Elizabeth Lowell - Blue Smoke and Murder

Jill didn’t need her years of summing up clients on the river to see that whatever it was that lay between Frost and Zach, the emotion was as complex as it was painful.

“Why else indeed?” Frost said roughly. “I should shut the door in your ungrateful face.”

“Then you’d never know what I brought you.” Zach smiled, showing a lot of teeth. “And that would irritate the hell out of you.”

Frost turned his back on Zach, took Jill’s arm, and led her into the house. “Welcome to Taos. Amazing that such a good-looking young woman would put up with Zach Balfour.”

Since Frost hadn’t slammed the door in Zach’s ungrateful face, he followed Jill inside.

He didn’t hurry to catch up. He knew exactly where and how Frost was going to test Jill. The great room was great in more than space. If anyone wasn’t fascinated by it, then Frost had no time to waste on that person.

Jill passed the test.

Silently she stared at Frost’s great room. She hoped her jaw wasn’t hanging open, but wouldn’t have been surprised if it was.

In one corner a fire crackled in an unscreened fireplace. The scent of burning cedar infused the room with a clean, natural perfume. Dozens of paintings hung high on the pale plaster walls. Beneath them, at eye level, display cases filled with earthen pots, cowboy bronzes, and Indian artifacts stood shoulder to shoulder around the perimeter of the room.

From what she could see, everything inside the cases was of museum quality.

Library tables covered with stacks of books and partially assembled pots took up much of the rest of the floor space, except for a huge wood desk that looked out like an observation post. The desk was on a platform that was raised two steps above the floor of the great room.

“She likes it,” Frost said to Zach. “Your taste in women has improved.”

“She’s a client,” Zach replied. “I’m on assignment.”

“Still with the government, then. Sorry to hear it. The contingent of bozos running the country doesn’t deserve help.”

“I left government work five years ago,” Zach said. “Now I’m with St. Kilda Consulting.”

Frost’s silver eyebrows lifted. “I’m surprised Ambassador Steele would put up with you.”

“He’s a scholar and a gentleman. We get along just fine.”

Unlike Frost and Zach.

Jill winced at the undercurrents, but hesitated to get between the two men. Besides, the room was fascinating. She itched to look in every drawer and cabinet.

“So you’re back in the art business?” Frost asked, his expression still guarded.

Zach shrugged. “I’m here, aren’t I? When I’m not out there, practicing carchaeology.”

“What the hell is that?”

“Collectible muscle cars. But if you still have that old International Travel-All of yours, I’ll give you five grand for it,” Zach said.

“Why?”

“I know a man who is looking for one and will pay at least eight thousand.”

“I don’t believe you,” Frost said. “What’s his name?”

“Nobody you know,” Zach said.

“I’ll find out,” Frost said. “There isn’t anything in the world of collectibles that I can’t discover in time.”

“Yeah?” Zach asked. “Then find me a 1971 Plymouth Barracuda convertible with a 426 Hemi engine.”

“I just might,” Frost said curtly. “If I have time to waste.”

“You’ll need a lot of it,” Zach said. “There were only nine of them made and eight have been found. Supposedly the last one was turned into scrap metal at a junkyard somewhere here in the Southwest, but I think that baby is still out there.”

“So what? Cars aren’t art.”

“Tell that to the guy who paid two million and change for convertible number eight,” Zach said.

“Two million dollars?”

“And change.”

“I’ll be damned,” Frost said. “But it still isn’t art.”

“Matter of opinion.”

“Quit baiting our host,” Jill said to Zach without shifting her attention from the paintings on the far wall. “You know art when you see it. And I’m looking at some really fine art right now.”

Zach and Frost both seemed surprised to be reminded that they weren’t alone. They followed Jill’s glance.

Eight Western landscapes flowed across the wall. All of them were beautifully presented with gilt museum frames and recessed illumination that brought out every bit of light and darkness in the canvases.

“Great Basin, western Rockies, Northwest coast, high plains, Southwest, every season and mood,” she said, moving toward the paintings. “Incredible.”

And two of the paintings were Dunstans.

OVER NEW MEXICO

SEPTEMBER 15

6:14 P.M.

Anything new?” Score barked into his headphone.

“Do you see anything new in your files?” Amy’s voice said more than her words just how irritated she was. “I’m on a date and my phone keeps vibrating like a scared hamster. I’ve spent so much time in the women’s can that Dave thinks I’ve got diarrhea.”

“You’re getting overtime.”

“I’d rather get laid.”

Score bit back a string of curses. The problem with hiring bright young computer techs was that they were younger than they were bright.

“There is nothing new on the phone bug,” she said, spacing the words like Score was an idiot. “I said I’d call if there was.”

“When was the last time you checked?”

“The last time you called. That would be four minutes and sixteen-no, seventeen-seconds ago.”

“Where’s your computer?”

“At the office, rigged to call the cell phone in my other pocket if something changes. I also have Steve babysitting my computer, in case something good pops. Why don’t you just text-message him and cut out the middleman?”

With a disgusted sound, Score punched out of the conversation. He frowned at one of the computers he had with him. The pulsing light of the locater appeared over a street map of Taos.

The only good news was that the locater had finally stopped moving.

He zoomed in on the map until he had the address. Then he fed the information into his other computer and waited impatiently for directions to appear on the screen. While he waited, he watched the locater.

Still motionless.

“That’s it, babe. Stay where you are. Papa’s coming to get you.”

And he really hoped the Breck bitch got in the way. Nothing personal. She was just more trouble than she was worth. Like her great-aunt. With a little luck, Ms. Breck would be talking to the old lady soon.

Assuming the dead talked.

TAOS

SEPTEMBER 15

6:21 P.M.

So you like Western landscapes,” Frost said to Jill, breaking the long silence. “Especially the Dunstans. Why?”

She started, only then realizing she’d been wholly involved in the art, ignoring everyone in the room. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to be rude.”

“Not at all,” Frost said. “Seeing your reaction reminds me of just how great those paintings are. I get so busy fitting pieces of pottery together that I forget to look up often enough.”

Jill glance at Zach, silently asking him how much she should say to Garland Frost.

“Whatever is said doesn’t leave the room,” Zach said to Frost. “Agreed?”

Frost measured Zach with shrewd dark eyes. “Just like the old days.”

Zach nodded.

“Agreed,” Frost said. “What do you have?”

“Questions about twelve landscapes that have been in Jill’s family for three generations,” Zach said.

“Good paintings?”

“I like them,” Zach said. “A lot.”

Frost grunted and asked Jill, “Who bought the paintings?”

“I suspect they were a gift.” Or even a theft. “I certainly didn’t find any sales receipts in the family papers.”

“Provenance?” Frost asked Zach.

“From Jill’s grandmother, to her grandmother’s younger sister, and then to Jill.”

“There are plenty of experts and St. Kilda Consulting has a reciprocal agreement with Rarities Unlimited. Why come to me?” Frost asked.

“Until Thomas Dunstan killed himself, my grandmother was his on-again, off-again lover,” Jill said before Zach could. “Originally there were thirteen paintings. When the land taxes were more than Modesty could afford, she sent the smallest canvas out to be appraised by a gallery in Park City, Utah. Somehow they ‘lost’ it.”

Frost’s eyes narrowed but he didn’t say anything.

“Someone gave the painting back to me as a handful of canvas scraps,” she said bitterly.

“Destroyed?” Frost demanded.

“Beyond repair,” Zach answered. “The rags are in her belly bag. Don’t ask me why. I told her they’re worthless.”

Jill shrugged, unsnapped the bag’s strap, and threw the whole thing at him. “Then you get rid of them. I can’t.”

“Later.” One-handed, Zach caught the bag and fired it toward the nearest sofa. The satellite phone gave the bag just enough heft to keep it aloft for the nine-foot flight. “The important thing is the death threat came with the scraps. That’s when she called St. Kilda Consulting.”

Frost looked at the metal suitcase Zach was still holding. “That better be one of the family paintings.”

Zach put the case flat on the floor, unsnapped the catches, and opened it. When he removed the protective coverings, there were two canvases in perfectly cut foam nests, one canvas for each side of the case.

In complete silence, Frost stared at the paintings until Jill wanted to shake him.

“Take them out,” Frost said. “Let me see them more closely.”

Carefully Zach took the paintings out.

“Did you remove them from their frames?” Frost demanded.

“As far as I know, they were never framed,” Jill said.

“Over here,” was all Frost said.

He swept an arm across his desk, clearing a space big enough for both paintings. Art and archaeology magazines and papers fell unnoticed to the floor.

Zack put the canvases on the desk.

“Get the rest of them,” Frost said without looking up from the paintings.

“I live to serve,” Zach muttered.

“I’ll help,” Jill said quickly.

“Clear a space over there,” Zack said, pointing to a library table littered with books. “I’ll bring the paintings.”

Frost ignored everything but the canvases in front of him. The intensity in his eyes was reflected in his silence. He didn’t look up until Zach put out two more paintings. Frost went to them, his footsteps silent on the Persian carpet. When some of the books Jill was rearranging slid off onto the floor, he didn’t notice.

Zach came back with another set of paintings.

Frost was looking at his own Dunstans. When Jill put the fifth and sixth canvases on the library table, he crossed quickly to them.

For the first time in her life, silence was driving Jill crazy. As Zach came back with numbers seven and eight, she lifted an eyebrow in silent question. He shook his head, closed the empty case, put it next to the others, and left.

Frost rearranged two of the canvases and said, “Light. The steel lamp near the potsherds.”

Since Jill was the only other person in the room, she assumed he was giving the order to her. She went to a table halfway across the great room, unplugged the lamp, and carried it over to Frost.

He dumped more books on the floor to make room for the lamp’s heavy base and long folding arm. Without being told, she plugged the cord into the nearest outlet.

If he treated Zach like this, it’s no wonder the two of them didn’t get along, she thought. But I assume Frost’s expertise equals his arrogance. If it didn’t, Zach wouldn’t have made the trip.

She cleared books and Zach brought more paintings until all twelve were on the library table and six empty aluminum cases were lined up behind the door. The last painting on the table was her favorite-the landscape with a woman in a red skirt.

Frost studied it very closely. Then he picked up each canvas and searched it front to sides to back.

“Unsigned,” Zach said. “All of them.”

“I have eyes,” Frost snapped.

The silence grew as he examined the last painting.

And grew.

Finally Frost looked up at Jill. “What horse’s ass said these aren’t Dunstans?”