.

Cahill strode over and picked up the call. “Fine Western Art, Jack Cahill speaking. How may I assist you?”

“This is Betty Dunstan. Is Ramsey available? It’s about the auction.”

“Betty! It’s always good to hear from you.” Cahill rolled his eyes. He didn’t have to ask which auction. The one Worthington was overseeing in a few days was the most important thing on the Western art horizon. “How are you and Lee doing?”

“We’re fine. Very anxious about the auction, of course. But I have some, um, concerns I’d like to talk about with Ramsey.”

“Of course. Let me put you on hold while I pry him away from a client.” Cahill punched the hold button and looked at Worthington. “Well?”

“You take it. I’m tired of holding her hand. And you have a monetary interest in the auction, too.”

“Not as much as you do.”

“I’m the auctioneer as well as the organizer,” Worthington said. “Of course I’m better paid.”

The hold button blinked like a red lightning bug.

“About her call…” Cahill said.

“Oh, hell. Give it to me. You don’t understand women.”

“Big duh on that one.”

Worthington laughed. “Betty is a nice person, if a bit tightly wrapped. Don’t know how she puts up with the pompous donkey she’s married to.”

Shaking his head, Cahill punched the hold button again and handed over the phone.

“Hello, Betty. Always a pleasure,” Worthington said. “Sorry you had to wait for me. How may I help you?”

Cahill tuned out the one-sided conversation while he began tidying up the shipping/receiving room. As he worked, he kept looking at the Fechin oils, trying to understand their appeal emotionally as well as intellectually.

Maybe if he stopped thinking about the vermin situation during the time Fechin painted the natives, he’d appreciate the work more. But Cahill just couldn’t get past the queasy certainty that many if not all of the models for Fechin’s portraits likely had needed a good scrubbing down with lye. The thought of all the fleas and lice underneath the rustic costumes made him twitchy.

It was the same thing that had kept him from traveling in the poor places of the world. For him, hygiene wasn’t a choice, it was a religion.

Give him Moran’s elegantly wild landscapes any day.

“…assure you,” Worthington said evenly, though loudly, “if there were any loose Dunstans running about the Western art scene, I’d be the first to know.”

He listened impatiently.

“Yes, yes, I know, the JPEGs,” he said. “But JPEGs are simply electronic bits of nothing. Only the flesh and blood of canvas is real. The rest is-”

As Worthington listened to her interruption, his face flushed. His anger was visible if not audible.

“Betty, dear, you’re working yourself up over nothing,” he said, trying to sound soothing. “If any unknown Dunstans exist-and there is no proof that any do-Lee would still have the last word as to authenticity. As the author of Dunstan’s catalogue raisonné, Lee’s imprimatur is absolutely necessary to anyone wishing to sell any Dunstan canvas.”

Cahill gave up pretending to be busy and listened. As Worthington had pointed out, Cahill had a financial interest in the outcome of the auction.

“Yes, I’m very certain,” Worthington said. “Please don’t worry. When the auction is over, you and Lee will be quite pleased. No unauthenticated Dunstans, assuming any exist, can prevent that.”

Worthington shifted the phone to his other hand.

Cahill waited.

“No problem at all, my dear,” Worthington said soothingly. “We’re all excited about the upcoming auction. I’m glad I could put your mind at ease.”

Worthington opened his mouth, closed it, and bit his tongue.

Cahill paced.

“I understand,” Worthington said. “Of course, you would be the first to know if I see or hear anything substantial about the existence of unknown Dunstans.”

Cahill pretended to look at Fechin’s portrait of a young Pueblo Indian girl. Her black eyes were both innocent and already old, almost eerily so. To hell with vermin, he thought. The ancient understanding in the girl’s eyes transcended her time and circumstances.

And vermin?

Cahill sighed. He simply couldn’t get past reality to the art beneath.

Worthington hung up the phone and looked at Cahill.

“Still bothered by head lice?” Worthington asked sardonically.

“I almost got past it. Something about that girl’s eyes. Remarkable. Riveting.”

“The eyes are the living, breathing center of all Fechin paintings. That’s what makes him such a brilliant portrait artist.”

“True.” But not for me. Can’t get past the creepy crawlies. “I take it that Mrs. Dunstan is in a knot about the JPEGs.”

Worthington grimaced. “Between her and Mrs. Crawford, I’ll be ready for a straitjacket before the auction even opens.”

“Lee Dunstan has bent my ear a time or three,” Cahill said. “The man is obsessed with his father’s former lover.”

“Since Justine Breck was the cause of Thomas Dunstan’s erratic output, I can understand Lee’s ire. God only knows what that woman cost the world of Western fine art.”

“Millions and millions, if the auction goes as planned.”

“Of course,” Worthington said almost impatiently, “but the loss of Dunstan’s unique insight into the dying of the classic West is beyond price.”

“Polishing your auction rhetoric?”

Worthington smiled. “People don’t attend auctions merely to buy art. They come for the experience, the entertainment, the chance to be seen as a mover and shaker among their peers.”

Laughing, Cahill shook his head. “Is our auction really going to be the slam dunk you described to Mrs. Dunstan?”

Worthington’s smile vanished. “It better be.”