The Monet Murders (The Art of Murder 2)

Chapter One

“Emerson Harley understood that the threat was not simply to the greatest cultural and artistic achievements of all time—the fascist forces of World War Two threatened civilization itself.”

The speeches were well under way when his cell phone began to vibrate.

Having arrived late, Jason stood at the back of the sizeable audience crowding into the wide entrance hall of the California History Museum of Beverly Hills, but even so, he felt the disapproval radiating from that chunk of prime real estate at the front of the room, the holdings currently occupied by the West family—his family. How the hell they could possibly know he was even present, let alone failing to live up to famille expectation was a mystery, but after thirty-three years he was used to it.

Surreptitiously, he pulled his cell out for a quick look at the caller and felt a leap of pleasure. Sam.

Behavioral Analysis Unit Chief Sam Kennedy and he were, well, involved. That was maybe the best word for it.

All the same, he nearly shelved the call. Not that he didn’t look forward to talking to Sam—God knows, it was a rare enough occurrence these days—but the dedication of a museum wing to your grandfather did kind of take precedence. Should, anyway.

Some instinct made him click Accept. He smiled in apology, edging his way through the crowd of black ties and evening dresses, stepping into the Ancient Americas room with its exhibition of pre-Columbian art and ceramics.

“Hey.” Jason kept his voice down, but that “hey” seemed to whisper up and down the row of stony Olmec faces. It would be hard, maybe impossible, to put a collection like this together nowadays. Not only were artifacts of enormous cultural significance disappearing into private hands at a breathtaking rate, Native American activists often—and maybe rightly—blocked the excavation of human remains and artifacts as desecration of sacred space.

“Hey,” Sam said crisply. “You’re about to get called out to a crime scene. Homicide.”

“Okay.” This was a little weird. How would Sam, posted back at Quantico, know that? And why would he bother to inform Jason?

“I can’t talk.” Sam was still brusque, still speaking quietly, as though afraid of being overheard. That in itself was interesting. Not like Sam had ever given a damn about what anyone thought about anything. “I wanted you to have a heads-up. I’m on scene as well.”

Jason’s heart gave another of those disconcerting jumps. Finally. Same corner of the crime fighting universe at the same time. It had been…what? Massachusetts had been June, and it was now February. Eight months. Almost a year. It felt like a year.

“Got it.” Jason was equally curt. Because he did get it. These days Sam was in a different league. When they’d met, Sam had been under a cloud, his career on the line. Now his reputation was restored, and his standing was pretty much unassailable. Jason, by contrast, remained a lowly field agent with the Art Crime Team. And though the Bureau did not have an official non-frat policy, discretion was part of the job description. Right there with Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity.

His phone alerted him to another incoming call.

“See you here.” Sam disconnected.

Jason automatically clicked the incoming call. “West.”

A cool, cultured voice said, “Agent West, this is ADC Ritchie.”

After an astonished beat, he said politely, “Ma’am?” Like a phone call from the Assistant Director in Charge was a usual thing.

“I’m sorry to call you out on what I know is a special evening for you and your family, but we have a situation that could benefit from your particular expertise.”

Jason said blankly, “Of course.”

This kind of call—not that he had so many of this kind of call—typically came from Supervisory Special Agent George Potts, his squad supervisor at the very large and very powerful Los Angeles field office.

“We have a dead foreign national on—or, more exactly, under—Santa Monica pier. He appears to be a buyer for the Nacht Galerie in Berlin. Gil Hickok at LAPD is requesting our support. Also…” ADC Ritchie’s tone changed indefinably. “BAU Chief Sam Kennedy seems to feel your participation in this investigation would be particularly helpful.”

Translation: the ADC was as bewildered as Jason. Why the hell would the BAU butt into the investigation of the homicide of a German national—let alone requisition manpower from the local field office Art Crime Team?

Except…Detective Gil Hickok didn’t just head LAPD’s Art Theft Detail. He was basically the art cop for most of Southern California and had been for the last twenty years. Smaller forces like Santa Monica PD didn’t keep their own art experts on the payroll; they relied on LAPD’s resources. LAPD’s two-man Art Theft Detail was the only such full-time municipal law enforcement unit in the United States. If Gil was requesting Jason’s assistance, there was a good reason—beyond the fact that a murdered buyer from one of Germany’s leading art galleries would naturally be of interest to Jason.

Attention now fully engaged, Jason was eager to get on site—and that had zero to do with the fact that Sam would be there.

He heard out Ritchie, who really had little to add beyond the initial information, and said, “I’m on my way.”

Clicking off, he stepped into the arched doorway, scanning the crowd. All eyes were fastened on the short, stout man behind the lectern positioned at the front of the newly constructed hall, trying to cope with the piercing bursts of mic feedback punctuating his speech.

“In March 1945, Harley was named Deputy Chief of the MFAA Section under British Monuments Man Lt. Col. Geoffrey Webb. Stationed at SHAEF headquarters at Versailles and later in Frankfurt, Harley and Webb coordinated the operations of Monuments Men in the field as well as managing submitted field reports and planning future MFAA operations. Harley traveled extensively and at great personal peril across the A

merican Zone of Occupation in pursuit of looted works of art and cultural objects.”

Correction. Not all eyes were fastened on museum curator Edward Howie. Jason’s sister Sophie was watching for him.

Sophie, tall, dark, and elegant in a jade green Vera Wang halter gown, was married to Republican Congressman Clark Vincent, also in attendance. Clark tried to be in attendance anywhere the press might be. Sophie was the middle kid, but if she suffered from middle-child syndrome, it had manifested itself in rigorous overachievement and a general bossiness of anyone in her realm. She had seventeen years on Jason and considered him her pet project.

Jason held his phone up and shook his head, his expression that blend of apology and resolve all law enforcement officers perfected for such occasions. There were inevitably a lot of them. That was another part of the job description.

Sophie, who moonlighted as the family enforcer, expressed her displeasure through her eyebrows. She paid a lot of money for those brows, and they served her well. Right now they were looking Harley-Quinnish.

Jason tried to work a bit more abject into his silent apology—he was, in fact, sincerely sorry to miss the dedication, but if anyone would have understood, it was Grandpa Harley, who had missed more than a few family celebrations of his own while trying to save civilization from the Nazis. Sophie shook her head in disapproval and disappointment. But there was also resignation in that gesture, and Jason took that as permission for takeoff.

He jetted.

* * * * *

It took a fucking forever to find a place to park.

That was something they didn’t ever show on TV or the movies: the detective having to park a mile away and hike to his crime scene. But it happened.

Especially when you were last man on the scene.

Santa Monica on a Sunday night—even in February—was a busy place. The one-hundred-year-old landmark pier was bustling with fun seekers, street vendors, and performance artists—even a few die-hard fishermen, poles in hand. As Jason reached the bottom of Colorado Avenue, he could see the glittering multicolored Ferris wheel churning leisurely through the heavy purple and pewter clouds. Little cars whizzed up and down the twinkling yellow loops of the rollercoaster.

The pier deck was filled, as were the lower lots barricaded by black and whites, their blue and red LED lights flashing in the night like sinister amusement-park rides. Jason had to park south of the pier and hike back along the mostly empty beach. As he walked past parked cars and the towering silhouettes of palm trees, he could see uniformed officers and crime-scene technicians in the distance, moving around beneath the crooked black shape of the pier. Flashlight beams darted like fireflies among the pylons. Small clutches of people stood short distances from each other, watching.

He reached the perimeter of the crime scene, flashed his tin, and got a few surprised looks from the unis. That probably had more to do with his formal dress—he hadn’t had a chance to do more than grab his backup piece and replace his tux with his vest—than the Bureau being on the scene.

“The party’s over there,” an officer informed him, holding up the yellow and black CS ribbon.

“Can’t wait for the buffet,” Jason muttered, ducking under the tape. His shoes sunk into the soft, pale sand with a whisper.

The neon lights of the pier and the glittering solar panels of the Ferris wheel lit the way across the beach. From the arcade overhead drifted the sound of shouts—happy shouts—music and games. He could hear the jaunty tunes of the vintage carousel and the screams of people riding the rollercoaster.

All the while, beneath the pier, came the steady click, click, click of cameras flashing from different angles.