Chapter 9
When Chris crawled out of bed on Sunday morning she was surprised to find it was almost nine-thirty. Walter hadn't tried to rouse her for his breakfast. Walter, in fact, was nowhere in evidence. She shuffled downstairs and discovered the basset hound staring raptly at Pansy, who was frying bacon.
"Good morning, Dear One," her mother chirped with typical buoyancy. Chris had seen her mother unhappy, even cranky at times, but never in the morning. She had no idea how she did it.
"Morning, Mom. Did Walter wake you up?"
"I was up early as usual. He just tagged along when I got up. You must have been really tired, Teensy. You haven't slept this late since I've been here."
"Pooped, Mom. Seriously pooped." Chris poured coffee.
"Good thing it's Sunday. You can relax, especially now that the Gala is over." Pansy put bread in the toaster.
"Don't know how much relaxing I'll do today. We need to get our ducks in a row about the Picasso." Chris sipped coffee and leaned against the counter.
"That can wait until tomorrow," Pansy said.
"I'm not so sure. The dean said to put it off until after the Gala, but we really need to tell the president and get started on authenticating it."
Pansy stopped moving bacon out of the pan and looked at her daughter. "You didn't find that report you were looking for, did you?"
"Nope, and I was reminded that a bunch of papers were taken when Elizabeth was killed, so we may never find the original condition report. Randall told me he'd send another one, but who knows how long that will take?"
"Do you think that was what the killer was looking for?" Pansy asked suddenly, as if struck by an inspiration. "Wouldn't that put the Randalls on the hot seat?"
Chris grimaced. Pansy's imagination sometimes went a little too far. "I don't know what the killer was looking for. He or she took so much stuff there's no way to tell. Anyway, the best thing is to deal with this ASAP and get past it, I think. I'm going to call Lorraine and make arrangements to tell McGinnis sometime today, if possible."
"Well, eat your breakfast first and read the paper. It's uncivilized to call anyone before noon on Sunday." Pansy loaded a plate.
Chris took it to the dining room where the Camford Times was waiting. The Gala occupied a portion of the front page. While Chris ate she read a breathless account of last evening's events and wondered whether they'd held the presses to get the article in. The reporter had been there until the place closed. Well, why not? she thought. This is as close to a Hollywood premiere as Camford is likely to get.
It took until eleven to read the paper from end to end. When she was finished at last and had drunk too much coffee, Chris went upstairs to shower and dress. The phone rang as she struggled into a sweatshirt. It was the dean.
"You're psychic, Lorraine. I was going to call you. Can we get together to discuss what to do next about the painting?"
"Just what I'm calling about. I've talked to Jim McGinnis and we are to meet him at his house at one. Can you make it?"
"Did you tell him?"
"No, that's a face-to-face task if ever I heard of one."
They agreed to meet there and Chris hung up, contemplating what she would need as evidence of her suspicions. The transcript she'd made of the suspect newspaper scraps when she first found the names of Reagan and Thatcher was at her office. She wondered whether Herb Cadieux from the French faculty would be around and able to offer his opinion about them before then. She decided to try.
When Chris walked into the Art Department she was aware of an abnormal noise level for a Sunday afternoon. There seemed to be almost as many people working as on a school day. The fact that final exams and portfolio reviews started Monday explained the feverish atmosphere.
She went to her office and rummaged for the transcript of the newspaper scraps collaged to the painting. With it in hand, she found the home phone number of the chair of the Romance Languages Department and dialed.
"Hi, Herb. This is Chris Connery and I need a favor."
Herb Cadieux listened and jotted notes while Chris read in French what she'd copied. His translation matched Chris's own.
"Can you hazard a guess as to when this was written, Herb?" she asked at last.
"Well, the two names Reagan and Thatcher sort of give that away, don't you think? I'd say mid-eighties. Why? Is there a question?"
"Something I was working on suggested this was from the early Twentieth century, maybe the teens." She crossed her fingers.
"Not much chance of that, I'd say. I mean, take the names out of it and there are still some constructions that are pretty contemporary. French is a stodgy language, as you know. They're always going after foreignisms like 'le email,' but even so things creep in. Even without the names I don't think this could have been written much before the mid-seventies. Why is it an issue?"
Chris had a lie prepared. "Just a student project gone astray, I'm afraid."
"They never learn to cheat well. Guess that's good for us, but still they should be smarter." Cadieux chuckled and, after accepting her thanks, rang off.
Chris hung up and stared disconsolately out the window. She sighed, put her transcript and her notes on Cadieux's opinion into a folder and prepared to walk across campus to the president's mansion for the one o'clock meeting.
President James McGinnis sat in his lounge chair and eyed Chris warily. "You can't seriously believe that Howard Randall gave us a fake Picasso!"
"There's a fifty-fifty chance the piece isn't authentic, Dr. McGinnis," Chris insisted with as much bravado as she could muster in the face of his disapproval. "The best we can hope for, and perhaps the most likely thing, is that it was restored pretty heavily in the Eighties," she added soothingly.
"And Randall agreed to send us a new condition report?" the president asked.
"He said he would."
"So why not wait until we get that?"
"We can, of course, but over the Christmas break might be the best time for the painting to come down without a lot of comment. Also, we might be able to get my expert here over the break. He teaches at Columbia, so he's obviously off now too." Chris shifted uneasily.
McGinnis turned his frown on the dean. "What do you say, Lorraine?"
"I agree with Chris that sooner is better than later."
Chris blessed her silently.
The president looked at Chris again. "What's the situation if it turns out to be restored?"
She shrugged. "It won't be worth as much as we thought previously. It will probably save us a little on insurance. Otherwise, it's still an important Picasso."
"And if it turns out to be a fake?"
"We can't hang it if that's the case. We could use it educationally, I suppose, but we'd have to make it clear that it isn't a Picasso after all."
McGinnis winced. "Why would Randall give us a painting that isn't authentic? It makes no sense."
"He might have no idea, Dr. McGinnis," Chris rushed to assure him. "He might have been the victim of theft."
Dean Campbell-McFee jumped in. "Jim, Chris was telling me that Randall will be able to take a huge tax deduction for donating the piece based on its presumed value, so he might have a stake in it not being found to be a fake, but I assume he'd be as surprised as anyone if it turns out to be a copy."
Chris tried to explain. "You know how it is, Dr. McGinnis. Things hang on the wall and eventually you're so used to them, they don't register much any more."
"Well, I'd sure as hell notice if someone took a piece like that off my wall," McGinnis said in exasperation.
"What if it was replaced when they were traveling?" Chris offered. "It's there when they leave and it's there when they get back."
The president glowered at the fireplace where a cheerful log fire snapped and crackled. Eventually, without looking up, he said, "Here's what we do. We wait for the paperwork to come. If it's been restored, hallelujah! If it hasn't, then we take the next step. Not a word until that document ar
rives." He turned and looked at the dean and the director in turn. "Am I clear?"
"Perfectly," Lorraine Campbell-McFee said. "But what about dealing with it when there aren't a lot of folks around?"
"Wouldn't it have to come off the wall to be cleaned or something?" The president looked from the dean to Chris.
"Yessir," Chris agreed.
"Then that'll be our story, if and when we need it."
The president stood, clearly a signal that the meeting was at an end. The two women also rose and the dean had started for the door when Chris stopped.
"Dr. McGinnis, don't you think we should tell the police about this?"
McGinnis look horrified at the mere suggestion. "Jesus Christ, what for? We aren't going to start a rumor that it's a fake, that's for damn sure!"
"I only mean it might have something to do with Elizabeth's murder."
The two administrators looked at each other. Chris looked from one to the other. Finally, after a nearly audible internal struggle, the president nodded. "I suppose we ought to."
"We don't want to be accused of withholding information in a murder investigation, Jim. That would be worse publicity than having a fake by far," Lorraine said.
"No, I suppose not. Do you think the police will be discreet?"
"If you explain the situation to Hjelmer Ryquist I'm sure he'll try." Chris hoped she was right. "They have different concerns than we do, but he'd have no reason to go to the newspaper with it,"
"Okay then. You explain it to him since it's your theory, but not a word to anyone else… agreed?"
Chris returned to the Fine Arts building walking head down and trying to ignore the cold wind that stung her cheeks and made her eyes water. She had resigned herself to the president's position, though she really would like to settle the issue before spring semester started. She knew she'd have trouble including the painting in her lectures with a clear conscience. She also knew other departments were planning to use the painting in one way or another. Spanish, for example, was planning to make Spanish II students write about it and its creator. And Business was working it into case studies on the art market. She hoped the school could avoid serious embarrassment should the worst come to pass.
Far more daunting was the task of telling Detective Sergeant Hjelmer Ryquist about their problem and their desire for discretion. She had presumed the president and the dean would want to take the lead in that task, but neither of them had expressed the slightest interest in having the conversation. They were only too glad to delegate this one. She would call him first thing Monday.
Chris followed the path that led around the small ornamental lake that was the backdrop for the president's mansion. The frozen water only made her feel colder. She was almost up to the sculpture of President Andrew Jackson North (1874–1875), the first president of what was then Midstate Normal School, when she burst out laughing. President North had red Christmas balls hanging like earrings off his very impressive muttonchops and a tiny Christmas tree taped to the top of his head. Chris considered those things to be improvements to his normally severe countenance.
By the time she reached her office, her dark mood had oozed back around her. She sighed and unlocked her office door. Dropping her coat on the chair and the folder with the translation of the text on the desk, she tried to decide what to do next. Get my final exam together. Might as well as long as I'm here. It was only mid-afternoon. She could get something done when she wasn't likely to be interrupted.
She walked down the Art Department hallway to the women's bathroom, marveling at the increased level of activity. Students were actually working during the open studio hours. They had until six p.m. when all the studios except painting would be locked for the night. They always complained about the restriction at this time of year, but most accidents happened in unsupervised studios late at night and she allowed no exceptions.
Hammers and power saws from the sculpture studio made it sound like someone was building a house. A boom box thundered down the hall in the ceramics studio. If they'd all thrown themselves into their work this way earlier in the semester they'd all be Picassos, or at least A students.
She was washing her hands when raised voices somewhere nearby carried the unmistakable vehemence of real rage. She shut off the water and listened. She couldn't catch what the shouter was saying, but the anger was evident. She stepped to the door and opened it. The voices were coming from the sculpture studio across the hall and to the left.
"You think it's funny, don't you?" the speaker snarled. "This time you've gone too far! This time you're messing around with someone's career! I warn you, you're going to regret this!"
Chris didn't recognize the tense and unnaturally forced voice. She strained to hear more over the general din. Something metal falling to the floor in the woodshop obscured more angry words. Then "I'll sue you for everything you've got or ever hope to get if one word of this gets out!" came with greater clarity.
A power saw started and whined to a stop. Then, "Don't be so damned uptight! Christ, it's a joke!"
Bjornson, Chris thought. Someone caught him at another of his pranks. She stepped back into the washroom to dry her hands. When she returned to the door she heard nothing from the sculpture studio. She stepped across the hall and through the open door. Bjornson was in his office, whistling to himself.
"I thought I heard voices, Richard. What's up?"
"Nothing, Chris. I'm working on remaking that sculpture for Randall. He wasn't going to buy it after all 'cause it's in such crappy shape, but I convinced him to let me make another version for him."
Chris ignored the deflection. "Didn't I hear someone yelling?"
Bjornson grinned. "Nah... must be something on the boom box."
Chris shrugged and departed. Bjornson's tuneless whistling resumed when she passed into the hall. He's unnaturally cheerful for someone who was just threatened with a lawsuit, she thought and then decided getting a reaction like that was the whole point of his tricks. Sick, she thought and returned to her office.