"Do you have the letters?" I asked, after we had finished discussing the painting.
"Yes, of course. Let me get them," she said. "I won't be but a minute."
She left Imogen and me in the great room while she darted around the corner toward the stairs.
"This house is magnificent," Imogen said.
"Indeed. It's stunning. Kind of makes me want to move."
"Oh, Max, that's the last thing we need. We just opened an office. I'm through with moving for a while."
I stared at the painting while we spoke.
"Fair point, my love. And speaking of the office, when are we going to start looking for a receptionist?"
"I put an ad online today," she said. "We should have some candidates shortly."
"Then we actually have to interview them."
"That's the plan, Max. Unless you have some better idea. Someone isn't going to just pop out of the woodwork."
"Or the Klimt," I said.
Alese was back. She walked into the great room holding a couple of letters in her hand.
"Have a seat," she said, directing us toward the white chairs.
The sun was shining in through the glass windows. You could feel its warmth, and if you stared long enough at the pond that too might transform itself into some sort of painting. It was certainly beautiful.
We walked over to the chairs and proceeded to sit down. I subconsciously wiped the back of my jeans to make sure that I didn't soil the pristine white fabric.
"I'm afraid I might stain your chairs," I said, sitting down.
Alese was already sitting.
"I wouldn't worry about it," she said. "Nothing's happened yet. But, I wouldn't recommend drinking red wine in here."
"Heaven forbid," Imogen said.
"Spilling red wine in here would be worse than spilling it on a bride," I said.
I hated to admit it, but that's something that I had done. I had, indeed, spilled red wine on a bride's white dress. Right after the ceremony. Right before the reception. Not one of my finer moments.
Alese chucked. "And more expensive. I can assure you of that."
She leaned across the sitting area and handed me the envelopes.
"Here. Take a look at those, and tell me what you think," she said.
I took the envelopes. There were three. I held two and handed one to Imogen.
I looked at the first one. The address in cutout letters from a magazine article. It was very neat. It almost looked like typeface. The postmark was from Montana. I shuffled the envelopes and took a look at the second one. Same kind of address. Neat. Like typeface. This one was from Colorado. Using all of my deductive reasoning, I would have said that these letters were mailed from nowhere near New York.
Imogen was busy looking at her letter. Examining it. I decided to do the same. Meanwhile, Alese was simply sitting in her chair and staring at the both of us.
The letters were almost identical, but the words were not pieced together, cut out of magazines, and were much larger than the envelope type. They read as follows:
The Painting = Blood Money. Die Nazi Bitch.
No salutation. No introduction. No full sentences. Well, maybe that's not true, Die Nazi Bitch is technically a full sentence. But the author was certainly not respecting the rules of grammar. Where has that old-fashioned attention to detail gone?
I looked over at Imogen and could see her letter. It was the same as the ones that I had in my hand.
"Well, they certainly get to the point," I said.
Imogen chuckled.
"I don't mean to laugh," she said.
"I don't mind. It's refreshing to have a little sense of humor in this instance. I mean, look at the letters. They aren't exactly works of art."
"No, that's for sure," I said. "Imogen, where's yours from?"
Imogen looked at her envelope. "Vancouver."
"They're from all over the place," I said. "Montana, Colorado, and Vancouver. Do those places mean anything to you?"
Alese thought for a second. Then crossed her legs.
"Nothing. I think they are just random places. Someone mailing them from different places to make them harder to trace."
She could be right. But the places were spread apart. And the dates on the letters were all about a week or so apart.
"Which one is the last letter that you received?" I asked.
"That one," she said, pointing to the one from Montana.
"That's from a week ago," I said.
"Yes, I've been getting one pretty much every week or so for the past month. All started around the time I had my first conversation with an auction house about selling the Klimt."
"What house was that?" Imogen asked.
"Campbell House," she said.
I wanted to cut this line of questioning short. Ginny knew someone at Campbell House, and we were planning on meeting with them anyway. I didn't want to give Alese any indication that we might be checking up on her story. So I changed the subject.
"Do you think you'll be getting another letter this week?" I asked.
"If things stay the same, I would say that you can count on it."
I stood up from my chair. Looked at it to make sure that I didn't stain it with my jeans. Watched Ginny get up, and then Alese got the hint and stood. I thanked her for her time and told her that we'd get on this case and start digging. Imogen told her not to worry and that we'd do our best to help figure this whole mess out. She also told her that she had a lovely house and that if she ever thought about putting it up for sale to call her because she could picture herself spending way too much time staring out at the pond. I agreed and told her that I could too, providing we had a bar installed in the corner. Then we headed for the door.
"One more thing, would you mind if we take these letters with us?" I asked.
"Certainly not. Please take them. I hope you can find something in there somewhere," she said.
"We'll certainly try."
She walked us to the door. We all said our good-byes, and then off went Imogen and I, zipping along the country roads in my Audi RS7, like a terribly bad car commercial, off to Delmar for a late lunch or early dinner, depending on how you were looking at it, and what would be an impromptu meeting with Bill.