“What does barbecue sauce have to do with hotel sheets?” Shawn said. “It’s one of life’s mysteries.”
The judge banged his gavel. “Just hurry it up.”
“Yes,” Low said. “Langston’s word would be enough to establish the piece’s provenance. But if you’re suggesting that he was used to artificially inflate the value of a forgery, you’re forgetting the fact that the picture was never sold. It was donated to the museum by an anonymous donor who received nothing in return.”
“But if something happened to the painting, Kitteredge’s pomegranate would still stand,” Shawn said.
“Provenance, yes,” Low said. “Which means the whole world can mourn the loss of this masterpiece, knowing it exists.”
“Excuse me,” a voice said from the audience. Gus turned to see that Lassiter was standing now. “Carlton Lassiter, head detective for the Santa Barbara Police Department. I wonder if I might ask the witness a question.”
“I object again!” This time Willingham did get out of her chair. In fact, she seemed to have been propelled out by jets of rage. “This man is not a lawyer.”
The judge pointed at Shawn. “And this man is? If it will get us any closer to a plea, come on down.”
Lassiter sidled over the chief’s legs, then walked through the low gate to the stand. “Mr. Low,” he said. “As you know, our English colleagues have been going through the records of Polidori and Son, and they’ve discovered that you sold the firm some several extremely valuable Pre-Raphaelite paintings.”
“I have been fortunate in my dealings,” Low said.
“I’d say you’ve been extremely fortunate,” Lassiter said. “Because you were able to sell some paintings that actually existed simultaneously in Japanese bank vaults, owned by corporations that had squirreled them away as investments. Scotland Yard will soon be retrieving the pictures you sold, and will be able to prove they were forgeries. So you might want to cooperate now if you hope to head off extradition.”
“I’m delighted to cooperate, but even if I had painted this picture, what gain would there have been for me?” Low said. “It was donated. Given away. No money changed hands.”
Gus noticed that Kitteredge was looking up at Low now, staring at him in acute betrayal. Then he lowered his gaze to the table again.
“Your Honor?” Shawn said. “I’m looking out in the audience, and I think someone else would like to ask a question. Dad?”
Shawn gestured, and Henry rose uncomfortably. “Sorry, Your Honor,” Henry said. “I’m Henry Spencer. SBPD, retired. I know this isn’t exactly the way things are done.”
“Everybody else is doing it,” the judge said wearily. “So jump on in. Ask Mr. Low your question.”
“Actually, I’d like to ask someone else,” Henry said. “Hugh Ralston, executive director of the Santa Barbara Museum of Art.”
“Hugh Ralston, come on down!” Shawn shouted.
Ralston looked like he’d just been shot. He stood weakly, then came down the aisle. At a gesture from the judge, Low got out of the witness box and held the door open for Ralston.
“Hugh, I remind you that you are still under the oath the last guy swore,” Shawn said.
“Is that real?” Ralston said in a quiet voice.
“Frankly, I’m not sure any of this is real,” the judge said. “I sincerely hope to wake up on the couch in my chambers within the next five minutes. But until then, proceed as if you are sworn.”
“Your witness, Dad,” Shawn said.
“Thanks, son,” Henry said. “Nice tux, by the way. Formal’s a good look on you.” He turned to the witness box. “Mr. Ralston, you told me you loved the museum.”
“It’s my life.” Ralston’s voice barely rose above a whisper.
“You told me it was more important than your life,” Henry said. “Because you could touch only the lives of the few people you were close to, but the museum could give joy to generations.”
“That’s true,” Ralston said.
“So if you found a way to protect the museum, to keep it open despite its financial difficulties, you would do it even if it weren’t strictly legal?” Henry said.
Ralston nodded, tears in his eyes.
Shawn clapped Henry on the shoulder. “Good work, Dad. We’ll take it from here.” He turned to Gus. “You want a shot at this?”
Gus worked furiously to put together all the pieces Shawn and the others had been laying out. How could a museum profit from a forgery, especially one it had possessed for only a few days?
And then he knew. He stepped up to the witness box as Henry headed back to his seat. “So, Hugh, after Flaxman Low came to you with the idea of this forgery, how much did you decide to soak the insurance company for?”
Ralston’s mouth was moving to speak when the courtroom doors burst open. A small, swarthy man marched down the aisle, two police officers chasing after him.
“Those two!” the swarthy man shouted, pointing at Shawn and Gus. “They are the ones who robbed me! I demand that they be arrested for grand theft!”
Chapter Forty-seven
“You have to admit: Things could have turned out a lot worse,” Gus said. “For one thing, these orange jumpsuits are much more comfortable than the tuxedoes.”
Shawn didn’t even waste a glare on him but just turned back to his hard labor.
“Okay,” Gus said. “I admit it. This was my fault. I got us into this, and you are paying the penalty for my mistake. But at least we’ve got the sun on our backs.”
A car tore by no more than five inches from Shawn’s foot, kicking dust in their faces at it sped down the 101 freeway.
“And don’t forget the fresh air,” Shawn said. “Lots and lots of fresh air.”
Gus lifted his stick and speared a cigarette butt from among the succulents, then dropped it in his shoulder bag. “Considering what we were charged with, it could have been a lot worse.”
It certainly could have been if Shawn hadn’t managed to put it all together. As soon as Ralston had been confronted on the witness stand, he broke down and confessed the whole thing.
Not all at once, and not coherently at first. Because he kept breaking into sobs and pleas to be forgiven. He’d taken part in the scam only to help the museum. He’d never dreamed that anyone would get hurt.
The plan had been Flaxman Low’s, of course. He’d been listening to Kitteredge obsess about that nonexistent painting for so many years he had half decided to paint it himself just as a prank. But once the idea was in his head, he realized it could be so much more lucrative if he took it beyond the level of practical joke.
Low knew how much financial trouble the Santa Barbara museum was in, so he went to Ralston with a proposal. He would arrange for a lawyer to contact curator Filkins and offer the museum The Defence of Guenevere. Of course Filkins would leap at the chance, especially since the only condition of the bequest would be that it remain entirely anonymous, even to all museum personnel. Then they’d get Kitteredge to declare it a masterpiece, thus establishing its provenance. And then the painting would be tragically “stolen,” never to be seen again, and incurring an insurance payout in the tens of millions.
And it was all going so well until the day of the painting’s official unveiling. Filkins had never been completely comfortable with the anonymous gift, and he’d been studying the picture closely. That day he told Ralston he suspected a forgery, and took him into the gallery to show him what he’d discovered. That’s why the surveillance cameras had all been turned away-Filkins hadn’t wanted to alert anyone to his suspicions until he’d shared them with Ralston.
Panicked, Ralston told Filkins the truth, hoping to enlist him on his side. But the curator was outraged and vowed to go to the museum board and have Ralston fired. The executive director claimed his memory was fuzzy on precisely what happened next, but there was a scuffle, and when it was over Filkins was dead and Ralston was holding the bloody knife.
There was no way he could hope to transport the body through the museum. He knew he was going to be caught, and he was prepared to turn himself in. Then he had an idea. Thanks to Kitteredge, there was a mythology about a conspiracy surrounding this painting. Why not make it look like the Cabal had killed Filkins? He found a sword in the museum’s archives that was a fairly close match to the one in the picture and ran the corpse through with it.