THE NEXT AFTERNOON, I pulled open the door to the Grand Trunk Factory, and the handle came off again. I felt the heft of the worn iron handle for a moment, then entered the building and dropped the blunt object at the front desk. It landed with a clunk.
Anna looked up at me, then at the handle. “It’s been doing that ever since the art show,” she said.
“Would you like me to see if I can fix it?” I asked.
“No, I’ll call the handyman. Could you wedge the door open in the meantime?”
I returned to the door and propped it open with an old brick that looked like it came from an important support wall for the factory building. When I returned, Anna had moved the door handle away from the edge of the desk.
“Anna, I’m looking for a painting. Can you help me out?”
She smiled and gestured at everything.
“Yeah. Well, do we have any Group of Seven paintings?”
“Lots.”
“Do we have one by Tom Thomson?”
“Sure,” she said. “It’s in the online auction.”
“Have we got a picture of it?”
“I think it’s on the website.”
“Thanks. I’ll check it later.” I looked around. “Hey, is Bruce in today?”
“I think he’s somewhere. Why?”
“I need to know if we have any more Thomson paintings.”
“There might be. Why do you want to know?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
She looked worried about it.
“Is Mariyam in?”
“She’s at lunch. With Virgil. She could be back any minute.”
“Anyone else in here today?”
“Lots of folks.”
“Anyone who knows about paintings?”
“All of them. You’re in an art gallery.”
“Who would know about Group of Seven artists?”
“Bruce is your best bet. He’s the resident expert.”
“Mind if I go look for him?”
Anna smiled, “Sure.” Her smile faded. She leaned across the desk. “What’s going on, Zack?”
I shrugged. “I think Andrew Neumann might have been killed over a Tom Thomson painting.”
She gasped. “I thought he was stabbed!”
I blinked. “Not killed with. Killed over.”
“Blood’s no good for paintings.”
“Not over … never mind.” I shook my head and turned. “I’ll go see if I can find Bruce.”
“Try downstairs. He might be going through the vault.”
I turned back. “The vault? Why would he be in there?”
“I think he’s doing an inventory. Looking for more paintings to auction off. Bruce thinks we need to clear the archives and raise money.”
“Really?”
She paused. She looked like she was debating on whether to tell me something she shouldn’t. “I’m no gallery expert,” she said, “but what happens when a gallery has too many paintings?”
I shrugged. I was half expecting some kind of punchline, but it never materialized. Instead, she looked around, then whispered, “He and Mariyam have been fighting. Over the paintings. I think it was related to Andrew Neumann.”
“Really? Did they talk to the police about it?”
She shrugged.
“Did you talk to the police about it?”
She shook her head.
“Well, I’ll go look for Bruce. Better call the handyman about that handle.”
“Okay, but don’t go upstairs. It’s closed because of the you-know-what.”
“All right.”
I knew where the basement was in the gallery. I’d been down there a bunch of times, helping clean out some of the junk. It was an old building, so naturally, the basement was going to be old. What it didn’t need to be was dusty and filthy. But it was. Cracks in the floor, old greasy cobwebs between the floor joists, stone walls of dubious architectural strength. And junk. A whole maze of junk, stretching from one end of the room to the other, piled on shelves, dropped in corners, overflowing from waxy cardboard boxes.
And the musty funk in the air burned at my nostrils. It was damp in some places, dry in others, sometimes acrid, sometimes dull.
I’d cleaned up in here, not six months ago. What happened?
I followed the dull clatter of things banging against other things and eventually found Bruce McMillan digging into a deep banker box full of dried-out art supplies. He unceremoniously dumped each item on the floor when he determined it wasn’t what he was looking for. That may have explained the mess. Not entirely, though.
“Bruce, it’s Zack Virtue,” I called, so as not to cause a tidal wave of more junk on the floor. I could only hold my breath for so long.
“Zack? Hey, come over here. I need some help.”
I approached, and he grabbed me, dragging me over to an enormous sculpture. It appeared to be some kind of bronze Moore-like piece: big, and curvy, and hollow. Reminded me of someone I dated in college.
“Here, help me lift this up. There’s something underneath, and I don’t want to damage the piece.”
“Sure, I—”
“One, two, lift!”
It took me off guard, but I heaved when he commanded, and held the sculpture about a foot off the floor. He let go and gave all the weight to me.
“I’ve just got to grab this one thing.”
“Holy crap!” I said, straining against the weight. “This brings back memories from school!”
“What’s that?” he said, not paying me much attention.
“Nothing. Make it quick, or you’ll lose a finger.”
Once he’d extracted the thick watercolor paper from under the sculpture, I dropped it back down. Gently, of course. No one would see the dent.
“Can you believe this?” He showed me the paper. “Someone left this sculpture on top of a perfectly good painting. It’ll take forever to repair this.”
“Honestly, it looks like the sculpture may have fallen on it. Any missing volunteers down there?”
“What can I do for you, Zack?”
“I’m looking for some information regarding a painting.”
“Hey,” he said. “Tough thing about Neumann, eh?”
“Yeah. Look, I’m just curious about this one—”
“Hey,” he said, again. “Did Neumann ever contact you about anything? Anna said the two of you talked.”
I shrugged. “We talked a little. Nothing worth mentioning.”
“She said something about a threatening letter. Was that you?”
I sighed. Better not mention the USB drive. “No, I didn’t send him the letter. We don’t know who sent it.”
“Look, Zack, I get it,” said Bruce. “We’ve both seen the underbelly of the art world. I know you’ve worked at a couple of big galleries. Me too. That’s why I know tempers can flare. People say things.”
“I didn’t say anything to him. And before you ask, I didn’t threaten him—and I didn’t kill him, if that’s what you’re talking about.”
“Okay, okay. Don’t get all riled up now. I just wanted to make sure you weren’t causing any problems. We can’t have volunteers who threaten people.” He smiled. “Not even art critics.”
“Har har. What are you doing down here, anyway? You’re obviously not cleaning. Please tell me you’re not interested in that student watercolor.”
He gave me a cryptic look. “Neumann was down here, digging around. I think maybe he was looking for something down here.”
“He was?”
“Yeah. He was supposed to be curating the show and reviewing the submissions. Instead, he was down here. When I asked him about it, he clammed up. Said it was to do with the show.”
“That’s pretty weird. Was he trying to find—” I paused, because maybe Bruce was involved. “—Something for auction, perhaps?”
“You think he was trying to add more paintings to the auction?”
“Uh, sure. Why not? There was just that one in the auction, right? The Tom Thomson?”
“I don’t know. All those Group of Seven paintings look the same to me.”
“Actually,” I said, “Thomson was never part of the—”
“And besides,” he said, “Mariyam was the one who set up the auction. I think she thought the Thomson would be a good draw for patrons. I wasn’t involved in that.”
“Oh, okay.”
“Hey, what did you come down here for?”
“Uh, it’s not important.” Best not to talk about this here. “I think Anna said she needed more petty cash.”
“What? What did she do this time?”
“Something about a handyman?”
Bruce dropped the painting to the floor, forgetting it instantly. “That’s just great! Another thing for me to sort out.”
“I mean, the door handle broke off.”
He stormed past me. “Nothing some glue and duct tape won’t fix.”
I looked around at the cloud of dust he’d left behind. It got deep in my nose and I started sneezing. As I cleared the dust, the sneezes turned into coughing, and I felt a little sick. Next time, I’d bring a dust mask down here.
I made my way around the corner to the archives room. It was less dusty in there, partly because someone had the foresight to install an air purifier and dehumidifier. What with all the art on the shelves. The room was crammed floor to ceiling with wire shelving, and that shelving was crammed with art.
I approached the far wall of shelves and started flipping through the artworks. These were mostly prints and paintings, about half of which were framed. The prints were all wrapped in mylar archival bags to protect from moisture. I flipped through them, looking for anything similar to a Group of Seven painting. Any print from the Algonquin School would be giclée or a photographic art print, and not an original work. There might be a painting, of course, but they would be rarer, and easier to identify. Once I finished the prints, I’d give a cursory run through of the paintings, then get out of there. I wasn’t really expecting to find any of the images on the USB drive, which I hadn’t even fully identified. I wasn’t even sure what I was expecting to find.
I had just switched over to the paintings, finding nothing in the print section of any relevance. Then the lights went out.
It wasn’t until later that I realized it wasn’t just the lights that went dark.