The Monet Murders (The Art of Murder 2)
Jason was starting to get exasperated, but he said with reasonable—he thought—patience, “The source you refuse to reveal?”
“Look.” Shipka stopped. Seemed to struggle inwardly. “You’re gay, right?”
Suddenly it wasn’t funny anymore. “What the hell does that have to do with anything?”
“I knew it. I’m gay too.” Shipka was gazing at him with meaningful, even hopeful intensity.
“So what?”
“So Shepherd Durrand is gay. The kind of gay our daddies used to warn us about.” By “daddies” Shipka was not referring to Shipka senior or Peter West. That much was obvious.
Jason started to speak, but Shipka hurried on, “Havemeyer was part of that whole arty scene back in New York. He was part of that circle. When Fletcher-Durrand was the biggest name in art. And Donald Kerk was there too.”
Donald Kerk. Was there a connection? Maybe Jason’s face revealed more than he imagined, because Shipka said hastily, “And yes, I know this is all before your time. Mine too. I know it sounds like a-a—”
“Don’t say fairy tale.”
“No. Look, West, I know what you think, and it is mostly rumor and speculation. Okay. I admit that. But I’ve got an instinct for this kind of thing. Just like you do for your kind of thing. But you don’t believe me; fine. I can continue to work that angle on my own. Although I don’t have your resources. I can’t force anyone to talk to me.”
Join the club. But Jason kept the thought to himself.
“What is not speculation is that Durrand is selling multiple percentages in paintings in order to finance more acquisitions.”
“That’s not against the law,” Jason said impatiently. “That’s standard practice for operations like Fletcher-Durrand. It’s extremely expensive to purchase some of these 19th and 20th century masterpieces, so they get investors to put up the cash, and then—ideally—everybody makes a healthy profit when the work is sold.”
“That’s the theory,” Shipka agreed. “But suppose Durrand is selling more shares than there is art?”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning that he’s sold more than two hundred percent worth of shares in a couple of paintings currently up for sale.”
“‘He’ being…?”
“Barnaby. I think.”
“You think.” Jason frowned, thinking. “What are the paintings? Do you know?”
Shipka smiled. “That I can help you with. Paul-César Helleu’s Lady with a White Umbrella. However you say that in French. I guess it’s a lot like a picture by Monet? And a 1950 painting by Toyen from his Neither Wings nor Stones series. Both paintings have investors holding over two hundred percent shares worth of painting.”
“Can you give me the name of one of these investors?”
Shipka finished his beer and set the mug down. “Not without putting my source in jeopardy.”
“Seriously?” Jason asked. Insiders joked that the art market was even less regulated than gun running and drug smuggling. The only real law was discretion.
Shipka rose. “Yes, I am serious. If I’m correct in my suspicions, these are very dangerous people. Maybe you haven’t heard the rumors about Barnaby back in the day. Not to mention Shepherd. But I have. And before you blow me off as a conspiracy theorist or some other kind of nut, maybe you should do a little more poking around.”
Jason rose too. “Have I blown you off??
??
“No. Not completely. But you don’t believe me about Havemeyer.”
“Believe what? You said yourself that as far as you could tell, it—whatever it is supposed to be—was rumor and speculation.”
“Murder is what it’s supposed to be,” Shipka said bluntly. “Cold-blooded murder.”
Jason was silent. Shipka might have his facts wrong, but he believed what he was saying. You didn’t have to be a BAU profiler to see that much. And there was no question that where there was a lot of money involved, dangerous people could always be found. The nerves in Jason’s shoulder tingled in unhappy muscle memory.