(36/40) The Fine Art of Murder Page 10

  His credentials as an art historian, appraiser, and professor were substantial and distinguished. He was currently a visiting professor of art history at the University of Chicago. Simultaneously, he was a consultant to leading museums around the world, including the Met in New York City and the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. The more I read, the more eager I was to meet him.

  I also used the time to make a phone call back to Cabot Cove.

  “Hello, Jessica,” Seth Hazlitt said. “Where might you be calling from?”

  “I’m still in Chicago. That’s why I’m calling. I’ll be staying here longer than I’d planned.”

  “Oh? What brings about that change of plans?”

  “It’s a long story, Seth, and I won’t bore you with it now. Let’s just say that my old friend Marlise needs me here now, and—”

  “Needs you to help her prove she didn’t shoot her husband.”

  “That’s part of it.”

  “Knowing you’re there, I’ve been keeping up with the news about the murder. I suppose there’s no sense in my trying to talk sense into you about not getting involved.”

  “I didn’t choose to become involved, Seth. It just happened.”

  He started to hum. “Seems to me I’ve heard that tune before.”

  I chuckled. “I guess you have,” I said, “but there’s no danger here. I’m just giving a friend some much-needed moral support at a difficult time in her life.”

  “Mebbe so, but just remember, if your friend didn’t kill her husband, someone else did. And that someone may not appreciate your meddling.”

  “I don’t consider it ‘meddling,’” I said, bristling at the accusation.

  Seth laughed. “Got your goat, didn’t I? My real concern, Jessica Fletcher, is this: Do you have enough clothing with you? You said you were only going to Chicago for a day. You must be running low by now.”

  I couldn’t help but smile. He knew that I was getting riled and had shifted gears to make light of it.

  “Your concern is well placed,” I said. “I do need some additional clothing for my stay. It’s a good excuse to replenish my wardrobe.”

  “Shopping for clothes is a mite less dangerous than hanging around with murderers,” he said.

  “Seth, I—”

  “Pleased that you called, Jessica. Always enjoy talking with you. Stay in touch.”

  The conversation was over.

  As much as Seth can nettle me at times, I love him dearly and have seldom experienced real anger at his overprotective ways. And I have to admit that he’s been right on more than one occasion.

  Was this one of those times? I wondered as I put on last-minute makeup before heading downstairs to meet Edgar Peters. Had I jumped into the fray without giving it sufficient thought, injected myself into Jonathon Simsbury’s murder investigation to satisfy my own curiosity and psychic needs rather than out of a true desire to help? Marlise seemed genuinely pleased that I’d decided to stay, which tempered my ambivalence of the moment. As I waited for the elevator, I admitted to myself that my intrusion into the case might prove useless, no help at all. But that unpleasant thought was replaced by anticipation of the evening when I stepped off the elevator and saw Edgar Peters waiting for me.

  “Ah, Jessica, right on time,” he said, taking my hand and leading me to the street. “I’m sure you were looking forward to dinner at one of our city’s best restaurants, but Tony convinced me to come to the Quadrangle Club at the university. Really quite nice, renovated a dozen times over the years. It’s been around since the late eighteen hundreds. A little stuffy, but that’s to be expected of a private faculty club—professors hunched at a round table tackling the meaning of life and such.”

  “I’m sure it’s lovely,” I said as he held open the door of his sporty metallic blue car, which was a little hard to fold myself into.

  “The food is good at the club,” he said, starting the engine and driving away. “And I know you’ll love Tony. He’s a true Renaissance man, with a limitless number of interests besides art. He’s a walking encyclopedia of the history of alcoholic beverages, and he’s just recently decided to become an expert on the history of steamship travel.”

  “I admire people with varied interests,” I said. “Keeps the mind young.”

  We chatted amiably during the drive to the club, a graceful redbrick building on the corner of Fifty-seventh Street and University Avenue. Peters found a parking spot only a few car lengths from the entrance, came around to help me out of the car—“Sorry for the tight squeeze”—and we entered the building, where Anthony Curso, whom I immediately recognized from my Google foray, stood chatting with a man and a woman. As he excused himself and bounded across the lobby, I was struck by how short he was, no taller than five feet, five inches. He wore a beige linen double-breasted jacket, a navy blue shirt, a floppy red-and-yellow bow tie, and black sneakers.

  “How wonderful that you’re here!” he said in a voice considerably larger than his stature.

  “I’m delighted to be here,” I said. “It’s a beautiful club.”

  “Creaky and stodgy, like its members,” he said cheerfully. “Come, I’ve reserved a table in the main dining room.”

  Our table in the nicely appointed room was set with white starched tablecloth and napkins and heavy silverware. A vase of fresh flowers brightened up the expanse of white. Curso’s reputation as an expert on alcoholic beverages was immediately evident when ordering drinks. “Martinis?” he asked as though the answer was preordained.

  “Not for me, thank you,” I said. “A little too strong for my taste.”

  Curso made a face as though he’d been mortally stabbed. “Not even a vodka martini?” he said. “It distresses me to see vodka used in a martini, but it’s what so many people, mostly younger ones, ask for these days. For me, a martini made with anything but gin and vermouth is sacrilege.”

  “I think a glass of white wine would be fine,” I said.

  “You, Ed?” Curso asked.

  “Looks like I’d better have a martini.”

  “Splendid,” said Curso, motioning for a waiter. He said to me with enthusiasm, “I’ve taught the bartenders here how to make a martini to my liking. Always a glass tumbler, never metal. I put the gin in the tumbler and place it in a bed of ice. The same with the glass. I don’t like chilling glasses in a cooler. The air in them is invariably stale and picks up odors. I fill the glass with shaved ice and drizzle the smallest amount of vermouth over the ice, which slowly coats the inside of the glass. The ice is discarded and the chilled gin poured into the glass. Add the garnish—I prefer the traditional olive—and voilà! The perfect martini.”

  I had to laugh at the zeal with which he explained his martini-making technique.

  “It’s tragic how people have bastardized the world’s most perfect drink,” he said, his face now set in sorrow. “Chocolate martinis, apple martinis, vodka! We’ve become a barbaric society, Mrs. Fletcher.”

  “I never equated variations on the martini with the fall of civilization,” I said lightly, “but I’ll take your word for it.”

  “Such a proud history,” he continued. “You remember, of course, how Hemingway described the martinis his character enjoyed in Across the River and Into the Trees. Montgomery Martinis, Hemingway called them, fifteen parts gin and one part vermouth, named after Field Marshal Montgomery, who commanded the British Eighth Army in North Africa during World War Two. Montgomery, it was said, refused to engage his German foe, Erwin Rommel, unless he had a fifteen-to-one advantage in manpower.”

  “Fascinating,” Peters said, not sounding entirely truthful.

  “I’m afraid I could go on all evening about mixed drinks and their origins,” Curso said. “Forgive my enthusiasm for the subject.”

  “I always enjoy learning new things. I’d love to hear more,” I said, meaning it.

  But Peters said, “Tell Mrs. Fletcher about the art collection, Tony.”

  “Oh, poor Jonathon,”
Curso said. “I didn’t know the man well, you understand—ran into him a few times at gallery openings and museum shows. He was most generous where the arts were concerned. What a dreadful way to die, gunned down like that. You knew him well, Ed. You must have been devastated when you received the news.”

  “Devastated—and in total shock.”

  “I understand that you’ll be appraising the collection that Jonathon and Edgar owned,” I said.

  “I’ve already gotten a good start,” Curso replied.

  “I never thought I’d see the day when the collection was being appraised because of Jonathon’s death,” Peters said.

  “Untangling a large estate must be difficult,” I offered, “especially when it involves millions of dollars’ worth of fine art.”

  Curso raised his eyebrows but said nothing.

  “Tell Tony about your Italian adventure with the art world,” Peters suggested.

  “Oh?” Curso said. “You’re a connoisseur of Italian art, Mrs. Fletcher?”

  “Hardly,” I said. “I was in Italy, on a tour of art outside museums—places like churches, municipal buildings, private homes—when two young men who’d been posing as priests burst into the church we were visiting. They had weapons and trained them on us while they stole a Bellini.”

  “A man in the tour group, a retired Italian police officer, was killed during the robbery, as I recall,” Curso said.

  “You know about it,” I said.

  “Oh, indeed. I keep up with such shenanigans in the art world. I wasn’t aware that you were part of the tour group.”

  “Unfortunately I was,” I said. “Wrong place, wrong time.”

  “Tell me again what happened from your perspective,” Curso said.

  He listened with great interest as I retold the tale, interrupted only by the delivery of our drinks. When I was finished, Curso lifted his glass and said, “To you, Jessica Fletcher, and your survival instincts.”

  We touched rims.

  “There was some question as to whether Bellini had painted the piece himself or whether it was the work of some of his students,” I said.

  “That’s always a problem with the great masters who also taught,” said Curso. “But I’m interested in your mystery novels. I’ve read a few, although that was a year or two ago.”

  We spent the rest of dinner discussing murder mysteries and mixed drinks; Curso knew a great deal about both subjects. He was partial to classic British writers like Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, Margery Allingham, Wilkie Collins, and, of course, Arthur Conan Doyle. But he had an appreciation, too, for hard-boiled American writers like James M. Cain, Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, and John D. MacDonald.

  As spirited and interesting as the conversation was—actually, it was more of a monologue by Curso in which he dissected the differences between authors, as well as the British and American approaches to writing crime novels—I was eager to bring the talk back to the subject of art, particularly the collection jointly owned by Edgar Peters and Jonathon Simsbury. I took advantage of a lull in the monologue to ask Peters about it. “Who are some of the artists in the collection?”

  “It’s an eclectic collection, Jessica,” he replied. “Cézanne, Monet, Pollock, Picasso, all the usual suspects. Jonathon’s taste in art was wide-ranging. I questioned some of his purchases, but once he’d set his heart on a piece, he’d move heaven and earth to obtain it.”

  “Did he have a primary source for pieces he purchased? One gallery, perhaps?” I asked.

  “Not at all. His sources were many and varied,” said Peters. “He had a network of people throughout Europe who kept their eyes open for works that they knew would interest him.”

  “To be honest,” said Curso, “the collection is a little too eclectic for my taste. That waters down its value.”

  His comment didn’t sit well with Peters, who said, “That’s a cliché, Tony.”

  “No, it’s not,” Curso countered. “Collections with a theme are invariably more valuable than those that have been put together through a more scattered approach.”

  “You’ve already come to this conclusion in evaluating the collection?” Peters said in a voice that bordered on a growl.

  “No, no, Edgar, of course not. I’m speaking hypothetically. I haven’t come to an overall impression yet. I’m still working on appraising the individual pieces.”

  I said nothing during this exchange, content to take in the meaning behind their words. Obviously Peters wanted the collection to be valued at top dollar, while Curso’s responsibility was to honestly and fairly put a price tag on the works. I concluded from Curso’s comment that his final evaluation might not be as high as Peters would want it to be. I was also confident that Anthony Curso wasn’t the sort of man who could be persuaded to violate his professional standards. He would call it as he saw it.

  Curso turned to me. “So tell me, Jessica, what is your analysis of the murder investigation currently under way?”

  “I’m not sure I’m in a position to comment on that,” I said.

  “Of course,” said Curso. “But your modesty, while admirable, doesn’t necessarily represent reality. I did some prowling on the Internet before enjoying this evening and it’s obvious that murder isn’t a foreign subject to you.”

  “Not with my fictitious characters,” I replied, “but in real life—”

  “That’s what I’m referring to,” Curso said. “Real-life murder like Jonathon Simsbury’s. From what I read, you’ve been involved with as many real-life murders as with the fanciful ones in your books. You and Mrs. Simsbury are close friends, I believe. Is that how you came to be involved?”

  “We hadn’t seen each other in years. I came here to—”

  “To escort the young Simsbury chap—Wayne, is it?—back to the old homestead to accuse his stepmother of the crime.”

  “I didn’t know at the time that he intended to do that.” I explained the circumstances of his arrival at my home in Cabot Cove and how I had assumed that he would help prove Marlise’s innocence. “Needless to say, I was as shocked as everyone else when he alleged that he’d seen Marlise shoot her husband.”

  “And what do you think?” Curso asked.

  I glanced at Peters, who seemed uninterested in the conversation.

  “I really don’t know,” I said to Curso. “Naturally, I prefer not to think that my friend, Marlise, did such a dreadful thing. What interests me is the dynamic between Wayne and his stepmother, whether he has some underlying reason for claiming to have witnessed the murder and identifying her as the murderer.”

  “Wayne Simsbury is a good kid,” Peters said. “He wouldn’t lie about something like that.”

  “So you think that Mrs. Simsbury actually did the dirty deed,” Curso said to Peters.

  “I don’t know who did what,” Peters said. “All I do know is that Wayne Simsbury was the apple of his father’s eye. The sun rose and set on him. Why would he kill a father who doted on him in every way?”

  Peters’s analysis of the father-son relationship was not exactly what I’d been led to believe by others, but I didn’t challenge him.

  “Would you be interested in seeing the collection, Jessica?” Curso asked.

  I looked to Peters for a reaction.

  “May I give Jessica a personal tour of the collection, Edgar?” Curso asked. “I plan to spend the day there tomorrow.”

  Peters seemed conflicted but agreed. “I guess there’s no harm in it.”

  “Splendid,” said Curso. “Shall we say ten in the morning?”

  “That’s fine with me,” I said.

  Peters drove me back to the Ambassador East and walked me into the lobby.

  “Thank you for dinner,” I said. “You were right. Tony Curso is a fascinating man.”

  “He is amusing,” Peter said, granting Curso a less than enthusiastic endorsement. “Mind some advice, Jessica?”

  “I’m always interested in good advice.”

  “I k
now that you and Marlise are close and that you don’t believe that she killed Jonathon.”

  “Am I mistaken in that belief?” I asked, wondering where he was going.

  “Jonathon’s murder is going to get messier as time goes by, and I think that you’d be wise not to become entangled in it.”

  “I certainly don’t intend to become ‘entangled,’ as you put it,” I said.

  “That’s good to hear,” he said. “The point is that Wayne Simsbury is a fine young man who wouldn’t lie about something like this. Sure, he’s had his troubles. Like most young people, he’s fouled up here and there. But Jonathon was a terrific father who had a close bond with his son, and Marlise would never win the stepmother-of-the-year award.”

  I wondered whether he was aware that Jonathon had been about to execute a new will that cut his son’s inheritance down to ten percent, but I didn’t ask. It was interesting how Edgar Peters had a very different perspective on the Simsbury household than Marlise did.

  Peters flashed a smile. “Just some idle thoughts, Jessica. It was a nice evening. Tony is obviously taken with you.”

  “He’s charming,” I said. “Thank you again.”

  I watched him leave the hotel, and as I rode up in the elevator, I replayed in my head what he’d said about Wayne and his relationship with his father. The young man had told me while at my house that his father was disappointed in him and that his relationship with Marlise was good. Marlise had said Jonathon was in the process of changing his will in her favor and to Wayne’s detriment. Would she have said that if it weren’t true? I didn’t know where the truth lay, and I realized that if I was to make any headway in solving the murder, I’d need to get a better perspective on the relationships within the family. One source with possibly less-biased views would be the household staff. But would Mrs. Tetley, the cook, Consuela, and the driver, Carl, be willing to talk to a stranger about the family they worked for? I made a silent pledge to seek them out.