One Coffee With

With Sigrid Harald he felt none of these subtle nuances, and it piqued him. She seemed as sexless as a young boy. For a brief moment he wondered if he were getting too old; then his subconscious pride discarded that hypothesis and flicked onto other reasons. Could she be frigid? A lesbian? Or had she been too early or too bitterly rejected? Was her prickly facade merely a thick shell covering a romantic nature? He rather favored that last theory and thought it might be interesting to prove.

"Renaissance portraits, right?" (In his experience most closet romantics loved the Renaissance.) "Botticelli, Raphael, Michelangelo?"

"Some of them," she admitted. "But my favorites-do you know those pen-and-ink heads by Dürer? And Holbein? And especially those drawings by Lucas Cranach?"

"The Goths?" Nauman was astounded. His memory conjured up those north-European masters of the late Middle Ages, the sober and pure linear quality of their work. He had thought to furnish this odd young woman's mind with romanticism, gorgeous costumes and rich colors; but she had outreached him, stripped away all nonessentials and retreated to the uncluttered simplicity and elegance of late Gothic line and form.

"I told you I don't know much about art," Sigrid said tightly as he broke into delighted laughter.

"I'm not laughing at you but at myself. For jumping to unwarranted conclusions." If she could respond to the austere directness of these drawings… There seemed to be more to this unusual policewoman than he'd suspected.

He put on his most charming air and tried to draw her out, but his laughter had offended. She ate neatly but swiftly with the air of one who'd had to leave more than one meal unfinished.

Nettled, Nauman concentrated on his own steak. "I might have known you wouldn't like anything created in this century," he said crossly.

"Actually you're wrong." The steak had been surprisingly good, the ale refreshing, and now that Nauman had quit trying to be charming, Sigrid felt more at ease. "I saw a small black and brown painting at the Qui

"Are you putting me on?" he asked suspiciously.

"Why? Isn't it any good, either?" Enlightenment dawned in her gray eyes. "Oh. Is it yours?"

He nodded. "I did that thirty years ago, but it was damn good. You've just made it impossible for me to attack your taste."

"Excellent. Perhaps now we can quit pretending this is a social occasion and get down to work."

She pushed aside the dishes and opened her ubiquitous notebook. "You must have known Professor Qui

"Because of that tableau you saw with Doris Qui

"They did seem… intimate."

Nauman smiled at the chasteness of the term. "If Piers Leyden wanted Riley Qui

"Against what?"

"Against what Qui

"Riley was a bastard," he said slowly, "but he knew a hell of a lot about art trends since the war, and he didn't hesitate to make value judgments. If he said your work had merit, you'd stop having trouble getting a gallery to show it. If he said it was good, you'd start selling occasionally. And if he called it of lasting value, you'd sell things regularly, and people would come around to your studio begging you to accept their commissions."

"There's been so much crap floating around these past few years-pop, op, slop-that collectors with more money than confidence in their own taste depend on someone like Riley. It's similar to what Bernard Berenson did for Renaissance art. It's all very well to buy a trendy piece of art because it amuses you; but if a Riley Qui

"Like having someone tell you Picasso's going to be Picasso before he actually becomes Picasso, and the prices go up," Sigrid said thoughtfully. "And Qui

"You do have a talent for understatement," Nauman smiled. "Leyden's a good draftsman, and he knows more about anatomy and the way muscles work than most doctors, but he doesn't have much taste.

"Ordinarily that wouldn't matter," he added cynically.

"His things are probably better than many of Riley's pets, but Qui

"How will Qui

Nauman's eyes narrowed, and his speech became telegraphic as his mind zipped through possibilities. "Final draft… on the other hand… intestate… and Saxer's hungry enough, God knows."

He sipped his ale moodily, and Sigrid struggled to catch up with him. Final draft-well, that was clear enough: the book was finished but not yet at the publishers. If Qui

"So if there are things Piers Leyden wants changed, Mrs. Qui

"That's what I said!" Nauman snapped.

Sigrid's eyebrows lifted. She saw this reaction frequently when decent people involved in an investigation suddenly realized that a person they knew had committed murder, and that they were being asked to help hunt that person down-to trap him, knowing that the guilty one might be a friend or colleague. With that initial awareness came anger, a reluctance to betray anyone and a shrinking away in distaste.

His reaction made Nauman seem human and vulnerable; and for the first time since meeting him, Sigrid was conscious of the man's age. He had such a forceful personality that she hadn't noticed it before. His white hair was not just the famous Nauman trademark; the lines in his face did not denote character only. They were milestones from days and months of living that added up to years. With an unexpected feeling of regret she realized that he was old-that his first recognized masterpiece must have been painted years before she'd even been born.

There were brown age marks on the backs of his hands. But even as she saw them she noted the vigorous body, saw that the fingers that steadied his pipe were sensate and strong; and when he laid his pipe aside and impatiently raked his thick white hair with those fingers, it seemed absurd to think of him as anything but ageless, no matter what the calendars said.

"So you think one of us poisoned Riley Qui

"Eight if you count Harley Harris and Mike Szabo. I'm still not sure how Qui

"Mike has a hot temper," Nauman objected. "Poisoning would be too deliberate for him."

Sigrid reserved judgment and asked, "If Janos Karoly was an important artist, why is his nephew working as a janitor?"

"Important artists come from all classes of society, Lieutenant, and they seldom make much money till after they're dead," Nauman said bitterly. "Then it's the entrepreneurs and promoters like Riley who cash in on their works. Do you know Karoly's paintings?"

Sigrid shook her head. "No. I think

I've heard the name, but you were right when you guessed that twentieth-century art doesn't much interest me."

Perversely he was pleased that she didn't apologize or make a pretense of excepting his work. He had always preferred indifference over the empty flattery of someone who hadn't the least understanding of what he was striving for. Open hostility would be even better because anger implied that the viewer took the work seriously enough to feel challenged by Nauman's assumptions.