Corpus Christmas

She loosened her pink jacket button by button and a languid smile touched her lips when she saw how Lowry’s eyes followed her fingers.

As an interested spectator, Sigrid usually enjoyed watching other women operate, but it was almost three and she didn’t feel like wasting more time. “What would Mr. Munson tell us?” she asked crisply.

“That he didn’t drop me at my apartment near Lincoln Center Wednesday night,” Hester replied. “I met Ben Peake after the party. We talked about an hour, then I went home. Alone. And before you ask, no, I can’t prove it.”

“You’d just seen Dr. Peake,” said Sigrid. “Why did you meet again so quickly?”

“There were private things we needed to discuss.”

“Things Shambley had brought up in the library?” Sigrid asked.

“Ben told you about that?”

“He gave us his version-” Sigrid said carefully.

Hester Kohn interrupted with a ladylike snort and ran her fingers through her short black hair. “I’ll bet he did!”

“-and no doubt, Mr. Munson will have his own version of what he overheard Shambley say,” Sigrid finished smoothly.

The seductive languor disappeared from Hester Kohn’s body and she became wary and all business. “There’s no need to question Jacob about this.”

“No?”

“No.” She cast a speculative woman-to-woman look at Sigrid. “Oscar and Jacob have been friends for as long as I can remember. Even since I was a little girl. Oscar could tell you how much this gallery means to Jacob.”

Her words contained a not-too-subtle threat, which Sigrid coldly ignored. “And not to you, too?”

“Of course to me,” she answered impatiently. “But it’s different for Jacob. He’s old-world with a capital O and that means things like honor and mano. It’s going to kill him to admit there’s ever been anything a little under-the-table with the gallery, but to admit it to a woman-!”

Her hazel eyes slid over Jim Lowry’s muscular body. “He might talk to you,” she told him.

“He’s chauvinistic?” asked Sigrid.

“He’s a gentleman,” Hester Kohn corrected with a grimace. “That means women are ladies. You charm ladies, you marry them, you have sons with them, but you don’t take them too seriously or admit them to power. Look around the gallery, Lieutenant Harald: We represent two female artists. And both of them are dead.

“Jacob used to think that Paul and I would marry and Paul would run the business. Then when Paul died, and it was too late to rope in Suza

Bright spots of angry red flamed in her cheeks. “Every time I really think about it, I feel like screaming. Men made the tax laws, Ben Peake and his friend came up with the figures, and all I did was sign the appraisal, but who does Jacob blame the most? Three guesses.”

“I’m sorry, Miss Kohn,” said Jim Lowry, “but I don’t understand. Tax laws? Appraisal?”

“It’s absolutely routine,” she said defensively. “Anyhow, half the galleries in the country are doing it, too.”

Abruptly, it dawned on her that neither detective knew what she was talking about. “I thought you said Ben told you.”

“I said he gave us his version,” Sigrid reminded her. “And we still have to hear Mr. Munson’s.”

With an angry sigh, Hester Kohn sank back into the cushions of the plum love seat. “This happened a couple of years ago while Ben was still at the Friedinger. One of the patrons there was in serious need of a large tax write-off. Basically, the way it works is that a donor gives a nonprofit institution a work of art. An independent appraiser estimates how much the work is worth and the donor then lists that figure in his tax returns as a charitable donation.”

“The appraiser-you, in fact-inflates the figure?” Sigrid asked.

Hester Kohn nodded.

“But why would the institution that’s getting the artwork go along with that?” asked Lowry.

“What do they care?” Her voice was cynical. “They’re getting a donation they otherwise wouldn’t and next time, it might be a really important gift. Besides, if they decide to deaccess, it’s usually worth at least half the appraised price.”

Sigrid looked at her inquiringly. “Only in this particular case-”

“In this particular case, it was worth about a quarter of what Jacob Munson said it was worth.”

“You signed his name to an appraisal statement?” asked Lowry.

“He’s the judge of artistic merit in this firm,” Hester Kohn said with bitterness. “I’m just the business and financial side. My signature wouldn’t have sufficed. See, Jacob isn’t asked to appraise things very often because everyone in the business knows he’s so goddamned straight-arrow. He might come down on the high side, but his figures are usually within two or three thousand of the true value. The tax people know this, too, and they haven’t bothered to question him in years.”

“So how much kickback did you and Peake get?” Sigrid asked.

“I had a pool put in at my house in Riverhead,” she said candidly. “I believe Ben bought a car.”

“And Shambley threatened to blow the whistle on you?” asked Jim Lowry.

Hester Kohn shrugged and plucked a piece of lint from the dark purple upholstery. “Ben thought so, but I wasn’t that sure. Roger Shambley was so effing devious. He never came straight out and said what he meant. It was all hypothetical and insinuating. Frankly, I thought he was sounding us out to see if we’d go along with some scheme he was hatching.”

“Oh?”

She nodded. “Sort of as if he were saying he knew we’d bent the rules once before and got away with it and maybe we could do something for him. Or with him. It wasn’t clear.”

“So you and Dr. Peake didn’t feel threatened by him?”

“Not really. I certainly didn’t.” She crossed her shapely legs and adjusted the hem of her short pink skirt. “Neither of us wanted Jacob to find out about that tax scam, of course, but it’s not like we were going to go to jail or anything if it came out. Appraisals are subjective judgments, right?”

“You forged your partner’s name,” Lowry pointed out.

“Ye-s,” she admitted, “but if it came right down to it, Jacob would claim it was his signature. He’d rather hush it up and say he’d made an honest mistake than let the gallery’s name be dragged through the mud with one of its owners up for forgery.”

She stood up and walked over to stare through the window at the buildings of midtown Manhattan. A wave of gardenia reached the two police officers as she turned back to face them. “Look, I know I’ve been rather flip about it and Jacob really does make me furious at times, but go easy on him about what Ben and I did, okay? He’s an old man and the gallery’s all he has now.”

“What about his grandson?” asked Lowry.

She shook her dark head. “He’s a sweet kid, but Richard Evans doesn’t know art from artichokes. Wouldn’t surprise me if he went home for Christmas and never came back.”

“One moment, acushla,” said Francesca Leeds from her suite high in the Hotel Maintenon. She removed a heavy gold-and-amber earring and then returned the receiver to her ear. When she spoke, her voice was like warm melted syrup, so pleased was she to hear Oscar’s voice on her private line again.

“It’s been almost two years. How many people did you have to call to find my number?”

“None,” Nauman replied, making her pulse quicken before he added, “It was on the gallery’s Rolodex.”

“Beast! You’re supposed to say it’s engraved on your heart.”

He laughed. “Elliott Buntrock just called. He wants to have a short meeting here at the gallery tomorrow afternoon. ‘Talk turkey’ was how he put it. Think you and Thorvaldsen can make it?”

Francesca looked at the calendar on her desk. “What time?”

“Three-thirty?”

“Four would probably be better for Søren.”