Earth Colors Page 10

  He paused in his recitation and stared out into the street. Cars were going past, the late-afternoon return of the working world to their little homes. I had time to think on the image of his grandmother, forbidden to visit the West that had captured her heart. I knew that love. I loved the West to the last blade of grass, craggy peak, and lost calf that dwelt within its panorama. I loved it to the very depths of my soul. I loved it to the tight spin of every last electron in my body. But the West was more than just a romance. The West was a place of simple virtues, where lines between right and wrong were more precisely drawn than in the East. Doing what is right is embedded in the Code of the West.

  I wondered if that code had called to Tert’s grandmother, or if she merely liked the idea of being somewhere she hadn’t been. She had buried her rebellion in house and family, no doubt; here stood her grandson as proof of the fruits of her duty. And she had loved her husband, I was sure of that even without knowing the rest of the story. She had met him at the station, and he had brought her the best thing short of a train ticket west: a Remington, fresh from the artist’s brush, its colors bright and true, the varnishes untouched by the grit and yellowing of time. A Remington, the genius spawn of the finest Impressionist of the American West, a burst of prairie light frozen in paint.

  Softly, I asked, “What was the scene?”

  He sighed, long and deeply. “It was a group of horses in the moonlight in a corral. I guess you’d call them ponies. There’s a cabin in the background, just a touch of candlelight coming from it.”

  He paused a moment in his description, moved up close to the window of the room we were standing in, and stared outward, his back to me. “Something has frightened the ponies. They lower their heads as they shy away from something outside the frame of the picture … . There’s something out there.” He shook his head. “I spent hours staring at that painting when I was a child. Hours.”

  Now he turned and looked straight at me, his gray eyes locking with mine. “So you can imagine my surprise … my horror … when I realized that the painting was no longer the original.”

  I could not figure out how to respond. In reciting his drama, he had managed momentarily to jog me from the darkness of my mood; he had reminded me that I was not the only creature in the universe that suffered. I could not imagine why he had brought this to me. He did not know me. I was just a friend of a friend, and I wasn’t sure how well he even knew Faye. And the experience of seeing inside him, however briefly, made me feel oddly naked.

  Fortunately, Faye chose that moment to enter the room, and she was carrying Baby Sloane. The instant I saw her, I was again engulfed with the warmth and pain of my jagged heart. I rushed to her, and Faye handed her to me. I bent my body around her, snuggled her tiny head up beneath my cheek, and squeezed her as close as I could without troubling her. The scent of baby soothed me, reminding me that there were things in the world more important than land, or any particular outcome of any particular problem of the mind. I squeezed my eyes shut so that I would not cry in front of Tert or the stranger the child’s mother had become.

  “Am I interrupting anything?” Faye inquired of her friend.

  Tert cleared his throat. “I was just telling Emily about the painting,” he replied. “Perhaps we should see what you’ve got in the kitchen. It was a long drive, and I could really use a beer about now.”

  They left me alone with the little girl. I sat down in the gliding rocker Faye used when nursing her, curled her in my arms, and quit fighting back my sorrow.

  11

  WHEN I WOKE UP THE NEXT MORNING, I DECIDED THAT I’D SNEAK into the nursery and have some time with the baby—if she was not in bed with Faye—then grab some breakfast and make a clean escape before the happy family crawled out of their various rooms. But on opening the door to my room, I heard sounds in the kitchen. I approached cautiously, and found Faye fussing over something on the stove and Tert Krehbeil already sitting at the table with Sloane Renee on his lap, feeding her Cream of Wheat. The baby was staring up into his eyes with the awestruck glow of an Italian Renaissance saint observing an angel. I stopped short in the doorway, and was just throwing my feet into reverse when Faye spotted me.

  She said, “Oh, there you are, Em. Hey, I was wondering if you could take the baby while Tert and I catch a little skiing up at Snowbird.”

  “Um, ah … sure. I can take her to class with me, I guess.”

  “No, I don’t mean for the whole day. This is a Friday, right? You’ve got classes just in the morning, and besides, you already missed two days of class this week helping me out. So, no, we were thinking of just doing a half-day pass.” She gave me a pleasant little smile.

  “The eggs are scorching,” I said, then, realizing that she was trying to be considerate, added, “Okay, I’ll cover you from noon onward. Eleven, if you meet me at the Geology Department and bring the baby to me.”

  Faye stabbed at the mess of eggs with a spatula. She had once been a fairly accomplished cook when she put her mind to it, but with the distractions of motherhood, culinary disasters like this had become more frequent and of increasingly greater magnitude.

  Tert said, “Thanks, Em. That’s really nice of you. But as regards our business arrangement—”

  “I need to talk to you about that,” I said quickly.

  The temperature of his gaze cooled. “You sound uncertain.”

  “I have some questions.” I veered away from Faye’s seared omelette toward the cupboard, grabbed a cup of coffee, and led Tert out of Faye’s hearing into the living room. Once he was settled on the couch and I had room to pace, I said, “First, it’s obvious to me that there are a great many people more qualified than I am to evaluate your painting. Some kind of art specialist.”

  “A conservator,” he said.

  “Okay, a conservator.” I was annoyed that I hadn’t even known the correct term. “But you need a private detective because the art world is a nosy place and this is a matter you wish to keep just that way—private.”

  He nodded. “That is correct.”

  “Have you taken up the matter with the appropriate sheriff’s department or police?”

  Tert averted his gray eyes to indicate emotional discomfort at the very thought.

  I said, “Well, how do you expect me to find out when the switch was made—if indeed the painting is faked—and who did it? I can’t subpoena evidence, and I can’t—”

  “All I want you to do is document that it is not original.”

  I took a deep breath and let it out. I said, “Well, I am not a licensed detective, but I am a professional geologist with some experience in forensics, and you’re talking about a matter that a forensic geologist would categorize as trace evidence: artists’ pigments.” I paused, giving myself time to contemplate the line of B.S. I was coming out with. I was almost even convincing myself. “I’ve been reading up on these things. It’s an interesting topic. You see, the thing is, I’d like to make a master’s thesis out of the work.”

  Tert looked pained. “No. I’m sorry. The information would be proprietary.”

  “Well, then, I have a proposal. I believe Faye said you have other paintings, am I right?”

  “What do you have in mind?”

  “I’d like to study one of them. Perhaps one of the ones you were going to loan to the Whitney. I could go there, and—”

  He nodded. “I see where you’re going with this. I could probably arrange that.”

  “And I’ll need your permission to consult with colleagues at the FBI labs. I will be absolutely discreet, don’t you worry. Your name needn’t be mentioned.”

  He smiled vaguely.

  “Then I’ll do it,” I said. “My fee is fifty bucks an hour plus expenses, plus I get to work with another painting.”

  Tert did not even bat an eye. “Agreed.”

  “Where do you keep the family paintings?”

  He paused a moment, caught off guard. “Uh, at the family farm.”

  �
��Where’s that?”

  “But you would see the paintings when they are hung in Cody.” His smile came into focus. He seemed pleased about something he wasn’t saying.

  I nodded. I wasn’t sure what he was hiding, but I saw no reason to go clear to the East Coast if the paintings were coming to me. “I’ve got exams and reports due in the next few days, but spring break starts in a couple of weeks. I can start then.”

  “Good.”

  “Where is the painting?” I asked, starting to raise my coffee for a sip now that the business was settled.

  “In the car.”

  I stopped with the coffee halfway to my lips. “In the car? You left a million-dollar piece of artwork in the trunk of your car?”

  He looked mildly affronted. “The original would be worth at least three million. But as I said, the painting in the car is not the original.”

  “You’re pretty damned sure of that.”

  “I am.”

  Tert went out to his car, unlocked the trunk, and returned with what looked like a long, fat mailing tube. He headed into the dining room, pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, fastidiously dusted the table, then opened the tube and extracted a roll of canvas. This he unfurled and spread out flat on the table, exposing a layer of cheesecloth. He lifted the cloth, and there before me was a picture of horses in a corral at night that sure as hell looked like a real Remington. “It’s beautiful,” I said.

  “Not as beautiful as the original,” he said sadly.

  I stared into the painting. The horses were gloriously rendered, and full of tension. But it was odd seeing a supposed masterwork without its frame and without even the stretcher bars. “You removed its skeleton,” I said.

  “Easier to transport this way. The stretchers are in the car. I can take it home with me on the plane.”

  “Take it home? Then you didn’t bring it out with you from the East?”

  “No.”

  “Where was it?”

  He paused as if trying to decide what or how much to tell me. “It was near Cody.”

  Near Cody. My conversation with Frank Barnes came back to me. “Do you mean on a ranch?” I asked.

  “Yes … at a summer place my grandmother owned.”

  “Oh. Is it still in the family?”

  Tert shifted uncomfortably. “I haven’t been there for … a number of years.”

  “Then you can’t pinpoint exactly when the switch was made,” I said.

  He stood with his hands gripped behind his back, drawing himself into a caricature of a British lord. He said nothing, the gentry defending the honor of privilege.

  I said, “I looked through every book on Remington I could find in the University library. I saw several other night paintings.”

  “Nocturnes,” Tert corrected me.

  “Yes. Well, some of the earlier works seemed a little cruder than others. Even Remington saw that. The text said that he routinely built bonfires in his backyard and burned paintings that he thought inferior.” I knew I might be pulling my thesis project out from under my own feet, but it was essential that I approach the science with utmost integrity. If I started out with a lie, then the whole thing would be a sham. “It could be that you’ve got an original there that just isn’t as wonderful as some of his others, and you’re not remembering it as clearly as you thought. What if—”

  He held up a hand. “I understand what you’re saying. I at first tried to convince myself of the same thing. But, no, I am certain.” He turned dismissively and moved back into the kitchen, where he resumed his seat at the table and once again began to feed cereal to the baby. Faye had put Sloane Renee in her high chair during our absence, and the baby watched us with grave eyes. Faye watched also, but more covertly.

  “Then why did you bring it to the museum?” I asked, following him into the room. “You’ll excuse me if I’m a little confused, but why hire me in the name of discretion if you’ve already shown it to the Remington committee in Cody? Why close the barn door after the horse has escaped?”

  “They didn’t see this painting.”

  “Oh? Then why were you there?”

  Faye rolled her eyes at me.

  Tert said, “Because I am a member of that committee.”

  This revelation hit me like a board with a nail in the end of it. I looked back and forth between Tert and Faye. They lured me into this project like a rat to the cheese. “So you’re one of their experts.”

  “That’s right.” He set down the baby’s spoon and stared at me.

  “Then what the hell do you need me for?”

  He waved a hand as if to clear obnoxious smoke. “I’m on that committee because I know Remington’s painting style. His brushwork. The scumbles and glazes. We do aesthetic evaluation, not scientific documentation. I know his materials in a gross sense—the type of canvas he used, the Shattuck keys on the stretchers—but I know little of what you call trace evidence, and certainly cannot do the microscopic work. That analysis is usually done by a conservator. But as you accurately surmised, it’s a small world, and I want this kept quiet. And my reasons for doing so are my own, and I will not discuss them.”

  I knew right then that he was lying. I have not forgotten the first time I saw you. In the gallery, before you knew who I was. You were talking to another man—another committee member, no doubt—about the shade of green Remington used in the nocturne of the man by the Conestoga wagon. Hooker’s green. You named the exact pigments that make that color—Prussian blue and something that begins with a G—and if you’re worth your salt to that committee, you’ll know all about the National Gallery’s books on pigments. Yes, you know a lot more than you’re letting on. And in some important way, in some critical detail, you are lying to me!

  Tert and I stared at each other, neither of us blinking.

  The baby let out a shriek.

  I have no patience for lies. I said, “So, getting us up to Cody was all a ruse. You never had anything that needed to be transported.”

  Faye’s spine stiffened noticeably.

  For a moment Tert evinced incomprehension. Then he said, “Oh. Oh, I see what’s upsetting you. No, in fact there are paintings that need transportation, but the Remington was not one of them.”

  “Most of the rest of the collection is near Lancaster at your mother’s house, isn’t it?” Faye asked.

  He said, “I’m loaning them several Russells.” His tone was now professorial, almost condescending.

  “Several Russells.” Oh deary me. I shifted my gaze back to Faye, who had tipped her head sharply to one side, her lips pursed as if affecting an innocent whistling.

  Gritting my teeth, I said, “Fine, just fine. I think I’m getting up to speed now. Right now I need to head to class. I’ll see you both at eleven. And you,” I leaned forward and gave Sloane Renee a kiss on her fuzzy little head, “I will see all afternoon.”

  I got my book bag and got my butt on the bus to the U as fast as I could, quick before I blew my chance for a thesis project the rest of the way out the window.

  I sat the baby that afternoon while the fun couple skied, and while the baby napped, I took a tour of the guest room to see what I could discover about our resident liar. He had left behind a suitcase and a thin leather attaché. There was nothing of interest in the first, no electronic gizmos such as computer or Palm Pilot in the other. About all I found of interest was a small spiral-bound book full of notes written in a tight little handwriting which I presumed to be his. They read like this:

  May 3rd

  Rem to H*

  Wyo / UPS (spec.)—SAC / will call

  O/*—ridge / hoc

  Pd. / ck + cash

  June 8th

  orange—no. 26

  223,000 profit

  split / 50.50

  Aug 12th

  Big One—10% to [ ]

  new frame—Rocetti/Boston

  Denver—van / cash

  Split w/ GRR / London a/*

  Sept. 30th

&n
bsp; LA—SF—Napa

  7 days

  2 + 2 + 2

  3 w/c—2 a*ib—1 ltr.—2 *****

  7 sales—1.43

  3 way split / ? / 500 net to me!

  Dec 8th

  It’s starting to look like …

  2 b/w w/e

  unframed

  Por**t* Denver / Dallas

  NO / to me!

  Feb 8th

  Can R—letter

  show to JST

  cash or trade

  trades to Scottsdate/Tuscon

  Net: $15,120.—

  I spent several minutes trying to dope out the entries, but beyond “Rem to H*” possibly referring to a Remington, and the few references that looked like payments and splits, I had no clue what they meant.

  The next morning Tert presented me with a check for three thousand dollars (drawn off his business, Krehbeil Gallery, Philadelphia), which he suggested might cover my initial fees and expenses (I guess Faye had told him I was broke); shook my hand (although I would have preferred to stick it in a jar of eels), and caught an early flight home to Philadelphia. And that, I hoped and prayed, was the last Salt Lake City would see of Tert Krehbeil. Faye seemed a bit let-down for a day or two, but she did not broach the subject of their acquaintance, and neither did I. She went on about her life, which involved going to a lot of yoga classes and disappearing for long hours with the baby in the jogger, and I went back to my schoolbooks, or tried to. Bit by bit, I began to get over the shock of losing the ranch. Unfortunately, part of how I got over that shock was to throw myself into my work, which now included Tert’s painting.

  I shall be candid. I dove into the job like any other form of an obsessive-compulsive disorder, first rationalizing that I’d pick up the books I needed while studying other things, and then using my growing interest in artists’ pigments as a carrot on the end of the stick to reward myself for doing other tasks—as in, I’ll read one more chapter in my geochemistry text and then I’ll let myself kick back and fiddle with pigments some more. In no time at all, I was fully out of control, taking every available moment to mess with the project, rationalizing that I was working on my thesis, but knowing full well I was digging at some kind of crime.