THE PLAY OF LIGHT AND SHADOW – Part II

by Barry Ergang

            The others roused; their murmurs and stirrings made the room hum again with apprehension.  Darnell swore, staring at the empty frame.  The brackets around his mouth deepened. 

            “Nobody got past us, Darnell,” I said tightly.

            He didn’t reply.  He looked at the assemblage, from one of us to the other.  Barton Gaines stared at the empty frame in mortified consternation.  Beside him, one hand on his shoulder, her lips compressed, Marjorie was a portrait of shocked outrage.  Julian Lakehurst, shifting uneasily from foot to foot, shook his head and muttered inaudibly.  With a pained expression, Carol Prentice moved stiffly to one of the padded benches and sat down, her youthful buoyancy and litheness overcome by sudden gravity. 

            The soundless burst of light from Derek’s camera might as well have been a thunderclap.  We all started nervously.    

            “Put it away,” Darnell ordered.  Derek lifted a conciliatory hand and lowered the camera.  His face was blank, but his eyes gleamed with satisfaction at having gotten his picture.

            Sipping champagne, Alexis strolled complacently among the guests.  “Poor Bart and Carol,” she said.  “Their baby kidnapped.  Probably by an art critic.”

            “That‘s enough, Alexis,” Marjorie snapped.

            Darnell moved to the closet door, then signaled to me.  He reached beneath his jacket and drew his gun, provoking more gasps from the crowd.

            “It’s all right,” Gaines told them.  “Mr. Darnell is a detective in my employ.”

            “And a wonderful detective, at that,” Alexis sneered.

            “Handkerchief,” Darnell mouthed, nodding toward the door. 

            I took a handkerchief from my pocket and wrapped it around the doorknob.  The room fell silent.  Darnell kept the gun aimed at the door while I, from the hinged side, slowly turned the knob, then, tensing, yanked the door open.  The closet was empty except for the vacuum hose nozzle-flat on the floor, the ladder, and the duster.  After a brief scrutiny, Darnell closed the door.  He holstered the gun and, moving to a corner, waved Gaines and me over.  Marjorie joined us. 

            “Who was in here while I was talking to Chadwick?” Darnell asked.

            “Eight of us,“ Marjorie said.  “Derek took some pictures of the girls and me.”  

            “Alexis, too, for a moment,“ I added.  “But the room was empty before we locked it.  You saw it yourself.”

            Darnell nodded sourly.  “Maybe we’d better invite the cops.”

            “Absolutely not.”  Marjorie’s voice was low but intense.  “We’re paying you to handle this.”

            “A felony’s been committed, Mrs. Gaines.”

            “I don’t care.  I told you I wanted this to be low-profile.  I won’t have policemen, and possibly reporters, crawling all over my home.” 

            “And I have no authority to detain your guests.”

            “Why should that be necessary?  Obviously Paul Marchand succeeded in stealing the painting.”

            “Obviously?”

            “Stop fencing, Mr. Darnell.”

            “Okay.  Suppose Marchand’s not your thief.  Suppose it’s someone here in the house now.”

            With one instinct we looked at the people thronging the room.  Some of our university colleagues were talking among themselves; others communed with their own thoughts.  Lakehurst lingered by the plundered easel, his glance fastened on the empty stretcher that lay on the floor, perhaps staring through and beyond it.  Carol still sat on the bench, hunched over now, right hand abstractedly rubbing her knee, left elbow on her thigh, left hand shielding her eyes as if against the unbearable glare of Nomad’s absence.  Two of the art students huddled with her, offering solace.  Alexis's expression combined insouciance and arrogance as she sat down on another bench, sipped her champagne, and surveyed the room.  Derek, forbidden to use his camera, moved about with apparent aimlessness, yet with eyes that seemed to be framing shots of people and paintings.  The Gaines and Crowell family members formed a protective knot against outsiders. 

            “That‘s nonsense,” Marjorie said. 

            “Is it?  Everyone here today knew about the painting.  Plenty of them--maybe all--know the Marchand story.  Someone might’ve used it to his advantage.”

            “Once again, nonsense.”

            Darnell let out a breath.  “What do you want me to do, Mrs. Gaines?”

            “Recover the painting.  It would still be here if you’d been more alert.”

            “Then I’ll have to talk to some of your guests and the help.  You’ll have to keep everyone in the house or on the grounds.  I can’t detain them.”

            Barton Gaines’s face brightened with feverish hope.  “Then you think the painting is somewhere in the house?” 

            “I don‘t know.  But if it is and people start leaving, the odds are greater it’ll go, too.”

            Gaines, looking at Marjorie, spoke to Darnell:  “We’ll try to convince them to stay.”

            A moment later they were entreating their guests to partake of lunch and not to let the regrettable event put a damper on the party.  

            “You don’t exactly endear yourself to your clients, do you?”  I said as guests and hosts left the gallery.

            “Detectives are like proctologists.  Sometimes they’re necessary, but nobody likes them poking around.”  He rubbed his eyes with a thumb and forefinger.  “Okay, Professor, tell me what happened while I was chasing Chadwick.”

            I did, including every detail I could recall, right up to his return during our final inspection of the room.  Uncertain as to its relevance, I told him about the argument between Derek and Alexis I had overheard. 

            “You say Derek took a picture of the gallery from the doorway after everyone was out.  A picture of what?  And why?”

            I shrugged.  “Maybe he wanted a panoramic shot of the gallery.”

            “Mm-hmm.  Look around, Professor.  This room is full of paintings worth a lot more than the Riveau.  Why weren’t any of them taken?    

            “Marchand didn’t have time?” I asked lamely.

            “Yeah, sure.  This master thief comes and goes invisibly, gets in and out of locked, guarded rooms, has a history of stealing masterpieces, but only has time to rip off what looks like something Hieronymus Bosch did after a three-day bender--the least valuable piece in the place.”

            “It’s his style, as Bart said.”

            “And why today?  Why grab it in a house full of people?”

            “Once again: style.  He’s a showman.”

            “Mm-hmm.  C’mon.”  He went to the closet and opened it.  “See anything different?”

            After further examination, I admitted I didn’t.

            “Look at the shelf.”

            Doing so, I noticed a crescent-shaped disturbance in the dust at the front edge.  “I see it, but I don’t understand it.  It wasn’t there this morning, and I’d swear it wasn’t there when we looked before we locked up.”

            “What about this?” He pointed at a small blue smudge a few inches above shelf level on the left-hand wall.

            “It wasn’t there.”

            “I know.”

            “Then how did it get there?” I asked exasperatedly.

            “Good question.”  He closed the door.  “Let’s have a talk with Derek.  I want to see the picture on that disk.”

            A funereal rather than celebratory atmosphere shadowed the living room, the mood somber and subdued, infecting even the black-clad student hostesses who served robotically, bereft of their earlier sprightliness.  Only Lakehurst showed signs of animation, excitedly telling a small group of people about Paul Marchand: “As art thieves go, he’s among the best.  He’s never been caught, there’s no evidence outside of Riveau’s journal to link him to any crimes, and yet his audacity is spectacular.  Why, he once looted a museum in Paris of....”  

            Derek was nowhere in sight.

            A dispirited Carol Prentice, holding a tray of champagne glasses, drifted by without noticing us.  I touched her arm and asked if she’d seen him.

            “Derek?”  Her tone held the muzziness of someone who has just awakened from a confusion of dreams.  “No.  No, I haven’t.”  She blinked rapidly, as though straining to see  through a fog.

            “Did he leave?”

            “Leave?” she repeated. 

            “Wake up, Carol,” Darnell snapped.  “Where is he?”

            She blinked again, staring through the fog from eyes suddenly moist.  “I’m sorry,” she whispered with barren hopelessness.  “It’s been a horrible day.”

            I put a hand on her shoulder.  “Carol, we know you’re upset about the painting, but we have to find Derek.  Do you know where he is?”

            She shook her head, blinking, a tear trailing down her cheek, and without another word moved away.

            “Big help,” Darnell muttered.

            “She takes it personally.  She’s deeply involved in Bart’s project.”

            “Yeah, well, it’s not helping us find Derek.”

            We continued to inquire among the guests and students, but none of them had seen him.

            “Let’s look upstairs,” Darnell said.

            We went up to the second floor and along the hallway, glancing into bedrooms.  Bart‘s and Marjorie‘s, complete with sitting area, was spacious and beautifully appointed.  Shelves lined one wall, filled with books, a stereo system, compact discs, a television set, and bric-a-brac.  Predictably, paintings and photographs abounded.

            Athletic trophies atop a low bookcase indicated that the smaller room across the hall belonged to Carol Prentice. Its decorations reflected her passion for art.  Unframed reproductions of famous paintings and posters advertising museum exhibitions floated against the walls without apparent support.  The towel she’d used at poolside lay discarded on the bed.

            We continued down the hall.  Alexis Crowell came out of the room next to her mother’s and stepfather’s.  Despite her apartment in the city, she evidently still maintained quarters here, too.  Holding a glass of champagne and moving with an inebriate’s self-consciousness, she raised her glass in a mocking salute.  Champagne slopped over the rim.

            “No boogieman up here,” she needled Darnell.

            “What about Derek?”

            “He’s not a boogieman.”  She shook her head with exaggerated emphasis.

            “Lexie, where is he?” I asked.

            “Prob’ly taking pictures of the scull’ry maid.”  Her laugh was off-key, brittle, her eyes unfocused and her voice thick with the effort to enunciate.

            “Lexie…”

            “Y’really a bartender now, Alan?”

            “Yes.  At Culhane’s.  Come in sometime and I’ll buy you a drink.”

            “Oh, you can’t afford what I drink.”

            What she drank was disaffection, buried anger, and self-loathing, a brew bitterer than any bartender could  concoct.  I was glad of my impoverishment. 

            “Ms. Crowell,” Darnell said sharply, “where’s Derek?”

            “Ooh!  Grilling me, Mr. Detective?”  She thrust out her hip, patted it, and made a loud kissing noise.  “Just what the hell is a scull’ry, and why does it need a maid?”  

            “Lexie, this is important,” I said.

            “So serious, Alan!”  She made a face.  “Oh, all right.  He went to get lunch.” 

            We went back downstairs and retraced the path we’d taken when we first entered the house, emerging onto the deck near the pool.  The sunlight was dazzling, the air  thick with heat and humidity.  Guests filled their plates before sitting down at the umbrella-shaded tables.  Derek wasn’t among them.  We continued around the house, neither of us speaking, our footfalls on the deck the only sound.

            We found him not far from sliding glass doors that led into Gaines’s office.  His widened eyes stared at the sky as though at another enticing shot, but he couldn’t see it.  He lay on his back, his face darkly congested with blood, his tongue swollen between his lips.  The camera strap was looped tightly around his throat, the camera sitting on his chest like a huge religious medallion. His accessory bag lay a few feet from his body.  Disks spilled onto the planking. 

            I looked away abruptly.  For the second time that day I felt an adrenaline chill.  This time bile rose in my throat.  I heard Darnell say: “Now we’ll invite the cops.”

*****

            Shadow on a sun-bright day, the hour following the arrival of the police was a plodding nightmare of bureaucratic efficiency and formality.  Darnell had phoned them from Gaines’s office while I remained on the deck, looking out over the rolling slopes of lawn, not looking at Derek.  When Darnell returned, he let me choose whether to tell the Gainses about the death or to stay with the body while he told them.  Hating both choices, I concluded that dealing with the explosive aftermath of the announcement was less appealing than staying where I was.             

            “Cops’re on the way,” Darnell said.  “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

            He went into the house while I stared out across the lawn, my hands on the railing, breathing slowly and deeply, and tried not to think about what lay on the deck a few feet away.  The day had metamorphosed into the cacodemonic snare depicted in Riveau’s painting.  Minutes moved like glaciers.  Eventually I heard cars pull into the driveway and stop, their doors being slammed.  Footsteps sounded on the deck, and a group of men came around the corner of the house.  Two were in plain clothes, three others in uniform.

            “You Darnell?” one of the plainclothesmen asked.

            “No, I’m--”

            “I’m Darnell” came from behind me.

            He emerged from the office followed by a pallid Barton Gaines who stared at Derek’s body with transfixed revulsion. 

            The plainclothesman showed Darnell his badge.  “Detective-Sergeant Mitch Warner.”  Indicating the other man in mufti, he said: “This is Jim Cochran.”

            Warner was tall, slender, and dark-haired.  Cochran was an inch or two shorter, stockier, with crewcut reddish-blond hair and a spray of freckles across a face set in a permanent adolescent sneer.  Both appeared to be in their late thirties. 

            Cochran drew a pair of latex gloves from the side pocket of his sports coat.  He slipped them on and knelt beside Derek’s body. 

            “Let‘s hear it,” Warner said to Darnell.

            The endless hours of shadow had begun. 

            Police activity roiled around us while Darnell explained the situation.  A photographer took pictures of Derek’s body from various angles, a grisly irony that made me wonder if the deceased would have thought of himself as an “enticing shot.”  Cochran tagged and carefully put the camera, disks, and accessory case into plastic bags.  The medical examiner performed his duties, then someone else chalked an outline of the corpse on the deck.  Next came the indignity of the body bag, that final appalling ritual of mortal diminution.  I observed all of this with a haggard Barton Gaines standing alongside, both of us silent.  Other detectives and uniformed officers went into the house to take statements from the guests.

            “My God, Alan,” Gaines whispered.  “What have I gotten us into?  That painting is a curse.”

            Warner and Cochran questioned Gaines and me, taking each of us aside to do so, presumably to confirm what Darnell had told them and to compare our versions of events.  Toward me Warner was polite, Cochran surly and suspicious. Interviewing Gaines, Cochran suddenly became deferential.  When the interrogations were finished, Warner asked Gaines if he could use the telephone.

            Moving as unsteadily as a man who has just gotten casts removed from both legs, Gaines led him into the office.  Warner picked up the phone on the desk, and Gaines vanished from view.

            Darnell lit a cigarette and asked:  “Did you happen to check the camera before you bagged it?”

            Cochran looked at him narrowly.  “For what?” 

            “Was there a disk in it?”

            “That don’t concern you now.”

            “Was there a disk in it?” 

            He stepped in close to Darnell.  “S’matter, you don’t hear so good?”

            Smoke drifted lazily from Darnell’s nostrils.  “We’re on the same side, Cochran, so here’s a tip for you.  That  disk could contain vital evidence.  If you don’t have it, you’d better find it.”

            “Here’s a tip for you.”  He poked Darnell in the chest.  “You’re out of it now.  You’re done.  No more gouging the rich folks for big fees.  It’s police business.  I don’t need a P.I. telling me how it works.”

            “He used to be a cop,” I said.

            Cochran flashed his sneer at me.  “Used to be.”

            “Ex-Philly homicide,” Warner said, stepping onto the deck and sliding the doors closed.  “Before we left the station, I had someone run a check on you.  I just called to get the results.  You had a good record.  Why’d you quit?”

            “Lots of reasons,” Darnell said.  “Some of them were cretins like your partner.”

            “He’s got no more business here,” Cochran said.  “It’s our case now.”  His fists clenched at his sides.  “Don’t you realize who lives here?”

            “Cochran’s a gloryhound, Professor,” Darnell said as if the detectives weren’t there.  “He figures cozying up to prominent citizens like the Gaineses will float his career.”

            “Darnell’s involved,” Warner said flatly.  “He stays.”

            “He’s not a cop any more, Mitch; he’s a damn P.I.” 

            “He has more experience handling homicides than both of us put together.  And he’s willing to cooperate.”  It was a statement, but he looked at Darnell significantly.

            “You couldn’t get me out of here with a catapult,” Darnell said.

            Seething, Cochran kept silent.

            Darnell ground out his cigarette on the railing and dropped the butt into his coat pocket.  He nodded toward the house.  “Get any useful information?”

            Warner shook his head.  “Nobody heard an argument, nobody saw anything.  Most of them didn‘t even know Trevor.”

            “Julian Lakehurst did,” Cochran said.  “His card was in Trevor’s pocket.”

            Darnell’s jaw tightened.  “Nice of you to get around to telling us.”

            The stocky detective’s freckles gained prominence against a reddening complexion.  “I don’t have to tell you squat.”

            “Knock it off,“ Warner said.  He gave his partner an annoyed look before asking Darnell: “The killing and theft connected?”

            ”No doubt.”

            “Anything to the Marchand angle?”

            “I‘m not sure, but I‘d guess not.”  He jerked a thumb toward the house.  “You have a number of possible motives in there.”

            “I‘m listening.”

            “For openers, my client could be working an insurance scam.”

            “Wait a minute,” I interrupted.  “Are you saying Bart  stole the painting to collect the insurance?”

            “It’s a possibility, Professor.  He might’ve set me up. I’d be watching the gallery and could corroborate his story about the great Paul Marchand miraculously swiping the painting.  Then he’d collect the insurance money and have his painting.”

            “It doesn‘t make sense,” I said.  “Marjorie owns a company worth billions and Bart’s not exactly destitute.   There’s no reason for him to commit fraud.”

            “How do you know he don’t have gambling debts?” Cochran challenged.  “Maybe he’s got a girlfriend who’s draining his bank account.  You think his wife would like payin’ off loan sharks or footin’ the bill for his honey?”

            For a man who had earlier shown courtesy bordering on obsequiousness toward Gaines, Cochran had certainly warmed to the idea of his guilt.  But it might explain Gaines’s uneasiness, even on Thursday night, if he’d been planning something all along.  The thought angered me because, if true, it would mean I’d been duped as well. “So you think Bart acted in collusion with Derek and then killed him?” I asked.

            “I’m just thinking out loud,” Darnell said.  “There’s no evidence to accuse anyone yet.”  

            “Let’s hear the other motives,” Warner said.

            “Possible motives.  Mrs. Gaines didn’t want me or any other detective here today.  She also doesn’t want to play second fiddle to the artwork.  She got flirty with Derek and posed for the photo session, maybe to make Gaines jealous.  If she stole the painting, it could be she plans to later pretend the thief’s contacted her to sell it back.  Supposedly spending her own money for it would give her a hold over her husband. 

            “Maybe Gaines has something extracurricular going on with Carol Prentice, the live-in assistant.  Like Cochran said, she might be an expensive date and another reason for Mrs. Gaines to resent her husband.  Alexis Crowell’s just plain bitter; she’d steal it for some sort of revenge.  She was also pretty insecure about Derek‘s attentions, and demanding of them.  Julian Lakehurst told Gaines he has a buyer, and he seems to be motivated strictly by profit.  He suggested the party in the first place, maybe to grab the painting and put the blame Marchand.” 

            Darnell’s conjectures slid through my head, inspiring one of my own: “Suppose Marchand were in league with Lakehurst, to gain entry to the house.  Perhaps Derek discovered something incriminating and was killed because of it.”

            “It’s as possible as anything else at this point.”

            “But how the devil did the painting vanish from the gallery?”       

            Darnell scowled, gray-blue eyes darkening.  “When I can answer that one, Professor, you’ll be among the first to know.”

            “Could someone have rigged the easel?” Warner asked.

            “To take a painting off its stretcher at a distance and make it disappear?  Tell me how,” Darnell said.  He looked at Cochran pointedly.  “The picture Derek shot from the doorway could be very important.  When you examined the camera, was there a disk in it?”

            Cochran stood motionless in sullen defiance.  Finally, after a noisy exhalation of disgust: “No, it was empty.”

            “You think there’s something on the disk that points to the killer?”  Warner asked.

            “It needs checking.”

            “The camera’s digital. The killer could’ve deleted the picture on the spot.”

            “No.”  Cochran shook his head.  “This kill don’t look premeditated.  They were servin’ lunch on the deck.  The perp took a hell of a chance wasting Trevor right around the corner from a bunch of possible witnesses.  The perp flipped out and strangled him, grabbed the disk out of the camera, dropped the camera on Trevor’s chest, and took off.  He’d be crazy to sit there goin’ through every picture on the disk till he found the one to erase.”

            Darnell considered it, then said: “You’re right.”

            “Well, thank you all to hell.”

            “Hey, a guy like you's right once a year; I’m privileged to witness it.”

            Warner reprimanded both of them with a glance, then said: “We’ll have to look for the disk.”

            “May I make a suggestion?”  I asked.  They all looked my way expectantly.  “There were disks all over the deck when we found Derek.  If he removed the one you’re looking for, maybe it’s among them.”

            “Good thought,” Warner said.  “Get the camera and disks, Jim.”

            “Great,” Cochran growled.  “Now the schoolteacher’s running the investigation.”

            But he grudgingly got the evidence bags and gave them to Warner, who pulled on a pair of gloves.  One after the other, he inserted the disks and looked into the camera’s LCD screen.  The disks were blank.

            “We’ll have to search the place,” he said unhappily.  “Take some of the men and get on it, Jim.  I’ll talk to Lakehurst.”

            Cochran scowled and shook his head, patently displeased with his assignment.  “We’ll start on the grounds, in case the perp dumped it outside.”  He motioned to the uniform men to follow him.

            Warner, Darnell and I entered the house via Gaines’s office.  Warner led us to the gallery where technicians took photographs and dusted for fingerprints.  One of them was inspecting the interior of the closet.

            “Any ideas about the blue stuff?”  Darnell asked him.

            “Nah.  Can’t say till it’s analyzed.”

            “How about prints?”

            “Only old ones.  Your thief probably wore gloves.”

            “That’s no surprise.  The prints on the outer doorknob are Dr. Driscoll’s and mine.”

            Warner sent a uniformed man to summon Lakehurst, then spoke quietly to a technician who knelt alongside the easel examining the stretcher.  He rose with a painful grunt, muttered, “Damn arthritis,” and dusted the knees of his trousers.  A few minutes later, the uniformed man escorted Lakehurst into the gallery.  Warner introduced himself, directed the art dealer to sit on one of the benches, and sat beside him.  Darnell and I stood a few feet away.  Darnell seemed suddenly remote and pensive.

            “I need to ask you some questions, Mr. Lakehurst,” Warner said.

            “I‘m happy to provide what help I can.”

            “Thanks.  How long have you known Derek Trevor?”

            “I met him today when Alexis introduced us.”

            “You’d never seen him before today?”

            “No.”

            “He had your business card on him.”

            “He inquired about my gallery and whether I ever display photographic art.”

            “Then he approached you about a business proposition?”

            “Indirectly, I suppose.  He said he had a portfolio of photographs he hoped to exhibit someday.  I said I’d be happy to look it over.”

            Warner nodded.  “Did he discuss Dr. Gaines’s painting with you?”

            “Not as I recall, no.”

      &nbs