Death of a Chance: Barbara O'Grady Mystery Series, #7

By Sharon Rowse

P. I. Barbara O'Grady has built her reputation on impossible cases, but the Swiss art dealer facing fraud and betrayal at her internationally known art gallery takes impossible to new heights.

 

Someone has it in for Annegret Carli and her renowned gallery. What starts with rumors of fraud quickly escalates to forged old masters. And murder.

 

Now it's up to Barbara and her team to uncover the truth and save her client's reputation and career. Or it may be all their lives on the line.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Three Cedars Press
• Release date: Sep 21, 2021
• ISBN: 9781988037448

Sharon Rowse

Sharon Rowse is the author of several mystery series. Her work has been praised as “impressive” (Booklist), “delicious” (Mystery Scene) and “well-researched and lively” (Seattle Times). Her love of history combines with her love of storytelling in books that seek out unique, forgotten bits of history, melding them with memorable characters in the mysteries she writes.Learn more at:  www.sharonrowse.com

Book preview

Chapter One

On an unusually gloomy Monday morning in mid-October, I was staring out my office window, watching the clouds roll in across the harbor. The weather had turned early this year. Big dark thunderheads were forming over the ocean, and the light was flat. We were due for quite a storm. I’d smelled it in the wind when I went for a run that morning, and now I could see it building in the west.

I still wasn’t used to being able to look out instead of up from my office window. In my former office, my view had been the rooftop of a permanently grimy parkade across the alley, and the sky above it. But when my assistant Marie Deslauriers and my former art school nemesis Justine Grayson got together while I was out of the country—and busy getting Justine’s firm out of trouble—they’d expanded the office premises and moved my office from the adjoining suite to this one.

It was an expansion Marie had been pushing for, which, despite the benefits, I couldn’t afford. Until Justine decided that with the amount of money my team’s efforts had saved her firm, we deserved a bonus. Together, she and Marie delivered a surprise office expansion, designed by Justine—an internationally acclaimed designer. Her notion of a ‘bonus’ also included fifteen years of pre-paid rent.

I ended up with a larger, edgier office space for Barbara O’Grady Investigations. Plus a corner office that faced north and west, in a building that was on the edge of what was becoming a trendy district as the city morphed and changed around us. And with what I saved on rent, I could afford to hire the staff I needed to grow.

That was nearly a month ago, and things are just beginning to fall into a new normal. I’ve even started to get used to my fancy new offices. Maybe.

I still missed the feeling of working in an old-style PI office in what had once been a rundown part of town, furnished with whatever I could afford at the time. Even if it had been tired and dated from the day I set it up, it was mine. I’d earned every inch of it, the hard way.

I drank some coffee, the dark richness of it reminding me that I didn’t hate all the changes. I loved the new, top-of-the-line espresso machine—Justine again. And my streamlined, curving desk with the dark eggplant top was now a firm favorite. I reached out and stroked the top of it, wondering yet again what exactly it was made of. It was ridiculously tactile, whatever it was, and something about it deeply pleased the artist in me.

I drank a little more coffee and had just opened my computer when Marie stuck her head around the door. Barbara? You got a minute?

I looked at the emails I had yet to deal with. Not really. What’s up?

We have a new client, she said.

Her smug look told me she considered this one a real coup. Which meant trouble. What client? I demanded.

But Marie had already vanished, leaving me staring at the door. This wasn’t the first time she’d pulled this kind of stunt.

Marie DesLauriers, my former assistant, had taken on the role of my office manager. Also known as ‘the one who makes everything work’. And she was scarily capable in that role. Much to my surprise and occasional horror.

Marie’s version of how my business and my office should function is very different from mine. And she’s proved really good at finding creative ways to advance her vision while I’m focused on a big case. With a lot of assistance from her new mentor—none other than Justine. A relationship that made no sense at all.

Making it a typical Marie move.

In her latest transformation, Marie has abandoned the smoothly elegant short blond cap of hair that Justine had talked her into, and gone back to the spiky red hair she’d worn when I met her. It was nice to see her looking like herself again. But somehow she made that cut look elegant, too, which the Marie I’d first met could never have pulled off. Or wanted to.

I found that unsettling. Marie was changing fast as she experimented with who she wanted to become. And she was bound and determined that her job—and my company—were going to change right along with her.

That didn’t bode well for my peace of mind. And the battles I could see coming were going to be epic.

I’d deal with those when they happened. For now, I needed to deal with a new client.

Who shouldn’t be a client at all.

I’d never given Marie the authority to sign client contracts. Especially not big ones. No matter how much she’d proven herself capable of managing the office, I didn’t trust her sometimes oddly off-center judgement when it came to new clients. Or her unexpectedly soft heart for a sob story.

Unfortunately, that hadn’t stopped Marie committing us to new clients in the past. And it sounded like she was at it again.

I was still muttering to myself when the door opened again, and Marie ushered in an attractive, very well-dressed woman with a face easily recognizable to anyone in the art world. Barbara O’Grady, I’d like to introduce Annegret Carli.

I’ve heard good things, Ms. Carli said, striding forward and holding out a manicured hand. I’m very pleased you had time to take us on.

The ‘us’ in question would be Annegret Carli Fine Arts, the very well-known Swiss gallery she’d grown from nothing to one of the best galleries in the world. From what I knew of the gallery’s history, Ms. Carli would be perhaps a dozen and a half years older than me, though she certainly didn’t look it. Both her sharply edged hairstyle and her business suit were cutting edge design, making a strong statement. Yet she carried the look with confident ease.

Justine would have been impressed, I thought sourly. In fact, they probably knew each other.

The pleasure is mine, Ms. Carli, I said, shaking hands.

Please, that is so formal. Call me Annegret.

Barbara, I said, waving her to the two eye catching burnt orange bucket chairs surrounded by sweeping potted palms on the far side of my office.

How can I help you? I asked as I sat down at a slight angle to her, and considered her with interest. Since she was, apparently, my newest client.

Though I might have to find a creative way to break that contract. I’d done it before. Marie was getting pretty good at negotiating—except for the pitfalls she tended to miss. But I was better, luckily for all of us.

It all depended how this interview with my potential client went.

Everything about Annegret was professional, and expensive, if I was any judge. And I was rapidly becoming a decent judge of clothing styles, as my firm had begun to attract clients that were more high end than I’d ever dreamed of.

I still wasn’t sure how I felt about that. Or what I wanted my firm to become.

Stubbornly, I’d been refusing to part with my ‘boots, well-cut jacket and denims’ approach to my working outfit. Though both Justine and Marie had been lecturing me about the need for my ‘image’ to fit my expanding business.

I already had an image I was comfortable with, thanks.

Though Marie had been giving me the once over lately in a way that had me worried. Once seemingly wedded to her neon-bright bicycle gear, my former assistant had bloomed under the mentorship of Justine into a seeming hothouse plant with a cutting edge style and an artistic edge that made everything she wore uniquely hers.

My artistic eye might appreciate what she was growing into. My knowledge of Marie’s tactics made me fear for my denims. But there were limits, and those were mine.

Annegret was considering me as carefully as I was her. Before we actually signed a contract, I wanted to meet with you. In person, she said.

So Marie hadn’t actually finalized the contract with Carli Fine Arts. Good to know. I was even more skeptical about taking on this potential client now she was sitting across from me. Why had someone like Annegret Carli come all this way to seek out my much smaller firm? What was she looking for?

Unless Justine had recommended my firm? That was possible, but it didn’t do anything to recommend this client to me.

I hadn’t missed the harshly controlled edge in Annegret’s beautifully modulated voice, either. At a guess, she was hiding something. Which wasn’t unusual for people seeking out a private investigator, unfortunately, but it set off my spidey sense.

If a client is going to be a problem, I like to know right up front. My firm may be bigger and fancier than when I first started out, but I still seem to attract mostly impossible clients. With impossible cases.

At least there’s good money in it now.

Why was meeting me in person so important? I asked her.

Annegret’s dark eyes gleamed with a sudden hint of humor. I relaxed a little. Maybe this one wasn’t going to be completely impossible.

Aside from the fact that we are a large client, and it is your agency? she asked.

I get the feeling there’s a little more to it, I said bluntly.

She nodded. Yes. You’re right. There is.

She leaned forward, met my eyes. I wanted to meet with you because before we get into this shit storm, she said, her polished accent at odds with her blunt language. I wanted to know exactly who I would be dealing with. I needed a sense of who you are, outside of the news stories.

Which was not what I’d expected? Why? I asked, equally bluntly.

It has recently come to my attention that my firm is rumored to be dealing in multi-million dollar forgeries, she said.

And she sat back, still watching me.

Chapter Two

Istared at Annegret Carli, momentarily at a loss for words.

Forgeries? It was the last thing I’d expected to hear. Annegret Carli Fine Arts’s reputation was impeccable, with never a whisper of fraudulent dealings. Of any kind.

You’re kidding.

No.

How did you hear about these rumors? I asked her.

A friend—someone in the industry—told me she’d heard something that I needed to look into. But she wouldn’t tell me where she’d heard it, or even how widespread the rumors were, Annegret said. She’s a very good friend, so I didn’t ignore it.

She paused, twisting hands sporting long, beautifully manicured nails together on her lap. She was right about the rumors.

Who is spreading them? I asked. Do you know?

She shook her head. No, she said. Whoever it is, we haven’t been able to track them down. Not without causing even more rumors. And exposing ourselves further.

That had an ominous sound. And there was something in her voice… What aren’t you saying?

I’m afraid the rumors are true, she said. At least partially.

I hadn’t expected that one. Annegret Carli Fine Arts is dealing in forgeries?

Yes, in several of our recent transactions. Or at least, that’s what our internal investigations are indicating.

What kind of forgeries? I asked.

Paintings, she said bluntly.

I considered the implications. There are reported to be a surprising number of forged paintings floating through the global fine art networks. Including some in a number of very well-regarded collections and museums. So this wasn’t as surprising as it might have been.

But if this was true, Annegret’s description of her problem might have been an understatement.

What did you find out? I asked her, keeping my tone neutral with an effort.

At least some of our works apparently don’t stand up to advanced technical testing, she said. But our investigations aren’t complete. We’ve been hampered by our need to keep this as quiet as possible. You understand.

I did. A gallery like Annegret Carli Fine Arts relied on its reputation for trustworthiness and confidentiality for most of its sales. Especially when modern testing methods seemed to be uncovering more fraudulent works by the month, around the globe.

How many forgeries did you find? I asked.

Three out of the seventy recent transactions we’ve reviewed are forgeries, she said, her jaw muscles tightening as she spoke.

Roughly four percent, then? That could be manageable, depending on the artists involved. Are these forgeries the work—or purported work—of any particular artist? I asked.

No. But all three are old masters. Which the rumors I’ve heard point to as well. These are lesser works, but still. As you probably know, even those works command high six or seven figures. And up.

Ouch. This case just got even more difficult. With that kind of fame and money at stake? When this was discovered, it would be front page news around the globe.

Annegret Carli Fine Arts had to get out ahead of the story. They had to be the ones to break it, too. Or they were finished.

And with all that at stake, they’d turned to my small firm? When there were so many big, well-connected investigation firms that would have jumped at the opportunity? Why?

What about the source of these frauds? I asked.

The three we’ve found came from three different sources—a dealer, a collector and another gallery, she said. We haven’t been able to find any common link. Or the point at which each forgery could have been done. But we’re hampered by the need to keep this investigation quiet.

As I made a note, she added, So far, the provenance looks good. On all three of them.

I winced. Provenance was the documented history of each work—the records of sales ownership, starting with the original sale by the artist—that was intended to prove authenticity.

If the provenance had been faked well enough that Annegret’s gallery had missed it? There might be no limits to this case. Depending, of course, on how widespread the forgeries were in her firm.

In the worst case scenario? The damages—and the hit to their reputation—would be insurmountable. Even the best case scenario would need careful handling for them to get through this, given that there were already rumors floating around.

Despite their history and solid reputation, even a gallery as strong as Annegret Carli Fine Arts might not survive.

And Annegret knew it as well as I did.

How did your gallery end up with this many forgeries all at once? I asked her.

That is a very good question, she said, her eyes bleak. We don’t know.

Do you—or does the gallery—have any enemies that would be capable of setting you up like this?

If this was a setup, and not bad management within the gallery, that is. But this was not the time to ask that question. It was one angle we’d investigate. If we took the case. Which I was still reluctant to do.

We have competitors, Annegret said. And sometimes the competition can get intense enough that people are willing to shade the law. But this?

She shook her head. I don’t believe it.

My opinion? Someone is out to destroy you.

I know. Her voice was heavy, and despite her expertly applied makeup, she suddenly looked beyond exhausted.

Whoever that is knows enough of what’s going on behind the scenes at Annegret Carli Fine Arts to start the rumors, I said.

Her lips tightened, but she didn’t say anything. In her shoes, I’m not sure what I would have said, either.

How loyal are your staff?

Before—all this, I would have said I trusted each and every one of them without question. Now? I just don’t know.

Someone must have been passing on confidential information.

Probably, she said. But I can’t authorize an internal investigation without tipping that person off. If they even exist. Such a move risks starting even more rumors. And possibly forcing whoever is behind this to move even more quickly. We can’t afford that.

She took a deep breath, met my eyes. Which is why I came to you, she said.

Well, at least I had my answer. But while a forgery case in a high end art gallery seemed pretty white-collar, I’d run into armed gangs the last time my team and I tangled with forgers. And that one had started out as a local case.

I wouldn’t be taking on this case lightly.

Why my firm? Why not contact Interpol? I asked her. International art forgery is their specialty.

She nodded. And you’re the one that broke a case that perplexed them for a dozen years.

I couldn’t argue, since it was true. And explaining that it had been more accidental than deliberate wouldn’t help.

She didn’t wait for my response, in any case.

Besides, when it comes to high end fine art, everyone knows everyone. A hint dropped at a cocktail party here, a slip of the tongue at a liquid lunch there… She gave a slight shrug, as if to say ‘what can you do?’

I didn’t believe that hint of helplessness for a second. So far, every move I’d seen her make was calculated for effect. And just like that I was back to wondering why she really wanted to hire us.

It’s nearly impossible to keep anything quiet, she added. And if my firm is to have any hope of surviving this disaster, we need to keep the whole matter as quiet as possible. Until it’s sorted out.

That part was true, at least.

Let me get this straight. You think we can sort it out for you?

Yes. She nodded, gave me a worried look. Will you take the case?

Good question. I hadn’t been expecting another forgery case when I came in this morning. But given the reputation my firm has begun to develop, perhaps I should have been.

I fought back an inappropriate desire to laugh at the direction my day had taken, and focused on the matter at hand. What was her real agenda?

Annegret didn’t wait for my response.

All work will be at your usual fees, of course, she said, leaning forward. Including expenses. And we will pay a bonus of fifty percent of your bill if you successfully solve this case.

She was trying to buy me. She must be desperate. Which explained the careful manipulation she’d been doing.

But I found I couldn’t turn this case down. It had nothing to do with the money. And everything to do with her desperation, and the complexity of the case.

My team were up to the challenge. And she needed help. Annegret Carli Fine Arts was a good operation. She didn’t deserve this.

Probably didn’t deserve this, my pragmatic side whispered in my ear.

But Annegret had just made it impossible for me to turn down this case. Which, judging by her relieved expression, she knew. Well, two could play at that game.

I nodded. Yes, I’ll take your case, I said, and held up a hand to stop her next words. If you tell me exactly what’s going on. Starting at the beginning, and leaving nothing out.

I gave her a hard look. And I do mean nothing. Especially if it’s embarrassing. If you try to whitewash anything, or forget a few details? Trust me. I will know.

Her lips tightened just a bit, but she nodded and held out her hand. We shook. And to her credit, she started in on her story, including even the smallest detail.

And she didn’t leave anything out.

Nothing apparent, anyway.

But my spidey sense was still tingling when she finished.

I made a last note, looked up and met her eyes. What else aren’t you telling me?

After Annegret left, I spent some time reviewing and fleshing out the brief notes I’d taken, coffee in hand. Nothing like a good cup of dark organic coffee to get the old brain cells firing.

Annegret had sworn up and down that she hadn’t held anything back.

I didn’t believe her.

Yes, I’m that cynical. You don’t spend as much time as I have in this business and keep believing that even the most desperate of clients tells you everything. In fact, in my experience, the desperate ones are the worst. Probably because they really do have something to hide.

Hence the desperation.

I’m fairly sure Annegret gave me all the facts of the case. The ones she knew, anyway. Even on review, her story seemed consistent.

Didn’t mean I believed everything she’d said. Or that she hadn’t left something out.

Like the fact she was afraid of something. It was just a feeling at first, but one that had got stronger the longer I talked with her. And I couldn’t get a sense of exactly what she was afraid of.

I signed the contract anyway. She needed help, probably even more than she was willing to admit to herself.

And I wanted to know what was really going on here. And who was spreading those ugly rumors. Whoever it was, I intended to stop them.

I spent some time pondering the revised version of my notes. Then I duplicated the file. In that second file I added my impressions of Annegret and what she’d told me. As well as my initial reactions to the case and the beginnings of a theory or two.

I played this game with every case. Oh, I’d always created a file based on my intuitive reactions. But now I had a team, I created the detailed first file, based strictly on facts and observations. That one was for sharing with the team.

Then I added the intuitive leaps to the second file, which no-one saw but me.

It wasn’t that I didn’t trust my team with my intuitive leaps. Quite the opposite, in fact. I preferred to leave them free to form their own first impressions from the data. Make their own leaps. Which would likely be radically different from mine. And from each other’s.

That’s what made working together so interesting.

I sent copies of the first file to everyone, asked them to do some initial digging, and join me in the meeting room in fifteen minutes. Then I strolled out to the front office to get another coffee and have a brief word with Amber Mellis, the receptionist I’d recently hired on a recommendation from Marie and my nephew, Cory.

Amber was a key part of the team, and so I made sure she was more fully briefed on our current cases than was the norm in our business. I also paid her better than was usual. The way I saw it, if she didn’t know what the team was working on, how was she supposed to effectively handle clients and potential clients? Let alone direct or re-direct calls, texts and emails.

Between them, Amber and Marie now ran the office like a well-oiled machine. And they never seemed to discuss it, either. I had no idea how that worked—I just knew I wasn’t asking. Some things I was better off not knowing.

Chapter Three

With the rich odor of freshly brewed coffee recharging me, I joined Marie in the meeting room. Despite the cloudy day, the meeting room was bright. Large windows on one end helped, as well as giving a feeling of space. Pot lights overhead kept the light even, and directed where we needed it.

The end walls were covered with whiteboards, and wipe off markers in a variety of colors were set ready for use. Marie teases me that this office runs on whiteboards. She’s not far wrong.

Marie was sitting near one end of the long meeting table, looking out the window. She had a tablet in front of her and a cup of coffee steaming gently beside it. I automatically took the seat at the head of the table, facing one of the whiteboards.

I smiled a greeting as Badger joined us, her laptop in one hand, coffee in the other. A computer genius—and former hacker—Badger has proven herself invaluable to my small team. I’m still not sure why she agreed to join us full-time, but I’m not about to ask.

Badger actually does have more than one name, as I’d discovered when I officially hired her. But since she’d threatened to leave immediately if I so much as breathed that name to anyone—and I’d believed her, making it a very effective threat indeed—I promptly erased that name from my memory banks. And continued to think of her only as Badger.

Anything else seemed superfluous, anyway. Plus it diminished the risk of losing her.

Cory wouldn’t be joining us—he was still in high school, and he didn’t have a spare period that day, or I’d have re-scheduled the meeting. But I knew my nephew—he’d be digging deep into the case tonight. He’d eat dinner at his computer if my sister, Susanna, would let him. Probably annoying her even further.

Cory was nearly as obsessed on solving cases as I was, and Susanna, for some reason, blamed me for that, too. My nephew’s version of finding solutions couldn’t have been more different than mine, though. Not only did he look at things from a completely different angle, he could make a computer sing. When it came to digging out information, he left both Marie and me in the dust.

Just another reason Badger was invaluable. She was Cory’s mentor, a former white hat hacker—or maybe grey. I’d never dared ask exactly where she drew her boundaries, but she was careful to respect mine, especially when it came to Cory.

And I knew the value of that.

Badger and Cory together were an unstoppable force. And I credited her influence in his determination to build his own career as a good guy hacker.

My sister should be thanking me, not criticizing me at every turn. But she’d never see it that way. I blamed Godfrey, her husband, for that. Probably quite unfairly. But it was less painful than admitting that the old tension between Susanna and I had just found a new outlet.

So was I right, or was I right? Marie demanded as Badger pulled out the chair beside her. I knew you couldn’t resist Annegret. Or her case.

I rolled my eyes at Marie’s exuberant glee that I’d actually signed the contract. Behind Marie’s back, Badger shot me a wry grin and rolled her own eyes.

She and Marie couldn’t have been more different—I still couldn’t figure out how they managed to work together. I’d been half-afraid Badger would refuse to join any team that included Marie. But the very non-social computer genius had condescended to work full-time with all of us—on the condition Cory remained part of the team.

A condition I still suspected he’d put her up to.

I wasn’t entirely sure why Badger had gone along with it, though the three of them mostly seemed to enjoy working together—and with me—to a degree I’d never anticipated. Some days it made me nervous, it worked so well. It especially made me nervous because, based on what I’d seen so far, I suspected this team worked best in crisis mode.

It was clear I needed to keep a supply of really challenging cases coming in, or I’d be dealing with either anarchy or mutiny. Or maybe the mother of all staff feuds.

I hid the cold shiver that ran down my spine at the thought of what that might look like—especially given Badger’s skills and unknown morals—and prepared to brief them on the case that was probably going to devolve into our latest crisis.

Badger surprised me. Can you start by giving us your perspective on the kind of art fraud Annegret Carli Fine Arts are accused of?

Which wasn’t like her. Badger’s usual approach is to do a mountain of research, digging deep into databases and other online sources that I’m amazed even exist. And some of them don’t. Or not officially, anyway. Since none of that data will ever see a courtroom, I don’t ask too many questions.

Until she’s done that digging, she usually doesn’t say much. Or ask questions. But in the fifteen minutes since I’d called this meeting, she hadn’t had time for that kind of research.

Why do you want my perspective? I asked, curious to hear her thinking.

I should have known better. Badger is even worse at explaining than I am. And that’s saying something.

She gave me a smile that was no more than a