Roxanne Calloway scanned the walls of Gerald Blaise’s study. One was entirely given over to bookshelves but the other three were hung with framed drawings and paintings. The only picture with any wall space around it was the drawing that Annabel Torrance insisted had replaced the Annie Chan.
Budgie couldn’t see anything else missing but buying art had been Gerald’s thing. She hadn’t paid much attention, but she did remember the Chan because it was so big and striking. It had been dark purples and green, with a dash of orange. Could she get back to rehearsal? Right now? She was needed, she insisted, tapping her toes on the hardwood floor. The actors couldn’t proceed without her.
“Soon,” said Roxanne. If there had been an actual art theft, it changed everything. It gave the murderer a motive. Had Gerald caught a thief and been killed in his apartment? If so, would there be evidence of blood? Perhaps he had tried to sell the painting and the transaction had gone wrong.
Roxanne had just spent a fruitless half hour interviewing Lisa Storm. The young actor had turned out to be tougher and more astute than her delicate, childlike appearance suggested.
“I wasn’t fucking Gerald Blaise,” she had said. “I flirted with him, sure I did. He liked that kind of attention, we all did it, all the women who worked with him. It was how you got along with Gerald but it didn’t mean anything. If that’s what people are telling you, they’ve got it all wrong. Sleep with Gerald? He was old enough to be my grandfather. Yuck.” Gerald was sixty, Lisa twenty-four. Roxanne could see her point.
“People talk a lot of garbage in this business,” Lisa had said, straight-backed and indignant. “Don’t believe a word they tell you, Sergeant.”
Margo Wishart and Roberta Axelsson waited on a sofa in the condo’s living room. Delilah the cat had permitted Roberta to scratch an ear but was resisting being held or stroked. Margo had called their friend Phyllis. Lunch would have to be postponed to another day. They would be going straight home with their furry cargo.
“Have you any idea how much a painting by Annie Chan is worth?” Roxanne asked Margo. She didn’t know.
“Hundreds of thousands,” said Budgie. “I have got to get out of here. Nell Bronson has texted me twice.”
“Gerald would have kept an inventory of his collection,” said Margo. “And he probably had an agent.”
“Oh, right.” Budgie reluctantly remembered. “Maxwell Fergusson. In Toronto. I’ve had dinner with him.”
“He’s a well-known dealer.” Margo had heard of him. He had a solid reputation. Roxanne sat on the arm of a chair opposite her. She knew that Margo taught art history at the university and she knew from past experience that she could be relied on.
“If we get our hands on a list of his holdings, could you check it for us? Against what’s hanging here? So that we can find out if anything else is missing?”
Margo beamed, pleased to be asked. “Absolutely,” she replied. “I have to do research at the theatre for something I’m writing and I teach at the university Wednesdays and Fridays, late morning, so I can stop by after. Was there anywhere else he stored paintings? A safe, maybe?” Budgie was standing at the door, arms folded, still tapping her foot. She shrugged. She didn’t know. “But meantime I need to get Roberta and these cats up the road to Cullen Village. Would you like me to speak to Maxwell Fergusson?”
“No! We’ll handle that,” Roxanne said quickly.
Shortly after, they were in the elevator. Roberta had seized a yowling Delilah and stuffed her into a carrier and Margo carried one containing the more placid Tarquin. A bag of cat litter and another of kibble rested against the wall.
“Roberta charges fifteen dollars a day per cat,” Margo said to Budgie, who hadn’t offered to carry anything. Roberta looked about to protest.
“Sure,” Budgie replied, her phone in her hand, tapping a message. “E-transfer’s okay?”
“Yes, it is,” Margo said, before Roberta could say anything. They reached the ground floor and walked to the back door of the condo building, down a carpeted, panelled hallway. It opened onto the lane behind the theatre. Budgie headed straight for the door opposite, the one that led to the PTC offices upstairs and to the basement. Roxanne picked up the bag of cat litter, Roberta took a cat in each hand and Margo lugged the cat food to her car.
“If we find an inventory I’ll let you know.” Roxanne helped loaded up Margo’s car and waved goodbye. Budgie had disappeared into PTC. She must have a key to the back door that led off the back lane, too. How many of the theatre staff could access that unmonitored back door? Roxanne walked over to the stage door and buzzed herself in.
“Sergeant!” Tamsin Longstaff called out as Roxanne passed her office door. “I’ve hired a new admin associate. Come along, you should meet her.” She trotted off down the hallway, leading the way. A lean, smiling young woman sat at a desk, searching through files on a laptop.
“Marla Caplan,” Tamsin introduced her. “We’re so lucky, she’s able to start right away.” The girl’s fair hair was pulled back into a fashionably messy bun. She wore a neat shirt, tucked in at a trim waist, skinny jeans, and glasses.
“Hello!” she said.
“Marla’s tracking where Gerald had got to setting up next year’s season. Your people are supposed to get his laptop back to us real soon.” Tamsin turned her attention to her new employee. “Did you get hold of Thom Dyck?”
“I did,” Marla replied, smart as a whip. “He’ll be here later today to meet with me.”
“Good.” Tamsin was on the move again, across the hallway. She unlocked the door to Gerald Blaise’s old office for Roxanne.
“That was a quick hire.” Roxanne peeled off her coat and hung it on the rack that Gerald Blaise had provided for himself and his visitors.
“It was.” Tamsin stood in the centre of the doorway, poised to go. “Such luck. She moved to Winnipeg recently. Has all the right training and experience. Used to work for the Toronto Arts Council, so she knows the business. And available right away.” She turned on one of her tall heels.
“Wait.” Roxanne called her back. “I need to ask you about something.” Tamsin’s forehead furrowed in frustration. She had work to get to, as always. But she sat. Gerald had lined his office walls with photographs, mainly shots from plays he had directed, but there was a large staff photograph, with himself centre. It was as if he was present, eavesdropping on what they were about to say.
“What do you know about Gerald’s art collection?”
Tamsin’s eyes narrowed. “You’ve found something?”
“We don’t know yet.” That was true. Gerald could have removed the Annie Chan painting himself. It might not have been stolen. “Do you know where Gerald kept his records? Of art sales? Of what he had bought?”
Tamsin permitted herself to relax. She almost laughed. “Good question! Gerald couldn’t keep things organized to save himself. Especially paperwork. That’s why I need that Marla girl, to help sort through what he’s been doing. Alison Beck used to keep everything straight for him but since she’s been gone he’s got it all into a mess. Gerald had great instinct when it came to people. He was one of the most persuasive people I’ve ever met, but records? It just wasn’t in his genes.”
“So how would he have tracked what he owned?”
“Maybe he didn’t. Maybe he just hung what he’d bought on his walls and enjoyed them. Tell you though, Gerald did like making lists. So, if he did write anything down about his paintings, I would bet it’s in a paper notebook, in a drawer in that study of his. Or his dealer might know. Maxwell. You know about him?”
Roxanne nodded. She did. “How about Alison Beck? Would she know?”
“Oh, her? I suppose.”
“And he must have had an accountant?”
“He did. Some woman called Irma something. In Toronto. You’ll have to ask Budgie. She’ll be on a break in an hour or so. We done here? I really have to go.” She rose briskly and strutted off.
Roxanne called Dave Kovak at Ident. Had his guys found anything about art sales on Gerald’s laptop? There was correspondence with a guy called Maxwell Fergusson, about an art auction coming up in Toronto, he told her A couple of items in it might interest Gerald, Fergusson had said. Photos had been attached. Weird artsy stuff.
“Does he say anything about selling a painting by an artist called Annie Chan?”
He didn’t know, but they’d checked Fergusson’s website. He dealt with people all over the world. Had a gallery in Toronto. There was a phone number. Roxanne called it. A rich, plummy voice answered.
Maxwell Fergusson had heard about Gerald’s death. “Quite appalling!” he commented. “Who would want to kill Gerald? Such a genial chap.”
“That’s what we’re trying to find out, Mr. Fergusson.” Roxanne was Googling his name as they spoke. She looked at his photograph on his website. Maxwell Fergusson cultivated the look of an English country gentleman. He wore a tweed jacket and had a large moustache.
“How can I help you, Sergeant Calloway?” Roxanne could hear him settling himself into a chair. Gerald didn’t sell much, he told her. He bought. Not often. He was choosy. “And he had to have been running out of space to hang what he had,” he said. He didn’t believe Gerald stored any of his art. “He bought paintings so he could enjoy them.” He clicked his tongue at the mention of the missing painting by Annie Chan.
“He’d had that one of hers for years. Got it for hardly anything, just as her star was starting to rise.”
“How much would it fetch?”
“One fetched a quarter million at auction in New York last year,” he said.
“Could Gerald have been contacted by someone who wanted to buy it privately?”
“He could.” Fergusson drew in a breath, then continued. “I just don’t think he would have proceeded without consulting me. He valued my services and he wouldn’t have cut me out of a big deal like that. He’d have wanted me to handle it for him.” He sounded peeved, as well he might. The commission on a sale of that size would have been substantial. If he heard that the painting had been bought, he’d be sure to let her know, he said. Word usually got around.
He did know Irma Friedrich, Gerald’s accountant. Several of his clients used her services. Roxanne wrote down the number he gave her. Did Maxwell Fergusson know about a sculptor in B.C. called Timothy Baldwin?
“Ah. You’re onto that,” he said knowingly.
“Onto what?”
“Beautiful boy. Gerald met him here, at my gallery. I had a show for Timothy in May. Gerald was very interested.”
“In the art or Timothy?” Roxanne asked.
“Both, Sergeant. Gerald was a man of eclectic taste,” was the arch reply.
“Didn’t he get involved with younger women?”
“Oh, yes. Those too. Like I said, Gerald had varied tastes.” He lowered his voice, spoke confidentially. “He was a charming fellow, you know.”
“I’ve been told that. Were any of his affairs serious?”
“Never!” Maxwell Fergusson asserted. “Gerald liked to dabble. He and Annabel had it all worked out. She had her own interests too, although I don’t think she plays it both ways like he did. They were each other’s insurance, in a way. They told all the people that they got involved with that it was temporary. That they always went home to one another. It was a kind of game with them.”
How did he know that, Roxanne wondered? Had Maxwell Fergusson been involved himself with Gerald during their long acquaintance? Or Budgie? Or both?
“Gerald said he wanted to buy a sculpture from Tim Baldwin, a smaller one than I had in stock, but that was just an excuse to go visit him for a weekend, in his studio on Denman Island.” He didn’t know when, exactly.
“Did you keep track of all the art he had bought?’ she asked.
“From me? Of course. I have that all on file, Sergeant, dates, prices, everything. I’ll send it to you right away. But he did buy some pieces on his own as well, you know. Directly from the artists, especially the newer ones. I don’t have a complete record of his collection.”
Budgie Torrance pushed the door to the office open without knocking. “I need to talk to you, now,” she announced.
“I have to go. Can I call you again if anything comes up?” Maxwell Fergusson would be delighted to assist any way he could. Meantime Budgie was glaring at Roxanne, arms akimbo.
“You thought Gerald was having it off with Lisa Storm?” she snapped. “How dumb is that? You know she bawled me out in front of the whole cast? How she’d never fancied him and what was I doing spreading rumours about her and making you guys think it was her that cut Gerald’s throat?”
“I did not tell her that.” Roxanne got to her feet to face Budgie. She did wonder how Lisa had known how Gerald had died. That was not public knowledge. But Tamsin Longstaff certainly knew. Had she told another member of staff? Toby, her talkative marketing director? If so, it was probably common knowledge throughout PTC by now.
“It wasn’t Lisa he was fucking this time,” Budgie ranted on, “It was some student he met at the university this summer. Skinny. Dark hair. Chloe something or other. Go talk to her.”