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“So you could stab me if I challenged you,” I put in.
“You never even knew I was there. And you didn’t follow me. Nobody followed me. Nobody even knew I left, and I went around the corner with the icepick hidden under my jacket and I went up Broadway and dumped it in the first dumpster I came to, and you couldn’t possibly have gotten it out of there.” He drew himself triumphantly to his full height. “So it’s a bluff,” he told Ray. “If there’s any blood on that thing it’s not Eddie’s. Somebody planted that icepick and it wasn’t the murder weapon in the first place.”
“I guess it was just another icepick that happened to be in your room,” Ray said. “But now that you’ve told us where to look for the other one, I don’t think we’ll have a whole lot of trouble finding it. Should be easier than a needle in a haystack, anyway. What else do you want to tell us?”
“I don’t have to tell you anything,” Jacobi said.
“Now you’re absolutely right about that,” Ray said. “As a matter of fact, you have the right to remain silent, and you have the right to-”
Di dah di dah di dah.
After Rockland had led him away, Ray Kirschma
Barnett Reeves asked what it was.
“A paintin’,” Ray told him. “Another of the Moondrains, except it’s a fake. Turnquist painted it for Barlow and Barlow sold it to Onderdonk and stole it back after he killed him. It’s a perfect match for the broken frame and bits of canvas we found with Onderdonk’s body in the bedroom closet.”
“I can’t believe it,” Mrs. Barlow said. “Do you mean to say my husband carried that thing off and didn’t have the brains to destroy it?”
“He probably didn’t have the opportunity, ma’am. What was he go
Oh, God.
“Anyway,” he went on, presenting it to Orville Widener, “here it is.”
Widener looked as though his dog had just brought home carrion. “What’s this?” he said. “Why are you giving it to me?”
“I just told you what it is,” Ray said, “and I’m givin’ it to you on account of the reward.”
“What reward?”
“The thirty-five grand reward your company’s go
“You must be out of your mind,” Widener snapped. “You think we’re going to pay that kind of money for a worthless fraud?”
“It’s a fraud, okay, but it’s a long ways from worthless. You can pay me the thirty-five grand and say thank you while you do it, because otherwise you’d be ponyin’ up ten times as much to the cousin in Calgary.”
“That’s nonsense,” Widener said. “We don’t have to pay anything to anybody. The painting’s a fake.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Wally Hemphill said, one hand on his wounded knee. “Onderdonk paid the premiums and you people took them. The fact that it was a fake and was overinsured doesn’t alter your responsibility. The insured acted in good faith-he certainly believed it to be authentic and he had paid a price for it commensurate with the coverage he took out on it. You have to restore the insured painting to my client in Calgary or else reimburse him for a loss in the amount of $350,000.”
“I’ll see what our own legal people have to say about that.”
“They’ll say just what I just got through telling you,” Wally said, “and I don’t know what you’re in a huff about. You’re getting off cheap. If it weren’t for Detective Kirschma
“Then Detective Kirschma
“I don’t think so,” Wally said, “because we need the fake in order to substantiate our suit against Barlow. Barlow’s got money, and he got some of it from my client’s deceased uncle, and I intend to bring suit to recover the price paid for the spurious Mondrian. And I’m also representing Detective Kirschma
“We’re a reputable company. I resent your use of the word ‘weasel.’”
“Oh, please,” Wally said. “You people invented the word.”
Barnett Reeves cleared his throat. “I have a question,” he said. “What about the real painting?”
“Huh?” somebody said. Probably several people, actually.
“The real painting,” Reeves said, pointing to the canvas that Lloyd Lewes had authenticated several revelations ago. “If there’s no objection, I should like to take that back to the Hewlett Gallery, where it belongs.”
“Now wait a minute,” Widener said. “If my people are coming up with $35,000-”
“That’s for that thing,” Reeves said. “I want my painting.”
“And you’ll get yours,” I said, gesturing toward the acrylic hanging over the fireplace. “That’s the painting that was on display in your gallery, Mr. Reeves, and that’s the painting you’ll take back with you.”
“We never should have had it in the first place. Mr. Barlow donated a genuine Mondrian-”
“Nope,” I said. “He donated a fake, and he didn’t even cheat you by doing it. Because it never cost you people a pe
“Then who does?”
“I do,” Mrs. Barlow said. “The police officers took it from my apartment, but that doesn’t mean my husband and I relinquish title to it.”
“You don’t have title,” Reeves said. “You gave title to the museum.”
“Not true,” Wally said. “My client in Calgary should get the painting. It should have passed to Onderdonk, and so it now passes in fact to Onderdonk’s heirs.”
“That’s all nonsense,” Elspeth Petrosian cried. “That thief Barlow never had clear title to it in the first place. The painting belongs to me. It was promised to me by my grandfather, Haig Petrosian, and someone stole it before his wishes could be carried out. I don’t care what Barlow paid for it or who he did or didn’t sell it to. He never dealt with a rightful owner in the first place. That’s my painting.”
“I’d love to include it in the retrospective,” Mordecai Danforth said, “while all of this is being sorted out, but I suppose that’s out of the question.”
Ray Kirschma