The FBI Thrillers Collection (15 page)

LouLou shrugged. “Like you said, Simon, the guy’s a nut. Maybe nuts crack different ways when they get up near the century mark. His son seems to be just as crazy, always out on his yacht, lives there most of the time. His name’s Ian—the old guy married a Scotswoman and that’s how he got his name. Anyway, the son now runs all the shipping business. From the damned yacht.”

Simon gave a very slight shake of his head to a very pretty woman seated at the bar who’d been staring at him for the past couple of minutes. He moved closer to LouLou to show that he was in very heavy conversation and not interested. “LouLou, how sure are you that it’s Olaf who bought the paintings?”

“Besides my gal at the Met, I went out of my way to get it verified. You know my little art world birdies that are always singing, Simon. I spread a little seed, and they sing louder and I heard three songs, all with the same words. One hundred percent? Nope, but it’s a start. Cost me a cool thousand bucks to get them to sing to me.”

“Okay, you done good, LouLou.” Simon handed him an envelope that contained five thousand dollars. LouLou didn’t count it, just slipped the fat envelope inside his cashmere jacket pocket. “Hey, you know what the name of Ian Jorgenson’s yacht is?”

Simon shook his head.

“Night Watch.”

Simon said slowly, “That’s the name of a painting by Rembrandt. That particular painting is hanging in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. I saw it there a couple of years ago.”

LouLou cocked his head to one side, his hairpiece not moving a bit because it was expensive and well made, and gave Simon a cynical smile. “Who knows? Just maybe
Night Watch
is hanging in Ian’s stateroom, right over his bed. I’ve often wondered how many real paintings there are left in the museums and not beautifully executed fakes.”

“Actually, LouLou, I don’t want to know the answer to that question.”

“Since Sarah Elliott just died some seven years ago, all her materials—the paints, the brushes—still exist. You take a superb talent with an inherent bent toward her sort of technique and visualization, and what you get is so close to the real thing, most people wouldn’t even care if you told them.”

“I hate that.”

“I do, too,” LouLou said. “I need another beer.”

Simon ordered them another round, ate a couple of peanuts out of the bowl on their table, and said, “Remember that forger Eric Hebborn, who wrote that book telling would-be forgers exactly how to do it—what inks, papers, pens, colors, signatures, all of it? Then he up and dies in ninety-six. The cops said it was under mysterious circumstances. I heard it was a private collector who killed Hebborn because a dealer friend had sold him an original Rubens that turned out to be a fake that Hebborn himself had done. Supposedly the dealer died shortly thereafter in a car accident.”

LouLou said, “Yeah, I met old Eric back in the early eighties. Smart as a whip, that guy, and so talented it made you cry. You wondering if it was Olaf Jorgenson who popped him? Hey, Simon, there’s a whole bunch of collectors who’d cut off hands to have a certain medal or stamp or train or painting. They’ve got to have it or life loses its meaning for them. Look, Simon, when you get down to it, they’re the people who keep us in business.”

“I wonder if Olaf ordered all eight paintings. I wonder what he’s paying for them.”

“Huge bucks, my man, huge, count on it. All eight Sarah Elliotts? Don’t know. I haven’t heard any other names floated around. Simon, I heard those eight paintings are owned privately by a member of the Elliott family?”

“Yes, Lily Savich owns them. And therein lies a very long, convoluted tale.” Simon rose, putting a fifty-dollar bill on the table. “LouLou, thank you. You know where to find me. I think I’ll be heading out to California soon to track down one of the major players—Abraham Turkle. He’s English, right?”

“Half Greek. Weird guy. Very eccentric, said to eat only snails that he raises himself.” LouLou shuddered. “You take care around him, Simon. Abe killed a guy who tried to rip him off with his bare hands, just a couple of years ago. So have a care. Hey, this Lily Savich hire you?”

Simon paused, cocked his head to the side. “Not exactly, but that’s about it. I want to get those four paintings back.”

“I hope the others are safe.”

“Much safer than the snails in Abe’s garden. Take care, LouLou.”

“Why are you going after Abe?”

Simon said, “I want to see if I can shake something loose. It’s not just the art scam. There are other folk involved in this deal who have done very bad things, and I want to nail them. Just maybe Abe can help me do that.”

“He won’t help you do squat.”

“We’ll see. His forging days in Hemlock Bay are over. I want to catch him before he takes off to parts unknown. Who knows what I can get out of him.”

“Good luck shaking the wasp nest. You know, I’ve always liked the name Lily,” LouLou said and gave Simon a small salute. Then, when Simon left, LouLou turned his attention to that very pretty lady at the bar who’d kept looking over at them.

Dr. Hicks said quietly, “Marilyn,
tell me, how did Tammy look when she came back to the motel?”

“She had on a coat and she just ripped it apart and showed me her nurse’s uniform. It was soaked with blood.”

“Did she seem pleased?”

“Oh yes. She was crazy happy that she got away. She just kept laughing and rubbing her bloody hands against herself. She loves the feel of fresh blood on her hands.”

“How did she get back to the motel? You said her hands were all bloody. Wouldn’t somebody have noticed?”

“I don’t know.” Marilyn looked worried, shaking her head just a bit.

“No, no, that’s okay. It’s not important. Now, you said she was wearing a coat. Do you know where she got the coat?”

“I don’t know. When she came to get me, she was wearing it. It was too big for her, but it covered her arm where she didn’t have one, you know?”

“Yes, I know. Mr. Savich would like to ask you some questions now. Is that all right, Marilyn?”

“Yes. He was nice to me. He’s sexy. I’m kinda sorry that Tammy’s gonna kill him.”

Dr. Hicks raised a thick brow at Savich, no look of shock on his face since he’d heard it all. He just shook his head as Savich eased his chair nearer to Marilyn’s.

“She’s well under, Savich. You know what to do.”

Savich nodded, said, “Marilyn, how are you feeling about Tammy right now?”

She was silent, her forehead creased in a frown, then she shook her head and said slowly, “I think I love her; I’m supposed to since she’s my cousin, but she scares me. I never know what she’s going to do. I think she’d kill me, laugh while she rubbed my blood all over her hands, if she was in the mood, you know?”

“Yes, I know.”

“She’s going to kill you.”

“Yes, she might try, you told me. How do you think she contacts the Ghouls?” Savich ignored Dr. Hicks, who didn’t have a clue who or what the Ghouls were. He just shook his head and repeated the question. “Marilyn?”

“I’ve thought about that, Mr. Savich. I know they were there when she killed that little boy. Maybe, from what she said, she just thinks about them and they come. Or maybe they follow her around and she just says that to prove how powerful she is. Do you know what the Ghouls are?”

“No, I don’t have any idea, Marilyn. You don’t either, do you?”

She shook her head. She was sitting in a comfortable chair, her head leaning back against the cushion, her eyes closed. She’d been staying in a room at the Jefferson dormitory at the FBI complex, watched over by female agents. She’d washed her hair, and they’d given her a clean skirt and sweater. Even hypnotized, she looked pale and frightened, her fingers continually twitching and jerking. He wondered what would happen to her. She had no other family, no education to speak of, and there was Tammy, in the Caribbean, who’d scared her all of her life. He hoped the FBI would find her soon and Marilyn wouldn’t have to be scared of her anymore.

He said, “Has Tammy been to the Caribbean before?”

“Yeah. She and Tommy visited the Bahamas a couple years ago. In the spring, I think.”

“Did they take the Ghouls with them?”

Marilyn frowned and shook her head.

“You don’t know if they killed anyone while they were there?”

“I asked Tommy, and he just laughed and laughed. That was right before he got me pregnant.”

Savich made a note to check to see if there’d been any particularly vicious, unsolved killings during their stay.

“Has Tammy ever talked about the Caribbean, other than the Bahamas? Any islands that she’d like to visit?”

She shook her head.

“Think, Marilyn. That’s right, just relax, lean your head back, and think about that. Remember back over the times you’ve seen her.”

There was a long silence, and then Marilyn said, “She said once—it was Halloween and she was dressed like a vampire—that she wanted to go to Barbados and scare the crap out of the kids there. Then she laughed. I never liked that laugh, Mr. Savich. It was the same kind of laugh that Tommy had after the Bahamas.”

“Did she ever talk about what the Ghouls did to those kids?”

“Once, when she was being Timmy, she said they just gobbled them right up.”

“But the Ghouls don’t just gobble them up, do they? They maybe take an arm, a leg?”

“Oh, Mr. Savich, they just do that when they’re full and aren’t interested in anything but a taste. But I can’t be sure because both Tommy and Tammy never really told me.”

Savich felt sick. Jesus, did she really mean what he thought she meant? That there were young boys who’d simply disappeared and would never be found because the Tuttles had eaten them? Were they cannibals? He unconsciously rubbed his arms at a sudden chill he felt.

He looked over at Dr. Hicks. His face was red, and he looked ready to be ill himself.

Savich lightly touched her forearm and said, “Thank you, Marilyn, you’ve been a big help. If you could choose, right now, what would you like to do with your life?”

She didn’t hesitate for a second. “I want to be a carpenter. We lived for about five years in this one place and the neighbor was a carpenter. He built desks and tables and chairs, all sorts of stuff. He spent lots of time with me, taught me everything. ’Course I paid him just like he wanted, and he liked that a lot. In high school they told me I was a girl and girls couldn’t do that, and then Tommy got me pregnant and killed the baby.”

“Just one more question. Was Tammy planning to contact you from the Caribbean?” He’d asked her this before. He wanted to see if she added anything under hypnosis because now he had a plan.

“Yeah. She didn’t say when, just that she would, sometime.”

“How would she find you?”

“She would call my boyfriend, Tony, up in Bar Harbor. I don’t think he likes me anymore. He said if the cops were after me, then he was out of there.”

Savich hoped that Tony wouldn’t take off too soon. He was still there, working as a mechanic at Ed’s European Motors. He’d check in again with the agents in Bar Harbor, keep an eye on him, maybe some wiretaps. Now they had something solid. A call from Tammy.

“Thank you, Marilyn.” Savich rose and went to stand by the door. He watched as Dr. Hicks brought her gently back. He listened as he spoke quietly to her, reassuring her, until he nodded to Savich and led her from the room, holding her shoulder.

Savich said, “It’s time for lunch, Marilyn. We’ll eat in the Boardroom, not the big cafeteria. It’s just down the hall on this floor.”

“I’d really like a pizza, Mr. Savich, with lots of pepperoni.”

“You’ve got it. The Boardroom is known for its pizza.”

Eureka, California

Simon was pissed. He’d sent Lily back to Washington. She’d been as pissed as he was now, but she’d finally given up, seen reason, and slid her butt into the taxi he’d called for her. Only she hadn’t gone back to Washington. She’d simply taken the same plane he had to San Francisco, keeping out of sight in the back, then managed to make an earlier connection from San Francisco to Arcata-Eureka Airport. She’d waltzed right up to him at the damned baggage carousel and said in a chirpy voice, “I never thought I’d be traveling back to Hemlock Bay only two weeks after I finally managed to escape it.”

And now they were sitting side by side in a rental car, and Simon was still pissed.

“You shouldn’t have pulled that little sneaking act, Lily. Some bad stuff could happen. We’re in their neck of the woods again, and I—”

“We’re in this together, Russo, don’t forget it,” she said. She gave him a long look, then glanced out the back window of their rental car to study the three cars behind them. None appeared to be following them. She said, “You’re acting like I’ve cut off your ego. This isn’t your show, Russo. They’re my paintings. Back off.”

“I promised your brother I wouldn’t let you get hurt.”

“Fine. Okay, keep your promise. Where are we going? I was thinking it would be to Abe Turkle. You said maybe you could get something out of him, not about the collector he was working for, but maybe about the Frasiers. Since he’s here, that pretty well proves he’s involved with them, doesn’t it?”

“That’s right.”

“You said Abraham Turkle is staying in a beach house just up the coast from Hemlock Bay. Do we know who owns it? Don’t tell me it’s my soon-to-be-ex-husband.”

Simon gave it up. He turned to her as he said, “No, it’s not Tennyson Frasier. It’s close, but no, the cottage is in Daddy Frasier’s name.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that sooner? That really nails it, doesn’t it? Isn’t that enough proof?”

“Not yet. Just be patient. Everything will come together. Highway 211 is a very gnarly road, just like you told me. Are we going to be passing the place where you lost your brakes and plowed into that redwood?”

“Yes, just ahead.” But Lily didn’t look at the tree as they passed it. The events of that night were growing more faint, the terror fading a bit, but it was still too close to her.

Simon said, “Turns out that Abraham Turkle has no bank account, no visible means of support. So the Frasiers must be paying him in cash.”

“I still can’t get over their going to all this trouble,” Lily said.

“After we verify that Mr. Olaf Jorgenson of Sweden now has three in his possession—no, we want him to have all four of the paintings, it’d keep things simple—we may be able to find out how much he’s paid for them. I’m thinking in the neighborhood of two to three million per painting. Maybe higher. Depends on how obsessed he is. From what I hear, he’s single-minded when he wants a certain painting.”

“Three million? That’s a whole lot of money. But to go to all this trouble—”

“I can tell you stories you don’t want to hear about how far some collectors will go. There was one German guy who collected rare stamps. He found out that his mother had one that he’d wanted for years, only she wanted to keep it for herself. He hit her over the head with a large bag of coins, killed her. Does that give you an idea of how completely obsessed some of these folk are?”

Lily could only stare at him. “It’s just hard to believe. This Olaf Jorgenson—you told me he’s very old and nearly blind in the bargain.”

“It is amazing that he can’t control his obsession, not even for something as incidental as, say, going blind. I guess it won’t stop until he’s dead.”

“Do you think his son Ian has the real
Night Watch
aboard his yacht?”

“I wouldn’t be at all surprised.”

“Are you going to tell the people at the Rijksmuseum?”

“Yeah, but trust me on this, they won’t want to hear it. They’ll have a couple of experts examine the painting on the sly. If the experts agree that it’s a forgery, they’ll try to get it back, but will they announce it? Doubtful.

“We’ve been checking out Mr. Monk, the curator of the Eureka Art Museum. He does have a Ph.D. from George Washington, and a pedigree as long as your arm. If something’s off there, Savich hasn’t found it yet. We’re going deeper on that, got some feelers out to a couple of museums where he worked. You keep looking back there. Is anyone following us?”

Lily shifted in her seat to face his profile. “No, no one’s back there. I can’t help it. To me, this is enemy territory.”

“You’re entitled. You had a very bad experience here. You met Mr. Monk, didn’t you?”

“Oh yes.”

“Tell me about him.”

Lily said slowly, “When I first met Mr. Monk, I thought he had the most intense black eyes, quite beautiful really, ‘bedroom eyes’ I guess you could call them. But he looked hungry. Isn’t that odd?”

Simon said, “He has beautiful eyes? Bedroom eyes? You women think and say the strangest things.”

“Like men don’t? If it were Mrs. Monk, you’d probably go on about her cleavage.”

“Well, yeah, maybe. And your point would be?”

“You’d probably never even get to her face. You men are all one-celled.”

“You think? Really?”

She laughed, she just couldn’t help it. He pushed his sunglasses up his nose, and she saw that he was grinning at her. He said with a good deal of satisfaction, “You’re feeling better. You’ve got a nice laugh, Lily. I like hearing it. Mind you, I’m still mad because you followed me out here, but I will admit that this is the first time I’ve seen you that you don’t look like you want to curl up and take a long nap.”

“Get over it, Simon. We must be nearly to Abraham Turkle’s cottage. Just up ahead, Highway 211 turns left to go to Hemlock Bay. To the right there’s this asphalt one-lane track that goes the mile out to the ocean. That’s where the cottage is?”

“Yes, those were my directions. You’ve never been out to the ocean on that road?”

“I don’t think so,” she said.

“Okay now, listen up. Abe has a bad reputation. He’s got a real mean side, so we want to be careful with him.”

They came to the fork. Simon turned right, onto the narrow asphalt road. “This is it,” Simon said. “There’s no sign and there’s no other road. Let’s try it.”

The ocean came into view almost immediately, when they were just atop a slight rise. Blue and calm as far as you could see, white clouds dotting the sky, a perfect day.